Principles and Laws of Dialectics

As we see, dialectics has many definitions but they do not contradict each other. They only reveal its different sides, its diversity and fields of application of dialectical understanding of the world. Dialectics as a system of scientific knowledge is of a universal character, just as it has to do with the nature, social life and man’s thinking. As a theory it relies on the system of interconnected principles, laws and categories.

Now let us examine the first elements of the system. Principles are the most general and substantiated theoretical rules, which underlie science. Principles combine notions, laws and categories into one whole system, playing a synthetic role. Principles can not be deduced from other forms of being; they are formed as a result of a long practical and theoretical mastering of the world.

The main principles of dialectics are:

· The principle of development.

· The principle of unity of historical and logical.

· The philosophical principle of universal connection and interactions.

· The systems principle.

· The principle of descending from abstract to concrete.

The principle of development comes out of the fact that there is nothing ultimately complete in the world: everything is on the path towards something else. The principle of the motion of matter as a mode of its existence, combined with the principle of universal connection, gives a general idea of the development of the world. Development is an irreversible, definitely oriented and law-governed change of ma­terial and ideal objects resulting in the emergence of new qualities.

Everything passes through one and the same state only once; thus the move­ment of an organism from old age to youth is impossible. Under­lying development are not accidental events, of which the infinite numbers disturb the object's oriented change, but rather the neces­sary events that follow from the very essence of the object and from the type of its interactions with the surrounding world

The relationship between the concepts of development and pro­gress must be clearly understood. They are close to each other but not identical. Development results in the appearance of a new quality, but it is not at all necessary that this quality should be more complex or more perfect than the previous one. If the new quality is in some respect superior to the previous one, we have a progressive tend­ency of development, and if it is inferior, we have a regressive tend­ency. Progressandregress are two different tendencies of development which, however, are intertwined with one another, forming a complex interdependence.

The principle of unity of historical and logical confirms the possibility of an adequate reflection of the real unfolding of events, processes and phenomena in man’s mind through the system of notions and categories.

The philosophical prin­ciple of universal connection. The entire reality accessible to us is an aggregate of objects and phenomena linked with one another by ex­tremely diverse relations and connections. All objects and events are links in an infinite chain joining all that exists in the world in a single whole. Everything interacts with every­thing else. The life of the world is in the endless web of relations and connections. Connection is usually defined as a deep-seated attributive property of matter, consisting in the fact that all objects and phe­nomena are linked by infinitely varied interdependence and various relations with each other.

In other words, connection is a general ex­pression of dependence among phenomena, a reflection of the interde­pendence of their existence and development.

Connections can be of the following types: internal and external; direct and indirect; genetic and functional; dimensional (spatial) and temporal; casual and regular.

The most widespread types of connections are internal and external. For example, internal connections of a human body as a biological system. As for the second ones, these could be external connections of man with elements of a social system.

Everything that happens in the world springs from constant interaction between objects. Because of the universality of interaction, all the structural levels of being are inter­connected, and the material world is unified. This interaction deter­mines the emergence and development of the objects, their transi­tion from one qualitative state to another. Interaction is a philoso­phical category reflecting the processes of reciprocal influence of ob­jects on one another, their mutual conditioning, changes of state, mu­tual transition into one another, as well as generation of one object by another. Interaction is objective, universal and active in character.

The existing classifications of interactions are based on the dif­ferentiation between force interactions and informational interac­tions. In physics four principal types of force interaction are known: gravitation, electromagnetism, and weak and strong interactions.

The systems principle is an important one in dialectics. It shows that dialectics is not a mechanical collection of statements, examples and schemes, but it appears as the logical, consistent, non-contradictory, and open system; It is a holistic doctrine, which has a complex and coherent internal structure.

The principle of descending from abstract to concrete defines the direction of a cognitive process. According to this principle the real cognitive process must be directed from abstract, everyday life and accidental to concrete, given in the form of general and theoretical.

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