On Dialectics

[Conghaileach]

According to dialectics, every object and process has its opposite and eventually everything changes, one opposite overcoming the other (I know this sounds oversimplified but I still don't have a complete grasp of it).

If we understand communism to mean the classless society, what is the opposite of the proletariat? Or is the proletariat more of a concept rather than an actual thing?

Is communism the complete end product of everything? If everything is in a state of constant change (whether it be immediate or gradual) will there be another stage after communsim? And what about after that?

I'm currently studying dialectics and any help with aiding me in my understanding would be appreciated.

[redstar2000]

***WARNING! HERESY ALERT!***

CiaranB, while I would never wish to discourage anyone from studying anything that interests them, "dialectics" is, in my view, one of Marx's most grievous errors...and just a fuzzy mess that can be made to mean anything and therefore really means nothing.

The fundamental basics of Marxism can stand without ANY reliance on dialectics: how societies depend on a material basis, how they change their class nature as the material basis changes, how class struggle reflects material differences, how ideas likewise reflect material reality and material changes, etc.

The struggle of the working class for emancipation from the bourgeoisie follows naturally from the struggle of the bourgeoisie to emancipate themselves from the old feudal aristocracy. The ultimate victory of the working class has no more to do with "dialectics" than with the phases of the moon...it is assured by the material changes in the basis of capitalist society.

Like all of us, Marx was a product of his intellectual era...in his case, his youthful studies took place at a time when philosophy was under the shadow of that Prussian charlatan Hegel. "Everyone" was a "Hegalian" and Marx himself started out as a "left Hegalian".

It was just damned unfortunate that Marx, when he began to develop his communist ideas, didn't dump "dialectics" in the trashcan of history...as one of those "profound" ideas that turn out to be useless.

Perhaps the worst consequence of "dialectics" is the vision of communism as some kind of ultimate synthesis and crowning achievement of history...a static unchanging epoch of perfection. We know very well that real human beings don't live like that...and, I suspect, so did Marx. (At one point, he characterized the achievement of communism as "the end of pre-history and the beginning of real human history".) How and in what directions communist societies will change is impossible to say...but that they will change, being human, is certain.

The idiot Hegel, of course, thought history's ultimate culmination and crowning achievement was the King of Prussia...and himself!

The fact is that ordinary "generic" historical materialism and ordinary logic are really ALL you need to understand Marxism. "Dialectics" is like chrome hubcaps on a racing car...the vehicle will move neither faster nor slower because of their presence.

***HERESY WARNING NO LONGER IN EFFECT***

(Edited by redstar2000 at 9:46 am on Jan. 2, 2003)

[synthesis]

On his original question, I believe that the opposite of the proletarian would be the counter-revolutionary. In a communist society, the proletariat is the state, and therefore the counter-revolutionary, seeking to overthrow the current state, would be the opposition.

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from redstar2000 on 4:40 am on Jan. 2, 2003
***WARNING! HERESY ALERT!***

CiaranB, while I would never wish to discourage anyone from studying anything that interests them, "dialectics" is, in my view, one of Marx's most grievous errors...and just a fuzzy mess that can be made to mean anything and therefore really means nothing.

The fundamental basics of Marxism can stand without ANY reliance on dialectics: how societies depend on a material basis, how they change their class nature as the material basis changes, how class struggle reflects material differences, how ideas likewise reflect material reality and material changes, etc.

The struggle of the working class for emancipation from the bourgeoisie follows naturally from the struggle of the bourgeoisie to emancipate themselves from the old feudal aristocracy. The ultimate victory of the working class has no more to do with "dialectics" than with the phases of the moon...it is assured by the material changes in the basis of capitalist society.

Like all of us, Marx was a product of his intellectual era...in his case, his youthful studies took place at a time when philosophy was under the shadow of that Prussian charlatan Hegel. "Everyone" was a "Hegalian" and Marx himself started out as a "left Hegalian".

It was just damned unfortunate that Marx, when he began to develop his communist ideas, didn't dump "dialectics" in the trashcan of history...as one of those "profound" ideas that turn out to be useless.

Perhaps the worst consequence of "dialectics" is the vision of communism as some kind of ultimate synthesis and crowning achievement of history...a static unchanging epoch of perfection. We know very well that real human beings don't live like that...and, I suspect, so did Marx. (At one point, he characterized the achievement of communism as "the end of pre-history and the beginning of real human history".) How and in what directions communist societies will change is impossible to say...but that they will change, being human, is certain.

The idiot Hegel, of course, thought history's ultimate culmination and crowning achievement was the King of Prussia...and himself!

The fact is that ordinary "generic" historical materialism and ordinary logic are really ALL you need to understand Marxism. "Dialectics" is like chrome hubcaps on a racing car...the vehicle will move neither faster nor slower because of their presence.

***HERESY WARNING NO LONGER IN EFFECT***

(Edited by redstar2000 at 9:46 am on Jan. 2, 2003)


this has to be the most intelligent post I have ever seen on this board ever..... :) genius man...

[Ian]

Dialectics does have relevance in marxism, but even Lenin realised you don't need to be well versed in dialectics to be a great marxist.

"Bukharin is not only a most valuable and major theorist of the Party; he is also rightly considered the favourite of the whole Party, but his theoretical views can be classified as fully Marxist only with great reserve, for there is something scholastic about him (he has never made a study of the dialectics, and, I think, never fully understood it)."

V.I. Lenin 1922.

[bolshevik1917]

Dialectics is actually THE most importaint thing to learn in Marxism. If you ignore silly posts like Redstar's (I can assure you MITRS that this is not a clever post) you should take a look at this very simple, well layed out introduction to dialectics

http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide1.html



A Marxist without a knowledge of dialectics is like a house without foundations

[redstar2000]

"Dialectics is actually THE most important thing to learn in Marxism"--bolshevik1917

Oh? And WHY would that be, pray tell?

Do you have the remotest idea, bolshevik1917, WHAT you would have to do to DEMONSTRATE that "dialectics" was something more than 19th century Germanic romanticist claptrap?

1. You would have to "use" dialectics to reach a conclusion about reality that could NOT be reached using ordinary generic historical materialism and the rules of ordinary evidence and logic.

2. The conclusion would have to THEN be verifiable by the ordinary rules of evidence.

Go ahead and give it a try; I don't think you or any "dialectician" can do it. I assert, in fact, that whenever "dialectics" comes up with a TRUE statement, you can strip away the specialized terminology and recast the statement in ordinary language derived in ordinary ways from social reality.

And whenever someone waves "dialectics" in your face while making statements about reality that appear to be obviously false...you guessed it: someone is blowing smoke out their ass.

How did some "communists" in the 20th century get away with so much of that nonsense? Social reality is contingent: what is happening now was caused by what happened before; what will happen is caused by what is happening now as well as what happened in the past. Causation is complex...and it is ALWAYS possible to single out some of the causes of any social development and label them "thesis", "anti-thesis", and "synthesis". Pasting Greek labels on things doesn't make them Greek...or any more profound than if stated in ordinary language.

There is NO "hidden mystery" in history, no "special" way in which history develops outside the existence of real people living real, material lives.

Hegel needed all the help he could get in covering his servile apologetics for Prussian despotism...and "dialectics" was certainly useful for that purpose. But Marx and Engels did not need it and shouldn't have used it; whenever they would drag it in, the end result was only to obscure the clarity of their observations and conclusions.

In ordinary mathematics, division by zero is not permitted. The reason for this rule is simple: if you allow division by zero, then you can logically "prove" that any number is equal to any other number.

The same criticism is true of "dialectics"; by pasting the appropriate labels on your chosen causes, you can "prove" that ANY social development is "caused" by ANY OTHER TWO developments that you wish.

There ARE, in my opinion, cause-and-effect relationships in history that can be empirically demonstrated...though "laws" is too strong a term to use. But "dialectics" has NOTHING to do with that.

In fact, it has nothing to do with much of anything except a German professor's desire for a fat living and an even fatter reputation.

[Lardlad95]

First off....Socrates invented the Dialectic.


Dialectics is important for anyone to learn...

[Ian]

ohhhh Bolshevik1917, it seems you are confusing dialectical materialism with the dialectics (the dialectics has to do with historical materialism), the source you provided was about dialectical materialism. I also agree with you that dialectical materialism is the one of the most important things in marxist theory. Historical materialism has got to do with the dialectic

[MJM]

The Proletariat- being the embodiment of labour -would make it's opposite Capital if I'm not mistaken. Once classes have ceased to exist both capital and the proletariat will cease to exist. :)


Regarding the value of DM:
Didn't Marx discover surplus value by using dialectical materialism while studying capitalist production?
I may be mistaken, but if this is the case the value of it was proved by this discovery, being the most important one Marx was to make.

[bolshevik1917]

Lardlad and MJM have got it right here.

Dialectics (dialectical materialism, historical materialism etc) are all philosophy. Lenin said it was impossible to understand Marxism without a knowledge of philosophy, this is extremely true. As I explained to Stormin Normin (who apparently has read Capital) there is not one bit of economics in the first chapter - its all theory, all dialectics!

Thats the reason all these right wingers and capitalists dont really have a case against Marx's writtings. YES they can read 'Das Kapital' volumes 1,2 and 3 BUT THEY CANNOT UNDERSTAND IT

Redstar, dialectics is the law of contradiction, change and process. Its not nonsense, from what I can see there is nothing but truth in it. Read the study guide then disagree if you must.

Ian, historical materialism is also vitaly importaint because it denounces all the 'human nature' crap we have to put up with, it also shows that humanity is ready to move on to its next stage. There is a study guide on this too http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide2.html

(Edited by bolshevik1917 at 2:06 am on Jan. 3, 2003)

[Socialist Pig]

Thank you for the links comrade. They were very interesting.

[redstar2000]

1. The value, and hence (on the average) the price of any commodity is determined by the socially necessary labor required to produce that commodity.

2. Labor itself is a commodity.

3. The price of labor is therefore determined by the socially necessary labor to reproduce itself.

4. The capitalist must therefore go into the market and purchase labor just as he purchases raw materials, equipment, etc.

5. But when he purchases labor, it is not abstract labor he buys, but labor power--measured in Marx's time by the length of the working day (it's a bit more complicated now).

6. As a consequence of his ownership of the means of production, the capitalist is free to set the working day as long as he wishes...while still paying no more than the price needed to reproduce labor. And, he may in addition use machinery to intensify the labor power he purchases at no cost to himself beyond that of the machinery itself.

7. The difference between the socially necessary cost of the labor power the capitalist purchases and the value of the commodities that labor power produces is...surplus value, the source of capitalist profit.

Or, in one sentence: No capitalist will KNOWINGLY hire your labor power UNLESS he reasonably expects that the value of the goods or services you produce will be GREATER than the wage he pays you.

If he makes a mistake about this (capitalists, like all humans, are not all-knowing), then he loses money on your labor and eventually fires you or goes out of business.

It's possible to "dress this up" in dialectical terminology--it's possible to dress up ANYTHING in dialectical language--but how or why is it NECESSARY to do so?

:cool:

(Edited by redstar2000 at 4:34 pm on Jan. 3, 2003)

[El Che]

Jolly good show, redstar2000.

[MJM]

But wasn't the 'profit from the eleventh hour' the theory until marx discovered surplus value through dialectical materialism?

I know what you're saying redstar, but the discovery was made using dialectics as far as I know. Before the discovery your formula wasn't even considered. It's like talking about the internal combustion engine after it was made then saying the steam engine wasn't necessary.

The discovery of surplus value and it's proof from DM was the greatest discovery marx made, it's what set him apart from Engels. It's the basis of Marxism and what sets it apart from utopian socialism.

[El Che]

I`m sure its a complex issue. I don`t like to speak of what I don`t fully understand. However, I wonder how many of my comrades that "defend" Dialectical Materialism know enough about it to be speaking about it (this is not personaly directed at anyone, you knwo the answer to the question better than I). Never put your imparciality, your own ability to question aside, for nothing.

[MJM]

Good point ElChe.
I'm hardly an expert in regards to DM, I'm only starting to look into it. I'm merely taking what Engels said around the issue of surplus value.
redstar says it has no use or isn't necessary, but it was the founding basis of Marxs theories so I'm just saying the use is there for all to see.

[redstar2000]

MJM, the point I was trying to make here is that Marx COULD have arrived at ALL his conclusions with ordinary generic materialism, rules of logic, etc.

Of course, you're right, he DID think with dialectical terminology...he just didn't have to, nor do we.

It sort of gets to the problem of what inspires a hypothesis as opposed to what verifies it. Strictly speaking, science doesn't care WHAT your source of inspiration is--be it dialectics, divine revelation, or a dream you had after eating a large, loaded pizza.

All that science asks you to do is to explain your idea in clear terms, show what evidence you gathered to prove it, and explain your evidence-gathering methods so that other scientists can check your work.

And the convention in scientific writing is exactly that. If someone claimed that there is "a special method of thinking" that proves his idea...the scientific community would reply: "maybe, maybe not, buddy, but you're STILL going to have to prove your case in ordinary language nevertheless."

And, of course, the real strength of Marxist ideas is that, surprise, they CAN be shown to be valid in ordinary language. Hegel's mysticism was never necessary...it is just an accident of history that it's present in Marx's works.

Marx used to say that he found Hegel standing on his head and turned him over on his feet...but Hegel was like one of those weighted dolls that always returns to one position--Hegelian dialectics NATURALLY stands on its head. It really has no other position.

Let it gather dust in some small-town German museum.

:cool:

(Edited by redstar2000 at 6:22 am on Jan. 4, 2003)

[bolshevik1917]

Marx ALWAYS used dialectics, like the laws of contradiction to understand situations. For example, left and right, life and death, north and south....boom and bust!

Sure, you dont have to refer to this as dialectics (you dont have to refer to anything as anything if you dont want to) but why not? why confuse people?

I think we are all in agreement that Hegel was an idealist, but I doubt any communist reads Hegel anymore anyway. Unfortunatley we dont have just as much dialectical theory books from Marx Englels as we (or personaly I) would like, I beleive Marx intended on writting one after 'Capital' which as we know he sadly never finished. Engels put in a good dialectical contribution but again never really got round to writting a 'Capital' style dialectics work - which I beleive the subject fully deserves!

BTW Redstar, did you read the introduction to dialectics link that I provided? Its just if you did it would tell you all this anyway. If not, if youre saying 'I know all about dialectics' then fair enough, your choice.

I would encourage anyone else to read it though.

I should again point out (just to be picky) that dialectics is not German by origin as Lardlad said, the ancient Greeks were developing it first as far as I know.

Im a fan of Hericlitus myself, his little theory about stepping into a stream can make many things clearer to you.

My message anyway is SOCIALIST STUDY DIALECTICS

[bolshevik1917]

I should have also given this link http://www.marxist.com/rircontents.asp

I think this is the closest we have to a 'Capital' style dialectics work!

[redstar2000]

"SOCIALISTS STUDY DIALECTICS."...or else?

Sure, b1917, they do...but WHY?

Have you ever heard of the "aura effect"? Something that is true and useful is often surrounded by ideas that are somewhat less truthful or useful.

For example, if you're peddling some "health nostrum", it's useful to dress up some guy in a white lab coat, horn-rim glasses, with a clipboard...because we've learned as a species that real science is quite often both truthful and useful, anything that "looks" scientific gains credibility by association.

Had Marx never lived, dialectics would be a philosophic footnote in a very thick text. Dialectics has "credibility" because it is ASSOCIATED with one of the great thinkers of the modern world...with a man whose scientific ideas HAVE proven to be truthful and useful. Socialists have studied dialectics BECAUSE of the aura effect.

Think how SILLY we would be if we did this kind of thing all the time. Isaac Newton, another one of the great thinkers of modern times, spent an enormous amount of time in detailed study of the "Book of Revelation" in an effort to determine the precise date of "the end of the world." People were not mis-led; they accepted the validity of Newton's scientific work and simply ignored the rest as superstitious nonsense.

The real TEST of "dialectics" is, I repeat, its actual usefulness in the real world. Socialists have been "studying" dialectics for more than a century...have they ever arrived at even ONE useful insight that would not otherwise have been available?

LL95 and others are right, of course; dialectics does indeed go back as far as the old Greeks...but it was Hegel who "put together the package" as it were.

As long as we're quoting the fragmentary discourses of Hericlitus, here's mine: WE OUGHT NOT TO LIVE AS THOUGH WE WERE ASLEEP. :cool:

(Edited by redstar2000 at 3:37 am on Jan. 5, 2003)

[komsomol]

wrote something sort and brief, and not comprehensive on dialectics on Joons board, I got most of the points from that study guide bolshevik1917 posted, that is a good guide. http://www.cypsk.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi...act=NW;f=19;t=3 (http://www.cypsk.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?;act=NW;f=19;t=3)

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from bolshevik1917 on 2:53 pm on Jan. 2, 2003
Dialectics is actually THE most importaint thing to learn in Marxism. If you ignore silly posts like Redstar's

I think that redstars post was anything but silly,

Marx's dialectical materialism was basically his philosophy which he concocted from Feurbach's atheism and Hegel's philosophy of all objects being moving matter and that as matter moves, opposites are drawn into conflict.

that has to be so blatantly obvious that it really needs no logical consideration. It is such a broadstroke, it really isn't proving anything.

I like redstar's analogy of the racecar with the gold rims a lot and I frankly, cannot come up with a better one by myself. When you think about it, what does dialectical materialism really prove? nothing. it states that objective reality is the source of sense perception? Honestly, who is going to disagree with this? It is like me telling you that a bird has the ability to fly without a doubt because it has wings...... yeah......what else. And the worst thing is, Marx went on and on on this dialectical materialism which needs maybe a paragraph of explanation at most. It is basically a mouthful of bombastic drivel simply to make himself appear more intelligent. He doesn't need and dialectical nonsense to prove that he is a smart man. We already know this! like redstar says, I don't see why Marx through this nonsense in the philosophical trash can. It is really irrelevent to anything and it is not controversial in anyway. It is a waste of time.

(Edited by man in the red suit at 1:24 am on Jan. 5, 2003)


(Edited by man in the red suit at 6:09 am on Jan. 5, 2003)

[bolshevik1917]

You seem to have ignore what ive said. I asked you to read the two (short but very good) socialist study guides on

Dialectical Materialism http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide1.html

Historical Materialism http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide2.html

and the 'Reason in Revolt' book http://www.marxist.com/rircontents.asp

Like I said if you think you are 'above all this' then fine.

Dialectics is a way of understanding the world and its proceses. We all have a philosophy, everyone on earth does. My philosophy is dialectics, its as simple as that.

If you want explanations then read the material provided, if not then I will not be wasting time with you.

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from bolshevik1917 on 2:15 am on Jan. 5, 2003
You seem to have ignore what ive said. I asked you to read the two (short but very good) socialist study guides on

Dialectical Materialism http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide1.html

Historical Materialism http://www.marxist.com/Theory/study_guide2.html

and the 'Reason in Revolt' book http://www.marxist.com/rircontents.asp

Like I said if you think you are 'above all this' then fine.

Dialectics is a way of understanding the world and its proceses. We all have a philosophy, everyone on earth does. My philosophy is dialectics, its as simple as that.

If you want explanations then read the material provided, if not then I will not be wasting time with you.

first off, nobody is making you waste your precious time with me

I do not feel the need to look at the sights since I have completed Lenin's selected works volume 11 which is an in depth analysis of the topic. In addition I have read many books by Marx and Engels themselves. I will take a look at the sights since you seem to think so fondly of them however I honestly do not believe I will find anything that I don't already know there. Dialects has to be the simplest philosophy I have ever heard for one. And I can't think of there being anymore to it than I already know. Certainly, I don't claim to know everything on the subject however it's a very primitive philosophy. I agree with it 100% but that is because it is blatantly obvious. I take interest in the philosophies which are more complex and require more thought to them. Dialects are about as obvious as saying that the sky is blue. There is really nothing philosophical about. It's just a "philosophy" made up of "scientific" facts. The worst thing about it, and I'll say it again, Marx gives way to much information to such a simple topic. He just gets more and more bombastic in describing the topic. I will look at the websites you suggested since you were kind enough to suggest them to me. Who knows, I may become a firm believer in the dialects but as of now, I believe that dialectical materialism is much to primitive to have to give any in depth thought to.

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from redstar2000 on 10:34 pm on Jan. 4, 2003
"SOCIALISTS STUDY DIALECTICS."...or else?

Sure, b1917, they do...but WHY?

Have you ever heard of the "aura effect"? Something that is true and useful is often surrounded by ideas that are somewhat less truthful or useful.

For example, if you're peddling some "health nostrum", it's useful to dress up some guy in a white lab coat, horn-rim glasses, with a clipboard...because we've learned as a species that real science is quite often both truthful and useful, anything that "looks" scientific gains credibility by association.

Had Marx never lived, dialectics would be a philosophic footnote in a very thick text. Dialectics has "credibility" because it is ASSOCIATED with one of the great thinkers of the modern world...with a man whose scientific ideas HAVE proven to be truthful and useful. Socialists have studied dialectics BECAUSE of the aura effect.



This is exactly what I believe. Yet another genius post by redstar. Socialists seem to feel that they need to study dialects simply because it is a "socialist accessory"

believeing in dialects won't make you any more socialist guys.

[redstar2000]

b1917, instead of directing us to websites, why don't YOU tell us what "dialectics" has done to improve YOUR understanding of social reality, class struggle, the nature of communist society...or ANYTHING.

What do you now know and understand from studying "dialectics" that you would otherwise find incomprehensible?

Come on, name ONE thing and explain how "dialectics" reveals a "truth" that's hidden from ordinary thinking.

Otherwise, this begins to take on the form of a religious argument...you keep asserting that "dialectics" is "real" and "useful" and I keep countering: show me!

If you'll pardon me for saying so, liturgy and ritual have NO place in scientific thinking. Marx, in common with nearly all thinkers of his era, thought "races" were real entities...now, we know better. He thought "dialectics" was a useful method of thinking...now, it's about time we admit that we know better.

Reality MAY be always more complex than we can fully comprehend...but the ordinary use of logic and evidence have resulted in enormous progress in our understanding. A VERY important part of that progress has been the willingness to discard what was once thought "profound" and "useful" and which turned out to be neither.

As my parents said to me long ago: "Take out the trash, son." About that, at least, they were right!

:cool:

[bolshevik1917]

Dialectics helped me understand that conditions determined consciousness. As Dialectics is the theory of change I could see that changing one thing at point A could affect a number of things at point B (in good or bad ways)

Call this 'formal logic' or anything else, whatever you call it its still dialectics and you will only confuse people. You dont know that blue is blue, you are just going by what people tell you - but why call blue green?

All im saying about my 3 links is that is where my arguments lie, almost everything I say will be in there. If people are interested in dialectics then I strongly recommend these works. If not then fair enough.

And your right MITRS, its not an extremely complicated subject - but it is also nothing to undermine, or put little or no thought into. Study, understand then draw your own conclusions!

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from bolshevik1917 on 2:10 pm on Jan. 5, 2003
Dialectics helped me understand that conditions determined consciousness. As Dialectics is the theory of change I could see that changing one thing at point A could affect a number of things at point B (in good or bad ways)

as I asked before, did you really need dialects to understand this for yourself. You seem like a smart guy. It is hard for me to believe that you needed to buy into the dialects to understand this for yourself


And your right MITRS, its not an extremely complicated subject - but it is also nothing to undermine, or put little or no thought into. Study, understand then draw your own conclusions!

maybe you right. Maybe it is not worth undermining or maybe it does deserve some serious thought. But I have studying them, I do understand them, and I have drawn my own conclusions. I don't find your links crucial to my understandning of the topic however I will look at them since you would like me to and believe that I must be missing something on the topic.

and as redstar proposed, why don't YOU tell us how you were able to apply dialects to your everyday life. How did they help YOU further your knowledge of how society works. "How did they help reveal truth that you would otherwise have found incomprehensible?"

[bolshevik1917]

"why don't YOU tell us how you were able to apply dialects to your everyday life. How did they help YOU further your knowledge of how society works. How did they help reveal truth that you would otherwise have found incomprehensible?"

I think this is a good question which I am happy to answer. Its late and im tired so maybe I'll add to things a bit tomorow.

Anyway, a bit of background for you. im 19 years old. I became a student of Marxism around a year and a half ago, about the same time as I started work on my local golf course as an apprentice greenkeeper.

I must admit there was much much more to my job than I thought there would be. The simple 'formal logic' theory of cutting grass 'when it needs cut' does not apply the way I had thought it would.

I started studying dialectics (I was reading Reason in Revolt) the same time my work sent me to college for my block release qualification. This could not have been timed any better. One subject I studied was called 'green plant', this was an extremely complex subject about the innars of plants, the ways they grow, reproduce and suchlike. It was like a higher version of school biology.

But at the same time I was learning about the logic of contradiction, mass and energy being the same (I had never considered this) sharp turns and sudden changes, quantity into quality (and vice versa).

I can assure you that before I became a Marxist Greenkeeper I had a very murky strange way of looking at life. Dialectics cleared my vision, nothing surprises me now. It is also easier to understand the way situations develop. It has even increased my self confidence, I can talk to people better and clearer, I can listen and understand better.

If this is the negative picture of primative dialectics then you should point out to me what I have missed.

And like I said, I could probibly go into more detail tomorow. Its best I get some sleep now, otherwise i'll be a Marxist Greenkeeper searching for another job!

[redstar2000]

"You don't know blue is blue, you are just going by what people tell you, but why call blue green?"

Your analogy suggests, b1917, that I'm proposing a change in terminology...calling "dialectics" formal logic and thus just "confusing" people.

On the contrary, I'm suggesting that the terminology of dialectics as well as its "laws" ARE what is meaningless here...ordinary logic, rules of evidence, etc. are sufficient...or, at least, the best thing our species has come up with so far.

The fact of the matter is that social reality can RARELY be reduced to a simple thesis-antithesis-synthesis progression...at least not without paying a price in sharply reduced accuracy.

Consider the long sweep of human history: primitive communsm, nomadism, oriental despotism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism...and, hopefully, advanced communism. It is surely possible to paste the "appropriate" labels all over this progression...but how does it help? A DETAILED examination of how the means of production changed, how relations of production changed as a result, the class struggles that took place, how ideas about reality changed, etc. seems to me to be FAR more useful...both in understanding how history "works" and in understanding reality at the present time.

It gets worse. "Communist" politicians of the 20th century often "used" dialectics in an effort to PREDICT the future in concrete terms...which, if accurate, would really PROVE that dialectics was both true and useful.

Guess what? They might just as well have flipped a coin...if anything, their results were WORSE than chance. The folks who boast of their "dialectical understanding" of reality remind me of bourgeois economists with their quantitative models of free markets...neither can predict squat. Just as they have a fake "Nobel Prize" for bourgeois economists, they might just as well have one for "dialecticians"...their track record is remarkably similar.

So, b1917, it's not a matter of changing a basic and useful convention on what to name a color; it's a matter of discarding a seemingly "profound" but actually useless and ultimately confusing way of thinking about social reality. To say, effectively, that "we've always done it that way" is no defense...it's just the abandonment of reason in the name of tradition; it's a RELIGIOUS excuse. You end up "believing" in dialectics...and where's the ROOM for THINKING once you start letting BELIEF get in the way?

:cool:

[Conghaileach]

Perhaps it's so that many people think in dialectical terms, but have never really defined it as such.

[bolshevik1917]

'Ordinary logic' as you call it would not be sufficient to analyse, say, subtonic particles - and im sure many more things. After all, what is 'ordinary logic' ? what is 'ordinary' ?

If 'ordinary logic' is the same as formal logic then this is what Hegel described as 'the lifeless bones of a skeleton'

Of course a skeleton is important, but it is useless without life tissue over it.

Formal logic is a very fixed, stuck way of looking at the world.

For example A = A

A is not not A

A is not B

Dialectics is much more usefull as I explained my personal benefits in my last post. Before studying dialectics I was unaware that matter was in a constant state of change, that motion comes from within, that matter and motion are inseperable, nothing dissapears, critical points to sudden leaps etc etc.

I have learned alot from dialectics, and I intend to keep on learning. Its not mysticism, its not outdated. Its an extremely important factor in understanding the changes and processes around us.

If we do not understand the world HOW CAN WE CHANGE IT?

[komsomol]

Quote: from CiaranB on 12:30 am on Jan. 6, 2003
Perhaps it's so that many people think in dialectical terms, but have never really defined it as such.


I agree with you there on that, a lot of people nowadays will use dialectics, but not know what it is. It is important to study dialectics though just to be clearer about what you think. Also, the utopians sometimes don't know how to scientifically justify what they propose, in dialectics, the negation of the negation provides at least part of an answer to those who would ask why we are so insistent that Communism will succede, the class so society which negated primitive communism shall in turn be negated by emergence of Communism.There are quite a few idealists out there though, which is very odd.

[redstar2000]

CB, it may well be that people are walking around "thinking dialectically" and don't know it...but I fail to see how that could be demonstrated...or what difference it would make.

As soon as you begin to communicate an idea, a theory, an explanation of something, people want to see how you arrived at what you are saying and what evidence you have for what you are saying. Word-play, like "negation of the negation" or "interpenetration of opposities", etc. WON'T cut it.

b1917, I think the word you wanted there was "sub-atomic". That matter is in constant motion is an idea that goes back to the old Greeks...but is a FACT found in every high school physics text. The people who discovered what matter in motion is really about NEVER HEARD of dialectics, much less "used" it to tell the scientific community of their discoveries. (The atomic explanation of "Brownian motion" was advanced first by, you guessed it, Albert Einstein in 1905.)

In other words, b1917, if you want to learn about "matter in motion", study PHYSICS. Instead of the verbal flourishes and mystical formulas of dialectics, you'll learn REAL formulas that REALLY tell you how matter behaves...ideas that have been PROVEN to be both truthful AND useful.
------------------------------------

As a consequence of Marx's theory of surplus value, he predicted that the long-term trend of workers' wages would be downwards. This has yet to be empirically confirmed...however, we KNOW with reasonable certainty that wages have been essentially stagnant in the U.S. for the last three decades and in Japan for the last decade. It's starting to look like Marx was on to something here.

But, the result of such a decline in workers' wages can only be a fall in the rate of profit on invested capital...no matter how cheaply a capitalist prices his product or service, growing numbers of workers can't BUY what he's selling.

Capitalism, by functioning according to its own laws, paints itself into a corner...the expansiveness and innovation that characterized youthful capitalism fades away. The relations of production (capitalist/proletarian) have become chains on the means of production...the result is stagnation or depression.

When this happens, the working class will see communism not as an idealistic goal for the distant future...but as an IMMEDIATE PRACTICAL NECESSITY lest they literally starve amidst abundance. It is possible that the factory occupations in Argentina are an embryonic form of this.

There's your "proof" of the "inevitability" of communist victory over capitalism. Just ordinary materialist reasoning and ordinary evidence (as much as we have at this point).

Anyone who would accept "negation of the negation" as a substitute for the kind of reasoning from evidence that I posited above is, bluntly speaking, looking for a CHURCH, not a revolution.

:cool:

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from bolshevik1917 on 4:42 pm on Jan. 6, 2003
'Ordinary logic' as you call it would not be sufficient to analyse, say, subtonic particles - and im sure many more things. After all, what is 'ordinary logic' ? what is 'ordinary' ?

If 'ordinary logic' is the same as formal logic then this is what Hegel described as 'the lifeless bones of a skeleton'

Of course a skeleton is important, but it is useless without life tissue over it.

Formal logic is a very fixed, stuck way of looking at the world.

For example A = A

A is not not A

A is not B

Dialectics is much more usefull as I explained my personal benefits in my last post. Before studying dialectics I was unaware that matter was in a constant state of change, that motion comes from within, that matter and motion are inseperable, nothing dissapears, critical points to sudden leaps etc etc.

I have learned alot from dialectics, and I intend to keep on learning. Its not mysticism, its not outdated. Its an extremely important factor in understanding the changes and processes around us.

If we do not understand the world HOW CAN WE CHANGE IT?












forgive me if you find this insulting, however I find dialects no more enlightening on matter and motion thatn a high school chemistry course.. It puzzles me as to why it took dialectical study to discover that matter is neither created or destroyed and that motion comes from within. And even if dialects were the miraculous enlightenment of this topic for you, how does this help you in everyday life. I already asked you this, I know. I need something more tangible. You are giving me broad generalisations. You said that dialects helped you to communicate with people more easily.......HOW? what does having the knowledge of matter have anything remotely to do with social interactions and grass. Perhaps I am missing the picture but your points are to vague for my satisfaction. I can even conclude for myself that there are really no new or innovative ideas in the dialects, they are simply recyled philosophies and theories taken from Feurbach and Hegel.

[man in the red suit]

Quote: from bolshevik1917 on 4:42 pm on Jan. 6, 2003
'Ordinary logic' as you call it would not be sufficient to analyse, say, subtonic particles - and im sure many more things. After all, what is 'ordinary logic' ? what is 'ordinary' ?

If 'ordinary logic' is the same as formal logic then this is what Hegel described as 'the lifeless bones of a skeleton'

Of course a skeleton is important, but it is useless without life tissue over it.

Formal logic is a very fixed, stuck way of looking at the world.

For example A = A

A is not not A

A is not B

Dialectics is much more usefull as I explained my personal benefits in my last post. Before studying dialectics I was unaware that matter was in a constant state of change, that motion comes from within, that matter and motion are inseperable, nothing dissapears, critical points to sudden leaps etc etc.

I have learned alot from dialectics, and I intend to keep on learning. Its not mysticism, its not outdated. Its an extremely important factor in understanding the changes and processes around us.

If we do not understand the world HOW CAN WE CHANGE IT?

[man in the red suit]

uh..sorry for the double post deal...

[bolshevik1917]

"It puzzles me as to why it took dialectical study to discover that matter is neither created or destroyed and that motion comes from within. And even if dialects were the miraculous enlightenment of this topic for you, how does this help you in everyday life. I already asked you this, I know. I need something more tangible. You are giving me broad generalisations. You said that dialects helped you to communicate with people more easily.......HOW? what does having the knowledge of matter have anything remotely to do with social interactions and grass."

Well, if dialectics helped me to understand the laws of matter and motion I COULD have studied chemistry instead.

Dialectics helped me to understand the workings of any plant (photosynthesis etc are dialectical processes) I COULD have studied biology or green plant.

If I wanted to understand the way society works and moves I COULD have studied social sciences or phsycology.

But the fact is, life and the universe is one thing, one proccess. Looking at something without dialectics is like looking at a photograph of a football match. You can see what is happening but you will never see the other 89 minutes of the game.

And self confidence comes with understanding, if your ideas are confused and muddled it will obviously affect your manner. After studying dialectics things became extremely clear to me, so how is this a useless bad thing??

[redstar2000]

"After studying dialectics, things became extremely clear to me, so how is this a useless, bad thing?"

Well, b1917, this gets into the area of human psychology in which I have only a layman's knowledge.

Consider the professional athlete who goes through some superstitious ritual before a game. The "reason" he does this is because at one time, when he did this ritual more or less by accident, he performed well. Since that success, he now performs the ritual every time because it gives him the (superstitious) self-confidence that by performing the ritual, he will perform well in the game itself...even though the EVIDENCE is clear that it makes no difference; he STILL has "good games" and "bad games".

So if "dialectics" gives you the self-confidence to do something that you would otherwise be afraid to do for fear of failure...who can argue with THAT? In political thinking as in sport, the real TEST is the OUTCOME of your efforts.

Yes, everything in the universe is a serious of processes; nothing is at rest. Even a hydrogen atom at absolute zero has a tiny residual motion. But that really doesn't take you very far in understanding SPECIFIC PROCESSES. If you want to understand photosynthesis at a USEFUL level, you have NO choice but to study the ACTUAL PROCESS in DETAIL. Just saying it's "dialectical" doesn't tell you anything useful at all.

The same is true of politics, economics, sociology, etc. except even MORE SO...because human interactions are FAR more complex than physical processes. The little "quickie" summaries of Marxist economics that I wrote in my previous posts are DRASTICALLY over-simplified compared to reality; that's why I could be easily embarrassed if a real Marxist economist came onto this board and started talking about this stuff in real detail. But HIS knowledge would be FAR more USEFUL than mine...and he wouldn't even dream of passing off some mumbo-jumbo about dialectics as an explanation of anything.

Thus, there is real clarity about a subject and there is "clarity"--the FEELING that you really understand something whether you REALLY do or not. How to tell the difference? Real clarity results in USEFUL conclusions; fake "clarity" is just another dead-end. Dialectics offers the illusion of "clarity" when what we ALWAYS need is the REAL THING.

Mark Twain said it: "It ain't so much the things that people don't know that's the problem; it's the things people know that ain't so." :cool:

[bolshevik1917]

As Trotsky said "The dialectic, is neither fiction nor mysticism, but a science of the forms of our thinking insofar as it is not limited to the daily problems of life but attempts to arrive at an understanding of more complicated and drawn-out processes."

The difference between dialectics and some 'ritual' done by an athlete is that I have studied dialectics which in turn helped me to understand the world - there is nothing superstitious about this!

As you will probibly not read 'Reason in Revolt' (which is a pity as you are such a critic of dialectics) here is an extract regarding dialectics and capital.

In the three volumes of Capital, Marx provides a brilliant example of how the dialectical method can be used to analyse the most fundamental processes in society. By so doing, he revolutionised the science of political economy, a fact which is not denied even by those economists whose views sharply conflict with those of Marx. So fundamental is the dialectical method to Marx’s work, that Lenin went so far as to say that it was not possible to understand Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having read the whole of Hegel’s Logic! This was undoubtedly an exaggeration. But what Lenin was driving at was the fact that Marx’s Capital is itself a monumental object-lesson on how dialectics ought to be applied.

"If Marx did not leave behind him a ‘Logic’ (with a capital letter), he did leave the logic of Capital, and this ought to be utilised to the full in this question. In Capital, Marx applied to a single science logic, dialectics and the theory of knowledge of materialism [three words are not needed: it is one and the same thing] which has taken everything valuable in Hegel and developed it further." (41)

What method did Marx use in Capital? He did not impose the laws of dialectics upon economics but derived them from a long and painstaking study of all aspects of the economic process. He did not put forward an arbitrary schema and then proceed to make the facts fit into it but set out to uncover the laws of motion of capitalist production through a careful examination of the phenomenon itself. In his Preface to the Critique of Political Economy, Marx explains his method:

"I am omitting a general introduction which I had jotted down because on closer reflection any anticipation of results still to be proved appears to me to be objectionable, and the reader who on the whole desires to follow me must be resolved to ascend from the particular to the general." (42)

Capital represented a breakthrough, not only in the field of economics, but for social science in general. It has a direct relevance to the kind of discussions which are taking place among scientists at the present time. When Marx was alive, this discussion had already begun. At that time, scientists were obsessed with the idea of taking things apart and examining them in detail. This method is now referred to as "reductionism," although Marx and Engels, who were highly critical of it, called it the "metaphysical method." The mechanicists dominated physics for 150 years. Only now is the reaction against reductionism gathering steam. A new generation of scientists is setting itself the task of overcoming this heritage, and moving on to the formulation of new principles, in place of the old approximations.

It was thanks to Marx that the reductionist tendency in economics was routed in the middle of the last century. After Capital, such an approach was unthinkable. The "Robinson Crusoe" method of explaining political economy ("imagine two people on a desert island…") occasionally resurfaces in bad school text-books and vulgar attempts at popularisation, but cannot be taken seriously. Economic crises and revolutions do not take place between two individuals on a desert island! Marx analyses the capitalist economy, not as the sum-total of individual acts of exchange, but as a complex system, dominated by laws of its own which are as powerful as the laws of nature. In the same way, physicists are now discussing the idea of complexity, in the sense of a system in which the whole is not just a collection of elementary parts. Of course, it is useful to know, where possible, the laws which govern each individual part, but the complex system will be governed by new laws which are not merely extensions of the previous ones. This is precisely the method of Marx’s Capital—the method of dialectical materialism.

Marx begins his work with an analysis of the basic cell of capitalist economy—the commodity. From this he explains how all the contradictions of capitalist society arise. Reductionism treats things like whole and part, particular and universal as mutually incompatible and exclusive, whereas they are completely inseparable, and interpenetrate and determine each other. In the first volume of Capital, Marx explains the twofold nature of commodities, as use-values and exchange-values. Most people see commodities exclusively as use-values, concrete, useful objects for the satisfaction of human wants. Use-values have always been produced in every type of human society.

However, capitalist society does strange things to use-values. It converts them into exchange-values—goods which are produced not directly for consumption, but for sale. Every commodity thus has two faces—the homely, familiar face of a use-value, and the mysterious, hidden face of an exchange-value. The former is directly linked to the physical properties of a particular commodity (we wear a shirt, drink coffee, drive a car, etc.). But exchange value cannot be seen, worn or eaten. It has no material being whatsoever. Yet it is the essential nature of a commodity under capitalism. The ultimate expression of exchange-value is money, the universal equivalent, through which all commodities express their value. These little pieces of green paper have no relation whatever to shirts, coffee or cars as such. They cannot be eaten, worn or driven. Yet such is the power they contain, and so universally is this recognised, that people will kill for them.

The dual nature of the commodity expresses the central contradiction of capitalist society—the conflict between wage-labour and capital. The worker thinks he sells his labour to the employer, but in fact what he sells is his labour power, which the capitalist uses as he sees fit. The surplus value thus extracted is the unpaid labour of the working class, the source of the accumulation of capital. It is this unpaid labour which maintains all the non-working members of society, through rent, interest, profits and taxation. The class struggle is really the struggle for the division of this surplus value.

Marx did not invent the idea of surplus value, which was known to previous economists like Adam Smith and Ricardo. But, by disclosing the central contradiction involved in it, he completely revolutionised political economy. This discovery can be compared to a similar process in the history of chemistry. Until the late 18th century, it was assumed that the essence of all combustion consisted in the separation from burning substances of a hypothetical thing called phlogiston. This theory served to explain most of the known chemical phenomena at the time. Then in 1774, the English scientist Joseph Priestley discovered something which he called "dephlogisticated air," which was later found to disappear whenever a substance was burned in it.

Priestley had, in fact, discovered oxygen. But he and other scientists were unable to grasp the revolutionary implications of this discovery. For a long time afterwards they continued to think in the old way. Later, the French chemist Lavoisier discovered that the new kind of air was really a chemical element, which did not disappear in the process of burning, but combined with the burnt substance. Although others had discovered oxygen, they did not know what they had discovered. This was the great discovery of Lavoisier. Marx played a similar role in political economy.

Marx’s predecessors had discovered the existence of surplus value, but its real character remained shrouded in obscurity. By subjecting all previous theories, beginning with Ricardo, to a searching analysis, Marx discovered the real, contradictory nature of value. He examined all the relations of capitalist society, starting with the simplest form of commodity production and exchange, and following the process through all its manifold transformations, pursuing a strictly dialectical method.

Marx showed the relation between commodities and money, and was the first one to provide an exhaustive analysis of money. He showed how money is transformed into capital, demonstrating how this change is brought about through the buying and selling of labour power. This fundamental distinction between labour and labour power was the key that unlocked the mysteries of surplus value, a problem that Ricardo had been unable to solve. By establishing the difference between constant and variable capital, Marx was able to trace the entire process of the formation of capital in detail, and thus explain it, which none of his predecessors were able to do.

Marx’s method throughout is rigorously dialectical, and follows quite closely the main lines traced by Hegel’s Logic. This is explicitly stated in the Afterword to the Second German edition, where Marx pays a handsome tribute to Hegel:

"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 connection. 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…

"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 the same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., a ‘dead dog.’ I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

"In its mystified form, dialectic become 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."

[El Che]

bolshevik1917, can`t you just say it in ur own words?

Give an example, using a especific subject matter, explain the dialectical methodology used to study it, present the conclusions and confront these with the results achived by simple logic.

That, I think, is a useful excercise.

[Conghaileach]

I just found this page. It's a university specification for studying Spanish. The part I found interesting is this quote..

"Students will examine the linguistic features of speech synchronically, diachronically, and dialectically; study different varieties and registers of spoken Spanish."

http://www.carroll.edu/academics/catalog/p.../pdfs/dsp02.pdf (http://www.carroll.edu/academics/catalog/pdfs/dsp02.pdf)


Actually, if you go to a search engine such as Google and enter something like "dialectically study" into the search box, there are many results.

[redstar2000]

Sorry, b1917, but I think my own--admittedly inadequate--summaries of Marx's achievements are superior to the MASSIVE extract that you posted...and a LOT easier to read.

If the point is supposed to be that Marx himself had a high opinion of dialectics, we already KNOW that. In fact, I'll concede a further measure: to the extent that dialectics suggested the idea of social PROCESSES to Marx, as opposed to abstract and/or static models of social theory, then dialectics was a "good" inspiration for Marx's real work.

But even if HE thought dialectics was an "integral" part of his analysis, that doesn't make it so. The fact that Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin ALL thought dialectics was an essential or fundamental part of Marxism ALSO does not make it so.

Put it this way: great thinkers also make great mistakes. When they are right, they are powerfully right. When they are wrong, they are deeply and profoundly wrong. We lesser thinkers have to sort out the difference...not an easy task, but an essential one.

Note: CiaranB, I think when the catalog says "dialectically", they mean it in terms of dialects...different versions of spoken Spanish. Then again, if they're going to be reading a Spanish translation of Hegel...:cheesy:

[Conghaileach]

from redstar2000:
Note: CiaranB, I think when the catalog says "dialectically", they mean it in terms of dialects...different versions of spoken Spanish. Then again, if they're going to be reading a Spanish translation of Hegel...:cheesy:

I couldn't believe that that had not originally occurred to me, but there were many different topics I found (which of which did seem to be school subjects).

[bolshevik1917]

Redstar, very modest of you there but I think we can agree to differ on which summary is superior ;)

El Che presents a very good question "Give an example, using a especific subject matter, explain the dialectical methodology used to study it, present the conclusions and confront these with the results achived by simple logic."

According to formal logic

A = A and that is that

A is not, not A at any time

Acording to dialectics, A does not always equal A

For example, take a peice of paper and write two A's on it. At a glance they are the same, but look at them through a magnifying glass - they appear to be extremely different!

According to formal logic

A pound of sugar is a pound of sugar

A pound of sugar is not, not a pound of sugar

According to dialectics one pound of sugar is not the same as the next, each will not contain the same sized grains of sugar or the same ammount of grains.

I could give you endless examples on the 'is and is not' theory

But why is it relivant to socialism?

Take a look at some of the defenders of capitalism on the other board. They say that we live in capitalism and thaty is that, nothing will change because nothing ever changes.

Most capitalists use formal logic

The world is capitalist and that is that

The world will always be capitalist

Dialectics pointed out to me this theory was wrong. According to Redstar dialectics are useless, I think people will draw their own conclusions though.

[redstar2000]

b1917, of course, defenders of capitalism like to argue with formal logic. But SOME of them now USE Hegalian dialectics as well...to "prove" that CAPITALISM is the culmination of all historical progress. In spirit, this is MUCH closer to Hegel's real motivations than anything in Marx.

Looking over this thread, it just occurred to me that there actually IS a specialized way of thinking that really does produce truthful and useful results that CANNOT be achieved (usually) by ordinary logic and the rules of evidence. It HAS to be STUDIED INTENSIVELY and the outcome of such study is ALWAYS GOOD.

Did you guess it? It's MATHEMATICS!

:cool:

[bolshevik1917]

How could you use dialectics to defend capitalism? You would have to ignore the build up of tension in the working class reaching a critical/boiling point (socialist revolution)

quality into quantity and vice versa

Many capitalist academics probibly know much about dialectics, but it is not in their interests to preach it. As long as they preach a formal logic way of thinking it will go towards them keeping their power and privelages.

[redstar2000]

b1917, the best example I know is

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama (ISBN #0029109752).

It is a neo-Hegelian analysis of the "triumph" of "liberal democracy" and the "free market".

But a more graphic example was when the playwrite-president of the Czech Republic addressed the U.S. Congress a few years ago.

"Marx was wrong," he thundered, "and Hegel was right. Consciousness determines being." (Respectful applause.)

So, yes, it's doable; all it takes to "use" dialectics in defense of capitalism is to apply the labels of thesis-antithesis-synthesis in a somewhat different way.

Like I said about 10 posts back or thereabouts, you can "use" dialectics to "prove" ANYTHING. But that's the same as proving NOTHING.

:cool:

[bolshevik1917]

They can say they are using dialectics to "prove" capitalism is superior, but it will be one huge flaw as what they are arguing goes against the dialectical proccess.

They would have to leave 3/4ths of the teachings of dialectics out of their argument for it to sound even a tiny bit feesable!

[peaccenicked]

I for one do not treat dialectics in a precious manner, the main demand is for all sidedness which is impossible, one can only look at as many sides as possible or practical for the analyst.
In this the idea of looking at things from contrasting viewpoints is revealing. Science is really the historical method. The continual narrative of the story of a process
Science tries to reveal the next part of the story. The dialectical method is a safeguard against mistakes.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 12:23 pm on Jan. 11, 2003)

[bolshevik1917]

Of course history is vital (hence, historical materialism). The key is to learn from history, or you will be doomed to repeat the old mistakes. Dialectics helps us understand the proccesses taking place around us and they way it will pan out.

I think it was Mark Twain who said "history does not repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes"

[El Che]

1-How does Dialectics help me understand the true nature of A?

2-If dialectic methodology refuses to use terms, due to their inherently erroneous nature, is it not cripled as form of logic? Terms presuppose error because they are generalisations but does not Dialectics become the greatest generalisation of them all if it refuses to terminology? Nothing is 100% correct.

3- Dialectics is a UNIVERSAL LAW, correct? That means ALL things obey the laws of Dialectics. With it you can understand and explain everything. Dialectical dinamics run through everything. Sounds mystical, or at least unsubstanciated, to me.

[bolshevik1917]

"How does Dialectics help me understand the true nature of A?"

What is the true nature of A? I would disagree that A (or anything in existance) has a single fixed 'true nature'

"If dialectic methodology refuses to use terms, due to their inherently erroneous nature, is it not cripled as form of logic?"

No, capitalism can (and has been) studied dialectically. What I was saying is that it cannot be PROMOTED or DEFENDED using dialectics. If you did try to do this you would need to leave whole chunks of theory out, this would be a pathetic argument.

[El Che]

Do you know the true nature of A? If you don`t, you can`t disagree with anything because to your own admission-- you don`t know. If you do know the true nature of A, well then that invalidates your statement, doesn`t it?

Nevertheless, that is not what I asked. My question is:

"How does Dialectics help me understand the true nature of A?"

Formal logic misrepresents A, A escapes it. Can Dialectics do any better? So your suggestion is abandon the imperfect in favor of the non existent...

To know A in greatest possible detail you should study A individualy.

IMO, language is essential to philosophy. Since Dialectics only uses its laws of motion, or whatever, I think it`s probably seriously limited in what it can achive.

[bolshevik1917]

If we go back to the start here, I used the example of formal logic

A = A, A is and always will be A etc

I then pointed out the dialectical method of analysing A which concludes that A is not always A.

We can see here the advantage of dialectics over formal logic. Nothing is fixed - dialectics shows that in this thread.

So "Formal logic misrepresents A, A escapes it. Can Dialectics do any better?" you ask

As far as identifying 'A' goes dialectics can point out that nothing has a true fixed identity. It therfore cannot identify 'A' once and for all, this does not mean 'A' has 'escaped' the theory.

It means dialectics has identified 'A' as being unidetifiable 'once and for all'

PS. I take no responsibilty for comrades getting headaches whilst reading this thread :wink:

[Conghaileach]

Take A to mean a person.

Dialectics argues that A is not always equal to A because A (the person) grows and changes, has new experiences, new lessons etc.

Formal logic argues that A is always A. A (the person) remains the same, no matter what.

Very crude example, I know, but sometimes these things can help.

[peaccenicked]

An acorn will grow into an oak tree unless it is eaten by a pig. However,Formal logic allows us to identify things as they exist for a moment in time, independent of change or time.
We use it in everyday situations.
''Can I have an apple?'' We dont mean a decayed apple or an apple tree. We mean a healthy apple.
Dialectical logic as it defined by Hegel is essentially about the relationship between being and otherness.
the moments of birth, becoming, movement between lower and higher forms, the examination of determinate aspects, necessary or contingent and passing away, in short, the recognition of oppossing tendencies of the process of development of entities.
It is quite a sophisticated system of abstractions, which
ultimately only guide subject/object understanding. He even states that this understanding can be transcended by an all sided truth which lacks subjectivitiy. He also likes to remind empiricists that you cant learn to swim without jumping into the pool.
This I think he is suggesting that scientific enquiry requires a great deal of study and work.
Both formal logic and dialectical logic give us ways of seeing 'A'. However, it is the quantity of time we spend studying 'A' that will or should produce a qualitative understanding of 'A', bringing scientific knowledge forward. This thought is also behind the notion of serendipity.

[redstar2000]

I think it's a mistake to get hung up on formal "modes of thought" period.

In real life, the test is not whether we understand the true nature of A formally or dialectically; the test is what we can say about the nature of A that is VERIFIABLE.

Whatever insights this or that philosophy or way of thinking about things may have to offer, the real test is correspondence with the real world.

I suppose that makes me a "Marxist-empiricist"...but I've been called worse. :cheesy:

[peaccenicked]

Verifiblity? I am not sure RedStar2000 what you are getting at. Karl Popper got into a horrible mess with that.
How can we verify the potential of something that has not yet shown itself in its developed nature. Communism
for instance.

[redstar2000]

"How can we verify the potential of something that has not yet shown itself in its developed nature? Communism for instance."

Probably, we can't. Do we have to?

Certainly a session of verbal gymnastics under the rubric of "dialectics" isn't going to help.

What we have is a sound analysis of capitalism (Marx and Engels), some historical experience (much of it negative), and some speculative ideas on what we want to achieve.

What else do we need?

:cool:

[The Muckraker]

Sometimes it's worth looking at a definition of something before analyzing it. Marxists.org's Encyclopedia of Marxism has a pretty good definition of dialiectics here (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dialectics).

Saying that dialectics is simply thesis-antithesis-synthesis seems a bit reductionist to me. I rather see it as an analytical tool that avoids the problems of metaphysics.

[peaccenicked]

The problem with verification as the mantra of modern empiricism is that it impoverishes theory and leaves it at a level of bare facts. Marx was never a minimalist who agonised over what limits could be set on speculation. The experience of history was that it was dialectical in that it could only be understood as a discourse of oppositional and contrasting forces. What can be deduced from empirical observation and what can be induced from thinking historically can be combined and Das Capital is an example of this.
Do we need to verify the truth of the potential of an entity in its development?
It might be useful to know something of what the future may turn out. I dont need weather forecasts as much as farmers.
Yet if the distinction between utopian and scientific socialism is to mean anything, it is to show that the theory is internally consistent and not a cannon of fragmented loose thoughts.
There are difficulties (http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/abstract/) in Marx, no one has reproduced his genius, and modern circumstances have been transfigured out of time in the Shakespearean sense by the anomolous nature of Stalinism and US world hegemony.
The 'line' of history understood by Marx and Engels which was understood more as a spiral that zig-zagged from lower form to higher form through barbarous twist and turns, conceptually understood socialism as the playing out of an oppositional struggle between two classes. The negating of one class and its whole influence on society thus creating a classless society.
This whole vision has thrust and power and makes itself comprehensible by using a dialectical framework of understanding process rather than facts.

“If I were to begin with the population, this would be a chaotic conception of the whole, and I would then, by means of further determination, move analytically towards ever more simple concepts, from the imagined concrete towards ever thinner abstractions until I had arrived at the simplest determinations. From there the journey would have to be retraced until I had arrived at the population again, but this time not as the chaotic conception of a whole, but as a rich totality of many determinations and relations.” Marx



(Edited by peaccenicked at 10:25 am on May 13, 2003)

[redstar2000]

"The problem of verification as the mantra of modern empiricism is that it impoverishes theory and leaves it at a level of bare facts."

It certainly does not. Theories that lack empirical justification are just empty words...attractive, perhaps; interesting, perhaps; even plausible, perhaps.
But that's all they are.

Theory that is grounded in verifiable knowledge of material reality is useful...it really explains something.

"Yet if the distinction between utopian and scientific socialism is to mean any thing, it is to show that the theory is internally consistent and not a canon of fragmented loose thoughts."

Well, I would say Marxism is a coherent theory...with or without the "dialectic"; indeed, the best thing I can say for the "dialectic" is that it may have been useful scaffolding with which to erect a materialist theory of history...but it should have been dismantled and trashed as soon as the theory itself was verified.

"The whole vision has thrust and power and makes itself comprehensible by using a dialectical framework of understanding process rather than facts."

Leaving aside such metaphysical concepts as "thrust and power", processes are just as subject to empirical verification, just as "real", as facts.

Note that the quote from Marx not only makes no mention of the "dialectic" but is a perfectly reasonable summary of how to empirically investigate anything.

Here's a couple of speculative questions to consider.

If Marx and Engels had never mentioned the "dialectic", would any sensible person waste five minutes on reading Hegel and giving any kind of serious consideration to such metaphysical nonsense?

Do people "like" the "dialectic" because they think it somehow guarantees them a "win"? The workers will win because the "dialectic" says so?

What foolishness.

:cool:

(Edited by redstar2000 at 7:55 pm on May 17, 2003)

[peaccenicked]

Redstar2000. No one I know on the left has ever argued against the need for empirical observation and verification is very useful in science . It lets you know you ve done your sums right and can back up a theoretical conclusion with hard data.
Yet that is a very limited view of science. The diameter of the earth was roughly estimated in ancient greece. There are theoretical particles that have still to be verified. They may not exist. The role of speculation in science is crucial to its development. Throwing up a theory might not be useful for a couple of centuries is not necessarily a failure of verification but that the tools of verification might be temperorily inadaquate.
Dialectics as such follows the progression of argument, the questions involved. The scientist poses the most relevent questions he/she can find based on past knowledge.
What really explains things is not a static entity it develops. The apparent flatness of the earth turned out to be 'verifiable' and wrong.

There is no Marxist I know who seeks victory in dialectics. It is not a war. It is most broadly a tool of analysis that can guide thinkers of all types to see patterns in nature that helps to give State of the Art explanations in all fields of human endeavour.

If I were to criticise the use of dialectics on the Left is that dynamism is too prevalent. That static and thematic
structures have been left unexplored. Marx seems to me to be looking at constancies in the ''superstructure''
in ''Grundisse''. When he points to the longetivity of the appreciation of Classical Greek culture and Shakespeare.

To return to verification,the trajectory of entities is also not subject to verification until after the experiment. Thus much of the opposition to the use of ''smart ''bombs.
Most dialecticians, I include Marx and Luxembourg, when they view the trajectory of the working class do not see victory in all scenarios. Thus we have Rosa's slogan socialism or barbarism. Making a fetish out of verification closes down much of the huge scope of human thought. It is not merely an accident that Marx turned to Hegel and defended him in later life from being ''kicked about like a dead dog''
Anyone who studies 'Das Capital' and Hegel's 'Logic' similtaneously cannot but fail to be impressed by the immense debt that Marx owes to Hegel.
The 'scaffolding' is a permanent part of of Marx's critique.
The patterns of development from lower forms to higher forms is a constant concern of Marx.
In the ''Grundisse'' He also writes that. ''The key to understanding the lower form is in the understanding of the higher''
A flower seed cannot be understood unless you see the flower it will become.





(Edited by peaccenicked at 5:37 pm on May 17, 2003)

[redstar2000]

"There is no Marxist I know who seeks victory in dialectics. It is not a war. It is most broadly a tool of analysis that can guide thinkers of all types to see patterns in nature that helps to give State of the Art explanations in all fields of human endeavour. "

I seem to recall this argument from earlier pages in this thread. At the risk of repeating myself, I don't think that science cares where you get your ideas; the only question is can you verify them, at least provisionally, on the basis of real world evidence.

Perhaps there is, somewhere, a case where a scientist (besides Marx himself, of course) actually "used" the "dialectic" to formulate a hypothesis that was subsequently verified. Even so, I am willing to bet, in complete ignorance of the facts, that there were other ways that could have stimulated that hypothesis.

It's been noted that mammals, especially primates, especially humans are "pattern-seeking" life-forms. We do it instinctively. The "dialectic" is certainly one way to create/impose a "pattern" on material reality...what I question is precisely its usefulness.

Making a fetish out of verification closes down much of the huge scope of human thought. It is not merely an accident that Marx turned to Hegel and defended him in later life from being ''kicked about like a dead dog''

No, it doesn't "close it down", it just puts it into a different category. That which is not verifiable may be coherent or incoherent, logical or absurd, interesting or boring, etc., etc., etc.

What such things are not is useful explanations of the real world.

Recall that both Hegel and Marx thought that human history was "dialectical" in essence; yet their "predictions" were as far apart as one could possibly imagine...dialectics is like silly putty; it will conform to any shape that you care to impose.

When two "dialecticians" disagree, each will accuse the other of "failing to grasp the dialectic". This is a metaphysical dispute.

"A flower seed cannot be understood unless you see the flower it will become. "

I suspect that it will not be all that far into the future when a first-rate plant geneticist will be able to tell from a seed what the flower will look like...depending on environmental conditions, of course. And s/he will do it without ever even having heard of Hegel.

Fortunate scientist.

:cool:

PS: Marx to the contrary notwithstanding, I happily join in kicking Hegel about "like a dead dog". Had Hegel lived a century later, he would almost certainly have been an "academic Nazi", like Heidegger.

[rebelafrika]

Wassup Yall,

Somewhere in this thread I got lost. Is dialectical analysis being dismissed? Endorsed?

[Conghaileach]

There are those who endorse it, and those who dismiss it.

I'm still trying to understand it.

[rebelafrika]

I think that dismissing dialectical analysis is a "catergorical obsurdity." Something on the lines of saying "I really, really, REALLY enjoy the bible...but you know, I can't stand that one preachy guy...whats his name? Oh yeah...his name was "god." But Let me rephrase that. I think that dismissing dialectical analysis is a catergorical obsurdity for a communist. But I guess thats just an opinion.

[James]

i can't wait to read this thread in three days after my exams.

[redstar2000]

I think that dismissing dialectical analysis is a catergorical absurdity for a communist.

Well, absurdities are certainly bad things to hang out with, be they catagorical or otherwise (quotidian?).

But it is not enough to simply assert that this or that is true or false. What is the argument?

:cool:

[rebelafrika]

I wasn't really trying to make an "argument"...I was just making a "statement" (which is why I had to concede that I guess it was just my opinion). As I am studying communism...when dialectical analysis is referenced, it is always referenced as an element of Marxist ideology and that acceptance of Marxist ideology is conditioned on acceptance and adherance to this method. Also I have never met or heard of a communist that rejects dialectical analysis (until now, LOL!) This is the reason I made the statement that I made, but again, this was not meant to be an argument. Just a statement.

(Edited by rebelafrika at 10:33 pm on June 2, 2003)

[peaccenicked]

Here's a good guide to dialectics. Everybody uses dialectics.
Dialectics for kids
Click here (http://home.igc.org/~venceremos/)

(Edited by peaccenicked at 7:27 pm on June 3, 2003)

[redstar2000]

The serenity prayer offers some sound advice-- "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Dialectics provides the tool that gives you the wisdom to work steadily and patiently for change--building the side you want to win, studying how much farther you need to go and what you need to do to make a turning point. When all of your bits of effort are added to other people's, great things can be accomplished--buildings are built, railroads are run, games are won, diseases are defeated, space ships are launched.

Dialectics = patient, sustained effort plus a splash of serenity.

Good grief! :o

:cool:

[canikickit]

I read that definition link that vox posted a while back.
Dialectics seems to be a complicated way of saying that you look at more than one perspective when reasoning about something.

The dictionary gives me an even simpler definition.

[peaccenicked]

Dialectics =????????????
End of Discussion , The beginners guide shows some remarkable flaws. What a surprise?
We can all stop thinking now.
A change is as good as a rest.

Good grief!!!

I think if you want to criticise something criticise the best form of it.

"Dialectics, according to Hegel, was the form (or method or schema) of thought that included the process both of elucidating contradictions and of concretely resolving them in the corpus of a higher and more profound stage of rational understanding of the same object, on the way toward further investigation of the essence of the matter, i.e. in the course of developing science, engineering, and ‘morality’, and all the spheres he called the ‘objective spirit’.

This conception immediately brought about constructive shifts in the whole system of logic. Whereas Kant’s ‘dialectic’ was only the final, third part of logic (the doctrine on the forms of understanding and reason), where it was a matter actually of the statement of the logically unresolvable antinomies of theoretical cognition, with Hegel it appeared quite another matter. With him the sphere of the logical was divided into three main sections or aspects, i.e. three main directions were distinguished in it, as follows


1. the abstract or rational;

2. the dialectical or negatively reasonable;

3. the speculative or positively reasonable.

Hegel specially stressed that ‘these three aspects in no case constitute three parts of logic, but are only moments of any logically real nature, that is of any concept or of any truth in general’.

In the empirical history of thought (as in any given, historically achieved state of it) these three aspects appeared either as three consecutive ‘formations’ or as three different but closely related systems of logic. Hence we got the illusion that they could be depicted as three different sections (or ‘parts’) of logic, following one after the other.

Logic as a whole, however, could not be obtained by a simple uniting of these three aspects, each of which was taken in the form in which it had been developed in the history of thought. That called for critical treatment of all three aspects from the standpoint of higher principles, those historically last achieved. Hegel characterised the three ‘moments’ of logical thought that should constitute Logic as follows.

1. ‘Thought as understanding remains stuck in firm determination and does not get beyond differentiation of the latter; such a limited abstraction applies to it as existing and being for itself.’ The separate (isolated) historical embodiment of this ‘moment’ in thought appeared as dogmatism, and its logical, theoretical self-awareness as ‘general‘, i.e. purely formal logic.

2. ‘The dialectical moment is the own self-abolition of such ultimate determinations and their transition into their opposites.’ Historically this moment appears as scepticism, i.e. as the state in which thought, feeling bewildered among opposing, equally ‘logical’ and mutually provoking dogmatic systems, is powerless to choose and prefer one of them. Logical self-awareness, corresponding to the stage of scepticism, was distinguished in the Kantian conception of dialectics as a state of the insolubility of the antinomies between dogmatic systems. Scepticism (Kant’s type of ‘negative dialectic’) was higher than dogmatism both historically and in content because the dialectic included in reason or understanding was already realised, and existed not only ‘in itself’ but ‘for itself’.

3. ‘The speculative or positively reasonable conceives the unity of determinations in their opposition, the affirmation that is contained in their resolution and their transition.’ Hegel also saw systematic treatment of this last ‘moment’ (and correspondingly critical rethinking of the first two from the angle of the third) as the historically pressing task in logic, and therefore his own mission and the aim of his work.

When critically rethought in the light of the principles only now elicited, the ‘moments’ considered ceased to be independent parts of logic and were transformed into three abstract aspects of one and the same logical system. Then a logic was created such that, when thinking was guided by it, thought became fully self-critical and was in no danger of falling into either the dullness of dogmatism or into the sterility of sceptical neutrality.

Hence, too, there followed the external, formal division of logic into (1) the doctrine of being,(2) the doctrine of essence, and (3) the doctrine of the notion (concept, idea).

The division of logic into the objective (the first two sections) and the subjective coincided at first glance with the old division of philosophy into ontology and logic proper; but Hegel stressed that such a division would be very inexact and arbitrary because, in logic, the opposition between the subjective and the objective (in their ordinary meaning) disappeared.

His position on this question calls besides for a thorough commentary since superficial criticism of his conception of logic and its subject matter has so far been primarily that his position ignored the opposition (contrast) between the subjective and the objective (between thinking and being) and therefore casuistically produced specifically logical schemas of thought for the ontological determination of things outside thought and, on the contrary, universal definitions of the reality outside thought for schemas of the logical process, thus committing two sins: (a) hypostatising logical forms, and (B) logicalising reality.

If the original sin of Hegelianism had really been a simple, naive blindness in relation to the contrast between thought and reality, between the concept and its object, then Kant’s dualism would have been the apex of philosophical wisdom. In fact, however, Hegel’s ‘error’ was not so simple, and was not in the least characterised by the evaluation cited above. Hegel saw the difference and, what is more important, the contradiction (opposition) between the world of things outside consciousness and the world of thought (the world in thought, in science, in concepts), and was much more acutely aware of it than his naive critics among the Kantians; and in any case he ascribed much greater significance for logic to this opposition than, say, positivists do (who, especially in a logic, directly identify the concept and the object of the concept).

The point is quite another one; and another understanding of it follows from the specifically Hegelian conception of thought, and thus also from Hegel’s solution of the problem of the relation of thought and the world of things.

That is why, when Hegel formulated a programme for the critical transformation of logic as a science, he posed the task of bringing it (i.e. thought’s awareness of the universal schemas of its own work) into correspondence with its real object, i.e. with real thought, with its real universal forms and laws.

The last-named do not exist in thought simply or even so much as schemas and rules of conscious thinking, but rather as universal schemas of objective thinking that are realised not so much as a subjective psychic act as the productive process that created science, technique and morality.

In defending the objectivity of logical forms so understood, Hegel of course was right in many respects; and his critique of the subjective idealist interpretation of the logical (Hume, Kant, Fichte) is topical in the struggle against many of their present-day successors, in particular Neopositivists. As social formations science and technique (‘the materialised power of knowledge’ as Marx defined it) exist and develop of course outside the individual’s consciousness. But, according to Hegel, there was no other consciousness than that of the individual, never had been, and never would be; and the logical forms of development of science and technique really stood in opposition to the consciousness and will of the individual as quite objective limits to his individually performed actions, even as limits dictated to him from outside.

‘According to these determinations, thoughts can be called objective, and they can also be taken to include the forms that are considered for the present in ordinary logic and are looked upon only as forms of conscious thought. Logic here coincides with Metaphysics, with the science of things conceived in thought...’

In this conception of the objectivity of thought-forms there was as yet, of course, no facet of the specifically Hegelian, i.e. objective, idealism. One cannot reproach Hegel with having allegedly extended the boundaries of the subject matter of logic impermissibly so that it began to embrace not only thought but things. Hegel (and Kant, too) did not in general speak just about things as such; he had in mind exclusively things comprehended in thoughts. It was in that sense that he asserted that ‘in logic thoughts are so conceived that they have no other content than that belonging to the thought itself and produced through it’. In other words logic had in mind not things but those of their determinations as were posited by the action of thought, i.e. scientific determinations.

Thus, what Hegel affirmed within the limits of consideration of pure thought was much more rigorous and consistent than the logic before him; and he justly reproached it precisely for not having been able to confine itself rigorously within the bounds of its own subject matter, and for having imported into it material not assimilated by thought and not reproduced by thought-activity.

His requirement of including all the categories (the subject matter of the old metaphysics and ontology) in logic in no way meant going beyond the limits of thought. It was equivalent to a demand for a critical analysis to be made of the thought-activity that had engendered the determinations of the old metaphysics, and for those thought-forms to be brought out that both logic and metaphysics had applied quite uncritically and unconsciously, without clearly realising what they consisted of. Hegel had no doubt that ‘thought-forms must not be used without having been subjected to investigation’ and that ‘we must make the thought-forms themselves the object of cognition’. But such an investigation was already thought, and the activity taking place in those very forms was the act of applying them. If we looked on logic as investigation (cognition) of thought-forms, he wrote, this investigation ‘must also unite the activity of thought-forms and their critique in cognition. The thought-forms must be taken in and for themselves; they are the object and the activity of the object itself; they themselves inquire into themselves, must determine their limits and demonstrate their defects themselves. That will then be that activity of thought that will soon be given separate consideration as dialectics. . .

The subject matter of logic then proved to be those really universal forms and patterns within which the collective consciousness of humanity was realised. The course of its development, empirically realised as the history of science and technique, was also seen as that ‘whole’ to the interests of which all the individual’s separate logical acts were subordinated.

And inasmuch as the individual was involved in the common cause, in the work of universal thought, he was continually forced to perform actions dictated ‘by the interests of the whole’ and not confined to the schemas of ‘general’ logic. He would naturally not realise his actions in logical concepts, although these acts were performed by his own thinking. The schemas (forms and laws) of universal thought would be realised unconsciously through his psyche. (Not ‘unconsciously’ in general, but without logical consciousness of them, without their expression in logical concepts and categories.)

In this connection Hegel introduced one of his most important distinctions between thought ‘in itself’ (an sich), which also constituted the subject matter, the object of investigation, in logic, and thought ‘for itself’ (fur sich selbst), i.e. thought that had already become aware of the schemas, principles, forms, and laws of its own work and had already worked quite consciously in accordance with them, fully and clearly realising what it was doing, and how it was doing it. Logic was also consciousness, the expression through concepts and categories of those laws and forms in accordance with which the process of thinking ‘in itself’ (an sich) took place. In logic it also became the object for itself .

In logic thought had consequently to become the same ‘for itself’ as it had earlier been only ‘in itself’.

Hegel therefore also formulated the task of bringing logic into line with its real subject matter, with real thought, with the really universal forms and laws of development of science, technique, and morality.

In other words he wanted to make the subjective consciousness of thought about itself identical with its object, with the real universal and necessary (objective) forms and laws of universal (and not individual) thought. That also meant that the principle of the identity of the subjective and the objective must be introduced into logic as the highest principle, i.e. the principle that the real forms and laws of thought must be delineated in logic exactly, adequately, and correctly. The principle of the identity of subject and object signified nothing more, and did not signify any ‘hypostatisation’ of the forms of subjective thought, because one and the same thought was both object and subject in logic, and it was a matter of the agreement coincidence, and identity of this thought (as consciously performed activity) with itself as unconsciously performed productive activity, or as activity hitherto taking place with a false consciousness of its own actions.

In defending the objectivity of logical forms Hegel of course stood head and shoulders above (and closer to materialism) than all those who up to the present have reproached him with having ‘hypostatised’ logical forms in order to defend their version of the identity of thought and object as a purely conventional principle, as the principle of the identity of sign and thing designated, of the concept and that which is thought in it. Hegel was 100 per cent right in his critique of the subjective idealist version of the logical and of its objectivity (as merely the agreement of all thinking individuals, as merely the identity - read equality of all the schemas by which each Ego taken separately operated). His critique not only hit at Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, but also strikes all today’s Neopositivists.

(Marx, incidentally, also defined the categories of political economy as ‘objective thought-forms’: ‘They are the socially valid, and therefore objective thought-forms....’)

Thus the statement that there was no difference for logic between the subjective and the objective did not mean anything else on Hegel’s lips than an affirmation that logic must consider, within itself, within its own theory, and link together in one system, literally all the logical schemas of thought activity, beginning with the categories and finishing up with the figures of judgments and conclusions. And within it there must be room both for those schemas that prior to Kant were considered simply determinations of things outside consciousness and for those that were usually considered to be ‘specific’ to consciousness and had allegedly no relation to things outside the mind.

Hegel did not dream of repudiating the differences between the categorial schemas given in the determinations of categories and the figures of formal logic, of course; but he did require them to be explained and disclosed within logic itself and not to be presumed in advance, uncritically borrowed from the old metaphysic and its corresponding logic. He required the one and the other to be included in logic in critically rethought form.

‘The relation of such forms as concept, judgment, and conclusion to other forms like causality, etc., can only be discovered within logic itself.’

Hegel thus did not include the determinations of things as they existed outside the mind or in everyday consciousness in logic at all, but solely those determinations that appeared to the mind in science, and in theoretical consciousness, that were ‘posited’ or formulated by thought itself. And since science was the realised force (faculty) of thought, materialised mental, theoretical labour, he also saw primarily ‘objectified’ determinations of thought in the determinations of things.

The requirement of including all categories in logic was therefore equivalent to requiring a critical analysis to be made of those activities of thought that were materialised or objectified in the concepts of the old metaphysic, and to requiring disclosure of the logic of thought that was earlier realised in the form of various schemas of the universe, and so to requiring a critical understanding of all the categories that the old logic had taken over quite uncritically from ontological systems.

Hegel thus did not go outside the framework of the subject matter of logic at all but only beyond the limits of the notions of earlier logicians about these limits. While remaining within the boundaries of the investigation of thought, and only of thought, he nevertheless saw more within those boundaries than previous logicians, and saw those logical (universal) schemas of developing thought that the old logic had not considered universal at all and had therefore not included in the theory. Logic thus proved to be pinned to discovery and investigation of the objective laws governing the subjective activity of individuals, and those forms in which, whether or not the individuals so wished it, or whether or not they realised it, they were forced, insofar in general as they thought, to express the results of their subjective efforts.

That is in what Hegel saw the true difference between the real laws of thought and the rules that the old logic had promoted to the rank of laws. Man can break rules, unlike laws, and does so at every step, thus demonstrating that they are not laws. Because laws cannot be broken, they constitute the determinateness of the object, which cannot be omitted without the object itself, in this case thought, ceasing to exist.

And if man thinks, then his activities are subordinated to law and cannot overstep its bounds, although he may at the same time break the rules in the most flagrant way. A law can be ‘broken’ in one way only, by ceasing to think, i.e. by escaping from the realm that is governed by the laws of thought and where they operate as inexorably as the law of gravitation in the world of spatially determined bodies. But for man such a ‘way out’ is equivalent to overstepping the bounds of human existence in general.

Hegel also showed that the real development of determinations, i.e. the real forward movement of thought, even in the simplest cases, not to mention the process of development of science, technique, and morality, took place precisely through breach (or removal) of all the rules that had been established for thought by the old logic, through their dialectical negation. But the constant negation of the rules established by conscious thought for itself got out of control, was not aware of itself, and proved to be a fact outside thought, although it took place within the latter. Thought had this fact ‘in itself’ but not ‘for itself’.

But as soon as this fact was recognised as a universal and necessary logical thought-form, it was also transformed into a fact of consciousness, a fact of conscious thought, and the latter became consciously dialectical. Previously it had only been so ‘in itself’, i.e. despite its own consciousness of itself. But now it became ‘for itself’ precisely what it had previously been only ‘in itself’.

The subject matter of logic consequently could not merely be the forms that had already been realised or apprehended, and had already been included in existing consciousness (in textbooks of logic and metaphysics). It was impossible to grasp them ready-made, or to classify them. They had to be brought out in the very course of reasoning about them, in the course of actual thinking about thought.

And when Kant considered the forms of thought as some ready-made object, already depicted (realised, comprehended), his logic represented only an uncritical classification of existing notions about thought.

But if logic was to be a science, it must be a critical, systematic investigation that did not accept a single determination on faith, and unproved by thought, i.e. without being reproduced by it quite consciously. In this investigation criticism of the thought-forms known to cultivated thinking was only possible and thinkable as self-criticism. The schemas, rules, forms, principles, and laws of this thought were here subjected to criticism not by comparing them with some object lying outside them, but solely by bringing out the dialectic they included in themselves and which was discovered immediately as soon as we began in general to think, rigorously and fully realising what we were doing and how we were doing it.

In that way, too, the very identity of the forms of cultivated thought with the forms of the unconsciously performed actions of the intellect must be carried out, actions to which thought had had to submit during the historical process of its realisation in the form of science, technique, art and morality. Logic was nothing else (or rather should be nothing else) than the proper apprehension of those forms and laws within which the real thinking of people took place. The identity of thought and the conceivable, as the principle of the logical development and construction of logic, signified nothing more.

It was merely a matter of this, that the schemas of cultivated thought (i.e. of the processes taking place in the consciousness of the individual) should coincide with those of the structure of the science in the movement of which the individual was involved, i.e. with the ‘logic’ dictated by its content. If the schema of the activity of a theoretician coincided with that of the development of his science, and the science was thus developed through his activity, Hegel would attest the logicality of his activity, i.e. the identity of his thinking with that impersonal, universal process which we also call the development of science. Logic recognised the activities of such a theoretician as logical also when they were even formally not quite irreproachable from the standpoint of the canons of the old logic.

Hegel therefore began to consider all the categories (of quality, quantity, measure, causality, probability, necessity, the general and the particular, and so on and so forth) in quite a new way. For him they were not at all the most general determinations of the things given in intuition or contemplation or in direct experience to each individual, not transcendental schemas of synthesis directly inherent (i.e. inborn) in each individual consciousness (as Kant, Fichte, and Schelling had in fact treated them). It was impossible to discover these thought-forms in the separate consciousness taken in isolation, within the individual Ego. They were there at best only ‘in themselves’, only in the form of unrealised tendencies and so not brought to awareness. Categories were only discovered and demonstrated their determinations through the historically developing scientific, technical, and moral ‘perfecting’ of the human race, because only in it, and not in the experience of the isolated individual, did thought become ‘for itself’ what it had been ‘in itself’.

Categories themselves, in the individual’s own experience (were revealed in action, in processing of the data of perception) not in the whole fullness and dialectical complexity of their composition and connections but only in abstract, one-sided aspects. It was therefore impossible to derive them from analysis of the experience of the isolated individual. They were only discovered through the very complex process of the interaction of’ a mass of single minds mutually correcting each other in discussion, debate, and confrontations, i.e. through a frankly dialectical process that, like a huge centrifuge, ultimately separated the purely objective schemas of thought from the purely subjective (in the sense of individual, arbitrary) schemas of activity, and as a result crystallised out logic, a system of determinations of purely universal, impersonal, and featureless thought in general.

Categories were therefore also universal forms of the origin of any object in thought, gradually depicted in the aggregate scientific consciousness of humanity. They were universal determinations of the object as and how it appeared in the eyes of science, in the ether of ‘universal thought’. Hegel consented to call determinations of things only those determinations that had been developed by science, by active thought. They were, therefore, none other than thought-forms realised in concrete material, determinations of thought embodied in the object, i e. in the scientific concept of the external thing. Hegel, therefore, and only therefore, also spoke of the identity of thought and object and defined the object as a concept realised in sensuous, physical material.

The determinations of categories, naturally, could also function as determinations of things in the contemplation (experience) of the individual; not of every individual, however, but only of those who in the course of their education had mastered the historical experience of humanity, and ‘reproduced’ in their individual consciousness the path taken by human thought (of course, only in its main, decisive features and schemas). Categories were the forms of organisation of this experience (described by Hegel in his Phenomenology of Mind).

Categories were thus universal forms of the reconstruction, reproduction, in the consciousness of the individual of those objects that had been created before him by the collective efforts of past generations of thinking beings, by the power of their collective, impersonal thought. In individually repeating the experience of humanity, which had created the world of spiritual and material culture surrounding him from the cradle, this individual also repeated that which had been done before him and for him by the ‘universal spirit’, and so acted according to the same laws and in the same forms as the impersonal ‘universal spirit’ of humanity. That means that categories appeared at once as universal schemas of the scientific formation of the individual consciousness, rising gradually from the zero level of its erudition to the highest stages of spiritual culture at the given moment, and as schemas of the individual mastery (reproduction) of the whole world of images created by the thought of preceding generations and standing opposed to the individual as a quite objective world of spiritual and material culture, the world of the concepts of science, technique and morality.

This world was the materialised thought of humanity, realised in the product, was alienated thought in general; and the individual had to de-objectify, and arrogate to himself, the modes of activity that were realised in it, and it was in that the process if his/her education properly consisted. In the trained mind categories actually functioned as active forms of a concept. When the individual had them in his/her experience, and made them forms of his/her own activity, he/she also possessed them, and knew and realised them, as thought-forms. Otherwise they remained only general forms of the things given in contemplation and representation, and counterposed to thought as a reality existing outside it and independently of it.

With this was linked the naive fetishism that directly accepted the available concepts and notions of science about things, the norms of morals and justice, the forms of the state and political system and the similar products of the thinking of people who had objectified their own conscious activity in them, for purely objective determinations of things in themselves. It accepted them as such only because it did not know that they had not been created without the involvement of thought, and did not know how, moreover, they were produced by thought. It could not reproduce or repeat the process of thought that had brought them into being and therefore, naturally, considered them eternal and unalterable determinations of things in themselves, and the expression of their essence. It believed quite uncritically, on trust, everything that it was told about these things in the name of science, the state and God. It believed not only that these things appeared so today in the eyes of the thinking person but also that they were really so.

Hegel’s conception of thought (in the context of logic) thus of necessity also included the process of the ‘objectification of thought’ (Vergegenstandlchung oder Entausserung des Denkens), i.e. its sense-object, practical realisation through action, in sensuous-physical material, in the world of sensuously contemplated (intuited) things. Practice, the process of activity on sense objects that altered things in accordance with a concept, in accordance with plans matured in the womb of subjective thought, began to be considered here as just as important a level in the development of thought and understanding, as the subjective-mental act of reasoning (according to the rules) expressed in speech.

Hegel thus directly introduced practice into logic, and made a fundamental advance in the understanding of thought and in the science of thought.

Since thought outwardly expressed itself (sich entaussert, sich entfremdet, i.e. ‘alienates itself’, ‘makes itself something outside itself’) not only in the form of speech but also in real actions and in people’s deeds, it could be judged much better ‘by its fruits’ than by the notions that it created about itself. Thought, therefore, that was realised in people’s actual actions also proved to be the true criterion of the correctness of those subjective-mental acts that were outwardly expressed only in words, in speeches, and in books."
source (http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay5.htm#S524a)

[redstar2000]

Peaccenicked, after re-reading this enormous post three times, I think I could tear it down with reasonable dispatch, though it would be long and tedious labor to dismantle each paragraph.

The question is why? Why go to that much trouble? It's not as if I'm taking a graduate-level course in 19th century German philosophy and have a professor that I must impress to keep my scholarship.

It's not as if there were more than five people on this board who even care...except that "everybody knows" that Marx and Engels had a high opinion of Hegel and therefore "Hegel must be a good guy" and "dialectics must be a good thing".

Whenever I've asked why dialectics is useful, the reply takes two forms: 1. some simple formulas repeated in a ritualistic fashion; and 2. a long and fairly impenetrable summary like the one you posted...which, I might add, still explains nothing but at great and erudite length.

When we interact with the real world, we have thoughts about what is going to happen (no matter what "forms of logic" we used to arrive at those thoughts). The real world either responds as we expected it would, responds in an unexpected way, or ignores us altogether.

When the world responds "as if" our thoughts about it were accurate, we call it knowledge of the real world. If we get an unexpected response from the real world, we call it discovery. If the world ignores our action, we call it ignorance.

This seems to me to be fairly straightforward...and has only accidental contact with logic either Kantian or Hegelian.

To be specific: if we wish to make a communist revolution, in what way does a passing acquaintence or a deep understanding of "dialectics" actually help us in that project?

We already know that the social life of humanity consists of an enormous network of complex and interacting processes...something that would have been learned if Hegel had never lived. We have learned in recent decades that even a partial real knowledge of these processes is difficult to attain.

Lots and lots of Leninist groups have claimed the initiate's mastery of "dialectics"...and haven't accomplished squat. On the other hand, I never heard that Castro studied "dialectics" (I think his degree, like Lenin's, was in law)...and he managed to do a few things.

If "dialectics" really conferred some "special insight" into the universe, some "special kind of knowledge" that was unavailable to ordinary mortals and heathens like myself, it would show. Predictions would be made that would turn out to be, at least approximately, valid.

But Marx himself, the "master" of "dialectical materialism" predicted revolutions on a number of occasions that failed to materialize. If he couldn't do it, why should I listen for a second to his epigones and their pomposities?

My challenge to the "dialecticians" remains: show me genuine utility...or retire to your studies and allow those of us who wish to change the world to get on with our work.

:cool:

[peaccenicked]

Spoken like a true protestant philistine. I would not think the worst of you here. I take it as cultural heritage.
The rules of accountacy are endemic to the WASP way of thinking. The demand for a quantative result is at the very heart of the empire.
Fortunately, although catholicism is a reactionary mass it also has by its nature to carry with it, the pagan principle of universality.
All thinking is an objective process. It moves. Thinking like it or not involves images.
We think in universals, particulars and individuals. We pose matches that correspond with our reality. This is not a numbers business, although that gives formality to much of our thinking. Dialectics is discourse between contrasts of images of reality.
It is very useful. It is called thinking.

Sorry Redstar2000 if I sound impolite but I am finding it difficult to get this through to you.
But it is perhaps better a good fight than a bad peace.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:32 pm on June 14, 2003)

[canikickit]

Dialectics seems to be a complicated way of saying that you look at more than one perspective when reasoning about something.


Dialectics is discourse between contrasts of images of reality.
It is very useful. It is called thinking.


So what I said is quite accurate?

[redstar2000]

Spoken like a true protestant philistine. I would not think the worst of you here. I take it as cultural heritage.
The rules of accountacy are endemic to the WASP way of thinking. The demand for a quantative result is at the very heart of the empire.
Fortunately, although catholicism is a reactionary mass it also has by its nature to carry with it, the pagan principle of universality.

Never have I been "flamed" with such scholarly wit. Well done...if totally irrelevant.

Dialectics is discourse between contrasts of images of reality.

That almost sounds like it means something.

But it doesn't.

:cool: