Question on the accuracy of dialectics

[ckaihatsu]

[T]his [...] cannot be taken to sensibly entail that a young horse is also a horse carcass at the same time (or in any interval of time when the damn horse still lives).

Even so, your argument neglects that the principle I speak of is that at the same time - A is and is not A. This is the foundation of that nonsensical view of motion as "self-contradictory". You're basically proposing temporizing the principle - but then there is no such principle left standing.

You're misinterpreting the dialectic by attempting to *remove* it from the reality of time and motion -- see (1)(b):

Marx develops a comprehensive, theoretical understanding of political reality early in his intellectual and activist career by means of a critical adoption and radicalization of the categories of 18th and 19th century German Idealist thought. Of particular importance is Hegel's appropriation of Aristotle's organicist and essentialist categories in the light of Kant's transcendental turn.[2]

Marx builds on four contributions Hegel makes to our philosophical understanding. They are: (1) the replacement of mechanism and atomism with Aristotelean categories of organicism and essentialism, (2) the idea that world history progresses through stages, (3) the difference between natural and historical (dialectical) change, and (4) the idea that dialectical change proceeds through contradictions in the thing itself.

(1) Aristotelian Organicism and Essentialism

(a) Hegel adopts the position that chance is not the basis of phenomena and that events are governed by laws.[3] Some have falsely attributed to Hegel the position that phenomena are governed by transcendent, supersensible ideas that ground them. On the contrary, Hegel argues for the organic unity between universal and particular.[4] Particulars are not mere token types of universals; rather, they relate to each other as a part relates to a whole. This latter has import for Marx's own conception of law and necessity.

(b) In rejecting the idea that laws merely describe or independently ground phenomena, Hegel revives the Aristotlean position that law or principle is something implicit in a thing, a potentiality which is not actual but which is in the process of becoming actual.[4] This means that if we want to know the principle governing something, we have to observe its typical life-process and figure out its characteristic behavior. Observing an acorn on its own, we can never deduce that it is an oak tree. To figure out what the acorn is - and also what the oak tree is - we have to observe the line of development from one to the other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_philosophy#Hegel

[Thirsty Crow]

Point 3) is blatantly false - natural development is just as "dialectical" for absolute idealism as is historical development. Point a) not only is false, but false in a noble way - following an entire century and more of disastruous intepretation which is philologically bankrupt (next thing I'm gonna be told that the secret of Hegel's philosophy was atheism). It is indeed the case that material phenomena are governed by supersensible forces, at least when Hegel is concerned.

Apart from that, I dunno, I made my point and there's no sense in continuing with this.

[ckaihatsu]

Point 3) is blatantly false - natural development is just as "dialectical" for absolute idealism as is historical development.

You're talking apples-and-oranges since (3) isn't concerned at all with 'absolute idealism'.

'Absolute idealism' wouldn't even *apply* to natural (nature) development since idealism is concerned with the realm of abstract *ideas* -- a human-societal *overlay* to actual empirical social existence, something that doesn't exist in the realm of nature.

Point a) not only is false, but false in a noble way - following an entire century and more of disastruous intepretation which is philologically bankrupt (next thing I'm gonna be told that the secret of Hegel's philosophy was atheism).

It is indeed the case that material phenomena are governed by supersensible forces

It boils down to how one 'slices' it, or the relative scale of the observer, since *macro*-level processes are readily described by the dynamics of *physics* and physical principles. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, applies to *non*-human-scale phenomena that are subatomic in size.

, at least when Hegel is concerned.

Apart from that, I dunno, I made my point and there's no sense in continuing with this.

[Tim Redd]

Change is the result of opposing forces.

Change is not only due to opposing forces. There are a number of dynamics apart from dialectics that are responsible for the motion and development of things, events and state of affairs.

I explain this in the paper "Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics". Of which a summary is here: Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics

Revolutionary communists will be unable to fully grasp and formulate appropriate situational strategy and tactics if we see dialectics as the only engine and form of change.

[Tim Redd]

Note that the tagline 'Stepped in the same river twice' is a bit of levity based on the understanding that no *river* can be exactly the same for any two moments since it's obviously always flowing and changing its configuration of matter as a result of its ceaseless motion.

A river is a *perfect* example of being both 'A' and 'not-A'.

Good point.

[Ravn]

Change is not only due to opposing forces.

Change *is* due to opposing forces in phenomena**. Otherwise everything would be static & evidently that's not the case at all.



**All phenomena not just in social interactions. DM is a reflection of how objective reality actually is.

[Tim Redd]

Change *is* due to opposing forces in phenomena**. Otherwise everything would be static & evidently that's not the case at all.

**All phenomena not just in social interactions.

DM is a reflection of how objective reality actually is.

You assert that all change is due to opposing forces, but I've demonstrated how change is also the result of various other kinds dynamics in: Beyond Dialectics to Dynamics.

Dialectics drives some, it not most, major changes and other dynamics drive other non-major and major changes. And in many situations change is driven by a combination of dialectics and the other forms of dynamics, which I point out in the above mentioned paper.

[Thirsty Crow]

Change *is* due to opposing forces in phenomena**. Otherwise everything would be static & evidently that's not the case at all.



**All phenomena not just in social interactions. DM is a reflection of how objective reality actually is.

Easy there Mr. Mystic, colors are your thing I know but still they're not easy on the eyes-which-don't-turn-into-their-opposite.