Dühring, Eugen

Born Jan. 12, 1833, in Berlin; died Sept. 21, 1921, in Nowawes, near Potsdam. German philosopher; also dealt with questions of political economy and law. Son of a Prussian official. Educated as a lawyer. Privatdocent at the University of Berlin from 1863 to 1877.

Dühring attempted to construct his own system of “the philosophy of reality,” which, in his words, would establish a new way of thinking. However, his construct proved to be only a blending of elements from metaphysical materialism, positivism, and Kantianism. He regarded philosophy as an a priori doctrine of final truths. The world has no end, but it had a beginning in time, which was preceded by a condition of absolute rest. The transition from rest to motion he explained by the concept of a certain “mechanical force” inherent in matter. Thus Dühring tried to avoid the concept of a prime mover and at the same time not adopt the materialist interpretation of motion as an attribute of matter. In his view, time is a thing apart from space and matter.

Dühring’s sociological concepts are based on an idealistic view according to which violence is the source of social in-equality, exploitation, and poverty. The socialist transformation of society should take place, in his view, without a revolutionary overthrow of the old order and should be carried out, according to the model of the petit bourgeois socialism of Proudhon, by bringing small-scale producers together into cooperatives. Dühring was a follower of the economic doctrines of the American H. C. Carey. He opposed Marxist political economy, materialist dialectics, and scientific socialism. His ideas gained a certain currency within German social democracy, which prompted Engels to subject Dühring’s views to a critical analysis, exposing their eclectic character and lack of scientific grounding.