16-10-01 -- Summary of Essay Ten Part One -- Practice:

No Friend Of Dialectics

These are Introductory Essays, which have been written for those who find the main Essays either too long, or too difficult. They do not pretend to be comprehensive since they are simply summaries of the core ideas presented at this site. Most of the supporting evidence and argument found in each of the main Essays has been omitted. Anyone wanting more details, or who would like to examine my arguments and evidence in full, should consult the Essay for which each is a précis. [In this particular case, that can be found here.]

In this Essay, the link between practice and truth will be severed. It will also be argued that even if truth is tested in practice, as dialecticians claim, practice has nonetheless refuted dialectics.

[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

Practice And Truth

Truth Tested In Practice?

At this stage, it could be objected that the considerations advanced in these Essays ignore the plain fact that truth is confirmed in practice. This oft-repeated claim was summarised by Lenin as follows:

"From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice, -- such is the dialectical path of the cognition of truth, of the cognition of objective reality." [Lenin (1961), p.171. Italic emphasis in the original.]

From this it could be argued that if dialectics has been tested in practice and has been verified countless times, then the abstract, academic points raised in these Essays can be ignored -- as mere "sophistry", perhaps?

However, as we will see, far from being the Ace-in-the-Hole DM-fans imagine it to be, practice is in fact their Black Spot.

Practice Shows Practice Is Unreliable

The idea that truth is confirmed in practice is manifestly unreliable.

First, practice is not a guarantor of truth. Incorrect theories often make successful (practical and theoretical) predictions -- as, for example, Ptolemy's system did for many centuries. In fact, the allegedly superior Copernican system was no more accurate than the older theory had been. Ptolemy's system was refined progressively in line with observation for over a thousand years, and it became more accurate as a result. Despite that, it was no nearer to what we might now regard as the 'truth'.

Second, correct theories can sometimes fail, and they can do so for many years. For instance, Copernican Astronomy predicted stellar parallax, which was not observed until 1838 with the work of Friedrich Bessel, three hundred years after Copernicus's book was published.

Similarly, Darwin's theory of descent through modification made predictions that were at variance with patently obvious facts: the persistence of inherited variations. The latter were inconsistent with Darwin's own "blending" theory of transmission. Given Darwin's account, new and advantageous variations should be blended out of a breeding population, not preserved or enhanced. It was not until the advent of genetically-based theories of inheritance forty or so years later that Darwin's theory became viable.

Moreover, this new synthetic theory did not achieve success by preserving anything from the old blending theory (and, because of that fact, this defunct theory cannot be seen as an approximation to the 'truth', toward which later developments more closely inched this theory). Indeed, because of the difficulties his ideas faced, Darwin found he had to incorporate Lamarckian concepts into later editions his classic book in order to rescue his theory. Hence, in the period between, say, 1865 and 1900 there were good reasons to reject Darwinism (as many serious biologists did). This means that the development of the most successful theory of the 19^th century (and one of the most successful ever) actually contradicts the DM-account of truth, by making incorrect predictions.

In addition, the elements that early Darwinists edited into or out of their theory did not move what was left of his theory closer to the 'truth', either. In fact, these changes achieved the opposite effect, since they relied on Lamarckian principles. Even worse, as Darwin himself noted, his theory was contradicted by (and is still contradicted by, and might always remain contradicted by) the fossil record (with its huge gaps -- on this, see Schwartz (1999); also see here, and the essay links here). This massive obstacle is still largely ignored, downplayed, re-interpreted, or explained-away by neo-Darwinians.

Third, some theories can make both successful and unsuccessful predictions. Consider the 'contradictions' between Newtonian Physics and observation -- those that prompted both the discovery of Neptune and the 'non-discovery' of the planet Vulcan:

"The arguments which terminate in an hypothesis's positing the existence of some trans-Uranic object, the planet Neptune, and the structurally identical arguments which forced Leverrier to urge the existence of an intra-Mercurial planet, the planet 'Vulcan', to explain the precessional aberrations of our 'innermost' solar system neighbour are formally one and the same. They run: (1) Newtonian mechanics is true; (2) Newtonian mechanics requires planet P to move in exactly this manner, x, y, z, …; (3) but P does not move à la x, y, z; (4) so either (a) there exists some as-yet-unobserved object, o, or (b) Newtonian mechanics is false. (5) 4b) contradicts 1) so 4a) is true -- there exists some as-yet-undetected body which will put everything right again between observation and theory. The variable 'o' took the value 'Neptune' in the former case; it took the value 'Vulcan' in the latter case. And these insertions constituted the zenith and the nadir of classical celestial mechanics, for Neptune does exist, whereas Vulcan does not." [Hanson (1970), p.257.]

[More details in Hanson (1962). There are many other examples like this in the history of science.]

However, we do not have to appeal to the natural sciences for more examples of this sort of thing; there are plenty to be found in revolutionary practice itself.

For instance, in the late 1980s and early 1990s the SWP-UK argued that the UK Poll Tax could only be defeated by the active involvement of organised labour. A strategy of civil disobedience (coupled with demonstrations and meetings) was regarded as insufficient to beat this tax. Admittedly, the SWP did not counterpose these tactics, but argued that both should be built together.

As it turned out, the other strategy won. [There are many more examples of this sort of thing in revolutionary politics, too, not all of which implicate the UK-SWP.]

It could be objected to this that these examples clearly ignore wider and/or longer-term issues. In the first case, the Ptolemaic system was finally abandoned because it proved inferior to its rivals in the long run. The same applies to Darwin's theory, which when combined with Mendelian genetics, is closer to the truth, something that is also true of Newtonian Physics, which has been superseded by the TOR.

[TOR = Theory of Relativity.]

Furthermore, the Poll Tax simply reappeared in a modified form as the present-day Council Tax. To be sure, the total defeat of such regressive taxes (etc.) must wait for the revolutionary overthrow of Capitalism; here the involvement of the organised working class is essential.

All this is undeniable, but the above response is unfortunately double-edged: if it is only in the long run that we may determine whether or not a theory as successful, then that theory might never be so judged. As we saw in Essay Three Part Two, this is because future contingencies could always arise to refute that theory -- no matter how well it might once have seemed to 'work'. In fact, if history is anything to go by, this has been the fate of the vast majority of previous theories. Even though most, if not all, at one time 'worked', or were well-supported, the overwhelming majority were later abandoned.

As Stanford notes:

"...[I]n the historical progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary mechanical theories, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory was accepted offered equally strong support to each of the (then-unimagined) later alternatives. The same pattern would seem to obtain in the historical progression from elemental to early corpuscularian chemistry to Stahl's phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry to Daltonian atomic and contemporary physical chemistry; from various versions of preformationism to epigenetic theories of embryology; from the caloric theory of heat to later and ultimately contemporary thermodynamic theories; from effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism to theories of the electromagnetic ether and contemporary electromagnetism; from humoral imbalance to miasmatic to contagion and ultimately germ theories of disease; from 18^th Century corpuscular theories of light to 19^th Century wave theories to contemporary quantum mechanical conception; from Hippocrates's pangenesis to Darwin's blending theory of inheritance (and his own 'gemmule' version of pangenesis) to Wiesmann's germ-plasm theory and Mendelian and contemporary molecular genetics; from Cuvier's theory of functionally integrated and necessarily static biological species or Lamarck's autogenesis to Darwinian evolutionary theory; and so on in a seemingly endless array of theories, the evidence for which ultimately turned out to support one or more unimagined competitors just as well. Thus, the history of scientific enquiry offers a straightforward inductive rationale for thinking that there are alternatives to our best theories equally well-confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time." [Stanford (2001), p.9.]

[See also Stanford (2000, 2003, 2006).]

So, if anything, practice shows that practice is unreliable!

Furthermore, if it is only in the long run that superior theories win out, or can be seen to be superior, then for most of the time inferior theories could make (and have made) successful predictions. In that case, we would have no way of telling the good from the bogus for most of the time.

The above observations apply equally well to dialectics. If Dialectical Marxists have to wait for the revolutionary overthrow of Capitalism before they know whether their theory is correct, then they might not only have a long time to wait, they could find that Marx's caveat (reproduced below) in the end refutes everything (i.e., everything but that anti-deterministic pronouncement itself). Clearly, Marx and Engels would not have put this passage in the Communist Manifesto if practice always determined truth, and correct theories invariably worked -- whatever they might appear to have said elsewhere:

"Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes." [Marx and Engels (1968b), pp.35-36. Bold emphasis added.]

Anyway, such long-term promissory notes cannot tell us today whether 'Materialist Dialectics' is now correct. Indeed, this is one of the main weaknesses of such pragmatic criteria: they are projective, not merely assertoric.

Furthermore, an appeal to the "closer approximation" of a particular theory to the truth would be to no avail (or, at least, of no help to fans of the 'dialectic'); as we have seen throughout this site, in this respect DM is not even in the running. This is partly because its own precepts condemn its adherents (and humanity) to infinite ignorance (on this, see here), and partly because its core theses make not one ounce of sense (on that see Essays Two through Eleven).

Pragmatic Theories

[PMT = Pragmatic Theory of Truth; COT = Coherence Theory of Truth; CTT = Correspondence Theory of Truth.]

Nevertheless, a reliance on practice means that DM-epistemology has inherited many of the weaknesses of the PMT. In fact, is possible to show that the PMT collapses into the CTT, which in turn depends on the COT. And, as is well-known, the COT has always enjoyed a close, if not unhealthily incestuous relationship with Idealism. [This will be demonstrated in a later Essay.]

Moreover, the idea that truth is confirmed in practice is dependent on the CTT, not the other way round.

This is because, if a theory, T, predicts that for some sentence "S" expressing a prediction P of T, and practice brings it about that what S says actually occurs, then in order to judge that P is indeed the case, P would have to be compared with relevant changes in reality. Manifestly, no one would try to guess whether S was true (i.e., that P was correct); and there is no way that more practice could confirm that S was indeed the case. So, the confirmation of the results of practice is dependent on correspondence relations, not the other way round.

To give a concrete example: if, say, party RR sets out to help win a strike by, among other things, mounting a series of meetings, distributing leaflets, organising marches, making collections, widening the dispute, advocating active picketing, and so on (on the basis of revolutionary theory predicting that one or more of these will win that strike) -- and that strike was won as a result --, the fact that those predictions had been successful could not itself be confirmed by yet more practice.

And this fact should be apparent even to hard-nosed Bolsheviks, if they but thought about their own practice with respect to practice. There seems to be little point in appealing to practice if the results have to be constantly reinterpreted when outcomes fall short of expectations -- as they almost invariably seem to do for us Marxists.

Indeed, when confronted with the glaring and long-term failure of DIM, dialecticians do just this -- they deny that it has been tested in practice and thus shown to fail, promptly appealing to "objective factors" to account for its long and sorry record. On the other hand, the few successes DIM has witnessed they happily attribute to 'Materialist Dialectics'. In that case, practice can only ever win; it is never used to account for failure, only success. Hence, practice and the theory that inspired it need never be altered, since they can never fail. And so this sorry theory staggers on through yet another half-century of defeat.

Once more, the reason for saying this is that pragmatic theories are eternal hostages to fortune. Because of that, those who appeal to practice as a test of truth should feign no surprise when future contingencies fail to match repeatedly dashed expectations.

Converging On Truth?

Again, it could be objected that modern scientific theories are remarkably successful, which must mean that they are closer to the truth, and that is why they work. The same is true of DM.

Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that a theory's success does not imply it is 'nearer the truth'. This is because:

(1) We have already seen that success does not imply truth anyway.

(2) Theories not only have to survive rigorous testing, they evolve over time. But, the fact that certain theories remain viable is down to the additional and obvious fact that they have so far survived. But, just because of that, it does not mean that they are 'closer to the truth' -- no more than the fact that an organism survives in nature means that it is 'closer to the truth'.

For example, there is no such thing as the true form of a cat, which all cats are evolving toward. Cats just survive. Truth does not enter into it. So successful cats do not prove cats are true. Moreover, cats, like theories, could become extinct one day, no matter how well they once survived, or 'worked'. Indeed, most of the species that have ever existed are now extinct; does that mean that they were unsuccessful when they were around? Hardly. And did that guarantee they would always remain so? Clearly not. And the same goes for any and all theories.

(3) There are other reasons for arguing that no scientific theory could be true, even if they made true predictions. This is not because they are all false, or of indeterminate truth-value, but because they operate more like rules, and thus they are not the sort of thing that could be true or false. This idea will also be spelt-out in more detail in another Essay.

However, in response to item (2) above, it could be objected that theories are not like cats, or dogs, or any other species; they are either (partially-) true or they are not. Species cannot be characterised this way in any meaningful sense.

Maybe not, but the DM-link between practice and truth makes the analogy with cats all the more apt, for on this account, theories are true because they work. Now, the reason why some theories work/survive and others do not is analogous to the way certain species do in fact survive. There are all sorts of historical, social and ideological pressures on theories, which, like the environmental impact on organisms, filter out those suited to that environment.

In that case, the fact that a theory survives/works does not imply it is true. To be sure, a case for the obverse inference might well be made (i.e., that a 'true' theory will or should work/survive -- however, we have already seen that this too is doubtful), but not this. Unless we know on independent grounds that a theory is 'true', its survival cannot be used to infer its 'truth'. And, as we have seen, practice itself cannot discriminate the 'good' from the 'bad'.

If all this is so, then the emphasis revolutionaries place on practice as a guide to truth is misguided at best --, which is all to the good, given the points raised in the next section.

Dialectics -- Refuted By History

As it turns out, past events and practice do give clear testimony --, unfortunately they speak of the long-term failure of DIM.

Hence, dialecticians would be well advised to avoid using practice as a test of the correctness of their theory.

When a list is constructed of all the 'successes' that 'our side' has 'enjoyed' over the last 150 years or so it soon becomes obvious that it is depressingly short. Worse: our 'successes' are easily out-numbered by our 'failures'. A shortened list of both is given in Figure One, below.

 Figure One: The Dialectically-Depressing List

In response, it could be argued that the above list is highly prejudicial since it is padded out with dozens of failures that pre-date revolutionary Marxism, or with those that have nothing to do with 'Materialist Dialectics'.

But, if these are filtered out -- along with the corresponding successes enjoyed by these non-revolutionary Marxist movements -- the list would be even more depressing!

Also worthy of note is the relatively massive scale of the 'defeats' our side has suffered compared to the modest and temporary gains made in the last 150 years. For example, the catastrophic blow delivered to our side by the failure of just two revolutions (e.g., those in Germany and Spain between 1918 and 1939) far outweigh all our successes combined, and by several orders of magnitude.

DM has never seized the masses; by its own lights it stands refuted.

Excuses, Excuses...

When confronted with such overwhelmingly disconcerting facts, dialecticians tend to respond in one or more of the following ways:

(1) They flatly deny that DIM has been an abject failure. Typically, such comrades point to 1917, or to the handful remaining 'socialist' states on the planet --, or, perhaps, to the few rays of hope there are in the world right now (i.e., Cuba, and more recently, Venezuela).

[DIM = Dialectical Marxism/Marxist.]

(2) If they admit to failure, they blame it on "objective factors", or on other Marxist parties. These objective factors include the vicious and aggressive response of the capitalist class, a relatively weak, divided or underdeveloped proletariat -- which is passive, and has been bought-off perhaps by imperial "super-profits", or has been distracted by "false consciousness" (and the like) --, compared to a well-organised and focused ruling-class.

These are then often linked to the failures in strategy, tactics, and theory of the various revolutionary groups involved in previous debacles.

[But, it is worth noting, these are invariably never the errors of the party to which that particular excuser belongs. It is always "those other guys" who screwed up; they did not "understand" dialectics, you see.]

(3) They simply ignore the problem. This is the 'head-in-the-sand' syndrome we have met several times already, only here applied to the results of practice. Or:

(4) They say it's too early to tell. After all, it took many centuries to see the back of Feudalism. Hence, it is wildly unrealistic to expect DIM to triumph overnight.

Now, there doesn't seem to be much point in dialecticians claiming that 'Materialist Dialectics' guides all they do, avowing that truth is tested in practice, if, when the latter reveals its long-term verdict, that verdict is denied, disregarded or explained away.

Excuse 1: The flat denial that DIM has been an abject failure

Those who think DIM is a ringing success have so far failed to reveal where and how it enjoys this blessed condition.

[Presumably there is a Workers' State on the outer fringes of the Galaxy?]

Systematic denial of reality of this order of magnitude is difficult to counter -- without recourse to professional help.

In fact, there is no debating with hardcore Idealism of this sort -- i.e., with an attitude-of-mind that re-interprets the material world to suit such a comforting idea, but which then encourages its adepts to bury their heads in their own idea of sand.

Anyone who can look at the international situation and fail to see that our movement is not only deeply divided, it is in long-term decline -- and that the vast majority of workers have never been, and are not now "seized" by DIM --, is probably more of a danger to themselves.

And 1917 cannot be chalked-up as a success for dialectics -- why that is so is explained here. [The other alleged 'successes' are discussed in the full Essay, here.]

Excuse 2: "Objective" factors

It is undeniable that objective factors have hindered the revolutionary movement. These include a relatively well-organised, ruthless, rich, powerful and focussed ruling-class, imperialism and  an expanding growing economy -- compounded by racism, sexism, nationalism and sectionalism among workers --, and so on.

But, dialecticians are quite clear: the veracity of a theory can only be tested in practice. Now, since that requires the subjective input of active revolutionaries, this aspect of practice has plainly not worked.

Or, if it has worked, then the meaning of the word "success" must have changed.

We thus face three possible alternatives:

(A) 'Materialist Dialectics' has never actually been tried out, or put into practice.

(B) Revolutionaries have been using another theory all along (which fact they kept remarkably well hidden). Or,

(C) The theory they say is central to all they do is indeed a monumental failure.

Clearly, either of (A) or (B) would constitute a refutation of 'Materialist Dialectics' (in view of what dialecticians themselves say about practice), and (C) would be a fatally-damaging admission. Small wonder then that many DIM-fans opt for Excuse 3.

However, whenever revolutionaries reluctantly bring themselves to acknowledge the subjective side of failure, they often blame it on a lack of "revolutionary leadership" (but, this is then brazenly attributed to other parties/traditions, never their own), all the while forgetting to note the input of dialectics. [On this, see here.]

But, to repeat: if 'Materialist Dialectics' is as central to Marxism as dialecticians believe, then it cannot be unrelated to DIM's long-term lack of success.

On the other hand, those who reject any connection at all between 'Materialist Dialectics' and the long-term failure of DIM, cannot claim in one breath that all things are inter-related, but in the very next deny any such link!

So, whether or not there have been "objective" factors, practice itself has refuted the subjective side of DIM: 'Materialist Dialectics'.

Excuse 3: Ignore the problem

This is probably the safest alternative for dialecticians to adopt: completely ignore the problem (or, failing that, explain it away). It is certainly the option that inadvertently helps further the interests of the ruling-class, since it prevents the serious theoretical problems our movement faces from ever being addressed, guaranteeing another century of failure.

Indeed, the bosses could not have designed a better theory aimed at screwing around with our heads if they had tried, initiating in our movement a monumental waste of time as our best theorists vainly try to grapple with Hegel's fluent Martian, in order to make some sort of sense of it -- unsurprisingly, none so far!

And even if this were not the case, and success were indeed an unfailing criterion of truth, since there is as yet no socialist society on earth, we will only know if Marxism is correct after the event. So, this criterion cannot tell us whether Marxism is correct now. [Incidentally, that partially disposes of Excuse Four.]

Excuse 4: It's too early to tell

This we might call the 'Whistling In The Dark' excuse.

Now, to state the obvious, it is not easy being a revolutionary. Not only are we in the overwhelming minority, we face unremitting hostility from the capitalist press -- but, more often, even worse hostility from other revolutionaries --, and our ideas are openly rejected by the vast majority of workers (except in times of struggle, when a small minority sometimes listens). On top of that, we have to face up to the fact that our side has seen little other than failure -- and this is so even if we go back as far as the English and French revolutions!

So, in the face of that, it is little wonder that dialecticians tell themselves stories to maintain their morale.

But, just like the Second Coming, the future seems continually to mock all such hopes anchored in the present.

Nevertheless, even Christians have to appeal to something tangible to convince themselves they are not in the grip of an irrational delusion of some sort (be this the 'signs of the times', or personal experiences of 'god', or whatever).

But, to what can dialecticians appeal?

Well, perhaps this: dialecticians tell us year in year out that Capitalism is in crisis (but, there are far too many references to that end for me to quote them all here and hope to have space for anything else -- in fact, readers should visit this site, type the word "crisis" in the search box, and see what results emerge), and they have been doing this now for well over a hundred years.

But, how much of this is in effect crying wolf?

However, we can only go on "crying wolf" for so long before even we begin to smell a rat...

[Apologies for that mixed metaphor!]

So, those comrades who are tempted to reach for Excuse Four should pause for thought -- and that thought should contain one or both of the following items:

(1) Is there anything in the history of DIM to suggest dialecticians won't continue to screw up?

[If you think there is, e-mail me; I need a good laugh.]

(2) Is it really too early to decide that DIM inspires about as much confidence as a drug addict's promises to quit?

Independently of the above, there is another nagging doubt: How do we even know that 'Materialist Dialectics' is correct?

Not in the future, but right now?

No appeal to practice can answer that query (as we have seen), and an appeal to yet more 'Materialist Dialectics' would be of even less help (as we have also seen).

[HM = Historical Materialism.]

In fact, the only thing we can appeal to is HM --, and to an HM stripped of all those consoling phrases derived from mystical Christianity and the Hermetic writings of that modern-day Godfather Of Opiates: Hegel.

The Silence Of The DIMs

Truth "tested in practice", so we are told; but practice has faltered badly for most of the last 150 years.

What is the DIM-conclusion? Why -- dialectics is a monumental success!

And, the evidence for this is..., what?

Deadly silence.

Cue tumbleweed; cue rustling leaves; cue distant church bell...

Figure Three: The Evidence Just Keeps Stacking Up...

Latest Update: 04/06/08

Word Count: 5020

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