{"agent_id":"engels","agent_name":"Friedrich Engels","slug":"dialectical-materialism-and-the-dialectics-of-nature","label":"Dialectical materialism and the dialectics of nature: does the dialectical method apply beyond human society to natural science?","topic":"Dialectical materialism and the dialectics of nature","question":"Does the dialectical method apply beyond human society to natural science?","position":"*Dialectical materialism* is a coherent extension of the *materialist conception of history*, and dialectics operates in nature whether we describe it or not. The *three laws of dialectics* — the transformation of quantity into quality, the interpenetration of opposites, the *negation of the negation* — are features of natural processes that 19th-century science was discovering empirically. Marx read *Anti-Dühring* chapter by chapter, contributed material on political economy, and never disavowed the systematic philosophical exposition. Western Marxism's anti-Engels reading is a 20th-century projection that confuses my pedagogical pamphleteering for Marx's silence on these questions.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"*Dialectical materialism* is a coherent extension of the *materialist conception of history*, and dialectics operates in nature whether we describe it or not.","n":[]},{"t":"The *three laws of dialectics* — the transformation of quantity into quality, the interpenetration of opposites, the *negation of the negation* — are features of natural processes that 19th-century science was discovering empirically.","n":[1,2]}],[{"t":"Marx read *Anti-Dühring* chapter by chapter, contributed material on political economy, and never disavowed the systematic philosophical exposition.","n":[]},{"t":"Western Marxism's anti-Engels reading is a 20th-century projection that confuses my pedagogical pamphleteering for Marx's silence on these questions.","n":[3,4]}]],"texts":"*Anti-Dühring* (1877–78); *Dialectics of Nature* (composed 1873–86, posthumous 1925/1934); *Socialism: Utopian and Scientific* (1880); *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy* (1886). Reception: Karl Korsch (*Marxism and Philosophy* 1923); Georg Lukács (*History and Class Consciousness* 1923); Frankfurt School — Adorno (*Negative Dialectics* 1966), Marcuse (*Reason and Revolution* 1941); Sartre (*Search for a Method* 1957); Sebastiano Timpanaro (*On Materialism* 1970); Soviet orthodoxy — Plekhanov, Lenin (*Materialism and Empirio-Criticism* 1909), Stalin (*Dialectical and Historical Materialism* 1938); Levins and Lewontin (*The Dialectical Biologist* 1985); Terrell Carver (*Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship* 1984).","works":["*Anti-Dühring* (1877–78)","*Dialectics of Nature* (composed 1873–86, posthumous 1925/1934)","*Socialism: Utopian and Scientific* (1880)","*Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy* (1886)"],"reception":"Karl Korsch (*Marxism and Philosophy* 1923); Georg Lukács (*History and Class Consciousness* 1923); Frankfurt School — Adorno (*Negative Dialectics* 1966), Marcuse (*Reason and Revolution* 1941); Sartre (*Search for a Method* 1957); Sebastiano Timpanaro (*On Materialism* 1970); Soviet orthodoxy — Plekhanov, Lenin (*Materialism and Empirio-Criticism* 1909), Stalin (*Dialectical and Historical Materialism* 1938); Levins and Lewontin (*The Dialectical Biologist* 1985); Terrell Carver (*Marx and Engels: The Intellectual Relationship* 1984).","status":"The most-attacked Engelsian position. Defended in *Anti-Dühring* (1877–78), the unfinished *Dialectics of Nature* (1873–86), and *Ludwig Feuerbach* (1886). I have not retreated under sustained critique from Korsch, Lukács, the Frankfurt School, Sartre, or the contemporary \"two Marxisms\" school led by Carver.","era":"1820-1895","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Anti-Dühring","page":"pp. 139–140","canonical":"","quote":"These series, however, are only one particularly obvious example; throughout practically the whole of chemistry, even in the various oxides of nitrogen and oxygen acids of phosphorus or sulphur, one can see how \"quantity changes into quality\" and how this allegedly confused and foggy Hegelian notion is to be found in so to speak corporeal form in things and processes—and no one but Herr Dühring is confused and…","label":"Anti-Dühring, pp. 139–140"},{"n":2,"work":"Dialectics of Nature","page":"pp. 61–63","canonical":"","quote":"It is as Ketteler said about Déllinger: In fact, mere empiricism is incapable of refuting the spiritualists. In the first place, the \"higher\" phenomena always show themselves only when the \"investigator\" concerned is already so far in the toils that he now only NATURAL SCIENCE IN THE SPIRIT WORLD 61 sees what he is meant to see or wants to see—as Crookes himself describes with such inimitable naiveté.","label":"Dialectics of Nature, pp. 61–63"},{"n":3,"work":"Anti-Dühring","page":"p. 152","canonical":"","quote":"Although Rousseau was not yet able to speak the Hegelian jargon in 1754, he was nevertheless deeply bitten by the Hegelian pestilence, the dialectics of contradiction, the doctrine of the Logos, theologizing, etc., sixteen years below Engels also quotes pp. 224 and 235-36. The italics are all his. Cole's translation has been revised in these passages. before Hegel was born.","label":"Anti-Dühring, p. 152"},{"n":4,"work":"Landmarks of Scientific Socialism - Anti-Duhring","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"In both the series each new step is reached through the introduction of CH_{2}, an atom of carbon and two atoms of hydrogen, to the molecular form of the preceding step, and this quantitative change in the molecular form brings about a qualitatively different body. These series are merely obvious examples.","label":"Landmarks of Scientific Socialism - Anti-Duhring"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"scientific-socialism-vs-utopian-socialism","label":"Scientific socialism vs. utopian socialism: what makes a socialist analysis 'scientific' rather than utopian?"},{"slug":"the-origin-of-the-family-private-property-and-the-state","label":"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: did the patriarchal family arise with private property, and does the state derive from class antagonisms?"},{"slug":"the-condition-of-the-working-class-in-england","label":"The Condition of the Working Class in England: was the empirical sociology sound, or was the evidence selected to fit a political conclusion?"},{"slug":"editorial-fidelity-to-marx","label":"Editorial fidelity to Marx: did the editorial labor on Capital II/III, the 1895 Introduction, and the retrospective formulations distort or faithfully transmit Marx's work?"}]}