Toward a Definition of the Matter in Philosophy
The definition of the matter, which is still in use today, is based on the method of formation of general notions, proposed in his time by John Locke. In doing so, the matter is regarded not as something sensually existing, but as a distraction from the distinctions of forms of matter already known to us. This gave George Berkeley grounds for arguing that such an abstraction could simply be discarded without anyone even noticing it. In his work “Materialism and Empirio- Criticism”, objecting to G. Berkeley, Lenin corrected the definition of the matter by emphasizing that it is not just a philosophical category to denote objective reality, but that the matter is “copied, photographed, displayed by our senses, existing independently of them.” In this way, however, V.I. Lenin only confirmed G. Berkeley’s view that “to exist is to be perceived”, which he himself had previously challenged. In the opinion of the author of the article, V. I. Lenin’s definition of the matter did not fully take into account the lessons of Hegelian dialectics, which proves that the most general concepts are those that appear first. It turns out that at this point the matter should be understood not as some abstraction from forms already known to us, but as some of its pre-physical form, whatever it may be. But the pre-physical the form of the matter is not given to us in the senses. Yet its objective existence is undeniable. After all, if we reject the prephysical form of the matter, as G. Berkeley ironically suggested, we will destroy with it the physical basis of the world including ourselves. However, such an understanding of “the matter” raises the question of the beginning of its development in a new way.
