Dialetical Materialism - thoughts, criticism

[DaNatural]

I'd like to know other forum members opinions on this topic, from my understand some of its priniciples are that society develops trhought struggle and opposition, and that transition from one important society to another is by means of sudden leaps rather than by mere gradual steps. There are other areas in this tought which I'll address later, one aspect which I'm surprised most marxists seem to pass over is engels ascertion that matter has always been and our minds only have reflections of that matter in our ideas. Now he combated the skeptics who would say that, how can we know anything if its just a reflection. He insisted that we have to do experiments, and critically evaluate the matter before. These argumentseems fair enough but to me there seems to be something deeper then this. Now what I seem to have a problem with is his idea that quantitative steps lead to vast qualitative change. he uses examples of how water turns into ice, water boils etc. even suggesting the fact that virtues an slip into vice, its complete opposite. What he seems to be suggesting is that gradual physical changes are succeeded by a total transformation of quality. Engels seems to be saying life is somewhat like physical events, but isnt society more then that? To add to this, Engels actually rejected reductive materialism. So the conclusion he seems to be forming is contradicting his previous ideas. If anyone can explain this to me, and can somehow argue against this blatant flaw in his argument id love to hear it.

One area of the dialectic which I tend to agree with is the negation of the negation, meaning oppossing forces equal someone new and in most cases something better. Its very hegelian, and Lenin seems to have adopted this aspect of. I think the problem with alot of marxist thought is that noone has ever proved some of the ideas, such as society being influenced and shaped by economics andthe mode of production. I ve said enough i hope someone reads this lol, im interested to hear opinions. peace

[allan73]

I think your question is somewhat too convoluted to answe in a coherent manner; but I think a few points can be made. You say: "engels ascertion that matter has always been and our minds only have reflections of that matter in our ideas." Actually, Engels, Marx and Hegel all believed that our minds are determined by matter, not merely a reflection of it.

As to your assertion that Marx's theory that society is determined by its mode of production, etc., that has been proved adequately enough. For instance, it is exactly the quality of the free movement of capital which has led to the current phase of "globalization." On another level you could argue that the current lack of depth of political thought in the U.S. is the direct result of the speed of communication brought about by, for instance, the economics of the internet. Junk food, like McDonald's, leads to junk thought.

As to dialectical materialism itself, it is an extremely complex subject, which I am no expert in; and I suspect that fewer than 100 people in the world undertand it. However, it is the major driving force of the world today.

[DaNatural]

thanks for replying allan, i agree i threw too much into the question for it to be adequately answered, but i was just trying to give a little summary of it for people who dont know much about it. Engels marx and hegel all agree that matter is befoe mind and that our mind is just a reflection of matter. and we can only know matter for sure if it is studied empirically. HOwever i disagree with you when u say that, historical materialism(development of society on economics and mode of production) has been adequately proven. Marx nor any of his predecessorscould adequately prove this theory and based it on the fact that it proves it self. I dont tend to disagree and if we look at shifts in society and developmentit is mainly done trought means of production or economics.
Furthermore, i agree dialetical materialism is a tough subject ive studied it or little over six months but it is extremely interesting and some its doctrine is quite powerful. I merely have a problem with what engels described. Namely that quantitative steps lead to a drastic qualitative change. all of this of course is hegelian philosophy, but i dont know if i can buy it. because a few instances in life where there were alot of quantative steps, it didnt necessarily lead to a drastic change. Lenin moved away fromthis idea and focused more on the idea that their is constant tension within society which makes it change, because if there was no tension nothing would change. i like this idea have a difficult time refuting it.
As for the amount of people who know it well, the regular joe wont, but three of my professors are well versed in it, and two of them refute it wihile the one firmly beleives in some of its doctrines. peace.

[allan73]

"if we look at shifts in society and developmentit is mainly done trought means of production or economics."

Well, isnt this exactly what Mark said?

As to quantitative leaps to sudden qualitative differences the collapse of the Soviet Union may be an example. After years of being unable to sustain an arms race, mismanagement of an economy which was not capable of going from feudal to socialist, then suddenly a completely qualitative difference came about. From Soviet style communism to something, well, completely different. What it is I doubt if anyone knows yet. Apparently some early level of capitalism.

[Karo Chevez]

It was Trotsky I believe who said that a revolutionary
fighter must be versed in dialectics,that they are to the
fighter what finger exercises are to a pianist.We live in
a world of perpetual motion and that which doesnt change doesnt exist,a thing is equal to itself only at a
precise moment in time and to remain so time and space
would themselves cease to exist,thus the notion of an
unchangeable god has no support in rational thought.
The law of dialectics propose that we are not what we
are but what we are becoming,our thought processes
are constantly changing by means of increasing stimuli,
for to cease the progress of innovation of ideas is to
regress into a muttled past thereby delivering oneself to
the enslavement of conservatism and the isolation of
the ignorance and prejudice of vulgar thought.Increase
of knowledge comes by means of mental exertion just as
muscle tone is the product of physical exercise,likewise
social change is brought about by political tentions that
must be promoted by the forceful will of the people.-Karo

[DaNatural]

allan no doubt that is what marx said , i believe he said it in the preface of capital. however, i never questioned that, that was his ideology. I simply questioned whether or not that is the main source. I we see in modern day society it is much more, namely religion has taken form as something which moulds societies. There was more to saddam hussein invading iran than just economics, namely religion. And take for example the gulf war, when discussing quantative changes leading into a qualitative one, after the gulf war, poltics still didnt change. well thats it for now, im glad ive sparked some interest i find it a fascinating topic, take care guys. peace

[peaccenicked]

I believe that the key to dialectics is understanding what
it is for ie to clarify our thoughts about life so as to be able to solve the problems of life. here the laws of dialectics are mere analytical guidelines. Things that basically help us pose the best questions we can in
our particular situation.
To learn dialectics is to learn the equipment of thought
that is able to prod at the very essence of the truth of the concrete moment. Many of us are unconscious dialecticians who mull through every aspect of a problem. Dialectics gives us contexts and angles to add
to our thoughts. Philosophers change the world, the point is to interpret them.
let the debate continue

[peaccenicked]

old thread I dug up

[redstar2000]

http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=13&topic=536 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=13&topic=536)

More evidence of my "unorthodoxy", I'm afraid.

It's also evidence of the failure of many "Marxists" to "situate" Marx himself in the society in which he lived. Marx took Hegel seriously because he was "all the rage" when Marx himself was a student. Hegel's ideas were "popular" with rightists and leftists alike...they seemed to be "the latest thing". Not to be a Hegalian in the Germany of the 1830s was to admit to "philosophical backwardness"...and Marx was just as vulnerable to that as any bright young student might be.

Had Marx never tried to use Hegalian dialectics, Hegal himself would be nothing more than a chapter in the (extremely dull) history of German philosophy.

My standing challenge to the "dialecticians" is: show me a "discovery" or an "explanation" of something that could not have been discovered or explained using the ordinary methods of historical evidence and logical argument.

I don't think it can be done...and consequently I regard "dialectics" and its terminology as fusty survivors of the 19th century, long overdue for the "dumpster" of history.

In addition, a warning: if someone puts forward a political position that "doesn't make sense to you" and you question it, only to be informed (in lofty tones) that "you don't grasp the dialectic, comrade", beware! Somewhere in that tangled thicket of obscure terminology, a scam is being perpetrated and you are the intended sucker.

Something to keep in mind.

:cool:

[antieverything]

Well, my problem with the dialectics is that it forces you to assume the singularity of economic considerations negating all others. That is to say that for example gender roles are wholey articifical and have nothing to do actual biological differences. Gender roles are largely articifical but also partly biological...and thus the dialectician oversimplifies the world. The historical materialist outlook is important, don't get me wrong, but social sciences have moved beyond it...rather branched off of it. As the great Marxist sociologist Michael Burawoy is fond of saying, Marxism is a tree--this is to say that Marxism isn't simply a set of beliefs (Marxism isn't an ideology twisted by Lenin/Stalin/whoever you want to hurl abuse at) but a tradition of thought, a way of thinking that is constantly developing. The material situation through which Marx philosophized the world through Dialectical Materialism only constitutes the roots. The branches and leaves continue to grow out.

...um, could you tell us what that topic was called so that we can find it on the new boards, RS?

[redstar2000]

The search function seems to work much better on this board than on the old board; I found the thread right away...

http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?a...5&hl=dialectics (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=6015&hl=dialectics)

That is to say that for example gender roles are wholly artificial and have nothing to do [with]actual biological differences. Gender roles are largely artificial but also partly biological...

My inclination, as a historical (but not dialectical) materialist, would be to suggest that the burden of proof is on the biologist to demonstrate a genetic link between gender and gender-based social roles.

In other words, an enormous amount of historical evidence has accumulated demonstrating how gender-based social roles have been constructed to reflect class reality. If any of these roles have any ultimate genetic basis, that remains to be demonstrated. I suspect that reputable geneticists would simply laugh at the idea that gender-roles are genetic...the science is nowhere close to being able to show that such links exist, if they do.

There are some "evolutionary biologists" who say this kind of thing: their careerism makes their "science" junk in my view. They write apologies for class society in the same spirit (and from the same motives) as "racial scientists" wrote apologies for racism c.1880-1930.

The historical materialist outlook is important, don't get me wrong, but social sciences have moved beyond it...rather branched off of it.

Well, a lot of claims have been made along those lines. I suppose the best way to proceed is case-by-case. If some individual claims to have "improved" on historical materialism, then you examine this claim as carefully as you can and decide whether the improvement is real.

I haven't come across anything that looks like a significant improvement...but no one person can read everything, so there may be something out there that is really worthwhile.

Michael Burawoy, for example, is completely unknown to me...so I will check him out.

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[antieverything]

Women have a different chemical make-up than men do and have different behavioural tendancies because of it.

Michael Burawoy (pronounced Boor-uh-voy according to my sister who has attended his lectures) is quite brilliant and I highly reccomend his writing. He was recently elected by be the president of the organization of American sociologists (I don't know exactly what the exact name of the org is) but resigned for some reason which I believe involved undemocratic internal structure (or some other delightfully Marxist reason).

[Abiyot]

I just wanted to respond to something by redstar on the dialectic. I am not completely in the know asbout the dialectic. I just have an idea about it basic princples and a few of its laws. But you and all the rest of us should be sure that the dialectic is central, to a Marxian world outlook. Without the dialectic, much of the Marxian methodology would be lost. To give Restar and other interested an example.
For instance, one of the basic principles of the dialectic, is the the totality. The need for comprehensive outlook when explaining social reality. What this implies, is that social reality in terms of explanation and comprehension should not be compartmentalized. This is central. One of the reasons, for the impressiveness of the works of Marx and a few other Marxists, is their refusal to compartmentalize reality. This gives particular expalnatory force and logic to their explanations of social reality. For some one who's background is in the social sciences, my impression is that nothing (no other perspective or school of thought) comes close to the Marxian framework in terms of its comprehensiveness and sweep. And the primary reason for this is that the basic dialectical methodological principle underlying this work.

This refusal to compartmentalize reality is central. No one can be a historical materialist in the Marxist sense without adhering to the dialectic. Those like Redstar, who argue otherwise are either confused or not "revolutionary" in their outlook.

Other important principles of the dialectic are the notions of contradiction, change etc. Please those of you who are interested, please try to get hold of and read, John Rees' book "The Algebra of Revolution: The Dialectic and the Classical Marxist Tradition". Do not take Redstar's position or stance on this.

[redstar2000]

But you and all the rest of us should be sure that the dialectic is central, to a Marxian world outlook. Without the dialectic, much of the Marxian methodology would be lost.

Well, Marx and Engels certainly thought so...but I disagree. I think all that would be lost is a lot of fuzzy and archaic Helgelian terminology that serves no contemporary purpose except to obscure social reality.

To give Redstar and other interested an example. For instance, one of the basic principles of the dialectic, is the the totality. The need for comprehensive outlook when explaining social reality. What this implies, is that social reality in terms of explanation and comprehension should not be compartmentalized. This is central. One of the reasons, for the impressiveness of the works of Marx and a few other Marxists, is their refusal to compartmentalize reality. This gives particular expalnatory force and logic to their explanations of social reality.

But you don't need the "dialectic" to appreciate the importance of the totality.

And actually, what Marx did was both "compartmentalize" and "totalize"...most of the text of Capital attempts to break down the different aspects of capitalist functioning as well as "putting the whole package together".

Indeed, in ordinary generic reasoning we do both of those things...and the test is not whether it conforms to some Hegelian formula but what turns out to be true and useful.

On the other hand, if you start trying to analyze a complex social problem by looking for the places in the "dialectic" where you can "plug in" your variables, who knows what you'll come up with? In fact, it could be anything since the "dialectic" can "prove" anything.

This refusal to compartmentalize reality is central. No one can be a historical materialist in the Marxist sense without adhering to the dialectic. Those like Redstar, who argue otherwise are either confused or not "revolutionary" in their outlook.

Sorry, but this strikes me as a "religious" argument. If you mean by the phrase "in a Marxist sense" a strict adherence to Marx's own favorite teminology, your statement is technically correct but, in practice, irrelevant.

For example, if you could examine one or several of my posts and show that they were "not revolutionary" because they were "undialectical"...then I'd be compelled to re-examine my views. I don't think that's "do-able"...but you're welcome to give it a try.

Of course, I don't expect people to "take my word" about this or anything. If you're interested in the Marxist tradition, by all means read about the dialectic...even read Hegel, if you're really a glutton for punishment.

But don't kid yourself that you've found some "magic key to understanding" or some "superior form of reasoning"...that's all crap.

I prefer "generic" historical materialism...it's easier to understand and more useful than anything else I've come across.

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U.S. GET OUT OF IRAQ NOW!
___________________________

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A site about communist ideas

[Abiyot]

For example, if you could examine one or several of my posts and show that they were "not revolutionary" because they were "undialectical"...then I'd be compelled to re-examine my views. I don't think that's "do-able"...but you're welcome to give it a try.

Redstar!!! Actually, lots of your messages cannot be faulted for the lack of any "revolutionary" content. In fact, the opposite would be more true. As for Capital, I have began reading it, and its extremly tough going but, Marx in the foreword to the second German edition of Captal, 1873, writes,

"After a quotation from the preface to my "Criticism of Political Economy," Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

"The one thing which is of moment to Marx, is to find the law of the phenomena with whose investigation he is concerned; and not only is that law of moment to him, which governs these phenomena, in so far as they have a definite form and mutual connexion within a given historical period. Of still greater moment to him is the law of their variation, of their development, i.e., of their transition from one form into another, from one series of connexions into a different one. This law once discovered, he investigates in detail the effects in which it manifests itself in social life. Consequently, Marx only troubles himself about one thing: to show, by rigid scientific investigation, the necessity of successive determinate orders of social conditions, and to establish, as impartially as possible, the facts that serve him for fundamental starting-points. For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over; and this all the same, whether men believe or do not believe it, whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence.... If in the history of civilisation the conscious element plays a part so subordinate, then it is self-evident that a critical inquiry whose subject-matter is civilisation, can, less than anything else, have for its basis any form of, or any result of, consciousness. That is to say, that not the idea, but the material phenomenon alone can serve as its starting-point. Such an inquiry will confine itself to the confrontation and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact. For this inquiry, the one thing of moment is, that both facts be investigated as accurately as possible, and that they actually form, each with respect to the other, different momenta of an evolution; but most important of all is the rigid analysis of the series of successions, of the sequences and concatenations in which the different stages of such an evolution present themselves. But it will be said, the general laws of economic life are one and the same, no matter whether they are applied to the present or the past. This Marx directly denies. According to him, such abstract laws do not exist. On the contrary, in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws. In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology. The old economists misunderstood the nature of economic laws when they likened them to the laws of physics and chemistry. A more thorough analysis of phenomena shows that social organisms differ among themselves as fundamentally as plants or animals. Nay, one and the same phenomenon falls under quite different laws in consequence of the different structure of those organisms as a whole, of the variations of their individual organs, of the different conditions in which those organs function, &c. Marx, e.g., denies that the law of population is the same at all times and in all places. He asserts, on the contrary, that every stage of development has its own law of population.... With the varying degree of development of productive power, social conditions and the laws governing them vary too. Whilst Marx sets himself the task of following and explaining from this point of view the economic system established by the sway of capital, he is only formulating, in a strictly scientific manner, the aim that every accurate investigation into economic life must have. The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one. And it is this value that, in point of fact, Marx's book has."

Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?

Of course the method of presentation must differ in form from that of inquiry. The latter has to appropriate the material in detail, to analyse its different forms of development, to trace out their inner connexion. Only after this work is done, can the actual movement be adequately described. If this is done successfully, if the life of the subject-matter is ideally reflected as in a mirror, then it may appear as if we had before us a mere a priori construction.

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of "the Idea," he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of "the Idea." With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of "Das Kapital," it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre 'Epigonoi who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a "dead dog." I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

Marx, then writes, "In its mystified form, dialectic became the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and to glorify the existing state of things. In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary."


The point I an trying to make here is that here obviously the Capital itself as a work is based on the dialectic.

Next in terms of the method of proceeding on a exposition/discussion of a social issue, an aspect of social reality one would not proceed by, " On the other hand, if you start trying to analyze a complex social problem by looking for the places in the "dialectic" where you can "plug in" your variables, who knows what you'll come up with? In fact, it could be anything since the "dialectic" can "prove" anything.". Actually the idea is to adopt a dialectical framework when studying/explaining/elaborating on aspects of social reality. Therefore there is nothing you "insert", a better analogy (?), would more in terms of "the lenses you put on".

[redstar2000]

An interesting quotation which illustrates a point that I have been trying to get across.

The reviewer of Marx's book, apparently either indifferent to the "dialectic" or possibly hostile to it (didn't like Hegel?), proceeds to summarize Marxist methodology without any dialectical terminology at all. He just uses the ordinary language of scientific discourse that was characteristic of the middle and late 19th century. (A modern version of that summary wouldn't use a word like "laws", but would instead substitute words like "tendencies", "regularities", "probabilities", etc.)

Marx replies that this "is" the dialectic. But what purpose does a special terminology serve if one can arrive at the identical conclusion with ordinary terminology familiar to every educated person?

Indeed, Marx goes on to say that he deliberately inserted some of this terminology into Capital not because it was actually required but as a kind of "tribute" to someone he thought was being kicked around "like a dead dog".

It is, I suppose, admirable that Marx honored someone that he thought of as an "intellectual ancestor". However, we are not under that obligation.

Hegel is a "dead dog". Aside from a few neo-Heleglian apologists for modern capitalism, no one takes that stuff seriously any more.

Why ever should they?

Here are two recent attempts I made to talk about Marxism (from slightly different angles) without ever mentioning the "dialectic"...

http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?a...t=ST&f=6&t=6415 (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=6415)

http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?a...t=ST&f=6&t=6371 (http://www.che-lives.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=6371)

...and no one noticed.

Of course, it's quite possible that if Marx were with us, he might say something like "you smuggled it in under a different name". Perhaps that's true.

But there's no way I could ever be responsible for an embarrassment like Engels' Dialectics of Nature.

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[antieverything]

...exactly...we needn't go into the bizzarities of "dialectical" biology [which is pretty much constituted by a few things discovered by the scientific method that sort of resembe the dialectic at work...so what?] or "dialectical" physics [which pretty much tells us that everything we know is wrong because the dialectic states otherwise...they can't prove any of this but hey, who needs that when the dialectic is on your side?]!