In this cycle of articles the development of a scientific thought from the Marxist point of view will be explained. The reader will study dialectic materialistic outlook, learns as he is applicable to the world of the nature, and will see how ancient philosophers of Greece and Rome laid the foundation of modern science.
For hundreds of thousands of years of existence anatomic of the modern person development of society went on the faultless ascending curve. From the simplest stone axe before fire restraint; from development of an irrigation, the cities, writing, mathematics, philosophy, science and the modern industry - the trend is undoubted. People took under the control one natural power for another. The phenomena which were shrouded in a secret still yesterday and directed horror, today make the ordinary subjects of school textbooks.
However what is not recorded in today's textbooks is gusty and often violent character which was often accepted by fight for scientific knowledge. What textbooks also cannot transfer is a continuous philosophical fight which accompanied development of science from the moment of its origin. This fight happens mainly between what Engels called "two great camps" in philosophy: idealism and materialism.
Eventually this fight in the field of philosophy accompanying a civilization from its origin reflected the real fight happening in the physical world, mainly between social classes. The bourgeoisie in the blossoming often fought against feudalism under a banner of militant materialism. In this fight the natural sciences were as we will see, a key component of materialistic outlook and weapon of a revolutionary class in its ascension.
Today the situation is absolutely differently: the capitalist system is in limit decline, and the new class throws down a challenge to the bourgeoisie for domination: modern proletariat. Now the bourgeoisie supports all manifestations of religion and mysticism, seeking to distract attention of masses up, from their terrestrial problems, to heaven. Let's quote Iosif Ditsgen's words which were so loved by Lenin: modern philosophers are no more than "the diplomaed footmen of capitalism".
The modern proletariat in the fight needs philosophy even more, than the bourgeoisie at the time. Really, it is impossible to imagine the working class clearly understanding the historical role and setting the task of seizure of power without having exempted previously from the prejudices, ignorance and mysticism spread by a class of capitalists without having taken an independent philosophical position.
This philosophy as we will see, cannot be that old ""mechanical"" materialism of 17-18 centuries which accompanied scientific revolution and under which banner the rising bourgeoisie fought against feudalism and church. On the contrary, during the modern period the only consecutive materialism completely consistent with the last achievements of science, the dialectic materialism which protection has to concern both revolutionaries, and scientists is.
What is dialectic materialism?
Before we are able really to investigate communication between dialectic materialism and philosophy in general and natural sciences in particular, we have to begin with an explanation of what we mean by dialectics, of course. The remarkable aphorism of the Ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus sums up the result of essence of dialectics: ""all also is, and is not present; because everything flows"".
At first sight this statement seems absolutely absurd. For example, the piece of furniture, such as wooden table on which there is a computer when I print these words is; and it is hardly possible to tell that it ""flows"". The dialectics does not deny existence of a stazis and balance in the nature – if it was so, then would be trivial to disprove dialectics. On the contrary, he just claims that any condition of rest and balance relatively and has the limits; and that such condition of rest hides the valid movement. The role of science is in finding limits and relativity of such balances and also to reveal the movement which happens is hidden at us near by. Heraclitus illustrated this moment - as the movement is inherent in the nature - on the example of the tense lira strings. Though they seem motionless and motionless, appearances are deceptive. Actually stretching of strings contains a lot of ""movement"" (recognized in modern physics as the term ""potential energy"").
If we return for example with a table which faces me: on closer examination we will find out that it is in continuous process of change. Every time when put cargo on it, there are microscopic tension and cracks; under a microscope it is found out that mushrooms and other tiny organisms destroy it. It constantly is in process of not observed changes.
Let's assume that in a year at a table the leg will break and it will be replaced by another. Then we will have the right to ask: ""it is the same table""? On this question there is no simple answer. As Heraclitus found a millennium ago: it is at the same time and still not the same table. In the same way I both am, and I am not the same person from one moment to another – my cages constantly are replenished and collapse natural biological processes. Eventually each particle of my body will be replaced by others.
We could ask further what is a table? The answer to this question at first sight seems obvious: it consists of electrons, protons and neutrons. They form atoms which communicate together, forming cellulose molecules. These molecules of cellulose would form walls of cages which in comparison with many other cages would give to a tree volume properties during lifetime, and after death - volume properties of a table capable to support my books, the computer and all the rest that I on it place. Really, this absolutely exact description from below up this piece of furniture.
However it would be possible to object fairly that it at all not what is the table. More likely, it was for the first time conceived in mind of the engineer or carpenter holding a certain position in a social and economic system where all society is organized in such a way that this person is fed, dressed and trained to produce tables. Then he or she delivers wood on potentially very difficult chain. And so, in this example if the tree which makes this table died of a fungal infection at the very beginning of the life; or if the tree near it was cut down and passed on a supply chain, it would be - in every sense and the purposes - an identical table. And still each separate atom making it would be another!
Here we have so authentic descending description of the same table which completely contradicts our first description. What of these two provided descriptions is then correct? Both descriptions, of course, are absolutely fair and at the same time contradictory. In one case we begin with this concrete table as we observe it specifically; in another our starting point - the human concept of a table and historically accumulated cultural knowledge of resistant materials which formed the basis of cutting this concrete piece of furniture.
Such contradictions are inherent in the nature: between concrete and abstract, the general and private, a part and whole, accidental and necessary. And still between these seeming contrasts there is an obvious unity. The essence of dialectic materialism consists in considering things not unilaterally, namely in their contradictions and to consider them as processes in the movement.
Thus, the dialectic materialism can be considered as a form of logic, the system of streamlining and understanding of the world. The ""Formal"", or Aristotelean logic, is applied to static categories. The thing or ""is"", or ""no""; it either ""is alive"", or ""is dead"". On the other hand, the dialectics does not deny reality of these categories, but considers them as separate stitches in knitting. Each stitch seems whole and independent of the next stitches, but actually they form a continuous tapestry.
However the laws and categories which are formed in the sphere of human consciousness are not independent of a material world and therefore ""laws"" of dialectic materialism are also immanent by the nature. To consider that one set of laws is applicable to human consciousness, and for the nature there is absolutely other set of laws – as some ""Marxists"" in the past claimed – means to consider the world dualistic, but not materialistically. For Marxists everything existing is matter in the movement. Consciousness in itself is only one of the arising natural phenomena.