Trivas:

1) This is from his pre-Das Kapital stage, at which point Marx abandoned these Hegelian, and inexplicable categories -- as I have shown here many times.

2) You will note anyway that Marx does not use the word 'contradiction' here; what he says in this passage is quite acceptable to us genuine materialists.

3) Moreover, even if the offending phrase were in this passage, an example does not explain the term 'dialectical contradiction' any more than a passage from the Bible explains who/what 'god' is -- not that this passage even tries to explain it.

But, we still lack a clear explanation (or even any explanation) of what these mysterious entites actually are.

So, instead of prevaricating, why don't you tell us?

If dialectics were quite a wonderful as you seem to think, that should be a doddle.

Who knows, you might get lucky, and be the first person in 200 years to explain it...

4) If this were a 'dialectical contradiction' then according to the dialectical prophets I quoted in that other thread, the "material productive forces of society" must change inot the "existing relations of production" and vice versa!

Well, do they?

No wonder Marx eliminated this Hegelian twaddle from Das Kapital!

Numerous quotes from the aformentioned Dialectical Holy Men -- to show that they believed nature and society were suffused with 'unities of opposites'/'internal contradictions', and that struggle was between such opposites, and that these opposites turn onto one another -- were listed here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...&postcount=249

Why does it have to be in Formal logic (it can be translated into the formal mode, but that would tell us less than the ordinary language version)?

Where do I say that Marx can be translated into Formal logic?

What I do say is that dialectical logic cannot handle change whereas Formal Logic can -- not that we have to use the latter (since ordinary language is far more useful and flexible).

So, can we see your refutation of my proof that dialectics cannot handle change?

And I note you are still ignoring my point that you have confused 'verifiable' with 'verified'.

The first sentence would be:

(x)(y)Et[Mxt & Ryt -> Cxyt]

Where '(x)' and '(y)' are universal quantifiers; 'E' is the existential quantifier; 't' is a temporal variable (standing for 'a certain stage in development'); 'M( )' is a predicate variable standing for 'material productive forces'; 'R( )' is the same but standing for 'relations of production'; and 'C( )' the same too but standing for '...comes into conflcit with... at that time'; '->' is the implication arrow, i.e., 'if..then'.

The rest can be translated along similar lines -- but to little avail, as I pointed out in my previous post.

I am reading the word 'existing' here (as in "existing relations of production") as 'at the same time as'. If this is rejected, then the quantifiers will need to be adjusted, or an 'existence' predicate introduced -- but, that is just a mere technicality.

But, it is worth noting that formal logic does not imply that the relations of production turn onto the forces of production, as dialectical 'logic' would have it.

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production thus revolutionizing them. This is what can't be expressed in formal logic, thus its limitation.

Sorry to hear that response, Rosa. See, Im not interested at this point in whether someone called 'Engels' deduced anything from dialectical laws....what I am interested in is whether the Anti Duhring does that.

And when I actually read the text....what do I see ? I see that text as actually arguing the opposite, at least in the parts I have just looked at.

I think it would helpful, constructive even, to look at the part I just looked at and see if you can find Engels IN THAT PART of Anti Duhring (i.e the part dealing with Q/Q) drawing conclusions from dialectical laws rather than relying on indepedently established understandings to exemplify dialectical laws.

In that way, collectively, it becomes possible to move beyond 'oh yes he did' / 'oh no he didnt'....without relying on external reference to arguments you or some other writer may have made elsewhere, all of which just raises a whole load of other related but not identical issues.

As I said in my last text, its important to go back to primary sources....and if we did it together, perish the thought, but we might find areas of agreement.

For example, I dont know what conclusions you draw from the fact that Engels explicitly opposes the use of dialectical laws to prove things (at this point). I dont know what conclusions you draw from the proposition (which you seem from your previous two posts to hold - correct me if Im wrong ) that rather than consistently advocating reliance on dialectical laws Engels either a) sometimes advocates that and sometimes advocates the opposite (I have, in this reading, still to move on to any section of the Anti Duhring where he does that) or b) advocates non-reliance but accidentally falls into it. Im not sure which, if either of those you believe or whether you have any regard at all to the fact that Engels at times (as I have just read) rejects reliance on dialectical laws to prove things.

^^Gilhyle, you are pissing in the wind if you think Rosa is going to engage you in any of this. Idees fixes are just that.

Gil:

For sure he/it does the quotes I gave show that.

And that is a feature of the writings of all dialecticians; they say thay are not doing this, then they proceed to do the opposite.

Deductions speak louder than words...

Yes, he uses it to interpret organic chemisrty in a certain light -- had he looked at all the evidence from chemistry, he would not have concluded as he did.

He also used Q/Q to interpret the ambiguous fighting skills of the mamelukes, and he used it to impose his view on boiling water -- all in the same Q/Q section of Anti-D. You forgot to mention these in your long post!

Classic examples of imposing this 'law' on specially selected examples.

Unfortunately, none of the instances he quotes work anyway.

Fine sentiments -- which you reject when it comes to Das Kapital and Marx's rejection of dialectics as you understand it.

Once more you have opted to believe what he says, and not look at what he does.

That is about as unwise as relying on what George W says, but ignoring what he does.

Trivas:

You are a fine one to talk -- you refuse to enage at any level, and just post one-liners, like this:

So, you think the relations of production turn into the forces of production, and vice versa, that factories, and railway systems etc., actually turn into class relations of ownership, etc., and vice versa?

Are you that confused?

I fear you are.

And you are the one with the idees fixes -- who dogmatically clings to ancient and mystical ways of viewing reality, pontificating about formal logic from a position of total ignorance.

You demand answers of me, but you refuse to respond to any of mine -- for example, we still await a clear explanation of the term 'dialectical contradiction', just as we await your refutation of my proof that dialectics cannot explain change, and your acknowledgement that you have confused 'verifiable' with 'verified'.

No, these are your words. I put it correctly: At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production thus revolutionizing them (the relations of production).

Trivas -- with yet another one-liner:

But, according to the Dialectical Holy Men (who I quote at length in that other thread -- now repeated below; I even provided the link!), whatever is in struggle turns into that which it struggles against.

Now Marx certainly did not believe that, but your loopy theory implies it.

It implies that the forces of production turn into the relations of production!

Here it is again (quoted to assist your failing memory):

References and links can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/...Explain-Change

It would not be difficult to double or even treble the length of this list of quotations (as anyone who has access to as many books and articles on dialectics as I have will attest), all saying the same thing.

This shows me that you don't know what you're talking about. It behooves you to know how dialectics works re the social process before criticizing it as a science.

Trivas:

In that case, you must disagree with the dialectical classicists (and others) I quoted above, which means that you now have no theory of change.

At least Engels, Lenin and Plekhanov had a theory of change (even if it does not work) -- you do not.

However, far from me not 'knowing what I am talking about', this 'theory' of yours implies opposites in struggle change into one another, and that the forces of production must therefore change into the relations of production, and vice versa; hence I rather think you do not know your own 'theory'!

You have never really given this any thought until now have you? So it is easier to bad-mouth me than face the crazy consequences of the theory you have uncritically swallowed.

And we still await (1) an explanation of 'dialectical contradiction', (2) an admission that you confused 'verifiable' with 'verified', and (3) your refutation of my proof that your 'theory' cannot explain change.

Your battle is really with philosophy qua philosophic -- anyone's philosophy as such -- and not dialectics per se, R.

Trivas:

Indeed, but whereas the ideas of the philosophical 'greats' (such as, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Anselm, Aquinas, Suarez, Descartes, Spinoza, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, Kant, Schopenhauer...) fall apart with great difficulty, those of philosophical incompetents (like Hegel, Engels, and Lenin) fall apart almost of themselves. Even you should be able to see that their 'theory' of change does not work.

So, and once more: we still await (1) an explanation of 'dialectical contradiction', (2) an admission that you confused 'verifiable' with 'verified', and (3) your refutation of my proof that your 'theory' cannot explain change.

Well. Rosa, I dont think just refering me to your website is quite reasonable. To engage with any writer involves unpacking the rhetorical structure that person builds up, engaging with their particular formulatiions and, therefore, restructuring one's own understanding to create a sphere of engagement. For me to do that with Engels, and for you to do that with Engels is a reasonable demand on both of us - as all three of us share a common tradition (however disparate the points in that tradition from which we each come.) But to ask me to orientate to your text rather than the ground between us both (namely Engels' text) is unreasonable.

However, lets not ramble on about that. I am somewhat focused on what I think is your view that Engels relies on dialectical laws to prove conclusions. I find that somewhat difficult to envisage since he is actually arguing that one should not rely on dialectical laws to draw conclusions.....it seems somewhat unlikely that any writer would rely on reference to a dialectical law to prove that one should not rely on reference to dialectical laws ! The error would be somewhat transparent to say the least.


But perhaps, as the part of Anti Duhring concerned with philosophy develops, it broadens out to other issues where this form of argument (which Engels has argued is false) can slip into his methodology. Lets consider what he goes on to say about the law of the negation of the negation.


Here again, you may be surprised to learn we begin by reading about a claim by Duhring that Marx relied on a dialectical law to prove a conclusion. ....in this case the conclusion that capitalism will be succeeded by socialism. Duhring complains that "The Hegelian negation of the negation in default of anything better and clearer has in fact to serve here (i.e. in Part VIII of Volume One of Capital - GH) as the midwife to deliver the future from the womb of the present" [MECW V.25 P.120) Once again, Engels sneers at the very idea that Marx would rely on a dialectical law in this way....it seems to him a ridiculous idea. Once again, Engels faces a problem....because once again there is the undeniable fact that Marx does indeed refer to the Law of the negation of the negation. Once again, Engels thinks he has a way to defend Marx against this charge which he, Engels, considers scurilous, of relying on a dialectical law to prove that socialism will follow capitalism.


But before going on to that, let us just note for the record what Marx actually wrote, the odd fact now and then never going amiss. It comes just after one of the most stirring passages in Vol One of Capital, a passage less often quoted by revolutionaries than it should be, no doubt because the 20th century was a century of voluntarism among revolutionaries. Marx explains how the development of capitalist accumulation, having turned all labourers into proletarians then goes on, via the centralisation of capital, to the point where the socialisation of production becomes incompatible with "their capitalist integument". With evident glee Marx continues: "Thus integument is burst asunder. The knell of capitalist private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated." (MECW Vol 35 P.750). Great stuff ! But then on Marx goes, in his excited condition, poor lad, embarrassingly to state the following : " The Capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation." (MECW Vol 35 P. 751.) Let us again add in the alternative references, should anyone have difficulty finding it: Lawrence and Wishart edition: P.715, Penguin/NLB Edition P. 929. and the link: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...67-c1/ch32.htm

Seems once more that Duhring has a point. Surely this time Engels (who according to Rosa believes that its OK to draw conclusions from dialectical laws ) will just concede, admit Marx drew a conclusion from a dialectical law and defiantly respond that there is nothing wrong with that ! But no ! Once again, Engels enters into battle to prove that Marx did no such thing and that is not what dialectical laws are, anyway.....Strange behaviour you would think for a man who, so Rosa tells us (and she has apparently proven this !), believes after all that it IS ok to refer to dialectical laws to prove more particular things.

Engels first explains how Duhring has actually misunderstood the role of the concept of property in the manner in which he reads this text by Marx. Ah you might think, Engels sidesteps the embarrassing issue...but no ! On he goes after that, to make once again the same point he had already made in relation to the law of Q/Q. Engels argues "...by characterising the process as the negation of the negation , Marx does not intend to prove that the process was historically necessary. On the contrary: only after he has proved from history that in fact the process has partially already occured, and partially must occur in the future, he, in addition characterises it as a process which develops in accordance with a definite dialectical law." (MECW Vol 25 P. 124).

And even that isnt the end of the matter. Engels, who according to Rosa can be proven to have believed that it is OK to prove propositions by appeal to dialectical laws, then goes on to say that having suggested that Marx would try to deduce a fact from a dialectical law, has shown that he (Duhring) has a "total lack of understanding of the nature of dialectics". (MECW 25 P. 125)

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that trying to reconcile Rosa's claim that Engels believed that dialectical laws can be used to prove things and what is written here by Engels is getting very difficult. Apparently what we have before us now (in black and white on the page) is the words of a man - Engels - who Rosa tells us can be proven to have BELIEVED that dialectical laws can legitimately be used to prove things, actually telling us that he believes that anyone who thinks that dialectics can be used as a "...proof-producing instrument, as limited mind might look upon formal logic or elementary mathematics.." (Ibid) has a total lack of understanding of the nature of dialectics.

Could it possibly be that the extended evidence before our eyes - the long articulated passages, repeated in different sections of the book - should bear more weight than isolated sentences taken out of context ? Could it possibly be that whatever Engels did in practice (and we can go through all his texts on this thread, if need be, to find out what he did in practice), what he actually BELIEVED was what he deliberately, reflectively wrote, at length, namely that dialectical laws are NOT to be used as a proof producing instrument. Engels goes on for a further page to reemphasise that dialectics is not about 'proof'.

Then, as he did previously with the Law of Q/Q, he proceeds to explain what the law of the negation of the negation is....and I can now go on to that, but this post is already too long.

(BTW interesting is it not, that on both cited occasions on which Marx has used a dialectical law he has included a strictly unnecessary aside referencing laws of nature...but that is by the by.)

But any reply is moot because you eschew philosophy.

Gil:

And your referring anyone to Anti-Duhring is even less reasonable, if not positively cruel.

Dear me; it takes about a dozen or so reminders these days before a point sinks in with you: Yes I know what he says, but what he actually does belies this.

Yes, this was in Marx's 'coquetting' phase, so why the fuss?

Engels is clearly ambivalent here, and this is why (from Essay Two):

For all their claims to be radical, when it comes to Philosophy, DM-theorists are surprisingly conservative (but worryingly incapable of seeing this, even after it has been pointed out to them). At a rhetorical level, such conservatism is camouflaged behind what appear to be a set of disarmingly modest denials --, which are then immediately ignored.

The quotations recorded below (and in Note 1) show that DM-theorists are anxious to deny that their system is wholly or even partly a priori, or that it has been imposed on the world and not merely read from it. However, the way that dialecticians actually phrase their ideas contradicts these superficially honest claims, showing quite clearly that the opposite is in fact the case.

This inadvertent dialectical inversion -- wherein what DM-theorists say about what they do is the reverse of what they do with what they say -- neatly mirrors the distortion to which traditional philosophy has subjected language (outlined in Essay Three Parts One and Two, and in Essay Twelve).

However, unlike dialecticians, traditional metaphysicians were open and candid about what they were doing; indeed, they brazenly imposed their a priori theories on reality and hung the consequences.

Because dialecticians have a novel (but nonetheless defective) view both of Metaphysics and FL (on the latter, see here), they seem oblivious of the fact that they are just as ready as traditional metaphysicians are to impose their ideas on the world, and equally blind to the fact that in so-doing they are aping the alienated thought-forms of those whose society they seek to abolish.

Naturally, this means that their 'radical' guns were spiked before they were loaded; with such weapons, it's small wonder then that DM-theorists fire nothing but philosophical blanks.

[FL = Formal Logic; DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

Dialectics is a conservative theory precisely because its adherents have adopted the distorted methods, a priori thought-forms and meaningless jargon of traditional Philosophy.

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

So, Engels would naturally deny he is using dialectics to derive things (since that would make him an idealist), but then he proceeds to do the exact opposite.

And where have I said this:

You see, you are once again up to your old tricks, inventing things to put in my mouth. And, just like before, you won't apologise, but it is safe to say that you will pull this trick many more times...

But, where have I said that Marx derives theses from a priori truths? Hence, it is very easy for Engels to see Duhring off at this point. That is because Marx does not do what Duhring says. I agree with you on this.

But, that has no bearing on my claim that Engels, just like practically every other dialectician, is happy to impose dogmatically a priori theses on nature and society.

I gave you several exampls, and referred you to my site for literally hundreds more.

Deal with those, not with examples drawn from Marx which were not part of my allegations.

And, once more I have never claimed Marx did this, and far from it being a "total lack of understanding of the nature of dialectics", it is integral to its apriorism.

You just keep accepting Engels word for it, but ignore his actual practice.

Again, I have made this point several times -- your short-term memory is not too good tonight. Is it ever?

Not so, as I have just said: it is intergal to the aprioristic methodology dialecticians have inherited from Hegel -- which is why they all do it.

Moreover, I have never asserted this:

It is in your interest, once again, to misrepresent what I have said; I would never claim that anyone could 'prove' anything using dialectics, since it is impossible to use such a confused system to prove anything.

What I have said is that Engels is quite happy to impose dialectics on nature and society as an a priori schema, and I gave you several examples. This allows him to 'derive' theses that are true for all of space and time, based on Hegelian jargon, or Hegelian thought-forms.

No isolated sentences; Engels work is peppered with such things.

And I note once more that you question my alleged appeal to 'isolated' passages, taken 'out of context' to establish my claims, while you are quite happy to do this with respect to the alleged agreement between Marx and Engels over their acceptance of dialectics.

Again you apply a double standard.

But Engels did not derive the Q/Q 'law' from evidence, he copied it from Hegel, who likewise imposed it on a few carefully selected examples (which do not work anyway), and which examples Engels also copied!

And the same goes for the other 'laws' -- all copied from Hegel, with only a defective 'logical' argument to back them up, and no evidence.

You need to deal with this -- points I have made many times -- rather than bang on about irrelevant issues, as you regularly do.

All in his 'coquetting' phase, so we can take them with a pinch of non-dialectical salt.

Trivas:

However, unlike you, I do not just post one-liners, or just flatly reject philosophy. In general I explain why I take the line I do -- I try to engage in argument (unless comrades become abusive or start lying --, or make stuff up, like Gil, here).

So, this is just a cop-out on your part.

Once more: we still await (1) an explanation of 'dialectical contradiction', (2) an admission that you confused 'verifiable' with 'verified', and (3) your refutation of my proof that your 'theory' cannot explain change.

I think your grasp of syntax is letting you down there. The full quote is as follows:

The verb 'believes' clearly refers back to 'man'. However, I can see how you might have misread it. My own syntax is rather germanic. But be assured that there is no intention to suggest that YOU believe that it is OK to refer to dialectical laws to prove more particular things. You patently do not....and nor do I and nor does Engels.

But let me come back in a moment on the substantial points you make in your post.

Gil:

Not so, I have never claimed this of Engels.

Your grasp of reality is letting you down.

Note my previous comment.

What a pity you do not subject the confused ramblings of Hegel and Engels to such scrutiny.

If you did, you'd become a materialist almost immediately...

If it's like your other posts, don't bother.

Just post a few pages from Enid Blyton -- we might as well have proper fiction instead.