The Viewpoint that Practice is of First Importance in the Theory of Knowledge of Dialectical Materialism

The most important principle and feature that distinguishes the Marxist philosophy from other philosophies. Practice is the perceptual material activity that human beings purposefully do to transform the objective world. The principle of practice is the first importance in the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism, and a fundamental principle making the Marxist philosophy surpass all previous philosophies. Lenin emphasized in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism that “The standpoint of life, of practice, should be first and fundamental in the theory of knowledge.”

(1) Practice plays a fundamental role in understanding the world’s material unity. In the past, all materialist theories, whether ancient or modern, insisted that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary in the face of the basic philosophy question. Although they found the correct principle to explain the world, due to the limits of historical conditions and level of understanding, they were either trapped in simple dogmatism or mechanical empiricism. Moreover, they often seemed helpless in dealing with social and historical problems and degenerated into “half-done” materialism. Different from all previous materialist theories, dialectical materialism, while insisting on matter primary, introduces the concept of practice and regards practice as the unity of initiative and passivity. On the one hand, practice is a material activity for human beings to actively transform the objective world, which has direct reality and social historicity. On the other hand, the process of practice is also the process of human beings putting their subjective goals into practice, which reflects the active role of consciousness. The introduction of the concept of practice not only adhered to the basic principle of materialism, i.e., the principle of matter primary, but more importantly realized the mutual connection between subject and object and made people’s thinking objective and realistic, uniting not only nature, but also human society in matter.

(2) Practice embodies the unity of materialism and dialectics. Modern materialism is limited to the achievements of natural science, especially mechanics. It views the objective world from the perspective of mechanical metaphysics, regards all things as atomic complexes of mechanical movement, and attributes the nature of human beings to simple physical receptivity, completely denying the subjective initiative of human beings. On the contrary, as a representative form of idealism, German classical philosophy inherited and abstractly developed the ancient simple principle of dialectics. It understands the opposition between thought and being as a contradictory and negative process, and regards the sublation of contradiction as an inevitable form of development of things. However, in its view, all these changes in motion only take place in spirit and mind. Based on the practice concept in the dialectical materialism, Marx and Engels, on the one hand, reversed the “mysterious shell” of Hegel’s dialectics, replaced Hegel’s absolute concept with individuals and their perceptual activities in the real life, and regarded the concept as something that has been transferred into and transformed by the human brain. On the other hand, the “reasonable core” of Hegel’s dialectics, i.e., the idea of the eternal development process, was introduced into materialism, thus combining dialectics with materialism and realizing the organic unity of the two.

(3) Practice is the basic viewpoint of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism and embodies the unity of epistemology and ontology. Dialectical materialism holds that as a grasp of the objective world in the form of ideas, theory is an important component and necessary link in the process of practice. Theory is an activity based on practice, which not only shows that knowledge is a dynamic reflection on the basis of practice, but also shows that practice provides material conditions for knowledge. Practice is the source of knowledge, the driving force for development and the criterion for testing the truth of knowledge. The dialectical process of human cognition is not only a leap from practice to knowledge, but more importantly, an expansion of the initiative to return from knowledge to practice. Practice, cognition, re-practice, re-cognition...the cycle continues and develops infinitely, which is the whole process of dialectical cognition. Therefore, the viewpoint of practice is not only the primary and basic viewpoint of the theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism—practice itself is material and acts on the material form with material force. It is through practice that epistemology and ontology become organically united.