Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"Engels, Friedrich
Philosophy
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"
Engels, Friedrich
Dialectical materialism; Dühring, E. (Eugen), 1833-1921; Economics; Philosophy; Socialism
The idea of purpose furnishes Herr Duehring with his conception of the
transition to the organic world. This is again borrowed from Hegel,
who in his "logic"--teachings of the concept--mingled with teachings
of teleology or of purpose, passes over from chemistry to life.
Whichever way we look we discover Herr Duehring to be in possession
of Hegelian lore which he gives forth without any embarrassment as his
own fundamental philosophy. It would be too long a task to find out
here just how far the application of the ideas of purpose is correctly
stated and applied to the organic world. The application of the
Hegelian "inner purpose" at all events is evident, that is, of a
purpose which is imported into nature not through a consciously acting
third party, like the wisdom of Providence, but which is inherent in
matter itself, which among people who are not well versed in
philosophy proceeds to the unthinking supposition of a conscious and
all-wise agent; the same Herr Duehring who breaks out into unmeasured
moral indignation at the least tendency towards spiritism on the part
of other people, tells us that "sex sensations are certainly mainly
directed towards the gratification which is bound up in their
exercise." He tells us moreover that "poor Nature must always hold the
objective world in order" and it has besides to perform acts which
require more subtlety from Nature than we usually attribute to her.
But nature knows not only why she does this and that. She has not only
her housemaid's duties to perform, she has not only subtlety, which is
a very pretty accomplishment, in subjective conscious thought, she has
also a will, for "we must regard the additional natural desires which
occur, such as feeding and propagation, not as directly but as
indirectly willed." We now arrive at a consciously thinking and acting
nature, and we therefore stand right at the bridge, not indeed between
the static and dynamic but between pantheism and deism, or perhaps
Herr Duehring is pleased to indulge himself in a little
"natural-philosophical half-poetry."
Impossible. All that the realistic philosophy has to say on organic
nature is limited to a war against this natural philosophical
half-poesy against "Charlatanism with its wanton superficialities and
pseudo-scientific mysticism, against the poetic features of
Darwinism."
Darwin comes in for a share of blame chiefly because he transferred
the Malthusian theory of population from political economy to natural
science, because he is entangled by his notions of breeding, so that
his work is a sort of unscientific half-poetic attack against design
in creation, and that the whole of Darwinism, after what he has
borrowed from Lamark has been deducted, is a piece of brutality aimed
against humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account