The world outlook of Marx's new materialism advocates practical or sensuous activities, which contrasts with the sensuous intuition of materialism and the abstract thinking of idealism. The subject of “observing” the world is not only the cognitive subject engaged in intuitive activities or thinking activities, but also the practical subject engaged in sensuous activities. Practice especially refers to the material activities that play a positive role in the historical process. Not all material activities can be called practical activities.“World”is the product of human's practical activities, and there is no wonder that it is the unity constituted by our activities, our relations and our ideas. Marx actually transformed the objective world outside “I” into a world in which “I” exists, and restored the world of seeing things without seeing people to a world in which people always exist. He turned a static and fixed world into a changing and socially historic one, a fragmented world into a totality, and a world waiting to be understood into a world that we can change. Thus fundamentally reflects the “new” of the new materialism world outlook.

Editor: Zhong Yao、Zheng Yifan

From:Studies on Marxist Theory.2021.No.5.