在传统社会向现代社会转型之际，自由概念的核心内涵也发生了转变，在古代个人作为公民参与政治生活的自由逐渐被享受私人利益和幸福的自由所取代，对自由的核心理解从公共领域转向私人领域、从共同体转向个人。然而，个人本位的自由在确证个体价值的同时也引发了个人自由与共同体之间的张力。黑格尔和马克思都处于“个人自由”的现代语境之中，而如何消解上述张力，正是他们共同的问题意识和理论目标。黑格尔认为现代个体对自由的认识陷入了自我与他者对立的二元结构误区，只是抽象地从主体一侧去理解自由。要化解个人自由与共同体之间的矛盾，就要重构自我与他者的关系，使个人在“自我—他者—自我”的自返结构中意识到具体自由的实现有赖于他者，是“在他者中守在自己身边”。黑格尔为此提供了理性国家的伦理教化方案。在他看来，国家是“具体自由的现实”，作为市民的原子式个人只有以等级成员身份嵌入国家之中，在伦理制度的陶冶中意识到个人与国家的同一，进而形成伦理意向，也就是对他者的信赖，才现实地是自由的。马克思亦认为现代个体的自由困境源于对自我与他者关系的误认，强调自由的主体间性维度。从这个意义上来说，马克思与黑格尔无疑是“同路人”。但在马克思看来，个人自由与共同体之间的张力并不能在国家中得到化解，而是以二元分裂的形态在个人作为等级成员的双重身份中被确立下来了。通过对黑格尔国家观的批判，马克思洞察到社会而非国家蕴含着消解张力的关键，必须到社会关系中去探究自由的物质基础。借助文献学研究可以发现，马克思在《德意志意识形态》“圣麦克斯”章中提出的“唯物主义的自由”，可以与“费尔巴哈”章中关于自主活动的描述对应起来，它们反映了马克思关于自由的如下观点：在社会性的生产和交往中，个人的联合可以使自己作为完整个性的个人确立下来，把自由的条件置于自己的控制之下。黑格尔和马克思在社会政治方案上的分歧反映了他们对自由内涵的不同理解。对黑格尔来说，主体间关系可以为个人自由提供普遍性向度的补充，是因为它有助于个人发现理性的、普遍的真实自我。而对马克思来说，自由不是对理性真我的发现，而是个人在社会生产和交往活动中的自我形成、自我发展。

In the transition from traditional to modern societies, the core connotation of the concept of freedom has also shifted. In ancient times, the freedom of the individual to participate in political life as a citizen was gradually replaced by the freedom to enjoy private interests and well-being, and the core understanding of freedom shifted from the public sphere to the private sphere, and from the community to the individual. However, while confirming the value of the individual, individual-based freedom also provokes a tension between individual and community. Both Hegel and Marx are in the modern context of “individual freedom”, and how to dissolve the above tension is their common problem consciousness and theoretical goal.According to Hegel, the understanding of freedom in recent times has fallen into the misunderstanding of the dualistic structure of the opposition between the self and the other, and freedom is only understood from the side of the subject in an abstract way. In order to resolve the contradiction between individual freedom and the community, we have to reconstruct the relationship between the self and the other, so that the individual in the self-return structure of “self-other–self” realizes that the realization of concrete freedom depends on the other, that is “to keep oneself by the side of the other”. For this purpose, Hegel provides a program of Bildung in the rational state, considering the state as “the realization of concrete freedom”, in which the individual is embedded in the state as a member of the Estate, and realizes that the interests and purposes of the individual are the same as those of the state. It is only when the individual realizes that his interests and purposes are the same as those of the state, and develops an ethical intention, that is, a sense of trust in the community, that he is actually free.Marx accepts Hegel’s diagnosis and similarly emphasizes the intersubjective dimension of freedom in terms of the relationship between the self and the other. In this sense, Marx and Hegel were undoubtedly on the same road. In Marx’s view, however, the tension between individual freedom and community could not be resolved in the state, but rather was established in the form of a binary split between the individual’s dual role as a member of the Estate. Through his critique of the Hegel’s state, Marx discerns that the society, rather than the state, holds the key to dissolving the tension and that the material basis of freedom must be explored in the context of social relations. A bibliographical study reveals that the “materialist freedom” proposed by Marx in the Chapter Sankt Max of the German Ideology can be corresponded to the description of autonomous activity in the Chapter Feuerbach. They together corresponds to Marx’s view of freedom as the association of individuals in social production and interaction that establishes them as the whole individual, placing the conditions of freedom under their control.“State” or “society”? The differences between Hegel and Marx on the socio-political programs reflect their different understandings of what freedom entails. For Hegel, intersubjective relations can provide a universal complement to individual freedom because they help the individual to discover his or her rational, universal true self. For Marx, on the other hand, freedom is not the discovery of the rational true self, but the self-formation and self-development of the individual in the context of social production and interaction.