The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences

J. B. S. Haldane

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138954748
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317356202
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This book, first published in 1938, is based upon the Muirhead lectures on political philosophy delivered in the University of Birmingham in January and February of 1938. This title was intended to be of interest to students and scientific workers in the belief that Marxism will prove valuable to them in their scientific work, as well as to a wider audience.

1. Some Marxist Principles

I OWE two apologies to my audience and readers. In the first place I am not primarily a philosopher; but when I am asked to lecture on political philosophy, I can choose no more appropriate subject than the most political of all philosophies, that of Marx. The second apology is more serious. I am by no means qualified to speak on Marxism. I have only been a Marxist for about a year. I have not yet read all the relevant literature, although I had of course read much of it before I became a Marxist. The object of these lectures will not only be to enlighten my audience, but to clarify my own thoughts. It will be remembered that Socrates described himself as the mid-wife who helped the unborn thoughts of others into the world. I will ask my hearers and readers to function in that capacity in my own case.

Now we must ask ourselves at once, why is Marxism important? I think I may presume that the majority of my audience and a considerable fraction of my readers is hostile to it. Why should they worry about it? One reason is because it is a philosophy of very great practical importance, a philosophy which is not less important if one decides that it is entirely false. It makes a considerable difference to the conduct of its adherents. I believe that one could spend a week (in vacation time, at any rate) with the average academic philosopher without discovering whether he was an idealist or a realist, but I do not think that one could spend a day with a Marxist without discovering his tenets.

There are two other important philosophies which issue in action to a very considerable extent. The first is the scholastic philosophy, whose greatest exponent was St. Thomas Aquinas. That philosophy represents not merely the opinions of a few people, or even of the whole body of priests and monks, but the practice of the great medieval civilization. That philosophy is still active in guiding the activity of the Roman Catholic Church. It is, therefore, deserving of study whether we adhere or object to it, simply because the Catholic Church is a very important institution. The second of these practically important philosophies is what a century or two ago was called natural philosophy, and is now called science. It is, however, limited in its scope. It has certainly been successful in some fields. In others it has had less application. It has undoubtedly transformed the world.

Now Marxism claims to apply scientific method in the field of politics and economics, and to predict and to enable us to control the transformation of the world still further. Because it extends scientific method into the human field it throws a new light on science, as a human activity depending both on contemporary social and economic conditions and also on certain very general laws of human thought. It further lays down some principles which are said to hold throughout nature, as well as applying to human activities. We shall have to investigate these claims in what follows.

Above all, I believe that I am justified in giving these lectures because of the very remarkable misapprehensions which undoubtedly exist in many quarters regarding the Marxist philosophy. A good many people do not, I think, even know of its existence. They know nothing of the theoretical side of Marx’s work, except, perhaps, the doctrine of surplus value. If they hear that Marxism is materialism, they think materialism is the theory that man is a machine, or the denial of the existence of mind.

Now, until 1917, it might have been possible to dismiss Marxism as the doctrine of a small set of cranks, no more important than the doctrines of Bakunin, Sorel, or other revolutionary theorists. This was particularly so in England, where Marxism was largely ignored both in academic and political circles, whereas on the continent of Europe it was at least considered worthy of criticism. You will remember, however, one of the definitions of a crank, covering both the human and mechanical kinds, as “A little thing that makes revolutions”! It is now impossible to doubt the importance of Marxism, because Marxism was the philosophy of Lenin. It is very difficult to deny that Lenin was the greatest man of his time. Not that this admission need imply agreement with him. It is perfectly possible, without being a Mohammedan, to admit that Mohammed was the greatest man of his time. The philosophy of a man who has had so great and important an influence on world history as Lenin is undoubtedly worthy of investigation.

You will remember that Plato said that the ideal state was only possible when a philosopher became a king. Lenin was, amongst other things, a philosopher. We shall have to examine some of his philosophical views later on. He became, if not a king or even a dictator, the most important man, and the ideological leader, of a community covering most of the former Russian Empire. And that community is still largely guided by the principles which he laid down. The Soviet Union is certainly not the ideal state, for one reason because Marxists are not interested in ideal states, but in actual or possible states. Lenin’s philosophy is today very much alive, both in the Soviet Union, and among communists and other Marxists who are not members of the communist party, outside the Soviet Union. The intensity of the interest taken in philosophy in the Soviet Union may be gauged by the statement, which I believe to be true, that in 1936, one hundred thousand copies of a translation of certain of Kant’s works (I cannot believe they were his complete works!) were printed, and the whole lot sold out. Philosophy is at any rate a subject of very general interest in the U.S.S.R., and one result of communist propaganda in Britain has been a revival of interest in philosophy.

Such are some of the reasons why even those who are convinced of the truth of some other philosophy, and of the rightness of some other political practice, should be willing to make at least a superficial study of Marxism. My own reason for delivering these lectures is a different one. I think that Marxism is true.

Now, what is Marxism? Plekhanov, a Russian Marxist and predecessor of Lenin, began his book, Fundamental Problems of Marxism, with the statement: “Marxism is a complete theoretical system.” That is approximately true of the philosophy of Aristotle, St. Thomas, Spinoza, or Hegel. Clearly it is not true of the philosophy of Socrates. It is also untrue of Marxism. Marxism is not complete, not a system, and only in the second place theoretical. It is not complete because it is alive and growing, and above all because it lays no claim to finality. The most that a Marxist can say for Marxism is that it is the best and truest philosophy that could have been produced under the social conditions of the mid-nineteenth century. It is not primarily a system, but a method. As Marx said in the Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach:* “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways: the point is to change it.” Like Descartes, he regarded his philosophy as primarily a method, and although theory is essential in Marxism, Marx proclaimed the primacy of practice over theory.

This is not, of course, to say that Marxism does not include a great deal of systematic theory, which is to a large extent the fruit of the method. But the details of Marxist theory, like those of the theories of natural science, are the result of applying the method to concrete situations. And the theory which exists was built up with far more attention to observed facts and far less “pure thought” than the great philosophies of the past.

A few words are necessary about the historical origins and sources of Marxism. Marx was born in 1818 at Trier, in south-western Germany; his father was a Jewish lawyer who became a Protestant when Karl was six years old. His colleague, Friedrich Engels, to whom Marxism owes so much, was born in 1820 at Barmen, in Rhineland. His father was a German manufacturer. Both studied philosophy. Marx got his Doctorate for a thesis on the philosophy of Epicurus; they both became left-wing Hegelians, and later followers of Feuerbach. Marx wanted to become a philosopher, and it is likely that had he become a professor he would have been a good deal more innocuous to the social system in which he lived than actually proved to be the case. However, the Prussian Government dismissed a number of people like Feuerbach and Bauer, whose philosophical and political views, though radical, were very much milder than Marx’s views later became. Marx took to journalism. He was one of the founders of the radical Rheinische Zeitung in 1842. When it was suppressed in 1843, he went to Paris. Meanwhile, Engels had gone to Manchester in 1842, where he worked as a cotton broker and studied the life of the working people. His book, The Condition of the Working Class in England, was published in 1845.

In 1844, Marx and Engels met in Paris, and became lifelong friends. They came under the influence of French revolutionary theorists like Proudhon, and became Socialists. In 1845, at the instance of the Prussian Government, Marx was forced to leave Paris, and went to Brussels. By this time their views had been considerably clarified. They were in disagreement with Proudhon and other French leaders, and their economic and political outlooks were stated in the “Communist Manifesto,” which Engels drafted, and which was published in 1847.

In 1848, both took part in the revolution in Germany, Marx as a journalist, Engels as a soldier. From 1849 onward, they lived most of their lives in England until Marx died in 1883 and Engels in 1895. Marx lived in London, Engels in Manchester until 1871, when he, too, came to London.

Apart from their political work such as that involved in founding the International Working Men’s Association, later known as the First International, they wrote on a very large scale during those years. Marx’s most important book was, of course, Das Kapital, but in discussing the relation of Marxism to science we shall mainly be concerned with the views expressed by Engels. His most important books for our purpose are, Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in Science, written in 1878, and popularly known as Anti-Dühring, and a smaller book called Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, written in 1888. Finally, we have a large number of manuscript notes of Engels, which although never published in book form, have appeared in the Marx-Engels Archiv, under the title “Dialektik und Natur.” Anti-Dühring and Feuerbach are both polemical works, and most people find them easy to read. But they are somewhat of a puzzle for an ordinary philosophical student, for a number of reasons. It is important to remember that Dühring, whose writings Engels analysed with considerable sarcasm, was a Socialist and a materialist, with whom he had enough in common to furnish a real basis of argument. He attacked him with the greatest vehemence on the points on which they differed.

Again, Engels professed himself a disciple of Feuerbach, but was critical of his opinions in a number of respects. Similarly, his joint work with Marx, The Holy Family, was directed against Bruno Bauer, with whom they were in a considerable measure of agreement, and the Poverty of Philosophy was directed against Proudhon. It is a characteristic of all these books that they are written, not against open enemies, but against persons with whom the authors had a good deal in common. This makes them difficult reading for one who is accustomed to the average philosophical work, which is addressed to the whole world, so to speak, and not to a group with which the author has only a limited number of bones to pick.

Why, it may be asked, should Engels not have attacked such contemporaries as Comte, Mill, Spencer, or Green, from whom he differed on almost all points? Perhaps the answer is as follows. It was obvious that such philosophies as theirs would become obsolete in a relatively short time. Many of the political and economic theories of Mill and Spencer are simply irrelevant to modern conditions. On the other hand, the views of Dühring and Feuerbach are held by a good many modern Socialists. Engels attacked “right” theories, not in their crude form, but in their most dangerous form. In fact, he chose not the easiest, but the most difficult antagonists.

Lenin’s only important philosophical work is called Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. It was published in 1908 and was directed mainly against Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, and others who claimed to be Marxists. Lunacharsky later became one of Lenin’s colleagues in the Government of the U.S.S.R. At first reading, Lenin’s book might seem to be an attempt to impose a formal, narrow Marxist orthodoxy. Actually he is undoubtedly justified, when Bogdanov claims to be a Marxist, in quoting passages from Marx which disagree with Bogdanov. The whole book is a book characteristic of a fighter. His attacks are mainly directed against compromisers, whether within the Marxist movement, like Bogdanov and Lunacharsky, or outside it, like Mach and Avenarius. His opinion was that “non-partisans in philosophy are just as muddle-headed as in politics.” On the other hand he recognized and admired clear thinking wherever he found it, and in consequence was often extremely polite to his out and out opponents, like James Ward, to whom he refers in the following sentence, among others: “The question, as put by this frank and consistent spiritualist is remarkably clear and to the point.” Similarly, Karl Pearson is described as “this conscientious and honest enemy of materialism.” Besides this book, some short but most important manuscript notes by Lenin on philosophical problems have been published.

In these lectures, we shall mainly be concerned with the relationship of Marxism to science, as developed by Engels in Feuerbach and Anti-Dühring, and by Lenin. Lenin’s welcome to the new developments in physics, such as radio-activity and electrons, is particularly interesting as showing the relation of Marxism to discoveries which have been supposed to disprove its basic principles. However, Engels is the chief source, although he states expressly that most of the leading principles in his work derived from Marx.

Now a student of academic philosophy who takes up a study of Marxism will at first be disappointed. A great many questions are left unanswered, for two different reasons. Some were shown to be improperly put, and it was sufficient to demonstrate the historical reasons why they had been asked in the past. Others could not be answered on the existing data. Thus the relation between brain and mind is not in principle an insoluble problem; but it cannot be solved, except in the most summary manner, until we know a very great deal more, particularly about the brain. Marxism is not concerned mainly with being, but with becoming. It claims to enable us to understand change and development of all kinds, not only political and economic change and development, and by understanding to influence and to control them.

Most philosophers have treated time and change as more or less illusory, though since Hegel’s day they are more often taken seriously. An attempt is made to find a timeless being behind this changeable world. That is conspicuously so in the philosophy of Plato. It is worth pointing out that Christianity differs from most of the academic philosophies in ascribing a supreme importance to a number of events in time—the Creation, the Fall, the Redemption of Mankind, and the Last Judgement. That was particularly so in primitive Christianity; and as it ceased to be a revolutionary religion, certain theologians tried to make its theory more and more static. In the first centuries of Christianity, theology was considerably influenced by the neo-Platonists, and in our own day we find such philosophers as Dean Inge trying to minimize the temporal side of theology and to exalt the timeless side. It is not, of course, a mere coincidence that their political views are usually reactionary.

While Marxism makes what at the very least must be admitted to be an ambitious attempt to solve the problems of becoming, it has very little to say concerning the problems of being raised in the classical philosophies. It dismisses many of them as illusory problems which have arisen through unclear thinking. It postulates nothing behind matter, and therefore dismisses metaphysics. It certainly postulates an inexhaustible supply of properties of matter, but no more than that.

In the remainder of this chapter, I shall try to summarize some of the principles of Marxism, though mainly outside the economic field. I shall only deal in the most summary way with some of Marx’s economic and political theories in the last chapter; and as I am not an economist, I do not pretend that my treatment will be either novel or authoritative.

In the first place, we have the principle of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. Some Marxist Principles
• 2. Mathematics and Cosmology
• 3. Quantum Theory and Chemistry
• 4. Biology
• 5. Psychology
• 6. Sociology
• Index