The law of the transformation of quantity into quality

This law answers the question about the character of development; it bears relation to continuity and discreteness, evolutionism and revolutionism of changes. The essence of this law is characterized by such categories as property, quality, quantity, measure and leap.

The quality of an object is revealed in the totality of its structu­rally ordered properties. From the epistemological standpoint, a property is a primary, further indivisible structure correlated with just as elementary cognitive phenomenon of sensation, and in more complex cases, with concept, if it is inaccessible to the subject's ca­pacity for sensation. Properties can be accessible to the sense or­gans or physically accessible to measurement by apparatus, and they can also be extra-sensuous, pertaining to the sphere of social-mental reality.

A property is thus a way of manifesta­tion of the object's definite aspect in relation to other objects with which it interacts. Among all possible properties, we can single out properties essen­tial (or necessary) and inessential (accidental) for the given object, and also internal and external, universal and specific, natural and artificial ones.

Properties are manifested with various degrees of intensity, and this expresses the state of the system involved. The state is a stable manifestation of a given property in its dynamic. We speak of the physical or moral state of a person or people, of the state of a given nation's economy, or of its political or military state. The object's other properties are addressed to the outside, while its state is turned towards its inner structure. Properties, states, func­tions and connections are an object's qualitative features.

Having established what property and state are, we can accurately define a fuller definition of the quality of an object. Quality is an integral de­scription of the functional unity of an object's essential properties, its internal and external definiteness, its relative stability.

Quantity expresses the external, formal relationship between objects, their parts, properties and connections: number, mag­nitude, volume, set, class, or degree of manifestation of a given property. The concepts of number, magnitude, figure, etc., are as­pects or elements of the category of quantity.

Understanding of the quantitative aspect of a system is a step towards a deeper knowledge of the whole system.

Any quality is expressed in a system of quantitative characteristics that is inherent in this quality. Quantity and quality appear as something separate only in abstraction, while in effect they are different characteristics of definite realities, gravitating towards each other and existing as an indissoluble unity that is their measure.

Measure is a sort of "third term" that links quality and quantity in a single whole.

It is not enough to say, though, that measure is the unity of quality and quantity, and that it is the boundary at which quality is manifested in its definiteness. Measure is profoundly connected with essence, with law and regularity. Measure is the zone within which a given quality is modified and varied in keeping with changes in the quantity of individual inessential properties while retaining its essential characteristics.

The process of development presents a unity of the continuous and the discrete. Continuous changes, i.e. gradual quantitative changes, and the changes of separate properties in the framework of a given quality closely connected with them, are designated by the concept of evolution.

Continuity in the development of a system expresses its relative stability and qualitative definiteness, and discreteness, a transition to a new quality.

The appearance of a new quality is in effect the emergence of a new object with new laws of life, a new measure in which a different quantitative law is embedded. The depth of qualitative changes may vary: it may be restricted to the level of the given form of motion or go beyond its limits, as illustrated by the emergence of the animate from the inanimate and of society from the primitive horde. These qualitative changes signify the formation of a new essence.

The process of radical change in a given quality, the breakdown of the old and the birth of the new is a leap – a demarcation line separating one measure from another. There are different types of leaps determined both by the nature of the developing system and by the conditions under which it develops, i.e. by the external and internal factors of development

In accordance with the nature of quality as a system of proper­ties, leapsare divided into individual or particular and general. In­dividual leaps are connected with the emergence of new particular properties, and general leaps, with the transformation of the entire system of properties, of quality as a whole.

Revolution is a leap, in the process of which the whole substance and quality are changed. For example, a fly in the ointment spoils the whole thing. Evolution is a kind of a leap, which does not cause any radical changes in the qualitative base. Changes take place unnoticeably, with the transformation of the inner structure. For example, when we heat water the process of heating goes on gradually and only under reaching of a certain temperature the water acquires new quality – it changes into steam.

The law of the transformation of quantity into quality reveals the most general mechanism of development. It shows how any development goes on. If the evolutionist conception of development absolutizes a quantitative change ignoring the qualitative, and another one (also metaphysical) conception reduces development only to some qualitative changes (explosions, catastrophes and leaps), then the dialectical-materialistic conception of development takes into account both the evolutional (quantitative) and revolutional (quantitative) moments of development scientifically describing connections between them.

Knowing the law of the transformation of quantity into quality becomes the instrument of a comprehensive mastering of the reality. On the basis of this law there are a number of methodological conclusions for the theoretical and practical activity of people.

Firstly, this law gives a possibility to facilitate the most complete process of cognition of those essential features and properties, which in their dialectical entity make qualitative definiteness of objects or phenomena.

Secondly, this law requires that in every single case measures must be defined, within the pale of which these or those quantitative changes would not lead to the qualitative changes. It will let us foresee qualitative leaps, forecast possible situations and plan our actions under certain conditions.

Thirdly, this law directs man to the necessity of a certain evaluation of events and processes of the reality not only from the qualitative point of view but also from the quantitative one using some proper methods of evaluation.

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