Van Heijenoort argues that Engels was backwards with respect to the
mathematics of his time, and also narrow-minded and provincial with respect
to the history of science (anti-English prejudice) coupled with an
uncritical veneration of Marx.

However, there are two important circumstantial factors that should not be
overlooked:

(1) Engels intervened in the context of combatting the superstition and
pseudo-science of his own time, including illegitimate metaphysical
extrapolations of vulgar evolutionism.  As a critic of bourgeois
obfuscation, Engels make a great deal of sense.

(2) Engels was not particularly _philosophically_ backward, given the
dismal state of philosophy in relation to the sciences of the time.  His
overreliance on Hegel has to do with the deficiency of other philosophical
conceptions of science of the time.  In many respects Engels was
forward-thinking.  The problem consists not only in the contradictions of
his amateur status, but the deficiencies of the academic world, and
finally, the institutionalization of Marxism as a doctrine by the German
social democracy.

At 01:39 PM 3/1/2006 -0500, Waistline2@aol.... wrote:

>"What do you find naïve in Engel's views?"
>
>Everything he wrote about science, mathematics and philosophy, although the
>word "naive" was a little too mild.
>
>I should have said "rubbish".
>
>His other stuff I admire greatly.
>
>RL
>
>
>Comment
>
>Was Engels writings concerning science, mathematics and philosophy, naive
>when they were written and in relationship to the literature of the 1850s,
>1860s, 1870-1890s?  For me his greatest philosophic gem was his
>statement  "that
>materialism must change its form with every epoch making discovery."
>
>Waistline
>
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