Date: Fri, 13 Sep 96 15:08:49 GMT
Subject: Re: Engels, dialectics, etc -Reply -Reply



I've just been reading over my reply.

I think what is missing re:why marxists discuss questions like
"Is there a dialectic in nature ?" in my previous reply is that philosophy
has a political impact, and, as Engels points out in "Ludwig Feuerbach
and the End of Classical German Philosophy" , the state of human knowledge
about the world, and the theories about that knowledge, are the basis upon
which philosophy is done ( naturally, most philosophers think it is the
other way round ).

For example, Marxists believe that it is possible to rationally plan the 
economy. One attack on this position is that to argue that science tells us
rationality does not apply to either nature or society, so our only alternative
is to allow some "hidden hand" like the market to determine priorities.
While this argument is based on an incorrect understanding of things like
Godel's incompleteness theorem, Heisenburg's uncertainty principle, chaos 
theory etc, it does have a grain of truth to it. That grain of truth is that 
"common sense" rationality does indeed breakdown in the natural and social 
worlds. But this is a limitation of the static, one sided nature of mechanical
materialism, classical logic, etc etc. These frameworks are essentially
abstractions from one small part of nature, and the mistake is force these
abstractions on all of nature. This rationality, this logic, this method,
is a special case, one aspect of rationality. So to reject rationality as a
whole because this special case of rationality doesn't fit all of nature 
is wrong. [ eg Just because electrons don't obey the same rules as billiard
balls doesn't mean they obey no rules at all ].

Another way of putting this is that to be a consistent materialist, you have
to be a dialectical  materialist . . .

I wonder if I am making sense . . . I AM trying to.

I am aware that I still haven't really gone into what I mean by
"mechanical materialism, classical logic, etc etc" , I keep referring
to it in shorthand, and asserting that you know what I am talking about.
Maybe someone else can help . . . It's just that it's been pummelled into
me from such an early age in so many ways, it's a bit like reliving a
traumatic childhood experience . . .

Adam.


Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


---------------------------------------------------------------


     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---