In Marxist philosophy, “being” is a category which is relative to thinking and consciousness and is synonymous with matter. Engels said: “The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being.” “Philosophers fall into two large camps depending on how they answer this question.” Whoever asserts that thinking is original to being, or spirit to nature, belongs to idealism. Whoever holds that being and nature are original belong to materialism. Marx said: “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.”. . .
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