Concept
On Contradiction
Overview
On Contradiction (simplified Chinese: 矛盾论; traditional Chinese: 矛盾論; pinyin: Máodùn Lùn; lit. 'To Discuss Contradiction') is a 1937 essay by the Chinese Communist revolutionary Mao Zedong. Along with On Practice, it forms the philosophical underpinnings of the political ideology that would later become Maoism. It was written in August 1937, as an interpretation of the philosophy of dialectical materialism, while Mao was at his guerrilla base in Yan'an. Mao suggests that all movement and life is a result of contradiction. Mao separates his paper into different sections: the two world outlooks, the universality of contradiction, the particularity of contradiction, the principal contradiction and principal aspect of contradiction, the identity and struggle of aspects of contradiction, the place of antagonism in contradiction, and finally the conclusion. Mao further develops the theme laid out in On Contradiction in his 1957 speech On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.
Mao describes existence as being made up of constant transformation and contradiction. Nothing is constant as in metaphysics and can only exist based on opposing contradictions. He uses the concept of contradiction to explain different Chinese historical time periods and social events. Mao's form of talking about contradiction creates a modified concept that brought forth the ideal of Chinese Marxism. This text continues to influence and educate Chinese Marxists.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The "system" of Herr Duehring here criticised spreads over a very extensive theoretical ground and I was compelled to pursue him all over it and to place my ideas in antagonism to his. Negative criticism thereupon became positive; the polemic developed into a more or less connected exposition of dialectic methods and the socialist philosophy, of which Marx and myself are representative, and this in quite a number of…
Friedrich Engels, Landmarks of Scientific Socialism
States what On Contradiction is; the author is tied to On Contradiction in the knowledge graph.
To accomplish this act of universal emancipation is the historical mission of the modern proletariat. To thoroughly comprehend the historical conditions and thus the very nature of this act, to impart to the now oppressed proletarian class a full knowledge of the conditions and of the meaning of the momentous act it is called upon to accomplish, this is the task of the theoretical expression of the proletarian…
Friedrich Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific
States what On Contradiction is; the author is tied to On Contradiction in the knowledge graph.
Thou meetest him and seest not his head; thou goest behind him and seest not his back.” These contradictory expressions are called the “chain of reason.” One naturally thinks in quoting these passages of יהרה and of the African kingly name of Juba and also of _Jovis_.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
States what On Contradiction is.
Related ideas
- Yale University Press
- Vladimir Lenin
- Karl Marx
- Metaphysics
- Columbia University Press
- Mao Zedong
- Revolution
- Social class
- Working class
- Class struggle
- Proletariat
- Dialectical materialism
- Maoism
- Friedrich Engels
- Capitalism
- Bourgeoisie
- Chinese Communist Party
- Cambridge University Press
- Contradiction
- Eastern Bloc
- Chinese Marxist philosophy
- On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People
Place in the tradition
Part of Maoism.