Tuesday, Oct 13, 2020 • 11min

Dialectics

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how dialectics is a theory of change through contradiction and how Marx took over this idea from Hegel and, interpreting it materialistically, made it a cornerstone of his underlying philosophy

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John Molyneux

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John Molyneux

00:05

Hello. Welcome to the 13th of my series of videos introducing the ideas of

Marx

and

Marxism

. In this video, I'm going to talk about the concept of

dialectics

, which was fundamental to

Marx's

underlying

Philosophy

00:22

The term

dialectics

originated in

ancient Greece

where it referred to the idea of reaching the truth through dialogue or through a process of cross-questioning.

00:36

It was then developed by various philosophers, but most importantly by the great German philosopher

Hegel

, who worked it up into a system. A total system which saw the whole history of humanity as a process of change driven by successive conflicting ideas, culminating in a kind of reconciliation with the absolute idea, which was his term for God.

01:07

Marx

took over the idea of

dialectics

from

Hegel

. But whereas in

Hegel,

dialectics

was primarily about changing ideas and was driven by changes in ideas. For

Marx

, it was applied to changes in material and social forces. In other words,

Marx

stood

Hegel's

dialectic

on its feet, on the firm

Materialist

foundations.

01:40

Now, the starting point of

dialectics

is recognition of the fact that everything, everything in the universe is engaged in a process of constant change: the universe itself, the solar system, the Earth, naturally human life and so on.

01:59

All of these are continually changing. This now is a fact which is completely confirmed by all the branches of modern science, but it's also interestingly quite a new thing to have been understood. Even revolutionary scientists like

Galileo

and

Newton

operated with an idea that nature was fundamentally unchanging after the initial impulse given by God or

the act of creation

02:30

Only With

Kant

in the late 18th century, was the idea that the planets had a history that they have developed. And only with

Darwin

in the middle of the 19th century, did we get any understanding of

the evolution of the species

or the simple fact that species did develop and change.

02:52

But while it's true clearly, that everything is constantly changing, it's also the case that in nature and in history we have major continuities. The Earth has existed for over 4.5 billion years. Humans have been around for at least 2.5 million years.

Capitalism

has existed for over 500 years.

03:17

So things change, but also a lot of things stay the same for at least for a long period of time. And

dialectics

is a way of thinking through this relationship between change and continuity. The contradiction, if you like, between change and continuity.

03:35

Now a great deal of human knowledge, including scientific knowledge, begins by distinguishing between things, separating them out: this is an edible berry/this is a poisonous one, this is a tree/this is a flower, this is a human being/this is an ape, and so on. Human thinking has to make these distinctions between things and it's very, very important.

04:05

But at a deeper level as

dialectics

shows these things are really processes. They come into being and pass out of being. For example, a wooden table is a definite distinct object and it can survive for hundreds of years. But in the final analysis, a wooden table is a moment between a tree and dust and the tree is a moment between being a seed and being carbon in the ground.

04:42

And that's true of every apparently separate and distinct thing. And understanding all these processes involves being able to deal with, to think, contradictions. I,

John Molyneux

, am not the same as I was when I was a baby, a child, a young man and so on. But in another way I am the same person. We have to be able to deal with both those things.

05:10

Now in

ancient Greece

Aristotle

developed a set of rules for sound thinking, it became known as

Formal Logic

, in which something either is the case or is not the case. It can't be both, facts are facts, things are true or false. The cat is either on the mat or is not on the mat.

05:31

Now the system of

Formal Logic

was very useful for the advancement of human knowledge and it remains so. But it also had and has his limits particularly when dealing with processes of change, evolution and the bubbled

Revolution

. The stationary cat may be on or off the mat or even half on and half off the mat. But the cat in motion, the living cat passes onto the mat and passes off it.

06:00

Dialectics

has developed by

Hegel

and then by

Marx

and

Engels

was very important in this, recognized the value of

Formal Logic

, but moved beyond it to develop a number of concepts, or rules of thinking, for grasping processes of change.

06:18

First of these that I want to discuss is that any existing state is in fact a unity of opposites, a moment of balance or equilibrium between opposed and contradictory forces, between forces that make for change and those that preserve the status quo. And

dialectics

takes the view that ultimately the forces of change are stronger than those of continuity.

06:47

Second, that one state of affairs changes into another. One thing changes into something else through a process of quantitative changes. Reaching a certain tipping point where they turn into qualitative changes, apply heat to water and its temperature will wrap, it will gradually rise, but at a certain point, 100°C and so on, it will turn into gas.

07:20

Third idea is that the

analysis

of any event or thing must bear in mind the standpoint of totality, its relationship with the whole, no particular event, say a war or political crisis, can be correctly understood in isolation from the totality and the totality of world history, in that case, the totality of world

politics

. But at the same time, every such

analysis

also has to be concrete because each specific war or political crisis or event is a particular concentration, a unique combination of the general forces at work.

08:07

Now, these principles sound abstract, but actually they're immensely useful in actual historical economic and political

analysis

and indeed, for political practice. Without the

dialectical method

Marx

could have written neither

The Communist Manifesto

nor

Capital

08:28

Take, for example, the question of

Capitalism

. The dominant view, explicitly or more often implicitly, is that

Capitalism

will last forever. From a

dialectical Materialist

standpoint, however, it is only a moment or phase in the long historical development of humanity. It came into being and it will pass out of being.

08:53

As a given system,

Capitalism

is a unity of opposites of

wage labor

and

capital

, of the

proletariat

and the

bourgeoisie

. And then, as a result of a long series of quantitative changes, the balance of power between these opposed forces shifts until a tipping point is reached and a qualitative change occurs.

Capitalism

is transformed into

Socialism

, or possibly barbarism.

09:24

The same

dialectical process

occurs not only at the macro scale of the change from

Capitalism

Socialism

, but in every historic change within the system: for example, from

industrial Capitalism

Imperialism

at the end of the 19th century. And indeed, within individual episodes in the

class struggle

, for example, and take an individual workplace and a strike.

09:52

A series of quantitative changes in the consciousness of workers in the workplace reach a tipping point, and the strike breaks out. Then within that strike, which is the struggle of opposites, a further tipping point is reached and the strike breaks through to victory or is thrown back and goes down to defeat. The ability to think

dialecticaly

, to hold together the totality and the concrete, to deal not only in fixed abstractions, but in terms of developing contradictions is greatly beneficial in

revolutionary political practice

10:32

Other examples, do

trade unions

represent the interests of workers or do they act as allies of the bosses? The

dialectical answer

is that they can do and be both in different proportions at different times. And a

trade union activist

, a

socialist

trade unionist

, needs to understand that, that contradiction, that contradictory role of

trade unions

and deal with it.

11:00

Irish Nationalism

progressive or reactionary? Again, the dialectical answer is that it can be both. Directed against british

Imperialism

, it is progressive at least up to a point. Directed against immigrants and refugees, it is reactionary. If you're a

socialist

Ireland

, you have to deal with that contradiction.

11:22

The essence of

dialectics

therefore, is that change takes place through the struggle of opposed forces. And a grasp of dialectical thinking is hugely useful in

analyzing

processes of change in their living richness and complexity. The supreme example of which is

Revolution

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