Essay Three Part One:
Abstractionism -- The Heart Of The Beast
Readers need to make note of the fact that this Essay does not represent my final view on any of the issues raised. It is merely 'work in progress'.
If you are viewing this with Mozilla Firefox you might not be able to read all the symbols I have used.
The opening sections of this Part of Essay Three are aimed at introducing the rest of the site. Many of the things I say here are thus deliberately provocative; but they will all be substantiated in later Essays -- the most important of which is Essay Twelve Part One.
Incidentally, I have used the word "nominalisation" throughout this Essay; the rationale for this is explained here. In most cases, it should be read as "particularisation"; the reason for that will emerge as the Essay unfolds.
This Essay is over 51,500 words long; a summary of its main ideas can be found here.
In Essay Three as a whole I propose to unravel DM-epistemology. In Parts One and Two, I will be examining a thoroughly traditional concept: abstraction. There I hope to show that little sense can be made of this process or its alleged results -- as they are understood both by traditional Philosophers and dialecticians.
[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]
Moreover, in line with the comments made in Essay Two about dialecticians' philosophical traditionalism, we will se that Abstractionism is a traditional doctrine that DM-theorists have been only too happy to appropriate. As we will also see, the 'process of abstraction' is the source of much of the dialectical confusion that has helped cripple revolutionary socialist theory.
In Part Two of this Essay I will examine other aspects of the traditional approach to abstraction in more detail, showing how, by incorporating this notion into their theory, dialecticians have invited a Trojan Horse into their midst. [Brief descriptions of the other Parts of Essay Three will be added later.]
Quick Links
Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections:
(1) Closet Idealists
(a) So -- What Precisely Are Abstractions?
(b) Are Abstract General Ideas Just Particulars In Disguise?
(c) Due Process?
(d) Concrete Block
(2) Linguistic Idealism -- Superscience From Jargon
(b) The Fetishisation Of Language
(c) The Ruling Ideas Are Always Those Of The Ruling-Class
(3) Welcome To The Glorious New Abstractor Factory
(a) All Truth Is Concrete -- Except For This Abstraction
(b) The Abstract And The Concrete
(d) Imposed On Nature, Not Read From It
(4) DM-Epistemology: Set In Concrete?
(a) Dialectics Fails To Make It Out of The Starting Blocks
(b) A Name By Any Other Name Is Still A Name
(c) Are Indicative Sentences Just Disguised Lists?
(5) John And The Entire Universe -- Lenin's Word-Magic
(a) No Entity Without Identity
(b) Dialectics 'Emerges' From Logical Chaos
(c) Theses From Thought -- Dogma From Daydreams
(a) Engels Nails His Colours To An Ideal Mast
(b) So Does Lenin
(c) Is Reality Plastered With Dialectics?
(e) Ok -- Reach For The Prozac
(9) Notes
(10) References
Abbreviations Used At This Site
So -- What Exactly Are Abstractions?
In Essay Two, we saw that dialecticians are as eager to impose their theses on reality as any randomly selected Idealist is. In this Part of Essay Three we will find out just how they manage to do this. [In Essays Nine Parts One and Two, and Essay Twelve, we will discover why they do it; a summary of the latter can be read here and here.]
To be sure, DM-theorists claim that theirs is a materialist theory, and they vigorously resist any imputation to the contrary. Far from imposing their theses on nature, DM-theorists argue that scientific knowledge advances because of a dialectical interplay between abstract knowledge on the one hand and practical activity on the other, rendering it increasingly objective over time.
Nevertheless, to state the obvious, without minds to create them there would be no abstractions.1 On the surface, therefore, it would seem that any theory that is committed to the 'objective' existence of 'abstractions' must be Idealist, whatever protestations are made to the contrary.
On the other hand, if 'abstractions' are not 'objective' -- that is, if they are not "mind-independent", if they do not relate to anything that exists in "mind-independent" reality --, then it is difficult to see how they could help in the construction of an accurate account of nature, or one that is supposed to be objective. Nor is it easy to see how scientific knowledge could possibly advance by means of abstractions if they are somehow fictional. How could fictional concepts help account for a non-fictional world?
Perhaps there is a way of interpreting the nature of abstractions that could rescue them from the world of make-believe? Could it be that their only 'legitimate' role is to help maintain the morale of scientists and Philosophers? One suspects so, otherwise much of traditional theory could be binned as yet more hot air -- or, more appropriately, reclassified as a considerably less entertaining alternative to the Brothers Grimm: as fiction on stilts.
And yet, if abstractions are objective -- but only minds can construct, or even appreciate them --, questions will naturally arise over what they could possibly reflect in nature. Exactly what corresponds to an abstract idea in the physical world?
Of course, for non-materialists (and old-fashioned Realists) quibbles like these presented few problems --, except perhaps a relatively awkward one over the precise meaning of the word "objective".
Indeed, for traditional thinkers like this, the ultimate constituents of reality were in the end either mind-like objects or non-material "concepts" and/or "Ideas". In that case, the word "objective" (that is, before that word changed its meaning a couple of centuries ago (it used to mean what "subjective" now means, and vice versa! -- on this see Daston (1994))) was for them almost synonymous with what we might these days call "Ideal". In fact, old-fashioned Realists are difficult to distinguish from Objective Idealists; as far as the latter were concerned, the word "objective" clearly did no real work.
Now the same cannot be said of dialecticians -- if one accepts their version of their theory at face value. Nevertheless, and controversially, this can and will be said of 'Materialist Dialectics' --, but only after the tangled undergrowth has been cleared away somewhat, its main roots in traditional thought exposed.
Oddly enough, however, we find a DM-classicist like Lenin arguing along familiar lines, for all the world sounding like a born-again Realist with added Hegelian spin:
"Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract -- provided it is correct (NB)… -- does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, the law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely." [Lenin (1961), p.171. Emphases in the original.]
Unfortunately, Lenin forgot to say how any of this is possible if abstractions are creations of the human mind. If scientific knowledge more truly reflects the world the more its abstractions are correct, how could this be if abstractions do not exist 'objectively', in some form or other, for science to reflect?1a If abstractions don't exist in the outside world then what is there in nature for them to depict, or for them to depict to us? On the other hand, if abstractions do exist, of what are they composed, and what form do they take? Worse still, where do they exist and how can they possibly interact with us?
Clearly, in order to settle such questions we need something a little more helpful than Lenin's enigmatic prose. Surprisingly, as we shall see, DM-theorists have to this day remained studiously silent on these issues -- saving, of course, where they have merely been content to repeat Lenin's words in the vain hope, perhaps, that mere repetition creates clarity and constitutes adequate proof.
Traditional theorists often regarded such abstractions as an 'reflection' of the "essential" features of the world, which, according to them, lie 'behind' appearances, this latest metaphor left conveniently obscure. [Later, we will have occasion to question its aptness.]
In stark contrast to the particulars we meet in everyday life, abstractions are not just universal in form, their content is general, too. Indeed, the use of abstract ideas, so we are told, allows human cognition to arise from immediate experience in its ascent toward an increasingly universal, law-governed picture of reality found in science and Philosophy.
So, it seems that abstractions are necessary if human beings are comprehend the generality found in nature, and thus consolidate scientific knowledge. An abstraction is, therefore, like a key that helps unlock secrets governing the inner workings of the world, an artefact of thought that connects each theorist with universal principles which, oddly enough, do not actually exist in the material world.
But, if abstractions are general in form, how does this generality actually express itself in reality? Are abstractions somehow 'spread out' and dispersed, as it were, like metaphysical margarine, over the concrete particulars that supposedly instantiate them, uniting the seeming diversity we see all around us by some power still unbeknown to us?
Or, are they merely part of the complex tales human beings tell themselves -- subjective stories dressed up in pseudo-objective finery --, which are essential for the progress of theory, but somehow not 'real' in themselves?
Unfortunately, their origin in overtly Idealist Philosophy does little to improve their image, nor does it inspire much confidence. Small wonder then that consistent materialists have regarded them as guilty until proven even more guilty.
Nevertheless, more work will need to be done before it is clear that such 'principles' are not just "useful fictions", handy at least for boosting the morale of scientists -- or for giving dialecticians something terminally obscure over which they can endlessly perseverate -- but for nought else.
Even so, short of burying this entire topic under several layers of Hegelian jargon, dialecticians have not advanced much beyond this subjectivist approach. In fact, as we will see, the way that dialecticians view abstractions actually undermines the generality they were introduced to explain, thus thoroughly compromising their approach to scientific knowledge.
This ironic dialectical inversion, if you like, is the subject of the rest of this Essay.
Abstractions -- Just Particulars In Disguise?
Admittedly, when it is viewed traditionally, language seems to present abstractions as though they are superficially (if not misleadingly) universal in form. Words supposedly denoting them appear to be (or to express) general ideas, categories or concepts.
To be sure, things are rarely this straight-forward; the problem here is that the words traditional theorists use to depict abstractions turned out to be the names of so-called "Universals" (or, in other cases "Forms", "Concepts", "Categories" or "Ideas"). Unfortunately, this linguistic move clearly implies that these "Universals" are in fact particulars of some sort, named now by an abstract noun, conjured into existence by a mysterious 'process' of abstraction -- a process that defies explanation even to this day.
How, then, is it possible for an abstraction to be both general and particular all at the same time?
Well, are abstractions like classes? Classes are abstract particulars of a rather peculiar sort: they are singular in form, but compound in nature, but no less Ideal. If Universals are like classes -- which somehow seem to exist anterior to material reality -- it would suggest they are ghostly containers of some sort, but with material contents. Does this intellectualist approach to reality not now commit us to the existence of classes over and above their members? Indeed, is such a 'theory' little more than bargain basement Platonism?
And yet, what are classes apart from their members? Indeed, what were they before their members existed? Was there, for example, a class of tigers (existing somewhere) waiting for these magnificent beasts to evolve just to give it some sort of material content, and, of course, to provide theoretical distraction for taxonomists? Does nature plan ahead in this way?
Conversely, are classes material in form, like tables, chairs, rocks and planets? If they are, of what are they composed? And yet, if they are made of something, why then call them abstractions? That particular epithet does not even look right. Abstractions are constructed -- so the traditional story goes -- either (1) by means of some sort of mental subtraction, in which theorists progressively ignore particular features of material objects in a their bid to ascend to the general, or (2) by means of a law-like generalising process which each abstractor applies to reality.
Nevertheless, whichever of these is the correct approach, exactly how these highly individualised skills are mysteriously coordinated across an entire population of abstractors, over many centuries, is just about as mysterious than the Holy Trinity itself. No doubt there is an abstraction that covers this, too. [This 'problem' will be the subject of much of Part Two.]
But, if (1) were the case, in the limit, one would expect abstractions to be more like Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, not the Old Woman's Shoe -- i.e., empty. As we will see this is indeed the line of thought that motivated Hegel's own reduction of generality.
On the other hand, if (2) were the case, as we will also see, nature cannot be anything other than Ideal. Moreover, if dialecticians adopt strategy (2), then plainly they will have imposed their ideas on reality, something they said they would never do. Indeed, that is why DM was accused of being an idealist theory precisely because dialecticians in fact impose their abstraction on nature. [That allegation was substantiated in Essay Two.]
Maybe these are not even the right questions to be asking? Perhaps the actual process of abstraction can tell us more?
The aforementioned process is widely held to a skill that all (or most) human beings possess, one that enables those rightly so minded to form abstract ideas almost at will.2
One interpretation of this allegedly universal skill involves the further idea that abstractions already exist in reality, there waiting for such mental gymnasts to discover by the operation of Reason alone. But, as noted above, that would make them both 'objective' and 'mind-dependent' all in one go -- an odd combination to be sure, but one we will find resists all serious attempts at clarification, and all known attempts to explain.
Anyway, this view suggests that most, if not all abstractions pre-date human existence, and depend on some mind or other to think them into existence. Small wonder then that such abstractions are the proud offspring of the over-ambitious thoughts and theories of assorted Idealists and 'God'-botherers that the class war has inflicted on humanity.
Clearly, this is not the right sort of metaphysical company for self-respecting materialists to frequent. Unfortunately, sound advice like this has arrived on the scene far too late, for this is just the sort of company dialecticians have been keeping. But worse, they take great exception if anyone attempts to point this out.
Nevertheless, using their 'natural' abstractive skills, intrepid abstractors are supposed to be able to do one or other of the following:
(1) Ignore certain features of material objects, enabling them to form more general ideas or concepts to which increasingly wider classes of objects belong.
Or:
(2) Access the 'abstract concepts' which they (somehow?) already possess -- but, which are only capable of being brought to the surface if 'Reason' is given a free hand. However, by shear coincidence, these 'concepts' emerge in each mind only if exactly the same categories and jargonised-expressions that philosophers have dreamt up are employed --, which indicates, perhaps, that such novice abstractors weren't in possession of these notions before being talked into thinking they were by fast-talking traditionalists.
Either way, abstract ideas emerge in each individual head in miraculously the same way.
Nevertheless, whatever their provenance, these creatures of thought can then be used to cast material particulars in a new light.
At least, that is what the metaphysical brochure would have us believe.
But, materialists should be suspicious of such moves. And for good reason:
(1) How could such abstractions be material (in any sense of the word) if adepts have to disregard (or rise above) all aspects of material reality to derive (or ascend to) some idea of them?
(2) How could abstractions even be materialist notions if only a select -- nay, exclusive -- group of human beings (of the 'right' class) are in fact capable of apprehending them, or of employing a priori categories/concepts/laws, which allegedly determine the nature of every material object in existence? At the very least, this suggests that material objects in themselves are 'real' only because of the 'existence' of an Ideal world underpinning them, accessible to thought alone.
Hence, if, according to Lenin, materiality is bound up with "objective existence" outside the mind, and if it requires the exercise of sophisticated mental gymnastics to conjure abstractions into existence, how could a single one of them be material? More to the point: how could any of them be "objective" (i.e., be "mind independent") if they are in fact not "mind-independent"?
Or, is this just another 'dialectical contradiction' we are supposed merely to "grasp", or to 'Nixon', and then ignore?
To be sure, the above fails to take note of at least three key ideas: (1) the distinction between "concrete" and "abstract" universals,2a (2) the flip-side of the dialectical coin, "concrete particulars" (before and after they have been 'dialectically processed'), and (3) the distinction between "subjective" and "objective" dialectics.
As far as (2) is concerned: if anything, concrete particulars are even more difficult to understand.
Consider a familiar enough feline example: a cat. Is this a concrete particular? DM-theorists would perhaps want to argue that it isn't until it has been comprehended against a background of all its interconnections, these being infinite in number. But surely that would mean that nothing could ever be viewed by us as a concrete particular; and that clearly implies that nothing could be a concrete particular unless an Ideal Observer (or Abstractor) viewed it against just such an infinite 'tapestry'. This in turn suggests that concrete objects are only concrete in the Ideal limit.
If that is so, the more we know about cats, the more Ideal they would seem to become!
That can't be right. And yet it seems to be the implication of this ancient approach to knowledge. [More on that it in Part Two, and in Essay Ten Part One, where we will see it collapse into open scepticism.]
On the other hand, if it is correct, it looks like the class of concrete objects would (a) only ever have aspiring, but never successful members to boast about, or would (b) increasingly resemble the Cheshire Cat -- the more we know about them the less substantial they seem to be. [On this, see below.]
Moreover, given this way of seeing things, no abstractor (novice or adept) would ever have the remotest idea what could possibly count as the genuine article, since bona fide 'concrete particulars' will only emerge from their Ideal shells at the end of an uncompletable, infinitary exercise in interconnection.2b
Indeed, on this account, a fully accurate depiction of the very first 'concrete particular' (in the whole of human history) will leap from the Ideal page only on 'Epistemological Judgement Day', so to speak. Because of this, it looks like no mortal being will ever be in a position to form a clear idea of a single 'concrete particular'. On that score, humanity is doomed never to know what the nature of a single one.
So what the dialectics are they?
Unfortunately, this now means that abstractions themselves must be based on, or must be applied to nothing at all if they are grounded (as some suppose) on just such 'concrete particulars'. Abstractions must, seems, be applied, or constructed in almost total ignorance, using ethereal bricks to build a spooky concrete bunker. [Objections to this unexpected turn of events are defused here.]
To be sure, dialecticians might take exception to these claims because they ignore not only the dialectical interplay between the knower and the known, but that between the abstract and the concrete. They also seem to confuse "subjective" with "objective" dialectics. Naturally, this brings us to items (1) and (3), mentioned above. However, further ruminations on the complex relation between these epistemological Siamese twins (i.e., the abstract and the concrete) will be left for later in this Essay -- and again in Parts Two and Three.
The question before us now is: Despite the inversion that Hegel's system is said to have undergone at the hands of dialecticians, does an acceptance of the existence of abstractions mean that DM is little more than an upside down version of Idealism? Is there anything to support this contentious claim?
As will soon become apparent, this infant suspicion will not only mature alarmingly throughout the course of this Essay, it will grow into full adulthood over the rest of this site.
But first, we must take an apparent detour.
Linguistic Idealism -- Or SuperScience From Jargon
There is a very clear thread running through the entire history of traditional Philosophy: that substantive (i.e., non-trivial, metaphysical or necessary) truths about reality can be derived from a consideration of the meaning of a handful of words.
Few Philosophers would be ready to admit that this is all they ever do (or all they have ever done) -- that is, spin complex tales from mere words. Outside the Rationalist tradition, even fewer would be happy to concede that in so doing they were in effect treating language as a sort of 'Cosmic Code', knowledge of which allows them to derive profound truths about fundamental features of the universe from thought alone.
Nevertheless, this is indeed what one and all have been doing.
However, over the last two-and-a-half millennia, and perhaps in order to disguise this fact, this approach to knowledge has prompted traditional Philosophers into inventing various subterfuges, ruses and likely stories, aimed at justifying their godlike ability to derive substantial truths about "Being" from the consideration of the supposed meaning of a few carefully chosen/invented words.
Among these are the following:
(1) The world was created by a 'Divine Being' or 'Mind'. This handy doctrine 'justified' the nearly universal belief that reality has an underlying 'rational' structure, one that is either a reflection, creation, or "emanation" of this 'Mind'.
This in turn meant that only those with the right sort of intellectual skills -- or, more truthfully, only those with the correct social standing, adequate means, indulgent patrons and/or leisure time -- were capable of 'discovering' such Super-Truths.
Fortunately enough for these intellectual 'drones', such Super-Facts could be obtained by the exercise of the mind alone; indeed, those capable of performing this impressive trick found that they were able to uncover 'Cosmic Verities' (which will forever lie beyond the comprehension of the great 'unwashed') simply by dissecting the alleged implications of their own specially-invented jargon. In order to explain and elaborate on this impressive skill, it naturally required the use of even more arcane terminology, which was at one time itself widely regarded as a gift from on High, hence its prolixity. Divine Jargon 'naturally' gave spurious substance to the abstract discourse traditional thinkers produced at will (as ambient social conditions permitted/required) -- superficial aspects of the material world having been effortlessly stripped away, and then dumped.
Clearly, there is no way that surgically-enhanced words like these could have been the product collective labour and communal life (on this, see Essay Three Part Two), nor could they have been grounded in physical reality by any sort of material practice. Hence, they not only had a strictly limited utility radius but enjoyed patronage from a highly exclusive clientele. And deliberately so. Only words blessed with an empyrean pedigree could possibly act as an intermediary between select groups of 'superior' human beings and the 'Mind of God'. Only by this means was it possible for theorists to reflect "Essence", "Being", and the "Rational" -- almost to order.
In this way, therefore, theories exploring the relationship between "Thought" and "Being" were often just covert extensions to Theology.
Of course, these are no mere suppositions; what we know of the history of Philosophy and of Ideas fully supports this unflattering, if not deflationary exposé. [On this, see Essays Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here, here, and here).]
This mystical approach to knowledge supplied a rationale of sorts for thus use of specialised jargon, an obscure form of discourse that enabled skilled adepts to gain easy access to 'deep' truths that revealed the underlying 'necessary' structure of 'Being'.
In this way, profound secrets could be unmasked by thought alone; no expensive equipment or messy experiments were required. In fact, no real contact with the material world at all was needed. Wealth, patronage, adequate leisure, a lively imagination, and, of course, a flare for jargon, were all that were required.
It is thus no mere coincidence that this approach to abstract thought proved to be highly conducive to a ruling-class view of nature, society, and the State. [More on this later (summary here).]
This ancient (and originally aristocratic) approach to 'knowledge' has re-surfaced many times, in many disguises, in many forms, in different Modes of Production right throughout human history. It is indeed the common thread that unites every shade of ruling-class thought, despite the frequent re-packaging it has undergone as and when the class war required.
Unfortunately, the theses found in DM show similar signs of (what can only be described as) linguistic megalomania -- the idea that words invented on this planet can inform us of the deepest secrets of 'Being', and that the human brain lies at the very heart of the meaning universe.
In the West, since early Greek times, linguistic megalomania of this sort has afflicted the thought of the elite, their hangers-on and their "prize-fighters" (as Marx once called them) -- and it has manifested itself as a sort of intellectual disease, allegedly underpinning the "ruling ideas" of each epoch.
[Similar processes can be found in other class societies; the details of which will be given in Essays Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here and here).]
This 'philosophical personality disorder' is indeed part of the wider array of ruling-class traits that have dominated all forms of 'acceptable' thought ever since.
Its chief symptom is an over-blown faith in the belief that the Super-Truths which a few (select) human beings are capable of expressing in language must necessarily apply to all of reality, for all of time. It thus manifests itself often in its more general form as LIE, the idea that reality is just 'condensed language' -- the result either of the activities of the 'Word of God', or of some other 'Mind' or 'Will' -- which 'Mind' or 'Will' just so happened to have sanctioned the social order from which such ideas sprang.
[LIE = Linguistic Idealism.]
(2) Logic reflects the essential nature of 'Being'. This notion is coupled with the parallel idea that reality's secrets can be unmasked by an examination of the logical structure of suitably doctored sentences, spruced-up with no little speculation.
[Once again, it is no coincidence that the word "speculate" (as in "speculative philosophy") comes from the Latin speculum, or mirror, a term widely used in Hermetic circles.]
Not only were Logic and Epistemology two sides of the same bent coin, the view prevailed that Logic was just a higher form of Psychology, the study of the "laws of thought", which seemed to make sense to those who also viewed reality as a form of thought.
But, the idea that Logic mirrors the deep-structure of reality only encouraged the widespread belief that it was a sort of cosmic Super-Code and prime source of Super-knowledge, which was able to map out reality way beyond the remit of the senses. Small wonder then that the vast majority of traditional thinkers succumbed to this temptation, and began to see Logic as the expression of -- or as identical with -- Logos and Mind, and thus with the world-order.
Even today, many find it impossible to abandon of this primitive idea: that humanity is situated at the very centre of the meaning universe, the special creation of a Super-Logician/Mind (or, in its atheistical form: the special creation of the NON), so that their thoughts have been graced with some sort of cosmic significance. Even today, and even though science has leapfrogged over many of their former fancies, metaphysicians still attempt to derive yet more Super-Facts from a few marks on the page.
[NON = Negation of the Negation.]
Indolent ruling-class thinkers naturally found this view particularly appealing. For obvious reasons, this approach invariably assumed linguistic form. [The reasons for this are explored at length in Essay Twelve (summary here); see also here and here.] Thus, if human beings are centrally important to 'Cosmic Being', and if language governs both nature and society (this 'fact' itself being reflected, for example, in the dual use of the word "law": first to depict the 'legitimacy' of social sanctions, and secondly to characterise universal principles that governed everything in existence), then language and thought must be intimately linked to the nature of 'Being' itself, which view in turn underpinned the 'legitimate' authority of the State.
Specially-concocted language must therefore be able to connect finite minds to the ultimate/infinite Ground Of Meaning (which was the main aim of all mystical thought -- expressed later as part of the "Subject/Object" problematic of German Idealism, and now of dialectics). This meant that an unlimited set of 'truths' could now flow legitimately from the meaning of words alone --, a priori knowledge accessed with ease in the armchair of one's choice.
Clearly, Philosophers were quite happy to cling on to the idea (which they had helped create) that human thoughts (but, oddly enough, only their thoughts) were universally significant -- i.e., that what went on in their heads was the best, nay the sole guide to Absolute Truth.
However, the bottom line was that it was they alone who were capable of deriving necessary truths from their own jargon -- obtaining theses that could not fail to be true, and which thus needed no evidence in support, except, of course, that which could be gleaned from yet more jargon. These super-verities were indeed self-evident. In fact, it is only "crude materialists" who would even think to challenge this convenient and 'self-confirming' picture. [The significance of that remark, but with respect to dialecticians, will emerge in Essay Nine Part Two.]
But, all this was just self-deception; as we will see, this approach to super-knowledge was itself based on the idea that the essential properties of 'Being' were merely reflections of (what were in fact) the contingent features of the logico/grammatical properties of just one family of languages -- the Indo-European --, the language group in which most of these fairy-tales have been spun.
As a result, "subjects" and "predicates" suddenly became cosmically significant. By means of "abstraction", predicates were turned into individuals, and vice versa; in fact this switch was actually the result of the re-configuration of predicate expressions as the names of abstract particulars, compounded by the idea that individuals were identical with universals.
But, whatever their origin, these Ideal Forms were seen as more real than anything found in material reality; indeed, they only served to render material reality somehow 'unreal', ephemeral, and mere 'appearance'.
Nature's secret names thus allowed those who knew them to forge a mystical link with the non-material forces/'essences' that governed the whole of reality; indeed, many thought that this would assist them gain control over nature itself. But, far more importantly, this 'secret knowledge' helped rationalise state power, and thus the status quo. For if the latter is guaranteed by, and is a reflection of the Cosmic Order, class domination could be 'legitimated' as a necessary part of 'Being' itself. And in Hegel's case, part of the necessary development of 'Being'.
Hence, prolix jargon-juggling would confer on those suitably skilled considerable prestige -- if not apparent power -- as the theoretical legitimators of elite authority.
Keith Thomas highlighted a similar tactic among 16th
century magicians:
"It would be tempting to explain the long survival of magical practices by pointing out that they helped provide many professional wizards with a respectable livelihood. The example of the legal profession is a reminder that it is always possible for a substantial social group to support itself by proffering solutions to problems which they themselves have helped to manufacture. The cunning men and wise women had an undoubted interest in upholding the prestige of magical diagnosis and may by their mere existence have helped to prolong a mode of thinking which was already obsolescent." [Thomas (1972), p.295.]
A metaphysical Rumplestiltskin now walked the earth, and was well paid for its services.
Traditional Philosophers justified their unique role by suggesting that their thoughts reached right into the heart of 'Being', linking their theses with the Divine Order. If reality had an a priori structure, which the State also mirrored, then Philosophy and power could be, and were permanently linked.
At least, this is how things seemed at first.3
If religious affectation is the opiate of the oppressed, rationalising suffering in its wake, metaphysical abstraction is the obverse opiate of the oppressor -- justifying and naturalising the power of the very class that created the need for such opiates in the first place.
As will be demonstrated in this Essay, and throughout this site (especially here), this aprioristic tradition in Western Philosophy has allowed Marxist dialecticians to fool themselves into thinking that they had successfully flipped Hegelian Idealism, so that it was now the "right way up", allegedly changing it into its materialist, inverted alter ego: DM.
A change of name, perhaps; but a ruse by any other name is still a ruse.
(3) Philosophy is the source of a special sort of knowledge -- knowledge that is anterior to the sciences, but which nonetheless contains a Superscientific picture of reality. "Superscientific" in the sense that its theses reveal what are in effect Super-Necessities underpinning 'Being' itself, knowledge of which is attainable by the application of 'Reason' alone, and which by-passes the need for material confirmation.
However, as we will see, the provenance of these Cosmic Verities is rather more mundane: 'philosophical reasoning' turns out to be little more than the creative and idiosyncratic use of a limited number of words specially-invented for the occasion.
Naturally, that means that Superscience of this sort is only capable of being confirmed by an appeal to Super-Evidence -- obtainable, of course, Super-Naturally (i.e., not from nature). Not surprisingly then, as noted above, the theses that traditional Philosophers concocted were incapable of being empirically verified, falsified or confirmed in any other materially-grounded way.
Perversely, this is still regarded as one of Philosophy's greatest strengths!
Indeed, anyone who questioned the validity of this epistemological perversion was automatically classed a "crude" materialist (or categorised as an "empiricist", or a "positivist"). For anyone to question the provenance of semi-divine gems like these is for that person to pass beyond the pale of 'acceptable' thought. Philosophy -- true Philosophy -- must be prolix, baroque and, hopefully, incomprehensible. This is one ruling-idea that still rules, and proudly so.
The downside is, of course, that if for any reason the special role that Philosophers have arrogated to themselves can be shown to be a fraud --, that is, if it can be shown that the baroque linguistic structures Philosophers have concocted are just "houses of cards" (to paraphrase Wittgenstein) -- then the whole enterprise would cease to have a point. With no reason for its existence, Philosophy would become little more than an endless source of tortured prose, its books fit only for gathering dust in the basement stack of the local library, or, perhaps better still, for providing ample fuel for several large bonfires, as Hume wisely suggested.
However, few practitioners of this ancient art could afford to contemplate such an outlandish fate -- especially those whose livelihood depended upon it; but, more specifically those Dialectical Marxists who still refuse to see a link between the superstitious belief that there is a "rational" order to reality and the 'legitimation' of class power.
Hence, it was (and still is) just assumed that Philosophy must have a role to play in the discovery of knowledge, even if this is only to provide employment for those caught up in the time-worn production of jargon-infested, empty prose -- the intellectual equivalent of digging holes just to fill them in.
If the question is now put: "Why does there have to be a rational order to reality?", there seem to be only three possible answers: (1) to impress the superstitious, and thus enforce deference; (2) to legitimate the status quo; and (3) to provide the select few with a reason to search for 'Superscientific knowledge' and thus provide work for those rather too easily fooled by the invention of aimless jargon. This jargon was aptly described by Francis Bacon as the "idols of the market place":
"There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market-place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate; and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies....
"The idols imposed by words on the understanding are of two kinds. They are either names of things which do not exist (for as there are things left unnamed through lack of observation, so likewise are there names which result from fantastic suppositions and to which nothing in reality corresponds), or they are names of things which exist, but yet confused and ill-defined, and hastily and irregularly derived from realities. Of the former kind are Fortune, the Prime Mover, Planetary Orbits, Element of Fire, and like fictions which owe their origin to false and idle theories. And this class of idols is more easily expelled, because to get rid of them it is only necessary that all theories should be steadily rejected and dismissed as obsolete." [Novum Organum, quoted from here.]
Except, of course, these philosophical gems were not invented by the "vulgar", as Bacon would have it, but by elite thinkers, and the "market-place" in this case is academia.
However, these days, if you are a dialectician, you just do not ask such awkward questions. You do not even think them.
For if you do, someone might confuse you with a philosophical radical, and thus with someone who is not content to re-package, in a dialectical form, yet another cart load of ruling-class garbage.
Why, you might even be accused of "not understanding" dialectics!
The Fetishisation Of Language
If thought and discourse are intimately connected, and if ruling-class ideology dominates the former, it would be reasonable to suppose that alienated thought should be linked somehow to the systematic (and ideologically-motivated) distortion of language. If this is so, it won't have taken place in a social vacuum.
Ordinary language -- as a social product, devised by those who interface daily with the material world, mediated by cooperative labour --, has had to endure many such ideologically-motivated attempts at distortion and denigration. For present purposes, however, the most significant of these arose from the nature and origin of class society.
[The details behind the transformation of ordinary discourse into a cosmic code, aimed at the representation of the Secrets of 'Being' in the minds of ruling-class hacks, will be fully exposed in Essays Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here, here, and here).]
However, the point worth emphasising here is that what had once been the product of the social relations among human beings (ordinary language) was transformed and fetishised into an expression of what were taken to be the real relations between things, or as those things themselves. In this way, discourse was graced with 'magical' powers, and those afflicted with a dose of the aforementioned linguistic megalomania were given a licence to practice.
If the "essential" nature of reality was inaccessible to experience, then thinkers had to use "thought experiments" to unmask its "hidden secrets". Fetishised in this way, language became a surrogate for objective reality, and talk about talk became confused with talk about things. Only now, language was transformed into a lifeless and abstract code. Linguistic categories (i.e., 'abstractions') were projected onto the world, which implied that nature was a reflection of discourse, rather than the other way round. Traditional Philosophy thus became the prime source of LIE, a doctrine based on the idea that if language contains profound secrets, nature must be fundamentally linguistic -- constituted by the word of some 'god' or other.
The Ruling Ideas Are Always Those Of The Ruling-Class
The above then is but a brief sketch of the nature and provenance of the most abstract versions of ruling-class ideology, which can be found to a greater or lesser extent in all forms of traditional Philosophy. These ruling ideas rule not just because they are useful to those who rule, they picture the world as rulers have always seen it -- rational, so that it can rationalise their power and wealth.
Hence, over the centuries the rise and fall of different Modes of Production have had no fundamental effect on these core ruling forms-of-thought -- they are still a priori, still based on linguistic chicanery, still founded on abstraction, still imposed on reality. And all this despite the many changes in content we have witnessed as the social form of ruling-class power has changed. [The details behind this will appear in Essays Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here and here).]
Indeed, only the eradication of their power, and the elimination of class rule will rid humanity of this alien thought-form.
Unfortunately, this traditional approach to knowledge has found some of its most fervent supporters and stoutest defenders among those who should know better: Dialectical Marxists. [A recent example (February 2008) can be found here. Another, here.]
[Why this is so will be explored in Essay Nine Parts One and Two.]
Because of this, ruling-class ideas have come to dominate Dialectical Marxism.
Indeed, as we have seen in Essay Two, dialecticians are quite happy to concoct a priori theories of their own, imposing them on nature just like were born-again traditionalists.
Welcome To The Glorious New Abstractor Factory
Of course, serious allegations like these need more support than the flowery rhetoric rehearsed above, or they would worth considerably less than the computer screen on which they now appear. Fortunately, the Essays posted at this site more than make up for this.
But first we need to locate at least a major source of the abstract ideas found in traditional thought, reveal exactly what motivated their invention, and outline the effect they have had on DM.
All Truth Is Concrete -- Except For That Abstraction
With respect to truth, Lenin famously argued that:
"[D]ialectical logic holds that 'truth' is always concrete, never abstract…." [Lenin (1921), p.93.]
On the other hand, he also maintained that:
"Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract -- provided it is correct (NB)… -- does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, the law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely." [Lenin (1961), p.171. Italic emphases in the original.]
At first sight, these two passages do not appear to be consistent. Admittedly, in the second, Lenin does go on to mention "practice" as a crucial component in the "cognition of objective reality", but that does not explain how "all scientific…abstractions" could possibly "reflect nature more…, truly", when "truth is always concrete, never abstract" (emphases added). How can practice reconcile a "never" with an "always"? And how can an abstraction like "All truth is concrete" be true itself?
Of course, the epistemology outlined in Lenin's work is a little more sophisticated than this initial paradox might otherwise indicate. This suggests that the resolution of this difficulty will at least require greater clarity over the meaning of words like "abstract” and "concrete", particularly as they are used by dialecticians.
There appear to be at least two different senses of the terms "abstract" and "concrete" at work in DM.4
Abstract, Sense1 -- AB1
This sense of "abstract" is somewhat analogous to that found in the traditional, rationalist use of the phrase "abstract universal" -- but, with several major differences.5 Even so, in DM this is clearly linked to the apprehension (by 'Reason' perhaps) of general concepts that give expression to common elements connecting, underlying, or running-through concrete individuals, or events -- but not 'externally'-connected with them (that is, there is held to be some sort of logical/'internal' connection linking individuals with the 'concept' they supposedly instantiate).
Abstract, Sense2 -- AB2
This use of "abstract" emphasises the "one-sided" and "simple" nature of abstractions, how they are "removed from reality", "cut off", "separated or divorced from interconnections", etc. In this case, a subtractive process (involving the mental disregard (abstraction) of the particular features of each item), or perhaps even a separational exercise, seems to underlie the creation of such abstract general concepts.
Concrete, Sense1 -- CON1
This sense of "concrete" is clearly linked with AB1 above and appears to involve things in their individuality (that is, items of a certain type) -- often as they are given in experience -- depending on which part of the dialectical process of cognition they make their appearance.
Concrete, Sense2-- CON2
Again, this contrasts with its twin AB2, and serves to emphasise the interconnectedness of objects and processes in reality, their all-round relationship with, and development alongside other objects and processes -- as opposed to their separation in non-, or pre-, dialectical thought.6
In the first of the two passages quoted above, Lenin seems to be using "abstract" in sense AB2, but in sense AB1 in the second. This means he must be using "concrete" in sense CON2 in the first. These distinctions might help resolve the apparent inconsistency noted above.
However, Lenin only succeeded in confusing things again when he said:
"Logical concepts are subjective so long as they remain 'abstract,' in their abstract form, but at the same time they express the Thing-in-themselves. Nature is both concrete and abstract, both phenomenon and essence, both moment and relation. Human concepts are subjective in their abstractness, separateness, but objective as a whole, in the process, in the sum-total, in the tendency, in the source." [Lenin (1961), p.208. Italic emphases in the original.]
In this passage, Lenin appears to be using both of these terms in three of the four (or possibly even all four) ways at once.
Similarly, John Rees argues that:
"[A]ll science generalizes and abstracts from 'empirically verifiable facts.' Indeed, the very concept of 'fact' is itself an abstraction, because no one has ever eaten, tasted, smelt, seen or heard a 'fact,' which is a mental generalization that distinguishes actually existing phenomena from imaginary conceptions. Similarly, all science 'deductively anticipates' developments -- what else is an hypothesis tested by experimentation? The dialectic is, among other things, a way of investigating and understanding the relationship between abstractions and reality. And the 'danger of arbitrary construction' is far greater using an empirical method which thinks that it is dealing with facts when it is actually dealing with abstractions than it is with a method that properly distinguishes between the two and then seeks to explain the relationship between them." [Rees (1998), p.131. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
At the beginning of this passage, Rees appears to be using "abstract" in sense AB1, whereas in the second half he seems to be employing it in sense AB2. In addition, even though he says that "facts" are abstractions, it looks like he is using "fact" in sense CON2, too -- when, for example, he claims that that facts help discriminate among beliefs. They could hardly do that if they were disconnected from other facts. But, who can say? [This passage will be analysed in detail in Essay Three Part Four (as yet unpublished).]
Nevertheless, the loose and ill-defined way these terms are employed in DM-texts mirrors Hegel's own obscure and inconsistent use.7
For example, if abstractions are divorced from reality, cut-off and separated from other things, how might they be employed to interconnect concrete objects and processes in nature, as Lenin argued? And, if "concrete" objects and/or processes are interconnected with everything, what makes them anything in particular? What individuates, say, a photon? If all photons are seemingly identical (and on some accounts, are unchanging), and interconnected (in the abstract?), then what right have we to call them either individuals or particulars?8 Depicted this way, photons (but not just photons) look pretty abstract; not only that, they appear to refute Trotsky's comments on identity, as well as his own, Lenin and Hegel's ideas about change -- if, that is, photons are "concrete".
Moreover, according to Lenin, objects and processes only become "concrete" when they are interconnected with everything else; but if they are to count as "objective" they must already be inter-connected in reality before any sentient being so relates them. But, what in reality could possibly do all this relating and inter-connecting?8a Are there non-physical links between objects (of the same kind), which somehow unerringly manage to pick out every single member of that group/category in the entire universe (even while they are changing), like some sort of super-powered bloodhound, or metaphysical net, never missing a single one? And when an object of one sort changes into another, are the inter-galactic links which that object has with other objects of that sort altered, or severed, perhaps instantaneously --, so that it can change --, but which also allow it to be inter-linked with all the other objects of the sort it has now developed into, everywhere in the universe, instantaneously, too? [These problems are explored at more length in Essay Eleven Parts One and Two.]
Of course, human beings might not at present know what all these interconnections are, but since humanity will never know what these interconnections are in their entirety, it seems that any of the objects they interconnect will never become either concrete or objective for us. In that case, how can anyone reason about a single one of them in the here-and-now? Anything said about these alleged interconnections, and these supposed 'concrete' particulars, must be infinitely far from the truth, and must thus stand almost zero probability of being correct.8b
It could be objected at this point that these complaints are academic, at best, thoroughly misguided at worst; the four senses of these terms (if there are indeed four) should not be thought of as separate or distinct -- as seems to be the assumption motivating the above comments. These terms must be understood "dialectically".
But, as with many other key DM-concepts, it is difficult to make sense of what DM-theorists say here, nor is it easy to form any clear idea of what they mean when they use words like "concrete", "abstract" and "dialectically". This is not to suggest that no effort has gone into writing about these terms, but much of what has been published by dialecticians on this issue is about as clear as the Athanasian Creed.9 Hence, the appearance here of yet more quasi-Hegelian jargon (i.e., "dialectically") in no way helps.
Anyway, one thing seems reasonably plain: the generalisations dialecticians make (which are connected with the use of these terms) are not based on any sort of evidence. To what could one appeal? In that case, what is there here for a consistent materialist to agree with? To be sure, for an Idealist like Hegel all this makes some sort of crazy sense, but how might we make physical sense of any of it?
Since these notions (i.e., "abstract" and "concrete") cannot be read from nature, the only conclusion is that they must have been foisted on it. In fact, not only were these two categories invented by earlier non-Marxists, and non-working class theorists, dialecticians have eagerly appropriated them and selectively imposed them on reality in like manner. It is clearly impossible to derive either of these two notions from nature, or from any amount of evidence -- as will be argued in Part Two of this Essay.
Of course, dialecticians notionally follow Hegel here -- but they then proceed to ignore the material spin that they say they have performed on his system. This can be seen from the fact that they view abstractions in the same rationalist light as Hegel.
Or rather, they rely on the same logical blunders.
"Concrete" And "Abstract" Imposed On Nature
In the past, even before the evidence that we now possess existed, traditional Philosophers made a conscious decision to use abstract concepts to force knowledge in certain directions.9a Well, we certainly know who made those choices, and they manifestly weren't thinkers known for their lack of sympathy with ruling-class priorities; indeed, they were made by Idealists, Theologians and assorted Hermeticists.
Naturally, this only serves to underline the claim made above (and in Essay Two) that dialecticians have not broken with this conservative philosophical tradition, in this or other area. In fact, they are only too happy to copy and defend it.
[TAR = The Algebra Of Revolution, i.e., Rees (1998).]
Worse still, both of these terms (i.e., "abstract" and "concrete") appear to be abstract themselves; neither would pass, for example, TAR's 'gastronomic test': "no one has ever eaten, tasted, smelt, seen or heard" either or both of these concepts. [Rees (1998), p.131.] To be sure, when vocalised or written down, these traditional terms-of-art are material objects in their own right, but that fact alone cannot ground either of them in material reality, nor can it validate their use. If it could, we should all have to start believing in "God" just as soon as that word was committed to paper.
Indeed, according to Lenin, it now seems that no one could "eat (etc.)" a single concrete object:
"But there are more than these two properties and qualities or facets to [any material object]; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite number of 'mediacies' and inter-relationships with the rest of the world….
"[I]f we are to have true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and 'mediacies'. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely…. [D]ialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially true for its purpose, use and connection with the surrounding world." [Lenin (1921), pp.92-93. Italic emphases in the original.]
If not even a humble tumbler is concrete unless it has been set against its infinite interconnections, who is there alive that could swear truthfully that a tumbler is in fact concrete? No matter how many inter-connections we set up for it, there will always be an infinite number still left to connect, making any judgement we make infinitely far from the truth, with an infinitely high probability of being incorrect.
[The response that only 'relevant' connections should be considered is batted out of the park here.]
Clearly, whatever applies to tumblers surely applies to things we think we can eat; perhaps they are not concrete either? In that case, TAR's 'gastronomic, touchy-feely test' fails to pick out even concrete objects! If so, exactly how it can be used to test for 'abstractness' is far from than clear, to say the least.
Of course, it could be argued that whether we know it or not, concrete objects are still concrete for all that. But are they? Who says? And where is the infinite body of knowledge which would be needed to substantiate a 'cosmically' bold (abstract) claim such as that?
For example: Is, say, an apple now actually interconnected with everything in reality? Lest an impatient objector is tempted to snap back a hasty "Yes, of course it is!" to such an impertinent question, it's worth pointing out that that fact (if it is one) could never itself be confirmed, but must either be imposed on the said apple (or on reality), or accepted as an article of faith. In that case, whatever it is that dialecticians now claim they know about allegedly concrete objects must, it seems, be foisted on such objects, since no one would ever be justified in calling anything "concrete" at present unless they could point to an infinite amount of "patiently collected" evidence that supports that contention. [This topic is discussed in greater detail in Essay Eleven Parts One and Two.]
Do we have this much information about apples? Could we cope with it even if we had?
As has already been pointed out, both of these words (i.e., "abstract" and "concrete") are age-old philosophical terms-of-art, invented by thinkers keen to rationalise the status quo. However, even though these two words have become somewhat hackneyed with over-use, DM-theorists have uncritically appropriated them simply because they found them in Hegel, and for no other reason (it seems) -- and he in turn used them because they had been long-standing entries in the Idealist's Everyday Phrase Book.
Worse still, and as far as I am aware, no attempt has ever been made in DM-circles to show precisely how a single abstract 'concept' can be derived from, or even be seen in, concrete particulars (or from anywhere else, for that matter) other than by copying this idea from Hegel, of course. And this is not surprising; no one has been able to demonstrate how this seemingly miraculous trick is humanly possible. To be sure, theorists have dreamt-up countless abstract terms over the centuries, and muttered various incantations over them as they were recruited into traditional philosophical discourse. But materialists should no more be impressed with such rituals than they are with those that supposedly justify belief in God. [This topic is discussed in more detail in Part Two of this Essay.]
And yet, for all that, it is possible to show that these strange beings actually arose as a result of rather more mundane, historically-conditioned material causes -- and not from an occult "inner process" of abstraction, rational or otherwise --, causes that were in fact motivated by the ideological requirements of our class enemies --, albeit 2500 years ago!10
Anyway, and despite this, what we actually find in DM-writings (in place of evidence and supporting argument) are the same old vague attempts at justification; these will be examined fully in what follows, and in later Essays.
This means that the entire edifice of DM-epistemology has been built on alarmingly insubstantial foundations -- in fact, as we will see, these foundations are all sand and no concrete.11
From Concrete To Abstract -- And Back Again
In the previous section, it was alleged that the origin and provenance of abstract concepts is highly suspect. This part of the present Essay will examine these serious charges a little more closely.
Consider once again Lenin's attempt to specify what our knowledge of particular objects consists in:
"[I]f we are to have true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and 'mediacies'. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity…." [Ibid., p.93.]
Hence, a fuller and more complete understanding of any particular must involve a consideration of its wider, law-governed connections with other particulars. Unfortunately, this is a strategy we will soon find there is good reason to question.
The first serious problem this passage poses is that these ever-widening 'law-governed' connections must themselves involve the use of general terms (or "abstractions" -- sense AB1) right from the start. If so, it seems that the dialectical process of cognition cannot even begin.
Naturally, it could be argued in response to this that the above objection is spurious, since, according to TAR knowledge actually starts with:
"…an abstraction from the inessential and accidental features of reality to grasp more clearly its key features…. Constant empirical work is therefore essential to renew both the concrete analyses and the dialectical concepts that are generalized from these analyses." [Rees (1998), p.110.]
This suggests that law-governed generalisations are themselves integral to dialectics. This is because human knowledge has:
"[Brought] to it a framework composed of our past experiences; what we have learned of others' experience, both in the present and in the past; and of our later reflections on and theories about this experience…. Concepts and theories are necessary to interpret the world." [Ibid., p.63.]
Reference to -- and use of -- general terms in the pursuit of knowledge is also required since neither science nor dialectics can rely on surface appearances alone. The idea seems to be that while the latter might relate to our initial view of things, scientific knowledge rightly seeks to locate and integrate nature's underlying law-governed "essences" by the use of further and more refined abstractions (or generalisations), tested in practice.
This notion can be found in Marx himself:
"[S]cience would be superfluous if the outward appearance and the essence of things directly coincided." [Marx (1981), p.956.]
All this appears to mean that while scientists/dialecticians might have to begin with what look like concrete particulars given in experience (albeit understood indeterminately, at first), in order to gain genuine knowledge, they must apply abstract concepts to the phenomena (perhaps deploying those that have been inherited from the past -- or those 'critically re-formulated' from whatever resources there are to hand in the present) to interconnect and account for phenomena with increasing accuracy, and in a more all-round, determinate manner.
However, except perhaps at the very beginning of human 'consciousness', this process never actually starts from scratch (as it were); we use the gains of previous generations to assist us in the advancement of knowledge. But, even this is not sufficient; abstractions have to be referred back to the material world so that they can be tested against further experience and refined again in practice (etc.). Even though human beings inherit generalisations and epistemological categories from the past, all of these are revisable. This process of revision continually shapes and colours the search for knowledge in all Modes of Production, achieving a different expression in each.
This appears to be the import of Lenin's words (quoted earlier):
"Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract -- provided it is correct (NB)… -- does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, the law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely. From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice, -- such is the dialectical path of cognition of truth, of the cognition of objective reality." [Lenin (1961), p.171. Italic emphases in the original.]
Indeed, the above passage looks like an embellishment of Marx's own thoughts:
"It seems correct to begin with the real and the concrete…with e.g. the population…. However, on closer examination this proves false. The population is an abstraction if I leave out, for example, the classes of which it is composed. These classes in turn are an empty phrase if I am not familiar with the elements on which they rest…. Thus, if I were to begin with the population, this would be a chaotic conception of the whole, and I would then, by further determination, move toward ever more simple concepts, from the imagined concrete towards ever thinner abstractions until I had arrived at the simplest determinations. From there the journey would have to be retraced until I had finally arrived at the population again, but this time not as the chaotic conception of a whole, but as a rich totality of many determinations and relations…. The latter is obviously scientifically the correct method. The concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence the unity of the diverse." [Marx (1973), pp.100-01.]12
Again, these comments (alongside others that have already been examined) look as if they could help resolve the apparent inconsistency noted near the beginning of this Essay. Hence, it is now clear that the dialectical method at least includes some or all of the following:
(1) The search for knowledge must begin at some point with a practical or theoretical interface with the world, interpreted by means of general concepts inherited from previous generations.
(2) From this point, further abstract general ideas must be extracted, refined, borrowed, applied, deduced, critically constructed or modified (depending on which theory of abstraction one adheres to). Used correctly, these help represent and explain. with increasing accuracy. the essential features that underlie the surface appearances of nature and society --, but only if they are continually tested in practice.
(3) To that end, newer abstractions must be used to re-interpret concrete particulars, which means that the latter will be more fully understood, since they will now be much richer and more widely interconnected.
(4) Every stage must be checked against, reality. As part of revolutionary practice, all traces of ruling-class ideology must be exposed and removed.
(5) Whatever emerges as a result must always be regarded as tentative and subject to revision.
(6) Absolute truth is only ever a goal, never a terminus.
Viewed in this way, therefore, what Lenin says appears to be correct: all truth is concrete not abstract. This is because all knowledge-claims must constantly interface with concrete reality, more and more widely understood, against a law-governed background.
However, further truths (or, rather, concepts that are closer to the truth, which in turn allow more concrete truths to be developed and enriched) can only be discovered by means of wider abstractions that refine and correct previous sets of concrete truths (by removing/resolving any contradictions, etc.). This process helps reveal deeper and broader interconnections, making such truths even more concrete, which thus yields a more all-rounded picture of objective reality (but only if they are constantly tested in practice).
In that case, it now seems that Lenin was right to emphasise both the abstract and concrete nature of scientific truth. This dialectical interplay between the abstract and the concrete -- here only superficially outlined (much has been omitted; more details will be given in Part Six of this Essay) -- constitutes the central core of the DM-theory of knowledge. The latter stands -- or falls -- with it.
This seems therefore to resolve the apparent incongruity noted earlier.
However, the problem with this is that, despite the fanfare, the DM-epistemological-bandwagon cannot even get on the road!
DM-Epistemology: Set In Concrete?
DM Fails To Make It Out Of The Starting Blocks
The reason why the dialectical juggernaut cannot even begin to roll is connected with the answer to the following question:
What would happen if it turned out that instead of beginning with abstract general terms to help refine experience, dialecticians without exception actually started with certain sorts of particulars -- or began with terms that named abstract particulars --, and then attempted to advance from there by the use of such particulars, and only ever ended-up with yet more particulars?
As should seem obvious, an unhelpful answer to that question would deepen the suspicion that DM cannot account for knowledge (since generality will have vanished), and if that is so, not only would DM-epistemology have run off the road and into a ditch, scientific knowledge would be in a hole, too.
A Name By Any Other Name -- Is Still A Name
Readers who are sympathetic to DM might be forgiven for thinking that this must be wrong; dialecticians certainly do not do this. They do not remain stuck in a 'particularist' rut, as the above insinuates.12a
Nevertheless, as will soon become apparent, the process of abstraction, far from assisting in the formation of knowledge of essential features of reality underlying appearances, actually prevents it. This it does by transforming general terms into singular expressions -- that is, into the names of 'abstract' ideas, categories or concepts.
If that is so, the claim that DM begins with the general in order to interpret the particular is the opposite of the truth.
In fact, what really happens is that DM-theorists begin with the names of abstract particulars (those they inherited from previous generations of traditional theorists, like Hegel); they then make a ham-fisted attempt to link these with the names of material particulars, all the while failing to note that generality went out the non-dialectical window long ago.
It is this initial muddle that stalls the DM-juggernaut on the starting grid.
This false step finds DM-theorists -- following on Hegel's example -- interpreting sentences containing subject and predicate (general) terms as disguised identity statements.
Because of this, DM-apologists begin by eliminating the general terms they claimed were necessary in order to refine particulars, and which were essential for anyone who wanted to loop the very first dialectical loop, replacing them with the names of abstract objects. Naturally, this just leaves them with a handful of lifeless singular terms.
This they do by re-writing predicative sentences as propositions expressing identity, and it this which transforms the general terms they contain into the names of abstract particulars.13 This false move then circles back, undermining DM-epistemology, so that instead of beginning with the general to account for the particular, DM-theorists use the proper names of abstract particulars (i.e., those of classes, universals, categories, 'essences' or concepts) to account for concrete particulars -- an impossible task, even in its own terms.
Naturally, this explains the presence of all the convoluted language we find in dialecticians' attempts to outline the "process of cognition"; it cannot fail to be convoluted because of the impossibly difficult problem with which they have saddled themselves.14
DM-theorists are of course not the first to have erred in this way; indeed, this fault runs right through traditional epistemology. Its ubiquity is easily explained since this false step is, it seems, almost impossibly difficult to spot.
Well..., not really: it's actually staring us in the face!
But, for all the attention traditional theorists (and now dialecticians) have paid to it, one would be forgiven for thinking it was extremely well-hidden. In fact, adepts continue to ignore it even after it has been pointed out to them!
As will be demonstrated presently, familiar and everyday features of language have to be wilfully ignored, distorted or re-configured to make this traditional con-trick work. What had been in full-view all along -- the ordinary use of general terms in material language, invented by those who do not make such crass mistakes (i.e., workers) -- highly educated people manage to miss, confuse and/or deliberately misconstrue all the time. Indeed, the 'higher' the dialectician, the more likely this is to happen, and the more inured the hapless victim becomes. [On the different 'levels' in the dialectical pecking order, see here.]
As noted above (and as will be demonstrated in Essay Twelve (summary here and here)) this ancient dodge was invented by the first few generations of Greek theorists. So, dialecticians are in eminently bad company -- and, as they should know, bad associations spoil good epistemological habits.
It is ironic therefore that in order to account for concrete particulars with the use of general terms, this inept dialectical switch means that general terms feature nowhere at all in their theory.15
Hence, in their search for scientific knowledge, all that dialecticians have to hand are two different types of particulars (or the names thereof): the abstract and the concrete. Of course, the latter of the two is now left without the general background that had previously been touted for it; this is because that context has similarly been transmogrified into a particular itself.
Hence, the DM-juggernaut not only lacks a starter motor (i.e., it has no general terms), its way is blocked by a huge slab of concrete.
The rest of this Essay is aimed at explaining and substantiating these seemingly wild allegations.
Are Indicative Sentences Just Disguised Lists?
In order to justify the above claims, it is important to see why such a re-write goes badly wrong, and why it cannot work even after running repairs have been attempted.
As we will soon find out, the answer to these questions is connected with the reason why not all words are names and why indicative sentences cannot be regarded as mere lists.
Although DM-epistemology supposedly begins with the general in order to qualify and refine the particular, the way that dialecticians frame their concepts in fact denies their theory the capacity to do either.
Before my outline of this novel criticism can begin, we must once again make a small detour, but one that uses a method of analysis that will look rather odd to those unfamiliar with Analytic Philosophy. However, its superiority over traditional methods will emerge soon enough; reader's temporary indulgence is therefore required.
[Those not particularly interested in the minutiae may skip this section, and begin again here.]
--------oOo--------
First, a brief word of explanation: expressions such as "ξ is a comrade", or "ξ is a supporter of George Bush" are particularly useful schemas that help illustrate specific features of language -- indeed, features with which we are all quite familiar. So, from such expressions, employing singular terms to replace the gap marker, "ξ", we may form an indefinite number of simple predicative propositions, some of which will be true, and some false (examples below).
The gap marker, "ξ", is essential, for by suitably defining it (in use), legitimate substitution instances may be specified clearly. An actual gap, " ", will not do, since, of course, gaps cannot be defined. So: " is a comrade" is no good.15a
Now there is nothing in language or logic that forces this type of analysis on us, it just turns out to have rather useful 'side-effects', as it were which clearly recommend it (that is, in addition to the more formal advantages it possesses in allowing modern logicians to study inferences more precisely). [More of these later.]
So, from this schematic proposition "ξ is a comrade" we can form the following from three names used successively:
F1: Ernest Mandel is a comrade.
F2: Tony Cliff is a comrade.
F3: Tony Blair is a comrade.
And so on. As noted above, some of these will be true, some false. Plainly, these propositions all share a common pattern which is expressed by the "ξ is a comrade" stencil.
But, consider an example of an object supposedly given in experience -- one to which Lenin himself referred -- a simple glass tumbler. We might want to say the following of it:
E1: This tumbler is made of glass.
E1 appears to express a fact about a particular, a tumbler, but the latter is not yet concrete -- or not concrete in the right sort of dialectical sense -- so key features of the dialectical process must be applied to it. According to the above dialectical circuit, we must interconnect this particular with other aspects of reality by employing (or refining) an abstract general concept (or concepts) in relation to it.
Now, E1 already contains a use of a general concept "ξ is made of glass", which, of course, is not the name of anything, general or particular. Moreover, the sentence formed by combining the singular demonstrative term "This tumbler" with the concept expression "ξ is made of glass" (i.e., E1) is not a name, either.16
In that case, in E1 we do not yet seem to have a particular (or even "individual") upon which we can even begin to inflict some dialectics.17
Perhaps the following might suffice:
E2: This tumbler is made of this lump of glass.
Now, the phrase "lump of glass" still contains a general term, namely, "glass".18
Maybe, then the following will work?
E3: This tumbler is composed of these n Silicon atoms.
Once more, E3 contains general terms (for instance, "atoms").
We need not labour the point; indeed, it is one that dialecticians also accept, but only when it is framed in obscure Hegel-speak.
There is a fundamental logical principle at stake here that cannot be side-stepped. Whatever is done to try to identify and/or describe a particular, it will always involve the use either of general terms or relational expressions.19
Against this, it could be argued that it might be possible to refer to particulars/individuals by means of identifying indexical descriptions, such as the following:
E4: This is a tumbler.
But, the problem with E4 is that the word "tumbler" is now a general term.
Even a pointing gesture followed by the word:
E4a: "Tumbler"
would be of no assistance. Unless Proper Names, and only Proper Names, are used to pick out such concrete particulars (but on that, see later), there is no way around this obstacle.
[For example, no one supposes that the word "Tumbler" is the name of only that piece of glassware; i.e., that this is that particular tumbler's Proper Name!]
This means we face a logical (not an epistemological or ontological) barrier before we can even begin to loop the first dialectical loop -- a logical condition in relation to which DM-theorists at least display some form superficial adherence.
As noted above, one way to avoid this difficulty might be to be to try to represent concrete particulars by the use of Proper Names. Unfortunately, Proper Names only function as such in combination with other linguistic expressions that do not operate in this way. This is because letters or sounds on their own cannot work as names without the right sort of linguistic/social context.
Some readers might find this point difficult to appreciate because, as regular language users, they automatically recognise the use of names in ordinary homophonic settings, and hence they readily spot the occurrence of linguistic expressions conventionally assigned to this grammatical category -- even when they are used in isolation. Many jokes trade on this fact.20
However, sounds in the air and marks on the page cannot count as names when they are totally divorced from the complex linguistic background noted above. Rule-governed, socially-sanctioned sentential contexts are required to turn such uninterpreted marks or noises into words with a specific mode of signification, and thus into names.21
Indeed, uninterpreted objects or processes in nature are by themselves incapable of determining the meanings of any marks or sounds we use to talk about whatever we talk about.
This is, of course, because such objects and processes lack social organisation, practical skills and intellect.
Naturally, that is just a roundabout way of saying that uninterpreted objects and processes cannot determine a rule; only human beings can do that, since language is a rule-governed feature of our social being, not an aspect of its own syntactical being.
Not even a series of Proper Names can pick out anything true or false of concrete particulars. This is because such a series would, at best, constitute a list, not a sentence (still less a proposition). Consider, for example, the following:
E5: London, Lenin, Amazon, Venus, Socialist Worker, Coronation Street, Tony Benn, Proxima Centauri.
Lists like this say nothing -- even if they have a use, as here, to make that very point! We could, perhaps, imagine a sense for E5, but only by articulating it with general terms or with words that function other than as names.
Moreover, even if this list of the Proper Names of objects and/or individuals were replaced by another list formed out of the words we have for concepts or abstract general terms, it would make no difference -- it would still say nothing, as the next two examples illustrate:
E6: Identity, Substance, Matter, Form, Flux, Space, Time, Part, Whole, Mode, Particular, Absolute, General, Essence, Trope, Appearance, Entity, Thing-in-Itself.
E7: Female, glass, redness, anger, jealousy, knowledge, change, cause, honesty, eigenvector, humanity, isomorphism.
E6 and E7 have no meaning, since they are both lists. To repeat, in order to gain a meaning these terms would need to be articulated with expressions that do not function as names (or as potential names).
At this point it could be argued once more that we might be able to pick out a targeted particular by the use of its Proper Name, in the following manner:
E8: Karl Marx.
Undoubtedly, this Proper Name designates the individual Karl Marx, but this is only because of all the socially-sanctioned stage-setting that already surrounds its normal use (and the fact that it is a name for a man). That background involves the use of sentences like the following (but not just these):
E9: Karl Marx is the author of Das Kapital, and was born in Trier in 1811…
Without this in general, the word "Karl Marx" could be the name of the man at the delicatessen, or of a new brand of Vodka, or even that of the winner of the three-thirty at Newmarket. In fact, it might not even be a compound word, let alone a name.22
[The detour ends at this point; back to the main feature.]
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We are now in a position to see why dialecticians turn all predicate expression into the names of abstract particulars and why this transforms sentences into lists, preventing them from saying anything at all.
As Essay Twelve Part Six will show, Ancient Greek Philosophers faced a serious problem; it was abundantly clear that concepts (although they were not called this then) -- or the alleged referents of general terms --, could not be picked out in the material world in the same way that the referents of the names of genuine material objects could (again, this is not how they would have put this).
But, it was also clear to them that general terms must represent something, otherwise their use would signify nothing at all. When we say general things about objects in nature or society we are not simply mouthing empty sounds. So, if someone says "Blair is a man", while "Blair" picks out an identifiable object in material reality, "man" does not seem to designate anything obvious. But, if not, what does it designate?
In spite of the fact that the alleged referents of general terms do not appear to exist in the real world to point to (or to identify in other ways), some sense had to be given to them. It seemed natural therefore to model the denotation of general words on something that already worked: on the direct reference provided by the names of concrete individuals. These plainly manage pick out identifiable particulars in reality, so it was tempting to think that the same must be the case with general words. Hence, based on the supposedly successful 'naming relation', and despite appearances to the contrary, general words were believed to work because they actually named something. If such words were capable of representing things to us, they could not be the names of non-existents -- they would have to be the names of 'entities' which must exist somewhere, even if these remained invisible to us.
Unfortunately, this syntactical segue now initiated a completely futile and fruitless 2400 year long search to discover the location of these newly invented entities: the referents of general terms --, soon to be called "abstractions", Forms, or Universals. Do these exist in the 'mind', or in 'heaven', or in 'God's Mind', or in some other suitably occult realm?
Fortunately, for traditional theorists (otherwise the game would have been up on the day it kicked-off), each and every one of these abstractions was completely inaccessible to the senses. Indeed, they were incapable of being accessed by any other material means --, having long ago been emptied of all content, abstracted far away from material reality by an elite group of thinkers, all of whom were as cut-off from everyday life as the abstractions they invented.
[The deeper significance of those comments will be explored in Essay Twelve and in an Additional Essay on the nature of language.]
So, in short, because general words seemed incapable of picking out examples of 'general objects' in nature (there being no such things, of course -- what would a 'general dog' even look like?), the assumption that all words were names naturally led to the conclusion that general words must refer to or name otherworldly objects -- otherwise they would be empty terms.
And that is why Greek Philosophers (en masse) turned general words into such names. The theories they subsequently built up around them were merely window-dressing.
Named objects clearly exist (if, that is, we ignore the names of the 'gods', as well as those of mythical and fictional characters) -- we see them around us all the time. Because of this seemingly incontrovertible fact, the nominalisation (particularisation) of general words appeared to give them some sort of content, or substantiality ('ousia'), allowing them to represent 'things' to us as they are 'in-themselves' (i.e., as they are 'essentially'), but which 'things', unfortunately, were no longer part of the material world.22a0
In this way, it appeared to early theorists that some account could be now given of the meaning/denotation of predicative expressions. If these were interpreted as the names of Forms, of Universals, or of Categories (later, "Concepts" and/or "Ideas"), or connected with them in some way, propositions containing them could be used to represent the hidden world elite theorists claimed lay behind appearances.
Philosophers now awarded themselves with a licence to seek out and uncover the "essential", underlying (later a priori) structure of reality, and this they proposed to do by means of thought alone.
Of course, if a theorist also believed in the existence of a supremely rational 'God' (who, so myth had it, created the world by the word of 'His' mouth), then the temptation became overwhelming to regard the names of 'Concepts'/'Forms' (etc.) as the names of the corresponding 'Ideas' in 'His Mind' -- or, at least as the names of the Forms that resided with 'Him' in 'Heaven'.
The second alternative is present in Plato's work; the former features in the work of Christian Platonists -- like, St Augustine, St Anselm, St Bonaventure -- in the theories of the Neo-Platonists (such as Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus), and quasi-Platonists like Leibniz, as well as in that of thinkers who, for instance, profoundly influenced scientists like Newton.
Subsequently, these Ideas came to life in Hegel -- or so he thought --, as he tried to re-animate them to compensate for the fact that earlier generations of philosophers had killed them stone dead by nominalising (particularising) them all.
[This accounts for Hegel's ham-fisted attempt to criticise the LOI, why the 'rational' approach he adopted was so important to him, and why this finally meant that his entire programme ran into the sand even before he began work on it; more on that later.]22a
[LOI = Law of Identity.]
Unfortunately, the above re-write of predicates as the names of abstract particulars destroys the capacity ordinary language has for expressing generality (more on this below) --, or, rather, it does so in the jargonised 'language' traditional Philosophers tried to substitute for it.
We can actually see this happening in the thought of early Greek Philosophers (details will be given in Essay Twelve (summary here and here)); these theorists found that there were no words available in vernacular Greek that allowed them to speculate about the nature of these newly invented abstractions. Hence, they just concocted their own --, or they borrowed jargon from several earlier myths and Theogonies. Consequently, words like "Being", "Logos", "Fate", "The Unlimited", "Nous", and so on, were co-opted and then put to no good. [The ideological motivation for these moves will be exposed in Essay Twelve, too.]
However, in order to cope with the many and varied forms of generality there are, these thinkers also found they had to appropriate words that were already in use in ordinary language -- but these they nominalised (particularised) into "Justice", "Knowledge", "Beauty", "The Table", "Man", "Manhood", "The Equal", or "Difference" -- turning ordinary general words into the names of these newly minted abstract particulars.22a1
Thus was born the so-called 'problem' of Universals (i.e., the 'problem' of the "One and the Many"), an empty set of conundrums predicated solely on the above distortion of ordinary language. [More about this in Part Two.]
[FL = Formal Logic.]
Nevertheless, these seemingly insignificant moves had profound implications for the philosophy of logic which was bequeathed to later generations of thinkers: FL was regarded as an abstract sort of science (a formal version of psychology), which studied the 'laws of thought' (as it was later described), a code that somehow contained or could reveal the inner secrets of 'Being'.
This ancient metaphysical logic cast a long shadow over much of subsequent thought; in this way, this early Greek syntactical error had a profound influence on all areas of traditional Philosophy -- thus setting the parameters of 'acceptable' debate and forming the backbone of the "ruling ideas" Marx spoke about. Furthermore, this abstract approach to knowledge also had a significant effect on the way that scientific theory has been interpreted ever since.22b
In the end, a couple of thousand years later, it was this grammatical segue which forced the philosophical 'logic' inherited by German Idealists in the direction taken by Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and particularly Hegel. This bowdlerised 'logic' thus appeared to freeze-frame underlying reality into fixed forms (i.e., into a logical straight-jacket formed of abstract particulars). And, as we will see, this is what motivated Hegel's criticism of the LOI and the view he adopted of the limitations of what he took to be Aristotelian Logic. If general terms had be freeze-framed as a result of an ancient syntactical screw-up, no wonder he saw 'no motion' or change there.
Unfortunately, instead of criticising the crass logic that had artificially created these 'changeless forms', he seriously compounded the problem with a few novel errors of his own!
However, as things turned out, Hegel's 'analysis' was in effect an unintended reductio ad absurdum of the whole abstractionist project (as the early Marx saw). Hegel thus inadvertently performed a great service for humanity: his system is so obviously based on a series of crass logical blunders -- ones inherent in the whole traditional approach to logic and language --, that no one with an ounce of material good sense could ever take them seriously. By inadvertently pushing these errors to their limit, Hegel completely destroyed the credibility of this entire genre of traditional thought/logic, terminating it by peppering it with a few of his own specially-concocted 'internal contradictions'.
Dialecticians inherited the syntactical mess Hegel dumped on humanity, and they did so uncritically -- except, of course, they thought they had inverted it to yield its inner, materialist, 'rational' form. But, as should seem apparent (to those with the aforementioned ounce of materialist good sense), an upside-down logical blunder is no less of a blunder. Without giving the syntactical origin of this sub-Aristotelian logic clanger careful thought, or any at all, and without considering for one moment the deleterious effect this catalogue of error might have on HM (outlined below), dialecticians have saddled Marxism with an unworkable theory.
Unfortunately, late in life Aristotle himself began to move in this direction. laying the foundations for the Term Logic of the Middle Ages, inflated into a full-blown theory by medieval Roman Catholic Logicians. This theory came to be known as the Identity (or Essential) Theory of Predication.22c
Now, it is this mis-begotten theory which lies at the heart of dialectics and much of traditional (and modern) Philosophy.
It is indeed one of the "ruling-ideas".
So, when dialecticians adopt the analysis of subject/predicate sentences developed within this ancient tradition, they not only succeed in turning their own propositions into lists (we will soon see how this happens), they actually prevent the names they think they are using from being names. This is because this set of moves destroys the capacity language has of expressing generality, which as we have just seen is essential if names are to function as names to begin with.
So, given the Identity Theory of Predication, and in order to be able to refer to concepts or abstractions, predicate expressions have to be turned into names.22d
In that case, a simple sentence like:
E10: Blair is a man.
must become:
E11: Blair Attribution Manhood.23
Or, perhaps:
E11a: Blair is Manhood.24
The effect this has can be seen if we examine E11a a little more closely. If both terms ("Blair" and "Manhood") are singular, which they are, then despite appearances to the contrary, no predication can have taken place. That is because individuals cannot be predicated of individuals (or, rather names cannot be predicated of named individuals). Given this view of things, nothing will have been said of Blair.24a0
Of course, on the surface it seems that something has been said of Blair, but this is where the Identity Theory kicks in. [More on this presently.]
Now, an ordinary predication (like that expressed in E10, which says something of a named individual), seemed to many to be all too insubstantial. As noted above, ascriptions like this do not appear to pick out anything in the material world that is actually attributable to Blair -- that is, nothing that can be pointed at or identified (in any obvious way) which is true of him. So, while on the one hand we have the material object named "Blair", on the other what is said of him seems to be something altogether intangible. Since we can't point to anything in the world called "man", or "Manhood", it looks like E10 is not really saying anything true of Blair! Ordinary language appears to be misleading and thus defective. In that case, sentences like E10 must be put in the right 'logical order' so that sense can be made of it. In that case, we need a new 'theory' that replaces predication with something a little more substantive. [Of course there were other reason for this; they will be examined in Part Two.]
However, it is important to note that this quandary arose because of the adoption of the primitive idea that words only gain meaning if they are names. [Why this was believed to be so will be examined in Essay Twelve.]
So, since "...is a man" is not a name, it cannot be attributing anything to Blair -- unless, that is, it is in fact a disguised name.
Because if this, there was a pressing need to identify the 'something' that could serve as the referent of the predicate "...is a man". So this general term was particularised and said to refer to an abstract idea, or Universal (Man, or Manhood).
In this way, propositions like E10 were held to contain two names and a attributing term that supposedly connected them (i.e., the subject term such as "Blair", and the 'predicate name', i.e., "man" or "manhood" as in E11), not one. [Indeed, this came to be known as the "Two-name theory of predication".]
[Paradoxically, both of these terms were sometimes viewed as predicates, too! An example of this sort of confusion can be found here.]
But, in order to account for the unity of propositions that contained two names, something a little more powerful than the mere copula "is" of predication (used in E10) was needed to link both halves. In addition this new term must also allow propositions like E10 to say something of Blair that we could point to -- at least, abstractly. This new linking word must relate the subject (Blair) to the named object to which the predicate refers (Man) -- or it must represent this relation to us in language.
So, naturally, this new term had to be a relational expression of some sort.24aa
This is because, the "is" of predication in E10 is simply that, i.e., it is just an "is" of predication (of use to us in our endeavour to describe things). But, in that case, if E10 contained two names, not one, it would seem to be asserting one individual of another (or asserting a name of a named individual) --, that is, if "a man" was now viewed as the disguised name of an abstract particular. That is, E10 would be 'asserting' that the object that is the referent of the predicate (Man, or Manhood, in this case) is 'true' of the object that is the referent of the subject (Blair). And yet, no object can be true of another object. So this apparent predication cannot be a genuine predication, it must express a disguised relation between two objects (Manhood and Blair). The former predicate (" is a man") would under this 'analysis' simply disappear right before our eyes, its real, 'essential' or 'below-the-surface' nature being that of a name, not a predicate, with the "is" now becoming the required relational expression.
So, even though your very own material eyes/ears might tell you that " is a man" is a predicate (used to describe), your mind (suitably 'persuaded') tells you it's a secret name.
Such are the joys of Idealist 'Logic'!
But, when there is indeed a relation of this sort in ordinary language between two named objects (or between two singular terms) conjoined by an "is" (as we will see is the case in E12 below), we uncontroversially have a statement of identity, not of predication. A false analogy drawn between these two different uses of "is" then suggested to such logicians that the "is" of predication must really be an "is" of identity.
Hence, out of twisted grammar like this there arose a new 'theory' -- one that was in fact driven by another, but more ancient doctrine working in the background: all words are really names, which re-present/mirror the divine order to us, by naming its contents, just like Adam named all the animals -- Genesis 2:19.
This in turn suggested to traditionalists that although we cannot actually touch, taste or see the things that 'predicate names' reflect or represent to us, it's not a problem since they are hidden 'behind appearances'. From this it is but a short step to the idea that all true knowledge concerns this secret, non-material world anterior to experience, which is essential, Ideal and accessible to thought alone
This occult 'world', of course, was not the concern of common folk, whose 'defective' and materially-grounded language created such 'problems' in the first place. Those poor souls were trapped in the world of 'appearances', lost in 'commonsense' and 'formal thinking. In stark contrast, 'true philosophers' were capable of seeing right into the heart of 'Being' thanks to this glitzy new 'theory'.24a
So, following on the lead of ancient, medieval and early modern logicians (like Buridan -- and, of course, more recently Hegel himself), DM-theorists were persuaded to accept this elitist idea that the articulation of names by the use of the connective "is" (in sentences like E11, and then E11a) in fact expresses a relation between a named individual and another named abstraction, now interpreted as an abstract particular, Manhood.25
Now, since particulars can stand in some sort of relation to one another, this appeared to solve the 'problem' created by the 'disappearing predication' noted earlier. And that is why, under Hegel's influence, the "is" of predication came to be the "is" of identity in 'Materialist Dialectics'.
[As we shall see, the usual justification given for these moves is little more than window dressing.]
In order to see in more detail how this trick works, consider the following:
E12: Cicero is Tully.
E12a: Cicero is identical with Tully.
In E12, the "is" is plainly and uncontroversially one of identity; this is brought out in E12a.
That is, both of these are arguably instances of the relational expression "ξ is identical with ζ". [The new and extra "is" in E12a cannot, however, be an "is" of identity, on pain of infinite regress, but must be one of prediction. More on this below.]
Nevertheless, difficulties soon arise if this relational form is used as an archetype on which all ('philosophical') subject/predicate propositions should be modelled.
When that happens, E10 and/or E11 have to be re-written as:
E13: Blair is Manhood.
[The other two were:
E10: Blair is a man.
E11: Blair Attribution Manhood.]
Which, given this 'theory', would then be interpreted as:
E14: Blair is identical with Manhood.
In E14, the identity relation alleged to exist between Blair and the abstract particular Manhood is plain to see. The particular (Blair) is now said to be identical with the 'universal' (Manhood), which means that "Manhood" is itself now the name of an abstract particular, according to this doctored sentence, just as "Tully" was the name of a non-abstract particular (in E12).
In this way, abstractions could be conjured into existence to order as other-worldly correlates either of the abstract nouns found in ordinary language, or of the jargonised terms that Philosophers have been inventing ever since Anaximander was a lad.
If names name material particulars, then abstract nouns must name abstractions --, which exist, well..., where?
[For Plato this was perhaps in heaven; for dialecticians -- don't ask, or you risk being accused of not "understanding" dialectics.]
This is the sort of 'reasoning' that initiated the aforementioned futile two thousand five-hundred year-long search for such alien beings -- motivated, as we will see, by suitably alienated ruling-class thought.
Now, defective reasoning like this can only be expressed in an Indo-European language (but see the qualifications noted here), where subjects, copulas and predicates abound. Different language groups had to rely on other linguistic tricks to give life to their own brand of parasitic ruling-class ideology. [More on that in Essay Fourteen.]
However, as noted above, because of this syntactical segue, generality was eliminated from this linguistic backwater: philosophical language. This is because in E14 we no longer have the general term "ξ is a man", but the name of an abstract particular "Manhood".
Indeed, this can be seen from the fact that it would make no sense at all to interpret E10 as expressing an identity relation between Blair and a predicate (or perhaps between his name and a predicate).
E10: Blair is a man.
How could Blair, or his name (if we avoid the 'use/mention' bear trap, here), be identical with a rather minor grammatical feature of the Indo-European family of languages? How could Blair/"Blair" be identical with a predicate or even with a universal?
But, to many, it did seem to make some sort of crazy sense to see E10 as expressing an identity between Blair and an abstract concept, or an abstract particular, something which the predicate ("a man") is now taken to name.26
Unfortunately, our consideration of the malign consequences of the idea that all words are names has not yet run its full course.
If all words are indeed names, then the "is" of identity must name the identity relation, too. [Again, we can see this move actually happening here.] That was the point of the use of the word "Attribution" in E11:
E11: Blair Attribution Manhood.
But, that can't be correct. It does not even look correct. This can be seen if an attempt is made to treat this controversial "is" as just such a name. In that case E12 would become:
E15: Cicero Identity Tully.
E16: Cicero Identity Relation Tully.
[E12: Cicero is Tully.]
[Here, in E15 and E16, the "is" in E12 has been replaced by its supposed name in both cases, and the word "Attribution" with what it supposedly attributes -- in this case the identity relation.]
As we can see, E15 and E16 cannot say anything, for they are both lists.27
Admittedly, in many contexts, the word "is" works quite happily as a relational expression for identity, as we saw it do in E12. But even then, the "is" of identity names nothing, since it is not a name. Treating it as a name manifestly turns sentences into lists --, as we have just seen --, and since lists say nothing, this move destroys the capacity we have in language for saying anything at all (at least predicatively).
To sum up: in E10, where a clear predicative use of general terms has been expressed, the misreading of the "is" of predication as an "is" of identity in fact reveals that an earlier misinterpretation of general predicative expressions as names of abstract particulars has already taken place. Subsequent 'grammatical adjustments' were clearly tailored to conform to this earlier metaphysical move --, motivating the syntactic gaffe outlined earlier (i.e., that of confusing predicate terms with the names of abstract particulars).
E10: Blair is a man.
Now, it is this move --, and not the attempt to process particulars by means of abstractions given in thought, nor the endeavour to access or use 'pure' concepts/categories of 'reason', nor yet the re-christening of the diminutive verb "is" (as a name of "Being", or of "Identity") --, it is this syntactic segue which kick-started much of classical Philosophy, and thus the sub-literate logic found in DM.28
"John" And The Entire Universe
Thus, the mythical process of abstraction was motivated by nothing more than a syntactically inept re-write of general terms as the names of abstract particulars. It was not based on an uncheckable, occult ability which some claim to possess (i.e., that of being able to process concepts in their heads at the flick of a noun).
This false move originally arose from the actual abstraction (removal, cutting-off, or alienation) of concept expressions from their everyday material/concrete contexts in ordinary sentences, and in ordinary life.
By abstracting ordinary predicative expressions from simple propositions like E10, and turning them into the names of abstract particulars, traditional Philosophers (and later, dialecticians) were able to conjure a whole new branch of Super-Knowledge (Metaphysics) from less than thin air.
E10: Blair is a man.
So, just as scientists study the material world, so Philosophers it seemed could study this hidden world of Super-Facts, Super-Duper Laws, 'Essences', and 'Necessities'.29
Of course, traditional Philosophers (and their latter-day conservative progeny: Marxist dialecticians) paid no heed to the actual use of general words in everyday material contexts. Ancient theorists had excellent, class-motivated reasons for ignoring the vernacular. [These are explored in Essay Twelve (summary here).] Unfortunately, DM-traditionalists also had excellent (but this time entirely petty-bourgeois) reasons for copying them. [These are revealed in Essay Nine Part Two.]
[This ideologically- and politically-inspired 're-analysis' of predicative propositions was in fact something to which the early Marx and Engels themselves drew attention (see Note 30).]
Nevertheless, the alleged validity of traditional moves such as these were (and still are) 'justified' by the container-loads of essentialist 'knowledge' they seem to deliver from mere words. The fact that they also did this on the cheap --, without having to bother with all those expensive, time-wasting experiments, or with facts that have been compromised by "appearances" and the constraints that social life places on discourse -- was, of course, an added bonus.
The profound ramifications of this politically-motivated wrong-turn need not concern us here, but it is possible to highlight the effect it had on DM by revealing how this particular 'error' (i.e., the misconstrual of the "is" of predication as an "is" of identity) expressed itself more locally --, on the a priori theses dialecticians en masse impose of the world.
Indeed, as will soon become clear: this ancient linguistic dodge motivates every single DM-thesis.
In fact, this is the heart of this metaphysical beast, its inner demon; for here we have located the Dialectical Dilithium Crystals.
Dialectics 'Emerges' From Logical Chaos
First, the Identity Theory of Predication (with added Hegelian spin) features in the dialectical criticism of the LOI (more details here), where the relation of identity (stated 'negatively') is confused with the truth-functional implications that hold between contradictory propositions. This 'allowed' Hegel to derive an alleged contradiction from the LOI (stated 'negatively'), and this 'permitted' him to power-up his Ideal universe by its double negation. But, these moves were only possible because of the systematic confusion of predicates with relations, names, objects, abstractions, concepts, propositions, and a host of other things.
In that case, for example, if there is no difference between a proposition (or a clause) and an object, it would become 'natural' to think that a contradiction (between two propositions, or clauses) in fact expresses a relation between two objects, which could now be seen in 'dialectical union/tension' with each other. Moreover, as we will see, once predication has been confused with the identity relation (or rather, when the "is" of predication has been re-configured as an "is" of identity), it becomes easy to claim that an object is now only its ('essential') self when it is put into a special sort of relation to its 'other' -- its internally-linked opposite (which often was whatever is 'named' by the second half of a suitably chosen proposition after it has been 'dialectically processed').
[UO = Unity of Opposites; LOI = Law of Identity.]
This then feeds into the belief that reality is fundamentally contradictory (and that everything is a UO of a given object/process and its dialectically-linked 'other'), and then into the idea that true knowledge is only of the 'infinite' (expressed by whatever the alleged 'universal' predicates are now supposed to 'designate'). As we will also see, this in turn not only motivates the thesis that everything is interconnected, but also the idea that motion and change are inherent properties of matter, as well as the belief that there are no in fact real falsehoods -- just closer approximations to Absolute Truth --, and thus the doctrine that truth is the Whole, and finally the claim that freedom is just the dialectical flip-side of necessity.
From this seemingly insignificant logical blunder, a whole web of intricately knotted DM-theses have been woven into a complex tapestry by generations of eager dialectical fingers.
Behind all this runs the idea that 'the process of abstraction' enables each adept to make a series of surprisingly easy discoveries about fundamental aspects of reality (to which suitably distorted, formerly ordinary general words were said to 'refer') in thought alone, without leaving the comfort of the non-dialectical armchair.
Theses From Thought -- Dogma From Daydreams
This approach is based on at least three main ideas:
(1) There are things in reality called "essences" -- hidden behind appearances -- that underlie material objects and processes in nature. The latter have a rational structure -- or they (logically) depend on the over-arching rational structure that underpins them -- which can be apprehended by the application of thought alone.
(2) When viewed aright, general terms are in fact disguised names --, of which a select sub-group name these "essences".
(3) Ordinary words are unsuitable for expressing such deeper, essential truths -- even if they dimly hint at them (perhaps to the "abstract understanding"). A more muscular approach to theory is required; "dialectical" then "speculative thought" enables those engaged upon either or both to gain easy access to the hidden secrets governing and inter-linking these "essences". Unfortunately, these cannot be pointed at or otherwise identified in material reality, but they exist nonetheless -- or so traditional Philosophers tell us. To be sure, their existence cannot be confirmed by any known physical method, but that just means they are more fundamental, non-contingent (and thus the source of 'genuine' knowledge), and that their actuality must be 'verified' by indirect, purely 'rational' means. While we cannot see them, or detect them in any way, shape or form, the logical structure of our sentences tells us they are more real than any of the objects and processes that are available to the senses.
Naturally, this means that these "essences" have to be imposed on the material world.30
Normally (i.e., to a normal, materially-orientated human being -- like, say, a worker) the occurrence of the word "is" in an everyday sentence would usually herald an incipient description (or predication) –- i.e., it would suggest that someone was about to say something about someone or something, such as: "The boss is a crook", or "The strike is too passive".
Plainly, this does not mean that the boss is identical with a crook! (Which one?) Or even that the boss is identical (or, indeed, is and is not identical) with the Essence of Crook!
[Resist the temptation to laugh, but one sad dialectical soul does think this of the boss, here, and even after he had been told otherwise"!]
But, under the influence of which potent drug would the second example mean that the said strike was identical with "too passive" (sic)?!
So, sentences like these would not normally be seen as hinting at the presence a profound philosophical truth hidden somewhere in the linguistic undergrowth, only capable of being uncovered by a posse of suitably-trained philosophical word-meisters and predicate manglers.
Indeed, predication itself would not normally be taken to be about the alleged occult "essences" that supposedly underlie appearances, which may only be picked-out by the use of a super-duper "is" of identity. Of course, that is plainly why no worker would come up with such a harebrained 'theory', and it is why, in its modern and most sophisticated form, only an arch Idealist and Hermetic Bumbler (i.e., Hegel) actually did.
In stark contrast -- and on the basis of (1)-(3) above --, those who appear to have a far less secure grip on material reality than ordinary folk have (i.e., ruling-class hangers-on, "traditional philosophers", and, on the 'left' these days, LCDs and HCDs) find they can with ease spot such coded messages mysteriously hidden in our use of everyday words. All they have to do is "reflect" on them, re-write them in their 'correct' logical form, and the need to test the resulting theses in repeatable experiments can be side-stepped.
[LCD = Low Church Dialectician; HCD = High Church Dialectician.]
Of course, this is easy to do if you have more leisure time on your hands than is good for you.
In this way then, it was plain to these select few that each diminutive "is" always hides an identity statement, expressing a relation between an individual and an invisible "essence" -- camouflaged by its otherwise innocent-looking outer façade, a letter "i" and a letter "s".
For ease of reference, let us call the above approach to language: the "Language Implies Essence" view -- or LIMPE, for short.31
The disastrous impact on dialectics of just such a retreat from the material-world into a LIMPE-esque, parallel universe can best be appreciated by considering the use dialecticians themselves have made of the following overworked predication (in this case, one taken from Lenin):
H1: John is a man.31b
Given the truth of LIMPE, H1 is not just saying something of John -- as only the 'vulgar' would rashly conclude. No, it alerts the Philosopher to a relation that exists between two named entities, i.e., John and the abstract universal Man (Humanity, Mankind or Manhood -- depending on which strain of traditional myth-making one believes). But, since it is not possible to predicate one individual thing of another, the original predication must be re-configured in the above manner so that it now becomes an ascription of one or more of the following:
(A) A class inclusion relation between an individual and a named group, class, category, collection or set.
(B) An identity relation between a named individual and another named particular, individual or named 'general' concept, class, category, collection or set.
(C) An identity relation between two classes, groups, concepts or ideas.
(D) A partial or complete 'containment' relation between subject and predicate terms.32
Ever since Plato and Aristotle's day, metaphysicians of every stripe have seized on one or more of the above as the 'correct' analysis of a superficially simple sentence like H1 -- a form of words, it is worth noting, that wouldn't even fool working-class children.32a
Indeed, it takes an expensive education and years of training to misconstrue ordinary language quite so badly as this.
[FL = Formal Logic.]
One or more of the above now motivates the allegation which DM-theorists make that FL is based on the LOI. The reasoning appears to be the following:
(1) All predications are disguised identity statements.
(2) But, identity statements cannot adequately reflect changing reality since they attribute unchanging identities to individuals, or at least to the relations that exist between them -- in the present case, this would be that which supposedly exists between John and Manhood. Language and 'formal thought' thus put things into unchanging categories.
(3) Ordinary discourse and FL are ultimately defective therefore; this is because they are based on the idea that things do not change; they attribute "this" or "that" unchanging property to objects and processes, asserting that, for example, John is identical to a universal.
Now, the correct 'dialectical' analysis of such propositions reveals the following deeper truth: ordinary language in fact alludes to an identity between subject and predicate names (or the objects they designate; Hegel continually mixes the two up, and so do his latter-day clones, DM-theorists). This cannot be correct, because no particular can be identical to a universal. This then leads "speculative reason" dialectically to the opposite conclusion: that the subject of such an ascription of identity is not (and cannot be) identical with the said predicate (here interpreted as a named abstract particular). So, in reality John is not identical with this predicate, or with what it 'names' (i.e., he is not identical with Man, or 'Manhood). 'Thought' is thus led to the negation of this identity.
But, this too cannot be the entire truth, since John is essentially a man; in that sense he is identified by his essence. This once more leads 'thought' back to another opposite conclusion, to the negation of the former negation, yielding the final result that John is not not-identical to Manhood, all of which concepts are now understood in a new and more 'determinate' light. This astounding conclusion now expresses an 'essential' truth about John (and, indeed, about everything else, since a similar 'analysis' reveals that everything is essentially connected with its own 'other', in a negative and then in a 'doubly negative' sort of way, along similar lines), which liberating 'analysis' is not available to those who are trapped either by 'formal thinking' or 'commonsense'.
At this stage in the proceedings, Spinoza's 'principle' is sent into play, and so we are informed that every determination is also a negation. [On this, see Note 33.]
So, not only is "thought" thus driven to opposite poles in its bid to differentiate an object like John from all others, and this necessarily involves negativity -- that is because, clearly, John is not Peter, not Fred, not Tarquin…, neither is he a mountain, a planet, a coffee mug... --, it is also forced to conclude that no individual object could be identical with a universal. In that case, John is not mankind. But as we saw, a further consideration of his 'concept, his 'essence', tells us he is also not not-mankind, and thus his original identity needs revising, for in so far as Peter, Fred, Tarquin... are in the same logical boat as John, he is now not not-Peter, not not-Fred, not not-Tarquin..., just as he is not a mountain, not a planet, not a coffee mug...
John is thus made 'determinate' by negation (as is everything else). The whole here determines the part and the part determines the whole, via negativity.
Hey presto, everything in existence has negativity programmed into it (simply because dialectically-mangled language reveal this deeper truth to us), and it is this negativity which powers the universe.
The Big Bang from the Big Re-write.
[That is why this approach to 'logic' was earlier called the source of the Dialectical Dilithium Crystals: Super-Science from Sloppy-Syntax.]
LIMPE thus encourages dialecticians to draw the inevitable conclusion that not only do our words and concepts contain contradictions ("John is identical with, and not identical with, and then not not-identical with, Manhood"), concepts themselves clearly change as a result of 'internal development', and as "Reason" dialectically reprocesses them at a higher level. This reflects parallel changes in Ideal reality -- or, if this is given its alleged 'materialist flip', it reflects the changes that take place in the material world.
So, John is now not not-identical with manhood; in fact John is now a NON-person. The NON powers him along; he is now a 'self-developing' being. [On the problems this idea creates for dialecticians, see Essay Eight Part One.]
[NON = Negation of the Negation.]
Viewed thus, this means that concepts not only have 'negativity' and hence "movement" built into them, they develop as "new content" emerges courtesy of the NON. This further implies that things and processes (now irreversibly confused with words) possess "identity-in-difference" [IED], instead of plain and simple material identity.
After having been suitably processed (i.e., dialectically mangled), all our words thus seem to have dialectics built into them. And, this is what allows dialecticians to impose their doctrines on nature, and then pretend that they haven't just done that!
However, because material language resists such 'moves' (as we will see), it is accused of being limited, paradox-friendly, dominated by 'commonsense' and 'formal thinking'. [In fact, as we will see, this is the exact reverse of the truth.]
So, if H1:
H1: John is a man.
is examined in more detail, in a "speculative" sort of way that is free from the usual constraints material or social reality place on language -- hence, if 'Reason' is alienated from social being, or if language "goes on holiday", to paraphrase Wittgenstein -- we may now 'rightly' conclude that John could not possibly be identical with all men.
From here it is but a short step to the derivation of the aforementioned dialectical contradiction, for, according to H1, John both is and is not identical with all men -- the same and yet different from the pack. But, because of the NON, he is also not not-identical with all men; he is thus identical and not identical with his own 'other', his Ideal alter-ego --, which artificial abstraction has no material correlate.
This now traps the hapless John in the dialectical machinery, which also powers the rest of the entire universe, since he is now a unity of opposites. He must of necessity undergo dialectical change as a result of the logical properties LIMPE has put into him.
And this is the key to the self-movement of everything in nature (as Lenin put it).
However -- to spoil the metaphysical fun --, the only evidential support this creative word-juggling enjoys is this inappropriate re-write of ordinary language predicate expressions, the inner 'logic' of which itself is dependent on a crass misreading the surface grammar of a rather unimportant sub-set of sentences found only in the Indo-European family of languages -- and nothing more!
Several other myth-begotten creatures of DM-lore owe their existence to this error of simple syntax, one of these being the quasi-mystical "Totality". A reading of the "is" of predication as an "is" of identity motivates the idea that everything must be inter-related.
The 'reasoning' runs something like this:
If, as in H1, John is both identical and not identical with a universal, and this universal has the infinite built into it (otherwise it would not be a universal), then John is only himself when he is viewed in infinite dialectical connection with everything else of this sort.
If John is now put in a similar relation with all the predicates applicable to him (including all the negative ones expressed in propositions like "John is not Blair", or "John is not the Pope", "John is not an interstellar dust cloud), then he is in fact only an individual of the sort he is because of the seemingly endless and infinite connections he actually has with everything in existence, which gives him a 'determinate' nature (if we but knew what it was in all its infinite glory). Moreover, all these things are "internally related" to John -- not externally, materially, but 'logically' -- all guaranteed by that diminutive verb, "is".
H1: John is a man.
John thus assumes truly cosmic significance; the whole of reality is linked to him and this makes him what he is. Not only that, but everything else is conditioned in like manner by John in return. John is now at the centre of a web of identities and differences spanning right across all that exists, and for all of time; he is now situated at the very heart the meaning universe -- and so is everyone and everything else. All of 'Being' depends on him to a small extent, and he depends on all of 'Being' in return.
This complex universal skein has been extruded from a single sentence written in Indo-European grammar. Who'd have thought it?
Even so, one small step for John is a huge step for mankind. Innovative logic like this cannot be restricted to just one individual; it has quite definite and imperial aspirations as humanity itself now assumes universal significance. The fate of our entire species now takes centre stage in John's meaning universe (but not just his) -- all of which is guaranteed by the semi-Divine Logic built into DL. Thus, whatever happens to john or to humanity is interconnected with everything in reality, and vice versa.
[DL = Dialectical Logic; LIE = Linguistic Idealism; UO = Unity of Opposites.]
Not only is John related to the Whole, he is what he is because this dialectically-'developed' diminutive verb implies he both is and is not identical (and then not not-identical) with an infinite concept.33 Indeed, and in this way, every person, each atom, each speck in the entire universe, and every process in nature, for all of time, has assigned to it its rightful mediated place in the Infinite Whole. Every single object and process is identical with, and not identical with, and then not not-identical with its 'other', guaranteed by a 'logic' that smuggled identity into sentences in place of boring old material predication.
This view of reality thus sees the logical structure of sentences mirroring the logical essence of 'Being'; everything is simultaneously at the centre of an infinite web of relations and at the periphery -- all are insignificant and all cosmically important at the same time. Part and Whole are thus interlinked and inter-determine one another.34
Moreover, while John is not all of mankind, he is somehow dialectically united with it. This fact allows necessity and contingency to enter into the picture. Hence, John is contingently a man in that he is an particular person; but he is also necessarily a man because the abstract universal so identifies him as one. In fact he is a UO: he is both man and non-man (i.e., not all men), revealing his essence as identity-in-difference.
However, the essential nature of each particular (such as John) is not immediately apparent to the senses. Nevertheless, the logical properties fundamental to each individual (predication/identity, unity/difference) still underlie appearances. The former may shine forth through the latter -- but this is only to those who have the eyes to see. [The rest, of course, the undialectical un-washed, do not 'understand' dialectics.]
This means that John is in reality other than he seems: John's material properties appear to be only contingently interrelated to those of other objects and processes around him. This misperception is either the result of a 'commonsense' failure to see things in the abstract -- i.e., essentially --, or because of a failure to connect the abstract with the concrete in dialectical union/tension.
But, below the surface, where human eyes cannot pry, the necessary connections that exist between individuals and universals may easily be ascertained if they are viewed in the right manner (i.e., 'essentially' and 'dialectically', but not materially).
Indeed, they are revealed to each adept, not by observation and experiment, but by the 'careful' dialectical analysis of suitably 'doctored' words/sentences about John.
In this way, those versed in such esoteric arts are able discover truths 'below the surface', unavailable to lesser souls who stumble around, lost in the mists of 'commonsense', who's thought is dominated by that intellectual bully, the "abstract understanding".
By these means, the dialectical adept is now able to extrapolate from nouns to necessity, and from concepts to contingency, arguing that necessity and chance govern nature because -- sure as eggs both are and are not eggs -- these de-personified Greek gods (the old Moira and Tyche) now rule these few words and concepts relating to John, and thus control him, too.
In this way, the conundrum that counterposes chance to necessity is both created and solved by this branch of innovative grammar, that which is able to map-out everything in the entire universe using jargon found in a book with no maps, written by Hegel. John is determined by the 'essences' that control him, but he is nonetheless 'free' because of his subsumption under cosmic 'law' -- this 'contradiction' 'solved' by its merely being one. [On that, see here.]
Through all of this, dialecticians imagine that they are actually examining reality itself, and not just a handful of 'doctored' words about it. In fact, and contrary to what one would expect of those who still claim to have the word "materialist" somewhere in their description, as noted above, expert 'dialectical insight' like this is not based on careful empirical work; it is the result of the exercise of a rare gift, the ability to view ordinary indicative sentences in two distinct ways, all in one go:
(1) Superficially, as composed of subjects and predicates -- mirroring the surface appearance of things, which is adequate enough for materially-bound individuals, and those who take language at face value -- like, workers -- but not for 'philosophers'. And:
(2) More profoundly, as identity statements that allude to underlying identities-in-difference at work in all objects and processes -- reflecting the abstract/concrete structure of nature -- knowledge of which is the special preserve of Super-Scientists, i.e., those with the dialectical equivalent of a Third Eye.
Hence, a sort of intellectual gestalt-switch operates in the dialectically well-attuned mind, which allows those suitably so blessed to hop back and forth between two differing interpretations of the role of the word "is" as it features in just a tiny a sub-set of sentences found in just one family of languages.
Given the truth of LIE, words thus contain a secret code that itself hides a cosmic cipher -- the Marxist equivalent of the Kabbalah.35
Dialectics, far from being an "Algebra of Revolution", is more like its "Abracadabra".
Guilty As Charged
Engels Nails His Colours To An Ideal Mast
Now, subtle grammatical hocus pocus like this represents the real dialectical "path of cognition" -- the logical route to enlightenment along which all aspiring adepts must pass at least once in their lives. It has nothing to do with the inexplicable 'process of abstraction' touted in the glossy DM-brochure.
And this is not just my say-so; the above allegations are easily confirmed by a consideration of the following passages:
"'Fundamentally, we can know only the infinite.' In fact all real exhaustive knowledge consists solely in raising the individual thing in thought from individuality into particularity and from this into universality, in seeking and establishing the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory…. All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and essentially absolute… The cognition of the infinite…can only take place in an infinite asymptotic progress." [Engels (1954), pp.233-35.]
"The fact that identity contains difference within itself is expressed in every sentence, where the predicate is necessarily different from the subject; the lily is a plant, the rose is red, where, either in the subject or in the predicate there is something that is not covered by the predicate or the subject…. That from the outset identity with itself requires difference from everything else as its complement, is self-evident." [Engels (1954), pp.214-15.]
Engels clearly saw no problem with his derivation of scientific conclusions from an idiosyncratic re-interpretation of the 'logical' structure of a handful of unrepresentative sentences. But, while Engels might have thought he was analysing nature in the raw, he was in fact merely reproducing Hegel's own misinterpretation of the logical properties of a un-important sub-section of Indo-European grammar. [He even copied Hegel's examples!]
The fact that he was deluding himself can be seen from his use of the phrase "self-evident". Substantive truths about the world may be evident following upon an investigation that uncovers the relevant evidence, but they cannot be self-evident -- not unless they can attest for themselves.
In that case, Engels's use of the phrase "self-evident" was either hyperbolic, or it was an unconscious give-away. When something is self-evident, it provides evidence on its own behalf. Naturally, that would make such entities auto-interpreting and self-authenticating, implying that they are in fact agents of some sort, and therefore quasi-human. If Engels was serious in his use of this word -- and it must be recalled that this passage comes from unpublished notebooks, so they might not represent his final thoughts --, it would reveal just how deep his Idealism went. Here he seems to attribute intelligence to linguistic expressions of information and not just to the humans who use them.
Self-evidence, of course, emerges (if it does) from a 'conceptual' or linguistic analysis (performed by human beings!) of certain words, phrases or propositions, and for which extraneous evidence is irrelevant (as the phrase itself suggests). Now this tight epistemological condition could only arise from a linguistic expression if it were tautological, where perhaps its content might strike its appraiser as a trivial, linguistic 'truth'. So, if things were as Engels said, then nature could only contain self-evident truths if it were a huge tautology, or, indeed, if it had trivially-true sentences plastered all over it.
However, nature is not made of subjects and predicates, nor has it been fly-posted with trivially-true indicative sentences by a mischievous agent of the Lord. Engels surely knew this. The only conclusion possible therefore is that he too had been deceived by LIMPE, just as it seems have all subsequent dialecticians.
[LIMPE = Language Implies Essence -- explained here.]
[And as we will see here, the "self-evidence" to which Engels refers is in fact the exact opposite.]
Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks also contain similar passages that illustrate the use of yet more innovative 'logic'. A particularly good example (and one which almost single-handedly commits all of the dialectical sins outlined earlier) is the following:
"To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other….
"Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general." [Lenin (1961), pp.359-60. Emphases in the original.]
Admittedly, Lenin did go on to mention the general support that the sciences provided for this view, but he failed to say how that could possibly confirm the truth of any of his sweeping generalisations, nor account for the fact that his entire theory is based on a crass misreading of a diminutive verb!36
For example, and linguistic juggling to one side, what confirmatory evidence could there possibly be for the following?
"[O]pposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc…. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence…." [Ibid. Bold emphases added.]
In fact, Lenin was open and honest about the real source of this dialectical chicanery -- it follows from what Hegel thought was true about what we say:
"Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized)…. [F]or when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other…. Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics." [Ibid. Bold emphases added.]
Lenin is quite clear here: dialectics follows from the logical properties of sentences, from what we say (or, rather from what Hegel says we say) -- not from a "careful" study of the world.
And, as it now turns out, it does not even follow from a careful study of what we in fact do say!
[The real source of all this Hegelian Hocus Pocus can be found here.]
Is Reality Plastered With Dialectical Fingerprints?
It could be objected here that propositions are quite uncontroversially used to convey information; human cognition reflects reality accurately when this information is drawn from nature and tested in practice. Hence, it could be argued that Lenin was simply outlining the consequences of this view, pointing out that the logical structure of language could not help but mirror deeper form if language is part of the world. That being the case, human beings may legitimately infer substantive truths about reality from the nature of language, since the dialectical structure of reality will already have been 'programmed' into discourse as a result of the interplay between reflection and practice carried out in previous generations.
But, if that were so, why all the pretence that DM-theses are only acceptable if they have passed rigorous empirical tests? [On this, see Essay Two.] If truths about nature are so easily obtained -- that is, if they can be ascertained merely from perusing the structure of sentences --, why all the pointless rigmarole of trying to deny that DM is a "master key" that can open all doors to knowledge?
Moreover, why is it that only a sub-set of all the indicative sentences that can be formed, and in just one family of languages, contains these clues? And even then, why does the grammar of these sentences have to be altered to make them say certain things, and in a way that destroys their capacity to say anything at all?
To be sure, if language does in fact contain truths about reality (programmed into its structure, say) then it could indeed serve as just such a key, and there would be no quibble. We could then openly admit our Idealism, loud and proud -- an admission that substantive truths are easily obtained from thought alone. It would then be clear that DM is based, not on an inversion of Hegel, but on a wholesale reversion to Hegel.
Nevertheless, this picture of the relation between thought and language was in fact committed to canvass long before the required evidence was to hand; metaphysical chicanery of this sort dates back to Thales, and it reached classical form in the writings of Greek Philosophers like Heraclitus, Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyry, Pseudo-Dionysius and Iamblichus -- the real ancestors of DM. Here, empirical evidence did not (and could not) prompt the idea that reality is mirrored in discourse, nor could it reveal that there are 'essences' in nature, nor yet that everything is interconnected, nor even that everything is a UO, riddled with 'contradictions'. Indeed, only if language is distorted can it be made to say such mystical things.36a
However, a commitment to LIMPE -- motivated by the idea that reality possesses a logical form that just happens to match ancient Greek, and then later, European grammar -- permits belief in such dialectical dogmatism. That being so, the whole sordid affair begins to make a little more sense. The fact that there are clear political and ideological reasons why thinkers who belonged to (or who were dependant on) the various ruling-classes humanity has had to endure, and who were thus pre-disposed to making such moves, only serves to underline this point.37
Again, it could be argued that since human knowledge has grown over the centuries, the input of practical activity cannot fail to have been reflected in language. If so, DM-theorists are only extracting from language what had already been put there.
This response has the merit of acknowledging the truth of the allegations made above and in Essay Twelve Part One: just like other systems of Metaphysics, DM is based on a fetishisation of language. That is, it is predicated on the view that language, far from being a means of communication, is really a secret cipher which has profound truths about nature and society encoded within it. In that Essay, this approach to knowledge will be shown to be based on something called the RRT. [Further discussion of that topic will therefore be postponed until then; summary here.]
[RRT = Reverse Reflection Theory.]
Nevertheless, the situation here is far worse than the above might suggest: Lenin made unqualified claims about all of reality for all of time (without exception) based on an examination of a few simplistic and unrepresentative sentences --, and even then he had to mis-describe their grammar to make these ideas 'work'!
Even if the labours of previous generations of heroic abstractors had encoded into language all that they knew, or thought they knew, about anything and everything, that could not suffice. Lenin's claims were meant to apply to all of reality for all of time, way beyond the meagre knowledge and intellectual powers of such intrepid ancient abstractors. Plainly, they could not have programmed into language those things of which they were ignorant. So, Lenin's bold extrapolation of dialectics covered areas our ancestors knew nothing about, which means that his words could only have amounted an imposition on nature.37a
But even worse still: How would it be possible to guarantee that the information allegedly encoded in language is correct if there is no conceivable way of checking it? For all Lenin knew, this inbuilt linguistic 'data' could have been totally wrong. [In fact, given DM-epistemology, there is no way to distinguish truth from error. More on that in Part Four of this Essay.]
Practice is no help here; as we will see in Essay Ten Part One, practice cannot distinguish truth from error, either.
But even if it could, no amount of evidence is sufficient to substantiate the sort of claims Lenin made above (or those recorded in Essay Two); the conclusions he drew about the nature of the entire world (from a single sentence) were of a type and order that puts them way beyond any conceivable sort verification. As such, his theses could only have been based on a thoroughly traditional, a priori view of reality, subsequently reflected back onto nature, with just this tiny 'linguistic fig-leaf' of an excuse for cover.
Moreover, had Lenin gone about his daily agitational business uttering the kind of sentences he considered metaphysically significant (such as "John is a man"), comrades would rightly have doubted his sanity. Just why such agitationally-challenged sentences were deemed significant is, therefore, something of a dialectical mystery.38
Theism From Thought, Too
Despite all this, there are other reasons for rejecting this view of language. Indeed, it is instructive to compare Lenin's conclusions about "John" with the following sentence, which presumably DM-theorists will want to reject:
H2: God is our father.
This would perhaps be because H2 expresses an ideologically-motivated belief for which there is not a shred of evidence (and nor could there be). But, if so, and to be consistent, we should repudiate the following sentences for similar reasons -- i.e., for lack of evidence:
H3: The individual is different from the universal.
H4: The opposites are identical.
[H1: John is a man.]
There is no evidence for the truth of either these sentences, or none that is not itself based on an ancient mis-analysis of grammar, and only on that.
But, of course, a search for 'evidence' would not make it even this far, for the above are pseudo-grammatical/metaphysical statements, the 'truth' of which follows from the alleged meaning of the words they contain. No wonder then that Hegel and Lenin imagined they could extrapolate from H3 and H4 (or from "S is P"-type propositions/"judgements") to the truth of theses applicable everywhere and at all times. If, however, these words have no meaning, then neither H3 nor H4 is capable of being true nor false (or even 'dialectically' both). [Why this is so is discussed in detail in Essay Twelve Part One.]
Moreover, it is worth recalling that given certain definitions of the word "God", H2 is in fact a tautology. Now, we can be sure that the imputed logical status of H2 would not be sufficient to force its acceptance as a profound truth. No dialectician in his or her left mind would accept an argument that claimed that the whole truth of theology is contained in such propositions. We would not let assorted priests and mystery-mongers argue that the past endeavours of intrepid abstractors and linguistic pioneers had programmed into language truths about the nature of the 'Godhead', forcing us to accept this piece of Divine Logic as empirically-true!38a
H2: God is our father.
Well, the same should be concluded about H1, H3 and H4. In fact, DM-theorists should only feel confident deriving a priori truths from such sentences if they are prepared to acknowledge, say, the validity of Anselm's infamous "Ontological Proof" of the existence of "God", for that 'argument' manages to wring similar verities about divine reality from equally tortured prose.
OK -- Reach For The Prozac!
Despite this, too, there are several serious problems with Lenin's reasoning, and which require resolution before questions can even be raised about the support his theses gain from what little evidence there is.
H1: John is a man.
Lenin clearly interpreted the "is" in H1 as an "is" of identity (and later perhaps as an "is" of class inclusion). But, because it plainly is not one of identity in the vernacular, Hegel and Lenin were then able to 'derive' several counter-intuitive conclusions from the incongruity they had thus artificially introduced into H1.39 However, instead of concluding perhaps that Hegel's "genius" had misled him -- or that this was not the only way (or even the most obvious, sane or natural way) to interpret such simple sentences -- Lenin proceeded to weave several lengths of dialectical cloth from these slender threads of woolly thought.
The fact that the "is" of H1 is not that of identity can be seen from Lenin's own use of it. Consider one of his sentences:
H5: "[T]he opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical."
From this we can extract two further sentences:
H4: The opposites are identical.
H6: The individual is opposed to the universal.
[H4 plainly contains a cognate of "is" -- namely, "are".]
However, if "is" always indicated identity -- and could be interpreted as an expression of the form "x is identical with z" -- then we should be able to re-write H4 and H6 in the following manner:
H7: The opposites are identical with identical.
H8: The individual is identical with opposed to the universal.39a
[In H7, the verb "are" (from H6), and in H8 the verb "is" (from H6), have been replaced by "are identical with" and "is identical with", respectively.]
It does not take any dialectical logic at all (and certainly no bourgeois prejudice whatsoever) to see what nonsense results from this 'brilliant' Hegelian insight. Nor is it difficult to foresee the infinite task Lenin's 'analysis' holds open as he, or anyone else, tries to say what the meaning of each "is" (or the meaning of each "are") is that recurs in "is identical with" (or in "are identical with") in H7 and H8, now made explicit in H9 and H10:
H9: The opposites are identical with identical with identical.
H10: The individual is identical with identical with opposed to the universal.
Lest anyone thinks this unfair to Lenin, they are invited to try to say for themselves what the "is" in "is identical with" itself means.
Neutral onlookers can only wish such hardy souls plenty of luck, and hope they are blessed with boundless patience, limitless supplies of paper and ink -- and, of course, plenty more Prozac.
It is worth recalling, though, that the above challenge has only arisen because DM-theorists insist that the "is" of predication is really an "is of identity" -- i.e., that it is the same as "is identical with". In assuming this (again, with no proof), they themselves have to use another "is" to reveal this good news to the rest of us -- as in:
H11: The "is" of predication is the "is" of identity.
But the middle "is" in H11 cannot -- ex hypothesi cannot -- be one of mere predication. It, too, according the Hegel has to be one of identity. In that case we can obtain:
H12: The "is" of predication is identical with the "is" of identity.
H13: The "is" of predication is identical with identical with the "is" of identity.
As each alleged "is" of predication is suitably replaced by an "is identical with" that it is supposed to be identical with itself. If anyone wants to go down this route, they will also require copious supplies of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. But, more fool them; they have been warned!39b
On the other hand, those who hold that the "is" of predication is in reality just that (i.e., one of predication) are not faced with such an infinite and morale-sapping task. This is because they seek neither to revise nor to re-write ordinary material language in such Idealist terms, replacing an ordinary "is" with another sort of "is", one that allows metaphysicians to think they can change predicates into the names of abstract particulars as and when it suites them.
So, when genuine materialists say things like "Blair is a warmonger", they are not saying that Blair is identical to a warmonger (which one?), they are merely saying that the description "warmonger" applies to the individual named "Blair". No "is" anywhere in sight.
So, you can put the Prozac away now, comrades.40
It could be objected here that this completely misses the point. DM-theorists do not argue that knowledge begins with the "isolation of particulars in thought"; in the search for knowledge human beings do not have to start from scratch, as the above suggests. On the contrary, as TAR notes:
"[I]t is impossible simply to stare at the world as it immediately presents itself to our eyes and hope to understand it. To make sense of the world, we must bring to it a framework composed of elements of our past experience; what we have learned of others' experience, both in the present and in the past; and of our later reflections on and theories about this experience." [Rees (1998), p.63.]41
"[A]ll science generalizes and abstracts from 'empirically verifiable facts.' Indeed, the very concept of 'fact' is itself an abstraction, because no one has ever eaten, tasted, smelt, seen or heard a 'fact,' which is a mental generalization that distinguishes actually existing phenomena from imaginary conceptions. Similarly, all science 'deductively anticipates' developments -- what else is an hypothesis tested by experimentation? The dialectic is, among other things, a way of investigating and understanding the relationship between abstractions and reality. And the 'danger of arbitrary construction' is far greater using an empirical method which thinks that it is dealing with facts when it is actually dealing with abstractions than it is with a method that properly distinguishes between the two and then seeks to explain the relationship between them." [Ibid., p.131.]41a
These passages appear to show that the criticisms of the dialectical process presented here are flawed from beginning to end.42 They clearly demonstrate that no dialectician of any intelligence would imagine that in the search for knowledge, human beings just look at objects and processes divorced from historical, social or linguistic contexts, and blurt stuff out. As Engels himself noted:
"The identity of thought and being, to express myself in Hegelian fashion, everywhere coincides with your example of the circle and the polygon. Or the two of them, the concept of a thing and its reality, run side by side like two asymptotes, always approaching each other but never meeting. This difference between the two is the very difference which prevents the concept from being directly and immediately reality and reality from being immediately its own concept. Because a concept has the essential nature of the concept and does not therefore prima facie directly coincide with reality, from which it had to be abstracted in the first place, it is nevertheless more than a fiction, unless you declare that all the results of thought are fictions because reality corresponds to them only very circuitously, and even then approaching it only asymptotically." [Engels to Conrad Schmidt (12/3/1895), in Marx and Engels (1975b), p.457.]
This means that the dialectical circuit cannot simply be joined at any point -- cut into, as if this were some sort of a dance. Hence, it could be claimed that this is where the above analysis goes completely wrong: it assumes that the DM-circuit begins at a particular place, and because it cannot do this the incorrect conclusion is then drawn that DM-epistemology is fundamentally flawed.
As a matter of fact -- as this objection could continue --, knowledge arises out of a historical process. Humans do not just go about "identifying particulars" (etc); they use whatever historical, social, linguistic and epistemological resources they have to hand in order to advance knowledge and refine technique (a process that is nevertheless distorted by the class struggle, and ruling-class ideology, etc., etc.).
To paraphrase Marx: human beings make their own concepts, but they do not do so under social or logical circumstances of their own choosing. DM-theorists highlight this fact; they do not ignore or hide it. Or so this response might go.
Unfortunately, this reply is not strictly relevant since it confuses a logical point with what is in fact an epistemological fairy tale.
The above legend arises out of the mythical nature of the process of abstraction, unfortunately omitted from the volunteered objection outlined in the last few paragraphs. If abstraction cannot take place, or if it destroys generality, as we have seen, then 'its' results cannot be passed on from one generation to the next, nor can they be built upon by later dialecticians.
Or, to put this differently: all that former generations of Idealists can pass on to their equally Idealist descendants is this example of mutant grammar with its impenetrably obscure jargon.
The myth of the 'original abstraction' (on which this fable depends) -- like Adam's legendary fall from grace -– fails to provide DM with the explanation it needs, since (once again to paraphrase Marx) it itself requires explanation.
Hence, the logical points made above cannot be neutralised by a convenient extrapolation into the mists of time.
To paraphrase once more (but this time Lessing): the accidental truths of history cannot provide secure foundation for ignoring the normative rules of Logic.43
Worse still, even if they could, the chronicles of past heroic abstractions still won't pass muster. This is because this myth is, like other metaphysical yarns, devoid of sense -- as we shall see in the next Part of this Essay, and in Essay Twelve Part One.
1. Much of this Essay is a development of ideas found in Ryle (1949, 1959), and the work of Peter Geach. The centrality of this question for the history of traditional thought is outlined in Davidson (2005), pp.76-140. I distance myself, however, from Davidson's neat 'solution' to this 'problem' (pp.141-63), but this is not the place to go into details. However, a perceptive critique of Davidson can be found in Ionescu (2007). [See also the E J Lowe's review in the Times Higher Education Supplement, which contains a useful summary of this 'problem'.]
It needs pointing out that nothing said here is aimed at criticising the ordinary use of abstract nouns -- although it might affect how we interpret them. Rather, these comments are directed at the traditional, philosophical use of the word "abstraction" and its cognates.
Bertell Ollman has recently added a new twist to the abstractionist tale, arguing along more naturalistic lines to connect abstraction with a cognitive limiting, or narrowing process which he claims we all engage in. This novel slant on an old fairy tale will be examined in Part Two of this Essay. Cf., Ollman (2003), pp.59-110.
In addition, an analysis of the following will be added at a later date: Evald Ilyenkov's work (in Ilyenkov (1975, 1977, 1982a)), Alex Callinicos's careful analysis of the use of abstraction in Marx (in Callinicos (1978)), and the briefer comments on abstraction found in Sweezy (1970).
1a. Calling such abstractions "scientific idealisations" is no help at all, for the same questions apply to these mysterious 'beings' as they do to 'abstraction'. As we will see in a later Essay, the traditional view of such "idealisation" is no clearer than it is of 'abstraction' -- except, perhaps, that the word "idealisation" gives the game away, openly adverting to its Ideal origin.
Some might want to appeal to scientific laws here to give these inchoate terms ("abstraction" and "idealisation") some sort of materialist bite, but as we will see, the word "law" as it is traditionally used is eminently Ideal, too, having been derived from social norms which were then projected onto nature in support of the ancient belief that the universe is controlled by a Cosmic Will -- and, as fate would have it, long before Hegel was "posited" into existence by the self-secreting 'Absolute' Itself.
On this, see Milton (1981, 1998), Needham (1951a, 1951b), Ruby (1986), Swartz (1985, 2001), and Zilsel (1942).
However, this takes us into areas which overlap with the nature of "thought experiments", a topic which will be discussed in more detail in a later Essay (on the relationship between DM and science).
2. As we shall see, the nature of this mysterious process is difficult to describe, even if you believe in it. Here are just a few of the serious problems it faces:
(1) How is it possible, in the privacy of the mind, for each lone abstractor to know if he or she has arrived at the correct abstract notion of anything at all (by whatever method they claim to have used)? With what, or with whom, can any of their results be checked? No one has access to a single 'abstraction' produced by anyone else, nor has anyone ever been trained to perform this feat correctly. Does a single human being posses so much as a diploma in this mythical skill?
An appeal to the existence of a public language would be to no avail here, for even on this basis no one would be able to tell whether Abstractor A meant the same as Abstractor B by his or her use of words or concepts like "Substance", "Being", or "Nothing". [Definitions can't help here, since they contain abstractions which are subject to the same acid doubts.]
And it is even less use appealing to the 'logic of concepts', which drives 'thought' along, as, say, Hegel might have done. Not only is it unclear what his jargon actually means, even if all he said were crystal clear, since he was the first to dream much of this terminology up, 'thought' cannot inevitably be driven along these lines (otherwise we would not now have to read Hegel to help 'thought' along). Finally, of course, 'thought' can only take this route if it too accepts without question the logical and classical/Hegelian blunders outlined in this Essay, in which case 'thought' deserves all the confusion that descends upon it as a result.
Moreover, if abstractions are arrived at in a more law-like way, as the 'mind' tries to grapple with scientific knowledge, a là Hegel, it is still unclear how any one mind could possibly check the results of those of any other, in order to ascertain if either or both had arrived at the same ideal result? [This argument is pushed much further in Part Two of the Essay.]
(2) To continue the above objection, if abstractions are produced by some sort of 'subtractive' process (as more and more particular features are disregarded) to produce increasingly general terms, who decides which parts should be subtracted first, second or third? For example, do we abstract a cat's whiskers first, or its curiosity and its purr? Do we ignore its position or its number? And if this is all done 'in the mind', who is to say that everyone does exactly the same things to exactly the same subtracted parts in the same order and in the same manner?
Naturally, if 'abstractions' are cobbled-together by a process of generalisation, or law-like development, then the same questions would apply, but perhaps in reverse. [Again, on this, see Part Two of this Essay.]
(3) The actual process of mental subtraction is somewhat difficult to conceive too. When we ignore the various parts of the objects we are supposedly performing this trick upon, is it like some sort of mental striptease? But, if we take away too much, how might we know whether the rest of this ceremony has been performed on the same object with which we began? We might all start with a chaffinch, say, but after the feathers, beak, claws, colour, song, wings, size and number have been stripped away, how might we distinguish the amorphous mass left behind from an similarly processed Axolotl? Or indeed, from the Crab Nebula? Or someone else's grandmother?
Of course, abstractionists are never quite this crude (at least, not in public); they restrict themselves to rather more well-behaved "concepts", "categories" and refined "ideas", those they trust to 'reason', or better still, to 'dialectical/speculative' 'thought'. But these shadowy beings are even more obscure. Does, therefore, the concept of Robin Redbreast have wings, a head and a stomach full of worms? If not, then we might wonder if this concept genuinely applies to him. If it does, we might wonder (even more) what the difference between him and his concept is. If there is none, then he must be Ideal. If there is one, how do we know it belongs to him?
Worse still, any conclusions drawn about the 'concept' of Robin Redbreast, or indeed birds in general, would apply to that concept, and not to its supposed feathered external correlate. This would be so unless we are now to suppose that, just like a Black Magic doll, whatever we do to the concept, we do to the real object(s) it is said to mirror. Now, Idealists might not be able to distinguish reality from illusion in this regard, but materialists would be unwise to follow them into the same dense fog -- or, indeed, adopt a philosophical technique that cannot tell fact from fancy, or a frog from fog.
And how exactly does one dissect a concept? Do they each have an 'objective' anatomy, which any rank amateur can poke or prod?
Nevertheless, this traditional tale is deeply engrained in our culture -- you will even find psychologists who say that all of us can form "abstractions", even if they go rather quiet when asked to fill in the details -- so much so that experience has taught me not try to deny in polite company that such 'phantoms' exist, or risk being treated as one who has just confessed to murder. [This is especially so of Marxist dialecticians, zealous defenders of traditional jargon.]
Nevertheless, this Emperor has no clothes, abstract or concrete; indeed there isn't even so much as a single drop of blue blood in 'his' veins -- as both halves of this Essay seek to demonstrate. Worse: there isn't even an Emperor, clothed or otherwise.
This ruling idea has been on 'his' epistemological throne for long enough; it is time to wheel out a very material guillotine.
[Other serious problems associated with this mysterious process will emerge as Part Two of this Essay unfolds.]
2a. These obscure terms of art will be examined in Part Six of this Essay.
2b. It could be argued that this confuses "individuals" with "particulars", or at least with "concrete particulars". This seemingly minor terminological wrangle will be settled in Part Six of this Essay.
3. The details underlying these sweeping statements will be supplied in Essay Twelve (summary here).
4. This is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of these terms; the aim is simply to try to clarify what DM-theorists mean when they employ them. As the reader will soon come to appreciate, this is an impossible task anyway, since DM-theorists themselves do not appear to know what they mean when they use these 'concepts'. [Which is not surprising given the points raised in Note Two, above.]
6. The rather schematic presentation here is not meant to suggest that DM-theorists hold that there are no dialectical interconnections between these concepts, only that if there are any they have been remarkably coy about precisely what these are.
7. On this see Inwood (1992), pp.29-31, and Cook (1973).
8. Physicists tell us that every photon, for example, is identical to every other photon. This is how Steven French puts things:
"It should be emphasised, first of all, that quantal particles are indistinguishable in a much stronger sense than classical particles. It is not just that two or more electrons, say, possess all intrinsic properties in common but that -- on the standard understanding -- no measurement whatsoever could in principle determine which one is which." [French (2006), p.5]
Of course, French offers his own solution to this difficulty, but it isn't one that challenges the identity of quantal particles, just their lack of individuality (whatever that means). Paul Dirac put the same point this way:
"If a system in atomic physics contains a number of particles of the same kind, e.g., a number of electrons, the particles are absolutely indistinguishable No observable change is made when two of them are interchanged…." [Dirac (1967), p.207.]
A recent discussion of these issues can be found in French and Krause (2006), Brading and Castellani (2003), and Castellani (1998). See also the Wikipedia entry here.
8a. This topic will be analysed extensively in Essay Eleven, here and here.
8b. On this, see Part Three of this Essay; some of this material has been posted temporarily here.
9. Anyone who doubts this should flip through Gerry Healy's writings; for example, Healy (1990). For 'afters', try Dunayevskaya (1982, 2002), or even James (1980). Indeed, the Mother Lode in Hegel is even better.
9a. This allegation is substantiated in Essay Twelve (summary here and here).
10. This theme will be thoroughly explored in Essays Nine Part One, Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here, here, here, and here).
11. This is not strictly true. There are works in the DM-tradition that attempt to clarify these terms. What they have to say will be explored in Note 1 at a later date.
12. In fact, Marx does not actually do what he says he does in this passage; he merely gestures at doing it, and his gestures are about as substantive as the hand movements of stage magicians. This is not to malign Marx. Das Kapital is perhaps one of the greatest books ever written; but it would have been an even more impressive work if the baleful influence of traditional thought had been kept totally at bay. [On this, see Essay Nine Part One, especially here and here.]
More on this passage here, in Part Two of this Essay.
[And, I know this passage comes from the Grundrisse, but that fact does not alter the above point.]
12a. As noted above, earlier versions of the main argument outlined in this part of the Essay can be found in Ryle (1949, 1959), and Geach (1968).
13. Why this is so will be explained presently. The locus classicus of the modern discussion of this topic can be found in Frege (1892), upon which much of my own thinking has been based.
14. Again, anyone who doubts this should flip through Gerry Healy's writings once more -- only this time, as punishment.
15. One would like to be able to say what abstractionists mean here, perhaps something like: "Abstract particulars have replaced general…(?)", but language supplies us with no useable terms.
One could say that "abstract particulars have replaced general particulars", but only at the risk of confusing the reader even more, since the phrase "general particular" is about as clear as "round square".
If any dialecticians want to "grasp" this misbegotten phrase, they are welcome to it. [May I suggest firmly round the throat?]
15a. As far as I can tell there are no articles published on the Internet that make this method of analysis easy to follow. However, the best two available are this one, and this. The first unfortunately uses blank spaces for variable gap markers, and so is not entirely rigorous; the second is rather advanced.
However, the best short article on this aspect of Frege's work is Geach (1961), which is not easy, either, but scrupulously accurate and admirably clear.
The simplest way of understanding this use of Greek symbols (such as "ξ") is to view them as variables (like those used in mathematics -- this is not an exact analogy!). [I have not used "x" here since this is generally taken to be a bound quantifier variable --, or as the next example shows, a functional variable. On the inapt word "variable", however, see here.]
So, the mathematical function expressed by "f(x) = 2x + 1" (with a suitably defined domain, etc.), maps named numbers (like, say, "3") onto named numbers (in this case "7"). However, the linguistic function "ξ is a warmonger" maps ordinary names, not onto numbers, but onto indicative sentences -- which in this case would yield true sentences for "Tony Blair" and "George W Bush", but a false one for "Noam Chomsky". [This is not to suggest that this is how Frege saw things; I am in fact adapting an idea that Peter Geach floats in Geach (1961). Also see Note 16, below.]
There are many advantages to this way of analysing such uses of language; some of these will be outlined later on in this Essay. However, the main advantage for present purposes is that it is not possible to interpret schemas like "ξ is a warmonger" as a name of anything, least of all of that of an abstract particular. The same cannot be said for the results of subject/predicate analysis found in traditional logic. For example, the alleged predicate, "a warmonger", looks like it designates or names a class, group or category, which would then destroy the generality expressed in the original proposition (for reasons explored in the main body of this Essay).
Traditional logicians and philosophers were only too ready to take this false step, using the 'Term Logic' they inherited from Aristotle. [The serious weaknesses of this sort of logic are outlined in Geach (1972b).]
Many of the issues raised here are outlined with admirable clarity in Gibson (2004) for those who want more details. See also, Davidson (2005).
16. This analysis, of course, depends on a view of propositions that I do not expect DM-theorists to share. Nevertheless, the rationale for this sort of analysis will become clearer as the argument unfolds. [On this, see below, and Note 40.]
However, sentences are not names -- this can be seen by the way we comprehend the former but not the latter. This point will be defended in a later Essay. In the meantime, see Geach (1972c).
In addition, although the text says that "ξ is made of glass" is general in form, it would be more accurate to regard it as the expression of a rule whose proper application is revealed by the open-ended generation of true or false sentences from it, by those proficient in a given language.
[How this would work in a non-Indo-European language I haven't a clue, but since I am not trying to make a metaphysical point here, that is no embarrassment to my approach -- as it is to that adopted by dialecticians.]
Once again, this way of viewing predicate expressions might cause some alarm. Not only will it look rather odd to those who have not studied much Analytic Philosophy, it might even seem rather perverse, "academic", or "bourgeois". It is to be recalled, however, that the analysis of propositions which dialecticians have adopted was invented by Medieval professors, and introduced into dialectics itself by an eminently bourgeois academic, Hegel. [More on that below.]
Despite this, its strength arises from the fact that traditional ways of viewing predicates encouraged their confusion with names, hence destroying the generality implicit in language. As noted above, it is not possible to confuse "ξ is made of glass", for example, with a name. Moreover, this way of looking at predicate expressions (which are perhaps better viewed as 'linguistic functions' that map names onto sentences -- on this, see Note 15a) brings out the connection they have with rules, and hence with social aspects of language, and so with publicly performed verbal skills. This is because, clearly, "ξ is made of glass" is an incomplete expression, and it requires a material human being to complete it with an appropriate term. The rule-governed way this is accomplished means that this process is capable of being studied in the open -- as opposed to it being (allegedly) carried out in an uncheckable, inner occult world, as traditional ruling-class thought would have us believe is the case with abstraction.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that the above analysis is merely being advocated as one way of seeing how we form certain sentences; no one is suggesting that this is the only way this can be explicated, or that it gives a complete view (or that it is literally how we do this -- it is merely a way of highlighting patterns in the formation of certain our sentences). This is not, therefore, to advance a theory of any sort; it is an attempt to give a description of the public use of language (or perhaps highlight a "form of representation" for language itself -- this term will be explained in a later Essay) which does not neutralise generality. Because of this it has everything to recommend it.
Clearly, this is not the place to defend such a view of language; but, on this see Note 28 below. However, the argument presented here does not depend on this analysis being either correct or apposite. Indeed, even if this approach were completely misguided, it would still be the case that dialecticians follow tradition and change general words into the proper names of abstract particulars, thus destroying the expression of generality -- even in their own jargonised ersatz 'language'.
17. It might be wondered why these seemingly irrelevant linguistic concerns have been allowed to distract us when it is perfectly plain that if E1 were true, it would provide us with an example of a particular, namely, the said tumbler -- perhaps picked out by the reference of the indexical phrase: "This tumbler (here)."
[E1 was: "This tumbler is made of glass."]
Whether or not this is so, it can't help us make sense of the dialectical process under review. On its own, and without an elaborate (implied) context, the phrase "This tumbler" says nothing; it would only succeed in picking out the said tumbler because of the complex social and linguistic practices surrounding its normal use.
On the other hand, if this phrase manages to pick out this and only this tumbler, and nothing else, it would be functioning as a Proper Name, or singular designating expression (at best), which point is not being contested (at least, not here).
[Of course, the phrase itself may be used to say something when combined with a linguistic, functional expression such as "ξ is made of glass", but that would clearly involve the use of general terms again.]
However, even if DM-epistemology were correct, the dialectical process cannot begin with bare particulars (whatever these are) -- it needs general terms. That is why the account in the text takes the line it does. It is aimed at demonstrating that no matter how this process is sold to us, no sense can be made of it. Anyway, this topic will be dealt with presently in the text, and Note 18.
18. Lest anyone be tempted to continue to argue that DM-theorists agree that dialectics begins with the general in order to refine particulars -- and because of that the argument in the text is thoroughly misconceived -- it is worth recalling that the whole point of this exercise is to show that while DM theorists say this is what they do, it is not what they actually do. What they in fact do is re-interpret sentences like E1 as identity statements. This involves the re-configuration of expressions like the following:
A1: NN is F.
As:
A2: NN = F*.
[Where "NN" is a name, or singular designating term, and "F*" a nominalised (particularised) predicate expression (like "Man", or "Manhood"). Moreover, in A2, the sign for equality is interpreted as one of identity, class inclusion or part/whole attribution (or all three at once).]
As we shall see, this initial distortion allows DM-theorists to derive several counter-intuitive results from ordinary sentences containing perfectly innocent-looking predicates.
This move in fact saves DM-apologists the job of actually having to abstract anything at all --, which is fortunate in a way since the latter task is impossible to perform, let alone describe. By means of this 're-analysis', they can short-circuit the mythical 'abstractive process' (all the while claiming that it has been carried out!), and thus by these means conjure the names of abstract particulars (such as "Man", "consciousness", "Identity" and "Being") out of less than thin air.
The names of these particulars are then used to flank on the right-hand side a transmogrified "is", directly facing the original singular term on the left (as in A2, above). This re-write transforms the hackneyed DM-sentence "John is a man" into "John is identical to Man", "John is identical with mankind", or even "John = Man" -- analysed in the main body of this Essay, and below. Hence, the "is" of predication has to be 're-configured' as one of identity in order to hold this implausible theory together and provide some sort of motivation for what follows from it.
19. As was noted above, DM-theorists of course appear to accept this in principle, but in practice they do the opposite.
20. An old joke from Mad magazine comes to mind here:
J1: He had De Gaulle to Adenauer to his time sheet.
Only those long enough in the tooth to know to whom these names refer will perhaps appreciate it -- or not. On this, see Note 22, below. On names in general, see Linsky (1977), and Baker and Hacker (2005), pp.113-28, 227-49. See also Hanna and Harrison (2004), pp.63-158 -- I hesitate to recommend this book since the authors adopt the erroneous 'causal theory' of names; despite this, it has many useful things to say.
21. Special cases aside -- such as the reading of a roll call, the dictation of a new telephone directory, or someone demonstrating a feat of memory, etc. --, the utterance of nothing but singular terms would not be understood by anyone. This is not because this would be too difficult for our finite minds to grasp, it is because there is nothing there to grasp. [For more on the logic of lists, see Geach (1979), pp.62-72.]
However, the context alluded to in the text need not always be that which is provided by an indicative sentence; it could be a sentence fragment (clause), or one-word sentence. But even there, these expressions would only make sense because of the longer sentences in which they or their constituent parts could be embedded.
For example, we would fail to understand the phrase "in Das Kapital" if no one had ever used it in a sentence before, if none of its constituent words was ever used thus, or if there was no place in the language allowing for its use (if say, the use of such titles had never been invented by human beings). Again, on this see Note 22, below.
22. That was, of course, the point of Eric Morecambe's old joke:
Ernie: "Do you know Marjorie Proops?"
Eric: "No, I'm very sorry to hear that!"
[For those who do not know, Marjorie Proops was a UK 'agony aunt' a few years back. For those who do not know English too well, the joke revolves around confusing the noun "Proops" with a non-existent verb ("proops"), which, even though it is not a word in English, suggests something uncomplimentary about the individual concerned.]
It should not need pointing out, but symbols do not (and cannot) determine their own meanings; clearly, human beings do that. We may only suppose the converse if we are prepared to fetishise words, turning them into agents that are not only capable of explaining themselves to us, but are seemingly able to 'recall' over time their own correct meanings and impose them on us, etc. While the futility the idea that they can do this seems eminently reasonable, the vast majority of Philosophers (and all DM-theorists) appear to be oblivious of it, and talk as if they accept it as gospel. How and why they do this will be examined in Essays Nine, Twelve and Fourteen.
Knowing how a word functions goes hand-in-hand with knowing what sort of word it is -- i.e., what station it occupies in language, to paraphrase Wittgenstein. [Eric Morecambe's joke above brings this point out rather well.]
For example, the compound name "Karl Marx" only functions as a name because of the way we use it in sentences. It is not a name because of its reference to Karl Marx. If that were so, it would be a name before it was a name! "Karl Marx" is a name because of the way we use it in sentences, and because of the way it was related to him during his lifetime, and after his death (etc.) -- and because of the practice we have of naming children, for example.
Incidentally, this allows an explanation to be given of how words change meaning over time. Such a process would not be under human control (i.e., not always under our conscious control) if the meanings of words were determined by non-social factors. In fact, the way that many theorists account for the meaning of words suggests that there is a sort of permanently fixed 'semantic halo' (as it were) surrounding each word -- called its "real meaning" --, which follows it everywhere, asserting itself whenever that word is used.
Wittgenstein used the word "Bedeutungskörper" ("meaning-body") to describe this 'semantic halo'. This is well-expressed in the following passage (in a review of Cultural Software, by J M Balkin):
"Balkin thinks that he has avoided metaphysical difficulties by locating cultural information at the 'subindividual' level (p. x), but in reality he reifies an entity called 'information' that has an extremely dubious ontological status. Although the author drops Ludwig Wittgenstein's name in several places, his book is a prime example of what Wittgenstein unflatteringly calls the Bedeutungskörper (meaning-body) method of philosophizing (Philosophical Grammar, edited by Rush Rhees and Anthony Kenny [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978 (referenced here as Wittgenstein (1974), RL)], p.54). In this method, a thinker's intelligence is held captive by the prejudice that behind each sign there must be an invisible nonlinguistic entity called its 'meaning,' even though he can offer no criteria for its existence that are independent of the criteria he uses to ascertain the existence of the sign and what people do with it. [Wolcher (1999), p.297. Quotation marks have been altered to conform to the conventions adopted here. The above link is to a PDF.]
On names in general, see Harrison (1979), and Hanna and Harrison (2004), pp.63-158 -- although, as noted earlier, the latter makes far too many concession to the causal theory of names. Hence, it should be read in conjunction with Baker and Hacker (2005), pp.227-49. On the "semantic halo" theory, see Glock (1996), pp.239-41, Hacker (2000), pp.83-85, and Shanker (1987), pp.293-99, 316-17.
22a0. As noted in the introduction to this Essay, the use of the word "nominalisation" here is slightly misleading, so in many places I have used "particularisation" alongside it.
Traditionally, the 'problem' of predication emerged in Plato's work. In the Sophist (261d-264b) Plato considered the simplest form of proposition, that which comprises a name and a verb, such as "Theaetetus runs". If this is put into the subject copula form -- "Theaetetus is running", and then "Theaetetus is a runner" --, we can see where the nominalisation of the verb ("runs") occurs. [Plato (1997b), pp.284-88.]. On this, see Note 22a, below.
However, Davidson informs us that in Greek the copula was often incorporated into the noun/verb phrase and counted as a verb:
"In the Sophist Plato had limited the discussion to names of human agents and verbs of action, but Aristotle explicitly broadens the scope of both names and verbs. Subject expressions for Aristotle include both common nouns like 'animal' and names like 'Philo'. In the Categories Aristotle provides a list of predicate types (κατηγορίαι -- categories RL). These comprise the category of substance (man, horse), of quantity (four cubits long), of quality (white, grammatical), of relation (double, half, larger), of location (in the Lyceum, in the agora), of time (yesterday, last year), of posture (lying down, sitting), of dress (shod, in armour), of action (cutting, burning), and of affection (being cut, being burned).
"It is not altogether clear whether the predicate (or verb) includes what we express in English by the copula 'is' and its variants. Aristotle says that 'health' is a name, but 'is healthy' is a verb. In Greek 'is healthy' is a single word (ύγιαίνει). This would be right, but he also says verbs are names...." [Davidson (2005), p.91. Italic emphases in the original, bold emphasis added.]
Hence, even Aristotle nominalised his verbs!
Davidson goes on to point out:
"The need to introduce an entity to explain the function of verbs or predicates has been assumed or postulated or argued for my most philosophers who have been interested in the structure of sentences and the thoughts that sentences can be used to express....
"It is reasonable to ask why philosophers have not succeeded by now in solving this simple, though absolutely basic, problem." [Ibid., pp.93-94.]
And, since Hegel was one of the philosophers interested in "the structure of sentences", he is in fact a more recent example of this confusion. The untoward result of this process is explained clearly by Professor E J Lowe:
"What is the problem of predication? In a nutshell, it is this. Consider any simple subject-predicate sentence, such as..., 'Theaetetus sits'. How are we to understand the different roles of the subject and the predicate in this sentence, 'Theaetetus' and 'sits' respectively? The role of 'Theaetetus' seems straightforward enough: it serves to name, and thereby to refer to or stand for, a certain particular human being. But what about 'sits'? Many philosophers have been tempted to say that this also refers to or stands for something, namely, a property or universal that Theaetetus possesses or exemplifies: the property of sitting. This is said to be a universal, rather than a particular, because it can be possessed by many different individuals.
"But now we have a problem, for this view of the matter seems to turn the sentence 'Theaetetus sits' into a mere list of (two) names, each naming something different, one a particular and one a universal: 'Theaetetus, sits.' But a list of names is not a sentence because it is not the sort of thing that can be said to be true or false, in the way that 'Theaetetus sits' clearly can. The temptation now is to say that reference to something else must be involved in addition to Theaetetus and the property of sitting, namely, the relation of possessing that Theaetetus has to that property. But it should be evident that this way of proceeding will simply generate the same problem, for now we have just turned the original sentence into a list of three names, 'Theaetetus, possessing, sits.'
"Indeed, we are now setting out on a vicious infinite regress, which is commonly known as 'Bradley's regress', in recognition of its modern discoverer, the British idealist philosopher F. H. Bradley. Bradley used the regress to argue in favour of absolute idealism...." [Lowe (2006). Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
As Davidson pointed out, this error has in different ways afflicted all traditional theories of predication, and thus much of logic (ancient and modern), and particularly the bowdlerised logic Hegel was taught. Indeed, it can be shown (but I will not do so here), that modern attempts to 'solve' this 'problem' (for example, that which is found in Davidson (2005)) fall into the same trap. This is one "ruling idea" that evidently still rules!
Of course, the point is that there is no 'problem' of predication. The generality a sophisticated theorist like Davidson seeks cannot be found in the symbols we use, for they know nothing of the world. As has been pointed out several times in this Essay and at this site: it is we who supply generality here by the open-ended way we use and receive such words. We bring life to language not the other way round. To suppose otherwise is to fetishise the products of the interaction between human beings as if they were in charge.
As we will see, this is just a carry-over from the ancient idea that the world is in fact the product of the word of some 'god', and that language is the real essence of the world, not matter, and that 'rationality' belongs to the world, or its Maker, not to us. The class motivation for the invention and acceptance of these ancient doctrines will be explored in Essay Twelve (summary here).
22a. On this see Lovejoy (1964), and the long sorry tale is spun out in Copleston (2003), especially Volumes One to Seven.
See also Gregorios (2002), Guthrie (1986a, 1986b), Wallis (1972).
On Plato's discussion of this topic in the Sophist, see Cornforth (1935), pp.165-331, Ackrill (1997b), Brown (2003), and Davidson (2005). Cf., Note 22a0, above. Perhaps the best single paper on this is Owen (1966). See also the detailed study in Pelletier (1990), and Kahn (2003).
On Leibniz, see Mercer (2001), especially pp.173-78, but this theme runs thread-like through Mercer's entire book.
On Newton and the "Cambridge Platonists" (specifically More and Cudworth), see Koyré (1957, 1968); see also Dobbs (2002), pp.94-95, et seq.
22a1. On this, see for example Havelock (1983). These assertions will be fully substantiated in Essay Twelve (summary here).
22b. No attempt will be made here to justify these rather bold claims (but see Note 22a), however, a detailed analysis of these and other points, and how they apply to DM will be undertaken in the remainder of this Essay; their ramifications will be explored throughout the rest of this site. Finally, the effect on science of this traditional approach to knowledge will be explored in a later Essay.
22c. This is most famously attributed to the great Jean Buridan (1300-1358), but the basics of the theory had in fact originated earlier. There is a useful article on-line available as a downloadable file here.
This theory is criticised in Geach (1970), pp.22-46, and Geach (1972b), on which many of my own ideas are based.
22d. Of course, in Buridan's logic, the usual sorts of abstractions do not feature at all (but his theory was far more sophisticated than this might suggest; on this see the link in Note 22c above, and Note 25 below). However, they certainly do so feature in Hegel's work, only there they have now become trapped in an impenetrable fog generated by Hegelian jargon.
23. It might be thought that this should be:
E11: Blair is identical with Manhood.
This alternative will be considered shortly. E11 was:
E11: Blair Attribution Manhood.
As we will see later, the attributing term was 'Identity', a nominalisation of the identity relation.
24. Again, it could be argued that in a sentence like:
E12: Cicero is Tully
one particular is being asserted of another. This claim will be dealt with in Note 24a0, and presently in the main body of this Essay.
24a0. It might be thought possible to predicate one individual of another (or, rather that names can be predicated of named individuals), as in:
P1: James is really called Peter.
P2: K2 is really called Mount Godwin-Austen.
But here, we plainly have two predicates "ξ is really called Peter" and "ζ is really called Mount Godwin-Austen" predicated of named individuals, not two names predicated of either.
Of course, we can say things like this:
P3: K2 is Mount Godwin Austen.
But this is not a predication but an identity.
To be sure, modern logicians would describe the logical form of P3 as follows:
P4: "ξ is ζ",
that is, as a two-place **first level predicate, but the use of "predicate" in modern logic is not the same as it is in traditional (Aristotelian) logic. This can be seen from the fact that these two would be first level (one-place) predicates in modern logic, too:
P5: "ξ is Mount Godwin Austen."
P6: "K2 is ζ."
This sort of analysis is not available in traditional logic.
Moreover, the "is" in P4 would be treated as an "is" of identity, not of predication.
Admittedly, we can refashion logic as we see fit, and claim, for example, that in P3, "Mount Godwin Austen" is being predicated of K2, and thus that names can be predicated of named individuals. But if we do that, we will need to distinguish among those predicates that are names and those that are not, for if we do not, then the generality of what we now call predicates would be lost, and propositions would be lists once more. Moreover, the distinction between naming and describing would vanish, too. [There are, of course, other reasons for rejecting this non-standard analysis; they are rehearsed in the main body of this Essay.]
[**A first level predicate in modern logic is one that can be used to form a proposition with the use of a singular term (e.g., a name); so with P5 and "K2" we can form P3. "One/two-place" simply refers to the number of singular terms the predicate expression will take to form a proposition. Clearly this is one in, say, P5, but two in P4. More details here.]
24aa. Of course, in the original syllogisms, Aristotle was dealing with propositions that contained what are now called quantifier expressions (e.g., "all", "nothing", "some") --, which were themselves later interpreted as names --, but syllogisms did not feature the names of individuals like Blair. This however, does not affect the point being made in this part of the Essay, since it soon became commonplace to ignore Aristotle's strictures on the nature of the syllogism, and employ particular (non-quantified) propositions. Indeed, many today quote the following (hackneyed argument) as a paradigm example of an Aristotelian syllogism (when Aristotle himself would have repudiated it):
A1: All men are mortal.
A2: Socrates is a man.
A3: Ergo, Socrates is mortal.
[More on this in Essay Four.]
24a. Incidentally, this view also created serious problems understanding the nature of falsehood. If, for example, it is false to say:
B1: "Blair is a socialist"
then the identity this sentence is alleged to report between "Blair" and "Socialism" is rather hard to explain.
And it will not do to claim that the above sentence is false because the following is true:
B2: "Blair is not identical with Socialism"
since the bold and underlined "is" in that sentence cannot partake of the same analysis (i.e., that it too must be an "is" of identity) -- or B2 would risk becoming incomprehensible, as in:
B3: "Blair is identical with not identical with Socialism"
if the emphasised "is" is replaced with what it is supposed to mean, i.e., "is identical with".
This topic is explored further in Part Four of this Essay.
25. The corruptions introduced into AFL by 'Term Logic' are outlined in Geach (1972b). On the Identity Theory of Predication, see here, and here. On Buridan's influence, see here.
[AFL = Aristotelian Formal Logic.]
26. It can hardly be:
E11b: Blair is man.
Unless, of course, "man" is interpreted as a shorthand for all men, or for 'manhood' itself. [This is in fact how dialecticians actually interpret such sentences, as we shall see.]
27. Lest it be objected that:
E16: Cicero Identity Relation Tully.
means the same as:
E12: Cicero is Tully.
it is worth recalling that this would be so only if it were read as:
E16a: There is an identity relation between Cicero and Tully.
But, E16a now works only because of the articulation provided by words that do not function as names, as was argued in the text. On this, see Long (1984).
28. Of course, this point partially relies on a fundamentally important Fregean distinction drawn between singular terms and predicate expressions (or linguistic functions), which I will not attempt to defend here. Cf., Beaney (1996), Dummett (1981a, 1981b), Geach (1961, 1972a), Kenny (1995), Noonan (2001) and Weiner (1990, 2004).
But, even if this 'new logic' is wrong in some way, the fundamental distinction we make in language between naming and describing more importantly informs this point.
29. From the record, this process can actually be seen happening in Ancient Greece. On this, see Essays Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here, here and here). See also Note 22a1.
30. We will come across this escape clause (i.e., "their existence cannot be confirmed by any known method, so their actuality can only be verified by 'indirect means'") several more times in other Essays posted at this site, and in detail in Essay Three Part Four. DM-theorists use this 'get out of jail free card' to try to distinguish themselves from "crude materialists" (i.e., those who are in effect consistent materialists, who like to think that science should be based on evidence not on linguistic chicanery).
In addition, it is worth emphasising that the import of (3) (re-posted below) in the text does not find echo in this long quotation from The Holy Family:
"The mystery of critical presentation…is the mystery of speculative, of Hegelian construction….
"If from real apples, pears, strawberries and almonds I form the general idea 'Fruit', if I go further and imagine that my abstract idea 'Fruit', derived from real fruit, is an entity existing outside me, is indeed the true essence of the pear, the apple, etc., then -- in the language of speculative philosophy -- I am declaring that 'Fruit' is the 'Substance' of the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. I am saying, therefore, that to be an apple is not essential to the apple; that what is essential to these things is not their real existence, perceptible to the senses, but the essence that I have abstracted from them and then foisted on them, the essence of my idea -- 'Fruit'…. Particular real fruits are no more than semblances whose true essence is 'the substance' -- 'Fruit'….
"Having reduced the different real fruits to the one 'fruit' of abstraction -- 'the Fruit', speculation must, in order to attain some semblance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from 'the Fruit', from the Substance to the diverse, ordinary real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea 'the Fruit' as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction….
"The main interest for the speculative philosopher is therefore to produce the existence of the real ordinary fruits and to say in some mysterious way that there are apples, pears, almonds and raisins. But the apples, pears, almonds and raisins that we rediscover in the speculative world are nothing but semblances of apples, semblances of pears, semblances of almonds and semblances of raisins, for they are moments in the life of 'the Fruit', this abstract creation of the mind, and therefore themselves abstract creations of the mind…. When you return from the abstraction, the supernatural creation of the mind, 'the Fruit', to real natural fruits, you give on the contrary the natural fruits a supernatural significance and transform them into sheer abstractions. Your main interest is then to point out the unity of 'the Fruit' in all the manifestations of its life…that is, to show the mystical interconnection between these fruits, how in each of them 'the Fruit' realizes itself by degrees and necessarily progresses, for instance, from its existence as a raisin to its existence as an almond. Hence the value of the ordinary fruits no longer consists in their natural qualities, but in their speculative quality, which gives each of them a definite place in the life-process of 'the Absolute Fruit'.
"The ordinary man does not think he is saying anything extraordinary when he states that there are apples and pears. But when the philosopher expresses their existence in the speculative way he says something extraordinary. He performs a miracle by producing the real natural objects, the apple, the pear, etc., out of the unreal creation of the mind 'the Fruit'….
"It goes without saying that the speculative philosopher accomplishes this continuous creation only by presenting universally known qualities of the apple, the pear, etc., which exist in reality, as determining features invented by him, by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, to abstract formulas of reason, finally, by declaring his own activity, by which he passes from the idea of an apple to the idea of a pear, to be the self-activity of the Absolute Subject, 'the Fruit'.
"In the speculative way of speaking, this operation is called comprehending Substance as Subject, as an inner process, as an Absolute Person, and this comprehension constitutes the essential character of Hegel's method." [Marx and Engels (1975a), pp.72-75. Emphases in the original.]
I make no apologies for quoting this passage at length since it almost single-handedly demolishes the DM-theory of abstraction. It is a pity that in later life both Marx and Engels seem to have lost the philosophical clarity they revealed in this passage. In many respects it anticipates much of Frege and Wittgenstein's approach to abstract ideas, even if phrased in a completely different philosophical idiom.
So, instead of Marx and Engels aping the methods of traditional thinkers here, we find them repeatedly using ordinary terms to ridicule the bizarre conclusions of speculative Philosophers. Indeed, they counterpose everyday language to the obscure terminology the latter employ.
This, of course, echoes another, and even more apposite passage from the German Ideology:
"For philosophers, one of the most difficult tasks 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 had 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.
"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 would only have to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, 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.]
The example set by these two (when their minds were young and strong) I have tried to emulate here. In that case, any comrades who find fault with my approach should rather focus their ire on the young Marx and Engels for directing our attention back to ordinary language, and away from the distorted abstractions of Philosophers.
[For ease of reference (3) was:
(3) Ordinary words are unsuitable for expressing such deeper, essential truths -- even if they dimly hint at them (perhaps to the "abstract understanding"). A more muscular approach to theory is required; "dialectical" then "speculative thought" enables those engaged upon either or both to gain easy access to the hidden secrets governing and inter-linking these "essences". Unfortunately, these cannot be pointed at or otherwise identified in material reality, but they exist nonetheless -- or so traditional Philosophers tell us. To be sure, their existence cannot be confirmed by any known physical method, but that just means they are more fundamental, non-contingent (and thus the source of 'genuine' knowledge), and that their actuality must be 'verified' by indirect, purely 'rational' means. While we cannot see them, or detect them in any way, shape or form, the logical structure of our sentences tells us they are more real than any of the objects and processes that are available to the senses.
Naturally, this means that these "essences" have to be imposed on the material world.]
31. Attentive readers will have noticed that LIMPE collapses readily into LIE.
31a. This is an allusion to "Mitochondrial Eve", the supposed mother of us all. In this sense, all that is or could exist can be spun from John's inner being by the application of enough dialectical magic. John is indeed a cosmic egg. But so are you!
31b. Hegel in fact used the sentence: "The rose is red", among others:
"The Judgment is the notion in its particularity, as a connection which is also a distinguishing of its functions, which are put as independent and yet as identical with themselves not with one another.
"One's first impression about the Judgment is the independence of the two extremes, the subject and the predicate. The former we take to be a thing or term per se, and the predicate a general term outside the said subject and somewhere in our heads. The next point is for us to bring the latter into combination with the former, and in this way frame a Judgment. The copula 'is', however, enunciates the predicate of the subject, and so that external subjective subsumption is again put in abeyance, and the Judgment taken as a determination of the object itself. The etymological meaning of the Judgment (Urtheil) in German goes deeper, as it were declaring the unity of the notion to be primary, and its distinction to be the original partition. And that is what the Judgment really is.
"In its abstract terms a Judgment is expressible in the proposition: 'The individual is the universal.' These are the terms under which the subject and the predicate first confront each other, when the functions of the notion are taken in their immediate character or first abstraction. (Propositions such as, 'The particular is the universal', and 'The individual is the particular', belong to the further specialisation of the judgment.) It shows a strange want of observation in the logic-books, that in none of them is the fact stated, that in every judgment there is still a statement made, as, the individual is the universal, or still more definitely, The subject is the predicate (e.g. God is absolute spirit). No doubt there is also a distinction between terms like individual and universal, subject and predicate: but it is none the less the universal fact, that every judgment states them to be identical.
"The copula 'is' springs from the nature of the notion, to be self-identical even in parting with its own. The individual and universal are its constituents, and therefore characters which cannot be isolated. The earlier categories (of reflection) in their correlations also refer to one another: but their interconnection is only 'having' and not 'being', i.e. it is not the identity which is realised as identity or universality. In the judgment, therefore, for the first time there is seen the genuine particularity of the notion: for it is the speciality or distinguishing of the latter, without thereby losing universality....
"The Judgment is usually taken in a subjective sense as an operation and a form, occurring merely in self-conscious thought. This distinction, however, has no existence on purely logical principles, by which the judgment is taken in the quite universal signification that all things are a judgment. That is to say, they are individuals which are a universality or inner nature in themselves -- a universal which is individualised. Their universality and individuality are distinguished, but the one is at the same time identical with the other.
"The interpretation of the judgment, according to which it is assumed to be merely subjective, as if we ascribed a predicate to a subject is contradicted by the decidedly objective expression of the judgment. The rose is red; Gold is a metal. It is not by us that something is first ascribed to them. A judgment is however distinguished from a proposition. The latter contains a statement about the subject, which does not stand to it in any universal relationship, but expresses some single action, or some state, or the like. Thus, 'Caesar was born at Rome in such and such a year waged war in Gaul for ten years, crossed the Rubicon, etc.', are propositions, but not judgments. Again it is absurd to say that such statements as 'I slept well last night' or 'Present arms!' may be turned into the form of a judgment. 'A carriage is passing by' should be a judgment, and a subjective one at best, only if it were doubtful, whether the passing object was a carriage, or whether it and not rather the point of observation was in motion: in short, only if it were desired to specify a conception which was still short of appropriate specification....
"The abstract terms of the judgement, 'The individual is the universal', present the subject (as negatively self-relating) as what is immediately concrete, while the predicate is what is abstract, indeterminate, in short the universal. But the two elements are connected together by an 'is': and thus the predicate (in its universality) must contain the speciality of the subject, must, in short, have particularity: and so is realised the identity between subject and predicate; which being thus unaffected by this difference in form, is the content." [Hegel (1975), pp.230-34, §166-169. A copy is available here. Italic emphasis in the original, bold emphasis added.]
This passage will be analysed in more detail in Essay Twelve. See also below, here.
32. One or more of these ideas is found in scholastic texts, as well as in Leibniz, Kant and Hegel's work.
33. This is because John is not Julius Caesar, not Ghandi, not George W Bush, not the youth at the supermarket checkout, not….
Spinoza's greedy principle (henceforth, SGP: "every determination is also a negation") thus allegedly connects John with the rest of humanity, so whatever identifies them indirectly identifies John, and vice versa. Though fictional, John thus comes to symbolise all that is true of human beings.
But, the SGP is "greedy" since its appetite is difficult to contain, and seemingly boundless. This is because John is also "not Santa Claus", just as he is "not the first man to eat Madagascar" and "not the saliva on Jabba the Hutt's chin". The SGP now allows us to link John with anything that can be named or described, no matter how strange that might seem, just so long as a negative particle can be glued onto it.
[Attempts made by dialecticians to answer this objection will be considered in Essay Three Part Four, and Essay Eleven Part One.]
Clearly, this has disastrous consequences for the DM-Totality, for on the basis of shaky logic like this (if every determination is also a negation), the Totality will unavoidably contain some rather bizarre 'beings' -- in fact, it must contain every weird item imaginable, all of which define John!
This goes to show that the SGP is a completely useless principle, and inimical to materialism.
This is quite apart from the fact that The SGP confuses what we say in language with the means by which we do this. That is, of course, as sensible as confusing the food you ate with the frying pan you used to cook it! [More on this in Essay Twelve.]
34. Incidentally, herein lie the seeds of the idea that all knowledge is only ever partial, for the individual (John) is here only partially linked (at least in 'subjective dialectics') with the universal, whereas the universal is 'infinite', presumably because it has no 'empirical limitations'.
The idea that there are no real or complete falsehoods (just truths that are more or less partial) arises from defective logic like this too, too, for if propositions are comprised only of names conjoined by the identity sign, then, those names cannot fail to name existent objects in reality, or they would not be names. In that case, they cannot be false. More details on this will be given in Part Four of this Essay. See also Note 24aa, above. [However, on this, see Davidson (2005), pp.76-140.]
35. In Essay Twelve it will be argued that this manoeuvre underpins both the RRT and LIE. It will also be shown (in Essay Nine Part Two) why DM-theorists are especially prone to making this sort of mistake. [Summaries here, here, and here.]
[RRT = Reverse Reflection Theory of Knowledge; to be explained in Essay Twelve Part Four; LIE = Linguistic Idealism, also to be explained in Essay Twelve Part Four.]
36. This is considered in more detail in Essays Two, Twelve and Thirteen (summaries here and here).
36a. Why this is so will be established in detail in Essay Twelve (summary here). The sordid history of these ideas will be exposed extensively in Essay Fourteen (summary here).
37. As will be argued in detail later (and as was pointed out in Note 33, above), the attempt to read fundamental features of reality from certain aspects of language would populate the world with a host of weird and wonderful beings, including the Tooth Fairy and Big Foot. On this basis too, it would be possible to infer the actuality of anything that is expressed in a false proposition (which, oddly enough, would make it strangely true!). On this, see Essay Eleven Part One, and Part Four of this Essay.
37a. But, of course, such ancestral abstractors would have to have been unaware of what they were putting into the grammar of Proto-Indo-European, unless, of course, we are to suppose that ancient tribesmen and women were 'unconscious' dialecticians who discovered all this stuff long before Hegel succeeded in mangling German, but which these ancient people encoded in a rather minor grammatical form as genuine predicates (which would be an odd place to hide such a profound discovery, anyway).
The fact that this is a minor grammatical form is easily confirmed by anyone who makes a note of how many times a day, or a week, they hear, say, read or use the "S is P" structure. Of course, school grammar teaches pupils to locate the "subject" and the "predicate" of each sentence, but this is not the same as the "S is P" form. [For Hegel's trick to work, there has to be an "is" of predication in there somewhere to start with.]
To be sure, there are other copulas in Indo-European (which are verbs other than "to be" -- like "to have", "to want", "to find"), but it is even more difficult to turn these into the "is" of identity which Hegel requires. On this, see here and here. In that case the "S is P" form is a relatively minor part of a sub-category of Indo-European grammar.
On the limitations of the "S is P" form, see Geach (1968), and Note 38.
It could be objected that this does not matter since philosophers like Hegel are only interested in the "S is P" form. Maybe so, but even then, they have to doctor the verb to make their theory work, and they do so in a way that destroys the capacity of language to say anything at all. If they are happy with that, they can keep it.
38. When would such a sentence about John ever be used?
By way of contrast, it might be instructive to see if there are any dialecticians on this planet who can milk some dialectics out of the following ordinary indicative sentences:
M1: John runs the local strike committee.
M2: There is something useful to read in John's strike bulletin.
M3: Anything the bosses threatened us with, John can outmanoeuvre.
M4: Any friend of John's is no friend of management.
M5: John is the strike committee now -- since everyone else has been arrested.
M6: John gave the leaflets to Rebecca, who handed them to Janet, who posted them to Paul, who left them on the tube on his way to meet Miriam.
M7: Every strike leader like John makes mistakes.
M8: John is a real man; that's why comrades respect him.
M9: John is in fact now a woman; he had the operation last week, but that should not affect his/her role in the Union.
M10: Everyone who admires John despises all who agree with any of those who argue that the strike committee should recommend acceptance of whatever management has offered to most of those who are still on strike for receiving nothing in this year's pay award.
Many of these are not of the simple subject/predicate form beloved of fans of Dialectical/Stone Age Logic. In fact, I defy anyone enamoured of AFL or DL to try to express M10 in the Stone Age Logic of their choice.
[DL = Dialectical Logic; AFL = Aristotelian Formal Logic.]
But Lenin must have uttered sentences like these many times throughout his life (albeit, not necessarily about John, or as complex as M10). Why then did he ignore such examples?
The answer is clear: he uncritically accepted the word of a mystic. Material language like this is not DM-friendly (as Marx indicated).
38a. Of course, it could be argued, a là Feuerbach, that theological propositions are in fact a reflection of something (namely an alienated view humanity has of itself). In that case, the subject/predicate form contains this ideological 'view' (or, it can be expressed by means of it).
Maybe so, but no one would argue that just because of that such sentences are true, or even partially-true. Indeed, there would be no point in dialecticians arguing that there is no evidence for believing in the existence of God if all that a 'dialectical theist' had to do was point to the subject/predicate form as proof that God must exist, "since our sentences have had this truth programmed into them by intrepid abstractors in former generations".
If the "is" of predication were one of identity, we would be able to argue thus:
|
N1: Lenin is a man. |
I.e., Lenin = Man. |
|
N2: Trotsky is a man. |
I.e., Trotsky = Man. |
|
N3: Therefore, Lenin is Trotsky. |
I.e., Lenin = Trotsky. |
Of course, since Lenin is not Trotsky, this 'contradiction' must mean that either Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov will turn into Lev Davidovich Bronstein beyond the grave, or he will be in eternal struggle with him in dialectical heaven. As Plekhanov (and several other DM-worthies) assured us:
"And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite…." [Plekhanov (1956), p.77.]
So, since Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov is not Lev Davidovich Bronstein, he must one day turn into him. Is this, therefore, not a sound dialectical proof that there is an after-life?
Who can complain? It's coded into the logic of language!
Of course, should anyone take exception to this crazy sort of logic, as they ought(!!), the dotty nature of at least this part of DL should then become clear to them.
[NON = Negation of the Negation; DL = Dialectical Logic.]
Nevertheless, someone could argue that the NON really pictures individuals as follows:
L1: Lenin is not not-identical with mankind.
So, the above 'derivation' (i.e., N1-N3) does not work. Or so it could be claimed.
But, L1 is in fact:
L2: Lenin = not not-identical with mankind.
[Where the "is" of predication has been replaced by its 'dialectical alter ego', the "is" of identity, again. Of course, this annoying re-write can only be neutralised by a far more sensible analysis of propositions than is available to such Stone Age Logicians.]
Now throw in the following:
L3: Trotsky = not not-identical with mankind.
And once more we have:
L4: Lenin = Trotsky.
For those still in thrall to such pre-historic logic, the few ways that are available to them to try dialectically to extricate themselves from this hole are considered below, near the end of Note 40, and in Essay Eight Part Three -- and then blocked.
However, in the above 'argument', if anyone objects to the use of the present tense (in, say, N1: "Lenin is a man"), on the grounds that Lenin is now dead, then they would not be able to correct the following false belief: "Lenin is a brand of Vodka", with a "No, Lenin is a man, sadly now dead."
In fact, even on that basis, we could argue that since Lenin is dead, he is an ex-man -- as indeed is Trotsky --; the argument would thus proceed as before.
Diabolical Logic like this is not so easily tamed.
Consider then this version of the above 'argument':
|
N1: Lenin is dead. |
I.e., Lenin = Dead. |
|
N2: Trotsky is dead. |
I.e., Trotsky = Dead. |
|
N3: Therefore, Lenin is Trotsky. |
I.e., Lenin = Trotsky. |
There are many more 'dialectical proofs' like this; readers are invited to wile away the hours concocting a few more of their own.
39a. It could be objected here that these terms are not being substituted salva congruitate (i.e., in a way that preserves their grammatical or syntactical role); however, the right to make that sort of complaint was forfeited the moment predicate expressions were deliberately confused with the names of abstract particulars.
39b. And it is to no avail to re-write H1 using an "=" sign in an endeavour to forestall this recursive use of "is":
H1: John is a man.
H1a: John = man.
H1b: John equals man.
This is because the "=" sign reads as "is identical with", and that itself contains another recursive "is". Moreover, reading the "=" sign as "equals" (in H1b) is far too weak, as we will discover in Essay Six.
But, even if we could do this, this ploy will not work with Lenin's statement:
H6: The individual is opposed to the universal.
By no stretch of the imagination can this be replaced with:
H6a: The individual = opposed to the universal.
It is worth recalling that, interpreted materially, an act of predication is merely saying something of a named (or otherwise designated) subject. So, "John is a man" just asserts something of whoever the name "John" designates -- or, better: "ξ is a man" can be used to form a true sentence, if and only if the relevant language has an available name (i.e., "John") conventionally used to pick out men/human beings in general, and this man in particular.
Alternatively, as Aristotle would have said, the predicate "man" applies to whoever "John" names.
Looked at this way, therefore, there is no "is" anywhere in sight for dialecticians to magic into an identity.
[Other languages that lack the copula "is" also proceed along similar lines.]
Readers, however, might wonder how the genuine "is" of identity fares under such scrutiny; must it too explode in infinite confusion? So, in sentences like the following:
S1: Cicero is Tully
are we forced to explicate this "is" in like manner:
S2: Cicero *is* identical with Tully.
S3: Cicero is identical with identical with Tully.
And so on? If not, then this cannot be a problem for dialecticians either. Or so a counter-claim might proceed.
However, when we say that "the 'is' that appears in S1 *is* one of identity", the asterisked *is* †is† itself one of predication (as $is$ the one following it (i.e., "†is†"), and the same applies to one in these brackets (namely, "$is$"), too), which can be explicated a là Aristotle, and thus is not essential to predication:
S4: "Identical with Tully" applies to Cicero.
Or, perhaps more colloquially, "Cicero" and "Tully" are names for the same man; or even "Cicero has two names, 'Cicero' and 'Tully'."
DM-fans cannot do this because they maintain that "is" is always one of identity (in such essentialist contexts). Hence, their theory collapses in the way I have indicated, whereas the Aristotelian/colloquial account does not.
In fact, Hegel thinks he has a reply to this Aristotelian riposte:
"To define the subject as that of which something is said, and the predicate as what is said about it, is mere trifling. It gives no information about the distinction between the two. In point of thought, the subject is primarily the individual, and the predicate the universal. As the judgment receives further development, the subject ceases to be merely the immediate individual, and the predicate merely the abstract universal: the former acquires the additional significations of particular and universal, the latter the additional significations of particular and individual. Thus while the same names are given to the two terms of the judgment, their meaning passes through a series of changes." [Hegel (1975), p.234. Bold emphasis added.]
Hegel's justifies his rejection of Aristotle's interpretation on the grounds that this 'definition' gives us no information about the distinction between subjects and predicates. But, quite apart from the fact that this way of looking at propositions (or even "judgements") is highly limited in itself (it cannot, for example, cope with complex sentences that Hegel himself used, even in this passage, let alone throughout the rest of his work!), the alleged 'definition' tells us all we need to know. We can see this from the fact that Hegel, in common with most other pre-modern theorists, readily confused talk about talk with talk about things. For example, he tells us that "the subject is primarily the individual and the predicate the universal", whereas a predicate is a linguistic expression (they do not populate the heavens!), which is something the 'definition' to which he took exception makes quite clear. Finally we can see here once again (in the last sentence) that he confused names with predicates.
In that case, it is clear that, as confused as Aristotle was over many things, he was a model of clarity next to this Hermetic Harebrain.
Furthermore, it is this traditional confusion of talk about talk with talk about things that allowed Hegel to go on to confuse his own obscure thoughts with development in reality (surely the philosophical equivalent of a madman who thinks he is 'God').
Or, to put this another way, Hegel's confusion of the "is" of identity with the "is" of predication (or, indeed, his rejection of the significance of the latter) only makes sense if Reality is Ideal, where it does not really matter if the one is confused with the other.
[Hegel's other comments on "individuals", "universals", "particulars" and the like will be destructively criticised in Essay Twelve.]
However, this morbid (if not prurient) interest in John's manhood is not confined to Lenin. We find a similar but less cautious version of it in comrade Novack's widely circulated book:
"This law of identity of opposites, which so perplexes and horrifies addicts of formal logic, can be easily understood, not only when it is applied to actual processes of development and interrelations of events, but also when it is contrasted with the formal law of identity. It is logically true that A equals A, that John is John…. But it is far more profoundly true that A is also non-A. John is not simply John: John is a man. This correct proposition is not an affirmation of abstract identity, but an identification of opposites. The logical category or material class, mankind, with which John is one and the same is far more and other than John, the individual. Mankind is at the same time identical with, yet different from John." [Novack (1971), p.92.]
Contrary to what Novack imagines will be the case with the "addicts of formal logic", the latter will find little in this passage to worry them or, indeed, prompt them to kick the habit. However, they will find much that will bemuse them, just as they will find even more that will put them off Marxism forever -- if this is the best example of 'advanced' logic that dialecticians can come up with!
Now, the hackneyed DM-version of the LOI -- i.e., "A equals A" -- will be examined in detail in Essay Six, but Novack's own brand of superior logic immediately changes this into "John is John" (and not even "John equals John"). Novack then reproduces his own version of Hegel's egregious confusion of the "is" of predication with the "is" of identity -- a switch that Novack nowhere justifies or defends. [On that confusion, see below.]
It is worth asking therefore whether Novack (or any other dialectician) would try this tactic on the following sentence:
N4: John is a centimetre taller than his brother Jim.
By no stretch of the imagination could this be read as:
N5: John is identical to a centimetre taller than his brother Jim.
Or even:
N6: John equals a centimetre taller than his brother Jim.
Nor would he (they) try it with the following:
N7: John is upset with his boss.
If we were to apply 'Novackian logic' to N7, we would get these misbegotten sentences:
N8: John is identical with upset with his boss.
N9: John equals upset with his boss.
Mischievous readers might like to suggest what dialecticians would do with the following:
N10: John is taller than Sheila, shorter than Mike, but just as heavy as Simon.
N11: John is due to go on strike next week, but he has just been admitted to hospital.
N12: John is not himself today; he ate a dodgy curry last night.
N13: John is the equal of any comrade in the party.
N14: John is unequal to the task set him by the strike committee.
N15: John is convinced that dialectical logic is wrong about the copula "is" being an "is" of identity.
However, not content with that, Novack pulls an unrelated schematic sentence out of thin air (i.e., "A is also non-A"), and with respect to John he immediately mistranslates it (recall, this is Novack's own example!).
Hence, instead of using "John is also non-John" --, which would have been an obvious absurdity, even though it is a correct translation of his own schematic sentence (i.e., "A is also non-A") -- Novack actually considers a non-equivalent paraphrase of it, namely "John is not simply John". But, the schematically equivalent, non-negated version of that sentence (which is the necessary logical foil that Novack needs to set up a spurious IO) would have been "A is simply A", which nowhere appears in the above passage.
Even so, based on what Novack does say, "A is simply A" must have been the version of the LOI he had in mind, given that he then went on to use "John is not simply John" to contradict it. But who apart from John is going to get excited about that version of the LOI? Is there a formal logician this side of the Kuiper Belt who would want to defend "A is simply A" as a legitimate form of the LOI? It's not a classical example of the LOI. It's not even Novack's example!
[IO = Identity of Opposites; LOI - Law of Identity.]
As we delve deeper into the murky depths of Novackian Super-scientific Logic, we find the reasoning becomes even more perplexing. How, it may be wondered, is the simple sentence "John is a man" an instance of an IO? Surely, "John is a woman" would have been a better choice? Or maybe: "John is Peter"? Or perhaps even: "John is an ape-like ancestor of the human race"?
But, given other DM-precepts -- such as the belief that objects turn into their opposites (witness Plekhanov's clanger above), or that opposite tendencies in objects eventually become apparent in the changes that issue forth (because of the alleged "struggle" that is going on in all things, if Lenin is to be believed) -- does this therefore mean that John is about to become everyone (or every man?) as he mutates into his opposite? If John is in fact the opposite of all men, then surely he must one day become them all -- and they him. In this universal, futuristic John-like world -- and world-like John --, where everyone is John and he is everyone, all struggle should cease, for then it would indeed be true that John is everything, and everything is John. In such a Super-Johnsville, the class struggle would finally end, for then nothing would be the opposite of John, and the universe would be one huge John-centred tautology.
[Of course, if John is to turn into everything that he is not, then the entire universe will one day become this unfortunate character; Johntology of this sort seems to be the final denouement of the Big Bang. We might even call this the "Johntological Argument".]
Alternatively, back in the real world, John must become a man (as indeed he must if he is the opposite of "a man", as Novack asserts). But then, what is he now? Is he a non-man, a sub-human? It seems he must be if he has to become his opposite -- which DL assures us is "a man". So, despite appearances, "John is a man" really means (i.e., once we put our 'dialectical specs' on and shun the prejudices of 'commonsense' and "bourgeois formal thinking"): "John is (perhaps) an untermensch, for only then could he turn into his opposite, "a man".
On the other hand, if John and all men are opposites, and subject to an inner struggle, then it must be the case that all men are opposing or fighting John. Is he therefore a sort of inter-galactic George W Bush, whom all despise and would gladly slap insensible if they got half a chance?
If not, then what is the point of all this? Even in DM-terms it makes no sense.
Of course, Novack does attempt to substantiate this prize specimen of Super-Duper 'logic' by an appeal to the principle of class inclusion, in the following manner:
H1: John is a man.
N16a: John is a member of the class of men. [I.e., paraphrasing Novack's: "The logical category or material class, mankind, with which John is one and the same...."]
N16b: John is identical with the class of men. [Alternative paraphrase to the last part of N16a.]
If, as appears to be the case, Novack really believed that H1 meant the same as (or implied) N16b, then his understanding of English was seriously defective. Novack seems never to have questioned the sense of asserting that an individual is identical with a class; no ordinary speaker would do this (nor would anyone else who is still in possession of their sanity).
Clearly, N16b could only ever be (sort of) true if John was the only man left alive (compare this with M5, above: "John is the strike committee now -- since everyone else has been arrested"). But, even if H1 could be read as a camouflaged class inclusion statement (i.e., as N16a pictures things), it would still be impossible to extract all that Novack imagines he can squeeze from it. Even Novack seems to half-recognise this since he had to substitute the following for N16a:
N17: Mankind is at the same time identical with yet different from John.
But, the first half of this is false:
N17a: Mankind is identical with John.
It is just not true that mankind is identical with John (and H1 can only be made to say so on the basis of more of the same 'innovative' grammar; i.e., confusing the "is" of predication with the "is" of identity). Even a New Labour spin doctor would have problems twisting H1 into so grotesque a shape.
On the other hand, any normal person reading H17a would take it to mean that John is perhaps the only survivor of a horrific worldwide catastrophe of some sort, that John was all that was left of mankind -- and that therefore John is mankind (or, humankind) -- i.e., he is its sole representative.
But then how are we to make sense the second half?
N17b: Mankind is different from John.
Again, the only (normal) way to interpret this would be to regard it as suggesting that John might not actually be human, or maybe not fully human. Perhaps he's half-animal, a clone, or maybe an alien? But, if so, what's all the fuss about? Indeed, would there be such a fuss if the sentence had been "Joan is a man"?
[But, doesn't N17b translate as:
N17c: Mankind is identical with different from John
if the "is " of N17b is replaced by "identical with" as we are assured it should be?]
Hence, and far more honestly, N17 would be re-interpreted as one or more of the following:
[N17: Mankind is at the same time identical with yet different from John.]
N18: John is all that is left of humanity because he is a clone (making him different from other men), who then wiped out the entire male population of the planet.