马克思的历史唯物主义不仅对无产阶级开展革命斗争具有重要的理论指导意义，而且对于哲学的发展同样具有重要意义。因此自从历史唯物主义问世以来，就有很多学者将其作为理论研究的对象，哈贝马斯就是其中之一。

哈贝马斯的历史唯物主义重建理论同卢卡奇、科尔施等许多西方马克思主义者一样，试图将马克思的历史唯物主义从被僵化、被程式化的模式中拯救出来。但是哈贝马斯与其他西方马克思主义者的不同之处在于他的重建实现了一种范式转换，即实现了从意识哲学向语言哲学、从主体性向主体间性的转换。哈贝马斯将历史唯物主义视为一种社会进化理论，并且力图论证道德——实践领域的“学习机制”是社会进化的真正动力。在哈贝马斯看来，晚期资本主义社会中出现的主要危机已经由经济危机转移到了动机危机，因此亟须解决的问题就从生产力与生产关系的矛盾转变为自我同一性和社会同一性的发展问题。因此他借助皮亚杰的发生认识论和科尔伯格的道德认知发展理论来说明社会的发展是行为主体通过不断学习的建构过程，其中在道德-实践领域的学习是解决同一性问题的关键。只有建构起社会同一性，人与人之间才能够借助交往达成相互理解的目标。

纵观哈贝马斯重建历史唯物主义的整个过程，可以发现“学习机制”在其中发挥着非常重要的作用，它是哈贝马斯将历史唯物主义理解为社会进化论的关键概念。因为在他看来社会进化的实现已经不能单纯地依靠客观世界中的生产力与生产关系，还要借助于行为主体在生产和道德实践领域的学习，从而建构起一个具有进化动力的系统。从这一视角来看，哈贝马斯在一定程度上丰富和发展了历史唯物主义，但不可否认的是他最终彻底偏离了历史唯物主义，从理论重建走向了理论替换，即走向了构建“交往行为理论”。

Marx's historical materialism not only has important theoretical guiding significance for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, but also has important significance for the development of philosophy.So since the advent of historical materialism, many scholars have taken it as a theoretical research object, and Habermas is one of them.

Habermas's reconstruction of historical materialism, like many Western Marxists such as Lukács and Korsch, sought to save Marx's historical materialism from the rigid and stylized model. But what sets Habermas apart from other Western Marxists is that his reconstruction achieves a paradigm shift ,that is, from philosophy of consciousness to philosophy of language, from subjectivity to intersubjectivity. Habermas regarded historical materialism as a theory of social evolution, and tried to prove that the "learning mechanism" in the field of morality and practice was the real driving force of social evolution. According to Habermas, the main crisis in the late capitalist society has been transferred from economic crisis to motivation crisis, so the problem to be solved has changed from the contradiction between productive forces and production relations to the development of self-identity and social identity. Therefore, with the help of Piaget's genetic epistemology and Kohlberg's theory of moral cognitive development, he explained that social development is the construction process of the behavioral subject through continuous learning, among which the study in the field of moral-practice is the key to solve the identity problem. Only by constructing social identity can people reach the goal of mutual understanding through communication.

Throughout the whole process of Habermas' reconstruction of historical materialism, it can be found that "learning mechanism" plays a very important role in it, which is the key concept of Habermas' understanding of historical materialism as social evolution. In his opinion, the realization of social evolution can no longer simply rely on the productive forces and production relations in the objective world, but also rely on the study of acting subject in the field of production and moral practice, so as to construct a system with evolutionary power. From this perspective, Habermas enriched and developed historical materialism to some extent, but it is undeniable that he finally deviated completely from historical materialism, from theoretical reconstruction to theoretical replacement, that is, to the construction of "communicative action theory".