辩证唯物主义(dialectical materialism)

一种以马克思（Karl Marx）、恩格斯（Friedrich Engels）和後来的普列汉诺夫（Georgy Plekhanov）、列宁（Vladimir Ilich Lenin）、史达林（Joseph Stalin）等人的着作研究现实的哲学方法，为共产主义（communism）的正式哲学。认为一切现象都是不以人的感觉为转移的客观存在，现实可以归纳为物质。马克思和恩格斯认为，唯物主义（materialism）意味着可以感觉的物质世界有独立於思想和精神的现实性。他们不否认思想或精神过程的现实性，但认为观念只是物质环境的产物或反应。他们的辩证法概念在很大程度上来自黑格尔（G. W. F. Hegel）。辩证法认为事物都处在运动和变化中，是互相联系和互相影响的。强调人的认识是辩证发展的，是从社会实践活动的进程中获得的。人们只能通过他们同事物的实际接触获得对於事物的认识，形成与他们的实践相符合的观念；而且只有社会实践才能检验观念（从而检验真理）是否符合实际。马克思和恩格斯并没有对辩证唯物主义作系统的阐述，他们主要是在论战过程中表明了他们的哲学观点。

English version：

dialectical materialism

Philosophical approach expressed through the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and later by Georgy Plekhanov, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, and Joseph Stalin, the official philosophy of communism. Its central tenet, borrowed from Hegelianism, is that all historical growth, change, and development results from the struggle of opposites. (In philosophical terms, a thesis is opposed by its antithesis, which results in a synthesis.) Specifically, it is the class struggle—the struggle between the capitalist and landowning classes, on the one hand, and the proletariat and peasantry, on the other—that creates the dynamic of history. The laws of historical dialectics are seen to be so powerful that individual leaders are of little historical consequence. Originally conceived as operating primarily in the social, economic, and political realm, the principle was extended in the 20th century to the scientific realm as well, with major effects on Soviet science. Marx and Engels stated their philosophical views mainly in the course of polemics and brief historical studies; there is no systematic exposition of dialectical materialism.