3. The Theory of Knowledge of Dialectical Materialism and of Empirio-Criticism – III¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 3: The Theory of Knowledge of Dialectical Materialism and of Empirio-Criticism – III¶
This chapter delivers a sustained polemic against the Machian and empirio-criticist denial of objective reality, systematically defending the materialist theory of knowledge. Lenin’s core argument is that the Machian school, despite its pretensions to being a modern, scientific philosophy, merely repackages subjective idealism and agnosticism, ultimately serving fideism by severing knowledge from its material foundation.
The chapter opens by exposing the idealist core of Machian metaphysics. Avenarius dismisses matter as a “metaphysical absolute conception,” while Mach reduces it to a “systematic combination of sensations.” Lenin counters that such definitions replace the materialist primacy of being over thinking with the idealist inversion. The antithesis of matter and mind is absolute only within the fundamental epistemological problem; beyond this, definitions are impossible except by indicating which is primary. The empirio-criticists’ use of “experience” is shown to be eclectically vague, covering both materialist and idealist lines, and their investigation of experience as mere predication leads to scepticism, not materialism.
Lenin then turns to causality and necessity, contrasting the materialist tradition of Feuerbach, Engels, and Dietzgen—who recognise objective law in nature, reflected only approximately by human concepts—with the Humean and Kantian positions adopted by Mach, Pearson, and Petzoldt. The latter deny objective necessity, treating laws as products of the mind or as logical postulates demanded of reality. This, Lenin argues, is a relapse into idealism, making mind primary and nature secondary. The distinction between Humean agnosticism and Kantian apriorism is secondary; both deny objective law and open the door to fideism. The “principle of economy of thought” is exposed as a subjective principle smuggling in idealism, while the materialist criterion remains practice—the verification of objective truth.
On space and time, Lenin insists on their objective reality, following Feuerbach and Engels. Mach’s treatment of them as “well-ordered systems of series of sensations” is denounced as idealist nonsense. The argument that practice confirms the objective truth of our perceptual world is turned against Mach: if his relativism were correct, materialism could not have been “harmless” for centuries. The chapter concludes by attacking Mach’s partition of theory from practice—determinism for the workroom, indeterminism for morality—as obscurantism. By blurring the distinction between will and physical processes, Mach reveals his kinship to Schopenhauer and voluntaristic idealism. Lenin marshals multiple commentators to confirm Mach’s eclecticism, charging that only the Russian Machians fail to see what is clear to everyone else: that empirio-criticism is a muddled, reactionary doctrine.