Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.8, 2013

The Individual Principle and the Social Principle in the Marxist Political Philosophy

(Abstract)

Zhang Dun

As an important divergence of modern political philosophy, the opposition between the individual principle and the social principle constitutes the general background of Marx’ meditations on political philosophy. The individuals and the society, both as entities of moral politics, are a result from theoretical reflections on political philosophy. Underlying the dynamics of these two principles are profound changes in Western social structure. According to the primordial understanding of western philosophy on politics, the highest goal of politics is morality, namely the “justice that ought to be,” and the essence of politics is the free and creative domain of the mind. Transcending the binary opposition between the individual principle and the social principle, Marx is on a higher spiritual standing to bring the individual principle and the social principle in the capitalist reality into the vision of an alienated world. He proves that both modern society and individuals actually follow the same materialized logic, and that in the new “truly human” world scenario, the fully-developed personal being of man is inherently consistent with the social being of man. Marx thus has achieved a great combination of the individual principle and the social principle in the western history of political philosophy.