Abstract
Many scholars tend to misunderstand Marx’s theory on the historical path by either taking it as a supra-historical principle or using it in the sense of a subjective external reflection. It is argued in this paper that we should start from the essential foundation of historical materialism to explain Marx’s theory of the historical path, so that its inherent commitment to concretization, which is of essential importance to the whole theory, can be seen clearly. Due to its being separated from Hegelian philosophy, the commitment to concretization within Marx’s theory cannot be actualized through speculative logic. It can only be actualized via the investigation of the life. Such commitment to concretization requires that we should take the changing structure of the mode of production as the axis, and carry out concrete research into all areas of essential difference. In this sense, concretization (investigating real life itself) becomes the “categorical imperative” (kategorischer Imperativ) of Marx’s theory of the historical path.
© 2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
