The Negation of Negation

Materialism and the Dialectical Method

Maurice Cornforth

10. The Negation of Negation 

The dialectical conception of development through negation is opposed to the liberal conception of development. For the liberal, negation is simply a blow which destroys something. But on the contrary, negation is the condition for positive advance, in which the old is abolished only after it has already produced the conditions for the transition to the new, and in which all the positive achievement belonging to the old stage is carried forward into the new. 

Moreover, a stage already passed can be re-created on a higher level as a result of double negation, the negation of the negation. According to the liberal conception of development, if a given stage of development is to be raised to a higher level this must take place gradually and peacefully, without the process of negation. But on the contrary, it is only through a double negation that the higher stage can be reached. 

The repetition of the old stage on a higher level taking place through the negation of negation is a comprehensive and important law of development, the operation of which is exemplified in many processes of nature, history and thought. 

The Positive Character of Negation 

“Negation in dialectics does not mean simply saying no,” wrote Engels.[63]

When in the process of development the old stage is negated by the new, then, in the first place, that new stage could not have come about except as arising from and in opposition to the old. The conditions for the existence of the new arose and matured within the old. The negation is a positive advance, brought about only by the development of that which is negated. The old is not simply abolished, leaving things as though it had never existed: it is abolished only after it has itself given rise to the conditions for the new stage of advance. 

In the second place, the old stage, which is negated, itself constitutes a stage of advance in the forward-moving process of development as a whole. It is negated, but the advance which took place in it is not negated. On the contrary, this advance is carried forward to the new stage, which takes into itself and carries forward all the past achievement. 

For example: socialism replaces capitalism—it negates it. But the conditions for the rise and victory of socialism were born of capitalism, and socialism comes into existence as the next stage of social development after capitalism. Every achievement, every advance in the forces of production, and likewise every cultural achievement, which took place under capitalism, is not destroyed when capitalism is destroyed, but, on the contrary, is preserved and carried further. 

This positive content of negation is not understood by liberals, for whom negation is “simply saying no.” Moreover, they think of negation as coming only from outside, externally. Something is developing very well, and then something else comes from outside and negates it—destroys it. That is their conception. That something by its own development leads to its own negation, and thereby to a higher stage of development—lies outside their comprehension. 

Thus the liberals conceive of social revolution not only as a catastrophe, as an end to ordered progress, but they believe that such a catastrophe can be brought about only by outside forces. If a revolution threatens to upset the capitalist system, that is not because of the development of the contradictions of that system itself, but is due to “agitators.” 

Of course, there is negation which takes the form simply of a blow from outside which destroys something. For instance, if I am walking along the road and am knocked down by a car, I suffer negation of a purely negative sort. Such occurrences are frequent both in nature and in society. But this is not how we must understand negation if we are to understand the positive role of negation in the process of development. 

At each stage in the process of development there arises the struggle of the new with the old. The new arises and grows strong within the old conditions, and when it is strong enough it overcomes and destroys the old. This is the negation of the past stage of development, of the old qualitative state; and it means the coming into being of the new and higher stage of development, the new qualitative state. 

Negation of Negation 

This brings us to a further dialectical feature of development—the negation of negation. 

According to the liberal idea that negation “means simply saying no,” if the negation is negated, then the original position is restored once more without change. According to this idea, negation is simply a negative, a taking away. Hence if the negation, the taking away, is itself negated, that merely means putting back again what was taken away. If a thief takes my watch, and then I take it away from him, we are back where we started—I have the watch again. Similarly, if I say, “It’s going to be a fine day,” and you say, “No, it’s going to be a wet day,” to which I reply, “No, it’s not going to be a wet day,” I have simply, by negating your negation, re-stated my original proposition. 

This is enshrined in the principle of formal logic, “not not-A equals A.” According to this principle, negation of negation is a fruitless proceeding. It just takes you back where you started. 

Let us, however, consider a real process of development and the dialectical negation which takes place in it. 

Society develops from primitive communism to the slave system. The next stage is feudalism. The next stage is capitalism. Each stage arises from the previous one, and negates it. So far we have simply a succession of stages, each following as the negation of the other and constituting a higher stage of development. But what comes next? Communism. Here there is a return to the beginning, but at a higher level of development. In place of primitive communism, based on extremely primitive forces of production, comes communism based on extremely advanced forces of production and containing within itself tremendous new potentialities of development. The old, primitive classless society has become the new and higher classless society. It has been raised, as it were, to a higher power, has reappeared on a higher level. But this has happened only because the old classless society was negated by the appearance of classes and the development of class society, and because finally class society, when it had gone through its whole development, was itself negated by the working class taking power, ending exploitation of man by man, and establishing a new classless society on the foundation of all the achievements of the whole previous development. 

This is the negation of negation. But it does not take us back to the original starting point. It takes us forward to a new starting point, which is the original one raised, through its negation and the negation of the negation, to a higher level. 

Thus we see that in the course of development, as a result of a double negation, a later stage can repeat an earlier stage, but repeat it on a higher level of development. 

There is “a development that seemingly repeats the stages already passed, but repeats them otherwise (in a new way), on a higher basis... a development, so to speak, in spirals, not in a straight line.”[64]

This is a conception of development, like that of dialectical negation in general, which the liberal outlook cannot stomach. To the liberal outlook development seems to be a smooth, upward course proceeding through a series of small changes. If a given stage of development is to be raised to a higher level, then this must take place gradually and peacefully, through the “harmonious unfolding” of all the higher potentialities latent in the original stage. But on the contrary, the facts show that it is only through struggle and through negation that the higher stage is won. The development takes place not as “a harmonious unfolding” but as “a disclosure of contradictions,” in which the lower stage is negated—destroyed; in which the development which follows its negation is itself negated; and in which the higher stage is reached only as a result of that double negation. 

As Hegel put it, the higher end of development is reached only through “the suffering, the patience and the labor of the negative.”[65]

A Comprehensive and Important Law of Development 

In discussing the negation of negation we must again stress what was said earlier, namely, that the essence of dialectics is to study a process “in all its concreteness,” to work out how it actually takes place, and not to impose on it some preconceived scheme and then try to “prove” the necessity of the real process reproducing the ideal scheme. We do not say in advance that every process will exemplify the negation of negation. Still less do we use this conception to try to “prove” anything. 

Referring to Marx’s demonstration of the occurrence of the negation of negation in history, Engels said: 

“In characterizing the process as the negation of the negation, therefore, Marx does not dream of attempting to prove by this that the process was historically necessary. On the contrary: after he has proved from history that in fact the process has partially already occurred, and partially must occur in the future, he then also characterizes it as a process which develops in accordance with a definite historical law. That is all.”[66] Dialectics teaches us that we shall understand the laws of development of each particular process by studying that process itself, in its development. But when we do that, we shall discover the repetition of the old stage on a higher level taking place through the negation of negation. 

“What, therefore, is the negation of the negation?” wrote Engels. “An extremely general—and for this reason extremely comprehensive and important—law of development of nature, history and thought.... It is obvious that in describing any evolutionary process as the negation of the negation I do not say anything concerning the particular process of development.... When I say that all these processes are the negation of negation, I bring them all together under this one law of motion, and for this very reason I leave out of account the peculiarities of each separate process. Dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.”[67]

How “extremely comprehensive and important” is this law of development can be shown in numerous examples. 

We have already seen how the negation of the negation occurs in history in the development from primitive communism to communism. It occurs again in the development of individual property. Marx pointed out that the pre-capitalist “individual private property founded on the labors of the proprietor” is negated—destroyed—by capitalist private property. For capitalist private property arises only on the ruin and expropriation of the pre-capitalist individual producers. The individual producer used to own his instruments of production and his product—both were taken away from him by the capitalists. But when capitalist private property is itself negated—-when “the expropriators are expropriated”—then the individual property of the producers is restored once more, but in a new form, on a higher level. 

“This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisitions of the capitalist era, i.e. on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production.”[68]

The producer, as a participant in socialized production, then enjoys, as his individual property, a share of the social product—“according to his labor,” in the first stage of communist society, and “according to his needs” in the fully developed communist society. 

When capitalism arose, the only way forward was through this negation of negation. Some of the British Chartists put forward in their land policy demands aimed at arresting the new capitalist process and at restoring the old private property of the producer. This was vain. The only road forward for the producers was by the struggle against capitalism and for socialism—not to restore the old individual property which capitalism had destroyed, but to destroy capitalism and so create individual property again on a new, socialist basis. 

Again, in the history of thought, the “primitive, natural materialism” of the earliest philosophers is negated by philosophical idealism, and modern materialism arises as the negation of that idealism. 

“This modern materialism, the negation of negation, is not the mere re-establishment of the old, but adds to the permanent foundations of this old materialism the whole thought content of two thousand years of development of philosophy and natural science.”[69]

The negation of negation, as Engels also pointed out, is a very familiar phenomenon to the plant breeder. If he has some seed and wants to get from it some better seed, then he has to grow the seed under definite conditions for its development—which means bringing about the negation of the seed by its growing into a plant and then controlling the conditions of development of the plant until it brings about its own negation in the production of more seed. 

Some experts, it is true, have lately advocated going another and more direct way about it, namely, changing the seed directly by treating it with chemicals or X-rays. The result of this, however, is simply a number of haphazard changes in the properties of the seed, and not a controlled process of development. 

“Furthermore, the whole of geology is a series of negated negations,” wrote Engels, “a series arising from the successive shattering of old and the depositing of new rock formations.... But the result of this process has been a very positive one: the creation, out of the most varied chemical elements, of a mixed and mechanically pulverized soil which makes possible the most abundant and diverse vegetation.” 

“It is the same in mathematics,” he continued. If you want to raise a number a to a higher power, then this can be done by first operating on a so as to get —-a, and then making the additional operation of multiplying —a by itself, which results in a2. Thus a2, the second power of a, is reached by a negation of negation. In this case it is also possible to get a2 from a by a single process, namely, multiplying a by a. Nevertheless, as Engels pointed out, “the negated negation is so securely entrenched in a2 that the latter always has two square roots, namely a and —a.”[70]

The negation of negation is found in the series of chemical elements, in which properties of elements of lower atomic weight disappear and then reappear again in elements of higher atomic weight. 

And the development of life itself obeys the law of negation of negation. The most primitive living organisms are comparatively speaking immortal, continuing themselves in being by continually dividing. The development of higher organisms, with sexual reproduction, was possible only at the cost of death. The organism becomes mortal. The higher development of life takes place through its negation, death. 

And after that, these mortal organisms advance further. The process of the evolution of species of plants and animals begins. With the birth of man, social evolution begins, the whole process of social development from primitive communism, through its negation, class society, to the classless society of communism. Moreover, man begins to master nature. And when, with communism, he brings his own social organization under his own conscious control, then an entirely new epoch in the evolution of life opens up.

[63] Engels, Anti-Dühring, Part I, Chapter XIII.

[64] V. I. Lenin, The Teachings of Karl Marx, N. Y., 1930.

[65] Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, Preface.

[66] Engels, Anti-Dühring, Part I, Chapter XIII.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Chapter XXXII.

[69] Engels, Anti-Dühring, Part I, Chapter XIII.

[70] Ibid.