gabor@qantel.UUCP (Gabor Fencsik@ex2642) (04/09/85)
Richard, - I included the 'blind alley' quote just to put the next
sentence in context; I have no desire to argue about the technical
merits of Marx as an economist because it is not important for what
I am trying to say. In the same vein, I'll just have to let Leontieff,
Blanqui and DKMcK fend for themselves.
The issues I am interested in are the relevance of the dialectical method
and the question of Marxism vs. democracy.
1. Dialectics. Since you seem to find nothing wrong with the statement
by Lukacs on dialectics which I consider pure voodoo, I guess I should
rest my case. But tell me, if a 'method' is not a tool to produce
results, then what is it?
Dialectics, as a tool of philosophical analysis used in Plato's
Parmenides (the One and the Many), in Hegel's Logic and in a bunch
of ambiguous pre-Socratic fragments, is a tool for analyzing
concepts, thoughts and language: mental processes, in other words.
The Marxian innovation is to project this technique into the
fields of history and social analysis. Engels, his pedantic
dilettante sidekick, then went on to make an embarrassing mess of
things by further projecting it to the natural sciences. As a
result, one is treated to the dialectics of differential calculus,
say, as the only true method for 'demystifying' the concept, -
fifty years after Cauchy. I am bringing this up as a typical
instance where the dialectical method raises more questions than
it answers.
To put it more crudely: acorns don't need the dialectical method
to grow into oak trees. Conversely, the dialectical machinery
would be equally good at explaining why acorns regularly turn into
blue whales.
I'll get to the question of Marx vs. democracy next - same time, same channel.
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Gabor Fencsik {dual,nsc,intelca,proper}!qantel!gabor