Marxism and the Linguistic Philosophy by Maurice Cornforth part III: Marxism chapter 1: THE DIALECTICAL MATERIALIST APPROACH http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/cornforth3/MLP3-1.html
Note Cornforth's strong rejection of system-building, pretensions at metaphysics or empirical knowledge on the part of dialectical materialism. In this respect it is in agreement with linguistic philosophy (and by implication I suppose much of logical positivism.) Cornforth buttresses his argument by comments from Engels' Anti-Duhring. I don't recall much of the contents of this book, except for some masterful trashing of Duhring's metaphysics. I don't recall if this book contains the sort of gaffes one finds in the unpublished Dialectics of Nature, but here we least Engels at his best rather than his weakest moments. ^^^^^ CB: In _Anti-Duhring_, Engels asserts postive principles of Marxism, materialist dialectics, in the course of polemicizing against Duhring. ^^^^ Cornforth's exposition may have its weak points, but it's quite clear on the separation of logical and categorial judgments from empirical statements and scientific laws. Cornforth is unmistakably clear that diamat is in no position to justify any empirical or scientific claims of any sort. This contradicts the standard Soviet practice of the Stalin era, as I'm sure Cornforth by this time. ^^^^ CB: When you say "justify" scientific claims what do you mean ? In some ways, it is the reverse. For example, Engels said "there is nothing but matter and its mode of existence is motion." Along come Michealson and Morley in their famed empirical experiment, and demonstrate that there is no ether, i.e. nothing is at absolute rest, a scientific and empirical confirmation of the principle Engels enunciated. As has been said on this list a number of times, a dialectical approach can serve as a heuristic for scientific enquiry. Engels is not always correct, but what I often find is that sometimes he's correct when "modern" critics think he is wrong. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
