Materialism

One of the two basic schools of philosophy, ideological system opposite to idealism. Materialism and idealism are the two basic schools of philosophy according to the different answers given to the basic question of philosophy concerning the relation of thinking and being. Materialism claims that being determines thinking, that matter is primary and spirit is secondary, and that spirit is a product of matter. Materialism was established and developed on the basis of man’s practical activity.

Materialism has three historical forms: ancient naïve materialism, modern metaphysical materialism and Marxist materialism. Ancient naïve materialism regarded some concrete forms of matter as the origin of the world. Often combined with naïve dialectics, it regarded the world as a moving and changing whole, while affirming its materiality. Due to the limitations of practice and of the level of development science, it was of speculative, contemplative and naïve character. Modern metaphysical materialism, which is based on the scientific achievements of the 17th and 18th centuries, overcame the naïvety of the ancient materialist philosophy and has proved the materiality of the world by using empirical knowledge and scientific methods. But it has defects of mechanism and metaphysics, because it looks at the world from an isolated, static and one-sided point of view. Feuerbach’s anthropological materialism was the latest achievement of materialism before the emergence of Marxism, but it relapsed into idealism when it entered the sphere of the history of society.

Marx not only affirmed that Feuerbach and previous materialism acknowledged the precedence of external nature over thinking and upheld the fundamental principles of materialism, but also pointed out that previous materialists understood things only in the form of objects and did not understand the significance of practice.

Based on practice, Marxism tightly coupled materialism and dialectics, consistently carried through materialism in all spheres including the history of society, and founded dialectical and historical materialism. Upholding the view that the world is unified in matter, that matter determines consciousness and that the contradictory motion promotes the development of things, Marxism has revealed the general laws of the development of objective world, especially the development of human society, revealed the essence of human knowledge and its laws of development, and brought about the transformation of philosophy from interpreting the world to changing the world and provided a sharp ideological weapon for the proletariat.