Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics

[Tim Redd]

[This is a summary of philosophical paper written by me Tim Redd. Feedback is welcome.]


Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics


The traditional Marxist philosophical position is called dialectical materialism and Marxists talk quite a bit about dialectics, materialism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_edn1) and the combination of the two. The Marxist understanding of materialism seems to be working OK for us for the most part, although it could use a touch up which I will go into later[ii] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_edn2). The key problem we are having today is with dialectics and in general with a better understanding and application of the knowledge of how things and ideas move and develop, which are the primary topics dialectics is meant to address.
In the discussion that follows, we will spend most of the time attempting to correct and improve our understanding and application of the knowledge of how things and ideas move and develop. This will involve showing how dialectics, while still useful, also has problems (some made by Marxists) and is often inadequate for understanding the motion and development of things. To do this we will go over the major ideas of dialectics that led to Marxist dialectics, we will look at how Marxism transformed the dialectical ideas it inherited and we will investigate new concepts that key Marxists added to the science of dialectics. In the course of this we will determine what is useful about Marxist dialectics in its current state and also what concepts are not helpful, and even harmful to the socialist revolutionary movement. After that we will explore a number of other concepts and frameworks for the study of dynamics that will help us to understand how dialectics is often inadequate to the task of analyzing the motion and development of things. We will see that we as Marxists should use these concepts as required in addition to dialectics in order to more accurately and fully understand the motion and development of things. I will then lay out useful ways to integrate some these dynamical concepts and frameworks with and sometimes without dialectics to further bolster our ability to analyze the dynamics of reality in the practice of revolutionary Marxism.



Broadening Our View of Dynamics


Dynamics is a study of how things and phenomena move and develop and dialectics is one form of dynamics. Many phenomena move and develop in ways that dialectics is insufficient to describe or provide an understanding of. This clearly means that Marxists should broaden the types of dynamics we use beyond those of dialectics.


I will identify and provide a high level description of various key forms of motion and development. I will also identify and provide a high level description of key ways that we can model, in order to understand, various forms of motion and development. Primarily I will lay out areas of dynamics and the modeling of dynamics that others have previously abstracted from specific sciences, and from across various sciences.


Of course there will be additional kinds of dynamics and modeling of dynamics that arise in the future as science progresses, but these are key ones known to me and should at least serve as a starting point.


Each area of dynamics usually involves many features and topics. I will give a general description of each kind of dynamics, or dynamics modeling and point out some their more significant features and topics, however this will not be a detailed accounting of the areas. In nearly all cases, additional general and detailed information is available in libraries, the Internet and bookstores. At the end of this paper I will give references to detailed information for most areas, including my own for several areas.


Systems: Everyone likes to view cycle diagrams, like water cycle and carbon cycle diagrams. These cycles are systems with various parts and each part contributes to the successful functioning of the whole system cycle. Nearly all of the things and situations that Marxists and all humans deal with are systems. So Marxists are often confronted with systems, but it’s rare that we analyze and manage them with an understanding of how systems in general are created, develop and are retired. In other words we hardly ever apply the principles of general systems theory in our work.


Some systems are simple and others are complex with gradations of systems in between. The parts of a system are subordinate to the system as a whole, when considering the structure and operation of the system. Typically two or more parts of a system are mutually dependent and have reciprocal effects on one another. Often complex systems have parts that operate throughout most or all aspects and other parts of the system. Some parts exist throughout the lifetime of the system and other parts come and go as the system undergoes its motion and development.


Two systems that are of key interest to Marxists are one, the global system of capitalist imperialism and two, the global system of the proletarian revolutionary movement. So in order to understand imperialism as a system, we must understand its structure and operation in each country and how those parts relate to the worldwide structure and operation of imperialism. And in order to understand the proletarian revolutionary movement as a system, we must understand its structure and operation in each country and how those parts relate to the worldwide structure and operation of the proletarian revolutionary movement.


Multi-agent system: These are systems made up of at least two or more agents. Agents have the ability to act on their own to do one or more things. This means agents can act in an autonomous manner. An autonomous agent may consist of a single thing, or it may consist of group, or system of things, even though the agent itself is already in a system. Agent-based modeling is a type of modeling that simulates the way autonomous agents act and interact in a system. (“Agent-Based and Individual-Based Modeling: A Practical Introduction” (Amazon)).


Networks: Analyzing a system as a network is used when it is important to understand the grouping and bunching of the connections between the parts of a system. A network diagram depicts the parts of the system as dots (nodes) and the connections between the dots are drawn as lines (edges). Some diagrams of the Internet which show the degree to which one city is connected to other cities, show the cities as dots with many lines connecting the various cities.


Hierarchy: Many complex phenomena and systems have a wedding cake, layered structure. Their structure is a series of layers, stacked one upon another. This type of structure is also called a hierarchy of layers. Each layer tends to have a makeup, or function, that is different from the other layers. In such hierarchical systems there are interactions within layers as well as between layers. For instance human thought is a result of the interaction of chemical and electrical events. The brain hierarchy that produces thinking has thought functionality and interaction at its highest level and has chemical and electrical interactions at its lower levels. The overall operation of the system of capitalism which has a state and cultural life at its highest levels is a result of innumerable commodity exchanges that take place at lower levels. It should be noted that not all systems are organized as a series of layers. Some systems have parts that are mainly connected as a network, or have parts that are all in, or at the same level. Frequently systems have structures that are a mixture of layers, networks and other possible forms.


Complexity: Many of the systems, situations, or things in general that we deal with are complex and, or undergo complex motion, or development. Something that is complex has multiple (typically many) interacting elements. Due to the multiple interactions, it is difficult to understand, or follow how the multiple elements are operating to effect some behavior or carry out some function. What is complex is relative to the situation or complex.


In the first place, we should strive to reduce complexity to the greatest degree possible in our work, when the benefits outweigh the effort, which is generally the case. Depending on the circumstances, we should reduce complexity 1) in the approach we take to handle, or manage a situation, 2) in the social, or physical situation we are dealing with, or 3) preferably both


Complex Adaptive System: An adaptive system (either simple or complex adaptive) is one of multiple homogeneous (similar) agents (things) that interact to form a single larger system. The agents are adaptive because they each adapt to the structure and or behavior of the other agents in the system and to the overall system within which they reside. The analysis of adaptive systems focuses on identifying and understanding how individual homogeneous adaptive agents interact to drive and modify (change the characteristics and functioning of) the motion and development of the larger system in which they reside. It should be noted that there are many, if not a majority of, systems where the elements adapt to one another but the elements are heterogeneous rather than homogeneous.


Emergence (Synergy): This is the generation, the appearance, of new entities, events, forces and tendencies that occur from the operation of the parts of a complex system working in tandem, or from the interaction of multiple complex systems. The operation of a complex system like capitalism periodically generates new economic booms and busts.


Chaos: Chaos is characterized by rapid, difficult to predict changes of state, behavior or functionality. A chaotic thing may or may not be complex in its structure, and it may not have several interacting elements like most complex systems, but like complex entities the behavior or functionality of the chaotic thing is typically, or at key times, difficult to predict. Chaotic things whether or not complex again are not just difficult to predict, but are rapidly changing state, behavior or functionality. Order and its opposite chaos like complexity are relative to, or determined by context. What’s chaotic over two hours may be orderly for several milliseconds.


Many systems, especially complex ones, operate at the edge of chaos. For instance the electrical pulses of the heart operate on the edge of, or near to chaos[iii] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_edn3). Many systems or phenomena operate most optimally when they are perched on the edge of chaos; when they are still relatively stable but nevertheless also close to a chaotic state. Dialectical leaps/revolution as a tipping point in many chaotic systems; It should be noted that while complexity and chaos often overlap, they are separate concepts and do not always overlap.


Systems can cycle through periods of order and chaos, with one state both driving and feeding off the other.


Non-linearity: Linearity is when the mathematical graph of the way something behaves is a straight line, or the graph of the effects it produces has only straight lines. Of course a straight line has no curvature, or changes in direction. Non-linearity occurs when a graph of the behavior, or effects of something curvature, or changes in direction.


Many complex and chaotic systems and phenomena display non-linear behavior, or produce non-linear effects. Complex systems often display non-linear behavior because the complex interaction of its parts tend to result in non-linear forces, outcomes and results. The methods used in a systems approach to complex phenomena allow us to analysis and follow non-linear behavior. And with many of the things Marxists deal with being complex systems, it behooves us to learn the principles for taking a system approach that will allow us to see and analysis the non-linear behavior and effects of these systems.


Feedback: This a phenomena that is commonly associated with the operation of complex systems. Feedback is present when a system has a part, A, that produces an output that affects another part of the system, B, and then B has an output that affects A. Feedback reinforces, stabilizes or inhibits one or more of the motions of a system. Feedback reinforcement, stabilization or inhibition often plays a key role in causing a system to operate successfully. In dealing with systems, there will be situations where Marxists will want to ensure the continued functioning of feedback, or where they will see the need to setup or establish feedback. Feedback can exist, or be setup in a system a number of ways and these methods should be studied by reading reference material and textbooks on feedback.

Phase transition: This is another name for the dialectical concept of revolution. Revolutions, or the same thing leaps, are a major way that the motion and development of a system, entity or situation may be non-linear.


The dialectical concept revolution is being called phase transition here in order to focus on the nature of the transition period itself and away from the well-known fact among Marxists that a thing has one state before a leap or revolution and a qualitatively different state after the transition. With complex and chaotic phenomena the phase transition itself often has a variety of characteristics and forms, both across different phenomena and within the same phenomena. Many phase transitions often have mini-phase transitions and other complex behaviors within them. Some phase transitions are instantaneous and others take an extended period of time. Some have an overall forward motion, but reverse motions within that.


A phase transition, or revolution, can also be seen as a “tipping point” in the motion and development of a thing. Tipping points are sudden changes in the behavior or state of a thing, or system.


Multiple realizability: Often times the same design structure and or the same function is present across a number of different things, or objects. This may be due to the same processes operating within those things or alternatively it may be due to the operation of different processes in those things that lead to the same structure and or functionality. When different process lead to the same structure and or functionality in different things this phenomena is called multiple realizability. Another name for multiple realizability is equifinality. It is often important to understand whether or not a feature common to a variety of things is due to the same process operating across those things or whether or not those common features are due to the operation of different processes. Especially when one is concerned with whether or not some object has its features – structure and or function – as a result of being a descendant of having a parent object with either those structures, or functionality or the precursors to those structures, or functionality, or in contrast has gained those structures and or functionality through some other path of process development.


Fractals: The book “Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise”. "As notable as the book's broad sweep is the author's good-natured, humorous presentation. The willing reader can sit back and enjoy an all-encompassing, irrepressibly enthusiastic tour, ranging from psycho physics to quasi-crystals, from gambling strategies to Bach concertos, from the construction of Cantor sets to the design of concert halls." — [I]Physics Today


Object orientation (OO): (viewing and studying reality and entities in thought as objects residing in a field of connections to other objects. These connections determine the motion and development of the objects in the field; Unified Modeling Language; my architecture paper; various notes, etc.)


Process view: Whereas OO focuses on viewing things, and events as objects, process theory emphasizes viewing things as flowing phenomena. In terms of dynamics the process view brings the perspective of looking at the continuous movement of a thing from instant to another. Alfred North Whitehead is a notable philosopher who elaborated the many aspects of what is involved bringing a process perspective to the analysis of things. Whitehead focused on the ever flowing side of the way things and events have motion and develop.


Concept Maps: This is kind of graphical modeling diagram is useful for showing how a group or set of concepts are related to one another. The concepts may represent physical things, or mental ideas. Concept maps are also useful for demonstrating and understanding how the parts of the system relate to one another.


Block diagrams: Often it helps to understand a system by grouping its parts together into blocks, also called modules. Block diagrams show the blocks or modules as square or rectangular blocks with smaller parts inside of them which are also squares or rectangles.


Flow Charts: Useful for making decisions about how to carry out a series of tasks leading to the achievement of a goal.
Etcera: diversity (taking advantage of averaging and attempting to avoid diminishing returns by increasing the number types present and avoiding the overabundance of, or over reliance upon, any single type).



Comments On All Areas of Dynamics


Dynamics like most sciences is both a descriptive and predictive (forecasting) science. It is like many sciences retrospective (looks at the past). Dynamics may make us aware of opportunities that will be forthcoming that we can leverage, prepare for, or take advantage of.


Dynamic analysis involves description, identification, explanation. A model can do all three. There are various ways listed to do all three, although some are better suited to respectively description, identification, explanation. Some methods are better at analyzing and working with relationships between things and some are better at analyzing and working with the internal operation and makeup of things. E.g. network modeling is particularly good at analyzing and working with relationships.


We can learn dynamics from all physical sciences but chemistry, physics and biology are especially fruitful for investigation. The methodologies of many social sciences are fertile grounds for learning various forms and the principles of dynamics.
Modeling should be an area of emphasis. There are myriad forms of modeling including, some of which were mentioned above. The various forms are various ways to describe things including their motion and development. We should become facile with various forms of modeling in order to better understand situations and to communicate knowledge in accessible ways. Math modeling is widely used, in other sciences. It is widely used in many social sciences that Marxism uses. Math modeling can be used in Marxism along with other forms of modeling. We should look for opportunities to leverage it. Simulation is a form of modeling that can be very useful – even in the form of thought experiments. And we should encourage that such experiments are done among groups and in an organized, scientific manner.

[i] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ednref1) Outside of philosophy a commonly used definition for materialism’ means having the belief that one should be preoccupied with acquiring money and objects of luxury above all else. Some members of the clergy and some philosophers attempt to equate the materialist philosophical position with such a belief, but this is their prejudice and is false.

[ii] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ednref2) Marxists have traditionally held that even though the material predominates over ideas at times ideas may play the predominant role. Most Marxists accept for instance that changes and events having to do with ideas in the superstructure sometimes play a role that is predominant to what is going on in the material base of society. [Following is the new polish to the preceding existing notion.] What has not been so widely recognized among Marxists is that there are 2 ways that ideas can become predominant over the material: intermittently and over the lifetime of the union of aspects. Ideas that are engaging aspects tend to exist throughout union lifetimes although other aspects may be predominant overall in other ways during the union lifetime. (There may be material aspects that do not give rise to the union or do not predominant in all ways to the union but nevertheless are predominant in terms of engaging the union or that predominate intermittently or lifetime in other ways to the functioning or operation of a union of aspects. - Marx when he says in his first critique of Hegel that “theory becomes a material force when it grips the masses.” (Introduction to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right). - Further there is the idea of plans lead, experience verifies, which generally applies to the lifetime of an effort, project, or endeavor. – “put politics in command” (“place politics above production”) from the Cultural Revolution. - Marx's words: "It is not enough that thought should seek to realize itself; reality must also strive towards thought."

[iii] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ednref3) Described in a paper by cardiologist Arturo Rosenblueth and mathematician Norbert Weiner.

[Tim Redd]

The full paper will be published shortly at www.risparty,org [That's w w w. r i s p a r t y. o r g]

[ckaihatsu]

Yup, good stuff -- we've been over much of this at a previous thread:


Complexity and dialectics

http://www.revleft.com/vb/complexity-and-dialectics-t181977/index.html


I'll recommend the following Wikipedia entry as a good place to start for anyone who's new to all of this:


Emergence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Emergence (disambiguation).

See also: Emergent (disambiguation), Spontaneous order and Self-organization

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


Also, my own work on this subject:


Order - Complexity - Complication - Chaos

http://s6.postimg.org/b8fujhmgh/130421_order_complexity_complication_chaos.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/s8yqs5zhp/full/)

[Tim Redd]

Yup, good stuff -- we've been over much of this at a previous thread:

Complexity and dialectics
http://www.revleft.com/vb/complexity-and-dialectics-t181977/index.html

I'll recommend the following Wikipedia entry as a good place to start for anyone who's new to all of this:
Emergence
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Emergence (disambiguation).

See also: Emergent (disambiguation), Spontaneous order and Self-organization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Also, my own work on this subject:
Order - Complexity - Complication - Chaos

Good references to what I write about, but the new and decisive point that I'm making in what I wrote in "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" is the thesis that dialectics while often useful in Marxist revolutionary analysis is also often inadequate and is often inappropriately applied in a number of cases of Marxist revolutionary analysis. I make the point that often other forms of analysis should play the predominant or only role in many circumstances of Marxist revolutionary analysis.

[ckaihatsu]

Good references to what I write about, but the new and decisive point that I'm making in what I wrote in "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" is the thesis that dialectics while often useful in Marxist revolutionary analysis is also often inadequate and is often inappropriately applied in a number of cases of Marxist revolutionary analysis. I make the point that often other forms of analysis should play the predominant or only role in many circumstances of Marxist revolutionary analysis.


Maybe give examples of both....

[Creative Destruction]

it's interesting. i like that you're cribbing complex systems theory... i've always be interested in CS theory and its applicability to Marxism.

[Creative Destruction]

The full paper will be published shortly at www.risparty,org [That's w w w. r i s p a r t y. o r g]

just a point of critique. i'd get rid of calling your tendency "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Redd". it just comes off as vanity. just let your papers stand on their own and let others define what this tendency is.

[Tim Redd]

it's interesting. i like that you're cribbing complex systems theory... i've always be interested in CS theory and its applicability to Marxism.

In fact my intent in the paper "Beyond Dialectics' is not to "crib" complex systems theory as if I'm the only person who has contributed to complex systems theory. Although indeed I have contributed to complexity theory as evidenced in my paper " Internationalism and Philosophy: An Overview of Systems & Revolution (http://risparty.org/Int.htm)" at risparty.org. Nevertheless, in my paper, "Beyond Dialectics" I make the case that however complex systems theory has been defined (with or without my aforementioned "Internationalism" paper) complexity theory should supplement and in some cases supercede a purely dialectical analysis in many cases. In some cases dialectics is not sufficient or is totally not up to being to analyze the motion and or development of the elements involved in a topic, issue or circumstance.

[Tim Redd]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tim Redd http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2787866#post2787866)

Good references to what I write about, but the new and decisive point that I'm making in what I wrote in "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" is the thesis that dialectics while often useful in Marxist revolutionary analysis is also often inadequate and is often inappropriately applied in a number of cases of Marxist revolutionary analysis. I make the point that often other forms of analysis should play the predominant or only role in many circumstances of Marxist revolutionary analysis.

Maybe give examples of both....
Maybe give examples of both....

OK, I want to open a book. There are no real binary opposites that play a decisive dynamic role in opening the book. There is no open book versus don't open book dialectic involved in the physics of opening. Such a dialectical contradiction plays no role in opening the book, other than how might characterize the subjective desire to open the book. Physically there is no physical open versus un-open dialectic that is responsible for finally opening the book.

[ckaihatsu]

OK, I want to open a book. There are no real binary opposites that play a decisive dynamic role in opening the book. There is no open book versus don't open book dialectic involved in the physics of opening. Such a dialectical contradiction plays no role in opening the book, other than how might characterize the subjective desire to open the book. Physically there is no physical open versus un-open dialectic that is responsible for finally opening the book.


I'll proffer the following, re: dynamics -- consider your 'opening a book' as a discrete *event*, and please note 'events' on the following framework (towards the bottom of the materialist hierarchy).

All of the other *dynamics* of the framework (world-hierarchical categories) are theoretically -- as in 'theory' -- playing a role in your decision to open that book, indisputably, even though we may be lacking the perfect research / information to fill in the categories with relevant real-world data.


[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

http://s6.postimg.org/nmlxvtqlt/1_History_Macro_Micro_Precision.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/zbpxjshkd/full/)

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Phase transition: This is another name for the dialectical concept of revolution. Revolutions, or the same thing leaps, are a major way that the motion and development of a system, entity or situation may be non-linear.[/LEFT]


The dialectical concept revolution is being called phase transition here in order to focus on the nature of the transition period itself and away from the well-known fact among Marxists that a thing has one state before a leap or revolution and a qualitatively different state after the transition. With complex and chaotic phenomena the phase transition itself often has a variety of characteristics and forms, both across different phenomena and within the same phenomena. Many phase transitions often have mini-phase transitions and other complex behaviors within them. Some phase transitions are instantaneous and others take an extended period of time. Some have an overall forward motion, but reverse motions within that.


A phase transition, or revolution, can also be seen as a “tipping point” in the motion and development of a thing. Tipping points are sudden changes in the behavior or state of a thing, or system.
This passage is erroneous, in my opinion. First, the concept you're describing in dialectics is not called "revolution", but the transition from quantity into quality, which was elaborated on in Anti-Duhring. Second, a single dialectical concept cannot explain, or help to bring a revolution into being. Lastly, I fail to see what your concentration on the "nature of the transition period itself" really brings to the table in terms of dynamics, or how it surpasses dialectics; Trotsky had already attempted to tackle certain problems using ideas of catastrophe and "chaos" using Engels' formulation. What you seem to be doing here is drawing attention to a common distortion of dialectical concepts that are committed by Marxists and conflate this distortion with dialectics themselves. From here, you can safely promote your ideas as "beyond dialectics" without in any way challenging them or showing how they are inadequate.

EDIT: "Transition" in sentence two should be "transformation".

[Creative Destruction]

In fact my intent in the paper "Beyond Dialectics' is not to "crib" complex systems theory as if I'm the only person who has contributed to complex systems theory.

lol. i never implied (or meant to imply) that you were the only one who contributed to complex systems theory. it's mostly come from Santa Fe Institute, as far as i can tell.

[Tim Redd]

lol. i never implied (or meant to imply) that you were the only one who contributed to complex systems theory. it's mostly come from Santa Fe Institute, as far as i can tell.

You made the comment in your original message (that I quoted in my reply):

"it's interesting. i like that you're cribbing complex systems theory... i've always be interested in CS theory and its applicability to Marxism."The widespread meaning of "crib" as a verb is "copy (another person's work) illicitly or without acknowledgment."

That is why in my reply to you, I wrote: "In fact my intent in the paper "Beyond Dialectics' is not to "crib" complex systems theory as if I'm the only person who has contributed to complex systems theory." To be even more clear, I'll say that knowingly, I have not copied or claimed someone else's work without attribution in "Beyond Dialectics", or in any of my other papers.

So I never got the sense from you that you were implying that I was only one to contribute to complexity theory. According to the verb definition of "crib", what I got from you was that I was copying the theory and not acknowledging the others who contributed to it, including those who mainly got it going at Santa Fe Institute.

In fact I have contributed to complexity theory as evidenced in my paper " Internationalism and Philosophy: An Overview of Systems & Revolution (http://risparty.org/Int.htm)" at risparty.org, but I'm not the only, or earliest person or institution to contribute to complexity theory.

[Tim Redd]

This passage is erroneous, in my opinion. First, the concept you're describing in dialectics is not called "revolution", but the transition from quantity into quality, which was elaborated on in Anti-Duhring.

From most of the Marxist philosophers I have read, the authors recognize that accumulated quantitative events can turn into into qualitative changes which in many cases they call a "leap", or "revolution".


Second, a single dialectical concept cannot explain, or help to bring a revolution into being.Not sure what that means. Please explain.


Lastly, I fail to see what your concentration on the "nature of the transition period itself" really brings to the table in terms of dynamics, or how it surpasses dialectics;My concentration on the nature of the transition period is to make people aware that 1) periods of qualitative change can have varied (different) characteristics and 2) such characteristics should be taken into account as we pass or are about to pass through these periods so that we are better able to manage the change process in those periods. So that we can be better suited to achieve the outcomes that we desire.

[Tim Redd]

I'll proffer the following, re: dynamics -- consider your 'opening a book' as a discrete *event*, and please note 'events' on the following framework (towards the bottom of the materialist hierarchy).

All of the other *dynamics* of the framework (world-hierarchical categories) are theoretically -- as in 'theory' -- playing a role in your decision to open that book, indisputably, even though we may be lacking the perfect research / information to fill in the categories with relevant real-world data.

[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

Not sure I fully understand your diagram, but thanks for trying to portray things graphically. Are you making the point that the high level desire to "open book" has a framework upon which it arises?

[ckaihatsu]

Not sure I fully understand your diagram, but thanks for trying to portray things graphically.


No prob -- I'd say you're understanding it just fine, based on this:





Are you making the point that the high level desire to "open book" has a framework upon which it arises?


Yes.

Organically we might say that the individual derives from nature and from Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs -- see the following diagram.

And, in my conception from the 'History, Macro-Micro' framework, even *higher*-level, *more*-complex dynamics are found as emerging from *groupings* of ('high-level', 'complex') individuals, since the many are more than the one. Hence 'events', etc., all the way up to 'class struggle' -- and none of us can pretend to ignore that we're born into, and make personal decisions within the context of this class-divided social world.


History, Macro-Micro -- Political (Cognitive) Dissonance

http://s6.postimg.org/5blfrdn1t/2006400620046342459_Kej_CCu_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/vjwkgr759/full/)

[Tim Redd]

You made the comment in your original message (that I quoted in my reply):
The widespread meaning of "crib" as a verb is "copy (another person's work) illicitly or without acknowledgment."

That is why in my reply to you, I wrote: "In fact my intent in the paper "Beyond Dialectics' is not to "crib" complex systems theory as if I'm the only person who has contributed to complex systems theory." To be even more clear, I'll say that knowingly, I have not copied or claimed someone else's work without attribution in "Beyond Dialectics", or in any of my other papers.

In fact I have contributed to complexity theory as evidenced in my paper " Internationalism and Philosophy: An Overview of Systems & Revolution (http://risparty.org/Int.htm)" at risparty.org, but I'm not the only, or earliest person or institution to contribute to complexity theory.

Regardless of where complexity theory comes from, I emphasize in "Beyond Dialectics" that the dialectical method (dialectics) should be complemented and supplemented by additional methodologies, that have a wide variety sources. Among those additional methods is complexity theory which itself arose from a variety of sources, including the Santa Fe group's originator contributions.

[RedMaterialist]

Regardless of where complexity theory comes from, I emphasize in "Beyond Dialectics" that the dialectical method (dialectics) should be complemented and supplemented by additional methodologies, that have a wide variety sources. Among those additional methods is complexity theory which itself arose from a variety of sources, including the Santa Fe group's originator contributions.

I was reading some stuff on the transformation of quantity into quality...and I came across a discussion of "phase transition" which is, among other things, a description of the transition of liquid water into vapor through the addition of heat. The words "phase transition" seem to be a perfect description of the quantity-quality rule of dialectics.

Complexity theory could likewise be a modern form of dialectics. Of course the scientists would never admit to using a system called "dialectics" (Hegel, Marx and Engels, socialists and all that.)

I think you may be on to something, dynamic complexity...that sure sounds like dialectics to me.

BTW. Opening a book requires the overcoming of (at least) two different forces: gravity and electro-magnetism. A book is also a social construct requiring the overcoming of all kinds of complicated economic and social forces. Is it a commodity, an electronic book, etc.?

[ckaihatsu]

I was reading some stuff on the transformation of quantity into quality...and I came across a discussion of "phase transition" which is, among other things, a description of the transition of liquid water into vapor through the addition of heat. The words "phase transition" seem to be a perfect description of the quantity-quality rule of dialectics.


Yes, and incidentally, I'll note that the shape of a pyramid itself is a very good visual metaphor for this as well -- phase transition -- as used in the framework for Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs:


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs.svg/450px-Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs.svg.png


Simply by "slicing" the pyramid into vertical sections we get convenient discrete 'phases' that are easy to comprehend, while the overall dynamic remains intact -- that quantity transforms into quality, through phase transitions, as we go upward on the pyramid.

*Any* quantity-into-quality dynamic, as for social / societal ones, could be represented likewise, whether with discrete banded 'phases' or not.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

From most of the Marxist philosophers I have read, the authors recognize that accumulated quantitative events can turn into into qualitative changes which in many cases they call a "leap", or "revolution".
I would like to know which philosophers you’ve studied refer to a qualitative leap as synonymous with “revolution”. Using the latter term is downright silly. Progress does not move in a straight line and a dialectical leap can be “counterrevolutionary” Just as much as revolutionary.

Not sure what that means. Please explain.
It is simple. First, referring to one dialectical law as “revolution” creates a misleading picture that may marginalize the other so-called dialectical laws and their role in the process of change. Second, using “leap” and “revolution” synonymously in this context can easily be misunderstood by laymen, who may end up looking at any “qualitative” change as a “revolution”. Reformists could seize upon this and proclaim that their working with the bourgeois state to provide measly scraps to the workers is justified by “Marxist” dialectics. Unfortunately, this is a distortion that you do not seem concerned with.

My concentration on the nature of the transition period is to make people aware that 1) periods of qualitative change can have varied (different) characteristics and 2) such characteristics should be taken into account as we pass or are about to pass through these periods so that we are better able to manage the change process in those periods. So that we can be better suited to achieve the outcomes that we desire.
But these aims are truisms in a revolutionary method, and you achieved neither of them as far as Marxism is concerned. As I said before, your position derives from common misconceptions of dialectics and does not really challenge them or show how the original concepts are lacking. Considering that this was central to my argument, it is strange that you have avoided it.

Regardless of where complexity theory comes from, I emphasize in "Beyond Dialectics" that the dialectical method (dialectics) should be complemented and supplemented by additional methodologies, that have a wide variety sources. Among those additional methods is complexity theory which itself arose from a variety of sources, including the Santa Fe group's originator contributions.
If “supplementing” dialectics is really what you’re trying to do, then how exactly are we going “beyond” them, according to your title? This would be like claiming that by putting pepperoni on a pizza we are going beyond tomato sauce.

[Tim Redd]

I would like to know which philosophers you’ve studied refer to a qualitative leap as synonymous with “revolution”.

Maurice Cornforth, who wrote an overall very good book named "Dialectical Materialism" among others.


Using the latter term is downright silly. Progress does not move in a straight line and a dialectical leap can be “counterrevolutionary” Just as much as revolutionary."

Going forward most of us refer to the mass movement that generates a qualitative leap from capitalism to the dictatorship of the proletariat, a revolution. Of course backward a qualitative leap from the dictatorship of the proletariat to capitalism a counterrevolution. So while the term revolution doesn't work going backwards, most of us call the forward a revolution.

[Tim Redd]

If “supplementing” dialectics is really what you’re trying to do, then how exactly are we going “beyond” them, according to your title? This would be like claiming that by putting pepperoni on a pizza we are going beyond tomato sauce.

I also said "complementing dialectics" in the same paragraph, so supplementing dialectics is not all I'm trying to do. You go "beyond" dialectics by complementing dialectics and by not using dialectics, but other methods for analysis and synthesis as appropriate. So now I'll add the aspect of "not using" dialectics as well for going beyond.

Also the OP is a synopsis and in the next 2-3 weeks I will post the whole the whole paper.

[Tim Redd]

BTW. Opening a book requires the overcoming of (at least) two different forces: gravity and electro-magnetism. A book is also a social construct requiring the overcoming of all kinds of complicated economic and social forces. Is it a commodity, an electronic book, etc.?

I was thinking of a physical book. Good points.

[Tim Redd]

Going forward most of us refer to the mass movement that generates a qualitative leap from capitalism to the dictatorship of the proletariat, a revolution. Of course backward a qualitative leap from the dictatorship of the proletariat to capitalism is a counterrevolution. So while the term revolution doesn't work going backwards, most of us call the forward a revolution.

Thanks MEGAMANTROTSKY (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=62591). I'll make this distinction between a qualitative leap that goes forward and is a revolution versus a qualitative leap that goes backward and is a counterrevolution. Actually I have previously thought about how not every qualitative leap is a revolution. A qualitative leap may be counterrevolutionary or non-revolutionary. However, I failed to make the point in this paper until now.

[ChrisK]

The traditional Marxist philosophical position is called dialectical materialism and Marxists talk quite a bit about dialectics, materialism[i] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_edn1) and the combination of the two. The Marxist understanding of materialism seems to be working OK for us for the most part, although it could use a touch up which I will go into later[ii] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_edn2). The key problem we are having today is with dialectics and in general with a better understanding and application of the knowledge of how things and ideas move and develop, which are the primary topics dialectics is meant to address.

How is this the key problem? Abstract philosophical discussions don't actually solve anything. If anything our emphasis on philosophy drives workers away since it doesn't relate to them, nor does it seem useful.


Dynamics is a study of how things and phenomena move and develop and dialectics is one form of dynamics. Many phenomena move and develop in ways that dialectics is insufficient to describe or provide an understanding of. This clearly means that Marxists should broaden the types of dynamics we use beyond those of dialectics.

Actually, dialectics is incapable of explaining any motion at all. Its reliance on contradictions guarantees that.


I will identify and provide a high level description of various key forms of motion and development. I will also identify and provide a high level description of key ways that we can model, in order to understand, various forms of motion and development. Primarily I will lay out areas of dynamics and the modeling of dynamics that others have previously abstracted from specific sciences, and from across various sciences.

On what grounds do you think it is legitimate to apply concepts from physics to social analysis?

What do you mean by abstraction? How does one abstract kinds of dynamics from sciences?


[i] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ednref1) Outside of philosophy a commonly used definition for materialism’ means having the belief that one should be preoccupied with acquiring money and objects of luxury above all else. Some members of the clergy and some philosophers attempt to equate the materialist philosophical position with such a belief, but this is their prejudice and is false.

No philosopher does this. If you are going to claim that you will have to cite a philosopher who does so in relation to philosophical materialism.

[Tim Redd]

Maybe give examples of both....



...the new and decisive point that I'm making in what I wrote in "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" is the thesis that dialectics while often useful in Marxist revolutionary analysis [dialectics] is also often inadequate and is often inappropriately applied in a number of cases of Marxist revolutionary analysis. I make the point [in the paper] that often other forms of analysis should play the predominant or only role in many circumstances of Marxist revolutionary analysis.


Maybe give examples of both....


OK, I want to open a book. There are no real binary opposites that play a decisive dynamic role in opening the book. There is no open book versus don't open book dialectic involved in the physics of opening. Such a dialectical contradiction plays no role in opening the book, other than how might characterize the subjective desire to open the book. Physically there is no physical open versus un-open dialectic that is responsible for finally opening the book.As you pointed out correctly some kinds of binary opposite are indeed involved in this process.

What I will say is that there are numerous physics, biology and other sciences theories and explanations that do not involve a focus upon binary dialectical contradictions. In some cases it may enhance or create better explanations and theories to involve binary contradictions. The explanation of many phenomena does not benefit from integrating the concept of binary opposition/contradiction into an explanation of the phenomena. And it's not just binary contradictions that do not enhance or create better explanations and theories for many phenomena. I also do not see an enhancement of, or a better, explanation of a phenomena using greater than 2 (multi) aspect contradiction. Multi-aspect contradiction does exist in some cases and contexts. (see "Forward with Revolutionary Dialectics" (www.risparty.org (http://www.risparty.org)) for where I explain multi-aspect (greater than 2 aspects) dialectical contradiction.)

[Tim Redd]

How is this the key problem? Abstract philosophical discussions don't actually solve anything. If anything our emphasis on philosophy drives workers away since it doesn't relate to them, nor does it seem useful.

There are different levels and contexts of events and phenomena that exist in reality. Discussions relating to events and phenomena in reality are more or less concrete and more or less abstract. In the abstract discussion of philosophers and others there are insights that can be gained. I have gained and many others have gained insights and food for discussion as well. The concrete aspects of life often have deeper aspects stemming from their relation to other phenomena. This can be discerned and discussed with fruitful results.


Actually, dialectics is incapable of explaining any motion at all. Its reliance on contradictions guarantees that.I have to disagree. Dialectics based upon both binary and multi-aspect contradictions, that is both binary and multi-aspect dialectics can explain or contribute to the explanation of many phenomena. It's certainly useful in the way that Marx used it to elucidate the nature of commodities and commodity production in his work Capital. And Marx used it in many other analysis in Capital as well.


On what grounds do you think it is legitimate to apply concepts from physics to social analysis?Well for one thing physics is the basis or substrate for the functioning of social phenomena and hence social science. And due to that there are many cases where knowing the nature (which has some flux) of physics contributes to being able to understand aspects and even the totality of social sciences. The basic idea underlying materialist social science is that being overall determines consciousness and not vice versa. This comes from an understanding of the nature of physics and how it relates to the creation and steering of social phenomena. Even understanding esoteric aspects of physics like quantum mechanics, relativity and string theory can elucidate the nature and motion of social sceince.


What do you mean by abstraction? How does one abstract kinds of dynamics from sciences?Abstraction is understanding the essence of a thing, event or process while discarding the unrelated details of the thing, event or process. So that while there are various sciences, some or all have dynamics that are common to all or a set of the science which may be found, or isolated by discarding the specific details belonging to each science.


No philosopher does this. If you are going to claim that you will have to cite a philosopher who does so in relation to philosophical materialism.Perhaps no philosopher has done discovery, or isolation of dynamics common to a set of sciences (which nevertheless is false), why should that hold us back from doing it now? [One can also find dynamics from only one science, but it may be later found to be applicable to/present in some other area.]

[ckaihatsu]

As you pointed out correctly some kinds of binary opposite are indeed involved in this process.

What I will say is that there are numerous physics, biology and other sciences theories and explanations that do not involve a focus upon binary dialectical contradictions. In some cases it may enhance or create better explanations and theories to involve binary contradictions. The explanation of many phenomena does not benefit from integrating the concept of binary opposition/contradiction into an explanation of the phenomena. And it's not just binary contradictions that do not enhance or create better explanations and theories for many phenomena. I also do not see an enhancement of, or a better, explanation of a phenomena using greater than 2 {multi) aspect contradiction. Multi-aspect contradiction does exist in some cases and contexts. (see "Forward with Revolutionary Dialectics" (www.risparty.org) for where I explain multi-aspect (greater 2 aspects) dialectical contradiction.)


Actually, I *didn't* assert 'dialectics', or any kind of 'binary opposites', which you're erroneously attributing to me.

Here's how the exchange took place:





Maybe give examples of both....





OK, I want to open a book. There are no real binary opposites that play a decisive dynamic role in opening the book. There is no open book versus don't open book dialectic involved in the physics of opening. Such a dialectical contradiction plays no role in opening the book, other than how might characterize the subjective desire to open the book. Physically there is no physical open versus un-open dialectic that is responsible for finally opening the book.





I'll proffer the following, re: dynamics -- consider your 'opening a book' as a discrete *event*, and please note 'events' on the following framework (towards the bottom of the materialist hierarchy).

All of the other *dynamics* of the framework (world-hierarchical categories) are theoretically -- as in 'theory' -- playing a role in your decision to open that book, indisputably, even though we may be lacking the perfect research / information to fill in the categories with relevant real-world data.


[1] History, Macro Micro -- Precision

http://s6.postimg.org/nmlxvtqlt/1_History_Macro_Micro_Precision.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/zbpxjshkd/full/)

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

How is this the key problem? Abstract philosophical discussions don't actually solve anything. If anything our emphasis on philosophy drives workers away since it doesn't relate to them, nor does it seem useful.

Ah, yes. The dumb brutes. Workers have only contempt for philosophy! Communists need to keep it monosyllabic or it will drive them away.

Christ, you're condescending on so many levels, eh?

[Tim Redd]

Actually, I *didn't* assert 'dialectics', or any kind of 'binary opposites', which you're erroneously attributing to me.

I'll quote a remark by you and then I'll show how that remark got us here.


Originally Posted by Tim Redd http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2787866#post2787866)
...the new and decisive point that I'm making in what I wrote in "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" is the thesis that dialectics while often useful in Marxist revolutionary analysis is also often inadequate and is often inappropriately applied in a number of cases of Marxist revolutionary analysis. I make the point that often other forms of analysis should play the predominant or only role in many circumstances of Marxist revolutionary analysis.
Maybe give examples of both...

I then gave an example which you objected to on the basis that supposedly I tied my example of the inappropriate role of dialectics to the issue of binary versus multi-aspect contradictions. I don't think I tied the inappropriateness of a non-role, or subsidiary role for dialectics in my example to the issue of using binary or multi-aspect contradictions. If you think so please show the connection.

However you did ask for examples of my remark that dialectics often should not "play the predominant or only role in many circumstances of Marxist revolutionary analysis."

I gave an example, you found and specified fault with. In answer to that I am pointing out that there many discussions, explanations and questions of physics that do not require, or do not benefit from the use of the concepts of dialectical contradiction period.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/quote.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=2787874)

[Tim Redd]

Ah, yes. The dumb brutes. Workers have only contempt for philosophy! Communists need to keep it monosyllabic or it will drive them away.

Christ, you're condescending on so many levels, eh?

You are correct in your criticism of the anti-abstract poster. Marx said in "Letter to Ruge"

"The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions. Our whole object can only be – as is also the case in Feuerbach’s criticism of religion – to give religious and philosophical questions the form corresponding to man who has become conscious of himself."

We see here that Marx was all for the abstract and "esoteric" in raising the consciousness of members of society.

[ckaihatsu]

I'll describe and quote where possible remarks from you and I that got us here.



I then gave an example which you objected to on the basis that supposedly I tied my example of the inappropriate role of dialectics to the issue of binary versus multi-aspect contradictions. I don't think I tied the inappropriateness of a non-role, or subsidiary role for dialectics in my example to the issue of using binary or multi-aspect contradictions. If you think so please show the connection.

However you did ask for examples of my remark that dialectics often should not "play the predominant or only role in many circumstances of Marxist revolutionary analysis."

I gave an example, you found and specified fault with. In answer to that I am pointing out that there many discussions, explanations and questions of physics that do not require, or do not benefit from the use of the concepts of dialectical contradiction period.


No, I'm sorry, TR, but I did *not* object to any content of yours, nor did I engage with it in any way -- I offered content of my own, as an *addition* to what you had already put forth. I stand by my recounting at post #28.

[ChrisK]

Ah, yes. The dumb brutes. Workers have only contempt for philosophy! Communists need to keep it monosyllabic or it will drive them away.

Christ, you're condescending on so many levels, eh?

Funny, I must be a dumb brute then.

However, I did not call other workers stupid. I said they find philosophy to be useless. If you want to talk with other workers I would recommend avoiding abstract non-sense and stick to things like economic exploitation (not many monosyllabic words in economic discussions).

[ChrisK]

There are different levels and contexts of events and phenomena that exist in reality. Discussions relating to events and phenomena in reality are more or less concrete and more or less abstract. In the abstract discussion of philosophers and others there are insights that can be gained. I have gained and many others have gained insights and food for discussion as well. The concrete aspects of life often have deeper aspects stemming from their relation to other phenomena. This can be discerned and discussed with fruitful results.

I will regulate my response to this in my criticism to your understanding of abstraction.


I have to disagree. Dialectics based upon both binary and multi-aspect contradictions, that is both binary and multi-aspect dialectics can explain or contribute to the explanation of many phenomena. It's certainly useful in the way that Marx used it to elucidate the nature of commodities and commodity production in his work Capital. And Marx used it in many other analysis in Capital as well.

Except that Marx didn't use it to explain the nature of commodities and commodity production in Capital. Marx "coquetted" with Hegelian terminology, as he himself stated.


Well for one thing physics is the basis or substrate for the functioning of social phenomena and hence social science. And due to that there are many cases where knowing the nature (which has some flux) of physics contributes to being able to understand aspects and even the totality of social sciences. The basic idea underlying materialist social science is that being overall determines consciousness and not vice versa. This comes from an understanding of the nature of physics and how it relates to the creation and steering of social phenomena. Even understanding esoteric aspects of physics like quantum mechanics, relativity and string theory can elucidate the nature and motion of social sceince.

Perhaps you should show how the warping of space-time influences social systems. Now I'm all for mathematical modeling and the like, but you are attempting to reduce all social phenomena to natural science, which exists


Abstraction is understanding the essence of a thing, event or process while discarding the unrelated details of the thing, event or process. So that while there are various sciences, some or all have dynamics that are common to all or a set of the science which may be found, or isolated by discarding the specific details belonging to each science.

Your inner idealist is showing. Such a notion of abstraction was a major part of Marx's critique of the young Hegelians. The problem here is that you assume there is an essence to be found among the properties of a thing, but on what grounds do you assume this? Further, abstractions fail on the grounds that no scientist actually looks for somethings "essence". All of this is a carryover from Plato's metaphysics.


Perhaps no philosopher has done discovery, or isolation of dynamics common to a set of sciences, why should that hold us back from doing it now? [One can also find dynamics from only one science, but it may be later found to applicable to/present in some other area.]

You misunderstand me. I was criticizing your understanding how how philosophers use the term "materialist".

[Tim Redd]

Funny, I must be a dumb brute then.

However, I did not call other workers stupid. I said they find philosophy to be useless. If you want to talk with other workers I would recommend avoiding abstract non-sense and stick to things like economic exploitation (not many monosyllabic words in economic discussions).

Except that Lenin (What Is to Be Done?) and Leninists know that sticking to economic exploitation is what we call Economism. Because revolution stems from and affects all aspects of life, Leninists know that we must raise the ideological level of the working class to encompass all aspects of life and with a revolutionary take on those aspects at that.

And to go further back here's Marx:

"We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.

The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions. Our whole object can only be – as is also the case in Feuerbach’s criticism of religion – to give religious and philosophical questions the form corresponding to man who has become conscious of himself."

Letters from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher
Marx to Ruge
Kreuznach, September 1843

[Tim Redd]

No, I'm sorry, TR, but I did *not* object to any content of yours, nor did I engage with it in any way -- I offered content of my own, as an *addition* to what you had already put forth. I stand by my recounting at post #28.

If you didn't engage with my content in this thread, what were your additions to? Additions to thin air? If you reread, I think you'll find that your remarks in this thread in some way related to at least some aspect of the theme or topic of consideration.

When you made the remark in #28:
"I'll proffer the following, re: dynamics -- consider your 'opening a book' as a discrete *event*, and please note 'events' on the following framework (towards the bottom of the materialist hierarchy)."

You clearly are responding to my assertion in the thread that opening a book didn't involve dialectics (at least not in a significant way).

But then I agreed when you pointed out that there are aspects of dialectics involved in opening a physical book.

[Tim Redd]

Except that Marx didn't use it [dialectics -TR] to explain the nature of commodities and commodity production in Capital. Marx "coquetted" with Hegelian terminology, as he himself stated.

Quite the opposite in my opinion. Most who have critiqued Capital are clear that Marx began his analysis of the commodity with the analysis of the dialectical dichotomy between the use value aspect and the exchange value aspect of the commodity.


Your inner idealist is showing. Such a notion of abstraction was a major part of Marx's critique of the young Hegelians. The problem here is that you assume there is an essence to be found among the properties of a thing, but on what grounds do you assume this? Further, abstractions fail on the grounds that no scientist actually looks for somethings "essence". All of this is a carryover from Plato's metaphysics.

The "essence" of a thing are the/is it's fundamental properties in some context without respect to other aspects that are not relevant to/for the context. In terms of context some things have an essence as they function as a part of system. A system being a set of things having some relation to one another that establishes or is a forerunner of some functionality, goal or operation in time and space.


You misunderstand me. I was criticizing your understanding how how philosophers use the term "materialist".

In #25 you quoted this by me in "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics"


[i] (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#_ednref1) Outside of philosophy a commonly used definition for materialism’ means having the belief that one should be preoccupied with acquiring money and objects of luxury above all else. Some members of the clergy and some philosophers attempt to equate the materialist philosophical position with such a belief, but this is their prejudice and is false.
You replied thusly:

No philosopher does this. If you are going to claim that you will have to cite a philosopher who does so in relation to philosophical materialism.

Various Catholic and Episcopalian philosophers have asserted this to discredit materialists philosophers like Diderot, Voltaire, Moleschott and d'Holbach.

[ChrisK]

Except that Lenin (What Is to Be Done?) and Leninists know that sticking to economic exploitation is what we call Economism. Because revolution stems from and affects all aspects of life, Leninists know that we must raise the ideological level of the working class to encompass all aspects of life and with a revolutionary take on those aspects at that.

And to go further back here's Marx:

"We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.

The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions. Our whole object can only be – as is also the case in Feuerbach’s criticism of religion – to give religious and philosophical questions the form corresponding to man who has become conscious of himself."

Letters from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher
Marx to Ruge
Kreuznach, September 1843

I like the quote from before Marx was a communist. Here's one from two years later:


The mystery of the Critical presentation of the Mystéres de Paris is the mystery of speculative, of Hegelian construction. Once Herr Szeliga has proclaimed that "degeneracy within civilisation" and rightlessness in the state are "mysteries", i.e., has dissolved them in the category "mystery", he lets "mystery" begin its speculative career. A few words will suffice to characterise speculative construction in general. Herr Szeliga's treatment of the Mystéres de Paris will give the application in detail.

If from real apples, pears, strawberries and almonds I form the general idea "Fruit”, if I go further and imagine that my abstract idea "Fruit”, derived from real fruit, is an entity existing outside me, is indeed the true essence of the pear, the apple, etc., then in the language of speculative philosophy — I am declaring that "Fruit” is the "Substance” of the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. I am saying, therefore, that to be a pear is not essential to the pear, that to be an apple is not essential to the apple; that what is essential to these things is not their real existence, perceptible to the senses, but the essence that I have abstracted from them and then foisted on them, the essence of my idea — "Fruit”. I therefore declare apples, pears, almonds, etc., to be mere forms of existence, modi, of "Fruit” My finite understanding supported by my senses does of course distinguish an apple from a pear and a pear from an almond, but my speculative reason declares these sensuous differences inessential and irrelevant. It sees in the apple the same as in the pear, and in the pear the same as in the almond, namely "Fruit”. Particular real fruits are no more than semblances whose true essence is "the substance" — "Fruit”.

By this method one attains no particular wealth of definition. The mineralogist whose whole science was limited to the statement that all minerals are really "the Mineral" would be a mineralogist only in his imagination. For every mineral the speculative mineralogist Says "the Mineral", and his science is reduced to repeating this word as many times as there are real minerals.

Having reduced the different real fruits to the one "fruit" of abstraction — "the Fruit", speculation must, in order to attain some semblance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from "the Fruit", from the Substance to the diverse, ordinary real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea "the Fruit" as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction.

The speculative philosopher therefore relinquishes the abstraction "the Fruit", but in a speculative, mystical fashion — with the appearance of not relinquishing it. Thus it is really only in appearance that he rises above his abstraction. He argues somewhat as follows:

If apples, pears, almonds and strawberries are really nothing but "the Substance", "the Fruit", the question arises: Why does "the Fruit" manifest itself to me sometimes as an apple, sometimes as a pear, sometimes as an almond? Why this semblance of diversity which so obviously contradicts my speculative conception of Unity, "the Substance", "the Fruit"?

This, answers the speculative philosopher, is because "the Fruit" is not dead, undifferentiated, motionless, but a living, self-differentiating, moving essence. The diversity of the ordinary fruits is significant not only for my sensuous understanding, but also for "the Fruit" itself and for speculative reason. The different ordinary fruits are different manifestations of the life of the "one Fruit"; they are crystallisations of "the Fruit" itself. Thus in the apple "the Fruit" gives itself an apple-like existence, in the pear a pear-like existence. We must therefore no longer say, as one might from the standpoint of the Substance: a pear is "the Fruit", an apple is "the Fruit", an almond is "the Fruit", but rather "the Fruit" presents itself as a pear, "the Fruit" presents itself as an apple, "the Fruit" presents itself as an almond; and the differences which distinguish apples, pears and almonds from one another are the self-differentiations of "the Fruit" and,.make the particular fiuits different members of the life-process of "the Fruit". Thus "the Fruit" is no longer an empty undifferentiated unity; it is oneness as allness, as "totality” of fruits, which constitute an "organically linked series of members”. In every member of that series "the Fruit" gives itself a more developed, more explicit existence, until finally, as the "summary” of all fruits, it is at the same time the living unity which contains all those fruits dissolved in itself just as it produces them from within itself, just as, for instance, all the limbs of the body are constantly dissolved in and constantly produced out of the blood.

We see that if the Christian religion knows only one Incarnation of God, speculative philosophy has as many incarnations as there are things, just as it has here in every fruit an incarnation of the Substance, of the Absolute Fruit. The main interest for the speculative philosopher is therefore to produce the existence of the real ordinary fruits and to say in some mysterious way that there are apples, pears, almonds and raisins. But the apples, pears, almonds and raisins that we rediscover in the speculative world are nothing but semblances of apples, semblances of pears, semblances of almonds and semblances of raisins, for they are moments in the life of "the Fruit", this abstract creation of the mind, and therefore themselves abstract creations of the mind. Hence what is delightful in this speculation is to rediscover all the real fruits there, but as fruits which have a higher mystical significance, which have grown out of the ether of your brain and not out of the material earth, which are incarnations of "the Fruit", of the Absolute Subject. When you return from the abstraction, the supernatural creation of the mind, "the Fruit", to real natural fruits, you give on the contrary the natural fruits a supernatural significance and transform them into sheer abstractions. Your main interest is then to point out the unity of "the Fruit" in all the manifestations of its life — the apple, the pear, the almond — that is, to show the mystical interconnection between these fruits, how in each one of them "the Fruit" realises itself by degrees and necessarily progresses, for instance, from its existence as a raisin to its existence as an almond. Hence the value of the ordinary fruits no longer consists in their natural qualities, but in their speculative quality, which gives each of them a definite place in the life-process of "the Absolute Fruit"

The ordinary man does not think he is saying anything extraordinary when he states that there are apples and pears. But when the philosopher expresses their existence in the speculative way he says something extraordinary. He performs a miracle by producing the real natural objects, the apple, the pear, etc., out of the unreal creation of the mind "the Fruit", i.e., by creating those fruits out of his own abstract reason, which he considers as an Absolute Subject outside himself, represented here as "the Fruit". And in regard to every object the existence of which he expresses, he accomplishes an act of creation.

It goes without saying that the speculative philosopher accomplishes this continuous creation only by presenting universally known qualities of the apple, the pear, etc., which exist in reality, as determining features invented by him, by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, to abstract formulas of reason, finally, by declaring his own activity, by which he passes from the idea of an apple to the idea of a pear, to be the self-activity of the Absolute Subject, "the Fruit"

In the speculative way of speaking, this operation is called comprehending Substance as Subject, as an inner process, as an Absolute Person, and this comprehension constitutes the essential character of Hegel's method.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch05.htm#5.2

And a couple of years after that:

Is it surprising that everything, in the final abstraction – for we have here an abstraction, and not an analysis – presents itself as a logical category? Is it surprising that, if you let drop little by little all that constitutes the individuality of a house, leaving out first of all the materials of which it is composed, then the form that distinguishes it, you end up with nothing but a body; that, if you leave out of account the limits of this body; you soon have nothing but a space – that if, finally, you leave out of the account the dimensions of this space, there is absolutely nothing left but pure quantity, the logical category? If we abstract thus from every subject all the alleged accidents, animate or inanimate, men or things, we are right in saying that in the final abstraction, the only substance left is the logical category. Thus the metaphysicians who, in making these abstractions, think they are making analyses, and who, the more they detach themselves from things, imagine themselves to be getting all the nearer to the point of penetrating to their core – these metaphysicians in turn are right in saying that things here below are embroideries of which the logical categories constitute the canvas. This is what distinguishes the philosopher from the Christian. The Christian, in spite of logic, has only one incarnation of the Logos; the philosopher has never finished with incarnations. If all that exists, all that lives on land, and under water, can be reduced by abstraction to a logical category – if the whole real world can be drowned thus in a world of abstractions, in the world of logical categories – who need be astonished at it?

All that exists, all that lives on land and under water, exists and lives only by some kind of movement. Thus, the movement of history produces social relations; industrial movement gives us industrial products, etc.

Just as by means of abstraction we have transformed everything into a logical category, so one has only to make an abstraction of every characteristic distinctive of different movements to attain movement in its abstract condition – purely formal movement, the purely logical formula of movement. If one finds in logical categories the substance of all things, one imagines one has found in the logical formula of movement the absolute method, which not only explains all things, but also implies the movement of things.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htm

Also, I was using economic exploitation as an example. I would be equally happy discussing class structure and the role of the state.

[ChrisK]

Quite the opposite in my opinion. Most who have critiqued Capital are clear that Marx began his analysis of the commodity with the analysis of the dialectical dichotomy between the use value aspect and the exchange value aspect of the commodity.

Well your opinion runs contrary to Marx's own opinion.

And how is the distinction between use value and exchange value "dialectical"?


The "essence" of a thing are the/is it's fundamental properties in some context without respect to other aspects that are not relevant to/for the context. In terms of context some things have an essence as they function as a part of system. A system being a set of things having some relation to one another that establishes or is a forerunner of some functionality, goal or operation in time and space.

Nice description of essentialist metaphysics. See the quote from The Holy Family above.


Various Catholic and Episcopalian philosophers have asserted this to discredit materialists philosophers like Diderot, Voltaire, Moleschott and d'Holbach.

Could you cite an example?

[Tim Redd]

Originally Posted by Tim Redd http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showthread.php?p=2794203#post2794203)
Quite the opposite in my opinion. Most who have critiqued Capital are clear that Marx began his analysis of the commodity with the analysis of the dialectical dichotomy between the use value aspect and the exchange value aspect of the commodity.
Well your opinion runs contrary to Marx's own opinion.

Dude, it's obvious you have not actually read Capital, or did so without any intent to actually study it. It's not Marx's or anyone's opinion about what actually exist in Capital, it's the facts of what Marx wrote. Here are the first entries in the table of contents of Capital:

Contents
Section 1 - The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1)
Section 2 - The twofold Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S2)
Section 3 - The Form of Value or Exchange-Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3)
A. Elementary or Accidental Form of Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a)
1. The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a1)

Does not Section 1 mirror what I said in post 37 that Marx started off Capital with a discussion of commodities and that his analysis of commodities was based upon the dialectical dichotomy between use value on the one hand and value [exchange value] on the other.

And as we go further into Capital, we find that Marx uses a number of dialectical dichotomies to analyze capitalism. For instance look at the topic for Section3,A,1 "The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a1)". Things like relative value versus absolute value, labor power versus capital and so on. Please show me where Marx says he's doing anything other than what he's actually doing as evidenced by the table of contents.

Rather than asserting fictions as fact it would be better if you did objective investigation so that we can truly understand the truth about reality. We need discussion based upon objective investigation in order to actually overcome capitalist exploitation and oppression and liberate the world by attaining a global communist society.

[Tim Redd]

In post #37 I wrote:

Outside of philosophy a commonly used definition for materialism’ means having the belief that one should be preoccupied with acquiring money and objects of luxury above all else. Some members of the clergy and some philosophers attempt to equate the materialist philosophical position with such a belief, but this is their prejudice and is false.Then I wrote:

Various Catholic and Episcopalian philosophers have asserted this to discredit materialists philosophers like Diderot, Voltaire, Moleschott and d'Holbach.

In post #39 ChrisK wrote:

Could you cite an example?

CatholicCulture.org
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=34790

"In ethical philosophy, materialism holds that material goods and interests, the pleasures of the body and emotional experience, are the only or at least the main reason for human existence. In social philosophy, the view that economics and this-worldly interests are the main functions of society."

[ChrisK]

CatholicCulture.org
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=34790

"In ethical philosophy, materialism holds that material goods and interests, the pleasures of the body and emotional experience, are the only or at least the main reason for human existence. In social philosophy, the view that economics and this-worldly interests are the main functions of society."

Thank you for the citation. However, that same source states this:
"The theory that all reality is only matter, or a function of matter, or ultimately derived from matter. There is no real distinction between matter and spirit; even man's soul is essentially material and not uniquely created by God."

You seem to be equivocating two different meanings of "materialism".

[ChrisK]

Dude, it's obvious you have not actually read Capital, or did so without any intent to actually study it. It's not Marx's or anyone's opinion about what actually exist in Capital, it's the facts of what Marx wrote. Here are the first entries in the table of contents of Capital:

Contents
Section 1 - The Two Factors of a Commodity: Use-Value and Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S1)
Section 2 - The twofold Character of the Labour Embodied in Commodities (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S2)
Section 3 - The Form of Value or Exchange-Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3)
A. Elementary or Accidental Form of Value (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a)
1. The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a1)

Does not Section 1 mirror what I said in post 37 that Marx started off Capital with a discussion of commodities and that his analysis of commodities was based upon the dialectical dichotomy between of use value on the one hand and value [exchange value] on the other.

And as we go further into Capital, we find that Marx uses a number of dialectical dichotomies to analyze capitalism. For instance look at the topic for Section3,A,1 "The Two Poles of the Expression of Value: Relative Form and Equivalent Form (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm#S3a1)". Things like relative value versus absolute value, labor power versus capital and so on. Please show me where Marx says he's doing anything other than what he's actually doing as evidenced by the table of contents.

Rather than asserting fictions as fact it would be better if you did objective investigation so that we can truly understand the truth about reality. We need discussion based upon objective investigation in order to actually overcome capitalist exploitation and oppression and liberate the world by attaining a global communist society.

Perhaps you should read what I wrote. I did not say that Marx did not discuss the distinction between use-value and exchange-value. I asked how that constitutes a "dialectical dichotomy". You haven't answered that. Simply pointing to various distinctions that Marx makes is not an answer.

As to Marx's opinion:

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of “Das Kapital,” it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi [Epigones – Büchner, Dühring and others] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm

I'm not making up the fact that Marx was teasing us with the Hegelian terminology. Marx flat out says that he is.

[Hit The North]

On the question of abstraction, we need to make a distinction with the way it is used in idealist philosophy and criticised by Marx, and the way Marx argues it is used in scientific analysis, which he sets out in the forward to the first German edition of Capital.

http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1867-c1/p1.html

In the first case, abstraction is the end point and the abstract essence rules over the particular. In the second case, abstraction is one moment in the analysis of a complex totality which enables us to grasp the general laws, but any material analysis must make the journey back to the concrete.

[ChrisK]

On the question of abstraction, we need to make a distinction with the way it is used in idealist philosophy and criticised by Marx, and the way Marx argues it is used in scientific analysis, which he sets out in the forward to the first German edition of Capital.

http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1867-c1/p1.html

In the first case, abstraction is the end point and the abstract essence rules over the particular. In the second case, abstraction is one moment in the analysis of a complex totality which enables us to grasp the general laws, but any material analysis must make the journey back to the concrete.

This was one of Marx's missteps. Marx's own critiques of abstraction show the impossibility of any form of abstraction. The paragraph in question is:

Every beginning is difficult, holds in all sciences. To understand the first chapter, especially the section that contains the analysis of commodities, will, therefore, present the greatest difficulty. That which concerns more especially the analysis of the substance of value and the magnitude of value, I have, as much as it was possible, popularised. The value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form, is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless, the human mind has for more than 2,000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it all, whilst on the other hand, to the successful analysis of much more composite and complex forms, there has been at least an approximation. Why? Because the body, as an organic whole, is more easy of study than are the cells of that body. In the analysis of economic forms, moreover, neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use. The force of abstraction must replace both. But in bourgeois society, the commodity-form of the product of labour — or value-form of the commodity — is the economic cell-form. To the superficial observer, the analysis of these forms seems to turn upon minutiae. It does in fact deal with minutiae, but they are of the same order as those dealt with in microscopic anatomy.

However, Marx does not appear to have actually been abstracting, so much as building upon the theoretical ideas of classical economists.

[Tim Redd]

Thank you for the citation. However, that same source states this:
"The theory that all reality is only matter, or a function of matter, or ultimately derived from matter. There is no real distinction between matter and spirit; even man's soul is essentially material and not uniquely created by God."

You seem to be equivocating two different meanings of "materialism".

What I'm not equivocating about is backing up my assertion that some/most(?) actual Catholic theologians think/assert that in one or another materialist philosophy is a world view that places the the drive for and acquisition of material goods as the primary goal of existence. As opposed to affairs of the spirit being the primary goal and driver of life.

I said that Catholic philosophers had that view of materialism and my quotes from them show that at least in part to be objectively true. You disputed that they had such a view of materialism and for that you were in error. It's also true that this Catholic group acknowledges the scientific definition of materialism and for that I was in error. So we were both in error.

This particular group of Catholic theologians gives a different definition of materialism outside of ethics. Still I think most theological philosphers (those who believe in god/gods, or who assert that the spiritual has primacy over the material) give more weight to the ethical definitions over other views of philosophy.

[Tim Redd]

This was one of Marx's missteps. Marx's own critiques of abstraction show the impossibility of any form of abstraction. The paragraph in question is:

I don't see anything in what you quote where Marx shows the impossibility of abstraction. You wouldn't be able to think and speak if you didn't use abstractions. If you had to think and speak about every concrete detail of everything you think about, you couldn't get out of bed.

I don't understand how you who thinks in ordinary abstractions like everyone else and also uses intellectual abstractions denies that we can use abstraction, a basic and essential mechanism of thought. I do not understand your desire to wallow in the muck and mire of the concrete when the solution to the problems of the muck and mire do indeed exist in the realm of abstraction. Abstraction must always be determined by the material world, but nevertheless abstractions is absolutely essential to life and revolution. Why only wallow in the economic struggle, when you can soar in the art of Neruda, the abstractions of Gramsci and those of Walter Benjamin. Your insist on only living life in the pits.

[Tim Redd]

Perhaps you should read what I wrote. I did not say that Marx did not discuss the distinction between use-value and exchange-value. I asked how that constitutes a "dialectical dichotomy". You haven't answered that. Simply pointing to various distinctions that Marx makes is not an answer.

Most leaders and notables in the history of the Marxist movement have called the dichotomy between use value and exchange value a dialectical contradiction. In particular Engels and Lenin have characterized this dichotomy as a dialectical relationship/contradiction.

At its most basic a dialectical relationship is simply the interaction of one or more things that are different. Typically in the Marxist movement such interactions are thought to only be between polar opposites. However I think there is good case for expanding that to the interaction between any set of things in a union of interaction.

Given either definition, the dichotomy between the use value aspect and the exchange value aspect of a commodity is a dialectical relationship/contradiction.

There is nothing magical or super involved that needs to happen in order for 2 or more things to be in a dialectical relationship. They need only be different and in some relationship to one another.

[ChrisK]

What I'm not equivocating about is backing up my assertion that some/most(?) actual Catholic theologians think/assert that in one or another materialist philosophy is a world view that places the the drive for and acquisition of material goods as the primary goal of existence. As opposed to affairs of the spirit being the primary goal and driver of life.

I said that Catholic philosophers had that view of materialism and my quotes from them show that at least in part to be objectively true. You disputed that they had such a view of materialism and for that you were in error. It's also true that this Catholic group acknowledges the scientific definition of materialism and for that I was in error. So we were both in error.

This particular group of Catholic theologians gives a different definition of materialism outside of ethics. Still I think most theological philosphers (those who believe in god/gods, or who assert that the spiritual has primacy over the material) give more weight to the ethical definitions over other views of philosophy.

I can accept this.


I don't see anything in what you quote where Marx shows the impossibility of abstraction. You wouldn't be able to think and speak if you didn't use abstractions. If you had to think and speak about every concrete detail of everything you think about, you couldn't get out of bed.

Apologies, I wasn't being clear. The paragraph I was quoting was the one that HTN was referring to. The passages I was referring to were the passages from The Holy Family and The Poverty of Philosophy that I quoted in a previous post.

As to those sorts of everyday "abstractions" people supposedly use, if people were constantly abstracting, they would never get out of bed. They would be constantly analyzing away, jumping from the "abstract" to the "concrete".


I don't understand how you who thinks in ordinary abstractions like everyone else and also uses intellectual abstractions denies that we can use abstraction, a basic and essential mechanism of thought. I do not understand your desire to wallow in the muck and mire of the concrete when the solution to the problems of the muck and mire do indeed exist in the realm of abstraction. Abstraction is must always be determined by the material world, but nevertheless abstractions is absolutely essential to life and revolution. Why only wallow in the economic struggle, when you can soar in the art of Neruda, the abstractions of Gramsci and those of Walter Benjamin. Your insist on only living life in the pits.

Two important points here:

No one thinks in abstractions. We use general terms, but we do not abstract.
Admitting a realm of abstraction is admitting to idealism. Abstractions could only exist as the product of humans thinking. Hence, the abstract realm is the product of thinking, which means that applying those abstractions to reality is creating reality through thinking.



Most leaders and notables in the history of the Marxist movement have called the dichotomy between use value and exchange value a dialectical contradiction. In particular Engels and Lenin have characterized this dichotomy as a dialectical relationship/contradiction.

Strangely, they are not Marx.


At its most basic a dialectical relationship is simply the interaction of one or more things that are different. Typically in the Marxist movement such interactions are thought to only be between polar opposites. However I think there is good case for expanding that to the interaction between any set of things in a union of interaction.

Given either definition, the dichotomy between the use value aspect and the exchange value aspect of a commodity is a dialectical relationship/contradiction.

There is nothing magical or super involved that needs to happen in order for 2 or more things to be in a dialectical relationship. They need only be different and in some relationship to one another.

If a dialectical relationship is any interaction between two or more different things, what does the term "dialectical" bring to the table? Given your definition, you can say "the distinction between use-value and exchange-value" and have the same explanatory power as saying "the dialectical contradiction between use-value and exchange-value". Granted, the former is clearer than the latter, which makes it more useful in discourse.

[Hit The North]

Two important points here:

No one thinks in abstractions. We use general terms, but we do not abstract.
Admitting a realm of abstraction is admitting to idealism. Abstractions could only exist as the product of humans thinking. Hence, the abstract realm is the product of thinking, which means that applying those abstractions to reality is creating reality through thinking.

1. Of course people can think in abstractions. To abstract means to take a thing out of context or to simplify it. Maybe you can't do this and this is the root of your objection?

2. But Marx in the quoted passage isn't saying that abstractions exist in reality. He is talking about moving towards abstraction as part of his analysis of the concrete. So your objection here is completely beside the point.

[ChrisK]

1. Of course people can think in abstractions. To extract means to take a thing out of context or to simplify it. Maybe you can't do this and this is the root of your objection?

Sure, we extract things, but we do not abstract them. In order to abstract something we would have to look at an object and obtain its essence by removing its inessential properties in our minds. But we do not do this every time we look at a piece of fruit. We just look at a piece of fruit.


2. But Marx in the quoted passage isn't saying that abstractions exist in reality. He is talking about moving towards abstraction as part of his analysis of the concrete. So your objection here is completely beside the point.

I was responding directly to Tim Redd's phrase "the realm of the abstract".

As to Marx's own use, he says that "the force of abstraction must replace both." He's not nice enough to tell us what he means by that. As it is, I assume that he means that in order to analyze things like commodities he removes their unnecessary features until he finds the value-form.

My problem with this process is that what Marx has claimed to be doing is removing commodities from their material context (capitalism) and discovered their essence (the essence of all commodities). However, this runs counter to the basic understanding that Capital is a book about capitalist economics and that the value-form of a commodity changes depending on the material conditions of society.

Of course, Marx could be abstracting commodities from other features of capitalism, but this runs into its own problems. How would Marx learn more about commodities by abstracting from other aspects of capitalism? He would have to be sitting and thinking about commodities outside of their normal context until he discovered a truth about them. Then he would impose what he discovered by thought on reality. That is idealism.

If Marx were simply making useful distinctions about commodities, then he is in no danger of being an idealist. In this case, he would distinguish between use-value and exchange-value, not because he thought really hard about commodities outside of the context of a commodities production, but as a useful way to understand the ways in which commodities obtain value.

[Tim Redd]

Sure, we extract things, but we do not abstract them.

You seem to be playing word games here. How is 'extraction' different from 'abstraction'?


In order to abstract something we would have to look at an object and obtain its essence by removing its inessential properties in our minds.OK.


But we do not do this every time we look at a piece of fruit. We just look at a piece of fruit.We don't always go through a conscious process of abstraction when we think of a thing. Often we use ready made, already accepted abstractions. When I think of the apple I'm eating I do not think of absolutely every concrete detail of that apple. Indeed we aren't even aware of many of the concrete facts about an object, but we can think of it to good use via abstraction. Usually we don't know the volume of each of the enzymes present in the apple. Typically we don't typically know the number of molecules in the apple.

So it is clear we don't always know all the concrete details of a specific apple, but I can think about it in contexts that don't require the knowledge of the unknown specific details. And even when we are in a context that for example requires knowing the volume of enzymes in an apple, I may not need to know the distinct kinds of enzymes present. That is what abstraction is about. Without it we couldn't realistically think and analyze the world and its objects.

[Hit The North]

Sure, we extract things, but we do not abstract them.


Just to note that the word 'extract' in my post was a typo. I meant 'abstract' and have changed it accordingly.


In order to abstract something we would have to look at an object and obtain its essence by removing its inessential properties in our minds. But we do not do this every time we look at a piece of fruit. We just look at a piece of fruit.
Who cares about fruit? In Capital, Marx is exactly concerned with abstracting the essential laws of capitalist motion, is he not?


I was responding directly to Tim Redd's phrase "the realm of the abstract".
That's between you and Tim then, but I doubt he thinks that there is a "realm of abstractions" that exist out there in the objective universe.


As to Marx's own use, he says that "the force of abstraction must replace both." He's not nice enough to tell us what he means by that.He's very open that he means the power of abstraction serves the same purpose for the scientist of society that experimental technique serves for the scientist of nature. We cannot place society under a microscope in order to examine its structure, therefore the power of abstraction must be employed as substitute. As to what that means, Marx provides a detailed outline in the introduction to the Grundrisse. Maybe you should ignore Rosa L's assertion that this series of documents is Hegelian gobbledygook and read it.


As it is, I assume that he means that in order to analyze things like commodities he removes their unnecessary features until he finds the value-form.Yes. There's nothing necessarily Hegelian about it.


My problem with this process is that what Marx has claimed to be doing is removing commodities from their material context (capitalism) and discovered their essence (the essence of all commodities). However, this runs counter to the basic understanding that Capital is a book about capitalist economics and that the value-form of a commodity changes depending on the material conditions of society.I'm sorry you have a problem with this but it is clear that this is what Marx is doing in the first section of Capital. It makes perfect sense, too. You can't provide an analysis of the generalised form of the commodity by examining it in the multiplicity of its empirical relations and manifestations. But I would suggest that the aim of Capital is to show the underlying laws of motion of capital rather than provide an account of an empirical capitalist system. And this also makes sense because empirically real capitalist systems vary in important respects from each other. British, French, German, Japanese and American capitalist societies are not identical except in the most general laws of their operation.


Of course, Marx could be abstracting commodities from other features of capitalism, but this runs into its own problems. How would Marx learn more about commodities by abstracting from other aspects of capitalism? He would have to be sitting and thinking about commodities outside of their normal context until he discovered a truth about them. Then he would impose what he discovered by thought on reality. That is idealism.
If this is idealism then most science is idealism. But, of course, to be idealism, thought must be supposed to originate or decisively shape the material world. The mere act of cognition does not, in itself, engender an idealist point of view, otherwise we would be unable to reflect upon the material world and science would be useless. Marx isn't arguing this in the slightest. But, again in the Grundrisse, he does argue that there is an inevitable separation between the historical development of a social system and our way of analysing it. The empirical complexity of a system of determinations cannot be grasped whole in the mind, but must be broken down into its constitutive parts and analysed separately (the analytical moment) and then the elements recombined to show their relations (the synthetic moment).


If Marx were simply making useful distinctions about commodities, then he is in no danger of being an idealist. In this case, he would distinguish between use-value and exchange-value, not because he thought really hard about commodities outside of the context of a commodities production, but as a useful way to understand the ways in which commodities obtain value.Isn't this what he is doing - using the power of abstraction?

[ChrisK]

You seem to be playing word games here. How is 'extraction' different from 'abstraction'?

Well I can extract a tooth, but I cannot abstract a tooth. At least, no dentist I know does this.


OK.

Funny thing, essences are ideal constructs. A basic way to do this would be to reflect on what the essence of a "game" is. In other words, figure out what unifies all things that are "games".


We don't always go through a conscious process of abstraction when we think of a thing. Often we use ready made, already accepted abstractions. When I think of the apple I'm eating I do not think of absolutely every concrete detail of that apple. Indeed we aren't even aware of many of the concrete facts about an object, but we can think of it to good use via abstraction. Usually we don't know the volume of each of the enzymes present in the apple. Typically we don't typically don't know the number of molecules in the apple. So it is clear we don't know all the concrete details about the apple but I can think about in contexts that don't require the knowledge of the unknown concrete details. And even when we are in context that for example requires knowing the volume of enzymes in an apple, I may not need to know the distinct kinds of enzymes present. That is what abstraction is about. Without it we couldn't realistically think and analyze the world and its objects.

How have you abstracted molecules and enzymes? Scientists did not "abstract" molecules and enzymes, they found them by empirical investigation. You haven't shown a use for abstraction yet, other than asserting that we abstract all the time. You actually have to show that an abstraction is being done.

Also:

The mystery of the Critical presentation of the Mystéres de Paris is the mystery of speculative, of Hegelian construction. Once Herr Szeliga has proclaimed that "degeneracy within civilisation" and rightlessness in the state are "mysteries", i.e., has dissolved them in the category "mystery", he lets "mystery" begin its speculative career. A few words will suffice to characterise speculative construction in general. Herr Szeliga's treatment of the Mystéres de Paris will give the application in detail.

If from real apples, pears, strawberries and almonds I form the general idea "Fruit”, if I go further and imagine that my abstract idea "Fruit”, derived from real fruit, is an entity existing outside me, is indeed the true essence of the pear, the apple, etc., then in the language of speculative philosophy — I am declaring that "Fruit” is the "Substance” of the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. I am saying, therefore, that to be a pear is not essential to the pear, that to be an apple is not essential to the apple; that what is essential to these things is not their real existence, perceptible to the senses, but the essence that I have abstracted from them and then foisted on them, the essence of my idea — "Fruit”. I therefore declare apples, pears, almonds, etc., to be mere forms of existence, modi, of "Fruit” My finite understanding supported by my senses does of course distinguish an apple from a pear and a pear from an almond, but my speculative reason declares these sensuous differences inessential and irrelevant. It sees in the apple the same as in the pear, and in the pear the same as in the almond, namely "Fruit”. Particular real fruits are no more than semblances whose true essence is "the substance" — "Fruit”.

By this method one attains no particular wealth of definition. The mineralogist whose whole science was limited to the statement that all minerals are really "the Mineral" would be a mineralogist only in his imagination. For every mineral the speculative mineralogist Says "the Mineral", and his science is reduced to repeating this word as many times as there are real minerals.

Having reduced the different real fruits to the one "fruit" of abstraction — "the Fruit", speculation must, in order to attain some semblance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from "the Fruit", from the Substance to the diverse, ordinary real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea "the Fruit" as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction.

The speculative philosopher therefore relinquishes the abstraction "the Fruit", but in a speculative, mystical fashion — with the appearance of not relinquishing it. Thus it is really only in appearance that he rises above his abstraction. He argues somewhat as follows:

If apples, pears, almonds and strawberries are really nothing but "the Substance", "the Fruit", the question arises: Why does "the Fruit" manifest itself to me sometimes as an apple, sometimes as a pear, sometimes as an almond? Why this semblance of diversity which so obviously contradicts my speculative conception of Unity, "the Substance", "the Fruit"?

This, answers the speculative philosopher, is because "the Fruit" is not dead, undifferentiated, motionless, but a living, self-differentiating, moving essence. The diversity of the ordinary fruits is significant not only for my sensuous understanding, but also for "the Fruit" itself and for speculative reason. The different ordinary fruits are different manifestations of the life of the "one Fruit"; they are crystallisations of "the Fruit" itself. Thus in the apple "the Fruit" gives itself an apple-like existence, in the pear a pear-like existence. We must therefore no longer say, as one might from the standpoint of the Substance: a pear is "the Fruit", an apple is "the Fruit", an almond is "the Fruit", but rather "the Fruit" presents itself as a pear, "the Fruit" presents itself as an apple, "the Fruit" presents itself as an almond; and the differences which distinguish apples, pears and almonds from one another are the self-differentiations of "the Fruit" and,.make the particular fiuits different members of the life-process of "the Fruit". Thus "the Fruit" is no longer an empty undifferentiated unity; it is oneness as allness, as "totality” of fruits, which constitute an "organically linked series of members”. In every member of that series "the Fruit" gives itself a more developed, more explicit existence, until finally, as the "summary” of all fruits, it is at the same time the living unity which contains all those fruits dissolved in itself just as it produces them from within itself, just as, for instance, all the limbs of the body are constantly dissolved in and constantly produced out of the blood.

We see that if the Christian religion knows only one Incarnation of God, speculative philosophy has as many incarnations as there are things, just as it has here in every fruit an incarnation of the Substance, of the Absolute Fruit. The main interest for the speculative philosopher is therefore to produce the existence of the real ordinary fruits and to say in some mysterious way that there are apples, pears, almonds and raisins. But the apples, pears, almonds and raisins that we rediscover in the speculative world are nothing but semblances of apples, semblances of pears, semblances of almonds and semblances of raisins, for they are moments in the life of "the Fruit", this abstract creation of the mind, and therefore themselves abstract creations of the mind. Hence what is delightful in this speculation is to rediscover all the real fruits there, but as fruits which have a higher mystical significance, which have grown out of the ether of your brain and not out of the material earth, which are incarnations of "the Fruit", of the Absolute Subject. When you return from the abstraction, the supernatural creation of the mind, "the Fruit", to real natural fruits, you give on the contrary the natural fruits a supernatural significance and transform them into sheer abstractions. Your main interest is then to point out the unity of "the Fruit" in all the manifestations of its life — the apple, the pear, the almond — that is, to show the mystical interconnection between these fruits, how in each one of them "the Fruit" realises itself by degrees and necessarily progresses, for instance, from its existence as a raisin to its existence as an almond. Hence the value of the ordinary fruits no longer consists in their natural qualities, but in their speculative quality, which gives each of them a definite place in the life-process of "the Absolute Fruit"

The ordinary man does not think he is saying anything extraordinary when he states that there are apples and pears. But when the philosopher expresses their existence in the speculative way he says something extraordinary. He performs a miracle by producing the real natural objects, the apple, the pear, etc., out of the unreal creation of the mind "the Fruit", i.e., by creating those fruits out of his own abstract reason, which he considers as an Absolute Subject outside himself, represented here as "the Fruit". And in regard to every object the existence of which he expresses, he accomplishes an act of creation.

It goes without saying that the speculative philosopher accomplishes this continuous creation only by presenting universally known qualities of the apple, the pear, etc., which exist in reality, as determining features invented by him, by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, to abstract formulas of reason, finally, by declaring his own activity, by which he passes from the idea of an apple to the idea of a pear, to be the self-activity of the Absolute Subject, "the Fruit"

In the speculative way of speaking, this operation is called comprehending Substance as Subject, as an inner process, as an Absolute Person, and this comprehension constitutes the essential character of Hegel's method.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/holy-family/ch05.htm#5.2

I would like to know what you have to say to Marx. He seems to think that we don't abstract in our daily lives.

[ChrisK]

Just to note that the word 'extract' in my post was a typo. I meant 'abstract' and have changed it accordingly.

Gotcha. That makes more sense now.


Who cares about fruit? In Capital, Marx is exactly concerned with abstracting the essential laws of capitalist motion, is he not?

I use the fruit example because it is the one that Marx used when he criticized abstractions. And no, he is not.


That's between you and Tim then, but I doubt he thinks that there is a "realm of abstractions" that exist out there in the objective universe.


I do not understand your desire to wallow in the muck and mire of the concrete when the solution to the problems of the muck and mire do indeed exist in the realm of abstraction.

Apparently he does.


He's very open that he means the power of abstraction serves the same purpose for the scientist of society that experimental technique serves for the scientist of nature. We cannot place society under a microscope in order to examine its structure, therefore the power of abstraction must be employed as substitute. As to what that means, Marx provides a detailed outline in the introduction to the Grundrisse. Maybe you should ignore Rosa L's assertion that this series of documents is Hegelian gobbledygook and read it.

I will read it more carefully and then post my reaction to it. A cursory glance indicates to me that Marx is mistaking "distinctions" with "abstractions".


Yes. There's nothing necessarily Hegelian about it.

There is something necessarily idealist about it though.


I'm sorry you have a problem with this but it is clear that this is what Marx is doing in the first section of Capital. It makes perfect sense, too. You can't provide an analysis of the generalised form of the commodity by examining it in the multiplicity of its empirical relations and manifestations. But I would suggest that the aim of Capital is to show the underlying laws of motion of capital rather than provide an account of an empirical capitalist system. And this also makes sense because empirically real capitalist systems vary in important respects from each other. British, French, German, Japanese and American capitalist societies are not identical except in the most general laws of their operation.

It actually is not. What makes more sense would be to assume that Marx claims that he is abstracting use-value and exchange-value by taking commodities out of context, when in reality what he did was think about how they are used in context. Had he abstracted them, he would have thought of the commodity alone. But then there are no people to use them, so they would have no use-value, and no basis for their exchange, so no exchange-value. The only way Marx could have done this would be to think about how people use commodities. People can consume commodities, which gives them a use-value, or people can exchange commodities for other commodities, which gives them an exchange-value. It is only by working with commodities in a context that this distinctions can be made.


If this is idealism then most science is idealism. But, of course, to be idealism, thought must be supposed to originate or decisively shape the material world. The mere act of cognition does not, in itself, engender an idealist point of view, otherwise we would be unable to reflect upon the material world and science would be useless. Marx isn't arguing this in the slightest. But, again in the Grundrisse, he does argue that there is an inevitable separation between the historical development of a social system and our way of analysing it. The empirical complexity of a system of determinations cannot be grasped whole in the mind, but must be broken down into its constitutive parts and analysed separately (the analytical moment) and then the elements recombined to show their relations (the synthetic moment).

Scientists don't just sit there and think about things and then impose the results of sitting in their armchair on reality. They have methods and practices that move their analysis forward, be it a mathematical modeling of physical process or the results of an experiment.

Also, how would you derive use-value and exchange-value by only thinking about commodities and nothing else?


Isn't this what he is doing - using the power of abstraction?

No, if he were abstracting, then he would have obtained nothing as his result.

[ckaihatsu]

(Note of clarification: In real life I am / could be called 'Chris K.' but it's not my username here at RevLeft.)

[Hit The North]

(Note of clarification: In real life I am / could be called 'Chris K.' but it's not my username here at RevLeft.)

Given your penchant for abstract model-making, I doubt anyone could confuse you with ChrisK. :)

[ckaihatsu]

Given your penchant for abstract model-making, I doubt anyone could confuse you with ChrisK. :)


Yeah, if it wasn't for that I think I'd be entirely *indistinguishable* from everyone else here.... (heh)

I guess my anxieties about identity theft had to manifest *somewhere*...(!)


x D

[Tim Redd]

Thank you for the citation. However, that same source states this:
"The theory that all reality is only matter, or a function of matter, or ultimately derived from matter. There is no real distinction between matter and spirit; even man's soul is essentially material and not uniquely created by God."

You seem to be equivocating two different meanings of "materialism".

How? That isn't my definition of materialism you are citing above. It's the Catholic group's definition. My definition of materialism is in the paper "Forward with Revolutionary Dialectics" at http://www.risparty.org. (http://www.risparty.org)

What the heck I'll repeat the essence of materialism right now: Materialism is the acceptance that ideas, theory and thinking are primarily determined by being and not vice versa. As major corollary of that, it is the acceptance that brains in time and space create the notion of spirits and gods, as opposed to vice versa.

[Tim Redd]

That's between you and Tim then, but I doubt he thinks that there is a "realm of abstractions" that exist out there in the objective universe.

You're absolutely correct, I do not think that silly aspect of Pythagorean philosophy is true at all. And I accept very little else in that philosophy, but of course like most deeply rooted plants on the tree of life there are aspects I may agree with. But again, a realm of living abstractions isn't one of them for me. I'm definitely a materialist of the Voltaire, Diderot, Feuerbach, Marx, Engels and Lenin type.

[Tim Redd]

Anyway, the question of scientifically using abstraction in the way that Marx, Engels and Lenin is just one aspect of being conscious and aware of the intellectual tools that should be used beyond straight dialectics per se.

Most Marxists and revolutionaries know that we should properly use abstraction in conjunction with all manner of methods for grappling with dynamics: the way that things in reality may be born, the way things in reality move, develop and may die. And my purpose in the OP is to open that question up to discussion.

In other words the paper "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" isn't focused upon how abstraction helps us to analyze dynamics. Being that it's intended for Marxists it mostly assumes as given the ability to abstract concrete reality and to create mental abstractions that help us to analyze and change the world.

[Tim Redd]

As to Marx's opinion: [presumably on Dialectics - -TR]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm
I'm not making up the fact that Marx was teasing us with the Hegelian terminology. Marx flat out says that he is.

Actually stepping back, Marx's complete paragraph here, which you partially quoted, is an argument against your disdain for dialectic.

You quoted Marx as saying:
"The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of “Das Kapital,” it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi [Epigones – Büchner, Dühring and others] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.”

Marx's very next sentence and content is as follows:

"I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him."

OK there's your point that Marx uses "coquette" in conjunction with Hegel's dialectics. However Marx's point in the very next sentence is that while he coquetted (teased) with Hegel's mode of expression, he nevertheless took his coquetting of Hegel's dialectics not as the endpoint, but as a serious opportunity to stand dialectics on it's head, to make it more profound as an analytical tool. Marx says immediately after your quote ending with "dead dog".

"The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell."

So that is how Marx approached Hegel's dialectics. He coquetted (teased us) with Hegel's method, but his point in doing so was serious. Marx worked coquetted with Hegel's dialectics so that it, "must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell."

[Tim Redd]

No, I'm sorry, TR, but I did *not* object to any content of yours, nor did I engage with it in any way -- I offered content of my own, as an *addition* to what you had already put forth. I stand by my recounting at post #28.

In "addition" to what is there by me and others. If that's not engaging you have odd definition for "engage". But hey if that's how you see it, that's no biggie. It's not like you must respond to what I'm stating in order for it to be of value for revolution and society in general.

[Dodo]

Heyo,

I have not read the debates in the thread but I have some questions.
Is this supposed to be an abstract first look or is it an "established model" on how reality functions?
What I mean is that, is this supposed to be a mathematical model that tells us how things work that is to make the social phenomena calculable?



OK there's your point that Marx uses "coquette" in conjunction with Hegel's dialectics. However Marx's point in the very next sentence is that while he coquetted (teased) with Hegel's mode of expression, he nevertheless took his coquetting of Hegel's dialectics not as the endpoint, but as a serious opportunity to stand dialectics on it's head, to make it more profound as an analytical tool. Marx says immediately after your quote ending with "dead dog".

You sure about this?

[ckaihatsu]

The phenomenon / dynamic of the dialectic is expressed in the saying of 'Get on living or get on dying', which comes to mind with the following film -- the main character 'peaks' in her numerous life accomplishments with an otherwise masterful and flawless piano rendition for her husband and closest friends, except for the sudden onset of a physical ailment from which she only worsens.





It is the day of Kate's (Hilary Swank) 35th birthday. She and her husband Evan (Josh Duhamel) are having sex in the shower. At night, they host a dinner party for their closest friends. Kate is a skilled pianist, and so she plays a tune for everyone to hear. Suddenly, her hands begin to shake...




http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1198156/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn


I'll contend -- controversially -- that the Kate character may not have had to have been as helpless and such a hostage to her physical predicament.

Perhaps, more deeply, there was a life-path *dialectic* at work, where, once she had 'peaked' she found nothing left in the way of further accomplishments for her looming future years, and could only downslide passively from that point on, as the movie portrays.

Empirical health analyses and reductionist medical preoccupations often cloud the parallel aspect of one's own *volitions* in life, the *direction* that all of the physicality of one's body and mind is supporting at the very top of the individual's hierarchy.

Dialectics can be very useful for examining timeline-constrained linear flows of whatever, at any scale, as with the individual's life-path, the rise and fall of entire empires, and also the historical class struggle, of course.

Dialectics may be found *lacking* whenever the conventional, familiar narrative format just becomes too granular and dramatic for the subject matter at-hand, because of the narrative's intrinsic qualities. The material may lend itself to a more *constant*, 'universal' approach, as with the 'History: Macro-Micro' framework at post #10.

[Rad]

Acording to trotksy, isn't dialectics the only thing that explains life as it is .. meaning as a process?

[Tim Redd]

I have not read the debates in the thread but I have some questions.
Is this [the point of the OP -TR] supposed to be an abstract first look or is it an "established model" on how reality functions?

What I mean is that, is this supposed to be a mathematical model that tells us how things work that is to make the social phenomena calculable?

My point in the OP is that Marxists should add other analytical tools beyond dialectics to our analysis of the way things, processes, events and phenomena move and develop in reality.

That doesn't mean that such additional analytical tools beyond dialectics will predict hard, deterministic outcomes. They are simply analytical tools and as we know when using other analytical tools, one can not always know, or always predict precisely what will occur in the future.



OK there's your point that Marx uses "coquette" in conjunction with Hegel's dialectics. However Marx's point in the very next sentence is that while he coquetted (teased) with Hegel's mode of expression, he nevertheless took his coquetting of Hegel's dialectics not as the endpoint, but as a serious opportunity to stand dialectics on it's head, to make it more profound as an analytical tool..."
You sure about this?Yes I'm sure Marx meant what I said he did above when Marx says that he "coquetted" with Hegel's method.

[ckaihatsu]

Acording to trotksy, isn't dialectics the only thing that explains life as it is .. meaning as a process?


I'll suggest / proffer that the following diagram is structurally succinct on this topic -- one might take any two corresponding adjacent concepts from it in a dialectical way, for meaningful frameworks:


Universal Pattern of Organization of Living Systems and Viable Human Social Systems
(a cooperative project from Dec. 2012)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=8981&d=1355365441


http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2548017&postcount=167

[Tim Redd]

I'll suggest / proffer that the following diagram is structurally succinct on this topic -- one might take any two corresponding adjacent concepts from it in a dialectical way, for meaningful frameworks:


Universal Pattern of Organization of Living Systems and Viable Human Social Systems
(a cooperative project from Dec. 2012)

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2548017&postcount=167

Many important aspects of systems and interconnected systems are presented in this graphic.

[Tim Redd]

Is this ["Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" -TR] supposed to be an abstract first look or is it an "established model" on how reality functions? What I mean is that, is this supposed to be a mathematical model that tells us how things work that is to make the social phenomena calculable?

My "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics" paper lists various modern methods and tools for analyzing complex phenomena and behavior. The list does not suppose to be complete, but rather a run down of the more well known methods and tools. The paper suggests that in general we need to and thus should supplement and complement dialectics with the modern methods and tools for analyzing complex systems and contexts, such as those I listed and identified in "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics". There are other methods and tools for doing such analysis, but for a start, I identified those in the paper.

[ckaihatsu]

Many important aspects of systems and interconnected systems are presented in this graphic.


Btw, during my travels a year ago I came across a framework of sorts that I realize could simply be dropped into the framework at post #68 -- that of a person needing health, a home, and hope.

('Health' would precede consciousness and brainstorming, 'home' would include people and materials, and 'hope' would go with purpose / meaning and economic activity.)

[ckaihatsu]

---





The visible order of knowledge is changing, compelled by forces both internal and external to science. We have examined aspects of the external representation of science. But how is it that we come to order the sciences internally and the relations among them? It is one thing to find theories in the sciences, like the theories of physics and biology, and quite another thing to find how they relate to one another and, when taken all together, how they form a picture of reality. The problem of ordering knowledge is itself a problem in knowledge. It is deeply informed by our culture and our idea of reality.

Until the rise of empirical science, some three hundred years ago the architectonic of the natural sciences (natural philosophy), in accord with Aristotelian canons, was established by the logical relation of one science to another. Once a discipline was defined, its relation to other disciplines simply became a problem in logic. In the absence of scientific instruments all that reflective people could do in order to see reality was to use their minds and the logical order of thought that they found there. It should be no surprise that the medieval hierarchy of knowledge was established in accord with logical rather than empirical principles. With the rise of empirical science and the materialist outlook promoted by new instuments such as the telescope and microscope, the various sciences became ordered by reductionism or essentially by size. The properties of the small things determined the behavior of larger things. Physics, which dealt with the smallest entities, was thus the most fundamental science according to this scheme, then chemistry, biology, and so on up (or down) the ladder to psychology and sociology. This reductionist hierarchy, prevalent when I was a student, is still the dominant view held by most natural scientists today.

What the various sciences do has not altered its intent. What has changed is that we, in forming a picture of all the sciences in our mind, have appealed to new categories in organizing that picture, categories that are informed by new instrumentation.

Now that the computer has arrived -- the instrument of complexity -- we may begin to see the relation between various sciences in entirely new dimensions; for example, one such dimension might be the simplicity or complexity of a system, or whether or not the system is simulatable or unsimulatable.



Part of the reason for the great success of the natural sciences over the last few centuries is that they restrict their attention to simple natural systems with only a few conceptual components that can be held in the mind and be mentally managed. In view of the complexity of the world around us, it is utterly remarkable that the natural world admits a simple description in terms of simple physical laws. How is this possible?

The genius of Isaac Newtown first gave us the reason for this. According to Newton's mechanics, the world can be conceptually divided up into the "initial conditions," which specify the physical state of the world at some beginning time, and "physical laws," which specify how that state changes. The initial conditions are usually very complicated, a complication reflecting the complexity of the world in which we live. The natural laws, on the other hand, could be and are rather simple. This division -- simple laws and complicated initial conditions -- has been retained to the present day. In practice, one could only solve the equations that represent the simple physical laws for systems with simple initial conditions -- the firing of a projectile, the motions of the moon and planets.

For physical laws the equations had only a few variables that described qualitatively distinct features of the system -- the position of a planet, its velocity and acceleration. Some complex systems are distinguished from simple systems by the fact that many qualitatively distinct variables are needed to describe their behavior. For some complex systems like the brain or the world economy, the number of qualitatively distinct variables needed to describe their behavior may be in the hundreds of millions (we really don't know how many variables are needed -- that is part of the problem.)

Unlike the simple system of Newtonian physics, it is hard for the human mind to intuitively grasp what is going on in such a complex system with all its variables. According to the cognitive psychologist George Miller's famous estimate, the mind can hold at most 7 +/- 2 distinct items before its attention. A mind with such a low capacity for attention will never stand a chance grasping the behavior of a complex system with its hundreds of variables. With the aid of computers, however, we can begin to distill that complexity down to a humanly manageable amount of information so that we can apply our intuition to it and see what is going on. That distillation, however, is more an art than a science.

Scientists studying such complex systems have found an exciting alternative to all those thousands of variables. It turns out that for some complex systems there is an underlying simplicity -- only a few variables are really important. The interaction of a few components according to a set of rules can be shown to produce complex phenomena. Perhaps all those thousands of variables are only superficial, and at bottom things are very simple. But until that simplicity, if it exists, is uncovered we will have to manage complexity directly. Fortunately, because of the computer, that is now possible.




We see that the first impact of the computer as a research instrument is a "vertical" one -- a deepening of our grasp on existing problems within a scientific discipline. Using computers, physicists, chemists, and economists can tackle problems that they could not touch before simply because the computational power was not there. The new methods of analysis of complex systems apply not only to the natural sciences -- astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and the new medicine -- but to the social sciences as well -- economics, political science, psychological dynamics. Computers, because of their capacity to manage enormous amounts of information, are showing us new aspects of social reality.




Pagels, Heinz R., _The Dreams of Reason_, pp. 39-41

[ckaihatsu]

More 'dynamics'-oriented frameworks....




Leftism -- Want, Get

http://s6.postimg.org/ck1nuep69/2270260350046342459jii_Kc_V_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/kpjpskdf1/full/)




Ideologies & Operations -- Left Centrifugalism

http://s6.postimg.org/3si9so4xd/110211_Ideologies_Operations_Left_Centrifug.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/zc8b2rb3h/full/)




universal context

http://s6.postimg.org/6fg99lqpd/120407_universal_context_aoi_RENDER_sc_01_png_xc.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/fn8hqaxrh/full/)




philosophical abstractions

http://s6.postimg.org/cw2jljmgh/120404_philosophical_abstractions_RENDER_sc_12_1.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/i7hg698j1/full/)


For even more, see tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-diagrams-revleft.

Btw, for the thumbnail attachment image at post #68 (or any at RevLeft), one can always right-click and open the image in a new tab if the image isn't immediately accessible.

[Tim Redd]

According to Trotksy, isn't dialectics the only thing that explains life as it is .. meaning as a process?

The idea that things move in a process is not the sole ownership of dialectics. In many cases, other methods and approaches can be used to analyze the motion and development of things. Approaches such as complexity theory, sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, and more as stated in the OP - can be used to fruitfully explain the motion and development of things.

In some cases dialectics alone is sufficient to explain the motion and development of a thing or process and in other cases dialectics can supplement or complement a mostly non-dialectical approach to understanding reality.

[ckaihatsu]

I'll add that despite the 3-step 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis' model technically being a *misnomer* for the dialectic, it's actually rather handy and useful *in practice* -- consider the historical example given of the French Revolution:





In previous modern accounts of Hegelianism (to undergraduate classes, for example), especially those formed prior to the Hegel renaissance, Hegel's dialectic was most often characterized as a three-step process, "thesis, antithesis, synthesis"; namely, that a "thesis" (e.g. the French Revolution) would cause the creation of its "antithesis" (e.g. the Reign of Terror that followed), and would eventually result in a "synthesis" (e.g. the constitutional state of free citizens). However, Hegel used this classification only once, and he attributed the terminology to Kant. The terminology was largely developed earlier by Fichte. It was spread by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus in accounts of Hegelian philosophy, and since then the terms have been used as descriptive of this type of framework.

The "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" approach gives the sense that things or ideas are contradicted or opposed by things that come from outside them. To the contrary, the fundamental notion of Hegel's dialectic is that things or ideas have internal contradictions. From Hegel's point of view, analysis or comprehension of a thing or idea reveals that underneath its apparently simple identity or unity is an underlying inner contradiction. This contradiction leads to the dissolution of the thing or idea in the simple form in which it presented itself and to a higher-level, more complex thing or idea that more adequately incorporates the contradiction. The triadic form that appears in many places in Hegel (e.g. being-nothingness-becoming, immediate-mediate-concrete, abstract-negative-concrete) is about this movement from inner contradiction to higher-level integration or unification.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel#Triads


So the 3-step / triadic form may still be *useful*, as too the more-correct version of the dialectic, meaning 'internal contradiction':





(4) Contradiction

In the development of a natural thing, there is by and large no contradiction between the process of development and the way that development must appear.[9] So the transition from an acorn, to an oak, to an acorn again occurs in a relatively uninterrupted flow of the acorn back to itself again. When change in the essence takes place, as it does in the process of evolution, we can understand the change mostly in mechanical terms using principles of genetics and natural selection.

The historical process, however, never attempts to preserve an essence in the first place.[4] Rather, it develops an essence through successive forms.[4] This means that at any moment on the path of historical change, there is a contradiction between what exists and what is in the process of coming-to-be.[4] The realization of a natural thing like a tree is a process that by and large points back toward itself: every step of the process takes place in order to reproduce the genus. In the historical process, however, what exists, what is actual, is imperfect.[10] It is inimical to the potential. What is trying to come into existence - freedom - inherently negates everything preceding it and everything existing, since no actual existing human institution can possibly embody pure human freedom. So the actual is both itself and its opposite (as potential).[4] And this potential (freedom) is never inert but constantly exerts an impulse toward change.[4]




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

[Tim Redd]

So the 3-step / triadic form may still be *useful*, as [to] the more-correct version of the dialectic, meaning 'internal contradiction':

The triadic movement is not required to be present in order say that dialectics is present. And similarly internal contradiction is not required to be present to say that dialectics is present for a thing. That is because a thing may be involved in a contradiction between itself and some external entity rather rather than have a contradiction within itself. I address these issues in the papers "Forward with Revolutionary Dialectics" and "The External Nature of Things" at the below web site.

[ckaihatsu]

The triadic movement is not required to be present in order say that dialectics is present. And similarly internal contradiction is not required to be present to say that dialectics is present.


Can it be fashioned out of bronze, then, perhaps -- ?


= )

[Tim Redd]

Can it be fashioned out of bronze, then, perhaps -- ? = )

Perhaps addressing your latest post above, I'll add in bold to what I wrote earlier:

The triadic movement is not required to be present in order say that dialectics is present. And similarly internal contradiction is not required to be present to say that dialectics is present for a thing. That is because a thing may be involved in a contradiction between itself and some external entity rather, or in addition to having a contradiction within itself. I address these issues in the papers "Forward with Revolutionary Dialectics" and "The External Nature of Things" at the below web site.

[ckaihatsu]

I liked it better when I was being 'thanked', so here's the latest -- it's a doozy...!




labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

http://s6.postimg.org/nfpj758c0/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)

[Tim Redd]

I liked it better when I was being 'thanked', so here's the latest -- it's a doozy...!

labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'


How do your remarks and your spoiler relate to the OP?

[ckaihatsu]

How do your remarks and your spoiler relate to the OP?


Oh, okay -- so you're only interested in material that relates to *objective reality*.

Here's another batch, then:




[2] G.U.T.S.U.C., Simplified

http://s6.postimg.org/byrw1a1gx/2_G_U_T_S_U_C_Simplified.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/wvo45xzhp/full/)




Worldview Diagram

http://s6.postimg.org/qjdaikuwh/120824_Worldview_Diagram.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/axvyymiy5/full/)




Generalizations-Characterizations

http://s6.postimg.org/rtrvqqoz5/2714844340046342459_Quxppf_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/dakqpbvu5/full/)




Political Spectrum, Simplified

http://s6.postimg.org/eeeic5c6p/2373845980046342459jv_Mrd_G_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/c9u5b2ajx/full/)




Ideologies & Operations -- Bottom Up

http://s6.postimg.org/5xaenhi41/2150529830046342459_Ff_MHLX_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/kghjowb8t/full/)




Consciousness, A Material Definition

http://s6.postimg.org/567knh33l/2520219100046342459hj_Klk_C_fs.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/3r5zyr20d/full/)

[Tim Redd]

Oh, okay -- so you're only interested in material that relates to *objective reality*.

Yes I think every discussion regarding philosophical inquiry with respect to 1) the nature of reality, and 2) to the nature of how humans relate to that reality, should involve and be elucidated with respect to the concept of "objective reality".

Or better yet philosophical inquiry and discussion should involve and be elucidated with respect to the reality that exists whether or not realized by thought.