《Philosophical Notebooks》—Reading Notes on “On the Question of Dialectics”
Lenin. (1990). On the Question of Dialectics. In Central Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee (trans.), Philosophical Notebooks (pp. 305–311). People’s Press.
Part One: Analysis and Summary of the Core Theoretical Issues in 《Philosophical Notebooks》—“On the Question of Dialectics”
I. The Core of Dialics: The Unity of Opposites and “Self-Movement”
Lenin states at the outset that the “unity of opposites” is the most fundamental law of materialist dialectics. This unity means that no objective thing, phenomenon, or process of development is isolated, singular, or rigid; each naturally contains two mutually exclusive yet mutually dependent aspects.
The key to understanding this law lies in grasping the interweaving of “identity” and “struggle.” On the one hand, the two opposites within a thing have opposing tendencies (such as positive and negative, attraction and repulsion, combination and decomposition, and ultimately the bourgeoisie and the proletariat); on the other hand, both sides must exist within the same unity. The existence of one presupposes that of the other, and if either side is severed, the entire unity disintegrates.
Lenin further makes a profound contrast between this dialectical view of development and the metaphysical view:
The metaphysical view of development: It sees change merely as quantitative increase or decrease, or as simple mechanical repetition. Unable to explain the internal causes of change, it ultimately attributes development to some theological external force, such as Newton’s “first mover.”
The dialectical view of development: It understands development as “the division of the one into two mutually exclusive opposites and the knowledge of their mutual relations.” Its greatness lies in revealing the “self-movement” of things—things need no external force to propel them. The intensification of internal contradictions, the struggle of opposites, and the rupture and reconstruction of unities are the fundamental sources driving leaps and eruptions in nature and human history.
This derivation of internal contradictions exists throughout every field: in physics and chemistry, the balance of positive and negative charges and the processes of combination and decomposition drive material change; in biology, opposing processes of assimilation and dissimilation together sustain the “metabolism” of life; and in the capitalist society analyzed by Marx, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat depend on one another within the same system of wage labor while remaining fundamentally opposed in their interests. Their class struggle and the final resolution of their contradiction—the abolition of private property—constitute the material force enabling society to leap to a higher stage.
II. The Particular and the Universal in Dialectics: The Historical Category of Capital
In Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin proposes a striking epistemological thesis: “The dialectics of bourgeois society is only a particular case of dialectics.”
To understand this statement, one must clarify the nature of materialist dialectics: it is the science of the general laws governing the movement and development of nature, human society, and human thought, and therefore possesses the highest universality. The “dialectics of bourgeois society” analyzed by Marx in Capital is only a concrete application and particular manifestation of this universal law within the specific historical stage and field of capitalist commodity production.
This particularity can be analyzed from three dimensions:
Particularity in the breadth of categories
Materialist dialectics encompasses not only the development of every material form in the universe (and, of course, the dialectics of human thought—“the struggle of ideas,” which will not be discussed here). Focusing on the material world, capitalist society is merely one particular stage in humanity’s long history, and an even smaller subset of the broader categories of nature and human society. Thus, opposing categories such as commodity and money, or capitalist and wage worker, are only special forms assumed by universal dialectical laws under a particular mode of production.
“Revealing the universal through the particular” as a path of cognition
Human cognition of objective truth always follows the logic of “from the particular to the general, from the special to the universal.” When Marx studied the vast field of dialectics, he did not discuss an abstract outline in midair; instead, he precisely selected the simplest economic cell of capitalist society: the “commodity.” By analyzing the most basic contradiction within the commodity—use value and value—Marx successfully revealed capitalism’s fundamental contradiction, thereby using the remarkable “particular” to verify and enrich the universal validity of dialectics. Lenin emphasizes this to remind later generations that constructing a complete materialist dialectics cannot be limited to economics; one must also follow Marx’s method in studying the history of natural science, technology, language, and other disciplines.
【The author’s takeaway is that, now that capitalism has developed to its present stage, revolutionaries of the new era—or the reserve forces of revolution—should no longer follow the educational policies prescribed by the bourgeoisie. They should not passively “learn” through narrow divisions such as the humanities and sciences, but should actively participate in social practice, engage with society, understand Marxism, and especially study philosophy. Today, capitalist countries are vigorously promoting “interdisciplinary integration” in higher education, but their purpose is merely to produce agents who are easier for them to use. Formally, education has become interdisciplinary; in substance, opportunism, ideological dictatorship, and even violence are still used to make it difficult for students to study freely and develop freely. But that is another topic. In short, studying Marxism requires not only practice and an understanding of its philosophical worldview, but also knowledge of political economy, the natural sciences, engineering, history, and so on. What impressed the author most was that, during university, a professor who was supposedly a great scholar of continental philosophy did not even know or understand some basic mathematics and natural science. Some so-called Western Marxists, including the Frankfurt School, know nothing about political economy yet spend all day speculating and imagining. Their philosophy thus becomes rootless, floating in the sky and turning into theology.】
【There are three basic laws of materialist dialectics: the law of the unity and struggle of opposites, the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, and the law of the negation of the negation.
In thought, cognition is not a straight line but a curved and spiral-like path. Humanity grasps objective truth through the contradictory movement of “trial and error—correction—renewed cognition.” Truth develops and is tested through its struggle with error. This is the law of the unity and struggle of opposites.
Struggles of ideas within the masses include materialism versus idealism, science versus superstition, and collectivism versus extreme individualism. Every advance in the realm of thought results from new ideas breaking through the shell of old concepts. As ideological struggle develops continuously, quantitative change gives rise to qualitative change. When the masses gradually overcome the inertial obstacles of old ideas and gain the dominant position, their spiritual outlook undergoes a fundamental transformation, and social consciousness exerts a powerful反作用 on social being. Profound changes in ideas ultimately become a material force for transforming the objective world.
Finally, there is the law of the negation of the negation. Development does not rise in a straight line, nor does it simply repeat in a circle; it advances “in a spiral” or “in waves.” (The best example is Chairman Mao’s theory of “unity—criticism—unity.”)
To explain this, take practice—cognition—re-practice as an example. First comes affirmation (sensuous practice): one acts from experience or intuition. Although one directly encounters objective reality, this process contains blindness and limitations. In other words, one acts first and thinks later—or, having never eaten a chestnut, one picks one up and eats it.
Next comes negation (theoretical/rational cognition): by summarizing experience, one formulates a theory, negating purely blind practice and elevating experience to the rational level (but if separated from reality, theory can easily become dogmatism). You pick up a chestnut, crack it open, and discover that it is bitter. Someone nearby tells you that chestnuts are sweet, so you hypothesize: this chestnut may have gone bad! Then comes the negation of the negation (theory returning to practice): theory guides new practice and is tested and developed through practice. This overcomes both the blindness of initial practice and the emptiness of theory, achieving the spiral-like advance of “practice, cognition, re-practice, re-cognition.”】
【“Objective dialectics” and “subjective dialectics.” Lenin mentions one point in this chapter. Hegel was the first to propose the concept, but although he spoke of objective and subjective dialectics as two things, in reality there was only one, because he believed in the existence of an “Absolute Spirit”; objective dialectics was essentially only the self-alienation and externalization of subjective dialectics (the absolute Idea).
Later, Engels gave an initially systematic account of dialectics in Dialectics of Nature, while critically developing and transforming Hegel’s dialectics. The original text reads: “The so-called objective dialectics prevails throughout nature, while the so-called subjective dialectics, the dialectical thinking, is merely the reflection of the forms of movement of nature, which, through their conflict of opposites, assert themselves in nature and become a unified whole or diverge, in thought.”
Put simply, objective dialectics (Objective Dialectics) means that the objective world—nature and human society—is primary and determining: objective processes such as material movement, class struggle, and natural evolution exist independently of human will.
Subjective dialectics (Subjective Dialectics) is the reflection of objective existence in the human brain, including human thought, concepts, and theoretical systems. It is secondary and determined—consciousness and reflection—manifested, for example, in the derivation of concepts, the transformation of logical categories, and strategic decision-making. Their unity means that subjective dialectics is the active reflection of objective dialectics in the human brain; through practice, subjective dialectics can react upon the objective world and guide people in transforming objective dialectical processes.】
Historical limitations in time
The dialectics of bourgeois society bears a strong character of antagonism and alienation, as seen in market crises, commodity fetishism, and class opposition. As this historical form of capitalism disappears, this particular antagonistic form of dialectics will also be transcended. Yet contradictions and dialectics will continue to exist eternally in non-antagonistic forms in future social formations and in nature.
III. “The Particular and the Universal” in Epistemology
In “On the Question of Dialectics,” Lenin uses the everyday examples “Ivan is a man” and “Zhuchka is a dog” to reveal the most basic yet profound categories of dialectical epistemology: the dialectical unity of the “particular” and the “universal.”
“This means that opposites (the particular is opposite to the universal) are identical: the particular exists only in connection with the universal. The universal exists only in the particular and through the particular. Every particular is in some way a universal. Every universal is a part, or aspect, or essence of the particular. Every universal embraces only approximately all the particular objects. Every particular enters only approximately into the universal, and so on. Every particular is connected with every other particular through thousands of transitions, and so on. Here already there are elements, germs, of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, and so forth. Here already there is the contingent and the necessary, phenomenon and essence, for when we say Ivan is a man, Zhuchka is a dog, and this is a tree, we disregard a number of attributes as contingent, we separate the essence from the appearance and contrast the two…” (p. 307)
This argument can logically be separated into four dimensions:
1. The mutual dependence of the “particular” and the “universal”
There is no “abstract humanity” or “abstract dog” suspended in midair; there are only concrete people such as Ivan and concrete dogs such as Zhuchka. Thus, “the universal exists only in the particular”: a concept has reality only when attached to a concrete body or object. Conversely, “every particular is a universal,” because Ivan naturally possesses all the shared characteristics of humanity.
2. The simplicity of concepts and the richness of individuals
Lenin points out that “the universal embraces all the particulars only approximately; no particular can be completely contained in the universal.” The universal concept “human being” is an abstraction from reality: it captures humanity’s essential core but necessarily sacrifices detail. The concrete Ivan is far richer than the word “human”; his height, blood type, personality, and appearance cannot be exhausted by an abstract concept.
3. The dialectical leap contained in the use of language
When people casually say “Ivan is a man” or “this is a tree,” their thinking is already engaged in a higher-order dialectical movement:
- Discarding the contingent and the phenomenal: thought automatically ignores superficial and accidental “phenomena,” such as what Ivan is wearing today or how long his hair is;
- Grasping the necessary and essential: through the confusion of appearances, it immediately recognizes his necessary essence as a “human being.”
(This is my personal understanding and may be incorrect.)
4. The germs of objective connection and necessity
Ivan is not an isolated existence. Through the concept “human,” he is connected with billions of human beings throughout history; through metabolism, he enters into countless relations with nature. When we say “Zhuchka is a dog,” we are not merely defining something; we are also acknowledging a certain necessity in the objective world—dogs follow their own biological hereditary and structural laws and will not suddenly become trees.
IV. The Epistemology and Theory of Reflection of Old Materialism
The core principle of materialist epistemology is the “theory of reflection,” which recognizes that the objective material world is primary, while human consciousness and concepts are the “reflection” of objective matter in the human brain. Lenin highly praised the great transformation achieved by Marx and Engels in introducing dialectics into the theory of reflection, and deeply analyzed three fundamental defects of the epistemology of old materialism—that is, metaphysical materialism:
Mechanicism and passivity
Old materialism, such as Feuerbach’s, treated “reflection” as an intuitive, passive, one-time process like taking a photograph, looking in a mirror, or stamping wax. It failed to recognize that human cognition of things is a process. Its “reflection” resembles seeing an object and immediately knowing it; people passively receive knowledge. This view completely strips away human practical agency, ignoring that people actively explore, perceive, and verify objective truth through dynamic practice that changes the world, such as productive labor and scientific experiments.
Metaphysical thinking and the view of stillness
Old materialism treated cognition as a rigid opposition between “knowing” and “not knowing,” believing that knowledge was unchanging and could be attained in one step. Dialectical materialism, by contrast, holds that humanity’s reflection of the objective world is an infinitely moving process full of contradictions and leaps; cognition always develops from a “less profound essence” toward a “more profound essence.”
In natural science, metaphysics asserted that light must be either particles or waves. If “light is particles” was correct, then “light is waves” had to be wrong. The two were irreconcilable and had to fight it out. (More examples are needed.)
Linearity and ignorance of the roots of idealism
Old materialism crudely reduced idealism and religion to ignorance, fraud, or nonsense. Lenin used dialectics to show that human cognition is not a straight line but a curve full of twists and spirals. When thought one-sidedly exaggerates a small segment of the cognitive curve—such as an abstract concept—and separates it from its material basis in reality, it naturally falls into idealism.
Thus, “applying dialectics to the theory of reflection” means recognizing cognition as an infinite cycle based on practice: “from living perception to abstract thought, and from abstract thought to practice.” Human thought approaches objective truth ever more closely by continuously overcoming contradictions between the subjective and the objective, and between appearance and essence.
Part Two: Additional Explanations of Philosophical Concepts
When studying Philosophical Notebooks and its theoretical background, several key philosophical and political categories require clear definition in order to avoid misunderstandings caused by confusion of contexts.
I. “Metaphysics”
“Metaphysics” is a concept whose meaning has undergone dramatic changes throughout the history of philosophy. In different academic contexts, it may represent the highest philosophical speculation or refer to a rigid and erroneous mode of thought.
[Western philosophical tradition] [Hegelian and Marxist philosophy]
Metaphysics Metaphysical Thinking
“First philosophy” studying the ----development----> A non-dialectical mode of thought
“things beyond nature/ultimate being” that is “isolated, static, one-sided”
1. Philosophical origins: “first philosophy” in the Western tradition. The universal definition of metaphysics
Aristotle wrote a series of works discussing natural phenomena (Physics) and another series exploring what transcends natural phenomena and the universe’s most fundamental laws. When later scholars organized his manuscripts, they placed the latter works after Physics and called them Meta-physics, meaning “the works after physics.”
When translating the term, the Japanese scholar Inoue Tetsujirō borrowed the ancient phrase from the Book of Changes: “What is above form is called the Way; what is below form is called an instrument.” “Below form” refers to concrete, perceptible things and physical phenomena; “above form” refers to ultimate truths and objective essences that transcend concrete forms and must be grasped through rational speculation, such as existence, the soul, and the essence of causality. In this context, “metaphysics” is a neutral, even exalted, academic concept.
Before Hegel, metaphysics mainly referred to the study of ultimate existence or essence beyond the senses, such as Aristotle’s “first philosophy.” At the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, Hegel first changed the usage of the term while establishing his system of idealist dialectics.
Hegel held that the old philosophy from Wolff to Kant—the so-called “old metaphysics”—habitually applied fixed, rigid conceptual categories to the living world. He called this “understanding” (Verstand). Understanding likes to classify, label, and draw sharp boundaries—for example, “if it is not A, it is B.” Hegel believed that this way of thinking saw only the static opposition of concepts while ignoring their dynamic internal development and unity of opposites.
2. In the Marxist context: a mode of thought opposed to materialist dialectics
When Hegel established his idealist dialectics, he redefined “metaphysics.” He criticized the habit of applying fixed, rigid conceptual categories to the living world as rigid “understanding” and labeled it “metaphysics.”
Marx and Engels rejected Hegel’s idealism but absorbed this critical perspective. In Anti-Dühring, Engels further identified the historical roots of this mode of thought: from the latter half of the fifteenth century to the eighteenth century, modern natural science mainly collected, classified, and analyzed material, as in dissection and botanical classification. Transferring this habit of “cutting things apart and viewing them in isolation” into philosophy produced metaphysical thinking.
In Marxist philosophy, metaphysics and dialectics form a clear opposition:
| Dimension | Dialectics | Metaphysical Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| State of things | Dynamic development, constant change | Static, unchanging, absolutely fixed |
| Relations among things | Universal connection and interaction | Isolated existence, severed and mutually unrelated |
| Source of change | Movement of internal contradictions within things | Ignores internal causes and blames external forces or quantitative increase and decrease |
| Logical feature | “Both this and that”—emphasizes mediation, transition, and transformation | “Either this or that”—clear-cut and forbidding intermediate states |
When criticizing old materialism such as Feuerbach’s, Marx and Engels pointed out that although it upheld the primacy of matter, it failed to see class contradictions and practical transformation in social history, and thus fell into the trap of “metaphysical materialism.”
II. Clericalism: Analyzing the Mechanisms of Spiritual Numbing and Privilege Maintenance
In the contexts of Marxism, historical materialism, and the sociology of religion, “clericalism” is a concept with a strong class-critical character. It refers not merely to religious officials wearing robes, but specifically to the mechanism and system by which ruling classes use religious doctrine, sacred authority, and spiritual control to preserve their privileges and numb working people’s consciousness of resistance.
Clericalism displays striking characteristics in historical and social operation:
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Deifying rule and legitimizing class relations
Clericalism explains existing systems of exploitation, class oppression, and the gap between rich and poor as “God’s will” or karmic destiny from a previous life. It tells the oppressed to endure, obey, and accept suffering, cleverly transforming the people’s will to struggle against real oppression into blind obedience to deities and rulers.
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Obscurantism and doctrinal repression
Clericalism is deeply hostile to reason, science, and critical thinking. By monopolizing interpretive authority, spreading superstition and dogma, and forbidding people to explore the objective laws of nature and society through materialist and scientific methods, it replaces living thought with unquestionable doctrine.
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Parasitism as an interest group
In historical practice, such as the medieval Catholic Church in Europe or the clerical estate under feudal serfdom, the clerical class often developed into a huge privileged landlord class with privileges of tax exemption, tax collection, and control over labor, becoming deeply tied to the bureaucratic ruling class.
In the famous introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Marx incisively wrote: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world … religion is the opium of the people.” Lenin likewise argued, when criticizing the mechanisms of social stabilization under capitalism, that the bourgeoisie needs two social functions to maintain its rule: the police (using direct violence to suppress resistance) and the clergy (comforting victims through preaching and persuading working people to endure suffering, thereby providing a form of spiritual stabilization that the police cannot achieve).
In modern political-economic analysis, the meaning of “clericalism” has been extended further. Any phenomenon or pseudoscientific system that “uses illusory ideological dogmas, worship of authority, and spiritual brainwashing to help the ruling class consolidate privilege, prohibit doubt, and promote obedience”—whether its outward form is traditional theology or a deified political dogma or rhetoric of exploitation—is essentially an extension of clericalism.