In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, J.WALKER
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>To ask, 'What is the relevance of dialectical materialism to the class
>struggle?' demonstrates the very problem. Their commitment to the
>class struggle is not in doubt but it misses entirely the whole point
>of Marxism's solution to the class struggle.
So now we can be told the relevance of dialectical materialism ...
>Marx understood that limits cannot be placed on science. One cannot
>have a theory of gravity which does not apply universally and at all
>times,
Well, this is a bold statement. For a start, Marx can be read as arguing
for the historical specificity and social construction of knowledge,
especially scientific knowledge. Second, I believe there are
circumstances in which the theory of gravity does not apply universally
(e.g. the big bang, black holes). This recent discovery only shows how
science itself develops and is subject to revolutionary change. Even if
this is false, it is a non sequitur to argue ...
>so one cannot have a materialist theory based on dialectic
>which applies to society and nothing else.
Of course you can. In fact it is a rational presupposition - it is up to
the fans of a dialectic of nature to justify their larger claim. And I'm
still waiting.
>Marx argument for
>dialectics being a description of the way history (natural and social)
>operates was precisely to avoid Utopian Socialism diverting the masses
>and to prove that the bourgeois would be subject to these same laws.
To say that nature develops dialectically may not be saying anything
meaningful. Some months ago when this subject came up on this list we
(not me!) got involved in an arcane discussion of whether dog turds and
pebbles develop dialectically. The point being - so what? What new
insights are provided, what new knowledge is gained by such an approach?
>Like King Canute, no matter what they did the tide would eventually
>turn against them and wash them away. That was just a fact of nature.
The followers of Canute thought that he had an insight into the way
nature worked and could use that knowledge to change nature for their
benefit. Canute stood on the sea shore to prove to his followers that he
could not stop the tide and had no special powers. A fact of nature
indeed.
--
Lew
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