Marx's theory
Materialist dialectics is the only scientific methodology that Marx and Engels created by transforming Hegel's idealistic dialectics on the basis of materialism. It is a methodology with the most universal significance, which is formed on the basis of summing up various positive achievements of specific scientific and according to the most universal laws of nature, society and thinking. Materialist dialectics is the correct reflection of objective laws, which requires people to proceed from reality, seek truth from facts, consciously apply the dialectical laws of the development of the objective world, and carry out cognitive and practical activities in strict accordance with objective laws.
Materialist dialectics holds that all phenomena in the world are in universal connection and eternal movement, and the most essential form of universal connection and the deepest reason for the development of movement are the unity of contradictions and opposites. Therefore, the metaphysical thinking method of looking at problems in isolation and stillness is wrong, and contradiction analysis is the most important cognitive method. Materialist dialectics holds that practice is the basis of the unity of opposites between subjective and objective. Being divorced from practice will inevitably lead to subjective and objective deviation and subjectivism, so we must adhere to practice to maintain the consistency of subjective and objective. In the process of understanding, we should test people's understanding with practice and be good at using a variety of scientific experiments and typical experiments correctly. Materialist dialectics holds that the whole objective material world and all things and phenomena in it are the unity of diversity. Each has its own structure, including different levels and elements, forming a system; Every thing, phenomenon and system has its own personality; At the same time, there is a certain * * * between them, and * * * exists in personality. Diversity and unity, individuality and individuality are opposites and unity. As a result, there are methods of induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis in cognition, from perceptual concreteness to thinking abstraction, and from thinking abstraction to thinking concreteness. These different methods are also the unity of opposites. We should not unilaterally raise one method and belittle the other, but put them in their proper position. We should not only oppose empiricism that emphasizes induction unilaterally, but also oppose rationalism, dogmatism and dogmatism that emphasizes deduction unilaterally, and we should combine induction and deduction dialectically. All things and phenomena in the world have their historical laws of emergence, development and extinction, and the historical method and logical method must be unified in understanding. Lenin once summed up the basic logical methods of understanding things: ① To be comprehensive, we must grasp and study all aspects, relationships and intermediaries of things; ② Observing things from their development, movement and changes; (3) All human practices must be included in the perfection of things? Definition? Go to the middle; ④ Attention must be paid to the concreteness of truth. With the continuous enrichment and development of people's understanding of objective laws, Marxist methodology will also be enriched and developed.
The most important feature of Marxist philosophical methodology is that it is not only a tool for theoretical understanding, but also a tool for great revolutionary practice in the capitalist movement. It is a unified, complete and scientific methodology of theoretical understanding and revolutionary practice, and plays an increasingly important role in social practice and spiritual life. Guided by the methodology of Marxist philosophy, Mao Zedong put forward the theory of leadership methods and working methods in concrete revolutionary practice. He said:? No matter what we do in party member, we must adopt two methods, one is to combine the general with the individual, and the other is to combine the leaders with the masses. Gathering from the masses, adhering to the masses and forming correct leadership opinions are the basic leadership methods. In the process of concentration and persistence, we must adopt the method of combining general call with individual guidance, which is an organic part of the former method? (Selected Works of Mao Zedong, vol. 3, pp. 852 and 855).
Modern methodology
Since the physics revolution at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, all sciences have developed by leaps and bounds. The proportion of methodology in scientific knowledge is increasing day by day, and its role in scientific development is becoming more and more obvious. This is inseparable from the characteristics of the times of scientific development. The concrete manifestations are as follows: ① The scientific research on nature and society is more and more extensive and in-depth, which reduces the intuitive degree of scientific research, improves the abstract degree, and produces the necessity of highly developed logical thinking methods. (2) The further differentiation and synthesis of science has produced some emerging disciplines and marginal disciplines, enhanced the integrity and comprehensiveness of scientific research, and produced new disciplines with methodological significance such as system theory. (3) Modern science has discovered a series of new facts that the original scientific theoretical system can't explain and explain, and some paradoxes have appeared, which have destroyed the original principles of the scientific system and the consistent logical rigor of thinking, produced many fundamental changes in the modern scientific category system, and promoted the development of logical methods. (4) The complexity and comprehensiveness of scientific research projects are increasing, followed by more and more complex and sophisticated scientific research methods, and scientific research is becoming a collective and comprehensive undertaking. Therefore, different aspects and levels of scientific research need to cooperate and coordinate with each other, so it is necessary to coordinate different aspects and levels of scientific research methodology.
The characteristics of scientific development put forward a series of problems to be solved for philosophical methodology, such as observation and experiment, scientific fact and causal explanation, induction and deduction, analogy and generalization, hypothesis and theory, certainty and uncertainty, imagination and scientific discovery, system and structure, structure and function, system and elements, control and information, law and prediction. The development of science also raised a series of questions about methodological forms, such as the analysis of scientific language and the form of scientific theory. Logical empiricism philosophy attaches great importance to the study of methodological forms and has made some useful contributions. However, logical empiricism philosophy denies the necessity and possibility of the existence of world outlook science, and dismisses all questions about philosophical world outlook as? Metaphysics? Unreal question. Logical empiricists unilaterally exaggerate the formal aspects of methodology, often confined to the static logical analysis of scientific theory, ignoring and belittling the objective content of experience and obliterating the revolutionary changes in the development of scientific knowledge. Since the 1920s, most philosophers of science have based their plans on? The knowledge content of any natural science has a definite logical structure and can be expressed by a formal proposition system? On the basis of such a hypothesis, this formalized method and axiomatic method have certain positive effects on the development of science, but it is wrong to ignore the objective essence and true content of related things and only attribute the study of things to the method of relationship and trace back to some method of setting axioms.
Since 1950s, there has been a new development trend in western philosophy of science, which is mainly manifested in breaking through the static logic analysis of scientific theory and linking the research of methodology with the history of scientific development. For example, K.R. Popper in Britain, T.S. Kuhn in the United States and later lakatos and P.K. Feyerabend all tried to explain the revolution and development of scientific theory from the perspective of methodology. Popper believes that the development of science is a series of falsification processes. He emphasized deduction, denied induction, praised falsification and despised confirmation. He even said:? We don't know each other, so we can only guess. ? Kuhn pointed out that scientific development is achieved through the alternate development of conventional science and scientific revolution. What is the scientific revolution? Paradigm? (Paradigm) Substitution. He believes that if there is no destructive change in the belief in nature, it is difficult to produce new theories? . What did he say? Destructive change? It is the product of an irrational activity. He denied the inheritance in the scientific revolution. On the basis of absorbing the advantages of Popper and Kuhn's thoughts and overcoming Popper's naive falsificationism, lakatos proposed that science can only develop on the basis of putting forward and realizing a certain order in scientific research programmes. Fejer and Abend believe that all methodologies have their own limitations. Through the analysis of historical cases of science, he tried to explain that science was stagnant under the rule of a certain theory, and put forward a method to overthrow an established theory, namely? Anything will do. In other words, scientists are free to try any program they like. They all criticized the view that logical empiricism regards scientific development as a simple process of knowledge accumulation. But their common feature is to exaggerate the relativity of knowledge and deny the absolute objective content of knowledge, thus becoming suspicious.
Philosophical methodology is a methodology with universal significance, which is applicable to all specific sciences. The development of modern natural science not only develops the special methodology of specific science, but also breeds some scientific methodologies that only reflect one aspect of the world but have universal significance, such as mathematical methods. Historically, mathematics is almost as old as philosophy, and mathematics has the significance of scientific methodology from the beginning. Although mathematics initially only played a methodological role in a few sciences, such as astronomical phenomena, calendars, land survey, machinery and so on. Everything in the world has two aspects: quality and quantity. Quantity specifies quality, and the mutual change of quality is a universal dialectical law. Therefore, mathematics and its methods should be universally applicable to any science. Marx believes that a science can only be truly perfect if it successfully uses mathematics. The development of modern science shows this point day by day. Mathematical methods are increasingly becoming indispensable methods in all scientific departments, including natural science, social science, thinking science and so on. However, mathematical methods only involve the quantitative aspect of things, so mathematical methods alone cannot reveal all aspects of things and achieve a comprehensive and complete understanding of things. At the same time, the correct application of mathematical methods and the healthy development of mathematical methods themselves can not be separated from the guidance of correct philosophical methodology, so mathematical methods can not replace philosophical methodology.
Knowledge methodology
Theory on the methods of understanding the world and transforming it. Methodology can be divided into philosophical methodology, general scientific methodology and specific scientific methodology at different levels. Scientific methodology, including Bacon's experimental method and inductive logic, Descartes' mathematical method and deductive logic, Bertalanffy's general system theory method and China Ceng Bangzhe's system logic On Structure. The most common method theory about understanding the world, transforming the world and exploring the consistency between the subjective world and the objective world is philosophical methodology; It is of universal significance to study various specific disciplines, and the method theory applicable to many related fields is general scientific methodology; The methodology theory of studying a specific subject and involving a specific field is the methodology of a specific science. The three are interdependent, interactive and complementary relations of unity of opposites. Philosophical methodology plays a decisive role in a certain sense. It is the generalization and summary of various scientific methodologies and the most general methodology, which is of guiding significance to both general scientific methodology and specific scientific methodology.
Marxist philosophy is a scientific philosophical methodology, which is not only a weapon to understand the objective world, but also a weapon to transform reality. The philosophical content in our textbook "Principles of Marxist Philosophy" is not all initiated by Marx, but most of them are Marx's conventional views, such as dialectics. Marx's important contribution is historical materialism.
The main relationship of methodology
And worldview
Worldview, popularly speaking, is "viewing the world", which is people's overall view and fundamental view of the world. Methodology is the general way for people to understand and transform the world, and it is the way and method for people to observe things and deal with problems. Generally speaking, the world outlook mainly solves the problem of what the world is, and the methodology mainly solves the problem of how to do it.
The application of some world outlook principles in the process of understanding and practice is manifested in methods. Methodology is a theory about these methods. There is no isolated methodology that breaks away from and separates the world outlook; Without methodological significance, there is no pure world outlook. Generally speaking, what kind of world outlook has what kind of philosophical methodology. Materialist world outlook requires people to proceed from reality and seek truth from facts in understanding and practice. The idealistic world outlook begins with spiritual things. The objective idealism world outlook requires people to follow some objective spiritual principles or religious teachings, the revelation of the gods and so on in their actions. Subjective idealism holds that people can act according to their feelings, experiences, wishes and subjective will. Dialectical world outlook requires grasping things from their universal connection and eternal movement, analyzing their own contradictions and solving these contradictions. The metaphysical world outlook urges people to look at things in isolation, stillness and rigidity. Philosophical methodology is based on a certain world outlook, which obtains the value of existence with its own guiding significance of people's cognitive methods and practical methods. Philosophical methodology can not be separated from world outlook, and natural science methodology must also be based on natural view and scientific view. In the final analysis, specific scientific's research methods are also restricted by a certain world outlook. This restriction is adjusted through different levels of methods. Methodologies at all levels are not directly unified, but there are some differences between them. The consistency between world outlook and methodology is not simple. Understanding world outlook does not mean mastering methodology. Methodology is a theory of applying world outlook, but applying world outlook and mastering methodology need special research.
And historical materialism
Historical materialism correctly solves the basic principle of the relationship between social existence and social consciousness (see social existence determines social consciousness), which is the fundamental starting point of various social sciences. Society is a special part of the material world. Without understanding its particularity, it is impossible to correctly apply the principle of general materialism and dialectical thought to the process of understanding social history. Historical materialism reveals the decisive role of labor in the formation and development of human society, points out the decisive role of social material relations in political relations and ideological relations, clarifies that the relationship between social existence and social consciousness is the fundamental problem of historical view, and lays the fundamental principle of materialist epistemology for various social sciences. Historical materialism explains social consciousness from social existence, production relations from productivity, superstructure from economic basis, and the law of social development from the relationship between productivity, production relations and superstructure, which has universal guiding significance for studying various fields of social life. Only by following this line of understanding can all social sciences correctly sum up empirical materials and draw scientific conclusions.