No need to keep repeating yourself.

If dialectics is null and void there is no materialist conception of history, no doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat and no need to account for economics beyond that of Smith and Ricardo.

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Originally Posted by trivas7 Purely metaphysical thinking. Dialectics is a way of thinking, not a proposition re the world subject to truth value.

So you essentially concede that dialectics has nothing to do with the world, and that it is not a proposition (and hence in no need of refutation or the like since it doesn’t make any claims to begin with; so in this respect it is sort of like [bad] poetry). I’m glad we’re on the same page.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trivas7 If dialectics is null and void there is no materialist conception of history, no doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat and no need to account for economics beyond that of Smith and Ricardo.

Wait a minute... I’m confused here. If there are no dialectical propositions, and dialectics makes no claims about the world, how can the fact that it is nonsense have any impact on the world at all?

Why does dialectics being nonsense mean that there is no materialist conception of history? After all, a materialist conception of history (i.e. historical materialism) does make claims about the world, and does consist of propositions. Given that dialectics, as per your own admission doesn’t, then it has no relevance to historical materialism (or anything else for that matter). Mutatis mutandis for what you said about economics, liberation, etc.

In fact, given that there are no dialectical propositions, how can those be “null and void”?

Trivas:

So you keep saying, but we have yet to see the proof.

Moreover, historical materialism [HM] can explain social change, since it uses words from ordinary language -- and not in ways that cause problems --, whereas dialectics cannot --as I have shown.

So, if HM depended on dialectics, it would not be able to explain change.

Conclusion, HM does not depend on dialectics.

Now, you can show this line of reasoning is defective by showing that dialectics can explain change -- or, alternatively, you can try to show where my proof that it cannot, goes wrong.

Since you have done neither, and show no signs you are capable of doing so, we can asssume you cannot.

Finally, I note that just like other dialecticians, when pressed to do so, you cannot tell us why 'Formal Logic' has limitiations, or even what these are.

What are these claims?

Trivas (in dire need of a crass course in Marxism):

Here's one:

Looks like an empirical proposition to me, and indeed one that is true.

Perhaps you think it is merely 'subjective'?

Oh no, here are some more:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...festo/ch01.htm

How irresponsible of Marx to make claims about the real world!

Tut Tut...

Clearly you don't know what an empirical proposition is.

Trivas:

Enlighten me then.

And I am still waiting to hear you explain the 'limitations' of Formal Logic.

[Empirical proposition: what is proposed by an indicative type or token sentence concerning matters of fact. Beat that!]

Well, that is where debates on this site get a bit unreal for me. If you actually READ the Anti Duhring, the key sections relevant to dialectics are the sections already discussed concerning dialectical contradiction and Sections XII concerning Quantity/Quality and Section XIII concerning the negation of the negation.

Each of those sections has the same form. Engels cites a quotation from Duhring charging Marx with having relied on a dialectical law. Engels in each case denies that Marx does rely on that law, he denies that it would be appropriate to rely on that law and then he explains what the law is. Now this can simply be read there and my purpose on this thread was to just look at what Engels wrote - not look at isolated quotes but look at the overall document at its overall purpose and see its elements in that context. This is the only way to read properly, trying to leave aside the layers of preconceptions from subsequent history.

The fact is that Engels is trying to prove that Marx did not rely on dialectical laws and he is articulating dialectical laws as laws that should not be relied on to prove empirical claims, and are not relied on by Marx. Now rather than re-do debates we have had before at greater levels of generality I think it is worthwhile to look at each of those sections and see what each section says.

Now, is that a wrong way to proceed ? If so why ?

Gil:

For my sins, I have read it, and dozens of times, taking detailed notes. And yes, I did feel unclean as a result...

In the philosophical sections, Engels, like Hegel, just takes a handful of jargonised phrases for granted, and does not tell the reader what on earth they mean -- and neither have you.

This is what 'the official brochure' would have you believe, and you have clearly fallen for it --, but all along, Engels relies on a priori dogmatic 'propositions', all the while denying he is doing this.

I gave a few examples earlier, but they pepper his work, and that of nearly every other dialectician.

Hundreds of examples (no exaggeration) here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm

It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

I found this article enlightening re Anti-Duhring:

http://www.marxist.com/georg-lukacs.htm

This quote is from Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. It states the materialist conception of history, I deny that it is a claim re the world: only empirically verifiable statements are claims re the world. Which this is not.

Trivas:

What do you mean by 'verifiable'? A proposition can be verifiable, but yet not capble of being verified by us. For example:

There is a cuff link on Pluto.

That is verifiable, even if we might never verify it.

Here are a few more claims 're the world' which were at the time they were made verifiable:

All from here:

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/cl...manifesto.html

All of these were verifiable in Marx's day, even if they had not actually been verified.

I think you are confusing 'verifiable' with 'verified'.

And, a claim about the world can be false (hence not 'verifiable' in your sense); eg:

The Nile is shorter than the Thames.

This is manifestly 'about the world', but is false. Hence it is not only falsifiable, it has been falsified.

[If is it were not 'about the world', we would not be able to tell it was false.]

Looks like your philosophy of logic is no better than your logic.

And we are still waiting to hear from you what the 'limitations' of formal logic are.

Really?

K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

That approach is a materialist one, which doesn't resort to obscure philosophies but is able to explain what antagonisms exist in society via a materialist approach.

Introducing dialects to explain complex social/economic phenomena confuses the issues even more.

Solid historical materialism is all that is needed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by trivas7 This quote is from Preface of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. It states the materialist conception of history, I deny that it is a claim re the world: only empirically verifiable statements are claims re the world. Which this is not.

Not so. The proposition that people’s consciousness is determined by their social being, rather than vice versa, if true has certain implications for the how people behave. Hence we can make predictions based off of it. If it were the case the proposition were false it could be falsified by waiting to see if said predictions came true or not.

Were this claim truly metaphysical, and hence not falsifiable/verifiable, it would be the case that the world would look no different no matter what the truth value of said proposition.

Well I have studied four different subjects to a reasonably advanced level and one experience of mine is common to all four. When I studied philosophy it was my experience that even major philosophers were commonly mis-represented in secondary texts, or at least under-described, and that it is essential to read the original to have a good basis for understanding. In doing economics, I found that you should repeat a statistical or equilibrium analysis yourself - the devil is in the detail, dangerous simplifying assumptions are common and errors in statistical compilation are common (and zero sum nonchalance is wrong - they dont balance out). In studying law I found that reading the original judgement is essential and critically assessing the original judgement requires something no-one almost ever does - reviewing the original evidence. In studying history, I found (something commonly understood in that discipline at least !) that secondary sources were a very poor substitute for primary sources.

Furthermore I have found that in reading any writer a basic principle of economy applies - identify the intent of the author, identify the general tenor of his/her argument and identify any major tensions in the argument. When a text fits in with one or all of those three, treat it with respect. When a particular sentence does not fit in with those frameworks, treat it with suspicion because infelicities of composition are common in everyone's writings and are invaraibly exaggerated by the time and space that separates you from that author. This warning particularly applies if the anomalous sentence suits your purpose. Good scholarship requires caution. The common experience of one's views being distorted by a sentence being quoted out of context confirms this caution..

Therefore I am very slow to say that one does not need to read the original carefully and I am very slow to take one-liners from a text or any single phrase as proof of anything - sometimes its the best evidence available but then we should draw conclusions only with caveats of caution.

Consequently, we should pay close attention to the fact that in consideriing the law of quantity/quality, Engels is driven by Duhring having argued that "Contradiction is a category which can only appertain to a combination of thoughts but not to reality " [MECW 25 P. 110] and that "the antagonism of forces .....the basic form of all actions....does not in the slightest degree coincide with the idea of absurd contradiction"

The first thing to note is that it is Duhring, not Engels who initiated this methodology of making generalisations, whether a prior or analytic, and arguing that socialists should think within those limits, which significantly exceed the ordinary constraints of logic. It is this argument by Duhring which clearaly requires Engels to respond at that level. It is Duhring's introduction of a philosophical method, which requires Engels to reply with statements that have a philosophical form. Engels does not submit to this constraint without complaint. He complains about Duhring's philosophical method, using the word 'advantage' with evident irony, commenting that Duhring's method: "..has the further advantage that it offers no real foothold to an opponent, who is consequently left with almost no other possibility of reply than to make similar summary assertions in the grand style, to resort to general phrases and finaly thunder back" [MECW V.25 P. 115] Worth noting !!

I have already made these points, which I here repeat and already drawn attention to the treatment of contradiction in MECW 25 PP110-113.

By the way, in the widely sold Peking Foreign Languages Press edition of 1976, the pagination is PP 150-155 and the relevant link is here : http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...hring/ch10.htm I quote from the MECW translation, which is slightly different from the marxists.org translation in places.

While I think there is one further thing to be considered about Engels treatment of dialectical contradiction, it is useful to go on first to look at how the law of quantity/quality i and negation/negation are dealt with and then consider how contradiction is dealt with in the light of that, because there are certain points that the treatment of quantity/quality and negation/negation forcefully illustrate which will help us in understanding what Engels means by dialectical contradiction.

When dealing with quantity/quality Duhring argues that Marx's method in Capital is characterised by a method of 'all is to be sought in each and each in all' (MECW V.25 P113) and further as containing 'mysterious dialectical rubbish' (Ibid) and as 'contriving dialectical miracles' (MECW V. 25 P. 114) .

For Engels it is a 'blunder' [Ibid] to identify marxist and hegelian dialectics, as Duhring does. But what Engels cannot deny is that Marx does indeed refer to the Law of the Transformation of Quantity into Quality, as Duhring points out.

Marx does indeed write that the possessor of money turns into a capitalist only when the amount of money involved exceeds a certain quantity, and then observes "Here as in natural science is shown the correctness of the law discovered by Hegel in his Logic that merely quantitative changes beyond a certain point pass into qualitative differences." The cross reference is not given precisely in Vol. 25. The correct cross reference is to MECW Volume 35 P.313. In the Lawrence and Wishart edition reprinted from 1954 on the reference is P. 292. In the alternative Penguin translation the page reference is P. 423. In the Peking edition it is P.308. The relevant link is here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...67-c1/ch11.htm The marxists.org version of the text has the advantage of including a reference to the 22nd June 1867 letter from Marx to Engels in which Marx gives some of the background to this citation of Hegel. That is in footnote 5 on that page.

So what is Engels to do given that Marx does indeed make use of the law ? Duhring is surely right that Marx proves his point by making reference to a dialectical law ? What would be the point of refering to a law if not to prove a point ? Well no, not as far as Engels is concerned. Engels explains "Herr Duhring attributes to Marx the opposite of what he really said " (MECW V.25 P116), and goes on to explain that Marx is arguiing not that transformation of moneyed persons into capitalists is proven by reference to the Law of Q/Q but rather that it is the Law which is supported by the fact that the addition of quantity causes a qualitiative transformation in this particular case supports the law. The law, he is arguing, cannot be relied on to prove the fact, but the fact supports the law. Now this, it seems to me a very important distinction that should be traced through any reading of Engels' uses of general laws - are they relied on to prove or are they cited as conclusions, i.e. as having been illustrated or exemplified by something independently established. Indeed, I suspect (and I throw it out as a testable proposition) that Engels never relies on a general dialectical law to prove any empirical claim, but instead always points to the manner in whch the independently established understanding exemplifies the relevant law.

That is certainly what he goes on to do, using the example of carbon compounds. It is quite clear that he is not proving that there are an homologous series of carbon compounds which vary by the addition of further quantities of the elements common to the whole series. He merely summarises the understanding of carbon compounds which has been independently proven in scientific experiments. What he is doing is pointing out that the carbon series complies with the law. It is not claimed that the comliance is necessary, which is important because if there was a discernable necessity in the compliance one could predict the pattern of such compounds by application of the law to the known conditions of the necessity of compliance with the law. But this conceptual framework is just not there is Engels elaboration of the example. Rather, Engels just claims that the pattern of transformation of quantitive change does occur - not that it always or, under any specifiable conditions, necessarily occurs....but merely that it does occur. He goes no further .....that is the END of his treatment of the transformation of quantity into quality.

Rosa suggests that we should look carefully for Engels relying on dialectical laws while denying that he does. Well, I see Engels relying on the science of Chemistry (i.e. the scientific analysis of carbon independent of any formal reliance on dialectical laws) and I see no reliance in this section on the law of Q/Q to prove any more particular propositions. Could anyone who sees a sentence or paragraph in this section on Q/Q which seems to them to do otherwise, please point that out.

Gil:

You must be congratulated (1) for writing (at last!) a post that stretches across more than a handful of paragraphs -- and (2) for managing to ignore the serious charges I laid at Engels's door.

For you, the first is almost unique, the second is, alas, almost stereotypical.

The fact that Eggels makes numerous a priori, dogmatic claims is not just a feature of Anti-Duhring, and it is a joke to suggest that he is merely responding to the agenda set by Duhring -- Engels does this in all his 'philosophical' works, and in many letters.

Here is what I have written about him in Essay Two:

Practically every single dialectician, from Engels to Zizek, from Plekhanov to Ollman, from Lenin to Gilhyle, does the same -- they impose their a priori shemas on the world, just like the born again Idealists they are. Proof here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm

1) Marx's reference to this 'law', is as he himslef points out in Kapital, just anohter example of him 'coquetting' with Hegelian jargon.

2) Engles does not tell us what a 'quality' is, so it is impossible to decide if the examples he gives are apposite or not.

3) Whatever is done with this 'law' the facts of nature and society refute it:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm

Small wonder then that Marx abandoned it.

The quotations above show that Engels does far more than you suggest.

And yet you are happy to conclude that Marx and Engels agreed on the dialectic based on just such isolated quotations!

And we are still waiting on a clear explanation of a 'dialectical contradiction'.

You err to think that dialectics resorts to "obscure philosophies". Historical materialism is the dialectic of the materialist conception of history. This is what makes it a science.

Verifiable doesn't mean that predictions based on it come to pass. That makes soothsaying a science. If the claim were verifiable why don't all bourgeois sociologists and scientists simply verify it and acknowledge it as fact? Because there's no way to verify it experimentally.

Trivas:

And how do you know?

And why do 'experiments' matter? Social science uses other ways to verify its propositions.

And, once more, you are confusing 'verifiable' with 'verified'.

I gave several examples of indicative sentences from Marx which were verifiable, even if some or all of them have not yet been verified.

You have dealt with this in your usual way -- by ignoring it.

So you keep saying, but you go very quiet when asked to prove it, or even show that Marx accepted this.

The following by Marx is an example of dialectical logic:
What is this statement expressed in formal logic?