Where did Engels get his definition of metaphysics from?

[Zanthorus]

This has always confused the hell out of me. In Anti-Duhring Engels constantly attacks what he calls the "metaphysical mode of thought" which he tries to lay out his understanding of in this passage:


To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. "His communication is 'yea, yea; nay, nay'; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." [Matthew 5:37. — Ed.] For him a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another, cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis one to the other.

That doesn't sound like any kind of metaphysics I've ever heard of. I'd always thought that metaphysics was to do with aspects of reality that can't be percieved through the sense and have to be uncovered through contemplation. So where exactly did Engels get this strange definition from? Is this something that was common back in the 19th century?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

He lifted it from Hegel, who just made it up (in defiance of everyone else's characterisation of it, and in defiance of his own definition!):

Here is how Hegel scholar, Steven Houlgate explains things:


"Metaphysics is characterised in the Encyclopedia [one of Hegel's major works -- RL] first and foremost by the belief that the categories of thought constitute 'the fundamental determinations of things'....

"The method of metaphysical philosophy, Hegel maintains, involves attributing predicates to [certain -- RL] given subjects, in judgements. Moreover just as the subject-matter of metaphysics consists of distinct entities, so the qualities to be predicated of those entities are held to be valid by themselves.... Of any two opposing predicates, therefore, metaphysics assumes that one must be false if the other is true. Metaphysical philosophy is thus described by Hegel as 'either/or' thinking because it treats predicates or determinations of thought as mutually exclusive, 'as if each of the two terms in an anti-thesis...has an independent, isolated existence as something substantial and true by itself.' The world either has a beginning and end in time or it does not; matter is either infinitely divisible or it is not; man is either a rigidly determined being or he is not. In this mutual exclusivity, Hegel believes, lies the dogmatism of metaphysics. In spite of the fact that metaphysics deals with infinite objects, therefore, these objects are rendered finite by the employment of mutually exclusive, one-sided determinations -- 'categories the limits of which are believed to be permanently fixed, and not subject to any further negation.'" [Houlgate (2004), pp.100-01.]

Here is my reply (taken from Essay Twelve Part One, at my site)


But, as has been pointed out elsewhere at this site, this puts Hegel himself in something of a bind, for he certainly believed that metaphysics is this, but not that, involving his own definition in the use of mutually exclusive categories.

[LEM = Law Of Excluded Middle -- the alleged 'law' that is supposed to use rigid and mutually exclusive "either/or" categories.]

Of course, it could be argued that the above observations are not "judgements" about the fundamental nature of things; but then again, that objection itself must use the LEM to make its point, for it takes as granted that the above paragraph is saying this, but not that, with a fixed and rigid boundary betwen the two. Indeed, even Hegel's conclusions about the content of any metaphysical 'judgement' (that it says this, but not that) would require the deployment of the LEM. And we can go further, any 'leap' into 'speculative' thought to the effect that this or that, or whatever, has been negated, must involve the LEM once more, for it will either be the case, or it will not, that for any randomly selected dialectical 'negation', it will have taken place, or it will not.

The conventions of ordinary language (partially codified in the LEM, in this case) are not so easily by-passed, even by a thinker of "genius".

Nevertheless, this is clearly the source of Engels's own confusion, and the source of the slippery reasoning one encounters time and again in dialectical 'thought'; that is, of the sort that allows dialecticians to ignore the contradictions and equivocations in their own theses, while pointing fingers at others for the very same sins. [More on that in Essay Eleven Part One.]

Cornforth (1950) contains a two main arguments aimed at neutralising the standard view of Metaphysics outlined here. I will examine them one by one.

1) He claims that the modern characterisation of Metaphysics derives from John Locke (p.94), when he himself had already pointed out that the term derives from Aristotle (p.93). He makes this connection because he says that modern Philosophers reject Aristotle's search for the "essential nature of the real" (p.94), deliberately running-together the Positivists he is attacking with all modern (non-Communist) Philosophers. This allows him to reject their interpretation of this word as the one held by all such thinkers.

First of all, even when Cornforth was writing (1950), only a minority of Philosophers were Positivists, so this can't be a reason to reject the standard interpretation handed down from Aristotle. And it can't be a reason either to reject the interpretation presented here, which in no way depends on Locke. [Although Cornforth is right when he says that Empiricism and Positivism are both metaphysical; but then so is Dialectical Materialism, as this Essay shows.]

Second, even if every Philosopher on the planet in 1950 had been a Positivist, it is clear that they rejected Metaphysics because they accepted the traditional view traced back to Aristotle, not Locke. Cornforth just asserts his claim that these Philosophers derived their understanding of this word from Locke, but he provides us with no proof whatsoever -- not even one citation. Anyone who reads the work of the Positivists, or even the Logical Positivists, will see that they are not just hung up on the nature of "substance" (which Cornforth homes in on simply because of what Locke had said), but all areas of traditional Metaphysics.

Houlgate, S. (2004), Hegel, Nietzsche And The Criticism Of Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press).

Cornforth M. (1950), In Defence Of Philosophy Against Positivism And Pragmatism (International Publishers).

More details here:

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

[Zanthorus]

I probably should've guessed that :p

Thanks for the reply :)

[ZeroNowhere]

Er, this is spam, I think. Let's see if the mods agree.

You're really getting hot under the collar, aren't you -- having been trounced for so long by a mere female?:lol:
Artesian's post was spam, and the quoted one was trolling.

But yes, more or less it was based on Hegel, as Colletti discusses. This also parallels some other concepts lifted from Hegel regarding the law of non-contradiction, such as that motion is contradiction.


"External, sensuous motion itself is contradiction's immediate existence. Something moves, not because at one moment it is here and at another there, but because in this 'here', it at once is and is not. The ancient dialecticians must be granted the contradictions that they pointed out in motion; but it does not follow that therefore there is no motion, but on the contrary, that motion is existent contradiction itself."

"Motion itself is a contradiction: even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body at one and the same moment of time being both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continuous assertion and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is."

One of those is by Hegel. The other is not.

[Dean]

Infraction to S. Artesian for spam, Infraction to rosa for trolling. Plz stop guys, this is a trivial issue and doesn't deserve the vitriol.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Zero:


But yes, more or less it was based on Hegel, as Colletti discusses. This also parallels some other concepts lifted from Hegel regarding the law of non-contradiction, such as that motion is contradiction.


"External, sensuous motion itself is contradiction's immediate existence. Something moves, not because at one moment it is here and at another there, but because in this 'here', it at once is and is not. The ancient dialecticians must be granted the contradictions that they pointed out in motion; but it does not follow that therefore there is no motion, but on the contrary, that motion is existent contradiction itself."

"Motion itself is a contradiction: even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body at one and the same moment of time being both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continuous assertion and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is."

One of those is by Hegel. The other is not.

Indeed, and they are both wrong (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2005.htm).