Dialectical materialism

Roy Edgley

pp. 115-120

in: John Eatwell, Murray Milgate, Peter Newman (eds), Marxian economics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1990

Abstract

Dialectical materialism is what Engels in the Preface to the second edition of the Anti-Dühring calls "the communist world outlook". The term "dialectical materialism" was probably first used by "the father of Russian Marxism", Plekhanov, in 1891. It was unknown to Marx himself. Engels came close to coining it, and it was in fact Engels who was chiefly responsible for founding dialectical materialism: the relevant books are his Anti-Dühring (published 1877–8), Dialectics of Nature (written 1878–82, first published 1927) and Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (published 1886–8).

Cited authors

Marx Karl

Engels Friedrich

Feuerbach Ludwig