Dialectical logic is not Dialectical materialism

[Lamanov]

What is Logic: (Wiki) Logic is the study of the principles of valid inference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference) and demonstration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28proof%29). (Inference is the act or process of deriving a conclusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclusion) based solely on what one already knows. Demonstration is simply a proof.)

Given the definition, what we consider to be a simple method of posing and counter-posing propositions - dialectical method is not to be confused with "dialectical materialism" - philosophical "outlook" composed of axiomatic claims that the whole material and mental world ("Totality") is governed by a set of unchangeable "laws" (you know what they are).

So, if we are to give a simple summary of what is dialectical method of analysis, we would see thus:

- If there exist two propositions, propositions A and B, we would need a third proposition - C - that would show how these two are in contradiction with each other. Introducing C to A and B is called "negative dialectical result": the contradiction remains, but we are aware of it.

- The next step would be transcendence of contradiction, its negation. This step for us, obviously - if we are materialists - needs to be a practical resolution that creates a new situation where the original contradiction no longer exists. This is "positive dialectical result".

If we call this the "negation of negation", it precisely shows that by materialist comprehension of dialectical method, this "negation of negation" is not a "law", but an act. Nothing is determined by it, but it can only explain what did and could happen, considering the given contradictions.

I move to demonstration: this act of transcendence can be seen in destroying capitalism - if A and B are labor and capital, C would be class consciousness, and "negation of negation" - as an act - can only be a revolution, a practical solution to given state of things.

It is not predetermined in any way. It can only be done.

[trivas7]

What is Logic: (Wiki) Logic is the study of the principles of valid inference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference) and demonstration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonstration_%28proof%29). (Inference is the act or process of deriving a conclusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conclusion) based solely on what one already knows. Demonstration is simply a proof.)

The term "dialectical materialism" was coined by Plekhanov to merge Marx's philosophic materialism with the dialectical method he learned from Hegel. Whether this constitutes an integral philosophic world outlook is up for debate.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DJ-TC:


If there exist two propositions, propositions A and B, we would need a third proposition - C - that would show how these two are in contradiction with each other. Introducing C to A and B is called "negative dialectical result": the contradiction remains, but we are aware of it.

I'd like to see you show that a third proposition can demonstrate a contradiction between two others (which wasn't already apparent from the syntax of those two already). As things stand, this is just an empty claim.


The next step would be transcendence of contradiction, its negation. This step for us, obviously - if we are materialists - needs to be a practical resolution that creates a new situation where the original contradiction no longer exists. This is "positive dialectical result".

You're using 'contradiction' now in a new an unexplained way. If this is a logical contradiction, then they cannot be 'transcended' (or if they can, I'd like to see the proof). If this isn't a logical contradcitiion, then, as I say, it is as yet unexplained.


If we call this the "negation of negation", it precisely shows that by materialist comprehension of dialectical method, this "negation of negation" is not a "law", but an act. Nothing is determined by it, but it can only explain what did and could happen, considering the given contradictions.

But this bogus notion ('negation of the negation') depends on the previous steps being valid. At the moment those two steps are little more than wishful thinking.


I move to demonstration: this act of transcendence can be seen in destroying capitalism - if A and B are labor and capital, C would be class consciousness, and "negation of negation" - as an act - can only be a revolution, a practical solution to given state of things.

Once more, this is just empty rhetoric until you actually do demonstrate the above moves.


It is not predetermined in any way. It can only be done.

Well, if we do not know what it is we are supposed to be 'doing', plainly it cannot be 'done'.

You can read an outline of the serious logical errors Hegel committed which motivated this sort of 'reasoning', here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


The term "dialectical materialism" was coined by Plekhanov to merge Marx's philosophic materialism with the dialectical method he learned from Hegel. Whether this constitutes an integral philosophic world outlook is up for debate.

What is in fact up for debate is whether a single notion lifted from Hegel makes a blind bit of sense.

I have yet to see anyone make any sense of them.

[trivas7]

I have yet to see anyone make any sense of them.
It must feel good to be the intellectual superior of practically all Marxist theoreticians.

[Hyacinth]

It must feel good to be the intellectual superior of practically all Marxist theoreticians.
I don’t see how that is to the point? Are you asserting that Marxist cannot be wrong? The entire history of philosophy is littered with mistakes and metaphysical nonsense; in a way this gives Marx an excuse for adopting Hegelian terminology since, after all, everyone at the time was using it. That being said, over a century has passed since then and we have at our disposal much more lucid and powerful tools (namely, formal logic) unavailable at the time, therefore commitment to dialectical nonsense in this day and age has no convenient excuse (unless one counts ignorance of formal logic as such).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


It must feel good to be the intellectual superior of practically all Marxist theoreticians.

In addition to what Hyacinth has just said, it is only because I know more logic than the lot of them put together. In terms of economic theory, politics, etc., I remain very much their pupil.

It's just a shame they ruined it all by incorporating all that useless Hegelian gobbledygook. A bit like injecting astrological terms into astonomy, or flat earth concepts into geography.

[Die Neue Zeit]

1)

Thesis: Reformist mass party
Anti-Thesis: "Revolutionary" conspiracist circles
Synthesis: Revolutionary mass party

2)

Thesis: Bourgeois-democratic revolution
Anti-Thesis: Social-proletocratic revolution
Synthesis: Social-democratic revolution
:D

[Seriously, though, what I said above is BS because there can be reformist conspiracist circles and yet no such thing as bourgeois-proletocratic revolution. :laugh: ]

[trivas7]

IThat being said, over a century has passed since then and we have at our disposal much more lucid and powerful tools (namely, formal logic) unavailable at the time, therefore commitment to dialectical nonsense in this day and age has no convenient excuse (unless one counts ignorance of formal logic as such).
You're wrong to think that Hegel and Marx knew nothing of formal logic. It's precisely because it was inadequate to explain history that Hegel resurrected the logic of the dialectic.

[trivas7]

In addition to what Hyacinth has just said, it is only because I know more logic than the lot of them put together. In terms of economic theory, politics, etc., I remain very much their pupil.

What re the fact that you know more logic than the lot of them? What follows exactly?

Odd that you know much more logic than they did but don't understand dialectical logic.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:

1)


Thesis: Reformist mass party
Anti-Thesis: "Revolutionary" conspiracist circles
Synthesis: Revolutionary mass party

2)

Thesis: Bourgeois-democratic revolution
Anti-Thesis: Social-proletocratic revolution
Synthesis: Social-democratic revolution

Is this a joke?

None of these is a proposition; they are all phrases.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


You're wrong to think that Hegel and Marx knew nothing of formal logic.

There is little or no evidence that Marx knew any (or do you have proof to the contrary?), and it is easy to show that Hegel was a logical incompetent.

Try here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_03.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


What re the fact that you know more logic than the lot of them? What follows exactly?

It means I know what I am talking about. [I presume that when you are ill you go to the local garage for a check up on the grounds that nothing follows from the fact that a doctor knows more about medicine than a mechanic.]


Odd that you know much more logic than they did but don't understand dialectical logic.

Dialectical 'logic' isn't logic -- unless, of course, you can show otherwise.

I can show it isn't; try here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_03.htm

[Die Neue Zeit]

JR:

Is this a joke?

None of these is a proposition; they are all phrases.

I think Marx used something similar in The Poverty of Philosophy, no?

[Thesis: Feudal monopoly; Anti-Thesis: Bourgeois competition; Synthesis: Bourgeois monopoly]

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


I think Marx used something similar in The Poverty of Philosophy, no?

I'd be very surprised if he did.

But, anyway, he misunderstood Hegel. The sorry tale is told here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=707195&postcount=7

[Hyacinth]

You're wrong to think that Hegel and Marx knew nothing of formal logic. It's precisely because it was inadequate to explain history that Hegel resurrected the logic of the dialectic.
Hegel died in 1831, Frege’s (the father of formal logic) Begriffsschrift was published in 1879, it would indeed require a dialectical feat if Hegel could have been familiar with something before it was even invented.

[trivas7]

Hegel died in 1831, Frege’s (the father of formal logic) Begriffsschrift was published in 1879, it would indeed require a dialectical feat if Hegel could have been familiar with something before it was even invented.
And of course formal logic was unknown before Frege.


[...] it is easy to show that Hegel was a logical incompetent.

I see. But Marx does make reference to his own (Marx's) dialectical method. Then it follows that Marx's writing are also logically incompetent, no?


Dialectical 'logic' isn't logic -- unless, of course, you can show otherwise.

Of course it isn't; and you are the authority on the subject. :rolleyes:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


no one knew any formal logic before Frege.

99% of formal logic has been invented since Frege.

Traditional logic was already 2300 years old in Hegel's day. Scientists never used it, and no wonder: it ignored complex inferences inexpressible in syllogisms, it dramatically failed to cope with relational expressions, quantifiers expressing multiple generality, internal and external negation and scope ambiguity, to say nothing of propositional and hypothetical reasoning. This was partly because of the way that quantifier expressions had been interpreted by earlier logicians, who with their slavish adherence to the traditional grammar of subject and predicate helped cripple logic for over two thousand years.

The subject-predicate form is in fact a minor grammatical feature of Indo-European languages. So, the sort of logic Hegel learnt at university was not only largely useless, it was crippled in the above ways, and it was highly parochial. This is the obsolete and limited Hegel criticised, and got wrong, which bodlerised logic was imported in Marxism, albeit transmogrified into 'dialectical logic', thanks to comrades like Lenin.

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

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

Only when logicians, led by Frege, broke out of this mould could the subject progress beyond these narrow confines. This led to important advances in mathematics and computational science (to name but two spin-off areas).

You can read the details here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frege-logic/

Giaquinto, M. (2004), The Search For Certainty. A Philosophical Account Of Foundations Of Mathematics (Oxford University Press).

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

And at my site:

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


But Marx does make reference to his own (Marx's) dialectical method. Then it follows that Marx's writing are also logically incompetent, no?

Marx refers to 'his method', and the 'dialectical method', but it is also clear from a summary of that method, reproduced in Das Kapital, that this method has had every trace of Hegel removed. In that case, there is no 'dialectical logic' in Das Kapital.


Of course, you are the authority on the subject.

Well, if and when you can show where my arguments go wrong, or point out where I make factual errors, then you can claim to be the authority here.

But, since you tend to lose every argument you have had with me, I think we can all make our minds up which one of us merely posturing, and thus whistling in the dark.

[trivas7]

Traditional logic was already 2300 years old in Hegel's day.

You ought to tell Hyacinth this.


The subject-predicate form is in fact a minor grammatical feature of Indo-European languages. So, the sort of logic Hegel learnt at university was not only largely useless, it was crippled in the above ways, and it was highly parochial. This is the obsolete and limited Hegel criticised, and got wrong, which bodlerised logic was imported in Marxism, albeit transmogrified into 'dialectical logic', thanks to comrades like Lenin.
So Marx was a logical basket case, is that it?


Only when logicians, led by Frege, broke out of this mould could the subject progress beyond these narrow confines. This led to important advances in mathematics and computational science [...]
Absolutely, prior to Frege science went nowhere and owes all its subsequent progress to him.


Marx refers to 'his method', and the 'dialectical method', but it is also clear from a summary of that method, reproduced in Das Kapital, that this method has had every trace of Hegel removed. In that case, there is no 'dialectical logic' in Das Kapital.
Why do you hide your lack of understanding behind parrotlike repetition? You haven't a clue what he meant by his method.


But, since you tend to lose every argument you have had with me, I think we can all make our minds up which one of us merely posturing, and thus whistling in the dark.
Who could argue with logic like that?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


You ought to tell Hyacinth this.

Hyacinth was speaking about formal logic, not traditional logic. You probably do not know the difference.


So Marx was a logical basket case, is that it?

You have already been told (and by Marx himself) that he rejected the logical guff found in Hegel. You are the basket case.


Absolutely, prior to Frege science went nowhere and owes all its subsequent progress to him.

Who said either of these things? You really are getting quite desperate aren't you.

Read it again:


Only when logicians, led by Frege, broke out of this mould could the subject progress beyond these narrow confines. This led to important advances in mathematics and computational science (to name but two spin-off areas).

Notice that? No mention of science in general, just mathematics and computing.

And prior to Frege, the old logic was of no use to scientists. They had to invent their own informal ways of arguing. Since Frege, mathematics has never been the same. Computers would not have been invented without his work, and that of Boole, Peano, Russell and Whitehead, von Neumann, Church, Turing (the latter four working in the post-Fregean paradigm), etc.

http://www.maxmon.com/1847ad.htm

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

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

http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/VonNeumann.html

http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer#History_of_computing


Why do you hide your lack of understanding behind parrotlike repeatition? You haven't a clue what he meant by his method.

Alas, repetition is required when one is dealing with fools or your calibre.


Who could argue with logic like that?

Certainly not one as logically-challenged as your good self.

[Hyacinth]

You ought to tell Hyacinth this.
When I said ‘formal logic’ I was referring to predicate logic onward, i.e. Frege onward, not traditional logic (i.e. Aristotelian, or syllogistic, logic). [See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_logic]

Formal logic, as such, did not exist prior to Frege in any significant way (except perhaps some work by Leibnitz if the Wikipedia article is correct, but that apparently wasn’t published until 1901 and some parts remain unpublished).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Well, there were hundreds of excellent logicians in the Middle Ages (such as Boethius, Abelard, Buridan and Ockham) who tried to develop Aristotle's logic as far as they could. But their work was severely handicaspped by its fatal limitations.

By Descartes day, and from then on until the work of Whately, De Morgan and Boole, logic stalled badly, and went in to serious decline. It more or less reached its nadir in Kant's work, upon whom Hegel depended. Leibniz was the one shining light amid the gloom.

But, none of this can be called Formal Logic, expcept in a very limited sense.

[Hit The North]

So equally we could argue that there is not one atom of formal logic in Das Kaptal. Nevertheless, the old man did a more than adequate job of interrogating and explaining the motion of capitalism.

So in what way is formal logic even appropriate to the Marxist method?

Would Hyacinth and Rosa both argue that Kapital would have benefited from Frege and his successors?

Where is the monumental work on the capitalist mode of production in the tradition of formal logic?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


So equally we could argue that there is not one atom of formal logic in Das Kaptal. Nevertheless, the old man did a more than adequate job of interrogating and explaining the motion of capitalism.

So in what way is formal logic even appropriate to the Marxist method?

Would Hyacinth and Rosa both argue that Kapital would have benefited from Frege and his successors?

Where is the monumental work on the capitalist mode of production in the tradition of formal logic?


Who has ever claimed that Das Kapital would have been better had Marx been a formal logician, or had read Frege?

Indeed, I have said here many times that one can be an excellent revolutionary and know absolutely nothing of formal logic --, and even less of 'dialectical logic'.

All one needs is historical materialism and ordinary language -- both of which Marx used in Das Kapital.

The point is, of course, that only those ignorant of logic fall for dialectics, and that includes you.

[Hit The North]

Who has ever claimed that Das Kapital would have been better had Marx been a formal logician, or had read Frege?
Yes, but if he didn't use traditional logic and he didn't use dialectical logic and was unable to use formal logic, then I assume he uses no logic in Das Kapital. Can that be right?
All one needs is historical materialism and ordinary language -- both of which Marx used in Das Kapital. So historical materialism exists independently of any kind of logical reasoning?

Indeed, I have said here many times that one can be an excellent revolutionary and know absolutely nothing of formal logic --, and even less of 'dialectical logic'. Yes, but there's a big difference in being an excellent revolutionary and writing the most penetrating analysis of the capitalist mode of production. I'm amazed to find that this great scientific endeavor requires no logical reasoning at all. Is this true of all great scientific work? Is logic just unnecessary?

The point is, of course, that only those ignorant of logic fall for dialectics, and that includes you.Yes, but given that we don't need a knowledge of formal logic to be good revolutionaries and cannot use dialectical logic because it makes no sense, it's a mystery to me why you're bothered.

[Lamanov]

1)

Thesis: Reformist mass party
Anti-Thesis: "Revolutionary" conspiracist circles
Synthesis: Revolutionary mass party

2)

Thesis: Bourgeois-democratic revolution
Anti-Thesis: Social-proletocratic revolution
Synthesis: Social-democratic revolution

This is bullcrap.

What if the Theses isn't on the agenda any more? Obviously, A and B have to be actual, existent, not imaginative. Otherwise, as Rosa says, they are just phrases.

You can't count on "bourgeois revolution" to be a valid proposition since it is not in consideration, just as you can't count on "mass party" to be a liberating factor. Your obsession with Lenin creates these confusions.


You're using 'contradiction' now in a new an unexplained way. If this is a logical contradiction, then they cannot be 'transcended' (or if they can, I'd like to see the proof). If this isn't a logical contradcitiion, then, as I say, it is as yet unexplained.


You can read an outline of the serious logical errors Hegel committed which motivated this sort of 'reasoning', here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm

You're right, that's not what I had in mind.

It's not a logical contradiction (as explained in Outline of errors), but a ... factual one?

I have to admit, you got me thinking. We are too eager to use the term "contradiction", when in fact, there is no contradiction, and we don't even explain what do we mean by contradiction.

The example I was using, labor and capital, are not in contradiction per se, because they are practically in function.

What I wanted to say is that A and B are ... opposite? ... in conflict? ... Indeed, language and specific terms represent a problem, because singular words sometimes can't express complex thoughts, and especially if thoughts themselves are logically flawed.

Did I want to say how A and B are in subjective, not objective or logical contradiction, or opposition, conflict?

Holy crap. :bored:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Yes, but if he didn't use traditional logic and he didn't use dialectical logic and was unable to use formal logic, then I assume he uses no logic in Das Kapital. Can that be right?

Marx used what is now called "informal logic", much of which is encapsulated in ordinary discourse.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/


So historical materialism exists independently of any kind of logical reasoning?

You make the same mistake as others who know no logic, of thinking that formal logic is the only logic outside of dialectics and Aristotelian Logic. You need to educate yourself, and stop pontificating from a postion of almost total ignorance.


Yes, but there's a big difference in being an excellent revolutionary and writing the most penetrating analysis of the capitalist mode of production. I'm amazed to find that this great scientific endeavor requires no logical reasoning at all. Is this true of all great scientific work? Is logic just unnecessary?

Indeed, and Marx was able to do all this with no help from either Aristotelian logic or from dialectical 'logic'. Sure, he used many ideas from Aristotle, but not from his logic.

The same was true of Darwin and Newton. No formal logic, and no dialectical 'logic' there at all. Plenty of informal logic, though.


Yes, but given that we don't need a knowledge of formal logic to be good revolutionaries and cannot use dialectical logic because it makes no sense, it's a mystery to me why you're bothered.

I have explained to you many times why I am 'bothered'. If you want to read them again, check out my 7600 posts. I can't be bothered to explain it all again -- especially as only about 1% of it seems to sink in.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DJ:


It's not a logical contradiction (as explained in Outline of errors), but a ... factual one?

I have to admit, you got me thinking. We are too eager to use the term "contradiction", when in fact, there is no contradiction, and we don't even explain what do we mean by contradiction.

The example I was using, labor and capital, are not in contradiction per se, because they are practically in function.

What I wanted to say is that A and B are ... opposite? ... in conflict? ... Indeed, language and specific terms represent a problem, because singular words sometimes can't express complex thoughts, and especially if thoughts themselves are logically flawed.

Did I want to say how A and B are in subjective, not objective or logical contradiction, or opposition, conflict?

I am not sure what a 'factual contradiction' is, and how it differs from a logical contradiction.

Certainly use 'conflict' here; no problem. But the word 'contradiction' introduces a lack of clarity for no theoretical gain, as well as importing connotations that allow dialecticians to indulge in some easy, but sloppy thinking. Examples here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

Use the 'Quick Links' to go to 'Case Studies'.

And you are right that it is not easy to express some ideas in words, but then, if that is so, we will need some proof that there is something there worth expressing, or, indeed, if there is anything there at all.

With dialectics, I think the latter is the case.

[Hit The North]

You make the same mistake as others who know no logic, of thinking that formal logic is the only logic outside of dialectics and Aristotelian Logic. You need to educate yourself, and stop pontificating from a postion of almost total ignorance. I wasn't pontificating but asking a question. Stop being so arsy. You claim you want comrades to learn from your intellectual instruction but you only accord civility to those who already agree with you. Is this a good way of educating other comrades?

Thank you for the link, however, I'll read it with interest.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


I wasn't pontificating but asking a question. Stop being so arsy. You claim you want comrades to learn from your intellectual instruction but you only accord civility to those who already agree with you. Is this a good way of educating other comrades?

I learnt being 'arsy' from you and countless other Dialectical Popes.

And, I have argued that I stand no chance of winning over comrades like you since this 'theory' works as an opiate, and just like religion, it will take social change to remove the conditions that require you and other DM-fans to seek consolation in its inner mysteries.

You will need the working class, not Rosa, to save you from yourselves.

Hence my lack of patience with the lot of you.

[Hit The North]

And, I have argued that I stand no chance of winning over comrades like you since this 'theory' works as an opiate, and just like religion, it will take social change to remove the conditions that require you and other DM-fans to seek consolation in its inner mysteries.
Which gives your work what you claim of dialectics: a built-in excuse for failure.


Hence my lack of patience with the lot of you. It works both ways.

[trivas7]

When I said ‘formal logic’ I was referring to predicate logic onward, i.e. Frege onward, not traditional logic (i.e. Aristotelian, or syllogistic, logic). [See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_logic]

So because Fregian logic wasn't available to Marx are you saying that he writes Hegelian nonsense? Are you saying there is no logic in Marx?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

BTB:


Which gives your work what you claim of dialectics: a built-in excuse for failure.

No, I just said it would fail with you mystics.


It works both ways.

I know. Initiially I began debating pleasantly with comrades back in the 1980s , but I immediately faced unbelievable hostility, lies and abuse, so now I go on the offensive straight-away. This does not reduce the abuse or the lies I face, but it does mean I now give far worse than I get.

DM-fans generally, in my experience, can dish it out but they can't take it, and soon complain that I am being 'arsy' etc.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


So because Fregian logic wasn't available to Marx are you saying that he writes Hegelian nonsense? Are you saying there is no logic in Marx?

Read my debate with BTB, where you will find an answer to your questions.

And, as we have already established, Marx does not write Hegelian nonsense in Das Kapital since he had taken the trouble to excise completely Hegelian 'concepts'/jargon from that work.

You will be reminded of this as many times as it takes for it to register in that dogmatic brain of yours.

[trivas7]

And, as we have already established, Marx does not write Hegelian nonsense in Das Kapital since he had taken the trouble to excise completely Hegelian 'concepts'/jargon from that work.



The same was true of Darwin and Newton. No formal logic, and no dialectical 'logic' there at all. Plenty of informal logic, though.

Is this the logic of Capital? Why does he then use terms like contradiction, negation of the negation if he has excised Hegel from it? What is informal logic? Is that "his method"?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Is this the logic of Capital? Why does he then use terms like contradiction, negatation of the negation if he has excised Hegel from it? What is informal logic? Is that "his method"?

You have already been told why, in this thread in Learning:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1187894&postcount=89

On informal logic, follow the link I posted above.

Here it is again:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/

[Hyacinth]

So because Fregian logic wasn't available to Marx are you saying that he writes Hegelian nonsense? Are you saying there is no logic in Marx?
Rosa already answered that question, but I’ll add something as well:

Formal logic is brought up because it exposes dialectics as nonsense by showing that dialectical propositions are pseudo-propositions. Hegel essentially relies on sophistry for his system to work; while the pseudo-propositions of dialectics may have a grammatically correct structure, the closer examination of these pseudo-propositions reveals their empty nature, just as, for instance, the sentence “colourless green ideas sleep furiously” is grammatically correct, but equally nonsensical, so to the same goes for most, if not all, of dialectics. It isn’t necessary to use formal logic to see this (after all there were plenty of philosophers, who didn’t employ formal logic, which saw through Hegel’s charlatanism), but it helps.

[Luís Henrique]

I move to demonstration: this act of transcendence can be seen in destroying capitalism - if A and B are labor and capital, C would be class consciousness, and "negation of negation" - as an act - can only be a revolution, a practical solution to given state of things.

However, "labour" and "capital" are not "propositions", so you are making an unsafe step here.

Luís Henrique

[trivas7]

Formal logic is brought up because it exposes dialectics as nonsense by showing that dialectical propositions are pseudo-propositions. Hegel essentially relies on sophistry for his system to work; while the pseudo-propositions of dialectics may have a grammatically correct structure, the closer examination of these pseudo-propositions reveals their empty nature, just as, for instance, the sentence “colourless green ideas sleep furiously” is grammatically correct, but equally nonsensical, so to the same goes for most, if not all, of dialectics. It isn’t necessary to use formal logic to see this (after all there were plenty of philosophers, who didn’t employ formal logic, which saw through Hegel’s charlatanism), but it helps.
My question to you was whether or not you found Marx logically compelling.

[Hyacinth]

My question to you was whether or not you found Marx logically compelling.

Do I find Marx’s arguments compelling? Of what I have read of Marx, which I admit is not everything (for instance I haven’t read most of Marx’s early works, and I’m more familiar with Marx through secondary literature than I am with the primary documents themselves), I do indeed find compelling (I don’t know what adding ‘logically’ to that sentence is suppose to do).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hyacinth, Trivas has already been told that Marx often uses informal logic, and in that sense his arguments can be described as 'logically compelling'.

[Die Neue Zeit]

1)

Thesis: Reformist mass party
Anti-Thesis: "Revolutionary" conspiracist circles
Synthesis: Revolutionary mass party

2)

Thesis: Bourgeois-democratic revolution
Anti-Thesis: Social-proletocratic revolution
Synthesis: Social-democratic revolutionThis is bullcrap.

What if the Theses isn't on the agenda any more? Obviously, A and B have to be actual, existent, not imaginative. Otherwise, as Rosa says, they are just phrases.

Some honest revolutionaries still think that reformist mass parties are the way to go (consider the IMT or those who simply wish to build new reformist mass parties :rolleyes: ). I was using a historical precedent (and, unfortunately, "revolutionary" conspiracist CIRCLE-sects are abound today :( ). To be more precise:

Thesis (has implications for the ordering below): Either German Social Democracy or Belgian Social Democracy
Anti-Thesis: Pre-1917 Bolsheviks
Synthesis: 1917 Bolsheviks (mass party) or SPD (http://www.revleft.com/vb/sozialdemokratische-partei-deutschlands-t79754/index.html)

In case you didn't notice, I was trying to make a POLITICAL and not a crap-philosophical point:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/dual-membership-weapon-t83420/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/united-social-labour-t75056/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/sozialdemokratische-partei-deutschlands-t79754/index.html


just as you can't count on "mass party" to be a liberating factor. Your obsession with Lenin creates these confusions

Wrong guy - Lenin frequently invoked the true founder of "Marxism" (you yourself mentioned Cyril Smith in identifying this founder) in trying to adopt SPD organization to Russian circumstances. It is the latter who has my utmost interest, considering (sorry Rosa, but I have to invoke the "dyna-mat totality" and apply it to "history" here :( ):

1) There was no class struggle during the German unification drive.
2) The international proletariat's first vanguard party was formed nevertheless on a MASS party approach.
3) There is a relative absence of class struggle today, though more people are getting pissed with neoliberalism.
4) There's rampant, amateurish CIRCLE-ism today (i.e., "sectarianism").
5) Conclusion: United Social Labour's organizational concept is derived, notwithstanding the historical mistake of accepting pseudo-reformist "social-democratic" HACKS (Belgian Soc-Dem and ultimately the SPD itself), from the historical mass-party precedent set by the international proletariat's first vanguard party, the SPD.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

JR:


Thesis (has implications for the ordering below): Either German Social Democracy or Belgian Social Democracy
Anti-Thesis: Pre-1917 Bolsheviks
Synthesis: 1917 Bolsheviks (mass party)

These are still phrases, so they cannot even be theses.

And, didn't you read the link I posted on this?

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=707195&postcount=7

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I did read it. ;)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Then why do you keep using that discredited triad: "Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis"?

[Lamanov]

JR, you are again using relative terms such as "social democracy", portraying them as "propositions", abstracting certain adjectives such as "mass", and on your way to so-called "synthesis" you're ignoring historical conditions (and thus "historical materialism") for the sake of combining these abstractions.

In the same way I could say:

Thesis: SPD's reformist line to state capitalism
Antithesis: Lenin's conspiratoral line to dictatorship of the proletariat
Synthesis: Bolshevik state-capitalist dictatorship

I used several historical references (even though they are real I still feel as if I don't have to explain them, since I'm using the mighty "Triad") - not valid propositions, abstracted several phrases (DoP, state capitalism), and put them together in a way I see fit. I simply rejected those parts of these "propositions" for which I believe they don't fit into the scheme of "synthesis", or which I don't want to see there, without even explaining how are they different, or considering could they even be the same thing (after all, they are just phrases), how do they correlate, or what actually happens durring the "syntheses", what brings it about, etc.

I used the "Triad", modelled it by my own will using phrases and abstractions according to my historical knowledge (knowledge of what had allready happened), and became a - ta-daa! - a mighty "dialectician".

Wow, that was easy.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Why are you all continuing to use the discredited triad "Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis"?

Even if Hegel had have used it, it is a rubbish prototype anyway.

Most arguments do not proceed this way. They are far too cpmplex. Try fitting the vast majoprity of the disputes even at RevLeft into this useless mould. It can't be done.

[Lamanov]

I'm not "using it". On the contrary. Read my post.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Yes, I must get my eyes tested...!

[trivas7]

^^Rosa --

Which of those "historical materialsts" previous to Marx said anything like the following:


The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principles of my studies can be summarised as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production.

The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness….In broad outline the Asiatic, ancient, feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society.”

-- K. Marx, Introduction to Towards a Critique of Political Economy

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas, where have I said that Marx learnt everything he knew about Historical Matrialism from the Scottish Historical Materialists (SHM), and that he did not innovate extensivley in this area?

Just as Marx learnt from Smith (one of the SHMs), so he learnt from Ferguson and Millar. Even Hegel learnt from them.

Now, I recognise that you knew nothing about this, and that it is a bit of a shock to you, but we have already established you live in a little world of your own, and like all dogmatists, you are frightened of new knowledge.

Except, this was known 150 odd years ago.

Get over it.

[trivas7]

Trivas, where have I said that Marx learnt everything he knew about Historical Matrialism from the Scottish Historical Materialists (SHM), and that he did not innovate extensivley in this area?

Your usual sarcasm is duly noted, but it's you who have insisted that there were historical materialists prior to Marx, not me. What else did Marx learn but Hegel that those other SHMs didn't know exactly?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


but it's you who have insisted that there were historical materialists prior to Marx, not me.

Indeed, but you are the one who seems to think that this means that Marx merely repeated all he had found in their work, without adding significant ideas of his own.

In that case, you deserve more than just sarcasm.


What else did Marx learn but Hegel that those other SHMs didn't know exactly?

Marx learnt off many others, but whatever it was that he learnt off Hegel (but since it is not possible to make sense of Hegel, Marx cannot have learnt much off him except how not to think and how not to write) he had repudiated by the time he wrote Das Kapital, as you should by now know -- you have been told enough times.

[trivas7]

Trivas:
Indeed, but you are the one who seems to think that this means that Marx merely repeated all he had found in their work, without adding significant ideas of his own.

I asked what you think Marx knew that those other SHMs didn't.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


I asked what you think Marx knew that those other SHMs didn't.

Yes, I know you have come to look upon me as a sort of Fountain of Knowledge, but you are really going to have to start to find stuff out for yourself.

Especially when you expect me to answer all your questions for you, while you never answer any of mine.

[trivas7]

Yes, I know you have come to look upon me as a sort of Fountain of Knowledge, but you are really going to have to start to find stuff out for yourself.

Clearly then you have no basis to call those SHMs historical materialists.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It is not I who called them this, but others, mainly Marx and Engels.


Ronald Meek, "The Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology" [1954; collected in his Economics and Ideology and Other Essays, 1967. Such luminaries as Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith. This influence was actually acknowledged. In The German Ideology, right after announcing their theme that "men be in a position to live in order to be able to `make history'", they say "The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry."]

http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/historical-materialism.html

I have to say that the above link is hostile to Marx and Engels, but there is little available on the internet on this.
Meek actually calls them the "Scottish Historical School" (p.35), but he attributes this to Roy Pascal (Communist Party member, friend of Wittgenstein and translator of the German Ideology), who used it in his article "Property and Society: The Scottish Historical School of the Eighteenth Century" Modern Quarterly March 1938.

The full passage is:


Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to be able to “make history.” But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno [Bauer], it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due importance. It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never an historian. The French and the English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm

In the Poverty of Philosophy, Marx wrote:


Let us do him this justice: Lemontey wittily exposed the unpleasant consequences of the division of labor as it is constituted today, and M. Proudhon found nothing to add to it. But now that, through the fault of M. Proudhon, we have been drawn into this question of priority, let us say again, in passing, that long before M. Lemontey, and 17 years before Adam Smith, who was a pupil of A. Ferguson, the last-named gave a clear exposition of the subject in a chapter which deals specifically with the division of labor.

p.181 of MECW volume 6.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02b.htm

Marx refers to Ferguson repeatedly in his 'Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy' (MECW volume 30, pp.264-306), as he does to others of the same 'school' (Adam Smith and Dugald Stewart) throughout this work:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/economic/ch32.htm

He does so too in Volume One of Das Kapital -- MECW volume 35, p.133, 359, 366, 367. [He also refers to others of that 'school', Robertson, p.529, Stewart and Smith (the references to these two are too numerous to list).]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/volume35/index.htm

Throughout his works, the references to Smith and Stewart are in general too numerous to list.

But, call them what you like, Marx learnt from them.