Re: defining dialectics

["James N. Stewart" <jnstewart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Two points...  Feel free to skip the first....


----- Original Message -----
From: <KDean75206@xxxxxxx>
To: <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 1999 6:19 PM
Subject: defining dialectics


> "dialectics. (used with a sing. or pl. verb). The Marxian process of
change
> through the conflict of opposing forces, whereby a given contradiction is
> characterized by a primary and a secondary aspect, the secondary
succumbing
> to the primary, which is then transformed into an aspect of a new
> contradiction."

It occurs to me, irrelevantly perhaps, that this is the very idea that is
embocied in a lot of the western occult tradition and is at the hear of most
interpretations of, of all things, Tarot.  Now, most of this occult stuff,
particularly the Golden Dawn and so forth, is nineteenth century in origins
and may well have strong roots (unrecognized) in Hegel as well.  (Yes, one
does pick up quite a variety of stuff on the road of lfe.) I should bring
this up with a Builders of the Adedum friend of mine.

> And finally.  When one speaks of "Scientific" socialism--what is so
> "scientific" about it?  Some people have told me that when Marx said
> "scientific" he really meant "knowledge based" rather than a "science" as
> defined in the classical sense.
> When I hear the word "Scientific" I have images of any group of people
acting
> independantly in the world applying Marx's analysis and drawing the same
> conclusions from that analysis.  This doesn't seem to be the case,
however.

    This is the perfect question to ask Gus Hall this weekend.
    I assume that the notion comes from the German in which the term
Wissenschaft (it's been a while and my spelling is probably off) is
generally translated as Science, but has a more antique meaning of
systematized knowledge.  Thus, for example, an aesthetician (a philosopher,
not a beautician) might be called a Kustwissenschaftler, i.e. an art
knowledge worker.  Importing a German notion of scientific Marxism to
English is probably to load it with unnecessary baggage because the Englsh
term is much more specific, implying stabel elements, defined and objective
methodology, and so on.  In English we would expect of a Marxist science
more than it is likely to produce.
    Still the main thing is the intent of the speaker and it could be that
the notion is more useful than Iwould have thought.


> Kevin Dean | Buffalo, NY
> Western New York Socialist Party:
> http://sp-usa.org/ny/buffalo
> Personal Homepage:
> http://users.aol.com/kdean75206/pub/
> "A nation cannot be free and at the same time continue to oppress other
> nations"
> -Fredrick Engles