马克思恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中批判了青年黑格尔派，主张要将现实的人从观念的束缚中解放出来，人要在劳动分工和生产交往的过程中生成人的本质。这完全区别于以往唯心主义对人的解释，即认为人的本质是先验的普遍观念。但是，马克思恩格斯的这一思想变革绝非是突然地以与其理论前提断裂的方式产生的，相反，他们与当时的论战对手青年黑格尔派拥有共同的思想框架，即“个体——类”的二元结构，他们的思想变革是在对这一结构进行批判性重构的过程中完成的。马克思恩格斯在青年黑格尔派讲不下去的地方接着讲，最终在《德意志意识形态》中呈现出唯物史观的雏形。 19世纪40年代初，马克思恩格斯与青年黑格尔派都意识到以黑格尔哲学为代表的传统德国观念论中的绝对主义的风险，即用普遍主义的“类”去压制个人的问题，这会使个人失去主体自由。为了规避这一风险，他们将黑格尔哲学中的“个体——类”视为一种由“类”统治个体的纵向二元结构，并试图通过对“类”进行解构的方式来恢复个体的主体地位：布鲁诺·鲍威尔批判“类”，认为应使客观理性下沉至每个个体中；麦克斯·施蒂纳重构“个体”，认为应拒斥一切在个体之外的权力，只承认“我”作为“唯一者”；费尔巴哈质疑“个体——类”的唯心主义二元结构，将人的本质从彼岸的神还原为此岸的“类本质”。马克思一开始也在这条道路上探索，并在不断吸收青年黑格尔派理论的同时，发现了他们各自理论的内部存在逻辑悖论：即他们虽然声称要解构“类”，但都在不同程度上保留了普遍理性对个体的压制，这意味着他们仍然没有摆脱纵向的二元结构，对人的本质的界定依旧离不开先天预设的观念论原则。 马克思恩格斯也采取了让“类”解体的进路，不过是以让其“重生”的方式进行的：现实的人不是“应然的人”，人的本质要在社会关系中生成；而社会关系来源于个人为了满足需要而进行的劳动生产和交往活动。这意味着“类”与个体关系不再是纵向统摄结构，而是一种新型的横向生成结构。其中，以生产和交往为核心的要素才是实现个体自由和推动历史发展的真正动因。借助《德意志意识形态》的文献学研究，也能够清晰地发现马克思对横向的“类”的重释过程。但是，横向的“个体——类”二元结构并不稳固，资本会在社会交往中构成新的“类”统治关系，由此出发，马克思以及后世学者又开启了新的批判与解构。
Marx and Engels criticized the Young Hegelians and advocated the necessity to liberate real people from the bondage of ideas in The German Ideology, showing that the human essence lies in social relations, with the process of the division of labor and productive interaction. It is completely distinct from the Idealism which hold the view that the human essence is a priori and universal idea. The great shift of view in Marx and Engel was not due to their sudden and fractured stand against their predecessors, the Young Hegelians; on the contrary, they could critique and reconstruct their theories on the basis of the same theoretical model, which I call the Dual Structure of Individual and Gattung. Marx and Engels completed what the Young Hegelians had left off and presented the prototype of Materialist Conception of History in The German Ideology.In the early 1840s, the Young Hegelians and Marx realized the problems of German Idealism represented by Hegel, a risk of Absolutism in Hegel’s theory, which means Hegelians tend to use a universal essence Gattung to regulate the individual and would deprive the freedom of individuals. In order to avoid this risk, they regarded the theory of Individual and Gattung in Hegel as a vertical Dual Structure which conducted by Gattung, and tried to refresh the subjective freedom of individuals by disintegrating Gattung: Bruno Bauer criticized Gattung, arguing that the objective Reason should sink down to each individual; Max Stirner reconstructed the Individual, arguing that all power outside the individual should be rejected, only der Einzige exists. Feuerbach questioned the idealist dualism of Individual and Gattung and reduced the human essence from God to secular world. Marx was also on this path at the beginning and continuously absorbed theories of the Young Hegelians, but soon, Marx found logical paradoxes within their respective theories. Although they claimed to deconstruct the vertical duality, to varying degrees, they all kept the statute of the individual through universal reason, which means the definition of human essence is still independent form a priori and preconceived conceptual principles.Marx and Engels continued to disintegrate Gattung, but in a way that allows it to be reborn: the real person is not the "ought to be". The human essence lies in social relations, which is derived from the labor and interaction activities of individuals in order to satisfy their needs. This means Gattung is not vertical for the individual, but horizontal; behind which, the production and interaction are the driving forces of historical development and the emancipation of individuals. The above horizontal Dual Structure could also be clearly identified through the study of the bibliographic issues related to the German Ideology. However, the horizontal Dual Structure of Individual and Gattung is not stable, as the capital constitutes new relations of domination in social interactions, thus opening up new critiques and deconstructions.
