a question on terminology: dialectics versus "the dialectic" (singular) In the intro to this group, there is a reference to the materialist dialectic (singular). to me, dialectics is the study of contradiction as the dynamics of change and development in all things. But "the dialectic" (singular) implies the study of a single major dynamic governing history -- i.e. as if history is the unfolding of a single contradiction (in a way that is not overdetermined). That is why I am a student of dialectics, but I oppose the mechanical materialist discussion (among 19th century socialists and some modern trotskyists) of "the dialectic" of history. I may misread what others mean by this. So i'm curious: who uses dialectic (in the singular form) here, and what is the meaning that You ascribe to that?
You are hairsplitting on terminology in the same way you were in the other thread. There is no difference.
of course there is a difference: the difference between the Hegelian dialectic and communist dialectics. there is no singular "dialectic" there is only the ubiquitous emergence and resolution of contradiction (the unity and struggle of opposites in all processes). To assert one overarcing "dialectic" in history is metaphysics, not dialectics.
Yo, I'm pretty sure that "the dialectic" refers to the dialectical method.
