Lecture 15

AN OUTLINE THEORY OF DIALECTICS

1. Dialectics and its historical forms. Main principles of dialectics. Two conceptions of development.

2. The basic laws of dialectics.

3. Categories as stages and forms of the knowledge of the world.

The term of Dialectics is already well-known from the first lecture. To begin with dialectics is one of the basic philosophical method meaning creative cognition and thought based on connection and development in its most complete deep-going and comprehensive form. We also know dialectics of Heraclites with his famous “Panta rhei” – everything is flowing and “You cannot enter the same river twice” that appeared to be the first historical type of dialectics.

Hegel worked out the fundamental principles of dialectical logics, the theory of laws and categories as the theory of cognition though on idealistic base. It was the second historical stage of dialectics.

Marxian materialistic dialectics was expressed in a system of philosophical principles, categories and laws and it appeared to be a means of understanding reality in all essential forms of its manifestation in nature, society and thought itself. This stage was the third historical type of dialectics.

In contemporary socio-political and philosophical terminology the idea of development came to be known as Spenser’s trivial evolutionism with its conception of development in which the new is largely a quantitative modification of the old. Trivial evolutionism naturally implies rejection of qualitative leaps in development.

One of the most influential Western theories of development, which ultimately goes back to metaphysical evolutionism is Henry Bergson’s conception of creative evolution. Bergson saw the source of qualitative development in the idealist principle of elan vital which means, on the philosophical plane, a “need for creativity” attributed to such an ideal object as consciousness or, better say, “superconsciousness”. Accordingly, the source of development was conceived as an ideal force and placed outside the developing material object.

In biology, “creative evolution” was paralleled by “emergent evolution”. Its creator Lloyd Morgan, the biologist and philosopher, asserted that, along with qualityless “resultative” changes that are a mere algebraic sum of the original constituents, a sum that can be computed, there are also qualitative changes, but these are unpredictable.

The theory of emergent evolution actually eliminates from science the very concept of objective law, which brings this conception close to metaphysics and agnosticism, seeing the source of development outside the developing object.

Metaphysical views became especially widespread in explanation of the life of society. According to a current theory society develops in an evolutionary manner, and only such development is normal; this evolution, though, leaves no room for qualitative leaps rejecting old states. Revolutionary transitions are said to be deviations from norm, and diseases of society.

1. On the Universal Connections and Interactions

The concepts of connection and relation. The philosophical prin­ciple of universal connection. The entire reality accessible to us is an aggregate of objects and phenomena linked with one another by ex­tremely diverse relations and connections. All objects and events are links in an infinite chain joining all that exists in the world in a single whole —a chain that is, at its deep-lying basis, nowhere dis­rupted, although matter is discrete: everything interacts with every­thing else. The bond uniting all objects and processes in a single whole is universal in character. The life of the world is in the endless web of relations and connections. They are the threads, as it were, that fasten everything; the moment they are broken, everything will disintegrate into chaos. The principle of relation and connection is an adequate reflection of the organization of all that is, and of the systems forming it; one of the fundamental worldview and methodo­logical principles on which the entire categorial edifice of philos­ophy is built. It expresses the materiality of reality— the condition of the connection of everything with everything, including the various forms of the motion of matter; in other words, this principle rests on the material unity of the world.

Connection is usually defined as a deep-seated attributive property of matter, consisting in the fact that all objects and phe­nomena are linked by infinitely varied interdependence and various relations with each other. In other words, connection is a general ex­pression of dependence among phenomena, a reflection of the interde­pendence of their existence and development. As for relation, it is, mostly defined as one of the forms of, or an element in, the universal interconnection of objects and processes. Indeed, everything exists in two hypostases, as it were: as being "by itself and as being "for others", in relation to these others. The existing relations are ex­tremely subordination and coordination, of part and whole, etc. The kinds of relations listed here are universal in character, concealing, as it were, the deep substantive connection of phenomena.

Along with the diverse relations, there are the extremely varied types and kinds of connections. The types of connections are defined in relation to the level of organization of matter. Related to the different forms of the motion of matter, there exist in inorganic nature mechanical, physical and chemical connections presupposing _ interaction either through various fields or through direct contact. In the ensemble of atoms forming a crystal, a separate atom cannot oscillate independently: the least of its displacements affects all others. The particles of a solid body can only oscillate collectively. There are also more complex connections in living nature —biologi­cal ones, which are expressed in the relations of elements within an organism, within a species, and among species, as well as in their re­lations with the environment. In social life, the connections become even more complex, forming production, distribution, class, family, interpersonal, national, state, and other types of relations. However, connections exist not only among objects within a given form of the motion of matter but also among all its forms.

Any form of connection always has its definite basis, which makes it either necessary or accidental, constant or temporary. The basis is an essential objective condition ensuring the formation and existence of a given connection.

The concept of connection is one of the central concepts in dia­lectical materialism. It is used to substantiate the principles of de­velopment, of the struggle of opposites and interrelation between, quantitative and qualitative changes, etc. The concept of interaction is a further clarification of the principle of universal connection.

The concept of interaction. Everything that happens in the world springs from constant interaction between objects. Because of the universality of interaction, all the structural levels of being are inter­connected, and the material world is unified. This interaction deter­mines the emergence and development of the objects, their transi­tion from one qualitative state to another. Interaction is a philoso­phical category reflecting the-processes of reciprocal influence of ob­jects on one another, their mutual conditioning, changes of state, mu­tual transition into one another, as well as generation of one object by another.