ON THE SO-CALLED PHYSICAL CONCEPT OF MATTER

S. G. Suvorov

1. DOES LENIN HAVE TWO CONCEPTS OF MATTER?

In Soviet literature devoted to the philosophical works of V. I. Lenin, the judgment is widely current that Lenin distinguished the philosophical concept of matter from its physical concept, and that in this way Lenin introduced two concepts of matter.

This question deserves serious discussion in view of the principled conclusions that are drawn from the indicated formula. The present article sets itself the aim of showing that Lenin does not have and could not have had two—or even several!—concepts of matter, that this conception of “two concepts” of matter is contrived, and that it harms the cause of the Marxist reconstruction of the natural sciences and, above all, of physics.

1. Marxism was the first to give a scientific definition of matter as a philosophical category. This definition consists in the solution of “the great basic question of all philosophy, the question of the relation of thinking to being, of spirit to nature” (F. Engels). It affirms the primacy (priority) of matter over consciousness.

Can one give a substantially different definition of matter as a philosophical category?

No, one cannot.

Lenin considers this question, considers it in connection with the fact that the Russian Machist Bogdanov “refuted” such a definition. Lenin writes: “Bogdanov, pretending that he is arguing only with Beltov, and cowardly evading Engels, is indignant at such definitions, which, you see, turn out to be simple repetitions (‘Empirio-Monism,’ III, XVI p.) of the ‘formula’ (Engels’s, our ‘Marxist’ forgets to add) that for one trend in philosophy matter is primary and spirit secondary, while for another trend it is the reverse. All the Russian Machists in ec—

... they repeat Bogdanov’s “refutation”! And yet the slightest reflection could have shown these people that, in essence, one cannot give any other definition of the last two concepts of gnoseology except by indicating which of them is taken as primary... It is enough to pose the question clearly in order to understand what great nonsense the Machists are speaking when they demand of the materialists such a definition of matter as would not amount to a repetition of the fact that matter, nature, being, the physical is primary, while spirit, consciousness, sensation, the psychical is secondary”*).

The definition of matter given by Marxism as a philosophical category is maximally broad and all-embracing. It was the generalization of the centuries-long struggle of materialism against idealism, the conquest of dialectical materialism.

Marxism has scientifically substantiated the primacy of matter over consciousness. This truth, obtained by Marxism, is absolute; the development of the concrete sciences, in particular natural science, will only confirm it, giving it an ever broader foundation, and, consequently, confirming the Marxist definition of matter as a philosophical category. There is no other scientific definition of matter as a philosophical category, and there cannot be.

However, what has been said does not mean that the form of the definition of matter as a philosophical category remains unchanged, that it does not develop; the definition of matter, while preserving its basic content, becomes richer and sharper in the struggle against new forms of idealism. Such a development of the form of the definition of matter was given by Lenin in his brilliant work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.

In order to understand in precisely what sense Lenin defined matter as a philosophical category, and what was new in the sense of the development of the form that he introduced into this definition, we shall examine the circumstances of that ideological struggle in the course of which Lenin gave the definition of matter.

Thus, in what connection does Lenin define matter as a philosophical category? Against whom does he direct his definition?

2. As is known, Lenin’s book Materialism and Empirio-Criticism belongs to the period when idealism, taking advantage of the collapse of the old conceptions of matter that had taken shape among natural scientists, and of the gnoseological helplessness of metaphysical materialism, tried to interpret the then-newest revolution in physics in its own favor and against materialism. This idealism, against which Lenin directed the weapon of his geni—

) V. I. Lenin, Works, vol. 14, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism*, pp. 133–134. In what follows, references to the pages of this work are given in the text in parentheses.

al criticism, has its own peculiarities: the raising of epistemological questions, the use of the latest achievements of science, an attempt to present itself as a “third force,” standing “above” materialism and “above” idealism.

The idealists, especially the positivists, tried to confuse the basic question of philosophy concerning the relation of being and thinking, of matter and consciousness. They asserted that modern science supposedly rises above this opposition, that materialism and idealism are both unscientific, incompatible with modern science, and that allegedly only a positivist theory of knowledge is compatible with it.

The fact that the positivist form of idealism became predominant among other idealist schools in the twentieth century is no accident. It is connected with the development of the internal contradictions of capitalism, in particular with the contradictory position of the natural sciences under capitalism: the latter can develop successfully only on the basis of materialism, but the ruling classes, using the achievements of natural science in their class interests, interpret natural science idealistically and try to use it as a “justification” of idealism. This fact is also connected with that essentially new role of philosophy which, with the emergence of dialectical materialism, “became a scientific weapon in the hands of the proletarian masses fighting for their liberation from capitalism” (Zhdanov). The more strongly science drew into its orbit ever broader circles of the democratic strata, the sharper the class struggle in politics became, the sharper became the struggle of philosophical parties in natural science—the struggle of idealism and materialism. In this situation idealism had, and still has, to appear under the guise of scientificity, to mask itself with the cloak of “objectivity.”

In this sense positivism in science plays the same reactionary role as right-wing Social Democracy plays in politics, striving to present itself before the working class in the form of an ideology of a “third force,” supposedly standing “above” the “extremes” of capitalism and socialism, but in essence trying to embellish and cover up the most mature imperialism—American imperialism. The bourgeoisie came to need this “third force” as its own cover from the time when the proletariat entered the arena of political struggle.

1. Passing themselves off as a “third force” in philosophy, the positivists strive to confuse the question of reality. On the one hand, they fight against materialism and, therefore, against the recognition of any objective reality. On the other hand, they present themselves as adherents of the “theory of knowledge of the newest natural science”; this compels them to pretend that it is possible to reconcile their philosophy with natural science. Hence their coquetting with the concept of “reality.”

But what meaning do the positivists put into the concept of “reality”? For them, reality is a nebulous “object” of science, an “object” of thought and sensation, which is by no means matter. Thus, the positivists try to occupy a very “cunning” position: against matter, but for the “reality” of the object of cognition!

Such a positivist interpretation of reality had to be exposed as a flirtation with materialism whose purpose was to cover up idealism. This important task was accomplished by Lenin.

Can one in science operate with a concept of reality opposed to matter, as the positivists do? No, one cannot operate with such a concept. Lenin writes (in the paragraph entitled “Does Objective Truth Exist?”) that if this reality is objective, then for its definition there is only one philosophical concept—matter. Here is the relevant passage from Lenin: “Mach ‘discovered the elements of the world’: red, green, hard, soft, loud, long, etc., they tell us. We ask: is objective reality given to man when he sees red, feels hard, and so on, or not? This ancient, very ancient philosophical question has been confused by Mach. If it is not given, then you inevitably slide, together with Mach, into subjectivism and agnosticism, into the deserved embrace of the immanentists, i.e. of the philosophical Menshikovs. If it is given, then a philosophical concept is needed for this objective reality, and this concept has long, very long ago been worked out, and this concept is matter. Matter is a philosophical category for designating objective reality, which is given to man in his sensations, which is copied, photographed, reflected by our sensations, while existing independently of them” (116–117).

Let us note how Lenin poses the question: do not let fog be introduced with the “elements of the world”; there can be only two positions: either you interpret reality subjectively—and then you slide onto the idealist positions of Mach, or you interpret reality objectively, and then this is the most genuine materialism; there is no third way.

In defining matter as a philosophical category, Lenin is concerned not with proclaiming the legitimacy of the existence of a whole aggregate of concepts of matter: a philosophical one, supposedly suitable only for philosophy, a physical one—for physics, and so on, but with defending the only possible definition of matter as a philosophical category, namely, the definition of it that affirms the primacy of matter and the secondary character of consciousness. Lenin is not occupied with definitions, but is waging an ideological struggle against a concrete enemy of materialism, exposing the enemy’s evasions, his attempts to smuggle in idealism through the back door by confusing the question of reality.

There is no and cannot be any special “scientific” or “physical reality” standing above matter. Either you do not acknowledge reality as objective, and then you are an idealist, or you acknowledge it as objective, independent of man, etc., and then one must call a spade a spade, and reality—matter.

1. In the paragraph “What Is Matter? What Is Experience?” Lenin deepens the same idea. He exposes the conjuring tricks of the idealists Avenarius, Mach, Pearson with “reality,” which... is not matter. Avenarius does not deny that matter is something “physical”*), but demands recognition that this “physical” is a counter-member to the central member—the Self. In other words, playing with the words “matter,” “physical,” Avenarius decides the highest question of philosophy in favor of the “central member—the Self,” i.e., of consciousness over matter.

Mach likewise introduces the little word “element” as something with which consciousness has to do. However, Mach’s aim is the same—to smuggle idealism under the banner of “elements of the world.” Lenin writes: “Mach thinks that, in putting forward such an assertion, he is effecting a ‘radical reversal’ in the ordinary worldview. In fact this is the oldest of old subjective idealism, whose nakedness is covered by the little word ‘element’” (132).

The hardened English idealist Pearson goes still “further”; he “does not object” to the use of the word “matter.” But what is it in Pearson’s mouth? “From the scientific point of view there can be no objection to classifying certain more or less constant groups of sense-impressions, uniting them together and calling them matter—we thus come very close to J. S. Mill’s definition: matter is a permanent possibility of sensations—but such a definition of matter is quite unlike the one which says that matter is a thing that moves”**). Concerning what has been said, Lenin observes that here there is not even the fig-leaf of “elements,” and the idealist directly extends his hand to the agnostic.

In opposition to all these idealist tricks, Lenin again points to the essence of matter as a philosophical category in the following formulation: “Matter is that which, acting upon our sense-organs, produces sensation; matter is the objective reality given to us in sensation, and so forth” (133).

We see once again that Lenin speaks of matter as a philosophical category in the plane of solving “the highest question of all philosophy, the question of the relation of thinking to being, of spirit to nature.”

*) Lenin makes a parenthetical remark on this word “physical”: “i.e., most familiar and immediately given to man; no one doubts its existence, except the inmates of yellow houses” (132).

**) Quoted from Lenin, ibid.

1. Is Lenin’s definition of matter an advance of Marxism, or is it merely a repetition of Engels’ formula? Undoubtedly, the Leninist formula is an advance of Marxism; it includes Engels’ formulation of the question of the relation between matter and consciousness (and consequently is directed against all idealism in general) and something new, for it is expressed in a new form that is directly directed against positivist evasions, against the “third force” in philosophy that emerged during the period of crisis and vacillation among physicists.

Even today, in foreign natural science, the positivists employ similar flirtations with “reality,” which is invariably interpreted subjectively. In the book The Evolution of Physics, A. Einstein constantly speaks of physical reality, but in the end it turns out that this reality is created by science itself—science which, according to Einstein, is not a reflection of the objective world, but “a creation of the human mind, with its freely invented ideas and concepts”). Jordan does not deny atoms, as his spiritual father Mach still did. But what is an atom, according to Jordan? “The atom is only a framework for the classification of experimental facts”). Modern physics deals with many objects that are not perceived directly. The present-day positivists try to make use of the peculiarity of the microworld, casting a fog over the concept of “reality.” The well-known physicist-Machist Ph. Frank writes: “‘Electron’ is the totality of physical quantities introduced by us for establishing a system of principles from which we can logically derive the readings of the pointer of a physical instrument. If we call these instruments ‘physical objects,’ then ‘electrons’ or ‘photons’ can be so called only by virtue of a certain change in the meaning of the term ‘physical object.’ But we must never forget that there is no sense in the question of what the ‘reality’ of a physical object is”**). According to Frank, as we see, the reality of the physical instrument and the reality of the electron or photon, if one may say so, are not of the same degree, and in general the question of the reality of the physical object is meaningless.

We see the direct connection of these ideas of present-day positivists in physics with the statements of the idealists against whom Lenin fought—namely Mach, Pearson, and others—ideas that even in form coincide with one another (compare how Pearson “allowed”

) A. Einstein and L. Infeld, The Evolution of Physics*, Gostekhizdat, p. 261.

) P. Jordan, Physics of the 20-th century, Philosophical Library, New-York, 1944.

) International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, vol. 1, No. 7, Ph. Frank, Foundations of Physics*, University of Chicago Press, 1946, p. 54.

matter for the classification of constant groups of sense perceptions, while Jordan “admits” the atom for the classification of experimental facts).

Thus, the new Leninist formula helps expose idealism in its disguised form; it helps in our own day just as it helped forty years ago. Lenin’s definition of matter as a philosophical category at the same time includes the answer to the question of what is primary (matter—objective reality) and what is secondary (consciousness), and also resolves the question of the reflection of the former in the latter—of the knowability of matter. It is clear that Lenin’s definition of matter is a further development of Marxism.

1. Lenin returns to the definition of matter on another occasion as well: in connection with the analysis of the crisis in physics. In this case, too, Lenin has in view a feature of positivism—its relativism, its attempt to rely on modern natural science in order to liquidate materialism.

As is known, Lenin saw the essence of the “crisis of modern physics” in the fact that “the new current in physics sees in theory only symbols, signs, marks for practice, i.e. denies the existence of objective reality independent of our consciousness and reflected by it” (243).

The old physics considered theories to be a reflection of objective reality; but it regarded this objective reality as immutable, and considered its reflection not as a process of movement toward absolute truth through relative truths, but as a single act in which truth is reflected at once, absolutely, to the end. Therefore all the theories of the old physics appeared as something absolute, congealed.

The new discoveries in physics undermined this metaphysics of cognition. To preserve it meant to hinder the forward movement of science, to create a dead end.

The “new current in physics” was ready to overcome this metaphysics; it was ready to recognize all concepts and regularities as not absolutely immutable but relative. However, under the influence of positivism it slid into denying the objective basis of theories; physicists inclined toward positivism reasoned according to the method: relative means subjective, conditional. Thus, together with the water, they threw the baby out of the bath.

The positivists made the relativity of our knowledge the starting point of their idealist philosophy.

Of course, our cognition is realized through relative truths. But the fact of the historical relativity of knowledge gives no grounds for denying the material world. Through relative truths absolute truth is expressed. It was necessary to

to draw a fundamental distinction between relativistic agnosticism and idealism, on the one hand, and dialectical materialism, on the other.

But what, fundamentally, distinguishes dialectical materialism from relativistic agnosticism, if not the different answer to the question of recognizing the objectivity of matter? Lenin reveals this distinction in the following words: “The ‘essence’ of things, or ‘substance,’ is also relative; they express only the deepening of human knowledge of objects, and if yesterday this deepening did not go beyond the atom, and today does not go beyond the electron and the ether, then dialectical materialism insists on the temporary, relative, approximate character of all these milestones in the knowledge of nature by the progressive science of man. The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom; nature is infinite, but it infinitely exists, and this sole categorical, sole unconditional recognition of its existence outside the consciousness and sensation of man is what distinguishes dialectical materialism from relativistic agnosticism and idealism” (249).

Thus, Lenin directs his definition of matter against the attempts of positivism to drag idealism into science, hiding behind the banner of the relativity of our knowledge.

1. Positivism proceeds from the proposition that physical science is capable of resolving the epistemological question of the existence of the material world, as though modern physics had already resolved this question, and moreover in the negative.

The theoretical illiteracy of this position is obvious to a Marxist. However physics (or any other natural science) may develop, whatever curious conclusions it may reach regarding former physical conceptions, physics cannot justify “the disappearance of matter.” The existence of matter can be neither justified nor refuted by physics. Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge was the first to show scientifically that the existence of the material world is justified not by logic, not by a separate science in itself, but by all the activity of mankind, in the process of which it consciously changes objective nature, and thereby proves the truth of its conceptions of the external world*).

) On the question of how Marxism justifies the existence of the material world, even Plekhanov failed to understand it, “who wrote the truly absurd phrase that ‘faith’ in the existence of the external world ‘is an inevitable salto vitale*’ (a vital leap) ‘of philosophy’” (“Note to L. Feuerbach,” p. III). Lenin concludes on this point: “The expression ‘faith,’ although taken in quotation marks and repeated after Hume, reveals a confusion of terms in Plekhanov,—there is no doubt” (128).

Lenin attacks with all his force the idealist conclusions of positivism drawn from the latest revolution in physics: “In what does the real connection of philosophical idealism with the ‘disappearance of matter’ consist? This Mr. Valentinov has absolutely failed to understand. As for the ‘disappearance of matter,’ of which he speaks following the contemporary physicists, it has no relation to the epistemological distinction between materialism and idealism... Materialism and idealism differ in one or another solution of the question of the source of our knowledge, of the relation of knowledge (and the ‘psychical’ in general) to the physical world; whereas the question of the structure of matter, of atoms and electrons, is a question concerning only this ‘physical world’” (246).

It is precisely these words of Lenin’s that are most often cited in support of the idea that Lenin separated the philosophical concept of matter from the physical one, as though he believed that philosophy is not concerned with the question of what conceptions of the structure of matter are developed by physicists (and other natural scientists).

But if one looks into the essence of the struggle that Lenin waged against positivism, it is easy to see that his concern was not the task of bringing physicists’ conceptions of matter under the aegis of philosophy,* but the defeat of the groundless claims of positivism, as though physics were in a position to solve the question of the relation of thought to being, of consciousness to matter, as though it had already solved this question of the existence of the material world in the negative sense. “‘Matter disappears,’ says Lenin, ‘this means that the limit up to which we have known matter until now disappears, our knowledge goes deeper; such properties of matter disappear as formerly seemed absolute, immutable, primary (impenetrability, inertia, mass, etc.) and which are now revealed as relative, inherent only in certain states of matter’” (247).

And here Lenin again repeats the fundamental epistemological premise of materialism: “For the sole ‘property’ of matter with the recognition of which philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our consciousness” (247).

Of course, Lenin’s proposition that it is wrong to think of matter as something fixed and immutable strikes at the views of the metaphysicians concerning matter. The presence of such metaphysical views of matter, naturally, helps the idealists to confuse the question of matter, for it is easier to fight against the recognition of matter if no new properties, unusual from the point of view of the old metaphysical conceptions, can be explained from it. But in advancing

*) We shall return to the question of the connection of philosophy with the natural sciences in the second part of this article.

proof that our concrete knowledge of the structure of individual forms of matter is historically conditioned, that in the course of cognition it continues to change and deepen, Lenin raises and resolves the question not of the physical concept of matter, but of the movement of our cognition toward absolute truth through relative truths.

Some physicists believe that, since every science has its own subject, it also develops its own concept of matter: physics—a physical concept of matter, biology—a biological one, and so on. Therefore, the same scholars assert, imperceptibly to themselves distorting the whole formulation of the question—therefore the physical concept of matter is the subject of physics, the biological one the subject of biology, and so on, while the philosophical concept is the subject of philosophy, to which physics allegedly has no direct relation.

This is a misconception. There is no doubt that every science has its own subject, including physics. But is the subject of physics the “physical concept of matter”? Physics studies not the “physical concept of matter,” but the physical forms of motion that express the specificity of the motion of certain kinds of matter—nuclei, atoms, and so forth; by virtue of this, with equal justification one may say that physics studies specific, physical forms of matter—nuclei, atoms, and so forth.

But by that very fact physics still does not develop its own “physical concept of matter” as a special concept standing alongside the philosophical concept of matter. It deals with concrete forms of matter, and if physicists use the concept of matter correctly, then this concept has the meaning of a philosophical category*).

The idea that a concrete science—physics—by studying the question of the structure of matter thereby in no way resolves the basic gnoseological question of the relation of thinking to being is expressed by Lenin already in the first formulation of the definition of matter: “But it is absolutely impermissible to confuse, as the Machists do, the doctrine of this or that structure of matter with the gnoseological category—to confuse the question of new properties of new kinds of matter (for example, electrons) with the old question of the theory of knowledge, the question of the sources of our knowledge, of the existence of objective truth, and so forth.” (116).

Thus, Lenin resolves the fundamental, gnoseological question of whether the development of physics can shake

) Of course, one must not close one’s eyes to the fact that natural scientists often apply the concept of matter incorrectly, for example, as a synonym for substance, or oppose “radiant energy” to matter, and so forth. This usage has survived from those times when the majority of natural scientists stood in the positions of mechanistic materialism. But the struggle against the incorrect understanding of matter by some natural scientists must not be confused with the question of how the concept of matter should be interpreted by a Marxist*.

materialist solution of the basic question of philosophy concerning the relation of matter and consciousness, resolves it in the negative sense. This is an extremely important idea of Lenin’s. By concretizing and developing the general propositions of Marxism on the criterion of knowledge of the material world, this proposition arms materialists in the struggle against all sorts of claims by idealist schools to assert that they arrive at idealist conclusions on the basis of an analysis of the achievements of contemporary natural science.

This by no means signifies that Lenin thereby created two concepts of matter—the philosophical and the physical—as though he had drawn a boundary line for the competence of philosophy. It is clear that Lenin’s formulation of the question not only does not remove but, on the contrary, poses the task of struggling for a correct reflection of the material world by physics or by another science, for a materialist theory of knowledge within them.

1. We have examined all the passages in which Lenin gives a definition of matter as a philosophical category. The profoundest meaning of this definition is revealed in the analysis of the tricks of the enemies of materialism that Lenin exposed with his definition.

Lenin directed the definition of matter against the positivists’ attempt to occupy a special position in the struggle between materialism and idealism (supposedly “above” materialism and “above” idealism); against the positivists’ playing with the concept of reality, which they allow in science but interpret subjectivistically; against philosophical relativism, which denies the objective basis of scientific theories; against the proposition that physics is in a position to resolve, and has already resolved in the negative sense, the gnoseological question of the existence of the material world. In all cases Lenin counterposes the definition of matter to the subjective position of the agnostics and idealists; in all cases the definition of matter is given by Lenin in one and the same plane—in the plane of resolving the basic gnoseological question of the relation of thought and being, and we have seen that Lenin himself emphasizes precisely this plane of the definition of matter, for no other definition can be given.

Is it legitimate to infer from this definition that Lenin believed there exist two concepts of matter—the philosophical and the physical? It seems to us that such a conclusion is illegitimate. Lenin has no two concepts of matter. He has only one, the only possible, definition of matter as a philosophical category.

In the same plane as Lenin, but still more fully, Comrade Stalin also defines matter as a philosophical category: “Marxist philosophical materialism proceeds from the fact that matter, nature, being represents objective reality,

existing outside and independently of consciousness, that matter is primary, since it is the source of sensations, representations, consciousness, while consciousness is secondary, derivative, since it is a reflection of matter, a reflection of being; that thought is a product of matter which has attained in its development a high degree of perfection, namely—a product of the brain, and the brain is the organ of thought; that therefore thought cannot be separated from matter without falling into a gross error” *).

Characterizing the basic features of dialectical materialism, Comrade Stalin, like Lenin, gives a single definition of matter as a philosophical category. There are not and cannot be several fundamentally different definitions of matter.

2. THE CONCEPTION OF TWO CONCEPTS OF MATTER AND WHEREIN LIES ITS HARM

9. Although Lenin has no propositions concerning two concepts of matter, nevertheless many Soviet philosophers and physicists assert that Lenin created a doctrine of two concepts of matter.

We shall not investigate how widespread this point of view has become. As an example we shall consider certain propositions of Prof. V. M. Pozner’s article “Lenin on the Philosophical and Physical Concept of Matter,” as expressing this line most prominently **).

The very title of his article already speaks of V. M. Pozner’s position. According to V. M. Pozner, the distinction between two concepts of matter was the highest achievement of Marxist thought: “The distinction established by Lenin between the philosophical and the physical concept of matter was a remarkable summation of the entire preceding long development of philosophical materialism.”

V. M. Pozner evaluates the activity of the former materialist schools in the light of the question—did they distinguish two concepts of matter, or not.

Thus, the author sees the shortcoming of the philosophy of the French materialists in the fact that they identified these two concepts: “The materialists,” writes V. M. Pozner, “came very close to the correct philosophical concept of matter when they wrote: ‘...in relation to us matter is everything that affects our senses in some way’ (Holbach). But the old materialists did not manage to draw the line between the philosophical and the physical concept of matter. Owing to the mechanistic and metaphysical character of their method, they reduced matter to physical substance, identifying the philosophical and physical concept of matter” (emphasis mine—S. S.).

) I. V. Stalin, Questions of Leninism, 11th ed., p. 542.
*) “Science and Life,” No. 1, 1949. We do not set ourselves the task of a complete analysis of this article.

Thus the French materialists received from V. M. Pozner a reproach for not having anticipated his conception a century and a half ago.

It turns out, further, that “the expression (? — S. S.) of bourgeois physicists, ‘matter has disappeared,’ is the result of an illegitimate confusion of the philosophical and physical concepts of matter.” They illegitimately confused two concepts and... fell into idealism. That is all there is to it*). Is it not clear that here the class and gnoseological basis on which physical idealism grew up has been smeared over, the analysis of which Lenin devoted an entire book?

For V. M. Pozner, the demarcation of two concepts of matter is not only a criterion in assessing past errors, but also a recipe for avoiding future ones: “A clear distinction should be drawn between the philosophical and physical understanding of matter, since identifying these concepts would lead to vacillations and doubts as to the truth of materialism with the discovery of new, unknown properties of matter.” Is it not clear that the “truth of materialism” is proved not by a distinction between two concepts, that this thought contradicts the entire spirit of Marxism? Engels already said that the materiality of the world “...is proved not by a pair of conjuring phrases, but by the long and arduous development of philosophy and natural science” (see Lenin, p. 104).

Finally, it turns out that “the demarcation of the philosophical and physical concepts of matter provided the key (! — S. S.) to overcoming this crisis (in physics. — S. S.). It is also in our time the only correct path for overcoming the crisis of contemporary natural science.” Unfortunately, the author has not analyzed a single contemporary idealist trend in physics and has not shown concretely how one should operate with this key, thereby substantiating his assertion.

We shall return later to this question, as a very important one.

Such, in brief, is this conception of the “two concepts” of matter, set forth in the words of Prof. V. M. Pozner. We see what enormous significance is attached to it. It is honored as an important achievement of Marxist thought, as “a remarkable result of the entire preceding lengthy development of philosophical materialism”; it is regarded as a powerful weapon in the struggle against contemporary idealism.

*) The same ideas are expressed also by A. Maksimov: he writes as though Lenin “proved that the skeptical and agnostic conclusions of the Machists are a consequence of their confusing the philosophical concept of matter, denoting objective reality, with the physical understanding of matter, with various physical doctrines concerning the structure of matter” (A. Maksimov, “Marxist Philosophical Materialism and Contemporary Physics,” Voprosy filosofii, 3, 1948, p. 109. (emphasis mine — S. S.).

In fact, this is not at all so. We shall try below to show that the conception of “two concepts” of matter does not help the struggle for Marxism in natural science, but weakens it.

1. Let us point out first of all that in the conception of “two concepts” of matter the question of the ways in which Marxist philosophy and the particular sciences are interconnected becomes confused.

This question cannot be evaded. If every science develops for itself its own concept of matter—philosophy its own, physics its own, and so on—then in this conception there disappears, first and foremost, the guiding significance of Marxist philosophy as an instrument of scientific cognition.

In order to avoid this dangerous path, V. M. Pozner makes reservations to the effect that, although Lenin allegedly distinguished two concepts of matter, dialectics requires that they not be torn apart completely, but distinguished in such a way that they are at the same time connected. How, in his opinion, is this connection effected? He writes: “Both of them (i.e., the philosophical concept of matter and the ‘physical concept of matter.’—S. S.) are directed toward one object—matter, as an objective reality independent of consciousness. But whereas the first concept embraces the most general properties of this objective reality—matter, the second embraces its concrete properties. One concept is directed toward the general, the other toward the separate, the particular, the concrete.” Further, the author refers to the dialectic of the general and the separate. But this reference does not help, for in the dialectic of the general and the separate the general does not exist otherwise than through the separate, whereas in V. M. Pozner’s “dialectic” of the connection of the “two concepts” there turn out to be two independent series, with “one concept directed toward the general, the other toward the separate.”

Some even speak of a certain “single,” “universal” concept of matter. But what is united in this “single” concept? The Marxist definition of matter as a philosophical category with the “physical concept of matter”? What results from this “unification”? Some new concept which, apparently, is supposed to be (according to the intention of the authors of the “unification”) a more general, so to speak, higher concept of matter? But what could be a more general definition of matter than the indication of its primacy in relation to consciousness? It is precisely in the scientific substantiation of this definition of matter that the highest achievement of Marxist philosophy consists. Any other posing of the question of some single, synthetic concept of matter reduces the role of Marxist philosophy and its epistemological propositions (on the primacy of matter!) to something by its nature indeterminate.

All these absurdities result from the fact that, alongside the philosophical concept of matter, a “physi-

cal concept of matter,” of the same order as the first, and then it is investigated what the connection may be between the concepts created in this way.

But not all supporters of this conception make reservations about the connection between the two concepts. In his time A. Deborin wrote: “Whatever the successes of the physical sciences may be, they do not affect the philosophical doctrine of matter”*). Thus Lenin’s argument, profound in its content and irrefutable, against the “physical” idealists—that whatever new discoveries physics may arrive at, it cannot shake materialism—is replaced in this formulation by another: the successes of the physical sciences do not affect the philosophical doctrine of matter. This conclusion contradicts Engels’ well-known formula on the development of the form of materialism with each epoch-making discovery even in the field of natural science. Philosophical materialism thereby proved to be completely divorced from concrete science—physics.

These malicious insinuations are the result of failing to understand that one thing is the definition of matter as a philosophical category, in which the solution to the basic question of philosophy is given—the primacy of matter—and another thing is the Marxist doctrine of matter, of the forms of its existence.

1. The Marxist doctrine of the forms of existence of matter is inseparably connected both with the foundations of materialism and with the development of the concrete sciences. We shall first consider the first question.

Marxism has always attached exceptional importance to the struggle for recognition of the objective forms of the existence of matter. Matter conceived outside the objective forms of existence is the thinnest abstract concept, to which nothing outside man corresponds. “Matter” outside the objective forms of existence can be suitable only as that very framework for the classification of groups of sense perceptions which Pearson “agrees to admit.” It is no accident that the physicist-idealists fight with great zeal against recognizing the objective forms of the existence of matter; for example, they assert that modern quantum mechanics has refuted the spatio-temporal forms of existence of the microworld, causal connection, and so forth.

Marxism has always regarded recognition of the objective forms of the existence of matter as a fundamental requirement of materialism.

Thus, speaking of space and time as forms of the existence of matter, Lenin writes: “Recognizing the existence of objective reality, i.e. of moving matter, independently

*) A. Deborin, Lenin—Militant Materialist, Under the Banner of Marxism, Nos. 1, 2 (1924).

from our consciousness, materialism inevitably must (emphasized by me. S. S.) recognize also the objective reality of time and space... as things and bodies are not simple phenomena, not complexes of sensations, but objective realities acting upon our senses, so too space and time are not simple forms of phenomena, but objectively real forms of being. There is nothing in the world except moving matter, and moving matter cannot move otherwise than in space and in time” (162).

The conclusion of Marxism concerning space and time as forms of the being of matter is not an a priori dogma, but a generalization of the entire lengthy process of cognition of the material world by the various concrete sciences. Newtonian physics, as is known, did not regard space and time as the form of existence of matter itself; in the conception of the Newtonians, space and time were separated from moving matter, representing something absolute, an empty framework for material processes that had appeared from no one knows where. Kantians and positivists subjectivized space and time, declaring them forms of human contemplation. The development of physics provided ever new proofs of the contradiction between the views of the Newtonians, Kantians, and positivists and the results of genuine science. But only Marxism showed that the motion of matter cannot be considered outside the spatial-temporal forms of its being, that such is the outcome of the development of all natural science.

Lenin evaluates causality and necessity in nature in precisely the same way: “The question of causality has an especially important significance for determining the philosophical line of one or another of the newest ‘isms,’ and we must therefore dwell on this question in somewhat greater detail” (140). And further, after setting forth L. Feuerbach’s materialist position on this question: “Feuerbach’s recognition of the objective law-governedness of nature is in inseparable connection with the recognition of the objective reality of the external world, of objects, bodies, things, reflected by our consciousness. Feuerbach’s views are consistently materialist... The recognition of the objective law-governedness of nature and of the approximately faithful reflection of this law-governedness in the human head is materialism” (emphasized by me. S. S.) (142).

Law-governedness, necessity in nature, does not exist by itself; it is an expression of the properties of matter, a form of its existence. “The world outlook of materialism expounded by J. Dietzgen recognizes,” says Lenin, “that ‘causal dependence’ is contained ‘in the things themselves’” (145).

Lenin fights just as mercilessly against the attempts of the Machists to separate motion from matter, to regard motion not

as the form of existence of matter, only then to be separated from matter itself as well. Matter, according to Lenin, is unthinkable without motion, just as motion is unthinkable without matter. Immediately after defining matter as objective reality, existing independently of human consciousness and reflected by it, Lenin writes: “But dialectical materialism insists on the approximate, relative character of every scientific proposition concerning the structure of matter and its properties, on the absence of absolute boundaries in nature, on the transformation of moving matter from one state into another that, from our point of view, is apparently irreconcilable with it, and so on” (248). These “requirements,” of course, are not dogmatic requirements: they are the result of the most profound generalizations of all the natural and social sciences. Lenin goes on to say that however strange, from the point of view of “common sense,” the transformations of one kind of matter into another may be, however strange the absence in the electron of any mass other than electromagnetic mass, “however unusual the limitation of the mechanical laws of motion to only one region of natural phenomena and their subordination to the deeper laws of electromagnetic phenomena, and so on—all this is merely further confirmation of dialectical materialism” (248).

What, then, is the “further confirmation” of dialectical materialism? Could it be its indifference to the question of the structure of matter? No, it seems to us that Lenin says this with a view to the positive content of dialectical materialism, i.e. the totality of its views on matter, according to which kinds of matter are transformed into one another, certain laws of whose motion appear as the principal ones in one domain and turn out to be subordinated to another principal form of motion in the transition to another domain of phenomena.

It is known that Lenin set the task, in each concrete case, of revealing the source of the motion of matter, the contradictory tendencies of its development, and decisively fought against that conception of the development of matter which saw only quantitative growth, only increase or decrease, and excluded the emergence of qualitatively new forms of matter and its motion.

These propositions concerning the forms of existence of matter were further developed by Comrade Stalin in a number of his works and especially in the work “On Dialectical and Historical Materialism.”

1. What, then, is the connection between the doctrine of the forms of existence of matter and the development of the concrete sciences, above all physics?

It is known that one of the most important tasks of materialist natural science and philosophy consists in explaining all phenomena studied by the concrete sciences from nature itself.

matter, from the properties inseparably inherent in it. Only such a materialist approach gives into the hands of the knowing human being a weapon for actively acting upon nature, for changing it.

The history of science knows primitive conceptions of matter as inactive, undeveloping, the forms of which were imagined as not connected with one another. But precisely this led to the fact that in Newtonian physics, alongside matter, forces were admitted that were independent of it and opposed to it; in astronomy there remained a place for the divine impulse that set the spring of the universe in motion; in biology—for vital forces, etc., etc. Such an appeal to supramaterial forces condemned man to helplessness and contradicted the very essence of scientific cognition.

The task of explaining all phenomena of nature from nature itself has never been removed, and could not be removed, from science, despite all social contradictions; for before science, often not in a direct but in a veiled and unconscious form, there always stood another, fundamental task—to explain the phenomena of nature for practical purposes. The latter could not be solved without solving the former.

It was precisely the necessity of explaining all phenomena of nature from nature itself, for the practical purposes of acting upon it, that compelled the abandonment of earlier, meager conceptions of matter, compelled the enrichment of general conceptions of matter, of its properties, of its interrelations and mutual transformations—in a word, the creation of a doctrine of the forms of existence of matter in connection with the development of the concrete sciences. As is known, Marx and Engels were the first critically to generalize the development of the social and natural sciences of their time and to bring the general philosophical doctrine of matter into conformity with the positive achievements of the sciences, thereby creating dialectical materialism.

Marx and Engels were the first to point out the connection of the form of materialism with the concrete sciences, in particular with natural science. Engels wrote: “With every epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural history (and Lenin, quoting this proposition of Engels and therefore agreeing with it, adds in parentheses, relying on Engels’ subsequent thought: ‘not to speak of the history of mankind.’ —S. S.) materialism must inevitably change its form. And ever since history was given a materialist explanation, here too a new path for the development of materialism has been opened.”*)

“An epoch-making discovery” is the discovery of a new type of interconnections of matter having general significance. Such a discovery—

) K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works, vol. II, p. 353—354, Ludwig Feuerbach; quoted in Lenin, see Works*, vol. 14, p. 238.

covery, if we are speaking of natural science, is always the basis for the development of new powerful technology or the starting point of a new step in the matter of the alteration of nature by man.

Interrelations of a new type can be explained materialistically only through an enrichment of the doctrine of the general forms of the existence of matter, which therefore cannot remain unchanged. Being reflected in the mind, new material connections are the starting point also for the establishment of new logical connections; they expand the theory of knowledge. It is in the expansion of our conceptions of the form of the existence of matter, in the discovery of new material (and, through them, logical) connections, that the process consists of changing the form of materialism in connection with the development of natural science, of which Engels spoke, if one has in mind the development of dialectical materialism. Naturally, this process is continuous: it took place in the past, is taking place before the eyes of our generation, and will be carried out in the future*).

Such is the connection between the Marxist doctrine of the forms of the existence of matter and the development of the concrete sciences, confirming Engels’ proposition on the development of the form of materialism with every discovery constituting an epoch, even in the field of natural science.

1. But the question of the interrelation of philosophy and a concrete science, for example physics, also has another, extremely important side—the question of the role of philosophy in the development of the concrete sciences.

The concrete regularities expressing the physical form of motion are not imposed upon physics from outside, say, from the sphere of thought. Of course, such imposition would be scholasticism, natural philosophy, against which Marxism fought and continues to fight. But physics participates in working out the doctrine of the forms of the existence of matter not by itself alone, but alongside other sciences studying other forms of the motion of matter. Marxism creates the doctrine of the general

*) Some believe that Engels’ proposition on the development of the form of materialism has in mind only the transition from metaphysical materialism to dialectical materialism. This, of course, is incorrect. Engels’ proposition applies also to dialectical materialism. It is no accident that Comrade A. Zhdanov reminded Soviet philosophers of the necessity, in analyzing and generalizing the results of contemporary natural science, of being guided by this proposition of Engels. As is known, this was done by him in 1947 in a country where dialectical materialism is the undividedly ruling ideology. It is indisputable that the development of dialectical materialism does not represent its replacement by some new materialism—neither metaphysical nor dialectical, but some third kind. What is at issue is the development of dialectical materialism itself, and the character of development consists in the fact that it passes through various stages. Knowledge does not constitute an alternation of changing views of equal rank; it is a transition to a higher stage, an approach to absolute truth. Lenin’s and Stalin’s struggle for a creative understanding of Marxism as a living, developing doctrine must serve for us as a guiding principle.

properties of matter, generalizing the development not only of physics, but also of other sciences. The development of the sciences, however, does not proceed uniformly. Some of them, lagging behind in some problems, in others may far outstrip the rest of the sciences. One can be convinced of this, in particular, by tracing the process by which the idea of the development of matter arose and was generalized. Before Marxism, the idea of development was not yet universal. But already in geology, in biology, in astronomy, and in a number of other sciences, sufficient material had accumulated indicating the evolution of matter, not to mention the remarkable fundamental revolution in views on the development of society brought about by the works of Marx and Engels. Although, in this way, the observations were not all-embracing (and they can never be exhaustive, owing to the inexhaustibility of the knowledge of infinite matter), Marxism drew from this the generalization that development is a universal, inalienable property of matter. Were there grounds for this generalization? Unquestionably. Matter cannot develop in some one part and remain unchanged or revolve in a circle in another,* just as it cannot, while being preserved in one part, arise or disappear in another. In fact, the development of any one forms of matter inevitably creates new external conditions for the existence of other forms of matter with which the developing forms interact, and this inevitably causes the development of the latter.

Matter develops (just as it is preserved) in all its parts, that is, it develops as a whole, in view of universal interconnection. Engels already gave many examples of this interconnection of evolution (historical formation) in astronomy, geology, and biology.**

Therefore Marxism, on the basis of the practice of knowledge of individual forms of matter, arrived at the conclusion that motion, development, is a general law, is the form of existence of matter, and drew this conclusion even before the revolutionary discoveries in physics. Precisely because Marxism had earlier arrived at the conclusion concerning development as the form of existence of matter, it greeted the collapse of views on the immutability of atoms as a confirmation of its worldview. For the same reasons Lenin had grounds, proceeding from the general propositions of dialectical materialism, to predict the inexhaustibility of the electron, that is, he had grounds to go against the views then prevailing in physics itself.

* Circular motion can be only a particular case of development, just as rest is a particular case of motion.

* See the so-called “Old Introduction,” F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature*.

Precisely because Marxism generalizes the results of all the concrete sciences, it has guiding significance for individual concrete sciences; it “constitutes an instrument of scientific research, a method that permeates all the sciences of nature and society and is enriched by the data of these sciences in the course of their development” (A. Zhdanov).

The further forward and deeper the knowledge of nature and society advances, the more complex the questions of cognition raised by the concrete sciences become, and the sharper the struggle of ideologies within them becomes—the more strongly the role of Marxism as the guiding method for the concrete sciences will grow. Generalizing the experience of the revolutionary transformation of society and nature, clarifying the role of Marxism in this transformation, Comrade Stalin, in his latest theoretical works on linguistics, gave the fullest and astonishingly profound scientific definition of Marxism: “Marxism is the science of the laws of development of nature and society, the science of the revolution of the oppressed and exploited masses, the science of the victory of socialism in all countries, the science of the building of communist society. Marxism, as a science, cannot stand still—it develops and is perfected.”

We see that in this generalizing definition of Marxism, Comrade Stalin singles out also that aspect of it which says that Marxism is the science of the laws of development of nature, as well as the fact that, as a science, it develops and is perfected.

Natural scientists must be guided by this proposition of J. V. Stalin on Marxism and its significance for the sciences that study nature.

1. Those who think that the crisis of physics is the result of an illegitimate mixing of the philosophical and “physical” concepts of matter occupy a non-Marxist position. Lenin nowhere gave, and could not have given, such an analysis of the causes of the crisis of physics. Lenin, as is well known, names two epistemological causes of the crisis of physics. The first consists in the fact that “the approach to such homogeneous and simple elements of matter, the laws of whose motion allow of mathematical treatment (and Lenin regarded this process as a ‘great success of natural science,’ S. S.), gives rise to the forgetting of matter by the mathematicians. ‘Matter disappears,’ only equations remain. At the new stage of development, and supposedly in a new way, the old Kantian idea is obtained: reason prescribes laws to nature” (294). “The other cause that gave rise to ‘physical’ idealism is the principle of relativism, the relativity of our knowledge, a principle which, with particular force, imposes itself upon physicists in the period of a sharp breaking-up of old theories and which—if dialectics is not understood—inevitably leads to idealism.

This question of the relation between relativism and dialectics is hardly “not the most important one in explaining the theoretical malicious inventions of Machism” (295).

In this Leninist analysis of the causes of “physical” idealism there is not even a hint of a confusion of the “two concepts” of matter. The malicious inventions of “physical” idealism consist not in a confusion of the “two concepts” of matter, but in the fact that it subjectivizes the image of matter (concept, theory), tears it away from its basis—the objective world, of which it is an image—and declares it to be the only thing that exists. In order to justify this anti-scientific position, the positivists developed an idealist theory of knowledge, trying to show that it is a direct consequence of the latest natural science. Lenin paid special attention to the activity of present-day bourgeois philosophy precisely in the field of gnoseology: “At least positivism in general and Machism in particular have occupied themselves much more with the subtle falsification of gnoseology, disguising themselves as materialism, concealing idealism behind allegedly materialist terminology—and have devoted comparatively little attention to the philosophy of history” (316).

In the struggle against Machism, Lenin masterfully applied the Marxist teaching on matter and the forms of its existence, the Marxist theory of cognition of the material world. Analyzing and generalizing “the latest revolution in natural science,” Lenin further developed Marxism. He showed that all the gnoseological difficulties in the development of modern physics are resolved by the Marxist theory of knowledge.

Thus Lenin showed that the way out of the crisis of physics consists in accepting the doctrine of dialectical materialism and in creatively applying it as an instrument of research in the concrete sciences. Lenin gives direct indications of this as well: “The materialist basic spirit of physics, as of all modern natural science, will overcome all and every kind of crisis, but only with the indispensable replacement of metaphysical materialism by dialectical materialism” (292).

It is known that Lenin later also pointed to this task; in what may be called his philosophical testament—the article “On the Significance of Militant Materialism”—Lenin wrote: “...we must understand that without a solid philosophical foundation no natural sciences, no materialism, can withstand the struggle against the onslaught of bourgeois ideas and the restoration of the bourgeois world outlook. In order to withstand this struggle and carry it through to the end with complete success, the natural scientist must be a modern materialist, a conscious adherent of the materialism represented by Marx, that is, he must be a dialectical materialist”*).

) V. I. Lenin, Works*, vol. 33, p. 207.

It is difficult to understand how one can replace the wealth of this doctrine, so masterfully and concretely unfolded by Lenin in his brilliant work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, with a contrived scheme and assert that the “key” (what a word!) to resolving the crisis of physics is the demarcation between the philosophical and the physical concept of matter.

It is enough to consider one or two examples from the history of the ideological struggle in physics to see that the “demarcation between the philosophical and physical concepts” of matter does not help in the struggle against idealism. No one, for example, can deny that the conclusions about the “heat death of the world” are idealistic. But how does the “demarcation of two concepts of matter” help in the struggle against this idealism, when, within the framework of this conception, it is quite possible to recognize the objective existence of the corpse of the universe, perished by heat death—that is, the presence of matter that has lost its attribute: the capacity for transformations! In exactly the same way, the demarcation of two concepts of matter does not help in the struggle against idealism in the field, for example, of cosmology, with all its judgments about the finitude of the universe, the expanding universe, and so forth.

Only the integral doctrine of dialectical materialism concerning matter and its forms of existence, concerning the laws of its reflection in human consciousness, is a reliable weapon in the struggle against every kind of idealism.

1. What, then, is the harm of the conception of “two concepts” of matter?

The answer to this question will become clear in connection with an examination of the situation that has developed in Soviet natural science in the period after the building of socialism in our country. What, then, is this situation?

The Party’s directives on questions of the development of agrobiology, physiology, and other natural sciences, discussions on individual scientific questions conducted in scientific organizations and in the press, revealed ideological ill-being in a number of sciences. It turned out that a certain part of Soviet scientists uncritically accepts idealistic assertions and theories of foreign schools. A peculiar situation became apparent: this part of Soviet scientists, like the overwhelming majority of them, for the most part also accepted dialectical materialism, accepted it sincerely, but as a general theory having significance in application to social phenomena; in their own professional field, in natural science, sometimes without noticing it themselves, they found themselves on positions alien to Marxist philosophy. We must find an explanation of how such a situation became possible.

The conception of the “two concepts” of matter played no small role in this, if one has in mind the epistemological side of the question.

The conception of the “two concepts of matter” that has taken shape among many natural scientists gives a primitive outline of the methods of struggle for materialism in modern science. It aims natural scientists not at actively using, in the analysis of concrete sciences, the entire arsenal of Marxist-Leninist philosophy—the doctrine of matter and the forms of its existence, of the transformation of “things in themselves” into “things for us,” i.e., the whole materialist theory of knowledge—but at limiting themselves to recognizing the existence of matter, leaving concrete science in any way it likes to decide questions concerning the forms of existence of matter and the paths of its cognition. These, supposedly, are questions relating only to the concrete, physical science, to the physical (or natural-scientific) concept of matter.

The objectively harmful significance of the conception of the “two concepts” of matter consists in belittling the guiding role of Marxist philosophy as an instrument of knowledge in the concrete sciences, in an attempt to free natural science from the guiding influence of Marxist philosophy. This conception has proved to be a gnoseological form through which individual natural scientists slide toward idealism in their special field.

It was precisely such a conception of the “two concepts” of matter that served as a cover for the supporters of Weismannism among Soviet scientists; indeed, they declared, do we not ourselves recognize that hereditary plasma, realized in the genes, exists as a certain reality independent of man, and, what is more, that it does not require philosophical materialism, since the theory of heredity is entirely a matter within the competence of the concrete sciences. It is known, however, that this position proved false and, precisely in the theory of heredity, led the adherents of such a conception into an idealist dead end. However hard the supporters of Weismannism among Soviet scientists tried to “materialize” the Weismannist hereditary plasma, it still turned out that heredity for them was subordinated to a certain substance that does not interact with the whole material organism and therefore has no material form of existence—that is, to a mystical, spiritual substance. In exactly the same way, the development of the organism as a whole also turned out among the Weismannists to be independent of external conditions, of the being of the organism.

Some Soviet adherents of Virchowianism considered themselves materialists on the grounds that, unlike foreign idealists, they recognized cells as an objective reality; therefore they considered themselves entitled to treat with derision the works of O. Lepeshinskaya directed against the Virchowian theory, according to which cells arise only from cells. But the task of developing materialism in biology was solved precisely

O. Lepeshinskaya, who threw a bridge from one form of matter to another (from inorganic to organic), and not her unsuccessful opponents.

M. A. Markov probably believed that, in his interpretation of the concept of complementarity,* he was insured against idealism, since, unlike “foreign authors,” he had in advance acknowledged the objectivity of the microworld. However, the acknowledgment of the objectivity of the microworld in fact proved to be only the price paid in order to relieve oneself of the concern for a critical analysis of physical theories from the standpoint of the Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge, and to untie one’s hands for the adoption of positivist views preached by the Copenhagen school of physicists.

S. E. Khaikin admitted the presence of “methodological shortcomings” in his textbook Mechanics.** However, he saw them in the fact that the book lacked Marxist definitions of such general concepts as matter, motion, space and time, and also in certain unfortunate formulations which “may be interpreted against dialectical materialism.” Evidently, he was confident that inserting the indicated definitions into the appropriate places in the book would at once transform a textbook written from the standpoint of operationalism into a consistently materialist one.

Here, too, there is an error of the same order: at the price of recognizing the existence of objective matter, one frees oneself from the labor of creatively applying the materialist theory of knowledge in the field of a concrete science.

In all these cases, as in a number of others, the concept of “two concepts of matter” has played a harmful role.

For many Soviet natural scientists it served as a “theoretical” basis, a justification for all kinds of vacillation, for sliding toward idealism.

We must draw all the lessons from the experience of ideological struggle in the various fields of the natural sciences in the USSR in order correctly to orient scientists on the question of the methods of the struggle for materialism in the concrete sciences.

The all-conquering method of struggle against idealism in natural science and of resolving all kinds of crises in science consists not in the far-fetched distinction between “two concepts” of matter, but in being guided by the teaching of Marxism on matter and the general forms of its existence, and in learning to apply in natural science

* M. A. Markov, “On the Nature of Physical Knowledge,” Voprosy filosofii, No. 2, 1947.

* S. E. Khaikin, “On the Methodological Shortcomings of My Textbook Mechanics” (letter to the editor), UFN*, XLI, 3, 1950, p. 483.

Marxist-Leninist theory of knowledge as an integral, consistent doctrine.

The question of the “two concepts” of matter, which some are inclined to consider merely terminological, has in practice grown into a question of principle. The harmfulness of this conception must become obvious to everyone*).

) Proof correction note.* The article had already been typeset when there took place (July 4–10) a discussion at a session of the Academic Council of the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR on the question considered in it (on the report of I. V. Kuznetsov). Naturally, the discussion of the question in the Academic Council could not be reflected in the present article. The results of the discussion may be summarized briefly as follows: the conception of the “two concepts” of matter suffered a serious defeat.