A New Argument for Marx’s Practical Ontology

A New Argument for Marx’s Practical Ontology

任祥伟 （ REN Xiangwei ） *

Abstract: The issue of Marx’s ontology is always a controversial topic. Especially in the past twenty years, there has been a heated discussion to Marx’s ontology in China. With the development of Marx’s ontology in China, I will propose a new explanation to Marx’s practical ontology. In addition, I also adopt some relevant thoughts of critical realism in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of Marx’s ontology. In this paper, I assume that the characteristics of practical ontology are fully showed and confirmed in Marx’s classical writings. Compared with the ontology of traditional philosophy, Marx had realized the practical turn of ontology. The significance of this new explanation, I believe, is that, if we re-examine Marx’s practical philosophy from epistemology to ontology, it will undoubtedly open a new path and the understanding of Marx’s philosophy will be deepened.

Keywords : Marx; China; practice; ontology; critical realism; Roy Bhaskar; new explanation

1 Introduction

The question of ontology has been actively focused by western traditional philosophy from the ancient to the present, and even a history of western philosophy has beencarried out around the criticism and the construction of ontology. The epistemology of modern philosophy, which once be created, has been divided into two opposing camps of empiricism and rationalism. The theory of innate ideas represented by Rene Descartes is the defense of the universal knowledge represented by ontology. On the contrary, if all ideas are based on experience, there is no absolutely universal concept represented by ontology on the world, thus David Hume have always doubted and criticized the universal causality. It can be seen that there is difficult to interpret epistemology without the perspective of ontology ， because the epistemology of western philosophy always be appeared in the context of ontology, In addition, with entering into modern history, many newly philosophical schools essentially have always discussed ontology all the way, such as the phenomenology which regarded itself as the inheritance of rationality or the analytical philosophy of anti-metaphysics.

According to some views of Quine, ontology is concerned with the question of what entities exist (a task that is often identified with that of drafting a ‘complete inventory’ of the universe), whereas metaphysics seeks to explain, of those entities, what they are (i.e., to specify the ‘ultimate nature’ of theitems included in the inventory).[1]In addition, he claimed that all philosophical systems had the ontologicalpresupposition of something, which could be materialistic, spiritual, or amixture of spirit and substance. Maybe a scholar does not need to concern theexistence of ontology, but he will inadvertently make an analysis of the‘ontological commitment’.Evensome scholars (Laurence & Machonald,1998) claimed that, ontology was notonly the core of metaphysics but also the core of general philosophy. Accordingto these theories, Marx's thought as a philosophical thinking must have its ownontology. But just like Roy Bhaskar said, ‘Marx never theorized his critique ofempiricism, he never theorized his ontology’[2].Therefore, it is difficult for us to make an accurate understanding of Marx'sontology. Especially, the noteworthy fact is that, the term ontology is seldomused in Marx's writings, and Marx did not declare what kind of ontology he is,so we maybe doubt what kind of ontology Marx is, or even whether Marx hasontology. Many marxists have tried to give their answers to this question, and different scholars have different answers.

Lukács strongly emphasized the concept of ‘labor’, ‘material practice’ in Marxist philosophy in order to relate the nature with society and try to build ‘ontology of social existence of Marx. However, Lukács also claimed the ‘social ontology base on general ontology’, ‘ontology of social being can only be built on the basis of natural ontology’[3]. he was showing us the horizon of new view here. That is to say, Lukács had regarded the nature as the cause of social being. Compared with his original theory,Lukács' theory has taken a backward step in this way. Because the natural ontology which Marx criticized actually, has been existed as the premise of Marx's philosophy again. Hiromatsu Wataru emphasized the significance of practice in Marx's philosophy, which aimed to highlight a new kind of relational ontology. Wataru (2002) claimed that, the transformation from entity to relationship is the essence of Marx's ontology, and the binary opposition of subjectivity and objectivity is sublated and unified by Marx's practice in his new world view. The practice here represents all relationships of reality, and due to all relationships created by the practice of material production, the society is formed. Therefore, Wataru regard Marx's philosophy as a relational ontology.

2 Marx's ontology in China

Along with some famous philosophers' exploring onontology (such as Georg Lukács, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer……),Chinese scholars have launched heated discussions on Marx's ontology since1990s. Marx's ontological question is a focus of Marxists in China until today, and has been debating endlessly. There are several views of Marx's ontology inChina: material ontology, practical ontology, ontology of labor, ontology of social being……

But a fews cholars insist that there is no ontology of Marx's philosophy in China. Forexample, YU Xuanmeng (2012) believed that, Marx always have a firm criticism of ontology, and the object of this criticism is the western idealism represented by Hegel. With the criticism of ontology, Marx has achieved the transformation and innovation of traditional philosophy. He put his view succinctly, if the meaning of ontology was expanded into a variety of ontology of Marxist philosophy (practical ontology and material ontology, ontology of labor, etc.),and this interpretation is different from the concept of ontology in western tradition. In 2002, GAO Qinghai published a short essay entitled the destruction of ontological theory of Marxism in Social Science Weekly , which also expressed similar views with YU Xuanmeng.

However,Most Chinese scholars believe that, even though Marx rarely mentions ontology in his writings, it doesn't mean that Marx's philosophy has no ontology. YUWujin published a paper entitled Marx's ontological process in AcademicMonthly (1991), which he claimed that Marx's ontology was a evolutionary process, that is, the ontology of self-consciousness in the period of young Marx, the practical ontology and laboring ontology in period of mature Marx and finally ontology of social being in period of old Marx. Compared with other ontological theories, most Chinese scholars assume that, practical ontology is more consistent with Marx's philosophy and more satisfied with theoretical self-sufficiency. For practical ontology of Marx, the following is a brief introduction about some achievements of Chinese scholars:

HEZhonghua (2009) assumed that, Marx's philosophy was a practical ontology,Marx's practice could be undertaken the role of being. Human beings are given all possibilities by practice, and practice makes these possibilities to be realistic at the same time, this is the whole secret of ontological theory of human being. Similarly, YANG Geng (2013) also believes that, Marx'sunderstanding of being don't means a hyperspatial-temporal and abstract way,but means combining human beings to interpret the connotation and meaning of being on the basis of practice.Finally, Marx's practical ontology opens up a way to recognize reality from ontological theory in this way. In addition, HAN Zhen (2006) argued that, Marx's philosophy was a generating ontology of practice. For Marx'sphilosophy, he assumes that, if we reiterate the Marxist ontology in the lifeworld today again, then we will have to make all beings to be understood and expressed as the process of history.

Besides the illustration of Marx's ontological content, many scholars in China also gave unique interpretations on the significance of Marx's ontology. WU Xiaoming(2006) claimed that, the ontological meaning of practice was the foundation of all revolutions of Marx's philosophy, aimed at it getting rid of all ideological illusion. In his view, because of Marx's practical theory,specifically a series of concepts of Marx, such as life, production, practice,or industrial, Marx could truly reveal the unification of human and nature in ontological sense. In addition, OU Yangkang (2008) assumes that, Marx'spractical ontology, adhered to the principle of the unity of fact and value,its real significance lies not in whether it can achieve the so-called ultimatebeing, the ultimate interpretation or ultimate value. Instead, it makes us keep the necessary tension between the ideal and the reality, the ultimate directivity and the historical certainty, and always maintain a critical spirit of practice and transcendental consciousness.

Based on the above achievements, I developed a new interpretation of Marx's practical ontology. I will only deal with this problem, namely, how the practice could be a core category of Marx's ontology, and what's the significance of this new explanation to practical ontology of Marx? As I hope to show, the first, I will go back to the traditional philosophy, and figure out what are the specific criteria of ontology, being and beings are (section 3). Then, I'm going to collect evidences in Marx's books, for indicating why the practice could be the core concept of Marx's ontology according to the definition of traditional philosophy (section 4). Finally, I will explain the meaning and value of Marx'spractical ontology (section 5), and conclude with a brief remark on the new explanation of Marx's practical ontology (section 6).

3 The definition of ‘ontology’ and ‘being’ in philosophy

How can we get the new ideas correctly through interpreting Marx's philosophy in contemporary society and how can we find the power of social revolution in Marx 's philosophy,contemporary scholars have to face these problems. It is a difficult and meticulous work for researching these problems in Marx's classical writings.Many scholars start to research with the concept of practice,but most of the relevant treatises, limited to the form of epistemology and methodology, were not discussed in the most fundamental level. Therefore, they are not persuasive.In my opinion, starting to research with the dimension of practical ontology will be undoubtedly a proper method, only by this can we find a theoretical foothold of Marx'sphilosophy.  In fact,I agree that the practice of Marx's philosophy have been an ontological category. First of all, it is important to see that, the concept of practice in Marx's writings whether conform with the stipulations of ontological category, so we need to understand what the definitions of ontology are in traditional philosophy.

Ontology is the ‘ontology’ in English, and ontology is the ‘ontologie’ in German from the analysis of etymology, both of them come from Latin ‘ontologia’. And Latinderived from Greek, the meaning of this word is about ‘the logos of on’ in Greek, in other words, it is the knowledge of ‘being’. Traditional ontology is the main department and branch of ‘metaphysics’, and it always try to research and explain being. However, due to its unique nature of metaphysics, ontology was often criticized by most philosophers in the mainstream of contemporary philosophy. Ontology has experienced unprecedented cold, especially after 20th century, most philosophers have shelved, neglected or even abandoned it. People regard ontology as a metaphysical surmise and delusion, perhaps it is a main reason. As a philosopher of critical realism,Bhaskar assumes that, ‘I went back to philosophy and lo and behold discovered that it’s actually a dictum in philosophy that thou shalt not commit ontology, that you can’t say anything about the world. Hume and Kant had ‘established’ this. Wittgenstein and the logical positivists reasserted that you can’t talk about what the network describes—that’s the world—you can only talk about the network, that is, the way you talk about the world. Ontology was denied.’[4]This kind of ontological disappearance is called ‘epistemic fallacy’ in Bhaskar. An important goal of his critical realism is to point out this mistake and criticize it so as to restore the status of ontology. Bhaskar (2008)described this ‘epistemic fallacy’ as returning a problem of being to a problem of knowledge, in other words, returning an ontological problem to an epistemological problem.

We need to attach importance to ontology, and we need to extricate ourselves from ‘epistemic fallacy. Because ontology, which unable to be avoided, has haunted us all theway since the birth of human. Human don't need to answer what the origin of world is and why the world exists, but we cannot escape and ignore the existence of human beings and the existence of environment around us.

If we want to know clearly about what the ontology is, first of all, we should know what the metaphysics is. According to the order of time: the name of metaphysics firstly appeared in a book of Aristotle as the name of his book, then,the work behind physics in Aristotle be called ‘metaphysics’ by Drennec. ‘Physics’ is called ‘the second philosophy by Aristotle (1993),and the knowledge of ‘the research as being of beings’ is called ‘the first philosophy or ‘metaphysics’[5]. Then, in the philosophical principle ,Rene Descartes figuratively compares philosophy as a tree, metaphysics is root, physics is dry, and all other sciences are branches of the dry. Metaphysics, which like roots has a foundational position, lays the foundation for all sciences. In addition, according to the two functions of soul: cognition and craving, WolffChristian divides the science into two kinds ： theory and application. The former includes ontology, cosmology, psychology and theology, which belong to metaphysics; the latter includes ethics, politics and economics(Thilly, 1979).

Thus, ontology is subordinate to metaphysics. This division of Wolff has a far-reaching impact on many philosophers who have criticized metaphysics in Wolff's sense, such as Kant and Hegel. Hegel (1980)goes on to suggest that, being should be understood as follows, being (or‘sein’ in German) is undefined immediacy and the indetermination precede all determination, which is the most primitive indetermination. Being is the purest, the most abstract, the poorest and the most primitive indetermination,these are the transcendental features of being. Compared with being, Hegel believes that all things in the real world are existences with fixed contents and forms, the other name of these existences is beings. Beings, which exist inthe world, have their determinations, but being, which doesn't exist in the world, has its indetermination. Human beings can not only grasp and comprehend the specific beings, but also pursue and understand the pure and abstract being, that is, Human beings like to seek internal reason of all beings. That is also because human are special beings who have unique minds.The knowledge of being which pursued by philosophy is ontological issue.People always seek for the ultimate foundation and reason for all things in the world, however, this ultimate foundation and reason have gone beyond the scope of human experience. It is obvious that the ontological theory has embodied the infinite possibility of human thought and the ultimate concern for the world.

Many scholars in China believe that ontology should be translated into ‘theory ofBeing’, perhaps this translation will be more consistent with the original meaning of linguistics. Literally, ontology is about the knowledge of being (YUXuanmeng, 2012). The first study on being was originated from Parmenides of Elea, since then, he has established the researching direction of ontology:being is acquired through the mind in the field of transcendence and cannot come from the experience of feeling. Aristotle and Descartes successively defined ‘the first philosophy’ as being of beings’ and ‘metaphysical ontology’. Then, Martin Heidegger made the ontological distinction’, the essence of this distinction also is being and beings. The positive meaning lies in that being is the internal reason which made beings to be possible. The question of being is the ontological question,in other words, ontology is the ultimate interpretation of being.

Finally,I would like to emphasize that Bhaskar also has a very significant reference for the distinction between ontology and being. In A realist Theory of science , Bhaskar pointed out that the answer to the transcendental question, what must the world be like to make science possible, is qualified to be called ontology [6]. He advocates a transcendental realism, and transcendental realism holds that when we explore the ontological problem of science (whether it is about the reality of its objects or the nature of its laws), we should not rely on the empirical research of physicalism and its cognitive results, but on the transcendental philosophical speculation. Therefore, this kind of exploration needs to divide science into three levels at least: ‘experience’, ‘actuality’ and"reality". Among them, the level of experience and actuality are the understanding of epistemology or physicalism to Science, or just to explore the presentation of ontology; while the level of reality begins to touch the essence of ontology.

In Bhaskar'sview, being almost is equal to ‘reality’, they are the ontological basis of society. This real and independent entity is similar to Kant's‘thing-in-itself’ and ‘reality’ is classified into the intransitive field. Bhaskar believes that the knowledge of ‘reality’ and ‘reality’ itself are two different things, so our knowledge about the world is divided into two categories: one is the transitive knowledge formed by the transformation of human skills based on the natural objective things, which is equivalent to Aristotle's ‘material cause’. the other one is that, the intransitive knowledge formed by the characteristics of objective things does not depend on the subjective existence of human beings[7].As far as the social field is concerned, critical realism holds that the knowledge of society and social structure of real existence (social ‘reality’)are two different things. Social theory should not stand on the objective social structure in the way of subjective arrogance, because it contains many subjective factors such as ideology. For Bhaskar, we should show the scientific existence of the world, not only to explain social behavior and social significance, but also to discover the intransitively social structure of hidden under social behavior. In other words, this kind of intransitively social structure is social reality.

On the whole, We have made it clearly about the definition of ‘ontology’ and ‘being’from Aristotle to Bhaskar. Especially to Bhaskar, ontology represents a transcendental knowledge that is constantly explored, and being represents the intransitive reality. If the reality is placed in the social field, it is social reality and objective social structure. In addition, in order to oppose ‘ontological monovalence’[8], Bhaskar advocated the concepts of negation, non-identity and practice. Therefore, Bhaskar's ontology theory is similar to Marx's thought, that is, both pay attention to the social field and regard practice as the core category of social progress. In this sense, critical realism plays a very important role in the proof of Marx's ontology.

4 The new explanation for Marx's practical ontology

The concept of practice be introduced in philosophy by Aristotle, however, following with the development to Kant's practice, the concept of practice has not escaped from the scope of ethical practice. Then, Hegel reveals the creativity of practice in the form of speculation, distinguishes practice and theory, and he has recognized the role of practice in creating human history and changing the world, but Hegel's philosophy is idealism. L.A. Feuerbach has offered some enlightening reflections on the connection between practice and life, but he insisted on a perceptual empiricism or materialism which limited to the epistemological level. So, they cannot grasp correctly the essence of practice. On the contrary, Marx's practice has satisfied some characteristics of ontology, which defined by traditional philosophy, and become the core category of his ontology. If practice is taken as an ontological category, just like Hegel (1980) said, the ontological category must conform to two aspects, one is absolute priority and primitiveness, the other is absolutely indetermination. In addition, we can also explore the possibility of Marxist philosophy becoming a practical ontology from the perspective of practical dialectics. At this point, Bhaskar's exposition of dialectics gave me a lot of inspiration.

4.1. The priority of practice

The priority of practice is an important feature of practical ontology. This is because that, practice is the starting point for us to think about the whole world, including nature and society.

The first, practice has the priority to perceptual intuition. Feuerbach (1984)assumed that, observe nature, observe people, only by this can you see allsecrets of philosophy. This kind of ‘nature’ and ‘man’ here build on human's physical senses, and these senses have already constituted the secret and the starting point of Feuerbach's philosophy.Marx opposed this perceptual intuition of Feuerbach's view ,because he believed that the ‘natural’ and ‘human’ of Feuerbach divorced from human practice were abstract and meaningless. In Germanideology , Marx (2009) assumed that, in these cases (this activity, this continuous labor and creation), the priority of external nature will still be maintained. The ‘priority of external nature’, which is emphasized here, refers to the priority in the dimension of time. Marx pays close attention to the realistic nature and society in which the human be taken part in, on the contrary, the natural world before the birth of mankind has little significance. Therefore, Marx (2009) immediately claims that, the natural world that precedes human history is not the natural world which Feuerbach lives in.

Nature has existed for a long time before the birth of human beings according to the dimension of time, and modern science has proved the same view through the determination of isotope decay. However, from a logical view, only by relying on human practice, can we get a conclusion which the existence of natural world before the existence of human beings. The natural world, Feuerbach observed and lived, is built on the practice. Everything is empty talking without the practice, therefore,compared with perceptual intuition, the practice has its internal priority.

In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 , Marx (2009) points out that, the natural world, which be understood abstractly, self-defined and separated from human, is also nothing for human. Of course, the object of Marx's criticism here is Hegel'sspeculative idealism. In German Ideology , the object of Marx's criticism is the old materialism which based on Feuerbach's perceptual intuition. Both the natural world before the birth of human and the natural world in Hegel's mind are criticized by Marx, He mainly focuses on the presence and practicality of human beings. Obviously, Marx'sviews on nature in the German Ideology and in the economic and PhilosophicalManuscripts of 1844 are basically the same thing.

The Second, practice has the priority to abstract thought. With the sublation of Hegel's philosophy, Marx launched a study of the logical category. The essence of Hegel's logic research concentrates mainly on his Logic, which be regarded as the kingdom of concepts. In Enzyklopaedie der philosophischenWissenschaften of 1817, Hegel believes that, the idea of logic is a starting point, and then the idea of logic transforms into the natural world in its own motion, Then, the natural world produced human beings and their spiritual world through its own movement, finally, the idea of logic is restored to itself through the spiritual movement. Therefore, everything isturned to be upside down in Hegel's philosophy, all social beings are just the products and manifestations of the logical idea. In addition, in order to explain the constantly developing and changing economic activities according to the logical category, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon also established the logical category of fixed, abstract and sacred.

On the contrary, Marx (2009) pointed out clearly that, people established social relations according to their own material productivity, and these people,according to their social relations, have created corresponding principles,concepts and categories. That is to say, the practice always has inherent originality, and logical category can only be generated and unfolded on the basis of practice. Compared with the ‘thought’ and ‘spirit’, the practice is more trusted by Marx. Whether human thought has objective [gegenst ndliche]truth or not, this is not a theoretical question, but a practical question(Marx 2009). The pure logic inference, which is based on logical category,cannot prove the truth of human thought, and on the contrary, the truth can only be proved in practice. Marx believes that, the logical thought without the practice is purely problems of scholasticism, and the logical thought, only relying on practical experience, can reasonably guide and constrain people's behavior.

4.2 The indetermination of practice

The indetermination of practice is the other important feature of practical ontology. Roy Bhaskar (2015) claimed that ontology actually includes everything—it includes contradictions and mistakes—there’s nothing that’s not included within ontology. The ontological cognition of critical realism provides us with a simplest understanding, that is, ontology, which includes everything, is an open system. The indetermination of practice shows that, Marx's practical ontology also is an open system.

XIONGShili assumed that, ‘we need to know being itself is formless, but it appears to be everything.’ [9]On one hand, as an abstract and primitive category of ontology, logically, practice takes precedence over the opposition between the subject and the object.Therefore, an important characteristic of practice is the indetermination. On the other hand, the practice is transformed into the most abundant beings and colorful world in the reality of historical development. Practice lays the foundation for all other beings, and all beings in the world is formed in the development of practice. However, practice itself is a category of indetermination, and it exists as a whole category of ontology which controls the development of history. The indetermination of practice shows a dynamic generative mechanism, that is, practice is always in the process of changing activity. Therefore, there are no specific regulations can be described as practice, and the practice can be said to be a general category within determination.

Contemporary philosophy of western humanism attaches great importance to the ‘process’ in the ontological level. In order to critique, transform and transcend traditional metaphysics, most of them have developed the view of ‘process’.Many philosophers opposed the traditional metaphysics which regarded abstract material or spiritual entity as the core of ontology, such as A.Schopenhauer,F.W.Nietzsche and S.A.Kierkegaard. They all argue that the emotion, will, pure consciousness and intention, which are closely related to people, should be regarded as the processes of activity rather than the invariable entity. Similarly, Marx's practice shows a strong thought of process and history. Marx(2009) claimed that, the whole so-called history of the world is a process which be born through human labor, it is the generative process of nature to human beings. If the practice is erased from history, it will undoubtedly lead to the nihility of social history, because the formation of history depends on the shaping of practice.

The philosophy behind Plato, in general, tries to filter out time, in order to transcend history through logic. It is generally believed that until the history of western philosophy, which is characterized by ‘removing history’ as its basic orientation and characteristic, has developed to Heidegger, and a change has been taken place in western philosophy, namely, the attempt to recovery time. In fact, the restoration of time has already begun in Marx, and he pointed out that we only know a single science, that is, historical science(Marx 2009). This historical thought be accord with the underlying demand of Marx's practical ontology. In the logic dimension, this historical thought is included in the presupposition of Marx's practical ontology. In the historical dimension, this historical thought is the actual process of practice in real life. The practical ontology is guiding and forming the development of history and the progress of mankind all the way, all concrete beings have been generated and shaped, and the world has become rich and colorful in the process of practice.

4.3 Dialectics of practice

For a long time, Marx's philosophy has been locked in the materialist level, Marx's world outlook is materialistic, and Marx'sdialectics is materialist dialectics. This is, of course, necessary to distinguish philosophical camps. But when Marx founded his own philosophy, he was not satisfied with the traditional materialism. He firmly believed that philosophy was the essence of the spirit of the times. Materialism and dialectics, as the main plates of philosophy, should constantly change their forms with the development of the times. Marx's materialism is not a materialism based on the material of natural science, but a ‘new materialism’,that is, the materialism of regarding perceptual understanding as practical activity. His understanding of dialectics is not purely objective, external dialectics, but the subject, ‘revolutionary’, ‘critical’, practical dialectics. Materialism and dialectics take practice as the gene and come down in one continuous line, they are connected with each other and form a complete and unified world outlook. Marx's philosophical system is integrated and developed on the basis of practice. In essence, Marx's philosophy is a system of practical ontology.

For the maintenance of Marx's practical dialectics and practical ontology, we can also draw lessons from the research results of critical realism. The dialectical critical realism elaborates on practice in detail, and ‘transformative practice’ is the fourth dimension of Bhaskar's dialectics, aiming at emphasizing the dynamic practice of transforming society, which can also be called the subjective dynamic behavior. Due to the totality of Bhaskar is fundamentally open, it is necessary that ‘transformative practice’ be the fourth dimension of dialectical unity. Bhaskar (1993) assumed that,‘transformative practice’ should defined as a consciously transformational practice, caused by real, unconscious, multiple, previous or contradictory reasons, it can trigger an event that never happened.

The realis a potentially infinite totality. We know something about it, but we don't know much about it (Bhaskar 1993). What science does is generalize induction, and it is powerless to the universe. it never knows what exists beyond the present boundaries of the universe, although philosophy may have accidentally established a general outline of the categorical structure. It can be seen that the real concept of critical realism is a recapitulative concept, assuming that human beings are persistent, it contains the world of ideas and all the products of imagination, virtualization, and illusion, as well as the things that never existed. In the system of dialectics, Bhaskar constructs a f undamentally open totality as its essence, so he needs the dimension of practice as the core of dialectics. Bhaskar (1993) assume that, in terms of ability, the intentionality of practice has proved that it can transform the world in a way that has never been done before. As the ability to transform totality, the practice is the starting point of all the major transcendental arguments that critical realism has proposed, and the practice is also the starting point for most dialectical arguments, including the dialectics that brings us from hope to freedom. The new dialectic system should include the possibility and potential of self-development and self-realization, and the satisfaction of these conditions is realized through practice.

Through as imple understanding to the dialectics of critical realism, we will find that Criticalrealist's dialectics is similar to Marx's practical dialectics. The practical dialectics of Marx is also an open system characterized by generality and totality, this is also another embodiment of Marx's practical ontology.Practice is the starting point of Marx's dialectics, in the spiraling contradictory movement, it constantly shapes a colorful human history.

5.The significance of Marx's practical ontology

A series of concepts, categories, expressions,etc, in Marx's philosophy, will be out of all the old philosophy mold and begot the comprehensive deepening theoretically in Marx's practical ontology.These new explanations of Marx's practical ontology are also new ways to deepen our understanding of Marx's practical philosophy, which is conducive to there interpretation of Marx's practical philosophy, and can promote the further deepening of the basic theory of contemporary Marx's philosophy. In my opinion,these new explanations of Marx's practical ontology have four importantmeanings as follows:

5.1 Open up the ‘practical turn’ of ontology

The traditional ontology is to explore the fixed and eternal origin and entity. On the one hand, this entity is divorced from the realistic people and society; on the other hand, this entity which constitutes the foundation of the realistic existence is a kind of ultimate existence.Therefore, it is doomed that the grasp of being can only be abstract and transcendental. However, the most obvious drawback of this understanding isthat the abstract ontology directly cuts off the path from ontology to reality.One of major characteristics of the traditional ontology is ‘to reveal everything’, but ‘in fact, to reveal nothing’[10].The traditional ontology often has nothing to do with reality, because it is made up of purely transcendental concepts. All development is the movement of transcendental concepts in the ontological system, so in this sense, it is‘revealing everything’. But this revelation has opened up a huge gap with the real world, virtually, it has nothing to do with the real world.

Contrary to the traditional ontology, with the practical turn of ontology, Marx'sontology focuses on the ‘object, reality and sensibility’. Practice as a whole category of ontology is always presenting the process of ‘beings to be what they should be’, the realization of all ontological demands is integrated into practice. On the logical dimension, the practice has become the category of being, which has prior to the separation between the subject and the object,and becomes the most primitive and abstract concept of indetermination. In the dimensions of reality, the practice has become a dynamic process at any times, and has become the most abundant and specific ‘to be’, it can be said that, these are the externalization and materialization of practice as an ontological category. Marx completely replaced the traditional thinking of ontological mode through the practical turning, which also embodies Marx's a fundamental change in the field of ontology.

Marx is not limited to the differentiation of concepts and words, on the contrary, sucha way of thinking which he has taken is used to represent his ontological thought through the practice and the practical history of people. Marx never has a preference to the pure speculation of Scholastics, because he believes that philosophy is not a reverie which be away from the world, and philosophy should be resorted to realistic practice. Marx's practical ontology does not explain history with the role of spectator,but produce history with the role of participant. The traditional ontologyoften takes an abstract and transcendental way to grasp and understand someproblems of being. In contrast, Marx will focus on the presence of humanbeings, and the meaning of being will be got clearly in the opening history ofpractice. Therefore, ontology has been brought from heaven to human world, and practice has become the ontological category of Marx's philosophy, and it really leads to a path from ontology to realistic revolution.

5.2 Surpass the old materialism and idealism

The foundation of idealism is spirit, but the abstract spirit produced in human mind is separated from the reality of history, and itis only the philosopher's imagination and false fabrication, because idealism is not aware of the actual, perceptual activity itself. However, the foundation of old materialism is abstract material, and the material was regarded as the pile of finished things, just like ‘a sack of potatoes’. Therefore, the old materialism lingers in the scope of a limited empirical fact, and many meanings of revolutionary and practical criticism cannot be understood at all (Marx2009). As a consequence,neither of these philosophical foundations can lead to reality. Idealism and old materialism as an ideology, once created, have obscured the social and historical roots which produced themselves, and thus they are illusory. Only by exposing the illusory nature of idealism and old materialism, then, combined history, the secret of ideology can be solved, and the reversion from philosophy to reality is possible.

Due to the absence of practice, both the spirit of idealism and the material of the old materialism just like a rootless wood. Even if they are abstracted as ontological categories, they can't actually assume the role of being, and can't realize themselves in reality. So, the old materialism and idealism will often breed the ideological obscuration, which leads people to move forward in the fog.There exists the antinomy between the two ideologies of old materialism and idealism, that is, one will always dissolve and restore the other, and both of them claim to be the right one. Instead, in order to really transcend old materialism, idealism and their opposition, Marx has found a more suitable category than material and spiritual. Logically, the category of practice couldbe satisfied with this provision, that is, being is the most abstract indetermination, as Heidegger (1986) said, preferably, the concept of being isthe most obscure concept.

As an original category before the binary division between subject and object,Practice has the priority in ontology. Practice will open all possible beings,and all the beings will be emerged in the practical situation. Compared with the non-active material and abstract spirit, the practice is more qualified to assume the role of ontology. Practice is the only key which can unlock all secrets of ideology, the deconstruction and transcendence to the two ideologies of old materialism and idealism are possible only in practice and its historical development.

5.3 A reasonable interpretation of the antinomy between human and nature

In 18th-century, the interpretation of the relationship between human and environment was in trouble. For example,Helvetius's environmental determinism has a profound impact in France or even the whole world. It is true that man is the product of environment, but the environment is also convertible. Circumstances such as education, law and customs, and even traditional culture can be changed. Later, the changing of environment was attributed to the role of opinion, and this understanding leads to the antinomy of ‘environment determines man’ and ‘opinion determines environment. Puliehannuofu (1961) also claims that, people's opinions are determined by the environment, and the environment is determined by people's opinions, just as Kant said about the antinomy, the proposition is the same as the inverse proposition.

Instead,Marx found a more reliable basis for solving this paradox, the interactionbetween man and the environment is attributed to the mutual construction and the formation of each other based on the practice.The coherence of changing environment and human's activity can only be reasonably understood as the changing practice (Marx 2009). The interaction between human and environment is realized through practice, and the binary relationship between man and environment is dissolved in practical process, finally, the antinomy is abandoned. The changing of people involves people's initiative, the changing of environment involves human's passivity. Therefore, the paradox of environment and man also leads to the antagonism between human's initiative and human's passivity.In order to seek appropriate ways and principles to solve their contradictions, Marx put forward the question about the relationship of human's initiative and passivity in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 . Marx (2009) believed that, the opposition between man's initiative and passivity have represented human's alienation, alienation...... It is the opposition between consciousness and self-consciousness, object and subject.