关键词: 偶然性, “条件”, “物象”, 《博士论文》, 《德意志意识形态》

Abstract: Although Marx draws upon Aristotelian thought and German idealism to construct a theory of contingency based on sensation and practice as early as the period of his Doctoral Dissertation, this theory remains confined within the dualism of thought and existence. Like Hegels theory of contingency, in The German Ideology, contingency lies within existence itself; however, unlike Hegel, Marx believes that contingency represents the contradiction between “conditions”  and “reification”  within social existence, as well as that between social existence and social consciousness. In a capitalist society, social consciousness of the “contingent individual”  is a product of these contradictions and contingencies. Yet, through the help of “reification”, it constructs a false necessity and attempts to obscure the contradictions and contingencies from which social consciousness originates. Although contemporary radical leftists criticize the “reification” structure of capitalist society, they dissolve the contradiction between the “reification” structure and its historical conditions of existence, thereby falling back into the ideology of the “contingent individual” that Marx criticizes.

Key words: contingency, “conditions”, “reification”, Doctoral Dissertation, The German Ideology