To put it briefly, it is the philosophy of Marxism—the worldview that animates how we understand and know the world. It is composed of two main parts: an ontology and an epistemology. In this essay, I will cover what the ontology of dialectical materialism is.
The Ontology of Dialectical Materialism
The ontology of dialectical materialism refers to the objective claims the worldview makes about the world—in other words, the way in which Marxism thinks the world objectively operates. The ontology of dialectical materialism is what Frederick Engels, the co-developer of Marxism along with Marx, called objective dialectics.
Ontologically, dialectical materialism holds that:
Everything is in a constant state of flux, of change, propelled by internal contradictions. Everything is interconnected to everything around it. Everything exists in ever-evolving totalities or wholes.
This basic framework was already present in the work of Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher, and in the 19th century in the work of G.W.F. Hegel, who said that there was no proposition of Heraclitus that he did not include in his logic. It composes the most basic—and in that sense, abstract—propositions that the dialectical worldview makes about the world.
With Hegel, and later with Marx and Engels, the notion that the world is in constant flux is concretized, meaning it is more determinate and refined—it develops. This is done through the understanding of what Engels called the laws of the dialectics, which for Hegel were simply various moments in the development of the concept in his logic.
The Three Laws of Dialectics
1. The Law of Universal Contradiction (Unity and Struggle of Opposites)
For Lenin, the most fundamental of these laws was the law of universal contradiction, also called the law of the unity and struggle of opposites.
For dialectical materialism, contradictions are not—as they are in traditional Aristotelian logic—a sign of falsity, of the "way of opinion" (as Parmenides would have said). Instead, contradictions are the locus of the tension present in heterogeneous objects and the processes they are embedded in.
Everything in nature, society, and thought contains a multiplicity of forces within it—a unity of opposites whose tension shapes the development of the entity or whole that it is a part of.
For example:
Capitalism contains within it two classes with antagonistic interests: the workers and the capitalists.
The development of the struggle between these two great classes constitutes one of the basic contradictions driving the development of the form of life as a whole.
Both of these classes, while engaged in a ruthless struggle, are nonetheless united within the same system and are not only interdependent but mutually constitutive.
It is through the relationship to the worker that the capitalist is a capitalist.
It is through the relationship with the capitalist that the worker becomes the modern proletariat.
Dialectical materialism, as you should already be able to see, is fundamentally a relational and dynamic form of thinking, matching the interconnected and processual character of the world itself.
2. The Negation of the Negation
This might sound like unnecessary jargon, but it captures a very important insight into how change occurs—one that was already present in the philosophy of Aristotle.
The law of the negation of the negation holds that:
Through the process of an entity or totality's development, it eventually confronts—through the very unfolding of the contradictions—the need to negate itself.
Part of itself is canceled out so that another part can be transformed into something new.
This law is another way of speaking about sublation (the English term for the German word Aufhebung). This refers to a process whereby:
In the development of an entity, something is simultaneously elevated and sustained into that which it is becoming.
Meanwhile, something else is fizzled out (what Hegel called ceasing to be).
To speak of sublation is to speak of being as becoming, as coming and ceasing to be. It is to understand that the very notion of change—this universal ontological reality—contains within it its opposite: the fact that for something to change, on a very immediate level, something must also stay the same (and the opposite is also true).
3. The Transition of Quantity to Quality (and Vice Versa)
This law refers to a way of thinking about the great leaps that occur throughout nature, society, and thinking when the development of a thing reaches what is called a nodal point.
For example:
In nature, if the temperature of water drops from 40°F to 32°F, at this nodal point of 32°F, there is a qualitative leap in the form the water takes—it transitions from a liquid to a solid.
Here, quantitative accumulation (degrees dropped) at a certain nodal point produces a qualitative leap into something new.
In modern political philosophy (from John Locke onward), it is understood that if you accumulate oppression on a people, at a certain nodal point, they will explode and overthrow the forces dominating them.
Again, quantitative accumulation (oppression) at a certain nodal point produces a qualitative leap—a new situation with its own process of quantitative accumulation based on the new arrangement of forces and contradictions.
Conclusion:
The basic principles of the ontology of dialectical materialism—as well as its three basic laws—are precisely just that: the most basic (and therefore abstract) components of the worldview. Nonetheless, they force us to remember that whenever we study anything, we should:
Be wary of isolating things from each other.
Avoid considering things as static.
Never assume that within them, there is no multiplicity of forces at work.
Sure, there is a place for abstract thinking rooted in traditional logic (e.g., basic computer science, which is based in binary traditional logic). But this is not the sort of thinking that provides meaningful or comprehensive knowledge when it operates alone—it merely gives us atoms of information that must later be incorporated into a more dialectical analysis to become meaningful.
With this, I conclude this very basic sketch of the ontology at the foundation of dialectical materialism. In a later discussion, we will cover:
The epistemology (or method) of dialectical materialism.
How Mao refined the understanding of contradictions with his development of the particularities of contradiction.
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