Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 10:46:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: SCIABARRA ON  DIALECTICS


On Sun, 28 Jul 1996 13:15:58 -0400 (EDT), Chris M. Sciabarra made
some interesting remarks which have not been followed up on:

>One thing that most impresses me is that in nearly EVERY version
>of dialectic, there is an understanding of these important
>essentials:

>1.  an emphasis on the analytical integrity of the whole;

>2.  an emphasis on the need to analyze the whole from different
>vantage points and on different levels of generality;

>3.  an emphasis on the internal relations between the parts of a
>whole, as manifested structurally and temporally;

>4.  and as a by-product of the above, an opposition to various
>forms of dualism, reductionist monism, neutral monism (or strict
>organicity), and atomism (each of which can be viewed as a
>methodological orientation distinct from dialectics).

Very interesting, esp. the opposition to strict organicity
(synonymous with the expressive totality? holism?)  This would
seem to differentiate dialectics from objective idealism.

Chris continues:

>I also believe that there is not a single thinker in the history
>of Western OR Eastern thought (at least those with whom I am
>familiar) who is fully and consistently dialectical.  Nearly
>every thinker manifests different methodological orientations in
>different aspects of their thought.

I would also like to hear more about this.  Chris continues with a
particular example:

>Hegel, for instance, can be very dialectical in his
>understanding of transcending opposites, but his philosophy of
>history is more a manifestation of neutral monism (or strict
>organicity)

By neutral monism, do you mean geist or expressive totality, which
links all social/cultural phenomena in a given society as a single
organism without giving a priority to material factors or
acknowledging behavior that escapes totalization?  If so, I
suspect you are correct.  From the little I have seen, Hegel's
philosophy of history is flagrantly undialectical, but
metaphysical in the most puerile fashion, esp. when it comes to
"unhistorical" peoples and different civilizations as different
expressions of geist materializing itself.

>in which he, Hegel, takes a SYNOPTIC vantage point on the whole.
>Dialectics demands a CONTEXTUAL vantage point, not the kind of
>God-like omniscience that Hegel seems to demand.

This statement definitely requires an explanation!

>(I would suggest that this kind of SYNOPTIC vantage point
>sometimes rears its ugly head in the Marxist theory of history

Do you mean in the Stalinist conception of history?

Chris concludes with Plato as another example.

I think this discussion should be continued.  You Marxists should
be ashamed that a devotee of Ayn Rand should be so perspicacious
on this subject while many of you drop the ball again and again.
(And there's a contradiction in Chris, for Rand is a strictly
metaphysical, undialectical, and ahistorical thinker.)  Chris, I
don't want to hear one word you have to say about Rand, but my
mouth is watering for elaboration of some of the points above.


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