Jim Devine wrote:
> I made two errors in this thread. (1) it's not "historical materialism"
> that meshes so well with critical realism; rather, it's "dialectical
> materialism," which is interpreted as the philosophical basis for
> "historical materialism." (2) It wasn't Roy Bhaskar who expressed a
> friendly attitude toward "dialectical materialism," as far as I know.
> Rather, it was Dick Walker, someone who embraced B's methodology.
I blow hot and cold on the usefulness of the term "dialectical materialism,"
but even when I warm to it I don't like to see it posited as *the*
philosophical
basis for "historical materialism." Of the latter: (a) independently of its
origins, it has achieved a respectable pedigree and I think a useful and
essentially accurate label for the mode of thought which I see first developed
with any precision in *Poverty of Philosophy*; and (b) most of what I
would think of as historical materialism can be defended independently of
any particular view (pro or con or neutral) of the "dialectics of nature."
(Stephen Gould, hardly a "dogmatic Marxist," has however written
favorably of the influence of conscious dialectics, even of the Soviet
type, on biological thinking.)
On the "old Marx." It was near the end of his life that, interviewed by
a New York reporter, he responded to the flippant question, "What
is?" with first a long pause that made the reporter think he had fallen
asleep and then one word, "Struggle."
Carrol
