Корфорт М.К.

A Scientific World Outlook

Science and Materialism
Dialectical materialism, the philosophy adopted by Marxist parties, is truly scientific world outlook. For it is based on considering things as they are, without arbitrary, preconceived assumptions(idealists fantasies); it insists that our conceptions of things must be based on actual investigation and experience, and must be constantly tested and retested in the light of practice and further experience.

Indeed, dialectical materialism means: understanding things just as they are(materialism), in their actual interconnection and movement( dialectics).

The same cannot be said about other philosophies. They all make arbitrary assumptions of one kind or another, and try to erect a system on the basis of those assumptions. But such assumptions are prejudices and illusions of definite classes. Dialectical materialism is in no sense a philosophy above science. Others have set philosophy above science , in the sense they have thought they have discover what the world was like just by thinking about it, without relying on the data of the sciences, on practice and experience. And then, from this lofty standpoint, they have tried to dictate to the scientists, to tell them where they were wrong, what their discoveries really meant and so on.

But Marxism makes an end of the old philosophy which claimed to stand above science and to explain the world as a whole .

Modern materialism ... no longer needs any philosophy standing above the sciences, wrote Engels in Anti-Dühring. As soon as each separate science is required to get clarity as to its position in the great totality of things and of our knowledge of things a special science dealing with this totality is superfluos.

Dialectical materialism, he further wrote:

is in fact no longer a philosophy, but a simple conception of the world which has to establish its validity and be applied not in a sciences standing apart, but within the positive sciences ... Philosophy is therefore ... both abolished and preserved; abolished as regard its form, and preserved as regards its real content.

Our picture of the world about us , of nature, of natural objects and processes, their interconnections and laws of motion, is not to be derived from philosophical speculation, but from the investigations of the natural sciences.

The scientific of the world and its development is not complete, and never will be. But it has advanced far enough for us to realise that philosophical speculation is superfluous. And we should refuse to fill in gaps in scientific knowledge by speculation.

The growing picture of the world with natural science unfolds is a materialist picture - despite the many efforts of philosophers to make out the contrary. For step by step as science advances it shows how the rich variety of things and processes and changes to be found in the real world can be explained and understood in terms of material causes, without bringing in God or spirit or any supernatural agency.

Every advance of science is an advance of materialism against idealism, a conquest for materialism -although when driven out of one position idealism has always taken up another position and manifested itself again in new forms, so that in the past the sciences have never been consistently materialist. For every advance in science means showing the order and development of the material world from the material world itself.

Science and Socialism
The scientific character of Marxism is manifested especially in this, that it makes socialism into a science.

We do not base our socialism, as the utopians did, on a conception of abstract human nature. The utopians worked out schemes for an ideal society, but could not show how to achieve socialism in practice. Marxism made socialism into a scince by basing it on an analysis of the actual movement of history, of the economic law of motion of capitalist society in particular, thus showing how socialism arises as the necessary next stage in the evolution of society, and how it can come about only by the wagin of the working-class struggle, through the defeat of the capitalist class and the institution of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Thus Marxism treats man himself, society and history, scientifically.

Socialism, since it has become a science, demands that it be pursued as a science , wrote Engels in his Prefatory Note to Peasant War in Germany , that is, that it be studied. The task will be to spread with increased zeal among the masses of the workers the ever more clarified understanding thus acquired, to knit together ever more firmly the organisation both of the party and of the trade unions.

Scientific study of society shows that human history develops from stage to stage according to definite laws. Men themselves are the active force in this development. By understanding the laws of development of society, therefore, we can guide our own struggles and create our own socialist future. Thus scientific socialism is the greatest and most important of all the sciences.

The praticitioners of the natural sciences have been getting worried because they feel that governments do not know kow to put their discoveries to proper use. They have good cause to worry about this. Science is discovering the secrets of nuclear energy, for example;but its discoveries are being used to create weapons of destruction. Many people are even coming to believe that it would be better if we had non scince, since its discoveries open up such terrifying possibilities of disaster.

How can we ensure that the discoveries of science are put to proper use for the benefit of mankind? It is scientific socialism alone which answers this problem. It teaches us what are the forces which make history today, charge society and determine our own future. It teaches us, therefore, how to carry them forward in today's crisis. Physics can teach us how to release nuclear energy, it cannot teach us how to control the social use of that energy. For this there is required, not the science of the atom, but the science of society.