Materialism and Empirio-Criticism

Written from February to October 1908 in Geneva and London, and later published in Moscow in May 1909, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism is a foundational work of Marxist philosophy. It is a substantive critique of the reactionary idealist philosophers Mach and Avenarius, and their Russian followers, particularly Alexander Bogdanov. Compiling and synthesizing a vast body of scientific and philosophic material, Lenin shows that, contrary to the claims of the Machists who asserted that then-new scientific discoveries had made matter "disappear," and with it philosophic materialism itself, that instead those discoveries further proved the truth of the objectivity of matter and modern materialism. Most importantly, here Lenin further develops his theory of reflection, clarifying and enriching the process by which consciousness and matter relate and transform into one another, thereby qualitatively developing the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism. As such, this work is essential for any student of Marxist philosophy.