Socialist Appeal
The British section of the International Marxist Tendency
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.
We are publishing the first of a series of Marxist study guides. The purpose is to provide a basic explanation of the fundamental ideas of Marxism with a guide to further reading and points to help organise discussion groups around these ideas. We are starting with dialectical materialism, the philosophy of Marxism.