Rosa Lichtenstein
18th June 2007, 11:21
SP, it depends on what you mean by 'dialectical'.
If you are using Hegelian notions (inverted or not), then this cannot be right, since he derived his dialectic from a gross confusion over the law of identity (which he misdescribed, anyway) as he tried to derive a contradiction from 'negating' it -- now this cannot be done, howsoever ones tries -- allowing him to argue that everything is contradictory (in abeyance of any evidence, it was just an a priori 'deduction').
Subsequent Marxists (not knowing any logic) simply swallowed this crass argument.
In that case, the foundation of the 'dialectic' in nature or society is based on a bogus argument -- one as bogus as St Anselm's 'Ontological Argument', and incidentally drawn from the same mystical NeoPlatonic stable as that argument -- meaning that this entire branch of Marxist 'philosophy' is similarly devoid of content.
No wonder then that it does not work, has never worked, and has been refuted by history.
All we need is good old fashioned historical materialism, shorn of every Hegelian 'concept', as Marx himself indicated.
If, on the other hand, you are using this word as a sort of shorthand for the interplay between human beings (in its classical sense), then no problem.
But in that case, it would simply refer to the discussions/arguments that take place between human beings, and would thus be of little interest to us in accounting for the class struggle.
In short we should drop this notion in its entirety, since it is useless at best, bogus at worst.
Rosa Lichtenstein
29th June 2007, 10:51
Thanks for that MarxSchmarx, but you need to read this first before using the 'thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis' formula ever again:
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic...entry1292124737 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51512&st=0&#entry1292124737)
Fifth post down.
Now some things in nature might appear to illustrate this process, but the schema itself suggests that nature is Mind (for what else can proceed in this way: 'thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis') so only Idealists would want to use it.
Independently of that, many things in nature do not proceed in triples -- think of the life cycle of moths and butterflies (egg-caterpilla-pupa-adult...), or the whole process of evoluion (which has countless stages).
And your example of emergent properties is no less unsuccessful; the word 'emergent' was coined becasue no explanation could be found for why this happens -- a sort of 'god-of-the-gaps equivalent in philosophy --, since it labels our ignorance, but supplies no explanation.
I have subjected this argument to sustained criticism at my site:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2011%2002.htm
And, if you read this thread, you will see that the evidence that Marx used this mystical theory to explain Capitalism (etc) is much thinner than the traditional account would have you believe:
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66348&st=25
Hence, I recommend we throw this baby out with the bath water, and along with it the soap, the towel, the taps, the water pipes, the reservoir....
Rosa Lichtenstein
29th June 2007, 23:39
SP:
I don't think dialectical materialism is universally flawed.
Unfortunately, the facts tell another story.
Well, the class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are contradictory because both cannot be entirely fulfilled simultaneously.
No problem with that, but as soon as this is pushed further, it ceases to work.
For example, how can a use value 'contradict' an exchange value?
And even if it could, how would that account for change?
Use values do not change into exchange values, nor vice versa (as they should do, since according to Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Mao -- and many other dialecticians -- things always turn into their 'opposites').
I pulled that idea apart in an earlier thread:
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66945&st=50
Using the word "contradiction" doesn't suddenly make it dialectical.
Indeed, but since Lenin said this:
"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….
"The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute….
'dialectical contradictions' (whatever they are???) are integral to the 'theory'.
That still doesn't mean history cannot be described as being "dialectical".
On that basis, one might as well say that history is "magical', since there is about the same amount of evidence and argument in support of that descriptor.
bezdomni
2nd July 2007, 05:43
No problem with that, but as soon as this is pushed further, it ceases to work.
For example, how can a use value 'contradict' an exchange value?
And even if it could, how would that account for change?
Use values do not change into exchange values, nor vice versa (as they should do, since according to Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Mao -- and many other dialecticians -- things always turn into their 'opposites').
Does "unity of opposites" imply that things turn into their opposites or simply mutually reinforce one another?
When a commodity's use value is different from its exchange value, wouldn't that be a contradiction?
Why is it that this "ceases to work" as it is pushed forward?
I would argue that it accounts for change because "contradictions" cannot be sustained.
Indeed, but since Lenin said this:
"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….
"The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute….
'dialectical contradictions' (whatever they are???) are integral to the 'theory'.
I think we can both agree that Lenin was more than capable of being wrong.
Rosa Lichtenstein
2nd July 2007, 12:22
SP:
Does "unity of opposites" imply that things turn into their opposites or simply mutually reinforce one another?
Well, if you look at the quotes I included a few pages back, you will see that, according to the DM-classicists, it implies the former.
Here they are again:
"The law of the interpenetration of opposites.... [M]utual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other when carried to extremes...." [Engels (1954), pp.17, 62.]
"Dialectics…prevails throughout nature…. [T]he motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites…determines the life of nature." [Engels (1954), p.211.]
"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] internally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other ….
"In brief, dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics….
"The splitting of the whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts…is the essence (one of the 'essentials', one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristic features) of dialectics….
"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….
"The unity…of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute…." [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22, 357-58.]
"Hegel brilliantly divined the dialectics of things (phenomena, the world, nature) in the dialectics of concepts…. This aphorism should be expressed more popularly, without the word dialectics: approximately as follows: In the alternation, reciprocal dependence of all notions, in the identity of their opposites, in the transitions of one notion into another, in the eternal change, movement of notions, Hegel brilliantly divined precisely this relation of things to nature…. [W]hat constitutes dialectics?…. [M]utual dependence of notions all without exception…. Every notion occurs in a certain relation, in a certain connection with all the others." [Lenin (1961), pp.196-97.]
"Development is the 'struggle' of opposites." [Lenin, Vol. XIII, p. 301.]
"And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite…." [Plekhanov (1956), p.77.]
"Why is it that '...the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another'? Because that is just how things are in objective reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself into its opposite....
"In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another....
"All processes have a beginning and an end, all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute." [Mao (1961b), pp.340-42.]
"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics....
"As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development....
"The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end....[Ibid, pp.311-18.]
"Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor nature, is there anywhere an abstract 'either-or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things with then lie in the want of correspondence between their immediate being and what they essentially are. Thus, in inorganic nature, the acid is implicitly at the same time the base: in other words its only being consists in its relation to its other. Hence the acid persists quietly in the contrast: it is always in effort to realize what it potentially is. Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world." [Hegel (1975), p.174. Bold emphases added.]
“Dialectics comes from the Greek dialego, to discourse, to debate. In ancient times dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions. There were philosophers in ancient times who believed that the disclosure of contradictions in thought and the clash of opposite opinions was the best method of arriving at the truth. This dialectical method of thought, later extended to the phenomena of nature, developed into the dialectical method of apprehending nature, which regards the phenomena of nature as being in constant movement and undergoing constant change, and the development of nature as the result of the development of the contradictions in nature, as the result of the interaction of opposed forces in nature….
Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides, a past and a future, something dying away and something developing; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born, between that which is disappearing and that which is developing, constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes.
The dialectical method therefore holds that the process of development from the lower to the higher takes place not as a harmonious unfolding of phenomena, but as a disclosure of the contradictions inherent in things and phenomena, as a "struggle" of opposite tendencies which operate on the basis of these contradictions…. [Stalin, from here:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/...rks/1938/09.htm]
Lesser Dialectical Hermeticists also say the same sort of thing (these are taken from nearly all wings of Marxism):
"The second dialectical law, that of the 'unity, interpenetration or identity of opposites'…asserts the essentially contradictory character of reality -– at the same time asserts that these 'opposites' which are everywhere to be found do not remain in stark, metaphysical opposition, but also exist in unity. This law was known to the early Greeks. It was classically expressed by Hegel over a hundred years ago….
"[F]rom the standpoint of the developing universe as a whole, what is vital is…motion and change which follows from the conflict of the opposite.” [Guest (1963), pp.31, 32.]
"The negative electrical pole…cannot exist without the simultaneous presence of the positive electrical pole…. This 'unity of opposites' is therefore found in the core of all material things and events." [Conze (1944), pp.35-36.]
“Second, and just as unconditionally valid, that all things are at the same time absolutely different and absolutely or unqualifiedly opposed. The law may also be referred to as the law of the polar unity of opposites. This law applies to every single thing, every phenomenon, and to the world as a whole. Viewing thought and its method alone, it can be put this way: The human mind is capable of infinite condensation of things into unities, even the sharpest contradictions and opposites, and, on the other hand, it is capable of infinite differentiation and analysis of things into opposites. The human mind can establish this unlimited unity and unlimited differentiation because this unlimited unity and differentiation is present in reality." [Thalheimer (1936), p.161.]
"This dialectical activity is universal. There is no escaping from its unremitting and relentless embrace. 'Dialectics gives expression to a law which is felt in all grades of consciousness and in general experience. Everything that surrounds us may be viewed as an instance of dialectic. We are aware that everything finite, instead of being inflexible and ultimate, is rather changeable and transient; and this is exactly what we mean by the dialectic of the finite, by which the finite, as implicitly other than it is, is forced to surrender its own immediate or natural being, and to turn suddenly into its opposite.' (Encyclopedia, p.120)." [Novack (1971), 94-95; quoting Hegel (1975), p.118, although in a different translation from the one used here.]
"Contradiction is an essential feature of all being. It lies at the heart of matter itself. It is the source of all motion, change, life and development. The dialectical law which expresses this idea is the law of the unity and interpenetration of opposites….
"This universal phenomenon of the unity of opposites is, in reality the motor-force of all motion and development in nature…. Movement which itself involves a contradiction, is only possible as a result of the conflicting tendencies and inner tensions which lie at the heart of all forms of matter." [Woods and Grant (1995), pp.43-47, 65-68.]
Woods and Grant devote a whole section to this idea here:
http://www.marxist.com/science/dialectical...0of%20Opposites
"This struggle is not external and accidental…. The struggle is internal and necessary, for it arises and follows from the nature of the process as a whole. The opposite tendencies are not independent the one of the other, but are inseparably connected as parts or aspects of a single whole. And they operate and come into conflict on the basis of the contradiction inherent in the process as a whole…
"Movement and change result from causes inherent in things and processes, from internal contradictions….
"Contradiction is a universal feature of all processes….
"The importance of the [developmental] conception of the negation of the negation does not lie in its supposedly expressing the necessary pattern of all development. All development takes place through the working out of contradictions -– that is a necessary universal law…." [Cornforth (1976), pp.14-15, 46-48, 53, 65-66, 72, 77, 82, 86, 90, 95, 117; quoting Hegel (1975), pp.172 and 160, respectively.]
"The contradiction, however, is the source of all movement and life; only in so far as it contains a contradiction can anything have movement, power, and effect." (Hegel). "In brief", states Lenin, "dialectics can be defined as the doctrine of the unity of opposites. This embodies the essence of dialectics…"
"The world in which we live is a unity of contradictions or a unity of opposites: cold-heat, light-darkness, Capital-Labour, birth-death, riches-poverty, positive-negative, boom-slump, thinking-being, finite-infinite, repulsion-attraction, left-right, above- below, evolution-revolution, chance-necessity, sale-purchase, and so on.
"The fact that two poles of a contradictory antithesis can manage to coexist as a whole is regarded in popular wisdom as a paradox. The paradox is a recognition that two contradictory, or opposite, considerations may both be true. This is a reflection in thought of a unity of opposites in the material world.
"Motion, space and time are nothing else but the mode of existence of matter. Motion, as we have explained is a contradiction, - being in one place and another at the same time. It is a unity of opposites. "Movement means to be in this place and not to be in it; this is the continuity of space and time - and it is this which first makes motion possible." (Hegel)
"To understand something, its essence, it is necessary to seek out these internal contradictions. Under certain circumstances, the universal is the individual, and the individual is the universal. That things turn into their opposites, - cause can become effect and effect can become cause - is because they are merely links in the never-ending chain in the development of matter....
"Lenin explains this self-movement in a note when he says, "Dialectics is the teaching which shows how opposites can be and how they become identical - under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another - why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another." [Rob Sewell from here:
http://www.marxist.com/what-is-dialectical-materialism-4.htm]
[Detailed references can be found at my site.]
Here is a comment I also made about this:
In fact, as is easy to confirm, dialecticians have been hopelessly unclear as to whether things change because of (1) their internal contradictions (and/or opposites), or (2) whether they change into these opposites, or, indeed, (3) whether they create such opposites when they change.
Of course, if the third option were the case, the alleged opposites could not cause change, [i]since they would be produced by it, not the other way round. And they could scarcely be 'internal opposites' if they were produced by change.
If the second alternative were correct, then we would see things like males naturally turning into females, the capitalist class into the working class, electrons into protons, left hands into right hands, and vice versa, and a host of other oddities.
And as far as the first option is concerned, it is worth making the following points:
(A) If objects/processes change because of already existing internal opposites, and they change into these opposites, too, then it seems they cannot actually change, since those opposites must already exist -- they can hardly change into something that already exists!
So, if object/process A is already composed of a dialectical union of A and not-A, and it 'changes' into not-A, where is the change?
All that seems to happen is that A disappears. [And do not ask where it disappears to!] A does not change into not-A, it is just replaced by it.
At the very least, this account of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-A itself came about. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.
It cannot have come from A, since A can only change because of the operation of not-A, which does not exist yet! And pushing the process into the past will merely reduplicate the above problems.
(B) Exactly how an (internal) opposite is capable of making anything change is somewhat unclear, too. Given the above, not-A does not actually alter A, it merely replaces it!
More details here:
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66945&st=50
You ask:
When a commodity's use value is different from its exchange value, wouldn't that be a contradiction?
Why is that a contradiction? If your ear is different from your nose (I hope it is) is that a contradiction? Are they locked in struggle on your face?
And even if it were, according to the above dialectical luminaries, the one should turn into the other. Is your ear turning into your nose? Or vice versa?
So, consider, say, a toothbrush: when have you seen its use value turn into its exchange value (say, £1.50, or $3)? Are they struggling with one another in the store/bathroom?
Even in DM terms, this makes no sense.
I think we can both agree that Lenin was more than capable of being wrong.
Then all of those DM-luminaries I quoted above (and there are many more I left out) must be wrong! Since they all say the same thing!
Which a priori superscientist has ever got this right?
Moral: ditch this 'theory'; no sense can be made of it (and no wonder, it was dreamt up by a mystic who screwed up the logic).
It's no surprise then that it has served us badly for 150 years.
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