[was: RE: [PEN-L] Panglossian economics]
I wrote:
> "dialectics" is often just a buzz-word.
What it means in
> philosophy depends on the context.
>
>
Ontology? epistemology? method of presentation? it can be all three.
CC
is right to avoid the word, though Bertell Ollman is pretty clear about what it
means. Here's my take:
1. In terms of ontology (what exists), dialectical theory asserts (assumes) that the world acts as if it were a unified system that changes due to internal contradictions (tensions, conflicts). There's a big debate about whether this applies to nature (as Hegel and Engels believed, I believe) or just to society. I think the answer is that if (non-human) nature operates in a dialectical fashion, its dialectics are _different from_ those of society. Those of society involve the dialectic between theory and practice, between human actions and existing institutions, etc., while nature lacks those. In addition, there's the dialectic between humanity and non-human nature.
(There's a distinction between materialist dialectics and idealist dialectics, which I'm ignoring here.)
2. In terms of epistemology (our perception & understanding of what exists), I think the idea of "dialectics" is more powerful. One might start with the notion (from Hegel) that truth is the whole. As we try to figure out what is true or not true about what exists, it's not just a matter of formal logic or consistency of theory with perceived empirical reality. It's also a matter of what questions one asks. If one doesn't ask the right questions, one can easily come up with a partial vision, missing out on important pieces of the puzzle. If one doesn't have all the pieces, the puzzle can't be put together.
Levins & Lewontin (THE DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST, last part) have a good summary of dialectical epistemology or methodology. It's not a dogma or a source of ready-made answers, but a series of questions. How does the whole (totality) limit and shape the parts? How do the heterogeneous part affect the whole and its changes? How does the interaction between the whole and the parts lead to "laws of motion"? (my paraphrase)
Leftists often apply this kind of methodology: the problem, Mr. Economist, is that you didn't look at the way in which privatization (of electricity, the military, or whatever) creates a political pressure group to protect the profits of the industry, leading to crony capitalism (Enron, Halliburton, etc.) The analysis of increased efficiency due to privatization might be wrong or right, in isolation, but ignoring the political part of the story prevents the attainment of the best possible understanding of the issue. The refusal to look at how the "whole makes parts" leads to the silliness of methodological individualism (a key tenet of the religion of neoclassical economics) such as (often unconscious) positing of the god-like Walrasian Auctioneer (Invisible Hand) to make the market work. The refusal to look at how the "parts make the whole" leads to the silliness of structural-functionalist sociology, in which people are mere products of the social structure. These two perspectives are mere mirror images of each other. Both tend to see reality as timeless, static, with changes always coming from the outside, from outside agitators, exogenous shocks, etc.
3. Marx applied dialectics as his mode of presentation in CAPITAL, imitating Hegelian language, etc. Perhaps because he never finished the book (including the book on Wage Labor), this was a disaster, since most people didn't understand what Marx was talking about. (Some -- especially academics -- gloried in the language, making their works incomprehensible to all but the chosen few. But a lot of them would have chosen a different arcane language to use if dialectical jargon hadn't been there.)
IMHO,
Jim Devine
