Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 17:02:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Dialectics (fwd)


For the record,

Adolfo takes the following statement as evidence that I am a Kantian
philosopher:

"I am fully competent to interpret the work of Marx for myself. So I will
not quote a source that asserts the fact that dialectical materialism is a
distortion of Marx.... I don't need to; it simply is."

What do I mean by this statement? I mean that dialectical materialism is
a distortion of Marx. Further, that I do not need to quote a source
backing this up because I regard my statement on the subject to be
correct through interpreting Marx myself.

What does Adolfo do in his (unprincipled) attacks against me? He asserts
that I am incorrect. And his evidence as to why I am incorrect is because
I am. In other words, with similar confidence (and the extra element of
reaction) Adolfo attacks me as misinterpreting Marx.

If my confidence in my interpretation is evidence of a stealth Kantianism,
then Adolfo's confidence in my misinterpretation is evidence of the very
same thing. And the man from Crete said, "All Cretians are liars."

Of course, my statement means no such thing, and Adolfo is grasping at
the thin reeds.

Desperately in need to redirect my correct interpretation of Marxian
thought, Adolfo needs to make me something other than a Marxist, and he
attempts to do so by creating a complete fantasy about my being a Kantian. 

If I am not entitled to hold a conviction, if I am not allowed to be
confident in my interpretations of Marx's text, because this is somehow an
impossibility without asserting the existence of a thing-in-itself, then
on what basis does Adolfo's argument carry any weight at all? Since
Adolfo's argument is precisely doing what he condemns? 

Adolfo is continually undone by his own inability to reason logically.


Peace,
Andrew Austin



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