Contradictions in the society

[Hiero]

I will start with Rosa's misconception about contradictions.

Here is Rosa's understanding of contradiction. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1190673&postcount=3)


Ok, I have watched the first (of the four), and it is indeed the same old story.

The second one, which I am watching at the moment, is no better. It assumes there is a valid use of the Hegelian term 'contradiction', without showing that this word has a meaning when applied to the class struggle or the economy.

The speaker argues that there is a 'contradiction' between the interests of workers and capitalists, without explaining why this is so.

For example, he says that the contradiction is this:

1) Capitalists have an interest in paying the lowest wage possible to workers; workers have an interest in resisting this.

But, this would be a contradiction if this were the case:

2) Capitalist CC has an interest in keeping wages as low as possible, and Capitalist CC does not have such an interest.

Or:

3) Worker WW has an interest in resisting exploitation and worker WW does not have such an interest.

So, 1) is not a contradiction.

Now, this is not to deny that these two classes have such interests, but it is to deny they constitue a 'contradiction'.

This is the Metaphysical approach that Marx and Engels have already dealt with in their time.

Rosa has broke apart the wage system, capitalist want to pay lower wages, workers want (need) higher wages.

So we have two conflicting sides. There is no doubt about it that their class interest conflict. And I too agree it is a far stretch to call them a contradiction at this stage of analysis.

However these two conflicting sides do not exist independently, they exist together in a system. Two conflicting sides form a thing. In this situation the two conflicting sides form the wage system, capitalism. How can they continue to exist in the same system for so long if they conflict? Hence the system has an inherent contradiction.

So let's go back to the all classic contradiction, productive forces and relations of production. If broken into their two parts, we have socialised labour and private ownership. Outside of their system, in a metaphysical view they do not contitute a contradiction. However nothing exists in such a state, there is no such pure indepdence and if our analysis stops here (as Rosa's does) then our analysis remains as a metaphysical analysis. The productive forces and the relations of production form a system, in todays society they form capitalism. So two conflicting sides form a thing, and that thing has inherent contradictions.

Rosa's error is to break things down and never put them back into context. When we do this, they have no meaning. Relations of production mean nothing, unless we talk about the productive forces. The dialetical materialist breaks these things down, to work out the two conflicting sides. Marx studied the economy of capitalism, he found that the relations of production were bourgeiosie ownership and proleteriat labour, and that the productive forces were more suited to socialised reltions of production, do to mass industry and socialised labour.

Once we break down the system, and understand the two conflicting sides, we place this anlysis back into it's context. It is from this point where we know there are two conflicting sides we can say the thing we have studied has inherent contradicitons, the inherent and primary contradiction in capitalism is the conflict between relations of production and productive forces.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


This is the Metaphysical approach that Marx and Engels have already dealt with in their time.

Well, Marx in fact ignored all this sort of stuff (unless you can quote where he discusses the nature of 'dialectical contradictions'), and Engels was almost totally ignorant of logic, and was thus incapable of passing an informed comment in this area.

But, perhaps you can tell us where Engels dealt with the sort of contradictions I mentioned?

Moreover, Engels had to re-define metaphysics (in fact he copied Hegel's re-definition) to make his ideas work. Now, we can all re-define stuff to suite our own ends, but it proves nothing (except perhaps how desperate we might be).


Rosa has broke apart the wage system, capitalist want to pay lower wages, workers want (need) higher wages.

So we have two conflicting sides. There is no doubt about it that their class interest conflict. And I too agree it is a far stretch to call them a contradiction at this stage of analysis.

However these two conflicting sides do not exist independently, they exist together in a system. Two conflicting sides form a thing. In this situation the two conflicting sides form the wage system, capitalism. How can they continue to exist in the same system for so long if they conflict? Hence the system has an inherent contradiction.

Sure they do not exist independently, but what has that got to do with whether the examples dialectical mystics give of 'dialectical contradictions' are indeed contradictioon to begin with, let alone 'dialectical' ones?

And sure, the capitalists are in struggle with the workers, but why is this a 'contradiction'?

Furthermore, as I have shown, according to Mao, Lenin and Engels, the 'opposites' in a 'dialectical contradiction' in fact turn into one another. That must mean that according to this 'theory', the working class must turn into the capitalist class, and vice versa!:lol:

Proof here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=986357&postcount=2


So let's go back to the all classic contradiction, productive forces and relations of production. If broken into their two parts, we have socialised labour and private ownership. Outside of their system, in a metaphysical view they do not contitute a contradiction. However nothing exists in such a state, there is no such pure indepdence and if our analysis stops here (as Rosa's does) then our analysis remains as a metaphysical analysis. The productive forces and the relations of production form a system, in todays society they form capitalism. So two conflicting sides form a thing, and that thing has inherent contradictions.

Again, this must mean that the 'forces of production' must turn into 'relations of production', and vice versa!:lol::lol:

You are welcome to that 'theory'!


Rosa's error is to break things down and never put them back into context. When we do this, they have no meaning. Relations of production mean nothing, unless we talk about the productive forces. The dialetical materialist breaks these things down, to work out the two conflicting sides. Marx studied the economy of capitalism, he found that the relations of production were bourgeiosie ownership and proleteriat labour, and that the productive forces were more suited to socialised reltions of production, do to mass industry and socialised labour.

Once we break down the system, and understand the two conflicting sides, we place this anlysis back into it's context. It is from this point where we know there are two conflicting sides we can say the thing we have studied has inherent contradicitons, the inherent and primary contradiction in capitalism is the conflict between relations of production and productive forces.

Not so; I do not 'break' anything down, and I challenge you to quote where I have done this.

What I have done is point out the simple fact that we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, and that if they exist, they would in fact prevent change.

So, nice try Hiero, only it wasn't.

[trivas7]

Well, Marx in fact ignored all this sort of stuff
If "this sort of stuff" refers to metaphysical philosophy this just isn't historically accurate. Marx in his salad days dreamt of teaching philosophy and was heavily influenced by Hegelianism. Indeed, he considered himself a student of Hegel all his adult life, but condemned in the strongest possible terms the idealism of the Bauer brothers, Feuerbachian materialism, and the egoistic individualism of Stirner, all which had there roots in left Hegelianism. Marx's materialism was entirely in reaction to and a repudiation of metaphysical philosophy; how can you say he "ignored" it?


Furthermore, as I have shown, according to Mao, Lenin and Engels, the 'opposites' in a 'dialectical contradiction' in fact turn into one another. That must mean that according to this 'theory', the working class must turn into the capitalist class, and vice versa!

This is a total misunderstanding of dialects.

So, Rosa still does not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if she does she also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


If "this sort of stuff" refers to metaphysical philosophy this just isn't historically accurate. Marx in his salad days dreamt of teaching philosophy and was heavily influenced by Hegelianism. Indeed, he considered himself a student of Hegel all his adult life, but condemned in the strongest possible terms the idealism of the Bauer brothers, Feuerbachian materialism, and the egoistic individualism of Stirner, all which had there roots in left Hegelianism. Marx's materialism was entirely in reaction to and a repudiation of metaphysical philosophy; how can you say he "ignored" it?

Well, we know all this (it is standard fayre), but if Heiro cannot point to where Marx discusses the nature of 'dialectical contradictions', perhaps you can? [Some hope!]

And, as we have already established, by the time it came to writing his most mature work, Das Kapital, Marx had put all this Hegelian stuff behind him, and had abandoned 'the dialectic' as you mystics understand it.


This is a total misunderstanding of dialectics.

1) Since no one 'understands' dialectics, then it is impossible to 'misunderstand it'.

2) But, let's assume you are correct. In that case, you should find it easy to show where my refutation of this 'theory' of yours goes wrong.

Can you?

Or is this just another dogma you have uncritically swallowed?

However, as if to prove you can't think for yourself, you now copy Gilhyle:


So, Rosa still does not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if she does she also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

And, as I said to Gilhyle in reply:


That's OK, since I'm in good company, for you are in the same predicament as I, and so is everyone else.

Unless, of course, you can show differently.

But, you'd have done that already, if you could...

The same comment applies to you.

[Luís Henrique]

For example, he says that the contradiction is this:

1) Capitalists have an interest in paying the lowest wage possible to workers; workers have an interest in resisting this.

But, this would be a contradiction if this were the case:

2) Capitalist CC has an interest in keeping wages as low as possible, and Capitalist CC does not have such an interest.

But that is exactly the case.

Capitalists as a class have an interest in keeping wages as low as possible - because that is how surplus value is produced - and they also have an interest in doing the opposite - because they need to sell the stuff their factories produce to realise surplus value.

So, capitalists interests are contradictory.

Luís Henrique

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


But that is exactly the case.

Capitalists as a class have an interest in keeping wages as low as possible - because that is how surplus value is produced - and they also have an interest in doing the opposite - because they need to sell the stuff their factories produce to realise surplus value.

So, capitalists interests are contradictory.

But, their conjunction would only be a contradiction if you could show that both could be true at once, or both false at once.

Can you?

Moreover, the actual contradiction was:


Capitalist CC has an interest in keeping wages as low as possible, and Capitalist CC does not have such an interest.

I am not sure you can do much 'dialectics' with this, but you are welcome to try.

[trivas7]

But, let's assume you are correct. In that case, you should find it easy to show where my refutation of this 'theory' of yours goes wrong.

But I've never seen this "refutation" by you anywhere in your voluminous writings, i.e, you've never told me what exactly you thought you were refuting.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


But I've never seen this "refutation" by you anywhere in your voluminous writings, i.e, you've never told me what exactly you thought you were refuting.

That's because you are a rather dopey individual. I have posted these links before, and in reply to you --, and I even posted one in this thread!

The fullest and most up-to-date version can be found here:

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

Click on this Quick Link:

"2a) Breaking News: Dialectics Cannot Explain Change"

I'd post a direct link, but the anonymiser RevLeft uses ignores such links.

Or you can read an earlier version here (but this was directed at Mao's version of dialectical change):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=986357&postcount=2

This was the link I posted above.

[trivas7]

That's because you are a rather dopey individual. I have posted these links before, and in reply to you --, and I even posted one in this thread!

Perhaps, nevertheless you can't even articulate what it is you think you're refuting. "[S]hown to be riddled with confusion" does not a refutation make.

Breaking news: dialectics were not meant to explain change.

[Luís Henrique]

But, their conjunction would only be a contradiction if you could show that both could be true at once, or both false at once.

The problem is, capitalists want to pay workers the least possible. They also want to sell their commodities as fast as possible. Those objectives are mutually exclusive, as workers who earn little money are not likely to buy too much commodities.

Ergo, the class interests of capitalists are contradictory.

Luís Henrique

[trivas7]

The problem is, capitalists want to pay workers the least possible. They also want to sell their commodities as fast as possible. Those objectives are mutually exclusive, as workers who earn little money are not likely to buy too much commodities.

Ergo, the class interests of capitalists are contradictory.

Luís Henrique
In truth the capitalist wants to extract the highest surplus value from his workers, thereby insuring himself the greatest possible return on his "investment" (exploitation, if the truth be told). That's why he can often undercut his profit margin by selling more than his competitors.

[gilhyle]

Marx in fact ignored all this sort of stuff (unless you can quote where he discusses the nature of 'dialectical contradictions'

For example (to repeat):

We saw in a former chapter that the exchange of commodities implies contradictory and mutually exclusive conditions. The differentiation of commodities into commodities and money does not sweep away these inconsistencies, but develops a modus vivendi, a form in which they can exist side by side. This is generally the way in which real contradictions are reconciled. For instance, it is a contradiction to depict one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it. The ellipse is a form of motion which, while allowing this contradiction to go on, at the same time reconciles it.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm#S2a

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Perhaps, nevertheless you can't even articulate what it is you think you're refuting. "[S]hown to be riddled with confusion" does not a refutation make.

Read the post and find out.


Breaking news: dialectics were not meant to explain change.

That's a good job, then, since, as I show, if dialectics were true, then change could not occur.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH (still battling away with the labour of Sysiphus):


The problem is, capitalists want to pay workers the least possible. They also want to sell their commodities as fast as possible. Those objectives are mutually exclusive, as workers who earn little money are not likely to buy too much commodities.

If they are mutually exclusive, then they both cannot take place at the same time, and hence propositions describing them cannot both be true, and cannot therefore constitute an actual contradiction.

This is as far as Gilhyle managed to get in the Anti-Duhring thread, but then began to sulk and would say no more (perhaps because there is no more to say)


Ergo, the class interests of capitalists are contradictory.

Even if they were, they cannot constitute a contradiction unles they could both be true together. [See above.]

But are they even contradictory?

They would be if this were the case:

Capitalist CC wants to pay workers the least possible and Capitalist CC does not want to pay workers the least possible.

That's not much use to you.

And even then, you'd face the same sort of problems that snarled up your last attempt to make sense of this whacko dogma (which fell apart with the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox):

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1222971&postcount=25

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1222974&postcount=26

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


We saw in a former chapter that the exchange of commodities implies contradictory and mutually exclusive conditions. The differentiation of commodities into commodities and money does not sweep away these inconsistencies, but develops a modus vivendi, a form in which they can exist side by side. This is generally the way in which real contradictions are reconciled. For instance, it is a contradiction to depict one body as constantly falling towards another, and as, at the same time, constantly flying away from it. The ellipse is a form of motion which, while allowing this contradiction to go on, at the same time reconciles it.

yes, we have been through this several times; Marx was here merely 'coquetting' with Hegelian jargon.

How many more times do you need to have this pointed out to you?http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/images/smiles/eusa_wall.gif

[trivas7]

Marx was here merely 'coquetting' with Hegelian jargon.

How is this accomplished, exactly? Gilhyle's quote demonstrates that Marx makes mention of dialectical contradiction in Capital.


[...] if dialectics were true, then change could not occur.I haven't a clue what this means, I dare say neither do you.

I've read your post and have failed to see what your refutation amounts. What exactly are you refuting? A political strategy, a metaphysic? I haven't a clue. :(

In your Wittgensteinian zeal to dissolve technical language you forfeit your prerogative to repudiate a long history of philosophical dissent.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


I haven't a clue what this means,

So, we can add that to the ever-lengthening list of things about which you 'haven't a clue'.


I dare say neither do you.

Read that thread, and weep. http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/images/smiles/zjujfjf.gif

[Hiero]

Not so; I do not 'break' anything down, and I challenge you to quote where I have done this.



Here:


And sure, the capitalists are in struggle with the workers, but why is this a 'contradiction'?

We have two primary conflicting sides in capitalism, workers and capitalist. You just broke down the capitalism system in a basic way.

I am not arguing with you. I just want to show that two conflicting sides, two contradicting forces constitute a whole.


So, Rosa still does not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if she does she also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

Exactly.

Engels in anti-during says that dialectics in a materialist sense is quite simple. And it is quite simple; it is show the state of things in motion. It is people like Dühring and Rosa who confuse it.

Like I said I find that they break things down but never put them back into context. If we break down say a grandfather clock to its smallest mechanical components we would understand the qualities of each component. However broken down that far we would say "this is not a clock".

If we are cunning and wanted to trick someone it isn't a clock we might take a handful and ask someone is this a clock? Unless they know their clocks as a trade they would only see a handful of individual mechanical parts. Broken down we can only analyse the smallest components, and we don't have a full picture. When we put each part back together, when we see the relationship between each part and their back into their context we can say "this is a clock, it works because each component is interrelated, and all these parts make a clock".

At the start we know it is a clock, just the same as we know that this current system is capitalism, you don't have to be a Marxist to know this. However Marxists in regards to social things don't accept such things at their face value. If just say that this is capitalism and say socialism comes next, that is a utopian phrase. If we break it down, like a clock, we understand its components; we see such things as working class, capitalist class, banks, surplus value, capital etc. Then when we put them back into the system we see that the system has inherent contradictions, because these conflicting sides are unified in a coherent system. It is then that we say the capitalist system will change because it has inherent contradictions that cannot exist.

At the start this was confusing for me. I first read Stalin's work on Dialectical and Historical materialism, then moved on to Engels part on dialectics in Anti-Duhring. I am also looking at Mao's and Althusser's stuff on dialectics, which expand and correct some misconceptions on contradictions. Now I see Engels stuff very basic, as he is showing a basic natural process. If you read Engels you will see he has already dealt with the arguments Rosa is putting up. Really Rosa has wasted alot of people’s time and her time taking very basics phrases and muddling them into something they are not.


Again, this must mean that the 'forces of production' must turn into 'relations of production', and vice versa!

The productive forces ae described as socialised. The relations of production are private. In a system they form a contradiciton. Through revolution the relations of production are socialised. The relations of production have turned into their opposite.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


We have two primary conflicting sides in capitalism, workers and capitalist. You just broke down the capitalism system in a basic way.

Why is this a 'break'? It merely raises the question, yet to be answered: why is this is a 'contradiction'?

One can freely acknowledge the structural dependency of workers and capitalists, and their conflict, and yet deny this can be called a 'contradiction'.

All you have done, it seems, is reassert a tradition, but not answer the question: why call this a 'contradiction'?

Indeed, we have yet to be told what a 'dialectical contradiction' is.


I am not arguing with you.

That's for sure -- because you can't.

Like every other dialectical mystic with whom I have 'debated' this, you merely re-assert a tradition you cannot defend, let alone explain. Not even our resident 'expert', Gilhyle is up to the job!

As I asserted in that other thread:


They are not even 'contradictions' to begin with -- unless, of course you can show otherwise (and good luck on that one -- you'd be the first human being in history to succeed there!).

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1228465&postcount=7

Which raises the question: why did you begin this thread if you can't answer that question?

We have had this unexplained, mystical tradition rammed down our throats for well over 140 years, and yet no one (not even Hegel) can tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is. The best attempts so far to do just this soon collapse under close scrutiny, as I have shown in the Anti-Dühring thread and here:

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

And, of course, that is why I wished you good luck. But, it now seems that you need far more than 'luck'.

You quote this:


So, Rosa still does not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if she does she also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

But ignored my reply:


That's OK, since I'm in good company, for you are in the same predicament as I, and so is everyone else.

Unless, of course, you can show differently.

But, you'd have done that already, if you could...

And the same comment, it seems, applies to you.


Engels in anti-during says that dialectics in a materialist sense is quite simple. And it is quite simple; it is show the state of things in motion. It is people like Dühring and Rosa who confuse it.

Well, Engels was a confused dogmatist, as I have shown in the Anti-Dühring thread, so I do not know why you are quoting him at me.


Like I said I find that they break things down but never put them back into context. If we break down say a grandfather clock to its smallest mechanical components we would understand the qualities of each component. However broken down that far we would say "this is not a clock".

If we are cunning and wanted to trick someone it isn't a clock we might take a handful and ask someone is this a clock? Unless they know their clocks as a trade they would only see a handful of individual mechanical parts. Broken down we can only analyse the smallest components, and we don't have a full picture. When we put each part back together, when we see the relationship between each part and their back into their context we can say "this is a clock, it works because each component is interrelated, and all these parts make a clock".

At the start we know it is a clock, just the same as we know that this current system is capitalism, you don't have to be a Marxist to know this. However Marxists in regards to social things don't accept such things at their face value. If just say that this is capitalism and say socialism comes next, that is a utopian phrase. If we break it down, like a clock, we understand its components; we see such things as working class, capitalist class, banks, surplus value, capital etc. Then when we put them back into the system we see that the system has inherent contradictions, because these conflicting sides are unified in a coherent system. It is then that we say the capitalist system will change because it has inherent contradictions that cannot exist.

Despite these fine words, you still haven't told us what these mysterious things are: 'dialectical contradictions'.

This suggests that you yourself do not know, and have merely accepted a dogma you can neither defend nor explain -- just like you Maoists have accepted that the 'mass line' is 'from the masses' when you have absolutely no evidence to back that up.

You mystics are all suckers for tradition, and seem naively to believe everything you have been told in the Dialectical Holy Books.

And now, you try to impose this mystical view of things on Marx in Das Kapital -- but I have already shown that Marx abandoned this approach to analysing Capitalism when he came to writing that book. So, it's no use you just repeating that tired old, traditional view of Marx.

What you need to do is explain what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, as I originally challenged you to do, and then show why this traditional theory does not collapse into incoherence, as I have shown that it does here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=986357&postcount=2

Now, I pointed this out in my reply to you above, but you have just ignored it.

Of course, we both know why you have ignored my challenge: you can't respond to my arguments, so you just repeat the stale, safe and comforting dogmas you have had rammed down your throat. As if we haven't heard it all a million times already!! Just like the genuinely religious, you dialectical mystics find comfort in just repeating safe and re-assuring mantras.

It's not truth you are after, but comforting and safe dogma.


At the start this was confusing for me. I first read Stalin's work on Dialectical and Historical materialism, then moved on to Engels part on dialectics in Anti-Dühring. I am also looking at Mao's and Althusser's stuff on dialectics, which expand and correct some misconceptions on contradictions. Now I see Engels stuff very basic, as he is showing a basic natural process. If you read Engels you will see he has already dealt with the arguments Rosa is putting up. Really Rosa has wasted a lot of people’s time and her time taking very basics phrases and muddling them into something they are not.

Why read Stalin on this? He is just as repetitive and mantra-like as other dialecticians?

But we know why. You just wanted to hear the comforting words once more. You did not question what he had to say, you just accepted it as if it were the Holy Word from off the mountain.


Now I see Engels stuff very basic, as he is showing a basic natural process. If you read Engels you will see he has already dealt with the arguments Rosa is putting up. Really Rosa has wasted a lot of people’s time and her time taking very basics phrases and muddling them into something they are not

That is not so. Engels has not dealt with my arguments. I challenge you to show where he has.

And that is no surprise; Engels, as well as Lenin, Stalin and Mao, were almost totally ignorant of logic, even of the bowdlerised Aristotelian 'logic' that Hegel tried to grapple with in his badly misnamed work, 'Logic'.

As it seems you too are, and that is the real reason you cannot answer my criticisms. You do not even so much as try to do so!

But, that does not stop you (plural) pontificating from a position of almost total ignorance.


The productive forces are described as socialised. The relations of production are private. In a system they form a contradiction. Through revolution the relations of production are socialised. The relations of production have turned into their opposite.

This is not so. A dialectical 'opposite' is whatever an object or process struggles with, or 'contradicts'. In that case, the forces of production should turn into the relations of production, and vice versa, according to this whacko 'theory' of yours.

So, and yet again: what is a 'dialectical contradiction'?

We have yet to be told. The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, that change cannot happen.

[Hiero]

One can freely acknowledge the structural dependency of workers and capitalists, and their conflict, and yet deny this can be called a 'contradiction'.

The thing capitalism has inherent contradictions. It is the two when they are in a system that form the contradictions.

You either understand it or you don't. Some people here do understand it, and they have moved on to better things. It is you who doesn't understand it, or you purposely missrepresent. The shamefull is that you're so proud of it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


The thing capitalism has inherent contradictions. It is the two when they are in a system that form the contradictions.

Yes, we know you accept the dogma, but repeating it is no more a proof here than it would be if a Christian kept saying 'God is inherently love'.

What we want to know, and what you and the other mystics here refuse to tell us, is why these are 'contradictions' to begin with, let alone 'dialectical contradictions' (the nature of which has remained obscure for 200 years).

Now, it may be that you and the rest of your ilk cannot tell us the answer to these questions; in that case, you need to be honest and admit that this is just another of your many dialectical acts of faith.


You either understand it or you don't. Some people here do understand it, and they have moved on to better things. It is you who doesn't understand it, or you purposely misrepresent. The shameful is that you're so proud of it.

As I have said before, in that case, I am in good company, for no one 'understands' this 'theory' of yours (not Hegel, not Engels, not Plekhanov, not Lenin, not Trotsky, not Stalin, not Mao, not Avakian) -- or if they do, like you, they have kept that secret well hidden for the last 200 years.


Some people here do understand it

Well, they seem particularly inept at explaining it to us, or at showing where my refutation goes wrong, or even where I 'misrepresent' dialectics.

Even you do not try to do that -- and we both know why.

So, the bottom line is that even you cannot explain this 'theory' to us, but instead rely on repeating these safe and comforting mantras, ones you have uncritically swallowed simply because the Dialectical Holy Men told you to.


The shameful is that you're so proud of it

No, the shameful thing is that you have surrendered your intellect to a series of dogmas that make no more sense than the Christian Trinity -- but which oddly enough, and unsurprisingly, emerged from the same neo-Platonic cess pit from which Hegel dredged many of his ideas.

Small wonder then that you have make stuff up about the 'mass line', too.

So, and yet again: what is a 'dialectical contradiction'?

We have yet to be told. The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, that change cannot happen.

[Hiero]

Yes, we know you accept the dogma, but repeating it is no more a proof here than it would be if a Christian kept saying 'God is inherently love'.

What we want to know, and what you and the other mystics here refuse to tell us, is why these are 'contradictions' to begin with, let alone 'dialectical contradictions' (the nature of which has remained obscure for 200 years).

Now, it may be that you and the rest of your ilk cannot tell us the answer to these questions; in that case, you need to be honest and admit that this is just another of your many dialectical acts of faith

Us, we? You mean you and a few others. The others have never really read anything on dialectical materialism about from your blog. I hadn't read alot before this year on dialectical materialism, I thought it would be too hard. I had read some of your jibberish, which put me off it for awhile. Once I got into it I realised it wasn't that bad, and then came to the conclusion that you're one confused lady. To all those who have accepted Rosa's misconceptions about dialectical materialism I urge you to read the chapter in Engels Anti-Duhring about dialectics and then check out Stalin's work.

t first I thought I could never compete with and your vast amount of resources. After I did a bit of indepedent research I realised that everything you have produced mix of nothingness. various points but together in essay form with no relation to one another. It is a shame because you have read a vast amount of philosophy and a pity you have never done anything usefull with it.


So, and yet again: what is a 'dialectical contradiction'?

We have yet to be told. The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, that change cannot happen.

I never said that. That's what you want to hear, or purposely mishear. Poor effort Rosa.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


Us, we? You mean you and a few others. The others have never really read anything on dialectical materialism about from your blog. I hadn't read a lot before this year on dialectical materialism, I thought it would be too hard. I had read some of your gibberish, which put me off it for awhile. Once I got into it I realised it wasn't that bad, and then came to the conclusion that you're one confused lady. To all those who have accepted Rosa's misconceptions about dialectical materialism I urge you to read the chapter in Engels Anti-Dühring about dialectics and then check out Stalin's work.

'We' is the good people of RevLeft. And even if there are only a few, we have yet to have this mystical 'theory' of yours explained to us in terms that do not fall apart upon examination.


I had read some of your gibberish, which put me off it for awhile

Good, stay away! I would hate to free you from your self-inflicted ignorance.


and then came to the conclusion that you're one confused lady.

Even so, you cannot explain your 'theory'. So, it is you who is the 'confused lady'.

[You probably do not know, but 'lady' is considered a term of sexist abuse here in the 'west'.]


To all those who have accepted Rosa's misconceptions about dialectical materialism I urge you to read the chapter in Engels Anti-Dühring about dialectics and then check out Stalin's work

But, these repeat all the same tired old errors.

Anyway, they will emerge from that ordeal none-the-wiser about 'dialectical contradictions', which is what this thread is about.


I first I thought I could never compete with and your vast amount of resources. After I did a bit of independent research I realised that everything you have produced mix of nothingness. various points but together in essay form with no relation to one another. It is a shame because you have read a vast amount of philosophy and a pity you have never done anything useful with it.

1) If this theory of yours makes no sense, as my Essays show, then we have as Marxists a duty to say that.

2) If I am right, and I might not be (but no one has been able to show where I go wrong), but if I am, then part of the reason why Dialectical Marxism is such a long-term failure can be put down to this 'theory'. In which case, the demolition of dialectics will do more to help us do something 'useful' than anything you have so far accomplished, no matter how wonderful that is.

3) I went out of my way to learn shed loads of philosophy and logic so that I could demolish this 'theory'. Now, you may deprecate my actions, but they were taken for the sole purpose of making Marxism more successful, not less.


I never said that. That's what you want to hear, or purposely mishear. Poor effort Rosa.

Who said you did say that? I was merely pointing out that others here, and elsewhere, have tried to tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, and have failed, miserably.

You haven't even tried!

In that case, and yet again: what is a 'dialectical contradiction'?

We have yet to be told. The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, that change cannot happen.

[Hiero]

Even so, you cannot explain your 'theory'. So, it is you who is the 'confused lady'.

[You probably do not know, but 'lady' is considered a term of sexist abuse here in the 'west'.]


Fine, you're one confused man.


Good, stay away! I would hate to free you from your self-inflicted ignorance.

You would hate for anyone to do any self study




You haven't even tried!

In that case, and yet again: what is a 'dialectical contradiction'?

We have yet to be told. The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, that change cannot happen.


I told you. Well I have stated, I don't care if you choose to ignore it, it is there for others to see.

[apathy maybe]

The problem is, capitalists want to pay workers the least possible. They also want to sell their commodities as fast as possible. Those objectives are mutually exclusive, as workers who earn little money are not likely to buy too much commodities.

Ergo, the class interests of capitalists are contradictory.

Luís Henrique

Just to jump in on the thread without bothering to even bother reading it all.

May I suggest, Capitalist A wants to pay their workers the least possible, and have Capitalists B-Z pay their workers a maximum wage. Capitalist B wants to pay their workers the least possible, and wants Capitalists CDE-ZA to pay the most possible. And so on.

There is no contradiction.

The flaw comes from thinking that the entire class of capitalists are looking after, or want to look after, the interests of the whole. Capitalist A doesn't give a shit about Capitalist B and vice versa.


Rosa, does that meet your approval?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


Fine, you're one confused man.

Indeed, and I am in good company, for you mystics do not seem to know what your 'theory' entails, either; you certainly cannot explain it -- even worse, you cannot defend it.


You would hate for anyone to do any self study

This is always assuming that you do any 'self study' that goes beyond your naive acceptance of everything and anything the Dialectical Holy Books tell you.:rolleyes:


I told you. Well I have stated, I don't care if you choose to ignore it, it is there for others to see.

You haven't. All you have done is reproduce an alleged example of one, but you have signally failed to explain why it is even an example of a contradiction, let alone why it's a 'dialectical contradiction' (a term anyway that has yet to be explained to a living soul).

In fact, your 'explanation' (by merely listing an alleged example) is no more help than would be that of, say, a Christian who pointed to the birth of a child as an example of the 'handiwork of God', but who then refused to say who or what 'God' was.

Now, if he/she were to turn round and then say:


I told you. Well I have stated, I don't care if you choose to ignore it, it is there for others to see.

you would be among the first to complain that nothing had been explained.

In that case, you have once again turned down a golden opportunity to explain what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- as I said to you in the Mao thread, you would have been the first person in 200 years to have done this anyway had you bothered.

But, no: you chickened out.

Once more, then:

We still have no idea what is a 'dialectical contradiction' is

The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, they imply that change cannot happen.

No good looking to this bogus Hiero to help us out here, then, comrades.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

AM, thanks for that, but there is in fact a 'dialectical' way out of the 'difficulty' you posed for LH.

However, I am not going to do the work of our mystical comrades for them; they can find it for themselves.

Anyway, I already have an answer for that get-out!

Debating this with our mystical bretheren for over 25 years does give me an edge that not a single one of them can match -- unfortunatley for them.:)

[Hiero]

Rosa has broke apart the wage system, capitalist want to pay lower wages, workers want (need) higher wages.

So we have two conflicting sides. There is no doubt about it that their class interest conflict. And I too agree it is a far stretch to call them a contradiction at this stage of analysis.

However these two conflicting sides do not exist independently, they exist together in a system. Two conflicting sides form a thing. In this situation the two conflicting sides form the wage system, capitalism. How can they continue to exist in the same system for so long if they conflict? Hence the system has an inherent contradiction.

So let's go back to the all classic contradiction, productive forces and relations of production. If broken into their two parts, we have socialised labour and private ownership. Outside of their system, in a metaphysical view they do not contitute a contradiction. However nothing exists in such a state, there is no such pure indepdence and if our analysis stops here (as Rosa's does) then our analysis remains as a metaphysical analysis. The productive forces and the relations of production form a system, in todays society they form capitalism. So two conflicting sides form a thing, and that thing has inherent contradictions.

Rosa's error is to break things down and never put them back into context. When we do this, they have no meaning. Relations of production mean nothing, unless we talk about the productive forces. The dialetical materialist breaks these things down, to work out the two conflicting sides. Marx studied the economy of capitalism, he found that the relations of production were bourgeiosie ownership and proleteriat labour, and that the productive forces were more suited to socialised reltions of production, do to mass industry and socialised labour.

Once we break down the system, and understand the two conflicting sides, we place this anlysis back into it's context. It is from this point where we know there are two conflicting sides we can say the thing we have studied has inherent contradicitons, the inherent and primary contradiction in capitalism is the conflict between relations of production and productive forces.

That is the answer.

You choose to ignore what I have said. It is the thing that has inherent contradictions. It is only when two conflicting sides form a system that there is a contradiction. Two abstract opposites do not form a contradiction. And that is all you ever deal with, things in the abstract.

It is obvious if after 25 years you have invested so much in your arguement that you not willing to concede that you don't even understand the basics. You are constantly ignoring peoples arguement especially the main points. And this is important, because any Marxist writing on contradictions talks about the unity of opposites If you ignore this it does look mystical, but then it is you who turns it into a mystical things because you choose to misconceive. This is getting very tacky.

Also I answered you comment on things turning into their opposites.


The productive forces ae described as socialised. The relations of production are private. In a system they form a contradiciton. Through revolution the relations of production are socialised. The relations of production have turned into their opposite.

It actually wasn't that hard. There is nothing mystical about dialectics.

So is there anything new you want to discuss, or are we finished?


May I suggest, Capitalist A wants to pay their workers the least possible, and have Capitalists B-Z pay their workers a maximum wage. Capitalist B wants to pay their workers the least possible, and wants Capitalists CDE-ZA to pay the most possible. And so on.

There is no contradiction.

Um what?

Can we deal with concrete examples. It is really shameful when you have to use abstract answers with no social existance to prove your arguement.

[trivas7]

It is obvious if after 25 years you have invested so much in your arguement that you not willing to concede that you don't even understand the basics.

It actually wasn't that hard. There is nothing mystical about dialectics.

Indeed, IMO what Rosa is attempting to do is to apply a causal and logical model upon Marxian analysis. But for Marx the only scientific method was to see social revolution in its historical context -- dynamic, acausal, and related in terms of an ecological ensemble of its material base, i.e., social relations, relation to nature, ideology, labor relations, the productive forces, lifestyle, etc.

[gilhyle]

If they are mutually exclusive, then they both cannot take place at the same time, and hence propositions describing them cannot both be true, and cannot therefore constitute an actual contradiction.

True...if reality conformed to your simplistic logic.

Let me translate: Since you Rosa can think only in simple categories you cannot understand how mutual exclusive things can co-exist. Therefore (for you) they dont. Max Stirner and the Cardinals refusing to look into Galileo's telescope would have been proud of you - you dont understand it, therefore it isnt the case.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


That is the answer.

Quite obviously it isn't. You do not tell us why these are 'contradictions', you just asserted they were.

You are just like any other dogmatist (including religious ones) who think that we should all simply accept the Sacred Word if it is repeated enough times.

For example, why is this a 'contradiction':


However these two conflicting sides do not exist independently, they exist together in a system. Two conflicting sides form a thing. In this situation the two conflicting sides form the wage system, capitalism. How can they continue to exist in the same system for so long if they conflict? Hence the system has an inherent contradiction.

Once more you just assert it is one.


However nothing exists in such a state, there is no such pure impendence and if our analysis stops here (as Rosa's does) then our analysis remains as a metaphysical analysis. The productive forces and the relations of production form a system,

Why is this 'metaphysical'? Yet again, you just copy Engels, who copied Hegel. No reason is given.

If a Christian were to assert things like this, that 'God' is this or that; that this or that is a 'sin', you would not accept it for one minute.

Why then should us materialists accept the word of you mystics?


You choose to ignore what I have said. It is the thing that has inherent contradictions. It is only when two conflicting sides form a system that there is a contradiction. Two abstract opposites do not form a contradiction. And that is all you ever deal with, things in the abstract.

Not so; I responded earlier more or less as I have responded just here.

The truth is, that you ignored my request that you tell us why these are contradictions in the first place, and why you use the word 'metaphysical' here with no justification (except on Hegel and Engels's say so).

Moreover, you failed to say where my refutation of Mao's 'theory' of change goes wrong. Here is the link again:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=986357&postcount=2

And we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is. You keep refusing to tell us.


It is obvious if after 25 years you have invested so much in your argument that you not willing to concede that you don't even understand the basics. You are constantly ignoring peoples argument especially the main points. And this is important, because any Marxist writing on contradictions talks about the unity of opposites If you ignore this it does look mystical, but then it is you who turns it into a mystical things because you choose to misconceive. This is getting very tacky.

As I have said to you and others several times: I am in good company here, for it is quite clear that neither you nor anyone else at RevLeft understands this mystical 'theory' of yours, just as it is clear that neither Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao or even Bob Avakian understands it -- or if they do, they have kept that secret well hidden. As have you.


Also I answered you comment on things turning into their opposites.

Not so, all you did was pass an irrelevant comment about the forces and relations of production:


The productive forces are described as socialised. The relations of production are private. In a system they form a contradiction. Through revolution the relations of production are socialised. The relations of production have turned into their opposite.

I responded to this (which you have ignored) that according to Engels, Lenin and Mao, things struggle with their dialectical 'opposites', which they 'contradict', and that these opposites turn into one another. They do not turn into something else, they turn into one another.

So, in this case, if there is a contradiction between the forces and relations of production, according to the Dialectical Prophets, the forces of production should turn into the relations of production, and vice versa.

Furthermore, if the proletariat struggles with the bourgeoisie, then, according to the Dialectical Holy Men, the proletariat should turn into the bourgeoisie, and the latter should turn onto the proletariat!

Those are the consequences of your loopy 'theory'!

Moreover, you failed to respond to my proof that Mao's theory would mean that nothing could change. That proof can be found at the above link.


Um what?

Can we deal with concrete examples. It is really shameful when you have to use abstract answers with no social existence to prove your argument.

Scientists and mathematicians use 'abstract' arguments all the time. Even Marx does in Das Kapital! It is only you mystics who do not like them.

Here is a 'concrete' version:


May I suggest, the Capitalists who run Exxon want to pay their workers the least possible, and have all the other Capitalists pay their workers a maximum wage. The Capitalists who run Wal-mart want to pay their workers the least possible, and want all the other Capitalists to pay the most possible. And so on.

No contradiction.

Once more, and for the twentieth time:

We still have no idea what is a 'dialectical contradiction' is

The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, they imply that change cannot happen.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


True...if reality conformed to your simplistic logic.

Then you can't mean by 'mutually exclusive' what the rest us mean.

So, what do you mean by 'mutually exclusive'?

And, if my logic is 'simplistic', pray tell us how your superior 'logic' can explain how two mutually exclusive objects or processes can in fact co-exist.

If they co-exist, then they cannot be mutually exclusive. On the other hand, if they are mutually exclusive, they cannot co-exist.

Now, the only way out of this impasse is if you interpret 'mutually exclusive' not to mean that the one excludes the other.

But if that is so, then this 'definition' of a 'dialectical contradiction' falls apart. This is because, if these do not exclude one another, they cannot contradict each other (since that is what we were told these should do). On the other hand, if they do indeed exclude one another, then they cannot co-exist, and so cannot 'contradict' one another.

However you try to slice this, it falls apart.


Let me translate: Since you Rosa can think only in simple categories you cannot understand how mutual exclusive things can co-exist. Therefore (for you) they don't. Max Stirner and the Cardinals refusing to look into Galileo's telescope would have been proud of you - you don't understand it, therefore it isn't the case.

Well, it should be easy for a superior intellect like you to explain the new meaning you are giving to 'mutually exclude' that in fact means that they do not mutually exclude one another.

[It is as if Galileo told the cardinals to look down his telescope but then he also meant that they should not look down it, which instruction they would not be able to grasp since they could only think in simple categories!:lol:]

So, unless you can tell us what this 'new' meaning of 'mutually exclude' is, which in fact does not mean mutually exclude, this remains the case:

We still have no idea what is a 'dialectical contradiction' is

The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, they imply that change cannot happen.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Indeed, IMO what Rosa is attempting to do is to apply a causal and logical model upon Marxian analysis. But for Marx the only scientific method was to see social revolution in its historical context -- dynamic, acausal, and related in terms of an ecological ensemble of its material base, i.e., social relations, relation to nature, ideology, labor relations, the productive forces, lifestyle, etc.

I am quite happy to apply any methodology you like to this knotty problem, but in order to do that we need to be told what a 'dialectical contradiction' is first.

We have yet to be told.

Certainly, you keep dodging this issue (as you do all others).

Or rather:

The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, they imply that change cannot happen.

[Hiero]

Once more you just assert it is one.

And once more you assert absolutely nothing of worth.


I responded to this (which you have ignored) that according to Engels, Lenin and Mao, things struggle with their dialectical 'opposites', which they 'contradict', and that these opposites turn into one another. They do not turn into something else, they turn into one another.

So, in this case, if there is a contradiction between the forces and relations of production, according to the Dialectical Prophets, the forces of production should turn into the relations of production, and vice versa.

Furthermore, if the proletariat struggles with the bourgeoisie, then, according to the Dialectical Holy Men, the proletariat should turn into the bourgeoisie, and the latter should turn onto the proletariat!

You just don't get it. Some people weren't meant to be communsit, that is why the party is called the vanguard.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


And once more you assert absolutely nothing of worth.

1) You (not me) began this thread with the express intent of trying to explain to the good people here what a 'dialectical contradiction' is.

2) But, all you did was give a semi-abstract example of one while you failed to say (and now it seems you refuse to say) why it was a 'contradiction' to begin with, let alone a 'dialectical' one.

3) So, I am not trying to assert anything with respect to this, I am merely asking you to explain why the example you gave is in fact a contradiction.

4) You keep saying it is, but refuse to say why.

Now, I predicted this would happen --, or rather, I said that if you actually managed to tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, you'd be the first person in 200 years to do so, and I wished you good luck.

Seems you now need a miracle!:lol:

This was in fact an ideal opportunity for you to dazzle us all with your dialectical logic; it was your thread, your platform, your choice of topic (not mine).

But, what did you do? You chickened out, and then attacked me for having the temerity to ask you to explain the very thing you had set out to explain!

The rest of us can only conclude that either you are yet another dialectician who cannot explain himself -- to add to the hundreds (no exaggeration) I have met over the last 25 years who say almost exactly what you tried to say, and who also ducked the question, like you have -- or the phrase 'dialectical contradiction' is as empty a phrase as 'slithy tove' is.

You can always prove me wrong by actually telling us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is --, but if you could, you would have done so already.

So, like the other Maoists who chickened out in the 'Mass line' thread, too, and who could not prove that this was 'from the masses', you have bottled it also.

This is not a very impressive record you Maoists are establising for yourselves...:rolleyes:


You just don't get it

Apparently I am not the only one, since it is now clear that you 'don't get it', either, otherwise you would have been able to tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is.


Some people weren't meant to be communsit

What's a 'communsit'? Is it a communist who can't explain what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, by any chance?:lol:


that is why the party is called the vanguard

If the rest are like you, it should be re-named 'the gullible'.

[trivas7]

I am quite happy to apply any methodology you like to this knotty problem, but in order to do that we need to be told what a 'dialectical contradiction' is first.

There are none so blind as those who do not choose to see.

You have been told repeatedly that a dialectical contradiction is opposing forces within a material unity.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


There are none so blind as those who do not choose to see.

See what?! You lot refuse to tell us.


You have been told repeatedly that a dialectical contradiction is opposing forces within a material unity.

Ah, but you missed out the 'mutually exclusive' part, which ruins the whole story.

If they are 'mutually exclsuive' then they can't exist together, so they can't interact.

On the other hand, if they do exist together, then they can't be 'mutually exclusive', and so can't be 'dialectical contradictions'.

And I answered the 'opposing forces' ploy too, in another thread (and in answer to you, and I even had to post it twice then since you just ignored it); here it is again:




Trivas:


Too bad verbosity isn't an argument, Rosa. I suspect pretty soon you'll be telling me that arguments settle anything.

You are in no postition to judge since you refuse to read my work, work the length of which is dwarfed by that of Marx, and indeed that of Hegel, Lenin, Mao and Trotsky, taken severally or collectively.

The point is, that I can defend my ideas, you can't, and won't.


But I've already told what a dialectical contradiction is here. Too bad you didn't like the answer.

Ok, so let's have a look:


A dialectical contradiction indicates a fundamental contradiction between essential characteristics of a 'thing' manifested in a fundamental multi-leveled conflict between the opposing forces expressive of a thing's essential characteristics. By essential characteristics, I mean here such characteristics necessary to a thing's identity, without which it would not be itself but would be in fact be something else.

A dialectical contradiction, as I am defining it does not indicate a formal logical contradiction. It indicates an apparent formal logical contradiction. What does it mean to say this? It indicates a particular linkage of ontology with epistemology.[...] Here are two apparently contradictory propositions:

1) the production and dissemination of knowledge is an essential characteristic of all educational systems; and

2) the obfuscation of the production of knowledge and the restriction (and sometimes outright prevention) of the dissemination of knowledge is an essential characteristic of all education systems.

Are these two propositions contradictory in terms of formal logic? It depends rather precisely upon how they are formulated as such. But the meaning intended implies no such thing. Asserting that educational systems have knowledge production and dissemination as an essential feature says no more than that if they did not fulfill such functions to some degree they could not be said to be educational systems. The contrasting position is more contraversal and needs to be argued for [...] [O]n one level the contradiction is clear. I call this contradiction dialectical because it involves the essential primary defining characteristics of the institution. I call it dialectical because the contradiction manifests itself in the form of a conflict between structural forces that make the institution what it most fundamentally is. The conflict itself is an essential characteristic of the institution. This dialectical contradition is, however, itself, the expression of an even more general dialectical contradiction: the dialectical contradiction at the heart of the production of knowledge which arises from knowledge's imbrication with the power relations of inequality.

1) You did not tell me, you quoted someone else.

2) The above is as clear as mud.

3) The author says:


A dialectical contradiction indicates a fundamental contradiction between essential characteristics of a 'thing' manifested in a fundamental multi-leveled conflict between the opposing forces expressive of a thing's essential characteristics. By essential characteristics, I mean here such characteristics necessary to a thing's identity, without which it would not be itself but would be in fact be something else.

The author relies on 'opposing forces' to help him explain this alleged 'contradiction'. But I have already shown that forces cannot be co-opted here. This is what I posted straight after your last attempt to quote the above passage, a post to which you did not reply (which suggests you couldn't, once more):


Trivas, yes I have read this sort of stuff many times before, and comrades here have tried to define 'dialectical contradictions' in this way here before, too.

However, a conflict between forces cannot be called a 'contradiction'. I have devoted over 86,000 words to explaining why in Essay Eight Part Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm). Here is a summary of that Essay (links explaining the techincal terms I have used have been ommited; they can be found in the original Essay; link at the end):


The Gravity Of The Problem

In this Part of Essay Eight it is argued at length that there is no way that "contradictions" can be interpreted as "opposing forces", nor vice versa.

[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

In fact, since most of the motion in the universe is governed by the action of only one central force (i.e., in classical Physics, the force of gravity which governs the motion of planets around stars, and stars around galactic centres of mass, etc.), classical DM cannot account for most of the bulk changes that take place in nature. Now, even if this phenomenon is regarded as the result of the complex inter-relation between gravitational fields, change in motion would still be caused by only one force: the resultant. No contradiction has just one term.

Of course, if General Relativity is correct (where gravity has been replaced by the motion of bodies along geodesics and world-lines, forces having been edited out of the picture) most of the bulk motion in the universe would take place under the action of no forces at all. This is underlined by Nobel laureate, Professor Wilczek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Wilczek)(of MIT), who makes a more general point about forces in modern Physics:


"The paradox deepens when we consider force from the perspective of modern physics. In fact, the concept of force is conspicuously absent from our most advanced formulations of the basic laws. It doesn't appear in Schrödinger's equation, or in any reasonable formulation of quantum field theory, or in the foundations of general relativity. Astute observers commented on this trend to eliminate force even before the emergence of relativity and quantum mechanics.

"In his 1895 Dynamics, the prominent physicist Peter G. Tait, who was a close friend and collaborator of Lord Kelvin and James Clerk Maxwell, wrote

"'In all methods and systems which involve the idea of force there is a leaven of artificiality...there is no necessity for the introduction of the word 'force' nor of the sense−suggested ideas on which it was originally based.'"

http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_57/iss_10/11_1.shtml

[The above now appears in Wilczek (2006), pp.37-38.]

This is something that even dialecticians have admitted:


"Gravity is not a 'force,' but a relation between real objects. To a man falling off a high building, it seems that the ground is 'rushing towards him.' From the standpoint of relativity, that observation is not wrong. Only if we adopt the mechanistic and one-sided concept of 'force' do we view this process as the earth's gravity pulling the man downwards, instead of seeing that it is precisely the interaction of two bodies upon each other." [Woods and Grant (1995), p.156.]

However, and despite what Woods and Grant say, a mere "relation" between two bodies is incapable of making one or both of them move, unless there is a force there (or something else consequent on that relation -- such as a time-based trajectory along a "world-line", perhaps?) to bring it about.

Naturally, all this means that most of the changes studied in Physics could not be the result of "contradictions" -- if, that is, the latter are still to be regarded as opposing forces.

Merely Figurative?

In view of the above, it might be wise to interpret "opposing forces" as figurative 'contradictions'. Alternatively, forces could be described as 'contradictions' as a part of a sort of shorthand, which would then enable the modelling of different types of accelerated motion. Naturally, that approach would allow the word "force" to be edited out of the picture as a physical entity in its own right. Indeed, Engels seems to have had this in mind in the quotation below, where he argues that attraction and repulsion should not be regarded as forces, but as simple forms of motion. This retreat was perhaps recommended to him by his admission that the concept "force" was derived from ancient animistic/mystical views of nature, hence its use in DM could smack of anthropomorphism:


"When two bodies act on each other…they either attract each other or they repel each other…in short, the old polar opposites of attraction and repulsion…. It is expressly to be noted that attraction and repulsion are not regarded here as so-called 'forces', but as simple forms of motion.... [Engels (1954), pp.70-71. Bold emphasis added.]


"The notion of force, however, owing to its origin from the action of the human organism on the external world…implies that only one part is active, the other part being passive…[and appearing] as a resistance." [Ibid., p.82. Bold emphasis added.]

However, this revision has two untoward consequences Engels appears not to have noticed:

(1) It makes his version of DM look even more positivistic that it already seems (at least in DN). If the appeal to forces in nature is no more than a shorthand for the relative motion of bodies, then forces will have no real counterparts in nature. The whole idea would then be little more than a "useful fiction", invented to account for the phenomena instrumentally. This would make the identification of forces with contradictions even more problematic; plainly, and once again: if there are no forces, there can be no DM-'contradictions'.

[DN = Dialectics of Nature, i.e., Engels (1954); UO = Unity of Opposites.]

(2) Given this re-write of the word "force", the contradictory relationship between bodies would become little more than a re-description of their relative motion. [Woods and Grant seem to be thinking along these lines, as we saw earlier.]

Anyway, the figurative reading of forces as 'contradictions' runs counter to the claim advanced by dialecticians that they are offering a literal and 'objective' account of nature. It is not at all easy to see how figurative language can fill in the physical gaps in an explanation, any more than, say, the following can account for Juliet's beauty:


"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."

[Romeo and Juliet, Act Two, Scene Two.]

Or, at least, any more than would describing a man as a "pig" imply he has a curly tail and is a potential source of bacon.

Nevertheless, even if this proves to be an acceptable resolution of Engels's problem, it would still not provide DM-theorists with a viable way out of their difficulties. Taken literally or figuratively, the equation of DM-'contradictions' with forces cannot work -- whether this applies to events in nature or society. This is so for several reasons.

Contradictions As Mathematical Models?

The first of these is connected with the way that forces are already represented in mathematics and physics, for example --, which does not appear to be even remotely appropriate for exportation and use in depicting contradictions as literal forces. Consider the following:

(A) Forces often operate according to an inverse square law. It is not easy to see how the same could be true of contradictions. Not much sense can be made, one presumes(!), of the idea that a contradiction could operate with, say, only 25% of its former intensity (or whatever the appropriate descriptor is here) if the distance between its oppositional elements is doubled. Do bosses really become more conciliatory if workers walk away from them? Does wealth cause less conflict if the rich move their money to the Cayman Islands? Do appearances contradict reality any the more if someone uses a microscope, or presses his/her face against a desk? And yet, no force in nature has its local or remote strength unaffected by such changes.

Sure, dialecticians speak about the "contradictions" in the capitalist system "intensifying", but this is not because the 'separation distance' between the classes has decreased. Whatever DM-theorists in fact mean by "intensification" here (which seems be that the alleged "contradictions" become more obvious, intractable or crisis-ridden), they certainly do not mean it in the same way that physicists mean it when they talk about, say, the strength of a force field intensifying. Nor is there any mathematics involved. Indeed, while a technician might be dispatched to measure the intensity of a force field in genuine scientific research, no one ever seems to have been asked to do the same with these "intensifying" 'dialectical contradictions'. They (or at least their 'strength') appear to be permanently locked in subjective space, stubbornly impervious to scientific investigation.

(B) Forces in nature can be represented by vectors, the use of which is governed by well-understood rules. As such, for example, they may be inclined at various angles to one another, added, subtracted and multiplied (to give inner, vector or scalar triple products, and the like) -- and by means of which, diverse quantities, such as areas, volumes, field densities, boundary flux (etc.), may be calculated. In addition, vectors may be parallel or orthogonal, to one another, or to previously defined axes, just as they may be decomposed into their components and projected onto a given direction, plane or surface. They can be used to identify and classify the mathematical properties of manifolds. Unit vectors can be defined in a given vector space, providing it with a base and spanning set. Modulii can be ascertained for any given vector, and so-called "Eigenvectors" can be calculated. Furthermore, matrices can be employed to represent vectors more efficiently, their determinants and inverses thus calculated. The ordinary and partial derivatives of vectors may be derived -- and, finally, they can be integrated (as part of line, surface or volume integrals), and so on.

It is difficult to see how any of the above (and a many others) could be true of a single DM-'contradiction' interpreted (literally or metaphorically) as a force.

This brings us to the third reason for questioning the connection between forces and 'contradictions'.

Contradictory To What?

Let us assume that two forces (say, F1 and F2) 'contradict' one another. In that case, one of the following options would, it seems, have to obtain:

(1) F1 must prevent F2 from acting (and/or vice versa), or

(2) F1 must impede F2, perhaps stopping it from producing its usual effects (and/or vice versa).

[There is a third option: that these forces should "struggle" with one another; however, if that is to make sense, then it must be explicated in terms of one or both of the other two.]

In the first case, F2 must either:

(1a) Cease to exist, or

(1b) confront F1 directly (as force on force) while it exists -- if it is to be affected by F1, or if it is to be prevented from operating by it.

However, if in (1a), F2 ceases to exist, it cannot contradict or be contradicted by anything, since it no longer exists to do anything.

Assuming, on the other hand, that F2 is contradicted by F1 up until it ceases to exist, then option (1a) would become (1b).

In the latter case, therefore, the alleged contradiction between F1 and F2 must see these forces as directly oppositional in some way. If so, these two forces must confront one another as forces of attraction and/or repulsion (or as a 'dialectical' mix of the two).

But, once again, it is not easy to see how this configuration could be a contradiction in anything other than a figurative sense. [This is because a literal contradiction involves the gainsaying of the words of another person.]

If, on the other hand, a literal interpretation is still insisted upon here, this sort of confrontation between forces could only take place if they were particulate in some way -- that is, if they registered some sort of resistance to one another. Alternatively, if they are not particulate, it is equally hard to see how they could interact at all, let alone 'contradict' each other. Continuous media have no rigidity and no impenetrability to exert forces of any sort (except, of course, as part of a figurative extension to particulate interaction, after all).

Now, there are well-known classical problems associated with the idea that forces are particulate (these are fully referenced in Essay Eight Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_01.htm)and Part Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm)) -- not the least of which is that if forces are particulate then they could only interact if they exerted still other forces (contact forces, cohesive forces, forces of reaction, etc.) on other particulates, initiating an infinite regress. That is, in order to account for the ability of particles to resist one another, we would need to appeal to forces internal to bodies to do that, to stop one body penetrating the other, or to prevent distortions tearing that body apart. But, if the forces internal to bodies are particulate too, we would plainly need further forces to account for the coherence of these new particles, and so on. Alternatively, if these forces are continuous, they would not be able to provide such inner coherence.

In the end nothing would be accounted for, since at each level there would be nothing to provide the required resistance/coherence.

So, reducing the interaction between forces to that between bodies means that particles could not 'contradict' one another without exerting non-particulate forces on their operands -- which would once again mean that such entities were incapable of exerting forces, having no rigidity to do so.

Even the exchange of particles (in QM) would succeed in exerting forces only if there were reaction forces internal to bodies which were themselves the result of rigidity, cohesion, contact, etc. Of course, Physicists appeal to various fields, energy gradients and the like, but if these are continuous, the above problems simply re-emerge. If these are particulate, this merry-go-round merely takes another spin around the metaphysical floor. [Some Physicists recognise this problem; many just ignore it.]

[QM = Quantum Mechanics.]

Of course, it could be objected that the above view adopts an out-dated mechanistic view of interaction, and hence is completely misguided. However, the 'modern' mathematical approach in fact surrenders any possibility of giving a causal, or physical account of forces --, or at least one that does not depend on a figurative use of verbs we employ in everyday life to give such an account in the macro-world. So, if a particle is seen as a 'carrier of a force', and that 'force' can be given no 'physical bite', but it is still regarded as being capable of making things happen, forcing particles to divert their line of action (etc.), then the words used must lose contact with those drawn from the vernacular -- such as: "make", "force", "divert" --, as they are used to depict macro-phenomena. Now there is no problem with this, but then such an account would become merely descriptive; it could not explain how fields actually make things happen. Differential equations and vectors cannot make things move, or alter their paths; they merely describe what does happen, as well as perhaps help us balance nature's books and make predictions. (More details on this can be found in the full Essay (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm).)

If problems like these are put to one side for the moment, it would seem that forces could interact only by affecting the motion of bodies that are already under the control of other forces. In that case, (1b) would now reduce to the action of F1 on the effects of F2, or vice versa -- thus becoming option (2).

(1b) F2 must confront F1 directly (as force on force) while it exists -- if it is to be affected by F1, or if it is to be prevented from operating by it.

(2) F1 must impede F2, perhaps stopping it from producing its usual effects (and/or vice versa).

That being so, these forces would 'contradict' one another by preventing the normal effects of one or both of them from taking place. But, once more, if the latter are prevented from happening, they would not exist to be contradicted, and we would be back at square one.

If this set of inferences is rejected for some reason, then if F1 does indeed succeed in 'contradicting', say, the velocity of any body under the control of F2 (call this velocity V2), we would have a conflict between two unlike terms: F1 and V2. Clearly, given this scenario, the original contradiction between two forces will have disappeared to be replaced by a new relationship between a force and a velocity, which cannot by any stretch of the imagination be called "contradictory", partly because the operating force merely alters a velocity -- in many cases it might even augment it, or merely deflect it -- and partly because a force cannot 'struggle' with a mere change of place.

Nevertheless, for a force to alter the velocity of a body, the force would have to be particulate, too, meaning that inter-particulate forces would come into play once again. As already noted, continuous media have no inner coherence to alter anything -- save they are surreptitiously viewed as particulate, once more. This would then collapse this scenario back into option (1), with all its associated classical/figurative problems. Either way, the alleged contradiction here would evaporate for want of terms.

This criticism would still apply if the word "contradiction" were replaced by "conflict"; clearly, things cannot conflict if they don't exist, nor can they conflict with what they have prevented from taking place.

[And what exactly is the 'inner conflict' here that is supposed to make things move? A metaphysical motor of some sort? More on that in Essay Five (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2005.htm).

It could be argued that the "conflict" in this case is precisely this: the fact that one forces prevents anther from acting. That option, and every one of its ramifications, is considered in detail in Essay Eight Part Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm). Their consideration here will prevent this from being a mere summary!]

Also, the word "conflict" lacks the logical multiplicity that the word "contradiction" possesses. The whole point of using the word "contradiction" in DM was to emphasise the limitations of FL. This extension to the term is what allows dialecticians to argue that contradictory states of affairs and/or processes can exist simultaneously. That was the thrust of the DL-claims examined in Essay Four (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2004.htm) -- that "A and not A" could be true. In this case, "A" and "not A" are logically/dialectically connected. Now, if these expressions are propositional, ordinarily the truth of one would imply the falsehood of the other; however, their dialectical connection does not imply this in any straightforward sense -- indeed, it goes beyond this. This is what allows dialecticians to point to the superiority of DL over FL; their logic allows them to "grasp" such contradictions in order to make sense of change.

[FL = Formal Logic; DL = Dialectical Logic.]

If now the meaning of the word "conflict" is imported to work in place of "contradict", the aforementioned logical connection will be severed, and the alleged superiority of DL over FL would vanish, since no Formal Logician of any sense would deny that things can conflict -- nor indeed reject the claim that two propositions expressing conflict cannot both be true (or false) at once.

On the other hand, if the old FL-connections possessed by the word "contradiction" are exported and glued onto the word "conflict", then the meaning of the latter must change accordingly. In that case, this particular DM-thesis will have been made true solely as a result of mere linguistic tinkering, and that would mean that another DM-'fact' had been created by linguistic fiat, confirming DM's status as a form of LIE. Hence, in this case, from doctored language, superscientific 'truths' would have followed.

[LIE = Linguistic Idealism.]

And finally, since only agents are capable of conflicting, this term may be used literally only by those prepared to personalise nature.

[This topic is discussed at more length in the full version of Essay Eight Part Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm). Also, see here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_03.htm), and here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm), where Hegel's logical blunders are exposed as the real source of these odd DL-claims.]

That might help explain why, as we saw earlier, Engels modified his ideas, declaring that:


"It is expressly to be noted that attraction and repulsion are not regarded here as so-called 'forces', but as simple forms of motion." [Engels (1954), p.71.]

In other words it seems that forces should be regarded as "useful fictions". As noted above, Engels was aware of the anthropomorphic origin of the scientific concept of force. So, for once, his scientific intuitions seem to have been working correctly.

But, even if this were a viable option, it is not easy to see how on DM-grounds one form of motion could in fact 'contradict' another form of motion. Classically, if one body alters another's motion, it would have to exert a force on it, which would introduce the very things Engels tried to eliminate.

So, despite what Engels said, DM needs forces; it cannot do without them. It requires them to provide the dialectical 'connective tissue' (as it were) and the motive power of the universe; without them there would be nothing internal to bodies which would be able to connect their motion to that of others, and nothing to interlink processes in the "Totality". In their absence, DM would look little different from "crude materialism". Indeed, without forces, dialecticians could not even pretend to explain why anything moved or developed.

In that case, dialecticians cannot afford to take heed of this rare example of Engelsian good sense. And that is why, in discussion, they all ignore it.

On the other hand, if we acknowledge that forces do in fact exist -- that is, we accept that they are more than just the complex ways of speaking about the interaction of bodies (and thus if we reject Engels's advice) --, then the DM-account will still not work. This is because all such changes are in fact produced by a single resultant force operating in the system, not by two contradictory forces.

In that case, if nature must be populated with forces -- and if the present author is allowed for a moment to indulge in some insincere a priori Superscience of her own --, change would then be the result, not of struggle, but of the cooperation, unity and harmony between forces as they naturally combine to produce change (by means of this cooperatively formed resultant), helpfully assisting particles on their way. If so, we should rather raise an analogy here with logical tautologies -- not contradictions -- and argue alongside other ancient mystics (following the excellent precedent set by Hegel) that nature is indeed governed by forces of empathy, affection and love.

The conclusion seems quite plain: since resultant forces cause every change in nature (given the truth of the classical account), movement in general must be the result of dialectical tautologies. This new 'theory' at least has the advantage of being consistent with classical Physics, and every known observation. The same cannot be said of DM.

Naturally, those critical of the above (wholly insincere) flights-of-fancy would do well to turn an equally sceptical eye on the similarly suspect anthropomorphic moves made by dialecticians all the time.

Alternatively, if it is now argued that both of the 'contradicted' forces (i.e., F1 and F2) still exist even while they interact with one another to produce this resultant, change would then be the result of the operation of at least three forces (the original two and the resultant); that would, of course, create energy from nowhere.

[Needless to say, if this is so, there is a pressing need for revolutionaries to identify this 'third force' since (on this view) it appears to be the one that will put paid to Capitalism.]

In that case, it looks like that the word "force" -- as it is used in DM-propositions -- must be figurative, too. Hence, it now seems that DM can only be made to work if we adopt a poetic view of nature.

The Real Source Of This 'Theory'

On the other hand, if it should turn out that these forces are reminiscent of those found in mystical religious systems (which personify 'god', or which carry out 'His' orders (in ancient astronomy, these were the angels who supposedly pushed the planets about the place; in Newton's theory, they were an expression of the direct or indirect action of 'God'), etc.), then it would make eminent good sense to suppose they could 'contradict' one another (i.e., 'argue' among themselves).

It is no surprise, therefore, to find once again that this is precisely from where this 'dialectical' notion has been lifted. This we know for a fact. [On that, see Essay Fourteen (summary here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Summary_of_Essay_Fourteen_Part_One.htm)).]

As such, and in this way, DM clearly represents the re-enchantment of nature and society.

Modern science banished will and intelligence from nature; DM has simply re-introduced them.

'Real' Contradictions?

It could be argued that the real value of 'Materialist Dialectics' lies in its capacity to help revolutionaries understand the contradictions in Capitalism, the better to help change the course of history.

But, it is difficult to picture any of these elements as opposites; the forces of production, it would seem, are no more the opposite of the relations of production than a diesel engine is the opposite of the person using it. And, as argued in detail in Essay Seven (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm), these opposites do not turn into one another, as the dialectical prophets assured us they must. For example, when was the last time that the forces of production turned into the relations of production? Or the proletariat turned into the capitalist class?

Up until now DM-theorists have been more intent on merely asserting that forces are contradictory (seriously overusing this term) than they have been with providing any evidence or argument to show that they are -- or with clarifying what it could possibly mean to assert that they are. Once again, it is clear that DM-theorists have been quite happy to derive yet more a priori Superscience from a set of inappropriate concepts and dubious analogies, compounded by a poetic view of the assorted antics of ancient mystical intelligences, all subsequently confused with a precise logical principle.

Standard examples DM-theorists regularly wheel-out to illustrate the analogy between forces and contradictions are considered in detail in Essay Seven (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm) and shown to be misconceived. For instance, the alleged UO between the north and south poles of a magnet (or even that between positive and negative electrical charges) fails to illustrate the opposition between attractive and repulsive forces. In a magnet, two north poles, or two south poles (i.e., two likes), repel -- whereas two opposites (a north and a south pole), attract. So, if anything here, non-opposites 'contradict' (i.e., 'conflict' -- two Norths or two Souths repel each other), while actual opposites do not (North and South attract). Instead of struggle between opposites here we see harmony once more, confirming that change is indeed the result of those aforementioned 'internal tautologies'.

[UO = Unity of Opposites.]

Finally, several examples of "real material forces" supposedly at work in Capitalism are considered in detail in Essay Eight Part Two (more on that in the next post). Under close scrutiny none of them turn out to be contradictions in any meaningful sense of the term. In fact, they all turn out to be one or more of the following: discursive paradoxes, unexpected events, complex inter-relationships, injustices, irrationalities, contraries and/or mistakes.

Of course, if DM-theorists intend the word "contradiction" to be taken in a special sense, all well and good (but see below); however, to date, they have signally failed to say clearly what this 'special' sense is. Or, perhaps more accurately, they have in fact sought to equate it with "conflict", which verbal 'solution' does at least have the advantage of making overt the covert animism in DM -- for only if inanimate matter were sentient or intelligent could it enter into conflict with itself (internally), or with anything else (externally).

As will be argued in detail in Essay Twelve (summary here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm)), the tendency to see conflict in linguistic, moral or conceptual terms (in traditional thought) was a direct consequence of the way that leisure-dominated Greek Philosophers fetishised both language and the natural world, populating it with surrogate discursive terms to give sense to their own mode of being (i.e., issuing orders to minions and framing laws to run society, mirroring the laws of 'God', etc.). No surprise, therefore, to see this traditional view reappear in DM.

[I]As Marx said, the ruling ideas always rule.

On the other hand, if DM-theorists aim to re-define the word "contradiction" as "conflict" then their theory would merely be a form of stipulative conventionalism -- since there is nothing in the meaning of either the everyday word "contradiction", or in its logical twin, that remotely suggests such a connotation; nor is there vice versa with "conflict".

In that case, it is now clear that this word has been re-defined just to make dialectics work. But, we should be no more convinced of the acceptability of that manoeuvre than we would be if, say, an apologist of Capitalism 'defined' it as "natural" and "beneficial to all". If the re-definition of terms provided a "royal road" to truth, those with the best dictionaries would surely win Noble Prizes.

To be sure, one online dictionary says the following sort of thing:


"contradiction, n 1: opposition between two conflicting forces or ideas..."

However, it is worth recalling that dictionaries are repositories of usage, and are neither normative nor prescriptive. Indeed, they 'define' many things dialecticians would disagree with. For example:


"God: A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.

An image of a supernatural being; an idol.

One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed: Money was their god...."

And:


"negation n 1: a negative statement; a statement that is a refusal or denial of some other statement 2: the speech act of negating 3: (logic) a proposition that is true if and only if another proposition is false."

No mention here of "sublation", or of the NON, but does that force dialecticians into accepting this 'definition'? Of course not; they pick and choose when it suits them.

[NON = Negation of the Negation.]

In that case, dictionaries record ideology as much as they record use or meaning. Here, the writers of this dictionary have clearly recorded the animistic use of this word as employed by mystical dialecticians. The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary does not mention opposing forces in its definition of "contradiction".]

As the above shows, since no literal sense can be made of the equation of forces and contradictions, dialecticians should not believe everything they read in dictionaries.

Engels, F. (1954), Dialectics Of Nature (Progress Publishers).

Wilczek, F. (2006), Fantastic Realities. 49 Mind Journeys And A Trip To Stockholm (World Scientific).

Woods, A., and Grant, T. (1995), Reason In Revolt. Marxism And Modern Science (Wellred Publications).

From here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Summary_of_Essay_Eight-Part-02.htm

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1207509&postcount=360



http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1221394&postcount=464

More to follow.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I even went on to post this, too, and you ignored it as well (a second time):


And you ignored this:


Here is just one section of Essay Eight Part Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_02.htm) that deals with the alleged 'contradictions' in Das Kapital (even though we know that Marx was merely 'coquetting' with this word) -- I have added several links that explain technical terms, but cannot add them all -- they can be found in the orignal Essay; use the 'Quick Links' to go to section '(9) Contradictions In Das Kapital?':


However, Scott Meikle argues that there is indeed some sort of sense to be made of this. Meikle's case revolves around a short and relatively clear account of the alleged 'contradiction' between use-value and exchange-value, or more pointedly, between the "relative form" and the "equivalent form" of value, which Marx discusses in Chapter One, Volume One, of Das Kapital.

Now I do not want to enter into whether or not Meikle's interpretation of Marx is accurate; my concern is merely to see if his analysis can show us how and why these are indeed good examples of "dialectical contradictions". Here is what he says:


"All the contradictions of capitalist commodity-production have at their heart the contradiction between use-value and exchange-value. Marx reveals this contradiction to lie at the heart of the commodity-form as such, even in its simplest and most primitive form....

"The simple form of value itself contains the polar opposition between, and the union of, use-value and exchange-value.... [Marx writes that] 'the relative form of value and the equivalent form are two inseparable moments, which belong to and mutually condition each other...but at the same time they are mutually exclusive and opposed extremes.' Concerning the first he observes that the value of linen cannot be expressed in linen; 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen is not an expression of value. 'The value of linen can therefore only be expressed relatively, that is in another commodity. The relative form of the value of the linen therefore presupposes that some other commodity confronts it in the equivalent form.' Concerning the second: 'on the other hand, this other commodity which figures as the equivalent, cannot simultaneously be in the relative form of value... The same commodity cannot, therefore, simultaneously appear in both forms in the same expression of value. These forms rather exclude each other as polar opposites.'

"This polar opposition within the simple form is an 'internal opposition' which as yet remains hidden within the individual commodity in its simple form: 'The internal opposition between use-value and exchange-value, hidden within the commodity, is therefore represented on the surface by an external opposition,' that is the relation between two commodities such that one (the equivalent form) counts only as a use-value, while the other (the relative form) counts only as an exchange-value. 'Hence, the simple form of value of the commodity is the simple form of the opposition between use-value and value which is contained in the commodity.'" [Meikle (1979), pp.16-17.]

[LOI = Law Of Identity.]

But, what evidence and/or argument is there to show that that these are indeed "polar opposites", let alone 'dialectically-united' opposites? And why call this a "contradiction"? We have already seen that this way of talking is based solely on Hegel's own egregious misconstrual (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_errors_Hegel_committed_01.htm)of the LOI. So, what has Meikle to offer that stands some chance of repairing this tattered 'theory'?

Apparently, only this:


"Marx's absolutely fundamental (Hegelian) idea [is] that the two poles united in an opposition necessitate one another ('belong to and mutually condition each other').... [Ibid., p.19.]

But, what precisely is the source of this necessitation? Well, after a brief discussion of Quine's ill-considered views on logical 'necessity' (which analysis confuses the latter notion with extremely well-confirmed empirical truths), Meikle rejects the idea that the source of this 'necessity' can be found in logic.


"So, 'logical necessity' does not promise to account for the necessity that unites opposites within a contradiction. The unity of use-value and exchange-value within the commodity is certainly not something which, despite all necessitation between the two poles, may be abrogated (on Quine's conventionalist account). Not, that is, without 'abrogating' the commodity itself; for the commodity is precisely the unity of use-value and exchange-value. Use-value can exist alone. But exchange-value cannot; it presupposes use-value because only what has use-value can have exchange-value. What has exchange-value, a commodity, is, thus, necessarily use-value and exchange-value brought into a unity. The commodity-form of the product of labour has as its essence the unity of the two. That is what it is. Their conjunction or unity constitutes its essence." [Ibid., p.22.]

But, why is this not just a de dicto (i.e., a merely verbal) necessity?

Fortunately, Meikle has that particular base covered:


"Use-value and exchange-value are, therefore, not 'merely' abstractions arrived at in thought about reality; they are constituents of reality in partaking in the essence of the commodity. And the opposition or contradiction between the two poles is a constituent of reality also, (although in the simple commodity or value-form it appears only primitively in the fact that the same commodity cannot act simultaneously as relative and as equivalent form of value)." [Ibid., p.22.]

And yet, whatever else is true of these value-forms, how can they 'contradict' one another if one of them cannot exist at the same time as the other? If these items "mutually exclude" one another, how can they both exist at the same time? On the other hand, if they both exist at the same time, so that they can indeed 'contradict' one another, how can one possibly "mutually exclude" the other?

[We have already seen that it is this insurmountable barrier that stymies earlier attempts to make this sort of depiction of 'dialectical contradictions' work.]

Putting this serious problem to one side, why is 'necessity' not merely a spin-off of a determination to use a few words in a certain way? Why is this not just a de dicto necessity?

de re (real world) necessities. (On Quine's ideas, see the references listed at the end of this Note).]

Of course, this has become a hot topic ever since Saul Kripke upset the de dicto apple cart a generation or so ago. [Kripke (1977, 1980).] And it is thus no surprise to see Meikle appeal to Kripke's work to argue that these are not merely de dicto, but are in fact de re necessities.

Unfortunately, however, Kripke's arguments are not quite as sound as Meikle appears to believe. [On this see, Ebersole (1982) and (Hallett (1991), Hanna and Harrison (2004), pp.278-88. More on this in a later Essay.]

[Added: a de dicto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_dicto_and_de_re) necessity is one that arises solely in language. It is often contrasted with a de re necessity, that is one which supposedly exists in reality and not just in language.]

Nevertheless, in support, Meikle quotes a (by now) hackneyed series of examples:


"The commodity is the unity of use-value and exchange-value, in precisely the same way that water is H2O, that light is a stream of photons, and that Gold is the element with atomic number 79. All these statements are necessarily true. They state truths that are true of necessity, not in virtue of any logical or 'conceptual' connexions, but in virtue of the essences or real natures of the entities in question. Water is necessarily H2O. Anything that is not H2O cannot be water..., and the 'cannot' is ontological not epistemic.... We did not always know this, of course; it was a discovery people made about the essence of water (and one which may need to be recast if future theoretical development requires it)." [Ibid., pp.22-23.]

The Gold example is not too clever, since its atomic number depends on our counting system, and neither is the light example all that convincing (since there are scientists who question the existence of photons). The water example is no less fraught, since water is not even contingently H2O; hydrogen bonding means its structure is far more complex. [On this and other examples, see VandeWall (2006). See also Hacker (2007), pp.29-56.]

It could be argued that Meikle had this base covered too, for he added:


"[I]t was a discovery people made about the essence of water (and one which may need to be recast if future theoretical development requires it)." [Ibid.]

But, that just makes this an epistemic truth, and not the least bit "essential", or "ontological".

However, we will for the moment assume that these 'difficulties' can in some way be neutralised (although, in an Essay on the nature of science, to be published at this site in 2008, we will see that this is not the case; there it will be shown that modern-day Essentialism is a fundamentally flawed 'research' dead end).

Naturally, this view also faces the serious objections I have raised against this way of seeing the world, explored at length in Essay Twelve Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2012_01.htm).

Meikle also ignores the fact that the sort of essentialism he lionises depends on Possible World Semantics [PWS] in order to work. Sure he tries to damp this down somewhat (on pp.23-25), but all he succeeds in doing is undermining the case he has built-up for accepting his brand of essentialism in the first place -- for PWS merely turns de re necessities into super-duper empirical extensional (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensional_definition) truths, and de re simply de sappears.

This 'difficulty' will also be put to one side for the present.

[However, readers should also consult this (http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/ESSENCE.HTM) paper, which outlines several serious objections to modern-day essentialism, but with a warning that the author then proceeds to defend an Aristotelian version of the same theory. These issues will also be tackled later.]

In addition, I will not be asking (here) other awkward questions about the precise origin of these allegedly natural necessities, and how they can possibly cause change, but the following passage (taken from Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_01.htm)of this Essay) will give the reader some idea of how I will be tackling that topic at a later stage:


A quotation from Baker and Hacker (1988) underlines the futility of this "aristocratic" approach to knowledge (although they do not use that particular word, and are not making this particular political point) -- which, incidentally, also reveals why dialecticians (like Rees, and the others quoted here) have become fixated on a search for a metaphysical (and ultimate/rational) "why" of things:


"Empirical, contingent truths have always struck philosophers as being, in some sense, ultimately unintelligible. It is not that none can be known with certainty…; nor is it that some cannot be explained…. Rather is it that all explanation of empirical truths rests ultimately on brute contingency -- that is how the world is! Where science comes to rest in explaining empirical facts varies from epoch to epoch, but it is in the nature of empirical explanation that it will hit the bedrock of contingency somewhere, e.g., in atomic theory in the nineteenth century or in quantum mechanics today. One feature that explains philosophers' fascination with truths of Reason is that they seem, in a deep sense, to be fully intelligible. To understand a necessary proposition is to see why things must be so, it is to gain an insight into the nature of things and to apprehend not only how things are, but also why they cannot be otherwise. It is striking how pervasive visual metaphors are in philosophical discussions of these issues. We see the universal in the particular (by Aristotelian intuitive induction); by the Light of Reason we see the essential relations of Simple Natures; mathematical truths are apprehended by Intellectual Intuition, or by a priori insight. Yet instead of examining the use of these arresting pictures or metaphors to determine their aptness as pictures, we build upon them mythological structures.

"We think of necessary propositions as being true or false, as objective and independent of our minds or will. We conceive of them as being about various entities, about numbers even about extraordinary numbers that the mind seems barely able to grasp…, or about universals, such as colours, shapes, tones; or about logical entities, such as the truth-functions or (in Frege's case) the truth-values. We naturally think of necessary propositions as describing the features of these entities, their essential characteristics. So we take mathematical propositions to describe mathematical objects…. Hence investigation into the domain of necessary propositions is conceived as a process of discovery. Empirical scientists make discoveries about the empirical domain, uncovering contingent truths; metaphysicians, logicians and mathematicians appear to make discoveries of necessary truths about a supra-empirical domain (a 'third realm'). Mathematics seems to be the 'natural history of mathematical objects' [Wittgenstein (1978), p.137], 'the physics of numbers' [Wittgenstein (1976), p.138; however these authors have recorded this erroneously as p.139, RL] or the 'mineralogy of numbers' [Wittgenstein (1978), p.229]. The mathematician, e.g., Pascal, admires the beauty of a theorem as though it were a kind of crystal. Numbers seem to him to have wonderful properties; it is as if he were confronting a beautiful natural phenomenon [Wittgenstein (1998), p.47; again, these authors have recorded this erroneously as p.41, RL]. Logic seems to investigate the laws governing logical objects…. Metaphysics looks as if it is a description of the essential structure of the world. Hence we think that a reality corresponds to our (true) necessary propositions. Our logic is correct because it corresponds to the laws of logic….

"In our eagerness to ensure the objectivity of truths of reason, their sempiternality and mind-independence, we slowly but surely transform them into truths that are no less 'brutish' than empirical, contingent truths. Why must red exclude being green? To be told that this is the essential nature of red and green merely reiterates the brutish necessity. A proof in arithmetic or geometry seems to provide an explanation, but ultimately the structure of proofs rests on axioms. Their truth is held to be self-evident, something we apprehend by means of our faculty of intuition; we must simply see that they are necessarily true…. We may analyse such ultimate truths into their constituent 'indefinables'. Yet if 'the discussion of indefinables…is the endeavour to see clearly, and to make others see clearly, the entities concerned, in order that the mind may have that kind of acquaintance with them which it has with redness or the taste of a pineapple' [Russell (1937), p.xv; again these authors have recorded this erroneously as p.v, RL], then the mere intellectual vision does not penetrate the logical or metaphysical that to the why or wherefore…. For if we construe necessary propositions as truths about logical, mathematical or metaphysical entities which describe their essential properties, then, of course, the final products of our analyses will be as impenetrable to reason as the final products of physical theorising, such as Planck's constant." [Baker and Hacker (1988), pp.273-75. Referencing conventions in the original have been altered to conform to those adopted here.]

As should now be clear from all that has gone before, DM-theorists have bought into this view of 'necessary truths' (even if few of them use that particular phrase, although Lenin and Dietzgen seem to have been rather fond of it).

For example, dialecticians in general regard change as the result of the relation between internally-linked opposite (logical?) properties of objects and processes. But, why this should cause change is simply left entirely unexamined (indeed, it is left as a brute fact, as the above passage suggests it must); in reality this account of change is a consequence merely of a certain way of describing things (and a fetishised way, at that), as we will see.

Nevertheless, as we have already seen, there is no reason why contradictory states of affairs should cause change any more than there is a reason to suppose that non-contradictory states should. Both of these options rely on descriptions of the alleged relations between objects and processes (not on evidence since (as we saw earlier) it is not possible materially to verify their existence); they supposedly capture or picture processes in nature that are held to make other objects or processes alter/'develop'....

Moreover, the infinite regress (or "bad infinity") dialecticians hoped to avoid by appealing to 'internal contradictions' now simply reappears elsewhere in their theory. When it is fleshed-out, this theory just relates objects and processes to yet more objects and processes, as well as to 'negations', 'opposites', and 'interpenetrations', and the like (i.e., just more "brute facts").

But, despite this, how does Meikle tackle the problem of change?


"The poles of an opposition are not just united. They also repel one another. They are brought together in a unity, but within that unity they are in tension. The real historical existence of the product of labour in the commodity-form provides an analogue of the centripetal force that contains the centrifugal forces of the mutual repulsion of use-value and exchange-value within it." [Ibid., p.26.]

There are so many metaphors in this passage, it is not easy to make sense of it. Nevertheless, it is reasonably clear that Meikle has reified the products of social relations (use- and exchange-values, etc.), and in this reified state they become the actual agents, with human beings (or, perhaps, commodities themselves) the patients. How else are we to understand the word "repel" here? Do they actually repel each other (like magnets, or electrical charges), or do we do this?

And do these "opposites" show any sign of turning into one another, as the DM-worthies assured us they must?

Furthermore, how can the forms that underpin use- and exchange-value (i.e., equivalent and relative form) provide an analogue of the forces Meikle mentions? If forces are to act on other forces, or other bodies, they need to fulfil a handful of crucial conditions first, the most important of which is to have the decency to exist. But, we were told these two forms can't co-exist. How then can they repel (or provide the wherewithal for other objects and processes to repel) anything?

This, of course, is the unforgiving rock upon which we have seen all such idealist speculations founder.

It could be argued that these 'repulsions' occur in our thought about the simple commodity form. But even there, they cannot exist together, for if they could, they would not 'mutually exclude' one another!

Or, are we to imagine there is a tussle taking place in our heads, such that, when we think of the one, it elbows out of the way (out of existence?) the other? Perhaps then, depending on circumstances, equivalent form can be declared the winner over relative form by two falls to a submission (UK rules)?

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/wrestling.jpg

Figure Two: Equivalent Form Slam Dunks Relative Form In A Skull Near You

Furthermore, even if they could exist together in thought, this will not help, since it would make a mess of Meikle's appeal to de re necessities. This retreat into the ideal would leave him with a few seriously undernourished de dicto 'skeletons' to bounce around inside his head.

But, perhaps there is a way out of this bottomless pit of meticulously-constructed confusion? Meikle continues:


"But in its simple form, the commodity is an unstable equilibrium. It is pregnant with possibilities, which history may present either with the conditions for the realisation of these possibilities, or with the indefinite variety of conditions that will frustrate their realisation. Given the right conditions, the embryo will develop its potentiality; and the simple form of value will undergo the metamorphoses that will take the commodity from its embryo through infancy to early adolescence with the attainment of the universal form of value, money." [Ibid., p.26.]

It now seems that metaphor is all Meikle has to hand in his bid to make this mystical process the least bit comprehensible. And it is quite clear where all this reification has led him: the commodity itself invented money, not human beings!

Or, perhaps, the commodity mesmerised human beings into inventing money.

Once more, on this view, we are the patients, while these metaphorical beings are the real agents of social change!

[Independently of this, we have already seen that this view of change cannot work. On that see, Essay Seven Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm).]

Is there then any way of re-configuring this overall theory of change that is capable of extracting it from the materialist shredder before the switch is thrown? Well, Meikle turns to Aristotle for assistance, but before he does that completely, he in effect concedes the truth of the above observation, for it seems that these value forms do indeed force humans to do their bidding:


"This line of development is not accidental or fortuitous; it is not a process of aggregating contingent and extraneous additions. It is, rather, process of development of the potentialities within, and the increasing differentiation of, an original whole. If history does not block the growth of exchange activity, then that growth will find out the inadequacy of the simple form of value. Then, looked at from the point of view of efficient causation, those engaged in that activity, being rational and inventive in the face of the problems thrown up by their developing class interests, will act so as to solve their practical difficulties by measures that overcome that insufficiency to the requirements of their developing commerce. The solution to their practical problems is the money-form." [Ibid., pp.26-27.]

Now, this either means that those involved in the invention of money were the sad puppets of those ('selfish'?) value forms, or they had a clear understanding of the nature of use- and exchange-value, and equal to that of Marx (but two and a half thousand years earlier), so that they could make the correct/rational choices.

Otherwise, how could those value forms exercise any sort of causal input here?

But, doesn't this make dangerous concessions to teleology, to final causation? No problem; Meikle tackles this unexpected difficulty head-on:


"Looked at from the point of view of final causation, money is the final cause of this phase of social development. This is not to say that final causation is a form of efficient causation in which the future acts on the past, such that the developed form beckons from the future to the past less developed form; rather, the embryonic entity has a structure that develops, if it develops, along a certain line. Thus, final causation and efficient causation, here, are not mutually exclusive but mutually supportive: the one explaining the emergence of the other, and the other the success and development of the one. What we have here is a development that, barring accidents, will take its course -- an evolution that is necessary; its final form immanent as a potentiality within its original one." [Ibid., p.27.]

But, this solves nothing, for it seems to mean that some sort of plan or program must have been written into these value forms that determines how they should develop, rather like a fertilised egg or seed has a genetic code that we are told does likewise -- which suspicion is amply confirmed by Meikle's frequent use of embryonic language.

[That, of course, implicates this view of things with a clutch of ancient mystical ideas connected with belief in the Cosmic or Orphic Egg (a topic briefly mentioned in Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_01.htm) of this Essay, and again in Essay Eleven Parts One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2011_01.htm) and Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2011%2002.htm), but more fully in Essay Fourteen Part One (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Summary_of_Essay_Fourteen_Part_One.htm).]

But, perhaps this is once again too quick, for Meikle now introduces the aforementioned Aristotelian ideas in order to neutralise this problem:


"The necessity that Marx sees in the line of development of the value-form is that which Aristotle contrasts with events that are 'accidental' and it is bound up with organic systems and Aristotle's conception of ousia. Where there is constant reproduction there is a whole system, an ousia." [Ibid., p.27]

Meikle then quotes Stephen Clark:


"[E]verything that happens phusei, 'by nature', happens always or for the most part, but nothing that happens apo tuches, by 'chance', or apo tautomatou, 'just of itself', happens thus frequently. Therefore, no natural events are thus purely accidental, and therefore all natural events are non-accidental. But all non-accidental events are heneka tou, 'serve some purpose', are given sense by their ends.... The fact that rain is always being produced makes it impossible to doubt that there is an organic system here, and such systems are 'finalistically' identified. To answer the question 'what is it?' we must reply in terms of its natural line of development...genesis, the process of coming-to-be-, is what it is because ousia is what it is, and not vice versa." [Clark (1975), pp.60-61, quoted in Meikle (1979), pp.27-28.]

Once more, this fails to solve the problem, for the necessities pictured here work only if one is prepared to anthropomorphise nature. This is because, as soon as it is asked why events cannot do otherwise (than they in fact do), it becomes obvious that certain events must exercise some sort of control over others, directing then along the right "line" (which is why Meikle found he had to use that phrase). This is quite clearly the point too of all that talk about "ends" and "purposes" in Aristotle -- which were part of an openly religious doctrine that Meikle just ignores, and which only works if nature is controlled by some 'Mind' or other.

Hence, it is worth noting that dialecticians can only make their 'theory' seem to work if they adopt and/or copy the a priori thought-forms of ruling-class thinkers (Aristotle (alongside Plato) is in fact one of the two most important figures, here). Meikle firmly nails his colours to this particular mystical mast; for Aristotle, if nature has a purpose, then the status quo must be in harmony with it, and thus cannot legitimately be challenged. In that case, the rule of the elite is not 'accidental', but serves some 'end'. [The reader will no doubt now appreciate more fully why I asserted this back in Essay Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm).]

[This topic was discussed at length in Essay Three Part Two (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2003_02.htm), and the reader is referred there for more details. It will also be covered in Essay Three Part Five, as well as in an Additional Essay on 'mind and cognition', to be published in 2008. The theoretical background to all this will be outlined in Essay Twelve Parts Two and Three (summary here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Rest_of_Summary_of_Twelve.htm)).]

Of course, Meikle would have done well to have noted that Marx warned his readers not to take this use of Hegelian jargon seriously:


"...[A]nd even, here and there in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the mode of expression peculiar to him." [Marx (1976), p.103. Bold emphasis added.]

More on that here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_01.htm).

Now, there are far better ways of making Das Kapital comprehensible; we do not need to appeal to mystical Hegelian and/or Aristotelian concepts to make it work. [I will, however, leave that task to another time.]

In which case, it is still far from clear what Meikle thinks these "dialectical contradictions" are, or how they can make anything change --, unless, that is, we are prepared to anthropomorphise nature and society, and read human traits into inanimate objects and processes.

[On Quine, see Arrington and Glock (1996), Glock (2003), Hacker (1996), pp.189-227. See also this PDF (http://info.sjc.ox.ac.uk/scr/hacker/docs/Quine's%20cul-de-sac.pdf) (which is an essay on Quine, by Hacker).]

References will be listed in my next post.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1207517&postcount=361

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1221395&postcount=465

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Arrington, R., and Glock, H-J. (1996) (eds.), Wittgenstein And Quine (Routledge).

Baker, G., and Hacker, P. (1988), Wittgenstein. Rules, Grammar And Necessity Volume Two (Blackwell, 2nd ed.).

Bicchieri, C., and Alexander, J. (2006), (eds.), PSA 06 (University of Chicago Press).

[PSA 06 is the Philosophy of Science Supplement for 2006.]

Clark, S. (1975), Aristotle's Man: Speculations Upon Aristotelian Anthropology (Oxford University Press).

Ebersole, F. (1982), 'Stalking The Rigid Designator', Philosophical Investigations 5, pp.247-66; reprinted in Ebersole (2002), pp.301-23, as 'Proper Names And Other Names'.

--------, (2002), Meaning And Saying (Xlibris Corporation, 2nd ed.).

Glock, H-J. (2003), Quine And Davidson On Language, Thought And Reality (Cambridge University Press).

Hallett, G. (1991), Essentialism: A Wittgensteinian Critique (State University of New York Press).

Hanna, P., and Harrison, B. (2004), Word And World. Practice And The Foundations Of Language (Cambridge University Press).

Hacker, P. (1996), Wittgenstein's Place In Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell).

-------- (2007), Human Nature, The Categorial Framework (Blackwell).

Kripke, S. (1977), 'Identity And Necessity', in Schwartz (1977), pp.66-101.

--------, (1980), Naming And Necessity (Blackwell).

Marx, K. (1976), Capital, Volume One (Penguin Books).

Meikle, S. (1979), 'Dialectical Contradiction And Necessity', in Mepham and Ruben (1979), pp.5-33.

Mepham, J., and Ruben, D-H. (1979), (eds.), Issues In Marxist Philosophy, Volume One: Dialectics And Method (Harvester Press).

Russell, B. (1937), The Principles Of Mathematics (George Allen & Unwin, 2nd ed.).

Schwartz, P. (1977) (ed.), Naming Necessity And Natural Kinds (Cornell University Press).

VandeWall, H. (2006), 'Why Water Is Not H2O, And Other Critiques Of Essentialist Ontology From The Philosophy Of Chemistry', in Bicchieri and Alexander (2006), pp.906-19.

Wittgenstein, L. (1976), Wittgenstein's Lectures On The Foundation Of Mathematics: Cambridge 1939, edited by Cora Diamond (Harvester Press).

--------, (1978), Remarks On The Foundations Of Mathematics, edited by Elizabeth Anscombe (Blackwell, 3rd ed.).

--------, (1998), Culture And Value, edited by G. H. von Wright (Blackwell, 2nd ed.).

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1207518&postcount=362

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1221396&postcount=466

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

In that case:

We still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if we do, then we also know that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

[Hiero]

Rosa is still confused :confused:
Rosa likes Wittgenstein :confused:
We still don't know what Rosa's point it. Her best attempt at a point is contradictions do not exist

[ComradeRed]

Indeed, IMO what Rosa is attempting to do is to apply a causal and logical model upon Marxian analysis. But for Marx the only scientific method was to see social revolution in its historical context -- dynamic, acausal, and related in terms of an ecological ensemble of its material base, i.e., social relations, relation to nature, ideology, labor relations, the productive forces, lifestyle, etc.

You do realize that scientific explanations use causality, dynamics, and so forth, right?

Or are you seriously trying to assert that Marx's abandons causality?

[trivas7]

Ah, but you missed out the 'mutually exclusive' part, which ruins the whole story.

No; I never mentioned 'mutually exclusive'. It is you who keep reading your own misunderstanding into it.

[trivas7]

You do realize that scientific explanations use causality, dynamics, and so forth, right?

Or are you seriously trying to assert that Marx's abandons causality?
Yes, exactly -- Marx's explanation in Capital of the process of social change is not a causal one. Newton's physics long before Marx had abandoned the search for causes.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hiero:


Rosa is still confused

Indeed I am, and it's about the same thing that you are confused about: the nature of 'dialectical contradictions'.


Rosa likes Wittgenstein

And you like Mao. So, what is your point?


We still don't know what Rosa's point it. Her best attempt at a point is contradictions do not exist

Well, I do not have to have a point; as I noted above, this is your thread, in which you sought to tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction is.

As I noted above:

1) You (not me) began this thread with the express intent of trying to explain to the good people here what a 'dialectical contradiction' is.

2) But, all you did was give a semi-abstract example of one while you failed to say (and now it seems you refuse to say) why it was a 'contradiction' to begin with, let alone a 'dialectical' one.

3) So, I am not trying to assert anything with respect to this, I am merely asking you to explain why the example you gave is in fact a contradiction.

4) You keep saying it is, but refuse to say why.

In that case, you have passed up a golden opportunity to tell us what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, and failed to answer any of my criticisms.

And the extent to which you can't think for yourself is revealed by the fact that you even have to copy my one-liners.

Hence, and yet again:

We still have no idea what is a 'dialectical contradiction' is

The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, they imply that change cannot happen.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


No; I never mentioned 'mutually exclusive'. It is you who keep reading your own misunderstanding into it.

But you kept referring to 'others' who have responded to my criticisms, and they certainly mentioned this.

The phrase 'mutually exclusive' in fact comes from Scot Meikle, a definition that Gilhyle also endorses. So, it's not my invention.

No matter, your 'definition' does not work either (in fact it's worse than the one that Scot Meikle gave, which Gilhyle endorsed), as my posts on forces demonstrate.

You need to show where my arguments go wrong.

Until you do:

We still have no idea what is a 'dialectical contradiction' is

The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, they imply that change cannot happen.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Marx's explanation in Capital of the process of social change is not a causal one.

Where is your proof of this rather bold statement?

In fact, Marx endorsed a summary of 'his method' in which his work is described as quintessentially scientific, as Red indicated:


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

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

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

And science, as you seem not to know, looks for causes.

[ComradeRed]

Yes, exactly -- Marx's explanation in Capital of the process of social change is not a causal one. Newton's physics long before Marx had abandoned the search for causes.

This is a marvelous and baseless assertion. Being a physicist, I had no clue that Newton had abandoned the search for causes...particularly because in his Principia he writes:


RULES OF REASONING IN [Natural] PHILOSOPHY


RULE I

We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.


RULE II

Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

As to respiration in a man and in a beast; the descent of stones in Europe and in America; the light of our culinary fire and of the sun; the reflection of light in the earth, and in the planets.


RULE III

The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.

For since the qualities of bodies are only known to us by experiments, we are to hold for universal all such as universally agree with experiments; and such as are not liable to diminution can never be quite taken away. We are certainly not to relinquish the evidence of experiments for the sake of dreams and vain fictions of our own devising; nor are we to recede from the analogy of Nature, which is wont to be simple, and always consonant to itself. We no other way know the extension of bodies than by our senses, nor do these reach it in all bodies; but because we perceive extension in all tht are sensible, therefore we ascribe it universally to all others also. That abundance of bodies are hard, we learn by experience; and because the hardness of the whole arises from the hardness of the parts, we therefore justly infer the hardness of the undivided particles not only of the bodies we feel but of all others. That all bodies are impenetrable, we gather not from reason, but from sensation. The bodies which we handle we find impenetrable, and thence conclude impenetrability to be an universal property of all bodies whatsoever. That all bodies are movable, and endowed with certain powers (which we call the inertia) of persevering in their motion, or in their rest, we only infer from the like properties observed in the bodies which we have seen. The extension, hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and inertia of the whole, result from the extension, hardness, impenetrability, mobility, and inertia of the parts; and hence we conclude the least particles of all bodies to be also all extended, and hard and impenetrable, and movable, and endowed with their proper inertia. And this is the foundation of all philosophy. Moreover, that the divided but contiguous particles of bodies may be separated from one another, is matter of observation; and, in the particles that remain undivided, our minds are able to distinguish yet lesser parts, as is mathematically demonstrated. But whether the parts so distinguished, and not yet divided, may, by the powers of Nature, be actually divided and separated from one another, we cannot certainly determine. Yet, had we the proof of but one experiment that any undivided particle, in breaking a hard and solid body, suffered a division, we might by virtue of this rule conclude that the undivided as well as the divided particles may be divided and actually separated to infinity.

Lastly, if it universally appears, by experiments and astronomical observations, that all bodies about the earth gravitate towards the earth, and that in proportion to the quantity of matter which they severally contain; that the moon likewise, according to the quantity of its matter, gravitates towards the earth; that, on the other hand, our sea gravitates towards the moon; and, all the planets one towards another; and the comets in like manner towards- the sun; we must, in consequence of this rule, universally allow that all bodies whatsoever are endowed with a principle of mutual gravitation.

For the argument from the appearances concludes with more force for the universal gravitation of all bodies than for their impenetrability; of which, among those in the celestial regions, we have no experiments, nor any manner of observation. Not that I affirm gravity to be essential to bodies: by their vis insita I mean nothing but their inertia. This is immutable. Their gravity is diminished as they recede from the earth.


RULE IV

In experimental philosophy we are to look, upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may cither be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.

This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses.

Principia (http://marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/newton.htm) by Isaac Newton (1729).

Would you care to try to explain your assertions in light of the above?

I can similarly quote Marx, but you don't quite seem to understand the concept of causality...

[trivas7]

This is a marvelous and baseless assertion. Being a physicist, I had no clue that Newton had abandoned the search for causes...particularly because in his Principia he writes:

I can similarly quote Marx, but you don't quite seem to understand the concept of causality...
Would you care to state what cause you think Newton's laws of motion or his laws of universal gravitation as expounded in the Principia explain? Or where the concept of causality is in Capital?

[ComradeRed]

Would you care to state what cause you think Newton's laws of motion or his laws of universal gravitation as expounded in the Principia explain? What "cause" Newton's laws as expounded in the Principia explains? This is barely grammatically correct...

In fact it's a metaphysical question (gasp).

I could explain to you how Newton's laws are an approximation, and how general relativistic mechanics explains motion then recover Newton's laws in an appropriate limit...but I am more than certain that you would straw man the entire explanation to something bizarre.


Or where the concept of causality is in Capital?

Try Chapter 13, wherein Marx explains the origin of capitalism...

You really don't seem to understand the notion of causality.

If Marx worked without causality, that would mean there is no reason (no cause) for anything to happen.

Why did capitalism come about? There are certain material conditions which make it so, that notion requires causality!

Causality is kind of one of the two foundational concepts in science...the other one I doubt you'd like any better!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

It is of course a mistake to think that in ordinary or scientific language we only have one word to express our ideas about causation, that is 'cause'. We have in fact many hundreds, if not thousands. Here is a greatly shortened list:


Make, produce, borrow, conjure, bend, straighten, twist, turn, wrap, pluck, tear, mend, sharpen, modify, develop, expand, divide, unite, melt, drop, pick up, unwind, wind, peel, scrape, file, scour, dislodge, mix, separate, cut, chop, crush, grind, shred, slice, dice, saw, spread, roll, spin, rotate, snap, join, resign, sell, buy, lose, find, search, cover, uncover, stretch, compress, lift, put down, win, conceive, alter, adjust, amend, revise, edit, grow, fold, steady, push, pull, slide, jump, run, walk, swim, drown, immerse, break, charge, retreat, assault, dismantle, pulverise, disintegrate, dismember, replace, undo, reverse, repeal, enact, quash, invent, innovate, rescind, destroy, annihilate, exorcise, haunt, boil, freeze, thaw, cook, liquefy, solidify, congeal, neutralise, flatten, crimple, evaporate, condense, dissolve, mollify, pacify, calm down, terminate, initiate, instigate, enrage, inflame, protest, challenge, struggle, expel, eject, remove, overthrow, expropriate, scatter, gather, assemble, defeat, strike, revolt, riot, march, demonstrate, rebel, campaign, agitate, organise…

Marx uses many of the above words throughout his writings, as here:


People make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please: they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionising themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and borrowed language.


A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.


The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.


Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed

From Chapter One of Das Kapital:


If then we leave out of consideration the use value of commodities, they have only one common property left, that of being products of labour. But even the product of labour itself has undergone a change in our hands. If we make abstraction from its use value, we make abstraction at the same time from the material elements and shapes that make the product a use value; we see in it no longer a table, a house, yarn, or any other useful thing. Its existence as a material thing is put out of sight. Neither can it any longer be regarded as the product of the labour of the joiner, the mason, the spinner, or of any other definite kind of productive labour. Along with the useful qualities of the products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour; there is nothing left but what is common to them all; all are reduced to one and the same sort of labour, human labour in the abstract.

Let us now consider the residue of each of these products; it consists of the same unsubstantial reality in each, a mere congelation of homogeneous human labour, of labour power expended without regard to the mode of its expenditure. All that these things now tell us is, that human labour power has been expended in their production, that human labour is embodied in them. When looked at as crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are – Values.

And so on...

It would not be difficult to fill dozens of pages with quotations that show that Marx used the ordinary language of change and causation to express his ideas --, a resource, incidentally, that is far richer than that found in the highly limited, obscure jargon of dialectics.

[trivas7]

What "cause" Newton's laws as expounded in the Principia explains? This is barely grammatically correct...

What part of English grammar don't you understand?


I could explain to you how Newton's laws are an approximation, and how general relativistic mechanics explains motion then recover Newton's laws in an appropriate limit...but I am more than certain that you would straw man the entire explanation to something bizarre.
Nevertheless the fact remains that Newton doesn't explain the cause of anything.


Try Chapter 13, wherein Marx explains the origin of capitalism...

If Marx worked without causality, that would mean there is no reason (no cause) for anything to happen.
No, it would mean that Marx isn't giving a causal explanation of capitalism.


Why did capitalism come about? There are certain material conditions which make it so, that notion requires causality!

Causality is kind of one of the two foundational concepts in science...the other one I doubt you'd like any better!
My point is exactly not so for Marx. Yes, all bourgeois economists looked for causes, Marx was not one of them.

[ComradeRed]

What part of English grammar don't you understand? Are you thinking out loud now? You were the one who wrote that barely coherent sentence...


Nevertheless the fact remains that Newton doesn't explain the cause of anything. Ah here is the straw man.

Newton explains how bodies move in three simple rules.

You are asking "Where does this come from?" Empirical observation. "What causes these rules to work?" That's a meaningless question, why not ask "What's north of the north pole?"


No, it would mean that Marx isn't giving a causal explanation of capitalism. You are using sophistry to redefine causality as you please, it appears!

Would you care to explain why it isn't causal, or are you going to remain asserting things baselessly without evidence?


My point is exactly not so for Marx. Yes, all bourgeois economists looked for causes, Marx was not one of them. The vulgar economists pretend to do so, but in reality do not.

Marx was explaining the dynamics of capitalism with Capital, that's kind of the importance of the Law of accumulation.

If he were doing it "acausally" he wouldn't have set up a system that works in a causal way...

For instance, the capitalist invests money in the firm. How does he do so? With money that is revenue from the sales of commodities or from a loan from a bank or some other institution. This is kind of causal in nature...would you care to explain why it isn't?

[trivas7]

Newton explains how bodies move in three simple rules.

Exactly. Unfortunately for you these don't constitute a cause.


You are asking "Where does this come from?" Empirical observation. "What causes these rules to work?" That's a meaningless question, why not ask "What's north of the north pole?"
But the answer to the question "what causes things" is exactly what Aristotle meant by science. Science for Aristotle was finding the cause of things. Which Newton never attempted. Which is exactly my point. What was yours?


If he were doing it "acausally" he wouldn't have set up a system that works in a causal way...

For instance, the capitalist invests money in the firm. How does he do so? With money that is revenue from the sales of commodities or from a loan from a bank or some other institution. This is kind of causal in nature...would you care to explain why it isn't?

If you think that Marx in Capital sets up a system that works in a causal way, so be it. I don't read him as a determinist.

[ComradeRed]

Exactly. Unfortunately for you these don't constitute a cause. Yes, we've established that you are being ambiguous.


But the answer to the question "what causes things" is exactly what Aristotle meant by science. Science for Aristotle was finding the cause of things. Which Newton never attempted. Which is exactly my point. What was yours? Apparently, you're the only person that uses Aristotle's definition of "science" (assuming he did indeed define it that way, like everything else from you this appears to be an assertion without evidence).

But don't let that stop you!

The Newtonian laws of motion have been used to explain the orbits of the planets and the motions of bodies...why does it move this way? Well, by the first law it does so!

You ask why are the laws of motion valid; that is a metaphysical question. You don't seem to grasp this point: your argument is grounded in metaphysical nonsense!


Please cite where Marx in Capital sets up a system that works causally. You are oblivious to what was just stated, how cute. See Part VII: The Accumulation of Capital.

I am certain you are going to assert, baselessly no doubt, that it's "not causal" and then give absolutely no reasoning why.

That appears to be your approach to these matters...

[trivas7]

The Newtonian laws of motion have been used to explain the orbits of the planets and the motions of bodies...why does it move this way? Well, by the first law it does so!

Again, be as imprecise as you like, the Newtonian laws of motion aren't an explanation of planetary motions, merely a description of them.


You ask why are the laws of motion valid; that is a metaphysical question. You don't seem to grasp this point: your argument is grounded in metaphysical nonsense!
No, I'm not asking why the laws of motion are valid. I'm saying that for Marx science wasn't looking for causal explanations, which is what you seem to be insisting he ought to do.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Again, be as imprecise as you like, the Newtonians laws of motion aren't an explanation of planetary motions, merely a description of them.

Depends what you mean by 'explanation'.

In a perfectly ordinary sense these laws are.

So, what sense are you attaching to 'explanation' here?

Unless you say, your objection is as empty as your 'definition' of 'dialectical contradiction' ever was.


I'm saying that for Marx science wasn't looking for causal explanations, which is what you seem to be insisting he ought to do.

Once more, where is your proof of this?

As I showed, Marx used the same kind of causal language you use in everyday life, so, according to the language he used, he was seeking causal explanations, as Red says.

Unless you can show otherwise, once more, your allegations are inadmissable.

[trivas7]

Depends what you mean by 'explanation'.

If you think that an explanation is the same thing as a description, you're just wrong.


Where is your proof of this?

It is merely my reading of Capital, you are welcome to your determinist and ideal one.


As I showed, Marx used the same kind of causal language you use in everyday life, so, according to the language he used, he was seeking causal explanations, as Red says.

In your usual simple-mindedness you equate the use of causal language (whatever that means) used in everyday life with a causal explanation of phenomena.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


If you think that an explanation is the same thing as a description, you're just wrong.

Where did I say that they were the same? However, we do not know what sense of 'explanation' you are using.

Even so, in a perfectly ordinary way, Newton's Laws are explanatory.

Now, it may be that you are using 'explanation' idiosyncratically -- or it may not. But, until you tell us, your challenge remains an empty one.


It is merely my reading of Capital, you are welcome to your determinist and ideal one.

Where on earth did you get the idea that I was a determinist? in fact, if you look at the free will threads here, you will see that I am a sharp critic of determinism.

And causation does not imply determinism.

Moreover, as we have already established, it is your reading of Das Kapital that is idealist. This is because I have shown that Marx abandoned the idealist method you have swallowed (aka 'the dialectic' as it is traditionally understood), in that book.


In your usual simple-mindedness you equate the use of causal language (whatever that means) used in everyday life with a causal explanation of phenomena.

Well, even scientists have to use this language to make their theories work -- and, as I have shown, Marx also adopted this 'simple-minded' approach to causation. So, once more, it is you that is out of line.

Anyway, we are still waiting for your proof that Marx was not offering a causal account in Das Kapital.

However, previous experience with the way you dodge/ignore awkward questions about other bold pronouncements you come out with from time to time suggests perhaps that the US will cease to an imperialist power long before you give an answer here.

Still, what else could be expected of a dogmatist like you who 'does not think about things he doesn't think about'?

[trivas7]

However, previous experience with the way you dodge/ignore awkward questions about other bold pronouncements you come out with from time to time suggests perhaps that the US will cease to an imperialist power long before you give an answer here.

Not so; just the stupid ones you keep bringing up, Rosa.

[ComradeRed]

Again, be as imprecise as you like, the Newtonian laws of motion aren't an explanation of planetary motions, merely a description of them. Uh, a description is used to explain a concept...

You ask me to explain planetary motion, and so I use Newton's laws to describe them.

By the law of (Newtonian) gravity one can explain the motions of planets (or more precisely, derive Kepler's laws).

Now perhaps you are really asking "Why do they move instead of not move?" This is a metaphysical question, and so a meaningless one...


I'm saying that for Marx science wasn't looking for causal explanations, which is what you seem to be insisting he ought to do. Yet you provide no evidence for this.

Worse yet, you simply shrug off the examples when he does this by asserting the opposite!

You're shifting the burden of proof.

[trivas7]

Uh, a description is used to explain a concept...

So what? My point is it isn't a causal explanation.


Yet you provide no evidence for this.
So my reading of Capital differs from yours -- was that your point?

[ComradeRed]

So what? My point is it isn't a causal explanation. Which you don't define...convenient.

Give us an example of a "causal explanation" and contrast it to just some "explanation". No one has a clue what you're talking about except you, since you're being as ambiguous as possible (in fact, it appears to almost be a "No true scotsman" fallacy -- "Yes that's an explanation but that's not a real causal explanation!").


So my reading of Capital differs from yours -- was that your point? My point is that you have no evidence for your reasoning.

Why do you come to this conclusion? "I just do" isn't a valid form of reasoning!

"I think so because of this" is. You cannot even give an example of what you're talking about! Much less, show how Marx's explanations "aren't causal"!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Not so; just the stupid ones you keep bringing up, Rosa.

Well, you do not seem to be able to answer 'stupid' ones like: what exactly is a 'dialectical contradiction'?

Or, what do you mean by 'explanation'?

In that case, I'd better not ask you what you mean by 'cause' for fear that steam will come out of your ears.

[ajs2007]

Trivas:



Well, you do not seem to be able to answer 'stupid' ones like: what exactly is a 'dialectical contradiction'?

Or, what do you mean by 'explanation'?

In that case, I'd better not ask you what you mean by 'cause' for fear that steam will come out of your ears.

Rosa,

Surely a "dialectical contradiction" is simply two (or more) properties of an object that contradict each other? By the way, I've always thought that contradiction doesn't quite capture what Hegel meant, and that opposition, or oppose are better terms, but contradiction has been used in this technical sense for hundreds of years now and to change now would be confusing.

If you're coming solely from a mathematical, or more perhaps a formal logic point of view, then a dialectical contradiction is mystic nonsense as Bertrand Russell maintained. This is because an object cannot have properties that are contradictory. Hence these properties are just dismissed out of hand as being impossible because of the laws of formal logic.

The problem with regarding dialectical contradictions as mystic nonsense is that it imposes pre-conceived ideas onto experience and hence fails to represent objects as we experience them.

There's nothing new about any of this of course. You must be aware of Kant's Antimonies which, to my mind, are powerful arguments against the applicability of formal logic alone to objects of experience. Even formal logic itself leads to contradictions or "paradoxes" (as analytic philosophers call them hence avoiding the nasty "c" word), eg Russell's Paradox, which are explained away either by ignoring them or by various ad hoc methods.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ajs2007, thanks for those comments, however:


Surely a "dialectical contradiction" is simply two (or more) properties of an object that contradict each other? By the way, I've always thought that contradiction doesn't quite capture what Hegel meant, and that opposition, or oppose are better terms, but contradiction has been used in this technical sense for hundreds of years now and to change now would be confusing.

Well, in view of the fact that only human beings can contradict (i.e., "gain-say" one another) by the use of certain forms of language, "properties of objects" cannot do this (as you noted)

Of course, if dialecticians want to use this word (i.e., "contradiction") in a new, and as yet unspecified sense, then that's up to them. However, it is surely up to us non-dialecticians to ask them what this 'special sense' is. So far they have either not said, or they have refused to say.

The second thing is that this use of 'contradiction' in fact prevents change from happening, as I have shown here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1167402&postcount=249

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1167412&postcount=250

The above is in fact a refutation of Mao's 'theory, but it also applies to that of all other dialecticians. The full version can be found here:

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

Use the 'Quick Links' to go to the following section:

"(2) (a) Breaking News: Dialectics Cannot Explain Change"

I'd post a direct link, but the anonymiser RevLeft uses does not recognise such sub-links.

Now, the continued use of this word (which has yet to be explained) actually confuses dialecticians, who think they can use it to analyse the dynamic of history, when it actually gets in the way, and would in fact remove the dynamic from history.

There are other deleterious effects that this word has had on Dialectical Marxism (which I can go into if you want me to).

I agree, "oppose", and "struggle" are better terms, but Hegel got himself into an awful muddle here, so much so that it is in fact impossible to determine what, if anything, he actually meant by anything he said.

But, we do not need Hegel to help us understand history. So, the sooner we totally ignore that logical incompetent, the better.


If you're coming solely from a mathematical, or more perhaps a formal logic point of view, then a dialectical contradiction is mystic nonsense as Bertrand Russell maintained. This is because an object cannot have properties that are contradictory. Hence these properties are just dismissed out of hand as being impossible because of the laws of formal logic.

I am in fact approaching this from the perspective of ordinary language. I only use mathematics and logic when I have to (mostly in order to show that dialecticians have got both of these wrong, too).


The problem with regarding dialectical contradictions as mystic nonsense is that it imposes pre-conceived ideas onto experience and hence fails to represent objects as we experience them.

It would be if I were doing this. My argument in fact proceeds as follows: (1) I first of all show that every single thesis entertained by dialecticians is far too confused for anyone to be able to say whether or not it is true or false; (2) I show that dialecticians have in fact derived their ideas not from a study of nature and society, but from an ancient mystical tradition going back at least to the Neo-Platonists, etc. So, it is small wonder that their ideas make no sense. (3) I show that it is in fact dialecticians who have imposed their ideas on nature and society.

You can find the proof of that here:

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

Finally, I am not imposing anything on experience, since I propose no alternative philosophical theory (in fact, I argue that they are all equally nonsensical).


There's nothing new about any of this of course. You must be aware of Kant's Antimonies which, to my mind, are powerful arguments against the applicability of formal logic alone to objects of experience. Even formal logic itself leads to contradictions or "paradoxes" (as analytic philosophers call them hence avoiding the nasty "c" word), eg Russell's Paradox, which are explained away either by ignoring them or by various ad hoc methods.

Well, Kant was rather confused in the derivation of his antinomies, and I reject the idea that formal logic descends into paradox -- Russell's alleged Paradox is in fact on the verge of being resolved by modern logicians, and anyway it only depends on the implausible assumptions of Logicism (introduced by Frege). If these are dropped, the latter 'paradox' vanishes.

[trivas7]

Which you don't define...convenient.
Use a dictionary to look up the meaning of 'causal'.


My point is that you have no evidence for your reasoning.

I wasn't "reasoning" at all, just stating that my reading of Capital is different than yours. You seem to think that because Marx uses the word "cause" in some description of the industrial process he is talking re a causal process. I'm saying it ain't necessarily so.



There's nothing new about any of this of course. You must be aware of Kant's Antimonies which, to my mind, are powerful arguments against the applicability of formal logic alone to objects of experience. Even formal logic itself leads to contradictions or "paradoxes" (as analytic philosophers call them hence avoiding the nasty "c" word), eg Russell's Paradox, which are explained away either by ignoring them or by various ad hoc methods.
Rosa, unfortunately, is under the delusion that all concepts must be expressed in some kind of Wittgensteinian pristine ordinary language, beyond which she is incapable of grasping.

[gilhyle]

The phrase 'mutually exclusive' in fact comes from Scot Meikle, a definition that Gilhyle also endorses.

For the record, the concept of mutually exclusive comes from Marx in Capital that is where I get it...Scott Meikle is neither here nor there to me.

[gilhyle]

What a model of the type of explanation Marx is using in Capital might be is an interesting question, and you could go on about it at length. But since phislophers of science cant even come up with a reasonable model of what causal explanation is when it is working, the whole discussion will pretty quickly descend into irrecoverable confusion as between the flaws in the modelling of Marx's model of explanation (assuming even that he had merely one) annd the flaws in the models of causal explanation. Thats philosophy for you....a perverse way to waste life, when there are things needing changing

[ComradeRed]

Use a dictionary to look up the meaning of 'causal'. Uh ok, Webster says:


Main Entry:causal
Pronunciation: \ˈkȯ-zəl\
Function: adjective
Date: circa 1530

1 : expressing or indicating cause : causative <a causal clause introduced by since>
2 : of, relating to, or constituting a cause <the causal agent of a disease>
3 : involving causation or a cause <the relationship…was not one of causal antecedence so much as one of analogous growth — H. O. Taylor>
4 : arising from a cause <a causal development>

So to be more precise, we look up what "cause" means:

1 a: a reason for an action or condition : motive b: something that brings about an effect or a result

So what you are asserting is that there is no "reason for an action" for the motion of planets from Newton's laws, but this is patently false.


I wasn't "reasoning" at all Indeed, you have demonstrated yourself incapable of doing so.


just stating that my reading of Capital is different than yours. You seem to think that because Marx uses the word "cause" in some description of the industrial process he is talking re a causal process. I'm saying it ain't necessarily so. Uh the word actually appears 183 times in the first volume of Capital.

You are asserting that there is some description which does not use causality.

That means that we are necessarily using a stochastic model, i.e. one where things happen completely randomly.

The process of industrialization happens due to various material conditions (that's causal), the law of accumulation happens due to various material circumstances (that's causal).

Would you like to explain your nonsensical reasoning that "The word 'cause' doesn't appear so it's acausal!"

The plain fact of the matter is that you don't understand what causality implies, or how to identify it. Nor are you capable of explaining your pathetic form of "reasoning".

[trivas7]

So what you are asserting is that there is no "reason for an action" for the motion of planets from Newton's laws, but this is patently false.

I'm not saying that at all. If you're saying that the Newtonian laws of motions are the cause of planetary motion, you're just wrong.


You are asserting that there is some description which does not use causality.

That means that we are necessarily using a stochastic model, i.e. one where things happen completely randomly.

Nope; I deny that the alternative to a causal model of social change in Capital is stochastic, the best description of it AFAIK is dialectical.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Rosa, unfortunately, is under the delusion that all concepts must be expressed in some kind of Wittgensteinian pristine ordinary language, beyond which she is incapable of grasping.

And, Trivas is a bare-faced liar, since I have nowhere said this, nor do I believe it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


What a model of the type of explanation Marx is using in Capital might be is an interesting question, and you could go on about it at length. But since phislophers of science cant even come up with a reasonable model of what causal explanation is when it is working, the whole discussion will pretty quickly descend into irrecoverable confusion as between the flaws in the modelling of Marx's model of explanation (assuming even that he had merely one) annd the flaws in the models of causal explanation. Thats philosophy for you....a perverse way to waste life, when there are things needing changing

Indeed, you philosophers are confused, but Marx wasn't -- he was in fact quite happy to use the causal terminology found in ordinary language.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


For the record, the concept of mutually exclusive comes from Marx in Capital that is where I get it...Scott Meikle is neither here nor there to me.

Indeed, he does, but then Marx did not believe there were any 'dialectical contradictions'.

Your problem is to try to explain how two objects or processes can be mutually exclusive, but yet co-exist. If they can't co-exist, they can't 'contradict' one another.

As I noted above (but you chose to ignore, once more):


Gil:


True...if reality conformed to your simplistic logic.

Then you can't mean by 'mutually exclusive' what the rest us mean.

So, what do you mean by 'mutually exclusive'?

And, if my logic is 'simplistic', pray tell us how your superior 'logic' can explain how two mutually exclusive objects or processes can in fact co-exist.

If they co-exist, then they cannot be mutually exclusive. On the other hand, if they are mutually exclusive, they cannot co-exist.

Now, the only way out of this impasse is if you interpret 'mutually exclusive' not to mean that the one excludes the other.

But if that is so, then this 'definition' of a 'dialectical contradiction' falls apart. This is because, if these do not exclude one another, they cannot contradict each other (since that is what we were told these should do). On the other hand, if they do indeed exclude one another, then they cannot co-exist, and so cannot 'contradict' one another.

However you try to slice this, it falls apart.


Let me translate: Since you Rosa can think only in simple categories you cannot understand how mutual exclusive things can co-exist. Therefore (for you) they don't. Max Stirner and the Cardinals refusing to look into Galileo's telescope would have been proud of you - you don't understand it, therefore it isn't the case.

Well, it should be easy for a superior intellect like you to explain the new meaning you are giving to 'mutually exclude' that in fact means that they do not mutually exclude one another.

[It is as if Galileo told the cardinals to look down his telescope but then he also meant that they should not look down it, which instruction they would not be able to grasp since they could only think in simple categories!]

So, unless you can tell us what this 'new' meaning of 'mutually exclude' is, which in fact does not mean mutually exclude, this remains the case:

We still have no idea what is a 'dialectical contradiction' is

The 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything --, or if they do exist, they imply that change cannot happen.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


I'm not saying that at all. If you're saying that the Newtonian laws of motions are the cause of planetary motion, you're just wrong.

You have now changed your mind, for earlier you asserted that these laws could not explain the casue of anything:


Nevertheless the fact remains that Newton doesn't explain the cause of anything.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1230207&postcount=52

Who has ever asserted that Newton's laws could cause anything? They were written on paper only a few hundred years ago! What we have claimed is that these laws can explain the natural world.

It seems that you do not even know your own confused mind!


Nope; I deny that the alternative to a causal model of social change in Capital is stochastic, the best description of it AFAIK is dialectical.

You can deny all you like; what we need to see is your proof.

1) We already know Marx used causal language and the word 'cause' all the way through Das Kapital.

2) We already know he abandoned the 'dialectic' as you mystics understand it.

3) What we do not know is on which passages you base your claim that Marx was not seeking a causal explanation of capitalism.

And you studiously refuse to tell us.

[trivas7]

3) What we do not know is on which passages you base your claim that Marx was not seeking a causal explanation of capitalism.

From Capital footnote #2 to Chap.15 "Machinery and Modern Industry", e.g.:



Before his time, spinning machines, although very imperfect ones, had already been used, and Italy was probably the country of their first appearance. A critical history of technology would show how little any of the inventions of the 18th century are the work of a single individual. Hitherto there is no such book. Darwin has interested us in the history of Nature's Technology, i.e., in the formation of the organs of plants and animals, which organs serve as intruments of production for sustaining life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man, of organs that are the material basis of all social organization, deserve equal attention? And would not such a history be easier to compile, since, as Vico says, human history differs from natural history in this, that we have made the former, but not the latter? Technology discloses man's mode of dealing with Nature, the process of production by which he sustains his life, and thereby also lays bare the mode of formation of his social relations, and of the mental conceptions that flows from them. Every history of religion, even, that fails to take account of this material basis, is uncritical. It is, in reality, much easier to discover by analysis the earthly core of the misty creations of religion, than, conversely, it is, to develop from the actual relations of life the corresponding celestialised forms of those relations. The latter method is the only materialistic, and therefore the only scientific one. The weak points in the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions of its spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas, where in this passage does Marx say he repudiates causal explanations?

Sure, he seeks a more nuanced account of human interaction, but he can obtain that causally with the sort of vocabulary we have available in ordinary language, which, as I have shown, he uses all the time.

He even says so himself:


"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.]

[trivas7]

Trivas, where in this passage does Marx say he repudiates causal explanations?

Conversely, where do you see in this quote a causal explanation of social change?


Sure, he seeks a more nuanced account of human interaction, but he can obtain that causally with the sort of vocabulary we have available in ordinary language, which, as I have shown, he uses all the time.

He even says so himself:
But in fact he exactly doesn't account for social relations causally in the passage I quoted; rather, he compares the development of human machinery to the Darwinian evolution of natural organs. Neither is the language he uses his concern, I don't see how your quote is to the point.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Conversely, where do you see in this quote a causal explanation of social change?

Given above, dingbat.


But in fact he exactly doesn't account for social relations causally in the passage I quoted; rather, he compares the development of human machinery to the Darwinian evolution of natural organs. Neither is the language he uses his concern, I don't see how your quote is to the point.

That quote shows that Marx was sensitive to the distortions traditional philosophy has introduced into language (including that related to the abstract use of the word 'cause'), and that explains his own choice of ordinary words to depict social causation.

[trivas7]

That quote shows that Marx was sensitive to the distortions traditional philosophy has introduced into language (including that related to the abstract use of the word 'cause'), and that explains his own choice of ordinary words to depict social causation.
I haven't a clue what you mean by "social causation". And the point of the quote is that for Marx German philosophy is the result of class division and the reflection of historically distorted social relations, not a concern for language as such.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


I haven't a clue what you mean by "social causation".

And that's yet another item to add to the mile-long list of things you 'haven't a clue' about.


And the point of the quote is that for Marx German philosophy is the result of class division and the reflection of historically distorted social relations, not a concern for language as such

That is not what the quoted words say:


The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life.

[trivas7]

That is not what the quoted words say:
You don't quote in context:


"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realize that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life."

--Marx and Engels (1970), The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


You don't quote in context:

I did do, in the last post but one:


Trivas, where in this passage does Marx say he repudiates causal explanations?

Sure, he seeks a more nuanced account of human interaction, but he can obtain that causally with the sort of vocabulary we have available in ordinary language, which, as I have shown, he uses all the time.

He even says so himself:


"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1230873&postcount=77

So, even in context, these words do not say what you would like them to say.

Marx is quite clear: "The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world."

Moreover, Marx showed he preferred to use ordinary langauge wherever possible in Das Kapital --, employing for example the ordinary language of causation, as I have demonstrated.

However, we still await your proof that Marx was not seeking a causal account of capitalism.

But, we know from past experience that we have an awful long wait ahead of us.:rolleyes:

[trivas7]

Moreover, Marx showed he preferred to use ordinary langauge wherever possible in Das Kapital --, employing for example the ordinary language of causation, as I have demonstrated.

Marx's use of language is your concern, Rosa, not Marx's.

Nor do I see where Marx states the cause of social change outside of historically mediated social conditions. Do you?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Marx's use of language is your concern, Rosa, not Marx's.

Too bad for you, Marx agrees with me, not you:


"The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.]

Marx would hardly say this if he was unconcerned about language.


Nor do I see where Marx states the cause of social change outside of historically mediated social conditions. Do you?

So, you admit then that Marx does appeal to the cause of social change, otherwise what do you mean by this?

And what you say is not even factually correct. Marx uses the full range of causal language available to him from ordianary language to explain social change.

[trivas7]

Trivas:
Too bad for you, Marx agrees with me, not you:

So, you admit then that Marx does appeal to the cause of social change, otherwise what do you mean by this?

And what you say is not even factually correct. Marx uses the full range of causal language available to him from ordianary language to explain social change.
Except language as such isn't Marx's concern at all.

Yes, I know that your only concern here is one-upmanship, Rosa. Good luck with that. :lol:

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Trivas:


Except language as such isn't Marx's concern at all.

Except he disagrees with you.


Yes, I know that your only concern here is one-upmanship, Rosa. Good luck with that.

Just as yours seems to be to confirm that you 'do no think about things you don't think about'.

And we are still waiting for the proof that Marx was not trying to give a causal account of social change in Das Kapital.

[gilhyle]

Your problem is to try to explain how two objects or processes can be mutually exclusive, but yet co-exist.

Indeed and that is exactly what one understands when one studies the particular issue.....but you are not interested in that process of study and understanding, you want to resolve this matter in advance of study, by philosophical fiat. But that is your metaphysical way.......I make no assumption that dialectical contradictions exist, I merely recognise them when I find them.

Behind all your bluster in defence of so-called causal analysis, you dont define it either, or explain how it works or exclude the possibility of oher types of explanation. Its absurdly reductionist to think of all explanation as causal. Of course some isthat is not controversial. But the idea that all explanation is about describing the material precoditions o a defined event is patently inadequate to what Capital does.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Indeed and that is exactly what one understands when one studies the particular issue.....but you are not interested in that process of study and understanding, you want to resolve this matter in advance of study, by philosophical fiat. But that is your metaphysical way.......I make no assumption that dialectical contradictions exist, I merely recognise them when I find them.

So, the short answer is -- after you once again make a weak attempt to deflect attention from your predicament and onto my alleged failings -- that you can't explain this 'paradox'.

Fine, just admit it's a mystery every bit as deep as the Christian Trinity.


Behind all your bluster in defence of so-called causal analysis, you dont define it either, or explain how it works or exclude the possibility of oher types of explanation. Its absurdly reductionist to think of all explanation as causal. Of course some isthat is not controversial. But the idea that all explanation is about describing the material precoditions o a defined event is patently inadequate to what Capital does.

1) You are the one who is blustering, sunshine. It is you who can't explain this core concept.

2) And your highly emotional state (doubtless this is because you are now seeing your source of dialectical opiates slowly evaporate under my relentless attacks) explains the increasingly incoherent comments you are posting.

3) Finally, what is so evil about causal language? After all, Marx uses it all the time.:)

So: we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if we do, we also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

[gilhyle]

what is so evil about causal language?

Nothing

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Nothing

In that case, why say this?


Behind all your bluster in defence of so-called causal analysis, you dont define it either, or explain how it works or exclude the possibility of oher types of explanation. Its absurdly reductionist to think of all explanation as causal. Of course some isthat is not controversial. But the idea that all explanation is about describing the material precoditions o a defined event is patently inadequate to what Capital does.

And still, we have yet to be told what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- the 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

[gilhyle]

Because your whole, endlessly repetitive line of argument is to demand of others that they define and explain usages....while not believing yourself that that is practical.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil:


Because your whole, endlessly repetitive line of argument is to demand of others that they define and explain usages....while not believing yourself that that is practical.

Not so; I only require you mystics to be clear about certain key ideas that you conveniently leave vague.

Since I have no theory, nor do I want one, whereas you lot claim to have one (that you can't defend), I do not need to define anything, but you lot need to be far clearer about your ideas.

Of course, it may be that you lot can't be clear.

You can always prove me wrong...