Dialectical materialism and dialectics [Archive]

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L.A.P.

3rd May 2011, 01:07

MarxSchmarx

3rd May 2011, 04:50

Do you mean dialectics instead of dialects (Cantonese/Mandarin etc...)?

posthuman

3rd May 2011, 05:04

I've always kind of struggled to fully wrap my mind around this myself.

Something to do with Hegels... thesis, antithesis, synthesis...

I guess it is a pattern that is very widely used by those who wish to influence one's train of thought...

red cat

3rd May 2011, 05:49

Since Rosa isn't here to jump on everyone's ass anymore i want to finally understand dialectical materialism and dialects. I don't want someone to give me long incoherent pages pages and use it as an opportunity to promote their website about why dialects and dialectical materialism are bullshit, I just want to know what they are in the first place. Please explain.

Have you read Mao's "On Contradiction" (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm) ? It is a bit long but fairly easy to understand.

mosfeld

3rd May 2011, 05:51

You can take a look at stuff like this, where they try and put DM into the simplest possible terms

http://home.igc.org/~venceremos/
http://tx.cpusa.org/dialectical_materialism.htm

Black Sheep

3rd May 2011, 14:17

After you read the above, you can read Rosa's objections :D
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/disclaimer.htm

Terminator X

3rd May 2011, 14:31

This is a definite must-read, one of the easiest-to-understand explanations of DM I've found yet (if you can ignore the typos):

"Science and Change: An Introduction to Dialectical Materialism" by Hillel Cohen
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BwDPOkz150f-MTBiYzk3MzUtYzcxMy00NDg0LWJkNTQtNWFmMWIwNmFmMjc5&hl=en&pli=1

Rooster

3rd May 2011, 14:45

You can read this:

Materialism and Empirio-criticism. (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/index.htm) by Lenin. I've got a copy from the 70s but I haven't read much of it yet.

The book Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy was written by Lenin during February to October 1908 in Geneva and London. It was published in Moscow in May 1909 by the Zveno Publishers. The manuscript of the book and Lenin’s preparatory material for it have so far not been found.

The book is the outcome of a prodigious amount of creative scientific research carried out by Lenin during nine months. His main work on the book was carried out in Geneva libraries, but in order to obtain a detailed knowledge of the modern literature of philosophy and natural science be went in May 1908 to London, where he worked for about a month in the library of the British Museum. The list of sources quoted or mentioned by Lenin in his book exceeds 200 titles.

In December 1908 Lenin went from Geneva to Paris where he worked until April 1909 on correcting the proofs of his book. He had to agree to tone down some passages of the work so as not to give he tsarist censorship an excuse for prohibiting its publication. It was published in Russia under great difficulties. Lenin insisted on the speedy issue of the book, stressing that “not only literary but also serious political obligations” were involved in its publication.

Lenin’s work Materialism and Empirio-criticism played a decisive part in combating the Machist revision of Marxism. It enabled the philosophical ideas of Marxism to spread widely among the mass of party members and helped the party activists and progressive workers to master dialectical and historical materialism.

Lenina Rosenweg

3rd May 2011, 14:47

There is some controversy concerning dialectics and dialectical materialism and not just among dialectical deniers. Marx himself never used the term "dialectical materialism". This was developed after Marx died by Engels and Plekhanov. A very reductionist view of "diamat" was made the official ideology of the fSU. There are those who say this is very reductionist and did really reflect Marx's thought.

For a good explanatiin of the "mainstream" view of dialectical materialism, Novack is good.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/history/ch14.htm

http://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/history/ch04.htm

For the "heretical" view of diamat

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/millenni/smith2.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/articles/interim.htm

Kronsteen

3rd May 2011, 14:58

i want to finally understand dialectical materialism and dialects.

It's a good question, and after a decade of trying to get marxists to explain it, all I know is: I got a different answer every time.

I can categorise the answers into three broad types: the obviously true but unhelpful, the obviously false, and the evasive or meaningless.

The trivially true:
* No two things are ever exactly identical. Whether we treat them as identical (or interchangable) depends on the purpose we have in mind for them. Example: I buy a beer for me and you buy one or you, but we end up drinking from each other's glasses - does it make a difference?

* Things are changing all the time. Whether we treat something as different or the same as it was five minutes (or 500 years) ago depend, again, on the purpose we have in mind.

* Any situation can be oversimplified in ways the are diametrically opposed - if the oversimplifications are treated as the whole truth. Example: Are trade unions instruments of the workers or of the state?

* Sometimes there are tipping points, where one extra snowflake starts an avalanche, and sometimes there aren't, where pulling out one hair doesn't make you suddenly bald.

The False:

* Dialectics is the way the unalienated worker understands the world.

* It's the 'rational core' in Hegel. What this 'core' is, is usually left unexplained, and when it is, it reduces to the trivial truths above.

* The 'movement' paradoxes of the ancient greek philosophers Parmenides, Zeno and Heraclitus - treated not as paradoxes but as insights.

The Evasive or Meaningless:

* All questions will be answered as a by-product of the struggle to overthrow capitalism.

* It's a view of the world in terms of things fusing with their self-generated opposites in order to evolve to the next stage. The old thesis-antithesis-syntheis teleology.

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There are also a number of false or confusing statements which are sometimes said to be part of the dialectic, and sometimes not.

* A billiard ball rolls across a table because there's a battle going on inside it - as opposed to external forces acting upon it.

* The various senses of the word 'is' are all really the same meaning, and realising this reveals the hidden structure of the universe. Obviously this doesn't work in non-indo-european languages.

* A bowl of fruit is merging slowly with its own future rotten self, which already exists as a 'goal'. This notion of 'destiny' is sometimes applied to the worker's revolution, sometimes not, depending on the thinker.

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Speaking only for myself, I think the chief question for marxism is: Is all this theory an integral part of marxism (in which case, we're screwed), or can it be jettisoned without harming the political analysis and project?

I don't have an answer, as yet.

Zanthorus

3rd May 2011, 18:18

There is some controversy concerning dialectics and dialectical materialism and not just among dialectical deniers. Marx himself never used the term "dialectical materialism". This was developed after Marx died by Engels and Plekhanov.

Engels never talked about 'dialectical materialism' either, he followed Marx in talking about a 'dialectical method'. The first to use the term was Plekhanov, and it is questionable to what degree Engels was responsible for the views espoused by the former.

Catmatic Leftist

4th May 2011, 06:59