Materialism and Idealism
Maurice Cornforth
2. Materialism and Idealism
Materialism is opposed to idealism since, while idealism holds that the spiritual or ideal is prior to the material, materialism holds that matter is prior. This difference manifests itself in opposed ways of interpreting and understanding every question, and so in opposed attitudes in practice.
While idealism takes many subtle forms in the writings of philosophers, it is at bottom a continuation of belief in the supernatural. It involves belief in two worlds, in the ideal or supernatural world over against the real material world.
In essence idealism is a conservative, reactionary force; and its reactionary influence is demonstrated in practice. Marxism adopts a consistent standpoint of militant materialism.
Materialism, and Idealism—Opposed Ways of Interpreting Every Question
Our philosophy is called Dialectical Materialism, said Stalin, “because its approach to the phenomena[11] of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them, is dialectical, while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena, its theory, is materialistic.”[12]
Materialism is not a dogmatic system. It is rather a way of interpreting, conceiving of, explaining every question.
The materialist way of interpreting events, of conceiving of things and their interconnections, is opposed to the idealist way of interpreting and conceiving of them. Materialism is opposed to idealism. With every question, there are materialist and idealist ways of interpreting it, materialist and idealist ways of trying to understand it.
Thus materialism and idealism are not two opposed abstract theories about the nature of the world, of small concern to ordinary practical folk. They are opposed ways of interpreting and understanding every question, and, consequently, they express opposite approaches in practice and lead to very different conclusions in terms of practical activity.
Nor are they, as some use the terms, opposite moral attitudes—the one high-minded, the other base and self-seeking. If we use the terms like this, we will never understand the opposition between capitalist and materialist conceptions.
For this way of speaking is, as Engels said, nothing but “an unpardonable concession to the traditional philistine prejudice against the word materialism resulting from the long-continued defamation by the priests. By the word materialism the philistine understands gluttony, drunkenness, lust of the eye, lust of the flesh, arrogance, cupidity, miserliness, profit-hunting and stock-exchange swindling—in short, all the filthy vices in which he himself indulges in private. By the word idealism he understands the belief in virtue, universal philanthropy and in a general way a ‘better world’, of which he boasts before others.”[13]
Before trying to define materialism and idealism in general terms, let us consider how these two ways of understanding things are expressed in relation to certain simple and familiar questions. This will help us to grasp the significance of the distinction between a materialist and an idealist interpretation.
First let us consider a very familiar natural phenomenon—a thunderstorm. What causes thunderstorms?
An idealist way of answering this question is to say that thunderstorms are due to the anger of God. Being angry, he arranges for lightning and thunderbolts to descend upon mankind.
The materialist way of understanding thunderstorms is opposed to this. The materialist will try to explain and understand thunderstorms as being solely due to what we call natural forces. For example, ancient materialists suggested that far from thunderstorms being due to the anger of the gods, they were caused by material particles in the clouds banging against one another. That this particular explanation was wrong, is not the point: the point is that it was an attempt at materialist as opposed to idealist explanation. Nowadays a great deal more is known about thunderstorms arising from the scientific investigation of the natural forces involved. Knowledge remains very incomplete, but at all events enough is known to make it quite clear that the explanation must be on materialist lines, so that the idealist explanation has become thoroughly discredited.
It will be seen that while the idealist explanation tries to relate the phenomenon to be explained to some spiritual cause—in this case the anger of God—the materialist explanation relates it to material causes.
In this example, most educated people today would agree in accepting the materialist interpretation. This is because they generally accept the scientific explanation of natural phenomena, and every advance of natural science is an advance in the materialist understanding of nature.
Let us take a second example, this time one arising out of social life. For instance: Why are there rich and poor? This is a question which many people ask, especially poor people.
The most straightforward idealist answer to this question is to say simply—It is because God made them so. It is the will of God that some should be rich and others poor.
But other less straightforward idealist explanations are more in vogue. For example: it is because some men are careful and farsighted, and these husband their resources and grow rich, while others are thriftless and stupid, and these remain poor. Those who favor this type of explanation say that it is all due to eternal “human nature.” The nature of man and of society is such that the distinction of rich and poor necessarily arises.
Just as in the case of the thunderstorm, so in the case of the rich and poor, the idealist seeks for some spiritual cause—if not in the will of God, the divine mind, then in certain innate characteristics of the human mind.
The materialist, on the other hand, seeks the reason in the material, economic conditions of social life. If society is divided into rich and poor, it is because the production of the material means of life is so ordered that some have possession of the land and other means of production while the rest have to work for them. However hard they may work and however much they may scrape and save, the non-possessors will remain poor, while the possessors grow rich on the fruits of their labor.
On such questions, therefore, the difference between a materialist and an idealist conception can be very important. And the difference is important not merely in a theoretical but in a practical sense.
A materialist conception of thunderstorms, for example, helps us to take precautions against them, such as fitting buildings with lightning conductors. But if our explanation of thunderstorms is idealist, all we can do is to watch and pray. If we accept an idealist account of the existence of rich and poor, all we can do is to accept the existing state of affairs—rejoicing in our superior status and bestowing a little charity if we are rich, and cursing our fate if we are poor. But armed with a materialist understanding of society we can begin to see the way to change society.
It is clear, therefore, that while some may have a vested interest in idealism, it is in the interests of the great majority to learn to think and to understand things in the materialist way.
How, then, can we define materialism and idealism, and the difference between them, in general terms, so as to define the essence of the question? This was done by Engels.
“The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being.... The answers which the philosophers have given to this question split them into two great camps. Those who asserted the primacy of spirit to nature and therefore in the last instance assumed world creation in some form or another... comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism.”[14]
Idealism is the way of interpreting things which regards the spiritual as prior to the material, whereas materialism regards the material as prior. Idealism supposes that everything material is dependent on and determined by something spiritual, whereas materialism recognizes that everything spiritual is dependent on and determined by something material. And this difference manifests itself both in general philosophical conceptions of the world as a whole, and in conceptions of particular things and events.
Idealism and the Supernatural
At bottom, idealism is religion, theology. “Idealism is clericalism,” wrote Lenin.[15] All idealism is a continuation of the religious approach to questions, even though particular idealist theories have shed their religious skin. Idealism is inseparable from superstition, belief in the supernatural, the mysterious and unknowable.
Materialism, on the other hand, seeks for explanations in terms belonging to the material world, in terms of factors which we can verify, understand and control.
The roots of the idealist conception of things are, then, the same as those of religion.
To believers, the conceptions of religion, that is to say, conceptions of supernatural spiritual beings, generally seem to have their justification, not, of course, in any evidence of the senses, but in something which lies deep within the spiritual nature of man. And, indeed, it is true that these conceptions do have very deep roots in the historical development of human consciousness. But what is their origin, how did such conceptions arise in the first place? We can certainly not regard such conceptions as being the products, as religion itself tells us, of divine revelation, or as arising from any other supernatural cause, if we find that they themselves have a natural origin. And such an origin can in fact be traced.
Conceptions of the supernatural, and religious ideas in general, owe their origin first of all to the helplessness and ignorance of men in face of the forces of nature. Forces which men cannot understand are personified—they are represented as manifestations of the activity of spirits.
For example, such alarming events as thunderstorms were, as we have seen, explained fantastically as due to the anger of gods. Again, such important phenomena as the growth of crops were put down to the activity of a spirit: it was believed that it was the corn spirit that made the corn grow.
From the most primitive times men personified natural forces in this way. With the birth of class society, when men were impelled to act by social relations which dominated them and which they did not understand, they further invented supernatural agencies doubling, as it were, the state of society. The gods were invented superior to mankind, just as the kings and lords were superior to the common people.
All religion, and all idealism, has at its heart this kind of doubling of the world. It is dualistic, and invents a dominating ideal or supernatural world over against the real material world.
Very characteristic of idealism are such antitheses as: soul and body; god and man; the heavenly kingdom and the earthly kingdom; the forms and ideas of things, grasped by the intellect, and the world of material reality, perceptible by the senses.
This “doubling” of the world is carried to its furthest limits in subjective idealism, which ends by regarding the material world as a mere illusion and asserts that only the non-material world is real. The dualistic character of all idealism is most marked in subjective idealism, which posits a complete antithesis between the mechanistic system of the illusory material world and the “freedom” of the higher, non-material reality. This antithesis, disguised as it often is behind allegedly “scientific” and “empiricist” theorizing, characterizes all subjective idealist philosophies, from Berkeley to John Dewey.
For idealism, there is always a higher, more real, non-material world—which is prior to the material world, is its ultimate source and cause, and to which the material world is subject. For materialism, on the other hand, there is one world, the material world.
By idealism in philosophy we mean any doctrine which says that beyond material reality there is a higher, spiritual reality, in terms of which the material reality is in the last analysis to be explained.
Some Varieties of Modern Philosophy
At this point a few observations may be useful concerning some characteristic doctrines of modern bourgeois philosophy.
For nearly three hundred years there has been put forward a variety of philosophy known as “subjective idealism.” This teaches that the material world does not exist at all. Nothing exists but the sensations and ideas in our minds, and there is no external material reality corresponding to them.
And then again, this subjective idealism is put forward in the form of a doctrine concerning knowledge: it denies that we can know anything about objective reality outside ourselves, and says that we can have knowledge of appearances only and not of “things in themselves.”
This sort of idealism has become very fashionable today. It even parades as extremely “scientific.” When capitalism was still a progressive force, bourgeois thinkers used to believe that we could know more and more about the real world, and so control natural forces and improve the lot of mankind indefinitely. Now they are saying that the real world is unknowable, the arena of mysterious forces which pass our comprehension. It is not difficult to see that the fashion for such doctrines is just a symptom of the decay of capitalism.
We have seen that, at bottom, idealism always believes in two worlds, the ideal and the material, and it places the ideal prior to and above the material. Materialism, on the other hand, knows one world only, the material world, and refuses to invent a second, imaginary, superior ideal world.
Materialism and idealism are irreconcilably opposed. But this does not stop many philosophers from trying to reconcile and combine them. In philosophy there are also various attempted compromises between idealism and materialism.
One such attempted compromise is often known as “dualism.” Such a compromise philosophy asserts the existence of the spiritual as separate and distinct from the material—but it tries to place the two on a level. Thus it treats the world of non-living matter in a thoroughly materialist way: this, it says, is the sphere of activity of natural forces, and spiritual factors do not enter into it and have nothing to do with it in any way. But when it comes to mind and society, here, says this philosophy, is the sphere of activity of spirit. Here, it maintains, we must seek explanations in idealist and not in materialist terms.
Such a compromise between materialism and idealism, therefore, amounts to this—that with regard to all the most important questions concerning men, society and history we are to continue to adopt idealist conceptions and to oppose materialism.
Another compromise philosophy is known as “realism.” In its modern form, this philosophy has arisen in opposition to subjective idealism.
The “realist” philosophers say that the external material world really exists independent of our perceptions and is in some way reflected by our perceptions. In this the “realists” agree with the materialists in opposition to subjective idealism; indeed, you cannot be a materialist unless you are a thorough-going realist on the question of the real existence of the material world.
But merely to assert that the external world exists independent of our perceiving it, is not to be a materialist. For example, the great Catholic philosopher of the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas, was in this sense a “realist.” And to this day most Catholic theologians regard it as a heresy to be anything but a “realist” in philosophy. But at the same time they assert that the material world, which really exists, was created by God, and is sustained and ruled all the time by the power of God, by a spiritual power. So, far from being materialists, they are idealists.
As for modern “realism,” it concedes to materialism the bare existence of matter and, for the rest, is ready to concede everything to idealism.
Moreover, the word “realism” is much abused by philosophers. So long as you believe that something or other is “real,” you may call yourself a “realist.” Some philosophers think that not only is the world of material things real, but that there is also, outside space and time, a real world of “universals,” of the abstract essences of things: so these call themselves “realists.” Others say that, although nothing exists but the perceptions in our minds, nevertheless these perceptions are real: so these call themselves “realists” too. All of which goes to show that some philosophers are very tricky in their use of words.
The Basic Teachings of Materialism in Opposition to Idealism
In opposition to all the forms of idealism, and of tricky compromises between materialism and idealism, the basic teachings of materialism can be formulated very simply and clearly.
To grasp the essence of these teachings we should also understand what are the main assertions made in every form of idealism. There are three such main assertions of idealism.
1. Idealism asserts that the material world is dependent on the spiritual.
2. Idealism asserts that spirit, or mind, or idea, can and does exist in separation from matter. (The most extreme form of this assertion is subjective idealism, which asserts that matter does not exist at all but is pure illusion.)
3. Idealism asserts that there exists a realm of the mysterious and unknowable, “above,” or “beyond,” or “behind” what can be ascertained and known by perception, experience and science.
The basic teachings of materialism stand in opposition to these three assertions of idealism.
1. Materialism teaches that the world is by its very nature material, that everything which exists comes into being on the basis of material causes, arises and develops in accordance with the laws of motion of matter.
2. Materialism teaches that matter is objective reality existing outside and independent of the mind; and that far from the mental existing in separation from the material, everything mental or spiritual is a product of material processes.
3. Materialism teaches that the world and its laws are fully knowable, and that while much may not be known there is nothing which is by nature unknowable.
The Marxist-Leninist philosophy is characterized by its absolutely consistent materialism all along the line, by its making no concessions whatever at any point to idealism. Thus Stalin points out:
“(a) Contrary to idealism, which regards the world as the embodiment of an ‘absolute idea,’ a ‘universal spirit,’ ‘consciousness,’ Marx’s philosophical materialism holds that the world is by its very nature material, that the multifold phenomena of the world constitute different forms of matter in motion... and that the world develops in accordance with the laws of movement of matter and stands in no need of a ‘universal spirit.’
“(b) Contrary to idealism, which asserts that only our mind really exists... the Marxist materialist philosophy holds that matter, nature, being is an objective reality existing outside and independent of our mind; that matter is primary, since it is the source of sensations, ideas, mind, and that mind is secondary, derivative, since it is a reflection of matter, a reflection of being; that thought is a product of matter which in its development has reached a high degree of perfection, namely, of the brain, and the brain is the organ of thought; and that, therefore, one cannot separate thought from matter without committing a grave error.
“(c) Contrary to idealism, which denies the possibility of knowing the world and its laws... Marxist philosophical materialism holds that the world and its laws are fully knowable, that our knowledge of the laws of nature, tested by experiment and practice, is authentic knowledge having the validity of objective truth, and that there are no things in the world which are unknowable, but only things which are still not known, but which will be disclosed and made known by the efforts of science and practice.”[16]
Materialism and Idealism in Practice
As was pointed out above, the opposition of materialism and idealism—which has now been stated in its most general terms—is not an opposition between abstract theories of the nature of the world, but is an opposition between different ways of understanding and interpreting every question. That is why it is of such profound importance.
Let us consider some of the very practical ways in which the opposition of materialism and idealism is manifested.
Idealists tell us, for example, not to place “too much” reliance on science. They tell us that the most important truths are beyond the reach of science. Hence they encourage us not to believe things on the basis of evidence, experience, practice, but to take them on trust from those who pretend to know best and to have some “higher” source of information.
In this way idealism is a very good friend and standby of every form of reactionary propaganda. It is the philosophy of the capitalist press and the radio. It favors superstitions of all sorts, prevents us from thinking for ourselves and taking a scientific approach to moral and social problems.
Again, idealists tell us that what is most important for us all is the inner life of the soul. They tell us that we shall never solve our human problems except by some inner regeneration. This is a favorite theme in the speeches of well-fed persons. But many workers fall for it too—in factories, for example, where a “Moral Rearmament” group is active. They tell you not to fight for better conditions, but to improve your soul. They do not tell you that the best way to improve yourself both materially and morally is to join in the fight for peace and socialism.
Again, an idealist approach is common amongst many socialists. Many sincere socialists, for example, think that what is essentially wrong with capitalism is that goods are unfairly distributed, and that if only we could get everyone, including the capitalists, to accept a new conception of fairness and justice, then we could do away with the evils of capitalism. Socialism to them is nothing but the realization of an abstract idea of justice.
The idealism of this belief lies in its assumption that it is simply the ideas which we hold that determine the way we live and the way society is organized. Those who think in this way forget to look for the material causes. For what in fact determines the way goods are distributed in capitalist society—the wealth enjoyed by one part of society, while the other and greater part lives in poverty—is not the ideas which men hold about the distribution of wealth, but the material fact that the mode of production rests on the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist. So long as this mode of production remains in existence, so long will extremes of wealth and poverty remain, and so long will socialist ideas of justice be opposed by capitalist ideas of justice. The task of socialists, therefore, is to organize and lead the struggle of the working class against the capitalist class to the point where the working class takes power from the capitalist class.
If we do not understand this, then we cannot find the way to fight effectively for socialism. We shall find that our socialist ideals are constantly disappointed and betrayed. Such, indeed, has been the experience of British socialism.
It can be seen from these examples how idealism serves as a weapon of reaction; and how when socialists embrace idealism they are being influenced by the ideology of the capitalists. We can no more take over and use capitalist ideas for the purposes of socialist theory than we can take over and use the capitalist state machine, with all its institutions and officials, for the purposes of building socialism.
Right through history, indeed, idealism has been a weapon of reaction. Whatever fine systems of philosophy have been invented, idealism has been used as a means of justifying the rule of an exploiting class and deceiving the exploited.
This is not to say that truths have not been expressed in an idealist guise. Of course they have. For idealism has very deep roots in our ways of thinking, and so men often clothe their thoughts and aspirations in idealist dress. But the idealist form is always an impediment, a hindrance in the expression of truth—a source of confusion and error.
Again, progressive movements in the past have adopted and fought under an idealist theory. But this has shown only that they contained in themselves the seeds of future reaction (inasmuch as they represented the striving of a new exploiting class to come to power) or that they were themselves influenced by ideas of reaction; or it has been a mark of their weakness and immaturity.
For example, the great revolutionary movement of the English bourgeoisie in the seventeenth century fought under idealist, religious slogans. But the same appeal to God which justified Cromwell in the execution of the King justified him also in stamping out the Levelers.
Early democrats and socialists had many idealist notions. But in their case this demonstrated the immaturity and weakness of the movement. The idealist illusions had to be overcome if the revolutionary working-class movement was to arise and triumph. As the movement grew strong, the continuance within it of idealist notions represented an alien, reactionary influence.
We can truly say that idealism is essentially a conservative force—an ideology helping the defense of things as they are, and the preservation of illusions in men’s minds about their true condition.
On the other hand, every real social advance—every increase in the productive forces, every advance of science—generates materialism and is helped along by materialist ideas. And the whole history of human thought has been the history of the fight of materialism against idealism, of the overcoming of idealist illusions and fantasies.
The Fight for Materialism
Marxists, as the organized vanguard of the working class fighting to end all exploitation of man by man and to establish communism, have no use for idealism in any form.
Here, for example, are some of the ways in which Lenin expressed himself on this question.
“The genius of Marx and Engels consisted in the very fact that in the course of a long period, nearly half a century, they developed materialism, that they further advanced one fundamental trend in philosophy....
“Take the various philosophical utterances by Marx... and you will find an invariable basic motif, viz. insistence upon materialism and contemptuous derision of all obscurantism, of all confusion and all deviations towards idealism....
“Marx and Engels were partisans in philosophy from start to finish; they were able to detect the deviations from materialism and concessions to idealism... in each and every ‘new’ tendency....
“The realists etc., including the positivists, are all a wretched mush; they are a contemptible middle party in philosophy, who confuse the materialist and idealist trends on every question. The attempt to escape these two basic trends in philosophy is nothing but conciliatory quackery.”[17]
On every issue we are partisans of materialism against idealism. This is because we know that it is in the light of materialist theory, which studies things as they are, without idealist fantasies about them, that we can understand the forces in nature and society so as to be able to transform society and to master the forces of nature.
And because of this, too, materialism teaches us to have confidence in ourselves, in the working class—in people. It teaches us that there are no mysteries beyond our understanding, that we need not accept that which is as being the will of God, that we should contemptuously reject the “authoritative” teachings of those who set up to be our masters, and that we can ourselves understand nature and society so as to be able to change them.
We hate idealism, because under cover of high-sounding talk it preaches the subjection of man to man and belittles the power of humanity.
It was the materialist confidence in humanity which was expressed by Maxim Gorky when he wrote:
“For me, there are no ideas beyond man; for me, man and only man is the miracle worker and the future master of all forces of nature. The most beautiful things in this our world are the things made by labor, made by skilled human hands, and all our ideas are born out of the process of labor.
“And if it is thought necessary to speak of sacred things, then the one sacred thing is the dissatisfaction of man with himself and his striving to be better than he is; sacred is his hatred of all the trivial rubbish which he himself has created; sacred is his desire to do away with greed, envy, crime, disease, war and all enmity between men on earth; and sacred is his labor.”[18]
[11] A phenomenon, plural phenomena, is anything which we observe.
[12] Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
[13] Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, Chapter II.
[14] Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, Chapter II.
[15] V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 11, “On Dialectics,” N. Y., 1943.
[16] Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
[17] Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 11, “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,” Chapter VI, Section 4.
[18] Maxim Gorky, Literature and Life, “How I Learned to Write,” London, 1946.
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