THE CHARACTER OF MATERIALISTIC THINKING

 A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY

Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of

M. Shirokov 1941

But if wish-fulfilment thinking and the false pursuit of abstractions have · led men to idealism, the inexörable demands of the real world have as often pulled theın back to realism. Idealism has developed and flourished but so has science. And always with the growth of science we perceive a clearer apprehension of the philosophy of science known as materialism and the sworn foe of idealism. To-day we have learned to trust the scientist and to look to hiın to get us out of our diffi.culties. He has · had a long struggle witlı ignorance and class interests, but he has triumphed over all of us.

His attitude is totally different from the idealist. He looks at the concrete world with all its imperfections, not at the ideal world. He looks forward to a richer and fuller life here on earth, not to the spiritual contemplation of absolute values in eternity. He believes it can be realised by man's co-operative effort, utilizing the resources of the earth.

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THE CONFLICT BETWEEN IDEALISM AND MATERIALISM

 A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY

Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of

M. Shirokov 1941

I. THE CHARACTER OF IDEALISTIC THINKING 

MAN wHo Lıves in a world of peril is compelled to seek for safety. The way most familiar to us is the control of nature. We build houses, weave garments, make flame and electricity our friends instead of our enemies and . develop the complicated arts of social living. This is the method of changing the world through action. 

But there is another method. The method of changing the self in emotion and idea because it is too difficult to change the world. This is the way first of religion and subsequently of philosophy. It begins with propitiation, but passes at length from the attempt to conquer destiny to the resolve to ally oneself with it and so perchance escape destruction. Out of religion philosophy developed as man came to reflect upon this sharp contrast between a feeble, uncertain practice and an imaginative apprehension ofa supernatural world of potencies and certainties. In other words out of the conflict of knowledge and practice arises the major problem of philosophy and the conflict between idealism aiıd materialism.

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Causality And Necessity In Nature

Lenin

MATERIALISM and EMPIRIO-CRITICISM

Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy

( Chapter Three: The Theory of Knowledge of Dialectical Materialism and of Empirio-Criticism. III )

3. Causality And Necessity In Nature

The question of causality is particularly important in determining the philosophical line of any new “ism,” and we must therefore dwell on it in some detail.

Let us begin with an exposition of the materialist theory of knowledge on this point. L. Feuerbach’s views are expounded with particular clarity in his reply to R. Haym already referred to.

‘Nature and human reason,’ says Haym, ‘are for him (Feuerbach) completely divorced, and between them a gulf is formed which cannot be spanned from one side or the other.’ Haym grounds this reproach on § 48 of my Essence of Religion where it is said that ‘nature may be conceived only through nature itself, that its necessity is neither human nor logical, neither metaphysical nor mathematical, that nature alone is the being to which it is impossible to apply any human measure, although we compare and give names to its phenomena, in order to make them comprehensible to us, and in general apply human expressions and conceptions to them, as for example: order, purpose, law; and are obliged to do so because of the character of our language.’

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Did Nature Exist Prior to Man?

V.I. Lenin

Materialism and Empirio-criticism

Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy

Chapter 1.4

We have already seen that this question is particularly repugnant to the philosophy of Mach and Avenarius. Natural science positively asserts that the earth once existed in such a state that no man or any other creature existed or could have existed on it. Organic matter is a later phenomenon, the fruit of a long evolution. It follows that there was no sentient matter, no “complexes of sensations,” no self that was supposedly “indissolubly” connected with the environment in accordance with Avenarius’ doctrine. Matter is primary, and thought, consciousness, sensation are products of a very high development. Such is the materialist theory of knowledge, to which natural science instinctively subscribes.

The question arises, have the eminent representatives of empirio-criticism observed this contradiction between their theory and natural science? They have observed it, and they have definitely asked themselves by what arguments this contradiction can be removed. Three attitudes to this question are of particular interest from the point of view of materialism, that of Avenarius himself and those of his disciples J. Petzoldt and R. Willy.

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The German Ideology - Idealism and Materialism

The German Ideology

Part I: Feuerbach.

Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook

A. Idealism and Materialism

The Illusions of German Ideology

As we hear from German ideologists, Germany has in the last few years gone through an unparalleled revolution. The decomposition of the Hegelian philosophy, which began with Strauss, has developed into a universal ferment into which all the “powers of the past” are swept. In the general chaos mighty empires have arisen only to meet with immediate doom, heroes have emerged momentarily only to be hurled back into obscurity by bolder and stronger rivals. It was a revolution beside which the French Revolution was child’s play, a world struggle beside which the struggles of the Diadochi [successors of Alexander the Great] appear insignificant. Principles ousted one another, heroes of the mind overthrew each other with unheard-of rapidity, and in the three years 1842-45 more of the past was swept away in Germany than at other times in three centuries.

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The Relation of Theory and Practice

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941

The Relation of Theory and Practice

This insistence on the importance of " hard facts " is a reaction from speculative theories and pure abstraction, but sound theory is only the eye of practice and practice is blind without it. 

Just as a doctor must unite a sound knowledge of human physiology and pathology with his prac­tical experience and cannot know too much to be a good physician, so a politician must understand all there is to know of the laws of social change and the structure of society if his leadership is to take the class whose interests he represents anywhere but on to the rocks. . . .

The truth is that if form and content, which in this case are theory and practice, can be divided so as to be merely related they are of little importance. Philosophy and practice that fall below a certain standard can be discussed in this way; above that standard, theory and practice are not opposed, nor merely related; they are one. There ıs more than a bond-there is union and fusion.

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A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY

Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941 (Download as pdf)

Preface Introduction
What is Dialectic?
Why Materialism?, Emergent Evolution
The Dialectic of Social Change
Dialectics and Metaphysics, Dialectical Materialism and Contemporary Philosophy
Philosophy and Politics, The Impossibility of Dogmatism
Does Philosophy matter ? Why not do without Philosophy ?

The Relation of Theory and Practice, Until Philosophers are Kings

SE C T I O N  I

H I ST OR I C A L

Chapter I
The Conflict between Idealism and Materialism 
The character of Materialist Thinking
Subjective İdealism
Kant and Hegel
Recent İdealism

Dialectic as a Theory of Knowledge 

Moments of Knowledge of Actuality 

The Doctrine of Truth 

S E C T I O N I I

U N I TY  A N D  T H E  ST R I F E  O F  O P P OS I TE S

Chapter
I. The Law of the Unity and Conflict of Opposites 

II. The Division of Unity, the Disclosure of Essential Opposites 

III. Mutual Penetration of Opposites 

IV. Analysis of the Movement of the Contradiction of a process from its Beginning to its End 

V. The Relativity of the Unity of Opposites and the Absoluteness of their Conflict

VI. Theory of Equilibrium 

S E C T I O N III

TH E  LA W   O F  T H E T R A N S I T I O N OF QU A N T I T Y  I N T O  QUA L I T Y

Chapter
 I. From Naive Dialectic to the Metaphysics of Properties 

II. From the Metaphysic of Properties to the Metaphysic of Relations 

III. Quality and the Self Movement of Matter 

IV. The Relativity of Qualities -and the Universal Connection of Things

V. The Dialectic of Quality and Property 

VI. The Transition of Quantity into Quality 

VII. Contradiction and the Evolutionary Leap 

VIII. The Dialectic of the " Leap " 

IX. The Transition of Quality into Quantity 

X. The Problem of " Levelling Down " 

XL The Nodal Line of Measurements 

S E C T I O N   I V

T H E N E GA T I O N O F T H E N E G A T I O N

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PREFACE - A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY

Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of

M. Shirokov 1941

This V O L U M E was originally prepared by the Lenin­ grad Institute of Philosophy as a textbook in Dialectical Materialism for institutions of higher education directly connected with the Communist Party and also for use in the Technical Institutes which correspond to Universities in Great Britain.

This particular textbook was specially selected by the Society for Cultural Relations in Moscow (VOKS) as the · best example they could find of the philosophical teaching now being given in the Soviet Union not only to students

of philosophy but to engineers, doctors, chemists, teachers, n fact to all who pass through the higher technical schools and institutes.

In the original work Part I, which consisted of an historical introduction to Marxist Philosophy and the Theory of Knowledge, was of considerable length and included illustrations which would not be familiar to English students. But as it is really quite impossible to comprehend the philosophy of Marx and Engels without some knowledge of the development of philosophy up to Hegel, this section has been considerably condensed and entirely rewritten by the English editor who takes entire responsibility for this part of the work. The original authors did not cover this familiar ground in the manner of a conventional history of philosophy but from the Marxist point of view, and this whole method of approach has, of course, been faithfully followed in the rewritten section.

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Does Philosophy matter ?

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941

We are now more in a position to see why such practical people as the Russian communists are deeply concerned about philosophy. It is frequently assumed that a practical man can do very well without a philosophy, that the religious and metaphysical beliefs of a scientist or a politician have no kind of relation to their life's work, and that speculation constitutes a more or less leisure time occupation like music or golf.

But the Russian knows that a man's creed matters, that it may be a positive force behind exploitation and parasitism and that you cannot destroy the social disease if you do not accompany your political and industrial measures with the refutation of capitalist philosophy and the propagation of an alternative. It is for this reason that philosophical discussion plays such an important part in Russia to-day. In every higher technical school, institute, and university philosophy is a compulsory subject in the curriculum. Works chemists, textile engineers, agricultural experts and school teachers are thoroughly trained in philosophy. They know the fallacies of the system they repudiate and they have a system of their own to be " the master light of all their seeing."

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Philosophy and Politics

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941

No exposition of dialectical materialism can proceed for long without an excursion into political 

controversy. Again and again in this textbook we shall meet with practical applications to contemporary Russian problems. At first this may appear disconcerting and irrelevant, but a great deal would be lost if the theory remained on the abstract plane and never allowed itself to be mingled with practice.

In fact this is quite impossible, for this philosophy first of all reflects every kind of material and social change and helps us to understand it, and of such changes none are so important as political changes. Secondly, however, since political change requires above all things just such an understanding of events, a philosophy of this sort will itself be an indispensable agent of such change. Hence the political importance of this philosophy. Under these circumstances it is not difficult to understand two peculiarities of communist philosophy, :firstly it is taken seriously by everyone in Russia and is studied and debated universally with great insistence on correct conclusions; secondly, no discussion proceeds very far without plunging into political controversy.

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Dialectics and Metaphysics

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941

Dialectical materialism takes up a somewhat hostile attitude to metaphysics. Why is this ? It is because " the persistent problems of philosophy " are not, as is usually supposed, merely problems for thought, but problems in­ separably connected with stages in social development which carry with them contradictions insoluble at these particular levels.

For instance the failure of a pre-scientific world to under­ stand nature creates special intellectual problems for the philosophy of that period which only clear up when science advances. 

Or again, before the discovery of emergent evolution philosophy will be troubled with dualism and vitalism, and there will be no help for it.

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The Dialectic of Social Change

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941

It is not only in physical and biological phenomena that dialectical development takes place. It is the driving force behind human evolution and social development.

Man is partly determined by his environment. But his relation to his environment is not a static one. In the first place the environment itself is as much the creation of man as man is the creation of the environment. Interaction is continuous. The changes wrought by man react on man himself and then man proceeds to yet further changes. Man fells forests and practices a crude husbandry, as a consequence soil erosion sets in and man launches vast irrigation projects like the Tennessee Valley experiment, which in turn change the social habit and industrial structure of a whole area, introducing electrification, scientific agriculture, new industries and a new level of social development. But this awakens the fierce antagonism of vested interests outside the Tennessee Valley so that the relation of the district to its environment, politically, brings into existence new internal movements and institutions. It is such mutual influences arid corresponding adjustments which lead, not only to gradual change, but, after a cumulative process of parallel modification, to a revolution.

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Why Materialism ?

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941

By materialism we usually mean either the reduction of all phenomena to inert matter and its movements, or the evaluation of life in terms of eating and drinking. Dialectical materialism means neither of these things. Where it differs from every form of Idealism is in its belief that in the evolution of the universe the non-living preceded the living. There was a time when there was no mind. Mind is a characteristic of matter at a high stage of its develo­ ment. Dialectical materialism fully recognizes the progres­ sive enrichment of evolving matter from level to level, and fully accepts the reality of mind and of spiritual values.

It is only mechanistic materialism thinking statically instead of dialectically that shuts its eyes to such obvious facts. Dialectical thinking is strictly empirical, and this may be regarded as another aspect of its materialism. Whatever facts emerge in experience must be recognized, but transcendental objects it does not recognize. In the Middle Ages there was a fierce controversy between nominal­ists and realists. The nominalists said that concepts are only products of human thought, and that real existences are always concrete and individual. The realists asserted that ideas and ideals have an actual existence of their own. Plato held that Beauty exists in the ideal world from which it descends to dwell for a moment only in beautiful objects,which all eventually lose their beauty.

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What is Dialectic ?

A TEXT BOOK O F MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy under the Direction of
M. Shirokov 1941
Dialectical thought is the study of things in their relations and in process of development and change. " The opposite of dialectics is the isolated consideration of things, and the consideration of things only in their fixity." It is dialectical to look out for the special characteristics of a thing in a new set of relations and then to adapt one's forms of thought to the new form which reality has taken. Dialectics, there'­ fore, is not an abstract system of logic which men are asked to accept, it is necessary because the nature of the world requires it. There are no fixed properties in the concrete world, therefore there should be no fixed concepts in our science. There are no final scientific laws, therefore our thought must avoid dogmatic finality.

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Dialectical and Historical Materialism

Stalin

Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party. It is called dialectical materialism because its approach to the phenomena 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.

Historical materialism is the extension of the principles of dialectical materialism to the study of social life, an application of the principles of dialectical materialism to the phenomena of the life of society, to the study of society and of its history.

When describing their dialectical method, Marx and Engels usually refer to Hegel as the philosopher who formulated the main features of dialectics. This, however, does not mean that the dialectics of Marx and Engels is identical with the dialectics of Hegel. As a matter of fact, Marx and Engels took from the Hegelian dialectics only its "rational kernel," casting aside its Hegelian idealistic shell, and developed dialectics further so as to lend it a modern scientific form.

"My dialectic method," says Marx, "is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, ... the process of thinking which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos (creator) of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought." (Marx, Afterword to the Second German Edition of Volume I of Capital.)

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Introduction to the French Edition

History of Materialism

The pages which form the subject of the present pamphlet, first published as three articles in the Revue socialiste, have been translated from the latest book by Engels Revolution in Science [i.e., Anti-Dühring].

Frederick Engels, one of the foremost representatives of contemporary socialism, distinguished himself in 1844 with his Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, which first appeared in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, published in Paris by Marx and Ruge. The Outlines already formulates certain general principles of scientific socialism. Engels was then living in Manchester, where he wrote (in German) The Condition of the Working-Class in England (1845), an important work to which Marx did full justice in Capital. During his first stay in England he also contributed — as he later did from Brussels — to The Northern Star, the official journal of the socialist [i.e. Chartist] movement, and to the New Moral World of Robert Owen.

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History of the English middle-class

History of Materialism

1892 English Edition Introduction

[History (the role of Religion) in the English middle-class]

When Europe emerged from the Middle Ages, the rising middle-class of the towns constituted its revolutionary element. It had conquered a recognized position within mediaeval feudal organization, but this position, also, had become too narrow for its expansive power. The development of the middle-class, the bourgeoisie, became incompatible with the maintenance of the feudal system; the feudal system, therefore, had to fall.

But the great international centre of feudalism was the Roman Catholic Church. It united the whole of feudalized Western Europe, in spite of all internal wars, into one grand political system, opposed as much to the schismatic Greeks as to the Mohammedan countries. It had organized its own hierarchy on the feudal model, and, lastly, it was itself by far the most powerful feudal lord, holding, as it did, fully 1/3rd of the soil of the Catholic world. Before profane feudalism could be successfully attacked in each country and in detail, this, its sacred central organization, had to be destroyed.

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Dialectical Materialism and Science

Materialism and the Dialectical Method

Maurice Cornforth

12. Dialectical Materialism and Science 

Dialectical materialism is a scientific world outlook. Its scientific character is manifested especially in that it turns socialism into a science and, by developing the science of society, shows how the whole of science can be developed in the service of mankind. In general, dialectical materialism is a scientific world outlook in that it does not seek to establish any philosophy “above science” but bases its conception of the world on the discoveries of the sciences. 

The entire advance of the sciences is an advance of materialism against idealism; and further, science shows that our materialist conception of the world must be dialectical. Such great past discoveries as the law of the transformation of energy, the Darwinian theory of evolution and the theory of the cell have demonstrated the dialectic of nature. 

Nevertheless science in the capitalist world has entered into a state of crisis, due primarily to (1) the subjugation of scientific research to the capitalist monopolies and to military purposes, and (2) the conflict between new discoveries and old idealist and metaphysical ideas. Dialectical materialism is not only a generalization of the achievements of science, but a weapon for the self-criticism and for the advancement of science.

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Criticism and Self-Criticism

Materialism and the Dialectical Method

Maurice Cornforth

11. Criticism and Self-Criticism 

Development through contradiction, the struggle between the new and the old, will continue to be the rule in the future development of communist society. But with the ending of all exploitation of man by man, this development will no longer take place through violent social conflicts and upheavals but through the rational method of criticism and self-criticism, which will become the new level of development. 

From the whole discussion of the Marxist dialectical method the conclusion follows that Marxism is a creative science which must continually advance in application to new conditions of development. Criticism and self-criticism lies at the very heart of the Marxist dialectical method. 

A New Type of Development 

What, now, of the future development of society, after the stage of communism has been reached? Are we to suppose that the same dialectical laws of development will continue to operate? Or that development will cease? 

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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. 

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