Materialist Dialectics

[Bud Struggle]

So what do Materialist Dialectics mean in the real world? Not the theory--anyone can read the Philosophy threads on that. But what does dialectics have to do with Communism and Capitalism now, today?

[mikelepore]

To Marx the dialectical approach meant realization that social systems are not universal truths, but forms that appear and then pass away. There is also some notice of the fact that future institutions selectively borrow forms from past institutions. It was after Marx was dead that other tried to make a "theory" out if it. The same year that Marx died, Engels suddenly began writing (IMO, gibberish) about "the interpenetration of opposites" and "the negation of the negation."

I'm not certain what you mean by what does it mean to the real world, without the theory, but I'll take a stab at answering it.

Marx's version would be that a social system, capitalism, for example, has a time when it's progress and then a time when it's regress. (Reminds me of Ecclesiastes :o) The point is not to deny the benefits of capitalism that Adam Smith claimed for it in 1776; the point is that what was true in 1776 soon afterwards became false.

Engels' version, unfortunately, to judge by his 1883 manuscript _The Dialectics of Nature_, would be some vision of yin and yang swirling around, or some such incomprehensible picture that looks as though it was lifted out of Taoism.

[mikelepore]

One good point I find in Engels' treatment of the subject is what he called "transformation of quantity into quality." Here's an example of how an accumulation of many small, quantitative material changes have completely reversed a social principle. When the U.S. was founded, Benjamin Franklin's little printing press exemplified the meaning of the publishing business. His enlightened, forward-looking attitude exemplified the role of the publishing business. Censorship was a bad thing that governments did. How has that all changed? Today, escapism and the status quo, rather than enlightenment and skepticism, dominate the media. Government censorship is practically nonexistent in many industrial countries. Instead of being a government imposition, censorship today is something that the media owners themselves impose, as in the time when the journalists at NBC's news division were forbidden by the management to report on a scandal involving defective parts sold by NBC's parent company, General Electric. An accumulation of quantitative material changes have changed the relationship between private property and freedom of the press into its opposite.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

TomK:


So what do Materialist Dialectics mean in the real world? Not the theory--anyone can read the Philosophy threads on that. But what does dialectics have to do with Communism and Capitalism now, today?

In three words: "Nothing at all".

The theory has no practical applications (that is, other than negative -- it tends to confuse those whose minds it has colonised), which is not surprising since it makes not one ounce of sense.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


One good point I find in Engels' treatment of the subject is what he called "transformation of quantity into quality." Here's an example of how an accumulation of many small, quantitative material changes have completely reversed a social principle. When the U.S. was founded, Benjamin Franklin's little printing press exemplified the meaning of the publishing business. His enlightened, forward-looking attitude exemplified the role of the publishing business. Censorship was a bad thing that governments did. How has that all changed? Today, escapism and the status quo, rather than enlightenment and skepticism, dominate the media. Government censorship is practically nonexistent in many industrial countries. Instead of being a government imposition, censorship today is something that the media owners themselves impose, as in the time when the journalists at NBC's news division were forbidden by the management to report on a scandal involving defective parts sold by NBC's parent company, General Electric. An accumulation of quantitative material changes have changed the relationship between private property and freedom of the press into its opposite.

Mike we have been over this before; Engels's 'law' is so vaguely worded that it is practically useless.

For example, we are seldom told what a 'quality' is -- in the few cases where we have been, we are saddled with an unworkable Aristotelian 'definition', which dialecticians then proceed to forget, anyway (see below).

Here is what Hegel had to say:


"Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so identical that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus, e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker." [Hegel (1975) Shorter Logic, p.124, §85.]

The Glossary at the Marx Internet Archive defines it this way:


Quality is an aspect of something by which it is what it is and not something else and reflects that which is stable amidst variation. Quantity is an aspect of something which may change (become more or less) without the thing thereby becoming something else.

Thus, if something changes to an extent that it is no longer the same kind of thing, this is a 'qualitative change', whereas a change in something by which it still the same thing, though more or less, bigger or smaller, is a 'quantitative change'.

In Hegel's Logic, Quality is the first division of Being, when the world is just one thing after another, so to speak, while Quantity is the second division, where perception has progressed to the point of recognising what is stable within the ups and downs of things. The third and final stage, Measure, the unity of quality and quantity, denotes the knowledge of just when quantitative change becomes qualitative change.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/glossary.htm

This is an essentialist, Aristotelian definition.

Now, the most hackneyed example dialecticians use to 'illustrate' this 'law' is that of water turning to ice or steam, if cooled or heated. But, 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.

Hence, as noted above, dialecticians in fact ignore their own definition!

Moreover, no such 'quality' exists in your example:


An accumulation of quantitative material changes have changed the relationship between private property and freedom of the press into its opposite.

There is no 'essence' of the above relationship. In that case, Engels's 'law' cannot apply to it.

[mikelepore]

Mike we have been over this before

We didn't persuade each other the last time either.


Engels's 'law' is so vaguely worded that it is practically useless.

Vagueness is okay if later study fills in the gaps. Vagueness like Galileo starting a discussion about mechanics without having such concepts as momentum or kinetic energy, but later Newton came along to fix the theory up. Vagueness like Faraday describing the electric field with all sketches and no equations, until Maxwell later came to fix it. I think Engels made a good start with quantity and quality, but no one later made it more precise, far as I know.


Now, the most hackneyed example dialecticians use to 'illustrate' this 'law' is that of water turning to ice or steam, if cooled or heated. But, 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.

Naturally, there must first be a decision about what the subject of a discussion is going to be. It's no reflection on the ability of a method to explain a problem if people didn't previously agree on what problem they're talking about.

In the water phase example, they're talking about bonds between molecules, and you're talking about bonds between atoms.

When water changes state, the bonds between atoms are unaffected, and it's still H2O. But bonds between molecules and their neighboring molecules are made or broken. It's a good example of qualitative abruptness from a quantitative increment.

The process of melting ice: As you add more and more energy, the molecules jiggle with greater amplitudes, but remain in fixed positions. At some point, when as you add just a little bit more energy, molecules suddenly leave their fixed positions and begin to tumble around each other.

The process of boiling water: You add a lot more energy, and the molecules still remain in a bunch in the container, tumbling around each other. Adding a little bit more energy, suddenly the molecules become completely disassociated from one another and float away individually into the sky. The tiniest fraction of a percent of additional energy has caused an abrupt observation.

The Van der Walls force between two adjacent water molecule is one of the most abrupt effects documented. We think the inverse square law for gravitational and electric forces is a rapid rate of fall-off with distance? Well, the Van der Walls force between two molecules drops off with the _seventh_ power of the distance. I think it's valid to conclude that there is some point where a little quantitative change in a variable moves the whole problem into another category.

Engels: "The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa."

What Engels failed to do is to establish what all this has to do with social science, if anything.

[Red Economist]

put as breifly as I can:

'Dialectical Materialism': Change originating from Matter.

Dialectics states the contradictions between the new and the old (one replaces the other, in the same way the computer replaces the typerwriter), and materialism studies the motive force for these changes (the need for capitalism to compute higher levels of data...and write more propaganda obviously).

[Kronos]

It's a good example of qualitative abruptness from a quantitative increment.

But you are mistaking a relationship which conforms to laws for a qualitative change in those things which conform to the law. The term "quality" is a misnomer in this case. If you mean by "quality" a phenomena that changes its appearance, chemistry, or physical characteristics, then you are referring to a finite set of elements acting according to laws. Therefore there isn't any fundamental change in the elements themselves which compose the phemomena, but only a new relation, a new "compounding" of finite elements.

Let me ask you this: can there be a qualitative change in a particle, or do we attribute the nature of a particle to the specific relationships between the components of the particle? If the latter, then the particle doesn't change- it is either a particle or not. The definition of the particle depends on the constitution of its physical apparatus. If a component no longer conforms to the law which effected it, as it composed the particle, the particle doesn't change...the component changes...and it changes only in so far as its behavior no longer conforms to a law.

Now you no longer have a particle, but you still have a component...only it is behaving differently. The same holds true for the component, regarding its components. The same reasoning applies reductio ad absurdem.

There are physical entities and laws, and a "change" in an entity cannot mean that some aspect of its being is altered. It can only mean that particular things that compose its being have stopped behaving a certain way. If this is so, then the "thing" is no longer what it was...since the "things" definition includes all components and all laws which those components follow.

The easiest way to conceive of this is to imagine the universe containing a finite amount of elementary parts. All macrocosmic "change" is only a redistribution, reorganization or rearrangement of those elementary parts. Therefore there is no qualitative change, only quantitative.

I can take some clay and make two different objects with it. Does the clay change.....or only the physical characteristics of the objects composed of clay change?

You see what I mean.

Rosa is correct through and through. The term "quality" is very inappropriate in the context it is used in that law of dialectics.

[trivas7]

You see what I mean.

No, I don't see what you mean. Only an idealist imagines "the universe containing a finite amount of elementary parts". What are these motionless, changeless, elementary particles?

Dialectics is a way of looking at the world which sets out from the axiom that everything is in a constant state of change and flux. Dialectics explains that change and motion only takes place through contradictions. So instead of a smooth, uninterrupted line of progress, incremental change is interrupted by sudden and explosive qualitative change: quantity is transformed into quality. Dialectics is the logic of change -- not physics.

[mikelepore]

I refer to examples from physical science only because it's the subject I know best. People who know other fields can look there.

Sometimes, when one thing depends on another thing, the relationship is strongly nonlinear. Developers of the atomic bomb determined that uranium-235 has a critical mass of 56 grams. 55.9 grams, the city is still there. 56 grams, no more city. Change a number just a little bit, and suddenly something important happens. Engels used the term "the transformation of quantity into quality." Those who don't don't like calling it by that name can choose another name. I'm not going to argue about the name.

This kind of strong nonlinear dependence also occurs in human history. Economic production levels are incremental. In the Politics, Aristotle came close to predicting that one day there would be automated machinery and this is what would make slavery become obsolete. He wrote: "For if every instrument could accomplish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, like the statues of Daedalus, or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, says the poet, 'of their own accord entered the assembly of the Gods'; if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


We didn't persuade each other the last time either.

It was far worse than that, since you were unable to tell us what either a 'quality' or a 'node' is. And we know why -- this allows you to get away with several wild guesses about what is or what is not an example of the 'law.

You would not tolerate for one second such sloppy work in your area of science.

But, you have an answer:


Vagueness is okay if later study fills in the gaps. Vagueness like Galileo starting a discussion about mechanics without having such concepts as momentum or kinetic energy, but later Newton came along to fix the theory up. Vagueness like Faraday describing the electric field with all sketches and no equations, until Maxwell later came to fix it. I think Engels made a good start with quantity and quality, but no one later made it more precise, far as I know.

But this 'theory' is still no less vague -- we still do not know what a 'quality' or a node is, nor do we know what it means to 'add energy or matter' to a system, nor do we know what the thermodynamic boundaries are of these Engelsian 'objects and processes'.

Once more, this would not be tolerated for one second in Physics or Chemistry (to say nothing of the other sciences).

And yet, this is perfectly acceptable here!

No wonder I have called this 'Mickey Mouse Science'.

And here is a perfect example:


Naturally, there must first be a decision about what the subject of a discussion is going to be. It's no reflection on the ability of a method to explain a problem if people didn't previously agree on what problem they're talking about.

In the water phase example, they're talking about bonds between molecules, and you're talking about bonds between atoms.

When water changes state, the bonds between atoms are unaffected, and it's still H2O. But bonds between molecules and their neighboring molecules are made or broken. It's a good example of qualitative abruptness from a quantitative increment.

The process of melting ice: As you add more and more energy, the molecules jiggle with greater amplitudes, but remain in fixed positions. At some point, when as you add just a little bit more energy, molecules suddenly leave their fixed positions and begin to tumble around each other.

The process of boiling water: You add a lot more energy, and the molecules still remain in a bunch in the container, tumbling around each other. Adding a little bit more energy, suddenly the molecules become completely disassociated from one another and float away individually into the sky. The tiniest fraction of a percent of additional energy has caused an abrupt observation.

The Van der Walls force between two adjacent water molecule is one of the most abrupt effects documented. We think the inverse square law for gravitational and electric forces is a rapid rate of fall-off with distance? Well, the Van der Walls force between two molecules drops off with the _seventh_ power of the distance. I think it's valid to conclude that there is some point where a little quantitative change in a variable moves the whole problem into another category.

Engels: "The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa."

What Engels failed to do is to establish what all this has to do with social science, if anything.

And yet, because you are dealing with a vague notion both of 'quality' and of 'node' here you can fit anything you like into this 'law'.

But, if we use Hegel's definition, your example fails yet again, since we are still dealing with the same substance, H20.

And, the change in the bonds between atoms which you refer to can only be described as 'sudden' if we know how long a dialectical 'node' is supposed to last -- but we don't. I have asked countless times, but dialecticians refuse to say. And we can see why; once more it allows you to inject an element of subjectivity onto what is supposed to be an objective law.


It's a good example of qualitative abruptness from a quantitative increment.

But, what definition of 'quality' are you dealing with here? You dance round this issue, but still refuse to say.


Well, the Van der Walls force between two molecules drops off with the _seventh_ power of the distance. I think it's valid to conclude that there is some point where a little quantitative change in a variable moves the whole problem into another category.

But, this is a continuous function, so there are no sudden, discontinuities here, and thus no 'nodes'.

Forgive me for saying this, but you remind me of Christians who have inherited a bunch of odd ideas from the ancients and who spend all their time trying to make them consistent with modern science -- ignoring whatever does not fit, and any awkward questions about 'god'.

So, you have inherited a 'law' from Hegel (who based it on hardly any evidence at all (i.e., he just dreamt it up) -- and even he ignored his own definition of 'quality' to make his 'law' seem to work -- and he, too, did not tell us how long a 'node' was supposed to last), and now you are trying to squeeze some areas of science into a dialectical boot it won't fit, ignoring the many cases were qualitative changes (however it is defined) take place with no addition of energy or matter, and awkward questions about 'nodes' and 'qualities'.

Dozens of examples listed here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Dialectics is a way of looking at the world which sets out from the axiom that everything is in a constant state of change and flux. Dialectics explains that change and motion only takes place through contradictions. So instead of a smooth, uninterrupted line of progress, incremental change is interrupted by sudden and explosive qualitative change: quantity is transformed into quality. Dialectics is the logic of change -- not physics.

In other words, when we cut through the c*ap, this is just a priori dogmatics, and thus a prime example of idealism.

Moreover, there are many changes of 'quality' in nature and society that are smooth, and not at all sudden (so this can't be a 'law').

Dozens of examples given here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

Moreover, we already know that this can't be correct:


Dialectics is the logic of change

And that is because, not only can this 'theory' not explain change, if it were true, change would be impossible.

Quotations from the Dialectical Gospels:

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

Argument:

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

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kronos, I agree with what you say -- but, just you watch: even if the word 'quality' were appropriate, not one single supporter of this 'theory' will tell you (us) what either a 'quality' or a 'node' is.

I know, I have been asking them for over 25 years!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SRACTLM:


'Dialectical Materialism': Change originating from Matter.

Dialectics states the contradictions between the new and the old (one replaces the other, in the same way the computer replaces the typerwriter), and materialism studies the motive force for these changes (the need for capitalism to compute higher levels of data...and write more propaganda obviously).

Unfortunately, when you examine the details, this theory does not work.

For example, as I noted above, if this theory were true, change would be impossible:

Quotes:

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

Argument:

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

And, the things you mention aren't contradictions either.

[trivas7]

In other words, when we cut through the c*ap, this is just a priori dogmatics, and thus a prime example of idealism.

And that is because, not only can this 'theory' not explain change, if it were true, change would be impossible.

You confuse a dogma, idealism, w/ a methodology, an epistemology.

[Pogue]

I agree with Rosa, it has no relevancy to anyone's life.

[Kronos]

Only an idealist imagines "the universe containing a finite amount of elementary parts". What are these motionless, changeless, elementary particles?Take the periodic table of elements. If an element undergoes a chemical change, the atoms which compose the molecules don't change, but only break their bonds and establish new ones.

If there is a known finite set of chemical elements, each consisting of one type of atom with its own atomic number, then any possible composition of these elements in a molecule is only subject to be quantified, not qualified. The "quality" of a molecule means only "X amount of atoms". And if the molecule "changes", this only means the bonding has changed, and if this is the case.....then you no longer have molecule X, but molecule Y, depending on the composition of the newly bonded atoms.

Think about how iron rusts and what happens. There is a transfer of electrons from the iron to the oxygen. This is an electrochemical change....but the iron doesn't change, literally, because it ceases to be iron when the elements which compose it break down their atomic bonds, and therefore their molecular structure.

To the eye there appears to be change, but looking closer we see there is no change, like we thought, but only a rearrangement of atomic compounds.

Don't think in terms of the physical appearance of things- think only in terms of the quantifiable number of atoms, and the possible combination of atoms.


Dialectics explains that change and motion only takes place through contradictions.There is no contradiction in nature. You are committing a pathetic fallacy- ascribing human sentiments, qualities and values onto nature. This accounts for a large percent of Hegel's error. He viewed the "mind" as that which interprets nature as a teleological process....so that when something in nature is found to be disagreeable to our senses, or ill fashioned as a means to our ends, we call it a "contradiction". For example, if we use Hegel's theory of the master/slave dialectic as our criterion, then we would naturally suppose that an economic revolution is an process of a synthesis of these two conflicting parts- proletariat and bourgeois. But that doesn't mean such a dichotomy is conflicting in nature. It is only conflicting if you view it through Hegel's theoretical model, see.

This same idea, viewed from Spinoza's perspective (Hegel began as a Spinozist), is that "conflict" is only a judgment formed from an inadequate understanding, having inadequate knowledge of, the causes which brought about such an effect through their determination. There can be no conflict in nature because nothing is an "accident", nothing is "contingent".

Hegel was not satisfied with this and through his phenomenology of the spirit, tried to interpret nature as a medium through which the "for-itself", consciousness or self awareness, transcended the irrational by absolving natural contradictions. This is what "mind" was for Hegel. But for Spinoza, "irrational" means only a "passive idea"....an idea that is not adequate and therefore muddled, confused. Nature is nothing short of perfect. Only ideas are imperfect, as a result of not having the breadth of understanding, of not being able to account for all causes which result in an effect.

Every aspect of the judgment "contradiction" is founded in such a pathetic fallacy. Applying a teleological judgment onto nature so that it can be evaluated according to our ends. But in nature there is no "end".

Do I believe capitalism should be abolished? Certainly, but not because of the reasons Hegel's dialectical materialism puts forth.

[mikelepore]

When they say "quality" in this context, they mean anything observed that depends on something else observed, but in a strongly nonlinear way. You could add heat 1.0000 x to the wick of dynamite, and nothing unusual happens, but when you add heat 1.0001 x to the wick, a building falls down. There is some resulting event whose magnitude is considerably out of proportion to the change in a variable that triggered it.

Many break-point relationships like are found in nature. Engels believed that the same principle operates in human history, for example, in the way that economic development reaches a moment when there is a change between capitalism being the best promoter of social progress to capitalism being the worst obstacle to social progress, or the change from having no prospects for a revolution to the imminence of revolution.

Engels didn't offer an explanation why an observation about natural forces might apply to human history, therefore his discussion never goes beyond making the analogy, without demonstration of a mechanism. His "dialectics" as described in his book 'Dialectics of Nature' is a compilation of analogies between nature and society, and the claim that the same "laws" operates in both.

I believe that social science won't become an exact science until one day in the future when we may have a complete neurological model of the human mind. Until then, all supposed explanation of sociological events is mainly a lot of analogies and correlations, but very little mechanism. I expect that Engels might have had a good point regarding quantity and quality, but so far no one can demonstrate a mechanism that could account for it.

His "interpenetration of opposites" is another analogy from nature to history. Nature exhibits movement and change caused by gradients (Fick's law of diffusion, Ohm's law for currents, Carnot's and Clausius' second law of thermodynamics, etc.). As they say in systems theory, "across variables" cause "through variables." Engels believed that there is a connection between this fact and social movement and change caused by technology potential and economic class gradients. Here too, Engels didn't suggest any mechanism which could account for such natural forces to have a connection to historical events. He asserted an analogy and stopped there.

[Kronos]

I understand the analogy these dialecticians are using to explain social phenomenon and I think it is acceptable as a philosophical outlook. But it isn't scientific in any sense.


There is some resulting event whose magnitude is considerably out of proportion to the change in a variable that triggered it.

The problem is, how do you determine what a correct proportion would be? There are correlations made here that are completely superfluous, and in saying there is a proportionate irregularity is like saying "the building shouldn't fall when the explosion compromises the structural integrity of the foundation". But why not? If you look at such an event incrementally, suddenly you don't have one radical, disproportionate change....but a series of small, minor changes which in succession result in a major change.

1. The foundation has a hole blown in it.
2. The weight of the building causes the structure to collapse.
3. What was once an enormous building is reduced to rubble in less than thirty seconds.
4. All this because of the smallest difference in the dynamite.

If you look at the end result, then sure, something extraordinary strikes you. But if you look at the event incrementally, nothing significant is happening...nothing "disproportionate".

Also, what if the psi rating of the concrete which was used to build the foundation was increased by one gram.....and that one gram made all the difference....preventing the dynamite from compromising it enough to cause the building to collapse?

What if I am frying and egg....and I don't extend my hand far enough toward the pan to reach the egg with the spatula? Wait! If just extend it one more centimeter I can reach the egg....and something extraordinary will happen: the egg gets flipped.

Never knew a centimeter meant so much and could affect such great change in the world.

Everything in nature that happens suddenly might not have happened if the conditions pertaining to the thing that changed were ever-so-slightly different. Sort of takes the magic out of the dialectical view of change, huh?

[Kronos]

Have a look at Althusser's concept of "overdetermination". As I understand the idea it presents a kind of stochastic factor to the original dialectical view of contradiction. In a sense it obscures the original terms of the view so that accounting for the causes of conflict in a case of contraction involves inductive measures rather than clear, deductive analysis of change.

For instance, revolution may not occur as a synthesis of conflicts which are direct results of capitalism. There may be other contradictions which stimulate revolution that may arise in a communist state if it occurs...so....the supposed antithesis could be germane to any set of conditions.

The "triad" of dialectical tensions and processes are therefore not so "cut and dried". Such critical "breaking points", the "straw that broke the camel's back", could very well not be a single straw...but an accumulation of several straws that can't be accounted for.

This changes the linear, analytical approach of Hegelian dialectics quite drastically. And, it is in good keeping with a Spinozean model of causality. "Breaking points" might not be conceivable at all.....especially if we consider the number of causes that evade our knowledge.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


You confuse a dogma, idealism, w/ a methodology, an epistemology.

I am far from sure you know the difference between these.

Anyway, as George Novack said:

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

Which makes your 'axiom' eminently idealist.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


When they say "quality" in this context, they mean anything observed that depends on something else observed, but in a strongly nonlinear way. You could add heat 1.0000 x to the wick of dynamite, and nothing unusual happens, but when you add heat 1.0001 x to the wick, a building falls down. There is some resulting event whose magnitude is considerably out of proportion to the change in a variable that triggered it.

1) Who is 'they' here?

2) And this cannot work:


they mean anything observed that depends on something else observed,

This is far too vague. "Anything observed that depends on something else observed"? What items of observation does that rule out? If an astronomer looks through her telescope, and judges the distance between two distant (observed) stars as 10 light years, is this one of these 'qualities'?

If so, the relational properties of bodies (such as size, distance, hardness, velocity, etc.) must be included as 'qualities' too. And if that is so, countless things can change 'qualitatively' with no addition of matter or energy.

For example, take three animals in a row: a mouse, a cat and a horse. In relation to the mouse the cat is large, but in relation to the horse it is small. Change in 'quality' with no change in quantity.

And your characterisation (you can't call it a definition since it picks out far too many things you will want to exclude) of 'quality' will adversely affect the examples you gave earlier.

For instance, warm water can often become hot water slowly (and we can count the two states as part of the "anything observed that depends on something else observed"), when heat is added. No sudden change of 'quality' here. There are countless other examples:

These include the following: melting or solidifying plastic, metal, rock, sulphur, tar, toffee, sugar, chocolate, wax, butter, cheese, and glass. As these are heated or cooled, they gradually change (from liquid to solid, or vice versa). There isn't even a "nodal point" with respect to balding heads! In fact, it is difficult to think of many state of matter transformations (from solid to liquid (or vice versa)) that exhibit just such "nodal points" -- and these include the transition from ice to water (and arguably also the condensation of steam). Even the albumen of fried or boiled eggs changes slowly (but non-"nodally") from clear to opaque white while they are being cooked.

Moreover, a slow vehicle can speed up gradually until it is travelling quickly; light can change form bright to dull slowly; sound can change from loud to quiet slowly, and so on.

That is why Hegel opted for Aristotle's understanding of 'quality' (quoted earlier); it gave him what he thought was a water-tight definition -- which he then proceeded to forget, since it does not apply to his example of boiling or freezing water.

Hence, there is no definition' of 'quality' that will work in all cases. So, this can't be a 'law'.


Many break-point relationships like are found in nature. Engels believed that the same principle operates in human history, for example, in the way that economic development reaches a moment when there is a change between capitalism being the best promoter of social progress to capitalism being the worst obstacle to social progress, or the change from having no prospects for a revolution to the imminence of revolution.

But, if there are many things in nature an society that do not change suddenly, then Engels's 'law' cannot safely be applied to social revolution, since, for all we know, some of these could be examples of gradual change.


Engels didn't offer an explanation why an observation about natural forces might apply to human history, therefore his discussion never goes beyond making the analogy, without demonstration of a mechanism. His "dialectics" as described in his book 'Dialectics of Nature' is a compilation of analogies between nature and society, and the claim that the same "laws" operates in both.

Yes, we know that, but Engels got it all wrong (or, rather, his 'law' was so vaguely worded, it is impossible to determine what he in fact meant), as I have shown.


I believe that social science won't become an exact science until one day in the future when we may have a complete neurological model of the human mind. Until then, all supposed explanation of sociological events is mainly a lot of analogies and correlations, but very little mechanism. I expect that Engels might have had a good point regarding quantity and quality, but so far no one can demonstrate a mechanism that could account for it.

His "interpenetration of opposites" is another analogy from nature to history. Nature exhibits movement and change caused by gradients (Fick's law of diffusion, Ohm's law for currents, Carnot's and Clausius' second law of thermodynamics, etc.). As they say in systems theory, "across variables" cause "through variables." Engels believed that there is a connection between this fact and social movement and change caused by technology potential and economic class gradients. Here too, Engels didn't suggest any mechanism which could account for such natural forces to have a connection to historical events. He asserted an analogy and stopped there.

But, the second 'law' (the interpenetration of opposites), if true, would make all change impossible:

Quotes:

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

Argument:

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

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

And we are still waiting for a clear defintion of a 'dialectical node'...

As predicted, deafening silence...

[mikelepore]

Mike:
When they say "quality" in this context, they mean anything observed that depends on something else observed, but in a strongly nonlinear way. You could add heat 1.0000 x to the wick of dynamite, and nothing unusual happens, but when you add heat 1.0001 x to the wick, a building falls down. There is some resulting event whose magnitude is considerably out of proportion to the change in a variable that triggered it.1) Who is 'they' here?
People such as Engels or his present-day followers who speak of a "transformation of quantity into quality."

[mikelepore]

This is far too vague. "Anything observed that depends on something else observed"? What items of observation does that rule out? If an astronomer looks through her telescope, and judges the distance between two distant (observed) stars as 10 light years, is this one of these 'qualities'?

If so, the relational properties of bodies (such as size, distance, hardness, velocity, etc.) must be included as 'qualities' too. And if that is so, countless things can change 'qualitatively' with no addition of matter or energy.

For example, take three animals in a row: a mouse, a cat and a horse. In relation to the mouse the cat is large, but in relation to the horse it is small. Change in 'quality' with no change in quantity.

What are you asking me for? I never wrote about the size of a mouse and horse. You have to wait until someone says they have noticed a qualitative change taking place in something, and then challenge them to elaborate about why they consider it a qualitative change. You can't ask me in advance, in the case of a certain object, what its quality is. It could be anything that a writer is thinking about. Each writer gets to decide what to call the quality in their own paragraph where they report that they have noticed a qualitative change.

[mikelepore]

These include the following: melting or solidifying plastic, metal, rock, sulphur, tar, toffee, sugar, chocolate, wax, butter, cheese, and glass. As these are heated or cooled, they gradually change (from liquid to solid, or vice versa). There isn't even a "nodal point" with respect to balding heads! In fact, it is difficult to think of many state of matter transformations (from solid to liquid (or vice versa)) that exhibit just such "nodal points" -- and these include the transition from ice to water (and arguably also the condensation of steam). Even the albumen of fried or boiled eggs changes slowly (but non-"nodally") from clear to opaque white while they are being cooked.

Moreover, a slow vehicle can speed up gradually until it is travelling quickly; light can change form bright to dull slowly; sound can change from loud to quiet slowly, and so on.

Whoever said that a statement about something has to to be true for other things? A person can't make a statement about how water behaves because you will object that plastic doesn't behave the same way? Since when can't a person can't make a point about one particular thing?

[mikelepore]

And we are still waiting for a clear defintion of a 'dialectical node'...

As predicted, deafening silence...

I suggest you go to whomever used that term and ask them. No one here used it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


What are you asking me for? I never wrote about the size of a mouse and horse. You have to wait until someone says they have noticed a qualitative change taking place in something, and then challenge them to elaborate about why they consider it a qualitative change. You can't ask me in advance, in the case of a certain object, what its quality is. It could be anything that a writer is thinking about. Each writer gets to decide what to call the quality in their own paragraph where they report that they have noticed a qualitative change.

The point is that your 'definition' of 'quality' allows the mouse-cat-horse example to count as a change in 'quality' where there is no change in quantity.

And, your claim that anyone can make their own mind up what 'quality' means makes my point for me, since this 'theory' is so vague, anyone can proceed as they see fit, turning an allegedly 'objective law' into a subjective word game.

In genuine science this would not be tolerated for one second. Can you imagine what would happen if, say, an undergraduate interpreted rest mass to be the same as inertial mass, and then tried to justify it along the lines you tried? He/she would fail their first year exams, even if they got that far.

But, in the Mickey Mouse 'science' of dialectics, this is all OK.


Whoever said that a statement about something has to to be true for other things? A person can't make a statement about how water behaves because you will object that plastic doesn't behave the same way? Since when can't a person can't make a point about one particular thing?

Once more, you miss the point. If this 'law' fails to apply to a whole range of objects and processes, then it can't be a law to begin with.

Once more, if we found that for most objects, the rate of change of momentum was not proportional to the impressed force, we'd stop calling Newton's Second Law a law. And then, we certainly could not use it to make inferences.

In that case, you can't use it (as you try to) to infer that social revolutions must all be sudden, since some of them might be exceptions to this 'law' too. So, for all we know, social change like this might be like melting metal not boiling water.

But, as I also noted above, the normal canons of scientific inquiry do not apply to this mystical theory, do they?


I suggest you go to whomever used that term and ask them. No one here used it.

Hegel, Engels, Lenin and a host of other dialecticians used it (and the word 'leap') regularly.

But, if you do not like 'node', then what is your definition of 'sudden'? How long is one of these 'suddens'?

Deafening silence...

[trivas7]

Trivas:



I am far from sure you know the difference between these.

Anyway, as George Novack said:

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

Which makes your 'axiom' eminently idealist.
What axiom is that?

You are still confused. Materialist philosophy doesn't proceed from dialectics, if that's what you mean to say.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


What axiom is that?

This one:


Dialectics is a way of looking at the world which sets out from the axiom that everything is in a constant state of change and flux. Dialectics explains that change and motion only takes place through contradictions. So instead of a smooth, uninterrupted line of progress, incremental change is interrupted by sudden and explosive qualitative change: quantity is transformed into quality. Dialectics is the logic of change -- not physics.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1447822&postcount=9


You are still confused. Materialist philosophy doesn't proceed from dialectics, if that's what you mean to say.

I can take advanced lessons in confusion from you, since these weren't my words, but George Novack's (a leading US dialectician), as should be clear from the reference I gave.


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

And you missed his point, too.

[mikelepore]

The point is that your 'definition' of 'quality' allows the mouse-cat-horse example to count as a change in 'quality' where there is no change in quantity.

Offhand I would say that the quantitative difference that makes one living species different from another is the way that a pattern of A,T,G and C bases gives arrangement to merely twenty amino acids into a huge number of possible combinations, which some people like to compare to the way that a small alphabet can be combined to form a complex language. But it doesn't have to be that. It could be anything that a person has in mind when they say something like, "Here we see an aspect that is merely a matter of number, but over there we see things that are fundamentally different."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


Offhand I would say that the quantitative difference that makes one living species different from another is the way that a pattern of A,T,G and C bases gives arrangement to merely twenty amino acids into a huge number of possible combinations, which some people like to compare to the way that a small alphabet can be combined to form a complex language. But it doesn't have to be that. It could be anything that a person has in mind when they say something like, "Here we see an aspect that is merely a matter of number, but over there we see things that are fundamentally different."

Well, I think you miss the point, so to illustrate the problems your 'definition' presents you with, let's change the example slightly: consider three cubes of iron in a row (all cast from the same batch). Cube A is one unit cubed (cm or inch -- take your pick); cube B is 125 units cubed, and cube C is 729 units cubed.

In relation to A, B is large, but at the same time in relation to C, B is small. Here we have a change in 'quality' with no change in quantity.

No base units here to muddy the waters...

[However, just like Christians and their Book of Genesis, it always amazes me the contortions dialecticians will put themselves through to save their theory -- and one that has not served them at all well for 150 years.]

But, to take your example: consider amino acid combination B (in the cat): the body in which amino combination B is situated is large compared to the body in which amino acid combination A is situated (in the mouse) but small in comparison with the body in which amino acid combination C is situated (in the horse).

So, the same amino acid combination B produces a body that is big in comparison with that produced by A, and small in comparison with that produced by C. Hence, here we have a change in 'quality' to the same amino acid combination B with no change in quantity to the same amino acid combination B.

QED.

[And this change in 'quality' is not the least bit 'sudden', either.]

And that is why you need Aristotle's definition of 'quality' (seriously defective though it is).

[mikelepore]

And, your claim that anyone can make their own mind up what 'quality' means makes my point for me, since this 'theory' is so vague, anyone can proceed as they see fit,

To say something is "qualitatively different" has to do with speaking about categories when communicating. The idea of using categories has to be vague until someone makes a choice. Is this flowering tree in the same category as that coniferous tree? You may reply, "What, do you mean regarding the type of seeds? No, they're if different categories." Then I may say, "no, I mean animal versus plant." Then you may say, "Oh, yes, they're in the same category." Can we teach people about nature without ever lumping things into categories? We couldn't do it. When I say the phrase "the practice of classifying things", is the rule about of where to draw the line left vague? Yes, extremely vague. Could we do without it? Not for a minute.


turning an allegedly 'objective law' into a subjective word game.

Who said 'objective law'? Are you answering me, or are you answering some book you once read?


In genuine science this would not be tolerated for one second.

It's what people in science talk about all the time, but with the specific example deleted, and only the pattern remaining, so that the pattern applies to many examples. Say the example is: a little change in a diode voltage will suddenly produce the effect called breakdown. Or, just a little bit more gas and this red giant star would have become a supernova. Or your water phase example: A little change in the temperature of the water will produce a sudden phase change. Now delete the example itself, and say what the general pattern of the sentence was: Sometimes the change in a variable may be merely a matter of degree (quantitative), but then some result that depends on it may become categorically (qualitatively) different. When I put it that way you think the statement is unscientific. Maybe you're just not accustomed to recognizing the general form of a problem when the problem itself has been deleted.


Can you imagine what would happen if, say, an undergraduate interpreted rest mass to be the same as inertial mass, and then tried to justify it along the lines you tried? He/she would fail their first year exams, even if they got that far.

In that example, I don't see where someone says that one thing changes quantitatively which causes another thing to change qualitatively.

Besides, there's a difference between performing science and discussing the philosophy of science. In an essay about the philosophy of science, which is what Engels tried to write with 'The Dialectics of Nature', that's not where we expect to find rigorous derivations. We expect generalizations like "it's interesting that nature often does this."

"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."

"Nature abhors a vacuum."

"Entities should not be multiplied needlessly."

See how vague?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


To say something is "qualitatively different" has to do with speaking about categories when communicating. The idea of using categories has to be vague until someone makes a choice. Is this flowering tree in the same category as that coniferous tree? You may reply, "What, do you mean regarding the type of seeds? No, they're if different categories." Then I may say, "no, I mean animal versus plant." Then you may say, "Oh, yes, they're in the same category." Can we teach people about nature without ever lumping things into categories? We couldn't do it. When I say the phrase "the practice of classifying things", is the rule about of where to draw the line left vague? Yes, extremely vague. Could we do without it? Not for a minute.

Well, I note that you have now changed your 'definition' from earlier, which was:


anything observed that depends on something else observed,

This latest version of your is a little closer to Aristotle's definition, so you are on slightly firmer ground.

But, even your own examples violate Engels's embattled 'law', for you admit that the same objects can change in 'quality' when there is no change in quantity -- just by categorising them differently.

In addition, your new 'definition' is eminently subjective.


Who said 'objective law'? Are you answering me, or are you answering some book you once read?

Here is Engels:


Dialectics, however, is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.

Presumably these 'laws' are not subjective; if so, they must be objective.

Now, you may or may not believe these 'laws' are objective; but if the aren't, then how can they be 'laws' to begin with?

Anyway, we already know they can't be 'laws' since they are abrogated more times than they are obeyed.


It's what people in science talk about all the time, but with the specific example deleted, and only the pattern remaining, so that the pattern applies to many examples. Say the example is: a little change in a diode voltage will suddenly produce the effect called breakdown. Or, just a little bit more gas and this red giant star would have become a supernova. Or your water phase example: A little change in the temperature of the water will produce a sudden phase change. Now delete the example itself, and say what the general pattern of the sentence was: Sometimes the change in a variable may be merely a matter of degree (quantitative), but then some result that depends on it may become categorically (qualitatively) different. When I put it that way you think the statement is unscientific. Maybe you're just not accustomed to recognizing the general form of a problem when the problem itself has been deleted.

Ah, but things like 'volt' and 'diode' have clear meanings in science; none of the terms used in dialectics is at all clear, and that is the point.

If a first year undergraduate (let alone a research scientist) were to turn in an essay with such sloppy reasoning, ill-defined terms and dearth of supporting evidence, he/she'd be failed.


Besides, there's a difference between performing science and discussing the philosophy of science. In an essay about the philosophy of science, which is what Engels tried to write with 'The Dialectics of Nature', that's not where we expect to find rigorous derivations. We expect generalizations like "it's interesting that nature often does this."

In the philosophy of science, things are even stricter. Check out the papers published here, and try to find as many key terms that are as vague, imprecise and ill-defined as they are in dialectics:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/view/subjects/


"it's interesting that nature often does this."

But, when we examine his examples, it turns out that nature does not do 'this'.

Water, for example, does not change in 'quality' when boiled, since it remains H20.

And not all things change in 'quality' suddenly -- I gave many examples earlier.

So, whichever way we look, this 'law' is about as defective as it can be.


"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."

"Nature abhors a vacuum."

"Entities should not be multiplied needlessly."

See how vague?

The first two can and have been given precise formulations; this is not so with dialectics. Whatever is done to it, it remains either too vague to do anything with, or just plain wrong.

And the third example here is not from science, but from medieval philosophy.

[mikelepore]

....... cube B is 125 units cubed, and cube C is 729 units cubed. In relation to A, B is large, but at the same time in relation to C, B is small. Here we have a change in 'quality' with no change in quantity ........ ......... ........ a body that is big in comparison with that produced by A, and small in comparison with that produced by C. Hence, here we have a change in 'quality' to the same amino acid combination B with no change in quantity to the same amino acid combination B.

The difference between large and small is quantitative. Your examples you didn't mention any qualitative diifferences.


Aristotle's definition of 'quality'

You seem to be finding fault with a point that Engels tried to make, where he refered to the "quality" of something, by trying to insert Aristotle's use of the word "quality." You can't do that. When Engels makes a point, the words means only by what he means by those words.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


The difference between large and small is quantitative. Your examples you didn't mention any qualitative differences.

But that is why you need Aristotle and Hegel's definition of 'quality', since, as I pointed out to you earlier, without it the relational properties of bodies will count as 'qualities'.

Now, 'bigger' and 'smaller' can certainly be quantitative, but not necessarily. They are also qualitative. The problem is, that your use of 'quality' is so vague, there is no definitive answer to this quandary -- in that case, you need Aristotle's definition. It's not a good definition, but it is at least (slightly) defensible.

Anyway, the point is that the qualitative relation between these lumps of metal varies as we concentrate on any given two of them, but with no change in quantity, since all three stay the same all the way through.

But, if you do not like 'bigger', consider tall. That is just as 'qualitative' as 'bald' or 'liquid'.

So, a tall (three year old) child is not a tall human being (in fact, a tall three year old is invariably a small human being). Here we have qualitative change with no addition or subtraction of matter or energy.


You seem to be finding fault with a point that Engels tried to make, where he referred to the "quality" of something, by trying to insert Aristotle's use of the word "quality." You can't do that. When Engels makes a point, the words means only by what he means by those words.

1) Engels in fact used Hegel's theory here, and Hegel explicitly borrowed from Aristotle (there is no wiggle room on that one).

2) It's not my say-so, the Marxist Internet archive (an several dialectical materialist textbooks -- I can give you the list if you want) uses it -- reference in an earlier post.

3) Without this definition, your 'theory' is even more hopelessly vague, as we have seen. You have even had to alter your off-the-cuff 'definition' of 'quality' at least twice since this thread began!

I note also the fact that you have ignored the countless processes in nature and society where 'qualitative' change is not 'sudden', but smooth and gradual.

No worries, Engels and every other DM-fan ignore them too, just like those Christians who ignore pain and suffering, but still tell us that 'god' is good, or those who ignore evidence of dysteleology (lack of design) in nature, but still tell us it is designed.

Heads back in the sand, eh, comrades...

[mikelepore]

For the benefit of new readers, a comment on what this thread is about.

There are some people who think that something never changes in a basic way when magnitudes have changed. Those who believe in laissez faire capitalism believe that the right to private property is absolute, all magnitudes of private property are in one category, all types of using private property are identical actions, all types of taking away someone's property are identical acts.

They often tell the socialist something like, "Your have freedom and you may wear pants. Would you want someone to steal your pants? Of course not. Likewise, it would be morally wrong for society to take possession of the factories, mines and railroads away from the capitalists. To steal their their personal belongings would be to abolish freedom."

Another thing they often say to a poverty-stricken person is, "You have ten dollars in a bank account. Therefore you are a capitalist."

They say that, if a corporation owns a thousand newspapers, that's identical to your freedom of expression when you write a letter.

They deny that wage slavery is a possibility. They say that, as long as no one is holding a gun to your head, and it's legal for you to quit your job, the worker has complete freedom.

When they say these things, they are denying the fact the magnitudes of things can make all the difference when determining what things are.

Realizing that some people are unable to realize (or to admit) that magnitudes can change what things are, and desiring to expose their fallacy, Engels decided in the 1880s to do some writing that listed examples in many fields of knowledge where the magnitudes of things put them into different categories, and examples where the magnitudes of causes of things put their effects into different categories. Engels listed examples from astronomy, geology, and various other fields. He called this concept "transformation of quantity into quality."

Perhaps if the reader can just be persuaded that it's possible in some cases for a quantitative differences to bring about a qualitative difference, the reader may then go on to admit that this could also be the case when talking about private property, freedom, and other social issues.

What I'm saying in this thread is that Engels had a point. His point isn't sufficiently developed to call it a scientific law. It's just an anecdotal observation. It's not expressed in a form that would be directly applicable to the task of distinguishing unambiguously between any true proposition and a false proposition. It's just a kind of analogous point based on a collection of anecdotes. Still, I think Engels had a point.

What Rosa is doing is focusing on here is the fact that it's vague and not given in a scientific form. In chapter 2 of his book 'The Dialectics of Nature', Engels said "THE LAW OF the tranformation of qualtity into quality" [my emphasis]. That promise -- to express his thesis in the directly applicable form that scientists call a "law" -- Engels failed to fulfill.

So in my conversation with Rosa we have a "glass half-empty or half-full" situation. I give Engel credit for making a useful observation, although his way of expressing it is garbled, his unfinished manuscripts is not much more than his notebook of anecdotes, and he exaggerates the "scientific" character of his project. I think he has a good point somewhere in there. Rosa doesn't give him that much credit.

[trivas7]

So in my conversation with Rosa we have a "glass half-empty or half-full" situation. I give Engel credit for making a useful observation, although his way of expressing it is garbled, his unfinished manuscripts is not much more than his notebook of anecdotes, and he exaggerates the "scientific" character of his project. I think he has a good point somewhere in there. Rosa doesn't give him that much credit.
IMO Engels wants to flesh out the implications of the dialectical method; w/ Marx's approval I may add, as he edited Dialectics of Nature. It is simply testament to the dialectical method that is vague, suggestive, and often juxtaposes different levels of abstraction. It is mental temperment, as much as anything.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike, I'll respond later -- I have to go out!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


There are some people who think that something never changes in a basic way when magnitudes have changed. Those who believe in laissez faire capitalism believe that the right to private property is absolute, all magnitudes of private property are in one category, all types of using private property are identical actions, all types of taking away someone's property are identical acts.

You put this in a misleading way, since you omit those among us who accept that significant changes takes place when more matter/energy is added to or subtracted from a system -- we just refuse to say that all such changes occur this way (for example, some are the result of ordering changes, or typological changes, etc. to a system, and where no new matter or energy is added).


Realizing that some people are unable to realize (or to admit) that magnitudes can change what things are, and desiring to expose their fallacy, Engels decided in the 1880s to do some writing that listed examples in many fields of knowledge where the magnitudes of things put them into different categories, and examples where the magnitudes of causes of things put their effects into different categories. Engels listed examples from astronomy, geology, and various other fields. He called this concept "transformation of quantity into quality."

And he was premature in this since we now know that many things do not change in the way he said. This is not to give ground to idealism, for the sort of changes I list are no less material.

Now, only a dogmatist will cling on to a defective theory after it has been shown to be such -- but dialecticians are dogmatists, so this is no surprise.


Perhaps if the reader can just be persuaded that it's possible in some cases for a quantitative differences to bring about a qualitative difference, the reader may then go on to admit that this could also be the case when talking about private property, freedom, and other social issues.

What I'm saying in this thread is that Engels had a point. His point isn't sufficiently developed to call it a scientific law. It's just an anecdotal observation. It's not expressed in a form that would be directly applicable to the task of distinguishing unambiguously between any true proposition and a false proposition. It's just a kind of analogous point based on a collection of anecdotes. Still, I think Engels had a point.

1) Engels certainly thought it was a 'law', and applied to everything in the universe. But the 'evidence' he offered in support of it was laughably thin. Even a rather poor first year undergraduate would be ashamed of it.

2) This 'law' is not even remotely true, so it is not even 'anecdotally' true. There are more processes in reality that break this 'law' than 'obey' it (even if we could figure out what Engels was trying to say -- his formulation of it is hopelessly vague).


What Rosa is doing is focusing on here is the fact that it's vague and not given in a scientific form. In chapter 2 of his book 'The Dialectics of Nature', Engels said "THE LAW OF the transformation of quality into quality" [my emphasis]. That promise -- to express his thesis in the directly applicable form that scientists call a "law" -- Engels failed to fulfill.

In that case, you can't extrapolate this non-'law' into new areas (such as using it to try to analyse future social change, as you have done), any more than you can use, say, Phlogiston theory to predict the behaviour of certain chemicals.


So in my conversation with Rosa we have a "glass half-empty or half-full" situation. I give Engel credit for making a useful observation, although his way of expressing it is garbled, his unfinished manuscripts is not much more than his notebook of anecdotes, and he exaggerates the "scientific" character of his project. I think he has a good point somewhere in there. Rosa doesn't give him that much credit.

But, it is not possible to say what this 'good point' actually is. Certainly you haven't been able to.

After 130 years of dialecticians trying to find this 'good point', and failing miserably, I think we can safely say that there are about as many 'good points' here as there are teeth in a duck's mouth.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


IMO Engels wants to flesh out the implications of the dialectical method; w/ Marx's approval I may add, as he edited Dialectics of Nature. It is simply testament to the dialectical method that is vague, suggestive, and often juxtaposes different levels of abstraction.

Marx did not 'edit' Dialectics of Nature (the book was unpublished -- even Engels grew tired of it!).

And we already know Marx abandoned this 'theory' by the time he came to write Das Kapital:

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


It is mental temperment, as much as anything

Indeed, and we have a name for it: "confusion".

[mikelepore]

.......... We just refuse to say that all such changes occur this way ......... since we now know that many things do not change in the way he said ............ applied to everything in the universe ............ There are more processes in reality that break this 'law' than 'obey' it .............

I don't think the point was that it ALWAYS happens. I think the point was that it SOMETIMES happens, offered as an answer to those who claim that it NEVER happens.

If Engels thought that it ALWAYS happens, which I didn't notice, then I have overlooked that. That's what I mean by there being a point there, however obscured. Sometimes we have to recognize what the kernel was in what a dead writer said, even if he didn't know what it was himself.

The numerical structures in the makeup of nature were new ideas in those days; for example, it was only in 1869 that Mendeleev had suggested the periodic table, and in 1805 Dalton had suggested that elements combine in definite proportions to form compounds. Some people were startled by what must have seemed Pythagorean, as if people were discovering that the world is fundamentally made of numbers. Engels was tinkering with that notion that numbers are the building blocks of reality. Compared to what we know today, his effort may seem primitive.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


I don't think the point was that it ALWAYS happens. I think the point was that it SOMETIMES happens, offered as an answer to those who claim that it NEVER happens.

1) Once more you miss the point: if this only happens sometimes, you can't extroplate it to explain social change (as you try to do), since you have no way of knowing if any of these changes are exceptions.

2) In fact, this 'law' is far too vague for anyone to be able to say if it ever happens.


The numerical structures in the makeup of nature were new ideas in those days; for example, it was only in 1869 that Mendeleev had suggested the periodic table, and in 1805 Dalton had suggested that elements combine in definite proportions to form compounds. Some people were startled by what must have seemed Pythagorean, as if people were discovering that the world is fundamentally made of numbers. Engels was tinkering with that notion that numbers are the building blocks of reality. Compared to what we know today, his effort may seem primitive.

Well, numbers can't be the building blocks of anything since they aren't material.

[mikelepore]

1) Once more you miss the point: if this only happens sometimes, you can't extroplate it to explain social change (as you try to do), since you have no way of knowing if any of these changes are exceptions.

2) In fact, this 'law' is far too vague for anyone to be able to say if it ever happens.

Then you have no way to answer the right wing "Libertarians" who consider principles to be independent of magnitudes. They will explain, with perfect self-consistency: If it's morally wrong to steal someone else's property, as in the case of a mugger grabbing an old person's purse on the street, then's it's also wrong for a starving person to avoid dying from starvation by stealing an apple from a billionaire's orchard. Either property rights exist or they do not. You cannot reply to them without the fact that quantitative differences can change relationships into their opposites. If you are correct than capitalism is fully vindicated.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Mike:


Then you have no way to answer the right wing "Libertarians" who consider principles to be independent of magnitudes. They will explain, with perfect self-consistency: If it's morally wrong to steal someone else's property, as in the case of a mugger grabbing an old person's purse on the street, then's it's also wrong for a starving person to avoid dying from starvation by stealing an apple from a billionaire's orchard. Either property rights exist or they do not. You cannot reply to them without the fact that quantitative differences can change relationships into their opposites. If you are correct than capitalism is fully vindicated.

I do not think that such a weak, imprecise and badly thought-out 'law' such as this one of Engels's is going to sway anyone who comes out with specious reasoning like this.

In which case, you have no (effective) reply to them either.

The solution, of course, is not to moralise, and if the 'libertarians' want to reason this way, scr*w them.


You cannot reply to them without the fact that quantitative differences can change relationships into their opposites.

But we already know that there are so many exceptions to this suposed rule that it cannot safely be extrapolated into such areas.

This is quite apart from the fact that Engels's 'law' says nothing about:


quantitative differences can change relationships into their opposites.

Nor is it to point out that a 'can' here is far too weak; you need a 'must' if you want to sway such 'libertarians' -- and where are you going to get that from?

[trivas7]

And we already know Marx abandoned this 'theory' by the time he came to write Das Kapital.
OTC, a Marxism without dialectics is Marxism in a castrated form, Marxism without class struggle, without revolution; it is a lifeless caricature that has nothing to do w/ the revolutionary ideas of Marx and Engels.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


OTC, a Marxism without dialectics is Marxism in a castrated form, Marxism without class struggle, without revolution; it is a lifeless caricature that has nothing to do w/ the revolutionary ideas of Marx and Engels.

1) As you have had pointed out to you before, Dialectical Marxism minus the dialectics is just Hhistorical Materialism.

2) All you seem capable of doing is repeating baseless claims like this (as articles of faith, no doubt), all the while ignoring argument and evidence to the contrary. Hence, far from being lifeless, dialectics is the kiss of death -- again, as you have had pointed out to you: if dialectics were true, change would be impossible. [Links in the Hegel and Marx thread.]

So, no wonder Marx waved goodbye to dialecics (as it has traditionally been understood) by the time he wrote Das Kapital.

[trivas7]

Trivas:
1) As you have had pointed out to you before, Dialectical Marxism minus the dialectics is just Hhistorical Materialism.

What is historical materialism without materialist dialectics? Nothing but a ham sandwich.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


What is historical materialism without materialist dialectics? Nothing but a ham sandwich

Answer: a scientific theory devoid of mysticism.

Next question...

[trivas7]

Answer: a scientific theory devoid of mysticism.

Any scientific theory is historical materialism? Hardly.



Rupert Read is also sympathetic to a Marxist view of history, interpreting it through Wittgenstein's eyes (which is a tactic I too have adopted)

Yes, tactics, Rosa, you are all about tactics.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Any scientific theory is historical materialism? Hardly.

Notice the way you have to change my "a" into your "any" to make this fib of yours work?


Yes, tactics, Rosa, you are all about tactics.

"All"? Can we have your proof of that allegation?

[trivas7]

Trivas:
Notice the way you have to change my "a" into your "any" to make this fib of yours work?

Then your response is hardly informative. Talk about wasting space.

Historical materialism procedes from the premise that the mainspring of human development is, in the last analysis, the development of the productive forces -- humankind's power over nature. Engels provides a brief outline of the basic principle of historical materialism:



The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange.


Intrinsic to this general principle -- and what makes it a science -- is the emphasis upon the process of history. The motive force, so to speak, of progress lies in the unity and conflict bt the productive forces and the relations of production. Thus a dialectical and materialist understanding of history.

[Kronos]

Next question... I have a question. Is there a difference between claiming that DM is nonsense, and that DM has prevented successful revolution?

I cannot imagine how the failures of revolution can be blamed on some philosophical doctrine rather than on an innumerable series of disadvantages, none of which are directly or indirectly related to the tenants of DM.

Would you say that, for instance, many decisions were made by communist parties that were based on principles of DM, which, because the principles were bunk, resulted in disaster?

Somehow I don't think a ridiculous philosophy can be blamed for failed revolutions. I imagine that communists can believe in flying spaghetti monsters and still succeed with revolution if the circumstances are right.

I venture to say, Rosa, that you have spent so much time perfecting and refining your anti-dialectics that you won't allow yourself to stop wasting time debating with deaf ears.

I think you people are splitting hairs. And I think you, miss, need to let a bit of the noble lie live...for the sake of the communists. Taking Hegel away from communists is like taking Gatorade away from Pele. Wait, did Gatorade even exist in Pele's day? Never mind. You know what I mean. You are quite resourceful in just about every field there is so it isn't as if you have to devote your time to smashing that putz, Hegel.

I want to focus on Wittgenstein. Let's do.

Here's one:

"I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one."

Very clever, Ludwig. Very clever.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Then your response is hardly informative.

This from the man who can't answer simple questions.


Talk about wasting space

No, I refuse to talk about you.


Historical materialism procedes from the premise that the mainspring of human development is, in the last analysis, the development of the productive forces -- humankind's power over nature. Engels provides a brief outline of the basic principle of historical materialism:

Which, as you have been told many times already, I accept.

Notice, too, that you could tell us all this without an atom of 'dialectics'.


Intrinsic to this general principle -- and what makes it a science -- is the emphasis upon the process of history. The motive force, so to speak, of progress lies in the unity and conflict bt the productive forces and the relations of production. Thus a dialectical and materialist understanding of history.

You have just tacked the phrase 'dialectical materialism' on at the end, and for no good reason (except perhaps to re-affirm your 'orthodoxy'). This useless 'theory', if true, would prevent change, thus destroying historical materialism, as you have also been told many times.

What you need to do is stop repeating this mantra (no matter how much better it makes you feel) and address my proof that dialectics not only cannot explain change, it would make change impossible.

But, we already know you 'do not think about things you don't think about...'

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kronos:


Is there a difference between claiming that DM is nonsense, and that DM has prevented successful revolution?

Since I have never claimed the latter, you should perhaps address this to someone who has.

So, this is a waste of effort:


I cannot imagine how the failures of revolution can be blamed on some philosophical doctrine rather than on an innumerable series of disadvantages, none of which are directly or indirectly related to the tenants of DM.

Would you say that, for instance, many decisions were made by communist parties that were based on principles of DM, which, because the principles were bunk, resulted in disaster?

Somehow I don't think a ridiculous philosophy can be blamed for failed revolutions. I imagine that communists can believe in flying spaghetti monsters and still succeed with revolution if the circumstances are right.

I venture to say, Rosa, that you have spent so much time perfecting and refining your anti-dialectics that you won't allow yourself to stop wasting time debating with deaf ears.

And this seems no less off-topic, too:


I think you people are splitting hairs. And I think you, miss, need to let a bit of the noble lie live...for the sake of the communists. Taking Hegel away from communists is like taking Gatorade away from Pele. Wait, did Gatorade even exist in Pele's day? Never mind. You know what I mean. You are quite resourceful in just about every field there is so it isn't as if you have to devote your time to smashing that putz, Hegel.

I want to focus on Wittgenstein. Let's do.

Here's one:

"I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one."

Very clever, Ludwig. Very clever.

But, did you call me 'miss'!!

[trivas7]

What you need to do is stop repeating this mantra (no matter how much better it makes you feel) and address my proof that dialectics not only cannot explain change, it would make change impossible.

You are mistaken to believe that dialectics purports to explain change, whatever that means.

Dialectics is the distinctive feature of a Marxist theory of cognition -- the process of knowing, in relation to practice, the concrete activities of man in specific social and historical circumstances. Dialectics, as Lenin pointed out, imparted to the Marxist theory of knowledge its distinct quality -- the analysis of concrete conditions, in interaction and contradiction, in motion. Historical materialism is that concrete analysis applied to history.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


You are mistaken to believe that dialectics purports to explain change, whatever that means.

Fine by me; that just means that this 'theory' is more useless than even I had imagined.


Dialectics is the distinctive feature of a Marxist theory of cognition -- the process of knowing, in relation to practice, the concrete activities of man in specific social and historical circumstances. Dialectics, as Lenin pointed out, imparted to the Marxist theory of knowledge its distinct quality -- the analysis of concrete conditions, in interaction and contradiction, in motion. Historical materialism is that concrete analysis applied to history.

Except, as I have shown, it is useless even here.

And, if true, would make change impossible.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Except, Engels said this:


Dialectics, however, is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch11.htm

So, dialectics is far more than you suggested; and as a science of motion, it surely seeks to explain social and natural change, contrary to what you allege.

[I am away from home right now, so I do not have access to my files; otherwise, I would quote many more dialecticians who disagree with you. I'll put that right when I get back.]

[Kronos]

Since I have never claimed the latter

Well it certainly sounds like you have. Read the blue box in the right column labeled "Introduction" at your site.


But, did you call me 'miss'!!

I did, I did. It was a gesture of respect, maam....er, Rosa.

[trivas7]

Except, as I have shown, it is useless even here.

OTC, all you've demonstrated is that a Wittgensteinian reading of Marx is unMarxian.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Kronos:


Well it certainly sounds like you have. Read the blue box in the right column labeled "Introduction" at your site.

Ok, here it is:


Dialectical Materialism (DM) has been the official philosophy of active revolutionary socialists for over a hundred and thirty years.

During that time, Dialectical Marxism has 'enjoyed' spectacular lack of success.

Given the fact that dialecticians assure us that truth is tested in practice, and that "materialist dialectics" is the main-spring of all they do, this can only mean that this 'theory' has been tested and shown to fail.

However, not only is it virtually impossible for most Dialectical Marxists to accept this negative picture of their own 'success', it is more difficult still for them to blame it even so much as partly on the misbegotten theory they have inherited from Hegel.

In fact, it doesn't even make the reserve list.

This must mean that in a world where dialecticians claim that everything is interconnected, the only two things in the entire universe that are not inter-linked are the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism and its core theory: 'Materialist Dialectics'!

This is impossible to believe.

Unfortunately, their denial means that Dialectical Marxists never learn from their mistakes --, they just blame this long-term failure on anything and everything else.

Naturally, this just leads to yet more failures, and the cycle continues year on year.


Further down I add this:


(1) It is important to emphasise from the outset that I am not blaming the long-term failure of Marxism solely on the acceptance of the Hermetic ideas dialecticians inherited from Hegel.

It is worth repeating this since I still encounter comments on Internet discussion boards, and still receive e-mails from those who claim to have read the above words, who still think I am blaming all our woes on dialectics. I am not.

However, no matter how many times I repeat this caveat, the message will not sink in (and this is after several years of continually making this very point!).

It seems that this is one part of the universe over which the Heraclitean Flux has no power!

Here is just the latest example.

What is being claimed, however, is that adherence to this 'theory' is one of the subjective reasons why Dialectical Marxism has become a bye-word for failure.

There are other, objective reasons why the class enemy still runs this planet, but since revolutions require revolutionaries with ideas in their heads, this 'theory' must take some of the blame.

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor.

It certainly helps explain why revolutionary groups are in general vanishingly small, neurotically sectarian, studiously unreasonable, consistently conservative, theoretically deferential to 'tradition', and almost invariably lean toward some form of substitutionism.

Naturally, this has had a direct bearing on our lack of impact on the working-class over the last seventy years or so -- and probably for much longer -- and thus on the continuing success of Capitalism.

The following 'Unity of Opposites' is difficult to explain otherwise:

The larger the proletariat, the smaller the impact that Dialectical Marxism has on it.

Sadly, this will continue while comrades cling on to this regressive doctrine.

The highlighted part applies to you, too, it seems.

So, where does it say that DM is responsible for the failure of a single revolution?

Moreover, in Essays Nine Part Two and Ten Part One I go to great lengths to say exactly what I do mean.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20010_01.htm

And, if you want to call me anything, call me 'Rosa', 'Ms' or 'comrade', please.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


OTC, all you've demonstrated is that a Wittgensteinian reading of Marx is unMarxian.

1) My proof that dialectics, if true, would make change impossible is not based on anything Wittgenstein said, or would say.

2) Where have I even so much as attempted to give a Wittgensteinian 'reading of Marx'? [I certainly aim to do that, but I haven't done so yet.]

3) As I said earlier, you need to make some effort, not matter how feable, to focus that logically-challenged space between your ears for a few more seconds and refrain from advancing the same unsupported allegations, over and over again, and make some attempt to show where my demolition of this 'theory' is in error.

But, we alrady know you are not up to that task, which explains why you have to keep coming out with these touching declarations of faith, rather like those who fill the gospel halls around the world.