Dialectic
From monstrouspossibility
THE LOGIC OF CONTRADICTION
wiki blurb on dialectic wiki
The history of dialectics is varied and wide-ranging from the Greeks to Hinduism and Buddhism. Most importantly, at least in regard to M.P, are the advances of Hegel and the appropiation of the term by Marx and Engels in the mid 19th century.
link to definition by Peter Singer in Ted Honderich (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford, 1995, p. 198 DIALECTIC
Hegelian Dialectic
The Hegelian dialectic is split into three parts, consisting of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Hegel himself prefered the term sublation/overcoming (Aughebung) to synthesis as a way to resolve an opposition by preservation as well as change of a given idea/thing/term through its dialectical interplay with another term or concept.
Dialectic of Existence
Thesis: Being Antithesis: Nothingness Synthesis: Becoming
Marxist Dialectic
Marx: "My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought."
Marx’s method was precisely the opposite of Hegel's, as he himself explains. According to Hegel, the law of dialectics is drawn from history and nature. Hegel’s idealism gave his dialectics an abstract and rather random character. In order to make dialectics serve "the Idea", Hegel was forced to impose a diagram/stencil upon nature and society. This contradicts the dialectical method itself, which demands an objective study of the subject matter in order to derive the laws of the given phenomenon, as Marx did in his Das Kapital (Capital).
link to BC website on Marx's dialectic and Hegel/Marx differences: Marx Marx/Hegel - cute
Dialectical Materialism is considered today as the basis of Marxist thought along with Historical Materialism and Marxist Economics. The term Dialectical Materialism was never used by Marx or Engels themselves to refer to the idea that Marxism may be a 'synthesis of philosophical dialectics and materialism'.
wiki blurb on Dialectical Materialism wiki2
According to Engels, dialectics was "our best working tool and our sharpest weapon." The sharpest weapon to undue dominant philosophy of capitalism. Lenin states that Marxism provides the working class with "an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defense of bourgeois oppression." (Lenin) It seeks to reveal the real relationships that exist under capitalism and arms the working class with an understanding of how it can achieve its own emancipation. Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of action (Plekhanov).
link to What is dialectic materialism?
[edit] Questions
Explain the relevance to the program.
Can dialectics give us approaches to criticism / theory / writing?
How do the analytic tools of various "dialectics" correspond with the analytical tools of reading?
Can this be related to the activity of Marxist literary criticism?
How can this relate to various writers' concerns with the internal "dialectics" of literary works? The example that springs to mind is Borges's "Tlon, Uqbar..." in which we are told that one branch of Tlonist literature demands that each work contain its opposite, its antithesis.
Does Marx have his tongue in his cheek when he claims his dialectic is the opposite of Hegel's?
Some elucidation, here, of the relation/difference between dialectical thinking and the thorny "binaries" we've been encountering would be interesting.
