On Dialectis

[snm]

Nevertheless, even if the above 'analysis' of the LOC were correct, and it was true that "A is A and at the same time non-A", it would be impossible for DM-theorists to give voice to their criticisms of these alleged AFL-principles. This is because it would be impossible for them to state the following:

B1: "A is A and at the same time non-A".

Yeah, you are correct if you are just talking about the letter "A" or childishly simple things.  But dialectics is a general method for studying complex phenomena; via this method one transforms raw data into objects, categories, describes their  properties and relationships among one another and gets some general laws of .  On marxist.com recently there are some recent articles on China.   Let A=proletarian bonapartism.  Is China in category A?  Well, before 2006 marxist.com seemed to think yes.  Now the latest articles indicate that China is capitalist=not proletarian bonapartist=not A.  Is this not a contradiction?  Cause if you had snapshot of the Chinese economy in 2003 and a snapshot in 2006 you would say to yourself, they look almost exactly the same!  But that's why you need dialectics; to dig beneath the surface.

[snm]

Well, I did go wade through a bit of the essay http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm .   Strikes me as much ado about nothing.  It is relatively easy to clear things up:

This 'Law' is in difficulties in other respects, too. Clearly not every change in quantity "passes over" into a change in quality.

True, that!  Wait for the punchline.

But one way of reading the "vice versa" codicil attached to this law suggests that they should:

"The first law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Engels (1954), p.63. Underlined emphasis added.]

If this is so, then we should expect all changes in quantity to "pass over" into changes in quality.

Read Engels again.  He's referring to the critical point where the quantity-quality change occurs, not quantitative changes in general!  By the way that critical point is reached "in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case".  Finding or estimating these critical points is part of the dialectic analysis.  See e.g. the China example.

if the same colour is stared at for several minutes it can undergo a qualitative change into another colour (several optical illusions are based on this fact).

Quantity=time.  Quality=perceived change in colour.  Looks like an example rather than a counterexample!

[snm]

Nevertheless, the situation is even worse than the above might suggest; there are countless examples where significant qualitative change can result from no obvious quantitative difference.
These include the qualitative dissimilarities that exist between countless different chemicals for the same quantity of matter/energy. Isomeric molecules (studied in stereochemistry) are a particularly good example, especially those that have chiral centres (i.e., centres of asymmetry). Here, the spatial ordering of the constituent atoms, not their quantity, affects the overall quality of the resulting molecule (something Engels said could not happen); a change in molecular orientation, not quantity, affects a change in quality.

Engels said "it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned."  (Engels).  He was talking about things changing into each other, not comparing side-by-side.  To change (R)-2-clorobutane into (S)-2-chlorobutane would require an exotic chemical reaction (if any such thing exists), which just doesn't happen by doing nothing.

[CyM]

I invite those interested to sign up at revolutionaryleft.com and take on rosa. Please send me a private message when you sign up though, I like to have an idea of how many of us there are there, and how many of us are active.

For the moment, the site is down, but it should be back up within the week.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SNM, thank you for your comments:

Yeah, you are correct if you are just talking about the letter "A" or childishly simple things. But dialectics is a general method for studying complex phenomena; via this method one transforms raw data into objects, categories, describes their  properties and relationships among one another and gets some general laws of.

Well, I was in fact quoting the seriously flawed attempts by dialecticians to define the so-called laws of Formal Logic (employing their amateurish symbols, not ones I should prefer to use), so you need to pick a fight with these comrades not me.

As to the ability of dialectical materialism to handle complex or protracted change, I deny this too; in fact it cannot handle something as simple as a bag of sugar (as I show at my site in Essay Six).

However, your question about China illustrtates that even now, over 2500 years after Aristotle first began to study logic systematically (and now that we understand it far better, 2500 years later with modern logic), dialecticians cannot get their heads around this very simple notion:

Let A=proletarian bonapartism.  Is China in category A?  Well, before 2006 marxist.com seemed to think yes.  Now the latest articles indicate that China is capitalist=not proletarian bonapartist=not A.  Is this not a contradiction?

No, this is not a contradiction (it is not even an example of the badly garbled versions of the 'law of contradiction' used in the writings of the dialecticians I quoted), just the expression of a change of mind, based on a real world change (or on a perceived change).

A contradiction in ordinary language and formal logic relates to a proposition (indicative sentence or clause) and its negation (not a phrase and that phrase concatenated with it with a negative particle attached, as you seem to think), relativised to a time, which cannot both be true and cannot both be false at that time (not at a later time, as you also seem to think).

Perhaps you now see why I assert that dialectics does not even make the reserve list of theories of any use in explaining the world; if you dialecticians can't get basic logic right (or if your understanding of it is worse than Aristotle's), what chance have you with complex processes in nature and society?

Read Engels again.  He's referring to the critical point where the quantity-quality change occurs, not quantitative changes in general!  By the way that critical point is reached "in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case".  Finding or estimating these critical points is part of the dialectic analysis. 

I have read Engels very carefully (unfortunately, many times), and if you read my work as carefully, you would see that I handle this objection. So, his use of 'vice versa' here indicates that matter and energy can be created out of thin air (i.e., that a change in quality causes a change in the quantity of matter/energy in a developing system) -- either that or he did not understand how to use this phrase (which I suspect will be the only way to bail Engels out here).

The problem is that Engels says this is a law based on very few examples (can you imagine genuine scientists accepting a few pages of anecdotal evidence and no data at all as proof of a law? It takes years and mountains of evidence before real scientists accept even small changes in basic science, never mind new laws), he ignores the many examples I give where this 'law' does not work, and he fails to define any of his terms (like 'node', 'quality' or 'quantity' -- as did Hegel too), which allows him to get away with a few pages of sloppy 'theory'.

And this is why you can get away with this piece of a priori 'science' (since you can make 'quantity' mean anything you like):

Quantity=time.  Quality=perceived change in colour.  Looks like an example rather than a counterexample!

But Engels spoke of quantities of matter or energy as integral to qualitative change, not just any old quantity, and there is no change here in that respect, or none that you refer to. Time is not matter, nor is it energy.

Nevertheless, here you have an alleged quantity of time, but you do not say how time can have a quantity attached to it; it is not a substance. Sure we subjectively measure it, but nature does not.

And even if time were a quantity, why does it not change qualitatively? Moreover, if it is a quantity, why does not everything change qualitatively just by existing in time: why does water left unheated not change qualitatively over time, with no energy added to it, if colours can and do, do this?

You also ignored the solids I listed that melt non-nodally (such as plastic, metal and glass), as you ignored my many other examples.

As to some of my other counter-examples:

He was talking about things changing into each other, not comparing side-by-side.

Well then why did he list all those hydrocarbon compounds in Anti-Duhring and Dialetics of Nature? They exist side by side. They do not have to be made into each other, nor do they have to change into each other. But he used them as examples of this 'law'.

And not every element in the periodic table, for example, has been produced by starting with Hydrogen and going through all the intermediate elements (adding elementary particles etc) to get to them. Many exist side by side, but he used this example to illustrate his 'law'.

So why can't I use similar things against it?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:

I invite those interested to sign up at revolutionaryleft.com and take on rosa. Please send me a private message when you sign up though, I like to have an idea of how many of us there are there, and how many of us are active.

If they argue like you did, and then run away, I think I have nothing to fear.

I suspect the quality of your arguments will not alter (nodally or otherwise) no matter how many DM-recruits you sign up.

Not if you remain as ignorant of logic as you were a few months ago when you last gave up....

[CyM]

However, your question about China illustrtates that even now, over 2500 years after Aristotle first began to study logic systematically (and now that we understand it far better, 2500 years later with modern logic), dialecticians cannot get their heads around this very simple notion:

Let A=proletarian bonapartism.  Is China in category A?  Well, before 2006 marxist.com seemed to think yes.  Now the latest articles indicate that China is capitalist=not proletarian bonapartist=not A.  Is this not a contradiction?

No, this is not a contradiction (it is not even an example of the badly garbled versions of the 'law of contradiction' used in the writings of the dialecticians I quoted), just the expression of a change of mind, based on a real world change (or on a perceived change).

A contradiction in ordinary language and formal logic relates to a proposition (indicative sentence or clause) and its negation (not a phrase and that phrase concatenated with it with a negative particle attached, as you seem to think), relativised to a time, which cannot both be true and cannot both be false at that time (not at a later time, as you also seem to think).

The contradiction here is that within the old equilibrium (in this case proletarian bonapartism), there existed the elements of the new in embryo (the "capitalist roaders" always having been there, eventually achieving a breakthrough).

Your insistance on debating specific terminology doesn't add anything to your argument. Translation and retranslation is the reason specific fields adopt their own terms with special meanings for that field that often have nothing to do with their everyday use (although I don't think that's the case here, but I'll humour you) and no one pulls out a dictionary to debate them.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:

The contradiction here is that within the old equilibrium (in this case proletarian bonapartism), there existed the elements of the new in embryo (the "capitalist roaders" always having been there, eventually achieving a breakthrough).

So, you are re-defining he word; we can all do that:

'Dialectics'; redefined as 'total rubbish'

Sorted.

Your insistance on debating specific terminology doesn't add anything to your argument.

Translated: I, CYM, want to use language in an ill-defined, nay, slopppy way, but still want to be taken seriously [but I won't let anyone else do this].

Translation and retranslation is the reason specific fields adopt their own terms with special meanings for that field that often have nothing to do with their everyday use (although I don't think that's the case here, but I'll humour you) and no one pulls out a dictionary to debate them.

And Christians use the word 'Trinity' in a similarly sloppy/mystical way....

[As I said, you need to learn a little logic before you try to impersonate the Pope.]

[snm]

A contradiction in ordinary language and formal logic relates to a proposition (indicative sentence or clause) and its negation (not a phrase and that phrase concatenated with it with a negative particle attached, as you seem to think), relativised to a time, which cannot both be true and cannot both be false at that time (not at a later time, as you also seem to think).

Time to fix this hair-splitting point.

Proposition: China is proletarian bonapartist.

 Proletarian bonapartism is a category defined by certain essential properties.  Proving the proposition means to show that China has those properties.  Disproving the proposition means to show that an essential property fails.

Where did the definition of proletarian bonapartism come from? Trotsky arrived at this definition via dialectics.  Using dialectics to make careful definitions is vastly superior to making up arbitrary definitions and seeing if they fly (ie seeing if you can conjure up some cute propositions and prove them).
Using the properties of proletarian bonapartism one can of course prove various things about this category - using logic of course (what else?).  The fact that Trotsky didn't write Proposition:... Proof of Proposition:....    etc.  like he was writing a math textbook is a matter of style rather than substance.  His propositions were conditional predictions for the future. 

Once the essential properties and propositions are laid out one could have categorized the Mao regime in China by verifying its properties using Trotsky's definition. Then all the general proletarian bonapartism propositions would follow (more or less) for China,  in spite of the fact that it came about through a peasant war and not through degeneration of a proletarian revolution.  T Grant got a lot of mileage out of this theory when he analysed China; however, he was writing stuff along these lines even before the final victory of Mao.  How did he anticipate the proletarian bonapartist nature of Mao's regime in advance?  Using dialectics.

There is nothing I just wrote that would contradict the rules of formal logic.  However, as you can see I swept all the dialectic analysis under the carpet - but in a way to demonstrate (like a used car salesman) that it's really where the power lies.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

SNM thanks again for that, but I am not sure you have kept to the point; you were supposed to be trying to show how those obscure comments you posted on China were contradictiory. I see you have now abandoned that attempt, at least for now (or perhaps you did not notice?), but alas what you now say merely descends into incoherence.

But first, yet more a priori superscience:

Proletarian bonapartism is a category defined by certain essential properties.  Proving the proposition means to show that China has those properties.  Disproving the proposition means to show that an essential property fails.

How do you know it has 'essential' properties? Indeed, how do you know anything has these (except you confer them on things by means of a subjective stipulation, in a way reminscent of the way that Idealists always do)?

[Things would have essential properties only if they were Ideal.]

But even if it (or they) had any such, and they were not Ideal, what you say next makes no sense at all.

Proving the proposition means to show that China has those properties.  Disproving the proposition means to show that an essential property fails.

But, 'disproving the proposition' would just show it was false, not that an 'essential property' had 'failed' (whatever that means?).

I don't see how an 'essential property' can fail. In order to assert of something that it can fail, you would have to first of all show (or at least have some idea of) how an essential property could 'succeed' (which word is the the opposite of 'fail'), and you would have to do that before we even knew what it could possibly mean for one to 'fail'.

For example, we say of things that take exams, tests or carry out trials, that they can succeed or fail. So, I hope you are not suggesting that the property you were speaking of was capable of taking a test, or attempting a new world record of some sort, but then failed in that attempt?

Now, you may think this frivolous, but it is aimed at bringing out what I have been asserting here all along (but in more detail at my site): it is not possible to translate into material language the sort of idealistic jargon one finds dialecticians using all the time. The terms you (they) use can neither be taken literally nor figuratively; indeed, they fall apart alarmingly rapidly, just as yours have. [I give numerous examples at my site.]

[And just as you are now finding it impossible to say what a 'dialectical contradiction' is.]

I suspect, however, that you have merely used yet more inappropriate dialectical (i.e., 'sloppy') terminology here.

[Which is, once more, why I accuse dialecticians of suffering from a bad case of self-inflicted logical ignorance, and an even worse case of jargonitis; you all use terms you haven't a cat in hell's chance of explaining (even to one another!), but all the while you misconstrue the very clear vocabulary of formal logic and material language (in fact, you do not even bother to check if it is correct, you just copy stuff off of one another). No wonder you all begin to flounder alarmingly quickly over the simplest of ideas, ones that even the children of workers understand -- such as the verb 'to contradict' (and its cognates).]

Now, I'm afraid that the rest of what you say is irrelevant to the point you wished to make, which was that the things you asserted about the regime in China expressed a contradiction (not that they predicted the future).

They do not even remotely express a contradiction (unless you are using this word in a quirky, and as yet undefined sense), and no matter what jargon you throw at this thread, they cannot be made into one -- and for the reasons I noted in my last response to you. I suggest you address those, and not go off at a tangent again.

This means that dialectical 'logic' is not an advance on formal logic (it is in fact worse than Aristotelian logic), just a confused way of using perfectly clear terms -- or they were till you lot got hold of them.

Nevertheless, I also reject your and Grant's analysis of the Maoist regime, but even if you were right, incorrect theories make correct predictions all the time. For example Ptolemaic astronomy worked well for over a thousand years, and grew more accurate with time.

However, I also note you are linked to the Socialist Worker's web site (albeit, in New Zealand, I think); they predicted all manner of things that actually came true, but using Tony Cliff's non-dialectical theories of State Capitalism and Permanent Revolution Deflected. Now, I am neither advocating nor rejecting these theories, merely pointing out that mutually incompatible theories (both of which could be wrong) can and do make correct predictions.

The problem with dialectics, however, is that it is far too confused even to be classified as an incorrect theory (indeed it cannot even be classified as a substandard hypothesis). It does not make it that far. No one seems to be able to say what its core ideas mean in comprehensible language (as I show at my site).

Your own (not too successful) attempt to translate a few sub-Hegelian terms into comprehensible English only served to underline that fact.

You can of course try to prove me wrong in this regard; but I have been 'debating' these issues with DM-fans now for well over twenty years, and even though they (you) all make the same points (almost word for word -- it is quite uncanny, just like a mantra) over an over, no one has yet been able to explain the 'simplest' dialectical thesis in material/comprehensible language.

So I hope you will not be offended if I say that I will not be holding my breath here.

The above attempt of yours does not bode well....

[CyM]

This is quite hilarious I must say, you really have perfected the tangental method ;D

The contradiction is very clear, a system cannot be both proletarian bonapartist and bourgeois bonapartist. The contradiction is that the elements for one were present, in embryo, in the other. In otherwords, the system on the whole was proletarian bonapartist, but within it was its opposite.

Contradiction, conflict, pretty simple eh?

[Volkov]

I invite those interested to sign up at revolutionaryleft.com and take on rosa. Please send me a private message when you sign up though, I like to have an idea of how many of us there are there, and how many of us are active.

For the moment, the site is down, but it should be back up within the week.

I have better things to do with my time than to get involved debating with those ultra-left cretins at revleft.  You would not only be dealing with Rosa, but also redstar2000 and his puppets.  People like Rosa and redstar2000 are dogmatists; they say the same crap over and over again no matter how badly they are refuted.  They also tend to spend all of their free time in front of a computer, ranting away at their essay sites and at varoius message boards.  We don't waste time debating at capitalist forums.  Why should we do as such on a person that poses absolutely no threat to dialectical materialism or the socialist movement?  I am getting more involved with the WIL, and my time is better spent there than arguing with someone that attacks something without having the faintest idea of what she is attacking happens to be about.  She has no influence, and never will.  Sitting around in front of a computer will get one nowhere, especially when one has no idea what he/she is talking about.  Since she has no influence, in addition to regurgitating old Bourgeois philosophy instead of offering something new, we have no need to write a 21st Century Anti-Dühring.  Now if you will all excuse me, I have to get busy with organizational work.  I don't spend all day sitting in front of a computer.  We have the right ideas, methods, tactics, etc., and we are gaining influence.  We will continue to strive forward.   

Why is this forum rather inactive?  It is because we in the CMI/IMT are serious, genuine Marxists that go out into the real world, analyze it, go to the workers to meet them and win them over instead of sitting around at a computer all day, we get involved in our work, etc.  We don't spend all of our free time in front of a computer.  We use our time constructively.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CYM:

This is quite hilarious I must say, you really have perfected the tangental method

As you have pioneered the 'pontificate on something you know nothing about' method.

The contradiction is very clear, a system cannot be both proletarian bonapartist and bourgeois bonapartist.

I agree, so it cannot be the case that both are true at once, so it is not a contradiction that is true at any point in time. [You are in fact agreeing with me, but you know so little logic, you cannot see this.]

But now you try to wriggle out of this clear admission:

In otherwords, the system on the whole was proletarian bonapartist, but within it was its opposite.

Which is exactly what Aristotle said about contraries (which you, in your logically-challenged state confuse with contradictiories), they can apply partially to any system.

So, just as, say, a metal bar can be hot at one end and cold at the other, so a state can admit of contrary predicates, while still not being in a contradictory state.

Contradiction, conflict, pretty simple eh?

Maybe so, but equally simply, wrong. [Or you have yet to show that this is a correct identification.]

As I say, you need to learn a little logic before you pass an opinion about things of which you are ignorant.

The material is out there to help you wave goodbye to the stone age logic you continue to rely on; I have posted the links for you before. So I can only assume you prefer the bliss of ignorance to genuine scientific knowledge.

That, of course, is both your problem and your punishment.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

More name-calling from V:

I have better things to do with my time than to get involved debating with those ultra-left cretins at revleft.

Translated, this means that you cannot win an argument, and you prefer to name-call, and sulk off into the non-dialectical sunset....

People like Rosa and redstar2000 are dogmatists; they say the same crap over and over again no matter how badly they are refuted.

You keep saying this sort of thing, but when asked where this mythical 'refutation' has occured, or where it can be found, you go all quiet.

[And you are the one who clings to this mystical dogma that you cannot explain to anyone, and know too little logic and philosophy to be able to defend.]

I am getting more involved with the WIL, and my time is better spent there than arguing with someone that attacks something without having the faintest idea of what she is attacking happens to be about.  She has no influence, and never will.  Sitting around in front of a computer will get one nowhere, especially when one has no idea what he/she is talking about.  Since she has no influence, in addition to regurgitating old Bourgeois philosophy instead of offering something new, we have no need to write a 21st Century Anti-Dühring.  Now if you will all excuse me, I have to get busy with organizational work.  I don't spend all day sitting in front of a computer.  We have the right ideas, methods, tactics, etc., and we are gaining influence.

[Yeah, I can remember the Militant Tendency used to say this sort of thing in the 1980's (then they booted Woods and Grant out  -- which explains why these two needed a sizeable hit of dialectical cocaine/consolation soon after in the form of RIRE); so, it's forward to yet another glorious dialectcial disaster is it? 120 years of them not enough?]

However, I note you can only plead yet more excuses for your inability to defend your core beliefs.

I can live with that.

Remember when I first appeared at this site, you said:

Unlike revleft, most of the people over here are actually knowledgable in Marxism.

But not knowledgable enough in dialectical Marxism, apparently, to be able to defend it.

[So, CYM will have to look elsewhere to find a dialectician on the planet (just one will do) capable of defending this mystical dogma -- you have bottled it --, but which you will continue to believe, but now only as a article of your simple faith.

I will say two Hale Hegels for you....]

[Volkov]

More name-calling form V:

Translated, this means that you cannot win an argument, and you prefer to name-call, and sulk off into the non-dialectical sunset....

Pure hypocrisy on your behalf.l 

You keep saying this sort of thing, but when asked where this mythical 'refutation' has occured, or where it can be found, you go all quiet.

Various threads over there, in addition to this one (you have no idea what snm and CYM were talking about, obvioulsy.). 

[And you are the one who clings to this mystical dogma that you cannot explain to anyone, and know too little logic and philosophy to be able to defend.]

I don't care for your Bourgeois philosophy.  No Marxist will.

[Yeah, I can remember the Militant Tendency used to say this sort of thing in the 1980's (then they booted Woods and Grant out  -- which explains why these two needed a sizeable hit of dialectical cocaine/consolation soon after in the form of RIRE); so, it's forward to yet another glorious dialectcial disaster is it? 120 years of them not enough?]

You have no idea why the split occurred, nor why Woods and Grant were expelled.  Again, you insist on shooting your mouth off about things you have absolutely no understanding of.n  You probably have not even done the most basic research in this subject.   

However, I note you can only plead yet more excuses for your inability to defend your core beliefs.

I can live with that.

We can live with the fact that you pose no threat to the socialist movement. 

But not knowledgable enough in dialectical Marxism, apparently, to be able to defend it.

Lots of us can do that.  The problem is that you don't understand what we are saying. 

[So, CYM will have to look elsewhere to find a dialectician on the planet (just one will do) capable of defending this mystical dogma -- you have bottled it --, but which you will continue to believe, but now only as a article of your simple faith.

I will say two Hale Hegels for you....]

And I will say that your "New Marxism" is merely a rehash of Bourgeois philosophical criticisms against Marxism in the guise of "New Marxism."  You have not even proven yourself to be committed to socialism.  In fact, you aren't.  You are committed to that computer you sit in front of, spending all of your free time in front of it.