Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 10, 2023

The New Form of Human Civilization from the Perspective of Materialist View of History

(Abstract)

Huang Jianjun

In the Western intellectual tradition, human civilization has many forms and expressions, which endow the forms of civilization with the qualities of fictionality, absolutism and abstraction. Marx brought the form of human civilization from “myth,” “spirit” and “fact” back to the history of human society itself, creating a new paradigm to explain the development of human civilization. From the perspective of materialist view of history, the form of human civilization has realized “logical validation” in the laws of history and “historical generation” in its social form. In the logic of the laws of history and the development of its social form, that is, the practical development of socialist civilization, the new form of human civilization transcends capitalist civilization. The “newness” of the new form of human civilization lies in its critical, transcendent, forward-looking and generative nature, as well as in the fact that it opens up a new direction for the development of human civilization, a new way of human emancipation and a new prospect for human development. In the practice of contemporary China, the new form of human civilization is  a unique expression of the Chinese path to modernization.