Abstract:About the texts of Marxian political philosophy, there have been three disputes. One is the “Tucker-Wood thesis”, which indicates that the concepts of political philosophy never exist in the texts. The second is contextual research, which believes that the political situation of class struggle naturally pushes the texts self-constructed as political philosophy. The third is the ethical study, which believes that normative values are the original intention throughout all Karl Marx’s life. However, these studies have not analyzed the historical foundation and objective political conditions that Marx faced in the eyes of Marx himself, nor have they answered the question of how Marxian political philosophy texts are possible as a guidance for the revolutionary practice for more than a century. Returning to the methodology and objects of criticism in Marxian political philosophy, it is obvious that parody is a textual clue. Before 1844, parody was a writing strategy Marx had to adopt. Under the strict censorship system, Marx had to use terms parodying Hegel’s political philosophy to reveal the reactionary Prussian political system. However, with the beginning of life in exile and the formation of historical materialism, the strategic and straightforward parody writing turned to a metaphorical, unconscious writing habit, which is intuitively reflected in Marx’s references of ancient philosophy, enlightenment political philosophy, and Hegelian philosophy. This makes readers inevitably fall into a paradox. If the Marxian text is equated with the political teachings for the proletariat, then the concepts that constitute these teachings are obviously closely related to the philosophy and economics. If the Marxian text is regarded as the continuation of the political philosophy tradition since Plato, it is difficult to explain why Marx used the historical resources to “abolish philosophy”. Through the parody of classical philosophy, Marx demonstrated the revolutionary value of the tradition of returning to the classical since the Renaissance, indicating the possibilities that reason can further realize subjectivity in modern times. Through parody of Rousseau’s philosophy, Marx revealed the lack of meaning of the republican tradition that has been regarded as political correctness since the Enlightenment, indicating the contradiction between abstract political liberation and its theoretical basis. Through the parody of Hegelian philosophy of right, Marx applied the dialectics once regarded as idealist methodology in a materialistic way, revealing the objective consistency between natural historical laws and materialist dialectics, pointing out the possibility of the revolutionary practice as a scientific program.Compared with political economics or scientific socialism, the parody of Marxian political philosophy texts is particularly prominent. The absence of terminologies such as justice and freedom that make analytical Marxist researchers quite satisfied is indeed a way Marx tried to “deconstruct” the prior texts as much as possible to inspire the critical thinking and class consciousness of the proletarian readers through keeping a distance from texts and concepts derived from the history of thought. The historical science that negates traditional values has troubled the ethical researchers but it is actually Marx’s way of staying prudent in the discussions on politics and normative values which are generated objectively and historically. In fact, parody writing embodies the dialectical relationship between Marx and the ideology of his time. This relationship eventually evolved into the Marxian reconstruction of the meaning of revolution in the dimension of modernity. Certainly, it is precisely by using parody as a faithful way to express dialectics that Marxian political philosophy texts have realized the meaning in different forms, showing the possibility of textual meaning that can advance with the times, as well as providing the proletariat with the textual meaning that can be absorbed in revolutionary practices.
包大为. 马克思政治哲学:戏仿及其真理程序[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2021, 51(3): 5-15.
Bao Dawei. Marxian Political Philosophy: Parody and Its Truth Program. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2021, 51(3): 5-15.