Dialectical Materialism.docx

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Dialectical Materialism

Dialectical Materialism is a way of understanding reality; whether thoughts,emotions, or the material world. Simply stated, this methodology is the combination

of Dialectics and Materialism. The materialist dialectic is the theoretical foundation

of Marxism (while being communist is the practice of Marxism).

!t is an eternal cycle in which matter mo"es, a cycle that certainly only completes

its orbit in periods of time for which our terrestrial year is no ade#uate measure, a

cycle in which the time of highest de"elopment, the time of organic life and still

more that of the life of being conscious of nature and of themsel"es, is $ust as

narrowly restricted as the space in which life and self%consciousness come intooperation. & cycle in which e"ery 'nite mode of existence of matter, whether it be

sun or nebular "apour, single animal or genus of animals, chemical combination or

dissociation, is e#ually transient, and wherein nothing is eternal but eternally

changing, eternally mo"ing matter and the laws according to which it mo"es and

changes.

redric *ngels

Dialectics of +ature

!ntroduction

Motion is the mode of existence of matter. +e"er anywhere has there been matter

without motion, or motion without matter, nor can there be.

hange of form of motion is always a process that taes place between at least two

bodies, of which one loses a de'nite #uantity of motion of one #uality (e.g. heat),while the other gains a corresponding #uantity of motion of another #uality

(mechanical motion, electricity, chemical decomposition).

Dialectics, so%called ob$ecti"e dialectics, pre"ails throughout nature, and so%called

sub$ecti"e dialectics (dialectical thought), is only the re-ection of the motion

through opposites which asserts itself e"erywhere in nature, and which by the


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continual con-ict of the opposites and their 'nal passage into one another, or into

higher forms, determines the life of nature.

redric *ngels

Dialectics of +ature

ut dialectical materialism insists on the approximate relati"e character of e"ery

scienti'c theory of the structure of matter and its properties; it insists on the

absence of absolute boundaries in nature, on the transformation of mo"ing matter

from one state into another, that from our point of "iew /may be0 apparently

irreconcilable with it, and so forth.

Dialectics

Dialectics is the method of reasoning which aims to understand things concretely in

all their mo"ement, change and interconnection, with their opposite and

contradictory sides in unity.

Dialectics is opposed to the formal, metaphysical mode of thought of ordinaryunderstanding which begins with a 'xed de'nition of a thing according to its "arious

attributes. or example formal thought would explain1 2a 'sh is something with no

legs which li"es in the water3.

Darwin howe"er, considered 'sh dialectically1 some of the animals li"ing in the

water were not 'sh, and some of the 'sh had legs, but it was the genesis of all the

animals as part of a whole interconnected process which explained the nature of a

'sh1 they came from something and are e"ol"ing into something else.

Darwin went behind the appearance of 'sh to get to their essence. or ordinary

understanding there is no di4erence between the appearance of a thing and its

essence, but for dialectics the form and content of something can be #uite

contradictory 5 parliamentary democracy being the prime example1 democracy in

form, but dictatorship in content6


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&nd for dialectics, things can be contradictory not $ust in appearance, but in

essence. or formal thining, light must be either a wa"e or a particle; but the truth

turned out to be dialectical 5 light is both wa"e and particle. (See the principle of

excluded middle)

7e are aware of countless ways of understanding the world; each of which maes

the claim to be the absolute truth, which leads us to thin that, after all, 8!t3s all

relati"e69. or dialectics the truth is the whole picture, of which each "iew is a more

or less one%sided, partial aspect.

&t times, people complain in frustration that they lac the Means to achie"e their

*nds, or alternati"ely, that they can $ustify their corrupt methods of wor by thelofty aims they pursue. or dialectics, Means and *nds are a unity of opposites and

in the 'nal analysis, there can be no contradiction between means and ends 5 when

the ob$ecti"e is rightly understood, the material conditions /means0 for its solution

are already present or at least in the course of formation (Marx, :reface of

ontribution to a :olitical *conomy)

&n example of dialectical reasoning can be seen in enin


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These are di4erent aspect of Dialectics, and there are many others, because

dialectics is the method of thining in which concepts are -exible and mobile,

constrained only by the imperati"e of comprehending the mo"ement of the ob$ect

itself, howe"er contradictory, howe"er transient.

@istory1 Dialectics has its origins in ancient society, both among the hinese and the

Arees, where thiners sought to understand +ature as a whole, and saw that

e"erything is -uid, constantly changing, coming into being and passing away. !t was

only when the piecemeal method of obser"ing +ature in bits and pieces, practiced

in 7estern thining in the BCth and Bth century, had accumulated enough positi"e

nowledge for the interconnections, the transitions, the genesis of things to become

comprehensible, that conditions became ripe for modern dialectics to mae its

appearance. !t was @egel who was able to sum up this picture of uni"ersal

interconnection and mutability of things in a system of ogic which is the foundation

of what we today call Dialectics.

&s *ngels put it1

8the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process 5 i.e.,

as in constant motion, change, transformation, de"elopment; and the attempt is

made to trace out the internal connection that maes a continuous whole of all thismo"ement and de"elopment.9 /Socialism1 Etopian F Scienti'c0

!t was in the decade after @egel3s death 5 the BG?s 5 when @egel3s popularity was

at its pea in Aermany, that Marx and *ngels met and wored out the foundations

of their criti#ue of bourgeois society.

@egel3s radical young followers had in their hands a powerful critical tool with which

they ruthlessly criticised hristianity, the dominant doctrine of the day. @owe"er,

one of these Houng @egelians, udwig euerbach, pointed out that @oly amily was

after all only a @ea"enly image of the *arthly family, and said that by criticising

theology with philosophy, the Houng @egelians were only doing the same as the

hristians 5 @egel3s &bsolute !dea was $ust another name for Aod6 or euerbach,

ideas were a re-ection of the material world and he held it to be ridiculous that an

!dea could determine the world. euerbach had declared himself a materialist.


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Marx and *ngels began as supporters of euerbach. @owe"er, "ery soon they too

up an opposition to euerbach to restore the @egelian dialectic which had been

abandoned by euerbach, and to free it from the rigidity of the idealistic @egelian

system and place the method on a materialist basis1

8@egel was an idealist. To him, the thoughts within his brain were not the more or

less abstract pictures of actual things and processes, but, con"ersely, things and

their e"olution were only the realiIed pictures of the 2!dea3, existing somewhere

from eternity before the world was. This way of thining turned e"erything upside

down, and completely re"ersed the actual connection of things in the world. 9

/redric *ngels, Socialism1 Etopian and Scienti'c0

Thus, for Marx and *ngels, thoughts were not passi"e and independent re-ections

of the material world, but products of human labour, and the contradictory nature of

our thoughts had their origin in the contradictions within human society. This meant

that Dialectics was not something imposed on to the world from outside which could

be disco"ered by the acti"ity of pure =eason, but was a product of human labour

changing the world; its form was changed and de"eloped by people, and could only

be understood by the practical struggle to o"ercome these contradictions 5 not $ust

in thought, but in practice.

urther =eading1 /The Science of Dialectics0, by redric *ngels, Dialectics of +ature,

by redric *ngels, an example of dialectics in1 The Metaphysics of :olitical

*conomy, by Jarl Marx; The & of Materialist Dialectics, by eon Trotsy; enin


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dialectic

A number of history's most illustrious thinkers have wrestled with the meaning of 'dialectic,' and as a result,

the concept has permutated considerably since the inception of Western philosophy. Generally speaking,

dialectic is a mode of thought, or a philosophic medium, through which contradiction becomes a starting

point (rather than a dead end) for contemplation. As such, dialectic is the medium that helps us

comprehend a world that is racked by parado. !ndeed, dialectic facilitates the philosophic enterprise as

described by "ertrand #ussell, who wrote that $to teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being

paraly%ed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who

study it$ (iv).

&he word 'dialectic' is derived from the Greek and has three classical connotations. !n lato's writings,

dialectic is a highly valued vehicle for truth it is akin to dialogue and closely associated with the ocratic

method. Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that dialectic was an inferior form of reasoning, as it wasbased on a priori knowledge rather than empirical observation. *inally, +icero associated dialectic with

rhetoric. !n modern times, dialectic has been vital within the German philosophical tradition beginning with

ant. -is definition of dialectic, which is closely related to that of Aristotle, involves illusory knowledge that

is reminiscent of sophistry. !n other words, $ant's/ dialectic no longer offers rules for eecuting convincing

0udgments, but teaches how to detect and uncover 0udgments which bear a semblance of truth but are in

fact illusory$ (+aygill 123). ant's dialectic could be considered a medium of false epistemology.

!t is with -egel, however, that the modern notion of dialectic crystalli%ed. While his thinking was shaped by

ant's discussion of antimonies in The Critique of Pure Reason , -egel considered dialectic a medium of truth

rather than a means to uncover illusion. Above all, -egel's dialectic was based on his emphatic belief in

connectedness, or the interrelation of all aspects of the universe. !n other words, $the apparent self4

substinence of finite things appeared to him as illusion nothing, he held, is ultimately and completely real

ecept the whole$ (+aygill 123). !ndeed, dialectic was the cornerstone of his philosophy, and heconceptuali%ed systems as diverse as the history of the world and the 0ourney of the human spirit as

operating according to dialectical structures.

#oughly speaking, -egel's dialectic involves the reconciliation of ostensible paradoes to arrive at absolute

truth. &he general formulation of -egel's dialectic is a three4step process comprising the movement from

thesis to antithesis to synthesis. 5ne begins with a static, clearly delineated concept (or thesis), then moves

to its opposite (or antithesis), which represents any contradictions derived from a consideration of the rigidly

defined thesis. &he thesis and antithesis are yoked and resolved to form the embracing resolution, or

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synthesis. uccinctly put, the dialectic $actuali%es itself by alienating itself, and restores its self4unity by

recogni%ing this alienation as nothing other than its own free epression or manifestation$ ("ottomore 166).

&his formula is infinitely renewable -egel contended it would only terminate upon the world's end. 7ach

time synthesis is achieved it $generates/ new internal contradictions, and then a further resolution$ (8acey

9:). !t is also teleological because $each later stage of dialectic contains all the earlier stages, as it were in

solution none of them is wholly superceded, but is given its proper place as a moment in the whole$

(#ussell 3;1). &he infinite character of the dialectic reflects -egel's notion of holistic truth and his optimisticbelief in progress.

ay, a noted *rankfurt chool historian, writes that, $+ritical theory,

as its name implies, was epressed through a series of criti?ues of other thinkers and philosophical

traditions. !ts development was thus through dialogue, its genesis as dialectical as the method it purported

to apply to social phenomena$ (@). While aspects of -egelian and 8arist dialectics played an important

role in the formulations of the *rankfurt chool at large, Adorno was particularly taken with dialectical

formulations, an emphasis that can be registered in countless ways down to the paradoical aphorisms for

which he is famous. &he rudiment of Adorno's worldview is the notion that progressive and regressive

elements of society derive from a single source. &his principle is illustrated in The Dialectic of

Enlightenment , in which he and -orkheimer posit that the $7nlightenment has put aside the classicre?uirement of thinking about thought$ (62). &his position is implicit in many tenets of *rankfurt chool

aesthetics, including conceptions of aura, modern sensory eperience and the culture industry.

While Adorno's appropriations of dialectic are not purely -egelian, he shared -egel's interest in

interpenetrative sub0ectBob0ect relationships. -is work along these lines is particularly relevant to media

studies because he often focused on the relationship between audience and artwork. -e asserted that this

relationship often worked according to a negative dialectic through which society influenced the

commerciali%ation of art and art, in turn, discouraged reflective eperience in society. Additionally, Adorno

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elucidated the dialectical relationship between the artist and culture. *or eample, his essay $5n Cyric oetry

and ociety$ uses a dialectical model to epound the interpenetration of poetry and society. Adorno eplains

that, $the sub0ect and ob0ect are not rigid and isolated poles but can be defined only in the process in which

they distinguish themselves from one another and change$ (@@). &hus, the ' lyric !' is always defined

through its antipathetic relationship to society. *urthermore, it is mediated through language, which is

organically oriented toward society because of its communicative function. Adorno's debt to the -egelian

dialectic is evident when he writes that, $&he parado specific to the lyric work, a sub0ectivity that turns intoob0ectivity, is tied to the priority of linguistic formin lyric$ (@;).

&he polymorphous dialectical formulations of *rankfurt chool theory anticipated the multifarious

interpretations of dialectic in the contemporary sphere vis4D4vis semiotics and the philosophy of language.

5ther intellectuals have adopted the term in a more generali%ed manner, e.g., #obert mithson posited

dialectic as $a way of seeing things in a manifold of relations, not as isolated ob0ects$ (119). mithson

critici%ed the -egelian dialectic as $an inner movement of the mind$ (119) and described earthworks such

asThe Spiral Jetty as eploding the $formalistic view of nature$ (119). Generally speaking, dialectic can be a

useful way to conceptuali%e sub0ectBob0ect relationships in any number of contets, particularly artistic

contets.


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Dialectical Materialism.docx