Dialectic Materialism

Dialectic materialism is a philosophy associated with Karl Marx. Marx was a German revolutionarist, who is famous for the concept of communism.

We know Marx as an economist, but before that he was a philosopher. He believed that all that exists in the universe is matter and that matter is constantly in state of motion.

In order to know what this theory of dialectic materialism is, we first try to understand these words, "dialectic" and "materialism" separately.

Marx was a follower of Hegel (who was a German philosopher). Hegel believed that history is driven forward through conflict/contradiction. 

Hegel believed that, when there are ideas, which cannot coexist with each other, they clash/contradict. In which, the first idea is called as thesis. And the second idea is called as antithesis. When these ideas clash, the result is called Synthesis.

Again, the Synthesis become thesis, then an antithesis emerges and they clash, and we get a new Synthesis. Which again becomes thesis and that is how history is driven forward.

And this is the way in which history is advancing and the way it advances is through contradictions. This is known as Dialectic.

Coming to the other word, Marx also studied materialism. In earlier times Greece, there was debate on " whether the mind created reality or reality created the mind" 

There was another popular theory known as"idealism". The idealists believe that the mind created reality i.e. our thoughts created the world. Example: religion (which states that we exist as a reflection of god)

Let's take an example, when we generally say, that what we think becomes reality. Like if we  imagine that we want money, it will appear. In short, if we think hard enough, things will happen .

But Marx believed in the opposite, he said "I am, therefore I think". 

Friedrich Engels while explaining Marx's beliefs, says that thought are inseparable from matter that thinks and that rather than reality being a reflection of the mind, the mind is the reflection of reality.

What we think is what is based around us. Our ability to think is because of brain that thinks and all that exists is matter i.e. materialism.

So it is the world filled up of matter or is the world a reflection of spiritual and ideal forces, that is the question.

The debate is between dialectic and materialism.

History progress changed through conflict and which is the nature of reality. Marx combines these both into one philosophy, i.e. Dialectic Materialism. This states that on one hand, Marx's following materialism, that all that exists is matter in motion and that thoughts and ideas are reflection of matter, so materialism).

That matter is constantly in motion and that conflict drives forward history so this is what dialectic materialism is.

Lenin has summed up the essential idea of dialectical materialism in the following words:

“The idea is the recognition of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature. That is, in all phenomena and processes of nature there are diametrically opposite forces or tendencies and they are at clash or conflict and this continues until a solution is reached. This alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything in existence. It alone furnishes the key to the leaps, to the break in continuity, to the transformation into the opposite, to the destruction of the old and emergence of the new. In its proper meaning dialectics is the study of the contradiction within the very essence of things”.