About three years ago, I once read this book in a revised version after the restoration of capitalism in China—“Outline of Dialectical Materialism.” However, at that time, I read it very superficially, only grasping a general idea, without carefully reflecting on its content. I did not at all master the various discussions on contradictions, logic, and other Marxist philosophical content presented within. Looking back now, such lack of study and skill is very harmful, so I am now starting to read this book again and write some of my own reflections and questions, hoping to communicate and discuss with everyone, striving to update daily.
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A version published in the 2000s completely deleted the preface of the reestablished version. Changed “Marxism is a thoroughly scientific and revolutionary” to “scientific and revolutionary,” and removed words like “thorough” and “only,” opening the door for other bourgeois philosophies.
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（Introduction）
The proletariat must have a spiritual weapon to guide their struggle in order to achieve victory in the revolution, and this is dialectical materialism (Marxist philosophy). Dialectical materialism is not something that was created and then remained unchanged; it develops along with the progress of the revolution, constantly gaining new parts. Similarly, those opposed to the proletarian revolution also have their “spiritual weapons” guiding their counter-revolutionary actions, which are various other, incorrect philosophies, and they use these wrong philosophies to attack Marxist philosophy in the philosophical realm. However, it is precisely this attack on Marxist philosophy that has led to its development. This shows that no philosophical thought is created out of thin air; Marxist philosophy is for the purpose of revolution, while various other reactionary philosophies are for counter-revolutionary purposes. Studying philosophy is for the revolution, to solve problems within the revolution, not for debating in a study room. Winning debates in a study room is of no use at all.
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Here I didn’t think of any examples myself, I hope comrades who understand some of the currently popular erroneous philosophical schools can add some real-world examples. Additionally, one point that comes to mind is the common mention of “eating and drinking philosophy” or “hedonism philosophy,” such as saying “giving up is a kind of attitude towards life, a life philosophy” or similar phrases. These things don’t seem to be systematic theories about the general view of the world, but calling them “philosophy” also seems somewhat reasonable, so does this count as “philosophy” or not?
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This indeed counts as a kind of philosophy. It is mentioned in “A Brief History of the Philosophical History of the Chinese Working People’s Revolution”:
Actually, the viewpoints and systems of philosophy are not qualitatively different; there is no insurmountable chasm between them. A system is merely an elaboration of a certain viewpoint, and a fundamental viewpoint is the core and foundation of the system.
In Ai Siqi’s popular philosophy, the relationship between these two is described more clearly:
Therefore, if one considers philosophy as something very mysterious and profound, and thinks that it is separated from human daily life by ten thousand and eight thousand miles, this is wrong. We must clearly understand and affirm that philosophy is in the daily lives and thoughts of millions of people. However, on the other hand, if one believes that the thoughts in daily life contain a complete philosophical idea, that is also a mistake. Because, in this case, it would mean that anyone does not need to study philosophy, and even without studying it, they might have their own clear, systematic, and even very correct philosophical ideas.
The thoughts in daily life are often unstable, often influenced by temporary phenomena, and cannot be consistent from beginning to end. Is it really “everything changes”? Or do many things not change at all? These two contradictory thoughts are often mixed together in a person’s mind. You often feel that both seem to have some truth, and there is no way to distinguish which one is correct and which is not. This shows that daily thoughts are often unsystematic and unclear. Although there is a germ of correct philosophical thought in “everything changes,” it has not yet been concentrated to become a consistent, complete philosophical system.
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So, this indeed is philosophy, but it is not a systematic or structured philosophy. This way of thinking is indeed reasonable. (Thinking about this, I still feel that long-standing habit of intellectuals cultivated in bourgeois academic institutions—that only systematic, well-structured, and standardized things count, that only what looks “high and mighty” counts. Ignoring the significance of everyday things.)
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What immediately comes to mind is the term “universal values,” which essentially encompasses Western ideals of freedom, equality, democracy, and fraternity. However, I can’t explicitly articulate it yet.
Universal values (freedom, equality, fraternity, democracy) and so on are generally considered bourgeois political slogans? Saying that these are things pursued collectively by all humanity feels more aligned with political and legal ideas rather than philosophy.
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（First preface, 2025.1.30）
Worldview is the general perception of the entire world. That is, how I see the world functioning and the principles by which it operates. This set of views does not come from the sky, but is “a concentrated expression of the historical status and fundamental interests of a certain class in ideology.” For example, you can’t expect the bourgeoisie, who have oppressed people their whole lives, to agree that “getting something for nothing” is wrong, because in their view, the principle of the world is that getting something for nothing is right, “that’s just how the earth turns,” and oppressing others is justified.
Many people may not be able to formulate a complete systematic philosophical theory to summarize their general view of the world. But within the same class, there must be one or two people who do this work, summarizing the class’s view of the world and proposing a philosophical theory. Therefore, there are many different philosophical theories in the world, because there are different classes, and within the same class, there are different interest groups. These are all corresponding. From this perspective, the class nature of philosophy can also be seen: since a philosophy represents the interests of a specific group of people, it is certainly serving a certain class, and there can be no philosophy that is supra-class; it must represent the viewpoint of a certain class. Marxist philosophy openly states that it represents the proletariat, but bourgeois philosophers often try to portray themselves as “universal.”
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However, examples of bourgeois philosophers dressing themselves up as “universal”, or the purposes they aim to achieve after dressing up as “universal”, are not much discussed in books, nor have I thought of any myself. I wonder if everyone has some examples to share.
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In the middle school curriculum I studied, philosophy is translated directly from Greek as “love of wisdom,” meaning philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, and an example of Socrates is given: “Why is Socrates the wisest man in Athens? Because he admits his ignorance.”
This way, the purpose of philosophy masks its role. Indeed, simply speaking of verbs like “pursuit” or “love,” and nouns like “wisdom,” may seem to have no class nature, but these are human activities that cannot exist outside of humans. What kind of pursuit does a person have? What kind of wisdom do they seek? What are the purposes of pursuing wisdom? These human-related questions all reveal the class nature of philosophy.
The bourgeoisie avoids these questions (at least in the textbooks), and what they call philosophy is nothing more than the movement of abstract concepts. They avoid discussing the practical reality of philosophy; essentially, it is just a way to conceal the class nature of philosophy and truth.
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Indeed, when it comes to mid-term repairs, that’s the case. They completely erased the philosophical development achievements of socialist China in the past and replaced them with these worthless goods.
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(第一章第一节，2025.1.31)
The most fundamental question of philosophy is the relationship between thought and existence. It is the most fundamental question because 【since the emergence of humanity, all phenomena in the world can be summarized into only two categories: matter and spirit】. Before humans appeared, there was no mention of this in books, but it should be that there were no spiritual phenomena (because consciousness or spirit is a function of the human brain, a material organ. If humans had not appeared, there were apes and various animals, which also had organs like the brain, but ultimately they do not have subjective initiative to do things, instead they are governed by nature. Their brains can only process neural signals and respond, so they cannot be considered conscious. I don’t know if this is correct, and I wonder if anyone with a better understanding of philosophy or biology (though this is not purely a biological question) can discuss it). To propose a general view of the entire world, philosophy must first answer the relationship between these two phenomena.
Materialism advocates that existence determines thought; idealism advocates that thought determines existence.
【The fundamental outline of materialism fully aligns with human practical experience over millions of years. In social practice, people constantly contact external objects, i.e., various material phenomena. Based on practical experience, people easily understand that the material world exists outside of consciousness and does not depend on consciousness. For example, workers produce finished products using machines and raw materials, farmers cultivate land with tools…】
Seeing this, I think that when humans make decisions, they rely on feedback from the material world. Idealism claims that the world is imagined, “my mind is the universe,” which is completely untenable. Things in consciousness cannot arise out of thin air; humans can perform activities like imagination only after first contacting material things, then processing these images in the brain. If consciousness truly determined existence, humans would not be able to imagine anything at all. For example, now I ask you to imagine a “thing,” but do not tell you any properties of this thing. Either you cannot imagine anything at all, or you imagine something based on what you have previously remembered from your brain. From this, it is clear that existence determines consciousness.
Extending the conclusion of materialism from nature to social history is called historical materialism. Correspondingly, there are social existence and social consciousness, and thus social existence determines social consciousness. The book states【Social life is divided into material life and spiritual life. Material life involves activities to obtain material means of subsistence, while spiritual life involves science, art, religion, etc.】. Here, material life should refer to social existence, and spiritual life refers to social consciousness. This brings to mind other frequently mentioned terms: economic base and superstructure. The philosophical dictionary states【The economic base is the sum of the various aspects of social production relations (including ownership of the means of production, mutual relations among people, and distribution relations, with ownership of the means of production being the foundation of production relations). The superstructure is the political, legal, and ideological systems built on the economic base.】 Therefore, it can be said that the economic base, i.e., the various aspects of social production relations, is social existence, while various political and legal systems and social ideologies (superstructure) constitute social consciousness.
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By the way, I remember someone drew a diagram explaining the relationship between the superstructure and the economic base (including the various aspects of relations of production and social ideologies). I don’t know who has it saved. If possible, could you share it here so we can take a look?
I tried to draw it, but the picture I drew myself is a bit different from the one in my memory, as it seems to be missing some connections between the superstructure and the economic base.
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Humans did not appear suddenly, nor did consciousness suddenly emerge in the brain. These all had a long developmental process, or rather, they developed continuously through the practice of ape-men. When the practice activities of ape-men developed to the point of making and using tools, it meant that ape-men not only recognized the phenomena of things but also grasped the essence and laws of things. Moreover, language as the external shell of thought was also produced through ongoing practical collaboration, which allowed ape-men to develop the ability to abstractly generalize sensory materials. Consciousness is the subjective image of the material world in the human brain, which developed due to the progress of practice. Ape-men became humans, ape brains transformed into human brains, and the human brain developed consciousness. Although it is difficult to define exactly when the change occurred, I think at that time, the relationship between thought and existence probably was not considered.
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Human consciousness indeed does not appear suddenly. The human brain also evolved from the brains of apes, but before this qualitative change occurred, ape brains indeed lacked consciousness/subjective initiative.\n\n[quote="Hann, post:29, topic:582"]\nAlthough it’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment of change, I think at that time, the relationship between thinking and existence probably wouldn’t be considered.\n[/quote]\nI didn’t quite understand what you wanted to express with that sentence. Could you please explain it further?
In other words, the development from ape to human took a very long time, and it’s hard to say exactly when this ape became a human. Moreover, even when it became human, the ‘human’ at that time probably wouldn’t have thought about the relationship between thinking and existence. Such philosophical questions arose only after society had developed to a certain extent.
Yes, the outline also mentioned that philosophy as a systematic worldview probably emerged after the rise of class society.
In the development history, the stage that replaced primitive society is the ancient slave society. Compared to primitive society, slave society is a higher, more advanced society. Due to the development of productive forces, the class division between slave owners and slaves, as well as the opposition between mental labor and physical labor, appeared. The exploiting classes do not engage in material production labor, relying on the living data produced by physical laborers for their livelihood. Therefore, they have so-called “necessary leisure” to engage in mental labor and to think abstractly about questions such as how the universe occurs and how it is constituted. The worldview of philosophy was formed under this premise.
In the intermediate textbooks, this paragraph was completely cut out, only vaguely stating that philosophy arises from “the curiosity of philosophers to investigate the root and understand why things are the way they are.” It mentions that they are dissatisfied with religious explanations of the world and states that philosophers “are mostly nobles, who do not have to worry about making a living, and therefore can engage in pure speculative activities.”