30 VULGAR MATERIALISM

Vulgar materialism is a nineteenth-century philosophical doctrine created on simpler materialistic views in comparison with the activity of the human psyche and its ability to reproduce the surrounding reality.

Main representatives:

1) Karl Focht (Vogt) (1817–1895) - German natural scientist, was engaged in problems in the field of biology and geology. An antagonist of the materialistic ideas of K. Marx, who criticized his judgments in the pamphlet "Mr. Vogt" in I860;

2) Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899) - German physiologist, supporter of natural science ideas, social Darwinism - trends in sociology, applying Charles Darwin’s scientific achievements, formed on transferring the position of the struggle for existence from the animal and plant worlds to the laws of the historical evolution of society (war , class struggle, nationalism, etc.);

3) Jacob Moleschott (1822–1893) - Dutch philosopher and physiologist. He is an adherent of the natural science method of comprehending the surrounding reality. His views were sharply criticized by representatives of Marxism.

The opposite philosophy of vulgar materialism was the formation in the 1840s. K. Marx and F. Engels of metaphysical, philosophical and historical materialistic teachings.

The differences between Marxist materialism and the vulgar: a revolutionary, not a reformist approach to the process of increasing information about the real world. Criticism of dialectical views has influenced the phenomena of nature in their interrelations and interactions, as well as the laws of the activity of the psychic mapping of the environment by a person and the social formation as a whole. The initial position served as a metaphysical way of comprehending the world if there is a need for its revolutionary reorganization.

Key provisions of this method:

1) the presence of a total connection of phenomena in nature and society;

2) infinity of dynamics and transformations in the physical world;

3) “the struggle of opposites” as a foundation for evolutionary development;

4) continuous transition of quantitative modifications to qualitative ones.

Without rejecting the views of natural science in the information about the world, the materialism of K. Marx (philosophical teaching) also proceeds from the reality of the world, taking into account the laws of the dynamics of matter; existence as an objective reality living outside and autonomously from consciousness; the primacy of matter as a source of consciousness, feelings and judgments.

Consciousness is a reproduction of matter and life in general, in contrast to the natural scientific opinions of vulgar materialists, who combine the activities of mental processes in the central nervous system and their effects on the body to a simplified explanation of this from the point of view of physiology, chemistry, biology, etc.