Trivas:

And that's yet another item to add to the mile-long list of things you 'haven't a clue' about.

That is not what the quoted words say:

You don't quote in context:
--Marx and Engels (1970), The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphasis added.

Trivas:

I did do, in the last post but one:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...3&postcount=77

So, even in context, these words do not say what you would like them to say.

Marx is quite clear: "The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world."

Moreover, Marx showed he preferred to use ordinary langauge wherever possible in Das Kapital --, employing for example the ordinary language of causation, as I have demonstrated.

However, we still await your proof that Marx was not seeking a causal account of capitalism.

But, we know from past experience that we have an awful long wait ahead of us.

Marx's use of language is your concern, Rosa, not Marx's.

Nor do I see where Marx states the cause of social change outside of historically mediated social conditions. Do you?

Trivas:

Too bad for you, Marx agrees with me, not you:

Marx would hardly say this if he was unconcerned about language.

So, you admit then that Marx does appeal to the cause of social change, otherwise what do you mean by this?

And what you say is not even factually correct. Marx uses the full range of causal language available to him from ordianary language to explain social change.

Except language as such isn't Marx's concern at all.

Yes, I know that your only concern here is one-upmanship, Rosa. Good luck with that.

Trivas:

Except he disagrees with you.

Just as yours seems to be to confirm that you 'do no think about things you don't think about'.

And we are still waiting for the proof that Marx was not trying to give a causal account of social change in Das Kapital.

Indeed and that is exactly what one understands when one studies the particular issue.....but you are not interested in that process of study and understanding, you want to resolve this matter in advance of study, by philosophical fiat. But that is your metaphysical way.......I make no assumption that dialectical contradictions exist, I merely recognise them when I find them.

Behind all your bluster in defence of so-called causal analysis, you dont define it either, or explain how it works or exclude the possibility of oher types of explanation. Its absurdly reductionist to think of all explanation as causal. Of course some isthat is not controversial. But the idea that all explanation is about describing the material precoditions o a defined event is patently inadequate to what Capital does.

Gil:

So, the short answer is -- after you once again make a weak attempt to deflect attention from your predicament and onto my alleged failings -- that you can't explain this 'paradox'.

Fine, just admit it's a mystery every bit as deep as the Christian Trinity.

1) You are the one who is blustering, sunshine. It is you who can't explain this core concept.

2) And your highly emotional state (doubtless this is because you are now seeing your source of dialectical opiates slowly evaporate under my relentless attacks) explains the increasingly incoherent comments you are posting.

3) Finally, what is so evil about causal language? After all, Marx uses it all the time.

So: we still do not know what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- or if we do, we also know they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

Nothing

Gil:

In that case, why say this?

And still, we have yet to be told what a 'dialectical contradiction' is -- the 'best' attempt so far suggests that they cannot exist, and so cannot change anything.

Because your whole, endlessly repetitive line of argument is to demand of others that they define and explain usages....while not believing yourself that that is practical.

Gil:

Not so; I only require you mystics to be clear about certain key ideas that you conveniently leave vague.

Since I have no theory, nor do I want one, whereas you lot claim to have one (that you can't defend), I do not need to define anything, but you lot need to be far clearer about your ideas.

Of course, it may be that you lot can't be clear.

You can always prove me wrong...