>>> Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/06/99 10:14AM >>>
G'day Thaxists,
Look, I know we've been through all this before, but it is my conviction
that politics is like a computer. You make an apparently small mistake with
what you put in, and you get an absolute disaster coming out.
To the diamat brigade I ask only that you dwell upon what Marx must have
meant when he said of Feuerbach, "Insofar as Feuerbach is a materialist he
does not deal with history, and insofar as he considers history he is not a
materialist".
So what does he mean by (a) 'material', by (b) 'history', and by (c)
'nature'.
(((((((((((
Charles: Hey Rob, I'll take a shot at this one again.
>From the Theses on Feuerbach, Marx says that the chief defect of all hitherto
>existing materialism, Feuerbach included, is that it is contemplative and not active.
>Feuerbach critiqued Hegel's idealism and theism, placing objective reality as primary
>to subjective reality, but he treats the process of gaining knowledge about that
>objective reality as if it comes mainly through passive contemplation and not
>practical-critical activity. History is made by active classes, so this
>contemplative materialism fails to deal with history, the process by which things
>change, or objective reality is changed. Feuerbachian and the other materialisms are
>errors of mechanical or vulgar materialism, treating history like a giant clock that
>mechanically unwinds without human agency. This materialism just observes this
>unwinding without integrating theory and practice, or activism. I have a paper on
>Activist Materialism on this point. Marx's is an activist materialism.
On "nature" , I won't say much right now, except that if you notice, in Capital, Marx
capitalizes "Nature", personifying it. Also, in the Preface to the First German
edition he says that he treats economics like natural history. Also, the last time we
discussed this, Chris Burford found many examples of Marx using natural science
dialectics as heuristics in Capital to explain human historical dialectics.
(((((((((((((((
Allowing for a little simplification, does anyone here reckon other than:
(a) 'material': an analytic foundation conceived of as an integration of
two dynamics: the way a society reproduces its physical existence and the
relations that constitute that society;
((((((((((((((
Charles: Yes, for historical materialism, the means of production and the relations of
production. These are more original phrases as Marx used them , I believe.
But general materialism must be understood as mainly in a struggle with theism. The
idealism that Marx and Engels struggled against was expressed in idealist philosophies
, but also mainly as religion ( See Engels' _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific_) .
Even Hegel put his system forward as a version of Chrisitanity. Feuerbach's great
materialist critique of Hegel is in a main part an expression of atheism ( See Engels'
_Ludwig Feuerbach_).
The point I am trying to make is that Marxist materialism can be seen to address
natural history as well as human history in this regard, because, of course , theism
purported to explain the natural world as well as human society. Marxism includes the
materialist/atheist critique of idealist/theist naturalism as well. Part of the
dialectics of Marxism's attitude toward nature is that it conceives of it as a natural
HISTORY. Idealism and metaphysics is anti-dialectical in its natural science in part
because it does not conceive of nature as having a real history or real development.
So Darwin's approach was more dialectical than Creationism, because Darwinism is a
natural HISTORICISM. As discussed before, and as you allude to below, Darwin's
approach is not entirely dialectical because of its gradualism. It is evolutionary.
Revolutionary ( or fully dialectical) biology finds gradualism (evolution) and leaps
(revolutions), both; or, quantitative and qualitiative change.
((((((((((((((
(b) 'history': developments in precisely this complex - bearing in mind
that, while their consciousness need not have a one-to-one relationship withthe way
they reproduce their existence, the two are mutually constitutive
(ie, each affords a scope of possibility for the other - allowing us to make
history, but never in unconstrained conditions - making for a pattern very
much like Gould's 'punctuated equilibrium' take on Darwinian evolution -
I'll go that far without reservation, Chas);
(((((((((((((
Charles: Ok. By the way, there is another , more recent Marxist paper on the net that
comes to this same analysis of the significance of punctuated equilibrium rendering
biology and natural history more fully dialectical as compared with Darwin. I'll look
for the website.
(c) 'nature': Well, Marx does tell us "Through this production, nature
appears as *his* work and his reality". Nature not *in itself* then, but
categorically *for humanity*. Nature as constructed by and for the complex
of mode and relations of production ...
(((((((((((((
Charles: This point connects directly to Engels and Lenin's discussion of the
epistemology of practice ( _Anti-Duhring_ and _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism) and
Marx's main theme of practical-critical activity and practice as the test of theory in
the Theses on Feuerbach. Engels says exactly that knowing something in nature is to
change it from a thing-in-itself to a thing-for-us. This is the Marxist ( and
Hegelian) solution to the Kantian problem of the unknowable thing-in-itself. Engels
says we know something when we can make it. The famous example is when coal tar is
turned into alizar. We prove the "this sideedness" ( "for-us") of something, Marx
says, in practice.
On what Jim H. says below, I think it is interesting that what he describes as Engels'
partial use of Hegel fits nicely with what Marx says in the Preface to Capital about
the difference between his dialectic and that of Hegel. I mean it is not only Engels
who has a different dialect than Hegel, no ? Didn't Marx make it famously clear that
his dialectic is different than Hegel's. So, why the surprise that Engels doesn't use
ALL of Hegel's dialectic ? If he did , he would be an IDEALIST. The part of the
Hegelian dialectic, self-understanding, that Jim H. says Engels leaves out, is exactly
what makes Engels' dialectic materialist and not idealist. As Marx said:
"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,
phenomental 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."
The "self-understanding" aspect of Hegel which Engels excludes is exactly "the Idea as
independent subject" that Marx also excludes. What Engels takes from Hegel is the
"rational kernel" that Marx and Engels mention ( after Hegel has been stood on his
feet).
Charles
((((((((((((((
Human society du juour is the category upon which Marx founds all three
notions, no?
Coz that's what I reckon. And I wouldn't know what to reckon if I didn't
reckon it, either.
Do I need putting right?
Cheers,
Rob.
----------
> From: Jim heartfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: M-TH: dialectical materialism
> Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 10:54:12 +0100
>
>
>The basic point here is that Engels' celebrated 'three laws' fall short
>of Hegel's dialectic, corresponding, roughly, to the section of the
>Science of Logic that precedes the section on The Notion, where Hegel is
>dealing with the properties of dumb matter. But the dialectic is a
>process of self-understanding that is realised in the Notion. Engels
>laws exclude self-understanding, becoming abstract laws of nature, which
>are so broad as to be meaningless.
>
>It's a shame that there is so much attention upon Engels unpublished
>manuscript, written in his declining years without Marx's influence,
>when the younger Engels' and Marx's writings on historical materialism
>are so clear and so profound.
>
>The younger Engels clearly aimed to go forward from Feuerbach's
>anthropic critique of Hegel, not to fall back behind Spinoza's
>pantheism.
>
>In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Andrew Wayne Austin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>>
>>Indeed, Marx's method is the materialist dialectic. He uses the
>>dialectical method and his approach to the study of history is a
>>materialist one, hence materialist dialectics. The materialist conception
>>of history, or historical materialism, is founded on this notion. But this
>>is not what we are talking about when we use the term "dialectical
>>materialism," and you guys know this. The term dialectical materialism
>>refers to the approach that analyzes nature dialectically. Marx never did
>>this, and, moreover, he believed the proper natural scientific method was
>>the one used by the natural scientists of his day, for example, Charles
>>Darwin, who did not use a dialectical method. Marx believed society and
>>history rested on different principles than nature (except where nature
>>enters history, in which case nature becomes a sociohistorical product
>>analyzable within a science of history, which is not at all the way
>>dialectical materialists treat humanized nature), and therefore a true
>>science of history required a unique objective method.
>>
>>For the record.
>>
>>Andy
>>
>>On Thu, 5 Aug 1999, Chris Burford wrote:
>>
>>>At 12:24 05/08/99 -0400,
>>>
>>>
>>>>Charles: The last time we discussed this I believe we found that Engels
>>>used the phrase "materialist dialectics" in the book _Ludwig Feuerbach_.
>>>
>>>
>>>Certainly "materialist dialectic"
>>>
>>>
>>>"And this materialist dialectic, which for years has been our best
working
>>>tool and our sharpest weapon, was, remarkably enough, discovered not only
>>>by us but also, independently of us and even of Hegel, by a German
worker,
>>>Joseph Dietzgen."
>>>
>>>End of 5th paragraph, Section IV
>>>
>>>
>>>Chris Burford
>>>
>>>London
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
>
>--
>Jim heartfield
>
>
> --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
>
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