Hi Bruce,
On this question of the etymology of the term dialectical materialism: you
and Tony Burns may very well be correct that Engels used the term - I
actually hope you are, it makes things simpler - but so far I haven't found
a single instance (using the internet) where either Marx or Engels actually
used it, or one of its common variants. Engels comes so close that it
renders this an academic question. But it does have my curiosity. Who
"first used it" and from whence did its common usage arise?
Using Google and the marxists.org archives, I found no instance of the
precise term "dialectical materialism" in Engels "Ludwig Feuerbach and the
Outcome of Classical German Philosophy." In fact, Google's search of the
marxists.org website does not turn up any instances anywhere of Marx or
Engels using this term or its common variants (dialectic materialism,
materialist dialectics, etc.) - but of course this is not exhaustive. For
one, I'm not sure every single volume of the MECW is yet scanned in and
online on that site (most are). As a Google search reveals, lots and lots
of writers attribute the term to them, however - and if that was all we had
to work with, there would be no doubt! Of course I may have missed
something. And then there is always that vexing problem of translations,
where something may have gotten confused. But it is seeming more likely
than not that neither Marx nor Engels ever actually used the phrase
"dialectical materialism" or one of it variants. Please correct me if this
is wrong. Did Tony Burns provide a citation?
Below are some quotes I came up with that shed some light. I've starred
some phrases.
Where I got the idea it was Kautsky:
****'Dialectical Materialism' was coined by
<http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/../../people/k/a.htm#kautsky-karl>Karl
Kautsky and popularised in the Second International after the death of Marx
and Engels.
Marxist Glossary, marxists.org
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm
A suggestion it was Plekhanov.
The first tendency is the Engelsian dialectic, or ****dialectical
materialism, an expression not used by Marx or Engels but popularised by
the Russian philosopher G. V Plekhanov.
Lawrence Wilde, Logic: Dialectic and contradiction
Source: The Cambridge Companion to Marx, ed. Terrell Carver, 1991;
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/wilde1.htm
On marxists.org, Plekhanov does seem to precede Kautsky:
Hegel finally solved the antinomy between freedom and necessity. He proved
that we are free only insofar as we know the laws of nature and
sociohistorical development and insofar as we, submitting to them, rely
upon them. This was a tremendous gain in the field of philosophy and also
in that of social science – again which, however, only modern,
****dialectical materialism has exploited to the full.
G.V. Plekhanov, For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel’s Death (1891)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1891/11/hegel.htm
First instance by Kautsky I found on the site:
The first appearance of this new ****dialectical materialism was in a work
entitled "The Holy Family; or, a Review of the Critical Critique Against
Bruno Bauer and His Followers." This was written in Paris in 1844 and
appeared in Frankfort a year later. The greater part was written by Marx,
and is a reflection of the historical and philosophical studies they had
carried on together.
Karl Kautsky, Frederick Engels: His Life, His Work and His Writings, Kerr,
Library of Progress No. 32, August 15, 1899
http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/works/1890s/engels.htm
Dietzgen goes back to at least 1875:
And now I should like to explain to you, dear comrades, in words as concise
as possible in what the real essence of morality consists. Guided by our
****dialectic-materialist conception and method****, we look first, as
usual in all our researches, for the material, also in this case for the
ethical material, making use hereby of the terminology of every-day language.
Ethics of Social-Democracy: Two Sermons
Source: Philosophical Essays by Joseph Dietzgen, published by Charles H.
Kerr 1917, Edited by Eugene Dietzgen and Joseph Dietzgen Jr., translated by
M. Beer and Th. Rothstein;
First Published: Volksstaat, 1875
http://www.marxists.org/archive/dietzgen/works/1870s/ethics.htm
And now two passages from Engels, who comes SO close.
The perception of the the fundamental contradiction in German idealism led
necessarily back to materialism, but nota bene not to the simply
metaphysical, exclusively mechanical materialism of the 18th century. Old
materialism looked upon all previous history as a crude heap of
irrationality and violence; modern materialism sees in it the process of
evolution of humanity, and aims at discovering the laws thereof. With the
French of the 18th century, and even with Hegel, the conception obtained of
Nature as a whole moving in narrow circles, and forever immutable, with
its eternal celestial bodies, as Newton, and unalterable organic species,
as Linnaeus, taught. Modern materialism embraces the more recent
discoveries of natural science, according to which Nature also has its
history in time, the celestial bodies, like the organic species that, under
favorable conditions, people them, being born and perishing. And even if
Nature, as a whole, must still be said to move in recurrent cycles, these
cycles assume infinitely larger dimensions. In both aspects, ****modern
materialism is essentially dialectic****, and no longer requires the
assistance of that sort of philosophy which, queen-like, pretended to rule
the remaining mob of sciences. As soon as each special science is bound to
make clear its position in the great totality of things and of our
knowledge of things, a special science dealing with this totality is
superfluous or unnecessary. That which still survives of all earlier
philosophy is the science of thought and its law formal logic and
dialectics. Everything else is subsumed in the positive science of Nature
and history.
Frederick Engels
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1880
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch02.htm
Marx and I were pretty well the only people to rescue conscious dialectics
from German idealist philosophy and apply it in the materialist conception
of nature and history. But a knowledge of mathematics and natural science
is essential to ****a conception of nature which is dialectical and at the
same time materialist****. Marx was well versed in mathematics, but we
could keep up with natural science only piecemeal, intermittently and
sporadically. For this reason, when I retired from business and transferred
my home to London,
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/footnotes.htm#n15>[15]
thus enabling myself to give the necessary time to it, I went through as
complete as possible a "moulting", as Liebig calls it,
<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/footnotes.htm#n16>[16]
in mathematics and the natural sciences, and spent the best part of eight
years on it. I was right in the middle of this "moulting" process when it
happened that I had to occupy myself with Herr Dühring's so-called natural
philosophy.
Frederick Engels, 1885 Preface to Anti-Durhing
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/preface.htm
- Steve
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