There are those who say: many people understand practical dialectics, and moreover are practical materialists; and although they have not read books on dialectics, things that they do are done correctly, and in fact conform with materialist dialectics. They surely have no particular need to study dialectics. This sort of talk is incorrect, (p. 303) Materialist dialectics is a complete and profound science. Although revolutionaries who really do possess materialist and dialectical minds learn a great deal of dialectics from practice, it is not systematized and lacks the completeness and profundity already achieved by materialist dialectics. Therefore, they are unable to see clearly the long-term future of the movement, unable to analyse a complex process of development, unable to grasp important political links, and unable to handle the various aspects of revolutionary work. Because of this, they still need to study dialectics.
There are others who say that dialectics is abstruse and difficult to fathom, and that ordinary people have no possibility of mastering it. This is also incorrect. Dialectics encompasses the laws of nature, society and thought. Anyone with some experience of society (experience of production and class struggle) actually understands some dialectics. Those with even more experience of society actually have a greater understanding of dialectics, although their understanding remains in the chaotic state of common sense and is neither complete nor profound. It is not difficult to bring order to this commonsense dialectics and deepen it through further study. The reason why people feel dialectics is difficult is that there exist no books which explain dialectics well. In China, there are many books on dialectics which, while not incorrect, are explained poorly or none too well, and which frighten people off. Books which are good at[2-284] explaining dialectics employ everyday language and relate moving experiences. Sooner or later such a book must be put together. This talk of mine is also far from adequate since I have myself only just begun to study dialectics. There has been no possibility of writing a useful book on the subject as yet, although perhaps the opportunity may present itself in the future. I wish to do so, but this will be decided by how my study proceeds.
In the next section various laws of dialectics will be discussed. [There follows
Source: Takeuchi Minoru (ed.),
[p. 220] Before Marx, materialism examined the problem of knowledge apart from the social nature of man and apart from his historical development, and was therefore incapable of understanding the dependence of knowledge on social practice, that is, the dependence of knowledge on production and class struggle.
Above all, Marxists regard man’s activity in production as the most fundamental practical activity, the determinant of all his other activities. Man’s [p. 221] knowledge depends mainly on his activity in material production through which he comes gradually to understand the phenomena, the properties of nature (the laws of nature),[3-285] and the relations between himself and nature; and through his activity in production he also comes at the same time to understand the relations that exist between man and man.[3-286] None of this knowledge can be acquired apart from activity in production.
Every person,[3-287] as a member of society, joins in common effort with the other members,[3-288] and engages in production to meet man’s material needs.[3-289] This is the primary source from which human knowledge develops.