A. Deborin. Dialectical Materialism

Written not earlier than 1909. Published in part in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XII. Published in full for the first time. Published according to the original.

A. Deborin’s article “Dialectical Materialism” is contained in the collection Na Rubezhe, St. Petersburg, 1909.

...As a world outlook, dialectical material- ism provides an answer—not an absolute one, of

course—to the question of the structure of matter,

of the world; it serves as the basis of a most brilliant historical theory; on the basis of dialectical ma-

terialism, politics and morality become in a certain sense exact sciences. Being foreign to all dogmatism, dialectical materialism—correctly understood, of course—introduces everywhere a fresh stream of theoretico—cognitive criticism.

...In this article we intend to call the read- er’s attention only to the theoretico-cognitive aspect of dialectical materialism, which in this case does not, as a method, as a guiding principle of investigation, provide absolute solutions to problems, but primarily assists in their proper framing. As a theory of knowledge, dialectical

materialism falls into a formal, or logical, part and a real, or material, one.

In the case of primeval, primitive cognition, experience is identical with the object of experience, and the phenomenon, with being, with the thing- in-itself. For primitive man, the world of inner experiences also constitutes the world of things. He knows no distinction between the internal and the external world. At a certain stage of cultural development, this primitive form of cognition comes into conflict with the social man’s desire to subdue the forces of nature, with the new, higher stage of culture. The contrast between perceptions and things, between the world of inner experiences and the world of things, becomes more and more marked as man’s requirements multiply, experimental evidence grows and accumulates, and clashes between perceptions and the external world become more frequent. That is when the necessity arises for new forms of cognition.

...What we are interested in directly is the logical process which in modern philosophy has led

to dialectical materialism.— The psychologism

of Hume, Berkeley and others operates chiefly psychically, in the sensuous world. Sensuous images are the objects of cognition. The result of the development of |British empiricism| is, Esse=per- cipi, i.e., that exists which is given in perception, and all that is given in perception, has an objective being, exists.

...Kant understood that genuinely scien- tific cognition is possible only through the medium of “mathematical contemplation.” Sense-perception does not contain the conditions necessary for universally obligatory cognition. Sensuous images are not capable of embracing the totality of phenom- ena to be cognised. And Kant passes from psycholo-

gism to transcendentalism....

...Hegelian philosophy represents the last and closing link of this chain. We have seen that

Hume, Kant, and Fichte placed the subject above the object, which they declared to be something

inseparable from the subject....

...Categories, i.e., pure universal concepts, such as time, space, or causality, are, from the

point of view of dialectical materialism, logical definitions, on the one hand, and real forms of things, on the other....

...The limitation of transcendentalism con- sists in the fact that it does not extend its rights to the real sphere of things and considers that categories are merely subjective, and furthermore a priori, forms of consciousness. Transcendentalism embraces phenomena in categorical, i.e., logically- universal forms, making it possible to formulate strictly mathematical laws of nature, and to give them a universal character. But transcendentalism,

as also sensualistic phenomenalism, is concerned

only with phenomena. For them, being, things-in- themselves, are inaccessible....

...Dialectical materialism attains the “abso- luteness” and universality of cognition by declar- ing the forms to be universal, objectively real “perceptions.” On this rests the possibility of mathematical, or “geometrical” if you will, i.e., exact, cognition of reality. “Geometrical” space and “pure time” are universally real perceptions, and constitute the premise for the “mathematical” cognition of the sensuous world....

...But at the same time dialectical conscious- ness shows an ability to rise to the “conception” of nature as a “whole,” to the conception of the neces- sity, of the inherency, of the universal order of nature....

...Man cognises to the extent that he acts on, and he himself is subject to the action of, the external world. Dialectical materialism teaches that man is impelled to reflect chiefly by the sensations he experiences as he acts on the external world.... Proceeding from the consideration that it is pos-

sible to dominate nature only by submitting to her, dialectical materialism calls upon us to coordinate our activity with the universal laws of nature, with the necessary order of things, with the univer- sal laws of development of the world....

...Thus Parmenides saw the true essence of things (“the One”) in that which can be cognised by thought or reason and which lies behind fluctuat- ing and mutable phenomena. Thereby, he divorced sense-perceptions from their basis, the phenomenal

world from the meta-phenomenalistic....

...Whereas for the rationalistic metaphysi- cists true reality is given in the concept, for the sensualists the real is that which is given in sense-perception or perception. That which lies beyond the senses is inaccessible to cognition. The objects of cognition are phenomena, which are raised to the level of absolute reality. The content of empirical consciousness is changeable and fluctuating. Phenomenalism denies the real substratum of qualities. Given is diversity, the multiplicity of phenomena, but no unity of substance....

...Kant contrived to combine the phenomen-

alistic doctrine of incognisability of things in and

for themselves with the rationalistic metaphys-

icists’ doctrine of the existence of absolutely real

being, of “things-in-themselves”.

...The French materialists, headed by Hol- bach, counterposed nature, as the metaphysical essence of a thing, to its properties. This antithesis

in a certain sense denotes the same dualism as

that between Kant’s “thing-in-itself” and “phe- nomena....”

...However, we would be unjust to French materialism if we identified it with Kantianism.

After all, eighteenth-century materialism recognises the relative cognisability even of the essence of things....

French materialism, taking as its point of

departure the same consideration, that matter acts on our external senses, admits, however, that certain properties of things in and for themselves are cognisable. But French materialism is insuffic- iently consistent, since it teaches that only certain properties of things are cognisable, while the “essence” itself or the “nature” of them is concealed from us and is not fully cognisable.

...Kant borrowed this counterposing of the

properties of the things to their “nature” from the agnostics, from the sensualistic phenomenalists (directly from Hume)....

In contrast to phenomenalism and sensualism, materialism regards the impressions which we receive from things in and for themselves as having

objective significance. Whereas phenomenalism (and

Kantianism) sees no points of contact between the properties of things and their “nature”, i.e., the external world, the French materialists emphasise

specifically that things in and for themselves, at least in part, are cognisable precisely through the impressions they produce upon us, that the properties of things are, to a certain extent,

objectively real....

...Dialectical materialism puts material substance, the real substratum, at the basis of

being. It has looked upon the world “as a process, as a substance, which is developing continuously” (Engels). The metaphysicists’ immutable and absolute being becomes mutable being. Substantial

reality is recognised to be mutable, and changes and movements are recognised to be real forms of being. Dialectical materialism overcomes the dualism of “being” and “not-being,” the metaphysically absolute antithesis of the “immanent” to the

“transcendental,” of the properties of things to the things themselves. On the basis of dialectical materialism, it becomes possible scientifically to connect the thing-in-itself with phenomena, and the immanent with the transcendental, and to surmount the incognisability of things-in-them- selves, on the one hand, and the “subjectivism” of qualities, on the other, for “the nature of the thing,” as Plekhanov observes with very good reason, manifests itself precisely in its prop- erties.” It is the impressions which we receive from things in and for themselves that enable us to judge of the properties of things in and for themselves, of objectively real being....

[60-61]...The “immanent” acquires an objective-

ly real character; the “transcendental,” which lies beyond phenomena in the sphere of the “in- cognisable,” is transformed from a mysterious essence that is inaccessible to our senses into an “immanent” content of our consciousness, into object of sensuous perception. The “immanent” becomes “transcendental” insofar as it acquires objectively real significance, insofar as it makes

it possible to judge of the properties of things by impressions; the “transcendental” becomes “immanent” insofar as it is declared to lie in the sphere of the cognisable, even though beyond the subject. Beltov expresses himself in the same sense.

“According to this theory,” he says, “nature is primarily a totality of phenomena. But since things-in-themselves are a necessary condition for phenomena, or, in other words, since phenomena are caused by the action of the object on the sub- ject, we are compelled to admit that the laws of nature have not only subjective, but also objective significance, i.e., that the mutual relations of ideas in the subject correspond, when man is not in error, to the mutual relations of things outside it.” This answers in the only correct and scientific form the question of the mutual relations of phe- nomena and things-in-themselves—that most im- portant question of cognition, over which Kant, the metaphysicists and the phenomenalists racked their brains so much....

...The unity of being and not-being is be-

coming, dialectics teaches. Put into concrete ma- terialist language, this thesis implies that at the basis of all that exists is substance, matter, which

is developing continuously....

...Hence the body does not consist only in its perceptibility, as the sensualistic |||phenomenal-

ists||| believe, but exists quite independently of our perceptions, exists “for itself,” as a “subject.”

But while the body exists |independently| of our perceptions, our perceptions, on the other hand, fully depend on the body acting on us. Without the latter, there are no perceptions, no notions, con- cepts or ideas. Our thinking is determined by being, i.e., by the impressions we receive from the external world. That being so, our ideas and concepts, too, have objectively real significance.

...The body, acting on our senses, is re- garded as the cause of the action it produces—i.e., perception. The phenomenalists dispute the very

possibility of framing the question in this way. The |immanentists| hold that the external world

is not only inaccessible to perception, but also inconceivable, even if such a world existed....

...it has to be assumed also that our per- ceptions, as a result of the action of two factors— the external world and our “sensuousness”—are

not identical in content as well with the objects of the external world, which is |immediately| in- tuitively| inaccessible to us....

...From the point of view of dialectical ma- terialism, the thing-in-itself is an object such as it exists in itself, and “for itself.” It is in this sense that Plekhanov defines matter “as the totality of things-in-themselves, since these things are the source of our sensations.” This thing-in-itself, or matter, is not an abstract concept, which lies behind the concrete properties of things, hut a “concrete” concept. The being of matter is not divorced from its essence, or, vice versa, its essence is not divorced from its being.

...An object, devoid of all qualities or pro- perties, cannot even be conceived by us, cannot exist, cannot have any being. The external world

is ||constructed|| by us out of our perceptions,

on the basis of those impressions evoked in us by the external world, by things in and for them- selves.... Between the external and internal world there exists a certain distinction, and at the same time a definite similarity, so that we arrive at the cognition of the external world through impres- sions, but they are precisely impressions produced by objects of the external world. On the strength of the impressions produced upon us by the action of an object, we attribute definite properties to

the latter. An impression is the resultant of two factors, and as such it is inevitably conditioned

by the nature of these two factors and includes something which constitutes the nature of one and the other factor, something which is common to both...

...Only on the basis of dialectical material- ism, with its recognition of the external world, is the possibility presented of building a purely scientific theory of knowledge. He who rejects the external world also rejects the cause of our

sensations and arrives at idealism. But the external world is also the ||principle|| of uniformity. And

if, in our perceptions, we are confronted with a definite, regular connection between them, this only occurs because the cause of our sensations, i.e., the external world, constitutes the basis of this uniform connection....

...Without the possibility of provision, it is impossible scientifically to cognise the phenomena of nature and human life. ...But the objects of the external world are in causal relation not only to us, but also to one another, i.e., between the objects of the external world themselves there exists a definite interaction, a knowledge of whose conditions, for its part, makes it possible to foresee and predict not only the action to be exercised upon us by objects, but also their objective rela- tions and actions, which are independent of us, i.e., the objective properties of things....

...Dialectical materialism by no means predetermines the question of the structure of matter in the sense of an obligatory recognition of the atomistic or corpuscular theory, or of any

third hypothesis. And if the new theories of the structure of atoms are triumphant, dialectical materialism will not only not be confuted but, on

the contrary, will be most brilliantly confirmed. What, indeed, is the essence of the new trend in the sphere of natural science? It is, above all, the fact that the atom, which physicists used to regard as immutable and most simple, i.e., an elemen- tary and indivisible “body,” is found to consist of still more elementary units or particles. It is assumed that the electrons constitute the ultimate elements of being. But does dialectical materialism

assert that the atom is the absolute limit of being?...

...It would be erroneous to think, as our Machists do, that with the recognition of the electron theory matter disappears as a reality, and hence, together with matter, also dialectical materialism, which considers matter as the sole

reality and the only suitable ||tool|| for systema- tising experience.... Whether all atoms consist

of electrons is an undecided question; it is a hypo- thesis that may not be confirmed. But apart from this, does the electron theory eliminate the atom? It only proves that the atom is relatively stable, indivisible and immutable.... But the atom, as the real substratum, is not eliminated by the electron theory....

...To sum up. From the formal aspect, dialectical materialism, as we have seen, makes universally obligatory and objective cognition possible thanks to the fact that, from its point

of view, the forms of being are also forms of thinking, that to every change in the objective

world there corresponds a change in the sphere of perceptions. As for the material aspect, dialectical materialism proceeds from the recognition of things-in-themselves or the external world or mailer. “Things-in-themselves” are cognisable. The unconditional and absolute is rejected by dialecti- cal materialism. Everything in nature is in the process of change and motion, which are based on definite combinations of matter. According to dialectics, one “form” of being changes into another through leaps. Modern theories of physics, far from disproving, fully confirm the correctness of dialec- tical materialism.