Young Master Smeet
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Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:YMS wrote:"The absence of Hegel from a passage written by someone else is not a strong indicator of Marx's views of the matter, the fact that he glossed the quotation of someone else's opinions with a discussion of Hegel's rational Kernel suggests he is at least adding to that someone else's idea, that quote by another writer, that was not Marx's own opinion, that he didn't write, that originated from someone else, another person's idea, writing about Marx, not Hegel."
That would have been a good point had Marx not called that summary "the dialectic method". Since he did, it isn't.
Ah, but this is the key, describing someone else's description of the the dialectic as such does not necessarily imply that he considered this the definitive definition (if he did, why didn't he say that? A good hermeneutic method is to consider how else a text could be structured or phrased). He says the St. Petersberg reviewer was describing the dialectic, and then goes on to gloss how Hegel was the "the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. " from whose work one may "discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell" but who had mystified the dialectic.We're back to the co-operative principle: why say these things, if they add no meaning to the preceeding paragraph.
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:It is even less sensible ignoring Marx's own description of that summary as "the dialectic method", despite the fact that it contained no trace of Hegel whatsoever.See you again soon, where I have no doubt that I will have to make the very same points, yet again.Ok, as many as it takes…But I don't ignore that paragraph, the absence of Hegel from someone else's description of the dialectic does not imply neccessarily that Marx considered he needed to be absent. That Marx then introduces Hegel suggests that he felt Hegel needed to be added. That Marx considered the dialectic existed pre-and-sapearate from Hegel's writings does not mean that he did not ascribe to him the position of being the first to generally and consciously describe it.
The context is Marx correcting the misappreenhsions about his work:
Marx wrote:That the method employed in “Das Kapital” has been little understood, is shown by the various conceptions, contradictory one to another, that have been formed of it.Marx wrote:The European Messenger of St. Petersburg in an article dealing exclusively with the method of “Das Kapital” (May number, 1872, pp. 427-436), finds my method of inquiry severely realistic, but my method of presentation, unfortunately, German-dialectical.Marx wrote:I cannot answer the writer better than by aid of a few extracts from his own criticismMarx wrote:Whilst the writer pictures what *he takes* to be actually my methodThe writer in St. Petersberg, generously, has misunderstood Marx, and rather than the severe realism described, Marx has actually used a dialectical method. (note the whilst).The absence of Hegel from a passage written by someone else is not a strong indicator of Marx's views of the matter, the fact that he glossed the quotation of someone else's opinions with a discussion of Hegel's rational Kernel suggests he is at least adding to that someone else's idea, that quote by another writer, that was not Marx's own opinion, that he didn't write, that originated from someone else, another person's idea, writing about Marx, not Hegel.That gloss, using human wrds, which ascribes to Hegel the privilige of being the first, not to originate the dialectic, but "first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner" albeit wrongly, in a mystified form that contains a rational kernel.It's hardly a sensible method to ascribe more meaning to a paragraph simply because it comes first within a text, especially a developing argument.I really cannot remember what we discussed in 2013.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/update-air-strikes-against-daeshActually, this is the updating news feed, with more up-to-date info. Obviously, the wording is propagandistic (note how often they mention 'carefully' in the text). Interesting to note 1,350 personnel committed to the fight against Deash, I wonder if that includes ground crew?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/british-forces-air-strikes-in-iraq-monthly-listThis is a useful list, detailing the activities of the UK Airforce in Iraq & Syria.For example:
1st November wrote:Tornados patrolled north of Mosul where they supported advancing Kurdish forces. A Paveway IV guided bomb destroyed a Daesh heavy machine-gun position when it opened fire on the Peshmerga, while an Enhanced Paveway II demolished a building in which a light machine-gun was sited. Meanwhile, to the south-east of the city, a Reaper provided further close air support to Iraqi troops. It conducted Hellfire attacks on a mortar team who were spotted firing, and two groups of terrorists, including individuals with rocket-propelled grenades. The Reaper also directed a successful coalition air attack onto a number of terrorists defending a trench network.Capitalist Pig wrote:YMS- that is your idea of how it should be but what if a majority of people think otherwise? that they should control the flow of immigration and not allow open borders.If the majority of people in the world wanted to create borders, they could, and nothing would stop them. What couldn't happen would be for a group of people in a small area to declare themselves a local majority, and close off the border that way, that would, in effect, be steeling…
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:"I cannot answer the writer better than by aid of a few extracts from his own criticism, which may interest some of my readers to whom the Russian original is inaccessible."After a quotation from the preface to my 'Criticism of Political Economy,' Berlin, 1859, pp. IV-VII, where I discuss the materialistic basis of my method, the writer goes on…" [Bold added.]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htmIt is at that point that Marx adds the summary of 'the dialectic method' — in the very next paragraph.
Marx' next paragraph is:
Marx wrote:Whilst the writer pictures what he takes to be actually my method, in this striking and [as far as concerns my own application of it] generous way, what else is he picturing but the dialectic method?Which is a continuation of correcting the misapprehensions of the Russian writer as to his method. Where Marx does describe his dialectic is a subsequent paragraph
Marx wrote:My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.He then procedes to the famous line:
Quote:With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.You'd have to do serious violence to the text to rid it of any meaning that there was a germ of truth within the Hegelian dialectic.
Then why did Marx say
Marx wrote:"The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."In the same, short, afterword. It's a curious thing to do, don' t you think. I mean,t he passage is one ext, shouldn't it be interpreted as a whole?
That would by no means prevent Bob from having been the first to put (plastic) bread on the table.So, whatever Marx' dialectic, and the form it took, he did consider Hegel "the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner.", albeit mystified and in a method different from that which Marx applied. This is what the German afterword tells us.
https://apnews.com/0630f8b819754b2297505f33045d7f85/Fierce-battles-leave-hospital-in-Iraqi-city-of-Mosul-gutted?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=APThe desctiption of a battle to take a hospital
Quote:The hospital basement had been transformed into an IS bunker. Dozens of mattresses filled rooms, ammunition and body armor lined hallways and Islamic religious texts were piled atop shelves. There was no evidence to suggest the complex was being used as a hospital to treat civilians at the time of the attack: medical records viewed by an AP team at the scene were dated more than a year ago.Coalition spokesman U.S. Army Col. John Dorrian said it was "clear" the hospital was being used by IS as a headquarters and was no longer being used as a facility to treat civilians."If the enemy is going to use facilities like (hospitals) as a storage place for weapons or as an operations headquarters, we will strike those kinds of facilities," Dorrian said, adding that the practice is consistent with the laws of armed conflict.Compare with the same stories coming out of Alleppo….
The summary of the dialectic is within the same text, and so what we are looking at here is how to interpret the text as a whole, and this sentence is within it.Let's take Bob the baker. Let us suppose that a long passage about putting bread on the table preceded, with no word about Bob within that long paragraph. Let us further suppose the author includes mentions about their method of putting bread on the table, and how they do it in the completely opposite way to Bob, and then says:"'The pulverising which flour suffers in Bob’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to put bread on the table'.
Socialism would be worldwide, with no nation states, no borders, and the common ownership of the whole Earth by the whole of humanity. Disputes about ideas and values would besettled solely by debate.
*sigh*"The crapping in the flower bed by the cat, by no means prevents him from being ginger.""The descruction which running shoes suffer from the boy, by no means prevents him from being first in the race.""The pulverising which flour suffers in Bob’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to put bread on the table".So, for those of us who dabble in English: what colour is the cat? What position in the race did rhe boy finish? Who put bread on the table first?So, we are taking Marx' own words here, and he is giving Hegel credit for being first to present dialectic in " its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner." Not originating or designing it, but being the first to give the first general, conscious comprehensive analysis of it. That, presumably, must challenge your 'Hegel free zone' theses: in actuality, what he is saying is Hegel was the first to be wrong, and in being wrong deserves the credit ofbeing corrected (there is wrong and wrong).Engels' reading of AD to Marx is beside the point (hence why discussing it at length is a straw man): Marx doesn't have to have read the thing in detail to be aware of the general contents (or have heard/read the whole text). The only, and substantive point, is that a text wrotten by his close collaborator for decades, and good friend, was published, he provided a preface, and has produced no discernable comment public of otehrwise which contests the contents of that book. Adding a preface to a book is endorsement of sorts.We can't say that Marx agreed with every word of Engels', but we can say he didn't care enough to comment.
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:"The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."The highlighted words only formed the basis of an argument you yourself developed, that Hegel was not the first (etc.). However, being a little it Gricean (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle) we can look at Marx' own words in relation to the principle of relation, why would he say that unless he was affirming that Hegel was (etc.). he would not have brought the matter up.
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:Already covered, many times.Not covered once, a straw man about how long it takes to read a text aloud has been erected, nothing said about the preface, etc.
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:Again, you can only get away with that if you ignore 1) Marx's own words about 'the dialectic method', and 2) the words in bold above.The words in bold do not change the meaning, Marx is ascribing to Hegel that he was " the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner" and that his mjystifications should not detract from that.
Editting a text to leave out the bit you're not talking about is not bowdlerisation: I did not alter or seek to alter the meaning.Marx was aware of AD and did not produce any texts commenting nor rebutting, and it was the work of someone he had worked closely with, on intellectual matters for decades. Further, he produced a preface to Socialism, bad and the Ugly, so its reasonable to infer he was at least generally aware of its contents. That is all we can say, and all we need to say.Now, you argued, forcefully an cogently, that Hegel was not the "the first to present [dialectic's] general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner" . That is a noble assersion, but it doesn't change the fact that the quote from Marx has Hegel "being the first to present [dialectic's] general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."I'm afraid you didn't deal with distancing, but danced around a very narrow pinhead.
Rosa Alsace wrote:If we insist that Marx agreed with every single line read to him from AD, then we are also forced to conclude that Marx, too, was an incompetent mathematician.Quite cheerfully…But, the point isn't that marx read the whole book, but was aware of it, and there is no visible sign of any distinancing. Further, Marx did provide a preface to Socialism Utopian & Etc. There is no requirement to prove marx approved very word, merely to note from silence either he wasn't fussed either way, didn't think any disagreements were worth a candle, etc.Anyway, I reject any notion I bowdlerised Marx:"The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner."The only rational reading of the whole quote is that Marx considered Hegel to be the frist to present dialectic in a comprehensive and consious manner. Now, you can disagree with Marx, fair enough. But there is no scope for denying the plain reading of that sentence.
