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In which era was materialism prevalent? What is its concept?

Materialism

Overview of meaning

Materialism is a philosophical thought. This philosophical thought believes that between consciousness and matter, matter determines consciousness, and consciousness is the reflection of the objective world in the human brain. The basic viewpoint is summarized as the primary nature of matter and the second nature of spirit. The origin of the world is matter, and spirit is the product and reflection of matter.

Materialism is divided into mechanical materialism and dialectical materialism. Mechanical materialism believes that the material world is composed of various individuals, just like various mechanical parts forming a large machine, which will not change; dialectical materialism It is believed that the material world is always in motion and change, influencing and interrelated. The representative figure of mechanical materialism is Feuerbach, and the representatives of dialectical materialism are Marx, Engels and Lenin.

Materialist dialectics includes the law of the unity of opposites, the law of mutual transformation of quality, the law of negation of negation, as well as categories such as essence and phenomenon, content and form, cause and result, necessity and contingency, possibility and reality. In some countries’ propaganda materials and philosophy courses in secondary and higher education, materialist dialectics is described as follows: “Because the laws and categories of materialist dialectics are abstracted from nature and social life itself, they are both the movement and development of objective things themselves. It is also a universal law of understanding, which is both a worldview and a methodology. Materialist dialectics is not a rigid system. It constantly has new meanings, new categories, and laws with the development of human practical movements. "< /p>

Not all scientific workers and philosophical researchers around the world agree with the philosophical school of dialectical materialism. Einstein once made this evaluation after reading Engels's manuscript of "Dialectics of Nature": "Mr. Edward Bernstein gave me a manuscript of Engels's content on natural science and entrusted me to express my opinion. Read this Should this manuscript be printed? My opinion is this: had it been written by an author who was not noteworthy as a historical figure, I would not have recommended that it should be printed, because from the point of view of contemporary physics , or from the perspective of the history of physics, the content of this manuscript is complete nonsense and the work of a madman. However, I can imagine that if you consider the significance of this work in elucidating Engels's thoughts, it is an interesting document. , that can be published reluctantly." (Volume 1 of "Collected Works of Einstein", The Commercial Press, 1977, page 202)

Historical Form

①Ancient Simplicity. Materialism: reducing matter to its specific form. The ancient Chinese "Five Elements" theory: metal, wood, water, fire, and earth are the origin of the world. Ancient Greek Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC): "Fire" is the origin of all things. The past, present and future of the world are eternal living fires that burn and extinguish according to rules. "This world was not created by any god or anyone. Its past, present and future will always be an eternal living fire. It burns to a certain extent and extinguishes to a certain extent."

② Mechanical materialism, combined with modern natural science, overcomes the intuitiveness and conjecture of ancient simple materialism, but it also has three fundamental flaws: mechanicalness, metaphysics, and incompleteness (the view of history is idealism).

③Dialectical materialism and historical materialism, namely Marxist philosophy.

Main content

Unity of opposites

Marx and Engels believed that all existing things are composed of mutually opposed parts. For example, electrical phenomena include positive and negative charges; an atom is a whole but is also composed of oppositely charged hydrogen nuclei and electrons. Marx and Engels' idea of ??the unity of opposites came from Hegel.

"On Contradiction" written by Mao Zedong has a detailed discussion of the unity of opposites.

Quality interconversion

The properties of matter have two properties: quality and quantity. Quality refers to the nature of matter, not mass; quantity refers to the quantity that measures a certain state of matter. From quantitative change to qualitative change, it means that matter is always in constant change. In every process of changing from one property to another, there are always small changes (called quantitative changes) slowly accumulated. The accumulation of small changes eventually leads to the change of matter from one property to another.

Negation of negation

The principle of negation of negation comes from Hegel’s three-stage theory of positive-negative-synthesis: “positive” things will transition to the negative due to the development of internal contradictions. , becomes the "anti" stage, which is the first negation; the transition from the anti stage to its opposite is the negation of negation. After negation of negation, although things return to the "normal" state, it is no longer the original state, but a higher level.

The Chinese folk proverb "When things go to extremes, they must be reversed" is the first negation; "No matter how extreme it is, it will be peaceful" is the negation of negation.

Matter and Consciousness

①Which is the primary question, thinking or existence: different answers to this question. Philosophy can be divided into two camps: materialism and idealism;

②The question of whether thinking and existence are identical: different answers to this divide the two schools of agnosticism and agnosticism;

③The only criterion for distinguishing materialism and idealism is to see Their different answers to the first aspect of the basic question of philosophy are intellectual understanding: the relationship between matter and consciousness is different from the dialectical relationship between matter and consciousness.

The commonly referred to as "the dialectical relationship between matter and consciousness" is a proposition of Marxist philosophy. It means that on the one hand, matter determines consciousness, and on the other hand, consciousness has an active role (consciousness actively reflects objective matter) world, consciousness actively reacts on the objective material world). This is a correct revelation of the actually existing dialectical relationship between matter and consciousness. The relationship between matter and consciousness mentioned in the basic questions of philosophy includes two contents: first, which is the origin of the world, matter or consciousness, and which determines which; second, whether consciousness can correctly reflect matter, and whether thinking can correctly understand objective existence. The correct answer to these two aspects is: matter determines consciousness, and consciousness can correctly reflect matter. It can be seen that the second content answered here is not the same as the second content mentioned before. The "relationship" mentioned in the two places is different.

As the basic questions of philosophy, it is a summary of the history of philosophy. Philosophies in history have answered two aspects of the basic questions of philosophy in different forms. Marxist philosophy not only correctly answers the basic questions of philosophy at a new level, but also further scientifically points out the dialectical relationship between matter and consciousness.

The practice of human generations and the development of science have proved the correctness of materialism and the absurdity of idealism.

Fundamentally different from idealism

Materialism: The essence of the world is matter. There is matter first and then there is consciousness. Material determines consciousness. Consciousness is the reflection of matter (the primacy of matter). , the second nature of consciousness)

Xunzi of the Warring States Period: "Heaven and earth unite and all things come into existence, and yin and yang connect and change occurs."

Wang Chong of the Eastern Han Dynasty: "Heaven and earth unite and all things arise by themselves."< /p>

Fan Zhen of the Southern Dynasty said: "If the form exists, the spirit will exist; if the form disappears, the spirit will disappear."

Wang Fuzhi of the Ming Dynasty: "Qi is the basis of reason." "The only weapon in the world." , "The Taoist knows the way of the tools", "Without the tools, there is no way."

Idealism: The essence of the world is consciousness. It is not matter that determines consciousness, but consciousness that determines matter (consciousness is primary and material is secondary)

①Subjective idealism: the world Created and determined by human consciousness, Song Dynasty philosopher Lu Xiangshan said: "The universe is my heart, and my heart is the universe."

Ming Dynasty philosopher Wang Yangming: "There is nothing outside the heart."

British philosopher Berkeley: To exist is to be perceived. Objects are "combinations of feelings" and "collections of ideas".

②Objective idealism: The world is created and determined by some kind of god or elusive absolute concept. Song Dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi said: "Principles are in advance."

Plato: The world is "idea" "Shadow Hegel: The essence of the world is the independent existence of "absolute spirit".

③Religion: There are two forms of idealism about God, God’s creation and domination of the world. Although there are some differences, they are essentially the same. They all believe that thinking and consciousness are primary, and existence and matter are secondary. They reverse the true relationship between thinking and existence, consciousness and matter, and deviate from natural science and people's practical experience.

What is materialism

Peng Zheye

The most basic idea of ??materialism is to admit that matter and consciousness are different, and there are things outside our consciousness. A physical world that existed before our consciousness.

Material determines consciousness, and it is material that ultimately determines consciousness. Simply put, as long as it is recognized that matter plays the ultimate decisive role in consciousness, this is materialism.

There was once a joke that God asked a god to count the number of good people and bad people in the world. This god first went to count how many bad people there were in the world, but found out that the workload was huge. So he changed his method and focused on counting the number of good people. The task was completed in no time.

Since the various manifestations of idealism in this world are different, there is only one truth. Therefore, we simply define all anti-materialism as idealism, thus defining idealism simply and clearly.

Thorough subjective idealism believes that there is no distinction between consciousness and matter in this world, that is to say, there is only consciousness but no matter in this world. In this case, the ultimate determining role of matter on consciousness certainly does not exist. Subjective theism believes that human consciousness is immortal. This directly or in disguised form admits that human consciousness turns into soul after death. Since consciousness is immortal, the ultimate decisive role of matter in consciousness no longer exists. Thorough objective theism believes that this world was created by God, and God is self-created. The so-called God of thorough objective theism must be personal. Therefore, this kind of God can be classified into what we call the broad category of consciousness. Since objective theism believes that this world was created by God, then of course it is God who plays the ultimate decisive role in this world, and of course it is God who plays the ultimate decisive role in human consciousness, not the material world. Thorough materialism, thorough objective idealism, and thorough subjective idealism are all monist philosophies, which believe that there is only one thing that plays the ultimate decisive role in this world. There is also a dualist philosophy, which denies that matter determines consciousness, and also denies that consciousness determines matter. But since it denies that it is matter that plays the ultimate decisive role in consciousness, it also belongs to the category of what we call idealism. There is also a kind of pantheism. The so-called God of this kind of pantheism may not be personal, but this kind of God is a so-called supernatural force. If this kind of supernatural power exists, then it is undoubtedly this kind of supernatural power that plays the ultimate decisive role in this world. So in the same way, pantheism denies the ultimate determining role of the material world in consciousness.

From the above definitions of materialism and idealism, we can clearly distinguish between materialism and idealism. So this definition holds water!

Word explanation

Name materialism

Pinyin wéi wù zhǔ yì

Explanation: The world is material in nature, It exists objectively and does not depend on human consciousness. Consciousness is the philosophical point of view that material existence is reflected in the human brain.

Synonym materialism

Antonym idealism

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