Lecture
The philosophical positions of K. Marx and F. Engels took shape primarily through their engagement with and critique of the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel — the most fully elaborated and profound philosophical system of that era — as well as under the influence of the critique of traditional Christian philosophy and mythology undertaken by the Young Hegelians. This critique assumed a rather sharp character, at times approaching atheistic conclusions. In the case of one of the most prominent representatives of German philosophy of that period, Ludwig Feuerbach, this tendency led to a transition to the positions of philosophical materialism. Why did K. Marx and F. Engels draw precisely dialectics and philosophical materialism from the philosophical heritage of their era? Because it was precisely these concepts that corresponded to the research tasks they set for themselves in studying the laws governing the life of human society. Materialism made it possible to place this inquiry on the firm foundation of practice, while dialectics made it possible to view social life in its development, encompassing it in the full richness of its actual interconnections and contradictions. At the same time, the founders of Marxism did not confine themselves to simply borrowing the philosophical concepts that appealed to them. They introduced a good deal that was fundamentally new into both materialism and dialectics.
The spontaneous materialism of natural scientists had considerable influence among many of the most prominent representatives of world philosophy, going back to antiquity. K. Marx was the first to introduce into this contemplative materialism — which had been limited to acknowledging the objective nature of the reality surrounding us — an understanding of the active role of the knowing subject. Cognition thereby ceased to appear as mere contemplation, or even experience, and instead appeared as the practical activity of a human being pursuing his own goals. A person comes to know the surrounding world above all by practically acting upon it, and only then expresses this practice in concepts produced by thought. Thinking, in this process, is not an arbitrary play of concepts but develops according to laws that are a reflection of the laws governing the development of the material world itself. The concepts of the human intellect are capable of reflecting this material world and of serving as an effective support for a person in his further interaction with nature precisely because, first, they are produced as an expression and instrument of human practice, and, second, they are produced by thought in accordance with the laws of the material world itself. The concepts and categories of thought are not a simple imprint of the facts and phenomena of the real world. They express this world in generalized form, isolating by the power of abstraction, out of the chaos of phenomena, what is typical, lawlike, and common to many phenomena, yet not reducible entirely to any single one of them.
Marxism did not create some entirely special conceptual apparatus, either for expressing its worldview positions or for understanding the method of studying reality. It made use of the categories that had already been developed by philosophical scholarship by that time. However, the meaning invested in these categories differs somewhat from one philosophical school to another, and Marxism is no exception in this respect. A brief account of the basic philosophical categories as used in Marxism is therefore given below. Abstraction is the capacity of human thought to isolate general properties common to an entire class of phenomena or processes, while disregarding those properties that constitute their particular, specific features.
All concepts of the human intellect (as well as the words that express them) are abstract to a greater or lesser degree — that is, they are obtained as a result of abstracting from the infinite diversity of the real world, isolating within it, by means of abstraction, what is essential and typical, common to entire classes of phenomena or processes. Any word — for example, "button" — is already an abstract concept, for it expresses that which is common to all buttons as a whole class of objects, while disregarding the manifold specific properties of the many different buttons that exist. This property of human reason and language is a product of the historical development of human thought and speech. Among peoples who, for whatever reason, stand at relatively low stages of social development, language also operates with abstract concepts, but the degree of abstraction is significantly lower than in languages that have advanced further along the path of historical evolution.
Such less developed languages may contain dozens of special words to denote phenomena that in historically more developed languages are described by a single concept. The abstract is opposed by the concrete — an object taken in the full diversity of its various aspects.
The concrete is an object taken in the full diversity of its aspects. The concrete, in human cognition, cannot be reduced to a chaotic aggregate of empirically observed features of objects. The concrete can be understood only as the result, first, of abstract thought, which makes it possible to isolate the abstract aspects of an object (a movement from the empirically concrete to the abstract), and, second, of the study of their connections and interactions. For this reason, incidentally, knowledge of an object as something concrete cannot be attained without a dialectical approach.
The categories of the abstract and the concrete are relative. What appears as concrete in relation to the abstract may itself appear as abstract in relation to a richer and more diverse concrete. The universal — the particular — the singular. The highest degree of abstraction is the isolation of universal properties for some class of objects. The particular is likewise an abstraction, indicating the presence of differing properties among objects that share common properties. The singular is an indication of a separate property of an object as its specific distinguishing feature, setting it apart from all other objects. This too is an abstraction, since it disregards all the other properties of the given object. However, the universal does not appear solely as the abstract-universal. In actuality, the role of the universal, as the bearer of features common to a given class of objects or phenomena, can be played by a diverse concrete whole. It is precisely in its full concreteness and diversity that it constitutes the totality of properties that are universal within the given class of objects (or system). Such a concrete-universal is itself a certain actual object, which in its development unfolds into a complex system, endowing all its elements with its own features — just as a biological progenitor endows all its descendants with its genes. Hence, from the standpoint of this connection and continuity, the concrete-universal may also be called the genetically universal. Thus, in this case it is not our consciousness that abstracts universal features from some class of objects; rather, actual development elevates a certain object, serving as the starting point of development, to the role of the universal for the given system (class of objects). Such a concrete-universal appears as abstract in relation to the concrete diversity of the entire system. Movement thus proceeds from the abstract to the concrete. Such is the path of actual development, and such, too, is the path of dialectical cognition, which grasps reality in its development and in the diversity of its connections and interactions. One should not, however, dogmatize this proposition in a straightforward manner and regard the process of cognition as necessarily following a path from a more abstract stage to a more concrete one. The process of cognition is subject to fluctuations, to the influence of external circumstances and chance occurrences, and often proceeds in zigzags and loops. At the same time, for the consistent presentation of research findings in the form of a logically coherent system of categories and concepts, a reasonably strict adherence to the principle of ascent from the abstract to the concrete is the most adequate approach. In coming to know reality, a person cannot help posing and resolving for himself the question of what is primary — the material world that we come to know, or the knowledge of it that we possess? Is the matter of the external world the source of our knowledge, or is it merely the embodiment of our own ideas and thoughts (or those emanating from above)? This question is sometimes called the fundamental question of philosophy. The fundamental question of philosophy: the question of what is primary — the material world that we come to know, or the knowledge of it that we possess? Is the matter of the external world the source of our knowledge, or is it merely the embodiment of our own ideas, or of ideas emanating from above? Marxism answers this question unequivocally, insisting on the primacy of matter in relation to human consciousness, to its ideal world. However, the primacy of matter in relation to consciousness has an unambiguous interpretation only within the bounds of this fundamental question of philosophy; beyond those bounds, their relationship becomes rather relative: one interacts with the other, one flows into the other. The very definition of matter and consciousness has strict meaning only through their relation to each other.
Matter is that which exists outside of and independently of our consciousness. Consciousness is a mode of perceiving the material world that is inherent to human beings. Being determines consciousness. However, man is not passive with respect to the material world. Through his activity he is capable of changing it. Man cannot create matter out of nothing, but through his activity he can change the form of matter given by nature. And it is precisely thanks to this transformative activity of his — thanks to practice — that man comes to know the world, deriving knowledge from activity, from experience, from the reaction of the external material world to the influence exerted upon it, thereby accomplishing de-objectification. De-objectification is the activity that makes it possible to extract knowledge from an object. Practice serves simultaneously as both a means of cognition and the criterion of its truth, that is, of its correspondence to reality. Man cannot verify the truth of his knowledge of the world in any other way than by using this knowledge in
practical activity, and by achieving (or failing to achieve) the anticipated results, thereby accomplishing objectification. Objectification is the activity that makes it possible to embody knowledge in an object. Man is compelled to reckon with the limits — both external and internal, since the subject is also limited in his capacities — of his practical activity. Therefore human practice not only gives man freedom but also confronts him with necessity. In his activity, grounded in cognition, man attains freedom. Freedom in general is possible only as a correspondence between the desired and the achieved results of man's actions. Freedom is impossible without either the apprehension of truth or practical actions aimed both at apprehending truth and at objectively embodying the knowledge obtained. Thus freedom appears as man's capacity to overcome the boundaries of what is initially given to him by the external world (it will be shown below how this property is refracted in the world of man's social relations). Freedom is man's capacity to overcome the boundaries of what is initially given to him by the external world. In his activity man appears as an active subject standing opposed to the objective world. The categories of subjective and objective can be understood as categories of practice: the subject, as an active being, acts upon the inert, external, objective world.
The subjective turns out to be that which depends on the activity of the subject. The objective, by contrast, is that which does not depend on the subject, that with which the subject [must reckon]. Necessity is that aspect of human practice which is determined by objective circumstances. The well-known formula defining freedom as recognized necessity is in fact only one side of the Marxist understanding of the dialectic of necessity and freedom, which was inherited from Hegelian philosophy. Indeed, since man lives in an objective world, in his activity he is compelled to reckon with the laws of this objective world, for otherwise he cannot achieve the goals he has set for himself.
However, there is also another side — through his activity man changes this world, adapting it to his own purposes, going beyond the limits of what is given by circumstances. Marxism resolves the question of the relationship between social being and social consciousness in a materialist manner as well. But on this question, even more than on the question of the relationship between being and consciousness in general, Marxism draws attention to the active, subjective side. The well-known formula of K. Marx from the "Theses on Feuerbach" (the 11th thesis) states that philosophers have hitherto only explained the world, whereas the point is to change it
The 11th thesis of K. Marx from the "Theses on Feuerbach," in which Marx characterizes the role of theory in social life, is inscribed as an epitaph on the gravestone of K. Marx at Highgate Cemetery in London, alongside the call from the "Manifesto of the Communist Party": "Workers of all countries, unite!" The 11th thesis is also inscribed in golden letters at the entrance to Humboldt University of Berlin. This thesis is usually given a simplified, purely political interpretation, reducing it to a call for the revolutionary transformation of the world. However, the 11th thesis has a deeper philosophical meaning. It is not merely a call to actively intervene in the affairs of the world, but also an indication that one can explain (that is, come to know) the world only by relating to it in an active, practical way, that is, by changing it. Man is able truly to know the world only by being a subject of practical activity, including in his social relations. Man, according to Marxism, is shaped by social circumstances that were not created by him and that have objective significance for him. However, these very circumstances have the property of changing historically, and they do not change "by themselves." History is the activity of man pursuing his own goals. The coincidence of objectively ripened historical changes and human actions directed at these changes appears as revolutionary practice. Revolutionary practice is the coincidence of objectively ripened historical changes and human actions directed at these changes. It is precisely through social practice, and especially through revolutionary practice, which raises social being to a new historical stage, that man wins freedom in his social life (or, more precisely, takes another step toward freedom), and consolidates and develops the new, established level of freedom. The liberal understanding of freedom ("my freedom ends where another person's rights begin"¹) in fact reduces it to the maximally broad restrictions on human activity permissible under the given circumstances, within limits such that they do not narrow the freedom of others. The foundation of freedom, in such an understanding, is essentially the established balance of opposing interests, which corresponds fully to the spirit of commodity economy. For Marxism, freedom appears as man's capacity to overcome the restrictions imposed by objectively established social relations, and, ultimately, to overcome the very alienated character of social relations, that is, their existence as forces separate from and opposed to man. Therefore freedom in social life is achieved not as the acceptance of restrictions imposed by the interests of other people (as in the liberal interpretation), but as voluntary association with other people for a joint struggle to realize their interests. Then the social relations among people no longer appear as forces alienated from them, but become the product of their free association. Why do people's social relations become alienated from them and come to stand opposed to them, and how is it possible to overcome such a state? The search for an answer to these fundamental questions will, in essence, occupy nearly the whole of what follows.
The transition to the dialectical mode of thinking was prepared by the development of the dialectics of concepts in classical philosophy (Heraclitus, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte, and especially Hegel), by the approach of natural science toward recognizing the contradictory nature of the real world, and by the necessity of studying human social life in its development and contradictions. Dialectics serves as the only method capable of investigating the conditions and circumstances of the revolutionary transformation of social relations.
^ Turning to the primary sources: K. Marx on the difference between his dialectical method and Hegel's dialectic: "My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which, under the name of "the Idea," he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos* 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. (...) The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell. In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary."1 The dialectic of concepts received its most developed and systematic exposition in the Hegelian system. In Marxism, dialectic, which for Hegel appeared as a form of movement of the Absolute Spirit, received a materialist interpretation as a form of movement of the real world. Accordingly, for a researcher applying the dialectical method materialistically, the categories of dialectic do not appear as ready-made forms handed down from above, into which real phenomena and relations must be fitted, but only as a heuristic aid helping to uncover the dialectical connections and relations in the development of phenomena of real actuality. The problem of contradiction occupies a central place in dialectic. Whereas formal logic is built on the exclusion of contradictions, the dialectical method relies on the study of contradictions.
This difference is due to the fact that formal logic studies the relationship of fixed, unchanging concepts that remain equal to themselves. Dialectic, by contrast, considers concepts in their change and development, in the course of which they may 1 Marx, K. "Afterword to the Second Edition of 'Capital'" // Marx K., Engels F. Works, 2nd ed., Vol. 23. Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1960. Pp. 21-22. become unequal to themselves, thereby representing an embodied contradiction. The presence of formal-logical paradoxes may therefore conceal a genuine dialectical problem behind it, but, equally, it may simply be a formal-logical error. Likewise, formal-logical consistency may reflect either a logically correct relationship of categories, or may conceal behind it a scientific dead end in the search for truth—a truth that cannot be found by formal-logical methods when the subject under consideration is one undergoing development. All this indicates that logical methods can assist in the search for truth but cannot replace the study of the concrete subject matter, which alone is capable of yielding true knowledge—for truth is always concrete, and cannot be obtained through the application of abstract logical schemas. Dialectic, unlike formal logic, is systemic in character. It is aimed not at the piecemeal application of dialectical "laws" or "principles" to any arbitrarily delineated subject, but at the study of complex systems, which must be reflected in cognition likewise in the form of a system of scientific categories and concepts, constructed in accordance with the real dialectic of the system being cognized itself. Since in real actuality complex systems differ qualitatively from one another, and may also form subsystems of one another, the real dialectic cannot be understood by superimposing upon reality an a priori given scheme of dialectical categories, but requires the study of the real interconnection of processes and phenomena. Nevertheless, dialectic, in its categories, fixes certain general properties of the development of complex systems through contradictions, showing us certain levels of development of the contradictions of these systems and, correspondingly, levels of their cognition. Such categories of dialectic as quality, property, determinacy, boundary, limit, quantity, measure, essence, etc., are precisely what reveal to us the various stages of cognition and facets of dialectical interaction.
Since in this textbook we cannot devote a great deal of space to the problems of dialectic as such, only the briefest characterization of some of its categories will be given below. All categories of dialectic are disclosed only through correlation with their opposites. Outside of such correlation, moreover, without unity with their opposites, they do not exist at all. For example, within the concept of "quality" the category of "something" can be understood only through the category of "other," and, moreover, something exists at all only by "repelling itself from," its opposite, from the other. In turn, the other does not exist by itself, but only as the other of some given something. At the same time, the two sides of a dialectical contradiction cannot be regarded as equal "oppositions." They are asymmetrical, and although their existence is mutually conditioned, one of them serves as the foundation for the other. It is precisely by virtue of this asymmetry that the contradiction is a moving contradiction, rather than a fixed "opposition." The category of "quality"* as a characteristic of a complex system is itself a complex concept, resting on a system of contradictorily interacting categories (something, other, determinacy, property, boundary...) and expresses that which separates a given complex system from others, that which is specific only to this system and at the same time constitutes the most general property of this system, inherent in all its elements. The category of "quantity"* expresses such a stage of development of a system and such a form of its movement and change as is characterized by the invariance of the quality belonging to it. Quantitative changes of a system acquire a certain "measure," which, upon reaching a certain "limit," signifies the system's transition to a new stage of development. If quality, quantity, and measure together formed the stage of development designated by the category of "being," then the new stage of development of the system is designated by the category of "essence."* Any dialectical transition means the "sublation" [removal-and-preservation] of the contradiction that determined the form of movement of the system at the given stage, and the transition to a new contradiction and a new form of movement. One contradiction negates another, the new form of movement negates the preceding one. However, dialectical development is characterized not simply by the replacement of one contradiction by another, of one form of movement by another, but by such a replacement ("sublation"*) as simultaneously signifies both the negation and the positive retention of the preceding content. That is, in the transition from quality to quantity,
from quantity to measure, from measure (or more precisely, from being as a whole) to essence—all these categories are preserved within the system (although acquiring a subordinate character in relation to more complex and developed categories), which thereby becomes ever richer and more complex. The "content" that the system acquires in the course of its development realizes itself only in a certain "form." Form does not appear as a merely external imprint of content; it shapes the content and plays an active role with respect to it. This creates the potential for a divergence of form from content, for the formation of forms that distort the content of the system (transformed forms). The "essence" of a system expresses itself through "appearance." Essence appears, and appearance is essential. However, the manifestations of essence may create "semblance," "seeming," which, even if they correspond to the essence, do not coincide with it, thereby creating a situation in which, for example, something seems to be what actually exists in reality. But it still only "seems," rather than simply "existing." In the textbooks of the Soviet period, an obligatory feature of any explanation of dialectics was the so-called "laws of dialectics": the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, the law of the transition of quantitative changes into fundamental qualitative changes, and the law of the negation of the negation. These "laws" are either formulations of certain particular dialectical transitions (for example, between quality and quantity), or observations concerning certain general characteristics of dialectical movement. If something has already been said above about the first "laws," a few words should be added regarding the negation of the negation. As already noted above, dialectical movement proceeds by the negation of one category by another, of one stage of development by another. For example, quantity negates quality, and measure, in turn, negates quantity. The first negation (of quality by quantity) is itself negated by the next (of quantity by measure)—and thus we arrive at the negation of the negation. But if the first negation is, in turn, negated, this means the restoration of the first negated category—not in its former form (recall sublation, which is simultaneously both negation and preservation), but in the form of a synthesis with its opposite. Thus, movement proceeds according to the principle of the "dialectical triad": thesis—antithesis—synthesis.
Glossary for Chapter 1
ABSTRACTION — the capacity of human thought to isolate general properties common to an entire class of phenomena or processes, while disregarding those properties that constitute the particular, specific features of these phenomena or processes.
THE CONCRETE — an object taken in the full diversity of its various aspects.
THE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION OF PHILOSOPHY: the question of what is primary—the material world that we cognize, or the knowledge we have of it? Is the matter of the external world the source of our knowledge, or is it merely the embodiment of our own ideas and thoughts (or those coming from on high)?
DE-OBJECTIFICATION — an activity that makes it possible to extract knowledge from an object.
OBJECTIFICATION — an activity that makes it possible to embody knowledge in an object.
FREEDOM — the capacity of a human being to overcome the limits of what is initially given to him by the external world.
NECESSITY — that aspect of human practice which is determined by objective circumstances.
REVOLUTIONARY PRACTICE IN MARXISM — the coincidence of historical changes that have objectively matured with human actions aimed at bringing about these changes.
1.1. What is the connection between Marxism and the preceding development of world philosophical thought?
1.2. What research tasks determined the choice of dialectics and philosophical materialism as the philosophical foundations of the Marxist method?
1.3. What is distinctive about the materialist view of the world in Marxism?
1.4. What role does human activity, practice, play in Marxist materialism?
1.5. Name the principal philosophical categories used in Marxism and characterize them.
1.6. What is the essence of the dialectical method, and how can it serve as one of the instruments of cognition?
1.7. What is the difference between Karl Marx's dialectical method and Hegel's dialectic?
1.8. What is the difference between dialectics and formal logic?
1.9. Name the principal categories of dialectics and characterize them.
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