[Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa L the metaphysician
In the next two paragraphs of the chapter “Dialectics” of _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific_, Engels describes Rosa L’s contradiction “free”, metaphysical , formal logical thinking. CB ^^^ But this conception (dialectics), correctly as it expresses the general character of the picture of appearances as a whole, does not suffice to explain the details of which this picture is made up, and so long as we do not understand these, we have not a clear idea of the whole picture. In order to understand these details, we must detach them from their natural, special causes, effects, etc. This is, primarily, the task of natural science and historical research: branches of science which the Greek of classical times, on very good grounds, relegated to a subordinate position, because they had first of all to collect materials for these sciences to work upon. A certain amount of natural and historical material must be collected before there can be any critical analysis, comparison, and arrangement in classes, orders, and species. The foundations of the exact natural sciences were, therefore, first worked out by the Greeks of the Alexandrian period [B], and later on, in the Middle Ages, by the Arabs. Real natural science dates from the second half of the 15th century, and thence onward it had advanced with constantly increasing rapidity. The analysis of Nature into its individual parts, the grouping of the different natural processes and objects in definite classes, the study of the internal anatomy of organized bodies in their manifold forms — these were the fundamental conditions of the gigantic strides in our knowledge of Nature that have been made during the last 400 years. But this method of work has also left us as legacy the habit of observing natural objects and processes in isolation, apart from their connection with the vast whole; of observing them in repose, not in motion; as constraints, not as essentially variables; in their death, not in their life. And when this way of looking at things was transferred by Bacon and Locke from natural science to philosophy, it begot the narrow, metaphysical mode of thought peculiar to the last century. To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. His communication is ‘yea, yea; nay, nay’; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” ( This is a quote of Jesus; Jesus was a metaphysician smile - CB)For him, a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another; cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis, one to the other. ___ 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
[Marxism-Thaxis] Rosa L
Here part of my old exchange with Rosa. The same issue of the contradiction in John is a man came up in Kliman's exchange with her Rosa gets CB Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Aug 23 09:48:11 MDT 2007 I may be lliterate, but at least she admits I'm logical. CB ^^^ Logical Illiterates Strike Again A year or so ago I had the great misfortune to correspond with an irascible fellow who could not resist making ill-informed comments about my Essays, all the while refusing to read them. I refused to continue to correspond with him on that basis, and, it seems, he has been sulking ever since. Last year I had occasion to slap some materialist sense into him (here), but I fear that this incorrigible Idealist is beyond even my help. Despite several attempts to inoculate him from his own folly, Mr B has once again demonstrated that he is immune to the influence of modern logic, preferring his own brand of sub-Hegelian make-believe. Commenting on an argument of mine, he had this to say: CB: The sentence 'John is a man' means John is both the same and different from Joe, Jack, Rosa, Charles... It is precisely the 'is' of predication that is a unity and struggle of opposites. The 'is' of identity 'He is John.' -- that is not a tautology. CB: This should be 'that is a tautology'. [Quotation marks changed to conform to the conventions adopted here.] This odd piece of reasoning was exposed for what it is here, and here. Despite this, Mr B hopes to neutralise my arguments by referring merely to his own not inconsiderable authority in this field -- that is, the field usually occupied by Popes and assorted dictators whose word is law. And in matters logical, that should be enough for us. It certainly is for Mr B. He now deigns to comment on the musings of my colleague Babeuf; here is an example of truly innovative historical materialism: CB: Another fundamental activity was the raising of children. I'm thinking language/culture emerged between parents and children. It is reasonably clear that Mr B has shot from the hip again -- or rather shot from the holster and into his foot --, for if the above were the case, not only would parents and children confront each other like Pentecostal ecstatics, mouthing incomprehensible noises at one another, no two families would share the same idiolect. Communication between families would thus be impossible. In that case, 'culture', as Mr B sees it, would soon begin to resemble that cacophony which constantly sounds in his head. Now, in Essay Twelve Part One, I asserted that most Marxists give lip-service to the idea that language is a social phenomenon, but fail to think through the implications of that fact, and talk and write as if language were a private affair. Mr B has shown once again that when it comes to getting things wrong, he is keen to elbow his way to the front of the queue. How language can be social, but remain a family affair is perhaps another one of the 'contradictions' that still compromises his thought processes: Before I had even heard of dialectics -- living in the a mental (sic) world of strict formal logic -- I started to 'run into' lots of contradictions and paradoxes. My own road to dialectics was a posteriori, not a priori. Mr B here confuses matters biographical with matters logical; unless --, of course, he thinks paradoxes are a posteriori. But, even if he were right, this otherwise commendable public confession of his own confused thought should not be read as mere humility. On the contrary, the road to Hermetic-enlightenment -- a path which all true dialecticians have to pass along in order to qualify as adepts (and the reasons for this are exposed here) -- elevates them way above the rest of us mortals. This means that if ever they regain power somewhere they can screw-up once more in a truly almighty and awe-inspiring manner. After all, they have a suitably screwy theory to help them on their way. But what is this? It is none other than our old friend Mr D, who volunteers a riposte so devastating I hesitate to post it here for fear it might affect the reader's sanity: This is just stupid, even more stupid than the Trotskyist recitations of dialectics. Mr D, someone who is not known for his ability to string a clear argument together -- but a well-respected expert at drawing attention to that fact --, probably does not know that the material about which he is commenting has to be compressed into a three minute slot, and has to be kept to a level that makes it comprehensible to mere workers. And here he can be forgiven, for over the years, at his site, he has developed an enviable skill at repelling such lowly types, and to the extent that he has probably forgotten their limitations. One of which is that they find the mystical ideas he spouts incomprehensible. It's a good job then that we have substitutionists of his calibre
