Axiology

Also known as “philosophy of value”. Theories that examine the question of values from a philosophical point of view. The core concept of axiology is “value”. The investigation of the question of values has begun in ancient Greece, but the term “axiology” was only put forth by the French philosopher Lapie in 1902, adopted by the German philosopher Hartmann in 1903, and was later widely used and various axiologies were established.

In the Western axiology, there is the subjective idealist and objective idealist axiology. Subjective idealism holds that values correspond only to personal penchants, desires, interests or aspirations, and that they are only directly related to personal behavior, denies the objective ground of values, and the relation of values to society and real life. Objective idealism holds that values, like Plato’s ideas, are norms and ideals beyond the real world. They both deny the social and historical nature of values.

The Marxist dialectical and historical materialist philosophy provides a scientific world outlook and methodology for the inquiry of value issues. Value is a relational category, which reflects the relation between man’s needs and the attributes of the object. Value is a relation of meaning between the subject and the object formed on the basis of practice, the positive effect of objects on the subject. Values have a subjective nature. There is no relation of value without a subject, and the same object has different relations of value to different subjects. Values have objectivity. The value relation of an object to the subject under certain conditions is independent of the subjective consciousness of the subject, independent of man’s knowledge and evaluation thereof. Values have relativity and socio-historical nature. Values change as the subject, the object and the subject-to-object relation change. Values are essentially a socio-historical category. There is no eternally immutable value standard or value system. In class society, men’s value standards or value norms are determined or influenced by their class status. Marxist axiology explained the essence and the basic property of values, the basic types of values, the recognition and evaluation of values, the formation and part played by value outlooks, and the socialist core value system, socialist core value outlook, etc.