Dialectical Materialism, looking for an explanation

[The Dude]

I'm having problems figuring out the exact how and what of the term. I believe I understand the two words that make up the term, but please correct me if I'm wrong:

Dialectics are simply the philosophical method whereby discussion between two people, each on the opposite spectrum of a topic, is engaged in order to discover the truth.

Materialism is the philosophy that holds that all things in this world are inherently knowable because everything is made of matter. Therefore, eventually, everything can be confirmed through empirical evidence regardless of whether or not we have done so already.

But now the combination of these two words into a single term. Does it simply mean that the empirical truth/the material reality, can be discovered through dialogue? Because if that is all it is, then what makes it such a core tenet of Marxist philosophy where the class struggle is pretty much the main topic of discussion. I'm having problems seeing how that all relates.

I'd be most grateful if someone could explain this to me.

[Vizsla]

I usually get shot down in flames when I post here, and I usually deserve it. We’ll see if today is any different.

Dialectical materialism is one part of the wilful and disingenuous barbarism of words and their meaning by Marx and Engels. It seems to me a lot of philosophy operates on a similar principle. Don’t expect Marxism to make sense – this is the one thing it lacks in abundance.
There is no logic to it. Renaming ‘profit’ ’exploitation’ does not make the people who do the work exploited. I could rename ‘overtime’ ‘happy hour’ - it still doesn’t get me drunk.

People who work for me make my company money through their labour. They have created wealth that did not exist before they did the work. Since it is my company and I worked to create it I pay them only a share of the wealth they created left over from costs. If they want a bigger share then they can either take a risk and start working for themselves or learn to live with it. End of story.

[Claudius Gothicus]

Well Marx used 'Materialism' in order to differentiate his own philosophy from Hegel's which was 'Idealistic'.

If I remember correctly Hegel believed on 'ideas before material realization' while Marx believed the opposite 'ideas after the material realization of the individual'.

Now dialectics works as a philosophical justification of Marx's own political thinking, and way of understanding the dynamics of history. Principally the beliefs that history advances and moves through the existence of 'contradictions' on historical blocs.

[chriscase]

The "dialectics" came from Hegel. The "materialism" came, I suppose, from ancients like Democritus. I expect that part's pretty much what you would think.

The wiki page says this:

Dialectical materialism is the philosophy of Karl Marx which advocated that history advanced as a result of material or economic forces which would eventually lead to the creation of a classless society.

So in this case the "dialectic" is the structural tension within society that drives it to (re)evolve. Classically, it boils down to the economic contradictions in feudal and / or capitalist society, the oft-referenced class struggle. It's an approach to history that fits rather well with events of contemporary interest to Marx, particularly the French Revolution.

Whether the theory is more broadly applicable is, obviously, widely disputed.

[Denny Crane!]

I'm going to present a different viewpoint to Chriscase which usually ends in my intellectual arse getting handed to me but here goes.

I'd simplify the term to become a label that infers the difference between Hegel and Marx and Engels. A dialectic is the thesis/antithesis and synthesis and the marxist dialectic attempts to synthesise Hegels idealism with the contradictions and economic theory envisioned by Marx (and engels), which was less a sythesis and more a huge turnaround.

I'd say the term and label is a little different to the economic theory as it seems to be a descriptive label but I've always had problems with philosophies overly complicated and complex language that I feel does more to confuse than enlighten the beginner (and this all I fear I will ever be so it is always more obvious to me).

In particular I am wary of people like Marx whose philosophy and economic theory was so relative to the social structures of his time (with no first principles which I believe helped lead to the disasters that were the statist led translational periods) and mired in complicated language and broad concepts that lack definitive clarification.

Of late I have investigated libertarian socialism, beginning with Proudhon and working my way forward and in this fashion I have revisited Marx. The biggest thing I can say about Marx is how unsure I am of his ideals, his transition and battle against the hegelian dialogue is partly responsible for his lack of clarity in an obsession with analysis of what proved to be transitory social conditions, classes and conditions.

Upon revisitation of Marx I found that I didn't particularly believe that he really didn't think capitalism unjust, he certainly never explicitly said so and certainly stated that capitalistic exchange isn't unjust. He certainly never named capitalism 'unjust' which makes marxist rhetoric baffling to me. The best I could make of it was that Marx thought that Capitalism was not the best way, but not explicitly evil or unjust.

The second thought is that I have oft railed against the lack of morality in Marxist thought. In some ways this disturbs me because I believe a lack of first principles allowed the rugged pursuit of marxism in whatever fashion possible led to the horrendous genocide. If no limits, or distinctions are set in any philosophy and a utopian goal is set in place as in religion then anything can be deemed necessary because of a utiliterian aim of acheiving the utopian vision. On reflection though I think Marx was avoiding morality in order to escape the Utopian nature of philosophical thought (read hegels idealism) and in doing so was determined to maintain a purely analytical aspect to his views on society and capitalism, as well as any possible transitions to a more moral society.

(which makes my moral aspersions on marxism irrelevant, my view that marxism was immoral is wrong. It is the marxists I have encountered who are immoral)

However the lack of morality that people seem to ascribe and adopt in their pursuit of marxism can partially be blamed in the writings of marx, the ideas that (ref HUME) justice isn't necessary in a society with abundance and no scarcity (hi this is planet earth calling on every level) and the other is that in his bid to escape utopianism he dismissed morality almost entirely.

[chriscase]

I'm going to present a different viewpoint to Chriscase which usually ends in my intellectual arse getting handed to me but here goes.

I'd simplify the term to become a label that infers the difference between Hegel and Marx and Engels. A dialectic is the thesis/antithesis and synthesis and the marxist dialectic attempts to synthesise Hegels idealism with the contradictions and economic theory envisioned by Marx (and engels), which was less a sythesis and more a huge turnaround.

I'd say the term and label is a little different to the economic theory as it seems to be a descriptive label but I've always had problems with philosophies overly complicated and complex language that I feel does more to confuse than enlighten the beginner (and this all I fear I will ever be so it is always more obvious to me).

In particular I am wary of people like Marx whose philosophy and economic theory was so relative to the social structures of his time (with no first principles which I believe helped lead to the disasters that were the statist led translational periods) and mired in complicated language and broad concepts that lack definitive clarification.

Of late I have investigated libertarian socialism, beginning with Proudhon and working my way forward and in this fashion I have revisited Marx. The biggest thing I can say about Marx is how unsure I am of his ideals, his transition and battle against the hegelian dialogue is partly responsible for his lack of clarity in an obsession with analysis of what proved to be transitory social conditions, classes and conditions.

Upon revisitation of Marx I found that I didn't particularly believe that he really didn't think capitalism unjust, he certainly never explicitly said so and certainly stated that capitalistic exchange isn't unjust. He certainly never named capitalism 'unjust' which makes marxist rhetoric baffling to me. The best I could make of it was that Marx thought that Capitalism was not the best way, but not explicitly evil or unjust.

The second thought is that I have oft railed against the lack of morality in Marxist thought. In some ways this disturbs me because I believe a lack of first principles allowed the rugged pursuit of marxism in whatever fashion possible led to the horrendous genocide. If no limits, or distinctions are set in any philosophy and a utopian goal is set in place as in religion then anything can be deemed necessary because of a utiliterian aim of acheiving the utopian vision. On reflection though I think Marx was avoiding morality in order to escape the Utopian nature of philosophical thought (read hegels idealism) and in doing so was determined to maintain a purely analytical aspect to his views on society and capitalism, as well as any possible transitions to a more moral society.

(which makes my moral aspersions on marxism irrelevant, my view that marxism was immoral is wrong. It is the marxists I have encountered who are immoral)

However the lack of morality that people seem to ascribe and adopt in their pursuit of marxism can partially be blamed in the writings of marx, the ideas that (ref HUME) justice isn't necessary in a society with abundance and no scarcity (hi this is planet earth calling on every level) and the other is that in his bid to escape utopianism he dismissed morality almost entirely.

I have somewhat of a line to walk in my response here, because my reading of Marx and Engels was quite a while ago. I have a certain conception of what I think I read, oh so long ago, but if I have to go cite sources I'm going to have a long night ahead of me.

It's interesting that the notion of first principles comes up, because I think one can actually criticise Marxism for proceeding with historical analysis on the basis of its first principles, i.e., dialectical materialism.

I hinted at this before, that, for instance, the Jacobins get a huge emphasis in Marxist analysis of the French Revolution, because the Jacobins are seen as a preview of revolutionary movement taken to the point of anti-capitalist ideology. (To your point regarding excesses of revolutionary violence, it can also be seen as even more of a harbinger of atrocities to come.) Yet one suspects that there were likely other trends and historical movements - even contemporary to the French Revolution - that are simply ignored because they do not mesh with the Marxist historical orientation. If I were to go looking for examples, I would start with Foucault.

When a scientist ignores evidence that does not conform to the theory under examination, we call it confirmation bias, and it's a fairly damning criticism of dialectical materialism as the scientific historical discipline it aspired to be.

But to get back to your question/comment about what the first principles of dialectical materialism are supposed to be: To me, it's fairly self-explanatory. Dialectical materialism comprises the first principles of an attempt to explain historical and social development in entirely rational, empirical terms. One point regarding this I seem to recall is that Marx early on embraced dialectics precisely because he saw it as a revolutionary philosophy that corresponded with the latest views in the emerging, dynamic sciences of natural philosophy. From that perspective it would appear almost inevitable that empiricism and naturalism are a better fit for Marx's notion of dialectics, which is indeed a complete about-face on the subject of empiricism from Hegel.

In its aspirations, dialectical materialism is no different from any other classical scientific endeavor, particularly in the "soft" sciences. For instance, one could ask where the morality of psychoanalysis comes from. The simple answer is that psychoanalysis does not concern itself with the imposition or formulation of morality; it is only interested in morality as a subject of study. Shall we declare psychoanalysis immoral, then? I think it's the cart coming before the horse. Classical science was never held accountable for the creation of reality, only the accuracy of its descriptions and predictions.

This has changed in the last 50 years or so with a more holistic, integral view of the role of the observer as part of the system under observation. But if we are to damn dialectical materialism for that, we may as well include virtually every classical science along with it.

In this sense, Marxism should not be criticized for its attribution of morality to class roles. For whatever the theory is worth, class roles do influence morality. However, the classical line between the observer and the experiment does get crossed when Marx the observer and analyst becomes Marx the activist; and that is an unquestionably factual description of what happened. It's a subject of some debate, I think, whether turning activist was good for Marx as a scientist. I suppose in light of earlier discussion one might argue that Marx himself foresaw in an embryonic way the current systemic view of the observer as part of the system. But I suspect that's overly charitable.

I suppose the bottom line is that historians and psychoanalysts must decide like the rest of us what they think is right and what is wrong, what to fight for and fight against. Expecting one's professional training to decide these things for you is intellectually immature and, from a practical standpoint, absurd. Manufacturing excuses for immoral acts out of the cloth of one's professional raiments is dishonest and runs dangerously close to evil.

In the tradition of social activism, the engagement of the professional historian in the struggles of his time is an eminently good thing. See Howard Zinn for some very eloquent arguments in favor of activism. Regardless, I think it's fair to say that Marx, (and even Lenin) would have found later atrocities committed in their names abhorrent, but obviously we'll never know without a time machine.

[The Dude]

Without getting too much into the specific debate, because I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole marxist school of philosophy, I'm gonna throw some rep around anyway and thank those for answering. If I understand it correctly now, the dialectic in dialectical materialism does not simply refer to the classic method of dialogue to come to new insights, but the class struggle itself which mark symbolically refers to as a dialectic because its the clash between rich and poor, ie different sides of a spectrum.

I do agree with both Chriscase and Vizsla here that Marxism seems to overindulge in ridiculous language. Not sure for which reason, probably to sound interesting, but there sure could've been better ways to describe the social utopia that Marx envisioned.

[chriscase]

Without getting too much into the specific debate, because I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole marxist school of philosophy, I'm gonna throw some rep around anyway and thank those for answering. If I understand it correctly now, the dialectic in dialectical materialism does not simply refer to the classic method of dialogue to come to new insights, but the class struggle itself which mark symbolically refers to as a dialectic because its the clash between rich and poor, ie different sides of a spectrum.

I do agree with both Chriscase and Vizsla here that Marxism seems to overindulge in ridiculous language. Not sure for which reason, probably to sound interesting, but there sure could've been better ways to describe the social utopia that Marx envisioned.

In the philosophical context, dialectics has much more broad application than the class struggle. The class struggle is a miniscule example of what dialectics attempts to encompass. In one sense, dialectics has more than prevailed in the modern cosmological view of the universe as an almost incomprehensibly dynamic entity. The assertion of a dialectical view as opposed to a static view of the universe is almost laughably trivial. On the other hand, it seems to be human nature to continue to look for some underlying permanence in the universe. If we ever find it, it may change the primacy of the dialectical view.

It's an interesting line of thought to note that Marxism was, like many of its contemporary efforts to rationalize human behavior, strongly progressivist. There is an inescapable sense in the Marxist view that history is progressing steadily towards a more ideal state, not only in the social context, but socially in the greater context of human understanding. So Marxism allies itself with scientific progressivism and sees itself as one facet of the overall march of humanity towards perfection.

This brings us back to Denny's point about morality, since the notion of a march towards perfection strongly implies that such a perfect state can be defined. And this also contradicts a notion of moral relativism that one can draw from a strict application of the determinism of social values by class. In other words, if our notion of perfection is defined by our class, then how can we arrive at an independent judgment that proletarian "perfection" is better than capitalist "perfection" or feudal "perfection"?

For the most part, I think Marxism appeals to the audience to accept the communist notion of utopia on the basis of a democratic principle which, by Marxist standards, is arguably no more absolute than any other class-based ideology.

I think the prevailing assumption is that, from a historical perspective, a nineteenth-century intellectual who studies the end of feudalism and witnesses the onset of the Industrial Revolution, can only reasonably speculate about what social forms might supercede capitalism, but not what would come after that.