Analytical And Dialectical Marxism, By Ian Hunt
I had been aware of this book for some time, but had I known of its significance, I would have obtained a copy much earlier. It is in fact one of the few books on dialectics I have not read in whole or part, but one I should have read years ago!
My initial reaction is that this book is a welcome breath of fresh air. Hunt makes a heroic attempt to render this shadowy Hermetic doctrine comprehensible. That he fails to do so (for reasons I will publish at a later date) says more about his attempt to wed obscure Hegelian mysticism to the clarity we find in Analytic Philosophy than I could have done by sniping at the former from the sidelines for many years -- i.e., it's not worth the effort, so stop trying!
I note here the attempts made by academic Marxists to grapple with the terminally obscure concepts they find in Hegel and make them consistent either with science or with Historical Materialism, which I liken to the futile attempts made by, say, Roman Catholic Philosophers to render the doctrine of the Trinity comprehensible. Whatever the latter say it won't wash. Same with the former.
So, why this waste of time trying?
A few initial points:
1) Hunt attempts to explain 'dialectical contradictions' by looking at how Kant set up his antinomy on free will. This is not a good idea in view of the fact that Kant was hopelessly confused in this area (as he was in many others). Since it is easy to show that what Kant thought was a contradiction is not one at all, one of the main planks of Hunt's argument is plainly riddled with woodworm.
2) Hunt uses arguments drawn from Graham Priest's work. Priest is a highly accomplished logician (I will be devoting an Essay to his work in the next year or so), but it is seriously in doubt whether the contradictions Priest sets up are 'dialectical contradictions' to begin with --, or, worse, are even contradictions at all!
For example, on page 15, Hunt quotes Priest to illustrate the contradiction that allegedly emerges when day turns into night, advocating a three-valued logic, and using a supposedly true sentence like: "It is day and it is night" (D1) at the point where the one is about to turn into the other.
But, if this is an example of a 'dialectical contradiction', the theory is in trouble from the get-go, for such discursive contradictions cannot cause change, they are, if anything, produced by it. So they are of no use at all to the harassed dialectician who is desperately looking about the place for something material in which to ground his or her Idealism.
Moreover, sentences like D1 are only contradictions if the following were available: "Anything which is day is not night" (D2) -- or something more precise. Now, if D2 is acceptable, D1 would indeed be a plausible sort of contradiction (given other caveats we can leave to one side for the present). However, D2 is immediately undermined by D1 which says that D2 is false! So, if D2 is false then some things which are day can be night, and the contradiction in D1 vanishes. [This was something that was known to Aristotle, so why it has been dredged up 2400 years later is a mystery.]
Naturally, all this is independent of whether D1 is a proposition to begin with -- and since it is not clear what it is proposing, the answer to that is reasonably clear. And if we do not have a clear example of a proposition, then no contradiction (in logic) can arise.
Nice try -- only it isn't.
Now, that contradiction I can live with....
Nevertheless, this is a very serious work, and it poses fundamental challenges to the project undertaken at this site. Hence I will be devoting an entire Essay to it in the next few years.
© Rosa Lichtenstein 2008