Dialectical materialism

Marx’s theory of social development is also known as ‘dialectical materialism.’ Marxian materialism implies that ideas, institutions, philosophies, religions, etc., all are determined by real material condition of life and social classes. Marxian materialism simply means that men's economic activities are fundamental and they determine the general way the character of everything else they do. Marx got the idea of ‘dialectics’ from the German philosopher Hegel. According to the dialectical principle there are some ideas called ‘Thesis’ and each idea has an opposite idea called an ‘Antithesis’. The reaction between the thesis and the antithesis results in synthesis or new ideas. In other words, the basic cause of change in all is the struggle…

In their 1985 work The Dialectical Biologist, authors Levins and Lewontin make the case for a dialectical-perspective-based approach to scientific inquiry and interpretation. Here we first summarize what is more rigorously referred to as the dialectical materialist (DM) perspective (Clark & York, 2005), then illustrate how science and social epidemiology (SE) fits within the framework developed therein. Next, we compare our own application of the dialectic framework to SE to the approach laid…

refers to understanding reality from a materialist viewpoint. This essay serves to explain the main components of Marx’s historical dialectic materialist approach, as well as investigating the criticism associate with it and the views of other dialectical and non-dialectical approaches. Marx’s theory is largely based off of Hegel’s conception of how history develops. He stated that history occurs through dialectics- opposing forces clashing together in order to induce change. In this sense,…

Interplay between Hegelian Dialectic and Marx’s Dialectical Materialism G.W.F. Hegel proposed that “dialectic” concerned itself with the process which went into knowing the “whole” of anything. Hegel equated “whole” with “totality”. According to him, only the whole is true. The whole is composed of moments that are partial wholes. The relationship that existed between these partial wholes is of prime importance. The whole contains within itself all the moments that it has overcome. Basically,…

The metaphysics of ancient Hawai’i are unique and reflect metaphysics of both dualistic and monistic ways of thinking. As I address that theory in this paper I will be comparing and contrasting the difference in the Western philosophies of Plato to that of old Hawai’i before the coming of the Christians missionaries in 1820. I will also explain the ways in which I found ancient Hawaiians were also similar to Eastern monistic ways of thinking. In both cases, Hawai’i seems to be unique because…

delivers a strong point that disproves Descartes’ entire proclamation and that is the concept of neural phenomena. Scientific data has yet to disprove that all human mental phenomena are reliant upon neural phenomena stimulated by our senses. One can never observe the human minds’ functionality without also observing the human brain operating as well. Because this correlational relationship is best illustrated by materialism (physicalism) in regards to the human mind, it is evident that…

The physical medium and the mental medium work in an entirely different way. When modern spiritualism came about they dedicated their lives to developing spiritually, they had home circles. In this present world people are pre-occupied with social media additionally mobiles, lending itself more to mental mediumship and less dedication. To explain the difference between physical and mental mediumship, we will look at two words ectoplasm and mind. Lets look at physical mediumship, it requires a…

analyse and describe a complex phenomenon it must be reduced to its fundamental constituents. For example, how Biology can for the most part be explained through physics and chemistry, and chemistry to physics, etc. It is through this that the argument of consciousness being an emergent phenomenon arises. Economist Jeffrey Goldstein theorised emergent phenomena as “the arising novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties during the process of self-organisation in complex systems”…

stabbed by his son while gushing out hundred dollar bills. The father exclaims “Thank god—those Ben Franklins were / Clogging up my heart” in order to communicate to his son that his greed and materialism has lead him to an unfulfilled life and if the teacher takes the same road he too will lead an unfulfilling life. This dream of his father widens our perspective as we now have insight on three different generations rather than just the teacher’s and student’s generations. Seeing that the…

functionalist’s ontology. As a result, the concept of eliminative materialism must be brought to attention. Before eliminative materialism is further discussed, however, please note the term “folk psychology” should be defined as the popular common thought among a certain people. An eliminative materialist would claim folk psychology to be “an incomplete representation of our inner natures, it is an outright misrepresentation of our internal states” (339). Historically, our common sense and…