Knowledge in the old sense of passive contemplation is an unreal abstraction the process that really takes place is one of handling things. In his view, all sensation or perception is an interaction between subject and object the bare object, apart from the activity of the percipient, is a mere raw material, which is transformed in the process of being known. Materialism 9 on the other hand is the theory or belief that only material things exist.ĭialectical materialism, in Marxist Theory argues that political and historical events are due to the conflict of social forces caused by man’s material needs. Dialectic 8 in philosophy is the art of discovering and telling truths in discussion and logical argument. But what is dialectical materialism? To understand this, it is important to first of all define dialectic and also materialism. Karl Marx is a reviver of materialism giving it a new interpretation and a new connection with human history. We shall first explain Marx’s dialectical materialism and then his historical materialism. From this conception, Marx derived his Theory of history. This essence resides in the collective activity which Marx was to identify as ‘labor’ 7. Of his influence by Feuerbach, Marx in his work ‘founded genuine materialism and positive science by making the social relationship of “man to man” the basic principle of his theory.’ 6 Karl Marx argued that only man has species-life since only man finds his nature, through the recognition of himself as a social, and therefore socially determined, being.Īccording to Marx’s theory of self-consciousness therefore, the self is constituted only through its social essence which was a material and not a spiritual reality like in Hegel. Marx’s philosophy was later to be called ‘dialectical materialism’. Marx’s lifework consisted it the attempt to overcome the intellectual difficulties that stood in the way of expressing Hegel’s vision ‘materialistically’. For Marx, Hegelian philosophies of history and Hegelian theory of self-consciousness were inextricable. The seeds of Marx’s theory of history were present in the Manuscripts of 1844, but achieved their final form after research into the science of political economy in polemical writings such as the Communist Manifesto (1848) and The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte 5. We shall see this dialectic as having influenced Karl Marx’s philosophy. It is therefore impossible to reach the truth except by going through all the steps of the dialectic. None is wholly 4 superseded, but is given its proper place as a moment in the whole. Each later stage of the dialectic contains all the earlier stages. This process is essential to the understanding of the result. From this thesis and antithesis we pass on to the synthesis the union of Being and Not-Being is becoming, and so we say: ‘The Absolute is Becoming’ 3. Pure Being without any qualities is nothing therefore we are led to the antithesis: ‘The Absolute is Nothing’. G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831) begins the argument of his logic by the assumption that ‘the Absolute is Pure Being’ we assume that it just is, without assigning any qualities to it. This paper seeks to explain Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism and historical dialectics.īefore delving into dialectical materialism and historical dialectics as espoused by Karl Marx, it is important to explain something about the Hegelian dialectic method. 2 Marx called himself a materialist, though under Hegelian influence. This is best represented in the Communist Manifesto of 1848. Unlike British classical economics who aimed at the welfare of the capitalists, Marx worked to represent the interest of the wage earner. The stimulus to his work was the hope of a social revolution in his lifetime or in future. After taking part in the French and German revolutions of 1848, he sought refuge in England in 1849 from where he wrote and amassed knowledge. From him, he came to know of English labor conditions and English economics. There, he met Engels, the manager of a factory in Manchester. In 1843, he went to France to study socialism. He also tried journalism but the Rhenische Zeitung 1, a radical publication was suppressed by the authorities. At the University he was influenced by Hegelianism. Marx’s ancestors had been rabbis though his parents became Christians when he was a child.

Treves had been influenced by the French during the revolutionary and Napoleonic era hence, it was much cosmopolitan than most parts of Germany. Karl Marx was born in 1818, at Treves in Germany. MARX ON HISTORICAL DIALECTICS AND MATERIALISM

Marxian dialectic