Essay Eight Part One: Change Through "Internal
Contradiction"
Preface
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(1)
Introduction
(2)
Have Dialecticians Refuted Newton?
(a)
How Many Dialecticians Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb?
(3)
Unfair To Lenin?
(a)
There Must Be Some
Explanation
(b)
Systematic Or
Objectual Change?
(c)
Dialectics And Causation
(i)
Causation: 'Internal' Or
'External'? The Problem Stated
(ii)
Contradictions Begin 'Who Knows
Where?'
(4)
Contradictions And Causation: 'Internal' Or 'External'?
(a)
Yet More Dialectical
Equivocation
(b)
Atomism Returns To Haunt Dialectics
(c)
Nixoned
(d)
Another Rescue Attempt
(e)
Retreat Into The
Concrete Bunker
(5)
The Total Confidence Trick
(a)
Word-Juggling Once More
(b)
Contradictions And Change
(6)
Decision Time
(a)
The Choices Before Us
(b)
A Dialectical Way Out?
(7)
Everything You Wanted To Know About HEX But Were Afraid To Ask
(a)
Cartesians Beware
(b)
Are We Any The Wiser?
(8)
Idealism Rears Its Ugly
Head
(9)
Leibniz On Interaction
(10) Notes
(11)
References
Abbreviations Used At This
Site
Return To
The Main Index Page
Introduction
In this Part of Essay Eight, the claim that change is the
result of "internal contradictions" will be critically examined. In
Part Two, the idea that forces
can be used to model, or even represent, 'dialectical contradictions' will be
critically examined. In Part Three,
the very best Marxist account of 'dialectical contradictions' I have read in the
last 25 years will be subjected to detailed and destructive scrutiny, as will
Michael Kosok's odd attempt to formalise Hegel's dialectical 'logic'.
Have Dialecticians
Refuted Newton?
How Many Dialecticians Does It
Take To Change A Light-Bulb?
Consider this intriguing question:
Do objects move one
another, themselves, or a bit of both?
Dialecticians have a revolutionary
answer. But you might not like it.
Lenin put things this way:
"The
identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually
exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of
nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their
'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the
knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of
opposites. The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?)
conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase,
as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a
unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).
"In the first conception of
motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive,
remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject,
etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to
knowledge of the source of 'self-movement'.
"The first conception is lifeless,
pale and dry. The second is living. The second
alone furnishes the key to the 'self-movement' of everything
existing; it alone furnishes the key to the 'leaps,' to the 'break in
continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of
the old and the emergence of the new.
"The
unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The
struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and
motion are absolute." [Lenin (1961),
pp.357-58. Italic emphases in
the original. Bold emphases added.]
This is a rather odd passage since it
seems to suggest that things can move themselves. If so, much of modern mechanics
will need to be re-written. On this view, presumably, when someone throws
a ball, the action of throwing does not in fact move the ball. On the contrary,
the ball moves itself, and it knows exactly where it's going and how to get
there, traversing its path independently of gravity. Intelligent projectiles like this, it seems, need no guidance systems -- they
happily 'self-develop' from A to B like unerring homing pigeons.
[If this seems
unfair to Lenin, then please read Note 1 before proceeding -- or skip
forward to here.].1
To
make matters worse,
Lenin did not assert this innovative piece of mechanics just the once:
"Nowadays, the ideas of development…as formulated
by Marx and Engels on the basis of Hegel…[encompass a process] that seemingly
repeats the stages already passed, but repeats them otherwise, on a higher basis
('negation of negation'), a development, so to speak, in spirals, not in a
straight line; -- a development by leaps, catastrophes, revolutions; -- 'breaks
in continuity'; the transformation of quantity into quality; -- the inner
impulses to development, imparted by the contradiction and conflict of the
various forces and tendencies acting on a given body, or within a given
phenomenon, or within a given society; -- the interdependence and the closest,
indissoluble connection of all sides of every phenomenon…, a
connection that provides a uniform, law-governed, universal process of
motion -– such are some of the features of dialectics as a richer (than the
ordinary) doctrine of development." [Lenin (1914), pp.12-13. Bold emphases
added.]
Now, these comments come from a published essay (on
Marx), so the loose phraseology associated with this new theory of motion cannot be put down to the
fact that Lenin's earlier words appeared in
unpublished notebooks.
Perhaps then this is the point of that old
anti-dialectical joke:
Q: How many dialecticians
does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None at all, the light bulb
changes itself.
A touch unfair? Maybe so, but could this
scientific regression on Lenin's part (whereby he seems to want to return
to Aristotelian theories of motion and change) be the result of a mere slip of
the dialectical pen? Perhaps Lenin was using language
non-literally or metaphorically. [Indeed, this was the reaction of a
couple of bemused
DM-fans when confronted with
this example of
pre-Galilean
mechanics --, which is an excuse that is worryingly reminiscent of the way that theologians
sometimes to try to rescue the Book of
Genesis when faced with the discoveries of modern science.]
Is it possible then that Lenin did not
really mean what he said? Or, is there a suggestion in what he did say
that he thought change had more complex, external causes, too?
Well, as if to disappoint his fans, and
provide no help at all for those who
still think that dialectics has anything of worth to teach modern science, Lenin not only repeated this
rather odd
claim, he "demanded" that all DL-fans see things this way:
"Dialectical logic
demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should
be taken in development, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts it)…."
[Lenin (1921), p.90. Bold emphases in the original. Italic emphasis added.]
Here, not only are objects said to be
capable of moving themselves, but Lenin even says that DL "requires"
us to view their motion in no other way.
[DL = Dialectical Logic.]
It looks, therefore, like Lenin was
committed to the belief that not only can light bulbs change themselves, but also
(by implication) that books on dialectics write themselves -- just as DM-fans fool themselves
into believing far too much of what they have read in Hegel.2
Well, perhaps Lenin was merely referring to the
development of certain systems, and not the movement of objects from place
to place, their locomotion? If so, the impertinent 'counter-example' from
earlier (i.e., the one about light bulbs) is neither sensible nor apposite.
But, Lenin's words were in fact pretty clear; he
asserted that DL demands or requires that "objects" (not processes, nor yet
systems, but objects) be taken in "development, in 'self-movement'", so
he included both -- development and self-movement -- in this caveat. And,
all this is
quite apart from the fact that, as we have seen, Lenin counterposed this view of
reality to that of the mechanical materialists, who hold that objects move because
of the action of external forces:
"In the first conception of
motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive,
remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject,
etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to
knowledge of the source of 'self-movement'.
"The first conception is lifeless,
pale and dry. The second is living. The second
alone furnishes the key to the 'self-movement' of everything
existing; it alone furnishes the key to the 'leaps,' to the 'break in
continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of
the old and the emergence of the new."
[Lenin (1961),
p.358. Bold emphasis alone added.]
There would be no contrast here if objects
did not move themselves in the DM-scheme-of-things, both developmentally and as
they locomote. As we will see, this is indeed how Lenin has
since been interpreted by his epigones: holding to the view that things actually
self-develop and
self-locomote. [On this, see Note 3.]
Moreover, it is surely the case that, as things develop, some other
things will have to move -- even if only inside whatever it is that is doing the
developing. It's not easy to see how anything can develop if nothing else
locomotes.
Anyway, as we will also see, whatever Lenin
intended, his 'innovative' mechanics cannot apply to nature. This is not so much because he was
mistaken, but because it is entirely unclear what he could possibly have meant
by what he said.
And Lenin was not alone in wanting to return
modern science to this ancient 'theory' of change and motion (i.e., one that
views
nature as a
living, self-developing 'organism', or as a Whole that contains nothing but 'organisms'
of this sort
--, which, like animals, propel themselves about the place). On this view,
nature is en-souled, or enchanted -- where everything is alive or is governed by some
form of intelligence/will. [More on this in Essay Fourteen (summary
here).]
Other DM-worthies have made similar claims. Here is Bukharin:
"The basis of all things is therefore the law of change, the law of constant motion. Two philosophers
particularly (the ancient
Heraclitus and the modern Hegel…) formulated this law
of change, but they did not stop there. They also set up the question of the
manner in which the process operates. The answer they discovered was that
changes are produced by constant internal contradictions, internal struggle.
Thus, Heraclitus declared: 'Conflict is the mother of all happenings,' while
Hegel said: 'Contradiction is the power that moves things.'"
[Bukharin (1925), pp.72-73. Bold emphases added.]
Not to be outdone, Plekhanov joined this
backward-facing stampede, too:
"'All is flux, nothing is
stationary,' said the ancient thinker from Ephesus. The combinations we call
objects are in a state of constant and more or less rapid change…. In as
much as they change and cease to exist as such, we must address ourselves
to the logic of contradiction….
"…[M]otion does not only make objects…, it is constantly changing them. It is for this reason that the logic of
motion (the 'logic of contradiction') never relinquishes its rights
over the objects created by motion….
"With Hegel, thinking progresses in consequence
of the uncovering and resolution of the contradictions inclosed (sic) in
concepts. According to our doctrine…the contradictions embodied in
concepts are merely reflections, translations into the language of thought,
of those contradictions that are embodied in phenomena owing to the
contradictory nature of their common basis, i.e., motion….
"…[T]he overwhelming majority of phenomena
that come within the compass of the natural and the social sciences are among
'objects' of this kind…[:ones in which there is a coincidence of opposites].
Diametrically opposite phenomena are united in the simplest globule of
protoplasm, and the life of the most undeveloped society…." [Plekhanov (1908),
pp.92-96. Bold emphases alone added.]
Countless secondary DM-figures say more or less
the same sort of thing.3
Unfortunately, Lenin and his co-dialecticians failed to
take note of the origin of these ancient ideas:
Hermetic Philosophy is based on the belief that the
universe is alive; indeed it is a
cosmic egg -- later transmogrified by Hegel
into a Cosmic Ego.
Since eggs appear to develop all of their own, and
because
Hegel's immaterial and immanent cosmic Ego self-develops, it clearly seemed 'natural' for Lenin
and his epigones to think this of nature, too.
Nevertheless, not even eggs develop of their
own; in fact, it's hard to think of a single thing in the entire universe (of
which we have any knowledge) that develops of its own, or which moves itself.
Not even Capitalism does. Switch off the Sun and watch American Imperialism fold
a whole lot faster than
Enron.4
And yet, if Lenin were correct, no object in the
universe could possibly interact with anything else (since that would amount to
external causation, and objects would not be self-motivated). Self-motivated
beings must, it seems, be causally isolated from their surroundings, otherwise they would not be
self-motivated. This in turn must mean that, despite appearances to the contrary,
nothing in reality interacts with anything else. That would, of course, make a mockery of the
other DM-claim that
everything in reality is interconnected.
So, based on the defective doctrines of
ancient mystics, and no evidence at all, we find Lenin once again propounding
cosmic verities that do not make sense even in DM-terms -- and which not even
a lowly chicken
observes.
Hold Your Horses
-- Unfair To Lenin?
There Must Be Some Explanation
But, perhaps this is all a bit too
quick.
Maybe there is a way of interpreting Lenin
(and the other DM-stalwarts) which prevents this
self-destructing theory from moving itself even closer to the edge of the
trash can of history.
Is there any way of preventing the
contradictions that seem to lie at the heart of the DM-theory of change from tipping it
over the edge, lemming-like, into oblivion?
As this Essay will show, there isn't; by
the end of Part Two it will be abundantly clear that the self-destruction of at
least this part of DM is inevitable. Moreover, and ironically too, this sad denouement
won't have been externally caused
(by me); it will have been entirely
internally self-generated -- thanks to Hegel, his
Hermetic forebears, and that
Cosmic Egg.
Systematic -- Or Objectual Change?
So, is it possible that the
above conclusions are a little precipitate? Is there a perfectly reasonable
explanation that not only exonerates Lenin and other dialecticians, but which also
shows that they did not in fact believe such crazy things?
In what follows I propose to examine a number
of ways in which a case for the defence could be mounted -- however, that task
has not been helped by the thoroughly confused way this doctrine has so far been
presented by dialecticians. In fact, as we will see, to a man/woman they have simply
recapitulated all the errors of traditional Ontology --, but, in this case, in a
alarmingly amateurish manner.
Or, to put this another way: if this were a
trial, I'd be tempted to advise DM-fans to plead guilty and throw themselves
on the mercy of the court...
DM And
Causation
TAR opened its discussion
of DM with a consideration of CAR -- to which I have counter-posed its far
more pernicious DM-opposite: HEX. We have already encountered several core
HEX-type ideas: Totality, interconnectedness, mediation --
but here
we meet change through
'internal contradiction'.5
[DM = Dialectical
Materialism; HEX = Hegelian Expansionism;
CAR = Cartesian Reductionism; TAR =
The Algebra of Revolution (i.e., Rees (1998));
DB = Dialectical
Biologist (i.e., Levins and Lewontin (1985)).]
However, there's an
initial but no less important problem that requires resolution up front: i.e.,
the question whether causation is "internal"
or "external" to an object, process or system. The
contrast between these two different accounts of change, or at least the
'dialectical' relation between them, might allow defenders of Lenin
to squirm their way out of the difficulties noted above.
Well, we'll see...
Causation:
Internal Or External?
According to John Rees
(quoting DB),
CAR-theorists hold that:
"Causes
are separate from effects, causes being properties of subjects and effects the
properties of objects." [Rees (1998), p.4]
Rees went on to argue that one
of the problems with this approach to causation is that it appeals to something
Hegel called a "bad infinity", one involving endless 'external' causes. This avenue
is to be deprecated, it seems, because:
"…it
postulates an endless series of causes and effects regressing to 'who knows
where?'" [Ibid., p.7.]
One implication of such
'externalist' theories of causation is that they:
"…leave
the ultimate cause of events outside the events they describe. The cause is
external to the system." [Ibid., p.7.]
On this account, CAR
seems to imply (overtly or covertly) that, for instance, the universe has an
external cause/origin --, something that clearly has unacceptable theistic
implications (to which Lenin alluded, as we saw earlier):
"[N]ature forms a
totality, which it must unless we depart from materialism completely and become
believers in the supernatural…." [Ibid., p.78.]
However, with respect to other
theorists who adopt various forms of 'externalism', Rees asserts that they:
"…often
find themselves courting semi-mystical explanations of original cause." [Ibid.,
p.78.]
Indeed, Trotsky went even
further, arguing that:
"Whoever
denies the dialectical law of the transition of quantity into quality…must, in
the last analysis, turn back to the biblical act of creation." [Trotsky (1986),
p.113.]6
Rees's solution to this
problem is to counterpose his own brand of 'internalism' as a fully adequate
explanation of causation and change (but clearly not of the origin of the
universe).7
This is because
'internalism' is based on the idea that:
"…the
cause of change [lies] within the system…and it cannot be conceived on the model
of linear cause and effect…. If change is internally generated, it must be a
result of contradiction, of instability and development as inherent properties
of the system itself." [Rees (1998), p.7.]
Furthermore, a system
that appeals to a linear series of causes is inferior to one that does not; this
is because:
"[It offers a] mere
description, not explanation; the what, but not the how or the why."
[Ibid., p.7.]8
Despite this, Rees never
really explains how an 'internalist' account of the Universe side-steps the need for a deistic or theistic
explanation of origins. If, as some like
Spinoza
believe, there is only one (immanent) substance constitutive of nature (which is
'God'), then 'internalism' cannot be an effective bulwark against theism.
Moreover, Rees and other
dialecticians have done nothing to show that an external cause of the universe cannot
also be a natural cause. Of course, if the following (suppressed?)
premisses were added to the account:
P1: Nature
is co-extensive with the universe.
P2: Anything external
to the universe is supernatural.
that possibility would
indeed have been excluded. But, since there is no empirical way of establishing the truth of
P1 or P2, their veracity may only be 'justified' definitionally --
perhaps even
stipulatively. However, once accepted, either
or both of these would, of course, brand DM
as a conventionalist (or perhaps even a subjectivist) theory.9
Anyway, even if the cause
of the development of nature were internal, it would still be possible to
ask whether the whole system had a cause -- as, for example,
Thomist theologians
do. And, whatever other fatal weaknesses their 'theories' have, Thomists do not appeal to "bad infinities".10
Furthermore, since
DM-theorists themselves have inherited their theory of development from Hegel
(albeit re-worked and then allegedly given a materialist 'flip') -- who was
openly offering both an 'internalist' and a non-standard theistic
account of reality -- it is a little rich of dialecticians pointing the finger at
other theorists, accusing them of the very thing that their own theory had
originally been predicated upon, before 'inversion'.
So, it rather looks like
'internalism' is itself compatible with AIDS, and hence with mystical versions of
Christianity (and, of course, with
Hermetic Philosophy in general), after all.
[Hegel's Hermetic intellectual
influences/roots are outlined
here).]
[AIDS = Absolute
Idealism.]
Contradictions Begin 'Who Knows
Where?'
Now, Rees left it entirely unclear how
'internalism' could provide the sort of
explanation that CAR's linear externalism supposedly failed to deliver.
Non-linear 'internalist' causal chains seem to be just as incapable of answering
"how" and "why" questions as linear 'externalist' ones.
Of course, in the final
analysis, that all depends on what is to be counted as an explanation. In
Hegel's case, an 'explanation' had to be 'ultimate', or "rational", in order for it
to count as genuinely 'philosophical'. That is partly why he took such a dislike
to "bad infinities"; they seemed to him to be entirely 'irrational'.
But, if "bad" infinities
are all that nature has on offer (that is, if there
are no ultimate explanations to be had for anything, even if we knew
what an ultimate explanation could possibly look like), materialists will just have to get used to
it.
It would be foolish of them to copy Hegel's mystical approach to knowledge and
expect an ultimate account where there is none to be had. We certainly cannot rule "bad
infinities" out in such an a priori way, or just because they ruin
Hegel's neat, 'rationalist' picture of reality -- a world-view Hegel himself inherited from his
Hermetic
and
NeoPlatonic predecessors, anyway.
And, why should anything (let alone everything) have an
ultimate explanation?
Where did the expectation that there ought to be an ultimate explanation itself come
from? In fact, did it not arise from the very same misapprehension and projection
that
Feuerbach
located in Christianity (and religion in general) -- in
alienated thought?
And, of course, this
world-view itself (i.e., the idea that there are, or can be, ultimate
explanations of anything) is an ideologically necessary component if
boss-classes are to carry on ruling in the same old way. That is because an
ultimate explanation cannot be accessible to the senses, but must be derived
from thought alone -- otherwise it wouldn't be ultimate and would need
accounting for itself. Hence, it has to relate to or rely upon 'rational'
principles, which inhabit a hidden, abstract world anterior to the material
universe we see around us. Ruling-class ideologues have always seen the world
this way; the material universe can't be sufficient to itself, or there would be
no 'rational order', hence no 'rationale' for the status quo, no
'god'-ordained 'justification' for gross inequality, oppression and
exploitation. And that is why this "ruling idea" has dominated every single
intellectual and religious tradition, across every known class society, right
across the planet throughout human history:
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch
the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society,
is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means
of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the
means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling
ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material
relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of
the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas
of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other
things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a
class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that
they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers,
as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas
of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch." [Marx and Engels (1970), pp.64-65. Quoted from
here.
Bold emphases added.]
[In Essays Twelve and
Fourteen, these issues will be addressed in more detail. Summaries
here and
here.]
If so, this entire issue
needs to be approached by Marxists with a little more circumspection than has hitherto been the case. Rather than simply up-ending Hegel (in order
to put his theory 'on its feet', or otherwise), revolutionaries should long ago have given him the material boot.
Moreover, if
"explanation" here means providing a
HEX-like account of everything then DM fails even in
this regard. As we have already seen, HEX-type theories are impossible to
construct -- being infinitary at both ends.11 In which
case, it rather looks like dialectics cannot answer "how"
or "why" questions, either.
Indeed, as we shall see
throughout this site, beyond trivialities, DM cannot answer
any questions at all.
Internalism
Yet More
Dialectical Equivocation
We saw in
Essay Seven that DM-theorists constantly equivocate over what they mean by
"internal opposite". Sometimes they seem to mean "physically, or
spatially
internal", at others "logically internal". In the latter case, an "internal
opposite" implies (the nature and existence of) and is interconnected with its
dialectical "opposite"; in the former, this seems not to be the case.
[On several more serious difficulties this equivocation presents dialecticians,
see here.]
In what follows, I will
explore the ramifications of this confusion, where it resurfaces in the
distinction DM-theorists draw between 'internal' and 'external contradictions'.
We have already seen that there appears to be a
serious problem with Lenin's claim that change is internally-motivated,
and that things can move themselves.
But, on the other hand
there also seem to be several ways this problem might be defused, and in favour
of Lenin. Consider the
following options:
(1) Lenin and other DM-theorists were speaking
non-literally.
(2) They didn't mean what they said.
(3) And appeal to internal contradictions does not rule
out external causation -- the two are 'dialectically' interconnected. The important
point is to concentrate on the system within which things change and develop.
(4) Lenin's words can be re-interpreted so that they
apply only to self-moving objects (if there are any), but to nothing else.
I will not consider options (1) and (2);
anyone desperate enough to opt for these two should find reconciling The Book
of Genesis with modern science
relatively easy in comparison.
The most promising line of defence seems to
be that offered by (3) -- with (4) held in reserve, just in case.
Indeed, Rees himself seems to have
opted for (3). Hence, on
the one hand he argued that:
"The
cause of change [lies] within the system…and it cannot be conceived on the model
of linear cause and effect…. If change is internally generated, it must be a
result of contradiction, of instability and development as inherent properties
of the system itself." [Rees (1998), p.7.]
"[T]he
natural and social world [form] a single totality developing over time as a
result of its internal contradictions." [Ibid., p.285.]
On the other, he reminded
us of Lenin's claim that:
"Development
is the 'struggle' of opposites." [Ibid., p.186; quoting Lenin (1962), p.358.]
This looks like Rees
means "internal" in the topological sense mentioned above. So, an "internal
contradiction" is one that merely operates within a system.
So, at first sight it looks
like the apparent disparity here (between the claim that change is
internally-generated and the idea that change is induced by opposites
external to a system, process or body) can be reconciled by noting that the
Totality is a "mediated" whole in which the parts mutually condition
one another
as UOs -- with these interpreted, perhaps, as "antagonistic forces".12
In that case, such
opposites would not in fact simply be 'external' (to a particular system), since the relation between them would be 'internal' to the wider system
of which they formed a part.
Or, so the argument might go.
[UO = Unity of Opposites.]
Naturally, this raises
questions (which will need exploring) about the connection between "external
contradictions" and the "logically-internal contradictions" mentioned above. If
such "external contradictions" turn out to be the same as "logically-internal
contradictions", then the distinction dialecticians draw between "internal" and
"external" 'contradictions' will be empty. In that case, any attempt to rescue
Lenin by an appeal to "external contradictions" must fail, since, in that case,
everything that develops and/or moves will do so only as a result of "internal
contradictions" of two apparently different kinds, which aren't in fact
different when the label is removed -- that is, between "external
contradictions", which are in fact disguised or mis-identified
"logically-internal contradictions", and genuinely "external
contradictions", which aren't.
On the other hand, if these "external
contradictions" aren't "logical contradictions", then
Hegel's response to Hume's
criticism of rationalist theories of causation must fail. This in turn will mean
that dialecticians would have no theory of change that goes beyond the "constant
conjunction" of events found in Hume's theory.
[These issues will be explored in more
detail in Essay Three Part Five. In the meantime, see
Note 17 and
Note 22. See also
here.]
Despite this, the
above response still fails to resolve a number of remaining difficulties.
From what Rees says, all change is internally-driven. But, if that were so, no
object could have any effect on any other. Conversely, if objects do have
an effect on each other, all change can't be internally-driven.
In fact, if Lenin were
correct, and all change were the result of a "struggle of opposites", then those
opposites would have to be internal to bodies or processes, and not external
to either. We met this very problem
in Essay Seven (here).
But, if such opposites
are
external to the relevant bodies and/or processes, then, clearly, it would not be correct to say that all
change is internally-driven.
On the other hand, if these opposites are internal
to some systems or other, then, plainly, one system would have no effect
on any other -- unless they were both internal and external to each
other at the same time (but how?), or perhaps internal to some other (third)
system, which itself contained everything relevant to such changes.13
[It's worth
reminding ourselves that when Hegelians speak of
"internal relations", they are not talking about
spatial relations, but dialectical-logic relations. Hence, it could be objected
that the discussion above seems to ignore this important fact. However, as pointed out earlier,
that's because DIMs do the same -- or, at least, they
appear to do so. That is, of course, what lies behind all that
dialectical talk about
"external pushes" that dialecticians attribute to mechanical materialism, which
doctrine they say implies there must be an external cause of the universe.
This "external" certainly looks both
spatial and non-logical.
Nevertheless, this serious defect will be
rectified as this Essay proceeds (particularly
here), and in
Essay Eight Part
Two, Essay
Eleven Parts One and
Two (especially
here and
here)-- but more fully in Essays
Three Part Five and Four Part Two (when they are written).]
[DIM = Dialectical
Marxism/Marxist, depending on context; STD = Stalinist Dialectician; MIST =
Maoist Dialectician.]
Now, this problem
seems to have arisen because of the stark, un-dialectical contrast drawn above between what is internal
to an object, process or system, and what is external to it. [It's also
worth recalling here that this distinction was introduced by STDs and MISTs in
their attempt to
'justify' the doctrine of 'socialism in one country', which is why
Trotskyist dialecticians appear to have ignored it. In that case, of course, the
latter are in no position to rescue Lenin's theory of 'self-movement' from
absurdity. And before the former begin to gloat, the distinction itself seems to
be unviable anyway -- that
is, in addition to the many problems it faces, which have been noted in this
Essay.]
And yet,
according to DM, objects, processes and systems in nature are all part of a
mediated Totality, and mediation seems to
blur the distinction
between what is internal and what is external to any or all of these. [That's the point of the reference to "misperception" in
D4, below.]
For example, what is logically external to a body or process could be
spatially internal or external to it/them, and the same could be true of what is
logically internal, too. But, universal, mediated interconnection seems
to run across these distinctions, making them somewhat pointless.
And it's little use
referring us sceptics to the level of analysis, the level of abstraction, or the
level of explanation, here -- which might mean that what might appear to be
"external" one minute could appear "internal" the next, as these level are
changed -- since that would mean that the external world is sensitive to what we
know, or can say, about it. In an Idealist system, this would present no
problem, but no materialist theory can live with this idea. The world is what it
is independently of what we know about it, surely?
Be this as it may, and once
again, there would seem to be little point making
such a
fuss about the internal cause of change if in the end causes
'dialectically-external' to
a given body or system also mediate it, and contribute to its development. In that case, Rees
might just as well have said:
"The cause of change
[lies] both within the system and without…and it can and it can't be conceived on
the model of linear cause and effect…. If change is internally and
externally generated, it must be a result of contradiction, of instability and
development of internal and external properties of the system itself." [Edited
misquotation of Rees (1998), p.7. Italic emphases added.]
And Lenin should have
said:
"Dialectical logic
demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should
be taken in development, in 'self-movement' and in movement by
external forces (as Hegel nowhere puts it)…."
[Edited misquotation of Lenin (1921), p.90. Bold emphases in the original.]
Which would rather ruin the
point, one feels.
Worse still, if change is externally-driven, that would leave the universe open to external influence,
too, allowing 'God'
to sneak back in
through a side door. What is there now
to stop a non-Marxist 'Dialectical Mystic' from claiming that 'God' created all the UOs in nature,
and started the whole thing off with a Big 'outside' push/Bang?14
On the other hand, and once
more, if objects and processes, systems and sub-systems are all
internally-driven, then they can have no effect on each other. And if that is
so, equally, there seems to be no point in stressing the mediated nature of the
Totality.
Whichever way we turn, we seem to hit a
dialectically un-yielding brick wall.
But, once again, perhaps
even this is too
quick?
Atomism Returns To Haunt DM
To begin again afresh: the
DM-Totality itself seems to be a Mega-system that contains many sub-systems. I say "seems" here
because, as we will find out in Essay Eleven Parts
One and
Two, it's far from easy
to decide what
dialecticians themselves think their 'Totality' either is or contains.15
If so, and as we are
about to find out,
DM-theorists face a serious dilemma: either everything in their universe is made of
simple but eternally changeless objects, or it's composed of sub-systems that
cannot interact.
However,
before I substantiate the
above assertion, a couple of preliminary points need making first:
(1) I shall count a
system as any object or process that is made of simpler interconnected
proper parts. For example, an atom is made of a nucleus and 'orbiting' electrons; the
solar system, of a centrally-placed sun and orbiting planets, and so on, each of
which is a sub-system. A
sub-system is a system in its own right which is also a proper part of another
system. By "system-specific" I mean processes (geometrically) internal to a
given system or sub-system. [A proper part is a part
that is less than or not identical with the part of which it a part;
alternatively, if a is a proper part of b, then b is not a
part of a, nor is it equal to a. I am, of course, referring to
systems that are not mere agglomerations (so-called 'Mereological
Universalism'), but unified and internally interconnected wholes. On this see
Simons (1987),
Varzi
(2009), and van Cleve (2008).]
(2) A simple object is one that has no parts,
and, in view of the above, isn't therefore a system. Apparently, electrons and photons are
elementary particles, but whether they are metaphysically simple is unclear.
[On this, see Castellani (1998).]
This means that nature is composed of at most
two sorts of 'entities': systems and simple objects (or, to use the jargon:
complexes and
simples, (or, to use the jargon about the jargon, "mereological simples")). We need not assume that these are mutually exclusive categories,
nor that there actually are any simple objects (which are not further
divisible), only that there might be. [The reader should not assume that
I am expressing my own opinions here; I am just trying to make sense of DM.]
Now, the reasons for
saying that either everything in the DM-universe is made (1) Of
simple but eternally changeless objects, or it is composed (2) Of sub-systems that
cannot interact can be summarised in the following series of connected,
informal
propositions (which list all the available relevant possibilities appertaining
to systems, objects, change and interaction):15a
D1: Change is
internal to systems. Objects and processes in each system mutually condition
one another (as UOs).
D2:
Change (to objects and processes) is internally-driven, not externally-motivated.
D3:
Objects within systems change because of their internal relations and/or contradictions.
D4: On the one hand: Objects in a
particular system do not have external relations with one another. What appear
to be external links are in fact misperceived or misidentified internal
relations.16
D5: Systems
themselves cannot affect each other except by their own internal inter-systemic
relations of the above (D4) sort.
D6:
Alternatively: Individual and separate systems cannot have such an effect on one another, otherwise change would not be
wholly internal to a particular system.
D7:
Hence, single objects and/or processes cannot be systems, otherwise they couldn't influence each other (by
D6).
D8: On
the other hand, once more, objects and processes must be sub-systems (and
hence systems in their own right), since they are composed of an indefinite
(possibly infinite) number of their own sub-units (molecules, atoms, sub-atomic
particles, and so on). But even then, as systems themselves, objects and
processes couldn't exert an influence
one another (again, by
D6).
D9: This
means that at some point there must be simple units of 'matter' that are not
themselves systems. Otherwise, if everything were system-like (or, if all that
exists
were sub-sub-sub-…systems, to
infinity) nothing could have any effect on anything else (by D6) -- that is, if all change
is internally-motivated.
D10: But,
if there were
such simple units (i.e., if these hypothesised 'simples' have no 'parts', and
hence aren't systems themselves) they would be changeless.
If that weren't the case, given the DM-theory of change, these 'simple' units would
have to be UOs themselves (thus they wouldn't be simple,
after all), and would be subject to their own internally-driven development. However, if
these 'simples' are
changeless, they can have no effect on one another (or they wouldn't be
changeless). Indeed, it isn't easy to see how a 'simple' can change in
any way at all (other than by a rearrangement among themselves).
D11: Hence, reality is
either composed of a (possibly) infinite hierarchy of systems that have no influence on
each other, or it is composed of fundamental (non-system-like) objects that are changeless and
have no effect on anything.
Clearly, both horns of
this dilemma contradict all we know about nature. Is there any way to avoid this
fatal conclusion? Could there be a 'dialectical' way out of this
Hermetic Hole?
Perhaps we should start
again with a consideration of the following propositions (wherein "T"
stands for the Totality):
D12: Change
is a result of "internal contradictions".
D13: Objects within
T change only because of this internal dynamic.
D14: Reality is a
mediated T; change is a consequence of a 'struggle' between opposites.
D15: No element of
reality can be considered in isolation; all mutually condition one another.
However, D12 is
ambiguous. The word "change" could mean:
(1) "Systematic change" (that is, it could mean "change internal to a particular
system"); or it could mean:
(2) "Change
internal to an object" -- as it does in D13 -– leaving it unclear whether or not
this sort of change is wider-ranging, involving inter-objective or
trans-systematic change.
Nevertheless, D13 seems
clear enough:
D13: Objects within
T change only because of this internal dynamic.
This clearly states that change arises only as a result of a dynamic internal
to objects.
But, if that were so, it would once again be difficult to
see what influence objects could have on each other. If change is
internal to an object, then the relations it supposedly enjoys with other
objects would be irrelevant in this respect --
ex hypothesi, they
could have no impact on the changes the latter underwent. This seems to imply that
objects must be self-caused/motivated beings (as Lenin "demanded").
Once more however, whatever
changes an object undergoes -- since they are exclusively internally-generated -- they can't be a function of the relations
which
that object enjoys with other objects, otherwise the cause of
change would not be internal to the said object, but external, after
all -- and thus not the least bit 'rational' (since this would imply a "bad
infinity").17
On the other hand, if change is internal to a system of mediated objects or processes,
then it can't be the sole result of a dynamic internal to the
objects in that system, but must be a function both of the inter-systematic relations between
systems and bodies
and of the 'internal contradictions' within those systems or bodies themselves.
Furthermore,
if change is system-specific (that is, if it is internal to, and solely
confined within
systems),
then the relations between those systems would become problematic, once more.
Clearly, change cannot be exclusively system-specific if different
systems are to have an actual effect
on one another.
The question is, which of
these is the correct account? Is change (A) The result of a dynamic internal to
systems? or (B) Is it internal to objects? or (C) Is it a consequence of the external
effects bodies have on each other?
[It is worth noting that Option (C) in fact allows change to be
internal to systems even while it remains external to the bodies
forming that system.]
Is therefore change
body-specific, system-specific, or is it inter-systematic? Or, is it (D) A
complex combination of all three?
But: if (D) were the
case, what would be the point
of saying that change is motivated internally (in bodies, processes or
systems) if it is
also externally-driven?
On the other hand, why say that everything
is interconnected if change is exclusively internally-generated, and the
alleged interconnections between systems or bodies have no part to play?
Up until now,
DM-theorists appear not to have noticed these serious difficulties implied by their
'theory' of change. Since DM is supposed to be the philosophy of change,
clearly this isn't a minor flaw, one that can easily be ignored or
dismissed.18
President Nixon Saves The Day
It could be objected
that it is possible to resolve these problems by referring to the
'dialectical' interplay between objects and processes (i.e., between 'internal'
and 'external' contradictions'), or that within or
between systems.
But, this vastly overworked response does not actually provide
any clear answers to the above questions -- not, that is, unless it turns out
that objects themselves are in fact disguised systems. This would mean that
objects are not really simple, but are composed of their own interconnected parts.
But, as noted above, if
that were so, the contrast between external
and internal causation would disappear, and DM-'internalism' would become either
an empty notion or a meaningless mantra.
There seems to be little
point in emphasising that change is internally-generated if it is
externally-motivated, too (no matter how much this is fluffed-up with the
usual 'dialectical' jargon) -- still less any point in arguing for the internal
development of objects if they are in fact interconnect sub-systems themselves and subject to external
constraints.
One might just as well
try to defend theism by claiming that whereas, on the one hand, the universe is self-caused and needs
no creator or an external cause, on the other, Divine Logic "insists" that it does indeed possess
an external cause, and
that 'He/She/It' (i.e., 'God') is 'dialectically related' to the world (with
that particular phrase left
conveniently obscure, as expected). If such a theist
then played the "Nixon" card,19 and claimed that Divine Logic
enables its adepts to "grasp" this 'explanation' as a 'dialectical solution' to the
"mystery of creation", we would rightly be unimpressed.
Well, what
is sauce for the Deist, is surely sauce for the DM-ist, too. We wouldn't be
inclined to accept the word of a theological mystic who claimed he/she could
'solve' the 'contradiction' between the universe having an internal (but no
external) cause, and the (alleged) fact that it actually had an external cause,
and we should be no
less reluctant to do the if or when DM-theorists concoct a similarly obscure
'explanation' expressed in dialectical jargon.
There
is another
obvious way of responding to the above criticisms: Interpret one particular strand of this
DM-conundrum as committing believers to the view that only systematic
change is driven by "internal contradictions".
But, that would immediately
prompt the question: Of what are these systems composed? If they too are
composed of objects then plainly the above dilemma would simply
reappear. Are these 'objects' themselves (A) simple or are they (B) complex sub-systems,
too?
Considering (B)
first, if objects are to be edited out on the grounds that
they are really systems themselves (i.e., that they are composed of (possibly) infinite sets of further sub-systems
--
meaning that there is nothing fundamentally simple or object-like in reality), the
entire edifice would collapse for want of bricks. If there are no objects,
only systems, then there would seem to be nothing 'deep down' to condition anything else internal to
any given system.20
D6: On
the other hand,
individual and separate systems cannot have such an effect on one another, otherwise change would not be
wholly internal to a particular system.
But, if change is system-specific, according
to D6 -- i.e.,
if change is internal and confined to each sub-system --, then, once more: none of these sub-systems
could interact, otherwise change would not be system-specific.
(A) Conversely, if there are fundamental
objects internal to systems, but which are not themselves sub-systems (that is,
if they are simple), even
if they condition each other externally, they would have no inner
contradictory lives themselves (since,
ex hypothesi, they would have no parts). But, as we have
seen, this would then imply that such objects are eternally
changeless.21
On the other hand,
again, if these supposedly fundamental objects conditioned each other externally,
that would imply they had parts and weren't fundamental after all.22
So, unless the existence of
simple objects -- which aren't systems themselves -- is
countenanced, systems as such would have no 'bricks'. Alternatively, if systems are comprised of
such 'bricks', reality must be fundamentally discrete. In that case,
change will be externally-motivated since such simples would possess no internal
contradictions of their own -- although, as Note 22 established, simple
objects cannot interact externally, anyway!
So, if objects aren't
systems, they don't have an internal
structure and aren't therefore
UOs. Unfortunately, once more, this option would rule out
interaction, for reasons outlined earlier (and in
Notes
17,
21,
22, and
23).
On the other hand, again, if there are no
such 'bricks', and nature is system-like 'all the way down', as it were, then
these systems can't
interact, unless we admit that change is externally-motivated, after all.
This means that
the dilemma that faced classical Ontology now confronts DM; the fundamental
constituents of reality must be either:
(1) Extensionally
significant bodies of matter (or energy). This option preserves the systematic nature of reality (since
it allows for the indefinite divisibility of parts, treating them as infinitary
systems themselves subject to endless sub-division). Or:
(2) Fundamentally
changeless atoms (or extensionless points). This alternative safeguards the objects
at the expense of the 'unity of nature'.
In the second case, reality would be
composed of finitely (or 'infinitely'?) small but eternal 'billiard
balls'; in the first instance,
everything would be made of an infinitely thin/abstract sort of 'gas'/'plasma' (not
itself made out of anything else). Either way, causation would disappear for
nothing could have an effect on anything else in either set-up.23
Of course, as
noted above, the DM-'solution' to this (Kantian)
antinomy -- following Hegel -- is to
"grasp" it as a "contradiction". This handy logical trick clearly
'solves' everything by Nixoning it, which is a
convenient escape route that
DM-advocates reserve for their own exclusive use; no one else is permitted to
employ this thoroughly dishonest argumentative dodge.
However, this
disingenuous approach to philosophical problems does not succeed in
achieving what it was set up to evade (i.e., the glaring contradictions
in DM itself). That is because it's still unclear how anything can be fundamentally atomic -- and hence
maximally causally isolated from the rest of nature -- while at the
same time being thoroughly systematic and interconnected with everything in
existence. The DM-account of causation seems to imply both!
Instead of
wanting to 'grasp' serious confusion of this order of magnitude, DM-theorists should perhaps
want to disown it.
Another Rescue Attempt
At any rate, this
"grasped" non-solution means that yet another serious difficulty DM-theorists
face must be resolved on their behalf.
To this end, we need to re-consider
D12-D15 (in particular D14) in more detail.
D12: Change
is a result of "internal contradictions".
D13: Objects within
T change only because of this internal dynamic.
D14: Reality is a
mediated T; change is a consequence of a 'struggle' between opposites.
D15: No element of
reality can be considered in isolation; all mutually condition one another.
Unfortunately, as we have
seen, D15 creates problems for D14, for if change is inter-systematic then
it's hard to see how the 'contradictions' internal to any sub-system of T
can contribute to
the wider picture. As noted above, their influence does not
stretch beyond the boundaries of that system; but if that is so, it's hard to see how
systems are interconnected. In the end it all depends on how wider-ranging
inter-systematic change is taken to be -- and how the internal dynamic of each
sub-system of T is conceived. Consider, therefore, the following possibilities:
D16: Let
T comprise n disjoint sub-systems S1 to Sn.24
D17: Also, let change
to any Sk-th sub-system of T be a result of its
"internal contradictions".
D16 and D17 seem to be
essential moves for DM-theorists to make, otherwise, the yawning chasm of
HEX
(on this, see
Essay Ten
Part One) might imply remote causation -- which we have good reason to question
(see Essays Seven and Eleven
Part One).
Anyway, change to any Sk-th item must be internally-driven (according to D12 and D13); if not, the following infinite inflation would
ensue:
D18: Change in any Sk-th
element is a result both of its "internal contradictions" and of its relations with m
other elements or sub-systems within T (where m < n).
D19: Change to these m elements or sub-systems of T
is a result of their own "internal contradictions" and of their
relations with p other elements or sub-systems of T
(where p < n), and so on.
As will readily be
appreciated, D19 threatens to expand rapidly into another
HEX-like proposition
(if the sub-systems of T are held to be disjoint), at the same time as
undermining D12 and D13.25
This explains why the
compartmentalisation of T -– noted in D17 -- was so important. Without it,
D14 and D15 would support some rather odd ideas, such as the following: the latest
(2005)
UK New Labour majority in Parliament was partly caused by insignificant changes in
the density of minute pockets of Hydrogen gas in the large
Magellanic Cloud
precisely:
601.345266789309865789024354685
million years
ago, and vice versa. Moreover, this would also be true at every other moment
in universal history (past, present, or future)! Similarly, and even more bizarrely, this
would implicate every other event in universal history (at every moment,
past or present) with the
aforementioned Labour majority, and vice versa.26
While New Labour
supporters may be permitted the view that their recent victory was historic,
even they might balk at the cosmic significance it appears to assume
given this overly-inflated view of interconnectedness. Even if anyone was credulous
enough to believe this unlikely scenario, there is no way it could be verified;
it would thus have to be imposed on reality.26a
And it will not do to argue that
dialecticians assent only to the 'relative' interconnectedness of objects and
processes in reality, not their absolute inter-relatedness, as the above seems
to allege. That dodge has been neutralised
here.
Clearly, the difficulty
in this case revolves around the problem of specifying the dimensions, boundaries and sphere of influence of
each
Sk. But, how do we decide the extent to which T should be
partitioned into non-interacting sub-systems?
And, where do we stop? Unless we are careful, this attempt to forestall
HEX is in
danger of collapsing back into CAR, as the permissible sub-elements of T
become increasingly microscopic. Is there any way of preventing this
collapse? Well, in the absence of 'objective' criteria, any partitioning of T
must, it seems, be arbitrary. If we partition T into n elements, why not 2n, or even
10n?
In that case, it rather looks like DM has its own
"bad infinity" --
which stops (and starts) "who knows where?"
The choice before DM-fans now appears to
lie between one or more of the following options:
(a) Full-blown HEX with
its incipient scepticism and its destructive implications for science.
(b) The partitioning of
T to avoid HEX, accompanied by an attempt to scratch around for an
ad hoc principle that limits the size of n to avoid a collapse
back into CAR.
(c) A
compartmentalisation of T that rules out universal "mediation".
(d) An admission that DM
has its own "bad infinity", but in both directions (i.e., down the
CAR-brick road and along the HEX-rated route).
(e) The
concession that
the cause of change is not internal to bodies or systems.
Of course, the adoption
of (d) would remove whatever motivation there might once have been for rejecting
CAR in the first place.
Retreat Into The Concrete Bunker?
Admittedly, D12-D19 are
abstract in form, whereas dialecticians in general make it perfectly clear that it is only as
a result of examining concrete examples that the precise details of
systematic change may be understood and verified. Perhaps this is the
problem with the above criticisms?
As TAR notes:
"Contradiction is,
therefore, the form of the explanation…. [This is] because the
explanation itself will depend on the concrete, empirical conditions that
obtain…. The exact contradictions and the working out of those contradictions
will vary accordingly." [Rees (1998), p.7.]
Nevertheless, this caveat
fails to neutralise the difficulties outlined above. According to DM, the
material world is
independent of our knowledge of it. In that case, whether we are aware of it or not
--
given this view -- one or other, or more, of D12-D15, or of (a) to (e) above, must obtain.
Anyway, the same
'abstract' analysis applied to T can be adapted and extended to any "concrete
situation" depicting actual events. Consider, therefore, the following:
D20: Let C be a
concrete situation comprising n disjoint elements or sub-systems C1
to Cn.
D21: Also, let change
to any Ck-th sub-system or element of C be a result of
its "internal contradictions".
D22: Hence, change in
Ck is not a consequence of its relations with any other Ci.
But, once again, D22 means
that T can't be a mediated whole; if D22 were true, T's
concrete sub-systems would exist in permanent causal isolation. This implies
that D22 should perhaps be replaced by one or other of the following:
D23: Change in any Ck-th
sub-system
is a result of its relations with m other elements or
sub-systems of C. Or
D24: Change to C
is not a consequence of its relations with any other concrete sub-systems of
T.
Unfortunately, D24 would still
mean that each C is a hermetically-sealed sub-unit of T, while D23
itself threatens to inflate into HEX if each C is extended widely enough --, and the
mediationally-air-tight seals around it loosened, even slightly.
We needn't labour the
point any further; D20-D24 can easily be adapted so that they mirror the problems
created by D16-D19, above.
So, any attempt to
retreat into a concrete bunker can't save DM. This entire approach
either collapses it back into CAR (resulting in the postulation of what are in effect 'elementary
particles', which do not interact and do not change), or it threatens to expand
uncontrollably into HEX, contradicting D12 and D13. Hence, one or more of
options (a) to (e) above still appear to be unavoidable.
Of course,
these problems arose because DM-theorists, in a thoroughly
traditional fashion, sought to provide an a priori
metaphysical theory of causation (and one that does not seem to have
been thought-through with sufficient, or any, care), which they then peremptorily imposed on reality. Indeed, Rees
himself appears happy to derive substantive truths about the world
(as part of a formal -- or possibly as a permanently un-cashed 'concrete' --
promissory note) from the meaning of a few conveniently vague terms:
"…[T]he cause of change
[lies] within the system…and it cannot be conceived on the model of linear cause
and effect…. If change is internally generated, it must be a result of
contradiction, of instability and development as inherent properties of the
system itself." [Ibid., p.7. Bold emphasis added.]
Rees nowhere explains why
change has to result from "internal contradictions" (or even
why it can't
arise from external conflict and/or tension, or a mixture of both), or just from
"contradictions" simpliciter, or perhaps from something else. Nor does he explain how a
contradiction could possibly make anything change.
[Since this entire topic was discussed at
length in an earlier Essay (here)
--, where, among other things, examples were given of objects and processes that remained
the same even while they
changed --, no more will be said about that
particular topic in
the present Essay.]
Other DM-theorists
have attempted to derive similar results using their own brand of half-baked, a priori
reasoning (examined in Part Two of this Essay, and in Essay
Seven);
these were linked to
the supposed logical concomitants of change, wherein objects change because they turn into
'what-they-are-not', or because they already contain 'what-they-are-not'.27
However, suitably
attentive readers will have noticed once again the dearth of "careful
empirical" work offered in support of these bold DM-theses. Moreover, they
will no doubt also have observed how substantive theses like these have yet again been
derived from the supposed meanings of a handful of words (such as, "opposite", "change",
"contradiction" and "unity").
Plus ça change…
Total Confidence
Word-Juggling Once More
It now looks like TAR's
conclusions (and those reached by other dialecticians) are based only what words like "Totality", "abstract", "concrete",
"opposite", and "change" (etc.) seem to mean.
In the first case, since
the word "Totality" appears to mean "everything in the universe"
(or "everything in existence") it then appears obvious (to
DM-fans, but not on the basis of any evidence -- it
just looks 'self-evident') that the Totality cannot be caused by anything
'outside' itself, otherwise such a cause would be part of the original whole, by definition. Consequently, simply because of what the word
"Totality" appears to mean, Rees and other DM-theorists conclude that
causation must be internal to whatever they have severally or collectively
decided it must be internal to.
This can be seen from the way the way that Rees uses modal
terms like
"cannot" and "must":
"…[T]he cause of change
[lies] within the system…and it cannot be conceived on the model of linear cause
and effect…. If change is internally generated, it must be a result of
contradiction, of instability and development as inherent properties of the
system itself." [Ibid., p.7. Bold emphasis added.]
If this thesis were
empirically-based, such modal terms would not be needed. Indeed, if this theory
were based on evidence, Rees would have written something like this:
"Evidence so far
suggests that the cause of change
lies within the system…and that it shouldn't be conceived on the model of linear
cause and effect…. If change is internally generated, which viewpoint the
available data supports, then it is reasonable to conclude that it's result of
contradiction, of instability and development in and between the observed properties of the
system itself." [Edited re-write of Ibid.]
Now that would be
to take the following words seriously:
"'[The dialectic is not a] magic master key for
all questions.' The dialectic is not a calculator into which it is possible to
punch the problem and allow it to compute the solution. This would be an
idealist method. A materialist dialectic must grow from a patient,
empirical examination of the facts and not be imposed on them…."
[Rees (1998), p.271. Bold emphases alone added.]
"[The laws of dialectics] are not, as Marx and
Engels were quick to insist, a substitute for the difficult empirical task of
tracing the development of real contradictions, not a suprahistorical master key
whose only advantage is to turn up when no real historical knowledge is
available." [Ibid., p.9. Bold emphasis added.]
Furthermore, since change
involves an object or property becoming what-it-is-not (again, this too
is assumed to be the case because of what certain words associated with change
appear to mean
-- on that, see here), change
through contradiction is thought to have universal applicability.28
So, once more,
from words alone another branch of 'Superscience' has sprung. Now, to
most people, this might not seem such a big deal, but as we will see in Essay
Twelve (summary here),
and as both Rees and Novack point out, this
tactic depends on an Idealist view of reality: specifically that
nature is Mind -- or it's just 'condensed language' --, and is
thus governed by a priori
'logico-linguistic laws',
accessible to 'thought' alone.
Here is
George Novack:
"A consistent materialism cannot proceed from
principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition,
self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms
may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken
from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice...."
[Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]
The fact that certain
truths about fundamental aspects of reality have been inferred from the meanings
of certain words can be seen if we direct our attention to the answers that might
be given to the following
questions: How do DM-theorists know that the cause of change is always
and only internal? How can they be so sure that change
universally results only from contradictions? How do they know
that the Totality is a mediated whole?
As seems clear, the only
possible answer to such questions is that this sort of knowledge is based on (1)
What
words like "Totality", "abstract", "concrete", "opposite", and "change"
(etc.) really mean -- or, perhaps, on (2) Whatever these concepts
are said to imply, etc.29
These (and other terms)
are then used as interpretative devices to sift, select and then colour whatever
'evidence' is produced in their support, which means, of course, that these concepts
could not have been derived from experience or from a consideration of
concrete events. They are far too general for that; but more importantly
they are not even phrased as if they depended on experience. And we have
already seen that all those "insistences", "demands", "musts" and "requires" in DM-books
and -articles
rule out the defence that DM is based on a tentative review of
the available evidence.30
[AIDS = Absolute
Idealism.]
The ease with which
theses like these have regularly been cobbled-together by dialecticians in its own way reflects on the totalising influence of AIDS: it
's only
because the world is considered to be 'rational' that a systematic
DM-explanation of reality is possible.30a The alleged
DM-inversion of the Hegelian
Absolute -- with its associated 'logical' connections left in place, which
then promptly morphed into
the DM-"Totality" -- accounts for the absolute confidence with which dialecticians
think they can derive so much from so little. Because Hegel's
system has not actually been up-ended, but left the same way up (with a
few 'materialist-sounding' phrases pasted on),
dialecticians have issued themselves with a licence to
impose concepts on reality.31
If all that is real is
rational, and
all that is rational is real, a priori thesis-mongering like this makes
perfect sense. The
rest is, of course, simply window dressing, sold to the unwary with just enough 'dialectical
spin', and plenty of tradition.
However, as DM-writers would
also have us believe, not only is our present state of knowledge partial and
relative, all future knowledge will always remain similarly incomplete.
And yet, in the face of
that slightly more honest admission, dialecticians are still quite happy to inform us what must be true
of every atom in the entire Universe, and for all of time -- i.e., that everything must change
because of its "internal contradictions".
This alone indicates
their theory is not dependent on evidence but has its source elsewhere -- in
mystical Hermetic Philosophy.
Contradictions And Change
Putting the
above difficulties to one side for the moment, I propose to take D12-D15 at face
value, but concentrate on D13-D15 (since they seem more closely to
represent the DM-consensus) in order to try to rescue this part of 'Materialist
Dialectics' from oblivion.
D12: Change
is a result of 'internal contradictions'.
D13: Objects within
T change only because of this internal dynamic.
D14: Reality is a
mediated T; change is a consequence of a 'struggle' between opposites.
D15: No element of
reality can be considered in isolation; all mutually condition one another.
However, D13 looks
unnecessarily vague, so I will alter it to the following:
D25: Change within
T is caused solely by 'internal contradictions'.
[Where "T" refers
to the "Totality".]
The difficulty with this
version of D13 is that it's still unclear what it means to say that
'contradictions' cause change (and thus motion) -- we have already seen that there
are good reasons to question this idea (cf.,
Essay Five).
However, in this
connection Rees notes that Marx's criticism of Hegel's use of the term
"contradiction" in effect involved replacing it with a consideration of the
antagonistic relation between real material forces:
"Marx was, however,
obliged to transform completely the terms of the dialectic when he altered its
starting point from abstract concepts to real material forces. Mediation is no
longer a peaceful process of reconciliation…. Contradictions are no longer
between concepts but between real, material forces…. [Marx and Engels's analysis]
starts out from real, material, empirically verifiable contradictions. The
forces involved are not merely ideas or even ideologies, though these are also
present, but real economic and political institutions, classes, and parties."
[Rees (1998), pp.68-69, 83.]
As we shall see (in
Part Two) this is the generally accepted view within DM-circles: that material forces
either
represent, embody, or actually are contradictions.
Hence, on that basis,
it could be argued that the discussion above is thoroughly misguided; indeed,
it could even be maintained that the identification of contradictions with real
material forces provides DM with a scientific and concrete
interpretation -- one that identifies the material
analogues of causation --, which completely refutes the objections made so far in this Essay,
and elsewhere at this site.
In which case,
D25 should perhaps be re-written as:
D26: Change within
T is caused solely by internally-opposed material forces.
But, D26 isn't obviously
true. Nature is full of forces of attraction, which do not even look
oppositional. Of course, DM-theorists would be the first to admit that there are
dynamic equilibria/disequilibria between attractive and
repulsive forces in nature. D26, therefore, needs further adjustment:
D27: Change within
T is caused solely by internal forces of attraction and repulsion.
[D25: Change within
T is caused solely by 'internal contradictions'.]
However, it will be shown
(in detail) in Part Two of this Essay that there is no interpretation of D27 that makes it
equivalent to D25. It's not even plausible to suppose that "forces of
attraction and repulsion" could serve either to explicate or replace "contradictions".32
Decision Time
The
Choices Before Us
In advance of this, the
question whether or not DM-theorists are right to claim that contradictions find
their material analogue in material forces does not in fact affect the point at
issue -- which is whether or not change is internal to each system or sub-system,
whatever causes it. Even if forces could be represented in the way
dialecticians suppose, the
very same difficulties highlighted earlier would still arise.
In that case, if change is
indeed internal to
each system then one of the following options would, it seems, have to be true
(take your pick):
(A)
There is only
one system -- the Totality --, the contents of which are all (potentially or
actually)
maximally
interconnected.
Every object in the Totality is subject only to the operation of
external causes. That is because the entire nature of the part is
determined by its relation to the whole and to other parts, but not by a
relation that any given part has with itself, and hence not by processes
internal to each object. Or:
(B)
There is only
one system -- the Totality --, which is (potentially or actually)
maximally
interconnected.
But, change is
exclusively internal to each object or process in this Totality (because everything is a
UO).
In that case, nothing can be interconnected with anything else. Or:
(C) Change is
internal to all systems, and nature forms an infinite 'ascending'
and/or 'descending' hierarchy of systems and sub-systems ('all the way
up'/'down', as it were). In such a set-up, ultimately, there is nothing that
could be, or could become, the opposite of anything else. That is
because, either:
(i) The
fundamental parts of reality are extensionless 'simples' -- which, because they can be
mapped onto or modelled by the
Real Numbers, have no 'size'
(no dimensions). This means that such objects
possess no internal connections with anything else
(unlike the Reals); they are therefore eternal and changeless. If they
were subject to change then they would be systems themselves and hence wouldn't be extensionless points. As
extensionless points they can have no effect on each other, or on anything else, or they would
change. Hence, if systems are infinitely divisible change cannot be internally-motivated -- or rather, the only change
that would be possible would be that
which arises from the
rearrangement of these eternally changeless 'simples'. Or:
(ii) The
fundamental parts of reality are
systems. But, if that is so, they cannot have opposites that cause either or both
of them to change. That is because
those opposites would have to be external to each system, which would
mean that change would not be internally-driven. [The latter sort of opposite
can't be
internal to any given system. If they were, that system couldn't change into
that opposite,
since that opposite would already exist.]
Or:
(D) Everything
(but the Totality) is
a sub-system of some sort, no matter how much it is sub-divided. In that case, there are
no fundamental 'point
masses', since all sub-systems are infinitely divisible. In this arrangement, while
change is internal to the Totality it is not internal to any of its sub-systems, but
external to each. That is because if change were exclusively internal to such sub-systems
they could have no effect on one another. But, if no sub-system had any effect on any
other, there would be no change in the Totality over-and-above, perhaps, the
rearrangement of these sub-systems. Hence, while the Totality changes, its sub-systems
can't.
In that
case,
given
this option, change would be
internal to the Totality but external to all its sub-systems. Moreover, even if the latter
were UOs, that fact would have no influence on whether
they changed or not. If it did, change would be internal to each
sub-system, contrary to the supposition. So, if (D) is to stand, change would
not be the result of instability internal to each sub-system -- because the latter
are, on this supposition, externally-motivated.
However, a moment's thought
will show that this option can't work in the way described -- if change is
merely the re-arranging of subsystems, then any larger system containing these
subsystems would itself change internally, contrary to the hypothesis.
Or:
(E)
Change isn't
just internal to the Totality, it is also internal and external to
all its
sub-systems (as they 'mediate' one another, or 'dialectically' interact). In
that case, change to these sub-systems can't be the sole result of their own internal
instabilities and/or 'inner contradictions', as dialecticians maintain.
Unfortunately, this would have profound
implications for
HM and the revolutionary overthrow of Capitalism, for example.
The contradictions inside the latter would therefore be insufficient to lead
to its demise. External causes over and above the class struggle and the falling
rate of profit (etc.) would be
needed --, including perhaps bad weather, meteorite impact, or alien intervention
(etc.).
Naturally, no
one believes the class struggle is hermetically sealed against the rest of
nature, but since these influences stretch off into infinity this would present
DM with its own "bad infinity", which would end "who knows where?"
Moreover, if change is
also external to
every system, then the Totality
(as a system itself) must be susceptible to just such external
influences.
Any attempt to forestall
that implication would prompt the same
sort of objection that stumps naive supporters of the
Cosmological Argument
[henceforth,
COMA] for the existence of 'God': if everything has a cause, then what caused
'God'?
In like
manner,
if every system is subject to external causation, then what caused the Totality?
Clearly, this challenge can only be
neutralised by an appeal (i) to the alleged 'definition' of the Totality or (ii)
to an infinite set of causes, which stretch off to "who knows where?" -- in the
way that theists respond to similar objections to the COMA. [This isn't surprising, given the
mystical
origin of DM.]
However,
as Kant noted, the COMA has to be buttressed by a
surreptitious appeal to the
Ontological Argument [henceforth, ONAN]. So,
from the supposed definition of the word "God" (i.e., as "That than
which nothing greater can be conceived"), 'His' necessary and actual existence
are 'deducible'. In this way,
questions about 'His' origin are supposedly rendered illogical/irrational.
Similarly,
but in this case based on
the meaning of "Totality" (i.e., as "All that there is" or,
maybe, "That than which there is nothing else", or even "That
outwith which nothing else
can be conceived"), it could be argued that there is nothing outside the Totality
that could cause it to exist.
So, the only way that dialecticians could defend
this fall-back position (should they chose to adopt it) would be to use an
'atheistical' version of the ONAN, on the lines that the Totality is "That than
which there is nothing else".
Of course, such a defence would make plain the
Linguistic Idealism in DM,
since, once again: from the meaning of a few words
fundamental truths about reality will have been derived.
But, more importantly, if
change is caused by the interplay of opposites, and objects and systems turn
into those opposites (as the
DM-classics inform us), then, whether or not
it is internally- or
externally-induced, change would be impossible. As we have seen --
here
--, if the opposite
of a body or system already exists, that body or system can't change into it, for it already exists!
On the other hand, if it
doesn't already exist it can play no part in helping to change that object or
system!
In view of their unwise
commitment to 'inverted' Hegelian 'logic', there
seem to be no other viable options left open to DM-fans.
Moreover, if the last of these
alternatives is correct, then (as we will also see
here) the similarities between DM
and Mystical
Christianity would become even less hard to miss. For if there is a force external to the Universe that conditions
it, then the Totality will have an external cause after all, and the DM-search for "how"
and "why" will have run into the Ground Of All Being -- which
ends "we all know where...".
The choice of name for
such an ultimate cause doesn't affect any of the above points -- nor does
it resolve the problems they have exposed
-- since a Deity by any other name is still a Deity.
As Hegel himself noted:
"Every philosophy is
essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the
question then is only how far this principle is carried out." [Hegel
(1999),
pp.154-55; §316.]
As far a DM is concerned, it looks like he
was right.
Is There
A Dialectical Way Out Of
This Hermetic Whole?
There are other
alternatives that could be added to this complex set of Dialectical Difficulties, but those considered here should suffice. All seem inimical to
any DM-account of change. Some even undermine HM.
In that case, DM faces yet another material
brick wall in its endeavour to explain change -- the material world itself.
Everyday language, derived on the basis of
collective labour as a result of interaction
with the material world, resists such idealist impertinences. It is thus no surprise
that DM collapses into incoherence yet again.
So, no way out then...
HEX
Maniacs
Cartesians Beware
In their characterization
of CAR, the authors of DB spoke about the "intrinsic properties" that objects
must possess if CAR were the case.
"The dominant mode of
analysis of the physical and biological world and by extension the social
world...has been Cartesian reductionism. This Cartesian mode is characterised by
four ontological commitments...:
"1. There is a natural set of
units or parts of which any whole system is made.
"2. These units are
homogeneous within themselves, at least in so far as they affect the whole of
which they are the parts.
"3. The parts are
ontologically prior to the whole; that is, the parts exist in isolation and come
together to make wholes. The parts have intrinsic properties, which they possess
in isolation and which they lend to the whole. In the simplest case the whole is
nothing but the sum of the parts; more complex cases allow for interactions of
the parts to produce added properties of the whole.
"4. Causes are separate from
effects, causes being the properties of subjects. and effects the properties of
objects. While causes may respond to information coming from the effects....
there is no ambiguity about which is causing subject and which is caused
object...." [Levins and Lewontin (1985), p.269.]
Contrary to CAR-theorists, dialecticians appear to
believe that objects and processes have what can only be called an 'extrinsic'
nature -- that is, one which is a consequence of the relations each object
or process has with
other unspecified objects (or sets of objects) and/or processes in reality.33
[DB = Dialectical
Biologist (i.e., Levins and Lewontin (1985);
HEX = Hegelian Expansionism;
CAR = Cartesian Reductionism.]
Unfortunately, as we will soon see, this DM-option rapidly inflates into HEX.
Consider
the following example:
D28: Sodium has the
properties it has as a result of its atomic structure.
But, because D28 is
expressed in what might seem to be reductionist, CAR-like terms, it won't be
entirely acceptable to DM-theorists. The following therefore should be more in
line with their CAR-free agenda:
D29: Sodium has the
properties it has as a result of its interconnections with other atoms.
However, even this seems
to get things wrong since Sodium appears to have the relations it
has with other atoms because of its inherent properties or dispositions,
and the latter in turn seem to be based on Sodium's sub-atomic structure.
While it's surely a
truism that unless there were other atoms, Sodium would not behave the way it
does, the unique atomic structure of each element must surely have some
bearing on its nature and properties (otherwise, much of modern Chemistry could
be binned).
This seems to indicate that even though D29 looks anti-reductive, it
has in fact omitted the mediated nature of Sodium -- that is, D29
fails to express Sodium's transient nature as a complex of processes in
dialectical tension/relation with its surroundings, reflected in and by its inner
structure as that too interacts with other atoms (etc.). Perhaps then the following is closer to the truth?
D30: Sodium has the
properties it has because of its mediated nature and its interconnections with other
atoms.
Moreover, in D30, the
word "nature" could be understood to mean "atomic structure" (with there
being no implication that there was anything static about Sodium), as in the
following amended version of D30:
D31: Sodium has the
properties it has because of its mediated atomic structure and its interconnections with
other atoms.
But, whatever is true of
Sodium must be true of these other atoms, too:
D32:
Sodium has the properties it has because of its mediated atomic structure and
its interconnections with other atoms, which in turn have the properties they have
because of their mediated atomic structures and their relations with still other
atoms.
But, as seems clear, D32
is another incipient HEX-type sentence. In which case, it is not easy to see how
the following implication might be avoided:
D33: Sodium has the
properties it has because of its mediated atomic structure and its interconnections with
the entire universe, for all of time, and vice versa.
Put like this, D33 looks
like another example of Hegel's idea that "the truth is the whole",
which is itself an eminently
mystical notion. [Hegel
(1977), p.11; Preface, paragraph 20.] Glenn Magee makes this clear:
"Another parallel between
Hermeticism and Hegel is the doctrine of internal
relations. For the Hermeticists, the cosmos is not a loosely connected, or to
use Hegelian language, externally related set of particulars. Rather, everything
in the cosmos is internally related, bound up with everything else.... This
principle is most clearly expressed in the so-called
Emerald Tablet of
Hermes Trismegistus, which begins with the famous lines
'As above, so below.'
This maxim became the central tenet of Western occultism, for it laid the basis
for a doctrine of the unity of the cosmos through sympathies and correspondences
between its various levels. The most important implication of this doctrine is
the idea that man is the microcosm, in which the whole of the macrocosm is
reflected.
"...The universe is an internally related whole pervaded by cosmic energies."
[Magee (2001),
p.13. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions
adopted at this site. Bold emphases added. More on this topic here.]
And yet, D33 is implausible. It's not just that there are no credible
causal interconnections (that we are aware of) between the atoms of Sodium,
which
are currently on or near the earth's surface, and events on the other side of the
universe (today, or billions of years ago), but, even if this were
believable, it would be difficult to see how these could possibly explain
Sodium's properties as opposed to merely re-describe them in a rather
complicated, infinitary sort of way.34
Of course, this is why
metaphysicians like
Hegel (and his
Hermetic friends) had to appeal to a Mind, or to Mind-like principles, to provide a rationale
for existent beings -– dressed up in suitably important-looking a priori
finery. If there were no logical or conceptual connections between objects
and events, then it wouldn't be possible to give a rational explanation of the course of events -- just
infinitary re-descriptions, based on "bad infinities" -- and, of course, those nasty,
unreliable material facts and 'appearances'.
This is the
insurmountable barrier
that constantly confronts DM-theorists; by avowedly inverting Hegel's system, they have forfeited the
right to call on the principles Hegel employed to give his system its
pseudo-explanatory force: the over-arching 'Mind' behind all development. And yet,
dialecticians have no choice: they
have to appeal to such mystical
principles to give their theory its 'rational' cutting edge.
So,
DM-theorists find at every stage they have to re-introduce fetishised
(teleological) concepts through the back door (via the sophisticated reflection
theory (on this, see Essay Three Part Three, and Essays Twelve Part Four and
Thirteen Part Two, when they are published), spruced-up with just enough abstractions to satisfy
all but the most fastidious of traditional of thinkers --, and
with no little word-magic, to boot --, in order to supply the necessary/logical
rationale for their supposedly non-Ideal Universe.35
Unfortunately, these
shiny new DM-concepts are now no longer the ultimate principles
upon which Hegel
himself relied. They are just yet more 'brute facts'.
This
approach is required because material reality can't supply its own rationale,
since, plainly, it isn't Mind.
But, brute
facts seem to be all the universe has to offer.
And that's why DM-fans need Hegel's system.
For them, the material universe is insufficient; they find they have to appeal
to an Ideal World (aka "the Totality", the secular version Hegel's 'Absolute'),
which is anterior to the senses, and accessible to thought alone. They need a
'world-view'. As I have pointed out elsewhere:
Moreover, the founders of our movement weren't workers; they came from a class
that educated their children in religion, the classics and philosophy. This tradition
taught that behind appearances there's a hidden world, accessible to thought
alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.
This way of seeing things was invented by ruling-class ideologues, who
viewed reality this way. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from
or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and
exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.
The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time,
but it's not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation
(among other things).
Another way is to win over the majority (or, at least, a significant section of "opinion
formers", bureaucrats, judges, bishops, generals, intellectuals,
philosophers, teachers, administrators, etc.)
to the view that the present order either, (1) Works for their benefit, (2) Defends 'civilised
values', (3) Is ordained of the 'gods', or that it is (4) 'Natural' and thus cannot be
fought against, reformed or negotiated with.
Hence, a world-view that helps rationalise one or more of the above is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling in the
same old way. While the content of this wing of ruling-class ideology may have changed with
each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same
for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth (about this 'hidden world' underlying
appearances) is ascertainable from thought alone, and therefore
can be imposed on reality dogmatically and
aprioristically....
So, the non-worker founders of our movement -- who had been educated from
an early age to believe there was just such a hidden world lying behind appearances,
and which governed everything -- when they became revolutionaries looked for 'logical' principles in
that abstract world that told them that change was inevitable, and was part of the
cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of that
ruling-class mystic, Hegel. Hence, the dialectical classicists were happy to
impose
their theory on the world (upside down or the "right way up"),
since, to them, because of their socialisation and education, it seemed quite natural to do this;
that's what 'genuine' philosophy is -- or, so they thought.
Of course, if the facts end up contradicting
DM, they can safely be ignored, since this hidden world not only
"contradicts" appearances (so we are told), it's more real than
anything genuinely material.
And that is why DM-fans bury
their heads in the sand: their faith lies in this hidden world -- and that's not
surprising, either, since this idea was pinched from a Christian mystic.
Finally, these comrades imported such alien ideas
into Marxism
unwittingly. They knew no better; their petty-bourgeois
being determined
their petty-bourgeois consciousness.
But, in the end,
and just like Hegel's
system, DM turns out to be at best merely re-descriptive, and not the least bit
explanatory. In seeking to use the class-compromised concepts they found
in Hegel, all that DM-adepts are left with are yet more brute facts, only now
couched in Ideal terminology, obscured behind hopelessly impenetrable prose.36
Anyway, all this is quite
apart from the infinitely thin evidential support there is -- or could
ever be -- for such recklessly bold claims. No wonder DM-theorists resort to
"insisting" that reality is this or that, and that things "must" be thus and so;
they have to, since the facts do no 'speak for themselves'.37
Furthermore, to return to
the argument, since the
properties of Sodium are not particularly unique in this respect, whatever
applies to Sodium must apply to 'opposing forces', too, regardless of their
nature -- i.e., either they are continuous (and are thus the result of a
field), or
they are ultimately particulate
(and are merely an
exchange of momentum).37a
Hence,
even if DM-theorists were correct in their interpretation of contradictions as
'opposing forces', their theory would still amount to little more than a
re-description of nature, and not an explanation. This is because
even a thoroughly comprehensive listing of all the interconnections that exist between objects and
processes (whether or not these include forces) would be no less of a
re-description than reductive CAR-like competitors are. Without a
set of Ideal/mind-like principles to lend it some rationality, an explanation that captures
the 'why' of things will always escape dialecticians
And yet, even then,
all we would have would be a set of mind-like 'brute facts'.38
But, as argued in
Essay Ten
Part One
(but in more detail in Essay Three Part Three), whereas a reductive description can at least begin somewhere, a
DM-account can neither begin nor end.
This shows that DM itself cannot account for the "why" of things any more successfully than
could CAR.
No better perhaps, but certainly much worse.39
Are We
Any The Wiser?
Well, are we? Are we any clearer about
whether dialecticians believe that things change because of their 'internal
contradictions', because of their 'internal'/external relations with the rest of
the "Totality", or because of something else?
Plainly not.
In that case, are we any clearer about how
and why 'contradictions' (internal or otherwise) are capable of actually causing
change, or even making anything happen?
Once more, the answer is in the
negative.
It is now time to clutch at the last straw
available to supporters of this drowning theory, and examine opposing forces. Perhaps they can
provide DM with an urgently needed life-line?
It is to that question that I turn in the
next Part of this Essay.
Notes
1. Some might feel that this is unfair, in that
dialecticians themselves account for motion and change
in a much more sophisticated way than this caricature would have us believe.
This 'more sophisticated' account (if such
it may be called) --
involving the interplay between opposing forces, and the dialectical interaction
within the 'mediated Totality' -- will be examined throughout the rest of this
Essay, and in detail in Part Two.
The "Totality" itself will be the subject of Essay Eleven Parts
One and
Two, along with its supposed
'interconnections'.
2.
As Hegel himself declared:
"Instead of speaking by the
maxim of Excluded Middle (which is the maxim of abstract understanding) we
should rather say: Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in
Earth, neither in the world of mind nor of nature, is there anywhere such an
abstract 'either-or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is
concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things will
then lie in the want of correspondence between their immediate being, and what
they essentially are.
"Contradiction is the very
moving principle of the world: and it is ridiculous to say that contradiction is
unthinkable. The only thing correct in that statement is that contradiction
is not the end of the matter, but cancels itself. But contradiction, when
cancelled, does not leave abstract identity; for that is itself only one side of
the contrariety. The proximate result of opposition (when realised as
contradiction) is the Ground, which contains identity as well as difference
superseded and deposited to elements in the completer notion." [Hegel
(1975), p.174;
Essence as Ground of Existence,
§119.
Bold emphases added.]
"[B]ut contradiction is the
root of all movement and vitality; it is only in so far as something has a
contradiction within it that it moves, has an urge and activity." [Hegel (1999),
p.439, §956. Bold emphasis added.]
Apparently, Hegel just happened to be 'using'
a pen when 'his' books in fact wrote themselves (because of their obvious
(and literal)
'internal contradictions').
However, it seems there might be an avenue of escape
from this quandary, but it's not one that should recommend itself to many
DM-fans. That bolt hole will be examined presently.
3. Not
much room here for doubt. And that isn't just my rancid view of this murky area
of DM-'physics'; indeed, as the quotations below show, this is how
Lenin and Hegel (see above, in Note 2)
have been interpreted since.
This is how Mao saw things:
"The metaphysical or vulgar evolutionist world outlook sees
things as isolated, static and one-sided. It regards all things in the universe,
their forms and their species, as eternally isolated from one another and
immutable. Such change as there is can only be an increase or decrease in
quantity or a change of place. Moreover, the cause of such an increase or
decrease or change of place is not inside things but outside them, that is, the motive force is external.
Metaphysicians hold that all the different kinds of things in the universe and
all their characteristics have been the same ever since they first came into
being. All subsequent changes have simply been increases or decreases in
quantity. They contend that a thing can only keep on repeating itself as the
same kind of thing and cannot change into anything different. In their opinion,
capitalist exploitation, capitalist competition, the individualist ideology of
capitalist society, and so on, can all be found in ancient slave society, or
even in primitive society, and will exist for ever unchanged. They ascribe the
causes of social development to factors external to society, such as geography
and climate. They search in an over-simplified way outside a thing for the
causes of its development, and they deny
the theory of materialist dialectics which holds that development arises from
the contradictions inside a thing. Consequently they can explain neither
the qualitative diversity of things, nor the phenomenon of one quality changing
into another. In Europe, this mode of thinking existed as mechanical materialism
in the 17th and 18th centuries and as vulgar evolutionism at the end of the 19th
and the beginning of the 20th centuries. In China, there was the metaphysical
thinking exemplified in the saying 'Heaven
changeth not, likewise the Tao
changeth
not', and it was supported by the decadent feudal ruling classes for a long
time. Mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism, which were imported from
Europe in the last hundred gears, are supported by the bourgeoisie.
"As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world
outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study
it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the
development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary
self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and
interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a
thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the
thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion
and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of
its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are
secondary causes. Thus materialist dialectics effectively combats the
theory of external causes, or of an external motive force, advanced by
metaphysical mechanical materialism and vulgar evolutionism. It
is evident that purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion,
that is, to changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differ
qualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another. As a matter of fact, even mechanical
motion under external force occurs through the internal contradictoriness of
things. Simple growth in plants and animals, their quantitative
development, is likewise chiefly the result of their internal contradictions.
Similarly, social development is due chiefly not to external but to internal
causes.... According to materialist dialectics, changes in nature are due
chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in nature. Changes in
society are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in
society, that is, the contradiction between the productive forces and the
relations of production, the contradiction between classes and the contradiction
between the old and the new; it is the development of these contradictions that
pushes society forward and gives the impetus for the
supersession of the old
society by the new. Does materialist
dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all. It holds that external causes
are the condition of change and internal causes are the basis of change, and
that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes
into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because
each has a different basis. There is constant interaction between the
peoples of different countries. In the era of capitalism, and especially in the
era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, the interaction and mutual impact
of different countries in the political, economic and cultural spheres are
extremely great...
"The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a
twofold meaning. One is that
contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other
is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites
exists from beginning to end.
"Engels said, 'Motion itself is a
contradiction.'
Lenin defined the law of the unity of opposites as 'the recognition (discovery)
of the contradictory, mutually exclusive,
opposite tendencies in
all
phenomena and processes of nature
(including
mind and society)'.
Are these ideas correct? Yes, they are.
The interdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things and the
struggle between these aspects determine the life of all things and push their
development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction;
without contradiction nothing would exist.
"Contradiction is the basis of the simple forms of motion (for
instance, mechanical motion) and still more so of the complex forms of motion."
[Mao (1961b),
pp 312-13, 316. Bold
emphases alone added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted
at this site.]
We will have occasion to return to some of the
details of Mao's argument later.
And, here is a greatly
shortened list of quotations taken from the writings of lesser
DM-luminaries who declared (perhaps unwisely) that things do indeed change/move themselves
--
beginning with David Hayden-Guest (who also sneaks in a reference to "external
relations", a topic that will be examined later in this Essay):
"The second dialectical law, that of the
'unity, interpenetration or identity of opposites'…asserts the essentially
contradictory character of reality -– at the same time asserts that
these 'opposites' which are everywhere to be found do not remain in
stark, metaphysical opposition, but also exist in unity. This law was known to
the early Greeks. It was classically expressed by Hegel over a
hundred years ago….
"The importance of
understanding this contradictory character of things, is that it gives the clue
to the inner process of their development which takes place through the conflict
of the opposites....
"[F]rom the standpoint of the developing
universe as a whole, what is vital is…motion and change which follows from
the conflict of the opposite....
"Development is always the result of
internal conflict as well as of external relations, themselves including
conflict. It can only be explained and rationally grasped to the extent
that the internal contradictions of the thing have been investigated…." [Guest (1963), pp.40-45. Bold emphases
alone added.]
Here, too, is comrade Thalheimer (who directly
links this doctrine with ideas he derived from Hegel's 'Master Deduction',
analysed in Essay Twelve -- summarised
here):
"The most general and the most inclusive
fundamental law of dialectics from which all others are deduced is the law of
permeation of opposites. This law has a two-fold meaning: first, that all
things, all processes, all concepts merge in the last analysis into an absolute
unity, or, in other words, that there are no opposites, no differences which
cannot ultimately be comprehended into a unity. Second, and just as
unconditionally valid, that all things are at the same time absolutely different
and absolutely or unqualifiedly opposed. The law may also be referred to as
the law of the polar unity of opposites. This law applies to every single
thing, every phenomenon, and to the world as a whole. Viewing thought and
its method alone, it can be put this way: The human mind is capable of
infinite condensation of things into unities, even the sharpest
contradictions and opposites, and, on the other hand, it is capable of
infinite differentiation and analysis of things into opposites. The human
mind can establish this unlimited unity and unlimited
differentiation because this unlimited unity and differentiation is present
in reality....
"...[I]t is more difficult
with such opposites as true and false and still more difficult with the concepts
of being and non-being, which are the most general of all, the most inclusive,
and, at the same time the poorest in content. The average person will say: how
can one unite such absolute opposites as being and non-being? Either a thing is
or it is not. There can be no bridge or common ground between them. In the
treatment of Heraclitus I have already shown how the concepts of being and
non-being actually permeate each other in everything that changes, how they are
contained in changing things at the same time and in the same way; for a thing
which is developing is something and at the same time it is not that something.
For example: a child which is developing into a man is a child and at the same
time not a child (sic). So far as it is becoming a man it ceases to be a child.
But it is not yet a man, because it has not yet developed into a man. The
concept of becoming contains the concepts of being and non-being. In this
concept they permeate each other....
"We shall now take up the
second main proposition of dialectics...the law of development through
opposites.... Not until Hegel was this law completely developed.
"This law applies to all
motion and change of things, to real things as well as to their images in our
minds....
"...[This law] states, in the
first place, that all motion, development, or change, takes place through
opposites or contradictions, or through the negation of a thing.
"...The negation of a thing
from which the change proceeds, however, is in turn subject to law of the
transformation of things into their opposites...." [Thalheimer (1936), pp.161,
165-66, 170-71. Bold emphases added.]
Novack adds his repetitive ha'penny's worth
(here, at first, writing about plants and seeds, but soon
losing his grip on reality):
"Each phase of the plant's
manifestation appears as a reality and then is transformed in the course of
development into an unreality or an appearance. This movement, triadic in this
particular case, from unreality to reality and then back again to unreality,
constitutes the essence, the inner movement behind all appearance....
"In this dialectical
movement, in this passage out of and into opposition, resides the secret to
the movement of all real things.... Dialectics is the logic of matter in
motion and thereby the logic of contradictions, because development is
inherently self-contradictory. Everything generates within itself that force
which leads to its negation, its passing away into some other and higher form
of being....
"This dialectical activity is
universal. There is no escape from its unremitting and relentless embrace...."
[Novack (1971), pp.87, 94. Bold emphases added.]
And, as if this weren't enough, here is
Cornforth:
"The second dogmatic
assumption of mechanism is the assumption that no change can ever happen except
by the action of some external cause.
"Just as no part of a machine
moves unless another part acts on it and makes it move, so mechanism sees matter
as being inert -- without motion, or rather without self-motion. For
mechanism, nothing ever moves unless something else pushes or pulls is, it never
changes unless something else interferes with it.
"No wonder that, regarding
matter in this way, the mechanists had to believe in a Supreme Being to give the
'initial push'....
"So in studying the causes of
change, we should not merely seek for external causes of change, but should
above all seek for the source of change within the process itself, in its own
self-movement, in the inner impulses to development contained in things
themselves...."
"...'[S]truggle' is not
external and accidental. It is not adequately understood if we suppose that
it is a question of forces or tendencies arising quite independently the one of
the other, which happen to meet, to bump up against each other and come into
conflict.
"No. The struggle is internal
and necessary; for it arises and follows from the nature of the process as a
whole. The opposite tendencies are not independent the one of the other, but are
inseparably connected as parts or aspects of a single whole. And they operate
and come into conflict on the basis of the contradiction inherent in the process
as a whole.
"Movement and change result
from causes inherent in things and processes, from internal
contradictions.
"Thus, for example, the old
mechanist conception of movement was that it only happened when one body bumped
into another: there were no internal causes of movement, that is, no 'self-movement',
but only external causes. But on the contrary, the opposed tendencies which
operate in the course of the change of state of a body operate on the basis of
the contradictory unity of attractive and repulsive forces inherent in all
physical phenomena....
"Why should we say that
contradiction is the driving force of change? It is because it is only the
presence of contradictions in a process which provides the internal
conditions making change necessary.... It is the presence of contradictions,
that is of contradictory tendencies of movement, or of a unity and struggle of
opposites, which brings about changes of movement in the course of a
process. [Cornforth (1976), pp.40-43; 90, 94. Italic emphases in the original.
Bold emphases added.]
And Baghavan:
"Hegel pointed out that the
co-existence, the unity, the interpenetration of opposites constitutes an inner
and inherent contradiction, a basic instability in all things which leads to
development and change....
The existence of
contradictions in all things gives rise to self-movement." [Baghavan (1987),
p.90. Bold emphasis added.]
And Mandel:
"All motion has a cause....
"A fundamental cause of all
motion, all change, is the internal contradictions of the changing object.
In the final analysis, every object, every phenomenon, changes, moves, is
transformed and modified under the influence of its internal contradictions...."
[Mandel (1979), p.162. Bold emphases added.]
Here are our old friends, Woods and Grant:
"Dialectics explains that
change and motion involve contradiction and can only take place through
contradictions.... Dialectics is the logic of contradiction....
"So fundamental is this idea
to dialectics that Marx and Engels considered motion to be the most basic
characteristic of matter.... [And, referring to a quote from Aristotle, they add
(RL)] [t]his is not
the mechanical conception of motion as something imparted to an inert mass by an
external 'force' but an entirely different notion of matter as self-moving....
"The essential point of
dialectical thought is not that it is based on the idea of change and motion but
that it views motion and change as phenomena based on contradiction....
Contradiction is an essential feature of all being. It lies at the heart of
matter itself. It is the source of all motion, change, life and development. The
dialectical law which expresses this idea is the unity and interpenetration of
opposites....
"The universal phenomena of
the unity of opposites is, in reality, the motor-force of all motion and
development in nature. It is the reason why it is not necessary to introduce
the concept of external impulse to explain movement and change -- the
fundamental weakness of all mechanistic theories. Movement, which itself
involves a contradiction, is only possible as a result of the conflicting
tendencies and inner tensions which lie at the heart of all forms of matter....
"...Matter is self-moving
and self-organising." [Woods and Grant (1995), pp.43-45, 47, 68, 72. Bold
emphases alone added.]
And now, a handful of Communist Party hacks:
"The essence of the
dialectical contradiction may be defined as an interrelationship and
interconnection between opposites in which they mutually assert and deny each
other (sic), and the struggle between them serves as the motive force, the
source of development. This is why the law in question is known as the law
of the unity and struggle of opposites.
"This law explains one of the
most important features of dialectical development: motion, development takes
place as self-motion, self-development. This concept
is highly relevant to materialism. It means that the world develops not as a
result of any external causes but by virtue of its own laws, the laws of motion
of matter itself. It has dialectical meaning because it indicates that the
source, the motive force of development of phenomena is to be found in
their internal contradictions. In the past some materialists who rejected
any supernatural force as a constant factor influencing natural processes
nevertheless had to fall back on the mysterious 'first impulse' that was
supposed to have set matter in motion.
"The dialectical doctrine
that the motion or development of nature is in fact self-motion,
self-development, explains why many contemporary bourgeois philosophers are
so vehement in their attacks on the proposition of the contradictory essence of
things. Development understood in this way leaves no room for a
'transcendental', mystical 'creative force' external to nature....
"Postulating that
internal contradictions are inherent in all things and processes and comprise
the motive force of the self-development of nature and society, materialist
dialectics explains how this process takes place." [Konstantinov,
et al (1974), pp.144-45. Italic emphases in the original. Bold
emphases added.]
"Contradiction also expresses
this feature of the relation of opposition, i.e., the mutual exclusion and
mutual presupposing of its formative aspects. It can therefore be briefly
defined as the unity of opposites which mutually exclude one another and are in
struggle. The law of dialectics that demonstrates the driving force of
contradictions is formulated as the law of the unity and struggle of opposites.
"According to this law,
contradictions are the inner impetus of development, the source of the
self-movement and change of things. If things were a constant identity in
themselves, and lacked differences and contradictions, they would be absolutely
immutable.... Contradiction is a dynamic relation of opposites.... The
determining element in contradiction is therefore the struggle of opposites." [Kharin
(1981), p.125. Bold emphases added.]
"Motion is the mode of
existence of matter. To be means to be in motion.... Like matter, motion is
uncreatable and indestructible. It is not introduced from outside but is
included in matter, which is not inert but active. Motion is self-motion
in the sense that the tendency, the impulse to change of state is inherent in
matter itself: it is its own cause." [Spirkin (1983), p.75. Bold emphasis
added.]
"The development of the most
diverse objects and phenomena shows that opposite aspects cannot exist
peacefully side by side; the contradictory, mutually exclusive character of
opposites necessarily causes a struggle between them. The old and the
new, the emergent and the obsolete must come into contradiction, must clash.
It is contradiction, the struggle of opposites that comprises the main source
of development of matter and consciousness....
"...The struggle of
opposites is the inner content, the source of the development of reality.
"Such is the essence of the
dialectical law of the unity and struggle of opposites.
"...Motion, as understood by
Marxist dialectics, is the self-motion of matter, internal motion,
whose driving forces or impulses are contained within the developing objects
and phenomena themselves." [Afanasyev (1968), pp.95, 97-98. Italic emphases in the original. Bold emphases added.]
Incidentally, the above author, and one or
two others, have included in their remarks a discussion of the relation between
external and internal contradictions, which seems to answer some of the
objections made in this Essay. That escape route will be closed off in
Note 28.
However, we will see in Essay Nine Part Two
that these theorists introduced such
notions in order to rationalise certain (regressive) political decisions taken for other
reasons.
4.
DM-theorists are surely aware of these patent truths; indeed, they have a ready
answer for such impertinences. [On this, see
Note 28 and
the rest of this Essay.]
However, this ancient
theory of motion
in fact predates
Aristotle; indeed it can be found in Plato's dialogue, The Laws:
"Athenian. Then we
must say that self-motion being the origin of all motions, and the first which
arises among things at rest as well as among things in motion, is the eldest and
mightiest principle of change, and that which is changed by another and yet
moves the other is second." [Plato (1997b), p.1552. I have in fact used the
online
Jowett translation here.]
[On this ancient theory, see Gregory (2000), Jammer (1999),
and Skemp (1967).]
As
Plato indicates, this theory derives from earlier
mystical and animistic notions. The idea seems to be that the only sort of
motion which is rational is, obviously, that which has reason and thus a will
behind it. If the universe is ultimately rational, then all motion must be of
this sort, that is, it must be internally-generated, and thus
goal-directed. Otherwise the universe would be irrational, which is an insult
both to our 'rationality' (or, rather, the 'rationality' of certain philosophers
and boss-class hacks) and the 'Deity'. Plainly, this is the source of the
various teleological systems of nature that have been imposed on the world since
Ancient Greek Times (and possibly earlier. It's also why DM-theorists have
struggled hard to deny their theory is teleological, even though it is replete
with teleological concepts, lifted from Hegel and Mystical Christianity.
[Putting them 'on their feet' thus in no way alters their teleological
implications.]
Indeed, this is why external causation
was favoured by
empiricists,
'crude materialists' and assorted atheists (so much for it implying a 'push'
from 'god'), and it's also why DM-fans look askance at it. Just
like Hegel and other
mystics, they regard this approach to causation as irrational. [It's
also why some Marxists seem happy to confuse
reasons with
causes.]
And, it's why, for example, John Rees argued
this way:
"…the
cause of change [lies] within the system…and it cannot be conceived on the model
of linear cause and effect…. If change is internally generated, it must be a
result of contradiction, of instability and development as inherent properties
of the system itself." [Rees (1998), p.7.]
"[External
causation offers] mere
description, not explanation; the what, but not the how or the why."
[Ibid., p.7.]
This puts DM-fans in the rationalist wing
of traditional thought, and thus on the side of the 'Gods', as I pointed out
elsewhere:
This explains why Lenin could declare
that he preferred intelligent Idealism to "crude materialism".
"Intelligent idealism is
closer to intelligent materialism than stupid materialism.
"Dialectical idealism instead
of intelligent; metaphysical, undeveloped, dead, crude, rigid instead of
stupid." [Lenin (1961),
p.274.]
By nailing their colours to this ruling-class masthead, dialecticians
have placed themselves
on the side of the Gods.
Diodorus
Siculus is, in think, the originator of this image:
"When the
Gigantes
about
Pallene chose to begin war against the immortals,
Herakles
fought on the side of the gods, and slaying many of the Sons of
Ge
he received the highest approbation. For
Zeus gave the
name of Olympian only to those gods who had fought by his side, in order that
the courageous, by being adorned by so honourable a title, might be
distinguished by this designation from the coward; and of those who were born of
mortal women he considered only
Dionysos and
Herakles worthy of this name." [Diodorus
Siculus, Library of History 4.15.1.]
But, my reference is in fact an allusion
to an image in Plato's
Sophist,
one of his more profound surviving works. Indeed, that dialogue is the
principle source of much of
subsequent Idealism. The part reproduced below features a
conversation between an
Eleatic "Stranger" (who appears to be a follower of
Parmenides) and a character
called "Theaetetus":
"Stranger. We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers
who treat of being and not-being. But let us be content to leave them, and
proceed to view those who speak less precisely; and we shall find as the result
of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to comprehend as that of
not-being....
"...There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on amongst them; they
are fighting with one another about the nature of essence.
"Theaetetus. How is that?
"Stranger.
Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from the unseen to
earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and trees; of these they lay
hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or
handled have being or essence, because they define being and body as one, and if
any one else says that what is not a body exists they altogether despise him,
and will hear of nothing but body.
"Theaetetus. I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they are.
"Stranger.
And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend themselves from
above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that true essence consists of
certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; the bodies of the materialists,
which by them are maintained to be the very truth, they break up into little
bits by their arguments, and affirm them to be, not essence, but generation and
motion. Between the two armies, Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict
raging concerning these matters.
"Theaetetus. True.
"Stranger.
Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account of that which they call
essence.
"Theaetetus. How shall we get it out of them?
"Stranger.
With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will be less difficulty,
for they are civil people enough; but there will be very great difficulty, or
rather an absolute impossibility, in getting an opinion out of those who drag
everything down to matter. Shall I tell you what we must do?
"Theaetetus. What?
"Stranger.
Let us, if we can, really improve them; but if this is not possible, let us
imagine them to be better than they are, and more willing to answer in
accordance with the rules of argument, and then their opinion will be more worth
having; for that which better men acknowledge has more weight than that which is
acknowledged by inferior men. Moreover we are no respecters of persons, but
seekers after truth." [Plato
(1997c), pp.267-68, 246a-246d. I have used the on-line version here.]
The battle itself is described in Hesiod's
Theogony (lines 675-715), available
here.
From
this it's clear that Marxist Dialecticians are far closer to the Gods than they are
to the materialist Giants!
These competing ideas will be examined in
more detail Essay Fourteen Part One (summary
here). See
also Note 8,
Note 17 and
Note 22, below.
[Readers shouldn't conclude from this
that I favour external causation. In fact,
I reject both theories since they
are metaphysical and thus
non-sensical.]
5. Several
items from this dialectical menagerie were discussed at length in earlier Essays.
The Totality itself is the main topic of Essay Eleven Parts
One and
Two. HEX is outlined on detail
in Essay Ten Part One.
6.
This is a very odd claim, too. I will attempt to provide some rationale for it
in
Note 28,
below. Other dialecticians also argue that their 'internalist' account subverts
appeals to a supernatural explanation for the origin of the universe. [Anyway,
this claim of Trotsky's is connected with the origin of novelty, by means of
those obscure dialectical 'leaps'. However, as we saw in Essay Seven
Part
One, despite the fanfare, DM can't in fact account for novelty and change.]
Here is a selection of
quotations (greatly shortened once more -- it
wouldn't be difficult to extend it indefinitely)
illustrating this line of thought.
First, we have already seen Lenin argue this way:
"The
identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually
exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of
nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the
knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of
opposites. The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?)
conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase,
as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a
unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation).
"In the first conception of
motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive,
remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject,
etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to
knowledge of the source of 'self-movement'.
"The first conception is lifeless,
pale and dry. The second is living. The second
alone furnishes the key to the 'self-movement' of everything
existing; it alone furnishes the key to the 'leaps,' to the 'break in
continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of
the old and the emergence of the new.
"The
unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The
struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and
motion are absolute." [Lenin (1961),
pp.357-58. Italic emphases in
the original. Bold emphasis added.]
But, Engels himself had already set the precedent:
"The philosophy of nature
offered us a cosmogony whose starting point is a 'self-identical state of
matter', a state which can only be conceived by means of the most hopeless
confusion over the relation between matter and motion, and which, moreover, can
only be conceived on the assumption of an extramundane personal God who alone
can get it in motion...." [Engels (1976),
p.183.
Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
Cornforth once more elaborates this idea:
"The second dogmatic
assumption of mechanism is the assumption that no change can ever happen except
by the action of some external cause.
"Just as no part of a machine
moves unless another part acts on it and makes it move, so mechanism sees matter
as being inert -- without motion, or rather without self-motion. For mechanism,
nothing ever moves unless something else pushes or pulls is, it never changes
unless something else interferes with it.
"No wonder that, regarding
matter in this way, the mechanists had to believe in a Supreme Being to give the
"initial push"....
"No, the world was not
created by a Supreme Being. Any particular organisation of matter, any
particular process of matter in motion, has an origin and a beginning.... But
matter in motion had no origin, no beginning....
"So in studying the causes of
change, we should not merely seek for external causes of change, but should
above all seek for the source of change within the process itself, in its own
self-movement, in the inner impulses to development contained in things
themselves." [Cornforth (1976), pp.40-43.]
And, referring to the struggle of opposites, the following author proceeds to argue that:
"This law explains one of the
most important features of dialectical development: motion, development takes
place as self-motion, self-development. This concept
is highly relevant to materialism. It means that the world develops not as a
result of any external causes but by virtue of its own laws, the laws of motion
of matter itself. It has dialectical meaning because it indicates that the
source, the motive force of development of phenomena is to be found in
their internal contradictions. In the past some materialists who rejected
any supernatural force as a constant factor influencing natural processes
nevertheless had to fall back on the mysterious 'first impulse' that was
supposed to have set matter in motion.
"The dialectical doctrine
that the motion or development of nature is in fact self-motion,
self-development, explains why many contemporary bourgeois philosophers are
so vehement in their attacks on the proposition of the contradictory essence of
things. Development understood in this way leaves no room for a
'transcendental', mystical 'creative force' external to nature...."
[Konstantinov,
et al (1974), pp.144-45. Italic emphases in the original. Bold
emphases added.]
And,
here are two more communist theoreticians:
"...[Previous philosophers]
did not recognise the contradictoriness of being and were compelled, therefore,
either to reject motion, or turn to God, declaring Him the final cause of all
changes in the world. Heraclitus was the first to propose that contradiction is
the source of motion. Hegel, however, developed the idea on an idealist basis,
with respect to pure thought, but only dialectical materialism substantiated
this proposition on a truly scientific basis...." [Sheptulin (1978), p.266.]
"The source of the internal
activity of matter lies within it.... Motion is absolute, for it is unrelated to
anything external that could determine it. There is nothing else in the world
except eternally moving matter, its forms, properties and manifestations.
"Any way of constructing
[construing? RL] rest as absolute is as intolerable in the conception of motion,
as it is in the relativist interpretation of the latter. Many philosophers,
however, adhered precisely to such views since they regarded substance as
something inert and immutable, and explained the motion of natural bodies
through the action of an outside force. Logically this gave rise to the
following question: if one body sets another in motion, the latter a third,
etc., how then did they start to move? Who wound up the clock of the mechanism
of nature? Those who reasoned this way had to recognise the existence of
something that provided the initial impulse. Relative to seemingly motionless
nature such an entity could only be God...."
[Kharin
(1981), pp.63-64.]
However, if it should turn out that
dialecticians also appeal to external causes to account for the initiation of
change (as we will see they do), then the superiority of DM over mechanical
materialism simply disappears --, at least in this regard. On that, see
Note 28.
7. It's
not clear from what Rees says
whether or not he believes the universe is infinite -- in the sense that (1) It
had no beginning, or that (2) It is infinite in extent (bounded or unbounded), or
even that (3)
It is infinitely divisible. Clearly, if the universe had an
origin -- and unless we suppose it caused itself before it existed! --
it must have had an external cause. Of course, if space and time began with the
origin of the universe then that alternative would not appear to be available.
[Although, it's far from clear what it could mean to say that space and time had
a beginning. On that, see Rundle (2004).]
On the other hand, if the universe were
infinite (in every respect), and had no origin (as many DM-theorists still
believe, despite the BBT), our grasp of the idea that everything is
interconnected would become even less secure, if not worryingly precarious -- and that's not just because
there would be no "everything" to grasp if the universe were infinite.
[On this, see Robinson (2003), Rundle (2004), and Essay Eleven
Part One.]
[BBT = Big Bang Theory.]
Certainly, Lenin spoke as if he believed
nature was
infinite. [Lenin (1972), p.314.] Recently,
Woods and Grant have declare they also believe that the universe is infinite,
and in
both 'directions', as it were -- macroscopically and microscopically; cf.,
Woods and Grant (1995), pp.183-226. [Their
ideas will be examined in other Essays posted at this site.]
However, it looks like the failure of
scientists to substantiate key areas of the
Standard Model (such as the
existence of the
Higgs Boson and
Dark Matter) has given an apparently growing
body of other scientists the confidence to question the
BBT. [On this, see Chown (2003, 2004,
2005), Lerner (1992) and Mitchell (1995, 2002). Also worth consulting in this regard is Eric Lerner's
site.]
Clearly, this is something for scientists
themselves to sort out; it's not up to dialecticians or philosophers to tell
them what to think. [I am therefore taking no position on this.]
8. Idealism
Rears Its Ugly Head
[This forms part of Note 8. The
argument below continues from that presented in
Note 4, and is further continued in
Note 17, and Note 22.]
Rees's requirement here echoes an approach to
the foundations of empirical knowledge that has been adopted by most
metaphysicians since Greek times (and that includes Hegel), which is that only necessary or
conceptual truths are capable of explaining the "how" and the "why"
of things. Despite the fact that
he himself does this, Novack was quite clear about the issues involved:
"A consistent materialism cannot proceed from
principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition,
self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms
may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken
from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice...."
[Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]
Mixed in with this body of doctrine was the parallel belief that empirical evidence is an
inferior, if not a flawed basis on which to build such knowledge.
In Hegel's case, this
Platonic contempt for the material world appeared in many different forms: (1) As part of his dismissal of so-called "bad" infinities,
(2) In his disdain for
ordinary human "understanding" and (3) In the dichotomy he drew between
'appearance' and 'reality', and (4) His preference for a priori,
conceptual 'truths'
-- all of which are ancient aristocratic prejudices and have also been appropriated
uncritically by DM-theorists. As James White noted about German Idealism in
general:
"Already with
Fichte the
idea of the unity of the sciences, of system, was connected with that of finding
a reliable starting-point in certainty on which knowledge could be based.
Thinkers from
Kant
onwards were quite convinced that the kind of knowledge which came from
experience was not reliable. Empirical knowledge could be subject to error,
incomplete, or superseded by further observation or experiment. It would be
foolish, therefore, to base the whole of knowledge on something which had been
established only empirically. The kind of knowledge which Kant and his followers
believed to be the most secure was a priori knowledge, the kind embodied in the
laws of Nature. These had been formulated without every occurrence of the
Natural phenomenon in question being observed, so they did not summarise
empirical information, and yet they held good by necessity for every case; these
laws were truly universal in their application." [White (1996), p.29. Bold
emphasis added.]
In other
thinkers, this class-conscious contempt for ordinary understanding surfaces as part of
an almost universal disparagement of
the material language of the working-class
-- the vernacular --,
which is then confused (perhaps deliberately) with 'commonsense'.
This mind-set trades on an
ancient aristocratic view of material reality, which held that the
physical contingencies of the material world -- fit only for working people,
"engineers", "technicians", slaves, and the like -- is incapable of providing a solid
foundation for a truly philosophical explanation of "Being".
[In
Conner (2005)
(chapters 2 and 3) there's an excellent survey of this dismissive attitude
boss-class theorists in the Ancient World showed toward ordinary, empirical knowledge --, i.e., that which
is discovered
by, and is thus only of concern to, the 'lower
classes' -- aggravated by their open contempt for the lives and experiences of
ordinary working people. On later developments, see also Eamon (1994).]
This aristocratic tone was given its
classical form in Plato; his 'Gods and Giants' image was examined briefly
above, where it was pointed out that in this regard at
least, dialecticians are clearly on the side of the
'Gods'.
The political and ideological motivation behind this disdain
for the world of appearances, material language and empirical reality is
discussed in detail in Essays Nine
Part One, Twelve and Fourteen. [Summaries can be
accessed
here.]
A passage from Baker and Hacker (1988)
underlines the futility of this 'aristocratic' approach to knowledge
(although they do not use that particular word, and are not making this
particular political point!) -- which, incidentally, also
reveals why dialecticians (like Rees and the others quoted
here) have become fixated on a search for a metaphysical (and ultimately rational) "why" of things:
"Empirical, contingent truths have always
struck philosophers as being, in some sense, ultimately unintelligible. It is
not that none can be known with certainty…; nor is it that some cannot be
explained…. Rather is it that all explanation of empirical truths rests
ultimately on brute contingency -- that is how the world is! Where
science comes to rest in explaining empirical facts varies from epoch to epoch,
but it is in the nature of empirical explanation that it will hit the bedrock of
contingency somewhere, e.g., in atomic theory in the nineteenth century or in
quantum mechanics today. One feature that explains philosophers' fascination
with truths of Reason is that they seem, in a deep sense, to be fully
intelligible. To understand a necessary proposition is to see why things
must be so, it is to gain an insight into the nature of things and to apprehend
not only how things are, but also why they cannot be otherwise. It is striking
how pervasive visual metaphors are in philosophical discussions of these issues.
We see the universal in the particular (by Aristotelian intuitive
induction); by the Light of Reason we see the essential relations of Simple
Natures; mathematical truths are apprehended by Intellectual Intuition, or by
a priori insight. Yet instead of examining the use of these arresting
pictures or metaphors to determine their aptness as pictures, we build
upon them mythological structures.
"We think of necessary propositions as being
true or false, as objective and independent of our minds or will. We
conceive of them as being about various entities, about numbers even
about extraordinary numbers that the mind seems barely able to grasp…, or about
universals, such as colours, shapes, tones; or about logical entities, such as
the truth-functions or (in
Frege's case) the truth-values. We naturally think of
necessary propositions as describing the features of these entities,
their essential characteristics. So we take mathematical propositions to
describe mathematical objects…. Hence investigation into the domain of necessary
propositions is conceived as a process of discovery. Empirical scientists
make discoveries about the empirical domain, uncovering contingent truths;
metaphysicians, logicians and mathematicians appear to make discoveries of
necessary truths about a supra-empirical domain (a 'third realm'). Mathematics
seems to be the 'natural history of mathematical objects' [Wittgenstein (1978),
p.137], 'the physics of numbers' [Wittgenstein (1976), p.138; however these authors
have recorded this erroneously as p.139, RL] or the 'mineralogy of numbers'
[Wittgenstein (1978), p.229]. The mathematician, e.g.,
Pascal, admires the
beauty of a theorem as though it were a kind of crystal. Numbers seem to
him to have wonderful properties; it is as if he were confronting a beautiful
natural phenomenon [Wittgenstein (1998), p.47; again, these authors have recorded this
erroneously as p.41, RL]. Logic seems to investigate the laws governing logical
objects…. Metaphysics looks as if it is a description of the essential structure
of the world. Hence we think that a
reality corresponds to our (true) necessary propositions. Our logic is
correct because it corresponds to the laws of logic….
"In our eagerness to ensure the objectivity
of truths of reason, their
sempiternality and mind-independence, we slowly but
surely transform them into truths that are no less 'brutish' than empirical,
contingent truths. Why must red exclude being green? To be told that this
is the essential nature of red and green merely reiterates the brutish
necessity. A proof in arithmetic or geometry seems to provide an explanation,
but ultimately the structure of proofs rests on axioms. Their truth is
held to be self-evident, something we apprehend by means of our faculty of
intuition; we must simply see that they are necessarily true…. We may
analyse such ultimate truths into their constituent 'indefinables'. Yet if 'the
discussion of indefinables…is the endeavour to see clearly, and to make others
see clearly, the entities concerned, in order that the mind may have that kind
of acquaintance with them which it has with redness or the taste of a pineapple'
[Russell (1937), p.xv; again these authors have recorded this erroneously as p.v, RL],
then the mere intellectual vision does not penetrate the logical or metaphysical
that to the why or wherefore…. For if we construe necessary
propositions as truths about logical, mathematical or metaphysical entities
which describe their essential properties, then, of course, the final products
of our analyses will be as impenetrable to reason as the final products of
physical theorising, such as
Planck's constant." [Baker and Hacker (1988),
pp.273-75. Referencing conventions in the original have been altered to conform
to those adopted at this site.]
As should now be clear from all that has gone
before, DM-theorists have bought into this view of 'necessary truths' (even if
few of them use that particular phrase -- although Lenin and
Dietzgen
seem to have been rather fond of it; more on that in a later Essay).
For example, dialecticians in general see
change as the result of
the relation between internally-linked opposite (logical?) properties of objects and
processes. But, why this should cause change is left entirely unexamined (indeed, it is
left as a
brute fact, as the above passage suggests it always must -- in which
case, it's
just a fact about the world that 'contradictions' cause change). In reality, this
account of change is a consequence merely of a certain way of
describing things (and a fetishised way, at that), as we
will discover in Essay
Twelve Part One.
Nevertheless, as we have already
seen, there is no reason why contradictory states of affairs should cause
change any more than there is a reason to suppose that non-contradictory states
should. Both of these options rely on descriptions of the alleged
relations between objects and processes (not on evidence since
it's not possible to
verify or confirm their
existence); they supposedly capture or picture processes in nature that are held
capable of making other objects or processes change and/or 'develop'. How
and why they are able to do this is left as a brute fact.
Even an appeal to 'contradictory forces' --
in order
to explain why things change -- merely implicates yet more objects
and processes, more brute facts, none of which adds anything to the
'necessitation' that such an account supposedly promised, and now requires. In the end,
such forces depend on
certain descriptions of them being translated into the vocabulary of
QM (or some other branch of
Physics), and hence into
another set propositions expressing yet more brute facts. When asked why forces
must do what they do (or even why a
Field, say, is capable of making anything move) the only
response possible is: "They just do.... It's just a fact about
forces/Fields...". Indeed, as should seem plain,
Differential Equations,
Hamiltonians,
Matrices and the
Kronecker Delta can't actually move anything about the
place, or even deflect a single particle from its path.
Moreover, the infinite regress (or "bad
infinity") dialecticians hoped to avoid by appealing to 'internal
contradictions' now simply reappears elsewhere in
their theory. When it is fleshed-out, DM just relates objects
and processes to yet more objects and processes
(or yet more words about objects and processes), as well as
to 'negations', 'opposites', and 'interpenetrations', and the like (i.e., yet more "brute facts"
either about the world, or about how human beings are supposed (by
dialecticians) to think or talk), 'internal' to other objects and processes.
In all this, the necessitation that
was originally sought simply vanishes in an impenetrable mist of jargon (which leads "who
knows where?"). In this regard, the logical/'rational' foundation for knowledge
constructed by DM-advocates turns out to be no different in form from that concocted by traditional metaphysicians. In place
of the reasons we were promised (i.e., the "why and the how" of things), all we find are
yet more
DM-objects and processes
(or yet more
words about objects and processes) -- except, these have now been shunted off into a
mysterious, 'abstract' realm, fluffed-up with a handful of vague terms-of-art (like, "mediation", "unity in difference",
"internally related", "thing-in-itself"), of
convenient obscurity, all of which possess impressive Idealist credentials.
While DM-theorists promised the world a brand
new set of explanations, all they have served up is a batch of
shop-soiled goods
imported from
traditional philosophy comprised
almost entirely of jargonised expressions, masking the 'brute facts' hidden beneath, as Lenin acknowledged:
"The history of philosophy and the history of
social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling
'sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified
doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the
development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists
precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the
foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate
continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of
philosophy, political economy and socialism.
"The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive
and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable
with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It
is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth
century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and
French socialism." [Lenin,
Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism. Bold emphases alone
added.]
9. Clearly, Rees forgot about several other,
equally
possible options here.
"[N]ature forms a
totality, which it must unless we depart from materialism completely and become
believers in the supernatural…." [Ibid., p.78.]
For example, even if something were to exist outside the
universe, while it could be still be non-natural, it doesn't have to be supernatural.
Moreover, there might be other universes out there, which are no less natural
than ours.
To that end, in 2010 we read this from the
Physics ArXiv Blog at the MIT:
"Astronomers Find First
Evidence Of Other Universes
"There's something exciting afoot
in the world of cosmology. Last month,
Roger Penrose at the University of Oxford and
Vahe Gurzadyan
at Yerevan State University in Armenia announced that
they had found patterns of concentric circles in the
cosmic microwave background, the echo of the Big Bang.
"This, they say, is exactly what
you'd expect if the universe were eternally cyclical. By
that, they mean that each cycle ends with a big bang
that starts the next cycle. In this model, the universe
is a kind of cosmic Russian Doll, with all previous
universes contained within the current one.
"That's an extraordinary
discovery: evidence of something that occurred before
the (conventional) Big Bang.
"Today, another group says they've
found something else in the echo of the Big Bang. These
guys start with a different model of the universe called
eternal inflation. In this way of thinking, the universe
we see is merely a bubble in a much larger cosmos. This
cosmos is filled with other bubbles, all of which are
other universes where the laws of physics may be
dramatically different to ours.
"These bubbles probably had a
violent past, jostling together and leaving "cosmic
bruises" where they touched. If so, these bruises ought
to be visible today in the cosmic microwave background.
"Now Stephen Feeney at University
College London and a few pals say they've found
tentative evidence of this bruising in the form of
circular patterns in cosmic microwave background. In
fact, they've found four bruises, implying that our
universe must have smashed into other bubbles at least
four times in the past.
"Again, this is an extraordinary
result: the first evidence of universes beyond our own.
"So, what to make of these
discoveries. First, these effects could easily be a
trick of the eye. As Feeney and co acknowledge: 'it is
rather easy to find all sorts of statistically unlikely
properties in a large dataset like the CMB.' That's for
sure!
"There are precautions
statisticians can take to guard against this, which both
Feeney and Penrose bring to bear in various ways.
"But these are unlikely to settle
the argument. In the last few weeks, several groups have
confirmed Penrose's finding while others have found no
evidence for it. Expect a similar pattern for Feeney's
result.
"The only way to settle this will
be to confirm or refute the findings with better data.
As luck would have it, new data is forthcoming thanks to
the Planck spacecraft that is currently peering into the
cosmic microwave background with more resolution and
greater sensitivity than ever.
"Cosmologists should have a decent
data set to play with in a couple of years or so. When
they get it, these circles should either spring into
clear view or disappear into noise (rather like the
mysterious Mars face
that appeared in pictures of the red planet taken by
Viking 1 and then disappeared in the higher resolution
shots from the Mars Global Surveyor).
"Planck should settle the matter;
or, with any luck, introduce an even better mystery. In
the meantime, there's going to be some fascinating
discussion about this data and what it implies about the
nature of the Universe. We'll be watching." [Taken from
here. Quotation marks altered to conform to the
conventions adopted at this site; minor typos
corrected.]
And this from Science Daily (in August
2011):
"Is
Our Universe Inside a Bubble? First Observational Test of the
'Multiverse'
"Science Daily (Aug. 3, 2011)
-- The theory that our universe is contained inside a
bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside
their own bubbles -- making up the 'multiverse' -- is, for
the first time, being tested by physicists.
"Two research papers published in
Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D are
the first to detail how to search for signatures of other
universes. Physicists are now searching for disk-like patterns
in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation -- relic heat
radiation left over from the Big Bang -- which could provide
tell-tale evidence of collisions between other universes and our
own.
"Many modern theories of fundamental
physics predict that our universe is contained inside a bubble.
In addition to our bubble, this 'multiverse' will contain
others, each of which can be thought of as containing a
universe. In the other 'pocket universes' the fundamental
constants, and even the basic laws of nature, might be
different.
"Until now, nobody had been able to find a
way to efficiently search for signs of bubble universe
collisions -- and therefore proof of the multiverse -- in the
CMB radiation, as the disc-like patterns in the radiation could
be located anywhere in the sky. Additionally, physicists needed
to be able to test whether any patterns they detected were the
result of collisions or just random patterns in the noisy data.
"A team of cosmologists based at
University College London (UCL), Imperial College London and the
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics has now tackled this
problem.
"'It's a very hard statistical and
computational problem to search for all possible radii of the
collision imprints at any possible place in the sky,' says Dr
Hiranya Peiris, co-author of the research from the UCL
Department of Physics and Astronomy. 'But that's what pricked my
curiosity.'
"The team ran simulations of what the sky
would look like with and without cosmic collisions and developed
a ground-breaking algorithm to determine which fit better with
the wealth of CMB data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). They put the first observational
upper limit on how many bubble collision signatures there could
be in the CMB sky.
"Stephen Feeney, a PhD student at UCL who
created the powerful computer algorithm to search for the
tell-tale signatures of collisions between 'bubble universes,'
and co-author of the research papers, said: 'The work represents
an opportunity to test a theory that is truly mind-blowing: that
we exist within a vast multiverse, where other universes are
constantly popping into existence.'
"One of many dilemmas facing physicists is
that humans are very good at cherry-picking patterns in the data
that may just be coincidence. However, the team's algorithm is
much harder to fool, imposing very strict rules on whether the
data fits a pattern or whether the pattern is down to chance.
"Dr Daniel Mortlock, a co-author from the
Department of Physics at Imperial College London, said: 'It's
all too easy to over-interpret interesting patterns in random
data (like the 'face on Mars' that, when viewed more closely,
turned out to just a normal mountain), so we took great care to
assess how likely it was that the possible bubble collision
signatures we found could have arisen by chance.'
"The authors stress that these first
results are not conclusive enough either to rule out the
multiverse or to definitively detect the imprint of a bubble
collision. However, WMAP is not the last word: new data
currently coming in from the European Space Agency's Planck
satellite should help solve the puzzle." [Taken from
here. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions
adopted a this site.]
Of course, if Nature in its entirety is
co-extensive with the "Totality", this option (that there are natural events and
processes outside our universe/"Totality") will be closed off, but as we will
see in Essay Eleven Part One,
DM-theorists have so far failed to tell us what their "Totality" comprises or
covers.
And, it's worth asking what the word "supernatural" means
anyway. Knee-jerk atheists seem to think that the term "supernatural" is readily
comprehensible; but if it isn't then P2 doesn't even count as a definition:
P2:
Anything external to the universe is supernatural.
However, if "supernatural" itself
means something like "external to nature" then it seems that the word "external" must either lose
its own sense (in such a context -- if there is or can be nothing external to
the universe, then 'it' cannot be anything in particular, let alone 'supernatural'), or it ought to take on a new sense --
rather like the way that the word "number" alters its meaning as we flip through the different sets:
ℕ,
ℤ,
ℚ,
ℝ
and
ℂ.
So, anything 'external' to the
currently defined set of all numbers is not a number (that is, until new sets are
defined).
[ℕ
is the set of
natural numbers (0, 1, 2,
3, ...); ℤ
is the set of
integers (..., -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...);
ℚ
is the set of
rational numbers (impossible to list; this
set includes all previous sets, but also incorporates all those numbers that can be expressed as a ratio of
two integers -- i.e., as factions or terminating and recurring decimals); ℝ
is the set of
real numbers (this includes the previous set, and the so-called
'irrationals' -- numbers that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers,
such as one of the square roots of two, or
Pi);
ℂ is the set of
complex numbers (of
the form "a + bi", where "i" is the one of the square roots of -1, and "a" and "b" are real
numbers).]
Is this the case with "supernatural"? If we
extend our definitions, will it one day make sense? [Clearly not, but that fact,
if it is one, would
be impossible to substantiate using the Stone Age Logic and rusty conceptual tools
that DM supplies its adepts.]
But, if there is nothing external to the
universe (not even space), then that claim itself must lack a clear sense -- as
must its denial. [On this,
see Rundle (2004), again.]
10.
Modern-day
Thomists (or even
quasi-Thomists) are more sophisticated in their
defence of the COMA than many Marxists realise; and
'internalist' ideas are alive and well, too,
unfortunately.
More
details on these and other mystical systems, along with their connection with DM, will be given in
Essay Fourteen (summary
here).
[COMA
=
Cosmological Argument.]
[However,
my objections to this
equally pernicious brand of Mysticism will not be aired at this site.]
11. This
is discussed in more detail in Essay Ten
Part One, and in Essay Three Part Three.
12. Naturally, the use of the phrase
"antagonistic forces" makes sense when it's employed in HM. That is because it's human beings (i.e., agents) who shape history under the action of economic, social
and class forces (where the word "force" is interpreted in its ordinary sense),
which does not take place as a result of impersonal "forces" (except, of course, those implicated in the "forces
of production").
Moreover, language gives human actors the capacity to form intra-, and inter-contradictory
beliefs about both their own circumstances and their material interests (which
are, albeit, not always
clearly perceived). Certainly, social and
economic factors condition these factors, and are conditioned by them in return. Hence, in
general, the aims and interests of agents drawn from one class cannot
be reconciled with those of other classes. Such aims and interests are thus rightly said to
be "contradictory" because they represent outcomes not all of which can be
realised by all parties at once, and not all of which cannot (without one
or more ceasing to exist), in such
circumstances. [On this, see
here.]
To be sure, this interpretation lets all the metaphysical hot air out
of this particular a priori DM-balloon -- which over-inflated system would have us believe that
impersonal 'contradictions' have the capacity to cause change as if they were
agents of some sort themselves.
The view (briefly) outlined here has at least this going for it: it restricts
contradictions to what human beings can say, think and do -- as one should expect
to be the case with a term that only sensibly relates to human practice -- while
it rightly denies it of things that cannot speak or think for themselves.
Admittedly, these comments are
sketchy in the extreme, but further elaboration would take us too far afield into HM.
[In addition, I do not want to get sidetracked
into a discussion of the meaning of that rather obscure term "mediated". As this
word features in Hegelian Metaphysics, it's far from clear whether it can be transposed into a scientific context
without suffering major distortion (always assuming it has a clear meaning
to begin with). Cf., Inwood (1992), pp.205-08.]
13. Of course, there could be a hierarchy
of systems, any one of which contains the sub-systems below it in the ontological pecking
order, as it were. This option will be considered presently.
14. This is discussed briefly in
Note 10, above, and again
below.
However, it is a
moot point exactly what could count
as an external cause/contradiction in a dialectical system. If everything is
interconnected and is part of a mediated Totality, there would seem to be no
room for external causation at all -- and hence no room for "external
contradictions". As noted
earlier, it is only by confusing what is meant to be a logical with a spatial
(topological)
relation, that dialecticians have allowed themselves to imagine
there could be external contradictions to begin with (a notion that seems
foreign to Hegel's system, upside down or 'the right way up'). We will return to this
theme later where we will see that it is mainly STDs and MISTs who have fallen
into this trap -- just as we will see in Essay Nine
Part Two that this theoretical
dodge also presented them with a handy ideological
'rationale' for the doctrine that
socialism could be built in one country, with all the disastrous consequences
that this idea brought in its train. [On the serious problems this creates
for dialecticians, see
here and here.]
[STD = Stalinist
Dialectician; MIST = Maoist Dialectician.]
15. I
will explain presently what I count as a system.
15a.
I have avoided using the formal techniques of
Mereology
here for obvious reasons. These can be found in, for example,
Simons (1987) and
Varzi
(2009).
16.
This appears to be the view at least of
Ollman (in Ollman (1976, 1993, 2003)); more on this in Essay Four Part Two, where
'internal relations' will be destructively criticised.
Nevertheless, this caveat is required in order to
harmonise the claim made by other dialecticians (who are mostly Stalinists) that
change is induced externally, as well as to allow the incorporation of
opposing forces as
surrogate 'internal' relations. On this view, even though forces would appear
to act as external causes, they actually operate internally on bodies, causing
change. [Here, external relations are merely mis-perceived or mis-identified internal
relations, it
seems. Notice, however, the continual slide between geometric and logical
senses of "internal",
mentioned earlier.]
This avenue of escape will be exposed as a dead end in Part
Two of this Essay, and
also partially in Note
28,
below.
See also Note 17, and Note 23.
17.
[This continues the argument developed in
Note 4 and Note 8.]
"Bad infinity" is
an Hegelian term, and is roughly equivalent to "endless" in the sense that the
number line is endless. The "true infinite" is endless but bounded, rather like
a circle. On this , see
Inwood (1992),
pp.139-42.
This was, of course, part of the reason why
Leibniz opted for a 'logical'
solution to the 'problem' of
causation. In order to provide an ultimate, 'rational'
explanation of the world, external
causes had to be re-written as internal causes in disguise, which led Leibniz to
postulate the existence of
'Monads'.
These were tiny 'minds' programmed to behave as if they had external effects
on each other -- but they were in fact all logically inter-connected by means of
their 'pre-programmed, pre-installed predicates' -- enabling them to self-moving
but also to act as if they had an external effect on one another. They were
also hermetically-sealed-off from the rest of nature
(they were thus "window-less", as he put it) -- even though all their
predicates contained logical links to every other monad. [This is indeed the
origin of the 'containment' metaphor Kant used to distinguish
Analytic from Synthetic truths, an idea Hegel also employed.]
As George Ross notes:
"During the
middle of the seventeenth century, there was a growing consciousness of a divide
between two rival and apparently incompatible world-views. On the one hand,
there was the materialist, mechanist picture, according to which the world was
to be understood exclusively in terms of particles of matter interacting with
each other in accordance with the laws of motion. On the other hand, there was
the spiritualist, occultist picture, according to which some or all natural
phenomena were to be understood in terms of the sympathies and antipathies of
spiritual beings acting purposefully. An important dimension of Leibniz’s
philosophy was his project of synthesising these two approaches through a new
set of concepts which would do justice to the insights of each.
"Leibniz's best
known concept is that of a monad, literally a 'unit'. At all
periods, commentators have found it difficult to decide whether his monads were
fundamentally infinitesimal atoms of matter, though described somewhat
paradoxically, or whether they were thoroughly spiritual realities, little
different from the vital principles of occultist philosophers. Along with
Leibniz himself, it could be said that both interpretations are right in what
they assert, and wrong in what they implicitly deny. His monads were indeed both
the atomic foundations of the material world, and the basis of an organic and
holistic interpretation of reality. But for his synthesis to work, his
ultimate entities had to be neither simply material, nor spiritual
-- they had to be immaterial, but without ending up as the invisible spirits,
demons, and angels, and the such-like of the occultist world-view.
"In fact he
accepted the basic assumption of the new philosophy that explanations of
particular events had to be in terms of mechanical interactions between material
particles. He was, indeed, an extremist, in asserting that all events,
including human thoughts and behaviour, could be given purely mechanical
explanations. For Leibniz, materialists were definitely right in what they
asserted, and spiritualists were wrong to deny the universality of mechanical
causation. On the other hand, he also saw the orthodox mechanical philosophy as
hopelessly one-sided. In his view, its limitations could be made good only by
recognising the positive insights of spiritualism. I shall outline just two of
the more serious shortcomings he found in crude materialism.
"The first
difficulty was that the atomic constituents of matter, or spatially extended
substance, could not themselves be spatially extended. This is a consequence of
the infinite divisibility of space. However small you take atoms to be, you can
still consider them as compounds of smaller parts, and hence not truly atomic.
But if you make atoms into indivisible, mathematical points, then they are too
small to be characterised by the spatial properties traditionally held essential
to matter, such as solidity, size, and shape.
"Instead,
Leibniz defined the essence of matter in terms of its dynamic properties.
What distinguished solid matter from empty space, or from immaterial things like
ghosts or rainbows, was essentially its power to resist penetration or
acceleration. He thus circumvented the problem of indivisibility by making the
essence of matter a power, or force, or energy -- the terms were interchangeable
in his day. Since there was no logical absurdity in conceiving a quantum of
energy as existing at a mathematical point, Leibniz's monads could therefore
function as energy-points.
"The second
main difficulty he saw in materialism was its inability to explain the basic
process of mechanical interaction itself, namely the transfer of energy from one
material particle to another by pushing or colliding into it. At any level, it
was possible to give a provisional explanation in terms of the elasticity of the
particles composing colliding bodies. So, when two objects collide, the
particles of each are first compressed, and then spring back again from each
other, thus reconverting elastic forces back into kinetic energy. But this gets
us no nearer to understanding the underlying process of energy transference,
since it presupposes precisely the same processes at a more microscopic level:
the elasticity of the particles can be explained only in terms of their
elastic sub-particles, and so on to infinity. To explain mechanical interaction
as mediated by a sub-mechanism merely postpones any solution to the problem of
interaction itself.
"As before,
Leibniz got round the difficulty by conceptualising the situation in a radically
different way. He saw it as a mistake to picture mechanical interaction as
consisting in the handing over of parcels of energy from one physical object to
another. Really, the colliding body merely functioned as a stimulus to which the
other body responded of its own accord. As we all know, every force has an equal
and opposite reaction. Leibniz held that colliding bodies reacted by virtue of
their own reactive forces. In his terminology, all action was spontaneous.
"However, this
gave rise to a new difficulty. Orthodox mechanists explained everything as blind
reactions to imposed forces. But if all actions were to be spontaneous, how
could monads register what stimuli they were receiving, and react to them in
such a way as to avoid complete chaos in the universe? In order to preserve the
harmony of things, monads had, in some sense, to 'know' what everything
else was doing, and to be motivated to promote the harmony of the whole.
"In the light
of these requirements, it is hardly surprising that Leibniz was reduced to
metaphor and analogy. In order to express his ideas, he adopted the terminology
of spiritualism. He said that monads were like souls, only unconscious: they
were sources of energy and spontaneous activity; they perceived their spatial
environment without themselves being spatial; and they acted purposefully in
accordance with a motivation towards the best." [Ross
(1983b). Emphases in the origin.]
Hegel adapted this idea, enlarged
it grotesquely in the direction of
Spinoza -- pebble-dashing it along the way
with lorry loads of gobbledygook -- subsequently burying the lot in the self-development of
his cosmic
'Super Ego' (the 'Absolute').
Hence, everything in his
mystical world was self-moving and inter-linked, as a result.
Engels and Lenin simply
swallowed this croc.
[Why
the above comrades did this is the subject of Essay Nine
Part Two. The
Hermetic origin of these notions will be detailed in Essay Fourteen Part One (summary
here). See also
here, and
Note 22 below.]
On
Leibniz's early development, see Mercer (2001); on his occult influences,
see Ross (1983a,
1998). The theological background to all this
can be found in Osler (2004); in that, see
here.
18.
It would be rather like,
say,
Darwin
forgetting to note the fact that the fossil record was inconsistent with his
theory (which, as it turns out, he didn't in fact ignore, but attempted to explain). On the problems
that this still poses for his theory, see
Schwartz (1999).
19. The
'Nixon' card is in fact a underhanded ploy based on the following
series of events: in
the run-up to the 1968 US Presidential election,
Richard Nixon announced
that he had a 'secret
plan' to end the Vietnam War, which plan he couldn't reveal since that would
defeat the purpose. As things turned out,
he had no plan -- except perhaps to expand the war into Cambodia!
So,
in order to 'Nixon' a problem, all a theorist has to do is declare that it has
been "solved", and then refuse to explain any further.
In
this area of DM, this ploy would involve a dialectician claiming that the world was maximally interconnected
even though all its parts are at the same time maximally isolated from one
another, and that DL allows this contradiction to be "grasped".
End of story.
However, this particular 'problem' has been created entirely by DL; the 'solution' on offer
helps not one iota in understanding what it could possibly mean to suggest that everything is
maximally discrete and maximally interconnected, all at once.
Waving a few jargonised phrases about might satisfy the ever-dwindling
band of DM-fans this planet has left (few of whom can come to much agreement
over what these
jargonised words mean, anyway), but that's about all.
20. This much was clear to
Zeno.
There is a useful summary of this 'paradox' in Pyle (1997).
The implications of this horn of the dilemma are reasonably clear: if systems
are composed of sub-systems -- 'to infinity', meaning there are no simple
objects -- then there are in fact no "internal contradictions". What might
appear to be "internal contradictions" will, upon further analysis, turn out to
be "external contradictions". [On this, see
Note 23, below.]
If it is responded that although the above
contradictions might appear to be external, they are still internal to an
encompassing sub-system, no matter how far we analysed the whole set of nested
sub-systems. Indeed, these contradictions would be internal to the collection of
nested sub-systems.
But, in that case, what is to stop a
'Dialectical Theist' from claiming that what might appear to atheists to be an
"external push" in relation to the universe is in fact "internal" to the entire
system including 'God' -- called "Reality", or "Being"?
Be this as it may, this option will merely
reproduce its own "bad infinity"
that this approach to change was meant to avoid. This "bad infinity" will
unravel in the opposite direction, as it were; instead of a "bad infinity"
expanding ever outwards, this one will spiral ever downwards, never reaching a
rational conclusion.
[At least theists have a 'rational
conclusion'!]
Of course,
if this series of sub-systems inside
sub-systems go on to infinity, the time taken for anything to happen (as
infinite sets of sub-systems and their assorted 'internal contradictions') would
be infinite too. Nothing would happen in this DM-universe (or it would take
billions of years for kettles to boil).
No matter how speedy these contradictions
are, an infinite number of them would take an infinite time to work through.
After all, for any positive integer, n:
Ào
x