Marx’s Criticism of Steiner’s “the Ego”

Steiner’s “the Ego” highlighted the positive significance of human “life personality”, saved the “abstract man” trapped in the shackles of traditional metaphysics, and inspired Marx to break through the limitations of Feuerbach’s philosophy. However, Marx realized that Steiner’s “the Ego” contained the problems of modernity and historical nihilism, so he exposed it mercilessly and refuted it forcefully. On this basis, he established the “realistic individual” as the historical subject of his own new world outlook. Marx criticized Steiner’s “the Ego” from the perspectives of the dichotomy of subject and object, egoism and the view of the state. Therefore, he not only revolutionized and surpassed all the philosophies of Hegel, Feuerbach and the young Hegelian school, but also established the practice of realistic social material production instead of metaphysical speculation as a way to investigate the world based on the theory of “real individual”, the new historical materialism was founded, which promoted the trans era significance of the history of philosophy.