The dominant philosophy of any society is that of its ruling class. For our ruling class, the capitalists, that is the philosophy of empiricism.

The capitalist class, when it appeared in Britain, used empiricism as a weapon against the old feudal order. Today it is the working class that poses the greatest threat to their rule, and empiricism continues to act as an important weapon for maintaining their system.

Unfortunately, many workers leaders do not believe they need an independent, working class philosophy and have fallen into the trap of empiricism. But to defeat the capitalists, we cannot fight them on their ideological terms. We must resist falling into empiricism - to do this, we must first understand it.

In this presentation Helene Bissonnette traces the historical origin, development and degeneration of empiricism through the centuries. She explains how empiricism has led the left down a blind ally and why the Marxist philosophy, of dialectical materialism, is the best philosophy to understand the world and to ultimately change it.

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