Here is what looks to be a comprehensive source for anyone interested in Dialectical Materalism:
http://www.marxist.com/science/diale...terialism.html
It's from
Reason in Revolt by Ted Grant and Alan Woods, and it's Marxist, so take it or leave it. I personaly haven't finished reading it..... so, my grasp on the matter comes from more simple means, and will probably be overshadowed by more inteligent people on this board, or anybody that happens to read the link. :/
Dialectical Materialism is the study of change (dialectics) in the real world (materialism).
Materialism is the idea that matter is the essence of all reality,
and that matter creates mind, and not vice versa. In other words, thought and all the things that are said to derive from thought(artistic ideas, scientific ideas, ideas of law, politics, morality etc) are in fact derived from the material world. Teh 'mind', ie, thought and thought processes, is a product of the brain; and the brain itself, and therefore ideas, arose at a certain stage in the development of living matter. It is a product of the material world.
"Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life"
- Karl Marx
A materialist therefore seeks an explanation not only for ideas, but for material phenomena themselves, in terms of material causes and not in terms of supernatural intervention by 'God' and the like.
The opposite of materialism is 'idealism', which I personaly generalise as religion and stuff....
Dialectics is quite simply the logic of motion. Not inertia and what not, but constant change. We all know that things don't stand still, they change.
The form of logic standing in contradiction to Dialectics is the well named 'Formal Logic'.
Formal logic is based on what is known as the 'law of identity', which says that 'A' equals 'A' - ie that things are what they are, and that they stand in definite relationships to each other. There are other derivative laws based on the law of identity; for example, if 'A' equals 'A', it follows that 'A' cannot equal 'B', or 'C'. The development of mathematics and basic arithmetic, for example, was based on formal logic. 1 + 1 = 2, and not 3. And in the same way, the method of formal logic was also the basis for the development of mechanics, of chemistry, of biology, etc.
In the 18th century the biologist Linnaeus developed a system of classification for all known plants and animals. Linnaeus divided all living things into classes, into orders, into families, in the order of primates, in the family of hominids, in the genus of homo, and represents the species homo sapiens. The Linnaean system of classification is based on formal logic.
An exaple of formal logic in chemistry is Dalton's atomic theory.
Dalton's theory was based on the idea that matter is made up of atoms, and that each type of atom is completely separate and peculiar to itself - that its shape and weight is peculiar to that particular element and to none other.
There are, however, limitations to the method of formal logic. It is a useful everyday method, and it gives us useful approximations for identifying things. the Linnaean system of classification is still useful - but since the work of Charles Darwin in particular we can also see the weaknesses in that system. Darwin's work provided a systematic basis for the theory of evolution, which for the first time said it is possible for one species to be transformed into another species.
Before Darwin it was thought that the number of species on the planet was exactly the same as the number of species created by God in the first six days on the job - except, of course, for those destroyed by the big flood - and that those species had survived unchanged over the millennia. But Darwin produced the idea of species changing, an idea that most people are aware of.
What applies in the field of biology applies also in the field of chemistry. Chemists became aware, by the late 19th century, that it was possible for one atomic element to become transformed into another. (Sorry, I don't know anything about this practice.)
Whereas the formal logician will say that 'A' = 'A', the dialectician will say that 'A' does not necessarily equal 'A'. Or to take a practical example that Trotsky uses in his writings, one pound of sugar will not be precisely equal to another pound of sugar. It is a good enough approximation if you want to buy sugar in a shop, but if you look at it more carefully you will see that it's actually wrong.
There are no absolute or fixed categories, either in nature or in society.
Dialectics, however, does not place on the universe a process of even or gradual change. This is where the dialectic laws of: 'Quantity into Quality', 'Negation of the Negation' and 'Interpenetration of Opposite' come into play. Which, if anybody rally cares about or wants to know about, i will try to explain.
Dialectical Materialism can also be seen by some as "common-fucking-sense" - nothing is fixed and nothing remains unchanged
I hope I helped with my view, I'm a bloody marxist so I should probably know it by heart. :/
that's why I posted this 
Linear Mode
