Dialectics¶
Core Argument¶
Engels presents dialectics as the universal law of motion governing nature, history, and thought itself. Objective dialectics operates throughout the natural world, while subjective dialectics—the movement of thought—merely reflects this objective process of development through opposites. Polarity manifests in magnetism, electricity, and chemical processes; in organic life, evolution proceeds through the conflict between heredity and adaptation, where categories like "positive" and "negative" prove interchangeable. Hard-and-fast lines are incompatible with evolution: boundaries between vertebrates and invertebrates, or between species, dissolve under scrutiny. Dialectics, which recognises "both this-and-that" and reconciles opposites, alone proves adequate to modern natural science, though metaphysical categories retain validity for everyday use.
Darwin's theory exemplifies dialectical method, beginning from the widest basis of chance and using infinite accidental differences between individuals to break down the metaphysical rigidity of the species concept. The opposition between chance and necessity is false: the accidental is necessary, and the necessary accidental. Mechanical determinism degrades necessity to mere chance. Hegel's logic demonstrates how the self-contradictory resolves itself not into abstract nothingness but into the negation of its particular content. Dialectical logic derives forms of judgment from one another, developing higher forms from lower. The historical development of knowledge about friction and heat illustrates this progression: from "friction is a source of heat" to "all mechanical motion can be converted into heat by friction" to "any form of motion can transform into any other"—an absolute law of nature.
Natural science and philosophy have neglected the influence of human activity on thought. The alteration of nature by humans is the essential basis of thought; intelligence increases as humans learn to change their environment. The naturalistic conception of history forgets that humans react on nature, creating new conditions for themselves. Reciprocal action is the first thing encountered when considering matter in motion as a whole—forms of motion pass into one another, mutually determining each other, while the sum-total of motion remains constant.
The development of natural science proceeds through hypotheses. The succession of hypotheses, given scientists' lack of dialectical education, fosters the notion of the unknowable "thing-in-itself." Engels dismisses this as fantasy, never applied in practice. Historically, the concept has meaning only insofar as we can know under the conditions of our epoch. Hegel proves a more resolute materialist than modern natural scientists, showing that Kant's idealism suffers shipwreck on the thinking ego, discovering an unknowable thing-in-itself there too.