Epistemology

Also known as “theory of knowledge”. Philosophical theory on the essence and source of human knowledge and the laws of its development. The basic question of epistemology is the question concerning the relation of subject and object and knowledge and practice. In epistemology, there is the opposition and struggle between materialism and idealism, dialectics and metaphysics, and there is the struggle against agnosticism.

Starting out from the fundamental premise that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary, materialist epistemology holds that human knowledge originates from the objective world, that knowledge is the reflection of objective being, and upholds the line of knowledge from material to consciousness. Materialist epistemology upholds the principles of the theory of reflection. Idealist epistemology denies that knowledge is the reflection of the objective world and advocates a line of knowledge from consciousness to matter. Subjective idealism regards knowledge as self-generated in the human brain. Objective idealism speaks of the source of knowledge as the objective spirit that precedes and derives from matter, such as the so-called “absolute spirit” and “idea”. Agnosticism holds that man cannot know the world, or at least cannot know the world consistently.

Without the social nature of man and his historical development, materialism prior to Marxism was incapable of understanding the dependence of knowledge on social practice, and examined the question of knowledge from a metaphysical point of view. The old materialist epistemology was a passive contemplative theory of reflection.

Marxism introduced practice into epistemology, emphasized the dependence of knowledge on practice, and combined epistemology with dialectics to reveal the essence of human knowledge and the laws of its development. Marxist epistemology is the dynamic revolutionary theory of reflection. The standpoint of practice is its primary and basic standpoint. Marxism both opposed idealist epistemology and has overcome the defects of the old materialist epistemology, and for the first time in history, founded a scientific epistemology by strongly refuting agnosticism on the basis of practice.

Marxism holds that practice is the source of knowledge, the driving force of the development of knowledge, the criterion for testing the truth of knowledge, and the ultimate purpose of knowledge. Knowledge is a complex process of contradictory motion that takes place on the basis of practice, rising from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, and then returning from rational knowledge to practice. “Practice, knowledge, again practice and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge.”