Dialectical Materialism is a method that examines the tension ( dialectic ) between the recognition of the human and the nature and reality of the social surrounding. Dialectical materialism was first developed by Karl Marx and Marxist theory , and serves as a very common element in the field of social critique, even among the deniers of this Torah.
Marxist theory assumes that human behavior and way of thinking always exist in a social space. Every human activity refers to what is done by humans, and affects them. This has two meanings:
Each activity affects three factors: nature (= matter, the object ), the active person (the subject ), and society. Of course, the person does not understand the full range of influence that his activity has, but he is able to grasp large parts of it, or not understand it at all.
The activity depends on the society, its laws, and its social structure. Only a person who is without other human beings in his vicinity and without influence over humans and of humans on him, is not a social creature. It is not relevant to engage in such a person as he is almost non-existent. This claim also exists on the surface, in the form of the person's behavior, and also in his consciousness and perception of the activity and its goals.
social being determines consciousness
"social being determines consciousness" losly based on The German Ideology expresses the principles of dialectical materialism, argues that the praxis in which man lives determines his perceptions and understanding of the world, and in fact its meaning. This sentence holds even if the person does not recognize it or understand it.
The meaning of this sentence can be begun and understood by the division that Marx maintains between the two components of society:
The company base which includes the production methods, means of production and method of resource allocation. The basis is in fact the material status of the company, and is influenced both by the existing technology and the wealth of the company, and by historical processes that it has undergone. The basis is also called the production ratio .
The superstructure of society contains the laws , institutions , culture and norms . The superstructure expresses a person 's consciousness and way of thinking.
Dialectical materialism proceeds from the premise that the superstructure is shaped by the base and is inseparable from it. Dialectical materialism is a change of consciousness from the social theories that preceded it, in that it measures society primarily through the base, rather than through the superstructure.
The action of praxis on man has several stages of consciousness
First, man perceives in his senses the various impressions from the reality in which he operates. When these impressions are split and illegal.
Man casts from his subjective world on the experience of reality in a primitive way, by a set of emotions and feelings created in him following the encounter with reality. These stages constitute the sensory consciousness of man.
Man then recognizes legality and order in the sensory perception, which lead to the creation of a mental paradigm . This paradigm is the praxis in which man lives.
The last stage is the stage in which man reacts to paradigms created in his consciousness, and creates a subjective reference to them by determining opinion and a world of values. These two stages are called rational consciousness .
In this process, the rule is expressed according to which being determines consciousness (cognition). It is a two-way process, as human consciousness reshapes its being, by man acting and changing reality according to his consciousness.
Dialectical materialism seeks to study the mutual influence of external reality, measured by ordinary fields of science (natural sciences, life sciences, social sciences), and of human consciousness, examined from a sociological-philosophical point of view.
Dialectical materialism is subject to its own laws, since it is itself a thought paradigm.
Stichia
Dialectical materialism holds that even when a person performs a purposeful activity, he is not directed to all the results of his actions (both on the personal level and on the historical level). Also, man is shaped by factors in reality that he does not actively address. The unintentional design of a person or reality is called in the Marxist language Stichia . For example: A person works in a field to grow food . Another product of this activity (besides food) is the development of its muscles. This is not his intention, so it is a static result of growing food.
Awareness of the design of the world is not enough: only when a process is directed and becomes the object of activity does it cease to be static. In the previous example: a person may know that his muscles will develop, but not because of this he grows food.
See also: Cultural Materisalism
