This is all quite so. Marx's knowledge of developments in the calculus was
also behind the times, but Van Heijenoort absolves Marx of narrow-minded
dogmatism.
I still need to acquire a copy of that obscure bulletin containing Van H's
arguments against Novack. For some reason, I can't find a copy of his
essay "The Algebra of Revolution" that appeared in NEW INTERNATIONAL, which
I once combed pretty thoroughly.
As for critiques of Engels and diamat, there's little original left to
say. Two sources that immediately come to mind are:
James Scanlan, Marxism in the USSR (1985)
Richard Norman (good) and Sean Sayers (bad), HEGEL, MARX, AND DIALECTIC.
It is quite important to understand the origins of Engels' interest in
these philosophical questions in critiques of contemporaneous metaphysical,
evolutionary pseudo-science. Historical materialism may well have required
some logical discussion in terms of emergent properties as well as its
underlying categorial structure, as it does today when confronting the
nonsense purveyed by sociobiology. Most of Engels' examples drawn from
mathematics and natural science are trivial nonsense; what dialectics is
about is the underlying structure of categorial thinking.
As for the irrelevance of 'academic Marxism', there are sound historical
reasons for what today has become academic, whether from the politically
engaged Lukacs and Gramsci or from the politically disengaged
(instrumentally) Frankfurt School. Analytical philosophy is ignorant and
incompetent with respect to these matters.
As it happens, I am now reading an excellent book on the Frankfurt School,
which I have added to my bibliography on theory and practice. See Dubiel
on my web page:
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THEORY AND PRACTICE:
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.autodidactproject.org/bib/praxis1.html
At 03:28 PM 3/1/2006 -0500, Jim Farmelant wrote:
...........
Engels was almost a century behind the times in terms
of his understanding of the foundations of the calculus.
His remarks concerning calculus adhered to the
older approaches that were based on infinitesimals
rather than on the then recently developed approach
based on the theory of limits that people like Cauchy
pioneered. I have read people who have said that
Marx had a more up to date understanding of that
subject than did Engels. Engels also said some
silly things about imaginary numbers in his
*Dialectics of Nature* as well.
On the other hand, Engels seems to have a very
good understanding of the natural science of his
day. Hilary Putnam used to call Engels the "most
learned man of the nineteenth century." His essay,
"The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man,"
is deservedly revered, despite the fact that Engels
cast of his reasoning in Lamarckian terms.
Stephen Jay Gould in his book, *Ever Since Darwin*, wrote:
"Indeed, the nineteenth century produced a brilliant exposé from a source
that will no doubt surprise most readers - Frederick Engels. (A bit of
reflection should diminish surprise. Engels had a keen interest in the
natural sciences and sought to base his general philosophy of dialectical
materialism upon a 'positive' foundation. He did not live to complete his
'dialectics of nature', but he included long commentaries on science in
such treatises as the Anti-Dühring.) In 1876, Engels wrote an essay
entitled, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man. It
was published posthumously in 1896 and, unfortunately, had no visible
impact upon Western science.
"Engels considers three essential features of human evolution: speech, a
large brain, and upright posture. He argues that the first step must have
been a descent from the trees with subsequent evolution to upright
posture
by our ground-dwelling ancestors. 'These apes when moving on level ground
began to drop the habit of using their hands and to adopt a more and more
erect gait. This was the decisive step in the transition from ape to
man.'
Upright posture freed the hand for using tools (labour, in Engels'
terminology); increased intelligence and speech came later."
............
Quite so. Lenin to some extent continued that project in
his *Materialism and Empirio-criticism*, especially in
chapter 5, where he wrote concerning "The Recent Revolution
in Natural Science and Philosophical Idealism,"
polemicizing against scientists and other writers who
attempted to use the then recent discoveries in physics
to support idealism and theism.
Other writers who are not necessarily orthodox
Marxists have been concerned with as well.
For example, the logical empiricist Philipp Frank
took aim at efforts to
promulgate metaphysical interpretations of
science, in his *Modern Science and It's Philosophy*,
and his *Philosophy of Science*. And British
philosopher, Susan Stebbing, in her book,
*Philosophy and the Physicists*, which took
aim at the efforts of physicists, James Jeans
and Arthur Eddington to use modern physics
(i.e. relativity and quantum mechanics) to
support theism, idealist metaphysics,
contra-causal free will and so forth.
...........
_______________________________________________
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
