Cde. VC, Would you please attach in word documents the works that you have linked here.
On 10/29/09, Dominic Tweedie <[email protected]> wrote: > <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_D4UK2kWf5ik/Suk0ZRRTC3I/AAAAAAAABeM/BnEXC87fu70/s1600-h/Hegel2.jpg> > > [CU for Thursday, 29 October 2009] > > This series on “Philosophy, Religion, and Revolution” is bound to come face > to face with Frederick Engels, and it might as well do so early. So the main > linked item below, known as “On Dialectics”, is a preface to Engel’s > polemical work against Herr Eugen Dühring, known as “Anti-Dühring”. > > Among other things, we are gong to be saying that philosophy is > indispensible to politics, and that weakness in philosophy will have, and in > the past did have, disastrous effects upon political work. It turns out that > although Karl Marx had a doctorate in philosophy and was reliable, and did > inform all his works with philosophy, yet it was Engels who wrote > didactically (that is, he preached) about philosophy, and principally in the > work known as “Anti-Dühring”. This is the work that contains the notorious > “tools of analysis” that encourage people to have the illusion that they > have a simple set of keys to the kingdom of knowledge. This CU course will > leave those “tools” aside, deliberately; but we are forced to spend some > time with the book in general, because it has been so influential. > > The book is an argument against a person who was of very little consequence > in history. Without wishing to be cruel, one could say that Dühring was a > nobody. At least, he was thoroughly ordinary, only extraordinarily > muddle-headed. In the book, Engels spends a tedious amount of time > explaining Düring’s errors. Engels is then obliged to express a > fully-elaborated alternative world outlook, being unable to rely upon any of > Dühring’s work. Hence “Anti-Dühring” appears as and became known as a > compendium, and was recognised as such by Lenin, among others. > > Engels spends the first page of this preface with Dühring, before breaking > away with the remark that “theoretical thought is a historical product”. > Then he begins to expound dialectics, investigated, as he claims, prior to > his and Marx’s work, only by > *Hegel<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm> > * [Image] and by *Aristotle <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>*. > Dialectics “alone offers the analogue for, and thereby the method of > explaining, the evolutionary processes occurring in nature, > inter-connections in general, and transitions from one field of > investigation to another,” says Engels. > > The claim that Engels is making for dialectics is that it, and only it, can > embrace the entirety of human thought through history, as well as the > entirety of human understanding in the present. Because of dialectics, > because of Aristotle, > *Hegel<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/index.htm> > *, Marx and Engels, all of this becomes possible and at the same time, > therefore, unavoidable. > > This recognition of unity in human history, experience, and understanding > is simultaneously a great breakthrough and a pillar of our age, but also a > contested, and to some extent unabsorbed idea. It would make racism > impossible, for example; yet racism survives. There remain opposing schools > of philosophy, and the irrational, anti-human and reactionary system called > “post-modernism” has in recent decades become the mental currency of > Imperialism. > > To illustrate the continuity of philosophical thought and development the > CU gives you a chronicle and a diagram of philosophical thought that may > serve as a framework for further studies (“Philosophers”, linked). This is > followed by a longer document, written by Anthony Blunt, that describes the > Italian Renaissance (rebirth) through the life and work of *Leon Battista > Alberti <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leone_Battista_Alberti>*. The > Renaissance is significant as the link between the ancient Greek and Roman > worlds and the modern world. It drew also upon Arab, Indian and Chinese > culture. This piece of writing can help show how, in historical actuality, > the unity of historical thought that Hegel later theorised had in fact been > created. > > The Italian Renaissance, based as it was on reason and the understanding > that humans can develop human culture, not absolutely limited by the extent > of the knowledge of the ancients, or by any other limitation, offers a pure > and developed form of humanism. The Italian Renaissance was later overcome > by its own internal reactionary forces, but humanism did not sleep as long > as it had after the fall of the Roman Empire. It quickly rose again in > Northern > Europe, led by the work of *Baruch > Spinoza<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinoza> > *, among others. A very short piece of Spinoza’s writing is given at the end > of the Anthony Blunt document. > > Finally, but not for the first time in the new CU Generic Courses, we link > to Engels’ “Socialism, Utopian and Scientific”, extracted by Engels from his > larger work, “Anti-Dühring”, which helps to place thought in a historical > framework. For example, dealing with the period subsequent to the > Renaissance and immediately prior to the French Revolution that is often > referred to as “The Enlightenment”, Engels writes: > > *“We know today that this kingdom of reason was nothing more than the > idealized kingdom of the bourgeoisie; that this eternal Right found its > realization in bourgeois justice; that this equality reduced itself to > bourgeois equality before the law; that bourgeois property was proclaimed as > one of the essential rights of man; and that the government of reason, > the *Contrat > Social *[Social Contract] of Rousseau, came into being, and only could come > into being, as a democratic bourgeois republic. The great thinkers of the > 18th century could, no more than their predecessors, go beyond the limits > imposed upon them by their epoch.”* > > Here is the limitation imposed upon the Subject by the objective > circumstances. This is humanism. Humanism says that humans build humanity > (see also the quote from Spinoza referred to above) within the given > material world and history. Nowhere does Engels say that humanity is an > accidental combination of atoms and molecules. > > Yet, by chastising the great Hegel with the same kind of roughness as he > treats the nonentity Dühring, Engels sowed the seeds of others’ subsequent > and greater errors, by elevating the dichotomy of “idealism and materialism” > to a master-narrative of philosophy, which it is not, and leading finally > towards that absurdity which we will continue to expose, that says that > humanity is reducible to matter. > > Communists have relied too heavily upon Engels to teach them philosophy. As > a result they have magnified Engels’ otherwise unremarkable mistakes to > monstrous proportions. The main one of these is the denigration of > “idealism” and the perverse worship of “materialism”. Whereas it is the > free-willing human Subject which was at the centre of Marx’s work, and which > must be at the centre of any communist’s work. > > *Click on these links**:* > > *On Dialectics, 1878, > Engels<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/1878,+Engels,+On+Dialectics> > * (3279 words) > > *Philosophers, 2004, > Tweedie<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/2005,+Tweedie,+Philosophers> > * (2657 words) > > *Alberti and Spinoza compilation, Blunt, > Spinoza<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/1450,+Alberti+(by+Blunt),+plus+Spinoza> > * (7150 words) > > *Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, 1880, > Engels<http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/1880,+Engels,+Socialism,+Utopian+and+Scientific> > *(16229 words) > > > -- > Blog at: http://domza.blogspot.com/ > Communist University web site at: http://amadlandawonye.wikispaces.com/ > Subscribe for free e-mail updates at: > http://groups.google.com/group/Communist-University/ > Library of documents (CU "CD") at: http://cu.domza.net/ > [email protected] > > > > -- Kind Regards, Thamsanqa Tu (073 282 2512) I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to death your right to say it - Voltaire --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. 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