Socialist Appeal
The British section of the International Marxist Tendency
Modern science takes its starting point from the Renaissance, that marvellous period of spiritual and intellectual rebirth, which put and end to the thousand year reign of ignorance and superstition. Humanity once again looked to nature with eyes unblinkered by dogma. The philosophers of the Renaissance rediscovered the wonders of classical Greek philosophy and pointed science onto the right path.
Marx called Aristotle the "The greatest thinker of antiquity". In this part of his series on The History of Philosophy, Alan Woods examines the ideas and contributions of Aristotle and the impact on later Classical philosophy.
Over a hundred years after Darwin, the idea that everything changes is generally accepted among educated people. It was not always so. In this part of his series on the History of Philosophy, Alan Woods examines the first "dialecticians", who tried to understand the processes of motion and change in nature.
This text was originally written as a section of the book Reason in Revolt: Marxist philosophy and modern science, but eventually the book became too long and this section had to be left out. Therefore this history of philosophy is published here for the first time, starting with the question: "Do we need philosophy?"
Trotsky's 'ABC of Materialist Dialectics' is a brilliant short explanation of Marxist philosophy. It was written as part of a defence of Marxism against a middle-class revisionist tendency in the American Trotskyist movement in the late 1930s, which attempted to challenge its basic principles. As opposed to pragmatism and empiricism, Trotsky defended dialectical materialism as a richer, fuller, more comprehensive view of society and life in general.