p Any science, no matter what sphere of material reality it investigates, is not only a system of laws, but also of definite categories, i.e., the most general concepts which are elaborated in the process of development of each science and constitute its foundation. In mechanics, for example, such concepts are: mass, energy, force; in political economy—commodity, value, money, and so on.

p In generalising the achievements of science and people’s practical activity, philosophy has its own system of categories. Philosophical categories are concepts reflecting the general features and connections, sides and properties of reality. We have already analysed certain major categories in our study of philosophical materialism. These are first of all the categories of matter and consciousness, then motion, space and time. Studying the basic laws of Marxist dialectics, we have also examined such categories as contradiction, quantity, quality, leap, negation. In this chapter we shall discuss one more group of categories: the particular and the universal, content and form, essence and phenomenon, cause and effect, necessity and chance, possibility and reality.

p A study of these categories will considerably broaden our understanding of the universal development and connections of the material world, the basic laws of Marxist dialectics.

p The laws and categories of dialectics are interconnected. When we studied the basic laws of Marxist dialectics we learned that they, in effect, represent the relationship or connection of categories. The law of the passage of quantitative into qualitative changes, for example, expresses a 120 definite connection of the categories of quantity and quality, etc. Hence, without a knowledge of categories it is impossible to comprehend the laws. On the other hand, knowledge of the laws enables us to understand the essence of categories of dialectics. The law of the unity and conflict of opposites thus makes it possible to reveal the real meaning of such antithetical categories as content and form, necessity and chance, possibility and reality, etc.

Before proceeding to discuss particular categories, let us ascertain their origin and consider some of their common features.