Prefaces¶
Core Argument¶
In the preface to Anti-Dühring, Engels explains that the work was not born of any inner urge but was a political necessity. German Social Democrats, recently unified, feared that Eugen Dühring’s new socialist theory—presented as the culmination of a philosophical system—would provoke sectarian divisions within the Party. Pressured to respond, Engels agreed to critique Dühring’s entire system, a task he likens to a large, sour apple that had to be devoured completely. This forced him into detailed criticism far exceeding Dühring’s scientific merit, yet it allowed him to positively expound his own views on controversial questions. Engels justifies the work’s length by noting that Dühring typified the “bumptious pseudo-science” then rampant in Germany—a “sublime nonsense” producing cheap intellectual goods. He claims to have limited himself to opposing Dühring’s false assertions with correct facts, particularly in jurisprudence and natural science, where he admits to being a dilettante. He concludes by predicting that Dühring’s forthcoming work on physics and chemistry will be as erroneous as his earlier efforts, and that his instrument for measuring low temperatures will measure only his own ignorant arrogance.
Engels notes that only one chapter—the second of Part III, “Theoretical”—was expanded, as it expounds a pivotal point in his outlook. This chapter was revised for a French translation by Lafargue, later published in German as Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopie zur Wissenschaft, which ran through three editions and appeared in Russian and Danish. Engels chose to use this later, internationally known text rather than the original.
Two other alterations are necessary. First, regarding primitive society: Morgan’s key work appeared only in 1877, so Engels refers readers to his own Der Ursprung der Familie (1884). Second, concerning theoretical natural science: Engels acknowledges his exposition was clumsy, because he was in the midst of an intensive eight-year “moulting” in mathematics and natural science when he wrote Anti-Dühring. This study aimed to confirm that the same dialectical laws operate in nature as in history and thought—laws Hegel developed in mystic form, which Marx and Engels aimed to present clearly and simply. Engels insists dialectics must be discovered in nature, not imposed upon it. He notes that the revolution in theoretical natural science is itself forcing dialectical thinking on empiricists, citing the liquefaction of gases, the transformation of energy, and the breakdown of rigid biological classifications. He concludes that natural science can no longer escape dialectical generalisation, and will benefit from assimilating the history of philosophy.