p The contrariety of the categories of the material and the ideal presupposes their mutual positedness. The materialist solution of the basic question of philosophy consists in the acknowledgement of matter, the material as primary, and consciousness, the ideal, as secondary. The mutual positedness of these categories reveals itself as their mutual differentiation which makes it possible not only to fix in thought the necessary links between them, but also to avoid their confusion and establish the relative independence of spiritual phenomena and their problems. The study of these problems calls for specific cognitive means largely determined by the methodological functions of the category of the ideal (in its Marxist interpretation).

p So, the content of the category of the ideal can only surface 18 when it is compared with the category of the material. Yet in order to do so we must first define the relation between the notions of “matter” and "the material". Are they just different terms denoting one and the same thing, or two different categories? If “matter” and "the material" are different categories, contiguous though as they may be, what are their specific features?

p The] opinions expressed in relevant literature are far from being unanimous. Some authors hold that "the material" is identical with “matter”^^2^^ as both denote nothing else than objective reality.  [18•* 

p Others view them as two different notions which cannot be identified. By "the material" in that case is understood every property of a material object.^^4^^ Thus I. S. Narsky contends that "materiality and matter are not identical notions".^^5^^ In his opinion, the relationship between these categories is highly dialectical as it expresses the connection between matter and its properties (ibid., pp. 63-65). Such a view ensues from Narsky’s general approach to the matter-consciousness antithesis called by him “antinomy-problem”. He writes: "Consciousness is material since it is a product of matter, yet it is also ideal, as it is very different from matter which produces it and which is determined through relationship to this product. Matter begets consciousness as its material and immaterial product. The material is and is not matter" (italics mine—D.D.) (ibid., pp. 33-34).

p Indeed, the relationship of fundamental categories is charged, as it were, with antinomies. Overcoming an antinomy is only possible in a concrete philosophical context where each of the opposite categories is interpreted with the help of other categories, and this makes it possible to adopt a definite theoretical solution. Dialectic presupposes the possibility not only of an antinomy, but also of its resolution. In other words, an antinomy should not be allowed to subsist as it is since it represents but the most abstract, starting point of theoretical thought bound to override indeterminacy in one or another concrete sense. 19 Therefore the assertion that "the material is and is not matter" needs to be qualified.

p In Narsky’s opinion, consciousness is material in the sense that the cause of its ideality, as well as the content reflected in it, is material by nature (ibid., pp. 69 and 70). The general line of his thought is clear: he seeks to underscore the dependence of consciousness on matter, the reflective nature of the former. Yet he leaves open the question regarding the sense in which "the material ... is not matter". This statement in fact amounts to an assertion that the material is not objective reality and, consequently, that the material is the ideal. How are we in that case tp distinguish the material from the ideal? Even if we should say that "some material phenomena are ideal" (which binds us also to assert the opposite), we should hardly find grounds for demarcating the above indicated notions. Abstract identification of opposites results in a high degree of indeterminacy which, theoretically speaking, derives from the antithesis of possibility and reality and the conversion of the former into the latter: indeed, the ideal carries the possibility of the material, and vice versa.

p The ideal is necessarily connected with the material (matter), but it would hardly be correct to assert that the material is necessarily connected with the ideal. Already at this point we have a sharp logical distinction which is of crucial importance. The ideal is capable of turning into the material, and vice versa (for instance, in the acts of objectification and deobjectification). Yet it gives no reason for the abstract identification of these categories, as the ideal in one and the same sense and in one and the same respect cannot be simultaneously objective reality.

p Nor would we clarify the matter by distinguishing the material from objective reality. We believe that there is no logically sound method of distinguishing the terms -“matter” and "the material" within the conceptual framework of the basic question of philosophy. It is very important that we never lose sight of the guiding principle: ".. .the sole ‘property’ of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside the mind".^^0^^ The notion of the material therefore covers every object, process, every property, relationship, etc. existing objectively, i.e. 20 outside and independent of consciousness. Put another way, the material is synonymous with matter and make one and the same category.

p A different viewpoint does not accord with the logical structure of the basic question of philosophy and clouds the category of matter as its clarity can only be retained in opposition to the category of consciousness (the ideal). We fully subscribe to Kopnin’s criticism of attempts to define matter "as such, as some substance" and share his view that "the concept of matter is meaningless outside the relationship of being to thinking.”^^7^^

p The materialist solution of the basic question of philosophy does not eliminate the logical contrariety of the categories of the material and the ideal. The ideal does not turn into the material just because it is necessarily connected with and determined by it; if it does, it stops being the ideal. Therefore the assertion that the ideal is the material (even if it is qualified as a property of the material) can hardly be accepted as it tends to wash out the demarcation between these categories and creates an illusion that matter or consciousness may have a purely ontological definition.

p To be sure, the logical contrariety of the material and the ideal is not absolute and does not rule out their passing into each other through mediating categories. The latter, once found, make it possible to express theoretically the unity of the material and the ideal in human activity, in the research into the mindbrain problem, and in many other respects without eliminating, however, the antithesis of the categories in question. Elaborating on this problem, Lenin wrote: "Of course, even the antithesis of matter and mind has absolute significance only within the bounds of a very limited field—in this case exclusively within the bounds of the fundamental epistemological problem of what is to be regarded as primary and what as secondary. Beyond these bounds the relative character of this antithesis is indubitable" (italics mine—D.D.).^^8^^ According to Lenin, this antithesis should not be excessive, exaggerated, metaphysical.^^9^^

p Lenin’s statements cited above are often adduced as an argument in support of the opinion that the antithesis of matter and consciousness does not obtain outside the bounds of the basic question of philosophy. Reference to Lenin, however, is based on a misinterpretation of his views. Lenin’s explicit affirmation 21 of the relative character of the antithesis in question entails two important consequences. First, the categories of the material and the ideal preserve their world-view and methodological functions beyond the bounds of epistemological problems (we shall discuss this question later). Second, all thinkable logical relations of the contrariety of these categories are encompassed by the dialectical unity of the absolute and the relative: in one concrete respect such a contrariety may be absolute, in another, relative. Yet in all cases the logical contrariety of the above- indicated categories obtains in one way or another thus attesting to their interconnection. If the material is objective reality, the ideal cannot be anything else but subjective reality. The definition of the ideal as subjective reality is the starting point of our investigation and should remain invariable in all contexts where reference is made to the category of the ideal. If this requirement is not observed, the category of the ideal becomes meaningless.

p The classics of Marxism have strongly opposed any attempt to camouflage the logical contrariety of the categories of the material and the ideal, to confound the ideal and the material. Criticising I. Dietzgen, Lenin wrote : "That both thought and matter are ‘real’, i.e., exist, is true. But to say that thought is material is to make a false step, a step towards confusing materialism and idealism.”^^10^^ "That the conception of ‘matter’ must also include thoughts ... is a muddle, for if such an inclusion is made, the epistemological contrast between mind and matter, idealism and materialism . . . loses all meaning" (ibid., p. 245). Thought is ideal, and not material; it only exists as subjective reality, it cannot be separated from man and treated as something outside his consciousness. According to Lenin, an idea independent of man, sensation independent of man is "a lifeless abstraction, an idealist artifice" (ibid., p. 227).

p The understanding of the ideal (spiritual) as human subjective reality, that is the reality of our thoughts, sense images, internal motives, etc., runs as a leading thread through all philosophical thought of Marx and Engels. In contrast with Hegel, Marx pointed out that the ideal is nothing else than the phenomenon of human consciousness, the reflection of the material in the human mind: "The ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind and translated into forms of thought.”^^11^^ For the classics of Marxism the ideal does 22 not exist outside the human mind. Analysing the process of labour, Marx draws his famous comparison between a conscious and an instinctive action: "But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement" (italics mine—D.D.) (ibid., p. 174).

p The identification of the ideal with subjective reality is particularly manifest in Marx’s analysis of the role of consumption in production processes: "Consumption creates the need for new production, and therefore the ideal, intrinsically actuating reason for production, which is the presupposition of production."¹² According to Marx, "Consumption posits the object of production ideally, as an internal image, a need, an urge and a purpose" (ibid.).

p Marx is also known to have repeatedly censured attempts to confuse the material and the ideal, i,e. what exists i’n man’s mind as subjective reality with what exists outside man as objective reality. He pointed out the social roots of this theoretical muddle which helped to veil the trick of substituting an illusory change of the world—only in thought, in imagination, in fanciful dreams—for its real transformation. Exposing the idealist character of Bauer’s notorious "absolute criticism", Marx wrote that to throw off the yoke of oppression "it is not enough to do so in thought and to leave hanging over one’s real sensuously perceptible head the real sensuously perceptible yoke that cannot be subtilised away with ideas. Yet Absolute Criticism has learnt from Hegel’s Phanomenologie at least the art of converting real objective chains that exist outside me into merely ideal, merely subjective chains, existing merely in me and thus of converting all external sensuously perceptible struggles into pure struggles of thought.”^^13^^ This passage reveals with utmost clarity the contrast between the ideal and the material, as well as the sophistry underlying attempts to confuse them.

p It is worth noting in this context that the dialectical analysis of the problem of the ideal is incompatible with the violation of basic rules of logic. Formal logic, as has been convincingly shown by Kostyuk, "prohibits not a dialectical contradiction, but eclecticism, sophistry, confusion.”^^14^^

In order to avoid vagueness in the analysis of the problem in interest, one ought to strictly adhere to the basic definition of the ideal as subjective reality and never lose sight of the logical contrariety of the categories of the ideal and the material.