Marx's Dialectical Materialism

• Contemporary metaphysics developed during the 19th and 20th centuries
• This led to currents like German idealism, dialectical materialism, and existentialism
• Contemporary metaphysics faced criticism from Nietzsche's vitalism

Marx's Dialectical Materialism

• For Marx, humans are material beings composed of matter
• Humans are natural beings, originating from nature
• Humans are active beings, needing to transform nature to survive
• Work is essential to human beings
• Humans are social beings, which makes it necessary to relate with others
• Humans are historical beings
• Because of the characteristics of humans, they need to relate to others to subsist, and conflicts arise in these relationships
• Marx explains history through an economic lens, with theoretical and practical objectives

Marx's Theoretical and Practical Objectives

• Theoretical: To explain society scientifically with his materialistic theory
• Practical: To raise awareness among the labor movement and intellectuals to unite in a proletarian revolution to achieve a more just society—a communist society
• Marx explains history as a struggle of classes, based on the domination/exploitation of some by others
• The history of antagonistic social class struggle is the engine of history

Class Struggle Through History

• Slave society: The dominant part of society had power and controlled the modes of production, while slaves lacked freedom and were dominated
• Feudal society: Lords had power over the modes of production, and those controlling the infrastructure also dominated laws, political ideas, morals, philosophy, etc. (the superstructure)
• Capitalist society: Marx considered it the most serious example because the exploited class believed they were free, unlike in previous systems

The Drive for a Just Society

• Marx wanted the exploited to be aware of their situation and revolt for a more just society
• To subsist, people sell their labor and produce something which has a use-value
• The object produced has an exchange-value because it can be exchanged for another object of equal or similar value

Exploitation of Labor

• Problems arise when the owner sells the object for more than its production cost, which is surplus value
• The capitalist profits more from the object than the worker, creating a disproportion
• This leads the dominated class to break production relations and generate a new mode of production due to contradictions between productive forces and production relations
• This cyclical process is Marx's dialectical materialism, which explains that history advances dialectically

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

• Thesis: Specific mode of production marking the society's infrastructure, which then influences the superstructure (political, social, moral ideas, etc.)
• Antithesis: Opposition of the oppressor class to this system of production at a specific historical moment
• Synthesis: Another mode of production is generated, and the cycle starts again
• History advances through the struggle of opposing classes

Nietzsche's Vitalism

• Nietzsche, a 19th-century German philosopher, criticized the Enlightenment and most traditional schools of philosophy
• Developed a devastating critique of Western culture as an act of defense for life itself
• The entire history of philosophy is an error that began with Socrates and was reinforced by Plato, who created a world beyond the sensible that was ordered and static
• The only thing that exists is the sensible, the mere appearance that Plato talks, is real and is chaos, finite, suffering and enjoyment, joy, enthusiasm, bodily beauty, sexual love, and everything that has been denied from the beginning
• Humans create God because they cannot accept the tragic dimension of the world
• Christianity is the Platonism of the people: same theory created out of fear of facing reality

Beyond God

• Nietzsche uses "God is dead" as a metaphor for the end of all established dogmatic beliefs
• One must break with this horizon and face life as it is
• Nietzsche leads to nihilism, the destruction of all current values, divided into two types

Types of Nihilism

• Passive nihilism: Individuals, after losing their values, create no new ones, ending in despair or suicide because nothing makes sense
• Active nihilism: Creating New Values. Individuals actively create new types of values, leading to the birth of the Superman

Superman Characteristics

• The Superman will be capable of disregarding moral values and references to God and everything tied to the concept of God in Western cultural tradition
• The Superman is identified as a child, the innocent person who takes life as a game, manipulates everything without fear, and creates their own criteria
• He is the affirmation of life, the free spirit, and the creator and owner of themselves and their life who will invent moral norms and values
• He submits to those norms and values, and these will be faithful to the world of life

Existentialism

• Is a philosophical current responding to a specific context (wars, holocaust)
• Existentialism seeks to restore human dignity and rethinks man as a free being who creates his own existence
• Existentialism focuses on individuality, liberty, and human responsibility

Main Characteristics of Existentialism

• Emphasis on existence: "Existence precedes essence"
• Humans exist first and then determine their essence through actions and life choices.
• Freedom and responsibility: Individuals are responsible for their choices and must face the consequences
• Freedom can be distressing as it arises from awareness of it.
• Authenticity: Advocating for living an authentic life, acting according to one's true self instead of conforming to social expectations

Martin Heidegger: The Question for Being

• Heidegger is a central figure in existentialist philosophy with a distinct approach
• Question of Being: Heidegger revisits the question of being forgotten in Western philosophy
• Dasein: For Heidegger, things exist differently from humans
• Things are already made and do not evolve, but humans forge existence through decisions and choices, expressing freedom and essence, and are designated as "Being There"
• Temporalidad (Temporality): Understanding being requires recognizing influence of the past and future projections, affected by time and Heidegger argues that we are influenced by time
• Being in the World: Heidegger contrasts being in world of inanimate beings, the world is open to mankind, signifying immersion in context, existence is defined by relationships and meanings from the rich environmen

Existentialism Conclusion

• In conclusion, for the existentialist, there is no end to being of mankind, and so there is anguish, and man is never complete because he is always made by his freedom, and that is his existence
• Man will be nothing else but what he makes of himself and will be the first principle of existentialism