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THE DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM

MATERIALIST DIALECTICS

Marx and Engels set Hegelian dialectics aright and put it on a materialist basis as partly indicated by feuerbach. The result is an original and epoch making advance in philosophy.
Hegelian Dialectics states that development is first of all the self development of before it is realised in material world.


Hegel, Marx-Engels 



Feuerbach correctly pointed out that ideas are merely the sensuous reflection of the material world in human perception.

He fell short of Marxist comprehension of endless interaction between cognition, reality and capability of man for critical revolutionary activity.

Marx and Engels stated that change is an endless process because anything at any stage always consists of contradictory aspects.
Materialist dialectics or the law of contradiction is the law of motion inherent in matter; springs from the differences and interaction of things and operates in a two way interaction of matter and consciousness.
In the philosophical works of Marx and Engels, three laws of dialectics can be drawn;

1) Law of negation of negation

This law means that things run into their opposite in full course of development. For instance, capitalism started as free competition in contradiction with
mercantilism, but has eventually become monopoly capitalism.

2) The Law of the unity of opposites

This law means that in everything there are two opposite aspects. One is principal aspect that determines the basic character of the whole thing.
The other is the secondary aspect which is needed by the principal one but which continuously struggle to assume the principal position.

For instance, the capitalist class and the proletariat are in the same thing, the capitalist system.
They need each other and at the same time struggle against each other in the course of development. In so far as everything, including capitalism, comes to pass, the struggle of the two classes is permanent and absolute, while their unity within the same system is temporary and relative.

3) The Law of quantitative to qualitative change

This law means that change may at first be conspicuously quantitative or incremental but a point is reached at which the rise in quantity results in what is called a qualitative leap. In other words evolution precedes revolution. Reforms precede Revolution.

Several kinds of contradictions may be at work in the same thing or process. To determine the basic operation of the thing or process is to determine the contradiction. Thus contradiction can be solved one after the other,
the solution of principal contradiction or problem leads to the solution of the next.

Contradictory aspects constitute an identity in the sense that they are bound either in cooperation or in struggle, under given circumstances; and if the secondary aspect replaces the principal one from the ruling position strength merely posses from the former to the latter.

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