Dialectical Materialism

Karl Marx, was the man who gave birth to the ideology we know today as Marxism. This great system that was created by Karl Marx, is not a mere body of economic ideas but rather a comprehensive system of thought that encompasses almost all the social sciences such as philosophy, economics, history and politics and thus is also called Scientific Socialism. The study of Marxism can be categorised under three main heads, Dialectical Materialism, Historical Materialism and Marxist Economics, corresponding broadly to the arenas of philosophy, social history and economics respectively.

The term Dialectical Materialism is the technical name given to Marxian philosophy. Karl Marx’s philosophical mentality was influenced greatly by and also opposes the German philosopher Hegel. Hegel’s influence on Marx is evident from his adoption of Hegel’s Dialectical Method.

The dialectical method, as given by Hegel, assumes a definite logical position which maintains that by a negative judgement we reach a higher concept which because of the negotiation is richer than the original one. ‘Any finite concept when considered as a predicate of reality (thesis) will lead us to the opposite (antithesis). But this contradiction is repulsive to thought,  we cannot stop here and are led to the third stage (synthesis) which reconciles the mutually opposed concepts and gives us a better description of reality.’

Although Marx was highly influenced by Hegel’s dialectics, often referred to as dialectical idealism, his model of dialectics referred to as dialectical materialism was vastly different to that of Hegel. In the words of  Karl Marx, “My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, ... the process of thinking which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos (creator) of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.” Hegel, in his dialectical idealism, dealt with ideas and the human mind and believed that human thought gave perspective and form to reality. This is where Marx differed from Hegel. Marx believed that it was the real world and its influence that gave shape to human thought and ideas and not the other way round. In his criticism Marx stated that Hegel’s dialectics go astray by dealing with ideas and the human mind. In Marx’s words, Hegel’s dialectic inappropriately concerns, “the process of the human brain”. On the other hand Marx believed that instead of dealing with ideas and the mental world, dialectics should deal with “the material world”. By the material world, Marx refers to the world of production and other economic activity. 

The marxist philosophical world outlook is known as Dialectical Materialism as a result of its dialectical method of studying the phenomenon of nature and its materialist interpretation of these phenomena.

Marxist Dialectical Method

The principle features of the Marxist Dialectical Method are:

1. Nature connected and determined: The dialectical method holds that no phenomenon in nature can be understood if taken on its own, devoid from surrounding incidents. Any incident in any domain of nature is meaningless if its connection to surrounding conditions is not taken into account and vice versa.
2. Nature is in a state of continuous change and motion: The dialectical method considers nature to be in a continuous state of movement and change and thus requires that phenomena should not only be considered at a single point in time but also from a viewpoint of their motion, change and development.
3. Natural quantitative change leads to qualitative change: The dialectical method considers the process of development not as a simple growth process, but rather as a development process that brings imperceptive quantitative changes which lead to qualitative changes.
4. Contradictions inherent in nature: Dialects hold that internal contradictions are inherent in all objects and phenomena in nature and that the struggle between the opposites leads to the process of development and transformation of quantitative changes to qualitative changes.

Marxist Philosophical Materialism

The principle features of Marxist Philosophical Materialism are:

1. Materialist: Contrary to idealism, which regarded the world as the result of an "absolute idea" or "consciousness", Marx holds that the world is by its very nature material and does not require a "universal spirit" or "absolute idea" to exist or function.
2. Objective reality: Contrary to idealism, which believes in the existence of our consciousness, and the material world existing within this consciousness, the Marxist philosophical materialism holds that nature is an objective reality and exists outside and independent of our consciousness and that our consciousness, sensation and ideas are a derivative or reflection of nature.
3. The world and its laws are knowable: Contrary to idealism, which does not believe in the possibility of knowing the world and its laws and in the authenticity of knowledge, does not acknowledge objective truth and clenches on to the idea that the world is full of "things-in-themselves" that cannot be ever known to science, Marxist philosophical materialism believes that the world and its laws are totally knowable, that our understanding of the laws of nature that have been tested by experiments is genuine knowledge with the validity of objective truth and that nothing in this world is unknowable, just things that are yet to be known.