Young Master Smeet
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In discussing what Marx thought about dialectic, it is significant that he expressed the opinion of Hegel "being the first to present [dialectic] general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner" being aware, no doubt of those's other works on the subject, he must have had some basis/reason for exprssing that opinion (however wrong it may be).
Rosa Monaco wrote:4) "And, of course, we can take some legitimate inference that some of Engels' writings on dialectic were published in Marx' lifetime."Which writings did you have in mind? Anti-Dühring? [If so, I have an answer to that, too.]I'd be interested to hear that answer. (Marx' preface to Socialism Utopian and Scientific is 1880, and does not mention nor rebutt the sections on dialectics in that text — that does not imply complete agreement, but it is at least suggestive)
Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:If it was written before 1873, when the Postface was published/written, then it manifestly can't represent Marx's latest or more considered views (as they were clearly expressed in the Postface), and hence it can't be relevant to the matter in hand.Well I'd disagree such letters are inadmissible, certainly, the published afterword to Capital is a strong source (indeed, there isn't much in those letters I quoted that seems at variance with the afterword, Marx acknowldges in the afterword "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." (my emphasis added). It s valid to look at the works of Marx passim for legitimate inferences we can make, in how he worked, etc.Anyway, do tell about Auntie Duhring (and Charlie's foreword to Socialism Utopian etc.). I'll agree, argument from silence isn't strong, but it is valid.
LBird wrote:Yes, and I've explained why, and what he means in relation to Hegel, in very small words, just for you, time and time again.After that explanation, which says that 'Marx called himself a materialist', I've got no idea why you ignorantly persist in thinking that you parroting 'But Marx called himself a materialist' is some sort of intellectual rebuttal of what I've said.I'm going to leave it to Rosa L to take on the considerable burden of trying to explain anything to the SPGB, because I'm tired of talking to cloth ears.And I'm going to keep parroting it at you, because, Humpty, words mean what they mean, Marx did not qualify it 'in relation to Hegel' he repeatedly described himself as a materialist, at least once in public, her certainly never said 'idealist-materialist'. If he had meant 'not an idealist' he would have said so. Given in the German preface he disowned his coquetting with Hegelian phraseology, we do have to call into question some of that earlier philosophy.I'm afraid it is a rebuttal to qhat you have said, and a strong one: Marx was a self professed (unqualified) materialist, who also believed in disinterested scientific method.
I agree with Rosa that published works are to be preferred, but we can read a little deeper than that. I've noticed in letters, Engels writes to Marx about dialectic, there is no evidence of a rebuttal from Marx, from what I can see. Also, the comments come in the form that read, to me at least, as if they presuppose a shared undrstanding.But, there are letters from Marx also:
Marx wrote:At the Museum, where I did nothing but glance through catalogues, I also discovered that Dühring is a great philosopher. For he has written a Natural Dialectic against Hegel's "unnatural" one. Hence these tears. The gentlemen in Germany (all except the theological reactionaries) think Hegel's dialectic is a "dead horse." Feuerbach has much to answer for in this respect.Ambiguous and open to inerpretation, but a legitimate reading is one of of scorn for those who see a dead horse.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_01_11-abs.htm
Marx wrote:He knows very well that my method of development is not Hegelian, since I am a materialist and Hegel is an idealist. Hegel's dialectic is the basic form of all dialectic, but only after it has been stripped of its mystical form, and it is precisely this which distinguishes my method.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_03_06-abs.htm"Basic form of all dialectic" is pretty hard for Rosa to explain away, in the light of the preface from the German edition of Capital, previously cited. Also, one for Lbird, Marx again describing himself as a materialist.And, of course, we can take some legitimate inference that some of Engels' writigns on dialectic were published in Marx' lifetime.I stress, I'm not a fan of dialectic per se, and a lot of mystifying rubbish has been written, but still.
Wow, what we need is Lbird to join this thread and we could watch the charge of the hobby horse cavalry.Appropriately enough, the same passage is antidote to both:"My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite."So, Marx, in his own unambiguous published words, has a dialectic method.Short version: he looked at things in thir relationships and how they develop.
Smeet wrote:This is on top of straight forward refusing to answer the question, avoiding questions and returning like a stopped clock some while later to put propositions again as if they have never been challenged.Marx wrote:In place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic.Square with you Lbird? "as objects independent of him". — Marx
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm
Marx wrote:Since 1848 capitalist production has developed rapidly in Germany, and at the present time it is in the full bloom of speculation and swindling. But fate is still unpropitious to our professional economists. At the time when they were able to deal with Political Economy in a straightforward fashion, modern economic conditions did not actually exist in Germany. And as soon as these conditions did come into existence, they did so under circumstances that no longer allowed of their being really and impartially investigated within the bounds of the bourgeois horizon. In so far as Political Economy remains within that horizon, in so far, i.e., as the capitalist regime is looked upon as the absolutely final form of social production, instead of as a passing historical phase of its evolution, Political Economy can remain a science only so long as the class struggle is latent or manifests itself only in isolated and sporadic phenomena.Marx wrote:It sounded the knell of scientific bourgeois economy. It was thenceforth no longer a question, whether this theorem or that was true, but whether it was useful to capital or harmful, expedient or inexpedient, politically dangerous or not. In place of disinterested inquirers, there were hired prize fighters; in place of genuine scientific research, the bad conscience and the evil intent of apologetic.I Wonder if Lbird will continue to support the Leninist notion of the subordination of science and theory to partisan needs?But I suppose humpty will go to work again on this:
Marx wrote: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,Of course, where Marx wrote 'materialistic' he meant 'ballet shoes'.And of course, famously:
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.Now, this is considered, published comment, meant to illuminate the reading of Capital (note the misreading stemming from the casual 'reflected' missing out the accompanying 'translating' that leads to Leninist interpretations). I don't subscribe to the early Marx v. Later Marx view, I think they are one in the same). But, I think it is celar that Marx did not consider all science to be ideological."as objects independent of him". — Marx
Can a sponge be a ford fiesta? Can they both be each at the same time as both?These do exist outside human consciousness, because a hydrogen atom is not the same as no hydrogen atom.According to you picking your nose is ideological.Just remember that Democratic communism is not an ideology."as objects independent of him". — Marxp.s. Greek slaves did use logic, btw.
Logic is not based on an ideology: those who claim processes are ideological are usually trying to hide something. Ideology is based on premises (and unstated presuppositions), logic is a set of procedural rules. Nothing can be two mutually exclusive things, else explain how someone can be pregnat and not pregnant at the same time."as objects independent of him". — Marx
If objects are produced by humanity, they cannot be independent of humanity, such is basic logic. Yet marx says they are independent of humanity.I will quote exactkly what you have said on this subject earlier:
Lbird wrote:Once again, boxed into a corner, Lbird begins to try and wriggle away…"as objects independent of him". — Marx
Read him, disagree (lets face facts, the philsophical notebooks are a slender reed for any analysis, weren't meant for publication, and in so many words 'I agree with Feuerbach').
Lbird wrote:Of a producer?It can't.That's the point, of Marx's argument about the subject-object relationship."as objects independent of him".Square that away.
LBird wrote:The 'social' is 'something social'; 'society' is made of 'something social'; the 'stuff that is producing' is 'society'.Marx argues that we are self-creators.Why not read Jordan, and read in detail where he explains all this?So society is the only stuff?
You know, I should be more expansive in my quotes:
Marx wrote:Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both. We see also how only naturalism is capable of comprehending the action of world history.<Man is directly a natural being. As a natural being and as a living natural being he is on the one hand endowed with natural powers, vital powers – he is an active natural being. These forces exist in him as tendencies and abilities – as instincts. On the other hand, as a natural, corporeal, sensuous objective being he is a suffering, conditioned and limited creature, like animals and plants. That is to say, the objects of his instincts exist outside him, as objects independent of him; yet these objects are objects that he needs – essential objects, indispensable to the manifestation and confirmation of his essential powers. To say that man is a corporeal, living, real, sensuous, objective being full of natural vigour is to say that he has real, sensuous objects as the object of his being or of his life, or that he can only express his life in real, sensuous objects. To be objective, natural and sensuous, and at the same time to have object, nature and sense outside oneself, or oneself to be object, nature and sense for a third party, is one and the same thing.>To repeat "as objects independent of him".https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htmCan you guess how often I'm going to quote this at you, Lbird?
