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The Theory of Knowledge The THEORY OF l(NOWLEDGE by Maurice Cornforth LITTLE ,\'E\\' \\'ORLD PAPERBACKS 0328 52.75 The Theory of Knowledge By MAURICE CORNFORTH ® INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK Copyright © by INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS Co., !Ne., 1955 Third (revised) Edition© by Maurice Cornforth, 1963 First U.S. Edition, 1971 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Seventh printing 1983 Volume Three of the 3-volume Dialectical Materialism: An Introduction SBN 7178-0328-7 Printed in the United States of America FOREWORD HE theory of knowledge1 is concerned with questions Tabout ideas-their source, the way they reflect reality, the way they are tested and developed, their role in social life. These questions have always formed an important part of philosophy. In bourgeois philosophy the theory of knowledge has come to occupy the first place, on the grounds that before any philosophical conclusions can be drawn about anything what­ ever we must first make certain of what we really do know and the foundations on which we know it. But bourgeois philoso­ phers have generally approached the subject in the most abstract possible way. Taking nothing else for granted than the bare existence of the individual human mind, they have asked how knowledge could be born and grow up in it. But since human individuals, and still less their minds, do not exist in a void, this kind of inquiry was bound to raise unanswerable questions and to remain comparatively sterile. Marxism, on the other hand, considers that we ought to study the subject more concretely, and to ask how ideas actually arise, develop and are tested in the concrete condi­ tions of real human life, in the material life of society. This volume is about how human consciousness actually arises and develops. It tries to trace this process step by step from its beginnings in the simple conditioned reflex, which is the basic way in which an animal organism epters into active relation­ ship with the external world, up to the development of human knowledge and human freedom. 1 Those who consider Gre�k a more philosophical languagethan English call it epistemology, or sometimes gnoswlogy. CONTENTS Part One. The Na ture and Origin ofthe Mind CHAP. PAGE MIND AND BODY 9 2 MIND AS PRODUCT AND REFLECTION OF MATTER 22 3 SOCIAL LABOUR AND SOCIAL THINKING 35 4 THOUGHT, LANGUAGE AND Lome 45 Part Two. The Development of Ideas 5 ABSTRACT IDEAS 57 6 loEOLOGY 66 7 IDEOLOGICAL ILLUSIONS 80 8 SCIENCE 93 9 SCIENCE AND SOCIALISM 114 Part Three. Truth and Freedom JO TRUTH 135 JJ THE ROOTS OF KNOWLEDGE 148 12 THE GRO'WTH OF KNOWLEDGE 163 1 3 NECESSITY AND FREEDOM • 180 14 THE' REALISATION OF FREEDOM 195 READING LIST 2og Part One THE NATUR E AND ORIGIN OF THE MIND Chapter One MIND AND BODY Matter and Mind T is very commonly believed that however closely the mind Imay be connected with itsbody it is nevertheless distinct and separable from the body. According to this belief, the mind "a nimates" the body and makes use of the organs of the body both to receive impressions of the external world and to act on the external world; but its existence does not depend on that of the body. Moreover, while in some of its activities the mind makes use of the body, in other of its activities it does not. For instance, the mind makes use of the body in its sensuous activities, but in its "purer'' intellectual or spi ritual activities it does not. This is in essence a very ancient conception. Thus som e primitive peoples think of the soul as being a very finevap our -this is what the word "spirit" originally meant-which resides in the body but which can come out of it and lead an independent existence. For example, the soul journeys out of the body during sleep, issuing forth fromthe mouth. Again, the wrong soul can sometimes get into the wrong body-as in "possession": a lunatic or an epileptic is said to suffer from an evil spirit having got into his body. And as part of this primitive conception of the soul there arises the conception of the sur­ vival of the soul after death and also of the pre-ex istence of the soul before birth. Idealist philosophical theories about the mind are, in the last analysis, only refinements and rationalisations of such superstitions. Amongst such refinements and rationalisations is the doc­ trine that mind and body are two distinct substances- 9 spiritual substance and material substance. Material substance, or body, is extended, has weight, moves about in space. Spiritual substance, or mind, thinks, knows, feels, desires. This view is still very widely held. It is believed that such properties as thinking, fe eling and so on are so absolutely different from the properties of matter, that however closely our thinking and fe eling may be bound up with the state of our bodies, they belong to an immaterial substance, the mind, which is distinct from the body. Idealist philosophers, who consider that the mind is separable from the body, maintain that thoughts, fe elings and so on are in no sense products of any material process. Ifwe think and fe el and act intelligently, for example, such behaviour is not to be explained from the conditions of our material existence but from the independent functioning of our minds. Admittedly, the mind makes use of the bodily organs ; but intelligent behaviour stems from the fact that the body is animated, informed and controlled by an immaterial principle or a spiritual being, the mind. But such idealist theories, widespread as they are, have long been offset by opposing materialist views. According to materialism, so far from mind being separable from body, all mental functions depend on their appropriate bodily organs and cannot be exercised without them. All people's conscious and intelligent activities can be traced back to material causes, so that far from such activities being exclusive products of mind, mind itself is a product-the highest product-of matter. Modern materialism, which is equipped with the results of scientific investigations into the forms of organic life and with the conception of evolution, is able to give a decisive answer to the idealist conception of the mind. Mind is a product of the evolutionary development of life. Living bodies which have reached a certain level of development of the nervous system, such as we find in animals, can and do develop formsof consciousness ; and in the course of evolution this consciousness eventually reaches the stage of thought, the activity of the human brain. The mental functions, from the lowest to the IO highest, are functions of the body, functions of matter. Mind is a product of matter at a high level of the organisation of matter. Once this is admitted, there is an end to the conception of the mind or soul as separable from the body and capable of leaving it and surviving it. A mind without a body is an absur­ dity. Mind does not exist in abstraction frombody. To say that mind does not exist in abstraction from body is not, however, to say that mental processes do not exist or that the mind of man is a myth. Of course, mind, conscious­ ness, thought, will, feeling, sensation and so on are real. Materialism does not deny the reality of mind. What material­ ism does deny is that a thing called "the mind" exists separate from the body. The mind is not a thing, or a substance, distinct from the body. This point can be illustrated by any example when we ordinarily speak about "the mind". Philosophers and theo­ logians have imagined that the mind has an existence of its own, and qualities and activities of its own, distinct from the body. But nothing of the sort is ever implied in practical life when we talk about the mind. Suppose, for example, that you are asked, "What's in your mind?" This means quite simply, "What are you thinking about?" In other words, it is a variant of the question, '"What are you doing?" It does not in the least imply that there exists a thing called your mind, distinct from your body. Similarly, if you are told, "You have a first-rate mind", or "You have a dirty mind", or "You ought to improve your mind", all these remarks are understood as referring to certain things which you normally do. And if you die, or if you are hit on the head or in some other way suffer a disturbance of the brain, then these remarks about your mind no longer apply. For the activities to which they refer can then no longer be performed, since the means of performing them have been destroyed. A man is endowed with mind, then, in so far as he thinks, fe els, desires and so on. But all these activities are activities, functions, of the man, of a material being, an organised body, II dependent on appropriate bodily organs. Given a body with the appropriate organisation and the appropriate conditions of life, these activities arise and develop. Destroy the body or its organs, and these activities are destroyed with it. Al l the mental functions and activities, which are said to be products of mind as distinct from matter, are functions or activities of a living material organism. The mind is a product of material organisation. Consciousness and the Nervous System Not ev ery body is capable of thinking and fe eling, but only organic, living bodies. And not every living body manifests those activities which are associated with the development of mind.
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