The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature

Marx’s doctoral dissertation and one of his early representative works. Written between the second half of 1840 and March 1841, unpublished in Marx’s lifetime, and was first published in Aus dem literarischen Nachlass von Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels und Ferdinand Lassalle, Vol. 1, Stuttgart 1902, edited by F. Mehring, but with the vast majority of the appended notes deleted. The full text was first published in its entirety in the 1927 Marx-Engels Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe, I/5.1.

In May 1838, Marx's father died, and the family's income was greatly reduced, which made his choice of a profession an increasingly urgent matter. With the help of his friend Bauer, Marx had hopes of obtaining a position as a Privatdozent at the University of Bonn, for which he would have to complete his doctoral dissertation and obtain his doctorate. His choice of Epicurean philosophy as the topic of his dissertation was attributable both to the influence that the publication of Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy had brought to the study of the history of philosophy at that time, and also to the common research interests of the Young Hegelians and the possible division of labor within them that the circumstances of the time had created. In the view of the Young Hegelians, the present age was faced with almost the same situation as that of ancient Greece after Aristotle's philosophy, and thus the examination of the similar period in Greek history could be used in a certain sense to clarify the post-Hegelian philosophical situation faced by the contemporary situation of post-Hegelian philosophy after the disintegration of Hegelian philosophy. At first, Marx was only preparing to write his dissertation on the Epicurean philosophy, and Marx did not pay enough attention to the atomistics in it. But as the excerpts proceeded, especially the reading of Lucretius' De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), Marx gradually realized that the core of the Epicurean philosophy was not the atom but the spontaneous deviation (or, declination) of the atom, which inspired him to explicate self-consciousness by examining Epicurus' atomistics, thus inquire into the relationship between philosophy and reality by virtue of the elucidation of Epicurus's philosophy, study the role of philosophy in changing society, develop the militant spirit of the ancient Greek materialistic thinkers and connect theoretical critique with the real struggle.

In early 1839, Marx began work on his doctoral dissertation. Over the next nearly a year, Marx read a great deal of ancient Greek philosophy and made extracts forming seven booklets of notes under the title Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy. In addition to this, Marx read the works of Hegel, Aristotle, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant among others and touched upon Epicureanism, Stoicism, the views of the Sophists in Greek philosophy, the views of Socrates concerning religion, and other questions, which prepared a wealth of material for the writing of his doctoral dissertation.

The doctoral dissertation is structurally divided into two parts. In Part I, Marx mainly made some remarks in response to previous misunderstandings of Epicurean philosophy. In the text, he quoted the views of Cotta, Cicero, and Plutarch, among others, and elaborated on the roughly identical opinion existing in the history of philosophy, namely, that Epicurus, as a philosopher, was merely a plagiarist of Democritus, and that Epicurus' atomistics was a complete copy and vulgarization of Democritus' atomistics, and that the two men's philosophy of nature could be completely equated. In Marx’s view, this opinion was biased. Although both Democritus and Epicurus advocated the same doctrine, there was an extremely hidden but exceptionally important difference between the two. And in Part II, Marx concretely analyzed the difference between the Epicurean and the Democritean atomistics. In his view, the Epicurean philosophy, whilst inheriting Democritus' atomistics, more importantly improved it, not only in that Epicurus pointed out that the reason for the declination of the atom from the straight line in the void was its weight, but also put forward the idea of the atom's motion of declination, clarifying that it was precisely this accidental “deviation” that could form a vortex motion by colliding with other atoms, thus forming all things in the world.

Marx pointed out that that Epicurus' attribution of motion to the interior of matter in his explanation freed him from Democritus' defect of being unable to explain the source of motion from without. Precisely by virtue of this comparative analysis, Marx proved that Epicurus's atomistics was not a plagiarism of Democritus's atomistics, pointing out that the greatest difference between Epicurus and Democritus was in fact the enormous difference between dialectics and mechanical determinism. The fundamental reason why Democritean philosophy could not explain the transition from the essence to the world of appearance, from atoms to concrete nature, and could not answer the question of how the world of appearance could have eternal and unending changes of birth and death, was that he was not able to grasp the dialectical nature of the atom. Epicurus, however, had overcome the one-sidedness of Democritus' mechanical determinism by proving the atom's motion of declination, which allowed him to understand the atom as stoicheia (indivisible elements) constituting a body and material substrate, and at the same time further understand the atom as the principle of the creation of all things and the beginning of the formation of the universe. Thus, in Epicurean philosophy, the world of essence and the world of appearance, atom and nature, logic and reality could be connected. With regard to the point of view of the freedom of self-consciousness, Marx held that it could not be understood in the abstract, and that freedom could not be achieved by means of separating man from his surrounding environment and placing the two in absolute opposition to each other. Thus, Marx profoundly analyzed the dialectical relation between man and objective reality, philosophy and the world, and pointed out: “It is a psychological law that the theoretical mind, once liberated in itself, turns into practical energy, and, leaving the shadowy empire of Amenthes as will, turns itself against the reality of the world existing without it”. This marked that self-consciousness was “carried through and completed as the natural science”. In addition, in this doctoral dissertation, Marx highly praised the atheistic thought of Epicurus, refuted all kinds of misinterpretations and attacks on the atheistic thought of Epicurus, and criticized all kinds of erroneous theories that sought to prove the existence of God.

The Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature is an important stage in the development of Marx’s thought. Although Marx's thought at that time was still the Hegelian idealist philosophy, he surpassed Hegel in his dissertation by expressing his admiration for the philosophy of self-consciousness through his commendation of the philosophy of Epicurus vis-à-vis that of Democritus, thus proving the truth of using the philosophy of self-consciousness to make revolutionary changes by the Young Hegelians. In his paper, Marx revealed the dialectical idea of the self-motion of things as contained in the Epicurean atomistics, showing that he already had a deep understanding of Hegelian dialectics and doctrine of history and was able to apply it consciously and independently. At the same time, the revolutionary-democratic spirit embodied in the doctoral dissertation laid the groundwork for Marx's later theoretical direction, and many of the theories and ideas contained therein became the starting point for his intellectual development.

Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction

Marx’s critique of the censorship by the reactionary Prussian government and also his first political commentary article. Written between January and February 1842, first published in 1843 in Anekdota zur neuesten deutschen Philosophie und Publicistik, Vol. 1, signed “by a Rhinelander”.

In order to safeguard the feudal-despotic system, the reactionary Prussian government issued a censorship instruction in October 1819 to prevent “the development of the German spirit in a disastrous, irresponsible way”. This cultural despotism was strongly opposed by the masses. In December 1841, the newly crowned King Frederick William IV of Prussia issued a new censorship instruction in an attempt to cover up his despotic publishing policy with hypocritical liberal phrases. The new censorship instruction, with its hypocritical and flamboyant disguise, confused and deceived a considerable part of the population, making them falsely believe that the spring of freedom of the press and of expression had arrived.

In the text, Young Marx, with his characteristic calmness and sagacity, exposed the deception and hypocrisy of the new censorship instruction. By analyzing and criticizing the censorship instruction word by word, he pointed out the unreasonable and self-contradictory aspects of the instruction. According to Marx, the new censorship instruction emphasized that people must be “serious and modest” in the investigation of truth; “on the one hand, it will not have the censorship implemented in any interpretation that goes beyond the decree, and at the same time it prescribes such excess”; on the one hand, it upheld that writings “are not to be rejected because they are written in a spirit that does not agree with the government's views”, at the same time, it emphasized that the tendency of the writings “should not be spiteful or malevolent, but well-intentioned”, that “their formulation is decent and their tendency well-meaning”, that “insofar as, owing to passion, vehemence and arrogance, their tendency is found to be pernicious, [the censors] must not allow them to be printed.” By revealing the contradiction in the language of the instruction, Marx told that the Prussian government was not really pursuing liberalism, and that its emphasis on “seriousness and modesty” was essentially an “obstruction” and “restriction” of the investigation of truth, a complete violation of freedom of the spirit, and in essence sanctioned, by decree, the suppression of critical religious speech. Marx also told that in Prussia all persons and institutions, including the Academy of Sciences and the universities, which had always enjoyed immunity from censorship, would be subject to constraints, except for the government, which was the center of power, which truly enjoyed freedom from any censorship. In addition, the arbitrary government, as well as the tyrannical censors are perfectly capable of making judgments based on their own value judgments. “It is precisely here, where consistency alone could justify the principle and make it legitimate within its sphere, it is precisely here that it is abandoned”, and “all objective standards are abandoned”. From this, the essence of the new censorship instruction came to light on paper. Based on these analyses, Marx concluded that the “The real, radical cure for the censorship would be its abolition; for the institution itself is a bad one,” and pointed the spearhead of criticism at the feudal system.

Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction is the opening chapter of Marx’s criticism of social reality. At that time, he had not yet created his own scientific theory. However, through his criticism, he pointed out that the newly issued censorship instruction was merely a continuation of the old censorship instruction, which in essence still represented the will and interests of the feudal aristocracy and stifled the freedom of publication and expression, thus exposing the hypocritical veil and sinister intention of the supreme ruler and demonstrating a revolutionary-democrat stance.