----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 12:31
PM
Subject: dialectics
[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
