Ted wrote:
> A "variable" in logic is something that remains
> self-identical through changes in its relations
> to the extent required by the argument, e.g.
> "the stature of children", "the income of
> households" and "angels".
If the identity is meant in the quantitative sense ("sublated quality"
or "quality superseeded and absorbed"), then nothing remains
self-identical through changes in its relations. Absolutely nothing.
The whole foundation of mathematics, counting or adding up (the most
basic arithmetic operations), hinges on accepting the most heroic
abstract premise. Because no two items in the universe are identical.
Yet, when we say 1 + 1 = 2, we're abstracting from the real
differences between the items and retaining their commonality.
Furthermore, even an item is never identical to self except in an
evanescent manner. The "same" item -- e.g. a drop of water in the
most highly controlled environment you can conceive -- will
necessarily experience tiny changes in its properties, etc. from one
instant to another. So, in the quantitative sense, it cannot be
self-identical. Because when we say that drop of water is the same
now and one instant later, we're effectively abstracting from those
tiny changes in its properties.
Now, Hegel's Logic, as he warns in the preface to the first edition,
is not intended as a prescription of the rightful ways of thinking.
Instead, as he says by analogy to digestion, the point is to capture
the way humans *actually* think, the ways humans *actually*
appropriate the world mentally (which in his view maps the unfolding
of the Idea). This translated to Marxism is that humans, as they make
their history under the circumstances that exist, prompted by
practical necessity, have to make those heroic abstractions, in spite
of the fact that they are treacherous. How do you know you're not
attributing more structural stability to an object than it actually
exhibits?
Hegel's point, building on Aristotle, the Sophists, etc. (and, as Ian
says, the Budhists or the whole of Oriental philosophy somewhat
familiar to Hegel), is that there is a real sense in which the thing
remains self identical, and that is what the category of quality
captures. Quality is an aspect of the Being, the aspect of the Being
associated to its self-identity.
What makes a thing identical to itself (in the transient, temporary,
contingent manner
in which things can be identical to self)? Not its properties,
revealed in the interaction of the thing with other things. Not even
the whole of its properties. What makes the thing identical to self
is that there are changes that it can accomodate within its form or
structure. This bond between quality and quantity is what Hegel
encapsulates in the notion of "measure." These changes are
necessarily premised on its quality, since they leave its quality
unaltered. They are, hence, quantitative changes. It's only when
those changes reach a tipping point that the quality of the thing is
threatened and qualitative change ensues.
It is simply not true that life under communism can escape this very
universal categorization. The relationship of every thing with itself
is always an internal relation, even if the thing splits and its parts
pull in separate directions; because at some point the unity of the
thing winds up asserting itself, one way or another. Again, unless
the quality has leaped. So, if "internal relations" preclude the
necessary unity of quality and quantity, then that should apply to
*every* thing. The only way in which a thing would ellude this
categorization is if it lacked quality -- i.e. if it had no
(relatively) stable self-identity whatever. To put it in Hegelesse,
the only thing that can meet such criteria is the Nothing, the
opposite of the Being.
By the way, your interpretation of the "good life" as premised on
"universally developed individuals" is also an absolutization of what
can only be the self product of the individuals in their process of
developing universally, individuals that cannot be at the outset
universally developed. You think you are placing the finger on Marx's
utopianism, but there's nothing utopian there. You are eliminating
motion and then act surprised that the essential condition for the
good life is not there. In fact, the condition for the good life is
not the good life under another name, but the struggle for the good
life.
To exhibit the limitations that the inner connections of things impose
on logic (the orderly way of thinking) is not the same as invalidating
logic. When humans do logic (math), they are not doing something
absurd or stupid. They are capturing a real aspect of the world, the
relative stability of the quality of things, within which changes in
quantity exist. And they are doing it, because they need to. Witness
the practical power of math. Dialectics is not nihilism.
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