Dietzgen, Josef

(1828–1888)

   A German-born self-taught intellectual, he was credited by Friedrich Engels with the independent discovery of materialist dialectics (see MATERIALISM and DIALECTICS), and described by Engels and Karl Marx as the First International’s philosopher. He was also praised by Vladimir Ilich Lenin for his materialist philosophy. Dietzgen worked in his father’s tannery until forced to flee Germany in 1848 as state repression increased after the revolutionary events of that year. He spent time in the United States and Russia, before returning to Germany where he wrote for communist journals and involved himself in socialist politics including the First International.

   In The Nature of Human Brainwork, Described by a Working Man (1864) and The Positive Outcome of Philosophy (1906) Dietzgen outlined a monist dialectical theory of reality that stressed the unity of mind and matter, the interconnectedness of everything and the centrality of sensory experience as the basis of our understanding of the world. Little read now, he was viewed as a major contributor to the development of the philosophical foundations of Marxism during and immediately after his lifetime.