Engels’s Original Contribution to Forging the Materialist Foundation of Dialectics

Dialectical materialism is an important component of Marxist philosophy. As Lenin emphasized, dialectics is the “living soul” and “fundamental theoretical foundation” of Marxism; without it, Marxism would become “a one-sided, distorted, dead thing.” Marxist dialectics originates from Hegel’s dialectical thought, discarding the latter’s idealist “mystical form” and undergoing a thorough materialist transformation. In the preface to the second edition of *Anti-Dühring*, published in 1885, Engels wrote: “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.” Marx and Engels respectively revealed and expounded materialist dialectics from different fields: Marx used dialectics as the fundamental method for analyzing the laws of motion of the capitalist economy, presenting the dialectics of the social-historical realm in his critique of political economy; Engels primarily formed the theory of the dialectics of nature by summarizing the basic laws of motion revealed by the natural sciences, and on this basis attempted to construct a general theory of dialectics.

唯物辩证法是马克思主义哲学的重要组成部分。正如列宁所强调的那样，辩证法是马克思主义的“活的灵魂”“根本的理论基础”,没有它马克思主义就会变成“一种片面的、畸形的、僵死的东西”。马克思主义辩证法来源于黑格尔的辩证法思想，它抛弃了后者唯心主义的“神秘的形式”,实现了彻底的唯物主义的改造。在1885年出版的《反杜林论》第二版序言中，恩格斯写道：“马克思和我，可以说是唯一把自觉的辩证法从德国唯心主义哲学中拯救出来并运用于唯物主义的自然观和历史观的人。”马克思恩格斯分别从不同领域揭示阐述唯物主义辩证法：马克思将辩证法作为分析资本主义经济运行规律的根本方法，在政治经济学批判中呈现出社会历史领域的辩证法；恩格斯主要是通过归纳自然科学理论所揭示的自然界基本运动规律形成自然辩证法理论，并在此基础上尝试构建一般辩证法理论。

I. Exploring a Rational Path to Strip Away the “Mystical Shell” of Hegelian Dialectics

一、探索出剥离黑格尔辩证法“神秘外壳”的合理路径

Marx and Engels fully affirmed the important status of Hegelian dialectics, holding that Hegel was “the first to present its general forms of motion in a comprehensive and conscious manner,” but that “with him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.” “It must be ‘sublated’ in its own sense, that is, its form must be critically destroyed, but the new content gained through this form must be rescued.” So how exactly should it be turned right side up? How can one obtain its rational kernel while discarding the mystical shell, and gain new content in the process of destroying the old form? Althusser believed: “Stripping off the shell is by no means painless; it is actually the process of breaking through the mystical form, that is, the action of transforming its kernel.” Hegel’s systematic dialectical thought presupposes idealism; for him, dialectics itself is presented through the movement and transformation of consciousness. Stripping away the idealist shell is not a simple discarding, but a reconstruction of the theoretical system.

马克思恩格斯充分肯定了黑格尔辩证法的重要地位，认为黑格尔“第一个全面地有意识地叙述了辩证法的一般运动形式”,只是“辩证法在黑格尔手中神秘化了”,“在他那里，辩证法是倒立着的。必须把它倒过来，以便发现神秘外壳中的合理内核”。“必须从它的本来意义上‘扬弃’它，就是说，要批判地消灭它的形式，但是要救出通过这个形式获得的新内容。”那么到底该怎么样将它倒过来呢?怎么样才能在抛弃神秘外壳的同时获得其合理内核，在消灭旧形式的过程中获得新的内容?阿尔都塞认为：“剥去外壳绝不是没有痛苦的，这实际上是破除神秘形式的过程，也就是改造其内核的行动。”黑格尔系统性的辩证法思想是以唯心主义为前提的，在他那里辩证法本身就是以意识的运动转化呈现的，剥去唯心主义外壳不是简单的抛弃，而是一种理论体系的重构。

1. Hegel’s Dialectics Is Confined to the Domain of Epistemology and Thus Possesses an Idealist Character

1.黑格尔的辩证法囿于认识论论域而具有唯心主义属性

Hegel’s dialectics is a product of theoretical thinking, possessing rigorous logical connections. In particular, these logical connections fully absorbed the achievements of essentialism, epistemology, and conceptualism in human history, thereby reaching an unprecedented peak of theoretical thought. However, because it is a product of thinking, Hegel’s dialectics exhibits a distinct idealist character. Objectively speaking, this idealist character originates from the internal logic of the development of dialectics itself. From the ancient Greek period onward, people attempted to summarize and generalize the phenomena and laws presented in the motion of things, forming dialectics in a naive form. Since the understanding of the state of motion of the world at that time was crude and fragmentary, the dialectics formed then exhibited simple, straightforward, and discontinuous features, without forming a complete theoretical system. Hegel’s dialectics achieved the sublation and transcendence of naive dialectics since ancient Greece, representing the second form in the history of dialectical development. It took shape in the 19th century, an era of highly elevated human reason and the advancement of the natural sciences, characterized by profound content, exquisite form, and a complete system, becoming the highest theoretical achievement of grasping the world through philosophy at that time. The formation of Hegel’s dialectics had a profound theoretical background, namely, a shift in the study of the fundamental questions of philosophy. In modern times, philosophical research began to turn from “ontology” to “epistemology.” “What is the world?” was no longer the primary question people pondered; instead, it was replaced by “How do we know the world?” This shift was not merely a change in the domain of inquiry but also signified a further awakening of human subjective consciousness. When the focus of research shifted from the world as a single object to the question of the identity of man and the world, two independent entities appeared in the domain of philosophical inquiry: one is the world, and the other is man. This transformation actually separated man from the world and made him the object of philosophical study. Human consciousness, especially the rationality embodied in consciousness, became the theme of philosophical research, and the initiative of man as the subject knowing the world became the most distinctive feature of philosophy in this era. In Marx’s view, the *Phenomenology of Spirit* is the true birthplace and secret of Hegel’s philosophy. While this certainly criticizes the idealist character of Hegel’s philosophy, it also emphasizes that Hegel presented dialectics precisely in the process of revealing the development and evolution of human consciousness and reason.

黑格尔的辩证法是理论思维建构的产物，具有严密的逻辑关联性，尤其是这种逻辑关联性充分吸纳了人类历史上的本质论、认识论和概念论等思想成果，从而达到了前所未有的思想理论高峰。但由于是思维建构的产物，黑格尔的辩证法体现出鲜明的唯心主义属性，客观而言，这种唯心主义属性根源于辩证法自身发展的内在逻辑。从古希腊时期开始，人们就尝试对事物运动过程中呈现出来的现象和规律进行概括和总结，形成了朴素形态的辩证法。由于当时对世界运动状态的认识是粗浅的、片段的，所以当时形成的辩证法呈现出简单直白、非连续性特征，并没有形成完整的理论体系。黑格尔的辩证法实现了对古希腊以来朴素辩证法的扬弃与超越，是辩证法发展历史上的第二种形态，它形成于人的理性高度张扬、自然科学发展进步的19世纪，具有内容深刻、形式精美、体系完备的特征，成为当时以哲学方式把握世界的最高理论成果。黑格尔辩证法的形成有着深刻的理论背景，那就是哲学基本问题研究发生了转向。近代以来，哲学研究开始从“本体论”向“认识论”转向，“世界是什么”不再是人们着重思考的问题，取而代之的是“如何认识世界”,这种转向并不仅仅是问题域的转变，而且标示着人的主体意识的进一步觉醒。当研究重心从世界这一单独对象转向人与世界的同一性问题时，哲学问题域中就出现了两个独立的存在，一个是世界，另一个是人。这种转变实际上就是将人从世界中独立出来并使之成为哲学研究的对象，人的意识尤其是意识所体现出来的理性成为哲学的研究主题，人作为认识世界的主体所具有的能动性成为这一时代哲学最为鲜明的特征。在马克思看来，《精神现象学》是黑格尔哲学的真正诞生地和秘密，这固然是批评黑格尔哲学的唯心主义属性，但同时也强调黑格尔正是在揭示人的意识、理性发展演变过程中呈现出了辩证法。

Some scholars point out: “In the speculation of post-Kantian transcendental philosophy transforming into idealist dialectics, the idea that everything immediate is mediated by subjective concepts became the dominant thesis.” Once human consciousness is separated from objective reality, it will push the creativity of reason to its extreme, breaking free from the constraints of the objective world and seeking absolute freedom. Hegel believed: “The Idea can be understood as reason (that is, reason in the true philosophical sense), and also as subject-object; as the unity of the ideal and the real, the finite and the infinite, the soul and the body; as the possibility that has actuality in itself; or as that whose nature can only be conceived as existing, etc.” Clearly, in Hegel, reason is substantialized and possesses absolute freedom; it not only can know the world but also contains the world within itself. In this way, the problem changed: “How do we know the world?” became “How do we construct the world?” Hegel, taking the Idea as the subject, constructed a dialectically developing world. This seemingly fully realized human reason and its subjectivity, but in fact it departed from reality and fell into the quagmire of idealism. Hegel’s construction fully absorbed the achievements of logic, the science of the forms of thinking, making the dialectical development of the Idea present a rigorous systematic structure, displaying the content of the Idea’s development and evolution in a systematic form, thereby developing dialectics into a complete theoretical form.

有学者指出：“在康德之后的先验哲学转化为唯心主义辩证法的思辨中，一切直接的东西被主观概念所中介的思想成为主导的论题。”一旦将人的意识从客观现实中独立出来，它就会将理性之创造性发挥到极致，就会脱离客观世界的约束而谋求绝对的自由。黑格尔认为：“理念可以理解为理性(即哲学上真正意义的理性),也可以理解为主体—客体；观念与实在，有限与无限，灵魂与肉体的统一；可以理解为具有现实性于其自身的可能性；或其本性只能设想为存在着的东西等等。”显然，在黑格尔那里理性实体化了，而且具有绝对自由性，它不仅能够认识世界而且自身就包含着世界。如此一来，问题就发生了改变，“如何认识世界”就成了“如何构建世界”,黑格尔以理念为主体构建了辩证发展的世界，看似实现了人之理性和其主体性的充分张扬，实则脱离了现实而陷入唯心主义泥潭。黑格尔的构建充分吸收了逻辑学这一思维形式科学的成果，使得理念的辩证发展呈现为严密的体系结构，以体系化的形式展现理念发展演变的内容，从而将辩证法发展到了完备的理论形态。

It is undeniable that Hegel’s philosophical system is vast and complex, encompassing almost the entire world, including spirit, nature, and logic, and its content is all-encompassing. However, the starting point of this system is human consciousness, and then the Idea becomes the primordial factor supporting all other factors in the philosophical system. At the closed loop of the system, everything is reduced to the highest form of the Idea, namely, the Absolute Idea. For Hegel, the core of philosophy is dialectics, which is the epistemology of how the subject knows the world. He believed that, following the dialectical movement of the Idea he expounded, people could achieve true mastery of the world. Viewed within the historical trend of the shift in the thematic domain of philosophy, Hegel’s dialectics represents not a philosophy of worldview but a philosophy of epistemology. In focusing on answering the question “How do we know the world?” Hegel abandoned the inquiry into “What is the world?” “What is the world” was not important, because man could construct the world. This essentially meant abandoning worldview for the sake of expressing epistemology, or rather, worldview became a footnote to epistemology. For Hegel, “the system required it, and so the method, for the sake of the system, had to betray itself.” “His philosophy, because it was correct for his thinking, was therefore the only correct one.” Consequently, Hegel’s dialectics is not dialectics in the sense of the origin of the world, but a mystified, inverted dialectics.

不可否认，黑格尔的哲学体系繁复庞大，几乎囊括了包括精神、自然和逻辑在内的整个世界，所阐述的内容也包罗万象，但是这一体系的起点是人的意识，然后理念就成了本原性因素支撑着哲学体系中其他的各种因素，在体系的闭环处又将一切归结为理念的最高形态即绝对理念。在黑格尔那里，哲学的核心是辩证法，是主体如何认知世界的认识论。他认为，依照他所阐述的理念的辩证运动过程，人们就能够实现对世界的真正掌握。在哲学主题论域转换的历史潮流之中审视，黑格尔辩证法所体现的并不是世界观哲学而是认识论哲学，黑格尔在集中解答“如何认识世界”这一问题时放弃了对“世界是什么”的追问，“世界是什么”并不重要，因为人可以构建世界，这实质上是为了表达认识论而放弃了世界观，或者说世界观成了认识论的注脚。在黑格尔那里，“体系要求这样，于是，方法为了迎合体系就不得不背叛自己”。“他的哲学因为对他的思维来说是正确的，所以也就是唯一正确的”。因此，黑格尔的辩证法并不是世界本原意义上的辩证法，而是被神秘化的、颠倒的辩证法。

2. Returning to the Domain of Philosophical Worldview to Explore the Dialectics of the Objective World

2.重返哲学世界观论域以探求客观世界的辩证法

Philosophical world outlooks are fundamentally distinguished and opposed by the materialist stance versus the idealist stance. To overcome the idealist character of dialectics, it must be established on a materialist foundation — this is the simplest and most direct logic. Yet a thorough critique of Hegelian dialectics cannot be achieved by a mere substitution of “concepts”; if it were, a direct shift of stance would be impossible. Hegel treated the concepts formed by the movement of reason as real existences, regarding the deduction of concepts as a copy of the movement of material things. Consciousness and concepts, as embodiments of subjective spirit, possess an inherently active essence; hence judgments such as “substance is subject” and “the self-negation of things” are validated, and for this reason the dialectical movement of things can be reasonably explained and presented. Clearly, to critique the idealist character of Hegelian dialectics, one must completely discard his theoretical system, especially by negating his premise of “reason.” To this end, Engels explicitly pointed out that Hegel’s dialectics “proceeds from pure thought, whereas here we must proceed from the hardest facts.” [1]1 Engels, *Anti-Dühring*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 13. The quotation is from Engels’s preparatory notes. What Engels sought to verify was that if dialectics exists, it is “the science of the general laws of motion and development of the external world and of human thought,” and the dialectics of concepts is “only the conscious reflection of the dialectical motion of the real world.” [2]2 Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 383. If dialectics does not exist in the real world, then the dialectics of concepts is merely a subjective fabrication and must be thoroughly discarded. Of course, the objectivity of the existence of dialectics is beyond doubt, since people have recognized its existence since ancient times. Therefore, what Engels had to do was to reveal the dialectics existing in the objective world. To achieve this, he had to comprehensively analyze modern scientific theories and re-examine the objective existence of dialectics in the real world. That is, Engels first had to break through the limitation of Hegelian dialectics confined to epistemology and investigate and confirm it at the level of world outlook.

哲学世界观从根本上而言就是唯物主义立场与唯心主义立场的区别和对立，若要克服辩证法的唯心主义属性，就需要将其建立在唯物主义基础之上，这是最为简单直接的逻辑，然而对黑格尔辩证法进行彻底批判却不是“概念”的直接替换，如果是这样，根本就无法实现立场的直接转换。黑格尔将理性运动所形成的概念当作现实的存在，把概念的推演看作实物运动的翻版，意识、概念作为主体精神的体现具有能动性的内在本质，于是“实体即主体”“事物的自我否定”等判断得以成立，也正因为如此，事物的辩证运动才能得到合理解释和呈现。显然，对黑格尔辩证法的唯心主义属性进行批判必须彻底抛弃其理论体系，尤其是要否定其将“理性”作为立论前提。为此，恩格斯明确指出，黑格尔的辩证法“是从纯粹思维出发的，而这里必须从最过硬的事实出发”。恩格斯所要求证的是，如果辩证法是存在的，那它就是“关于外部世界和人类思维的运动的一般规律的科学”,而概念的辩证法“只是现实世界的辩证运动的自觉的反映”;如果在现实世界中辩证法并不存在，那么概念的辩证法就只不过是主观杜撰的东西而已，那就需要进行彻底抛弃。当然辩证法存在的客观性是毋庸置疑的，毕竟从古代开始人们就已经认识到了它的存在。因此，恩格斯要做的就是揭示客观世界存在的辩证法，为此必须通过综合分析现代科学理论重新考察辩证法在现实世界的客观存在属性，也就是说，恩格斯要首先突破黑格尔辩证法囿于认识论的局限，对其进行世界观层面的考察与确证。

In essence, dialectics is a fundamental law, also known as the scientific theory of philosophy. Its formation must be based on various sciences, especially philosophical theories; it is a foundational theory within philosophy, concerning philosophical issues at the levels of world outlook, epistemology, and methodology. For this very reason, different levels of dialectics are easily conflated, appearing in a chaotic and mysterious form — as was the case with Hegelian dialectics. Hegel believed: “Dialectics is the driving principle of all movement, all life, and all activity in the real world. Likewise, dialectics is the soul of all truly scientific knowledge within the realm of knowledge.” [3]3 Hegel, *Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences*, Part I, §81, Addition. Clearly, Hegel already recognized the universality of dialectics in the world, but he ultimately reduced the world to the movement of consciousness and reason; hence dialectics was merely the dialectics of consciousness and reason.

从本质上而言，辩证法就是一种基本规律，也可被称为哲学的科学理论，它的形成需要建立在各种科学尤其是哲学理论的基础之上，是哲学理论中的基础性理论，它关涉到世界观、认识论和方法论等各层面的哲学问题。也正因为如此，不同层次的辩证法容易被混为一谈，以混沌而神秘的形式呈现出来，黑格尔的辩证法便是如此。黑格尔认为：“辩证法是现实世界中一切运动、一切生命，一切事业的推动原则。同样，辩证法又是知识范围内一切真正科学认识的灵魂。”显然，黑格尔已经认识到辩证法在世界中存在的普遍性，但是他又最终将世界归结为意识、理性的运动，因此辩证法只不过是意识、理性的辩证法而已。

In *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, Engels pointed out that the fundamental question of all philosophy is “the relation of thinking to being,” [4]4 Engels, *Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 26, p. 366. that is, the question of which determines which — “thinking” or “being” — and the question of whether they possess identity. These respectively refer to the philosophical question of world outlook and the philosophical question of epistemology. Both the question of world outlook and the question of epistemology contain dialectical implications, because the two constituent elements of the fundamental question of philosophy — “thinking” and “being” — possess the attribute of the unity of opposites. World outlook focuses on the “opposition” between the two, while epistemology focuses on their “unity.” In comparison, the dialectical factor in the question of the identity of “thinking” and “being” at the epistemological level is more pronounced, because thinking itself reflects activity, and its movement is itself a concrete manifestation of the dialectics of the world’s movement. It is precisely at this level that Hegel formed the general form of dialectics, while the dialectics at the level of world outlook remained long unrevealed. Old materialism saw only the priority and determining role of being over thinking, but neglected the other side of the question — the reality of thinking and its active counter-effect — losing the necessary traction that “thinking” should exert on “being.” Consequently, it either degenerated into purely material reductionism or became an essentialism heading toward a transcendent realm, ultimately losing the fundamental stance of materialism. Dialectical materialism, while emphasizing the primordial significance of being, does not neglect the “care” of thinking; it must maintain the relationship of the unity of opposites between “thinking” and “being” and preserve the necessary tension between them.

恩格斯在《路德维希·费尔巴哈和德国古典哲学的终结》中指出，全部哲学基本问题“是思维和存在的关系问题”,即“思维”与“存在”谁决定谁的问题、二者是否具有同一性的问题，它们分别指代的是哲学世界观问题和哲学认识论问题。无论是世界观问题还是认识论问题都具有辩证法的内涵，因为哲学基本问题的两个构成要素“思维”与“存在”具有对立统一属性，世界观重点研究的是二者的“对立”问题，认识论重点研究的是二者的“统一”问题。对比而言，认识论层面的“思维”与“存在”同一性问题中的辩证法因素更为明显，因为思维本身反映能动性，它的运动本身就是世界运动的辩证法的具象呈现。正是在这一层面上，黑格尔形成了辩证法的一般形式，而世界观层面的辩证法却迟迟未能被揭示出来。旧唯物主义只看到了存在对思维的先在性和决定性作用，却忽视了问题的另一方面，即思维的现实性和其能动的反作用，失去了“思维”对“存在”应该具有的必要牵引力，于是，要么成为纯物质性的还原主义，要么成为走向彼岸的本质主义，最终反而丧失了唯物主义的根本立场。辩证唯物主义固然强调存在的本原意义，却并不忽视思维的“关照”,要保持“思维”与“存在”之间的对立统一关系并使二者之间保持必要的张力。

Clearly, to re-invert the inverted system of dialectics, one must re-elaborate dialectics within the first fundamental question of philosophy, revealing the existence of dialectics at the level of the objective world. This process of revelation is the subject’s study and interpretation of the object, the generation of scientific theory under the interactive mode of subject and object, making dialectics present as a scientific theory that correctly reflects the laws of motion of the objective world. Hegel also acknowledged that cognition first passes through the stage of the understanding: “It holds fast to fixed determinations and the distinctions between them,” [5]5 Hegel, *Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences*, Part I, §80. “beginning with the comprehension of the present object to obtain its specific distinctions.” This stage of the understanding is the logical starting point of objective dialectics. “The starting point of dialectics is to examine the existence and process of things themselves objectively, thereby revealing the finitude of one-sided determinations of the understanding.” [6]6 Hegel, *Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences*, Part I, §81, Remark. Engels began the dialectical exploration of the understanding from the various natural sciences. On the basis of mastering multiple scientific theories — physics, chemistry, biology, and others — he grasped the inherent determinations of things, and on this basis sought to transcend the one-sidedness and limitation of the understanding, thereby entering the dialectical stage to explore dialectics. To accomplish this work, Engels paid constant attention to the latest developments in the natural sciences for decades, and after withdrawing from commercial activities and moving to London, he spent eight years thoroughly “molting” [7]7 “Molting” (脱毛) is Engels’s own metaphor for his intensive self-education in the natural sciences during the 1870s, described in the preface to *Dialectics of Nature*. himself in mathematics and the natural sciences, writing *Dialectics of Nature*. In Engels’s view, “the point is not to force dialectical laws into nature, but to discover them in nature and develop them from nature,” [8]8 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 527. and then to summarize them as “the science of the universal laws of motion and development of nature, human society, and thought.” [9]9 Engels, *Anti-Dühring*, in *Marx Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 131. The study of dialectics is not equivalent to the study of natural science; it must follow the basic paradigm of philosophical research and be incorporated into the category of the relationship of the unity of opposites between “thinking” and “being.” Only in this way can the dialectics of nature avoid becoming a reductionist philosophy. Engels’s study of the dialectics of nature is only an important part of his study of dialectics; as a philosophical study, the study of dialectics has a lofty orientation of social ideals. For this reason, the dialectics of nature is neither a reductionist philosophy nor a philosophy of nature, but the natural form of dialectics.

显然，若要将颠倒了的辩证法体系重新颠倒过来，就需要进入哲学第一个基本问题中重新阐述辩证法，在客观世界层面揭示辩证法的存在。这个揭示过程是主体对客体的研究与解读，是主客交互模式下的科学理论的生成，使辩证法呈现为正确反映客观世界运动规律的科学理论。黑格尔也承认，思维认知首先处于第一阶段即知性环节，“它坚持着固定的规定性和各规定性之间彼此的差别”,“起始于理解当前的对象而得到其特定的区别”,这个知性环节就是客观辩证法的逻辑起点。“辩证法的出发点，是就事物本身的存在和过程加以客观的考察，借以揭示出片面的知性规定的有限性。”恩格斯从各门自然科学那里开始了辩证法的知性探索，在掌握物理、化学、生物学等多门科学理论的基础上把握事物固有的规定性，在此基础上寻求超越知性的片面性和局限性，从而进入辩证的阶段以探索出辩证法。为了完成这项工作，恩格斯数十年如一日关注自然科学最新进展，并在脱离商业活动移居伦敦后花费八年时间使自己在数学和自然科学方面进行了彻底的“脱毛”,撰写了《自然辩证法》。在恩格斯看来，“事情不在于把辩证法规律硬塞进自然界，而在于从自然界中找出这些规律并从自然界出发加以阐发”,进而将其归结为“关于自然界、人类社会和思维的运动和发展的普遍规律的科学”。辩证法研究并不等同于自然科学研究，它所要遵循的是哲学研究的基本范式，需要纳入“思维”与“存在”对立统一的关系范畴，只有如此，才能避免自然辩证法成为还原主义哲学。恩格斯的自然辩证法研究只是其辩证法研究的重要组成部分，作为哲学研究的辩证法研究有着崇高的社会理想价值取向。正是因为如此，自然辩证法既不是还原主义哲学也不是自然哲学，而是辩证法的自然形态。

II. Constructing the Theoretical System of Dialectics on the Basis of the Real World

二、基于现实世界构建辩证法理论体系

Through his study of the dialectics of nature, Engels thoroughly criticized Hegelian dialectics, but it cannot be concluded from this that Engels’s dialectical thought is merely a dialectics of nature. Through his study of the dialectics of nature, Engels established a scientific view of nature, and this process simultaneously realized the construction of dialectical theory, which completely transcended Hegel’s “self-development of the concept” and is the conscious reflection of the dialectical movement of the real world. Engels studied dialectics from the realm of nature, the most material-characteristic domain, thereby laying a solid materialist foundation for Marxist dialectics.

恩格斯通过自然辩证法研究对黑格尔辩证法进行彻底批判，但是并不能由此得出恩格斯辩证法思想仅仅是关于自然界的辩证法的结论。恩格斯通过自然辩证法研究确立了科学的自然观，这一过程也同时实现了辩证法理论的构建，这种理论构建彻底超越了黑格尔的“概念的自我发展”,是现实世界辩证运动的自觉的反映。恩格斯从自然界这一最具物质性特征的领域研究辩证法，从而为马克思主义辩证法奠定了坚实的唯物主义基础。

1. Dialectics Exists in the Material World Where Subject and Object Are Unified

1.辩证法存在于主客体相统一的物质世界

In Hegel’s view: “True free thought is in itself concrete, and it is the Idea; and in its full universality it is the Idea or the Absolute.” [10]10 G.W.F. Hegel, *Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences*, §14. The translation follows the Chinese text’s rendering of Hegel’s formulation. In contrast, Engels holds that consciousness or thought is not something ready-made but a product of the human brain, and that humans themselves are products of nature. This first establishes the material origin of the world. The material world possesses infinite richness, containing infinitely diverse, variously shaped, and constantly evolving matter; “matter, the material, is nothing but the sum of all things, and this concept is abstracted from this sum.” [11]11 Friedrich Engels, *Dialectics of Nature* (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), p. 171. The Chinese text cites from the *Collected Works of Marx and Engels* (Chinese edition), vol. 20, p. 579. Engels emphasizes that one cannot regard the material world as existing in itself and for itself, unrelated to humans; rather, the material world and its origin must be understood from the interaction between humans and nature. This does not mean infusing spiritual factors into the material worldview, but rather stresses taking into account the objectively existing human factor in the real world. This new worldview is precisely the dialectical materialist worldview founded by Marx and Engels. The material world, in which subject and object are unified, fully demonstrates that human thought and various capacities “are the result of a long-term, empirically based historical development.” [12]12 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 172. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 580. Engels criticizes natural science and old philosophy for only dealing with problems by severing the relationship between humans and nature. On this basis, he clearly states: “The most essential and immediate basis of human thought is precisely the change in nature brought about by humans, not nature alone; and the degree to which humans learn to change nature determines the degree to which their intellect develops.” [13]13 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 173. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 581. Humans themselves are products of nature, but the birth of humans endows nature with unprecedented color and value; humans as subjects and nature as objects together constitute a world in dialectical motion.

在黑格尔看来：“真正的自由的思想本身就是具体的，而且就是理念；并且就思想的全部普遍性而言，它就是理念或绝对。”与之相反，恩格斯认为，意识或思维并不是现成的而是人脑的产物，人本身是自然界的产物。这样就首先确立了世界的物质性本原。物质世界具有无限丰富性，包含无限丰富的、形态各异的、不断发展演变的物质，“物、物质无非是各种物的总和，而这个概念就是从这一总和中抽象出来的”。恩格斯强调，不能认为物质世界自在自为与人无涉，而是要从人与自然的互动中理解物质世界及其本原，这并不是要在物质世界观中渗入精神性因素，而是强调要关照到现实世界中客观存在的人的因素。这种新的世界观正是马克思恩格斯所创立的辩证唯物主义世界观。主体与客体相统一的物质世界充分体现了人的思维及各种能力“是长期的以经验为依据的历史发展的结果”。恩格斯批判自然科学和旧哲学只会在割裂人与自然关系上处理问题，在此基础上他明确提出，“人的思维的最本质的和最切近的基础，正是人所引起的自然界的变化，而不仅仅是自然界本身；人在怎样的程度上学会改变自然界，人的智力就在怎样的程度上发展起来”。人本身就是自然界的产物，但是人的诞生却赋予自然界以前所未有的色彩和价值，作为主体的人与作为客体的自然界共同构成了辩证运动的世界。

When Marx and Engels fully expressed the historical materialist worldview in *The German Ideology*, they emphasized that the perceptual world around humans “is a historical product, the result of the activity of generations,” [14]14 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, *The German Ideology* (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 39. Chinese edition, vol. 3, p. 48. and that the interaction between subject and object endows the material world with positive dynamic factors. Western Marxists criticize Engels’s dialectics of nature for lacking human and socio-historical factors, thereby questioning the essential nature of his dialectics. This is actually a misinterpretation of Engels’s philosophical worldview. As early as the 1840s, Marx and Engels had already founded a new philosophical worldview, and the subsequent study of the dialectics of nature would certainly not violate this philosophical worldview. The dialectics of nature is essentially a dialectics of the unity of subject and object; the description of natural phenomena and the revelation of natural laws have never been detached from the practice of the subject. It is only that the natural realm, unlike the social realm, does not present the subject as an object within it, but the dialectics of nature is ultimately the law of motion of the objective world revealed by humans as subjects. How, then, should we understand the dialectics of a world before the emergence of humans, or a world beyond the reach of human capabilities? Does dialectics not exist simply because there is no subject? The nature that humans can cognize and speak of has already been incorporated into the material world of subject-object unity. To pursue time outside time or space outside space is meaningless; Hegel called this kind of infinity the bad infinity, and examining such a contentless material world yields nothing. Engels advocates scientific suspension and positive leaving blank for the unknown world: “It is constantly being resolved day by day in the infinite progressive development of humanity.” [15]15 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 174. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 582. In essence, once the unknown world enters the scope of human cognition, it becomes an object of human knowledge, no longer a thing-in-itself, but exhibits dialectical attributes due to its opposition to the subject.

马克思恩格斯在《德意志意识形态》中完整表达历史唯物主义世界观时强调，人周围的感性世界“是历史的产物，是世世代代活动的结果”,主体与客体之间的相互作用赋予物质世界以积极的动力因素。西方马克思主义者批评恩格斯的自然辩证法缺失人和社会历史因素，进而质疑其辩证法的本质属性，这实际上是对恩格斯哲学世界观的误读。早在19世纪40年代马克思恩格斯就创立了新的哲学世界观，而之后进行的自然辩证法研究当然不会再去违背这一哲学世界观。自然辩证法本质上是主体与客体相统一的辩证法，自然现象的描述、自然规律的揭示从没有脱离主体的实践，只是自然领域不像社会领域那样以主体作为身处其中的对象进行呈现，但自然辩证法终究是人作为主体所揭示出来的客观世界的运动规律。至于尚未出现人类的世界或者人类能力所及范围之外的世界的辩证法又该如何理解呢?是否就因为没有主体而不存在辩证法?人所能认知与言及的自然界已经被纳入主客统一的物质世界，而若要追寻时间之外的时间、空间之外的空间是毫无意义的，黑格尔将这种无限性称为恶的无限性，考察这样毫无内容的物质世界将一无所得。恩格斯主张对未知世界进行科学悬置和积极留白，“它在人类的无限的前进发展中一天天不断得到解决”。实质上，一旦未知世界进入人的认识范围，它就成了人的认识对象，就不再是自在客体，而是因与主体相对立而呈现出辩证法属性。

2. Dialectics Has the Essential Characteristics of Universal Connection and Motion and Development

2.辩证法具有普遍联系和运动发展的本质特征

Since dialectics is restored to the material world, it is necessary to grasp the basic state of the material world and, on this basis, to comprehend the essential characteristics of dialectics. In Hegel, the object of exposition is the consistent Idea, and what is to be revealed is the specific manifestation of the Idea at different stages. The laws of connection, motion, and development are self-evident; once the motion cycle of the Idea is described, the essential characteristics of dialectics naturally emerge. Engels profoundly discerned the essence of Hegelian dialectics. Engels points out that Hegel’s philosophy of nature is integrated with his logic and dialectics: “His true philosophy of nature is in the second part of the *Logic*, the *Doctrine of Essence*, which is the real core of the entire theory.” [16]16 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 175. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 583. Only in Hegel’s idealist philosophical system does the philosophy of nature not occupy the status of foundational theory; it merely serves to explain natural phenomena using the Idea, thereby serving the construction of the system, and the philosophy of nature becomes a verification of the motion of the Idea. Contrary to this inversion of means and ends, Engels starts from the latest discoveries in natural science that explore the basic laws of motion of the material world, striving to empirically and objectively ascertain the essential laws of dialectics. When the focus shifts from the Idea to the material world, the objects to be studied become more diverse and complex. This requires a logical generalization from the particular to the universal for numerous objects, summarizing the general laws of change and development in the real world.

既然将辩证法复归于物质世界，就需要掌握物质世界的基本状态，并在此基础上把握辩证法的本质特征。在黑格尔那里，阐述的对象本身是一以贯之的理念，所要揭示的就是理念在不同阶段的具体表现，联系、运动、发展的规律是不言自明的，当描述完理念的运动周期之后自然就会得出辩证法的本质特征。恩格斯深刻洞悉了黑格尔辩证法的本质所在。恩格斯指出，黑格尔的自然哲学与逻辑学和辩证法是一体的，“他的真正的自然哲学是在《逻辑学》第二部分即《本质论》中，这是全部理论的真正核心”。只是在黑格尔的唯心主义哲学体系中，自然哲学不具有基础理论的地位，只不过是运用理念来解释自然现象进而服务于体系的构建，自然哲学成为理念运动的验证。与这种本末倒置的做法相反，恩格斯则从探求物质世界基本运动规律的最新的自然科学发现着手，力求客观实证地探寻辩证法的本质规律。当从理念转向物质世界之后，所要研究的对象变得更为多样、复杂，这就需要对众多对象进行从个别到一般的逻辑概括，总结出现实世界发展变化的一般规律。

To correct Hegel’s “idealist starting point and arbitrary system-building regardless of facts” [17]17 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 176. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 584. and to achieve a thorough critique of Hegelian dialectics, Engels adopted a more direct method in the process of creating materialist dialectics. This method is “to proceed from empiricism and materialism,” “to derive the universal from the particular.” [18]18 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 177. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 585. This is an inductive reasoning method with a materialist attribute. Inductive reasoning does not necessarily yield truth like deductive reasoning, but it can produce new knowledge; the dialectical attributes of nature are precisely the new knowledge obtained through this reasoning. If the materiality of the world “is not proven by a magician’s few words, but by the long and continuous development of philosophy and natural science,” [19]19 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 178. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 586. then the specific state of existence of the material world also requires the long and continuous development of philosophy and natural science to be proven. Precisely because of the discoveries of natural science such as the law of conservation and transformation of energy, cell theory, and the theory of biological evolution, “the whole of nature now lies before us as a system of interconnections and processes that, at least in its main features, has been explained and understood.” [20]20 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, p. 179. Chinese edition, vol. 20, p. 587. By fully absorbing the theoretical achievements of natural science and deeply grasping the laws of motion of nature, Engels formed the great idea that the entire world is a collection of processes, and confirmed the essential characteristics of universal connection and motion and development in the world.

为了纠正黑格尔的“唯心主义的出发点和不顾事实而任意编造体系”,对黑格尔辩证法实现彻底的批判，在创建唯物辩证法的过程中，恩格斯采取了更为直接的方法，这种方法就是“从经验主义和唯物主义出发”,“从个别物中引申出普遍物”。这是一种唯物主义属性的归纳推理法，归纳推理并不似演绎推理那样必然为真，但是归纳推理却能够得出新的知识，自然界的辩证属性就是这种推理所得出的新知识。如果说世界的物质性“不是由魔术师的三两句话所证明的，而是由哲学和自然科学的长期的和持续的发展所证明的”,那么物质性世界的具体存在状态同样需要哲学和自然科学的长期持续发展来证明。正是因为有了能量守恒与转化定律、细胞学说和生物进化论等自然科学的发现，“整个自然界是作为至少在大的基本点上已得到解释和理解的种种联系和种种过程的体系而展现在我们面前”。恩格斯充分吸收自然科学的理论成果，深入掌握了自然界的运动规律，才形成了整个世界是过程集合体的伟大思想，才确证了世界普遍联系和运动发展的本质特征。

To establish dialectics on a more solid foundation in natural science, Engels closely followed the latest advances in 19th-century natural science, conducting philosophical research in numerous fields such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and physiology. Engels engaged in the study of the philosophy of nature in order to master dialectics and establish a scientific view of nature. The path of his research was a logical generalization from empirical science to theoretical philosophy. The dialectics and view of nature he formed are a standpoint and method for guiding empirical scientific research; they cannot replace scientific theory in exploring the basic laws of connection and development in nature. If one fails to recognize this, one will impose “usurping” demands on the dialectics of nature, and thus cannot correctly understand its true value. With the development of the times and the progress of science, some of the philosophical problems of natural science discussed by Engels in *Dialectics of Nature* may have become outdated, but this cannot deny the value of Engels’s thought on the dialectics of nature. What today’s scholars need to do is to master materialist dialectics and the dialectical view of nature, to study and solve the philosophical problems of natural science in their own era, and to achieve innovative development of dialectics and the view of nature in the process of solving these problems.

为了将辩证法建立在更为坚实的自然科学基础之上，恩格斯密切关注19世纪自然科学的最新进展，在数学、物理学、化学、地质学、生物学、生理学等众多领域展开哲学研究。恩格斯从事自然哲学研究是为了掌握辩证法、确立科学自然观，研究的进路是从实证科学到理论哲学的逻辑概括，所形成的辩证法和自然观是一种指导实证科学研究的立场与方法，它并不能代替科学理论去探究自然界联系与发展的基本规律，如果不能认识到这一点，就会对自然辩证法提出“越俎代庖”式的要求，也就不能正确认识其真正价值所在。随着时代发展和科学进步，恩格斯在《自然辩证法》中所讨论的部分自然科学哲学问题可能已经过时，但是不能因此而否认恩格斯自然辩证法思想的价值。今天的学者需要做的是掌握唯物主义辩证法和辩证自然观，去研究解决自己时代的自然科学哲学问题，并在问题解决过程中实现辩证法和自然观的创新发展。

3. Dialectics Is a Scientific Theory Containing Three Laws and Related Categories

3.辩证法是包含三个规律及相关范畴的科学理论

Hegel possessed a wealth of dialectical thought, but his dialectical ideas were embedded in an idealist philosophical system. After settling in London and conducting several years of concentrated research, Engels began to summarize the laws of dialectics in the “Plan of 1878” and further explicitly articulated the content of the three laws in the essay “Dialectics” written in 1879, namely, “the law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa; the law of the interpenetration of opposites; the law of the negation of the negation.” [21]21 Engels, “Dialectics,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 356. (The three laws are listed in this text.) The basic ideas of these three laws had already appeared in Hegel, but because “Hegel, in his idealist fashion, expounded them as pure laws of thought,” [22]22 Engels, *Anti-Dühring*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 131. they were only laws of thought, not laws of dialectics, nor general laws of nature, human society, and the realm of thought. While sharply criticizing the utopian and mystical character of Hegel’s dialectics, Engels also affirmed that “Hegel, in hundreds of places, was able to draw the most convincing examples from nature and history to prove the laws of dialectics.” [23]23 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 356. It was precisely through examples from nature and history that Engels generalized and formed the laws of dialectics, enabling dialectics to appear for the first time in the form of a scientific theory. “The view of the three principal laws of dialectics was not only a creative contribution but also laid an important cornerstone for the scientific system of dialectics.” [24]24 This is a quotation from a Chinese scholar’s commentary, not from Marx or Engels. From a content perspective, the three laws of dialectics proposed by Engels represent a critical inheritance of Hegel’s dialectical thought; from a systemic perspective, they represent a thorough transcendence of Hegel’s dialectics. From then on, dialectics was no longer a spontaneous existence attached to reason but became a scientific theory for humanity to understand objective objects.

黑格尔拥有丰富的辩证法思想，但他的辩证法思想蕴含在唯心主义哲学体系之中。恩格斯定居伦敦后经过数年集中研究，在“1878年的计划”中开始对辩证法规律进行总结，在写于1879年的《辩证法》一文中进一步明确表达了三个规律的内容，即“量转化为质和质转化为量的规律；对立的相互渗透的规律；否定的否定的规律”。这三个规律的基本思想已经在黑格尔那里出现，但由于“黑格尔按照其唯心主义的方式当做纯粹的思维规律而加以阐明”,它们只是思维规律而不是辩证法规律，不是自然界、人类社会和思维领域内的一般规律。恩格斯在尖锐批评黑格尔辩证法的空想性、神秘性的同时，也肯定了“黑格尔在几百处地方都善于从自然界和历史中举出最令人信服的例证来证明辩证法规律”。恩格斯也正是在自然界和历史的例证中概括形成了辩证法规律，使辩证法首次以科学理论的形态呈现出来。“关于辩证法的三个主要规律的观点，不仅是一个创造性的贡献，而且为辩证法的科学体系奠定了一块重要的基石。”从内容角度而言，恩格斯提出的辩证法的三个规律是对黑格尔辩证法思想的批判继承；从体系角度而言，则是对黑格尔辩证法的彻底超越，自此以后辩证法不再是附随于理性的自发性存在，而是成为人类认识客观对象的科学理论。

Hegel treated the question of the relationship between quantity and quality as a problem within the “doctrine of being” of the concept; the transformative movement of “quantity—quality—measure” occurs in the stage of the immediacy of the Idea, where the Idea is in an undifferentiated, undivided state. So-called “being” refers to existing things, immediate things; this “being,” originally possessing objectivity, is in Hegel the lowest stage of the Idea. Setting aside this idealist content, Hegel’s exposition of quantitative change, qualitative change, and their relationship is accurate and brilliant. Engels extended these essential contents to a broader domain, extending them to all objects of nature and human society, and expounded the law of the transformation of quantity into quality from a general perspective. Engels wrote: “In nature, qualitative changes—in each individual case, occurring in a strictly determined manner—can only take place through the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy).” [25]25 Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 357. He also cited the example of the outcome of battles between French cavalry and Mameluke soldiers to illustrate the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, thereby proving that this law also exists in the domain of social history.

黑格尔将量质关系问题看作概念“存在论”范围内的问题，“量—质—度”的转化运动过程发生于理念的直接性阶段，在这一阶段理念处于尚未分化、浑然呈现的状态之中。所谓“存在”是指实存事物、直接事物，这种原本具有客观性的“存在”在黑格尔那里是理念的最低阶段。刨除这种唯心主义内容，黑格尔对量变、质变及其关系的论述是准确而精彩的，恩格斯将这些精华的内容拓展到更为广阔的领域，拓展到了自然界和人类社会的一切对象之上，从一般意义上论述了量变质变规律。恩格斯写道：“在自然界中，质的变化——在每一个别场合都是按照各自的严格确定的方式进行的——只有通过物质或运动(所谓能)的量的增加或减少才能发生。”他还举例法国骑兵与马木留克兵之间的胜负对比关系来说明量变质变规律，这也就证明了这一规律同样存在于社会历史领域。

Engels explicitly pointed out that the “law of the interpenetration of opposites” occupied an important position in Hegel. Hegel mainly discussed this law in the “doctrine of essence” of the concept; he believed that “essence is being that has passed over into itself” and “essence is a reflected being,” and that essence itself would go through the stages of “identity,” “difference,” and their unity, i.e., “ground.” When the concept transcends “being” and enters the stage of “essence,” the thing itself undergoes differentiation; that is, opposition arises within identity, producing the unity and differentiation of essence and appearance, with essence inherent within and appearance manifesting without. In analyzing the process of connection and transformation between the essence and appearance of things, Hegel introduced a series of basic categories through interconnection and transitional progression, such as content and form, whole and part, inner and outer, actuality and possibility, contingency and necessity. These basic categories all follow the principle of the unity of opposites and serve as annotations and explanations of “essence.” To connect the quantitative change and qualitative change of “being” with the unity and differentiation of “essence,” and to endow each link with a continuous driving force for progress, Hegel emphasized the concepts of negation and the negation of the negation. Here, negation is dialectical negation, negation arising from the self-development of objective things; in the process of the self-negation of the negation, things obtain an inexhaustible driving force for development. Although Hegel had already revealed the crucial role of the unity of opposites in the development of things, he still used the negation of the negation as “the fundamental law for constructing the entire system,” [26]26 Engels, *Anti-Dühring*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 131. integrating the latency of contradiction, the unfolding of contradiction, and the unity of opposites into a conceptualized, formalized negation of the negation in the triadic form of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

恩格斯明确指出“对立的相互渗透的规律”在黑格尔那里占有重要地位。黑格尔主要是在概念“本质论”部分论述这一规律，他认为，“本质是自己过去了的存在”“本质是一个反思的存在”,本质自身将会经历“同一”“差别”以及二者的统一即“根据”的阶段。当概念超越“存在”而进入“本质”阶段之时，事物本身就出现了分化，也即是在同一中产生了对立，出现了本质与现象的统一与分化，本质蕴含于内而现象彰显于外。在分析事物本质与现象联系转化的过程中，黑格尔以相互联系和推移过渡的方式引出了一系列基本范畴，如内容与形式、整体与部分、内与外、现实与可能、偶然与必然等。这些基本范畴都遵循对立统一原则，是对“本质”的注解与阐释。为能够将“存在”的量变质变、“本质”的统一分化连接起来，赋予其中的各个环节不断前进的动力，黑格尔强调了否定、否定之否定的概念，这里的否定是辩证的否定，是客观事物自身发展而形成的否定，在自我的否定之否定过程中事物获得了发展的不竭动力。虽然黑格尔已经揭示了对立统一在事物发展中的关键性作用，但是他仍然以否定之否定作为“构筑整个体系的基本规律”,将矛盾的潜在、矛盾的展开和对立面的统一以正、反、合三段式的方式整合进概念化、形式化的否定之否定之中。

Engels explicitly stated that the “law of the interpenetration of opposites” reveals the content of things’ own differences, changes, and developments, and is the essence of the rational kernel of Hegel’s dialectics. Only by explicitly revealing and highlighting it can the mystical form of idealist dialectics be truly overcome. In Engels’s view, it is precisely contradiction that gives rise to development; he believed that “there is a contradiction objectively existing in things and processes themselves, and it is an actual force.” [27]27 Engels, *Anti-Dühring*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 120. He had not yet elaborated on “contradiction” as an independent philosophical concept but regarded it as a dialectical relationship. When people examine things from the perspective of their motion, change, life, and mutual interaction, they will find the existence of “both this and that” contradictions. Not only does simple mechanical displacement contain contradictions, but organic life and its development contain even more contradictions. Objectively speaking, Engels had not yet completely overcome the influence of Hegel’s dialectics; his expression of the law of the unity of opposites was still subsumed within the law of the negation of the negation. In his works, there is no separate text dedicated to the law of the unity of opposites; expositions of this idea appear in the chapter “Dialectics. Negation of the Negation” in *Anti-Dühring* and in the notes and fragments on “Laws and Categories” in *Dialectics of Nature*. In the chapter “Dialectics. Negation of the Negation,” when summarizing and evaluating the thought processes of Rousseau and Marx, Engels still reduced them to the negation of the negation, writing: “a process which by its nature is antagonistic, contains contradictions, the transformation of one extreme into its opposite, and finally, as the core of the whole process, the negation of the negation.” [28]28 Engels, *Anti-Dühring*, in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 138. The negation of the negation is only the form of the process, not its core; negation is the result of the antagonism of contradictions in things, not the cause. Engels gradually came to recognize this as well. In the “Plan of 1878,” written after *Anti-Dühring*, he explicitly proposed “development through contradiction, or the negation of the negation—the spiral form of development.” [29]29 Engels, “Plan of 1878,” in *Marx and Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25, p. 587. However, this writing plan was not completed, and he was unable to elaborate on this newly proposed correct viewpoint in depth.

恩格斯明确提出“对立的相互渗透的规律”揭示的是事物自身差异、变化、发展的内容，是黑格尔辩证法合理内核的本质所在，只有将其明确揭示并突出出来才能真正克服唯心主义辩证法的神秘形式。在恩格斯看来，正是由矛盾引起发展，他认为“有一种客观地存在于事物和过程本身中的矛盾，而且这是一种实际的力量”。只是他尚未将“矛盾”当作独立的哲学概念予以深入阐述，而是将其看作一种辩证关系，当人们从事物的运动、变化、生命和彼此相互作用方面考察时，就会发现存在“亦此亦彼”的矛盾，不仅简单的机械位移包含矛盾，而且有机生命及其发展更加包含着矛盾。客观而言，恩格斯尚未完全克服黑格尔辩证法的影响，他对对立统一规律的表达尚包含在否定之否定规律之中，在其作品中没有关于对立统一规律的独述文本，关于这一思想的阐述出现在《反杜林论》的“辩证法。否定的否定”章节以及《自然辩证法》“规律和范畴”的札记和片段之中。在“辩证法。否定的否定”章节中，恩格斯总结评价卢梭和马克思的思想进程时仍然将其归结为否定之否定，他这样写道：“按本性说是对抗的、包含着矛盾的过程，一个极端向它的反面的转化，最后，作为整个过程的核心的否定的否定。”否定之否定只是过程的形式，并不是过程的核心，否定是事物矛盾对抗的结果而不是原因。恩格斯也逐渐认识到了这一点，在写作于《反杜林论》之后的“1878年的计划”中，明确提出“由矛盾引起的发展或否定的否定——发展的螺旋形式”,只是这一写作计划并没完成，他也未能对这一新提出的正确观点展开深入阐述。

III. Clarifying the Overall Composition of Dialectics Based on the New Worldview

三、明确基于新世界观的辩证法总体构成

Engels primarily proposed a general theory of dialectics based on his study of the dialectics of nature, but he did not confine the exposition of dialectics solely to nature; rather, he expounded the overall composition of dialectics from the height of the unity of nature and human society. In Engels’s view, the dialectics of nature and the dialectics of history are in a relationship of the unity of opposites: their opposition is manifested in their presentation in different domains, while their unity lies in materialist dialectics; the dialectics of the objective world is the foundation of human cognition and thought, and human thought must achieve identity with objective dialectics; people should continuously deepen their study of the laws of motion of the material world, achieving mutual promotion and common development between scientific theory and dialectics.

恩格斯主要是在研究自然辩证法基础上提出的一般辩证法理论，但是他并没有仅仅局限于自然界叙说辩证法，而是从自然界与人类社会相统一的高度阐述辩证法的总体构成。在恩格斯看来，自然辩证法与历史辩证法是对立统一关系，对立体现在是不同领域的呈现，而二者统一于唯物主义辩证法；客观世界辩证法是人类认识和思维的基础，人的思维要实现与客观辩证法的同一；人们应该不断深化对物质世界运动规律的研究，在科学理论和辩证法之间实现互相促进、共同发展。

1. The Opposition and Unity of the Dialectics of Nature and the Dialectics of History

1.自然辩证法与历史辩证法的对立与统一

For a long time, many scholars have regarded Engels’s dialectical thought as a dialectics of nature and Marx’s dialectical thought as a dialectics of history, and in this forced comparative split they have disparaged Engels’s dialectical thought. For example, Lukács held that factors such as the interaction of subject and object, the unity of theory and practice, and the mutual influence of history and thought are the decisive elements of dialectics, and that these factors do not exist in nature, thereby questioning Engels’s dialectical thought. Schmidt, a representative of the Frankfurt School, held a similar view, arguing that Engels extended dialectics to external nature, “going beyond the scope of Marx’s explanation of the relationship between nature and social history, and thus regressing into dogmatic metaphysics.” [30]30 Alfred Schmidt, *The Concept of Nature in Marx*, trans. Ben Fowkes (London: NLB, 1971), p. 51. [Original: Alfred Schmidt, *Der Begriff der Natur in der Lehre von Marx* (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1962), S. 46.] The American scholar Levine put it more directly, stating that Engels interpreted dialectics as the law of matter itself, excluding Hegel’s subject-object opposition, “the dialectical system in which he thought exists as a description of the materialist monism of motion.” [31]31 Norman Levine, *The Tragic Deception: Marx contra Engels* (Oxford: Clio Books, 1975), p. 96. In the view of these scholars, Engels took nature as a whole as his object of study, and the dialectics of nature he studied only established a materialist view of nature, which runs counter to Marx’s transcendence of traditional metaphysics through material practical activity and represents a regression to traditional metaphysics. These scholars’ interpretations are incorrect; they find it difficult to understand the significance of the study of the dialectics of nature for constructing the theory of materialist dialectics, nor have they correctly understood the premise of the dialectics of nature. This point has already been elaborated in detail earlier. What must be emphasized here is that the dialectics of nature and the dialectics of history are not two kinds of dialectics; they both belong to materialist dialectics and are concrete manifestations of materialist dialectics in different fields. Although Marx’s dialectical thought is mainly manifested in the field of social history, he never denied the existence of dialectics in nature. In a letter to Engels on June 22, 1867, Marx wrote that in *Capital*, “the law discovered by Hegel, that mere quantitative changes turn into qualitative changes, is cited in the text and is regarded as a law equally valid in history and in natural science.” [32]32 Karl Marx, letter to Friedrich Engels, 22 June 1867, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 42 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), p. 382. If Marx did not acknowledge the existence of dialectics in nature, he would certainly have dissuaded Engels from his more than ten years of research on the dialectics of nature. Both Marx and Engels regarded the study of the dialectics of nature as a necessary and reasonable division of labor.

一直以来，不少学者将恩格斯的辩证法思想看作自然辩证法，将马克思的辩证法思想看作历史辩证法，并在这种生硬的对比性割裂中贬低恩格斯的辩证法思想。如卢卡奇认为，诸如主体与客体的相互作用、理论与实践的统一、历史与思想的相互影响等才是辩证法的决定性因素，而这些因素在自然界中是不存在的，由此质疑恩格斯的辩证法思想。法兰克福学派代表人物施密特持相似观点，认为恩格斯把辩证法扩大到外部自然界，“超出了马克思对自然和社会历史的关系的解释范围，就倒退成独断的形而上学”。美国学者雷温更为直接地指出，恩格斯把辩证法解说为物质自身的法则，排除了黑格尔的主客对立，“他在其中思考的辩证法体系，是作为对运动的唯物一元论的描述而存在的”。在这些学者看来，恩格斯以整体自然为研究对象，研究的自然辩证法只是确立了唯物主义自然观，与马克思通过物质实践活动扬弃传统形而上学是背道而驰的，是向传统形而上学的倒退。这些学者的解读并不正确，他们难以理解自然辩证法研究对于构建唯物辩证法理论的重要意义，也没有正确理解自然辩证法的立论前提，关于这一点已在前文进行详细阐述。这里要着重说明的是自然辩证法与历史辩证法并不是两种辩证法，它们都属于唯物主义辩证法，是唯物主义辩证法在不同领域的具体体现。虽然马克思的辩证法思想主要体现在社会历史领域，但是他从未否定过自然界存在辩证法。1867年6月22日马克思在写给恩格斯的信中讲道，《资本论》“在正文中引证了黑格尔所发现的单纯量变转化为质变的规律，并把它看做在历史上和自然科学上都同样有效的规律”。如果马克思不承认自然界中存在辩证法，他势必会劝阻恩格斯长达十余年的自然辩证法研究。马克思恩格斯都把自然辩证法研究当作必要的合理分工。

What needs to be further pursued here is whether Engels had a dialectics of history and how he handled the relationship between the dialectics of nature and the dialectics of history. In fact, whether in co-authoring works with Marx such as *The Holy Family*, *The German Ideology*, and *The Communist Manifesto*, or in expounding Marx’s political economy, or in his later years defending Marxist philosophy and interpreting historical materialism, Engels demonstrated rich dialectical thought on history. In a book review written in 1859 for Marx’s *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, Engels fully affirmed the historical thinking in Hegel’s dialectical thought, praising Hegel’s view of history as “the direct theoretical premise of the new materialist world outlook, and solely because of this view of history, a starting point for the logical method was provided.” [33]33 Friedrich Engels, “Karl Marx, ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’,” in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 16 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1980), p. 474. Engels was not only well acquainted with the dialectical nature of social history but also consciously used dialectics as a tool to analyze the development of human society. Therefore, the accusation that Engels lacked or neglected the dialectics of history is difficult to sustain. Some scholars have pointed out that the “nature” studied by Engels is not purely nature-in-itself, but a humanized, industrialized nature, a nature imprinted with the traces of human practical activity. [34]34 See, for example, John Bellamy Foster, *Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature* (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), ch. 7. Other scholars have argued that “the dialectics of subject and object, with the dialectics of man and nature as its core, is the implicit theme of Engels’s dialectical thought.” [35]35 See, for example, the discussion in Zhang Yibing, *Back to Marx: The Body, the Subject, and the Critique of Political Economy* (Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 2019), ch. 5. These views all attempt to interpret Engels’s dialectics of nature from the perspective of the subject-object relationship, highlighting the essential characteristics that the dialectics of nature should possess, which is commendable. However, from the text of *Dialectics of Nature*, his object of study does include nature-in-itself, and what he aims to reveal includes the dialectics of “pure nature” without the intervention of the human subject. The essay “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man” emphasizes that anthropoid apes appeared only tens of millions of years ago, in the geological era called the Tertiary by geologists, and then gradually transformed into humans through upright walking and labor. Only at this point did the human subject emerge. So how should we understand the dialectics of nature that existed in the mode of nature-in-itself before the emergence of humans? Nature-in-itself without human existence naturally has no dialectics, because it merely represents the state of being of the world; without humans as a reference point, there is no development or change. That is to say, the evolution of the world, especially the development of things from lower to higher levels, takes humans as its frame of reference. Natural science reveals the objective process of evolution of things, while dialectics endows this objective evolutionary process with value and progressive significance. Therefore, the crux of the issue is not to confirm that humans must necessarily exist in nature, but to confirm the existence of nature by incorporating it into a relationship of unity and opposition with humans. Dialectics must certainly reveal the relationship between the real subject and object, but it must also reveal the subject-object relationship in the historical dimension, and the relationship between the history of nature’s existence and development and humans. In this way, the dialectics of nature-in-itself is manifested with the emergence of humans, and the appearance of humans confirms the existence and value of the dialectics of nature.

这里需要继续追问的是，恩格斯有没有历史辩证法思想，他又是如何处理自然辩证法与历史辩证法的关系的。事实上，无论是与马克思合著《神圣家族》《德意志意识形态》《共产党宣言》等著作，还是阐释马克思的政治经济学思想，抑或晚年时捍卫马克思主义哲学并对历史唯物主义进行阐释，恩格斯都展现出了丰富的历史辩证法思想。在1859年为马克思《政治经济学批判。第一分册》撰写的书评中，恩格斯充分肯定了黑格尔辩证法思想中的历史思维，称赞黑格尔历史观“是新的唯物主义世界观的直接的理论前提，单单由于这种历史观，也就为逻辑方法提供了一个出发点”。恩格斯不仅熟知社会历史的辩证法属性，而且自觉地以辩证法作为工具分析人类社会的发展，因此，指责恩格斯缺乏或忽视历史辩证法的观点是难以成立的。有学者指出，恩格斯所研究的“自然”并不是纯粹自在的自然，而是一种人化的、工业化的自然，是打上人的实践活动印迹的自然。也有学者认为，“以人与自然的辩证法为核心的主体和客体的辩证法就是恩格斯辩证法思想的隐性的主题”。这些观点都试图从主客体关系的角度解读恩格斯的自然辩证法思想，突出自然辩证法所应具有的本质特征，是值得肯定的。然而，从《自然辩证法》文本来看，他的研究对象确实包括自在的自然界，所要揭示的包括没有人这一主体介入的“纯自然界”的辩证法。《劳动在从猿到人的转变中的作用》一文强调，在几十万年以前即地质学家叫作第三纪的地质时代才出现类人猿，然后在直立行走和劳动中逐步转化为人。直到这时，作为主体的人才得以出场。那么如何理解人诞生以前的以自在方式存在的自然界的辩证法呢?没有人存在的自在的自然界当然无所谓辩证法，因为它所代表的只是世界的存在状态而已，没有人作为参照目标就没有发展演变。也就是说，世界的演变尤其是事物从低级向高级的发展是以人为参照系的，自然科学揭示出来的是事物的客观演变过程，而辩证法则赋予了这一客观演变过程以价值色彩和进步意义。因此，问题的关键并不在于确证自然界中一定要有人的存在，而在于将自然界的存在纳入与人的对立统一关系中进行确证。辩证法固然要揭示现实的主体与客体之间的关系，还要揭示历史维度上的主客体关系，揭示自然界存在发展的历史与人的关系。如此一来，自在自然界的辩证法随着人的诞生而呈现出来，人的出现就确证了自然辩证法的存在和价值。

In the essay “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,” Engels scientifically elaborated the process of transition from nature-in-itself to human society, constructing a bridge connecting “nature” and “society,” and at the same time endowing “nature” with historical attributes. Because the emergence of humans means that nature is no longer “pure” nature-in-itself; no matter how long its previous evolution, it will manifest meaning and value due to the existence of humans and human society. The history of plants and animals is merely biological history. For plants and animals themselves, this history is created—created by humans. Once humans are born, they begin to create their own history, and in the process of creating their own history, they form world history. The entire world has history only because of the existence of humans, and it is only then that it possesses the attribute of dialectics. Engels never imposed dialectics on nature; the dialectics of nature he revealed is precisely the state of development that nature presents relative to humans. Even if actual humans are not within nature, nature always takes actual humans as its reference. The dialectics of nature and the dialectics of history are one, unified in materialist dialectics.

恩格斯在《劳动在从猿到人的转变中的作用》一文中科学阐述了从自在自然到人类社会的转变历程，构建起了“自然”与“社会”相衔接的桥梁，同时也赋予了“自然”以历史的属性，因为人的出现使得自然不再是自在的“纯粹”自然，无论它前面经历了多么漫长的演变，都会因为人与人类社会的存在呈现意义与价值。动植物的历史只是生物史，这部历史对动植物自身来说是被创造出来的，是被人创造出来的，而人一旦诞生就开始了创造自己的历史，并在创造自己的历史过程中形成世界的历史，整个世界正是因为人的存在才有了历史，也才具有了辩证法的属性。恩格斯从未将辩证法强加给自然界，他所揭示的自然辩证法就是自然界相对于人而呈现出来的发展状态。即便现实的人未在自然界之中，但是自然界却始终以现实的人为参照，自然辩证法与历史辩证法是一体的，统一于唯物主义辩证法。

2. The Demarcation and Identity of the Dialectics of the Objective World and Human Thought

2.客观世界辩证法与人类思维的分界与同一

The most direct conclusion Engels drew from studying the dialectics of nature is that dialectics exists in the objective world. However, he did not limit the discussion of dialectics to the objective world; instead, he extended the problem domain in reverse to the realm of human thought. Before explicitly proposing the three laws of dialectics, Engels wrote: “The laws of dialectics are abstracted from the history of nature and the history of human society. The laws of dialectics are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development and of thought itself.” [36]36 Friedrich Engels, *Dialectics of Nature*, in *Marx-Engels Collected Works*, vol. 25 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), p. 356. This formulation by Engels first demarcates the field of dialectics, indicating that it exists both in the objective world, including nature and human society, and in human thought. It also clearly reveals that the dialectics of the objective world and the dialectics of human thought are in a relationship of “priority and subsequence.” Although the dialectics of the objective world has primacy and determinacy, the dialectics of human thought possesses agency: “the human mind can consciously apply these laws.” [37]37 Ibid. When a division is made between the objective world and human thought, it expands the necessary space for practice for the human subject, and human practice in turn constitutes the necessary prerequisite for their identity.

恩格斯通过研究自然辩证法得出的最为直接的结论即是在客观世界存在辩证法，但是他并没有局限于客观世界讨论辩证法问题，而是将问题域反向拓展到了人的思维领域。在明确提出辩证法三个规律之前，恩格斯这样写道：“辩证法的规律是从自然界的历史和人类社会的历史中抽象出来的。辩证法的规律无非是历史发展的这两个方面和思维本身的最一般的规律。”恩格斯这一表述首先对辩证法领域进行了划界，即它既存在于包括自然界和人类社会在内的客观世界，也存在于人类思维之中，同时也明确揭示了客观世界辩证法与人类思维辩证法是“先后”的关系，虽然客观世界辩证法具有先在性、决定性，但是人类思维辩证法具有能动性，“人的头脑可以自觉地应用这些规律”。当对客观世界和人类思维进行划分，就为作为主体的人拓展了必要的实践空间，而人的实践又构成了二者同一的必要前提。

In Hegel, dialectics had only one form, namely the dialectics of the Idea; that is, dialectics had only one subject, the Idea, and the Idea ultimately reverts to human thought. Engels, by contrast, drew a reasonable boundary for dialectics, clearly identifying two kinds of dialectics with the same attribute, and pointed out that dialectics has two subjects: the objective world and human thought. Comparatively speaking, Engels’s approach is more consistent with the essential nature of dialectics, because dialectics itself emphasizes opposition and difference and is about the basic law of the unity of opposites; Engels’s scientific distinction restored the contradictory attribute that dialectics should originally possess. Engels once clearly stated that Marx was “the first to bring before the public in its essential features the forgotten dialectical method, its connection with Hegelian dialectics and its difference from the latter.” [38]38 Engels, “Anti-Dühring,” in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, *Collected Works*, vol. 25 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1987), 12. However, Marx directly delved into the field of social history and used dialectics as a thinking tool for analyzing political economy, without elaborating on how dialectics could become a thinking tool for human beings. This foundational work was completed by Engels.

在黑格尔那里辩证法只有一种形态，那就是理念的辩证法，也就是说辩证法只有理念一个主体，而理念最终归于人类思维。而恩格斯则将辩证法进行合理划界，明确了两种具有同一属性的辩证法，指出了辩证法具有客观世界和人的思维两个主体。对比而言，恩格斯的做法更符合辩证法的本质属性，因为辩证法本身就强调对立和差异，是关于对立统一的基本规律，恩格斯的科学区分复原了辩证法本应具有的矛盾属性。恩格斯曾明确指出，马克思“第一个把已经被遗忘的辩证方法、它和黑格尔辩证法的联系以及差别重新提到人们面前”。然而，马克思却直接深入社会历史领域将辩证法当作解析政治经济学的思维工具，并没有就辩证法何以能够成为人的思维工具展开论述，这一基础性的工作是由恩格斯完成的。

Engels believed that, first, both subjective thought and the objective world follow dialectics. The laws of motion of the objective world and the laws of motion of human thought are consistent and identical in essence; the results of the two are ultimately not contradictory but mutually consistent. “This fact is the unconditional and absolute premise of our theoretical thought, independent of our consciousness.” [39]39 Engels, “Dialectics of Nature,” in *Collected Works*, vol. 25, 491. The reason why human theoretical thought is possible is that both subjective thought and the objective world follow the same law, which is dialectics. Human thought should follow dialectics and thereby be consistent with the objective world. This unity is independent of human will and requires no preconditions. Second, subjective thought should actively master dialectics. The unity of subjective thought and the objective world is dynamic and differentiated, manifested as an infinite process of transformation from relative truth to absolute truth. Theoretical thought in each era is a product of history, taking completely different forms and contents in different times. “The theory of the laws of thought is by no means an ‘eternal truth’ established once and for all, as the philistine mind imagines when it thinks of ‘logic’.” [40]40 Engels, “Anti-Dühring,” 25. As a scientific theory, dialectics is not an “eternal truth” but an endless exploration and pursuit by subjective thought of the dialectics of the objective world. Third, subjective thought needs to strengthen the construction of logical theory. Although Engels did not explicitly put forward the thesis of the unity of dialectics and logic, he believed that modern philosophy had become the realm of pure thought, “the science of the laws of the process of thought itself, i.e., logic and dialectics.” [41]41 Engels, “Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy,” in *Collected Works*, vol. 26 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990), 382. As subjective thought, dialectics should have a complete form of expression, and this form of expression is the theory of dialectical logic. The theory of dialectical logic fully displays the content of objective dialectics. Dialectics should be the organic unity of worldview, through epistemology, with logic.

恩格斯认为，其一，主观思维和客观世界都遵循辩证法。客观世界运动规律和人类思维运动规律是一致的，在本质上是同一的，两者的结果最终不是互相矛盾的而是彼此一致的，“这个事实是我们理论思维的不以意识为转移的和无条件的前提”。人类理论思维何以可能，是因为主观思维和客观世界都遵循相同的规律，这个规律就是辩证法，人类思维应该遵循辩证法进而与客观世界相一致，这种统一不以人的意志为转移，也不需要任何前提条件。其二，主观思维应该积极掌握辩证法。主观思维与客观世界的统一具有动态性和差异性，体现为由相对真理向绝对真理的无限转化过程。每个时代的理论思维都是历史的产物，它在不同时代具有完全不同的形式和内容。“思维规律的理论并不像庸人的头脑在想到‘逻辑’一词时所想象的那样，是一种一劳永逸地完成的‘永恒真理’。”作为科学理论的辩证法并不是“永恒真理”,而是主观思维对客观世界辩证法永无止境的探索与追求。其三，主观思维需要加强逻辑学理论的建构。虽然恩格斯并没有明确提出辩证法与逻辑学相统一的论断，但是他认为现代哲学已经成为纯粹思想的领域，是“关于思维过程本身的规律的学说，即逻辑和辩证法”。作为主观思维的辩证法应该具有完备的表达形式，这种表达形式就是辩证逻辑学理论，辩证逻辑学理论使客观辩证法内容得到了充分展示，辩证法应该是世界观经由认识论而与逻辑学的有机统一。

3. The Mutually Promotional Relationship between Dialectics and Scientific Theory

3.辩证法与科学理论的互促性关联

The greatest difference between Marxist dialectics and Hegelian dialectics lies in the difference in worldview, which is first manifested as the distinction between materialism and idealism. Marxist dialectics is of a materialist form, while Hegelian dialectics is of an idealist form. The former is manifested as a mutually promotional relationship between dialectics and scientific theory, while the latter is manifested as mystical dogmatism and metaphysics. The series of major scientific discoveries made by natural science in the 19th century were the foundation and premise of Engels’s research on dialectics. It was these new scientific discoveries that struck down various anti-dialectical and anti-materialist mystical views. “Under the onslaught of science, one army after another laid down its arms, one castle after another surrendered, until finally the entire infinite realm of nature was conquered by science, and no place was left for the Creator.” [42]42 Engels, “Dialectics of Nature,” 467. In Engels’s view, modern materialism has at least two theoretical premises: one is natural science, which reveals the laws of motion of matter; the other is philosophy, which further reveals the internal connections between the natural sciences, and this philosophy is mainly manifested as dialectics. Natural science is also an important premise of dialectics. Natural science adopts the subject-object opposition model to study and explore natural phenomena, obtaining the essential laws of the connection, movement, and development of things, thereby providing the material basis and theoretical premise for the formation of dialectics. Engels’s dialectical thought was precisely formed on the basis of fully absorbing and drawing on the nutrients of scientific theory.

马克思主义辩证法与黑格尔辩证法最大的不同在于世界观的差异，这种差异首先体现为唯物主义与唯心主义的区别，马克思主义辩证法是唯物主义形态的，而黑格尔辩证法是唯心主义形态的，前者表现为辩证法与科学理论的互促性关联，而后者则体现为神秘的独断性和形而上学。19世纪自然科学所取得的一系列重大科学发现，是恩格斯进行辩证法研究的基础和前提，正是新的科学发现打击了各种各样反辩证法的、反唯物主义的神秘观点。“在科学的猛攻之下，一个又一个部队放下了武器，一个又一个城堡投降了，直到最后，自然界无限的领域都被科学所征服，而且没有给造物主留下一点立足之地。”在恩格斯看来，现代唯物主义至少有两个理论前提，一是揭示物质运动规律的自然科学，二是进一步揭示自然科学之间内在联系的哲学，这个哲学主要体现为辩证法。自然科学又是辩证法的重要前提，自然科学采取主客对立模式对自然现象进行研究探索，得出事物联系、运动和发展的本质规律，为辩证法的形成提供了物质基础和理论前提。恩格斯的辩证法思想正是在充分吸收借鉴科学理论思想养分基础上形成的。

However, natural scientific theory reflects the cognition and grasp of the laws of motion of nature in a specific field or at a specific level by people of a particular era. As research expands and deepens, people will discover new laws of motion and propose new scientific theories. Engels deeply recognized this. He pointed out: “We can only know under the conditions of our epoch, and to the extent that these conditions allow.” [43]43 Engels, “Dialectics of Nature,” 525. Limited by the conditions of the era, the truth of natural science exhibits a relative character. Consequently, “eternal natural laws are more and more transformed into historical natural laws.” [44]44 Engels, “Dialectics of Nature,” 525. New scientific theories are constantly being discovered, revising or even replacing existing theories. What is the relationship between dialectics and new scientific theories? Must dialectics also be replaced with the renewal of scientific theories? In fact, dialectics is a revelation of the deeper essential laws of nature. It is a philosophical theory established on the basis of various natural sciences. The internal replacement of scientific theories will not lead to the collapse of the dialectical system; on the contrary, new scientific discoveries will further confirm the scientific nature of dialectics. For example, in a letter to Marx on May 30, 1873, Engels expressed the idea of the inseparability of objects and motion. This idea of material motion had already transcended the category of classical mechanics and was later confirmed by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics discovered in the 20th century. [45]45 Engels, “Letter to Marx, May 30, 1873,” in *Collected Works*, vol. 44 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1989), 503–504. Another example: by mastering and applying the principles of dialectics, Engels made predictive judgments about natural science, such as that atoms “have complex components,” that matter has “hierarchical structure,” and that “new marginal sciences” would inevitably emerge at the junctures of various disciplines. These views have all been confirmed one by one. [46]46 Engels, “Dialectics of Nature,” 514, 521, 525. At the same time, the progress of scientific theory will continuously enrich and perfect the composition of dialectics. For Engels, dialectics is by no means a new kind of “metaphysics” or an absolute theory, but a scientific theory that needs to be continuously enriched and perfected. Dialectics itself is derived from nature and elaborated on the basis of nature. The progress of scientific theory means the deepening of people’s understanding of natural laws. New understandings naturally need to be absorbed into dialectical theory. The progress of scientific theory will inevitably promote the development of dialectics.

然而，自然科学理论反映的是特定时代人们对某一领域、某一层次自然界运动规律的认知和把握，随着研究的拓展和深入，人们会发现新的运动规律，提出新的科学理论。恩格斯深刻认识到这一点，他指出：“我们只能在我们时代的条件下去认识，而且这些条件达到什么程度，我们就认识到什么程度。”受时代条件的限制，自然科学的真理性表现出相对性特征，于是“永恒的自然规律也越来越变成历史的自然规律”,新的科学理论不断被发现出来，修正甚至取代已有的理论。辩证法与新的科学理论是什么关系呢?难道也要随着科学理论的更新而进行更替?实际上，辩证法是对自然界更深层次本质规律的揭示，它是建立于各门自然科学之上的哲学理论，科学理论的内部更迭并不会导致辩证法体系的倾覆，恰恰相反，新的科学发现会进一步证实辩证法的科学属性。例如，1873年5月30日恩格斯在写给马克思的信中表达了物体和运动不可分的思想，这一物质运动思想已经超越了经典力学范畴，为20世纪发现的相对论和量子力学所证明。又如，通过掌握运用辩证法原理，恩格斯对自然科学进行了预言式判断，比如原子“具有复杂成分”,物质具有“层次性”,在各门学科的衔接点上必然会产生“新的边缘科学”等，这些观点都一一得到证实。同时，科学理论的进步又会不断充实丰富辩证法的构成。在恩格斯那里，辩证法绝对不是某种新的“形而上学”,不是某种绝对的理论，而是需要不断丰富完善的科学理论。辩证法本身就是从自然界中得出的并从自然界出发加以阐发的，科学理论的进步意味着人们对自然规律认识的深化，新的认识当然需要吸收到辩证法理论中，科学理论进步势必会促进辩证法的发展。