Dialectical Materialism as a Practical Method
Part I: From the External World to Thought
(Like every other science, philosophy has its own scientific terminology.
As we introduce each new term we shall present it in bold type)
Introduction
All properly constituted philosophy is polemical. Since each philosophy claims to represent the truth, then at the same time it must deny every other. All affirmation is negation, says Spinoza. Philosophy which does not fight its corner is spineless and not worthy of the name. At the same time another great philosopher advises us that “There is a well known saying that if geometrical axioms affected human interests attempts would certainly be made to disprove them.” (V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 15, page 31).
When philosophy takes determinate forms in the struggle of man against the rest of nature as a species on this planet, it reflects humanity as it finds it, divided into classes along economic, social and political lines. These classes are the capitalist class, which owns all productive wealth, the means to life, and wields its monopoly to oppress and exploit the working class, which owns nothing but means of consumption which it must daily renew by hiring out its power to labour to the capitalists for wages.
As a result, two philosophies are locked in deadly combat today. Idealism, which holds that consciousness determines being, that only thought exists and that the world external to thought is a product of it. This philosophy serves the interests of the capitalist, ruling class. The other philosophy is the dialectical opposite to this, Materialism, which holds that the material world exists independently to thought, which latter is a reflection of it, more or less correct according to the stage of development of humanity. In other words, materialism acknowledges that like all knowledge, philosophy is historically conditioned; we proceed from less profound to more profound knowledge. This philosophy serves the material interests of the working class.
Clearly, the second of these philosophies is the harbinger of change, since it alone is capable of grasping the new in nature and society, and the only class whose material interests are served by change is the working class. As a mode of production, a way of organising the process of production and distribution to meet the needs of humanity, capitalism is manifestly a historically bankrupt system.
The capitalist class, whose interests are served by the preservation of the status quo, are bound to resist change, to deny the need for it so as to protect their material interests. They take refuge in idealism, to divorce thought from reality in order to construct false theories of nature and society to suit their purpose. Their philosophers and intellectuals are busy advancing all kinds of idealistic, religious and Utopian theories in order to resist change and justify the continued existence of the present outmoded capitalist economic system. The geometrical axioms are certainly not safe from them.
The work you are about to read poses the opposite to this, materialist philosophy based upon dialectical logic which correctly reflects the natural laws of motion of the material world in which we live, including the motion of human society and thought. This scientific outlook offers a certain way out of the impasse to which hundreds of years of capitalism have brought us by correctly grasping the truth of the present world social and economic crisis, and formulating the correct social and economic theory necessary for its solution.
T.B., January 26th. 2012
1. The Materialist Outlook
All that exists, all that is in being, can be divided into two categories, the objective material world, and the world of thought. The question then arises, how do these two things, these two sides of the totality of Being, relate to each other ? In general, there are only two possible answers to this question, and from the very beginning philosophers have been divided into two opposing camps, depending on which of these they took to be correct. These two opposing points of view are materialism, which holds that the objective material world, (matter), exists independently of man, and that human thought, consciousness, is a reflection of it, and idealism, which holds that human consciousness exists independently of the objective material world, and all that apparently exists is somehow a creation of thought. The battle between these two diametrically opposed points of view rages to this day. The reason for this antagonism is that each of the two philosophies represents, or serves, a particular class interest. Idealism serves the interests of the capitalist ruling class, while materialism serves the interest of the working class. Marxism is a materialist philosophy.
The conflict between Marxism as a materialist philosophy and all forms of idealism is best understood by way of a study of Lenin’s book, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, which is contained in Volume 14 of his Collected Works. In this book, written in 1908, Lenin conducts a struggle against certain members of the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party who made a dangerous attempt to undermine its guiding materialist outlook by smuggling in idealist tendencies, disguised as valid conclusions drawn from the latest discoveries made by physical science. The originator of this tendency was the famous physicist, Ernst Mach, and Lenin refers to the tendency he led a Machist. Science, particularly physics, was at that time in severe crisis due to the recent discovery of the electron, which appeared to have no mass. If the electron had no mass, the Machists concluded, then “matter disappeared”, all of the generally accepted scientific principles, such as Newtonian physics, were invalid, there could be no such thing as matter, and the materialist outlook must be incorrect. The Machists developed these conclusions into a theory they called Empirio-Criticism, which, they claimed, was neither materialism nor idealism, but a further philosophical development which rendered the difference between the two meaningless. In his analysis of Empirio-Criticism, Lenin shows that this method is reactionary because it is nothing but the old idealism in disguise, that the difference between materialism and idealism is as vital as ever, and that no theory other than materialism can guide the working class in the class struggle for its emancipation.
The Machist outlook, says Lenin, is in essence no different to that of the classical idealist philosopher, George Berkeley, (1685 to 1753). He quotes a passage from Berkeley’s main work, Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, published in 1710.
“It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding.” This opinion is a “manifest contradiction, for, what are the afore-mentioned objects but things we perceive by sense ? And what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations ? And is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived ?” (Lenin’s Collected Works, Vol. 14, p.24). A little further on , ( page 27), Lenin quotes Berkeley as saying, “if so it shall seem good, use the word ‘matter’ in the same sense as other men use ‘nothing’”.
According to Berkeley, all we can know is our sensations, and the world that is contained in them is somehow created by them, and nothing outside them exists. Nothing can exist separately from the human perception of it, so that to be consistent Berkeley would have to claim that when he walks out of a room everything in it disappears. Such is the absurdity of idealism, but it gets worse. Taking it to its logical conclusion, Berkeley must conclude that if everything is the creation of his own sensations, then so is every other person, that only he exists, and that there is therefore no purpose in trying to communicate his ideas to others. Why, then, did he bother to write a book ? Such philosophy is known as solipsism.
In order to show that Empirio-Criticism is nothing but the old classical idealism wrapped up in new word forms, Lenin quotes from the writings of Mach, as follows :-
“The task of science,” wrote Mach in 1872, “can only be : 1). To determine the laws of connection of ideas. (Psychology). 2). To discover the laws of connection of sensations. (Physics). 3). To explain the laws of connection between sensations and ideas. (Phycho-Physics).”
Clearly, there is no mention of the objective world of matter here. For Mach it did not exist, which means that all we know of it must be a creation of the mind, and we are back to idealism and solipsism. Lenin gives the complete refutation of the idealist view on page 101 of Volume 14. First he quotes Engels :-
“The most telling refutation of this and all other philosophical crotchets is practice, namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our perception of natural processes by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian incomprehensible ‘thing-in-itself’. The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained just such ‘things-in themselves’ until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the ‘thing-in-itself’ became a ’thing-for-us’, as, for instance, alizarin, the colouring matter of the madder, which we no longer trouble to grow in the madder roots in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply from coal tar.”
The concept of the ‘thing-in-itself’ was introduced into philosophical discussion by the great German philosopher, Emmanuel Kant, (1724-1804). According to Kant, we can only know any thing which we perceive in the external world superficially, and that its inner truth is locked up inside it because it is not present to our senses. Things remain ‘in themselves’. The ‘thing-for-us’ is the ‘thing-in-itself’ once its inner truth, or Essence, is revealed through practice. Lenin goes on to explain this as follows :-
“What is the kernel of Engels’ objection ? Yesterday we did not know that coal tar contains alizarin. Today we know that it does. The question is, did coal tar contain alizarin yesterday ? Of course it did. To doubt it would be to make a mockery of modern science. And if that is so, three important epistemological conclusion follow:
1) Things exist independently of our sensations, outside of us, for it is beyond doubt that alizarin existed in coal tar yesterday and it is equally beyond doubt that yesterday we knew nothing of the existence of this alizarin and received no sensations from it.
2) There is definitely no difference in principle between the phenomenon and the thing-in-itself, and there can not be any such difference. The only difference is between what is known and what is not yet known. And philosophical inventions of specific boundaries between the one and the other, inventions to the effect that the thing-in-itself is ‘beyond’ phenomena, (Kant), or that we can and must fence ourselves off by some philosophical partition from the problem of a world which in one part or another is still unknown but which exists outside us (Hume) - all this is the sheerest nonsense, Schrule, crotchet, fantasy.
3) In the theory of knowledge, as in every other sphere of science, we must think dialectically, that is, we must not regard our knowledge as ready made and unalterable, but must determine how knowledge emerges from ignorance, how incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and more exact.” [See below for an explanation of dialectics]
It was, of course, through experimentation and industry that several of the exact sciences, including geology, chemistry, and physics, proved long ago that the Earth existed long before there were humans, or even animals, to perceive it. Lenin summarizes the materialist outlook in three important passages in Volume 14. Explaining the connection between the external, material world and thought he writes :-
“For every scientist who has not been led astray by prophessorial philosophy, as well as for every materialist, sensation is indeed the direct connection between consciousness and the external world; it is the transformation of the energy of external excitation into the fact of consciousness. This transformation has been, and is, observed by each of us a million times on every hand. The sophism of idealist philosophy consists in the fact that it regards sensation as not being the connection between consciousness and the external world, but a fence, a wall, separating consciousness from the external world - not an image of the external phenomenon corresponding to sensation, but the ‘sole entity’”. (p. 51)
The explanation is developed a little further on page 69 :-
“Our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external world, and it is obvious that an image cannot exist without the thing imaged, and that the latter exists independently of the former.”
Dealing with the concept of the external world of matter, which the Machists claimed had disappeared, and whether it is truly given to man in sensation Lenin writes on page 130:-
“If you hold that is given, [the existence of matter], a philosophical concept is needed for this objective reality, and this concept has been worked out long, long ago. This concept is matter. Matter is a philosophical category denoting the objective reality which is given to man by his sensations, and which is copied, photographed and reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them.”
The discovery of the electron in the field of exact science led the Machists astray because they had failed to grasp correctly the concept of matter as a philosophical category. If the physicists had failed to measure the mass of the electron, they had merely discovered something unexpected about matter, which nonetheless exists. Matter, then, is a general philosophical category denoting all that exists external to, and independently of, the world of thought. All matter is interconnected and is in eternal motion and change. Motion is the fundamental attribute of matter, it is the mode of existence of matter. Through its infinite motion, matter is bound to take existence in all kinds of forms to infinity, which come into Being and pass away in time. The concept of Being will be examined later. The perception of the motion of matter, the coming into Being and passing away of the infinity of forms it takes, and of the living inter-relations between them, gives rise to logic, which is the science of cognition.
2. Dialectical Logic.
Since materialism is the practice of allowing the external world of matter to determine thought, and since matter is in constant motion, then it follows that to be truly materialistic thought must correctly reflect this motion. We have explained that Marxism is materialism, but it is materialism of a particular kind, materialism guided by dialectical logic, or dialectical materialism. The dialectical method proceeds by grasping everything in relation to its own opposite, how these opposites relate, and how the conflict between them causes them to change and develop. The best starting point for the study of this method is Volume 38 of Lenin’s Collected Works, which contains the notes he made while studying the work of previous philosophers, particularly Hegel, (1770-1831). On page 109 of this book we find the following:-
“Dialectics is the teaching which shows how opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical - under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another - why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another.”
The science of Marxism has made a great deal of progress in the elaboration of this first principle, firstly by Marx himself, and through the work of Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and others. The result of all this work can be expressed formally in three general laws of dialectics. Here is the first law:-
All progress takes place through the unity, conflict,
interpenetration, and transformation of opposites.
We must weigh each word carefully. What precisely is meant by unity ? A study of the nature of matter shows that all the matter in the universe is inter-connected in one way or another, no matter how distantly, and a material thing which is in direct connection with another thing has an effect on that with which it is connected and is in turn affected by it. This is all that it meant by “opposites” in this context. Any two things may come into proximity or physical contact, but for any scientific consideration what is important is how the two things relate, and to grasp this we must consider the two things in their motion and change, and how, through this motion and change, they affect each other. For dialectics then, unity implies a living, inter-relating connection between opposites. Some forms of being have their own special opposites from which they can never be separated, and these are generally opposites of extremes such as black and white, positive and negative. Such opposites are united by their very opposition - it would be impossible to have the concept of positive at all in the absence of the concept of negative. Each is necessary to the other. But this unity is at the same time conflict, because each excludes the other – each is what it is only because it is not the other. Such opposites as these are called Self-related Opposites.
Paradoxical as it may seem, opposites become identical precisely because they start
off different. It is clear that a thing must be different to that which it affects and changes or no change could take place at all. That which is changed resists, hence the changing process appears as a struggle of opposites, conflict. The concept of inter-penetration expresses the way in which each of the opposites in conflict imposes its qualities on the other, forcing it to become alike, identical. The matter of precisely how opposites inter-penetrate to the point of transformation is dealt with in the second law, which is:-
All progress takes place through the transformation of quantity
into quality and vice versa.
Engels explains this law very simply:
“For our purpose, we can express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or quantitative subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy). (Dialectics of Nature, page 64, F. Engels.)
The transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa is an obvious case of things being transformed into their opposites, and to find how they are transformed we must first discover how, by a process of interpenetration, they become identical. How exactly does quantity become identical with quality? The first thing we note is that it is not even possible to speak of one in isolation from the other. In our example from Engels we see that he does not speak of quantity as an abstraction, but of a quantity of a quality; a quantity of matter or a quantity of energy of some kind, and the quantitative change of quality is expressed in the concept of Alteration. Let us take as an example a quality such as a colour, say blue. If we leave a dark blue object out in the sunlight it will fade and become light blue – but it is still blue. Alteration is change of quality within the limits of that quality. If we leave the object in the sunlight long enough it will exceed the limits of the quality in question, the colour blue in this case, and become white. At the moment of qualitative transformation, the infinitely small quantity of blue is the same as the quality white. Quantity and quality find a moment of identity, and that is the leap from one quality to another. We see countless examples of this. By increasing the quantity of heat in a body of water the transformation to a new quality, from liquid to steam, suddenly occurs at a definite temperature at a given pressure; progressively adding weight to one side of a balance causes it to tip, and so on. So this is what we mean by the transformation of quantity into quality. The reverse process, the transformation of quality into quantity, is best understood by a study of the third law, which is:-
The law of the negation of the negation.
This law brings the other two into a unity and expresses the whole nature of the dialectical motion of matter, so that it must be explained at greater length, and in doing so we must introduce more terms and concepts which are necessary to the practice of dialectical logic.
To understand the concept of Negation we must start from the twin concepts of Quantity and Quality. If a thing or substance exists then it is self-evident that it has some Quality which identifies it and that there is a Quantity of it, and negation simply means cancellation, rendering null. Negation, therefore, must be understood in a double sense, in the sense of Quantitative negation, and in the sense of Qualitative negation. Clearly quantitative change is a continuous and more or less gradual process over a period of time, and if we take two consecutive moments of time, then the first quantity is replaced, rendered null, or “negated” by the second. The first quantity no longer exists and the second has come into being. This latter must also be said of Quality, but there is a difference. Whereas quantitative change is a gradual and continuous process, a thing either has a particular Quality or it has not. Qualitative change, then, can only be conceived as a sudden leap, from one Quality to another. This is apparent from the above explanation of the Second Law where we spoke of transformation rather than negation, but clearly each implies the other.
We begin with the consideration of the unity and conflict of opposites. Each opposite affects the other in some way, and in turn is affected by it. We may say that each Reflects the other. The dominating opposite determines the outcome of the motion involved, so we refer to this one as Cause and the way it changes the other as Effect. There is Difference between the two opposites, and it is helpful to consider this Difference from the point of view of one side, the affected side. The opposite with which it is in unity and conflict is a separate thing outside it, so we refer to the Difference between them as External Difference, and since the two opposites are different each one has its own Identity. We have said that the affected opposite, (Effect), Reflects the other, dominant opposite, (Cause). This means that the External Difference is reflected within the affected side, and changes it. This is Quantitative change. The affected side becomes, through time, more and more like its opposite, and correspondingly less and less like itself, and for this reason we tend to regard Cause as Positive and Effect as Negative. In every moment then, the affected opposite reflects the External difference internally, and this is its own Internal Difference.
But in considering what a thing is “like”, we are considering Quality, not Quantity, and in order to grasp the way in which quantitative change, (increase or decrease), affects quality we must deepen our understanding of the concept of quantity as such. There are two sides to quantity, Extensive Quantity and Intensive Quantity. It is self evident that mere Extensive increase of a given, determinate quality can never change it. If we say “increase this quality then we have already placed a pre-condition on the change – however much we end up with we shall still have a quantity of this quality, the same determination. If we start with the quality of the colour red and increase it extensively then we end up with a bigger area coloured red. Change of Intensive Quantity is different – in this case the quality becomes less or more like itself. If we change the colour red intensively it will reach a limit and become white if we lighten it, or conversely become black if we darken it. Change of intensive quantity within the Limit of a given quality is expressed by the concept of Alteration. When the Limit is reached quantity and quality find a moment of Identity – the infinitely small or large quantity of the old quality is the same as the new quality. This moment is expressed in the concept of Measure.
A thing has Identity because it is defined by a particular Quality, and in this way the Quality is the Determination of the Identity. If the Quality is changed beyond its Limit then the Identity becomes differently Determined, a leap takes place and it changes into a different thing. It is the Cause, (the opposite), which has had its Effect, imposed its Quality on the thing. But we remember that according to the First Law the opposites inter-penetrate, which means that the outcome is not a simple transition from one opposite to another, from Effect to Cause, (Cause being the domination opposite), but some third result. To give an example, an opposite, say a source of heat, will turn its other opposite, water, to steam, but only because it is the nature of water to change to steam and not some other substance. Hence the Qualitative leap brings into being some completely new thing, which is neither of the two original opposites, but a developed form which results from the inter-action, (syntheses), of both. Both opposites are contained in the new Identity, the water in the form of H2.O molecules as steam, and heat in the form of the increased energy of oscillation of the molecules
Up to now we have considered Quantitative Negation and Qualitative Negation separately, but it is important to notice that each opposite, Quality and Quantity, have their own way of affecting the other. Quantity gradually changes Quality, and gradual change of quality within its limit is Alteration. The leap takes place when the limit is reached. But qualitative change has its effect on quantitative change. Whatever new quality comes into being, it will certainly affect quantitative change, since different qualities behave differently according to their nature, changing in different ways and at different rates through time etc.
This universal form of motion can be grasped through the related concepts of Thesis, Anti-thesis, and Synthesis. Thesis is positive affirmation, “something is …”. Anti-thesis is the direct opposite, “this thing is not …”. Thesis is the same as Identity, and Anti-thesis the same as Difference within the Identity, quantitatively negating it. Synthesis brings the two sides, Identity and Difference, back into unity, and so consigning the quantitative negation to the past, negating it. It is the negation of the negation. But the result of the negation of the negation is something new, a new Thesis.
To summarise this account of the Law of the Negation of the Negation, we can say that we begin with Intensive Quantitative Negation, a gradual increase or decrease of Quality through time, (Alteration), the existing Quantity being continually negated by a new Quantity, but a Limit is reached at which this process is brought to an end by a sudden Qualitative negation, the ceasing to be of one Quality and the coming to be of another. It is important to be clear however that it is the process of Quantitative Negation itself that is Negated by the Qualitative leap, not one of the opposites by the other. This is a common misunderstanding.
It is clear from this that nothing lasts for ever, that everything is in a state of coming into being and passing away, changing and approaching the end of its existence. The key to the understanding of dialectical logic, however, is to grasp that these two processes do not happen in sequence one after the other, but both progress simultaneously. Every thing, in every moment, is in a state of coming into being and passing away through transformation into something different. Every thing is at once itself and the other of itself, a living, existing Contradiction. Identity is the Positive side of this contradiction, and Difference is the Negative side. The concept of Contradiction is the fundamental principle of dialectics, the “datum” concept. Contradiction is the driving life principle within all movement and transitions of all things, including human social conditions and human thought, into their opposites. Further, we see that matter is infinite and in continuous motion and our exposition of the laws so far expresses this only in a finite way. The continuous motion of matter manifests a repetition of the laws as an endless process of things, (qualities), coming into Being and passing away, thus:-
Affirmation→Negation→Negation of Negation
(Quantitative) Qualitative Leap
to new Affirmation→Negation→Negation of Negation
(Quantitative) Qualitative Leap
to new Affirmation
It is well known that the dialectical materialist method, Marxism, came into being as
a result of the materialist critique by Marx of the work of the German philosopher, Frederick Hegel. Dialectics proper began with Hegel, although the Greek philosopher Heraclitus was also an originator. Hegel was an idealist, but he was a master of the dialectic and therefore it is necessary to study his work closely. In order to make the leap from the formal, metaphysical logic which is the dominating method in present society, to the dialectical method, and to grasp the basic laws of motion we have described, we must study Hegel. He begins with the doctrine of Being.
As we have explained above, “affirmation” is a positing or thesis, “this thing is …”, and this is precisely the concept of Being. It does not imply the existence of any real, definite thing, but only the fact that things do exist. Hegel regards Being as the most universal and abstract concept and takes it as the starting point of his system of logic:-
"Being, pure being, without any further determination. In its indeterminate immediacy it is equal only to itself. It is also not unequal relative to another; it has no diversity within itself nor any with a reference outwards. It would not be held fast in its purity if it contained any determination or content which could be distinguished in it or by which it could be distinguished from an other. It is pure indeterminateness and emptiness. There is nothing to be intuited in it, if one can speak here of intuiting; or, it is only this pure intuiting itself. Just as little is anything to be thought in it, or it is equally only this empty thinking. Being, the indeterminate immediate, is in fact nothing, and neither more nor less than nothing" (Science of Logic, Humanity Books, page 82, F. Hegel)
So Being contains Nothing, its own opposite or negation, passing away. Hegel then goes on to give the other side of the picture.
"Nothing, pure nothing: It is simply equality with itself, complete emptiness, absence of all determination and content- undifferentiatedness in itself. In so far as intuiting or thinking can be mentioned here, it counts as a distinction whether something or nothing is intuited or thought. To intuit or think nothing has, therefore, a meaning; both are distinguished and thus nothing is (exits) in our intuiting or thinking; or rather it is empty intuiting and thought itself, and the same empty intuition or thought as pure being. Nothing is, therefore, the same determination, or rather absence of determination, and thus altogether the same as pure being." (Ibid.)
Those who seriously struggle to master dialectics must master this concept of Nothing. It is pure emptiness with no internal differentiation, the exact opposite of Being. But the very fact that we can describe it is proof enough that it has Being as a thought form and must therefore hold objective meaning. Yet, as Hegel goes on to explain, Being and Nothing, although they are the same, are also distinct:-
"Pure being and pure nothing are, therefore, the same. What is the truth is neither being nor nothing, but that being – does not pass over but has passed over- into nothing, and nothing into being. But it is equally true that they are not undistinguished from each other, that, on the contrary, they are not the same, that they are absolutely distinct, and yet are unseparated and inseparable and that each immediately vanishes in its opposite. Their truth is, therefore, this movement of immediate vanishing of the one in the other: Becoming, a movement in which both are distinguished, but by a difference which has equally immediately resolved itself." (Ibid.)
“Does not pass over but has passed over”; If two things are already one and the same, then we must accept that they have already passed into each other. But what is the result of the vanishing of opposites?
“The resultant equilibrium of coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be is in the first place becoming itself. But this equally settles into a stable unity. Being and nothing are in this unity only as vanishing moments; yet becoming as such is only through their distinguishedness. Their vanishing, therefore, is the vanishing of becoming or the vanishing of the vanishing itself. Becoming is an unstable unrest which settles into a stable result.” (Op. Cit. page 106)
Here we see the law of the Negation of the Negation laid bare. The first, (quantitative), Negation, Becoming, is clearly a process which takes place through time, but if this process reaches a limit, ceases, if the vanishing vanishes, then it itself, the process as such, has been negated. But why do we describe the second Negation, the Negation of the first, as a Qualitative leap? Precisely because it is a stable result.
Being, something which is stable, definite, Determinate Being, as opposed to Being as such which is the same as Nothing, has fixed limits in all respects, and limits imply a “beyond”, some other which is not the thing in question, and differentiation between things in this way can only be made by use of the concept of Quality. A boundary or limit is the meeting point of two different qualities.
With practice and a degree of self-discipline the reader will master the trick of holding this contradictory process in consciousness, and he will have taken the giant leap from formal, metaphysical thought to dialectical thought. We must now unite this dialectical method with the materialist outlook outlined above by considering the process of cognition, the way in which we grasp the material world in thought. This itself is a dialectical practice. The first part, materialism was Thesis, the second part, dialectical logic was Anti-thesis. The next part, cognition, is Synthesis.
3. Cognition
The true relationship between the world of human thought, and the world of matter to which it is related as an opposite within, has been scientifically stated as follows:-
“It is in man that nature really performs, in a self-evident way, that very activity that we are accustomed to call ‘thinking’. In man, in the form of man, in his person, Nature itself thinks, and not at all some special substance, source, or principle instilled into it from outside. In man, therefore, Nature thinks of itself, becomes aware of itself, acts on itself. And the ‘reasoning’, ‘consciousness’, ‘idea’, ‘sensation’, ‘will’, and all the other special actions that Descartes described as modi of thought, are simply different modes of revealing a property inalienable from Nature as a whole, one of its own attributes.” (Prof. E.V. Elyenkov, Dialectical Logic, page 33. Progress Publishers, Moscow.)
From this it is evident that, taken at the universal level, the totality of human thought must be seen as difference within the identity of Nature as a whole. However, we are here discussing the nature of the relationship of thought to the material world at the level of the individual.
Now since we are discussing the question of how the human mind grasps, or cognizes, the External World, then the relation of opposites we are concerned with is that between the external world which is the source or cause of sensation, and sensation itself. We have said that thought processes behave in exactly the same way as do the material processes of the external world, through the unity and conflict, interpenetration and transformation of opposites. We consider the external world and sensation as dialectically related opposites in unity and conflict. However, we cannot reflect the whole world in sensation all at once, rather we experience a continual stream of sensations caused by the individual, finite things which come before us. In our science of dialectical materialism we refer to each such thing as the Identity of the Source of Sensation, and they are reflected in the form of thought Images in sensation, the Identity being cause and the Image effect. Sensation begins as a purely physiological response, on the retina of the eye, the ear-drum etc., and it is completed in the brain as a Thought Image of the thing perceived.
We must examine closely the relation between the identity of the source of sensation and its image in sensation. Sensation reflects the Identity just as a mirror reflects what is before it, but the mirror is not entirely passive. If the mirror were concave or convex it would distort the image. Even the finest mirror will not be perfectly flat and will have some effect on the image, and in the same way sensation has a partially determining effect on the image, reflects it according to its own nature. The image is therefore, to a greater or lesser extent according to the individual person, different to the identity of which it is the reflection, contradicts it. Hence, in the negation of the Identity of the Source of Sensation into the Image in sensation, Identity has been negated into Difference
In order to describe the further development of this thought image, as indeed the development of any thing, be it some material thing in the external world or a thought, we must follow its motion according to the law of the negation of the negation. This first negation of the external world into the image in sensation, identity into difference, provides only a reflection of the outer form of the thing in the external world, and therefore the image is one-sided, abstract, indeterminate. Hence we describe this first moment of perception, in so far as it is a single moment in our process of cognition in general, as the Indeterminate Beginning, and for a true understanding of the thing in the external world we must concentrate our attention on the identity to complete our knowledge of it. This can be described as a movement from thought back outwards to the external world, a negation of the indeterminate beginning into a new moment of connection with the original identity. But time as passed and the identity has now changed, and it is the quantity of change through time that provides us with the new knowledge of the identity. We may have to return our thought back to the external world in this way repeatedly for a greater or lesser period of time, but a point will come when this quantitative increase reaches a limit and sufficient change has taken place to reveal the inner content as opposed to its outer form. At this point the quantitative process is negated by a qualitative leap to a new moment of understanding. The negation is negated and a new affirmation is posited. The point at which some new reflection of the Identity causes the leap is called the third term. (Please accept this term as simply a name for this moment of cognition. To achieve a degree of simplicity, we shall not attempt to explain why it is called the “third term” here.)
At this point it is most helpful to refer to Lenin’s philosophical notes, because he gives a step by step interpretation of Hegel’s dialectic from the materialist standpoint:-
“The result of the negation of the negation, this third term is ‘not a quiescent third term, but, as this unity’ (of contradictions), ‘is self-mediating movement and activity …’” (Collected Works, Vol. 38, page 230. Text in single quotes is quotation that Lenin takes from Hegel.)
The two contradictions Lenin refers to are:-
a) The contradiction between the Identity of the source of sensation and the Image in sensation at the indeterminate beginning.
b) The contradiction between the identity of the source of sensation and its image in sensation at the Third term.
To grasp this moment in the process of cognition, of which Lenin speaks, is a crucial step in grasping the dialectical materialist method. Firstly, we note that he speaks of Unity, not Identity. These two contradictory moments undoubtedly form a unity because, generally speaking they are the same thing, one and the same process, the reflection of the external world in thought as an image in sensation, as explained above. But, more concretely speaking, they are distinct from each other, because each is a separate case of this process of reflection, each taken at a different moment in time. The thing has changed and the second reflection therefore contradicts the first.
To explain a little further: We know that motion, or change of any kind, can only be perceived by comparing the successive positions of a moving body, or perhaps the changes taking place within it, by taking it at different moments of time and comparing the two images. The Difference between the thing at the two moments tells us the truth of the thing, the law of its motion.
As Hegel, (quoted by Lenin), explains, this process, taken as one whole, is “self mediating movement and activity, because each contradictory moment tells us about the other, shines a light on it as it were. In the case of simple mechanical movement of a body through space and time, the second moment tells us about the first – because it is “here” it is not “there”. The first moment, which has of course now passed away in time but remains as an image in thought, tells as about the second – it is no longer “there”, it is now “here”. This is “self mediating movement and activity”. Taken as a whole, this unity of contradictions, what Hegel calls the Third Term, in “not quiescent”, because the second moment is different, contradicts, the first.
Lenin further notes:-
“The result of this dialectical transformation into the ‘third’ term, into the synthesis, is a new premise, assertion etc., [Affirmation], which in turn becomes a source of a further analysis … ” (Ibid.)
What is the synthesis that has taken place? Clearly it is the synthesis between the two moments of reflection which are quantitatively different, the first at the indeterminate beginning, and the second at the third term, and synthesis, we know, is the coming together of two things, the overcoming of the quantitative, first negation, by a negation of this negation itself. The result of this negation of negation is a qualitative leap in our understanding of the identity in the external world to the point where we can definitely say what it is. We shall explain the nature of this leap.
We call such a new affirmation as this a “thing-in-itself”. It is a single identity, an individual thing. Like every thing it is a unity of Being and Nothing, but remember that this is a Determinate Being and hence the Nothing to which it is related is not nothing as such but Determinate noting, the Nothing of itself, its passing away. All determinations, things, identities, are in motion, in a constant state of coming into Being and passing away. Lenin explains it like this:-
“These two moments thus constitute Semblance: Nullity, which however persists, and Being, which however is Moment; or again negativity which is in itself, and reflected immediacy. Consequently these moments are the moments of Essence itself.” (Op. Cit., page 132)
Why is Being the same as Moment? Upon careful consideration we can understand that only the present is in Being – the past moment has gone and in no sense can be considered to be in Being, and the same can be said of the future, it has not yet come into Being. Hence Being itself can only be conceived of as a Moment. How does Nullity persist? We remember that the third term is a synthesis of the indeterminate beginning and the identity of the source of sensation at a later moment it time, and this later moment is of course the present. At this point the past has gone, has been rendered null, but lives on as the Form of the thing. The new moment is what it has become, the inner Content of the Form. The term “negativity which is in-itself” is explained below.
On the next page Lenin quotes Hegel’s explanation of this new and most important moment in the process of cognition, Semblance:-
“Thus Semblance is Essence itself, but Essence in a determinateness, and this in such a manner that determinateness is only its moment; Essence is the showing of itself in itself.”
The category of Essence is the fundamental principle upon which all determinate being rests and it must be explained carefully. At the third term the form is the form of the thing as it was at the moment of the indeterminate beginning and the content (matter) is that which was in Being at the third term. But it is the matter which gives rise to forms, and forms are forms of matter. In an individual case such as this, it is this form which encompasses this matter, and this matter which takes this form. Each makes the other what it is, mediates it, and it is in this sense that we use the term Reflection. Each Reflects the other. But since the form is the form of the matter it is the matter, and since the matter is the matter formed, it is the form. Each is its opposite, there is no difference between them, there is only one thing, hence they collapse into as unity. Nonetheless, we cannot say “they are the same” without making them distinct, just as, Being and Nothing were the same yet distinct. Lenin makes a further note:-
“Thus Semblance is Essence itself, but Essence in a determinateness, and this in such a manner that determinateness is only its moment: Essence is the showing of itself in itself.” (Vol. 38 page 133).
When we take the thing-in-itself in Semblance as the two sides in one, the Reflection, (Essence), is its inner being, does not shine out. This is what is meant by Essence “in itself”. It also explains the comment by Lenin above describing Semblance as “negativity which is in-itself”. The negativity is the conflict between the two sides of Semblance, but this negativity is hidden inside Semblance as a single moment.
But we remember that this thing in-itself, at the Moment of Semblance, has been taken in isolation, out of its context in the rest of Being of which it is a part, and the real truth, Essence, of any thing is the result of its relations with all the things with which it is interconnected and which it reflects. Hence this moment of its Being as an individual thing or phenomenon is to some extent illusory, being only a “Semblance” of the thing in its living truth. Indeed, Hegel refers to such a thing-in-itself as “illusory being”. In what sense, then, can it be an expression of Essence? Lenin explains:-
“The unessential, seeming, superficial, vanishes more often, does not hold so ‘tightly’, does not ‘sit so firmly’ as ‘Essence’; the movement of a river – the foam above and the deep current below. But even to foam is an expression of Essence!” (Page 130).
Undoubtedly, foam would not be foam were it not comprised of water which is its Essence, what it really is, but he who has only seen foam does not yet know what water is. The foam is “the showing of Essence”, which for the moment is not present to the senses, is hidden, remains “in-itself”. It is for this reason that Lenin describes Semblance as “the first moment of Essence”. Essence must be understood as the infinite, law-governed motion of matter which comes before us in finite, determinate, moments of Semblance.
“Essence … contains Semblance within itself, as infinite internal movement … in this its self movement Essence is the same as Reflection. Semblance is the same as Reflection.” ( Vol. 38, page 133).
As we have said, Semblance is “self mediating”, that is, its two sides or aspects are Outer Form and Inner Content which reflect each other. Each is the whole; there is no part of the content which is not form, and the form comprises the whole content. So far as Essence if concerned, this is the moment of first affirmation, thesis. Below, we shall show how this first affirmation of Essence becomes quantitatively and qualitatively negated into a new affirmation through the law of the negation of the negation. As Lenin remarks, “the method is extended into as system”. This system is explained in Part Two.
Terry Button, January 2012