Re: defining dialectics

[bernie wool <bernard.wool@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kevin,

Curiously, given the prominence of dialectics and dialectical materialism in 
20th
century Marxist writing, one is hard pressed to find the first mentioned
explicitly by Marx himself, and the latter never at all (as far as I am aware).
I believe Plekhanov spoke of little else, and might be the main architect behind
the 'dialectical materialist method'.  Lenin devotes some pages to 'On the
question of dialectics' in his Philosophical Notebooks (p359, vol 38, Col. W.,
Progress Publishers, Moscow).  BTW, this volume now comes with a health warning!
Engels in Dialectics of Nature (p 62 - 68 and  p212-242, Progress Edition.  Try
Engels Dof N 218-221 on chance and necessity - "last night I was bitten by a 
flea
at four o'clock in the morning, and not at three or five o'clock, and on the
right shoulder and not on the left calf - these are all facts which have been
produced by an irrevocable concatenation of cause and effect, by an 
unshatterable
necessity of such a nature indeed that the gaseous sphere, from which the solar
system was derived, was already so constituted that these events had to happen
thus and not otherwise."

'The dialectic' has an immensely long history going back to the classical Greek
philosophers, and of course was central to Hegel's 'Logic'.  Much of that
inheritance is summarised in Lenin's vol 38.

Some would say that Marxism is not 'dialectical materialism', and that trying to
tease out 'laws of nature', or 'universals' from the material world is tilting 
at
windmills, and at worst the source of a rigidity no different from that of
Newton's mechanical materialism.  For a Marxist scientist's view of how nature
works, you should read Steven Rose's Lifelines, where many important issues
bearing on your curiosity are covered in a readable way.  For a modern Marxist
view of historical materialism, I can think of no better source that Meszaros
Beyond Capital, though it is extremely difficult to follow through.  Also visit
Andy Blunden's vast resource on Marxism at http://home.mira.net/~andy/home.htm.

Another interesting URL is http://www.isf.org.uk/isf04.htm (4th issue of
International Socialist Forum)  in which there are interesting articles on Marx
and historical materialism, and on Positivism, in which the author seeks to lay
bare where 20th century Marxism has parted company with Marx and descended into
dogmatism, laying that at the roots of the Leninist and Trotskyist trends.

Regards

BW

KDean75206@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Comrades
>
> I've been looking for a good, yet simple definition of "dialectics" as meant
> by Marx.  I was wondering if this definition was generally correct.  It's
> from American Heritage:
>
> "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."
>
> Also, (and one can go into more detail here) what are the major distinctions
> between Hegelian dialectics and Marxian?  Can someone give a simple example
> of the dialectic process?
>
> And a few more questions...
> What is meant by "Historical Materialism"?  Do you feel that Engles concept
> of it is not true to what  Marx originally meant as suggested by Paul Thomas'
> essay in "...Cambridge Companion..."?
>
> 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.
>
> I'm pretty sure I understand these concepts but I would like a little help.
> Its hard these days to find courses on Marxism (they do exist at my school
> but not in recent semesters) so we all need a little help now and again.
>
> 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