Yes, point is Hegel and Engels are confirmed on the generality of dialectics by these
developments in the natural sciences subsequent to their period.
CB
>>> "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/30/00 05:01PM >>>
Yes, although there are obviously levels within each
of those that overlap and intersect in complicated ways.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 3:52 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:19760] Re: Dialectical materialism and ecology
>
>
>
>>>> "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05/25/00 11:27AM >>>
> For those who are curious, I have a recently published
>paper on these issues.
>"Aspects of dialectics and non-linear dynamics," _Cambridge
>Journal of Economics_, May 2000, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 311-324.
> It is also available on my website without the figures at
>http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb.
>Barkley Rosser
>-))))))))))))))))))))
>
> Finally there is the idea of wholes consisting of related parts
implied by this formulation. For Levins and Lewontin (1985) this is the
most important aspect of dialectics and they use it to argue against the
mindless reductionism they see in much of ecological and evolutionary
theory, Levins (1968) in particular identifying holistic dialectics with his
?community matrix? idea. This can be seen as working down from a whole to
its interrelated parts, but also working up from the parts to a higher order
whole. This latter concept can be identified with more recent complex
emergent dynamics ideas of self-organization (Turing, 1952; Wiener, 1961),
autopoesis (Maturana and Varela, 1975), emergent order (Nicolis and
Prigogine, 1977, Kauffman, 1993), anagenesis (Boulding, 1978; Jantsch,
1979), and emergent hierarchy (Rosser, Folke, Günther, Isomäki, Perrings,
and Puu, 1994; Rosser, 1995). It is also consistent with the general social
systems approach of the dialectically or!
>iented post-Frankfurt School (Luhmann, 1982, 1996; Habermas, 1979, 1987;
Offe, 1997).
>
>
>__________
>
>
>CB: Do the levels of organization of reality corresponding to the various
sciences come to mind ? Biology is an emergent level from chemistry.
Chemistry is an emergent level from subatomic physics. Human society is an
emergent level from biology.
>
>
