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Dialectical Materialism and Soviet Science
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
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There is a sense in which a philosophic theory can be confirmed. We may ask what its effects were on the development of scientific theory,—did it clarify ideas and help open up new areas of research, or did it constrain the work of science? In this essay, we shall try to judge the significance of dialectical materialism from this standpoint. We shall be concerned with the bearing of this philosophy on scientific work, especially in the Soviet Union.
Now dialectical materialism is not a “philosophy” in the same sense which the word has when applied to, let us say, logical empiricism. The difference is evident when a writer like Haldane asks, for instance, how far scientific discoveries have verified the principles of dialectical materialism.' We could not ask in a similar way whether scientific discoveries have confirmed the principles of logical empiricism. For the latter affirms no factual propositions concerning the world; it enunciates solely the principle of verifiability, and there is clearly no scientific discovery which could possibly refute the requirement of verification. If it makes sense to ask how far scientific discoveries verify dialectical materialism, then the latter must obviously contain factual propositions concerning nature which should be stated in a way to permit of confirmation of rejection.
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1 J. B. S. Haldane, Dialectical Materialism and Modern Science, Labour Monthly, Vol. 23, (1941), p. 266.
2 Cf., History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, New York, 1939, p. 106, ff. J. G. Crowther, Soviet Science, New York, 1936, Chapter I. J. B. S. Haldane, The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences, New York, 1939, p. 33. Y. M. Uranovsky, Marxism and Natural Science, Marxism and Modern Thought, (a collection of essays transl. by Ralph Fox), New York, 1935, p. 148.
3 J. B. S. Haldane, Marxism and Science, Labour Monthly, Vol. 21, (1939), p. 507.
4 Joseph Needham, A Biologist's View of Whitehead, The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, edited by P. A. Schilpp, Northwestern University, 1941, p. 255.
5 Cf., Alexander Sandow, Social Factors in the Origin of Darwinism, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 13, (1938), p. 323.
6 Cf., Erwin Schrödinger, Science and the Human Temperament, (transl. by J. Murphy and W. H. Johnston), New York, 1935, p. 173.
7 Bertrand Russell, The ABC of Relativity, New York, 1925, p. 123, 162.
8 A. N. Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics, New York, 1911, p. 164, 171.
9 J. B. S. Haldane, Dialectical Materialism and Modern Science, Labour Monthly, Vol. 23, (1941), p. 400.
10 The idea of periodicity had an exceptional heuristic value in chemistry. Mendeleeff was influenced by the periodic forms of physical laws in working out his Periodic Law in chemistry, which he described as showing “that our chemical individuals display a harmonic periodicity of properties, dependent on their masses.” D. Mendeleeff, The Principles of Chemistry, Vol. II, (transl. by G. Kamensky), London, 1891, p. 440.
11 W. Stanley Jevons, The Principles of Science, London, 1892, p. 619.
12 J. B. S. Haldane, Dialectical Materialism and Modern Science, loc. cit., p. 328.
13 J. B. S. Haldane, The Marxist Philosophy and the Science, p. 90.
14 Cf., Henry Margenau, The Exclusion Principle and Its Philosophical Importance, Philosophy of Science, Vol. XI, (1944), p. 189.
15 J. B. S. Haldane, op. cit., p. 44.
16 Ibid., p. 185. Vavilov described his aim as follows: “In the Soviet Union, which is now building up socialism and socialistic agriculture, we are interested in the problem of the origin of agriculture … chiefly from the dynamic standpoint. By knowledge of the past … we seek to master the historical process. We wish to know how to modify cultivated plants and domestic animals according to the requirements of the day.” Vavilov organized numerous expeditions, and upon their work, based his theory of the seven initial principal centers of agriculture. Cf., N. 1. Vavilov, The Problem of the Origin of the World's Agriculture in the Light of the Latest Investigations, Science at the Cross Roads, (papers presented to the International Congress of the History of Science and Technology by delegates of the U. S. S. R.), London, 1931, p. 97.
17 J. B. S. Haldane, The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences, pp. 75–75.
Whether Marx himself held to the view that the system of laws of nature is a dialectical evolving one is more than doubtful. He does mention once that the dialectic law of qualitative change holds good “alike in history and natural science,” but he also states explicitly that “no natural laws can be done away with. What can change, in changing historical circumstances is the form in which these laws operate.” Social laws only are dialectical, according to Marx, insofar as they are “historically valid” within the limits of their special historic modes of production. Natural laws, however, do not vary with the social mode of production. Cf., The Correspondence of Marx and Engels, New York, 1935, pp. 223, 246. Also, cf., Capital, Vol. I, Kerr Edition, p. 693.
Engels, on the contrary, could never restrain himself from reading Hegel's categories into all natural phenomena. Sexual love, for instance, exemplified to him pleasure in the identity in difference and in the difference in identity. As a young man, Engels had attended the lectures of Schelling, and his first literary effort was indeed a pamphlet against Schelling. But evidently the temptation to Naturphilosophie is strong, and Engels' dialectic of Nature is a worthy successor to Schelling's Principle of Identity. Cf., Correspondence, loc. cit., p. 495. Gustav Mayer, Friedrich Engels, transl. by G. and H. Highet, New York, 1936, p. 21.
18 Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, New York, 1929, p. 139.
19 Cf., Henri Poincaré, L'Evolution des Lois, Dernières Pensées, Paris, 1913, pp. 28–29. A thoroughgoing dialectical universe would preclude the application of scientific method. As John Maynard Keynes observed: If every configuration of the Universe were subject to a separate and independent law, or if very small differences between bodies—in their shape or size, for instance—led to their obeying quite different laws, prediction would be impossible and the inductive method useless.” Cf., A Treatise on Probability, London, 1921, p. 249.
20 Philipp Frank, Intercommunication between Science and Philosophy, Approaches to National Unity, Edited by Bryson, Finkelstein, and MacIver, New York, 1945, p. 602.
21 Abram Bergson, The Structure of Soviet Wages, Cambridge, 1944, pp. 80–81, p. 209.
22 Cf., V. F. Lenzen, Science and Social Context, Civilization, University of California Publications in Philosophy, Vol. 23, Berkeley, 1942, p. 23.
23 N. Bukharin, Theory and Practice from the Standpoint of Dialectical Materialism, Science at the Cross Roads, loc. cit., pp. 14–15, 27.
24 Eric Ashby, Scientist in Russia, Penguin, Middlesex, 1947, pp. 117–118. B. A. Keller writes: “The Soviet scientist differs radically from the usually accepted conception of a savant. Borrowing the words of Karl Marx, scientists formerly resembled philosophers who only explained the world differently; the Soviet scientists of today are working to change it.” The Soviet Scientist, Moscow, 1939, p. 13.
25 M. Shirokov, A Textbook of Marxist Philosophy, translated and edited by John Lewis, London, 1937, p. 85.
26 N. Bukharin, op. cit., p. 18.
27 Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia, transl. by Eden and Cedar Paul, London, 1919, Vol. I, p. 200.
28 V. I. Lenin, Religion, New York, 1933, p. 33.
29 Acad. M. Mitin, Twenty-five Years of Philosophy in the U. S. S. R., Philosophy, Vol. XIX, (1944), p. 81.
30 A. A. Zhdanov, On the History of Philosophy, The Bolshevik, Aug. 30, 1947, transl. in Political Affairs, New York, Vol. XXVII, (1948), p. 365.
31 J. B. S. Haldane, The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences, pp. 67, 76. Dialectical Materialism and Modern Science, loc. cit., p. 268. Haldane has tried to develop Milne's ideas in A New Theory of the Past, American Scientist, Vol. 33, (1945), p. 129.
32 “The new emerges through leaps. Negation and negation of negation express themselves as this interruption of continuity, as manifestations of that new law-system which breaks down the old form of contradiction …” Shirokov, op. cit., pp. 378, 374.
33 Frederick Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science, transl. by Emile Burns, New York, p. 346.
34 Some Problems of the Teaching of Political Economy, translated as Political Economy in the Soviet Union, by E. G. and V. D. Kazakevich, New York, 1944, pp. 22–23. Another translation by Raya Dunayevskaya is found in American Economic Review, Vol. XXXIV, (1944), p. 501.
35 Oscar Lange, Marxian Economics in the Soviet Union, American Economic Review, Vol. XXXV, (1945), p. 131.
36 Th. Dobzhansky, N. I. Vavilov, A Martyr of Genetics, The Journal of Heredity, (1947), Vol. 38, p. 227 ff.
37 M. Mitin, Towards the Advancement of Soviet Genetics, Pravda, Dec. 7, 1939, transl. The American Quarterly of the Soviet Union, Vol. II, (1940), p. 40.
38 J. L. Fyfe, The Soviet Genetics Controversy, The Modern Quarterly, Vol. 2, (1947), p. 348.
39 R. G. Davies, Genetics in the U. S. S. R., The Modern Quarterly, Vol. 2, (1947), p. 345. L. C. Dunn had written an extremely favorable appraisal, Soviet Research in the Biological Sciences, Science in Soviet Russia, Lancaster, 1944, p. 28.
40 Eric Ashby, op. cit., p. 108.
41 “Therefore, modern genetics, admitting in the abstract the changeability of living nature, in practice carries on its investigations … which imply an unchangeability of the heredity of the organism by the conditions of its life. By this token, this science tells us that it is impossible to influence the variability of the nature of plants and animals in a desired direction through living conditions. Our Soviet science, the Michurinist direction in science, gives a clear understanding of the way in which the nature of organisms may be changed.” T. D. Lysenko, Heredity and Its Variability. transl. by Th. Dobzhansky, New York, 1946, p. 6. Also, cf. Davies, op. cit., p. 344.
42 On Academician Lysenko's Report, Pravda, August 12, 1948, translated in U.S.S.R. Information Bulletin, September 8, 1948, pp. 534, 543.
43 Cf., Th. Dobzhansky, Lysenko's ‘Genetics’, The Journal of Heredity, Vol. XXXVII, (1946), p. 8. R. G. Davies, op. cit., pp. 340–342, Ashby, op. cit., pp. 112–114. A scientific Marxian like J. B. S. Haldane adjudges the new Soviet genetics “to be untrue in the light of actual biological research,” The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences, p. 132. Also, cf., C. D. Darlington, The Retreat from Science in Soviet Russia, The Nineteenth Century, Vol. CXLII, (1947), p. 165.
44 J. L. Fyfe, op. cit., p. 351.
45 “Many people think that all scientific work must be immediately and directly applied to technology. Of course this is wrong. This approach is naive and leads to harmful simplification. Even the superficial study of the history of science and culture shows that every great science inevitably influences not only technology, but the whole mode of our life as well. … In our country the achievements of science are often judged by their practical results, and it appears that he who plucks the apple tree does the principal work, whereas, as a matter of fact, it was he who plants the apple tree which produced the apple.” Report of Academician P. L. Kapitsa, Voka Bulletin, (1943), No. 9–10, Moscow, p. 26. Also, cf. Ashby, op. cit., p. 137.
46 Anton R. Zhebrak, Soviet Biology, Science, Vol. 102, (1945), p. 358.
47 John Lewis, A Footnote on the Soviet Genetics Controversy, The Modern Quarterly, Vol. II, (1947), pp. 355–356.
48 New York Times, August 25, 1948, February 10, 1948.
49 G. Alexandrov, Certain Tasks that Face Social Science Today, Voks Bulletin, Moscow, No. 1–2, (1946), p. 38. Also, cf., Academician S. I. Vavilov, Thirty Years of Soviet Science, Soviet Press Translations, University of Washington, Vol. 3, (1948), p. 81.
50 Vladimir N. Ipatieff, The Life of a Chemist, Stanford University Press, 1946, p. 461. S. Vassiliev simply stated the Soviet doctrine of science as follows: “The principle of planning subordinates to itself not only the domain of economy but also the domain of ‘spiritual production’, the domain of science, the domain of theory.” Scientific Research Work and Industry, Scientific Construction in the U.S.S.R., Moscow, 1933.
51 Thorstein Veblen, The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, New York, 1919, p. 20. Also, cf. Ernst Mach, The Part Played by Accident in Invention and Discovery. Popular Scientific Lectures, Fourth Edition, transl. by T. J. McCormack, Chicago, 1910, p. 259.
52 Cf., V. L. Komarov, N. A. Maximov, B. Kuznetsov, “K. A. Timiryazev”, Voks Bulletin, No. 6, (1945), p. 29.
53 C. A. Timiriazeff, The Life of the Plant, transl. by Anna Cheremeteff, London, 1912, pp. 9–10.
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