YANG CHU (c. 395-335 BCE)
Early Chinese naive materialist philosopher, who severely
criticized religious views and the belief in immortality in particular. He urged people to enjoy
their lives and not worry about what will happen after death. He took a rather fatalistic view
about nature and society. In ethics he emphasized that people should work toward the greatest
satisfaction of their needs and wishes, but focused more on individual satisfaction than the
satisfaction of collective interests. However, his individualism was in reaction to the
reactionary Confucianism of his time which led to the differing
social gradation of people.
YOUNG HEGELIANS (or LEFT HEGELIANS)
“An idealist trend in German philosophy current in the thirties and forties of the nineteenth century; the Young Hegelians tried to deduce radical arguments from Hegel’s philosophy to prove the necessity for bourgeois reform of Germany. The leaders of the school were Strauss, the Bauer brothers, [Max] Stirner and some others; for a time they were joined by Feuerbach and also by Marx and Engels in their youth; Marx and Engels broke with the Young Hegelians and criticized the idealist, petty-bourgeois essence of the trend in The Holy Family (1844) and German Ideology (1845-46).” —Note 2 in Lenin, Selected Works (Moscow: 1967).
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