- Historical Materialism Series - This original and comprehensive
study explores the formation, development and later 20th century
enrichments on Marx's historical materialism theories. It
innovatively interprets its formation period between 1835-1845
which has always been the object of heated discussions. The author
gives special attention on the thoughts Marx and Engels had
similarities and even agreement with their contemporaries
especially Feuerbach and followers of Hegel. Naturally each
philosopher has his own specific formation which applies for Marx,
and his unique differences with his contemporaries at the certain
point of time rapidly led him to establish the materialist concept
of history. Recently we see a revival of interest in the nature and
utility of this discovery by Marx. Debate amongst historians and
philosophers on Marx's assertions on the role of man as the subject
of history also the relations between Marx's practice view and
historical materialism is an important focus of the book which has
an impressive record three editions within ten years. Chen Xianda
passionately argues, "Social science can fully become as accurate
as natural science. To do this, the first thing is to determine its
nature accurately, that is, to have a scientific understanding of
the macroscopic laws of history. Different from living organisms,
the social organism has its unique laws. The various systems in
society with their special structures and functions are
interrelated and constitute an indivisible whole. It is impossible
to understand society without grasping the laws of social
development and without analyzing the nature and complex causality
in social phenomena. However, human understanding of society cannot
rest on the qualitative analysis, and quantitative analysis should
be conducted wherever it is possible. With the emergence of
world-wide technological revolutions, the spread of the system
theories, control/simulation theory, information theory and even
mathematical methods being applied into social sciences provides
conditions for the accurate grasp of the quantitative determination
of social phenomena. The mutual permeation between natural science
and social science is a progressive tendency, and Marxist
philosophy researchers should face the world and the contemporary
era, and summarize the new achievements in those technological
revolutions. The achievements in natural science enrich and affirm
instead of reducing the scientific character of the materialist
conception of history. No methods offered by natural science can
replace the materialist conception of history, and history has
proved that the methods of positivism and empiricism were
unsuitable." The author is among the leading researchers of history
and theories of Marxism in China, who greatly influenced several
important debates in the Chinese academia in the last three
decades, including those on Marxist humanism, the role of
superstructure, ontology and practical materialism. The generous
appendix part of the book with six of his famous articles, contains
author's important direct contributions to these debates, including
his ideas on the present issues of Marxist philosophy in China and
the world.
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