From: Michael Hoover <hoov-AT-freenet.tlh.fl.us>
Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Marx was not an economic determinist
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 97 21:24:05 18000


>      All I know of Dietzgen is what I put in my posting.  I 
> gather from Sciabarra that he was not well known, at least 
> that his use of this phrase was not well known.  As 
> Sciabarra claims, it was Plekhanov who popularized it.  I 
> had always previous to reading this been under the 
> impression that it was invented by Plekhanov.
> Barkley Rosser

Engels writes in "Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classic German
Philosophy" (1885) that 

"...the dialectic of Hegel was placed on its head; or rather,
turned off its head, on which it was standing, and placed
upon its feet.  And this materialist dialectic, which for years
has been our best working tool and our sharpest weapon, was,
remarkably enough, discovered not only by us but also,
independently of us and even of Hegel by a German worker, Joseph
Dietzgen (M&E, Selected Works, p619)

a note by Engels refers to a work by Dietzgen entitled "The
Nature of Human Brainwork, Described by a Manual Worker"

the Name Index says this of Dietzgen: German Social-Democrat,
philosopher, who, without any previous schooling, arrived at
the fundamental principles of dialectical materialism; leather
worker by trade...Michael


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