In fact dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.
-Friedrich Engels (Anti-Duhring)
To observe and study the subject matter systematically, there are methods of study and inquiry for any science. For different sciences, there are different methods. Concerning the method of study, research, and inquiry of the fundamental question of philosophy, there are two trends: Metaphysics, and Dialectics.
Metaphysics: Study of nature as a complex of fixed and static things
The metaphysical method does not recognize the unity of the material world. It considers all the objects and phenomena in nature and society as isolated. According to it, nature is static (i.e. changeless and motionless). It also refuses to admit qualitative changes and development. Engels called metaphysics “the old method of investigation and thought…which preferred to investigate things as given, as fixed and stable, a method the relics of which still strongly haunt people’s minds.” By rejecting the interconnection between apparently separate phenomena, the metaphysical method reduces the issues related to the entire society into individual, separate, sectional, and group problems alone, and obscures the necessity of the unified struggle of masses who exist as different classes and sections. In practice, it prevents the unification and unified struggles of the oppressed masses against exploitation and oppression and against the class system and tries to perpetuate class rule and exploitation. Thus the metaphysical method is the philosophical method that protects the interests of the propertied classes, in particular the interests of the bourgeoisie.
Dialectics : The Science of Interconnections
“Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics argues like this: Nature is not in a state of rest and immobility, not in stagnation and immutability but a state of continuous movement and change, of renewal and development, where something is always arising and developing and something always disintegrating and dying away.”
– Friedrich Engels (Dialectics of Nature)
Dialectics is the method of reasoning which aims to understand nature in all its movement, change and interconnection, with their opposite and contradictory sides in unity. In its essence, the dialectical method is the exact opposite of the metaphysical method. The dialectical method considers the interconnections between various phenomena in nature. It views the material world as in perpetual motion, mutable and developing. It conceives the development of the world as the result of the struggle of opposites, the process of old being passed away and new coming into being and the progress from one phase to anotherl. A social revolution, the rotation of the planets around the sun, a chemical reaction, and the change of a person’s moods and experiences, are all various forms of motion. In everyday life, in production, and in political struggle, we constantly come across changes of the most different kinds. Dialectics is a very simple process which is taking place everywhere and every day. ‘In its proper meaning’, wrote Lenin, ‘dialectics is the study of the contradictions within the very essence of things’.
Dialectics took different forms in its historical development as a scientific method:
(i) Spontaneous Dialectics of Ancient Materialists (BCE 6th – 4th centuries) (e.g. Dialectics of Heraclitus, Aristotle, etc. );
(ii) Dialectics of German idealists (CE 18th – 19th century) (e.g. Dialectics of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc. );
(iii) Materialist dialectics or Marxist dialectics (CE 19th – 20th centuries) (e.g. Dialectics of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao, etc.)
Hegel’s Dialectics
“To Hegel, the process of thinking, which, under the nature of ‘the Idea’, he even transforms into an independent subject, is the deminurgos (the creator, the maker) of the real world. 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…Although in Hegel’s hands dialectics underwent a mystification, this does not obviate the fact that he was the first to expound the general forms of its movement in a comprehensive and fully conscious way. In Hegel’s writings dialectic stands on its head. You must turn it right way up again if you want to discover the rational kernel that is hidden away within the wrappings of mystification.”
– Marx (Capital-Vol. I)
Kant and Hegel studied the laws of thought and reason. They achieved significant results in that field and formulated several important propositions of the dialectical method of cognition. Hegel was able to understand the change that had taken place in the sciences. Reverting to the old idea of Heraclitus, he found, with the help of scientific progress, that everything in the universe is in motion and change, that nothing is isolated, but rather everything is dependent on everything else—and this is how he created dialectics. He understood the complex, inner contradictory character of progressive development, but being an idealist, he only treated the dialectic of thinking and the dialectic of reason and did not recognise that development is also inherent in the objective material world. He thought that it is spiritual changes that provoke changes in matter. He found that both spirit and the universe are in perpetual change but concluded that changes in spirit determine changes in matter. His dialectical methods therefore remained idealist and could not find application in the society and the natural sciences of the time. The limitedness of idealist dialectics also showed itself in that, in satisfying certain class interests, it crowned the development of society with the development of bourgeois statehood and so deprived mankind of a further prospect.
Marx and Engels developed the materialist dialectics by giving primary importance to matter. Engels said in this regard that Hegel’s dialectics was standing on its head and it had to be put back on its feet. They said that Hegel is right to say that thought and the universe are perpetually changing, but it is the change in the universe that leads to change in thought.
Laws of Dialectics:
(i) The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa;
(ii) The law of the interpenetration of opposites;
(iii) The law of the negation of the negation
The law of the transformation of quantity into quality
The qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion. Everything has a definite quality, the change of which is a change in the thing itself. Things can continue to change quantitatively while they are in the same state or stage. But after the quantitative changes reach a certain stage it inevitably leads to a change in the quality and the existence of the thing. This we call the transformation of quantity into quality. The opposite is also true, a change in quality can lead to a change in quantity as well. Example – If we heat water, the temperature increases continuously, i.e., quantitative change occurs but it remains
water, i.e., there is no qualitative change. But, after reaching 100 degrees Celsius, it begins to vapourise, a qualitative change.
The law of the interpenetration of opposites
The contradiction internal to all things and processes is the reason for all motion and development of all things and processes in the world. Lenin said that the law of contradiction is the essence of dialectics. Everything which appears as one, in fact, is the combination of opposites. Protons and electrons of atoms, cell division and destruction in the metabolic process, motion and rest in the movement; the classes in societies – landlords – peasants; workers and capitalists: imperialism and colonies; war and peace, etc. The two opposites are contradictory to each other. One opposes the other, struggling to interpenetrate. At the same time, these two opposites co-exist in a thing or process. The existence of one depends upon the existence of the other, these opposites do not exist separately. The unity and at the same time opposition between the opposites is called contradiction. The primary reason for all motion and development in things and processes is the struggle and unity between the contradictory forces.
The law of the negation of the negation
The new emerges out of old and old gets negated in that process of the emergence of the new. The process of development, whether it is of nature, society, or thought process, always takes place in the course of negation of negation.
Example – the germination of a seed implies the disappearance of the seed which is the negation of seed. The plant grows. Then the plant dies, i.e., it is negated. These two negations are two stages of the development of seed. Negation does not mean simply dying away. It means reaching a new stage, while reaching it, leaving the old form and taking a new form.
Marxist philosophy develops and applies the dialectical method of cognition and answers the basic question of philosophy in a materialist way. It extends materialism to society, considers that material social being determines social consciousness, and treats history as a developing, dialectical process. The philosophy of Marxism-Leninism thus studies man’s most general relations with the world and discloses the universal laws and connections in the development of nature, society, and thinking. Materialism and Dialectics are the theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism, the most advanced, revolutionary ideology and scientific world outlook of modern times.
