Question on the accuracy of dialectics

[Jacob Cliff]

I know dialectics is an analysis which sees change as the result of opposing theses. However, how does this apply to history? How does the result of opposing classes create a new ruling class, for example how does the conflict between the aristocracy and peasants in feudalism create the bourgeoisie?

Also, how does dialectics apply to nature or other things? Is it an iron law of nature?

[RedWorker]

This is historical materialism, not dialectics. The conflict in feudalism is between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, which creates capitalist society as capitalists, for supremacy, eliminate the very things which enables the aristocracy to exist.

[Jacob Cliff]

Is historical materialism not dialectics applied to history?

[RedWorker]

Maybe it was made with knowledge of dialectics. But it has none of the idealistic nonsense which has come to dominate so-called "dialectical materialism":

"My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. 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. 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.
In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary." (Marx)

[Jacob Cliff]

So what is Marx's dialectics, then? I know it's materialist-based and not idealist, but how does that differ? And I thought diamat and historical materialism were one in the same; why is diamat wrong?

[RedWorker]

Because 'dialectical materialism' is a big bunch of idealist nonsense that Marx never referenced.

[Jacob Cliff]

Okay, so then what's the premise of diamat and why is it wrong? I understand its not the same as historical materialsim, but then what is diamat?

[Creative Destruction]

So what is Marx's dialectics, then? I know it's materialist-based and not idealist, but how does that differ? And I thought diamat and historical materialism were one in the same; why is diamat wrong?

dude. you have an entire thread solely about this question:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/there-diff-between-t191832/index.html?t=191832&highlight=dialectical+materialism

again, many of the questions you're asking have been answered in other threads -- including ones you started. how often are you going back through the threads you start?

[Tim Redd]

This is historical materialism, not dialectics. The conflict in feudalism is between the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, which creates capitalist society as capitalists, for supremacy, eliminate the very things which enables the aristocracy to exist.

Application of both materialism and dialectics is the foundation of Marxist historical materialism. Most of the dynamics of historical materialism are based upon dialectics. However there are other forms of dynamics at play as well - complexity, complex adaptive systems, non-linear dynamics, chaos, object-orientation, etc.

So it's not like historical materialism is a theory of social developments divorced from various forms of dynamics, including perhaps predominantly, dialectical dynamics.

Philosophical materialism is a foundation of historical materialism and means that in its analysis of social development, historical materialism operates from the viewpoint that while theory and ideas can play significant roles, it is being that predominates overall when analyzing social development.

[Ravn]

I know dialectics is an analysis which sees change as the result of opposing theses

Change is the result of opposing forces.



. However, how does this apply to history? How does the result of opposing classes create a new ruling class, for example how does the conflict between the aristocracy and peasants in feudalism create the bourgeoisie?

The bourgeoisie was a rising class of merchants that came into conflict with the aristocracy, & became the dominant class that owns the means of production & the means of the means of production. What happens in society is the result of class struggle, i.e., opposition between socioeconomic groups. Historical Materialism is Dialectical Materialism applied to history.

People who call themselves revolutionaries who reject dialectics & tell you that it's bunk are stirring you wrong. Watch out! Checkout Dialectics of Nature, by Engels.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/EngelsDialectics_of_Nature_part.pdf

[Creative Destruction]

the dialectic contained in historical materialism isn't bunk. dialectical materialism is.

[John Nada]

the dialectic contained in historical materialism isn't bunk. dialectical materialism is.How is dialectic materialism bunk? All I see on the other thread is "Stalin bad." Yet it seems like Marx and all Marxists employ dialectics that's materialistic, even if Marx didn't spell it out as "diamat".

[Creative Destruction]

How is dialectic materialism bunk? All I see on the other thread is "Stalin bad."

Then you didn't actually read the thread. I have a response in there that doesn't even attribute diamat to Stalin himself, nor did I use that reasoning when addressing it. You should try a little bit harder to understand what's being put in front of you.


Yet it seems like Marx and all Marxists employ dialectics that's materialistic, even if Marx didn't spell it out as "diamat".

As I explained in the other thread, dialectical materialism is a theory of "everything." It comes from Engels, yes, but was formalized by Stalin, after Lenin expanded on it. The problem is that it isn't a scientific look at everything. It's idealistic in the sense that it sought to cram the entirety of the natural world into a particular framework, when the natural world doesn't work like that. It's similar to religious explanations for natural phenomena that someone doesn't fully understand. Aside from the fact that it is completely unnecessary, it is also wrong. Engels (and Lenin) tried addressing topics that were completely outside of their range and tacking an ideological tag on them.

Marx's dialectic -- historical materialism -- applies strictly to social structures, social movement, and history. It's not a theory of everything. It's a scientific look at something that Marx (and Engels) knew about very intimately. The only thing that you can look at other scientific fields, and apply a dialectical analysis to, is how the social course of those fields were influenced. But that's not what dialectical materialism does. If there is a chemist or a physicist that comes along and looks at the entirety of their field and tries to develop a conclusion that resembles something like a dialectic, then that's fine and I'd be interested in reading that. However, how the Soviets utilized this backwards approach of looking at and researching things in the natural world ultimately leads to some extremely fatal (literally) conclusions, and conclusions that went unchanged for years because they conformed to a diamat conception of things like agronomy.

I don't think Engels had a jealousy of Marx or anything, but I think he was wanting to carve out his own place in the world of Marxism (especially post-Marx Marxism) and ended up making some really big missteps. On The Origins of the Family was good, but needed refinement. He should've put his energies into following that line. The problem is when you take these writings as dogma, as Lenin and Stalin did. Marx's arguments work because they can be shown to have happened and you can go back and trace through his argumentation and relate it back to the system as it is. That's why they're convincing. They're not right because Marx says so. Just as well, diamat isn't right just because Engels said so or Lenin said so.

The Dialectics of Nature is an interesting book, and contains some interesting insights, but it's not thorough and it isn't exhaustive. Basing an entire theory of everything on it, as Lenin and Stalin did, is unscientific and bunk.

[Thirsty Crow]

There's this fundamental confusion surrounding "dialectics", especially in relation to dynamic analysis and change in general. The basic point of confusion is that "non-dialectical materialism" can't account for change and is fundamentally static in that it operates with fixed notions and regards things and human relations as immutable. The criticism of the principle of non-contradiction flows from this.

This is far off the mark. The dialectics found in dialectical materialism - in Engels' Dialectics of Nature for instance - is straight lifted from Hegel with a supposed "materialist inversion". Only that this inversion never happened, at least not in canonical works of this tradition. For instance, the (in)famous three laws are word by word copied from Hegel, who in the first place managed to come up with them as part of his project of realizing idealism (or, in other words, of restoring metaphysics to its former glory after the blow of the Enlightenment in general, and Kantianism in particular, and moreover with the express purpose of perfecting it as absolute idealism). The same holds true for the conception of dialectical contradiction and the concomitant criticism of the principle of non-contradiction. The latter is a minimal, and necessary condition of any kind of materialism - which doesn't mean that materialism postulates harmony as some inherent principle of the world (as dialecticians would like us to believe). By "latter" I mean the principle, not its criticism.

What is especially confusing is that the term "dialectical" can be, and indeed is used in an altogether different sense from the philosophical one Engels, for instance, subscribed to (and with him the entire diamat and Western Marxist traditions). This down to earth sense simply indicates such relationships where A affects B which leads to a reaction on behalf of B which affects A and so on. For instance, a change in organic composition of capital affecting the working class in such a way that subsequent development brought by the working class affects capital. This is perfectly fine, and not only that - it is necessary to grasp how this kind of interconnection actually works. Unfortunately, no philosophy of everything can help us here.

Pretty much the same can be said of the use of "contradiction". In its reasonable variant, this is used to indicate structural conflict, and class antagonism in particular. But this contradiction will not be superseeded and replaced by another contradiction of the same kind "on a higher level" - and neither do the proletariat and the bourgeoisie "mutually interpenetrate", much less turn into one another.

In its other variant, contradiction becomes internal contradiction, which enables people to conclude that motion itself is contradictory (echoing that bad wordplay and conceptual confusion, Zeno's paradox) and that A is and is not itself at the same time. As foolish it sounds, the latter is actually a principle of diamat. This is coherently developed and makes sense for the project of absolute idealism, but when it is passed off as a higher form of materialism it becomes nothing more than a farce and a testament to the vitality and strength of that Trojan horse within Marxist theory.

As for Marx's dialectics. One tricky part of it concerns the method of exposition of discourse in Capital (for instance, the fact it proceeds from the "cell of bourgeois society", the commodity form), and another down to earth aspect concers the historical drive behind analysis and recognition of particular kind of interconnections in human history - antagonist ones based on material production of life.

[ckaihatsu]

[H]ow the Soviets utilized this backwards approach of looking at and researching things in the natural world ultimately leads to some extremely fatal (literally) conclusions, and conclusions that went unchanged for years because they conformed to a diamat conception of things like agronomy.


I think we need to differentiate between 'theory' and 'practice' -- and dialetical materialism (in my understanding) isn't even a *theory*, it's more like a 'framework', like the dialectic itself, or a 'cognitive tool'.

So, as with *any* tool, we have to distinguish between the tool and how it's actually used in the real world.

I can't speak to the historical specifics of agronomy, but it may very well be that that application of 'dialectical materialism' was not done particularly well, by the Soviets.

[Creative Destruction]

I think we need to differentiate between 'theory' and 'practice' -- and dialetical materialism (in my understanding) isn't even a *theory*, it's more like a 'framework', like the dialectic itself, or a 'cognitive tool'.

So, as with *any* tool, we have to distinguish between the tool and how it's actually used in the real world.

I can't speak to the historical specifics of agronomy, but it may very well be that that application of 'dialectical materialism' was not done particularly well, by the Soviets.

Frameworks can be contained within theories. You can have an independent framework, but it is usually useless on its own. You typically need theoretical principles to understand how the framework works or what to do with it. Take Marx's framework around looking at surplus value and crisis. His theory was that there is a tendency for the profit rate to fall and he demonstrated that with his framework. But when Okishio and the Keynesian Marxists took that framework and discarded the TFTPRTF, and applied their own non-dialectic theory to it, the framework completely fell apart and they concluded it was wrong because it didn't fit in with their theories.

[ckaihatsu]

In its other variant, contradiction becomes internal contradiction, which enables people to conclude that motion itself is contradictory [...] and that A is and is not itself at the same time. As foolish it sounds, the latter is actually a principle of diamat.


This principle of diamat makes perfect sense and can be readily understood if we just *temporize* it -- how can 'A' be 'A' and 'not-A' at the same time -- ?

It's because *time* exists, and, for any given moment, 'A' both exists *and* is being transformed into 'not-A' by external conditions as time progresses forward.

As an illustrative aside, I've been using the following as my current email .sig:


--
___

RevLeft.com -- Home of the Revolutionary Left
tinyurl.com/ckaihatsu-revleft

Photoillustrations, Political Diagrams by Chris Kaihatsu
postimage.org/ckaihatsu

CouchSurfing:
www.couchsurfing.org/people/ckaihatsu/


-- Stepped in the same river twice --


Note that the tagline 'Stepped in the same river twice' is a bit of levity based on the understanding that no *river* can be exactly the same for any two moments since it's obviously always flowing and changing its configuration of matter as a result of its ceaseless motion.

A river is a *perfect* example of being both 'A' and 'not-A'.

[ckaihatsu]

Frameworks can be contained within theories. You can have an independent framework, but it is usually useless on its own. You typically need theoretical principles to understand how the framework works or what to do with it.


Okay, no argument.

(We might say that frameworks and theories are dialectically *related*.) (But then is the dialectic itself a framework or a theory -- ?) (Arrrrrrrrrgh!) (grin)





Take Marx's framework around looking at surplus value and crisis. His theory was that there is a tendency for the profit rate to fall and he demonstrated that with his framework. But when Okishio and the Keynesian Marxists took that framework and discarded the TFTPRTF, and applied their own non-dialectic theory to it, the framework completely fell apart and they concluded it was wrong because it didn't fit in with their theories.


I'll note that the TFTPRTF is really more of *theory* than a skeletal-like *framework*, to be technical. (From the above it would follow that you can't have one without the other -- that either has to be internally self-consistent.)

[Creative Destruction]

I'll note that the TFTPRTF is really more of *theory* than a skeletal-like *framework*, to be technical. (From the above it would follow that you can't have one without the other -- that either has to be internally self-consistent.)

Well, yeah, that's what I said. TFTPRTF was Marx's theoretical reasoning for crisis in capitalism. He had a dialectical framework in Capital which demonstrated this to be the case, but when they took that dialectical framework and put in their own theories on crisis, rooted in Keynes, then the dialectical framework fell apart. TFTPRTF (which they had assumed to be flawed from the start, because itself relies on dialectics, of which they ignored) was what made that framework hold together. Their response was to discard the framework and the theory and substitute their own, or work on making Marx "coherent" inside their structures. Which they were never able to convincingly do.

[Thirsty Crow]

This principle of diamat makes perfect sense and can be readily understood if we just *temporize* it -- how can 'A' be 'A' and 'not-A' at the same time -- ?

It's because *time* exists, and, for any given moment, 'A' both exists *and* is being transformed into 'not-A' by external conditions as time progresses forward.

Still doesn't make one iota of sense.

Aristotle for instance used the term "substance" to refer to features of things which can't undergo change for us to be able to speak of the same thing/substance. For instance, a horse can have one leg chopped off, different hue of "hair" (my English is failing me help!), even by virtue of a genetic mishap a third eye. Still, it is a horse. Similarly, the horse at point A can be still and at point B running. It is still "A", a horse. Even if cellular degradation or what have you entails that one can fancifully speak of the young horse as dying (from birth no less), this doesn't help you and sure as hell cannot be taken to sensibly entail that a young horse is also a horse carcass at the same time (or in any interval of time when the damn horse still lives).

Even so, your argument neglects that the principle I speak of is that at the same time - A is and is not A. This is the foundation of that nonsensical view of motion as "self-contradictory". You're basically proposing temporizing the principle - but then there is no such principle left standing.

[ckaihatsu]

[T]his [...] cannot be taken to sensibly entail that a young horse is also a horse carcass at the same time (or in any interval of time when the damn horse still lives).

Even so, your argument neglects that the principle I speak of is that at the same time - A is and is not A. This is the foundation of that nonsensical view of motion as "self-contradictory". You're basically proposing temporizing the principle - but then there is no such principle left standing.


You're misinterpreting the dialectic by attempting to *remove* it from the reality of time and motion -- see (1)(b):





Marx develops a comprehensive, theoretical understanding of political reality early in his intellectual and activist career by means of a critical adoption and radicalization of the categories of 18th and 19th century German Idealist thought. Of particular importance is Hegel's appropriation of Aristotle's organicist and essentialist categories in the light of Kant's transcendental turn.[2]

Marx builds on four contributions Hegel makes to our philosophical understanding. They are: (1) the replacement of mechanism and atomism with Aristotelean categories of organicism and essentialism, (2) the idea that world history progresses through stages, (3) the difference between natural and historical (dialectical) change, and (4) the idea that dialectical change proceeds through contradictions in the thing itself.

(1) Aristotelian Organicism and Essentialism

(a) Hegel adopts the position that chance is not the basis of phenomena and that events are governed by laws.[3] Some have falsely attributed to Hegel the position that phenomena are governed by transcendent, supersensible ideas that ground them. On the contrary, Hegel argues for the organic unity between universal and particular.[4] Particulars are not mere token types of universals; rather, they relate to each other as a part relates to a whole. This latter has import for Marx's own conception of law and necessity.

(b) In rejecting the idea that laws merely describe or independently ground phenomena, Hegel revives the Aristotlean position that law or principle is something implicit in a thing, a potentiality which is not actual but which is in the process of becoming actual.[4] This means that if we want to know the principle governing something, we have to observe its typical life-process and figure out its characteristic behavior. Observing an acorn on its own, we can never deduce that it is an oak tree. To figure out what the acorn is - and also what the oak tree is - we have to observe the line of development from one to the other.




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

[Thirsty Crow]

Point 3) is blatantly false - natural development is just as "dialectical" for absolute idealism as is historical development. Point a) not only is false, but false in a noble way - following an entire century and more of disastruous intepretation which is philologically bankrupt (next thing I'm gonna be told that the secret of Hegel's philosophy was atheism). It is indeed the case that material phenomena are governed by supersensible forces, at least when Hegel is concerned.

Apart from that, I dunno, I made my point and there's no sense in continuing with this.

[ckaihatsu]

Point 3) is blatantly false - natural development is just as "dialectical" for absolute idealism as is historical development.


You're talking apples-and-oranges since (3) isn't concerned at all with 'absolute idealism'.

'Absolute idealism' wouldn't even *apply* to natural (nature) development since idealism is concerned with the realm of abstract *ideas* -- a human-societal *overlay* to actual empirical social existence, something that doesn't exist in the realm of nature.





Point a) not only is false, but false in a noble way - following an entire century and more of disastruous intepretation which is philologically bankrupt (next thing I'm gonna be told that the secret of Hegel's philosophy was atheism).




It is indeed the case that material phenomena are governed by supersensible forces


It boils down to how one 'slices' it, or the relative scale of the observer, since *macro*-level processes are readily described by the dynamics of *physics* and physical principles. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, applies to *non*-human-scale phenomena that are subatomic in size.





, at least when Hegel is concerned.

Apart from that, I dunno, I made my point and there's no sense in continuing with this.

[Tim Redd]

Change is the result of opposing forces.

Change is not only due to opposing forces. There are a number of dynamics apart from dialectics that are responsible for the motion and development of things, events and state of affairs.

I explain this in the paper "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics". Of which a summary is here: Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics (http://www.revleft.com/vb/beyond-dialectics-dynamics-t190438/index.html)

Revolutionary communists will be unable to fully grasp and formulate appropriate situational strategy and tactics if we see dialectics as the only engine and form of change.

[Tim Redd]

Note that the tagline 'Stepped in the same river twice' is a bit of levity based on the understanding that no *river* can be exactly the same for any two moments since it's obviously always flowing and changing its configuration of matter as a result of its ceaseless motion.

A river is a *perfect* example of being both 'A' and 'not-A'.

Good point.

[Ravn]

Change is not only due to opposing forces.

Change *is* due to opposing forces in phenomena**. Otherwise everything would be static & evidently that's not the case at all.



**All phenomena not just in social interactions. DM is a reflection of how objective reality actually is.

[Tim Redd]

Change *is* due to opposing forces in phenomena**. Otherwise everything would be static & evidently that's not the case at all.


**All phenomena not just in social interactions.
DM is a reflection of how objective reality actually is.

You assert that all change is due to opposing forces, but I've demonstrated how change is also the result of various other kinds dynamics in: Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics (http://www.revleft.com/vb/beyond-dialectics-dynamics-t190438/index.html).

Dialectics drives some, it not most, major changes and other dynamics drive other non-major and major changes. And in many situations change is driven by a combination of dialectics and the other forms of dynamics, which I point out in the above mentioned paper.

[Thirsty Crow]

Change *is* due to opposing forces in phenomena**. Otherwise everything would be static & evidently that's not the case at all.



**All phenomena not just in social interactions. DM is a reflection of how objective reality actually is.
Easy there Mr. Mystic, colors are your thing I know but still they're not easy on the eyes-which-don't-turn-into-their-opposite.