Scientific Socialism and Dialectics

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Scientific Socialism and Dialectics Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:20:10 No.733 [View All]

Alright so I've had a few interactions with people on /leftypol/ who seem to think that Dialectics means rejecting the Aristotelian law of non-contradiction. As far as I can tell this has no real basis in the work of Marx or Engels and is a good to not be taken seriously by anyone who understands logic or philosophy or mathematics. I was really confused about where this came from for a while. I have read Mao's "On Contradiction" many times and I suppose that text could be read that way, but I don't think that is what Mao meant by contradiction or "the unity of opposites". Last night though I read Leon Trotsky's "The ABC of Materialist Dialectics" and I think I've found my answer. In it, Trotsky straight up makes a case for why A=/=A, and does make a somewhat compelling argument until you examine it critically.

This piece is well written like most of Trotsky's work, but his argument is full of non-sequitors and general misreadings of Marx and Engels. I want to make this thread to do some comparing and contrasting between four texts in particular, but we can bring in other lit if people want. Those four texts are…

Anti-Duhring by Engels:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/index.htm

The ABC of Materialst Dialectics:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/12/abc.htm

Dialectical and Historical Materialism:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm

On Contradiction by Mao Zedong:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm

The first thing I want to note is in paragraph 12 of the general introduction to Anti-Duhring:

>To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. "His communication is 'yea, yea; nay, nay'; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." [Matthew 5:37. — Ed.] For him a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another, cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis one to the other.

Now, on first read this might appear to be a denunciation of Aristotelian non-contradiction, but I am pretty sure it isn't. It isn't a mere assertion of temporarily either because he specifically says "at the same time". I'm pretty sure what he means here is that a thing can be both itself in terms of it's internal relations, and something else in terms of it's external relations. This is supported by the context of this quote, in which Engels is talking about the metaphysical or even naturalistic approach of examining systems in isolation and not in their particular contexts.

Thoughts?

87 posts and 19 image replies omitted. Click reply to view.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:26 No.1426

>>1379
it has to do with Hegel's distinction between essence and appearance
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/mean03.htm
basically, essence exist only insofar as it appears, it does not pre-exist its appearance.
>>934
So how do you explain statements like
>It will be shown later that the most extreme form of alienation, wherein labour appears in the relation of capital and wage labour, and labour, productive activity appears in relation to its own conditions and its own product, is a necessary point of transition – and therefore already contains in itself, in a still only inverted form, turned on its head, the dissolution of all limited presuppositions of production, and moreover creates and produces the unconditional presuppositions of production, and therewith the full material conditions for the total, universal development of the productive forces of the individual
(directly from Grundrisse)
is Marx's description of the alienation of labor not identical to Fichte’s identical subject-object (a key abstract component of Hegelian dialectics)?
furthermore, there are conceptions such as the money form (M-C-M) which can be framed as an example of Hegel's passage from substance to subject. where capital is a substance-money made subject. (in vol. 1 of Capital).
I don't know how you can view these as just a flirtation with Hegel when these concepts are identical in all but representation
>>941
I think recursive is a better word than fractal

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:43 No.1597

https://www.marxists.org/subject/marxmyths/jordan/article.htm
Is this text accurate? I never saw that the separation between Marx and Engels was an issue here, but the topic of dialectics seems to be pressing.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:44 No.1601

>>1281
>companies were invented to contain and neutralize class struggle.
laterally no marxists says this

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:44 No.1602

File: 1608528104809.jpg (956.63 KB, 1487x1657, 81349130_p0.jpg)

>>1424
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_vi.htm
He literally says that in §80, he just calls the first movement Understanding (or Abstract).
> Thought, as Understanding, sticks to fixity of characters and their distinctness from one another …
> … The action of Understanding may be in general described as investing its subject-matter with the form of universality. …
> … Thus, in theory, knowledge begins by apprehending existing objects in their specific differences. In the study of nature, for example, we distinguish matters, forces, genera, and the like, and stereotype each in its isolation. …
He continues in §81:
> In the Dialectical stage these finite characterisations or formulae supersede themselves, and pass into their opposites.
Idk who taught you about Hegel but you should ask for your money back.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:44 No.1603

>>1601
That's the point.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:44 No.1604

>>1378
Then stop using stupid ass phrases like "the dialectics is in motion".

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:45 No.1606

>>1597
pretty much. this is why you should never take anyone on /leftypol/ seriously when they talk about "dialectical materialism" as mutually exclusive to "idealism". it's rabid feral pseudery. I don't know how you can read sentences in Marx about "commodity fetishism" and come to the conclusion that he's "anti-idealist"

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:46 No.1620

>>1601
I think they're saying that if Marxists were consistently applying their thought process they would be saying that

tbh nothing wrong with Marxism if you ignore the mystique dialectical materialism shit and dogma and essentialism (conflating state and capitalism or reducing all issues to class issues as examples)
btw I heard that Marx used a lot of dry sarcasm in his writings which is hard to detect so some people take it literally, so that comrade might be right about Marx mocking Hegel

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:47 No.1624

>>1602
>Idk who taught you about Hegel but you should ask for your money back.
you're the one who chose to call it thesis, antithesis and synthesis. do you even know the difference?

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:47 No.1625

>>1604
dialectics are human

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:47 No.1626

why are moefags the biggest pseuds on earth?

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:47 No.1631

>>1624
I put it in quotes because that is how it appears on the picture. Honest question: are you actually this stupid or are you just looking for excuses to disregard the post because it hurt your feelings? This is an anonymous board, you don't have to lie to us.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:47 No.1632

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcYPL3s2Mmw

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:47 No.1634

>>1631
I asked first. do you even know the difference between the Dialectical and Socratic method?

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:47 No.1635

>>1634
Of course I do. My turn: are you actually this stupid or are you just looking for excuses to disregard the post because it hurt your feelings?

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:21:49 No.1643

>>1635
it’s quite clear the only person hurting anybody’s feelings is Hegel

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:22:02 No.1796

how can anybody without an understanding of dialectics glean any understanding of it from this thread, when nobody agrees?

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:22:02 No.1798

>>1796
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1938/09.htm
Start here

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:22:02 No.1799

>>1796
the easiest way to learn it accurately is to gain an understanding of Kant and what is meant by the “noumenal I” and how that relates to the “intellectus archetypus”. (you will obviously have to do some studying to understand what those mean). that’s basically the launching point in which Hegel asserts antinomies are inherent to things-in-themselves since Kant proves it for being-in-itself. it can naturally be projected onto noumena since the Kantian “I” is noumenal. only when you get what I meant by all the things in this post will you grasp the thesis-antithesis of Hegel’s method and how to arrive at a sublation/absorption of those specific types of contradictions/antinomies. the point of this post isn’t for you to understand everything that I’ve typed, but if you can parse it and comprehend it you can claim to have grasped Hegel’s method. and if you believe otherwise, you have been misled.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:25:09 No.3558

File: 1608528309896.jpg (54.69 KB, 724x345, vus.jpg)

Copy-Pasting some relevant posts I made from a different thread to here. Would just link but /leftypol/ has gotten pretty fast lately.

OP:
>>>/leftypol/908174

First Post

Here, I intend to show that for Engels, science was a mater of empirical investigation. The following quotations are from the general introduction.

>"The beginnings of the exact investigation of nature were first developed by the Greeks of the Alexandrian period, and later on, in the Middle Ages, were further developed by the Arabs. Real natural science, however, dates only from the second half of the fifteenth century, and from then on it has advanced with increasing rapidity."

Engels–like the Philosophers of Science in the 1920s–viewed natural sciences as a model from which principles of method could be abstracted, but–unlike the Philosophers of science in the 1920s–Engels did not see the method employed in natural sciences as an idealized form to which any future science must conform, but rather as a stage in the development of science, subject to historical contingencies with it's own shortcomings.

>"The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the groupings of the different natural processes and natural objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organic bodies in their manifold forms–these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature which have been made during the last four hundred years. But this method of investigation has also left us as a legacy the habit of observing natural objects and natural processes in their isolation, detached from the whole vast interconnection of things; and therefore not in motion, but in their repose; not as essentially changing, but as fixed constants; not in their life, but in their death. And when, as it was the case with Bacon and Locke, this way of looking at things was transferred from natural science to philosophy, it produced the specific narrow mindedness of the last centuries, the metaphysical mode of thought."

Engels had a vision of an approach to science which could overcome these limitations, and he worked to actualize this vision in his work.

The aforementioned shortcomings Engels labels as metaphysics, and as we will see in the next section, it is overcome through dialectics.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:25:10 No.3559

Second Post

The previous section illustrated a congruence between Engels' use of the word science and contemporary uses of the same word. This and all subsequent sections will instead repudiate the existence of any such congruence in use cases of the respective terms.

First: metaphysics. In contemporary academia, metaphysics refers to a branch of philosophy which seeks to answer questions of the substance or fundamental nature of reality. In the previous quotation from Anti-Duhring we can see that Engels uses the term quite differently. For Engels, metaphysics refers to conceptions of systems or things as isolated from the world around them. In other words, the metaphysical outlook sees the internal relations of a things or system, but not the external relations. To view a system as static is metaphysical because it neglects to consider the system in relation to time. This particular metaphysical outlook is the cause for much confusion, because it is used frequently and sometimes taken as the whole picture. It is important to keep in mind that metaphysics includes all models which neglect either internal or external relations, not just static models.

We pick up where we left off:

>"To the metaphysician, things and their mental images, ideas, are isolated, to be considered one after the other apart from each other, rigid, fixed objects of investigation given once for all. He thinks in absolutely discontinuous antithesis."

The opposite of metaphysics, that is to say, a view of objects and systems that considers internal and external relations, and the interrelations between these relations, IS dialectics. The aforementioned reduction of metaphysics to conceptions as static, consequentially reduces dialectics to an acknowledgement of change as constant. Hence, the common misconception that dialectics is the principle that all things are in constant motion.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:25:10 No.3560

Third Post

In contemporary philosophy, idealism and materialism describe metaphysical schools of thought that respectively assert consciousness (or mind or concepts or will) and matter as the fundamental substance of our world. I will not mislead you, Engels does espouse a form of conventional materialism. In addition to this however, he gives idealism and materialism new meanings, I think best illustrated by this section from section "III. Classification. Apriorism" The quotation follows a lengthy section, paraphrased from Eugen Duhring which I will not subject you to here, but the beginning may be confusing as a result.

>"What he is dealing with are therefore principles, formal principles derived from thought and not from the external world, which are to be applied to Nature and to the realm of man, and to which therefore Nature and the realm of man have to conform. But whence does thought obtain these principles? From itself? No, for Herr Duhring himself says: the realm of pure thought is limited to logical schemata and mathematical forms (the latter, moreover, as we shall see, is wrong). Logical schemata can only relate to forms of thought; but what we are dealing with here are only forms of being, of the external world, and these forms can never be created and derived by thought out of itself, but only from the external world. But with this the whole relationship is inverted: the principles are not the starting point of the investigation, but its final result; they are not applied to Nature and human history, but abstracted from them; it is not Nature and the realm of humanity which which conform to these principles, but the principles are only valid insofar as they are in conformity with Nature and history. This is the only materialistic conception of the matter, and Herr Duhring's contrary conception is idealistic, makes things stand completely on their heads, and fashions the real world out of ideas."

This quote can be difficult to parse so read it over again if you need to. Engels unequivocally states here that the distinction between idealism and materialism is one of METHOD, rather than metaphysical substance. The primary difference between materialism and idealism for Engels is not metaphysical at all, it is epistemological! It regards principles, ie, statements, laws of nature, empirical claims. Let's break down his definition of the "materialistic conception" into three points:

>The principles are not the starting point of the investigation, but it's final result.

>They are not applied to nature and human history but abstracted from them

>It is not up to nature to conform to these principles but rather it is up to the principles to conform to reality

Clearly, materialism for Engels entails a particular method of empirical investigation. You might say, a scientific method. The first two points regard how empirical claims are apprehended. Karl Popper explicitly excludes any specifications in this domain from his criterion, so Engels method already has a wider array of applications, but the third point–upon careful consideration–contains the rational embryo for falsifiability! If principles are shown to not conform to reality, what are we to do with the? Throw them out! In this one line, Engels has implied Poppers criterion forty or more years before it's advent! Admittedly, it is not spelled out in Poppers characteristic autism, but I think what it lacks in rigor it makes up for in elegance.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:25:31 No.3742

>>734
the socialist materialists are idealists
dialectical materialism is nothing else but idealistic materialism
ascribing history and change to dead matter brings forth the concept of god

the truth of the matter regarding A ≠ A is the following:

the reversal of metaphysics
https://i.imgur.com/FoV4omw.png

1.if everything is becoming then nothing is being
if nothing is being then nothing can become

2.if everything is trying to overcome being
it will always revert into being

3.being is becoming, becoming is being
what is besides becoming and being?

https://i.imgur.com/FBUXj09.png
https://i.imgur.com/06OhjNs.png
https://i.imgur.com/Mz3fjni.png

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:25:33 No.3763

File: 1608528333805.jpg (237.52 KB, 424x433, Friedrich_Engels.jpg)

socialism utopian and scientific

https://vocaroo.com/1hQcFzwLeQIs
https://i.imgur.com/cyX1dQB.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/Qu5nfsc.png

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:16 No.4232

>>3742
You understand this is schizo nonsense, right? This is why no one comes here.

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:16 No.4233

File: 1608528376771.pdf (713.59 KB, 40403102.pdf)

>>733
gonna leave this here, seems relevant

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:16 No.4234

>>4232
These…
>>3742
>>3763
Not me.

And yes, I know my reading is schizo, but it is still better than Trotsky's!!!!

Comrade 2020-12-21 (Mon) 05:26:16 No.4235

>>4233
Thank you for the contribution!

Anonymous 2021-04-19 (Mon) 20:21:49 No.5483

bump

Anonymous 2021-05-01 (Sat) 01:19:29 No.5564

Is it true that Mao is the best teacher for dialectics?

Anonymous 2021-05-01 (Sat) 01:21:25 No.5565

File: 1619832085811.png (284.33 KB, 1114x617, 1613083855358.png)

>>5483
>>5564
Here anons, this will get you started

Anonymous 2021-05-02 (Sun) 16:48:56 No.5583

File: 1619974136026-0.png (131.6 KB, 562x305, E0VAWk8XsAANcbV.png)

File: 1619974136026-1.png (61.08 KB, 558x152, E0VAF1dXIAgxQA2.png)

File: 1619974136026-2.png (72.44 KB, 563x177, E0U_7-tWUAIY9IM.png)

File: 1619974136026-3.png (116.48 KB, 564x268, E0U_3RUXIAAQVCK.png)

gonna de-rail the thread. sorry

am i interpreting this right? the author is claiming that the dialectic itself is bourgeois and perpetuates capital. is hegel's 'real' a logic or an "existence"? it's an interesting take, and are there arguments for and against this claim?

book is "reading marx philosophically" by Harry Cleaver

Anonymous 2021-05-03 (Mon) 10:55:59 No.5585

>>5583
Reread that sentence. He’s saying it THEORIZEs Capital’s tendency to perpetuate.
The Hegelian Dialectic is bourgeois, because as the author says, it’s tainted by individual subjective logic that treats the development of logic as something for an individual to do rather than the public consciousness itself.

Anonymous 2021-05-07 (Fri) 21:20:28 No.5609

File: 1620422428683.png (1.21 MB, 1022x767, 1_z094hXsb5c5g8ElsqmKV9w.png)

>>906
>Which works should I read to understand dialectical
this is a pretty good introduction
https://dashthered.medium.com/marxism-for-normal-people-dialectical-materialism-deb5034685a4

Anonymous 2021-05-31 (Mon) 19:13:19 No.5920

HEGEL JUST BEEN DEBUNKED:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf4R0gX7g3w

Anonymous 2021-06-01 (Tue) 06:31:20 No.5924

>>5920
Wtf is this channel?

Anonymous 2021-06-01 (Tue) 06:34:35 No.5925

>>5924
long winded rightoid garbage

Anonymous 2021-06-01 (Tue) 06:55:10 No.5926

>>5920
>4 hours
I think I'll pass, thanks. lol

Anonymous 2021-07-03 (Sat) 08:16:47 No.6258

>>5565
hilarious. I miss him, comrades. Is he still being insane?

Also, unashamed bump.

Anonymous 2021-07-20 (Tue) 21:34:15 No.6511

best explaination of hegelian dialectics so far
It's in German but with English subtitles just turn them on

Anonymous 2021-07-20 (Tue) 21:54:28 No.6513

>>1413
>Daoism is the ideology of primitive tribal chieftains, who want to return to the simple time of primitive communism. It's not a accident that the more communist you are, the more dialectical you become

I like to think that about Jesus and his Christianity, but I don't see any evidence of dialectical thinking on his part, except maybe for the gospel of thomas, but I'll have to read that one again.

Anonymous 2021-10-20 (Wed) 21:55:23 No.8407

>>733
>This piece is well written unlike most of Trotsky's work
FTFY

Anonymous 2021-10-21 (Thu) 02:14:24 No.8412

File: 1634782462846-0.pdf (1.52 MB, 230x300, Marx, Engels, and Dialecti….pdf)