Excerpt from First Talk

Date: 1965
Source: What is Dialectical Materialism?, pp. 5-19
Translated (from Russian) by: Clemens Dutt
Published: Progress Publishers, Moscow
Transcription/HTML Markup/Proofreading: Mike B., June 2014
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2014). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source. (marxists.org)

Philosophy, as Lenin teaches, is always of a partisan nature. That is to say, it defends partisan, class interests. Hence contending parties in philosophy are to be found in each historical period. Materialism and idealism are such parties in philosophy.

Materialism and idealism

What is the meaning of these two concepts? Take a look at things and phenomena in the world. Some of them, such as a stone, a tree, a living organism, water, etc., we can touch with our hands, see with our eyes, weigh and measure, and so on. They exist outside and independently of man’s consciousness. We perceive them by means of our sense organs—those of sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. But there are also phenomena of a different kind, for example, our thoughts and wishes, which we cannot measure, weigh, see or hear. They exist in man’s consciousness.

Material objects and phenomena are those which exist not in our consciousness but outside it. They do not depend on human beings, they exist objectively, i.e., in reality. If man did not exist, these things would still exist. The other group of phenomena belong to consciousness. They are ideal phenomenon. They include thoughts feelings desires, will.

They do not exist outside and apart from man. As you see, one group of phenomena in its totality constitutes nature, matter, while the other constitutes consciousness, or mind.

Nature, matter, is also called being. What connection is there between material and mental phenomena? This is a question that faces us continually. In regard to all the phenomena in the world, we can put it in this way: which is primary, that is to say, which comes first, nature, matter or thought, reason, consciousness? Sometimes this question is put somewhat differently: does mind, consciousness, give rise to nature, matter, or does nature, matter, being, give rise to mind, consciousness. This question is known as the fundamental question of philosophy. Different philosophers answer it indifferent ways.

Some of them say that matter is primary, initial, that it gives rise to mind, consciousness. Such philosophers are called materialists, since their starting point is that matter denies all that exists. Others say that consciousness, mind, primary and that matter, nature, is secondary, derivative. According to them, consciousness precedes matter, and nature arose from some sort of spiritual basis. Such philosophers are called idealists; they hold that underlying all that exists is idea, i.e., thought, spirit. These are the two camps into which philosophers are divided, that of the materialists and of the idealists. They have opposed each other throughout history of philosophy.

Hence, depending on how to tackle the fundamental question, the philosophers split into two groups. But the study and understanding of the world depends also on the method used by a particular philosopher to gain knowledge.

More at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/yakhot/1965/what-is-dialectical-materialism/first.htm