Principles of Marxist Philosophy (Excerpt)

Philosophy and its fundamental problems

1 Philosophy and worldview. methodology

(1) Philosophy is a theoretical, systematic worldview.

The worldview is the general and fundamental view of people about the whole world, including the natural world, human society and thinking. Rather than individual opinions and opinions on specific things. Worldviews cannot all be called philosophies, and only theoretical, systematic worldviews can be called philosophies.

(2) Philosophy is the generalization and summary of natural, social and mental knowledge.

The object of specific scientific research is the special nature and laws of a certain field, aspect or level of the material world. Philosophy seeks to grasp the common essence and the most general laws of the whole world as a whole.

Philosophy and concrete science are interdependent and inseparable, and philosophy is based on concrete science, and concrete science is guided by philosophy.

(3) Philosophy is the unity of worldview and methodology.

Methodology is a systematic theory of people's fundamental ways of understanding the world and transforming it. The worldview determines the methodology, and the methodology embodies the worldview.

As far as the general and fundamental view of philosophy is concerned with the whole world, it is the world view, and philosophy is a methodology for the general methodological theory of people's understanding of the world and the transformation of the world.

Second, the basic question of philosophy.

1, the basic problems of philosophy contain two aspects.

(1) The question of what is the source of thought and existence, that is, the question of what is the first nature of spirit and matter, that is, the question of who decides whom.

(2) The question of whether thinking and existence, spirit (consciousness) and matter are identical, that is, whether thinking can reflect existence or correctly understand the existing problems.

2) The theory of the origin or essence of the world is usually called ontology in philosophy.

3, the theory of whether the study of thinking can recognize existence and how to recognize existence is often called epistemology.

Third, the main schools of philosophy.

1. Materialism and idealism and its historical form.

(1) Materialism and idealism.

The first aspect of the fundamental problem of philosophy is the only scientific criterion for distinguishing the main schools of philosophy.

[1] Materialism advocates the first nature of matter (existence), the second nature of consciousness (thinking), the determination of matter consciousness, and consciousness as a derivative of matter or a philosophical school of reflection.

[2] Idealism advocates the primacy of consciousness and the second nature of matter, the philosophical school of consciousness determining matter and matter being the derivative of consciousness.

(2) Philosophical monism and dualism.

[1] Monist philosophy is the philosophy that holds that there is only one unified origin in the world.

[2] Dualism in the history of philosophy denies that there is a unified origin of the world, and holds that spirit and matter are two independent and independent origins, which is philosophical eclecticism.

(3) Knowable and agnostic.

The answer to the difference in the second aspect of the fundamental question of philosophy divides philosophy into knowable and agnostic.

[1] Any philosophical view that affirms the identity of thinking and existence and acknowledges that the objective world can be known belongs to knowableism.

[2] Any philosophical view that denies the identity of thought and existence, that the objective world can be known, or that the objective world can be thoroughly known by mankind, is agnosticism.

(4) The historical form of materialism.

[1] Ancient naïve materialism affirmed the material unity of the world, denied the view that God created the world, and reduced the origin of the world to some or more "primitive substances."

[2] Modern metaphysical materialism reduces matter to atoms, holding that the properties of atoms are common to all forms of matter. The defects are: mechanical, do-it-yourself, incomplete.

[3] Modern dialectical materialism and historical materialism, that is, Marxist philosophy, point out that objective reality is the attribute of the essence of matter and is a complete materialist form of science.

(5) The basic form of idealism.

[1] Objective idealism holds that before all things, there is a mysterious "objective spirit", which is the origin of all things, and the material world is only the product and manifestation of this objective spirit.

[2] Subjective idealism, the spirit of the individual. (Mind, consciousness, ideas, will, etc.) as the origin of the world, thinking that everything or phenomenon in the world is the product of sensation or consciousness.

2. Dialectics and Metaphysics.

The different answers to the state of the world as "how" form a dialectical and metaphysical opposition and struggle.

(1) Dialectics

All things in the world are moving, changing, and developing, there is no absolute static and eternal unchanging thing, the movement and development of things is not only quantitative change, but also qualitative change and leap; the root cause of the change in the movement of things lies mainly in the contradictions contained in things themselves, and he has experienced three historical forms: ancient naïve dialectics, modern idealistic dialectics represented by Hegel, and Marxist materialist dialectics.

(2) Metaphysics

All things in the world are isolated and fixed from each other, denying the fundamental qualitative change and leap of things, believing that the source of the change in the movement of things lies in the action of external forces, its historical evolution: ancient metaphysics, medieval walking and learning, vulgar evolutionary metaphysics.