Marx and dialectic
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Wez wrote:I can see it would be pointless in continuing a debate with you Ms. Lichtenstein as you are contemptuous of any ideas you don't agree with. This forum is a strange place. I've been informed here that Marx was not a materialist and now that he was not a philosopher – it's like a parallel universe. At least the old boy would be pleased that we're still talking about him – whatever he was or was not. I still believe that without Kant and Hegel there would be no Marx and that politics is a synthesis of economics, history, science and philosophy. I take my leave of you before the moderator gets me.
we have not said that Marx was not a philosopher. He was a doctor in phylosophy. ( Dr. Marx) but he came to the conclusion was the ideas of the ruling class and he also called It the German. Ideology and also told to engels to political economy was a trash. It was who reduced marx to three parts and three components . Marx was not more revolutionary than anybody else or than us either and without him socialism would have existed as a theory. Like it is in our time
TK:"I've obviously hit a nerve there, haven't I. Perhaps it's a nerve that's been hit before. It seems to me (which is why I use the traditional working class tactic of taking the piss) that you (and L Bird) take yourselves just a little too seriously."In other words I was right when I posted this comment:"So, other than abuse, you dont have anything useful to add."Still nothing worthwhile from you, then.And, for your information, I am a worker, and up until recently I was a trade union rep (unpaid)."Perhaps I can put it another way. When you are being evicted from your home, when you are about to lose you job, when you are faced with the news that you will probably have to work until you are in your seventies before you can afford to even think about retirement, when you lie awake worried about debts, when you cannot make the bills balance at the end of the month, in short when capitalism is shitting all over you. Philosophy , the dialectic, epistemology, etc. are not the topics that fill your mind."I struggle to see what this has got to do with anything I have posted here. Perhaps you need to look up the meaning of "relevant"? However, I'm an anti-philosopher and regard epistemolgy as a bogus disciplne. It might be a good idea to check your facts before you shoot your mouth off in future, sunshine."The traditional Trotskyist/Leninist approach of producing long winded tracts about angels on pin heads, designed to do nothing but bolster the egos of the authors, does nothing but obscure the real Socialist task, that is putting forward the case for a Socialist transformation of society."I suppose you think Das Kapital is also a "long winded tract about angels on pin heads, designed to do nothing but bolster the ego of the author"?"If the hot air, you and your fellow Trotskyist obscurantists, put into discussing arcane disputes from the past, could be used effectively in communicating the urgent need to change the social system which is destroying our planet, killing our children and blighting the lives of millions of humans, then perhaps we would be closer to achieving that goal."Again: what is it with you abstract propagandists? Are you totally incapable of remaining on-topic?"You mistake lack of interest in what you are saying, with lack of knowledge of the subject matter. I have the former, but not the latter. However if it makes me ignorant, to view your petty self esteem building activities as contemptuous (I mean calling yourself Rosa Lichtenstein, no signs of bigging yourself up there, is there), I plead ignorance, glorious, glorious ignorance."And, if I may say so, you are particularly good at displaying your ignorance in public, too."All due disrespect? I take your disrespect as a badge of honour."What was that again about 'ignorance is bliss'?
And Vin's high quality, intellectually sound response convinces me that the SPGB has some first rate minds about which it can rightly be proud.I am clearly out of my depth, here.
I agree with Rosa that published works are to be preferred, but we can read a little deeper than that. I've noticed in letters, Engels writes to Marx about dialectic, there is no evidence of a rebuttal from Marx, from what I can see. Also, the comments come in the form that read, to me at least, as if they presuppose a shared undrstanding.But, there are letters from Marx also:
Marx wrote:At the Museum, where I did nothing but glance through catalogues, I also discovered that Dühring is a great philosopher. For he has written a Natural Dialectic against Hegel's "unnatural" one. Hence these tears. The gentlemen in Germany (all except the theological reactionaries) think Hegel's dialectic is a "dead horse." Feuerbach has much to answer for in this respect.Ambiguous and open to inerpretation, but a legitimate reading is one of of scorn for those who see a dead horse.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_01_11-abs.htm
Marx wrote:He knows very well that my method of development is not Hegelian, since I am a materialist and Hegel is an idealist. Hegel's dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after it has been stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_03_06-abs.htm"Basic form of all dialectic" is pretty hard for Rosa to explain away, in the light of the preface from the German edition of Capital, previously cited. Also, one for Lbird, Marx again describing himself as a materialist.And, of course, we can take some legitimate inference that some of Engels' writigns on dialectic were published in Marx' lifetime.I stress, I'm not a fan of dialectic per se, and a lot of mystifying rubbish has been written, but still.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Also, one for Lbird, Marx again describing himself as a materialist.Yes, and I've explained why, and what he means in relation to Hegel, in very small words, just for you, time and time again.After that explanation, which says that 'Marx called himself a materialist', I've got no idea why you ignorantly persist in thinking that you parroting 'But Marx called himself a materialist' is some sort of intellectual rebuttal of what I've said.I'm going to leave it to Rosa L to take on the considerable burden of trying to explain anything to the SPGB, because I'm tired of talking to cloth ears.
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:And Vin's high quality, intellectually sound response convinces me that the SPGB has some first rate minds about which it can rightly be proud.I am clearly out of my depth, here.
This sounds like the Trotskyist argument that you need great minds to lead the masses to socialism.
LBird wrote:Yes, and I've explained why, and what he means in relation to Hegel, in very small words, just for you, time and time again.After that explanation, which says that 'Marx called himself a materialist', I've got no idea why you ignorantly persist in thinking that you parroting 'But Marx called himself a materialist' is some sort of intellectual rebuttal of what I've said.I'm going to leave it to Rosa L to take on the considerable burden of trying to explain anything to the SPGB, because I'm tired of talking to cloth ears.And I'm going to keep parroting it at you, because, Humpty, words mean what they mean, Marx did not qualify it 'in relation to Hegel' he repeatedly described himself as a materialist, at least once in public, her certainly never said 'idealist-materialist'. If he had meant 'not an idealist' he would have said so. Given in the German preface he disowned his coquetting with Hegelian phraseology, we do have to call into question some of that earlier philosophy.I'm afraid it is a rebuttal to qhat you have said, and a strong one: Marx was a self professed (unqualified) materialist, who also believed in disinterested scientific method.
YMS — we went over much of this back in 2013, as I have already pointed out to you. Do we really have to go over it all again?Seems so.1) "I've noticed in letters, Engels writes to Marx about dialectic, there is no evidence of a rebuttal from Marx, from what I can see. Also, the comments come in the form that read, to me at least, as if they presuppose a shared understanding."In fact, Marx made it quite clear what he meant by 'the dialectic method' in a summary he added to the Postface to the second edition — a summary Engels not only saw, he ensured it was re-published in subsequent editions — I posted it several times back in 2013, and again earlier in this thread. You seem to want to ignore it, as you and others did back then, too.Why is that?As you have also had pointed out to you many times, this was the only summary of 'the dialectic method' Marx published and endorsed in his entire life. What is more, it contains not one atom of Hegel (upside down, or 'the right way up'), and yet Marx (not me, Marx) called it 'the dialectic method' and 'my method'.As I have also pointed out, I begin with this statement by Marx about what his method and 'the dialectic method' amounted to, and I interpret everything else in that light — until, that is, you, or someone else, can come up with another summary of 'the dialectic method', written, published or endorsed by Marx contemporaneous with or subsequent to the passage published in the Postface (i.e .,1873 or after), that informs us that he accepted or agreed with Engels's view of 'the dialectic'.Now, I put this to you over three years ago, so you have had ample time to locate this missing summary. Why have you not spent your time more wisely?But, what about your claim that Marx didn't reject, rebut or refute Engels's comments? Well, we will have to take each letter on its own merits, and note the date when it was written (I also pointed this out to you in 2013; why do I have to make this point yet again?). If it was written before 1873, when the Postface was published/written, then it manifestly can't represent Marx's latest or more considered views (as they were clearly expressed in the Postface), and hence it can't be relevant to the matter in hand.This brings us to the first letter you quoted:2) "At the Museum, where I did nothing but glance through catalogues, I also discovered that Dühring is a great philosopher. For he has written a Natural Dialectic against Hegel's "unnatural" one. Hence these tears. The gentlemen in Germany (all except the theological reactionaries) think Hegel's dialectic is a "dead horse." Feuerbach has much to answer for in this respect."This was written in 1868, so, as I have pointed out many times, it isn't relevant.3) The second letter you quote was also written in1868, so it, too, is irrelevant.4) "And, of course, we can take some legitimate inference that some of Engels' writings on dialectic were published in Marx' lifetime."Which writings did you have in mind? Anti-Dühring? [If so, I have an answer to that, too.]So, can you please stop quoting letters written before 1873? You will only be wasting your time, and mine.
Has anyone ever seen L Bird and Rosa Lichtenstein in the same room together? Could it be that they are…………..?
Rodmanlewis:"This sounds like the Trotskyist argument that you need great minds to lead the masses to socialism."And where exactly did Trotsky (or any prominent Trotskyist) argue this?
TK: "Has anyone ever seen L Bird and Rosa Lichtenstein in the same room together?Could it be that they are…"Still struggling with the word "relevant", I see.
Tim Kilgallon wrote:Has anyone ever seen L Bird and Rosa Lichtenstein in the same room together? Could it be that they are…………..?1st warning: 1. The general topic of each forum is given by the posted forum description. Do not start a thread in a forum unless it matches the given topic, and do not derail existing threads with off-topic posts.
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:And Vin's high quality, intellectually sound response convinces me that the SPGB has some first rate minds about which it can rightly be proud.I am clearly out of my depth, here.
I don't think laughing is restricted to people with low IQsWhat Tim said about you and LBird was funny. So I laughed.If that reveals a lack of knowledge and intellegence, well that's new to me.I have wasted enough time arguing with LBird. I and other members of this forum have over the years shown his argument to be based on strawmen and his idea that the world's population should vote on string theory and every other scientific theory is just plain silly.
Vin:"I don't think laughing is restricted to people with low IQs What Tim said about you and LBird was funny. So I laughed. If that reveals a lack of knowledge and intellegence, well that's new to me."Fair enough!
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:If it was written before 1873, when the Postface was published/written, then it manifestly can't represent Marx's latest or more considered views (as they were clearly expressed in the Postface), and hence it can't be relevant to the matter in hand.Well I'd disagree such letters are inadmissible, certainly, the published afterword to Capital is a strong source (indeed, there isn't much in those letters I quoted that seems at variance with the afterword, Marx acknowldges in the afterword "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." (my emphasis added). It s valid to look at the works of Marx passim for legitimate inferences we can make, in how he worked, etc.Anyway, do tell about Auntie Duhring (and Charlie's foreword to Socialism Utopian etc.). I'll agree, argument from silence isn't strong, but it is valid.
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