Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical Materialism is a way of understanding reality; whether thoughts, emotions, or the material world. Simply stated, this methodology is the combination of
Dialectics and
Materialism. The materialist dialectic is the
theoretical foundation of
Marxism (while being
communist is the
practice of Marxism).
"It is an eternal cycle in which matter moves, a cycle that certainly only completes its orbit in periods of time for which our terrestrial year is no adequate measure, a cycle in which the time of highest development, the time of organic life and still more that of the life of being conscious of nature and of themselves, is just as narrowly restricted as the space in which life and self-consciousness come into operation. A cycle in which every finite mode of existence of matter, whether it be sun or nebular vapour, single animal or genus of animals, chemical combination or dissociation, is equally transient, and wherein nothing is eternal but eternally changing, eternally moving matter and the laws according to which it moves and changes.
Fredrick Engels
Dialectics of Nature
Introduction
"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, or motion without matter, nor can there be."
"Change of form of motion is always a process that takes place between at least two bodies, of which one loses a definite quantity of motion of one quality (e.g. heat), while the other gains a corresponding quantity of motion of another quality (mechanical motion, electricity, chemical decomposition).
"Dialectics, so-called
objective dialectics, prevails throughout nature, and so-called subjective dialectics (dialectical thought), is only the reflection of the motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites and their final passage into one another, or into higher forms, determines the life of nature."
Fredrick Engels
Dialectics of Nature
But dialectical materialism insists on the approximate relative character of every scientific theory of the structure of matter and its properties; it insists on the absence of absolute boundaries in nature, on the transformation of moving matter from one state into another, that from our point of view [may be] apparently irreconcilable with it, and so forth.
Vladimir Lenin
Materialism and Empirio-criticism
With each epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural science, materialism has to change its form; and after history was also subjected to materialistic treatment, a new avenue of development has opened here, too. [
Ch. 2, The End of Classical German Philosophy]
"For dialectical philosophy nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher."
Fredrick Engels
The End of Classical German Philosophy
An example of dialectical materialism applied is the
materialist conception of history .
'Dialectical Materialism' was coined by
Karl Kautsky and popularised in the Second International after the death of Marx and Engels.