“劳动创造了人”:对恩格斯原创思想的误读和曲解

“Labor Created the Human Being Himself”: Misinterpretation and Distortion of Engels' Original Theory

解读恩格斯关于人的起源、生成和形成的思想,笔者发现:恩格斯主张的"劳动创造了人本身"中的"人本身"与"劳动创造了人说"中的"人",是两个不同的概念。前者是指介于猿与人之间的"过渡性生物"——"正在生成中的人",在质的规定上仍属于动物。后者是指"从动物状态中脱离出来"的原始人,为现代人的祖先。所以"劳动创造了人本身"不等同于"劳动创造了人"。"劳动创造了人说"症结有三:其一,1932年、1950年和1955年《自然辩证法》中译本误译了恩格斯的观点;其二,把"劳动创造了人本身"等同于"劳动创造了人",曲解了恩格斯的本意;其三,只把"劳动"视为人类脱离动物状态的原因,不但否认了"正在生成中的人"生命生产的第二种方式的嬗变对其进化为"完全形成的人"的作用,而且也抹煞了恩格斯为"完全形成的人"所界定的"社会"属性。

Engels stated that labor created the human being himself. 'The human being'refers to the transitional form between ape and human,which,in nature,should still be defined as certain kind of animal. While the theory--labor created the human being himself considers human being as primitive human,the ancestor of modern human being,which is a serious distortion of Engels' idea. The problems lies in the following: Engels' idea is misinterpreted in translations of Dialectics of Nature of the editions in 1932,1950 and 1955; confusion of the above two concepts leads to distortion of the original theory of Engels; with labor element taken as the only motivation for human evolution,another factor about production which enables human-to-be to develop into real human is denied and the social nature of real human being defined by Engels is wiped out.