Is dialectics really even necessary for Marxism?

[Jacob Cliff]

The late comrade Redstar2000 published a very compelling series of essays (http://http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/index.htm) which state that implementing dialectics into Marxist methodology was a mistake – that they're unneeded, mystifying, metaphysical and ultimately not even necessary. His "brief" introduction (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm), which I have read, even seems to tear dialectics apart.

It honestly doesn't seem something important to Marxism, and surely Marxism can do without it. Is it time we put dialectics into the trashcan of history? Admit that, even as Marxists, Leninists, etc., these people were wrong in this regard?

Perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps RedStar2000 was mistaken – but really, the convoluted explanations of dialectics and the fuzziness of what it even implies in context only seems, to me, to reaffirm antidialectics.

[Tim Cornelis]

Marxism purged of dialectics is Analytical 'Marxism', and it is terrible, and not even Marxist. Read 'MARXISM AND THE DIALECTICAL METHOD A critique of G.A. Cohen by Sean Sayers'. You're citing Rosa Lichtenstein, not RedStar2000 also? :confused: I was going to read it, being interested in a new perspective, but Rosa Lichtenstein doesn't understand dialectics, as I recall from briefly glancing over their anti-dialectics page (like why does a cat not turn into a dog, right....)

I'm reading 'why revolutionaries cling to DM' and it's laughable how bad it is.

Constantly making connections that aren't there, or can't be made. I'm not going to bother refuting it point by point, as it'd be exhaustive. I think reading the above article already indirectly shows some of the ridiculousness of it.

[Sentinel]

^ Redstar2000 did vehemently support Rosas anti-dialectical theories though, and often posted on the topic. A few of his Papers, which he collected from discussions here and elsewhere were dedicated to the matter.

I remember some heated arguments he was involved in, which one could probably find with a search in the Philosophy forum - from around 2005-6, about the last year before he became ill, which was my own first year here.

I think he also linked to Rosas homepage in his signature at some point.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I'm reading through the brief introduction to her(I suppose she's a woman with that name, not a "his" as described by MarxianSocialist) work and I'm finding a few things just in the beginning to have to give pause because it seems she doesn't understand some basic physics. I'm no physicist so I may not be the best to argue these points but from the little that I do understand them dialectics fits into the natural world, accurately describes it.

For example she berates Engels for thinking that motion is a contradiction, saying that it's ridiculous to think that the volume of an object can possibly expand because of motion. Hasn't she heard of e=mc squared? The mass of a body will increase or decrease depending on the energy of the motion of the object. While you're running you weigh more than when you're sitting down, the "volume" of the object "expands" depending on motion.

Right after she talks about how DM is imposed upon nature instead of DM coming from an observance of nature in the most unscientific manner and by getting hung up on semantics. She says how dare Engels make the claim that it's inconcievable for matter to not have motion, he should say that we have no evidence to support the fact that matter is not always in motion(yes even a table sitting there has motion, you'll never be able to make the atoms in a table stop moving, you can only slow them down. Or as Rosa might put it, we have no scientific evidence to suggest that we could but that doesn't mean it can't!). In other words if Engels wants to be scientific he must say that we've never found matter to have no motion instead of saying something that has always been scientifically proven to be true is true, that matter always has motion. Right after she says it's not inconcievable Engels, it had been concieved by Aristotle's physics! Okay that may be true but the reason one might say it's inconcievable now is because Aristotle's physics have been ditched because they didn't properly describe the world. Aristotle didn't understand motion, energy, gravity, etc, like we know now. So it's inconcievable with the world we now know for matter not to have motion and we don't have any reason to believe that exists in nature. We've come far since having to rely on Aristotle for physics with Galileo, Newton, Einstein, etc, etc, why would Rosa fall back on philosophy in physics that don't have scientific bases? So yes, with a little bit of research it's not far fetched to say that matter always has motion and if there's motion there will always be matter. Until the day comes where scientists can make matter motionless (and they've been trying for decades now and they always fail to my knowledge) we need to stick with what is actually observable in nature. All matter has motion. Just because people concieve of things doesn't mean we give their ideas credit for describing reality. It's like saying a flying spaghetti monster is inconcievable and someone jumps in saying, "no it's not, look, a book with a flying spaghetti monster." Okay fine, good one, you won that semantic argument flying spaghetti monster person but let's get real...

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I've never fully understood the relationship between the theory of dialectics (in terms of motion; unity of opposites; and the negation of the negation) on the one hand, and their practical application to anything on the other hand.

Is it not possible to arrive at the idea of historical materialism without the dialectical method in the first place? And, once we have historical materialism as our base and a developed understanding of the social forces that propel historical change and class warfare over time, we have the basis of a political philosophy; once we have this political philosophy, we can then take political action from there...

[Thirsty Crow]

Marxism purged of dialectics is Analytical 'Marxism', and it is terrible, and not even Marxist.
Not really true.

Unless I'm oblivious to what I accept as a theoretical framework. And the thing is analytical Marxism is no such framework at all. Not that Marxism needs another infusion of dandy high theory, but yeah many Marxists would need a good dose of no bullshit criticisim with regard to their ideological baggage.

Not to get into all of the stuff about Rosa (whose site is a gold mine, yeah I said it), but yes, dialectics is "applicable" in such a way that it enables people to talk whatever the hell they want. As is the case with most metaphysical and theological doctrines.

[Rafiq]

which I have read, even seems to tear dialectics apart.

There is no such thing as Marxism without dialectics. One cannot simply "do away" with dialectical logic, for the logical conclusion of the abandonment of dialectics is an insistence on qualifying everything as having always existed, owing its origins to some kind of primordial past, and so on.

But dialectics is not some formal dogma, that entails rules of logic that can be criticized or accepted, it is a logic that is wrought from a much wider scientific process. The reason arguments against dialectics seems so compelling is that following the emergence of post-modernism, the philosophic, theoretical and intellectual substance of not only Marxists but society at large was seemingly wiped clean (save for surviving schools of critical theory). The arguments against dialectics posited, are so juvenile, crass and shocking beyond belief that often time one gets the impression they are living in some strange limbo where this can be passed off as actual theory. The criticism of dialectics as employed by Rosa, is so simplistic that one wonders if they constitute a mere introduction, a surface which is hiding some other, deeper, thorough and provoking criticism. But this criticism does not exist. That is because Rosa, among others, have attacked a dialectics which has been ossified formally so as to be translatable in the language of formal logic. But dialectics is not subsumed by formal logic, formal logic is subsumed by dialectics.

But we shouldn't blame the anti-dialeticians. They are really just reacting to the death of dialectical thought and the survival of dialectics as some formal, metaphysical doctrine. Every time your typical Marxist (and people like Redstar, and Rosa, are not at the least up to date as it concerns contemporary Marxist theory, i.e. critical theory, so bear that in mind), in the postmodern epoch, most especially from the 90's onward spoke of dialectics, they were speaking of pure nonsense. Dialectics became a meaningless buzzword that was used for the sole reason of justifying what was a predisposition to mysticism following the counter-culture. Cursed all those pseudo-Marxists who thought dialectical thought has its origins in some ancient thought system, the "yin and yang" and whatever. That is total bullshit. If you don't understand dialectics, it's because you don't understand it - THERE IS something to be understood, and never let the philistines who cannot understand it tell you otherwise. I mean, honestly, find the least common denominator to such criticisms - it's that "We don't need it, it's not useful". This is wrought from nothing more than a baseless confidence in their own ignorance.

But in a sense, Rosa was infinitely closer to being a dialetician than many 'Marxists'. In fact Rosa should be commended. At least she violently opposed disgusting philistines like Chomsky and acutely recognized their idealism. But she did not take her "anti-dialectical" criticisms far enough. Let me say, before anything: Most of the time, in quarrels between dialeticians and 'anti-dialeticians' AS OF VERY RECENTLY, the latter are correct in the context of the argument.

Dialectics is not a 'thing'. It does not refer to some metaphysical thing. It refers to the ability for human thought to conceive processes of qualitative change (the changing of one thing to another), and NOTHING MORE. Saying "because dialectics" is meaningless. Dialectics does not explain anything. Dialectical logic is nothing more than the logic which supersedes formal logic, it is not some ossified dogma.

Do you notice something, Marxian? Every "compelling" argument against dialectics always refers to arguments relating to physical and natural controversies!

Let's take one of the most visible criticisms employed by Rosa:

For example, a car could be parked half in, half out of a garage. Here the car is in one and the same place and not in it, and it is in two places at once (in the garage and in the yard), even while it is at rest relative to a suitable frame of reference.

In that case, this alleged 'contradiction' does not distinguish moving from stationary bodies. So, this 'contradiction' has more to do with ambiguity than it has with anything in material reality.

Of course, is Rosa wrong? She is not, but what she employs is essentially a non-argument. Engels's, admittedly, questionable flirtations with metaphysics were never purported to be sufficient unto themselves. That is to say, one can understand the logic of mechanical motion as much as bourgeois society demands it without dialectics. Neither Engels, nor any other actual Marxist has argued otherwise. The only real evidence we need, of course, is that bourgeois science exists and is employed in very practical ways - all without any use of dialectical reasoning. This is just as true for our time, as it was for Engels's time.

Yet the crime Rosa commits is that of empiricism (Althusser). Rosa does not distinguish the apprehension of phenomena, with the actual phenomena themselves to this end - dialectics is above all a kind of logic, it is NOT a kind of metaphysics. Any interpretation of natural, or mechanical processes through dialectical logic is sustained by the substrate of the actual processes of thought that which dialectics is wrought: An understanding of the social (historical) dimension, and subsequently, the dimension of consciousness. This refers to the means by which things are qualified not in-themselves, as sufficient-unto-themselves, but in their relationship to other things, that which they are contingent upon. THAT is the point of dialectics.

Anti-dialectical arguments seem compelling because they create straw men that are easy to destroy. Like I want you to think: Do you actually think Marx and Engels claimed that physical motion or movement is impossible to understand with formal logic? That amounts to the contention that according to Hegelians, non-dialeticians cannot wrap their head around the idea of a car moving, a person walking, and so on. So obviously that's quite easy to dispel - and Rosa is overly pretentious for that reason: Her arguments are common sense arguments which any child can understand. She simply, as any good Hegelian can understand, has no notion of what the word 'motion' means in the context of dialectical logic - which refers to qualitative change. But of course, this goes back to her insistence on the 'ambiguity' of how such words are used in Hegel and in other thinkers. People like Redstar and Rosa confuse their inability to read Hegel, with the substance of Hegel himself.

Let's go back to her car argument, in relation to Engels's, which she references:

A]s soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence on one another[,] [t]hen we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction: even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body at one and the same moment of time being both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continuous assertion and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is

What Rosa misunderstands from Engels here, in relation to the car argument, is what Engels means by "being both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it".

What Rosa fails to understand is conceiving the process of motion itself here, AS MOTION, AS change in itself - it is no wonder that she continues her argument by claiming that Engels attempts to claim that this change is occurring somehow "outside of time" (The point being that one can very well understand motion without contradiction simply by measuring the time this motion occupies - which is itself a very stupid argument, because time is merely a means of measurement of such changes, time does not proceed change, time is the means by which we attempt to measure change) and why? Because the common sense rebuttal to the notion that (mechanical) motion entails contradiction "a body at one and the same moment of time is being both in one place and in another place", is that one can conceive the specific spaces themselves that which the object is occupying at a singe, given time IN THE COURSE OF ITS MOVEMENT as having no contradiction whatsoever. This is why she uses the parked car example - if a car is half parked in a garage, there is no contradiction here.

But what of the process of a car moving into the garage? The point is simple: In order for us to qualify the car using basic reasoning, we have to conceive the motion itself in terms of the fixed places it occupies. So saying this motion itself constitutes a contradiction, insofar as we conceive the relationship between the the moving body (the car) and the space it occupies, is meant to subsume the formalist conception of motion itself which is so common sense and simplistic, not replace it. That is to say, for Engels, a new category in conceiving mechanical motion is purported: And it is the category of the motion itself, that which our very basic use of formal logic to understand is a secondary reflection of, in practical terms, that Engels speaks is only conceivable in terms of contradiction.

The point is that for dialeticians, IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THIS METAPHOR, formal logic will never be able to conceive or qualify motion itself, only a frozen picture from wider processes of motion. Which in practical terms does not make a difference in many cases - cars included. You don't need dialectics to understand the speed of a car, or even the direct physical processes which allow the car to move in the first place. But cars, and processes of history itself, you know, those which transform not only the constitutive social antagonism but also the domain of consciousness and thought in the first place, are quite different things. That's why cars here are being used to illustrate a wider point, which is not about cars. Without Communism, it doesn't make a fucking difference at all - it means nothing that processes of motion and change cannot be grasped if there is no presupposition of Communism.

Engels's contention is that formal logic will never provide us with a true understanding of the motion itself unto itself, and not simply as something reducible to its constitutive snapshots, related to each other by time. Engels's point? That processes of change outpace and displace our attempts to grasp them, with formal logic.

And Engels should be criticized for his dabbling in metaphysics. Or, more acutely, those who mis-interpret Engels to justify their won mysticism and metaphysical attachments should be ciriticzed. Because the stupidity of such arguments (such as those made by Engels) is that they provide a stepping stone to the ludicrous idea that a passive observer can simply through engaging in natural sciences, detect contradictions and that this would lead them to the employment and usage of dialectics. This is 100% bullshit, and anyone who ascribes to such an idea should be ridiculed. Dialectics IS STRICTLY RESERVED for Communists with the practical predisposition that is social self-consciousness.

And the reason is simple: Dialecticsi s wrought form conceiving processes of qualitative change. A car, no matter how it is moving, and no matter at what pace, or where, does not change qualitively. only at the onset of conceiving processes of social change, does one THEN understand nature in a dialectical way - and what this amounts to is NOT some new empirical insight, but an insight into the true, very real fragility of natural processes themselves: The insight of dialectics is that nothing exists unto itself, in order for a something to exist, regular processes that reproduce its existence ACTIVELY occur. This is only realized, truly felt, when those processes 'go wrong', with catastrophe, with something, which alters the qualitative nature of a thing. Things do not passively exist, not even a rock. Every thing is actively and constantly in motion, and we conceive this truth at the onset of conceiving processes of practical change, wherein the thing no longer reproduces that very same thing we qualified, but changes and becomes something entirely different. So let's take a cat. Rosa claims to dispel dialectical logic by demanding dialeticians to answer: "What processes of contradiction lead to the existence of a cat"? The point is simple: Insofar as the cat exists as a cat, it does not qualitatively change. It merely, ACTIVELY reproduces its existence, and gives us seemingly the same cat (where it counts, from the standpoint of the practical observer who qualifise cats in a practical way), as that which we qualified before. The reproduction of this cat, again, refers to processes of contradiction and change. BUT contradiction only becomes practically significant in conceiving processes of qualitative change, which do not refer to a cat (outside of its very inner, quantic constitution, but that is another argument we don't want to get into).

Dialectics has nothing to do with some panacea formula of 'thesis-synthesis-antithesis'. Processes of change are much more complex than this - thesis,antithesis and synthesis are at best bare bones attempts at in formal terms capturing change as conceived by dialectic.

And a comment here on Rosa should be made: The fact of the matter is that her crusade has led her to the most ridiculous conclusions, among which that 'dialectical theory' is responsible for the failure of 20th century Communism. Her engagement and rabid crusade against dialectics stems from her own cognitive dissonance in attempting to reconcile such notions with her purported Marxism - because she knows very well that one simply cannot remove dialectics from Marxism.


Perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps RedStar2000 was mistaken – but really, the convoluted explanations of dialectics and the fuzziness of what it even implies in context only seems, to me, to reaffirm antidialectics.

I have read Redstar's arguments against dialectics. They were not even close to being convincing. There is not one serious anti-dialetician on this planet who actually has a solid understanding of dialectics. If you read some of them, you will find that they even admit their ignorance by saying things like "It doesn't mean anything", and so on. Well it does. Woe to any philistine who cannot, based on nothing more than a righteous ignorance, understand this.

Dialectics is not some magic panacea you 'use' in substitute of formal reasoning. There are no formal dialectical laws or rules. I mean, if you read Hegel, THE BREAKTHROUGH provided by him is PRECISELY this - the abandonment of ANY such formalism. Dialectics cannot rear it's head, where it does not belong. it is the inevitable conclusion of social self-consciousness, conceiving and constituting SOCIAL and historical processes of change.

[ckaihatsu]

[M]atter is [...] always in motion(yes even a table sitting there has motion, you'll never be able to make the atoms in a table stop moving, you can only slow them down.


I'll note that all nominally 'motionless' objects on planet earth happen to be on a planet that's constantly hurtling through the universe at 1,000 miles per hour.





I've never fully understood the relationship between the theory of dialectics (in terms of motion; unity of opposites; and the negation of the negation) on the one hand, and their practical application to anything on the other hand.

Is it not possible to arrive at the idea of historical materialism without the dialectical method in the first place? And, once we have historical materialism as our base and




[Once we have] a developed understanding of the social forces that propel historical change and class warfare over time, we have the basis of a political philosophy; once we have this political philosophy, we can then take political action from there...


...And you've just described dialectical (historical) materialism and revolutionary class struggle.


= D

[Rudolf]

For example she berates Engels for thinking that motion is a contradiction, saying that it's ridiculous to think that the volume of an object can possibly expand because of motion. Hasn't she heard of e=mc squared? The mass of a body will increase or decrease depending on the energy of the motion of the object. While you're running you weigh more than when you're sitting down, the "volume" of the object "expands" depending on motion.

Btw, you jump from volume to mass to weight. It makes no sense.

I'd imagine running your mass would decrease. Your potential energy is converted into kinetic and thermal energy. You'll heat the ground up very slightly and thus as mass = energy / ~3.00*10^8 you'd have less mass as you'd have lost energy.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

...And you've just described dialectical (historical) materialism and revolutionary class struggle.


= D

Yet I gleaned my entire understanding from reading Marx and Engels' (and other Marxist theoreticians') texts on political economy, primitive economic works of Marx and other Marxist theoreticians, and from Marxist analyses of history through the prism of historical materialism.

Doesn't this prove, at least in my own case, that a direct understanding of dialectics is not necessary to understand historical materialism itself?

[Luís Henrique]

Doesn't this prove, at least in my own case, that a direct understanding of dialectics is not necessary to understand historical materialism itself?

How does "historical" materialism differ from non-historical materialism?

Luís Henrique

[RedMaterialist]

Btw, you jump from volume to mass to weight. It makes no sense.

I'd imagine running your mass would decrease. Your potential energy is converted into kinetic and thermal energy. You'll heat the ground up very slightly and thus as mass = energy / ~3.00*10^8 you'd have less mass as you'd have lost energy.

If you're in a spaceship and you accelerate and begin approaching the speed of light the mass of the spaceship will begin to increase. As you get closer to the speed of light the mass of the spaceship will begin to approach the mass of the universe, which is one reason faster than light travel is impossible.

Also, time will slow down as the spaceship gets bigger and moves faster. The mass of an object and the passage of time on that object will change depending only on the quantity of energy applied to the object.

If fact, if you put a clock on a satellite in orbit above the earth it will slow down relative to a synchronized clock on earth. That is why they have to adjust the clocks on the satellites to make sure the GPS systems work on earth. Dialectics in practice. This doesn't mean the GPS customers are aware they are using dialectics, but they do.

As Marx said about value and labor:


...whenever, by an exchange, we equate as values our different products, by that very act, we also equate, as human labour, the different kinds of labour expended upon them. We are not aware of this, nevertheless we do it.

[ckaihatsu]

Yet I gleaned my entire understanding from reading Marx and Engels' (and other Marxist theoreticians') texts on political economy, primitive economic works of Marx and other Marxist theoreticians, and from Marxist analyses of history through the prism of historical materialism.

Doesn't this prove, at least in my own case, that a direct understanding of dialectics is not necessary to understand historical materialism itself?


I guess what I was indicating with my observation is that, whether you *want* to or not, you're using the 'language' / framework of dialectics to describe historical development. (Which also happens to be 'correct', or a precise / accurate, and consistent way of describing human history.)

[Rudolf]

If you're in a spaceship and you accelerate and begin approaching the speed of light the mass of the spaceship will begin to increase. As you get closer to the speed of light the mass of the spaceship will begin to approach the mass of the universe, which is one reason faster than light travel is impossible.

Also, time will slow down as the spaceship gets bigger and moves faster. The mass of an object and the passage of time on that object will change depending only on the quantity of energy applied to the object. A stationary observer will see the spaceship undergo length contraction.

Also why are you telling me about energy-mass equivelance when i provided einstein's equation?



If fact, if you put a clock on a satellite in orbit above the earth it will slow down relative to a synchronized clock on earth. That is why they have to adjust the clocks on the satellites to make sure the GPS systems work on earth. Dialectics in practice. This doesn't mean the GPS customers are aware they are using dialectics, but they do.


How are you attributing the curvature of 4d spacetime to dalectics? That doesn't make sense. How is it 'dialectics in practice'? Im pretty sure if this was 150 years ago you'd be asserting the same but about newtonian physics. "This apple falls to the ground because dialectics!" not realising that the apple isn't falling to the ground the ground is moving up to the apple ;)

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

How does "historical" materialism differ from non-historical materialism?

Luís Henrique

I was of the understanding that there was a difference between dialectics as philosophy, and historical materialism as a methodology of the study of present and past societies.

[Rafiq]

I was of the understanding that there was a difference between dialectics as philosophy, and historical materialism as a methodology of the study of present and past societies.

There is no historical materialism without dialectics.

[RedMaterialist]

A stationary observer will see the spaceship undergo length contraction.

Also why are you telling me about energy-mass equivelance when i provided einstein's equation?



How are you attributing the curvature of 4d spacetime to dalectics? That doesn't make sense. How is it 'dialectics in practice'? Im pretty sure if this was 150 years ago you'd be asserting the same but about newtonian physics. "This apple falls to the ground because dialectics!" not realising that the apple isn't falling to the ground the ground is moving up to the apple ;)

I don't think I'm attributing spacetime to dialectics. I think spacetime is a confirmation of dialectics. I would have said 150 yrs ago that the apple and the earth moved toward each other because of the force of each other's gravity (possibly the interpenetration of opposites, applied to motion.)

Today, I say that the apple and the earth move toward each other because of the distortion made by each in spacetime. As far as the equivalence of energy and mass (motion and matter), isn't this a perfect example of the interpenetration of opposites?

The dialectics in practice was an attempt to explain that a change in quality (the time on a clock relative to a stationary clock), assuming that time is a quality, is due to an increase of energy (speed) applied to the clock.

What if you look at a modern economy? There are two basic types: micro and macro. Microeconomics applies to a "small" economy, macroeconomics to a "big" economy. Even the bourgeois economists admit (or most of them) that different mathematical models apply to each. But how to account for the difference? It seems reasonable to conclude that the only difference is quantitative. Or the difference between quantum mechanics and general relativity? One is for tiny objects the other for huge ones.

The best example for me is chemistry. The only difference between a hydrogen atom and a gold atom is the number of electrons, protons and neutrons (zero for hydrogen) contained in the atom. There is no such thing as a "gold" electron or a "hydrogen" proton. It's just a matter of quantity. [This also applies to isomers, but in a different way.]

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There is no historical materialism without dialectics.

So I must be the immaculate conception then.

The idea that a full understanding of dialectics is needed understand historical materialism is not true. That doesn't mean that I oppose dialectics directly, I just haven't studied it, and this hasn't hindered my ability to understand the social forces in society and the nature of class struggle today and in the past.

[Luís Henrique]

I was of the understanding that there was a difference between dialectics as philosophy, and historical materialism as a methodology of the study of present and past societies.

But what this precise methodology called "historical materialism" is? And how is it different from the methodology for the study of physics or biology?

Luís Henrique

[ckaihatsu]

At this point philosophy has almost as much baggage as religion does, so I'd say just get past whatever 'your' favorite flavor happens to be, and focus on what's best, *scientifically*, for the study of human history, as through various kinds of class societies.


Worldview Diagram



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

[Tim Cornelis]

this hasn't hindered my ability to understand the social forces in society and the nature of class struggle today and in the past.

How do you know?

You don't think it has hindered your ability to understand society. But why take your word for it?

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

At this point philosophy has almost as much baggage as religion does, so I'd say just get past whatever 'your' favorite flavor happens to be, and focus on what's best, *scientifically*, for the study of human history, as through various kinds of class societies.


Worldview Diagram


Godamnit ckaihatsu your graphs are hard to understand, if you do it for yourself it's fine, but you're sharing with us, you should make them easier to read.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

How do you know?

You don't think it has hindered your ability to understand society. But why take your word for it?

I am the revered demigod imhotep.

Plus if getting as far as I have gotten in my understanding is this exhausting, and then someone comes and tells me I still know nothing, then the revolution will just cause fatigue and jadedness rather than liberation. Only half-joking, too.

[ckaihatsu]

Godamnit ckaihatsu your graphs are hard to understand, if you do it for yourself it's fine, but you're sharing with us, you should make them easier to read.


Hmmmm, considering that there's no time pressure I don't see why you're so flustered about it -- just do what you can, at your own pace, and feel free to follow up with me with any questions you may have.

(Also, you can *click* on any of my illustrations to bring up a *larger* version -- then try clicking on *that* one for a full-size version, to download and look over in detail at your leisure.)

[Alet]

So I must be the immaculate conception then.

The idea that a full understanding of dialectics is needed understand historical materialism is not true. That doesn't mean that I oppose dialectics directly, I just haven't studied it, and this hasn't hindered my ability to understand the social forces in society and the nature of class struggle today and in the past.

So I would say that your understanding of historical materialism is either only formal and incomplete or - which is more likely, I guess - you actually do understand dialectics subconsciously due to your understanding of historical materialism. Because I don't quite get how one can comprehend historical materialism without dialectical materialism. I mean, even Stalin pointed out that the former derives from the latter - okay, he might not be an authority but my point is that historical materialism is already constituted by a philosophical basis.

[Jacob Cliff]

So I would say that your understanding of historical materialism is either only formal and incomplete or - which is more likely, I guess - you actually do understand dialectics subconsciously due to your understanding of historical materialism. Because I don't quite get how one can comprehend historical materialism without dialectical materialism. I mean, even Stalin pointed out that the former derives from the latter - okay, he might not be an authority but my point is that historical materialism is already constituted by a philosophical basis.
Then perhaps I do this – I do not recognize dialectical reasoning whilst employing it in analyses. I think (and hopefully this isn't overstepping my intellectual boundaries) I understand historical materialism full and well, so I may be just not recognizing dialectics for what it is. My problem is that most explanations of dialectics are obfuscating beyond belief – and only muddy up the topic more. I mean yes, I hear "dialectics is the science is change" a million times – but there seems to be no elaboration further than this besides some rigid "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" formula (which it seems even dialecticians reject), or some dry, circular text that makes little to no sense for non-philosophy majors.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Hmmmm, considering that there's no time pressure I don't see why you're so flustered about it -- just do what you can, at your own pace, and feel free to follow up with me with any questions you may have.

(Also, you can *click* on any of my illustrations to bring up a *larger* version -- then try clicking on *that* one for a full-size version, to download and look over in detail at your leisure.)It's how the brain works. There's too much to do and to read, if something is hard to understand quickly or at least see what's it about, I move on. In this particular graph even the simple words are hard to read.

[Rafiq]

My problem is that most explanations of dialectics are obfuscating beyond belief – and only muddy up the topic more.

Well, I will relate to you some of my own experience in conceiving dialectics.

First, you should know that most Marxists have no grasp of the dialectic. So most of the explanations you get are effectively their own confusions. People apraoch dialectics and do not understand it. So they attempt to interpret it in very simplistic and wrong-headed ways. In attempting to conceive the dialectic, it is best to ignore these people.

In my own experience, before (maybe two years ago?) I myself was very sympathetic to anti-dialectics rhetoric. My understanding of dialectics did not come from an ad hoc interpretation. It hit me like lightning, in all honesty, it hit me when I began to research and read Hegel what dialectics was, and as soon as I understood, many things became as clear as day.

It is hard to explain - dialectical reasoning forces one to view things very differently, but at the same time more thoroughly and deeply, it gives you a profound sense of freedom in feeling - like not being outpaced by motion, looking at events as though they are like a song, rather than a mere ossified description. It is this congruency with motion that makes one understand the dialectic.

I will admit we have failed to this end at teaching people the dialectic. I myself still must investigate how I learned it, because it was far from being clear. I suppose the minute I learned dialectics was the same minute that I attempted to understand a fundementally human question: How history actually defines humans, how humans, with an identical physiological constitution, can change and 'advance' so much. More specifically, dialectics was congruent with asking questions like: What is the relationship between history and the now? If something was Left-Wing 200 years ago, how could it be right wing today? How to properly live up, and inherit previous historical phenomena without copying or trying to re-enact them?

Through Hegel historical materialism became clear, and subsequently Marx's break with Hegel became clear. My only advice, unfortunately, is that you should not put an end to the 'dissonance' you have in your head. If you are confused, you have good reason to be confused, never settle for simplistic, easy ways out. Until you feel like you have resolved such internal conflicts in the most full, all-encompassing and relentless matter, do not stop fighting with yourself.

[RedMaterialist]

My problem is that most explanations of dialectics are obfuscating beyond belief – and only muddy up the topic more. I mean yes, I hear "dialectics is the science is change" a million times – but there seems to be no elaboration further than this besides some rigid "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" formula (which it seems even dialecticians reject), or some dry, circular text that makes little to no sense for non-philosophy majors.

What about the nuclear fusion process which takes place in a star like the Sun? Two protons, each positively charged, are forced together by gravity. At close enough range the repellant force of the positive charges is overcome by the attracting nuclear force within the nucleus of the hydrogen atoms. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%E2%80%93proton_chain_reaction)

The protons are then fused together into, ultimately, helium. A massive amount of energy is released, thus powering the star. The other elements are formed in essentially the same way until, finally, the heavier elements are produced and the star explodes in a supernova.

How is this not dialectics? Two opposing forces, the positive charge of the protons and the attractive force of the nuclear force, interpenetrate until the two hydrogen protons fuse. The whole process is driven by the quantitative change in the gravitational force exerted on the hydrogen protons. The two original hydrogen protons are negated to produce a helium atom which is then negated in the next step to produce lithium.

Engels said it would be relatively easy to show how dialectics works in the natural sciences, but for the social sciences it would harder without more mathematical precision. Also we know how bourgeois society suppresses any scientific treatment of sociology, economics, etc.

But dialectics may be creeping in, for instance, in economics. Take monetarism. It is nothing more than a purely quantitative way to understand and manage a huge, complex economy. Just lower and raise the prime interest rate to control the quantity of money in an economy. Until, of course, the next crash when it all becomes the fault of government interference in the economy.

On the other hand, dialectics should be able to predict things, which it can't do so far.

[Jacob Cliff]

What about the nuclear fusion process which takes place in a star like the Sun? Two protons, each positively charged, are forced together by gravity. At close enough range the repellant force of the positive charges is overcome by the attracting nuclear force within the nucleus of the hydrogen atoms. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton%E2%80%93proton_chain_reaction)

The protons are then fused together into, ultimately, helium. A massive amount of energy is released, thus powering the star. The other elements are formed in essentially the same way until, finally, the heavier elements are produced and the star explodes in a supernova.

How is this not dialectics? Two opposing forces, the positive charge of the protons and the attractive force of the nuclear force, interpenetrate until the two hydrogen protons fuse. The whole process is driven by the quantitative change in the gravitational force exerted on the hydrogen protons. The two original hydrogen protons are negated to produce a helium atom which is then negated in the next step to produce lithium.

Engels said it would be relatively easy to show how dialectics works in the natural sciences, but for the social sciences it would harder without more mathematical precision. Also we know how bourgeois society suppresses any scientific treatment of sociology, economics, etc.

But dialectics may be creeping in, for instance, in economics. Take monetarism. It is nothing more than a purely quantitative way to understand and manage a huge, complex economy. Just lower and raise the prime interest rate to control the quantity of money in an economy. Until, of course, the next crash when it all becomes the fault of government interference in the economy.

On the other hand, dialectics should be able to predict things, which it can't do so far.
And this is what I fail to see: how an understanding of the contradictions in nuclear fusion (or any other process in nature) has to do with understanding class conflict and communism. This seems to be belonging into that one camp of "dialectics" which takes some abstract formula and tries to wrap it around every single thing, which, at least from the minuscule amount of dialectics I do know, is certainly not the dialectical process of Hegel, or Marx's flipped version.

[Guardia Rossa]

It is hopeless to apply Dialectical Materialism to electrons, I do agree (And it has a weird and perverse positivistic pretension to natural science).

However, I too lack the knowledge and study of the matter required to give a solid example.

[RedMaterialist]

...of "dialectics" which takes some abstract formula and tries to wrap it around every single thing, which, at least from the minuscule amount of dialectics I do know, is certainly not the dialectical process of Hegel, or Marx's flipped version.

Hegel's dialectic is indeed an abstract formula intended to apply to, I think, all reality, but how could it be otherwise? Surely, Hegel didn't mean that the quantity/quality rule only applies to liquid water turning to steam?

We know that Newton's law of gravity applies not only to the earth, but also to the entire universe; Einstein's law of relativity applies to the entire universe; Darwin's law of evolution applies to every single living thing on earth. Why shouldn't the same apply to the logic of change? Unless you want to eliminate all philosophical analysis...?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

So I would say that your understanding of historical materialism is either only formal and incomplete or - which is more likely, I guess - you actually do understand dialectics subconsciously due to your understanding of historical materialism. Because I don't quite get how one can comprehend historical materialism without dialectical materialism. I mean, even Stalin pointed out that the former derives from the latter - okay, he might not be an authority but my point is that historical materialism is already constituted by a philosophical basis.

The question of understanding is always tricky; in educational circles there have been debates over what constitutes 'genuine' understanding - is it mere memory recall of facts or something deeper, like an inherent and analytical understanding?

I am going to presume that my understanding of historical materialism is incomplete since I have not read the entire back catalogue of Marxist philosophy. I have honestly never finished a work on dialectics.

[Tim Cornelis]

thesis-antithesis-synthesis is merely one form of Hegelian dialectics, it is not synonymous with dialectics. I'll try and write an accessible article on Marxistpedia, see if that helps. I personally don't see the need to focus on natural sciences, as most politically engaged people aren't interested in that.

[Tim Cornelis]

I've begun writing here:

http://marxistpedia.mwzip.com/wiki/Dialectics

It's under construction and a draft, but maybe the introduction bit already helps a bit.

[Comrade #138672]

Marxism purged of dialectics is Analytical 'Marxism', and it is terrible, and not even Marxist. Read 'MARXISM AND THE DIALECTICAL METHOD A critique of G.A. Cohen by Sean Sayers'. You're citing Rosa Lichtenstein, not RedStar2000 also? :confused: I was going to read it, being interested in a new perspective, but Rosa Lichtenstein doesn't understand dialectics, as I recall from briefly glancing over their anti-dialectics page (like why does a cat not turn into a dog, right....)

I'm reading 'why revolutionaries cling to DM' and it's laughable how bad it is.

Constantly making connections that aren't there, or can't be made. I'm not going to bother refuting it point by point, as it'd be exhaustive. I think reading the above article already indirectly shows some of the ridiculousness of it.Some of her examples are not so great, but she does, however, make a good case against the obscurity of dialectics in my view. I spent some time arguing against her and I found that to be the most compelling of her case.

I don't think it is accurate to say that Rosa Lichtenstein doesn't understand dialectics.

By the way, the link in the OP is outdated. She has updated some of her essays since then. I cannot give the link to her new website, though, because it appears to be blocked on RevLeft. Lol.

[RedMaterialist]

Dialectics is the logic of permanent change, permanent revolution. Before the 18th century most philosophy and science was based on the notion that society and nature were unchanging, permanent creations of god. We now know that the entire universe is in a permanent state of change; that all human society is the product of change and development caused by how people produce their own subsistence.

Two hundred yrs ago all of this would have been thought insane. Today most educated people accept Darwin's theory of evolution. Marxist historical materialism is, of course, banned in 99% of schools in the US.

Hegel says he intended to make philosophy a science and that the logic of that science would be dialectics. Philosophy is mostly ignored today, possibly because the philosophers refused to accept dialectics as the logic of philosophy.

A.N. Whitehead said that all western philosophy is a footnote to Plato. This is an explicit description of philosophy as unchanging, fixed, eternal, etc., rather than philosophy as a process of permanent revolution.

[Luís Henrique]

So, before this fades into unimportance, again,

What is the difference between "historical materialism" and vulgar bourgeois materialism?

This is a question that I have never seen an "anti-dialetician" be able to give a half-decent answer to.

Because if there is nothing especial in historical materialism, then we don't need Marxism. Locke, Smith, Weber, Comte, Menger, Walras, or Durkheim will be enough for a proper understanding of society.

But if there is something that makes a difference between "historical materialism" and the materialism of Locke and Stuart Mill or Malinowsky, then it would be necessary to make it real clear that this difference is not dialectics. As far as I see, nobody has ever been able to make this point, and I fear that the reason is exactly this: the specific difference of historical materialism is dialectics.

Luís Henrique

[Comrade #138672]

So, before this fades into unimportance, again,

What is the difference between "historical materialism" and vulgar bourgeois materialism?

This is a question that I have never seen an "anti-dialetician" be able to give a half-decent answer to.

Because if there is nothing especial in historical materialism, then we don't need Marxism. Locke, Smith, Weber, Comte, Menger, Walras, or Durkheim will be enough for a proper understanding of society.

But if there is something that makes a difference between "historical materialism" and the materialism of Locke and Stuart Mill or Malinowsky, then it would be necessary to make it real clear that this difference is not dialectics. As far as I see, nobody has ever been able to make this point, and I fear that the reason is exactly this: the specific difference of historical materialism is dialectics.

Luís HenriqueWhat is "vulgar bourgeois materialism" according to you?

[Luís Henrique]

And this is what I fail to see: how an understanding of the contradictions in nuclear fusion (or any other process in nature) has to do with understanding class conflict and communism. This seems to be belonging into that one camp of "dialectics" which takes some abstract formula and tries to wrap it around every single thing, which, at least from the minuscule amount of dialectics I do know, is certainly not the dialectical process of Hegel, or Marx's flipped version.

Simply put, class conflict and communism have absolutely nothing to do with "contradictions in nuclear fusion". Natural phenomena are not dialectical, or at least can be best understood without resorting to "dialectical" verbiage. As Marx says, Hegel's mistake was to believe that the process by which our intellect appropriate reality is the same process by which reality came into existence first place. So unless we are abandoning Marx and going back to Hegel, we should stay away from ontological "contradictions". But just like the process by which the real came into existence is not the same process through which we apprehend reality, the process by which we apprehend the real cannot be the same process by which the real was "created". Aprehending the real is a mental operation and it implies struggling against the opaqueness of reality. Knowledge is an active process, not a passive one. And "anti-dialectics" fails to understand this basic principle.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

What is "vulgar bourgeois materialism" according to you?

According to me? But why according to me?

Marx's Historical Materialism (Erich Fromm) (https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch02.htm)
WHAT'S MATERIAL ABOUT MATERIALIST FEMINISM? A MARXIST FEMINIST CRITIQUE (Martha E. Gimenez) (http://www.colorado.edu/Sociology/gimenez/work/rphil.html)
Between materialism and idealism: Marx on “sensuous activity” (Peter Sas) (http://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.com.br/2011/12/between-materialism-and-idealism-marx.html)

Oh, I know: Fromm, Gimenez and Sas are all examples of the Engels-Plekhanov-Lenin-Mao Zedong tradition of mystics and metaphysicians set forth by the bourgeoisie in order to allow Stalin to flip-flop and zig-zag in his politics. Except, of course, that they aren't, and that they are quite directly quoting Marx, not Engels or Plekhanov:


The main defect of all hitherto-existing materialism — that of Feuerbach included — is that the Object [der Gegenstand], actuality, sensuousness, are conceived only in the form of the object [Objekts], or of contemplation [Anschauung], but not as human sensuous activity, practice [Praxis], not subjectively. Hence it happened that the active side, in opposition to materialism, was developed by idealism — but only abstractly, since, of course, idealism does not know real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach wants sensuous objects [Objekte], differentiated from thought-objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective [gegenständliche] activity. In The Essence of Christianity [Das Wesen des Christenthums], he therefore regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and defined only in its dirty-Jewish form of appearance [Erscheinungsform]. Hence he does not grasp the significance of ‘revolutionary’, of ‘practical-critical’, activity.

This is far from being a secret; it is a quite well known text by Karl Marx, first published in 1888, so not exactly one of those manuscripts that Kautsky, Lenin, or Trotsky hadn't access to. It is also a very basic distinction: "materialism", in its pre-Marxist versions (Feuerbach included, as Marx very explicitly writes) conceives of knowledge as a contemplative process, not as an active one. To vulgar materialism, human activity is subjective, not objective, and, as a consequence, not material.

But it is a distinction that "antidialectics" (being, in the end, nothing else than a rehashed version of non-Marxist materialism) cannot deal with.

Luís Henrique

[Jacob Cliff]

Well, I will relate to you some of my own experience in conceiving dialectics.

First, you should know that most Marxists have no grasp of the dialectic. So most of the explanations you get are effectively their own confusions. People apraoch dialectics and do not understand it. So they attempt to interpret it in very simplistic and wrong-headed ways. In attempting to conceive the dialectic, it is best to ignore these people.

In my own experience, before (maybe two years ago?) I myself was very sympathetic to anti-dialectics rhetoric. My understanding of dialectics did not come from an ad hoc interpretation. It hit me like lightning, in all honesty, it hit me when I began to research and read Hegel what dialectics was, and as soon as I understood, many things became as clear as day.

It is hard to explain - dialectical reasoning forces one to view things very differently, but at the same time more thoroughly and deeply, it gives you a profound sense of freedom in feeling - like not being outpaced by motion, looking at events as though they are like a song, rather than a mere ossified description. It is this congruency with motion that makes one understand the dialectic.

I will admit we have failed to this end at teaching people the dialectic. I myself still must investigate how I learned it, because it was far from being clear. I suppose the minute I learned dialectics was the same minute that I attempted to understand a fundementally human question: How history actually defines humans, how humans, with an identical physiological constitution, can change and 'advance' so much. More specifically, dialectics was congruent with asking questions like: What is the relationship between history and the now? If something was Left-Wing 200 years ago, how could it be right wing today? How to properly live up, and inherit previous historical phenomena without copying or trying to re-enact them?

Through Hegel historical materialism became clear, and subsequently Marx's break with Hegel became clear. My only advice, unfortunately, is that you should not put an end to the 'dissonance' you have in your head. If you are confused, you have good reason to be confused, never settle for simplistic, easy ways out. Until you feel like you have resolved such internal conflicts in the most full, all-encompassing and relentless matter, do not stop fighting with yourself.
I'll give Hegel a read, although I really have heard he's near impossible to approach. What's a good first read, for trying to understand dialectics? And what's the best approach to it, in your opinion?

[ckaihatsu]

It's how the brain works. There's too much to do and to read, if something is hard to understand quickly or at least see what's it about, I move on. In this particular graph even the simple words are hard to read.


Hey, it's your choice -- I have no interest in trying to convince you to make the effort, if you nominally think it to be not worthwhile.





The question of understanding is always tricky; in educational circles there have been debates over what constitutes 'genuine' understanding - is it mere memory recall of facts or something deeper, like an inherent and analytical understanding?


Bloom's taxonomy



The Cognitive Domain (Knowledge-Based)

Remembering

Exhibit memory of learned materials by recalling facts, terms, basic concepts, and answers.

Knowledge of specifics - terminology, specific facts
Knowledge of ways and means of dealing with specifics - conventions, trends and sequences, classifications and categories, criteria, methodology
Knowledge of the universals and abstractions in a field - principles and generalizations, theories and structures
Questions like: What are the health benefits of eating apples?

Understanding

Demonstrate understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating the main ideas

Translation
Interpretation
Extrapolation
Questions like: Compare the health benefits of eating apples vs. oranges.

Applying

Using acquired knowledge. Solve problems in new situations by applying acquired knowledge, facts, techniques and rules.

Questions like: Would apples prevent scurvy, a disease caused by a deficiency in vitamin C?

Analyzing

Examine and break information into parts by identifying motives or causes. Make inferences and find evidence to support generalizations

Analysis of elements
Analysis of relationships
Analysis of organizational principles
Questions like: List four ways of serving foods made with apples and explain which ones have the highest health benefits. Provide references to support your statements.

Evaluating

Present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, validity of ideas or quality of work based on a set of criteria

Judgments in terms of internal evidence
Judgments in terms of external criteria
Questions like: Which kinds of apples are best for baking a pie, and why?

Creating (Synthesizing)

Builds a structure or pattern from diverse elements; it also refers the act of putting parts together to form a whole (Omari, 2006). Compile information together in a different way by combining elements in a new pattern or proposing alternative solutions

Production of a unique communication
Production of a plan, or proposed set of operations
Derivation of a set of abstract relations
Questions like: Convert an "unhealthy" recipe for apple pie to a "healthy" recipe by replacing your choice of ingredients. Explain the health benefits of using the ingredients you chose vs. the original ones.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy#The_Cognitive_Domain_.28Knowled ge-Based.29





To vulgar materialism, human activity is subjective, not objective, and, as a consequence, not material.


I'll note that my diagram at post #20 posits *both* 'subjective social reality' *and* 'objective social reality'.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Bloom's Taxonomy wasn't intended as a general model of understanding, but of processes. His work is many, many years old and widely reviled by modern educationalists for its lack of understanding of how people (students) actually learn in formalised educational settings.

[ckaihatsu]

The question of understanding is always tricky; in educational circles there have been debates over what constitutes 'genuine' understanding - is it mere memory recall of facts or something deeper, like an inherent and analytical understanding?


---





Bloom's Taxonomy wasn't intended as a general model of understanding, but of processes. His work is many, many years old and widely reviled by modern educationalists for its lack of understanding of how people (students) actually learn in formalised educational settings.


You began with the dichotomy of recall vs. analysis, and now in the context of Bloom's Taxonomy (Recall - Understanding - Applying - Analyzing - Evaluating - Creating (Synthesizing), you're *dissembling* regarding your initial concern.

[Comrade #138672]

According to me? But why according to me?

Marx's Historical Materialism (Erich Fromm) (https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch02.htm)
WHAT'S MATERIAL ABOUT MATERIALIST FEMINISM? A MARXIST FEMINIST CRITIQUE (Martha E. Gimenez) (http://www.colorado.edu/Sociology/gimenez/work/rphil.html)
Between materialism and idealism: Marx on “sensuous activity” (Peter Sas) (http://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.com.br/2011/12/between-materialism-and-idealism-marx.html)

Oh, I know: Fromm, Gimenez and Sas are all examples of the Engels-Plekhanov-Lenin-Mao Zedong tradition of mystics and metaphysicians set forth by the bourgeoisie in order to allow Stalin to flip-flop and zig-zag in his politics. Except, of course, that they aren't, and that they are quite directly quoting Marx, not Engels or Plekhanov:



This is far from being a secret; it is a quite well known text by Karl Marx, first published in 1888, so not exactly one of those manuscripts that Kautsky, Lenin, or Trotsky hadn't access to. It is also a very basic distinction: "materialism", in its pre-Marxist versions (Feuerbach included, as Marx very explicitly writes) conceives of knowledge as a contemplative process, not as an active one. To vulgar materialism, human activity is subjective, not objective, and, as a consequence, not material.

But it is a distinction that "antidialectics" (being, in the end, nothing else than a rehashed version of non-Marxist materialism) cannot deal with.

Luís HenriqueWhy I am asking you? Because you used it in the context of dialectics. According to you, materialism is vulgar when it does not include dialectics. I want to know why.

You claim that without dialectics human sensuous activity is reduced to a subjective matter. I honestly do not see why. Why is dialectics necessary to overcome the limitations of traditional philosophy as a contemplative process?

Why do I need the obscure jargon of dialectics to realize that "the point is to change it"? All this talk about unity of opposites in the abstract to understand and change concrete processes in society?

[blake 3:17]

I've a great attraction to certain kinds of dialectical thought. This is very seductive and I just love Chuang Tzu :
Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, a veritable butterfly, enjoying itself to the full of its bent, and not knowing it was Chuang Chou. Suddenly I awoke, and came to myself, the veritable Chuang Chou. Now I do not know whether it was then I dreamt I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man. Between me and the butterfly there must be a difference. This is an instance of transformation.

The terrible mistake Marxists make is that they think they can account for everything. The rambling defences of dialectics are just bizarre, and in similar ways are the attacks on them.

I mean who really cares?

I've been quite enjoying a lot of Badiou's contemporary work, and started getting into with a philosophy student and oh god! like I give a shit about set theory and some super abstract ontology.

Even in regards to materialism, one can embrace a fairly basic historical materialism, while still being open to other historical interpretations and other philosophical ideas.

[RedMaterialist]

Dialectics proved again. It was announced last week that four new elements were created and added to the Periodic Table, elements 113, 115, 117 and 118. One proton was added to the pre-existing element, thus creating a new (at least on Earth) element. The quantitative addition of one proton to the nucleus creates the qualitatively new element.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/4/10707100/elements-added-to-periodic-table-discovery-confirmed

Another example: F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the rich were different from ordinary people. Hemingway responded that, yes, they had more money. Fitzgerald thought the rich were qualitatively different because of some innate Gatsby-like trait. Hemingway thought the difference was only one of quantity, the amount of money.

[Comrade #138672]

Dialectics proved again. It was announced last week that four new elements were created and added to the Periodic Table, elements 113, 115, 117 and 118. One proton was added to the pre-existing element, thus creating a new (at least on Earth) element. The quantitative addition of one proton to the nucleus creates the qualitatively new element. Interesting, but how does that prove dialectics? I mean, the transition from quantity to quality is just one aspect of dialectics.

[Luís Henrique]

Why I am asking you? Because you used it in the context of dialectics.

And I used it because... it is a well known Marxian topos.


According to you, materialism is vulgar when it does not include dialectics. I want to know why.

Because it doesn't conceive of human practice as material practice. To vulgar materialism, it is only "matter" if it is passive, inert. So human practice cannot be understood, it must remain out of our visual field, and abandoned to idealism.


You claim that without dialectics human sensuous activity is reduced to a subjective matter. I honestly do not see why. Why is dialectics necessary to overcome the limitations of traditional philosophy as a contemplative process?

Because once you want to take human sensuous activity into account, you must reason about how to take into account how your human sensuous activity impacts human sensuous activity. Vulgar materialism short-circuits this by ignoring the fact that the search of knowledge is itself human sensuous activity.


Why do I need the obscure jargon of dialectics to realize that "the point is to change it"? All this talk about unity of opposites in the abstract to understand and change concrete processes in society?

The problem is that you define "dialectics" as "Hegelian dialectics". Then when we argue that Hegelian dialectics is not Marxist dialectics, and conversely, then you feel cheated, because you don't find the "obscure jargon" you want to fight against... because Marxist dialectics dispenses with such verbiage!

You want us to be your strawman, and complain when we tell you that we aren't made of straw.

Again, what is the specific difference between Marxist and pre-Marxist materialism? What is that makes the former "historical" against the latter? Or is no such difference? Can we base revolutionary politics on d'Holbach or Democritus? Come on, answer it!

Luís Henrique

[Comrade #138672]

I agree with you that Marxist materialism goes beyond pre-Marxist materialism by including human sensuous activity.

So the answer to this

Can we base revolutionary politics on d'Holbach or Democritus?is no. They are not sufficient.

I'm not trying to strawman you and I'm not trying to misrepresent you. I just don't see the dialectics here, unless it is another name for materialism + human sensuous activity consciously transforming the world.

I don't think that is true, though. Dialectics is more than that, but if Marxist materialism does not Hegelian dialectics, then I am not sure what Marxist dialectics is.

[Luís Henrique]

I agree with you that Marxist materialism goes beyond pre-Marxist materialism by including human sensuous activity.

So the answer to this


Can we base revolutionary politics on d'Holbach or Democritus?

is no. They are not sufficient.

I'm not trying to strawman you and I'm not trying to misrepresent you. I just don't see the dialectics here, unless it is another name for materialism + human sensuous activity consciously transforming the world.

The short answer is, yes, Marxist dialectics is basically "materialism + human sensuous activity consciously" (or not) "transforming the world".

The long answer you can find here, in Marx's Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/appx1.htm#205).


I don't think that is true, though. Dialectics is more than that, but if Marxist materialism does not Hegelian dialectics, then I am not sure what Marxist dialectics is.

The kernel of Marx's text referenced above it is the following:


Hegel accordingly conceived the illusory idea that the real world is the result of thinking which causes its own synthesis, its own deepening and its own movement; whereas the method of advancing from the abstract to the concrete is simply the way in which thinking assimilates the concrete and reproduces it as a concrete mental category. This is, however, by no means the process of evolution of the concrete world itself.

Which makes clear the difference between Marxist and Hegelian dialectics:

To Hegel, the method of advancing from abstract to concrete is the way by which the real world is created; the world is the result of thinking causing its own synthesis, deepening and movement. To Marx, however, the method of advancing from the abstract to the concrete is only the way by which thinking assimilates the concrete and reproduces it as a mental category, as knowledge about the world. It still "causes its own synthesis, its own deepening and its own movement", but these are the synthesis, deepening and movement of mental categories, not of the real world. Consequently, Hegel's dialectics are an ontological method, the method by which God/Geist/The Absolute Idea creates the actual, material world. Marx's dialectics are an epistemological method, the method by which material men and women recreate the material world in their minds as knowledge about the world. It is then easy to see that Engels/Plekhanov/Stalin/etc. make a re-Hegelianising movement, dispensing, at least formally, with God, Geist, and Absolute Idea but reontologising the method as the method by which the world spontaneously creates itself.

What "anti-dialectics" does is to ignore all this, and propose a de-Marxed "Marxism" that is merely the world view of d'Holbach plus a few conclusions by Marx and/or other Marxists, those latter crudely ontologised as immediate data of the concrete world or acritically and artificially transformed into axioms, grossly ignoring the methods by which Marx and other Marxists have arrived at their conclusions.

***********************************

Margareth Thatcher infamously told us that there is no society, just individuals (and families, but we can ignore this latter clause as a product of her sloppy thinking processes). How are we to object that society actually exists, and not only society but social classes, value, exploitation, etc., if we start by denying that we need to reconstruct the universe in our minds to understand it, by the method described by Marx in the text referenced above? Without such a method, all those categories by which we intend to build our knowledge about the world - to consequently rebuild the world itself - are no more than metaphysical conundrums, and all that is left to us is either acritical acceptance of the world like it is, coupled with a vulgar "theory" of the ununderstandability of such world, or a mere voluntaristic, Luciferian wish to remake things out of pure will or distaste for the world-as-it-is (which is in turn bound to crash against the sheer inertial resistance of the material world and, out of disillusion, turn into its opposite, ie, the already described acritical acceptance of what is, for the fact that it is).

Luís Henrique

[Comrade #138672]

Thanks for that. I understand you a lot better now.

I need time to think about it some more. But I think the problem is that many people seem to treat dialectics as some sort of fetish, which is imposed on the world, rather than being used as a tool to understand the world.


Margareth Thatcher infamously told us that there is no society, just individuals (and families, but we can ignore this latter clause as a product of her sloppy thinking processes).Yes. Thatcher couldn't be more wrong, like she was wrong about most things.


How are we to object that society actually exists, and not only society but social classes, value, exploitation, etc., if we start by denying that we need to reconstruct the universe in our minds to understand it, by the method described by Marx in the text referenced above?But I totally accept that we need to do that. In fact, I think that is the very basis of intelligence, the ability to reconstruct the world in our minds.

I am still not completely sure if it is really dialectics that you are advocating, but I am quite sympathetic towards your view.

[Luís Henrique]

Thanks for that. I understand you a lot better now.

Thank you.


I need time to think about it some more. But I think the problem is that many people seem to treat dialectics as some sort of fetish, which is imposed on the world, rather than being used as a tool to understand the world.

Oh, well, that might be true. But since we are discussing Marxist dialectics, not manypeopleist dialectics, it stands to reason that we should take Marx's opinion of it in higher consideration than the opinion of those people.


But I totally accept that we need to do that. In fact, I think that is the very basis of intelligence, the ability to reconstruct the world in our minds.

I am still not completely sure if it is really dialectics that you are advocating, but I am quite sympathetic towards your view.

Well, I think Marx is very clear regarding this:

1. there is a method to reconstruct the world in our minds;
2. Hegel thought that the method mentioned in 1. above was the same method used by the Spirit to create the material world.

It is well known that

3. Hegel called the method mentioned in 2. above "dialectics"

So, if the method in 2. is "dialectics" (per 3. above) and the method in 1. and 2. are the same (per 1. above), it follows that the method in 1. is also "dialectics".

Evidently, it should be noted that that method is only valid for the purpose stated in 1. - to reconstruct the world mentally - and that it is not to be sought as the method for the purpose described in 2. Also evidently, it is a terminology issue - if it pleases you to call the method in 1. by a different name, be my guest.

What however can't be denied is that the method proposed by Marx is very different from the method of vulgar materialism (bourgeois materialism, pre-Marxian materialism, metaphysical materialism, non-dialectical materialism, you name it). To again quote the old man,


The first procedure attenuates meaningful images to abstract definitions, the second leads from abstract definitions by way of reasoning to the reproduction of the concrete situation.

which quite precisely describes the difference between Marxism and positivism. What I have seen from anti-dialectics ignores the distinction, to the point that I have seen some of its proponents reproducing the basic notions of positivism (neutrality of science, mystification of the position of the scientist as someone beyond the fray of human strife for existence, etc), claiming that they make no ideological or philosophical assumptions. The result has to be either complete passivity or voluntarism, for those ideas disconnect human action from the conditions of its existence, as if human sensuous activity wasn't material in and of itself. Thence assertions like "capitalism could be in fact eternal, we just should make sure it isn't", which is an evident denial of the internal contradictions of capitalism, and, by consequence, either a denial of the theory of value, or a complete inability to understand it. I don't think this, or a-historical absurds such as positing a transhistorical "ruling class" that pervades all pre-capitalist societies and capitalism itself, which in turn transforms socialism, from an issue that is posited by capitalism and its crisis, into a metaphysical, transhistoric principle that accordingly pervades all of human history, are accidental to that line of thought. They stem directly from the vulgarity that is central to it.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Perhaps an example of how vulgar materialism ignores human practice is in order.

Take for instance Richard Dawkins' theory of memetics. Here he tries to explain human ideas by an analogy to genetics, proposing that "ideas" are "replicants" like genes. So he figures out ideas competing against each others, striving to survive, and apparently possessing human beings by making themselves useful as selectable items.

It shouldn't be difficult to see that Dawkins' theory necessarily has at least one, very serious (and very obvious) blind spot. If human ideas are like Dawkins proposes, then how does Dawkins know that his memetics theory isn't just a replicant using him, possessing his mind in an attempt to be selected against rival ideas? It is clear that Dawkins cannot get out of such conundrum except through a deus ex machina, an ad hoc concept that implicitly negates his theory: at least one idea, memetics itself, has to have an "objective" value, corresponding not to reproductive needs of either humans or ideas themselves, but to an actual, more or less precise, picture of the world. Like the Baron of Munchhausen, Dawkins pulls himself out of the swamp of human sensuous activity into the realm of "science" (ie, contemplation): all human ideas are driven by competition between replicating memes, except those that... aren't, and instead are, by "scientific" decree, an objective mental appropriation of the world without the need for any actual theoretical labour. Such is the ideology of "science", "science" mystified into a metaphysical principle that isn't subject to the laws of matter it claims are valid for everything that exists.

Of course, vulgar materialist theories are legion, and most are very different from Dawkins' fantasy, but they all have this problem: since everything is matter, and matter is purely "objective", inert, passive, where do ideas come from? Who knows, who discovers, who learns, who is the subject of these processes?

Luís Henrique

[Communard1871]

"Dialectics", what does it even mean? It seems to me that dialectics were developed by Soviet intellectuals to justify their own role in the development of the totalitarian state. Dialectics are the the remnants of the fetishization of 19th century (French) philosophy, another symptom of Rsussia's intelectual inferiority complex: a desire to show the west (once again) that Russia had something important to contribute to European civilization.

Dialectics is not essential to Marxism. Marxists, if they are honest and of good will, must try to build on the foundation that Marx began. That does not mean that all developments, however brilliantly elaborated and sincere, are valuable. Remember that Marx is quoted as saying "I am not a MarxIST".

Thank you.

[RedMaterialist]

Marxists, if they are honest and of good will, must try to build on the foundation that Marx began. .



That itself is a dialectical statement.

[ckaihatsu]

My understanding is that dialectics is an approach for the resolution of the discrete with the continuous, especially through the flow of time.

For example we might look at various 'episodes' in the continuing (long-term) class struggle, such as particular trade union labor actions against the employer (short-term).

We have to 'put a name' on such short-term actions, and could bundle them up as a discretely-named 'ABC Union sit-down strike against XYZ Corp. of 2015', but in reality the ABC Union struggle undoubtedly started well before 2015 and will continue, in various forms and actions, into 2016 and beyond.

Dialectics would concern itself with *how to specify* a decisive 'beginning' and eventual 'end' to any and all specific labor actions -- and even the class struggle itself -- by analyzing qualitative developments of a start-stop nature, on a linear timeline (as for any historical developments).

[Comrade #138672]

You have given me a lot to think about, Luís Henrique. I can't respond to everything right now, but I will respond to the following:


Perhaps an example of how vulgar materialism ignores human practice is in order.

Take for instance Richard Dawkins' theory of memetics. Here he tries to explain human ideas by an analogy to genetics, proposing that "ideas" are "replicants" like genes. So he figures out ideas competing against each others, striving to survive, and apparently possessing human beings by making themselves useful as selectable items.

It shouldn't be difficult to see that Dawkins' theory necessarily has at least one, very serious (and very obvious) blind spot. If human ideas are like Dawkins proposes, then how does Dawkins know that his memetics theory isn't just a replicant using him, possessing his mind in an attempt to be selected against rival ideas? It is clear that Dawkins cannot get out of such conundrum except through a deus ex machina, an ad hoc concept that implicitly negates his theory: at least one idea, memetics itself, has to have an "objective" value, corresponding not to reproductive needs of either humans or ideas themselves, but to an actual, more or less precise, picture of the world. Like the Baron of Munchhausen, Dawkins pulls himself out of the swamp of human sensuous activity into the realm of "science" (ie, contemplation): all human ideas are driven by competition between replicating memes, except those that... aren't, and instead are, by "scientific" decree, an objective mental appropriation of the world without the need for any actual theoretical labour. Such is the ideology of "science", "science" mystified into a metaphysical principle that isn't subject to the laws of matter it claims are valid for everything that exists.

Of course, vulgar materialist theories are legion, and most are very different from Dawkins' fantasy, but they all have this problem: since everything is matter, and matter is purely "objective", inert, passive, where do ideas come from? Who knows, who discovers, who learns, who is the subject of these processes?

Luís HenriqueMemetics is an interesting theory/framework. I have read Dawkins' original conception of memetics in his book The Selfish Gene years ago. I can't speak for Dawkins, and although I think he can indeed be described as a "vulgar materialist", he does acknowledge the interaction between memes and other things, like genes. Of course, he is not a Marxist, so he neglects historical materialism. But even with historical materialism, memetics can still explain a few things. It also does not negate what you call human sensuous activity.



It shouldn't be difficult to see that Dawkins' theory necessarily has at least one, very serious (and very obvious) blind spot. If human ideas are like Dawkins proposes, then how does Dawkins know that his memetics theory isn't just a replicant using him, possessing his mind in an attempt to be selected against rival ideas?Obviously if memetics is correct, then the conception of memetics would itself be a meme. Does that disprove memetics, though?

Memes evolve under three conditions:
(1) There is variation (ideas mutate; people interpret things differently; etc)
(2) There is reproduction (ideas are communicated)
(3) There is a selection mechanism (can be guided by the forces of historical materialism; like gravity guides the evolution of genes)

Too bad Dawkins has become a populist and a racist. Otherwise some of his ideas might have been taken more seriously by the left.