NAIVE MATERIALISM
A crude form of materialism which doesn’t really
comprehend how mind and consciousness
can arise out of complex organizations of matter such as brains. A naive materialist might
say something like “Mind is just an aspect of nature; even rocks have simple kinds of minds.”
This sort of foolishness serves to discredit materialism in general, even though there are
much more sophisticated kinds of materialism, such as
dialectical materialism.
See also:
NATURALISM,
IDENTITY THEORY and
MECHANICAL MATERIALISM.
NATIONAL INTERESTS (Under Capitalism)
What are often described as “national interests” in a capitalist state are in fact the
interests of its ruling class, the bourgeoisie. Thus when the U.S. government tells
Americans that it is in the “national interests” of the United States that it should
make war against Vietnam or Iraq, we should understand full well that this is only a
camouflaged way of talking about the class interests of the capitalists who currently own
and control the country.
NATIONAL INTERESTS (Under Socialism)
The true, long-term “national interests” of a socialist state are those of the
ruling working class. However, it must be recognized that in the short term, even a
socialist country may have “national interests” which diverge from the interests of the
world communist revolution. And in that case, it is important and correct that the
conflicting “national interests” of the socialist country be ignored or set aside, and
the real interests of the people of the world and the world revolution be satisfied
instead. This requires a greatness of mind and purpose on the part of the leaders of
any genuine socialist country since in the short term it may create serious problems for
them (including possibly even war).
The revisionist leaders of the old Soviet
Union claimed that “National interests and the interests of the socialist system as a
whole combine harmoniously.” [“The Letter of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. to the
Central Committee of the C.P.C.” (March 30, 1963), included in A Proposal Concerning
the General Line of the International Communist Movement (Peking: FLP, 1963), p. 88.]
But this just is not so! It is just a fact of life that sometimes short-term interests,
including short-term “national interests”, conflict with the true and genuine long-term
interests of the people and the world revolution. Revisionists, and social-imperialists
always try to deny this truth.
See also:
PATRIOTISM UNDER
SOCIALISM
NATIONALISM
[Intro material to be added...]
“On the national question the world outlook of the proletarian party is internationalism, and not nationalism. In the revolutionary struggle it supports progressive nationalism and opposes reactionary nationalism. It must always draw a clear line of demarcation between itself and bourgeois nationalism, to which it must never fall captive.” —A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement: The letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 17.
NATURAL LAW (In Science)
See:
SCIENTIFIC LAWS
“NATURAL LAW” (In Ethics and Politics)
The theory that there are laws, higher than any man-made laws, and which are universal,
unchanging, and an inherent part of human nature. These “natural laws” are supposed to be
discoverable through human reason, but oddly enough they always seem to be laws that the
current ruling class would approve of. Advocates of the theory of “natural law” include
the ancient Stoic philosophers, “Saint” Thomas Aquinas, and many modern “libertarian”
reactionaries.
“NATURAL RIGHTS”
The notion that certain freedoms or privileges belong innately to human beings and
cannot be denied in any society. One famous advocate of natural rights was
John Locke, whose opinions on the matter helped inspire the framers
of the American Constitution. However, the whole concept of
“rights” is inferior to that of interests
as a basis for morality and politics; “rights” are more of a legalistic concept.
NATURALISM
1. [In bourgeois philosophy of mind:] The view that there is no reality except that of
the “natural world”, which is usually defined narrowly to exclude not only God and souls,
but also mind. From the dialectical materialist point of view this
is an example of naive materialism.
2. [In ethics:] Among cognitive ethical theories (which hold
that moral judgments are meaningful and either true or false), the biggest division is between
intuitionism, which holds that moral terms signify some
supposed “non-natural” and “indefinable” quality of things, and naturalism, which holds
that moral words (such as ‘good’, ‘right’,
‘ought’, etc.), can be defined in terms of non-moral concepts. Most
versions of naturalism hold that “moral judgments are empirical statements verifiable by the
same methods of natural science” as any other statements. The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
Class Interest Theory of Ethics is therefore one
major type of ethical naturalism, and holds that moral terms can be defined and explicated in
terms of people’s collective interests, and—in class society—in terms of
class interests.
“NATURALISTIC FALLACY”
The belief of many bourgeois philosophers that it is invalid to infer any moral principles
from factual statements. If, as Marxists hold, morality is simply a question of what is in
the interests of the people, then it is a simple matter to deduce from a plain fact
(such as that “A law against striking is harmful to the interests of the workers”) that
something is morally right or wrong (“The anti-strike law is wrong.”). In short, talk about
the “naturalistic fallacy” is itself a fallacy. An earlier version of the so-called naturalistic
fallacy was Hume’s claim that you cannot derive
ought from is.
NATURE — Dialectics Of
[Intro material to be added... ]
“Marx and I were pretty well the only people to rescue conscious dialectics from German idealist philosophy and apply it in the materialist conception of nature and history. But a knowledge of mathematics and natural science is essential to a conception of nature which is dialectical and at the same time materialist.” —Engels, Preface to the 1885 edition of Anti-Dühring, MECW 25:11.
“... in nature, amid the welter of innumerable changes, the same dialectical laws of motion force their way through as those which in history govern the apparent fortuitousness of events; the same laws which similarly form the thread running through the history of the development of human thought and gradually rise to consciousness in thinking man.... And finally, to me there could be no question of building the laws of dialectics into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from it.” —Engels, ibid., MECW 25:11-13.
“And since biology has been pursued in the light of the theory of evolution, one rigid boundary line of classification after another has been swept away in the domain of organic nature.... It is precisely the polar antagonisms put forward as irreconcilable and insoluble, the forcibly fixed lines of demarcation and class distinctions, which have given modern theoretical natural science its restricted, metaphysical character. The recognition that these antagonisms and distinctions, though to be found in nature, are only of relative validity, and that on the other hand their imagined rigidity and absolute validity have been introduced into nature only by our reflective minds—this recognition is the kernel of the dialectical conception of nature. It is possible to arrive at this recognition because the accumulating facts of natural science compel us to do so; but one arrives at it more easily if one approaches the dialectical character of these facts equipped with an understanding of the laws of dialectical thought.” —Engels, ibid., MECW 25:14.
“Nature is the proof of dialectics, and it must be said for modern
science that it has furnished this proof with very rich materials increasing daily,
and thus has shown that, in the last resort, nature works dialectically and not
metaphysically....
“An exact representation of the
universe, of its evolution, of the development of mankind, and of the reflection of
this evolution in the minds of men, can therefore only be obtained by the methods of
dialectics with its constant regard to the innumerable actions and reactions of life
and death, of progressive or retrogressive changes.” —Engels, Anti-Dühring,
MECW 25:23-24.
NEGATION (In Dialectics)
[Intro material to be added... ]
“Marxist philosophy, as distinguished from preceding philosophical systems, is not a science dominating the other sciences, rather it is an instrument of scientific investigation, a method, penetrating all natural and social sciences, enriching itself with their attainments in the course of their development. In this sense Marxist philosophy is the most complete and decisive negation of all preceding philosophy. But to negate, as Engels emphasized, does not mean merely to say ‘no.’ Negation includes continuity, signifies absorption, the critical reforming and unification in a new and higher synthesis of everything advanced and progressive that has been achieved in the history of human thought.” —A. A. Zhdanov, “On the History of Philosophy”, 1947.
NEGATION OF THE NEGATION
[To be added... ]
NEO-CLASSICAL SYNTHESIS
[Sometimes without the hyphen.] [Definition to be added...]
NEO-COLONIALISM
[Often without the hyphen.] [Definition to be added...]
NEO-LIBERALISM
[Often without the hyphen.] [Definition to be added...]
See also:
LAISSEZ-FAIRE.
NEOLITHIC AGE
The New Stone Age, or period from about 10,000 to 3,000 BCE. The term is generally used in
reference to the social and cultural developements of Europe and the Mediteranean area.
See also:
PALEOLITHIC AGE
NEW ECONOMIC POLICY (NEP)
[To be added... ]
“NEW SYNTHESIS” (by Bob Avakian)
A supposed further development of communist theory to a new stage by Bob
Avakian of the RCPUSA. It has been presented by the RCP and by
Avakian himself as “the most advanced representation of communist thinking”. One is temped to
summarize this “new synthesis” by adapting the words of Samuel Johnson: “Sir, your ‘new
synthesis’ is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part
that is original is not good.” But the problem is in finding much of anything substantial
that is really new or original in the first place! [More to be added...]
NIETZSCHE, Friedrich (1844-1900)
[To be added...]
See also:
Philosophical doggerel about
Nietzsche.
NIHILISM
1. [Ethics:] The theory that no moral views are valid or justifiable, and that morality is
therefore irrational or meaningless. Turgenev originated the term in his novel Fathers and
Sons (1862). Obviously this is just a “sophisticated” excuse for acting according to one’s
own selfish interests.
2. Political nihilism is the theory that society is so corrupt and despicable that its complete
and utter destruction is necessary, which means that even the wildest and most aimless eruptions
of violence are justified and appropriate. Such views are generally popular only amoung those
who have no idea how to go about changing society; i.e., a few disillusioned students of
bourgeois or petty-bourgeois origin.
NOMINALISM
Originally a trend in medieval philosophy which asserted that (contrary to
idealists like Plato) only individual
things really exist. Plato held that in addition to individual chairs there also existed the
idea or “form” of “chairness” which was the deeper and truer reality. As Marx
noted, in rejecting such nonsense nominalism was the first expression of
materialism during the Middle Ages.
However the nominalists did not seem to
understand that general concepts (abstractions) actually do reflect the real qualities of
objectively existing individual things. The medieval nominalists, and their modern followers
(especially bourgeois writers in the field of semantics), have often seemed unable to appreciate
the power and importance of generalization and abstraction. Thus comments about chairs in
general can actually be just as true statements about the world as are comments about individual
chairs. “Chairs are for sitting on” is just as true and valid as “This chair is for sitting
on”.
“NON-CAPITALIST PATH OF DEVELOPMENT”
A term used by the Soviet revisionists to describe the attempts by various originally
pre-capitalist or semi-capitalist Third World countries, under Soviet tutelage, to build
government-owned industry (i.e., state capitalism). While it seemed ridiculous even to the
revisionists to actually call this sort of thing “socialism”, they tried to characterize it
as having a “socialist orientation”, and hence supposedly not really capitalism either.
NON-COGNITIVISM
A type of bourgeois ethical theory which—amazingly!—denies that moral judgments are meaningful
and either true or false. Non-cognitivist ethical theories deny, for example, that saying
“Genocide is wrong” is a meaningful statement, and also deny that the statement is true or
false! The logical positivists, in particular, claimed
this about moral judgments. Some people in this general positivist tradition, including
Charles Stevenson, went on to claim that moral judgments are
merely expressions of emotion and “commands” that others have the same emotional reaction to
something as the speaker does. (Thus for them “murder is wrong” is roughly equivalent to
“murder—UGH!—and that’s the way you should feel too!”) Another, much more widespread, variation
of non-cognitivism is the notion that moral judgments merely express approval or disapproval,
but are neither true nor false. This is the view of several influential British philosophers
including John Austin and R. M. Hare, and—indoctrinated by them—the
editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. Of course, according to our MLM ethical
theory, moral statements are definitely meaningful, and are true or false. Thus we say that
the statement “It will be a very good and important thing to overthrow imperialism and put an
end to imperialist wars!” is both fully meaningful, and definitely true.
NORMATIVE ETHICS
The part of ethics (in the broad sense) which concerns what is actually right and wrong.
In other words, what we more usually just call morality.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Atom bombs (based on nuclear fission) and thermonuclear bombs (based on nuclear fusion), the
most terrible weapons of mass destruction of our era.
“The complete banning and destruction of nuclear weapons is an important
task in the struggle to defend world peace. We must do our utmost to this end.
“Nuclear weapons are unprecidentedly
destructive, which is why for more than a decade now the U.S. imperialists have been
pursuing their policy of nuclear blackmail in order to realize their ambition of enslaving
the people of all countries and dominating the world.
“But when the imperialists threaten
other countries with nuclear weapons, they subject the people in their own country to the
same threat, thus arousing them against nuclear weapons and against the imperialist
policies of aggression and war. At the same time, in their vain hope of destroying their
opponents with nuclear weapons, the imperialists are in fact subjecting themselves to the
danger of being destroyed.
“The possibility of banning nuclear
weapons does indeed exist. However, if the imperialists are forced to accept an agreement
to ban nuclear weapons, it decidedly will not be because of their ‘love for humanity’ but
because of the pressure of the people of all countries and for the sake of their own vital
interests.” —A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist
Movement: The letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to
the letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30,
1963 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 32.
Glossary Home Page and Letter Index