Here is just one section of Essay Eight Part Two that deals with the alleged 'contradictions' in Das Kapital (even though we know that Marx was merely 'coquetting' with this word) -- I have added several links that explain technical terms, but cannot add them all -- they can be found in the orignal Essay; use the 'Quick Links' to go to section '(9) Contradictions In Das Kapital?':

References will be listed in my next post.

Arrington, R., and Glock, H-J. (1996) (eds.), Wittgenstein And Quine (Routledge).

Baker, G., and Hacker, P. (1988), Wittgenstein. Rules, Grammar And Necessity Volume Two (Blackwell, 2nd ed.).

Bicchieri, C., and Alexander, J. (2006), (eds.), PSA 06 (University of Chicago Press).

[PSA 06 is the Philosophy of Science Supplement for 2006.]

Clark, S. (1975), Aristotle's Man: Speculations Upon Aristotelian Anthropology (Oxford University Press).

Ebersole, F. (1982), 'Stalking The Rigid Designator', Philosophical Investigations 5, pp.247-66; reprinted in Ebersole (2002), pp.301-23, as 'Proper Names And Other Names'.

--------, (2002), Meaning And Saying (Xlibris Corporation, 2nd ed.).

Glock, H-J. (2003), Quine And Davidson On Language, Thought And Reality (Cambridge University Press).

Hallett, G. (1991), Essentialism: A Wittgensteinian Critique (State University of New York Press).

Hanna, P., and Harrison, B. (2004), Word And World. Practice And The Foundations Of Language (Cambridge University Press).

Hacker, P. (1996), Wittgenstein's Place In Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy (Blackwell).

-------- (2007), Human Nature, The Categorial Framework (Blackwell).

Kripke, S. (1977), 'Identity And Necessity', in Schwartz (1977), pp.66-101.

--------, (1980), Naming And Necessity (Blackwell).

Marx, K. (1976), Capital, Volume One (Penguin Books).

Meikle, S. (1979), 'Dialectical Contradiction And Necessity', in Mepham and Ruben (1979), pp.5-33.

Mepham, J., and Ruben, D-H. (1979), (eds.), Issues In Marxist Philosophy, Volume One: Dialectics And Method (Harvester Press).

Russell, B. (1937), The Principles Of Mathematics (George Allen & Unwin, 2nd ed.).

Schwartz, P. (1977) (ed.), Naming Necessity And Natural Kinds (Cornell University Press).

VandeWall, H. (2006), 'Why Water Is Not H2O, And Other Critiques Of Essentialist Ontology From The Philosophy Of Chemistry', in Bicchieri and Alexander (2006), pp.906-19.

Wittgenstein, L. (1976), Wittgenstein's Lectures On The Foundation Of Mathematics: Cambridge 1939, edited by Cora Diamond (Harvester Press).

--------, (1978), Remarks On The Foundations Of Mathematics, edited by Elizabeth Anscombe (Blackwell, 3rd ed.).

--------, (1998), Culture And Value, edited by G. H. von Wright (Blackwell, 2nd ed.).

Other alleged examples of 'dialectical contradictions' are dealt with in Essay Eight Part Two -- these two sections:

(5) Real Material Contradictions -- Or Are They?

(7) True Contradictions?

I'd post direct links to these sections, but the anonymiser that our software uses ignores them!

Finally, the derivation of 'dialectical contradictions' in Hegel's 'Logic' is demolished in Essay Eight Part Three:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2008_03.htm

This means that the original rationale (if it can be dignified in such terms!) for believing that there are indeed these mystical beings, is non-existent.

No wonder Marx ended up merely 'coquetting' with the entire idea!

Of course conflicting forces may be called contradictory. This is simple use of language any Wittgensteinian would appreciate. To say otherwise is plain stupidity.

Trivas:

Unfortunatley for you, this would imply that any use of language, even racist and fascist, was OK.

Of course, and anyway, Wittgenestein did not argue along the lines you suggest (as I have pointed out to Gilhyle, too) -- and I'd like to see you prove otherwise from his work.

Finally, you will need to respond to the arguments I have posted here, and to the even more complex ones at my site, if your opinion in this matter is to merit anything other than derision.

What this has to do with the meaning of 'dialectical contradiction' is beyond me.
I don't know if you're agreeing with me here or saying that 'dialectical contradiction' isn't plain language.
I can only assume that this means that you post here merely to troll in order to direct traffic to your sites. I haven't seen any arguments on this forum. What is it exactly you are arguing? What you have is a self-acknowledged misunderstanding re dialectics.

Trivas:

So, that's another item to add to the ever-expanding list of things that are 'beyond you'.

I see you are going for the RevLeft record.

Two items to add to the list in one post! You really are exceeding yourself, aren't you?

As I said -- fit only for derison.

Yes, you think derision substitutes for argument -- since for you argument settles nothing.

In "Anti-Duhring", Engels shows the regular succession of the main periods in the history of philosophy and came to the conclusion that the spread of materialism into the field of the history of society created the scientific basis for the study of the capitalist mode of production, and thanks to the two great discoveries of Marx—the materialist conception of history and the theory of surplus value—socialism was transformed from a utopia into a science.

Engels demonstrates that consciousness is the product of the human brain, while man himself is the product of nature and society, and thought is a reflection of experience. The possibilities of knowledge, and the process of cognition itself, are infinite; absolute truth is approached through an infinite series of relative truths. The unity of the world consists in its materiality. The world is infinite in space and time, which are the fundamental forms of existence. The mode of existence of matter is motion. The different forms of motion of matter (mechanical, physical, chemical, biological) make up the subjects of the study of different sciences. Engels specially singles out the sciences which study the laws of human thought—formal logic and dialectics; and he examines the laws of dialectics. He studies different problems and the natural and social sciences from the point of view of dialectics.

Engels draws on the materialist conception of history to give a survey f the history and theory of scientific socialism, showing that scientific socialism is the theoretical expression of the proletarian movement and that the fundamental contradiction of capitalism is resolved in the proletarian revolution. With the victory of the revolution, anarchy in production is replaced by its planned organization. As a result of the progressive development of productive forces, the old division of labor disappears, and labor, instead of a heavy burden, becomes the first need of life; the oppositions of mental and physical labor, city and country disappear; class differences disappear; and the state dies off. Mankind makes a leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom

Trivas:

I have just posted over 10,000 words of argument, probably more in the last few posts than you have in your entire time at RevLeft, and you have the nerve to say I prefer contempt to argument.

Indeed I have contempt for Olympic Standard twerps like you who cannot defend your beliefs to save your scrawny class-compromised necks.

Thankyou for that Velior, but we have already established that this awful book is a complete disaster (at least as far as the first half is concerned).

OTC, it's a perfectly fine introduction to dialectical materialism.

Trivas:

And the New Testament is an excellent introduction to that other major western form of mysticism, Christianity -- and no less nonsensical for all that.

This discussion is moving on a bit fast for me, but if I may, for the record, go back to previous posts, Rosa, you said:

No I am not. I never suggested that natural languages are not capable of expressing arguments which rely on tracing a relationship of implication in order to be successful. Natural language is quite capable of that...and that is and has been uncontroversial throughout this discussion. If you have understood otherwise you have understood incorrectly.

Let me give an example of the usage of a logical distinction in the assessment of a natural language usage. You say

It is quite legitimate for me to point out that the suggested relationship of implication this passage proposes is not there. A necessary pre-condition of 'A' is not part of 'A' just because it is a pre-condition of 'A'.

Let me explain: You observe correctly that to employ a formal system you must comprehend the rules. But you then draw a conclusion that the rules are 'integral' to the formal system. Unstated, that is (if I understand previous posts correctly) leading on to the point that the natural language within which those rules are expressed is supposedly 'integral' to the formal system.

Whether this follows depends on what 'integral' means. Integral could mean 'necessary to' and it could mean 'part of'. If it means the former, the argument holds; if it means the latter the argument fails.

What we are actually talking about here is your view that
and your insistence on asking repeatedly of dialectical contradiction (in defiance of Wttgenstein's warnings)

my comment was that in the way you demand explanations of dialectical contradiction from Marxists, you proceed as if

and

You had then argued that logic requires language and I had argued that logic can be expressed in a formal language, but that natural language does much more than that. Thus if 'integral' means only that the formal languages in which logic is expressed can only exist in a world where natural languages already exist then your argument would fail. 'Integral' must mean 'part of' (or something like that) for your argument to work.

Exactly what you are arguing for is unclear; we should acknowledge that. But if you are trying to say that natural languages can only be used by persons who consciously apprehend rules (in the same way as is the case for formal languages) then that is empirically testable and false. The capacity to use the formal language of logic (or to apprehend its rules is not necessary to effective natural language usage. To bring it back to the particular example: I can be quite capable of using the concept of 'dialectical contradiction' perfectly effectively without being able to give a formal definition of it....and that is true for most natural language terms. All that is necessary is that I and others should tend in aggregate to use the term in a mutually consistent manner which also displays some consistency across time and location. And that is testable only in the sense that we understand each other.....and, yes, that means that terms about religion are adequately used, wrong but effectively used. The distinction is between your argument quoted above which sought to rely on a logical relation of implication (and failed) and the term 'dialectical contradiction' which does not rely in the same way on a logical relation of implication. Thus your argument quoted above is susceptible to logical analysis and the term 'dialectical contradiction', like much of language, is not.

Going back to the original line of argument in this post, having given that example of the legitimacy of using logical analysis for parsing language usage to find out if it was successful, the key distinction I draw is between acknowledging that the validity of natural language usage SOMETIMES relies on correctly formulating a a deduction which works only if there is a relationship of implication involved and any view that it always involves that.

Once we recognise the (surely uncontroversial idea) that natural language usage does not ALWAYS involve doing that - unlike a formal language devised for expressing logical relations - then the question arises as to what the rest of language is doing.

Linguistics answers that in theory ...and does so quite effectively even in capitalist society. Linguistics is a very well developed science in capitalist society, although trapped at the level of morphology in much of its work. What it looses along the way is the ability to say what is a good use of language and what isnt....because the truth is that language usage can be quite adequately described within the science of linguistics without creating a tool for differentiating between propositions we should support and those we should reject. The proper use of natural language allows us to say things which are of uncertain meaning, which are false or which are unjustified by other things we believe or have experienced. That is the open-ended power of natural language, which derives from its total dependence on material and social reality as an open rather than closed system.

Along side linguistics, various analytical philosophers struggle with a range of alternative models of what language does. These are much more ideological and seek to import logic all over the place into the description of language usage. They do so because they conflate grammar and assent procedures. Because natural languages usage actually occurs in a social context, assent is not a matter of formal procedures but of social relations. Even though their own philosophy of science has ineluctably moved in this direction over decades, they continue to look for the holy grail of formal assent procedures.....'grammars' of language usage which will differentiate between good and bad propositions. This is rationalist ideology of a couple of factions of the dominant class (it is confusing that such rationalist ideals are shared by the ultra right wing free marketers wing of the dominant class and an element of the left social democrats, the kind of people of whom Bertrand Russell, Piero Sraffa and Eugen Duhring would be examples).

That is why it is almost wrong to say:

It is not quite wrong, because you say 'most or some of the time'.....that is the key point, the point that makes dialectics relevant. Sometimes language usage amounts to a logical argument, often it does not....and it does not when it does not for a couple of reasons: firstly because it is a NATURAL language operating in an environment that involves material rather than logical relations and secondly because most of the social agents who use natural language have a powerful material interest in limiting the success of natural language in successfully expressing logical relations.

Thus while it is true to say, as you do,

It is also true to say to survive and prosper human agents must also engage in forms of thinking that do not fall easily into any recognisable logical form. One might devise some complex logical model that would vaguely simulate those forms of language usage or which, one might speculate, isolates and encapsulates a logical argument attaching to those forms of language usage. But this is at best a process of approximation, one which looses much in translation and also one which is not helpful to Marxism, which is focussing not on finding the logical relations, but on finder the material drivers of change and their ideological reflections. Its not that natural language 'contains' logical distinctions. That would be Platonism. Indeed it is Platonism when you say Rather, it is that natural language can sometimes be assessed using logical distinctions. But sometimes not.

Thus dialectics appears wihin Marxism because its focus is not on explaining the sense in which language usage is always logical, but on focusing in on the drivers of social change. Its not that there may or may not be some logical model that can be imposed on the usage to assess it......there need not be, there may be.....its that this whole rationalist preoccupation with modelling social behaviour as logical is an ideological game trapped within the dominant ideology which Marxism is not part of, but philosophy (even Wittgenstein) is.

On the whole Scott Meikle thing above, just a question: if I understand you correctly you are suggesting that the relationship involved is just verbal ('de dicta'), does that mean you would disagree with the following statement by Marx about those mutually exclusive features:

"Money necessarily crystallises out of the process of exchange, in which different products of labour are in fact equated with eac other, and thus converted ito commodities. The historical broadening and deepening of the phenomenon of exchang devlops the opposition between use-value and value which is latent in the nature of the commodity. The need to give an external expression to this opposition for the purposes of commercial intercourse produces the drive towards an independent form of value, which finds neither rest nor peace until an independent form has been achieved by the differnetiation of commodities into commodities and money." (Vol 1, P.181 Penguin Edition)

Nothing necessarily wrong with you disagreeing with Marx, if you do, but I just want to understand what you are saying here as regards whether the 'contradiction' between use value and value is merely verbal or actually drives historical processes.

Gil:

In this case, not so. It is not a 'necessary pre-condition' that the formation rules be understood, the syntax and semantics grasped, it is constitutive of the system itself.

What "warnings"?

As the above shows, I did not mean that. So, much of this is wasted effort:

It is unclear to you since you have yet to read my work (even though you plainly lied when you said you had).

Where have I asked for a definition of "dialectical contradiction"? I have in fact requested an explanation of its meaning, which even now you cannot or will not give.

You may recall that Wittgenstein also remarked that meaning is part and parcel of an "explanation of meaning".

Now, the alleged 'use' of "dialectical contradiction" is not at all like the use of words in the vernacular, it is a technical use of these two words, and it is so in a way that lines up neither with ordinary language, nor with Aristotelian or modern formal logic.

Hence, it is quite legitimate to request an explanation of its meaning, in view of the fact that every attempt to make this term clear has been shown by me to fail.

Your continued prevarication therefore merely adds weight to my allegation that this term is devoid of any meaning at all.

The fact is that you attempted to characterise it (rather like Scott Meikle in the post I published above, if you read it) in terms which imply that "dialectical contradictions" cannot exist. To repeat what I said there, and earlier to you:

That comment also applies to your last known attempt to say what these obscure beings, these "dialectical contradictions", are.

You say:

I do not know how you can say that the use of this term is 'consistent' when we do not know what the phrase means so that that use could be tested/verified across time. Sure we can determine that the same letters are used each time, but that does not guarantee that the words they form mean anything, or that the meaning is constant -- and given the unwise dialectical commitment to Heraclitean change, the alleged meaning cannot stay the same"!

Many of the terms in the Athanasian Creed are meaningless, but they do not thereby gain a meaning if they are constantly repeated down the ages in that Creed or in works about it.

Confusion may have arisen here because the word "meaning" has many meanings itself, a point Wittgenstein ignored (or, at least, he did not discuss this in his work). But this is crucially important in this case. I have listed several different meaning of "meaning" at RevLeft before; here they are again:

This is not to suggest that these are the only meanings of "meaning", nor that several of these examples do not overlap.

I suspect you mean by "meaning" perhaps 1), 2) or maybe 13), whereas I mean 4), and 8) (but in a wider sense than the brief characterisation above suggests, in that these are subject to philosophical scrutiny in Wittgenstein's sense of that word -- I illustrate this in detail at my site, and briefly below).

Now, I think you can give me an account of what this phrase means to dialecticians, in the sense that they are emotionally wedded to the term (like that child and his Teddy Bear, in 1)), or perhaps in the way that it helps you lot makes sense of your life, experiences and world-view (in that this word has a totemic significance to you lot, like theological words have for theologians, but equally mystical and inexplicable to 'outsiders' like me; in short it is esoteric and hence incommunicable -- hence the bind you find yourself in when asked what this term means).

Now, to clarify what you mean my "dialectical contradiction", and to prevent any further misunderstanding, I suggest you make some attempt to say what this term means in senses 4) or 8), subject to philosophical scrutiny (see below). Until you do, my allegation that this term has no meaning (in these senses) still stands. Thus, this phrase ("dialectical contradiction") has neither a linguistic meaning, nor refers to anything whatsoever in the real world (object, process or 'relation').

Indeed as this shows, it cannot refer to anything in reality:

Whatever else is true of the items said to form 'dialectical contradictions', they can't 'contradict' one another if one of them cannot exist at the same time as the other. So, if these items "mutually exclude" one another, they can't both exist at the same time, and cannot "contradict" one another. On the other hand, if they do both exist at the same time, so that they can indeed 'contradict' one another, one cannot possibly "mutually exclude" the other. [This is what I meant by "philosophical scrutiny".]

This is so unless the phrase "mutually exclude" has its own, and as yet unexplained meaning...

Either way: either this phrase ("dialectical contradiction") is devoid of meaning, or if it means anything, then the items in question cannot co-exist, and cannot therefore 'contradict' one another.

I can live with both of these untoward conclusions.

Now, you keep ignoring this fatal dilemma -- or, rather, you keep trying to divert attention from it.

I wonder why?

Whether you are right or not about this, one thing is plain: dialectics cannot make things any clearer. Quite the reverse in fact in view of the further fact that dialecticians use meaningless terms -- or terms they refuse to explain --, and which acolytes special plead their case (that they and theologians alone are excused the normal canons of reason, and can say what they like, and the rest of us have to like it or lump it).

This approach to argument and knowledge is beneath contempt.

Ah, I see, I am not allowed to use a metaphor.

Language 'contains' such rules in the same sense that chess does.

"Not so!" you might say; "the rules of chess are written down." Sure, but it takes human beings to interpret those rules, and they do so by a further use of language -- and that is the sense I mean about the rules language contains. We can extract the implicit rules we use when we speak by a further use of language.

This is in short Wittgenstein's criticism of the logical positivist doctrine of Bedeutungskörper (Meaning-Body); look it up in the standard texts on Wittgenstein if you do not understand it. Glock's Wittgenstein Dictionary is quite good on this, but the best account is in Stuart Shanker's Wittgenstein and the Turning-Point in the Philosophy of Mathematics, pp.293-99, 316-17.

Not so; this 'theory' has appeared in Marxism because petty-bourgeois intellectuals (like you) and/or professional revolutionaries need a theory to justify their self-appointed, pre-eminent role in the workers' movement, a theory which they alone understood (and which they refuse to explain to a living soul, just like you refuse), and which they could then use (and did use) to rationalise the substitution of themselves for the working class.

[The poor sods just do not "understand" the dialectic of history, and need all-wise teachers to lead them...]

This allowed them to mystify Historical Materialism, and thus, like ruling-lass hacks have always done, it allowed them to claim that they alone "understood" dialectics, and that the rest of us were impertinent even to ask for it to be explained to us. The very nerve!

Along the way, it would provide these 'superior' comrades with a source of consolation for the fact that their brand of Dialectical Mayhem is a long-term failure -- largely because of that substitutionism! This theory then became part cause and consequence of that failure. And this dialectical merry-go-round has spin on now for 150 years as our movement has gone into long-term decline. And the more it declines the more you idiots cling on to this 'theory'!

So you lot cling onto it for irrational reasons, and all the more so because of the failures it has helped create.

In short it's your very own quasi-religion, and like genuine religionists, you cannot explain a single one of the terms you use.

It's "all a mystery", you see.

No wonder I call you lot mystics.

Gil:

What "mutually exclusive" features do you mean?

There is no 'contradiction' here for it to be anything other than a figment of your imagination.

Marx, of course, was merely "coquetting" with these obscure terms. You, I fear are deadly serious.

Look, this is a simple question. You have introduced the question Now I am just asking what is YOUR answer to that question. Marx clearly believes that the relationship between use value and value in exchange creates a "drive" to further development of the exchange relationship. IF you believed that the necessity was merely verbal, you would not believe what Marx believes. Which is it ?

suggested you meant 'part of'

you replied

Having just described what you did mean as

The profound difference between 'part of' and 'constitutive of' escapes me. You seem to be arguing over nothing again.

That would be true....except that this is a class divided society and there is not one consistent use of 'ordinary language' but a range of usages reflecting varying locations and perspectives, one of which is the revolutionary perspective of the working class. Revolutionaries have their own potential for a distinctive language usage, reflecting their own circumstances and perspectives. Whether that is a 'technical' usage depends on what you think 'technical' means, but what it is not is a usage which involves the application of a natural or mathematical science. Rather it is a usage which reflects the goals and experiences of revolutionaries and the perspective of a revolutionary class. We must not impose standards on revolutionary theory which are so restrictive as to prevent the boundaries of the dominant ideology being breached, even if that can only be expressed provisionally and even speculatively.

Actually the 'normal cannons of reason' to which you refer are broken all the time. All the time people make statements formally similar to the idea of three persons in one. But look, you seem to think the following is a killer argument, so lets deal with that:

I cant see why this a fatal dilemma at all. The idea is relatively straight-forward, as Marx presents it - the two sides of the mutually exclusive relationship cannot PERSIST together without leading to development. If I understand your 'fatal dilemma' that is taken to suggest that they can persist for some period of time and therefore are not in complete contradiction. They are not in formal contradiction, true. But we are dealing here with a different use of 'contradiction'....dialectical contradiction and that is precisely the idea of elements of a relationship that drive change.

Gil:

I am here trying to enter the psychotic world of dialectical madness, so the question is not meant to be taken seriously.

Or, is it only Marx that can 'coquette'?

Had you bothered to read Essay One, which is an attempt to state my methodology, you'd have got this point.

But, you seem to know best...

So, when I ask:

I am puttimg pressure on Meikle's mytical beliefs. I do not think there is a contradiction here at all, so it can neither be de re nor be de dicto (or even de se).

But, Meikle thinks it is one or the other.

It's like asking: Is the Tardis in Dr Who (a really rubbish program, let me add, that makes considerably more sense than dialectics) really larger on the inside than the outside?

There is no Tardis, so the question does not arise -- but it would not surprise me if you believed there is. After all, you think that things in nature and society can argue among themselves (i.e., can 'contradict' one another)!

Marx did not use the word "necessity" as far as I am aware, and the word "drive" is metaphorical, too.

Since you are the expert, figure this out for yourself.

However, I might condescend to help you out here if you answer the many questions I ask you which you just ignore.

Such as:

Not much chance of that, is there?

Oops -- another question!

Somebody stop me...