From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Tue Nov 13 2007 - 09:29:49 EST
>I am not sure I follow all of your 'editorializing'. I hope you followed some... > I give an >account of dialectical connection (a bit like Ollman's, I guess, but >also sharing something in common with Levin and Lewontin - the >original version of "The Dialectical Biologist" came out in 1985, I >suppose the new one is revised) in Ch 4 of my book "Analytical and >Dialectical Marxism", So we have logical and historical dialectics but you seem to emphasize ontological dialectics? Rakesh >Cheers, >Ian > >>Oh just some editorializing... >> >>>>I am just raising the hoary question of what role Marx's specific >>>>understanding of dialectic (logical and historical) and especially >>>>contradiction play in or distinguish his theory. >>>It seems that you are saying a very important one, no? >>>Well, yes. >>>Cheers, >>>Ian >> >>My hero Grossman downplayed influence of Hegel on Marx in 1943, >>saying that Marx's understanding of the historical dialectic depended >>on Condorcet, Sismondi, Jones. Though if I remember correctly there >>may be a favorable and hidden footnote on the importance of Hegel's >>logic for Marx's categorial analysis. And there is that fabulous, >>key, perhaps though not coherent quote in which Marx says that JS >>Mill, comfortable with logical contradictions, is at bay with real >>dialectical contradiction whose source is Hegel. >> >>And certainly when Grossman in 1941 insists that Marx did not >>complete but actually revolutionized Ricardo's value theory, he seems >>to suggest (with nowhere the clarity of Ilyenkov who himself is vague >>often enough) the importance of Marx's ability to grasp the unity of >>opposites--in the commodity itself and as externalized in the value >>form, in the accumulation process as a unity of technical and value >>processes, in the opposite use value and unit value effects of rising >>productivity. >> >>To put it roughly would you say your sense of dialectical logic is >>close to Levins and Lewontin's (just ordered their new book from >>Monthly Review)? >>Lukacs would of course put emphasis inter alia on Marx's ability to >>theorize capitalism as a totality, in terms of carefully specified >>connections or what (according to Chris Arthur) Ollman would call >>inner-action among parts. >> >>Marx himself put great emphasis on the aesthetic wholeness of >>Capital, as I have underlined in discussion with Fred. I think he >>means here not only the exhaustive specification of the parts of the >>totality (a pure and idealized bourgeois mode of production) and >>their interconnections as spelled out in a layered way but the >>dramatic history he gave of this totality (the drama of its origins, >>rise and fall--such a drama contrasted here to episodic histories of >>parts, which Foucault would do much to resurrect the respectability >>of). >> >>The drama however is a fictional one. Society is not the capitalist >>totality, and the parts specified were either not necessary >>(commodity money) or exhaustive (missing book on the state?market in >>govt debt? limited liability corporation?). >> >>And Marx may or may have abstracted from the background of the world >>market. I don't think so (as I, along with Kenneth Lapides, do think >>Marx more or less finished the book he intended to write after he >>dumped the six book plan), but most people (Michael Heinrich >>prominently) on this list do think Marx did abstract away from the >>world market. >> >>But one can say the method of analyzing the totality remains >>defensible? Of course one could say that and say that there is >>nothing specifically Marxist about such a method. >> >>But the most important point: Rick Kuhn won the Deutscher prize for >>his marvelous book on Grossman. >> >>Rakesh > > >-- >Associate Professor Ian Hunt, >Dept of Philosophy, School of Humanities, >Director, Centre for Applied Philosophy, >Flinders University of SA, >Humanities Building, >Bedford Park, SA, 5042, >Ph: (08) 8201 2054 Fax: (08) 8201 2784
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