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Notes Rec. R. Soc. (2010) 64, 155–162

doi:10.1098/rsnr.2010.0012
Published online 7 April 2010

‘DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND MODERN PHYSICS’, AN UNPUBLISHED

TEXT BY MAX BORN

by
OLIVAL FREIRE1 AND CHRISTOPH LEHNER2,*
1
Instituto de Fisica –UFBa, Campus de Ondina, Salvador, Ba, 40210-340, Brazil
2
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstrasse 22, 14195,
Berlin, Germany

A previously unpublished manuscript by the physicist Max Born, one of the creators of
quantum mechanics, is presented. The manuscript was addressed to Born’s colleague Léon
Rosenfeld and criticized his attempt to show that Niels Bohr’s doctrine of complementarity
was an example of dialectical materialism and as such in perfect agreement with Marxist
philosophy. Besides illustrating the deep political divisions among defenders of the
‘Copenhagen spirit’ in quantum physics, the manuscript is also a valuable source
illuminating Max Born’s philosophical position about scientific methodology and epistemology.

Keywords: Max Born; Léon Rosenfeld; philosophy of science, physics and

politics; quantum mechanics; dialectical materialism

‘Dialectical materialism and modern physics’ is a previously unpublished manuscript written

by Max Born (1882–1970) and sent to Léon Rosenfeld (1904–74) in November 19551 in
response to a paper by Rosenfeld defending the compatibility of Bohr’s doctrine of
complementarity with dialectical materialism.2 The manuscript, which is published below
for the first time, offers interesting insights into both philosophy and politics of the time.
Born’s and Rosenfeld’s views differed even though they both saw themselves as defenders
of Bohr’s position on quantum mechanics. Politics clearly pitted Born against Rosenfeld,
Liberal against Marxist, especially given the heightened sensitivities of the Cold War
climate. Nevertheless, it is puzzling why Born felt motivated to protest against Rosenfeld’s
position in this rather elaborate form, and why he never published the manuscript. The text
shows that, beyond the obvious political disagreement, Born was opposing Rosenfeld’s
characterization of the role of epistemology and ontology in physics. Therefore, the text
throws light on Born’s philosophical position, which is not discussed extensively in the
literature on this central figure in the development of quantum mechanics.
In the rising controversy over the interpretation of quantum mechanics during the 1950s,
both scientists were in the same camp, supporting the complementarity view and aligned
with Niels Bohr, Wolfgang Pauli and Werner Heisenberg. The modern term ‘Copenhagen

* Author for correspondence (lehner@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de).

155 This journal is q 2010 The Royal Society

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156 O. Freire and C. Lehner

interpretation’ for the position of Bohr and his supporters was only just emerging at the time;
Rosenfeld objected rather vehemently to it.3 Critics of Bohr’s position included physicists
such as Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger, who were discontent with the
methodological implications of Bohr’s interpretation. In contrast, Soviet physicists (such
as Dimitri Blochinzev) and philosophers criticized complementarity on ideological
grounds, claiming it was an idealistic and therefore bourgeois view. David Bohm, a
Marxist like Rosenfeld, suggested a deterministic hidden-variable interpretation of
quantum mechanics that seemed more easily reconcilable with materialism than Bohr’s
position. All this put Rosenfeld in an uncomfortable position. He was Bohr’s closest aide
for philosophical subjects. Being a Marxist, he was an obvious target of the materialist
critique of complementarity. Rosenfeld responded with the paper cited above and attacked
both David Bohm and the Soviet physicists, claiming that complementarity was
compatible with dialectical materialism and a direct consequence of experience.
Born could not accept Rosenfeld’s claims: ‘Our attitudes to some of the fundamental
questions of physics are very similar—though not identical. The main difference is that you
claim complementarity has something to do with “dialectical materialism”. This I most
emphatically deny.’4 The manuscript presents Born’s critique of the Hegelian–Marxist
concept of dialectics: he accuses it of ambiguity between epistemology and ontology, and he
charges that neither use is warranted by the facts. To prove his point, Born considers three
possible uses of dialectics: as a principle of logic, as a principle of scientific methodology,
and as an ontological principle ‘governing the behaviour of the actual world’ (p. 2).
Especially instructive for Born’s position on the interpretation debate is the second and
most extensive section, Born’s discussion of scientific methodology. Right at the beginning
of the section, Born aligns himself with Einstein’s critique of positivism and denies that
complementarity, like any high-level theoretical concept, is a direct consequence of
experience, as he had already told Rosenfeld in a previous letter: ‘If the situation is
carefully analysed a lot of non-empirical intermediate steps are easily discovered which one
could call metaphysical.’5 Nevertheless, he wants to maintain that the concept of
complementarity is a precise theoretical term warranted by the empirical facts of wave–
particle duality, whereas ‘dialectics’ is a vague notion that misrepresents both physics and
its history. Subsuming complementarity under dialectics ‘means a derogation of the efforts
of several generations of physicists and in particular of Bohr’s genius’ (p. 6).
It might seem somewhat surprising that Born invokes Einstein as an arbiter of scientific
methodology, given that the two had long disagreed on the merits of quantum mechanics,
which Einstein never accepted as a fundamental theory of nature. But this hint reveals a
striking symmetry in the intellectual position of Rosenfeld and Born: just as Rosenfeld
was trying to defend complementarity as a manifestation of dialectical materialism to his
fellow Marxists, so Born had long tried to defend quantum mechanics to Einstein as the
logical continuation of the critical empiricism of Einstein’s theories of relativity. The—at
times rather heated—exchanges between Einstein and Born, and Born’s reflections on
them, are presented in Born’s edition of their correspondence.6 Born’s comments there
show how much he admired Einstein’s work and how much he was hurt by Einstein’s
refusal to accept quantum mechanics as a theoretical achievement equal to relativity. It is
therefore quite significant that Born’s central charge against Rosenfeld, the ambiguity of
the concept of dialectics, mirrors Einstein’s fundamental critique of Bohr’s doctrine of
complementarity: Einstein maintained that Bohr illegitimately blurred the distinction
between matters of objective fact (the values of physical quantities) and the question of
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‘Dialectical materialism and modern physics’ 157

our knowledge of those facts (the measurability of these values).7 To Einstein, Bohr’s
concept of complementarity was unwarranted metaphysics, just as dialectical materialism
was to Born. It is somewhat speculative, although not implausible, to assume that Born’s
attack on aligning complementarity with dialectics was motivated not so much by his
political dislike of communism but rather by his fear of this alignment with ‘speculative
metaphysics’ being grist for Einstein’s mill (although posthumously).
Born never published the manuscript nor gave a public lecture about it, as far as we know.
The reasons seem to be related to Born’s political stance in the Cold War context. He had no
sympathies towards the Soviet and Eastern social and political regimes, as he made plain to
Rosenfeld:8
I have been again in East Berlin as a ‘greatly honoured guest.’ But I cannot be bribed. I
measure the state of affairs not by the bigness of the motorcar put to my disposition, the
splendour of the dinner parties, the pleasant houses of my colleagues etc. but by the
ordinary people. And I had some opportunity to see something of their life. I have
been born in Eastern Germany and spent there the first quarter of my life. It was then a
flourishing country with a happy cheerful population. It is rather heart-rending to see
what it is now.

However, Born did not want to raise the political tension with his criticisms of Marxism. He
asked Rosenfeld not to circulate the manuscript, because he wished ‘to remain in good terms
with the Russians and East-Germans . . . until they themselves will abandon the more
excessive and nonsensical Marxist– Engelist [sic] doctrines.’9 Born later decided to
abandon the subject completely, seeing signs of change in the socialist bloc.10 Although
repulsed intellectually by Rosenfeld’s blending of Marxism and complementarity, Born
did not want to get involved in a public struggle against Marxists in Cold War times, and
chose to keep the dispute with Rosenfeld private.11

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Martin Jähnert and Christian Joas for helpful comments on the draft of this note,
and Lindy Divarci for proofreading the manuscript.

MANUSCRIPT. ‘DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND MODERN PHYSICS’, BY MAX BORN

In a paper with the title ‘Strife about Complementarity’ (Science Progress, No. 103, July
1953, p. 393) L. Rosenfeld declares the development of modem physics to be a
confirmation of the philosophy of Dialectical Materialism. I shall try to analyse this
assertion. For supplementing Rosenfeld’s considerations I have before me a booklet of the
Communist Party, J. Stalin, über dialektischen und historischen Materialismus, millions
of copies of which are distributed in Eastern Germany as an official statement of the
Marxian doctrine.
The dialectic philosophy is often condensed in the words of Hegel, that progress consists
in the contest (or combat) of a thesis and an antithesis, which are finally resolved through a
synthesis. But already in Hegel’s writing there is an ambiguity in regard what kind of
progress is meant. Hegel has spoken about the ‘dialectical method’ as a principle of logic,
but also about dialectical processes (thesis þ antithesis ¼ synthesis, abbreviated (th.—a.—
s.), going on in Nature and in History.
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158 O. Freire and C. Lehner

The same ambiguity is found in Marx and Engels and also in Stalin’s booklet mentioned
above. I quote from p. 9 (translated from the German):
‘In contrast to Metaphysics Dialectics starts from the fact that the things and phenomena
of nature contain inherent contradictions . . . Therefore it follows from the dialectical method
that the development from lower to higher levels does not proceed in the form of a harmonic
unfolding of the phenomena, but in the form of a discovery of contradictions [footnote in the
original manuscript: Italics by the present writer.] which are inherent in the things and
events, in form of a ‘combat’ of contrasting tendencies which are active on account of
these contradictions.’
Here in one and the same paragraph dialectics is used for two quite different things: for
the inner contradictions in natural and historical events and for the discovery of such
contradictions, which is a mental process of the thinking subject.
[ p. 2] I shall now consider three possible meanings and the validity of the (th.—a.—s.)
contention namely (1) in the domain of pure logics, (2) as a method of investigating the
actual world, and (3) as a principle or law governing the behaviour of the actual world.
(1) Although logic has very much expanded since the times of Aristotle, there is complete
agreement amongst the logicians about the general concepts from those early philosophers to
the most modern mathematicians. Logics has to do with formulating the laws of combining
statements in such a way that the derived new statements are valid provided the primary ones
are. Modern research has added one new feature. Ordinary logics assumes that to each
statement (or act of statements) A there is only one statement Ā which is the negation of
A. That is the law of the ‘Excluded Third’. There is now a group of logicians (Brouwer,
Reichenbach etc.) who suggest that there may be a third possibility besides ‘valid’ and
‘non-valid’, namely ‘undecided’. If one wishes to interpret the dialectical (th.—a.—s.)
idea in terms of logic, this 3-valued logic can be discarded; for it is obvious that thesis
and antithesis must then be identified with two contradicting statements A and Ā, and
there is no room for a third position of ‘undecided’.
But this identification is not possible because two statements A and Ā taken together give
always an invalid (‘wrong’) statement. In mathematical logics one has A . Ā ¼ 0; this
formula means that the domain of objects lying both inside of the validity of A and
inside that of A has zero extension. Hence there can never be a synthesis between
logically contradicting statements.
As far as physical theories (including the geometrical ones) are logical systems no
dialectical synthesis of contradicting theories is conceivable. E.g. a theorem of Euclidean
geometry will in general be in straightforward contradiction to the corresponding one of a
non-Euclidean geometry, and no synthesis is possible.
(2) We now proceed to the second possibility: Can the dialectical (th.—a.—s.) doctrine be
interpreted as referring to the methods [ p. 3] of investigating Nature? Then the competition
of thesis and antithesis is not a purely logical one, for the laws of logic are concerned with
deriving valid conclusions from arbitrary premises, while the natural philosophy has to do
with the validity of the premises (which then logically implies the validity of the whole
system built upon these premises). Every physical theory is based on experiments; but the
number of experimental tests is finite, while the theory is intended to cover all possible,
i.e. an infinite number of cases. Hence a theory is always an interpolation and
extrapolation from the known to the unknown. As Einstein has repeated again and again:
there is no unique way from the facts of observation to the theory.
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‘Dialectical materialism and modern physics’ 159

One can illustrate this by the problem to draw a line in a plane through a finite set of given
points. If there are only two points everybody will suggest the straight line going through
them as the ‘obvious’ solution; if there are three points on a straight line, a circle will be
suggested. The only reason for this choice is the ‘simplicity’ of the solution; what is
meant by this word is not quite clear, but in both cases it seems obvious and leads to a
unique solution: there is only one straight line through two points, only one circle through
three. If there are four or more points there is no such obvious suggestion, and the
ambiguity of the problem becomes evident.
The situation in science is very similar. As long as the observations are scarce and crude,
the theory appears rather obvious, and it is not realized that it implies additional assumptions.
When the experimental material is growing observations are made which do not fit in these
obvious solutions, and one has to ponder about modifying the additional assumptions and to
replace them by more refined ones.
No theory can be constructed which does not transcend the empirical data by introducing
additional assumptions. In physics these can be classified in two groups:

(i) Assumptions which can be still formulated in terms of physical objects although
these are not accessible to direct observation. To this class belong many concepts
of atomistics and of cosmology. They may be called ‘model assumptions’.
(ii) Assumptions which deal with philosophical concepts, like: space and time,
continuity, necessity, chance, cause and [ p. 4] effect etc. They can rightly be
called ‘metaphysical assumptions’.

In the beginning of experimental science these metaphysical conceptions were simply taken
over from every day experience and regarded as obvious, just as in our examples the straight
line for two points, the circle for three. This was the situation a hundred years ago when
Marx and Engels wrote. They were not even aware of the fact that the current ideas about
space, time, cause etc. were not the only ones possible. They took them for granted and
believed that science was strictly empirical. If they saw a struggle between thesis and
antithesis in physics they could only have in mind what I have just called ‘model
assumptions’, the thesis being an accepted theory, the antithesis a new one invented to
account for newly discovered facts. The question is now whether such competing theories
are in general combined through a synthesis. Scanning the history of physics before Marx
and Engels I have not found a single instance of such a merging. Consider the main
events: In cosmology the transition from the Ptolemaic to the Copernican system. In
mechanics the replacement of Aristotelian by Galilean mechanics. In both cases the older
ideas were completely abandoned, no trace of them remained in the new ones. Later, after
modern science was really established by Newton and his contemporaries, the older
theories, based now on good though restricted evidence, were often not completely
overturned, but remained as limiting cases in the newer theories. This happened when
Faraday’s ideas of fields were formulated by Maxwell; his field equations contain the
former electromagnetic theories (e.g. static Coulomb forces) as limiting cases. It also
happened that two different branches of physics were united into a wider theory, for
instance optics and electromagnetism through Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of light.
But this was not a synthesis of two opposed theories of the same set of phenomena, as
postulated by the dialectic doctrine, but the combining of two quite different sets of a
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160 O. Freire and C. Lehner

phenomena which did not overlap and could therefore not struggle as thesis against
antithesis.
It is therefore perfectly clear that Marx’s and Engels’ doctrine is not based on historical
facts. It is a metaphysical assumption, and obviously due to wishful thinking. They desired to
justify sociological ideas by pretending they are based on scientific [ p. 5] methods and share
the reliability of these. The elementary paradigma of the sociological situation is this: There
is one piece of bread, which Jonathan and Boris want to have. There are three possibilities:
(1) Jonathan takes it (thesis), or (2) Boris takes it (antithesis); (3) after some fight they divide
it in two parts and each takes half of it (synthesis).
The materialistic doctrine regards the latter as the rule of the condition of progress. I
cannot see that this is justified by history; it has happened that Boris got the whole spoil,
in other cases Jonathan got it. Nor can I see that it agrees with the communist doctrine
that in the struggle between capitalism (thesis) and communism (antithesis) the latter will
be victorious and annihilate the former which appears a strange interpretation of
synthesis. But all this is not our business here, which concerns only the question whether
science conforms to the Hegelian – Marxistic doctrine. This is certainly not the case. Up
to the time when it was announced no example can be produced. The only example of
the synthesis of contesting theories happened almost a hundred years after Marx and
Engels, in Quantum Mechanics. Thus their doctrine might be regarded as a marvellous
example of forecast and prophecy. But then it is not science but a feat of super-
metaphysical divining short of a miracle.
Quantum mechanics had to acknowledge the fact that radiation phenomena behaved under
certain experimental conditions as if they were due to particles, under other conditions as if
they were due to waves. It succeeded in reconciling these two apparently contradicting
theories by a truly astonishing synthesis. For this purpose a revision of the ideas about
physical reality was necessary, and the traditional concept of determinism in physical
laws had to be abandoned and replaced by a statistical interpretation of these laws. A
critical revision of the empirical base of the fundamental ideas of particles and waves led
Bohr to the complete elucidation of the situation, formulated in his principle of
complementarity.
The claim that these entirely new ideas are in nuce contained in the doctrine of dialectic
materialism means a derogation of the efforts of several generations of physicists and in
particular of Bohr’s genius. There is, of course, also in modern physics a metaphysical
component, since there is no logical way from ex- [ p. 6]periment to theory, as explained
before. But the metaphysical assumptions (about space and time, cause and chance,
matter and field) are a continuous development of previous ones and not wild guesses as
those of Hegelian and Marxistic teaching.
(3) We now discuss the possibility of interpreting the materialistic doctrine neither as a
logical nor a methodological principle, but as a law governing the behaviour of the actual
world. Then the word thesis can only signify some tendency, like force in mechanics, and
antithesis then would refer to another such tendency or force opposing the first one. The
notion of synthesis would then mean what the physicist calls the resultant of the primary
forces. I cannot see any other possible way of interpretation. But then the dialectic
formulation is nothing but an anthropomorphic transcription of well known and clear
physical concepts. It introduces the idea of struggle, i.e. of a biological concept, into a
purely physical relation, and thus it reverts the whole development of physics. The
expression force was originally derived from the subjective feeling of exertion, and as
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‘Dialectical materialism and modern physics’ 161

long as this feeling was dominating the concept of force the simultaneous action of two
different forces might be described as a struggle. Physics has slowly outgrown this
primitive standpoint and replaced the anthropomorphic notions by objective definitions.
Engels’ formulation quoted above ‘that the things and phenomena of Nature contain
inherent contradictions’ is a relapse into pre-scientific thinking and terminology of the
type of ‘horror vacui’ and other such mediaeval ‘explanations’. As if things and
phenomena of Nature could have the sensation which a human mind experiences when
exposed to two contradicting statements or influences! This is pure metaphysics of the
worst type, and its adherers have no right to attack other metaphysical systems, using this
word as an abuse.
The fact is, that no science is possible without some general assumptions which are not
logically derivable from scientific methods and in this sense metaphysical. These
assumptions are not invariable but have to be adapted to the temporary empirical
situation; though they are not logically derivable from facts they are nevertheless
reasonable, which means that an unbiased mind knowing all the observed facts will feel
compelled to agree to them. If this is metaphysics, it is good metaphysics. But the [ p. 7]
doctrine of dialectical materialism is bad metaphysics as it introduces associations with
antiquated concepts which are not only unnecessary but misleading. Whether the
dialectical doctrine has a legitimate field of application in biology and in human affairs
shall not be discussed here. Living organisms are struggling and fighting, and it might be
possible to interpret the (th.—a.—s.) dogma in a reasonable way. But then it appears to
me as a triviality.
But there are other statements about physics to be found in Marxist literature. Stalin, in the
booklet mentioned already, quotes a passage from Engels: ‘In physics . . . every change is a
transition from Quantity into Quality . . . ’. E.g. the temperature of water is, to begin with,
irrelevant in respect to its liquid state; but when the temperature of liquid water is either
increased or decreased a point is reached where the state of cohesion is changed and the
water is transformed into steam or ice respectively. Then there follow some more
examples of such changes of state, and a somewhat mysterious sentence from Hegel about
‘Nodal lines’ on which a purely quantitative increase leads to a jump in quality.
The purpose of these considerations is obviously to justify with the help of physics the
mentality of the revolutionary, who expects that the continuous accumulation of social
injustice (the quantitative increase) leads to a sudden overthrow of the power in being and
a new regime (the jump in quality).
The thermodynamical transitions by Engels and Stalin, used as physical analogies for
such events, can just as well, even with greater plausibility, be used for the opposite
conclusion. For van der Waals theoretical investigations on the transition of liquid ! gas,
which have been confirmed by numerous experiments, show that by properly directing the
changes of temperature and pressure the transition can be performed in a continuous way
without a sudden (qualitative) change and without the appearance of a dividing surface
(meniscus). The analogy in the social structure of states would be something like the slow
introduction of socialism without a violent revolution, as it happened in Great Britain.
But what good are such analogies? They are quite arbitrary and unscientific, in short
metaphysical, i.e. transcending the [ p. 8] domain of well established knowledge. I am not
arguing whether a rotten society can always be reformed in a more or less peaceful
manner, or not. My personal view is that this depends entirely on the peoples concerned
and the historical situation. It may well be that the Czarist regime in Russia was so rotten
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162 O. Freire and C. Lehner

and the standard of the Russian people so low that a violent explosion was necessary. But I
see no reason why the same must happen in other countries with a higher standard of living
and more developed methods of government. I think that predictions about the future can be
founded neither on the facts on history nor on theoretical considerations. In any case an
attempt to theorise in this field ought to be based on biological observations and
psychological study, but not on physics. I emphatically deny that the development of
physics can be used as a paradigma for the truth of the Marxistic doctrine.

NOTES
1 Both physicists were at the time living in the UK, the former in Edinburgh and the latter in
Manchester. The typescript was found enclosed in a letter to Rosenfeld, dated 14 November
1955, in the Rosenfeld Papers (referred to hereafter as RP), Box Correspondence particulaire
(1), folder 1, Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen. For a more extensive discussion of the
content, see O. Freire, ‘Science, philosophy and politics in the fifties—on the Max Born’s
unpublished paper entitled “Dialectical Materialism and Modern Physics”’, Hist. Scient. 10,
248–254 (2001).
2 L. Rosenfeld, ‘Strife about complementarity’, Sci. Prog. 163, 393–410 (1953), reprinted in
Selected papers of Léon Rosenfeld (ed. Robert Cohen and John Stachel), pp. 465–483
(Reidel, Dordrecht, 1979). On Rosenfeld, see A. Jacobsen, ‘Léon Rosenfeld’s Marxist
Defense of Complementarity’, Hist. Stud. Phys. Sci. 37 (suppl.), 3–34 (2007).
3 See K. Camilleri, ‘Constructing the myth of the Copenhagen interpretation’, Perspect. Sci. 17,
26–57 (2009).
4 Born to Rosenfeld, 24 October 1955. RP.
5 Born to Rosenfeld, 28 January 1953. RP.
6 Albert Einstein, Hedwig und Max Born. Briefwechsel 1916–1955 (Nymphenburger, Munich,
1969).
7 See C. Lehner, ‘Einstein’s realism and his critique of quantum mechanics’, in The Cambridge
companion to Einstein (ed. M. Janssen and C. Lehner) (Cambridge University Press,
forthcoming).
8 Born to Rosenfeld, 24 October 1955. RP.
9 Born to Rosenfeld, 14 November 1955. RP.
10 ‘I have no intention to follow up this matter. Since I wrote these pages the situation has rather
changed and it has happened what I always hoped, namely that the whole ‘intellectual’ system
would not be accepted any more by the younger generation in the eastern countries.’ Born to
Rosenfeld, 21 January 1957. RP. Born presumably refers to the Hungarian revolution of
1956, in which student protests played a central role.
11 Later, Max Born also engaged in a private exchange of views about politics in Eastern Germany
with the Marxist historian Friedrich Herneck. See K.-F. Wessel and M. Koch, ‘Lügen ist
überhaupt das Kennzeichen unserer Zeit—über einen unveröffentlichten Briefwechsel
zwischen Max Born und Friedrich Herneck’, Ber. Wissenschaftsgesch. 18, 27 –33 (1995).

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