Anti-dialectics, I am a convert

[peaccenicked]

I renounce the "negation of the negation" I have unlearned that.
There is no such thing as a quantitive change leading to a qualitative change.


Who can prove this empircally? People that have more imagination than
facts.??

We are all living in a ideological stupor that needs reduced to facts.

Let us never move beyond facts.
Let us forget about things transforming into their opposites.

[iraqnevercalledmenigger]

Max Eastman rides again!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ah, Peace, I see you have finally lost it. Since you can't argue against me, you find you have to resort to insincere parody.

Fine, I accept your craven retreat from this debate.

----------------------

Iran:


Max Eastman rides again!

Where?

-------------------

Can a mod move this to 'chit chat' please?

[peaccenicked]

There is no debate,,,,,,,,,There is just you talking to yourself, striking out for yourself,
parodying the opposition.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


There is no debate,,,,,,,,,There is just you talking to yourself, striking out for yourself,
parodying the opposition.

As I said in another thread: still in denial I see.:rolleyes:

[peaccenicked]

Rosa, to be honest, you have many good questions, but you keep on directing me to other places, where I can't see the whole point. There are bits and pieces, that just, think don't connect to the theme on in this thread.
Do you have trouble speaking directly.

All I am really asking of some one so steeped in the history of dialectics.

Is how do you move from one fact to another ?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


Rosa, to be honest, you have many good questions, but you keep on directing me to other places, where I can't see the whole point. There are bits and pieces, that just, think don't connect to the theme on in this thread.

Where do I 'direct you to other places'?

And what 'theme on this thread' are you talking about? There is none!


Do you have trouble speaking directly.

A lot less then you have trouble making yourself clear.


All I am really asking of some one so steeped in the history of dialectics.

Is how do you move from one fact to another ?

I am sorry, but this is incoherent. Are you drunk?

[peaccenicked]

I am not quite drunk but I wish, but still I find you as someone who plays dumb.
My parody is essentially about the movement of thoughts, facts , ideas.
You might not of have figured that out, but I guess you have, but it is easier for you to dismiss this than actually think about it, that is because your mind is set on the atomistic road you follow.

The elements of logic, to the movement of ideas, thoughts, facts of yours is even more jumpy than mine.


This thread has a theme which is about the way thoughts develop.
I was not correct in saying that you have directed me in this thread to many places but I was saying that this is general habit of yours.

Is it not a fair question in logic to ask, how do you organise movement of thought, as far as it is possible?
You seem to go for the random, rather than the connected.

But maybe we are doomed to misunderstand one another forever.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


I am not quite drunk but I wish, but still I find you as someone who plays dumb.
My parody is essentially about the movement of thoughts, facts , ideas.
You might not of have figured that out, but I guess you have, but it is easier for you to dismiss this than actually think about it, that is because your mind is set on the atomistic road you follow.

Why do you keep making stuff up about me? Where have I said, or implied, that I am this, or that I do this:


because your mind is set on the atomistic road you follow

I am sorry, but I think the drink is talking here:


The elements of logic, to the movement of ideas, thoughts, facts of yours is even more jumpy than mine.

PN:


This thread has a theme which is about the way thoughts develop. I was not correct in saying that you have directed me in this thread to many places but I was saying that this is general habit of yours.

This thread is far too confused to even be said to have a theme.

And where I have directed you to 'many places' that was in order to save me having to post thousands of words at this site.

But, you talk as if I were the only person at RevLeft ever to have posted a link! :ohmy:


Is it not a fair question in logic to ask, how do you organise movement of thought, as far as it is possible?
You seem to go for the random, rather than the connected.

Then why on earth did you entitle this thread: 'Anti-dialectics, I'm a Convert'?

And where on earth did you get this odd idea:


You seem to go for the random, rather than the connected.

Certainly not from anything I have ever said.


But maybe we are doomed to misunderstand one another forever.

Well, if the past is anything to go by, that's because you seem as incapable of reading what I write as you are expert at inventing things to attribute to me.

[peaccenicked]

Let me look at this.

Finally, It is also worth noting here that the truth or falsity of any and all of the DM-theses mentioned here is not the main issue in what follows, merely whether DM-theorists are consistent in their claim not to have imposed their ideas on reality. Of course, in other Essays posted at this site (especially Essays Four through Thirteen), the truth or falsehood of DM-theses will be the issue.


Here you are talk about the consistency of claims.
Then get a bit braver.

Hence, in spite of frequent claims to the contrary, Marxist Philosophy has from its inception been remarkably traditional, if not disconcertingly conservative. Instead of trying to bury traditional theory, dialecticians have in fact done the opposite, indirectly praising it by emulating it.

Marx is supposed to come out a vaccuum. He said all "hitherto philosophers have interprated the world the point is to change it."
Am I to depise everything that philosophers have ever written.

This a joke on a parallel with Fukuyama's end of history.

You go on.

And, there is more:

"[The] natural and social world [form] a single totality developing over time as a result of…internal contradictions…. [N]ature is an interconnected system that developed for millions of years before humans." [Ibid., pp.285-86.]

But, how could Rees possibly know that the natural and social world is a single Totality, as opposed to being, say, two Totalities, or ten thousand --, or perhaps none at all? And how could he possibly know that everything is interconnected, contradictory and changing all the time? Or that development is always and everywhere the result of "internal contradictions"?

To be sure, he could claim to know this if DM had indeed been imposed on nature, but that is the only way he could know this.



This is pathetic.
The idea of a single totality is more to do with common sense. If Marxists lived in Mediavel times they might have been flat earthers. They no more imposed this reality than the science of the day.
If your read your Grundisse. You see Marx saying

In the succession of economic categories, as in many other historical and social science, it must not be forgotten that their subject, here modern bourgeois society - is always given in the head, and as well as in reality, and these categories express forms of being, the characteristics of existence, and often only individual sides of this specific society, this subject and therefore this society by no means begins only at the point were one could speak of it as such ; this holds as well for science”.

Is this not the very backround you wish to deny the DMs, because these assumptions are out of tune with modern Sci fi.

More, the existence of one totality as knowledge was not really challenged till
Schrodingers cat came along.

This "imposition'' is a ahistorical solipism.
It is impossible to "impose'' a structure, on reality, there was just a series of accepted givens. Nowhere cast in gold never to change.

Talk about painting straw men.

This whole approach is atomistic and peicemeal and worthy of a second grade Karl
Popper student.
I give it a B-

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Comrades might not know, but it looks like Peace here is quoting selectively from Essay Two at my site. So, his 'conversion' to anti-dialectics was all a ruse.

Who'd have guessed it?:ohmy:

PN:


Here you are talk about the consistency of claims.

You ignored my other statement that in later essays, the truth of these a priori claims would be an issue.


Marx is supposed to come out a vaccuum. He said all "hitherto philosophers have interprated the world the point is to change it."
Am I to depise everything that philosophers have ever written.

1) You ignored this too:


1) The founders of this quasi-religion weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to persuade the majority (or a significant section of "opinion formers" and administrators, at least) that the present order either works for their benefit, is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is 'natural' and cannot be fought, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

So, these non-worker founders of our movement, who had been educated to believe there was this hidden world that governed everything, looked for principles in that invisible world that told them that change was inevitable, and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of a ruling-class mystic called Hegel.

2) That allowed the founders of this quasi-religion to think of themselves as special, as prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, could not quite grasp because of their defective education and reliance on ordinary language and 'common sense'.

Fortunately, history had predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for them, which meant they were their 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could thus legitimately substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand, since the masses were too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why DM is a world-view.

It is also why dialecticians cling on to this theory like grim death (and become very emotional (and abusive!) when it is attacked by yours truly), since it provides them with a source of consolation that, despite outward appearances to the contrary, and because this hidden world tells them that dialectical Marxism will one day be a success, everything is in fact peachy, and nothing in the core theory needs changing -- in spite of the fact that that core theory says everything changes! Hence, it is ossified into a dogma, and imposed on reality. A rather nice unity of opposites for you to ponder.

So, this 'theory' insulates the militant mind from the facts.

In that case:

Dialectics is the sigh of the depressed dialectician, the heart of a heartless world. It is the opiate of the party. The abolition of dialectics as the illusory happiness of the party hack is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Unfortunately, these sad characters will need (materialist) workers to rescue them from themselves.

2) Who said Marx "Marx is supposed to come out a vaccuum."

Not me. He was one of the one's I mentioned above who had been educated to think a priori dogmatics is a royal road to truth. Fortunately, he managed to break free of much of it.

You haven't.

Indeed, you are one of the sad mystics mentioned above.


This is pathetic.
The idea of a single totality is more to do with common sense. If Marxists lived in Mediavel times they might have been flat earthers. They no more imposed this reality than the science of the day.
If your read your Grundisse. You see Marx saying

So, if scientists were to change their minds, and tell us that there are two Totalities, or ten billion of the beggars, you'd be quite happy with that, would you?

But, any way, I thought 'common sense' was dominated by 'commodity fetishism'?


Is this not the very backround you wish to deny the DMs, because these assumptions are out of tune with modern Sci fi.

More, the existence of one totality as knowledge was not really challenged till
Schrodingers cat came along.

How did Shroedinger's cat show that there is no 'totality'?:scared:

And, you really should try to be sober when taking me on, you know:


This "imposition'' is a ahistorical solipism.
It is impossible to "impose'' a structure, on reality, there was just a series of accepted givens. Nowhere cast in gold never to change.

Wtf is a 'historical solipsism'?

If it is 'impossible to impose a structure on reality' then what were these comrades on about:


Engels:


"Finally, for me there could be no question of superimposing the laws of dialectics on nature but of discovering them in it and developing them from it." [Engels (1976), p.13. Bold emphasis added.]

And yet, Engels was himself guilty of doing precisely what he has just accused Dühring of doing.

Likewise, Trotsky pointed out that:


"Dialectics and materialism are the basic elements in the Marxist cognition of the world. But this does not mean at all that they can be applied to any sphere of knowledge, like an ever ready master key. Dialectics cannot be imposed on facts; it has to be deduced from facts, from their nature and development…." [Trotsky (1973), p.233. Bold emphasis added.]

"Whenever any Marxist attempted to transmute the theory of Marx into a universal master key and ignore all other spheres of learning, Vladimir Ilyich would rebuke him with the expressive phrase 'Komchvanstvo' ('communist swagger')." [Ibid., p.221.]

George Novack argues as follows:


"A consistent materialism cannot proceed from principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition, self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice...." [Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]

Here is Cornforth:


"Our party philosophy, then, has a right to lay claim to truth. For it is the only philosophy which is based on a standpoint which demands that we should always seek to understand things just as they are…without disguises and without fantasy….

"Marxism, therefore, seeks to base our ideas of things on nothing but the actual investigation of them, arising from and tested by experience and practice. It does not invent a 'system' as previous philosophers have done, and then try to make everything fit into it…." [Cornforth (1976), pp.14-15. Bold emphases added.]

References can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm


Talk about painting straw men.

You should know, you have just done it!


This whole approach is atomistic and peicemeal and worthy of a second grade Karl
Popper student.

You missed this too:


Apart from those listed in earlier, the most common reactions to my work (from comrades who have 'debated' this with me on the internet, or elsewhere) are the following:

...(6) A casting of the usual slurs e.g., "anti-Marxist", "positivist", "sophist", "logic-chopper", "naïve realist", "revisionist", "eclectic", "relativist", "post modernist", "bourgeois stooge", "pedant", "absolutist", "elitist", "empiricist", "atomist" and so on.
Naturally, when such comrades are described as "mystics" in return, they complain about "name-calling". Once more, they are allowed to dish it out (but not very well), but they cannot take it.

(7) The attribution to me of ideas I do not hold, and which could not reasonably have been inferred from anything I have said or written -- e.g., that I am a "postmodernist" (which I am not), an "empiricist" (same comment), a "Popperian" (I am in fact an anti-Popperian), that I am a "sceptic" (and this, just because I challenge accepted dogma, when Marx himself said he doubted all things and Lenin declared that all knowledge is provisional), that I am an "anti-realist" (when I am in fact neither a realist nor an anti-realist --, I am indeed a "nothing-at-all-ist" with respect to philosophical theory -- this must not be confused with Nihilism!), that I am a "reformist" (when I am the opposite), or that I am a "revisionist" (when Lenin enjoined us all to question accepted theory).

Once more, these are often advanced by comrades who have not read a single one of my Essays (but this does not prevent them from being experts in this area, or from making things up about me), or they have merely skim-read parts of my work. Naturally, they would be the first to complain if anyone else did this with the writings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

So well done for acting true to type!


I give it a B-

In fact, I'm rather surprised you could spell "B-".

[black magick hustla]

ahahahahah schrodinger's cat. ugh i hate that thought experiment because it entices mystics and dumb philosophers who have no idea what the whole thing means, and instead of treating it as mathematical formalism, they just think.....heh the cat is dead and alive.

[peaccenicked]

I want to start from a position of honesty,


Quote:
Is this not the very backround you wish to deny the DMs, because these assumptions are out of tune with modern Sci fi.

More, the existence of one totality as knowledge was not really challenged till
Schrodingers cat came along.
How did Shroedinger's cat show that there is no 'totality'?




I think you know that Shroedinger's cat was a thought experiment that suggested more than one totality for many later
Any scholar half decent and not a liar . Would actually not suggest that I infer "none"


1) The founders of this quasi-religion weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

Platos cave. (http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/allegory.html)

I fail to see how far you differ from Plato.


This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.



Not so far away from Hegel(you know the one with the mental disease)


Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.

It is so hard to talk to a charlatan who plagiarizes the very people pilloried in her imagination.
here Engels (http://www.marx.org/archive/marx/works/1886/letters/86_12_28.htm)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN -- still not sobered-up, I see!


I think you know that Shroedinger's cat was a thought experiment that suggested more than one totality for many later
Any scholar half decent and not a liar . Would actually not suggest that I infer "none"

I know nothing of the sort, and neither does anyone else. The cat thought experiment was designed to question the anti-realism of the Copenhagen School, and nothing more.


1) The founders of this quasi-religion weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

Platos cave.

I fail to see how far you differ from Plato

That does not surprise me. You can't even get Schroedinger's cat right!:lol:


Not so far away from Hegel(you know the one with the mental disease)

From this thread, it looks like you have caught it too...


It is so hard to talk to a charlatan who plagiarizes the very people pilloried in her imagination.
here Engels

Well stop doing it then.


I want to start from a position of honesty,

That lasted about 2 nanoseconds, then!

[peaccenicked]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&rls=en-us&ei=CVyPSYL1LM-X-gajjKSmCw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=schrodinger%27s+cat+parallel+universes&spell=1

What are you talking about. Why are you trying to con me?
I got my previous edit in a little late.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


What are you talking about.

A question we should be asking you.


Why are you trying to con me?

Because I can.:cool:


I got my previous edit in a little late.

No improvement there then.:p

I think you are begining to crack up, a bit like Raffa Benitez:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAyVzTW8StA

[peaccenicked]

Yeah oh so clever. If you think you have defended yourself adequately. So be it.

[Decolonize The Left]

There is no debate,,,,,,,,,There is just you talking to yourself, striking out for yourself,
parodying the opposition.

I agree and disagree.

You are correct that there is no debate, but that is simply due to the fact that one cannot debate in favor of dialectics as it is pure speculation completely divorced from reality.

I disagree that the position of anti-dialectics is not merely 'talking to oneself,' though if this was the case, this would be due to the fact that the proponents of dialectics have nothing to say... merely more abstract, vague, nonsensical phrases regarding "change" and "movements...."

- August

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


Yeah oh so clever. If you think you have defended yourself adequately. So be it.

No need to defend myself against you, sunshine. Being criticised by Peacenicked is like being savaged by a dead sheep.:thumbup:

[peaccenicked]

The struggle that dialectics poses is to find speculation that is not divorced from reality.
I dont see anything problematic about looking at things or processes from as many sides as possible so as to overcome our prejudices.

I sit with Homeric laughter.


There is no debate because it has no common ground just rehashed Plato, Hegel and Engels etc held in opposition to themselves.

It is emptier than idealism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGL2mZNoUBY

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


The struggle that dialectics poses is to find speculation that is not divorced from reality.

Too bad this has been a failed endeavour then, eh?


I dont see anything problematic about looking at things or processes from as many sides as possible so as to overcome our prejudices.

Yes, but what has that got to do with dialectics?


I sit with Homeric laughter.

Still blotto I see.


There is no debate because it has common ground just rehashed Plato, Hegel and Engels etc held in opposition to themselves.

Eh?:confused:


It is emptier than idealism.

Never mind, let's hear what you have to say, anyway.

We need a few laughs.:)

[Cumannach]

Rosa I said this in another thread and you didn't really answer.

Dialectical methods are very useful applied to historical materialism, and have proven their usefulness, by resulting in marxist historiography, which is by far the best (and most useful) understanding of history that has been developed to date. Do you have some superior methods that give us a better understanding or new ways of looking at things? Surely if you've shown dialectics to be useless you've come across something better?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Cummanach:


Dialectical methods are very useful applied to historical materialism, and have proven their usefulness, by resulting in marxist historiography, which is by far the best (and most useful) understanding of history that has been developed to date. Do you have some superior methods that give us a better understanding or new ways of looking at things? Surely if you've shown dialectics to be useless you've come across something better?

I thought I had, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1346551&postcount=497

There, I pointed out that if dialectics were true, change could not happen. And I posted links to an argument that proved this.

But, like several others here, you seem to think I am opposed to Historical Materialism [HM], when I am not.

Sure, HM may be used in the way you say (and I fully agree with this), but we do not need any 'dialectical' concepts to help us do it -- especially if they make change impossible.

In fact HM stops working when 'dialectical' concepts are employed.

[peaccenicked]

There is no debate because it has common ground just rehashed Plato, Hegel and Engels etc held in opposition to themselves.
Eh?

sorry missed out the "no" . no common ground.

Well you use Plato's Cave. Hegel's master/slave dialectic. Engels take on dogmatism

I did linked you to these on your thread.
You just choose to ignore these influences on your thinking. You use these as your starting point to attack their philosophy.


You then say that you agree with HM. Is this the HM you are referring to. You seem to be referring to Marx, who was influenced by these thinkers.

That seems intellectually dishonest to me. HM is intrinsically dialectical. It is the product of centuries of the development of thought.


The struggle that dialectics poses is to find speculation that is not divorced from reality.
Too bad this has been a failed endeavour then, eh?






you are trying to have things both ways. Take from philosophy its products, and disregard the approach.


There is no one dialectical theory, concepts vary from philosopher to philosopher.
DM is too niave, and has been bastardised by Stalinists and some Trotskyists. I don't defend DM, my knowledge,
is framed mostly by attention to Lenin on the matter.

It is not a system of thought but a way of thinking that remembers that empirical data is prone to change. It is primarly a safeguard against mistakes in the actual study of something.

Lenin refers to this, in his notes.

Quote:
I dont see anything problematic about looking at things or processes from as many sides as possible so as to overcome our prejudices.
Yes, but what has that got to do with dialectics?


For Lenin at least that is dialectics.


In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of
the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence
of dialectics, but it requires explanations and develop-
ment.



Dialectics as living, many-sided knowledge (with the number of sides eternally increasing), with an infinite number of shades of every approach and approximation to reality

This is what it has to do with dialectics.

Here dialectics is basically expressed as the highest form of free thinking.

Here Lenin says basically we are looking at the pool of human knowledge as we approach new knowledge. We look at the trends which oppose and the trends which agree. This will help us come to our conclusions about the new knowledge.

So when a Dialectical thinker sets out HM . I tend not to see the divorce you make in your head.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


sorry missed out the "no" . no common ground

Still makes zero sense.

Neither does this:


Well you use Plato's Cave. Hegel's master/slave dialectic. Engels take on dogmatism

Is this in some sort of code? Or are your enigmatic modules overheating?


I did linked you to these on your thread.

Looks like your grammar module blew a fuse.


You just choose to ignore these influences on your thinking. You use these as your starting point to attack their philosophy.

What influences?

I am quite open about who has influence me: Marx, Frege and Wittgenstein (and a few others you won't have heard of).

If you are suggesting that I am influenced by Plato, then there is only one idea of his that I have adopted: that the minimum speech act necessary for a human being to say something significant is a sentence containing a noun and a verb.

Not earth-shattering stuff, is it?

On the other hand I quote Plato's ideas in order to debunk them, or to expose the ruling-class mysticism he championed, and which others have copied.


You then say that you agree with HM. Is this the HM you are referring to. You seem to be referring to Marx, who was influenced by these thinkers.

Marx's version of HM was influenced by Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish Historical Materialists -- Hegel's historicism was too, but he just mystified the whole process.

I am quite happy to be influenced by progressive features of any past theorist, providing they are consistent with materialism.


That seems intellectually dishonest to me. HM is intrinsically dialectical. It is the product of centuries of the development of thought.

The mystical version of HM is 'dialectical', but not the materialist version.


you are trying to have things both ways. Take from philosophy its products, and disregard the approach.

Not so; HM is a scientific theory. Much of science grew out of the more materialist aspects of past thought. So, I can still reject the philosophy, but accept the science.

You, on the other hand are quite happy to swallow the mysticism down in one gulp.


There is no one dialectical theory, concepts vary from philosopher to philosopher.
DM is too naive, and has been bastardised by Stalinists and some Trotskyists. I don't defend DM, my knowledge,
is framed mostly by attention to Lenin on the matter.

Every dialectician I have ever met, or debated with says the same thing: "It's those other guys who screwed with the dialectic. My version is the real deal."

In this, therefore, you resemble that other major trend in mysticism: the bible bashers -- who all say the same sort of thing as you about their narrow view of scripture, and every one else's apostasy.

There is in fact no way to tell if the dialectic has been 'bastardised' or mis-applied, since it can be made to say anything, and then its opposite a few minutes later. And that is because it is contradiction friendly.

All a dialectically-distracted comrade has to do is argue for A one minute, and not A the next. As soon as this contradiction is pointed out, the reply comes back: "That's dialectics. You clearly do not understand it!".

[Of course, us anti-dialecticians are not allowed this convenient loophole; every error we make, or every alleged contradiction in what we say, is paraded about as if were a hanging offence!]

There have been several examples of this recently at RevLeft. For instance, I have posted a series of quotations from the dialectical classics that show that theorists like Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, and a host of others, all believe that change is the result of a struggle between 'internal opposites', and that things inevitably turn into their opposites.

Now when I pointed out that this is not possible, since if an object has to struggle with its opposite, that opposite must exist already, and so it cannot change into it, for it is already there (or if I point out that if that opposite does not already exist, there is nothing there to struggle with), several comrades just said that I did not "understand dialectics". They did not even attempt to resolve this contradiction, they just blame me for exposing it!

Or they just ignore it.

So the dialectical classics contain glaring contradictions, but that is OK, apparently. If you object, you 'do not understand' -- just like if you object that the Christian Trinity is not possible, Christians will retort 'you do not understand'...

[Incidentally, Gilhyle is one of the worst offenders here, but there are plenty of subs waiting on the bench.]

It is not possible to 'understand' mysticism.


It is not a system of thought but a way of thinking that remembers that empirical data is prone to change. It is primarily a safeguard against mistakes in the actual study of something.

Lenin refers to this, in his notes.

It is also the 'world-view' of the proletariat, and is maximally general, as Engels argued:


And so, what is the negation of the negation? An extremely general — and for this reason extremely far-reaching and important — law of development of nature, history, and thought; a law which, as we have seen, holds good in the animal and plant kingdoms, in geology, in mathematics, in history and in philosophy — a law which even Herr Dühring, in spite of all his stubborn resistance, has unwittingly and in his own way to follow. It is obvious that I do not say anything concerning the particular process of development of, for example, a grain of barley from germination to the death of the fruit-bearing plant, if I say it is a negation of the negation. For, as the integral calculus is also a negation of the negation, if I said anything of the sort I should only be making the nonsensical statement that the life-process of a barley plant was integral calculus or for that matter that it was socialism. That, however, is precisely what the metaphysicians are constantly imputing to dialectics. When I say that all these processes are a negation of the negation, I bring them all together under this one law of motion, and for this very reason I leave out of account the specific peculiarities of each individual process. Dialectics, however, is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought. [Anti-Dühring, pp.179-80. Bold added.]

There are many more passages like this in the 'classics' -- you will find scores of them logged here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm


In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of
the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence
of dialectics, but it requires explanations and develop-
ment

It is no good quoting Holy Writ at me; I have read this tedious stuff so many times it is beginning to fade -- especially when, as I have, shown, this schema cannot work.


This is what it has to do with dialectics.

Here dialectics is basically expressed as the highest form of free thinking.

Here Lenin says basically we are looking at the pool of human knowledge as we approach new knowledge. We look at the trends which oppose and the trends which agree. This will help us come to our conclusions about the new knowledge.

So when a Dialectical thinker sets out HM . I tend not to see the divorce you make in your head.

Alas, like many who bow to the East, or fill the gospel halls, you have a rather naive faith in a system that cannot work.

Small wonder then that it has presided over almost 150 years of almost total failure.

[gilhyle]

proponents of dialectics have nothing to say

Quite right ......until fetishised concepts are abused to underpin ideologies.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Quite right ......until fetishised concepts are abused to underpin ideologies.

Sounds like you are as drunk as Peacenicked here.

[peaccenicked]

Quote:
Well you [use Plato's Cave. Hegel's master/slave dialectic. Engels take on dogmatism
Is this in some sort of code? Or are your enigmatic modules overheating?



Quote:
1) The founders of this quasi-religion weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the classics and in philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.
Platos cave.

I fail to see how far you differ from Plato.


Quote:
This way of seeing things was invented by ideologues of the ruling class, who viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.
Not so far away from Hegel(you know the one with the mental disease)

Quote:
Hence, a world-view is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this ruling ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth is ascertainable by thought alone, and it can therefore be imposed on reality dogmatically.
It is so hard to talk to a charlatan who plagiarizes the very people pilloried in her imagination.
here Engels
________________


Rosa,....What are you on?
Do you know that cannabis causes short term memory loss?

The links are on this thread.

A "dead sheep" at least tries to stick to the point. If you dont want to see the "rules" of dialectics in context.
Your fate is to attack them technically forever.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


What are you on?
Do you know that cannabis causes short term memory loss?

Clearly whatever I am on, it is nowhere near as strong as the stuff you are snorting.

What 'memory loss'?


The links are on this thread.

What links? And to where?

What are you alleging that I have forgotten?

Or have you forgotten what you claim I have forgotten?


A "dead sheep" at least tries to stick to the point.

You see, you are still hallucinating, since you think that dead sheep can stick to points.


If you dont want to see the "rules" of dialectics in context.
Your fate is to attack them technically forever.

In context, or out of it, these 'rules' imply that cats, for example, change because of a struggle of opposites, and that they change into those opposites.

In which case, a live cat C that changes into dead cat C* must have struggled with that dead cat!

I am sure we have all witnessed such odd scenes...:rolleyes:

On the other hand, live cat C cannot change into dead cat C* since dead cat C* already exists! So C cannot die, for to do so it has to change into something that already exists, and this is impossible, even for a cat.

So, dialectical materialism, the 'world view of the proletariat' holds that cats cannot die.:lol:

On the other hand, it also holds that cats are continually scrapping with the dead cats that that they are will one day turn into.:lol:

If that is so, I no longer wonder why you appear to be continually drunk.

----------------------

Incidentally, the same result emerges if we consider the intermediate stages in the life and death of cat C.

Let us assume that cat C goes through successive stages C(1), C(2), C(3)..., C(n), until at stage C(n+1) it finally pops its clogs.

But, according to the dialectical classics, C(1) can only change into C(2) because of a 'struggle' of opposites. They also tell us that C(1) inevitably changes into that opposite.

So, C(1) must both struggle with C(2) and change into it.

But then the same problems emerge, for C(1) can't change into C(2) since it already exists. If it didn't, C(1) could not struggle with it!

So, by n applications of the above argument, all the stages of a cat's life must co-exist, and no cat can change, let alone die!

These dialectical cats sure are odd...