SOURCE: “Science and Nature,” in Soviet Studies in Philosophy, Vol. X, No. 1, Summer, 1971, pp. 3-26.

In the following essay, originally published in 1970, Kedrov explores Engels' aims and achievements in the writing of Dialectics of Nature, arguing that Engels strove to use materialist dialectics to “synthesize the findings of natural science in his day.”

Philosophers and natural scientists are both familiar with the fact that, nearly a century ago, Engels undertook to synthesize the findings of natural science in his day from the standpoint of materialist dialectics. But few know the price Engels paid, how many times the work approached completion but was, for various reasons, postponed again and again until his death. In his mind, what place was his Dialectics of Nature to have occupied in the overall system of Marxist theory? This is the question to which I devote the present article. But before offering an answer...