Critique of Marxist Philosophy (part 1)

Idealism in Physics and Psychology

The nineteenth-century physicist explained nature in terms of mechanical laws involving material bodies, particles and waves. The developments in atomic physics abolished the classical conception of matter. Matter was no more indestructible; mass and matter became convertible to energy. As a result of this, the materialistic conception of the world became inconsistent with the findings of empirical science.

The discoveries in subatomic particle physics lead to an idealistic tendency among some physicists. The concepts and theories of science, they said, were only convenient ways of discussing reality, whose true nature escaped the categories of thought and knowledge. This idealism, or absence of faith in the objective value of knowledge was, according to Martyr al-Sadr, the result of a philosophical error. They perceived the debate between realists and idealists as revolving about the choice of one of these two alternatives: Either the world is attributable to mind and consciousness, or to a material reality existing outside them.

This is a fallacious formulation of the primary issue involved, that is whether the world has an objective reality independent of mind and consciousness (which in the last analysis may not be material).

As a result, when they failed to posit the fundamental reality of matter, they came to doubt the possibility of knowledge. However, realism and materialism are not synonymous. If science is led to discard the materialistic view of the world, or if any of its scientific axioms collapse as a result of experiments, it should not lead us to reject realism and deny the objective value of knowledge.

The evaporation of matter as a fundamental reality existing independently of mind was a deadly blow to materialist philosophies, including Marxism. However, the Marxist ideologues, such as Lenin, tried to save face by insisting that the philosophical conception of matter is different from the matter of science. The only necessary quality of 'matter', they pleaded, was its existence independent of mind, not the corporeal qualities traditionally ascribed to matter.

This is a futile play with words, for it does not conceal the fact that Marxism has to abandon its philosophical position. If to exist independently of mind is the only necessary quality of matter, then theological metaphysics, according to this new definition of matter, is a materialistic philosophy!

The tendency towards idealism and agnosticism among the physicists was the result of a psychological crisis that came due to the collapse of certain scientific axioms. Materialism was such an axiom, but realism is not. Realism is not the result of empirical proof or experiments; its acceptance is inherent in human nature.

A similar skeptical tendency arose among the physiologists studying the physiology of perception and the causal processes related to it.

They suggested that the objects given in sense perception are symbolic, not representative of the external objects. This tendency was a complication of the materialistic notion that knowledge was purely a physiological act conditioned by the nature of the nervous system.