From: Paul Zarembka (zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Mon Mar 15 2004 - 08:21:57 EST
Chris, If the 'new dialectics' is partly a criticism of the 'old dialectics', has any of its proponents taken under examination J.D. White, *Karl Marx and the Intellectual Origins of Dialectical Materialism*? That book addresses precisely at least that part of the 'new dialectics' concern. The only attention I've seen to it is a review by Sayers, which led to my own reply in *Historical Materialism*, No. 8. Neither considered any interface with 'new dialectics'. Also, in my view, 'new dialectics' should confront the evidence for a declining influence of Hegel on Marx's thought, Althusser or no Althusser. Paul ************************************************************************** Vol.21: Neoliberalism in Crisis, Accumulation, and Rosa Luxemburg's Legacy RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, Zarembka/Soederberg, eds., Elsevier Science *********************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka On Mon, 15 Mar 2004, Christopher Arthur wrote: > >what is the new dialectics; how does it differ from the "old?" > > > Here is a n extract from the introduction to my book > Chris A > The term Œthe New Dialectic¹ it is a convenient way of grouping together > thinkers of independent spirit, clearly doing something rather distinctive > in the present intellectual conjuncture. many of the most active > researchers believe they are working within a new paradigm they call > ŒSystematic Dialectic¹ What is involved in the first place is simply a > return to sources, making a serious study of what Hegel and Marx really > achieved with respect to dialectic. But the New Dialectic has not only > recovered much of this indispensable original work, it is characterised by > new thinking about the issues, and it has reconstructed the inheritance of > Hegel and Marx in various ways. The new interest in Hegel is rather > different from that of earlier Hegelian Marxism which was (rightly or > wrongly) called Œhistoricist¹. The new interest in Hegel is largely > unconcerned with recovering the grand narrative of Hegel's philosophy of > history and relating it to historical materialism; rather it is focussed on > Hegel¹s Logic and how this fits the method of Marx¹s Capital. The point is > usually put by saying the effort is to construct a systematic dialectic in > order to articulate the relations of a given social order, namely > capitalism, as opposed to an historical dialectic studying the rise and > fall of social systems. What, then, is ŒNew¹ about this dialectic? What is > implicitly referred to here as the ŒOld Dialectic¹ is the Soviet school of > ŒDiamat¹, rooted in a vulgarised version of Engels and Plekhanov, which > amounted to an unsystematic compilation of 'examples'. Diamat ran out of > steam in the 1950s. In the West this was followed by a recovery of the work > of historicist Marxists such as Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci. But then came > the high tide of structuralism and post-structuralism, analytical Marxism, > discourse theory, etc., which rejected Hegel altogether, and generally had > a skeptical a attitude to dialectic. It was Althusser¹s strident > anti-Hegelianism that opened the way for paradigms completely alien to > Marxism to absorb it; thus there was the rise of so-called analytical > Marxism, which relied on axioms that were essentially generalisations of > neo-classical economics. But there were always people who refused to > follow the fashion. Now we see a number of Hegelian inspired > reappropriations of the dialectic. (R. Albritton; C. J. Arthur; J. Banaji; > R. Bhaskar; M. Eldred; I. Hunt; M. Lebowitz; J. McCarney; P. Murray; R. > Norman (and S. Sayers); B. Ollman; M. Postone; G. Reuten; T. Sekine; A. > Shamsavari; F. C. Shortall; T. Smith; H. Williams; M. Williams). > There is little in the secondary literature on how to do systematic > dialectic even though Hegel¹s and Marx¹s major works are not historical but > systematic. I attempt a general characterisation of Systematic Dialectic > (emphasising that not all the thinkers I cite would accept everything in > the following paragraph). At the philosophical level it is a way of working > with concepts that keeps them open and fluid, and above all systematically > interconnected. At the methodological level it puts the emphasis on the > need for a clear order of presentation, which, however, is not a linear > one, for the starting point is not empirically or axiomatically given but > in need of interrogation. Epistemologically it insists on the reflexivity > of the subject-object relation. Ontologically it addresses itself to > totalities and thus to their comprehension through systematically > interconnected categories, which are more or less sharply distinguished > from historically sequenced orderings.Textually it prefers to look at Hegel > and Marx afresh, setting aside sclerotic received traditions of > interpretation. Substantively it reexamines or reconstructs Marxian theory > in the light of the above protocols. > > 17 Bristol Road, Brighton, BN2 1AP, England > > >
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