Core understanding of Marx

[peaccenicked]

"I was the first to point out and to examine critically this two-fold nature of the labour contained in commodities. As this point is the pivot on which a clear
comprehension of Political Economy turns,"[5]

This paragraph from http://www.thomehfang.com/suncrates/7Dow.html
puts it like this:

Insofar as using the twofold perspective as a method of study and analysis is concerned, Karl Marx provides the best example. In his Capital,[5] Marx claimed that he "was the first to point out and to examine critically this twofold nature of the labour contained in the commodities" (use value and exchange value). In his view, "it is an eternal nature without which there is no life." This two fold nature phenomena operates in economic activities such as: "An increased quantity of material wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in the magnitude of its value." "This antagonistic movement has its origin in the twofold character of labour," Marx contended. From this he sees the twofold nature of the production process: the productive force and the productive relation. As a result, the twofold antagonistic classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, evolved through a constant class struggle which constitutes the moving force of social change; and hence his materialistic interpretation of history. While his prediction of the occurrence of a classless society may be utopian, Marx’s analysis of the capitalist mode of production remains to exercise a powerful influence on the world. So long as human beings live an organized life, the state will not disappear as Marx would have it and the twofold nature of development will evolve in every aspect of political phenomena. The relationships of the ruler and ruled, sovereign and subject or citizen, authority and servant, autonomy and integration, central and local, etc. will continue to exist regardless of what forms of government may prevail.

Whither Marx's prediction is utopian or not is perhaps beside the point, this ying and yang existence in society is evident by our experience and we dont really needed scientific data to prove that we live within a system of wage slavery, though some of our empiricists might demand we set up laboratory social science samples and correlate our data to prove the exploitative relationship between the classes we speculate are existing. Or perhaps we need to show by interviewing appropriate really there people that class society exists.
Now if there is a fight between to sides, let us consider the possibility that one of the sides might win, but that be unscientific, that is speculation. We are dealing with potential rather than actual. How can that be done without looking at actual collect-able data?
So what is to be said that such speculation is unscientific, such speculation cannot be proved.

Then for these philistines science becomes everything that can be proved.

Theories of socialism, like say theories of men on the moon forty years ago,
or time travel, can be rubbished, thrown aside, brought back to life when there are empirical changes in reality. These theories are goals, visions, sometimes impossible dreams but they have their own nature and parameters, they help us define the actual by giving us directions or tendencies.

The announcement of scientific socialism was opposed to utopian socialism because it was based in the opposition of class antagonisms.

Many anti-dialectitions accept the nature of Marx's dichotomy's for society but think that this method cannot be brought into other spheres. Saying it is unscientific, and offers no proofs. However the struggle of opposites is an objective reality. Life and death, living and dying, past and future, absolute and relative.
On only need think of the term "aufheben" which means to keep and to lose at the same time.
This is explained in a more complex fashion in Wikihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufheben

To deny the universality this process is to enter the world of utopian idealism.
Narrow empiricists explain functionalism ie what is kept better than dysfuction ie what is lost.
In fact they cant cope with it philosophically and tend to avoid contradiction and the nature of contradiction in every sphere partly because they have no imagination whatsoever. How useful is it to recognise the real nature of the world if you cant predict the way something is going to move, they ask.

I have to tell them is not that simple, and the interaction of opposites is complex, and requires great observation of the relevant data. It does initself produce thesis but puts theses in context, it is a means of both stepping inside and outside of a thesis.

The question Marx posed was 'what is the nature of capitalism?'
He looked at that nature and saw that capitalism had within it the means of its own destruction. It is still a question "socialism" or " barbarism?".

If I state that B=E-h in physics assuming I am talking about real entities, it might be true under certain conditions and false under others.

Opposites run through life. We think with them. Progress occurs through opposition
to previous held opinions.

To be anti dialectical is to deny the very process of life, it is to be brain dead.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

. However the struggle of opposites is an objective reality. Life and death, living and dying, past and future, absolute and relative.
On only need think of the term "aufheben" which means to keep and to lose at the same time.
This is explained in a more complex fashion in Wikihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufheben

To deny the universality this process is to enter the world of utopian idealism.
Narrow empiricists explain functionalism ie what is kept better than dysfuction ie what is lost.
In fact they cant cope with it philosophically and tend to avoid contradiction and the nature of contradiction in every sphere partly because they have no imagination whatsoever. How useful is it to recognise the real nature of the world if you cant predict the way something is going to move, they ask.

Okay, but you say to deny the unity of opposites as a fact is Utopian idealism. Why don't you tell us if things change because of their internal opposites or if the thing actually changes into its opposite or if they create their opposites while they change.

Thats three options for you.

Also, what is the opposite of a proletarian?

What is the opposite of a capitalist?

Do they change into their opposites? its a universal fact isn't it?

[peaccenicked]

The struggle of opposites is not the same as the unity of opposites.
The unity refers to the fact that both proletarians and capitalists are united by both being part of society.

The struggle of opposites, is neither unconditional or conditional, in that it depends on the exact historical circumstances or the circumstance of any given moment in time as can be estimated by aproximation.

If we consider the moment of revolution which is defined by the replacement of the capitalist class by the proletariat, and that State power is now weilded by the proletariat or at the very least in the interests of the proletariat against the interests of the capitalist class(as a class), then we can consider that the power ralation is reversed but the reason the proletariat does not become capitalist is precisely that the social relationship between the capitalist and the proletariat has been abolished and we are then set on the concrete task of individuating the capitalist class, so that they no longer function as a class or a potential reformed capital class but merely as individuals in a classless society.

The idea that things change into there opposite is not mechanical, not all opposites
interchange, necessarily, here what changes is class into classless, there maybe transitional forms, even counter-revolution.

The universality and particularity of a contradiction is wrapped up in the specific concrete struggle ie what is going on per se (at any moment in time in any given parameters)is an individual event and its particularity is recognized relation to all other events of that particular nature ie, its universality.

The universality of a process is, such as living and then dying is a universal fact as such, but facts tend to be individuated and specific to a concrete situation.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PN:


Opposites run through life. We think with them. Progress occurs through opposition
to previous held opinions.

This is what mystics like you have been claiming for thousands of years, but it is clear that you have never really thought much about it, least of all the Hermetic mystics among us (you call yourselves 'dialectical materialists', but a ruse by any other name is still a ruse) who look to Hegel.

Now we have already debated this modern version of Hermetic mysticism at RevLeft -- I suspect you missed it while you were away (over the last few months):

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66945

Here is a summary, to help you out:

As is easy to confirm, dialecticians have been hopelessly unclear as to whether things change because of:

(1) Their internal contradictions (and/or opposites), or

(2) Whether they change into these opposites, or, indeed,

(3) Whether they create such opposites when they change.

Of course, if the third option were the case, the alleged opposites could not cause change, since they would be produced by it, not the other way round. Moreover, they could scarcely be 'internal opposites' if they were produced by change.

If the second alternative were correct, then we would see things like males naturally turning into females, the capitalist class into the working class, electrons into protons, left hands into right hands, and vice versa, and a host of other oddities.

And as far as the first option is concerned, it is worth making the following points:

[A] If objects/processes change because of already existing internal opposites, and they change into these opposites, then plainly they cannot change, since those opposites must already exist.

So, if object/process A is already composed of a dialectical union of A and not-A, and it 'changes' into not-A, where then is the change? All that would seem to happen here is that A disappears. [And do not ask where it disappears to!]

At the very least, this account of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-A itself came about. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

[It cannot have come from A, since A can only change because of the operation of not-A, which does not yet exist! And pushing the process into the past will merely reduplicate this problem.]

[B] Exactly how an (internal) opposite is capable of making anything change is somewhat unclear, too. Given the above, not-A does not actually alter A, it merely replaces it!

Now the above points are not difficult to grasp, but why has no dialectician ever considered these obvious points?

The answer is plain: just as Christian mystics never see the obvious errors in their whacko beliefs (since they give them consolation), you DM-fans do likewise.

Finally, since we have already established here that Marx abandoned all this Hegelian boll*cks, I think we need an apology from you for besmirching his great name.

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

More details here:

Essay Eight Part One: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_01.htm

Essay Eight Part Two: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm

[peaccenicked]

I dont want to argue with someone who set up straw dogs and knocks them down.

It is a plain fact if you dont think in terms of opposites, you are not thinking at all.

you can deny this reality all you want, but it wont go away.

There is nothing you have said that convinces me that you are not living in a fantasy world.

Enough said.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Whimped out again I see.


It is a plain fact if you dont think in terms of opposites, you are not thinking at all.

Nice to see you think nature is mind, then --, or that it can think.

[Raúl Duke]

if you dont think in terms of opposites, you are not thinking at all.

??? :huh:

prove or disprove that this is true.... :mellow:

it sounds....odd.... :blink:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JD, you are right, this is the line mystics have taken since Thales was a lad.

It is after all a core belief of every religious and mystical system humanity has had inflicted upon it.

As Hegel expert, Glenn Magee noted:


Another parallel between Hermeticism and Hegel is the doctrine of internal relations. For the Hermeticists, the cosmos is not a loosely connected, or to use Hegelian language, externally related set of particulars. Rather, everything in the cosmos is internally related, bound up with everything else.... This principle is most clearly expressed in the so-called Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, which begins with the famous lines "As above, so below." This maxim became the central tenet of Western occultism, for it laid the basis for a doctrine of the unity of the cosmos through sympathies and correspondences between its various levels. The most important implication of this doctrine is the idea that man is the microcosm, in which the whole of the macrocosm is reflected.

...The universe is an internally related whole pervaded by cosmic energies." [Magee (2001),

This can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/glenn_magee.htm

Add to this the following:


"The Taoists saw all changes in nature as manifestations of the dynamic interplay between the polar opposites yin and yang, and thus they came to believe that any pair of opposites constitutes a polar relationship where each of the two poles is dynamically linked to the other. For the Western mind, this idea of the implicit unity of all opposites is extremely difficult to accept. It seems most paradoxical to us that experiences and values which we had always believed to be contrary should be, after all, aspects of the same thing. In the East, however, it has always been considered as essential for attaining enlightenment to go 'beyond earthly opposites,' and in China the polar relationship of all opposites lies at the very basis of Taoist thought. Thus Chuang Tzu says:

The 'this' is also 'that.' The 'that' is also 'this.'...
That the 'that' and the 'this' cease to be opposites
is the very essence of Tao.
Only this essence, an axis as it were,
is the centre of the circle
responding to the endless changes." [Fritjof Capra.]

"Buddhist enlightenment consists simply in knowing the secret of the unity of opposites -- the unity of the inner and outer worlds....

"The principle is that all dualities and opposites are not disjoined but polar; they do not encounter and confront one another from afar; they exfoliate from a common centre. Ordinary thinking conceals polarity and relativity because it employs terms, the terminals or ends, the poles, neglecting what lies between them. The difference of front and back, to be and not to be, hides their unity and mutuality." [Alan Watts, quoted here.]

"The three major gods of Hinduism are Brahma (the creator; paradoxically of minor importance in actual practice -- possibly, since his work is completed), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer), each with a wife, to symbolize the androgyny of ultimate reality. By theologians and educated Hindus in general, these gods and their innumerable manifestations are viewed as pointing toward one transcendent reality beyond existence and non-existence, the impersonal world-spirit Brahman, the absolute unity of all opposites....

"Hindus envision the cosmic process as the growth of one mighty organism, the self-actualization of divinity which contains within itself all opposites." [This has been taken from here.]

"Sufism is usually associated with Islam. It has developed Bhakti to a high point with erotic imagery symbolising the unity of opposites. The subtle anatomy and microcosm-macrocosm model also found in Tantra and Taoism is used by it, dressed in its own symbols. Certain orders use ecstatic music and/or dance which reminds one of the Tantric celebration of the senses. Sometimes, the union of opposites is seen as a kind of gnosis. This is similar to Jnani Yoga." [Quoted from here.]

"The fact that the Reality of God which is disclosed through the cosmos can be described by opposite and conflicting attributes explains, in the Muslim view, why the cosmos itself can be seen as a vast collection of opposites. The two hands of God are busy shaping all that exists. Hence, mercy and wrath, severity and gentleness, life-giving and slaying, exalting and abasing, and all the contradictory attributes of God are displayed in existence. These opposing pairs of names act together in a manner analogous to yin and yang. One way in which we perceive this constant interaction of the names is through change (haraka) and transmutation (estehala). Here Chuang Tzu could say: 'The existence of things is like a galloping horse. With every motion existence changes, at every second it is transformed' (Chuang Tsu 17. 6). For their part, the Ash'arite theologians said that nothing stands still in creation and no phenomenon remains constant in its place for two successive moments. Everything is in constant need of divine replenishment, since nothing exists on its own. Things can exist only if God gives them existence. If God were to stop giving existence to the universe for an instant, it would disappear. Hence, at each moment God re-creates the cosmos to prevent its annihilation." [Quoted from here.]

"According to Acharya Mahaprajna, opposition is a fundamental rule for existence. 'There is no type of existence in which opposites do not co-exist. In a sense, existence may also be defined as the coming together of opposites. It is the principle of the quest for unity between two apparently different characteristics of a substance. It tries to point out that the characteristics which differences have, also have an identicality. Reconciliation, which is a principle of anekant, comes about only with the recognition of the identity principle.'...

"In the opposite lies the affirmation of an attribute. This seems to be true at all levels. Even within the atom, the electron has an anti-particle called photon (sic). Writes Richard Feynman, 'Photons look exactly the same in all respects when they travel backwards in time... so they are their own anti-particles.'" [Quoted from here.]

"The great Fourth Hermetic Principle-the Principle of Polarity-embodies the truth that all manifested things have 'two sides'; 'two aspects'; 'two poles'; a 'pair of opposites,' with manifold degrees between the two extremes. The old paradoxes, which have ever perplexed the mind of men, are explained by an understanding of this Principle. Man has always recognized something akin to this Principle, and has endeavoured to express it by such sayings, maxims and aphorisms as the following: 'Everything is and isn't, at the same time'; 'all truths are but half-truths'; 'every truth is half-false'; 'there are two sides to everything'; 'there is a reverse side to every shield,' etc., etc. The Hermetic Teachings are to the effect that the difference between things seemingly diametrically opposed to each is merely a matter of degree. It teaches that 'the pairs of opposites may be reconciled,' and that 'thesis and antithesis are identical in nature, but different in degree''; and that the ''universal reconciliation of opposites' is effected by a recognition of this Principle of Polarity. The teachers claim that illustrations of this Principle may be had on every hand, and from an examination into the real nature of anything. They begin by showing that Spirit and Matter are but the two poles of the same thing, the intermediate planes being merely degrees of vibration...." [The Kybalion, reputed by some to be the third most important book of Hermeticism, quoted from here.]

Finally, there is this revealing comment:

"The ancient Egyptians believed that a totality must consist of the union of opposites. A similar premise, that the interaction between yin (the female principle) and yang (the male principle) underlies the workings of the universe, is at the heart of much Chinese thinking. The idea has been central to Taoist philosophy from the fourth century B.C. to the present day and is still embraced by many Chinese who are not Taoists. Nor is the idea confined to the Egyptians and the Chinese. Peoples all over the world, in Eurasia, Africa and the Americas, have come to the conclusion that the cosmos is a combining of opposites and that one of the most important aspects of this dualism is the opposition between male and female." [Maybury-Lewis (1992), p.125.]

As we can see, Marx was right when he said the ruling ideas were always those of the ruling class.

References and links here:

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

[davidasearles]

if you don't think in terms of opposites, you are not thinking at all.

And I always thought it was the people who did not think what I thought were the ones not thinking.:-)

Thought must be only of opposites? Is this the basis of homophobia? ;-)

A thought on "science" of "scientific socialism" ISTM that neither science nor socialism is advanced by the automatic pairing of the two terms.

One never hears the term scientific chemistry or scientific mathematics. The science is never in the generality of the subject but in the development of the various individual precepts that make op the "science."

IMHO (and of others) dialectics in and of themselves prove nothing. They of course may be employed as a heuristic in developing possible explanations for observed phenomena - but nothing is established simply because it was thought of by employing dialectics. As the saying goes, the devil is always in the details.

And yes I know that it's called scientific socialism to distinguish it from Utopian socialism - but I suspect that there were probably a few things about Utopian socialism that were scientifically verifiable and that the are a few things about scientific socialism that are not or have not been scientifically verified. As opposed to science in socialism as well as in any social "science", logic for the most part has to stand in for "science."

[blackstone]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 09:35 pm

It is a plain fact if you dont think in terms of opposites, you are not thinking at all.


If it's fact then why is it so hard for you to prove?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Do you think you are arguing with a rational person here guys?

Dialectical logic screws with comrades' brains, so much so that not only do they say odd things like this, they actually believe them.

But ask them to prove any of it, and they go rather quiet, as you can see Blackstone.

They also ignore the crazy consequences of their whacky ideas, outlined by me in several other threads here.

Anyway, this idea about opposites/negatives is in fact one derived from Hegel, who, so he says, got it from Spinoza -- but I have been unable to find it in the latter's work.

Anyway, following Hegel, dialecticians like to say things like "Every determination is also a negation".

This allowed Hegel to derived a 'contradiction' in the 'Law of Identity' (a law incidentally, which Aristotle had never heard of), which then allowed him to set his whole system up and running.

So, this idea is, in effect, where the dialectic begins, and if we can show that this principle is no good, the entire Hegelian system can be stopped in its tracks. If this rule is defective, then there is no dialectic for Marxists to invert, and put on its feet, no contradictions, no unities of opposites, no negation of the negation.

But can we?

Sit back and watch me do it...

[And watch the mystics here ignore it.]

The principle depends on the following sort of observation. If you say things like "The rose is red" (Hegel's own example), you are automatically committed to the following "The rose in not blue" "The rose is not green" "The rose is not orange".

Or if you say that "The rose is a plant", you cannot really mean that, for the rose you are speaking about cannot be identical with a plant -- otherwise nothing else could be a plant.

So what you really mean is that "The rose both is and is not a plant" (it partakes of planthood, but not in its entirety), and then because you realise that the rose must be a plant after all, you are committed to the view that "The rose is both identical to a plant and not not identical to a plant."

That is the negation of the negation, for to have a 'determinate' idea of anything, thought has to go through this process.

All this you can find in Hegel's 'Logic' (but expressed in rather obscure terms).

So, to identify a rose, you have to engage in negation.

Now leave aside the fact that we never speak this way (when was the last time you used this form of words -- called the predicative form)? Leave aside the fact that this only works in the Indo-European family of languages. Few other groups of languages have this sort of "is", or any at all.

Hegel's dialectic would be impossible to derive in, for example, Russian (would you believe!).

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

Leave aside too the fact that the "is" here is not one of identity.

According to this theory, "The rose is a plant" is really "The rose = a plant"

Hegel just assumed this was so, with no proof, and it is possible to show it is not always such an "is" -- details at my site, for anyone interested.

He actually got the idea from medieval Roman Catholic logicians (Thomas Aquinas and Jean Buridan, for example), guys keen to prove the Trinity (with identical persons of the one 'godhead', blah, blah), but the idea is implicit in Aristotle -- it's called the Identity Theory of Predication.

http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philoso...predication.php (http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophies/identity-theory-of-predication.php)

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace....e_russel_is.htm (http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/frege_russel_is.htm)

[The last link starts well, but ends with a rather odd theory of its own.]

Leave all that aside; it is possible to show that even if we ignore all the serious problems Hegel's 'logic' faces, his system still stalls on the starting grid, or flies off the track at the first bend

Is it the case that every determination is also a negation? If it isn't then the whole thing collapses like the pack of cards it is.

Now, Lenin uses this sentence to illustrate what he calls the central core of the dialectic:

"John is a man."


"To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other….

"Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general." [Lenin (1961), pp.359-60.]

Now, for ease of reference let us call this "Spinoza's greedy principle" (henceforth, SP: "every determination is also a negation" -- the reason I call it "greedy" will soon become apparent); this allegedly connects John with the rest of humanity, so whatever identifies them indirectly identifies John, and vice versa. Though fictional, John thus comes to symbolise all that is true of human beings.

But, what is the problem with the SP?

Well, the SP is "greedy" since its appetite is difficult to contain, and is seemingly boundless. This is because John is also "not Santa Claus", just as he is "not the first man to eat Madagascar" and "not the saliva on Jabba the Hutt's chin", nor is he "the answer to every maiden's prayer"...

But, because of this, the SP allows us to link John with anything and everything that can be named or described, no matter how strange it might seem, just so long as a negative particle can be glued onto it.

Clearly, this has disastrous consequences for the universe, for on the basis of shaky logic like this (if every determination is also a negation), the universe will unavoidably contain some rather bizarre 'beings' -- in fact, it must contain every weird item imaginable, all of which define John!

This goes to show that the SP is a completely useless principle, and inimical to materialism.

Well, Hegel tried to limit the damage the SP did to his system by arguing that there was one and only one 'other' for each such subject to have: i.e., its 'internally connected opposite', as it is called these days -- clearly by people who have far too much leisure time on their hands -- but I will mischievously call this its "significant other". But, even Hegel had to transcend his own restrictions to allow nature to work, for it is obvious that most things have countless opposites with which they interact.

For example, what is the opposite of Fluorine? It reacts with practically everything. Hydrofluoric acid is even more anti-dialectical. It has more 'significant others' than Tony Blair has lies.

Nevertheless, dialecticians like to amuse us (while they fool themselves) with neat lists of such paired twins: male-female, positive-negative, hot-cold, North-South (in magnets) etc., etc. You will even have noticed PeaceNicked does this. It is indeed their equivalent of a parlour game.

But what about things that come in threes? E.g., speed, distance and time. They all inter-define one another. So do mass, density and volume. And in basic trig we have, say, opposite and adjacent (in right-angled triangles) both defining the tangent function. What about the three quarks in protons? What about electrons? Are they pared with protons or positrons?

Lest these be rejected as 'abstract' (a fine accusation to have levelled at one by a Hegel-groupie!) consider this: in the Periodic Table, none of the Halides (Chlorine, Bromine, Fluorine, Iodine, etc.,) is defined in terms of a significant 'other' -- and, more widely, neither are salts, proteins, enzymes, catalysts, alcohols, Aldehydes...

But what of things that come in fours?

Consider the life-cycle of moths and butterflies; they go through the following stages:

Adult -> egg -> pupa -> chrysalis -> adult...

Which is the negation of which here? Which is the negation of the negation?

But, according to the followong dialectical gurus, things change into their opposites:


"[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?]…." [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22.]

"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.]

"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.]

Plenty more examples are listed here (middle of the page):

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=66945&st=50

Does this mean that electrons will turn into protons? Males into females? Every small object into a big one?

Anyway are we really supposed to believe that, say, a domestic cat is a unity of such opposites? But, what is the opposite of a cat? A dog? A tulip? A tin of beans?

Is it a 'non-cat'? And yet, if a 'non-cat' were the opposite of a cat, it would mean that if everything does indeed change into its opposite, cats must change into everything that they are not -- that is, they must change into any one or more of the following 'non-cats': oak trees, sandy beaches, cuff links, dog baskets, rift valleys, petrol stations and galaxies --, to name but a few.

Dialecticians tend to ignore these irritating counter-examples, and take great exception to being accused of imposing their ideas on nature, as Engels noted:


"Finally, for me there could be no question of superimposing the laws of dialectics on nature but of discovering them in it and developing them from it." [Engels (1976), p.13.]

"All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being; the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought." [Engels (1954), p.62.]

Many other dialecticians say the same sort of thing. But they all immediately ignore the above fine words; the SP itself is proof of that, for on the basis of the SP dialecticians derive truths that are applicable right throughout the universe -- obtaining supposedly scientific facts from thought alone.

This can be seen not just from that fact alone, but from the fact that they ignore the sorts of counter-examples I have listed above (and many others detailed at my site).

They just pretend they do not exist.

The SP allows them to argue, as PeaceNicked does, that negativity is at the heart of everything, because everything is paired with its determinate opposite, its 'significant other' -- even though most things disobey this romantic ideal.

But, once more, is the SP itself sound?

Clearly not for it would imply some rather odd things. For example:

1) The universe is all there is.

Does this imply its opposite? Is there an implicit negative here? Such as:

2) The universe is not all there is.

Have we not now found proof of the existence of the supernatural?

Paraphrasing Lenin:

3) The universe is matter and motion (defined dialectically).

Does this imply the existence of its opposite, immaterial substance?

It would if we accepted the SP:

4) The universe is not matter and motion (defined dialectically).

But, let us end with something more 'down-to-earth', with Hegel's own example:

5) The rose is red.

Does this imply:

6) The rose is not blue, not green, not purple...?

Surely not, otherwise things could not be multicoloured. There may not now be such multicoloured roses, but that is not a fact of logic, but of nature. And there certainly are mottled roses -- but perhaps they do not 'understand' dialectics.

And even John can be a woman these days. Two snips of the surgeon's scissors, and Bob's your Aunty...

The above is a summary of several long Essays at my site -- Essay Three Part One, Eight Part Two and Eleven Part One.

Conclusion?

Hegel's 'logic' is bogus from beginning to end (especially when we include a full considerastion of the other problems it faces, mentioned earlier).

That means that there is no dialectic in nature, or in human history.

No wonder this theory has presided over 150 years of almost total failure.

[Raúl Duke]

It is a plain fact if you dont think in terms of opposites, you are not thinking at all.


The principle depends on the following sort of observation. If you say things like "The rose is red" (Hegel's own example), you are automatically committed to the following "The rose in not blue" "The rose is not green" "The rose is not orange".

Or if you say that "The rose is a plant", you cannot really mean that, for the rose you are speaking about cannot be identical with a plant -- otherwise nothing else could be a plant.

So what you really mean is that "The rose both is and is not a plant" (it partakes of planthood, but not in its entirety), and then because you realise that the rose must be a plant after all, you are committed to the view that "The rose is both identical to a plant and not not identical to a plant."

That is the negation of the negation, for to have a 'determinate' idea of anything, thought has to go through this process.

All this you can find in Hegel's 'Logic' (but expressed in rather obscure terms).

So, to identify a rose, you have to engage in negation.



If thinking in opposites IS thinking...

Than what is it when you don't think in opposites?

Non-thinking?

Wouldn't you have to join thinking and non thinking together to think, according to Hegelian logic?

The whole idea of thinking in opposite is the only form of thinking period sounds...like nonsense. <_<

[More Fire for the People]

I think you’re missing out on the core importance of the dialectic — it’s hermeneutic-dialogic value. The dialectic cannot render in a fatalistic way the definition of a future event: dialectics don’t construct a priori facts about the world. The dialectic is a part of human activity. It helps peer into our collective (and individual) selves. It is an introspective tool for understanding human social relations. Hence, it can reveal existing facts and break up impasses in dialogue.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hop, thank you for confirming my prediction that you would ignore my argument.


I think you’re missing out on the core importance of the dialectic — it’s hermeneutic-dialogic value. The dialectic cannot render in a fatalistic way the definition of a future event: dialectics don’t construct a priori facts about the world. The dialectic is a part of human activity. It helps peer into our collective (and individual) selves. It is an introspective tool for understanding human social relations. Hence, it can reveal existing facts and break up impasses in dialogue.

But, if this entire &#39;theory&#39; is based on a series of logical blunders (my earlier post outlining just one of them), then there is nothing here to consider.

You could after all argue this way:


I think you’re missing out on the core importance of the deity...The deity cannot render in a fatalistic way the definition of a future event: theology does not construct a priori facts about the world....

And you&#39;d have just about the same amount of justification.

And it is not the case that dialecticians do not construct a priori facts; I have a 30,000 word essay at my site crammed full of quotations from dialecticians where they do just that.

Here are a few:


"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.]

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted….

"A motionless state of matter therefore proves to be one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas…." [Engels (1976), p.74.]

"&#39;Fundamentally, we can know only the infinite.&#39; In fact all real exhaustive knowledge consists solely in raising the individual thing in thought from individuality into particularity and from this into universality, in seeking and establishing the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory…. All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and essentially absolute…. The cognition of the infinite…can only take place in an infinite asymptotic progress." [Engels (1954), pp.233-35.]

"Cognition is the eternal, endless approximation of thought to the object." [Lenin (1961), p.195.]

"Dialectics requires an all-round consideration of relationships in their concrete development…. Dialectical logic demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should be taken in development, in &#39;self-movement&#39; (as Hegel sometimes puts it)….

"[D]ialectical logic holds that &#39;truth&#39; is always concrete, never abstract, as the late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel." [Lenin (1921), pp.90, 93.]

"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [E]ach thing (phenomenon, process, etc.)…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 &#39;essentials&#39;, one of the principal, if not the principal, characteristic features) of dialectics….

"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their &#39;self-movement&#39;, in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the &#39;struggle&#39; 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….

"To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel&#39;s genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other….

"Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a &#39;nucleus&#39; (&#39;cell&#39;) the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general." [Lenin (1961), pp.221-22, 357-58, 359-60.]

"[A]ll bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves…. [T]he axiom &#39;A&#39; is equal to &#39;A&#39; 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 &#39;tolerance&#39; which is established not by formal logic…, but by the dialectical logic issuing from the axiom that everything is always changing…. Hegel in his Logic established a series of laws: change of quantity into quality, development through contradiction, conflict and form, interruption of continuity, change of possibility into inevitability, etc…." [Trotsky (1971), pp.64-66.]

"…The principle of the transformation of quantity into quality has universal significance, insofar as we view the entire universe -- without any exception -- as a product of formation and transformation….

"In these abstract formulas we have the most general laws (forms) of motion, change, the transformation of the stars of the heaven, of the earth, nature and human society.

"…Dialectics is the logic of development. It examines the world -- completely without exception -– not as a result of creation, of a sudden beginning, the realisation of a plan, but as a result of motion, of transformation. Everything that is became the way it is as a result of lawlike development." [Trotsky (1986), pp.88, 90, 96.]

"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 &#39;higher development of their content….&#39;

"In the words of Engels, Hegel&#39;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….

"[M]odern science confirms at every step the idea expressed with such genius by Hegel, that quantity passes into quality….

"[I]t will be understood without difficulty by anyone who is in the least capable of dialectical thinking...[that] quantitative changes, accumulating gradually, lead in the end to changes of quality, and that these changes of quality represent leaps, interruptions in gradualness…. That is how all Nature acts…." [Plekhanov (1956), pp.74-77, 88, 163.]

"Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in Earth, neither in the world of mind nor of nature, is there anywhere such an abstract &#39;either-or&#39; as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things will then lie in the want of correspondence between their immediate being, and what they essentially are. Thus, in inorganic nature, the acid is implicitly at the same time the base: in other words, its only being consists in its relation to its other. Hence also the acid is not something that persists quietly in the contrast: it is always in effort to realise what it potentially is." [Hegel (1975, p.174; Essence as Ground of Existence, §119.]

"The dialectical method therefore holds that no phenomenon in nature can be understood if taken by itself....; and that, vice versa, any phenomenon can be understood and explained if considered in its inseparable connection with surrounding phenomena, as one conditioned by surrounding phenomena.

"Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not in a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development....

"The dialectical method therefore requires that phenomena should be considered not only from the standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from the standpoint of their movement and change....

"Contrary to metaphysics. dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides...; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born..., constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes....

"If there are no isolated phenomena in the world, if all phenomena are interconnected and interdependent, then it is clear that every social system and every social movement in history must be evaluated not from the standpoint of &#39;eternal justice&#39;....

"Contrary to idealism..., Marxist philosophical materialism holds that the world and its laws are fully knowable, that our knowledge of the laws of nature, tested by experiment and practice, is authentic knowledge having the validity of objective truth, and that there are no things in the world which are unknowable, but only things which are as yet not known, but which will be disclosed and made known by the efforts of science and practice." [Stalin (1976b), pp.835-46.]

"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics....

"As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development....

"The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end....

"...There is nothing that does not contain contradictions; without contradiction nothing would exist....

"Thus it is already clear that contradiction exists universally and is in all processes, whether in the simple or in the complex forms of motion, whether in objective phenomena or ideological phenomena....

"...Contradiction is universal and absolute, it is present in the process of the development of all things and permeates every process from beginning to end...." [Mao (1937), pp.311-18.]

Plenty more here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm

[Volderbeek]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 07:36 pm
To be anti dialectical is to deny the very process of life, it is to be brain dead.
This is also a very odd way of putting it (the process of life?). QFT regardless though. Fuck reactionary positivists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Maybe so VB, but who is the positivist here?

[Volderbeek]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 18, 2007 03:22 am
Maybe so VB, but who is the positivist here?
I don&#39;t know. Guilty conscience?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VB:


I don&#39;t know. Guilty conscience?

I am not qualified to judge whether you have one or not.

May I suggest you seek professional help?

[Volderbeek]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 18, 2007 04:56 am
VB:


I don&#39;t know. Guilty conscience?

I am not qualified to judge whether you have one or not.

May I suggest you seek professional help?
"I know you are, but what am I?" :lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

VB:


"I know you are, but what am I?"

Look, you can&#39;t keep looking to me for free advice.

At some point, you are just going to have to let go of mumsy&#39;s apron strings, and think for yourself.

[Raúl Duke]

To be anti dialectical is to deny the very process of life, it is to be brain dead.

There&#39;s like more than a billion people who are unaware of the existence of the "dialectic"...

By your statement, we are suppose to think there&#39;s at least billion brain dead people. :rolleyes:

You know, this position leads to a condescending view towards the majority of the working class...who most have never heard of Hegel, dialectics, nor are interested in philosophy in any way. I think their&#39;re more interested in results...

Like Marx stated: "the philosophers have already explained the world (although I doubt it), what counts is to change it."

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JD, make that "over 6 billion", and you&#39;d be closer&#33; :D