The Dialectic

Abstract

The materialist dialectic of dialectical materialism includes both the ‘dialectic of things’ and the ‘dialectic of thought’. The latter is dealt with in the next chapter. In this chapter, the dialectic appears as the foundation stone of Marxism-Leninism’s dynamic ontology. It is an ontology because it analyzes the basic character of (material) being in dialectical materialism. It is dynamic because it serves to explain the nature of the movement which — as we have seen in the previous chapter — is the inalienable characteristic of matter. The core of contemporary Soviet doctrine on this subject is formed by the ‘basic laws of the dialectic’. And, this core is generally prefaced by a presentation of Soviet views on causality and other categorial determinations of the material reality which is to be shown to be dialectical.