HISTORICAL AND DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

Historical Materialism And Dialectical Materialism

Historical Materialism And Dialectical Materialism

Q2)What Are 'Historical Materialism' And Dialectical Materialism' For Marx And How Are They Related?

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 (Wetter, 1973). 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 (Wetter, 1973).

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.

When describing their materialism, Marx and Engels usually refer to Feuerbach as the philosopher who restored materialism to its rights (Ollman, 2008). This, however, does not mean that the materialism of Marx and Engels is identical with Feuerbach's materialism. As a matter of fact, Marx and Engels took from Feuerbach's materialism its inner kernel, developed it into a scientific-philosophical theory of materialism and cast aside its idealistic and religious-ethical encumbrances. We know that Feuerbach, although he was fundamentally a materialist, objected to the name materialism. Engels more than once declared that in spite of the materialist foundation, Feuerbach remained... bound by the traditional idealist fetters, and that the real idealism of Feuerbach becomes evident as soon as we come to his philosophy of religion and ethics. (Ollman, 2008)

All nature, says Engels, from the smallest thing to the biggest. from grains of sand to suns, from protista (the primary living cells - J. St.) to man, has its existence in eternal coming into being and going out of being, in a ceaseless flux, in unresting motion and change . (Ollman, 2008) Therefore, dialectics, Engels says, takes things and their perceptual images essentially in their interconnection, in their concatenation, in their movement, in their rise and disappearance.

Natural Quantitative Change Leads to Qualitative Change

Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the process of development ...