Fwd: Re: M-TH: Re: Marx conceiving of nature dialectically
Andrew Wayne Austin [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/23 2:54 AM . . . need to correct some mistatements of fact . . . On Tue, 22 Dec 1998, Charles Brown wrote: I thought the examples that James F. gave in natural history and biology fit the Engels model. . . . I welcome this as affirmation of Engels's position . . . . I have long argued that aspects of evolutionary theory and evolutionary process may be described as dialectical and I was open-minded about this matter. What I dispute is Engels argument that the dialectic is the general laws of development in nature, society, and thought. I have never a priori rejected the possibility of any form of change being dialectic. What I have rejected is the view that all change is a priori dialectical. Charles: So your position is that we just have to wait and see as each type of change comes up as to whether it is dialectical ? Has any type of change been discovered yet that was not dialectical as you understand Marx to mean dialectical ? What is it ? ___ Below, Charles contradicts himself. First, he says that However, Darwinism is also classically Marxistly dialectical . . . as described by Lenin in _The Teachings of Karl Marx_ especially with respect to Stephen Jay Gould's punctuated equilibrium, in which, I believe the punctuations are major extinctions in the history of life. But then he writes that the point is that catastrophes, revolutions, leaps within slower change or evolution renders this fundamental theory of natural history more dialectical in the Hegelian sense than it was in the Darwinian form. In this argument we find that Darwin's theory is said to be dialectical in the classically Marxist sense. _ Charles: The answer to your riddle, Andy,my boy, is that I used Darwinism the first time to include Stephen Jay Gouldism as part of Darwinism. And the second time I used Darwinism, I should have said original Darwinism not modified by Gould's theory. This was an equivocation of my use of the word "Darwinism." But the point is consistent for anyone trying to understand. _ And the example given is Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium. But then in the next sentence we find that whereas Gould's theory is dialectic, it is more dialectical in the Hegelian sense than in the Darwinian form. The problem is that revolutions, qualitative leaps, and so forth, are Marxian dialectical (and the form is Hegelian). But this is different, Charles says, than the Darwinian form. So, the conclusion is this: Darwinian evolution is not dialectical. I agree. Charles: The conclusion one more time, is that Darwinism is more dialectical than the theories of biology which prevailed when he wrote his famous thesis, creationism etc. But Darwinism was not fully dialectical in the Hegelian sense. You mentioned that evolutionism had been around for a thousand years and Darwin's father was an evolutionist. But if you look in any biology basic textbook , which will have a sketch of Darwin's biography, you will find that Christian creationism was the prevailing theory of Darwin's day AND THAT CHARLES DARWIN HIMSELF WAS A CREATIONIST UPON STARTING THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE. The 101 text I just read says that Darwin was going out to find data to uphold creationism over a recent geological theory that held the earth's geology had evolved. The point here is that relative to his day, Darwin's theory was none other than a LEAP, a revolution, a qualitative change, from a metaphysical or anti-dialectical conception of natural species, to an elementarily , though not fully dialectical conception. Marx and Engels considered that he [Darwin] was using their method in biology. Where does Marx ever say that Darwinian evolution is an application of Marx's dialectical method? Charles: In his book _Ever Since Darwin_ in the essay "Darwin Delay" , Stephen Jay Gould says the following: "In 1869, Marx wrote to Engels about Darwin's _Origin_" (Get this Andy, this is Marx speaking) "ALTHOUGH IT IS DEVELOPED IN THE CRUDE ENGLISH STYLE, THIS IS THE BOOK WHICH CONTAINS THE BASIS IN NATURAL HISTORY FOR OUR VIEW" This seems to be evidence that Gould endorses Engels use of the dialectic in natural history. He seems to find use for the three principles that Andy mentioned a number of times. All these quotes by Gould don't prove or even support Engels' claim that dialectics are general law in nature, society, and thought. What is the point of quoting Gould? __ Charles: Andy, I am starting to think that you are incorrigible. These quotes from Stephen Jay Gould blow your argument out of the water. First of all you haven't denied that Marx and Engels said what Gould says they do. Second, Gould is the perfect one for this discussion because he is a recognized expert in paleontology or natural history. He is not a philosopher or social scientist. He has basic data knowledge about change outside of human history, in a discipline of
Fwd: Re: M-TH: Re: Marx conceiving of nature dialectically
Andy Austin had asked:
What does it mean to say something is not fully dialectical? Does that
mean that it only meets one or two of the three laws of dialectics, such
as unity and contradiction of opposites, but does not meet one or both of
the other two criteria (quantity into quality and the negation of the
negation)?
__
Charles: I responded as follows. I want
to put on the thread here a section
from Lenin's _The Teachings of Karl
Marx_ which speaks to this issue
of the partial dialectiality of Darwin's
thesis as written by Darwin. Original
Darwinism (not modified by Gould's
theory of punctuated equilibrium).
First follows my comment from the
previous post.
Charles: Lenin in _The Teachings
of Karl Marx speaks directly to this
issue. He points out that Marx's
theory of evolution has more
to it than the "current" theory,
meaning Darwin's. Darwin's has
gradual change ,which is part of
Hegel's. Gradual change is more
dialectical than creationism with
no change. Revolution/evolution
is even more Hegelian. So in
a way Darwin's lacks the idea that
new quality arises from quantitative
leaps or discontinuities.
Here is a passage from Lenin
"Dialectics"
Marx and Engels regarded Hegelian
dialectics, the theory of evolution most
comprehensive, rich in content and profound,
as the greatest achievement of classical
German philosophy. All other formulations
of the principle of development, of
evolution, they considered to be one-
sided, poor in content, distorting and
mutilating the actual course of
development of nature and society
(a course often consummated in
leaps and bounds, catastrophes,
revolutions).
(quoting Engels) Marx and I were
almost the only persons who rescued
conscious dialectics...{from the
swamp of idealism, including Hegelianism}
by transforming it into the materialist
conception of nature... (Anti-Duhring)
Nature is the test of dialectics, and we
must say that science has supplied a
vast and daily increasing mass of material
for this test, thereby proving that, in
the last analysis, nature proceeds
dialectically and not metaphysically
(Anti-Duhring) (this was written before
the discovery of radium, electrons,
the tranmutation of elements, etc.
- Lenin's insert) (end quote of Engels)
Again Engels writes:
The great basic idea that the world
is not to be viewed as a complex of
fully fashioned objects, but as a complex
of processes, in which apparently
stable objects, no less than the images
of them inside our heads (our concepts),
are undergoing incessant changes, arising
here and disappearing there, and which
with all apparent accident and in spite of
all momentary retrogression, ultimately
constitutes a progressive development-
this great basic idea has, particularly since
the time of Hegel, so deeply penetrated
the general consciousness that hardly
any one will now venture to dispute it
in its general form. But it is one thing to
accept it in words, quite another thing
to put it in practice on every occasion
and in every field of investigation (Ludwig
Feuerbach)
In the eyes fo dialectic philosophy, nothing
is established for all time,
nothing is absolute or sacred ( See
Andy). On everything and in
everything it sees the stamp of
inevitable decline; nothing can resist
it save the unceasing process of
formation and destruction, the unending
ascent from the lower to
the higher - a process which that
philosophy itself is only a simple
reflection with the thinking brain. (
Ludwig Feuerbach) (end quote of
Engels)
Thus dialectics, according to Marxism,
is "the science of the general laws
of motion both of the external world
and of human thinking.
This revolutionary side of Hegel's
philosophy was adopted adn
developed by Marx. Dialectical
materialism "does not need
any philosophy towering above the
other sciences." (Anti-Duhring).
Of former philosophies there remain
"the science of thinking and its laws
- formal logic and dialectics. (Anti-
Duhring). Dialectics, as the term
is used by Marx in conformity with Hegel,
includes what is now called the theory
of cognition, or epistemology, or
gnoseology, a science that must
contemplate its subject matter in
the same way - historically, studying
and generalising the origin and development
of cognition, the transition from
non-consciousness to consciousness.
In our times the idea of development, of
evolution ( i.e. Darwinism -CB)
has almost fully penetrated
social consciousness, but it has done
so in other wasy, not through Hegel's
philosophy. Still, the same idea, as
formulated by Marx and Engels on the basis
of Hegel's philosophy, is much
more comprehensive, much more abundant
in content than the current theory of
evolution . (THIS IS WHAT I AM
TALKING ABOUT ANDY. DARWIN'S
EVOLUTION IS NOT FULLY DIALECTICAL
-CB) A development that repeats, as it were,
the stages already passed, but repeats them
in a different way, on a higher
plane (negation of negation) ;
a development, so to speak,
in spirals, not in a straight
