Do We Need the Dialectic?

[LBird]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

LB:

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Well, in my opinion, Rosa, you do have an apriori theory!

Well, I'd like t see your proof — bald assertion doesn't quite cut it.

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My proof?You are a human.The only disproof is to admit you're a Turing Test!

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LB:

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But Wittgenstein's sense is apriori to this is discussion.

No, it is also a rule.

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And what if the rest of us are "using "philosophy"/"philosopher" above (in all our posts) in humanity's old sense of that word"?

I'm sorry, but what does that mean?

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You'll eventually isolate yourself from comrades if you insist on using an apriori theory that separates you from them, in terms of understanding.

I think I said earlier that even if I were the only person on the planet who thought this way, that wouldn't worry me in the least. [If I didn't, I'm saying it now.]In fact, just as soon as my ideas gained a sizebale 'following', I'd instantly know I had gone wrong somewhere. After all the ideas of the ruling-class always rule, and they will continue to do so until we get a workers' state.

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Understanding is always social, not individual [more apriori theory from me, I'm afraid!]

No, you are in fact invoking a linguistic rule, and one I happen to agree with.

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LB:

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But… 'rules' come from humans, not the planet Rule.

I agree, whatever made you think I didn't?I'm sorry I have 'lost' you. I did put this at the top of my most important essay:

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Second, this has been one of the most difficult Essays to write, since (1) It tackles issues that have sailed right over the heads of some of the greatest minds in history, and (2) It far from easy to expose the core weaknesses of Traditional Philosophy in everyday language, even though, after well over fifty re-writes, I think I have largely managed to do this.I hasten to add, though, that I claim no particular originality for what follows (except, perhaps its highly simplified mode of presentation and its political re-orientation); much of it has in fact been derived from Wittgenstein's work, and, less importantly, from that of other Wittgensteinians.

http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/page%2012_01.htmI do try to make my ideas accessible, so I have re-written most of my essays over fifty times (no exaggeration!) in order to make them more accessible, since it is part of my approach that if I can't explain myself clearly then not even I understand what I am trying to say!

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My proof?You are a human.The only disproof is to admit you're a Turing Test!

I'm sorry but I fail to see how this is a proof that I have a philosophical theory.

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[LBird]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

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My proof?You are a human.The only disproof is to admit you're a Turing Test!

I'm sorry but I fail to see how this is a proof that I have a philosophical theory.

Sounds a bit like 'Does not compute', Rosa!Perhaps only humans intersperse serious discussion with humour?More seriously, I'll leave this point alone now.I have my beliefs/opinions/theories, and you have yours.Or, you hold to the theory that you don't!

[Young Master Smeet]

1)  I'm not sure that published sources should always take precedence over unpublished, except in assessing what the author's public position was (as in discussion of the question of 'Dictatorship of the proletariat' which pretty much only occurs in letters).  In this case we're looking at what Charlie might have actually thunked about Hegel and his relationship to his methodology.  Thuswise, we can, like good historians take a look at Freddie's letter of 1891:

Fred wrote:

If you just compare the development of the commodity into capital in Marx with the development from Being to Essence in Hegel, you will get quite a good parallel for the concrete development which results from facts; there you have the abstract construction, in which the most brilliant ideas and often very important transmutations, like that of quality into quantity and vice versa, are reduced to the apparent self-development of one concept from another – one could have manufactured a dozen more of the same kind.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1891/letters/91_11_01.htmAnd we're entitled to ask what might have prompted Fred's choice of that example.  We can ask (and go no further than asking) whether maybe when Charlie had talked the book over with him that he had made the same point to illustrate the ideas that we know from other correspondence Fred was having a hard time getting a handle on.  Now, of course, the choice chould be Fred's on it's own, but we are entitled to put it into the hearsay column.2) The letter was still written after Capital was published, and so does shed some light on Charlie's thinking about it.3)

Young Mistress Luxemburg wrote:

In this summary, there is no trace of Hegel whatsoever, and yet he still calls it 'my method' and 'the dialectic method'.

Dialectical method.  Indeed.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LB: an iterpretative rule is a rule we use to interpret something — a body of text, an observation, an hypothesis…So, when, for example, Newton  tells us that the rate of change of momentum is proportional to the applied force, he isn't stating a fact (otherwise it could be false, but if that were so, its falsehood would change the meaning of 'force', and it would thus be about something other than the subject of his Second Law!), but proposing/establishing an interpretative rule that can be used to study acceleration, among other things.We then use this rule to interpret/understand the world around us.Same with my suggested rule (which isn't mine, anyway; it is used in the Arts all the time) that published work takes precedence over unpublished material when it comes to ascertaining an author's views.No one has to accept this rule, but I'd like to see good reason why it should be rejected/ignored.

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

YMS:

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1)  I'm not sure that published sources should always take precedence over unpublished, except in assessing what the author's public position was (as in discussion of the question of 'Dictatorship of the proletariat' which pretty much only occurs in letters).  In this case we're looking at what Charlie might have actually thunked about Hegel and his relationship to his methodology.  Thuswise, we can, like good historians take a look at Freddie's letter of 1891:

Ok, but I am not saying that unpublsihed material should be ignored, ony that when an author publishes something, it has plainly been the result of considered thought. Letters aren't subject to such careful vetting.But what of your example?

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as in discussion of the question of 'Dictatorship of the proletariat' which pretty much only occurs in letters).

But, this isn't at all the same, since what Marx and/or Engels might have said in letters about this topic does not contradict (as far as I am aware) what they said in published work.This isn't so with all the unpublished letters comrades have quoted — they do seem to contradict the summary Marx published in the Postface.Now, if comrades want to consider such letters as taking precedence, fine. But, in that case they will be ignoring what Marx actually published, and that can't be wise, and for the reasons I noted above.Anyway these letters fail to support the view that many comrades have asserted of them. For example, the one you quoted:

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He knows full well that my method of exposition is not Hegelian, since I am a materialist, and Hegel an idealist. Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after being stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method.

So, after everything Hegelian has been removed, the husk that remains is 'the basic form' of the dialectic.And what is that form? Well, Marx told us in the Postface — i.e., the summary I have referred to many times, the one that has had everything Hegelian excised, and yet it is still 'the dialectic method', according to Marx.Or are you going to ignore what he said in the Postface?So, you see that letter offers you no support, even if you consider it takes precedence.Oddly enough, you then quote Engels:

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If you just compare the development of the commodity into capital in Marx with the development from Being to Essence in Hegel, you will get quite a good parallel for the concrete development which results from facts; there you have the abstract construction, in which the most brilliant ideas and often very important transmutations, like that of quality into quantity and vice versa, are reduced to the apparent self-development of one concept from another – one could have manufactured a dozen more of the same kind.

How that helps us decide what Marx thought isn't too clear.

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2) The letter was still written after Capital was published, and so does shed some light on Charlie's thinking about it.

Indeed, as I noted in my earlier reply to you; but see my comment about this letter, above.

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Dialectical method.  Indeed.

As I have pointed out many times in this thread, the question isn't whether or not Marx used a 'dialectical method', but what  he meant by this phrase.Well, we needn't speculate, since he told us — in that summary — and it contains not one atom of Hegel, but he still called it 'my method' and 'the dialectic method'.So, according to Marx –, not me, Marx –, his 'method' —  'the dialectic method' he used — contains not one atom of Hegel, as I have alleged all along.

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LB:

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Sounds a bit like 'Does not compute', Rosa!

Well, unless you can explain how and why this is a proof, it doesn't 'compute' even for you.

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Or, you hold to the theory that you don't!

I think you have confused a challenge, made by me to you, with a 'theory'.

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ALB:

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In any event, the famous 1873 Postface to the Second German edition ofCapital you keep relying on shows a certain respect for Hegel (describing himas a "that mighty thinker" and "the first to present its [the dialectic's]general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner". Of courseMarx didn't agree with Hegel's "Idealism" and Capital is indeed aHegelian-Idealism-free zone. But whoever said it wasn't?

He didn't actually say this — you have left out a few rather significant phrases.Anyway, I have covered this point already, in Post #196, on page 20, in answer to DJP:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/do-we-need-dialectic?page=19#comment-9475

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[Young Master Smeet]

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Same with my suggested rule (which isn't mine, anyway; it is used in the Arts all the time) that published work takes precedence over unpublished material when it comes to ascertaining an author's views.

It's not an unreasonable rule of thumb, a published work can be presumed to be more carefully worded.  However, where there is a lack of clarity in the published works, private corresponendence can provide supplementary evidence (or can be used to show how the published version was arrived at).  In this case, the private work might well say cover slightly different ground.

[ALB]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

This isn't so with all the unpublished letters comrades have quoted — they do seem to contradict the summary Marx published in the Postface.

Another concession to the facts. They certainly do "seem" to contradict your argument (that Marx completely abandoned and contradicted Hegel), but they don't contradict what he wrote in the 1873 Postface. They help explain it: that Marx wasn't a full-blooded Hegelian but that he took something from him and was prepared to recognise this. A bit like you with regard to Wittgenstein and linguistic philosophy.

[Young Master Smeet]

ISTR Kautsky argued that Charlie never used the phrase DoP in a published work (tangent, I know, but it is thus a good example of the time when we need to weight published/unpublished).  Now,

Charlie wrote:

Hegel’s dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic

This could be a translation problem, this can be read in two subtly different ways:Hegel discovered/created/found the basic dialectic, his is the standard.His dialectic was the one that pre-existed him, he used the basic method.Given as he says in the postface

Carlos wrote:

The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner.

it's the former.  It's a bit like saying that a footballers style of play is the basic form, when stripped of her pre-match rituals (crossing herself, folding her kit, etc.).  It's still football if Marx plays the same game without the mystical trappings.I explicitly explained how my quote from Fred could give us an insight into Charlie's thunks.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

YMS:

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It's not an unreasonable rule of thumb, a published work can be presumed to be more carefully worded.  However, where there is a lack of clarity in the published works, private corresponendence can provide supplementary evidence (or can be used to show how the published version was arrived at).  In this case, the private work might well say cover slightly different ground.

I agree, but where the unpublished source contradicts the published source, the latter must take precedence.

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

YMS, quoting the Posface:

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The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner.

Once again, I covered this in post #196, on page 20:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/do-we-need-dialectic?page=19#comment-9475

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[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ALB:

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Another concession to the facts. They certainly do "seem" to contradict your argument (that Marx completely abandoned and contradicted Hegel), but they don't contradict what he wrote in the 1873 Postface. They help explain it: that Marx wasn't a full-blooded Hegelian but that he took something from him and was prepared to recognise this. A bit like you with regard to Wittgenstein and linguistic philosophy.

As I havs said several times, and it looks I migth have to repeat it several more: I begin with the only summary of 'the dialectic method' Marx published and endorsed in his entire life, and interpret the rest of what he said in the light of this.So, yes, Marx did take 'something' from Hegel: a few jargonised expressions with which he merely wished to 'coquette'. That is the sum total of what Marx himself admits he took from Hegel — a non-serious use of some of his jargon. Hardly a ringing endorsement.Now, if you can find a passage, written and published by Marx after January 1873, that tells us that Marx owed this or that to Hegel, you might have a point. But, since you can't — as there isn't one — you don't. 

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A bit like you with regard to Wittgenstein and linguistic philosophy

It's nothing like me  and Wittgenstein's method. I am happy to go on record and declare the massive debt I owe to Wittgenstein, and publish this openly, as I have done. Marx didn't do this with respect to Hegel.

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They certainly do "seem" to contradict your argument

In fact, they contradict what Marx told us about the 'dialectic method' in his most important work!So, it's not what I say, or what I argue, it's what Marx himself says!You seem to want to ignore this highly significant fact.

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