Rosa Lichtenstein
14th May 2009, 11:24
Here is an article of mine which I posted in the Dialectical Materialism thread; the first half contains a very brief and down-to-earth explanation of this 'theory', while the second half contains my demoltion of it:
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
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