Comrade:Cassette/notes/Elementry principles of philosophy (Georges Politzer)

Part 1: The philosophical problem

Introduction

Summary: The worker needs to practice dialectical materialism in order to connect theory to practice to carry out a just revolution. This method of analysis and reasoning can solve all problems and is the basis of Marxist philosophy. It wholly stems from and evolves with science.

Dialectical Materialism

Connects theory to practice

What is the method of analysis and reasoning that the worker activist needs?

a method that never separates theory from practice, that takes into account facts and circumstances that are never the same.

What should we avoid

Ready made solutions (dogma)

Why should we study philosophy

We the worker activist need a method of analysis and reasoning that is just in order to carry out a just revolution

What is Philosophy

Study of the most general problems

How does science differ

The study of more specific problems

Philosophies connection to science

Extension of sciences; It’s based and depends on science

Materialism

Is nothing other then the scientific explanation of the universe

What is the common confusion to which the word materialism gives rise?

Thought to be one who only thinks of enjoying material pleasures. This is wrong. It does not prevent us from having an ideal and fighting to make it triumph

What is the relationship between materialism and Marxism?

Marxism based on materialism; consequently stems from science, rests on them and evolves with them

What was the impact of Marx and Engels on materialism?

updated ancient materialism and brought it into the age of modern science

What marxists take into account when looking at class struggle?

Economic, political and ideological struggle.

Who will give the movement the best direction?

The one who is able to fight on all these terrains

How important is the study of philosophy for the militant worker?

In order to carry out a just revolution it is necessary

What more particular importance does the study of dialectical materialism have for them?

It will allow them to solve all the problems and to unveil all the campaigns of falsification of marxism, which pretend to complete and renew it.

- my note: Like the new left/dem socialists. All Marx but no bite

Bourgeoisie campaign of silence

Separating Marxism from materialism. Marxism taught only as political doctrine and historical materialism spoken of without mentioning philosophy of materialism

The fundamental problem of philosophy

Summary: The fundamental question of philosophy is which one came first, being or thought (aka: spirit or matter) and there are only two answers to this question, the materialist and idealist ones. Materialism is based in science and says that ideas come from matter and idealism is non-scientific and says that spirit created matter.

Two ways of explaining the world?

1)the scientific conception 2) the non scientific conception

What two distinctions did philosophers make when explaining the world?

Matter and spirit: objects that are material and those that are not material like ideas, mind and thought

All the ways these distinctions are named

being and thinking/mind and matter/brain and consciousness/social experience and social consciousness/power and will

What is the fundamental question of philosophy

Which one precedes the other? Which is the most important?

There can only be two answers to this question...

1)a scientific answer 2) a non-scientific answer

What do we struggle with believing?

That there has always been something and we tend toward there having been nothing.

What have we found is easier to believe?

What religion teaches, “The spirit hovered above the darkness... then came the matter” Spirit preceding matter

During early humans what were dreams and imagination attributed to?

a double existence leading early philosophers to attribute these thoughts and feelings double to the soul that left the body after death

God’s and spirits

Attributed to external phenomenon they couldn’t understand or control like storms, germination and floods

What question split philosophers into two great camps?

Did God create the world or has the world been in existence eternally?

Idealism answer

non-scientific explanation - God created the world - spirit created matter

Materialism answer

scientific explaination - nature, matter was the main element

Support for materialism

there are bodies without thought, like stones, metals, earth, we never observe, on the other hand, the existence of mind without body.

Can only be two answers to question How is it that man thinks?

idealist 1)humans’ think because we have a soul / materialist 2)humans’ think because we have a brain

Idealism

Summary: Philosophical Idealism is the belief that thought precedes matter. As science dispensed with creationism, idealism changed through Berkeley to matter doesn’t exist. Berkeley argued that our minds are incapable of creating things on their own so they need a higher power which creates and imposes on us all the ideas of the world. This school of thought is taught today having undergone various disguises

What is the common confusion to which the words idealism give rise?

confusing moral idealism with philosophical idealism

Moral idealism

devoting oneself to a cause/ideal

Philosophical idealism

it is thought which is the principle element, the most important the first.

What is the first form of idealism

It is the spirit which produces matter.

How did idealism change

As science began to explain nature and dispensed with creationism, idealism changed to combat it by denying the very existence of matter

18th century father of this kind of idealism

Berkeley, an English bishop

The gist of Berkeley’s idealism

Our sensations are only ideas that we have in our mind. So the objects that we perceive through our senses are nothing but ideas, and ideas cannot exist outside our mind.

Consequence of idealist reasoning - Solipsism

Everything is ideas so the outside world does not exist therefore I am the only one who exists, since I only know other men through my ideas, that other men are for me, like material objects, only collections of ideas

Why is Berkeley’s work important to know?

The basis of the arguments of all idealistic philosophies are found in the reasoning of Bishop Berkeley. This method of thought dominates the official history of philosophy and is part of our religions, schools and the fabric of society to the extent it has penetrated our everyday thinking.

What are the main idealistic arguments?

spirit creates matter, the world does not exist outside our thinking and it’s our ideas that create things

The two perspectives that stem from spirit creates matter

1)ordinary idealism of theologies - God created the world and it exists outside of us 2)Berkely’s immaterialist ideaology- God created the illusion of the world by giving us ideas that do not correspond to material reality rather spirit is the only reality

How does a higher power fit into this?

Our mind is incapable of creating these things on it’s own so it can not do what it wants with them therefore it needs a more powerful mind. This higher power creates our spirit (mind) and imposes on us all the ideas of the world we encounter in it.

Materialism

Why should we study materialism?

We have learned through our society to think in an idealistic way and we must study materialism to change that.

When there was next to no scientific knowledge…

Philosophers and nascent sciences formed a whole one being the extension of the other

When science brought precision in the explanation of the phenomena of the world…

It contradicted the dogmas of idealistic philosophies which created a schism between these two

Materialism was born with…

science and grew with it until it was reunited with science through the dialectical materialism of Marx and Engels

What is the reasoning for matter being the most important?

There can be no thought without matter/brain. Therefore matter doesn’t need thought to exist but thought only exists because of matter.
Things around us exist independently from us: they are what give us our thoughts; and our ideas are only the reflection of things in our brain.

Which is right, idealism or materialism?

To summarize, Idealists say 3 things and materialists say the opposite.

That it is spirit that creates matter;
That matter does not exist outside our thoughts, and that it is therefore for us only an illusion;
That it is our ideas that create things.

What three questions do we need to discuss to know who is right about the fundamental problem of philosophy

Is it true that the world exists only in our thoughts?
Is it true that it is our ideas that create things?
Is it true that spirit creates matter?

Is it true that the world only exists in our thinking

Materialist recognize that we don’t just have our senses anymore to rely on to find out what is real rather we have science. So the sun exists, not because of what we detect with our senses (flat, red disc) but it exists by invoking science which allows us to correct the errors our senses makeIt follows that the materialist is…
Not discussing the properties of things, but their existence.
Not discussing whether our senses deceive us and distort material reality, but whether this reality exists outside our senses.

Berkeley’s argument relies on?

Our senses and the properties of things (which is what we relied on before science) and all it proves is that our senses can deceive us/we can see things differently then someone else. Not that matter doesn’t exist.

This leads to…

Materialist’s using science to assert the existence of things outside us while idealists “argue about words, make great speeches, write many pages.”

How do idealists respond to the question, did the world exist before humankind?

Thought inhabited animals

What does it all come back to for idealists?

Even if there was only a solar system without man, thought and spirit existed in God. God is at the crux of it. Idealism cannot sustain itself without God, and God cannot exist without idealism.

Idealism vs Materialism comes down to?

God vs Science.

What allows us to see the world as an objective reality

science

According to Lenin, what confounds the Idealist?

The criterion of practice

What will allow us to answer the question, is it true that it is our ideas that create things?

science and practice

What provides the proof that idealists are actually materialists

If an idealist is walking onto the street while a bus is coming and they don’t want to be crushed they will be careful as there is no difference between an objective and subjective bus to them in this scenario.

Because of practice and science...

Idealist no longer assert, like Berkeley, that the world does not exist. The arguments are much more subtle and hidden

If a conception is right or wrong

It is practice alone which, through experience, will demonstrate it to us.

The example of the bus shows

That there is an objective reality and to answer the previous question that our ideas do not create things

Idealist’s proof for God

Idealist point to mysteries that only prove we haven’t been able to explain those mysteries yet not that there is a God.

Example of “proof”

When the idealists want to "prove" to us the necessity of the creation of the world by saying that matter could not always have existed, that it had to have a birth, they resort to a God who never had a beginning.

Does science allow us to think that the spirit created matter

No. For this to be possible it would have been necessary that spirit existed alone before matter. But science has shown us that there is no spirit without matter, that spirit is always linked to matter, and we see in particular that the mind of humans is linked to the brain, which is the source of our ideas and thoughts. Science does not allow us to conceive that ideas exist in a vacuum.

What can we conclude from this

The mind of God needs a brain to exist. So we can conclude that it is not God who created matter, and man as well, but that it is matter, in the form of the human brain, that created the God-mind.

What can we conclude from the fundamental problem of philosophy

Materialists are right and science proves our assertions

Is there a third philosophy? Agnosticism?

What is the basis for Agnosticism?

We can never know the real basis of things only appearances

What is appearances

what we can detect through our senses. The external aspects of something.

Who are the founders of this philosophy

Kant and Hume

What does Hume admit

the existence of an external universe

What does he refuse to admit

objective reality.
this existence of external universe is nothing more than an image (called “things for us”), and our senses which observe this existence, this image, are incapable of establishing any relation whatsoever between mind and object (called “things in themselves).

So is the bus from the last chapter an objective reality?

Agnostic’s tells us that it is not certain, that we cannot know if the bus is a thought or a reality.

What is agnosticism’s consequences

Agnostics say that scientists get things wrong (”error yesterday truth today error tomorrow”) so reason cannot bring us certainty. By diminishing confidence in science, agnosticism thus prepares the way for the return of religions. It’s consequence is paving the way back to idealism

How can we refute this third philosophy

to prove their claims, materialists use not only science, but also experience, which allows them to control science. Thanks to the "criterion of practice", one can know things.
The reason we can make synthetic rubber is that science knows the "thing in itself" that is rubber.

Highlights

Look into The conservation of energy: first law of thermodynamics - matter and motion, or as it is now called, energy, can neither be created nor destroyed. Does this mean the universe has always existed…although the universe could’ve transformed into what it is…does this mean that matter has always existed?

From the moment we turn to our own use these objects, according to the qualities we perceive in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise of our sense perceptions. If these perceptions have been wrong, then our estimate of the use to which an object can be turned must also be wrong, and our attempt must fail. But if we succeed in accomplishing our aim, if we find that the object does agree with our idea of it, and does answer the purpose we intended it for, then that is positive proof that our perceptions of it and of its qualities, so far, agree with reality outside ourselves. And whenever we find ourselves face to face with a failure, then we generally are not long in making out the cause that made us fail; we find that the perception upon which we acted was either incomplete and superficial, or combined with the result of other perceptions in a way warranted by them—what we call defective reasoning. So long as we take care to train and to use our senses properly, and to keep our action within the limits prescribed by perceptions properly made and properly used, so long we shall find that the result of our action proves the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the things perceived. Not in one single instance, so far, have we been led to the conclusion that our sense perceptions, scientifically controlled, induce in our minds ideas respecting the outer world that are, by their very nature, at variance with reality, or that there is an inherent incompatibility between the outer world and our sense perceptions of it.
Since the 18th century, among the various thinkers who have borrowed to a greater or lesser extent from agnosticism, we see that this philosophy is sometimes torn by idealism and sometimes by materialism. Under cover of new words, as Lenin says, even pretending to use science to support their reasoning, they only create confusion between the two theories, allowing some to have a convenient philosophy, which gives them the possibility to declare that they are not idealists because they use science, but that they are not materialists either, because they don't dare to go to the end of their arguments, because they are not consistent with themselves. What, indeed, is agnosticism, writes Engels, if not shameful materialism? The agnostic's conception of nature is entirely materialistic. The entire natural world is governed by laws and does not admit the intervention of external action; but he adds, as a precaution: “We do not possess the means to affirm or deny the existence of any supreme being beyond the known universe.” Hence, this philosophy is playing into the hands of idealism and, all told, because they are inconsistent in their reasoning; agnostics lead right back to idealism. “Scratch an agnostic,” says Lenin, “and you will find an idealist.” We have seen that one can know which is right between materialism or idealism.

We now see that the theories that claim to reconcile these two philosophies can, in fact, only support idealism, that they do not provide a third answer to the fundamental question of philosophy and that, consequently, there is no third philosophy.

2. The philosophical materialism

Matter and Materialist

Who was the first to give a materialist explanation of the world?

Democritus

How has the theory of matter changed

It went from ancient Greece where matter was a full and impenetrable reality that could not be divided into infinity to today where matter is seen as no longer a full and impenetrable reality as it has negatively charged electrons in motion and a positively charged nucleus where all of it’s mass is concentrated

What is matter?

Matter is an agglomeration of atoms, and if it opposes a resistance to penetration, it is because of the very movement of the particles that compose it

How did idealists use this discovery to argue that matter didn’t exist?

They claimed that matter was nothing more then an electrical charge in motion. If there is no matter in electrons then why would there be any in the nucleus. “So matter has vanished, there is only energy”

How did discovering electrons change how we viewed matter and motion?

We originally believed matter and motion were two distinct realities. Now we recognize, as Lenin said in Materialism and empiriocriticism, that energy and matter are inseparable. Energy is material, and movement is the only mode of existence of matter.

What is matter for materialists

On this subject, it is essential to make a distinction: it is a question of seeing first:

What is matter?

then

What is matter like?

What is matter?

external reality independent of spirit that does not need spirit to exist.

what is matter like?

It is not for us to answer it is for science.

Because we claim matter exists outside of us, we need to make clear…

Matter exists in time and space.
Matter is in motion.

How do idealist think about space and time

space and time are ideas of the mind

Materialists affirm…

that time is an indispensable condition for the unfolding of our life; and that, consequently, time and space are inseparable from what exists outside of us, that is, from matter

What is the last precision provided to us by science

Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Matter without motion is as inconceivable as motion without matter

How has modern science proved this

world in its present state is the result, in all fields, of a long evolution and, consequently, the result of a slow but continuous movement.

What used to be believed about this?

Matter was incapable of motion. Inert.

What do we specify after having demonstrated the existence of matter?

the universe is only moving matter, and this moving matter can only move in space and time

It follows…

The idea of a “pure spirit” creator of the universe is meaningless. God outside of space and time is something that cannot exist.

In order to believe in a God existing outside time…

It is necessary to share the idealistic mysticism, consequently not to admit any scientific control, to believe in a God existing outside time, that is to say not existing at any time, and existing outside space, that is to say not existing anywhere.

What do Materialists, strengthened by the conclusions of science, affirm?

that matter exists in space and at a certain moment (in time).

Therefore what does this affirm?

The universe could not have been created…because it would have taken God to create the world at a moment that was at no time (since time for God does not exist) and it would also have sprung the world out of nothing.

Why can’t science admit creation?

We would have to first admit that there was a moment when the universe did not exist, and then that out of nothing something came out. Which as we have already concluded God outside of space and time is something that cannot exist.

What does it mean to be a materialist

What does it mean to be materialist?

One must be in the field of (1)thought and (2)action

What does it mean to be a materialist in the field of thought

Knowing the fundamental formula of materialism: being produces thought, knowing how this formula is applied

But until it is applied...

it is an abstract general formula

Being and thought in general are?

Abstractions. Subjective realities that don’t exist.

Beings and thoughts in particular…

do exist and are something concrete. Like individual horses vs the horse.

What does the materialist recognize

how to transform this abstract general formula (general thought and being) into a concrete formula.

By recognizing this and with practice the materialist can…

know where the being and where the thought is in all situation

How would this be applied to the brain and ideas?

The materialist identifies the brain as being and ideas as thought. Then identifies it is the brain (the being), which produces our ideas (the thought).

How would this be applied to the life of society: economic and political life

The first (primary) factor, the being, the one that gives life to society, is economic life. The second factor, the thought that is created by the being, which can only live through it, is political life.

To conclude, the materist will say that...

economic life explains political life, since political life is a product of economic life (historical materialism)

Lets apply this to the poet. Does the Poet write because of inspiration?

Not exactly It doesn’t explain why the poet writes this rather then that. The poet doesn’t just have thoughts in his head he lives in society. It is society that gives him life therefore society is the primary factor, the being, while the secondary factor, is what society gives rise to which is his thoughts.

What can be concluded from this…

The fundamental element that explains the poet is society specifically the society that he lives.

How to be a materialist in practice?

taking reality as the first and most important factor, and thought as the second factor.

Examples of those who take thought as the primary factor

Individualist (solipsist): Who lives as if alone in the world. The outside world exists only for him. For him, the important thing is himself, his thought.
A dilettante: He who learns for the sake of learning, who assimilates well, has no difficulties, but keeps it all for himself. He attaches primary importance to himself, to his thought.
He who reasons about all things in relation to himself undergoes an idealist deformation. For example: He will say, of a meeting where things were said that were unpleasant to him: "This is a bad meeting". This is not the way to analyze things; one must judge the meeting in relation to the organization, to its purpose, and not in relation to oneself.
Sectarianism is not a materialist attitude either. Because the sectarian has understood the problems, because he agrees with himself, he claims that others should be like him. It is still giving primary importance to oneself or to a sect.
The doctrinaire who has studied the texts, has drawn definitions from them, is still an idealist when he is content to quote materialist texts, when he lives only with his texts, because then the real world disappears. He repeats these formulas without applying them in reality. He gives primary importance to the texts, to the ideas. Life unfolds in his consciousness in the form of texts, and, in general, we see that the doctrinaire is also sectarian.
Selfishness of the individualist. The selfish limits the universe to his own person.
Being closed off to the outside world, to reality: The materialist is always open to reality; that is why those who take courses in Marxism and who learn easily must try to transmit what they have learned.
Judging whether something is bad or good based on your comfort or experience with it rather then based on what gave rise to it, to it’s purpose.

What characteristics are not considered materialist from these examples

Selfishness of the individualist. The selfish limits the universe to his own person.
Being closed off to the outside world, to reality: The materialist is always open to reality; that is why those who take courses in Marxism and who learn easily must try to transmit what they have learned.
Judging whether something is bad or good based on your comfort or experience with it rather then based on what gave rise to it, to it’s purpose.

What is an example of a sectarian attitude?

To believe that the revolution is a question of education, to say that in explaining "once and for all" to the workers the necessity of the revolution they must understand and that if they do not want to understand, it is not worth trying to make the revolution. This is sectarianism

How to address this in a materialist way?

We have to note the cases where people do not understand; we have to look for reasons why this is so, note the repression, the propaganda of the bourgeois newspapers, radio, cinema, etc., and look for all possible means to make people understand what we want, through leaflets, brochures, newspapers, schools, etc.

Other examples of those who are inconsistent materialists/idealists

To have no sense of reality, to live on the moon and, practically, to make projects without taking into account the situations and realities, is an idealist attitude that gives primary importance to beautiful projects without seeing if they are feasible or not.
Those who continually criticize, but do nothing to make things better, proposing no remedies, those who lack critical sense themselves, all of them are inconsistent materialists.

Why do we have these idealistic faults in us?

because we separate practice from theory and the bourgeoisie, which has influenced us, likes us not to attach importance to reality.

Consequences of these flaws

They benefit the bourgeoisie.
we must note that these defects, engendered in us by society, by the theoretical bases of our education, of our culture, rooted in our childhood, are the work of the bourgeoisie. We must get rid of them.

History of materialism

Why was early dialectical materialism, which developed with the emergence of science in sixth/fifth B.C.E., abandoned?

The state of science did not allow us to prove what was being claimed and the social conditions necessary for the dialectic to flourish were not yet realized.

What was the science of the middle ages

Scholasticism - take passages about a subject from Aristotle then read what St. Thomas Aquinas says about those passages. Then maybe refer to a third book that just repeats the same thing without any critique and rinse and repeat. Science was only studied in books

What changed this mode of study

Bacon came up with the experimental method and advocated for studying science in the “great book of nature”
Then Locke furthered this through showing all ideas come from experience. The idea of the first table came to man before it existed, because, through experience, he was already using a tree trunk or a stone as a table.
Then Descartes argued animals were machines but humans had a soul
La Mettrie extends the animal-machine to humans
Diderot, in 18th century, almost arrives at the conclusions of contemporary (dialectical) materialism
There is a retreat of materialism in first half of 19th century
Feuerbach in Germany brings it back into the spotlight

What three discoveries lead to enormous progress in the sciences during the 19th century

The living cell
the transformation of energy, and evolution (from Darwin)
which will allow Marx and Engels, influenced by Feuerbach, to make materialism evolve to give us modern, or dialectical, materialism.

Why was it necessary to create and develop the sciences for dialectical reasoning to flourish

One had first to know what a particular thing was before one could observe the changes it was undergoing

What did Lenin mean by “idealism is nothing but a refined form of religion.”

idealism is able to present its conceptions much more flexibly than religion. To claim that the universe was created by a spirit floating above the darkness, that God is immaterial, and then suddenly, as religion does, declaring that he speaks (through the Word) and that he has a son (Jesus), is a series of brutally presented ideas. Idealism, by affirming that the world exists only in our thoughts, in our mind, presents itself in a more hidden way. In fact, as we know, it is the same in substance, but the form is less brutal, more elegant. That is why idealism is a refined form of religion.

Where do we see the principle that when science develops materialism develops

In the Middle Ages, a weak development of science, a halt to materialism.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, a great development of science corresponds to a great development of materialism. The French materialism of the 18th century is the direct consequence of the development of the sciences.
In the nineteenth century, we witness many great discoveries, and materialism undergoes a very great transformation with Marx and Engels.
Today, science is progressing enormously and so is materialism. We see the best scholars applying dialectical materialism in their work.

The struggle of materialism vs idealism is really…

the struggle between two currents. One is pulling humanity towards ignorance and keeping it in this ignorance, the other, on the contrary, tends towards the emancipation of men by replacing ignorance with science.

How must we judge the philosophers and scientists of particular time periods

by placing them in this struggle of ignorance against science

What kind of struggle is this?

it is not simply a theoretical struggle, but a social and political struggle. The ruling classes in this battle are always on the side of ignorance. Science is revolutionary and contributes to the emancipation of humanity.

Why was the bourgeois in favor of science in the 18th century but fighting against it in the 20th century?

In the 18th century, the bourgeois was dominated by the feudal class so it was leading the fight against ignorance. In the 20th century it was the ruling class so it fights against science for ignorance like in the case of hitlerism

To sum up, how has pre-marxist materialism played a role in the world…

Pre-marxist materialism developed a general conception of the world that could be opposed to religion, and therefore ignorance. From this springboard the evolution of materialism develops which creates the conditions for the blossoming of dialectical materialism.

Why was materialism of the 18th century predominantly mechanical materialism?

It viewed everything like a machine, as if it was only mechanical. Seeing only movement but not change. This was understandable given at the time mechanics, and mechanics of the body and gravity were the only natural sciences that had come to a close. Biology and chemistry were still in their infancy.
Motion was thought of as a mechanical movement only. That the same events happened over and over again. We saw the machine side of things but not the living side. This materialism considered that the world did not evolve and that it returned at regular intervals to similar states, nor did it conceive of an evolution of man and animals.

What type of thought came from believing life was a perpetual circle?

Life was believed to always produce the same results. That we can’t transform the world or ourselves. It overlooked the role of human action in the world.