What is the essential difference between the three major materialisms?

1) Ancient naïve materialism.

It is the original form of materialist philosophy. Naive materialism affirms the material origin and unity of the world, but due to the limitation of the level of understanding, it always regards a certain or some specific material forms as the material origin and unified material basis of the world.

For example, Thales in ancient Greece believed that all things were born in water and returned to water, the ancient Chinese Five Elements Theory believed that metal, wood, water, fire, and earth are the five basic elements that generate all things, the European Democritus and Epicurus's atomic theory, and the ancient Chinese qi monism all belong to the category of naïve materialism.

2) Modern metaphysical materialism.

It is the second form of materialist philosophy, also called mechanical materialism.

The basic characteristics of metaphysical materialism are: it acknowledges the materiality of the world, but interprets the world from an isolated, static and one-sided point of view, and does not see the universal connection and change and development between things and phenomena in the world, or only admits the mechanical connection and mechanical movement, and observes and interprets the way of thinking of the world from an isolated, static and mechanical point of view, so it shows mechanical and metaphysical characteristics.

Another limitation of metaphysical materialism is its incompleteness, which is manifested primarily in its materialistic view of nature and idealism in its view of social history.

Mechanical materialism exhibits limitations in the following three areas. 1. Mechanical. 2. Metaphysics. 3. Idealistic view of history.

3) Dialectical materialism.

Marxist dialectical materialism and historical materialism are the most thorough and scientific forms in the development of materialism and the third form in the history of materialism. Dialectical materialism and historical materialism have overcome the limitations and incompleteness of metaphysical materialism, organically unified materialism and dialectics, and the materialist view of nature and the materialist view of history, constituting a very complete and rigorous system of scientific theories. It not only attaches importance to explaining the world theoretically, but also emphasizes the practical transformation of the world, which is practical materialism.

This is the highest form of materialist philosophical development so far, and it is the most scientific and revolutionary philosophical form.

The essential difference lies in the degree of adherence to dialectic, or the degree of extensiveness of its application and understanding, or the wavering of the contradiction of the basic viewpoint of the understanding of things, the applicability, and the original face.

The representative of mechanical materialism is Feuerbach, and the representative of dialectical materialism is Marx, Engels, etc.

There are different degrees of abstraction in the recognition of matter.

Materialism. and idealism refer to:

1. Materialism:

Materialism is a finiteism that is opposed to infinitarianism and monotheism. Materialism acknowledges that the world is knowable, but denies the existence of omniscient beings. Materialism recognizes that the above argument contains contradictions, but does not try to resolve this contradiction, but admits it, believing that everything contains contradictions, and the more contradictions there are, the more real they are.

2. Idealism:

Idealism is one of the two basic schools of philosophy, and it is a philosophical system of thought that is opposed to materialism. The basic meaning of idealism is that in the philosophical ontology of the relationship between thinking and existence, spirit and matter, it is believed that spirit is the first nature of the world, and matter is the second nature of the world.

The three basic forms of materialism:

1. Naive materialism.

Naive materialism is also known as "naïve materialism" and is also known as spontaneous materialism. Naive materialism affirms the material origin and unity of the world, and due to the limitation of the level of understanding, it always regards a certain or specific material form as the material origin of the world and the material basis of unity.

2. Historical materialism.

Historical materialism: It is a set of theories in philosophy about the development of human society. Historical materialism points out that the fundamental reason for the occurrence of all events in history is the abundance of materials, and the development of social history has its own inherent objective laws.

3. Modern metaphysics.

There is a broad sense and a narrow sense, the broad sense refers to the materialist philosophy that explains the universe from a metaphysical point of view; In a narrow sense, it refers to the second form of materialism in the history of Western philosophy, that is, the materialist philosophy of the 16th-18th centuries.