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Essay Twelve Part One: Why All Philosophical Theories -- Including Dialectical Materialism -- Are Incoherent Non-Sense

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As is the case with all my Essays, nothing here should be read as an attack either on Historical Materialism [HM] -- a theory I fully accept --, or, indeed, on revolutionary socialism. I remain as committed to the self-emancipation of the working class and the dictatorship of the proletariat as I was when I first became a revolutionary thirty-five years ago.

The difference between Dialectical Materialism [DM] and HM, as I see it, is explained here.

First of all, it is important to point out that phrases like "ruling-class theory", "ruling-class view of reality", "ruling-class ideology" (etc.) used at this site (in connection with Traditional Philosophy and DM), aren't meant to suggest that all or even most members of various ruling-classes actually invented these ways of thinking or of seeing the world (although some of them did -- for example, Heraclitus, Plato, Cicero, and Marcus Aurelius). They are intended to highlight theories (or "ruling ideas") that are conducive to, or which rationalise the interests of the various ruling-classes history has inflicted on humanity, whoever invents them. Up until recently this dogmatic approach to knowledge had almost invariably been promoted by thinkers who either relied on ruling-class patronage, or who, in one capacity or another, helped run the system for the elite.**

However, that will become the central topic of Parts Two and Three of Essay Twelve (when they are published); until then, the reader is directed here, here, and here for more details.

[**Exactly how this applies to DM will be explained in the other Essays published at this site (especially here, and here, as well as later in this Essay). In addition to the three links in the previous paragraph, I have summarised the argument (but this time aimed at absolute beginners!) here.]

Second, this has been one of the most difficult Essays to write, since (i) It tackles issues that have sailed right over the heads of some of the greatest minds in history, and (ii) It far from easy to expose the core weaknesses of Traditional Philosophy in everyday language, even though, after well over fifty re-writes, I think I have largely managed to do this.

I hasten to add, though, that I claim no particular originality for what follows (except, perhaps its highly simplified mode of presentation and its political re-orientation); much of it has in fact been derived from Wittgenstein's work, and, less importantly, from that of other Wittgensteinians.

However, I have tried as far as possible to keep the material presented below free of academic complexities since it is aimed at fellow revolutionaries, not scholars or professional philosophers. In that case, those who would like to read more substantial versions of the approach to language and Traditional Philosophy I have adopted here should consult the relevant works I have referenced in the End Notes (and in several other Essays on language to be published at this site over the coming years -- for example, Essay Thirteen Part Three).

Apologies are therefore owed in advance to those who know enough of Wittgenstein's work to make the ideas rehearsed in this Essay seem rather trite and banal, but experience has taught me that the vast majority of Marxists aren't well-versed in this area of Analytic Philosophy -- nor do they find it at all easy to appreciate the relevance of this approach to theory, let alone grasp its significance. [I have addressed some of their qualms about Wittgenstein, here, here, and here.]

So, I have worded this Essay with them in mind, which means that I have had to make things as straight-forward as possible.

Several readers have complained about the number of links I have added to these Essays because they say it makes them very difficult to read. Of course, DM-supporters can hardly lodge that complaint since they believe everything is interconnected, and that must surely apply even to Essays that attempt to debunk that very idea. However, to those who find these links do make these Essays difficult to read I say this: ignore them -- unless you want to access further supporting evidence and argument for a particular point, or a certain topic fires your interest.

Others wonder why I have added links to subjects or issues that are part of common knowledge (such as recent Presidents of the USA, UK Prime Ministers, the names of rivers and mountains, films, or certain words that are in common usage). I have done so for the following reason: my Essays are read all over the world and by people from all 'walks of life', so I can't assume that topics which are part of common knowledge in 'the west' are equally well-known across the planet -- or, indeed, by those who haven't had the benefit of the sort of education that is generally available in the 'advanced economies', or any at all. Many of my readers also struggle with English, so any help I can give them I will continue to provide.

Finally on this specific topic, several of the aforementioned links connect to web-pages that regularly change their URLs, or which vanish from the Internet altogether. While I try to update these links when it becomes apparent that they have changed or have disappeared, I cannot possibly keep on top of this all the time. I would greatly appreciate it, therefore, if readers informed me of any dead links they happen to notice.

In general, links to 'Haloscan' no longer seem to work, so readers needn't tell me about them! Links to RevForum, RevLeft, Socialist Unity and The North Star also appear to have died.

Incidentally, some might be tempted to conclude that the ideas presented in what follows are indistinguishable from the discredited theories put forward by the Logical Empiricists/ Positivists. I respond to that erroneous inference here.

Nevertheless, the ideas presented below in no way affect the negative case against DM developed at this site -- but they do help form the basis of my positive account of the origin of the a priori doctrines found in both DM and Traditional Thought.

Third, connected with the above are the following words of warning: This Essay is much more repetitive than many of the others published at this site. Experience has also taught me that if the difficult ideas it contains aren't repeated many times they either tend not to sink in or their significance is easily lost -- this is especially so with respect to the Marxist readers mentioned above.

Fourth: a good 50% of my case against DM and Traditional Philosophy has been relegated to the End Notes. This has been done to allow the Essay itself to flow a little more smoothly. Naturally, this means that if readers want to appreciate more fully my case against DM and Traditional Thought, they should also consult this material. In many cases, I have added numerous qualifications, clarifications, and considerably more detail to what I have had to say in the main body. In addition, I have raised several objections (some obvious, many not -- and some that might have occurred to the reader) to my own arguments, which I have then answered. [I explain why I have adopted this tactic in Essay One.]

If readers skip this material, then my answers to any qualms or objections readers might have will be missed, as will my expanded comments, references and clarifications.

Fifth, on a more technical note: In this Essay, although I refer to the sense of a proposition (i.e., those conditions under which it would be deemed true or those under which it would be deemed false), this is merely shorthand for the requirement of (true/false) bi-polarity for empirical propositions (i.e., propositions concerning matters of fact). This contraction has been adopted to save on needless complexity in what is not meant to be an academic Essay. Bipolarity (not to be confused with the so-called 'Law of Excluded Middle' [LEM]) is taken to be a constitutive requirement for anything to be counted as an empirical (i.e., factual) proposition.

[However, concerning my alleged appeal to, or use of, the LEM, see here and here.]

The subtle differences between these two ways of characterising the sense of a proposition -- indeed, what the sense of a proposition and what the LEM actually are -- are explained here, here, here, and here. [See also Palmer (1996).] However, because this isn't meant to be an academic Essay, I have deliberately on occasion blurred the distinction between bi-polarity and the LEM. In addition to this, the reader's attention is also drawn to the difference between "non-sense" and "nonsense", as these two terms are used throughout this Essay. Incidentally, "sense" is explained here. ⁰¹

Sixth: I have also blurred the distinction one would normally want to draw between propositions, sentences and statements since I do not want to become bogged down with technical issues in the Philosophy of Logic or the Philosophy of Language; even so, it will soon become apparent that I prefer to use "proposition".

[On this, see Geach (1972b, 1972c). Also see Glock (2003), pp.102-36, and Hacker (1996), p.288, n.65. (Nevertheless, it shouldn't be assumed that Geach would agree with everything the other authors have to say, nor vice versa -- or, indeed, with anything posted at this site!)]

Finally: throughout this Essay, I have used rather stilted expressions such as: "It is possible to understand an empirical proposition without knowing whether it is true or knowing whether it is false", as opposed to "It is possible to understand an empirical proposition without knowing whether it is true or false". I explain why I have adopted this odd way of expressing myself here.

As of July 2023, this Essay is just over 167,000 words long; a much shorter summary of some of its main ideas can be found here. I have now written an even more concise summary of one of the core ideas presented in this Essay, entitled Why All Philosophical Theories Are Non-sensical.

The material presented below does not represent my final view of any of the issues raised; it is merely 'work in progress'.

Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections.

If your Firewall/Browser has a pop-up blocker, you will need to press the "Ctrl" key at the same time or these and the other links here won't work, anyway!

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(2) Demonstrate how and why all philosophical theories (and not just DM) collapse into incoherent non-sense (Part One);

(3) Show that Metaphysics and hence (derivatively) DM are ruling-class forms-of-thought (Parts Two and Three);

(4) (i) Trace Metaphysics and DM (again) back to their origin in early forms of class society;

(ii) Connect them with the various 'world-views' directly or indirectly promoted or patronised by successive generations of ruling elites;

(iii) Demonstrate that, despite their many differences, there is an identifiable theoretical thread running through all of the above; and,

(iv) Connect these with a servile ideology that finds expression in Traditional Thought (Parts Two, Three, and Four);

(5) Substantiate the accusation that DM is a third-rate version of LIE (Part Four);

(6) Expose the Mystical Christian and Hermetic doctrines found in Hegel's work for what they are: sub-logical and incoherent non-sense (upside down or 'the right way up') (Parts Five and Six);

(7) Argue that the defence of ordinary language is a class issue (Part Seven).

[LIE = Linguistic Idealism (follow that link for an explanation); DM = Dialectical Materialism/Materialist depending on the context; MEC = Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, i.e., Lenin (1972); TAR = The Algebra of Revolution, i.e., Rees (1998).]

This will make Essay Twelve easily the longest work at this site, hence its division into Seven Parts.

However, my ideas on many of these issues are still in their formative stage, so much of this material will be published far more slowly than they have been in other Essays at this site, and as such they will all be revised continually.

As indicated above, each of these topics will be tackled in various Parts of this Essay, but to address the first two we need to examine a rather odd assertion advanced by Lenin.

M1: "[M]otion without matter is unthinkable." [Lenin (1972), p.318. Italic emphasis in the original.]

"The whole of nature accessible to us forms a system, an interconnected totality of bodies, and by bodies we understand here all material existence extending from stars to atoms, indeed right to ether particles, in so far as one grants the existence of the last named. In the fact that these bodies are interconnected is already included that they react on one another, and it is precisely this mutual reaction that constitutes motion. It already becomes evident here that matter is unthinkable without motion." [Engels (1954), p.70. Bold emphasis added.]

Both Lenin and Engels were asserting typically metaphysical 'propositions'. Dialecticians will, of course, reject that particular claim, but that repudiation would itself be as hasty as it is misguided. [Why that is so is explained below, and in Note 1, but more specifically, here.]

Sentences like M1/M1a purport to inform us of fundamental truths about 'reality', valid for all of space and time -- albeit in this case disguised as part of Lenin's admission of his own incredulity. [Henceforth, I will simply refer to M1a.]

Nevertheless, we aren't to conclude from M1a that Lenin was merely recording his own personal feelings or opinions. On the contrary, he certainly believed that matter and motion were fundamental aspects of "objective reality", that they were inseparable and that this was a scientific, or even a philosophical, fact. That was because, just like Engels, he held the view that motion was "the mode of the existence of matter" -– that is, he believed that matter couldn't exist without motion, nor vice versa. Motion was therefore one of the principal ways, if not the principle way, that matter expressed itself "objectively", exterior to the mind.¹

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases alone added.]

"Motion in the most general sense, conceived as the mode of existence, the inherent attribute, of matter, comprehends all changes and processes occurring in the universe, from mere change of place right up to thinking." [Engels (1954), p.69. Bold emphasis added.]²

In that case, the import of M1a may perhaps be paraphrased in one or more of the following ways:

The metaphysical nature of Lenin's pronouncement can be seen by the way it bypassed the need for any supporting evidence. For Lenin (and Engels), this was such an obvious truth about the connection between matter and motion that to deny it was deemed "unthinkable".

Nevertheless, if humanity had access to evidence and information about motion and matter many orders of magnitude greater than is available even today, that still wouldn't be enough to show that the separation of matter from motion is impossible, let alone unthinkable. No amount of data could warrant such an extreme view. While it might in the end prove to be false that the two can be separated, its "unthinkability" can't be derived from any body of evidence, no matter how large it happened to be. As, indeed, Engels admitted:

So, evidence alone can't supply the necessity, the inconceivability or the unthinkability that these two DM-theorists claim to be able to see here. If not, the question immediately arises: from where does this idea originate? As is the case with other DM-'Laws', maybe it arises from a "law of cognition"?

"This aspect of dialectics…usually receives inadequate attention: the identity of opposites is taken as the sum total of examples…and not as a law of cognition (and as a law of the objective world)." [Lenin (1961) p.357. Bold emphasis alone added.]

Be this as it may, the above claims (about the metaphysical nature of DM-theories like this and the lack of conclusive evidential support) might strike some readers as rather controversial, if not completely misguided. In that case, much of the rest of this Essay will be aimed at explaining, defending and substantiating them.

The seemingly profound nature of statements like M1a is linked to rather more mundane features of the language in which they are expressed; that is, they are connected with the fact that their main verb is often in the indicative mood. Sometimes, subjunctive and modal qualifying terms are thrown in for good measure, which only succeeds in creating an even more misleading picture.

As we are about to discover, this superficial indicative veneer hides a much deeper logical form that only becomes obvious if sentences like these are examined more closely.

As noted above, expressions like these look like they reveal, or express, profound truths about reality, and that is because they resemble empirical propositions -- i.e., propositions about matters of fact. In the event, they turn out to be nothing like them.

This can be seen if we examine the following, similar-looking, indicative sentences:

M2-M9 appear to share the same form: "ξ is F" -- or sometimes "ξ is a φ-er", or perhaps more accurately "ξ φ-ies".

[The use of Greek letter gap markers (i.e., "ξ") was explained in Essay Three Part One. "F(...)" is a general predicate variable, while "φ(...)" is a more specific variable letter standing for clauses like "...owns a copy of TAR", "...fibs more often than not", "...runs tens miles at least four times a week", or "...thinks something is unthinkable", etc. In what follows, when I refer to logical differences, I generally have in mind those aspects of indicative sentences that affect their capacity to be true or their capacity to be false, or, indeed, those that are relevant to the inferences we can validly draw from, or with, them.]

The logical difference of concern here between, for instance, M6 and M2 lies in the fact that knowing that M2 is true goes hand-in-hand with (at least claiming to) understand it; and vice versa: (claiming to) understand M2 is of a piece with knowing it is true. These conditions are inextricably linked. That is, (any claim to be able to) comprehend M2 is one and the same as knowing it is true. Anyone who failed to see things the way they are expressed in M2 would be judged not to understand the use of number words like this.^3a

On the other hand, it isn't necessary to know whether M6 is true, or to know whether M6 is false, in order to (claim to) understand it. Indeed, it is a pretty safe bet that everyone reading these words will understand M6 even though they haven't a clue whether or not it is true. So, comprehending M6 isn't the same as knowing it is true.

[In future, I will omit the prefixing clauses "claim to" and "claiming to" (etc.), but they should be understood to be applicable where relevant in what follows -- unless stated otherwise.]

Nevertheless, knowing what would make M6 true, or would make it false, is integral to understanding it -- even if neither of those options has yet been ascertained, or will ever be ascertained. Again, it is a pretty safe bet that the vast majority of those reading this Essay will be able to say what would make M6 true and what would make it false even if they have no idea which of these is actually the case. Indeed, they will understand M6 even if they never find out whether it is true, or whether it is false -- or care about ascertaining either option.

[The significance of these comments will become apparent as this Essay unfolds -- for instance, here.]

So, it isn't necessary to know whether Blair in fact owns a copy of TAR to be able to understand someone who asserted he does. In contrast, comprehending that two is a number is to know it is true (except in relation to trivial cases, about which more later).

M9 (which is, perhaps, a more 'objective' version of M1a) is somewhat similar to M2. For Lenin (and anyone who agrees with him), comprehending M9 involves automatically acknowledging its veracity. The truth-status of sentences like M9 seems to follow from the 'concepts' they express, which is why their veracity can be ascertained without examining any evidence. Their validity appears to be based on thought alone -- or, again, perhaps on a "law of cognition".⁴

In that case, it looks like the truth of M9 is based solely on the meaning of certain words -- those in P4.

Hence, with respect to M2 and M9, meaning and 'truth' appear to go hand-in-hand -- so much so that as soon as their constituent words are comprehended, the 'truth' of both becomes obvious, even self-evident. The source of their veracity is 'internally generated', as it were. Indeed, that is why the negation (or the rejection) of M9 (or the repudiation of its content, expressed in, for example, of P1-P3) was so "unthinkable" to Lenin and Engels. Plainly, this certainty followed from the definition (in P4) that motion is "the mode of the existence of matter". That particular thought represents the core idea here, the bedrock principle that Lenin and Engels considered integral to the nature of, and the connection between, matter and motion -- which explains why they asserted it so dogmatically, why Engels declared its opposite "nonsensical" and Lenin pronounced it "unthinkable".⁵

In stark contrast, once more, it is possible to understand M6 without knowing whether it is true or whether it is false -- or even without ever knowing it is the one or the other.^5a0

In fact, it is quite easy to suppose M6 is false (which it probably is). Even if M6 were true, and known to be true, it would still be possible to imagine it to be false (and vice versa). On the other hand, it isn't possible to imagine that M2 or M9 -- but particularly P4 -- are false, not without altering the meaning of key words in those sentences. [Why that is so will be explained below.]

The actual or possible falsehood of M6, on the other hand, doesn't affect the meaning of any of its constituent words.

Despite this, in order to establish the actual truth or actual falsehood of M6 evidence isn't an optional extra. An examination of the concepts involved wouldn't be enough. No matter how much 'pure thought' were devoted to M6, it would still be impossible to ascertain its truth or determine its falsehood. So, the veracity of M6 can't be established by thought alone; its truth-status isn't 'internally generated', but 'externally' confirmed or disconfirmed, as the case may be. Plainly, an appeal to evidence is essential here.

However, it isn't possible for anyone who agrees with Lenin to regard, or even to suppose, surmise, imagine or even entertain the idea that that M9 or P4 are false. This shows that there is a fundamental difference between these two sorts of indicative sentences -- one that their apparently identical grammatical outer form conceals. As it turns out, the pseudo-scientific status and much of the 'plausibility' of metaphysical (or essential 'truths') like M9 derive from just this masquerade.

In that case, it looks like the obviousness of M9 is what motivated Lenin's incredulity (reported in M1a), for it certainly seemed to him that as soon as the words it contains (or their DM-equivalents) are read, or thought, the truth of M9 would be clear for all to see.

[The objection that M1a and M9 in fact express a summary of the then current level of scientific evidence has been neutralised in Note 4 and Note 5a.]

So, for Lenin, the first half of M1a was "unthinkable" (i.e., the "Motion without matter..." part). As we will see, that is because its denial -- or the repudiation of M9 -- would undermine (or, at least, change) the meaning of words like "motion" and "matter", and hence would countermand the import the concepts these words supposedly express (when put in sentential form), given that the definition of "motion" is that it is the mode of the existence of matter (P4). This would indicate that anyone foolish enough question the veracity or P4 had failed to understand the words "matter" and "motion".

It is also why the rejection of M9, P1 and P4 can be ruled out without any need to examine evidence. What these sentences say gains our assent on linguistic or conceptual grounds alone. Hence, it also seems impossible to deny the truth of M1a. Such a denial would be inconceivable -- or, as Lenin himself said, it would be "unthinkable". That is also why claims like M1a (P1 and M9) require no evidence in their support, and why none is ever given -- and why it is difficult to imagine any evidence that could even begin to substantiate them.^5a

In that case, the actual state of the world drops out of the picture as irrelevant in this respect; when assessing M1a, P1, P4 and M9 for their veracity. No experiments need to be performed, no data collected, observations planned and executed, or surveys undertaken.^5b

That fact alone should have given someone like Lenin -- who wasn't ignorant of the scientific method -- pause for thought. Unfortunately, like so many others before him -- indeed, just like the vast majority of theorists since Ancient Greek times -- he failed to notice the significance of these seemingly trivial facts.⁶

The certainty that M1a, M9, P4 and P1 seems to generate in all those who accept their veracity plainly derives from what their constituent terms appear to mean; the subsequent projection of P1, for instance, onto the world is therefore a reflection of that conviction. If such ideas express indubitable truths, who could possibly deny they apply across the entire universe? And that is, of course, why DM-theorists like Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin were -- and others still are -- happy to impose them on reality and regard them as valid across all regions of space and time.

But, the alleged truth of M1a, P1, M9, and particularly P4, bears no relation to the possibilities that material reality itself presents. This can be seen from the fact that if the truth of these sentences were related to what might or might not obtain in the world, evidential support would have been not only appropriate and imaginable, but absolutely essential. However, with respect to these sentences no such evidence is even conceivable. What fact or facts could possibly show that motion is inseparable from matter? Or that motion without matter is "unthinkable"? Or that motion is the mode of existence of matter?^6a

This shows that M1a, M9, P1, and P4 aren't about the material world; they are (indirectly) about (or rather they arise from) a specific use of certain words -- or they reflect the presumed relation between the concepts they supposedly express.

[They are in fact indirectly about an Ideal World, anterior to experience, that had been invented by ruling-class theorists, who began such talk in Ancient Greece, as the rest of Essay Twelve will seek to show.]

Ideas like these can be found right throughout the history of Metaphysics, but the above considerations help explain why Traditional Philosophers were only too ready to project them onto the world. The content of such 'super-truths' seemed to them to be based on something much deeper than anything that empirical evidence or factual confirmation could provide. Indeed, they appeared to express indubitable, 'necessary truths' about 'God', 'The Mind', 'Essence', 'Being', 'Time', 'Existence', and the like. The truth of Cosmic Verities like these was prior to, but not dependent on, the deliverances of the senses. In fact, theories like these determined the logical boundary of reality itself; that is, they express concepts and categories that constitute not just human judgement and thought, but the logical form of the world.

Indeed, in subsequent versions of this underlying idea, Super-Truths like this delineated the nature of any possible world.

In short, they pictured not just the logical form of any conceivable/possible world, they governed any and every 'philosophically true' thought about 'Reality Itself'.

In previous centuries, it was believed that such Cosmic Verities expressed 'God's' thoughts about the world, or they depicted 'divinely-ordained laws' governing, all of reality, which meant that Metaphysics was then widely seen as an attempt to re-present or 'reflect' 'Divine Truth' in the human mind, and hence it was traditionally seen as a legitimate extension to Theology.⁷ This now intimately connected Metaphysics with the rationalisation of the status quo, and hence with 'justifying' the inequality, oppression and exploitation that fed off it.

[There will be more on this in Parts Two and Three of this Essay (summary here).]

This meant that if these Super-Truths reflected 'The Divine Mind' -- or, indeed, the 'Cosmic Order' --, they could legitimately and dogmatically be projected back onto nature. No world was conceivable without them. Indeed, if no configuration of matter and energy could fail to conform to Universal Truths like these, supporting evidence becomes irrelevant. The material world could thus drop out of consideration, at least in so far as confirmation was concerned.

[To be sure, an after-the-event appeal to nature might be made in order to illustrate such 'Super-Truths', perhaps so that they could be sold more readily to the easily fooled -- which is, indeed, what we find dialecticians doing with their reception of Engels's Three 'Laws', for example. But that would be the only use to which evidence derived from the material world could be put.]

As far as those who propounded them were concerned, Metaphysical 'truths' appeared to be so obvious that few theorists were in any way concerned that they had been imposed on reality. Quite the contrary, in fact; the role each philosophical theory was supposed to occupy (i.e., a sort of "master key" capable of unlocking the 'Secrets of Being') justified the whole sordid affair.

Of course, Super-Verities like these had to be distinguished from ordinary, contingent, everyday, hum-drum empirical truths. So, because they looked as if they pertained to a set of 'essences' that under-pinned any and every possible world, these Cosmic-Truths were subsequently given a grandiose title -- they were now dubbed "necessary truths".⁸

However, philosophical theses like this were (and still are) predicated on the misuse of a severely restricted set of words, and thus on an aberrant and distorted use of language (as Marx himself noted -- quoted in the next sub-section). Their projection onto any and all possible worlds (based on no evidence at all) is proof enough of that. How else would it be possible for theorists to delineate what must be true of all possible worlds other than by a use of language that is rooted in this corner of the universe? Since the semantic status of these 'Super-Truths' is 'known' prior to the examination of any evidence, their supposedly 'necessary' truth-status can't have been derived from anything other than the presumed meaning of the words they contained, and hence on the (presumed) linguistic rules that governed their employment in such highly specialised contexts.⁹

[Semantic status -- this pertains to the truth or falsehood of an indicative sentence -- whether or not that has already been established, always assuming it can be. Any other (possible) option -- such as it being permanently truth-valueless (depending on the reason for that) -- would mean it isn't an (empirical) proposition (i.e., concerning matters of fact), whatever else it is.]

In Essay Two (and several others posted at this site), numerous examples were given of the many dogmatic assertions advanced by dialecticians, which were supposedly true for all of time and space, even though they were in fact supported by little or no evidence and argument --, that is, over and above a superficial gesture toward the analysis of a handful of specially-chosen examples, sketchy "thought experiments", compounded by the presence of ill-defined, obscure jargon imported from Hegel and other assorted mystics.

"The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), p.118. Bold emphasis alone added.]

"[P]hilosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned...." [Marx (1975b), p.381. Bold emphasis added.]

With the above in mind, we are now in a position to see why DM-theories appear to possess such a priori and universal validity. As we have seen, that is because they are (i) Based on a radical misuse of language, or they (ii) Depend on a misconstrual of linguistic rules as if they represented substantive truths about of reality. In short, such theorists confuse the means by which we represent the world for the world itself. The rest of this Essay (and the other Parts of Essay Twelve) aim to substantiate these seemingly controversial claims.

Of course, Traditionalists and DM-theorists will both reject this way of seeing things, but their opinion of how they think they use certain words is at odds with how they actually employ them. Why that is so will also become clearer as this Essay unfolds.

Once more, as we saw in Essay Two, while DM-theorists never tire of telling anyone who will listen that they don't impose their ideas on nature and society, they simply 'read' them from the facts, their actual practice belies this. Dialecticians, en masse, regard their doctrines as universal truths, valid for all of space and time. Hence, in practice dialecticians do the exact opposite of what they say they do; they are quite happy to impose their ideas on the world, declaring them true prior to and independent of sufficient (or, in some cases, any) supporting evidence or argument. This dogmatic approach to knowledge places DM way beyond confirmation by any conceivable body of evidence.^9a

M1a, P1, and P4 are just the latest examples of dogmatic DM-apriorism. In common with other metaphysicians, the projection of DM-theories like these onto any and all possible worlds reveals that they are based solely on linguistic and conceptual grounds. Since the status of these Super-Truths is 'known' well in advance of supporting evidence, their veracity can't have been derived from anything other than the meaning of the words they employ, and thus on the linguistic rules that supposedly govern them.

Moreover, the actual origin of every single DM-doctrine lends support to the above allegations. They weren't derived from a scientific study of nature but from Ancient Greek, Hermetic and Mystical Hegelian thought (upside down or 'the right way up'). DM-doctrines date back to a time when there was very little, or no, scientific evidence. And, as Marx pointed out, those theories back then were based on distorted language.

Hence, the class-compromised origin of DM means that aprioristic, ruling-class ideas and patterns-of-thought have been imported into revolutionary theory -- and "from the outside", too.¹⁰

Unfortunately for Lenin and other DM-apologists, a priori theories like this are incapable of reflecting reality. As we will soon see, reality can't be as metaphysical-, or as DM-theories attempt to depict it.¹¹ There are logical features of language that prevent theorists like Lenin and Engels from (truthfully) saying the sorts of things they clearly want to say about the world, and which won't allow them to 'depict' nature in the way they think they can. Or, rather, they can't do this without those ideas collapsing into incoherent non-sense, as we will see. This means that, in the end, DM ends up saying nothing at all.

These observations aren't unconnected with the origin and nature of metaphysical theories themselves. As will be demonstrated in later parts of Essay Twelve, at a linguistic level, Traditional Philosophy was motivated by a determination to use a narrow range of expressions idiosyncratically -- that is, Ancient Greek thinkers they were determined to employ words in ways they wouldn't normally be used in every day life. This odd use of language in turn involved a failure on the part of these 'linguistic innovators' to notice that it is only a misuse and distortion of language that 'allows' them to derive the universal and necessary 'truths' we find in Traditional Philosophy, and now in DM.

[The mechanics (if that is the right word) underlying the above moves was explained in detail in Essay Three Part One.]

As the detailed analysis below shows, the distortion and misuse of language to which that Marx referred results in the production, not of 'necessary' or universal truths, but of incoherent non-sense.^11ao

To see this more clearly with respect to the DM-theory on hand, we need to examine Lenin's words a little more closely.

With regard to Lenin's avowal reported in M1a and P1 (and based on P4), it is worth asking the following question: What is it about these words (or what they express or 'reflect') that made them seem so "unthinkable"?

Curiously, in Lenin's case at least, it is obvious that he must have thought the above words (or what they 'expressed', 'represented' or 'reflected') in order to declare that they were unthinkable! The phrase "motion without matter" must have gone through his head at some point. [The objection that this confuses use with mention will be dealt with presently.] Even if Lenin also went on to think the additional words tacked on at the end (i.e., "…is unthinkable"), he must have skipped past the three 'offending' words first (i.e., "motion without matter"). No one imagines that his brain switched his thoughts on just as they reached the relative safety of the last two expressions in that sentence!

In that case, Lenin must have done what he declared couldn't be done; he must have thought the "unthinkable" in the act of declaring that no one could do what he himself had just done.

Naturally, this means that in practice Lenin appears to have contradicted himself, for he managed to do what he said couldn't be done. That is why in practice Lenin's theory becomes not just impossible to comprehend, it is impossible even to state. That is, it is impossible to say what on earth Lenin meant by what he said. If he managed to do what he said no one could do (in the very act of telling us they couldn't), why can't anyone else do it? What is so special about Lenin? How was he able to think the "unthinkable" in the act of telling us it can't be done?

[I have responded to another counter-claim that this was just hyperbole on Lenin's part in Note 11a.]^11a

Worse still, if the rest of us can think the offending words ("motion without matter" -- or even "motion can exist without matter"), and understand their content, whenever we read Lenin telling us that we can't do the very thing we must have done in order to grasp his point, we, too, must contradict Lenin in practice whenever we peruse his work. Indeed, the very act of telling us we can't think these words (or what they express) prompts us to do just that!

Even those who agree with Lenin that "motion without matter is unthinkable" must think the three 'illicit' words. Hence, even the most slavishly obedient Lenin-groupie can't avoid disobeying the master every time he or she reads this controversial sentence.

Have such characters not noticed that to read Lenin and try to think the content of his words is to disobey him in that very act?

As noted above, it could be objected that I have confused these two propositions (in other words, I have confused use with mention):

R4: Sentences that assert that matter without motion is possible are unthinkable.

Clearly, R3 is susceptible to the points I have already made. But, it could be argued that Lenin plainly didn't mean this. He obviously meant R2. It is certainly possible to think the 'offending words' without imagining them to be true. So, the above argument is entirely spurious.

The question therefore becomes: Is R2 vulnerable in the same way? Is the claim valid that Lenin had to contradict himself in order to make this point?

Indeed, it is. As we will see, in order to rule motion without matter out of court, Lenin would have to know what he was trying to exclude. In order to do that he would have to know what 'motion without matter' amounted to so that he could exclude that possibility from consideration on the grounds that it is unthinkable -- otherwise, for all he knew, he could be ruling out the wrong condition, or, indeed, he might be ruling out nothing at all. Hence, the content of R2 (i.e., what it was supposedly being used to say) would have to be thinkable so that Lenin could tell us it wasn't a viable possibility.

It could be objected that R3, R4, P1, and P2 aren't what Lenin was asserting when he argued that motion without matter is unthinkable. But, as we will see, it isn't possible to make sense of what he was trying to say if he didn't intend one or more of R3, R4, P1, and P2.

[That is a brief summary of a much longer argument I have developed below. I also explain what I mean by content, here. See also Note 11a.]

R4: Sentences that assert that matter without motion is possible are unthinkable.

Now, if we assume for the moment that Lenin was right, what on earth could he possibly have meant by what he said if it seems that everyone (including himself) could so easily disprove in practice this allegedly self-evident truth? If it is so easy to think about matter devoid of motion?

Precisely what is so unthinkable here that is also so easily thought? What is it about M1a that is supposed to command our assent -- but only in the very act of undermining what it appears to say?

Perhaps this is being too hasty? Maybe Lenin merely meant that the truth of an indicative sentence like M1a (containing the unqualified words "motion without matter") is unthinkable? Or, that such a sentence could never be true, or thought of as true? Maybe he did mean one or more of R3, R4, P1, and P2?

R4: Sentences that assert that matter without motion is possible are unthinkable.

But, are even these options faithful to Lenin's intentions --, or, even viable in themselves?

Maybe not, for when Lenin's words are examined even more closely, it becomes impossible to understand what it was he was trying to say, or, indeed, precisely what 'truth' he was attempting to communicate to his readers. Or even whether what he appears to be saying could in any way be true, or even thought of as true.

R4: Sentences that assert that matter without motion is possible are unthinkable.

This looks a little awkward, and it isn't obviously correct. P2 looks a little less awkward. But, is it correct? Well, it is possible to think of many examples of motion that don't involve the movement of matter or the locomotion of bodies as such. Several dozen such were aired in Essay Five. Readers are directed there for more details.

"Motion in the most general sense, conceived as the mode of existence, the inherent attribute, of matter, comprehends all changes and processes occurring in the universe, from mere change of place right up to thinking." [Engels (1954), p.69. Bold emphasis added.]

M11 could be true even if no matter was relocated in the process, or as a result.¹²

M12: The occurrence of literal motion without matter can never be thought of as true.

This seems to be closer to what Lenin might have meant, even if it still looks a little stilted. Be this as it may, M13 presents problems of its own. Consider this apparent counter-example:

Now, this seems to depict literal movement, and yet it isn't easy to see whether any matter has to be re-located as a result. Perhaps we might appeal to the movement of atoms in NM's brain, or the re-arrangement of ink molecules in a diary or on wall planner -- when the new date is committed to paper, etc., as examples of matter in motion, here. But, at best, this would simply mean that motion was indirectly associated with matter, since even in a real life situation the supposed strike itself wouldn't actually exist to be moved anywhere -- even though it has still been moved.

It might be objected here that this sense of "move" wasn't at all what Lenin had in mind. But, Lenin himself appealed to a wider sense of "move" in his argument against the Idealists he was criticising:

Here, Lenin appeals to the movement of ideas as examples of motion (as did Engels before him), so it can hardly be objected when this wider meaning of the relevant words is used against his assertion in M1a.

Again, it could be objected that in this particular example what has actually changed is the date of the said strike. It is this that has been moved not the strike itself. But again, if it is only a date that has been moved, it would still be unclear whether any matter has to be relocated as a consequence. Once more, the date is in the future, and doesn't exist yet, even though it has still been moved.

Now, it would be little use referring to the altered marks in a diary or on a wall-planner (or located anywhere else, for that matter) in order to illustrate the material changes implied here. Certainly, such things may alter, but if anyone were to imagine that the dates of strikes, or even strikes themselves, are just marks on paper, then bosses could easily put a stop to trade union militancy by simply tippexing-out the relevant marks (or by destroying such wall-planners/diaries), and be done with it. The class struggle surely can't be so easily erased, can it?

At best, therefore, the movement reported in M14 is indirectly associated with matter. Nevertheless, M14 appears to indicate that we can at least understand sentences where the connection between motion and matter isn't obvious or clear-cut. So, maybe we can think the unthinkable, despite what Lenin said?

This still leaves the status of M12 and M13 unresolved. Now, if we ignore awkward cases like M14 and concentrate on examples of movement located only in the present, we might perhaps be able to ascertain Lenin's intentions.

[Unfortunately, this restriction would make the temporal quantifier (i.e., "never") in M12 and M13 seem rather superfluous, if not redundant. I will ignore that awkward complication.]

M12: The occurrence of literal motion without matter can never be thought of as true.

However, if we are careful to stipulate that "literal motion" involves change of place, then maybe the following re-write of M12 and M13 might work?

One obvious example of literal movement that takes place without matter -- which is not only thinkable, it is actual -- is the motion of the Centre of Mass of the Galaxy [CMG]. The CMG is located in empty space, but it exerts a decisive causal influence on everything in the Galaxy while not being material itself (it isn't made of anything, it is merely a theoretical point, a mathematical abstraction). In its turn, it moves under the influence of something else that isn't material either -- the centre of mass of the cluster of galaxies of which ours is a part, and so on.¹⁴

Perhaps we should modify M15 to accommodate or neutralise this annoying counterexample, in the following way:

Alas, M16 now concedes the point that motion can take place while spatially-, or, perhaps even temporally-, divorced from matter, since M16 isn't specific about contiguous or concurrent causation (which, of course, may not be what Lenin meant by M1a anyway -- who can say?). And, as we will see in Essay Thirteen Part One, Lenin's concept of matter (if such it might be called) is so vague and confused that little sense can be made of it.¹⁵

Nevertheless, despite these apparent problems, M15 and M16 face far more serious difficulties than the inconvenient astronomical (or even ordinary) facts noted above.

As pointed out earlier, it seems that Lenin must have thought the words "motion without matter" (or their content) in order to deny they were thinkable. If so, it is difficult to see what he was driving at if the very act of saying what he said appears to undermine the point he wished to make.

However, that won't do either. Just as soon as the quoted sentence in M17 (i.e., M15) is entertained, it seems that that cognitive act itself would make M17 false!

Plainly that is because the embedded sentence in M17 (i.e., M15) appears to be false whenever anyone thinks it.

M17a: The sentence: "Literal motion without matter is unthinkable" is unthinkable.

Lenin certainly didn't mean M17a. That riposte will be considered presently. [And anyone who thinks this confuses use with mention is referred back to the sub-section that dealt with this.]

Moreover, it seems that M17 itself becomes false whenever M15 is itself thought; and yet by thinking M17, M15 must be entertained. The only way anyone could agree with M17 is by thinking M15. Unfortunately, this just means that we may only agree with M17 by doing what M15 says can't be done -- it looks like we have to think the unthinkable, thereby making M17 false. In that case, M17 would be true just in case it is false; we may assent to it only if we never allow its content to cross our minds.

It could be argued that this shows that M17 is true since it is indeed the case that matter without motion is unthinkable. And yet, that is precisely the point: even to assert this alleged fact requires that the 'forbidden' words "matter without motion" (or their content) pass through the mind, so it looks like it isn't the case that these words can't be thought.^15a

But, what about the counter-claim that the above confuses M17 with M17a? That objection will be considered in the next sub-section (and again later in this Essay).

M17a: The sentence: "Literal motion without matter is unthinkable" is unthinkable.

It could be objected that it is perfectly clear what Lenin meant: it is impossible to think about matter without conceiving of it as also moving in some way, and vice versa. In other words, M17 doesn't imply M17a.

M17a: The sentence: "Literal motion without matter is unthinkable" is unthinkable.

In that case, perhaps Lenin was merely making a psychological point. Maybe he was saying that given what we know about the world (and, indeed, about ourselves), we are psychologically, conceptually or physically incapable of forming the thought that motion is possible without matter (and/or vice versa), or of conceiving of that thought as true.

But, if Lenin was saying we are psychologically, conceptually or physically incapable of forming the thought that motion is possible without matter, he offered no evidence to substantiate what would now be a scientific claim about what human beings are capable of cognising. And, if that was his line-of-thought, it is pretty clear why he wouldn't have been able to produce such data (even had he tried to do so) -- plainly, to pose this very question is not only to think the forbidden words (or their content), it prompts or encourages others to think them, too!

Moreover, and alas for Lenin, there is abundant evidence to the contrary. As we know, previous generations managed to think this very thought, and they managed to do so for many centuries. The passivity of matter was a basic tenet of Aristotelian Physics.¹⁶

However, if this alternative interpretation of Lenin's claim is to remain viable (i.e., that his claims about motion and matter relate to the psychological limitations of human beings), then, at best, we would have to interpret it perhaps as a confession of Lenin's own limited powers of imagination, even though, and paradoxically, he too was able to rise to the occasion and think the forbidden words (or their content) while casting them into outer psychological darkness in the very act of bringing us this good news!

Furthermore, Lenin offered no evidence in support of the supposed limits on credibility, or otherwise, of anyone else, and he mentioned only two other DM supporters who thought as he did: Engels and Dietzgen. That being so, his confession merely records the limits of his, Engels and Dietzgen's own credulity (which, as we have seen, appeared to undermine itself in the very act of its own confession). Clearly, such asseverations (no matter how sincere) are out of place in what purports to be a scientific or philosophical analysis of matter and motion.

In any case, what could Lenin have said to someone who claimed that they could imagine motion without matter, or vice versa? What if Lenin had encountered a latter-day Aristotle? Several examples were given earlier where it was quite natural to speak about motion without matter. These may only be ruled out if it can be shown that they are either metaphorical, or they are deemed irrelevant. But, who is to say that Lenin's employment of these words was itself literal? Or that this is their only correct use? Or even that it is the most natural way to use them? In fact, a rejection of the above counter-examples could only ever be based on Lenin's own lack of imagination (or on that of his modern day epigones) -- or, perhaps, on other criteria which Lenin unwisely kept to himself (as have DM-theorists ever since).

However, as the above indicates, it is possible to form the thought that motion can take place without matter. Nothing is easier. Not only does the last sentence itself prompt such a cognitive infringement, so do the sentences Lenin himself wrote. If these sentences are objectionable, it can't be for psychological reasons -- for, manifestly, they are ridiculously easy to think. If either one of M18 and M19, for instance, is to be ruled out as an example of a thought, that would have to be done on logical or linguistic, not psychological, grounds, especially if to read Lenin each time seems to disprove what he says in the very act of reading it.

At this point, it is worth noting that Lenin himself acknowledged that this forbidden thought can be thought, after all (perhaps not realising what it was he was admitting):

"From the standpoint of materialism, however, the distinction is absolutely unessential. What is essential is the point of departure. What is essential is that the attempt to think of motion without matter smuggles in thought divorced from matter -- and that is philosophical idealism." [Lenin (1972), p.321. Bold emphases alone added.]

Here, Lenin entertains the thought that motion could be "divorced from matter" (even if only to brand it "Idealist"), which means that he was wrong to conclude this was "unthinkable". He had just thought it! So, it can't be psychologically impossible to think these forbidden words.

But that, of course, just takes us right back to the beginning. We are still no clearer what Lenin could possibly have meant by what he said.

At this point, it is worth asking why Lenin concluded that motion without matter was "unthinkable", as opposed to claiming it was merely contradictory. Apart from saving him the trouble of having to think the very thoughts he wanted to convince the rest of us were "unthinkable", it would at least have allowed him to make his point much more succinctly -- and, dare I say it, more 'dialectically'. Indeed, it would seem to be the obvious thing to say about matter and motion; that is, that immobile matter (or mobile non-matter) is contradictory -- or, rather, that propositions asserting such things imply a contradiction, given other DM-precepts. Indicative sentences used to assert that matter is, or can be, motionless would certainly contradict sentences used to claim motion is the mode of the existence of matter.

On the other hand, it seems pretty clear why he didn't do this: if Lenin had done it, it would have given the 'dialectical' game away. That is because, if he had ruled certain things out on the basis that they were contradictory then much of DM would have disappeared down the U-bend with it. Clearly, the next question he would have been asked is: And why is just this contradictory state of affairs considered so objectionable in contradistinction to all the other contradictions that DM-theorists believe litter the entire universe, but which aren't declared "unthinkable"? Why don't dialecticians tell us that motion, for example, is impossible (or "unthinkable") since it implies a contradiction? Or, that wave-particle duality is impossible (or "unthinkable"), and for the same reason?

In fact, the existence of matter without motion ought to make perfectly good 'dialectical' sense, if only because it is contradictory. After all, the Hegelian roots of DM seem to imply that matter moves because of its inherently contradictory nature (even though the precise details are somewhat hazy).

"[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.]

Indeed, it would seem from this doctrine that bodies must move because mobility and passivity are a product of the internal struggle in all objects (or between every object), since they are UOs: a 'unity of motion and non-motion', perhaps? Anyone inclined to believe cracked logic like this shouldn't find it too much of a "leap" to derive motion itself from the 'contradictory nature of matter'. The mobility of matter could thus be predicated on its lack of motion! Hence, far from immobile matter being "unthinkable", this theory seems to require it!

It could be objected here that this is ridiculous. Dialecticians don't believe that motion is a UO of itself and its opposite, lack of motion. Indeed, it could be pointed out that the above caricature isn't the contradiction, or even the sort of contradiction, to which Hegel was referring when he spoke about motion --, as Engels himself indicated:

"[A]s soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence…[t]hen we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction; even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body being both in one place and in another place at one and the same moment of time, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continual assertion and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is." [Engels (1976), p.152.]

However, this (proffered, hypothetical) DM-reply merely highlights the profound confusions lying at the heart of the DM-'theory-of-change' -- highlighted here, here and here. The problem is that according to what DM-theorists themselves tell us, it is unclear whether things change:

So, if all things are UOs, and can only change because of that, it seems that a moving body must be a dialectical union of motion and rest, otherwise it couldn't change.

In that case, if the above objection is "ridiculous", it is only because it makes plain the incoherence implicit in the DM-'theory-of-change'.

Moreover, as we saw in Essay Five, the alleged contradiction to which Engels refers (i.e., that a moving body is "both in one place and in another place at one and the same moment of time, being in one and the same place and also not in it") can't be what makes an object move; in fact, it seems that that is what becomes apparent as it moves.

So, if Hegel is right, and objects move because of their inherently contradictory nature, they must be a UO of some sort. And what else could that be but a union of motion and rest. Nothing else appears remotely relevant.

Other objectors might be tempted to argue that this is precisely the point: because matter is contradictory, it is incessantly mobile.

But once more, if matter is truly contradictory -- if we accept no half measures and no "excessive tenderness" toward moving things --, matter must be mobile and at rest all at once. In that case, resolute Hegelians must at least be able to think, and actually do think, the illegitimate words (or what they 'represent'), that matter is motionless (at least, in part).

In fact, the good news is that there is no need to speculate any further around this Hermetic conundrum, for this is precisely what we observe in reality. The seemingly 'contradictory' nature of matter (i.e., that it both moves and does not move) is not only an everyday occurrence, it is a scientific fact --, for it is true that with respect to one inertial frame an object can be at rest, but with respect to another it can be in motion, and these can both be true at the same time, and concerning the same body.

Unfortunately for beleaguered dialecticians, however, this familiar fact doesn't imply that motion is fundamentally contradictory 'in itself' (whatever that means!), but that given different reference frames we can picture it in no other way: as mobile with respect one frame, at rest with respect to another, at the same time. There is nothing deeply metaphysical about this; it is a spin-off of the conventions we use to depict the world. This socially-motivated fact, though, does give sense to propositions about the mobility (or otherwise) of matter, and that is because we would currently have no other way of conceiving of movement scientifically except this way --, even if this doesn't actually make anything move (or, indeed, sustain locomotion), as DM/Hegelian 'contradictions' should.

Of course, the thrust of unhelpful conclusions like these can only be resisted on linguistic, or conceptual, grounds. That is, they may only be defused by clarifying what words like "motion", "immobile", "inertial frame", "same time", and "contradiction" should be taken to mean. Naturally, anyone tempted to go down that route would merely end up underlining the fact that Lenin's own ideas in this area are, at best, creatures of convention, and are thus not the least bit "objective".

Moreover, given the additional fact that Lenin's philosophical ideas fall apart so readily, this DM-'convention' is never likely to be accepted by the scientific community. In fact, we should feign no surprise if his ideas fail to make the bottom of the reserve list of viable candidates that scientists might even deign to consider.

As we have seen, and as we will see as the rest of Essay Twelve unfolds, the problems Lenin and other metaphysicians face are connected with the peculiar nature of the language they use. But, there are other aspects of language that are less well appreciated (or, rather, they aren't appreciated at all), which means that this slide into metaphysical incoherence doesn't just afflict DM. With respect to Metaphysics in general this slide is unavoidable.

While it is true that Marxists hold that language is both a social product and a means of communication, few seem fully to have thought through the ramifications of these two basic tenets.¹⁷ On the contrary, one of its least recognised implications is that language is conventional. Indeed, if language is social, how could it be other than conventional? Human beings invented language; it wasn't bestowed on them from 'on high' or introduced by aliens. This means that at some point in their history human beings must have adopted or acquired linguistic conventions of some sort or description.^17a

Furthermore, an even less well appreciated corollary of this view of discourse is that language is primarily a means of communication, not representation.¹⁸

It is undeniable that some Marxists have acknowledged the (perhaps limited) applicability of the former corollary -- that language is conventional --, but hardly any (perhaps none at all) have considered the full implications of the second (that language isn't primarily representational). Certainly Marx and Engels failed to do this, as have subsequent Marxists. Indeed, much of what they have to say about this topic -- especially about 'abstraction', 'cognition' and knowledge -- suggests the opposite is in fact the case.^18a

In this respect once more, dialecticians aren't alone. Until recently, little critical attention has been paid to the traditional view that language is primarily representational, i.e., that it enables human beings to re-present the world in "thought", in the "head", the "mind", "consciousness", or "cognition" first before communication can begin.^18b

This underlying assumption has rarely been questioned (again until recently): that only after language users have learnt to picture reality to themselves that they are then able to communicate their thoughts to others, and that observation also applies to those who at least give lip service to the idea that the primarily role of language lies in communication. This means that, despite what they might say, the social nature of language is seen by the vast majority of Marxists as a consequence of the isolated (but later pooled) cognitive resources of each individual, as an expression of their attempt to share the 'contents' of their 'minds', their 'abstractions' with one another, not the other way round.¹⁹

It seems to many (even on the revolutionary left) that here (at least) we have an example of private (mental) production that somehow contributes to public gain; for on this view, it is the isolated activity of lone abstractors that enables cognition, and it is this that supposedly helps drive the social advancement of knowledge, but only after these abstractions have somehow been pooled or shared. The order of events is therefore: sensation, abstraction, representation/reflection, communication. This is something that at least one dialectician has acknowledged (indeed, as noted in Essay Three Part Two):

"What, then, is distinctive about Marx's abstractions? To begin with, it should be clear that Marx's abstractions do not and cannot diverge completely from the abstractions of other thinkers both then and now. There has to be a lot of overlap. Otherwise, he would have constructed what philosophers call a 'private language,' and any communication between him and the rest of us would be impossible. How close Marx came to fall into this abyss and what can be done to repair some of the damage already done are questions I hope to deal with in a later work...." [Ollman (2003), p.63. Bold emphases added.]

Well, it remains to be seen if Professor Ollman can solve a problem that has baffled everyone else for centuries -- that is, those who have even so much as acknowledged this problem!

It is to Ollman's considerable credit, however, that he is at least aware of it.

[In fact, Ollman is the very first dialectician I have read (in over thirty years) who even so much as acknowledges this 'difficulty'! Be this as it may, I have devoted Essays Three Part Two and Thirteen Part Three to an analysis of this topic; the reader is referred there for more details.]

Hence, this approach to the acquisition of language by each user relegates meaning to the private domain of an individual's 'mind', something that each one brings to language --, perhaps as an expression of their own biography or the ideological influences that constrain them. So, the individual comes first, the social second and is constructed out of their separate contributions to an overall 'pool of meaning'.

[In Essay Thirteen Part Three, Section (4) onward, we will see that this is certainly true of the approach taken by theorists like Voloshinov and Vygotsky.]

Dialecticians will even speak of ideas living in 'tension' with one another, in our heads!

This odd theory -- which transforms ideas into agents and humans into patients -- is examined in more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Three. Suffice it to say that Parrington's commitment to the social nature of language and thought is fatally compromised by his bourgeois individualist theory of 'consciousness'.

[I am here using the word "patient" with its older meaning, as that which is acted upon not that which acts.]

Whatever the aetiology, this is one idea that has ruled in one form or another for centuries.

As we saw in Essay Three Part Two, post-Renaissance thinkers (Rationalists and Empiricists alike) took the public domain (where meaning is created), inverted it, and then projected it back into each individual skull, privatised and then re-configured as the social relations among 'images', ideas or 'concepts'!

This resulted in the systematic fetishisation of language and thought, leading to the conflation of the 'objective' world with the subjective contents of the 'mind'. ["Fetishised", since, as we will see, words were now viewed as agents.] The outer, social world was thus re-located in each individual head, the latter seen as primary, the former as secondary (or non-existent, in some cases!). In this way, the social was privatised, internalised and hence neutralised. No wonder then that modern philosophy soon descended into full-blown Idealism (subjective at first, later 'transcendental', later still, 'objective'), with Immanuel Kant complaining that it was scandal that philosophers had so far failed to prove the existence of the 'external' world! Small wonder, too, that Dialectical Marxists felt they had to invert things once more -- supposedly putting them 'back on their feet' -- all the while failing to notice that their theory of language and cognition actually prevents them from doing precisely that.

More recently, this ruling-class thought-form has re-surfaced in several new disguises: sometimes reduced and re-configured as the inter-relationship between neurons (as they 'communicate' with one another), supposedly controlled by the overarching power of the gene, which now seems to operate as a sort of surrogate inner Bourgeois Legislative and Executive Authority; sometimes as the expression of a computational device lodged in each head (or at least a device that helps 'the mind' write/use the 'software').

Given this view, while human beings might be born free (of language), everywhere they are chained by linguistic constraints manufactured and controlled by an inner surrogate 'state' -- 'consciousness' -- and a cognitive system comprised of 'modules' or 'neural nets', dominated by each individual's genetic inheritance). The social doesn't even get a look in -- except perhaps as a by-product, or even as a mere afterthought.

The aforementioned inversion (the political and social roots of which will be analysed briefly below, but more fully in Parts Two and Three of this Essay) completely undermines the claim that language is a social phenomenon. And no wonder: it perfectly mirrors the bourgeois view of language and 'mind', not Marx's view of the social nature of language and cognition.

In fact, this is one ideological inversion that has remained upside down (but in different forms), not just for hundreds but for thousands of years, and which is largely the source of the other 'inverted ideas' concocted by Traditional Philosophers and dialecticians alike. Inverted now, as in a camera obscura, these rotated concepts cloud the thoughts of all those whose brains they have colonised -- which, of course, helps explain why the ideas of the ruling-class always rule.

Nevertheless, there seems little point arguing that language is a social phenomenon -- its key role lying in communication -- if it is in fact primarily representational (or, if it is representational first, and only communicational second). If that were the case, the social nature of language would be anterior to, if not parasitic upon, its supposedly primary, private nature. No surprise then that this view of discourse introduced its own Robinsonades, analogous to those that Marx railed against in politics and economics. Except in this case Robinsonades were introduced to explain the supposed origin of language in each privatised -- if not atomised, skull -- and not just in connection with the 'social contract' or the economy.

If there is a point to be made here, it is perhaps as much ideological as it is anything else: If language is primarily representational then human beings must acquire language, meaning and knowledge first (as social atoms) before they are capable of entering or joining a linguistic community.

But, that presents this approach with intractable problems: How is it even possible for anyone to represent the world to themselves first, as an individual, and then later use language to communicate with others? Given this view, as far as language is concerned, each human being would be first and foremost a semantic individual, and only second a communicating, social being.

[That was the point of referring to those Robinsonades, earlier; the same worry also lay behind Ollman's comments.]

In fact, as is easy to show, given this approach to language, communication would be impossible. Indeed, if it were the case that we represent the world to ourselves first before are capable of conversing with others, we would find ourselves incapable of communicating and humanity would be, for all intents and purposes, universally autistic.

[This point will be elaborated upon and substantiated in Essay Thirteen Part Three.]

Given the representational approach, the role that communal life plays in the shaping of language would drop out as irrelevant.

Atomistic implications like these shouldn't be lost on those cognisant of the History of Philosophy and its relation to ruling-class interests and their associated ideologies (particularly as the latter are represented in thought-forms that have dominated Traditional Thought since the Seventeenth Century -- i.e., ideas that are intimately connected with Bourgeois Individualism). However, the record shows that as far as Marxists are concerned they almost invariably have been.

Revolutionaries have generally resisted the idea that language is conventional because it would seem to imply that science is conventional, too, which would in turn threaten to undermine its 'objectivity'.²¹

In fact, revolutionaries have in general rejected the connection between the conventional nature of language and the 'objectivity' of science with arguments that have only succeeded in undermining both. Either that, or they have simply assumed that conventionalism must always collapse into relativism or into some form of Idealism.²² However, the truth is the exact opposite: it is the rejection of the conventional nature of language and science that compromises both. How and why that is so will be explained briefly below, but in more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Two. In this Essay, I propose only to examine the connection between the above considerations and Metaphysics.

If language is a social phenomenon, then, clearly, what human beings say, or write, must be guided by normative conventions that govern discourse in general if they are to make sense. That is why it isn't possible to utter absolutely anything, make random noises, and hope to be understood. Naturally, scientific language will have its own specialist and technical protocols layered on top over-and-above the ordinary conventions underlying the vernacular. In addition, this entire ensemble will change and develop in accord with wider social and historical forces.

But one thing is reasonably clear: if language is to be a means of communication, whatever lends sense to its empirical propositions must be independent of (and prior to) any truths they supposedly express.²³

If that weren't so, language users would have to know whether an empirical proposition was true before they could understand it!

That is patently absurd, since no one could even assent to the truth, let alone repudiate the falsehood, of a proposition before they had first comprehended it. Indeed, as seems obvious, if they failed to understand what was said, they wouldn't even be able to begin finding out whether or not it was true.²⁴

This, naturally, connects the social nature of language with the earlier discussion of propositions like M1-M9. There, we saw that in the case of ordinary empirical propositions (like M6), it is possible to understand them before their truth-status is known:

The overwhelming majority of English language speakers will understand M6 on hearing it (or reading it) -- providing, of course, they know who Tony Blair is and that The Algebra of Revolution is a book -- even if they haven't a clue whether it is true or whether it is false (or, indeed, whether or not they ever find out which of these is the case, or even care to know which is the case). Communication (at least with respect to the conveying of information) would cease if that weren't so.

After all, how would anyone be able to convey their thoughts to someone else if that individual had to ascertain that what was said to them was true before they could understand it? How could they even go about discovering its truth if they hadn't the faintest idea what they were being told?

In contrast, it was argued earlier that with respect to metaphysical/DM-propositions things are radically different: understanding a proposition like M9 is of a piece with knowing it is true. To reject it as false amounts to changing the meaning of "matter" and/or "motion". Why that is so will be explained later on in this Essay, but it is intimately connected with the status of P4:

These two options hang together: to understand M9 is ipso facto to accept it as true; to reject M9 as false is to change the meaning of some of its key terms.

If, per impossible, the sense of an empirical proposition were dependent on truth, or, indeed, on other truths (which would themselves have to be expressed by still further propositions), they, too, would have to be understood first before their truth-status could be ascertained. If not, then it would be impossible to determine their truth-status. Once again, it isn't possible to ascertain the truth of a proposition before it has been comprehended.

So, if the sense of an empirical proposition were dependent on knowing still further truths, on knowing the facts of the matter, or even on some form of ontology, this process or hierarchy of dependency (of facts upon facts, upon facts, upon...) couldn't continue indefinitely. There appear to be only two ways that an infinite regress [henceforth, IR] like this can be avoided in such circumstances as language users learn and then employ that medium (in what follows I have left the word 'truths' deliberately vague so that several options aren't closed off from the start):

(1) Language users must have, or have had programmed, in their minds or brains a 'set of truths' (possibly even a 'set of rules') that aren't themselves expressed in, or expressible by, empirical propositions. That is, such speakers must have direct access to what can only be called 'non-linguistic truths', or maybe even 'linguistic rules' that have been 'hard-wired' into the CNS -- perhaps written in a 'code' of some sort (which, paradoxically, wouldn't be a code or the above IR would simply kick in again; why that is so is explained in Note 25).²⁵

(2) The 'truths' upon which the sense of empirical propositions depend must be 'necessary truths', whose own truth can't be questioned (hence the word "necessary"), and which semantic status follows directly from the meaning of the words or concepts they use --, but not from still further truths. In other words, these 'necessary truths' act rather like the buffers at the end of a railway line. The buck stops here -- at least in terms of semantic status.

Unfortunately, as we will soon see, 'necessary truths' themselves have no sense and are incapable of being either true or false (so, they incapable of acting like literal or metaphorical buffers). That will, of course, rule out Option (2).

Anyway, Option (2) concedes an earlier point -- that meaning has to precede truth -- since the truth-status of such 'necessarily' true propositions follows from the meaning of their constituent terms. In that case, there would be no good reason to postulate the existence of such 'necessary' truths in order to support the opposite idea -- that meaning in the end depends on truth, not truth on meaning -- since, as seems plain, Option (2) relies on the fact that meaning is sui generis, and hence that truth depends on meaning, after all.

With respect to Option (1), as we will discover, the idea that there could be sets of 'non-linguistic truths' (or 'rules') in nature (whether we are aware of them or not) that govern the sense of propositions is based on the ancient theory that Nature is Mind, the product of Mind, constituted by Mind, or that it is thoroughly Ideal (i.e., comprised of ideas "all the way down", as it were).

In this particular case, this overall theory originally traded on the (quasi-religious) belief that language itself is governed by:

(i) Nature's own 'pre-linguistic ideas' (perhaps those that are lodged in the 'Mind of God', or which are expressed in physical form, somewhere, somehow); or,

and hence that it is the intelligent or rational universe (or, indeed, its originating supernatural cause) that lends to human discourse the meaning it has.

As should now seem obvious, this set of ideas meshes seamlessly with certain forms of Representationalism, for, given this approach, human beings represent meaning to themselves automatically and naturally (by means of principles 'programmed' into us 'lawfully' by 'God', nature or even evolution). On this view, meaning is once again created in each individual human being, as if each one were a social or linguistic atom.

[The above ideas are explored at greater length in Essays Three Part Two and Thirteen Part Three.]

In fact, more-or-less the same comment could be made about the idea that language is governed by rules that are genetically programmed in the CNS. This would, of course, make such 'rules' part of the 'rational structure' of the universe more widely understood. However, as we will see (mainly in Essay Thirteen Part Three), that idea would only be acceptable if we were prepared to anthropomorphise the brain, and view it -- rather than human agents -- as intelligent.

The (traditional) view of discourse is now also based on the (suppressed) premise that language users rely on 'intelligent' neurons that 'communicate' with one another, sending or carrying 'messages' to various areas of the body, or to one another. They are the linguists; we merely bend to their 'will'. This further implies that 'intelligent' neurons decide for each user what their words mean, and it is this that enables our brains to mirror the outside world -- and as a spin-off, it helps explain how we use language that suggests nature is intelligent/'rational'. This view clearly implies that language or something pre-linguistic and the neurons underlying one or both are the agents here, we are the patients. In turn, that approach fetishises the products of social interaction as if (a) they mirrored the real relation among things, (b) they represented or reflected the real relation between intelligent neurons, or (c) they were those things themselves (to paraphrase Marx). In short, once again, this confuses the means by which we hope to represent the world with the world itself.

[The liberal use of metaphor, neologisms and 'scare' quote encrusted words in theories that give expression to this ideological inversion (i.e., that nature is the agent while human beings are the patient, at least with respect to the meaning of words) rather gives the game away, one feels.]²⁶

Naturally, philosophers of a more 'robust' theoretical temperament might be inclined to rejected responses like this (for all manner of reasons), arguing that there must be physical or causal laws of some sort governing the way human beings form empirical propositions or sentences, or which give meaning to the words they use --, concluding, perhaps, that our understanding of language should be 'naturalised' accordingly.^26a

First, we have as yet no idea what such 'laws' would even look like, let alone what they are.

Second, this account of the origin and nature of language would in fact reduplicate the 'problem' it was meant to solve. There is and could be no conceivable 'law' (or set of 'laws') capable of doing all that is claimed for 'it' (or 'them') which doesn't at the same time anthropomorphise nature, or read into it the very linguistic categories it was originally introduced to explain.²⁷

Third, if language is a product of, or has been caused by, a set of laws (that allows users to acquire language in order picture the world to themselves -- i.e., if discourse is fundamentally representational) then reference to its social nature will, of course, be an empty gesture. As noted above, Marxists who have been seduced into accepting one or other version of the above 'robust view' -- as a result perhaps of their unwise adherence DM-concepts (originating, for instance, with Lenin and what he had to say in MEC) concerning the nature of cognition, or, indeed, ideas based on Chomsky or Quine's work -- have universally failed to appreciate this anti-Marxist corollary.²⁸

Finally, but more importantly, another implication of the idea that understanding language is at some point parasitic on truth (as set out in Option (1) and Option (2) from earlier) is that if, per impossible, that were so, paradoxically, it couldn't be so. That is because this way of viewing discourse gets things the wrong way round (i.e., the supposed relation here has once more been inverted) -- the establishment of the truth-value of a proposition is consequent on its already having been understood. Humans do not first appropriate or ascertain 'truths' and then proceed to comprehend them. Both communication and representation would be impossible if that were the case.²⁹

On the contrary, as was also noted earlier, if the sense of a proposition weren't independent of its actual truth-value, then, plainly, the mere fact that a proposition had been understood would entail it was true, or, as the case may be, it would entail that it was false! Naturally, if either were correct, linguistic or psychological factors would determine the truth-status of empirical propositions and science would become little more than a branch of hermeneutics.^29a

Hence, given the above 'inverted' approach, as soon as a proposition had been understood its truth (or its falsehood) could be inferred automatically. Clearly, this would destroy the distinction between empirical and non-empirical propositions, for, on that basis, as soon as anyone understood M6, for example, they would know it was true -- or they would know it was false.

In this way, we can see how representationalism requires all indicative sentences to be of the same logical form (whether or not it was immediately obvious). At some point, given representationalism, all indicative propositions would be, or would depend on, a 'necessary truth' or set of such 'truths', which would 'reflect' in our 'minds' how things must be and can't be thought of as otherwise -- i.e., that their opposite is "unthinkable".

And, that is why this view of language, knowledge and 'mind' so naturally aligns itself with aprioristic dogmatism, with the idea that fundamental truths about nature are accessible to thought alone, and which can therefore be safely imposed on reality.

Hence, if in the end M6 depends on a necessary truth of some sort (or if it is a disguised necessary truth itself -- that is, in this case, if Blair had no choice, his ownership of TAR was determined by the operation of a necessary law of some sort (a là DM), or by the unfolding of his 'concept' (a là Hegel), by his implicit predicates (a là Leibniz), or by 'God' (a là Calvin)), then ultimately its truth may be ascertained without the need to examine any evidence. All one would have to do is 'comprehend' the associated indicative sentence, or the 'concepts' it supposedly expresses, for it to be deemed true.

[Naturally, that would make falsehood difficult, if not impossible, to explain; why that is so is reasonably obvious, however, the answer is hinted at below. A much fuller explanation will be set out in in Essay Three Part Four, where it will be shown that this theory also implies there can't be any false propositions! Until that Essay is published the argument supporting this controversial claim has been summarised here.] ]

As should now seem plain, this theory, or family of theories, would imply that scientific knowledge is based on some form of LIE; that is, it would be founded on the belief that truths about the world may legitimately follow solely from language or 'thought'. The 'mind', when it reflects the world, would merely be reflecting itself, or even the thoughts of a more grandiose version of itself -- perhaps even a 'Cosmic Mind' in 'self-development' -- because, on this view, the world is either 'Mind', or it is the product of 'self-developing Mind'.

[The last of the above was, of course, the conclusion Hegel drew. It is revealing, therefore, to find out that the same result follows from the alleged 'inversion' of Hegel.]

"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.]

"[P]hilosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned...." [Marx (1975b), p.381. I have used the on-line version, here. Bold emphasis and link added.]

Fortunately, this way of looking at language and knowledge is undermined by the vernacular itself -- which is, perhaps, one reason why Marx himself recommended a different approach.³⁰

"We have shown that thoughts and ideas acquire an independent existence in consequence of the personal circumstances and relations of individuals acquiring independent existence. We have shown that exclusive, systematic occupation with these thoughts on the part of ideologists and philosophers, and hence the systematisation of these thoughts, is a consequence of division of labour, and that, in particular, German philosophy is a consequence of German petty-bourgeois conditions. The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), p.118. Bold emphases alone added.]

In that case, whatever lends sense to empirical propositions (i.e., whatever sets the conditions under which they are true or under which they are false) can't itself be a set of antecedent truths. Neither could it be a set of ex post facto truths (that is, truths established, or recognised as such, at some later stage).

In contrast, since the socially-motivated rules governing our ordinary use of language are incapable of being true or false, they aren't subject to the above constraints. [These points will be explained more fully below and defended.]

The above constraints also apply to scientific language -- if it is to function as a means of communication (and, derivatively, as a means of representation). [On that see Note 31 and Note 33. But this particular topic will be covered in much greater detail in Essay Thirteen Part Two.]

Hence, we can add: whatever lends sense to empirical, scientific propositions can't be a set of truths, either. If the sense of an empirical proposition were dependent on just such a set, scientists would only be able to understand each other after they had ascertained or learnt their truth-status. In which case, of course, they couldn't be learnt. Clearly, there are no propositions by means of which this could be achieved that are exempt from the above constraints.^{31

32} ³³

Furthermore, if the sense of empirical, scientific propositions were dependent on certain truths about the world -- so that, for example, their the comprehension implied they were automatically true --, that would mean that scientists could abandon experimentation and simply take up linguistic analysis. Science would then become indistinguishable from Metaphysics, or, indeed, from LIE. In that case, the simple expedient of understanding an empirical proposition would automatically mean that that proposition was true.³⁴

Naturally, this confirms the claim (surely uncontroversial for Marxists) that scientific language is, like the vernacular, conventional.

Admittedly, these claims are controversial.³⁵ They appear to imply that science isn't 'objective'. However, that belief is itself based on a misconception. [As noted above this entire topic will be addressed in more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Two.]

The above assertions are in fact a consequence of a commitment to the social nature of language. They can't be swept under the 'dialectical carpet' or negotiated away without seriously undermining that fundamental Marxist insight.³⁶

[The rest of this Essay will be devoted (i) to explaining in more detail why the above conclusions are valid, and (ii) defending them.]

We are now in a position to understand what went wrong with Lenin's claim (recorded in M1a) and explain why it is that certain indicative sentences (i.e., in particular those that litter metaphysical theories) lapse so readily into non-sense -- and some even follow that with a collapse into incoherence as an encore.^36a

As argued above, this problem is associated with the use of what appear to be empirical sentences to state necessary truths (or even rule out falsehoods) about the world, for it is this confusion which ends up distorting fundamental features of language, rendering them non-sensical. But, exactly why that is so hasn't been explained yet.

The supposed truth of metaphysical sentences seems to follow from the meaning of the words they contain; because of that, Traditional Theorists claim to be able access Cosmic Super-Verities, reflecting fundamental features of reality in the 'mind' of anyone who so indulges. In this way, metaphysical theories go hand-in-hand with accepting representational theories of language and thought.

Moreover, as noted above (and as we saw here), this entire way of viewing language and meaning inverts and then internalises externally-sanctioned social and interactive practices (i.e., comprehension and communication), rendering them private, individual acts of intellection, 'immediate to consciousness', etc.

On this view, meaning isn't a social aspect of discourse, it is the result of the internal processing of 'images', 'ideas' and 'concepts' in the 'mind' -- perhaps by the 'faculty of reason' -- integrated these days (maybe) in and by our supposed use of "inner speech", or, even more recently, as an integral component of the 'language of thought'. Plainly, this is a thoroughly bourgeois way of viewing language, thought and meaning, an accusation that is itself motivated by an earlier allegation that this area of Traditional Cognitive Theory and Dialectical-Marxist Philosophy hasn't advanced much beyond the method and ideas concocted by Hobbes, Descartes and Locke.

Alas, DM-theorists who have accepted this way of doing philosophy have clearly failed to appreciate how it undermines their commitment to the social nature of language, meaning and knowledge, just as they have failed to see that this approach to 'cognition' doesn't even deliver what had all along been claimed for it.³⁷

To recap: in trying to inform us about matter and motion Lenin asserted that "motion without matter" is "unthinkable". Unfortunately, the content of that assertion involved him in doing the exact opposite of what he said was impossible. It meant he had to think the very thoughts (the content) he was trying to rule out as "unthinkable". Hence, he had to understand what it meant for motion to exist without matter so that he could rule it out as something that could be entertained. That involved him in a radically non-standard use of language (in this context), which meant he was unable to say what he imagined he wanted to say. In practice his words implied the opposite of what he thought he had intended.

In fact, this suggests that there wasn't actually anything there for Lenin to have intended to say. That is because it isn't possible to say (in one sense of "say") anything meaningful that is in principle incomprehensible, even to the one saying it. While a speaker might give voice to complete babble, it isn't possible for them to mean anything by it (unless, of course, it is part of some code, or it is aimed at simply creating a desired effect of some sort -- such as eliciting surprise or inducing puzzlement and consternation). One might intend to utter babble, but not intend to mean anything comprehensible by it (if trivial examples like those are put to one side).³⁸

With respect to sentences like M1a, it now becomes impossible say what it was that Lenin intended to communicate to his readers. Every attempt to translate his words into less confusing terms only seems to undermine them further. Hence, it is pertinent to wonder what (if anything) Lenin could possibly have meant by what he said.³⁹

We have already encountered similarly incoherent DM-claims (for example, in connection with 'dialectical logic', Trotsky's attempt to critique the LOI, Engels's 'analysis' of the 'contradictory' nature of motion, Lenin's attempt to argue that everything is "self-moving" and "interconnected", and TAR's attempt to explain DM-Wholism, among other things). This regular slide into unintelligibility isn't just bad luck, it is a direct result of the careless use and distortion of language, among other things -- such as viewing claims (like the one expressed in M1a) as super-empirical propositions that purport to inform humanity of fundamental aspects of reality when they turn out to be nothing of the sort.^39a

An empirical proposition derives its sense from the truth possibilities it appears to hold open, which options can be decided one way or the other by a confrontation with the evidence. That is why the actual truth-value of, say, M6 (or its contradictory, M6a) doesn't need to be known before it is understood, but it is also why evidence is relevant to establishing that truth-value as "true" or rejecting it as "false".

All that is required here is some grasp of the same possibility that both of the above hold open. M6 and M6a both have the same content, and are both made true or false by the same situation obtaining or failing to obtain.⁴⁰

For a proposition and its negation to picture the same state of affairs, they must have the same content; this is what connects the two and make one the negation of the other. If that weren't so, they wouldn't be contradictories, for there would be nothing (relevant) that linked them. One of them has to be capable of being used to deny what the other one can be used to assert, or vice versa. If they failed to 'overlap' in this way, they couldn't be used to contradict one another. So, if a given proposition is true, the state of affairs it expresses will obtain; if it is false, the same state of affairs won't obtain.

[Of course, what constitutes a specific/relevant state of affairs will be intimately connected the proposition concerned.]

This enables us, for example, to know what to look for or what to expect in order to ascertain whether the proposition in question is true or, indeed, declare it false (if we were so minded). This is just another way of saying that negation does not alter the content of an empirical proposition. If negation could alter content -- or, as we will see, if it seemed to do this -- then the sentence involved can't have been empirical to begin with.

[The significance of that observation will become clear as this Essay unfolds.]

The same situation obtaining -- i.e., Tony Blair's owning a copy of TAR -- will make one of M6 or M6a true and one of them false. If he does own a copy, M6 will be true and M6a false; conversely, if he doesn't, M6a will be true and M6 false. This intimate intertwining of the truth-values of M6 and M6a is a direct consequence of the same state of affairs linking them.

If a speaker didn't know that M6 was true (and hence M6a was false) just in case Blair owned a copy of the said book, and that M6 was false (but M6a was true) just in case Blair didn't own a copy of the said book -- or they were unable to tell anyone else what to look for or to expect if they wanted to ascertain the truth-value of M6 or M6a -- that would be prima facie evidence they didn't understand either or both of M6 and M6a. These two stand or fall together.

This might seem an obvious point, but its ramifications are all too easily missed, and have been missed by the vast majority of Philosophers. [More on that in these references and much of the rest of this Essay (especially here and Note 45a).]

[It could be argued that (1) Owning or not owning a book is a complex social fact, and (2) Owning something is a rather vague term. Both of these objections (which overlap somewhat) will be considered in more detail in Note 40a.]

It is also why it is easy to imagine M6 as true even if it turned out to be false -- or false if it is in fact true. Vice versa with M6a. In general, the comprehension of an empirical proposition involves an understanding of the conditions under which it would or could be true, or would or could be false. As is well known, these are otherwise called their truth conditions. That, of course, allows anyone so minded to confirm the actual truth status of any given empirical proposition by an appeal to the available evidence, since they would in that case know what to look for or expect.

These non-negotiable facts about (at least this area) of discourse also turn out to underpin the Marxist emphasis on the social nature of language and knowledge (advocated at this site). This facility allows interlocutors to exchange information which they can grasp independently of knowing whether what they have been told is true and independently of knowing whether what they have been told is false. If that weren't the case, if they had to know something (i.e., some other proposition) was true before they could understand any given empirical proposition, the entire process would stall, and communication (at least in such contexts) would be impossible.

[Naturally, it is certainly possible -- in fact, it is quite common -- that in order to ascertain the actual truth-value of an empirical proposition, the truth-value of other such propositions will also have to be known; but, as has already been indicated, truth-values aren't the same as truth conditions.]

These everyday truisms about language fly in the face of metaphysical theories, which emphasise the opposite -- that in order to understand a metaphysical proposition is ipso facto to know it is true (or ipso facto to know it is false, depending on circumstances), by-passing the confirmation and disconfirmation stage, reducing the usual 'truth conditions' to one option only.

[How this relates to what we might call 'patent truths' (about matters of fact) -- such as "Fire is hot" and "Water is wet" -- has been dealt with in Note 40a, link below.]

Which is, of course, why Traditional Theories of knowledge found it hard to account for falsehood. If we represent the world to ourselves 'in our heads', how could anything be false? It is no use replying that we can check these representations against the facts, or against the world, since, if that were so, all we would be doing is checking one set of representations against another. Moreover, relying on the testimony, evidence or argument provided by other individuals would be no use either. Again, if representationalism were true, all we would be relying on here would be representations of testimony, evidence or argument. We have as yet found no way of 'leaping out of our heads' in order to check our 'representations' against 'reality'.^40a

[For example, how would the 'contents' of one mind be communicated to another if there was no prior means of communication by means of which it might be achieved? (In fact, this is something representational theories undermine -- or even sometimes deny.) Indeed, how would it be possible for anyone to communicate with anyone else if they could only figure out what their interlocutors had meant, or what their words might mean, after they had ascertained the truth of what was said? (There is more on this in Essays Three Part Two and Thirteen Part Three.)]

However, there are other serious problems that this approach to language faces over and above the fact it would make knowledge incommunicable, if not impossible.

As we are about to see, intractable logical problems soon begin to emerge (with regard to such supposedly empirical but nonetheless metaphysical sentences) if an attempt is made to restrict or eliminate one or other of the paired semantic possibilities associated with ordinary empirical propositions: i.e., truth and falsehood.

This occurs, for example, when an apparently empirical, or seemingly Super-Empirical, proposition is declared to be "only true" or "only false" -- or, more pointedly, 'necessarily' the one or the other -- perhaps as consequence of a "law of cognition". Or, more likely, when a 'necessary' truth or a 'necessary' falsehood is mis-identified as a particularly profound sort of empirical claim that utilises the indicative mood (etc.), once more.

As we will soon see, this tactic results in the automatic loss of both options, and with that goes any sense the original proposition might have had, rendering it non-sensical.

That is because an empirical proposition leaves it open whether it is true or whether it is false. That is why its truth-value (true/false) can't simply be read-off from its content, why evidence is required in order to determine its semantic status (true/false), and why it is possible to understand it before its truth or its falsehood is known. If that weren't so, it would be impossible to establish its truth-status; once again, it isn't possible to confirm or confute an 'indicative sentence' if no one understands what it is saying, or what it is being used to say.

When this isn't the case -- i.e., when either option (truth or falsehood) is closed-off, or when a proposition is said to be "necessarily true" or "necessarily false" -- evidence clearly becomes irrelevant.

So, whereas the truth or falsehood of an empirical proposition can't be ascertained on linguistic, conceptual or semantic grounds alone, if the truth or falsehood of a proposition is capable of being established solely on the basis of such linguistic, logical, or structural factors, that proposition can't be empirical -- despite its use of the indicative mood.

If, however, such a proposition is still regarded by those who hold it true --, or, indeed, promote it as a Super-Truth about the world, about its "essence" -- then it plainly becomes metaphysical.^40b

Otherwise the actual truth or the actual falsehood of such a proposition would be world-sensitive not solely meaning-, or concept-dependent. That is, its actual truth or actual falsehood would depend on how the world happens to be, not solely on what its words mean. [Note the use of "solely" here.]

And that explains why the comprehension of metaphysical propositions appears to go hand in hand with 'knowing' their 'truth' (or 'knowing' their 'falsehood', as the case may be): their truth-status is based solely on thought, language or meaning, not on evidence.

Of course, it could always be claimed that such 'essentialist' thoughts 'reflect' deeper truths about the world, those that are far more philosophically significant than mere 'empirical truths'.

But, if thought does indeed 'reflect' the world, it should be possible to understand a proposition that allegedly expressed such a thought in advance of knowing whether it is true, or knowing whether it is false, otherwise confirmation in practice, by comparing it with the world, would become an empty gesture.

In response, it could be argued that "essential" truths are different. That particular objection will be examined presently.

So, if the truth of such a thought, or proposition, could be ascertained from that proposition alone (i.e., if it were "self-evidently true"), then plainly the world would drop out of the picture, which would in turn mean that this 'thought', or proposition, couldn't be a reflection of the world, whatever else it was.⁴¹

Furthermore, and worse, if a proposition is still supposed to be empirical (or if it is allegedly about underlying "essences"), and can only be true, or can only be false (as seems to be the case with, say, M20, below, according to Lenin), then, as we will see, intractable paradox must ensue.

Consider the following sentence (which Lenin would presumably have declared necessarily false, if not "unthinkable"):

Unfortunately for Lenin, in order to declare M20 necessarily and always false (or "unthinkable"), the possibility of its truth must first of all be entertained even if only to be ruled out immediately, otherwise he would have no idea what he was ruling out. But, if the possible truth of M20 couldn't even be entertained by Lenin (howsoever briefly), then that would either mean M20 was incomprehensible or that even if it were comprehensible, Lenin himself couldn't understand it. Either way, Lenin wouldn't know what it was he was rejecting. As we will see, that would have a knock-on affect on the status of M1a itself

Of course, it could be argued Lenin needn't entertain M20 in the first place, still less its possible truth. But, as we are about to see, if Lenin (or anyone else for that matter) didn't, or couldn't, do that, they would be in no position to assert M1a, or comprehend its alleged content, either.

Thus, if the truth of M20 is to be permanently excluded by holding it necessarily false, then whatever would make it true would have to be ruled out conclusively. But, anyone doing that would have to know what M20 rules in so that they could comprehend what was being ruled out by its rejection as always and necessarily false. And yet, that is precisely what can't be done if what M20 itself says is permanently ruled out on semantic or conceptual grounds.⁴²

[I cover this ground again from a different and perhaps more profound angle, below.]

Consequently, if a proposition like M20 is necessarily false this charade (i.e., the permanent exclusion of its truth) can't actually take place, since it would be impossible to say (or even to think) what could possibly count as making it true so that that possibility could be rejected. Indeed, Lenin himself had to declare it "unthinkable", so he not only couldn't inform his readers what would make it false, he couldn't even think these words (in the sense that he couldn't think their supposed content -- the state of affairs this sentence supposedly pictured -- more on this presently). Hence, because the possible truth of M20 can't even be conceived, no one, least of all Lenin, is in any position to say what is excluded by its rejection.⁴³

Unfortunately, this now prevents any account being given of what would make M20 false, let alone 'necessarily' false. Given this twist, paradoxically, M20 would now be 'necessarily false' if and only if it wasn't capable of being thought of as necessarily false! But, according to Lenin, the conditions that would make M20 true can't even be conceived, so this train of thought can't be joined at any point. And, if the truth of M20 -- or the conditions under which it would be true -- can't be conceived, then neither can its falsehood, for we wouldn't then know what was being ruled out.^43a

In that case, the supposed negation of M20 can neither be accepted nor rejected by anyone, for no one would know what its content committed them to so that that content could be countenanced or repudiated. Hence, M20 would lose any sense it had, since it couldn't under any circumstances be considered true, and hence under any circumstances be considered false.

If, according to Lenin, we are incapable of thinking the content of the following words, we certainly can't think of it as false.

[In what follows, by "content" I mean what an indicative empirical sentence purports to tell us about the world (or any other legitimate subject matter) -- what state of affairs it supposedly expresses.]

Our inability to conclude that certain 'propositions' -- or indicative sentences -- are false is in fact a consequence of several of the points made earlier: i.e., that an empirical proposition and its negation have the same content (they express the same possible state of affairs). If one of these options is ruled out, the other automatically goes out of the window with it. And that is what we have just seen happen with Lenin's words. In order to appreciate why this is the more fundamental reason for the collapse of his -- and other metaphysical -- sentences into non-sense we need to back-track a little.

We can see why these problems arise if we consider another typical metaphysical sentence, L1, and its supposed negation, L2:

L1: Time is a relation between events. [Paraphrasing Leibniz.]^43b

L2: Time isn't a relation between events.

As we have seen, the alleged truth of L1 is derived directly from the meaning of the words it contains (or the concepts it supposedly expresses), or even in some cases from related principles, precepts and definitions (that also dependent on the meaning of the words they contain). That truth manifestly hasn't been derived from evidence (even if some attempt were made to "illustrate" its truth from 'evidence' or it was used to help explain certain phenomena -- more about that in Note 45a). However, the unique semantic status of sentences like L1 has the consequence that if some attempt were made to deny its truth by means of, say, L2, that would amount to a change in the meaning of the word "time".

That is because sentences like L1 define what a given philosopher means by "time", how he or she intends to use that word or conceive of its related 'concept'. Elsewhere these are sometimes call "essential propositions". They purport to reveal or even define 'the essence' of the concept(s) involved. So, "time" with a different 'essence' -- or the one that had been attributed to it were denied of it -- would now have a different meaning. If time isn't a relation between events then the word "time" (used to assert this) can no longer mean the same as it does in L1.

So, if time isn't a relation between events, the word "time" can no longer mean the same. It must either have no meaning in L2, or possess a new meaning yet to be given it. But the bottom line is that the meaning of "time" now has a different meaning in L1 and L2 -- that is, if we also understand by "no meaning" a "different meaning". (But even then "time" would not mean the same between these two sentences). And, if that is so, L1 and L2 can't represent or 'reflect' the same state of affairs. They have a different (supposed) content.

In that case, and despite appearances to the contrary, L2 isn't the negation of L1! That is because the subject of each sentence is different.

To see this point, compare the following:

Whether or not one or both of them is true, L3 and L4 aren't negations of one another since they relate to two different individuals, George W Bush and his father, George H W Bush. L3 and L4 thus have two different subjects. They are true, or they are false, under entirely different circumstances; they don't have the same sense, the same empirical content. Plainly, they express different possible states of affairs.

[That isn't to suggest L3 and L4 are like L1 and L2 in any other respect. The change of subject matter is less easy to see in relation to L1 and L2 since they both use a typographically identical word, "time". The difference between them is made obvious by the fact that L1 defines a specific meaning for the word "time" while L2 denies it that very meaning. L3 and L4 are only being used to make this particular point abundantly clear.]

Mutatis mutandis, the same comment applies in general to all metaphysical propositions (like L1) and what appear to be their negations (i.e., in the case of L1, that was L2).

L1: Time is a relation between events.

L2: Time isn't a relation between events.

Why is this important? Well, if L1 is deemed "necessarily true", that would be tantamount to declaring its alleged negation (L2) "necessarily false". And yet, L2 isn't the negation of L1. Again, L1 and L2 are logically unrelated sentences since they have a different content, they express different states of affairs. The 'truth' or 'falsehood' of the one has no bearing on the 'truth' or 'falsehood' of the other -- unlike M6 and M6a.^43c

This might seem an obvious point, but its ramifications are all too easily missed, and have been missed by the vast majority of Philosophers....

So, if and when we find out that M6a is true, we can automatically infer the falsehood of M6 -- and vice versa. In that case, we can reject M6 if M6a is true, just as we can reject M6a if M6 is true. The same content tells us what we can rule in and what we can rule out. Again, it is this shared content that connects the two sentences.

However, as we have seen, between a metaphysical proposition and what might appear to be its negation there is no shared content because of that change of subject. Two metaphysical sentences like L1 and L2 fail to relate to the same supposed state of affairs which means they have a different content. [In fact, as we are about to discover, they have no content at all.] Hence, there is nothing that connects them in the above manner.

In which case, the truth of L1 can't be ruled out by means of the truth of L2 (nor vice versa), since we now have no idea what we are ruling out -- and thus no idea what we are ruling in.

L1: Time is a relation between events.

L2: Time isn't a relation between events.

[Why that is so will also be explained presently, but it is connected with the fact that L1 and L2 express no actual or possible state of affairs.]

Or, rather, what we might imagine we are trying to rule out by the use of L1 (i.e., L2) won't in fact have been ruled out since L2 has a different subject and hence a different 'content'.

This is important because, to declare a sentence "true" is ipso facto to declare it "not false". The two go hand-in-hand.

[Some might think the above represents an unwise concession to the so-called 'Law of Excluded Middle' [LEM]. I can't enter into that topic here, so any who do so think are advised to read Note 39a (and follow the link at the end of that Note).]

But, if we can't do that, if we can't declare L1 "not false" (and we plainly can't do that if we have no idea what we are ruling out -- indeed, as soon as we attempt to do so by means of L2 we end up changing the subject!), we can't then say the original sentence is true.

By declaring a sentence like L1 "necessarily true", we appear to be ruling something in conclusively, and thus ruling something else out conclusively -- as "necessarily false". That is, we seem to be talking about, and hence ruling out, the same state of affairs. But, in this case there is no shared state of affairs to be ruled out.

In fact, there is no state of affairs here at all, shared or otherwise. L1 picks out no state of affairs -- even in theory.

[As we will see, L1 concerns the use of words in a certain way, it isn't about the world as such. That sentence actually expresses an idiosyncratic rule for the use of "time" -- but it is usually interpreted, or misconstrued, as a fundamental truth about the world.]

If, per impossible, there were a state of affairs that L1 expressed, we would be able to negate L1 (i.e., using L2) legitimately, and conclude that that state of affairs doesn't obtain, even in theory. But, as we have just seen, we can't even do that. In relation to L1, what we think we are ruling out is what L2 expresses. But, L2 has a different content to L1, so we aren't in fact ruling out what L1 says!

L1 thus has no content at all, and neither has L2. They are both telling us nothing at all.

When sentences like L1 are entertained, a pretence (often genuine) has to be maintained that they actually mean (i.e., "say") something determinate, that they are capable of being understood and hence that they are capable of being true or are capable of being false. That is, in this case, that they at least depict a theoretical state of affairs. To that end, a further pretence has to be maintained that we understand what might make such propositions true -- and ipso facto, what might make their 'negations' false -- so that propositions like L2 can be declared "necessarily false", and ruled out accordingly.

So, we imagine they (both) actually depict (at least) a theoretical state of affairs -- which, as we have just seen, they can't.

Again: if there were a state of affairs that L1 pictured, we would be able to negate L1 legitimately, but as we have seen we can't do that without changing the subject.

Hence, the use of philosophical 'propositions' like L1 and L2 is completely vacuous; the entire exercise is an empty charade, for no content can be given to such indicative sentences. They depict no state of affairs, even in theory.

Again, in order to declare L1 true, we pretend that a theoretical state of affairs (at least) is being ruled out (i.e., that which is expressed by L2); but, we have just seen that that isn't so. Nothing is being ruled in or rule out, since L1 is incapable of depicting anything, even theoretically! It has no content.

Hence, no one who accepts L1 as true is in any position say what it depicts, even in theory. That isn't because it would be psychologically impossible for them to do so; it is because it is logically impossible to do it. If L1 could depict something (even in theory), we could legitimately negate it; but doing so changes the subject (in L2). It isn't possible to specify conditions that would make L2 false, even in theory, without changing the subject.

But, if we can't say under what conditions L1 is true (since it depicts nothing at all), we can't say it is or isn't false, either. In which case, we are in no position to declare L1 either true or false! Any attempt to do so falls apart, for that would imply that two logically unrelated sentences (L1 and L2) were related after all.

Hence, metaphysical propositions can't be true and they can't be false. They have no content. They express no state of affairs, even in theory.

In that case, given what was said here about sense and non-sense, metaphysical 'propositions' lack a sense, and there is nothing that can be done to rectify the situation.

Our use of language actually prevents them from expressing a sense, let alone being true.

They are therefore non-sensical, empty strings of words.

And that includes the 'propositions' DM-theorists have cobbled-together (or have borrowed from Hegel, upside down or the 'right way up').

[Incidentally, the word "proposition" is in 'scare quotes' above, since it isn't clear what is being proposed, or put forward for consideration (since, in such cases, sentences like these have no content). Hence, nothing (i.e., no content) has been proposed or put forward for consideration. (On vagueness, see here.)]

Some might wonder why there can't be necessary states of affairs (that are independent of language), which are, or can be, reflected by (true) metaphysical or necessarily true propositions. The above argument just assumes without proof that there can't be any such.

Let us assume that L1 is necessarily true and that there is a necessary state of affairs in the world (independent of language) it accurately reflects -- i.e., that time is indeed a relation between events.

As we have seen, that would automatically throw the semantic status of L2 into doubt, since L2 has changed the subject and so isn't talking about what L1 is talking about, despite appearances to the contrary. If L2 is deemed true, it can't be about time, and if it is declared false, it can't now suddenly be about time. That is, it would be impossible to explain how L2 could fail to be about time if it were true, and yet be about time if were false! But as we have also seen, if L1 is declared necessarily true, its falsehood is automatically ruled out. However, it would now become impossible to rule out the falsehood of L1, for to do so we should have to entertain the truth of L2. By declaring L1 true we are ruling out its falsehood and hence also ruling out the truth of L2. But L2 is totally unrelated to L1. They have different subjects. In that case, we can't rule out the falsehood of L1 and hence declare L1 necessarily true. If so, L1 can't reflect a necessary state of affairs in 'reality'.

As noted earlier, our use of language actually prevents metaphysical sentences from being either true or false. In that case, they are incapable of reflecting anything.

But, maybe there are states of affairs in the world that language can't reflect that are still necessary. The incapacity of language to reflect the world does not imply there are no such necessary states of affairs.

However, as soon as it is asked what is implied by "necessary states of affairs" the whole sorry mess falls apart. A "necessary state of affairs" is one that can't be otherwise -- for instance, if time is necessarily a relation between events (independently of language) it can't fail to be a relation between events -- it is necessarily a relation between events and "can't be otherwise". Here, for "otherwise" to be the case would clearly be for time to fail to be a relation between events. But as we have seen there is no such thing as "otherwise" when it comes to such 'necessary' states of affairs. In that case, it is impossible even to define a 'necessary state of affairs' for to do so would be to change the subject again! And if we can't even define this phrase (i.e., "necessary state of affairs"), no coherent (or even comprehensible) possibility has been presented for consideration -- at least, no more than would be had someone asked about offside in chess. No one can theorise about offside in chess, and the same is the case with "necessary states of affairs".

So, because the negations of DM-propositions also fail to picture anything that could be the case in any possible world (for logical, not evidential or scientific reasons), they, too, have no content. Naturally, that automatically empties the content of the original non-negated DM-'proposition' (such as "Motion is a mode of existence of matter"), rendering it non-sensical, too.

The above might appear to be yet another example of a priori dogmatics pushed at this site, in that it denies that DM-propositions could "picture anything that could be the case in any possible world", but that isn't so. It is rather to say that it makes no sense to suppose they could. We have been presented with nothing that could be given a sense, even in theory. For all the 'sense' they make, DM-propositions might just as well have been taken from The Jabberwocky:

[I]ntractable logical problems soon begin to emerge (with regard to such supposedly empirical but nonetheless metaphysical sentences) if an attempt is made to restrict or eliminate one or other of the paired semantic possibilities associated with ordinary empirical propositions: i.e., truth and falsehood.

Hence, it isn't possible to restrict or exclude one of these paired semantic options -- for instance, falsehood -- in favour of the other (i.e., truth), as metaphysicians in general try to do, without the above problems preventing them for doing so.

On the other hand, if a proposition and its negation have the same content (which they will have if one is to count as the negation of the other) they will stand and fall together. But, that isn't the case with DM-propositions; they stand alone, since they have no content and hence can't share content with anything, least of all their supposed negations. But that just means they too collapse into incoherent non-sense, indeed, as we have seen happen with M1a.

This means that we have to find another way of explaining why DM-propositions were invented in the first place. [More on that presently. Why they all (and not just M1a) collapse into incoherence will also be explained below.]

As we can now see, the radical misuse of language motivating the production of what look like empirical propositions (e.g., M1a, again) in fact involves an implicit reference to the sorts of conditions that underlie the normal employment and/or reception of such claims.⁴⁴

Hence, and once again, when sentences like these are presented for consideration or are entertained, even for a short while, a pretence (often genuine) has to be maintained that they actually mean something, that they are capable of being understood, and hence that they are capable of being true or are capable of being false.⁴⁵ [This is done even if certain restrictions are later placed on 'theoretically processing' them any further, as was the case with M1a.] In that case, a further pretence has to be maintained that we understand what (in nature or society) might make such propositions true or their 'negations' false -- so that those like M20 can be declared 'necessarily' false, or even "unthinkable".

[This 'display of comprehension' (if that is the right way to put this) can be seen whenever dialecticians are confronted with the fact that they don't actually understand the weird sentences they come out with. They are genuinely shocked, if not offended, by an accusation that they don't understand their own words. I used to make this point in public debates I had with DM-fans many years ago -- that is, when they were actually prepared to discuss such things. Comrades used to heckle me, shouting out: "You don't understand dialectics!", to which I always replied "Well, in that case I'm in good company since no one understands dialectics!" That used to shut them up. But, those days are long gone. The 'DM-Counter-Reformation' has well and truly set in, and, en masse, DM-fans have circled the wagons and now refuse even to debate this misbegotten theory, content merely to post abuse and personal attacks (even when they deign to respond!). Here is an example from a few years ago. (I have covered that non-debate in more detail here.) And here is a recent example where I accused an HCD of not understanding the obscure quasi-Hegelian gobbledygook he kept spouting. Needless to say, he was somewhat miffed that I had the temerity to so accuse him, but, try as hard as I could, I couldn't get him to explain what he actually did mean by his use of such odd language. The irony of his total incapacity to make himself understood without using yet more obscure jargon (which he also couldn't explain) to try to 'explain' the last batch was clearly lost on him -- despite the fact that I kept making that very point to him! Of course, he isn't the only comrade who has bought into this 'pretence' --, in effect ideologically selling their 'radical souls' to the other side in the class war. They haven't a clue what their theory means any more than Christians have about the Doctrine of the 'Holy Trinity'. Nevertheless, theologians and dialecticians are both avid users of jargon they can't actually explain to anyone, least of all one another.]

This entire exercise is a theoretical and practical pantomime, for no content can be given to propositions like M20, or M1a, nor in fact to any metaphysical 'proposition'.^45a

There is another rather odd feature of metaphysical theories that is also worth highlighting: since the supposed truth-values of defective sentences like those below aren't determined by the world, they have to be given a 'truth-value' by fiat. That is, they have to be declared "necessarily true", or rejected as "necessarily false", and that in turn is because their supposed truth-status hasn't been derived from the world, but from the supposed meaning of the words they contain. As we will see, that divorces them from the world, with which they can't now be compared.

Or, perhaps much more grandiosely, their opposites are anathematised and declared "unthinkable" by a sage-like figure -- an 'Edgy', 'Radical' Philosopher, a Dialectical Magus, even a "Great Teacher".

Metaphysical pronouncements like the following are as common as dirt in Traditional Thought -- and, as we can now see, in DM, too:

L7: Self-relation in Essence is the form of Identity or of reflection-into-self. [Hegel.]

L8: Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in Earth...is there anywhere such an abstract 'either-or'. [Hegel.]

L10: All bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves. [Trotsky.]

L11: And so every phenomenon...sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite. [Plekhanov.]

L12: Motion is a contradiction. [Paraphrasing Zeno, Hegel, Engels, Plekhanov and Lenin.]

L13: Internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature ['The Great Teacher Himself' -- Stalin.]

L14: It is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion. [Engels.]

L15: All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and essentially absolute. [Engels.]

L16: Cognition is the eternal, endless approximation of thought to the object. [Lenin.]

L18: Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. [Lenin.]

L19: Contradiction is universal and absolute...is present in the...development of all things and permeates every process from beginning to end. [Mao.]

L20: The unity of opposites...is relative and transient...the struggle of opposites is absolute, expressing the infinity...of development. [Kharin, paraphrasing Lenin.]

[Most of the above have been quoted or excerpted from Essay Two. The incoherence of many of them has been exposed in Essays Two to Thirteen Part One.]

Of course, the aforementioned 'ceremony' (whereby a sage-like figure promulgates the Cosmic Veracity of sentences like the above) must be performed in abeyance of the evidence (as we saw in Essay Seven Part One). Indeed, none need ever be sought. Quite the contrary, in fact; evidence would detract from the pre-eminent status granted these Super-Truths -- since they are Metaphysical Gems, many now credited with completely undeserved apodictic certainty by their promoters. Claims such as these by-pass, by mere decree, the usual 'grubby' social practices that govern the determination of the truth-values of ordinary, boring empirical propositions. Such banausic protocols are way too proletarian for the soft, un-calloused, clean hands of The Philosopher.

So it seems that the need to provide evidence is a distraction, one that a dedicated dialectician should rightly eschew. In this particular case, the claim that such 'opposites' exist everywhere in nature and society -- governing every single example of change, right across the universe, for all of time --, expresses a "law of cognition", a "law of the objective world", and it is these very "laws" that legitimate the imposition of dialectical dogmas like this on nature and society. The search for evidence begins and ends with a DM-fans leafing through Hegel's Logic, or the work of some other obscure Mystic, like Heraclitus, Zeno, Plotinus, Spinoza and Jakob Boehme.

Indeed, here is Herbert Marcuse endorsing this a priori approach to knowledge:

"The doctrine of Essence seeks to liberate knowledge from the worship of 'observable facts' and from the scientific common sense that imposes this worship.... The real field of knowledge is not the given fact about things as they are, but the critical evaluation of them as a prelude to passing beyond their given form. Knowledge deals with appearances in order to get beyond them. 'Everything, it is said, has an essence, that is, things really are not what they immediately show themselves. There is therefore something more to be done than merely rove from one quality to another and merely to advance from one qualitative to quantitative, and vice versa: there is a permanence in things, and that permanent is in the first instance their Essence.' The knowledge that appearance and essence do not jibe is the beginning of truth. The mark of dialectical thinking is the ability to distinguish the essential from the apparent process of reality and to grasp their relation." [Marcuse (1973), pp.145-46. Marcuse is here quoting Hegel (1975), p.163, §112. Minor typo corrected. Bold emphasis added.]

[Again, I have posted well over a hundred examples of this dogmatic frame-of-mind in Essay Two.]

James White highlighted this attitude to 'philosophical knowledge', in this case exhibited by the German Idealists, the intellectual grandparents of DM:

"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 fact, this approach to 'philosophical truth' has dominated this ruling-class discipline since the earliest days in Ancient Greece, reinforced more recently and more forcefully in the work of early modern Rationalists like Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz and Wolff.

In this, they follow in Plato's footsteps (minus the overt polytheism) -- true knowledge is 'of the mind' and bypasses the senses:

"If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only." [Plato (1997c), 51e-52a, pp.1254-55. I have used the on-line version here. Bold emphases added. The published version translates the third set of highlighted words as follows: "It is indivisible -- it cannot be perceived by the senses at all -- and it is the role of the understanding to study it." Cornford renders it thus: "[It is] invisible and otherwise imperceptible; that, in fact, which thinking has for its object." (Cornford (1997), p.192.)]

As we saw in Essay Three Part Two (here and here), DM-theorists do likewise -- that is, when they speak about unreliable 'appearances' and tell all who will listen that genuine knowledge is based on all those invisible 'underlying essences' (which 'contradict appearances').

Nevertheless, Cosmic Gems like these had to be exclusivised. They had to have their semantic pre-eminence bestowed on them, as a gift. They can't be expected, nor must they be allowed, to consort with vulgar empirical utterances, besmirched as the latter are by so much worldly, working-class 'grime' -- otherwise known as the "banalities of common sense".

Instead of being compared with material reality to ascertain their (supposed) truth-status, the veracity of these Super-Truths was derived solely from, or compared only with, other related claims of similar Intergalactic Stature, and part of a 'terminological gesture' at 'verification'. 'Confirmation', therefore, takes place only in the head of the theorists who cuts and polishes these Philosophical Gems.

As we have seen in previous section, in relation to M1a, it is impossible even to outline the material conditions under which M1b could be declared true so that DM-theorists could specify what was in fact being ruled out by the 'necessary' status of M1a. As with other metaphysical theses there is no legitimate negation of M1a that would make M1b true. That is because the DM-concept of matter is predicated on the supposed truth of P4. The latter tells us what DM-theorists mean by the word "matter". So, it isn't just an empirical fact about matter that it moves (which could be otherwise in some other possible world, or even this world had the universe developed differently), it is its defining characteristic. Change that and the meaning of the word "matter", as DM-theorists conceive of it, must change, too.

So, Lenin's acceptance of P4 is what makes 'motion without matter' "unthinkable". Anyone who attempted to deny M1a by means of M1b would be operating with a different understanding of the word "matter" -- in effect, they would be rejecting P4. In turn, that would mean that there had been a change of subject moving from M1a to M1b. M1b is therefore no longer about "matter", as DM-fans conceive of it, but about 'matter'. Hence, despite appearances to the contrary, M1b isn't the negation of M1a. They both have different subjects.

Unfortunately, this means that there is no state of affairs in the world that M1a could 'reflect'. If there were, there would be a legitimate negation of M1a. But, as we have just seen, M1b can't adopt that role since it is no longer about matter, but about 'matter'. This means that M1a has no content, since, as we have also seen, there is no state of affairs answering to it. It is devoid of content; there are no circumstances under which it could be false, and hence none under which it could be true.

M1a can't be false, since if it were, M1b would be true. But, M1a and M1b aren't logically linked. There is no state of affairs they share because of the change of subject between them, and hence no state of affairs answering to either.

So, DM-'propositions' lack a sense and there is nothing that can be done to rectify the situation. Once again, our use of language actually prevents them from expressing a sense, let alone being true.

They are therefore non-sensical, empty strings of words.

Just like other metaphysical 'propositions', M1a was conceived out of, and was then born into, an Ideal World divorced from the language of ordinary workers. The Super-Verities concocted in the brains of individual thinkers as if they 'reflected' the 'essential' nature of the world relate to nothing whatsoever in nature or society (despite appearances to the contrary or the intentions of those who invent them). The conventions of ordinary language -- the language of the proletariat -- actually prevent them from doing this, rendering them contentless, as we have seen.

Since it isn't possible to specify what would count as evidence that showed a proposition like M1a was true -- or even that showed it was false -- as a result such 'propositions' fail to be materially-grounded, That is, their semantic status isn't sensitive to any state of affairs in the world, since they have no such status. As such they can't help humanity understand the world nor can they be used to assist in changing it.

[But, as we will see in Essay Nine Part Two, they can and often do get in the way.]

Instead of reflecting the world, these sentences do the exact opposite. They determine the way the world must be, not the way it happens to be. The artificially-constructed, Ideal World of Traditional Philosophy reflects the distorted language and ruling-class interests on which it is based. It doesn't reflect the material world, it reflects an ersatz 'world' that exists only in the imagination of ruling-class theorists.

And, just like Traditional Philosophers, DM-theorists also dictate to the world how it must be and how it can't be otherwise.

That is why 'profound truths' can only be read from a priori claims like M1a and P4 -- not from nature --, since they represent an attempt to impose a set of ideas on the world. They are 'true' because they reflect the Ideal World of their inventors, not the material world we see around us. And that is why their actual truth, or their actual falsehood, was never, and could never, be determined by a confrontation with the facts, but has to be bestowed on them by those who dreamt them up.⁴⁶

The normal cannons that determine when something is true or false (i.e., the systematic search for evidence we witness, for example, in the genuine sciences) have to be set aside, a spurious 'evidential' ceremony substituted for it.⁴⁷

With respect to DM, this bogus ceremony is invariably carried out after the event -- that is, after a set of ideas have been imported from Hegel's 'Logic'. DM-theories are then illustrated by a narrow range of specially-selected examples (as we found, for instance, was the case with Trotsky's criticism of the LOI, Engels's analysis of motion, his Three 'Laws' and Lenin's theory of knowledge).

(1) It is almost invariably performed in the 'mind' as part of a hasty consideration of the 'concepts' supposedly involved. Instead of being compared with material reality in order to ascertain their truth-values, DM-theses are compared with other related doctrines -- such as P4 -- or more often, they are compared with yet more obscure ideas lifted from Hegel -- as part of a jargon-riddled gesture at 'verification'. As we have found, this means that DM-theories are both quintessentially Ideal and consistently anti-materialist.⁴⁸

(2) It often consists of a series of superficial thought experiments, which are accompanied by an ill-informed 'logical' analysis of a few key terms, 'supported' by the frequent use of modal (or quasi-modal) terms -- such as "must", "inconceivable", "demand", "insist", "unthinkable", and "impossible". A classic example of this approach is Engels's 'analysis' of motion, which is based exclusively on the words (or the concepts) involved. He nowhere appeals to evidence in support of what he claimed was true of every moving body in existence. In fact, it is impossible to imagine any evidence that could be offered in support. [I have dealt with this specific topic at greater length in Essay Five; readers are referred there for more details.]

(3) Almost without exception the application of DM-'laws' is illustrated by an appeal to a few specially-selected (and endlessly repeated) 'supportive' examples -- which are themselves often mis-described or left unfathomably vague.

In Essay Seven, we saw that DM-theorists offer their readers what can only be described as laughably superficial 'evidence' in support of Engels's Three 'Laws'. As a result I have called DM a classic example of "Mickey Mouse Science". We can now see why it merits such a name: the supposedly "self-evident" or "obvious" nature of DM-theories means that little (or no) empirical support is required. Hence, a few trite, specially-selected examples are used merely to 'illustrate' (they certainly don't prove) these 'laws', which are then repeated, ad nauseam, year-in, year-out.

Incidentally, that is why DM-fans soon come out with the following knee-jerk response, "You don't understand dialectics" directed at critics. That is because their theory isn't based on evidence, but on a certain (and rather quirky) 'understanding' of a limited range of 'concepts'.

(4) On other occasions, the 'evidence' used to 'illustrate' DM-'propositions' turns out to be the result of superficial forays into 'linguistic' or 'conceptual' analysis often based on a series of 'persuasive definitions' or even more mysterious 'abstractions' (of dubious provenance).⁴⁹ More specifically, as we saw in Essay Three Part One, this 'method' is applied to predicative expressions that supposedly 'name' these invisible 'abstractions', the latter of which turn out to be Proper Names of abstract particulars, vitiating the whole exercise by destroying the generality of the concepts they supposedly 'reflect'. [Follow the above links for an explanation.]

Whatever linguistic sleight-of-hand is involved in all this, direct or indirect reference has at some point to be made to the ordinary meaning of the words used so that their meanings can be 'revised'. Unfortunately, since the opening moves involve a misuse of these terms these words no longer possess their usual meaning, which in turn means that the whole exercise now becomes doubly pointless.

For example, DM-theorists en masse repeatedly, almost neurotically, use the term "contradiction", but they don't mean that word in its ordinary sense, nor yet in its FL-sense. What they think they mean is the subject of Essay Eight Parts One, Two and Three. (Spoiler -- in those Essays we discover that it is completely obscure what they mean by this term, as, indeed, was Hegel before them.

[As I also demonstrate in Essay Five, while dialecticians tend to 'see' contradictions everywhere they look, they never derive them logically. Except in relation to the supposed link between the proletariat and the capitalist class, they never even attempt to show these 'contradiction' are in any way 'dialectical'.]

In fact, no process of revising a word can begin if that word has been distorted from the beginning. It isn't possible to revise such words if they aren't actually being used -- a distorted term substituted for them -- or they have been replaced by a typographically identical inscription, which is then used idiosyncratically. [There are more details about this 'process', here.]

Hence, in such circumstances what at first sight might appear to be ordinary terms manage to put in a brief appearance -- e.g., "motion", "unthinkable", "opposite", "equal", "place", "moment", "quality", "identical", "negation", "contradiction", "change", etc., etc. -- by no stretch of the imagination do they mean the same as their intended equivalent in the vernacular. That is because of the extraordinary use to which they are now being put.

This can be seen when an actual appeal is made to the usual, often diverse, meaning these ordinary words already possess (an approach that has been adopted on numerous occasions at this site -- for example, here and here), the seemingly obvious validity of every single DM-claim soon falls apart.

Nevertheless, this is precisely what creates the spurious 'obviousness' and 'self-evidence' that DM-'laws' might seem to possess. This also helps explain the consternation DM-fans often display when their theory is demolished in front of them (as it has been at this site), their reaction almost invariably involving a predictable appeal to the "pedantry"/"semantics" defence. The rationale behind the repudiation of DM at this site is completely mystifying to those held in its thrall. How such apparently "self-evident", 'obviously true' DM-'laws' could fail to be true becomes "unthinkable". Indeed, as noted above, critics just don't "understand" dialectics. This also helps explain why DM-fans soon become abusive.

Naturally, such incredulity is a direct result of the fact that the 'truth' of these 'laws' has been built into them by linguistic or conceptual fiat -- or as a mere gift by a DM-Prophet.

That is also why DM-fans find it difficult to understand anyone who denies, for instance, that 'a moving object is in two places at once, in one place and not in it at the same time', even though our ordinary use of words associated with motion and place shows that our ideas in this area are far more complex than Hegel, Zeno or DM-theorists imagine. As Essay Five shows, our use of the vernacular allows for examples of movement that demonstrate Engels's theory of motion is seriously flawed -- that is, where any sense can be made of it.⁵⁰

This novel of what superficially look like ordinary words appears to generate paradox. That is because the everyday meaning of such terms seems to 'carry over' into these new contexts, bringing in its train endless confusion. This, of course, explains why 'contradictions' seem to sprout faster in the DM-literature than Japanese Knotweed.

[Detailed examples of the above were given in Essay Three Part One, in Essay Four, here and here, and throughout Essays Five and Six.]

To compound the problem, these paradox-inducing moves are often based on what are claimed to be the real meaning of the words involved. To this end, the wide diversity of ordinary connotations such words possess are brushed aside as 'unscientific', 'un-philosophical', "valid only within certain limits" --, or they are rejected as uninteresting, inessential, compromised by banal "commonsense" or "formal thinking". For example, the real meaning of motion is supposed to imply that it is 'contradictory' and paradoxical; the real meaning of 'identity' is actually its opposite when confronted with change; the real meaning of "matter" implies motion; the real meaning of "contradiction" means this, or that..., and so on.^50a

The original terms are then discarded as of limited use, or even as defective and unsuitable for use in either philosophy or science. However, as we have seen, and will see, ordinary language is castigated because its use actually disallows 'philosophical' moves like these. Hence, according to Traditional Theorists (and now DM-fans), if ordinary language stands in the way, it is ordinary language which is to blame, not the moves themselves!⁵¹

The late Professor Havelock pinpointed the origin of such trickery in the moves the Presocratics tried to pull; but similar comments could very well apply, mutatis mutandis, to Traditional Philosophy and DM-theorists in general:

"As long as preserved communication remained oral, the environment could be described or explained only in the guise of stories which represent it as the work of agents: that is gods. Hesiod takes the step of trying to unify those stories into one great story, which becomes a cosmic theogony. A great series of matings and births of gods is narrated to symbolise the present experience of the sky, earth, seas, mountains, storms, rivers, and stars. His poem is the first attempt we have in a style in which the resources of documentation have begun to intrude upon the manner of an acoustic composition. But his account is still a narrative of events, of 'beginnings,' that is, 'births,' as his critics the Presocratics were to put it. From the standpoint of a sophisticated philosophical language, such as was available to Aristotle, what was lacking was a set of commonplace but abstract terms which by their interrelations could describe the physical world conceptually; terms such as space, void, matter, body, element, motion, immobility, change, permanence, substratum, quantity, quality, dimension, unit, and the like. Aside altogether from the coinage of abstract nouns, the conceptual task also required the elimination of verbs of doing and acting and happening, one may even say, of living and dying, in favour of a syntax which states permanent relationships between conceptual terms systematically. For this purpose the required linguistic mechanism was furnished by the timeless present of the verb to be -- the copula of analytic statement.

"The history of early philosophy is usually written under the assumption that this kind of vocabulary was already available to the first Greek thinkers. The evidence of their own language is that it was not. They had to initiate the process of inventing it....

"Nevertheless, the Presocratics could not invent such language by an act of novel creation. They had to begin with what was available, namely, the vocabulary and syntax of orally memorised speech, in particular the language of Homer and Hesiod. What they proceeded to do was to take the language of the mythos and manipulate it, forcing its terms into fresh syntactical relationships which had the constant effect of stretching and extending their application, giving them a cosmic rather than a particular reference." [Havelock (1983), pp.13-14, 21. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Spelling adapted to agree with UK English. Links added.]

Ordinary language is thus caught in a philosophical vice, as it were. On the one hand, the everyday meaning of words doesn't sanction the theories metaphysicians try to derive them, on the other, ordinary terms are said to be inadequate because they generate 'paradox', when, in reality, that 'defect' is a direct result of a cavalier misuse of them.⁵²

"Wittgenstein's ambitious claim is that it is constitutive of metaphysical theories and questions that their employment of terms is at odds with their explanations and that they use deviant rules along with the ordinary ones. As a result, traditional philosophers cannot coherently explain the meaning of their questions and theories. They are confronted with a trilemma: either their novel uses of terms remain unexplained (unintelligibility), or...[they use] incompatible rules (inconsistency), or their consistent employment of new concepts simply passes by the ordinary use -- including the standard use of technical terms -- and hence the concepts in terms of which the philosophical problems were phrased." [Glock (1996), pp.261-62. See also, here.]

"The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), p.118. Bold emphasis alone added.]

The story so far: the exclusion of one or other of the semantic options open to indicative sentences completely undermines their capacity to accommodate the logical role of the non-excluded, twin -- truth in favour of falsehood, or falsehood in favour of truth. For, as we have seen, if such sentences can only be false, and never true, they can't actually be false -- nor vice versa. That is because, if an empirical proposition is false, it isn't true.⁵³

But, if we can't say under what circumstances such a sentence is true then we certainly can't say in what way it falls short of this so that it could be untrue, and hence false. Conversely, if it can only be true, the conditions that would make it false are similarly excluded; if we can't say under what circumstances such a sentence is false then we certainly can't say in what way it falls short of this condition so that it could be true, and hence not false. In which case, its truth similarly falls by the wayside.

Again, this forms part of understanding the sense of a proposition; in order to grasp its sense, a speaker has to know under what conditions a given empirical proposition could be true or could be false. The two stand or fall together -- so, knowing what would make such a proposition true is ipso facto to know what would make it false, and vice versa.

Anyone who knows the English language, and knows who and what Barak Obama and Das Kapital are will understand this sentence. Even if they haven't a clue whether it is true or whether it is false, they would know what state of affairs would have to obtain for it to be true, the absence of which would make it false. The same state of affairs serves in both cases -- to make C1 true or make C1 false. If that weren't the case, if a speaker didn't (explicitly or implicitly) know this, then that would provide prima facie evidence that they didn't understand C1 or C2.

Of course, DM-theorists aren't really interested in banal propositions like C1 and C2; they are more interested in change and hence in propositions that express this. In such circumstances, the negative particle seems to them to add content to a given sentence. Perhaps via the NON.

This supposition involves 'the power of negativity', which drives change, supposedly by adding content. This idea will be examined in more detail in Parts Five and Six of Essay Twelve. Suffice it to say here that if this were the case, it would prevent the following two propositions from being contradictories:

[Where "x₁", "y₁", and "z₁" are Cartesian ordinates, and "t₁" is a temporal variable.]

"If, now, the first determinations of reflection, namely, identity, difference and opposition, have been put in the form of a law, still more should the determination into which they pass as their truth, namely, contradiction, be grasped and enunciated as a law: everything is inherently contradictory, and in the sense that this law in contrast to the others expresses rather the truth and the essential nature of things. The contradiction which makes its appearance in opposition, is only the developed nothing that is contained in identity and that appears in the expression that the law of identity says nothing. This negation further determines itself into difference and opposition, which now is the posited contradiction.

"But it is one of the fundamental prejudices of logic as hitherto understood and of ordinary thinking that contradiction is not so characteristically essential and immanent a determination as identity; but in fact, if it were a question of grading the two determinations and they had to be kept separate, then contradiction would have to be taken as the profounder determination and more characteristic of essence. For as against contradiction, identity is merely the determination of the simple immediate, of dead being; but 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.

"In the first place, contradiction is usually kept aloof from things, from the sphere of being and of truth generally; it is asserted that there is nothing that is contradictory. Secondly, it is shifted into subjective reflection by which it is first posited in the process of relating and comparing. But even in this reflection, it does not really exist, for it is said that the contradictory cannot be imagined or thought. Whether it occurs in actual things or in reflective thinking, it ranks in general as a contingency, a kind of abnormality and a passing paroxysm or sickness....

"Now as regards the assertion that there is no contradiction, that it does not exist, this statement need not cause us any concern; an absolute determination of essence must be present in every experience, in everything actual, as in every notion. We made the same remark above in connection with the infinite, which is the contradiction as displayed in the sphere of being. But common experience itself enunciates it when it says that at least there is a host of contradictory things, contradictory arrangements, whose contradiction exists not merely in an external reflection but in themselves. Further, it is not to be taken merely as an abnormality which occurs only here and there, but is rather the negative as determined in the sphere of essence, the principle of all self-movement, which consists solely in an exhibition of it. External, sensuous movement itself is contradiction's immediate existence. Something moves, not because at one moment it is here and at another there, but because at one and the same moment it is here and not here, because in this 'here', it at once is and is not. The ancient dialecticians must be granted the contradictions that they pointed out in motion; but it does not follow that therefore there is no motion, but on the contrary, that motion is existent contradiction itself.

"Similarly, internal self-movement proper, instinctive urge in general, (the appetite or nisus of the monad, the entelechy of absolutely simple essence), is nothing else but the fact that something is, in one and the same respect, self-contained and deficient, the negative of itself. Abstract self-identity has no vitality, but the positive, being in its own self a negativity, goes outside itself and undergoes alteration. Something is therefore alive only in so far as it contains contradiction within it, and moreover is this power to hold and endure the contradiction within it. But if an existent in its positive determination is at the same time incapable of reaching beyond its negative determination and holding the one firmly in the other, is incapable of containing contradiction within it, then it is not the living unity itself, not ground, but in the contradiction falls to the ground. Speculative thinking consists solely in the fact that thought holds fast contradiction, and in it, its own self, but does not allow itself to be dominated by it as in ordinary thinking, where its determinations are resolved by contradiction only into other determinations or into nothing

"If the contradiction in motion, instinctive urge, and the like, is masked for ordinary thinking, in the simplicity of these determinations, contradiction is, on the other hand, immediately represented in the determinations of relationship. The most trivial examples of above and below, right and left, father and son, and so on ad infinitum, all contain opposition in each term. That is above, which is not below; 'above' is specifically just this, not to be 'below', and only is, in so far as there is a 'below'; and conversely, each determination implies its opposite. Father is the other of son, and the son the other of father, and each only is as this other of the other; and at the same time, the one determination only is, in relation to the other; their being is a single subsistence. The father also has an existence of his own apart from the son-relationship; but then he is not father but simply man; just as above and below, right and left, are each also a reflection-into-self and are something apart from their relationship, but then only places in general. Opposites, therefore, contain contradiction in so far as they are, in the same respect, negatively related to one another or sublate each other and are indifferent to one another. Ordinary thinking when it passes over to the moment of the indifference of the determinations, forgets their negative unity and so retains them merely as 'differents' in general, in which determination right is no longer right, nor left left, etc. But since it has, in fact, right and left before it, these determinations are before it as self-negating, the one being in the other, and each in this unity being not self-negating but indifferently for itself.

"Opposites, therefore, contain contradiction in so far as they are, in the same respect, negatively related to one another. Ordinary thinking when it passes over to the moment of the indifference of the determinations, forgets their negative unity and so retains them merely as 'differents' in general, in which determination right is no longer right, nor left left, etc. But since it has in fact right and left before it, these determinations are before it as self-negating, the one being in the other, and each in this unity being not self-negating but indifferently for itself." [Hegel (1999), pp.439-41, §955-§960. Bold emphases alone added.]

However, we have already seen that the negative particle can't do what DM-fans require of it. With respect to metaphysical-, and DM-'propositions', we have seen that negating them changes the subject, which in turn means that such 'propositions' and their supposed negations are devoid of content. So, instead of adding content, 'dialectical negation' reveals they had no content to begin with.

On the other hand, if negation did in fact add content, then C3 and C4 would as a result have a different content. So, if as DM-theorists insist, 'dialectical negation' adds content, then any propositions involved couldn't be "contradictories".

Of course, they might mean something different by "contradiction"; if so, what?

[However, as we have seen in Essay Eight Parts One, Two and Three, it is in fact impossible to ascertain what DM-fans do mean by their odd use of the word "contradiction". And, as we will discover in Parts Five and Six of this Essay, it is equally impossible to decide what, if anything, Hegel meant by his idiosyncratic use of it, too.]

So, our comprehension of empirical propositions is intimately connected with the inter-relation between these logical 'Siamese Twins' (i.e., truth and falsehood) --, and hence with the social norms governing the use of the negative particle -- coupled with the that an empirical proposition and its negation have the same content. The abrogation of socially-sanctioned rules like these means that 'necessarily' true and 'necessarily' false sentences (like those considered earlier) aren't just senseless, they are non-sensical. That is, they are incapable of reflecting anything in the world, and hence they are incapable of being true and incapable of being false -- i.e., they are incapable of expressing a sense. Whatever we try to do with them collapses into incoherence.⁵⁴

For the last two-and-a-half millennia, metaphysicians have consistently overlooked or ignored this logical feature of empirical propositions. [So, DM-theorists are merely Johnny-come-latelies in this regard.]

This ancient error conned Traditional Philosophers into thinking that the 'necessity' of metaphysical 'propositions' derives from the nature of reality, not from the distorted language on which their ideas were based.

Innocent-looking linguistic false-steps like these helped motivate the invention of theories that were supposed to 'reflect' the 'essential' nature of 'reality', accessible to thought alone. But, if such 'truths' are based on nothing more than linguistic chicanery, on distortion and/or misuse, then no evidence could be offered in their support, except, of course, that which is based on yet more linguistic legerdemain.

Metaphysical 'necessity' is thus little more than a shadow cast on the world by distorted language (to paraphrase both Wittgenstein and Marx).

Over the centuries, metaphysical systems were developed, not by becoming empirically more refined or by becoming increasingly useful (in connection with, for instance, technology or medicine) -- which has proved to be the case with the growth of science -- but by becoming increasingly labyrinthine, convoluted and baroque as further incomprehensible layers of jargon were deposited on earlier formations of linguistically deformed bedrock.

Naturally, this confirms the fact that these two semantic possibilities -- truth and falsehood -- must remain open options if a proposition is to count as empirical, subject to evidential confirmation, and thus for it to count as "thinkable", in this sense.

In which case, as the above shows, no sentence can express a 'necessary truth' about the world while remaining empirical.⁵⁵

So, despite appearances to the contrary, Lenin's appeal to the 'unthinkability' of motion without matter doesn't in fact say anything at all --, that is, it doesn't say anything empirically determinate.

[This section represents something of a side-show and may be skipped by anyone wanting to concentrate on the main theme. The only caveat is that the next section might not be fully understood if this material is by-passed. However, readers who want to skip this section can begin again here.]

Considerations like these show that indicative sentences conceal their diverse logical forms, which is why it is unwise to take the superficially similar grammatical features of language at face value. This in turn demonstrates that while sentences like M2-M9 might well be indicative -- with several of them also appearing to be empirical -- they are masquerading as empirical propositions and as such fail to express a sense. That in turn is a consequence of the conventions ordinary language users have established over the millennia -- by their practice, not in general by their deliberations --, which alone constitute the nature of empirical propositions.

This appears to be unconditionally, or even necessarily, true. However, its 'negation':

isn't false; it is either incomprehensible or, despite appearances to the contrary, it isn't about the number two. [On that, see below.]

[In what follows, I have confined my comments to seemingly banal sentences, like M2 and M21, in order to explain in what way they are true and to help distinguish them from metaphysical-, and DM-'propositions'. However, this isn't meant to be an Essay about 'the nature of mathematics', so more complex mathematical 'propositions' will in general be ignored.]

M21 isn't just contingently false -- if it is taken to be a mathematical and not simply a terminological proposition (that is, if it isn't viewed as a proposed revision to the names we use in our number system, what I later call the "trivial" option) -- it appears to be necessarily false. But, if we put trivial examples to one side for now (on that, also see below), it is impossible to specify what could possibly make M21 true. In that case, we are in no position to specify what M21 is trying to rule out, and hence we are in no position to say in what way it falls short of that for it to be false.

Unlike empirical propositions, M2 and M21 don't have the same content, nor do they relate to the same state of affairs, since neither relate to any state of affairs, to begin with. If they did, a comparison with the world, a reference to facts, would be relevant to ascertaining their truth or establishing their falsehood. In turn that is because (as we saw earlier), between M2 and M21 there is a change of subject, since if two isn't a number (according to M21) then that use of "two" is different from its use in M2.

M2 expresses a rule for the use of the number word "two" (as a number), since it reflects the role this word occupies in our number system. At best, M21 (perhaps) records the rejection of that rule -- again, if we ignore trivial examples.

To think otherwise -- i.e., that M21 could express a supposed truth or a supposed falsehood (again assuming M21 doesn't represent a simple terminological revision, which would be the trivial case mentioned earlier) would be to misconstrue the ordinary use of the word "two" (in such a context). Such a major change of meaning would significantly alter any of the mathematical propositions (equations, etc.) in which this word (or the numeral "2") occurred, and that in turn would have a knock-on effect throughout the number system..

Some might think that M21 is "logically false" (and thus that M2 is "logically true"), but that would merely attract the sort of questions posed earlier about "necessarily false" and "necessarily true". If it isn't possible to specify conditions under which M21 would be "logically true" (trivial examples excepted, once more), then it would be equally impossible to say under what conditions it would fail to be "logically true", and hence "logically false" (or "necessarily false").

[Of course, it could be argued that M2 is "definitionally true", but that would merely amount to acknowledging that M2 was an expression of a rule, after all.]

Consider now one of the aforementioned trivial cases: suppose that in the course of development of the English language a different word had been chosen in place of "two". In such an eventuality, plainly, not much would change. Suppose, therefore, that in English "Schmoo", or a different symbol for "2" (perhaps "ж"), was used in place of "two" (or "2"). M2 and M21 would then become:

But, as noted above, that, too, would simply represent another minor terminological revision. If this word (or this new symbol) were used as we now use "two" (or "2") then there would be no substantive difference. [On this, see also Note 60.] Clearly, the same would apply to number words (and symbols) used in other languages.

Others might argue that M21 is self-contradictory. When spelt-out this 'self-contradiction' might be expressed as follows, in M21b or M21c:

But, as seems plain, the first use of the word "two" in M21c isn't the same as the second use of "two" in this sentence. In that case, M21c is no more self-contradictory than this would be:

Of course, M21d isn't meant to express the same logical form as M21c (plainly M21c contains definite descriptions); it is merely meant to make explicit a change of denotation between the first and the second use of the relevant words. Plainly, in M21d, the first name refers to a different individual from the second. Similarly, in M21c, while the first occurrence of "two" is the familiar number word; the second isn't. Indeed, the second actually says it isn't! Hence, the two halves of M21c do not constitute a contradiction.

So, M2 would itself only become 'false' if one or more of its constituent words changed their meanings (this is the trivial case once more -- for example, if "two" was no longer used to designate the whole number between one and three, and instead came to be the name of, say, a newly discovered planet). But even then, M2 wouldn't be about what we now call "two". Plainly, as soon as anyone attempts to deny that number two is a number, they automatically cease to talk about the number two. [Once more, what they might be doing in such circumstances is rejecting a rule, but that wouldn't affect how the rest of us use the rules or the number vocabulary we now have.]

Hence, despite appearances to the contrary, M21/M21e and M2 don't in fact contradict one another. That is because M21 and/or M21e are either incomprehensible, or they are about something else -- this would be the trivial case, once more. Again, a use of negation here would, at best, amount to the rejection of a rule, or it would be trivial.^{56,

56a}

Conclusions to the contrary may only be sustained by maintaining (i) The false belief that M2 actually stands alone as a mathematical unit, and isn't is part of a number system, or (ii) The idea that M2 is a contingent (or even perhaps an empirical) proposition.

But, what makes M2 mathematical is its use in a system of propositions, which is itself one aspect of a historically-conditioned set of practices inter-linked by rule-governed operations, direct and indirect proofs, inductions and definitions, etc., etc. Moreover, M2 isn't a contingent proposition (except with respect to trivial cases, once more), it the expression of a rule. M2 it tells us how we use, and are supposed to use, this word or symbol. It situates both in an wider system of symbols.

The 'truth' of M2 doesn't derive from the way it relates as an 'atomic unit' to an alleged mathematical fact hidden away in some sort of Platonic Heaven (or, indeed, by the way it might relate to an 'abstraction' lodged in someone's brain/'consciousness'), but from its role in the aforementioned system of propositions, connected by proofs -- and by the way it has grown out of, and developed in, wider social practices. [On this, see Note 56.]

That is why none of us would be able to comprehend an investigation aimed at testing the truth of M2 empirically. In fact, the inappropriateness of any sort of empirical verification of propositions like M2 is connected with their total lack of truth conditions.⁵⁷

Our use of such propositions -- which, as we can see, differs markedly from the way we use and comprehend empirical propositions -- indicates that they have a radically different logical form. The failure of a proposition like M2 to correspond with anything in the world (or, indeed, in 'Platonic Heaven') is revealed by the fact that (barring trivial cases, once more) we would ordinarily fail to understand its 'negation' -- i.e., M21. Trivial cases to one side, again, anyone who asserted M21 wouldn't be making an ordinary sort of factual error -- as they would had they said the following on or after the 25th of June, 2016: "It isn't the case that David Cameron has resigned as UK Prime Minister".

This can also be seen by the way that mathematics is learnt. Children learn this by one or more of the following: repetition (number drilling/recitation), rote learning, repetitive calculation, practical application, problem solving, or by the use of simple proofs. They do not do so by 'abstraction'. Children aren't taught to 'abstract' numbers, but to count, and at some point the 'penny drops', as it were -- at which point parents and carers often find it impossible to stop their pupils counting on and on.... But this is true in general. Understanding mathematical propositions goes hand-in-hand with mastering a skill or a technique, and subsequently by learning proofs, in tandem with the completion of a variety of operations and guided tasks, etc.^57a

In that case, it wouldn't be possible to declare M2 true because it 'corresponded' to a fact --, or, indeed, false because it didn't -- either in reality or in 'Platonic Heaven'. And that is because it isn't possible to determine what M2 rules out, and hence what it rules in (trivial cases to one side, again).

This is, of course, independent of the fact that it wouldn't be possible to confirm M2 by comparing it with an abstract fact (even if we could make sense of such a 'fact', never mind how a sentence can be compared with any sort of 'abstraction'). To understand M2 and its use is to master a technique or a rule; it isn't to have identified a confirming fact or 'abstraction against which it is to be evaluated. No fact could tell a pupil how to proceed mathematically, or how to use M2 correctly. Only the mastery of a rule could do that. In addition, as we have seen, contingent facts can be false. If M21 were an empirical or a contingent proposition, the 'falsehood of M2' would appear to make it true. But, there is a change of subject between M2 and M21, so the supposed truth of M21 would have no bearing on the semantic status of M2 (trivial cases to one side, again). As we have seen, M2 has no negation.

In that case, the mere insertion of a negative particle into a sentence doesn't automatically create the negation of that sentence (where "the negation" here means "A proposition with the opposite truth-value"), as we have repeatedly seen.⁵⁸

In this way we can see once more that the superficial grammatical structure of indicative sentences often obscures their deeper logical form. While empirical sentences may be mapped onto their contradictories by means of the (relevant) addition of a negative particle, that isn't so with non-empirical indicative sentences. This isn't, of course, unconnected with the fact that empirical sentences can be understood before their truth-values are known, whereas propositions like M2 are comprehensible independently of that pre-condition -- they are fully grasped only by those who know how to count and to calculate, etc. In that case, the meaning of M2 must be accounted for in a different way to that of, say, M6:

As has already been noted, M6 can be understood well in advance of its truth-value being known; that truth-value can't be ascertained on linguistic or logical grounds alone. That is quite unlike, say, M2 (or even, M1a).

This means that sentences like M2 aren't empirical. In fact, they express rules for the use of certain words (or they are the consequence of the application of those rules); that is, they express the normative application of their key terms, because of which they are incapable of being empirically true or empirically false. Any attempt to view them as empirical soon collapses into incoherence, as we have seen.

[Of course, it isn't being suggested here that children are taught mathematics by leaning to repeat, or internalise, sentences like M2. Children demonstrate they (implicitly) understand M2 by being able to count and do simple arithmetic, etc.]

As it turns out, the confusion of rules with empirical sentences underlies the failure on the part of theorists to see language as a social phenomenon.⁵⁹ That is because such a failure is itself motivated by a determination to view the 'foundations of language' as solely truth-based. Given an approach, language is thought to be predicated on empirical or quasi-empirical factors -- such as a capacity to 'represent reality', on its ability to function as medium that allows the world to be reflected in the 'mind' or in 'consciousness' -- rather than on socially-sanctioned rules, conditioned by social practices and norms. Given the (traditional) view, falsehood is merely an erroneous or a 'partial' application of the 'contents of consciousness', howsoever they are conceived, or it is the result of an incorrect connection established between these factors. However, because these 'representations' are compared only with other 'representations', this leaves the world out of the account, obviating the whole exercise!

[As we will see in Essay Three Part Four, this 'traditional view of falsehood' is not just circular, it is also incoherent.]

Hence, this approach to knowledge misconstrues social norms (such as those expressed in sentences like M2) as if they were empirical, or even Super-Empirical, propositions. In that case, normative aspects of language (i.e., rules), which are the result of a lengthy process of social development and human interaction, are re-interpreted or re-configured as if they expressed the real relation between things, or were even those things themselves. That is, they are misconstrued as 'necessary' truths that underpin reality, reflect its "essence" or 'mirror' abstract truths in 'Platonic Heaven'. In this way, they become Self-Certifying Super-Empirical Truths, in no need of evidential support. It is this slide that underpins the fetishisation of language upon which Metaphysics (and now DM) is based.

That is why the falsehood of M6, for example, isn't like the 'falsehood' of M2. To repeat, in order to understand M6, no one need know whether it is true or whether it is false. The falsehood of M6 (in this case expressed by the possible truth of its negation, M6a) doesn't affect the meaning of any of the terms it contains. That isn't so with M2 and its apparent negation, M21:

M2 can't be false. Its 'falsehood' would amount to a change of meaning, not of fact. Hence, M2 may only be accepted or rejected as the expression of a rule of language -- or, indeed, mathematical language.⁶⁰

In fact, modification to sentences like M2 -- by means of analogy or metaphorical extension -- underlies the many major and minor conceptual revisions that mathematical or scientific concepts regularly undergo (saving, of course, trivial examples, once more).

In stark contrast, the rejection, or modification, of propositions like M6 wouldn't herald profound change. It is unlikely that Blair's failure to own a copy of TAR will initiate a significant conceptual revolution.

The fundamental conceptual changes that are set in motion by alterations to the rules that 'govern' a mathematical, scientific or empirical use of language are also connected with factors that make metaphysical-, and DM-theses seem so certain, their rejection so completely "unthinkable" by those who dote on this way of talking. Because metaphysical sentences arise out of a distorted use of language. In fact, they often rely on a misconstrual of rules that seek to establish, or which actually constitute, new meanings, and it is this that generates the impression that they represent novel/profound 'truths' about 'Being', 'consciousness', 'essence', or even 'truth' itself. All of which are generated from language alone, not from a practical interface with the world, or even with one another. This further motivates the impression that their truth-status is resolvable, or verifiable, by 'thought' alone.⁶¹

At first sight, it might look like M9 resembles M2 -- in that its apparent truth-value (true) is given by the meaning of its constituent words.

However, M2 isn't a rule because of the meaning of the terms it contains; it is a rule because the social and historical practices upon which it is based constitute and hence express the meaning of its terms. It is how human beings have already used such terms (in this case, counting, measuring, calculating and proving, etc.) that establishes their meaning. These rules (i.e., those like M2) merely express what is part of established practice. This can be seen from the additional fact that mathematics was invented by human beings who were already social animals; it wasn't given to humanity by visiting aliens, nor was even 'a gift the gods'.⁶²

On the other hand, if M2 were a rule because of the prior meaning of its terms, determined by separate individuals -- as they 'abstracted' them into existence, de novo, each time (which is what Traditional Theory suggests happened), then their meaning would be independent of use. Plainly, in that case, meaning wouldn't be based on social factors but on metaphysical or even psychological principles of dubious provenance, and even more suspect logical status, as we have seen. [I have covered this topic in much more detail in Essay Three Parts One and Two, and Essay Thirteen Part Three.]

Indeed, if that were the case, the meaning of M2's constituent terms would have to have been established before they were used in any social practices, such as in counting, measuring, calculating or proving -- and that could only have been achieved by independent 'abstractors' relying (piecemeal) on just such metaphysical or psychological principles as socially atomised 'thinkers'.⁶³

In sentences like M2, each word would gain its meaning by 'naming' a 'particular' or a 'universal', or by representing this or that 'abstract' concept/'essence' underlying reality, the entire process having taken place in the head of each lone abstractor. It would then be the atomised meaning of a term (its 'representation in the mind') that would tell each user how it should be used. That would transform each word (or its inner 'representation') into an agent and each human being in a patient, once more.⁶⁴

That is because no fact, abstraction, mental image or 'inner representation' is capable of supplying the normativity that social reinforcement, education and training provides. Hence, if the Traditional Picture is to work, these 'abstractions', 'images', 'representations' or 'concepts' would have to replicate inside each head all that external social factors already provide. So, they would have to become agents in their own right, thus fetishising them. This aspect of the social world would therefore need to be projected into each head.

"It is indeed true that a sign can be lifeless for one, as when one hears an alien tongue or sees an unknown script. But it is an illusion to suppose that what animates a sign is some immaterial thing, abstract object, mental image or hypothesised psychic entity that can be attached to it by a process of thinking. [Wittgenstein (1969), p.4: 'But if we had to name anything which is the life of the sign, we should have to say that it was its use.'] One can try to rid oneself of these nonsensical conceptions by simple manoeuvres. In the case of the idealist conception, imagine that we replace the mental accompaniment of a word, which allegedly gives the expression its 'life', by a physical correlate. For example, instead of accompanying the word 'red' with a mental image of red, one might carry around in one's pocket a small red card. So, on the idealist's model, whenever one uses or hears the word 'red', one can look at the card instead of conjuring up a visual image in thought. But will looking at a red slip of paper endow the word 'red' with life? The word plus sample is no more 'alive' than the word without the sample. For an object (a sample of red) does not have the use of the word laid up in it, and neither does the mental image. Neither the word and the sample nor the word and the mental pseudo-sample dictate the use of a word or guarantee understanding.

"...It seemed to Frege, Wittgenstein claimed, that no adding of inorganic signs, as it were, can make the proposition live, from which he concluded that [for Frege -- RL] 'What must be added is something immaterial, with properties different from all mere signs'. [Wittgenstein (1969), p.4.] He [Frege -- RL] did not see that such an object, a sense mysteriously grasped in thinking, as it were a picture in which all the rules are laid up, 'would itself be another sign, or a calculus to explain the written one to us'. [Wittgenstein (1974a), p.40.].... To understand a sign, i.e., for it to 'live' for one, is not to grasp something other than the sign; nor is it to accompany the sign with an inner parade of objects in thought. It is to grasp the use of the sign itself." [Hacker (1993a), pp.167-68. Italic emphases in the original. Link added.]

But the normative use of language can only be based on, or arise out of, by social factors.

Hence, the atomisation of the meaning of words amounts to a fetishisation of language (on this, see Note 64). It would make the 'social' interaction of words (or their inner 'representations') the determinant of how human beings use, or are supposed to use, language. This would be to invert what actually happens: it is human agents who determine the meaning of their words by their social interaction and their relation to the world; it isn't words, 'abstractions', 'representations', 'ideas', 'images' or 'concepts' that do it for them.⁶⁵

In that case, it is the pattern underlying the linguistic and social contexts that sentences like M2 encapsulate which gives expression to our rule-governed use of symbols like these, and which therefore constitutes their meaning. That is because patterns like this are based on generality of use -- i.e., on the possibility and the actuality of norm-governed, open-ended social employment of such expressions.^65a

The stark difference between mathematical and ordinary (indicative) sentences can perhaps be seen by the way the use of their terms may be justified. So, if someone were challenged and asked why they had used "2" in the following way, "2 + 7 = 9" (trivial cases to one side, again), all that the one questioned could appeal to would be sentences like M2, and the other rules of arithmetic. Either that, or simply retort "That's what I was taught! Were you taught differently?" The above simple equation couldn't be confirmed or justified (nor would it) by comparing it with anything in the world -- or, indeed, with any 'abstractions', 'representations', 'concepts' or 'images' in anyone's head or brain, still less with any 'objects' tucked away in an Ideal form in 'Platonic Heaven'.

It might be thought that an attempt could be made to justify "2 + 7 = 9" by actually counting some objects. Certainly an attempt could be made to do that, but that attempt itself would only work if the parties involved already understood how to use the relevant vocabulary, rules of arithmetic and how to count. So, this 'justification' (by actually counting) would in effect be an application of rules already understood and agreed upon.

This can be seen from the fact that if someone were to count two objects, and then count another seven, but declare that there were in total ten objects, they would be told they had made a mistake. Manifestly, we use the rules of arithmetic to decide if counting has been done correctly. We wouldn't even think to revise our rules, or our use of sentences like M2, if they had been so easily 'falsified' in this way.

Once more, that response is entirely different from our reaction if M6 were shown to be false. In that eventuality, no one would think to revise the application or the meaning of any of the words used in M6.

In which case, sentences like M2 are used to decide whether or an interface with reality (such as counting) has been carried out correctly. The opposite is the case with M6. Facts are what determine if M6 is true; M6 isn't used to decide if the world is correct.^65b

This is how mathematical words gain their meaning: as 'cogs' in systems of concepts that have grown in relation to our social development across many centuries.⁶⁶ They didn't acquire the meaning they now have piecemeal; that is, they didn't gain their meaning atomistically, before being used socially, practically or contextually.^66a

Mathematical propositions don't gain their semantic status from the way they correspond with objects or structures tucked away in some Ideal, Platonic Realm, or from the way they match 'abstractions' and 'representations' lodged in each individual head.⁶⁷ This means that they aren't 'true' because a process of abstraction established their status (which is quintessentially an individualistic process). They are 'true' because of the proof systems to which they belong (which are themselves reliant on highly regimented social practices), or because they are in some cases constitutive of the practices to which they belong.⁶⁸

Consequently, two isn't a number because of what the word "two" (or its original equivalent in ancient languages) 'meant' before it was used in mathematical propositions or in counting, and the like.⁶⁹ On its own divorced from such practices, the sign "2" (or the word "two") would mean nothing.^69a It would just be a mark on the page -- or a sound pattern in the air. It gains its life from its use in rule-governed, socially-conditioned contexts, which were (and still are) those that occur in everyday life.

More formally, a mathematical context is a system of propositions that has grown up alongside specific social practices that are an extension to the above. So, "two" doesn't gain the meaning it has in isolation, as might appear to be the case if examples like M2 were read as trivial, terminological expressions. M2 can't supply "two" with a meaning that wasn't already there in a surrounding system of practices. Unless the logical space already existed for "two" to slot into as a number term, "two" could be the name of a cat, or the colour of the sky, or it might even be a meaningless inscription. "Two" gains its meaning from the rule-governed, normative role it plays in everyday life, and hence in mathematics, linked by systems of proof, not as a result of any correspondence relations, or even by means of the process of abstraction.

This can be seen by the way mathematical propositions are confirmed. We don't subject them to empirical test or perform experiments on them. Nor do we run brain scans to see if others have understood number words in the same way. We apply them successfully within the systems and practices in which members of a speech community were socialised to apply them.⁷⁰

In which case, M2 is empirically neither true nor false; it expresses a normative convention, a rule.⁷¹

In a way that might seen analogous to mathematical propositions, it could be argued that M9 is true because of what its constituent words mean, but the status of sentences like M9 is much more problematic.⁷² As noted above, M2 expresses a rule whose use constitutes the meaning of the number words it uses; hence, it is incapable of being either true or false. Rules like M2 are either useful or they aren't, either practical or they aren't.

But, as far as DM-fans are concerned, M9 seems to be 'necessarily true'. Its supposed opposite (which would appear to be M9a, or perhaps more naturally, M9b or M9c) is, according to Lenin, "unthinkable". That might help explain why any attempt made to question the veracity of sentences like M9 would be met with the counter-claim claim that sentences like M9 are true because of what words or concepts like "motion" and "matter" really mean, or even because of the nature of reality, perhaps expressed by P4. This can be seen from the fact that if critics were to reject M9 (for whatever reason), it would be no use dialecticians asking such a sceptic to look harder at the evidence -- of which there is none anyway in this respect. After all, what evidence could show M9 is the case? As we know, many Ancient Greek theorists accepted the evidence of their senses -- indeed, everyone's senses, it seems -- that matter is 'naturally motionless' and has to be set in motion by some motive force. In that case, all that a dialectician could do in such circumstances is appeal to the words or concepts involved, and then, with Lenin, declare that motion without matter is "unthinkable" -- which is, of course, why Lenin didn't simply say "It is false/incorrect to claim that motion can occur without matter, and here's the evidence that proves it". It is also why dialecticians (almost to an individual) respond to critics with a "You just don't understand dialectics. They never say -- concerning the veracity of P4 or M9 -- "You should look at the evidence more carefully".

This hypothetical response -- that dialecticians could only refer doubters to what certain words or concepts 'really' mean or imply -- itself depends on an archaic way of viewing language. That approach sees discourse as a system of labels attached to -- or which 'represent' or 'reflect' (individually, as linguistic atoms) -- objects and processes in the world. Either that, or words stand for or name 'Forms', 'Essences' or 'Substances' that exist in an 'abstract world', 'Platonic Heaven', Aristotelian 'concept-space', or even as 'images, 'ideas' and 'concepts' in 'the mind'), but they don't serve as a means of communication, a dynamic expression of our communal and inter-personal life.⁷³

Once more, this helps explain why the (proffered) rejoinder noted earlier (i.e., "M9 is true because of what its constituent words mean") could only ever be the last court of appeal for DM-theorists. There is nothing more that could be said to a sceptic who doubted the 'truth' of such DM-sentences. What little evidence there is that 'substantiates' even a narrow range of its 'laws' soon proves to be of no help at all (as we have seen in other Essays posted at this site --, especially this one). It would be no use a prospective defender of Lenin pointing to more evidence if the meaning of his words is what causes the problem.

This 'linguistic defence' (i.e., "M9 is true because of what its constituent words mean") gives the game away. In the end, DM-sentences are amenable to no other defence. Evidence is in the end irrelevant. DM-'laws' are the product of an idiosyncratic/odd use of language, and, as such, can only be defended linguistically, or 'conceptually'.⁷⁴

But, DM-apologists are social agents, too, so, their theories are sensitive to, or are reflective of, their class origin, current class position and/or ideas they had forced down their throats when they were socialised as children -- indeed, as I have argued elsewhere at this site:

The founders of [Dialectical Marxism] weren't workers; they came from a class that educated their children in the Classics, the Bible and Philosophy. This tradition taught that behind appearances there lies a 'hidden world', accessible to thought alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.

This world-view was concocted by ideologues of the ruling-class, initially over two thousand years ago. 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. That will work for a time, but it is 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 proportion of 'opinion formers' (bureaucrats, judges, bishops, imams, 'intellectuals', philosophers, teachers, administrators, editors, etc., etc.) -- to the view that the present order either: (i) Works for their benefit, (ii) Defends 'civilised values', (iii) Is ordained of the 'gods', or (iv) Is 'natural' and so can't be fought against, reformed or negotiated with.

Hence, a world-view that rationalises 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 ruling-class thought 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') can be ascertained by thought alone, and therefore may be imposed on reality dogmatically and aprioristically. {Some might think this violates central tenets of HM, in that it asserts that some ideas remained to same for many centuries; I have addressed that concern, here.]

So, the non-worker founders of our movement -- who had been educated from childhood to believe there was just such a 'hidden world' lying behind 'appearances', and which governed everything -- when they became revolutionaries, looked for 'logical' principles relating to this abstract world that told them that change was inevitable and part of the cosmic order. Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of that ruling-class mystic, Hegel. The dialectical classicists were quite happy to impose their 'new' theory on the world (upside down or the "right way up") -- as, indeed, we saw in Essay Two -- since that is how they had been taught 'genuine' philosophers should behave.

That 'allowed' the founders of [Dialectical Marxism] to think of themselves as special, prophets of the new order, which workers, alas, couldn't quite comprehend because of their defective education, their reliance on ordinary language and the 'banalities of commonsense'.

Fortunately, history has predisposed these dialectical prophets to ascertain truths about this invisible world on their behalf, which 'implied' they were the 'naturally-ordained' leaders of the workers' movement -- 'Great Helmsmen', no less. That in turn meant that they were in addition teachers of the 'ignorant masses', who could thereby legitimately substitute themselves for the majority -- in 'their own interests', of course -- since workers have in general been blinded by 'commodity fetishism', 'formal thinking', or they have been bought off by imperialist 'super profits'. This meant that 'the masses' were 'incapable' of seeing the truth for themselves....

In that case, and in view of what has gone before in this Essay (and this site), DM-theories are little more that misconstrued, or mis-applied linguistic rules. Appearances to the contrary, DM-'laws' aren't expressed by means of what turn out to be empirical propositions; they are mis-interpreted rules for the use of Hegelian jargon, imported into Marxism from an ideological tradition that has unimpeachable ruling-class credentials.^74a

This also helps account for the frequent use of modal, emphatic, almost hyperbolic expressions right across the DM-literature; for example: "Motion must involve a contradiction" (several of which were quoted earlier, but more fully in Essay Two), which follow from this comment by Engels:

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted….

"A motionless state of matter therefore proves to be one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas…." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases alone added.]

"...[T]he transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Engels (1954), p.63. Bold emphases alone added.]

Add to that Lenin's comment from earlier -- "Matter without motion is 'unthinkable'" -- and his statement that dialectical logic "requires" or "demands" this or that:

"Dialectics requires an all-round consideration of relationships in their concrete development…. 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)…. [D]ialectical logic holds that 'truth' is always concrete, never abstract, as the late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel." [Lenin (1921), pp.90, 93. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

"Flexibility, applied objectively, i.e., reflecting the all-sidedness of the material process and its unity, is dialectics, is the correct reflection of the eternal development of the world." [Lenin (1961), p.110. Bold emphasis added.]

"Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party.... The dialectical method therefore holds that no phenomenon in nature can be understood if taken by itself....; and that, vice versa, any phenomenon can be understood and explained if considered in its inseparable connection with surrounding phenomena, as one conditioned by surrounding phenomena.

"Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that nature is not in a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and development.... The dialectical method therefore requires that phenomena should be considered not only from the standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from the standpoint of their movement and change....

"Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in all things and phenomena of nature, for they all have their negative and positive sides...; and that the struggle between these opposites, the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born..., constitutes the internal content of the process of development, the internal content of the transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative changes....

"If there are no isolated phenomena in the world, if all phenomena are interconnected and interdependent, then it is clear that every social system and every social movement in history must be evaluated not from the standpoint of 'eternal justice'.... Contrary to idealism..., Marxist philosophical materialism holds that the world and its laws are fully knowable, that our knowledge of the laws of nature, tested by experiment and practice, is authentic knowledge having the validity of objective truth, and that there are no things in the world which are unknowable, but only things which are as yet not known, but which will be disclosed and made known by the efforts of science and practice." [Stalin (1976b), pp.835-46. Bold emphases added; several paragraphs merged.]

"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.... 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....

"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.... There is nothing that does not contain contradictions; without contradiction nothing would exist....

"Thus it is already clear that contradiction exists universally and is in all processes, whether in the simple or in the complex forms of motion, whether in objective phenomena or ideological phenomena.... Contradiction is universal and absolute, it is present in the process of the development of all things and permeates every process from beginning to end...." [Mao (1937), pp.311-18. Bold emphases added; several paragraphs merged.]

"The dialectical method demands first, that we should consider things, not each by itself, but always in their interconnections with other things.... This struggle is not external and accidental…. 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…. Contradiction is a universal feature of all processes…. The importance of the [developmental] conception of the negation of the negation does not lie in its supposedly expressing the necessary pattern of all development. All development takes place through the working out of contradictions -– that is a necessary universal law…." [Cornforth (1976), pp.72, 90, 95, 117; Bold emphases alone added; several paragraphs merged.]

Finally, John Rees's comment, "Totality is an insistence...", also sprang straight out of this emphatic/dogmatic tradition.

This is so whether or not such hyper-bold claims are accompanied by an appeal to the alleged definitions of certain words/concepts (e.g., "Motion is the mode of the existence of matter"). Empirical propositions have no need of modal 'strengtheners' of this sort. Whoever says, "Copper must conduct electricity!", or "Science demands that light travels at such-and-such a velocity!"

"This aspect of dialectics…usually receives inadequate attention: the identity of opposites is taken as the sum total of examples…and not as a law of cognition (and as a law of the objective world)." [Lenin (1961), p.357.]

So, a "law of cognition" needs no help from the grubby, working class world of evidence and facts. Which fact reminds us why DM-theorists are quite happy to impose their ideas on nature. [On this topic, see also here.]

That is, not unless M6b were itself the conclusion of an inference, such as: "Tony Blair told me he owned a copy, so he must own one", or it were based on a direct observation statement -- for example, "I saw his wife give him a copy as a present, and I later spotted in his bookcase". But even then, the truth or falsehood of M6b would depend on an interface with the facts at some point.

With M6-type propositions, it is reality that dictates to us whether or not they are true. Our use of sentences like this means we aren't dictating to nature what it must contain or what must be true of it. The exact opposite is the case with metaphysical and dialectical theories.

M9-type sentences purport to tell us what really must be like, what it must contain. The world has to conform to what they say. Such propositions can't be based on an inference from the evidence, either, since there is no body of evidence that could confirm, or even hint at, the truth of any claim that motion is inseparable from matter, or even that it is "The mode of the existence of matter".

Nevertheless, despite appearances to the contrary, M9 can't be true solely in virtue of what its words mean. Normally, the ordinary-looking words that sentences like M9 employ gain whatever meaning they have from the part they already play in other areas, in wider human practices, those that involve their application in everyday contexts. Divorced from that background the isolated use of specialised or jargonised expressions in sentences like M9 means that they are like fish out of water, as it were. Even though the words used in DM-theories look like ordinary words, their odd use divorces them from the vernacular -- rather like the way that the theological use of words like "father" and "son" to describe 'God' and 'Christ' divorce them from their everyday meaning, too.

There are no real world systems -- i.e., systems pertaining to material practice and everyday life -- in which the idiosyncratic employment of M9's constituent terms has a life (hence, a meaning) other than these novel, specialised, isolated contexts. And, as we saw in Essay Nine Part One, DM-theories play no part even in the day-to-day activity of revolutionaries, nor do they feature in their agitation and propagandisation of the working class.

Indeed, metaphysical 'sound bites' like M9 provide the only semantic backdrop for the use of such words. Artificial and contrived DM-contexts provide a unique background for these 'dialectical nuggets', and this they do in non-practical (hence, non-material) surroundings -- quite unlike mathematical propositions, which they might appear to emulate. Isolated from material contexts in this way, the connections that the ordinary-looking words dialecticians use have with the typographically similar, everyday words (from which they have allegedly been 'derived', or 'abstracted') have been irreversibly cut. Because DM-jargon isn't based on material practice (that was demonstrated in Essay Nine Part One) -- and can't be used in connection with the working class, or even the day-to-day activity of revolutionaries -- it either has no meaning, or the usual meanings of the words employed denies sentences like M1a any sense, as we have seen. This,. of course, renders them not just non-sensical, but incoherent to boot.^74a1

It is no surprise, therefore, to find that the use of such terms in sentences like these results in confusion and incomprehension. Nor is it any surprise to see Lenin's words fall apart and then collapse into incoherence so readily.^74b

However, sentences that express (or attempt to express) the rules governing our use of words are invariably mis-interpreted by DM-theorists and metaphysicians in general as empirical propositions of a special, more profound sort. That is, they are viewed as Super-Scientific Truths, capable of revealing the underlying 'secrets' of nature. Unfortunately, we have seen this means that the sentences used turn out to be non-sensical. Even worse, because they misuse and thereby distort language they are incoherent non-sense.⁷⁵

Theories like M9 -- but more specifically, P4 --, tend to depend on, just as they give rise to, a range of associated 'propositions' from which they have been 'derived', or which help 'explain' their supposed content. But, as 'metaphysical statements', they stand-alone. That is, they confront the reader as isolated philosophical 'gems', as fundamental 'truths': "I think, therefore I am" (the Cogito of Descartes); "To be it be perceived" (Berkeley); "Time is a relation" (paraphrasing Kant and Leibniz); "The whole is more than the sum of the parts" (Metaphysical Holists of every stripe), "Every determination is also a negation" (Spinoza and Hegel); "Truth is always concrete, never abstract" (paraphrasing Plekhanov and Lenin); "All bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour...they are never equal to themselves" (Trotsky), and so on.^75a0

Philosophical 'jewels' like these have traditionally been mined, cleaned and polished into their glittering state by socially-isolated thinkers, who 'discovered' these treasures buried just below the surface of 'appearances' by the exercise of thought alone.^75a

[By "socially-isolated, I don't mean to suggest they weren't part of, or weren't operating within, a philosophical tradition, or that in some cases they didn't belong to a group or school of other thinkers, or even that they all lived alone, like hermits. What I am suggesting is that, as far as their philosophical 'discoveries' were concerned, they were in general divorced from ordinary life (i.e., they were in general isolated from the working class and ordinary human beings). In addition, the vast majority enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, free from daily toil, and were often supported, subsidised or patronised by a member of the ruling-class. Either that or they were 'employed' by the Church, had 'independent means' or belonged to the 'privileged elite' themselves. (I will cover this topic in more detail in Part Two of Essay Twelve.)]

But, ideas like these were never based on -- nor were they even derived from -- ordinary practice and everyday language, otherwise the rest of us wouldn't need to be informed of them.^75b

Indeed, if 'philosophical discoveries' like these had ever been based on the above, they wouldn't have struck their inventors (or anyone else, for that matter) as especially 'profound', excavated for us by their valiant efforts, aided or not by what is, in effect, the metaphysical equivalent of a JCB: Hegel's Logic.

In fact, theories like these stage a dramatic entrance into the world of 'learning' as glittering linguistic 'jewels' (solitaire diamonds, if you will). They gain their 'meaning' -- their metaphysical shine -- solely from the artificial setting arranged for them by their inventors, making such an entrance as if they were "news from nowhere", shafts of metaphysical light, 'Cosmic Verities' written as if on tablets of stone.

And, surprise, surprise: the vast majority of educated individuals fall for these linguistic con-tricks time and again.^75c

Nevertheless, the 'Metaphysical Prophets' who invent such Scintillating Truths -- acting like Divine Intermediaries, each a latter day Hermes (who was the Greek Messenger of the 'Gods') -- act as if the 'real' meaning of the ordinary-looking words they use in fact arise from the novel role bestowed on them by such pioneering efforts in reconstructive linguistic surgery. To that end, these 'intrepid thinkers' often concoct a series of Proper Names/Neologisms as labels for the 'abstract' objects and concepts they now re-christen, "Essences", "Forms", "Universals" and the like.⁷⁶

The above supposition (whereby Traditional Theorists imagined they were dealing with 'real meanings' and not 'distortions') was further motivated by the idea that words gain their meaning individually, atomistically, as linguistic or semantic 'units'. That is because of (i) A direct, unmediated connection they supposedly enjoyed with reality (since, as we saw in Essay Three Part One, despite appearances to the contrary they were all really the Proper Names of 'Universals', 'Ideas', 'Concepts', 'Essences', 'inner representations', 'images', etc., etc.), or (ii) The intimate link the concepts involved in all this had with various 'mental processes' taking place in each individual theorist's brain (via the mythical 'process of abstraction'). That helps explain why such an 'innovative' (or distorted) use of language is central to Metaphysics and DM -- again, as we saw in Essay Three Part One and elsewhere at this site.

Hence, for Traditional Thinkers, the assumption that such 'names' gain their meaning directly and solely from whatever they allegedly named seems entirely plausible, just as it seems no less plausible to suppose that language (i.e., real language, philosophical language -- not the 'woefully defective vernacular') is based on an atomised, socially-isolated naming ritual of some sort, which is uniquely able to home in on the 'Essence' of "Being" by the mere expedient of wishing that were so. Naturally, this trades on the further (unsupported) idea that there are such things as 'Essences', to begin with. This is yet another dogma which was simply assumed to be true, but never actually shown to be so.⁷⁷

That is, of course, one reason why Traditional Philosophers insisted that the meaning words is determined by such atomistic criteria (as part of a 'private language' of some sort -- these days 'inner speech', or maybe even a 'language of thought'), the result perhaps of an 'inner act' of naming certain Ideas, Categories, or Concepts 'in the mind'/'consciousness', a 'process of abstraction', a stipulative re-definition, or the "unfolding of a genetically determined program".

This is a danger Bertell Ollman warned about (in relation to 'abstractionism') a few years ago, noted in Essay Three Part Two (quoted earlier):

As is the case with Ollman, and, indeed, everyone else who has pontificated about this obscure 'process' [abstractionism], we aren't told how we manage to do this, still less why it doesn't result in the construction of a 'private language'.

Well, it remains to be seen if Professor Ollman can solve a problem that has baffled everyone else for centuries -- that is, those who have even so much as acknowledged it exists!

It is to Ollman's considerable credit, therefore, that he is at least aware of it.

[In fact, Ollman is the very first dialectician I have encountered (in nigh on thirty years) who even so much as acknowledges this 'difficulty'! Be this as it may, I have devoted Essay Thirteen Part Three to an analysis of this topic; the reader is referred there for more details.]

It is no accident, therefore, that this approach not only torpedoes belief in the social nature of language, it is based on a class-motivated rejection of the material roots of discourse in everyday life (explored in Part Two of Essay Twelve -- summarised here). Nor is it merely coincidental that thinkers openly sympathetic to wider ruling-class interests who almost invariably favoured this anti-Marxist view of language.⁷⁸

Conversely, it is no coincidence either that ordinary language assumed its central role in Analytic Philosophy, among left-leaning "Linguistic Philosophers" (and those influenced by Marx, like Wittgenstein), just when the working class was entering the stage of history as a significant political force.⁷⁹

The truth of 'atomic' sentences (like the above) is supposed to depend somehow on the meaning of the words they contain. But, such a use of words can't determine the sense of any sentences formed from them.⁸⁰ Words gain their meaning from their applicability in an indefinitely large set of socially-sanctioned, communally-crafted contexts.⁸¹ They don't have a meaning bestowed upon them first, divorced from linguistic or social contexts, which 'meaning' then enables them to function in sentences, any more than a lump of gold first gains its value in nature, or even in society, on its own, as an isolated 'commodity' unconnected with certain forms of social organisation and collective labour, only to enter the economy afterwards with a value already attached to it. Meaning is no more a natural, individualistic property than value. If the contrary supposition were the case, communication would be impossible (as Ollman pointed out).⁸²

However, ex hypothesi, there are no other contexts in which metaphysical atoms (like M1a, M9 and P4) can feature -- that is, other than those that fuel endless academic debate. The fundamental propositions of Metaphysics (such as, P4, M8 and M9) stand alone as isolated nuggets of truth, foundational principles, core precepts. This means that in such airless surroundings the constituent words of M9, for instance, are in fact meaningless -- despite the typographical similarity they have with ordinary words. That is because they possess no connection with ordinary contexts that are themselves embedded in, or related to, material practice. That is, of course, one reason why M1a, for example, so readily collapses into incoherence.

[Of course, the above depends on how we interpret the word "meaning"; I will say more about that presently.]

In a similar vein (no pun intended), Gold isn't just valueless in nature, it is incapable of gaining a value by itself and of its own efforts -- or, indeed, by the efforts of lone prospectors and refiners. And gold, too, would remain valueless if it had no connection with historically-conditioned material practice in a sufficiently developed economy.

Of course, to suppose otherwise --, i.e., to imagine that words, or their 'inner representations', determine their own meaning independently of the use to which human beings put them in everyday contexts -- would be to fetishise them, as noted above.

Indeed, this would be tantamount to believing that words (again, or their 'inner representations') enjoyed a social life of their own anterior to, and explanatory of, the linguistic communion that takes place between human beings. If words (etc.) did in fact acquire their own meanings, piecemeal, in such a manner, and those meanings followed words about the place like shadows, then the idea that language is a social phenomenon would itself assume an entirely different meaning. In that case, discourse would still be social, but that would be because words were the social beings here. That would in turn mean that they had gifted that property to our use of language, not the other way round!

If that were so, humanity would be social because our words already were!⁸³

We are now in a position to understand why: the supposition that a word (or, at least, its physical embodiment, its 'inner representation', perhaps) can motivate a human agent (causally or in any other way)⁸⁴ to regard it as the repository of its own meaning -- so that inferences can be made from ink marks on the page (or from 'images', 'ideas', and 'representations' in the head) to 'Super-Empirical Truths' about 'Being', or whatever -- would be to misconstrue the products of the social relations among human beings (i.e., words) as if they were their own autonomous semantic custodians, as creators and carriers of meaning themselves. In effect, that would be to anthropomorphise words, treating them as if they had their own history, social structure and mode of development. In this way, the social nature of language would reappear in an inverted form as an expression of the social life of words (etc.). Humanity would be atomised, linguistic signs (etc.) socialised!⁸⁵

In that case, M9 and P4 can't be true in virtue of the meanings of any of their words -- for no meaning has yet been given to such an idiosyncratic use of language by human beings engaged in any form of material practice.

If, however, an attempt were made to specify the meaning of constituent words in a piecemeal fashion, a rule would be required.⁸⁶ To suppose that there is some sort of connection between a rule and reality (determined, perhaps, by a physical law) would be to no avail, either. If a rule were to depend on such a connection, it would become an empirical proposition, and thus cease to be a rule.⁸⁷

Unfortunately, the vast majority of philosophers have so far overlooked this seemingly insignificant point.⁸⁸

[This sub-section is a recap of earlier results, but from a slightly different angle. It can be skipped by anyone who has 'got the point'. Begin again here.]

M22: "[M]otion [is] an inseparable property of matter." [Lenin (1972), p.323. Italic emphasis added.]

In so far as M22 purports to inform us about the properties of matter (in the real world), it looks like a scientific statement. However, as we have seen, when examined it turns out to be nothing of the sort. Contrast M22 with the following:

Here, we can imagine conditions under which M23 would be false and M23a true (think of ice or steam). But, M22 is a very much stronger claim than M23, and is clearly connected with M1a (or, indeed, with M9 and P4). We can see that if we examine it more closely.^88a

If M22 is re-written slightly and tidied up to eliminate the unnecessary detail, it would become M24:

M24 is apparently always true; its 'truth' is clearly connected with the supposed meaning of words like "motion" and "inseparable", etc., both of which were ultimately based on the presumed truth of P4.

By asserting M24, Lenin certainly didn't mean to suggest that even if we were to try really hard we would still fail to separate the two words or 'concepts', "motion" and "matter" (what they meant or what they allegedly referred to) in our thoughts. Lenin plainly wasn't informing us that while such a separation was a particularly difficult physical or mental task, we could still make some attempt to imagine a scenario where they were separated. He was claiming that we would always find we would always fail -- even more so that any suggestion an individual could eat an entire adult Blue Whale in less than two minutes.

Lenin was clearly alluding to a connection between matter and motion that was much tighter than this. He was perhaps reminding us of the futility of even trying -- that this wasn't an option --, just as it wouldn't be an option for anyone to try to disassociate oddness from the number three, or the concept, king-killer, from regicide, for instance.⁸⁹

Hence, if we were to view M23 exactly as Lenin viewed M24, it would mean that not only could water not be non-liquid, nothing other than water could be liquid, either. It would thus imply that water wasn't just the only liquid, it was the only one that could exist in the universe -- and that liquidity was the only conceivable form of water.

That is because, for Lenin, motion wasn't just one of the defining characteristics of matter, nothing that moves (outside of the 'mind') would fail to be material. Motion is, as it were, super-glued to matter, and only to matter -- and, indeed, vice versa -- according to Lenin. [Lenin says this over and over again in MEC; on that see here.]

Hence, the same would have to be true with respect to water, if we were to read M23 as strictly as we are meant to interpret M24.

The main verb in M24 is clearly in the indicative mood. But, if M24 were an empirical proposition, its negation, M24a, would make sense, but for Lenin it doesn't -- indeed, it is "unthinkable", unlike the negation of M23 (i.e., M23a). That is because, once again, M24 holds open no truth possibilities; it asserts only one envisaged necessity.

Lenin obviously believed that it was impossible even to think the falsehood of M24 -- any more than it might be possible to think there were or could be triangles with four vertices. As we have seen, in this he openly agreed with Engels:

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted. A motionless state of matter therefore proves to be one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas…." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

Nevertheless, and once again, the indicative mood of the main verb in M24 hides its real nature. Only a consideration of the overall use of this claim (that is, its role within Lenin's 'system' of ideas) in the end reveals it is a metaphysical sentence, which hasn't been derived from the evidence but from the supposed meaning of a handful of words, once more.

To this end, it is worth asking what could possibly make M24 'true', and, a fortiori, what could conceivably make it false.

Indicative sentences are normally true or false according to the way the world happens to be, but this sentence can't be false no matter what happens in the world. So, its falsehood can't be based on any conceivable state of affairs. As noted earlier, its truth seems to arise from linguistic (or conceptual) considerations alone, not from reality. This can be seen not just because of its imputed necessity but from the way Lenin actually imagined he had established its veracity. He simply relied on its supposed self-evidence, the self-evidence of P4 and his 'definition' of matter. He didn't even think to support it with any data (or even with much of an argument!). Its semantic status was underpinned by what Lenin plainly took its words to mean. Its truth was thus internally-generated, not 'externally' confirmed.^89a

Nevertheless, what could possibly make this set of words 'necessarily true', according to Lenin? M24 is just a string of words. It would have to have some sort of projective or representational relation to the real world for it to be true, for it to be a true picture of our world, and some alternative, 'parallel', or fictional 'universe'.⁹⁰

Well, whatever it is that succeeds in achieving that must also make the following sentences false:

But, ex hypothesi, M18 and M19 (or their content) are "unthinkable", according to Lenin. As soon as we think either of them (or their content) we face the sort of problems we encountered earlier.

Such 'necessary' truths make the possibilities they rule out (such as M18 or M19) not just 'false', but Super-False, and hence "unthinkable". This they do while at the same time requiring us to have to think about whatever it is they seek to exclude so that it can be rejected out-of-hand. But, in order to do that, we should have to be able to separate, in thought, motion from matter in order to be able to declare that it can't be done -- even in thought! Unless we could separate motion from matter in thought we would have no idea what we are supposed to rule out, and hence no idea what we were meant to rule in by accepting M24.

Hence, if we are capable of grasping the truth of M24, we must already have some comprehension of what would make it false, i.e., what M24 is ruling out.

This (by-now-familiar) problem has arisen from the fact that Lenin entertained a 'necessary' truth (M24) the content of which is impossible to state in any comprehensible form.

Metaphysics consigns countless 'propositions' like M18 and M19 to linguistic limbo in this way. By adopting this approach to 'knowledge', DM-theorists similarly consign their ideas to outer darkness.

As we have seen several times throughout this site, both metaphysical and DM-sentences readily decay into non-sense. They can't fail to do this. While appearing to mimic empirical propositions they turn out to be radically different, masquerading as ordinary, but far more profound, declarative sentences. Central to this role as especially deep 'truths' is their distorted use of language; in many cases they also turn out to be garbled rules of linguage.⁹¹

Such sentences often attempt to say what can only be shown by the ordinary use of language.⁹² And this they do surreptitiously and dishonestly.

Metaphysics misconstrues conventions and forms of representation expressed in and by our socially-, and materially-conditioned use of language, but in a form that re-configures whatever this supposedly uncovers as Super-Empirical, 'necessary truths', quite unlike the ordinary, mundane truths associated with everyday practice -- or even with genuine science. Empirical propositions hold open two possibilities: truth or falsehood. Metaphysical sentences, while purporting to be empirical, close one of these off. In doing that, they end up denying for themselves any sense whatsoever; they collapse into incoherent and non-sensical strings of words.⁹³

Despite appearances to the contrary, the complete rejection of Metaphysics outlined at this site doesn't draw an a priori limit to the search for knowledge -- it merely reminds us that truths about nature can't be stated by misusing language. Moreover, they can't be formulated in a way that makes supporting evidence irrelevant, either.

Since metaphysical theses don't present genuine empirical possibilities, their repudiation and subsequent eradication can't adversely affect the scientific investigation of the world, nor can they interfere with any attempt to change it.

Metaphysical theses don't represent profound, ambitious or risky conjectures that merit our attention or even respect. They contain nothing but empty phrases -- they are indeed "houses of cards" (to paraphrase Wittgenstein -- Investigations, §118) --, which at best express self-important confusion, at worst a ruling-class 'view of reality'.

Metaphysical pseudo-propositions violate the rules governing the formation of comprehensible empirical sentences by undermining the semantic possibilities that the latter hold out. In addition, they misuse ordinary words while pretending to extend, alter or 'sharpen' their meaning. Supposedly providing insight into the "essential" structure of reality, metaphysical and DM-theses attempt derive substantive truths about the world from thought or from words alone. They thus possess an entirely undeserved mystique, which arises from their chameleonic outer facade -- that is, they resemble ordinary empirical propositions, but pretend to inform us of 'necessary', aspects features of reality. But that outer facade only succeeds in concealing the fact that they thereby reduce themselves to non-sensicality and incoherence.

As should seem clear, these deflationary conclusions rule out the possibility of any future Metaphysics (including that fourth-rate version, DM). This of course means that this approach to philosophical knowledge isn't a viable option. But that doesn't mean that if we were cleverer than we now are, if we knew much more, we would be able to formulate and comprehend such Super-Truths. There is nothing there which Metaphysics could even pretend to find -- nor vaguely hint at -- so that anyone might go in search of it. The language that metaphysicians (and DM-theorists) themselves use rules this out as a viable option from the start. This ancient 'discipline' presents us with no viable possibilities --, any more than the supposition that there is or might a 'free kick' in chess or LBW in basketball. The search for metaphysical 'truth' is therefore analogous to looking for a goal in tennis or a home run in snooker. We should therefore treat the search for such 'truths' as we would a proposed expedition to hunt and then capture the Jabberwocky.^93a

Contrary to expectations, the repudiation of Metaphysics in fact opens up the conceptual space for science to flourish. In this way, scientists are free to formulate theories that possess true or false empirical implications. A fortiori, such truths won't depend solely on the meanings of the words they contain, but on the way the world happens to be. This couldn't be the case if science were based on Metaphysics; in such an eventuality scientific truth would depend solely on the meaning of words, not on any actual state of the world.

Hence, to paraphrase Kant: it is necessary to destroy Metaphysics -- and thus DM -- in order to make room for science.⁹⁴

01. Much of the background to this Essay is based on Wittgenstein's work, helpfully outlined for us in Harrison (1979) and Hanna and Harrison (2004). See also, Baker and Hacker (1984, 1988, 2005a). Some of what I have to say here coincides with the anti-metaphysical views expressed in Rorty (1980) (this links to a PDF). I distance myself, however, from Rorty's anti-Realism, his (inconsistent) attempt to establish a 'metaphysics of mind', and his rather odd equation of Philosophy with some form of literary criticism.

[Rorty defends his view of Wittgenstein in Rorty (2010). On that, see Horwich (2010), which is an effective reply (not that I agree with everything Horwich has to say!).]

1. Some might take exception to my use of "metaphysical" to describe such sentences. If so, they can substitute the words "dogmatic", "essentialist" or "necessitarian" for "metaphysical" in phrases like "metaphysical theory" used throughout this Essay. That done, not much will be changed by such terminological alterations. It is the logical status of such sentences that is important, not what we call them. [More on that below.]

Here are a few relevant quotations about motion and matter from Engels and Lenin. Here, first, is Engels:

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transferred. When motion is transferred from one body to another, it may be regarded, in so far as it transfers itself, is active, as the cause of motion, in so far as the latter is transferred, is passive. We call this active motion force, and the passive, the manifestation of force. Hence it is as clear as daylight that a force is as great as its manifestation, because in fact the same motion takes place in both. A motionless state of matter is therefore one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas...." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphasis alone added. Paragraphs merged.]

"Motion in the most general sense, conceived as the mode of existence, the inherent attribute, of matter, comprehends all changes and processes occurring in the universe, from mere change of place right up to thinking." [Engels (1954), p.69. Bold emphasis added.]

"In full conformity with this materialist philosophy of Marx's, and expounding it, Frederick Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring (read by Marx in the manuscript): 'The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved...by a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science....' 'Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, or motion without matter, nor can there be....'" [Lenin (1914), p.8. Bold emphasis added.]

"[T]he sole 'property' of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our mind." [Lenin (1972), p.311.]

"Thus…the concept of matter…epistemologically implies nothing but objective reality existing independently of the human mind and reflected by it." [Ibid., p.312.]

"[I]t is the sole categorical, this sole unconditional recognition of nature's existence outside the mind and perception of man that distinguishes dialectical materialism from relativist agnosticism and idealism." [Ibid., p.314.]

"The fundamental characteristic of materialism is that it starts from the objectivity of science, from the recognition of objective reality reflected by science." [Ibid., pp.354-55.]

Nevertheless, as we will see in Essay Thirteen Part One, even though these two dialecticians believe motion and matter are inseparable, Lenin's other defining criteria for anything to be classified as matter fail to exclude the existence of motionless matter.

Anyway, as these passages reveal, Lenin characterised matter in a rather odd way: i.e., as that which exists "objectively" outside, and independently of, the mind. He also quoted Engels approvingly to the effect that motion is the "mode" of the existence of matter.

But, if all motion is relative to a given reference frame, then it is entirely possible to picture certain bodies as motionless with respect to some frame or other. The contrary view may only be maintained if space is held to be Absolute. That condition aside, this means that motion is reference frame-sensitive. If it can disappear when we change reference frames, motion can't be the mode of the existence of matter, as Lenin and Engels surmised. In which case, it is perhaps more appropriate to characterise Engels and Lenin's way of depicting motion as a form of representation and, as such, regard it as convention-sensitive.

"Form of representation" will be explained more fully Essay Thirteen Part Two; however, it is connected with the following comments of Wittgenstein's:

"Newtonian mechanics, for example, imposes a unified form on the description of the world. Let us imagine a white surface with irregular black spots on it. We then say that whatever kind of picture these make, I can always approximate as closely as I wish to the description of it by covering the surface with a sufficiently fine square mesh, and then saying of every square whether it is black or white. In this way I shall have imposed a unified form on the description of the surface. The form is optional, since I could have achieved the same result by using a net with a triangular or hexagonal mesh. Possibly the use of a triangular mesh would have made the description simpler: that is to say, it might be that we could describe the surface more accurately with a coarse triangular mesh than with a fine square mesh (or conversely), and so on. The different nets correspond to different systems for describing the world. Mechanics determines one form of description of the world by saying that all propositions used in the description of the world must be obtained in a given way from a given set of propositions -- the axioms of mechanics. It thus supplies the bricks for building the edifice of science, and it says, 'Any building that you want to erect, whatever it may be, must somehow be constructed with these bricks, and with these alone.'

"And now we can see the relative position of logic and mechanics. (The net might also consist of more than one kind of mesh: e.g. we could use both triangles and hexagons.) The possibility of describing a picture like the one mentioned above with a net of a given form tells us nothing about the picture. (For that is true of all such pictures.) But what does characterize the picture is that it can be described completely by a particular net with a particular size of mesh.

"Similarly the possibility of describing the world by means of Newtonian mechanics tells us nothing about the world: but what does tell us something about it is the precise way in which it is possible to describe it by these means. We are also told something about the world by the fact that it can be described more simply with one system of mechanics than with another." [Wittgenstein (1972), 6.341-6.342, pp.137-39.]

Of course, a form of representation is much more involved than this passage might suggest (for instance, it leaves out of account how theories are often inter-linked or are coordinated with one another, and it seems to suggest that physics is an a-historical, non-social discipline). Thomas Kuhn's more considered thoughts about what he calls a "paradigm" are, in some respects, a little closer to what is meant by "form of representation" at this site; on this, see Kuhn (1970, 1977, 1996, 2000). See also Lakatos and Musgrave (1970) -- especially Masterman (1970) --, as well as Sharrock and Reed (2002). This topic is also connected with Wittgenstein's ideas about "criteria" and "symptoms". [On that, see here. Cf., also, Glock (1996), pp.129-35. As noted above, I will say more about this in Essay Thirteen Part Two.]

Update October 2011: A recent example of the employment of just such a form of representation (or, rather, several such forms) might assist the reader understand this phrase a little more clearly. In late September 2011, the news media were full of stories about an experiment which appeared to show that a beam of neutrinos had exceeded the speed of light. Here is how the New Scientist handled the story (the relevant aspects of a range of different but intersecting forms of representation being employed here -- albeit expressed rather sketchily -- have been highlighted in bold):

"Subatomic particles have broken the universe's fundamental speed limit, or so it was reported last week. The speed of light is the ultimate limit on travel in the universe, and the basis for Einstein's special theory of relativity, so if the finding stands up to scrutiny, does it spell the end for physics as we know it? The reality is less simplistic and far more interesting. 'People were saying this means Einstein is wrong,' says physicist Heinrich Päs of the Technical University of Dortmund in Germany. 'But that's not really correct.'

"Instead, the result could be the first evidence for a reality built out of extra dimensions. Future historians of science may regard it not as the moment we abandoned Einstein and broke physics, but rather as the point at which our view of space vastly expanded, from three dimensions to four, or more. 'This may be a physics revolution,' says Thomas Weiler at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who has devised theories built on extra dimensions. 'The famous words 'paradigm shift' are used too often and tritely, but they might be relevant.'

"The subatomic particles -- neutrinos -- seem to have zipped faster than light from CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland, to the OPERA detector at the Gran Sasso lab near L'Aquila, Italy. It's a conceptually simple result: neutrinos making the 730-kilometre journey arrived 60 nanoseconds earlier than they would have if they were travelling at light speed. And it relies on three seemingly simple measurements, says Dario Autiero of the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Lyon, France, a member of the OPERA collaboration: the distance between the labs, the time the neutrinos left CERN, and the time they arrived at Gran Sasso.

"But actually measuring those times and distances to the accuracy needed to detect nanosecond differences is no easy task. The OPERA collaboration spent three years chasing down every source of error they could imagine...before Autiero made the result public in a seminar at CERN on 23 September. Physicists grilled Autiero for an hour after his talk to ensure the team had considered details like the curvature of the Earth, the tidal effects of the moon and the general relativistic effects of having two clocks at different heights (gravity slows time so a clock closer to Earth's surface runs a tiny bit slower).

"They were impressed. 'I want to congratulate you on this extremely beautiful experiment,' said Nobel laureate Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after Autiero's talk. 'The experiment is very carefully done, and the systematic error carefully checked.' Most physicists still expect some sort of experimental error to crop up and explain the anomaly, mainly because it contravenes the incredibly successful law of special relativity which holds that the speed of light is a constant that no object can exceed. The theory also leads to the famous equation E = mc².

"Hotly anticipated are results from other neutrino detectors, including T2K in Japan and MINOS at Fermilab in Illinois, which will run similar experiments and confirm the results or rule them out (see 'Fermilab stops hunting Higgs, starts neutrino quest'). In 2007, the MINOS experiment searched for faster-than-light neutrinos but didn't see anything statistically significant. The team plans to reanalyse its data and upgrade the detector's stopwatch. 'These are the kind of things that we have to follow through, and make sure that our prejudices don't get in the way of discovering something truly fantastic,' says Stephen Parke of Fermilab.

"In the meantime, suggests Sandip Pakvasa of the University of Hawaii, let's suppose the OPERA result is real. If the experiment is tested and replicated and the only explanation is faster-than-light neutrinos, is E = mc² done for? Not necessarily. In 2006, Pakvasa, Päs and Weiler came up with a model that allows certain particles to break the cosmic speed limit while leaving special relativity intact. 'One can, if not rescue Einstein, at least leave him valid,' Weiler says.

"The trick is to send neutrinos on a shortcut through a fourth, thus-far-unobserved dimension of space, reducing the distance they have to travel. Then the neutrinos wouldn't have to outstrip light to reach their destination in the observed time. In such a universe, the particles and forces we are familiar with are anchored to a four-dimensional membrane, or 'brane', with three dimensions of space and one of time. Crucially, the brane floats in a higher dimensional space-time called the bulk, which we are normally completely oblivious to.

"The fantastic success of special relativity up to now, plus other cosmological observations, have led physicists to think that the brane might be flat, like a sheet of paper. Quantum fluctuations could make it ripple and roll like the surface of the ocean, Weiler says. Then, if neutrinos can break free of the brane, they might get from one point on it to another by dashing through the bulk, like a flying fish taking a shortcut between the waves....

"This model is attractive because it offers a way out of one of the biggest theoretical problems posed by the OPERA result: busting the apparent speed limit set by neutrinos detected pouring from a supernova in 1987. As stars explode in a supernova, most of their energy streams out as neutrinos. These particles hardly ever interact with matter (see 'Neutrinos: Everything you need to know'). That means they should escape the star almost immediately, while photons of light will take about 3 hours. In 1987, trillions of neutrinos arrived at Earth 3 hours before the dying star's light caught up. If the neutrinos were travelling as fast as those going from CERN to OPERA, they should have arrived in 1982.

"OPERA's neutrinos were about 1000 times as energetic as the supernova's neutrinos, though. And Pakvasa and colleagues' model calls for neutrinos with a specific energy that makes them prefer tunnelling through the bulk to travelling along the brane. If that energy is around 20 gigaelectronvolts -- and the team don't yet know that it is -- 'then you expect large effects in the OPERA region, and small effects at the supernova energies,' Pakvasa says. He and Päs are meeting next week to work out the details.

"The flying fish shortcut isn't available to all particles. In the language of string theory, a mathematical model some physicists hope will lead to a comprehensive 'theory of everything', most particles are represented by tiny vibrating strings whose ends are permanently stuck to the brane. One of the only exceptions is the theoretical 'sterile neutrino', represented by a closed loop of string. These are also the only type of neutrino thought capable of escaping the brane.

"Neutrinos are known to switch back and forth between their three observed types (electron, muon and tau neutrinos), and OPERA was originally designed to detect these shifts. In Pakvasa's model, the muon neutrinos produced at CERN could have transformed to sterile neutrinos mid-flight, made a short hop through the bulk, and then switched back to muon before reappearing on the brane.

"So if OPERA's results hold up, they could provide support for the existence of sterile neutrinos, extra dimensions and perhaps string theory. Such theories could also explain why gravity is so weak compared with the other fundamental forces. The theoretical particles that mediate gravity, known as gravitons, may also be closed loops of string that leak off into the bulk. 'If, in the end, nobody sees anything wrong and other people reproduce OPERA's results, then I think it's evidence for string theory, in that string theory is what makes extra dimensions credible in the first place,' Weiler says.

"Meanwhile, alternative theories are likely to abound. Weiler expects papers to appear in a matter of days or weeks. Even if relativity is pushed aside, Einstein has worked so well for so long that he will never really go away. At worst, relativity will turn out to work for most of the universe but not all, just as Newton's mechanics work until things get extremely large or small. 'The fact that Einstein has worked for 106 years means he'll always be there, either as the right answer or a low-energy effective theory,' Weiler says." [Grossman (2011), pp.7-9. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Some links added. Several paragraphs merged. See also a report in Socialist Review.]

The long-term success of Einstein's theory and the fundamental nature of the speed of light mean that physicists will search for other explanations of this anomaly while remaining committed to the TOR (even if this implicates other theories, such as M-theory, for example). So, the TOR (combined or not with other theories) is used as a form of representation; that is, it is employed -- analogously like the square or the triangular mesh to which Wittgenstein alluded above --, in order to make sense of, or re-interpret, experimental evidence, even if the latter might seem to have refuted already accepted theory, so that it no longer appears to do so. This approach also sanctions certain inferences as 'legitimate', others as 'illegitimate' or 'suspect'. In this way, too, scientists police their own discipline (otherwise known as "peer review").

As we now know, several errors were later discovered in the above readings, meaning that this experiment in the end failed to threaten fundamental tenets of modern physics. But, other forms of representation were used to decide even this! It is interesting to note, however, that some scientists were quite happy to weave these bogus results -- before they were 'exposed' -- into new, or into other, theories in order to make sense of them, so that this anomalous data (rather than accepted theory) remained 'valid'. The significance of that observation will become clearer in Essay Thirteen Part Two.

[Incidentally, this highlights a growing problem in contemporary science, covered in more detail in Essay Eleven Part One -- science by press release.]

Returning to the main theme (i.e., whether or not motion is reference-frame sensitive or a "mode of the existence of matter"): Some might think that QM has shown this to be incorrect (in that it holds that all forms of matter are in ceaseless motion), but this is 'true' only because of a theoretical inference. There is no conceivable way that this supposedly universal truth can be confirmed throughout nature, for all of time. In that case, it has to be read into nature, or imposed on it, metaphysically -- or, indeed, perhaps also as a "form of representation" in its own right.

But, even if it could be confirmed, the depiction of motion as a "mode of the existence of matter" (rather than as a highly confirmed property of matter) would still depend on space being Absolute. Moreover, there is no conceivable observation, or body of observations, that could confirm the supposed fact that motion is a "mode of the existence of matter". Indeed, as noted above, if a relevant reference frame is chosen, which is moving at the same relative velocity as any 'particle' it is 'tracking', that would render it motionless relative to that frame (even if the location of one or both of these was thereby indeterminate, according to certain interpretations of QM).

Of course, it is controversial whether or not there are any sub-atomic particles, as opposed to probability waves (or excitations of 'the field' -- I have covered this in more detail in Essay Seven Part One), but, even if such particles were viewed as probability waves (or the like), the specification of a particle's probable velocity (relative to some frame) would similarly mean it was zero. [On this in general, see Castellani (1998).]

It could be argued that this just shows that all bodies are in constant motion relative to one another, which is all that DM-theorists need. But, as was pointed out above, even then motion would still be reference-fame sensitive, and hence it couldn't be a "mode" of the existence of matter, otherwise that wouldn't be the case.

It would seem, therefore, that Lenin and Engels need space to be Absolute if their claim that motion is a "mode of the existence of matter" is to hold water.

It could be objected once more that Lenin's views aren't metaphysical. That objection might itself be based on Engels's own loose characterisation of Metaphysics:

"To the metaphysician, things and their mental reflexes, ideas, are isolated, are to be considered one after the other and apart from each other, are objects of investigation fixed, rigid, given once for all. He thinks in absolutely irreconcilable antitheses. 'His communication is "yea, yea; nay, nay"; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.' [Matthew 5:37. -- Ed.] For him a thing either exists or does not exist; a thing cannot at the same time be itself and something else. Positive and negative absolutely exclude one another, cause and effect stand in a rigid antithesis one to the other.

"At first sight this mode of thinking seems to us very luminous, because it is that of so-called sound common sense. Only sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is, in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research. And the metaphysical mode of thought, justifiable and even necessary as it is in a number of domains whose extent varies according to the nature of the particular object of investigation, sooner or later reaches a limit, beyond which it becomes one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions. In the contemplation of individual things it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It cannot see the wood for the trees." [Engels (1976), p.26. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Italic emphasis in the original.]

Other DM-fans have also endorsed this view of Metaphysics (as we will see below)

So, Engels appears to believe that metaphysicians are committed to the belief that:

(3) They exist in "irreconcilable antitheses", which appears to imply that the LEM applies across the board.

(4) Metaphysics is the same as, or is expressed by, "commonsense", which works reasonably well in everyday circumstances, but beyond that, in scientific or even philosophical surroundings it soon becomes "one-sided, restricted, abstract, lost in insoluble contradictions", and, among other things, can't see "the wood for the trees".

First of all, Engels offered his readers absolutely no evidence in support of these sweeping allegations (for example, taken from the History of Philosophy).

Second, there have been countless Philosophers and Mystics who believed that everything is interconnected, and which changed as a result of a "unity of opposites". [On that, see here, here and here.] Of course, DM-supporters classify thinkers like this as fellow-travellers (of sorts), who thought 'dialectically' not metaphysically. However, it is even more revealing to classify this tradition as just another strand of the set of ideas of the ruling-class that always rule.

Third, we have already seen that it is impossible to make sense of DM-criticisms of the LEM -- on that see here. If so, 'commonsense' (whatever it is!) would be well advised to stick with the LEM.

Finally, in the Essays posted at this site, we have witnessed DM-theses regularly collapse into incoherence, so there is little room for DM-fans to crow about the superiority of their theory. Indeed, Essay Seven Part Three shows that if DM were true, change would be impossible.

However, Engels's depiction of Metaphysics would unfortunately rule out as non-metaphysical much of previous 'non-dialectical' philosophy. Even Plato would have admitted that things change (albeit if only with respect to appearances).

It could be countered that this is incorrect; only DM pictures things as fundamentally changeable, fundamentally Heraclitean, and only DM relates this to change through internal contradiction (etc.). Well, we have seen, here, here and here that that isn't really so. Even in DM, some things stay the same until or unless a sufficient quantitative change induces a commensurate qualitative change -- namely, and at least including, all those "essences" that Hegel borrowed from Aristotle, which Engels also unwisely appropriated from one or both of them -- just as dialecticians also tell us that some things are 'relatively stable' (whatever that means!).

"It is even more important to remember this point when we are talking about connections between phenomena that are in the process of development. In the whole world there is no developing object in which one cannot find opposite sides, elements or tendencies: stability and change, old and new, and so on. The dialectical principle of contradiction reflects a dualistic relationship within the whole: the unity of opposites and their struggle. Opposites may come into conflict only to the extent that they form a whole in which one element is as necessary as another. This necessity for opposing elements is what constitutes the life of the whole. Moreover, the unity of opposites, expressing the stability of an object, is relative and transient, while the struggle of opposites is absolute, ex-pressing the infinity of the process of development. This is because contradiction is not only a relationship between opposite tendencies in an object or between opposite objects, but also the relationship of the object to itself, that is to say, its constant self-negation. The fabric of all life is woven out of two kinds of thread, positive and negative, new and old, progressive and reactionary. They are constantly in conflict, fighting each other." [Spirkin (1983), pp.143-144. Bold emphasis alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

"All rest is however relative, while motion and change are absolute. This is to be understood as an indication of the self-activity of matter, rather than in the sense that motion is possible without rest.... Any state is temporary and transient, and any thing or phenomena has a beginning and end to its existence. The motion of matter is uncreatable and indestructible. It can only change its forms. No single phenomenon or object can lose its ability to change or be deprived of motion under any conditions....

"The source of the internal activity of matter lies within it, in its inherent potentiality for the perpetual changeability of its concrete shape and form of existence. 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...." [Kharin (1981), pp.62-63. Bold emphases added.]

"To say that everything is in a constant process of development and change is not, of course, to deny that things can be relatively unchanging and stationary. It is, however, to say that rest is 'conditional, temporary, transitory [and] relative' whereas 'development and motion are absolute'...." [Sayers (1980a), p.4. Sayers is here quoting Lenin (1961), p.358, and not p.360 as Sayers has it. Bold emphasis added.]

It isn't easy to see how the above can be reconciled with the idea that "motion is the mode of existence of matter".

Be this as it may, Engels's view of Metaphysics is (yet again!) a crude version of Hegel's ideas on this topic. As Houlgate points out:

"Metaphysics is characterised in the Encyclopedia first and foremost by the belief that the categories of thought constitute 'the fundamental determinations of things'.... The method of metaphysical philosophy, Hegel maintains, involves attributing predicates to given subjects, in judgements. Moreover just as the subject-matter of metaphysics consists of distinct entities, so the qualities to be predicated of those entities are held to be valid by themselves.... Of any two opposing predicates, therefore, metaphysics assumes that one must be false if the other is true. Metaphysical philosophy is thus described by Hegel as 'either/or' thinking because it treats predicates or determinations of thought as mutually exclusive, 'as if each of the two terms in an anti-thesis...has an independent, isolated existence as something substantial and true by itself.' The world either has a beginning and end in time or it does not; matter is either infinitely divisible or it is not; man is either a rigidly determined being or he is not. In this mutual exclusivity, Hegel believes, lies the dogmatism of metaphysics. In spite of the fact that metaphysics deals with infinite objects, therefore, these objects are rendered finite by the employment of mutually exclusive, one-sided determinations -- 'categories the limits of which are believed to be permanently fixed, and not subject to any further negation.'" [Houlgate (2004), pp.100-01. Paragraphs merged.]

But, as has been argued elsewhere at this site, this puts Hegel himself in something of a bind, for he certainly believed that metaphysics was this but not that (i.e., it was either this or it was that, not both), and that unfortunately means even he had to apply the LEM to make his point!

Of course, it could be argued that the above observations aren't "judgements" about the fundamental nature of things -- but then again, that objection itself must use the LEM to make its point, for it takes as granted that the above paragraph is saying this, but not that (again, that it was either this or it was that, not both) about the fundamental nature of things. Indeed, even Hegel's conclusions about the content of any metaphysical 'judgement' (i.e., that it says either this or that, not both) would require an implicit, or even an explicit, use of the LEM.

We can go further, any 'leap' into 'speculative' thought to the effect that this or that, or whatever, has been 'negated', must implicate the LEM, too; for it will either be the case, or it will not, that for any randomly-selected dialectical 'negation', it will have taken place or it won't. Naturally, this would imply that Hegel's thought (and that of anyone who agrees with him) -- i.e., that Hegel said this or that, not both -- was as metaphysical as anything Parmenides or Plato came out with.

That is, if we were foolish enough to rely on Hegel to tell us what "Metaphysics" means!

The conventions of ordinary language (partially codified in the LEM, in this case) aren't so easily side-stepped, even by a thinker of "genius".

Independently of that, it might now be wondered: What marvellous solution to the antinomy concerning the origin of the universe did Houlgate manage to find in Hegel's work? Or even the one concerning the infinite divisibility of matter?

Hegel's ideas, not science, were the source of Engels's confused musing in this area, although, oddly enough, much of what Hegel had to say about Metaphysics in the Preface to the First Edition of The Science of Logic, actually agrees with much of what is said about it in this Essay (even though Hegel also drops a heavy hint that this characterisation is now obsolete, or so he thought). Here is part of it:

"That which, prior to this period, was called metaphysics has been, so to speak, extirpated root and branch and has vanished from the ranks of the sciences. The ontology, rational psychology, cosmology, yes even natural theology, of former times -- where is now to be heard any mention of them, or who would venture to mention them? Inquiries, for instance, into the immateriality of the soul, into efficient and final causes, where should these still arouse any interest? Even the former proofs of the existence of God are cited only for their historical interest or for purposes of edification and uplifting the emotions. The fact is that there no longer exists any interest either in the form or the content of metaphysics or in both together. If it is remarkable when a nation has become indifferent to its constitutional theory, to its national sentiments, its ethical customs and virtues, it is certainly no less remarkable when a nation loses its metaphysics, when the spirit which contemplates its own pure essence is no longer a present reality in the life of the nation.

"The exoteric teaching of the Kantian philosophy -- that the understanding ought not to go beyond experience, else the cognitive faculty will become a theoretical reason which by itself generates nothing but fantasies of the brain -- this was a justification from a philosophical quarter for the renunciation of speculative thought. In support of this popular teaching came the cry of modern educationists that the needs of the time demanded attention to immediate requirements, that just as experience was the primary factor for knowledge, so for skill in public and private life, practice and practical training generally were essential and alone necessary, theoretical insight being harmful even. Philosophy [Wissenschaft] and ordinary common sense thus co-operating to bring about the downfall of metaphysics, there was seen the strange spectacle of a cultured nation without metaphysics -- like a temple richly ornamented in other respects but without a holy of holies. Theology, which in former times was the guardian of the speculative mysteries and of metaphysics (although this was subordinate to it) had given up this science in exchange for feelings, for what was popularly matter-of-fact, and for historical erudition. In keeping with this change, there vanished from the world those solitary souls who were sacrificed by their people and exiled from the world to the end that the eternal should be contemplated and served by lives devoted solely thereto -- not for any practical gain but for the sake of blessedness; a disappearance which, in another context, can be regarded as essentially the same phenomenon as that previously mentioned. So that having got rid of the dark utterances of metaphysics, of the colourless communion of the spirit with itself, outer existence seemed to be transformed into the bright world of flowers -- and there are no black flowers (there are now! -- RL), as we know." [Hegel (1999), pp.25-26, §§2-3. Bold emphases alone added. Minor typo corrected; I have informed the on-line editors.]

Of course, modern metaphysicians would laugh at Hegel's question "Where are they now?" since metaphysics (as traditionally conceived) has roared back over the last century-and-a-half. and is, alas, alive and well and being practiced in a University/College near you.

Independently of that, we have also seen that Hegel was the main source of the slippery reasoning one encounters time and again in 'dialectical thought', the sort that 'allows' dialecticians to ignore the contradictions and equivocations in their own theory while pointing fingers at others for the very same alleged misdemeanours and sins. [There is much more on this in Essay Eleven Part One and here.]

However, Cornforth (1950) presents two main arguments aimed at countering the standard view of Metaphysics employed in this Essay:

(1) Cornforth claims that the modern characterisation of Metaphysics derives from John Locke (p.94), even though Cornforth himself had already pointed out that the term was in fact introduced by Aristotle (p.93). [And it seems to be inconsistent with Hegel's depiction of it, above.] He makes this connection because he wants to maintain that modern Philosophers reject Aristotle's search for the "essential nature of the real" (p.94), deliberately running-together the ideas of the Positivists he is attacking with the views of every modern (non-Communist) Philosopher. This allows him to reject the Positivists' understanding of Metaphysics as if it were held by each and every non-Communist Philosopher!

First of all, even when Cornforth was writing this (circa 1950), only a tiny minority of Analytic Philosophers (never mind the rest of the profession) were Positivists, so this can't be a valid reason for rejecting the standard interpretation handed down from Aristotle. And it can't be a good reason either for present-day dialecticians to reject the interpretation promoted in this Essay, which in no way depends on Locke. [Although Cornforth is right when he says that Empiricism and Positivism are both metaphysical; but then so is DM.]

Second, even if every (non-communist) Philosopher on the planet in 1950 had been a Positivist, it is clear that they would have rejected Metaphysics because, as Positivists, they accepted the traditional view of Metaphysics, which itself stretches way back beyond Locke. Cornforth just asserts that these Philosophers could trace their understanding of this word (i.e., "metaphysics") back to Locke, but he provides us with no evidence whatsoever that this is so -- not even one citation! Anyone who reads the work of the Positivists, or even the Logical Positivists, will see that they weren't just hung up on the nature of "substance" (which Cornforth focuses on simply because of what Locke had said about it), but all areas of Traditional Metaphysics.

More reliable accounts of this (now) obsolete current in Analytic Philosophy can be found, for example, in the following: Copleston (2003b), Friedman (1999), Hacker (2000c), Hanfling (1981), Misak (1995), and Passmore (1966). See also, Conant (2001).

[I would recommend Soames (2003a, 2003b), here, but Soames is highly unreliable in his discussions of Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy. On that, see Hacker (2006); this links to a PDF.]

"Such an attempt, however, to define 'metaphysics' in terms of its subject-matter, is hardly satisfactory. For in a sense all science, as well as philosophy, is concerned with the substance of things and with the nature of the world. If, then, to speak of the substance of things and the nature of the world is 'metaphysical', then science itself has a 'metaphysical' tendency." [Cornforth (1950), p.94. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

To be sure, metaphysical ideas have dominated much of science, but that is because "the ideas of the ruling-class always rule". And yet, science has progressively distanced itself from the influence of metaphysics, especially in areas where an interface with the material world becomes paramount (for instance, in Chemistry, Geology, much of Biology, most of Physics -- and, of course, Technology). [Why that is so will discussed in Essay Thirteen Part Two, when it is published.]

Even so, Cornforth's argument still depends on the unsupported claim that Metaphysics is as he says Positivists define it.

Anyway, Cornforth is being disingenuous here, for DM itself goes way beyond modern science in seeking to pontificate, for example, about motion, telling us that it is a "mode of the existence of matter", or that it is "contradictory" -- or, indeed, about the "essence of Being" ("Thing-in-Itself"), the "interpenetration of opposites", the "negation of the negation", and so on. These vague and dubious 'concepts' certainly fit the traditional interpretation of Metaphysics.

To be sure, the exact boundary between Metaphysics and Science might be hard to define, but that doesn't mean there is no difference between the two. There is a difference between night and day even though the boundary between them is impossible to delineate. [Again, I will say more about this in Essay Thirteen Part Two.]

These appear to be the only two substantive arguments Cornforth offered in support of his rejection of the traditional interpretation of Metaphysics, and thus in favour of his adoption of the characterisation he found in Hegel and Engels (pp.95-98) -- although, oddly enough, Cornforth doesn't mention from whom Engels pinched this idea. But, it is quite clear that all three had to modify considerably the meaning of "metaphysics" to make their fanciful ideas seem to work -- plainly in order to try both to distinguish and to distance Metaphysics from DM (pp.98-101). This is, of course, just another excellent example of the sort of special pleading DM-fans are well practised at invoking.

Of course, all this is independent of Marx's own characterisation of Metaphysics. For example, in The Poverty of Philosophy, he had this to say:

"We shall now have to talk metaphysics while talking political economy. And in this again we shall but follow M. Proudhon's 'contradictions.' Just now he forced us to speak English, to become pretty well English ourselves. Now the scene is changing. M. Proudhon is transporting us to our dear fatherland and is forcing us, whether we like it or not, to become German again. If the Englishman transforms men into hats, the German transforms hats into ideas. The Englishman is Ricardo, rich banker and distinguished economist; the German is Hegel, simple professor at the University of Berlin.

"Louis XV, the last absolute monarch and representative of the decadence of French royalty, had attached to his person a physician who was himself France's first economist. This doctor, this economist, represented the imminent and certain triumph of the French bourgeoisie. Doctor Quesnay made a science out of political economy; he summarized it in his famous Tableau économique. Besides the thousand and one commentaries on this table which have appeared, we possess one by the doctor himself. It is the 'Analysis of the Economic Table,' followed by 'seven important observations.' M. Proudhon is another Dr. Quesnay. He is the Quesnay of the metaphysics of political economy.

"Now metaphysics -- indeed all philosophy -- can be summed up, according to Hegel, in method. We must, therefore, try to elucidate the method of M. Proudhon, which is at least as foggy as the Economic Table. It is for this reason that we are making seven more or less important observations. If Dr. Proudhon is not pleased with our observations, well, then, he will have to become an Abbé Baudeau and give the 'explanation of the economico-metaphysical method' himself....

"Apply this method to the categories of political economy and you have the logic and metaphysics of political economy, or, in other words, you have the economic categories that everybody knows, translated into a little-known language which makes them look as if they had never blossomed forth in an intellect of pure reason; so much do these categories seem to engender one another, to be linked up and intertwined with one another by the very working of the dialectic movement. The reader must not get alarmed at these metaphysics with all their scaffolding of categories, groups, series, and systems. M. Proudhon, in spite of all the trouble he has taken to scale the heights of the system of contradictions, has never been able to raise himself above the first two rungs of simple thesis and antithesis; and even these he has mounted only twice, and on one of these two occasions he fell over backwards." [Marx (1976), pp.161-65. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Links added; several paragraphs merged. I have used the on-line version here, but have also corrected any typos I managed to spot.]

As seems clear from the above, Marx doesn't appear to agree with Engels over the nature of Metaphysics, clearly linking it with "dialectics" (albeit the 'dialectical method' Proudhon extracted from Hegel's work).

Be this as it may, I don't want to get hung up on a terminological point, so I recommend that anyone who objects to the usual definition of "Metaphysics" (and its cognates) -- or even the phrase "Traditional Philosophy" -- used at this site, perhaps, preferring Engels's own characterisation, substitute the following for it:

"[T]he branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of reality, being, and the world."

The above is a description of Metaphysics we find over at Wikipedia, which is, I think, reasonably accurate, if a little brief. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy is a little more specific:

"Metaphysics, most generally the philosophical investigation of the nature, constitution, and structure of reality. It is broader in scope than science..., since one of its traditional concerns is the existence of non-physical entities, e.g., God. It is also more fundamental, since it investigates questions science does not address but the answers to which it presupposes. Are there, for instance, physical objects at all, and does every event have a cause?" [Butchvarov (1999), p.563.]

Here is how the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy characterises it (re-formatted):

"If metaphysics now considers a wider range of problems than those studied in Aristotle's Metaphysics, those problems continue to belong to its subject-matter. For instance, the topic of 'being as such' (and 'existence as such', if existence is something other than being) is one of the matters that belong to metaphysics on any conception of metaphysics. The following theses are all paradigmatically metaphysical: 'Being is; not-being is not' [Parmenides]; 'Essence precedes existence' [Avicenna, paraphrased]; 'Existence in reality is greater than existence in the understanding alone' [St Anselm, paraphrased]; 'Existence is a perfection' [Descartes, paraphrased]; 'Being is a logical, not a real predicate' [Kant, paraphrased]; 'Being is the most barren and abstract of all categories' [Hegel, paraphrased]; 'Affirmation of existence is in fact nothing but denial of the number zero' [Frege]; 'Universals do not exist but rather subsist or have being' [Russell, paraphrased]; 'To be is to be the value of a bound variable' [Quine]; 'An object's degree of being is proportionate to the naturalness of its mode of existence' [McDaniel]." [Inwagen, Sullivan and Bernstein (2023). Italic emphases in the original. Links added; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

"Philosophers of all stripes have theories to offer, for better or worse.... Theories in philosophy, whether good or bad, aim to explain something, to answer certain explanation-seeking questions.... What is being? What is thinking? What is knowledge? What are we?... Rare is the philosopher with no theory whatsoever to offer. Such would be a philosopher without a philosophy...." [Moser (1993), p.3. I owe this reference to Hutto (2003), pp.194-95.]

Finally, here is Dario Cankovic's characterisation of 'Western Philosophy' (with which I largely agree):

"Philosophy, at least in the Western tradition (and this includes Islamic philosophy which is a direct continuation of the tradition of Late Classical-era philosophy), goes through two-phases. The first metaphysical pre-Kantian phase of philosophy conceives of its activity as investigation of the mind-independent necessary metaphysical structure of the world. The second transcendental Kantian phase conceives of its activity as investigation of the mind-constitutive world-constituting necessary transcendental structure or structuring principles of thought itself. While Kant's Copernican revolution is certainly a revolution in philosophy, insofar as in trying to render philosophy scientific it radically changes the way philosophy is done, it doesn't represent a complete break with philosophy. Philosophy remains an effort to understand the world and ourselves a priori. Furthermore, both conceive of the objects of their investigation, whether metaphysical or transcendental, as necessary and immutable, as ahistorical or transhistorical, without or outside of history.

"Self-conceptions of philosophers aside, philosophy is not a transhistorical category, it is a human activity and a body of theories with a history. It is conceptual investigation and invention born out of a fascination with and misunderstanding of necessity. It is decidedly pre-scientific in that it is an attempt to understand nature, ourselves and our place in it through the lens of language, though not self-consciously so. This fascination and misunderstanding is a consequence of our alienation from our collective agency. While humanity shapes and is shaped by nature and our concepts, this collective capacity doesn't extend to individual human beings. We create concepts in an never-ending exchange with nature, but you and I as individual human beings are inducted into a community of language-users of an already formed language and brought forth into an already reformed world. We -- collectively and individually -- we are ignorant of our own history." [Quoted from here. Italics in the original. The rest of this article is an excellent antidote to the idea that Marx was a philosopher. Typo corrected; link and bold emphases added.]

Even so, whatever this ancient intellectual pursuit is finally called, it is abundantly clear that DM-theorists attempt to do some of the above themselves --, i.e., they endeavour to "explain the ultimate nature of reality, being and the world" in their own idiosyncratic, dogmatic, sub-Hegelian fashion. They also ask and attempt to answer similar questions along similar lines, albeit with a view to changing the world. Indeed, they have adopted much the same approach to Philosophy as the Traditional Metaphysicians to whom Moser (above) alludes -- that is, they attempt to derive fundamental truths about reality from a handful of jargonised expressions, which are then imposed on nature, and said to be valid for all of space and time.

[This was demonstrated in detail in Essay Two. Precisely how this series of verbal tricks works is, of course, the subject of Parts One to Seven of the present Essay! See also Essay Three Part One, where much that will be argued here in Essay Twelve was set up.]

As far as the attempt to define Metaphysics as the study of things that don't change, this is what the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy had to say:

"Ancient and Medieval philosophers might have said that metaphysics was, like chemistry or astrology, to be defined by its subject matter: metaphysics was the 'science' that studied 'being as such' or 'the first causes of things' or 'things that do not change.' It is no longer possible to define metaphysics that way, and for two reasons. First, a philosopher who denied the existence of those things that had once been seen as constituting the subject-matter of metaphysics -- first causes or unchanging things -- would now be considered to be making thereby a metaphysical assertion. Secondly, there are many philosophical problems that are now considered to be metaphysical problems (or at least partly metaphysical problems) that are in no way related to first causes or unchanging things; the problem of free will, for example, or the problem of the mental and the physical." [Inwagen, Sullivan and Bernstein (2023). Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; bold emphasis added.]

A useful (and thoroughly traditional) account of the nature of Metaphysics can be found in Van Inwagen (1998), but there are countless books that cover the same ground. For a useful review of attempts to define Metaphysics, see Moore (2013), pp.1-22 -- although, it is revealing that philosophers can't even agree among themselves what this word means!

This underlines what I posted on Quora recently (in answer to the question: "Where should I begin if I want to study Philosophy?"):

First, dial down your expectations. Not one single 'philosophical problem' posed by Ancient Greek thinkers (or any others since) has been solved, or even remotely solved. Nor are they likely to be. After 2500 years of this, we don't even know the right questions to ask, for goodness sake!

"For two and a half millennia some of the best minds in European culture have wrestled with the problems of philosophy. If one were to ask what knowledge has been achieved throughout these twenty-five centuries, what theories have been established (on the model of well-confirmed theories in the natural sciences), what laws have been discovered (on the model of the laws of physics and chemistry), or where one can find the corpus of philosophical propositions known to be true, silence must surely ensue. For there is no body of philosophical knowledge. There are no well-established philosophical theories or laws. And there are no philosophical handbooks on the model of handbooks of dynamics or of biochemistry. To be sure, it is tempting for contemporary philosophers, convinced they are hot on the trail of the truths and theories which so long evaded the grasp of their forefathers, to claim that philosophy has only just struggled out of its early stage into maturity.... We can at long last expect a flood of new, startling and satisfying results -- tomorrow.

"One can blow the Last Trumpet once, not once a century. In the seventeenth century Descartes thought he had discovered the definitive method for attaining philosophical truths; in the eighteenth century Kant believed that he had set metaphysics upon the true path of a science; in the nineteenth century Hegel convinced himself that he had brought the history of thought to its culmination; and Russell, early in the twentieth century, claimed that he had at last found the correct scientific method in philosophy, which would assure the subject the kind of steady progress that is attained by the natural sciences. One may well harbour doubts about further millenarian promises." [Hacker (2001c), pp.322-23.]

Second, begin with Bertrand Russell's Problems of Philosophy, which as about as good an introduction to Traditional Philosophy as you could wish to find -- which is also well written. Then, perhaps read some of the more accessible 'classics', such Descartes's Meditations, or his Discourse, Hume's Enquiries, Berkeley's Three Dialogues, Plato's Republic, or his Meno (Aristotle is, alas, far too difficult!), Kant's Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics -- steer clear of Hegel (who is impossibly difficult).

All of the above (except Hacker) -- and much more besides -- are available here:

Traditionally Philosophy has been regarded as a sort of 'super-science', a discipline capable of revealing fundamental truths about 'reality', valid for all of space and time, ascertainable from thought, or from language, alone -- or, indeed, as some sort of uniquely authoritative moral or political guide, or perhaps even a clue to the 'meaning of life'. But it isn't like any science you have ever heard of. Traditional Philosophers typically spend a few hours in the comfort of their own heads -- by-passing all those boring observations and experiments, with their expensive equipment and a requirement that the individual concerned becomes technically competent --, and, hey presto, they emerge with a set of super-cosmic verities.

This isn't to deny that some philosophers engaged in empirical work -- for example, Aristotle -- but that wasn't a core aspect of their work. Moreover, the sciences have gradually freed themselves from Traditional Philosophy by subjecting their work to empirical test (howsoever one interprets this). Nor is it to deny that scientists don't indulge in amateur metaphysics (especially in their popularisations), speculating about the nature of space or time, for example.

But, Traditional Philosophy is quintessentially a 'conceptual enquiry', which, directly or indirectly, revolves around what certain words mean (such as, 'time', 'space', 'matter', 'knowledge', 'belief', 'existence', 'identity', 'meaning', 'language', 'causation', 'justice', 'freedom', 'fate', 'good', 'evil', 'god', 'soul', etc., etc.), but this is in fact provides us with a clue to its fatal defects, and why it hasn't advanced one nanometre closer to a 'solution' to its 'problems' than Plato or Aristotle themselves managed.

[Which essay actually part of a political debate on the Marxist left. But you don't have to know anything about the latter to follow my argument!]

The deflationary approach to Metaphysics adopted at this site is discussed in more detail in Baker (2004b) and Rorty (1980) -- however, concerning Rorty's work, readers should note the caveats I posted earlier.

Incidentally, the ideas presented in this Essay shouldn't be confused with those developed by the Logical Positivists (henceforth, LP-ers) -- although there are several superficial similarities, 'only at the margins', as it were -- for example, a handful of those expressed in Ayer (2001), pp.1-29. [This links to a PDF.]

Even so, the differences between my ideas and those expressed by LP-ers are quite profound. For instance, I am not offering a criterion of meaning (in fact, I hardly mention this term (i.e., "meaning") as LP-ers intended it to be understood, in this Essay. Moreover, and by way of contrast, I begin with how we ordinarily understand empirical or factual propositions, and to that end I use a term Wittgenstein introduced, "sense", to capture it. This approach shows that the LP-ers got things the wrong way round; it is our grasp of the sense of a proposition that enables us to determine whether or not it is capable of being verified or falsified, not the other way round. As I point out, if we didn't already understand a given proposition, we wouldn't be able to verify/falsify it, or, for that matter, know whether or not it is capable of being verified/falsified. Indeed, how would anyone go about trying to verify a proposition they hadn't already understood? Finally, "meaning" is a highly complex term that was grossly oversimplified by the LP-ers. [I say more about this in Essay Thirteen Part Three; see also here, and below.]

So, verification can't be a fundamental, or even a significant, factor in connection with our ordinary use of factual language. Hence, even though The Verification Principle has now been totally abandoned, its defects (real or imagined) have absolutely nothing to do with the ideas expressed in this Essay, or at this site.

2. Again, Essay Two highlighted the many occasions where modal terminology was employed by DM-theorists (in place of more tentative or reasonable summaries of the available evidence, or intended to 'beef up' their use of the indicative mood).

Here are a few such passages from the DM-classicists and 'lesser' DM-luminaries:

"As we already know that all things change, all things are 'in flux', it is certain that such an absolute state of rest cannot possibly exist. We must therefore reject a condition in which there is no 'contradiction between opposing and colliding forces' no disturbance of equilibrium, but only an absolute immutability…." [Bukharin (1925), p.73. Bold emphases added.]

"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...." [Mao (1961), pp.313. Bold emphasis added.]

"The negative electrical pole…cannot exist without the simultaneous presence of the positive electrical pole…. This 'unity of opposites' is therefore found in the core of all material things and events. Both attraction and repulsion are necessary properties of matter. Each attraction in one place is necessarily compensated for by a corresponding repulsion in another place…." [Conze (1944), pp.35-36. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

"Nature cannot be unreasonable or reason contrary to nature. Everything that exists must have a necessary and sufficient reason for existence…. The material base of this law lies in the actual interdependence of all things in their reciprocal interactions…. If everything that exists has a necessary and sufficient reason for existence, that means it had to come into being. It was pushed into existence and forced its way into existence by natural necessity…. Reality, rationality and necessity are intimately associated at all times…. If everything actual is necessarily rational, this means that every item of the real world has a sufficient reason for existing and must find a rational explanation…." [Novack (1971), pp.78-80. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

"Positive is meaningless without negative. They are necessarily inseparable.... This universal phenomenon of the unity of opposites is, in reality the motor-force of all motion and development in nature…. 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." [Woods and Grant (1995/2007), pp.65-68. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

3. Plainly, this isn't meant to be an exhaustive list of such sentences; the examples listed were chosen to make a particular point about the connection between metaphysical sentences and what look like ordinary empirical propositions. Several more examples, taken from Traditional Metaphysics and DM-sources, have been quoted below.

3a. However, I will have to qualify this comment later on in this Essay since it is clear that mathematical propositions can't be true in the same way that empirical propositions plainly can.

4. It could be objected that to acknowledge, say, M9 as true does in fact require some input from the material world.

Certainly, human beings have to live in this world to be able to assert things like M9 -- if only to learn what the relevant words mean. But, as we will see later, even though ordinary-looking words are being used in such sentences, they (or, rather, the novel expressions invented by metaphysicians and the ordinary words they use in radically new ways) can't be part of the vernacular, as Glock pointed out above.

Notwithstanding this, the fact remains that, unlike M6, it isn't possible to establish the (alleged) truth-status of M9 by comparing it with reality.

In response, it could be argued that M9 is a general proposition whereas M6 is particular.

That is undeniable -- but it isn't relevant. Consider another general, but no less empirical proposition:

E1: All badgers living within a five mile radius of the centre of Luton on August 25th 2017 have eaten hazel nuts at least once that day.

Now, you can 'reflect' on E1 until the cows next evolve, but that will still fail to tell you whether or not it is true. Even though E1 might never be fully confirmed (although, it wouldn't be impossible to do so if it were to be investigated promptly with enough resources devoted to the task -- even if it might prove easier to falsify), observation alone would be accepted as relevant to that end. Understanding E1 in fact tells us what to look for, what will confirm it and what will confute it, even if we never succeed in ascertaining either, or had no desire to do so.

Finally, it could be objected that M9 (and M1a) are in fact summaries of the evidence we currently possess. This objection has already been fielded in Note Two, but more fully in Essay Two. [See also here.]

Anyway, as we will see later, M9 and M1a aren't even empirically true -- if we were to insist on reading them that way.

5. As should seem obvious, M9 has been included in this list not just because of its connection with M1a and other DM-claims, but because dialecticians appear to regard it (or, at least, P4) as an a priori truth which they feel they can assert dogmatically --, or, rather, the language they use makes it difficult to defend them from just such an accusation.

However, even though M9 might look self-evident (to DM-theorists), not everyone would agree. Up until relatively recently (i.e., before, say, 1600), the idea that matter was naturally motionless (or, rather, the belief that effort had to be expended in order to put material bodies into motion and keep them moving) was uncontroversial. Indeed, that theory was a cornerstone of Aristotelian Physics, supported by countless observations over many centuries. It took a conceptual revolution to persuade post-Renaissance theorists to accept the idea that motion is a 'natural' state of material bodies (or, to be more honest, Aristotelians had to die out before such a conceptual shift became possible). Of course, that intellectual development was itself motivated by NeoPlatonic and Hermetic ideas circulating around Europe at the time, and wasn't based on observation, either.

[References supporting the above assertions can be accessed here. The idea that matter is self-moving originated in Plato, but it is arguable that it pre-dated even him; on that see here.]

We have also seen -- here and here -- that Lenin's theory that matter is 'self-moving' would in fact make of Newtonian mechanics obsolete, and was itself based on the ancient, mystical dogma that nature is in effect a self-developing Cosmic Egg.

The point is, of course, that even though DM-theorists themselves believe that matter is always in motion, it is possible to think of it otherwise.

Indeed, as noted above, if a suitable reference frame is chosen, a moving body can be regarded as stationary with respect to that frame. Hence, not only is matter without motion 'thinkable', most people who have thought about this topic have found little difficulty in so thinking. Indeed, the idea is now theoretically respectable. Anyone who doubts that claim should check this and this out, and then perhaps reconsider.

5a0. If this weren't the case, then nothing determinate will have been proposed (i.e., put forward for consideration) and sentences like M6 would fail even to be propositions.

Hence, it is possible to understand M6 without knowing whether or not it is true -- or even if M6a were the case:

On the other hand, if neither were the case (whether we knew so or not), or could be the case, M6 and M6a would both fail to be propositions. In that eventuality, it would be entirely unclear precisely what they were proposing or putting forward for consideration.

Of course, to those of a 'dialectical' frame-of-mind, the above application of the LEM is anathema, a sure sign of 'formal thinking' (i.e., the implication that M6 and M6a are either true or false). In response, it is worth pointing out that this endlessly recycled DM-objection is in fact self-refuting, since it, too, relies on the LEM. That is because it must be the case that any application of the LEM is either an application of the LEM or it isn't -- it can't be both. Indeed, an example of 'formal thought' is either an example of 'formal thought', or it isn't -- it can't be both. A defect in the LEM is a defect or it isn't. Hence, any DM-fan brave enough to attack the LEM will have to use it (explicitly or implicitly) in order to criticise it or highlight its supposed limitations, rendering that criticism null and void.

[Of course, if it is unclear whether or not a supposed application of the LEM is in fact an application of the LEM, then that, too, is either unclear or it isn't, and we are back where we started.]

Incidentally, throughout this Essay I have used rather stilted phrases like "It is possible to understand every word of M6 without knowing whether it is true or knowing whether it is false". That is because there is a world of difference between the following:

A1: It is possible to understand every word of M6 without knowing whether it is true or false;

A2: It is possible to understand every word of M6 without knowing whether it is true or knowing whether it is false.

As will be explained later, it is implicit in the rules we have for the application of words like "empirical" and "factual" -- that is, that an empirical proposition can only assume one of two truth-values (true or false). In other words, such propositions are "bivalent" and have true-false polarity --, but it isn't part of those rules that we must know whether such a proposition is true or know whether such a proposition is false in order to understand it. All we need know is that it could be one or the other, not both. In fact, this rule lies behind the fact that we can understand such sentences before we know whether they are true or whether they are false. That involves comprehending what would make them true or would make them false.

If that weren't so, it would be indeterminate what was being proposed or put forward for consideration -- which would in turn be enough to deny that the sentence in question was an empirical proposition to begin with.

[I have explained this idea in greater detail below. On Hegel's 'apparent rejection' of the LEM, or his attempt to criticise it, see here. Even so, the limitations of this 'Law' lie elsewhere; on that, cf., Peter Geach's article 'The Law of the Excluded Middle', in Geach (1972a), pp.74-87.]

5a. It could be objected that DM-theorists do in fact supply evidence in support of this theory. Often they appeal to the 'whole of science', or, perhaps, the 'human experience in general' in support. Molyneux (2012), quoted below, is just the latest example of DM-hand-waving, Mickey Mouse Science of this sort.

However, this doctrine also follows from the idea that motion is the "mode of the existence of matter" (i.e., P4):

Hence, for dialecticians, these two 'concepts', matter and motion, can no more be separated than, say, the words "number" and "six".

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transmitted…. A motionless state of matter therefore proves to be one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas…." [Engels (1976), p.74. Italic emphasis in the original. Paragraphs merged.]

While evidence can and has been used to show that matter moves (not that it was ever in doubt!), no amount of evidence could show that motion is the "mode of the existence of matter", or that motion without matter is "unthinkable" --, that is, that matter can't exist unless it is moving, or that we can't think about it except in this way.

And that is what makes the 'evidential display' aired in the DM-literature the charade it is. What little evidence DM-theorists bother to scrape-together is used solely illustratively; i.e., it isn't used to establish the truth of a given DM-claim, merely to make it seem clearer, more plausible, or perhaps even more 'scientific' -- and plainly to novices. No independent expert in the relevant fields would accept it a proof. In Essay Seven, this approach to knowledge was dubbed, "Mickey Mouse Science". And the accuracy of that observation is itself confirmed by the further fact that this particular thesis (about the universal nature of motion) is based on Hegel's dogmatic assertions (as is much else we find in DM), who arrived at such conclusions before very much evidence was available.

Of course, this particular idea was ultimately derived from Heraclitus, who advanced claims like this before there was any scientific data at all! Indeed, he arrived at this 'Super-Scientific truth', valid for all of space and time, by merely thinking about the possibility of stepping into the same river more than once! Unfortunately, Heraclitus even screwed this up! [On that, see Essay Six.]

All DM-theses possess little other than a priori, dogmatic credentials like this, so it is no use dialecticians pretending their doctrines were originally motivated by evidence, or even by a summary of contemporaneous evidence.

[There is more on that here and in the next few Parts of Essay Twelve (when they are published).]

5b. In fact, it is hard to imagine single experiment that could be carried out aimed at confirming such hyper-bold theories. Because they are derived from thought/language alone, they reflect their inventor's determination to use words idiosyncratically. Each of these Cosmic Verities is then used as a rule to interpret experience (as a form of representation -- albeit an incoherent form or representation, as we will see), and hence they are used to dictate to nature how it must be, what it must contain and how it must act. That is, of course, why they seem so 'self-evident' to those who concoct them, why so many modal terms are used in their formulation, why no confirming experiments are called for and why none are ever carried out. After all, has a single DM-supporter ever even so much as proposed a method for testing -- let alone actually proceeding to test -- the veracity of the vast majority of DM-theses? After all, why test what appear to be self-evident truths? Who ever tests whether vixens are female foxes?

It could be objected that Trotsky, for example, did in fact propose an experiment -- whereby bags of sugar could be weighted to test the validity of the LOI. However, anyone who thinks that what Trotsky proposed could rightly be described as an "experiment" has a novel understanding of the nature of that word. Since I have covered this topic at length in Essay Six, the reader is directed there for more details.

Unfortunately for dialecticians, this immediately divorces their 'Super-Truths' from a materialist account of nature and society. If, however, the 'truth' or the 'falsehood' of DM-theories like these is dependent on thought alone, how could these 'Cosmic Verities' be anything other than Ideal?

Worse still: if DM-claims are indeed Idealist, how could they be used to help change the world?

Well, as we saw in Essay Nine Part Two, that isn't strictly true. They can be so used -- but only negatively --, in ways that benefit the ruling-class, heaping ordure on Marxism.

Small wonder then that DM has presided over 150 years of almost total failure. [More on that in Essay Ten Part One.]

Admittedly, some of these pronouncements are 'supported' by a series of short, or even a few protracted arguments, which are merely used to help 'derive' these 'Super-Truths' from still other a priori theses, 'self-evident truths', assorted 'thought experiments, stipulative definitions and hence, ultimately from words. However, their 'veracity' isn't based on evidence, but on what their constituent words or concepts (and those of any supporting ideas) seem to mean. The nature of their derivation means they can be viewed as universal truths in no need of evidential support. We saw this was the case with Engels and Lenin, whose conclusions about matter and motion followed from P4:

[The significance of the above comments will be explored as this Essay unfolds.]

6a. Again, it could be objected that Lenin actually devoted an entire section in MEC to supporting this claim of his. Hence, the allegations advanced in this Essay are entirely baseless.

Unfortunately, Lenin actually spent the bulk of the aforementioned section of MEC to picking a fight with various Idealists, which makes much of what he had to say irrelevant to the concerns addressed in this Essay (and, indeed, irrelevant to supporting the above objection!).

However, in order to consider every conceivable avenue open to DM-fans to defend Lenin, it is necessary to check whether or not his arguments hold together, even in their own terms.

Lenin's opening point in this part of MEC (I am ignoring the preamble on pp.318-19 since it seems to add nothing substantial) is this:

As we will see in Essay Thirteen Part One, Lenin's principal tactic when confronting ideas he doesn't like is to caricature them -- the above being an excellent example of this. "The entire world is his sensation"?! I can think of no Idealist of note who has ever argued this. [Email me if you disagree and can name a few such (with proof!).]

Even so, the force of Lenin's argument depends on his running-together two senses of "move". This allows him to insinuate that any Idealist who claims that "the world is motion" must somehow be contradicting herself, since her thoughts (and hence her world, presumably) "move". Now, even if we allow Lenin to get away with this conflation, how this shows that "motion without matter is unthinkable" is still far from clear.

It could be argued in defence of Lenin that for an Idealist, even thinking about matter involves motion, namely the motion of their own thoughts. In that case, motion without matter is indeed unthinkable. But, and once again, even if we accept Lenin's equivocation between these two senses of "move", we have already seen that he declared that:

In that case, if an Idealist thinks of something non-material (such as 'god'), and his/her thought 'moves' in order to do this, then motion without matter is thinkable, nay actual, after all! [Whether 'God' is material or not will be discussed in Essay Thirteen Part One, but it is difficult to think of a single DM-fan who would want to argue that 'He/She/It' is!] Moreover, a consistent Idealist (of the sort Lenin is caricaturing) would probably conclude that while her ideas might move this doesn't imply the motion of matter, since she denies there is such a thing as matter (i.e., as conceived by materialists).

Nevertheless, what devastating dialectical argument does Lenin deploy in order to cast even this straw doctrine into oblivion? Wonder no more:

"The fundamental distinction between the materialist and the adherent of idealist philosophy consists in the fact that the materialist regards sensation, perception, idea, and the mind of man generally, as an image of objective reality. The world is the movement of this objective reality reflected by our consciousness. To the movement of ideas, perceptions, etc., there corresponds the movement of matter outside me. The concept matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation. Therefore, to divorce motion from matter is equivalent to divorcing thought from objective reality, or to divorcing my sensations from the external world -- in a word, it is to go over to idealism. The trick which is usually performed in denying matter, and in assuming motion without matter, consists in ignoring the relation of matter to thought. The question is presented as though this relation did not exist, but in reality it is introduced surreptitiously; at the beginning of the argument it remains unexpressed, but subsequently crops up more or less imperceptibly.

"Matter has disappeared, they tell us, wishing from this to draw epistemological conclusions. But has thought remained? -- we ask. If not, if with the disappearance of matter thought has also disappeared, if with the disappearance of the brain and nervous system ideas and sensations, too, have disappeared -- then it follows that everything has disappeared. And your argument has disappeared as a sample of 'thought' (or lack of thought)! But if it has remained -- if it is assumed that with the disappearance of matter, thought (idea, sensation, etc.) does not disappear, then you have surreptitiously gone over to the standpoint of philosophical idealism. And this always happens with people who wish, for 'economy's sake,' to conceive of motion without matter, for tacitly, by the very fact that they continue to argue, they are acknowledging the existence of thought after the disappearance of matter. This means that a very simple, or a very complex philosophical idealism is taken as a basis; a very simple one, if it is a case of frank solipsism (I exist, and the world is only my sensation); a very complex one, if instead of the thought, ideas and sensations of a living person, a dead abstraction is posited, that is, nobody's thought, nobody's idea, nobody's sensation, but thought in general (the Absolute Idea, the Universal Will, etc.), sensation as an indeterminate 'element,' the 'psychical,' which is substituted for the whole of physical nature, etc., etc. Thousands of shades of varieties of philosophical idealism are possible and it is always possible to create a thousand and first shade; and to the author of this thousand and first little system (empirio-monism, for example) what distinguishes it from the rest may appear to be momentous. From the standpoint of materialism, however, the distinction is absolutely unessential. What is essential is the point of departure. What is essential is that the attempt to think of motion without matter smuggles in thought divorced from matter -- and that is philosophical idealism." [Ibid., pp.320-21. Emphases in the original.]

This passage more than most exposes Lenin's philosophical naivety, if not incompetence; this topic will be discussed in detail in Essay Thirteen Part One. However, for present purposes, we need only note that all that the above 'argument' demonstrates is that Lenin based his own ideas on the fact that he had 'images' of something-or-other, and that what they 'reflect' must therefore exist. He supported this inference with a dubious claim that whatever is reflected in the mind must exist in the external world -- on that, see below.

But, even if we were recklessly charitable, the very most that this 'argument' could conceivably establish is that Lenin's images correspond to his own image of reality, since all he has are images with which to compare his other images! He has no way of comparing his images with anything which isn't also an image. He couldn't jump 'out of his head' to access the world 'directly' in order to check his images against the reality he thinks they 'reflect'.

An appeal to practice at this point would be to no avail either, since, if Lenin were right, all he would have are images of practice!

[I hasten to add that this doesn't imply that I doubt the existence of the external world! But, anyone who agrees with Lenin faces serious problems, since they can only appeal to faith in support of their belief in 'objective reality'. In which case, they are philosophically no better off than Bogdanov and the others Lenin was criticising in MEC -- the "Fideists", as he called them. (As noted above, I have gone into this at much greater length in Essay Thirteen Part One.)]

Hence, at most all that the above passage shows is that materialists (according to Lenin's definition of them) have a different view of reality from Idealists, not that Idealists can't think about motion. Indeed, he all but admits that they can do so:

"And this always happens with people who wish, for 'economy's sake,' to conceive of motion without matter...." [Ibid.]

"We thus see that scientists who were prepared to grant that motion is conceivable without matter were to be encountered forty years ago too, and that 'on this point' Dietzgen declared them to be seers of ghosts. What, then, is the connection between philosophical idealism and the divorce of matter from motion, the separation of substance from force? Is it not 'more economical,' indeed, to conceive motion without matter?" [Ibid., p.319. Bold emphasis and link added.]

"What is essential is that the attempt to think of motion without matter smuggles in thought divorced from matter -- and that is philosophical idealism." [Ibid., p.321.]

"Our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external world, and it is obvious that an image cannot exist without the thing imaged, and that the latter exists independently of that which images it. Materialism deliberately makes the 'naïve' belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge." [Ibid., p.69. Bold emphasis added.]

"The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it 'images.'" [Ibid., p.279. Bold emphasis added.]

[Nevertheless, how Lenin knew the above was true for other minds -- which can't actually be minds, since they exist outside his mind, since, by his own criterion means they must be material! -- he kept to himself.]

Now, the inference that images imply the existence of the thing imaged is manifestly absurd. If that were the case, we would have to start believing in the real existence of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, for example. [On this, see here and the extended discussion here. Of course, since Lenin didn't believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, it is clear that he either didn't really believe "The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it 'images.'", or he hadn't thought through the implications of his theory too well. And the same can be said of his epigones, who have uncritically swallowed this view of perception and knowledge.]

But, even if Lenin were right, how does any of this show that motion without matter is inconceivable or "unthinkable"? Indeed, not only is motion without matter conceivable, it is actual. Several examples of this everyday phenomenon have been itemised later on in this Essay.

Again, the most this argument is capable of establishing is that the idea of motion and the idea of matter are inseparable, or that the idea of motion without the idea of matter is unthinkable, but then only for "materialist" and "matter" defined in Lenin's rather odd way. Lenin had no way of breaking out of this Idealist circle.

However, Lenin has another argument up the image of his sleeve. After a detour that took him into a consideration of Bogdanov's ideas, he declared:

"Ostwald's answer, which so pleased Bogdanov in 1899, is plain sophistry. Must our judgments necessarily consist of electrons and ether? -- one might retort to Ostwald. As a matter of fact, the mental elimination from 'nature' of matter as the 'subject' only implies the tacit admission into philosophy of thought as the 'subject' (i.e., as the primary, the starting point, independent of matter). Not the subject, but the objective source of sensation is eliminated, and sensation becomes the 'subject,' i.e., philosophy becomes Berkeleian, no matter in what trappings the word 'sensation' is afterwards decked. Ostwald endeavoured to avoid this inevitable philosophical alternative (materialism or idealism) by an indefinite use of the word 'energy,' but this very endeavour only once again goes to prove the futility of such artifices. If energy is motion, you have only shifted the difficulty from the subject to the predicate, you have only changed the question, does matter move? into the question, is energy material? Does the transformation of energy take place outside my mind, independently of man and mankind, or are these only ideas, symbols, conventional signs, and so forth? And this question proved fatal to the 'energeticist' philosophy, that attempt [sic] to disguise old epistemological errors by a 'new' terminology." [Ibid., p.324.]

This amounts to arguing against 'energeticists' (i.e., those who claim that matter does not exist, or that it is simply energy) that they have merely:

"shifted the difficulty from the subject to the predicate, you have only changed the question, does matter move? into the question, is energy material?" [Ibid.]

Well, if Lenin's words alone were sufficient, they would settle the issue. Unfortunately, they aren't. So, what argument does he offer in support of his idiosyncratic 'translation' of "Does matter move?" into "Is energy material?" Apparently none at all -- or, none other than the following idiosyncratic re-definition of "matter" (which he repeats endlessly throughout MEC without once trying to justify it):

"[T]he sole 'property' of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our mind." [Ibid., p.311.]

"Thus…the concept of matter…epistemologically implies nothing but objective reality existing independently of the human mind and reflected by it." [Ibid., p.312.]

So, Lenin's only justification seems to be that to deny, or reject, what he or Engels asserts is to brand oneself an Idealist. However, since Lenin failed to show that his own ideas (supposedly about reality, 'reflected in the mind', etc.) don't collapse into Idealism themselves this is no help at all.

Exactly how Lenin's ideas collapse into Idealism will be examined at length in Essay Thirteen Part One, but the argument will revolve around his only apparent argument for the existence of the external world (which we examined briefly above): that an image implies the existence of the thing imaged!

"The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it 'images.'" [Ibid., p.279.]

But, as pointed out earlier, all that Lenin had to rely on here was his own image of a mirror -- assuming that this is what lay behind his use of this ancient Hermetic metaphor. His knowledge of mirrors was his only guide when it came to using that figure of speech -- i.e., the trope concerning 'reflection'. So, all he had were images of mirrors! In which case, the most this argument establishes is that images reflect other images!

Now, it could be argued that mirrors actually reflect the images of objects, or they reflect objects themselves. This is undeniable; but that response can only be maintained by those who reject Lenin's hopelessly confused epistemology, who don't think that all we have available to us are images. That is because Lenin has yet to show that there are real mirrors, as opposed to images of mirrors. Or, indeed, show that these images of mirrors reflect objects as opposed to reflecting the images of images of 'objects'. His version of the traditional representative theory of knowledge, whereby we represent the world to ourselves (as 'ideas', 'concepts', 'images', or even 'representations') in our heads undercuts all talk of an 'objective' world independent of our knowledge of it, as was abundantly clear to 18^th century Idealists like Berkeley. Now Lenin, and/or his apologists, might try to belittle, deny or repudiate that line-of-argument, and then maybe kick up an image of a cloud of dust (by the use of the sort of repetitive bluster they learned from Lenin) to hide the fact that this image of Lenin's argument doesn't work. But, to all but true believers it is plain that his 'theory' would transform the world into a set of images and, indeed, images of images.

And, as we will see below, it is no use Lenin, or one of his epigones, appealing to the 'commonsense' ideas of ordinary folk to bail him out:

"Materialism deliberately makes the 'naïve' belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge." [Ibid., p.69.]

However, if we now to address Lenin's actual inference, images don't in fact imply the existence of anything, since they are 'uninterpreted inner objects of cognition' (to use traditional jargon). And an act of interpretation (i.e., which re-configures such objects as the images of this, or of that) would have nothing but still other images (interpreted or not) to assist it to that end. And, as we will see in Essay Ten, practice can't turn an image into something it isn't.

Still less is it any use arguing that the human race wouldn't have survived had their images of the world not approximately, or even exactly, corresponded with the world (or at least local parts of it), since all Lenin and his supporters have in their heads are images of humanity surviving. Both have yet to show that their images of humanity doing anything actually correspond with anything outside the image they have inside their heads/brains. Whatever evidence they produce will be no more than another set of images, given this defective epistemology and even more ridiculous starting point. Lenin has given us no way of producing anything other than these yet-to-be-authenticated-images. After all, no image can authenticate itself or, indeed, validate another image.

In addition, we have already seen that Lenin's approach to knowledge implies extreme scepticism. Hence, far from beginning with the "naive beliefs" of ordinary folk, his theory in fact obliterates them and their beliefs! If we were to believe what he says, both would just be 'images' in his head.

The rest of Lenin's 'argument' in this section of MEC adds little to the above (as will become apparent in Essay Thirteen Part One); in that case, Lenin failed to demonstrate by argument or evidence that motion without matter is "unthinkable".

7. Of course, it is worth adding here that metaphysical theories aren't set in concrete; they change and develop in accord with the rise and fall of each Mode of Production, in line with the ideological imperatives of each ruling elite, or those of any insurgent class intent on replacing the old ruling elite -- or, indeed, in line with those of these "prize fighters". [On this, see Shaw (1989).] Having said that, there is a common thread running through each version of ruling-class Philosophy: the doctrine that Cosmic Verities, valid for all of space and time, can be inferred from thought or language alone.

To be sure, the very first Greek Philosophers didn't use the word "metaphysics"; that term was introduced much later, by Aristotle. Nevertheless, the various world-views on which Super-Knowledge like this feed certainly date back (in the 'West') at least to Anaximander and Anaximenes. In the 'East', of course, it stretches even further back. [More on that in Note I above, and in Parts Two and Three of this Essay.]

8. These days 'necessary truths' tend to be defined extensionally, that is, they are said to be true in every possible world [Kirkham (1992)]. That odd idea will be examined elsewhere at this site.

However, this isn't to suggest that all metaphysicians attached such modal qualifications to the word "truth" -- certainly not pre-Leibniz. Hence, the use of the phrase "necessary truth" in these Essays (in order to highlight the confusion that is alleged to exist between necessary and contingent truths) is merely a handy way of underlining a common thread running through the entire history of Metaphysics.

Clearly, some sensitivity needs to be shown when analysing the metaphysical ideas of thinkers who wrote before this phrase entered philosophical currency. Having said that, it is the use to which a theorist puts his/her ideas that is important. If that use is no different from the employment of genuinely necessary truths (as these have been conceived more recently), no serious distortion of the original ideas need result.

On this, see the extended comments in "Grammar and Necessity" in Baker and Hacker (1988), pp.263-347. Much that these two authors have to say is consistent with the view adopted at this site -- but that work of theirs should be read in the light of other references given below, particularly the work of David Bloor and Martin Kusch. Nevertheless, it greatly extends and amplifies the comments made about that topic in this Essay.

9. The ease with which all metaphysicians perform this trick (i.e., deriving necessary truths from a handful of words) isn't the only clue we have about the real nature of the dogmatic theories Traditional Philosophers conjure out of less than thin air. A detailed consideration of different interpretations of the words used -- coupled with a demonstration that there are other ways of viewing them (which are equally, if not more, plausible) -- shows that metaphysical theories depend on little other than a grim determination to use language in odd ways and/or distort it.

Hence, it is possible to show that these 'Super-Truths' decay into incoherence because they:

(b) Are based on a highly specialised, limited, distorted or implausible use of language.

In which case, they can't be reflections of the 'necessary' or 'essential' features of this universe (or, indeed, of any universe). Far from depicting the 'logical or essential form of the world', they either express, or depend on, identifiable ruling-class assumptions about the sort of universe that is conducive to their interests, their determination to maintain power and reproduce contemporaneous relations of exploitation, or they reflect their inventor's determination to use language idiosyncratically.

[These contentions will be substantiated in the next two Parts of Essay Twelve; the other allegations will be substantiated in the later Parts of the same Essay.]

It could be argued that the philosophical language is legitimate in itself, and shouldn't be beholden to ordinary usage.

In response, the reader is referred back to Glock's comments above, as well as the following -- even though these words were largely aimed at Cognitive Scientists and the analogy they draw is with computers, they still in general apply to the point at issue:

"As to the widespread disparagement of attempts to resolve philosophical problems by way of appeals to 'what we would ordinarily say', we would proffer the following comment. It often appears that those who engage in such disparaging nonetheless themselves often do what they programmatically disparage, for it seems to us at least arguable that many of the central philosophical questions are in fact, and despite protestations to the contrary, being argued about in terms of appeals (albeit often inept) to 'what we would ordinarily say...'. That the main issues of contemporary philosophy of mind are essentially about language (in the sense that they arise from and struggle with confusions over the meanings of ordinary words) is a position which, we insist, can still reasonably be proposed and defended. We shall claim here that most, if not all, of the conundrums, controversies and challenges of the philosophy of mind in the late twentieth century consist in a collectively assertive, although bewildered, attitude toward such ordinary linguistic terms as 'mind' itself, 'consciousness', 'thought', 'belief', 'intention' and so on, and that the problems which are posed are ones which characteristically are of the form which ask what we should say if confronted with certain facts, as described....

"We have absolutely nothing against the coining of new, technical uses [of words], as we have said. Rather, the issue is that many of those who insist upon speaking of machines' 'thinking' and 'understanding' do not intend in the least to be coining new, restrictively technical, uses for these terms. It is not, for example, that they have decided to call a new kind of machine an 'understanding machine', where the word 'understanding' now means something different from what we ordinarily mean by that word. On the contrary, the philosophical cachet derives entirely from their insisting that they are using the words 'thinking' and 'understanding' in the same sense that we ordinarily use them. The aim is quite characteristically to provoke, challenge and confront the rest of us. Their objective is to contradict something that the rest of us believe. What the 'rest of us' believe is simply this: thinking and understanding is something distinctive to human beings..., and that these capacities set us apart from the merely mechanical.... The argument that a machine can think or understand, therefore, is of interest precisely because it features a use of the words 'think' and 'understand' which is intendedly the same as the ordinary use. Otherwise, the sense of challenge and, consequently, of interest would evaporate.... If engineers were to make 'understand' and 'think' into technical terms, ones with special, technical meanings different and distinct from those we ordinarily take them to have, then, of course, their claims to have built machines which think or understand would have no bearing whatsoever upon our inclination ordinarily to say that, in the ordinary sense, machines do not think or understand." [Button, et al (1995), pp.12, 20-21. Italic emphases in the original. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

Hence, if philosophers use, for example, the word "knowledge" in an attempt to inform us what knowledge really is, but their use bears no relation to how that word is normally employed, then what they have to say will relate to 'knowledge', not knowledge, leaving the 'philosophical problem' of knowledge unaffected. [On that, see also Baz (2012) and Coulter and Sharrock (2007).]

9a. Some might object at this point and counter-claim that this emphasis on evidence, confirmation and proof shows that the present author is indeed a positivist, or at least an empiricist. Neither is the case. The present author is merely holding DM-theorists to their word:

"Finally, for me there could be no question of superimposing the laws of dialectics on nature but of discovering them in it and developing them from it." [Engels (1976), p.13. Bold emphasis added.]

"All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being; the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought." [Engels (1954), p.62. Bold emphasis alone added.]

"We all agree that in every field of science, in natural and historical science, one must proceed from the given facts, in natural science therefore from the various material forms of motion of matter; that therefore in theoretical natural science too the interconnections are not to be built into the facts but to be discovered in them, and when discovered to be verified as far as possible by experiment.

"Just as little can it be a question of maintaining the dogmatic content of the Hegelian system as it was preached by the Berlin Hegelians of the older and younger line." [Ibid., p.47. Bold emphases alone added.]

"The general results of the investigation of the world are obtained at the end of this investigation, hence are not principles, points of departure, but results, conclusions. To construct the latter in one's head, take them as the basis from which to start, and then reconstruct the world from them in one's head is ideology, an ideology which tainted every species of materialism hitherto existing.... As Dühring proceeds from 'principles' instead of facts he is an ideologist, and can screen his being one only by formulating his propositions in such general and vacuous terms that they appear axiomatic, flat. Moreover, nothing can be concluded from them; one can only read something into them...." [Marx and Engels (1987), Volume 25, p.597. Italic emphases in the original; bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

"The dialectic does not liberate the investigator from painstaking study of the facts, quite the contrary: it requires it." [Trotsky (1986), p.92. Bold emphasis added]

"Dialectics and materialism are the basic elements in the Marxist cognition of the world. But this does not mean at all that they can be applied to any sphere of knowledge, like an ever ready master key. Dialectics cannot be imposed on facts; it has to be deduced from facts, from their nature and development…." [Trotsky (1973), p.233. Bold emphasis added.]

"Dialectics and materialism comprise the basic elements of the Marxist cognition of the world. But this by no means implies that they can be applied in any field of knowledge like an ever-ready master-key. The dialectic cannot be imposed on facts, it must be derived from the facts, from their nature and their development." [Ibid. Bold added.]

"Whenever any Marxist attempted to transmute the theory of Marx into a universal master key and ignore all other spheres of learning, Vladimir Ilyich would rebuke him with the expressive phrase 'Komchvanstvo' ('communist swagger')." [Ibid., p.221.]

"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 emphases added.]

"Our party philosophy, then, has a right to lay claim to truth. For it is the only philosophy which is based on a standpoint which demands that we should always seek to understand things just as they are…without disguises and without fantasy….

"Marxism, therefore, seeks to base our ideas of things on nothing but the actual investigation of them, arising from and tested by experience and practice. It does not invent a 'system' as previous philosophers have done, and then try to make everything fit into it…." [Cornforth (1976), pp.14-15. Bold emphases 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." [Rees (1998), p.9. Bold emphasis added.]

"'[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…." [Ibid., p.271. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

"The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way....

"The fact is, therefore, that definite individuals who are productively active in a definite way enter into these definite social and political relations. Empirical observation must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any mystification and speculation, the connection of the social and political structure with production. The social structure and the State are continually evolving out of the life-process of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they may appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are; i.e. as they operate, produce materially, and hence as they work under definite material limits, presuppositions and conditions independent of their will." [Marx and Engels (1970), pp.42, 46-47. Bold emphases added.]

10. These allegations will also be substantiated in later parts of Essay Twelve, as well as Essay Fourteen Part One (summary here).

However, it is important to note the following caveat (added to Essay Nine Part One):

Having said that, it needs stressing up-front that it isn't being maintained here that leading revolutionaries adopted ruling-class ideas duplicitously or willingly. What is being alleged is that they did this unwittingly. Exactly how and why they did so will be revealed in Part Two.

11. The word "can't" isn't meant to suggest a physical limit, here. It expresses the fact that metaphysical theories soon descend into incoherent non-sense, and can't fail to do so. That is because they attempt to transcend the expressive limitations of language. [More on that below; see also Note 9.]

11a0. It is worth pointing out that at this site "non-sense" is not the same as "nonsense". The latter term has various meanings ranging from the patently false (such as "Karl Marx was a shape-shifting lizard") to plain gibberish (such as "783&£$750 ow2jmn 34y4&$ 6y3n3& 8FT34n").

"Non-sense", as this word is being used here, characterises indicative sentences that turn out to be incapable of expressing a sense no matter what we try to do with them. ["Sense" is explained below.] That is, such sentences are incapable of being true and they are incapable of being false. In Metaphysics, as we have seen, the indicative or fact-stating mood is plainly being mis-used, mis-applied or misconstrued. So, when sentences like these are employed to state supposedly 'fundamental truths about reality', they badly misfire since they can't possibly do that. [Later sections of this Essay will explain why that is so.]

Hence, non-sensical sentences as such are neither patently false nor plain gibberish. [However, there are different sorts of non-sense. More about that later.]

Finally, the word "sense" is being used in the following way: it expresses what we understand to be the case for the proposition in question to be true or what we understand to be the case for the proposition in question to be false, even if we don't know whether it is actually true or whether it is actually false -- and may never do so or even wish to do so.

For example, everyone (who knows English, who knows who Tony Blair is, and that Das Kapital is a book that is capable of being owned) will understand T1 upon hearing or reading it. They grasp its sense --, that is, they understand what (certain parts of) the world would have to be like for it to be true and what (certain parts of) the world would have to be like for it to be false.

More importantly, the same situation that makes T1 true (if it obtains) will make T1 false (if it does not obtain).

These conditions are integral to our capacity to understand empirical propositions before we know whether they are true or before we know whether they are false. Indeed, they explain how and why we know what to look for (or what to expect) in order to show, ascertain or recognise that such propositions are true, or in order to show, ascertain or recognise that they are false -- again, even if we never succeed or even wish to succeed in doing either.

[Alternatively, if we didn't know such things (implicitly or explicitly), that would indicate we didn't actually understand T1.]

11a. Some might try to defend Lenin by claiming this is just hyperbole. Hence, it could be argued that Lenin certainly didn't think that the words "motion without matter" were literally unthinkable, merely that it made no sense to suppose there could be motion without matter. It could even be maintained that the wording of Lenin's 'controversial' sentence merely meant he was rejecting the immobility of matter out of hand, as a ridiculous supposition.

If so, that must mean the section in MEC entitled "Is Motion Without Matter Conceivable?" was misnamed. But, that is the very section in which M1 occurs -- and Lenin even italicised the word "unthinkable":

M1: "[M]otion without matter is unthinkable." [Lenin (1972), p.318. Italic emphasis in the original.]

"The fact that philosophical idealism is attempting to make use of the new physics, or that idealist conclusions are being drawn from the latter, is due not to the discovery of new kinds of substance and force, of matter and motion, but to the fact that an attempt is being made to conceive motion without matter. And it is the essence of this attempt which our Machians fail to examine. They were unwilling to take account of Engels' statement that 'motion without matter is unthinkable.' J. Dietzgen in 1869, in his The Nature of the Workings of the Human Mind, expressed the same idea as Engels, although, it is true, not without his usual muddled attempts to 'reconcile' materialism and idealism. Let us leave aside these attempts, which are to a large extent to be explained by the fact that Dietzgen is arguing against Büchner's non-dialectical materialism, and let us examine Dietzgen's own statements on the question under consideration. He says: 'They [the idealists] want to have the general without the particular, mind without matter, force without substance, science without experience or material, the absolute without the relative' (Das Wesen der menschlichen Kopfarbeit, 1903, S.108). Thus the endeavour to divorce motion from matter, force from substance, Dietzgen associates with idealism, compares with the endeavour to divorce thought from the brain. 'Liebig,' Dietzgen continues, 'who is especially fond of straying from his inductive science into the field of speculation, says in the spirit of idealism: "force cannot be seen"' (p.109). 'The spiritualist or the idealist believes in the spiritual, i.e., ghostlike and inexplicable, nature of force' (p. 110). 'The antithesis between force and matter is as old as the antithesis between idealism and materialism' (p.111). 'Of course, there is no force without matter, no matter without force; forceless matter and matterless force are absurdities. If there are idealist natural scientists who believe in the immaterial existence of forces, on this point they are not natural scientists...but seers of ghosts' (p.114).

"The fundamental distinction between the materialist and the adherent of idealist philosophy consists in the fact that the materialist regards sensation, perception, idea, and the mind of man generally, as an image of objective reality. The world is the movement of this objective reality reflected by our consciousness. To the movement of ideas, perceptions, etc., there corresponds the movement of matter outside me. The concept matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation. Therefore, to divorce motion from matter is equivalent to divorcing thought from objective reality, or to divorcing my sensations from the external world -- in a word, it is to go over to idealism. The trick which is usually performed in denying matter, and in assuming motion without matter, consists in ignoring the relation of matter to thought. The question is presented as though this relation did not exist, but in reality it is introduced surreptitiously; at the beginning of the argument it remains unexpressed, but subsequently crops up more or less imperceptibly.

"Matter has disappeared, they tell us, wishing from this to draw epistemological conclusions. But has thought remained? -- we ask. If not, if with the disappearance of matter thought has also disappeared, if with the disappearance of the brain and nervous system ideas and sensations, too, have disappeared -- then it follows that everything has disappeared. And your argument has disappeared as a sample of 'thought' (or lack of thought)! But if it has remained -- if it is assumed that with the disappearance of matter, thought (idea, sensation, etc.) does not disappear, then you have surreptitiously gone over to the standpoint of philosophical idealism. And this always happens with people who wish, for 'economy's sake,' to conceive of motion without matter, for tacitly, by the very fact that they continue to argue, they are acknowledging the existence of thought after the disappearance of matter. This means that a very simple, or a very complex philosophical idealism is taken as a basis; a very simple one, if it is a case of frank solipsism (I exist, and the world is only my sensation); a very complex one, if instead of the thought, ideas and sensations of a living person, a dead abstraction is posited, that is, nobody's thought, nobody's idea, nobody's sensation, but thought in general (the Absolute Idea, the Universal Will, etc.), sensation as an indeterminate 'element,' the 'psychical,' which is substituted for the whole of physical nature, etc., etc. Thousands of shades of varieties of philosophical idealism are possible and it is always possible to create a thousand and first shade; and to the author of this thousand and first little system (empirio-monism, for example) what distinguishes it from the rest may appear to be momentous. From the standpoint of materialism, however, the distinction is absolutely unessential. What is essential is the point of departure. What is essential is that the attempt to think of motion without matter smuggles in thought divorced from matter -- and that is philosophical idealism." [Lenin (1972), pp.318-21. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

[I have reproduced this passage at length to prevent accusations that I have quoted Lenin 'out of context'!]

It clear from this passage that Lenin was denying what "these scientists" claimed -- i.e., that motion without matter is conceivable. Or, once again, as he puts it:

M1: "[M]otion without matter is unthinkable." [Lenin (1972), p.318. Italic emphasis in the original.]

Later he added the caveat that matter and motion were inseparable (quoting Engels):

"In full conformity with this materialist philosophy of Marx's, and expounding it, Frederick Engels wrote in Anti-Dühring (read by Marx in the manuscript): 'The real unity of the world consists in its materiality, and this is proved...by a long and wearisome development of philosophy and natural science....' 'Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, or motion without matter, nor can there be....'" [Lenin (1914), p.8.]

M22: "[M]otion [is] an inseparable property of matter." [Lenin (1972), p.323. Bold emphasis added.]

Hence, the unthinkability of the separation of matter and motion is integral to his case against Idealism. Indeed, if motion is the "mode of the existence of matter" -- its "mode of expression" -- then these two 'concepts' can't be separated, even in thought. As soon as an attempt is made to separate them, you are no longer talking about matter, or even about motion.

[Incidentally, Lenin is wrong. Marx didn't read Anti-Dühring "in the manuscript"; in fact, after Marx's death, Engels claimed he read that book to Marx. Just think how long that would have taken. Can you imagine, too, how many times the ageing Marx will have nodded off, not realising the sub-logical material that would later be attributed to him, or with which some would subsequently claim he acquiesced? Does anyone think that Marx would have approved of the ridiculous things Engels said about mathematics in that book? Marx was a competent mathematician (even though his knowledge in this area was at least half a century out-of-date), whereas Engels wasn't. Those who now tell us that Marx agreed with everything Engels said have plainly not thought through the implications of that unwise claim. (I have considered this issue in much more detail here and here.)]

"Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same. Motion therefore cannot be created; it can only be transferred....

"A motionless state of matter is therefore one of the most empty and nonsensical of ideas...." [Engels (1976), p.74. Bold emphases added.]

In fact, this is a core DM-principle. Both Lenin and Engels meant what they said.

At this point, someone could argue that contradictions like this are only to be expected (i.e., when Lenin argued that what he had just thought couldn't in fact be thought). After all, this is dialectics! In that case, in the very process of thinking these controversial words, thought is driven to the opposite pole and is forced to conclude that these words (or what they express) can't be thought.

However, and far more likely: those who read Lenin, and whose thought hasn't been compromised by studying the work of Mystical Idealists, will conclude that in view of the fact that they, too, have just thought those very words (or their content) in the act of being told they can't do that, motion without matter (or its sentential equivalent, P1) is plainly not unthinkable!

Indeed, in view of the additional fact that belief in motionless matter was an integral part of Aristotelian Physics (which idea dominated scientific thought for the best part of fifteen hundred years), they would be right to conclude that the claim that motionless matter can exist is thinkable. Manifestly, the latter thought is plainly more thinkable than its opposite!

Hence, far from thought being driven to an "opposite pole", the above suggests it will be riveted to just the one.

It could be countered that the above is a specious argument. Indeed, one critic has so argued:

"An also quite clear illogicality -- or perhaps even a sophism -- is the discussion of Lenin's assertion that 'motion without matter is unthinkable'. It is held that, since Lenin obviously thought the words 'motion without matter', he has contradicted himself, showing that it is perfectly possible to think 'motion without matter'. But this is clearly an invalid reasoning. The use of the words 'motion without matter' doesn't actually imply thinking motion without matter. The example of sentence 3. above may explain what I am saying. A similar idea can be expressed by

"6. A functioning perpetuum mobile is unthinkable.

"If we follow the text, we will exclaim, 'but you have just thought of a functioning perpetuum mobile! You have just used those precise words!' What happens, though, is that when I think the words 'functioning perpetuum mobile' I am not actually thinking of a functioning perpetuum mobile. Indeed, any machine of that kind that I -- or anybody else -- can think of is either not functioning or not a perpetuum mobile (or, more probably, neither). So while I can utter the words 'functioning perpetuum mobile', I am at most thinking of the words, not of the actual thing. Same goes for 'triangular circle', 'the opposite side of a Moebius strip' (sic), or 'a man who is his own father'. And so the text incurs in a conflation between two things that a correct analysis easily shows are different." [From here. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Emphases in the original. Minor typos corrected.]

"Rosa actually considered that objection in the long Essay she wrote (she had to since I posed that very point to her back in 1998 or 1999!), and posted a short version of it in the passage Chris quoted. The point is that Lenin would have to know what any sentence containing the phrase 'motion without matter' implied.

'In order to rule motion without matter out of court, he would have to know what he was trying to exclude. He would have to know what motion without matter was so that he could exclude it as unthinkable, otherwise he might be ruling out the wrong thing. Hence, it would have to be thinkable for Lenin to tell us it wasn't!'

"So, he would have to think these words just to rule out the possibility that there was any motionless matter in the world. Otherwise, he would have no idea what he was ruling out. But, if he had no idea what he was ruling out, he'd have no idea what he was ruling in, either. So, the real problem is not that Lenin was contradicting himself, it's that not even Lenin knew what he was talking about.

"Moreover, as Rosa goes on to point out (I think you must have missed this), it's not possible to contradict non-sense. Since a non-sensical sentence cannot take a truth-value, no sentence can count as its contradictory. So Lenin wasn't contradicting himself (Rosa toys with that possibility until she shows that he isn't even doing that!); he is far too confused to be doing it. [It's the same point she makes about dialectics; it's far too confused for anyone to be able to say if it's true or if it's false, let alone contradict it!]

'6. A functioning perpetuum mobile is unthinkable.'

'If we follow the text, we will exclaim, 'but you have just thought of a functioning perpetuum mobile! You have just used those precise words!' What happens, though, is that when I think the words 'functioning perpetuum mobile' I am not actually thinking of a functioning perpetuum mobile. Indeed, any machine of that kind that I -- or anybody else -- can think of is either not functioning or not a perpetuum mobile (or, more probably, neither). So while I can utter the words 'functioning perpetuum mobile', I am at most thinking of the words, not of the actual thing. Same goes for 'triangular circle', 'the opposite side of a Moebius strip', or 'a man who is his own father'. And so the text incurs in a conflation between two things that a correct analysis easily shows are different.'

"And yet, how would you know what you were ruling out? Unless you know what a functioning perpetual motion machine is, or could be, your claim that it is unthinkable is just an empty phrase. [Suppose I say I can think it? Suppose inventors of these machines, who still turn up regularly, also say they can think it? And, isn't the universe in perpetual motion? According to some scientists, it is. So they can think of perpetual motion; even if they are wrong, they can certainly think it.]

"Same with the other examples you mention. If time travel is possible, a man can be his own father. Now, time travel might not be possible, but we can still think a man could be his own father. A triangular circle is also a possible object of thought; given homeomorphisms, it is possible to map a triangle onto a circle. So, topologically, a circle is the same as a triangle, hence, we can think it in mathematics! And we can easily define the opposite side of a Möbius Strip as follows: hold the strip between thumb and forefinger; the opposite side to that which touches your thumb is the side that touches your index finger. That might be a cheat, sure, but it allows us to think of the opposite side of a Möbius Strip.

"So, instead of asserting that, say, 'A triangular circle is unthinkable', you'd be better off following Wittgenstein's advice here (albeit given in another context) and say that certain combinations of words aren't part of the language; we have no use for them.

"However, this can't even be the case with Lenin's declaration, since immobile matter is not unthinkable; indeed, motionless matter had been a cornerstone of Aristotelian physics, which went largely unquestioned for over a thousand years....

"Now, the real problem with Lenin's declaration isn't that he ends up in an awful muddle, but that it follows from an a priori thesis invented by Engels: 'Motion is the mode of the existence of matter'. So, his declaration that 'motion without matter is unthinkable' wasn't based on evidence (since the latter is ambiguous), or on argument, but on this a priori thesis, which Rosa has shown is non-sensical."

And, as we have just seen, Lenin admitted it was possible to think what he said was "unthinkable".

Finally, it could be objected that this line-of-attack is thoroughly misguided. Consider, for example, the following sentence:

Now, this doesn't imply that the individual alluded to above has actually thought of abandoning Taiwan, which they would have to have done if the criticisms aired in this work are correct.

Of course the clause "VP is unthinkable" can mean many things; for instance (in this case):

Many of these alternative readings allude to the incredulity or intellectual stubbornness of the individual concerned; that is, they record the psychological impossibility, or refusal, of that individual ever coming to believe that the USA would abandon Taiwan. Now, if Lenin meant what he said in this sense, that would weaken considerably his opposition to the immobility of matter -- since it would sever the link Lenin's thesis had with Engels's claim that motion is "the mode of the existence of matter", which is a defining characteristic of matter, not a throw-away property which is dependent on the limitations of human credulity. [Anyway, I have discussed that option below.]

More-or-less the same can be said of the other readings; they, too, sunder that link.

I will return to this topic when we consider the deeper, logical problems associated with this statement of Lenin's -- i.e., M1a.

12. However, if 'thought itself' is to be linked with the motion of matter -- at however deep or complex a level it is deemed to take place -- then the second of these sentences (i.e., "This could be true even if no matter was in fact relocated in the process") would plainly be incorrect. Anyway, such a theory (about 'thought' and matter) seems to depend on the truth of reductive materialism, a doctrine Lenin would certainly have rejected.

But, even if M11 were contestable on other grounds, it wouldn't be difficult to think of other examples that aren't so easily dismissed. Consider, therefore, the following:

E3: You say you will mend the fence, but that job seems to move further into the future by the day.

E6: Multiplying –2 by –3 moves it from the set of Negative Integers to the set of Positive Integers (= 6), even while all three remain in the set of Real Numbers.

E7: The disqualification of Leaping Lena in the 3.30 at Belmont moved Mugwump into first place.

E8: The back of the Necker Cube moves to the front (and vice versa) depending on how you view it.

E9: The result of the strike ballot moved the question of tactics to the top of the agenda.

The above senses of "move" cannot easily be reconciled with Lenin's ideas about matter and motion.

[Many more examples like this were given in Essay Five. See also Note 13, below.]

To be sure, some might want to dismiss one or more of the above examples (and, indeed, those in Essay Five) by refining Lenin's 'definition' of matter, or even of motion -- in tandem with the use of a several other (ad hoc) dodges, perhaps. Alternatively, still others might point out that these examples employ the word "move" in different senses to the one intended by Lenin. But, even if that were so, it still wouldn't mean Lenin's construal was the correct way -- or, indeed, the only way -- to use this word. Clearly, what Lenin actually meant by "motion" (that is, if he did mean anything by it!) must be ascertained before a decision can be made either way. However, Lenin's intentions aren't at all easy to fathom; in fact, it is difficult to make head or tail of much that Lenin's has to say in this area, or even throughout MEC, as will be demonstrated in the main body of this Essay and Essay Thirteen Part One.

If further exception is still taken to the counter-examples given above (which, incidentally illustrate perfectly ordinary uses of the word "move" and its cognates), then that would amount to finding fault with ordinary language, not with the present author or even with the examples given. And we have already seen the serious problems that that would entail for anyone foolish enough to do that.

Indeed, these examples represent a much wider and representative selection of the use of "move" than is generally the case in the scribblings of Idealists and metaphysicians (and that includes Lenin). As seems clear, they show how ordinary human beings regularly employ this word (and others related to it) in their interface with the world and with one another, in ways undreamt of in and by Traditional Thought.

Whatever else Lenin might have imagined he meant by his use of the words "motion"/"move", it is clear that ordinary speakers do not employ them this way, and neither do scientists. The use of this word by everyday materialists -- i.e., workers -- is surely a better and more reliable guide to its overall connotations than is that of inconsistent materialists and closet Idealists -- i.e., dialecticians. If Lenin's employment of this word diverges from its materially-grounded use in everyday life, then so much the worse for him and anyone who agrees with him.

However, it could be countered that it is perfectly clear what Lenin intended; he was alluding to the physical or literal meaning of the word "move" -- i.e., connected with locomotion and "change of place", studied by the physical sciences and applied mathematics. Hence, the above anti-DM considerations are irrelevant.

In response, it is worth noting that the alleged physical sense of "move" (interpreted as "change of place") isn't without its own problems. Since that was discussed in detail in Essay Five, the reader is referred there for further details.

"Let us imagine a consistent idealist who holds that the entire world is his sensation, his idea, etc. (if we take 'nobody's' sensation or idea, this changes only the variety of philosophical idealism but not its essence). The idealist would not even think of denying that the world is motion, i.e., the motion of his thoughts, ideas, sensations. The question as to what moves, the idealist will reject and regard as absurd: what is taking place is a change of his sensations, his ideas come and go, and nothing more. Outside him there is nothing. 'It moves' -- and that is all. It is impossible to conceive a more 'economical' way of thinking. And no proofs, syllogisms, or definitions are capable of refuting the solipsist if he consistently adheres to his view. The fundamental distinction between the materialist and the adherent of idealist philosophy consists in the fact that the materialist regards sensation, perception, idea, and the mind of man generally, as an image of objective reality. The world is the movement of this objective reality reflected by our consciousness. To the movement of ideas, perceptions, etc., there corresponds the movement of matter outside me. The concept matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation." [Lenin (1972), pp.319-20. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; paragraphs merged.]

Lenin here speaks about "the movement of ideas" and the "motion of...thoughts, ideas, sensations". He can't have meant "change of place" by this use of "move"/"motion"!

So, if Lenin is allowed to employ a (slightly) wider use of "motion" (and/or its cognates), DM-fans can hardly complain when that tactic is adopted by those who don't accept DM.

Independently of this, it is easy to show that Lenin is entirely unclear what he meant by "move" (and/or its cognates), just as he was unclear about "matter" -- on that, see here and Note One.

Finally, since many of the above examples relate to events that take place, or might take place, outside the mind, they clearly relate to material movement, as defined by Lenin. If they are unacceptable, then the problem lies with Lenin's characterisation of matter and motion, not with these examples.

M12: The occurrence of literal motion without matter can never be thought of as true.

The use of that word is deliberate because M12 could be true while M13 is false (which means that M13 can't follow from M12).

On the other hand, M13 could follow from M12 if an extra Idealist (perhaps even suppressed) premiss were added, namely:

Since it is central to my case against DM that its theorists (covertly) accept M12a (on that, see EssaysTwo and Thirteen Part One), then, at least for them, M13 would follow from M12 (via M12a).

[The reverse implication, too, is problematic, for M13 could be true and M12 false. However, that invalid inference is less relevant to the aims of this Essay and will be ignored.]

13. Another example of the indirect connection of motion with matter is the following:

Even though something material would have to move for the shadow itself to move, the latter's motion is clearly non-material, and depends on the absence of matter (i.e., light).

Surfaces are rather puzzling; no one seems to be sure whether they are material or not. [Cf., Stroll (1988).] Few doubt they can move. The same goes for shapes, holes, corners, boundaries and edges [Cf., Casati and Varzi (1995, 1999, 2023), and Varzi (1997, 2023)], all of which can move (indeed, some do; e.g., Mexican Waves). The same applies to reflections and shadows. [On reflections and shadows, see Sorensen (2003, 2008). On shapes, see Bennett (2012).]

Hence, not only is motion without matter conceivable, it is actual, as many of the above show.

14. This example, of course, omits any reference to the geodesics of Spacetime as causal factors in this case. However, introducing that complication at this stage wouldn't affect the point being made since geodesics are, of course, non-material. Arguably, they aren't even 'extra-mental'. Of course, exactly what makes matter, or, indeed, anything, move along geodesics is a moot point, which I will leave no less moot for now.

Despite this, it could be argued that because matter 'creates' these geodesics, all movement in the end is related in some respect to matter. If so, Lenin's original claim needs to be watered-down to something like the following:

[Of course, that response assumes geodesics are extra-mental entities when they are in fact mathematical objects, and, like lines of force, their physical status is rather puzzling, if not entirely dubious. (On that, see here and below.) If so, it isn't easy to see how matter can 'create' a single geodesic.]

But, N1 mightn't even be true (and that is quite apart from the fact that it, too, is "thinkable"; you, dear reader, have just thought it -- or what it supposedly 'represents'!) -- and that could even be the case with or without the need to appeal to a single DM-precept. Anyway, as we saw in Note One, according to DM-fans, motion is the "mode of the existence of matter"; its demotion to a factor that merely plays a causal role in the whole affair would seriously undermine yet another core DM-theory.

The reason why N1 might not be true is discussed in more detail in Essay Thirteen Part One. Briefly, that is because we do not as yet have a theory that connects QM with General Relativity, and, to date, the leading candidates manifestly depend on the reification of some highly abstruse mathematics, which strategy itself has serious Idealist implications for Physics (as Lenin himself recognised). Such acts of reification either imply -- or are based on the unacknowledged pretence -- that mathematical entities (differential equations, tensor, vector and scalar fields, (or 'the field' in general), and the like) can act as causal agents. Unless we subscribe to some form of Mystical, Cosmic, Pythagorean-Platonism, that idea isn't even plausible.

It could be argued that the CMG is external to the mind, and so the above claims are subject to the following rebuttal by Lenin:

"If energy is motion, you have only shifted the difficulty from the subject to the predicate, you have only changed the question, does matter move? into the question, is energy material? Does the transformation of energy take place outside my mind, independently of man and mankind, or are these only ideas, symbols, conventional signs, and so forth?" [Lenin (1972), p.324.]

Hence, in view of the fact that scientists' ideas about the nature of matter and energy are constantly changing and developing, the facts of Relativity in no way embarrass DM. Whatever is objective and external to the mind is matter, and that includes the CMG. Again, as Lenin argued:

"[T]he sole 'property' of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside our mind....

"Thus…the concept of matter…epistemologically implies nothing but objective reality existing independently of the human mind and reflected by it." [Ibid., pp.311-12. Italic emphasis in the original.]

But, the CMG doesn't actually exist -- at least, no more than any other averaged quantity does. Is there in existence anywhere an individual answering to "The average man/woman in the UK"? How then either the latter, or the CMG, can be 'objective' is still mysterious.

Of course, Lenin's catch-all definition -- that whatever has "objective existence outside the mind" is material -- would plainly include the CMG by definitional fiat. But, why should we accept such a definition? Lenin's continual assertion that this is what matter is, isn't, I'm sorry to have to announce, a sufficient reason for the rest of us to accept it -- unless, of course, we conclude that Lenin was a Minor Deity of some sort.

Would we be prepared to accept a 'definition' of "fairness" promulgated by a supporter of the current system which meant that word applied to everything and anything that happened inside Capitalism and had been initiated by the ruling-class or their ideologues? Or that wages paid to workers were "fair"? I suspect not.

Indeed, would we be happy to accept a definition of 'God' as "The Supreme and Eternal Being who exists of necessity but whose existence can't be proved"?

Well, since 'His'/'Her'/'Its' existence can't be proved, the sentence "God is The Supreme and Eternal Being who exists but whose existence can't be proved" must be true, by definition.

But then, if 'His'/'Her'/'Its' existence can be proved, 'He'/'She'/'It' exists anyway. So, either way, 'He'/'She'/'It' must exist.

Now, it is little use pointing to the weaknesses, nor even the 'contradictions' in the above 'argument', since a smart theologian will simply play the Nixon card (beloved of DM-fans) to silence all opposition. And, if you persist, you will simply be accused of not "understanding" 'Theological Dialectics'.

Now, I don't expect the DM-fraternity to accept any of this, but when they see what odd entities permitted by Lenin's over-generous definition of words like "material" and "matter", I think they might be among the first to disown it.

A guided tour through Lenin's Whacky World Of Wonders will begin in Essay Thirteen Part One.

15a. Conversely, it could be argued that this shows M17 is false. That possibility will be tackled presently.

16. Aristotle's ideas about earthy matter are more complex than these comments might at first sight suggest. Nevertheless, it is still true that he believed that when situated at the centre of the universe, earthy matter would be motionless. [On this, see Morison (2002), Sorabji (1988), and Copleston (2003a), chapter 30.]

"Now all things rest and move naturally and by constraint. A thing moves naturally to a place in which it rests without constraint, and rests naturally in a place to which it moves without constraint. On the other hand, a thing moves by constraint to a place in which it rests by constraint, and rests by constraint in a place to which it moves by constraint. Further, if a given movement is due to constraint, its contrary is natural." [Aristotle (1984b), p.458, 276:22-26.]

[By "constraint", Aristotle meant "enforced motion"; that is, something "forcibly moved by some other mover". On this see Bodnar (2023), Dijksterhuis (1986), pp,24-32, Guthrie (1990), pp.243-76, and Sorabji (1988), pp.219-26.]

So, Aristotle and his many followers could, and actually did think about matter and its lack of motion (i.e., its rest).

Moreover, as my former colleague, "Babeuf", pointed out, it has been possible to think of motion without matter since at least Biblical times:

"2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." [Genesis, Chapter One, verses 1 and 2.]

Now, it won't do to argue that the above is false, mythical or even ideological, since the only reason it has been quoted is to show that, whether or not it is one or other of these, some human beings (hundreds of millions, possibly even billions, in fact) can think about motion without matter, and have been able to do so for at least 3000 years.

Later, in PN, Lenin added the following comment about Feuerbach's essay on Leibniz:

"The feature that distinguishes Leibnitz (sic) from Spinoza: In Leibnitz (sic) there is, in addition to the concept of substance, the concept of force 'and indeed of active force...' the principle of 'self-activity'.... Ergo. Leibnitz (sic) through theology arrived at the principle of the inseparable (and universal, absolute) connection of matter and motion." [Lenin (1961), p.377. Italics emphasis in the original; paragraphs merged.]

This confirms, of course, the a priori nature and origin of this particular theory, since Leibniz manifestly did not obtain this notion via observation, and would have had a stroke at any suggestion he had done so. Also worthy of note is the fact that Leibniz was as heavily influenced by Hermetic mysticism as Hegel. [This will be one of the many topics discussed in Essay Fourteen Part One (summary here); until then, see Ross (1983, 1998).]

As Lenin notes, the doctrine of the inseparability of matter and motion is connected with "self-activity", which is intimately linked with the contradictory nature of matter, as we saw in Essay Eight Part One. So, the 'inseparability thesis' is a 'logical' notion which 'follows' from Engels's Second 'Law'. Small wonder then that Lenin found its rejection "unthinkable".

But, once more, why didn't Lenin simply declare that immobile matter was "self-contradictory"? Why did he say it was "unthinkable" instead?

[This forms part of Note 17. I have covered this topic in much more detail here.]

Marx's belief in the social nature of language, and the fundamental role it plays in communication (not representation), is confirmed by the following passages:

"The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. -- real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process. [Marx and Engels (1970), p.47. Bold emphasis added.]

"Only now, after having considered four moments, four aspects of the primary historical relationships, do we find that man also possesses 'consciousness,' but, even so, not inherent, not 'pure' consciousness. From the start the 'spirit' is afflicted with the curse of being 'burdened' with matter, which here makes its appearance in the form of agitated layers of air, sounds, in short, of language. Language is as old as consciousness, language is practical consciousness that exists also for other men, and for that reason alone it really exists for me personally as well; language, like consciousness, only arises from the need, the necessity, of intercourse with other men. Where there exists a relationship, it exists for me: the animal does not enter into 'relations' with anything, it does not enter into any relation at all. For the animal, its relation to others does not exist as a relation. Consciousness is, therefore, from the very beginning a social product, and remains so as long as men exist at all. Consciousness is at first, of course, merely consciousness concerning the immediate sensuous environment and consciousness of the limited connection with other persons and things outside the individual who is growing self-conscious.... On the other hand, man's consciousness of the necessity of associating with the individuals around him is the beginning of the consciousness that he is living in society at all...." [Ibid., pp.50-51. Bold emphases added.]

"One of the most difficult tasks confronting philosophers is to descend from the world of thought to the actual world. Language is the immediate actuality of thought. Just as philosophers have given thought an independent existence, so they were bound to make language into an independent realm. This is the secret of philosophical language, in which thoughts in the form of words have their own content. The problem of descending from the world of thoughts to the actual world is turned into the problem of descending from language to life.

"Individuals producing in Society -- hence socially determined individual production -- is, of course, the point of departure. The individual and isolated hunter and fisherman, with whom Smith and Ricardo begin, belongs among the unimaginative conceits of the eighteenth-century Robinsonades, which in no way express merely a reaction against over-sophistication and a return to a misunderstood natural life, as cultural historians imagine. As little as Rousseau's contrat social, which brings naturally independent, autonomous subjects into relation and connection by contract, rests on such naturalism. This is the semblance, the merely aesthetic semblance, of the Robinsonades, great and small. It is, rather, the anticipation of 'civil society', in preparation since the sixteenth century and making giant strides towards maturity in the eighteenth. In this society of free competition, the individual appears detached from the natural bonds etc. which in earlier historical periods make him the accessory of a definite and limited human conglomerate. Smith and Ricardo still stand with both feet on the shoulders of the eighteenth-century prophets, in whose imaginations this eighteenth-century individual -- the product on one side of the dissolution of the feudal forms of society, on the other side of the new forces of production developed since the sixteenth century -- appears as an ideal, whose existence they project into the past. Not as a historic result but as history's point of departure. As the Natural Individual appropriate to their notion of human nature, not arising historically, but posited by nature. This illusion has been common to each new epoch to this day. Steuart avoided this simple-mindedness because as an aristocrat and in antithesis to the eighteenth century, he had in some respects a more historical footing.

"The more deeply we go back into history, the more does the individual, and hence also the producing individual, appear as dependent, as belonging to a greater whole: in a still quite natural way in the family and in the family expanded into the clan [Stamm]; then later in the various forms of communal society arising out of the antitheses and fusions of the clan. Only in the eighteenth century, in 'civil society', do the various forms of social connectedness confront the individual as a mere means towards his private purposes, as external necessity. But the epoch which produces this standpoint, that of the isolated individual, is also precisely that of the hitherto most developed social (from this standpoint, general) relations. The human being is in the most literal sense a Zwon politikon not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society. Production by an isolated individual outside society -- a rare exception which may well occur when a civilized person in whom the social forces are already dynamically present is cast by accident into the wilderness -- is as much of an absurdity as is the development of language without individuals living together and talking to each other. There is no point in dwelling on this any longer. The point could go entirely unmentioned if this twaddle, which had sense and reason for the eighteenth-century characters, had not been earnestly pulled back into the centre of the most modern economics by Bastiat, Carey, Proudhon etc. Of course it is a convenience for Proudhon et al. to be able to give a historico-philosophic account of the source of an economic relation, of whose historic origins he is ignorant, by inventing the myth that Adam or Prometheus stumbled on the idea ready-made, and then it was adopted, etc. Nothing is more dry and boring than the fantasies of a locus communis." [Marx (1973), pp.83-85. Bold emphasis added.]

"The main point here is this: In all these forms -- in which landed property and agriculture form the basis of the economic order, and where the economic aim is hence the production of use values, i.e., the reproduction of the individual within the specific relation to the commune in which he is its basis -- there is to be found: (1) Appropriation not through labour, but presupposed to labour; appropriation of the natural conditions of labour, of the earth as the original instrument of labour as well as its workshop and repository of raw materials. The individual relates simply to the objective conditions of labour as being his; [relates] to them as the inorganic nature of his subjectivity, in which the latter realizes itself; the chief objective condition of labour does not itself appear as a product of labour, but is already there as nature; on one side the living individual, on the other the earth, as the objective condition of his reproduction; (2) but this relation to land and soil, to the earth, as the property of the labouring individual -- who thus appears from the outset not merely as labouring individual, in this abstraction, but who has an objective mode of existence in his ownership of the land, an existence presupposed to his activity, and not merely as a result of it, a presupposition of his activity just like his skin, his sense organs, which of course he also reproduces and develops etc. in the life process, but which are nevertheless presuppositions of this process of his reproduction -- is instantly mediated by the naturally arisen, spontaneous, more or less historically developed and modified presence of the individual as member of a commune -- his naturally arisen presence as member of a tribe etc. An isolated individual could no more have property in land and soil than he could speak. He could, of course, live off it as substance, as do the animals. The relation to the earth as property is always mediated through the occupation of the land and soil, peacefully or violently, by the tribe, the commune, in some more or less naturally arisen or already historically developed form. The individual can never appear here in the dot-like isolation...in which he appears as mere free worker." [Ibid., p.485. Bold emphasis added.]

[This anticipates Wittgenstein, except, he would have questioned this particular use of "consciousness".]

"Much more important is the direct, demonstrable influence of the development of the hand on the rest of the organism. It has already been noted that our simian ancestors were gregarious; it is obviously impossible to seek the derivation of man, the most social of all animals, from non-gregarious immediate ancestors. Mastery over nature began with the development of the hand, with labour, and widened man's horizon at every new advance. He was continually discovering new, hitherto unknown properties in natural objects. On the other hand, the development of labour necessarily helped to bring the members of society closer together by increasing cases of mutual support and joint activity, and by making clear the advantage of this joint activity to each individual. In short, men in the making arrived at the point where they had something to say to each other.... First labour, after it and then with it speech -- these were the two most essential stimuli under the influence of which the brain of the ape gradually changed into that of man, which, for all its similarity is far larger and more perfect...." [Engels (1876), pp.356-57. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

[I defend a particular interpretation of this general idea in Essay Thirteen Part Three.]

This isn't to suggest that Marx and Wittgenstein would have seen eye-to-eye (quite the reverse, in fact), or that Marx was a proto-Wittgenstein -- far from it. However, as I have noted here, anyone who is tempted to conclude the contrary will face serious difficulties over interpretation, at the very least.

Having said that, there are clear indications that Wittgenstein adopted his 'anthropological' approach to language as a result of long conversations with Piero Sraffa, a noted Marxist, and because of his clear sympathies with the left. [More details can be found here.]

So, far from Marx being a proto-Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein is, in some (limited) respects, a latter-day Marx. In fact, in many ways, Wittgenstein stands to Marx as Feuerbach did to Hegel. [I hope to defend that particular analogy in a later Essay. However, see Note 18.]

17a. The only other alternative here would be a theory that language is innate, and hence isn't a social phenomenon. Despite what some say, there is no way that idea can be made consistent with Marxism. [I have dealt with this specific topic in Essay Thirteen Part Three.]

The comments in the main body of this Essay at this point do not, of course, imply these conventions are set in stone. Many such have changed over the millennia, while some plainly have not and cannot.

18. The attack on the social roots of language -- replacing a Marxist commitment to that idea with what turns out to be a mystical theory that language in effect contains a secret code capable of reflecting the underlying 'Essence' of 'Being', and which has somehow also been stitched into the fabric of reality so that the one can 'reflect' the other -- helped motivate the theory that language is primarily representational (as we will see in the next two Parts of Essay Twelve -- summary here).

According to this ancient doctrine, language itself contains hidden clues -- clues that can only be accessed, or 'understood', by the elite, their ideologues, their hangers-on, lackeys, or by specially-trained 'thinkers'. Cosmic verities like this lie way beyond the grasp of ordinary humans -- so the story goes --, trapped as they are in a world of 'commonsense', dominated by ordinary language and 'formal thinking'. This 'Divine Code' was thought to have been written into, or actually was, the 'primary language' given to Adam by God -- but, similar myths are also found in other religions and cultural traditions. Much of Hermetic, Neo-Platonic, Alchemical and Kabbalistic mysticism is largely based on this dogma.

[On this, see Bono (1995), Eco (1997), and Vickers (1984b). This topic will be explored more fully in Essay Fourteen Part One (summary here), and other Parts of Essay Twelve.]

Signs, or 'hidden messages', were believed to be written in the stars, too, or in sacred books, tea leaves, the flight of birds, the organs and entrails of slaughtered animals -- or, indeed, in its more recent incarnation, encrypted somehow in our central nervous system as a "transformational grammar" ("unbounded merge") or "language of thought". [Again, on this see Essay Thirteen Part Three.]

In DM-circles, this doctrine surfaces as part of the a priori dogma that thought is dialectical because reality is dialectical (which 'profound secret' is, alas, hidden from those who refuse to see, or who just do not "understand" dialectics). Hence, DM can be called an "Algebra of Revolution", which works because it alone is tuned into the "pulse of reality" -- or, perhaps even: because reality 'dances' to its tune.

I argued the following in Essay Four Part One (slightly modified here) in relation to the ancient dogma that there is an objective 'dialectical logic' running the entire universe:

To be sure, the confusion between rules of inference and logical/metaphysical 'truths' dates back to Aristotle himself. This error merely re-appeared in Hegel's work as part of a mystical/ontological doctrine connected with the alleged self-development of concepts, itself the result of an egregious error over the nature of predication (examined in Essay Three Part One), and an even worse one with respect to the LOI.

To be sure, the confusion between rules of inference and logical or metaphysical 'truths' dates back to Aristotle himself. And, it isn't hard to see why this should be so. If a theorist (or, indeed, an entire culture) believes that everything had been created by a 'deity', then fundamental truths about nature can't help but reflect how that 'being' must 'think' and thus how 'he/she/it' actually went about creating everything. This would 'naturally' connect 'correct' thinking about nature, 'mind' and society with divinely-instituted, fundamental principles that govern, or even constitute, 'reality'.

Fast forward a score or more centuries and this ancient presupposition re-surfaced in Hegel's (supposedly presuppositionless) work as part of a mystical or ontological doctrine connected with allegedly 'self-developing' concepts -- which idea was itself the result of an egregious error over the nature of predication (a topic covered in detail in Essay Three Part One) -- seriously compounded an even worse error concerning the nature of the LOI.

"This objective thinking, then, is the content of pure science. Consequently, far from it being formal, far from it standing in need of a matter to constitute an actual and true cognition, it is its content alone which has absolute truth, or, if one still wanted to employ the word matter, it is the veritable matter -- but a matter which is not external to the form, since this matter is rather pure thought and hence the absolute form itself. Accordingly, logic is to be understood as the system of pure reason, as the realm of pure thought. This realm is truth as it is without veil and in its own absolute nature. It can therefore be said that this content is the exposition of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and a finite mind.

Be this as it may, when this misbegotten 'ontological' interpretation of FL is abandoned (or 'un-presupposed'), the temptation to identify logic with science (with the "Laws of Thought" or even with 'absolute' or 'ultimate' truth) loses whatever superficial plausibility it might once seemed to have had. If FL is solely concerned with inference, then there is no good reason to saddle it with inappropriate metaphysical baggage, and every reason not to. On the other hand, if there is a link between FL and metaphysical, scientific or 'ultimate' truth -- as both legend and Hegel would have us believe --, then that thesis needs substantiation. It isn't enough just to assume, or to assert, that such a link exists, as has generally been the case in Idealist and DM-circles.

In addition, the idea that truths about fundamental aspects of reality can be uncovered by an examination of how human beings reason is highly suspect in itself; but, like most things, so much depends on what is supposed to follow from that assumption. As we will see, the line taken on this issue sharply distinguishes materialist thought from Idealist myth-making. Unfortunately, to date, DM-theorists have been more content with tail-ending Traditional Philosophy in supposing that logic functions as a sort of cosmic code-cracker, capable of unmasking profound truths about (otherwise) 'hidden' aspects of 'reality' -- aka the search for 'underlying essences' -- than they have been with justifying this entire line-of-thought with evidence and argument, as opposed to assumption and assertion. Nor have they been concerned to examine the motives that gave life to this class-compromised approach to Super-Knowledge, concocted over two millennia ago in Ancient Greece.

[Concerning the other ancient idea that language somehow 'reflects' the world, and that truths about nature can be derived from words or thought alone, see Dyke (2007). The reader mustn't assume, however, that I agree with Dyke's metaphysical conclusions (or, indeed, with any metaphysical conclusions whatsoever). As this Essay shows, the opposite of this is in fact the case -- I regard them all as both non-sensical and incoherent.]

Of course, modern logicians are much clearer about the distinction between rules of inference and logical truths than their counterparts were in the Ancient World (or even in the Nineteenth Century!), but that fact just makes the criticisms DM-theorists level against FL even more anachronistic and hard to fathom.

Anyway, if materialists are to reject the 'mythical' view of nature prevalent in Ancient Greece -- and which is both implicit and explicit in Hegelian Ontology --, as surely they must, then the idea that FL is a branch of the sciences becomes even more difficult to sustain.

Indeed, how is it possible for language to 'reflect' the logic of the world if the world has no logic to it?

It is instructive to recall that since the Renaissance 'western' humanity has (largely) learnt to separate religion from science so that the sorts of things that used to be said about science (for example, that it was the "systematic study of God's work", etc.) look rather odd and anachronistic today (that is, to all but the incurably religious). In like manner, previous generations of logicians used to confuse logic with science and the "Laws of Thought", and they, too, did this for theological and ideological reasons. In that case, one would have thought that avowed materialists (i.e., dialecticians) would be the very last ones to perpetuate this ancient confusion.

As will be argued at length later on at this site, only if it can be shown (and not simply assumed or asserted) that nature has a rational structure would it be plausible to suppose that there is any connection at all between the way human beings think and reason and the underlying constitution of nature. Short of that, the idea that there is such a link between the way we draw conclusions and fundamental aspects of 'reality' loses all credibility. Why should the way we knit premises and conclusions together mirror the structure of the universe? Why should our use of words have such profound 'ontological' implications, valid for all of space and time?

Even to ask these questions is to answer them: there is no reason to suppose any of this -- other than the class-compromised motives that stem from religious or ideological considerations.

Indeed, how is it possible that certain metaphysical truths are only capable of being derived from, or expressed in, Indo-European grammar? Was this group of humans blessed by the 'gods'? Are there really "subjects", "copulas" and "predicates" out there in nature for language to 'reflect' -- which are relatively minor grammatical features found almost exclusively in this one family of languages?

On the other hand, if it could be shown that the universe does have an underlying, 'rational' structure, then the conclusion that nature is 'Mind' (or, that it has been constituted by 'Mind') would be difficult to resist. If all that is real is indeed 'rational', then the identification of rules of inference with the "rules of thought" -- and with fundamental metaphysical truths about "Being" itself -- becomes irresistible.

As the histories of Philosophy, Theology and Mysticism reveal, from such esoteric assumptions it is but a short step to the derivation of truths from thought alone. A priori thesis-mongering and Idealism thus go hand-in-hand; if nature is Ideal, then truths can legitimately follow from thought/language alone. In other Essays posted at this site (for example, here and Essay Twelve Part One) we will see that this is a step DM-theorists (and metaphysicians of every stripe) have been only too happy to take -- and many times over, too.

Alas, there is precious little evidence to suggest that DM-theorists have ever given much thought to this particular implication of the idea that DL reflects the underlying structure of reality -- i.e., that their brand of logic in fact implies that reality is Ideal. If logic does indeed reflect the structure of 'Being', then 'Being' must be Mind. [On this, see Essay Twelve Part Four (not yet published -- summary here).]

Nevertheless, there is precious little evidence to suggest that DM-theorists have ever given much thought to this particular implication of the idea that DL reflects the underlying structure of reality -- i.e., they have given little thought to the idea that their brand of logic implies reality is Ideal. If logic does indeed reflect the structure of 'Being', then 'Being' must be 'Mind'.

This conclusion only further strengthens the suspicion that the much-vaunted materialist "inversion" -- supposedly inflicted on Hegel's system/'method' by early dialecticians -- was merely formal, which in turn implies that DM is simply inverted Idealism -- a form of Idealism nonetheless. If so, then questions about the nature of Logic cannot but be related to the serious doubts raised at this site about the scientific status of DM. In that case, if Logic is capable of revealing fundamental scientific truths about nature -- as opposed to being a systematic study of inference, and only that --, then it becomes harder to resist the conclusion that DM is indeed just another form of Idealism that has yet to 'come out of the closet'.

Whatever the precise details turn out to be in each case, this almost universally held doctrine, this ruling idea, only succeeded in 'populating' nature with invisible "essences", and immaterial 'rational' principles, which were somehow capable of being reflected in language or 'thought'. These hidden precepts were supposedly encoded in language in an abstract form, and were available, or were revealed, only to those capable of performing complex feats of mental gymnastics (and, of course, only those with enough leisure time to indulge in the sport) -- a skill compounded by an even more impressive ability to invent increasingly baroque, but nonetheless vacuous, terminology.

This meant that the attack on the social nature of discourse (which began in early class society) was one wing of a class-motivated assault on ordinary language -- and hence on grass-roots materialism --, which soon degenerated into LIE. [More details will be given in the next two Parts of this Essay.]

As noted above, this anti-materialist view of language sees discourse as primarily representational. However, we will soon discover that, instead of the arcane languages Philosophers invent that are able to mirror nature, their jargon actually reflects constantly changing ruling-class interests and hence ruling-class-inspired perceptions of the 'natural order' -- i.e., those that are conducive to their aims and priorities.

Theorists who, because of their class position, were removed or alienated from the everyday world of work, were naturally pre-disposed to remove (or 'abstract') ordinary words from their home in communication. This helped reinforce the idea reality was fundamentally abstract, the product of some 'Mind' or other. This in turn implied that only those capable of forming greater or broader abstractions (based less and less on any real connection with the material world) were capable of truly appreciating such esoteric mysteries -- or, since Hegel's day, were capable of "understanding" the 'dialectic of reality'.

Unfortunately, as we will also see, metaphysical 'profundities' can't be based on ordinary language; that is, they can't be derived from a medium that serves primarily a means of communication. The vernacular actually prevents such flights-of-fancy from being concocted in a comprehensible form. It is precisely for this reason that ordinary language -- along with its roots in the communal life and the experience of working people --, had to be denigrated, and then set-aside by theorists with a well-focussed, boss-class agenda. Such theorists were intent on showing that the oppressive and exploitative social systems from which they just so happened to benefit were ordained of 'god', or were 'natural', predicated on a hidden, 'rational' order comprised of those underlying 'essences'. This complex web of ideas was motivated by a systematic fetishisation of language, so that what had once been the product of the relation between human beings (language) was inverted and transformed into the relation between these 'essences' and the human mind -- or, indeed, those 'essences' themselves. In Hegel (and later in DM), 'dialectical logic', supposedly implicit in discourse, thus became the logic that ran the world (behind the backs of the producers, as it were):

"[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." [Ibid., p.439, §956. Bold emphasis added.]

"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.]

This ancient, theoretical and ideological adulteration -- imported into the workers' movement by the appropriation of Hermetic Mysteries Hegel himself lifted from earlier Mystics and Idealists (whether or not these are left upside-down or subsequently flipped the 'right way up') -- was facilitated by erstwhile revolutionaries who also unwisely then introduced into revolutionary socialism this alien-class approach to language, 'cognition' and logic, and who thus implicitly rejected the roots of discourse in communal life.

[More details on this were given in Essay Nine Parts One and Two; they will be elaborated upon in later Parts of this Essay, Essay Thirteen Part Three, and in Essay Fourteen Parts One and Two.]

Finally, it is also worth pointing out at this juncture that neither the social, nor the representational, nature of language is being asserted or denied (as philosophical theses) in this Essay. It is possible, however, to develop an understanding of the social and communicative role of language as a "form of representation" -- indeed, as just such a form integral to HM -- which is also expressible with ease in ordinary language, and which is thereby consonant with the experience of working people.

[However, that won't be attempted in this Essay. The term "form of representation" is explained here. See also Note 18b, and Note 19.]

Nevertheless, what is taken for granted here is the fact that ordinary material language is "alright as it is" (to paraphrase Wittgenstein). Having said that, it will be agued -- indeed, demonstrated -- that any attempt to undermine the vernacular results in the inevitable production of incoherent non-sense.

The rest of Essay Twelve (all Seven Parts) will be devoted to substantiating many of these rather bald assertions.

18a. It could be objected that Voloshinov's work is a clear exception to these sweeping allegations. That objection has been well-and-truly neutralised in Essay Thirteen Part Three, Sections (4)-(6).