What about metaphysics? [Archive]

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th February 2010, 04:33

GB:

You say in your other post "Language is not a container." What do you mean by this? How can you say what language is not? What if I were to say "Language is a shoe", or conversely, "language is not a shoe", or anything else. How could I prove that this is the case without resorting to a priori arguments?

The point of that comment is to remind readers to distrust a certain metaphor (or as Wittgenstein used to put it "To free oneself from a certain picture"), that is, that language dictates to us what it means, that there is an a priori structure to language which tells us how to use it.

It's not a case of proving anything, it is more one of knowing how to use language and seeing that this metaphor is inappropriate.

The sentence "Tony Blair has a copy of Das Kapital" is valid because I know who Tony blair is, I know what Das Kapital is, and I know what to have x is. Whether this says anything about anything actually existing is another matter, the point is that I understand the proposition itself. As Bertrand Russell argues,

Well, a sentence cannot be valid, but an argument can. And the point of my argument was to highlight the difference between empirical propositions and metaphysical ones.

For example, if someone thought language was a shoe, then that would reveal they had some odd ideas about shoes, or that they did not know how to use this word.

However, why we hold certain empirical propositions true was of no concern to me in that essay -- it's a separate issue.

And I reject this dichotomy of Russell's:

"There is no state of mind in which we are directly aware of x; all our knowledge of x is really knowledge of truths, and the actual thing which is x is not... known to us at all. We know a description, and we know that there is just one object to which this descrption applies, though x itself is not directly known to us."

But we can debate that another time.

You will, however note that Russell asserts several a priori 'truths' here dogmatically.

Now, in order not to immediately dismiss this claim, it seems to me that we have to have a working definition of to know, and this gets us back to the primary problem of the Theaetetus: what is it to know? And to answer this is to solve the mind/matter riddle--whether there is an objective world for us to know at all, and what that world constitutes, ie. is it an idea or derivation of the mind, or does it hold some objective status outside the mind? How can we have true and proper knowledge of anything that exists outside the mind?

I think it's more important to see how we actually use the verb 'to know' than it is to listen to Plato tell us how we must use it.

And, there is no mind/matter riddle; this is just another confusion -- another pseudo-problem -- based on the systematic misuse of language we have inherited from Descartes and the Christians.

These patterns of thought have dominated the 'west' since ancient Greek times, as Marx noted: "The ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class".

Here is how I explained this in an earlier thread on why dialectical materialism is a world view:

There are two interconnected reasons, I think.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fortunately, history has predisposed these prophets to ascertain the truth about reality for the rest of us, which means that they are our 'naturally-ordained' leaders. That in turn meant these 'leaders' were also teachers of the 'ignorant masses' and who could thus legitimately substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in 'their own interests', you understand. This is because the masses are too caught up in 'commodity fetishism' to see the truth for themselves.

And that is why DM is a world-view.

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

So, this 'theory' insulates the militant mind from the facts; it tells such comrades that reality 'contradicts' outward appearances. Hence, even if Dialectical Marxism appears to be a long-term failure, those with a the equivalent of a dialectical 'third eye' can see the opposite is in fact the case: Dialectical Marxism is a ringing success!

In that case, awkward facts can either be ignored or they can be re-configured into their opposite.

In that case:

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

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

I stand no chance...

Hence, the fondness for a priori dogmatics among ruling-class hacks (like Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Hegel...) and Dialectical Marxists alike.

Buffalo Souljah

20th February 2010, 17:04

Those posts are extracts from essays at my site, and I have been writing those essays since July 1998.

I do not have a profession; I am now an ordinary worker. However, I was a part-time university Philosophy lecturer in the 1980s, for a while.

Sounds alot like that Bob Dylan lyric: "20 years of schooling and they put you on the day shift." I can sympathize.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th February 2010, 19:09

Great song...!

syndicat

20th February 2010, 23:00

re: empirical basis for metaphysics:

Isn't this what Heidegger tries to do in works like Being and Time? It would seem to me that any empirical analysis of "thought"(whatever that is) would outweight a priori asserions, because of the fact that they are verified by experience. How can you contest research done on the computation of neurons with (absurd) notions compiled through "necessity" or based upon assumptions that are not necessarily true or verifiable? It seems to me that this would be a contradiction of methods.

It's impossible to say. Heidegger is impenetrable, in my opinion. I'm generally suspicious of his entire orientation to constant neologisms and obscure expressions. It makes it hard to figure out what would make his sentences true.

Rosa Lichtenstein

21st February 2010, 11:02

The best thing to read on Heidegger is this:

Paul Edwards (2004), Heidegger's Confusions (Prometheus Books).

Dermezel

1st March 2010, 13:34

Rosa you have quite clearly not studied enough philosophy to give an informed explanation of Dialectical Materialism. First, Dialectics was established by finding the flaws in traditional/absolutist logic and positivism:

Having thus drawn the boundaries of logic (‘that logic should have been thus successful is an advantage which it owes entirely to its limitations, whereby it is justified in abstracting indeed, it is under obligation to do so from all objects of knowledge and their differences....’), Kant painstakingly investigated its fundamental possibilities. Its competence proved to be very narrow. By virtue of the formality mentioned, it of necessity left out of account the differences in the views that clashed in discussion, and remained absolutely neutral not only in, say, the dispute between Leibniz and Hume but also in a dispute between a wise man and a fool, so long as the fool ‘correctly’ set out whatever ideas came into his head from God knew where, and however absurd and foolish they were. Its rules were such that it must logically justify any absurdity so long as the latter was not self-contradictory. A self-consistent stupidity must pass freely through the filter of general logic.

From an Introduction to Soviet Psychology.

Next it was discovered no system of thought can escape contradictions:

Fichte tried in that way to deduce the whole system of logical axioms and categories, in order to understand them as the universal schemas, consistently taken into practice, for uniting of empirical data, as degrees or phases of the production of concepts, for concretising the initial, still undivided concept into a number of its universal and necessary predicate-definitions. There is no need here to explain why Fichte did not succeed in his programme of deducing the whole system of logical categories, why he did not succeed in turning logic into an exact science, into a system. In this case it was important to have posed the problem. Let us merely note that the ensuing criticism of his conception was directed precisely at explaining the reasons for his failure, and at analysing the premises that hindered his idea of reforming logic, of deducing its whole content from an investigation of actual thinking, and in that way of uniting within one and the same system categories that stood in a relation of direct negation of one another (formal contradiction), and that had seemed to Kant to be antinomically uncombinable, and not includable within one non-contradictory system.

After Schelling the problem consisted in uniting dialectics as the true schema of developing knowledge and logic as the system of rules of thinking in general. What was the relation of the rules of logic to the real schemas (laws) of the development of understanding? Were they different, mutually unconnected ‘things’? Or was logic simply the conscious and deliberately applied schema of the real development of science? If it was, it was all the more inadmissible to leave it in its old, so primitive form. At this point the torch was taken up by Hegel.Next Hegel admitted the contradictions as real, and not just illusions that we will one day see past:

That, incidentally, was where Kant’s illusion originated, the illusion that logic as a theory had long ago acquired a fully closed, completed character and not only was not in need of development of its propositions but could not be by its very nature. Schelling also understood Kant’s logic as an absolutely precise presentation of the principles and rules of thinking in concepts.

Hegel had doubts about the proposition that it was the rules of logic that prevented understanding of the process of the passage of the concept into the object and vice versa, of the subjective into the objective (and in general of opposites into one another). He saw in it not evidence of the organic deficiency of thought but only the limitations of Kant’s ideas about it. Kantian logic was only a limitedly true theory of thought. Real thought, the real subject matter of logic as a science, as a matter of fact was something else; therefore it was necessary to bring the theory of thought into agreement with its real subject matter.

Hegel saw the need for a critical reconsideration of traditional logic primarily in the extreme, glaring discrepancy between the principles and rules that Kant considered absolutely universal forms of thought and the real results that had been achieved by human civilisation in the course of its development. ‘A comparison of the forms to which Spirit has risen in the worlds of Practice and Religion, and of Science in every department of knowledge Positive and Speculative - a comparison of these with the form which Logic, that is, Spirit’s knowledge of its own pure essence - has attained, shows such a glaring discrepancy that it cannot fail to strike the most superficial observer that the latter is inadequate to the lofty development of the former, and unworthy of it.’

Thus the existing logical theories did not correspond to the real practice of thought, and thinking about thought (i.e. logic) consequently lagged behind thinking about everything else, behind the thinking that was realised as the science of the external world, as consciousness fixed in the form of knowledge and things created by the power of knowledge, in the form of the whole organism of civilisation. In functioning as thinking about the world, thought had achieved such success that beside it thinking about thought proved to be something quite incommensurable, wretched, deficient, and poor. To take it on faith that human thought had really been and was guided by the rules, laws, and principles that in the aggregate constituted traditional logic was to make all the progress of science and practice simply inexplicable.

Hence there arose the paradox that the human intellect, which had created modern culture, had come to a standstill in amazement before its own creation. Schelling had also expressed this amazement of the ‘spirit’, and it was just at this point that Hegel began to differ with him.Next Marx/Engels (mostly Engels) showed that materialism was superior to idealism because it is more coherent. You do not have an idealistic theory of medicine or gravity. [/quote]

Dialectical Materialism was thus established by a series of arguments within philosophy itself, it was not just presented ex nihilo. All points of the philosophy can be justified with logical argument. It is not a matter of faith.

If you believe:

1- There are real contradictions. i.e. contradictory thoughts, opposing forces.

2- Reality is material.

You are a Dialectical Materialist.

For more extensive arguments I suggest reading Christopher Caudwell's "Reality: A Study in Bourgeoisie Philosophy" available online. I will share some excerpts:

A-B do not exist as eternally discrete entities. The Universe is a becoming, a development. The becoming is primary. Reality does not become in time and space, but time and space are aspects of its becoming. Becoming is change. If a thing is changed, it manifests an unlike, a hitherto non-present quality. If change is real, and by our premises it is primary, such a quality does not come into existence either by the gradual decrement of a known quality to nothing, or the gradual increment of a very faint quality to something. Before, it was not, not in any way. Now it is, in every way. There has therefore been a ‘jump’. To deny this is to deny the reality of change, and to suggest that the quality was already there, but so faintly we did not ‘notice it’. But nothing new would then have come into being. There would therefore have been no change, and reality is, by our definition, change.Note that Caudwell accepted General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, as both true, while they were still controversial and predicted that they would not be united into a unified theory for some time.

Last, you note Marx/Engels were not working class (the founders of Dialectical Materialism were not working class)- that makes sense. You would expect a more educated person with more resources and a liberal education in philosophy to develop Dialectical Materialism. The point of the left is to make it so there is no working class- not to romanticize the working class.

I would not take the statement of a fast food worker over a physicist, or biologist or psychologist in the relevant fields of expertise just because he or she was a worker. See my thread on the "Labor Theory of Value as a Prescriptive" in the "Theory" forums.

Dermezel

1st March 2010, 13:41

Mao and other Marxist-Leninists, and especially those under the balloon term of cultural relativists hammer on the futility of metaphysical thinking, but Kant seems to be the foundation of modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Does this mean there are a priori judgments that can be made about reality, or is such a question even considered worthwhile today? Are there any assessments that can be made about human thought and our ability to understand and interact with reality that can be made using metaphysical thinking? ie, that something is true because it is necessary (apodeictic truth), or that space and time are objective, etc.? Where is contemporary metaphysics going in the face of the onslaught from subjectivism and moral/cultural relativism?

Marx made no judgments on psychology, and if he did he was probably wrong.

As for Kant's a priori knowledge, that is very different then cognitive mechanisms found in evolutionary psychology and modern day neuroscience. That is dealing more with instincts, which may be matters of prescription nor just knowledge. Likewise, you are not conscious of instincts like you are knowledge.

As for objective/subjective truth, the Dialectical response is that both exist. Ultimately the subjective exists as a material entity within an objective world. Saying everything is objective, or everything is subjective is one sided and inaccurate and ridiculous.

As for moral/cultural relativism, the idea of any weird sort of "pure" relativism is in fact anti-Marxist insofar as it implies people can be conditioned to just enjoy being slaves in a capitalist system. Or that barbaric practices like murder, rape, thievery, etc, are okay and just dismissed as cultural constructs.

Again I do not know of anywhere Marx wrote on this matter, and if he wrote anything like human behavior is 100% determined by environmental factors he is very clearly wrong. I do know he made statements about morality, implying there is a bourgeoisie and proletariat morality, and those statements may have been in error as is evident by modern day evolutionary psychology and the evidence for instinctive altruism.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 00:36

Rosa you have quite clearly not studied enough philosophy to give an informed explanation of Dialectical Materialism.

I'm not to sure telling someone with a PhD in Philosophy they haven't studied enough philosophy is the best way to disagree with someone. Now I'm no Philosopher, but I'll take a crack at this.

First, Dialectics was established by finding the flaws in traditional/absolutist logic and positivism:

Having thus drawn the boundaries of logic (‘that logic should have been thus successful is an advantage which it owes entirely to its limitations, whereby it is justified in abstracting indeed, it is under obligation to do so from all objects of knowledge and their differences....’), Kant painstakingly investigated its fundamental possibilities. Its competence proved to be very narrow. By virtue of the formality mentioned, it of necessity left out of account the differences in the views that clashed in discussion, and remained absolutely neutral not only in, say, the dispute between Leibniz and Hume but also in a dispute between a wise man and a fool, so long as the fool ‘correctly’ set out whatever ideas came into his head from God knew where, and however absurd and foolish they were. Its rules were such that it must logically justify any absurdity so long as the latter was not self-contradictory. A self-consistent stupidity must pass freely through the filter of general logic.

From an Introduction to Soviet Psychology.

It looks like this whole thing looks at logic before Frege. From that point on formal logic has grown significantly. So Kant, Leibniz and Hume aren't the best people to look to for information on logic. In fact, they only knew of Aristotolean Logic and nothing of anything like Predicate Logic etc.

Next it was discovered no system of thought can escape contradictions:

Fichte tried in that way to deduce the whole system of logical axioms and categories, in order to understand them as the universal schemas, consistently taken into practice, for uniting of empirical data, as degrees or phases of the production of concepts, for concretising the initial, still undivided concept into a number of its universal and necessary predicate-definitions. There is no need here to explain why Fichte did not succeed in his programme of deducing the whole system of logical categories, why he did not succeed in turning logic into an exact science, into a system. In this case it was important to have posed the problem. Let us merely note that the ensuing criticism of his conception was directed precisely at explaining the reasons for his failure, and at analysing the premises that hindered his idea of reforming logic, of deducing its whole content from an investigation of actual thinking, and in that way of uniting within one and the same system categories that stood in a relation of direct negation of one another (formal contradiction), and that had seemed to Kant to be antinomically uncombinable, and not includable within one non-contradictory system.

After Schelling the problem consisted in uniting dialectics as the true schema of developing knowledge and logic as the system of rules of thinking in general. What was the relation of the rules of logic to the real schemas (laws) of the development of understanding? Were they different, mutually unconnected ‘things’? Or was logic simply the conscious and deliberately applied schema of the real development of science? If it was, it was all the more inadmissible to leave it in its old, so primitive form. At this point the torch was taken up by Hegel.

Once again, the Logic you speak of is pre-modern logic.

None of these statements support the idea that contradictions exist everywhere.

Finally, your premise that all forms of thought can escape contradictions is in no way supported by psychology, cognative science or any other form off study.

Next Hegel admitted the contradictions as real, and not just illusions that we will one day see past:

That, incidentally, was where Kant’s illusion originated, the illusion that logic as a theory had long ago acquired a fully closed, completed character and not only was not in need of development of its propositions but could not be by its very nature. Schelling also understood Kant’s logic as an absolutely precise presentation of the principles and rules of thinking in concepts.

Hegel had doubts about the proposition that it was the rules of logic that prevented understanding of the process of the passage of the concept into the object and vice versa, of the subjective into the objective (and in general of opposites into one another). He saw in it not evidence of the organic deficiency of thought but only the limitations of Kant’s ideas about it. Kantian logic was only a limitedly true theory of thought. Real thought, the real subject matter of logic as a science, as a matter of fact was something else; therefore it was necessary to bring the theory of thought into agreement with its real subject matter.

Hegel saw the need for a critical reconsideration of traditional logic primarily in the extreme, glaring discrepancy between the principles and rules that Kant considered absolutely universal forms of thought and the real results that had been achieved by human civilisation in the course of its development. ‘A comparison of the forms to which Spirit has risen in the worlds of Practice and Religion, and of Science in every department of knowledge Positive and Speculative - a comparison of these with the form which Logic, that is, Spirit’s knowledge of its own pure essence - has attained, shows such a glaring discrepancy that it cannot fail to strike the most superficial observer that the latter is inadequate to the lofty development of the former, and unworthy of it.’

Thus the existing logical theories did not correspond to the real practice of thought, and thinking about thought (i.e. logic) consequently lagged behind thinking about everything else, behind the thinking that was realised as the science of the external world, as consciousness fixed in the form of knowledge and things created by the power of knowledge, in the form of the whole organism of civilisation. In functioning as thinking about the world, thought had achieved such success that beside it thinking about thought proved to be something quite incommensurable, wretched, deficient, and poor. To take it on faith that human thought had really been and was guided by the rules, laws, and principles that in the aggregate constituted traditional logic was to make all the progress of science and practice simply inexplicable.

Hence there arose the paradox that the human intellect, which had created modern culture, had come to a standstill in amazement before its own creation. Schelling had also expressed this amazement of the ‘spirit’, and it was just at this point that Hegel began to differ with him.

Hegel here isn't admitting that contradictions are real. All this says is that Hegel, through pure thought alone came up with his dialectic. No scientific analysis, just sitting on his ass and thinking.

Dialectical Materialism was thus established by a series of arguments within philosophy itself, it was not just presented ex nihilo. All points of the philosophy can be justified with logical argument. It is not a matter of faith.

None of what you wrote above supports this, other than that it came out of philosophical arguementation. You have yet to show that logic supports dialectical materialism.

If you believe:

1- There are real contradictions. i.e. contradictory thoughts, opposing forces.

2- Reality is material.

You are a Dialectical Materialist.

I don't believe the first. Guess I'm not a Dialectical Materialist

For more extensive arguments I suggest reading Christopher Caudwell's "Reality: A Study in Bourgeoisie Philosophy" available online. I will share some excerpts:

A-B do not exist as eternally discrete entities. The Universe is a becoming, a development. The becoming is primary. Reality does not become in time and space, but time and space are aspects of its becoming. Becoming is change. If a thing is changed, it manifests an unlike, a hitherto non-present quality. If change is real, and by our premises it is primary, such a quality does not come into existence either by the gradual decrement of a known quality to nothing, or the gradual increment of a very faint quality to something. Before, it was not, not in any way. Now it is, in every way. There has therefore been a ‘jump’. To deny this is to deny the reality of change, and to suggest that the quality was already there, but so faintly we did not ‘notice it’. But nothing new would then have come into being. There would therefore have been no change, and reality is, by our definition, change.

Well this just reads like a whole bunch of nonsense to me. It would seem that it assumes that everything is ever changing, without having ever measured everything changing. There is no possible way to know that everything is constantly changing (becoming, as philosophers stupidly call changing).

Also, reality is not by definition change. In life reality is used as a word to distiguish between what we believe to be true and what we imagine. It is not used to mean change.

Note that Caudwell accepted General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, as both true, while they were still controversial and predicted that they would not be united into a unified theory for some time.

So what?

Last, you note Marx/Engels were not working class (the founders of Dialectical Materialism were not working class)- that makes sense. You would expect a more educated person with more resources and a liberal education in philosophy to develop Dialectical Materialism. The point of the left is to make it so there is no working class- not to romanticize the working class.

I would not take the statement of a fast food worker over a physicist, or biologist or psychologist in the relevant fields of expertise just because he or she was a worker. See my thread on the "Labor Theory of Value as a Prescriptive" in the "Theory" forums.

But their more liberal education had them learning traditional philosophy, which was done through pure thought experiments, a priori reasoning. A priori reasoning assumes the universe is dialectical without measuring how it is. Why people believe this without proof is amazing.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 02:46

It looks like this whole thing looks at logic before Frege. From that point on formal logic has grown significantly. So Kant, Leibniz and Hume aren't the best people to look to for information on logic. In fact, they only knew of Aristotolean Logic and nothing of anything like Predicate Logic etc.

Does predicate logic admit to contradictions or does it primarily measure consistency? Recall Kant's entire point was that logic primarily measures consistency. To my knowledge, there is no logic yet that measures anything but consistency. That's why you can't know today's weather by means of logical deduction.

So correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I am, but let's say I am debating a creationist, and for odd reason, have decided to eschew all empirical data and instead go by pure logic. How am I supposed to win this argument exactly? Am I 100% supposed to look for a contradiction, and if I cannot find one, do I then admit the creationist is correct just because he or she has remained consistent?

Or let's say I am trying to study Big Bang Theory, or the Origin of the Universe in general, but this time instead of doing research I am going to use pure predicate logic. Tell me, without background radiation, red shift detection, or measurements of primordial elements how I am going to establish Big Bang Theory over Steady-State or a Monotheist myth.

If you can that would be amazing. It would be the first time ever someone proved real-world empirical truths with pure logic. If you cannot, which I am assuming (again correct me if I'm wrong), you will have to admit that logic is a matter of measuring consistency and Kant's argument still applies.

I do look forward to your response.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 03:02

Does predicate logic admit to contradictions or does it primarily measure consistency?

It does not admit to these so-called contradictions. Why would it? Hell, why should it?

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 03:09

Also, Predicate logic is one example of the vast expansion of logic in the last century.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 03:10

None of these statements support the idea that contradictions exist everywhere.

I don't think you know what a contradiction is. Here is the dictionary definition:

–noun1.the act of contradicting; gainsaying or opposition.

2.assertion of the contrary or opposite; denial.

3.a statement or proposition that contradicts or denies another or itself and is logically incongruous.

4.direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.

5.a contradictory act, fact, etc.

Finally, your premise that all forms of thought can escape contradictions is in no way supported by psychology, cognative science or any other form off study.

I actually said the opposite, no systems of thought can escape contradictions, primarily because perception cannot be completely reduced to cognition.

As for whether this is supported by psychology, I will not say psychologists generally take a stand on matters of philosophy. According to your reasoning psychology doesn't support any philosophy at all, even the conclusion that philosophy is meaningless or worthless.

However if you go by an actual definition of contradiction, you can note that we see material contradictions everywhere in modern psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology. Contradictions between man's instincts developed during our ancestral evolutionary environment, and their maladaptive nature in the modern era. Contradictions with respect to how our body evolved to work no more then 4 hours a day of relatively easy work, and now we must work roughly 8 hours of very stressful work. Contradictions between the sexes. Contradictions in sibling relations. Between shared and non-shared environmental influences, between primary soiciopaths, secondary sociopaths, regular people and moralists. There are all kinds of material contradictions in psychology.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 03:11

It does not admit to these so-called contradictions. Why would it? Hell, why should it?

Oh my apologies. I expanded my response.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 03:26

I don't think you know what a contradiction is. Here is the dictionary definition:

–noun1.the act of contradicting; gainsaying or opposition.

2.assertion of the contrary or opposite; denial.

3.a statement or proposition that contradicts or denies another or itself and is logically incongruous.

4.direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.

5.a contradictory act, fact, etc.

Actually, yes I do know what they are. And yet the arguments you write don't prove contradictions exist in the material world.

I actually said the opposite, no systems of thought can escape contradictions, primarily because perception cannot be completely reduced to cognition.

And yet your theory is created through pure thought. What you say and what you do are two very different things.

As for whether this is supported by psychology, I will not say psychologists generally take a stand on matters of philosophy. According to your reasoning psychology doesn't support any philosophy at all, even the conclusion that philosophy is meaningless or worthless.

All I said was that psychology and cognative science don't support what you said about thought.

And no philosophy isn't useless, it can clarify thought, help expand logic and is useful in terms of the philosophy of science and social science. It is useless for everything else though.

However if you go by an actual definition of contradiction, you can note that we see material contradictions everywhere in modern psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology. Contradictions between man's instincts developed during our ancestral evolutionary environment, and their maladaptive nature in the modern era. Contradictions with respect to how our body evolved to work no more then 4 hours a day of relatively easy work, and now we must work roughly 8 hours of very stressful work. Contradictions between the sexes. Contradictions in sibling relations. Between shared and non-shared environmental influences, between primary soiciopaths, secondary sociopaths, regular people and moralists. There are all kinds of material contradictions in psychology.

But according to you a contradiction is

–noun1.the act of contradicting; gainsaying or opposition.

2.assertion of the contrary or opposite; denial.

3.a statement or proposition that contradicts or denies another or itself and is logically incongruous.

4.direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.

5.a contradictory act, fact, etc.

I don't see sibling rivalry or sociopaths in society fitting in here very well. These aren't contradicitons of thought at all, they are differences though.

Also, dialectical materialism holds that material things change due to contradictions and you haven't supported this one bit.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 04:01

Does predicate logic admit to contradictions or does it primarily measure consistency? Recall Kant's entire point was that logic primarily measures consistency. To my knowledge, there is no logic yet that measures anything but consistency. That's why you can't know today's weather by means of logical deduction.

Kant was wrong on this point. The introduction of unknowns in even Aristotolean Logic allows for change, which is not a measurement of consistancy. Additionally, through Modern Logic, one can predict things like decay of atoms.

So correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I am, but let's say I am debating a creationist, and for odd reason, have decided to eschew all empirical data and instead go by pure logic. How am I supposed to win this argument exactly? Am I 100% supposed to look for a contradiction, and if I cannot find one, do I then admit the creationist is correct just because he or she has remained consistent?

Well that would be stupid. Arguing with only logic if there is a God or not is quite silly. But then again, dialectics doesn't answer that either. And why should you have to look for a contradiction or say they win? Proving God is a silly argument as nothing proves it definatively either way.

Or let's say I am trying to study Big Bang Theory, or the Origin of the Universe in general, but this time instead of doing research I am going to use pure predicate logic. Tell me, without background radiation, red shift detection, or measurements of primordial elements how I am going to establish Big Bang Theory over Steady-State or a Monotheist myth.

Well, first off, the Big Bang Theory was proposed by a Catholic Priest, and it was only devised after science had the capacity to prove it. So dialectics would help that. Also, atheism isn't something that came from dialectics or logic, but from the material conditions that people live in. But I can argue against steady state with predicate logic.

I'll use Modus Ponens (If P then Q. P. Therefore Q.)
Also written:
P→Q
P
Therefore, Q

If things change, then the universe was formed by the big bang.
Things do change.
Therefore the universe was formed by the big bang.

However, as I've stated before, dialectics doesn't solve this very well either. But what your trying to get at (correct me if I'm wrong) is that formal logic can't handle change. Here is another Modus Ponens answer.

If I run five miles, then I'll burn 256 calories.
I ran five miles.
Therefore I burned 256 calories.

or

If two oxygen molecules and one hydrogen molecules bond, then it will be water.
Two oxygen molecules and one hydrogen molecules bond.
Therefore, it is water now.

If you can that would be amazing. It would be the first time ever someone proved real-world empirical truths with pure logic. If you cannot, which I am assuming (again correct me if I'm wrong), you will have to admit that logic is a matter of measuring consistency and Kant's argument still applies.

I do look forward to your response.

I'm not the first. And I'm an amatuer. Rosa or Dada would be better people to listen to about this.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 04:28

Actually, yes I do know what they are. And yet the arguments you write don't prove contradictions exist in the material world.

–noun 1.the act of contradicting; gainsaying or opposition.

2.assertion of the contrary or opposite; denial.

3.a statement or proposition that contradicts or denies another or itself and is logically incongruous.

4.direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.

5.a contradictory act, fact, etc.

First, ideas are material entities. So contradictory ideas still reflect a contradictory material process.

To again quote Ilyenkov's article which you refuse to read:

We formulated this problem in the preceding essay. Spinoza found a very simple solution to it, brilliant in its simplicity for our day as well as his: the problem is insoluble only because it has been wrongly posed. There is no need to rack one’s brains over how the Lord God ‘unites’ ‘soul’ (thought) and ‘body’ in one complex, represented initially (and by definition) as different and even contrary principles allegedly existing separately from each other before the ‘act’ of this ‘uniting’ (and thus, also being able to exist after their ‘separation’; which is only another formulation of the thesis of the immortality of the soul, one of the cornerstones of Christian theology and ethics). In fact, there simply is no such situation; and therefore there is also no problem of ‘uniting’ or ‘co-ordination’.

There are not two different and originally contrary objects of investigation body and thought, but only one single object, which is the thinking body of living, real man (or other analogous being, if such exists anywhere in the Universe), only considered from two different and even opposing aspects or points of view. Living, real thinking man, the sole thinking body with which we are acquainted, does not consist of two Cartesian halves ‘thought lacking a body’ and a ‘body lacking thought’. In relation to real man both the one and the other are equally fallacious abstractions, and one cannot in the end model a real thinking man from two equally fallacious abstractions.

That is what constitutes the real ‘keystone’ of the whole system, a very simple truth that is easy, on the whole, to understand.
It is not a special ‘soul’, installed by God in the human body as in a temporary residence, that thinks, but the body of man itself. Thought is a property, a mode of existence, of the body, the same as its extension, i.e. as its spatial configuration and position among other bodies.

This simple and profoundly true idea was expressed this way by Spinoza in the language of his time: thought and extension are not two special substances as Descartes taught, but only two attributes of one and the same organ; not two special objects, capable of existing separately and quite independently of each other, but only two different and even opposite aspects under which one and the same thing appears, two different modes of existence, two forms of the manifestation of some third thing.

What is this third thing? Real infinite Nature, Spinoza answered. It is Nature that extends in space and ‘thinks’. The whole difficulty of the Cartesian metaphysics arose because the specific difference of the real world from the world as only imagined or thought of was considered to be extension, a spatial, geometric determinateness. But extension as such just existed in imagination, only in thought. For as such it can generally only be thought of in the form of emptiness, i.e. purely negatively, as the complete absence of any definite geometric shape. Ascribing only spatial, geometric properties to Nature is, as Spinoza said, to think of it in an imperfect way, i.e. to deny it in advance one of its perfections. And then it is asked how the perfection removed from Nature can be restored to her again.In other words, only a dualist would say thought is 100% distinct from anything material. You may say that certain thoughts are fictional, and exist only in the mind, or for practical purposes, are just false (as is the case with God) but to argue that contradictory thoughts do not exist materially in any way is Cartesian.

And yet your theory is created through pure thought. What you say and what you do are two very different things.

I have no idea of what you can mean by "pure thought" but my "theory" does not depend on it.

The arguments for dialectics come from various philosophical arguments that have been made throughout history. By studying these arguments, you can realize how they logically conclude. This is thus not me sitting around and coming to this conclusion on my own, but studying the actual arguments of these philosophers.

Secondly, the argument from materialism is based on parsimony and coherence. One key argument used by Feuerbach was from anatomy and medicine. Simply put, there is no idealist theory of medicine or anatomy, (save perhaps homeopathy and the other quack remedies in the modern world). This means real empirical data was necessary for materialism to establish itself over idealism.

In fact, any conclusion of science adds to the materialist viewpoint. Big Bang Theory, Evolutionary Theory, Abiogenesis.

Dialectics and Materialism are established by two separate threads of argument. Dialectics by historical-logical, and Materialism by empirical/scientific means. That is why the position is called Dialectical Materialism, instead of just Dialectics or just Materialism.

All I said was that psychology and cognative science don't support what you said about thought.

Psychologists don't promote any philosophy at all. But observations in psychology of real, actual opposition/contradictions establish the existence of material dialectics.

To give one example, our evolutionary instincts are at odds with many of the demands of our local environment. This is a real material contradiction.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 04:54

Additionally, through Modern Logic, one can predict things like decay of atoms.

Predicate logic can predict anything even the decay rate of heaven or fairies. That is why logic alone tells you so little.

But I can argue against steady state with predicate logic.

I'll use Modus Ponens (If P then Q. P. Therefore Q.)
Also written:
P→Q
P
Therefore, Q

If things change, then the universe was formed by the big bang.
Things do change.
Therefore the universe was formed by the big bang.

Yes and I can argue for all sorts of nonsense using predicate logic.

P->Q
P
Therefore, Q.

If things change, then the universe was formed by the Great Gowandola.
Things do change.
Therefore the universe was formed by the Great Gowandola.

Again, unless you introduce empirical data there is no way to distinguish between the truth-values of these contradictory claims.

However, as I've stated before, dialectics doesn't solve this very well either.

Yes, Dialectics alone does not solve anything very well. Dialectical Materialism however, which depends on empirical input, is a useful tool for comparing contradictory theories or claims.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 07:30

–noun 1.the act of contradicting; gainsaying or opposition.

2.assertion of the contrary or opposite; denial.

3.a statement or proposition that contradicts or denies another or itself and is logically incongruous.

4.direct opposition between things compared; inconsistency.

5.a contradictory act, fact, etc.

First, ideas are material entities. So contradictory ideas still reflect a contradictory material process.

To again quote Ilyenkov's article which you refuse to read:

In other words, only a dualist would say thought is 100% distinct from anything material. You may say that certain thoughts are fictional, and exist only in the mind, or for practical purposes, are just false (as is the case with God) but to argue that contradictory thoughts do not exist materially in any way is Cartesian.

I did read it. What you fail to answer is where contradicitons exist in the material world. Any dialectical materialist worth their salt will tell you that there is a difference between contradictions in thoughts and dialectical contradicitions. You have failed to ever supply us with one dialectical contradiction.

And don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say we can't think contradictory things, I said that dialectical contradictions don't exist in the physical world. Also, where do I say thoughts and the material world are seperate?

I have no idea of what you can mean by "pure thought" but my "theory" does not depend on it.

If you don't know what pure thought is how do you know your theory doesn't rely on it?

Never the less, dialectics were formed via a priori reasoning, through thought and not through a study of the physical world. Therefore the dialectical materialist asserstions that the world is made up of real contradicitons holds no weight.

The arguments for dialectics come from various philosophical arguments that have been made throughout history. By studying these arguments, you can realize how they logically conclude. This is thus not me sitting around and coming to this conclusion on my own, but studying the actual arguments of these philosophers.

As I said, a priori reasoning. This is the basis of all traditional philosophy, and therefore, it came from these philosophers sitting on their asses and pontificating.

Secondly, the argument from materialism is based on parsimony and coherence. One key argument used by Feuerbach was from anatomy and medicine. Simply put, there is no idealist theory of medicine or anatomy, (save perhaps homeopathy and the other quack remedies in the modern world). This means real empirical data was necessary for materialism to establish itself over idealism.

In fact, any conclusion of science adds to the materialist viewpoint. Big Bang Theory, Evolutionary Theory, Abiogenesis.

Dialectics and Materialism are established by two separate threads of argument. Dialectics by historical-logical, and Materialism by empirical/scientific means. That is why the position is called Dialectical Materialism, instead of just Dialectics or just Materialism.

I have no problem with materialism, just dialectics which have no basis in reality.

Psychologists don't promote any philosophy at all. But observations in psychology of real, actual opposition/contradictions establish the existence of material dialectics.

To give one example, our evolutionary instincts are at odds with many of the demands of our local environment. This is a real material contradiction.

No they aren't. Tell me one instinct that is dialectically opposed to our material conditions.

But since you are a materialist, you already should believe that instincts aren't static, but change with our material conditions. So if you can actually find a contradiction my hats off to you.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 07:37

Yes, Dialectics alone does not solve anything very well. Dialectical Materialism however, which depends on empirical input, is a useful tool for comparing contradictory theories or claims.

Really? Show me where that is written. Until you can I think we can believe that formal logic with empirical input is superior to DM, which actually doesn't show anything.

In fact, lets use the weather example that you claim formal logic can't handle.

Now how do we predict the weather? Do we a) analyze the contradiction between the humidity and dryness and its result in comfortable humidity or b) do we go through all sorts of data and say if front x moves here then it will be y. Front x is moving toward here. Therefore we can assume y.

As you see your own example of what formal logic alledgedly can't handle actually helps my case and hurts yours.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 09:08

I did read it. What you fail to answer is where contradicitons exist in the material world. Any dialectical materialist worth their salt will tell you that there is a difference between contradictions in thoughts and dialectical contradicitions. You have failed to ever supply us with one dialectical contradiction.

And don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say we can't think contradictory things, I said that dialectical contradictions don't exist in the physical world. Also, where do I say thoughts and the material world are seperate?

If you don't know what pure thought is how do you know your theory doesn't rely on it?

Never the less, dialectics were formed via a priori reasoning, through thought and not through a study of the physical world. Therefore the dialectical materialist asserstions that the world is made up of real contradicitons holds no weight.

As I said, a priori reasoning. This is the basis of all traditional philosophy, and therefore, it came from these philosophers sitting on their asses and pontificating.

I have no problem with materialism, just dialectics which have no basis in reality.

No they aren't. Tell me one instinct that is dialectically opposed to our material conditions.

But since you are a materialist, you already should believe that instincts aren't static, but change with our material conditions. So if you can actually find a contradiction my hats off to you.

Okay how are you defining contradiction, because it says "opposition" in the dictionary. Are you saying there are no material oppositions?

In fact, lets use the weather example that you claim formal logic can't handle.

Well good luck trying to deduce what the weather is with predicate logic, I'll stick to looking out the window.

Now how do we predict the weather? Do we a) analyze the contradiction between the humidity and dryness and its result in comfortable humidity o

Isn't that exactly what weather simulators do?

b) do we go through all sorts of data and say if front x moves here then it will be y. Front x is moving toward here. Therefore we can assume y.

Okay you seem to think formal logic is some sort of absolute truth when in reality it is a human construct.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 09:13

Okay how are you defining contradiction, because it says "opposition" in the dictionary. Are you saying there are no material oppositions?

Ask a dialectial materialist. They'll tell you some strange thing and will never come up with a real answer.

There are no true absolutely direct opposites existing in the same place at the same time (as dialectics argue).

Well good luck trying to deduce what the weather is with predicate logic, I'll stick to looking out the window.

I was talking about meterologists.

Isn't that exactly what weather simulators do?

No. They do option B.

Okay you seem to think formal logic is some sort of absolute truth when in reality it is a human construct.

No I don't. You always seem to put things in my mouth. Logic is a tool made by people. Dialectics is a mystical piece of garbage made by people as well.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 09:30

Ask a dialectial materialist. They'll tell you some strange thing and will never come up with a real answer.

There are no true absolutely direct opposites existing in the same place at the same time (as dialectics argue).

Remove the weasel word. In any case, the two authors I noted did not make that kind of claim.

No. They do option B.

Oh so they never go into conflicting tendencies, hot and cold water currents?

No I don't. You always seem to put things in my mouth. Logic is a tool made by people. Dialectics is a mystical piece of garbage made by people as well.

Well if logic isn't an absolute truth in the universe, why can't there be material contradictions?

Also how is it mystical?

You go from thesis (presenting an idea).

To analysis (taking the idea apart and examining the logic of it. )

To synthesis (putting the idea back in the context of surrounding knowledge. )

If there is a mystical step in there I don't see it. Maybe you can prove it by means of that predicate logic you used to figure out the decay rates of atoms, or prove the big bang.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 09:44

Remove the weasel word. In any case, the two authors I noted did not make that kind of claim. [/QUTOE]

Sorry that wasn't clear. I mean that dialecticans argue that there are such contradictions. The type that don't exist.

[QUOTE] Oh so they never go into conflicting tendencies, hot and cold water currents?

They talk about conflicting tendencies, but thats not dialectics. I'm starting to really wonder if you've ready anything about dialectics at all.

Dialectics holds that internal contradictions cause things to change. But clearly, hot and cold water currents are external influences, not internal contradictions.

Well if logic isn't an absolute truth in the universe, why can't there be material contradictions?

Well, because dialectics holds that things contain sets of opposites and these are the so called contradictions. However, this doesn't allow for change because if things turn into their opposites (as their theories hold) but these opposites already exist, then they cannot change into such an opposite. This doesn't allow for the change that dialects claims to explain.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 09:49

Also how is it mystical?

Because it was created by a priori reasoning and not actual observation or study.

You go from thesis (presenting an idea).

To analysis (taking the idea apart and examining the logic of it. )

To synthesis (putting the idea back in the context of surrounding knowledge. )

Thats not dialectical materialism. You seem very confused as to what DM is. It has little to do with how things change through so-called contradictions, not examining the logic of ideas.

If there is a mystical step in there I don't see it. Maybe you can prove it by means of that predicate logic you used to figure out the decay rates of atoms, or prove the big bang.

You telling Rosa she hasn't studied enough philosophy to talk about DM is becoming more silly by the minute. You really need to read up on DM before you talk about it.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 10:18

Sorry that wasn't clear. I mean that dialecticans argue that there are such contradictions. The type that don't exist.

Do contradictions in general exist? By that I mean relative opposition, not some "absolute contradiction" straw man you created.

Dermezel

2nd March 2010, 10:23

Because it was created by a priori reasoning and not actual observation or study.

Again I noted the general method of Dialectical Materialism: Thesis, Analysis, Synthesis.

First you take an idea or observation, then you analyze it, then you put it back in with your other ideas. Again what is mystical about that? Also, which Dialectical Materialist eschews empirical knowledge?

Hit The North

2nd March 2010, 12:26

There are no true absolutely direct opposites existing in the same place at the same time (as dialectics argue).

In Das Kapital, Marx gives the example of an elipse, not to mention the commodity:

We saw in a former chapter that the exchange of commodities implies contradictory and mutually exclusive conditions. The differentiation of commodities into commodities and money does not sweep away these inconsistencies, but develops a modus vivendi, a form in which they can exist side by side. This is generally the way in which real contradictions are reconciled. For instance, it is a contradiction to depict one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it. The ellipse is a form of motion which, while allowing this contradiction to go on, at the same time reconciles it. http://http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm#S2

Originally posted by KristoferKotch
Dialectics holds that internal contradictions cause things to change. But clearly, hot and cold water currents are external influences, not internal contradictions.

External to what? From the point of view of the weather system, they are internal factors, surely?

syndicat

2nd March 2010, 19:41

I think it would be useful to distinguish a contradiction from opposed causal tendencies. If we consider the class struggle, for example, there are opposing forces. Change occurs through the opposition of the opposed forces. What you have are tendencies or forces that are inclined to move in opposite directions, incompatible directions. But the actual line of development of the struggle will be what it is, it will be just one actual series of events in real time. There is thus no contradiction.

To talk about "relative contradiction" has no clear meaning. A contradiction in, in philosophy, occurs when you have two truths:

A
It is not the case that A

For example,

(1) The light is emitting green light
(2) The light is not emitting green light

(1) and (2) are never going to be simultaneously true.

So, instead of talking about "contradictions in reality" it would be clearer to talk about conflicting forces or conflicting tendencies.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 23:10

Do contradictions in general exist? By that I mean relative opposition, not some "absolute contradiction" straw man you created.

Not dialectical contradictions. Contradictions in ideas can happen, but not dialectical contradictions tha cause change. I don't know about all other contradictions, as I haven't measured and studied everything in the whole of the universe.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 23:12

Again I noted the general method of Dialectical Materialism: Thesis, Analysis, Synthesis.

I challenge you to read Engles, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin or Mao and finding out if that is the dialectical materalists method. Its not, you are very confused about this.

First you take an idea or observation, then you analyze it, then you put it back in with your other ideas. Again what is mystical about that? Also, which Dialectical Materialist eschews empirical knowledge?

Thats not dialectial materialism. And you apparantly can't read. Dialects were formed by thought and not by observation.

ChrisK

2nd March 2010, 23:20

In Das Kapital, Marx gives the example of an elipse, not to mention the commodity:

We both know that Marx claimed to coquette with Hegelian writing styes. That isn't taking it seriously at all.

External to what? From the point of view of the weather system, they are internal factors, surely?

And in what way are they contradictory? If you can show me a weather system where hot air transforms into its opposite (which it already has qualities of) of cold air through internal contradicitons, then I'll allow that dialectics is how we ought to view the weather.

Hit The North

3rd March 2010, 02:19

We both know that Marx claimed to coquette with Hegelian writing styes. That isn't taking it seriously at all.

On the contrary it is you who is not taking it seriously. The passage I quote contains no "Hegelian writing styles" - unless you want to argue that depicting two contrary processes ("one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it") as "contradictory" is somehow only intelligible if one applies Hegelian logic to it.

But it is nice to see that you agree with Rosa that Marx was some kind of trickster who decided to sabotage his masterpiece, Das Kapital, by employing redundant terminology in some of its most important passages, merely to fuck around with his readers. So it is quite ironic that you should accuse me of not taking the old man seriously :rolleyes:.

And in what way are they contradictory? If you can show me a weather system where hot air transforms into its opposite (which it already has qualities of) of cold air through internal contradicitons, then I'll allow that dialectics is how we ought to view the weather.Schematic formula such as "things change into their opposites" is not something I take seriously. On the other hand, we know that air can be hot and then cold so its transformation from one to the other is beyond doubt. But my comment was directed at your assumption that the hot and cold water currents are external to the thing being considered. I asked what, in your opinion, is the thing being considered? If we're talking about weather systems then our analysis must take in the interplay of those factors which make up that system. Hot air, cold water, are internal factors to the system, they don't exist outside of it. Likewise, in our analysis of capitalism we focus on the relations which make it up. So we can argue that class should be considered to be dialectical as its existence depends upon the relations of one class to another. In particular, the bourgeoisie cannot exist without the proletariat and vise versa. In that sense, their relationship to each other is internal. In fact, this is Marx's starting point for understanding capitalism. Labour produces Capital which rules over it. One is transformed into the other, into its antagonist.

ChrisK

3rd March 2010, 07:00

On the contrary it is you who is not taking it seriously. The passage I quote contains no "Hegelian writing styles" - unless you want to argue that depicting two contrary processes ("one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it") as "contradictory" is somehow only intelligible if one applies Hegelian logic to it.

We saw in a former chapter that the exchange of commodities implies contradictory and mutually exclusive conditions. The differentiation of commodities into commodities and money does not sweep away these inconsistencies, but develops a modus vivendi, a form in which they can exist side by side. This is generally the way in which real contradictions are reconciled. For instance, it is a contradiction to depict one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it. The ellipse is a form of motion which, while allowing this contradiction to go on, at the same time reconciles it. http://http://www.marxists.org/archi...c1/ch03.htm#S2 (http://http://www.marxists.org/archi...c1/ch03.htm#S2)

Here he uses the Hegelian contradiction in tandum with a description of commodities, one which is not a contradicition. A modus vivendi would mean that they simply ignore the difference and continue to do business as usual. This is not a contradiction, but rather an inconsistency that is allwoed to exist.

But it is nice to see that you agree with Rosa that Marx was some kind of trickster who decided to sabotage his masterpiece, Das Kapital, by employing redundant terminology in some of its most important passages, merely to fuck around with his readers. So it is quite ironic that you should accuse me of not taking the old man seriously :rolleyes:.

Its not to fuck around with his readers, who would have been assumed to be well read. Thus Hegelian termonology works well for them, since they are so well read and diverse.

Also, your ability to read what I write is astonishing. To find me telling you that you don't take him seriously is absolutely amazing. And here I thought I hid the sediment so well when I never wrote it.

Schematic formula such as "things change into their opposites" is not something I take seriously. On the other hand, we know that air can be hot and then cold so its transformation from one to the other is beyond doubt.

No, thats simply a distortion of how heat is produced. A very simplified model (there are more factors than this, but it will give a general idea) is that a cloud blocks off the sun and the air cools because they are not moving as fast. There is no contradiction here, the fact is that if the sun is blocked by a cloud then it will grow cold. The sun is blocked by a cloud. Therefore its cold. No contradiction whatsoever.

Now then, what are your dialectical beliefs?

But my comment was directed at your assumption that the hot and cold water currents are external to the thing being considered. I asked what, in your opinion, is the thing being considered? If we're talking about weather systems then our analysis must take in the interplay of those factors which make up that system. Hot air, cold water, are internal factors to the system, they don't exist outside of it.

And my point will be that even if we see these things together, you won't be able to show me any contradicitions rather than just contrary tendencies.

Likewise, in our analysis of capitalism we focus on the relations which make it up. So we can argue that class should be considered to be dialectical as its existence depends upon the relations of one class to another. In particular, the bourgeoisie cannot exist without the proletariat and vise versa. In that sense, their relationship to each other is internal. In fact, this is Marx's starting point for understanding capitalism. Labour produces Capital which rules over it. One is transformed into the other, into its antagonist.

How is that a contradiction? Seriously, just because they require each other to exist doesn't make them contradictions.

Hit The North

3rd March 2010, 13:27

Here he uses the Hegelian contradiction in tandum with a description of commodities, one which is not a contradicition. A modus vivendi would mean that they simply ignore the difference and continue to do business as usual. This is not a contradiction, but rather an inconsistency that is allwoed to exist.

An inconsistency which is allowed to exist is called a contradiction, according to Marxist analysis. I think it's just tough if this does not accord to usage within your intellectual tradition.

Its not to fuck around with his readers, who would have been assumed to be well read. Thus Hegelian termonology works well for them, since they are so well read and diverse. You have a very limited view of who Marx intended his readership to be. Moreover, if Marx is to be believed, at this point in the 19th Century, Hegel was out of fashion among German intellectuals, was never fashionable (in fact, quite alien) to British political economy, so who this parodic language was supposed to appeal to is beyond my ken.

While we're on this point, it is evident that Marx considered Das Kapital to be within the tradition of political economy; moreover, that he described Das Kapital as the first attempt to produce a dialectical account of political economy; finally, that a serious reading of Das Kapital reveals that the concept of contradiction is part of his analytical armory, appears as part of his explanatory narrative and does more work than merely a linguistic contrivance. So I think your argument is with Marx.

Also, your ability to read what I write is astonishing. To find me telling you that you don't take him seriously is absolutely amazing. And here I thought I hid the sediment so well when I never wrote it.
Somewhat less astonishing than your ability to read Marx, but if I misinterpreted your comment "this is not taking it seriously" then I apologise.

No, thats simply a distortion of how heat is produced... Now then, what are your dialectical beliefs?

I wasn't proposing a model of how heat is produced, merely observing that air temperature varies. Personally, I am not comfortable with the notion that dialectics forms some supra-historical explanation of how natural phenomena operate and I consider DM to be based on unsound principles.

And my point will be that even if we see these things together, you won't be able to show me any contradicitions rather than just contrary tendencies.

I refer you to my initial comment.

Dermezel

3rd March 2010, 17:57

Dermezel

3rd March 2010, 18:06

Not dialectical contradictions. Contradictions in ideas can happen, but not dialectical contradictions tha cause change. I don't know about all other contradictions, as I haven't measured and studied everything in the whole of the universe.

Nice weasel word. But yeah- you admit contradictions exist. Opposing cause and effect events exist. Contradictory ideas exist. Contradictory facts exist. You can for example have cold boiling water- just use dry ice. You can also have cold boiling water by increasing or decreasing water pressure so that the water evaporates at a lower temperature.

Those are real life contradictions. They might not be "dialectical contradictions" whatever that means to you. (In reality dialectical means argumentative according to strict and universally recognize etymology, so you basically said even contradictory arguments don't exist. Which is completely absurd. )

Thats not dialectial materialism. And you apparantly can't read. Dialects were formed by thought and not by observation.

That is exactly what Dialectical Materialism is. Remember the formula we are all taught:

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Antithesis is basically analysis. Now are you going to deny that the Thesis, Antithesis or Synthesis is a common and accepted description of Dialectics, or are you simply going to spout off on how "Antithesis" cannot mean analysis, because if it does your claim of "mysticism" completely evaporates?

As for empirical basis- the entire justification and basis for materialism is empirical. Without empirical data there is no solid argument for materialism over dualism or idealism.

Dermezel

3rd March 2010, 18:09

While we're on this point, it is evident that Marx considered Das Kapital to be within the tradition of political economy; moreover, that he described Das Kapital as the first attempt to produce a dialectical account of political economy; finally, that a serious reading of Das Kapital reveals that the concept of contradiction is part of his analytical armory, appears as part of his explanatory narrative and does more work than merely a linguistic contrivance. So I think your argument is with Marx.

Capital wasn't even a philosophical work at all. It is a scientific work like Origin of Species. It was largely Engels who focused on philosophy, while Marx focused on economic science.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 06:12

An inconsistency which is allowed to exist is called a contradiction, according to Marxist analysis. I think it's just tough if this does not accord to usage within your intellectual tradition.

But it is not a contradiction. To call it a contradiction is a misnomer, considering how contradiction is used in daily life. I have yet to hear people use that phrase to mean inconsistency, only as two complete opposites.

You have a very limited view of who Marx intended his readership to be. Moreover, if Marx is to be believed, at this point in the 19th Century, Hegel was out of fashion among German intellectuals, was never fashionable (in fact, quite alien) to British political economy, so who this parodic language was supposed to appeal to is beyond my ken.

While we're on this point, it is evident that Marx considered Das Kapital to be within the tradition of political economy; moreover, that he described Das Kapital as the first attempt to produce a dialectical account of political economy; finally, that a serious reading of Das Kapital reveals that the concept of contradiction is part of his analytical armory, appears as part of his explanatory narrative and does more work than merely a linguistic contrivance. So I think your argument is with Marx.

Well right now you are giving an indication of who Marx was writing to in Capital. Most people don't read political economy, but Marx was clearly writing a scholarly work. And even if I grant that the British didn't know Hegel (as I don't really know how popular he was in Britain at the time), Marx wrote Capital in German and it was published in 1867. It wasn't translated to English until 1887. I think this gives an indication that he was writing something that German intellectuals would most likely understand.

Somewhat less astonishing than your ability to read Marx, but if I misinterpreted your comment "this is not taking it seriously" then I apologise.

Probably because I said that Marx didn't take the phrases that seriously.

I wasn't proposing a model of how heat is produced, merely observing that air temperature varies. Personally, I am not comfortable with the notion that dialectics forms some supra-historical explanation of how natural phenomena operate and I consider DM to be based on unsound principles.

My apologies, my initial comments were more hostile than they could have been. I made a poor assumption of your beliefs.

Now if you don't mind my asking, if you have problems with the principles that DM is based on why do you continue to defend it?

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 06:31

Nice weasel word. But yeah- you admit contradictions exist. Opposing cause and effect events exist. Contradictory ideas exist. Contradictory facts exist. You can for example have cold boiling water- just use dry ice. You can also have cold boiling water by increasing or decreasing water pressure so that the water evaporates at a lower temperature.

I call major bullshit on that one. Find me two contradictory facts. They don't exist. Cold boiling water is not a contradiciton at all. Its a funny way of saying that water boils at different points under different temperatures.

Also, opposing cause and effect events are not contradictions. They are simply two things that exist that don't fully agree. This is not a contradiction, but a slight difference.

Those are real life contradictions. They might not be "dialectical contradictions" whatever that means to you. (In reality dialectical means argumentative according to strict and universally recognize etymology, so you basically said even contradictory arguments don't exist. Which is completely absurd. )

Dialects as used by dialectical materialists does not mean argument. I have no problem with dialectics using the definition of argumentation. My issue is with dialectical materialism (something that you obviously know nothing about).

So in reality, I'm arguing against this silly idea of yours that contradictions cause change.

That is exactly what Dialectical Materialism is. Remember the formula we are all taught:

Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Antithesis is basically analysis. Now are you going to deny that the Thesis, Antithesis or Synthesis is a common and accepted description of Dialectics, or are you simply going to spout off on how "Antithesis" cannot mean analysis, because if it does your claim of "mysticism" completely evaporates?

As for empirical basis- the entire justification and basis for materialism is empirical. Without empirical data there is no solid argument for materialism over dualism or idealism.

We are taught this formula? By whom? Surely not Hegel as according to this.

Some say Hegel used the method of: thesis-antithesis-synthesis, and others deny this. Who is correct?

The most vexing and devastating Hegel legend is that everything is thought in "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." [...] The actual texts of Hegel not only occasionally deviate from "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis," but show nothing of the sort. "Dialectic" does not for Hegel mean "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." Dialectic means that any "ism" - which has a polar opposite, or is a special viewpoint leaving "the rest" to itself - must be criticized by the logic of philosophical thought, whose problem is reality as such, the "World-itself."

Hermann Glockner's reliable Hegel Lexikon (4 volumes, Stuttgart, 1935) does not list the Fichtean terms "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" together. In all the twenty volumes of Hegel's "complete works" he does not use this "triad" once; nor does it occur in the eight volumes of Hegel texts, published for the first time in the twentieth Century. He refers to "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis" in the Preface of the Phenomenology of Mind, where he considers the possibility of this "triplicity " as a method or logic of philosophy. According to the Hegel-legend one would expect Hegel to recommend this "triplicity." But, after saying that it was derived from Kant, he calls it a "lifeless schema," "mere shadow" and concludes: "The trick of wisdom of that sort is as quickly acquired as it is easy to practice. Its repetition, when once it is familiar, becomes as boring as the repetition of any bit of sleigh-of-hand once we see through it. The instrument for producing this monotonous formalism is no more difficult to handle than the palette of a painter, on which lie only two colours ..." (Preface, Werke, II, 48-49).

In the student notes, edited and published as History of Philosophy, Hegel mentions in the Kant chapter, the "spiritless scheme of the triplicity of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis" (geistloses Schema) by which the rhythm and movement of philosophic knowledge is artificially pre-scribed (vorgezeichnet).

In the first important book about Hegel by his student, intimate friend and first biographer, Karl Rosenkranz (Hegels Leben, 1844), "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" are conspicuous by their absence. It seems Hegel was quite successful in hiding his alleged "method" from one of his best students.

The very important new Hegel literature of this century has altogether abandoned the legend. Theodor Haering's Hegels Wollen und Werk (2 vol., Teubner, 1929 and 1938) makes a careful study of Hegel's terminology and language and finds not a trace of "thesis, antithesis, synthesis." In the second volume there are a few lines (pp. 118, 126) in which he repeats what Hegel in the above quotation had said himself, i.e., that this "conventional slogan" is particularly unfortunate because it impedes the understanding of Hegelian texts. As long as readers think that they have to find "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" in Hegel they must find him obscure - but what is obscure is not Hegel but their colored glasses. Iwan Iljin's Hegel's Philosophie als kontemplative Gotteslehre (Bern, 1946) dismisses the "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" legend in the Preface as a childish game (Spielerei), which does not even reach the front-porch of Hegel's philosophy.

Other significant works, like Hermann Glockner, Hegel (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1929), Theodor Steinbüchel, Das Grundproblem der Hegelschen Philosophie (Bonn, 1933), and Theodor Litt, Hegel: Eine Kritische Erneuerung (Heidelberg, 1953), Emerich Coreth, S.J., Das Dialektische Sein in Hegels Logik (Wien, 1952), and many others have simply disregarded the legend. In my own monographs on Hegel über Offenbarung, Kirche und Philosophie (Munich, 1939) and Hegel über Sittlichkeit und Geschichte (Reinhardt, 1940), I never found any "thesis, antithesis, synthesis." Richard Kroner, in his introduction to the English edition of selections from Hegel's Early Theological Writings, puts it mildly when he says: "This new Logic is of necessity as dialectical as the movement of thinking itself. ... But it is by no means the mere application of a monotonous trick that could be learned and repeated. It is not the mere imposition of an ever recurring pattern. It may appear so in the mind of some historians who catalogue the living trend of thought, but in reality it is ever changing, ever growing development; Hegel is nowhere pedantic in pressing concepts into a ready-made mold. The theme of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis, like the motif of a musical composition, has many modulations and modifications. It is never 'applied'; it is itself only a poor and not even helpful abstraction of what is really going on in Hegel's Logic."

Well, shall we keep this "poor and not helpful abstraction" in our attic because "some historians" have used it as their rocking-horse? We rather agree with the conclusion of Johannes Flügge: "Dialectic is not the scheme of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis imputed to Hegel."

In an essay by Nicolai Hartmann on Aristoteles und Hegel, I find the following additional confirmation of all the other witnesses to the misinterpretation of Hegel's dialectic: "It is a basically perverse opinion (grundverkehrte Ansicht) which sees the essence of dialectic in the triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis." The legend was spread by Karl Marx whose interpretation of Hegel is distorted. It is Marxism superimposed on Hegel. Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, Marx says in Das Elend der Philosophie, is Hegel's purely logical formula for the movement of pure reason, and the whole system is engendered by this dialectical movement of thesis, antithesis, synthesis of all categories. This pure reason, he continues, is Mr. Hegel's own reason, and history becomes the history of his own philosophy, whereas in reality, thesis, antithesis, synthesis are the categories of economic movements. (Summary of Chapter II, Paragraph 1.) The few passages in Marx' writings that resemble philosophy are not his own. He practices the communistic habit of expropriation without compensation. Knowing this in general, I was also convinced that there must be a source for this "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis," and I finally discovered it.

In the winter of 1835-36, a group of Kantians in Dresden called on Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, professor of philosophy at the University of Kiel, to lecture to them on the new philosophical movement after Kant. They were older, professional men who in their youth had been Kantians, and now wanted an orientation in a development which they distrusted; but they also wanted a confirmation of their own Kantianism. Professor Chalybäus did just those two things. His lectures appeared in 1837 under the title Historische Entwicklung der speculativen Philosophie von Kant bis Hegel, Zu näherer Verständigung des wissenschaftlichen Publikums mit der neuesten Schule. The book was very popular and appeared in three editions. In my copy of the third edition of 1843, Professor Chalybäus says (p. 354): "This is the first trilogy: the unity of Being, Nothing and Becoming ... we have in this first methodical thesis, antithesis, and synthesis ... an example or schema for all that follows." This was for Chalybäus a brilliant hunch which he had not used previously and did not pursue afterwards in any way at all. But Karl Marx was at, that time a student at the university of Berlin and a member of the Hegel Club where the famous book was discussed. He took the hunch and spread into a deadly, abstract machinery. Other left Hegelians, such as Arnold Ruge, Ludwig Feuerbach, Max Stirner use "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" just as little as Hegel

(quote from the article of Gustav E. Mueller: The Hegel Legend of "Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis", in "Journal of the History of Ideas", Volume XIX, June 1958, Number 3, Page 411. The article is still as valid today as it was in 1958)

http://www.hegel.net/en/faq.htm

Ergo, that is not the method and if you had Hegel, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin or Mao, you would have known this.

Also, the mystical argument is based entirely around the fact that dialectics was not gleaned from reality, but forced upon it. It is not materialist, but idealism parading as materialism.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 08:26

I call major bullshit on that one. Find me two contradictory facts. They don't exist. Cold boiling water is not a contradiciton at all. Its a funny way of saying that water boils at different points under different temperatures.

How about reptile-birds? Air breathing fish? Cold blooded mammal? General relativity and Quantum Mechanics? Modernity vs. capital accumulation?

Also, opposing cause and effect events are not contradictions.

Well that's the dictionary definition, that's the definition I've been using.

Dialects as used by dialectical materialists does not mean argument.

Sure it does.

We are taught this formula? By whom? Surely not Hegel as according to this.

That author you quote is misleading. Hegel doesn't use those terms exactly but he uses a similar formula which serves as the precursor to such terms:

Part One of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences: The Logic
VI. Logic Defined & Divided

§ 79
In point of form Logical doctrine has three sides: [a] the Abstract side, or that of understanding; the Dialectical, or that of negative reason; [c] the Speculative, or that of positive reason.

These three sides do not make three [B]parts of logic, but are stages or ‘moments’ in every logical entity, that is, of every notion and truth whatever. They may all be put under the first stage, that of understanding, and so kept isolated from each other; but this would give an inadequate conception of them. The statement of the dividing lines and the characteristic aspects of logic is at this point no more than historical and anticipatory.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_vi.htm#SL79

Dialectics, according to Hegel, was the form (or method or schema) of thought that included the process both of elucidating contradictions and of concretely resolving them in the corpus of a higher and more profound stage of rational understanding of the same object, on the way toward further investigation of the essence of the matter, i.e. in the course of developing science, engineering, and ‘morality’, and all the spheres he called the ‘objective spirit’.

This conception immediately brought about constructive shifts in the whole system of logic. Whereas Kant’s ‘dialectic’ was only the final, third part of logic (the doctrine on the forms of understanding and reason), where it was a matter actually of the statement of the logically unresolvable antinomies of theoretical cognition, with Hegel it appeared quite another matter. With him the sphere of the logical was divided into three main sections or aspects, i.e. three main directions were distinguished in it, as follows:

1. the abstract or rational;

2. the dialectical or negatively reasonable;

3. the speculative or positively reasonable.

Hegel specially stressed that ‘these three aspects in no case constitute three parts of logic, but are only moments of any logically real nature, that is of any concept or of any truth in general (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_vi.htm#SL79)’.

In the empirical history of thought (as in any given, historically achieved state of it) these three aspects appeared either as three consecutive ‘formations’ or as three different but closely related systems of logic. Hence we got the illusion that they could be depicted as three different sections (or ‘parts’) of logic, following one after the other.

Logic as a whole, however, could not be obtained by a simple uniting of these three aspects, each of which was taken in the form in which it had been developed in the history of thought. That called for critical treatment of all three aspects from the standpoint of higher principles, those historically last achieved. Hegel characterised the three ‘moments’ of logical thought that should constitute Logic as follows.

1. ‘Thought as understanding remains stuck in firm determination and does not get beyond differentiation of the latter; such a limited abstraction applies to it as existing and being for itself. (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_vi.htm#SL80)’ The separate (isolated) historical embodiment of this ‘moment’ in thought appeared as dogmatism, and its logical, theoretical self-awareness as ‘general‘, i.e. purely formal logic.

2. ‘The dialectical moment is the own self-abolition of such ultimate determinations and their transition into their opposites. (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_vi.htm#SL80)’ Historically this moment appears as scepticism, i.e. as the state in which thought, feeling bewildered among opposing, equally ‘logical’ and mutually provoking dogmatic systems, is powerless to choose and prefer one of them. Logical self-awareness, corresponding to the stage of scepticism, was distinguished in the Kantian conception of dialectics as a state of the insolubility of the antinomies between dogmatic systems. Scepticism (Kant’s type of ‘negative dialectic’) was higher than dogmatism both historically and in content because the dialectic included in reason or understanding was already realised, and existed not only ‘in itself’ but ‘for itself’.

3. ‘The speculative or positively reasonable conceives the unity of determinations in their opposition, the affirmation that is contained in their resolution and their transition (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_divis.htm#SL82).’ Hegel also saw systematic treatment of this last ‘moment’ (and correspondingly critical rethinking of the first two from the angle of the third) as the historically pressing task in logic, and therefore his own mission and the aim of his work.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay5.htm

Also, the mystical argument is based entirely around the fact that dialectics was not gleaned from reality, but forced upon it. It is not materialist, but idealism parading as materialism.

Actually mechanistic materialism is more idealistic because it imposes logic as an absolute on the universe.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 08:32

How about reptile-birds? Air breathing fish? Cold blooded mammal? General relativity and Quantum Mechanics? Modernity vs. capital accumulation?

None of them contradictions. The contradiction of a fish is a not fish. Quantum Mechanics is in no way contradictory. Go ahead and try to prove it.

Well that's the dictionary definition, that's the definition I've been using.

The dictionary does not factor in how language is actually used. Its context that matters.

Sure it does.

http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/index.htm

Read this. This is Engels on dialectics. Until you do you know nothing about dialectical materialist.

Well what do you think antithesis entails?

You should probably read what was posted before you respond.

Actually mechanistic materialism is more idealistic because it imposes logic as an absolute on the universe.

And this matters why?

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 08:36

black magick hustla

4th March 2010, 08:44

who cares if marx cocketted with hegelian language or not man.

hegelian language is absolute rubbish. There are no insights one can get out of it. Most useful insight people "got" from it was probably discovered through more traditional means and then encoded with hegelian deadweight.

the only reason why i can think people want to keep it is out of orthodoxy or because it makes your college essays sound sweet

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 08:45

In case you can't understand what that means:

First you present a rational argument.

Then you present a "dialectic" which Hegel means negation or doubt (very close to what we would call analysis/criticism)/

Last, you synthesis the original argument with reasons to doubt, and place it back into general context.

And that strangely is not dialectical materialism. Another fun point is that you ignore the wonderful part of the passage that says that Hegel didn't even follow those ideas.

Under Engels this went from being idealist to materialist. This is where it takes its modern form of being Thesis, Analysis, Synthesis.

You didn't read it did you?

It is, therefore, from the history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself. And indeed they can be reduced in the main to three:
The law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa;
The law of the interpenetration of opposites;
The law of the negation of the negation.
All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being; the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought. If we turn the thing round, then everything becomes simple, and the dialectical laws that look so extremely mysterious in idealist philosophy at once become simple and clear as noonday.
Moreover, anyone who is even only slightly acquainted with his Hegel will be aware that in hundreds of passages Hegel is capable of giving the most striking individual illustrations from nature and history of the dialectical laws.
We are not concerned here with writing a handbook of dialectics, but only with showing that the dialectical laws are really laws of development of nature, and therefore are valid also for theoretical natural science. Hence we cannot go into the inner interconnection of these laws with one another.
1. The law of the 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).
All qualitative differences in nature rest on differences of chemical composition or on different quantities or forms of motion (energy) or, as is almost always the case, on both. 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. In this form, therefore, Hegel's mysterious principle appears not only quite rational but even rather obvious.
It is surely hardly necessary to point out that the various allotropic and aggregational states of bodies, because they depend on various groupings of the molecules, depend on greater or lesser quantities of motion communicated to the bodies.
But what is the position in regard to change of form of motion, or so-called energy? If we change heat into mechanical motion or vice versa, is not the quality altered while the quantity remains the same? Quite correct. But it is with change of form of motion as with Heine's vices; anyone can be virtuous by himself, for vices two are always necessary. Change of form of motion is always a process that takes place between at least two bodies, of which one loses a definite quantity of motion of one quality (e.g. heat), while the other gains a corresponding quantity of motion of another quality (mechanical motion, electricity, chemical decomposition). Here, therefore, quantity and quality mutually correspond to each other. So far it has not been found possible to convert motion from one form to another inside a single isolated body.
We are concerned here in the first place with nonliving bodies; the same law holds for living bodies, but it operates under very complex conditions and at present quantitative measurement is still often impossible for us.
If we imagine any non-living body cut up into smaller and smaller portions, at first no qualitative change occurs. But this has a limit: if we succeed, as by evaporation, in obtaining the separate molecules in the free state, then it is true that we can usually divide these still further, yet only with a complete change of quality. The molecule is decomposed into its separate atoms, which have quite different properties from those of the molecule. In the case of molecules composed of various chemical elements, atoms or molecules of these elements themselves make their appearance in the place of the compound molecule; in the case of molecules of elements, the free atoms appear, which exert quite distinct qualitative effects: the free atoms of nascent oxygen are easily able to effect what the atoms of atmospheric oxygen, bound together in the molecule, can never achieve.
But the molecule is also qualitatively different from the mass of the body to which it belongs. It can carry out movements independently of this mass and while the latter remains apparently at rest, e.g. heat oscillations; by means of a change of position and of connection with neighbouring molecules it can change the body into an allotrope or a different state of aggregation.
Thus we see that the purely quantitative operation of division has a limit at which it becomes transformed into a qualitative difference: the mass consists solely of molecules, but it is something essentially different from the molecule, just as the latter is different from the atom. It is this difference that is the basis for the separation of mechanics, as the science of heavenly and terrestrial masses, from physics, as the mechanics of the molecule, and from chemistry, as the physics of the atom.
In mechanics, no qualities occur; at most, states such as equilibrium, motion, potential energy, which all depend on measurable transference of motion and are themselves capable of quantitative expression. Hence, in so far as qualitative change takes place here, it is determined by a corresponding quantitative change.
In physics, bodies are treated as chemically unalterable or indifferent; we have to do with changes of their molecular states and with the change of form of the motion which in all cases, at least on one of the two sides, brings the molecule into play. Here every change is a transformation of quantity into quality, a consequence of the quantitative change of the quantity of motion of one form or another that is inherent in the body or communicated to it. "Thus, for instance, the temperature of water is first of all indifferent in relation to its state as a liquid; but by increasing or decreasing the temperature of liquid water a point is reached at which this state of cohesion alters and the water becomes transformed on the one side into steam and on the other into ice." (Hegel, Encyclopedia, Collected Works, VI, p. 217.) Similarly, a definite minimum current strength is required to cause the platinum wire of an electric incandescent lamp to glow; and every metal has its temperature of incandescence and fusion, every liquid its definite freezing and boiling point at a given pressure - in so far as our means allow us to produce the temperature required; finally also every gas has its critical point at which it can be liquefied by pressure and cooling. In short, the so-called physical constants are for the most part nothing but designations of the nodal points at which quantitative addition or subtraction of motion produces qualitative alteration in the state of the body concerned, at which, therefore, quantity is transformed into quality.
The sphere, however, in which the law of nature discovered by Hegel celebrates its most important triumphs is that of chemistry. Chemistry can be termed the science of the qualitative changes of bodies as a result of changed quantitative composition. That was already known to Hegel himself (Logic, Collected Works, III, p. 488). As in the case of oxygen: if three atoms unite into a molecule, instead of the usual two, we get ozone, a body which is very considerably different from ordinary oxygen in its odour and reactions. Again, one can take the various proportions in which oxygen combines with nitrogen or sulphur, each of which produces a substance qualitatively different from any of the others! How different laughing gas (nitrogen monoxide N2O) is from nitric anhydride (nitrogen pentoxide, N2O5) ! The first is a gas, the second at ordinary temperatures a solid crystalline substance. And yet the whole difference in composition is that the second contains five times as much oxygen as the first, and between the two of them are three more oxides of nitrogen (N0, N2O3, NO2), each of which is qualitatively different from the first two and from each other.
This is seen still more strikingly in the homologous series of carbon compounds, especially in the simpler hydrocarbons. Of the normal paraffins, the lowest is methane, CH4; here the four linkages of the carbon atom are saturated by four atoms of hydrogen. The second, ethane, C2H6, has two atoms of carbon joined together and the six free linkages are saturated by six atoms of hydrogen. And so it goes on, with C3H8, C4H10, etc., according t,o the algebraic formula CnH2n+2, so that by each addition of CH2 a body is formed that is qualitatively distinct from the preceding one. The three lowest members of the series are gases, the highest known, hexadecane, C16H34, is a solid body with a boiling point of 270º C. Exactly the same holds good for the series of primary alcohols with formula CnH2n+20, derived (theoretically) from the paraffins, and the series of monobasic fatty acids (formula CnH2nO2). What qualitative difference can be caused by the quantitative addition of C3H6 is taught by experience if we consume ethyl alcohol, C2H12O, in any drinkable form without addition of other alcohols, and on another occasion take the same ethyl alcohol but with a slight addition of amyl alcohol, C5H12O, which forms the main constituent of the notorious fusel oil. One's head will certainly be aware of it the next morning, much to its detriment; so that one could even say that the intoxication, and subsequent "morning after" feeling, is also quantity transformed into quality, on the one hand of ethyl alcohol and on the other hand of this added C3H6.
In these series we encounter the Hegelian law in yet another form. The lower members permit only of a single mutual arrangement of the atoms. If, however, the number of atoms united into a molecule attains a size definitely fixed for each series, the grouping of the atoms in the molecule can take place in more than one way; so that two or more isomeric substances can be formed, having equal numbers of C, H, and 0 atoms in the molecule but nevertheless qualitatively distinct from one another. We can even calculate how many such isomers are possible for each member of the series. Thus, in the paraffin series, for C4H10 there are two, for C6H12 there are three; among the higher members the number of possible isomers mounts very rapidly. Hence once again it is the quantitative number of atoms in the molecule that determines the possibility and, in so far as it has been proved, also the actual existence of such qualitatively distinct isomers.
Still more. From the analogy of the substances with which we are acquainted in each of these series, we can draw conclusions as to the physical properties of the still unknown members of the series and, at least for the members immediately following the known ones, predict their properties, boiling point, etc., with fair certainty.
Finally, the Hegelian law is valid not only for compound substances but also for the chemical elements themselves. We now know that "the chemical properties of the elements are a periodic function of their atomic weights" (Roscoe-Schorlemmer, Complete Text-Book of Chemistry, II, p. 823), and that, therefore, their quality is determined by the quantity of their atomic weight. And the test of this has been brilliantly carried out. Mendeleyev proved that various gaps occur in the series of related elements arranged according to atomic weights indicating that here new elements remain to be discovered. He described in advance the general chemical properties of one of these unknown elements, which he termed eka-aluminium, because it follows after aluminium in the series beginning with the latter, and he predicted its approximate specific and atomic weight as well as its atomic volume. A few years later, Lecoq de Boisbaudran actually discovered this element, and Mendeleyev's predictions fitted with only very slight discrepancies. Eka-aluminium was realised in gallium (ibid., p. 828). By means of the - unconscious - application of Hegel's law of the transformation of quantity into quality, Mendeleyev achieved a scientific feat which it is not too bold to put on a par with that of Leverrier in calculating the orbit of the still unknown planet Neptune.
In biology, as in the history of human society, the same law holds good at every step, but we prefer to dwell here on examples from the exact sciences, since here the quantities are accurately measurable and traceable.
Probably the same gentlemen who up to now have decried the transformation of quantity into quality as mysticism and incomprehensible transcendentalism will now declare that it is indeed something quite self-evident, trivial, and commonplace, which they have long employed, and so they have been taught nothing new.
But to have formulated for the first time in its universally valid form a general law of development of nature, society, and thought, will always remain an act of historic importance. And if these gentlemen have for years caused quantity and quality to be transformed into one another, without knowing what they did, then they will have to console themselves with Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain who had spoken prose all his life without having the slightest inkling of it.

Please note, I don't support these ideas. They have many flaws, but since you seem to think that dialectical materialism is about argumentation, I thought you should get to see what its about.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 08:47

who cares if marx cocketted with hegelian language or not man.

I only really care because I want to assume that Marx didn't really buy into it.

If he did buy in to it then oh well, he was wrong on this issue.

hegelian language is absolute rubbish. There are no insights one can get out of it. Most useful insight people "got" from it was probably discovered through more traditional means and then encoded with hegelian deadweight.

the only reason why i can think people want to keep it is out of orthodoxy or because it makes your college essays sound sweet

Absolutely agree.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 08:48

None of them contradictions. The contradiction of a fish is a not fish. Quantum Mechanics is in no way contradictory. Go ahead and try to prove it.

The fish has features of a non-fish: those are contradictory elements. Also you did not deal with the idea of cold blooded mammals. Last, I did not know General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics had been unified.

Question: What is the conflict between quantum mechanics and relativity theory
that I have heard about?

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

Answer: According to relativity, the influence of an event can be felt
only if you can see the event, and the influence should be felt
only after it has been seen. The essential point being that
light travels faster than anything else. In quantum mechanics,
it can be shown that influence of an event may be felt before
a light signal could have reached you from the same event.
This is the main problem. In quantum mechanics, you have to
specify initial state everywhere and everything in the world
effects the evolution of a system. In relativity, only the
events within the lightcone effect the evolution.http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99081.htm

The dictionary does not factor in how language is actually used. Its context that matters.

I'm pretty sure etymologists factor in how language is used.

http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/index.htm (http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/index.htm)

Read this. This is Engels on dialectics. Until you do you know nothing about dialectical materialist.

You do realize that is a less developed view then Caudwell's or Ilyenkov's respective articles right?

And this matters why?

Logic is a human construct, imposing it on the universe as an absolute is an obvious idealization.

Again, the OP simply did not read enough about Dialectics before speaking and spouted off some nonsense. Nothing to feel bad about, it just requires some education.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 08:52

You didn't read it did you?

Uh yeah, actually I read it a loong time ago. That is a more primitive view of Dialectics then what Caudwell and Ilyenkov present. Remember that the view is progressive, which means latter writers usually do much better then earlier writers. Engle's started on Dialectics when it first came out, he did a fine job, but ultimately he could not develop the system like a latter writer could do.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 08:57

The fish has features of a non-fish: those are contradictory elements. Also you did not deal with the idea of cold blooded mammals. Last, I did not know General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics had been unified.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99081.htm

I didn't know how to deal with cold blooded mammals? Really? I assumed that the fish-not fish example covered it. But you have trouble reading so...

Fish have features of non-fish? What features are not fish features?

They don't have to be unified. I don't seem to recall either theory being the absolute truth that can't be disproved or have parts of them cut away.

I'm pretty sure etymologists factor in how language is used.

Try and prove that.

You do realize that is a less developed view then Caudwell's or Ilyenkov's respective articles right?

And you do realize that Engels was the founder of dialectical materialism right?

Logic is a human construct, imposing it on the universe as an absolute is an obvious idealization.

Where have I done this?

Again, the OP simply did not read enough about Dialectics before speaking and spouted off some nonsense. Nothing to feel bad about, it just requires some self-education.

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

Go to her website and tell me that she hasn't read enough about dialectics.

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 08:59

Uh yeah, actually I read it a loong time ago. That is a more primitive view of Dialectics then what Caudwell and Ilyenkov present. Remember that the view is progressive, which means latter writers usually do much better then earlier writers. Engle's started on Dialectics when it first came out, he did a fine job, but ultimately he could not develop the system like a latter writer could do.

Go ahead and show me where they support your view that dialectics is about argumentation and not change.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 09:05

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/

Okay this is weird. There is some sort of logical positivist, claiming Dialectical Materialism is outdated. Rather ironic. And I read the "blue font" essays. Here is a typical argument:

And worse: How could Lenin possibly have known that dialectics reflected the "eternal development of the world"?

From whom did he receive the stone tablets upon which these semi-divine verities had been inscribed?

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 09:07

Okay this is weird. There is some sort of logical positivist, claiming Dialectical Materialism is outdated. Rather ironic.

She's not a logical positivist. Good work on that one.

And I read the "blue font" essays. Here is a typical argument:

She's making a point that dialectics couldn't have been read from nature and have us call the everything dialectical because we obviously have studied the nature of reality. Thats a metaphysical thing to do. Good quoting out of context.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 09:08

Here is the menu:

What's New (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/#Whats-New)

Essay One: Why I Began This Project (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2001.htm)

Essay Two: Dialectics -- Imposed On Reality, Not Read From It (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm)

Essay Three, Part One: Abstract Ideas I -- The Heart Of The Beast (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm)

Essay Three, Part Two: Abstract Ideas II -- 'Science' On The Cheap (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_02.htm)

Essay Four: Formal Logic Can Handle Change (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2004.htm)

Essay Five: Motion Is Not Contradictory (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2005.htm)

Essay Six: Trotsky And The 'Law' Of Identity (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2006.htm)

Essay Seven: Engels's Three 'Laws (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm)'

Essay Eight, Part One: Change Through 'Internal Contradiction' -- Refuted (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_01.htm)

Essay Eight, Part Two: Opposing Forces Are Not Contradictions (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_02.htm)

Essay Eight, Part Three: What Are 'Dialectical Contradictions'? (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm)

Essay Nine, Part One: Why Workers Will Always Ignore 'Materialist Dialectics' (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_01.htm)

Essay Nine, Part Two: The Damage Dialectical Materialism Has Inflicted On Marxism (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2009_02.htm)

Essay Ten Part One: Practice And History Refutes Dialectics (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%20010_01.htm)

Essay Eleven, Part One: The 'Totality' -- WTF Is It? (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2011_01.htm)

Essay Eleven, Part Two: Dialectical Wholism -- Full Of Holes (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2011%2002.htm)

Essay Twelve, Part One: Dialectics And Metaphysics -- Or, Lenin Thinks The Unthinkable (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm)

Essay Thirteen Part One: Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13%2001.htm)

Essay Thirteen Part Three: 'Mind', Language, And 'Cognition -- Voloshinov Debunked. (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page_13_03.htm)

Many of my Essays have not been published yet; here is an outline of three of them:

Summary of Essay Twelve Part Four: Outline of Hegel's Errors (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Outline_of_Hegel%27s_errors_01.htm)

Summary of Essay Fourteen: Hegel, Hermeticism And 'Materialist Dialectics' (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Summary_of_Essay_Fourteen_Part_One.htm)

Summary of Part of Essay Twelve: Traditional Philosophy And Ruling Class Ideology (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm)

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 09:08

Also an essay entitled Anti-Dialectics for Dummies (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm). A more suitable title could not be found.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 09:10

Great arguments. You seem to have a grasp of not actually talking about the points made.

You are simply retreating to making personal jabs at her because you can't admit that she has read enough dialectics.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 09:18

Okay I will criticize the substance of one her essays, but I'm going to have to double copy paste so that the, uh, graphics, do not mess up my font:

S1: A is equal to A.4

But, as an accurate depiction of identity, S1 is not even close -- not least because it omits mention of the word "identity"! Contrast S1 with the following far less inaccurate -- but simplified -- version of the same 'law':

S2: A is identical to A.

But, why have generations of dialecticians studiously avoided formulations of the LOI like S2 in favour of those that appear to be about something entirely different? [No irony intended.] Why did Trotsky prefer S1 to S2?

Clearly, his use of "equal" in S1 meant he was actually attacking the principle of equality -- not the LOI. Naturally, this means that Trotsky's criticisms of the LOI were misconceived from the start.

However, when confronted with the above, DM-apologists tend to say, "So what? What is the difference between the two?" As will be appreciated, that response is itself problematic (not the least because it reveals that they too have an insecure grasp of the issues involved):

(1) If there is no difference between the two, then they are identical, which means that at least here we would now have a genuine example of the LOI on which all could agree.

(2) If they are different, then Trotsky attacked the wrong target.

Now, when challenged with this dilemma, dialecticians tend either to ignore it, or they retreat into the "It's just abstract" defence (accompanied or not by the "This law only applies to objects and processes in nature" ploy).

As we will soon see, this retreat is itself a step back too far, for there is also a clear difference between abstract equality and abstract identity, which dialecticians have likewise failed to notice. So, abstract or concrete, the two notions are not the same.

Furthermore, as we discovered in Essay Three Parts One and Two, dialecticians have a somewhat insecure grasp of the nature of abstraction, and are largely content to be told what to think on this score by Idealist, ruling-class thinkers.

As we will also find out, our grasp of words that attempt to depict or criticise the nature of 'abstractions' depends on the employment of material correlates/media in this world. For example, the above objections have to be committed to paper, or propagated in the air as sound waves; in which case it becomes pertinent to ask whether sentences containing the word "identical" make exactly the same point as those containing the word "equal". If they do, then Trotsky's criticisms of this 'law' cannot apply to any material embodiment of his ideas --, since, in that case we would once again have a use of this 'law' in the material world which undermined all he had to say about it, for here we would have sentences that are identical in content. On the other hand, if they don't, then once more: Trotsky attacked the wrong target.

Finally, the fact that dialecticians -- who are supposed to be developing 'cutting edge' science -- failed to notice this serious mistake, and who ignore it no matter how many times they are told about it, seriously undermines their credibility. Indeed, these major interpretive blunders fatally compromise the claim that DM is a science to begin with, let alone a philosophical theory that merits serious attention.

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2006.htm

The argument is entitled something like "Common Mistakes Dialectics Makes".

Now basically I don't think she quite understands what the Dialecticians are saying. They are not refuting the law of identity put in that way, they are arguing that it is limited.

Arguing, as did Ayn Rand, that the law of identity holds true over dialectics because it means something is identical to itself at any given time, and in a specific respect, is not always useful with regards to application to the real world because time does not stand still, and different objects have different features.

This was Kant's main point that Hegel built on. The person seems to have read only the most basic and primitive writings on Dialectics and knows nothing about the philosophical history that lead to the conclusions. I'm sorry, but it's hard to take seriously for several reasons.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 09:28

Okay I will criticize the substance of one her essays, but I'm going to have to double copy paste so that the, uh, graphics, do not mess up my font:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2006.htm

The argument is entitled something like "Common Mistakes Dialectics Makes".

Now basically I don't think she quite understands what the Dialecticians are saying. They are not refuting the law of identity put in that way, they are arguing that it is limited.

Arguing, as did Ayn Rand, that the law of identity holds true over dialectics because it means something is identical to itself at any given time, and in a specific respect, is not always useful with regards to application to the real world because time does not stand still, and different objects have different features.

This was Kant's main point that Hegel built on. The person seems to have read only the most basic and primitive writings on Dialectics and knows nothing about the philosophical history that lead to the conclusions. I'm sorry, but it's hard to take seriously for several reasons.

Did you miss this part?

"The Aristotelian logic of the simple syllogism starts from the proposition that 'A' is equal to 'A'. This postulate is accepted as an axiom for a multitude of practical human actions and elementary generalisations. But in reality 'A' is not equal to 'A'. This is easy to prove if we observe these two letters under a lens -– they are quite different from each other. But, one can object, the question is not the size or the form of the letters, since they are only symbols for equal quantities, for instance, a pound of sugar. The objection is beside the point; in reality a pound of sugar is never equal to a pound of sugar -– a more delicate scale always discloses a difference. Again one can object: but a pound of sugar is equal to itself. Neither is true (sic) -– all bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves. A sophist will respond that a pound of sugar is equal to itself at 'any given moment'…. How should we really conceive the word 'moment'? If it is an infinitesimal interval of time, then a pound of sugar is subjected during the course of that 'moment' to inevitable changes. Or is the 'moment' a purely mathematical abstraction, that is, a zero of time? But everything exists in time; and existence itself is an uninterrupted process of transformation; time is consequently a fundamental element of existence. Thus the axiom 'A' is equal to 'A' signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does not change, that is if it does not exist." [Trotsky (1971) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/09-pbopp.htm), pp.63-64.]

Its pretty clear that Trotsky was arguing against the law of identity as being valid.

Also, do you agree that at any time a cat is identical to a cat? Or that A is identical to A?

Meridian

4th March 2010, 09:40

I would argue that the law of identity (or the necessity of self-identity) is meaningless not because of some dialectical notion of change but because it is simply logically meaningless.

Any dialectical argument would be to that of metaphysics, or purely that things constantly change. This is besides the point, as evidently not all things constantly change, and knowing if they did would require observing all things at all times.

Logically, the necessity of self identity is meaningless because, as Wittgenstein pointed out; to say of two things that they are identical does not make sense, and to say of one thing that it is identical with itself is not to say anything at all. Only seasoned traditional philosophers could lure themselves into that trap.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 09:41

Also, do you agree that at any time a cat is identical to a cat? Or that A is identical to A?

Okay as an absolute idealization, like you literally freeze time, and argue that an object is identical to itself- it is valid. But in the real world every object changes from one moment to the next. That is Trotsky's point.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 09:43

I would argue that the law of identity (or the necessity of self-identity) is meaningless not because of some dialectical notion of change but because it is simply logically meaningless.

Any dialectical argument would be to that of metaphysics, or purely that things constantly change. This is besides the point, as evidently not all things constantly change, and knowing if they did would require observing all things at all times.

You can't just generalize? I mean even the atomic structure changes for everything constantly. The quantum level changes. I cannot think of a single object that absolutely does not change.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 09:48

Okay as an absolute idealization, like you literally freeze time, and argue that an object is identical to itself- it is valid. But in the real world every object changes from one moment to the next. That is Trotsky's point.

Are identical twins identical? In accordance with the ordinary use of the word, they must be.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 09:51

Are identical twins identical? In accordance with the ordinary use of the word, they must be.

i·den·ti·cal

http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/speaker.gif (http://dictionary.reference.com/audio.html/lunaWAV/I00/I0019700) /aɪˈdɛnhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngtɪhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngkəl, ɪˈdɛn-/ http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif (http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/luna/IPA_pron_key.html) Show Spelled[ahy-den-ti-kuhhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngl, ih-den-] http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif (http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/luna/Spell_pron_key.html) Show IPA
–adjective1.similar or alike in every way: The two cars are identical except for their license plates.

2.being the very same; selfsame: This is the identical room we stayed in last year.

According to definition 1 no, according to definition 2 yes.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 10:02

i·den·ti·cal

http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/speaker.gif (http://dictionary.reference.com/audio.html/lunaWAV/I00/I0019700) /aɪˈdɛnhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngtɪhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngkəl, ɪˈdɛn-/ http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif (http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/luna/IPA_pron_key.html) Show Spelled[ahy-den-ti-kuhhttp://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngl, ih-den-] http://sp.ask.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif (http://dictionary1.classic.reference.com/help/luna/Spell_pron_key.html) Show IPA
–adjective1.similar or alike in every way: The two cars are identical except for their license plates.

2.being the very same; selfsame: This is the identical room we stayed in last year.

According to definition 1 no, according to definition 2 yes.

If you can admit to this then, then time doesn't hold weight to their being identical. Then the sugar in Trotsky's example is in fact identical.

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 10:42

If you can admit to this then, then time doesn't hold weight to their being identical. Then the sugar in Trotsky's example is in fact identical.

Not really:

In logic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic), the law of identity states that an object is the same as itself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_is_A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_is_A#cite_note-1)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_is_A#cite_note-1)

Dermezel

4th March 2010, 10:42

If you can admit to this then, then time doesn't hold weight to their being identical. Then the sugar in Trotsky's example is in fact identical.

Yeah, if you completely get rid of time, Trotsky is wrong. Good point.

Meridian

4th March 2010, 13:10

You can't just generalize? I mean even the atomic structure changes for everything constantly. The quantum level changes. I cannot think of a single object that absolutely does not change.
Whether or not an object 'changes', whatever you mean by that word here, does not necessitate that we refer to it by another term. If we referred to it by another term, then that would justify the change from being 'A' to not being 'A'. Only at times does this happen.

Our terms does not apply only to static objects. If you have sand in your hand, and you throw away a portion of it, you will still have sand in your hand. In other words, 'A' (meaning, a term for some object) is 'A' simply by virtue of having that name.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 14:54

Yeah, if you completely get rid of time, Trotsky is wrong. Good point.

That isn't what I said. Good job, you continue to show off your ability to read.

Anyway, Trotsky wasn't even talking about identity, but equals. A = A. So he was either talking about something other than identity, or equals is identical to identity.

ChrisK

4th March 2010, 14:56

Not really:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_is_A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_is_A#cite_note-1)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_is_A#cite_note-1)

And this disproves that sugar is identical to sugar how?

syndicat

4th March 2010, 19:05

There are two concepts of identity. It might be useful to distinguish them. There is the identity that is defined by two principles associated with Leibniz:

If A=B, then any property of A is a property of B and vice versa.

This is called Leibniz's Law and defines the identity of a thing at an instant.

If any property of A is a property of B and any property of B is a property of A, then A=B.

The first principle is regarded as a principle of logic. the second principle is controversial. it's truth tends to revolve on how you define "property".

Then there is identity through change. This does not require that an entity have the same properties to be identical. That's because A might have different properties at t2 than it had at t2. So, a person remains that person despite gaining weight, moving from one place to another, and so on.

In the case of persons, this leads to the whole philosophical debate over what constitutes personal identity, that is, your being the same person over time.

One view is that concrete objects have natures and as long as it continutes to have the same nature, it is the same individual. Then there is the view of Hume that there is no real continuity of things over time, and that our notion of "identity" has to be understood as positing some sort of relationship among a set of discrete events.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 02:52

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 06:44

The thing Chris is not getting is that Dialectics does not negate logic but subsumes it.

What your not getting is that dialectical materialism is illogical. It subsuming logic would be quite the trick.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 07:04

What your not getting is that dialectical materialism is illogical. It subsuming logic would be quite the trick.

No Dialectical Materialism makes use of logic as a necessity for coherence without idealizing it. It is because the real world does not conform to human logic, and is not always consistent, that you need logic to solve real problems. The real contradictions represent real dilemmas that we must use real methods, such as logic, to solve.

Formal logic is not a law of thought, it is a rule of symbolism. If we are to denote social references by social referents, if we are to indicate for social purposes socially interesting events in the flux of becoming by discrete, permanent symbols, there is one elementary necessity:

Each discrete permanent symbol must denote an entity on which our actions will converge.

For example, if by ‘this rock’ we sometimes mean a tree, sometimes a cloud, there will be no social convergence. But a language is designed to secure social convergence. Hence ‘this rock’ must always secure social convergence.

This involves the so-called ‘Laws of thought’. The Law of Contradiction, ‘a thing cannot both be A and Not-A,’ secures unidirection in social convergence. The Law of the Excluded Middle, ‘a thing must be either A or Not-A,’ secures unanimity in social convergence.

Logical laws are therefore social. They are approximate rules which must be obeyed if language is to fulfil a social function. They are in no way true of the nature of reality. They do not in fact make any statement about the nature of reality. They merely make the following statement:
‘It is desirable to ensure co-operation in the active relation of society to reality.’

Of course this is tautologous, inasmuch as the existence of a language implies not merely the recognition of this law, but the fact that, even before language came into being, there must have been social co-operation to bring it into being. That is why logic is a late outgrowth from language.

Formal logic does not express the vital nature of reality, but expresses certain abstract characteristics of social action. Its laws are manifestly untrue as statements of reality. It is not true that a thing is either A or not A. Yesterday it was A; to-day it is not-A. It is not true that a thing cannot both be and not be A. To-day I am alive, some day I will be dead. To-morrow I will or will not be dead. Both alternatives are equally true. The use of the verb ‘is’ gives a spurious truth to the methodological rules of logic: it implies a universal instant; but this we know from relativity physics to be impossible. There is only a social instant. There is a ‘present’ common to members of society existing and moving at roughly the same speed and in the same place in the Universe and able therefore to undertake a cooperative task. Outside this society, the ‘is’ becomes a ‘was’ or ‘will-be’, and the ‘laws’ of logic cease to be valid. Even within society logic is only approximately true. It is a rough ‘working’ rule like the absolute Time and Space of conversation and appointment-making which is also an unreal social approximation.http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/1938/reality.htm

Logic is a useful social tool of communication and coherence. It is a tool by which we find real solutions to real problems:

Man therefore learns by his mistakes. The discovery of an error is the discovery of a new truth, for, if the error is discoverable, the new truth is now knowable. This is the ‘unity of truth and error’, and it is not a ‘mysticism’ of dialectics, but is a description of a process common to the methodology of science and life.

Are we therefore, as dialectical materialists, supporters of Vaihinger’s ‘Als 0b’ (The Philosophy of ‘As If’. – Ed.) and the value of fictions? No, for to believe in the absolute value of error as an end is to be as limited as to believe in an absolute truth. In dialectics an error cannot be tolerated. The antagonism between truth and error is real. Once known, once this negation has revealed itself, the intolerableness of error prevents thought from resting upon it, and man moves on to a new truth. But according to Vaihinger, man is consciously content with error and rests on it. Thought loses its impetus. Vaihinger’s view remains a metaphysical bourgeois doctrine. He is a positivist: his position is that reality is unknowable. Since entities are unknowable in themselves, everything that works is as true as it is possible for a thing to be true.It is by recognizing that certain claims are actually contradictory and false that we can recognize how others are actually logical and true.

In fact logic is a highly developed tool used for critical thinking. That is why formal logic tends to arise late in a culture's linguistic development. The difference between a Dialectician and a Positivist is whether or not we treat this tool as an absolute condition of reality- that is where the mystification of logic comes in.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 07:33

No Dialectical Materialism makes use of logic as a necessity for coherence without idealizing it. It is because the real world does not conform to human logic, and is not always consistent, that you need logic to solve real problems. The real contradictions represent real dilemmas that we must use real methods, such as logic, to solve.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/1938/reality.htm

Logic is a useful social tool of communication and coherence. It is a tool by which we find real solutions to real problems:

It is by recognizing that certain claims are actually contradictory and false that we can recognize how others are actually logical and true.

In fact logic is a highly developed tool used for critical thinking. That is why formal logic tends to arise late in a culture's linguistic development. The difference between a Dialectician and a Positivist is whether or not we treat this tool as an absolute condition of reality- that is where the mystification of logic comes in.

You make alot of claims in there that Caudwell never says.

Caudwell doesn't say that logic can be used to solve real world problems. He says that it is insuffiencent to do this.
He doesn't claim that positivists treat logic as an absolute condition of reality.
Futhermore, his proof of contradictions is that tomorrow he can be alive (A) or dead (not A). This doesn't show that A cannot be not A is false, but that knowing the future is impossible. Dialectics cannot show either, unless it claims he is both dead and alive.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 07:52

You make alot of claims in there that Caudwell never says.

Caudwell doesn't say that logic can be used to solve real world problems. He says that it is insuffiencent to do this.

He states pretty explicitly that logic is necessary for coherent communication:

For example, if by ‘this rock’ we sometimes mean a tree, sometimes a cloud, there will be no social convergence. But a language is designed to secure social convergence. Hence ‘this rock’ must always secure social convergence.

This involves the so-called ‘Laws of thought’. The Law of Contradiction, ‘a thing cannot both be A and Not-A,’ secures unidirection in social convergence. The Law of the Excluded Middle, ‘a thing must be either A or Not-A,’ secures unanimity in social convergence.

Logical laws are therefore social. They are approximate rules which must be obeyed if language is to fulfil a social function.

Likewise Ilyenkov repeats this role for logic:

If a contradiction arises of necessity in the theoretical expression of reality from the very course of the investigation, it is not what is called a logical contradiction, though it has the formal signs of such but is a logically correct expression of reality. On the contrary, the logical contradiction, which there must not be in a theoretical investigation, has to be recognised as a contradiction of terminological, semantic origin and properties. Formal analysis is also obliged to discover such contradictions in determinations; and the principle of contradiction of formal logic applies fully to them. Strictly speaking it relates to the use of terms and not to the process of the movement of a concept.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay10.htm

Dialectics cannot show either, unless it claims he is both dead and alive.

Dying. I believe that is what it is called.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 07:54

Dying. I believe that is what it is called.

So the dying are dead and alive? Well thats impressive.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 07:58

[/LIST]He states pretty explicitly that logic is necessary for coherent communication:

Likewise Ilyenkov repeats this role for logic:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay10.htm

None of that shows how dialectians think that logic solves dialectical problems. All that they say are

Logic is necessary for coherent language
Dialectical contradictions are not disproved by formal logic

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 08:10

None of that shows how dialectians think that logic solves dialectical problems. All that they say are

Logic is necessary for coherent language
Dialectical contradictions are not disproved by formal logic

No they are saying logic deals with things in instants, not things in motion.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 08:46

No they are saying logic deals with things in instants, not things in motion.

I already disproved this. Modus Ponens. Remember?

Also, you haven't responded to my dialectics can't explain if your going to die or be alive tomorrow.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 08:58

I already disproved this. Modus Ponens. Remember?

Again your modus ponens can prove anything. And your argument that the Big Bang is proven over Steady-State theory by things changing is ridiculous. You ever heard of Nucleosynthesis?

Also, you haven't responded to my dialectics can't explain if your going to die or be alive tomorrow.

Again dying the process of not being quite dead nor quite alive.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:01

Again your modus ponens can prove anything. And your argument that the Big Bang is proven over Steady-State theory by things changing is ridiculous. You ever heard of Nucleosynthesis?

And dialectics can prove anything too. I've shown that when using real world empirical examples, modus ponens deals with things in motion. Dialectics, however, doesn't.

Again dying the process of not being quite dead nor quite alive.

Dying people aren't partly dead. They are fully alive, but are going to not be soon.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:04

And dialectics can prove anything too.

Dialectical Materialism relies on empirical data.

Dying people aren't partly dead. They are fully alive, but are going to not be soon.

So they aren't dying?

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:10

So they aren't dying?

Dying isn't dead. Dying isn't part dead. Dying is alive, but close to death.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:11

Dying isn't dead. Dying isn't part dead. Dying is alive, but close to death.

Well depending on your situation it might not exactly be living either.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:13

Well depending on your situation it might not exactly be living either.

No, people with terminal cancer are very much alive. Unless your using living in two different senses. Then your just an idiot.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:18

No, people with terminal cancer are very much alive. Unless your using living in two different senses. Then your just an idiot.

Oh yeah, they are just running around and frolicking.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:21

Oh yeah, they are just running around and frolicking.

Right, because alive means running around and being mobile. Are old people in wheelchairs who are no where near death not alive now?

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:23

Right, because alive means running around and being mobile. Are old people in wheelchairs who are no where near death not alive now?

Almost dead. Hence the phrase dying, a verb, meaning between dead and alive. See not all the world fits nicely into bourgeoisie binary logic.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:25

Almost dead. Hence the phrase dying, a verb, meaning between dead and alive. See not all the world fits nicely into bourgeoisie binary logic.

No, dying means about to die. Not being between dead and alive. Go outside and ask someone if people are dying if they're both dead and alive.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:27

No, dying means about to die. Not being between dead and alive. Go outside and ask someone if people are dying if they're both dead and alive.

You remind me of an anti-abortionist who thinks there is an exact moment when an embryo/zygote/fetus can be considered "life".

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:28

You remind me of an anti-abortionist who thinks there is an exact moment when an embryo/zygote/fetus can be considered "life".

So people are never alive. If there is no point when people are alive, they are always dead and alive. Now we both know that thats stupid.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:30

So people are never alive. If there is no point when people are alive, they are always dead and alive. Now we both know that thats stupid.

You get a little closer to death every day.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:33

You get a little closer to death every day.

That in no way means I'm both dead and alive.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:34

That in no way means I'm both dead and alive.

So tell me the exact moment life begins. This should be interesting.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:36

So tell me the exact moment life begins. This should be interesting.

I don't know. You should ask your doctor :). While your at it ask him if your dead while alive.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:37

I don't know. You should ask your doctor :). While your at it ask him if your dead while alive.

So a virus, living or non-living?

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:37

So a virus, living or non-living?

Living until dead.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 09:41

Living until dead.

They do not have the characteristics of living things and are not able to metabolize food. To metabolize means to change food energy into chemical energy that the body can use. Viruses are not alive, so they do not have a need for food like living oganisms. Viruses do not have an organized cell structure. They are so light that they can float in the air or water, be passed on to other organisims if touched, and fit anywhere. The virus injects its own DNA structure into healthy cells where new virus cells grow.

http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0212089/virus.htm

Sounds like something neither fully living nor non-living to me.

So light- wave or particle? Archeopteryx bird or reptile?

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 09:46

http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0212089/virus.htm

Sounds like something neither fully living nor non-living to me.

So light- wave or particle? Archeopteryx bird or reptile?

Niffty. I didn't know that viruses aren't living. I don't know how you get "neither fully living nor non-living" from "non-living". But we all know how well you read.

Light-wave and particles are not living and not subject to death.
Not too sure about the others, except that I'm pretty sure they're alive till dead. Unless you do one of those nifty links that show that they're non-living.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 10:10

Niffty. I didn't know that viruses aren't living. I don't know how you get "neither fully living nor non-living" from "non-living". But we all know how well you read.

Light-wave and particles are not living and not subject to death.
Not too sure about the others, except that I'm pretty sure they're alive till dead. Unless you do one of those nifty links that show that they're non-living.

Euglena, plant or animal?

Euglena is a genus of unicellular (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicellular) protists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist), of the class Euglenoidea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglenoidea) of the phylum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylum) Euglenozoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglenozoa) (also known as Euglenophyta). They are single-celled organisms. Currently, over 1,000 species of Euglena have been described. There are many to be discovered. Marin et al. (2003) revised the genus to include several species without chloroplasts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloroplast), formerly classified as Astasia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astasia) and Khawkinea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khawkinea). Some Euglena are considered to have both plant and animal features. Due to these dual characteristics, much debate has arisen to how they have evolved, and into which clade they should be placed.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena

I mean something has to either be a plant or an animal right?

A Euglena is a protist that can both eat food as animals by heterotrophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterotroph); and can photosynthesize, like plants, by autotrophy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotrophy).

OMG where is Aristotle's logic!

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 10:15

Euglena, plant or animal?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena

I mean something has to either be a plant or an animal right?

OMG where is Aristotle's logic!

Well, considering your short term memory I guess I'll have to remind you that I use modern logic, not Aristotle's.

Sounds like something that will need a new classification to me, and no, light waves aren't plants or animals. Nor is piss. So not everything has to be plant or animal.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 10:24

Well, considering your short term memory I guess I'll have to remind you that I use modern logic, not Aristotle's.

Sounds like something that will need a new classification to me, and no, light waves aren't plants or animals. Nor is piss. So not everything has to be plant or animal.

So Pluto, moon or planet (or planetoid? )

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 10:27

So Pluto, moon or planet (or planetoid? )

Your really pathetic. You keep on trying to invent contradictions, where there aren't any. It doesn't matter what Pluto is. Scientists say a moon, so its a damn moon.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 10:32

Your really pathetic. You keep on trying to invent contradictions, where there aren't any. It doesn't matter what Pluto is. Scientists say a moon, so its a damn moon.

So what do you think of how biology cannot be reduced to physics?

http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/is-biology-reducible-to-the-laws-of-physics

In earlier work, Rosenberg accepted the consensus among philosophers of biology that biology couldn't be reduced to chemistry or physics. But whereas most philosophers saw this as a problem for philosophy of science, and for traditional models of reduction, Rosenberg concluded that it was a problem for biology, a problem indicating that the field's purported explanations were neither fundamental nor true.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/reduction.html

Summary: Biology cannot be reduced to physics, even though all biological entities are physical entities, and nothing more. Group selection is not an accepted evolutionary theory, but group sorting is.

Sounds like a contradiction to me.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 10:34

So what do you think of how biology cannot be reduced to physics?

http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/is-biology-reducible-to-the-laws-of-physics

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/reduction.html

Sounds like a contradiction to me.

Sounds like a difference of opinion to me. Arguments are pretty okay by me. Thats just another method of deriving knowledge.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 10:35

Sounds like a difference of opinion to me.

So wait, my opinion contradicts your opinion?

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 10:37

So wait, my opinion contradicts your opinion?

Did you even read my earlier posts? The one's where I said people can have contradictory ideas?

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 10:38

Did you even read my earlier posts? The one's where I said people can have contradictory ideas?

Are ideas material?

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 10:40

Are ideas material?

Thinking can be reduced to a material phenomena.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 10:42

Thinking can be reduced to a material phenomena.

So material contradictions exist.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 10:45

So material contradictions exist.

No, ideas about how things are can be contradictory, but this does not make it a material contradiction.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 10:48

So material contradictions exist.

I'm using the wrong word here. As syndicat mentioned earlier, what we are talking about are conflicting tendencies, not contradicitons.

Dermezel

7th March 2010, 11:03

No, ideas about how things are can be contradictory, but this does not make it a material contradiction.

So ideas are material things that contradict but are not material contradictions. Interesting.

Or maybe I should rephrase that, ideas don't contradict they have "conflicting tendencies", which to most, including the dictionary, may sound like contradictions, but are not clearly just because (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis).

Meridian

7th March 2010, 12:04

Do you guys realize that whatever we name a thing, let's say... Pluto... that it is just a term for it? So if we say Pluto is a planet, or a moon, that the only difference that makes is in fact whether we call it a planet or a moon? The actual entity out there is left untouched.

Now what does that have to do with physical contradictions? We could apply to dialectics here, but it would be the dialectics of language, not of metaphysics.

ChrisK

7th March 2010, 18:15

So ideas are material things that contradict but are not material contradictions. Interesting.

Or maybe I should rephrase that, ideas don't contradict they have "conflicting tendencies", which to most, including the dictionary, may sound like contradictions, but are not clearly just because (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hoc_hypothesis).

For the sake of argument, lets pretend that this is a material contradiction. How is it a dialectical contradiction? And how does it prove dialectics?

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th March 2010, 15:25

Dermezel (apologies for the delay in replying, but I have been away):

Rosa you have quite clearly not studied enough philosophy to give an informed explanation of Dialectical Materialism. First, Dialectics was established by finding the flaws in traditional/absolutist logic and positivism:

1) I have a degree in Philosophy, and my PhD was on Wittgenstein. I also have a degree in mathematics, and have studied logic to MPhil level. So, make sure of your facts before you mouth-off in future.

2) What are the alleged 'flaws' in logic?

3) What has positivism got to do with anything I have said or alleged?

From an Introduction to Soviet Psychology.

Thanks for that, but I fail to see how that shows up the alleged 'flaws' in logic.

Next it was discovered no system of thought can escape contradictions:

How is this a proof that no system can escape 'contradictions'? It seems more like a series of dogmatic assertions.

Next Hegel admitted the contradictions as real, and not just illusions that we will one day see past:

But, Hegel's argument was based on a confusion between (1) the 'is' of predication with the 'is' of identity, and (2) the allegedly 'negative' form of the 'law of identity' and the 'law of non-contradiction'. I have summarised where he went wrong here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm

Dialectical Materialism was thus established by a series of arguments within philosophy itself, it was not just presented ex nihilo. All points of the philosophy can be justified with logical argument. It is not a matter of faith

In fact, this 'theory; is far too confused for anyone to be able to say whether or not it is true -- it's origin was in mystical Christianity, and it's confusions cannot be eliminated by 'putting it on its feet'.

No wonder Marx abandoned it, as I have shown in the 'anti-dialectics made easy' thread.

If you believe:

1- There are real contradictions. i.e. contradictory thoughts, opposing forces.

2- Reality is material.

You are a Dialectical Materialist.

The first part of 1) is far too confused to be able to assess, and the second part has already been demolished here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1221394&postcount=464

2) is a typical metaphysical proposition, which I have shown (earlier in this thread) is non-sensical.

Note that Caudwell accepted General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, as both true, while they were still controversial and predicted that they would not be united into a unified theory for some time.

Indeed, but what has that got to do with anything I have argued?

Last, you note Marx/Engels were not working class (the founders of Dialectical Materialism were not working class)- that makes sense. You would expect a more educated person with more resources and a liberal education in philosophy to develop Dialectical Materialism. The point of the left is to make it so there is no working class- not to romanticize the working class.

In fact, what I argue is that without the materialist counter-weight provided by the working class, petty-bourgeois theorists rapidly lapse into idealism and mysticism, as Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Trotsky amply demonstrated (when they tried to do a little 'philosophising').

I would not take the statement of a fast food worker over a physicist, or biologist or psychologist in the relevant fields of expertise just because he or she was a worker. See my thread on the "Labor Theory of Value as a Prescriptive" in the "Theory" forums.

Indeed, but scientists are dealing with material reality, and they test their theories in practice. Material reality corrects them, or otherwise. This is not so with dialectical materialism: whatever the facts tell us, dialectical mystics still cling onto this 'theory'.

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th March 2010, 15:44

Dermezel:

Okay this is weird. There is some sort of logical positivist, claiming Dialectical Materialism is outdated. Rather ironic. And I read the "blue font" essays. Here is a typical argument:

Too bad you didn't read this caveat in my first essay:

Apart from those listed in Note 01, above, the most common reactions to my work (from comrades who have 'debated' this with me on the internet, or elsewhere) are the following:...

(6) A casting of the usual slurs e.g., "anti-Marxist", "positivist", "sophist", "logic-chopper", "naïve realist", "revisionist", "eclectic", "relativist", "post modernist", "bourgeois stooge", "pedant", "absolutist", "elitist", "empiricist", and so on.

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

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

So, not only am I not a positivist, I am totally against any and all forms of traditional philosophy -- dialectics being merely a fourth-rate version of the same.

Quote:
And worse: How could Lenin possibly have known that dialectics reflected the "eternal development of the world"?

From whom did he receive the stone tablets upon which these semi-divine verities had been inscribed?

Again, you skipped past this caveat too:

Throughout this Essay, readers will find me continually asking the following rhetorical question: "How could DM-theorist A, B or C possibly know X, Y or Z?"

The answer is clear in each case: they couldn't possibly know these things by any ordinary means, but only by means of bogus a priori legislation --, which means they must have been imposed on nature; that is, on these lines:

"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." [Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]

This question is asked continually in order to underline the fact that dialecticians en masse propound theses that cannot possibly be substantiated by any conceivable body of evidence, no matter how large -- since they are universal, necessary and eternally true.

Again, I explain why traditional theorists have always done this, and why dialecticians are happy to ape them in Essay Twelve Part One:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htm

So, you'd be better occupied in trying to justify such a priori dogmatism on the part of dialecticians like Lenin.

Rosa Lichtenstein

8th March 2010, 15:58

Dermezel:

Now basically I don't think she quite understands what the Dialecticians are saying. They are not refuting the law of identity put in that way, they are arguing that it is limited.

In fact, I dealt with this counter-argument in the following way (LOI = 'Law of Identity', IED = 'Identity-in-Difference', DM = 'Dialectical Materialism/Materialist', according to context):

In response, it could be argued that the above comments are completely misguided since Trotsky's argument was aimed at showing how no absolute sense could be made of the LOI when applied to material reality. It is also clear that he only needed to appeal to approximate identity in the first instance -- the sort of identity we meet in everyday life (from which the LOI has been abstracted) -- to underline the limitations of the ideal version of LOI when it is confronted with concrete reality and change. The same perhaps could be said of Hegel (no irony intended).

To that end, therefore, the relative apparent stability of material objects allowed Trotsky to refer coherently to such things as the "same" instant, or the "same" object changing over time, and so on (employing the IED argument, once more). This certainly did not commit him to using the LOI in order to criticise it. Trotsky was obviously arguing dialectically, accessing everyday notions to show how they become contradictory when they are applied beyond the usual boundaries of commonsense.

Or so the argument might go.

However, if sense is to be made of approximate identity, some grasp must surely be had of absolute identity so that a vague idea might be formed of what this watered-down version of the LOI actually approximates to. If this is to be achieved only by a retreat into the abstract then we are no further forward.

Indeed, if there is a problem about material identity in the real world, there must surely be an even more intractable one about abstract identity in an Ideal form. In the absence of a clear account of this abstract notion of identity, we still have no idea what ordinary identity is approximating to. But, how might that be determined without another surreptitious appeal to the LOI?

Hence, we would surely need to know by how much or how little approximate identity was or was not absolutely identical to absolute identity before we could even begin to abstract absolute identity into existence. Waving a phrase about (i.e., "abstract identity") in no way helps anyone understand what concrete identity approximates to.

Consider this sentence:

A1: Approximate identity is approximately identical with absolute identity.

Until we understand absolute identity, any approximation to it must remain an empty notion.

Moreover, and more concretely: Just how is the sense of this abstract notion of identity fixed so that two or more references to it at different times pick out identically the same target, as opposed to nearly the same target? How might even a latter day Hegel determine whether the notion he had formed today of absolute identity was or was not absolutely/approximately identical with the one he had accessed only yesterday?

Consider further these sentences:

A2: Comrade NN means by "abstract identity" exactly the same as comrade NM.

A3: Comrade MM means by "abstract identity" approximately the same as comrade MN.

How could anyone determine what the word "same" meant in these contexts before they knew what the intended goal was (i.e., identity itself)? For all anybody knew, an intentional target like this could be entirely different in the minds of two different abstractors; it is not as if either of them could check inside each other's brain, or 'read' his or her thoughts to monitor their precision. But, how do dialecticians themselves lock on to identical ideas of abstract identity, those they supposedly share exactly with one another (or with Hegel or with Trotsky or with Lenin) -- even before they have determined what that target is (and whether there is in fact one target, or many -- or if there is indeed one at all)? Is it just luck? Or do they know something the rest of us don't?

And we cannot just assume this is possible; if no one knows what absolute identity is, then assuming it means this or that would be about as useful as assuming that a meskonator is a new brand of deodorant. Nor can we appeal to ordinary language for assistance. If this theory undermines the vernacular -- which we have seen it does -- then the latter can't help bail out the very thing that caused the problem.

[Added: "meskonator" is a word I invented to make an earlier point.]

To be sure, as language users we already know what terms for identity and difference mean. This can be seen from the fact that few readers who have made it this far will have failed to grasp the import of the examples given earlier in this Essay of the use of these terms in everyday contexts. However, in these new and rarefied 'dialectical' contexts, where change and obscurity rule the day, ordinary terms fare rather badly. Even worse, jargonised terms survive not at all. In fact, they commit hara-kiri, as we have just seen.

As we also saw in Essay Three Parts One and Two, theorists who appeal to the existence of "abstract concepts" to justify the "objectivity" of human knowledge find themselves in a serious dilemma at this point. Either (1) they admit that such concepts already exist, toward which knowledge advances or approximates, or (2) they concede that it is we who construct such notions out of experience by a mysterious process of 'abstraction' (that still awaits explication).

Option (2), it seems, underlies the proffered 'dialectical' response rehearsed above, while (1) barely conceals its Platonic/mystical provenance. But, whichever horn of this dilemma dialecticians grasp, neither is conducive to the dialectical analysis of the LOI (Trotsky's version or Hegel's alternative).

There are at least two reasons for saying this:

(1) If there is an abstract concept of absolute identity towards which our knowledge slowly edges then presumably that goal must remain the 'same' while it is being hunted down. In that case, the LOI must apply to it (since it does not change). But, no self-respecting DM-theorist can possibly agree to such a Platonic view of abstract concepts, even though their asymptotic approach metaphor suggests that they should. Admittedly, this is a controversial allegation, but it may only be neutralised when it becomes clear what the asymptotic approach metaphor itself implies -- more pointedly, when it becomes clear whether or not it means that as far as individual dialectical truth-seekers are concerned, there is indeed a goal (identical in the case of each dialectical pilgrim), which they have targeted aright, collectively or severally, toward which they are all slowly gravitating. Naturally, a positive answer to that untoward question would sink the dialectical analysis of the LOI, since it would make plain that the asymptotic metaphor implies that there is something unchanging called "absolute identity" that all dialectical truth-seekers are zooming in on, and upon which all are in equal agreement.* A negative response, on the other hand, would undermine DL equally quickly: if there is no such goal then approximate identity must approximate to nothing at all.**

(2) Alternatively, if human knowledge is dialectically conditioned, and there are no abstract concepts that exist independently of our knowledge of them, then there would be no objective way to decide whether or not any two randomly selected dialecticians were aiming at the very same target. Indeed, we would be hard-pressed to say what could count as the same intentional goal in such circumstances (without using the LOI). But, if such dialectical detectives haven't locked on to the very same target, then the second of the above conclusions (i.e., point (1)** above) must surely apply. In that case, their search is, to put it bluntly, aimless. On the other hand, if there is a way of delving into the minds of any two randomly selected dialectical abstractionists, which enables one and all to decide whether they were in pursuit of an identical goal, the first of the above points would plainly follow (i.e., (1)*) -- for it would then be obvious that such truth-seekers had used the LOI to identify exactly the same target, and had done it with equal accuracy.

In fact, if anyone were to advocate or reject either of the above options they would still have to appeal to the very same 'law' in question in order to maintain that approximate identity was more or less identical to abstract identity (whether or not "abstract identity" was understood Platonically or as quasi-Hegelian/dialectical construct). Of course, this concept (i.e., abstract identity) would have to remain rock solid -- frozen in mental or conceptual space -- while it was being approximated to, and in real time, too.

If this wasn't so, that 'target' must surely be misidentified by anyone foolish enough to blaze an intentional trail toward such a mutating 'object'. As was argued in the last sub-section, unless, dialecticians can specify under what conditions their notion of absolute or abstract identity does not change over time -- but remains absolutely self-identical in the minds of supporters and critics alike, over many centuries, for them to be able to say with confidence that they are talking about the same thing --, any reference to 'it' by critic and believer alike would be entirely empty. Otherwise they should acknowledge their irresolvable differences, and cease their pointless blather.

And if the concept of abstract identity were to change (as it is apprehended by one or all), then in order to express this fact, some way must be found to say that this concept was no longer absolutely identical with whatever it used to be absolutely identical with. In that case, access to an unchanging version of absolute identity would still be needed to classify any mutated version of it as just such a mutant. Without that, of course, one would lose the right to say that absolute identity might have changed; indeed, we would need it not to change in order to say that it had!

[Once more, this just underlines the intimate connection there is in language between change and identity, contrary to what dialecticians tell us.]

Moreover, an implicit reference to the LOI would have to be made in each claim that any randomly chosen dialectical bloodhound had a concept of 'abstract identity' which was identical with that of any other, so that it could be said that they were referring to the same 'abstract concept' in making the 'same' point even about "approximate identity" --, even if they were disagreeing.

But, if these assumed ideas of "abstract identity" (or even of "approximate identity") were not exactly the same, then agreement/disagreement over what they were talking about would be illusory, too. On the other hand, of course, if their ideas were 'absolutely identical' then criticisms of the LOI would plainly self-destruct. [Hence, the reference to hara-kiri, above.]

Furthermore, if the supposed subject of enquiry were only 'roughly identical' in the minds of the many LOI-critics sat round the dialectical table, not only would that fact be untestable and unverifiable, it would mean that the topic of discussion would be indeterminate, too -- and for the same reason. Again, this would mean that any and all criticisms levelled against the LOI would be misdirected, for not only would no one know exactly what "abstract identity" was so that it could be criticised equally the same -- and by the use of identical arguments -- by those who do not believe in the absolute validity of the LOI, no two critics of the LOI would be able to say that they had the very same thing in mind when they were even so much as pointing out its limitations. Indeed, they could not even use the word "same" with any clear meaning --, and, annoyingly, for the same reason.

On the other hand, if it were now conceded that any two notions of strict (or even approximate) identity were exactly the same in the minds of any two intrepid dialectical abstractors, so that it could be said of one or both that they were talking about the very same thing, there would be no point in criticising the LOI, for it would be correct -- and admitted to be correct -- at least here by its severest critics.

Worse still, if anyone were to deny that everyone had an exact notion of strict identity (based on the claim that one and all harboured only approximate versions of it), we should still want to know exactly what was being ruled out. In that case we (they) would have to have an idea of strict identity to be able to deny they (we) had any such idea!

Identity Schmidentity!

In order to underline this point, consider an analogy: let us suppose that someone introduced a word into the language -- say "schmidentity" -- but could give no examples of anything in reality that could possibly exhibit "schmidentity". If we were then told that certain things were "approximately schmidentical" (or even "schmidentical only within certain limits") we would still have no clear idea what this new word meant; if we do not know what "schmidentity" is, we certainly do not know what "approximate schmidentity" is. And calling this new 'concept' "abstract schmidentity", "absolute schmidentity", or even "relative schmidentity" would be equally futile.

[It could be objected that the words we have for abstractions are merely extensions to words we already use in language, so the analogy with "schmidentity" is not relevant. In that case, abstract or absolute identity would be an extrapolation from our ordinary words for identity, etc. This point has in fact been covered in the last few Notes (above).

Even so, let us change the example. Suppose someone introduced the phrase "absolute cat-hood" into the language, but could not say what an 'absolute cat' was, or by how much the average moggie differed from this quintessential feline. I think we would judge this person radically confused -- nor would we be inclined to adjust our scientific, philosophical or ordinary vocabulary accordingly.

In that case, until we are told by how much or how little absolute or abstract identity differs from our everyday words for identity, we would be wise, I think, to adopt the same policy.]

In that case, when dialecticians presume to tell us that a word (or set of words) in ordinary material language connected with sameness and identity, which we all know how to use, does not mean what we usually take it to mean, then the onus is on them to tell us what they do mean by their new word (or set of words). Until they do, they might as well be talking about schmidentity.

And it is little point referring to Hegel's criticisms of the LOI; as I have demonstrated here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm), he badly misconstrued this 'law', compounding such folly with a series of crass errors over the nature of propositions.

Indeed, for all DM-fans know, they could very well be talking about schmidentity -- or, alternatively, about nothing whatsoever.

For example, how do they know that their notion of identity is not absolutely identical with schmidentity? Or, indeed with nothing? The fact that I have not defined "schmidentity" is no objection. They have yet to tell us what they mean by their use of words for identity. In fact, they mis-identify this word right from the start, and they copied this exact misidentification from Hegel!

In which case, they probably are talking about nothing.

Nevertheless, there are other intractable problems faced by the objection outlined at the beginning of the last sub-section. What these are can be seen if we consider the exact words Trotsky himself used to criticise the LOI over 60 years ago (irony intended, once more).

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2006.htm

Arguing, as did Ayn Rand, that the law of identity holds true over dialectics because it means something is identical to itself at any given time, and in a specific respect, is not always useful with regards to application to the real world because time does not stand still, and different objects have different features.

I nowhere say that the LOI is true; in fact I criticise those who say it is true!

For example in Note One:

Nevertheless, the defects of the LOI lie elsewhere; these are outlined in Wittgenstein (1972), pp.97, 105-07, and Wittgenstein (1958), pp.84-85, 91, 111. [Cf., Glock (1996), pp.164-69.]

The best analysis of Wittgenstein's criticisms of identity can be found in White (1978). See also Marion (1998), pp.48-72 for an extended discussion. On identity in general, see Geach (1967, 1970, 1973, 1975, 1990), Griffin (1977), Noonan (1980, 1997, 2006) and Williams (1979, 1989, 1992).

You need to read more carefully!

This was Kant's main point that Hegel built on. The person seems to have read only the most basic and primitive writings on Dialectics and knows nothing about the philosophical history that lead to the conclusions. I'm sorry, but it's hard to take seriously for several reasons.

On the contrary, I have been studying Philosophy since the early 1970s.

The problem is, you seem not to be able to read.:(

Dermezel

13th March 2010, 10:34

1) I have a degree in Philosophy, and my PhD was on Wittgenstein. I also have a degree in mathematics, and have studied logic to MPhil level. So, make sure of your facts before you mouth-off in future.

You know I don't believe you.

Dermezel

13th March 2010, 10:34

2) What are the alleged 'flaws' in logic?

It only measures consistency.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th March 2010, 13:23

Dermazel:

You know I don't believe you.

See if I care.

But, let's see you try to take me on...:)

It only measures consistency.

Why is that a flaw?

You'd be better occupied in trying to expose the defects in my demonstration that dialectical logic, among other things, cannot cope with change -- or, alternatively, if true, would make change impossible -- if there are any.

Check these out:

Quotes:

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

Argument:

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

Dermezel

14th March 2010, 04:35

You'd be better occupied in trying to expose the defects in my demonstration that dialectical logic, among other things, cannot cope with change -- or, alternatively, if true, would make change impossible -- if there are any.

Okay so how do you justify say heuristic principles like the use of empirical data or parsimony using pure logic?

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th March 2010, 13:47

Dermezel:

Okay so how do you justify say heuristic principles like the use of empirical data or parsimony using pure logic?

Simple, I don't.

Dermezel

19th March 2010, 14:49

Dermezel:

Simple, I don't.

Well, that's fine and good, but in actual reality we have to go by heuristic principles. Science goes by standards like parsimony, and falsification, and peer review.

I mean, according to your view, if I say my past observations makes it highly probable that the sun will rise tomorrow I'm being "illogical" because according to 100% formal logic that *might* not be the case.

Simply put, if your worldview does not include empirical principles, like parsimony, or pretty much every single principle in science, it is way too limited.

Rosa Lichtenstein

19th March 2010, 22:59

Dermezel:

Well, that's fine and good, but in actual reality we have to go by heuristic principles. Science goes by standards like parsimony, and falsification, and peer review.

Peer review is flawed, and falsification plays very little role in science, despite what you have read in Popper.

I mean, according to your view, if I say my past observations makes it highly probable that the sun will rise tomorrow I'm being "illogical" because according to 100% formal logic that *might* not be the case.

Simply put, if your worldview does not include empirical principles, like parsimony, or pretty much every single principle in science, it is way too limited.

I do not have a 'world-view', nor do I want one.

Nor do we need one.

Dermezel

22nd March 2010, 17:22

Dermezel:

Peer review is flawed, and falsification plays very little role in science, despite what you have read in Popper.

Okay so since peer review is "flawed" that means it is not to be used at all? And yeah, actually falsification plays a tremendous role in science as has been acknowledged by scientists themselves:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Falsificationism

Falsifiability is an important concept in science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science) and the philosophy of science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science). The concept was made popular by Karl Popper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper), who, in his philosophical analysis of the scientific method (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method), concluded that a hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis), proposition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition), or theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory) is "scientific" only if it is falsifiable. Popper asserted that unfalsifiable statements are non-scientific, but not of zero importance. For example, meta-physical or religious propositions have cultural or spiritual meaning, and the ancient metaphysical and unfalsifiable idea of the existence of atoms has led to corresponding falsifiable modern theories. A falsifiable theory that has withstood severe scientific testing is said to be corroborated (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corroboration) by past experience, though in Popper's view this is not equivalent with confirmation and does not lead to the conclusion that the theory is true or even partially true.

Use in courts of law

Falsifiability was one of the criteria used by Judge William Overton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Overton_%28judge%29) in the McLean v. Arkansas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLean_v._Arkansas) ruling to determine that 'creation science (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_science)' was not scientific and should not be taught in Arkansas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas) public schools (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_%28government_funded%29). In his conclusion related to this criterion he stated that "While anybody is free to approach a scientific inquiry in any fashion they choose, they cannot properly describe the methodology as scientific, if they start with the conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation."[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#cite_note-mclean-1)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#cite_note-mclean-1)
It was also enshrined in United States law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_law) as part of the Daubert Standard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daubert_Standard) set by the Supreme Court for whether scientific evidence is admissible in a jury trial.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. — Albert Einstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein)[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#cite_note-15)
The criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability. — Karl Popper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper), (Popper, CR, 36)

And peer review is considered the gold standard in science- to quote the Director of the Skeptic's Society and Accredited Science Historian Dr. Michael Shermer:

http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/sherm3.htm

7. Heresy Does Not Equal Correctness

They laughed at Copernicus. They laughed at the Wright brothers. Yes, well, they laughed at the Marx brothers. Being laughed at does not mean you are right. Wilhelm Reich compared himself to Peer Gynt, the unconventional genius out of step with society, and misunderstood and ridiculed as a heretic until proven right: "Whatever you have done to me or will do to me in the future, whether you glorify me as a genius or put me in a mental institution, whether you adore me as your savior or hang me as a spy, sooner or later necessity will force you to comprehend that I have discovered the laws of the living" (in Gardner 1952, p. 259). Reprinted in the January-February 1996 issue of the Journal of Historical Review, the organ of Holocaust denial, is a famous quote from the nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, which is quoted often by those on the margins: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident." But "all truth" does not pass through these stages. Lots of true ideas are accepted without ridicule or opposition, violent or otherwise. Einstein's theory of relativity was largely ignored until 1919, when experimental evidence proved him right. He was not ridiculed, and no one violently opposed his ideas. The Schopenhauer quote is just a rationalization, a fancy way for those who are ridiculed or violently opposed to say, "See, I must be right." Not so.

History is replete with tales of the lone scientist working in spite of his peers and flying in the face of the doctrines of his or her own field of study. Most of them turned out to be wrong and we do not remember their names. For every Galileo shown the instruments of torture for advocating a scientific truth, there are a thousand (or ten thousand) unknowns whose "truths" never pass muster with other scientists. The scientific community cannot be expected to test every fantastic claim that comes along, especially when so many are logically inconsistent. If you want to do science, you have to learn to play the game of science. This involves getting to know the scientists in your field, exchanging data and ideas with colleagues informally, and formally presenting results in conference papers, peer-reviewed journals, books, and the like.

Peer review is largely what separates the quacks from practicing scientists.

I do not have a 'world-view', nor do I want one.

Nor do we need one.

Again that is a major source of weakness. You cannot establish practical empirical principles within your system. Various principles needed for scientific and every day reasoning fly out the window: inference, parsimony, generalization, etc.

And you cannot even definitively reject ridiculous claims like solipsism or Nihilism. Well you can, but not in a reasoned manner, only by denying them as a matter of faith.