Dialectical of nature

Work Friedrich Engels not published the alive one of the author.

The correspondence of Marx and Engels shows that since 1873, Engels projected to write a great work on the dialectical one in nature. The first idea of Engels was to show, in the form of a critic of the vulgar materialism (then represented by Büchner) and on the basis of the most modern science, contradiction between the way of thinking Métaphysique and the way of thinking Dialectique. In 1882, Engels seems to have gathered all its notes, but the death of Marx, in 1883, forces it to give up its work for more urgent tasks.

A first version, starting from photocopies of the manuscripts was published in Soviet Union in 1925 in German and Russian. This version comprised error count however.

Philosophy and sciences of nature

One can regard this work as a philosophical work, in spite of the German Idéologie where Marx and Engels shows contradictions of philosophy and " gives up it with its own criticism ". Engels obviously kept a certain philosophical interest. In this work but also the famous Feuerbach or the end testifies to German traditional philosophy . The interest of this particular work is to show us how philosophy, Marxist here, is placed compared to the Science. In this work, Engels shows a true scientific scholarship. In many works, Engels, like Marx, showed their permanent interest for the evolution of sciences of nature. The Dialectique of nature wanted to be to be the sum of these observations.

Engels remains however philosophical. It uses a philosophical method: the Dialectical , inherited Hegel, but removed from its idealistic and absolute aspects. For Engels, the dialectical one is the mode of development even of nature. And he intends to show that sciences do nothing but prove that, and themselves develop thus.

Philosophy is shown here like being able to explain the development of sciences. It is able to carry out a synthesis of various sciences and to show the development of it. The philosophy of Engels wants to be with the avant-garde of all the scientific designs of its time. Systematically, Engels supports the most revolutionary theories (in particular Mendeleïev, creator of the periodic system of the elements) and uncovers “ the partisans of old the ”. Thus, for example, unlike the greatest number of scientists of its time, Engels defends the point of view of the complexity of the atoms of the chemical elements: “The atoms are by no means something of simple, they do not appear as the smallest matter particles which we know. ” This sensitivity to the evolution of sciences is prolonged in work of Lénine which will affirm in Matérialisme and empiriocriticism (1908) that " the electron is as inexhaustible as the atom ".

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