From: paul bullock (paulbullock@ebms-ltd.co.uk)
Date: Wed Apr 02 2008 - 06:37:34 EDT
I am a bit surprised at this exchange. Firstly given the period in which Hegel Marx and Engles wrote, the notion that change was continuouis certainly conflicted with the method that all sciences tended to rely on, AND we shoud bear in mknd that 'social science' was barely in its infancy... ( where do we start there? earlier vthan Comte?). Static or relative static / mechanical assessments were the norm. So the reassertion of the 'dialectic' ( almost whatever sense of dynamism one gives it) with hegel was 'revolutionary'. Secondly no one has really tried to define dilectical reasoning here... Lenin was sincere enough to study Hegel in order to clarify his mind about the process Marx had gone through, even though Marx's method is absolutely different from Hegel...(and from the 'material' side different from eg Holbach) So why don't we try to see if 'ready to hand' words that suggest motion and change really are sufficient to replace the 'word' dialectic.. as has been suggested in this exchange by DZ... OR whether it presents a specific method with definite philosophical grounds and which provides therefore a particular approach to investigation? Certainly DZ's comments seem to exclude the basic dialectical premise that each social formation contains within it the contradictions which will result in its supercession by another. This isn't an idea that can be expressed by the word 'change' or 'dynamic'. The essential concept is that of 'contradiction'... and it the identification of the actual , material, contradictory social relations, that is fundamental in the investigation. The idea of 'dynamic' or 'change' don't point to this 'motor'. P Bullock ----- Original Message ----- From: dogangoecmen@aol.com To: ope@lists.csuchico.edu Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 5:38 PM Subject: Re: [OPE] Is 'dialectic' a scientific,pre-scientific or pseudo-scientific concept? Dave, we are from entirely different "planets". I do not see any easy way of solving our differences in the short term. It is perhaps not a bad idea to leave to time to solve - if at all. Below my replies. Dogan ======== "Dialectics is the only scientific concept today". Dave Z: ====== Certainly this is a mistake. By extension all other concepts are non-scientific. Thus physics, biology etc., which have no need to use 'dialectic', would be non-scientific. Reply ====== This is a mistake. Dialectics is a universal concept and applies to all sciences and humanities - of course in different forms. Please take the terms: coldness versus and warmness; hardness versus softness; universal and particular; illness and healthiness. Without thinking these and many other contradictory terms we cannot explain anything. Dialectics says we have to think these contradictory terms as unities and that they are represented in one another. The motion from one to other is a process of quantitative and qualitative processes. Let's take for example illness. Can we define what illness is if do not think of healthiness at the same time. And we fight against illness because we usually know that healthiness is immanent in illness. Similarly with all other terms. Dogan ====== Can you please give some reasons to justify your claim that dialectics is pre or even pseudo-scientific? Dave Z ======= There doesn't seem to be a precise meaning of 'dialectic', it means whatever the author wants. But most often it is used as a description of processes that are driven by the form "thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis". At other times the emphasis is shifted to describe processes that change quantitatively up to a point and then make a qualitative "leap". Reply ====== It is not as arbitrary as you seem to think how one defines dialectics as a concept of the world. It is an ontological concept and must be discovered in things rather than in schematic definitions. The reasons you give prove that even natural sciences cannot do without dialectics. The concepts you refer to below are all dialectical concepts though they may be used unconsciously: "Dynamical systems" (was first developed against mechnic mode of thought and approach by dialecticians); 'discontinuities' (implies the concept of continuity); 'feedback signals' (implies the dialectic of action reaction); 'phase transitions' (highly dialectical concept because it implies changes from one characteristic to another) onanther have more precise meaning and predictive power in scientific theories. Since these concepts proves the vice versa your claims "Dialectic is at best a redundant concept", "dialectic' is used as pseudo-scientific nonsense" and so on stand. Regards, Dogan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bei AOL gibt's jetzt kostenlos eMail für alle! Was es sonst noch umsonst bei AOL gibt, finden Sie hier heraus AOL.de. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Apr 30 2008 - 00:00:18 EDT