[39-41] As a worldview, dialectical materialism provides an answer—not an absolute one, of course—to the question of the structure of matter and the world; it serves as the foundation for the most brilliant historical theory; on the basis of dialectical materialism, politics and morality become, in a certain sense, exact sciences. Dialectical materialism—correctly understood, of course—introduces a fresh stream of theoretical-cognitive criticism, being free from any dogmatism.
In the article presented here, we intend to focus the reader's attention only on the theoretical-cognitive aspect of dialectical materialism, which, in this case, as a method and guiding principle of research, does not provide absolute solutions to problems but primarily contributes to their correct formulation. Dialectical materialism, as a theory of knowledge, is divided into a formal or logical part and a real or material part.
For primitive, primordial cognition, experience is identical with the object of experience, phenomenon with being, with the thing-in-itself. The world of internal experiences constitutes, for the primitive person, the world of things. He does not know the difference between the internal and external worlds. This primitive form of cognition, at a certain stage of cultural development, comes into conflict with the social person's striving to master the forces of nature, with a new, higher stage of culture. With the expansion of human needs, the increase and accumulation of empirical material, and the more frequent collisions between perceptions and the external world, the contrast between perceptions and things, between the world of internal experiences and the world of things, becomes more apparent. It is then that the need for new cognitive forms arises. ... What directly interests us is the logical process that, in modern philosophy, led to dialectical materialism.
- The psychologism of Hume, Berkeley, and others operates mainly in the realm of the psychological-sensory world. Sensory images are the objects of knowledge. The result to which the development of English empiricism led is: Esse = percipi, that which is given in perception exists, and all that is given in perception has objective existence...
Kant understood that truly scientific knowledge is possible only through "mathematical intuition." Sensory intuition does not include the conditions necessary for universally valid knowledge. Sensory images are unable to encompass the totality of phenomena to be known. And Kant makes the transition from psychologism to transcendentalism...
[43] Hegelian philosophy represents the last and final link in this chain. We have seen that in Hume, Kant, and Fichte, the subject was placed above the object, which was declared to be something inseparable from the subject...
[48-58] Categories, i.e., pure universal concepts such as time, space, and causality, from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, are, on the one hand, logical determinations, and on the other hand, real forms of things...
The limitation of transcendentalism lies in the fact that it does not extend its rights to the real sphere of things and considers categories to be merely subjective, and moreover, a priori, forms of consciousness. Transcendentalism embraces phenomena with categorical, i.e., logically universal, forms, which make it possible to formulate strictly mathematical laws of nature and give them a universal character. But, like sensualist phenomenalism, transcendentalism deals only with phenomena. For them, being, things-in-themselves, are inaccessible...
Dialectical materialism achieves the "unconditionality" and universality of knowledge by declaring forms to be universal, objectively real "intuitions." On this rests the possibility of mathematical or, if you will, "geometric," i.e., exact, knowledge of reality. "Geometric" space and "pure time" are universal-real?
?
Damn it!

These contemplations represent the premise of "mathematical" knowledge of the sensory world...
However, dialectical consciousness also reveals the ability to rise to the "contemplation" of nature as a "whole," to the contemplation of necessity, the internal conditioning of the universal order of nature...
Man knows to the extent that he acts and is acted upon by the external world. Dialectical materialism teaches that man is primarily prompted to think by the sensations he experiences in the process of his interaction with the external world... Dialectical materialism, based on the consideration that it is possible to master nature only by submitting to it, prescribes that we harmonize our activity with the universal laws of nature, with the necessary order of things, with the universal laws of the development of the world...
Parmenides thus saw the true essence of things (the "One") in what can be known by thought or reason and lies behind the flowing and changing phenomena. In this way, he separated sensory perceptions from their basis, the phenomenal world from the metaphenomenal...
If for the rationalist metaphysicians, true reality is given in the concept, for the sensualists, what is real is what is given in sensory perception or contemplation. What lies beyond the senses is inaccessible to knowledge. The objects of knowledge are phenomena, which are elevated to absolute reality. The content of empirical consciousness is changeable and fluid. The real substrate of qualities is rejected by phenomenalism. Diversity and multiplicity of phenomena are given, but there is no substantial unity...
Kant managed to combine the phenomenalist doctrine of the unknowability of things in themselves with the rationalist-metaphysical doctrine of the existence of absolutely real being, "things in themselves."
The French materialists, led by Holbach, opposed nature as the metaphysical essence of things to their properties. This opposition signifies, in a certain sense, the same dualism as between "thing in itself" and "phenomena" in Kant...
We would, however, be unfair to French materialism if we equated
it with Kantianism. Eighteenth-century materialism still acknowledges the relative knowability even of the essence of things...
French materialism, starting from the same consideration that matter acts on our external senses, nevertheless admits that some properties of things in themselves are knowable. But French materialism is not sufficiently consistent, since it teaches that only some properties of things are knowable, while their very "essence" or "nature" is hidden from us and not fully knowable...
This opposition of the properties of things to their "nature" is borrowed by Kant from the agnostics, from the phenomenalist-sensualists (directly from Hume)...
In contrast to phenomenalism and sensualism, materialism considers the impressions we receive from things in themselves as having objective significance. While phenomenalism (and Kantianism) sees no points of contact between the properties of things and their "nature," i.e., the external world, the French materialists already clearly emphasize that things in themselves, at least in part, are knowable precisely on the basis of the impressions they make on us, that the properties of things are, to a certain extent, objectively real...
[60-62] Dialectical materialism bases being on material substance, a real substrate. Dialectical materialism views the world "as a process, as matter that is in continuous development" (Engels). The unchanging and unconditional being of the metaphysicians is transformed into changing being. Substantial reality is recognized as changeable; changes and movements are real forms of being. Dialectical materialism overcomes the dualism of "being" and "non-being," the metaphysically absolute opposition of the "immanent" to the "transcendent," of the properties of things to the thing itself. On the ground of dialectical materialism, it becomes possible to scientifically connect the thing in itself with phenomena, the immanent with the transcendent, and to overcome the unknowability of things in themselves—up to *nec plus ultra*.
* - to the utmost extreme. Ed.

NB

And "subjectivism" of qualities - on the other hand, since, as Plekhanov quite rightly remarks, "the nature of a thing is revealed precisely in its properties." It is precisely on the basis of the impressions we receive from things themselves that we have the ability to judge about the properties of things themselves, about their objectively real existence...
The "immanent" acquires an objectively real character; the "transcendent," lying beyond phenomena in the realm of the "unknowable," transforms from an inaccessible and mysterious essence to our senses into "immanent" content of our consciousness, into an object of sensory perception.
The "immanent" becomes "transcendent" insofar as it acquires an objectively real significance, insofar as it allows us to judge about the properties of things based on impressions; the "transcendent" becomes "immanent" insofar as it is declared to be within the sphere of the knowable, although beyond the subject. Beltov expresses himself in the same sense: "According to this theory, he says, nature is, first of all, a totality of phenomena. But since things-in-themselves constitute a necessary condition for phenomena, in other words, since phenomena are caused by the action of the object on the subject, we are compelled to admit that the laws of nature have not only a subjective but also an objective significance, i.e., that the mutual relationship of ideas in the subject corresponds, when man is not mistaken, to the mutual relationship of things outside him"**. Thus, the question of the relationship between phenomena and things-in-themselves, this most important question of cognition, over which Kant, metaphysicians, and phenomenologists struggled so much, is resolved in the only correct and scientific way...
[62] The unity of being and non-being is becoming - teaches dialectics. Translated into concrete materialist language, this proposition means that at the foundation of all that exists lies matter, which is in a process of continuous development...
[64-65] The body, therefore, is not exhausted by its perceptibility, as the sensationalist-phenomenalists believe.
True truths are presented in a devilishly intricate, *abstruse* form.
Why did Engels not write in such a jargon?
NB
NB

* - obscure. Ed.
** N. Beltov. "Critique of Our Critics," p. 199.

NOTES ON A. DEBORIN'S ARTICLE "DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM"
pages, but exists completely independently of our perceptions, exists "for itself," as a "subject." But if the body exists independently of our perceptions, then perceptions, on the other hand, entirely depend on the body acting upon us. Without the latter, there are no perceptions, no representations, concepts, or ideas. Our thinking is determined by being, i.e., by the impressions we receive from the external world.
As a result, our ideas and concepts have an objectively real significance...
The body, acting on our senses, is considered the cause of the effect it produces, i.e., perception. Phenomenalists dispute the very possibility of such a formulation of the question. The external world, according to the immanentists, is not only inaccessible to perception but also unthinkable, even if such a world did exist...
[67] It must also be admitted that our perceptions, as a result of the action of two factors - the external world and our "sensibility" - are not identical in content with the objects of the external world, which are directly, intuitively inaccessible to us...
[69-75] The thing-in-itself, from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, constitutes the object as it exists by itself, "for itself." In this sense, Plekhanov defines matter "as the totality of things-in-themselves, insofar as these things are the source of our sensations"**. This thing-in-itself or matter is not an abstract concept that lies behind the concrete properties of things, but a "concrete" concept. The being of matter is not separated from its essence, or, conversely, its essence is not separated from its being...
An object devoid of any qualities or properties cannot even be conceived by us, cannot exist, has no being at all. The external world is constructed by us from our perceptions, based on the impressions that the external world, the objects themselves, produce in us... There is a certain difference between the external and internal worlds, but at the same time, there is also a certain similarity, so that knowledge
*
NB
!
? NB
??

* This symbol indicates that the words "directly, intuitively" should be swapped. Ed.
** "The image of this being outside of thought is matter, the substrate of reality!" L. Feuerbach. "Works," Vol. 2, p. 289.

Our knowledge of the external world is based on impressions, but precisely on impressions caused by objects of the external world. Based on the impressions we receive from the action of objects upon us, we ascribe certain properties to the latter. An impression is the resultant of two factors and, as such, is inevitably conditioned by the nature of these two factors and contains something that constitutes the nature of both factors, something common to them...
Only on the basis of dialectical materialism, with its recognition of the external world, does it become possible to construct a purely scientific theory of knowledge. Whoever rejects the external world also rejects the cause of our sensations and arrives at idealism. But the external world also embodies the principle of regularity. And if in our perceptions we observe a definite ordered connection, this occurs only because the cause of our sensations, i.e., the external world, forms the basis of this regular connection...
Without the possibility of foresight, there is no possibility of scientifically knowing the phenomena of nature and human life. ... But objects of the external world stand in a causal relationship not only to us but also to each other, i.e., there exists a certain interaction between the objects of the external world, and knowledge of the conditions of this interaction again provides the possibility of predicting and forecasting not only the action of objects upon us but also their objective, independent of us, relationships and actions, i.e., the objective properties of things...
Dialectical materialism does not prejudge the question of the structure of matter in the sense of necessarily accepting the atomic or corpuscular theory, or any third hypothesis. And if new theories about the structure of atoms triumph, dialectical materialism will not suffer a collapse; on the contrary, it will receive its most brilliant confirmation. What, indeed, is the essence of the new trend in natural science? First of all, it lies in the fact that the atom, which physicists imagined as unchanging and the simplest, i.e., elementary and indivisible,
clumsy and absurd word!
Ah!
Plekhanov is silent about this "new trend," does not know it.

REMARKS ON A. DEBORIN'S ARTICLE "DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM"
a "body," turns out to be composed of even more elementary units, or particles.
It is assumed that in electrons we have before us the ultimate elements of being.
But does dialectical materialism assert that the atom is the absolute limit of being?..
It would be erroneous to think, like our Machists, that with the acceptance of the electron theory, matter as a reality falls, and with it, thus, dialectical materialism, which considers matter the sole reality and the only suitable tool for systematizing experience... Whether all atoms consist of electrons is an unresolved question, a hypothesis that may not be confirmed. But apart from this, does the electron theory eliminate the atom; it only proves that the atom is relatively stable, indivisible, and unchanging... But the atom, as a real substrate, is not eliminated by the electron theory...
Let us sum up. From a formal standpoint, dialectical materialism, as we have seen, makes possible universal and objective knowledge because, from its point of view, the forms of being are also forms of thought, and every change in the objective world corresponds to a change in the sphere of perceptions. As for the material aspect, dialectical materialism proceeds from the recognition of things-in-themselves, or the external world, or matter. "Things-in-themselves" are knowable. The unconditional and absolute are rejected by dialectical materialism. Everything in nature is in a process of change and movement, based on certain combinations of matter.
One "form" of being passes, according to dialectics, into another through leaps. The latest physical theories not only do not refute but, on the contrary, fully confirm the correctness of dialectical materialism.
Remarks written no earlier than 1909.
Partially published in 1930 in Lenin Collection XII.
First published in full in 1958 in the 4th edition of the Collected Works of V. I. Lenin, Vol. 38. Published from the original.

Deborin does not clearly represent it.
Correct!
Stupid term!