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Marx and Engels
The progenitors of dialectical materialism, Marx’s and Engels’ writings form the basis of later Soviet epistemology. Despite this, Marx has remarkably little to say about the theory of knowledge, only referring to it briefly in his Theses on Feuerbach:
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and power, the this-worldliness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.
- Theses on Feuerbach, 1845
From this, we can interpret the two main trends of dialectical materialist ontology: That objective reality exists in the external world, and that the most important epistemological test is practical application. Marx makes no claims as to the knowability of absolute truth, implying that if a theory can be used in practice, it can be considered absolute. Marx relegates questions of reality and non-reality to mere academic vacillation unless they can serve as a guide to action.
From Marx’s basic principle (that practice is the objective measure of truth) Engels expounds a more comprehensive epistemology. Engels refutes the position of Hume and Kant (that the material thing-in-itself is unknowable) in ‘Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of Classical German Philosophy’:
The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets (Schrullen) is practice, namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian incomprehensible.
- Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, 1886
Here, Engels provides the basis of an epistemological method: If an object can be dissected and reproduced by man, the information used in the reproduction process is objective. Furthermore, if a theory can be used to produce something new, successful production proves that theory objectively correct. In the same text, Engels reiterates and clarifies with examples of objective knowledge:
The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained such 'things-in-themselves' until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the 'thing-in-itself' became a thing for us, as, for instance, alizarin, the colouring matter of the madder, which we no longer trouble to grow ill the madder roots in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply from coal tar. For 300 years the Copernican solar system was a hypothesis with a hundred, a thousand or ten thousand chances to one in its favour, but still always a hypothesis. But when Leverrier, by means of the data provided by this system, not only deduced the necessity of the existence of an unknown planet, but also calculated the position in the heavens which this planet must necessarily occupy, and when Galle really found this planet, the Copernican system was proved.
- Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, 1886
The example of alizarin demonstrates reproduction of a prior ‘thing-in-itself' through chemistry, which proves the chemical theory to be objective truth. Dissecting the Earth into its component forces provided the basis for gravitational theory and heliocentrism, which were ‘proven’ to be objective truth by confirmation of their predictions.
The criterion of mutual recognition is essential in this method. There can be no correspondence between prediction and confirmation without mutual recognition in both stages. In the present-day Galle’s observation of Neptune is not taken as proof of the Copernican system (the Sun being stationary at the centre of the universe), as we are aware of other planetary systems and galaxies. The Copernican system is no longer supported by astronomers as it can no longer be used to make accurate predictions – it fails the test of practical application.
Lenin
As two of the most influential figures in the development of Soviet politics and philosophy, Lenin and Stalin provide their own interpretations and developments of dialectical materialist epistemology. Lenin expanded on Engels’ formulation, reiterating the absolute reality of the material world:
Matter is a philosophical category denoting the objective reality which is given to man by his sensations, and which is copied, photographed and reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them.
All knowledge comes from experience, from sensation, from perception. That is true. But the question arises, does objective reality “belong to perception,” i.e., is it the source of perception? If you answer yes, you are a materialist ... My sensation is subjective, but its foundation is objective.
- Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1908
So according to Lenin’s materialism, objective reality exists externally to consciousness. This objective reality is ‘given to man’ by his senses, and categorised into ‘philosophical categories’ - a ‘less real’ world of interpretive (subjective) ideals. Objective reality is the source of perception, but perception is subjective image rather than itself an objective reality. Objective reality therefore exists independently of consciousness.
Epistemologically Lenin maintains Engels’ emphasis on practise, and introduces tangible criteria for the identification of objective truth:
Knowledge can be useful biologically, useful in human practice, useful for the preservation of life, for the preservation of the species, only when it reflects objective truth
The question of the apparent movement of the sun around the earth is also beside the point, for in practice, which serves us as a criterion in the theory of knowledge, we must include also the practice of astronomical observations
- Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1908
For Lenin, as with Engels, both the source and the criterion for objective truth are practical experience.
The examples of biology and astronomy reiterate the scientific criteria, and the method of prediction and re-observation. The geocentric model was based on practical experience – the apparent motion of the sun in the sky – and used to make successful predictions. However, when more advanced astronomical techniques revealed inconsistency between prediction and observation, the geocentric model failed the test of mutual recognition and was replaced by the heliocentric model.
This hints at a second criterion internal to mutual recognition: Non-contradiction. Mutual recognition and repeatability are only adequate for distinction of objective truth so long as they do not contradict existing observations. If there is a contradiction, the more consistent and practically useful option is taken to be correct.
Necessarily, this hints at a more transient, subjective approach to truth. If an observation can be taken as objective truth and later contradicted, there must always be some level of unknowability in what we consider true. Lenin acknowledges this uncertainty in the same text:
The standpoint of life, of practice, should be first and fundamental in the theory of knowledge ... Of course, we must not forget that the criterion of practice can never ... either confirm or refute any human idea completely. This criterion also is sufficiently “indefinite” not to allow human knowledge to become “absolute” ... If what our practice confirms is the sole, ultimate and objective truth, then from this must follow the recognition that the only path to this truth is the path of science, which holds the materialist point of view. For instance, Bogdanov is prepared to recognise Marx’s theory of the circulation of money as an objective truth only for “our time,” and calls it “dogmatism” to attribute to this theory a “super-historically objective” truth. This is again a muddle. The correspondence of this theory to practice cannot be altered by any future circumstances, for the same simple reason that makes it an eternal truth that Napoleon died on May 5, 1821 ... The sole conclusion to be drawn from the opinion of the Marxists that Marx’s theory is an objective truth is that by following the path of Marxist theory we shall draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it).
- Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1908
By acknowledging that the criterion of practice can never ‘confirm or refute any human idea completely’, Lenin is acknowledging the inherent unknowability of the material world. This is a basic premise of the scientific method, through which theories approximate reality with increasing accuracy, but are incapable of discerning absolute truth.
Lenin seems to contradict himself here, though, as he calls the date of Napoleon’s death and Marx’s theories ‘eternal’ truths. He hints at a temporality to these truth with ‘the correspondence of theory to practice cannot be altered by any future circumstances,’ implying that a truth can have been absolute truth, and will continue to have been absolute truth eternally. However, he has already explicitly rejected such temporality in response to Bogdanov, saying that to hold a theory as objective truth ‘only for our time’ is ‘a muddle.’
In the same text, Lenin also contradicts Engels’ and his own condition of mutual recognisability, again in response to Bogdanov:
“The objectivity of the physical series is its universal significance ... The objectivity of the physical bodies we encounter in our experience is in the last analysis established by the mutual verification and coordination of the utterances of various people. In general, the physical world is socially-co-ordinated, socially-harmonised, in a word, socially-organised experience” ... We shall not repeat that this is a fundamentally untrue, idealist definition.
- Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1908
Mutual recognition and large-scale practice are products of social coordination and organisation, so the rejection of this understanding of objective truth is also a rejection of Lenin’s own epistemological criteria. This can be read as a distinction between absolute knowledge and objective knowledge. Lenin is rejecting the ‘objectivity of the physical series,’ as the physical series is for him a set of philosophical categories which approximate the absolute, rather than the absolute itself.
Furthermore, this rejection of truth as a social experience contradicts the example he gives of gender as an objective truth:
A human being is not an abstract ego, but either a man or woman, and the question whether the world is sensation can be compared to the question: is the man or woman my sensation, or do our relations in practical life prove the contrary?
- Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, 1908
From this example, we can take the practical life of a gendered individual as adequate proof of the existence of gender – the mutual recognition of gender by multiple subjects. However, this is impossible to define as anything but the ‘socially-co-ordinated, socially-harmonised, in a word, socially-organised experience’ Lenin has already rejected.
Stalin
In Historical and Dialectical Materialism, Stalin lays out a complete ontology and epistemology. Stalin drops most of Lenin’s nuance, also dropping any contradiction therein. Stalin reiterates the mediation of the objective external world by sensation:
Matter is that which, acting upon our sense-organs, produces sensation; matter is the objective reality given to us in sensation.... Matter, nature, being, the physical-is primary, and spirit, consciousness, sensation, the psychical-is secondary.
- Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938
In stark contrast to Lenin’s assertion that Marxist theory allows us to ‘draw closer and closer to objective truth (without ever exhausting it)’ Stalin,
holds that the world and its laws are fully knowable, that our knowledge of the laws of nature, tested by experiment and practice, is authentic knowledge having the validity of objective truth, and that there are no things in the world which are unknowable.
- Dialectical and Historical Materialism, 1938
While Stalin’s belief in an objective material world is fully consistent with Engels and Lenin, the radical knowability of material reality breaks from Lenin’s relative skepticism. Stalin also repeats the quote from Engels given previously, emphasising the scientific method as the path to objectivity.
For Stalin, therefore, objective reality exists in the material world and can be known through the scientific method. Stalin’s scientific method applies far beyond natural philosophy, since for Stalin consciousness and subjectivity (both social and individual) are products of the material world. From this he sets out a clear method for production of political and economic objectivity, which deserves to be quoted in full:
If the connection between the phenomena of nature and their interdependence are laws of the development of nature, it follows, too, that the connection and interdependence of the phenomena of social life are laws of the development of society, and not something accidental.
Hence, social life, the history of society, ceases to be an agglomeration of "accidents", for the history of society becomes a development of society according to regular laws, and the study of the history of society becomes a science.
Hence, the practical activity of the party of the proletariat [must be based on] the laws of development of society and on the study of these laws.
Further, if the world is knowable and our knowledge of the laws of development of nature is authentic knowledge, having the validity of objective truth, it follows that social life, the development of society, is also knowable, and that the data of science regarding the laws of development of society are authentic data having the validity of objective truths.
Hence, the science of the history of society, despite all the complexity of the phenomena of social life, can become as precise a science as, let us say, biology, and capable of making use of the laws of development of society for practical purposes.
Hence, the party of the proletariat should not guide itself in its practical activity by casual motives, but by the laws of development of society, and by practical deductions from these laws.
Hence, socialism is converted from a dream of a better future for humanity into a science.
Hence, the bond between science and practical activity, between theory and practice, their unity, should be the guiding star of the party of the proletariat.
We see here more than a simple claim that the humanities are as objective and scientific as natural sciences. Stalin outlines a system for the production of objective political truth, of an ‘objective, scientific morality.’ Observation and measurement of emergent laws and application of the scientific method can be used to understand objective truths.
There is a further implication tacitly contained within the assertion that society follows scientific laws. Corresponding to the principles of materialism, if two subjects disagree over anything one is correct and one incorrect. Therefore, there must be a selective system to determine which individuals are the most capable of perceiving objective truth – what is called the ‘most advanced section of the proletariat.’
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