Dialectics of nature

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Dialectic of Nature is Friedrich Engels' unfinished work on the philosophy of the natural sciences, which sets out the fundamentals of materialism , in a critique of natural philosophy and metaphysical ideas that were common in the natural sciences of the mid-19th century.

The manuscripts consist of a total of four bundles from the years before and after the publication of Anti-Dühring , from which nothing was published during Engels' lifetime. After his death, two articles appeared in magazines ( part of the work on the incarnation of the apes. 1896; nature research in the spirit world. 1898).

The Dialectic of Nature was published completely in German for the first time in 1925 in the USSR, together with a Russian translation. Later editions: 1935 in the original language in the Marx-Engels complete edition : Friedrich Engels: Mr. Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft. - Dialectic of Nature 1873–1882 and a Russian edition in 1941, which was the model for further international editions.

Sketch of the overall plan

  1. Historical introduction: in natural science the metaphysical conception has become impossible due to its own development.
  2. Course of theoretical development in Germany since Hegel (old preface). The return to the dialectic is unconscious, therefore contradicting and slow.
  3. Dialectics as the science of the overall context, main laws: change of quantity and quality - mutual penetration of polar opposites and overlap when pushed to extremes - development through contradiction or negation of negation - spiral form of development.
  4. Connection between the sciences: mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, St. Simon (Comte) and Hegel.
  5. Aperçus on the individual sciences and their dialectical content:
    1. Mathematics: dialectical tools and phrases. - The mathematical infinite really occurs;
    2. Mechanics of Heaven - now dissolved into a process. - Mechanics: based on inertia, which is only the negative expression of the indestructibility of movement;
    3. Physics - transitions of molecular movements into one another, Clausius and Loschmidt;
    4. Chemistry: theories. Energy;
    5. Biology. Darwinism. Necessity and randomness.
  6. The limits of knowledge, Du Bois-Reymond and Nägeli - Helmholtz, Kant, Hume.
  7. The mechanical theory, Haeckel.
  8. The Plastidulseele - Haeckel and Nägeli.
  9. Science and teaching - Virchow.
  10. Cell State - Virchow.
  11. Darwinist politics and social theory - Haeckel and Schmidt. - Differentiation of man through work . - Application of economics to natural science. Helmholtz '»Work« (»Popular Lectures«, II)

swell

  1. ↑ Engels: Dialektik der Natur, p. 2. Digital Library Volume 11: Marx / Engels, p. 8321f (see MEW Vol. 20, p. 307f)

literature

  • Elmar Altvater : Rediscover Engels. The light blue ribbon as an introduction to the "dialectic of nature" and the critique of accumulation and growth . VSA Verlag, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-89965-643-5 .

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