Re: The 'formalising' of dialectics.

On Jul 6, 12:01=A0pm, stephen <srdiam...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> While Lichtenstein's politics shouldn't prejudice *****sment her
> philosophical analysis's *****sment, we are entitled to our curiosity.
> Her politics are those one should expect of an anti-dialectician. She
> is a former member of the SWP (GB), who resigned to pursue her
> "university project." She is now critical of the SWP from the right.
> Above all, she "hates sectarians."
>
> She writes in an irritating tone, which I mention because in addition
> to her prolixity, it makes her difficult to read. Consider her ad
> hominem remark about Conrad's reply in my preceding post, which
> continued by lamenting Conrad's theoretical level. Her message is not
> 'Conrad transparently fails to answer my arguments' but 'I'm the
> superior philosopher."
>
> srd

Yes she's irritating alright. And taking a look at the Rosa
Lichtenstein / Conrad (Weekly Worker) "entry level" debate she writes
this:

"Engels asserted the following:

[Q]ualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or
subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)=85. 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

Such changes are neither smooth nor gradual:

=2E..[Q]uantitative changes, ac***ulating gradually, lead in the end to
changes of quality, and that these changes of quality represent leaps,
interruptions in gradualness=85. That is how all Nature acts=85.2

And yet, there are many things in nature that undergo smooth
qualitative change -- for example, melting metal, glass, plastic,
butter, toffee and chocolate. Sure, some things change "nodally", but
many do not. So, the "nodal" aspect of this Law is defective.

Unfortunately, this implies that it cannot 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."

=2E........................................................................=
..............................................................

Her remarks are of such inaccuracy and triteness that they make one
wonder how she has the hide to write millions (!) of words presumably
in the same vein - as this is the simplest stuff to deal with - it
could be called "entry level dialectics", sort of sub-Hegelian.

In spite of what she says, all these things "metal, glass, plastic,
butter, toffee and chocolate" do at some point undergo "nodal" changes
at a certain point. Metal (unless an alloy, an element) va****ises,
glass (a compound) if it is cooled undergoes an apparent
solidification, butter (a mixture) caramelises, toffee (a mixture)
carbonizes, chocolate (a mixture) undergoes complex degradation. We
might as well add say ...a tree, a horse.... And even if there were an
exception - an infinite range of melting without an qualitative change
this would prove NOTHING at all against Engels=92 point. He doesn't
claim a one-to-one analogy between any two dialectical processes - let
alone a revolutionary (or for that matter gradualist) process and
simple natural processes - does she think Engels is as ignorant as she
is?

Conrad, though some of what he writes has a satisfying historical
sweep, amazingly doesn't pick up these errors. But he too goes on -
rather in the manner of a dilettante.

Oh for a Marxist philosopher of the calibre of a John Hoffman (Marxism
and the Theory of Praxis) =96 comprehensive and worthy Marxist answer to
the deniers of the nature dialectic or for the social, historical
scholar****p of John Strachey.

Is this the amateur hour?