Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 12:59:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: M-I: Misplaced Burden of Proof.


Comrades,

I keep forgetting to note one glaring fallacy that appear repeatedly in
some of my opponents' contributions, and this is a misplaced burden of
proof. (Of course, I may be accused here to adhering rules of "bourgeois" 
logic.)

If I assert the existence of God, and Siddharth Chatterjee asks me where
God is, it is to misplace the burden of proof for me to say, "You show me
where God is not." (Note that I am talking about the real world, not
Venn diagrams.)

Likewise, if Siddharth Chatterjee asserts dialectical materialism as
Marx's production, and I ask him to show me where in Marx's text this is
so, it is to misplace the burden of proof for Siddharth Chatterjee to then
say, "You show me where he does not express this view."

Of course, operating under the principle of charity, I can go to the text
and return to my opponent and say, "Nowhere in here does Marx refer to
'dialectics of nature,' or 'dialectical materialism.'" "In fact," I
remark, "It does not appear that I can cull such a view from Marx's work
at all." 

I am then hit with, "But just because Marx does not specifically say that
he rejects such a view does not eliminate the possibility that he held
this view."

This is where the fallacy becomes locked in. I do not know how Marx felt
about grilled cheese sandwiches. I do not know how he felt about body
piercing. But it is not up to me to prove Marx did not like either grilled
cheese sandwiches or body piercing when I am hit with an assertion that he
in fact did like both of these things. Indeed, I am told, he not only
liked them, they were at the center of his worldview! No, it is up to the
person who makes such an outrageous claim to demonstrate where Marx said,
"I love grilled cheese sandwiches and body piercing." "In fact," Marx must
say, "my materialist conception of history is a direct application of the
larger philosophical body of my culinary and aesthetic tastes." 

Now, I was obviously able to show where Marx actually complained about
people assuming that his materialist conception of history was a
philosophy of laws about the universe, or even transhistorical events. So
I went the extra mile to provide a positive demonstration of where Marx
rejected even the suggestion of something like dialectical materialism in
his work. But this effort on my part does not change the fact that my
opponents have been using fallacious argumentation to somehow assert a
falsehood that Marx believed something of which there is not only no proof
he did, but proof that he did not.

This distortion of Marx's work is quite old, as many of us know. 
Plekhanov coined the term "dialectical materialism," and drew the ideas
>from Engels' three laws of the materialist dialectic. Because Engels
asserted that this was the "communist world outlook," it was required by
Stalinists to adopt these three laws, and their official name,
"dialectical materialism" as rigid doctrine.

Why do I so strenuously object to such distortions? For two reasons.
First, it is not what Marx believed. It is therefore wrong to attribute to
Marx that which he did not argue. Marx's theoretical and methodological
system, the "materialist conception of history" (or *historical
materialism*), is a terrific analytical tool for understanding society and
history. It also has at its core a realism that is neither crude
materialism in the vein of Feuerbach nor pseudomaterialism, such as
positivism, which is actually a form of idealism. Marx's realism holds
that knowledge of reality is socially produced in concrete historical
moments.

Secondly, dialectical materialism is absurd. It is cheesy dime store
philosophy with no validity. It violates Marx's theory and method. It is a
counterrevolutionary ideology. It is reactionary. It is detrimental to the
cause of socialism and historical science because it places a barrier to
the widespread acceptance of Marx's scientific method. Accepting
dialectical materialism is like accepting the evolutionary theory of
Lamarck, except that Lamarck made his error prior to the presentation of
the theory of natural selection by Darwin and Wallace. Adherents to
dialectical materialism have no excuse. There can be no ignorance here
among those who actually read Marx.

Andrew





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