a) Connection and Relation as Concepts

p Connection is a relation between phenomena or the aspects of one and the same phenomenon. Not any relation, however, is a connection. Only a relation that presupposes the dependence of the changes in one phenomenon or aspect on changes in other phenomena or aspects is called a connection. People’s social awareness, for instance, is directly connected with the material conditions of their life, a change in which inevitably causes a corresponding change in their consciousness. Living organisms and the environment they live in are also to a certain extent connected. A change in the environment has a definite effect on living 186 organisms. Conversely, changes in the animal and vegetable world cause corresponding changes in the environment.

p Besides connections, relation includes isolation (separateness) which is a relation between phenomena or the aspects of one and the same phenomenon, when changes in some of them do not involve changes in others. A book-cover and the book’s content, for instance, are in a state of isolation. A change of the book-cover does not involve a change of its content, and vice versa.

p Although connection and isolation are different types of relations, they exist together, in union, rather than separately. The existence of connection involves the existence of isolation, and vice versa. Any material entity (phenomenon or property), although relatively independent, qualitatively isolated, and existing separately from other material entities (phenomena or properties), is also connected with them. It depends on them with respect to some relations and is independent with respect to others. It undergoes changes that both cause and do not cause corresponding changes in other material entities (phenomena or aspects).

p Social production, for instance, is connected with geography. The former’s level and development trends depend on the fertility of the land, natural resources (including water), climatic conditions, and so on. When these change corresponding changes occur in production. At the same time, production is independent of the geographical environment and develops in accordance with its own laws, rather than geographical ones. Its 187 characteristic features and forms depend on the level of development of the productive forces, rather than on environmental changes.

p Or take another example. An animal or vegetable organism is connected with the environment, being at the same time isolated, separated from it. Some changes in the environment, particularly those involving aspects connected with the organism’s vital activity, result in corresponding changes, while others do not.

To sum up, connection and isolation ( separateness) exist in unity. True, they do not always manifest themselves equally. In some cases ( relations), connection plays a leading part, while in others-isolation. This factor has become the basis for distinguishing in practice and knowledge whether phenomena are interconnected or not. In reality, however, all phenomena are both interconnected and isolated, i.e. they are in a state of separateness or isolation.

b) A Critique
of Idealist and Metaphysical Views of Connection

p Certain notions of the separate, isolated existence of phenomena and their interconnection appeared together with the emergence of philosophy. Thus, the first Greek philosophers took interconnection as the basic principle for explaining various phenomena. By taking a substance or natural phenomenon (air, water, fire) as the original source, Greek philosophers showed that all phenomena had appeared as a result of certain changes 188 in that substance (phenomenon) and that, being but different states of one and the same nature, they were intrinsically interconnected, passing from one into another and into the original source.

p Heraclitus was especially explicit in advancing the idea that the phenomena of reality were universally interconnected. He thought fire to be the original source of everything and the basis of all connection and separateness.

p The first Greek philosophers regarded interconnection as the interpassage of phenomena into each other. Later, however, this view was succeeded by another one, according to which interconnection was a mechanical joining and unjoining of the same immutable elements. This view was held by Empedocles and Anaxagoras, among others. Aristotle overcame the limitations of this view. He understood interconnection as the interdependence of things. Aristotle wrote: “All relatives have correlatives....”  [188•1  He was the first to declare the concept “relation” as a category, thus lending it the necessary generality.

p Kant developed the category “relations” and showed that it included both connection and separateness. Studying this problem as applied to the correlation of concepts in a judgement, he noted that they were both interconnected and isolated, that any judgement recorded both the presence of connection and its absence. The judgement “a wolf is an animal”, Kant said, expresses the fact that 189 the wolf is connected with animals and also that it is separated from all the other animals, except its kin, i.e. the wolves. Kant advanced and developed a correct point of view, yet he made one retrogressive step. He rejected the interconnection of phenomena in objective reality, believing that this interconnection was introduced into the realm of phenomena by the thinking subject. Hegel objected to this. In his opinion, interconnection, relations are inherent in things. It is through relations that they reveal their essence. Hegel wrote: “All that exists is in relation and this relation is what is true in any existence.”  [189•1  Advancing this idea, however, Hegel was far from materialist in his views. He thought that relations were ideal by nature and were moments or stages in the development of the Absolute Idea that had existed outside of and prior to the material world and sensuous objects.

p Alongside the dialectical conception of relations, the history of philosophy records a metaphysical view whose adherents absolutised isolation and separateness and virtually denied the interconnection of phenomena.

Bacon and Locke developed this view in various ways and it is still shared by some modern bourgeois philosophers who adhere to the pluralist theory that each object is something self-contained, and therefore there can be no connection between objects.

c) The Universality
of the Interconnection Between Phenomena

p As distinct from metaphysicists, who deny the interconnection of phenomena in the surrounding world, and idealists, who deduce this interconnection from man’s consciousness, dialectical materialists believe that interconnection is a universal form of being inherent in all phenomena of reality. All the existing in the world are links of one matter, “an interconnected totality of bodies".  [190•1 

p The Earth, for instance, is connected in a certain way with the Sun and other planets of the solar system. The Sun is a link in the Galaxy, which includes a multitude of other stars that are interconnected. The Galaxy, in its turn, is part of a still greater system and is connected within it with quite a number of other star systems, and thus ad infinitum. The situation is similar when we penetrate into the depths of matter. Any celestial body is a totality of different substances, interconnected in one way or another; any substance is a totality of interconnected molecules; any molecule is a totality of interconnected atoms; any atom is a totality of interconnected “ elementary” particles. Celestial bodies are connected through gravitational fields. The substances that make up a particular body, as well as the atoms that form a molecule, and electron shells and atomic nuclei are connected through gravitational and electromagnetic fields.

p Animate and inanimate nature, the animal and 191 vegetable world, nature and society, various aspects of society’s life, and the phenomena of consciousness and knowledge are also connected in a certain way.

To put it shortly, everything is interconnected in reality, “each thing (phenomenon, process, etc.) is connected with every other".  [191•1