Essence of Dialectics

It refers to the law of unity of opposites, which is an important harvest of Lenin’s study of dialectics and an important theoretical achievement in Philosophical Notebooks.

During 1914 and 1915, Lenin focused on Hegel’s dialectic thought. His main research achievements are embodied in a series of notes, such as “Conspectus of Hegel’s book The Science of Logic”, “The Abstract of Hegel’s Lecture on the History of Philosophy”, “The Abstract of Hegel’s Lecture on Historical Philosophy”, and “The Outline of Hegel’s Dialectics (logic)”. In “The Elements of Dialectics”, Lenin pointed out that dialectics can be simply defined as the theory of unity of opposites. In this way, the core of dialectics will be grasped, but this needs to be explained and developed. In “The Abstract of Hegel’s Lecture on Historical Philosophy”, Lenin pointed out that this is the essence of dialectics when talking about Zeno’s paradox. The formula of unity and identity of opposites shows this essence. In “Conspectus of Hegel’s book The Science of Logic”, Lenin pointed out that dialectics is a kind of theory, which studies how opposites can be unified and how they (become) unified under what conditions they are mutually transformed and unified. Why should the human mind regard these opposites not as rigid and solidified things, but as living and existing things that are conditional, active, and mutually transforming. In his article “On Dialectics”, Lenin said that the essence of dialectics is the division of unity into two parts and the understanding of its contradictory parts.

Lenin argued that the law of the unity of opposites mainly includes the following three understandings: Firstly, the unity of opposites is to recognize that all things, phenomena and processes in nature, human society and human thinking field have contradictory, mutually exclusive and antagonistic tendencies. If we want to understand all the processes in their own movement, in their self-development, we should regard these processes as opposites face the unity to understand.

Secondly, the struggle between the opposites that repel each other is absolute. Just as development and movement are absolute, the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary, perishable and relative. Third, development is the result of the movement of things themselves and the unity of opposites. It is divided into two mutually exclusive opposites and the relationship between them. It is a process from quantitative change to qualitative change, the elimination of the old and the generation of new things.

Lenin said that the characteristics and essence of dialectics are not simple negation, not futile negation, nor doubt negation, vacillation and doubt of doubt. Of course, dialectics itself contains elements of negation, and this is its most important element－not these, but as a link of connection and as a link of development, it maintains something positive, that is, there is no compromise.

Lenin applied dialectics to materialist epistemology and pointed out that dialectics is the epistemology of Hegel and Marxism. It is precisely because dialectics is a vivid, multifaceted and infinitely close understanding of things and phenomena, so it has incomparably rich content compared with metaphysics. In the view of dialectics, any understanding of things is not immutable and can be achieved overnight. The development of things is an eternal process. Therefore, people’s understanding will never end, and it is even more impossible to be a group of rigid, abstract and rigid dogmas once they are obtained. Cognition is the eternal and endless approach of thinking to the object. The reflection of nature in man’s thought should be understood as not rigid, abstract, not motionless or contradictory, but in the eternal process of movement, the occurrence and solution of contradictions. perspective of practice. We should regard practice as a quality higher than theory, as the source, motive force and criterion of knowledge truth.

Therefore, the law of unity of opposites not only reveals the universal connection between things and the internal source of eternal development, but also provides other categories and laws of dialectics. It is also the fundamental law and method for human beings to understand and transform the world as well as constitutes the essence and core category of dialectics.