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Definition: dialectical materialism from The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide

Political, philosophical, and economic theory of the 19th-century German thinkers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, also known as Marxism.


dialectical materialism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
official philosophy of Communism, based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , as elaborated by G. V. Plekhanov , V. I. Lenin , and Joseph Stalin . In theory dialectical materialism is meant to provide both a general world view and a specific method for the investigation of scientific problems. The basic tenets are that everything is material and that change takes place through “the struggle of opposites.” Because everything contains different elements that are in opposition, “self-movement” automatically occurs; the conflict of opposing forces leads to growth, change, and development, according to definite laws. Communist scientists were expected to fit their investigations into this pattern, and official approval of scientific theories in the USSR was determined to some extent by their conformity to dialectical materialism (see Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich ). Use of these principles in history and sociology is sometimes called historical materialism. Under these doctrines…
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology
MATERIALISM rejects idealist explanations of social and other phenomena and suggests that all phenomena are material. The notion of dialectic expresses the view that development depends on the clash of contradictions and the creation of a new, more advanced synthesis out of these clashes. The…
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Scientific theory and philosophical basis of Marxism . It asserts that everything is material, and that change results from the struggle of opposites according to definite laws. Its main application was in the analysis of human history. Karl Marx agreed with Hegel that the course of history is…
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
official philosophy of Communism, based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , as elaborated by G. V. Plekhanov , V. I. Lenin , and Joseph Stalin . In theory dialectical materialism is meant to provide both a general world view and a specific method for the investigation of scientific…
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Philosophical approach expressed through the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , and later by Georgy Plekhanov , Vladimir Ilich Lenin , and Joseph Stalin , the official philosophy of communism . Its central tenet, borrowed from Hegelianism , is that all historical growth, change, and…
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From Collins Dictionary of Sociology
the consolidation of MARX and ENGELS’ main ideas as a ‘scientific philosophy’. This scientistic rendering of MARXISM combined a Hegelian emphasis on MATERIALISM in asserting the DIALECTIC (contradiction and resolution) as the fundamental general law underlying all forms of development: in nature, in…
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
Term coined by Josef Dietzgen (1828–88) and used by the Russian Marxist Plekhanov as a name for Marx’s theory of history and consciousness, as expounded by Marx’s friend and collaborator, Engels . The term is now best used as a name for Engels’ own version of the theory (as expounded, e.g., in the…
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Full text Article Dialectical Reasoning and Dialectical Materialism

From International Encyclopedia of Human Geography
© 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 3, pp 137-142, © 2009 Elsevier Ltd., with revisions made by the Editor. Glossary Dialectics It is the science of the general and abstract laws of the development of nature, society, and thought. …
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From Collins English Dictionary
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Full text Article dialectical materialism

From Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
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