Written
in 1937, On Practice was delivered as
a lecture by Mao to combat subjectivist methods of thinking such as dogmatism
and empiricism, which were hindering the struggle of the Chinese people against
the Japanese invaders.
The
work explains the process of development of ideas and concepts, and the process
of testing and validating ideas and concepts through practical application. It
is sub-titled “On the relation between knowledge and practice, between knowing
and doing”.
The
word ‘practice’ was used by Mao to embrace all the varied forms of human
practical activity – the struggle for material production, the class struggle,
scientific experiment and the struggle for knowledge, and both personal and
collective direct experiences in social and cultural life.
Of the struggle for material
production to meet the human need for food and shelter, Mao said, “…Marxists
regard man’s activity in production as the most fundamental practical activity,
the determinant of all his other activities… through which he comes gradually
to understand the phenomena, the properties and the laws of nature, and the
relations between himself and nature; and through his activity in production he
also gradually comes to understand, in varying degrees, certain relations that
exist between man and man.”
Mao makes
the point that, “Man’s social practice is not confined to activity in
production, but takes many other forms – class struggle political life,
scientific and artistic pursuits; in short, as a social being, man participates
in all spheres of the practical life of society… class struggle in particular,
exerts a profound influence on the development of man’s knowledge. In class
society everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking,
without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.”
This
process of understanding the physical and natural laws and social relations
develops as “human social activity in production develops step by step from a
lower to a higher level and that consequently man’s knowledge, whether of
nature or of society, also develops step by step from a lower to a higher
level, that is, from the shallower to the deeper, from the one-sided to the
many-sided.”
Marxism
As
history unfolds, human knowledge expands and gradually leaves behind the
darkness of ignorance, prejudice and superstition. The development of large
scale industry, social production, science and global trade meant that, “man
was able to acquire a comprehensive, historical understanding of the
development of society and turn this knowledge into a science, the science of
Marxism.”
Marxism
could only arise in this modern era, when the era of small scale production
characteristic of earlier feudalism and aristocratic privilege had been
overthrown by capitalism and its relations of production. This was the essence
of the revolutionary wars in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
and later.
The new
and unique features of capitalism were studied exhaustively by Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels and formed the basis of their dialectical materialist theory
of human knowledge. As Mao puts it, “… dialectical materialism has two
outstanding characteristics. One is its class nature: it openly avows that
dialectical materialism is in the service of the proletariat. The other is its
practicality: it emphasizes that theory is based on practice and in turn serves
practice.”
From this
overview, Mao then proceeds to examine the process of acquiring knowledge,
testing it in practice, refining it through thought, and then re-applying and
re-testing it at a higher level.
Perceptual
stage of knowledge
At
birth we have no knowledge, only instincts and our five senses. In almost no
time, we experience warmth and cold, light and shadows, noise and the sound of
voices, the sensations of touch, discomfort and sometimes hunger. Everything is
impressions, perceptions, unprocessed by thought because there is as yet no
knowledge or experience to form conclusions.
In
life, when we encounter new phenomena, new things, new events and
circumstances, the process of understanding and acquiring knowledge is the same
– it starts with our sensations and perceptions, through which we acquire some minimal
or even partial knowledge. “In the process of practice, man at first sees only the phenomenal side,
the separate aspects, the external relations of things…This is called the
perceptual stage of knowledge, namely, the stage of sense perceptions and
impressions.”
These perceptions and
impressions then build on the practice, on the life experiences and knowledge
already acquired.
Rational
stage of knowledge
Mao
continues, “As social practice continues, things that give rise to man’s sense
perceptions and impressions in the course of his practice are repeated many
times; then a sudden change (leap) takes place in the brain in the process of
cognition, and concepts are formed.”
As the
brain processes the data coming in from the senses, it searches for patterns and
associations, trying to make sense of it all. As more data, experience,
practice takes place, quantitative change gives rise to qualitative change and
a breakthrough occurs. These are “Now I get it!” moments when there is clarity,
whether it’s learning to count, learning a language, or understanding the class
interests of potential allies and foes in the course of class struggle.
Sifting
the various concepts leads to the higher stage of making conclusions, of
drafting theories and plans, as Mao says, “Proceeding
further, by means of judgement and inference one is able to draw logical
conclusions…This stage of conception, judgement and inference is the more
important stage in the entire process of knowing a thing; it is the stage of
rational knowledge.”
Revolutionary
practice
But
Marxists are not content with just “understanding the laws of the objective
world and thus being able to explain it”. Marxists seek to apply “the knowledge
of these laws actively to change the world.”
Therefore,
conclusions, theories and plans must be tested in the real world of class
struggle, in the practice of revolutionary struggle, to see if they are valid. “The
active function of knowledge … must manifest itself in the leap from rational
knowledge to revolutionary practice…This is the process of testing and
developing theory, the continuation of the whole process of cognition.”
Mao notes
that, “whether in the practice of changing nature or of changing society, men’s
original ideas, theories, plans or programmes are seldom realised without any
alteration.” This may be because objective conditions have not developed
sufficiently, or our knowledge is incomplete or not accurate, or often because of
wishful thinking that “lags behind reality.” And, even when there is apparent
success, he warns, “… man’s knowledge of a particular process at any given
stage of development is only relative truth.”
Political
errors occur when proper social investigation is neglected and actions are
based on superficial knowledge (empiricism) or a theoretical formula is
dogmatically applied (adventurism).
“Idealism
and mechanical materialism, opportunism and adventurism, are all characterised
by the breach between the subjective and the objective, by the separation of
knowledge from practice.”
This only
leads to isolation of the revolutionary forces, as they either trail behind the
masses or run ahead only to disappear over the horizon.
In
summary
“Discover
the truth through practice, and again through practice verify and develop the
truth. Start from perceptual knowledge and actively develop it into rational
knowledge; then start from rational knowledge and actively guide revolutionary
practice to change both the subjective and the objective world. Practice,
knowledge, again practice, and again knowledge. This form repeats itself in
endless cycles, and with each cycle the content of practice and knowledge rises
to a higher level. Such is the whole of the dialectical-materialist theory of
knowledge, and such is the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of
knowing and doing.”
