Their social existence is determined by consciousness. Materialistic understanding of history. Basic principles and concepts

The views in it. For class societies, the presence of classes is reflected in the superstructure in the form of the existence of social structures associated with the relationship of classes to the means of production and expressing the interests of these classes. The superstructure is secondary, dependent on the base, but has relative independence and can, in its development, either correspond to the base, or advance or lag behind it, thus stimulating or inhibiting the development of society.

In the social production of their lives, people enter into certain, necessary, relations independent of their will - production relations that correspond to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces. The totality of these production relations constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which certain forms correspond public consciousness. The mode of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.

K. Marx. „Towards criticism political economy“. Preface

The relations of antagonistic classes are determined by the existence of surplus value - the difference between the cost of production products and the cost of the resources used to create them, which includes the cost of labor, that is, the remuneration received by the worker in one form or another. It turns out that it is non-zero: the worker, through his labor, adds more value to the raw material (turning it into a product) than he receives back in the form of remuneration. This difference is appropriated by the owner of the means of production, who thus exploits the worker. It is this appropriation, according to Marx, that is the source of income for the owner (that is, in the case of capitalism, capital).

Change of formation

As a socio-economic formation, transitional from capitalism to communism, it is considered socialism, in which the means of production are socialized, but commodity-money relations, economic compulsion to work and a number of other features characteristic of a capitalist society are preserved. Under socialism, the principle is implemented: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his work.”

Development of Karl Marx's views on historical formations

Marx himself, in his later works, considered three new “modes of production”: “Asiatic”, “ancient” and “Germanic”. However, this development of Marx’s views was later ignored in the USSR, where only one orthodox version of historical materialism was officially recognized, according to which “five socio-economic formations are known to history: primitive communal, slaveholding, feudal, capitalist and communist”

To this we must add that in the preface to one of his main early works on this topic: “On the Critique of Political Economy,” Marx mentioned the “ancient” (as well as “Asiatic”) mode of production, while in other works he (as well as Engels) wrote about the existence in antiquity of a “slave-owning mode of production.” The historian of antiquity M. Finley pointed to this fact as one of the evidence of the weak study by Marx and Engels of the issues of the functioning of ancient and other ancient societies. Another example: Marx himself discovered that the community appeared among the Germans only in the 1st century, and by the end of the 4th century it had completely disappeared from them, but despite this he continued to assert that the community had been preserved throughout Europe since primitive times.

Criticism of the provisions of historical materialism

Methodological criticism

The main methodological statement of historical materialism is the thesis about the primacy of the “base” (economic relations) over the “superstructure” (politics, ideology, ethics, etc.), since, according to Marx, it is economic needs that have a decisive influence on the behavior of most people. Modern sociology and social psychology dispute this thesis, in particular, the Hawthorne experiment showed that self-realization and socialization of workers in the work team are no less powerful incentives for increasing labor productivity than purely material incentives.

Historical criticism

During the 20th century, some elements of the historical teaching of Marx-Engels were criticized. For example, M. Finley in his book analyzed the opinions of a number of Western historians of antiquity on the issue of slavery and came to the conclusion that the overwhelming majority of them do not share the Marxist view of the existence of ancient world"slave mode of production"

These opinions of historians are based on facts described in a number of historical works. So, according to the data cited in their works by historians Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtsev, A.Kh.M. Jones, A. Grenier, Ed Mayer, the number of slaves in antiquity in proportion to the total population was not significant (with the exception of Italy during the “heyday” of slavery, where the ratio of slaves to free was estimated to be 1 to 2-2.5 ) and that in general they played a relatively small role both in the economy and in social conflicts (see below), and in the last 3-4 centuries of antiquity, when their number sharply decreased, this role became insignificant (see Slavery in Ancient Rome). As for early antiquity and more ancient times, as historian Ed Mayer wrote in his work “On Slavery in Antiquity,” the number of slaves and their role in those eras were no higher than in the Frankish kingdoms in the early Middle Ages. In the Hellenistic world, during the “heyday” of slavery (5th century BC), according to the historian, slavery existed only in large industrial centers (Corinth, Athens, Syracuse), and in the depths of Greece and in other territories it was almost non-existent was. In many examples, the historian writes, slavery as such did not exist at all, or it was conditional: for example, peoples taken “into slavery” by the Assyrians and Babylonians lived in a new place in the same conditions as local residents, and some of these peoples managed to get rich in the process.

At the same time, the historian of antiquity P. Brant pointed out that in the English colonies of Central America in New history slaves made up on average 86% of the population, which had never happened in antiquity. In addition, the demand for the abolition of slavery became the cause of the American Civil War in 1861-1865; in Haiti at the end of the 18th century, writes historian L. Langley, a “revolution of slaves” took place and a “republic of slaves” was formed, which subsequently continued to exist. And in Ancient Rome, writes the historian of antiquity S. Nicolet, slave uprisings were a frequent occurrence only at the end of the 2nd - beginning of the 1st centuries. BC e., subsequently, when Roman civil wars took place, slaves did not take a noticeable part in them. Even in the uprising of Spartacus, the historian writes, slaves played a major role only at its beginning. Subsequently, according to the testimony of ancient authors, many poor free proletarians joined the army of Spartacus, and then, the historian points out, the uprising was supported by the cities of the Latin allies, who rebelled against the power of Rome. With the exception of only one period of the late Roman Republic (late 2nd - early 1st centuries BC), Nicolet concludes that the main social conflicts in ancient society flowed not between free and slaves, but between other classes and groups. Other historians of antiquity, who specifically studied the issue of slavery in their works, came to similar conclusions. Thus, Ed Mayer wrote that during the era of the Roman Empire the problem of slavery no longer existed, and slave uprisings did not have any serious significance. As A. H. M. Jones pointed out, the number of slaves in ancient Rome during the imperial era was proportionally negligible, they were very expensive and were almost not used in agriculture and crafts, serving mainly as domestic servants for the rich Romans. In the middle of the 20th century, the famous historian of antiquity M.I. Rostovtsev stated that the general remarks of Marx and Engels about the “slave society” have long been refuted.

At the same time, the historian of antiquity M. Finley, having analyzed the works of Marx, came to the conclusion that Marx wrote only a few pages on the topic of slavery in antiquity, and that neither he nor Engels ever undertook any serious study of ancient societies or economics ancient civilizations.

Many historians of antiquity wrote that ancient era was the era of capitalism. Thus, Ed Mayer believed that in the era of antiquity, humanity passed the capitalist stage of development, and it was preceded by the “Middle Ages.” M.I. Rostovtsev believed that the difference between the modern capitalist economy and the capitalist economy of antiquity is purely quantitative, but not qualitative, and wrote that in terms of the level of development of capitalism, antiquity is comparable to Europe in the 19th-20th centuries.

New historical facts have cast doubt on Marx’s assertions that all primitive peoples lived under a “primitive communal system.” For example, it was found that almost all the Indians of North America before the arrival of Europeans there existed slavery in one form or another. For some North American Indians, slaves made up a quarter of the tribe's inhabitants, and some tribes were actively involved in the slave trade. (See Native American Slavery (English)) At the same time, the North American Indians did not have states; they lived in tribes.

A similar example is the Anglo-Saxons in the first century after their resettlement to England (which occurred in the middle of the 5th century AD). As English historians point out, they did not yet have a state, they lived in communities (or clans) of approximately 5-10 “ houses" in each community, and the material conditions of life approached "primitive". But despite this, slavery was widespread among them: the slaves were captive Celts, who, as historians J. Nelson and H. Hamerow write, were among the Anglo-Saxons in large numbers, comparable to the number of the Anglo-Saxons themselves.

In addition, new facts established by historians have cast doubt on another hypothesis used by Marx to justify the “primitive communal system.” Thus, Marx believed that the peasant community in Russia had been preserved “since primitive times,” which he used as one of the main arguments to substantiate his view, and also argued that the community everywhere in Europe had been preserved “since primitive times.” Later, historians established that initially there was no community in Russia; it first appeared only in the 15th century, and spread everywhere in the 17th century. The same applies, for example, to the peasant community in Byzantium: as Byzantine historians have established, it appeared only in the 7th-8th centuries and lasted until the 10th-11th centuries. The same is the story of the emergence of the community among the Germans. Marx himself admitted (with reference to Tacitus and other ancient authors) that it appeared among the Germans only in the 1st century, and by the end of the 4th century it had completely disappeared from them.

The opinions of a number of historians question the position of historical materialism that in history a less progressive mode of production is always replaced by a more progressive one. For example, according to the opinion of a number of historians, the “dark ages” that came in the VI-IX centuries. to replace antiquity, were accompanied by the decline of civilization in the territory Western Europe and the spread of more primitive social and economic relations (while the postulates of historical materialism argued the opposite).

The English historian Charles Wilson wrote that historical facts do not fit into Marx’s “rigid historical scheme”, so the objective historian faces a dilemma - “either abandon this scheme, or make it so free and broad that it will lose all meaning except the semantic one.” .

Scientific and political significance

Historical materialism had a huge influence on the development of historical and social sciences worldwide. Although much of the historical heritage of Marxism has been criticized or questioned by historical facts, some provisions have retained their significance. For example, it is generally accepted that history has recorded several stable “socio-economic formations” or “modes of production”, in particular: capitalism, socialism and feudalism, which differed from each other primarily in the nature of economic relations between people. There is no doubt about Marx's conclusion about the importance of economics in historical process. It was the postulates of Marxism about the primacy of economics over politics that contributed to the rapid development of economic history as an independent branch of historical science in the 20th century.

In the USSR since the 1930s. and until the end of the 1980s. historical materialism was part of the official Marxist-Leninist ideology. As historians R. A. Medvedev and Zh. A. Medvedev write, in the early 1930s in Soviet historical science“a process of the most gross falsification, strictly directed from above, began to be carried out... History became part of ideology, and ideology, which was now officially called “Marxism-Leninism,” began to turn into secular form religious consciousness...". According to sociologist S.G. Kara-Murza, Marxism in the USSR became “a closed dialectic, a catechism.”

Some of the provisions of historical materialism - about the slave-owning mode of production, about the primitive communal system as universal for all “primitive” peoples before the formation of their state, about the inevitability of the transition from less progressive to more progressive methods of production - are questioned by historians and historical facts. The views on the existence of stable “socio-economic formations”, or typical socio-economic systems, characterized by a certain nature of economic and social relations between people, as well as the fact that the economy plays an important role in the historical process, are confirmed.

Notes

“It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”
“In general terms, Asian, ancient, feudal and modern, bourgeois, modes of production can be designated as progressive eras of economic social formation.”- K. Marx. "Toward a critique of political economy." Preface
K. Marx Capital. - T. 1. - P. 198-206.
Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 30, p. 420
With the introduction of a socialist social system, the state itself dissolves and disappears.<…>[The worker] receives from society a receipt stating that they have delivered such and such a quantity of labor (minus the deduction of his labor for the benefit of public funds), and with this receipt he receives from the public reserves such a quantity of consumer goods for which the same amount of labor was expended.<…>When, along with the all-round development of individuals, the productive forces also grow, and all sources of social wealth flow in full flow, only then will it be possible to completely overcome the narrow horizon of bourgeois law, and society will be able to write on its banner: To each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! "(To .Marx "Critique of the Gothic Program")
Marx K., Engels F. Soch., 2nd ed., M., 1955-1961. vol. 48, p. 157, vol. 46/I, pp. 462-469, 491
Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 30, p. 420
“In Europe, over the course of 3,000 years, three different social systems have changed: the primitive communal system, the slave system, the feudal system”; “The slave system existed in the advanced countries of Asia, Europe and Africa for that time until the 3rd-5th centuries. AD" Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 19; vol. 35, p. 421
Marx K., Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 13, p. 7
Finley M. Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, NY, 1980, pp. 40-41
Marx K., Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 417, 401, vol. 13, p. 20
Gillespie, Richard Manufacturing knowledge: a history of the Hawthorne experiments. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Finley M. Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, NY, 1980, pp. 29-94
Rostovtsev in his study of the early Roman Empire (Rostovtsev M.I. Society and economy in the Roman Empire. St. Petersburg, 2000) pointed out that there were almost no slaves in the Balkans and in the Danube provinces (vol. 1, pp. 212-226), in Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor (vol. 2, pp. 5-35), in Roman Africa (vol. 2, pp. 54-58). The historian Grenier wrote that there were almost no slaves in Roman Gaul (A.Grenier. La Gaule Romaine. In: Economic Survey of Ancient Rome. Baltimore, 1937, Vol. III, p. 590)
Brunt P. Italian Manpower, 225 B.C.-A.D.14. Oxford, 1971, pp. 4, 121-124
Thus, Rostovtsev in his book indicates that slaves did not play a significant role in the agriculture of Roman Africa and Egypt (Rostovtsev M.I. Society and economy in the Roman Empire. St. Petersburg, 2000, pp. 57, 18). Meanwhile, it was precisely these two provinces, in which two harvests were collected per year, that ensured the main production of bread in the empire. Both Rome and other large cities received supplies of grain almost exclusively from these two provinces (Rickman G. The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome. Oxford, 1980). Thus, in this largest industry of the Roman Empire, slave labor was used almost never or only on a small scale.
Meyer E. Kleine Schriften. Halle, 1924. Bd. 1, s. 187
Meyer E. Kleine Schriften. Halle, 1924. Bd. 1, s. 198, 192
Brunt P. Italian Manpower, 225 B.C.-A.D.14. Oxford, 1971, p. 703
Langley L. The Americas in the Age of Revolution, New Haven and London, 1996, pp. 85-140
Rome et la conquete du monde mediterraneen, ed. par C.Nicolet. Paris, 1979, volume 1, p. 226
Meyer E. Kleine Schriften. Halle, 1924. Bd. 1, p. 210
Jones A. The Death of the Ancient World. Rostov-on-Don, 1997, p. 424-425
Rostovtseff M. The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World. Oxford, 1941, Vol. III, p.1328
Finley M. Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, NY, 1980, p. 41
See, for example: F. Lot, La fin du monde antique et le debut du moyen age. Paris, 1968, pp. 72-73; G. Glotz, Histoire greque, t. 3, Paris, 1941, p. 15; G. Salvioli, Le capitalisme dans le monde antique, Paris, 1906
Ed. Meyer, Kleine Schriften, Halle, 1924 Bd. 1, S. 99-130
Zeitschrift fuer die Gesammte Staatwissenschaften, 92, 1932, S.334-335; M. Rostovtsev. Society and economy in the Roman Empire. St. Petersburg, 2000, vol. 1, p. 21
See also: All wars of world history, according to the Harper Encyclopedia of Military History by R. Dupuis and T. Dupuis with comments by N. Volkovsky and D. Volkovsky. St. Petersburg, 2004, book 3, p. 236-241
World History: In 24 volumes. A. Badak, I. Voynich, N. Volchek and others, Minsk, 1997-1999, vol. 12, p. 7-19
New Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge, 2005, Vol. I, pp. 274-276; Cambridge Ancient History. Cambridge, 2d. ed., 2000, Vol. XIV p. 352
Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England, ed. by N.Saul. Oxford, 1997, p. 29; New Cambridge Medieval History. Cambridge, 2005, Vol. I, pp. 265-266
Marx K., Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19, pp. 411-417, 401; vol. 13, p. 20
Blum J. Lord and Peasant in Russia. From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. New York, 1964, pp. 510-512
Litavrin G. Byzantine society and state in the X-XI centuries. Problems of the history of one century: 976-1081. Moscow, 1977
Marx K., Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 417
See, for example: Lot F. La fin du monde antique et le debut du moyen age. Paris, 1968; Hodges R., Whitehouse D. Mohammed, Charlemagne and The Origins of Europe. Oxford, 1983; Lopez R. The Birth of Europe. London, 1967
Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Cambridge, 1977, Vol. V, pp. 5-6
As the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "Economic System" states, "One might imagine that there were a large number of such systems corresponding to the cultural diversity that characterizes human society. Surprisingly, this is not the case... In fact, history has produced only three types of economic systems - those based on tradition, those based on command (and... in which the central organizing form is the market." The article goes on to discuss three types of economic systems - "primitive" systems, "market - capitalist" systems and "central planning - socialist" systems. Economic System. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2005
Medvedev R., Medvedev J. Unknown Stalin. Moscow, 2007, p. 166
Kara-Murza S. Soviet civilization. From the beginning to the present day. Moscow, 2008, p.435
Economic System. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2005

Literature

M. Insarov“Towards a theory of knowledge of historical materialism” - an essay on the history of the epistemology of historical materialism.
Yu. I. Semenov“Philosophy of History” // “Modern Notebooks”, 2003 - the largest theoretical work in the field of historical materialism
Yu. I. Semenov"Introduction to world history" - the book contains a presentation of the history of mankind from the point of view of a materialistic approach
- Issue 1. Problem and conceptual apparatus. The emergence of human society. //M. MIPT. 1997. 202 p.
- Issue 2. History of primitive society. //M.: MIPT, 1999. - 190 p.
- Issue 3. History of civilized society (XXX century BC - XX century AD). //M.: MIPT, 2001. - 206 p.
- Yu. Muravyov Review of the book “Introduction to World History” // “First of September”. - 2002. - No. 71.

A. Dialectical materialism. Characteristic

In the overall European philosophy, dialectical materialism occupies a very special position. First of all, it has almost no supporters in academic circles with the exception of Russia, where it is the official philosophy and therefore enjoys advantages like no other school of our time. Further, it represents the philosophy of one political party, namely the Communist Party, and thus it is closely connected with the economic and political theories, as well as with the practical activities of this party, which considers it as its “general theory” - also a unique situation. In Russia, where the Communist Party rules, no philosophy other than dialectical materialism can be taught, and even the interpretation of its classical texts is very strictly monitored. This surveillance, but also, apparently, the Russian national character, explains the peculiar external form of the publications of dialectical materialists. These publications differ from all others primarily in their uniformity - all the authors say exactly the same thing, as well as in the presence of countless references to the classics, which at every step must support the positions put forward. It is possible that surveillance is also to blame for the fact that the philosophers of this school are so mediocre. In any case, it is responsible for the extreme dogmatism, chauvinism and aggressive position of dialectical materialists.

But even more important than these features, which could be transitory, is the reactionary character of dialectical materialism: in fact, this philosophy takes us back to the middle of the 19th century, trying to revive unchanged the spiritual situation of that time.

B. Origins and founders

The founder of dialectical materialism among Russians is considered to be the famous scientific theorist Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883), with whom Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) worked closely. Marx was a student of Hegel. During the period when he studied at the University of Berlin (1837-1841), “right” and “left” had already emerged in the Hegelian school. A prominent representative of these leftists, who interpreted the Hegelian system materialistically and presented world history as the development not of spirit, but of matter, was Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872). Marx closely aligned himself with Feuerbach, while at the same time being influenced by rising natural-scientific materialism. This explains his admiration for science, his deep and naive faith in progress and his fascination with Darwinian evolutionism. Moreover, Marx himself was an economist, sociologist and social philosopher; he founded historical materialism, whereas the general philosophical basis of the system, dialectical materialism - mainly the work of Engels. This dialectical materialism consists of combining Hegelian dialectics with nineteenth-century materialism.

Subsequently, the teachings of Marx and Engels were taken up by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin, 1870-1924), who interpreted them and prescribed them to the Communist Party. Lenin changed Marxist doctrine slightly, but he developed it further in the course of his polemics with its mechanistic and empirio-critical interpretations. Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin, 1879-1953), who collaborated with him and succeeded him in the leadership of the party, systematized the teachings of Marx in accordance with his Leninist interpretation. The philosophy thus formed is called “Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism” and is considered in Russia as an indivisible whole. It is presented in encyclopedias, in mediocre works and small catechisms, and in higher educational institutions of the Soviet state it is compulsory subject. As for the authors of the respective teaching aids, then they hardly deserve mention, since, as already said, they only repeat the reasoning of Lenin and Stalin.

B. Course of events in Russia

Here it is worth adding something about philosophy in Soviet Russia, since Soviet-Russian philosophy is identical with dialectical materialism, and its Western European supporters are important only insofar as they agree with Russian philosophers. This is explained by the fact that dialectical materialism owes its influence almost exclusively to the support of the party, and the party is strictly centralized and allows only philosophy that corresponds to Russian norms.

There are four periods in the history of Soviet-Russian philosophy. 1) After a short war period (1917-1921), during which relative freedom still reigned, all non-Marxist philosophers were arrested, expelled from Russia or liquidated. 2) In the period 1922-1930. heated discussions developed between the so-called “mechanistic” and “Menshevik-idealistic” schools. The first of them presented dialectical materialism as pure materialism, and the second, led by A.M. Deborin, sought to keep both of its elements in balance. 3) On January 15, 1931, both schools were condemned by the Central Committee of the Party, and this began the third period (1931-1946), during which, with the exception of the publication of Stalin’s work (1938) (“On Dialectical and Historical Materialism” - ed.), philosophical life in Russia it has completely frozen. Philosophers published only commentaries or popularization books. 4) The fourth period opens with the speech of A.A. Zhdanov, pronounced on June 24, 1947 on behalf of the Central Committee and Stalin personally. In this speech, Zhdanov condemns one of the leading Russian philosophers, G.F. Alexandrov, and demands more active systematic work from all Russian philosophers. The response to this demand followed immediately. At present (1950) in Russia there are heated discussions about the interpretation of the “classics” in connection with certain special areas in which it has not yet been dogmatically approved by the aforementioned Stalin’s pamphlet. In this regard, we can mention the condemnation of “Logic” by V.F. Asmus because of her “apolitical and objectivist character” (1948), the renunciation of B.M. Kedrov from his attempt to muffle wild nationalism (1949), the current (1950) attacks on “Fundamentals of General Psychology” by S.L. Rubinstein and especially the discussion around the significant work of M.A. Markov “On the nature of physical knowledge” (1947), which A.A. Maksimov was branded as an unbeliever (1948).

Corresponding processes took place in the field of psychology. If earlier the word “psychology” itself was considered incorrect and they tried to replace it with “reactology” or other names, then in Lately psychology was accepted as a legitimate academic subject (as, indeed, was previously rejected logic). In all these discussions, as well as in the famous discussion on genetics (1948), M.B. played a fatal role. Mitin. He was considered the spokesman for the views of the government and participated in all the condemnations of his too independent-minded colleagues. Meanwhile, Mitin can be considered the most prominent philosophical representative modern dialectical materialism.

It is also worth noting that all these discussions take place strictly within the framework of dialectical materialism, without encroaching on any of the basic provisions of the system defined by Stalin, and the discussion techniques consist in the fact that opponents seek to convict each other of disloyalty to Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. At the same time, it should be noted that they least of all refer to Marx himself, but mainly to Engels and Lenin.

G. Materialism

According to materialism, the only real world is the material world, and the spirit is only a product of the material organ - the brain. The opposition between matter and consciousness has only an epistemological meaning, and ontologically only matter exists. True, dialectical materialists criticize previous materialist theories, but this criticism does not concern materialism as such, but exclusively the absence of a “dialectical” element, the lack of a correct understanding of development.

Of course, the assessment of dialectical materialism depends on what meaning is given to the word “matter”. In this regard, there is a certain difficulty associated with its Leninist definition.

According to Lenin, matter is only “ philosophical category to indicate objective reality“, and in the theory of knowledge, matter is always opposed to consciousness and identified with “objective being”. Meanwhile, there should be no doubt here, because, on the other hand, dialectical materialists claim that we know matter with the help of our senses, that it obeys deterministic and purely causal laws and is opposed to consciousness. In general, it is clear that the word “matter” for dialectical materialists has no meaning other than the ordinary one. Dialectical materialism is classical and radical materialism.

At the same time, this materialism - not mechanistic. According to the accepted teaching, only inorganic matter is subject to mechanical laws, but not living matter, which is subject, although to deterministic-causal laws, but not to mechanical laws. Even in physics, dialectical materialists do not defend unconditional atomism.

D. Dialectical development; monism and determinism

Matter is in constant development, as a result of which more and more complex things arise - atoms, molecules, living cells, plants, people, society. Thus, development is seen not as circular, but as linear and, moreover, in an optimistic spirit: every last thing is always more complex, which is identified with the best and highest. Dialectical materialists fully retained the 19th century belief in progress through development.

But this development occurs, from their point of view, through a number of revolutions: in the essence of each thing small quantitative changes accumulate; tension, struggle arises, and at a certain point new elements become strong enough to upset the balance; then, from previous quantitative changes, a new quality emerges abruptly. Thus, struggle is the driving force of development, which occurs in leaps and bounds: this is the so-called “dialectical development”.

This entire process of development takes place without a goal, occurring under the pressure of purely causal factors through pushes and struggles. Strictly speaking, the world has neither meaning nor purpose; it develops blindly in accordance with eternal and calculable laws.

Nothing is sustainable: dialectical development covers the whole world and all its components; everywhere and everywhere the old dies and the new is born. There are neither immutable substances nor “eternal principles.” Only matter as such and the laws of its change are eternally preserved in universal motion.

The world is seen as a single whole. In contrast to metaphysics, which (according to this doctrine) saw in the world many unrelated entities, dialectical materialists defend monism, and in two senses: the world for them is the only one reality (besides him there is nothing and especially no God) and he, in principle, homogeneous, all dualism and pluralism are rejected as false.

The laws that govern this world are deterministic laws in the classical sense of the word. True, for some reasons dialectical materialists do not want to be called “determinists.” According to their teaching, for example, the growth of a plant is determined not simply by the laws of this plant, because due to some external cause, say, a hailstorm, these laws may not be in effect. But in relation to the entire universe, according to dialectical materialists, all chance is obviously excluded; the totality of world laws unconditionally determines the entire movement of the world as a whole.

E. Psychology

Consciousness, spirit is only an epiphenomenon, a “copy, reflection, photograph” of matter (Lenin). Without the body, consciousness cannot exist; it is a product of the brain. Matter is always primary, and consciousness or spirit is secondary. Consequently, it is not consciousness that determines matter, but, on the contrary, matter that determines consciousness. Thus, Marxist psychology is materialistic and deterministic.

At the same time, this determinism is more subtle than that of previous materialists. First of all, as we have already noted regarding randomness, dialectical materialists do not at all want to be considered determinists. From their point of view, it is possible to use the laws of nature; this is freedom. True, man himself remains conditioned by his own laws, but he is aware of this, and his Liberty consists (as in Hegel) in consciousness of necessity. Moreover, according to dialectical materialists, matter does not directly determine consciousness; rather, it operates through society.

The fact is that man is inherently social; he cannot live without society. Only in society can he produce vital goods. The tools and methods of this production determine, first of all, the interhuman relations resting on them and, indirectly through these latter, the consciousness of people. This is the thesis historical materialism: everything that a person thinks, wishes, wants, etc., is ultimately a consequence of his economic needs, which develop on the basis of methods of production and public relations created by production.

These methods and relationships are constantly changing. Thus, society is brought under the law of dialectical development, manifested in the social struggle of classes. For its part, the entire content of human consciousness is determined by society and it changes in the course of economic progress.

G. Theory of knowledge

Since matter determines consciousness, cognition must be understood realistically: the subject does not produce the object, but the object exists independently of the subject; knowledge lies in the fact that in the mind there are copies, reflections, photographs of matter. The world is not unknowable, it is completely knowable. Of course, the true method of knowledge is only in science associated with technical practice; and the progress of technology sufficiently proves how untenable any agnosticism is. Cognition is in essence sensory cognition, but rational thinking is also necessary to organize the data of experience. Positivism is “bourgeois quackery” and “idealism”; in fact, through phenomena we comprehend the essence of things.

In all this, Marxist epistemology appears as an unconditional and naive realism of the well-known empiricist type. The uniqueness of dialectical materialism lies in the fact that with these realistic views it connects others, namely, pragmatist. From the fact that the entire content of our consciousness is determined by our economic needs, it follows, in particular, that each social class has its own science and its own philosophy. Independent, non-partisan science is impossible. That which leads to success is true; The criterion of truth is only practice.

These two theories of knowledge exist side by side in Marxism, and Marxists do not try very hard to reconcile them with each other. At most, they refer to the fact that our knowledge strives for perfect truth, but for now it is relative according to our needs. Here, apparently, the theory runs into a contradiction, for even if truth were determined through needs, knowledge could not be any, even partial, copy of reality.

H. Values

According to historical materialism, the entire content of consciousness depends on economic needs, which, for their part, are constantly developing. This especially applies to morals, aesthetics and religion.

In a relationship morality dialectical materialism does not recognize any eternal laws; Each social class has its own morality. For the most progressive class, the proletariat, the highest moral rule is this: only that which contributes to the destruction of the bourgeois world is morally good.

IN aesthetics the situation is more complicated. We have to admit that in reality, in the things themselves, there is an objective element that forms the basis of our aesthetic assessment, prompting us to consider something beautiful or ugly. But on the other hand, the assessment also depends on the development of the classes: since different classes have different needs, everyone evaluates in their own way. Accordingly, art cannot be separated from life; it must take part in the class struggle. Its task is to provide an image of the heroic efforts of the proletariat in its struggle and in building a socialist society (socialist realism).

Finally, regarding religion The theory looks a little different again. According to dialectical materialists, religion is a set of false and fantastic statements condemned by science. Only science gives us the opportunity to know reality. The root of religion is fear: being powerless in relation to nature, and then in relation to the exploiters, people began to deify these forces and pray to them; in religion, in belief in the other world, they found consolation that they could not find in their slave existence as exploited people. For the exploiters (feudal lords, capitalists, etc.), religion turned out to be an excellent means of keeping the masses in check: on the one hand, it accustoms them to obedience to the exploiters, and on the other, by promising a better life after death, it distracts the proletarians from revolution. But the proletariat, which exploits no one, does not need religion. If morals and aesthetics must only change, then religion must disappear completely.

Published by ed.

Bokhensky Yu.M. Modern European philosophy. M.: Scientific world, 2000

Historical materialism- direction of philosophy of history, developed by K. Marx and F. Engels. The essence of this direction lies in the materialistic understanding of the dialectical development of the history of human societies, which is a special case of the universal natural historical process. This direction inherits Hegel's philosophy of history, therefore its striking feature is the unity of the theory of development and the methodology of knowledge of society.

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✪ Historical materialism

Materialistic understanding of human history

basis materialistic understanding of history, formulated by Marxism, is the recognition of factors in the level of development of productive forces and, in particular, material production as leading (but not automatically determining) in relation to the processes of development and change in social consciousness.

It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness

From this perspective, the historical process unfolds as a consistent and natural change of socio-economic formations, which is due to the growth of the level of productive forces and the improvement of the method of production.

V. I. Lenin summarized the essence of the materialist understanding of history in the following words

People themselves create their own history, but what determines the motives of people and specifically the masses of people, what causes clashes of contradictory ideas and aspirations, what is the totality of all these clashes of the entire mass of human societies, what are the objective conditions for the production of material life that create the basis of all historical activity people, what is the law of development of these conditions - Marx drew attention to all this and pointed the way to the scientific study of history as a single process, natural in all its enormous versatility and inconsistency.

Throughout the XX-XXI centuries, many conceptual provisions historical materialism, and, in particular, the formational approach was refined and expanded by many scientists, and became the focus of attention of both critics and independent developers of concepts of the philosophy of history.

Basic principles and concepts

Historical materialism views society as a system developing quantitatively, evolutionarily due to the gradual development of productive forces, and qualitatively, revolutionaryly through social revolutions caused by the struggle of antagonistic classes to establish qualitatively new relations of production. He argues that social being (base) shapes his social consciousness (superstructure), and not vice versa. Social structure society is an internally contradictory combination basis And add-ons.

Basis

Add-on in addition social institutions- public consciousness. Social consciousness is dialectically dependent on social being: it is limited by the level of development of social being, but not preset them. Social consciousness can be ahead of social existence in its development (the consciousness of a revolutionary) and lag behind it (the consciousness of a reactionary). The embodiment of social consciousness pushes the development of social existence (revolution) or inhibits its development (reaction). Thus, the dialectical interaction of the base and superstructure forces them to correspond to each other, otherwise they cease to exist.

The proposition that people's consciousness depends on their being, and not vice versa, seems simple; however, upon closer examination it immediately becomes clear that this position, even in its first conclusions, deals a mortal blow to any, even the most hidden idealism. This position denies all inherited and customary views on everything historical. The whole traditional way of political thinking is collapsing….
K. Marx and F. Engels. “Towards a critique of political economy. Soch., vol. 13, page 491“.

The materialist understanding of history comes from the position that production, and after production, the exchange of its products, forms the basis of any social system; that in every society that appears in history, the distribution of products, and with it the division of society into classes or estates, is determined by what is produced and how, and how these products of production are exchanged. Thus, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions must be sought not in the heads of people, not in their growing understanding eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the mode of production and exchange; they must be sought not in philosophy, but in the economics of the corresponding era. The awakening understanding that existing social arrangements are unreasonable and unjust, that “the rational has become meaningless, the good has become torment,” is only a symptom of the fact that such changes have imperceptibly occurred in the methods of production and in the forms of exchange that no longer correspond to social order, tailored to old economic conditions. It also follows from this that the means to eliminate the discovered evils must also be present - in a more or less developed form - in the changed relations of production themselves. It is necessary not to invent these means from the head, but to discover them with the help of the head in the existing material facts of production.

Classes are large groups of people that differ in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their relationship (mostly fixed and formalized in laws) to the means of production, in their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, in the methods of obtaining and the size of that the share of social wealth that they have. Classes are groups of people from which one can appropriate the work of another, due to the difference in their place in a certain structure of the social economy.

The relations between antagonistic, irreconcilable classes of society are determined by the existence of surplus value - the difference between the cost of production products and the cost of the resources used to create them. It also includes the cost of labor, that is, the remuneration received by the employee in one form or another. A worker (slave, dependent peasant, proletarian) with his labor adds value to raw materials, turning it into a product, and more value than he receives back in the form of remuneration. This difference is appropriated by the owner of the means of production (slave owner, landowner, capitalist). So, he consumes labor the worker - exploits. It is this appropriation, according to Marx, that is the source of income for the owner (in the case of capitalism, capital).

Look for the main one distinctive feature different classes of society in the source of income means putting in the first place relations of distribution, which in fact are the result of relations of production. This mistake was pointed out long ago by Marx, who called the people who hated it vulgar socialists. The main feature of the difference between classes is their place in social production, and therefore their relationship to the means of production. The appropriation of one or another part of the social means of production and their conversion to private farming, to farming for the sale of the product - this is the main difference between one class modern society(bourgeoisie) from the proletariat, which is deprived of the means of production and sells its labor power.
V. I. Lenin. “Vulgar socialism and populism, resurrected by socialist revolutionaries. Full collection cit., vol. 7, pp. 44-45“.

People have always been and will always be stupid victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises.
V. I. Lenin. "Full" collection cit., 5th ed., vol. 23, page 47 “.

Socio-economic formation

According to the materialist understanding of the dialectical development of history, society is not some kind of exception from nature, but is an organic part of it.

The course of the history of human society is determined not only by subjective will random people(leaders, leaders, revolutionaries), but, first of all, is subject to objective social laws, which are no different from the objective laws of nature and do not depend on the will of these people. People are free to use these laws to their advantage or, conversely, not to use them. Historical materialism sets itself the task of determining these objective laws of the development of society and, on the basis of these laws, predicting the further development of society and using this knowledge.

Thus, the method of production and production relations change, and with a change in this economic basis, a revolution occurs in the entire superstructure (generally accepted rules of morality, prevailing philosophical views, Political Views etc.). This process is called change of socio-economic formation- cumulative and qualitative changes in social existence and social consciousness.

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with existing production relations, ... with property relations, within which they have hitherto developed. From forms of development of productive forces, these relations turn into their fetters. Then comes the era of social revolution. With a change in the economic basis, a revolution occurs more or less quickly in the entire enormous superstructure. When considering such revolutions, it is always necessary to distinguish the material revolution, ascertained with natural scientific precision, in the economic conditions of production from the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophical, in short, from the ideological forms in which people are aware of this conflict and are fighting for its resolution.
K. Marx. “Toward a critique of political economy.” Preface

The history of all hitherto existing societies has been the history of class struggle.
Free and slave, patrician and plebeian, landowner and serf, master and apprentice, in short, oppressor and oppressed were in eternal antagonism to each other, waged a continuous, sometimes hidden, sometimes open struggle, always ending in a revolutionary reorganization of the entire social edifice or the common death of those fighting classes.
K. Marx and F. Engels. “Manifesto of the Communist Party. Soch., vol. 4, page 424“.

List of socio-economic formations

The completion of socialism is communism, "Start true history of humanity,” a structure of society that has never existed before. The cause of communism is the development of the productive forces to the extent that it requires that all means of production be publicly owned (not state owned). A social and then a political revolution occurs. Private ownership of the means of production is completely eliminated, and there is no class division. Because there are no classes, there is no class struggle, and there is no ideology. A high level of development of productive forces frees a person from hard physical labor; a person is engaged only in mental labor. Today it is believed that this task will be accomplished by complete automation of production; machines will take on all the hard physical labor. Commodity-money relations are dying out due to their uselessness for distribution material goods, since the production of material goods exceeds the needs of people, and therefore it makes no sense to exchange them. Society provides any technologically accessible benefits to every person. The principle “To each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” is implemented! A person does not have false needs as a result of the elimination of ideology and his main occupation is the realization of his cultural potential in society. A person's achievements and his contribution to the lives of others - highest value society. A person motivated not economically, but by the respect or disrespect of the people around him, works consciously and much more productively, strives to bring the greatest benefit to society, in order to receive recognition and respect for the work done and to occupy the most pleasant position in it. In this way, social consciousness under communism encourages independence as a condition for collectivism, and thereby voluntary recognition of the priority of common interests over personal ones. Power is exercised by the entire society as a whole, on the basis of self-government, the state is dying out.

Development of Karl Marx's views on historical formations

To this we must add that in the preface to one of his main early works on this topic: “On the Critique of Political Economy,” Marx mentioned the “ancient” (as well as “Asiatic”) mode of production, while in other works he (as well as Engels) wrote about the existence in antiquity of a “slave-owning mode of production.” The historian of antiquity M. Finley pointed to this fact as one of the evidence of the weak study by Marx and Engels of the issues of the functioning of ancient and other ancient societies. Another example: Marx himself discovered that the community appeared among the Germans only in the 1st century, and by the end of the 4th century it had completely disappeared among them, but despite this he continued to assert that the community had been preserved everywhere in Europe since primitive times.

Scientific and political significance of the materialist understanding of history

Historical materialism has had a huge influence on the development of historical and social sciences throughout the world. Although much of the historical heritage of Marxism has been criticized or questioned by historical facts, some provisions have retained their significance. For example, it is generally accepted that history has recorded several stable “socio-economic formations” or “modes of production”, in particular: capitalism, socialism and feudalism, which differed from each other primarily in the nature of economic relations between people. There is no doubt about Marx's conclusion about the importance of economics in the historical process. It was the postulates of Marxism about the primacy of economics over politics that contributed to the rapid development of economic history as an independent branch of historical science in the 20th century.

In the USSR since the 1930s. and until the end of the 1980s. historical materialism was part of the official Marxist-Leninist ideology. As historians R. A. Medvedev and Zh. A. Medvedev write, in the early 1930s in Soviet historical science “a process of the most brutal falsification, strictly directed from above, began to be carried out... History became part of ideology, and ideology, which was now officially called “Marxism” -Leninism“, began to turn into a secular form of religious consciousness...” According to sociologist S. G. Kara-Murza, Marxism in the USSR became “a closed dialectic, a catechism.”

Some of the provisions of historical materialism - about the slave-owning mode of production, about the primitive communal system as universal for all “primitive” peoples before the formation of their state, about the inevitability of the transition from less progressive to more progressive methods of production - are questioned by historians. At the same time, views are confirmed about the existence of stable “socio-economic formations”, or typical socio-economic systems, characterized by a certain nature of economic and social relations between people, as well as that the economy plays an important role in the historical process.

Consciousness from the point of view of materialism, give a clear explanation of the phenomenon. and got the best answer

Answer from Evgeniy Abelyuk[guru]
In my layman's opinion, these are certain electrical potentials of certain neurons in the brain that are connected in a certain way. There are a lot of neurons, there are even more connections, which is why the phenomenon of consciousness is so extensive.

Answer from 2 answers[guru]

Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: Consciousness from the point of view of materialism, give a clear explanation of the phenomenon.

Answer from Konstantin[guru]
Consciousness is a product of thinking. Without thinking, neither experiences nor the construction of models reflecting the external world are possible.
Thinking is a process of establishing connections. This process is impossible without memory. Memory and the way of thinking (the way of making connections) are the basis of consciousness.
Memory is formed by neural circuits. Neurons are material.

Answer from Miroslav[guru]
The above definitions and explanations are close to medical ones. Consciousness has an essentially social nature. The consciousness of humanity (as the totality of the consciousness of individual people) developed as a result of human practice. Basically, it was a material practice of transforming nature and human society itself, including consciousness. As a result of natural and artificial selection, existing forms of consciousness were formed. Since consciousness significantly influences the material life and activities of people and society as a whole, those forms of consciousness remain and develop that are conducive to the self-preservation of people and humanity. Harmful forms of consciousness are becoming obsolete historically.

Answer from IZOTOP777[master]
No. 1 Consciousness is the state of a person’s mental life, expressed in the subjective experience of events in the external world and the life of the individual himself, as well as in a report on these events.
No. 2 Human consciousness in psychology is formed in the process public life the highest form of mental reflection of reality in the form of a generalized and subjective model of the surrounding world in the form of verbal concepts and sensory images.
The integral features of consciousness include: speech, representation, thinking and the ability to create a generalized model of the surrounding world in the form of a set of images and concepts.
No. 3 But truly this is a gift from God

Answer from Alexey Baraev[guru]

Consciousness as an ability should be distinguished from such an ability as thinking. Consciousness is the ability of the subject to relate himself to the world, to isolate himself from the world and to oppose himself to it. In this case, a conversation arises about the relationship between subject and object, consciousness and world. In contrast to consciousness, thinking is the ability to think - to capture the world in concepts and draw conclusions based on them in the form of judgments and inferences. Consciousness is a necessary prerequisite for thinking, since only thanks to it we generally distinguish ourselves from the world around us, we speak of ourselves as a subject of will, the “I” of thinking and feeling, separated from everything else. But consciousness itself is not only thinking. Consciousness includes thinking as a necessary part.

Answer from Iugeus Vladimir[guru]
The term consciousness is a difficult term to define because given word is used and understood in a wide range of areas. Consciousness may include thoughts, perceptions, imagination and self-awareness, etc. different time it can act as a type of mental state, as a way of perception, as a way of relating to others. It can be described as a point of view, like the Self. Many philosophers view consciousness as the most important thing in the world. On the other hand, many scholars tend to regard the word as too vague in meaning to be used.
Consciousness is a category for designating a person’s mental activity in relation to this activity itself.

The starting point of real understanding, as opposed to philosophical (illusory and speculative), is the active life of people, taken in the historically specific conditions of their existence.

We will focus on one of the central points of the materialistic understanding of history - the interpretation of the existential conditionality of consciousness.

Marx's formula - consciousness cannot be anything other than conscious being - requires a number of clarifications. For Marx, being is not primarily a world open to man, which he contemplates and comprehends.

This is the active being of man himself, which, as a vital integrity, imposes on man the corresponding forms of consciousness.

External being, being that exists outside and independently of the person himself, is realized, comprehended, and subjected to theorization precisely in these socially conditioned forms of consciousness and thought. They can be likened to Kant’s a priori forms of reason, with the fundamental difference, however, that they are historically and socially conditioned, and therefore temporary, transitory, transforming into other forms of consciousness and thought.

Distinguishing himself from representatives of previous materialism, including Feuerbach, he pointed out that for him “object, reality, sensibility” should be taken as “human sensory activity, as practice,” “subjectively.” This subjectivity, contrary to the use of this word in the usual sense, does not indicate the dependence of consciousness on its specific individual carrier and testifies not to the capriciousness or arbitrariness of the perception of reality by this or that person, but only to this historical and social conditioning of consciousness by the forms of the active human existence, historically determined forms of his practical activity.

Marx designated these forms as “socially significant, therefore objective, forms of thought.” Outside of these forms, practical activity itself cannot proceed with any success. Born by it, they are called upon to serve it, ensuring its implementation. Their limitations also testify to the limitations and imperfections of the corresponding forms of practical life activity, the possibilities of human active existence, and vice versa.

The imperfection of historically given types of mind, the charming naivety or shocking primitiveness of human ideas about the world and about themselves find their natural explanation in the level of development of this practice, the degree of its underdevelopment, the poverty of opportunities, etc. The very space of knowledge, the main coordinates of the picture of the world and existence are set, according to his view, by historically determined phases of development of the practically active existence of man. The key to the secrets of human cognition and psychology, the growth of their complexity and the multiplication of possibilities should be sought precisely in this source.

The set of key concepts in which Marx summarized the essence of his views on the development of society was given by him in the preface to his first significant work on political economy, “A Critique of Political Economy” (1859).

“In the social production of their lives, people enter into certain, necessary, independent relations from their will - production relations that correspond to a certain stage of development of their material productive forces. The totality of these production relations constitutes the economic structure of society, the real basis, above which rises the legal and political superstructure and to which certain forms of social consciousness correspond. The method of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”

According to Marx's concept, the development of productive forces leads over time to their contradiction with existing production relations, the legal expression of which is certain property relations. The latter are transformed from forms of development of productive forces into their fetters. “Then the era of social revolution begins. With a change in the economic basis, a revolution occurs more or less quickly in the entire enormous superstructure... Just as one cannot judge an individual person based on what he thinks about himself, just as one cannot judge such an era of revolution based on its consciousness. On the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the existing conflict between social productive forces and production relations."

According to Marx, “not a single social formation dies before all the productive forces for which it provides sufficient scope have developed, and new, higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence in the bosom of the old society have matured. Therefore, humanity puts itself only those tasks that it can solve, since upon closer examination it always turns out that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or, at least, are in the process of becoming.”

As the main methods of production, Marx identified Asian, ancient, feudal and modern, bourgeois, methods of production, considering them “as progressive eras of economic social formation. Bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic form of the social process of production, antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism, and in the sense of antagonism, growing out of the social conditions of life of individuals; but the productive forces developing in the depths of bourgeois society at the same time create the material conditions for the resolution of this antagonism, therefore, the prehistory of human society ends with this social formation.”

Of course, the above description gives the most general and fundamental idea of the tools that were used by Marx in his socio-economic analysis, and omits a whole series of concepts and concepts that he specially developed. Much of this toolkit, in one form or another, was adopted and assimilated in the subsequent development of the social sciences. At the same time, it should be noted that Marx’s economic reductionism, his idea according to which all the diversity of forms of social life, including consciousness and various types of spiritual activity, can be derived from an economic basis, has not stood the test of time. Even during their lifetime, Marx and Engels softened this requirement by indicating that such a deduction (or reduction) can only be carried out “in the final analysis” due to a significant number of intermediary links connecting the base and superstructure of society. However, reservations of this kind, as well as the recognition of the “reverse action” of the superstructure on the base, rather indicated a desire to distance themselves from the primitive, straightforward application of their ideas, but in no way cast doubt on the fundamental solvability of such a problem. All the seriousness of K. Marx and F. Engels’ attempts to interpret the relationship between the material and “ideal” components of society through a vocabulary of causal dependencies spoke of an unconscious dependence on those ways of thinking, the criticism of which they themselves devoted so much effort. Later attempts to interpret Marx's treatment of these connections in the light of the more sophisticated modes of analysis acquired by the development of philosophy and science in the twentieth century do credit to those interpreters, but can hardly be justified as an account of what Marx himself did. The materialist understanding of history, for all its attractiveness, did not become the new way that would make it possible to realize the declaration proclaimed by Marx: to understand things as they really are.

People

Their social existence is determined by consciousness. Materialistic understanding of history. Basic principles and concepts

Change of formation

Development of Karl Marx's views on historical formations