Dialectics made easy [Archive]

midnight marauder

7th August 2007, 04:19

Just got back from Iowa. So let's get to it! :)

What planet is this ?I dont think Rosa is on the same planet as me. I certainly dont want to argue with unlistening pedant, who is deeply prejudiced in her thinking.
There are other points of view.

Ouch.

Indeed there are other points of view. Some people, however, like Rosa (and myself) are closeminded when it comes to things like dialectal materialism not because we're prejudiced and do not listen, but because we have listened to the arguments and analyzed them critically, like materialists are supposed to do.

As a consequence of this, we have come to understand dialectal materialism as, contrary to being a "theory of everything", being devoid of practical use and as having contributed to the understanding of just about nothing.

It's a shame, really. If understanding the world was as simple as dialectians want to make it, we'd know a whole lot more about the past and the present (not to mention the future), but unfortunately, trying to apply this type of mechanic to the real world doesn't work to contribute to the understanding of anything.

The idea of seperating dialectics from science is ultimately ridiculous. Dialectics is not a branch of philosophy, for Marx and Engels it is anti-philosophy, it is science.

Okay. Why?

It may be anti-philosophy in the eyes of its creators, it is definitionally a philosophical way of attempting to analyze the world.

But if you want it to be an accepted science, it's up to you to prove it as one. Show me an observable property in the real world that has been discovered by dialectics, back it up using the scientific method, and show how dialects alone could come to this conclusion, and I'll eat my words.

All science is based on the negation of the negation, which fundamentally means improving on what has gone before.

Dialectics is that debate, those questions taken to every sphere of thought.

I understand that you can often take a scientific or logical obseravtion and dress it using convoluted terms from the dialectical lexicon, but does prove the utility of the process?

(The answer, of course, is no.)

The way to prove it's utility would be to reverse the process by indetifying and explaining a real-world phenominon through dialectics that couldn't otherwise be explained through ordinary observation and real science, or is, at the very least, best explained through the dialectic.

But that hasn't happened yet.

So what can dialectics predict that cant be predicted by "other" scientific means.

Absolutely nothing.

Then what does it bring to the table? Anything positive? :rolleyes:

Do yo believe that science is about prediction, that is fallacy promoted by anti-socialist thinkers such as Karl Popper. His atomism is precisely the basis of all anti dialectical thinking.

I don't think it's at all a fallacy to say that one of the limitless uses of the scientific method is to be able to make a reasonable hypothesized prediction. And after hearing dozens of dialecticians assert that the one of the major goals of dialectics is to make predictions about the material conditions they live under, I would hope by now that we'd have some empirical data to back up these predictions as being uniquely determinable through dialectics.

There just isn't any such empirical evidence.

Prediction is the place Marx has been attacked the most. Maybe you should be in OI. If you want to do a hatchet job on Marx.

Elevating Marx to biblical proportions complete with an "all or nothing" acceptance of His holy word is not a criterion for being a revolutionary leftist, let alone being a marxist!

Indeed, if it wasn't for the aura effect men like Marx, Engels, and Lenin have around their theories, no one would give a fuck about dialectical materialism.

The best guide to dialectics, is to question all dogma, all recieved wisdom, go deep into the subject matter, look for the best possible question, that summarises the question in hand and offers the next step forward in coming to a clearer picture of the subject matter.

Not all scientists are as direct, there is some serendipty and trial and error, and there is more than one way to skin a cat. Yet dialectical skill is the ability to get to the heart of a matter, it is to cut through the unecessary, the apparent contradictions and get to the real contradiction. To get to what anything is really about:getting right to the bones of the matter

That isn't dialectics, that's the goal of dialectics. Dialectics refers to a very specific set of practices in trying to fulfill this goal, but this alone isn't dialectical materialism. In fact, it's the same goal as ever single branch of science out there!

If you want us to believe in dialetics for any reason other than because Marx said so, the burden of proof is on you to prove that the "underbelly of all science" or worse yet, the "key to untold knowledge" known as dialectical materialism allows for some deep insight not otherwise attainable through real science and observation.

Unfortunately, in nearly two centuries, that hasn't happened.

peaccenicked

8th August 2007, 22:36

In one word, piffle,

Set up a straw dog, dialectical materialism, something coined perhaps by Stalin.
I dont realy think anybody before him linked dialectics and materialism so blandly.
Forget that I disappove of the term, then go onto attack it. How convenient for you?

I have nothing to prove.

As a consequence of this, we have come to understand dialectal materialism as, contrary to being a "theory of everything", being devoid of practical use and as having contributed to the understanding of just about nothing.

It's a shame, really. If understanding the world was as simple as dialectians want to make it, we'd know a whole lot more about the past and the present (not to mention the future), but unfortunately, trying to apply this type of mechanic to the real world doesn't work to contribute to the understanding of anything.

Thats why Lenin took to studying Hegel barely a month before the october revolution.
Dialectics is not as such a theory of everything it is about using the overall experience of science to analyse history so as to produce a worldoutlook.

It is not about predicting the outcome of atomised processes in laboratory conditions.
You and Rosa cant see the big difference.
It is not only a shame but it is robs Marx and those who have taken on board the depth of his historical and scientific understanding and replace it with a Popperian 'piecemeal' atomistic shallow, blunt empiricism and pretends that is and can only be the true nature of science.
The question really is who are the dialecticians you are talking about and where are they inadequate on their subjects, Hegel on the History of philosophy, or aesthetics, and what scientific improvements, have you seen, and could you do the same for Marx on Capital, Lenin on Imperialism, or Trotsky on the Russian Revolution, Che on Guerrilla warfare, Haldane on Biology, Caudwell on Poetry, Bellamy Foster on Ecology, Gramsci on culture.

Of course these people have observed nothing and have nothing to say on "anything" according to you, if I am to understand you correctly.

I think you are wrong by a thousand miles.

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th August 2007, 15:11

PeaceNicked, we ought to thank you again for showing that this bogus theory is based on Mickey Mouse science.

As I pointed out in Anti-Dialectics Made easy (referring to Engels's 'Laws'):

All dialecticians (who accept these 'Laws') impose them on nature (the evidence for this can be found here and here). What little data dialecticians supply to substantiate these 'Laws' is not only woefully insufficient, it is highly contentious -- to say the least.

Anyone who has studied and practiced genuine science will know the lengths to which researchers have to go to alter even minor aspects of current theory, let alone justify major changes in the way we view nature.

In stark contrast, and without exception, dialecticians offer a few paragraphs of trite (and over-used) clichés to support their claims. Hence, all we find are hackneyed references to things like boiling water, balding heads, plants 'negating' seeds, Mamelukes fighting the French, a character from Molière suddenly discovering that he speaks prose, and the like, all constantly retailed. From such banalities, dialecticians suddenly derive universal laws, applicable everywhere and at all times.

Even at its best (for example, in Woods and Grant (1995), which is one of the most comprehensive defence of classical, hard-core DM to date, and Gollobin (1986), which is perhaps even more comprehensive), we encounter perhaps a few dozen pages of secondary and tertiary information, extensively padded out with repetition and bluster (much of which is taken apart here). Contrary evidence (of which there is much) is simply ignored. This is indeed Mickey Mouse Science.

In many ways, this endeavour to substantiate Engels's 'Laws' resembles Creationist attempts to show that the Book of Genesis is correct: it is heavily slanted, repetitive, selective and contentious.

The tired old stone age science and logic you are advocating has been shown to be the bogus endeavour it is at my site, particularly in these Essays

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2004.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2005.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2006.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_01.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm

All summarised here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20...Oppose%20DM.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm)

And even more briefly here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Anti-D...ummies%2001.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm)

I have even posted sections here, so you have no excuse:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=55101

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th August 2007, 15:23

PN:

I dont think Rosa is on the same planet as me. I certainly dont want to argue with unlistening pedant, who is deeply prejudiced in her thinking.

You are right, I am on planet earth, you are on planet make-believe.

And as far as 'pedantry' is concerned, as I pointed out to you last year, your sort of sloppy logic allows you to get away with anything you like, that is why you prefer it.

Moreover, with respect to 'prejudice', I admit that I still have much to learn from you in this regard.

Except, perhaps, your prejudice against clarity of thought.

That, you can keep.

Volderbeek

18th August 2007, 07:31

Originally posted by peaccenicked+July 25, 2007 08:17 pm--> (peaccenicked @ July 25, 2007 08:17 pm)Dialectics is ultimately about corresponding to the needs of the universe as we find them subjectively as we interact with others and the environment, negating that which holds back our development and consciousness of human evolution.[/b]
You're not really making it any easier, but rather re-wrapping it in the mystical shell from which Marx freed it.

Karl Marx
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.

Volderbeek

18th August 2007, 07:45

Originally posted by midnight marauder+August 06, 2007 11:19 pm--> (midnight marauder @ August 06, 2007 11:19 pm)Then what does [dialectical materialism] bring to the table? Anything positive? :rolleyes:[/b]
Whazza-whaaat?! How can you say something like that? Marx based his entire analysis of political economy on that particular philosophy. It's the essence of revolutionary thinking:

Karl Marx
In its rational form it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension an 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.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th August 2007, 08:24

VB:

Whazza-whaaat?! How can you say something like that? Marx based his entire analysis of political economy on that particular philosophy. It's the essence of revolutionary thinking:

This has already been batted out of the park here, months ago:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66348&st=0

Volderbeek

18th August 2007, 10:20

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 18, 2007 03:24 am
VB:

Whazza-whaaat?! How can you say something like that? Marx based his entire analysis of political economy on that particular philosophy. It's the essence of revolutionary thinking:

This has already been batted out of the park here, months ago:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66348&st=0
Batted out of the park? Is this some sort of game? If so, it seems like you're on the wrong team here.

I saw your "anti-dialectics" topic before, but I thought you were just elaborating on Marx's critique of Hegelian dialectics. You're actually against materialist dialectics?! The irony of that is that you're using contradiction. :lol:

As to that link: Dialectics for Kids? Isn't that just a sly way to call me an idiot?

Anyway, I can't see how you could argue that Marx didn't use dialectics. I was just reading a part of Poverty of Philosophy where he uses Unity of Opposites.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th August 2007, 10:36

VB:

Batted out of the park? Is this some sort of game?

Yep, and the dialectical mystics lost.

If so, it seems like you're on the wrong team here.

If by 'wrong' you mean, I am a historical materialist, I plead guilty.

You need, therefore to switch sides, and join us materialsts.

I saw your "anti-dialectics" topic before, but I thought you were just elaborating on Marx's critique of Hegelian dialectics. You're actually against materialist dialectics?! The irony of that is that you're using contradiction.

Well, you seem to be a uniquely confused character.

Where I am doing this?

As to that link: Dialectics for Kids? Isn't that just a sly way to call me an idiot?

No, it's where we last debated this; there are other threads, but that was the latest.

And far from me wanting to call you an 'idiot', I will let your posts speak for themselves.

Anyway, I can't see how you could argue that Marx didn't use dialectics. I was just reading a part of Poverty of Philosophy where he uses Unity of Opposites

Well, if you actually read what I have said before mouthing off, I argued that Marx moved away from Hegel all his life, and by the time he got to Kapital, all he would admit to was that he had 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon -- which is the extent of the 'rational' core of that lame 'theory'.

Herman

18th August 2007, 10:53

I would rather not believe that there is an extra-celestial world out there where ideas are knocking about.

Apart from that, dialectics, to me, is museum stuff.

Having been studying recently Platonism and neo-platonism, i'm not that convinced about dialectics.

I understand the idealist conception of dialectics, but not the materialist.

Hit The North

18th August 2007, 12:49

Well, if you actually read what I have said before mouthing off, I argued that Marx moved away from Hegel all his life, and by the time he got to Kapital, all he would admit to was that he had 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon -- which is the extent of the 'rational' core of that lame 'theory'.

Not true. If we take Marx's word for it, rather than Rosa's, we find a different story. An examination of his own attitude to his work can be found in his letters.

Writing to Engels in 1867, on the subject of Capital:

Incidentally, you will see from the conclusion to my Chapter III, where I outline the transformation of the master of a trade into a capitalist — as a result of purely quantitative changes — that in the text there I quote Hegel’s discovery of the law of the transformation of a merely quantitative change into a qualitative one as being attested by history and natural science alike. cited HERE (http://http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867/letters/67_06_22.htm)

The above is a classic example of how Marx doesn't merely coquette with Hegelian jargon, but puts the concepts to use.

Later that same year, he writes, again to Engels:

The only weekly paper here in London which has a certain impartiality and is much concerned with things German, such as German philology, natural science, Hegel, etc., is a — Catholic paper, The Chronicle. It is obviously their tendency to show that they are more learned than their Protestant rivals. I sent them one copy a at the end of last week with a short letter to the purpose, saying that my book does not share their opinions, but that the ‘scholarly’ nature of their paper suggests that some notice will be taken of this first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy’. Nous verrons! There is a great desire prevailing at present in the more refined circles (I am referring, of course, to the intellectual portion of the latter) to become acquainted with the dialectical method. And perhaps that is after all the easiest way to get at the English. Cited HERE (http://http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867/letters/67_11_07.htm)

In 1868, to Ludwig Kugelmann, Marx complains:

Incidentally he [Duhring] practises deception, half intentionally and half from lack of insight. He knows full well that my method of exposition is not Hegelian, since I am a materialist, and Hegel an idealist. Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after being stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method. Cited HERE (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_03_06.htm)

And, once more, in 1870 to Kugelmann:

And what this Lange has to say about the Hegelian method and my application of the same is simply childish. First, he understands rien [nothing] about Hegel’s method and, therefore, second, still less about my critical manner of applying it. In one respect he reminds me of Moses Mendelssohn. That prototype of a windbag once wrote to Lessing asking how he could possibly take ‘that dead dog Spinoza’ au sérieux! In the same way, Mr Lange expresses surprise that Engels, I, etc., take au sérieux the dead dog Hegel, after Büchner, Lange, Dr Dühring, Fechner, etc., had long agreed that they — poor dear — had long since buried him. Lange is naïve enough to say that I ‘move with rare freedom’ in empirical matter. He has not the slightest idea that this ‘free movement in matter’ is nothing but a paraphrase for the method of dealing with matter — that is, the dialectical method. Cited HERE (http://http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_06_27.htm)

So from these few extracts it becomes obvious that Marx himself did not view his departure from Hegel as a rejection of a dialectical method. In fact, he considered Capital to be the "first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy".

So, Volderbeek is correct to state that Marx consciously applied a dialectical method of analysis in his most important work.

By denying this, Rosa, merely gives the impression that she has never read Capital, or at least, has never understood it.

Hit The North

18th August 2007, 13:15

Redherman:

I would rather not believe that there is an extra-celestial world out there where ideas are knocking about.

The material dialectic doesn't require belief in such hocus-pocus.

Nevertheless, Marx insists that all science should be engaged in uncovering hidden laws of motion which underlie observable phenomena and explain why they develop in the ways they do. This is how he appropriates and modifies the Hegelian concepts of "essence" and "appearance".

Rosa deliberately mystifies this process of cognition within Marx's method in order to discredit it. She builds another straw man.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th August 2007, 14:29

Z:

Not true. If we take Marx's word for it, rather than Rosa's, we find a different story. An examination of his own attitude to his work can be found in his letters.

And you quote this:

Incidentally, you will see from the conclusion to my Chapter III, where I outline the transformation of the master of a trade into a capitalist — as a result of purely quantitative changes — that in the text there I quote Hegel’s discovery of the law of the transformation of a merely quantitative change into a qualitative one as being attested by history and natural science alike.

Leave aside the fact that this is not an example of Engels's (or even Hegel's) bogus 'law', why do you need to quote this letter?

Marx himslelf says as much in Kapital.

But he also qualifies this when he says that he merely 'coquetted' with Hegelain jargon (such as this).

Since that statement covers everything he published in Kapital, we are forced to conclude that Marx was merely 'coquetting' here.

And this is no surprise, given that Hegel and Engel's 'law' does not work (anywhere, let alone here).

In that case, we should, I think, go further, and refuse to even 'coquette' with this 'law'.

The above is a classic example of how Marx doesn't merely coquette with Hegelian jargon, but puts the concepts to use.

So you say, but Marx unfortunately disagrees with you.

I wonder who we are going to believe...?

Tough one that!

Then you quote this:

The only weekly paper here in London which has a certain impartiality and is much concerned with things German, such as German philology, natural science, Hegel, etc., is a — Catholic paper, The Chronicle. It is obviously their tendency to show that they are more learned than their Protestant rivals. I sent them one copy a at the end of last week with a short letter to the purpose, saying that my book does not share their opinions, but that the ‘scholarly’ nature of their paper suggests that some notice will be taken of this first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy’. Nous verrons! There is a great desire prevailing at present in the more refined circles (I am referring, of course, to the intellectual portion of the latter) to become acquainted with the dialectical method. And perhaps that is after all the easiest way to get at the English.

Yes, well, we have already been over this. Marx told us what this 'dialectic' method was. So we do not need to guess.

Here it is again:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Not an ounce of Hegel in there!

So, taking Marx's lead, we too can ditch all traces of Hegel.

So from these few extracts it becomes obvious that Marx himself did not view his departure from Hegel as a rejection of a dialectical method. In fact, he considered Capital to be the "first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy".

Quite the contrary -- Marx once again disagrees, not with me, but with you.

So, Volderbeek is correct to state that Marx consciously applied a dialectical method of analysis in his most important work.

By denying this, Rosa, merely gives the impression that she has never read Capital, or at least, has never understood it.

As the above shows, this is what you should have concluded:

So, Volderbeek is wrong to state that Marx consciously applied a dialectical method of analysis in his most important work.

By denying this, I, Mystic Z, merely confirm that I have never read Capital, or at least, have never understood it.

Which is not surprising since Lenin said of ones like you:

"It is impossible to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!" [Lenin (1961), p.180.]

On your own admission, you have never even read, let alone studied, Hegel's lunatic book.

So, you need to get busy...

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th August 2007, 14:36

Z:

Nevertheless, Marx insists that all science should be engaged in uncovering hidden laws of motion which underlie observable phenomena and explain why they develop in the ways they do. This is how he appropriates and modifies the Hegelian concepts of "essence" and "appearance".

'Hidden'?

Who 'hid' them, then?

Yet more metaphor...

But, you seem to have back-slid from the position you adopted last year when you almost swore blind that did not need these bogus Hegelain terms: "essence" and "appearance".

Rosa deliberately mystifies this process of cognition within Marx's method in order to discredit it. She builds another straw man

Well, since you are the one who has to appeal to mystical ideas and metaphors of dubious provenance, and even more dubious meaning, to make your ill-thought-out ideas 'seem to work', this is a bit rich.

Go on smarty-pants, let us see you explain these ever-so scientific concepts.

Then we will know who is 'mystifying' things.

Hit The North

18th August 2007, 15:18

So, here's Rosa's threadbare method of analysis in its entirety:

Take one assertion by Marx:

in the chapter on the theory of value, [i] coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.
and conflate "modes of expression" to mean an entire rejection of Hegel. Spin this as a hostile or dismissive attack on Hegel and thus ignore the full context of the quote, namely:

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

Then, having distorted the meaning of this passage she counterposes it to the private correspondence where Marx writes positively of his dialectical method.

Its laughable, the way she portrays her unique and selective interpretation of a few words of Marx (coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him) - willfully taken out of context - and provides this as evidence that Marx did not employ a dialectical method, even though it is soundly refuted by more numerous selections of Marx's opinion on his own work.

At the same time I'm beginning to wonder if Rosa even knows what her actual argument is. She certainly doesn't understand mine, which is, simply:

1. Marx developed a materialist dialectic, influenced by, but distinct from, Hegel.
2. He employs this in all his major work, especially Capital.

If she did understand my position, why does she resort to comments such as:

Not an ounce of Hegel in there!

So, taking Marx's lead, we too can ditch all traces of Hegel.

When I've never claimed such and when my argument doesn't even depend on it?

Answer: she cannot proceed in her arguments without building straw men or slandering her opponents.

In all honesty, it is Rosa who employs the dodgy logic which she ascribes to dialectics. Thus, she can, without a trace of irony, interpret a claim by Marx, that Capital is the "first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy" and claim this:

Quite the contrary -- Marx once again disagrees, not with me, but with you.

In other words, that Marx means the opposite of what he plainly states > i.e. Rosa's position that Capital is not an application of the dialectic method to political economy!

It's a masterclass in obfuscation and wish fulfillment.

BlakSheep

18th August 2007, 16:19

I hardly know about Dialectics, but from what I have read, it is simply put, realizing the patterns in history and predicting, based on analysis, from there. If my last statement was right, the rest of this should be relatively correct( in understanding). If not don't hesitate to tell me what I am not understanding correctly (although I don't think anyone here has a problem with not holding their tongue :D ) If this is what it is, I don't really see the point of this debate. It clearly then is a form of science, analyzing. As to how it is practiced now, isn't this pretty much what statistics are? I'm still in the dark of what this is.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th August 2007, 16:34

Z, getting rather desperate:

So, here's Rosa's threadbare method of analysis in its entirety:

Take one assertion by Marx:

in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

and conflate "modes of expression" to mean an entire rejection of Hegel. Spin this as a hostile or dismissive attack on Hegel and thus ignore the full context of the quote, namely:

Well, let's not leave it up to me, or even to the arch Mysterion Z himself. Why not ask Herr Marx what he thinks his method is?

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

The unbiased reader will no doubt note that Marx drops all mention of Hegel here, or rather, he endorses the summary of a reviewer who has done this for him.

But, is it Rosa who says this is Marx's method?

Yes, I must confess that I invented a time machine, dialed it back 130 odd years, and forced Marx to say this of that summary:

"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?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02.]

Silicate-loving Z now quotes this (yet again):

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

But we already know what Marx's method is.

In case Z has forgotten already, here it is once more (somebody help him out here, please!):

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

No wonder then that Marx said he merely 'coquetted' with Hegelian jargon -- indeed, he did not need any at all.

Nor do we.

How does Mr Mysterion respond?

Wonder no more:

Its laughable, the way she portrays her unique and selective interpretation of a few words of Marx ([i]coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him) - willfully taken out of context - and provides this as evidence that Marx did not employ a dialectical method, even though it is soundly refuted by more numerous selections of Marx's opinion on his own work.

Perhaps our own resident Mystery-Meister needs another reminder (for I fear he has forgotten again) -- how does Marx interpret his own method?

Again, wonder no more:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

And now this sad Hermetic Viral Victim responds with a devastating:

At the same time I'm beginning to wonder if Rosa even knows what her actual argument is. She certainly doesn't understand mine, which is, simply:

1. Marx developed a materialist dialectic, influenced by, but distinct from, Hegel.
2. He employs this in all his major work, especially Capital.

Well, and once more: Marx agrees with me, since he said he merely "coquetted" with a few bits of Hegelian jargon in his great work.

And we all know how he himself understood his method, don't we?

No, I am not going to repeat it, even though I suspect that this lover of Hegelain Opiates has already forgotten -- Marx told us himself that not one atom of Hegel is required as part of 'his method'.

Clearly Z-Features here finds Marx's own words not good enough.

That, alas, is his punishment.

If she did understand my position, why does she resort to comments such as:

Not an ounce of Hegel in there!

So, taking Marx's lead, we too can ditch all traces of Hegel.

When I've never claimed such and when my argument doesn't even depend on it?

But, is this the same Mysterio-holic who posted this earlier:

The above is a classic example of how Marx doesn't merely coquette with Hegelian jargon, but puts the concepts to use.

If it is, and I suspect it is, then the Z-man clearly does not even understand his own "position" (which position looks, to the rest of us, like it is still ar*e in the air, head in the sand).

Answer: she cannot proceed in her arguments without building straw men or slandering her opponents.

As the reader will no douut also have noted by now, ZZZZ-ed here has built a straw man of his own "position" and knocked it down himself!!

Neutral observers will probably begin to wonder if he goes around all day hitting himself on the head with a mallet -- by way of practice for jousts like this with Rosa.

Surely not!!

[For my part, I offer 10-1 he actually uses a baseball bat. Any takers?]

But what is this, has he forgotten once more the words I quoted three times above?

I fear he has; check this out, disbelievers:

In all honesty, it is Rosa who employs the dodgy logic which she ascribes to dialectics. Thus, she can, without a trace of irony, interpret a claim by Marx, that Capital is the "first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy" and claim this:

Quite the contrary -- Marx once again disagrees, not with me, but with you.

In other words, that Marx means the opposite of what he plainly states > i.e. Rosa's position that Capital is not an application of the dialectic method to political economy!

Now, I do not want to risk annoying the poor souls who have made it thus far, so I will merely note that Marx does indeed agree with me that his 'dialectic' method contains not an atom of Hegel -- except, of course, a few bits of Hegelian jargon with which Marx himself says he merely 'coquetted'.

It's a masterclass in obfuscation and wish fulfillment.

Well, I suggest you stop doing it then.

Hit The North

18th August 2007, 16:53

but, is this the same Mysterio-holic who posted this earlier:

The above is a classic example of how Marx doesn't merely coquette with Hegelian jargon, but puts the concepts to use.

He does put the concepts to use - I should have added devoid of their Hegelian idealism.

Meanwhile, the passage which you reproduce from the Postface to the 2nd Edition does not prove that Marx abandoned dialectics (your interpretation), only that Marx employed "the dialectic method" - his own! (which is my interpretation).

But we are really at the mercy of interpretation as you continue to misinterpret my position as "Marx employs the Hegelian dialectic"!

Once again, in a classic example of inversion, it is you, Rosa, who continues to invoke Hegel in order to pursue your argument. Not me.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th August 2007, 17:00

Z:

He does put the concepts to use - I should have added devoid of their Hegelian idealism

Even though there is no such thing, and even though Marx disagreed with this.

For he it was who said he merely 'coquetted' with Hegelian jargon in Kapital.

Meanwhile, the passage which you reproduce from the Postface to the 2nd Edition does not prove that Marx abandoned dialectics (your interpretation), only that Marx employed "the dialectic method" - his own! (which is my interpretation).

In which not an atom of Hegel appears.

But we are really at the mercy of interpretation as you continue to misinterpret my position as "Marx employs the Hegelian dialectic"!

Well, we have already seen that not even you understand your own "position" here, so what chance has anyone else got?

Once again, in a classic example of inversion, it is you, Rosa, who continues to invoke Hegel in order to pursue your argument. Not me.

Unfortunately, Marx disagrees with you.

But, oddly enough, I can live with that.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th August 2007, 17:05

Blacksheep:

I hardly know about Dialectics, but from what I have read, it is simply put, realizing the patterns in history and predicting, based on analysis, from there. If my last statement was right, the rest of this should be relatively correct( in understanding). If not don't hesitate to tell me what I am not understanding correctly (although I don't think anyone here has a problem with not holding their tongue ) If this is what it is, I don't really see the point of this debate. It clearly then is a form of science, analyzing. As to how it is practiced now, isn't this pretty much what statistics are? I'm still in the dark of what this is.

And I'd advise you to learn no more of this 'theory' --- let Z and PeaceNicked here be a warning to you.

And if you read the rest of this thread, plus other recent threads, you will see that no sense can be made of dialectics, howsoever one tries.

So it can hardly be used to predict anything -- except perhaps the confusion it creates in the minds of comrades, like Z.

Volderbeek

21st August 2007, 00:09

I have to say, all this discussion on dialectics has piqued my interest in it. I've started reading Dialectics of Nature by Engels and am very impressed so far. I think I'm becoming a dialectician! :D

Volderbeek

21st August 2007, 00:14

Originally posted by Axel1917+July 26, 2007 06:10 pm--> (Axel1917 @ July 26, 2007 06:10 pm)
[email protected] 26, 2007 03:55 am
man, he's going to get owned by Rosa.
Rosa can't refute anyone. She just ultra-spams the threads.[/b]
I'm starting to see what this guy meant by this.

Vinny Rafarino

21st August 2007, 00:40

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 04:14 pm

I'm starting to see what this guy meant by this.
Did the dialectic tell you to say that?

You tell that fool that he still owes me 20 bucks and to stay the hell away from my sister.

I think I'm becoming a dialectician! biggrin.gif

So does every other fan of supernatural crapola.

Volderbeek

21st August 2007, 00:44

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+August 18, 2007 05:36 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ August 18, 2007 05:36 am)VB:

Batted out of the park? Is this some sort of game?

Yep, and the dialectical mystics lost.[/b]
So you're saying when you got enough points, you won, or that a quantitative change transformed into a qualitative one? =D

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)
If so, it seems like you're on the wrong team here.

If by 'wrong' you mean, I am a historical materialist, I plead guilty.

You need, therefore to switch sides, and join us materialsts.[/b]

What?! I figured you were some sort of anti-Marxist anarchist. Historical materialism is the application of dialectical materialism. Rosa Luxemburg, your namesake, referred to it as "the historic-dialectic method."

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

I saw your "anti-dialectics" topic before, but I thought you were just elaborating on Marx's critique of Hegelian dialectics. You're actually against materialist dialectics?! The irony of that is that you're using contradiction.

Well, you seem to be a uniquely confused character.

Where I am doing this?

You know, anti-dialectics/antithesis...

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Anyway, I can't see how you could argue that Marx didn't use dialectics. I was just reading a part of Poverty of Philosophy where he uses Unity of Opposites

Well, if you actually read what I have said before mouthing off, I argued that Marx moved away from Hegel all his life, and by the time he got to Kapital, all he would admit to was that he had 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon -- which is the extent of the 'rational' core of that lame 'theory'.

Unless you're referring to something else, you got that from this:

Karl [email protected]
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.

I would think you would make this harder for me than to let your quotes refute themselves, but I'll take it.

There's also this, also from Capital:

Karl Marx
The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production.

Volderbeek

21st August 2007, 00:48

Originally posted by Vinny [email protected] 20, 2007 07:40 pm
Did the dialectic tell you to say that?

You tell that fool that he still owes me 20 bucks and to stay the hell away from my sister.
He says he'll have the money next week and that your sister is already dead but he didn't do it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

21st August 2007, 00:56

VB:

I'm starting to see what this guy meant by this.

Well, if you want to, why not try to put me in my place?

Do you think you are up to the task?

I have already seen off dozens of mystical bumblers like PeaceNicked here.

Who knows, you could be the great mystical hope...

Go for it I say!

Rosa Lichtenstein

21st August 2007, 01:15

VB:

So you're saying when you got enough points, you won, or that a quantitative change transformed into a qualitative one?

Well, I have read literally hundreds of books and articles devoted to this hermetic 'theory' over the last 25 years, most of which say the same thing -- in fact they say much the same as PeaceNicked here, and it seems you too, if the above is anything to go by.

[Do you all have to memorise this b*llocks?]

And that quantity certainly did not affect its low grade quality.

I hope that answers your rather vague question.

What?! I figured you were some sort of anti-Marxist anarchist. Historical materialism is the application of dialectical materialism. Rosa Luxemburg, your namesake, referred to it as "the historic-dialectic method."

I have been a revolutionary Marxist since before you were born, so you can cut the smart remarks, sonny.

As to the other great Rosa, well, we all make mistakes; what can I tell you? She screwed up.

[Fortunately, I can prove it.]

You know, anti-dialectics/antithesis

Too bad for you, I am not doing this, but even if I were, you ought to be made aware that this is not part of dialectics, anyway.

Don't believe me?

Well, check this out then:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic...entry1292124737 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51512&st=0&#entry1292124737)

Fourth post down.

Unless you're referring to something else, you got that from this:

Yes, as we have already established many times here (you should read stuff before you mouth-off), Marx also let us know how 'great' he thought Hegel was:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

The rational core of the 'dialectic' is just a few words of jargon, fit only to be played around with.

That is how low an opinion he had of the 'great' Hegel.

More details in the thread above.

Now, you can save making an even bigger fool of yourself by reading that material first.

Or, not.

It's up to you.

There's also this, also from Capital:

Yes, even more 'coquetting' here; naughty old Marx taking the piss out of you simple-minded mystics.

Now who would want to do that...? :rolleyes:

DJFreiheit

24th August 2007, 08:49

Bloody hell.

I am not a regular poster here but I do enjoy reading the posts. Rosa, have you got a real job or do you spend all your time on message boards arguing anti-dialectics?
Get a real job. Get a life. Learn something from the real struggle of the proletariat.

All this talk of 'coquetting ' and such like is giving me a head ache.

Seriously I cant subscribe to your arguments Rosa because for a start they have not stood the test of time . I expect there are plenty of Marxists (who later become ex marxists) who started with a criticism of dialectical materialism which evolved into DM being completey denounced. These people quickly moved over to the side of reaction. Wasnt Burnham one of these?

I do think you are wasting your time here and elsewhere (yfis). Start your own board up. I am sure loads of people will join.

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th August 2007, 12:29

F:

Rosa, have you got a real job or do you spend all your time on message boards arguing anti-dialectics?

Well, we can see you are not here often. As I have pointed out many times: I have a full-time job, and I am also a trade union rep (unpaid).

I am on my annual leave at present, hence the amount of time I have spent here of late. Not only that, most of my work has been written over the last ten years; you are just seeing the results.

Get a real job. Get a life. Learn something from the real struggle of the proletariat.

Well, you need to learn the facts before you mouth-off.

Seriously I cant subscribe to your arguments Rosa because for a start they have not stood the test of time

You could say the same of those of Newton, Marx, Einstein..., two years after they were published: "they have not stood the test of time" -- and you'd look just as foolish.

I expect there are plenty of Marxists (who later become ex marxists) who started with a criticism of dialectical materialism which evolved into DM being completey denounced. These people quickly moved over to the side of reaction. Wasnt Burnham one of these?

1) I have been a revolutionary Marxist (and Trotskyist) now for longer than most RevLefters have been alive (nearly 25 years), and am more convinced today of the need for a worker's revolution (etc.) than I was at the start.

2) There are more anti-revolutionary and counter-revolutionary dialecticians than there are revolutionary dialecticians -- namely the Stalinists and the Maoists. So, this 'theory' is responsible for more counter-revolutionaries than its opposite: anti-dialetics.

3) Burnham was put off Trotskyism as much by the irrational response he got from Trotsky himself (there for us all to see in 'In Defence of Marxism') as he was by Trotsky's criminal support of the Stalinist invasion of Finland, justified by dialectics (and by nothing else).

4) Burnham was a wimp, who not only failed to derive the right conclusions from his criticisms (which failing I have now corrected), he did not go far enough -- I condem all philosophy, not just the mystical stuff dialecticians have swallowed.

davidasearles

24th August 2007, 16:45

We are told that Marxian dialectics are unseparable from the scientific method.

OK just exactly what are Marxian dialectics and where is there any showing that what he supposedly added to the scientific method didn't already exist?

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th August 2007, 17:55

Well, david, you are right to raise this knotty problem.

The only 'novel' science that I can think of where dialectics has been applied concerns the work of Lysenko:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

Now, this bogus piece of 'science' held Russian agriculture and genetics back for over 20 years.

However, dialecticians like to claim their theory is a science, or is part of science, but apart from Lysenko, no one has actually used it to do any genuine science.

And as far as its application to revolutionary theory is concerend, this infinitely plastic theory has been used to derive countless totally incompatible political conclusions (such as socialism is possible in one country, and then again it isn't).

So, it is useless there too.

You can find out what this non-scientific theory amounts to here:

http://www.marxist.com/what-is-dialectical-materialism-4.htm

Much of which is taken apart here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20...Oppose%20DM.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm)

I forgot to mention the only other jewel in the dialectcal crown (also now abandoned) -- Japhetic theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theo...8linguistics%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theory_%28linguistics%29)

Volderbeek

24th August 2007, 21:57

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+August 20, 2007 08:15 pm--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ August 20, 2007 08:15 pm)VB:

So you're saying when you got enough points, you won, or that a quantitative change transformed into a qualitative one?

Well, I have read literally hundreds of books and articles devoted to this hermetic 'theory' over the last 25 years, most of which say the same thing -- in fact they say much the same as PeaceNicked here, and it seems you too, if the above is anything to go by.

[Do you all have to memorise this b*llocks?]

And that quantity certainly did not affect its low grade quality.

I hope that answers your rather vague question.[/b]
This can be approached in numerous ways. First, you could say that after reading all those books, your understanding of dialectics increased; or you can say that after reading those books, your opinion of dialectics was lowered. Either way, it's a quantitative change transformed into a qualitative one.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)
What?! I figured you were some sort of anti-Marxist anarchist. Historical materialism is the application of dialectical materialism. Rosa Luxemburg, your namesake, referred to it as "the historic-dialectic method."

I have been a revolutionary Marxist since before you were born, so you can cut the smart remarks, sonny.[/b]

Did you go to the hospital to get your banana fixed?

Rosa [email protected]
As to the other great Rosa, well, we all make mistakes; what can I tell you? She screwed up.

[Fortunately, I can prove it.]

Of course, everyone else was wrong but you. This is the philosophy of the raving lunatic.

Rosa Lichtenstein

You know, anti-dialectics/antithesis

Too bad for you, I am not doing this, but even if I were, you ought to be made aware that this is not part of dialectics, anyway.

Don't believe me?

Well, check this out then:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic...entry1292124737 (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51512&st=0&#entry1292124737)

Fourth post down.

Antithesis is simply negating something which is what you're attempting to do.

As to the link, I take it you mean fifth post. Why should I care if Hegel never used the terms or didn't like them? One, Marx used materialist dialectics not Hegelian. Two, that "triplicity" still remains a good description of his method. Seriously, you're arguing pure semantics here.

[I'll address the rest in a different post so it'll stand out more.]

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th August 2007, 23:34

VB:

This can be approached in numerous ways. First, you could say that after reading all those books, your understanding of dialectics increased; or you can say that after reading those books, your opinion of dialectics was lowered. Either way, it's a quantitative change transformed into a qualitative one.

You really are quite determined to fit reality to your 'theory' aren't you?

Well, as you will see if you read Essay Seven at my site, this part of Engels's 'theory' does not work, and not just because it is so vague that it is impossible to decide what it implies, but because there are countless processes in nature that cannot be made to fit it, howsoever one tries.

And my opinion of dialectics stayed exactly the same (i.e., rock bottom), so your sad attempt fails here too.

Of course, everyone else was wrong but you. This is the philosophy of the raving lunatic.

I think you should not be so hard on yourself. Lunatic you are, no argument over that from me; but not quite raving yet.

However, we have faith you will make it that far one day...

Antithesis is simply negating something which is what you're attempting to do.

From this, it looks like even sub-medieval logic is too much for you.

An antithesis need not be a negation. [Try to use that dormant organ between your ears to work that one out for yourself. I really cannot be expected to do all your thinking for you.]

And, unortunately for you, I am not negating anything in dialectics.

I do not need to; all I need do is show that it collapses into incoherence, which I have done.

In fact, it does not make enough sense to be negated.

As to the link, I take it you mean fifth post. Why should I care if Hegel never used the terms or didn't like them? One, Marx used materialist dialectics not Hegelian. Two, that "triplicity" still remains a good description of his method.

As the article posted at that link shows, Marx inherited a garbled view of Hegel from his teacher, which he seems to have used for a few years.

Later, when writing Capital, he adandoned this loppy theory (aka 'materialist dialectics'), as I have shown. And no wonder, given its mystical provenance.

Except, of course, he 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon.

Seriously, you're arguing pure semantics here

And you are ignoring the facts.

OK, you can put your empty head back in the sand now comrade...

JimFar

25th August 2007, 01:24

Rosa wrote:

forgot to mention the only other jewel in the dialectcal crown (also now abandoned) -- Japhetic theory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japhetic_theo...8linguistics%29

And as I am sure you recall, that theory proved to be too much even for good old
Uncle Joe (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1950/jun/20.htm) :D

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th August 2007, 02:02

Absolutely right Jim, but it took him the best part of 20 years to shift (and he did so for political reasons).

Volderbeek

26th August 2007, 23:45

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+August 24, 2007 06:34 pm--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ August 24, 2007 06:34 pm)VB:

This can be approached in numerous ways. First, you could say that after reading all those books, your understanding of dialectics increased; or you can say that after reading those books, your opinion of dialectics was lowered. Either way, it's a quantitative change transformed into a qualitative one.

You really are quite determined to fit reality to your 'theory' aren't you?[/b]
First of all, it's not my theory. But I do much like it. And, um yeah, of course I'm trying to fit things into it. That's what you do with any theoretical model, philosophic or scientific. :huh:

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)Well, as you will see if you read Essay Seven at my site, this part of Engels's 'theory' does not work, and not just because it is so vague that it is impossible to decide what it implies, but because there are countless processes in nature that cannot be made to fit it, howsoever one tries.[/b]

How is it vague? Seems pretty straightforward to me. And no, I haven't read your ungodly long "essays." If you have a point to make, there's no reason you can't repeat it here. Linking is just rude. :angry:

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
And my opinion of dialectics stayed exactly the same (i.e., rock bottom), so your sad attempt fails here too.

Well, that's pretty sad for you that you didn't take anything from all that effort. And I'm pretty sure it's impossible that at least your understanding didn't increase.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
Why that's banana mandarin strawberry. Everybody hula hoop! Super happy fun time!

I haven't yet (yet), but Citizen Zero totally owned you earlier in this topic. Your only response was to throw a tantrum.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Of course, everyone else was wrong but you. This is the philosophy of the raving lunatic.

I think you should not be so hard on yourself. Lunatic you are, no argument over that from me; but not quite raving yet.

However, we have faith you will make it that far one day...

Ugh. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Antithesis is simply negating something which is what you're attempting to do.

From this, it looks like even sub-medieval logic is too much for you.

An antithesis need not be a negation. [Try to use that dormant organ between your ears to work that one out for yourself. I really cannot be expected to do all your thinking for you.]

And, unortunately for you, I am not negating anything in dialectics.

I do not need to; all I need do is show that it collapses into incoherence, which I have done.

In fact, it does not make enough sense to be negated.

So you're negating my statement? :lol:

Of course an antithesis is a negation. :huh: What else is it?

So it has internal contradictions which you're exposing?

Rosa [email protected]

As to the link, I take it you mean fifth post. Why should I care if Hegel never used the terms or didn't like them? One, Marx used materialist dialectics not Hegelian. Two, that "triplicity" still remains a good description of his method.

As the article posted at that link shows, Marx inherited a garbled view of Hegel from his teacher, which he seems to have used for a few years.

Maybe so, but that "garbled view" helped him form the theories that made him far more famous than any of his peers.

Rosa Lichtenstein
Later, when writing Capital, he adandoned this loppy theory (aka 'materialist dialectics'), as I have shown. And no wonder, given its mystical provenance.

Except, of course, he 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon.

Yeah, I'm getting to that.

davidasearles

27th August 2007, 10:57

I REQUEST THAT THE MODERATOR TAKE NOTE

Someone very ignorant of the fact of the great number of working class families which are absolutely devastated by a family member having this disease wrote this apparently as a joke. I am not going to dignify that person by even writing his or her name out.

DELETED

I pray that that person never has to find out directly even a fraction of the brutality of this disease.

Social Greenman

27th August 2007, 11:15

I agree with David Searles. Remarks like that are prejudice in nature which only belongs on Stormfront.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th August 2007, 00:42

I have deleted this poster's offensive comments, and every quotation of them.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th August 2007, 00:58

VB:

First of all, it's not my theory. But I do much like it. And, um yeah, of course I'm trying to fit things into it. That's what you do with any theoretical model, philosophic or scientific.

Too bad I have totally trashed this theory, then.

How is it vague? Seems pretty straightforward to me. And no, I haven't read your ungodly long "essays." If you have a point to make, there's no reason you can't repeat it here. Linking is just rude.

Read my Essay Seven to find out --, or don't.

Well, that's pretty sad for you that you didn't take anything from all that effort. And I'm pretty sure it's impossible that at least your understanding didn't increase.

It is not possible to understand Hegelian nonsense, or that sub-Hegelian nonsense called 'materialist dialectics'.

but Citizen Zero totally owned you earlier in this topic. Your only response was to throw a tantrum.

Not so; I wiped the floor with him.

And if you mean that quoting Marx (to show he abandoned this loopy theory) is to throw a tantrum, then I intend to throw many more.

So you're negating my statement?

One cannot negate nonsense.

Of course an antithesis is a negation. What else is it?

Anyone who can ask that clearly knows no logic -- which is why such benighted souls like Hegel.

So it has internal contradictions which you're exposing?

It is too confused even to make it that far.

Maybe so, but that "garbled view" helped him form the theories that made him far more famous than any of his peers.

Which, of course, means that the 'dialetic' is based on two sets of fatal errors.

1) A series of logical blunders Hegel committed (summarised above); and

2) Marx's misinterpretation of even this garbled nonsense.

Fortunately, by the time he wrote Capital, he had seen the error of his ways, and abandoned the mystical hodgepodege he found in Hegel.

stevensen

28th August 2007, 17:49

rosa herself writes, judegs and decides that she has trashed dialectics...now that is what i call a logical approach..hats off madam...i really dont know anybody as silly as her

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th August 2007, 21:02

ST:

rosa herself writes, judegs and decides that she has trashed dialectics...now that is what i call a logical approach..hats off madam...i really dont know anybody as silly as her

That's all you can do, isn't it Stevensen, snipe from the side-lines (in Mumbai)?

You have neither the whit nor the wherewithall to reverse my demolition of DM, so you just make personal attacks, only now you are becoming incoherent.

Just like all the other dialectical mystics, you are no different: frightened little boys, the lot of you.

Volderbeek

29th August 2007, 20:41

[Ok, I'm finally getting to this. :lol: ]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 20, 2007 08:15 pm

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

The rational core of the 'dialectic' is just a few words of jargon, fit only to be played around with.

That is how low an opinion he had of the 'great' Hegel.

Yes, we all know how you can take this quote badly out of context. I thought showing the context would be enough, but apparently we need an explanation as well.

First of all, that conclusion requires a jump in logic. It does not directly follow that Marx had no respect for Hegel merely because he liked to play with his jargon. That's a very weak conclusion, but it'd at least be reasonable had it been isolated. But, of course, it wasn't. There are no less than 3 direct contrary statements:

(1) In the part literally right before the part you quoted, he refers to Hegel as a "mighty thinker."

(2) Then he goes on to say that Hegel was "the first to present [the dialectical method's] general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."

(3) This one is the most damning. In the next friggin' paragraph, he refers to his own dialectical method (materialist dialectics if you will) as "critical."

That's 3 pieces of evidence that require no logical leaps versus 1 that does.

I hope the rest of you can now see the outright deceptiveness of Rosa's tactics. They may be clever, but they're deceitful and dishonest.

RaÃºl Duke

29th August 2007, 21:07

(1) In the part literally right before the part you quoted, he refers to Hegel as a "mighty thinker."

(2) Then he goes on to say that Hegel was "the first to present [the dialectical method's] general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."

(3) This one is the most damning. In the next friggin' paragraph, he refers to his own dialectical method (materialist dialectics if you will) as "critical."

That's 3 pieces of evidence that require no logical leaps versus 1 that does.

Ever consider the possibility that he, Marx, might be wrong about dialectics?

All because Marx used it doesn't automatically make it valid/useful/true/etc.

Volderbeek

29th August 2007, 21:08

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+August 18, 2007 11:34 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ August 18, 2007 11:34 am)
"After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on:

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.][/b]
This is another of Rosa's favorites. She quotes it no less than 4 times. This too, though, is taken badly out of its proper context. Let's see it with that very context:

Karl Marx
The European Messenger of St. Petersburg in an article dealing exclusively with the method of “Das Kapital” (May number, 1872, pp. 427-436), finds my method of inquiry severely realistic, but my method of presentation, unfortunately, German-dialectical. It says:

“At first sight, if the judgment is based on the external form of the presentation of the subject, Marx is the most ideal of ideal philosophers, always in the German, i.e., the bad sense of the word. But in point of fact he is infinitely more realistic than all his forerunners in the work of economic criticism. He can in no sense be called an idealist.”

I cannot answer the writer better than by aid of a few extracts from his own criticism, which may interest some of my readers to whom the Russian original is inaccessible.

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

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

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

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

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

As you can see, Marx merely wanted to clarify that his use of the dialectic was one of analysis and not inquiry. Ironically, he's responding to someone who's trying to claim the dialectic is nothing but idealistic gibberish.

Volderbeek

29th August 2007, 21:26

Originally posted by [email protected] 29, 2007 04:07 pm

(1) In the part literally right before the part you quoted, he refers to Hegel as a "mighty thinker."

(2) Then he goes on to say that Hegel was "the first to present [the dialectical method's] general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."

(3) This one is the most damning. In the next friggin' paragraph, he refers to his own dialectical method (materialist dialectics if you will) as "critical."

That's 3 pieces of evidence that require no logical leaps versus 1 that does.

Ever consider the possibility that he, Marx, might be wrong about dialectics?

All because Marx used it doesn't automatically make it valid/useful/true/etc.
Well, now that's getting into a different discussion entirely. But I'll just say that there are plenty of people out there who contend that Marx was wrong about everything, and considering the centrality of dialectics to his analyses, it just seems you're giving fuel to the fire that seeks to burn you.

Volderbeek

29th August 2007, 21:39

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 27, 2007 07:58 pm

Maybe so, but that "garbled view" helped him form the theories that made him far more famous than any of his peers.

Which, of course, means that the 'dialetic' is based on two sets of fatal errors.

1) A series of logical blunders Hegel committed (summarised above); and

2) Marx's misinterpretation of even this garbled nonsense.
Well, that is how evolution works isnt it? Random errors leading to advancement. Unless you believe in an intelligent designer of course. =D

Rosa Lichtenstein

29th August 2007, 23:11

VB:

Yes, we all know how you can take this quote badly out of context. I thought showing the context would be enough, but apparently we need an explanation as well.

Not so, Marx very kindly gave us the context:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

So, Marx himself, not me, tells us that his method is as this reviewer summarises it, in which not one ounce of Hegel is to be found.

I have already made this point, so you need to wake up.

But you have a reply:

This is another of Rosa's favorites. She quotes it no less than 4 times. This too, though, is taken badly out of its proper context. Let's see it with that very context:

"And what is that?", you ask.

Wonder no more:

The European Messenger of St. Petersburg in an article dealing exclusively with the method of “Das Kapital” (May number, 1872, pp. 427-436), finds my method of inquiry severely realistic, but my method of presentation, unfortunately, German-dialectical. It says:

“At first sight, if the judgment is based on the external form of the presentation of the subject, Marx is the most ideal of ideal philosophers, always in the German, i.e., the bad sense of the word. But in point of fact he is infinitely more realistic than all his forerunners in the work of economic criticism. He can in no sense be called an idealist.” Bold added.

Notice that, "at first sight".

But, Marx is quick to correct this:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

So, the "German" guff can be ditched -- or, at best, "coquetted" with.

As you can see, Marx merely wanted to clarify that his use of the dialectic was one of analysis and not inquiry. Ironically, he's responding to someone who's trying to claim the dialectic is nothing but idealistic gibberish.

I agree, and that is why he merely "coquetted" with Hegelian jargon.

I suggest we go one step further -- stop "coquetting".

Now, can we move on?

Rosa Lichtenstein

29th August 2007, 23:13

In responce to my demonstration that the entire dialectic was derived from a crass series of errors, VB has this to say:

Well, that is how evolution works isnt it? Random errors leading to advancement. Unless you believe in an intelligent designer of course. (Bold added.)

If this means that this whole theory is brainless, I agree.

Rosa Lichtenstein

29th August 2007, 23:25

Now, VB has other arguments he wants to lay across us:

First of all, that conclusion requires a jump in logic. It does not directly follow that Marx had no respect for Hegel merely because he liked to play with his jargon. That's a very weak conclusion, but it'd at least be reasonable had it been isolated. But, of course, it wasn't. There are no less than 3 direct contrary statements:

It would have been a 'jump in logic' had Marx not himself told us that he had merely "coquetted" with Hegelian jargon in Kapital.

So, since he himself told us this, my view is consistent with his.

But there is more:

1) In the part literally right before the part you quoted, he refers to Hegel as a "mighty thinker."

(2) Then he goes on to say that Hegel was "the first to present [the dialectical method's] general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."

(3) This one is the most damning. In the next friggin' paragraph, he refers to his own dialectical method (materialist dialectics if you will) as "critical."

My response to each of these is as follows:

(1) And we can see how ironic Marx was about this 'mighty' thinker (who made blunder after blunder), for Marx merely "coquetted" with a few bits of Hegelian terminology.

What a slap in the face for that 'mighty thinker'!

(2) But Marx summarised his own method for us, in which not an atom of Hegel is to be found (so we do not have to guess), in the following manner:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

(3) Well, we now know what he meant; his method, summarised above, contains not a scrap of Hegel.

Why do I have to keep telling you this? Can't you read?

That's 3 pieces of evidence that require no logical leaps versus 1 that does.

On the contrary, that's three places where you have screwed up, ignoring Marx's own words.

I hope the rest of you can now see the outright deceptiveness of Rosa's tactics. They may be clever, but they're deceitful and dishonest.

Brave words from someone who has just shot himself in the foot.

RaÃºl Duke

30th August 2007, 03:16

considering the centrality of dialectics to his analyses, it just seems you're giving fuel to the fire that seeks to burn you.

Why would it?

I'm not "particularly" tied to marxism in such a way that I have to accept everything Marx "coquetted" with.

Just like people accept Newton's gravity yet dump his metaphysical crap.

Volderbeek

30th August 2007, 22:04

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 29, 2007 06:11 pm
VB:

Yes, we all know how you can take this quote badly out of context. I thought showing the context would be enough, but apparently we need an explanation as well.

Not so, Marx very kindly gave us the context:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

So, Marx himself, not me, tells us that his method is as this reviewer summarises it, in which not one ounce of Hegel is to be found.
Actually, with this part, I guess I did misinterpret what you trying to imply with it. You actually concede that he used dialectics, just not Hegelian? I guess this is what they mean when they say you set up strawmen. No one's ever argued that he used Hegelian dialectics. From the start, even in this topic, that quote about the "rational core" was posted several times... :huh:

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th August 2007, 23:12

VB:

Actually, with this part, I guess I did misinterpret what you trying to imply with it. You actually concede that he used dialectics, just not Hegelian? I guess this is what they mean when they say you set up strawmen. No one's ever argued that he used Hegelian dialectics. From the start, even in this topic, that quote about the "rational core" was posted several times...

Yes, and I go further -- lose the 'dialectics', we do not need it.

BlakSheep

31st August 2007, 00:28

Rosa:
I don't see how you can find Dialectics useless. It obviously has a practical use.
Marx.org's encyclopedia explanation of dialectics:

Formal thinking often has trouble understanding the causes of events – something has to be a cause and something else the effect – and people are surprised when they irrigate land and 20 years later – due to salination of the land, silting of the waterways, etc – they have a desert! Dialectics on the other hand understands that cause and effect are just one and another side of a whole network of relations such as we have in an ecosystem, and one thing cannot be changed without changing the whole system.
If you know whats gonna happen if you, say, refuse to recycle( resources will run out), you will recycle because you know that beCAUSE you don't recycle, the EFFECT is you will run out of the resource. Maybe I'm just being ignorant to the fact of why knowing and understanding the cause and effect of things is bad. Please pray tell.

Rosa Lichtenstein

31st August 2007, 01:25

BlakSheep:

I don't see how you can find Dialectics useless. It obviously has a practical use.

Not so; it makes no more sense than theology, and hence cannot be put into practice, whatever that biased encylopedia says.

If you know whats gonna happen if you, say, refuse to recycle( resources will run out), you will recycle because you know that beCAUSE you don't recycle, the EFFECT is you will run out of the resource. Maybe I'm just being ignorant to the fact of why knowing and understanding the cause and effect of things is bad. Please pray tell.

What has this got to do with dialectics?

And as far as that encyclopedia is concerned, dialecticians have benn saying such things since Hegel's day, but they have yet to offer a single example of 'formal thinking' which does what they say.

Perhaps you know of one?

Volderbeek

31st August 2007, 04:22

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 29, 2007 06:25 pm
Now, VB has other arguments he wants to lay across us:

First of all, that conclusion requires a jump in logic. It does not directly follow that Marx had no respect for Hegel merely because he liked to play with his jargon. That's a very weak conclusion, but it'd at least be reasonable had it been isolated. But, of course, it wasn't. There are no less than 3 direct contrary statements:

It would have been a 'jump in logic' had Marx not himself told us that he had merely "coquetted" with Hegelian jargon in Kapital.

So, since he himself told us this, my view is consistent with his.
The part where you make the jump in logic is assuming that the "coquetting" with jargon means he has no respect for Hegel. It should be obvious why that doesn't automatically follow. I often like to play around with communist jargon. That doesn't mean I think communism is silly. The way you take that to be true and use it to refute other more direct evidence is quite ridiculous.

Volderbeek

31st August 2007, 04:29

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 29, 2007 06:11 pm

As you can see, Marx merely wanted to clarify that his use of the dialectic was one of analysis and not inquiry. Ironically, he's responding to someone who's trying to claim the dialectic is nothing but idealistic gibberish.

I agree, and that is why he merely "coquetted" with Hegelian jargon.

I suggest we go one step further -- stop "coquetting".

Now, can we move on?
You agree? You think analysis is nothing more than wordplay? I most certainly disagree! That's the only reason he didn't just become another Adam Smith.

Rosa Lichtenstein

31st August 2007, 08:03

VB:

The part where you make the jump in logic is assuming that the "coquetting" with jargon means he has no respect for Hegel. It should be obvious why that doesn't automatically follow. I often like to play around with communist jargon. That doesn't mean I think communism is silly. The way you take that to be true and use it to refute other more direct evidence is quite ridiculous.

So, do you, but in the opposite direction.

But...

When you factor in all the negative things Marx says about Hegel, and philosophers in general, my conclusion looks the more reasonable.

Also in a letter to Engels, he admits not to having his own copy of Hegel's Logic, and had to be lent one by Freiligrath -- hardly the behaviour of an avid Hegel fan.

Also he said he wanted to summarise the 'rational' core of Hegel's work one day, in one or two printers sheets. He never got round to this, even though he spent a whole year writing that execrable work Herr Vogt.

He could spend a year on such trash, but not a few days on the 'rational' core of Hegel.

And we now know what that contained, don't we? Not one ounce of Hegel, except a few bits of jargon, with which he merely "coquetted".

Hence, my conclusion is a whole lot more reasonable than the traditional one.

By the way, the above is a summary of material you can find in Essay Nine Part One, if you want even more detail.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm

Rosa Lichtenstein

31st August 2007, 08:05

VB:

You agree? You think analysis is nothing more than wordplay? I most certainly disagree! That's the only reason he didn't just become another Adam Smith.

That is not what I said, so stop inventing.

blackstone

31st August 2007, 15:08

Originally posted by [email protected] 30, 2007 11:28 pm
Rosa:
I don't see how you can find Dialectics useless. It obviously has a practical use.
Marx.org's encyclopedia explanation of dialectics:

Formal thinking often has trouble understanding the causes of events – something has to be a cause and something else the effect – and people are surprised when they irrigate land and 20 years later – due to salination of the land, silting of the waterways, etc – they have a desert! Dialectics on the other hand understands that cause and effect are just one and another side of a whole network of relations such as we have in an ecosystem, and one thing cannot be changed without changing the whole system.
If you know whats gonna happen if you, say, refuse to recycle( resources will run out), you will recycle because you know that beCAUSE you don't recycle, the EFFECT is you will run out of the resource. Maybe I'm just being ignorant to the fact of why knowing and understanding the cause and effect of things is bad. Please pray tell.
That "explanation" was the silliest i've yet to read on the importance of dialectics. As Rosa has been claiming for the last 3 pages or so, you do not need dialectics to come to any of those conclusions!

These very conclusions can be made through the use of ordinary reasoning and empirical evidence.

For example, as horrible as our education system is, a grade schooler will be able to tell you that if there is not an infinite amount of a resource and you continually subtract from that amount, over time, that resource will reduce to..nothing.

No laws of the dialectics here! Just ordinary reasoning that can be verified through empirical evidence.

Dialecticians put forth the idea that conclusions cannot be drawn without the usage of their so-called, laws, however, that is just a bold face lie!

Volderbeek

6th September 2007, 05:21

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+August 31, 2007 03:03 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ August 31, 2007 03:03 am)VB:

The part where you make the jump in logic is assuming that the "coquetting" with jargon means he has no respect for Hegel. It should be obvious why that doesn't automatically follow. I often like to play around with communist jargon. That doesn't mean I think communism is silly. The way you take that to be true and use it to refute other more direct evidence is quite ridiculous.

So, do you, but in the opposite direction.[/b]
What?! He praises Hegel directly several times. There's nothing in the context that suggests he was being sarcastic; such things are usually obvious.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)When you factor in all the negative things Marx says about Hegel, and philosophers in general, my conclusion looks the more reasonable.

Also in a letter to Engels, he admits not to having his own copy of Hegel's Logic, and had to be lent one by Freiligrath -- hardly the behaviour of an avid Hegel fan.

Also he said he wanted to summarise the 'rational' core of Hegel's work one day, in one or two printers sheets. He never got round to this, even though he spent a whole year writing that execrable work Herr Vogt.

He could spend a year on such trash, but not a few days on the 'rational' core of Hegel.[/b]

And we know why he didn't like Hegel (to use a bit of your style). He mystified the otherwise strong method.

Rosa [email protected]
And we now know what that contained, don't we? Not one ounce of Hegel, except a few bits of jargon, with which he merely "coquetted".

It doesn't make any sense that a dialectic method of any sort could contain "not one ounce of Hegel." As Marx himself put it:

Karl Marx
Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic

Volderbeek

6th September 2007, 05:29

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 31, 2007 03:05 am
VB:

You agree? You think analysis is nothing more than wordplay? I most certainly disagree! That's the only reason he didn't just become another Adam Smith.

That is not what I said, so stop inventing.
And just what, pray tell, am I inventing?

Volderbeek

6th September 2007, 05:56

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 29, 2007 06:13 pm
In responce to my demonstration that the entire dialectic was derived from a crass series of errors, VB has this to say:

Well, that is how evolution works isn't it? Random errors leading to advancement. Unless you believe in an intelligent designer of course. (Bold added.)

If this means that this whole theory is brainless, I agree.
Well, you certainly dilated your own accomplishments there (the "entire dialectic"?).

Also, what that means is that it comes from nothing. Every intelligent person once knew nothing or was "brainless" if you will.

This also sort of fits with anarchism and spontaneous order wouldn't you say?

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th September 2007, 06:31

VB:

What?! He praises Hegel directly several times. There's nothing in the context that suggests he was being sarcastic; such things are usually obvious.

As I noted, the weight of evidence suggests I am right.

You need to address that and stop repeating yourself.

And we know why he didn't like Hegel (to use a bit of your style). He mystified the otherwise strong method.

What method?

Historical materialism -- with absolutely no Hegel in it anywhere, including all those vague and obscure 'contradictions', and that mystical 'negation of the negation'?

If this is what you mean, then we are on the same side.

Perhaps not:

It doesn't make any sense that a dialectic method of any sort could contain "not one ounce of Hegel." As Marx himself put it:

Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic

Where did he say this?

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th September 2007, 06:36

VB:

And just what, pray tell, am I inventing?

Re-read the quote I gave, and then fire up your brain.

If it is not obvious to you then, I think you may be beyond even my help.

Well, you certainly dilated your own accomplishments there (the "entire dialectic"?).

Also, what that means is that it comes from nothing. Every intelligent person once knew nothing or was "brainless" if you will.

This also sort of fits with anarchism and spontaneous order wouldn't you say?

I am sorry, this is going to have to be translated into English before I can respond to it.

WTF are you on about? :blink:

Hit The North

6th September 2007, 12:24

R:
As I noted, the weight of evidence suggests I am right.

The weight of evidence suggests that right up to his death Marx was convinced that his method was dialectical. He continues to describe Capital as such, after its publication and mentions it in his correspondence as late as 1870. After his death, Engels, his closest and most sympathetic life-time collaborator also continues to stress the indebtedness to Hegel that they both shared, whilst also stressing how they transcended that influence. Lenin, Trotsky and every prominent Marxist in the 20th century held varying interpretations of the dialectic method and continued to argue for its centrality to revolutionary praxis. Meanwhile, every renegade from Bernstein onwards, who rejected the dialectic, ended up abandoning Marxism and revolutionary politics.

Of course, none of this carries the enormous weight of evidence of one passage from Marx, misconstrued as sarcasm :rolleyes:

Where did he say this?

HERE (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_03_06.htm)

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th September 2007, 14:53

Z:

The weight of evidence suggests that right up to his death Marx was convinced that his method was dialectical. He continues to describe Capital as such, after its publication and mentions it in his correspondence as late as 1870. After his death, Engels, his closest and most sympathetic life-time collaborator also continues to stress the indebtedness to Hegel that they both shared, whilst also stressing how they transcended that influence. Lenin, Trotsky and every prominent Marxist in the 20th century held varying interpretations of the dialectic method and continued to argue for its centrality to revolutionary praxis. Meanwhile, every renegade from Bernstein onwards, who rejected the dialectic, ended up abandoning Marxism and revolutionary politics.

Well, let's not speculate.

Shall we for once allow Marx to tell us what his indebtedness to Hegel was?

I am not sure if you have seen this, so apologies if I haven't posted it before now. I think it settles the matter. Here is how Marx described his own method:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Yes, I know this is a big surprise!

I can hear you, even from here: "How could I possibly have missed this, for here Marx himself actually tells us that his materialist method contains not one atom of Hegel. How foolish of me to have doubted Rosa..."

Never mind, you mystics I am sure have heard that other mystical saying "a sinner who repents...", and all that sh*t.

And of his monumental respect for Hegel, he had this to say (I feel rather sheepish here too, for I think this is the first time I have posted these words; I can't think why, since they settle the matter pretty conclusively, too):

in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

So, he had such awesome respect for this logical dunderhead, this mystical buffoon, that not only did he have to borrow his copy of Hegel's 'logic', he forgot to summarise the rational core of the 'dialectic' for us (except in the few words he published above), something that would have taken him a tiny fraction of the time he wasted on Herr Vogt.

Yes his respect for Hegel was so high he merely 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon.

Now correct me if I am wrong, you too have such an awesome respect for Hegel that you also refuse to study the 'logic'.

If only more people would show such towering respect for Hegel...

So, it seems, if we confine ourselves to just you two: Marx and Citizen Z: we do not appear to have here a pair of committed Hegelians. Indeed, I am appalled to have to say, it rather looks like we have two characters who show scant respect for this logical incompetent.

Now, I am content, in my own humble way, to follow in your (plural) footsteps, except, in honour of the lead you have given, I intend to push this 'respect' much further -- and not even 'coquette' with his useless jargon.

Satisfied?

Now sure, that logical and philosophical incompetent, Engels, admired Hegel; who has ever doubted it?

You are welcome to him.

And sure, too, later Marxists idolised this Idealist idiot; they were petty-bourgeois mystics, in search of consolation for the fact that dialectical Marxism (and particularly Dialectical Trotskyism) is such an abject failure.

Unless, of course, you have heard of the current existence of a workers' state somewhere...?

[Kept that secret to yourself, eh? ;) ]

Now your link takes us to a 1868 letter from Marx to one 'Fränzchen':

The curiously embarrassed tone used by Mr Duhring in his review [of Capital] is now clear to me. Usually, you see, he is a very bumptious, insolent lad, who sets himself up as a revolutionary in political economy. He has done two things. Firstly (basing himself upon Carey) he published a Kritische Grundlegung der Nationalökonomie (about 500 pages), and a new Natürliche Dialektik (against Hegelian dialectic). My book has buried him in both respects. He reviewed it out of hatred for Roscher, etc. Incidentally he practises deception, half intentionally and half from lack of insight. He knows full well that my method of exposition is not Hegelian, since I am a materialist, and Hegel an idealist. Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after being stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method. Quant à Ricardo, Mr Duhring has been vexed precisely because in my treatment the weak points do not exist which Carey, and 100 others before him, held up as proof against Ricardo. Consequently, he attempts, with mauvaise foi, to burden me with Ricardo’s narrow-mindedness. But never mind. I must be grateful to the man, since he is the first expert who has said anything at all.

So, what do we find here?

Oh dear! VB has missed out Marx's qualification, for Marx did not just say:

Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic

he said:

Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after being stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method. (Marx's own emphasis)

An understandable 'mistake' on VB's part...

So, what form does the dialectic take (in its rational incarnation), according to Marx?

Why, the following (once more apologies for not posting this before, since had you read it, I think you'd have agreed with me):

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Yes, yes, I know, I am a terrible woman for omitting to mention this before.

I can only apologise most profusely.

So, what does the 'Hegelian dialectic' look like after the surgery Marx himself suggested we perform on it?

Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only [b]after being stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method. (Marx's own emphasis, emboldened, in case you missed it.)

Why, it's a method with a few bits of Hegelian jargon, used here and there.

I merely go further, and throw the lot out.

I rather suspect that all this new information has swung you to my side.

Sorry for not mentioning it earlier... :rolleyes:

Hit The North

6th September 2007, 15:33

Why, it's a method with a few bits of Hegelian jargon, used here and there.

So that's your assessment of the method employed by Marx, is it? A 'method' (presumably of no specific description) with a few bits of Hegelian jargon! That leaves a lot of speculation as to what this 'method' comprises. However, there's no need to speculate because Marx tells us exactly how we should describe his method:
I sent them one copy at the end of last week with a short letter to the purpose, saying that my book does not share their opinions, but that the ‘scholarly’ nature of their paper suggests that some notice will be taken of this first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works...rs/67_11_07.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867/letters/67_11_07.htm)

Now, you can post your quotation ad nauseum. It will not change the fact that your argument only works if the rest of us are arguing that Marx employs the idealist Hegelian dialectic. But no one here is arguing that.

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th September 2007, 15:54

Z:

So that's your assessment of the method employed by Marx, is it? A 'method' (presumably of no specific description) with a few bits of Hegelian jargon! That leaves a lot of speculation as to what this 'method' comprises. However, there's no need to speculate because Marx tells us exactly how we should describe his method:

No, as I told you last year -- you really need to start paying attention; I am after all trying to clear all that mystical clutter from your 'brain' -- I accept Historical Materialism.

That method is sufficient for me.

Clearly not for you.

But you now quote this (I rather suspect you are trawling your way through Marx's entire correspondence for a few crumbs of comfort):

It is obviously their tendency to show that they are more learned than their Protestant rivals. I sent them one copy a at the end of last week with a short letter to the purpose, saying that my book does not share their opinions, but that the ‘scholarly’ nature of their paper suggests that some notice will be taken of this first attempt at applying the dialectic method to political economy’. Nous verrons! There is a great desire prevailing at present in the more refined circles (I am referring, of course, to the intellectual portion of the latter) to become acquainted with the dialectical method. And perhaps that is after all the easiest way to get at the English.

Yes, and we know how Marx understood that method, don't we?

Perhaps you have already forgotten (it can't be easy for you, with all those mystical ideas stuffed in your head, to handle and recall detail).

Then, let me help you out here; in a little-quoted passage (I cannot recall posting it here before), he summarised it for us:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

So, there you have it at last: Marx's method contains not one ounce of Hegel (except for a few bits of jargon, with which he merely "coquetted").

I am glad that clears things up for you.

But, maybe not:

Now, you can post your quotation ad nauseum. It will not change the fact that your argument only works if the rest of us are arguing that Marx employs the idealist Hegelian dialectic. But no one here is arguing that.

Yes, I have noticed that you ignore Marx's own words -- indeed, I pointed this out to you last year.

This confession is all to the good, therefore.

And as for Marx's non-Idealist method: well, as he says, it contains not one atom of Hegel -- not even those obcure 'contradictions' (that even now you cannot explain), unless, of course, we merely wish to 'coquette' with this term-of-art.

I merely go further, and create a 'coquette'-free zone in my Essays.

And you can see why, too: no sense can be made of 'dialectical contradictions'...

Hit The North

6th September 2007, 16:31

Rosa:

Yes, and we know how Marx understood that method, don't we?

I'm happy we now agree that Marx considered his method to be dialectical.

Perhaps we can now move on. :)

Rosa Lichtenstein

6th September 2007, 16:47

Z:

I'm happy we now agree that Marx considered his method to be dialectical.

Perhaps we can now move on.

And that means, of course, you will now drop all mention of those nasty, obscure 'dialectical contradictions', the use of which you have unwisely tried to defend here in the past?

And with that, out will go abstractionism, ill-informed criticisms of formal logic and the 'law of identity', the transformation of 'quantity into quality', the 'interpenetration of opposites', the 'negation of the negation, the 'Totality', universal inter-connectedness..., will it?

If not, I think we can take this superfical declaration of yours with a bucket of salt. :rolleyes:

Volderbeek

7th September 2007, 06:23

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 06, 2007 09:53 am
Oh dear! VB has missed out Marx's qualification, for Marx did not just say:

Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic

he said:

Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after being stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method. (Marx's own emphasis)

An understandable 'mistake' on VB's part...
Haha. Trying to use my method now? I, and several others here, have mentioned the part about the "rational core" many times now. I didn't think there was a need to repeat it. And there isn't, because it changes nothing.

Volderbeek

7th September 2007, 07:01

Ok, let's try to get a clear picture of Rosa's argument, of which can be taken from the debate thus far:

Marx does use a dialectic, but it is a dialectic in name only because it contains no trace of anything which could be described as Hegelian.

This quote is used to show that:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

The problems are as follows:

(1) Hegel's dialectic is taken to be purely superficial, thus when Marx took the rational core, all he took was jargon. Marx, however, is quite clear that the core is "critical" and that his method is the "opposite" of Hegel's as well as the flipped version of it because Hegel was "standing on his head." If he's reversing it, he can't be simply throwing it away.

(2) That oft-quoted long paragraph is a summary by a reviewer that Marx is quoting. It is not Marx's own summary and he refers to it as "generous." What can be taken from it is also a matter of interpretation. I can see several dialectical laws in use there despite the jargon being missing.

Rosa Lichtenstein

7th September 2007, 11:22

VB:

Trying to use my method now? I, and several others here, have mentioned the part about the "rational core" many times now. I didn't think there was a need to repeat it. And there isn't, because it changes nothing.

But that 'rational core' came, not from Hegel, but from others.

But, even if that were not so, as I said to Z:

And that means, of course, you will now drop all mention of those nasty, obscure 'dialectical contradictions', the use of which you have unwisely tried to defend here in the past?

And with that, out will go abstractionism, ill-informed criticisms of formal logic and the 'law of identity', the transformation of 'quantity into quality', the 'interpenetration of opposites', the 'negation of the negation, the 'Totality', universal inter-connectedness..., will it?

Now, which of the above remnants of mysticism do you wish to cling on to?

Rosa Lichtenstein

7th September 2007, 11:27

VB:

(1) Hegel's dialectic is taken to be purely superficial, thus when Marx took the rational core, all he took was jargon. Marx, however, is quite clear that the core is "critical" and that his method is the "opposite" of Hegel's as well as the flipped version of it because Hegel was "standing on his head." If he's reversing it, he can't be simply throwing it away.

(2) That oft-quoted long paragraph is a summary by a reviewer that Marx is quoting. It is not Marx's own summary and he refers to it as "generous." What can be taken from it is also a matter of interpretation. I can see several dialectical laws in use there despite the jargon being missing.

But that long quote contains not one atom of Hegel --, and not even 'upside down' Hegelianism.

VB says he can see 'several dialectical laws' in there, but failed to say what those were.

I suggest he gets new glasses.

Of course, Marx cleared all this up for us when he said he merely 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon in Kapital.

So, there's the 'rational' core for you.

davidasearles

8th September 2007, 17:12

Citizen Zero wrote:

Lenin, Trotsky and every prominent Marxist in the 20th century held varying interpretations of the dialectic method and continued to argue for its centrality to revolutionary praxis.

Dave Searles writes:

I admit that I am very stupid. Could you please tell me precisely how the dialectic method differs from the scientific method?

I have asked this before and have not gotten an answer.

Rosa I know that you are very keen to answer here, but would you hold off comment on this for a couple of days and allow the proponents of the dielectical method specially describe what it is that they are propounding.

What did the "dialectical method" add to the "scientific method" that wasn't already there?

Thank you.

Dave Searles

Hit The North

9th September 2007, 16:53

Dave,

I’m not a scientist and therefore have only a limited view of all the issues. Nevertheless, as you introduced your question by quoting me, I feel some duty to approach an answer.

Firstly, it depends what you mean by the “scientific method”. If by it you mean this:

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentoring/overview_scientific_method2.gif
Then the answer, would appear to be ‘very little’.

Of course, Marxists have tended to describe dialectics as ‘the science of interconnections’ (Engels). Attention is directed to the movement, change and connection between phenomena. Meanwhile, it appears obvious that the scientific method depends upon the isolation of phenomenon – the artificial severing of real world connections. A dialectical approach would not deny the necessity of studying discrete phenomena in such a way. However, it would argue that in order to further our knowledge, the phenomenon must be re-integrated in its connections and determinations.

In the Grundrisse, Marx elaborates his method, arguing for two ‘moments’ of thinking – an analytical moment, and a synthetic moment which begins and ends with what he calls the ‘concrete’. The analytical moment breaks down what we are studying (the concrete) into its component simpler parts. We can begin our analysis, he suggests, with the population of a society, the people who are engaged in the productive process. But if we start in such a way we are dealing with an abstraction: the concept of ‘population’ needs to be broken down into its component parts – for example, social classes – and these too need to be further broken down. This moves us away from the abstraction and closer to the concrete reality we are trying to understand. But not only do these abstractions have to be broken down; they need to be brought together in a synthesis, showing how they are related to each other. It is this synthetic moment which is, in itself, dialectical.

This is how Marx proceeded in Capital - according to most Marxists - and it's one of the key ways in which Marxism is separate from more empirical-based approaches to scientific knowledge, such as positivism.

davidasearles

10th September 2007, 00:02

" it appears obvious that the scientific method depends upon the isolation of phenomenon"

and if the scientific method "depends upon the isolation of phenomen(a)" the dialectical method is independent of such "isolation"???

Go back and look at the SM model that you provided. I see eight bidirectional arrows and three possible loops. This suggests "isolation" to you? Can you please describe exactly what you mean by isolation then?

What you seem to be suggesting (and please correct me if I am wrong) is that "dielectics" is a heurism.

If that is the case, then there would be no denying that.

If that is the case.

Comments?

Volderbeek

10th September 2007, 05:17

Originally posted by davidasearles+September 08, 2007 12:12 pm--> (davidasearles @ September 08, 2007 12:12 pm)I admit that I am very stupid.[/b]
:lol: Come now, give yourself more credit than that! Just being here at all means you can't be that stupid.

davidasearles
Could you please tell me precisely how the dialectic method differs from the scientific method?

What did the "dialectical method" add to the "scientific method" that wasn't already there?
That's a strange question. You're making an assumption, seemingly out of nowhere. Perhaps you should have started by describing just what you thought the dialectic method is.

But anyway, I would say the scientific method is highly dialectical itself. You form a hypothesis and look for contradictions. If found, you have to revise said hypothesis; a synthesizing process if you will.

As to the dialectic method, it is fundamentally different from the scientific method. The latter is a process of gathering knowledge; the former, a process of categorizing it. Why is that important, you may ask? Well, you can often reach critical new insights from that particular form of philosophizing.

Volderbeek

10th September 2007, 09:23

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 07, 2007 06:22 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 07, 2007 06:22 am)VB:

Trying to use my method now? I, and several others here, have mentioned the part about the "rational core" many times now. I didn't think there was a need to repeat it. And there isn't, because it changes nothing.

But that 'rational core' came, not from Hegel, but from others.[/b]
Oh come on! You're really reaching now. Now you're trying to claim Marx couldn't make a simple analogy?! A core is never something external.

Rosa Lichtenstein
But, even if that were not so, as I said to Z:

And that means, of course, you will now drop all mention of those nasty, obscure 'dialectical contradictions', the use of which you have unwisely tried to defend here in the past?

And with that, out will go abstractionism, ill-informed criticisms of formal logic and the 'law of identity', the transformation of 'quantity into quality', the 'interpenetration of opposites', the 'negation of the negation, the 'Totality', universal inter-connectedness..., will it?

Now, which of the above remnants of mysticism do you wish to cling on to?

I don't know about these criticisms of formal logic, but they sound interesting. Mind telling me about them?

The rest are all good ideas which I fully intend to use whenever I get the opportunity.

Volderbeek

10th September 2007, 09:30

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 07, 2007 06:27 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 07, 2007 06:27 am)VB:

(1) Hegel's dialectic is taken to be purely superficial, thus when Marx took the rational core, all he took was jargon. Marx, however, is quite clear that the core is "critical" and that his method is the "opposite" of Hegel's as well as the flipped version of it because Hegel was "standing on his head." If he's reversing it, he can't be simply throwing it away.

(2) That oft-quoted long paragraph is a summary by a reviewer that Marx is quoting. It is not Marx's own summary and he refers to it as "generous." What can be taken from it is also a matter of interpretation. I can see several dialectical laws in use there despite the jargon being missing.

But that long quote contains not one atom of Hegel --, and not even 'upside down' Hegelianism.

VB says he can see 'several dialectical laws' in there, but failed to say what those were.

I suggest he gets new glasses.[/b]
Yeah, I was gonna go into more detail but I got lazy. And, unfortunately, I'm still lazy and I'll be getting to that later. :P

Rosa Lichtenstein
Of course, Marx cleared all this up for us when he said he merely 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon in Kapital.

So, there's the 'rational' core for you.

You're still using that. It doesn't make a difference what the core is; the fact is that Marx considered it "critical."

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th September 2007, 10:48

VB:

Oh come on! You're really reaching now. Now you're trying to claim Marx couldn't make a simple analogy?! A core is never something external.

In this case, as Marx said, it amounted to the use of a few jargonised Hegelian expressions, with whih he merely 'coquetted'.

And since I have shown that neither Hegelian nor materialist dialectics makes one ounce of sense, you begin to see why Marx abandoned both.

I don't know about these criticisms of formal logic, but they sound interesting. Mind telling me about them?

Nope. [Read my Essays or stay ignorant.]

The rest are all good ideas which I fully intend to use whenever I get the opportunity.

Too bad (for you) that Marx abandoned them then.

You're still using that. It doesn't make a difference what the core is; the fact is that Marx considered it "critical."

And I will continue to do so unless and until you can show that Marx did not write it.

-----------------------------------------

I am staying out of the other debate David Searles initiated, since he asked me to do so for a while.

davidasearles

10th September 2007, 10:49

Dave Searles asked:

What did the "dialectical method" add to the "scientific method" that wasn't already there?

Volderbeek commented:

That's a strange question. You're making an assumption, seemingly out of nowhere. Perhaps you should have started by describing just what you thought the dialectic method is.

Dave answers:

Reading my question per se one might assume that I was implying a premise that the dialectical method did add something to the scientific method. But you did not read my question per se. A previous writer stated that the dialectical method was an integral part of the scientific method. Hence the question.

Volderbeek you suggest a different approach, stating that the dialectical method is fundamentally differnt from the scientific method supposedly based upon outcome of the scientific method as opposed the the dialectical method.

Volderbeck wrote:

"the dialectic method, it is fundamentally different from the scientific method. The latter is a process of gathering knowledge; the former, a process of categorizing it."

Dave writes:

That's not very logical is it? Science most definitely categorizes knowledge.

What I see happening with you Volderbeek is that you incorrectly assume that the dialectical method processes knowledge in a way that the scientific cannot and therefore you conclude the dialectical method adds something to the usefulness of knowledge that the scientific method can not.

Of course science can utilize dialectics, just as it can utilize serendipity, as well as blind groping in the metaphorical dark for possible solutions and possibel expainations or exceptions to previously accepted laws.

Is this what this is all about? Some comrades think that present and/or future analysis of the problems concerning the class struggle depends upon the dialectial method?

A single example from a proponent of such might be helpful here.

Volderbeek

11th September 2007, 02:00

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 05:49 am
That's not very logical is it? Science most definitely categorizes knowledge.

What I see happening with you Volderbeek is that you incorrectly assume that the dialectical method processes knowledge in a way that the scientific cannot and therefore you conclude the dialectical method adds something to the usefulness of knowledge that the scientific method can not.
I do assume that, but how do you know I do so incorrectly? Science tends to take a hard stand against elaborate theorizing and not necessarily for no good reason. Perhaps you've heard of Occam's Razor. In case you haven't, it says that the simplest explanation is always best.

With dialectics, you have more breathing room to think outside direct experience, and this leads to valuable insights. The concept of the stateless, classless, yet still productive society is but one such insight, and one of much consequence to those of us on the far left.

Volderbeek

11th September 2007, 02:24

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 10, 2007 05:48 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 10, 2007 05:48 am)VB:

Oh come on! You're really reaching now. Now you're trying to claim Marx couldn't make a simple analogy?! A core is never something external.

In this case, as Marx said, it amounted to the use of a few jargonised Hegelian expressions, with whih he merely 'coquetted'.[/b]

Ha! I thought you were saying the core was that long paragraph you keep quoting. Seems you can't even keep your lies straight anymore.

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected]
And since I have shown that neither Hegelian nor materialist dialectics makes one ounce of sense, you begin to see why Marx abandoned both.

Of course you have. That's why you haven't convinced anyone here that didn't already have a neutral or negative view on the subject.

Rosa Lichtenstein

I don't know about these criticisms of formal logic, but they sound interesting. Mind telling me about them?

Nope. [Read my Essays or stay ignorant.]

You don't mind? Well, what are you waiting for? =D

You're still using that. It doesn't make a difference what the core is; the fact is that Marx considered it "critical."

And I will continue to do so unless and until you can show that Marx did not write it.

Well, if you employ unity of opposites, you can say he wrote it and also didn't write it. But that's right, you don't like that sort of thing.

But seriously, I've shown that you're using it incorrectly and out of context. Enough is enough.

Volderbeek

11th September 2007, 02:45

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 02:01 am
Ok, let's try to get a clear picture of Rosa's argument, of which can be taken from the debate thus far:

Marx does use a dialectic, but it is a dialectic in name only because it contains no trace of anything which could be described as Hegelian.

This quote is used to show that:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

The problems are as follows:

(1) Hegel's dialectic is taken to be purely superficial, thus when Marx took the rational core, all he took was jargon. Marx, however, is quite clear that the core is "critical" and that his method is the "opposite" of Hegel's as well as the flipped version of it because Hegel was "standing on his head." If he's reversing it, he can't be simply throwing it away.

(2) That oft-quoted long paragraph is a summary by a reviewer that Marx is quoting. It is not Marx's own summary and he refers to it as "generous." What can be taken from it is also a matter of interpretation. I can see several dialectical laws in use there despite the jargon being missing.
Ok, let's stop being lazy and look at a few examples of what I mentioned in part 2:

For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over

Unity of Opposites: the existence of both is necessary

Negation of Negation: the second is necessary because the first's contradictions force it to change

in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws.

Negation of Negation: paradigm shifting

In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology.

Negation of Negation: evolution

Quantity into Quality: quantity of mutations transforms into quality of adaptation

The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one.

I wonder just what those "special laws" are. :rolleyes:

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th September 2007, 10:40

VB:

Ha! I thought you were saying the core was that long paragraph you keep quoting. Seems you can't even keep your lies straight anymore.

Getting desperate are you?

You may be good a putting words in Marx's mouth, but don't try and put them in mine, sonny.

Of course you have. That's why you haven't convinced anyone here that didn't already have a neutral or negative view on the subject.

You haven't read my work, and the dialecticians here haven't; theyhave been too busy warning others not to look upon my arguments for fear they will be seduced by 'evil thoughts'.

So, like you, they judge my work in total ignorance.

In addition, and also like you, they know no logic.

Of course, one also has to take into account the fact that this Hermetic faith of yours works as an opiate, providing you with consolation for the fact that Dialectical Marxism has been a long-term failure, and like other druggies you find it impossible to kick the habit.

You don't mind? Well, what are you waiting for?

As I thought, you can't read.

Well, if you employ unity of opposites, you can say he wrote it and also didn't write it. But that's right, you don't like that sort of thing.

I think we can leave the b*llocks to mystics like you.

But seriously, I've shown that you're using it incorrectly and out of context. Enough is enough.

What you have shown is that you like to ignore what he actually said.

Like any druggie, you live in a world of your own...

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th September 2007, 10:51

And here is an excellent example of VB putting words in Marx's (or at least his reviewer's) mouth:

Reviewer:

For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over

VB:

Unity of Opposites: the existence of both is necessary

Negation of Negation: the second is necessary because the first's contradictions force it to change

The astute reader will note that the reviewer nowhere mentions, nor implies these obscure Hegelian doctrines.

Reviewer:

in his opinion every historical period has laws of its own.... As soon as society has outlived a given period of development, and is passing over from one given stage to another, it begins to be subject also to other laws.

VB:

Negation of Negation: paradigm shifting

Same comment, and 'paradigm' shifting is a Kuhnian term, not a Hegelian one.

So, VB not only invents, he does so anachronistically.

Reviewer:

In a word, economic life offers us a phenomenon analogous to the history of evolution in other branches of biology.

VB:

Quantity into Quality: quantity of mutations transforms into quality of adaptation

Same comment again. More invention.

Reviewer:

The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one.

VB:

I wonder just what those "special laws" are.

VB should learn some Historical Materialism; those 'laws' are, of course, the interplay between the forces and relations of production.

So, I was right, not an ounce of Hegel in there anywhere, except we invent like VB.

No wonder Marx went on to say that he merely 'coquetted' with Hegel's jargon.

davidasearles

11th September 2007, 14:43

Volderbeek wrote:

With dialectics, you have more breathing room to think outside direct experience, and this leads to valuable insights.

Dave Searles asks:

Let me see if I understand this. Dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world. You have more breathing room within the system of dialectics than without? And what you develop are possible insights concerning the material world - how valuable they may or may not be depends upon scientific proof does it not?

Volderbeek

13th September 2007, 06:36

Originally posted by davidasearles+September 11, 2007 09:43 am--> (davidasearles @ September 11, 2007 09:43 am)Let me see if I understand this. Dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world.[/b]

No no no. What I said was that the scientific method is quite dialectical in nature not that dialectics is the scientifc method.

davidasearles
You have more breathing room within the system of dialectics than without? And what you develop are possible insights concerning the material world - how valuable they may or may not be depends upon scientific proof does it not?

The scientific theories do, but remember, dialectical reasoning takes place on a layer above them. Dialectics provides us with perspective, which is neither right nor wrong, simply different. Of course, that perpective differs depending on the interests of its user, but it tends to push one to a progressive view (at least the materialist variety anyway).

Volderbeek

13th September 2007, 07:12

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 11, 2007 05:51 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 11, 2007 05:51 am)And here is an excellent example of VB putting words in Marx's (or at least his reviewer's) mouth:[/b]

It's called "interpretation."

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)
Reviewer:

For this it is quite enough, if he proves, at the same time, both the necessity of the present order of things, and the necessity of another order into which the first must inevitably pass over

VB:

Unity of Opposites: the existence of both is necessary

Negation of Negation: the second is necessary because the first's contradictions force it to change

The astute reader will note that the reviewer nowhere mentions, nor implies these obscure Hegelian doctrines.[/b]

That's a matter of interpretation. If it makes sense, and I do believe it does, then it's at least possible. This particular interpretation is also consistent with Marx's statement calling this the dialectic method, as well as several other statements regarding the importance of the rational core of Hegel's philosophy. So I'd say it's quite reasonable.

Rosa [email protected]
'paradigm' shifting is a Kuhnian term, not a Hegelian one.

So, VB not only invents, he does so anachronistically.

Nothing wrong with a little retrofitting. Marx does it with his "primitive communism."

Rosa Lichtenstein

Reviewer:

The scientific value of such an inquiry lies in the disclosing of the special laws that regulate the origin, existence, development, death of a given social organism and its replacement by another and higher one.

VB:

I wonder just what those "special laws" are.

VB should learn some Historical Materialism; those 'laws' are, of course, the interplay between the forces and relations of production.

First of all, historical materialism is a methodology not a set of laws.

Also, I find it amusing that you keep using historical materialism as if it was completely divorced from dialectical materialism, and even Hegel. That type of historicism was taken straight from Hegel, perhaps even moreso than his dialectics. Marx simply replaced the "absolute idea" with the "interplay between the forces and relations of production" and called it materialist. No one goes back to Hegel and tries to separate his historicism from his dialectics. But here, where we can muddle the issue because of how it's steeped in politics, it becomes possible.

Volderbeek

13th September 2007, 07:33

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 11, 2007 05:40 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 11, 2007 05:40 am)VB:

Ha! I thought you were saying the core was that long paragraph you keep quoting. Seems you can't even keep your lies straight anymore.

Getting desperate are you?

You may be good a putting words in Marx's mouth, but don't try and put them in mine, sonny.[/b]

WTF are you talking about?! Show me just one example where I "put words" in either Marx's or your mouth.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)
Of course you have. That's why you haven't convinced anyone here that didn't already have a neutral or negative view on the subject.

You haven't read my work, and the dialecticians here haven't; theyhave been too busy warning others not to look upon my arguments for fear they will be seduced by 'evil thoughts'.

So, like you, they judge my work in total ignorance.[/b]

Well, I did read some parts of one of them. I believe it was the one on motion. I remember not agreeing with it though. I actually am afraid of them. In particular, that my eyes will burn out of my skull from reading the computer screen too long.

Rosa [email protected]
Of course, one also has to take into account the fact that this Hermetic faith of yours works as an opiate, providing you with consolation for the fact that Dialectical Marxism has been a long-term failure, and like other druggies you find it impossible to kick the habit.

I got the goddamn patch! What more do you want from me?! (Let's just ignore those highly questionable statements about how dialectics caused Marxism to "fail.")

Rosa Lichtenstein

You don't mind? Well, what are you waiting for?

As I thought, you can't read.

If you ask someone if they mind, then a negative reply is a positive affirmation. That was just a joke anyway, which was either over your head or lost on your lacking sense of humor.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th September 2007, 10:09

VB:

It's called "interpretation."

Then I interpret this to mean "invention".

That's a matter of interpretation. If it makes sense, and I do believe it does, then it's at least possible. This particular interpretation is also consistent with Marx's statement calling this the dialectic method, as well as several other statements regarding the importance of the rational core of Hegel's philosophy. So I'd say it's quite reasonable.

In which not one atom of Hegel can be found, except the bits of jargon with which Marx merely 'coquetted'.

So, Marx disagrees with you.

Nothing wrong with a little retrofitting. Marx does it with his "primitive communism."

At least your use of this term is consistent with the other things you have invented So full marks for consistent dissembling.

First of all, historical materialism is a methodology not a set of laws.

Second, dailectics comprises a set of confused mystical dogmas.

Also, I find it amusing that you keep using historical materialism as if it was completely divorced from dialectical materialism, and even Hegel. That type of historicism was taken straight from Hegel, perhaps even moreso than his dialectics. Marx simply replaced the "absolute idea" with the "interplay between the forces and relations of production" and called it materialist. No one goes back to Hegel and tries to separate his historicism from his dialectics. But here, where we can muddle the issue because of how it's steeped in politics, it becomes possible.

Once again, Marx agrees with me, for in a piece that is rarely quoted here, Marx describes a reviewer's summary of his method as follows:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

And, guess what? There's not an microgram of Hegel in there.

And then, as if to annoy you Hermeticists even further, he went on to say this:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

So, Marx himself distinguishes between the two.

And no wonder, Marx was a materialist, unlike you mystics.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th September 2007, 10:41

VB, beginning to lose it:

WTF are you talking about?! Show me just one example where I "put words" in either Marx's or your mouth.

Ok, here:

Unity of Opposites: the existence of both is necessary

Negation of Negation: the second is necessary because the first's contradictions force it to change

And with respect to my good self:

Ha! I thought you were saying the core was that long paragraph you keep quoting. Seems you can't even keep your lies straight anymore.

And now we find this half-dried bogey daubed across our screens:

Well, I did read some parts of one of them. I believe it was the one on motion. I remember not agreeing with it though. I actually am afraid of them. In particular, that my eyes will burn out of my skull from reading the computer screen too long.

Too difficult was it?

I am sorry, I tend to use words of more than one syllable.

But, at least it confirms you are judging my work in total ignorance, as I alleged.

I got the goddamn patch! What more do you want from me?! (Let's just ignore those highly questionable statements about how dialectics caused Marxism to "fail.")

So, more invention, eh?

Where do I say, or even hint, that this whacko 'theory' of yours 'caused' Marxism to fail?

I even went so far as to post this on the oppening page of my site:

Preliminary Points

(1) It is important to emphasise from the outset that I am not blaming the long-term failure of Marxism solely on the acceptance of Hermetic ideas derived from Hegel.

This is worth repeating since I still receive e-mails from those who claim to have read the above words but who still think I am blaming all our woes on dialectics; I am not.

What is being claimed is that adherence to this 'theory' is one of the subjective reasons why revolutionary socialism has become a bye-word for failure.

There are other, objective reasons why the class enemy still runs this planet, but since revolutions require revolutionaries with ideas in their heads, this 'theory' must take some of the blame.

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor; it certainly helps explain why revolutionary groups are in general vanishingly small, neurotically sectarian, studiously unreasonable, consistently conservative, theoretically deferential (to 'tradition'), and almost invariably tend toward some form of substitutionism.

Naturally, this has had a direct bearing on our lack of impact on the working-class over the last fifty years or so -- and probably longer --, and hence on the continuing success of Capitalism.

The following 'Unity of Opposites' is difficult to explain otherwise:

The larger the proletariat, the smaller the impact Dialectical Marxism has on it.

Sadly, this 'inner tension' will continue to develop while comrades adhere to this regressive doctrine. Those who doubt this are encouraged to read on, where their doubts will be severely bruised, if not laid completely to rest.

So, I suggest you (1) get new glasses, or (2) learn to read, or (3) stop lying, or (4) all of (1)-(3).

I also wrote this on page one, two years ago:

Among the most common responses (of comrades who have 'debated' this with me on the internet) are the following:

...

(7) The attribution to me of ideas I do not hold, and which could not reasonably have been inferred from anything I have said...

These are often advanced by comrades who have not read a single one of my Essays (but, they still feel that this does not prevent them from making things up about me), or they skim read them. Naturally, they are the first to complain whenever anyone does his with respect to the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the rest.

And because I am attacking mystical ideas, adhered to for contingent psychological reasons (as if Marxism were a quasi-religion), I predicted more of the same.

Thanks for confirming that.

This latest example (of yours) will be entered into the ever-growing bank of evidence that you Hemetic nutters will say anything, do anything, invent anything, rather than question the theory that has failed us so badly for so long.

Any tactic is Ok in order protect your precious supply of opiates.

And you all do the same things, and say the same things, as if you were the first to invent them. I have heard it all, countless times, for 25 odd years.

Z says the same things as you, so does Axel and the other mystics at RevLeft. You are in company with the Maoists and the born again Stalinists, the trots and the libertarian commmunists, the neo-trots and reconstructed Leninists: whatever differences you all have among yourselves, you all defend your precious dialectic in identical ways, as if to prove the law of identity works at least here.

Failing to note, of course, that history has already refuted Dialectical 'Marxism'.

Even that will go over your head -- so firmly is it lodged in that sand dune.

Leave it there: an ignorant mystic is far less dangeroius than one who takes the time to learn before he/she pontificates.

davidasearles

13th September 2007, 19:44

Volderbeek quoting David Searles

(davidasearles @ September 11, 2007 09:43 am)
Let me see if I understand this. Dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world.

and Volderbeek answered:

No no no. What I said was that the scientific method is quite dialectical in nature not that dialectics is the scientific method.

And David Searles responds:

I did not say that you said that dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world. I posited that, again: Dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world.

And you see I did not posit that dialectics "is the scientific method". No way, anymore than statistical analysis is the scientific method. Math can be used to generate answers, of course, but it also can be used to generate questions. A hypothesis is just that, a pointed question. Dialectics can be used just as math is used to generate pointed questions concerning the material world. The job of science is to disprove hypothesis and set the ground for an alternate hypothesis CAPABLE OF DISPROOF but yet better withstands disproof. Fucking dialectical man!

Yes, the whole of the scientific method can be looked at as a dialectical process. But that doesn't prove or disprove a thing. The scientific method can be looked at in other ways as well. But when it comes to proof it never matters what method generated the hypothesis, or even if there was a method at all.

Science is an equal opportunity juggernaught destroyer of the slight ships of all hypothesis regardless of the flag that they may sail under. Just one simple contradicting fact sinks a hypothesis, every time, and it is the rare one that gets away.

I will go back again to my original question to you Volderbeek:

Volderbeek wrote:

With dialectics, you have more breathing room to think outside direct experience, and this leads to valuable insights.

Dave Searles asks:

Let me see if I understand this. Dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world. You have more breathing room within the system of dialectics than without? And what you develop are possible insights concerning the material world - how valuable they may or may not be depends upon scientific proof does it not?

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th September 2007, 16:02

Right David, I have stayed out of this long enough. VB asserted:

No no no. What I said was that the scientific method is quite dialectical in nature not that dialectics is the scientifc method.

However, the 'dialectical' method as advocated by VB (but not by Marx) has nothing to do with science, and has never been used by scientists (ouside the old soviet block -- who used it to screw around with Russian agriculture for 30 years applying Lysenko's crazy dialectical theory) -- except for a few Biologists (and it is arguable that not even they used it -- partly for the reasons outlined below).

How do I know?

Well, here is just one set of reasons (taken from Essay Seven at my site), an earlier version of which I posted on a thread in this section last year (links and references removed):

The Dialecticians' Dilemma

If reality itself were contradictory, the 'falsification' of a contradiction would also amount to its automatic 'verification', and vice versa.

Consider again Engels's depiction of the contradictory nature of living cells:

"We saw above that life consists precisely and primarily in this –- that a living thing is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly asserts and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to and end, and death steps in." [Engels (1954), p.153.]

"Abstract identity (a = a; and negatively, a cannot be simultaneously equal and unequal to a) is likewise inapplicable in organic nature. The plant, the animal, every cell is at every moment of its life identical with itself and yet becoming distinct from itself, by absorption and excretion of substances…, in short, by a sum of incessant molecular changes which make up life….

"Life and death. Already no physiology is held to be scientific if it does not consider death as an essential element of life (note, Hegel, Enzyklopädie, I, pp.152-53), the negation of life itself, so that life is always thought of in relation to its necessary result, death, which is always contained in it in germ. The dialectical conception of life is nothing more than this…. Living means dying." [Engels (1976), pp.214, 295.]

[The problems connected with Hegel and Engels's egregious understanding of Identity will be tackled in Essays Six, Eight Part Two and Twelve.]

The new batch of difficulties Engels's view face can be brought out by the following argument:

L1: Cell C1 is both alive and not alive.
L2: Experimental evidence shows that C1 is alive.
L3: Experimental evidence also shows that C1 is also not alive.
L4: L2 falsifies L1.
L5: L3 falsifies L1.
L6: However, the conjunction of L2 and L3 verifies L1.
L7: Therefore, L1 has been falsified and verified.

[It is worth noting that this 'argument' is not valid, and is only reproduced here to try to make sense of what Rees and Engels could possibly have meant.]

As seems plain, a confirmation of a DM-contradiction is of a piece with its refutation.

So, it seems that this option is closed-off as far as the investigation of DM-contradictions is concerned. This must mean that the requirement that contradictions be tested against experience is an empty gesture, since, with respect to DM-contradictions, if reality were contradictory, it would both confirm and refute their presence. In which case, DM-theorists would have no reason whatsoever to reject any contradictions that appeared in their theory; but, at the same time, they would have eminently good reasons for rejecting all of them (at least to prevent their theory from becoming defective). [More on this in Essay Eleven Part One.]

The quandary now facing dialecticians we might call the "Dialecticians' Dilemma" [DD].

The DD arises from the uncontroversial observation that if reality is fundamentally contradictory then true theories should reflect this supposed state of affairs. [Why this is so is explained in Essay Eleven Part One.] However, and this is the problem, in order to do this any such theory must contain contradictions itself, or it would not be an accurate reflection of nature. But, if the development of science is predicated either on the removal of contradictions from theories, or on the replacement of older theories with newer, less contradictory versions, as DM-theorists contend, then science could not advance toward a 'truer' account of reality. This is because scientific theories would then reflect the world less accurately, having had all (or most) of their contradictions removed.

[Of course, if the advancement of science is not dependent on the removal of all or most contradictions, then scientists would face intractable difficulties of their own -- for example: how to tell a defective theory (one that is shot through with contradiction) from a theory that is not so afflicted. Fortunately to date, scientists have not adopted these ill-advised dialectical tactics, and have remained annoyingly loyal to the protocols of FL.]

[FL = Formal Logic; DM= Dialectical Materialism.]

Conversely, if a true theory aims to reflect more accurately the contradictions in nature (which it must do if reality is contradictory) then, in order to be consistent with such dialectical demands, scientists should not attempt to remove contradictions from -- or try to resolve them in or between -- theories. Clearly, on that score, science could not advance, since there would be no reason to replace a contradictory theory with a less contradictory one. Indeed, if DM were correct, scientific theories would become more contradictory -- not less -- as they approach more closely the truth about 'contradictory' reality. This, of course, would mean that scientific theory as a whole would become more defective with time!

Again, if science advanced because of the elimination of contradictions then a fully true theory should have had all (or most) of them removed. Science ought then to reflect (in the limit) the fact that reality contains no contradictions!

[It is worth noting here that critics of DM have already arrived at that unhelpful conclusion, and they managed so without an ounce of dialectics to slow them down.]

However, according to DM, scientific theories should be replaced by ones that depict reality as fundamentally contradictory, this despite the fact that scientists will have removed every (or nearly every) contradiction in order reach that point.

On the other hand, if scientists failed to remove contradictions (or, if they refused to replace an older theory with a newer, less contradictory one), so that their theories reflected the contradictory nature of reality more accurately, they would then have no good reason to reject any particular theory no matter how inconsistent it proved to be.

Whichever way this rusty old DM-banger is driven, the 'dialectical' view of scientific progress (and of 'contradictions') hits a very material brick wall in the shape of the DD each time.

Once more, it could be objected that dialecticians do not believe that scientific theories should have all or most of their contradictions removed if science is to advance, merely the ones that hold up progress.

However, dialecticians have so far failed to distinguish those contradictions which are the mere artefacts of a defective theory from those that supposedly reflect an 'objective' state of the world. But, how might these be distinguished in DM-terms? How would it be possible to tell whether a contradiction was an accurate reflection of reality or whether it was a consequence of a faulty theory, if all of reality (including scientific theory) is contradictory?

An appeal to practice here would be no help since that takes place in the phenomenal world, which is riddled with DM-contradictions and must be contradictory itself! Hence, it is to be wondered how practice could help confirm (or refute) a theory if its deliverances are themselves part of the same contradictory reality on test. We saw above that confirmation and refutation are all of a piece, anyway, given DM. Moreover, as we will see in Essay Ten Part One, practice is no friend of dialectics.

For example, DM-theorists generally argue that the wave-particle duality of light confirms the thesis that nature is fundamentally dialectical; in this case, light is supposed to be a UO of wave and particle. Precisely how they are a unity (i.e., how it could be true that matter at this level is fundamentally particulate and fundamentally non-particulate all at once) is of course left eminently obscure -- and how this helps account for the material world is even less clear.

Even though all dialecticians refer to this 'contradiction', not one has explained how and why it is one, nor less how and why it is a 'dialectical contradiction' (even if we knew what these were).

Q1: Light is a wave.
Q2: Light is particulate.

Now, Q1 would contradict Q2 if the following were the case:

Q3: No wave can be particulate.
Q4: Light must be one or the other, wave or particle.

[Q4 is required or Q1 and Q2 would merely be inconsistent.]

But is Q3 true? Surely not, for if physicists are correct, light is both! But, independently of that, there are plenty of examples of waves in nature which are particulate; e.g., sound waves, water waves and Mexican waves.

Moreover, Q4 could be false. Light could turn out to be something else about which we do not yet have a concept. That, of course, would make Q1 and Q2 merely inconsistent. Do 'dialectical logicians' know what to do with 'dialectical inconsistencies'?

But, even if in some way this were a contradiction it does nothing to explain change -- unless we are supposed to accept the idea that the fact that light is a particle changes it into a wave, and vice versa. Are we to conclude that they are struggling with each other? But what is the point of that? What role does this particular 'contradiction' play either in DM or in Physics? At best it seems to be merely ornamental.

[One benighted DM-fan, when confronted with this objection in private correspondence, said that these were 'illustrative' contradictions (even though they do no dialectical work). This can only mean that dialecticians resemble fundamentalist Christians -- who think that, say, the three-dimensionality of space 'illustrates' the Trinity, God having left this and other clues littered across reality for us to find.

[Don't believe me? Then check this out. Link removed.]

In a similar way, and with regard to dialectics, perhaps 'Being' Itself has sent this one our way to inform DM-fans they are on the right path to Dialectical Nirvana: the 'illustrative', but useless, duality of wave and particle!]

At worst, of course, all the problems we met earlier in connection with the DM-'theory' of change would apply.

Now, if we put to one side the 'solution' to this puzzle offered by, say, Superstring Theory, there are in fact more than a handful of Physicists -- with, it seems, a more robust commitment to scientific realism than the average dialectician can muster -- who believe that this 'paradox' can be resolved within a realist picture of nature. [Evidence appears here, and here.] Whether they are correct or not need not detain us since DM-theorists (if consistent) ought to advise these rather rash realists not to bother trying to solve this riddle. This is because dialectics has already provided us with an a priori solution: since nature is fundamentally contradictory there is in fact no solution.

However, in this case it is possible to see how practice cannot help; if experiments are conducted that allegedly show that light is both a particle and a wave, then DM-theorists would have no reason to question this supposedly contradictory data, nor try to resolve the difficulty.

[However, so far, experiments have merely shown that under certain conditions light is particulate, under others it is wave-like, but not both.]

Nevertheless, anyone not committed to such an obtuse view of reality would have good reason to question it, and this might, for all anyone knows, assist in the advancement of science.

Not so with DM-fans, whose advice could permanently hold things up.

In that case, practice alone cannot distinguish between these two views (the realist and the dialectical), even though one of these will seriously hold up progress.

Moreover, since we know that practically any theory can be made to conform to observation if enough adjustments are made elsewhere, this criterion is doubly defective.

[This allegation will be substantiated in more detail in Essay Ten, and in a later Essay on the nature of science.]

[QM = Quantum Mechanics.]

However, in advance of any test, DM-theorists should (if they are consistent) advise scientists not to bother trying to refute the orthodox interpretation of QM, or resolve the paradox upon which it is based, since there is no point in view of their a priori theory, which sees nature as fundamentally contradictory.

Unfortunately, in that case, if physicists took this advice, Physics could not advance to a superior view of nature (if one exists) by eliminating this alleged contradiction. At best, this a priori DM-approach to knowledge would close available options down, forcing scientists to adopt a view of reality that might not be correct.

Fortunately, there is little evidence so far that Physicists have taken any note of this aspect of dialectics, even if any of them have ever heard of it.

Now, only those who disagree with Lenin about the incomplete nature of science (or, alternatively, who have a rather poor grasp of the history of Physics) would risk concluding that contemporary science has a final and complete picture of reality, at least in this particular area. If so, Physics could only advance by eliminating this paradox -- hence eliminating one of the best examples in the DM box of tricks allegedly showing that nature is fundamentally contradictory.

Of course, only those who wish to foist their ideas on nature would object at this point.

More details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

Of course, this is just one reason why dialectics cannot be part of science (for it it were, science would grind to a halt, in the above way).

There are many other reasons, most of which can be found in my Essays.

davidasearles

16th September 2007, 20:06

Rosa maybe we are using the terms differnetly, but hell anything can be a part of science. Blind luck and accidents can be a part of science. if they can anyone's dieslectics can PROVIDED OF COURSE THAT EXPERIMENTAL PROOF AND NOT WHAT OUGHT TO BE IS THE DETERMINANT OF ALL HYPOTHESIS.

But what I am gleaning here is that in the diealectics you are speaking of there are no hypothesis, simply direcly derived "truths".

Rosa, why do you insist on ruining the fun? Maybe with enough of their stuff they can qualify for a scholarship into Hogwartz.

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th September 2007, 20:37

David, if you think this is fun, well..., what can I say7.

And, I left off commenting for over a week.

but hell anything can be a part of science.

Not unless you want to change the meaning of that word.

For example, we would not count the ramblings of drunks, the insane or drug addicts. Nor would we count to dogmatic pronouncements of popes and imams -- or worse, the a priori theses of dialecticians.

davidasearles

17th September 2007, 13:32

Rosa, perhaps you are not getting my meaning. Any statement can be analyized scientifically. As such the statement would be a part of science, and it wouldn't matter how that statement was derived.

No you aren't having fun but living in the land of make belive they are having fun.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th September 2007, 13:47

David:

Any statement can be analyized scientifically. As such the statement would be a part of science, and it wouldn't matter how that statement was derived.

That depends on what you mean by 1) 'statement', and 2) 'analysed'.

Is this a statement: "The universe doubled in size overnight, including all our measuring devices".

Could science analyse that?

davidasearles

17th September 2007, 15:19

I worked last night so i am firing on just one brain cell, but I suspect that there would be a way. For example if the moon was twice as far as it it now from the earth light would take twice as long to travel back and forth and the longer time would be discerned rather quickly. Also larger animals have slower relexes becuase the brian is further from the muscles which it controls. That's why house flys can react so quickly when you try to hit them with your hand.

But lets say that there was in fact no way to measure whether it had gotten larger. The statement could still be analyzed although the result of the analysis might be that the statement appears to not be neither verifiable nor refutable . Perfectly legitimate scientific answers.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th September 2007, 21:12

David:

For example if the moon was twice as far as it it now from the earth light would take twice as long to travel back and forth and the longer time would be discerned rather quickly. Also larger animals have slower relexes becuase the brian is further from the muscles which it controls. That's why house flys can react so quickly when you try to hit them with your hand.

Not so, for all our clocks would be altered.

Since they are based on the oscillation of certain atoms whose wavelengths have been altered, all the timing will have changed and so the measurtement of the time for light to reach us will have altered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock

A problem arises when we consider an expanding universe. Suppose everything in the universe were to double in size. The distances between galaxies would double, the size of the Earth would double, the size of all our meter sticks would double, and so on. It would seem to an observer (who will also have doubled in size) as if nothing had happened at all. So what do we mean by saying the universe expands?

http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f...pers/cosmo.html (http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/kenny/papers/cosmo.html)

The reaction of animals would be different, since all the wavlengths of the electrical impulses would be altered too.

In fact this is a familiar undetectable event. There are many others if you do not like that one:

The universe began one second earlier than we think.

We are all brains in vats, our thoughts controlled by a mad scientist. [The Matrix is one version of this.]

The universe began 24 hours ago complete with our memories as they are now, and all the evidence that it is older created at the same time --, all the light rays from distant stars created to fill the gap between us and them, and so on.

There are two universes 1x10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10^10 light years apart

These are all things science cannot answer, no matter what is done.

But lets say that there was in fact no way to measure whether it had gotten larger. The statement could still be analyzed although the result of the analysis might be that the statement appears to not be neither verifiable nor refutable . Perfectly legitimate scientific answers.

Again, this depends on what you mean by 'analysable'

Analytic Philosophers have been analysing the above (and more) for 100 years, but not as part of science. Eg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat

Now, if you make it a matter of definiton that "science is about whatever can be analysed" then we have no good reason to accept that definition, especially since it would make practically everything into a science.

This is all to the good anyway; who wants scientists wasting their time on unanswerable questions?

To end:

What will be the last unanswerable question?

No, who could possibly answer or even analyse that?

davidasearles

18th September 2007, 03:31

Dave to Rosa:

You have not convinced me regarding the doubled universe. Everything slows down becuase of their increased size, therefore we would be unable to detect the increased time that it took light to bounce off the moon? If all molecules slowed down wouldn't their temperatures decrease drastically? If the nerve paths from out brains to our muscled doubled what would be the compensation that would make the increase unnoticeable?

Rosa also wrote:

Now, if you make it a matter of definiton that "science is about whatever can be analysed" then we have no good reason to accept that definition...

Dave writes:

The subject is not the science but the process of testing statements is. Can science be regarded as a branch of philosophy? Certainly.

Rosa wrote:

who wants scientists wasting their time on unanswerable questions?

Dave writes:

When science reports that a statement is or is not verifiable that certainly is not a non-answer.

You fall into the pit of the dialecticians when you suggest that science should be or shouldn't be what we want. When someone employs the method, no matter what the motivation, even out of foolishness - it is still science, isn't it?

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th September 2007, 03:43

David: if the universe doubles in size overnight, it would not, I think, affect the temperature, especially if the molecules involved moved faster.

Everything slows down becuase of their increased size, therefore we would be unable to detect the increased time that it took light to bounce off the moon?

Well, as I noted, since the clocks we use would slow down, this would be undetectable.

If the nerve paths from out brains to our muscled doubled what would be the compensation that would make the increase unnoticeable?

I do not see why.

The subject is not the science but the process of testing statements is. Can science be regarded as a branch of philosophy? Certainly.

The two disciplines are distinct.

In science, theories are trested against reality -- in experiments.

Not so in Philosophy.

When science reports that a statement is or is not verifiable that certainly is not a non-answer.

Well, this is no more of an answer than "Stop asking such stupid questions" is.

You fall into the pit of the dialecticians when you suggest that science should be or shouldn't be what we want. When someone employs the method, no matter what the motivation, even out of foolishness - it is still science, isn't it?

It seems to me that you are doing what you accuse me of doing: imposing a view on science.

I am quite happy to do that, and so it seems are you.

But, my final question (What will be the very last unanswerable question?) is one that no one, scientist, philosopher, gure, prophet can answer, or even analyse.

Volderbeek

18th September 2007, 07:49

Whoa! Lots to get to here. I'll take my time though (as if I ever don't :lol: ).

Originally posted by davidasearles+September 13, 2007 02:44 pm--> (davidasearles @ September 13, 2007 02:44 pm)Volderbeek quoting David Searles

(davidasearles @ September 11, 2007 09:43 am)
Let me see if I understand this. Dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world.

and Volderbeek answered:

No no no. What I said was that the scientific method is quite dialectical in nature not that dialectics is the scientific method.

And David Searles responds:

I did not say that you said that dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world. I posited that, again: Dialectics is a system for generating hypothesis concerning the material world.

[/b]
Usually when you start with the sentence: "Let me see if I understand this." you're trying to summarize the other person's view. If you're stating your own view, you say something like: "What I'm trying to say is..." or "The way I see it...".

As to that though, I simply don't agree.

Originally posted by davidasearles+--> (davidasearles)Yes, the whole of the scientific method can be looked at as a dialectical process. But that doesn't prove or disprove a thing. The scientific method can be looked at in other ways as well.[/b]

I would say it certainly does say something. It would say something about those alleged "other ways" as well. Besides, I'm not looking to "prove" anything; that was more of a passing comment.

[email protected]
But when it comes to proof it never matters what method generated the hypothesis, or even if there was a method at all.

It certainly does matter! Remember what I told you about Occam's Razor?

davidasearles
Science is an equal opportunity juggernaught destroyer of the slight ships of all hypothesis regardless of the flag that they may sail under. Just one simple contradicting fact sinks a hypothesis, every time, and it is the rare one that gets away.

Oooooookay... :lol:

Volderbeek

18th September 2007, 08:00

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 16, 2007 11:02 am
Right David, I have stayed out of this long enough. VB asserted:

No no no. What I said was that the scientific method is quite dialectical in nature not that dialectics is the scientifc method.

However, the 'dialectical' method as advocated by VB (but not by Marx) has nothing to do with science, and has never been used by scientists (ouside the old soviet block -- who used it to screw around with Russian agriculture for 30 years applying Lysenko's crazy dialectical theory) -- except for a few Biologists (and it is arguable that not even they used it -- partly for the reasons outlined below).
What do you think you're doing? You're supposed to stay out of this. You have to assume by "a few days" he meant forever.

Anyway, I'm saying that the scientific method is, or can be described, dialectically. So in that sense, scientists have always been using dialectics. Dialectics itself would not (and should not) be used by scientists. Unless of course, they're also philosophers.

Volderbeek

18th September 2007, 08:25

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 16, 2007 11:02 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 16, 2007 11:02 am)
The Dialecticians' Dilemma

If reality itself were contradictory, the 'falsification' of a contradiction would also amount to its automatic 'verification', and vice versa.[/b]

The verification of the contradiction's contradiction, not the contradiction itself. But otherwise, yeah of course. That's dialectical unity. I see no "dilemma."

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected]
L1: Cell C1 is both alive and not alive.
L2: Experimental evidence shows that C1 is alive.
L3: Experimental evidence also shows that C1 is also not alive.
L4: L2 falsifies L1.
L5: L3 falsifies L1.
L6: However, the conjunction of L2 and L3 verifies L1.
L7: Therefore, L1 has been falsified and verified.

You got this very wrong. In every situation where you falsify something, you are also verifying its opposite. In this case, it's merely more explicit. Therefore, L4 and L5 falsify L1 but also verify it. L6 can't simply verify L1 for the same reason L4/5 can falsify L1. L6 actually double verifies and falsifies, as it should as a conjunction.

Rosa Lichtenstein
The DD arises from the uncontroversial observation that if reality is fundamentally contradictory then true theories should reflect this supposed state of affairs.

Reality is not "fundamentally contradictory." That's nothing but a strawman. Change is contradictory. When theories no longer contain contradictions, they stop changing. They represent the world in a perfect ideal form.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th September 2007, 15:33

VB:

What do you think you're doing? You're supposed to stay out of this. You have to assume by "a few days" he meant forever.

Anyway, I'm saying that the scientific method is, or can be described, dialectically. So in that sense, scientists have always been using dialectics. Dialectics itself would not (and should not) be used by scientists. Unless of course, they're also philosophers.

You seem to be as good at interpreting David as you are at interpreting Marx; i.e., more interested in invention.

And, you can say what you like, but we have yet to see the proof.

The verification of the contradiction's contradiction, not the contradiction itself. But otherwise, yeah of course. That's dialectical unity. I see no "dilemma."

This makes about as much sense as if you had randomly typed it; in fact, it would probably have made more sense had you randomly typed it.

How can you distinguish the contradictions inherent in a defective theory from genuine cintradictions?

I contend that you can't. Your other comments confirm this.

You got this very wrong. In every situation where you falsify something, you are also verifying its opposite. In this case, it's merely more explicit. Therefore, L4 and L5 falsify L1 but also verify it. L6 can't simply verify L1 for the same reason L4/5 can falsify L1. L6 actually double verifies and falsifies, as it should as a conjunction.

But this does not work if you apply dialectics, since, if a contradiction is true, then to verify one half is to verify the other, not falsify it.

Now, if you are right, then to verify that a cell is alive is to falsify the dialectical claim that it is also dead.

Moreover, a conjunction is true just in case both halves are true.

But, as you note, the verification of say L2 automatically falsifies L3, so the conjunction, L1, cannot be true.

But you also say that the conjunction is both verified and falsified. This is an application of dialectical logic to the argument.

Ok, but that is precisely what I alleged makes dialectics a non-science:

However, DM is not like any known or conceivable science. Although the criteria distinguishing science from pseudo-science are somewhat controversial, one thing is reasonably clear: scientists cannot claim that the world is contradictory -- in whole or in part.

This idea cannot be entertained -- not because of an assumed adherence to bourgeois ideology, nor as a result of an alleged excessive "tenderness" toward the world -- but because it would make scientific description and research impossible.

A scientific theory that admitted reality was contradictory would lose its ability to explain the course of events in nature. This is because any theory that contemplated the existence of contradictions everywhere would make it impossible to distinguish confirmation from refutation. If an empirical proposition and its contradictory were both true then confirmation and refutation would become all of a piece.

In that case, you are unable to distinguish contradictions that would hold up the progress of science from 'genuine contradictions' in reality -- as that long argument I posted above showed (which you simply ignored).

Reality is not "fundamentally contradictory." That's nothing but a strawman. Change is contradictory. When theories no longer contain contradictions, they stop changing. They represent the world in a perfect ideal form.

But, this is irrelevant to the points I made.

Even if reality is not fundamentally contradictiory (but all the DM-classics disagree with you -- see the quotations below), and a theory had in it a contradiction that reflected an alleged contradiction in reality, you would not know whether that was a defect in that theory, or a genuine reflection of reality.

So, this has nothing to do with a theory changing, or otherwise.

Anyway, if the world is always changing because of its 'internal contradictions', and every atom in the entire universe is a unity of many different opposites, how can you say that this 'theory' if yours does not imply that reality is fundamentally contradictory?

Here are few confused DM-classicists who disagree with you (there are plenty more who say the same sorts of things -- references at my site, in Essay Eleven Part One):

"[A]ll bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves. A sophist will respond that a pound of sugar is equal to itself at 'any given moment'…. How should we really conceive the word 'moment'? If it is an infinitesimal interval of time, then a pound of sugar is subjected during the course of that 'moment' to inevitable changes. Or is the 'moment' a purely mathematical abstraction, that is, a zero of time? But everything exists in time; and existence itself is an uninterrupted process of transformation; time is consequently a fundamental element of existence. Thus the axiom 'A' is equal to 'A' signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does not change, that is if it does not exist….

"For concepts there also exists 'tolerance' which is established not by formal logic…, but by the dialectical logic issuing from the axiom that everything is always changing….

"Dialectical thinking analyses all things and phenomena in their continuous change….

"Dialectics…teaches us to combine syllogisms in such a way as to bring our understanding closer to the eternally changing reality." [Trotsky (1971), pp.64-66.]

This looks pretty clear. Here, Trotsky declares that DM-style change is an "axiom" -- so, it can't have been derived from evidence. In fact, it is unclear what sort of evidence could possibly verify claims such as: "everything is always changing" -- indeed, that things are "eternally changing" --, that "existence is an uninterrupted process of transformation", and that if something does not change "it does not exist". We saw earlier that this is not even empirically true.

Engels also declared that:

"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.]

Add to this John Rees's comment:

"If change is internally generated, it must be a result of contradiction, of instability and development as inherent properties of the system itself." [Rees (1998a), p.7.]

Plainly, Rees derived the universal nature of change from some a priori thesis or other, but one which it is not only impossible to test, it is inconsistent in itself (as was demonstrated in Essay Eight Parts One and Two).

Furthermore, we have the following comments from Lenin:

"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:]…internally contradictory tendencies…in this [totality]…and unity of opposites…. [E]ach thing…is connected with every other…[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…. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites.

"…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.]

Combine the above with Plekhanov and Bukharin's thoughts:

"According to Hegel, dialectics is the principle of all life…. [M]an has two qualities: first being alive, and secondly of also being mortal. But on closer examination it turns out that life itself bears in itself the germ of death, and that in general any phenomenon is contradictory, in the sense that it develops out of itself the elements which, sooner or later, will put an end to its existence and will transform it into its opposite. Everything flows, everything changes; and there is no force capable of holding back this constant flux, or arresting its eternal movement. There is no force capable of resisting the dialectics of phenomena….

"At a particular moment a moving body is at a particular spot, but at the same time it is outside it as well because, if it were only in that spot, it would, at least for that moment, become motionless. Every motion is a dialectical process, a living contradiction, and as there is not a single phenomenon of nature in explaining which we do not have in the long run to appeal to motion, we have to agree with Hegel, who said that dialectics is the soul of any scientific cognition. And this applies not only to cognition of nature….

"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….

"When you apply the dialectical method to the study of phenomena, you need to remember that forms change eternally in consequence of the 'higher development of their content'….

"In the words of Engels, Hegel's merit consists in the fact that he was the first to regard all phenomena from the point of view of their development, from the point of view of their origin and destruction…." [Plekhanov (1956), pp.74-77, 88, 163.]

"'All is flux, nothing is stationary,' said the ancient thinker from Ephesus. The combinations we call objects are in a state of constant and more or less rapid change….

"…[M]otion does not only make objects…, it is constantly changing them. It is for this reason that the logic of motion (the 'logic of contradiction') never relinquishes its rights over the objects created by motion….

"With Hegel, thinking progresses in consequence of the uncovering and resolution of the contradictions inclosed (sic) in concepts. According to our doctrine…the contradictions embodied in concepts are merely reflections, translations into the language of thought, of those contradictions that are embodied in phenomena owing to the contradictory nature of their common basis, i.e., motion….

"…[T]he overwhelming majority of phenomena that come within the compass of the natural and the social sciences are among objects' of this kind…[:ones in which there is a coincidence of opposites]. Diametrically opposite phenomena are united in the simplest globule of protoplasm, and the life of the most undeveloped society…." [Plekhanov (1908), pp.93-96.]

"There are two possible ways of regarding everything in nature and in society; in the eyes of some everything is constantly at rest, immutable…. To others, however, it appears that there is nothing unchanging in nature or in society…. This second point of view is called the dynamic point of view…; the former point of view is called static. Which is the correct position?... Even a hasty glance at nature will at once convince us that there is nothing immutable about it….

"Evidently…there is nothing immutable and rigid in the universe…. Matter in motion: such is the stuff of this world…. This dynamic point of view is also called the dialectic (sic) point of view….

"The world being in constant motion, we must consider phenomena in their mutual relations, and not as isolated cases. All portions of the universe are actually related to each other and exert an influence on each other…. All things in the universe are connected with an indissoluble bond; nothing exists as an isolated object, independent of its surroundings….

"In the first place, therefore, the dialectic (sic) method of interpretation demands that all phenomena be considered in their indissoluble relations; in the second place, that they be considered in their state of motion….

"Since everything in the world is in a state of change, and indissolubly connected with everything else, we must draw the necessary conclusions for the social sciences….

"The basis of all things is therefore the law of change, the law of constant motion. Two philosophers particularly (the ancient Heraclitus and the modern Hegel…) formulated this law of change, but they did not stop there. They also set up the question of the manner in which the process operates. The answer they discovered was that changes are produced by constant internal contradictions, internal struggle. Thus, Heraclitus declared: 'Conflict is the mother of all happenings,' while Hegel said: 'Contradiction is the power that moves things.'

"There is no doubt of the correctness of this law. A moment's thought will convince the reader. For, if there were no conflict, no clash of forces, the world would be in a condition of unchanging stable equilibrium, i.e., complete and absolute permanence, a state of rest precluding all motion…. As we already know that all things change, all things are 'in flux', it is certain that such an absolute state of rest cannot possibly exist. We must therefore reject a condition in which there is no 'contradiction between opposing and colliding forces' no disturbance of equilibrium, but only an absolute immutability….

"In other words, the world consists of forces, acting many ways, opposing each other. These forces are balanced for a moment in exceptional cases only. We then have a state of 'rest', i.e., their actual 'conflict' is concealed. But if we change only one of these forces, immediately the 'internal contradictions' will be revealed, equilibrium will be disturbed, and if a new equilibrium is again established, it will be on a new basis, i.e., with a new combination of forces, etc. It follows that the 'conflict,' the 'contradiction,' i.e., the antagonism of forces acting in various directions, determines the motion of the system…." [Bukharin (1925), pp.63-67, 72-74.]

Add to that Mao's two-cents worth:

"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.

"Engels said, 'Motion itself is a contradiction.' Lenin defined the law of the unity of opposites as 'the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society).' Are these ideas correct? Yes, they are. The interdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things and the struggle between these aspects determine the life of all things and push their development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist.

"Contradiction is the basis of the simple forms of motion (for instance, mechanical motion) and still more so of the complex forms of motion....

"Thus it is already clear that contradiction exists universally and in all processes, whether in the simple or in the complex forms of motion, whether in objective phenomena or ideological phenomena..." [Mao (1961b), pp.316-17. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at my site.]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2011_01.htm

So, you not only disagree with Marx, who informed us he had abandoned this loopy theory by the time he wrote Capital, you disagree with the above DM-worthies. They certainly thought reality was fundamentally contradictory.

[Not doing too well are you?]

[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

davidasearles

18th September 2007, 16:46

tolstoyevski

18th September 2007, 19:32

Volvederbeek wrote:
In every situation where you falsify something, you are also verifying its opposite.

Dave askes: falsify "something"?? How do you falsify something? Tell lies about it? And what is oposite "something"?

It seems that your schema only works when the "opposite" of a thing is the absence of the thing.

What is opposite of a baseball? Absence of a baseball? If it is, but only if it is,
if I disprove the presence of a baseball I am proving the absence of it.

Zounds!

How do we falsify something: If you say there's no exploitation, you falsify the presence of it and therefore verify(maybe approve is a better word) its opposite, because you see there's nothing to change. So in material conditions, Marxist struggle may seem nonsense to somebody, she/he opposes the idea that there are classes and contradictions in them in the society. Similarly, ultra-nationalists deny that there are classes in the society (falsification), they see a conflict between nations and therefore make different attempts, including anti-communism.

The opposite of baseball is, yes, its absence.
But not only. In fact, the opposite of the baseball is every non-baseball.
But the contradiction between, for ex., you and the baseball cannot be seen till I throw the ball to you. The ball hits you and falls down, because it has also contradictions with the earth (gravity).

We are making this discussion because I am dialectician and you are "non-dialectician", we have opposing ideas on dialectics and therefore having a contradiction between us. This discussion ends when me or you agree that dialectics is true/wrong. I become a "non-dialectician" (falsify the dialectics and change my side) or you become a dialectician (falsify the non-dialecticians and change your side).

I have another example from Marx:

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

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

what do we learn from here?
we learn that there are two types of dialectics.
that Marx uses a dialectic method.
that his dialectic method is the direct opposite of Hegel's. so his and hegel's dialectic method is contradictory.

Marx mentions the obvious contradiction between idealism and materialism here. And he places himself in the materialist side of this contradiction. Why does he call himself as the direct opposite of Hegel? Because Hegel is an anti-materialist and Marx is a materialist.

davidasearles

19th September 2007, 00:12

Volvederbeek wrote:

In every situation where you falsify something, you are also verifying its opposite.

===============
Dave asked:

falsify "something"?? How do you falsify something? Tell lies about it? And what is oposite of "something"?

It seems that (the) schema only works when the "opposite" of a thing is the absence of the thing.

What is opposite of a baseball? Absence of a baseball? If it is, but only if it is,
if I disprove the presence of a baseball (am I) proving the absence of it.

===========
tolstoyevski wrote:

How do we falsify something: If you say there's no exploitation, you falsify the presence of it...

===========
Dave writes:

Then "saying" is the stuff of falsification and verification?

So again I say: Zounds!

tolstoyevski

19th September 2007, 08:38

Dave writes:

Then "saying" is the stuff of falsification and verification?

So again I say: Zounds!

no no, It would be idealism.
I didn't mean you totally destroy exploitation by falsifying it on the linguistic grounds. because you think you have falsified, yet the exploitation still goes on. but it becomes a theory for physical action. so you falsify the theory of capitalists by saying (namely proving) that there is exploitation and that a different society must be built, but the essential falsification of the theory and praxis of capitalists can only be revolution and building a communist society (empirical). because bourgeoisie goes on to produce non-communist theories till you falsify them on the empiric grounds, namely, till you falsify their material conditions (not only their theories and ideas) and abolish them, thus abolish all classes.

davidasearles

19th September 2007, 20:32

tolstoyevski wrote:

it becomes a theory for physical action

Dave writes:

rather it may suggest a hypothesis for effective physical action.

Volderbeek

20th September 2007, 05:15

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 18, 2007 10:33 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 18, 2007 10:33 am)
The verification of the contradiction's contradiction, not the contradiction itself. But otherwise, yeah of course. That's dialectical unity. I see no "dilemma."

This makes about as much sense as if you had randomly typed it; in fact, it would probably have made more sense had you randomly typed it.

How can you distinguish the contradictions inherent in a defective theory from genuine cintradictions?

I contend that you can't.
[/b]
Random? What is that even supposed to mean?

A contradiction is a contradiction. There are no "genuine" ones or fake ones or whatever. You're starting to make very little sense.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)Now, if you are right, then to verify that a cell is alive is to falsify the dialectical claim that it is also dead.[/b]

Exactly. That's how it works. Again, what's the problem?

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
But, as you note, the verification of say L2 automatically falsifies L3, so the conjunction, L1, cannot be true.

That's only because you're fallaciously equating logical conjunction with dialectical unity.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
However, DM is not like any known or conceivable science.

Ok, one more time: DIALECTICS IS NOT A SCIENCE!!!

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
A scientific theory that admitted reality was contradictory would lose its ability to explain the course of events in nature. This is because any theory that contemplated the existence of contradictions everywhere would make it impossible to distinguish confirmation from refutation. If an empirical proposition and its contradictory were both true then confirmation and refutation would become all of a piece.

Let's keep in mind that dialectical unity doesn't claim that you can confirm and refute the same thing at the same time, but rather that when you confirm something, you are refuting its opposite. Again, dialectics is not a scientific theory.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Reality is not "fundamentally contradictory." That's nothing but a strawman. Change is contradictory. When theories no longer contain contradictions, they stop changing. They represent the world in a perfect ideal form.

But, this is irrelevant to the points I made.

Even if reality is not fundamentally contradictiory (but all the DM-classics disagree with you -- see the quotations below), and a theory had in it a contradiction that reflected an alleged contradiction in reality, you would not know whether that was a defect in that theory, or a genuine reflection of reality.

So, this has nothing to do with a theory changing, or otherwise.

It actually has everything to do with a theory changing. If we're following dialectics of course. The theory changes because of its own contradictions. Whenever we improve on a theory (or a theoretical model at least), we're making it better explain the world by resolving its contradictions. The supposed lack of contradictions is an illusion of stasis.

Rosa [email protected]
Anyway, if the world is always changing because of its 'internal contradictions', and every atom in the entire universe is a unity of many different opposites, how can you say that this 'theory' if yours does not imply that reality is fundamentally contradictory?

That has to do with the fuzzy concept of "reality." Someone like you might take it to mean ideas as well and use it to show how non-contradictory everything must be since our theories are. You know anyone like that? :D

Rosa Lichtenstein
[Not doing too well are you?]

Now here's a statement (or a question) that contradicts reality.

Volderbeek

20th September 2007, 05:44

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 13, 2007 05:41 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 13, 2007 05:41 am)VB, beginning to lose it:[/b]

Yeah, talking to the wall is quite frustrating...

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)
WTF are you talking about?! Show me just one example where I "put words" in either Marx's or your mouth.

Ok, here:

Unity of Opposites: the existence of both is necessary

Negation of Negation: the second is necessary because the first's contradictions force it to change[/b]

I think I made it quite clear I was interpreting here. There's more than enough evidence to suggest dialectical methodology at work in that paragraph.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
And with respect to my good self:

Ha! I thought you were saying the core was that long paragraph you keep quoting. Seems you can't even keep your lies straight anymore.

You can't keep your lies straight. This is yet another example. On separate occasions, and depending on what (fabricated) point you were trying to make, you claimed the rational core of the dialectic method referenced by Marx to be nothing but Hegelian jargon and also that Russian review you claim to be historical materialism. So which is it? Not to mention the ramifications involved if the rational core is historical materialism (even though that's dialectics applied to history anyway).

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
And now we find this half-dried bogey daubed across our screens:

I encourage you not to pursue a career in comedy...

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
Where do I say, or even hint, that this whacko 'theory' of yours 'caused' Marxism to fail?

Here:

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor [to the failure of Marxism].

Rosa [email protected]
Z says the same things as you, so does Axel and the other mystics at RevLeft. You are in company with the Maoists and the born again Stalinists, the trots and the libertarian commmunists, the neo-trots and reconstructed Leninists: whatever differences you all have among yourselves, you all defend your precious dialectic in identical ways, as if to prove the law of identity works at least here.

Since they're all communists, I would think so.

Rosa Lichtenstein
Failing to note, of course, that history has already refuted Dialectical 'Marxism'.

Which is all Marxism since Marx was a dialectician. Not being a Marxist myself, I would tend to agree.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th September 2007, 07:05

VB:

Random? What is that even supposed to mean?

Look it up; I can't be expected to do all your thinking for you.

A contradiction is a contradiction. There are no "genuine" ones or fake ones or whatever. You're starting to make very little sense.

Maybe so, but you mystics do not seem to be able to identify them too well.

Exactly. That's how it works. Again, what's the problem?

As I noted, you just do not get it do you?

Fair enough, stay ignorant.

That's only because you're fallaciously equating logical conjunction with dialectical unity.

Dialectical what...?

Ok, one more time: DIALECTICS IS NOT A SCIENCE!!!

We both agree on that, but I thnik Engels, Lenin and the rest thought it was.

I am happy to see you mystics disagree.

Let's keep in mind that dialectical unity doesn't claim that you can confirm and refute the same thing at the same time, but rather that when you confirm something, you are refuting its opposite. Again, dialectics is not a scientific theory.

Correct, it is just a jumble of confusion, one which no one has been able to explain for 200 years.

So, you stand no chance.

Which is all Marxism since Marx was a dialectician. Not being a Marxist myself, I would tend to agree.

In that case, let's get you to agree that history has refuted dialectics.

And, as we have seen, Marx rejected this loopy theory too.

Rosa Lichtenstein

20th September 2007, 07:20

VB:

Yeah, talking to the wall is quite frustrating...

Can I suggest you seek professional help, then?

I think I made it quite clear I was interpreting here. There's more than enough evidence to suggest dialectical methodology at work in that paragraph.

Only if you invent.

I note you did not quote the exact words that suggest 'dialectics' at work.

No mention of unity of opposites, contradictions or the negation of the negation.

You can't keep your lies straight. This is yet another example. On separate occasions, and depending on what (fabricated) point you were trying to make, you claimed the rational core of the dialectic method referenced by Marx to be nothing but Hegelian jargon and also that Russian review you claim to be historical materialism. So which is it? Not to mention the ramifications involved if the rational core is historical materialism (even though that's dialectics applied to history anyway).

I am quite happy to call what Marx did in capital 'dialectics' if every scrap of Hegel is removed.

The problem is that you mystics keep trying to squeeze the unity of opposites, contradictions and the negation of the negation back in -- as you tried to do too.

In that case, if that is how the word is used, I deny he used the dialectical method.

It all depends on how that word is interpreted.

So, no lies there at all.

I encourage you not to pursue a career in comedy...

Yes, and you will provide me with most of my material.

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor [to the failure of Marxism].

I note you inserted the last phrase.

I am very careful to say that it has contributed to the failure of Dialectical Marxism, not Marxism.

And a contributory cause is not the cause, as you asserted I had said.

So, you are the liar.

It actually has everything to do with a theory changing. If we're following dialectics of course. The theory changes because of its own contradictions. Whenever we improve on a theory (or a theoretical model at least), we're making it better explain the world by resolving its contradictions. The supposed lack of contradictions is an illusion of stasis.

In that case, you cannot distinguish between a genuine contradiction in reality from that contained by a defective theory.

That has to do with the fuzzy concept of "reality." Someone like you might take it to mean ideas as well and use it to show how non-contradictory everything must be since our theories are. You know anyone like that?

Eh? :blink:

Now here's a statement (or a question) that contradicts reality.

Which just goes to show that you do not even know what a discursive contradiction is, let alone one drawn from formal logic.

davidasearles

22nd September 2007, 13:37

Volvederbeek wrote:

In every situation where you falsify something, you are also verifying its opposite.

Dave asked: falsify "something"?? How do you falsify something? Tell lies about it? And what is opposite "something"?

It seems that your schema only works when the "opposite" of a thing is the absence of the thing.

What is opposite of a baseball? Absence of a baseball? If it is, but only if it is,
if I disprove the presence of a baseball I am proving the absence of it.

Zounds!

tolstoyevski wrote:

How do we falsify something: If you say there's no exploitation, you falsify the presence of it and therefore verify(maybe approve is a better word) its opposite…

…

The opposite of baseball is, yes, its absence.
But not only. In fact, the opposite of the baseball is every non-baseball.

dave comments:

So IF Volvederbeek and tolstoyevski are at all consistent then to falsify the existence of a baseball in my locker is to “approve” the existence of everything else in the universe in my locker.

Huh!?

I must admit that sometimes it does seem that everything else in the universe except a baseball is in my locker when I am looking for a baseball – the miracle of dialectical thought actually approves this notion.

Again I say zounds!

Rosa, do you see what you have been missing out on? You could go into detective work. Look in the bottom right hand drawer of your desk and falsify the existence of Jimmie Hoffa there. Well then lo and behold, you have then just “approved” the existence of Amelia Earhart there!

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits."

Rosa Lichtenstein

22nd September 2007, 14:57

David:

Rosa, do you see what you have been missing out on? You could go into detective work. Look in the bottom right hand drawer of your desk and falsify the existence of Jimmie Hoffa there. Well then lo and behold, you have then just “approved” the existence of Amelia Earhart there!

I am not sure what you are driving at here David, since only propositions can be falsified, and the existence of Hoffa is not one of those.

davidasearles

22nd September 2007, 19:12

Rosa wrote:

only propositions can be falsified, and the existence of Hoffa is not one of those.

Dave writes: One would think, but who are we? But not according to volderbeek and trotskievski. According to them things like baseballs are also subject to verification/falsification.

And have it your way though. The proposition is that the body of Jimmi Hoffa is in your lower right hand drawer. By falsifying that proposition, the proposition of the existence of Amelia Earheart in that drawer is verified. (or is it approved?)

You think that I'm getting at anything? Hell no. I'm just trying to follow their logic. Or would logic have some parallel form in dialectical land?

Rosa Lichtenstein

22nd September 2007, 19:50

Ok, I see what you mean! :)

About their logic, why do you think my motto is this?

"Hegelism is like a mental disease -- you cannot know what it is until you get it, and then you can't know because you have got it." Max Eastman

Is it any wonder, with these guys running Marxist parties, that Dialectical Marxism has been such a long-term failure?

mikelepore

23rd September 2007, 00:27

Rosa, why isn't a statement that a certain person exists a falsifiable proposition?

---

Post edited a half-hour later: I think I know the answer to my own question. A claim of existence is a "some" or "can" type of statement (it can be found). I believe that statements of the form "can do" or "some are" can be verified by not falsified, while statements of the form "all", none", "never", "can't do" can be falsified but not verified.

"Some alkanes are flammable" -- that can be verified but not falsified. "All alkanes are flammable" -- than can be falsified but not verified.

Rosa Lichtenstein

23rd September 2007, 00:47

Well, it is, because that statement expresses a proposition.

But, you might like to know that this is a classic problem which some even now think is unfalsifiable when expressed propositionally.

The reason is as follows.

Suppose we want to know if a character called 'Alaf P Dossier' exists or not (this was in fact a name invented as a prank at the university I attended in order to mess around with the university authorities).

Take the sentence: A1 'Alaf P Dossier exists.'

Well, if he exists then that name names him. So we have a clear understanding of what would make A1 true.

But, conversely, in the case of its falehood there seem to be serious problems, for if this guy does not exist then that name names no one, and the sentence becomes neither true nor false (for it is now not about anyone -- or it is not clear who it is about).

So A1 cannot be false, only true!

But that is unacceptable, for it would mean that any name could be inserted into any such propositional context just in order for it to be true, and a truth about reality would follow from the mere invention of a name!

This puzzle has worried philosophers for some time (but disguised partly as a problem over the nature of the rather odd predicate '...exists'), and it underpins (or some of its corrollaries underpin) several arguments for the existence of God.

Indeed, it is arguable that a certain way of answering this question helped to kick start analytic philosophy.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existence/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell

http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/cgi/view...=russelljournal (http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1927&context=russelljournal)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-atomism/

Rosa Lichtenstein

23rd September 2007, 00:51

Well, a proposition of the form "Some A is F" is falsified if "No A is F" can be shown to be true.

Now that is technically falsifiable, even if it is never actually falsified.

Similarly "All As are F" is false just in case "Some A is not F" is true.

That yields the same result as before, since it is now falsifiable even if it might never be falsified.

McCaine

23rd September 2007, 01:46

RL, while I agree with the general purpose and idea of your rejection of dialectics, I think you're basing the claim that Marx "rejected the loopy theory" on far too little evidence. What we have in Marx' work is a vast amount of Hegelian talk and general vocabulary in the style of German idealism, and we have exactly one statement where he says he declared himself an adherent of Hegel and 'cocquetted' with his jargon. I don't see how this shows the preponderance of the evidence to be in favor of the idea that Marx rejected Hegelianism.

mikelepore

23rd September 2007, 04:44

I would have thought that such rules were not intended to refer to cases of exhaustive search, but to refer to what we can learn from a sampling -- if we had chosen to describe the process of learning about reality empirically. To say "all swans are white", that's falsified at once by finding one black swan. A small sample may have done the job. I would initially say that it's not verifiable. I would be wrong in a literal sense; it's verifiable by being certain that we have checked every swan in the world.

Rosa Lichtenstein

23rd September 2007, 05:13

McCaine, that is not strictly correct we have a summary of his method (as Marx himself called it), written by a reviewer, which contains no Hegelian words, ideas or concepts.

In addition, we have the sorts of things Marx said about Philosophy in general (check out the thread on this in this section -- link below) and Hegel in particular that suggest I am on the right lines -- and there is plenty of indirect evidence too.

You need to vist my site, and read Essay Nine Part One to see all my evidence and argument.

But, even if it were possible to show I am in error here, that would not change my views of this mystical theory.

All that it would mean is that Marx's reputation would suffer as a result.

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=71114

Rosa Lichtenstein

23rd September 2007, 05:15

Mikelepore, which is one reason why Popper advocated falsification as a better criterion.

Connolly

25th September 2007, 19:39

This has probably been already posted somewhere, and I would rather not create an entire thread for the link, but I found this just a second ago...Rosa in the Weekly Worker (CPGB).

http://cpgb.org.uk/worker/688/dialetics.htm

Fair play Rosa :D

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th September 2007, 20:09

Yes I posted that link a week or so ago -- but then changed it to this (because of the scurrilous attack on the SWP and John Rees in that issue of the paper):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/disclaimer.htm

And, good to see you back RB!

davidasearles

25th September 2007, 23:30

Mike asked Rosa:

Rosa, why isn't a statement that a certain person exists a falsifiable proposition?

Dave writes:

You came in on the middle on this I think. Roll the tape back and

Volvederbeek had written:

"In every situation where you falsify something, you are also verifying its opposite."

And then I wrote:

What is opposite of a baseball? Absence of a baseball? If it is, but only if it is,
if I disprove the presence of a baseball I am proving the absence of it.

(this is out of context it would have more correct to have stated If it is, but only if it is, if I disprove the presence of a baseball am I proving it's opposite.)

And tolstoyevski then wrote:

"The opposite of baseball is, yes, its absence.
But not only. In fact, the opposite of the baseball is every non-baseball."

That's when I made my statement that ZOUNDS if one disproved the existence of Jimmy Hoffa in their desk drawer then that proves or approve the existence of Amelia Earheart.

I think that Rosa was thrown off a bit. But No I didn't state it as a proposition but of course practically any assertion can be re-worded into one.

Verification and logic are like the plague to them.

mikelepore

26th September 2007, 03:03

Rosa, by the way, I read your web site about a year ago. I appreciate all your work. In my younger days I thought Engels' Anti-Duhring and The Dialectics of Nature were the greatest. A few years ago, while returning to the university for the third time to study more physics, I suddenly recognized so much mysticism and fallacy in the 19th century books that I used to think were scientific.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 11:03

Ok, but fortunately, I never went through that phase; just as soon as I read anything by Engels on science or philosophy, particularly the latter, I could see he didn't have a clue.

And since last year, I have published another ten or more Essays. They total over one million words now.

McCaine

26th September 2007, 11:16

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 23, 2007 04:13 am
McCaine, that is not strictly correct we have a summary of his method (as Marx himself called it), written by a reviewer, which contains no Hegelian words, ideas or concepts.

In addition, we have the sorts of things Marx said about Philosophy in general (check out the thread on this in this section -- link below) and Hegel in particular that suggest I am on the right lines -- and there is plenty of indirect evidence too.

You need to vist my site, and read Essay Nine Part One to see all my evidence and argument.

But, even if it were possible to show I am in error here, that would not change my views of this mystical theory.

All that it would mean is that Marx's reputation would suffer as a result.

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=71114
Yes I have seen your site and read it (long as your essays are). I think a lot of your evidence on Marx' stance is circumstantial and debatable, though, and you seem to leave out circumstantial evidence that would reason against you (not that I blame you for that). Like I said, I agree with you on most of the anti-dialectical arguments, except for a few, but I don't think we can state with any certainty how important Marx thought "dialectics" was. I don't really think it matters either; after all, what matters is what we think is correct based on our information now, not what some holy writ says about it.

What I wanted to ask you though, although it might be off-topic here, is why in precisely that essay 9 you insist on using the direct class-based analysis of someone's ideological position. Surely if you see dialectics as mystical nonsense, then such a completely vapid and unsupported theory as a direct class position-theoretical views relation, which neither Marx and Engels themselves ever supported nor Plekhanov, Kautsky, or any other of the second generation people would not appeal to you? I was really kind of surprised by that. To me, the idea that people say things just because their dad happened to have owned a shoe store is precisely DiaMat crap we would do well to lose.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 11:16

David:

I think that Rosa was thrown off a bit. But No I didn't state it as a proposition but of course practically any assertion can be re-worded into one.

I do not know why you think I was "thrown off a bit". I have seen practically every idiotic thing these mystics have to say, so nothing surprises me any more.

Do not be misled by the rhetorical flourishes I use against them -- I know exactly what winds them up, and that is practically all I do with them now.

As I have said before many times; twenty-odd years ago I realised it was a waste of time arguing with these mystics, just as it is a waste of time arguing with born again Christian nutters.

They see the world in one way, and one way only, and it provides them with consolation for the fact that Dialectical Marxism is an abject failure. And it is impossible to get past that. So, they respond emotively to every attack on their 'theory', no matter if that attack is calm and reasoned, or is aggressive. And they all ignore what they cannot answer. [You can see that in these threads.]

I first of all tried the former approach, and received nothing but wall-to-wall abuse and invective -- seasoned with no little scatological language --, for my pains, so I now adopt the latter strategy.

Max Eastman's words (below) now sum up my attitude to them all.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 11:24

McCaine, I largely agree with you, that is why I say in Essay Nine Part One:

I do not propose to enter into the debate whether or not Marx himself agreed with Engels that there is a dialectic at work in nature. The few scattered remarks that are usually dredged up to suggest that he did are far from conclusive, especially since most of them occur in footnotes, prefaces, asides and afterthoughts (etc.) -- as Terrell Carver notes:

"It is interesting that the major texts by Marx that are cited in conjunction with Engels' claims are often footnotes and tangential remarks. The 1859 preface, for example, contains a 'guiding thread,' which Engels re-voiced as a lapidary doctrine, beginning with his book review of the same year. Marx himself consigned these few sentences of text to a footnote to Capital, volume 1, surely not the place for one of the scientific discoveries of the age. Originally it came from a hastily drafted preface and was intended merely to guide the reader; as a footnote to another text it seems exactly that, a footnote…. There may be a highly ironic authorial strategy in Marx that reverses footnotes to texts in terms of speaking to the reader, but as a way of reading Marx, in my view, this focus on footnotes and odd sentences tends toward the cabalistic.

"References to Hegel are similarly cast by Marx himself in a prefatory and comparative vein, typically in the second preface to Capital, volume 1, in which he comments at length on someone else's (a Russian reviewer's) comparison of his (Marx's) method to the one employed by 'that mighty thinker' (Hegel). There are few references indeed to 'dialectic' in Marx, and none to its centrality to explaining anything and everything (Carver 1981, ch.5). Marx merely comments that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian terminology in the opening chapters of Capital, volume 1, and makes a limited number of qualified comparisons elsewhere in the text. My point here with respect to commentators is that these remarks and passages are not so much 'taken out of context' as put into a context supplied by the Engelsian tradition…." [Carver (1999), pp.25-26.]

This whole issue has been debated at length many times. The case against the 'received' view can be found in Carver (1980, 1981, 1983, 1984a, 1984b, 1989, 1998a, 1998b, 1999). See also Jordan (1967), Levine (1975, 1984).

The 'orthodox' view (that Marx and Engels were in total agreement on everything, possibly even over their favourite colour) can be found in Novack (1978), pp.85-115, Rees (1994), pp.48-56, and Sheehan (1993), pp.48-64. Cf., also Stanley and Zimmerman (1984) and Welty (1983).

A thorough survey of the entire matter can be found in Rigby (1992, 1998), with a brief overview in Rigby (1999). In fact, Rigby argues rather forcefully in favour of the 'orthodox' interpretation, but he does this only so that he can then use it as a stick with which to beat HM. Nevertheless, Rigby's arguments are far from conclusive themselves since he manifestly relies on the aforementioned scattered remarks, footnotes, asides and peripheral comments to make his case....

Admittedly, it would greatly assist the case being presented in this Essay if it could be shown that Marx did not accept DM; it would at least absolve him of any connection with what are manifestly non-sensical theses. It is difficult to believe that a first-rate revolutionary and thinker of genius, like Marx, assented to doctrines that would give the phrase "fourth-rate" a bad name. However, since there seems to be no conclusive evidence either way, it would be unwise to draw any firm opinions on this matter. [However, see Note 16, below.]

Fortunately, the case against DM is not affected by an answer to the above question. The truth of DM is no less unbelievable if Marx had accepted it. It's just that Marx's stature would suffer somewhat if that were the case.

But, we do have hard evidence that Marx was in the process of abandoning Hegel completely by the time he wrote Capital -- i.e., his own words (posted earlier in this thread).

Sure, these can be twisted in any which way one pleases, and I bend them in my direction since I am trying to rescue him from accusations of mysticism, and remove the influence of Hegel on Marxism for good.

What I wanted to ask you though, although it might be off-topic here, is why in precisely that essay 9 you insist on using the direct class-based analysis of someone's ideological position. Surely if you see dialectics as mystical nonsense, then such a completely vapid and unsupported theory as a direct class position-theoretical views relation, which neither Marx and Engels themselves ever supported nor Plekhanov, Kautsky, or any other of the second generation people would not appeal to you? I was really kind of surprised by that. To me, the idea that people say things just because their dad happened to have owned a shoe store is precisely DiaMat crap we would do well to lose.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 11:25

McCaine, I largely agree with you, that is why I say in Essay Nine Part One, Note 6:

I do not propose to enter into the debate whether or not Marx himself agreed with Engels that there is a dialectic at work in nature. The few scattered remarks that are usually dredged up to suggest that he did are far from conclusive, especially since most of them occur in footnotes, prefaces, asides and afterthoughts (etc.) -- as Terrell Carver notes:

"It is interesting that the major texts by Marx that are cited in conjunction with Engels' claims are often footnotes and tangential remarks. The 1859 preface, for example, contains a 'guiding thread,' which Engels re-voiced as a lapidary doctrine, beginning with his book review of the same year. Marx himself consigned these few sentences of text to a footnote to Capital, volume 1, surely not the place for one of the scientific discoveries of the age. Originally it came from a hastily drafted preface and was intended merely to guide the reader; as a footnote to another text it seems exactly that, a footnote…. There may be a highly ironic authorial strategy in Marx that reverses footnotes to texts in terms of speaking to the reader, but as a way of reading Marx, in my view, this focus on footnotes and odd sentences tends toward the cabalistic.

"References to Hegel are similarly cast by Marx himself in a prefatory and comparative vein, typically in the second preface to Capital, volume 1, in which he comments at length on someone else's (a Russian reviewer's) comparison of his (Marx's) method to the one employed by 'that mighty thinker' (Hegel). There are few references indeed to 'dialectic' in Marx, and none to its centrality to explaining anything and everything (Carver 1981, ch.5). Marx merely comments that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian terminology in the opening chapters of Capital, volume 1, and makes a limited number of qualified comparisons elsewhere in the text. My point here with respect to commentators is that these remarks and passages are not so much 'taken out of context' as put into a context supplied by the Engelsian tradition…." [Carver (1999), pp.25-26.]

This whole issue has been debated at length many times. The case against the 'received' view can be found in Carver (1980, 1981, 1983, 1984a, 1984b, 1989, 1998a, 1998b, 1999). See also Jordan (1967), Levine (1975, 1984).

The 'orthodox' view (that Marx and Engels were in total agreement on everything, possibly even over their favourite colour) can be found in Novack (1978), pp.85-115, Rees (1994), pp.48-56, and Sheehan (1993), pp.48-64. Cf., also Stanley and Zimmerman (1984) and Welty (1983).

A thorough survey of the entire matter can be found in Rigby (1992, 1998), with a brief overview in Rigby (1999). In fact, Rigby argues rather forcefully in favour of the 'orthodox' interpretation, but he does this only so that he can then use it as a stick with which to beat HM. Nevertheless, Rigby's arguments are far from conclusive themselves since he manifestly relies on the aforementioned scattered remarks, footnotes, asides and peripheral comments to make his case....

Admittedly, it would greatly assist the case being presented in this Essay if it could be shown that Marx did not accept DM; it would at least absolve him of any connection with what are manifestly non-sensical theses. It is difficult to believe that a first-rate revolutionary and thinker of genius, like Marx, assented to doctrines that would give the phrase "fourth-rate" a bad name. However, since there seems to be no conclusive evidence either way, it would be unwise to draw any firm opinions on this matter. [However, see Note 16, below.]

The references and context can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm

[HM = Historical Materialism; DM = Dialectical Materialism]

Fortunately, the case against DM is not affected by an answer to the above question. The truth of DM is no less unbelievable if Marx had accepted it. It's just that Marx's stature would suffer somewhat if that were the case.

But, we do have hard evidence that Marx was in the process of abandoning Hegel completely by the time he wrote Capital -- i.e., his own words (posted earlier in this thread).

Sure, these can be twisted in any which way one pleases, and I bend them in my direction since I am trying to rescue him from accusations of mysticism, and remove the influence of Hegel on Marxism for good.

What I wanted to ask you though, although it might be off-topic here, is why in precisely that essay 9 you insist on using the direct class-based analysis of someone's ideological position. Surely if you see dialectics as mystical nonsense, then such a completely vapid and unsupported theory as a direct class position-theoretical views relation, which neither Marx and Engels themselves ever supported nor Plekhanov, Kautsky, or any other of the second generation people would not appeal to you? I was really kind of surprised by that. To me, the idea that people say things just because their dad happened to have owned a shoe store is precisely DiaMat crap we would do well to lose.

Sorry, I could not follow what you were saying here; some of your sentences seem to go badly wrong.

I go into the class origins of this 'theory' in Essay Twelve Parts Two to Six (not published yet) and in Essay Fourteen Parts One and Two (ditto). Summaries can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/essay_...een%20Index.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/essay_sixteen%20Index.htm)

I only precis them in Essay Nine Parts One and Two.

Now all this forms part of my overall thesis that traditional philosophy is nonsensical from beginning to end, and not just DM, and that this form of ruling-class ideology can be traced back (in the west) to clearly identifiable moves made by ruling class hacks in early Greek society (6th to the 4th century BC).

So, my attack on DM is just part of my attack on ruling-class ideology in general, an important part of which is traditional Philosophy.

This will be set out in detail in Essay Twelve when it is complete (and that will take me another two or three years to do).

McCaine

26th September 2007, 11:54

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 26, 2007 10:25 am
McCaine, I largely agree with you, that is why I say in Essay Nine Part One, Note 6:

I do not propose to enter into the debate whether or not Marx himself agreed with Engels that there is a dialectic at work in nature. The few scattered remarks that are usually dredged up to suggest that he did are far from conclusive, especially since most of them occur in footnotes, prefaces, asides and afterthoughts (etc.) -- as Terrell Carver notes:

"It is interesting that the major texts by Marx that are cited in conjunction with Engels' claims are often footnotes and tangential remarks. The 1859 preface, for example, contains a 'guiding thread,' which Engels re-voiced as a lapidary doctrine, beginning with his book review of the same year. Marx himself consigned these few sentences of text to a footnote to Capital, volume 1, surely not the place for one of the scientific discoveries of the age. Originally it came from a hastily drafted preface and was intended merely to guide the reader; as a footnote to another text it seems exactly that, a footnote…. There may be a highly ironic authorial strategy in Marx that reverses footnotes to texts in terms of speaking to the reader, but as a way of reading Marx, in my view, this focus on footnotes and odd sentences tends toward the cabalistic.

"References to Hegel are similarly cast by Marx himself in a prefatory and comparative vein, typically in the second preface to Capital, volume 1, in which he comments at length on someone else's (a Russian reviewer's) comparison of his (Marx's) method to the one employed by 'that mighty thinker' (Hegel). There are few references indeed to 'dialectic' in Marx, and none to its centrality to explaining anything and everything (Carver 1981, ch.5). Marx merely comments that he 'coquetted' with Hegelian terminology in the opening chapters of Capital, volume 1, and makes a limited number of qualified comparisons elsewhere in the text. My point here with respect to commentators is that these remarks and passages are not so much 'taken out of context' as put into a context supplied by the Engelsian tradition…." [Carver (1999), pp.25-26.]

This whole issue has been debated at length many times. The case against the 'received' view can be found in Carver (1980, 1981, 1983, 1984a, 1984b, 1989, 1998a, 1998b, 1999). See also Jordan (1967), Levine (1975, 1984).

The 'orthodox' view (that Marx and Engels were in total agreement on everything, possibly even over their favourite colour) can be found in Novack (1978), pp.85-115, Rees (1994), pp.48-56, and Sheehan (1993), pp.48-64. Cf., also Stanley and Zimmerman (1984) and Welty (1983).

A thorough survey of the entire matter can be found in Rigby (1992, 1998), with a brief overview in Rigby (1999). In fact, Rigby argues rather forcefully in favour of the 'orthodox' interpretation, but he does this only so that he can then use it as a stick with which to beat HM. Nevertheless, Rigby's arguments are far from conclusive themselves since he manifestly relies on the aforementioned scattered remarks, footnotes, asides and peripheral comments to make his case....

Admittedly, it would greatly assist the case being presented in this Essay if it could be shown that Marx did not accept DM; it would at least absolve him of any connection with what are manifestly non-sensical theses. It is difficult to believe that a first-rate revolutionary and thinker of genius, like Marx, assented to doctrines that would give the phrase "fourth-rate" a bad name. However, since there seems to be no conclusive evidence either way, it would be unwise to draw any firm opinions on this matter. [However, see Note 16, below.]

The references and context can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm

[HM = Historical Materialism; DM = Dialectical Materialism]

Fortunately, the case against DM is not affected by an answer to the above question. The truth of DM is no less unbelievable if Marx had accepted it. It's just that Marx's stature would suffer somewhat if that were the case.

But, we do have hard evidence that Marx was in the process of abandoning Hegel completely by the time he wrote Capital -- i.e., his own words (posted earlier in this thread).

Sure, these can be twisted in any which way one pleases, and I bend them in my direction since I am trying to rescue him from accusations of mysticism, and remove the influence of Hegel on Marxism for good.

What I wanted to ask you though, although it might be off-topic here, is why in precisely that essay 9 you insist on using the direct class-based analysis of someone's ideological position. Surely if you see dialectics as mystical nonsense, then such a completely vapid and unsupported theory as a direct class position-theoretical views relation, which neither Marx and Engels themselves ever supported nor Plekhanov, Kautsky, or any other of the second generation people would not appeal to you? I was really kind of surprised by that. To me, the idea that people say things just because their dad happened to have owned a shoe store is precisely DiaMat crap we would do well to lose.

Sorry, I could not follow what you were saying here; some of your sentences seem to go badly wrong.

I go into the class origins of this 'theory' in Essay Twelve Parts Two to Six (not published yet) and in Essay Fourteen Parts One and Two (ditto). Summaries can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/essay_...een%20Index.htm (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/essay_sixteen%20Index.htm)

I only precis them in Essay Nine Parts One and Two.

Now all this forms part of my overall thesis that traditional philosophy is nonsensical from beginning to end, and not just DM, and that this form of ruling-class ideology can be traced back (in the west) to clearly identifiable moves made by ruling class hacks in early Greek society (6th to the 4th century BC).

So, my attack on DM is just part of my attack on ruling-class ideology in general, an important part of which is traditional Philosophy.

This will be set out in detail in Essay Twelve when it is complete (and that will take me another two or three years to do).
Yeah apologies for the warped English, I'm quite tired and then my foreign language skills deteriorate. I also make my sentences too long. You do seem to have gotten the gist of what I wanted to say though.

I did see your dissection of Lenin's metaphysics in that silly work on "empirio-criticism". I've always thought that a remarkably stupid move by Lenin - it served no purpose and was quite beyond his philosophical skill. I don't really see the point of your mini-history of philosophy there though. Just like with what I tried to say about the shoe store, it seems a series of pointless ad hominem attacks to me. Moreover, you leave out all the necessary connections to make the argument make sense. You skip from the Presocratics to the Hermetic tradition and then on to Feuerbach, basically throwing all pre-Wittgensteinian philosophy together as one big 'idealist' mess, propagated on behalf of the ruling class. I really doubt that you can prove this to be true in any meaningful sense, especially given the vastly varied class background of different thinkers and their opposition to one another. I'm inclined to side with Rorty against the entire tradition of representation and epistemology, but I think Rorty's arguments succeed in being more than just attacks on the person rather than the theory, which is what I see your essay doing. So I'm not sure what exactly you want to prove about dialectics with it (or about historical materialism for that matter)?

As for Carver, I have serious disagreements with his interpretation of the relation between Marx and Engels, but I won't go into that here as that gets too much like exegesis.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 12:20

McCaine, it looks like you have read my summaries, and have taken those for a statement of my full case.

May I suggest you resist the tempatation to do that.

And the reason I attack Lenin's hopeless book is that I am aiming all my remarks at those who think it a wonderful work, not that they will listen.

And, ad hominen arguments are sometimes OK.

I do not know why you think otherwise.

As I have said on another thread:

The above 'fallacy' is what we call an 'informal fallacy'. In other words it is not strictly one at all, it is just an unfair argumentative move, in many cases.

And it is not difficult to see why: if you want to show that someone is arguing inconsistently, or duplicitously, or from ignorance, then you 'argue to the man' -- ad hominem.

So, when George W Bush complains about the use of 'force for political ends', it is to the point to argue back that he has no room to talk.

As far as your point about varied class backgrounds of different thinkers is concerned, I answer that one in Essay Nine. You must have missed it.

McCaine

26th September 2007, 14:00

McCaine, it looks like you have read my summaries, and have taken those for a statement of my full case.

May I suggest you resist the tempatation to do that.Ok, then I will wait for a more expanded explanation.

And the reason I attack Lenin's hopeless book is that I am aiming all my remarks at those who think it a wonderful work, not that they will listen.Fair enough, I suppose.

And, ad hominen arguments are sometimes OK.

I do not know why you think otherwise.

As I have said on another thread:Pointing out inconsistency isn't really an ad hominem argument - but pointing to someone's family background certainly is. In any case it's not very relevant. Who cares if Engels was from a factory owning family? Does that make a word of his more, or less, true just for that?

As far as your point about varied class backgrounds of different thinkers is concerned, I answer that one in Essay Nine. You must have missed it.No you don't answer that, at least not remotely satisfactorily. I liked the part where you attempt to show that dialectics comes to socialists during bad times, since that at least has some basic plausibility (though I still doubt its relevance or how you would prove it). But the rest is just a lot of assertions about how people who support dialectics do so because they aren't workers, without a iot of proof to show for it. You might as well say that they accept dialectics because they're male, which the vast majority of revolutionaries also happened to be. You arbitrarily assert that "the workers don't dream up this nonsense", ignoring of course the vast amount of mystical crap adhered to and supported by workers all over the world, the vast majority of which are probably religious. Equally, pro-dialectics people are apparently bad because they "think like individuals". Indeed, how else would they think? With a hive-mind? And then you claim it's because they don't know any formal logic. But do you think the average Ford plant worker knows formal logic? Surely educated people like Marx, Engels and Lenin knew more formal logic than the average worker does, even if the 20th century logical empiricist tradition hadn't been invented yet. And it just goes on like that. I don't like dialectics, but I don't like your way of reasoning either.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 14:23

McCaine:

Pointing out inconsistency isn't really an ad hominem argument - but pointing to someone's family background certainly is. In any case it's not very relevant. Who cares if Engels was from a factory owning family? Does that make a word of his more, or less, true just for that?

I agree with you, but as soon as I try to do that, I get accused of arguing ad hominen.

And Engels's class origins are important, unless you disagree with Marx:

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." [Marx (1859), p.181.]

Marx, K. (1859), 'Preface' to 'A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'.

No you don't answer that, at least not remotely satisfactorily. I liked the part where you attempt to show that dialectics comes to socialists during bad times, since that at least has some basic plausibility (though I still doubt its relevance or how you would prove it). But the rest is just a lot of assertions about how people who support dialectics do so because they aren't workers, without a iot of proof to show for it. You might as well say that they accept dialectics because they're male, which the vast majority of revolutionaries also happened to be. You arbitrarily assert that "the workers don't dream up this nonsense", ignoring of course the vast amount of mystical crap adhered to and supported by workers all over the world, the vast majority of which are probably religious. Equally, pro-dialectics people are apparently bad because they "think like individuals". Indeed, how else would they think? With a hive-mind? And then you claim it's because they don't know any formal logic. But do you think the average Ford plant worker knows formal logic? Surely educated people like Marx, Engels and Lenin knew more formal logic than the average worker does, even if the 20th century logical empiricist tradition hadn't been invented yet. And it just goes on like that. I don't like dialectics, but I don't like your way of reasoning either.

Forgive me for saying this, but that was not the original point. The latter was this:

I really doubt that you can prove this to be true in any meaningful sense, especially given the vastly varied class background of different thinkers and their opposition to one another.

Which I did respond to.

Some of these latest allegations are certainly correct, but since I will be addressing them in Essay Fourteen Parts One and Two, you are a little previous once again.

And, since you seem to have a penchant for summarising my ideas rather badly, I do not wonder you do not like them.

For example, I do not know what this has got to do with anything I have said, or implied:

And then you claim it's because they don't know any formal logic. But do you think the average Ford plant worker knows formal logic? Surely educated people like Marx, Engels and Lenin knew more formal logic than the average worker does, even if the 20th century logical empiricist tradition hadn't been invented yet. And it just goes on like that. I don't like dialectics, but I don't like your way of reasoning either.

What I do say is that their ignorance of logic means they are in no place to criticise it.

And as for this:

Equally, pro-dialectics people are apparently bad because they "think like individuals". Indeed, how else would they think? With a hive-mind?

This is a gross distortion of my argument.

What I actually argue is that their class origin and eductation pre-disposes them to bourgeois individualism, whereas the collective experience of workers predisposes them in the opposite dirtection.

Now, you need to address what I actually say, not what you think I can be made to say.

awayish

26th September 2007, 19:47

didn't read the thread, did read a bit of dialectical thought. what i see is that, it 'could' work, so long as substantive work is done. very often, great points are made on patterns and such, but, so what. i can understand you fine, but i do not see the point. not all narratives are productive at a particular task. such as, telling me how to cook fish or convince people to value socialism.

the more interesting dialectical observations look like psychological observations in nonpsychological language. it sketches the outlook or 'spirit' with the language that is expressive of the structural contours of various ideas (like, discoursive logic), but only the contour and surface impression.

dialectics taken as a rigorous discipline should seek to justify its moves with something more concretely determined or true.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 19:54

I am sorry, awayish, as we have shown in many threads here, dialectics does not work, whatever is done to it.

awayish

26th September 2007, 19:57

well, taken as a doctrine, it is not working, but no dialectician really only does dialectics. they write other things in their books. pseudo-science with great energy!

there is this phrase, 'dissolve oneself,' ok, beautiful picture, the only way it could have been said. then that is taken to be causative of a variety of other things, and this raises alarms.

Volderbeek

26th September 2007, 22:26

[Now that the forum stopped shitting the bed, I can get back to my defense of dialectics! Perhaps this deserves its own topic...]

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 20, 2007 02:05 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 20, 2007 02:05 am)
Let's keep in mind that dialectical unity doesn't claim that you can confirm and refute the same thing at the same time, but rather that when you confirm something, you are refuting its opposite. Again, dialectics is not a scientific theory.

Correct, it is just a jumble of confusion, one which no one has been able to explain for 200 years.

So, you stand no chance.[/b]

What's so confusing about that? Makes perfect sense to me.

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected]

Which is all Marxism since Marx was a dialectician. Not being a Marxist myself, I would tend to agree.

In that case, let's get you to agree that history has refuted dialectics.

Well, I'm not necessarily against Marxist theory when it comes to description, but rather when it comes to prescription.

Rosa Lichtenstein
And, as we have seen, Marx rejected this loopy theory too.

Hard to reject something that is the core of your method.

davidasearles

26th September 2007, 22:38

Rosa wrote:

I am sorry, awayish, as we have shown in many threads here, dialectics does not work, whatever is done to it.

dave s. writes:

I don't understand this statement Rosa. What is there to work or not to work? Tell me if I am wrong, it is a form of analysis used to generate hypothesis. That in and of itself is neutral, it seems. So if it is used to generate hypothesis it seems that it is fine.

The problem seems to be when people start arguing that things must be true or even are probably true simply becuase dialectical analysis seems to suggest it.

isn't this the real issue?

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 23:42

VB:

What's so confusing about that? Makes perfect sense to me.

Too bad you can't explain it then.

Well, I'm not necessarily against Marxist theory when it comes to description, but rather when it comes to prescription.

In that case, for you, truth is not tested in practice.

Hard to reject something that is the core of your method.

Not according to Marx.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th September 2007, 23:45

David:

I don't understand this statement Rosa. What is there to work or not to work? Tell me if I am wrong, it is a form of analysis used to generate hypothesis. That in and of itself is neutral, it seems. So if it is used to generate hypothesis it seems that it is fine.

I was of course referring to the theory not its empirical consequences -- since I agree with you that apart from trivial consequences, it has none.

davidasearles

27th September 2007, 00:34

VB: when you confirm something, you are refuting its opposite

Dave S. We've already been here. "Opposite" of a thing could mean too many things for this to be a reliable statemet such as one corerrespndent here stating that the opposite of something is EVERY POSSIBLE THING that could exist in its place.

For instance then hydrogen could then be said to be the opposite of oxygen. So if one confirms the existens of the hydrogean atom in water that would refute the exitence of Oxegyn in water.

If you had just the slightest introduction into the science of logic you might save yourslf a lot of running around. But opening a book of logic wouldn't be anywhere near as fun as simply constructing a mental universe of your own I would imagine.

As I have repeately said, such statements can generate hypothesis which may or may not be true. They always have to be tested. And even after the most extensive testing the truth of the hypothesis may still be in doubt. That is the stuff of science. Apparently not used by most who employ dielectics.

Volderbeek

27th September 2007, 03:17

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 20, 2007 02:20 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 20, 2007 02:20 am)
I think I made it quite clear I was interpreting here. There's more than enough evidence to suggest dialectical methodology at work in that paragraph.

Only if you invent.

I note you did not quote the exact words that suggest 'dialectics' at work.

No mention of unity of opposites, contradictions or the negation of the negation.[/b]

You don't need exact...

Aw, forget it. I should've known better than to use something that could draw the "nuh-uh" response so easily (and make it look legitimate).

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)
You can't keep your lies straight. This is yet another example. On separate occasions, and depending on what (fabricated) point you were trying to make, you claimed the rational core of the dialectic method referenced by Marx to be nothing but Hegelian jargon and also that Russian review you claim to be historical materialism. So which is it? Not to mention the ramifications involved if the rational core is historical materialism (even though that's dialectics applied to history anyway).

I am quite happy to call what Marx did in capital 'dialectics' if every scrap of Hegel is removed.

The problem is that you mystics keep trying to squeeze the unity of opposites, contradictions and the negation of the negation back in -- as you tried to do too.

In that case, if that is how the word is used, I deny he used the dialectical method.

It all depends on how that word is interpreted.[/b]

Haha, this just keeps getting better. First, Marx can't make a simple analogy, and now he's employing some sort of literary device by giving the same word, in the same context, multiple possible meanings. Marx was also a poet apparently.

The reality (beyond our fanciful imaginings) is that dialectics means only one thing: the triadic process used by Hegel. Marx inherited that and applied it to history and later to political economy.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
And a contributory cause is not the cause, as you asserted I had said.

So, you are the liar.

Did I? Let's take a look at what you're referring to:

[email protected]
(Let's just ignore those highly questionable statements about how dialectics caused Marxism to "fail.")

Hm, I don't really see where I implied sole cause.

Rosa Lichtenstein

It actually has everything to do with a theory changing. If we're following dialectics of course. The theory changes because of its own contradictions. Whenever we improve on a theory (or a theoretical model at least), we're making it better explain the world by resolving its contradictions. The supposed lack of contradictions is an illusion of stasis.

In that case, you cannot distinguish between a genuine contradiction in reality from that contained by a defective theory.

I don't know what the hell you mean by a "genuine" contradiction. I asserted earlier that there was no such thing, so I really don't see what you're getting at here.

Volderbeek

27th September 2007, 03:29

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 07:34 pm
VB: when you confirm something, you are refuting its opposite

Dave S. We've already been here. "Opposite" of a thing could mean too many things for this to be a reliable statemet such as one corerrespndent here stating that the opposite of something is EVERY POSSIBLE THING that could exist in its place.
Well, I don't know what he was trying to say. That seems a bit strange to me. An opposite is just that: something that opposes. Sometimes we simply mean an inversion of the thing, but other times just a challenging, contrary force. This is perhaps a bit ambiguous and abstract, but that is exactly why it can't be considered a science: it lacks the appropriate precision. What I said before about its benefits, however, still stands.

mikelepore

27th September 2007, 03:36

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 11:34 pm
such statements can generate hypothesis which may or may not be true. They always have to be tested.
I think that's the good of the method. Actually (and, by the way, in addition to being a science geek, I also have 30 grad school credits in secondary education) there are several popular problem-solving heuristics, which are solely intended for generating ideas, not testing them. "Try working the problem backwards"; "think of a similar problem"; "assign symbols to knowns and unknowns"; "draw a schematic or diagram"; "draw a Venn diagram", "draw a concept map"; "draw a flowchart". The entire point of the brainstroming process also is to generate many ideas, for which the testing is deferred. The dialectical methods is as good as those other methods, and it is useful for that purpose.

Unfortunately, Engels tried to construct an ideology that had certain dialectical rules as basic laws of the universe, governing cosmology, physics, chemistry, geology, and biology, mathematics, and, of course -- since it is based on those building blocks that I just named -- the human mind. Engels placed dialectics into the unfolding of human history for the specific reason that history is a part of the universe, and dialectics allegedly governs the whole universe. The fallacies of division and composition appear in Engels. Much of it is simple analogy and metaphor. I believe the first article of evidence of the method's invalidity is the fact that there isn't a single case in which the method unambiguously distinguishes between a true statement and a false statement. If this really were a set of laws of the universe (and its special cases), it would be found to be applicable to some class of problems for which it gives unique answers. No such application has been found. Take socialist strategy, for example -- one could cite dialectical reasons for being in favor of the use of incremental reforms, or for being opposed to the use of incremental reforms. We're no better off than if we had tossed some yarrow stalks to generate a hexagram to look up in the I Ching.

Volderbeek

27th September 2007, 03:37

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 26, 2007 06:42 pm

Well, I'm not necessarily against Marxist theory when it comes to description, but rather when it comes to prescription.

In that case, for you, truth is not tested in practice.
Of course it is. That's why I'm saying part of the theory is faulty. There are some who prefer to throw the whole of it out, but they're not the types who typically post here.

davidasearles

27th September 2007, 06:04

Mike said to VB:

In that case, for you, truth is not tested in practice.

And VB responded:

Of course it is.

dave s. responds:

well this seems to be a breakthrough. One side says that dielectics is a system to generate hypothesis which must be tested for truth and the other side agrees.

Oh happy day!

awayish

27th September 2007, 06:24

well, the problem iwth that is, often times, dialecticians say things they do not intent to have meaningful tests for. It is a methodological attitude i suppose, that's been largely abandoned.

i think dialectics in practice is in need of an accompanying empirical study.

'Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters.'

This makes sense, and it is not meant as an empirical observation. It is simply a feature of the discourse to be irreducible to empirical statements. If psychology advanced enough to make empirical relations to the concepts related to above, then we could say, this is a dialectics with empirical backing(or, tension). But since there is nothing of the sort that meets the standard, dialectics is in a bit of a methodological struggle.

davidasearles

27th September 2007, 06:57

just paying attention to what can actually has been proven and what has not (through testing) liberates it from the methodlogical struggle. Simply becuase something SUGGESTED by dielectics does not pan out to be actually verifiable does not negate the method of generating the hypothesis.

awayish

27th September 2007, 07:45

well, what im saying is, certain reflections generate certain testable hypothesises. the dialectical metohd would suggest something like an empirical genealogy of ideas, (or some other scheme depending on how these things work) and this is currently rather haphazardly developed and is not traditionally methodologically favored.

the problem faced by dialectics on the methodology front, is similar to ethics. it is a nasty problem. causative reduction but otherwise incommensurability is like, the string theory of philosophy or something of that nature. i think such a distinction dissolves many of the big problems.

although i do not see such an enterprise as anything more than productive self reflections. dialectics is inspirational work. it is not in the business of telling you why the apple fell, or when it will fall again, but it will warn you of the pain of the apple on your head with an energy and pure sincerity that only it can have.

davidasearles

27th September 2007, 08:23

I'll be sure to wear a hard hat (and my hip boots) in the orchard.

McCaine

27th September 2007, 16:50

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
McCaine:

I agree with you, but as soon as I try to do that, I get accused of arguing ad hominen.No, you get accused of that if you argue the second, i.e. that it matters who Engels' parents were. Not if you point out internal inconsistency in arguments. It's ad hom to attack someone's background or someone's personal interests or behavior when the discussion is about someone's theory, because the one is not relevant to the other. It's logically possible for someone to speak true things all the time, yet never live up to them. It's not likely but it mustn't be discounted.

And Engels's class origins are important, unless you disagree with Marx:

"It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness." [Marx (1859), p.181.]

Marx, K. (1859), 'Preface' to 'A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'.Well I certainly disagree with an interpretation of that phrase as meaning "someone is wrong because his dad owned a factory", yes. I doubt that that is what Marx meant, as he never in his own analysis reasoned like that, but if he did mean that, I definitely disagree with it.

Forgive me for saying this, but that was not the original point. The latter was this:

I really doubt that you can prove this to be true in any meaningful sense, especially given the vastly varied class background of different thinkers and their opposition to one another.

Which I did respond to.

Some of these latest allegations are certainly correct, but since I will be addressing them in Essay Fourteen Parts One and Two, you are a little previous once again.Okay, that's fine. It just seems odd to me to do the reasoning bit by bit, instead of making a rough framework of the entire argument first and then expanding it with details. But suit yourself.

And, since you seem to have a penchant for summarising my ideas rather badly, I do not wonder you do not like them.

For example, I do not know what this has got to do with anything I have said, or implied:

And then you claim it's because they don't know any formal logic. But do you think the average Ford plant worker knows formal logic? Surely educated people like Marx, Engels and Lenin knew more formal logic than the average worker does, even if the 20th century logical empiricist tradition hadn't been invented yet. And it just goes on like that. I don't like dialectics, but I don't like your way of reasoning either.

What I do say is that their ignorance of logic means they are in no place to criticise it.Fine, but undoubtedly they would claim that your ignorance of the dialectic means you're in no place to criticize it. All that is useless bickering until we come to the conclusion, as you rightly did in your essays, that lack of understanding of formal logic is one of the reasons people are so impressed with the 'thesis/antithesis' kind of dialectics, which is what we're talking about here. But then my point applies that you are being inconsistent if you accuse Lenin, Bukharin, Engels and god knows who else of making this error (among others), and yet at the same time seem to think that this does not "come naturally" to workers for some reason, despite the fact that they are hardly any more likely to know or understand formal logic. My point is not aimed at your criticism of their ignorance, but at your nonsensical assumptions about workers.

And as for this:

Equally, pro-dialectics people are apparently bad because they "think like individuals". Indeed, how else would they think? With a hive-mind?

This is a gross distortion of my argument.

What I actually argue is that their class origin and eductation pre-disposes them to bourgeois individualism, whereas the collective experience of workers predisposes them in the opposite dirtection.

Now, you need to address what I actually say, not what you think I can be made to say.But that's basically the same point (though I will admit use of hyperbole). The issue is, there is no real evidence that what you say is true, and even if it were true, it's far too generalizing an observation to be of scientific use. I don't see why workers' experiences, different as they are, can be said to "predispose" somebody to a stance on specific theories of this nature one way or another. It doesn't work that precisely in my opinion.

Rosa Lichtenstein

27th September 2007, 17:36

VB:

Haha, this just keeps getting better. First, Marx can't make a simple analogy, and now he's employing some sort of literary device by giving the same word, in the same context, multiple possible meanings. Marx was also a poet apparently.

The reality (beyond our fanciful imaginings) is that dialectics means only one thing: the triadic process used by Hegel. Marx inherited that and applied it to history and later to political economy.

Nice rhetorical flourish, but we need not speculate, for Marx himself told is what he meant by this word:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02.]

You might not have noticed, he calls this his method, and there is not an atom of Hegel in there. No unities of opposites, no negation of the negation, no contradictions.

And, now in your attempt to cover your rear, you again quote this:

(Let's just ignore those highly questionable statements about how dialectics caused Marxism to "fail.")

I claim that dialectics is a contributory cause of the failure of Dialectical Marxism, not Marxism.

Lie number one.

Lie number two:

Isolating it in the way you do suggests to the incautious that it is the only cause -- which was your intent.

I don't know what the hell you mean by a "genuine" contradiction. I asserted earlier that there was no such thing, so I really don't see what you're getting at here.

Since you seem to know very little logic, this confession of yours does not surprise me in the least.

Rosa Lichtenstein

27th September 2007, 17:40

VB:

Of course it is. That's why I'm saying part of the theory is faulty. There are some who prefer to throw the whole of it out, but they're not the types who typically post here.

At last, some honesty.

Now, since not not one DM-thesis makes the slightest bit of sense, the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism in no surprise.

Rosa Lichtenstein

27th September 2007, 18:01

McCaine:

No, you get accused of that if you argue the second, i.e. that it matters who Engels' parents were. Not if you point out internal inconsistency in arguments. It's ad hom to attack someone's background or someone's personal interests or behavior when the discussion is about someone's theory, because the one is not relevant to the other. It's logically possible for someone to speak true things all the time, yet never live up to them. It's not likely but it mustn't be discounted.

You mistake my purpose in my tracing Engels's ideas to his class origins. I do not argue that his beliefs are wrong on that score (in fact they are far too confused for anyone to be able to say if the are correct or not), but that they are part of an age-old ruling-class view of the world, and hence out of place in Marxism (but that they also form the ideology of substitutionist elements within Marxism).

So, no ad hominems there.

[Anyway, were I to argue that Engels was wrong because of where he got his ideas from, that would be the genetic 'fallacy', and not arguing ad hominem.]

Well I certainly disagree with an interpretation of that phrase as meaning "someone is wrong because his dad owned a factory", yes. I doubt that that is what Marx meant, as he never in his own analysis reasoned like that, but if he did mean that, I definitely disagree with it.

Well, I certainly do not argue for that interpretation. My previous comments should make that clear.

It just seems odd to me to do the reasoning bit by bit, instead of making a rough framework of the entire argument first and then expanding it with details. But suit yourself.

You are new here, so you weren't around when comrades asked me for a brief summary of my ideas (since many found my Essays far too long to read) -- that that is why Essay Sixteeen was written. But even that was far too long, so I wrote the 'Basic Introductory' Essay, and the the 'Dialectics for Dummies' Essay.

Now, I actually say this several times at my site, so it should not be news to you.

Fine, but undoubtedly they would claim that your ignorance of the dialectic means you're in no place to criticize it. All that is useless bickering until we come to the conclusion, as you rightly did in your essays, that lack of understanding of formal logic is one of the reasons people are so impressed with the 'thesis/antithesis' kind of dialectics, which is what we're talking about here. But then my point applies that you are being inconsistent if you accuse Lenin, Bukharin, Engels and god knows who else of making this error (among others), and yet at the same time seem to think that this does not "come naturally" to workers for some reason, despite the fact that they are hardly any more likely to know or understand formal logic. My point is not aimed at your criticism of their ignorance, but at your nonsensical assumptions about workers.

1) I have been studying 'dialectics' now for well over 20 years. There is no evidence that those who criticis logic have spent even a few hours trying to master the subject. If there is, they have kept it well hidden.

2) I do not just say this, I also show in detail how they have misconstrued logic (mainly in Essays Four and Eight Part Two). If anyone can show where I have misconstrued Engels, Lenin or Trotsky, I will put that right.

So far no takers.

And I am not sure what point you are making about workers.

I spent a great deal of time (in Essay Nine Part One) showing that not a single DM-idea could ever occur to workers (unless they encountered them in books, etc.), and that is to their credit.

But, since I do not know what point you are making, I do not know if that addresses it.

Can I say again, that if you have read my Essays, you must have done so without due care, for many of the above points were made in my Essays -- that is why they are so long. I cover every conceivable objection, many times, and from different angles.

So, I would appreciate it if you stopped attributing to me ideas I do not hold.

Volderbeek

3rd October 2007, 07:24

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+September 27, 2007 12:36 pm--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ September 27, 2007 12:36 pm)VB:

Haha, this just keeps getting better. First, Marx can't make a simple analogy, and now he's employing some sort of literary device by giving the same word, in the same context, multiple possible meanings. Marx was also a poet apparently.

The reality (beyond our fanciful imaginings) is that dialectics means only one thing: the triadic process used by Hegel. Marx inherited that and applied it to history and later to political economy.

Nice rhetorical flourish, but we need not speculate, for Marx himself told is what he meant by this word:[/b]

Yeah, and you also said that the word meant (as used by Marx) nothing but Hegelian jargon. Which was my point. Which you ignored...

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)You might not have noticed, he calls this his method, and there is not an atom of Hegel in there. No unities of opposites, no negation of the negation, no contradictions.[/b]

Not explicitly, but that obscure language would not make a whole lot of sense without a dialectical perspective. You yourself claimed it contained historical materialism, which is nothing more than dialectics applied to history, a point you've consistently ignored. Not that I can't see why.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
And, now in your attempt to cover your rear, you again quote this:

(Let's just ignore those highly questionable statements about how dialectics caused Marxism to "fail.")

I claim that dialectics is a contributory cause of the failure of Dialectical Marxism, not Marxism.

Lie number one.

Ok, let's look at the entire context:

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
Preliminary Points

(1) It is important to emphasise from the outset that I am not blaming the long-term failure of Marxism solely on the acceptance of Hermetic ideas derived from Hegel.

This is worth repeating since I still receive e-mails from those who claim to have read the above words but who still think I am blaming all our woes on dialectics; I am not.

What is being claimed is that adherence to this 'theory' is one of the subjective reasons why revolutionary socialism has become a bye-word for failure.

There are other, objective reasons why the class enemy still runs this planet, but since revolutions require revolutionaries with ideas in their heads, this 'theory' must take some of the blame.

So, it is alleged here that dialectics has been an important contributory factor; it certainly helps explain why revolutionary groups are in general vanishingly small, neurotically sectarian, studiously unreasonable, consistently conservative, theoretically deferential (to 'tradition'), and almost invariably tend toward some form of substitutionism.

Naturally, this has had a direct bearing on our lack of impact on the working-class over the last fifty years or so -- and probably longer --, and hence on the continuing success of Capitalism.

The following 'Unity of Opposites' is difficult to explain otherwise:

The larger the proletariat, the smaller the impact Dialectical Marxism has on it.

Sadly, this 'inner tension' will continue to develop while comrades adhere to this regressive doctrine. Those who doubt this are encouraged to read on, where their doubts will be severely bruised, if not laid completely to rest.

Look at the two bolded parts. At first you don't even use that qualifier, and then refer to "revolutionary socialism" which is even more general. Combine that with my insistence that such a distinction doesn't even exist, and you can hardly call what I did there "lying."

Rosa [email protected]
Lie number two:

Isolating it in the way you do suggests to the incautious that it is the only cause -- which was your intent.

If you hadn't already used so much conspiracist thinking, I might be surprised by your attribution to me of imaginary sinister motives.

The phrasing leaves the question of the existence of multiple causes ambiguous, which was my real intent.

Rosa Lichtenstein

I don't know what the hell you mean by a "genuine" contradiction. I asserted earlier that there was no such thing, so I really don't see what you're getting at here.

Since you seem to know very little logic, this confession of yours does not surprise me in the least.

I'd like to know which branch of logic has multiple classes of contradictions. Otherwise, this is really nothing more than a senseless dodge.

Rosa Lichtenstein

3rd October 2007, 08:00

VB:

Yeah, and you also said that the word meant (as used by Marx) nothing but Hegelian jargon. Which was my point. Which you ignored...

This is the exact opposite of what I said.

Yet more lies from you.

This is what I alleged:

You might not have noticed, he calls this his method, and there is not an atom of Hegel in there. No unities of opposites, no negation of the negation, no contradictions.

Not explicitly, but that obscure language would not make a whole lot of sense without a dialectical perspective. You yourself claimed it contained historical materialism, which is nothing more than dialectics applied to history, a point you've consistently ignored. Not that I can't see why.

According to Marx it does, for he calls it 'his method'.

Look at the two bolded parts. At first you don't even use that qualifier, and then refer to "revolutionary socialism" which is even more general. Combine that with my insistence that such a distinction doesn't even exist, and you can hardly call what I did there "lying."

I claim a distinction does exist, and your attempt to foist on me a view I do not hold, and did not express, counts as lying.

If you hadn't already used so much conspiracist thinking, I might be surprised by your attribution to me of imaginary sinister motives.

The phrasing leaves the question of the existence of multiple causes ambiguous, which was my real intent.

What 'conspiracist' thinking?

Are you incapable of telling the truth?

I'd like to know which branch of logic has multiple classes of contradictions. Otherwise, this is really nothing more than a senseless dodge.

Classical logic does.

But, you would not know, would you?

And there are many other branches of logic with different 'classes' of contradiction.

McCaine

3rd October 2007, 22:57

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
You mistake my purpose in my tracing Engels's ideas to his class origins. I do not argue that his beliefs are wrong on that score (in fact they are far too confused for anyone to be able to say if the are correct or not), but that they are part of an age-old ruling-class view of the world, and hence out of place in Marxism (but that they also form the ideology of substitutionist elements within Marxism).

So, no ad hominems there.

[Anyway, were I to argue that Engels was wrong because of where he got his ideas from, that would be the genetic 'fallacy', and not arguing ad hominem.]Okay, if that is what you meant, I'll be charitable and accept that. I do think the prominent inclusion of class-related issues and the discussion on the "ruling class view of the world" in this context is highly suggestive otherwise though. Moreover, I'm not sure what the point is, since I don't believe there is one "ruling class view of the world". But I guess we just have irreconcilable differences on the implications of historical materialism.

You are new here, so you weren't around when comrades asked me for a brief summary of my ideas (since many found my Essays far too long to read) -- that that is why Essay Sixteeen was written. But even that was far too long, so I wrote the 'Basic Introductory' Essay, and the the 'Dialectics for Dummies' Essay.

Now, I actually say this several times at my site, so it should not be news to you.Not news so much as just an odd way to go about it. But whatever.

1) I have been studying 'dialectics' now for well over 20 years. There is no evidence that those who criticis logic have spent even a few hours trying to master the subject. If there is, they have kept it well hidden.

2) I do not just say this, I also show in detail how they have misconstrued logic (mainly in Essays Four and Eight Part Two). If anyone can show where I have misconstrued Engels, Lenin or Trotsky, I will put that right.

So far no takers.Oh, you have certainly shown why the vague pseudo-metaphysical claims made by Lenin and others in those works make no sense at all (and one hardly needs formal logic for that either ;)). But I never contested that.

And I am not sure what point you are making about workers. My point about workers is your vague and unsupported assumptions about what kind of view about metaphysics and other subjects workers would "naturally" get in the course of their work. You neither explain how this happens, nor why precisely those views, nor how you propose to prove any of this. It makes no sense to me at all, and I can't find an explanation for it on your website.

I spent a great deal of time (in Essay Nine Part One) showing that not a single DM-idea could ever occur to workers (unless they encountered them in books, etc.), and that is to their credit.

But, since I do not know what point you are making, I do not know if that addresses it.Yes, you spend quite a deal of time making a large amount of assertions about workers. But that isn't quite the same thing as giving evidence for your claims, or even explaining who these workers are and how you know it works that way and not another way, nor do you give any historical evidence like one would expect of a historical materialist. This, tied in with that "ruling class view of the world" way of talking, is basically what I was criticizing you about in the initial post in this thread. Maybe we just don't see eye to eye on this - I don't want to make too big a deal of it.

Can I say again, that if you have read my Essays, you must have done so without due care, for many of the above points were made in my Essays -- that is why they are so long. I cover every conceivable objection, many times, and from different angles.

So, I would appreciate it if you stopped attributing to me ideas I do not hold.It is of course imaginable that someone can have read what you have written and simply not be entirely convinced of all of it.

Rosa Lichtenstein

4th October 2007, 01:04

McCaine:

Okay, if that is what you meant, I'll be charitable and accept that. I do think the prominent inclusion of class-related issues and the discussion on the "ruling class view of the world" in this context is highly suggestive otherwise though. Moreover, I'm not sure what the point is, since I don't believe there is one "ruling class view of the world". But I guess we just have irreconcilable differences on the implications of historical materialism.

"Charitable"!!??

Look, sunshine, I make it quite clear that this is what I am doing -- you missed this because you are skim reading my Essays.

And I do not say there is one ruling-class view of the world (I say that philosophy encapsulates a ruling class view -- that there is a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, that runs everything, and which lies beyond 'appearances').

Now, Marx does say that their ideas have always ruled -- I just widen the scope of his words.

But there are features common to ruling class views of the world (East and West -- there are only a limited number of ways to account for things in terms of mysterious forces that govern reality, which also ratify the status quo), and I will be exploring those in Essay Twelve.

We certainly do not have a problem with religious views of the world transcending each mode of production, but being expressed in a different form in each, nor do we deny they all share many things in common between such modes -- acting as an opiate, for example.

Same with philosophy, only at a more refined level.

Not news so much as just an odd way to go about it. But whatever.

Why is it odd if I repond to the request of comrades to summarise my entire thesis?

And you can stick the "whatever"!

and one hardly needs formal logic for that either

I use symbolic logic very sparingly; I rely mostly on ordinary language and informal logic.

And if it is quite so easy to do, how come I am the first one to do this in 100 years?

My point about workers is your vague and unsupported assumptions about what kind of view about metaphysics and other subjects workers would "naturally" get in the course of their work. You neither explain how this happens, nor why precisely those views, nor how you propose to prove any of this. It makes no sense to me at all, and I can't find an explanation for it on your website.

I have no intention of doing this; all I aim to show is that they cannot gain a single dialectical idea from anywhere except dialecticians themselves and/or other philosophers.

Once more, you raise an issue irrelevant to my aims. Why?

Yes, you spend quite a deal of time making a large amount of assertions about workers. But that isn't quite the same thing as giving evidence for your claims, or even explaining who these workers are and how you know it works that way and not another way, nor do you give any historical evidence like one would expect of a historical materialist. This, tied in with that "ruling class view of the world" way of talking, is basically what I was criticizing you about in the initial post in this thread. Maybe we just don't see eye to eye on this - I don't want to make too big a deal of it.

The point is, that if dialectics make not one ounce of sense, then it is no surprise to find that workers do not form dialectical ideas. Moreover, since dialectics is, as I maintain, the ideology of substitutionist elements in the workers' movement, workers have no psychological need to derive these ideas, as they might have for, say, religious ideas.

And, I also make it very plain that I do not and will not enter areas of concern to historical materialism.

I say this many, many times.

I say it on the opening page, and in Essay One, and in practically every other Essay.

How could you have missed this?

It is of course imaginable that someone can have read what you have written and simply not be entirely convinced of all of it.

Sure, but you miss things (even things I repeat many times over), and attribute to me ideas I do not hold. You even make stuff up.

Now, that is what I asked you to stop doing.

But you still haven't.

Volderbeek

5th October 2007, 05:41

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+October 03, 2007 03:00 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ October 03, 2007 03:00 am)VB:

Yeah, and you also said that the word meant (as used by Marx) nothing but Hegelian jargon. Which was my point. Which you ignored...

This is the exact opposite of what I said.

Yet more lies from you.

This is what I alleged:

You might not have noticed, he calls this his method, and there is not an atom of Hegel in there. No unities of opposites, no negation of the negation, no contradictions.[/b]
Yeah, that was after those quotes about how important his dialectical method was were posted. But this is the story before that:

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)Well, if you actually read what I have said before mouthing off, I argued that Marx moved away from Hegel all his life, and by the time he got to Kapital, all he would admit to was that he had 'coquetted' with a few bits of Hegelian jargon -- which is the extent of the 'rational' core of that lame 'theory'.[/b]

And then again:

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein
The rational core of the 'dialectic' is just a few words of jargon, fit only to be played around with.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Not explicitly, but that obscure language would not make a whole lot of sense without a dialectical perspective. You yourself claimed it contained historical materialism, which is nothing more than dialectics applied to history, a point you've consistently ignored. Not that I can't see why.

According to Marx it does, for he calls it 'his method'.

Because he had a dialectical perspective!

Seems you still have nothing to say about the second part. I expected at least a cheeky comment by now. I'll substantiate that a tad here anyway though:

Originally posted by Karl Marx
In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

Look at the two bolded parts. At first you don't even use that qualifier, and then refer to "revolutionary socialism" which is even more general. Combine that with my insistence that such a distinction doesn't even exist, and you can hardly call what I did there "lying."

I claim a distinction does exist, and your attempt to foist on me a view I do not hold, and did not express, counts as lying.

I'm referring to why I phrased it that way, and how you overblew it into an alleged scheme.

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein

If you hadn't already used so much conspiracist thinking, I might be surprised by your attribution to me of imaginary sinister motives.

The phrasing leaves the question of the existence of multiple causes ambiguous, which was my real intent.

What 'conspiracist' thinking?

Oh, I don't know - maybe calling dialectics a "ruling class theory" and "Hermetic mysticism."

Rosa [email protected]

I'd like to know which branch of logic has multiple classes of contradictions. Otherwise, this is really nothing more than a senseless dodge.

Classical logic does.

Really? Such as...?

Rosa Lichtenstein
But, you would not know, would you?

Of course not. I'm not privy to this grand secret of yours.

Rosa Lichtenstein

5th October 2007, 06:36

VB:

Because he had a dialectical perspective!

Yes, and Marx very kindly saved us having to speculate what this was.

In a little known passage -- one you have probably missed -- he quoted a reviewer of Capital, who had very helpfully summarised his method:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
You will notice there is no mention of the Negation of the Negation, unities of opposites, tranformation of quantity into quality, and no hint of those obscure Hegelian 'contradictions'.

I have to say that this passage took me by surprise when I read it for the first time only yesterday (otherwise, I would have brought it to your attention earlier, to settle this matter once and for all), for it agrees with my view of Capital.

Amazing, eh...?

In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.

Mercifully, in Capital, Marx abandoned this obscure way of expressing himself; as he explained above.

I'm referring to why I phrased it that way, and how you overblew it into an alleged scheme.

Eh? :blink:

Oh, I don't know - maybe calling dialectics a "ruling class theory" and "Hermetic mysticism."

Well, that must mean Marx is a 'conspiracist' then:

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an 'eternal law.'" [Marx and Engels The German Ideolgy(1970), pp.64-65,.]

Really? Such as...?

Here are just two of the potentially infinite number of contradictions classical logic can construct:

C1: ~[(P→Q)v(P→R)↔(P→(QvR))]

C2: ~[~(Ex)(Fx&~Gx)↔(x)(Fx→Gx)]

In the above, "E" is the existential quantifier; "↔" is a biconditional sign; "(x)" is the universal quantifier; "&" stands for "and"; "v" is the inclusive "or"; "~" stands for negation; "→" is the conditional sign; "P", "Q", and "R" are propositional variables; "F" and "G" are one-place, first-level predicate letters; and "x" is a second-level predicate-binding variable.

DM-theorists would be hard-pressed to find space even in their quirky universe for contradictions such as these....

More details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2005.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/

Of course not. I'm not privy to this grand secret of yours.

It's no secret; this knowledge has been available since at least 1879 (and there are scores of sites on the internet that will teach you it), but dialectical mystics like you are ignorant of logic, even though that does not stop you from pontificating about it.

Volderbeek

10th October 2007, 05:28

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+October 05, 2007 01:36 am--> (Rosa Lichtenstein @ October 05, 2007 01:36 am)You will notice there is no mention of the Negation of the Negation, unities of opposites, tranformation of quantity into quality, and no hint of those obscure Hegelian 'contradictions'.[/b]
Like I said earlier, I took the wrong approach to this before. But now I'll start from scratch. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that the above statement is correct. That doesn't mean much for the following reasons:

1. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

2. Marx called his method dialectical, so unless he doesn't understand what that means, it means the triadic process used by Hegel. He would have had to had forgotten it since he understood it just fine in his critique of Hegel years earlier.

3. Three of the four things mentioned can be derived directly from that process. The other, well let's let Marx tell us:

Karl Marx
The possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist in such cases only where the minimum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the maximum of the middle ages. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his “Logic”), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.
Continuing with the theme of being proven by science, there's also a manuscript entitled Dialectics of Nature, which goes into this in much more detail. It was written, not by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, or any such person, but by Engels - Marx's own close friend and collaborator.

Volderbeek

10th October 2007, 05:41

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 05, 2007 01:36 am

In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.

Mercifully, in Capital, Marx abandoned this obscure way of expressing himself; as he explained above.
Except for the so-called "coquetting" right? What, he wasn't coquetting here too? The only "obscure" thing I see here is the claim that he abandoned dialectics later on, seemingly substantiated only by a strangely interpreted quote.

Volderbeek

10th October 2007, 06:02

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 05, 2007 01:36 am
Here are just two of the potentially infinite number of contradictions classical logic can construct:

C1: ~[(P→Q)v(P→R)↔(P→(QvR))]

C2: ~[~(Ex)(Fx&~Gx)↔(x)(Fx→Gx)]

In the above, "E" is the existential quantifier; "↔" is a biconditional sign; "(x)" is the universal quantifier; "&" stands for "and"; "v" is the inclusive "or"; "~" stands for negation; "→" is the conditional sign; "P", "Q", and "R" are propositional variables; "F" and "G" are one-place, first-level predicate letters; and "x" is a second-level predicate-binding variable.

DM-theorists would be hard-pressed to find space even in their quirky universe for contradictions such as these....

More details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2005.htm

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/

Ok, I'll take this in steps too:

1. This particular type of contradiction isn't quite compatible with the dialectical variety. It's used as synonymous with false.

2. You're referring to expressions that resolve into contradiction. The actual state of contradiction is no different (certainly no more "genuine").

3. Similarly, you could construct an infinite number of algebraic expressions that resolve to 0, but you've said nothing new about 0.

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th October 2007, 06:03

VB:

Like I said earlier, I took the wrong approach to this before. But now I'll start from scratch. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that the above statement is correct. That doesn't mean much for the following reasons:

1. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

2. Marx called his method dialectical, so unless he doesn't understand what that means, it means the triadic process used by Hegel. He would have had to had forgotten it since he understood it just fine in his critique of Hegel years earlier.

Indeed, let us see what Marx said about your precious 'dialectic' in Das Kapital -- in a little quoted passage he set the record straight (perhaps even with you, my Hermetic friend, in mind):

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

In other words, the 'negation of the negation', and all the rest of that mystical gobbledygook, was something with which Marx was only prepared to 'coquette' -- meaning that this was the extent of its presence on his great work: he was taking the piss.

And thanks for that excellent example of 'coquetting' in action:

The possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist in such cases only where the minimum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the maximum of the middle ages. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his “Logic”), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.

All tongue-in-cheek -- but don't take my word for it, for here is another rarely quoted passage that should put your mind at rest:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

And, of course, that is why he endorsed the following as 'his method':

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

I haven't checked recently to see if it has changed in the last few days, but I seem to remember it contains not one atom of Hegel -- and certainly not the 'triadic method' which was foreign to Hegel anyway (I thought we cleared that up weeks ago!?).

Continuing with the theme of being proven by science, there's also a manuscript entitled Dialectics of Nature, which goes into this in much more detail. It was written, not by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, or any such person, but by Engels - Marx's own close friend and collaborator.

But, alas for you, not by Marx -- and thank goodness, too, for the book you mentioned is one of the very worst pieces of work ever to have been written by a revolutionary.

And, oddly enough, we know what Marx thought of such Hegelian b*llocks, for in a passage I have only just found (I wish I had seen this before!!), he tells us:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

But, what is this?

3. Three of the four things mentioned can be derived directly from that process. The other, well let's let Marx tell us

Yes, let's:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

And I rather think your fingers must have slipped, for your point three should have been:

3. Three of the four things mentioned can be inserted directly into that process, if one ignores this:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

So, you can stop speculating -- Marx agrees with me.

Glad I was able to clear this up for you -- yet again!

[Forgive me asking, but is there something wrong with you? This has been laid to rest many times here. Perhaps you'd like to open up a few doubts about something a far less certain --, for example, the colour of grass, or where the sun rises each morning?]

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th October 2007, 06:07

VB:

Except for the so-called "coquetting" right? What, he wasn't coquetting here too? The only "obscure" thing I see here is the claim that he abandoned dialectics later on, seemingly substantiated only by a strangely interpreted quote.

Well, let's see what Marx says, because even now there is clearly some doubt in your mind.

Now, where is that passage I had earlier...??? You know, the one that went:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

I seem to have mislaid it!!

Ah! Here it is:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

No, don't thank me.

Always glad to help a confused mystic come to his/her senses.

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th October 2007, 06:11

VB:

Ok, I'll take this in steps too:

1. This particular type of contradiction isn't quite compatible with the dialectical variety. It's used as synonymous with false.

2. You're referring to expressions that resolve into contradiction. The actual state of contradiction is no different (certainly no more "genuine").

3. Similarly, you could construct an infinite number of algebraic expressions that resolve to 0, but you've said nothing new about 0.

1. So?

2. Eh? :blink:

3. So..., and eh? :blink:

In other words, you haven't a clue.

Don't tell me that you are just another dialectician who likes to pontificate about logic, but who knows as much about it as cat knows about quantum mechanics.! :o

Not to worry, this should cheer you up:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Yes, I can see you smiling from here...

Volderbeek

10th October 2007, 06:19

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 05, 2007 01:36 am

Oh, I don't know - maybe calling dialectics a "ruling class theory" and "Hermetic mysticism."

Well, that must mean Marx is a 'conspiracist' then:

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an 'eternal law.'" [Marx and Engels The German Ideolgy(1970), pp.64-65,.]
The former really needs to be taken with the latter. That's when you see the whole thing come together. [Details (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Order_%28conspiracy%29)]

As for Marx, it looks like he was merely pointing out that idea hegemony corresponds to material hegemony, not that certain ideas/theories have an intrinsic class character (unless, of course, they're ideas about class).

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th October 2007, 06:24

VB:

The former really needs to be taken with the latter. That's when you see the whole thing come together. [Details]

As for Marx, it looks like he was merely pointing out that idea hegemony corresponds to material hegemony, not that certain ideas/theories have an intrinsic class character (unless, of course, they're ideas about class).

And he pointed out that they dominate society. They thus become the 'acceptable' ideas for the 'thinking' classes to be taught at school (etc), and thus to theorise with and around -- such as petty-bourgeois dialecticians like Engels.

Yes, I am glad we agree.

Hit The North

10th October 2007, 09:09

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 06:24 am
And he pointed out that they dominate society. They thus become the 'acceptable' ideas for the 'thinking' classes to be taught at school (etc), and thus to theorise with and around -- such as petty-bourgeois dialecticians like Engels.
Strange, I don't remember being taught dialectics at school. Then again, it was more concerned with churning out manual workers than thinkers. But are you really suggesting that the classrooms of Eton, Harrow and the rest of the ruling class schools are ringing with instruction on Hegelian dialectics?

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th October 2007, 09:11

Z:

Strange, I don't remember being taught dialectics at school. Then again, it was more concerned with churning out manual workers than thinkers. But are you really suggesting that the classrooms of Eton, Harrow and the rest of the ruling class schools are ringing with instruction on Hegelian dialectics?

But still you foolishly alowed it to colonise your brain, and cripple your capacity to think. :ph34r:

And now not even I can help you. :o

Hit The North

10th October 2007, 10:29

Witticisms aside, though, Rosa, is that what you're claiming? Is the British ruling class infected with "dialectical mysticism"?

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th October 2007, 17:44

Z:

Witticisms aside, though, Rosa, is that what you're claiming? Is the British ruling class infected with "dialectical mysticism"?

Your inanities to one side, do you honestly think I am going to explain a single thing to one such as you -- someone who struggles with plain English?

Hit The North

10th October 2007, 20:36

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 05:44 pm
Z:

Witticisms aside, though, Rosa, is that what you're claiming? Is the British ruling class infected with "dialectical mysticism"?

Your inanities to one side, do you honestly think I am going to explain a single thing to one such as you -- someone who struggles with plain English?
No, your reply - dripping with the disdain of a well practiced elitist snob - was completely expected.

You're wrong and you know you are.

Rosa Lichtenstein

10th October 2007, 21:18

Z:

No, your reply - dripping with the disdain of a well practiced elitist snob - was completely expected.

No, my response was not at all a copy of you.

And, I think you need more practice -- you are not quite yet 100% 'dripping'.

You're wrong and you know you are.

If I am wrong about being wrong, then I must be right.

Thanks for the backhand compliment! :)

Volderbeek

11th October 2007, 00:45

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 01:24 am
VB:

The former really needs to be taken with the latter. That's when you see the whole thing come together. [Details]

As for Marx, it looks like he was merely pointing out that idea hegemony corresponds to material hegemony, not that certain ideas/theories have an intrinsic class character (unless, of course, they're ideas about class).

And he pointed out that they dominate society. They thus become the 'acceptable' ideas for the 'thinking' classes to be taught at school (etc), and thus to theorise with and around -- such as petty-bourgeois dialecticians like Engels.
We can now see just how far this ridiculousness has taken you - to accuse Engels himself of reactionary thought. If Engels can be so accused, none of us are safe.

And the subtle thought control in otherwise free societies is not some sort of inescapable demon invading our thoughts. Many can and do speak out; they're just marginalized.

Volderbeek

11th October 2007, 01:29

Originally posted by Rosa Lichtenstein+--> (Rosa Lichtenstein)I haven't checked recently to see if it has changed in the last few days, but I seem to remember it contains not one atom of Hegel -- and certainly not the 'triadic method' which was foreign to Hegel anyway (I thought we cleared that up weeks ago!?).[/b]

This is pretty much your only reply of substance to the rest. Let's take it apart as well:

1. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

2. That was just semantics. It remains, like I said then, a good description of his (Hegel's) method.

3. It doesn't even matter since Marx understood it that way:

Karl Marx
All things being reduced to a logical category, and every movement, every act of production, to method, it follows naturally that every aggregate of products and production, of objects and of movement, can be reduced to a form of applied metaphysics. [...]

So what is this absolute method? The abstraction of movement. What is the abstraction of movement? Movement in abstract condition. What is movement in abstract condition? The purely logical formula of movement or the movement of pure reason. Wherein does the movement of pure reason consist? In posing itself, opposing itself, composing itself; in formulating itself as thesis, antithesis, synthesis; or, yet, in affirming itself, negating itself, and negating its negation.

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th October 2007, 03:12

VB:

We can now see just how far this ridiculousness has taken you - to accuse Engels himself of reactionary thought. If Engels can be so accused, none of us are safe.

And the subtle thought control in otherwise free societies is not some sort of inescapable demon invading our thoughts. Many can and do speak out; they're just marginalized.

Remind me -- who was it who said social being determines consciousness?

Now, the very fact that you have allowed mystical ruling class thought to colonise your brain suggests that you were right to worry about this:

none of us are safe.

:o :o :o

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th October 2007, 03:23

VB:

This is pretty much your only reply of substance to the rest. Let's take it apart as well:

1. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

2. That was just semantics. It remains, like I said then, a good description of his (Hegel's) method.

3. It doesn't even matter since Marx understood it that way:

1) But we know Marx rejected this mystical theory. He even cleared all this up for us when he said:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Which is, of course, why he endorsed this non-Hegelian summary of his work:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Note, this is his method -- and not one atom of Hegel in there.

So, I suggest you pick a fight with him, not me.

2) Not so -- for there is no 'negation of the negation' in there, no 'unities of opposites', no 'contradictions' -- and that is why you found you had to insert these mystical concepts into this passage.

3) And thanks again for yet another passage where Marx did this:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

You are getting quite good at finding them. Keep it up! The more the merrier.

Now, how are you getting along with that far more controversial topic: the colour of grass?

Volderbeek

11th October 2007, 09:44

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 10:12 pm
VB:

We can now see just how far this ridiculousness has taken you - to accuse Engels himself of reactionary thought. If Engels can be so accused, none of us are safe.

And the subtle thought control in otherwise free societies is not some sort of inescapable demon invading our thoughts. Many can and do speak out; they're just marginalized.

Remind me -- who was it who said social being determines consciousness?
That's not quite the same as controlling your mind. That was a materialist (monist) thing about the connection of the mind and the material.

Volderbeek

11th October 2007, 09:55

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 10, 2007 10:23 pm
VB:

This is pretty much your only reply of substance to the rest. Let's take it apart as well:

1. The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

2. That was just semantics. It remains, like I said then, a good description of his (Hegel's) method.

3. It doesn't even matter since Marx understood it that way:

1) But we know Marx rejected this mystical theory. He even cleared all this up for us when he said:

Circular reasoning eh? We know it because we know it.

2) Not so -- for there is no 'negation of the negation' in there, no 'unities of opposites', no 'contradictions' -- and that is why you found you had to insert these mystical concepts into this passage.

I was referring to Hegel that time. Try to pay attention.

3) And thanks again for yet another passage where Marx did this:

You yet again fail to be consistent. That comes from Poverty of Philosophy, written back in '47 before he supposedly "abandoned" dialectics. You really should fix all these continuity problems.

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th October 2007, 09:57

VB:

That's not quite the same as controlling your mind. That was a materialist (monist) thing about the connection of the mind and the material.

Well, we'd expect someone who has had his mind colonised to say this, wouldn't we?

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th October 2007, 10:03

VB:

We know it because we know it.

And we are right to say this.

Why? Because Marx endorsed it:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

And, helpfully, he quoted a summary of 'his method', which had all that Hegelian gobbledygook removed:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Read it again, if it helps.

I was referring to Hegel that time. Try to pay attention.

Try to be clearer.

You yet again fail to be consistent. That comes from Poverty of Philosophy, written back in '47 before he supposedly "abandoned" dialectics. You really should fix all these continuity problems.

So, he began 'coquetting' even earlier.

That [i]is good news.

Volderbeek

11th October 2007, 10:06

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 11, 2007 04:57 am
VB:

That's not quite the same as controlling your mind. That was a materialist (monist) thing about the connection of the mind and the material.

Well, we'd expect someone who has had his mind colonised to say this, wouldn't we?
It must be from that implant I got when I was abducted by an Illuminati Zionist UFO that looked like a black helicopter.

blackstone

11th October 2007, 15:10

I'm starting to believe half of Rosa's posts are her quoting, Marx's quote of him explaining his method.

She quoted it almost 15 times during the course of this thread and there's only 9 pages!

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th October 2007, 17:13

VB:

It must be from that implant I got when I was abducted by an Illuminati Zionist UFO that looked like a black helicopter.

"Yes, dear; whatever you say. Now, don't forget your tablets...".

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th October 2007, 17:14

Blackstone -- I am forced to fo this, since these mystics refuse to acknowlwedge Marx's words. :o

Plus, these passages annoy them, and I like to annoy mystics. :)

blackstone

11th October 2007, 17:40

I see, but it was throwing me into a dialectical loop.

Every day or so i noticed there was a new post here, and when i read what you have to say, it'd be the same thing i read last time i checked the thread!

Rosa Lichtenstein

11th October 2007, 17:56

Well, I have been 'debating' with these numpties for nigh on 25 years, and nothing goes in with them.

So, I just wind them up.

Same result, but it's more fun.

My real arguments are at my site.

It is very rare to find one that does not respond irrationally. Here is a recent and almost unique example of the opposite (in fact, this is, I think, a first in 25 years!); a young working class comrade who has put together a rational response to just one of my objections:

http://discussion.newyouth.com/index.php/topic,2211.60.html

Bottom of the page, and top of the next page. Look for Shane Jones's contibution.

You will see that I respond totally differently to him -- and return the comradely respect he shows me.

Hit The North

12th October 2007, 07:49

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 05:40 pm
I see, but it was throwing me into a dialectical loop.

Every day or so i noticed there was a new post here, and when i read what you have to say, it'd be the same thing i read last time i checked the thread!
Yes, it's called trolling. Inexcusable at the best of times - but from a moderator even worse.

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th October 2007, 13:36

Z:

Yes, it's called trolling. Inexcusable at the best of times - but from a moderator even worse.

And here's something that will cheer you up:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Have a nice fume...

tolstoyevski

12th October 2007, 21:57

oh, I have a quotation too:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite.

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th October 2007, 23:37

Thanks for that Tolstoyevski -- but, he then explained what he meant. In Kapital itself, Marx quoted a reviewer, who outlined what he called his 'method':

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Here you will no doubt note, there is not one atom of Hegel. The 'dialectic method' thus contains no contradictions, no unities of opposites, no change from quantity to quality, no negation of the negation...

So, the 'opposite' of Hegel for Marx appears to be 'no Hegel at all'.

In short, Marx agrees with me.

tolstoyevski

13th October 2007, 13:32

oh rosa!
sometimes I can't understand if you're kidding or just pretending as if you don't get the idea of dialectics.
I am tired.

because it [dialectics] includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis.

the fluid movement is the product of the contradictions, namely dialectics. change occurs by negation of the existing state. Mentioning about the contradictions is not something Hegelian, contradictions exist in the material world, where we got our ideas about them.

When we talk about the hegelian form of dialectics [1000th times, sorry for the repetition]:

To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

I can see you put much labor on your theory but Marx used the dialectic method.

Hit The North

13th October 2007, 14:55

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 12, 2007 01:36 pm
Z:

Yes, it's called trolling. Inexcusable at the best of times - but from a moderator even worse.

And here's something that will cheer you up:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Have a nice fume...
Dear Rosa, the fact that you think that your trollish behaviour is anything more than a tiresome irritation and that I would therefore be 'fuming' at your pathetic antics, demonstrates just how out of touch with real people you actually are.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th October 2007, 21:34

T:

oh rosa!
sometimes I can't understand if you're kidding or just pretending as if you don't get the idea of dialectics.
I am tired.

Unfortunately for the mystics here, I am deadly serious.

Dear Rosa, the fact that you think that your trollish behaviour is anything more than a tiresome irritation and that I would therefore be 'fuming' at your pathetic antics, demonstrates just how out of touch with real people you actually are.

How is it trollish to remind comrades repeatedly of the words of Marx they continually ignore? :blink:

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th October 2007, 21:37

Z:

Dear Rosa, the fact that you think that your trollish behaviour is anything more than a tiresome irritation and that I would therefore be 'fuming' at your pathetic antics, demonstrates just how out of touch with real people you actually are.

Please, do not stop fuming on my behalf.

As part of the deal, I will promise to keep winding you up in return. :)

McCaine

16th October 2007, 17:41

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 12, 2007 10:37 pm
Thanks for that Tolstoyevski -- but, he then explained what he meant. In Kapital itself, Marx quoted a reviewer, who outlined what he called his 'method':

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

Here you will no doubt note, there is not one atom of Hegel. The 'dialectic method' thus contains no contradictions, no unities of opposites, no change from quantity to quality, no negation of the negation...

So, the 'opposite' of Hegel for Marx appears to be 'no Hegel at all'.

In short, Marx agrees with me.
How no contradictions and negations? Marx goes on to write:

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

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is once again approaching, although as yet but in its preliminary stage; and by the universality of its theatre and the intensity of its action it will drum dialectics even into the heads of the mushroom-upstarts of the new, holy Prusso-German empire. I see both "negation" and "contradiction" used here?

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th October 2007, 20:31

Yes, and if you read what both he and I say more carefully, you would not waste my time with such inanities.

I see both "negation" and "contradiction" used here?

Marx:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

I said that these terms do not occur in the summary of his method which he advocated in the Forward, not that they do not appear in Kapital.

In Kapital, Marx merely 'coquetted' with these obscure notions -- as he quite clearly indicated.

Now, can we please move on -- or do you all need new glasses?

Volderbeek

18th October 2007, 09:17

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 05, 2007 01:36 am

In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.

Mercifully, in Capital, Marx abandoned this obscure way of expressing himself; as he explained above.
Just because I bolded the word contradictions there doesn't mean that was the main point. You've already created a win-win situation for yourself with regards to that: if he uses the terms, he's merely "coquetting," and when he doesn't, that's proof positive he abandoned dialectics.

Marx had already accepted that thought was a dialectical process, and there he describes how that process is a reflection of the same process taking place in the material world.

Rosa Lichtenstein

18th October 2007, 09:32

VB:

Just because I bolded the word contradictions there doesn't mean that was the main point. You've already created a win-win situation for yourself with regards to that: if he uses the terms, he's merely "coquetting," and when he doesn't, that's proof positive he abandoned dialectics.

Now you are getting the picture!

[You mystics do the same when you take any attempt to refute your 'theory', whether that attempt is successful or not, as proof of dialectics -- in that the attempted refutation is an 'anti-thesis', and hence part of the dialectical process itself. You even did that yourself earlier in this thread.

So, if you can do it, so can I. :rolleyes: ]

Marx had already accepted that thought was a dialectical process, and there he describes how that process is a reflection of the same process taking place in the material world.

Like any other scientist, Marx adapted his ideas to reality, and so, according to his own words (not mine), he abandoned that mystical way of seeing things by the time he wrote Das Kapital.

How do I know?

Well, in a passage that has just been discovered in a secluded Himalayan valley, Marx said of a review published of 'his method', the following:

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

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

"Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?" [Marx (1976), pp.101-02. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]

It is worth pointing out, in case you missed it, there is not an ounce of Hegel in there.

And, when he used Hegelian terms in Kapital, this is what he said of that use:

and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him.

Now, if you need to be told all this another thousand times, I'm your gal... :)

tolstoyevski

19th October 2007, 15:00

well if rosa is very strict on writing the same answers for a thousand times, then also I am.

yes, as in the quotation that rosa made, Marx tells us about his dialectical understanding. For sure, he was one of the most wise schollars of his time and was conscious about the exact meaning of the dialectics which is based on contradiction theory. The quotation doesn't deny that there are contradictions in the world. Again; this quotation shows us that Marx used the materialist method, namely he tried to understand and explain the material conditions based on the analyze of material contradictions.

what does Marx tell us:

To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.

and what does the reviewer said?

Marx treats the social movement as a process of natural history, governed by laws not only independent of human will, consciousness and intelligence, but rather, on the contrary, determining that will, consciousness and intelligence.

and then just after this quotation from Capital's reviewer, Marx tells us:

because it [dialectics] includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.

The contradictions inherent in the movement of capitalist society impress themselves upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of the periodic cycle, through which modern industry runs, and whose crowning point is the universal crisis.

so what do we understand from here?
Marx used the materialist method, and of course it was dialectical materialism.
More can be found about in the 2nd preface to Capital.
Marx denies not the dialectical method but the idealist look that Hegel had.

woo-hoo!

Rosa Lichtenstein

19th October 2007, 16:12

Tolstoyevski:

yes, as in the quotation that rosa made, Marx tells us about his dialectical understanding. For sure, he was one of the most wise schollars of his time and was conscious about the exact meaning of the dialectics which is based on contradiction theory. The quotation doesn't deny that there are contradictions in the world. Again; this quotation shows us that Marx used the materialist method, namely he tried to understand and explain the material conditions based on the analyze of material contradictions

1) This use of the word 'contradiction' is based on a series of crass logical blunders Hegel made; so no wonder Marx began to 'coquette' with such terms. I merely go further, and refuse even to 'coquette'.

2) The theory does not work, even in its own terms. Here is an extract from my Essay Seven, links removed (references can be found at my site)

We saw above how Engels depicted it:

"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.]

Here, in a published work, he says more or les the same:

"Already in Rousseau, therefore, we find not only a line of thought which corresponds exactly to the one developed in Marx's Capital, but also, in details, a whole series of the same dialectical turns of speech as Marx used: processes which in their nature are antagonistic, contain a contradiction; transformation of one extreme into its opposite; and finally, as the kernel of the whole thing, the negation of the negation. [Engels (1976) p.179. Bold emphasis added.]

Lenin added a few extra details:

"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally 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 [into its opposite?]….

"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. Emphases in the original.]
It is worth noting at the outset that the doctrine that nature and all it contains is a UO, and that change is powered by their 'contradictory' interaction, is found in all known mystical systems. [More on this In Essay Fourteen (summary here). Until that Essay is published, the reader is also directed here.]

[UO = Unity of Opposites.]

However, DM-theorists (like Lenin and Engels) are decidedly unclear as to whether objects/processes change because of (1) a contradictory relationship between their internal opposites, or because (2) they change into these opposites, or even whether (3) change itself creates such opposites.

Lenin's words merely illustrate this confusion in an acute form: he declares, for instance, that "transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other…." Engels is equally unclear: "[M]utual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other...." The same can be said of Plekhanov:

"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.]

And here is Mao:

"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. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here. Bold emphasis added.]

All this seems to suggest that objects and processes not only change because of their internal opposites, but that they change into them (and, according to Lenin, they change into all of them!), and that they also produce these opposites while they change --, or they do so as a result of that change. As we shall see, all this presents DM-theorists with some rather nasty dialectical headaches.

To see this, let us suppose that object/process A is comprised of two "internal opposites" O* and O**, and thus changes as a result.

But, O* cannot itself change into O** since O** already exists! If O** didn't already exist, according to this theory, O* could not change, for there would be no opposite to bring that about.

And it is no good propelling O** into the future so that it now becomes what O* will change into, since O* will do no such thing unless O** is already there in the present to make that happen!

Hence, if object/process A is already composed of a dialectical union of O* and not-O* (i.e., O**) and O* 'changes' into not-O*, where then is the change? All that seems to happen is that O* disappears. Thus, O* does not change into not-O*, it is just replaced by it.

At the very least, this account of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-O* itself came about. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

It cannot have come from O*, since O* can only change because of the operation of not-O*, which does not yet exist! And pushing the process into the past (via a 'reversed' version of the NON) will merely reduplicate the above problems.

[FL = Formal Logic; NON = Negation of the Negation.]

Now, it could be objected that all this seems to place objects and/or processes into fixed categories, which is one of the main criticisms dialecticians make of FL.

Hence, the above argument is entirely misguided -- or so it could be claimed.
In that case, let us suppose that object/process A is comprised of two changing "internal opposites" O* and O**, and thus develops as a result.

The rest still follows: If object/process A is already composed of a changing dialectical union of O* and not-O* (i.e., O* and O**), and O* 'develops' into not-O* as a result, where then is the change? Not-O* already exists! All that seems to happen is that O* disappears. Thus, O* does not change into not-O* it is just replaced by it, since not-O* already exists.

The only way to read this to avoid the above difficulty is to argue that despite this, O* still 'develops' into not-O*. But that cannot work, for not-O* must already exist for this to happen, and that would mean that there would now be two not-O*s where once there was only one!

It would also mean, incidentally, that all the while, not-O* must remain unchanged (which requirement would violate the DM-thesis that all things are always changing, and changing onto their opposites).

Of course, it could be argued that not-O* 'develops' into O* while not-O* 'develops' into O*.

But if that were so, while it was happening, these two would no longer be 'opposites' of one another --, not unless we widen the term "opposite" to mean "anything that an object/process turns into, and/or any intermediate object/process" while that is taking place. Naturally, that would make this 'Law' work by definitional fiat, rendering it eminently 'subjective' once more.

But even that will not work. Let us once again suppose that object/process A is comprised of two changing "internal opposites" O* and O**, and thus develops as a result. On this scenario, O* would change into an intermediary, but not into not-O* (which is, as we saw above, O**), contradicting the DM-worthies quoted earlier. O* should change into O**, not some intermediary.

And yet, on this 'revised' view, O* would have to change into that intermediary -- say O*1 --, and it would remain in that state, unchanged, for there is as yet no not-O*1 in existence to make it change any further.

Anyway, even if O*1 were to change into not-O*1 itself (as we suppose it must, given the doctrine laid down by the DM-prophets), then all the earlier problems would simply reappear, for this could only take place if not-O*1 already exists to make it happen! But not-O*1 cannot already exist, for O*1 has not changed into it yet!

It could be objected that the above abstract argument misses the point; in the real world things manifestly change. For example, it might be the case that John is a boy, but in a few years time it will be the case that John is a man. Now, the fact that other individuals are already men, does not stop John changing into one, as the above claims. So, John can change into his opposite even though that opposite already exists. Or so it could be claimed.

Maybe so, but according to the DM-worthies above, John can only change because of a struggle between opposites. Are we now really supposed to believe that "John is a man" is struggling with "John is a boy" -- or that manhood is struggling with boyhood?

Furthermore, John's 'opposite' is whatever he becomes (if he is allowed to develop naturally). But, as noted above, that opposite cannot now exist or John would not need to become him!

So, in ten or fifteen years, John will not just become any man, he will become a particular man. Let us call the man that he becomes ManJ. In that case, this opposite must exist now or John will not change into him (if the DM-worthies above are to be believed). But, if that is so, John cannot become ManJ since he already exists! [This is, of course, just a concrete example of the argument above.]

Consider another hackneyed example: water turning into steam at 100oC (under normal conditions). Are we really supposed to believe that the opposite that water becomes (i.e., steam) makes water turn into steam? It must do so if the above DM-worthies are to be believed. So, while you might think it is the heat/energy you are putting into the water that turns it into steam, what really happens according to these wise old dialecticians is that steam makes water turn into steam!

In that case, save energy, and turn the gas off!

Let us track a water molecule to see what happens to it. To identify it we shall call it W1, and the steam molecule it turns into S1. But, if the DM-worthies above are correct, S1 must already exist, otherwise W1 could not change into it. But if that is so, where does S1 disappear to? In fact, according to the above worthies, since opposites turn into one another, S1 must change into W1! So while you are boiling a kettle, according to this Superscientific theory, steam is turning back into the water you have just boiled, and at the same rate!

One wonders therefore how kettles manage to boil dry.

This must be so, otherwise, when W1 turns into S1 -- which already exists or W1 could not change -- there would have to be two S1s where there used to be one! Matter created from nowhere!

Of course, the same argument applies to water freezing (and to any and all other examples of change).

This, of course, does not deny that change occurs, only that DM cannot account for it.

More details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm