I've been doing this for years and years. And I guess I won't be free of this burden till all the CPers, Trots, and Maoists are long gone. Briefly:
See my review of: <http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/norman-sayers.html>Dialectics Bout: Richard Norman vs. Sean Sayers (book review) And as for Engels' perspicaciousness, see this well-known excerpt: <http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/engels-hol.html>Engels contra Holism [my title] But for some of Engels' mess-ups, see: <http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/heijen/works/math.htm>Friedrich Engels and Mathematics by Jean Van Heijenoort A couple of key points about the logical ambiguity of diamat: Engels constantly conflates empirical and logical matters, reflected in his formulation of dialectical "laws". The notion of a set of dialectical laws applying uniformly to nature, society, and thought is confused and sloppy. This actually takes what's interesting about dialectical method entirely out of the picture. Engels delivers in these instances only vaguely on a far more promising goal of dialectics as the science of "universal interconnection". (Actually, this notion is also mystified via an excessive holism.) But Engels is at other times quite perceptive, as in the quote adduced above. That is, dialectics as epistemology involves a total process of analysis and synthesis, or, as Lenin later put it, "the splitting up of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts". Quotes like these are not terrifically precise, but they get at what matters about dialectics applied to the ideology of the natural sciences. The three dialectical laws, though heuristically useful at times, are trivial by comparison. The relevance here of Engels as critic of Duhring is reflected also in Marx, e.g. in this notable quote from Capital: "The weak points in the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism that excludes history and its process, are at once evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions of its spokesmen, whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality." A contemporary example is the childish application of evolutionary theory to psychological and social analysis, a la Dawkins' memes and other BS. Dialectics as epistemology is about the nature of abstraction, its connection to empirical reality, and the interconnections in empirical reality which abstraction must learn to reproduce conceptually. But the bullshit that comprises the standard expositions of diamat actually represses recognition of the subject-object relationship between the dialectics of cognition and the empirical world it must appropriate via the means of abstraction. Hence this murky porridge of the fictive uniform laws of nature, society, and thought that obliterates all distinctions. What does Riggins write? The same old brain-dead CP marxist-leninist textbook crap: "Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring? Thomas Riggins http://paeditorsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-did-engels-write-anti-duhring.html The same crap, of course, has been endlessly recycled by all the Stalinist, Trotskyist, and Maoist epigones. As I've repeatedly emphasized, I'm not one who disses or dismisses Engels, or Lenin. After a century of the latter and a century and a third of the former, is it too much to ask greater logical precision at last? These criticisms have been floating about in one way or another for decades. The only thing left worth discussing is why otherwise intelligent people keep falling for the same nonsense. It's a non-trivial question. We could go back to the 1930s debates for example in Britain, in which J.D. Bernal dogmatically deflected all doubts expressed about diamat, or more recently to the past few years to the publishing record of the Marxist Educational Press in the USA, including its journal NATURE, SOCIETY, AND THOUGHT, which also reflects the schizophrenia of people capable of logical sophistication but beholden to the banalities of orthodoxy as well. I tend to think there's a combination of causes here: both the appeal of a superficially logical world view which contains a rational element buried under logical confusion, combined with a dogmatic fealty to what is taken to be Marxist-Leninist tradition. This is the only reason to continue beating a long-dead horse. At 04:15 AM 1/5/2010, D. Göçmen wrote: >Of far greater importance than Engels' >nebulously conceived dialectics of nature is his >criticism of Duhring's metaphysical approach. >Ralph, can you please explore on that a bit more >please. Thank you, DoÄan Göçmen http://dogangocmen.wordpress.com/ >http://www.dogangocmen.blogspot.com/ >-----Original Message----- From: Ralph Dumain ><rdum...@autodidactproject.org> To: >marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Tue, >Jan 5, 2010 10:14 am Subject: Re: >[Marxism-Thaxis] Why Did Engels Write >Anti-Dühring ? Hopefully, the next installment >will be better than this. This one is devoid of >serious content and repeats unexamined cliches. >Of far greater importance than Engels' >nebulously conceived dialectics of nature is his >criticism of Duhring's metaphysical approach. In >this respect, Engels' work does have something >in common with Marx's THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY. >The real unity of the world consists in its >materiality, and this is proved not by a few >juggled phrases, but by a long and wearisome >development of philosophy and natural science. >-- F. Engels At 02:36 PM 1/4/2010, c b >wrote: >Why Did Engels Write Anti-Dühring? >Thomas Riggins > _______________________________________________ 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
