Since other board members have begun to discuss dialectics (in Learning), and I have promised not to disrupt their conversation (in addition to the material I have already posted there, which shows Marx abandoned this theory when he came to write Das Kapital), I am starting a new thread in this section devoted to why I think this theory is defective. Any who think me wrong or my arguments misguided are, of course, invited to say why.

I'll first post a slightly edited version of an article I had published in Weekly Worker back in 2007, and then I'll comment (over the next few days) on several of the posts in the above thread in Learning:

What Is Wrong With Dialectical Materialism?

by Rosa Lichtenstein

In the space available I can only outline a few of my reasons for rejecting Dialectical Materialism [DM].

However, nothing here should be read as an attack on Historical Materialism, a theory I fully accept.

I will begin by looking at a handful of my criticisms of Engels's 'Three Laws'.

Quantity And Quality

Engels asserted the following:

Qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned.1 (Emphasis added.)

Such changes are neither smooth nor gradual:

Quantitative changes, accumulating gradually, lead in the end to changes of quality, and that these changes of quality represent leaps, interruptions in gradualness…. That is how all Nature acts….2

And yet, there are many things in nature that undergo smooth qualitative change -- for example, melting metal, rock, glass, plastic, resin, butter, toffee and chocolate. All of these change slowly from solid to liquid.

Sure, some things change "nodally" (or in "leaps"), but many do not. So, the "nodal" aspect of this Law is defective.

Unfortunately, this implies that it can't be used to argue that the transformation from capitalism to socialism must be nodal too, for we have no idea whether this transformation is one of these exceptions. Plainly, we could only use this Law if it had no exceptions whatsoever.

This means that the whole point of adopting this Law in the first place has now vanished.

[I hasten to add that I think that the revolution will be sudden, but then I do not accept this law!]

What about 'quantity into quality'? Undeniably, many material things change 'qualitatively' as a result of the addition or subtraction of matter or energy.

But, this is not true of all qualitative difference. The order in which events take place can affect quality, too. For example, try crossing a busy main road first and looking second -- now, try it the other way round! You should notice a qualitative difference! And anyone who tries pouring half a litre of water slowly into a litre of concentrated sulphuric acid will face a long and painful stay in hospital, whereas the reverse action is perfectly safe.

Moreover, this Law is so vaguely worded that dialecticians can use it in whatever way they please. If this is difficult to believe, ask the very next dialectician you meet precisely how long a "nodal point" is supposed to last. You will receive no answer. But, if no one knows, anything from a Geological Age to an instantaneous quantum leap could be "nodal"!

And, it really isn't good enough for dialectically-inclined comrades to dismiss this as mere pedantry. Can you imagine a genuine scientist refusing to say how long a crucially important interval in her theory is supposed to last, and accusing you of "pedantry" for even asking?

Next, enquire what a "quality" is. If the one you ask knows his/her Hegel and/or Aristotle, you might be told it's a property the change of which alters a process/object into something new -- a new kind of thing.

Unfortunately, given this explanation of "quality" many of the examples dialecticians themselves employ would cease to work.

For instance: the most hackneyed example they use is that of water turning to ice or steam when cooled or heated. But, given the above, this wouldn't be an example of qualitative change, since water as ice, liquid or steam is still water (i.e., H2O). Quantitative addition or subtraction of energy does not result in a qualitative change of the required sort; nothing new emerges. This substance stays H2O throughout.

Faced with that, dialecticians with who I have debated this are often tempted to relax the definition of "quality" so that in a solid, liquid or gaseous state, water could be said to exhibit different qualities.

Unfortunately, this would rescue the above example but sink the theory. If we allow "quality" to apply to any qualitative difference, then we would have to admit the relational properties of bodies (such as size, or hardness). In that case we could easily witness qualitative change where no extra matter or energy has been added. For instance, consider three animals in a row: a mouse, a pony, and an elephant. In relation to the mouse, the pony is big, but in relation to the elephant it is small. Change in quality, with no matter or energy added or subtracted.

Of course, all this is quite apart from the fact that altering the way that "quality" is understood indicates that changes in quality are now relative to an observer's choice of descriptive framework. Plainly, this introduces a fundamental element of arbitrariness into what dialecticians claim is a scientific law.

Finally, there are substances called isomers -- i.e., molecules with exactly the same number of atoms differently arranged --, where the geometrical orientation of these atoms has been altered, resulting in new qualities exhibited by the compounds involved. Here, we have a change in geometry causing a change in quality, with the addition of no new matter or energy, contradicting Engels:

Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion....3 [Bold emphasis added.] (Emphasis added.)

Faced with these objections, dialecticians often claim that this Law only applies to objects and processes in development. The three animals and the isomers mentioned above plainly aren't developing into one another. However, Engels (and subsequent dialecticians) also appeal to objects and processes that do not develop into one another to illustrate the operation of this Law, so they can hardly complain if similar examples are used against it.

[Examples where Engels and other dialecticians have done this can be found here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm]

Hence, at the very best, this Law is merely a quaint rule of thumb (rather like: "A stitch in time saves nine"). At worst, it is like a stopped clock: totally useless, even if twice a day it tells the 'right time'.

In which case, Engels's First Law is of no use to revolutionary theory, and so has no role to play in helping to change society.

The Unity And Interpenetration Of Opposites

This is perhaps the most important of these Laws, for it encapsulates the principle of change, as well as that of temporary stability.

Unfortunately, dialecticians have so far been entirely unclear whether (1) things change because of their internal opposites, whether (2) they change into these opposites (or even into one another), or, indeed, (3) whether they create these opposites as they change:

Here are Lenin, Plekhanov and Mao (but dozens of other dialecticians, including Engels, say the same sort of thing):

Hegel brilliantly divined the dialectics of things...as follows: In the alternation, reciprocal dependence of all notions, in the identity of their opposites, in the transitions of one notion into another, in the eternal change, movement of notions....

[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the [i]transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]….4

And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite….5 [Emphases added.]

In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another....

...[A]ll processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute.6 [Emphases added.]

Dozens of other quotations for the dialectical classics, and from more modern works, can be found here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php? ... stcount=76

Or if you can't access RevLeft, here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm#Note_10b1

But this leaves change a complete mystery.

To see this, let us suppose that object/process A is comprised of two "internal opposites" (or "opposite tendencies"), O* and O** (or not-O*), and thus changes as a result.

But, O* cannot itself change into O** since O** already exists! If O** didn't already exist, according to this theory, O* could not change, for there would be no opposite for it to "struggle" with to bring that about.

And it's no good propelling O** into the future so that it now becomes what O* will change into, since O* will do no such thing unless O** is already there in the present to make that happen!

Hence, if object/process A is already composed of a dialectical union of O* and not-O* (i.e., O**) and it 'changes' into not-O*, where is the change? All that seems to happen is that O* has disappeared. Thus, O* does not change into not-O*, it is just replaced by it.

At the very least, this account of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-O* (O**) itself came about. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere.

It cannot have come from O*, since O* can only change because of the operation of not-O* (O**), which does not yet exist! And pushing the process into the past (via a 'reversed' version of the negation of the negation) will merely reduplicate the above problems.

Of course, this is all quite apart from the fact that many things just do not change into their opposites (or even because of them). When was the last time you saw a male cat turn into a female cat? Your left hand into your right? An electron into a proton (or even a positron)? Or a material object into an immaterial one?

And are we really supposed to believe that every proletarian (as individuals or as a class) will turn into Capitalists (and/or vice versa)?

But, according to the above dialecticians, all of these must happen.

None of this implies that things cannot change, but it does mean that dialectics cannot explain why they do so.

I have covered this in much more detail here, where I also respond to every conceivable objection:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htm#The Interpenetration Of Opposites

The Negation Of The Negation

This Law is just an extension to the previous Law, and so suffers from all the latter's weaknesses.

Engels retailed a rather unfortunate example, however:

Butterflies...spring from the egg by a negation of the egg, pass through certain transformations until they reach sexual maturity, pair and are in turn negated, dying as soon as the pairing process has been completed and the female has laid its numerous eggs.7

In fact, butterflies and moths go through the following stages:

Adult -> egg -> pupa -> chrysalis -> adult

Which is the negation of which here? And which is the negation of the negation?

And what about organisms that reproduce by splitting, such as amoebae and bacteria? In any such spit, which half is the negation and which the negation of the negation? Indeed, what about vegetative (asexual) reproduction in general, where there are no opposites (no gametes)?

Consider, too, the thoroughly reactionary life-form Myxogastria (The Slime Mould), which belongs neither to the plant nor the animal kingdom, but to the Protoctista. Its life-cycle involves the following: a giant amoebal stage, followed by a slug-like existence, which morphs into a fungal-like fruiting body, which then releases spores. Again, which is the negation, and which is the negation of the negation?

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

And with respect to the former USSR (post 1917): if this Law is progressive, why did it allow the revolution to decay and go into reverse?

Is modern-day Russia really then the un-negation of the negation of the negation of Tsarist Russia?

Practice

Dialecticians tell us that truth is tested in practice. In that case, what does history reveal?

Unfortunately, it shows that Dialectical Marxism has not known much in the way of success. The 1917 revolution has been reversed, practically every single socialist state has abandoned Marxism, all four Internationals have gone down the pan, and few revolutionary parties these days can boast active membership levels that rise much above the risible. To cap it all, billions of workers world-wide not only ignore dialectics, they have never even heard of it.

And yet, most dialecticians claim that dialectics lies at the heart of revolutionary theory and practice, and that truth is tested by practice. If so, why have none of them drawn the obvious conclusion that history has refuted dialectics?

Nevertheless, it is my contention that this theory is part of the reason why Dialectical Marxism is now almost synonymous with failure. Either that, or truth can't be tested in practice.

This is because such long-term lack of success suggests that Dialectical Materialism might not be quite as sound as its supporters would have us believe.

No surprise therefore: that is exactly what we have found.

When faced with the above fatal objection (that history has refuted Dialectical Materialism), dialectically-distracted comrades often appeal to various 'objective' factors (and/or other excuses) for the long term failure of their theory. I have responded to these 'replies' at my site:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/excuse_central.htm

Notes

1. Engels, F., Dialectics Of Nature (Progress Publishers, 1954), p.63.

2. Plekhanov, G., The Development Of The Monist View Of History (Progress Publishers, 1956), p.163.

3. Engels, F., Dialectics Of Nature (Progress Publishers, 1954), p.63.

4. Lenin, V., Philosophical Notebooks, Collected Works, Volume 38 (Progress Publishers, 1961). pp.196-97, 221-22.

5. Plekhanov, G., The Development Of The Monist View Of History (Progress Publishers, 1956), p.77.

6. Mao Zedong, 'On Contradiction', in Selected Works Volume One (Foreign Languages Press, 1964), pp.340-42.

7. Engels, F., Anti-Dühring (Foreign Languages Press, 1976), p.173.

-------------------------------------

Here are two additional sections taken from one of my Introductory Essays:

Formal Logic

Practically every dialectician who has put pen to paper almost seems compelled to say the following about Formal Logic [FL]:

"Formal logic regards things as fixed and motionless." [Rob Sewell.]

"Formal categories, putting things in labelled boxes, will always be an inadequate way of looking at change and development…because a static definition cannot cope with the way in which a new content emerges from old conditions." [Rees (1998), p.59.]

"There are three fundamental laws of formal logic. First and most important is the law of identity....

"…If a thing is always and under all conditions equal or identical with itself, it can never be unequal or different from itself." [Novack (1971), p.20.]

Many more quotations of the same sort can be found here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2004. ... -Inanities

However, I have yet to see a single quotation from a logic text (ancient or modern) that supports such allegations -- certainly dialecticians have so far failed to produce even so much as one.

And no wonder: it's completely incorrect.

FL uses variables -- that is, it employs letters to stand for objects, processes and the like, all of which can and do change.

This handy device was invented by the very first logician we know of (in the 'West'): Aristotle (384-322BC). Aristotle experimented with the use of variables approximately 1500 years before they were imported into mathematics by Muslim Algebraists, who in turn employed them several centuries before French mathematician and philosopher, René Descartes (1596-1650), introduced them in the 'West'.

Engels himself said the following about that particular innovation:

"The turning point in mathematics was Descartes' variable magnitude. With that came motion and hence dialectics in mathematics, and at once, too, of necessity the differential and integral calculus…." [Engels (1954), p.258.]

Now, no one doubts that modern mathematics can handle change, so why dialecticians deny this of FL -- when it has always used variables -- is somewhat mysterious.

Finally, the Law of Identity does not deny change, for if something changes, then anything identical with it will change equally quickly.

With that observation much of Dialectical Materialism falls apart.

--------------------------------

Novack, G. (1971), An Introduction To The Logic Of Marxism (Pathfinder Press, 5th ed.).

Rees, J. (1998), The Algebra Of Revolution (Routledge).

--------------------------------

Why is Dialectical Materialism a World-View?

Marx famously claimed:

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. [The German Ideology. Emphases added.]

Now, as is easy to show, Hegel (the Idealist originator of dialectics) lifted many of his doctrines from earlier mystics and ruling-class hacks. These ideas have appeared in the philosophical theories of boss-class thinkers from ancient times until today. In that case, the only conclusion possible is that dialectics must be part of the ruling ideas Marx was speaking about, whether he himself thought so or not.

This conclusion is not at all easy for Dialectical Marxists to accept for it seems to implicate the founders of our movement in the deliberate importation of boss-class ideas into Marxism. To be sure, dialecticians say they have removed the Idealist and mystical elements of Hegel's dialectic (or, rather, they tell us they've put Hegel's ideas back "on their feet", thus preserving their "rational core"), but since it's plain that the remaining husk has been imposed on nature (not read from it) in sound idealist fashion, that claim is entirely bogus. As George Novack (inadvertently) pointed out:

A consistent materialism cannot proceed from principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition, self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice.... [Novack (1965) The Origins of Materialism, p.17. Emphasis added.]

Now, the founders of our movement weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in religion, the classics and philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there's a hidden world, accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This way of seeing things was invented by ruling-class ideologues. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.

The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time, but it's not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation (among other things).

Another way is to win over the majority (or, at least, a significant proportion of "opinion formers", bureaucrats, judges, bishops, generals, intellectuals, philosophers, teachers, administrators, etc.) to the view that the present order either, (1) Works for their benefit, (2) Defends 'civilised values', (3) Is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is (4) 'Natural' and thus cannot be fought against, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view that helps rationalise one or more of the above is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the same old way. While the content of this wing of ruling-class ideology may have changed with each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth (about this 'hidden world' underlying appearances) is ascertainable from thought alone, and therefore can be imposed on reality dogmatically and aprioristically.

["Aprioristically" means that these ideas can be inferred (theoretically) in advance of any evidence. A genuine a priori idea might be the following: despite the fact that no one will ever experience this, we know that ten billion marbles plus twenty billion marbles equals thirty billion marbles (although, I prefer to call this the application of a rule). A bogus a priori idea would involve, for example, an attempt to prove the existence of 'god' from 'his' definition (as the medieval philosopher, Anselm, famously tried to do). Another would be implicated in an attempt to show that everything is governed by 'contradictions' when this idea is based only on a similar 'linguistic argument' (as Hegel attempted). More on that here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Outline_of ... ted_01.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselm_of_Canterbury]

So, the non-worker founders of our movement -- who had been educated from an early age to believe there was just such a hidden world lying behind appearances, and which governed everything -- when they became revolutionaries looked for 'logical' principles in that abstract world that told them that change was inevitable, and was part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of that ruling-class mystic, Hegel. Hence, the dialectical classicists were happy to impose their theory on the world (upside down or the "right way up"), since, to them, because of their socialisation and education, it seemed quite natural to do so; after all, that's what 'genuine' philosophy is -- or, so they thought.

As a result they introduced a boss-class world-view into the workers' movement.

[Of course, if the facts end up contradicting this theory, they can safely be ignored, since this hidden world not only "contradicts" appearances (so we are told), it's more real than anything genuinely material.]

And that is why DM-fans bury their heads in the sand when faced with the long-term failure of their theory: their faith lies in this hidden world -- and that's not surprising, either, since this idea was pinched from a Christian mystic.

Unfortunately, it's their equivalent of 'pie in the sky'.

Finally, these comrades imported such alien ideas into Marxism unwittingly. They knew no better; their petty-bourgeois being determined their petty-bourgeois consciousness.

But, as should seem obvious from the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism, this importation has to be reversed.

Otherwise, comrades, we can look forward to another 150 years of glorious failure...

More details can be found here (and more generally at the link in my signature):

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Why%20I%20Oppose%20DM.htm

I refuse to believe that the working-class movement's history can, in any major part, be assigned to the realm of pure ideas--bad ones--infesting the minds of the 'decision-makers'. To me that is naked idealism.

And I agree.

Where on earth did you get the idea that I thought otherwise?

But, what is the point of trying to get our theory right if it has no effect on practice, good or bad, whatever we come up with?

And why do you think Lenin and Engels, for example, spent so much time and effort criticising incorrect theories (in the workers' movement) if ideas are totally irrelevant?

Hi Rosa nice to see you again. I've tried reading your arguments before but never really understood them or got bored reading them and given up. But now I get it! Kind of, you lost me a bit on opposites all that o* o** stuff made my eyes bleed. Anyway thanks for posting this much clearer now.

Ok, thanks, but had you asked, I'd have been happy to explain it to you.

Mr Unnatural:

First of all, you do excellent work in illuminating Marx's application of the dialectic in his investigation of capitalism. I could not have put this together, and I really liked your "skinny" on contradiction. I believe your approach is that of systematic dialectics.

Except, just like other dialecticians, you ignore the fact that Marx had abandoned 'the dialectic' as you lot seem to conceive it. On that, see my reply to Artesian in learning:

for-those-interested-in-dialectic-t269.html

And the next page of this thread.

The natural dialectic I see and promote for development and praxis is rooted in the Hegelian dialectic and philosophy of internal relations (world and its sub-worlds as internally related wholes). It is my very strong conviction that the young Marx then materialized and internalized Hegel's idealized philosophy and thus came to view "nature, human society, and thought" as materially based, organic, systemic processes, which they are.

But, what is your proof that there are any 'internal relations' (other than an appeal to Hegel's defective 'logic')?

[For a summary of Hegel's more serious logical blunders (aimed at novices both in logic and Hegelianism), see here:

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Outline_of ... ted_01.htm]

The dialectical contradictions you list are not the separate, "dead" contradictions of formal logic, but Hegelian, Marxist, dialectical, living contradictions (organizational relations) of integral wholes, differentiated unities, an internally related world. Your contradictions can also be understood as the organic relations of a living system--of life and community. The new science(s) of organizational relations confirm the relations of your skinny contradictions.

But, why are the contradictions of formal logic 'dead'? You failed to say -- and it's not hard to see why. They are no more alive or dead than 'dialectical contradictions' are -- and, S Artesian notwithstanding, we are still waiting for a clear explanation of what those mysterious 'dialectical contradictions' are.

In fact, you are merely repeating a (discredited) dialectical tradition without providing any evidence or argument in support.

Moreover, you failed to say why the things you say are contradictions are in fact contradictions to begin with. [No surprise there either.]

Of course, we already know where this word came from. It originated not in a scientific analysis of reality, but in a work of mystical Christianity -- this term was lifted from Hegel, who derived his use of "contradiction" from some highly dubious logic. He argued that the so-called 'law of identity' [LOI] stated negatively implies the 'law of contradiction' [LOC], but over and above merely asserting this he neglected to prove it.

And no wonder, it's not possible to derive the latter from the former. The LOI concerns the alleged identity between an object and itself (or between its names; Hegel isn’t too clear on this); the LOC is about the link between a proposition and its negation. The LOC is not about objects, and the LOI is not about propositions. The two are totally unconnected. [Or if they are, we have yet to see the proof.]

This means that over 150 years of wasted effort has gone into studying these bogus entities -- dialectical contradictions. There is no rationale at all for them. No wonder then that comrades find it impossible to tell us with any clarity what they are.

Adherence to tradition is the only reason you and other comrades use this word in the way you do.

You then quote Ollman (another comrade who uncritically swallowed Hegel's idealist concept of 'internal relations'):

Now, as a supplement to your skinny, I offer Bertell Ollman's organic presentation of Marx's understanding of contradiction, taken from Dance of the Dialectic, p. 17.

"Of the four major relations Marx investigates in his effort to make dialectical sense out of capitalist reality, contradiction is undoubtedly the most important .... Contradiction is understood here as the incompatible development of different elements within the same relation, which is to say between elements that are also dependent on one another. What is remarked as differences are based ... on certain conditions, and these conditions are constantly changing. Hence, differences are changing; and given how each difference serves as a part of the appearance and/or functioning of others, grasped as relations, how one changes affects all. Consequently, their paths of development do not only intersect in mutually supportive ways, but are constantly blocking, undermining, otherwise interfering with, and in due course transforming one another. Contradiction offers the optimal means for bringing such change and interaction as regards both present and future into a single focus. The future finds its way into this focus as the likely and possible outcomes of the interaction of these opposing tendencies in the present, as their real potential. It is contradiction more than any other notion than enables Marx to avoid stasis and one-sidedness in thinking about the organic and historical movement of the capitalist mode of production, about how they affect each other and develop together from their origins in feudalism to whatever lies just over our horizon."

Once more, Ollman just helps himself to this word without once trying to justify it.

[This is not just an academic point; I will explain in a later post why this term has had a pernicious, if not poisonous effect on the thought of Dialectical Marxists.]

On this, see below, too.

Dare I "coquette" for a moment? That notorious passage reads: " I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him."

I read this as Marx affirming his Hegelian roots while taking a swipe at those clumsy 3 or 4 laws you and I don't like. Marx is stoutly affirming dialectical relations and generally resisting a mechanical application of dialectical "laws."

Well, it's worth pointing out that Marx put this comment about Hegel in the past tense. Moreover, it is possible to call someone a 'might thinker' and still reject everything they had to say. For example, I think Plato is a 'mighty thinker', but I disagree with 99.9% of what he said.

Moreover, we have already seen that Marx himself (not me) indicated he had abandoned Hegel root and branch when he added a summary of the 'dialectic method' to the Afterword to the second edition of Das Kapital. [I quoted it my reply to S Artesian in the thread on dialectics in Learning. I have quoted it again, in my reply to Lenina below.]

This is the only summary of the 'dialectic method' Marx published in his entire life, and it contains not one atom of Hegel -- no 'contradictions', no 'negation of the negation', no 'internal relations', no 'unity of opposites', no change of 'quantity into quality', no 'Totality', etc., etc. And of the few Hegelian terms-of-art that appear in Das Kapital, Marx tells us he was merely 'coquetting' with them.

Hence, Marx's dialectic (its 'rational core') contains no Hegel at all, and thus more closely resembles the dialectic of Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish Historical School (of Ferguson, Millar, Robertson, Smith, Hume and Stewart).

To put Hegel back 'on his feet' is to show how empty his head is.

Now what about this "codicil where contradictions mutually exclude each other"? Marx's contradictions are related. Do you have this passage at hand for reproduction?

In fact, Artesian ignores this (even when he is reminded of it). It was little old me who raised this, not him.

And here are the relevant passages from Das Kapital:

The relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately connected, mutually dependent and inseparable elements of the expression of value; but, at the same time, are mutually exclusive, antagonistic extremes – i.e., poles of the same expression. They are allotted respectively to the two different commodities brought into relation by that expression. It is not possible to express the value of linen in linen. 20 yards of linen = 20 yards of linen is no expression of value. On the contrary, such an equation merely says that 20 yards of linen are nothing else than 20 yards of linen, a definite quantity of the use value linen. The value of the linen can therefore be expressed only relatively – i.e., in some other commodity. The relative form of the value of the linen presupposes, therefore, the presence of some other commodity -- here the coat -- under the form of an equivalent. On the other hand, the commodity that figures as the equivalent cannot at the same time assume the relative form. That second commodity is not the one whose value is expressed. Its function is merely to serve as the material in which the value of the first commodity is expressed.

No doubt, the expression 20 yards of linen = 1 coat, or 20 yards of linen are worth 1 coat, implies the opposite relation. 1 coat = 20 yards of linen, or 1 coat is worth 20 yards of linen. But, in that case, I must reverse the equation, in order to express the value of the coat relatively; and. so soon as I do that the linen becomes the equivalent instead of the coat. A single commodity cannot, therefore, simultaneously assume, in the same expression of value, both forms. The very polarity of these forms makes them mutually exclusive.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... h01.htm#S3

[Collected Works, Volume 35, pp.58-59.]

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/wo ... 1/ch03.htm

[Collected Works, Volume 35, p.113]

Underlining added.

[In fact, this is a consequence of the 'unity and interpenetration of opposites'.]

So, if these 'contradictions' "mutually exclude" one another, and cannot exist side by side, they can't 'contradict' each another. On the other hand, if they do 'contradict' each other, they can't "mutually exclude" one another.

With that, your understanding of 'contradictions' falls apart, as does that of S Artesian.

No wonder he ignores this part of Das Kapital...

o god your still around? WHY????????????

Er..., please stop using my proper name...

I've re4ad part of the OP. For what its worth

Engel's Dialectics of Nature is reductionist and scientistic.As I understand it wasn't even meant to be published . Stalinist Diamat is reductionist as well, essentially a substitute religion, the exact opposite of what Marxism is supposed to be.Unfortunately many Trotskyists have also bought into this as well, George Novack for example.

Having said this a dialectical method seems immanent to Marx's thought. His discussion of the commodity is chock full of dialectics.A commodity has use value and exchange value, These properties have a complex dialectical relationship. That is just for starters. What else would one call Marx's method, if not dialectical?

I don't think the Marxist and especially Trotskyist movement ran into problems because of dialectics but because of material conditions and a misunderstanding of historical. One can have a materialist analysis of Marxism.

BTW, I am glad you're here.

Thanks for that Lenina, but we needn't specualate about what Marx did or did not accept, since he himself silenced all such speculation when he added this to the Afterword to the second edition of Das Kapital:

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. Underlining added.]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... -c1/p3.htm

In this passage, not one single Hegelian concept is to be found -- no "contradictions", no change of "quantity into quality", no "negation of the negation", no "unity and identity of opposites", no "interconnected Totality", no "universal change", no "internal relations" --, and yet Marx calls this the "dialectic method", and says of it that it is "my method". So, Marx's "method" has had Hegel completely excised --, except for the odd phrase or two, here and there, with which he later tells us he merely "coquetted".

In that case, once more, Marx's "dialectic method" more closely resembles that of Aristotle, Kant and the Scottish Historical Materialists I mentioned in my last post but one.

So, sure, Marx's method is dialectical, but it isn't dialectical in the same sense that the vast majority of Dialectical Marxists have assumed over the last 140 years.

But, to avod confusion, I prefer to call his method scientific, not dialectical.

[On other boards, whenever I have said things like this: "Marx's method is dialectical", opponents have jumped in and said, "Ah, so you admit it!", deliberately ignoring the other things I have said.]