Philosophy and science

How do we acquire knowledge? Is there a real world beyond our senses? And if so, what is our relation to it? In this important theoretical contribution, Alan Woods mounts a defence of materialism against idealism and the obscurantist, postmodernist subjectivism popular on university campuses today.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born 250 years ago on 27 August 1770 in the German city of Stuttgart. A towering genius with an encyclopaedic mind, Hegel revolutionised every field that he dedicated himself to. The impact of Hegel’s ideas cannot be underestimated. As Marxists, we owe him a tremendous debt.

Revelations that Dominic Cummings sat on the government’s scientific advisory committee have raised question marks over just how ‘impartial’ expert advice is. Under capitalism, science will never be truly objective or independent.

Yesterday was the 160th anniversary of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’. Albeit unconsciously, Darwin’s theory of evolution revealed how nature operates dialectically. This radically challenged the ideology of the ruling class.

Far from fuelling scientific progress, the profit motive and capitalist competition have become an enormous barrier to advancing humanity’s understanding of nature. Only a socialist plan can free science from these chains.

“All individual beings must perish, but the wonderful diversity of the material universe in all its myriad manifestations is eternal and indestructible. Life arises, passes away, and arises again and again. Thus it has been. Thus it will ever be.”

Martin Swayne reviews ‘Lost Connections’, an illuminating new book that examines the social factors and material causes behind the prevalence of mental health issues in modern day capitalist society.

Since the 1930s a dominant trend has existed within the scientific community that explains quantum mechanics with all kinds of idealistic and mystical interpretations. Now, however, unexpected discoveries in the field of fluid mechanics has the potential to reaffirm a dialectical and materialist explanation for these scientific phenomena.

In the final part of his series on the crisis of cosmology, Adam Booth looks at the more recent attempts to take the field of theoretical physics forward and explains the role that Marxism and the philosophy of dialectical materialism can play in guiding scientific research.