Re: The 'formalising' of dialectics.

On Jul 1, 7:31 am, rab <rogeralanblackw...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On 30 Jun, 23:26, stephen <srdiam...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jun 30, 9:31 am, rab <rogeralanblackw...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > > It is only by taking a critical attitude to this 'formalising of
> > > dialectics' that we can develop dialectical materialism today but
thi=
s
> > > work doesn't easily fit into the everyday consciousness because in
th=
e
> > > struggle to grasp even works by Hegel the mind tends to 'formalise'
> > > the content in order to understand the logic espoused.  It is
> > > necessary to suspend 'judgement' for a time and just follow the
> > > 'argument' in the order that this 'content' may stimulate new
thought
> > > through contradiction.  Whilst the work of some of those soviet
> > > philosophers may be useful in presenting the 'bare bones' of
> > > dialectical categories and their interconnections it is necessary to
> > > understand the 'active' side of dialectics and the fact that it
> > > develops through struggle.
>
> > There's a reason 9 out of ten times an apst poster invokes a
> > dialectical law, it is the law of the transformation of quantity into
> > quality. It is the only law anyone understands.
>
> > We have a dialectical law described as the "law of the
> > interpenetration of opposites." Neither of the two substantive terms
> > mean much of anything relevant to most people, myself included. Does
> > anyone have a *straightforward* idea of what interpenetration of
> > opposites is, like we all do for quantity/quality?
>
> > Forget formalization. What is needed is explication, built up from our
> > current vernacular, rather than continuing to express these concepts
> > in an archaic Hegelian ideolect. It seems to me that the subjective
> > experience you describe when you suspend judgment resembles the
> > mystical more than the scientific.
>
> > srd
>
> It is fine to use the everyday language of the 21st century but the
> formal logic learned at school and university does not suffice to
> 'understand' dialectics and that is why I wrote about suspending
> judgement not as a thing of faith but keeping the mind open enough to
> learn a new approach to thinking itself.  And I do think that many
> people understand the transformation of something into its opposite,
> the new into the old, the revolutionary party into a counter-
> revolutionary one as with Stalinism etc.
>
> Not all Hegelian concepts and categories are archaic, many remain
> useful in developing critical thought.  I would agree that sometimes
> Healy for instance presented dialectics perhaps too heavily loaded
> with Hegelian concepts and categories for many to understand but it
> will always be a struggle to teach dialectics because it is very much
> an active method of thought rather than a more passive and structured
> one.  Dialectical thought and revolutionary practice go hand in hand
> and will always antagonise the formal scholar.
>
> Roger

I don=92t know why skeptics of dialects like srd insist on turning their
ignorance about dialectics into a universal! =939 out of 10=94 posters on
this apst only understand the principle of quantity into quality but
not the interpenetration of opposites? Does this mean you went back
and looked at all messages on dialectics to reach this conclusion srd?
I doubt it. You later say Hegel=92s concepts are =93archaic=94 and must be
updated. This is the source of your skepticism. Dialects must be
studied to be learned. We may find it difficult that the dialectic was
discovered by a German writing in the obtuse language of German
philosophy of the early 19th century, but these are the conditions
under which it was discovered (in an idealistic way). Once the wheel
is invented, it doesn=92t have to be reinvented.

srd says that most people understand the law of the transformation of
quantity into quality, but not the law of the interpenetration of
opposites. The example in nature of quantity into quality often used
is the changes in matter from solid to liquid to gas. A quantitative
change in temperature causes a qualitative change in the state of
matter.

A similar physical example can be used for the interpenetration of
opposites. First of all temperature is relative. Temperature can only
be truly understood in relation to other states of matter. One hundred
degrees F is hot if we are talking about the weather, but relative to
the surface of the sun it is insignificant.

But further, dialectical logic sees all matter as a process.
Temperature is a quantitative measure, but one reading does not
recognize time. Temperature, when we measure it, is only a moment in a
process. The relative states of hot and cold are opposites, but they
are a unity in conflict when seen as a process. You can=92t have one
without the other if they are seen as a process. Hot depends on a
source of heat, whether the sun, fire, electricity or the metabolism
of warm-blooded animals. When the source of heat is removed the
equilibrium that held hot and cold, which are opposites, in unity even
while in conflict begins to break down. This unity in conflict is the
interpenetration of opposites. The same can be seen in the birth and
death of organisms. Birth and death are a unity in conflict. An
organism begins to die even as it is being born.

Roger correctly points out how people who claim to be Marxists
frequently fall back into formal logic even when discussing
dialectics. I think one of the reasons this is true today is because
Marxists placed much emphasis on Lenin=92s "Philosophical Notebooks" in
the last quarter of the 20th century. This was a book based on Lenin=92s
notes on Hegel=92s "Logic". If "Logic" is all that someone knows about
Hegel, they do not know Hegel. It must not be forgotten that Hegel
came to prominence as a philosopher in his lifetime with
"Phenomenology of Mind". "Logic" came later as a fine-tuning,
correction, and clarification of "Phenomenology". In Phenomenology
Hegel idealistically describes the evolution of sense perception to
the absolute. It is in this process that he began to understand
dialectics in a unified way. His Logic examines the various parts of
thought. Anyone who only knows "Logic" knows the engine of the car,
but "Phenomenology" is needed to know how to drive the car.

An excellent book to read on the subject is Ilynkov=92s 1979 book
"Leninist Dialectics and the Metaphysics of Positivism:
Reflections on V.I. Lenin=92s book, =91Materialism and Empirio-
Criticism".  (http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/positive/
index.htm)  In it he says:

=93But he (Lenin) had perfectly well grasped the essence of Hegelian
Dialectics even earlier. We know that while he was at Shushenskoe (in
1908) he became familiar with the Phenomenology of Spirit, a work
where this essence comes through the text much more clearly, vividly
and concretely than in the texts of the "Science of Logic" or the
"Lectures on the History of Philosophy". The fact that the notes from
this period were not preserved, of course, by no means serves as
sup****t for the interpretations of Garaudy and Petrovic.

While preparing to write a materialistic "Science of Logic" by
retaining everything in Hegel which is truly scientific and not of
passing value, and by rigorously purging the Hegelian logic of
everything in it connected with idealism, he studied, made notes, and
commented on the Hegelian texts at the same time that the cannons of
the first world war were thundering in Europe and the great October
Revolution was reaching maturity.

In 1908 he defended the rightness of the dialectics of Capital,
and he defended its interests in the front lines of the battle for it
=96
along the border that then divided (and now divides) the materialist
dialectics of Marx and Engels from the surrogates which resemble it
on the surface, including belated Hegelianism. This includes idealism
in general as well as the idealist version of dialectics.
Lenin had no doubts that the Machist diversion in the rear lines
of revolutionary Marxism was the direct continuation of the attack on
materialist dialectics begun earlier by E. Bernstein. This is shown in
his note to the article 'Marxism and Revisionism', which concludes the
section of this article devoted especially to philosophy.=94 (p. 23,
24)"

Tom"