Li Hongtu reads "The History of Modern Political Thought: From Hobbes to Marx"丨The "epochality" and "convergence" of intellectual history research

A History of Modern Political Thought: From Hobbes to Marx, by Ian Hampcher-Munch, translated by Zhou Baowei and others, published by Shanghai People's Publishing House in September 2022, 821 pages, 298.00 yuan

A few years ago, when I bought Professor Ian Hampscher-Munch's History of Modern Political Thought: From Hobbes to Marx in the UK, I hoped that someone would translate it and publish it for the benefit of the academic community. In anticipation, the book was finally translated by Zhou Baowei and published by Shanghai People's Publishing House. Obtaining a two-volume book with more than 800,000 words, you can imagine that the translators have spent countless years of hard work.

As the author of this book, Professor Munch, said in the preface to the Chinese edition, "Looking back, it has been thirty years since the first edition came out and the Spanish, Turkish and other translations were released. Peers believe it has stood the test of time. It is my pleasure. My original intention was to deeply analyze the political thoughts of a few heavyweight modern political thinkers... My intention is indeed to look at understanding the historical context of each thinker's time, what they are trying to express and what they are trying to do, as well as the methods and techniques they employ in doing so—ideas, metaphors, rhetoric, and arguments—in order to show how their arguments draw on or presuppose beliefs that need to be rediscovered and elaborated" (p. 1). Here, Professor Munch has made the intention of this book very clear, and it is clear from the title that the author focuses on this moment of great social transformation in Europe from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century, carefully selecting the thinkers who represent the characteristics of this era.

Quentin Skinner, a representative of the "Cambridge School", once said that every thinker is thinking about the focus of his time and participating in the debates of that era. Therefore, the relationship between thinkers and the times should become a basic topic in the study of intellectual history. From this point of view, the translator captures this intrinsic connection between the thinker and the era, arguing that the book covers "both a great era of transformation and a 'saddle-shaped period' in the history of human thought" (p. 2). It is with this thorough understanding and standing on this basis that the translator has translated this book accurately, refined and refined into a high-quality translation.

After reading this translation, I would like to say a few more words along the lines of social transformation and the concerns of the times of thinkers, which in my opinion is a fundamental question in the history of ideas. "Society" or "era" is often seen as the background of the thinker, or in the terminology of the "Cambridge School", as a "historical context". In fact, how to integrate this historical context with the expressive issues of thinkers is very tricky. Similarly, the study of the history of ideas cannot bypass the intrinsic relationship between the thinker and his texts, especially the characteristics of the times and how the ideas and texts of the thinkers are established; More importantly, how to no longer treat thinkers as individuals and isolated individuals to investigate, break through the separation between them, and achieve understanding is a test of the researcher's level and superb processing skills. If you read this translation carefully, although the author does not show it on paper and make a theoretical expression, the thinking and demonstration of these contents are also through the back of the paper and contained in it.

In the Chinese historiography tradition, historians often emphasize understanding, and the historian Sima Qian pointed out: "When the heavens and people are investigated, the changes of the past and the present become the words of the family." "If we follow this purpose and goal, this translation provides us with concrete practical cases, for example, each of the thinkers listed can write more thoroughly, with a sense of coherence, and form a genealogy; Similarly, thinkers are by no means isolated and closely related to the times. In short, it is necessary to reflect the "epochality" and "universality". In my opinion, this writing paradigm is very worthy of our study to improve the standard of research. The reason for this is not just self-criticism as a researcher of intellectual history, but to frankly believe that Western intellectual history research in China is still a little far from this goal. Not to mention that ancient and modern times can be understood, as far as the modern intellectual history of Europe, which the author mainly researches, it is still difficult for academic research to understand. Some of the existing research results either focus on the main trends of thought, such as liberalism and nationalism; Or some classical thinkers, such as Tocqueville, John Mill, etc., are like categorical arrangements of goods, isolated from each other, unrelated. Even if there are some books such as "Western Modern Intellectual History" on the market, they are still only a sorting out of the arrangement of thinkers, lacking research depth and permeable refinement, especially for the ideological transformation of thinkers in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the internal relationship between the characteristics of the times.

As for the question of "epochality" in the study of intellectual history, we should not just use it as a background embellishment for the study of thinkers, but should carefully consider the intrinsic relationship between the characteristics of the times and the ideological formation, expression of views, textual organization, and even personal disposition of thinkers. Specifically, it examines how thinkers lead the trend of the times through their own thoughts, shaping the ideological characteristics of the times; Similarly, how the characteristics of the times in turn influence the thinking and creation of thinkers. Therefore, while practicing historical normative research on the texts of thinkers, we should also pay attention to the relationship between thinkers and eras, examine the complex relationship between the formation of thinkers' ideas and the evolution of the times, and then achieve as the French thinker Montesquieu said, "understanding the formation of the general spirit of an era, and everything derived from it" (Daniel Rosche, France in the Enlightenment, translated by Yang Yaping, East China Normal University Press, 2011 edition, p. 5). This goal.

Looking back at the evolution of modern European history, along with the "great transformation" of society from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century, ideological concepts have also undergone drastic changes, and this change has brought great influence to everyone, and the spiritual concepts of the times have shaped the individual characteristics of thinkers. Here, let's take the French thinker Tocqueville as an example. In 1836, Edouard Gans met Tocqueville in the salon of Madame Recamier, and he later recalled that opposite sat a pale-faced, even a little sickly young man ... The young man's demeanor has the grace and courtesy of a previous generation, which is increasingly rare among contemporary Frenchmen. He caught my attention. So I asked my companion, "Who is this young man?" The answer I got was: "This is Monsieur de Tocqueville, who has just published a book about American democracy, which is amazing." "The response to the book was fanciful: all the political parties loved it. Both the Liberals and the Carlos side admire it, and the centrists do not accuse it... People chased him and loved him: all the salons rushed to invite him to come. Although he comes from an old family, he yearns for freedom. His origins brought him noble surnames, and his ideas set his heart free. (Lucien Roman, "Tocqueville: The Source of the Nobility of Freedom", translated by Ma Jiening, Lijiang Publishing House, 2017, title page) It can be seen from this description that from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, with the evolution of the times, Tocqueville as a thinker, although sharply insight into the spiritual changes of the nineteenth century, still retains the style of the eighteenth century in the inner spiritual temperament of the individual. From this, we can understand the relationship between the era and Tocqueville's thought, its rich ideological connotations, and the ideological character that ran through his life. As Tocqueville explained his origins and his time in a letter of March 22, 1837, to Reeve, the English translator of his writings, "Democratic and aristocratic prejudices are interchangeable with me; Maybe I have this side and I have another, like being born in another century and country. However, the serendipity of my origin gave me the freedom to defend both... When I was born, aristocracy was dead, democracy had not yet been born. Therefore, my nature will not blindly go towards either side. I was born in a century where for forty years we tried everything and didn't focus on everything, so I didn't have the illusion of politics so easily. Because I belong to the century of the old aristocracy, I feel that I have no natural hatred and prejudice to oppose it, and since the aristocracy has been destroyed, I also have no more natural love for it, we are only strongly biased towards its existence... In short, I am so balanced between the past and the future that I do not naturally feel and instinctively towards either side, nor do I look at both with difficulty and disappointment" (Jack Lively: The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, Oxford 1965, p. 5).

The English thinker John Mill, a nineteenth-century man, once said of his father: "He is arguably the last man of the eighteenth century." He entered the nineteenth century with eighteenth-century ideological sentiments (though not without corrections and improvements), and he did not accept the reactionary influence of the eighteenth century, which was an important feature of the first half of the nineteenth century, for better or worse. The eighteenth century was a great age, a time of many strong and courageous people, and he was one of the strongest and bravest. His writings and personal influence made him the center of his generation. (John Mill, Autobiography of John Mill, translated by Wu Liangjian and others, Commercial Press, 1992, p. 122) Here, Mill means that his father's spiritual values have become obsolete in the face of the changed views of the times in the nineteenth century. So what exactly are the concepts and values of the times in the nineteenth century? Is it the need to cultivate constructive positivism in the transition from politics to society, as the French thinker Comte said, or, as Tocqueville and John Mill understood, the oppression of the identity and totality of mass democratization requires the exaltation of human individuality; Is it the zeitgeist of self-help that is popular in British society, or is it a group of socialists who advocate the establishment of social justice; Is it to exalt the universality of liberalism, or the prevalence of imperialism and nationalism. In any case, in any case, this change of thinking has taken place. As the British historian of thought Berlin said, the eighteenth century was an era of elegance. In the nineteenth century, with the development of industrial society and mass democratic society, the original aristocratic system and lifestyle changed, and the gentlemanly demeanor replaced the elegance of the aristocracy. Just as this epochal change in the nineteenth century, including lifestyle, shaped both the way thinkers understood the world and prescribed their rhetorical expression of texts, thinkers reflected on the characteristics of the era in this reflection, critiqued and led the way of the era, forming an interactive relationship.

It should be noted that even if they belong to the same era, there will be differences in different ideologies, and how these differences and stratification operate and connect in the same society, as the French historian Daniel Roche pointed out in France during the eighteenth century Enlightenment: in a society that follows the principles handed down by ancestors and the moral traditions of hundreds of years, and wants to be stable and harmonious and coherent, people believe in one God, respect the power of kings and the dominance of Christian virtue; How does change happen in such a society? In other words, in the words of Louis Dumont, can we contrast the forces and tensions of two societies? One is an unequal holistic society, in which the ethical principles of "each doing his or her part" dominate. The other is a new world that gradually emerges within its own body, that is, the society of the Enlightenment, the society of individual economy, the society of new freedom, the society of the movement of people and goods... Therefore, it is necessary to understand what causes the convergence of this relationship and what causes it to diverge; See how human-social relations were intricately intertwined in French history in the eighteenth century. (Daniel Roshe, France in the Enlightenment, translated by Yang Yaping, East China Normal University Press, 2011, pp. 6-7)

In this regard, still taking the eighteenth century Enlightenment as an example, we should not only pay attention to the French Enlightenment, but also expand our horizons, see that in the same time, there are Scottish Enlightenment, Italian Enlightenment, etc. in other spaces, and only by treating the Enlightenment in these different spaces as a whole and incorporating it into our research framework can we better understand the characteristics of the Enlightenment and explore their thinking on the "science of man". Of course, if we include counter-Enlightenment in our research horizons, we can better understand the Enlightenment and the characteristics of the eighteenth century. For example, the German thinker O. Wey Schlegel wrote the article "Critique of the Enlightenment", opposing the "light" of the Enlightenment and praising the "dark night". "The night is the mother of all things, and now it's making a comeback in everyone's life: it is believed that the world was born out of the chaos of the beginning of Thailand, shaped by the interplay of love and hate, sympathy and disgust," he said. The magic of life is based on darkness, and the root of our existence is in the disappearing and unsolvable mysteries. This is the soul of all poetry. The Enlightenment, on the other hand, lacked the minimum respect for darkness and thus became the staunchest enemy of poetry, causing all possible harm to it. (Sun Fengcheng, ed., Selected Works of German Romanticism, People's Literature Publishing House, 1997, p. 378) Munch also gives an example of the complex entanglement between the inner antagonisms and mutual debates of the concepts of this era: "I try to show that to understand Locke's argumentative framework, we must understand the writings of Robert Philmey. It is necessary to understand not only Philthes's defense of patriarchy, which Locke objected to, but also Philthes's specific criticism of the contractualists of his time, which Locke felt necessary to respond to, and formed his own opinion from it. (page 1)

It can be said that for the specific thinkers studied, only after meticulously analyzing the characteristics of the times, the mutual influence and absorption of different thinkers' ideologies, and even the opposition of differences, can they be properly and accurately positioned and understood. For example, previous studies of Adam Smith have often emphasized Smith's thesis of a "commercial society," free market exchange. Estefan Hundt, professor of intellectual history at the University of Cambridge, made this assessment of Adam Smith's thought: "Smith's theory of division of labor and the natural price model (which is at the heart of his economic theory) can be used to explain the compatibility of economic inequality and adequate sustenance among migrant workers in a free-market economy." These new economic arguments, we argue, developed in the context of the vigorous eighteenth-century debate about inequality and the luxurys of modern commercial society, were used to defend modernity by those who denounced commercial society from their own vantage points, either from the perspective of the classical civic humanist idea of a German republic that reduced productive workers to slavery, or from the perspective of Christian social ideas that dismissed commercial society as an outright commodity society. Thus, the central focus of The Wealth of Nations is the question of justice, which aims to find a market mechanism that parallels inequality of wealth with adequate feeding of those eliminated by the market. That is, Smith's point suggests that we can create an economy of abundance in which the needs of the poor and the age-old legal paradox of the rights of the rich can be transcended and parallel. (Ishtvan Hundt and Mikael Ignatiev, eds., Wealth and Virtue: The Development of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, translated by Li Dajun and others, Zhejiang University Press, 2013, p. 2)

In terms of the concerns of the times, Munch succinctly summarized: "The world of action in the history of the present is the world of freedom and the world of possibility; The world in which philosophy can provide some understanding is the world of the past; Whether it's philosophy or history, all they can do is suggest what would be appropriate for the world today. (p.642) Indeed, what is a "suitable world" and how is it built? This both provokes and often troubles thinkers. Looking back at history, especially the history of the nineteenth century, facing the identity of workers in real society and the poverty of society, that is, the polarization between the poor and the rich, has always been the social problem of the nineteenth century. How to understand the relationship between poverty and the market economy system, and how to give workers the right to identity, were also the basic problems faced by nineteenth-century thinkers. The dilemma of the times always urges thinkers to think and find solutions. It can be said that both socialist thinkers and liberal thinkers are facing this basic question, thinking about the "future of the working class", and envisioning the construction of a fair, just, and beautiful world. In this reflection, there are several representative perspectives and paths worth paying attention to. The first is the theory of "social revolution" represented by Blanqui, which wants to destroy the existing capital-dominated social system; The second is that "neoliberals", represented by Hobhouse and Thomas Hill Green, explored the constraint and transformation of the existing system to achieve the "common good" of society, which later became the basis of the welfare society. Represented by John Mill, he thinks about how to establish a cooperative relationship between capital and labor, so as to realize the sharing of social wealth, rather than the exclusive enjoyment of "capital" as a class; Marx, a contemporary Marx, argued that "although human emancipation and moral salvation are actually possible only through the understanding of history, their strategy is not to reject class interests, but to actively pursue the interests of a particular class, the proletariat" (p. 543).

Not only that, for modern society, especially during the Industrial Revolution, labor and capital became the most central elements of society at that time, and became the characteristics of this society. How to understand labor, then, has become a basic concern in intellectual history. In this regard, it is of great significance to sort out the thinker's understanding of labor and examine the changes in the connotation of the concept of labor. As far as the concept of labor is concerned, during the French "Ancien Régime" period, labor existed as a punishment, when it was promoted not so much to obtain economic value as to promote discipline and virtue. Enlightenment thinkers in the eighteenth century changed this connotation and began to meaningize labor to take on a new meaning, arguing that "labor is a daily task that human beings are forced to do because of their needs; At the same time, human health, livelihood and morality all depend on labour itself." At the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with the rise of individualism and the Industrial Revolution, the connotation of labor changed, becoming both a factor of production and a right of the individual, an inalienable natural right, and the individual had the right to control his labor. This understanding is particularly evident in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, in which Smith placed particular emphasis on the enjoyment of workers' rights to their labor, especially labor. Later, when he came to Marx, he witnessed the current situation of the capitalist mode of production and loudly put forward the idea of "labor alienation", arguing that the labor of the working class has caused the working class itself to be in a dependent position. Therefore, the times put forward the proposition of whether labor can usher in the liberation of man. (The above is summarized from Robert Custer, "Labor: From Punishment to Liberation: Human Social Expression Relations", translated by Huang Yuan, published in the 10th edition of the Oriental Morning Post, May 30, 2012)

The use of these examples is nothing more than to show that in the study of intellectual history, we not only need to carefully interpret the texts of thinkers and thinkers and explain their subtle meanings, but also need to understand them in the historical context of the spirit of the times, beyond these individual thinkers and texts themselves, and integrate this "point" into the "face" of the ideological evolution of the entire era to understand and position. Recognizing that ideas change and develop with the times, thinkers also think and express themselves in their times and in response to specific problems of the times. Therefore, ideas are closely related to the times, and concepts and society interact and resonate and are integrated. We need to think of it not only as the historical context of research, but also as the content of research. In this way, the study of intellectual history can be carried out from the dimension of logic and theory, but returning to the relationship between the times and the texts created by thinkers and thinkers will enrich our understanding, not only help us better understand the texts and ideological expressions of thinkers, but also help us grasp the rhythm and connotation of the times. Looking forward to the future of intellectual history research, starting from the "spirit of the times" and the different ideological concepts of the times, and conducting a general investigation of thinkers in the modern centuries, should be a very important and urgently developed research field, and it is also an important dimension for realizing the historical study of intellectual history. As Munch puts it: "Understanding the course of history is therefore an integral part of any respectable political theory." (page 6)

Today, in the face of the great changes of the times, in the face of all kinds of uncertainties and possible different trends, some people are deeply worried about the future of intellectual history research, and some scholars have even given up on the study of intellectual history with pain, which is really regrettable and regrettable. But it should also be noted that as far as the study of intellectual history is concerned, this is the worst of times and the best of times. It is precisely because this is an era full of changes and possibilities for the emergence of ideas that it has created great opportunities for the generation of ideas, and naturally it has also brought opportunities for the study of intellectual history, helping us to better understand the evolution of ideas and concepts, and providing abundant academic resources to think about the future direction of travel. This can be illustrated by the example of a core concept in modern society, the market. Mark Bewell et al. pointed out in the preface to the book "Market in the Historical Context" edited by Mark Bewell that the influence of political, economic, cultural and other factors on the market and the accompanying problems. How were regulations and coordination conceived and established in different societies at different times? How do ideas of political order, social cohesion, and moral norms influence thinkers and social movements in their understanding of the market? In what ways have ideas and practices that are born of or even critical of the market influenced the evolution of modern capitalism? Is it "de-embedded" or "embedded"? In this way, history can show us earlier ideas and practices, to remind us of the different ways of navigating the market, to help us reflect on the wisdom of contemporary people in managing the market, and to explore new models of market management. (Mark Bewell and Frank Trentman, eds., Markets in the Context of History: Thought and Politics in the Modern World, translated by Yang Fang and Lu Shaopeng, People's Publishing House, 2014, p. 2) As Estefan Hundt, an intellectual historian at the University of Cambridge, said, history is a tool for skeptics, and it can help us ask better questions. Rather, it can help us avoid repeating certain questions again and again, spinning them in place unproductively. Good history can reveal theoretical and practical dilemmas and eliminate repetitive patterns of controversy about them. As Hegel said, Minerva's owl takes off at dusk. Once history happens, we will know what our history is. (Istvan Hundt, "Trade Suspicion: International Competition and the Nation-State from a Historical Perspective", translated by Huo Wei'an and others, Yilin Publishing House, 2017, p. 146)

From this, it can be seen how important it is to understand and study the history of ideas and the spiritual concepts of the times, which not only shapes the researchers themselves, but also disseminates public knowledge to the society, helps people understand "society" and "times", and provides people who are engaged in the changes of the times with a practical path to choose the direction and carry out actions in the future. Therefore, the changes of the times have given birth to the study of ideological history to adhere to the "nature of the times" in the pursuit of "communication", pay attention to the times, the relationship between the ideas and concepts of the times and thinkers, politicians and even the general public, attach importance to the role of the concepts of the times, and think about the conceptual driving force of the changes of the times. As Napoleon III said, English history loudly cried out to the kings that if you were ahead of the ideas of the times, those ideas would follow and support you. If you are behind the ideas of the times, they will pull you forward. If you go against the times they will overthrow you. (Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital: 1848-1875, translated by Zhang Xiaohua and others, CITIC Press, 2014, p. 80)