Historical Idealism — Historical materialism

In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society.[1] As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further, asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit.社会由理念，信仰，价值塑造 Idealists are understood to represent the world as it might or should be, unlike pragmatists, who focus on the world as it presently is. In the arts, similarly, idealism affirms imagination and attempts to realize a mental conception of beauty, a standard of perfection, juxtaposed to aesthetic naturalism and realism. 唯心主义<=>理想主义，试图创造想象中的理念美/美的标准 Platonic idealism affirms that abstractions are more basic to reality than the things we perceive, while subjective idealists and phenomenalists tend to privilege sensory experience over abstract reasoning. 柏拉图认为抽象比具体更基础。 Epistemological idealism is the view that reality can only be known through ideas, that only psychological experience can be apprehended by the mind. 认识论认为事实只能通过理念了解。 1. 唯物史观：= 社会发展由集体生产决定。<=> 生产关系由生产力决定。 2. 生产力<=>生产资料{工具，土地，原料，知识，技术}。 3. 一些人通过他人的劳动成果过活，方法是拥有生产资料。生产方式不同分化社会阶层。生产方式由生产力决定。 4. 不同社会阶段，生产关系(<=>社会阶层）不同，生产剩余的分配方式不同：原始社会流向奴隶主，封建社会流向地主，资本主义流向资本家。 5. 生产关系<=>经济基础，经济基础决定上层建筑{政治机构，法律，习俗，文化，思考方式，意识形态}。管理社会的方式由经济基础决定。 6. 统治阶层维护原生产关系而不再适应新生产力时，新兴阶层取代原统治阶层形成社会分阶段演化，底层阶级通过施行新生产关系解放生产力。 "Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand." — Karl Marx, Grundrisse, 1858[5] Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans collectively produce the necessities of life. 社会进步由集体生产决定。Social classes and the relationship between them, along with the political structures and ways of thinking in society, are founded on and reflect contemporary economic activity. Historical materialism started from a fundamental underlying reality of human existence: that in order for human beings to survive and continue existence from generation to generation, it is necessary for them to produce and reproduce the material requirements of life. Marx then extended this premise by asserting the importance of the fact that, in order to carry out production and exchange, people have to enter into very definite social relations, most fundamentally "production relations". Human beings collectively work on nature but do not do the same work; there is a division of labor in which people not only do different jobs, but according to Marxist theory, some people live off the fruits of others' labour by owning the means of production. 一些人通过他人的劳动成果过活，方法是拥有生产资料。Production relations are determined by the level and character of the productive forces that are present at any given time in history.生产关系由生产力决定，生产力指生产资料（工具，土地，原料，知识，技术）。For Marx, productive forces refer to the means of production such as the tools, instruments, technology, land, raw materials, and human knowledge and abilities in terms of using these means of production. Writers who identify with historical materialism usually postulate that society has moved through a number of types or modes of production. That is, the character of the production relations is determined by the character of the productive forces.社会发展由集体生产决定。<=> 生产关系由生产力决定。 The main modes of production Marx identified generally include primitive communism or tribal society (a prehistoric stage), ancient society, feudalism, and capitalism. In each of these social stages, people interact with nature and produce their living in different ways. Any surplus from that production is allotted in different ways. Ancient society was based on a ruling class of slave owners and a class of slaves; feudalism was based on landowners and serfs; and capitalism based on the capitalist class and the working class. The capitalist class privately owns the means of production, distribution and exchange (e.g., factories, mines, shops and banks) while the working class live by exchanging their socialized labour with the capitalist class for wages. 不同社会阶段，生产关系不同，生产剩余的分配方式不同。原始社会流向奴隶主，封建社会流向地主，资本主义流向资本家。 Marx identified the production relations of society (arising on the basis of given productive forces) as the economic base of society. He also explained that on the foundation of the economic base there arise certain political institutions, laws, customs, culture, etc., and ideas, ways of thinking, morality, etc. The way people organize society is determined by the economic base and the relations that arise from its mode of production. 生产关系构成经济基础，经济基础决定政治机构，法律，习俗，文化，思考方式。管理社会的方式由经济基础决定。 Historical materialism can be seen to rest on the following principles: 1.The basis of human society is how humans work on nature to produce the means of subsistence. 2.There is a division of labour into social classes (relations of production) based on property ownership where some people live from the labour of others. 3。The system of class division is dependent on the mode of production. 4。The mode of production is based on the level of the productive forces. 5。Society moves from stage to stage when the dominant class is displaced by a new emerging class, by overthrowing the "political shell" that enforces the old relations of production no longer corresponding to the new productive forces. This takes place in the superstructure of society, the political arena in the form of revolution, whereby the underclass "liberates" the productive forces with new relations of production, and social relations, corresponding to it. Marx's clearest formulation of his "materialist conception of history" was in the 1859 Preface to his book A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, whose relevant passage is reproduced here: "In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic — in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production."[2] Perhaps the most influential recent defense of this passage, and of relevant Marxian and Marxist assertions, is G.A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence.[3] Marxist dialectics is exemplified in Das Kapital (Capital), which outlines two central theories: (i) surplus value and (ii) the materialist conception of history; Marx explains dialectical materialism: In its rational form, it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time, also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.[51] Class struggle is the central contradiction to be resolved by Marxist dialectics, because of its central role in the social and political lives of a society. Nonetheless, Marx and Marxists developed the concept of class struggle to comprehend the dialectical contradictions between mental and manual labor, and between town and country. Hence, philosophic contradiction is central to the development of dialectics — the progress from quantity to quality, the acceleration of gradual social change; the negation of the initial development of the status quo; the negation of that negation; and the high-level recurrence of features of the original status quo.阶级斗争是马克思辩证法要解决的中心矛盾。经济和政治量变到质变，初始状态的否定，否定之否定，高级阶段重现初始状态的特征。 In practice, Marxist dialectics was frequently used as a tool of eristic and propaganda. In 1857 Marx explained that in a letter to Engels, commenting on his predictions published in New York Times: It is possible that I could disgrace myself. But there's always a bit of Dialectic to help out. I have naturally expressed my statements so that I am also right if the opposite thing happens.[53]