What is Dialectical Materialism?

I thought this would be a good thread for beginners on Dialectical materialism. I find the concept a bit hard to get my head around.

From Marxists.org

Dialectical Materialism
Dialectical Materialism is a way of understanding reality; whether thoughts, emotions, or the material world. Simply stated, this methodology is the combination of Dialectics and Materialism. The materialist dialectic is the theoretical foundation of Marxism (while being communist is the practice of Marxism).
"It is an eternal cycle in which matter moves, a cycle that certainly only completes its orbit in periods of time for which our terrestrial year is no adequate measure, a cycle in which the time of highest development, the time of organic life and still more that of the life of being conscious of nature and of themselves, is just as narrowly restricted as the space in which life and self-consciousness come into operation. A cycle in which every finite mode of existence of matter, whether it be sun or nebular vapour, single animal or genus of animals, chemical combination or dissociation, is equally transient, and wherein nothing is eternal but eternally changing, eternally moving matter and the laws according to which it moves and changes.
Fredrick Engels
Dialectics of Nature
Introduction
"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, or motion without matter, nor can there be."
"Change of form of motion is always a process that takes place between at least two bodies, of which one loses a definite quantity of motion of one quality (e.g. heat), while the other gains a corresponding quantity of motion of another quality (mechanical motion, electricity, chemical decomposition).
"Dialectics, so-called objective dialectics, prevails throughout nature, and so-called subjective dialectics (dialectical thought), is only the reflection of the motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites and their final passage into one another, or into higher forms, determines the life of nature."
Fredrick Engels
Dialectics of Nature
But dialectical materialism insists on the approximate relative character of every scientific theory of the structure of matter and its properties; it insists on the absence of absolute boundaries in nature, on the transformation of moving matter from one state into another, that from our point of view [may be] apparently irreconcilable with it, and so forth.
Vladimir Lenin
Materialism and Empirio-criticism
With each epoch-making discovery even in the sphere of natural science, materialism has to change its form; and after history was also subjected to materialistic treatment, a new avenue of development has opened here, too. [Ch. 2, The End of Classical German Philosophy]
"For dialectical philosophy nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher."
Fredrick Engels
The End of Classical German Philosophy
An example of dialectical materialism applied is the materialist conception of history .
'Dialectical Materialism' was coined by Karl Kautsky and popularised in the Second International after the death of Marx and Engels.

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Upon reading a bit more on Dialectics on Marxists.org I'm slowly getting a basic picture of it.

It's a combination of this:
" Dialectics is the method of reasoning which aims to understand things concretely in all their movement, change and interconnection, with their opposite and contradictory sides in unity."
and this
"Those philosophical trends which emphasise the material world (the world outside of consciousness) as the foundation and determinant of thinking, especially in relation to the question of the origin of knowledge"

So, basically, dialectical materialism is a "method of reasoning" used to understand the movement of human history, based on "the material world" as the "determinant of thinking"?

Cool, thanks. Is there any "beginner" or "introduction" texts on dialectical materialism?

Thank you

Basically, yes. As formulated by Hegel, then reformulated by Marx and Engels, the materialist dialectic has the "three laws":

Opposites- everything in existence is in a state of opposites. The quintessential example of this in nature is the positive charge and the negative charge. An example more applicable to Marxism is capitalism and the proletariat. The contradictions between opposites spark a conflict that will move society forward.

I hate to be a party pooper here, but in a thread in Philosophy I think Rosa did a good job of demolishing this untenable universalistic claim. Not all things have a discernible opposite. What's the opposite of a banana? What's the opposite of a nebula?

Negation- entities need to negate themselves in order to produce higher forms. This is seen in class society: the negation of the aristocracy by the bourgeoisie produces the proletariat, the class that will eventually negate its creator. For this reason it is called "the negation of the negation".

The negation of the aristocracy (whatever that means: its mass execution? Its removal as the ruling class?) by the bourgeoisie does not produce the proletariat. The proletariat is created from the economic imperatives of capitalist accumulation. Of course, the transformation of the peasantry into propertyless proletarians also undermines the economic and social foundations of feudalism, increases the power of capital over land, creates crisis and revolution and leads to the removal of the aristocracy as the ruling class.

The point of dialectics is that we should avoid simplistic cause and effect statements like "the negation of the aristocracy by the bourgeoisie produces the proletariat".

Novack's Introduction to the Logic of Marxism should do pretty well:

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill...ogic/index.htm

I studied politics at Uni under academic Marxist theoretician, Bob Jessop, and when I suggested possibly doing Novack as the subject of my dissertation, he said, "Why? The bloke's an idiot!"

Not saying the book's isn't worth reading (or that Jessop wasn't a bit of a twat); but I think Novack extolls a fairly orthodox version of the dialectics of nature which I don't agree with.

Hey, man, it's not a competition. You're doing an excellent job of leading the forum, btw.

My only point is that we should be careful not to force dialectics into a positivist straight-jacket. Explanation is more subtle, more multi-faceted than simple cause and effect.

I think SACT has it pretty much down when he claims

[b]asically, dialectical materialism is a "method of reasoning" used to understand the movement of human history, based on "the material world" as the "determinant of thinking"

Although we can add various qualifications to that statement.

Plus, an important addendum is that the reason our thinking needs to be dialectical is because the world we're trying to comprehend is itself dialectical.

An important controversy is the limit we put on the kind of "world" we're trying to comprehend. For me, the "world" is human history and, particularly, capitalism which, as Marx famously observed, "cannot exist without continually revolutionising the instruments of production, hence the relations of production, and therefore social relations as a whole." And where "All that is solid melts into air."

Hey, man, it's not a competition. You're doing an excellent job of leading the forum, btw.

I agree, this forum's going well.

My only point is that we should be careful not to force dialectics into a positivist straight-jacket. Explanation is more subtle, more multi-faceted than simple cause and effect.

Right, there are a lot of simplistic versions being peddled around.

the emphasis with dialectics or any area of marxism should be in abstracting principles and theories from observations of concrete reality.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...ism/index.html

I hate to be a party pooper here, but in a thread in Philosophy I think Rosa did a good job of demolishing this untenable universalistic claim. Not all things have a discernible opposite. What's the opposite of a banana? What's the opposite of a nebula?

Hm, I always understood it as the unity of opposing forces, not necessarily opposites. One cannot deny that there is no set opposite of a "banana," but an apple is an opposing force to a banana, so a fruit salad could be considered a unity of opposing forces I guess

I hate to be a party pooper here, but in a thread in Philosophy I think Rosa did a good job of demolishing this untenable universalistic claim. Not all things have a discernible opposite. What's the opposite of a banana? What's the opposite of a nebula?

To look at it this way misses the entire point of dialectics. The point is to understand change which is not caused by an external influence. A dialectic is an internally contradictory totality in a state of constant change. So, it is wrong to look for the opposite of a bannana, or nebula. It is correct to look at the opposing forces within the bannana which cause it to form, to grown, and then to blacken and die. It is correct to look at the forces within the nebula which cause it to change into stars, solar systems, etc.

Rosa, as usual, misses the point entirely.

I want to say, I have read Novack's introduction as well as August Thalheimer's to dialectical materialism. It is clear that George Novack plagiarized Thalheimer, who wrote the superior work.

Thalheimer's introduction is on MIA:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/thal...amat/index.htm