My own take on dialectics fits very closely with Engels, along the lines George Novack argues. I do agree that the dialectical laws of nature can be generalized, as Engels attempted in his studies. But what Engels did was just a beginning.
Christian Fuchs has an article in a 2003 issue of Nature Society and Thought (Vol 16 No 3) entitled The Self-Organization of Matter that continues the discussion of finding parallels between dialectics and what I tend to call emergence theory (aka hierarchy theory, self-organization theory, complexity science, and many other terms coming out of general systems theory from the 1960's and earlier). I think Engels, and for that matter, Novack, would find this exploration very fruitful. I am beginning to become aware of some of the work Soviet scientists have done in earlier decades along these lines - B.M. Kedrov, for example.
The concept of the transformation of quantity into quality, thought of merely as mechanical cause and effect, is commonplace - apply enough heat and water boils. But in Dialectics of Nature, among other things, Engels was exploring something much more general about this concept - the transformation of energy from one form to another, such as from mechanical to electrical. A liquid changing to a gas is just one of countless examples of quantitative transformations of energy and with qualitative effects.
The advent of scientific measuring instruments and computer processing since WWII has created an explosion of information about how things work - how things change. A more sophisticated concept of the transformation of energy forms largely unavailable to 19th century scientists has been gaining ground - the concept of what I tend to call "emergent levels" to help me organize my own thoughts about this. Quantitative changes in one level of organization of matter and energy generate changes in "higher" levels that in turn transform the overall system. Fuchs summarizes many of the principles of self-organization with many terms familiar from Prigogine, chaos theory, complexity science and so forth; terms like feedback loops, bifurcation points, complexity, hierarchy, synergism, historicity, etc. etc.
Perhaps the most important application of this concept of "emergence" - (using this term this way is my layperson's (autodidactic) attempt at finding a generalizing term) - is the Marxist concept of "base and superstructure" summarized by Marx in that oft-quoted passage in Critique of Political Economy. Leaving aside the many instances of mechanical vulgarizations of this terminology of base or foundation and superstructure, the essential "dialectical" explanation Marx and Engels offered with this concept - conceptualizing "emergent levels" (there I go, using that term again) in history between economic systems, classes and legal-political systems - between the forces of production and the relations of production - has become one of the most important scientific concepts of all time. It has become the scientific basis of working class revolution and the possibility of abolishing capitalism in our time.
If Fuchs and others who are exploring this relationship between dialectics and what I am calling "emergence" - (Fuchs calls it "self-organization," maybe that is a better term) - are on the right track, then we could see Engels' efforts in Dialectics of Nature as a remarkable anticipation of scientific concepts that could only develop decades later when the capacity to measure nature and process data about it has come much farther along. But more remarkably, the scientific approach to analysis and generalization that Engels and his cothinker Marx developed with the materialist dialectic is applicable to all sciences - not just to the latest discoveries of molecular biology and cosmic theory - but also to the science of social revolution, the greatest task facing humanity. And that is a powerful method, indeed.
Thinking of Ralph's admiring comments and the handful of her posts that I looked at, I wonder what Lisa would think about this line of argument about dialectics, what questions she would ask, what evidence she would demand to back up such concepts and claims ....
Best, - Steve Gabosch
At 12:15 PM 2/19/2005 -0500, you wrote:
Reading this old thread of my late beloved Lisa brings back a lot of memories. I do not, remember, however, how this discussion proceeded from there. I do remember that it was an unfinished discussion, and that I had it in the back of my mind to engage Lisa once again attempting to divert her attention from dead-end leads and toward another direction. She was engaged and committed to the study of this material,. and to engagement with the marxists on the lists she moderated, perhaps much more than it or them deserved. Lisa had a voracious, unquenchable passion for knowledge and synthesis, and she studied a variety of subjects in addition to her professional scientific competence.
I still think my interventions were sound. I did have to deal with the consequences of using a word without checking its meaning in the dictionary--"prevarication." Occasionally in our private discussions we would step on one another's toes, but she couldn't get enough of them.
I remember that I had it in mind to discuss with Lisa something that was confusing her at the time, still struggling with Engels. It was on the question of dialectical "laws", which she tacitly assumed, as do sloppy Marxist thinkers on the subject (i.e. most of them), that these "laws" are something like laws of nature. Engels himself is responsible for this half-assed thinking, which is why I don't think it is useful to invest oneself in what Engels literally says. I meant to broaden the discussion to get Lisa out of struggling with an arguing against what is essentially a dead-end position. But then Lisa died suddenly, and this conversation, like many other conversations between us, was cruelly ended by circumstance. Sigh.
At 06:09 PM 2/18/2005 -0500, Charles Brown wrote:Dialectics of Nature
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:ROSSERJB%40jmu.edu> Fri, 14 Jun 1996 05:10:59 -0500 (EST)
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