Dialectical Materialism

Scientific philosophical world outlook and methodology founded by Marx and Engels, which constantly develops and deepens with the development of practice. Combining materialism with dialectics, dialectical materialism has overcome the inconsistency of ancient naïve materialism and modern metaphysical materialism, consistently carried through materialism in all spheres, revealed the universal essence and general laws of nature, human society and human thinking, and has achieved a great revolution in the human history of philosophical ideas.

Dialectical materialism arose in the 1840s; it was Marx and Engels who summarized the practical experiences of the international workers’ movement and the new achievements in the development of natural science in the 19th century, inherited the excellent achievements of human culture, in particular, it was founded by critically assimilating the “rational kernel” of Hegelian dialectics and the “fundamental kernel” of Feuerbach’s materialism.

The first person to use the term “dialectical materialism” was the German worker philosopher J. Dietzgen. In his book Excursions of a Socialist into the Domain of Epistemology, published in 1886, Dietzgen called the philosophy founded by Marx and Engels “dialectical materialism”. Plekhanov also expressed it in the same way. In What the ‘Friends of the People Are’ and How They Fight Against the Social-Democrats, Materialism and Empirio-criticism and other works, Lenin used the term several times to refer to Marxist philosophy.

Dialectical materialism upholds both materialism and dialectics, both a materialist and dialectical conception of nature and a materialist and dialectical conception of the history of society, carries through materialism and dialectics in all spheres, including the history of society, and looks at the whole world from a materialist and dialectical point of view. Dialectical materialism explained dialectical materialism, materialist dialectics, dialectical materialist epistemology and the dialectical materialist conception of the history of society.

Dialectical materialism explained the dialectical relation between matter and consciousness, revealed the essence of the world from a materialistic and dialectical point of view, and fundamentally solves the question “what is the world”. Dialectical materialism holds that the world is essentially material, and that matter is the origin of the world, that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary, that matter determines consciousness, that consciousness is a reflection of matter, and that consciousness in turn dynamically reacts upon matter. Engels said: “the real, genuine unity of the world consists in its materiality.” Dialectical materialism is the science of interconnection and development, the outlook on development and the method of thinking opposite to metaphysics. It holds that the material world moves, changes and develops in accordance with its inherent laws, that the fundamental cause for the development of things lies in the contradictoriness within things, and that the law of the unity of opposites is the most fundamental law of the motion, change and development of the material world. The scientific system of dialectical materialism is composed of series of basic laws such as the law of the unity of opposites, law of the transmutation between quality and quantity, and the law of the negation of the negation, and a series of basic categories such as form and content, phenomenon and essence, cause and effect, chance and necessity, possibility and reality. The law of the unity of opposites is the essence and core of dialectical materialism.

Dialectical materialist epistemology is a scientific theory on the nature, foundation, laws and methodology and course of development of human knowledge and the question of how to know the truth. Dialectical materialist epistemology holds that knowledge is the subject’s dynamic reflection of the object and that practice is the basis of knowledge. Centered around the dialectical relation between knowledge and practice, it explained the process of development of knowledge which discovers the truth through practice, and tests and develops the truth through practice, which dynamically develops from sensuous knowledge to rational knowledge, and dynamically guides practice from rational knowledge, and revealed the law of development of knowledge: practice, knowledge, again knowledge and again knowledge, and this form repeats itself in endless cycles.

The dialectical materialist conception of the history of society, i.e., historical materialism, is a component part of particular importance in the complete dialectical materialist world outlook of Marxism, hence Marxist philosophy is also called dialectical and historical materialism.

As science on the general laws of development of nature, of society and of thinking, dialectical materialism provides a scientific world outlook and methodology for people to know and change the world. Mao Zedong pointed out: “Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism has two outstanding characteristics. One is its class nature: it openly avows that dialectical materialism is in the service of the proletariat. The other is its practicality: it emphasizes the dependence of theory on practice, emphasizes that theory is based on practice and in turn serves practice.”