Abstract

Western scholars read "dialectical materialism" in Chinese Marxism within a Western philosophical frame. Some hold that Chinese Marxism is Chinese in some important sense, but fail to see what is involved; others see nothing particularly Chinese about Chinese Marxism. Similarly, Chinese Marxists identify bianzhengfa with Marxian dialectic, without adequately realizing the difficulties attending that concept. ;The dissertation shows tongbian as a distinct but not necessarily unique style of Chinese "thought" , which was formulated in ancient philosophical literature such as the Yijing. I argue that Chinese intellectuals understand Marxist thought in terms of tongbian. What tong-bian sees is a "world as such," or ziran ; with no transcendence, every element is relative to every other and all elements are thus "correlative." Each particular is both self-determinate and determined by every other. An explanation of relationships requires a contexualist interpretation of the world in which events are strictly interdependent. "Polarity" implies a relationship of two events, each constituting a necessary condition for the other. Yin always suggests becoming-yang, and vice versa. Any two events constantly alternate each another, change into each other, exchange with each other, displace each other, and so on. The salient feature of tongbian philosophy is that the complementary and contradictory interactions of the two basic elements of a polarity like yin-yang constitute the forces, and produce change. ;Chinese Marxism finds its roots in Engels but reads him in a distinctly different way and, by drawing on tongbian, develops into a strong and useful strand of thought. I examine this in the writings of Cai Yuanpei, Qu Qiubai, Ai Siqi, and Mao Zedong. I show that juxtaposing dialectics with bianzhenga is a misunderstanding. The version of Chinese Marxism that I recover seems close to Marx on certain points, especially In terms of "internal relations." However, it is rather a third way as developed from a culture and tradition that can not be understood in Western terms