Re: The 'formalising' of dialectics.

On Jun 30, 9:31=A0am, 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 this
> work doesn't easily fit into the everyday consciousness because in the
> struggle to grasp even works by Hegel the mind tends to 'formalise'
> the content in order to understand the logic espoused. =A0It 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. =A0Whilst 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.

I think I may see your point now. In my terms, the "laws" of
dialectics are permissive rather than prohibitive. A equals A, by
contrast--like scientific laws--is prohibitive, in that a cannot be
anything other than A. But is not calling dialectical principles
"laws," then, somewhat misleading? Human laws may be permissive, an
application that furnished the idea for this distinction. Natural laws
are not. Dialectics may be said to be abstracted from nature, but they
don't describe lawful natural patterns, since such description is
necessarily prohibitive.

srd