It is absolute truth it acknowledges when materialist dialectics acknowledges objective truth. This is because, when we say the content of knowledge is a reflection of the objective world, that is the same as acknowledging the object of our knowledge is that external absolute world. “All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and hence essentially absolute”. (Engels)[2-263] However, objective absolute truth does not instantaneously and completely become the knowledge that we have; rather, through the introduction of countless relative truths in the limitless process of development of our thought, absolute truth is arrived at. [p. 219] The sum total of these countless relative truths is the manifestation of absolute truth. By its very nature, human thought can provide us with absolute truth. Absolute truth can only come about from the accumulation of many relative truths. Each stage of the development of science adds a new dimension to the sum total of absolute truth. However, the limits of the truth of each scientific principle are invariably relative; absolute truth is only manifest in countless relative truths; and if it is not so manifest through relative truth, absolute truth could not be known. (p. 297) Materialist dialectics certainly does not deny the relativity of all knowledge; but in doing so it is only indicating the historically conditional character of the limits of our knowledge’s approximation to objective absolute truth, and not suggesting that knowledge itself is only relative. All inventions of science are historically limited and relative.[2-264] But scientific knowledge is different from falsehood; it displays and depicts objective absolute truth. This is the dialectical viewpoint on the interrelationship between absolute and relative truth.
There are two viewpoints, both of which are incorrect on the question of the interrelationship between absolute and relative truth. One is metaphysical materialism, the other is idealist relativism.[2-265]
On the basis of their fundamental metaphysical principle of “the unchangeable material world”, metaphysical materialists consider that human thought is also unchanging; that is, they consider that this unchanging objective world can instantaneously and in its entirety be absorbed in human consciousness. That is to say, they acknowledge[2-266] absolute truth, but for them it is acquired only once by humans; they regard truth as immobile and lifeless, something that does not develop. Their error resides not in acknowledging that there is absolute truth – to acknowledge this point is correct. It is rather in their failure to understand the historical character of truth, and in their not perceiving the acquisition of truth as a knowledge process. It resides also in their not understanding that absolute truth can only come to fruition little by little in the process of development of human knowledge and that every step forward in knowledge expresses the content of absolute truth; that, in relation to complete truth, however, such knowledge possesses only relative significance and certainly cannot instantaneously achieve the completeness of absolute truth. The viewpoint on truth of metaphysical materialism is an expression of one extreme of epistemology.
[p. 220] The other extreme within epistemology on the question of truth is idealist relativism. This denies that knowledge is characterised by absolute truth, only acknowledging its relative significance. It considers all scientific inventions contain no absolute truth; they are thus not objective truth. Truth is only subjective and relative. Consequently, all erroneous viewpoints have the right to exist. Where imperialism invades a weak and small nation, where a ruling class exploits the labouring masses, this doctrine[2-267] of invasion and system of exploitation are also truth, since truth is anyway only subjective and relative. The result of the rejection of objective and absolute[2-268] truth inevitably leads to this conclusion. Moreover, the purpose of idealist relativism is actually to present the case for the ruling class; for example, the purpose of relativist (p. 298) pragmatism (or experimentalism) is just that.
It can therefore be seen that neither metaphysical materialism nor idealist relativism can correctly solve the problem of the interrelationship between absolute and relative truth. Only materialist dialectics can provide the correct answer to the problem of the relationship between thought and existence, and consequently determine the objectivity of scientific knowledge; furthermore, it at the same time provides a correct understanding of absolute and relative truth. This is the theory of truth of materialist dialectics.
11. On Practice – [Refer the second translation in this volume -Ed.]
[p. 234] (p. 298) Chapter 3: Materialist Dialectics
The two questions of “Idealism and Materialism” and “Dialectical Materialism” have been briefly dealt with above. We come now to a systematic discussion of the problem of dialectics which has only been mentioned in outline.[2-269]
[p. 235] The Marxist world (or universal) view is dialectical materialism; it is not metaphysical materialism (also called mechanistic materialism). This distinction is a major issue of the utmost importance. What is the world? From ancient times until the present, there have been three major responses to this question. The first is idealism (either metaphysical or dialectical idealism), which states that the world is created by mind, or through extension, by spirit. The second is mechanistic materialism which denies that the world is a product of mind; the world is a material world, but matter (p. 299) does not develop and is unchanging. The third is the Marxist response which has overturned the two previous responses; it states that the world is not created by mind, and neither is it matter which does not develop; rather, it is a developing material world. This latter position is dialectical materialism.[2-270]
Is not this Marxist conception of the world, which has revolutionised the perception of the world previously held by humanity, a discourse of earth-shaking significance? There were those in the West’s ancient Greece who espoused the view that the world is a developing material world; but because of the limitations of the era, it was only discussed in simple and general terms, and their view is described as naive materialism. It did not have (indeed, could not have had) a scientific base. However, its viewpoint was basically correct. Hegel created dialectical idealism, stating that the world is developmental, but is created by mind. He was a developmental idealist. His theory of development (that is, dialectics) was correct, but his developmental idealism was erroneous. In the West during the three centuries of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the bourgeois materialism[2-271] of Germany, France, and other countries was mechanistic materialism.[2-272] They asserted that the world is a material world, and this is correct; however, they stated that the world is machine-like in its movement, with only changes involving quantitative increase and decrease or in place, there being no qualitative change – an incorrect view. Marx inherited the naive dialectical materialism of Greece, transformed mechanistic materialism and dialectical idealism, and created dialectical materialism which hitherto had not been placed on a scientific basis, and which became the revolutionary weapon of the entire world proletariat and all oppressed peoples. Materialist dialectics is the scientific methodology of Marxism, it is the method of knowledge and logic,[2-273] and yet it is a world view. The world [p. 236] is actually a developing material world: this is a world view. This world view becomes a method if used to observe the world, to study, think about, and resolve the problems of the world,[2-274] to lead a revolution, to do work, to engage in production, to direct warfare, and to discuss[2-275] a person’s strengths and weaknesses; this is a methodology. There is no other single methodology apart from this; therefore in the hands of Marxists,[2-276] world view and methodology are a single entity, and so too are dialectics, epistemology, and logic.