It seems that the main remnants of Hegelian philosophy are present mostly in the Marxist movement. I just got back from a bookstore and I saw a ton of books on Hegel, so people are obviously still reading him, yet I have never heard of a person declare themself a "hegelian". Obviously, I don't hang out with philosophy professors, so I would be very removed from Hegelians, but I do read a bit of philosophy and haven't seen this.

I also read a book on Logic, and it had a chapter on the "critiques of logic". There were about two paragraphs on Dialectheism, and it said that there are some logicians that are trying to unite dialectics with logic. The author of this book (more in love with Formal Logic than Rosa) even thinks that this is possible.

I'll have to find the quote, because I don't want to butcher what he said. The next time I go to the library, I'll have to find it.

So, are there any pure "Hegelians" today? And do you think that a unity of dialectics and formal logic is possible?

CP:

Yep, and they have been making a strong come-back over the last 20 years (particularly in the USA). Check this out:

http://www.hegel.org/

Their journal is called 'The Owl of Minerva' (hence the by-line at my site).

You can see how far this infestation has spread here:

http://www.hegel.org/links.html

They have even spread over here (in the UK):

http://www.hsgb.group.shef.ac.uk/index.html

And Germany (but they never left):

http://www.hegel-gesellschaft.de/

Mysticism, therefore, does not just haunt Dialectical Marxism.

Who would pay $35 dollars for that?

Well, if you are an Idealist, you can just imagine it anyway....

hehe, no prole is gona pay that, at least only academics will bother...the bunch of good for nothings.

But in an another thread in the learning section, ive been trying to get a clear answer on whether normal dialectics comes under the same critiicisms as DM gets.

BCS:

"But in an another thread in the learning section, ive been trying to get a clear answer on whether normal dialectics comes under the same critiicisms as DM gets."

I am sorry, I missed that thread.

It depends on what you mean by 'dialectics'.

"Systematic Dialectics" (SD) is an academic pastime, which has had, thankfully, no discernible affect on the class struggle (even if its presence goes to show that that section of the borgeoisie who run universities do not, according to their predicted response, find it an "abomination"), although it apparently looks good on the CV. [Check out the work of Bertell Ollman, Tony Smith and Chris Arthur, among others, for this up-market form of philosophical consolation.]

Materialist Dialectics (MD -- a bargain basement form of the above practiced by the vast majority of Marxists (who know about it) is in some respects no different from DM, but in others totally different (for example, where, under the influence of, say, Lukacs it is only applied to the development of class society, and not nature). [This mutant strain can be found in various forms in the work of Raya Dunayevskaya, CLR James, Gerry Healy, and of late, John Rees (whose book prompted me to begin my 'project') and of course, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Plekhanov, etc.]

The criticism of any and all forms of this Hermetic Virus must proceed differently in each case; at my site I mainly concentrate on DM, but in one Essay I expose the ruling-class origin of all philosophical thought (which, in view of that other thread here, also includes Buddhist Philosophy, which encourages, among other things, 'acceptance', thus giving the ruling-class a free hand to continue to oppress etc. (no wonder they like it!)), and not just the mystical hybrid found in DM, MD and SD.

That Essay has not be published yet, but it is summarised here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20016-12.htm

once again it gets turned into an anti-dialectic thread. I think you and redstar should be open about your position, that of Vulgar Marxism, where technological change is where it all starts than branches up to the economy, ideologies, political power, than superstructure. This view is a failure, it will never bring about socialism. They believe this because they are against dialectics, so they have to make up some way that it still looks good, without retaining what they dont like

Lone Red:

"I think you and redstar should be open about your position..."

Could we be any clearer than we already have been? [I can only speak for myself, but I am 100% in favour of a working-class revolution. Nothing 'technological', or 'determinist' about that.]

You DM-fans have a cheek; you are not exactly the non-existent deity's gift to clarity. In your case it's the cooking pot calling the sterilising dish sooty. [Most of your last post was incoherent.]

"This view is a failure, it will never bring about socialism."

And the world is teeming with workers' states thanks to you DM-mystics, is it?

If you can, you need to try to grapple with what I say, not with what you feel you can make me say.

But, if you are a DM-fan, your logically-challenged state will probably stand in your way, here.

Tough.

the failure of bringing socialism to china and russia had nothing to do with dialectics, it actually has shown that dialectics works as it does. the antangonisms specific to the USSR have been in such a way that failed to bring socialism. capitalist pressure on all sides, feudalism, as well as the deeply held belief of authority in that country. saying that USSR and China failed doesnt disprove dialectics, you have not shown so.

http://www.hegel.org/roster.html

Check out their members. Notice where thier from. Over half are from universities.

Lone:

"the failure of bringing socialism to china and russia had nothing to do with dialectics, it actually has shown that dialectics works as it does. the antangonisms specific to the USSR have been in such a way that failed to bring socialism."

Well, this can only mean that dialectics can never fail, for you can always invent a reason and call it an 'antagonism', to save your 'theory' from refutation.

But, if you do that, which you are perfectly at liberty to do, you cannot also cling onto the idea that truth is tested in practice, since nothing can be tested if it cannot fail.

Either way, dialectics take a body blow.

I can live with that.

"saying that USSR and China failed doesnt disprove dialectics, you have not shown so"

Well, given the way you DM-fans argue, nothing could count as a disproof (and, it is perfectly plain that your (collective) estrangement from logic makes you the last people on the planet capable of deciding). So, once again, you are in no position to sit in judgement.

However, the failure of socialism in China, as a practical test of the truth of dialectical Marxism, certainly encourages a prima facie suspicion that not all is right with your 'theory'. This accounts for your desperate search for 'antagonisms' to rescue it.

So let us examine it more closely (this is done in considerably more detail at my site).

Because DM allowed the 'Marxist' forces involved in the Chinese revolution to think they could substitute themselves for the working class and bring socialism to their country throught the back door, as it were, no wonder it failed. This was eminently predicatable (and was predicted, and on the basis of just such a substitution).

Now, this is why I directly link the failure of socialism in China to the crazy theory Mao and his aides swallowed. I accuse DM of being the ideology of substitutionist elements in Marxism (i.e., of those social forces, almost exclusively non-proletarian (Mao, Castro, the tattered remnants of the Russian Bolshevik Party, etc., etc.), who wish to by-pass, for whatever reason, the only force capable of building a socialist society, and thus who end-up substituting themselves for the working-class).

Class society thus does not come to an end (how can it if without a workers' revolution?), we just get more exploitation and oppression of the working-class, which then ends up hating Marxism. This is why, as the working class increases in size, the influence of Dialectical Marxsim diminshes year on year.

Made the connection yet?

Because DM is a contradictory theory (its adherents expect contradictions at every turn), it allows its acolytes to use any old idea to justify anything they like (even to the extent of contradicting the fundamental idea that socialism can only be acheived by the proletariat -- scratch a DM-fan, and you will like as not find someone who looks to Russian Tanks, Third-world guerilla armies, left-leaning reformists (like Chavez), or anything at all, to bring about the revolution).

But, when everything goes belly-up (as it always does) they then turn round and accuse any who disagree (or who, like me. point out where the fault partly lies -- in this wacko theory) of 'not understanding dialectics', which is a safe accusation to make since no one understands this mystical theory, hence its usefulness.

Indeed, DM works rather like certain doctrines of the Church (such as the Trinity), which no one understands, but which can be used by 'experts' to brand anyone a heretic who fails to toe the party-line. [That helps account for the the sectarianism, in the Church and in Marxism.]

Or, like you, they invent a few more 'antagonisms' (in the way that Ptolemaic astronomers used to invent a few more 'epicycles' when their theory failed to work).

Now, coupled with the sustained drubbing DM is receiving at my site (and having already come under suspicion for delivering humanity 130 years of almost continual failure -- courtesy of its tendency to encourage splits and expulsions, and its inherent disposition to justify substitutionism), I think we can safely say that dialectics is looking about as healthy as Ptolemaic astronomy did 450 years ago -- in fact worse: at least Ptolemaic astronomy was fairly accurate for a few hundred years or so.

----------------------------------

DM: provably wrong, but mercifully in terminal decline as a result.

It is indeed its own grave-digger.

Find out why at:

http:www.anti-dialectics.org

Fist, you are right. Hegelians tend to be academics or religious nuts (aka theologians).

Well, you can't really blame them. The Communists' infrastructure in the cities was destroyed. Therefore, this spurred the rise of leaders like Mao who made the observation that the peasants could become a powerful force if organized. Not necessarily dialectics but Mao's analysis was kind of cloaked in dialectic words.

thats a nice long response rosa, but it really didnt address anything. how does dialectics make it possible for substitutive elements? as you said, I agree with you 1. That Lenin,Mao etc.. used dialectics to say that they could transfer different elements with the proletariat as the situations were different in their countries, I completely see where your getting at. but the problem is, is that your using the petty-bourgeois ideologies, of stalin, and especially mao to refute Marxian dialectics, I agree those in USSR and china have painted dialectics,(to those that look deep into things) as something that can justify a lot of things, albeit anti-marxist actions. Their "dialectics" is nothing but petty-bourgeois tom foolerly

Im glad i understand more where your coming from, but disagree that it refutes marxian dialectics

Janus:

"Well, you can't really blame them. The Communists' infrastructure in the cities was destroyed."

And we know who was responsible for that, the great DM-guru himself, Stalin (who personally helped destroy the Chinese Revolution of 1926).

But even if Stalin (and Co) weren't to blame, the substitutionist theory Mao adopted merely helped propel him in the direction he went, and to abject failure.

DM: tested in practice; known to fail.

As to whether this refutes DM -- as I noted it should put DM-fans on the defensive (but does not, since their theory is not scientific, but metaphysical), since it shows that when tested, it always screws up. So anyone who thinks truth is tested in practice, well they either have to abandon that very idea, or admit DM has been refuted by practice.

Fortunately, I have 1001 arguments (at my site) that do refute DM (which arguments merely confirm DM's ruling-class pedigree, and thus why it cannot help but fail).

Pretty much. However, that was the official Comintern line back then: sponsorship of an urban proletarian revolution rather than a peasant based one. 1926? You mean the revolts in 1927? Anyways, Stalin continued to support an alliance between the Communists and Nationalists after the April 12 purges. Isn't that something. I'm going to stop now 'cause this is going too much into history.

Rosa, what do you recommend on combating this Hegelian Idealist tendency? And what exactly do you propose instead of DM?

Lone:

"thats a nice long response rosa, but it really didnt address anything."

Now, that a bit unfair; to this day the DM-fans who post here have not responded to the vast majority of points I have raised, and not just at my site, but at this forum. And most of what I posted was aimed at setting-up the claims I made (in what I honestly thought was an answer to you).

"how does dialectics make it possible for substitutive elements?"

It allows for contradictions, so whenever anyone points out that Marxism is about the self-emancipation of the working-class, and that Russian tanks cannot act for that class, the response is that the objector does not 'undersatnd dialectics' and is wedded to 'abstract formulae', and has not examined the 'concrete' situation, and cannot appreciate the contradictory forces ('antagonisms') there are in the world, blah blah.

Indeed, Mao invented his crazy theory of primary and secondary contradictions to allow him to ally the CP with the Koumintang. Fatal mistake.

Trotsky argued for the 'revolutionary' defence of the USSR, and supported Stalins' murderous invasion of Finland on eminently dialectical grounds. In my own experience, I have argued with comrades who think that the Red Army brought socialism to E Europe in the 1940's, and that I could not see this because i did not appreciate the contradictory forces ('antagonisms') at work, and was super-glued to an abstract formula, etc etc.

It even allows you to ignore the substitutionism in your own position, and prevents you from seeing that your 'theory' refuted. [I.e., if you hold to a contradictory theory, anything that contradictis it, also confirms it (!!). With a normal scientific theory, this does not happen. With DM, it is part of the theoretical structure, so nothing in material reality can refute it.]

In that case, DM is standing in the way of the scientific advance of Marxism, because it is preventing comrades from taking a hard look at their own history and seeing the failures for what they are (or even from seeing the failures -- like you, and your appeal to 'antagonisms').

So, since your response is quite common among DM-fans, we can look forward to another 130 years of the same failure -- except, now very few workers listen to the DM-gospel, since they have learnt what it means (gulags, anti-revolutionary posturing, oppression, explotation -- all 'justified' by contradictory logic).

Workers are far too materialistic to fall for this Idealist theory (as the evidence indicates, we are now further away from a 'workers' state' set-up by DM-fans than we were 80 years ago).

It is the one ray of light at the end of this DM-tunnel.

Janus:

"Rosa, what do you recommend on combating this Hegelian Idealist tendency? And what exactly do you propose instead of DM?"

As to combatting Hegelian ideas in Marxism, I suspect they have penetrated too far for it to be reversed.

If I am honest, I think our movement is doomed; DM-adepts are psychologically wedded to their precious dialectics, and would rather die than abandon it. It provides them with consolation that even if what they can see with their material eyes (i.e., long-term failure) contradicts what their theory tells them (that DM is the bees knees), that's OK since reality contradicts appearances anyway (according to DM again), and so can be ignored -- or various 'antagonisms' can be dreamt-up to bail it out.

The universal dialectic (their God) will make sure everything is OK in the end.

So we can see that the original DM-classicists turned to DM when the movement went into reverse: Hegel after the French revolution failed; Engels when the Chartists went into decline; Lenin after 1905; Trotsky after 1926; Orthodox Trotskyists all the time (since they are the most numinous tendency) -- they see the 'last crisis of capital' everywhere, and are constantly disappointed, so they need their Dialectical Methadone all the time.

You can see how far into the sand comrades heads have been inserted by examining the responses of DM-fans at this site, and the latter, even if they are largely ill-informed (I suspect this is because the ones arguing with me, for example, are very young, and know shit all about logic or philosophy, or both, but I could be wrong), is typical. DM-fans enjoy a high silicate diet. The Sahara is their second home.

However, on a positive note, I think the class war will kill DM-off; since DM encourages its acolytes into bypassing the real gravediggers of Capitalism (i.e., the proletariat -- in the way I indicated), they end up ignoring DM; hence DM becomes its own gravedigger. A nice dialectical inversion.

If all change is the result of internal contradictions (which I deny, but DM-fans do not), then the theory that ignores the ones I point out, cannot help but kill itself off.

That is why it is in terminal decline, and the faster it declines the more you will see the need to deny it (an ironic unity of opposites this!).

So when the very last DM-fan (probably isolated in, say, Tierra Del Fuego) finds him or herself alone, I think it will be a pretty safe bet that (like the Black Knight in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail') they will see this as a major victory for the international proletariat. You can see the headlines now (in the Workers Van Driver):

"Lack of Quantity leads to better Quality."

With a first paragraph:

"Things may appear to be bad, but in reality, they are the opposite. The party may have been negated, but the negation of this negation is just around the corner. An amazing and world-historic zero workers (and other human beings) responded to the fliers for our last rally; so the only way now is up! Forward to the world revolution...."

Sure, it's an exggeration, but not by much. We could probably both of us name the comrades capable of almost that level of self-deception. Why, some of them post here!

What do I propose in its place?

Well, I do not think Marxism needs any Philosophy at all, just good science -- and we have that in Historical Materialism.

So, that is what I propose (so long as the Hegelian rubbish it now contains is thrown into the trash can of non-dialectical history).

http://www.anti-dialectics.org

Are you talking about the Second United Front? It was justified by pragmatism rather than dialectics. You don't need dialectics to prove that a ceasefire is necessary in order to focus on the bigger issue of Japanese imperialism. Or do you ?

I have never heard any dialecticians state this. Though I suppose that the window-brick analogy which you once used could be refuted if it was analyzed from a larger picture. That the window breaks because of the contradiction between it and the brick. But with that, then it would all be a matter of semantics.

But some say that historical materialism is simply the application of dialectical materialism to society and history. I suppose that it could be a decent substitute especially since much of it is based on fact and empirical observations.

While Hegel himself is rather inaccessible, he does have an immense legacy, and not just in Marxism or among academics.

Various distortions of dialectics penetrates the modern way of thinking. In some cases, he described and thus partly redefined existing social and mental structures in ways which still persist. In the world of philosophy, wouldn't Habermas represent the closest thing to a modern hegelianism?