In recent years, the Soviet philosophical circles have criticized the idealism of Deborah School, which aroused our great interest. Deborah's idealism has had a very bad influence in China's * * * production party. Dogmatism within our party cannot be said to have nothing to do with the style of this school. Therefore, our current philosophical research should aim at eliminating dogmatism.
One or two views on the universe
In the history of human cognition, there have always been two views on the law of the development of the universe, one is metaphysical and the other is dialectical, forming two opposing views on the universe. Lenin said: "What are the two basics (or two possibilities) of development (evolution)? Or two common ones in history? ) The views are as follows: (1) It is considered that development is reduction and increase, and it is repetition; (2) It is believed that development is the unity of opposites (the unity of things is divided into two mutually exclusive opposites, and the two opposites are interrelated). Lenin talked about these two different world views.
Metaphysics, also called metaphysics. This kind of thought, whether in China or in Europe, has long been an idealistic world outlook and has always occupied a dominant position in people's minds. In Europe, early bourgeois materialism is also metaphysical. Because the social and economic conditions of many European countries have entered the stage of highly developed capitalism, productivity, class struggle and science have reached unprecedented levels in history, and the industrial proletariat has become the greatest driving force for historical development, thus producing the Marxist materialist dialectics world outlook. As a result, among the bourgeoisie, in addition to the open and extremely explicit reactionary idealism, there has also been a vulgar theory of evolution, which has come out to oppose materialist dialectics.
The so-called metaphysical or vulgar evolutionary cosmology is to look at the world from an isolated, static and one-sided point of view. This view of the universe regards everything in the world, the form and type of everything, as isolated from each other forever and never changing. If there is a change, it is only an increase or decrease in quantity and a change in position. The reason for this change is not in the object but outside it, that is, it is driven by external forces. Metaphysics believes that the characteristics of different things and things in the world have been like this since they first existed. Subsequent changes are nothing more than the expansion or contraction of quantity. They think that one thing can only be produced repeatedly as the same thing and cannot be turned into another different thing. In the metaphysical point of view, the exploitation of capitalism, the competition of capitalism, the individualism of capitalist society, etc. In ancient slave society, even in primitive society, it can be found and will exist forever. When it comes to the reasons for social development, they use geographical and climatic conditions outside the society to explain it. They simply look for the reasons for the development of things from the outside, denying the theory that things develop because of internal contradictions advocated by materialist dialectics. Therefore, they can't explain the qualitative diversity of things, and can't explain a qualitative phenomenon to other species. In Europe, this thought was mechanical materialism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and vulgar evolution in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In China, there is the so-called metaphysical thought (5) that "the sky remains unchanged and the Tao remains unchanged", which has long been supported by the decadent feudal ruling class. Mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism, which were introduced into Europe for nearly a hundred years, were supported by the bourgeoisie.
Contrary to the metaphysical world view, the materialist dialectics world view advocates studying the development of things from the inside of things and the relationship between things and other things, that is, the development of things is regarded as the inevitable movement within things, and the movement of all things is interrelated and influenced by other things around them. The fundamental reason for the development of things is not outside things, but inside things, which lies in the contradictions inside things. Everything has this contradiction, which causes the movement and development of things. This contradiction within things is the fundamental reason for the development of things, and the interaction and influence between one thing and other things is the secondary reason for the development of things. In this way, materialist dialectics strongly opposes metaphysical mechanical materialism and the exogenous or passive theory of vulgar evolution. This is very clear. Simple external reasons can only cause the mechanical movement of things, that is, the increase or decrease of scope and quantity, and cannot explain why things are so different in nature and change with each other. In fact, even the mechanical movement driven by external forces has to go through the internal contradictions of things. The simple growth and quantitative development of animals and plants are mainly caused by internal contradictions. Similarly, social development is mainly internal and therefore not external. Many countries have great differences and imbalances in their development under almost the same geographical and climatic conditions. In the same country, the society has changed a lot without changing the geography and climate. Imperialist Russia has become a socialist Soviet Union, and feudal closed-door Japan has become an imperialist Japan. The geography and climate of these countries have not changed. China, which has been ruled by feudal system for a long time, has undergone great changes in the past hundred years, and is now transforming into a free and liberated new China. The geography and climate of China have not changed. The geographical climate of the whole earth and all parts of the earth is also changing, but it is very small compared with the social changes. The former shows its changes in tens of thousands of years, while the latter shows its changes in thousands of years, hundreds of years, decades, even years or months (revolutionary period). According to materialist dialectics, the change of nature is mainly due to the development of internal contradictions in nature. The change of society is mainly due to the development of contradictions within society, that is, the contradiction between productive forces and production relations, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction between old and new. Due to the development of these contradictions, it has promoted social progress and promoted the metabolism of the old and new societies. Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Do not rule out. Materialist dialectics holds that external cause is the condition of change, internal cause is the basis of change, and external cause works through internal cause. Eggs turn into chickens because of the right temperature, but temperature can't turn stones into chickens because they have different foundations. Interaction between people from different countries always exists. In the era of capitalism, especially in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, the mutual influence and excitement among countries in politics, economy and culture is extremely great. The October socialist revolution not only ushered in a new era of Russian history, but also ushered in a new era of world history. It affected the internal changes of all countries in the world, especially in China, but this change was caused by the laws of each country and China itself. The two armies fight, one wins and one loses, so the victory or defeat depends on internal factors. The winner is strong because of his command, and the loser is weak because of his command, or because of his improper command, the external cause passes through the internal cause, thus causing the effect. In 1927, the big bourgeoisie in China defeated the proletariat, which worked through opportunism within the proletariat in China (within the Chinese production party). After we liquidated this opportunism, the China Revolution developed again. Later, due to adventurism within our Party, the China Revolution was severely hit by the enemy. When we liquidated this adventurism, our cause developed again. From this perspective, a political party must rely on the correctness of its own political line and organizational consolidation to guide the revolution to victory.
Dialectical world outlook, whether in China or Europe, came into being in ancient times. However, ancient dialectics was spontaneous and simple, and it was impossible to have a complete theory according to the social and historical conditions at that time, so it could not completely explain the universe, and was later replaced by metaphysics. Hegel was a famous German philosopher who lived at the end of 18 century and the beginning of 19 century. He made great contributions to dialectics, but his dialectics was idealistic. It was not until Marx and Engels, great activists of the proletarian movement, synthesized the positive achievements in the history of human cognition, especially critically absorbed the reasonable part of Hegel's dialectics and founded the great theories of dialectical materialism and historical materialism that an unprecedented revolution took place in the history of human cognition. Later, this great theory was developed through Lenin and Stalin. As soon as this theory spread to China, it caused great changes in China's ideological circle.
This dialectical world outlook mainly teaches people to be good at observing and analyzing the contradictory movements of various things, and according to this analysis, points out the methods to solve contradictions. Therefore, it is very important for us to know the law of contradiction in detail.
Second, the universality of contradictions.
For the convenience of narration, I will first talk about the universality of contradictions, and then talk about the particularity of contradictions. This is because the great creators and successors of Marxism, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, discovered the world outlook of materialist dialectics, and applied materialist dialectics to the analysis of human history and natural history in many aspects, and achieved great success in many aspects of social and natural changes (for example, in the Soviet Union). The universality of contradiction has been recognized by many people. Therefore, only a few words are needed to explain this problem; Many comrades, especially dogmatists, are still puzzled by the particularity of contradictions. They don't understand that the universality of contradiction lies in its particularity. They also don't understand the significance of studying the particularity of the contradiction of concrete things to guide the development of revolutionary practice. Therefore, the particularity of contradiction should be studied emphatically and explained in sufficient space. For this reason, when we analyze the contradictory laws of things, we will first analyze the universality of contradictions, then focus on the particularity of contradictions, and finally return to the universality of contradictions.
The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has two meanings. One is that contradictions exist in the development process of everything; The second is that the development process of everything has a contradictory movement from beginning to end.
Engels said: "The movement itself is contradictory." [6] Lenin's definition of the law of the unity of opposites says that it means "understanding (discovering) all phenomena and processes in nature (spiritual and social) contain contradictory, mutually exclusive and contradictory trends". Are these views correct? That's right. The interdependence and struggle of contradictions contained in everything determines the life of everything and promotes its development. Nothing does not contain contradictions, and there is no world without contradictions.
Contradiction is the basis of simple motion forms (such as mechanical motion) and complex motion forms.
Engels explained the universality of contradiction in this way: "If the simple mechanical movement itself contains contradictions, then the higher forms of physical movement, especially organic life and its development, contain contradictions even more. ..... Life is that a creature is itself at all times, but it is something else. Therefore, life is also a contradiction that exists in the object and process itself and constantly generates and solves itself; As soon as this contradiction stops, life stops, so death comes. Similarly, we have seen that we can't avoid contradictions within the scope of thinking. We have also seen that, for example, the contradiction between the infinite cognitive ability of human beings and the actual realization of this cognitive ability in individuals who are only limited by external and cognitive constraints has been solved in the infinite continuous series of human generations-at least for us, it is actually infinite. "
"One of the main foundations of advanced mathematics is contradiction ..."
"Even elementary mathematics is full of contradictions. ……"⑻
Lenin also explained the universality of contradiction in this way: "In mathematics, positive and negative, differential and integral.
In mechanics, action and reaction.
In physics, positive electricity and negative electricity.
In chemistry, refers to the combination and decomposition of atoms.
In social science, class struggle. "⑼
Attack and defense, advance and retreat, victory and defeat in war are all contradictory phenomena. If you lose one side, the other side will not exist. The struggle between the two sides has formed the whole war, promoted the development of the war and solved the problems of the war.
Every difference in people's ideas should be regarded as a reflection of objective contradictions. Objective contradictions are reflected in subjective thoughts, which constitute the contradictory movement of ideas, promote the development of ideas and constantly solve people's ideological problems.
The opposition and struggle of different ideas within the party often occur, which is a reflection of social class contradictions and contradictions between old and new things within the party. If there are no contradictions within the party and there is no ideological struggle to solve them, the life of the party will stop.
From this point of view, whether it is a simple form of movement or a complex form of movement, whether it is an objective phenomenon or an ideological phenomenon, contradictions are widespread and exist in all processes, which has been clarified. But at the beginning of each process, are there contradictions? Is there a contradictory movement in the development process of everything from beginning to end?
It can be seen from the articles criticized by the Soviet philosophy circle that the Deborin school has such a view that contradictions do not appear at the beginning of the process, but only when the process develops to a certain stage. Then, before that time, the reason of process development is not due to internal reasons, but to external reasons. In this way, Deborah returned to the metaphysical exogenous theory and mechanism. From this point of view, they can see that there are only differences between rich peasants and ordinary peasants under Soviet conditions, and there is no contradiction. They fully agree with Bukharin's opinion. When analyzing the French Revolution, they thought that before the Revolution, the workers, peasants and the third class of the bourgeoisie had only differences and no contradictions. Deborah School's viewpoint is anti-Marxist. They don't know that every difference in the world already contains contradictions, and differences are contradictions. Since the emergence of the two classes, there have been contradictions between employers and employees, but they have not intensified. Even under the social conditions of the Soviet Union, there are differences between workers and peasants. Their differences are contradictions, but they will not intensify into confrontation and will not take the form of class struggle, which is different from the contradiction between labor and capital. They formed a solid alliance in socialist construction, and gradually solved this contradiction in the development process from socialism to * * * productism. This is a problem of contradiction and difference, not contradiction. Contradiction is universal and absolute. It exists in all the processes of the development of things and runs through all the processes.
What happened to the new process? This is the old unity, and the opposing elements that make up this unity give way to the new unity and the opposing elements that make up this unity, so the new process takes the place of the old one. The old process is over, and a new process has happened. The new process contains new contradictions and begins its own history of contradictions.
Lenin pointed out that Marx made such an analysis in Das Kapital. This is a necessary method to study the development process of anything. Lenin himself correctly applied this principle and carried it out in all his works.
"In Das Kapital, Marx first analyzed the simplest, most universal, most basic, most universal and most common relationship in bourgeois society (commodity society)-commodity exchange. This kind of analysis exposes all contradictions (and the germ of all contradictions) in modern society in this simplest phenomenon (this' cell' of bourgeois society). The following narrative shows us the development of these contradictions and the sum of all parts of this society from beginning to end (both growth and movement). "
After Lenin said the above, he went on to say, "This should be ... the narrative (and research) method of general dialectics." ⑽
China * * * producers must learn this method, in order to correctly analyze the history and present situation of the China revolution and infer the future of the revolution.