Date: Fri, 31 Jan 1997 00:41:48 +0000
From: Joćo Paulo Monteiro <jpmonteiro-AT-mail.telepac.pt>
Subject: M-I: Engels and natural science


As I have promised earlier (my post of tuesday, 28 Jan.), I am sending a
transcription of the concluding chapter of an article from Paul McGarr,
published in International Socialism n=BA 65 (special issue on Engels).
Many thanks to Charlie Hore at the Bookmarks bookshop for his help on
this.
Of course, a complete, unified broad outlook of nature and society is
still a very long shot. But we're starting to see some bits and pieces
of the whole picture. Of course, we should never forget that all
knowledge is transient and historicaly situated within a certain set of
social practices.


Jo=E3o Paulo Monteiro




CONCLUSION

It should be clear that Engels' general approach to and arguments
about science were correct and stand up well against the scientific
developments in the 100 years since his death. In fact those
developments
are  a powerful argument for the necessity of a dialectical
understanding
of nature.
        What are the key elements in such an understanding? The first is
that nature is historical at every level. No aspect of nature simply
exists, it has a history, it comes into being,
changes and develops, is transformed, and, finally, ceases to exist.
Aspects of nature may appear to be fixed, stable, in a state
of equilibrium for a shorter or longer time, but none is permanently so.
This is the inescapable conclusion of modern science.
Instead of expecting constancy or equilibrium as the normal condition
a dialectical approach means expecting change but
accepting apparent constancy within certain limits.

        The second key element on which Engels was right is the need to
see
the interconnections of different aspects of nature. Of course it
is necessary to break nature up, isolate this or that aspect, in order
to
understand and explain. But this is only part of the story,
and unless complemented by seeing whatever parts have been isolated for
study in their interconnections and relationships leads to a
one sided, limited understanding. Parts only have full meaning in
relation
to the whole the parts make up. This is not any kind of
argument for a mystical "holism". The real relationships between
different
aspects of nature must be established and worked out
scientifically. It is simply an insistence that such investigation is
necessary for a full understanding to be established.


        As in most questions there is a connection between the way
nature
is viewed and the dominant ideology in society. The fact that a way
of thinking about nature in which equilibrium is the norm and in which
the
focus is on isolated parts, "atoms", is typical is no accident
in modern capitalist society. Though originally revolutionary, the
capitalist class now has to believe and tell us to believe that its
way of organising society is best. It has to suggest, whatever the daily
accumulating evidence to the contrary, that stability and
equilibrium are the normal conditions. It has to suggest that there is
no
reason why the current way of running society need radically
change. Its visionof society is precisley one of atomised individual
units.
The family, the individual are paramount, "there is no
such thing as society" as Margaret Thatcher argued. When this is the
dominant ideology in society it is no suprise it often influences
the way scientists think about nature.

        What of the general patterns, "laws", which Engels
argued characterise processes of change  and development in nature? I
would argue that there is question that Engels=92 arguments about
quantitative change giving rise at certain points to qualitative
transformations are generally correct. In every field of science, every
aspect of nature, one cannot but be struck by precisely this process.
Any attempt to understand the natural world which does not expect this
to be a typical feature of change and development cannot be reconciled
with the developments of modern science. Of course, to expect such
patterns of change does not tell you anything at all about the specific
nature of real processes. The natural world has to be investigated and
its behaviour established and explained scientifically.

        A consequence of this view, however, is the understanding, more
and
more supported by modern science, that a radically
anti-reductionist view of nature is necessary. As quantitative change
gives
rise to qualitative transformation new organisations
of matter arise. These have genuinely novel ways of behaving which,
while
compatible with the laws governing the underlying components
are not simply reducible to them. Biology is not simply applied physics
and
chemistry. Nor is human behaviour and consciousness simply
applied molecular biology. Still less is politics, economics and history
applied biology. An understanding is necessary which sees the
connections between all these different levels of the organisation of
matter, for they are all the result of nothing more than the
greater or lesser complexity of organisation of matter - there are no
mystical
or vital principles at work. But an understanding of
nature is also necessary which sees that each level has its own laws,
ways
of behaving, which cannot, even in principle, be read off
>from the laws governing a different level.

        Throughout nature it seems that things which appear to have
any persistence, any stability, for a greater or shorter time, are the
result of a temporary dynamic balance between opposing or contradictory
tendencies. This is as true of simple physical objects like
atoms, as of living organisms. When that balance is broken - as it
always is
at some point - change CAN result which leads to a new
development, a transformation to a new situation which is not simply a
disintegration of a circular recreation of what was there
before. But this is a potential, a possibility, rather than a general
feature.  Furthermore the way changes take place, and the kinds
of possibilities, tendencies or patterns that can occur are different at
different levels of the organisation of matter.

        This is especially true of the kinds of processes which Engels
talks
of as examples of "negation of the negation". It seems to
have little validity when talking of change in simple physical objects.
It
becomes important when talking of more complex persistent
systems which have the capacity when absorbing external impulses to
preserve, and possibly transform, themselves. So it fits much
better when looking at biological organisms, whose condition of
existence is precisely the continual absorbtion and
transformation of external matter. It is even more apparent in the
sub-class
of living bodies who have reached the further stage of
development of consciousness and then self consciousness. These are
conatantly under the influence of external causation (they are being
negated) but by becoming aware of this have the possibility of
incorporating it under their own control (above all at the collective,
social level) and in the process transforming themselves, and their
relations with the external world. Living organisms open up kinds of
development, processes of change, which are
not there in the same form in the non-living world. Even
more so is it the case that with the emergence of human consciousness
and
society new patterns of development and change become
possible.

        In addition, though, the concept is also important when looking
at
the evolution of the totality of matter itself. All these various
levels of the organisation of matter are different facets of the same
material totality, which though differentiated has an underlying
unity. This totality has developed to give rise to the different
patterns of
change exhibited at different levels of the organisation
and stages of the history of matter. The levels and the patterns of
change
open at each are different, but they are connected aspects
of the underlying unity.

        A genuine dialectical view of nature would require the
investigation of all these issues, a study of processes of change and
development at every level of nature, their similarities and their
differences. To construct such an understanding, based firmly on
the real results of a developing scientific understanding of nature,
would
be the best tribute to Engels' pioneering work which still
remains by far the best starting point for any serious philosophy of
science. Engels=92 arguments on science have for too long and too
often been ignored, dismissed or distorted - by socialists sometimes as
much
as our enemies. One hundred years after his death it is
time that changed. But in learning from Engels and seeking to build on
his
insights we should do so in the spirit he himself worked:
"How  young the whole of human history is, and how ridiculous it would
be
to attempt to ascribe any absolute validity to our present
views"(92).


NOTE: (92) Engels, Anti-D=FChring, MECW, p. 106.



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