September 1937

All the terms (concepts, categories) we use — for example "absolute," "relative," and so on — are reflections of real things. Just as the term "horse" exists because there are real horses in the world, the terms "relative" and "absolute" are also not divorced from real things.

In everyday life, absolutism often causes trouble. For example, some people believe in fate, thinking that events are immutable. Others, finding a certain living environment unsuitable for themselves, demand a move, also assuming the environment cannot change. Still others consider the people around them unenlightened, unaware that people too can change.

Darkness is not absolute, nor is light absolute.

Transcending reality to pursue the realization of ideals, and escaping reality, are both idealism. Within all idealism, the greater part is absolutism.

"Left-wing" infantile disorder is a kind of absolutism, because they regard ideals as absolute, not knowing that ideals can only be realized according to the actual conditions of the present.

The transformation of darkness and the attainment of light are proportional to effort — with effort, it happens; without effort, it does not. The relativity of these things is relative to whether or not effort is made, relative to timeliness.

Relativism holds that there is no certain truth — one person, one truth; ten people, ten truths — "it's all more or less the same." This is skepticism: everything is doubted, nothing can be grasped.

To doubt is right; to doubt everything is not.

The elderly tend more toward relativism; the young tend more toward absolutism.

Relativism exaggerates the relativity of things. The relativity of change in things should be acknowledged, but exaggerating it to the point where nothing can be grasped becomes relativism.

We should recognize the mutability and relativity of things, and at the same time recognize that within change and relativity there is something definite, a definite law of the development of things. Within relativity, we recognize the absolute. The absolute is contained within the relative.

Relativism does not acknowledge this kind of lawfulness.

The relative contains within it a definite absolute. The absolute manifests itself as every necessary stage of the relative — this is the relationship between the two.

"Sublation" (Aufheben) means: on the one hand, discarding and negating the negative elements; on the other hand, criticizing, transforming, and preserving the positive elements — it is not simple rejection.

Ye Qing said: "In the past, formal logic dominated every field of inquiry; now we confine it to a relative state of rest." In this way, when we negate formal logic, we can only do so in its scope of application, not in its essence. What is this if not simple preservation? What is this if not an essential acknowledgment that formal logic and dialectics have equal significance?

(Zhang Youren) A moving thing, at any point in space, is simultaneously at rest and not at rest — this is the unity of the contradictions of motion.

Ye Qing said: "Motion is the accumulation of rest; rest is the halting of motion. The two engender and complement each other, each defining the other." Rest is only a special form of motion, absolutely not the halting of motion. Nor is motion an accumulation of rest. If motion were merely an accumulation of rest, motion would be fundamentally dissolved into rest.

(Zhang Youren) Formal logic and dialectical logic: this is the most fundamental issue. In dialectical logic: A is A, and at the same time A is not A — a thing is identical with itself and simultaneously not identical. Formal logic only sees the aspect of identity. Dialectics, however, sees not only this aspect but also the other (non-identity). Therefore, it is able to encompass, absorb, and sublate formal logic. What formal logic cannot see, dialectics can see. What formal logic does see, dialectics not only sees, but also transforms and deepens.

One cannot say: "On the one hand we admit A is A, and on the other hand we admit A is not A" and treat that as dialectics. The relationship between these two propositions is not a matter of "on the one hand…and on the other hand"; rather, they are simultaneous, interpenetrating, and interconnected. It is an integral unity, not a mechanical combination, nor can it be mechanically taken apart. If you take them apart and view them separately, it becomes eclecticism. Ye Qing's dialectics is precisely this kind of eclectic distortion.

Ye Qing also admits that induction and deduction are built on formal logic and are to be sublated by dialectics. Yet he also says: "…We can also, in application, treat induction and deduction categorically, and use them as appropriate phases within the dialectical research process." In this way, he acknowledges that the entire investigation is dialectical, but at certain stages in the process one sometimes applies induction or deduction — and combining these methods constitutes the entire dialectical research process.

Induction proceeds from many complex particular things to discover their general, simple, common features; the path it takes is analysis. Deduction uses general principles to explain particular things; the path it takes is synthesis. The former goes from particular to general, from concrete to abstract; the latter from general to particular, from abstract to concrete. According to Ye Qing's approach, the entire dialectics is nothing but a mechanical, eclectic combination of induction and deduction.

Ye Qing's formulation seems to imply that dialectical research also goes from particular to general and from general to particular, as if it were induction and deduction. In fact, that is mistaken.

In dialectics, the process of going from the particular to the general does use the methods of ordinary induction — observation, comparison, analysis, and so on — but only as one single element. For induction here takes only the path of analysis, extracting only a single, one-sided determination from complex things. Dialectics is different: it not only analyzes but simultaneously synthesizes, not only extracting a single, one-sided determination but seeking the comprehensive determination of the unity of contradictions.

In the process from the general to the particular, can we simply use deduction, take the path of synthesis, and apply general laws to synthesize individual things? No, that will not work. If we want to carry out dialectics thoroughly, we must not merely apply laws and adopt synthesis. While applying and synthesizing, we must also analyze the concrete conditions that the individual thing possesses, and discover its new, particular movements of contradiction.

Whether going from the general to the individual or from the individual to the general, our method is fundamentally dialectical. Induction and deduction are each applied only as elements within the research process, and cannot exist independently apart from the other element. They are not simply discarded, nor simply preserved, but are absorbed, digested, and transformed.

Dialectics is an integral whole — it is not pieced together from induction and deduction.

In the process of quantitative change in things, their quality does not change. At this time, qualitatively speaking, they are at relative rest, but quantitatively, they are in constant motion. Because relative rest is, after all, a special form of absolute motion, we must still use dialectics to study relative rest if we are to see deeply. Formal logic can only see the aspect of rest, and moreover tends to exaggerate this aspect while forgetting fundamental motion.

Since dialectics can grasp the whole of things — including the aspect of formal logic — why should we still use formal logic to study relative rest?

Ye Qing says: "Understanding the nature of China's economy is clearly a static study, and therefore the formulation of the problem is undoubtedly grounded in formal logic." This is wrong — this is eclecticism. According to his view, only research on China's social development is dynamic research, a dialectical problem; while form, nature, relations, and so on are merely static studies and ought to belong to formal logic. Is this not obvious eclecticism?

Questions of nature, relations, etc. are the starting point for questions of development. Though they cannot be regarded as development itself, if they are subject to dialectics, they should at least reveal the driving force of development and reveal concrete contradictions from within. Can formal logic achieve this? Formal logic only sees one side, and can only become formalism of stereotyped formulas.

For example: "A feudal society requires a bourgeois revolution." This is a formula. Because China's economy is feudal, it is said that China needs a bourgeois revolution, to establish a capitalist society. Such a deduction is perfectly coherent in formal logic, and can be stated only in that way — but China's concrete conditions are thereby obliterated. China's concrete conditions do not permit being limited to a bourgeois revolution as in history, nor do they permit the establishment of a capitalist society.

All problems are analogous. Formal logic cannot solve problems; the only way is to invite dialectics in. The formalism-of-formulas — from Plekhanov to Ye Qing — cannot solve any problem at all.

The ancient Greek sophists, one thousand years ago, regarded motion as countless resting points in space, and thus concluded that there are only countless resting points and no motion. Ye Qing says that rest is the halting of motion, and motion is the accumulation of rest. This is the resurrection of sophistry.

Lenin said: "Even a simple judgment is a unity of contradictions. For example, the proposition 'Ivan is a man' contains the implication that 'the particular equals the general.'"

Formal logic is constantly using propositions of this type — for example, "the youth is a shop assistant" — and not saying "the youth is a youth," because even formal logic itself cannot strictly abide by the law of identity; otherwise it could not be built up at all. When formal logic employs such propositions, it certainly does not think that they contain contradictions, and therefore one cannot say that it is applying the law of the unity of contradictions. But we cannot deny that such propositions essentially contain the unity of contradictions.

Ai Siqi says: "Different things are not contradictions. For example, a pen, ink, and a chair are not contradictions. But if you understand the principle of transition and change, you will see that different things, under definite conditions, can transform into contradictions. If two different things exist simultaneously and in the same place, and a mutually exclusive interaction arises between them, they become contradictions. For example, a shop assistant and a writer originally have no contradiction; but if a certain shop assistant develops an interest in writing and wants to become a writer, then — once they coexist in a unity and mutually exclude each other — they become a contradiction. If one only recognizes good and evil, male and female, etc., as contradictions, and does not see that other things can transform into contradictions, this is a formalistic method of classification — no different from Zhang Dongsun's division of 'opposites, contradictions, and contraries,' which is also formalism."

The basic reasoning is correct. But the formulation "difference is not contradiction" is not correct. It should be stated: Everything that is different is, under definite conditions, a contradiction. When a person sits on a chair, holds a pen, and dips it in ink to engage in writing, the person and the activity of writing are the definite conditions that temporarily unify the contradictory things — you cannot say that these differences are not contradictions. When a master chef prepares a meal, he unifies firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea under definite conditions. A shop assistant and a writer can also be unified under definite conditions. Half-work, half-study can unify work and study.

Difference is present in all things in the world. Under definite conditions, all are contradictions. Therefore, difference is precisely contradiction. This is what is called concrete contradiction. Ai's formulation is not appropriate.

(Opinion of Mao Zedong)

The formula of the law of excluded middle — "A is B or not B" — in fact contains this contradiction: "A is not A, but B," or, in other words, "B may be B, and it may also be not B." Hegel already criticized this long ago.

External causes cannot be neglected, but they do not determine the necessity of a thing. What determines necessity is internal cause. Ye Qing says: "It is necessary to recognize the interaction of internal and external causes." This is a mechanical interaction, in which both sides are equal, neither being higher or lower. This forms Ye Qing's eclecticism.

Dialectical interaction is different: the two sides are distinguished as primary and secondary.

Consider Ye Qing's question: "Isn't it a fact that a machine needs an external motive force, that water turns into steam when exposed to external heat, and that biological evolution proceeds by way of the environment?" We do not simply negate these facts. However, at the same time, we must recognize the intrinsic dynamic nature of the thing's own transformation — this is what determines the transformation of the thing. A machine has the property of movability, water has the property of turning into steam, and living things have the property of evolution. Only therefore can the external causes — motive force, heat, environment, etc. — play their role. It is not external cause but internal cause that determines the necessity of the transformation of the thing.

The general always manifests itself in a particular form. There is no such thing as a simple general entity existing purely by itself. To say "within the general there is the particular" means: the general thing takes on a particular form when it manifests itself. It does not mean that there is some particular thing independent of the general (as Ye Qing says: the theory of internal cause is a general principle, but China's particularity does not suit it, and China's development does not follow laws).

The general and the particular are a contradictory unity. There is no simple general, nor is there any simple particular that stands alone, independent of the general.

The distinguishing feature of dialectical materialism is that it seizes the core of facts, the essence of facts, the inner developmental laws of facts — not that it respects the surface of facts. Mechanistic materialism, empiricism, and pragmatism also respect facts, but they only respect surface facts. Respecting surface facts is the initial stage of cognition, the initial stage of science. This was true of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century materialism and mechanistic scientific thought. We do not deny that surface facts can also provide people with some knowledge; seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mechanics did offer many truths.

Pragmatism can see a little more than empty theorists who whitewash reality, and it can fairly well expose the crimes of the enemy’s aggression and the error of absolute non-resistance.

However, only seeing the enemy’s aggression without seeing the essence of that aggression, or only seeing the error of non-resistance without seeing the prospects for popular resistance—this kind of respect for the immediate facts is completely different from materialist dialectics.

The fact that mechanical motion arises from external forces is merely a superficial fact; the essence of the fact is that the machine itself possesses the potential for motion.

Science in the era of mechanistic theory focused only on the study of external forces because, at that initial stage, science had not yet been able to penetrate into the essence of motion.

Advancing to the higher stage of relativity theory enables people to explain mechanical motion also in terms of internal causes.

In Newton’s era, celestial motion could only be explained by gravity (an external force), but relativity theory explains it through the nature of motion itself.