2. The First Dialecticians¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter traces the emergence of dialectical thought from its pre-Socratic origins, arguing that contradiction is not an aberration but the very motor of all change and development. The Church’s long defence of a static creation is contrasted with Heraclitus, the first clear dialectician, who asserted that everything both is and is not, because all is fluid. He saw war—inner contradiction—as the father of all things, driving development at every level, and defended the unity of opposites against the Pythagoreans, who sought to eliminate contradiction through a middle ground. For Heraclitus, contradiction lies at the root of existence; to remove it would destroy the universe. He appealed to the rational objectivity of the Logos and defended materialist monism against Pythagorean dualism, insisting that truth requires going beyond appearances to uncover inner conflicting tendencies.
The Eleatic school, led by Parmenides and Zeno, reacted by denying change altogether. Zeno’s paradoxes—Achilles and the Tortoise, the Arrow—aimed to prove motion an illusion. Hegel recognised that Zeno’s real intention was to expose the contradiction inherent in movement, a contradiction irresolvable by formal logic. The Arrow paradox, in which an arrow at any instant is at rest, illustrates formal logic’s inability to grasp motion. Hegel’s answer was that movement means being in a place and not being in it simultaneously; Engels added that motion is a contradiction continually asserted and resolved. The problem of the continuum, which generated Zeno’s paradoxes, was only practically overcome when Kepler, Newton, and Leibniz worked with infinitesimals, ignoring formal logic’s objections to produce epoch-making results.
Anaxagoras held that matter is infinitely divisible and contains some of every element, with nous (mind) as an organising principle. Leucippus and Democritus developed atomism: the universe consists solely of atoms and the void, with Leucippus establishing the law of causality. Epicurus introduced the clinamen, or spontaneous atomic swerve, breaking mechanical determinism and providing a materialist basis for free will and individuality. Marx, in his doctoral thesis, defended Epicurus against Democritus, arguing that the swerve represents self-determination. Lucretius elaborated this in On the Nature of the Universe, defending the indestructibility of matter and an infinite universe. Epicurean materialism, which sought to free humanity from fear of death through a clear understanding of nature, was viciously slandered by Christian apologists as amoral hedonism. In reality, it was a life-affirming philosophy, anathema to those who direct people toward an afterlife.
The term ‘dialectics’ originates from the Greek for conversation, reflecting Athenian democracy’s public debate. The Sophists, initially rationalist freethinkers, broke down dogmas. Protagoras’s maxim, “Man is the measure of all things,” introduced philosophical subjectivity; while this could justify egotism, it also enabled the consideration of multiple viewpoints. Sophism’s basic truth—that truth is many-sided—is fundamental to dialectics, but sophists used it subjectively, counterposing one aspect against the whole. Gorgias’s three propositions expressed extreme subjective idealism, denying objective knowledge. Socrates, though regarded as a sophist, sought universal truth through relentless questioning. His method proceeds from a particular opinion, exposes its inner contradictions through rigorous argument, and moves discussion to a higher level via thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. This mirrors Hegel’s depiction of dialectical development, where each stage supersedes and preserves the prior. Marxists apply this method not by preaching socialist consciousness from without, but by starting from workers’ existing awareness and showing, through practical struggle, that their problems require radical social transformation.
Plato, however, turned Socrates’ search for universals into idealism, asserting that ideas like “circle” exist independently of material objects, which are merely imperfect copies. Marx and Engels, in The Holy Family, critique this as sophistry: abstracting “Fruit” from real fruits and declaring it the true essence, thereby treating particular fruits as inessential semblances. Plato’s idealism, hostile to empirical science, held back astronomy for two millennia by insisting on perfect circular motion for celestial bodies. His Timaeus revived creation myths, which the