I was reading an easy primer on dialectical materialism. I didn’t get far because a nagging in the back of my mind telling me the foundation was unsteady.

I don’t have the original article handy, but they’d posited that idealism and materialism are fundamental opposites (before presenting arguments).

My question is: “why not both”? We have space & time and (as far as I know) nobody says one is the product of the other. Why couldn’t the material and the idea be like orthogonal axis? Or why couldn’t you posit that all is the ideals of some greater thing, appearing as material to us?

I guess I’m looking for a stronger foundation for materialism. I think valuable insights could be gleaned from it, but I don’t trust it’s foundations enough to use it.

  • blackbread@lemmygrad.mlOP
    1·
    1 month ago

    I want to thank everybody for their suggestions (and especially for their suggested readings). I’ve built up a small curriculum based on those recommendations, I’ll study that and post again here (with more knowledge) afterwards: either my own explanation of “why not both” or with more questions.

    These are the recommended readings, I’ve put them into what I imagine is a reasonable order.

    • CriticalResist8@lemmygrad.ml
      1·
      1 month ago

      What a good coincidence that I’m opening this thread randomly to see what came out of it and see your comment made only 16 hours ago.

      I would suggest this order

      • Dash the red (I’m keeping it first because I haven’t read it)
      • On Contradiction
      • On Practice
      • Elementary Principles
      • and then the last two in any order

      I say that because On Contradiction is a great primer before getting into Politzer’s course as I find Mao’s explanation stronger. Politzer’s book is a whole course so it will get you up to speed on idealism, materialism, metaphysics and dialectics. He also references Lenin’s Materialism etc. a lot so you’ll be able to get into that one later with some starting material.