interrelated philosophical categories. Content, the aspect that determines the character of the whole, is the sum of all the components of an object—its properties, internal processes, relations, contradictions, and tendencies. Form is the internal organization of content. The relationship of content and form may be described as a unity, as almost a transition of one into the other. However, this unity is relative. Of the two interrelated categories, content represents the mobile, dynamic aspect of the whole; form involves the stable connections of an object. Disparities between content and form are ultimately resolved by the “shedding” of the old form and the emergence of a new one, adequate to the developing content.
The categories of content and form originated in classical Greek philosophy. The first well-developed concept of form was elaborated by the Greek atomists, who believed that form expresses one of the most important determinants of atoms and defines the spatial organization of the structure of a body. In the history of philosophy, the category of content is represented by the concept of matter, the primary material substratum for all changes. Plato regarded form as the real determinant of a body as an entity existing independently of the world of natural things. Resolving the problem of the relationship of the world of forms (ideas) to the world of material things from an idealistic position, Plato assumed that sensory things arise from the interaction of form and matter, with form playing the determining, active role.
The most highly developed classical concepts of content and form were elaborated by Aristotle, who stated that form is the determinant of material things and that corporeal substance constitutes the unity of form and matter, or formed matter. However, in his consideration of the universe as a whole, Aristotle re-cogized the existence of unformed matter and nonmaterial form, which exists independently of matter and originates in the “form of forms,” or god.
G. Bruno was the first modern philosopher to attempt to overcome the idealism in the concept of matter and form. His ideas were developed by F. Bacon, R. Descartes, R. Boyle, and T. Hobbes. Descartes and his followers reduced the wealth of natural things to spatial dimensions and properties, whereas Bacon, taking into account the many qualities of matter, asserted the idea that matter has primacy over form but that the two constitute a whole.
Kant proposed the thesis that form is the organizing, synthesizing principle of matter, defined as a given sensory diversity. He reconsidered the traditional problem of the relation between matter and form but stressed a new aspect of it—the content and form of thought. To more adequately express the essence of the relationship between matter and form, Hegel introduced the category of content, of which form and matter are moments. Content consists of both form and matter. According to Hegel, the relationship between content and form is an interrelation of dialectical opposites, a mutual transformation.
K. Marx and F. Engels deepened Hegel’s distinction between the content and the material substratum of a thing (matter). According to the classical Marxist writers, content constitutes not the substratum per se but its internal state, the totality of the processes that characterize the interaction of the constituent elements of the substratum with each other and with the environment and that determine their existence, development, and replacement. In this sense, content is a process.
Dialectical materialism conceptualizes form as a structure that develops and comes into being. According to Marx, it is necessary “to trace the genesis of various forms” and to understand “the various stages of the real process by which forms are created,” while taking into account the objective subordination of content and form (Teorii pribavochnoi stoimosti, in K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 26, part 3, p. 526).
Elaborating on the Marxist analysis of the characteristics of development as a struggle between content and form, the constituent moments of which are the transformation of content into form and form into content, and the “filling” of the old form with new content, V. I. Lenin formulated the important thesis that “any crisis, even any turning point, in a development inevitably leads to a discrepancy between the old form and the new content” (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 27, p. 84). For example, during the stage of imperialism, capitalist production relations, which constitute a form of the productive forces of capitalist society, lag behind and impede the development of the productive forces. There are various ways of resolving the contradictions between content and form. The old form, which no longer corresponds to the new content, may be completely cast aside. If the old form is used despite considerable changes in the content, the form does not remain unchanged, and the new content “can and must manifest itself in any form, both new and old; it can and must regenerate, conquer, and subjugate all forms, not only the new, but also the old” (ibid., vol. 41, p. 89).
Dialectical materialism bases its consideration of the problem of the interrelation of content and form in thought on the principle that thought reflects the objective world as both content and form. The content of thought includes diverse determinants of reality that are reproduced by consciousness, including the most general connections and relations, which assume specific logical functions under certain conditions and appear as the forms of thought. The categorical structure of thought develops as knowledge develops. As the content of thought becomes fuller, deeper, and more comprehensive, thought assumes more developed, more concrete forms.
M. S. KAGAN