General Secretary Kim Jong Il said:

“The Juche idea established a man-centered outlook on the world by throwing a fresh light on the essential characteristics of man and his position and role in the world.”

Since the Juche view of the world consists of essence of the world and the law of its development that have been elucidated in the relations with man, its originality and superiority can be explained in two aspects.

Now, we will see the originality and superiority of the Juche view on the essence of the world which was elucidated in the relations with man.

Its originality and superiority, in one word, explains the nature of the world with man not as simple part of the material world but placing him in the master’s position.

In the human history of philosophical thought, there have been different views of the world, but any philosophical thought before Marxism failed to give correct elucidation on the essence of the world.

Marxist philosophy issued materialist dialectic view that the world consists of matter and constantly changes and develops, thus setting up scientific view, for the first time in history, against all sorts of unscientific and reactionary views that distorted the essence of the world.

Marxist founders, however, observed the world in the common aspect that man is also material being. They observed man as simple part of the world which consists of matters.

This view makes it impossible to give comprehensive understanding of the essence of the present world where man holds master’s position and plays decisive role in its development. Herein lie limitations of the materialist dialectic view on the essence of the world.

In order to comprehensively and scientifically elucidate the essence of the world, it is necessary to clarify the essential characteristics of man who is fundamentally different from other material beings. Only then, is it possible to scientifically clarify the essence of the present world where man holds special position as dominator and transformer and plays decisive role.

On the basis of clarification that man is a social being with independence, creativity and consciousness, the Juche idea regards man as the most superior and powerful special being. As a result, the Juche idea newly clarified that the world is dominated and transformed by man.

This clarification is completely new view on the essence of the world that had not been elucidated by any previous philosophy including Marxism.

Of course the Juche view that the world is dominated and transformed by man presupposes materialist dialectical understanding that the world consists of matter and constantly changes and develops. It is impossible to establish Juche view that the world is dominated and transformed by man, without recognizing dialectical materialist view that overcame idealist view that the world consists of spirit and is the product of spirit. But it is important to remember that Juche view on the essence of the world is neither absorbed in dialectical materialist view nor simple continuation of the latter.

Now we will see originality and superiority of the Juche view on the law of development of the world that was elucidated in the relations with man.

This Juche view is also new and original one different from Marxist view on the development of the world.

It is well known that Marxist materialist dialectics clarified general law governing motion and development of the material world, by illustrating the law of unity and conflict of the opposite, law of transition from quantitative change to qualitative change, and law of negation of negation. But these three laws have certain limitations.

That is because they observed the development process of the present world as spontaneous process not as purposeful and conscious transformation process by the active role of man.

The Marxist founders discovered the general law of the movement of the material world considering man’s movement as a simple material movement and thus observed the development of the world as spontaneous process not as the process of domination and transformation of the world by man. As a result, the three laws of Marxist dialectical materialism give one-sided understanding of the development of the world.

The present world consists of not only nature but also society whose movements are made by man’s independent, creative and conscious activities unlikely in nature. The three laws of Marxist dialectical materialism cannot give correct understanding of the social movement which is made by active action and role of the subject.

And the limitations of the three laws are that they cannot clarify the fundamental ways for shaping man’s destiny.

As the laws of the change and development of the material world itself which is dominated and transformed by man, the three laws give a certain view necessary to transform the world but cannot clarify the fundamental ways for shaping man’s destiny.

In order to give the fundamental ways for shaping man’s destiny, it is necessary to elucidate the laws of transformation and development of the world by man. But the three laws of Marxist dialectical materialism confined themselves to observing the process of change and development of the material world, without showing the fundamental ways of shaping man’s destiny that man should actively transform the world to make it serve man, in order to shape his destiny.

The limitations of Marxist dialectical materialism could be overcome by the Juche idea which newly discovered the law of domination and transformation of the world by man.

The originality and superiority of the Juche view on the law of domination and transformation of the world by man lie in discovering the law of development of the present world, placing man in the center.

The Juche idea elucidated that the world develops by active role of man in the direction of serving him and in correspondence with his development, thus newly showing by which factor, in what direction and in what form does the world develop.

After all, the Juche view which discovered the law of development of the world centering on man overcame the limitations of dialectical materialism which observed the change and development of the world as spontaneous process taking place by interaction of matters, and discovered the particular law of social movement, providing basic principles which enables to set up Juche standpoint and attitude towards the development of the world centering on man.

The Juche view is a great change in the philosophical view of the world.