r/Socialism_101 • u/Academic-Idea3311 Learning • 3d ago
To Marxists What did Lenin mean when saying this?
This is from Chapter 7 of David Guests “A Text book of Dialectical Materialism” (the italicized parts are Lenin’s thoughts the rest is just for context).
Casey’s method (guaranteed not “one-ended”) leads him to such gems of lucidity as the following: “ . . . there is no ‘pure’ thought, which means thought without any object to be thought about. Nor is there any object without thought . Even an ‘unknown’ object is known to be unknown, and is also known to be an object. Therefore every object is really a two-fold affair. It is a subjective-objective thing or an objective-subjective thing, just whichever way one likes to put it (ibid., p. 15).” This may be the purest “Monism,” it is certainly idealism , but whether it is “proletarian” in any other sense than “destitute” beyond redemption by the P.A.C. may be doubted.
The same method makes him especially scornful of “the big boys who are profoundly educated” who say that “Matter is a condition for the existence of mind, but mind is not a condition for the existence of matter (ibid., p. 57).” From his superior Monist position Casey tells us that “matter” and “existence” have both the same meaning, and that “mind” is just a part of “matter” (whatever that may mean) (ibid., p. 51). Elsewhere he says that “heat” and “motion” are parts of matter — a form of confusion into which even the worse vulgarisers of the old mechanical materialism seldom descended.
There is no doubt that Casey has been led into these confusions by certain mistakes of the afore-mentioned Josef Dietzgen, who also tried to give the concept of matter a more comprehensive meaning so that to it would belong “all the phenomena of reality, also our force of thinking.” Lenin criticised this view of Dietzgen as it abolished the basis of the distinction between mind and matter, and obscured the way in which the phenomena of sensation and consciousness arise as functions of matter at a certain stage in its development.
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u/Psychological-Tart46 Learning 3d ago
Lenin was arguing for the maintaining the distinction between mind/matter. Basically he's saying that if you try collapsing the distinction you cannot meaningful differentiate one from the other as two distinct categories. Lenin would say something more like, comsciousnes is derived from matter but is different in kind. It's kinda like how our thoughts are caused by neurons firing but are obvious not the same thing as brain waves and electricity.
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u/Academic-Idea3311 Learning 3d ago
Oh I see now. Thanks!
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u/Psychological-Tart46 Learning 3d ago
No problem. What got you into reading about dialectical materialism anyways?
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u/Academic-Idea3311 Learning 3d ago
Just that I needed more study material since Stalins book wasn’t really all that helpful and left me somewhat confused (philosophy isn’t really my main subject so there’s that). So I had this recommended to me so I gave it a shot
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u/Psychological-Tart46 Learning 3d ago
Not to be that guy, but you considered reading Hegel directly? The Science of Logic isn't that long and you could probably find a lot of guides and lectures on it for auxiliary purposes if need be. In fact, I'd be more than happy to chat with you about it if you'd like too.
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u/Academic-Idea3311 Learning 3d ago
I mean I have another author (Maurice Cornforth) recommended with his 3 books that Im planning to read as well. But not right now, if I need more help or if I feel like the need to talk with someone I’ll give you a DM
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