Ralph,

You made this assertion a week or so ago, and I denied it. I have never been
subjected to sectarianism (or not any of much note|).

How you worked that out beats me.

And I find you attempt to distance Hegel from the philosophy I am
criticising odd too.

Even so, since I rubbish all philosophical theories (ranging from all the
classical ones you can name right through to Engles's naive views, and
including Hegel's mystical clap trap) as ruling-class a priori superscience,
your superficial skimming of my site is doubly in error.

RL

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Dumain" <rdumain@igc....>
To: <marxism-thaxis@list...>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 2:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] People's History of Science


> When I was first apprised of this web site, I read a few chapters, but did
> not make it to the text quoted  My initial impression was that the author
> was a victim of an extremely sectarian milieu and had to go through quite
> an ordeal digging herself out of it.  The marks of this sectarianism are
> all over the web site including its statement of purpose.
>
> Furthermore, the problem in Marxism can't be the heritage of Hegel, as in
> fact the propagandists of diamat knew little of Hegel.  Presumably here we
> are talking about the dialectics of nature lifted from Hegel's
> naturphilosophie, and specifically the concept of contradiction as applied
> to nature.  As I've argued for well over a decade, there's a lot of sloppy
> thinking in this department.
>
> I was curious as to how one would handle the wave-particle duality, but
> Rosa's treatment of the problem is not 100% clear to me, though I
> understand the paradox she presents.  In classical dialectical terms, the
> issue would be the relation between subjective and objective dialectics.
>
> From Engels on, their immediate unity has been assumed in most standard
> presentations.  Soviet philosophers debated these issues among themselves
> starting in the 1950s and divided into opposing schools.  These debates
> were not incorporated into popular textbooks, but some of the embarrassing
> arguments of the Stalin era disappeared.  (You can get a flavor of the
> latter from John Somerville's horrid book on the subject.)  By the '60s,
> whatever their differences, most Soviet philosophers would agree that
> contradictions must be removed from scientific theories.
>
> The Trotskyist movement was just as bad, perhaps even worse, and in party
> contexts, never improved at all, though various Trotskyist intellectuals
> functioning in academia were in a position to develop more intelligent
> ideas.  But there is a submerged tendency of criticism as well.  In an
> obscure document written by CLR James at the time of the 1940 split, James
> stated that Trotsky did more damage to the dialectic in 10 weeks than
> Eastman et al had done in 10 years.  Circa 1943, Jean van Heijenoort
> argued pseudonymously with Novack and others about the conflation of
> subjective and objective dialectics.
>
> There is of course a huge segment of the Marxist tradition that is
> Hegelian while abjuring the dialectics of nature, i.e. standard diamat.
> And there are many who have used the term 'dialectical materialism', e.g.
> James and Horkheimer, who meant nothing at all related to standard diamat.
>
> It is not clear from the following passage how physicists have actually
> removed the contradictions in quantum mechanics, or for that matter,
> between quantum theory and relativity.  And how has the principle of
> complementarity been resolved?
>
> At 01:27 PM 3/1/2006 +0000, Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:
>>For example, DM-theorists generally argue that the wave-particle duality
>>of light confirms the thesis that nature is fundamentally dialectical; in
>>this case, light is supposed to be a UO of wave and particle. Precisely
>>how they are a unity (i.e., how it could be true that matter is
>>fundamentally particulate and fundamentally non-particulate all at once)
>>is of course left eminently obscure -- and how this helps account for the
>>material world is even less perspicuous. This alleged UO does nothing to
>>explain change --
>>unless we are supposed to accept the idea that light being a particle
>>changes it into a wave, and vice versa. But what is the point of that?
>>What role does this particular 'contradiction' play in either DM or
>>Physics? At best it seems to be merely ornamental.
>>
>>[UO = Unity of Opposites.]
>>
>>Now, if we put to one side the 'solution' to this puzzle offered by, say,
>>Superstring Theory, there are still Physicists -- with, it seems, a more
>>robust commitment to scientific realism than the average dialectician
>>displays -- who believe that this 'paradox' can be resolved within a
>>realist picture of nature. Whether they are correct or not need not detain
>>us since DM-theorists (if consistent) ought to advise these rather rash
>>realists not to bother trying to solve this riddle. This is because
>>dialectics provides an a priori solution to it: since nature is
>>fundamentally contradictory there is in fact no solution --, which
>>paradoxical state of affairs should, of course, simply be "grasped".
>>
>>Unfortunately, in that case, if physicists took this advice, Physics could
>>not advance to a superior view of nature (if one exists) by eliminating
>>this alleged contradiction. At best this a priori approach to knowledge
>>would close available options down, forcing scientists to adopt a view of
>>reality that might not be correct. Fortunately, there is little evidence
>>so far that Physicists have taken heed of this aspect of dialectics, even
>>if they have ever heard of it.
>>
>>Now, only those who disagree with Lenin about the incomplete nature of
>>science (or, alternatively, who have a rather poor knowledge of the
>>History of Physics) would risk concluding that contemporary science has a
>>final and complete picture of reality, at least in this particular case.
>>If so, Physics could only advance by eliminating this paradox (and hence
>>removing one of the best examples DM-theorists have that supposedly
>>illustrates the fundamentally contradictory nature of reality). Only those
>>who want to foist their ideas on nature will object at this point.
>
>
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