----- Original Message ----- From: "Cian O'Connor" <cian_oconnor at yahoo.co.uk> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 4:56 PM Subject: Re: Marxism and "Science" (Was: Comic Book Marxism)
> What is the dialectic? No problem with the rest of
> this debate, but being irreligous I've always stayed
> away from Marx.
>
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Dialectics The term dialectic has both logical and metaphysical meanings in philosophy. In logic, it generally refers to a process of critical reasoning used either for refutation or for the discovery of truth. Although Aristotle claimed that his Topics was the first systematic account of dialectic, he recognized Zeno of Elea (5th century BC), whose famous paradoxes defended the philosophy of Parmenides, as its inventor. Plato conceived of dialectic primarily as question and answer, and as the critical dialogue one has with one's soul. In the 18th century Kant used the term dialectic systematically in his Critique of Pure Reason, arranging the four contradictions of pure reason as four sets of thesis and antithesis. Fichte, followed by Schelling, applied the term synthesis to the third stage of resolving the contradictions in the thesis and antithesis. This triadic concept, which characterizes the usual meaning of the term dialectic today, was advanced and elaborated by Hegel and Marx. For Hegel, dialectic is a threefold process in which reason is revealed through reality, which is both rational and spiritual in nature. In Marx's theory, known as Dialectical Materialism, dialectic describes the material process of reality in general and of society in particular. < http://pratt.edu/~arch543p/help/dialectics.html >