That is the point - he is not engaged in what you refer to when you talk about science. He is engaged in something quite different - which is cross referencing different scientific disciplines to find common thematic issues recurring among them, notwithstanding the different subject matters. His methodologies are short cuts, rules of thumb, devices to highlight faultlines in science which would, in due course be overcome by the development of science itself. But he wants to anticipate aspects of those developments for polemical purposes, or rather he wants to show that Marx has only used dialectical concepts to anticipate and that Marx has not been engaged in any sort of dogmatic thinking.

Worth recalling that Darwin was actually a laughing stock to many. He failed to define what a species was and he failed to explain how this evolutionary process he postulated could have happened. His book is profoundly unclear and speculative.....and not withstanding that it is one of the great works of science. Because what it does is to take a supposition, which had been around for over a century, turn it into a more complex but still unclear hypothesis and draw in some inductive evidence that tended to support that hypothesis.

I can only repeat my reference to inconvenient facts - it has not consistently presided, it is not a single body of theory and the period has not been one of 'almost total failure' but rather a mixture of incredible success and disastrous decline.

That is not dogmatism in my book. Dogmatism involves the reliance on a priori principles to draw conclusions that involve empirical claims. Speculatively dentifying a pattern and formulating a suggestion as to a commonality deriving form this pattern is not dogmatism. If that were the case, the concept of dark energy would be dogmatic.

What is adequate evidence for anything is one of the great unknowables both in science and common discourse. It fluctuates depending on what we want to believe and what we can find out. It is determined by the historical, social and political character of the moment. It is not given or known, but constantly fought over. Engels is a communist, engaged in a particular polemical task. It is that which determines the level of detail he requires. I argue, for example that the level of detail he uses in his carbon example is quite sufficient for the given purpose of polemicising against Duhring.

YOu treat it as homogenous by quoting indiscriminately from works published often 100 years apart by people who represent the communist tradition and people who have betrayed that tradition, without regard to those differences.

Gil:

Ah, more special pleading.

What I have alleged is that he is an a priori dogmatist and that he engages in Mickey Mouse Science in the way he appeals to specially-selected examples to try to illustrate his bogus 'laws'.

And, the way he words things -- his selectivity, his attempt to superimpose his 'laws' on the phenomena (ignoring the many cases where they do not fit) -- makes him even an incompetent Mickey Mouse Scientist, as well as showing these are not 'rules of thumb' -- a phrase he never uses. He uses the word 'law'.

And, I'd like to see you try to apply your comments to his words on mathematics -- a topic you keep ducking, and with good reason.

I am not sure it is correct to describe the reaction to Darwin a being 'laughed at'. Sure some bigots will have done this. But his ideas, even though derided, were taken very seriously. And that is because of the evidence and argument he presented.

But, even if he had been 'laughed at', this was not for lack of evidence (the main gripe was that he was challenging Genesis and that his theory of inheritance was incoherent). Had he been guilty of that, had he failed to produce adequate evidence, and had he been as sloppy as Engels, he'd still be a laughing stock among scientists to this day.

Sure, Darwin failed to define many things -- but Engels defined absolutely nothing at all. And, sure, there are places in the work where Darwin is speculative, and expresses doubts. But, that is what makes him non-dogmatic. For he does what Engels does not; he examines difficult cases, attempts a solution and admits where he cannot fully account for something.

Engels just ploughs on, considers none of the difficulties his 'laws' face, and even attempts to impose them on mathematics!

1) Where have I said it was a "single body of theory"?

2) The Church of Rome has presided over 1500 or more years of European Christianity, in the sense that it has been the dominant institutional and intellectual form, but that does not mean that in has overwhelmed every area of Christianity, and at all times. That is the sense of 'presided over' I was using.

3) Nevertheless, dialectics has presided over 150 years of revolutionary (but not necessarily revisionist/reformist, i.e., Second International) Marxism -- that is undeniable.

4) What successes? 1917 is the only one I can think of and that was reversed pretty quickly. Can you point to any others?

Not necessarily; dogmatism in philosophy is the assertion of a priori theses -- something philosophers have been doing on and off now for 2400 years. And that is exactly what Engels does.

Sure, some then try to do things with such theses, but that merely compounds their dogmatism, it does not constitute it.

Indeed, it is dogmatic; the difference is that scientists' theories are sensitive to evidence, whereas dialectics is not.

I suggest you go into the university library and check out, say, the journal Nature. There you will see the kind of evidence that scientists count as adequate/inadequate.

What you will not find is the sort of Mickey Mouse Science that seems to impress Engels -- and you.

And I agree with you that science is a historical process, and that it is open to social negotiation, but that does not affect the argument. This is because, when that negotiation is over (for whatever reason), the evidence scientists require to establish a new principle and/or law is extensive, overwhelming, clear and well-defined.

Totally different from dialectics where it seems that a few paragraphs of trite, anecdotal or third-hand data (often mis-described) is all one needs.

Not so; I quote passages from later comrades who are openly alluding/referring back to the 'classics'.

That does not imply I think dialectics is homogenous (although in many areas it is fixed like the Platonic forms), only that it is to many revolutionaries; they will not allow it to change (they even call such an attempt 'Revisionism').

However, you must not misinterpret my method of engaging with the dialectical Neanderthals here with my own views. I quote the classics at them to show that they do not even know their own theory.

My Essays are more nuanced.

Can the last one to leave this thread please turn out the lights?

Thank you.

The Management. x

Only takes two Bob.....and sometimes only one

Dont be so worried about the environment, this bit of electricity spent wont kill the planet - but ignorance will.

QUOTE]Where have I said it was a "single body of theory"?[/quote]

Its not a matter of you having 'said' it, its a matter of how you treat it. Time and again in your essays I have seen you make a point and then illustrate it with a series of quotations taken from across that 150 years, that is treating it as one single body.

However, I hear you say

But if you follow that through your polemic is going to become a lot more complex and difficult to sustain. That is part of the point of my emphasis on the specific reality of Anti Duhring.

Well as we discussed, that word had a differnet meaning for him than it has for you....and Newton.

NO Engels does the opposite, his view is that if his examples dont work, his conclusion does not work. Thus, the part of your argument he would take seriously is the attempt to come up with examples that dont fit his laws.

The one within which Engels lived is the most important one - namely the building of the German SPD and the Second International and the election of socialist deputies to every parliament in Europe in the 19th century.

'Undeniable'.....sound a bit a priori that, Rosa. I have denied it: dialectics played little role in the first fifty years of that 150.

Well I thnk not. Not so sure there is such thing as an a priori thesis. There is of course such a thing as an analytic thesis. But it is the method of proof, not the thesis, that is a priori. The affirmation of general claims is not dogmatic just because they are general in character.

Indeed, but you wont find many articles in Nature on Communism....the practice of communism within capitalist societies - the scientific discipline of communism requires different standards, which include the use of vaguer and more provisional theses, which cut across the the structures of science allowed by capitalism. These standards are not worse, but different. In the same way that at other stages of the development of even the natural sciences, other levels of clarity and proof applied

Want to go into what I think is the key point. I pick Essay Two at random.

From Essay Two, Rosa, you argue the following, beginning with a quote from Engels:.

"...."Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically." [Engels (1892), pp.407, repeated in Engels (1976), p.28.] To this," Rosa goes on "may be added the following comment: "Dialectics…prevails throughout nature…. [T]he motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites…determines the life of nature." [Engels (1954), p.211. Bold emphases added.]

Rosa immediately objects: " But, how could Engels possibly have known all of this? How could he have known that nature does not operate "metaphysically", say, in distant regions of space and time, way beyond the edges of the known Universe of his day? Indeed, how could he have been so sure that, for example, there are no changeless objects anywhere in the entire universe?4 How could he have been so certain that the "life of nature" is in fact the result of a "conflict of opposites" -- or that some processes (in the whole of reality, for the whole of time) were not governed by non-dialectical factors? Where is his "carefully" collected evidence about every object and event in nature, past, present and future?5

Notice that Engels did not say that "all the evidence collected" up until his day supported these contentions, or that "those parts of the world of which scientists" of his day were aware behaved in the way he indicated; he just referred to nature tout court, without qualification (i.e., "throughout nature" and "everywhere in nature"). In line with other DM-theorists, Engels signally failed to inform his readers of the whereabouts of the large finite set of "careful observations" upon which these wild generalisations had been based.

To be sure, he did say that nature itself confirms DM, but that looks more like a manifesto claim than a summary of the evidence -- especially if the 'evidence' he actually bothered to produce does not in fact support his theses, as we will see in later Essays."


Now the obvious question is if Engels had said 'all evidence collected', would this solve the problem ? As I read your essay, Rosa, you are saying that that would not solve the problem. Indeed, you go on to argue that denials of the a priori nature of the claims made by Engels and the insistence on its reliance on evidence are of no effect as they are contradicted by his supposed practice.

You immediately goes on to the following ( I delete the non Anti Duhring quotes):


" And Engels didn't stop there; he made equally bold statements about other fundamental aspects of nature:

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted….

"A motionless state of matter therefore proves to be one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas…." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases added.]

[.........]

Once more, Engels forgot to say how he knew all these things were true. For example, how could he possibly have known that:

"Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself…." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases added.]

Your key argument in all this is the epistemological argument that certain things cannot be known, rather than the empirical argument that Engels actually failed to make clear that his conclusions were based on evidence collected. You emphasise that again and again. For example, once again relying on Anti Duhring:


And Engels didn't stop there; he made equally bold statements about other fundamental aspects of nature:

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted….

"A motionless state of matter therefore proves to be one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas…." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases added.]

[.........]

Once more, Engels forgot to say how he knew all these things were true. For example, how could he possibly have known that:

"Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself…." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases added.]

The argument about why Engels caveats along the lines of ..all evidence collected..... dont work is therefore the critical one. Rosa has another go at it in the following:

"From recently published Preparatory Writings for Anti-Dühring, we find the following seemingly reasonable comment from Engels:

"The general results of the investigation of the world are obtained at the end of this investigation, hence are not principles, points of departure, but results, conclusions. To construct the latter in one's head, take them as the basis from which to start, and then reconstruct the world from them in one's head is ideology, an ideology which tainted every species of materialism hitherto existing.... As Dühring proceeds from "principles" instead of facts he is an ideologist, and can screen his being one only by formulating his propositions in such general and vacuous terms that they appear axiomatic, flat. Moreover, nothing can be concluded from them; one can only read something into them...." [ Marks and Engels (1987), Volume 25, p.597. Italic emphases in the original.]

And yet, on the same page we find Engels doing the very thing he has just accused Dühring of doing:

[Seems to be a quote missing here in Essay Two - GH]

And yet, as we will see, Engels is himself guilty of doing precisely what he has just accused Dühring of doing.

[......] "

Rosa,you then go on to quote one Jack Conrad from the Weekly Worker in a way which brings out this key argument:
" Here is another recent example:

"Engels unashamedly bases himself on Georg Hegel (1770-1831). But - and it is a big but - he set out to put the great philosopher onto his feet. Whereas Hegel idealistically developed the dialectic 'as mere laws of thought', Engels insisted that it is rooted in, and must be deduced from, the underlying dialectic found in the world of matter itself....

"Engels emphasises that it would be entirely wrong to crudely read the dialectic into nature. The dialectic has to be discovered in nature and evolving out of nature....

"Of course, that does not mean we should impose some a priori dialectical construct upon nature. The dialectic, as Engels explains time and again, has to be painstakingly discovered in nature....

"Engels did not make the laws of nature dialectical. He tried, on the contrary, to draw out the most general dialectical laws from nature. Not force artificial, preconceived, inappropriate notions onto nature." [Jack Conrad, Weekly Worker, 30/08/07. Bold emphasis added.]

And yet, on the same page Conrad then says this:

"Engels moves on to discuss dialectical categories such as necessity and chance, essence and appearance, causality and interaction, freedom and necessity. Formal and dialectical logic are also touched upon and shown to have a relationship. Dialectical logic is, needless to say, far superior. Like the moving image of film compared to a single-frame photograph. Dialectical logic grasps totality, interconnection, movement and the constancy of change." [Ibid.]

But, this all certainly looks "preconceived" (as indeed it was --by earlier mystics, including Hegel). As we have seen, Engels was perfectly happy to impose his 'Laws' on nature. "

Rosa your phrase here "...all certainly looks..." is indicative of an issue. If Engels is being charged with being inconsistent, then a substantial argument must be made. Is it a matter of him having merely placed the caveats in a separate part of his text than the generalisations ? Is it a matter of the wording of the generalisations ? Is the conclusion based merely on the fact that he uses words like 'law' and 'unthinkable' ?

Here is another text from Essay Two which relies on reference to the Anti Duhring and which takes up this issue.

"Having said that, the author of GOD makes all the usual moves, readily imposing dialectics on nature, and failing to ask of his 'theory' the sorts of questions raised at this site. Indeed, as far as I can determine, he does not even bother to cover his rear and argue that DM must grow from a patient examination of the evidence. It's apriorism then straight out of the starting blocks!

A few weeks after writing the above, however, I discovered this comment:

"'Not a single principle of dialectics can be converted into an abstract schema from which, by purely logical means, it would be possible to infer the answer to concrete questions. These principles are a guide to activity and scientific research, not a dogma.'" [Gollobin (1986), p.409, quoting the Soviet Encyclopedia.]

And several pages later he even quotes Engels:

"And finally, to me there could be no question of building the laws of dialectics into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from it...." [Engels (1976), p.13, quoted in Gollobin (1986), p.414. Bold emphasis added.]

Without a hint of irony, Gollobin then quotes a passage from Engels where the latter does the opposite of what he has just said:

"Nature is the proof of dialectics, and it must be said for modern science that it has furnished this proof with very rich materials increasing daily, and thus has shown that, in the last resort, nature works dialectically and not metaphysically." [Engels (1976), p.28, quoted in Gollobin (1986), p.414. Bold emphasis added.]

Hence, it is quite clear that Gollobin is either blind to the fact that Engels has imposed this view on nature, or he is being deliberately disingenuous. But, how could Engels possibly have known that nature works dialectically -- and not metaphysically --, say, in parts of the universe that the scientists of his day had not studied? It is quite clear that he could not possibly have known this, but he was quite happy to "build" this view into nature.As we are about to see, Gollobin is equally happy to do the same."

Now this seems to me inadequately clear. Rosa, you contrast 'discovering them [dialectical laws - GH] in it [nature - GH]' on the one hand and on the other hand proving dialectics by reference to nature. Now, it is not at all clear that these are opposite/contradictory approaches. If I say that I discover the laws of evolution by experiment on fruitflys and that I prove the laws of evolution by experiments on fruitflies, I seem not to be making to contrary statements but rather two similar statements. Thus if Engels say he discovers the laws of dialectics in nature and then says that proves laws of dialectics by reference to nature....he seems to be making similar rather than opposed claims. And yet in your text you use a quote about using nature as the proof of dialectics to show that Engels supposedly does the opposite to what he has just claimed when he says he discovers the laws of dialectics in nature.

We see the same issue, maybe better presented, in your discussion of another writer (and by the way I dont share Sean Sayers views and have never read Gollobin, though I have Bhagavan, to whom, if I understand you, you link him ):

"Here is Sean Sayers's impressive bid to join this ancient and conservative philosophical club -- but, first we note the (by now) familiar, almost de rigueur, disarming declaration, followed by its prompt abrogation:

"Dialectical materialism diverges from Hegelian dialectic at this point. Marx's dialectic is not an a priori deduction, but a summary of human knowledge. 'Nature is proof of dialectics' [Engels (1976), p.28] according to Engels. Colletti, Popper and company do not understand this. Their constant refrain is that dialectics is an a priori dogma….

"No doubt dialectical materialism can be used as a set of dogmatic principles from which to deduce things. But Marxists have been at pains to stress that dialectical materialism is not a universal formula which may be applied to generate significant conclusions a priori….

"Correctly understood, dialectical materialism is not a dogma. Indeed, it is rather Popper, Colletti and other such critics of dialectic who show themselves to be dogmatists by the terms of their criticisms. For they merely assert their philosophy, embodied in the principles of formal logic, and when confronted with the dialectical concept of contradiction reject it as 'absurd', and 'irrational' for failing to conform to formal logic.

"Philosophy and logic can never replace the need for a detailed investigation of the concrete and particular conditions under study. They can never replace the need for the fullest possible practical experience; and no philosophy makes this point more forcibly than dialectical materialism. According to it, philosophy is not a body of merely conceptual, logical or a priori truths. Philosophy has a twofold character: it summarizes, at the most general level, the results of human knowledge and experience; and it functions as a guide to further thought and action.

"There is no question here of using the principles of dialectics as 'axioms' from which to 'deduce' any concrete results. If anything, the process works the other way around, and philosophies are based upon results in the particular sciences…." [Sayers (1980a), pp.19-21. Bold emphases alone added. Engels's reference altered to conform to the edition used here.]

This seems admirably clear and disarmingly honest: it's the critics of DM who are the dogmatists; dialecticians never impose their ideas on reality. In fact, Sayers assures us that DM-theorists are the exact opposite of the caricature found in the writings of anti-dialecticians like Popper and Colletti.

Nevertheless, when we are met with claims like the following (in this case, just two pages after the above 'modest' disavowals), we might be forgiven for thinking that Sayers is living in some sort of dream world, alongside the rest of his conservative dialectical peers:

"Dialectical materialism, by contrast, is a philosophy of struggle and of conflict. Nothing comes into being except through struggle; struggle is involved in the development of all things; and it is through struggle that things are negated and pass away. Conflict and contradiction are inevitable…." [Ibid., p.23. Bold emphasis added.]

How could Sayers possibly know all this? This is not a summary of experience, nor of the available evidence, but a clear imposition on reality of things it might not possess, and of processes it might not exhibit. For example, where is the evidence that "contradictions" are "inevitable", or that "nothing" comes into being "except through struggle"? To be sure, Sayers quotes passages from Hegel in support, but apart from that dubious authority, where is his evidence?"

Now it seems to me clear from this that you, Rosa, consider dogmatic character as something which inheres in the form of the particular sentence. Contrary to my view that dogmatic character can only be discerned by examining use. That is why my readings of the Anti Duhring seem irrelevant to you - you do seem to think that it is obvious when a particular sentence has a dogmatic form, you seem to think that disavowals along side sentences which have a universal form become inconsistent with what is proposed if what is proposed is given a universal form. The essence of your criticism is therefore that whenever a sentence has a universal form, then we can legitimately object to that sentence (irrespective of limitations on its use or caveats published along side it) that it cannot be known.

From what I can glean from her arguments, Rosa is saying that any positive theory put forward by Engels adds up to metaphysical speculation which is contrary to her Wittgensteinian project of speaking in ordinary language.

John Holloway's essay http://marxmyths.org/john-holloway/article.htm points out that Marx differs from Engels in his understanding of what constitutes a science. For Marx, science is negative. The truth of science is the negation of the untruth of false appearances. But in the post-Marx Marxist tradition, however, the concept of science is turned from a negative into a positive concept. Rosa understands that science can be expressed in Marx's sense as in Capital. But for Engels, OTOH, dialectics is the conceptualization of nature and society as being in constant motion -- a positive notion of science. To hypostasize dialectics into a positive natural law is what Rosa objects to AFAIK.

Yes Trivas I think you are correct about what Rosa objects to....though I have to say I also disagree with Holloway. Marxism is scientific in a very unusual and particular way. It is scientific in the sense of being an organised body of knowledge which depends on the best scientific ideas Capitalism produces BUT which it assimilates critically. Its scientific character is dependent on two structural relationships, on the one hand a relationship to a real and substnantial workers movement and on the other a relationship to bourgeois science. It refuses to retreat behind the achievements of bourgeois science and insists always on building on the best work in that tradition....but at the same time it does not rely on the discipline of the scientific community, rather it depends on the discipline of the socialist movement to constitute its standards of affirmation and judgement.

This actually changes what kinds of propositiions and theories it finds acceptable. It leads it to accept a large number of proviisional and vague ideas , given that they are needed for practical purposes.

Consequently, what I suspect I really disagree with Rosa on is whether Marxism represents a practice of science as accepted by capitalist society or whether it represents a constitutively dissident science which must set its own standards, while not falling below those of capitalism.

It is this absence of an explicit concept of a revolutionary science and the idea instead of the critic as the advocate of clear and unmuddled thinking which I reject in Wittgenstein. The concepts of grammar and de-mystification are themselves the mystificatory sides of Wittgenstein's perspective..this is something Marx had already criticised in his criticism of Bruno Bauer...however I await with interest the further development of Rosa's advocacy of Wittgenstein's perspective.

There are more than a few ways to respond, gilhyle, let me start with what first strikes me.

First of all I don't believe that as you say Marxian science is dependent on bourgeois science. As you say, through struggle in the worker's movement practice is the Marxist touchstone of truth. But its raison d'etre as a science lies in its materialist conception of history, which didn't grow out of any bourgeois science I know of.

-- Capital Vo1. Ch.3

However strange this sounds (to my ear at least) this is close to Marx's description of his scientific method and how he reveals the untruth of the false appearances of the capitalist mode of production; his scientific method is not by experimenting with "a large number of provisional and vague ideas" to see what sticks. Viz., he reveals the contradictions of a process in motion and allows the possibility of reconciling them in a higher synthesis (i.e., socialism). This no bourgeois thinker did before Marx re capitalism. I have no doubt that Marxism isn't accepted by bourgeois thinkers of any stripe as scientific, and I dare say that most Marxists don't think so either. Neither do I think Marxism makes a very good fit with Wittgenstein's concerns. But personally if it's not objectively scientific in some sense I say: why bother? There are plenty of other creative projects and experiences to be had that fulfill my human needs and aspirations.

Small point: got a page reference for your quote from Capital ? Or a link ?

Well, working backwards, Marx's Capital is an exceptional work. It is the peak of revolutionary socialist science, to date. What is striking about it is that its methodology has never been replicated in the revolutionary socialist tradition. If you look at Engel's work, the work of Hilferding, Luxembourg, Preobrazhensky, Rosdolsky, Mandel, Fine, Aglietta, Robinson, Rubin, Weeks, Dobb etc etc ...whoever, so-called Marxist political economy at its best, it falls into two categories - exposition of Marx and attempted modernisation of his work which lives parasitically off his achievement of a certain methodology and secondly original work which consistently falls away from his methodology to more conventional methodologies.

For example you quote Marx's commitment to dialectical contradictions. Now consider this link:
http://www.revleft.com/vb/new-book-3...x.html?t=62435
The issue discussed there is in many ways the same issue as the Zeno's Paradox issue of the divisibility of time which is so closely related to the conception of what a dialectical contradiction is. Now Rosa, I suspect (but she can speak for herself), would have some sympathy for Kilman. At least someone with fviews like hers woud, I think, on the basis, as she indicates in her essays and another thread that the paradox disappears if we treat time as being as divisible as space. This is similar to what Kilman and Carchedi and others do to answer Bortkiewicz's, Okishio and Sraffa's revisionism. They just create two times. But it is not what Marx did....and as Foley argues in the link it is far from clear that it actually solves the problem. What Marx does is quite different and - in conventional scientific terms - very odd. He absracts from the temporal sequence in a way which isolates the 'problem'....without giving us the 'solution', what might be called the market clearing solution, which comes afterwards and which his Ricardian opponents want to include in the conceptualisation.


We cannot reasonanbly build a meta theory of what Marxist science is based solely on the work of one man. The work of others must also be covered.

If we then turn to works in the areas of history and sociology. It is generally true that Marxist works in these areas have consisted in taking the best historical scholarship from the capitalist academy and restructuring or reconceptualising it to bring out the class issues. On occasion, one or two Marxists have done original primary research, but their work along these lines has invariably been done within the strictures of the discipline of history of capitalism - and no harm in that since the bourgeoisie are very good at writing history.

But it is clear looking across the history of Marxist science that it does consist in such reconceptualisations of the given understandings. It is for that reason, essential critical rather than systematic science. No less scientific for that.

One element of it, is summary extrapolations from results. The materialist conception of history is one such generalisation. The dialectical version of materialism is another. The Marxist critique (note the word) of political economy is a third. These are presentations of conclusions which Marxists need to constantly re-create from the relentless and un-ending re-criticism of the dominant versions of science. They rely on the dominant science in the sense that such Marxist works aim to retain the insights of that science, but such Marxist works go beyond the dominant science whereever there is a false appearance which plays a role in sustaining the ideology of capitalism.

Now when it comes to the natural sciences, there really is a difficulty. Capitalism (while it distorts natural scientific research quite significantly) allows natural science significant scope for pure theory. On occasion, ideological concepts come in very strongly - in evolutionary theory the concept of the individual has long been problematic (and in socio-biology much so-called natural science falls into complete silliness). But generally it is both difficult to mount any significant critique of the natural sciences and (maybe more importantly) of little political importance to do so.

Consequently, the general conception of dialectics has little point. It does still have a point (and here I agree with your emphasis on Capital) in the understanding of Capital which does include seriously methodological difficulties.

As to the materialist conception of history, it is another thread, but key ideas in that conception are also intrinsically vague. For example, the concept of the 'level of development of the forces of production' is a key part of the materialist conception of history, but it is a fact about anyone advocating that view (as I do) that to have that concept does not involve being able to say what any level of the forces of production in any society actually is, using any unit of measure.

Thanks for that Gil; I will be replying to you in the next day or so; I am a little busy with other things right now.

Trivas:

Well, this is just the sort of reasoning that allows you DM-fans to ignore the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism, since this 'scientific theory' of yours 'allows' you to regard the appearance of failure as false. This, of course, 'allows' you (plural) to dismiss this failure as unreal, and that just means dialecticians never learn from history, and the whole sorry mess just takes nother spin across the flatlands of failure.

However, I have dealt with the 'appearance/reality' argument here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/...anceAndReality

However, you will need to paste this into your address bar, since the anonymiser program RevLeft uses ignores everything after the '#' if you just click on that link.

Where on earth did you get the idea that I have some sort of policy of speaking in 'ordinary language'?

As usual, you just made it up.

And neither does Wittgenstein think this either.

What I have maintained is that it is possible to show that metaphysics (and its poor relation, dialectics) cannot work if the material language of the working class is used polemically against it/them.

And this is not so:

What I claim, and have shown, is that dialectics is far too confused to do anything with --, except perhaps throw on Hume's bonfire.

Why do you insist on putting your words in my mouth?

I have alleged in earlier posts that Engels engages in a priori dogmatics, and that his 'laws' are universal, and not the least bit hypothetical. Gil demurs, and suggests they are hypothetical, and not the least bit universal. Sure, he/she acknowledges that the odd passage or two could be construed along these lines, but the tenor of Anti-Duhring [AD] is non-dogmatic.

Ok, so let's have a look at the passages from AD which show that Gil is perhaps fooling him/herself more than his/her readers. The following quotations (taken merely from the first 190 pages of AD; page numbers refer to the Peking edition) are dogmatic, a priori, universal, law-like and not the least bit hypothetical (bold added):

Here Engels has his own fixed and rigid demarcation -- surely, if he were faithful to his own precepts, he should have argued that nature is both dialectical and metaphysical.

Leaps/Nodes

Gil had argued that the Q/Q 'law' in AD was not universal, nor did it involve these Hegelian 'leaps' or 'nodes'. Engels begs to differ:

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More Dogmatism

As if that were not enough, here is yet more:

We might wonder at this stage how quality turns into quantity. Does the change of water into steam producer new matter? Does the taste of salty soup produce sodium chloride?

And there is more:

In fact, butterflies and moths go through the following stages:

Adult → egg → pupa → chrysalis → adult
Which is the negation of which here? And which is the negation of the negation?

And what about organisms that reproduce by splitting, such as amoebae and bacteria? In any such spit, which half is the negation and which the negation of the negation? Indeed, what about vegetative (asexual) reproduction in general, where there are no opposites (no gametes)?

The litany continues:

Engels quotes Spinoza, but forgot the proof that every determination is also a negation.

And, while he calls scientific laws "hypotheses", he pointedly does the opposite with his own 'laws':

Dialectics always holds, Boyle's Law does not.

Indeed:

As I said, Engels was a dogmatist of the purest water.

I will deal with Gil's other comments later today.

In my International Publishers edition it's p.106, the beginning of sec.2 'The Medium of Circulation' in Ch.3.
I don't think we can build a metatheory of Marxian science at all. If dialectical materialism is faulty it ought to be abandoned, otherwise it is as Engels suggests:
-- Engels, Dialectics of Nature (1882), pp.26f.

As I said, Trivas, Engels is a dogmatist -- just like you.

And you are no Marxist.

Gil:

So, it is an inference based on my quotation of comrades right across the entire spectrum of revolutionary Marxists; is that it?

But why does that imply I think it a 'single body' of theory? If I quote metaphysicians from ancient Greece, the Middle Ages and today, would that imply I thought metaphysics is a 'single body of theory'? Surely not.

Not so; my analysis is highly complex, and will become more so over the next ten years.

Ah but the quotations I have given above show that his notion of a 'law' is even tighter than that used in the sciences. Hence, according to Engels, dialectics is not an hypothesis, as you allege.

Can you quote a single difficulty he considers, or a single case where he says dialectics does not work?

Well, according to you dialectical materialism was not all that important here, so this cannot be an example of a 'success'.

But, even so, the SPD was a failure. Are there any successes you can quote that this theory has was behind?

As far as history is concerned, whatever brand of dialectics on show, Dialectical Marxism is one long series of failures.

Not so, since I base it on the weight of evidence.

So, according to you, dialectics has only presided over 100 years of failure.

I can live with that.

But, since dialectics dominates Anti-Dühring, that can only mean that in those fifty years, Engels book was a failure (in the sense that the dialectics it contained fell largely on deaf ears). I can live with that too.

They are if they are a priori (as you alleged of my "undeniable").

And, this will do for me as a working definition:

This is, of course, from Anti-Dühring. With a few tweaks here and there, it could very well have been written by me. [The first part, in a different idiom, encapsulates Wittgenstein's criticism of metaphysics -- and my criticism of dialectics.]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...hring/ch08.htm

But, as we have seen, according to Engels, his 'laws' are general and universal, and based on very little evidence.

No wonder you have to keep special-pleading for them.

These 'standards', I note, as far lower, than those that are applied in 'bourgeois science' -- some recommendation! But you dialecticians would treat with derision any attempt to establish, say, either the truth of classical economic theory or the falsity of Marx's own work with an evidential display that was as crassly amateurish as this --, to say nothing of the contempt you would show for such theoretical wooliness.

However, when it comes to economics, history or politics, we almost invariably quote evidence that matches that found in the sciences. It is only when we encounter this quasi-religious doctrine that we meet all this special-pleading and sub-standard 'science'.

The fact that you cannot see this suggests this is indeed an opiate for you.

It still remains, however, a genuine part of Mickey Mouse Science.

Gil:

Indeed, it would have suggested that Engels was not foisting his views on nature. The fact that he left it out is thus indicative of what he in the end does: foist his views on nature.

The latter remark is by way of comment on the Mickey Mouse nature of what little 'evidence' DM-fans have quoted.

Experience arguing with you dialecticians over the last 25 years has taught me that if this is not added here, the next comment is generally "Ah, but we do have evidence!"

Hence, I am closing-off all escape routes.

As I note later in the Essay (but in your obvious haste to skim-read my work, you missed this) -- in Note 1a:

So, my argument is not 'epistemological', but rhetorical, and aimed at exposing the a priori methods dialecticians employ.

There is in fact a paragraph here that should have been deleted. The one you quote next is the correct one:

Gil:

I am not sure you have got the point -- I am saying that Conrad, Engels and the rest of you DM-fans have copied previous metaphysicians and mystics in imposing your 'theory' on nature. And Engels is being charged with inconsistency -- since he is inconsistent, declaring one minute:

The next doing the opposite.

Gil:

Where do I say any of this? What I allege is that these 'laws' are not discovered in the facts but imposed on them. Where is the difficulty in that? Now, if you were to report on your experiment on fruit flies with this level of dogmatism and with this paucity of 'evidence' you'd rightly be called an idiot.

Sure, Engels says he discovers his laws in nature, just like other mystics say they 'discover' God in their dreams, or whatever. What Engels actually does is read his 'laws' into nature -- that is why I accused him of bad faith.

All this is explained in that Essay; you must have skimmed past those parts, or not read them at all (I suspect the latter).

The dogmatism is there on the page; your devotion to your opiate prevents you from seeing it.

And, my criticism is not based simply on generality, otherwise I would have to reject science, but on the fact that these dogmas were not derived from nature, but from Hegel (who 'derived' them a priori). So, all a dialectician has to do is read Hegel's 'Logic'. Hence, dialectics derives not from a "patient empirical examination of the facts", but from studying Hegel! As far as evidence goes, that is it; that's all there is! The search for evidence begins and ends with dialecticians leafing through Hegel's Logic.

The rest is merely window-dressing based on a desire to look 'scientific' -- rather like Christian Fundamentalists try to make the Book of Genesis look 'scientific' by quoting a little 'evidence'.

Same sort of trick -- different opiate.

Trivas:

Yet more dogmatism.

Thanks for proving my point!