File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-03-28.125, message 32


Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 15:40:54 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Marx was not an economic determinist


John,

This is very interesting. How well know was Dietzgen and his writings? If
his ideas were well-known, and the term "dialectical materialism" was
around some time before Marx died, and well before Engels died, then you
would suppose either Marx or Engels might have made mention of it. What
was the conext of the term, how did Dietzgen use it, and did he use it in
reference to Marx's writings?

AA

On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote: 

>      According to Chris Sciabarra in his _Marx, Hayek, and 
> Utopia_, p. 138, it was Joseph Dietzgen in the 1870s who 
> coined the term "dialectical materialism."  Plekhanov 
> merely popularized it.  Lenin certainly got it from 
> Plekhanov.  It does not appear anywhere in either Marx or 
> Engels.
> Barkley Rosser
> On Wed, 26 Mar 97 10:16:47 18000 Michael Hoover 
> <hoov-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us> wrote:
> 
> 
> >  I sent a message to the list that must be floating around as cyberspace
> >  junk...I made a few comments on klo_mckinsey's post that Marx's theory 
> >  was not "dialectical economism" (a term I am not familiar with)...klo was 
> >  criticizing my view - to simplify because I deleted both my initial
> >  post and klo's response - that Marx was & was not an economic 
> >  determinist (dialectial economism?)...my position was - worded 
> >  differently, I'm sure - that M's "general theory" employed the concept 
> >  of a mode of production - a social system of producing carried on within, 
> >  and as a result of, a certain set of ownership relations...and that 
> >  politics is largely - not exclusively - about a struggle to control the 
> >  mode of production. ..which does not mean that everything can be reduced 
> >  to a "single-factor"...
> >  
> >  klo proceeded to assert the appropriateness of the term and philosophy
> >  "dialetical materialism"...several listers responded with historical 
> >  materialism"...while I agree (for different reasons perhaps) with Antonio 
> >  M - I think it was him - who wrote that such disagreements cannot be 
> >  resolved (evidenced by the personal rancor arising from only on a few 
> >  posts on this subject), I'm going to throw in my 2 cents  anyway...folks 
> >  are, no doubt, waiting with bated breath...
> > 
> >  and the answer is: I generally agree with those who hold that Marx
> >  was an HM - not a DM - if that means that he elaborated a dialectical
> >  analysis of class forces and their changing forms rather than seeking
> >  evidence for the operation of the dialectic in the natural/physical
> >  world...an exception appears to occur in a 6/22/1867 letter that
> >  M wrote to Engels: 
> > 
> > "I refer to the law Hegel discovered, of purely quantitative changes
> > turning into qualitative changes, as holding good alike in history
> > and natural science (M&E, "Selected Correspondence", p223)...Michael
> > 
> > I am aware of only a few other instances of correspondence between the
> > two on the subject of a "dialectics of nature"..M encourages E but
> > offers no consent or agreement...
> > 
> > beyond this, we enter into the "blame game": Engels for vulgarizing Marx 
> > by asserting that all matter is dialectically constructed...Plekhanov 
> > for coining the term "dialectial materialism"...Lenin for accepting
> > the premise that all phenomena are dialectically constructed and
> > comform to its laws (see L's "Philosophic Notebooks" for a more
> > cautious assessment of the priority of the material world)...Stalin
> > for everything else...Michael
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 
> -- 
> Rosser Jr, John Barkley
> rosserjb-AT-jmu.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 



     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005