Ralph,

Thanks for the comments. I am sorry you cannot access the pages on my site.
I do not know why that is.

As to your specific points:

1) I wasn't sure what you were asking me here, or the relevance of the point
you were making.

I note in the introductory page that I am limiting myself to classical
dialectical materialism, so you would expect me to concentrate on Engels,
Plekhanov, Lenin and Trotsky (as well as on lesser figures, like Woods and
Grant, whose book is being widely touted on the Internet as the best on
offer on this topic (!!)).

2) Again, I wasn't sure if you were agreeing with me or not here.

3) Same comment.

4) Ditto.

5) Is this directed at me? Again you are not clear.

6) Emergent materialism: yes I am aware of this and (as I point out) this is
dealt with in Essay Eleven, which has not been posted yet. I can make no
sense of emergentism in any guise at all. I see is as yet more a priori
superscience.

7) I was not aware you had made Heijenoort available. However, I was aware
of this essay of his years ago when his Collected Essays came out.

Thanks again!

RL


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Dumain" <rdumain@igc....>
To: <marxism-thaxis@list...>
Cc: <marxistphilosophy@yaho...>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] People's History of Science


>I don't know how you construct your web pages, but I am unable to fully
>access this page using Internet Explorer.  My computer keeps freezing up.
>After numerous attempts I have been able to get to the beginning of note
>18.  Yet I can access presumably much larger size files on other sites.  I
>don't know what the problem is here.  I see no purpose served by the blue
>border on the left side of the page.  It seems you are using MS Front Page.
>Perhaps the HMTL code needs to be streamlined.  When I use Dreamweaver it
>strips out all of the crap Microsoft puts in.  On the other hand, I am
>easily able to access the whole page using Opera, although I'm having a
>problem with the Magritte graphic.
>
> A few quick notes on the content.
>
> (1) The battle being waged here pertains to the natural sciences (and
> mathematics) and hence there is a direct conflict between dialectical
> conceptions and scientific knowledge.  In other words, a war of
> hard-science perspectives.  That so much energy invested in Marxism should
> be devoted to a subject matter having little to do _directly_ with
> Marxism's subject matter itself is a curious historical phenomenon, and to
> a large extent an unfortunate one.  However, Engels' first interventions,
> as later marxists', were often motivated not by the need to create a
> positive ontology but to oppose obfuscations produced by the bourgeois
> world, i.e. as critique.  This is very important.
>
> (2) The flaws in all the anecdotal uses of dialectical 'logic' are
> customarily predicated on these implicit fallacies:
>
> (a) logical abstractions are conflated with physical processes (also:
> subjective and objective dialectics are conflated): logical ''laws" are
> conflated with physical "laws";
> (b) 'lawfulness' implies universal application rather than partial
> approaches to the abstract characterization of selected phenomena.
>
> This also enhances the confusion surrounding 'unity of
> opposites'--dialectical contradiction or disequilibrium between opposing
> forces.  And confusing causal determination with logical description.
>
> (3) A prominent feature of the argument is the alleged inconsistency
> between the need to remove contradictions in theories and the assertion
> that (physical) reality is contradictory.  (John Rees is taken as an
> example, ostensibly a more serious example because of his failed attempts
> at qualification.  Various Trot hacks such as  Woods and Grant are also
> cited.)  However, there is an interesting and yet unresolved question
> here, as the issue of contradiction involves limit cases: the limits of
> our knowledge in various areas at given points in time, the limitations
> and nature of basic concepts, totalities, the infinitely small, the
> infinitely large.  (See note 14.)
>
> (4) The argument that dialectical attributions can not possibly be
> empirical is reminiscent of the logical empiricism of Philipp Frank, who
> would place such concerns in the realm of metaphysics.
>
> (5) The application of dialectical notions to the nature of capitalism is
> similarly ridiculed, based on ridiculous examples.  However, the theory of
> value, or the nature of the relation between the forces and relations of
> production are not taken up here.
>
> (6) The partial acceptance or rejection of Engels' ideas (e.g. by
> 'dialectical biology' is not adequately explained).  A key aspect of
> Engels' appeal is here overlooked, that dialectical materialism is also a
> form of emergent materialism.
>
> (7) I was the one who dug out Van Heijenoort's critique of Engels on
> mathematics and made it available to others.  The range of evaluation of
> Marxist mathematicians to Marx's mathematical mss is rather odd.  Dirk
> Struik seems to have been purely descriptive, while Paulus Gerdes makes
> extravagant claims for Marx, and Raya Dunayskaya's disciples are clearly
> out of their minds.  In general, a peculiar deference for Marx (and
> sometimes Engels) is maintained, even by people who don't sanction certain
> conceptual abuses.
>
>
> At 02:55 PM 3/1/2006 +0000, Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:
>>Ralph,
>>
>>As far as my comments on wave-particle duality were concerened, I was of
>>course not trying to resolve this paradox (how could I? I am not a
>>physicist!).
>>
>>I was merely pointing out that given the thesis that all of reality is
>>contradictory, dialecticians should advise physicists to stop trying to
>>resolve this paradox, since they have an a priori solution to it.
>>
>>In that case Physics can only advance by ignoring this advice.
>>
>>In the Essay from which this is taken I give much more detail, but since
>>you have skim-read what i have posted, you missed it.
>>
>>[I did try to tell Charles that this is why I have posted all this
>>stuff --
>>to stop me having to keep making these points!]
>>
>>http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2007.htm
>>
>>In Note 14, near the bottom of the page (and in the main body of the Essay
>>linked to this note).
>>
>>And I only posted this in my last e-mail to Charles to show him that my
>>ideas are original, they are not hackneyed objections to DM (or 90% of
>>them are not!).
>>
>>RL
>
>
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