Matter and Consciousness

A basic pair of categories of Marxist philosophy. The relation of matter and consciousness constitutes the basic question of philosophy. Matter is the objective reality which is independent of consciousness and can be reflected through consciousness. The sole property of matter is to be an objective reality. The category of matter of Marxist philosophy is the product of scientific abstraction and does not refer to some physical object. Engels said: “Matter as such is a pure creation of thought and an abstraction… Matter is nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is abstracted.” Ancient naïve materialism comprehended the origin of the world as one or several directly perceivable objects; for example, the Milesian School in ancient Greek held that water is the origin of heaven, earth and myriad things and the doctrine of the five elements (wuxing) in ancient China held that everything in the world is composed of gold, wood, water, fire and earth. The philosophers of modern metaphysical materialism regarded the atom as the smallest unit which constitutes all things, as the “bricks of the universe”, based on what the natural sciences knew at the time about the structure of matter. At the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, scientific discoveries such as the electron and radioactive elements had a serious impact on the metaphysical materialist conception of matter. Idealism has distorted the new discoveries of natural sciences by claiming that “atoms have dematerialized”, “matter has disappeared”, “materialism has been refuted”. Lenin summarized the new achievements of natural sciences by summarizing the experience of previous materialist philosophical explorations, and gave a scientific definition of 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.”

Lenin’s definition of matter embodies the dialectical materialist conception of matter: Firstly, his definition upholds the materiality of the world and draws a clear line between idealism and materialism and this definition points out that materiality is the objective reality, and means that, matter is independent of consciousness. This is the common basic nature of any concrete form, concrete structure and concrete attribute of matter. Lenin defined matter from the level of the relation of matter and consciousness, revealed the originality of matter to consciousness and the dependence of consciousness on matter, thus, vigorously defended materialism and opposed idealism. Secondly, Lenin’s materialism upheld the knowability of the material world and drew a clear line between it and agnosticism. This definition points out that matter is the objective reality which is given to man by his sensations and illustrates that although matter does not depend on consciousness for its independent being, it can be known by man, and that thinking and being have identity. Thirdly, this definition points out that objective reality is the sole property of matter, overcoming the limitation of the conception of matter of old materialism and naïve materialism (including ancient naïve materialism and modern metaphysical materialism). This definition disregards the individuality and the differences of all concrete and particular things and only extracts the objective reality which they have in common. In this way, it overcomes the old materialism’s defect of confusing concrete forms and structures of matter with the philosophical category of matter, and establishes a dialectical materialist conception of matter unifying commonality and individuality, and universality and particularity.

Consciousness is a product of the long development of the material world. The emergence of consciousness has been a long process of natural evolution, going through the stages of development from the reactive property possessed by all matter to the stimulus–responsive characteristics of living matter, from the stimulus–response of lower organisms to the sensation and psyche of animals, and then to human consciousness. The emergence of consciousness is a process of social history. Labor is the determining link in the emergence of consciousness, and labor is a social activity from the beginning. Pure animal psychology cannot spontaneously generate consciousness. Labor provided the objective need and possibility for the emergence of consciousness. Language, the material shell of thinking, also arose in the social labor-process. Driven by labor and language, the ape brain has become the human brain, providing a material basis for the emergence of consciousness. Marx said: “Consciousness is, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all.” Consciousness is a function of the human brain, the subjective image of the material world in the human brain: First, consciousness is a function of the human brain, a particular kind of matter, and the human brain is the organ of consciousness. Consciousness depends on the human brain and is a particular property of matter. Second, consciousness is a reflection of the objective world, and its content comes from the objective world. Engels said: “All ideas are taken from experience, are reflections: true or distorted–of reality”, and Lenin said: “Things, the environment, the world, exist independently of our sensation, of our consciousness, of our self and of man in general… 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 independent of the subject which images it.” Consciousness, whether correct or false, is the reflection of the objective material world in one way or another. The human brain itself will not produce consciousness apart from the external word. Consciousness depends on objective objects. Third, consciousness depends on society and originates from practice.

Consciousness can dynamically reflect and change the world. It can change the world; first, conscious activity has purpose and plan. Marx said that the result obtained at the end of the labor-process already exists in the imagination of the laborer at its commencement, “that was therefore already ideally present”; second, consciousness has activity and creativity, Lenin said: “Man’s consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but creates it.”; third, conscious activity can change the objective world by guiding the practice; and fourthly, consciousness plays a regulatory part in man’s physiological activity.

Different answers to the question concerning the relation between consciousness and matter divide philosophy into two basic schools: materialism and idealism. Marxism upholds that matter is primary, consciousness is secondary, and that matter determines consciousness, and at the same time holds that consciousness has a dynamic reaction upon matter and that it can dynamically know and change the world on the basis of practice.