Glossary of Terms¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter is a glossary of terms, providing concise definitions for a range of concepts drawn from biology, physics, philosophy, and Marxist theory. Its core function is to establish a shared vocabulary for the reader, equipping them with precise meanings for terms that recur in scientific and dialectical materialist discourse. The entries are not neutral; they are framed within a Marxist epistemological and political perspective, explicitly distinguishing between materialist and idealist interpretations.
Key claims are embedded in the definitions themselves. The entry on Dialectics asserts it is the science of general laws governing development in nature, society, and thought, and that Marxism linked this to materialism to reveal development through struggle and contradiction. Causality is presented as an essential battleground between materialism and idealism. The glossary polemicises against several schools of thought. Eclecticism is condemned as a mechanical attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, such as idealism and materialism. Positivism is dismissed as an idealist current that feigns neutrality while confirming the status quo. Logical Positivists are characterised as combining subjective-idealist empiricism with logical analysis. Eugenics is denounced as deeply racist and reactionary, based on dubious research and prejudice. Malthusian Theory is refuted as factually incorrect, laying the basis for accepting social problems as unavoidable.
The glossary draws on a broad historical and theoretical context. It references the foundational debates in philosophy between empiricism and rationalism, and between metaphysics (in the Marxist sense of static, non-contradictory analysis) and dialectics. In biology, it situates Darwinian gradualism against Lamarckism and its Soviet revival, Lysenkoism, which is explicitly discredited and linked to Stalinist promotion. It also references the Allopatric Theory of speciation and concepts like adaptive radiation, polymorphism, and stasis, indicating engagement with evolutionary theory. In physics, the entry on Entropy notes its use to justify the erroneous “heat death of the universe” theory, but also references I. Prigogine’s reinterpretation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics as describing irreversible change leading to more highly ordered states, not merely disorder. The glossary thus serves not only as a reference tool but as a subtle reinforcement of a dialectical materialist worldview, defining terms in a way that pre-emptively critiques rival philosophical and scientific positions.