Abstract
Doubt concerning the basic principle of the history of philosophy - that is, the struggle between materialism and idealism - and concerning the origin and development of materialist philosophy will necessarily lead people to submit to idealism. Those who consider that the Marxist viewpoint on the history of philosophy has its limitations are, in fact, those people in the two big philosophical camps who do not want to insist on the materialist viewpoint and who serve idealism intentionally. Of course, there are people who argue obstinately that perhaps the scientific history of philosophy is the struggle and synthesis of antagonistic materialism and idealism. Zhdanov's talk, given in the course of the discussion on "the history of Western philosophy," emphasized only struggle and forgot synthesis. Therefore, we should now reverse this, that is, emphasize synthesis - talk about struggle within the synthesis of materialism and idealism. People who speak like this obviously have forgotten the principle of dialectics that "development is the struggle of antagonists" (Lenin), and "contradiction propels progress," not "harmony propels progress." The struggle between antagonistic materialism and idealism is absolute and inevitable. In the history of philosophy, of course, one cannot deny that materialism and idealism, at certain times and at certain places, and under certain conditions, can be antagonistic, [although] with temporarily harmonious development; but more important, one needs to expose their innate basic contradiction and to recognize the absolute nature of their mutually antagonistic struggle that is based on their contradiction. Therefore, I personally fully support the talk given by Zhdanov. In my opinion, in his talk, his basic understanding of the history of philosophy is correct and can be completely adopted for the study of the history of Chinese philosophy.