We have just seen, in connection with the history of the apple, what a process is. Let’s have another look at this example. We have looked for where the apple came from and we were obliged to push our research as far back as the tree. But this problem of research also arises in regard to the tree. The study of the apple leads us to the study of the origins and destiny of the tree. Where does the tree come from? From an apple. It comes from an apple that has fallen and rotted in the earth, giving birth to a shoot. This leads us to study the ground, the conditions in which the seeds of the apple were able to sprout, the influences of the air, sun, etc. In this way, starting with the study of the apple, we are led to study the soil, proceeding from the process of the apple to that of the tree. The latter process has its sequence, in turn, in that of the soil. We have here what is called a “sequence of processes.” This will enable us to express and study the second law of dialectics: the law of reciprocal action. Let us take another example of the sequence of processes—that of the Workers’ University in Paris. If we study this school from the dialectical point of view, we shall look for where it came from and find at first this answer: in the autumn of 1932, some comrades meeting together decided to found a Workers’ University in Paris in order to study Marxism.
But where did this committee get this idea of teaching Marxism? Obviously because Marxism exists. But then, where does Marxism come from?
We see that research into the sequence of processes involves us in detailed and complete studies. Much more: by looking for the source of Marxism, we shall find that this doctrine is the very conscience of the proletariat. We see (whether we are for or against Marxism) that the proletariat then does exist; and so again we ask the question: where does the proletariat come from?
We know that it derives from an economic system, viz., capitalism. We know that the division of society into classes, that class struggle, was not caused, as our adversaries claim, by Marxism. On the contrary, we know that Marxism observes the existence of this class struggle and draws its force from the already existing proletariat.
Hence, from process to process, we arrive at the examination of the conditions of existence of capitalism. We have, in this way, a sequence of processes that shows us that everything influences everything else. This is the law of reciprocal action.
As a conclusion to these two examples of the apple and of the Workers’ University in Paris, let us see how a metaphysician would have proceeded.
In the example of the apple, he could only have thought, “Where does the apple come from?” And he would have been satisfied with the answer, “The apple comes from the tree.” He would not have looked any further.
For the Workers’ University he would have been satisfied with saying, about its origin, that it was founded by a group of men who wished “to corrupt the French people” or some such nonsense.
But the dialectician sees the entire sequence of processes which end, on the one hand, with the apple, and, on the other, with the Workers’ University. The dialectician connects the particular fact, the detail, to the whole.
- Elementary Principles of Philosophy, Georges Politzer