Marx described his work ″Scorpion and Felix″ to be colored with idealism, implying the existence of idealism in the linguistic expressions but not in the real content. Though formally characterized as the non-realisticness and abstractness of idealism, the romance set its story in non-idealistic material existence. The idealist entanglements in the depth of Marx's thought are manifested in the conflict between the formal idealism and the non-idealism of the content. This impact led Marx to give second thoughts to idealism. Reflecting on idealism in the light of reality, Marx analyzed the limits of idealism from three dimensions: the infringement of man’s creation, the infringement of real-life man and the conflict between its basis and reality. To delve deep into the limits of idealism and the solutions, Marxism traced the roots of idealism to Romanticism. He revealed that the noumenon of idealism is the abstract universal spirit derived from Romanticism and that the way in which idealism rationalizes its existence is the generation and deduction of the universal spirit. Marxism realized that the abstract nature of idealism and the way it was generated resulted in the limitation of its thinking: the opposition between its basis and the reality. He combined the symbolic expression of idealism with realistic factors, abstract logical deduction with the development of social history, and instrumentalized idealism, which made idealism change from the content intended to express into the means of expression. By introducing realistic factors into the novel, Marx achieved the transcendence of idealism. He pointed out the rupture of the rational understanding in Kant's idealism and denied that practical reason can achieve ideals and solve the limits of idealism. He revealed that the absolute subjectivity of Fichte's ″absolute self″ intensified the opposition of the limits of idealism. Marx resisted the idealism of Kant and Fichte, but favored Hegel's logical realism, which clearly reflected the important position of the writing interest in criticizing reality and the realistic spirit of rooting in history in Marx's thought at this time. However, Marx did not stop at grasping reality in the abstract. He also criticized Hegel's false reality assimilated by idealism. He pointed out the irrationality of Hegel's idealistic state view and analyzed the idealistic nature of state governance. Marx traced back to the historical origin of country, analyzed the realistic factors affecting its development, replaced the ″reality″ in the universal spirit and logic development of idealism with the reality in the historical development, broke the abstraction of idealism, explored the ideal existence in the real labor, and finally realized the substantive transcendence of the limit of idealism with the characteristic of the unity of ideal and reality.
刘同舫 佘梅溪. 理想主义的限度与超越:基于马克思对《斯考尔皮昂和费利克斯》自我评价的考察[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2020, 6(3): 15-.
Liu Tongfang She Meixi. The Limits and Transcendence: A Study of Karl Marx's Evaluation of ″Scorpion and Felix″. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2020, 6(3): 15-.