Dialectical 'contradictions'

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In a blog entry recently, 'The Vegan Marxist' alleged there was a 'contradiction' between 'Anti-Imperialism and the Right to Self-Autonomy'.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=3291#comment3291

I questioned this, and pointed out that this does not even look like a contradiction, to which he replied:


How do they not look like contradictions? And they are so due to their very aggressive reality. Every action has a reaction.

I posted this reply, which has been deleted twice:


Vegan:


How do they not look like contradictions? And they are so due to their very aggressive reality. Every action has a reaction.

But, not even "Every action has a reaction" is a contradiction.

It would have been if it were this:

"Every action has a reaction and there are some actions that have no reaction."

Or, less colloquially:

"Every action has a reaction and it's not the case that every action has a reaction."

On your other blog, you have this alleged example of a 'contradiction':


the contradiction between the Taliban then & where they stand now.

But this can't be a contradiction, since it's a verb phrase, not a sentence, clause or proposition.

In order to count as one of the above, you'd have to re-write is as follows:


There is a contradiction between the Taliban then & where they stand now.

And then for it to be a contradiction, you'd have to change it to:


There is a contradiction between the Taliban then & where they stand now and there isn't.

Which seems to me not worth saying, and certainly politically uninteresting.

Of course, you might be using the word "contradiction" in a new, and as-yet-unexplained sense. If so, what is it?

Here is Vegan's 'excuse' for deleting it:


I deleted it because they were nothing more than mere semantics. The contradictions are clear, where the Taliban was first used as a tool of imperialism, but is now in a state of survival against said imperialism. Their independence is of course not theirs alone, but is of the independence of Afghanistan as a whole.

To which I have replied:


It can't be mere semantics if you can't justify your use of 'contradiction'.

Hence, you might just as well be using 'cuff links' in place of 'contradiction'.


The contradictions are clear, where the Taliban was first used as a tool of imperialism, but is now in a state of survival against said imperialism. Their independence is of course not theirs alone, but is of the independence of Afghanistan as a whole.

But this still isn't a contradiction so why you say it's 'clear' that it is, is a mystery. Indeed you might just as well have posted:


The cuff links are clear, where the Taliban was first used as a tool of imperialism, but is now in a state of survival against said imperialism. Their independence is of course not theirs alone, but is of the independence of Afghanistan as a whole. Bold added.

The use of which word has just as much/little justification as your use of 'contradiction'.

Of course, we all know why Dialectical Marxists employ this perfectly ordinary word in such an odd way: they are blindly following tradition -- we have to say "blindly" since not one of them is capable of justifying their idiosyncratic use of this word.

And that tradition goes right back to Hegel, a mystic and logical incompetent of the first water -- who also failed to justify his odd use of 'contradiction'.

In my next comment, I will post a summary of just where Hegel went wrong.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here is a summary (taken from my site) of Hegel's basic logical errors -- many of which he derived from the logical screw ups of earlier mystics:


Dialectical 'Logic' derives from Hegel's (deliberate) misunderstanding of Aristotle, and from a linguistic dodge invented in the Middle Ages.

First of all, Hegel thought that certain sentences contained an in-built contradiction.

If we use Lenin's example:

J1: John is a man.

we can see where this idea came from, and thus where it goes astray. [Hegel in fact used the sentence, "The rose is red".]

First of all, Hegel accepted a theory invented by Medieval Roman Catholic theologians (which is now called the Identity Theory of Predication (http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophies/identity-theory-of-predication.php)). which re-interprets propositions like J1 in the following way:

J2: John is identical with Manhood.

The former "is" of predication (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/predication) was replaced by an "is" of identity.

[Predication involves saying something about someone or some thing. So, in J1, Lenin was saying something about John. "John" is the subject, and "is a man" is the predicate. When this "is" is turned into one of identity, this becomes the monstrosity, "John is identical with a man." This why J2 is often used, even though it, too, is a monstrosity.]

The argument then went as follows: since John cannot be identical with a general term (or, rather, with what it represents, a universal (http://www.iep.utm.edu/universa/)), we must conclude the following:

J3: John is not identical with Manhood.

But then again, if John is a man, he must be identical with (or at least he must share in) what other men are, so we must now conclude:

J4: John is not not identical with Manhood.

Or, more simply:

J5: John is not a non-man.

It's hard to believe, but out of this was born the Negation of the Negation.

Hegel thought this showed that motion was built into our concepts, as thought passes from one pole to another, and that this indicated that it has dialectics built into it.

It also allowed him to cast doubt upon the validity of the 'Law of Identity' [LOI] -- a 'Law', incidentally, that cannot be found in Aristotle's work, but which was invented by Medieval Roman Catholic theologians, once more.

Hegel thought this showed that it was now possible to state this 'Law' negatively.

However, in order to proceed, Hegel not only employed a barrage of impenetrably obscure jargon, he relied on some hopelessly sloppy syntax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax). He plainly thought he could ignore the logical/grammatical distinctions that exist between the various terms he used, or, at least, between the roles they occupy in language -- i.e., between naming, saying, describing and predicating. This 'enabled' him to pull-off several neat verbal tricks --, and from the ensuing confusion, 'the dialectic' emerged.

For instance, Hegel thought that the LOI could be stated negatively, and that this implied the so-called Law of Non-contradiction [LOC].


When the principles of Essence are taken as essential principles of thought they become predicates of a presupposed subject, which, because they are essential, is "everything". The propositions thus arising have been stated as universal Laws of Thought. Thus the first of them, the maxim of Identity, reads: Everything is identical with itself, A = A: and negatively, A cannot at the same time be A and Not-A. This maxim, instead of being a true law of thought, is nothing but the law of abstract understanding. The propositional form itself contradicts it: for a proposition always promises a distinction between subject and predicate; while the present one does not fulfil what its form requires. But the Law is particularly set aside by the following so-called Laws of Thought, which make laws out of its opposite. It is asserted that the maxim of Identity, though it cannot be proved, regulates the procedure of every consciousness, and that experience shows it to be accepted as soon as its terms are apprehended. To this alleged experience of the logic books may be opposed the universal experience that no mind thinks or forms conceptions or speaks in accordance with this law, and that no existence of any kind whatever conforms to it. [Hegel, Shorter Logic, quoted from here (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slessenc.htm).]

So, from A =A he thought he could obtain "A cannot at the same time be A and not-A", which is supposed to be the LOC. But, the LOI concerns the conditions under which an object is identical with itself, or with something else; it's not about the alleged identity of propositions, nor of clauses with propositions.



In that case, the alleged negative version of the LOI cannot have anything to do with the connection between a proposition and its contradictory. The LOC, on the other hand, is about propositions (or clauses), not objects. Only by confusing objects (or the names of objects) with propositions (and clauses) -- that is, by confusing objects and their names with what we say about them, truly or falsely -- was Hegel able to concoct the 'dialectic'.

[The full details here are rather complex, so I have omitted them. However, readers can find out what these are here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2003_01.htm) and here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm).]

Furthermore, propositions are not objects; if they were they could not be used to say anything. Sure, we use signs to express propositions, but these signs become symbols (i.e., they signify things for us, and convey meaning). We achieve this by the way we employ such signs according to the grammatical complexity our ancestors built into language.

To see this, just look at any object or collection of objects and ask yourself what it/they say to you. You might be tempted to reply that it/they say this or that, but in order to report what it/they allegedly say, you will be forced to articulate whatever that is in a proposition. You could not do this by merely reproducing the original objects, or just by naming them. This is not surprising, since objects have no social history, intellect or language, whereas we do, and have. And so does our language.

Unfortunately, Engels and Lenin swallowed this spurious Hegelian line of reasoning hook, line and sinker; and that is because they both knew no logic, but had a wildly inflated view of Hegel and his expertise in this area. [This is not to demean these two great revolutionaries; many others, who should know better, have similarly been duped.]

However, because of this misplaced respect for Hegel, Marxists have been saddled with his loopy logic ever since (upside down, or 'the right way up').

Here is Lenin, for example:


To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other….

Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a "nucleus" ("cell") the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general. [Lenin (1961) (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/volume38.htm), i.e., [I]Philosophical Notebooks, pp.359-60.]

In this passage, Lenin felt he could 'derive' fundamental truths about reality, not from a scientific investigation of the world, but from examining a few words seen through Hegel's distorting lens!

[And yet, dialecticians still tell us with a straight face that their theory has not been imposed on nature! (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2002.htm)]

However, J1 is a descriptive sentence, so it cannot be treated in the way Hegel imagined. In fact, Aristotle would have approached it differently. In order to explain its structure, he would have said:

A1: Manhood applies to John.

[J1: John is a man.]

In other words, in J1 the predicate is used to describe John; it is not expressing an identity.

Indeed, it makes no sense to suppose with Hegel that John (or his name) could be identical with a general term -- any more than it would make sense to suppose that you, for example, are identical with a conjunction, a preposition, or an adverb, or even with what any of these allegedly 'represent'.

In which case, this perverse example of Medieval, Roman Catholic 'logic' is not simply misguided, it's bizarre!

It surely takes a special sort of 'genius' (which we are assured by Lenin that Hegel possessed) to suppose that an object like John could be identical with a predicate, or with the abstraction which it supposedly designated!

Now, if we return to the original sentence, translated this time into Hegel-speak, we can see more closely where the argument goes astray:

J2: John is identical with Manhood.

It is now impossible to explain what the extra "is" here means (highlighted), which has to be used to make the alleged identity between John and Manhood (or whatever) plain.

In fact, if all such uses of "is" expressed disguised identities (as we are assured they must), J2 would now have to become:

J2a: John is identical with identical with Manhood

as "is identical with" replaces the bold "is" from J2.

If now the green "is" in J2a is replaced with what it is supposed to mean -- i.e., "is identical with" in blue --, it becomes:

J2b: John is identical with identical with identical with Manhood.

If now this new (underlined) "is" we had to use in J2b is given a similar dialectical make-over, it yields:

J2c: John is identical with identical with identical with identical with Manhood.

And so on...

[These untoward moves can only be halted by those who do not think "is" always expresses an identity; but dialecticians gave up the right to lodge that particular appeal the moment they accepted the Identity Theory of Predication.]

Fortunately, Aristotle's approach short-circuits all this; there is no "is" at all in A1:

A1: Manhood applies to John.

In contrast to this, Hegel's 'analysis' cannot avoid this verbal explosion; on the contrary, it invites it.

Anyone who thinks this is nit-picking need only reflect on the fact that Hegel -- and anyone who agrees with him -- cannot explain his theory without using J2:

J2: John is identical with Manhood.

But, Hegel's theory stalls at this point, for this extra "is" cannot be one of identity (for the above reasons), and if it isn't, then the theory that tells us that "is" is always one of identity (in such contexts) must be false.

In fact, this Hegelian trick can only be carried out in Indo-European (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languages) languages. By-and-large, other language groups do not possess this particular grammatical feature. The above moves depend solely on the subject-predicate form (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_(grammar)) taking the copula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics)) "is" (and its cognates), which is found almost exclusively in the aforementioned language group.

This shows that Hegel's logic is not just bizarre, it's highly parochial. Hence, no general conclusions (or any at all) can follow from it.

To illustrate these bogus moves in more detail, consider J1 again:

J1: John is a man.

Given traditional grammar, this is in effect:

G1: S is P.

[Where, "S" = "Subject", "P" = "Predicate".]

Now, we already have the facility in language to express identity (and genuinely so). For example, here is an uncontroversial identity statement:

G2: Cicero is Tully.

["Tully" was Cicero's other name. Cicero was a right-wing politician who lived in Ancient Rome, about the same time as Julius Caesar.]

So, G2 quite legitimately means:

G2a: Cicero is identical with Tully.

Or:

G3: A = B.

[Where "A" is "Cicero and "B" is "Tully"; using "=" as the identity sign, here.]

G3 expresses an unambiguous "is" of identity. No problem with that. But, it is important to note that the identity expressed here is between two names, or between two named individuals (depending on how it is read). This is typical of the use of the "is" of identity.

Now, just look at the superficial similarity that exists between the following two linguistic forms -- that is, between G1 (a predication) and G2 (an identity):

J1: John is a man.

G1: S is P.

G2: Cicero is Tully.

G3: A = B.

Highly influential ancient and medieval logicians noticed this, too, and proceeded to combine the two distinct forms into one, reading the "is" of predication as an "is" of identity.

But this now turns the predicate "P" into a name, for identities are expressed between names (or between other singular terms).

Unfortunately, if "P" is a name, it cannot now be a predicate.

As noted above, Hegel also adopted this approach to such propositions, confusing the "is" of identity with the "is" of predication. This then 'allowed' him to claim that propositions like J1 were in fact identity statements. Of course, that means this part of Hegel's 'logic' was based solely on what is in effect a grammatical stipulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stipulative_definition) -- i.e., a dogmatic assertion that these two forms are one and the same, which then creates the sorts of problems we have seen above.

Even worse, this is a stipulation that destroys the capacity language has for expressing generality, for that is what predicates do -- they allow us to say general things about named individuals, etc. Turning predicates into names undermines this completely.

So, given the 'Hegel treatment', J1 thus becomes J1a and/or J1b:

J1: John is a man.

J1a: John = man/Manhood.

J1b: John is identical with man/Manhood.

[Unfortunately, however, in his old age Aristotle was already moving in this direction -- i.e., he too was beginning to confuse predication with identity, or, rather, he was beginning to confuse predicates with names, and thus describing with naming.]

Hence, on this view, just as "Tully" names Cicero, "man" 'names' Manhood --, or perhaps, the class/set of all men.

The 'rationale' underlying these moves had already been established by earlier mystics and theorists, who were, among other things, concerned about the union or identity between the human soul and 'God'/'Being'. Hence, they played around with the Greek verb "to be" (and thus the "is" of predication) until it was made to say what they wanted it to say.

Of course, this grammatical sleight-of-hand helps account for the emphasis placed by subsequent Idealists on the 'identity' of 'Thought' and 'Being', which later became the main problematic of German Idealism --, a problematic Engels also accepted.

[On that, see his Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy.]

There is in fact no other reason for adopting the Identity Theory of Predication, which also helps explain why it was theologians and mystics who invented it. Of course, none of this occurred in an ideological vacuum; a brief outline of the relevant details can be found here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm).

Anyway, logicians after Aristotle, and especially those working in the Middle Ages, began to conflate these two distinct forms as a matter of course. This fed into, and was fed in return by, an increasingly elaborate and complex metaphysic supposedly about the ultimate structure of reality and the relation of 'Thought' to 'Being' --, all based solely on this ancient linguistic sleight-of-hand!

[Similar moves underpinned Anselm's (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anselm/) infamous Ontological Argument (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/) for the existence of 'God'. In this case, too, Anselm thought he could 'derive' profound 'truths' about 'divine reality', valid for all of space and time -- and beyond -- solely from language/thought.]

So, in the end, J1/G1 and G2-type sentences were both modelled along the lines expressed in G4 and G5 -- i.e., as identity statements.

J1: John is a man.

G1: S is P.

G2: Cicero is Tully.

G4: A = B.

G5: John = Manhood.

But, once more, this turns predicates into Proper Names -- i.e., "...is a man" becomes the proper name of Manhood, which it plainly is not. Naming is not the same as describing. We name our children when they are born, we do not describe them. We do not call children "is a man", or "is tall". Not even pop stars do that to their off-spring! We describe the world around us, we do not name it.

The untoward result of this process is explained clearly by Professor E J Lowe:


What is the problem of predication? In a nutshell, it is this. Consider any simple subject-predicate sentence, such as..., "Theaetetus sits". How are we to understand the different roles of the subject and the predicate in this sentence, "Theaetetus" and "sits" respectively? The role of "Theaetetus" seems straightforward enough: it serves to name, and thereby to refer to or stand for, a certain particular human being. But what about "sits"? Many philosophers have been tempted to say that this also refers to or stands for something, namely, a property or universal that Theaetetus possesses or exemplifies: the property of sitting. This is said to be a universal, rather than a particular, because it can be possessed by many different individuals.

But now we have a problem, for this view of the matter seems to turn the sentence "Theaetetus sits" into a mere list of (two) names, each naming something different, one a particular and one a universal: "Theaetetus, sits." But a list of names is not a sentence because it is not the sort of thing that can be said to be true or false, in the way that "Theaetetus sits" clearly can. The temptation now is to say that reference to something else must be involved in addition to Theaetetus and the property of sitting, namely, the relation of possessing that Theaetetus has to that property. But it should be evident that this way of proceeding will simply generate the same problem, for now we have just turned the original sentence into a list of three names, "Theaetetus, possessing, sits."

Indeed, we are now setting out on a vicious infinite regress, which is commonly known as "Bradley's regress", in recognition of its modern discoverer, the British idealist philosopher F. H. Bradley. Bradley used the regress to argue in favour of absolute idealism.... [Lowe (2006). Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at my site.]

Lowe, E. (2006), 'Take A Seat, Then Consider This Simple Sentence', Times Higher Education Supplement, 07/04/06.

So, a collection of names is a list, and lists say nothing --, just as objects say nothing.

Of course, it could be objected that there are languages in which names do in fact describe. For example, Native Americans use names such as "Sitting Bull", "Crazy Horse", or "Rain In The Face", which describe what the individual concerned either did or was reminiscent of.

Even so, no Native American would argue as follows:

N1: Sitting Bull has just stood up.

N2; Therefore Sitting Bull is no longer Sitting Bull, he is Standing Bull.

But they would argue as follows:

N3: That animal over there is a sitting bull.

N4: It has just stood up, so it is now a standing bull.

These show that the logical use of names is distinct from that of descriptions. Any contingent psychological or idiosyncratic associations a name has are logically irrelevant, no matter how important they are to a given culture.

Hence the name "Sitting Bull" here is a logical unit, and cannot be split up like a description can. This is because, as Aristotle noted (De Interpretatione, Section 3), names are tenseless, but predicates are not. The above examples bring this out, since change (expressed by the use of a tensed verbs) applies to predicates, not to names.

[These and other complications are discussed at length in Geach (1968), pp.22-80. See also here (http://aristotle.tamu.edu/~rasmith/Courses/Ancient/predication.html).]

Geach, P. (1968), Reference And Generality (Cornell University Press, 2nd ed.).

So, for Hegel, "...is a man" became the Proper Name of Manhood, which was then 'dignified' by being called an "abstraction", or even worse, an "essence" -- both of which entities were conjured into existence by this linguistic dodge, and nothing more.

In this way then, dialectics has arisen solely from ancient, defective logic like this --, compounded by a crass misconstrual of a sub-branch of Indo-European grammar!

Hard to believe? Well, Marx himself indicated that this was so:


"The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels: The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphases added.]

Now, even if the above analysis of mine were incorrect in some way, neither Aristotle nor Hegel (nor anyone else for that matter since) has been able to explain how or why contingent features of Indo-European grammar could possibly have such profound implications built into them --, or how they could reveal to us such fundamental truths about the deep structure of reality, valid for all of space and time.

In fact, I call this approach to knowledge Linguistic Idealism.

More on that here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm).

Hence, dialectics is itself predicated upon defective 'semantics'.

In which case, it is legitimate to raise such questions.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

So, what response should we have expected from 'The Vegan Marxist'? A devasting reposte showing where the above comments of mine are either logically flawed or phiosophically misguided? A detailed, line-by-line refutation? A well-argued and incisive defence of 'dialectical logic'?

Dream on....

We actually find this:


I refuse to continue this bullshit argument of yours, stating those who embrace dialectical materialism as "mystics". Please don't post here again, or I'll delete everything you post. Thanks.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=3294#comment3294

The tried and trusted response of all mystics: abusive language and knee-jerk censorship.:lol:

Rather like those Jesuit priests who refused even to look down Galileo's telescope.

Is there no one on the planet who can defend this loopy 'theory'?

Seems not...

[Nuvem]

The glorious history of Rosa Lichtenstein: 15,299 posts, ALL about anti-Dialectical Materialism!

I just poke fun. I'm personally not a Dialectical Materialist in the first place.

For the record, if you're looking for someone to debate, TVM is probably not the most shining example of Materialists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

NuVem:


The glorious history of Rosa Lichtenstein: 15,299 posts, ALL about anti-Dialectical Materialism!

In fact, only about 2/3rds of my posts are about this 'theory'.


I just poke fun. I'm personally not a Dialectical Materialist in the first place.

For the record, if you're looking for someone to debate, TVM is probably not the most shining example of Materialists.

So I gather, but then no one seems capable of defending this 'theory'.

[4 Leaf Clover]

can you give me an example of what , in your opinion , would be a genuine contradiction

[bretty]

Contradictions can't exist in material form. How could they possibly?

-B

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

4-Leaf:


can you give me an example of what , in your opinion , would be a genuine contradiction

In ordinary language, one might be:

C1: "The River Thames is shorter than the Nile and it isn't."

In logic, there are plenty of examples; the simplest is:

C2: "P & ~P."

Where "P" is a propositional variable (i.e., it can be replaced, typically, by an indicative sentence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood)), "&" is the sign for a conjunction (i.e., it stands for "and"), and "~" stands for negation.

But these are also contradictions in logic:

C3: ~[(P→Q)v(P→R)↔(P→(QvR))]

C4: ~[~(Ex)(Fx&~Gx)↔(x)(Fx→Gx)]

Where "(E...)" is the existential quantifier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantification); "↔" is a biconditional sign (i.e., "if and only if"); "(x)" is the universal quantifier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantification); "&" stands for "and"; "v" is the inclusive "or"; "~" stands for negation; "→" is the conditional sign (i.e., "if...then"); "P", "Q", and "R" are propositional variables; "F" and "G" are one-place, first-level predicate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicate_(mathematical_logic)) letters; and "x" is a second-level predicate-binding variable.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Bretty:


Contradictions can't exist in material form. How could they possibly?

I think it's better to say that it makes no sense to suppose a contradiction true, or to suppose it false.

If you say they can't exist, you are imposing an a priori condition on the world based on a convention of language. That would make what you say metaphysical.

[bretty]

Fair enough, that was the point I was trying to get through. You can't verify that something both exists and doesn't exist.

-B

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Yes, but you have to remember that a contradiction is not about what exists or does not exist; that's a mistake 'dialectical logicians' make.

[bretty]

I know, I'm suggesting the opposite. I was using it as an example of something unverifiable, between two contradictory statements.

-B

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well then I'm not sure what you mean.

[bretty]

I meant it's a contradiction in language rather than existence

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ah, I see.:)

[syndicat]

Contradictions exist in statements humans make. In logic a contradiction is literally asserting P and denying P. or "P and it is not the case that P". to put it another way, contradictions are implied where people are logically inconsistent in what they say.

on the left, due to Marx's Hegelian language, conflicts and conflicting tendencies are often referred to as "contradictions". as a former logic teacher, I find this irritating. i usually just translate leftist talk from "contradictions" to "conflicting tendencies" or "social conflict" or something like that.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I agree, but it is also useful to point out where Hegel's sub-Aristotelian 'logic' (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1941396&postcount=2) went astray.

[Hit The North]

Contradictions exist in statements humans make. In logic a contradiction is literally asserting P and denying P. or "P and it is not the case that P". to put it another way, contradictions are implied where people are logically inconsistent in what they say.

on the left, due to Marx's Hegelian language, conflicts and conflicting tendencies are often referred to as "contradictions". as a former logic teacher, I find this irritating. i usually just translate leftist talk from "contradictions" to "conflicting tendencies" or "social conflict" or something like that.

I feel mortified that we should irritate logic teachers with our slipshod use of the word contradiction. Oh dear.

But, anyway, here's a statement about capitalism which I'm sure we can all agree with:

"Capitalism is progressive and it is not progressive."

Sounds like a contradiction to me.

[bretty]

Yeah it's a contradiction in the language you utilize.

-B

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


I feel mortified that we should irritate logic teachers with our slipshod use of the word contradiction. Oh dear.

As I have pointed out several times, you can no more justify your odd use of this word than Christians can their use of "God",

But we already know where you lot pinched this word -- from Hegel, who 'derived' it from an egregious confusion of the alleged 'negative' form of the 'law of identity' with the 'law of non-contradiction'. [See the link I posted above.]

Other than an uncritical and slavish adherence to tradition, you have no other way of justifying your idiosyncratic use of this word.


"Capitalism is progressive and it is not progressive."

But this isn't a contradiction because of the unresolved ambiguity in this use of "progressive".

Anyway, I rather suspect you mean the following:


Capitalism was progressive and it is no longer progressive."

If so, it's not even a comntradiction, ambiguity or not.

Moreover, even if you are right, these do not 'struggle' with one another, as we are told must be the case with all such 'dialectical contradictions'.

So, this is not even a 'dialectical contradiction'.:lol:

That is, even if we knew, let alone were told in clear terms, what a 'dialectical contradiction' is.

[Hit The North]

BTB:

Other than an uncritical and slavish adherence to tradition, you have no other way of justifying your idiosyncratic use of this word.


Yes, but appealing to the usage laid down by philosophical/logical discourse is doing the same thing. You ahve your tradition (bourgeois philosophy) and I have mine (revolutionary Marxism).


Anyway, I rather suspect you mean the following:

Capitalism was progressive and it is no longer progressive."Not at all. Capitalism has never been solely progressive, unless you think decimating the average life expectancy of ordinary people is progressive, or multiplying social inequality, increasing material misery, or banishing women to the domestic sphere are progressive moves. All of these things happened when capitalism was young and expanding through Europe in the 19th Century. Meanwhile, even today, where capitalism expands the forces of production it is progressive in that respect.

This is your problem: capitalism can only be one thing or another because you fail to understand how its development is contradictory. In other words, you remain mired in a bourgeois mindset.

[Meridian]

Not at all. Capitalism has never been solely progressive, unless you think decimating the average life expectancy of ordinary people is progressive, or multiplying social inequality, increasing material misery, or banishing women to the domestic sphere are progressive moves. All of these things happened when capitalism was young and expanding through Europe in the 19th Century. Meanwhile, even today, where capitalism expands the forces of production it is progressive in that respect.

This is your problem: capitalism can only be one thing or another because you fail to understand how its development is contradictory. In other words, you remain mired in a bourgeois mindset.
But this has to do with the range of qualities which is said to be progressive. Nothing you say makes it true that capitalism is both progressive and not-progressive. You are saying there are aspects of capitalism that are progressive, and there are aspects that are not progressive.

Claiming capitalism is both progressive and not progressive doesn't make sense, either would be wrong for the sentence to hold true, and if either part was wrong the sentence as a whole would not be true.

[syndicat]

Not at all. Capitalism has never been solely progressive, unless you think decimating the average life expectancy of ordinary people is progressive, or multiplying social inequality, increasing material misery, or banishing women to the domestic sphere are progressive moves. All of these things happened when capitalism was young and expanding through Europe in the 19th Century. Meanwhile, even today, where capitalism expands the forces of production it is progressive in that respect.



this is like saying that a box that has a red side and a green side is contradictory because "it is both red and not red." the particular surface that is red is not also "not red". same with capitalism being "progressive". it may do some things that are progressive such as facilitating education because it needs an educated workforce. but the oppressive and destructive aspects of capitalism are not also progressive. thus it depends on which aspects of capitalism you're talking about.

i should point out one of the logical features of a contradiction. if you have both P and not-P as premises, you can logically derive anything whatsoever. so if you think there are true contradicions, you're committed to believing everything whatsoever. good luck with that.

[scarletghoul]

Contradictions exist in statements humans make. In logic a contradiction is literally asserting P and denying P. or "P and it is not the case that P". to put it another way, contradictions are implied where people are logically inconsistent in what they say.

on the left, due to Marx's Hegelian language, conflicts and conflicting tendencies are often referred to as "contradictions". as a former logic teacher, I find this irritating. i usually just translate leftist talk from "contradictions" to "conflicting tendencies" or "social conflict" or something like that.
Ohh, now I understand why that guy in revleft chat was using that weird definition of contradiction.

But words can have more than one meaning. The Dialectical Materialist meaning is different to your logic teacher meaning. No big deal. I find it weird when Americans talk about 'Indians' referring to Native Americans, because here we use 'Indian' to mean people from the country called India. But I don't complain about the American use, its just a different meaning of the same word. In philosophy especially there are countless redefinitions of words, one really has to get over it

[scarletghoul]

The best definition of contradiction I heard is that it's when two things try to occupy the same space at the same time. I think that was Huey Newton.

edit- this extract addresses the above reasoning

In the physical world, when forces collide, they are transformed. In physics, I think that they say that when atoms collide, that they divide into electrons, protons and nutrons, if I remember correctly. What happened to the atom? It was transformed. In the social world the same thing happens, or a similar thing. We can apply the same principle. In sociology, when two cultures collide a process occurs or a condition occurs which I believe the sociologists call acculturation, where two cultures are modified because of contact. Well Marx called the social forces, when the social forces collided, or classes, he called that a contradiction. In the physical world, when physical forces collide sometimes we call it just that, a collision. For example, when two cars meet head on, trying to occupy the same space at the same time, both are transformed. Sometimes other things happen. Matter of fact, had those two cars been turned back to back and sped off in opposite directions, they would not be having a contradiction, they would be contrary, covering different spaces at different times. Sometimes when people meet, we argue and we miss each other. We miss each other because, in the first place, we think we're having a contradiction when we're only being contrary. For example, I would say the wall is ten feet tall and you would say the wall is red, and we would argue all day thinking we're having a contradiction when actually we're being contrary. When people argue, when one offers a thesis and the other offers an antithesis, we say there's a contradiction, and we hope that if we argue long enough, provided that we agree on one first premise, that probably we hope that we can have some kind of synthesis. And tonight I hope I can have some form of agreement or synthesis with those who have criticized the Black Panther Party.

[syndicat]

But words can have more than one meaning. The Dialectical Materialist meaning is different to your logic teacher meaning. No big deal. I find it weird when Americans talk about 'Indians' referring to Native Americans, because here we use 'Indian' to mean people from the country called India. But I don't complain about the American use, its just a different meaning of the same word. In philosophy especially there are countless redefinitions of words, one really has to get over it

except that "dialectical materialism" is incoherent. moreover, the Hegelian use of "contradiction" exists only in a tiny milieu and gives that tiny milieu the quality of a cult.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Yes, but appealing to the usage laid down by philosophical/logical discourse is doing the same thing. You have your tradition (bourgeois philosophy) and I have mine (revolutionary Marxism).

1. In fact, your 'tradition' derives from a bourgeois philosopher -- Hegel.

2. Mine does not, since I have none.

3. Mere usage is not enough to guarantee that a word, or set of words, makes any sense. If it did, then the nonsense rhymes of Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear would make sense -- since they manifestly use ordinary word in odd ways, too.

4. As I noted the only justification you have for using this word in this way is a slavish and uncritical adherence to a mystical tradition the working class had no hand in forming, and which even you can't justify without an appeal to that tradition.


Not at all. Capitalism has never been solely progressive, unless you think decimating the average life expectancy of ordinary people is progressive, or multiplying social inequality, increasing material misery, or banishing women to the domestic sphere are progressive moves. All of these things happened when capitalism was young and expanding through Europe in the 19th Century. Meanwhile, even today, where capitalism expands the forces of production it is progressive in that respect.

Then this is not a contradiction since you have now clarified what you mean by "progressive". You appear to mean by it something like "Progressive in this respect, and this, but not this, or this...". So when you predicate "progressive" of capitalism, you mean it equivocally.

But a contradiction deals with predicates that are interpreted in the same respect throughout, that is, unequivocally. Otherwise you'd end up with some rather odd sentences. Consider this example -- suppose someone asserted B1 was true -- or that both B1a and B1b were true:

B1: Chris Harman wrote and did not write Zombie Capitalism.

B1a: Chris Harman wrote Zombie Capitalism.

B1b: Chris Harman did not write Zombie Capitalism.

Faced with this, we would find it difficult to take that person or what they said either literally or seriously; this is because both halves of B1 could not be true, nor could they both be false.

However, if B1a and B1b were still held true, then we could only make sense of the contradiction they seem to express by noting the ambiguous use of the word "write". In one sense of that term it could imply that Chris Harman was the author of the said work; in another quite ordinary sense it might suggest that the book was not hand-written, but was perhaps word-processed. In that case, B1 would be expressing the fact that although Chris authored the said book he did not hand-write it. Hence, it would then be clear that B1 only appeared to be contradictory because of this elementary equivocation. We would not automatically think that there were real material forces at work behind the struggle to produce Chris's book, no matter how well-confirmed each half of B1 happened to be.

The same applies to your example


This is your problem: capitalism can only be one thing or another because you fail to understand how its development is contradictory. In other words, you remain mired in a bourgeois mindset.

Not so. The problem is that (alongside so many of your mystical comrades) you seem to know nothing of the history of logic (and, you seem to take pride in that fact, as if ignorance was a virtue!), for even Aristotle dealt with this objection 2400 years ago. [So much for Aristotle working with 'fixed categories'!]

Here's how he handled this:


"So it must be possible to deny whatever anyone has affirmed. Thus it is clear that for every affirmation there is an opposite negation, and for every negation an opposite affirmation. Let us call an affirmation and a negation which are opposite a contradiction. I speak of statements as opposite when they affirm and deny the same thing of the same thing -- not homonymously, together with all other such conditions that we add to counter the troublesome objections of sophists....

"I call an affirmation and a negation contradictory opposites when what one signifies universally the other signifies not universally, e.g. every man is white -- not every man is white, no man is white -- some man is white. But I call the universal affirmation and the universal negation contrary opposites, e.g. every man is just -- no man is just. So these cannot be true together, but their opposites may both be true with respect to the same thing, e.g. not every man is white -- some man is white.

"Of contradictory statements about a universal taken universally it is necessary for one or the other to be true or false; similarly if they are about particulars, e.g. Socrates is white -- Socrates is not white. But if they are about a universal not taken universally it is not always the case that one is true and the other false. For it is true to say at the same time that a man is white and that a man is not white, or that a man is noble and that a man is not noble.... This might seem absurd at first sight, because 'a man is not white' looks as if it signifies also at the same time that no man is white; this, however, does not signify the same, nor does it necessarily hold at the same time." [Aristotle (1984b), pp.27-28. Emphasis added.]

Aristotle, (1984a), The Complete Works Of Aristotle, Two Volumes, edited by J. Barnes (Princeton University Press).

--------, (1984b), De Interpretatione (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/interpretation.html), in Aristotle (1984a), Volume One, pp.25-38.

Here Aristotle is pointing out the obvious fact that many things/processes can take on many characteristics at the same time. The problem lies in interpreting the predicate so that it: "affirms and denies the same thing of the same thing", and in making sure we observe the scope of the quantifiers (http://www.jgsee.kmutt.ac.th/exell/Logic/Logic21.htm) -- or as Aristotle says, we ensure things are taken "universally".

And that is where your alleged 'counter-example' goes astray, since you are not asserting the "same thing of the same thing", but qualifying it with an "in this respect, and this, but then in that and that".

Hence, your 'contradiction' is no more a contradiction than this would be:

L1: This fence is red at one end, green in the middle and blue at the other end.

Making the following true, but not the least bit contradictory:

l2: This fence is both red and not red.

And that's because I have buried an equivocation in L2 (exposed in L1).

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

Apologies, I have just seen Syndicat's reply, which makes some of the same points!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Scarlet (quoting Huey):


In the physical world, when forces collide, they are transformed. In physics, I think that they say that when atoms collide, that they divide into electrons, protons and neutrons, if I remember correctly. What happened to the atom? It was transformed. In the social world the same thing happens, or a similar thing. We can apply the same principle. In sociology, when two cultures collide a process occurs or a condition occurs which I believe the sociologists call acculturation, where two cultures are modified because of contact. Well Marx called the social forces, when the social forces collided, or classes, he called that a contradiction. In the physical world, when physical forces collide sometimes we call it just that, a collision. For example, when two cars meet head on, trying to occupy the same space at the same time, both are transformed. Sometimes other things happen. Matter of fact, had those two cars been turned back to back and sped off in opposite directions, they would not be having a contradiction, they would be contrary, covering different spaces at different times. Sometimes when people meet, we argue and we miss each other. We miss each other because, in the first place, we think we're having a contradiction when we're only being contrary. For example, I would say the wall is ten feet tall and you would say the wall is red, and we would argue all day thinking we're having a contradiction when actually we're being contrary. When people argue, when one offers a thesis and the other offers an antithesis, we say there's a contradiction, and we hope that if we argue long enough, provided that we agree on one first premise, that probably we hope that we can have some kind of synthesis. And tonight I hope I can have some form of agreement or synthesis with those who have criticized the Black Panther Party.

I have already dealt with this; here it is again:


Forces and Contradictions

In this post it will argued that there is no way that "contradictions" can be interpreted as "opposing forces", nor vice versa.

1. The Gravity Of The Problem

In fact, since most of the motion in the universe is governed by the action of only one central force (i.e., in classical Physics, the force of gravity which governs the motion of planets around stars, and stars around galactic centres of mass, etc.), classical DM cannot account for most of the bulk changes that take place in nature. Now, even if this phenomenon is regarded as the result of the complex inter-relation between gravitational fields, change in motion would still be caused by only one force: the resultant. No contradiction has just one term.

Of course, if General Relativity is correct (where gravity has been replaced by the motion of bodies along geodesics and world-lines, forces having been edited out of the picture) most of the bulk motion in the universe would take place under the action of no forces at all. This is underlined by Nobel Laureate, Professor Wilczek (of MIT), who makes a more general point about forces in modern Physics:


"The paradox deepens when we consider force from the perspective of modern physics. In fact, the concept of force is conspicuously absent from our most advanced formulations of the basic laws. It doesn't appear in Schrödinger's equation, or in any reasonable formulation of quantum field theory, or in the foundations of general relativity. Astute observers commented on this trend to eliminate force even before the emergence of relativity and quantum mechanics.

"In his 1895 Dynamics, the prominent physicist Peter G. Tait, who was a close friend and collaborator of Lord Kelvin and James Clerk Maxwell, wrote

"'In all methods and systems which involve the idea of force there is a leaven of artificiality...there is no necessity for the introduction of the word 'force' nor of the sense−suggested ideas on which it was originally based.'"

[The above now appears in Wilczek (2006), pp.37-38.]

Wilczek, F. (2006), Fantastic Realities. 49 Mind Journeys And A Trip To Stockholm (World Scientific).

[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

This is something that even dialecticians seem to have conceded:


"Gravity is not a 'force,' but a relation between real objects. To a man falling off a high building, it seems that the ground is 'rushing towards him.' From the standpoint of relativity, that observation is not wrong. Only if we adopt the mechanistic and one-sided concept of 'force' do we view this process as the earth's gravity pulling the man downwards, instead of seeing that it is precisely the interaction of two bodies upon each other." [Woods and Grant (1995), p.156.]

Woods, A., and Grant, T. (1995), Reason In Revolt. Marxism And Modern Science (Wellred Publications).

However, and despite what Woods and Grant say, a mere "relation" between two bodies is incapable of making one or both of them move, unless there is a force there (or something else consequent on that relation -- such as a time-based trajectory along a "world-line", perhaps?) to bring it about.

Naturally, all this means that most of the changes studied in Physics could not be the result of "contradictions" -- if, that is, the latter are still to be regarded as opposing forces.

In short, no forces, no 'dialectical contradictions'!

2. Merely Figurative?

In view of the above, it might be wise to interpret "opposing forces" as figurative 'contradictions'. Alternatively, forces could be described as 'contradictions', as a part of a sort of shorthand, which would then enable the modelling of different types of accelerated motion. Naturally, that approach would allow the word "force" to be edited out of the picture as a physical entity in its own right. Indeed, Engels seems to have had this in mind in the quotation below, where he argues that attraction and repulsion should not be regarded as forces, but as simple forms of motion. This retreat was perhaps recommended to him by his admission that the concept "force" was derived from ancient animistic/mystical views of nature, hence its use in DM could smack of anthropomorphism:


"When two bodies act on each other…they either attract each other or they repel each other…in short, the old polar opposites of attraction and repulsion…. It is expressly to be noted that attraction and repulsion are not regarded here as so-called 'forces', but as simple forms of motion.... [Engels (1954), pp.70-71. Bold emphasis added.]


"The notion of force, however, owing to its origin from the action of the human organism on the external world…implies that only one part is active, the other part being passive…[and appearing] as a resistance." [Ibid., p.82. Bold emphasis added.]

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

However, this revision has two untoward consequences Engels appears not to have noticed:

(1) It makes his version of DM look even more positivistic that it already seems (at least in DN). If the appeal to forces in nature is no more than a shorthand for the relative motion of bodies, then forces will have no real counterparts in nature. The whole idea would then be little more than a "useful fiction", invented to account for the phenomena instrumentally. This would make the identification of forces with contradictions even more problematic. Plainly, and once again: if there are no forces, there can be no DM-'contradictions'.

[DN = Dialectics of Nature, i.e., Engels (1954); UO = Unity of Opposites.]

(2) Given this re-write of the word "force", the contradictory relationship between bodies would become little more than a re-description of their relative motion. [Woods and Grant seem to be thinking along these lines, as we saw earlier.]

Anyway, the figurative reading of forces as 'contradictions' runs counter to the claim advanced by dialecticians that they are offering a literal and 'objective' account of nature. It is not easy to see how figurative language can fill in the physical gaps in an explanation, any more than, say, the following can account for Juliet's beauty:


"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."

[Romeo and Juliet, Act Two, Scene Two.]

Or, at least, any more than describing a man as a "pig" would imply he has a curly tail and is a potential source of bacon.

Nevertheless, even if this proves to be an acceptable resolution of Engels's problem, it would still not provide DM-theorists with a viable way out of their difficulties. Taken literally or figuratively, the equation of DM-'contradictions' with forces cannot work -- whether this applies to events in nature or society. This is so for several reasons.

3. Contradictions As Mathematical Models?

The first of these is connected with the way that forces are already represented in mathematics and physics, for example --, which does not appear to be even remotely appropriate for exportation and use in depicting contradictions as literal forces. Consider the following:

(A) Forces often operate according to an inverse square law. It is not easy to see how the same could be true of contradictions. Not much sense can be made, one presumes(!), of the idea that a contradiction could operate with, say, only 25% of its former intensity (or whatever the appropriate descriptor is here) if the distance between its oppositional elements is doubled. Do bosses really become more conciliatory if workers walk away from them? Does wealth cause less conflict if the rich move their money to the Cayman Islands? Do appearances contradict reality any the more if someone uses a microscope, or presses his/her face against a desk? And yet, no force in nature has its local or remote strength unaffected by such changes.

Sure, dialecticians speak about the "contradictions" in the capitalist system "intensifying", but this is not because the 'separation distance' between the classes has decreased. Whatever DM-theorists think they mean by "intensification" here (which seems be that the alleged "contradictions" become more obvious, intractable or crisis-ridden), they certainly do not mean it in the same way that physicists mean it when they talk about, say, the strength of a force field intensifying. Nor is there any mathematics involved. Indeed, while a technician might be dispatched to measure the intensity of a force field in genuine scientific research, no one ever seems to have been asked to do the same with these "intensifying" 'dialectical contradictions'. They (or at least their 'strength') appear to be permanently locked in subjective space, stubbornly impervious to scientific investigation.

(B) Forces in nature can be represented by vectors, the use of which is governed by well-understood rules. As such, for example, they may be inclined at various angles to one another, added, subtracted and multiplied (to give inner, vector or scalar triple products, and the like) -- and by means of which, diverse quantities, such as areas, volumes, field densities, boundary flux (etc.), may be calculated. In addition, vectors may be parallel or orthogonal, to one another, or to previously defined axes, just as they may be decomposed into their components and projected onto a given direction, plane or surface. They can be used to identify and classify the mathematical properties of manifolds. Unit vectors can be defined in a given vector space, providing it with a base and spanning set. Modulii can be ascertained for any given vector, and so-called "Eigenvectors" can be calculated. Furthermore, matrices can be employed to represent vectors more efficiently, their determinants and inverses thus calculated. The ordinary and partial derivatives of vectors may be derived -- and, finally, they can be integrated (as part of line, surface or volume integrals), and so on.

It is difficult to see how any of the above (and a many others) could be true of a single DM-'contradiction' interpreted (literally or metaphorically) as a force.

This brings us to the third and perhaps most important reason for questioning the connection between forces and 'contradictions'.

More on that in my next post.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here is the rest:


4. Contradictory To What?

Let us assume that two forces (say, F1 and F2) 'contradict' one another. In that case, one of the following options would, it seems, have to obtain:

(1) F1 must prevent F2 from acting (and/or vice versa), or

(2) F1 must impede F2, perhaps stopping it from producing its usual effects (and/or vice versa).

[There is a third option: that these forces should "struggle" with one another; however, if that is to make sense, then it must be explicated in terms of one or both of the other two.]

In the first case, F2 must either:

(1a) Cease to exist, or

(1b) confront F1 directly (as force on force) while it exists -- if it is to be affected by F1, or if it is to be prevented from operating by it.

However, if in (1a), F2 ceases to exist, it cannot contradict or be contradicted by anything, since it no longer exists to do anything.

Assuming, on the other hand, that F2 is contradicted by F1 up until it ceases to exist, then option (1a) would become (1b).

In the latter case, therefore, the alleged contradiction between F1 and F2 must see these forces acting as directly oppositional in some way. If so, these two forces must confront one another as forces of attraction and/or repulsion (or as a 'dialectical' mix of the two).

But, once again, it is not easy to see how this configuration could be a contradiction in anything other than a figurative sense.

[This is because a literal contradiction involves the gainsaying of the words of another person.]

If, on the other hand, a literal (but as-yet-unexplained) interpretation is still insisted upon here, this sort of confrontation between forces could only take place if they were particulate in some way -- that is, if they registered some sort of resistance to one another.

Alternatively, if they are not particulate, it is equally hard to see how they could interact at all, let alone 'contradict' each other. Continuous media have no rigidity and no impenetrability to exert forces of any sort (except, of course, as part of a figurative extension to particulate interaction, after all).

Now, there are well-known classical problems associated with the idea that forces are particulate (these are fully referenced in Essay Eight Part One (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_01.htm) and Part Two (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_02.htm) at my site) -- not the least of which is that if forces were particulate then they could only interact if they exerted still other forces (contact forces, cohesive forces, forces of reaction, etc.) on other particulates, initiating an infinite regress.

That is, in order to account for the ability of particles to resist one another, we would need to appeal to forces internal to bodies to do that, to stop one body penetrating the other, or to prevent distortions tearing that body apart. But, if the forces internal to bodies are particulate, too, we would plainly need further forces to account for the coherence of these new particles, and so on. Alternatively, if such forces are continuous and not particulate, they would plainly not be able to provide such inner coherence.

In the end nothing would be accounted for, since at each level there would be nothing to provide the required resistance/coherence.

So, reducing the interaction between forces to that between bodies means that particles could not 'contradict' one another without exerting non-particulate forces on their operands -- which would once again mean that such entities were incapable of exerting forces, having no rigidity to do so.

Even the exchange of particles (in QM) would succeed in exerting forces only if there were reaction forces internal to bodies which were themselves the result of rigidity, cohesion, contact, etc. Of course, Physicists appeal to various fields, energy gradients and the like, but if these are continuous, too, the above problems simply re-emerge. On the other hand, if they are particulate, this merry-go-round would simply take another spin around the metaphysical dance floor. [Some Physicists recognise this problem; many just ignore it.]

[QM = Quantum Mechanics.]

Of course, it could be objected that the above view adopts an out-dated mechanistic view of interaction, and hence it is completely misguided.

However, the 'modern' mathematical approach in fact surrenders any possibility of giving a causal, or physical account of forces --, or at least one that does not depend on a figurative use of verbs we employ in everyday life to give such an account in the macro-world.

So, if a particle is seen as a 'carrier of a force', and that 'force' can be given no 'physical bite', but it is still regarded as being capable of making things happen, forcing particles to divert their line of action (etc.), then the words used in such an account must lose contact with those drawn from the vernacular -- such as: "make", "force", "divert" --, as they are used to depict macro-phenomena. Now there is no problem with that, but then such an account would become merely descriptive; it could not explain how fields actually make things happen. Differential equations and vectors cannot make things move, or alter their paths; they merely describe what does in fact happen, as well as perhaps help us balance nature's books and make predictions. (More details on this can be found in the Essays linked to above.)

If, however, problems like these are put to one side for the moment, it would seem that forces could interact only by affecting the motion of bodies that are already under the control of other forces. In that case, (1b) would now reduce to the action of F1 on the effects of F2, or vice versa -- thus becoming option (2).

(1b) F2 must confront F1 directly (as force on force) while it exists -- if it is to be affected by F1, or if it is to be prevented from operating by it.

(2) F1 must impede F2, perhaps stopping it from producing its usual effects (and/or vice versa).

That being so, these forces would 'contradict' one another by preventing the normal effects of one or both of them from taking place. But, once more, if the latter are prevented from happening, they would not exist to be contradicted, and we would be back at square one.

If this set of inferences is rejected for some reason, then if F1 does indeed succeed in 'contradicting', say, the velocity of any body under the control of F2 (call this velocity V2), we would have a conflict between two unlike terms: F1 and V2. Clearly, given this scenario, the original contradiction between two forces will have disappeared to be replaced by a new relationship between a force and a velocity, which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called "contradictory". This is partly because the operating force merely alters a velocity -- in many cases it might even augment it, or merely deflect it -- and partly because a force (which is the product of mass and the rate of change of velocity) cannot 'struggle' with a mere rate of change of displacement.

Nevertheless, for a force to alter the velocity of a body, the force would have to be particulate, too, meaning that inter-particulate forces would come into play once again. As already noted, continuous media have no inner coherence to alter anything -- save they are surreptitiously viewed as particulate, once more. This would then collapse this scenario back into option (1), with all its associated classical/figurative problems.

Either way, the alleged contradiction here would evaporate for want of terms.

This criticism would still apply if the word "contradiction" were replaced by "conflict"; clearly, things cannot conflict if they don't exist, nor can they "conflict" with what they have prevented from taking place.

[And what exactly is the 'inner conflict' here that is supposed to make things move? A metaphysical motor of some sort? More on that in Essay Five (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2005.htm).

It could be argued that the "conflict" in this case is precisely this: the fact that one force prevents another from acting. Once again, it prevented, it does not exist, and so cannot contradict anything.

Also, the word "conflict" lacks the logical multiplicity that the word "contradiction" possesses. The whole point of using the word "contradiction" in DM was to emphasise the limitations of FL. This extension to the term is what allows dialecticians to argue that contradictory states of affairs can exist simultaneously. "A" and "not A" are thus supposed to be logically/dialectically connected. Now, if these expressions ("A", and "not A") are propositional, ordinarily the truth of one would imply the falsehood of the other; however, their 'dialectical connection' does not imply this in any straightforward sense -- indeed, it goes beyond this. This is what allows dialecticians to point to the superiority of DL over FL; their logic allows them to "grasp" such contradictions in order to make sense of change.

[FL = Formal Logic; DL = Dialectical Logic.]

If now the meaning of the word "conflict" is imported into the theory to work in place of "contradict", the aforementioned logical connection will be severed, and the alleged superiority of DL over FL would vanish, since no Formal Logician of any sense would deny that things can conflict -- nor indeed would they reject the claim that two propositions expressing conflict cannot both be true (or false) at once.

On the other hand, if the old FL-connections possessed by the word "contradiction" are exported and glued onto the word "conflict", then the meaning of the latter must change accordingly. In that case, this particular DM-thesis will have been made true solely as a result of linguistic tinkering, and that would mean that another DM-'fact' had been created by linguistic fiat, confirming DM's status as a form of Linguistic Idealism. In this case, from doctored language, Superscientific 'truths' would have followed.

[Linguistic Idealism -- the doctrine that fundamental truths about reality can be derived from language/thought alone.]

And finally, since only agents are capable of conflicting, this term may be used literally only by those prepared to [I]personify nature.

[This topic is discussed at greater length in the full version of Essay Eight Part Two (link above). Also, see here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2008_03.htm), and here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1941396&postcount=2), where Hegel's logical blunders are exposed as the real source of these odd DL-claims.]

This might help explain why Engels modified his ideas, declaring that:


"It is expressly to be noted that attraction and repulsion are not regarded here as so-called 'forces', but as simple forms of motion." [Engels (1954), p.71.]

In other words it seems that forces should be regarded as "useful fictions". As noted above, Engels was aware of the anthropomorphic origin of the scientific concept of force. So, for once, his scientific intuitions seem to have been working correctly.

But, even if this were a viable option, it is not easy to see how on DM-grounds one form of motion could in fact 'contradict' another form of motion. Classically, if one body alters another's motion, it would have to exert a force on it, which would introduce the very things Engels tried to eliminate.

So, despite what Engels said, DM needs forces; it cannot do without them. It requires them to provide the dialectical 'connective tissue' (as it were) and the motive power of the universe; without them there would be nothing internal to bodies which would be able to connect their motion to that of others, and nothing to interlink processes in the "Totality". In their absence, DM would look little different from "crude materialism". Indeed, without forces, dialecticians could not even pretend to explain why anything moved or developed.

In that case, dialecticians cannot afford to take heed of this rare example of Engelsian good sense. And that is why, in discussion, they all ignore it.

On the other hand, if we acknowledge that forces do in fact exist -- that is, we accept that they are more than just the complex ways of speaking about the interaction of bodies (and thus if we reject Engels's advice) --, then the DM-account will still not work. This is because all such changes are in fact produced by a single resultant force operating in the system, not by two contradictory forces.

In that case, if nature must be populated with forces -- and if the present author is allowed for a moment to indulge in some insincere a priori Superscience of her own --, change would then be the result, not of struggle, but of the cooperation, unity and harmony between forces as they naturally combine to produce change (by means of this cooperatively formed resultant), helpfully assisting particles on their way. If so, we should rather raise an analogy here with logical tautologies -- not contradictions -- and argue alongside other ancient mystics (following the excellent precedent set by Hegel) that nature is indeed governed by forces of empathy, affection and love.

The conclusion seems quite plain: since resultant forces cause every single change in nature (given the truth of the classical account), movement in general must be the result of these 'dialectical tautologies'. This new 'theory' at least has the advantage of being consistent with classical Physics, and every known observation. The same cannot be said of DM.

Naturally, those critical of the above (wholly insincere) flights-of-fancy on my part would do well to turn an equally sceptical eye on the similarly suspect anthropomorphic moves made by dialecticians all the time.

Alternatively, if it is now argued that both of the 'contradicted' forces (i.e., F1 and F2) still exist even while they interact with one another to produce this resultant, change would then be the result of the operation of at least three forces (the original two and the resultant); that would, of course, create energy from nowhere.

[Needless to say, if this is so, there is a pressing need for revolutionaries to identify this 'third force' since (on this view) it appears to be the one that will put paid to Capitalism!]

In that case, it looks like the word "force" -- as it is used in DM-propositions -- must be figurative, too. Hence, it now seems that DM can only be made to work if we adopt a poetic view of nature.:lol:

5. The Real Source Of This Theory

On the other hand, if it should turn out that these forces are reminiscent of those found in mystical religious systems (which forces personify 'god', or which carry out 'His' orders (in ancient astronomy, these were the angels who supposedly pushed the planets about the place; in Newton's theory, they were an expression of the direct or indirect action of 'God'), etc.), then it would make eminent good sense to suppose they could 'contradict' one another (i.e., 'argue' among themselves).

It is no surprise, therefore, to find once again that this is precisely from where this 'dialectical' notion has been lifted. This we know for a fact. [On that, see Essay Fourteen (summary here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Summary_of_Essay_Fourteen_Part_One.htm)).]

As such, and in this way, DM clearly represents the re-enchantment of nature and society.

So, while modern science has banished will and intelligence from nature, DM has simply re-introduced them.

6. 'Real' Contradictions?

It could be argued that the real value of 'Materialist Dialectics' lies in its capacity to help revolutionaries understand the contradictions in Capitalism, the better to help change the course of history.

But, it is difficult to picture any of these elements as opposites; the forces of production, it would seem, are no more the opposite of the relations of production than a diesel engine is the opposite of the person using it. And, as argued in detail in Essay Seven (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm), these opposites do not turn into one another, as the dialectical prophets assured us they must. For example, when was the last time that the forces of production turned into the relations of production? Or the proletariat turned into the capitalist class? [On that, see here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/dialectical-theory-change-t144536/index.html).]

Up until now DM-theorists have been more intent on merely asserting that forces are contradictory (seriously overusing this term) than they have been with providing any evidence or argument to show that they are -- or with clarifying what it could possibly mean to assert that they are. Once again, it is clear that DM-theorists have been quite happy to derive yet more a priori Superscience from a set of inappropriate concepts and dubious analogies, compounded by a poetic view of the assorted antics of ancient mystical intelligences, all subsequently confused with a precise logical principle.

Standard examples DM-theorists regularly wheel-out to illustrate the analogy between forces and contradictions are considered in detail in Essay Seven and shown to be misconceived. For instance, the alleged UO between the north and south poles of a magnet (or even that between positive and negative electrical charges) fails to illustrate the opposition between attractive and repulsive forces. In a magnet, two north poles, or two south poles (i.e., two likes), repel -- whereas two opposites (a north and a south pole), attract. So, if anything here, non-opposites 'contradict' (i.e., 'conflict' -- two Norths or two Souths repel each other), while actual opposites do not (North and South attract). Instead of struggle between opposites here we see harmony once more, confirming that change is indeed the result of those aforementioned 'internal tautologies'.

[UO = Unity of Opposites.]

Finally, several examples of "real material forces" supposedly at work in Capitalism are considered in detail in Essay Eight Part Two (link above). Under close scrutiny none of them turn out to be contradictions in any meaningful sense of the term. In fact, they all turn out to be one or more of the following: discursive paradoxes, unexpected events, complex inter-relationships, injustices, irrationalities, contraries and/or mistakes. [Added: see my reply to BTB above for an examine, of this.]

Of course, if DM-theorists intend the word "contradiction" to be taken in a special sense, all well and good (but see below); however, to date, they have signally failed to say clearly what this 'special' sense is. Or, perhaps more accurately, they have in fact sought to equate it with "conflict", which verbal 'solution' does at least have the advantage of making overt the covert animism in DM -- for only if inanimate matter were sentient or intelligent could it enter into conflict with itself (internally), or with anything else (externally).

As will be argued in detail in Essay Twelve (summary here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm)), the tendency to see conflict in linguistic, moral or conceptual terms (in traditional thought) was a direct consequence of the way that work-shy Greek Philosophers fetishised both language and the natural world, populating it with surrogate discursive terms to give sense to their own mode of being (i.e., those connected with the issuing of orders to minions and the framing laws to run society, which supposedly mirrored the laws of 'God', etc.). No surprise, therefore, to see this ancient view reappear in DM.

As Marx said, the ruling ideas always rule.

On the other hand, if DM-theorists aim to re-define the word "contradiction" as "conflict" then their theory would merely be a form of stipulative conventionalism -- since there is nothing in the meaning of either the everyday word "contradiction", or in its logical twin, that remotely suggests such a connotation; nor is there vice versa with "conflict".

In that case, it is now clear that this word has been re-defined just to make dialectics work. But, we should be no more convinced of the acceptability of that manoeuvre than we would be if, say, an apologist of Capitalism 'defined' it as "natural" and "beneficial to all". If the re-definition of terms provided a "royal road" to truth, those with the best dictionaries would surely win Nobel Prizes.

To be sure, one online dictionary says the following sort of thing:


"contradiction, n 1: opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas..."

However, it is worth recalling that dictionaries are repositories of usage, and are neither normative nor prescriptive. Indeed, they 'define' many things dialecticians would disagree with. For example:


"God: A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.

An image of a supernatural being; an idol.

One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god...."

And:


"negation n 1: a negative statement; a statement that is a refusal or denial of some other statement 2: the speech act of negating 3: (logic) a proposition that is true if and only if another proposition is false."

No mention here of "sublation", or of the NON, but does that force dialecticians into accepting this 'definition'? Of course not; they pick and choose when it suits them.

[NON = Negation of the Negation.]

In that case, dictionaries record ideology as much as they record use or meaning. Here, the writers of this dictionary have clearly recorded the animistic use of this word as employed by mystical dialecticians. The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary does not mention opposing forces in its definition of "contradiction".]

As the above shows, since no literal sense can be made of the equation of forces and contradictions, dialecticians should not believe everything they read in dictionaries.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Scarlet:


But words can have more than one meaning. The Dialectical Materialist meaning is different to your logic teacher meaning. No big deal. I find it weird when Americans talk about 'Indians' referring to Native Americans, because here we use 'Indian' to mean people from the country called India. But I don't complain about the American use, its just a different meaning of the same word. In philosophy especially there are countless redefinitions of words, one really has to get over it

Sure, anyone can use any word they like any way they like -- but that does not mean they will make sense. Otherwise, as I pointed out above, the fantasies of Lewis Caroll and the nonsense rhymes of Edward Lear would make sense.

And we have just seen that the 'dialectical' use of "contradiction" makes no sense at all.

[Hit The North]

BTB:

1. In fact, your 'tradition' derives from a bourgeois philosopher -- Hegel.



No it derives from Marx's use of, and understanding of contradiction in Das Kapital. If follows on from Engels and Lenin's and Luxemburg's and Trotsky's and Cliff's and Harman's understanding of capitalism as a contradictory system.

Besides, you cannot deny that this is the tradition of revolutionary Marxism.


2. Mine does not, since I have none.

Except you constantly rely on Aristotle and Hume and Wittgenstein and Frege, so I guess that's your tradition. Call it what you will, but don't pretend that you stand in some original relation to the rest of human thought, free from any tradition.

I may comment on the rest of your points when I have more time tomorrow.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


No it derives from Marx's use of, and understanding of contradiction in Das Kapital. If follows on from Engels and Lenin's and Luxemburg's and Trotsky's and Cliff's and Harman's understanding of capitalism as a contradictory system.

And Marx got his use of it from Hegel. So did the others you mention.


Besides, you cannot deny that this is the tradition of revolutionary Marxism.

Indeed, and it's a tradition that has been compromised by Hegel's egregious errors.


Except you constantly rely on Aristotle and Hume and Wittgenstein and Frege, so I guess that's your tradition. Call it what you will, but don't pretend that you stand in some original relation to the rest of human thought, free from any tradition.

1. Where do I rely on Hume?

2. Where do I rely on Aristotle?

3. My alleged reliance on Frege is mediated via the criticisms Wittgenstein advanced of his work, and Witttgenstein was not a bourgeois philosopher.

On that, see here:

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

But, even if you are right, my criticism of your odd use of 'contradiction' (which you have yet to justify) depends on none of these. And I defy you to show otherwise.

They are in fact original to me, and depend solely on ordinary language.

[Dimentio]

Popcorn time, boys!

[Hiero]

this is like saying that a box that has a red side and a green side is contradictory because "it is both red and not red." the particular surface that is red is not also "not red". same with capitalism being "progressive". it may do some things that are progressive such as facilitating education because it needs an educated workforce. but the oppressive and destructive aspects of capitalism are not also progressive. thus it depends on which aspects of capitalism you're talking about

The progressive and reactionary aspects are colliding and interacting with each other under the one system.

[Fabrizio]

In a blog entry recently, 'The Vegan Marxist' alleged there was a 'contradiction' between 'Anti-Imperialism and the Right to Self-Autonomy'.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/blog.php?bt=3291#comment3291

I questioned this, and pointed out that this does not even look like a contradiction, to which he replied:



I posted this reply, which has been deleted twice:



Here is Vegan's 'excuse' for deleting it:



To which I have replied:



Of course, we all know why Dialectical Marxists employ this perfectly ordinary word in such an odd way: they are blindly following tradition -- we have to say "blindly" since not one of them is capable of justifying their idiosyncratic use of this word.

And that tradition goes right back to Hegel, a mystic and logical incompetent of the first water -- who also failed to justify his odd use of 'contradiction'.

In my next comment, I will post a summary of just where Hegel went wrong.

/shrugs...I read that for a laugh, and it looks like semantics. If you both knew what he meant why go off on such a tangent which was irrelevant to the point? Also can I ask, have you ever been tested for autism? (Not taking the piss genuine question).

[Hit The North]

this is like saying that a box that has a red side and a green side is contradictory because "it is both red and not red." the particular surface that is red is not also "not red". same with capitalism being "progressive". it may do some things that are progressive such as facilitating education because it needs an educated workforce. but the oppressive and destructive aspects of capitalism are not also progressive. thus it depends on which aspects of capitalism you're talking about.



Even your example fails. Education under capitalism is both progressive and not progressive. Ever hear of the hidden curriculum? The education system under capitalism might be progressive in that it generalises important social skills such as literacy and numeracy; but it also generalises the ideas and rituals of the ruling class and so is not progressive from the standpoint of a revolutionary proletariat. From the standpoint of a ruling bourgeosie, the generalisation of literacy and numeracy carries dangers as it offers mass access to reason and knowledge amongst groups who would be better kept in ignorance; but to keep the workers in ignorance is to fail to raise the productive forces which is the only thing which can guarantee the bourgeoisies' continuing existence. So even from the standpoint of our class enemy, education under capitalism is progressive and not progressive (understanding the word 'progressive' to be a relative value applied to how it accords to the class or group interests of the observer).

So education under capitalism contributes to freeing us and it contributes to enslaving us. It is progressive and it is not progressive.

Democracy under capitalism is progressive and not progressive. Welfare States under capitalism are progressive and not progressive... I could go on. In fact we could work down through the political and ideological superstructure, charting all the contradictory tendencies and outcomes back towards the economic base and the fundamental cause of them, the actual motion of material reproduction founded on bourgeois property rights and the alienation of the direct producers from the society that their labour produces. [So here's another one: human beings are the creators of society and the creatures of society.]

As Hiero points out, the box metaphor you employ does not work because the conflicting tendencies, the paradoxical outcomes of life under capitalism cannot be separated out as easily as painted sides on a box (actually that's why I'd argue a dialectical method is necessary).

This, above, is what Marxist mean when they say capitalism is a contradictory system. The term might not fit easily into the standard definition of logical discourse, but even if it only works on the basis of analogy or metaphor, I can't think of a better word to encapsulate what life is like under capitalism. And even if I could, so what? I do operate in a tradition as a Marxist, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise or to disavow it. It is self-evident in the way all Marxists draw on the 'tools of the trade'. I'd argue that Marxist have continued to use the word 'contradiction' because it does in fact work in terms of convincing other workers that this is how capitalism works. It's only when academics trained in logic enter the fray that problems of definition arise. But that's because they don't approach the issue as activists. They come to it as logicians. Worse, some even prioritise the claims of logic over the claims of Marxism. If the definitions employed by Marxism don't meet exactly with the definitions employed by logic, then so much the worse for Marxism, as far as they are concerned.

What they appear to always miss, is the fact that Marxism is not a science of logic, it is a science of society. And who says society is logical?*



* And, yes, I do realise that I am now probably using the word 'logical' in a slipshod manner which academic logicians would find objectionable. But Jo Bloggs and her husband would get my meaning ;).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


The progressive and reactionary aspects are colliding and interacting with each other under the one system.

Maybe so, but what is not clear is your justification for calling this a 'contradiction'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Fabrizio:


I read that for a laugh, and it looks like semantics.

As I have replied to this sort of 'reply' many times before:


However, to those who think that this sort "semantics" can be ignored it is worth pointing out that that would be the only way they could excuse their own sloppy thinking, and the only way they could make their ideas appear to work.

This sort of attitude would not be tolerated for one second in the sciences, or in any other branch of genuine knowledge. Can you imagine the fuss if someone were to argue that it does not matter what the Magna Carta said, or when the Battle of the Nile was fought, or what the Declaration of Independence actually contained, or what the exact wording of Newton's Second Law was, or whether "G", the Gravitational Constant, was 6.6742 x 10^-11 or 6.7642 x 10^-11 Mm^2kg^-2, or indeed something else? Would we accept this sort of excuse from someone who said it did not matter what the precise wording of a contract in law happened to be? Or, that it was of no real concern what Marx meant by "variable capital", or who claimed that he had "pedantically" distinguished use-value from exchange-value -- or more pointedly, the "relative form" from the "equivalent form" of value --, the distinction is merely "semantic"? And how would we react if someone said, "Who cares if there are serious differences in the evidence given by two cops against some strikers"? Or if someone retorted "Big deal if there are a few errors in this or that e-mail address/web page URL, or in that mathematical proof! And who cares whether there is a difference between rest mass and inertial mass in Physics! What are you, some kind of pedant?"


If you both knew what he meant why go off on such a tangent which was irrelevant to the point?

It's not irrelevant, but I can't be bothered explaining why to a fool like you.


Also can I ask, have you ever been tested for autism? (Not taking the piss genuine question).

One less time than you have plainly failed that test.

[Hit The North]

BTB:
And Marx got his use of it from Hegel. So did the others you mention.


Oh, yeah. I remember Marx claiming to invert Hegel.


1. Where do I rely on Hume?

2. Where do I rely on Aristotle?
Ok, so I was wrong and you don't owe anything to these geezers. I'm not too sure I care. You might be the most original thinker in human history and you'd still be wrong.


3. My alleged reliance on Frege is mediated via the criticisms Wittgenstein advanced of his work, and Witttgenstein was not a bourgeois philosopher.
Not sure how you're defining 'bourgeois philosopher' but he was from a bourgeois family, worked in some of the most bourgeois universities, employed as a professional philosopher. So, call me crazy, but that certainly gets close to most definitions of the title of 'bourgeois philosopher'.


But, even if you are right, my criticism of your odd use of 'contradiction' (which you have yet to justify) depends on none of these. And I defy you to show otherwise.

They are in fact original to me, and depend solely on ordinary language.
Yes you've done a lot (and I mean a lot) of good work showing how Marxists use the word 'contradiction' differently to academic logicians. Your major contribution to human knowledge and happiness is duly noted.

[ZeroNowhere]

Not sure how you're defining 'bourgeois philosopher' but he was from a bourgeois family, worked in some of the most bourgeois universities, employed as a professional philosopher. So, call me crazy, but that certainly gets close to most definitions of the title of 'bourgeois philosopher'.Not as close as Engels.

[Hit The North]

Not as close as Engels.

Cheeky.

[Hit The North]

Also can I ask, have you ever been tested for autism? (Not taking the piss genuine question).

This is out of order and I'm issuing a verbal warning. To attempt to discredit our opponents by reference to their mental states or functioning is the work of snobs and Stalinists. It has no place in the Philosophy forum.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Even your example fails. Education under capitalism is both progressive and not progressive. Ever hear of the hidden curriculum? The education system under capitalism might be progressive in that it generalises important social skills such as literacy and numeracy; but it also generalises the ideas and rituals of the ruling class and so is not progressive from the standpoint of a revolutionary proletariat. From the standpoint of a ruling bourgeoisie, the generalisation of literacy and numeracy carries dangers as it offers mass access to reason and knowledge amongst groups who would be better kept in ignorance; but to keep the workers in ignorance is to fail to raise the productive forces which is the only thing which can guarantee the bourgeoisies' continuing existence. So even from the standpoint of our class enemy, education under capitalism is progressive and not progressive (understanding the word 'progressive' to be a relative value applied to how it accords to the class or group interests of the observer).

Once again, you offer up an equivocal predicate, since your modified example of the education system is in fact "progressive in that..." , and "progressive from the standpoint of..." (as you openly admit) -- and not simply "progressive".

May I suggest you re-read my previous reply, since that explains why this is not a contradiction -- as even Aristotle knew.

Hence this should read:


So education under capitalism contributes to freeing us and it contributes to enslaving us. It is progressive in so far as...., and it is not progressive in so far as....

Moreover, these do not 'struggle' with one another, and turn into one another, as we are assured they must by the dialectical classicists.

Same with this:


Democracy under capitalism is progressive and not progressive. Welfare States under capitalism are progressive and not progressive... I could go on. In fact we could work down through the political and ideological superstructure, charting all the contradictory tendencies and outcomes back towards the economic base and the fundamental cause of them, the actual motion of material reproduction founded on bourgeois property rights and the alienation of the direct producers from the society that their labour produces. [So here's another one: human beings are the creators of society and the creatures of society.]

You could indeed do this, but that would be a waste of effort since these aren't contradictory. And that is because the full predicate is "progressive in so far as" or "progressive from the standpoint of....", once more.


As Hiero points out, the box metaphor you employ does not work because the conflicting tendencies, the paradoxical outcomes of life under capitalism cannot be separated out as easily as painted sides on a box (actually that's why I'd argue a dialectical method is necessary).

As I have pointed out to him, too, he has yet to justify calling this a 'contradiction', and we can see from your examples, that when we restore the full predicate, it ceases even to seem like one.


This, above, is what Marxist mean when they say capitalism is a contradictory system. The term might not fit easily into the standard definition of logical discourse, but even if it only works on the basis of analogy or metaphor, I can't think of a better word to encapsulate what life is like under capitalism.

And yet, this is a very poor metaphor, as I have already explained -- in that long post above.


And even if I could, so what? I do operate in a tradition as a Marxist, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise or to disavow it

Again, as I have also pointed out, this is a 'tradition' that has borrowed this use of 'contradiction' from a logical incompetent -- Hegel --, who derived his use of this word from a series of crass logical blunders. That would be like, say, physicists deriving their use of 'gravity', not from Newton, but from an incompetent who believed that the planets all attracted one another because of 'love' (and, believe me, there have been mystics who actually thought this!).


It is self-evident in the way all Marxists draw on the 'tools of the trade'.

It's not 'self-evident'; only tautologies and logical 'truths' are self-evident.


I'd argue that Marxist have continued to use the word 'contradiction' because it does in fact work in terms of convincing other workers that this is how capitalism works.

But that is no more a legitimate excuse than it is if the Catholic Church use the same sort of reason to persuade workers to accept their whacko ideas. To see this, let's change your reply slightly:


I'd argue that Catholics have continued to use the word 'saved' because it does in fact work in terms of convincing other workers that this is how they will get to heaven.


It's only when academics trained in logic enter the fray that problems of definition arise.

You are getting desperate now. Can you imagine a Christian Fundamentalist arguing this way?


It's only when atheists trained in science enter the fray that problems arise.

If your core theory is defective, it needs pointing out.


But that's because they don't approach the issue as activists.

This is a very weak card to play, since Dialectical Marxism is a long-term failure. All that 'activism' of all those 'activists' -- especially Trotskyist 'activists' -- has precious little to show for its 'activism' over that last 70 or 80 years.


They come to it as logicians.

In fact, logicians in general ignore your 'theory' since it is, as Syndicat has pointed out, manifestly ridiculous. As ridiculous as many of the fables one reads in the Bible. I tried to explain why in my long post above. Here is my lampoon, again (here slightly modified):


On the other hand, if we acknowledge that forces do in fact exist -- that is, we accept that they are more than just the complex ways of speaking about the interaction of bodies and processes (and thus if we reject Engels's advice) --, then the DM-account will still not work. This is because all such changes are in fact produced by a single resultant force operating in the system, not by two contradictory forces.

In that case, if nature and society must be populated with forces -- and if the present author is allowed for a moment to indulge in some insincere a priori Superscience of her own --, change would then be the result, not of struggle, but of the cooperation, unity and harmony between forces as they naturally combine to produce change (by means of this cooperatively formed resultant), helpfully assisting particles on their way. If so, we should rather raise an analogy here with logical tautologies -- not contradictions -- and argue alongside other ancient mystics (following the excellent precedent set by Hegel) that nature and society are indeed governed by forces of empathy, affection and love.

The conclusion seems quite plain: since resultant forces cause every single change in nature (given the truth of the classical account), movement in general must be the result of these 'dialectical tautologies'. This new 'theory' at least has the advantage of being consistent with classical Physics, and every known observation. The same cannot be said of DM.

Naturally, those critical of the above (wholly insincere) flights-of-fancy on my part would do well to turn an equally sceptical eye on the similarly suspect anthropomorphic moves made by dialecticians all the time....

In that case, it looks like the word "force" -- as it is used in DM-propositions -- must be figurative, too. Hence, it now seems that DM can only be made to work if we adopt a poetic view of nature!

....On the other hand, if it should turn out that these forces are reminiscent of those found in mystical religious systems (which forces personify 'god', or which carry out 'His' orders (in ancient astronomy, these were the angels who supposedly pushed the planets about the place; in Newton's theory, they were an expression of the direct or indirect action of 'God'), etc.), then it would make eminent good sense to suppose they could 'contradict' one another (i.e., 'argue' among themselves).

It is no surprise, therefore, to find once again that this is precisely from where this 'dialectical' notion has been lifted. As that is why I have alleged that this 'theory' represents a modern attempt to re-enchant nature and society.

You:


Worse, some even prioritise the claims of logic over the claims of Marxism.

In fact, the 'claims of Marxism' become scientific when this mystical baggage is removed -- rather like astronomy became scientific when physicists dropped all reference to the angels pushing the planets around the heavens.


If the definitions employed by Marxism don't meet exactly with the definitions employed by logic, then so much the worse for Marxism, as far as they are concerned.

But you have tried to use a discursive definition of 'contradiction' (never mind the ones used in logic) and even that showed your examples weren't contradictions to begin with.


What they appear to always miss, is the fact that Marxism is not a science of logic, it is a science of society. And who says society is logical?

But your analysis of society should be -- otherwise it will fail. And that is what we have in fact seen over the last 140 odd years.

The problem with you traditionalists is that you not only do not learn from logic, you do not learn even from your own failed practice!


* And, yes, I do realise that I am now probably using the word 'logical' in a slipshod manner which academic logicians would find objectionable. But Jo Bloggs and her husband would get my meaning

Which is why I added the word 'discursive'; I have no problem with that, since even at that level your use of this word is still defective.

But, it is at least satisfying to see that even you see that ordinary language is the court of last appeal here.;)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Oh, yeah. I remember Marx claiming to invert Hegel.

Again, as I have pointed out when others have tried that dodge: an inverted logical blunder is still a blunder.

But, at least you admit Marx pinched this from Hegel, which is all I require.


Ok, so I was wrong and you don't owe anything to these geezers. I'm not too sure I care. You might be the most original thinker in human history and you'd still be wrong.

Maybe so, maybe not, but you have yet to show where I go wrong.


Not sure how you're defining 'bourgeois philosopher' but he was from a bourgeois family, worked in some of the most bourgeois universities, employed as a professional philosopher. So, call me crazy, but that certainly gets close to most definitions of the title of 'bourgeois philosopher'.

The above fits Alex Callinicos too.:)


Yes you've done a lot (and I mean a lot) of good work showing how Marxists use the word 'contradiction' differently to academic logicians. Yes you've done a lot (and I mean a lot) of good work showing how Marxists use the word 'contradiction' differently to academic logicians. Your major contribution to human knowledge and happiness is duly noted.
.

Yes, you'd be right to sneer if that were all I have done. But, unfortunately for you it's not.

I'd explain further -- but then you'd only ignore it (since I have in fact done so many times before, only to have it ignored by you an equal number of times).

Your failure to contribute to human knowledge is duly noted.

[Hiero]

Hiero:



Maybe so, but what is not clear is your justification for calling this a 'contradiction'.

With your head so far up Wittgenstein ass I am surprised anything is clear to you.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


With your head so far up Wittgenstein ass I am surprised anything is clear to you.

As usual, you can't respond effectively to my arguments, nor can you justify your odd use of 'contradiction', so you resort to abuse.

Same old same old, eh?:lol:

[Hiero]

Hiero:



As usual, you can't respond effectively to my arguments, nor can you justify your odd use of 'contradiction', so you resort to abuse.

Same old same old, eh?:lol:

It's because I am working class, I know no better.

[Black Sheep]

Rosa's quotes take an entire page.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


It's because I am working class, I know no better

So am I, and I do.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Blacksheep:


Rosa's quotes take an entire page.

Marx's took several hundred pages. So, I am quite brief.

[Dimentio]

The weakness of the contradictions theory is that it is based on a simplified view on nature and development, is over-emphasing the struggle aspect and based on dualism which is a profoundly idealistic view. It feels like it has moved an idealistic interpretation of idealism into the sphere of an idealistic interpretation of materialism.

[Black Sheep]

Blacksheep:



Marx's took several hundred pages. So, I am quite brief.
That's why he was banned from every internet forum back then.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Black Sheep:


That's why he was banned from every internet forum back then.

And it's why I haven't...:)

[Widerstand]

Hey folks, I just conducted my first dialectical analysis of toilets (water closets), just wondering what you all think of it:

<Widerstand> so a toilet is a dilectical device because I input shit (thesis), then flush it (antithesis) and they are both conserved in the sewer system (synthesis)
<Widerstand> actually it is a [contradiction in the same object]
<Widerstand> because the toilet both takes shit and removes shit
<Widerstand> clearly this is a contradiction

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

^^^Can a mod move the above post to the Trashcan, please?

Thesis/Anti-thesis/Synthesis has nothing to do with dialectics, by the way:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=707195&postcount=7

[Widerstand]

^^^Can a mod move the above post to the Trashcan, please?

Hey, don't be so harsh, I told you it's my first :blushing:



Thesis/Anti-thesis/Synthesis has nothing to do with dialectics, by the way:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=707195&postcount=7

But Marx' and Engels' (and everyone-after-them's) version of "dialectic materialism" upholds the Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis method, no?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

W:


Hey, don't be so harsh, I told you it's my first

Apologies, I thought you were taking the p*ss.


But Marx' and Engels' (and everyone-after-them's) version of "dialectic materialism" upholds the Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis method, no?

It's not in Engels's work, and only appears briefly in Marx's very early writings -- and even there he may be parodying it. Lenin and Plekhanov criticised it as a crude parody of Hegel, and thus of their own method.

Some later, and lazy, Marxists have appropriated it, but only because they are basically ignorant of their own theory.

[Widerstand]

Apologies, I thought you were taking the p*ss.

;X



It's not in Engels's work,

I don't know which work it was exactly, but wasn't it Engels who thought up the examples of dialectics in nature, with the seed that negates itself by growing and conserves itself in the plant (synthesis)?



Lenin and Plekhanov criticised it as a crude parody of Hegel, and thus of their own method.

Are there any sources for this?

[StockholmSyndrome]

Kurt Godel proved that contradictions can exist within a formal logical system in his treatment of the Principia Mathematica and his Incompleteness Theorems.
Also, the books "I Am A Strange Loop" and "Godel Escher Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter do a good job of showing how paradoxes and contradictions can arise out of the natural laws of physics and mathematics.

[Kotze]

Kurt Godel proved that contradictions can exist within a formal logical system in his treatment of the Principia Mathematica and his Incompleteness Theorems.As far as my understanding goes these theorems are not about something being true and wrong at the same time, they are about limits to proving something to be true.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Widerstand:


I don't know which work it was exactly, but wasn't it Engels who thought up the examples of dialectics in nature, with the seed that negates itself by growing and conserves itself in the plant (synthesis)?

Indeed, but he didn't use the term 'synthesis'.


Are there any sources for this?

Lenin criticised this crude form of Hegel's theory in Volume 38 of his Collected Works (the so-called Philosophical Notebooks). I'll obtain the Plekhanov reference for you later today.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

StockholmSyndrome:


Kurt Godel proved that contradictions can exist within a formal logical system in his treatment of the Principia Mathematica and his Incompleteness Theorems.

In fact, he used Cantor's flawed 'Diagonal Proof' to obtain these alleged contradictions, and that 'Proof' depends on accepting a Platonic (and hence mystical) ontology. On that see here:

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

But, even if Godel were correct, how is this connected with 'dialectical contradictions'?


Also, the books "I Am A Strange Loop" and "Godel Escher Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter do a good job of showing how paradoxes and contradictions can arise out of the natural laws of physics and mathematics.

Same point.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Ok, Widerstand, you will find Plekhanov's parody of this 'triad' here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/plekhanov/1895/monist/app1.htm