Dialectics

[ComradeRed]

From my understanding, this is either right or wrong, Marx used Dialectics because it was the closest thing to an applicable scientific method to his theory. Could it not be that there is a more accurate and more applicable scientific method used (that isn't the official "scientific method" itself)?

[wet blanket]

Marx used dialectics because he went to school studying Hegel. At the time of German Idealism, Hegel was all the rage with the college kids.

[Daymare17]

Hello ComradeRed. The people on this forum, such as wet blanket and redstar2000, are nincompoops on dialectics. They can only spread confusion and misinformation about it. You have many misconceptions. The dialectic is a comprehensive worldview which is fundamental to the understanding of Marxism, and also leads to a much richer view of processes in the world in general. I'd need a whole day to explain just one percent of the dialectic, so I advise you to do some studies on your own instead :D

This book (http://www.marxist.com/rircontents.asp) explains dialectics so easy and so good, even someone who is a novice to philosophy can understand it. I strongly suggest it.

Comradely

[Pete]

Dialectics are 'conversations' between two or more forces that lead to an ultimate resolution, usually somewhere between the two (or more) radically different 'view points.' I think the practicallity of the concept had more to do with Marx using it than 'science' as such. It makes sense to see history as a conversation (or in more radical cases, as conflict) than as wildly random events. The dialectic gives Marxism a telological feel, which is too close to religion for me. (Though otherwise, they make a lot of sense)

[redstar2000]

The people on this forum, such as wet blanket and redstar2000, are nincompoops on dialectics.

Indeed?

Well, see for yourself.

On "Dialectics" -- The Heresy Posts (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1082735164&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)

Disputing Dialectics (http://redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net/theory.php?subaction=showfull&id=1087002057&archive=&cnshow=headlines&start_from=&ucat=&)


The dialectic is a comprehensive worldview which is fundamental to the understanding of Marxism, and also leads to a much richer view of processes in the world in general.

Note the "buzzwords" -- "comprehensive worldview", "fundamental", "much richer view", etc.

If you hype it, they will come.

What's behind the hype?

How about this: I don't know of a single case where "dialectics" has ever produced a useful result that couldn't have been produced using ordinary scientific methodology.

Yet over the last 40 years, I must have heard hundreds of "dialectical explanations" and "predictions" in connection with radical political struggles...none of which ever amounted to anything!

All these folks who make these wild claims about the efficacy of "dialectics" and how they've "mastered" this arcane "science" have utterly failed to come up with any useful knowledge.

Capitalism can be investigated empirically and its "laws" of development determined by real evidence. The same is true of class struggle, proletarian revolution, etc.

What need, then, for this obscurantist pseudo-science and its 19th-century German romanticist terminology?

The only function I can see is as a "cover" -- a weapon to intimidate one's critics in the absence of genuine rebuttals.

"Your problem, comrade, is that you fail to grasp the dialectic."

It's a fraud, pure and simple.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Djehuti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2004, 02:46 AM
From my understanding, this is either right or wrong, Marx used Dialectics because it was the closest thing to an applicable scientific method to his theory. Could it not be that there is a more accurate and more applicable scientific method used (that isn't the official "scientific method" itself)?


A great text to understand dialectics. Not to hard either:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/...lecti/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/dialecti/index.htm)


You could also read Hegels Logic (Lenin said that every marxists except Marx (even Lenin himself, and Engels!) had failed to gain deeper knowledge of Capital because they have not read Hegels Logic), but I guess that one is pretty damn hard for dialectic-noobs like us. ;)
Iam not sure what you mean really.

Well, personally i think that dialectics is extremly usefull if you want to understand the complexity of the world. I know those who has replaced dialectics and developed other forms, for example spinozian or aleatory materialism, but i really cant se why. My knowledge of dialectics is not really great, but as far as I see,
there is not really a problem with dialectic materialism.

[Djehuti]

redstar2k: Dialectics in combination with materialism is NOT a fraud.
Few seems to understand what dialectics really have achieved, Marx would not have reached half of his knowledge without dialectics. Most of the critique against dialectics is correct...if you dont combine it with materialism.

Really, is there any bether tool then dialectics to describe how forces and relations mutually affects eachother, and to describe the double nature of objects and subjects? I love antidialectic philosophers like Deleuze and Nietzsche, and Spinoza also seems quite intresting, and Iam not afraid to abandon my possitions, but I yet have no reason. I really dont believe that we have any bether tool then dialectics...yet.

I strongly recomend "Marx's Grundrisse and Hegel's Logic" by Hiroshi Uchida:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/...s/ot/uchida.htm (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ot/uchida.htm)

[redstar2000]

Marx would not have reached half of his knowledge without dialectics.

That's another claim...it would be impossible to "prove" that one way or the other.

It's like saying "dialectics must be true because Marx said it was true."

No.


Most of the critique against dialectics is correct...if you don't combine it with materialism.

Why not just materialism? If all phenomena is fundamentally materialist, then why could not any particular phenomenon be investigated and described by ordinary scientific language?

Even if you "dress up" a hypothesis in "dialectical" terminology, you still have to use ordinary scientific methodology to confirm or refute it...so what's the purpose of the costume?

And if you attempt to "reason dialectically" without empirical data, you can verbally prove or disprove anything you like...without regard to the real world.

Who benefits from this pretense of a "special form of knowledge" that "sounds simple" but is "really difficult" and can "only" be "correctly understood" by the "inner circle"?


Really, is there any better tool than dialectics to describe how forces and relations mutually affect each other, and to describe the double nature of objects and subjects?

What about the objects and subjects that have "triple natures"?

I think ordinary science is quite capable of describing any phenomenon, no matter how complex, in a far clearer and more useful way than "dialectics".

In fact, "dialectics" as a "theory of everything" is just hopeless.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Djehuti]

"That's another claim...it would be impossible to "prove" that one way or the other."

Maybe not, but it is quite clear that Marx' dialectic thoughts is ever present in his works.

"I think ordinary science is quite capable of describing any phenomenon, no matter how complex, in a far clearer and more useful way than "dialectics"."

What do you mean with "ordinary science"? The hypothetic deductive method?
It is a great method, but I cant see how the question can be "dialectics or science",
there is no "or". Why not dialectics and science? Science is a method, and its quite simpel: hypothesis - empiri & deduction - theory. But I think dialectics can play an important roll in the middle part and in the formation of theory. Dialectics provides us with deeper information about the mutal existance of all that of wich the world exists. Iam not good at dialectics, but I know those who are, and they can make real sharp analyzis and understand things that i can not.

Marx was an educated person, in school he learned about Euklides' straight geometry and Aristoteles' clause logic. The foundation of Aristoteles logic was the identety clause and for Euklides it was the parallell axiom. The identity clause sais that something either is or is not, nothing cant be and be not (To be, or not to be /Hamlet), still it contradict all experience. For example, the clause sais that a female specimen of Gallus is either a chicken or a hen. Is she a chicken, she is not a hen and the opposite. But this assumes that their is an objective point in the development of the chicken when it ceases to be chicken and becomes a hen.

The logic pointed out (there is other logic today) that if the bird is both chicken and hen in the same moment, because it is in transition from one to another, then she is neither the one nor the other. The point is that the classic clause logic cannot logically handle a state in metamorfos. Not yet changed? Yes. Changed? Yes. But not motion, transformation, process. For Aristoteles the river of Herakleitos' stood still.

Eh...i finish this another time if I have the energy to. ;)

[redstar2000]

I am not good at dialectics, but I know those who are, and they can make real sharp analyses and understand things that I can not.

Well, I think you should start to worry right there.

If someone offers you an "analysis" that you find incomprehensible and says that it's based on his "superior mastery of dialectics"...I think your skepticism should go right off the chart.

Mine would!

After all, Marx was understandable (most of the time)...even when he was wrong.

An "analysis" that is so turgid that you can't make heads or tails of it...even though you are familiar with the terminology is, in my opinion, very suspect.


For Aristotle, the river of Heraclitus' stood still.

Perhaps for him; not for us. An ordinary materialist analysis has no problem with "motion" or "process"...science has been dealing with that -- successfully! -- since the days of Galileo.

As to whether dialectics is "useful" in the formation of hypotheses, the truth is that science doesn't care where your hypothesis comes from...it only cares whether or not you can demonstrate its validity in the real world. You can use "dialectics", astrology, the tarot, or divine revelation if you want to.

But your peers will sternly ask: what's your evidence?

And if you start babbling about "dialectics" at that point, they will simply turn away in disgust. They don't have time for self-evident nonsense.

Neither should we.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Daymare17]

Hey redstar, why don't you come by the YFIS forums, http://discussion.newyouth.com. There are more dialecticians so maybe we can have an interesting discussion.

Comradely

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2004, 04:46 AM
Hey redstar, why don't you come by the YFIS forums, http://discussion.newyouth.com. There are more dialecticians so maybe we can have an interesting discussion.

Comradely
There is something really weird about your board, Daymare17.

On the homepage, it says that the "Dialectical Materialism" forum has 21 threads with over 200 posts.

But if you go to that forum, there are only two threads (neither about dialectics) and only a handful of posts.

Did your group just have a big purge?

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[wet blanket]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2004, 04:35 AM
There is something really weird about your board, Daymare17.

On the homepage, it says that the "Dialectical Materialism" forum has 21 threads with over 200 posts.

But if you go to that forum, there are only two threads (neither about dialectics) and only a handful of posts.

If you look near the bottom, there should be a dropdown menu that will allow you to see older posts... Took me a second look to catch it.



Hello ComradeRed. The people on this forum, such as wet blanket and redstar2000, are nincompoops on dialectics.
Don't be rude, nothing I said in my post was untrue... Hegel WAS indeed a pretty hot topic among the academia in Marx's day, somewhat of an 'intellectual fad'. As for dialectics, from what I've read in the passed and the book you've provided, I see it as nothing more than an esoteric pseudo-science. I'm not going to accept an obscure philosophical concept as a universal theory of nature. Pardon me for being skeptical.

[Daymare17]

So I take you're not willing to discuss, redstar?

Shame, you could just have posted one of your essays and I'm sure it would have been a fun discussion.

[redstar2000]

Well, it's a small and seemingly not very active board. I sampled some threads and found that nearly all the posts were well within the bounds of the Trotskyist paradigm...one that seems to me to have become sterile after the death of Trotsky himself (just as Maoism has become sterile following the death of Mao).

I would suggest instead that you make a post at that board with a link directing those folks over to this thread...and if any show up, I'll be glad to "wrangle" with them. :)

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas

[Daymare17]

Is it too much effort to post one of your essays on dialectics there?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2004, 04:27 AM
Is it too much effort to post one of your essays on dialectics there?
Yes.

After all, I do have a reputation for extreme laziness to uphold. :D

But if you want to copy & paste one from my site, feel free to do so.

:redstar2000:

The Redstar2000 Papers (http://www.redstar2000papers.fightcapitalism.net)
A site about communist ideas