Notes for class on philosophy

“Recent philosophy is as partisan as was philosophy two thousand years ago. The contending parties are essentially—although this is concealed by a pseudo-erudite quackery of new terms or by a weak-minded non-partisanship—materialism and idealism.” – Lenin, EM. P. 364

 

1.    Not Determinism

“The history of all hitherto existing society² is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master³ and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an

uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” – Communist Manifesto

 

2. ‘Materialism’ vs. Materialism  

To justify ‘spiritualisms’ of various ‘Godmen’ & ruling class philosophers, word materialism is used to conceal ‘consumerism’ with an adjective ‘crass’ added to it. That is not philosophical materialism. Philosophically, materiality is existence outside the ‘mind’, and materialism is considering it primary to mind.

“The sole "property" of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside the mind.” – Lenin, EM

 

3.     shall have to be dialectical

“The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such”. – Thesis on Feuerbach 1

Thus, conceiving reality also as sensuous human activity, practice, includes reflective activity, reflection by the mind. Reality, instead of remaining in the form of object only, also includes interaction by the subject. Contemplation is replaced by dialectic of matter and mind.

Praxis become essential for revolutionary understanding of the world.

“Philosophers have till now, interpreted the world in various ways, point however, is to change it.” – Thesis on Feuerbach 11

4. Materialist conception of history

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or -- this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms -- with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic -- in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production -- antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social

conditions of existence -- but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.” – Introduction, ‘Contribution to the critique of political economy’.

 

5.   Space and time as forms of being

“The basic forms of all being,” Engels admonishes Dühring, “are space and time, and being out of time is just as gross an absurdity as being out of space” (op. cit.). EM, P.176

 

[In a lighter vain: I being a ‘being’, address proof is spatial form of me whereas photo-identity is temporal form]

Bihar is a state of India, (spatial), backward in terms of development (temporal).

 

6.    Principles of dialectics (Unity of world, movement of opposites, perspective of change and principle of preservation)

“The unity of the world does not consist in its being, although its being is a precondition of its unity, as it must certainly first be before it can be one. Being, indeed, is always an open question beyond the point where our sphere of observation ends. The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved not by a few juggled phrases, but by a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science.” – Anti-Duhring

 

“(The general nature of dialectics to be developed as the science of interconnections, in contrast to Metaphysics.)

It is, therefore, from the history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself. And indeed, they can be reduced in the main to three:

a)    The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa;

b)    The law of the interpenetration of opposites;

c)    The law of the negation of the negation.”

-          Dialectics of Nature

7.    Fundamental contradictions of present world operating in and defining a single historical moment

"Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects." – Lenin

“3.0 WORLD SOCIAL CONTRADICTIONS

“1. The CPI(M) continues to adhere to the understanding that the present-day world developments can be comprehended only by a proper study of the four fundamental contradictions of the present epoch, viz, between the forces of world socialism and imperialism, between imperialism and peoples of the developing world, between imperialist countries themselves, and between capital and labour in the capitalist countries.” – On certain Ideological Issues, CPI(M)

8.    Indian philosophical traditions of materialism and dialectics

“…two features of the hard core of the antithesis of Indian idealism constituted by the Lokayata, Samkhya and Nyaya-Vaisesika. First, as contrasted with certain other views contesting idealism, these three are-in their original form-characterised by secularism, rationalism and science-orientation. Secondly, these philosophies not only defend the reality of the material world or nature, but work moreover for an essentially materialist interpretation of its constitution, based on their respective theories of the nature of matter, namely the bhutas (physical elements) , pradhana (primeval matter) and paramanus ( atoms).

We now pass on to discuss another important feature of these philosophies. In all these, the ontological status of consciousness – compared to matter – is distinctly secondary.” – D. P. Chattopadhyay, ‘What is living and what is dead in Indian Philosophy’.

 

9.    Freedom movement and working class

“A powerful left-wing group developed in India in the late 1920s and 1930s contributing to the radicalization of the national movement. The goal of political independence acquired a clearer and sharper social and economic content. The stream of national struggle for independence and the stream of the struggle for social and economic emancipation of the suppressed and the exploited began to come together. Socialist ideas acquired roots in the Indian soil; and socialism became the accepted creed of Indian youth whose urges came to be symbolized by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose. Gradually there emerged two powerful parties of the Left, the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Congress Socialist Party (CSP).” – Bipan Chandra, India’s struggle for independence, chapter 24.

10.    Rooting of Marxism in India – exploration of Indian materialist and dialectical traditions, materialist conception of Indian history, working class struggles for change

On these three fronts great works have been done in last 100 years and precisely on these three fronts corporate aided communalism has concentrated its attack.