[PEN-L:3982] Re: circularities

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Some of the sense of Jim's meaning here is captured in referring to Marxism as dialectical materialism. Dialectics is the science of motion in nature, society and thought, according to Engels; along with the dialectics of absolute and relative truth ( elucidated by Engels in _Anti-Duhring_ and Lenin in _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_) this approach provides for the continuous development of Marxism based on reflecting the development of the material reality of history, including from 1848 or 1917 to 1999.

Circularities and spirals, metaphysics and dialectics,


Charles Brown

>>> Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 03/01/99 12:59PM >>>
BTW, I think "orthodox Marxism" is an oxymoron, since ortho-Marxism has
always involved criticism and debate (Luxembourg vs. Lenin, etc., etc.) I
should have called it "the accumulated wisdom of the Marxian tradition,"
but that seems a bit pretentious.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/jdevine.html