peaccenicked
9th March 2002, 13:06
Firstly from N. Bukharin.
"2. The Theory of Historical Materialism
The laws of materialist dialectic are all-embracing, general laws of becoming. As we have seen, a deep and all-embracing historicism is at their basis, that is to say, a historicism which can embrace all forms of movement. This Marxist dialectical method is much wider and more universal than the idealist dialectic of Hegel, the limitation of which does not merely lie in exalting a limited sphere of consciousness. into the substance of the universal. The limitation of the Hegelian dialectic also lies in its two most important qualities. Firstly, with Hegel nature has no history.1) Secondly, history itself settles down with the bourgeois landlord state (here Hegel's system in fact conflicts with his method). Both these limitations, which are of quite exceptional importance, are undoubtedly connected with the idealist character of Hegelian dialectic. Hence, by the way, the unsurpassably wretched poverty of those "thinkers" ("manufacturers of ideology", as Marx called them), who suggest that the difference between the Marxian and Hegelian dialectic is simply a matter of a change of label and that in fact Marx remained a Hegelian to the end of his life.2) Whereas Marxian dialectic as a doctrine of historical development was the first to conquer the whole sphere of nature comprehended from the point of view of an historical process, and broke those fetters which Hegel put upon the understanding of social development. This remarkable expansion of outlook proceeds entirely from Marx, a thing which bourgeois investigators cannot understand. Even very recently this sort of gap between nature and society played, and still plays to this day, a very important part. The whole conception of the Rickert school proceeds from the historical character of society and the unhistorical character of nature. The whole laborious differentiation between the generalising method of the natural sciences and the individualising method of the social sciences, between nomothetics (or nomology), on the one hand, and ideography on the other, between "natural laws" and "reference to worth" is founded in the last resort on the absolute rupture between society and nature. This is, in essence, a softened and refined theology, converting human society into a super-natural quantity. Whereas society and nature are a unity, but a contradictory unity. Society itself is a product of the,historical development of nature, but a product which relatively is in opposition to nature, reacts upon it and even in the process of historical development transforms external nature itself into its product (the so-called cultivated landscape). Therefore Marx said that in fact there is one science, the science of history, which embraces both the history of the inorganic world, and the history of the organic world and the history of society.3) In the sphere of the natural sciences this meant a decisive break with mechanistic-mathematical rationalism which in Marx is bound up with the criticism of mechanistic materialism."
Hence the scientific method does not limit itself to a historical formal logic, but applies dialectical logic. ie
A mathematical formula can be understood one sidedly
as an immediate product of logic or it can be understood dialecticaly as a product of history.
A dialectitian might ask why does this formula appear at this moment in time , does it correspond to other developments in other spheres. Whereas the formalist
has no need to go beyond immediate sense data.
Hence the dialetical method covers the history of the development of each process. These processes are governed by laws of movement, negation of negation,
quantity to quality, as listed by Lenin in his Philosophical notebooks on Hegel. These Laws are axiomatic, the axioms can be refined, hence they are not dogmatic.
Hence the method is the study of the self movement of an entitity.
Essentialism says that entity is knowable although not absolutely.
Where as atomism leaves history and reality as an infinite uncorrelatable determinants, ie chaos.
(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:10 pm on Mar. 9, 2002)
(Edited by peaccenicked at 3:26 pm on Mar. 9, 2002)
"2. The Theory of Historical Materialism
The laws of materialist dialectic are all-embracing, general laws of becoming. As we have seen, a deep and all-embracing historicism is at their basis, that is to say, a historicism which can embrace all forms of movement. This Marxist dialectical method is much wider and more universal than the idealist dialectic of Hegel, the limitation of which does not merely lie in exalting a limited sphere of consciousness. into the substance of the universal. The limitation of the Hegelian dialectic also lies in its two most important qualities. Firstly, with Hegel nature has no history.1) Secondly, history itself settles down with the bourgeois landlord state (here Hegel's system in fact conflicts with his method). Both these limitations, which are of quite exceptional importance, are undoubtedly connected with the idealist character of Hegelian dialectic. Hence, by the way, the unsurpassably wretched poverty of those "thinkers" ("manufacturers of ideology", as Marx called them), who suggest that the difference between the Marxian and Hegelian dialectic is simply a matter of a change of label and that in fact Marx remained a Hegelian to the end of his life.2) Whereas Marxian dialectic as a doctrine of historical development was the first to conquer the whole sphere of nature comprehended from the point of view of an historical process, and broke those fetters which Hegel put upon the understanding of social development. This remarkable expansion of outlook proceeds entirely from Marx, a thing which bourgeois investigators cannot understand. Even very recently this sort of gap between nature and society played, and still plays to this day, a very important part. The whole conception of the Rickert school proceeds from the historical character of society and the unhistorical character of nature. The whole laborious differentiation between the generalising method of the natural sciences and the individualising method of the social sciences, between nomothetics (or nomology), on the one hand, and ideography on the other, between "natural laws" and "reference to worth" is founded in the last resort on the absolute rupture between society and nature. This is, in essence, a softened and refined theology, converting human society into a super-natural quantity. Whereas society and nature are a unity, but a contradictory unity. Society itself is a product of the,historical development of nature, but a product which relatively is in opposition to nature, reacts upon it and even in the process of historical development transforms external nature itself into its product (the so-called cultivated landscape). Therefore Marx said that in fact there is one science, the science of history, which embraces both the history of the inorganic world, and the history of the organic world and the history of society.3) In the sphere of the natural sciences this meant a decisive break with mechanistic-mathematical rationalism which in Marx is bound up with the criticism of mechanistic materialism."
Hence the scientific method does not limit itself to a historical formal logic, but applies dialectical logic. ie
A mathematical formula can be understood one sidedly
as an immediate product of logic or it can be understood dialecticaly as a product of history.
A dialectitian might ask why does this formula appear at this moment in time , does it correspond to other developments in other spheres. Whereas the formalist
has no need to go beyond immediate sense data.
Hence the dialetical method covers the history of the development of each process. These processes are governed by laws of movement, negation of negation,
quantity to quality, as listed by Lenin in his Philosophical notebooks on Hegel. These Laws are axiomatic, the axioms can be refined, hence they are not dogmatic.
Hence the method is the study of the self movement of an entitity.
Essentialism says that entity is knowable although not absolutely.
Where as atomism leaves history and reality as an infinite uncorrelatable determinants, ie chaos.
(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:10 pm on Mar. 9, 2002)
(Edited by peaccenicked at 3:26 pm on Mar. 9, 2002)