The revolutionary dialectic and the liberation of humanity
By Ann Robertson
Friday, 26 October 2007

In developing this philosophical outlook, Marx based himself on great thinkers that had preceded him, but went beyond them in developing further those ideas and providing new insights. He developed his dialectics from Hegel, the great German philosopher. Here Ann Robertson in the USA provides an interesting examination of the development of dialectics from Hegel through to Marx.

Complete article...

Thanks for that Che, but I see it merely repeats all the tired old errors exposed in my Essays.

You mean it doesn't conform to your new 'revisions' and 'reforms' in Marxism...?

why do you get all angry when someone tries to debunk dialectics?

even if you think hoxha is your sugardaddy i dont see why you need to get so angry about that. i too think all that shitty talk about contradictions is metaphysical and unmaterialist. do you see scientists making shitty declaratons about "negations of negations", or rather, they, at least ideallty, try to be as crystal clear as possible?

The negation of the negation is not strictly a law but an observable pattern in the universe. It merely indicates that things change rather than stay the same, in general, and by definition discounting absolutes as absolutes but not the relative within any absolute

Kromando
I see you still have not been able to come up with any substantive response to my demolition of that mystical theory you dote on.

Just content to snipe from the sidelines.

Peace:

And Christian fundamentalists say more or less the same about the 'mysterious works of god', even if they like to use the word 'law' from time to time.

Nice to know you mystics all think alike.

It is good to see that Christian fundamentalists are in some ways rooted in reality.

Peace:

Just as it is good to see they are at least one step ahead of you.

I thought Ann Robinson's article is a reasonable effort. In describing Hegel, I think she falls into the trap of not differentiating clearly between an empirical description of how understanding actually occurs and a 'logic' of understanding.

Hegel is very confusing for modern logicians because of the lack of any deductive necessity in the 'logical' relations he sets out. But the sense in which what he is describing is a logic is different. Peacenicked has rightly pointed out that it is about an 'observable pattern'. Of course Rosa is also correct to say that there is a similarlty with the method of thinking of Christian fundamentalists (although Rosa observing this pattern of similarity is a somewhat amusing self-referential failure since she suggests the similarlity of pattern is of some relevance to the assessment of dialectics)

Furthermore, I think it is wrong to say that the universal, particular,individual IS Hegel's dialectic. These are certainly central concepts, but Hegel's dialectic is two dialectics, the objective logic (being/essence/actuality) and the subjective logic (subjectivity/objectivity/Idea). However, as a way to describe Hegel's dialectic, universal/particular/individual sorta works.

What is attractive for her in this is that it allows her to apply a common framework to Hegel and Marx/Engels. But it has a lot of dangers in it. She seems to say that Marx sees society as production....this would of course be quite wrong. When she says that Marx did not believe that human society conformed to a single logic, it is difficult to reconcile ths claim with the existencne of the materialist conception of history as a Marxist concept of the unified logic of human history.

Except, as I noted, she commits all the old, cliched errors that even you, Gil, have failed to spot -- even after they have been pointed out to you.

Dialectical Myopia, I think it is called.

Not so; Hegel's dialectic is based solely on a series of crass logical blunders; the fact that his 'theory' is little more than Christian mysticism writ obscurely is just one more reason to reject it, but it is not the most important one.

However, I note you are still having to make stuff up about my ideas in order to malign them, Gil.

Perhaps this is one of the few things in the universe that is not subject to the Heraclitean Flux?

A few of Hegel's blunders have been outlined here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.p...97&postcount=2

And updated version can be found here (which does into slightly more detail):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Outline_of_Hegel's_errors_01.htm

And all you do is continually promote the nonsense of your website in 98% of your posts. You should be restricted to a website promotion forum, for all you do is spam the site with promotions of your website.

I have not had time to read the article yet. I will have to get on it when I can.

Axel/Volkov:

Ah, the 'shoot-from-the-hip-but-do-not-check-your-facts-first-guy' is back.

But, you would not know whether my essays are 'nonsense', since you have not read them.

I have been telling you this now for nearly two years.

Any chance this message might finally get through that brick-lined skull of yours?

Exhibit A for the prosecution:

And, we both know what you'd say about someone who condemned, say, Trotsky's work without having bothered to read it first.

[Clue: it's a five letter word, beginning with "i", and ending with "t".]

And that is what we should say about you...

[By the way, is that a couple of links I see in your signature; don't tell me you are advertising a certain site, and are thus a hypocrit?!?]

Rosa your lucky this forum isn't run on democratic centralist lines, otherwise your incorrect line would have silenced by the majority long ago.

K:

I like your commitment to open debate, an essential part of democratic centralism (as Lenin argued). The way you picture things, one would be forgiven for confusing your brand of 'Marxism' with the sort of doctrine propounded by the medieval Roman Catholic Church, and its Inquisition. And you wonder why I call this 'theory' of yours a quasi-religious dogma. It's certainly not a science.

Just as I like your attempt to silence (even if only in theory) a point of view for which you just do not have any answers.

Out of your depth eh?

[Since I am part of the organised structure of this board, you are more likey to be silenced than me, for your trollish behavour.]

I don't believe Rosa's essays are nonsense, but I do believe they are irrelevant to everyone who hasn't read them. (Or have read them, but are incapable of understanding them).

Well, that is why I wrote some specially simplified versions of them (at the request of a few comrades here).

Link below.

Also try these:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/Anti-D_For_Dummies%2001.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/disclaimer.htm

The latter was published in Weekly Worker a few months ago.

And as I have been saying for two years: your logic breaks at such weak links in your posts that your essays do not warrant serious examination. You don't exactly have to read Mein Kampf to understand the nonsense spouted out by Fascists, for instance.

And over these two years, you have yet to put up in practice. So that really shows something.

How about that "Either put up or shut up" comment of mine from some time ago getting through your skull?

First of all, I have read other works, and I have actually met and talked with the author of that article. Secondly, my posts are not hinged on website promotion.

Axel/Volkov:

You might have been saying it, but when asked, you refuse to give examples, and go very quiet.

Sure, you do not have to read my essays, but then stop passing ill-informed comments on them.

And the analogy with Mein Kampf does not work, for someone had to read that book to know it was fascist filth.

But, not one single one of you mystics will allow your tender eyes to read my work -- so how do you know it is as you say it is?

Well, whatever my practice has or has not been, yours has not been all that note worthy either. Or have I missed the US workers' revolution?

In fact, you dialectical mystics have presided over nearly 150 years of almost total failure -- so practice is the last thing you should be appealing to.

You even have to copy your abuse off me, as well.

Not too impressive are you?

Neither are the vast majority of mine.

Mystical forms that have god as their 'matter', correspond to real forms when they deal with actual things. This is roughly Marx on Hegel, who you are one step behind.