Dialectical materialism

[Vincent]

Hi all, I've noticed the trend towards two things regarding 'diamat'.

1) It is a myth, or, its not really evident in Marx/Engels writings.

2) Even if it is there, its a load of crap.

The second I get. There might be plenty of good arguments as to why diamat isn't any good. The first of which I'd also say is directed towards Hegel and the dialectic method in general - that its a theory that, whilst being intuitive, has no defensible, rational basis. Or whatever.

But the first, I'm not getting. So, what are the major reasons people give for denying diamat as a Marxist philosophy/theory of history? Surely, most of it would be a lack of textual evidence, yes? What is said about the simple 'implication' or gleaning of diamat from Marx/Engels writings - is this for some reason infeasible or something?

Cheers!

[Gracchvs]

Um... As a trotskyist I actually am a Dialectical Materialist... (DiaMat, the specifically stalinist doctrine is like all, used to justify the zigzags of the bureaucracy).

So... yeah.

But I am new here, so I might be into what is considered 'correct' among the cliques and stuff here.

[ZeroNowhere]

It's very much present in Engels, and I don't think that anybody contests that.

[Black Sheep]

Rosa will be here in a nanosec to answer your question. :)

[Random Precision]

No one has ever disputed that the dialectical method was used by Engels. No one except Rosa has ever denied that Marx used it as well, although her evidence that Marx abandoned it at some point is rather scant.

But Marx's dialectical method really has very little to do with Hegel. You have to judge it on its own terms, without reference to Hegel or his idealism.

[Gracchvs]

But Marx's dialectical method really has very little to do with Hegel. You have to judge it on its own terms, without reference to Hegel or his idealism.
I really disagree there. The basic laws of dialectics, and the method of thought as a whole is extremely similar and entirely dependent on Hegel's. What marx did was separate it from all the idealistic crap and apply it to the world outside the mind as a world outside the mind.

That said, Engels notes on a few occasions, most memorably for me in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy and Dialectics of Nature, that Hegel at his most consistently dialectical is materalist.

I think that says a lot.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent, your intuitions about dialectical materialism are correct, and several comrades, including myself, have systematically demolished this theory over the last three-and-a-half years over in the Philosophy section -- indeed, I have done this even more so at my site (links in my signature).

In addition, I have posted links to all the threads at RevLeft where this theory has been shredded here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/RevLeft.htm

And, there is enough evidence to show that Marx rejected this 'theory' by the time he came to write Das Kapital, as I have shown several times, for example, here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158574&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158816&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1161443&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1163222&postcount=124

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RP:


No one except Rosa has ever denied that Marx used it as well, although her evidence that Marx abandoned it at some point is rather scant.

It can't be 'scant' if Marx himself indicated he had abandoned it, as you lot understand it.


But Marx's dialectical method really has very little to do with Hegel. You have to judge it on its own terms, without reference to Hegel or his idealism.

Not according to Lenin:


"It is impossible to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!" [Lenin (1961) Philosophical Notebooks, p.180. Bold added.]

Which means that no one has ever understood Das Kapital, since, as Lenin himself points out, there are many sections of Hegel's 'Logic' that not even he understood!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gracchvs:


The basic laws of dialectics, and the method of thought as a whole is extremely similar and entirely dependent on Hegel's. What marx did was separate it from all the idealistic crap and apply it to the world outside the mind as a world outside the mind.

That said, Engels notes on a few occasions, most memorably for me in Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy and Dialectics of Nature, that Hegel at his most consistently dialectical is materalist.

This certainly agrees with what Lenin said; unfortunatley, since not one single dialectical thesis makes the slightest sense, that would doom Marxism to incoherence. On that see here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/RevLeft.htm

Or my site (links in my signature).

Hence, it's a good job that Marx waved this mystical 'theory' goodbye.

And I say this as Trotskyist myself.

[Cumannach]

Vincent, your intuitions about dialectical materialism are correct, and several comrades, including myself, have systematically demolished this theory
No you haven't Rosa stop telling fibs.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Cummanach:


No you haven't Rosa stop telling fibs.

This from the comrade who had to ignore a whole page of quotations from the dialectical classics, and then make stuff up about them, in order to try to rescue this drowning 'theory'.

And this is quite apart from the fact that you could not show where my argument went wrong (either about dialectics making change impossible, or about Marx abandoning 'dialectics', as you lot understand it).

[Vincent]

Apart from Rosa, I was looking at this, from http://marxmyths.org/jordan/index.php


The myth that Karl Marx formulated a fully worked-out method and philosophical system called “dialectical materialism” is the core claim of Marxism, but it has no basis at all in the writings of Karl Marx and but a slim basis in the writings of Frederick Engels. It is widely recognised now that Marx was not a philosopher and the term “dialectical materialism” was invented after his death. Cyril Smith, for example, has written along similar lines in "Marx at the Millenium". However, Zbigniew Jordan was one of the first to call this myth into question. Jordan also deepened the intensifying debate over the role of Frederick Engels in creating rather than just transmitting, the Marxist canon.

Now, AJP Taylor says, in his introduction to some edition of the Communist Manifesto, that Marx (in his own words) found Hegelianism standing on its head and put it right way up. Obviously this is referring, essentially, to Marx's move away from Hegel's 'ideas', and towards the material.

This is where I drew the link, but I understand, Random Precision, that dialectical materialism should be considered in its own light - it may have a family resemblance to the Hegelian dialectic, but this by itself wil not ever constitute an argument against it, especially given what appears to be Marx's extensive revision of the Hegelian thought.

This from a thread you posted above, Rosa:

So, the 'rational core' of the dialectic has not one atom of Hegel in it, and Marx merely 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon in Das Kapital.

That is hardly a ringing endorsement of this mystical theory.

So, would you say there is something that Marx referred to as a dialectic, but wasn't Hegelian, and probably wasn't dialectical anyway?

Lastly, Rosa: I realise you've worked on this, and I don't mean to accuse you of anything here. I know there has been a history of anti-dialectics here (redstar2k...), and now you are claiming that perhaps Marx dropped DM at some stage. Intuitivly - and just intuitivly - it looks like this: 'Dialectical materialism is rubbish, but Marx was great wasn't he? Well, maybe Marx never adopted it, really, in the first place! Solved!'. That just how it looks to an outsider, and I realise that you have made a case and aren't just being silly.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


So, would you say there is something that Marx referred to as a dialectic, but wasn't Hegelian, and probably wasn't dialectical anyway?

In fact, Marx's dialectical method more closely resembles that of Kant and Aristotle.


Lastly, Rosa: I realise you've worked on this, and I don't mean to accuse you of anything here. I know there has been a history of anti-dialectics here (redstar2k...), and now you are claiming that perhaps Marx dropped DM at some stage. Intuitivly - and just intuitivly - it looks like this: 'Dialectical materialism is rubbish, but Marx was great wasn't he? Well, maybe Marx never adopted it, really, in the first place! Solved!'. That just how it looks to an outsider, and I realise that you have made a case and aren't just being silly.

Well, you have to distinguish between 'Dialectical Materialism' as applied to everything in the entire universe (Engel's position, and the view of most of the dialecticians who post here) and the 'dialectic' that applies only to human development (a minority view among dialecticians here -- BTB holds this view, and I suspect RP does as well, but I am not sure about him).

It is much easier to show that Marx never accepted the former view, but did accept the latter.

[The term 'Dialectical Marxism' was in fact invented by Plekhanov years after Marx died.]

While it is quite clear that he accepted the latter view in his early work, my claim is that, by the time he wrote Das Kapital, he waved goodbye to the lot.

Now, if it should turn out that I am wrong, all that will do is damage Marx's reputation, since it will implicate him in accepting a 'theory' that makes not one ounce of sense and which if true would make change impossible.

On the latter claim, see here:

Quotes:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401000&postcount=76

Argument:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401001&postcount=77

[Vincent]

While it is quite clear that he accepted the latter view in his early work, my claim is that, by the time he wrote Das Kapital, he waved goodbye to the lot.

Would you disagree with Robert Tucker (in The Marx-Engels Reader) in saying:

Shortly after adumberating the materialist conception of history in the 1844 manuscripts, and formulating is comprehensivly in Part I of The German Ideology, Marx turned the the economic studies that would preoccupy him in the ensuing years. This did not signify any change of interests or outlook, but was the logical outgrowth of the position taken in his earlier writings. If the thesis on 'alienated labor' was to be made scientifically cognent and if the expectation of coming proletarian revolution was to be based up on it, he needed to show the capital-labour relationship, which he took to be the core of the bourgeois socio-economic system, to be dialectically self-destructive, i.e. transitory by virtue of its inner dynamics of development. The first work in which he attempted this analysis was Wage Labour and Capital.

I realise this refers to WLC, and not Capital, but does your argument apply to this as well?

If not, do you advocate the 'primacy' of Capital over something like WLC as the best representation of Marx's economics?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

My criticism applies only to dialectics as it is represented in the books and articles I quoted (in the links above), none of which were from Marx.

Traditionally, Marx has been associated with this theory (as Tucker rightly notes), but it is quite easy to repair Marx's version by dropping the Hegelian jargon, and replacing it with the many hundreds (if not thousands) of words we have in ordinary language that allow us to speak of change in almost limitless detail.

Does that answer your question?


do you advocate the 'primacy' of Capital over something like WLC as the best representation of Marx's economics?

Certainly.

[Vincent]

Thanks, Rosa, that does answer my questions. :)

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Perhaps I have a lot more Marx to read...but it does seem that Marx's dialectical method is just historical materialism, which only vaguely resembles what I know about Hegel and has nothing to do with Engel's three laws of dialectics. It seems like we could easily apply some of Marx's own criticism of Hegelians to Engels.

[Vincent]

Perhaps I have a lot more Marx to read...but it does seem that Marx's dialectical method is just historical materialism, which only vaguely resembles what I know about Hegel and has nothing to do with Engel's three laws of dialectics. It seems like we could easily apply some of Marx's own criticism of Hegelians to Engels.

That what I thought - that Marx's dialectical materialism was just the foundation of historical materialism. My picture was that Marx and Engels had very different ideas on dialectics, but the most significant was Marx's historical materialism - which, I thought, was stated as being in opposition to Hegel.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


that Marx's dialectical materialism was just the foundation of historical materialism.

Is this what you still think?

[Vincent]

Vincent:



Is this what you still think?

Well, to some extent. Assuming I'm right in saying that the materialist conception of history is - what appears to be - simply dialectical materialism applied to history, then my original perception is that dialectical materialism was the foundation of historical materialism.

However, if I reject dialectical materialism, I would still need to provide a basis for historical materialism - I think. If I accept that DM can be removed from Marx's writings, and 'replaced' sufficiently with something else, then whatever that is will need to support historical materialism. Correct?

But perhaps I'm confused, and it might be the case that rejecting DM means also rejecting the materialist conception of history...?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

That what I thought - that Marx's dialectical materialism was just the foundation of historical materialism. My picture was that Marx and Engels had very different ideas on dialectics, but the most significant was Marx's historical materialism - which, I thought, was stated as being in opposition to Hegel.

That's not what I meant. I meant that as far as reffering to his dialectical method Marx was referring to Historical Materialism, not anything to do with the dialectical materialism talked about by Engels.


However, if I reject dialectical materialism, I would still need to provide a basis for historical materialism - I think. If I accept that DM can be removed from Marx's writings, and 'replaced' sufficiently with something else, then whatever that is will need to support historical materialism. Correct?

I don't think there is any DM as propounded by Engels in Marx's writings. There's just HM, which is what Marx meant when he talked about his dialectical method.

[Vincent]

Okay, so I've gone to redstar2k's site and taken a look at how he has stated it... link here (http://rs2kpapers.awardspace.com/theory2fe9.html?subaction=showfull&id=1082735164&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&).


While I would never wish to discourage anyone from studying anything that interests them, "dialectics" is, in my view, one of Marx's most grievous errors...and just a fuzzy mess that can be made to mean anything and therefore really means nothing.

The fundamental basics of Marxism can stand without any reliance on dialectics: how societies depend on a material basis, how they change their class nature as the material basis changes, how class struggle reflects material differences, how ideas likewise reflect material reality and material changes, etc.

The struggle of the working class for emancipation from the bourgeoisie follows naturally from the struggle of the bourgeoisie to emancipate themselves from the old feudal aristocracy. The ultimate victory of the working class has no more to do with "dialectics" than with the phases of the moon...it is assured by the material changes in the basis of capitalist society.

Like all of us, Marx was a product of his intellectual era...in his case, his youthful studies took place at a time when philosophy was under the shadow of that Prussian charlatan Hegel. "Everyone" was a "Hegalian" and Marx himself started out as a "left Hegalian".

It was just damned unfortunate that Marx, when he began to develop his communist ideas, didn't dump "dialectics" in the trashcan of history...as one of those "profound" ideas that turn out to be useless.

Perhaps the worst consequence of "dialectics" is the vision of communism as some kind of ultimate synthesis and crowning achievement of history...a static unchanging epoch of perfection. We know very well that real human beings don't live like that...and, I suspect, so did Marx. (At one point, he characterized the achievement of communism as "the end of pre-history and the beginning of real human history".) How and in what directions communist societies will change is impossible to say...but that they will change, being human, is certain.

The idiot Hegel, of course, thought history's ultimate culmination and crowning achievement was the King of Prussia...and himself!

The fact is that ordinary "generic" historical materialism and ordinary logic are really all you need to understand Marxism. "Dialectics" is like chrome hubcaps on a racing car...the vehicle will move neither faster nor slower because of their presence.What do people think of this view of things? I don't think he denies that Marx used DM, and he doesn't claim that Marx dumped it along the way - that's Rosa's claim. He simply denies the usefulness of DM.

This, I guess, represents my second intuition that some people just think DM is a load of crap. Rosa's claim, then, would represent my first, that Marx shouldn't be identified with DM.

[Leaf]

Would someone be able to quickly tell me what dialectic materialism is, in english, please? :D
or at least tell me where I can find Redstar2000's paper on dialectial materialism I heard about on another thread, if you think it would be helpful to me.

Edit: Never mind - it's in the post above mine:p

[Gracchvs]

In the view that dialectics is not necessary, I see a conflating of two different questions:
Is dialectics a valid form of logic?
And
Does the language of dialectics confuse issues when there is a perfectly useful vocabulary in existence.

People seem to generally recognise that the core of marxism is recognising change. That is dialectics. Dialectics is merely the study of change as necessitated by given conditions.

Also, about the claim of differing dialectics between M&E.
Marx's work focussed on the economy, and was necessarilly social in scope. So that is what comes through in his writings. On the other hand, his Mathematical Manuscripts are apparrently full of dialectics. The point of them was to show Engels the dialectics inherent in calculus.

Engels works are more varied, and as such, the application of dialectics therin will be more varied. I guess the biggest was to prove who is right is to check out the correspondence between M&E about Anti-During. If M likes it, well that pretty much says his position on the dialectics E uses. If not, well, he disagrees in whatever way the piece says.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Vincent:


Assuming I'm right in saying that the materialist conception of history is - what appears to be - simply dialectical materialism applied to history, then my original perception is that dialectical materialism was the foundation of historical materialism.

Well, it can't be for Marx, since Dialectical Materialism was invented by Engels in the late 1860s and early 1870s, and was only given this name this by Plekhanov a decade or so after Marx died.

Historical Materialism was invented by the Scottish Historical Materialists (Ferguson, Millar, Adam Smith, Hume, Stuart, etc.), and Kant in the previous century, and is logically independent of Hegel's and/or Engels's metaphysics.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Leaf:


Would someone be able to quickly tell me what dialectic materialism is, in english, please?
or at least tell me where I can find Redstar2000's paper on dialectial materialism I heard about on another thread, if you think it would be helpful to me.

Here is a short article I wrote on this (many of the links I used have been omitted -- often these are indicated by the use of the word "here" -- they can be accessed at the link posted at the end):


Anti-Dialectics For Dummies

Introduction

This Essay is meant to be a very brief, simplified and down-to-earth introduction to a few of the more important arguments against classical Dialectical Materialism [DM] found at my site. It is aimed solely at those who find the Basic Introductory Essay (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm)either too difficult or too long. Hence, I have deliberately tried to keep everything exceedingly simple and concise, saying all I want to (here) in less than 5000 words.

Those requiring more detail and/or greater sophistication should consult the longer Essays I have published at the main site (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/). Anyone who complains about the over-simplification below should re-read the title: it's "Anti-dialectics For Dummies", not experts!

As is the case with all of my Essays, nothing here should be read as an attack on Historical Materialism [HM], a theory I fully accept.

Please note, however, that in the first part of this Essay I am summarising DM (as I see it), not my own beliefs!

My criticisms begin in the second half. Numbers in brackets refer to endnotes.

So, What Is DM?

Anyone new to Marxism soon encounters DM (or, in its more political form, "Materialist Dialectics").(1)

'Mediated' Totality

But what exactly is DM? First of all we are told that it is a materialist theory; as Rob Sewell explains:


Philosophical materialism is the outlook which explains that there is only one material world.... The universe...is not the creation of any supernatural being, is in the process of constant flux . Human beings are a part of nature, and evolved from lower forms of life, whose origins sprung from a lifeless planet some 3.6 billion or so years ago. With the evolution of life, at a certain stage, came the development of animals with a nervous system, and eventually human beings with a large brain. With humans emerged human thought and consciousness. The human brain alone is capable of producing general ideas, i.e., thinking. Therefore matter...existed and still exists independently of the mind and human beings. Things existed long before any awareness of them arose or could have arisen on the part of living organisms.

...Matter is not a product of mind, but mind itself is the highest product of matter. Ideas are simply a reflection of the independent material world that surrounds us...."


And yet, this theory is much more than this, for dialecticians also believe that the world is an integrated whole, a "Totality", with all its parts interconnected and interdependent (which is roughly what "mediated" means, so far as we can tell). This Totality has developed over billions of years under the aegis (control) of a series of general laws discovered (in their modern) form by a prominent German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1779-1831).

However Hegel was an Idealist, that is, he considered the material world to be dependent on an underlying non-material reality, a world of Ideas -- in fact this world was merely an outer form of the development of God's knowledge of 'Himself'. [How that works is best left to one side for now!]

Ruling elites have always seen the world this way; no less so Hegel.

Nevertheless, Hegel's theory was taken up by Marx and Engels, who, so legend has it, stripped away its mystical, idealist outer layers, and put its "rational core" to work in their own account of history, class struggle and social change. For them, the world of ideas was just a "reflection" of the material world in the minds of men and women.

Engels later formulated the basic ideas of this 'inverted' theory, but now applied to the whole universe, not just human history. This extended theory subsequently came to be known as "Dialectical Materialism" [DM].

In Engels's hands, and in those of later theorists, DM taught that the development of nature and society was governed by a number of inter-related laws, listed below.

Quantity And Quality [Q/Q]

Material change is not an accidental feature of the operation of nature. The qualitative aspects of things we see around us change in specific ways, according to precise laws -- or so dialecticians tell us.

The first law is the change of quantity into quality.

It is a common feature of our experience that systems and objects around us have different properties, and that these can change. Things can alter from solid to liquid, hot to cold, red to blue, and so on. Some changes are superficial (for example, if you have your hair cut, that does not really alter who you are in any significant way); others are more profound (for example, if a house burns down, that is a pretty fundamental change).

However, underlying such apparent diversity there are several unifying factors, which is where this law comes in. If matter or energy is fed into a system, at some point it will undergo a sudden, or "nodal", change. For instance, if you load straws onto the proverbial camel's back, at some point it will break.

Here is Rob Sewell again:


"It has been said that there are no sudden leaps in nature, and it is a common notion that things have their origin through gradual increase or decrease," states Hegel. "But there is also such a thing as sudden transformation from quantity to quality. For example, water does not become gradually hard on cooling, becoming first pulpy and ultimately attaining a rigidity of ice, but turns hard at once. If temperature be lowered to a certain degree, the water is suddenly changed into ice, i.e., the quantity -- the number of degrees of temperature - is transformed into quality a change in the nature of the thing." (Logic §776)

This is the cornerstone of understanding change. Change or evolution does not take place gradually in a straight smooth line.... [Ibid]

Such change is important for dialecticians since they think it helps them account for the sudden nature of revolutions and the qualitative change between different social/economic systems -- like that between Capitalism and Socialism -- among other things.

The law of the change of quantity into quality is thus diametrically opposed to any principle that advocates a gradualist/reformist route to communism -- or so we are led to believe.

The Unity And Interpenetration Of Opposites [UO]

This law is less easy to follow, but the basic idea is that according to DM-theorists, objects and processes in nature are always composed of paired "opposites". These pairs may be 'internal' to objects and processes: so we have positive and negative particles inside atoms, holding them together (as it were). Alternatively, they could be 'external': hence we have positive and negative in electricity, North and South poles in magnets, male and female organisms, and so on. [Naturally, several of these could be a mixture of internal and external factors.]

Now, these opposites are not accidentally linked, but in a real sense depend on one another. In that case, you could not have a magnetic North without a South, for example. They inter-define and inter-depend on each other; hence the use of the word "interpenetrate". Dialecticians also confusingly call these opposites "contradictions" --, or, it's the relation between them which is, but this idea is not too clear in their writings.

Nevertheless, "contradictions" are the universal motor of change in nature and society, according to dialecticians.

Quoting Sewell once more:


"In brief", states Lenin, "dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics…."

The world in which we live is a unity of contradictions or a unity of opposites: cold-heat, light-darkness, Capital-Labour, birth-death, riches-poverty, positive-negative, boom-slump, thinking-being, finite-infinite, repulsion-attraction, left-right, above-below, evolution-revolution, chance-necessity, sale-purchase, and so on. [Ibid]

The Negation Of The Negation [NON]

It is undeniable that objects and processes in nature and society do not last forever. Some things crumble to dust, some explode -- while still others develop, reproduce and grow. When objects, processes or social systems are destroyed, or cease to exist as such (etc.), dialecticians say they have been "negated"; but when they develop into something new (which outcome is systematically-connected to its earlier stages, preserving aspects of the old while introducing novelty), they then say that this "negated" form has also been "negated" into something new, something of a higher type perhaps -- the "negation of the negation".

Rob Sewell again:


The law of the negation of the negation explains the repetition at a higher level of certain features and properties of the lower level and the apparent return of past features....

This whole process can be best pictured as a spiral, where the movement comes back to the position it started, but at a higher level. In other words, historical progress is achieved through a series of contradictions. Where the previous stage is negated, this does not represent its total elimination. It does not wipe out completely the stage that it supplants.

Engels gives a[n]...example from the insect world. "Butterflies, for example, spring from the egg through a negation of the egg, they pass through certain transformations until they reach sexual maturity, they pair and are in turn negated, dying as soon as the pairing process has been completed and the female has laid its numerous eggs." [Ibid]

Formal Logic [FL]

FL was invented in the West single-handedly by Aristotle (384-322BC), as far as we know. His was the first systematic attempt to study the principles underlying valid argument patterns.

Now, one of the oddest things about dialecticians is that every last one of them criticises FL, saying things like this:


When dealing with drawn out processes or complicated events, formal logic becomes a totally inadequate way of thinking. This is particularly the case in dealing with movement, change and contradiction. Formal logic regards things as fixed and motionless. Of course, this is not to deny the everyday usefulness of formal logic, on the contrary, but we need to recognise it limits. [Ibid]

It is worth noting here that the vast majority of such criticisms are aimed at Aristotelian Logic [AFL]. However, AFL is now a wholly defunct system, having been replaced over 130 years ago by far more elaborate and sophisticated systems of Modern Logic (now confusingly called "Classical Logic") and Mathematical Logic.

Unfortunately, this makes much of what dialecticians say about logic as relevant as if they were criticising ancient theories of the heavens, like Ptolemy's, while imagining they were all along addressing modern Astronomy.

Is That It?

Of course, there is much more to DM than this very brief summary would suggest. [For more details, read this.] However, if I go into this at greater length, this Essay will exceed the 5000 word limit I have set myself!

So, What's The Problem?

Disaster Central

Dialecticians tell us that truth is tested in practice.


From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice, -- such is the dialectical path of the cognition of truth, of the cognition of objective reality. [Lenin (1961), p.171. Emphasis in the original.]

In that case, what does history reveal?

Unfortunately, Dialectical Marxism has not known much in the way of success. The 1917 revolution has been reversed, practically every single 'socialist' state has abandoned Marxism, all four Internationals have gone down the pan, and few revolutionary parties these days can boast active membership levels that rise much above the risible. To cap it all, billions of workers world-wide not only ignore DM, they have never even heard of it.

And yet, most dialecticians claim that materialist dialectics lies at the heart of their revolutionary theory and practice. If so, why have none of them drawn the obvious conclusion that history has refuted their theory?

The reasons for this are complex, and will not be entered into here in any detail. However, as I argue in Essay Nine Parts One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm) and Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm), this has much to do with the role dialectics plays in convincing revolutionaries that despite appearances to the contrary, history is moving their way. If dialectics operates throughout the universe, not even the capitalist class can thwart it for long.

[On this in general, see Essay Ten Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20010_01.htm).]

However, it is my contention that this theory is part of the reason why Dialectical Marxism is now almost synonymous with failure.

Clearly, such long-term lack of success suggests that this theory might not be quite as sound as DM-fans would have us believe.

No surprise therefore: that is exactly what we find.

Objections

Quantity And Quality [Q/Q]

Engels asserted the following:


...[T]he transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned. [Engels (1954), p.63. Emphasis added.]

As we have seen, such change is not smooth or gradual:


It will be understood without difficulty by anyone who is in the least capable of dialectical thinking...[that] quantitative changes, accumulating gradually, lead in the end to changes of quality, and that these changes of quality represent leaps, interruptions in gradualness…. That is how all Nature acts…. [Plekhanov (1956), pp.74-77, 88, 163. Bold emphases alone added.]

But there are many things in nature that change smoothly; think of melting metal, rock, glass, plastic, butter, toffee and chocolate. Sure, some things change 'nodally' (i.e., in "leaps"), but many do not. So, the 'nodal' aspect of this law is defective.

Unfortunately, this means that this law cannot be used to argue that the transformation from capitalism to socialism must be 'nodal' too (as dialecticans do), for we have as yet no idea whether or not this transformation will be one of these exceptions. Plainly, we could only use this law if it had no exceptions at all.

This means that the whole point of adopting this law in the first place has now vanished.

What about the 'quantity into quality' part? Undeniably, many material things change qualitatively, and they do so as a result of the addition or subtraction of matter and/or energy.

But not all qualitative differences are caused this way. The order in which events take place can effect quality, too. For example, try crossing a busy main road first and looking second -- now try it the other way round! And anyone who tries pouring half a litre of water slowly into a litre of concentrated sulphuric acid will face a long and painful stay in hospital, whereas the reverse action is perfectly safe.

When confronted with examples like these, dialecticians largely ignore them, but the few who don't often tell us that these aren't objections to this law, since Engels (and other DM-theorists) did not mean it to be interpreted this way. How they know this they have so far kept to themselves.

Now, this Law is so vaguely worded that dialecticians can use it in whatever way they please. If this is difficult to believe, ask the very next dialectician you meet precisely how long a "nodal point" is supposed to last; you will receive no answer. But, if no one knows, then anything from a Geological Age to an instantaneous quantum leap could be "nodal"!

And, it really isn't good enough for dialecticians to dismiss this as mere pedantry. Can you imagine a genuine scientist refusing to say how long a crucially important interval in her theory is supposed to be, and accusing you of "pedantry" for even asking?

And then enquire what a "quality" is. If your respondent knows his/her theory, you might be told it is a property the change of which alters a process/object into something new. For example, in evolution numerous small variations in organisms accumulate until a new species arises.

Unfortunately, given this explanation of "quality" many of the examples DM-theorists themselves give to illustrate their theory would fail.

For instance: the most hackneyed example they use is that of water turning to ice or steam, if cooled or heated. Given the above 'definition', this wouldn't be an example of qualitative change, since water (as ice, liquid or steam) is still water (i.e., H2O). Quantitative addition or subtraction of energy does not result in a qualitative change of the required sort; nothing substantially new emerges. This substance stays H2O throughout.

Faced with that, dialecticians may be tempted to relax the definition of a quality, so that in solid, liquid or gaseous form, water could be said to exhibit different qualities.

Unfortunately, this would rescue the above example but sink the theory. If we relax "quality" so that it applies to any qualitative difference, then we would have to include the relational properties of bodies. In that case we could easily have qualitative change with no extra matter or energy added to the system. For instance, consider three animals in a row: a mouse, a pony, and an elephant. In relation to the mouse, the pony is big, but in relation to the elephant it is small. Change in quality, but no matter or energy has been added or subtracted.

Finally, there are substances studied in Chemistry called isomers. These are molecules with exactly the same atoms, but their geometrical orientation is different, which lends to each their different properties. So, here we would have a change in geometry causing a change in quality, with the addition of no new matter or energy -- contradicting Engels:


...[Q]ualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned. [Engels (1954), p.63. Emphasis added.]

So, at the very best, this law is merely a quaint rule of thumb (a bit like: "A stitch in time saves nine"). At worst, it is like a stopped clock: totally useless, even if twice a day it tells the 'right time'.

Engels's First 'Law' is thus of no use in developing revolutionary theory, and so it has no role to play in helping change society.

The Unity And Interpenetration Of Opposites [UO]

This is perhaps the most important of these laws, for it encapsulates the principle of change, as well as that of temporary stability, in DM.

Unfortunately, dialecticians have up until now been entirely unclear whether things change because of their internal opposites, whether they change into these opposites or whether they create these opposites as they change:

Here is Lenin:


[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]….

The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….

The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute…. [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22, 357-58.]

And here is Plekhanov:


And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite…. [Plekhanov (1956), p.77. Emphasis added.]

And here is Mao:


Why is it that "...the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another"? Because that is just how things are in objective reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself into its opposite....

In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another....

All processes have a beginning and an end, all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute. [Mao (1961b), pp.340-42. Emphases added.]

More of the same can be found here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm).

But this leaves change a complete mystery.

To see this, let us suppose that object/process A has two opposites O* and O**, and thus changes as a result.(2) But O* cannot itself change into O** since O** already exists! If it didn't already exist, according to this theory, O* could not change, for there would be no opposite to make it do so!

And it is no good propelling O** into the future so that it would now become what O* will change into, since O* will do no such thing unless O** is already there to make it happen!

Of course, this is all quite apart from the fact that many things just do not change into their opposites (or even because of them). When was the last time you saw a male cat turn into a female cat? Your left hand into your right? An electron into a proton? Or even a material object turn into an immaterial one?

And are we really supposed to believe that every proletarian (as individuals or as a class) will turn into Capitalists (and/or vice versa)?

Naturally, this does not deny that change occurs, just that DM cannot account for it. Alternatively: if DM were true, change could not happen.

Thus the second 'Law' is completely useless.

The Negation Of The Negation [NON]

This law is just an extension to, and elaboration of the previous law; in that case, the NON suffers from all the latter's weaknesses.

However, the example Rob Sewell retailed is rather unfortunate:


Engels gives a[n]...example from the insect world. "Butterflies, for example, spring from the egg through a negation of the egg, they pass through certain transformations until they reach sexual maturity, they pair and are in turn negated, dying as soon as the pairing process has been completed and the female has laid its numerous eggs." [Quoted from here]

In fact, butterflies and moths go through the following stages:

Adult→egg→pupa→chrysalis→adult

Which is the negation of what here? And which is the NON?

And what about organisms that reproduce by splitting, such as amoebae and bacteria? In any such division, which half is the negation and which the NON? What about vegetative (asexual) reproduction in general, where there are no opposites (no gametes)?

Consider, too, the thoroughly reactionary life form Myxomycota (The Slime Mould), which belongs neither to the plant nor the animal kingdom, but to the Protoctista. Its life-cycle involves the following forms: a giant amoebal stage, followed by a slug-like existence, which morphs into a fungal-like fruiting body, which then releases spores.

Now it might be that this organism is so primitive that it does not 'understand' dialectics, and has thus not quite figured out which of these four stages is the 'negation', and which the NON, let alone what 'sublates' what -- especially since the first phase of its life-cycle involves a union, a 'dialectical tautology' if you will!

["Sublate" is a technical term found in dialectics and roughly means to "negate but transcend" -- it emphasises the creative/preservative, not so much the destructive, aspect of 'dialectical' negation.]

No doubt a commissar will be assigned to 're-educate' this reactionary life-form after the revolution.

There are many other examples of thoroughly revisionist organisms and processes in nature. [In fact, DM-fans ignore these just as creationists ignore inconsistencies in the Bible and the many examples of lack of design in nature.]

And with respect to the former USSR (as it was in 1917): if the NON is progressive, why did it let history down badly and allow the revolution to decay, and then go into reverse?

Is modern-day Russian really the negation of the negation of the negation of Tsarist Russia?

On the contrary, do we not rather have the complete negation of Hegel and Engels here?

Formal Logic [FL]

Dialecticians like to say things like this:

[QUOTE]Formal logic regards things as fixed and motionless. [Rob Sewell.]

Formal categories, putting things in labelled boxes, will always be an inadequate way of looking at change and development…because a static definition cannot cope with the way in which a new content emerges from old conditions. [Rees (1998), p.59.]

However, when asked to provide any evidence to support such bold assertions, DM-fans go rather quiet or just become evasive.

And it is not hard to see why: the above claims are entirely bogus. They were untrue of AFL, and they are even less true of MFL.

[AFL = Aristotelian Formal Logic; MFL = Modern Formal Logic.]

Indeed, FL uses variables -- that is, it employs letters to stand for named objects, designated processes (some of the linguistic devises used to this end are called "predicates" -- these are the parts of sentences that left over if you omit things like Proper Names, etc.), and the like -- all of which can and do change.

This handy device was invented by the very first logician we know of (in the 'West'): Aristotle (384-322BC). He experimented with variables approximately 1500 years before the same tactic was extended into mathematics by Muslim Algebraists -- who in turn used them several centuries before René Descartes (1596-1650) began employing them in the 'West'.

Indeed, Engels said the following about that particular innovation:


The turning point in mathematics was Descartes' variable magnitude. With that came motion and hence dialectics in mathematics, and at once, too, of necessity the differential and integral calculus…. [Engels (1954), p.258.]

No one doubts that modern mathematics can handle change, so why dialecticians deny this of FL when it has always used variables is therefore something of a mystery.

However, FL is a highly technical area, so I will say no more about it in this Essay. [More here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2004.htm), however.] But, I will add that those who propound a theory that cannot account for change itself (i.e., dialecticians -- we saw that earlier) are in no position to make rash allegations about FL, especially if they have yet to produce any evidence that FL is as handicapped as they say it is.

Ruling-Class Thought

Marx famously claimed:


The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. [[I]The German Ideology, quoted from here.]

Now, as is easy to show, Hegel (the Idealist originator of dialectics) lifted many of his doctrines from earlier mystics. Not only that, these ideas have appeared in the philosophical theories of ruling-class thinkers from ancient times onwards. In that case, the only conclusion possible is that dialectics must be part of the ruling ideas Marx was speaking about.

This conclusion is not easy for revolutionaries to accept, for it seems to implicate the founders of our movement in the deliberate importation of alien-class ideas into Marxism. To be sure, dialecticians say they have removed the Idealist and mystical elements of Hegel's dialectic (or, rather, they have "put Hegel's ideas on their feet", and retrieved their "rational core"), but since it is plain that the remaining husk has been imposed on nature (not read from it) in good idealist fashion, that claim is entirely bogus. [More on that here.]

However, the founders of Marxism were not workers. From infancy onwards their education was aimed at ensuring that they saw the world as ruling classes have always done -- that is, as one with an invisible, underlying 'rational' structure (accessible to thought alone), which thus helps 'justify' the status quo.

These comrades imported such alien ideas into Marxism unwittingly. They knew no better; their petty-bourgeois being determined their petty-bourgeois consciousness.

But, as should seem obvious from the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism, this importation has to be reversed.

Otherwise, we can look forward to another 150 years of failure.

NOTES

1. For the purposes of this Essay, I will ignore the difference between DM and 'materialist dialectics'. Much of what I have to say here applies to both anyway.

2. I have avoided calling these opposites A* and A**, since we would have three items here, A, A* and A**, complicating things unnecessarily. Of course, such intricacies will be introduced and taken to their logical conclusion in other Essays posted at the main site. [For example, see here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm).]

References

Engels, F. (1954), Dialectics Of Nature (Progress Publishers).

Hegel, G. (1999), Science Of Logic (Humanity Books).

Lenin, V. (1961), Philosophical Notebooks, Collected Works, Volume 38 (Progress Publishers).

Mao Tse-Tung (1961a), Selected Works Of Mao Tse-Tung, Volume One (Foreign Languages Press).

--------, (1961b), 'On Contradiction', in Mao (1961a), pp.311-47.

Plekhanov, G. (1956), The Development Of The Monist View Of History (Progress Publishers).

Rees, J. (1998), The Algebra Of Revolution (Routledge).

The original, with its links etc., can be accessed here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gracchvs:


People seem to generally recognise that the core of marxism is recognising change. That is dialectics. Dialectics is merely the study of change as necessitated by given conditions.

And yet, as is easy to prove, if dialectics were true, change would be impossible. On that, see here:

Quotations from the dialectical classics:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401000&postcount=76

Argument:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1401001&postcount=77


I guess the biggest was to prove who is right is to check out the correspondence between M&E about Anti-During.

This material is far from conclusive; anyway, it cannot be used to countermand Marx's published views.

On those, see here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158574&postcount=73

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1158816&postcount=75

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1161443&postcount=114

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1163222&postcount=124

[Vincent]

Vincent:



Well, it can't be for Marx, since Dialectical Materialism was invented by Engels in the late 1860s and early 1870s, and was only given this name this by Plekhanov a decade or so after Marx died.

Historical Materialism was invented by the Scottish Historical Materialists (Ferguson, Millar, Adam Smith, Hume, Stuart, etc.), and Kant in the previous century, and is logically independent of Hegel's and/or Engels's metaphysics.

As a philosophy student, your argument against DM appeals to me. As a history student, your claim that Marx's historical materialism comes from Kant etc. rather than having in basis in Hegel, is also compelling.

What more can I say?

Apart from the fact that I still haven't gotten my head around the concepts completely.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I gave more details concerning the origin of Historical Materialism in this thread:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1430036&postcount=28

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

Historical Materialism was invented by the Scottish Historical Materialists (Ferguson, Millar, Adam Smith, Hume, Stuart, etc.), and Kant in the previous century, and is logically independent of Hegel's and/or Engels's metaphysics.

Do you have an essay elaborating on this?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SocialismOrBarbarism:


Do you have an essay elaborating on this?

Not yet, but I will in a few years time. I have posted most of what I currently have above.

One of my teachers at University, who was a communist, was also a world expert on the Scottish Enligtenment (as it is called) of the mid to late 18th century (i.e., on the chartacters I mentioned, among others), and its is from him that I originally got this idea. It's a pity I am no longer in touch with him, since I am sure he has published on this.

One of my other teachers, who was also a communist (and who was the first person to translate Marx's 1844 Manuscripts into English), used to lecture on the links between the Scottish Materialists and people like Herder, Hamann, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, and Hobbes (among others), where the roots of these ideas can be traced.

In fact, Hegel derived his historicism from these characters (particularly Kant, and the Scottish School) -- all he did was mystify the whole process.

There are some details in this book:

White, J. (1996), Karl Marx And The Intellectual Origins Of Dialectical Materialism (Macmillan).

and there is much more here:

Lehmann, W. (1960), John Millar Of Glasgow. His Life And Thought And His Contribution To Sociological Analysis (Cambridge University Press).

Buchan, J. (2004), Crowded With Genius. The Scottish Enlightenment: Edinburgh's Moment Of The Mind (Perennial Books).

--------, (2007), Adam Smith And the Pursuit Of Perfect Liberty (Profile Books).

Berry, C. (1997), Social Theory Of The Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh University Press).

Broadie, A. (1997) (ed.), The Scottish Enlightenment. An Anthology (Canongate Classics).

--------, (2003) (ed.), The Cambridge Companion To The Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press).

--------, (2007), The Scottish Enlightenment. The Historical Age Of The Historical Nation (Birlinn).

There is also this


Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and Karl Marx on the Division of Labour

Lisa Hill

University of Adelaide, Australia, [email protected]

Adam Smith (1723—90) and Adam Ferguson (1723—1816) shared a keen interest in the social, economic and individual effects of specialization. Though this mutual interest led to a protracted priority dispute between them, nevertheless their approaches differed significantly. Ferguson was generally more negative in his attitude and was also less interested in the economic effects of specialization, focusing instead on its adverse social ramifications. In fact, his work on the subject probably constitutes the first fully developed sociological account of the topic. Karl Marx quoted Ferguson approvingly and declared that he had been inspired by the latter's insights. But Smith too made some extremely negative and apparently pessimistic observations about the division of labour, giving rise to suggestions that his comments also 'constitute a major source of inspiration for the socialist critique' of commercialism. This article compares and contrasts the respective approaches of the two Scots. It also pays particular attention to claims that there are parallels with Marx in their thinking. To what extent is this true? Further, if it is true, do they anticipate him in the same way?

Journal of Classical Sociology, Vol. 7, No. 3, 339-366 (2007)


http://jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/7/3/339

I haven't read this yet, so I can't comment on it. But, the good news it is availbale free to download; just click on the free botton near the top right hand corner of the above page.

Hope this helps!

Added later: As far as I can see, this article ignores the influence of John Millar on Marx. In Millar's work we see the beginnings of a theory that connects the material development of the productive forces with social development; i.e., a rudimentary base and superstructure theory.

This also looks useful (although I haven't read it):

"The Division of Labor: From the Scottish Enlightenment to Hegel," by Norbert Waszek - Owl of Minerva (Journal of the Hegel Society of America) 15, 1 (Fall 1983): 51-75.

[Hit The North]

There is no secret that Marx was influenced by Smith and classical political economy; neither does anyone deny that Marx derived his ideas about the division of labour and its effects from this school. Nevertheless, this is a far from saying that these earlier thinkers "invented" historical materialism, which goes beyond a mere contemplation of the division of labour.

A central proposition of historical materialism is that history is driven by class struggle. Do we find this in the work of Ferguson or Smith?

Another central claim is that revolutionary periods open up when the further development of the forces of production become fettered by the existing relations of production. Do we find this claim amongst the Scottish Enlightenment?

In fact, which key propositions of historical materialism have been "invented" by these thinkers?

[SocialismOrBarbarism]

SocialismOrBarbarism:



Not yet, but I will in a few years time. I have posted most of what I currently have above.

One of my teachers at University, who was a communist, was also a world expert on the Scottish Enligtenment (as it is called) of the mid to late 18th century (i.e., on the chartacters I mentioned, among others), and its is from him that I originally got this idea. It's a pity I am no longer in touch with him, since I am sure he has published on this.

One of my other teachers, who was also a communist (and who was the first person to translate Marx's 1844 Manuscripts into English), used to lecture on the links between the Scottish Materialists and people like Herder, Hamann, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, and Hobbes (among others), where the roots of these ideas can be traced.

In fact, Hegel derived his historicism from these characters (particularly Kant, and the Scottish School) -- all he did was mystify the whole process.

There are some details in this book:

White, J. (1996), Karl Marx And The Intellectual Origins Of Dialectical Materialism (Macmillan).

and there is much more here:

Lehmann, W. (1960), John Millar Of Glasgow. His Life And Thought And His Contribution To Sociological Analysis (Cambridge University Press).

Buchan, J. (2004), Crowded With Genius. The Scottish Enlightenment: Edinburgh's Moment Of The Mind (Perennial Books).

--------, (2007), Adam Smith And the Pursuit Of Perfect Liberty (Profile Books).

Berry, C. (1997), Social Theory Of The Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh University Press).

Broadie, A. (1997) (ed.), The Scottish Enlightenment. An Anthology (Canongate Classics).

--------, (2003) (ed.), The Cambridge Companion To The Scottish Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press).

--------, (2007), The Scottish Enlightenment. The Historical Age Of The Historical Nation (Birlinn).

There is also this



http://jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/7/3/339

I haven't read this yet, so I can't comment on it. But, the good news it is availbale free to download; just click on the free botton near the top right hand corner of the above page.

Hope this helps!

Added later: As far as I can see, this article ignores the influence of John Millar on Marx. In Millar's work we see the beginnings of a theory that connects the material development of the productive forces with social development; i.e., a rudimentary base and superstructure theory.

This also looks useful (although I haven't read it):

"The Division of Labor: From the Scottish Enlightenment to Hegel," by Norbert Waszek - Owl of Minerva (Journal of the Hegel Society of America) 15, 1 (Fall 1983): 51-75.

Okay, thanks, I'll check some of these out.

I just started reading Millar's The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, and I can see what you're talking about already:


In searching for the causes of those peculiar systems of law
and government which have appeared in the world, we must
undoubtedly resort, first of all, to the differences of
situation, which have suggested different views and motives of
action to the inhabitants of particular countries. Of this kind,
are the fertility or barrenness of the soil, the nature of its
productions, the species of labour requisite for procuring
subsistence, the number of individuals collected together in one
community, their proficiency in arts, the advantages which they
enjoy for entering into mutual transactions, and for maintaining
an intimate correspondence. The variety that frequently occurs in
these, and such other particulars, must have a prodigious
influence upon the great body of a people; as, by giving a
peculiar direction to their inclinations and pursuits, it must be
productive of correspondent habits, dispositions, and ways of
thinking.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


There is no secret that Marx was influenced by Smith and classical political economy; neither does anyone argue that Marx derived his ideas about the division of labour and its effects from this school. Nevertheless, this is a far from saying that these earlier thinkers "invented" historical materialism, which goes beyond a mere contemplation of the division of labour.

You are, of course, simply alluding to your own ignorance of John Millar's work, and that of Kant.


A central proposition of historical materialism is that history is driven by class struggle. Do we find this in the work of Ferguson or Smith?

No, but he did get this from the French communists (who in turn derived it from Rousseau, Montesqieu, etc.).


In fact, which key propositions of historical materialism have been "invented" by these thinkers?

Apart from the class struggle, you name one of these 'propositions', and it is to be found in the work of the individuals I mentioned.

But, don't take my word for it, Marx tells us himself, as did Hegel.

Details in that article I linked to (which you plainly haven't read, otherwise you'd know, for example, that Marx and Hegel got the idea of alienation from Ferguson), and in my earlier post:



It is not I who called them this, but others, mainly Marx and Engels.


Ronald Meek, "The Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology" [1954; collected in his Economics and Ideology and Other Essays, 1967. Such luminaries as Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith. This influence was actually acknowledged. In The German Ideology, right after announcing their theme that "men be in a position to live in order to be able to `make history'", they say "The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry."]

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/historical-materialism.html

I have to say that the above link is hostile to Marx and Engels, but there is little available on the internet on this.

Meek actually calls them the "Scottish Historical School" (p.35), but he attributes this to Roy Pascal (Communist Party member, friend of Wittgenstein and translator of the German Ideology), who used it in his article "Property and Society: The Scottish Historical School of the Eighteenth Century" Modern Quarterly March 1938.

The full passage is:


Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make history.” But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno [Bauer], it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance. It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an historian. The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm

In the Poverty of Philosophy, Marx wrote:


Let us do him this justice: Lemontey wittily exposed the unpleasant consequences of the division of labor as it is constituted today, and M. Proudhon found nothing to add to it. But now that, through the fault of M. Proudhon, we have been drawn into this question of priority, let us say again, in passing, that long before M. Lemontey, and 17 years before Adam Smith, who was a pupil of A. Ferguson, the last-named gave a clear exposition of the subject in a chapter which deals specifically with the division of labor.

p.181 of MECW volume 6.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02b.htm

Marx refers to Ferguson repeatedly in his 'Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy' (MECW volume 300, pp.264-306), as he does to others of the same 'school' (Adam Smith and Dugald Stewart) throughout this work:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/economic/ch32.htm

He does so too in Volume One of Das Kapital -- MECW volume 35, p.133, 359, 366, 367. [He also refers to others of that 'school', Robertson, p.529, Stewart and Smith (the references to these two are too numerous to list).]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/volume35/index.htm

Indeed, throughout his entire works, the references to Smith and Stewart are too numerous to list.

But, call them what you like, Marx learnt from them.

Kant's influence can be found here (these references were given me by Phil Gasper, if you know who he is):

Wood, A, (1998), 'Kant's Historical Materialism' in Kneller and Axinn, Chapter Five.

--------, (1999), Kant's Ethical Thought (Cambridge University Press).

Kneller, J., and Axinn, S, (1998), Autonomy And Community: Readings In Contemporary Kantian Social Philosophy (State University of New York Press).

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1430036&postcount=28

http://jcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/7/3/339

Finally, I have asked you this before (some hope of an answer!): where do you think Marx got these ideas from? Now, the majority of DM-fans think the answer to this is Hegel.

The question is: do you reject this traditional idea or not? And if you do, perhaps you can bring this up at the next seance at the Coven; it will be amusing to see you branded a 'Revisionist'. If not, then where do you think Hegel got them? [In fact, he told us were he got them. But, because you have a weak constitution, and cannot/will not read Hegel, you wouldn't know this would you?]

Recall, we can trace the seeds of most of Marx's ideas about HM to the work of others (that claim itself is part of HM, for no one's ideas come from nowhere -- as Marx himself said: social being determines 'consciousness'); what Marx did was revolutionise and systematise them. Knowledge is a social phenomenon --, or do you subscribe to the bourgeois myth of the 'lone genius'?

However, with respect to the questions I have asked you:

Once more: Cue tumbleweed, cue rustling leaves, cue distant church bell...

[Hit The North]

R:
You are, of course, simply alluding to your own ignorance of John Millar's work, and that of Kant.
You're quite right. Therefore you need to spell out where either Millar or Kant "invented" historical materialism. This is the Learning forum after all.


No, but he did get this from the French communists (who in turn derived it from Rousseau, Montesqieu, etc.). Ok, fine. I'm not trying to claim that Marx pulled all his ideas out of his own generous cranium. But let's be clear about who we give the credit to.


Apart from the class struggle, you name one of these 'propositions', and it is to be found in the work of the individuals I mentioned.So tell me where the proposition that revolutionary periods open up when the further development of the forces of production become fettered by the existing relations of production is found in the writing of this school.

Re. the reproduction of your previous lengthy post: all of the material you quote falls short of your claim that the theory of historical materialism was "invented" by any of those individuals. This is not to deny that Marx took a great deal from the materialism of the Scottish Enlightenment, as he did from elsewhere.


Finally, I have asked you this before (some hope of an answer!): where do you think Marx got these ideas from? Now, the majority of DM-fans think the answer to this is Hegel. I don't recall you asking me this question before and I can't think why I would object to answering it. I've read Lenin's The Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism and largely agree with that - although I also assume that Marx's influences are more complex than Lenin describes them. Unlike you, in your anxious denial, I think that some of those influences came from Hegel. Certainly, in order to differentiate Marx's historical materialism from the random insights of Ferguson et al, the concept of totality as it is inherited from Hegel's legacy is important. Also, the conception that this totality is the sum of the interaction of its constituent parts is important. Also the idea that history is actually moving somewhere is derived from Kant and Hegel and not from the Scottish materialists.


what Marx did was revolutionise and systematise them.

I agree. He revolutionised them through applying the dialectic method he inherited, but 'revolutionised', from Hegel. He didn't only systematise, he synthesised.

Historical materialism, as we understand it, belongs in Marx's inventory of invention.

To claim otherwise is to confuse historical materialism with bourgeois sociology. So, for instance:

SocialismOrBarbarism, this:


Originally Posted by Millar
In searching for the causes of those peculiar systems of law
and government which have appeared in the world, we must
undoubtedly resort, first of all, to the differences of
situation, which have suggested different views and motives of
action to the inhabitants of particular countries. Of this kind,
are the fertility or barrenness of the soil, the nature of its
productions, the species of labour requisite for procuring
subsistence, the number of individuals collected together in one
community, their proficiency in arts, the advantages which they
enjoy for entering into mutual transactions, and for maintaining
an intimate correspondence. The variety that frequently occurs in
these, and such other particulars, must have a prodigious
influence upon the great body of a people; as, by giving a
peculiar direction to their inclinations and pursuits, it must be
productive of correspondent habits, dispositions, and ways of
thinking. sounds like proto-sociology. It's no closer to historical materialism than it is to Weberian historical analysis or Durkheimian social evolutionism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Therefore you need to spell out where either Millar or Kant "invented" historical materialism. This is the Learning forum after all.

Find out for yourself. [You can't rely on me to do everything for you.]

My ideas on this will be published in good time, as I have already noted.


So tell me where the proposition that revolutionary periods open up when the further development of the forces of production become fettered by the existing relations of production is found in the writing of this school.

A rudimentary version of this idea can be found in Millar's work, and in that of the French communists


the reproduction of your previous lengthy post: all of the material you quote falls short of your claim that the theory of historical materialism was "invented" by any of those individuals. This is not to deny that Marx took a great deal from the materialism of the Scottish Enlightenment, as he did from elsewhere.

Except, Marx himself told us this:


Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make history.” But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno , it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance. It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an historian. The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, [B]have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm

Pick a fight with him, not me.


I don't recall you asking me this question before and I can't think why I would object to answering it.

I asked this question at the link I posted above. Here it is again:


Anyway, it is rather odd that, anti-Hegelian that you are, you should be defending that mystery-meister Hegel in this regard. Or, do you think someone else invented this theory?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/thesis-antithesis-synthesis-t106348/index.html?p=1430036&highlight=Scottish+School

And here:


So, from where do you think Marx got this theory?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1430054&postcount=30


I've read Lenin's The Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism and largely agree with that - although I also assume that Marx's influences are more complex than Lenin describes them. Unlike you, in your anxious denial, I think that some of those influences came from Hegel. Certainly, in order to differentiate Marx's historical materialism from the random insights of Ferguson et al, the concept of totality as it is inherited from Hegel's legacy is important. Also, the conception that this totality is the sum of the interaction of its constituent parts is important. Also the idea that history is actually moving somewhere is derived from Kant and Hegel and not from the Scottish materialists.

Where have I denied that Hegel influenced Marx? What I have claimed is that by the time he wrote Das Kapital, he waved all this goodbye, apart from a few bits of jargon with which he merely 'coquetted'.

[As it turns out, your interpretation of the 'dialectic' is not a million miles away from this! Indeed, it now turns out that the only Hegelian influence you see on Marx are Hegel's mystical ideas about 'totality' and the teleological nature of 'history'. And your 'totality' is hardly worth calling one, since it leaves out of account 99.999999% of the universe! But, see below.]


the concept of totality as it is inherited from Hegel's legacy is important.

This appears in Ferguson, Smith and Millar, except not in the mystical form that one finds in Hegel and in the work of practically every mystic who has walked the planet.


Also the idea that history is actually moving somewhere is derived from Kant and Hegel and not from the Scottish materialists.

In fact, these two mystics (Kant and Hegel) derived it from Christianity -- and I am surprised you think that Marx thought that 'history' was 'moving somewhere'. So, you think Marx was into teleology, do you?


through applying the dialectic method he inherited

But, as you see things, this 'dialectical' method' is a mere shadow of its former self.

Once more, we are still awaiting your response to this:


By the way, we are still waiting for a response to this:


BTB:


No, I'm merely arguing that it is not the formulae proffered to capture general patterns of change which is the component which sustains our optimism, but the general spirit of the dialectical view.

What 'general spirit' of 'the dialectical view' are you talking about? Without change through 'internal contradiction' (but see below), based on the 'unity and interpenetration of polar opposites', guided by the 'negation of the negation' and the transformation of 'quantity into quality' (all of which terms appear in Das Kapital, which jargon I claim Marx's was using non-seriously, to which allegation you took great exception), there is no 'dialectic' as the 'great dialecticians' (including Tony Cliff) understood this 'theory'.

Now, it's all the same to me if you have resiled from your earlier unwise acceptance of this mystical creed under my relentless attack, but at least have the decency to admit that your 'spirit of the dialectic' is little more than a ghostly apparition hovering over what is left of its dead and decaying corpse.


Meanwhile, no I don't reject the concept of contradiction driving social change which we find all over Das Kapital; I merely restrict its usage to the social.

In that case, you must reject the 'unity and interpenetration of polar opposites' (and thus the thesis that the proletariat is the dialectical 'opposite' of the capitalist class), the 'negation of the negation' (a term that also appears in Das Kapital) and the alleged transformation of 'quantity into quality' (ditto).

Unless, like me, you think that Marx was using these obscure terms non-seriously.

If so, on what basis do you think he was using 'contradiction' in a non-'coquettish' manner?

It strikes me that you are uncomfortably like those theologians who look at the miracles of the Bible (and the rest of the rubbish that book contains), and then at modern science, shrug their shoulders and just appeal to the 'spirit' of the 'good book', cherry-picking which bits they find acceptable, not realising that in adopting such an intellectually bankrupt compromise, the game is up.

As I said, try running your 'revisionist' ghost of a theory past your fellow coven-hounds in the Dialectical Materialist Group. You will soon be subject to the same sort of abuse and emotive response that has been directed at yours truly.


It most certainly is.

Indeed, but it is not 'dialectics' as Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Tony Cliff, Chris Harman, Alex Callinicos..., understand it.

In fact, it is about as accurate to describe your ghostly theory as 'dialectics' as it is to call Tony Blair a 'socialist'.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1426383&postcount=9

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1430054&postcount=30

Third or fourth time of asking.


sounds like proto-sociology. It's no closer to historical materialism than it is to Weberian historical analysis or Durkheimian social evolutionism.

Except, Marx said of this work (and not just this passage):


The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

Once more, pick a fight with Marx, not us.

[Hit The North]

Once more, pick a fight with Marx, not us. I don't need to pick a fight with Marx as I'm not denying that those writers "made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry." I'm claiming that these works fell short of what we could describe as a fully fledged theory of historical materialism. And why? Marx tells us himself in the passage you quote: their attempts are"in an extremely one-sided fashion... as they remained in the toils of political ideology".

Btw, Rosa, in what sense do you think Marx believed his own work escaped this one-sidedness?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


I don't need to pick a fight with Marx as I'm not denying that those writers "made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry." I'm claiming that these works fell short of what we could describe as a fully fledged theory of historical materialism. And why? Marx tells us himself in the passage you quote: their attempts are"in an extremely one-sided fashion... as they remained in the toils of political ideology".

Since Marx didn't tell us what he meant by 'one-sided' I won't speculate, but it is nonetheless the case that Marx attributed to these theorists the invention of HM, something you denied -- until you were caught out.


Rosa, in what sense do you think Marx believed his own work escaped this one-sidedness?

1) See my comment above.

2) I might consider attempting to answer this when you respond to the question I have been asking you for weeks; namely this:


By the way, we are still waiting for a response to this:


BTB:


No, I'm merely arguing that it is not the formulae proffered to capture general patterns of change which is the component which sustains our optimism, but the general spirit of the dialectical view.

What 'general spirit' of 'the dialectical view' are you talking about? Without change through 'internal contradiction' (but see below), based on the 'unity and interpenetration of polar opposites', guided by the 'negation of the negation' and the transformation of 'quantity into quality' (all of which terms appear in Das Kapital, which jargon I claim Marx's was using non-seriously, to which allegation you took great exception), there is no 'dialectic' as the 'great dialecticians' (including Tony Cliff) understood this 'theory'.

Now, it's all the same to me if you have resiled from your earlier unwise acceptance of this mystical creed under my relentless attack, but at least have the decency to admit that your 'spirit of the dialectic' is little more than a ghostly apparition hovering over what is left of its dead and decaying corpse.


Meanwhile, no I don't reject the concept of contradiction driving social change which we find all over Das Kapital; I merely restrict its usage to the social.

In that case, you must reject the 'unity and interpenetration of polar opposites' (and thus the thesis that the proletariat is the dialectical 'opposite' of the capitalist class), the 'negation of the negation' (a term that also appears in Das Kapital) and the alleged transformation of 'quantity into quality' (ditto).

Unless, like me, you think that Marx was using these obscure terms non-seriously.

If so, on what basis do you think he was using 'contradiction' in a non-'coquettish' manner?

It strikes me that you are uncomfortably like those theologians who look at the miracles of the Bible (and the rest of the rubbish that book contains), and then at modern science, shrug their shoulders and just appeal to the 'spirit' of the 'good book', cherry-picking which bits they find acceptable, not realising that in adopting such an intellectually bankrupt compromise, the game is up.

As I said, try running your 'revisionist' ghost of a theory past your fellow coven-hounds in the Dialectical Materialist Group. You will soon be subject to the same sort of abuse and emotive response that has been directed at yours truly.


It most certainly is.

Indeed, but it is not 'dialectics' as Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Tony Cliff, Chris Harman, Alex Callinicos..., understand it.

In fact, it is about as accurate to describe your ghostly theory as 'dialectics' as it is to call Tony Blair a 'socialist'.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1426383&postcount=9

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1430054&postcount=30

Once more, cue tumbleweed, cue rustling leaves, cue distant church bell...

[Hit The North]

Since Marx didn't tell us what he meant by 'one-sided' I won't speculate,Of course you won't speculate because the answer is to be found in Marx's dialectical approach. It is this which enables him to synthesise these "first attempts" into a coherent theory of history which avoids the one-sidedness of these early materialists.


but it is nonetheless the case thay Marx attributed to these theorists the invention of HM, something you denied -- until you were caught out. It is you who is caught out because you cannot find one single instance of where Marx argues that these writers "invented" historical materialism.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Of course you won't speculate because the answer is to be found in Marx's dialectical approach.

1) How does this help? You seem to want to wave this around like a magic wand -- when we already know that your version of the dialectic is unique to you, and bears no relation to that of Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Cliff, Harman, Callinicos... -- so, like the Cheshire Cat's smile, just before it disappeared, there's precious little to your version of this 'theory'. How this ghostly apparition of yours can correct 'one-sidedness' is therefore a mystery.

Except you say this:


It is this which enables him to synthesise these "first attempts" into a coherent theory of history which avoids the one-sidedness of these early materialists.

But, we have yet to be told what this 'one-sidedness' is. Marx didn't say, and you haven't.


It is you who is caught out because you cannot find one single instance of where Marx argues that these writers "invented" historical materialism.

1) Marx did not even use the term 'Historical Materialism' to describe his own theory. However, what we now describe as 'Historical Materialism' was plainly invented by these characters -- see point two.

2) However, Marx described their theory in these terms:


The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

Notice that? They were the first to attempt to do what Marx finished: "to give the writing of history a materialist basis".

He used similar words to describe his own theory:


After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

So, they did invent it.

Once more, pick a fight with Marx, not me.

And the wait goes on for an answer to this:


By the way, we are still waiting for a response to this:


BTB:


No, I'm merely arguing that it is not the formulae proffered to capture general patterns of change which is the component which sustains our optimism, but the general spirit of the dialectical view.

What 'general spirit' of 'the dialectical view' are you talking about? Without change through 'internal contradiction' (but see below), based on the 'unity and interpenetration of polar opposites', guided by the 'negation of the negation' and the transformation of 'quantity into quality' (all of which terms appear in Das Kapital, which jargon I claim Marx's was using non-seriously, to which allegation you took great exception), there is no 'dialectic' as the 'great dialecticians' (including Tony Cliff) understood this 'theory'.

Now, it's all the same to me if you have resiled from your earlier unwise acceptance of this mystical creed under my relentless attack, but at least have the decency to admit that your 'spirit of the dialectic' is little more than a ghostly apparition hovering over what is left of its dead and decaying corpse.


Meanwhile, no I don't reject the concept of contradiction driving social change which we find all over Das Kapital; I merely restrict its usage to the social.

In that case, you must reject the 'unity and interpenetration of polar opposites' (and thus the thesis that the proletariat is the dialectical 'opposite' of the capitalist class), the 'negation of the negation' (a term that also appears in Das Kapital) and the alleged transformation of 'quantity into quality' (ditto).

Unless, like me, you think that Marx was using these obscure terms non-seriously.

If so, on what basis do you think he was using 'contradiction' in a non-'coquettish' manner?

It strikes me that you are uncomfortably like those theologians who look at the miracles of the Bible (and the rest of the rubbish that book contains), and then at modern science, shrug their shoulders and just appeal to the 'spirit' of the 'good book', cherry-picking which bits they find acceptable, not realising that in adopting such an intellectually bankrupt compromise, the game is up.

As I said, try running your 'revisionist' ghost of a theory past your fellow coven-hounds in the Dialectical Materialist Group. You will soon be subject to the same sort of abuse and emotive response that has been directed at yours truly.


It most certainly is.

Indeed, but it is not 'dialectics' as Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Tony Cliff, Chris Harman, Alex Callinicos..., understand it.

In fact, it is about as accurate to describe your ghostly theory as 'dialectics' as it is to call Tony Blair a 'socialist'.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1426383&postcount=9

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1430054&postcount=30

Earlier you said:


I don't recall you asking me this question before and I can't think why I would object to answering it.

So, what is your reason for not answering this question?

[Except we all know why -- it will brand you as a 'Revisionist!' among your fellow Coven-hounds, and a renegade in the SWP-UK (and you will be ostracised like I was, and still am).]

Once more, cue tumbleweed, cue rustling leaves, cue distant church bell...

[Hit The North]

But, we have yet to be told what this 'one-sidedness' is. Marx didn't say, and you haven't. Marx's opinion on the materialism of his intellectual ancestors is illustrated in two theses:


1

The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism — but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte], differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity. In The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christenthums], he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance [Erscheinungsform][1] (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm#jewish). Hence he does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.

and



3

The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm


So, they did invent it. That's like saying whomever invented the micro-chip is the person who invented the pc.


So, what is your reason for not answering this question? That is not the question you asked, to which that particular reply of mine was prompted. You asked this:
where do you think Marx got these ideas from? And I answered it.

As for your other question, if I decide to answer it I will do so in the appropriate thread - so stop spamming this one.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism — but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte], differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity. In The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christenthums], he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance [Erscheinungsform][1]. Hence he does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.

Thanks for that, but Marx is wrong; the materialists I refer to here did not do this, but emphasised the interaction of human beings with the world in production etc.

Anyway, these comments were not published by Marx, whereas the ones I quoted were.


That's like saying whomever invented the micro-chip is the person who invented the pc.

Once more, you are picking a fight with the wrong person, since Marx himself tells us they invented this method, as I pointed out above:


2) However, Marx described their theory in these terms:


The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

Notice that? They were the first to attempt to do what Marx finished: "to give the writing of history a materialist basis".

He used similar words to describe his own theory:


After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

So, they did invent it.

A better analogy would be that between those who invented the first valved-computers back in the 1940s (the Scoittish Materialists), and those who developed the advanced machines we see today (Marx).


As for your other question, if I decide to answer it I will do so in the appropriate thread - so stop spamming this one.

But you've ignored it in that thread for some time, and we both know why.

Hence my having to remind you (as you call it, 'spamming'), and my continual use of:

Cue tumble weed, cue rustling leaves, cue distant church bell...

[Hit The North]

R:
Once more, you are picking a fight with the wrong person, since Marx himself tells us they invented this method, as I pointed out above:
This is getting painful. Please concentrate on this word here: invented. I've put in bold so you can see it more clearly. Now show me the quote where Marx says these writers invented the materialist conception of history. We could show that there were many attempts at powered flight before the Wright Brothers successful flight in 1903, but we wouldn't claim that any of these attempts invented powered flight. An attempt is not necessarily a success. In the quote by Marx, there is no indication whether he considered these "first attempts" to be successful or not. In fact the evidence is that he did not.


A better analogy would be that between those who invented the first valved-computers back in the 1940s (the Scoittish Materialists), and those who developed the advanced machines we see today (Marx). Fine. I like that analogy. The question is what makes Marx's historical materialism so superior to , or such an advance on, those other "attempts"? One indication is that he thought the accounts to be "one-sided". I've attempted to show what this means to Marx by quoting his most concentrated and concise critique of this "one-sided materialism". Typically you've ignored the important third thesis, I posted. This clearly shows what Marx considers to be "one-sided" in the materialist accounts before him. The relation between society and individuals is deterministic, one-sided in its relation. It fails to appreciate that
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice. Now if you're correct and these writers do, in fact, "emphasise the interaction of human beings with the world in production etc." without lapsing into reductionism, then we will have to concede that Marx was wrong in this regard.


But you've ignored it in that thread for some time, and we both know why.

Hence my having to remind you (as you call it, 'spamming'), and my continual use of: That's as maybe. However, this is not the place for such reminders, which only serve to derail this thread. Plus your incessant repetition of this matter only serves to make it look like you're attempting to bully me.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Please concentrate on this word here: invented. I've put in bold so you can see it more clearly. Now show me the quote where Marx says these writers invented the materialist conception of history. We could show that there were many attempts at powered flight before the Wright Brothers successful flight in 1903, but we wouldn't claim that any of these attempts invented powered flight. An attempt is not necessarily a success. In the quote by Marx, there is no indication whether he considered these "first attempts" to be successful or not. In fact the evidence is that he did not.

You need to concentrate on what Marx said, not what I posted. Here it is again. :


The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

Notice, they were the first to do this; that is, no one had done this before them, so anyone else after them was second, third, fourth...

Moreover, Marx described their work in the same terms as he described his own:


After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

So, putting these together (for the slow-witted among us):

1) The Scottish Materialists were the first "to give the writing of history a materialistic basis", meaning Marx wasn't the first, and

2) Marx gave then credit for this -- something the slow-witted among us still won't do, and

3) Marx described their work in the same terms as his own.

Conclusion (you do know what one of those is don't you? If not, I'll provide a link to an on-line dictionary for you): the Scottish Materialists invented this theory.

And, since you like dictionaries (preferably with pictures, I presume), here is what 'invented' means:


to produce (as something useful) for the first time through the use of the imagination or of ingenious thinking and experiment

http://mw1.m-w.com/dictionary/invent

Now, if that's too difficult, I can re-type is slower for you? OK?

But, what is this? You say I ignored this:


The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

Hardly. Much of this comes directly from Millar's work, almost word-for-word. The only part that is missing is the very last phrase -- which Marx did not invent either.


However, this is not the place for such reminders, which only serve to derail this thread. Plus your incessant repetition of this matter only serves to make it look like you're attempting to bully me.

Diddums; nasty old Rosa, bullying a revolutionary like you, one brave enough (with others by your side) to take on the might of the capitalist class (but only if they don't ask awkward questions)...

Indeed, brave enough to avoid answering a question on another thread -- for reasons we both know.

For those who have not been keeping up with the BTB prevarication show (now entering its third glorious week) here is the real reason BTB is avoiding answering this question:

That answer will brand him as a 'Revisionist!' among his fellow Coven-hounds (at the Dialectical Materialist Group -- you know, the one covered in non-dialectical cob-webs, since so few post there), [I]and a renegade in the SWP-UK (and he will be ostracised like I was, and still am).

So brave of him to continue to ignore it, don't you think?

[Das war einmal]

Rightio, I dont understand one bit of this babble but it matters not. What I do reacall is that one revolutionary said sometime something like this if I remember it right: 'The way of Dialectic-Materialism is our most precious weapon', I dont know who actually said it but it must be one important guy otherwise I would probably forgotten it allready.

I wonder what kind of fruit this debate will bear. I doubt it will taste sweet.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Red Resistance:


'The way of Dialectic-Materialism is our most precious weapon', I dont know who actually said it but it must be one important guy otherwise I would probably forgotten it allready.

Whoever said this was a fool, since this 'theory' makes not one ounce of sense, as I and others here have repeatedly demonstrated.


I wonder what kind of fruit this debate will bear. I doubt it will taste sweet.

Since, it is relatively easy to show that this 'theory' has held up the scientific development of Marxism, one possible 'fruit' is that Marxism will be free to develop in this way.

Although I doubt it, since dialectically-distracted comrades cling onto this 'theory' for non-rational reasons (explored in other threads at this site), and so will never abandon it, even if it means the long slow death of Marxism.