Rephrased, will dialectics always exist?
Have fun, because I sure don’t.
edit: if it helps your thinking process a bit, consider this:
- Dialectics explains the process of contradictions. So, does dialectics go through its own contradictions?
- If so, that means dialectics has a process of its own and describes its own process as well. It’s a bit like the “does a set of all sets contain itself” question.
- But if the laws of dialectics are eternal and dialectics does not go through its own process and contradictions, then it would be eternal. Is that possible though?
- And finally of course what are the implications of all of that?
Abstract ideas have no causal power in the world outside of the causal power inside the brain. There is no apple object outside of our concept of it, there is only the process of the universe, which is totalizing and undifferentiated. Dialectics is not metaphysical, it is social. Contradictions don’t exist outside of our concept of contradiction because the things in contradictory relations only exist as things in our concept of them.
The proletariat and the bourgeoisie are not objects, they are processes, but they aren’t independent processes except in our minds. They are processes that are identical with the process of society, which is identical with the process of the human species, ad nauseum. None of these processes are independent and none of them have firm boundaries. We invent the boundaries in our conceptualization of the universe, but, as Hegel demonstrated, these concepts are where the contradiction lives.
The universe itself is a totalizing process and there is nothing outside of everything. There is nothing for everything to stand in contradiction with, as Hegel demonstrated in The Science of Logic. Being and Nothing are contradictory only as linguistic concepts, not metaphysically, because they are meaningless metaphysically.
Based asf. It’s funny how when it comes to discussing philosophy some of us resort liberal metaphysics without even remembering to define our terms (no hate, it’s a product of social context). If someone came up to us and asked for the exact monetary line between bourgeois and proletariat we’d laugh at them, but we forget that the same frameworks apply elsewhere.
There is a line between bourgeois and proletariat. It’s not monetary, but we can certainly define one if asked (and in fact do all the time). If we couldn’t, then we wouldn’t have anything better to offer than liberals do with their middle and upper class demarcation. If I’m understanding you correctly.
Lines aren’t real. Everything doesn’t turn to ice the moment the thermostat hits 0.0000* C. We still understand that that delineation is very useful. Class is far less exact. Liberals think we propose that there is a very fine and exact line where everything to one side of it is saintly prole and the other side is evil bourgeois pig. Dialectics acknowledges that there is fluidity. There are many classes and subclasses with various moving parts and their own contradictions. Class relations are always changing and we know class traitors and those who do not understand their interests exist. But we understand that generally under certain circumstances we can define certain general categories the have certain interests according to conditions generally shared.
For another comparison, let’s say you said the exact same thing but about gender. “We know that men and women exist and will give you distinctions about how they work and act.” We know that this statement ignores huge complexity and conditionality. Are revisionist might hold that there is absolute bourgeois and proletariat and there are absolutely two genders. This understanding can be functional enough in many situations, but we both know that such ideas can be further analyzed with the dialectical method to reveal a much truer and more complex picture.
To organize a revolution we don’t say “hey workers, it’s in your interest to go kill your boss, so do it.” If it were so clear cut everyone would just be conscious of their interests and we’d have a stagnant communism already. But dialectics is how the world works, not simple slogans. We analyze all the relevant conditions through observation and existing concepts derived from practice to determine the best course of action within our material circumstance.
Edit: put another way, everything is too interconnected and changing to have a separate stable definition that corresponds to it, yet defining things relatively is very helpful
Hegel was certainly the father of modern dialectics, but he was also an idealist and I see his idealism in your response. It was thanks to Marx that we put dialectics back right side up so to speak with materialism.
I think you’re taking more of a language analysis. Why is the apple called apple and not something else, ultimately. But the apple, by any name, exists objectively. It exists as the result of a process of contradictions, like everything else. An apple has many objective properties, which idealists deny to make the claim that indeed, matter (or things) don’t exist outside of our mind. But an apple has a color (which can be objectively measured), a certain height, weight, size, a certain process by which it comes about that makes it an apple and not an ear of corn or a peach, etc. And this process will continue whether we have a word for it and whether we witness it.