Contemporary problems of dialectical materialism
pp. 13-43
in: Richard De George, James Scanlan (eds), Marxism and religion in Eastern Europe, Berlin, Springer, 1976Abstract
As we use the term today, "dialectical materialism" refers to a comprehensive system of beliefs which can be divided into a metaphysical doctrine, a theory of knowledge, and an evolutionary philosophy of science. As a metaphysical doctrine, dialectical materialism is concerned with the question, "What is the ultimate substance of the world?"; as a theory of knowledge, it tries to resolve the issue, "How do we come to know the world?"; and as an evolutionary philosophy of science, it investigates the problem, "What are the laws of change which explain how more and more complex phenomena have evolved from simple ones and how the world has come to be what it is?". Since "philosophy of science", in the present day terminology, means the inquiry into the logical structure of scientific knowledge, dialectical materialism may be better characterized as a speculative cosmology in the sense in which A. N. Whitehead used the term, giving to his Process and Reality the subtitle An Essay in Cosmology. Speculative cosmology attempts to construct a categorial framework in which every element of our experience can be described as part of an orderly and lawful universe. Dialectical materialism emphasizes that this categorial framework is "formed in the process of historical development of science on the basis of social practice" and reflects the pervasive interconnection and interdependence of all phenomena.1
