View source for Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy/Control questions

''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy|Fundamental principles of philosophy]].''
== Study of the marxist dialectical method ==
=== Traits of dialectics  ===
==== Everything is connected (law of reciprocal action and universal connection) ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#Everything is connected (law of reciprocal action and universal connection)|Everything is connected (law of reciprocal action and universal connection)]]''

# Look for examples of reciprocal action.
# Why is a phenomenon (natural or social) unintelligible when isolated from its conditions?
# Show on a specific example how the bourgeoisie, in order to deceive the workers, separates events from their historical conditions.

==== Everything is changing (law of universal change and of the continuous development) ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#Everything is changing (law of universal change and of the continuous development)|Everything is changing (law of universal change and of the continuous development)]]''

# How does dialectics conceive of change? Take examples from around you.
# Why does the bourgeoisie have an interest in hiding the fact that all reality is changing?
# Show, by means of one or two examples, the services that knowledge of the second trait dialectics can render to the worker activist.

==== Qualitative change ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#Qualitative change|Qualitative change]]''

# What is qualitative change?
# Using specific examples, show that there is a necessary link between quantitative change (increase or decrease) and qualitative change.
# How does the third trait of dialectics enable the labour activist to work better on the single front?

==== The struggle of opposites (i) ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The struggle of opposites (i)|The struggle of opposites (i)]]''

# Why is the struggle of opposites the driving force behind all change?
# Briefly recall the characters of the contradiction.
# Use new examples to illustrate points [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The contradiction is internal|"The contradiction is internal"]], [[Library:Fundamental_principles_of_philosophy#The_contradiction_is_innovative|"The contradiction is innovative"]], [[Library:Fundamental_principles_of_philosophy#Unity_of_opposites|"Unity of opposites"]].
# In what way does the internal character of the contradiction allow us to understand that the revolution "cannot be exported"?

==== The struggle of opposites (ii) ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The struggle of opposites (ii)|The struggle of opposites (ii)]]''

# Why do the dividers in the labor movement deny the existence of the struggle of opposites?
# Show on a specific example that not every contradiction is antagonism.
# How is self-criticism a struggle of opposites?

==== The struggle of opposites (iii) ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The struggle of opposites (iii)|The struggle of opposites (iii)]]''

# What is the specificity of the contradiction? Illustrate with one or two examples.
# Show how such a great artist, such a great writer knows how to realize in his work the unity of the specific and the universal.
# Show by a specific example how a secondary contradiction becomes the main contradiction.
# Show, by a specific example, how the secondary aspect of a contradiction becomes the main aspect.
# In what way is the struggle of opposites, according to Lenin's expression, the "nucleus of dialectics"?
# Why does socialism degenerate if it breaks with the dialectical method?

== Study of marxist philosophical materialism ==
=== What is the materialist conception of the world? ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#What is the materialist conception of the world?|What is the materialist conception of the world?]]''

# How to respond to the slander of bourgeois ideologues against "materialism"?
# What is the fundamental problem of philosophy?
# Explain and dispel the confusion maintained by the idealists about the word "idealism".
# What are the three fundamental features of marxist philosophical materialism?

=== Traits of marxist materialism ===
==== The materiality of the world ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The materiality of the world|The materiality of the world]]''

# What are the most widespread forms of objective idealism today?
# Summarize the Marxist thesis of the materiality of the world.
# What was the inadequacy of mechanistic materialism?
# What were the other narrownesses of pre-Marxist materialism?
# What distinction do you make between the inevitability of a phenomenon and the idea of "fatality"?
# How does Marxism approach the question of religion?
# What attitude does a consistent materialist take to the events of social life and also those of his personal life?

==== Matter is prior to consciousness ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#Matter is prior to consciousness|Matter is prior to consciousness]]''

# On whom do you think the arguments of subjective idealism can have the most influence? Why do you think so?
# What is meant by the idea of the objectivity of the laws of nature and society? Give examples.
# What does the thesis that consciousness is a reflection of reality mean?
# What is the role of work in the formation of human consciousness?
# Show that consciousness is a product of social development.
# Why do the abstract ideas of science reflect reality with maximum accuracy?
# Show the link between materialism and socialism.

==== The world is knowable ====
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The world is knowable|The world is knowable]]''

# How does agnosticism manifest itself in political opinions?
# What is the attitude of agnosticism towards science?
# Why do scientists remain believers? Why does agnosticism lead to fideism?
# How should we refute agnosticism?
# What is pragmatism and why do we need to fight against it?
# Is it true that for marxism the truth is relative?
# Why should we demand the union of theory and practice?

== Dialectical materialism and the spiritual life of society ==
=== The spiritual life of the society is a reflection of its material life ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The spiritual life of the society is a reflection of its material life|The spiritual life of the society is a reflection of its material life]]''

# Show through one or two specific examples how social ideas reflect the objective material development of societies.
# Why is it in the interest of the bourgeoisie to conceal the true origin of social ideas, social theories, political opinions, political institutions?
# How is it necessary to understand Marx's sentence, quoted [[Library:Fundamental_principles_of_philosophy#cite_ref-4|here]]: ''"In the social production of existence, men enter into determined, necessary relationships, independent of their will..."''?
# Do you have experience of cases similar to that of the shoemaker that Stalin speaks of in Anarchism or Socialism?
# Show by one or more examples how the consciousness of the workers is transformed in struggle.

=== The role and importance of ideas in social life ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The role and importance of ideas in social life|The role and importance of ideas in social life]]''

# What is the error of vulgar materialism? Can you illustrate it with an example?
# Show how dialectical materialism assures the power of ideas, while idealism, which proclaims the supremacy of ideas, actually underestimates their power?
# What do we mean by new ideas?
# Show by a few examples how the reactionary bourgeoisie tries to pass off very old ideas as "new".
# Using a current example, analyze the role of new ideas as organizers, mobilizers and transformers.

=== The formation, importance and role of scientific socialism ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The formation, importance and role of scientific socialism|The formation, importance and role of scientific socialism]]''

# What are the three sources of marxism?
# Why is the socialism of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen called "utopian socialism"?
# Why is the socialism of Marx scientific?
# What is spontaneity?  Why is scientific socialism not a spontaneous product of the proletariat's consciousness?
# Show by a few specific examples how scientific socialism has been enriched.

== Historical materialism ==
=== Production: productive forces and production relationships ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#Production: productive forces and production relationships|Production: productive forces and production relationships]]''

# What are the conditions of the material life of the society?
# Define the productive forces.
# Define the production relationships.
# What is the decisive element in production relationships?
# Define the means of production.
# What is a social class?
# Show that changing the mode of production necessarily changes the whole physiognomy of society.

=== The law of necessary correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The law of necessary correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces|The law of necessary correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces]]''

# What is the most mobile element in production and why?
# Why do production relationships change? Examples.
# What is the action of production relationships on the productive forces? Examples.
# What is the role of the conscious action of humans in history, taking into account the existence of a necessary law of correspondence between production relations and productive forces?

=== The class struggle before capitalism ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The class struggle before capitalism|The class struggle before capitalism]]''

# What is the first mode of production in the history of societies?
# How did the classes come into being?
# What is the essential feature of the slavery regime, and why did it disappear?
# How did the contradictions of feudal society develop?

=== The contradictions of capitalist society ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The contradictions of capitalist society|The contradictions of capitalist society]]''

# Characterize the boom period of capitalism.
# Show the objective character of the class struggle under capitalism.
# What is the objective basis of the social revolution that is called to change the capitalist mode of production?
# By what method can the contradiction between the relations of capitalist production and the character of the productive forces be resolved?

=== The superstructure ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The superstructure|The superstructure]]''

# Show by an example the real content of the struggle of ideas in a society of antagonistic classes.
# What kinds of ideas belong to the superstructure? Examples.
# What attitude should the proletariat take towards the transformations of the capitalist superstructure?
# Scientific progress and "moral" progress.

=== Socialism ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#Socialism|Socialism]]''

# What are the main economic and social consequences of the socialization of the means of production?
# What are the objective conditions for the transition to socialism?
# Describe and explain the basic principles of socialism.
# What are the subjective conditions for the transition to socialism and its development?

=== From socialism to communism ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#From socialism to communism|From socialism to communism]]''

# How is the transition from capitalism to communism? What are the main characteristics of the two phases of communist society?
# What are the conditions that need to be met to ensure the transition from socialism to communism?
# What is the role of ideas in socialist society?
# Why is socialism the true humanism?

== The materialist theory of state and nation ==
=== The state ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The state|The state]]''
# Why was it historically necessary for the state to appear at a given time?
# Scientific definition of the state.
# Why does historical materialism consider the question of the state to be decisive?
# Show the class content of the bourgeois state.
# For what class reasons did the bourgeois-democratic form of the state emerge?
# Reasons for the struggle of the working class against the bourgeois state, in defense of bourgeois-democratic freedoms.

=== The nation (i) ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The nation (i)|The nation (i)]]''

# Recall the characters of the national reality.
# Why is the state not a constituent element of the nation? How can it help the development of the nation?
# To show, on specific examples, how the reactionary bourgeoisie is working to destroy the different characteristics of the French nation?
# What is bourgeois cosmopolitanism?
# What is proletarian internationalism?
# Show how the interests of the French and German working class are in solidarity.
# Comment on and explain Stalin's text quoted at the end of this lesson.

=== The nation (ii) ===
''Return: [[Library:Fundamental principles of philosophy#The nation (ii)|The nation (ii)]]''

# ''"A people that oppresses others cannot be free"'' (Marx). Why not?
# What is the right of nations to self-determination?
# Does respect for the right of nations to self-determination matter for world peace?
# Illustrate with a current example how proletarian internationalism makes it possible to give a fair assessment of the national independence movement in a particular colonial or dependent country.
# What are the characteristics of a socialist nation?
# What is meant by fusion of nations?