In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx revealed the metaphysical nature of Proudhon’s political economy in terms of ontology, epistemology, and methodology, and criticized the speculative philosophical foundation of Proudhon’s political economy. On the ontological level, Marx not only criticized the transcendental subject of Proudhon’s political economy—the non-reality and non-sociality of universal rationality, but also explained the realistic subject of his political economy criticism—the perceptual sociality of the real individual. On the epistemological level, Marx not only criticized the cognitive object of Proudhon’s political economy—the non-reality and non-science of economic relations, but also explained the perceptual objectivity of social relations, the cognitive object of his political economy criticism. On the methodological level, Marx not only criticized the non-historicity and pseudo dialectics of the abstract methods in Proudhon’s political economy, but also explained his methodology of political economy critique, the perceptual historicity of perceptual dialectics. This critical approach to Proudhon’s “metaphysics of political economy” not only demonstrates the philosophical foundation of Marx’s political-economic critique, but also highlights its unique paradigm.

Editor: Zhong Yao、Zheng Yifan

From:Studies on Marxist Theory.2023.No.6.