Amara Lumumba
Notes on dialectics and Materialism
[Done]
Table Of Contents
Introduction: Pg 2
Science: Pg 6
Marxist Method vs Scientific Method: Pg 8
Materialism: Pg 13
Historical Materialism: Pg ??
Foreword
I do not know what to write here. Someone asked me to add titles, so I did. I added a table of
contents, but it looked weird, empty, so I'm adding a foreword. I wanted to write this to
consolidate my thoughts. I'll keep adding and understanding. I’ll definitely add a portion on
historical materialism, eurocentrism in dialectics, African dialectics: utopian and scientific, etc.
In Africa the dialectics employed were different. A good example is the philosophy of Maat.
Their dialectical approach was, instead of a clash of opposites (thesis vs. antithesis), Maat
emphasizes harmony between forces and maintaining equilibrium rather than conflict. This
dialectic philosophy, where the opposing sides are not in actual does not resolve contradiction
through synthesis but through a return to balance (maat) and correction of disorder (isfet).
Priotizing Balance, order, and harmony in the universe.
Another one is Ubuntu which sees human relations as interdependent and reciprocal, rather
than oppositional forces leading to synthesis. It focuses on integration and co-existence, rather
than resolving contradictions through conflict.
I just have no idea about any of those topics, as I learn more about dialectics, philosophy,
materialism, and life, I’ll add more to this and write other works on questions I have in my head
or for arguments I have with people.
People have told me to read on African dialectics from pre-colonial eras, but like I don't know
if those forms of dialectics and materialism would veer into idealism, and I don't wanna be some
hotep ass nigga.
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Photo of the academic and activist Walter Rodney
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Introduction
Marxism is a framework of analysis aimed at analyzing human society. Trademarked by its use
of dialectics and materialism, Dialectical materialism and historical materialism being core
components of scientific socialism. This framework has been used to analyze gender and sexual
oppression, settler colonial contradictions, class relations etc.
Scientific socialists use dialectical materialism and historical materialism, To analyse material
reality. I'll define what material/material reality later.
Important figures in the history of dialectical materialism include.
Frantz Fanon, C.L.R. James , Kwame Nkrumah , and György Lukács,
Dialectical Materialism was synthesized by two german niggas, Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.
Karl Marx Frederich Engels
The ideas of dialectics and/or materialism are not specific to them in any way.
The reliance on Marx’s dialectical materialism and historical materialism stems from; It’s
dialectical and materialist underpinnings and its historical conditions which birthed them. The
purpose Karl Marx had for synthesising dialectical materialism was to oppose the Prussian state,
Marx was apart of a growing philosophical movement, called the young left hegelians, notable
names a part of this philosophical movement are Ludwig feaurbach, Max Stirner, and Bruno
bauer. These men, inspired by Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , used the conservative and idealistic
hegelian dialectics, to create distinct forms of dialectics, Karl Marx in particular took Hegel's
dialectics and ran the furthest, refining its dialectical method, and bringing it down to reality,
synthesizing a unique form of dialectical materialism, and historical materialism, to be opposed
to the existence of the state, and capitalism and as time went on, his analytical method taken and
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used by various revolutionaries, and thinkers used as a tool to analyze, Colonialism, Imperialism,
and Patriarchy. Its existence proved to be geared toward social change.
Dialectics is the idea that opposing forces motivate and shape change through contradiction.
Historical Materialism being history analyzed materially.
A good way to put this is history not analyzed Top-Down but Bottom-Up, and what I mean by
that, is to think about History classes in school, It hyper focuses on a person pushing and
spreading ideas, commanding armies, and crushing nations, but historical materialism rejects
that, and calls it idealist, historical materialism, is a study of history from the point of view of the
masses
Marx and Engels also propose that in the study of humans. The study of Human history can be
applied with the same tools of analysis seen in natural sciences.
In the same way, Geological Epochs are determined, like the Holocene or Pleistocene, and the
evolutionary timeline of an organism is documented and its genus identified by separating it
from another organism to find out why and how they differ. That process is applied to human
history and with that we have the birth of stages in the development of humanity.
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Dialectical Materialism is studying how economic and philosophical ideas affect reality.
Dialectical materialism is for the inquirer who wants to study and plan for the real world. It is a
tool of someone who wants change.
What are opposites?
The second law of thermodynamics states that all objects must be held together by opposing
forces, or they will no longer exist. Everything in this world is in a dialectical relationship and
can, therefore, be explained through dialectics.
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Opposites do not refer to concepts and phenomena that exist within a relationship; similar to
yin and yang being opposites, they exist separately but are connected.
A good example of dialectics in action is the neutron star; Neutron stars are born out of the
collapsed core of a supermassive star, stars that can be 10 to 25 times bigger than our Sun. When
a star reaches the end of its life, It can undergo a supernova, A phenomena caused by a
gravitational collapse, A gravitational collapse occurs when a stars gravity begins out powering
its own core, Once the collapse occurs, The temperature of the core continues to rise, electrons
and protons smushed together, subsequently release a violent expulsion of the outer layers.
Thats the big actual explosion part, of the supernova
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But the explosion doesn't completely wipe everything away, otherwise we wouldn't have the
neutron star. An opposing force has to counteract the complete obliteration of the star
A contradiction occurs!
The neutrons themselves have to exert a force stronger than gravity; otherwise, they will be
crushed back to their constituent quarks. As long as that bond is stronger than any opposing
force, the neutron will stay intact.
Opposites exist in everything.
There isn't anything that exists outside of the concept of opposing forces; just as we go to sleep,
we wake up. That's an opposite. If I go to sleep and I randomly teleport into a wall, those aren't
opposites because they don't exist within a relationship.
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What is qualitative change and what is quantitative change?
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Quantitative changes are small gradual increases in X that lead to significant change, that leads
to Y. For a toddler, It struggles, and moves its body, an uncoordinated mass, dragging itself along
by its hands, day by day crawling and crawling; understanding, The body it was given, unaware
of what to do, with the only option to try, with small attempts to stand on its feet, they fall, they
get back up, and they attempt to stand again, a foot is pressed against the ground, the toddler
raises itself, takes anothers step. all quantitative changes that coalesce into a qualitative change,
The toddler begins to walk. In terms of scientific socialism, a qualitative change is the movement
from capitalism to socialism. It’s quantitative changes being the actions of a socialist party in
power to move the nations means of production from capitalist ones to a socialized one, i.e.,
socialism.
Quantitative and qualitative changes exist in everything we do. If Im at home, and I decide to
take a stroll to the store, I get up, and get dressed and decide to go, I've arrived at the store, that
is a qualitative change because I’ve arrived at my destination and I am in a different place
entirely, but the actions of walking there are gradual quantitative changes. Step by step.
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Science
What is science?
The word “science” originated in Middle English in the 14th century in the sense of "the state of
knowing.". The term "Anglo-Norman" refers to the dialect of Norman settlers birthed out of the
Norman conquests of 1066.
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The word was borrowed from the Anglo-Norman dialect as the suffix “-cience,” which was
borrowed from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge, awareness, understanding," a noun
derivative of “sciens” meaning "knowing," itself the present active participle of sciō, "to know."
Science as we know it is typically divided into two or three major branches: the natural
sciences, the social sciences, and the Applied sciences.
The natural sciences are a school of study on the material world, i.e., biology, physics,
chemistry, etc. The social sciences study the social reality we live in as human beings who are
conscious of our species, the study of culture, social relations, oppression, and psychology. The
applied sciences being more a field of study aimed at deductive reasoning, its science applied to
the material world. It is different from natural science because it studies what scientific research
can be applied to the world instead of a study of the world itself.
Is the science we see and study every day congruent with the Marxist method? Is it based in
reality? Well, let us look into how Marxism interacts with the scientific method; What method
leads to “good” science?
First, let's get into both methods.
"The Scientific Method is a process used to validate observations while minimizing observer
bias. Its goal is for research to be conducted in a fair, unbiased and repeatable manner.
Long ago, people viewed the workings of nature and believed that the events and phenomena
they observed were associated with the intrinsic nature of the beings or things being observed
(Ackoff 1962, Wilson 1937)[...] Scientists seek to understand the relationships and intricacies
between cause and effect in order to predict outcomes of future or similar events. To answer
these questions and to help predict future happenings, scientists use the Scientific Method - a
series of steps that lead to answers that accurately describe the things we observe, or at least
improve our understanding of them. The Scientific Method is not the only way, but is the
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best-known way to discover how and why the world works, without our knowledge being tainted
by religious, political, or philosophical values. This method provides a means to formulate
questions about general observations and devise theories of explanation."
-College of Agriculture, Biotechnology & Natural Resources
Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge for understanding the natural and social
world following a systematic methodology based on empirical evidence. The study of the
method used to come to conclusions is an attempt to discern the best method to come to correct
scientific conclusions.
The prominent attributes that encompass science are:
Observation, Experimentation, and Reasoning.
The reason why the last part is highlighted is because it will be necessary. After all, with
reasoning comes logic.
The A priori is considered a cornerstone of the scientific method, originating from Emmanuel
Kant.
What I’ll be critiquing specifically in the scientific method is the order in which the A priori is
placed, and its importance in the scientific method.
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Marxist Method vs Scientific Method
The Scientific Method and the Dialectical Method.
“predictive theorising relies on the creation of a priori concepts. However, as Andrew Sayer
explains, among philosophers of science, ‘realists reject cookbook prescriptions of method which
allow one to imagine that one can do research by simply applying them without having a
scholarly knowledge of the object of study in question’. Accordingly, in Marx’s method, key
concepts should not be made up before empirical investigation, nor from outside of historically
specific referents. That is, dialectical research does not start from a priori constructed concepts,
nor does it invent and test them as the goal of research"
Defining The A Priori
To distinguish between two types of logical reasoning, reasoning from logic and reasoning
from empirical evidence, shown in the meaning of the word itself, A priori which is a Latin
phrase, meaning “from what is before.”, juxtaposed from the meaning of post-priori derived
from empirical evidence.
A prominent example Kant uses in “Critique of Pure Reason” is mathematical knowledge,
which he regarded as the fundamental example of A priori knowledge.
Kant thought the A priori was necessary to avoid skepticism. The popular belief is that A priori
justification is required for making justified inferences from basic beliefs.
The A-Priori is shaky when applied to the field of science. What the scientific method
demands is for the researcher to come to an A priori, This is displayed by the meaning of the
hypothesis;
A hypothesis is an assumption, an idea that is proposed for the sake of argument so that it can
be tested to see if it might be true.
In the scientific method, the hypothesis is constructed before any applicable research has been
done, apart from a basic background review. You ask a question, read up on what has been
studied before, and then form a hypothesis.
Which is bad science. The reason for that is simple: the observer and the base, aka the
researcher and the economic mode of production, is left out of the analysis and we’ll get into that
later: society is ever-evolving and ever-changing, so to assert an A priori and work from there
asserts universal laws from the perspective of the observer on society and fails to recognize the
ever-contradicting nature of human society. Under the Positivist analysis, the obvious holes in
the research are assumed to be “a lack of knowledge” instead of the method itself. So, to come to
an analytic analysis that formulates a reasonable conclusion, the dialectical method flips the
positivist scientific method on its head, just as it was done with Hegel's dialectical method.
This is the dialectical method.
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And this is the scientific method.
The dialectical Method is an inversion of the positivist scientific method. Marxian science
requires investigation and research; through that, we come to our A priori. To understand the
scientific aspect of Scientific socialism requires an understanding of the dialectical method, what
its uses are, and how to apply it. To be a scientific socialist requires an understanding of
dialectics and materialism.
A scientific look into human society, while in a capitalist society, creates an individualist
abstraction of the human and cites that as an historical subject instead of broader human society.
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Positivist sociological analysis, analyzes the superstructure but refuses to investigate the base.
Only surface-level critiques and analysis of the base can be allowed in a positivist analysis
because what is studied is the historical period; it is actually stuck in that historical time period,
and this distinction is most emphasized with Frantz Fanon;
Frantz Fanon was born under French colonial rule on the island of Martinique. His work
drew on various subjects, including poetry, psychology, philosophy, and especially Marxist
dialectics. Due to his background as a psychiatrist, he used his knowledge to apply his
knowledge to create an analysis of the psychology of colonial people, one that, instead of being
rooted in a positivist method, rooted in the logic of the colonizer, white supremacy and
imperialist fiction, is instead rooted in a materialist analysis, A proper psychoanalysis of the
colonized people of Algeria, Fanon refused to ignore the base, the very obvious effects of
Imperialism, settler colonialism, and capitalism; A factor, that needed to be analyzed.
Fanon’s catalog is essentially a perfect expose of this phenomenon at its core.
Algeria was a French colony, and its institutions were mostly run by colonial forces, which
included the study of psychology and psychiatry. Antoine Porot was born in 1876 in
Chalon-sur-Saône He was a French psychiatrist who founded the Algiers School of Psychiatry in
1925 and is known infamously for his theory of “Primitivism”. In his work, criminal impulsivity
among the Algerian native, Perot recognizes the high crime rate among the native population. He
notices the lack of mental stability among this population, and with his method of study, he looks
at the people and decides to study the factors that might lead to this.
“The question of criminal impulsiveness among the natives of North Africa is no longer, at
present, only an Algerian medico-legal problem. The number of natives who cross the sea to go
and work in the Metropolis or abroad has grown constantly until recently and the chronicles of
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the courts relate, every day, the crime of these "sidis", newcomers in French criminality, but who
have quickly carved out a large part for themselves. By mingling with our European life, the
native keeps his psychic and moral personality, his instincts and his reflexes, in a word, the
character of his race; so much so that, to judge his reactions fairly, the expert must, of all
necessity, situate him in his own mental plane, know the elements of an intellectual or emotional
nature placed at the service of his instincts, as well as the particularities of temperament which
govern his behavior. It is out of the question to study here, as a whole, the normal and
pathological psychology of this North African race”
The Algerian native is the object of the study. The question is what leads to the high crime rate
of the Native population. What Perot starts his research from is an A priori
As laid out in The A Priori Method in the Social Sciences
“In its usual meaning, the notion of a priori refers to prejudices, and more particularly to
paradigms, beliefs, commonplaces, biases, and emotions. These prejudices are the result of
individual or collective perceptions. They belong to cognitive, political, sociological, or
historical felds. These different understandings of a priori have been the subject of many studies
combining the theory of knowledge, the philosophy of science, and epistemology.”
I’m not tying, A priori to Perot because of the prejudices in the work, but simply due to the
fact that Perot doesn't engage with the material conditions of the natives and then proceeds to
conclusions, Perot comes to a logical deduction that the natives cause crime and comes to study
why
So Perot investigates and comes to various conclusions about what could lead to this. Perot’s
“findings” were that the causes of crime in the native population include physiognomy,
“culture,” mental ineptitude, mental disorders, and various other conclusions for this high crime
rate among the native population while never questioning or challenging the existing
settler-colonial, capitalist, patriarchal, and imperialist world Perot and the natives lives in.
In Fanon's book Wretched of the Earth. He dismantles the racist, white supremacist ideas of
Antonie Perot. Through a dialectical materialist analysis of colonialized people in Algeria, he
analyzes the base, the contradiction of settler colonialism and capitalism.
Through this, the dialectical method becomes a voice for the voiceless in analyzing the
conditions in which people are born; this ties back into the abstraction of the human individual as
a historical subject in a positivist analysis, i.e., Antonie Perot. The researcher, The “colonizer,” is
not analyzed, Where the A Priori is coming from is not analyzed, the faulty nature of the
observer is not questioned in a positivist analysis.
This can be summed up in Fanon’s concept of the “white gaze”, how his rationality becomes
negated with this ‘true rationality,’” and therefore, is naturalized as “the only valid [gaze]”. This
“white gaze” becomes equated with “scientific objectivity.”
“The relationship between the universality and the particularity of contradiction is the
relationship between the general character and the individual character of contradiction. By the
former we mean that contradiction exists in and runs through all processes from beginning to
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end; motion, things, processes, thinking—all are contradictions. To deny contradiction is to deny
everything. This is a universal truth for all times and all countries, which admits of no exception.
Hence the general character, the absoluteness of contradiction. But this general character is
contained in every individual character; without individual character there can be no general
character. If all individual character were removed, what general character would remain? It is
because each contradiction is particular that individual character arises. All individual
character exists conditionally and temporarily, and hence is relative.
This truth concerning general and individual character, concerning absoluteness and
relativity, is the quintessence of the problem of contradiction in things; failure to understand it is
tantamount to abandoning dialectics.”
-On Contradiction by Mao
Distinctions and properties of human society and their concepts can be analyzed with dialectics,
in doing so, we were able to find out different economic modes, different relations to the mode of
production. All of history is the history of class struggle, and even analyze the inner workings of
capitalism and its functions through this process.
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Materialism
Materialism is the idea that matter and being presupposes spirit and mind. As Marxists we are
materialists. Idealism is the idea that spirit and mind presupposes matter and being.
What is matter?
Matter is a body/substance/material made of various particles, occupies physical space, and
has inertia. Fundamentally, matter is composed of elementary particles called quarks and leptons,
both of which are considered elementary particles in that they aren't made up of smaller units of
matter. Quarks -- groups of subatomic particles that interact by means of a strong force --
combine into protons and neutrons. Leptons -- groups of subatomic particles that respond to
weaker forces -- belong to a class of elementary particles that includes electrons.
What is Being?
Marxists do not refer to human nature or a singular essence; instead, they fall toward
Gattungswesen, aka species-being, as opposed to an idealist understanding of being, separated
from material reality. Species-being refers to the reconciliation of species and being. This
distinction refers to the social nature of humans. Consciousness is what separates human from
animal, but the social nature of our being, allied with our consciousness. This allows humans to
be conscious of our own species. This pushes humans into being historical beings, create
century-spanning kingdoms, living in societies that produce love and reproduce love, yet create
societies based on oppression and social stratification, and creating law, art, music, religion,
literature, and even complex systems of language. All for the purpose of connecting with other
humans. This social characteristic is what gives human access to a cultural world,
The superstructure that follows the base. A superstructure, with Law, Philosophy, Art, etc,
makes the human a historical being, a species-being, but the term species-being also refers to the
act of the species as a collective social entity. The contradiction that arises under capitalism is,
There is no collective humanity in a class-based, settler colonial society.
What humanity can there be?
Species-being begins to become realized, with species-becoming when the self-determination of
humans as a collective entity is a self-conscious activity.
To refer to being
Karl Marx used the term Gattungswesen, which was introduced/coined by Feuerbach.
Feuerbach Introduced this term to refer to consciousness. The ability to think and comprehend
concepts allows the human to change and manipulate the environment encompassing them,
Beyond the concepts of simple survival or reproduction. For this section, it is vital to note that
Feurerbachs ideas and works were a response to Hegel. Feuerbach and Karl Marx were apart of
the young Hegelians. What Feuerbach was critiquing was the religious conservatism of Hegel.
He was critiquing the role of religion in Hegelian dialectics. Only the human being, Feuerbach
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argued, possesses knowledge, and such, only the human is a self-conscious being with this,
Feuerbach contends that the human does not need a god. A human is not restricted in their
capacity to learn to a specific area of study or a small portion of existence by gaining
knowledge/science. With this, Feuerbach extrapolates that a human does not need a god because
the human consciousness surpasses the finite. The human can gain knowledge infinitely, just as a
god is infinite, humans too are infinite by way of consciousness.
“Science is the consciousness of species.”
Marx takes this concept and adds further analysis, drags it out of its idealist upbringing, and
brings it to the material world. Under the Hegelian Framework, Gattungswesen is already
fulfilled with the creation of a society, as society in Hegelian Dialectics is seen as the
culmination of human's social nature. What Marx does is apply this concept to the material
world, so essentially, labor, defined as creating value for the purpose of exchange. This alienates
the human from their work, defined as creating value not for the purpose of exchange.
Under capitalism, the factory owner already owns the means of production; therefore,
All the factory owner needs is the worker's labor, as opposed to the idealized epoch of
previous craftsmen and blacksmiths of old. The human relation of labor is essentially erased;
your job becomes simply to work, and all traits of consciousness and the need for social relation
is given a glance and discarded.
A potential thirst for knowledge on the nature or the history of this craft, a connection to
the labor being done, isn't needed; that's the simple truth under capitalism: all you need to do is
work and create profits. Turned into tools for production on the same level as the equipment
used; your autonomy has no place, and expertise is only needed if a machine can't replicate
what's being done. The worker is simply a piece in the puzzle, a tool to create value in the
absence of the worker's autonomy. You have a human resource department, the resource being
human labor.
Marx’s Gattungswesen is based upon this: there is no fulfillment of our species-being under
capitalism as long as labor for the means of exchange is possible. Capitalism alienates us from
ourselves and our fellow workers. As human is a social being once we are isolated from that
being, we are nothing, and within that paradigm, we are alienated from our own essence.
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