G'day Charles,
>It takes an extreme contortion not to see that Marx's correspondence and
>much >other work is literally dripping with evidence that he considered
>his work to >be joint with Engels's.
The two consciously disagreed about many things, Charles! From the
personal (lovers and bereavement), to the economic (capitalists on
differential depreciation rates), to how best to write certain arguments
and what those arguments were for. It's in their letters. Friends
disagree more than others, I reckon ('coz friendship allows it more,
especially in polite boojie Victorian circles). And those letters also
show that Marx was economically dependent on Engels. Shannon disagreed
with Weaver (rightly), but out came their seminal (and consequently
damaging) theory of human communication anyway. Gilbert and Sullivan
didn't talk to each other at all but worked on some notable joint projects
(not all of which culminated in pieces both liked, by any means). Einstein
and Oppenheimer disagreed on the limits of gravitational collapse.
Einstein used his theory of relativity to show that systems could not
collapse all the way to the point where light itself could not resist the
consequent gravitational attraction. Oppenheimer used the same to show
that they could. In short, I don't reckon this line takes you far.
>But of course, nobody here has refuted the direct quote I gave of Marx
>>espousing dialectics of natural science.
Natural science is a reflection on a necessarily sensuously engaged cosmos.
Part and parcel of such a process might be wondering whether all change was
a function of contradictory unities etc, and then deciding it might not be.
>Charles: As Engels formulates it, dialectics is the principle of atheism.
>If you don't think nature is dialectical , then you believe in the
>equivalent of God, because it would mean you think there is something in
>nature that is unchanging and eternal, and that would be the same as God.
What? This only makes sense if you conflate 'change' and 'dialectic'.
You're presuming the conclusion you want and making of it the premise your
argument needs (I'm sure there's a neat Latin term for this, but I don't
know it). That change occurs without humanity in the mix is self-evident
(else the processes that brought our species here can not be entertained),
but you're setting yourself the job of establishing that these unconscious
processes were, in themselves, dialectical. I reckon that you're positing
the god - for you don't make sense unless the dialectic sits on that
divinely eternal throne!
Cheers,
Rob.
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