What is Philosophy? A MARXIST INTRODUCTION by Howard Selsam . AUTHOR OF “ soctALisM AND ETHICS" SAT, Xo Bae Zaz International Publishers New YorkCONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1. PHILOSOPHY FOR WHOM? Il. MATERIALISM AND IDEALISM WI. PERMANENCE AND CHANGE IV. THE MEANING OF SCIENCE V. HISTORY AND FREEDOM REFERENCESINTRODUCTION THE PURPOSE of this book is to give to that increas- ing body of men and women interested in theoretical questions, some idea as to what philosophy is and some indication of how it can be used in dealing with the practical and theoretical questions that confront us. It is not the purpose of the author to bring philosophy down to earth, but to show that it has always been there. However abstract philosophical speculations may seem, the different systems and types of philosophy have been just so many ways in which men have reacted to the world of nature and society around them. Today, as perhaps never before, conflicting social attitudes and movements tend to generate conflicting philosophies, theories, or as they are often called, ideologies. And conversely, different conceptions of the world and of man tend to guide their followers into different paths of action. Aristocrats and bourgeois democrats, reac- tionaries and progressives, capitalists and class-conscious workers, believe in, and act upon, different theories of nature and of human life, Undoubtedly, the professor dismissed from Yale University for his progressive teachings and actions has a different world-view from that of the gentlemen who desired his removal. The trade union pickets at the gates of mines and factories differ in their conception of right and wrong, human nature and human good, from the deputy sheriffs and 9 > /