Do We Need the Dialectic?

[Ed]

My take on the title question of this thread "Do we need the Dialectic?". No we don't need dialectics at all. Does the case for socialism rest on dialectics? No. So if no what practical use is it? It can sometimes be used to present an idea in a certain way to make more sense to a like minded individual, but it's main use is just for intellectual masturbation. Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

[DJP]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

So, I re-iterate what I said earlier: Das Kapital is a Hegel-free zone.

Karl Marx in Capital Volume 1 wrote:

The guilds of the middle ages therefore tried to prevent by force the transformation of the master of a trade into a capitalist, by limiting the number of labourers that could be employed by one master within a very small maximum. The possessor of money or commodities actually turns into a capitalist in such cases only where the minimum sum advanced for production greatly exceeds the maximum of the middle ages. Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his “Logic”), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch11.htm

Doh!

[Anonymous]

Ed wrote:

My take on the title question of this thread "Do we need the Dialectic?". No we don't need dialectics at all. Does the case for socialism rest on dialectics? No. So if no what practical use is it? It can sometimes be used to present an idea in a certain way to make more sense to a like minded individual, but it's main use is just for intellectual masturbation. Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

 I have to agree with you, Ed.I think  the sentence: 'a tiny minority of people own the world and its resources, let us organise and take them back'  would make more sense to the average member of the working class than dialectics or what Marx thought of whatsisname. But that is just my opinion on the subject.

[LBird]

Ed wrote:

My take on the title question of this thread "Do we need the Dialectic?". No we don't need dialectics at all. Does the case for socialism rest on dialectics? No. So if no what practical use is it? It can sometimes be used to present an idea in a certain way to make more sense to a like minded individual, but it's main use is just for intellectual masturbation. Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

Yeah, I've also come to this conclusion, after years (decades?) of trying to understand 'dialectics'. Although I'd long thought that the concept of 'dialectics in nature' was suspect, and more recently have come to understand that it's complete nonsense, I've always tried to keep an open mind about 'dialectics' in the sense of 'to present an idea in a certain way to make more sense to a like minded individual', but even here I've never come across an explanation that makes any 'sense', never mind 'more sense'.What's worse, whenever I've asked critical questions about 'dialectics', I've always been subjected to personal attacks. It's as if 'dialecticians' can't bear their 'religion' to be even tentatively questioned by one who is unsure, never mind openly scorned by well-read critics.Yep, I think I'm now, finally, of the opinion that 'it's main use is just for intellectual masturbation'. It's just a shame that I've been an uncomprehending party to such wanking, so wasteful for workers, for so long.Onano-Dia-Mat. Just say 'No!', comrades!

[twc]

Conflation

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

where have I conflated “phenomenalism with the Phänomenologie des Geistes”?

Here:

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Marx to Engels 05/01/1882:  “You will see from the enclosed letter from Dietzgen that the unhappy fellow has ‘progressed’ and ‘safely’ arrived at Phänomenologie.  I regard the case as an incurable one.” [MECW 46, p.172.]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

ALB wrote:

The other thing you need to explain is why Marx [05/01/1882] (in the year before his death) described Dietzgen as a “phenomenalist ”.

Anyway, it depends on what you mean by ‘Phenomenalism ’ — there are far more varieties than even Wikipedia acknowledges.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DJP, thanks for the quotation from Das Kapital which supposedly uses an idea drawn from Hegel.Whenever I debate this topic with comrades, a series of passages from Marx's writings (published and unpublished) are thrown at me, this particular one leading the pack. Here is how I replied to it when it was first lobbed in my general direction a few years ago over at RevLeft (before they banned me for being too good at opposing their Hermeticist musings):

Quote:

Values (it is assumed that these are "exchange values") do not become Capital by mere quantitative increment. It requires the presence of a Capitalist Mode of Production (and thus a change in the Relations of Production), or a different use of that money, for this to be so. The capitalists concerned have to do something with these exchange values. So, the mere increase of exchange values doesn't automatically "pass over" into a qualitative change and become Capital. These values have to be invested, and that too isn't automatic (in certain circumstances, they could be consumed). So, what we have here is a change in quality passing over into another change in quality! Quantity has nothing to do with it. The same quantity of money could be used as Capital or fail to be so used. It requires a change in its quality (its use, or its social context) to effect such a development….Over the last twenty-five years or so, in my trawl through the Dialectical Dustbowl, I have yet to encounter a single dialectician who has pointed out that the above application of Hegel's 'Law' by Marx contains a serious error!So, £x/$y (or their equivalent) owned by a Medieval Lord in, say, Eleventh Century France, couldn't become Capital no matter how large this pot of money had become, whereas £w/$z in Nineteenth Century Manchester, even though it might be less than the £x/$y pounds held by that Lord (allowing for inflation, etc.), would be Capital if employed in certain ways. It isn't the quantity that is important here but the Mode of Production and the use to which the money is put, that are.Furthermore, it is worth asking: How does this money actually "develop"? In what way can it "develop"? Sure, money can be saved and/or accumulated, but how does a £1/$1 coin "develop" if its owner saves or accumulates more of the same? Even if we redefine "save" and  "accumulate" to mean "develop" (protecting this 'law' by yet another terminological dodge, thus imposing it on the facts), not all money will "develop" in this way. What if all the money was stolen or had been expropriated from, or by, another non-capitalist? What if it was obtained (all at once) by selling land, slaves, works of art, political or other favours, etc? Where is the "development" here? But, such money could still operate as Capital, howsoever it was acquired, depending on its use and the Mode of Production in which this takes place.Of course, this isn't to deny that there were Capitalists (or nascent Capitalists) in pre-Capitalist Europe; but whatever money they had, its nature as Capital wasn't determined by its quantity, but by the use to which it was put. This is also true in the period of transition between Feudalism and Capitalism (before the Capitalist Mode of Production was apparent/dominant); it is the use to which money is put that decides whether or not it is Capital, not its quantity.In which case, this represents an egregious mis-application of Hegel's 'Law' — by Marx himself! Now, either we believe Marx was a complete imbecile (in that he committed this crass error, and failed even to understand Historical Materialism!), or we conclude he was still "coquetting" with Hegelian jargon. [Again, these days we'd use 'scare quotes' in such circumstances, or we'd simply refrain from using such language altogether.]

[Please note that if you are using Internet Explorer 10, you might find the above link won't work properly unless you switch to 'Compatibility View' (in the Tools Menu).]So, in the sense that Marx took Hegel seriously, Das Kapital is indeed a Hegel-free zone.

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

twc, thanks for that, but I was responding to ALB's use of the word 'phenomenalist', not commenting on what Marx had said when I posted this comment:

Quote:

Anyway, it depends on what you mean by ‘Phenomenalism ’ — there are far more varieties than even Wikipedia acknowledges.

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[DJP]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

So, in the sense that Marx took Hegel seriously, Das Kapital is indeed a Hegel-free zone.

Karl Marx wrote:

 Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his “Logic”), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.[emphasis mine]

You can give whatever rambling answer you like but the evidence is here. And there's more but I can't be bothered…BTW If you really think that any amount of money or commodities can function as capital please let me know and I'll send you 10p and a half a box of nails. You can report back to us all once you have grown a business empire.I have some sympathy for what you are trying to do. I am certainly very suspicious of those who think that Marx should be read through the prism of Hegel.But I read that one of the reasons you started your project was that those high in the party heirarchy where using terminology from "dialectics" to hoodwink lower party minions into doing there bidding. In that case the problem is more one of hierarchical / leninist party models then of "dialectics" per se. I think you have been avoiding the real issue all along…

[DJP]

SPGB wrote:

Dialectics means EvolutionAt the time when Marx was preparing to write his analysis of capitalism, the word "evolution" was not current as an expression covering the process of the development of world capitalism. Although many thinkers recognised that certain changes occurred in nature and history, they had not yet grasped the fact that the process was universal, complementary and unified. They used the expression, "development hypo-thesis," to describe the growth of one form into an-other, within one species. The change from one species into another had not yet been recognised and was to become part of a larger outlook, the evolutionary one.It is significant from this point of view that the word "evolution" does not appear anywhere in the Communist Manifesto, the outlook of which is now recognised as evolutionary. Evolution as an expression covering the comprehensive developmental point of view became recognised with the appearance of Darwin's Origin of Species, in which was proclaimed the theory of organic evolution. This book appeared in 1859, the same year in which Marx's Critique of Political Economy appeared, and by that time Marx had written most of the manuscript that eventually appeared under the title "Capital." Thus most of Marx's important works were either published or in manuscript form before the word "evolution" had become current as the expression of all that is bound up with the process of universal, progressive and unending change, including the mechanism that accomplishes the changes.To the advanced thinkers of Marx's day, "dialectics" signified the science of the process by which change occurred. Since then, dialectical has been replaced by evolutionary and the older word is largely forgotten by all but the out-of-date philosophers living among cobwebs, and the advocates of that modem monstrosity, Russian "Communism." Each scientist is, and must be, an evolutionist in his own field of research, and is therefore, to that extent, a materialist. It is only when he leaves his field, particularly when he looks at society and religion, that he is likely to abandon science and enter the realms of fantasy. The weight of society and traditions, in these particular directions, is heavier than in others because here a scientific outlook is a danger to the existing social arrangements.What Marx and Engels meant by dialectics was made clear in the latter's book, Anti-Duhring, written with the assistance of Marx. In this 'book Engels, when referring to the negation of the negation, and having instanced the growth of a grain of barley to a crop-bearing plant, etc., says: "If I say that all these processes constitute the negation of the negation, I embrace them all under this one law of progress and leave the distinctive features of each special process without particular notice. The dialectic is, as a matter of fact, nothing but the science of the universal laws of motion and evolution in nature, human society and thought." (Landmarks of Scientific Socialism – Anti-Duhring. Kerr edition 1907. p. 173).He further says about modern materialism: "It is in a special sense no philosophy but a single concept of the universe which has to prove and realise itself, not in a science of sciences apart, but in actual science."http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/historical-materialism

The pamphlet then goes on to critise the confused "dialecticians" of the type that Rosa is very correct in critising.

[twc]

SPGB

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

I was responding to ALB’s use of the word ‘phenomenalist ’, not commenting on what Marx had said

ALB’s conflation adequately demonstrates how little the SPGB ever cared for Hegel and dialectics.Intrusion of Dialectics of Nature

Marx (quoted by DJP) wrote:

Here, as in natural science, is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel (in his “Logic”), that merely quantitative differences beyond a certain point pass into qualitative changes.

In light of your novel ironic interpretation [#146] of Marx’s it’s a pity Dietzgen didn’t study Hegel, you might confer an equally ironic interpretation on this explicit intrusion of Hegel into Capital.Do you consider this intrusion of Hegel’s “quantity passing into quality” as:Marx seriously [even if misguidedly] acknowledging HegelMarx incautiously coquetting with Hegelian terminologyMarx ironically mocking HegelEngels’s misguided editorial interference in Marx’s original textMarx fondly slipping Hegel into Capital in defiance of Engels’s prior warnings.Father of Dialectics of NatureWhat you choose to avoid in your campaign against a dialectics of nature is what stares you plainly in the face in this quote — Marx is its materialist originator, and he does so in print a decade before Engels’s Anti-Dühring — before your very eyes.Here, in this intrusion of dialectics of nature into Marx’s meticulously proof-read printer’s sheets, both in German and in French, of Capital Vol. 1, prepared for publication, and overseen through pre-press, by Karl Marx himself, we discover the perpetrator.Here we confront the terrible truth that Karl Marx was the originator — the “onlie begetter” — of a materialist dialectics of nature.This intrusion into Capital of materialist dialectics of nature can in no way be dismissed as thoughts committed only to correspondence or to clarifying notes — that can always be challenged as not representing the author’s considered view.This intrusion of materialist dialectics of nature, midway through his life’s work, published with the sole intent of providing a theoretical basis for toppling capitalism and for instituting socialism in its place, is the first hard documentary evidence we have in print, written by the undisputed founder of the materialist dialectics of nature himself.Rosa, direct your hostility, where it belongs, against the originator of the materialist dialectics of nature, one Karl Heinrich Marx.[Oh dear, oh dear.  What mischief we have to thank Lenin for!]

[ALB]

twc wrote:

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

I was responding to ALB’s use of the word ‘phenomenalist ’, not commenting on what Marx had said

ALB’s conflation adequately demonstrates how little the SPGB ever cared for Hegel and dialectics.

I have already confessed to not having read Hegel. Actually I tell I lie. I have read his Philosophy of History but that was relatively easy to read as it wasn't written by him but by one of his followers from notes his students had taken.As to the Phänomenologie des Geistes, this seems to be, as I thought, more a work of theology than philosophy with the "Spirit" being god. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenomenology_of_Spirit . I can't see what interest such mumbo-jumbo can have for socialists.The reason I have doubts that Marx was referring to this work when he wrote:

Quote:

Marx to Engels 05/01/1882:  “You will see from the enclosed letter from Dietzgen that the unhappy fellow has ‘progressed’ and ‘safely’ arrived at Phänomenologie.  I regard the case as an incurable one.” [MECW 46, p.172.]

is why would he accuse Dietzgen of having arrived at the views in Hegel's work when his criticism of Dietzgen had been that he hadn't studied Hegel?I suggest it makes much more sense to infer that Marx was referring to "phenomenalism",  Phänomenologie being the German word for this. I could be wrong because I don't know if it was current in this sense in German in 1882 when Marx wrote, but Dietzgen's views could be understood as falling into this category.Actually, I was going to ask RL what they thought Marx meant by Phänomenologie in this quote, but deleted it as an unnecessary complication. Maybe I should have. It would also be helpful to know what Marx wrote in the original German and why the translators put the word in italics (if this was done in Moscow or East Berlin that would be significant) and to see what Dietzgen wrote in his letter to Marx (if it survives).

[Anonymous]

I don't think that Marx should have called  Dietzen a Phenomenologist due to the fact that he did not obtain  his understanding of dialectic from Hegel  ( Phenomenology of the Mind and Phenomenology of the spirit ) and also Hegel was no the only philosopher that digged into the concept of dialectic. By reading and studying Hegel I came to the same conclusion as CLR James: There is nothing for us as socialist in the Hegelian philosophy

[Anonymous]

This is how Marxist Humanists and Hegelian have explained what Marx called his dialectic method on the preface of Capital: http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/philosophy-organization/brief-comments-on-the-relationship-between-marxism-and-the-hegelian-dialectic.html

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DJP:

Quote:

You can give whatever rambling answer you like but the evidence is here.

In that case, you must think Marx an imbecile since he manifestly misapplied this 'law'; an increase in the quantity of money, no matter how large it becomes, can't become capital. Only a change in its use (allied with a change in the Mode of Production) can do that. Call that response 'rambling' if you like, but you have no answer to it — that is, other than adhere to an interpretation that means Marx didn't understand Historical Materialism!

Quote:

And there's more but I can't be bothered.

Yes, I've seen all this 'evidence' and it fails to establish what you would like it to establish, so no wonder you 'can't be bothered'.

Quote:

BTW If you really think that any amount of money or commodities can function as capital please let me know and I'll send you 10p and a half a box of nails. You can report back to us all once you have grown a business empire.

That is the exact opposite of what I asserted. But, yes, 10p can become capital if it used to buy shares in a bear market, at rock bottom prices. It can also serve as variable capital for an employer who pays starvation wages.

Quote:

I have some sympathy for what you are trying to do. I am certainly very suspicious of those who think that Marx should be read through the prism of Hegel.But I read that one of the reasons you started your project was that those high in the party heirarchy where using terminology from "dialectics" to hoodwink lower party minions into doing there bidding. In that case the problem is more one of hierarchical / leninist party models then of "dialectics" per se. I think you have been avoiding the real issue all along…

There are many other reasons I set my face aganst this theory other than that. So, no, I have not been 'avoiding' any issues at all.You can read my resons here:http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2001.htm

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

DJP:

Quote:

The pamphlet then goes on to criticise the confused "dialecticians" of the type that Rosa is very correct in critising.

You forgot to mention I also destructively criticise material like this:

Quote:

What Marx and Engels meant by dialectics was made clear in the latter's book, Anti-Duhring, written with the assistance of Marx. In this 'book Engels, when referring to the negation of the negation, and having instanced the growth of a grain of barley to a crop-bearing plant, etc., says: "If I say that all these processes constitute the negation of the negation, I embrace them all under this one law of progress and leave the distinctive features of each special process without particular notice. The dialectic is, as a matter of fact, nothing but the science of the universal laws of motion and evolution in nature, human society and thought." (Landmarks of Scientific Socialism – Anti-Duhring. Kerr edition 1907. p. 173).

Anti-Duhring is one of the very worst books ever to have been written by a leading socialist; I take it apart here:http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2007.htmI also reject the idea that it represents Marx's view — details supplied on request.

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