Since its establishment in the mid-1940s, Marxist philosophy has gone through two periods: from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, it mainly verified, enriched and developed historical materialism and dialectical methods in the process of summing up revolutionary experience and studying political economy; Since the 1970s, it has developed to a new stage, and its main task is to sum up the new achievements of natural science with materialist dialectics, and systematically establish and expound the dialectical materialist view of nature and science, so as to further systematize the whole Marxist philosophy. The latter task was mainly completed by Engels, whose main achievements were embodied in Dialectics of Nature and Anti-Turin Theory.
The first section is Marx and Engels' philosophical summary of the latest achievements of natural science and the systematic establishment of dialectical materialism view of nature.
First, from the starting point of the new view of nature to the establishment of the dialectics of nature system.
Generally speaking, the establishment of the system is far from three stages: the establishment of a new natural officer in the 1940s, the induction of new natural science materials in the 1950s and 1960s, and the systematic establishment of a complete system of Marxist natural view, epistemology and methodology in the 1970s and 1980s.
1. The formation of the new century view and the establishment of the starting point of the new nature view
In his youth, Marx cared about the philosophical significance of natural science. The change of Marx's and Engels' views on nature is synchronized with the change of their whole world outlook. The birth of Marxist philosophy marks the formation of dialectical materialism view of nature and epistemology. Marx drew up the outline because he not only defined practice as the basis and starting point of understanding social life and human nature, but also established it as the basis and starting point of the whole world outlook (including the view of nature) and epistemology (including the epistemology of natural science). However, to establish a new view of nature, we can only rely on the actual development of natural science to provide appropriate empirical understanding materials.
2. Marx and Engels' special research and preliminary summary of natural science achievements.
Marx and Engels' research on new materials in natural science mainly includes cell theory, energy conservation and transformation theorem and Darwin's evolution theory, and their achievements are mainly reflected in their communication. The first is the cell theory, which scientifically reveals the internal relations between various organisms, finds the structural overlap between human beings and other mammals, and shows that the independent cells found in lower ciliates are not obviously different from the embryos of lower plants or higher animals or even human eggs and sperm, thus objectively shaking the foundation of religion and theology and theoretically demonstrating the absurdity of idealism.
Secondly, the law of conservation of energy, its discovery shows that the unity of the whole natural movement is no longer a philosophical judgment, but a fact of natural science. Thirdly, Darwin's theory of biological evolution holds that evolution provides a natural history basis for our views. So far, there has never been such a large-scale attempt to prove the development of natural history and it has been so successful. But he also criticized the shortcomings in his works, mainly referring to his empirical methodology and blindly introducing Malthus' theory into the fields of zoology and botany.
3. Engels' comprehensive research on new materials of natural science and the establishment of natural dialectical system.
1869 In July, Engels retired from business and moved to London in February the following year. From then on, he began a comprehensive study for ten years. It is pointed out: "Natural science can only understand objects by observing their mutual relations and movements, and the understanding of various forms of movement is the understanding of objects. Therefore, the discussion of these different forms of movement is the main object of natural science. " This is Engels' first comprehensive conception of dialectics of nature.
From1May 873 to1June 876, it was the first period when Dialectics of Nature was founded. During the qualifying period, he wrote three papers: Introduction, On Dialectics and The Role of Labor in the Transformation from Ape to Man, which formed the basic idea of dialectics of nature. An Introduction to Dialectics of Nature written by 1876 marks the basic establishment of Marxist new view of nature.
Second, the establishment of dialectics of nature is the brilliant achievement of Engels' criticism of natural science and the transformation of Hegel's dialectics.
1. The systematic establishment of dialectical materialism view of nature is a philosophical summary of all the history and latest achievements of natural science.
Engels believed that human's understanding of nature went through a negative process: in ancient times, natural science had not yet been differentiated from philosophy. Only astronomy, mathematics and mechanics have developed to a certain extent, far from forming a systematic natural science, and this situation is compatible with the ancient simple dialectical view of nature, which is characterized by overall intuition and genius speculation and regards nature as a moving and changing unified whole.
Under the rule of medieval religious theology, the study of natural science was once stifled. /kloc-In the second half of the 5th century, under the impetus of industrial production and Renaissance, modern natural science developed, and the publication of the celestial movement (brother) marked that modern natural science completely got rid of the shackles of theology.
However, from15th century to18th century, the development of most natural sciences is still in the stage of collecting and sorting out materials, isolating different things and processes in nature from each other, and examining them in isolation regardless of their interactions and connections, thus resulting in metaphysical thinking methods. Later, Bacon and Locke transplanted this method from natural science to philosophy, thus forming a metaphysical view of nature. The central point of this metaphysical view of nature is that the whole nature is regarded as eternal and absolutely unchangeable. This metaphysical view of nature, no matter from details, empirical materials or empirical knowledge, far exceeds the simple dialectical view of nature in ancient times. With the further development of natural science, this isolated and one-sided view of nature is bound to seriously hinder the progress of science and eventually lead to idealism, starting with Copernicus' declaration of religion and theology.
At the end of 18, modern natural science developed to the stage of synthesizing its research results. The initial result was that Kant put forward the nebula hypothesis, which opened the first gap in the metaphysical view of nature. Cell theory, energy theory and evolution theory gave a decisive blow to this view of nature. "The whole nature, from the smallest thing to the largest thing, from gravel to the sun, from protozoa to human beings, is in eternal production and disappearance, in constant flow, in endless movement and change." This is not a simple repetition, but a regression on the basis of science. There is an essential difference. In Greece, it is an intuitive thing of genius, while in our case, it is a rigorous scientific research based on experiments.
2. The systematic establishment of Marxist scientific methodology is a positive result of criticizing the old natural scientific methodology and Hegel's dialectical method.
Das Kapital applies dialectical method to the study of a specific historical science (political economy), mainly to develop his historical foundation as the direction of his own scientific research; However, Dialectics of Nature is not a scientific work about a specific subject, but about the whole nature and all natural sciences, so he emphasized the universal cognitive function and methodological principles of dialectical methods in the whole natural science research.
In the second part, Engels systematically expounded natural materialism and dialectical method.
I. Matter and its Forms of Existence
1. The material category of dialectical materialism
First of all, Engels used the dialectical relationship between the general and the individual to explain that we can't have a narrow empirical understanding of the material concept of philosophy. "As a matter, matter is a pure thought creation and a pure abstraction. When we sum up all kinds of things that exist in physics under the concept of matter, we suppress the qualitative differences of things. Therefore, unlike concrete and existing substances, substances as substances are not perceptual things. "
Secondly, Engels criticized the metaphysical view of reducing matter to the smallest inseparable particle somewhere according to the viewpoint of materialist dialectics.
2. Movement is the way of existence of matter.
"Movement is the way of existence of matter, so it is not just the characteristics of matter." "As the essential expression of matter, as the existing form of matter, movement itself, like matter itself, is immortal". "Movement, in the most general sense, is understood as a way of existence and an inherent property of matter, including all the changes and processes that have taken place in the universe, from the position of a single village to thinking."
Engels not only put forward the category of "general movement", but also studied the concrete forms of material movement. He summarized the material movement into five basic forms: machine movement, physical movement, chemical movement, life movement and social movement. In addition, the famous principle of motion immortality is put forward. "The eternity of motion can be understood not only in quantity, but also in quality." "Matter will always be matter in all its changes, and any of its attributes will not be lost. For this reason, although matter must destroy its highest essence-the spirit of thinking at a certain moment, it must be regenerated in another place and at another time with the same iron inevitability. "
3. Time and space are the basic forms of material movement.
"These two forms of existence of matter have no matter, of course, they are nothingness, and they are empty concepts and abstractions that only exist in our minds."
Second, the dialectical nature of nature.
The thing is not to force dialectical laws into nature, but to find these laws from nature and explain them from nature.
1. Polarization and its interaction in nature
Universal connection and movement development are two basic viewpoints of dialectical method. From the viewpoint of connection and movement, we must admit the contradiction of nature, and the law of unity of opposites is one of the basic mysteries of nature. Engels further expounded the objective universality of the law of unity of opposites in the whole nature and its special performance in various forms of material movement. Approaching and separation, contraction and expansion, radiation and absorption, doubt gathering and diffusion, South Pole and North Pole, combination and decomposition, etc. , are concrete manifestations of opposites of attraction and repulsion.
The biological world is full of contradictions. "In organic life, the formation of nuclei should also be regarded as the polarization of living protein." Absorption and excretion, assimilation and alienation, growth and death are all bipolar interactions contained in organisms. "Every evolution is a degradation at the same time, because it consolidates the development of one aspect and excludes the possibility of development in many other aspects."
Engels put the concept of causality in the universal connection and interaction of nature. "In order to understand individual phenomena, we must take them out of the general connection and examine them in isolation. The ever-changing movement here appears, one because of the reason and the other because of the result."
On the issue of contingency and inevitability, Engels criticized the metaphysical view that contingency and inevitability are absolutely opposite. He believes that this can only lead to the antinomy between machine determinism and agnosticism. The same is true of form and content. "The differentiation of morphology (cells) determines the differentiation of substances into skin, epidermis, etc., and the differentiation of substances determines the differentiated morphology."
2. The transformation from quantity to quality and from quality to quantity.
The qualitative change caused by quantitative change can be divided into two basic forms, one is the qualitative change caused by the change of exercise (or energy), and the other is the qualitative change caused by the change of material quality. Qualitative change is based on quantitative change, but it cannot be attributed to quantitative change.
3. The negation of negation is the core of the whole dialectical movement.
In his view, from the ideological process of Das Kapital, "we can see a set of dialectical statements used by Marx: in essence, it is opposite, including a contradictory process, in which each extreme transforms into his opposite, and finally, the negation of negation is the core of the whole process." The so-called "whole process" refers to the development and completion of an independent contradictory movement process, which is the whole of the opposing movement. The so-called core refers to the general law and inevitable result of the whole contradictory movement process.
Engels particularly emphasized the significance of establishing dialectical negation. Dialectical negation must be "self-negation" derived from the essence of things, and it is the link between things and development. Studying "self-denial" of things is the key to grasp dialectical negation from the combination of universality and particularity. "The way of negation here depends first on the general nature of the process and then on the special nature of the process." "Therefore, everything has its own special negative way. After such denial, he developed at the same time, as did every concept and concept. "
The logical method of natural science in the third quarter
First, the development of natural science and the revolution of logical methods.
1. Natural science research is inseparable from logical methods.
In Engels' era, everyone accepted the proposition that "anything that has not been felt before does not exist in reason." Engels emphasized: "No natural science can be based on empirical induction, but must have theoretical thinking and logical deduction. In this sense, natural science can not only be regarded as empirical science, but also must be different aspects of the same scientific method. "
First of all, as far as the basis and starting point of science are concerned, there is no "pure experience" without any intervention of rationality and concepts. Secondly, the description of empirical phenomena cannot be purely "objective". Finally, natural science is not limited to the description of empirical phenomena as narrow empiricism thinks. It should not only reveal the description of the phenomenon, but also reveal the internal relationship of the phenomenon and rise to theory.
2. The concrete historicity of logical method
Engels criticized this formalism and non-historicism logic view. He pointed out that the theory of thinking law is by no means the unchangeable eternal truth imagined by mediocre minds about the word "logic", nor is it the transcendental form of human cognition as Kant said, nor is it the "free creation of cognition" as Turin thought. On the contrary, like his cognitive content and achievements, he is the product of people's practice and cognitive activities in a certain era.
3. Dialectical method is the logical method of modern natural science.
Hegel's great achievement lies in systematically studying the basic forms of dialectical logic. However, because the dialectical nature of the universal connection and movement development of nature has not been fully revealed from the achievements of natural science, he still regards nature as the self-alienation of the dialectical development of absolute spirit, and does not admit that nature itself is dialectical movement and development. On the surface of all this, the revolution of natural science logic method realized by the establishment of natural dialectics system is twofold: it is not only the revolution of natural science method, but also the revolution of dialectics itself.
Second, how to apply dialectical logic in natural science
1. Basic principles of dialectical logic
Dialectical logic is a science that studies thinking forms and laws by materialist dialectical methods. The difference between dialectical logic and formal logic is that dialectical logic studies not only the form of thinking, but also the content of thinking, that is, the dialectical development of nature. Dialectical logic not only recognizes the certainty and stability of thinking form, but also pays attention to the flexibility and fluidity of thinking form and the dialectics of thinking development law. Formal logic is the study of intellectual thinking, which is mainly applicable to the scope of daily life and the relatively stable state of things, while dialectical logic transcends the narrow boundary between formal logical thinking and the scope of daily life. It is dialectical and rational thinking and contains the seeds of a broad world outlook. Therefore, dialectical logic is the unity of dialectical method of subject and object based on materialist reflection theory, and it is the unity of dialectical method, logic and epistemology. Its three principles are as follows:
(1) Unity of Nature and Spirit Engels pointed out: "Our subjective thinking and the objective world follow the same laws, so they cannot contradict each other in the end, but must be consistent with each other. This fact absolutely supports our whole theoretical thinking. "
(2) The unity of logic and history includes two aspects: one is the historical consistency between logic and things themselves, and the other is the consistency between the historical development of all important categories in the history of thinking development and his development in the minds of individual thinkers.
(3) the unity of abstraction and concreteness. "Concrete" can be divided into perceptual concreteness and thinking concreteness. The former is the chaotic representation of concrete things, and the latter is the representation of concrete things in thinking, which is the unity of all abstract provisions of objects. The fundamental difference between dialectical logic and empirical induction is that he does not regard abstract rules as the end of thinking, but only as the starting point of thinking, and thinks that only concrete concepts integrated with rules are the result of rational thinking.
2. The thinking form and logical method of dialectical logic
Concept is the cell of logic, and the basis of dialectical thinking is the study of the essence of concept. The dialectical nature of the objective object itself determines that the concept is dialectical in nature, which is mainly manifested in the contradiction, fluidity and relativity of the concept. The metaphysical way of thinking is to treat concepts from the viewpoint of abstract identity, deny the contradiction and fluidity of concepts, and set absolutely clear and fixed boundaries between concepts.
Judgment is the connection and development of concepts. Engels' research on the dialectical method of judgment focuses on the classification of judgment. Formal logic knowledge lists "various forms of judgment and reasoning, and juxtaposes them without any connection." Engels critically absorbed Hegel's rational thought, based on the development of human understanding of nature, divided judgment into individual judgment, special judgment and side judgment, and expounded the dialectical development of judgment.
Reasoning is the connection and expansion of judgment, and it is a more complex thinking form in human thinking. The movement of human thinking from individual to special and then to general cognition must be realized by reasoning.
Thirdly, dialectical logic is a method to explore truth: truth and hypothesis.
1. Dialectics of scientific theory content, absoluteness and relativity of truth
The separation of experience and reason in the process of cognition and the unity of theoretical content and thinking form will inevitably lead to two opposing and complementary one-sided views on truth: either logic and mathematics are regarded as transcendental "eternal truths", which leads to the pure supremacy of human thinking ability, exaggerating the absoluteness of cognitive achievements and falling into metaphysical dogmatism; Or regard science as pure "empirical induction", exaggerate the relativity of cognitive achievements, and draw the conclusion that "people can't know infinite things", which leads to relativism and agnosticism.
First of all, Engels investigated the internal contradiction of human cognitive ability from the perspective of thinking essence and cognitive subject. "People's thinking is supreme, but it is not supreme. His cognitive ability is infinite and limited. According to its nature, mission, possibility and ultimate goal of history, it is supreme and infinite. According to his individual realization and each realization, it is not supreme and limited. "
There are contradictions not only in people's cognitive ability, but also in cognitive objects. To fully understand an object, we must grasp it in the unified whole and whole process of the world. "But to understand this system, we must first understand the whole nature and history, which people can never achieve."
It can be seen that the contradiction between relativity and absoluteness of truth "exists in the world and human nature" and is rooted in the contradiction of human cognitive process. "We can only recognize it under the conditions of our times, and we will recognize it when these conditions reach a certain level."
2. The formation of scientific theory, hypothesis is the development form of theoretical natural science.
He emphasized that "all human knowledge develops along an intricate curve." In the formation of scientific theory, not only perceptual experience and rational thinking permeate each other, experimental means and logical methods cooperate with each other, induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis are intertwined, but also various non-intellectual factors, such as the need for fantasy-of course, reasonable fantasy.
3. The establishment of scientific theory, practice is the basis of scientific understanding and the standard of testing truth.
Engels believed that "practice is not only the source of experience, but also the basis of rational category and logical method". As far as the establishment process of scientific theory is concerned, the verification of practice is the key link in the transformation of hypothesis into scientific theory, and it is the standard to test whether knowledge has truth. In particular, Engels not only introduced practice as a knowledge category into the development process of natural science theory, but also incorporated natural science research as a form of practice into the whole social and historical development process.
"Natural science, like philosophy, has completely ignored the influence of human activities on his thinking until today. One only knows nature, and the other knows thoughts. However, the most essential and closest basis of human thinking is the change of nature, not just nature itself. Human intelligence develops according to how people learn to change nature. Therefore, the naturalistic view of history is one-sided. He believes that only nature acts on people, but the historical development of people is determined by the natural conditions in various places. He forgot that people also react to nature, change nature and create new living conditions for themselves. " This passage fully shows the inherent unity of dialectics of nature and historical materialism. It is no exaggeration to say that this is Engels' summary of the whole system of dialectics of nature.
The fourth part systematically expounds the three components of Marxism based on the unified world outlook.
First, the anti-Turin theory is an encyclopedia of Marxism.
1. Du's Challenge and Its Influence in the German Party
Du (1833- 192 1) was a German eclectic philosopher, vulgar economist and petty-bourgeois socialist at that time.
2. Anti-writing and its position in the history of Marxist philosophy.
Because Du's criticism involves a very wide range of theoretical fields, involving the history and present situation of all three components of Marxism, as En later said, "the negative criticism has been turned into a positive criticism, and the debate has been turned into a comparative explanation of the dialectical method advocated by Marx and me and the capitalist world outlook", "the encyclopedic summary of our views on philosophy, natural science and historical issues". More importantly, it profoundly reveals that dialectical materialism is the world outlook foundation of all Marxist theories, and materialist dialectics is the methodological essence of Marxist philosophy system, which has developed the basic principles of Marxist philosophy in all aspects, especially the historical view.
Second, dialectical materialism is the basis of Marxist world outlook.
1. The fundamental difference between scientific socialism and utopian socialism
Especially with the discovery of historical materialism and surplus value theory, socialism is placed on the basis of science. The ultimate cause of all social changes and political reforms should not be found in people's minds, nor in people's growing understanding of eternal truth and justice, but in the changes in production methods and exchange methods. We should not look for it in the philosophy of the relevant era, but in the economics of the relevant era. At the same time, Marxist political economy can reveal the essence of capitalist mode of production and the law of its occurrence, development and extinction, and discover the great mission of the proletariat. It is precisely because of the application of historical materialism and dialectical materialism that its objects and methods have undergone fundamental changes.
2. Du Fu's utopian thought is essentially "special general socialism"
Castration of the dialectical materialism foundation of scientific socialism, from scientific socialism to utopianism, can only lead to reactionary "mass socialism", which is Engels' historical conclusion on dualism.
Thirdly, the opposition between materialist dialectical method and transcendental metaphysical method and its performance in various fields.
1. Marxist philosophy is in opposition to the fundamental methodology of Du Fu's "new philosophy system"
Engels pointed out: "We have learned Du's method more than once, that is, we decompose each cognitive object into their so-called simplest elements, apply the same self-evident simple axioms, and then further apply the conclusions drawn in this way."
Engels first exposed the transcendence of Du's method and pointed out that he was fundamentally opposed to materialism. "The principle is not the starting point of research, but the final result. These principles are not applied to nature and human history, but abstracted from them. They are not the principles that nature and human beings adapt to, but only the principles that adapt to nature and history are correct. "
If Du's Transcendentalism copied Hegel in principle, it is completely opposite to Hegel in dialectical method. In Du's view, "contradiction-paradox, because he can't appear in the real world." Engels further revealed the root of his understanding, that is, he held wrong views on mathematical methods and formal logic methods.
2. Transcendental metaphysics will inevitably lead to historical idealism and anti-historicism.
In the field of social history, Du Fu put forward the "two-person model", not from the realistic social relations of people, but from the simplest elements of the so-called "society". He abstractly decomposed the society into "the simplest elements" and found that the simplest society consists of at least two people. Admittedly, this "two-person" mode is not an original invention of Du Fu, but a way of thinking possessed by thinkers in the whole18th century since the enlightenment scholars. This resulted in Du's extremely anti-historical attitude towards society. He said: "Violence and labor are two main factors that should be considered when forming social relations" (Du Fu)
The essence and function of violence and the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom.
1. Systematic development of Marxist view of violence
Du said: "The form of political relations is a basic thing in history, and economic dependence is only a result or a special situation, so it is always a secondary fact." "Of course, these secondary results do exist and are the most impressive at present, but the original things must be sought from direct political violence, not from indirect economic forces."
Engels criticized Du Shi and pointed out: "Violence has played another role in history. In Marx's words, violence is the midwife who gave birth to a new society in the old society. He is a social movement that opens the way for himself and destroys rigidity and verticality.