Work
Dialectics of Nature
Overview
Dialectics of Nature (German: Dialektik der Natur) is an unfinished work by Friedrich Engels written between 1873 and 1886. In it, Engels applied the principles of dialectical materialism, as conceived by himself and Karl Marx, to the natural sciences. The work was never published in his lifetime and first appeared in a bilingual German and Russian edition in the Soviet Union in 1925.
The book comprises a series of manuscripts, notes, and fragments that outline a materialist dialectical view of nature. Central to this view are what Engels identified as the three general laws of dialectics: the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, the law of the interpenetration of opposites, and the law of the negation of the negation. Engels sought to demonstrate that these laws, which he and Marx had identified in history and society, were also applicable to the natural world.
Since its publication, Dialectics of Nature has been a subject of intense controversy within Marxism. It became a foundational text for the official Soviet philosophy of dialectical materialism. However, it was heavily criticized by other Marxists, particularly those associated with Western Marxism, who argued that Engels had distorted Marx's thought by extending dialectics beyond the social and historical realm into nature. The debate over the text's legitimacy and its relationship to Marx's work, known as the "Engels problem", remains a significant topic in Marxist scholarship.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Philosophers who discussed Dialectics of Nature
Related ideas
- Leszek Kołakowski
- Neo-Kantianism
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- Second law of thermodynamics
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Place in the tradition
Part of German philosophy.