Thesis, antithesis, synthesis

Since you can't read, I'll explain it simple like for the simplton. Marx wrote Capital using the dialectic, but that doesn't mean that you need to use the dialectic to understand it. Nice try at obfuscating the argument.

You get better here:

Because you are unable to understand that fact that all ideas have come from the ruling class, including Marx's. All of human knowledge and understanding is a mountain. This is your favorite straw man. There are experts, they provide research and understanding, and I don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, but instead seek to understand knowledge objectively. The subjective source of that knowledge should be taken into account, but the material reality uncovered by that knowledge is key.

this is choice:

This coming from a person who can't read! I'm not reading into Marx, but am inferencing from Marx. Don't blame me if you don't know basic reading strategies.

Well, since it's based upon the works of Marx, why not? Do you have a better idea to call Marx's dialectic? Oh yeah, you say that it doesn't exist.

Hmm... You don't know jack shit about how the Tao developed then do you? I thought not. Carry on with your ignorance.

And I was, how did you put it, oh yeah, taking the piss.

Indicative of your absolutism. Since I don't agree with your logic, then I don't know logic. Yup, you're consistent.

As far as Marx's use of the term "coquetted", it's just further proof that you can't read. There's a context for it, and you missed that context. So, uhm, yeah, if you could read, then you'd know what I was talking about, but you can't.

Since you're an absolutist, You assume that I am one two, and you're projecting your belief system onto me. Sorry, no dice. As Marx negated Hegel, it's Marx's dialectic that I employ. Hegel was part of the process that Marx employed in crafting the Dialectic.

On a side note, you are aware that Marx crafted his dissertation of Epicurus from fragments right? Yeah, Marx could read and use his human capacity for induction and deduction.

What you call logic is empirical bourgeois formalism. I don't agree that your mechanical logic is an acurate representation of reality. So, I'm comfortable with contradiction, so long as they are part of the organic process of change, which the dialectic seeks to understand.

It's pretty sad actually that you didn't understand what I meant by using "package" and deconstructionist techniques on a word. Don't blame me if you don't know what the word means, especially when you say that you know everything about the dialectic. Hint: negation is the process of unbecoming to become.

I love how you use the word "hermetic", where I would use the term shematic or epistemological. Ah well. The dialectic is used epistemologically to extract understanding to create a concrete analsysis capable of building an abastraction out of. It's in Gollobin's discussion of Piaget.

Not total ignorance, as I was having a great laugh with you trying to disprove the first law using the moon! It was such a laugh fest.

It's not just enough to be a revisionist, but now you're revising history? wow. Sad, so sad.

Yes. Thanks for correcting my spelling. Not that you're an elitist or anything.

The RCP and ISO are. I gave some examples of Leninists.

economist. Damn, too many spelling errors in my last post. I'll take more care editing, I promise, I really doooo.

What you call a "syntactic mess" may actually be me using the dialectic, but you're so ambiguous with it, that I don't know exactly what you're referring to.

Are you seriously saying that you're unaware of correspondance between Marx and Engels?

Why would you know what "code" means in terms of discourse?

words don't define themselves. They are defined through context, coding, and interraction. I'll go out on a limb and define philosophy thus: Philo = love sophia = wisdom, knowledge

philosophy = a search for, and a method to understand the world around us. This is the meaning I'm employing behind the term philosophy, and the meaning common to it in the vernacular. What are you discoursing with?

Sorry I forgot that you can't read. The prounoun "it" in my sentence referred to the reading strategy "inference" which the site was about. Since you're a mechanical automaton, you mechanically thought that I referred to the site, and not the subject of the site. You do that often don't you, you know miss the subtext. You know miss the content when you're looking at the form, and the form when you're looking at the content; can't see the trees because the forest gets in the way...

Yup, further proof that Leninists don't understand the state. Carry on.

No one I guess, I mean, you were just acting like a Leninist is all. Carry on.

Yup, I'm sure that you understand the ideology of the state, I mean everything you've typed here fully illustrates a deep understanding of it. Yup, profound.

I think that the dialectic pre-dates all class society, and that as we recapture our humanity, that we'll see things as they are. the idealist social constructs of today are all part and parcel of class society and need to be removed, so the philosophy that existed before class society would be the best one to build upon, as communism will have to be built through a synthesis of struggle between humanity and nature to find harmony. If you knew anything about Ch'an, Zen, or the Tao, then you'd know what I was saying.

This self-parody is the funniest thing that you've ever typed. Do you take yourself that seriousely? Wow.

If that's all you can focus on, then you're reminding me of the sophomoric Beavis and Butthead who would say stuff like, "she said bra" during health class. Is that what the class was on, no, but that's what they got because they couldn't grasp what was going on.

Mao's nationalism wasn't a logical blunder??? Whoa. Okay.

According to a Leninist who doesn't think that Mao's nationalism wasn't a logical blunder? Uhm... no.

I'm sure St. Max would have said it the same way. Carry on Sachmo!

More mind reading. I actually am waiting for a shred of proof, I mean other than, "I have a PHD". Of course, summarize and synthesize whatever you give.

So, you refuse to define 1.) philsophy and 2.) the dialectic. So, you refuse to particularize our discourse by unpackaging the terms that we're discoursing with. You're not a very good semanticist are you?

uhm, I've put it into practice in this polemic, but you missed it. So, Beavis, carry on.

Who says that it's never been explained? It's still being developed, and our understanding of it is developing too. The ruling class does not want us thinking dialectically at all, as that would endanger their hold on our ideology.

Yeah, Lenin without the dialectic is quite terrifying. I think the term is "Blanquism."

Since you can't read, I'll explain it simple like for the simplton. Marx wrote Capital using the dialectic, but that doesn't mean that you need to use the dialectic to understand it. Nice try at obfuscating the argument.

You get better here:

Because you are unable to understand that fact that all ideas have come from the ruling class, including Marx's. All of human knowledge and understanding is a mountain. This is your favorite straw man. There are experts, they provide research and understanding, and I don't throw out the baby with the bathwater, but instead seek to understand knowledge objectively. The subjective source of that knowledge should be taken into account, but the material reality uncovered by that knowledge is key.

this is choice:

This coming from a person who can't read! I'm not reading into Marx, but am inferencing from Marx. Don't blame me if you don't know basic reading strategies.

Well, since it's based upon the works of Marx, why not? Do you have a better idea to call Marx's dialectic? Oh yeah, you say that it doesn't exist.

Hmm... You don't know jack shit about how the Tao developed then do you? I thought not. Carry on with your ignorance.

And I was, how did you put it, oh yeah, taking the piss.

Indicative of your absolutism. Since I don't agree with your logic, then I don't know logic. Yup, you're consistent.

As far as Marx's use of the term "coquetted", it's just further proof that you can't read. There's a context for it, and you missed that context. So, uhm, yeah, if you could read, then you'd know what I was talking about, but you can't.

Since you're an absolutist, You assume that I am one two, and you're projecting your belief system onto me. Sorry, no dice. As Marx negated Hegel, it's Marx's dialectic that I employ. Hegel was part of the process that Marx employed in crafting the Dialectic.

On a side note, you are aware that Marx crafted his dissertation of Epicurus from fragments right? Yeah, Marx could read and use his human capacity for induction and deduction.

What you call logic is empirical bourgeois formalism. I don't agree that your mechanical logic is an acurate representation of reality. So, I'm comfortable with contradiction, so long as they are part of the organic process of change, which the dialectic seeks to understand.

It's pretty sad actually that you didn't understand what I meant by using "package" and deconstructionist techniques on a word. Don't blame me if you don't know what the word means, especially when you say that you know everything about the dialectic. Hint: negation is the process of unbecoming to become.

[quoteHermetic ideas you have swallowed have ruined even your low grade logical skills, to such an extent that your only come back is a swear word.

I love how you use the word "hermetic", where I would use the term shematic or epistemological. Ah well. The dialectic is used epistemologically to extract understanding to create a concrete analsysis capable of building an abastraction out of. It's in Gollobin's discussion of Piaget.

Not total ignorance, as I was having a great laugh with you trying to disprove the first law using the moon! It was such a laugh fest.

It's not just enough to be a revisionist, but now you're revising history? wow. Sad, so sad.

Yes. Thanks for correcting my spelling. Not that you're an elitist or anything.

The RCP and ISO are. I gave some examples of Leninists.

economist. Damn, too many spelling errors in my last post. I'll take more care editing, I promise, I really doooo.

What you call a "syntactic mess" may actually be me using the dialectic, but you're so ambiguous with it, that I don't know exactly what you're referring to.

Are you seriously saying that you're unaware of correspondance between Marx and Engels?

Why would you know what "code" means in terms of discourse?

words don't define themselves. They are defined through context, coding, and interraction. I'll go out on a limb and define philosophy thus: Philo = love sophia = wisdom, knowledge

philosophy = a search for, and a method to understand the world around us. This is the meaning I'm employing behind the term philosophy, and the meaning common to it in the vernacular. What are you discoursing with?

Sorry I forgot that you can't read. The prounoun "it" in my sentence referred to the reading strategy "inference" which the site was about. Since you're a mechanical automaton, you mechanically thought that I referred to the site, and not the subject of the site. You do that often don't you, you know miss the subtext. You know miss the content when you're looking at the form, and the form when you're looking at the content; can't see the trees because the forest gets in the way...

Yup, further proof that Leninists don't understand the state. Carry on.

No one I guess, I mean, you were just acting like a Leninist is all. Carry on.

Yup, I'm sure that you understand the ideology of the state, I mean everything you've typed here fully illustrates a deep understanding of it. Yup, profound.

I think that the dialectic pre-dates all class society, and that as we recapture our humanity, that we'll see things as they are. the idealist social constructs of today are all part and parcel of class society and need to be removed, so the philosophy that existed before class society would be the best one to build upon, as communism will have to be built through a synthesis of struggle between humanity and nature to find harmony. If you knew anything about Ch'an, Zen, or the Tao, then you'd know what I was saying.

This self-parody is the funniest thing that you've ever typed. Do you take yourself that seriousely? Wow.

If that's all you can focus on, then you're reminding me of the sophomoric Beavis and Butthead who would say stuff like, "she said bra" during health class. Is that what the class was on, no, but that's what they got because they couldn't grasp what was going on.

Mao's nationalism wasn't a logical blunder??? Whoa. Okay.

According to a Leninist who doesn't think that Mao's nationalism wasn't a logical blunder? Uhm... no.

I'm sure St. Max would have said it the same way. Carry on Sachmo!

More mind reading. I actually am waiting for a shred of proof, I mean other than, "I have a PHD". Of course, summarize and synthesize whatever you give.

So, you refuse to define 1.) philsophy and 2.) the dialectic. So, you refuse to particularize our discourse by unpackaging the terms that we're discoursing with. You're not a very good semanticist are you?

uhm, I've put it into practice in this polemic, but you missed it. So, Beavis, carry on.

Who says that it's never been explained? It's still being developed, and our understanding of it is developing too. The ruling class does not want us thinking dialectically at all, as that would endanger their hold on our ideology.

Yeah, Lenin without the dialectic is quite terrifying. I think the term is "Blanquism."

]

Wang:

What is a ‘simplton’ by the way? Someone who cannot spell ‘simpleton’ perhaps?

Well, Simpy (if I may be permitted to call you this?), let's look at the evidence (I presume you know what evidence is? Let me know, and I’ll assist you there too):

Marx said he merely used Hegel's jargon in Capital, in one chapter, and then he only "coquetted" with it.

I read this and, based on the assumption that Marx knew what he was doing, drew the obvious conclusion that the 'dialectic' is absent from Capital, except for the aforementioned jargon (which Marx merely used non-seriously – hence the word “coquetted”).

You look at same passage and invent whatever you like.

So, the evidence suggests that you make stuff up as and when it suits you. We already know that you do not need to read a passage from Marx, since you seem to know by telepathy (perhaps?) what Marx 'really' meant, even if it’s the opposite of what he actually said.

When I read his words, I take them to mean what they say.

But, you accuse me of not being able to read (when I refuse to invent), when it is you who is the fantasist (and, as if this were not enough, Simpy, you compound this with tantrums, swear words and abuse when these serious errors are pointed out).

So, not only are you a fabulist, you are a rattled fabulist.

Now, I can understand that in your logically-challenged state this is far too complex an argument for you to follow, so I typed it slowly to help you out.

Let me know if even this is too fast, Simpy, and I’ll post just one word at a time.

As Marx said, the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class; I am glad you now admit that you have swallowed a load of ruling class rubbish. And it is not difficult to see that this has nuked your higher intelligence centres (if you had any), which explains your preference for bollocks.

I merely reject the lot.

And you are are welcome to it.

You deserve one another.

Moreover, not all (good) ideas come from the ruling class; check out Connor's recent book on the history of science (Conner, C. (2005), A People’s History Of Science. Miners, Midwives And “Low Mechanicks” (Nation Books)); there he clearly shows that the life-blood of science has been the input of non-ruling class individuals. I merely generalise this.

Since we do not need any philosophy at all, we can well do without the mystical ideas of the ruling-class.

Now, you seem to want to grovel before ruling class hacks (and only learn from them), surrendering your critical faculties to all manner of mystics and confused bumblers. And, to give you credit: you have modelled yourself on such idiots, and spout similar inanities.

On the other hand, I prefer materialism and class based theory (i.e., science).

You, however, prefer bollocks.

That, of course, is your problem. If you prefer the ideas of our oppressors, then you are part of the problem.

We have already established you live in a little world of your own, where fantasy replaces fact, and invention takes the place of evidence.

So, I will take this latest ‘comment’ of yours as just more whistling in the dark on your part.

You have been caught out inventing, and now you are merely trying to save face, and divert attention by accusing me of your own failings.

You clearly think that if you say the same thing over and over, it becomes true.

Fine, as I said: stay ignorant.

I can’t extricate from this mess you if you will not be helped.

Once more, since we have established that what you say is based on invention, it cannot be Marxism.

And I have to agree with your latest admission (but I'd go further): the ‘dialectic’ does not exist.

[Since this Hermetic creed makes no sense, it not only does it not exist, it cannot.]

Unfortunately for you, I do know how it evolved: so, yes, 'ruling class' ideology.

And, I suspect you know I am right, since your use of yet more scatological language confirms how rattled you are.

As things have turned out, you are right; you are taking the piss, but only out of yourself.

If, now, you agree that you know no logic, how can you also say you disagree with mine? If you know none, you are incapable of judging.

And you do not even know any of my logic, but still you pontificate about disagreeing with it!

Once more: we already know you do not need to read anything to be able to say what a particular author believes -- apparently, as supreme Pontiff, you are allowed to invent as you see fit, and then accuse all around you of whatever comes into your empty head.

[And, often what comes into that cess pit between your ears is scatological, and you prove this by dumping piles of ordure on this forum.]

Yes, the context was his praise of Hegel in the past tense, followed by his comment that his use of Hegel's jargon was only in one chapter of his great work (with which jargon he merely “coquetted”): so it’s pretty clear that he did not use the dialectic, or he'd have said so.

In fact, he said the opposite: he merely “coquetted” with a few Hegelian terms of art, and then only sparingly.

Once, more, if this is too difficult to follow, I'll have it translated into ‘Janet and John’ language for you.

You only have to ask, Simpy....

You are the one who is doing all the assuming; in fact my only assumption (when beginning) this 'debate' was that you were a logical ignoramus.

And, since then you have confirmed that that assessment was to praise you far too highly.

In fact, as Marx said, if you read him, he ignored Hegel (he did not 'negate' him), and confined his influence on his work to a few bits of jargon, with which he “coquetted” and only in one chapter of Capital.

He did this since Hegel is a ruling-class hack, and Marx is not.

You, though, prefer such obscurantists; thank goodness Marx did not.

It was in fact on Democritus.

You are not too good with facts are you?

But even if you were right, what has this got to do with anything I said?

When have I ever denied Marx could reason?

So, can I suggest that you stop copying Gator, and stick to the point?

[He, too, went off on a tangent on 'relevance' logic (a nice irony, if ever there was one!).]

And it will help if you look up the meaning of “relevant”.

Up to now, your capacity to 'intuit' meaning in language without bothering to read is not serving you too well.

But, I suspect also that far too many of your brain cells have been rendered unusable by the Hermetic virus you caught off Hegel for you to see this.

Not to worry, Rosa will slap some materialist sense into you….

1) You do not know what I call 'logic' since I have not told you --, and you refuse to let your tender eyes read my essays (so you have not read what I think is logic either).

2) Hegel's logic is mystical early bourgeois gobbledygook, but you prefer it to modern, mysticism free logic.

3) No empiricism anywhere in sight in any of my work -- or, if you can find any (some hope, you won't even look!), then I will delete it, and apologise.

4) No formalism either, since I am not a formalist, but a natural deductivist.

Don't know the difference?

Well, why should you? You are a logical ignoramus, Simpy.

5) The contradiction you refer to was originally based on serious logical errors Hegel committed, but in your logically purblind state of mind, you would not know.

If you are happy to base your 'ideas' on defective reasoning, so be it.

[And since you are typical of dialecticians, it is no wonder that Dialectical Marxism is so unsuccessful -- tested in practice, refuted by history, trashed by Rosa.]

6) Where have I claimed that ‘my logic’ is a representation of reality?

In fact, if you knew any logic, you’d know how stupid a comment that was.

But, once more, you are not one to let a tiny detail like this (such as total ignorance) stop you from revealing to the good people here how you like to assert fatuous and baseless things.

You will no doubt soon be haranguing us about your expert knowledge of Hermite polynomials, followed perhaps by your one page solution to Riemann’s hypothesis….

If, as I suspect, you know little of these too, that should not stop you from parading your ignorance in this direction either. And why not? If you are intent on parading your ignorance, go the whole hog.

And any one who challenges you? Well, we know how you will respond – more scatological language, straight from the cesspit in your head.

Another load of gobbledygook -- may I suggest in future (when you get the urge to inflict more of this guff on the world) that you type with boxing gloves on?

The result will probably make more sense.

Ah, I see where you lifted these obscure ideas (and the interesting English): from Gollobin's seriously confused book.

As I said earlier, you are cracking up. If I can do anything to speed this up, I will be happy to assist, Simpy.

I note your incapacity to prove this point with a single quotation from my earlier posts, and it is clear why: you made this up, too.

I did not dismiss Piaget, merely your attempt to use him to justify your semi-divine ability to make stuff up, and pass it off as fact.

Now, it will be very easy for you to prove me wrong, and show the good people here how right you are: find a place/quotation where I dismiss Piaget in the manner you suggested.

Of course, we both know why you did not do this: you can't.

It's just another of the things you made up.

Now, since you are a Bishop in the Church of Dialectical Bollocks, we both know you are allowed to make stuff up, and pass it off as fact; in that case, why not just say so?

In future, begin all your statements about me with a far more honest: "Once upon a time…."

Not that you are a "simplton", or anything, Simpy.

[If you are going to try to do a little philosophy, a subject about which you seem to know as much as the average rodent, then try not to impress us with your capacity to get Kantian terms wrong.]

Good, but I asked who the "Lenininists" were (your word), not who the Leninists are.

You still haven’t told us, Simpy.

More care? As in "simplton"?

I agree. Whenever it is that you produce by randomly typing away at the keyboard is in fact doing "dialectics".

Or, rather, improving on it.

That is probably part of the reason why Marx abandoned this crazy doctrine: he realised what a syntactic mess it was.

On the contrary: because I know their letters, I challenge you to find where Marx says what you say he says.

The fact that you haven't quoted a single one suggests once more that you can't, and that you simply made this up in the naive hope I'd swallow this latest invention.

So: in which letter did Marx say what you said he said about the dialectic in nature (that he wanted to write a book/article about it)?

Come on, Simpy: give that aimless and tedious life of yours some point at last. Make yourself useful, toddle off and find that missing letter.

Figure that out for yourself --, or better still, make something up.

You generally do.

And that is why I did not refer to the word, but to the practice of philosophy.

And you accuse me of not being able to read!

Can I suggest you obtain lessons (in reading) from someone? If the simplest of relative pronouns baffles you, is it any wonder you cannot cope even with Aristotelian logic?

We established that earlier: I am discoursing with a "simplton", Simpy – your good and empty headed self.

That is, with someone who does not know how to get basic Kantian terms right, who passes off randomly typed letters as 'logic', who gets Marx's PhD thesis wrong, who thinks Hegel was praising the Prussian state, who does not know how to read relative pronouns, who confuses fact with fantasy, who thinks scatological language is the height of sound reasoning, and who prefers mysticism to materialism.

Nice try; but I still challenge your figure.

How do you know that "hundreds of millions" are using this "strategy".

Where is your sourced data?

Or, are we just supposed to take your word for it, your Eminence?

[And is your word “prounoun” another example of your excellent attempt to prove you are a “simplton”, Simpy? It’s OK. You can stop now: we do know you are. That syntactic mess earlier was our first clue. The rest, mere confirmation]

That is, are we to take the word of someone who does not know how to get basic Kantian terms right, who passes off randomly typed letters as 'logic', who gets Marx's PhD thesis wrong, who thinks Hegel was praising the Prussian state, who does not know how to read relative pronouns, who confuses fact with fantasy....?

It seems we must, since you are the Bishop of Bollocks and the Cardinal of Confusion.

But, you told me to "shut the F*** up earlier". Now it’s “Carry on”.

Which is it to be?

Or: are you as confused about your own thoughts as you are about Marx's?

So, you admit to invention.

Just as long as we are clear, Simpy.

And it's no good doing an impression of a dog, 'yupping' away merrily.

That will get you no sympathy at all.

On the other hand, assuming a canine persona would mark a considerable intellectual improvement on your part. So, “Yup” away, Simpy.

And, who is there that dare challenge what the great Simpy “thinks" is the case?

It must be correct; Simpy says so; and, since he gets his ideas from the mountain, delivered on stone tablets, none may question his inspired pronouncements.

However, back in the real world: once more, I challenge you to prove that the dialectic pre-dates class society.

Historical and anthropological evidence suggests it originated with class society.

Proof?

It's in those essays at my site that your weedy, Hermetically-destroyed brain cannot process.

About as “seriousely” as you like to show how much of a "simplton" you are, Simpy.

Eh?

It might have been an error, but I challenge you to show it was a logical error.

Or, I would do so if you knew any.

Since you have difficulty with simple words, logic is way beyond you.

So, stay ignorant.

And can I get you to promise never to change? I need all the data I can get to confirm my hypothesis that there is, on this planet, not one single rational dialectical dupe.

Up to now, after 20 odd years of searching, I have yet to find one. You are not the worst by any means --, but you are pretty dire.

I think, if you check, you will find you are "discoursing" with Rosa.

I recognise it is not easy for you to get such simple facts right, Simpy, so I am happy to assist.

Do I get any thanks....?

If you read the original post that this refers to, you will see that you were "waiting" for something else; and here it is:

[Bold emphasis added.]

Nothing there about my PhD.

So, it now appears that not only can you not get Marx, Hegel, or Kant right, you cannot even get yourself right!

Since I do not know what "philsophy" is, I cannot define it.

I do on the other hand know what "philosophy" is.

And if you need me to help define the 'dialectic', then I wonder what has colonised your brain.

Do I have to do everything for you?

[And, you'd only get it wrong, if I did, Simpy!]

As I said, you too do not seem to know what the 'dialectic' is.

So, “carry on” yourself, "simplton".

Well, according to you ultra-lefts, Lenin with the dialectic was as you say he was (a Blanquist).

So, without it, he would not be a Blanquist.

Well, no has done so yet.

You can't, and Gollobin certainly can't (he merely repeats all the tired old confusions -- and his knowledge of logic is nearly as poor as yours). Hegel could not (except he made serious errors trying to do so).

So, big mouth: let’s see if your brain is as big as that hole in your face: if you are so smart, you explain it to us.

How un-elitist of you to keep correcting my spelling.

I'll translate this. Rosa has no idea what the fuck I am saying, as she mised the argument that I made. She continues to quote one line of Marx, polarized from the rest of his writing, and out of context, and can't deal with simple fact that the whole of Capital is a study in how to use the dialectic it show the relation and interrelation of the general to the universal in relation of Capital to the socio-histocrical social relation of capitalism. It's okay Rosa, I never thought you could read, but now I know.

It's not your fault, but I wonder if you're short circuiting yet...

[quoteI merely reject the lot.

Have you read the German Ideology? Have you understood it? I swear I'm arguing with Stirner here. By what authority do you dismiss THE ENTIRETY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE up to this point in history? And you have the audacity to say this?

completely missing the fact that all of science has been co-opted by the ruling class and is there property. No shit, all things are produced by the working class, but since the ruling class of each epoc controls the state power, they inverse the ideas to suit themselves. That's pretty basic there.

This is ludicrous. Do you even know what philosoph means?

Calling Marx a ruling class hack now? Make up your mind! Are you short circuiting?

Ahahahahha.... This is the most humorous conversation I have ever had online! You don't know basic reading, learning, and comprehension strategies, and then you say I'm trying to divert from my failings. Is smoke rising from your circuitboard??? Wow... I invented nothing, though you accused me of it without a leg to stand on, and then just on rhetorical boulderdash like this. Wow. If this is the best you got, then I'm getting a bit sick of your rhetoric parlor tricks.

Gasping for air now? interesting use of allegory. I think I'll just spend the rest of this argument deconstructing your argument with basic literary theory, or, as you call it, divining with ghosts... boogalah boogalah....

Let's look at this use of her language. She uses the term "we", who is this we? Cracking up a bit? Not sure, but she goes on to then say, "based on invention". Hmmm.... again, interesting use of language.

Invention, is this something from nothing, ex nihlo, or is it structured from pre-existing ideas and concepts, and then assembled. She then uses the term "Marxism". This is interesting, as she's been arguing against Marxism in this entire thread, so who is doing the inventing. This seems to be just another ruse of language on her part. Not bad, but pretty much a parlor trick. She's going to say that the dialectic has nothing to do with Marxism, and that's quite ludicrous, as nobody, anywhere has a hedge on what Marxism is! Let alone this crackpot.

So, the site a favor and begin backing up the claims you throw around so well. Start by defining Marxism.

For this syllogism, let's play this game. Since this _______ does not make any sense to me, then not only does it not exist, it cannot. You really do think that you're god don't you? Wow, that's some straight up elitist bullshit, huh? So, if you can't figure out how to read Proust, his theories don't exist and can't? So, if her divine ego is incapable of embracing something, then it is incapable of being in existence.

"what is a wise man, but a foolish man's teacher" - The Tao Te Ching

The Tao was originally a rulling class ideology now? Hmmm... Well, it may have been turned into a ruling class ideology of pacifism, but that's not what it started as. Again, her superficial analysis of history has her miss how the ancient Yin Yang school and the early taoists inspired the golden turban insurrections in ancient China. They were supressed, but they were fighting to create an egalitarian society and to wipe out all aristocrats. They weren't as theoritically advanced as Marx and Kropotkin, but I would consider their movement to be a valid revolutionary movement. The fact that their theory was accosted by the ruling class to suit their own purposes is accidental. She can't seem to handle contradiction. She also seems to think that the dialectic is purely a Western phenonomenon particular soley to Hegel. How Eurocentric of her. She dismisses all cultures and views that don't conform to her own narrow view as to what logic is, how very "Leninist" of her...

She prefers to discuss urinary things, as opposed to me saying to shove things up her ass. Maybe there's something submerged within our discourse, maybe I should get a little Freudian here.... Nah.

So, now she is saying that I know no logic! Ha. So, if it doesn't conform to her narrow views as to what logic is, then it mustn't be. I think the term here is cultural imperialism... or is it egoism? Ah well, she'll figure it out.

Or, as he did, use it and illustrate it through use. Ah! See, that's the part of the argument you hide behind your lil' quote taken out of context. The part you just avoid -- The Grundrisse (which I highly doubt she's read) and the structure of Capital.

How very elitist of you! How vanguardist as well! Gee, since I'm on a libertarian Communist forum, then us stupid lil' anarchists don't know anything. You actually admitted to starting with the precept that you thought I was an idiot. Wow, foolish me for actually, though I did attack you, understand that you did have some kind of knowledge base. Of course, now I understand that you are saturated with the practice and ideology of the state.

Marx ignored Hegel? hmmm... I guess all of those quotes that he used from Hegel are just mistakes then.

Eh? [http://marxists.org/archive/marx/works/cw/volume01/index.htm]Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature[/url] is the title. He did it on both. So, uhm, he did craft his work on Democritus and Epicurus from fragments. You know that right? Because when you say this:

When have I ever denied Marx could reason?

And then deny anbody else the ability to reason and interpret reading, well, then you're saying that Marx was a god. I don't believe he was anything more than a man who spent his life in service to the working class. A highly educated and remarkable man, but a man nonetheless. A man trained in academia and able to both reason and interpret the world around him. You worship him. Odd. Since you call yourself a materialist.

Wow. I can't believe how elitist you are. Wow. So, you're the sum total source of all logic? You even deny that I can understand Aristotle, deny that infererence and reason can be applied to language, and now I can't know logic unless I read your shiite? Fuck outtta here! I think you need to reboot your brain.

Pretty absolute, mechanical, and rigid in your thinking huh? Well, let's examine this. She says all of Hegel's logic is bourgeois gobbledygook. Then she calls herself a leninist, and is aware that lenin says that the whole of Hegel's logic is needed to understand Marx. She is stuck in a contradiction. Now, since I use the dialectic, I can just postulate that the internal to Hegel's logic is actually profound, and that the internal is primary. Hegel's logic was a contradiction where there was an essence of truth to it, but that had to be worked out through Marx negating Hegel, and turning him on his feet.

"whole", as used by Lenin, is a dialectical term. She is interpreting it apart from its use in the context of the dialectic. Whole, in relation to the jargon of the dialectic, means the finite general form of a thing. The content particular to that thing is infinite, and as each potentiality of understanding the general universal of thing is actualized, the understanding of that thing qualitatively grows, opening up new potentialities for learning. Of course, she's going to project her definition onto the context of Lenin, and miss what Lenin was saying in the first place. Ah well, all them brains used on a PHD, and she thinks she's god.

It's apparent that she doesn't know what empiricism is.

deduction huh? So, you deny the existence of induction? or, just don't agree with it. Uhm... the sad thing is, that she doesn't see how absolutist deduction isn't empiricism. So sad.

I'm not too concerned about logical errors, as bourgeois logic is mechanical and inorganic. It's meant to reduce and categorize.

If your logic can't represent reality, then it's useless. The it's pointless. Here's some of Marx, on the pointlessness of your logic. "Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question. " and "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. " The way to change the word is to develop a theory that represents and interprets the way that things change. Only by understanding how change occurs, can we change the world. Your philosophy is bankrupt.

Yeah, that's what psychologists call projection. If you don't know literary theory and criticism, then just say so. If you don't know why it's relevent, then just say so. She completely ignores or dismisses, but she doesn't engage. Sad. So sad.

What was it you said, oh yeah, just repeating something doesn't make it true. You did dismiss him out of hand, and then said that he was a ruling class stooge or something to that effect. Go and look it up, it's typed.
don't blame me if you don't understand his theories of development. And, don't blame me if you don't understand how he is relevent.

Wow. You're possibly the most elitest person that I have ever had the displeasure of arguing with. Blech. Misspelling is different then misusing. The term was used correctly, just misspelled. It was elitest and condescending of you to point out typing errors on a message board. You just stoop to any rhetoric trick in the book to try to discredit your opponent. Sad, so sad.

More of an attack on my typing? That's just so elitist. I can't say it enough, you're condescending and elitist. Blech.

Uhm. No. Language is much more fluid, and calling my language a "syntactic mess" is again, quite elitist. The only arsenal you seem to have is rhetorical tricks, reductionism, and semantics. Sad.

Right, and I said that this is how I'm using the word in our polemic. You are using it in a different manner than I am. I am using the word philosophy in one way, particular to one code, and you're using it in a different code. So, you're calling philsophy praxis, and juxtaposing the defintions? Nice little semantical trick. but, you can't choose your definitions in a conversation, communication is much more fluid than that.

For somebody who talks such a lot about language and syntax, you missed the question I was asking. Go back and find it.

It is the acceptable reading strategy for the USA, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, just to name a few.

For all your bluster, you're incapable of understanding sarcasm. How sad.

Why would I expect you to know what "carry on." means? Ah well. So much ego, so little analysis.

Have you stooped so low? That's really sad. Rosa is at her wits end here. She is now stooping to criticizing colloquial/phonetic spelling. How snobbish of you.

This is the most ridiculous shit. Classless societies regularly use a rudimentary dialectic in their analysis of the world. The native American peoples of North America would thing of themselves in complete relation and interrelation to the world around them. They consistently analyzed things in terms of them as subjects and objects within the world. They didn't codify it, as it was natural and in practice. The dialectic is organic.

no Sachmo, it's duh. Duh is what you should say.

He subsumed the proletariat to the concept of the people, and then set up the object to be the Chinese state. By defining the "people' to be anybody that supported him, and communism to be predicated upon "new Democracy" he created logical errors. Or, are you going to say that the logic was fine, but it was just the subjects within the logic that caused the blunder? Either way, it was a logical blunder.

Oh really? and what exactly is within the discourse?

You can only particularize things, as opposed to seeing them wholistically. Ah well. your tunnelvision is quite sad. The basis for your site is the fact that you have a PHD and have studied philosophy extensively. You don't use proof, you just weigh in, and that's pretty consistent now.

More evasionary rhetoric techniques. You only like to limit and define others, but not yourself. You want to be free to use the terms you use any way that you see fit, and project what you want other terms to mean on others. Sad, quite sad. The discourse we are having is not about seeking understanding, but is turning more and more into an aggressive power dynamic. Your discourse is saturated with the state.

Do I need to point out how sophomoric this is? You're quite elitest here, even going so far as to say that I don't know what the dialectic is.

to my knowledge, nobody has figured out why quantum mechanics works yet, but it does. Refer to your earlier syllogism to understand the lunacy of this statement.

I have, in order to become you must unbecome, and the process of becoming is unbecoming. All that is, was once all that was, and will be the seeds for all that will be. It's that simple and that complex. Any questions?

The whole of your polemic is based upon the language of power. You really resort to many bullying type rhetoric, but, aside from an excellent command of rhetoric and logic, I don't see anything new in your theories and application of them.

]

RosaL:

so here Rosa is committed to logic. And she says that her logical view is

The reason this is curious is that logic is a part of philosophy. it's taught in "philosophy" departments by people called "philosophers". So RosaL is appearing to contradict herself.

wangwei:

Yeah, see, this is a big problem for RosaL because it's well known that human knowledge is not derived by deductive inference. The most important inferential strategy, as a basis for acquiring warranted beliefs, is the method of inference to the best explanation.

I've asked her to define what "philosophy" is, but she refuses. Unless she can define it, her denial of all philosophy has no clear meaning. She says she backs "science" as the alternative to "philosophy." But that's a false dichotomy. If we look at the huge mass of practical and theoretical knowledge that ordinary people, such as the working class, possess, since they don't have the "credentials" to be regarded as "scientists," according to RosaL, what is their knowledge based on?

wangwei, quoting Marx:

It is implicit in this that Marx rejects a purely deductivist approach. When he says that ideas have to bear up in practice, this is implicitly an endorsement of the method of hypothesis and test, or abduction, as logicians call it

on Marx's dissertation, wangwei:

Actually there are a lot of quotes of Democritus and Epircurus in Aristotle. Because their works didn't survive, this is one of the key ways we knnow about their views.

Gator: I refer the honorable fibber to my last response to him.

I wonder how much longer this rather jolly little outing for Rosa's pet theory will be linked to on her website?

a useless pissing match with wangwei is one thing...she doesn't have to substantively discuss anything. she won't engage me because that would require a substantive discussion.

her "I reject all philosophy" stance is one particular way to interpret the views of the later Wittenstein (as in "The Philosophical Investigations") but he's vague enough that not all Wittgenstein groupies interpret him that way. thing is, it's a peculiarly philosophical position...and is therefore self-contradictory. i suppose she could reply by saying it's a viewpoint in "meta-philosophy" that is, the theory of philosophy. but meta-philosophy is also philosophy.

a purely deductivist approach can't account for the success of the "sciences" that she likes to wrap herself with the mantle of, nor is it consistent with Marx's central emphasis on practice.

Si:

Wonder no more: for good.

It's the only claim to fame that Fido, er, sorry, Wangwei, will ever have.

And, that poseur, Gator, too.

Gator:

I refer the honorable poseur to my previous reply to him.

as wangwei points out, it is truly pathetic that she has recourse to making comments on the inevitable typos in people's posts here. whether it's an expression of her pedantry or just her frustration with being unable to engage in a substantive discussion is hard to say.

oh, and she lies herself when she says i lied. but hey, she's wrapped in self-contradiction.

Posey:

I refer the honorable, but increasingly rattled, poseur to my previous reply to him.

Wang: I will post a reply to your latest droppings in a day or so.

rosa mate you'd rattle anyone.

not rattled, but amused by this high priestess of a peculiar brand of philosophy

high priestess of one. Although... oy, Rosa, are you into Elster or wot?

She's apparently a follower of the vague mumblings of the later Wittgenstein, tho her interpretation is not shared by all the followers of that particular guru.

There is this idea in philosophy that is sometimes called Wittgenstein's ladder...it's a metaphor for some alleged method of Mr. W that when you use it...you climb up onto the roof, to pursue the metphor...you then can toss away the ladder, that is, you use a philosophical method that then lets you see, allegedly, that all "philosophical problems" are based on confusions of language.

It seems to be the case that high priestess RosaL thinks this method can be useful to putting Marxism on a better foundation by escaping from traditional philosophy, an endeavour that Marx himself had approved of. But in unraveling confusions...a kind of therapy, you might say...logic is made use of, and our high priestess does endorse logic...but, peculiarly, only the Frege/Russell "classical" deductive logic, it seems. I say "it sees" because on her website she has a reference to an article that espouses a different conception of logic, based more on an understanding of the logic of real human communication. Now, this is peculiar because when I point out that the actual logic of human natural languages does not conform to the "classical" Frege/Russell logic -- the logic taught in the form of symbolic logic in courses all over the planet nowadays -- she bristles at this. moreover, to adopt any theory about logic is itself philosophy...which she says she rejects.

the inventor of the "classical" Frege/Russell logic was Gottlob Frege, a German mathematician and philosopher (and an anti-semite who supported the Nazis in the 1920s). His purpose was to provide a foundation for mathematics. But what is useful for mathematics may not work if your purpose is to understand the logic of ordinary everyday human communication. This is what i came to understand from my years of teaching logic.

The high priestess claims to prefer "science" over "philosophy" (while never telling us what the difference is). But if you take a scientific attitude towards how humans learn about the world, our actual cognitive capacities, you learn that inferential methods human brains are wired up to use, and do use effectively, go way beyond, and must go way beyond, deductive logic. You can't account for how the "sciences", which RosaL invokes, have devloped if you stick to a purely deductivist account of human inferential practice. And when you look into what these inferential practices are, you also see that all humans use them all the time. They aren't peculiar to "scientists." In fact it would be utterly bizarre to suppose otherwise. "Scientists" aren't genetically different than the rest of us.

On the other hand, I do agree with the high priestess that there is nothing to be said for so-called "dialectics." It's a very vague set of ideas that only encourages an obscure way of talking. And it's unnecessary.

Posey:

I refer the increasingly rattled poseur to my previous reply to him.

Si, no -- Elster is even more barmy than Posey, here.

Fido:

Well, let's see how this tactic of mine arose: my response to you was in reply to this comment of yours:

Bold emphasis added.

Now if you are going to criticise me for being intellectually-challenged, and talk down to me, you ought to be able to spell this ever-so complicated word of abuse “simpleton” correctly, Simpy.

That you can't, I think, reflects rather badly on you, as I hoped to point out in correcting the spelling errors of such a superior being as your good self: St Yup of Scatology.

So, not only do you find logic a struggle, you cannot now cope with easy words, Simpy!

But, still you moan about my alleged elitism, when you are the one who dotes on Hegel, that well-known ‘working class’ theorist , and you are the one who claims others cannot read, when you arrogate to yourself the semi-divine right to invent at will.

And, finally, you are the one who says all ideas come from the ruling elite.

So, if anything, assuming you are right, you should be thanking me!

And, what is this? Yet more grovelling before the bosses:

Brave words coming from someone who likes to invent and then put his own words in Marx’s mouth.

And, I was able to show that you do not even understand your own words. More on that below.

Where do I dismiss knowledge?

On the contrary, I dismiss the bogus claptrap you seem to like, called “Philsophy” -- your word.

Indeed, I have the audacity to try to advance human knowledge by debunking the mystical ideas that have nuked your capacity to think, and which prompt you to worship the ideas of the boss-class.

More scatology:

I note you now have to back-track from this earlier claim:

So, you now admit this is incorrect? Your current claim is that such ideas do not come from the ruling class, they merely steal them and use them to their own ends.

Some progress then -- you concede I was right.

[May I now suggest you read Conner’s book to see how little of science has actually come from the ruling class?]

We get mysticism and philosophy from them, science from workers.

Fair enough, you have nailed your flag to the former mast -- I to the latter.

So, what are you moaning about? Message received, loud and clear, Fido.

We now know which side you are on -- and it’s not that of workers.

We have been through this already: I do not know what “philosoph” means.

Are to sure you have copied this word out of the ruling-class manual aright?

More invention.

As I said, Fido, you seem to think that saying the same thing over and over constitutes a cogent argument.

However, I must say, this is one of your best to date.

Well done!

More brave words from the “yupping” doggy -- who thinks that ignoring what Marx actually said, but asserting the opposite of what he did say, is reading Marx correctly.

As I noted, you might impress yourself with such diversionary tactics --, but then again, you are a “simplton”, Fido.

Music to my ears; if I can keep you annoyed, and provoke you into using yet more of that toilet language you like, I will be quite content, since it will confirm how rattled you are.

You are getting sick of my devastating attacks, are you?

Oh dear….

Exhibit D for the prosecution:

You really are a sad little doggy, aren’t you?

We went through all this earlier; was that topic too difficult for you to grasp?

And now, Fido begins to ramble, aimlessly:

There is a point in there somewhere, I think, but, try as I could, I was unable to find it.

However, I suspect there are too many missing words in the above for it to make any sense at all. For example, here:

No.

You back up nothing that you invent, even when asked to do so.

You are the one who fabricates (e.g., all those ‘dialectical’ concepts you inserted into Capital, and contrary to what Marx actually said).

Well, that underlines how ignorant you are; this is not a syllogism.

I bet you do not even know what one is!

Hegel did, though -- and he was the George W Bush of logic! So what does that make you?

The Ronald Reagan of logic, I suspect.

Well, Ronnie, since you can’t explain it to us, we can only take this as yet more bluster on your part, yet more diversionary tactics.

And what has Proust got to do with anything?

More ruling-class bollocks, I see.

You are a genuine boss-class junkie aren’t you Ronnie?

Fido, before he was rumbled:

Fido now:

But, you said all ideas were from the ruling class, not 99%, but all ideas.

So, you do not seem to understand your own ‘thoughts’, if I may so dignify them.

Witness this empty-headed chest beating:

But you said all ideas were from the ruling class.

Which is it to be?

[And you have not read my analysis of history yet, Ronnie, so how you know so much about it -- well, to tell the truth, we know how: you are allowed to make stuff up.]

I can quite happily handle you contradicting yourself; you do it all the time.

And, far from thinking that the dialectic is a western phenomenon, I actually trace it back to all forms of ruling-class thought, East and West. As you do too, since you claimed that all ideas come from the ruling-class.

In fact, it is possible to show that Hegel got many of his ideas on the dialectic from Leibniz, who, like you, was fascinated by Chinese mysticism, since it was so like the Hermetic mysticism he also learnt from Boehme and Oetinger.

[More details at my site – but you must not look, Ronnie; your tender eyes cannot stand the truth.]

As Marx said: the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling-class -- East and West.

So, instead of finding out what I actually think, you invent once more.

And where do I dismiss ‘culture’, or all ‘cultures’, that do not conform to what I think?

I am, on the contrary, quite happy to dismiss mystical ruling-class culture, the sort of wall-to-wall rubbish you dote on.

And I dismiss that since it does not conform to scientific Marxism.

You, on the other hand, like this drivel.

You are the one who mentioned “piss”, sonny; I merely pointed out that these scatological and toilet-orientated words of yours reflected rather well on you -- they were, at least, an advance over dialectics.

And your reference to Freud is interesting since he, like you, had a penchant for making stuff up.

As I said, you know no logic, but you do know how to advertise that fact.

Once more, you can only make this work by ignoring what he actually said (that he merely “coquetted” with Hegelian jargon, and then only in one or two places in Capital).

And he chose not to publish Grundrisse, and neither did Engels.

And the structure of Capital does not support your whacky thesis that Marx preferred mysticism over science.

You are the one who dotes on ruling-class ideas.

And vanguardists agree with you -- they too prefer the elitist ideas of that ‘worker’-theorist Hegel.

This does not seem to make sense -- or even less than most of your other ‘deposits’.

What are you on about little man?

Perhaps even you do not know?

As he said: he merely “coquetted” with a few Hegelian terms-of-art, and only here and there in Capital, which suggests he ignored that Hermetic bumbler, and rightly so.

But, according to you this means the exact opposite of what it says.

So, using your vastly superior ‘logic’, every quotation of Hegel used by Marx meant the opposite of what it seemed to say. And that includes the few we find in the Grundrisse.

That would, of course, mean that Marx believed the opposite of what Hegel believed (for example, there were no contradictions in reality, including Capitalism).

I can live with that.

But I can also now see why you like diabolical logic -- it allows one to read into stuff whatever one wants.

This was in response to your earlier comment:

I am happy for you now to admit your error.

Who is ‘anbody’? A friend of yours?

And where do I say, imply, or even hint that I think this of Marx?

And where do I deny others can think or reason?

I merely assert this of you --, unless, of course, you think you are everybody (and I would not put that past you -- you are an avid fan of irrationality, after all).

Is the medication beginning to wear off?

That’s the only explanation I can come up with to account for these crazed ramblings, Fido.

You are the one who thinks we can learn something from mystics and idealists -- which error you compound by your capacity to invent, and then moan when you are caught out.

And that failing you aggravate further by posting stuff that suggests you like to type with boxing gloves on.

Or, a bag over your head.

My money is on both.

Once more: you are the one who likes all that ruling-class mysticism, and who hangs on every word of that ‘worker’-theorist, Hegel.

And two “wows”! Perhaps you thought we’d be more impressed if you said it twice.

Type a whole page of them; that should work.

It would be more impressive than those “Yups”, Fido.

No need to try to get round me with flattery, Ronnie.

It is enough that we know that you know no logic.

Your earlier reference to a syllogism that wasn’t a syllogism further confirms my increasingly accurate assessment of your lack of expertise in this area -- but, that should not stop you from continuing to pontificate. Pope Wang The Incomprehensible, is it?

More technical jargon from Fido’s sub-Aristotelian book of whacko logic.

Where do I deny that “infererence [sic] and reason can be applied to language”?

What I did deny, was your claim to be able to read a passage and just make stuff up.

That you now equate this with “infererence [sic] and reason” further supports my claim that you know about as much logic as that “yupping” dog you keep impersonating, Fido.

And where do I say that I accept as gospel all that Lenin said?

In fact, I devote several Essays at my site to showing how wrong Lenin was to agree with your sort about the use of the bourgeois logic and mysticism found in Hegel.

As I said, you like this mystical bourgeois rubbish, Fido.

“Yup” if you agree; sulk if you do not.

And Marx himself told us what turning Hegel right side up involved: it meant that he merely “coquetted” with a few bits of Hegelian jargon, and only here and there in Capital.

I am quite happy to follow Marx -- you are not. Except I go further, and knock Hegel off his feet. [Which is surprisingly easy to do.]

And what on earth is the “internal to Hegel’s logic”?

Perhaps you performed an intimate examination? Legs in the air, stirrups and all…??

Fisting Hegel?!?

The stomach begins to turn….

Yes, we know what you mean by “dialectic”: that you can make up whatever suits your crazed brain, but only if it literally contradicts what is on the page.

Why bother quoting it then? Just make stuff up, and cut out the middle-man.

You’d be fooling us no more -- nor no less.

But it would be more honest of you, Fido.

More gobbledygook -- or have you still got that bag over your head?

Your well-earned inferiority complex shows here; my being qualified is really getting to you isn’t it, Fido?

No projection of a definition onto Lenin from me (just a capacity to understand the word “whole”) -- but, I note that you claim I will do what you have just done: i.e., project your ideas onto Lenin!

Yet more evidence that you are a stranger to logic, Simpy.

This was in response to this comment of mine:

But:

1) If I do not know what it is, how can I be an empiricist?

2) I note you do not quote a single passage from my work that supports this contention. And it is clear why: as we have seen several times already, you like to make stuff up, and claim that anyone who disagrees with you is either an “elitist” or is “unable to read”.

Which is yet more evidence that you and logic are total strangers, Fido.

That was in response to this comment of mine:

Which Simpy here manages to twist into:

Yet more proof that you like to invent.

[You clearly do not know what Natural Deduction is.]

Now, I have passed no opinion on induction, so how you manage to work that out only your psychiatrist will be able to tell us --; your next appointment is clearly more pressing than we had feared.

Now, it is you who does not seem to know what empiricism is.

And the only “sad” thing here is your need to keep telling us, with no little insincerity, how sad you think all this is.

On the contrary, I think it quite amusing how you like to parade your ignorance in public like this. Indeed, it makes you look rather sad.

Oddly enough, I am quite happy for you to continue to advertise to the good people here your profound ignorance of logic and philosophy -- and much else besides.

You know no ancient or modern logic, so an ignoramus like you is in no position to judge.

[Except, later, and in contradiction to the above, you show some interest in Mao’s logical ‘errors’ -- but get those wrong too!]

And, of course, Hegel was a bourgeois ‘logician’; so, this means it is you who likes bourgeois logic --, but only if it allows you to make stuff up.

Proof?

Ah! You do not do proof -- you expect us to take your word for it, Fido.

But, alas for you, you have been rumbled.

The faithful here are no longer in thrall to you -- Rosa has exposed your boundless capacity to dissemble.

That was in reply to this comment of mine:

I note that this ‘response’ of yours concedes the point that I nowhere asserted this, and that implies, once again, that you just made this up.

Well, formal logic is used to run the computer you are using, so it can’t be useless, even though it represents nothing. It has countless other applications in technology and the sciences. [Details in Essay Four at my site.]

Diabolical logic has no known technological or scientific application/use. So, if ‘representing’ the world is what ‘your logic’ does, then thank goodness genuine logic does not do this.

Well, since dialectical Marxism is to success what George W Bush (or even worse, what Fido here) is to intellectual achievement, this can only mean that this ‘logic’ has been refuted by history.

I note also in passing Marx’s put down of philosophy (but not logic) --, that mystical discipline you and Posey seem to like.

I, on the other hand, agree with Marx: we do not need any philosophy to help us change the world, and nor do we need any Hegel (except perhaps we might want to join Marx in to showing our contempt for Hegel’s ideas by merely “coquetting” with his jargon, and even then, only here and there).

I have no philosophy, nor do I want one.

But, I note once again, that your ‘theory’ has been refuted by history; and no surprise that, either.

Since no one understands the ‘dialectic’, it can have no positive practical implications, only negative ones.

[These are outlined in Essay Nine Part Two, at my site -- the very Essay that explains why numpties like you are so unreasonable, and why Dialectical Moaners like to make stuff up to protect their mystical ideas, since they provide them with some sort of quasi-religious consolation for the fact that Dialectical Marxism is such a long-term failure.]

Well, it seems I am in good company, once more, since you appear not to understand this obscure drivel -- except you keep ‘translating’ it into yet more elitist gobbledygook.

Like this:

I defy you to explain that – not without, that is, the use of yet more impenetrable jargon (as you do at the end of your last ‘deposit’).

Indeed, it looks like a dogmatic statement -- I bet you cannot justify it!

You are like Christians who try to explain, say, the Incarnation, and when questioned about the meaning of the obscure terms they then come up with, complain that such critics do not ‘understand’.

And, this is no surprise; the mystical ideas you find in this area of Christian theology come from the same NeoPlatonic source as the ruling-class ideas found in Hegel’s ‘dialectic’, compounded by the use of a few too many Hermetic terms of art (i.e., one).

So, you, Fido, are in the same unenviable position as Christian theologians: you have swallowed a mystical doctrine you cannot explain to anyone except you have to use terms that are even more obscure in your effort to do so.

And now we have yet more insincere sadness:

I rather think what you are doing is more like denial -- and then projection. You can’t explain your ideas, so you just bury that fact and then project your lack of facility onto others (i.e., me!).

And I note you cannot say why this is at all relevant.

So, caught out again -- you try to defect attention.

Well, if it is already true, then my repeating it will not affect that fact.

You, on the other hand, think that repeating stuff you made up will mean that you did not make it up!

But, this was in response to my claim that you had asserted that I had rejected Piaget, when what I had done was deny your right to use his ideas to justify your claim to be able to read into Marx (or anyone else for that mater) whatever you liked.

This would have been a golden opportunity for you to repost the passages where you claim I said this, just to shut me up.

But, what does a “simplton” like you do? You paraphrase (and incorrectly):

If you had the proof, you’d have quoted it.

Well, the good people here can decide; all they will find are these comments of mine where I refer to Piaget:

This was in reply to your comment:

Nothing there about being a ruling-class “stooge” --, merely an elitist (a professor, like Hegel).

Now, my point is not that one should not accept ideas from “elitists” (I passed no comment on that), merely that you were accusing me of being an “elitist” when you yourself relied on the ides of “elitists”.

So, Piaget could be right in what he says (again, I pass no comment on this, nor will I), but he is an “elitist”, and you are an inconsistent plonker for relying on him while pointing your grubby fingers at me for committing the same ‘crime’.

But, if you are going to rely on “elitists” (as you now do), at least be consistent.
I myself rely on some (but I have no problem with that). You rely on other “elitists”, but moan at me for doing what you do.

Finally, “elitists” need not be “stooges” of anyone -- or if they are, I neither asserted nor denied this.

And then later, from me:

Same point as the above.

Then straight after that, again from me:

This is not to reject his work, but to question his expertise in areas that lie outside his own specialism.

Later still, from me:

No mention of “stooges” here.

More from me:

Can you see the word “stooge” in there anywhere?

I can’t -- but I can see yet another reminder of how logically-challenged you are, Fido.

Later still, from me:

Still no “stooge”.

Ah, now, here we have the closest I have come to doing what you allege:

This was in response to your comment:

But, notice my reply is hypothetical, and it is based on your alleged appeal to his actual words (not those elusive ‘ideas’ you like to invent).

In that case, relying in his actual words, you would be refusing to take the advice that you say Piaget gives you (which is to try to read between the lines, and then invent), which in turn would mean that you could throw his books in the bin as they would then be useless to you (where they would belong for so misleading you).

Hence, even here I am not rejecting his work, merely pointing out to you how inconsistent you are, and that if you read Piaget’s words literally, then the ideas you claim to see in his work must have misled you.

Now, I have no need to throw his work in the bin, since I have not been ‘hoodwinked’ like you.

This is confirmed by the next comment from, me:

Which was in response to this post of yours:

So, I am making a point about your lack of consistency (but what else can one expect from a Hegel-fan?) --; you are allowed to make stuff up, but you do not like it when you think others copy you.

Next comment of mine:

And it’s a good job I have already read Piaget; you’d put anyone off his work with your capacity to invent and dissemble, and then blame it all on him.

But, still no “stooge”.

Yet more from me:

A “stooge”-free zone, still.

And now we get to the current ‘debate’: your attempt to use Piaget to justify your penchant for invention; here is my comment:

That was in response to this invention of yours (and as we can now see, it was a totally baseless fabrication):

Bold emphasis added.

And you are still alleging this, with no proof.

But we have already established that your misuse of Piaget’s work allows you to make things up – and since you are a minor deity, Fido-The-Great, I believe(?), you can make the rules up as you go along.

And here is an indirect reference of mine to Piaget:

This was in reply to the familiar fairy tale of yours:

Another baseless accusation.

And yet another indirect reference from me, in a vain attempt to slap some sense into you:

That was in reply to this slur of yours:

The reader will no doubt notice a pattern here: you accuse without any evidence, I provide the evidence, but you keep accusing/moaning.

And now to the last of my comments:

To which the above comment was in ‘reply’ to this:

So, in response to my challenge to provide the proof, you paraphrased. Now we know why -- your accusations were baseless.

The proof is now before us. “It’s typed”.

Hence the need to repeat all this; your concrete–lined head has difficulty accessing the simplest of ideas, Simpy.

But here is yet more from Saddo:

Once more, if you are going to accuse me of being a “simplton”, then you can expect to have your own severely-reduced intellectual capacities highlighted -- that is, over and above your own excellent endeavour to show to the world how ignorant and unreasonable you are.

In fact, I could drop out of this ‘debate’ and let you reduce your own reputation to dust, all by yourself.

No need to. I need merely highlight your own empty-headed and self-inflicted nescience, and allow you then to display your logically-challenged state of mind, which is by now plain to one and all.

And in the hole you have dug for yourself, you just keep on digging.

Well, it’s all part of the package with you: you know precious little Philosophy (and can’t even spell the word), and no logic at all (you do not seem to know what a syllogism is), you contradict yourself regularly (the latest being your allegation that all ideas are from the ruling class, coupled with a claim that the Tao is not ruling class, but came from elsewhere!), you make stuff up (and moan when this is pointed out), cry “elitist” all the time (but you yourself claim all ideas come from the ruling “elite”) -- you cannot even spell that word -- (!!), and you accuse me of being a ‘simplton’ but cannot spot the irony when I point out to you this crass error.

You are not the brightest bulb in the box are you?

But, you still have not told us who the ‘Lenininists’ are.

And Saddo gets even sadder:

No, in fact the best weapon in my arsenal is your good (but sad) self: the syntactic mess you posted, your incapacity to argue, your lack of any facility with logic, your failure spot irony, your propensity to make stuff up, and cry “elitist” when this is pointed out to you, and a host of other foibles we have come to know and loathe.

Please promise me you will maintain these low standards; I could not have advanced the above, devastating points against you without your excellent help.

I am sure people here are going to think this is a set-up, and that you are an associate of mine, deliberately trying to show Dialectical Mystics up for the numpties they are. I think you are perhaps trying too hard to help me out, here. Whatever. But, I will be the opposite of sad if you keep this up. With each post of yours the case for the defence of Hegelian gobbledygook gets weaker and weaker. As you would say: “carry on”!

Yet more ‘philsophy’?

And what is that?

You have yet to tell us.

Nevertheless, the above was in response to this of mine:

Which in turn had been in reply to this comment of yours:

Which shows you missed the point (big surprise!).

And I did not “call” philosophy “praxis” (a word I do not use), but I did refer to the practice of philosophy.

I am not surprised (either) that you do not know the difference, Saddo.

I have; this was in reply to the following of mine:

I rather think my reply was to the point: I am discoursing with a “simplton”.

I asked for sourced data, not more allegations.

And, I add here the further doubt that the children who are taught by this method are in fact instructed invent whatever they like when they attempt to grapple with works of non-fiction (like those of Marx) as opposed to when they read fiction (like Hegel).

And if they are, that might explain where you learnt to fabricate.

More from Saddo (with his weapons of mass delusion):

I think I caught this failing from you -- except, I acknowledge you are the master here, with your added incapacity to grasp irony, and fetching dog impressions.

Perhaps you thought that I too, when reading a word or phrase, would make up whatever I liked, as I have just done, and as you constantly do.

But, even then, when I do take your advice, and try to emulate you (my hero), and make stuff up, you still moan!

Of course, to one like you -- a comrade with all the ego of a boiled egg --, one like me, a normal human being, will seem to have “so much ego”.

And, once more, according to you “analysis” means “licence to fabricate at will”, which only you, Fido, are allowed to do.

Fine, I can live with that, just so long as your collar has emblazoned on it ”Fido the Fabricator”, and you eat your dog biscuits regularly.

But, Fido/Saddo is back, again (weeping yet more crocodile tears into his grubby handkerchief):

As high, or as low, as I care to “stoop”, I will never quite be able to match the subterranean depths of your capacity so to “stoop” with your scatological language, and use of Anglo-Saxon words for tupping, Fido.

In fact, when it comes to a vote, I will happily endorse your bid to become “Stoop-Meister General” (otherwise known affectionately as Mr Stoopid”). No one even comes close. Not even Posey, your nearest rival.

But, if you want to do impressions of “colloquial dogs”, don’t let my pointing this out stop you in any way.

You “Yup/Yap” away, Fido, if it makes you happy -- or even “yappy”.

[I note that this did in fact stop you “yupping”! Pity, since your dog impressions were among your more convincing ‘arguments’.]

Challenged to provide proof that the ‘dialectic’ pre-dates class society --, a requirement Fido here regularly demands of me over the things I say --, elicited this ‘reasoned’ response:

The things you mention are not ‘the dialectic’; unless, of course, ‘the dialectic’ means anything that “native” peoples use in their attempt to grapple with reality.

If so, you will have merely stipulatively re-defined this claim of your as ‘true’. [Do not know what one of these is? Ask me nicely, and I might tell you.]

So, your assertion is not proof.

But, don’t take my word for it!

Fortunately, we have our very own resident expert to settle all matters theoretical, with ‘his’ hot-line to ‘God’ -- for the Very Reverend Wangwei (B.Ed(Case)) declareth, in book Ten of the Gospel of Bollocks that all ideas have come from the ruling-class:

So, in the Wango-Whacko world you inhabit, either there was a ruling-class that pre-dated class society, or you made a [shock, horror!] mistake.

Now, since you are clearly a minor deity, I cannot bring myself to believe the latter. In that case, I conclude that “native” peoples derived these ideas (which I contend are not dialectical, anyway), from some ruling-class or other.

Hence, based on my faith in Your Hugeness’s incapacity to err, I conclude that I was right, and that if these “native” peoples are indeed using the ‘dialectic’, then that post-dated class society, since according to Book Ten of the Gospel of Bollocks:

[As I noted earlier, you do not seem to know what you believe, Fido.]

Now, in reply to my “eh?”, posted in response to this incomprehensible sentence from the Cardinal of Confusion:

we get this:

However, after a long and detailed enquiry (full report posted here: www.ankerwangwei.con), I still think one says “eh” when one encounters incomprehensible twaddle; the sort of stuff that oozes out of you all the time. You are indeed an incontinent dialectician. [Does that explain your liking for toilet terminology? Should we change your name to “Wangwee”?]

Why you think one says “Duh” when someone else has screwed up -- well, we know why: you are so used to inventing, you want this time to invent too, even when it comes to my reaction to the odd things you constantly inflict on humanity.

So, I won’t take your advice, this time, if that’s OK with you, Ronnie -- you are a walking, talking warning to us materialists of the deleterious effects of too much Hegel (or any at all) on the brains of comrades,

So, I will stick with “eh?”.

And in response to my challenge to you to show that Mao committed logical errors, we find this rancid dropping:

Setting up one’s own definitions, and deriving a set of (perhaps false) conclusions from them is not a logical error. Indeed, it could be one way of showing such definitions were either inappropriate, or were not up to the job -- as you have just done.

A logical error would involve arguing fallaciously -- which you have failed to demonstrate.

Even Posey here knows that!

[I think! But, since he is the guy who complains that Frege/Russell logic sanctions invalid inferences, but who wants to graft onto his own ‘superior logic’ abductive inference (which is 100% invalid), I hesitate to assert this minimal fact of him! Are you his sock puppet by any chance?? Or just his sock?]

However, I do not wonder you asserted this, since we have already established that you are the Ronald Reagan of logic. This is just more proof.

You can stop now! We have more than enough evidence to confirm conclusively your sub-Aristotelian grasp of logic, thank you so very much.

But, I challenge you now to explain what this odd sentence means:

From this I fear you think that bits of language are intelligent (or are agents, perhaps?) and which can “cause” logical errors.

It seems you do -- in which case, it is no surprise you like the wall-to-wall bollocks you found in Hegel.

And since you know no logic, it is a mystery how you are able to detect a logical error.

[However, I suspect you call anything you do not like a “logical error”.]

You appear to think that “discourse” is some kind of container.

Are you on some sort of medication, Ronnie? Can they double the dose?

That’s the only way I can account for your odd use of language.

Except, of course: the wasteland between your ears is the result of exposure to far too much mysticism for one naturally ungifted like you.

And in response to my quoting a passage where you thought I was referring to my PhD (which in fact showed I wasn’t), we get this prize piece of Wango-‘wisdom’ (with yet more sadness -- an advance over the “yupping” dog, I grant you):

So, you admit that what I said was not about my PhD.

And where at my site do I allege that everything I say, including the many hundreds of works I quote in support of what I allege, is based on my PhD?

Once more, if you had the proof, you would have quoted it.

And, I have to admit that for once you have gotten something right. I have studied Philosophy extensively (among other things), as the many works I quote (and the many more to come) will attest -- in my final Bibliography, which runs to 90 pages at present, I will reference well over 2500 books and scholarly articles.

But you, the runt of all minnows in this area (of difficult thought), find that all you can quote in reply to me are a few lines wrenched from the works of assorted mystics, the psychologist Piaget (who you use to support your contention that you can invent at will -- but why you needed him to justify your natural capacity to fabulate, I confess I do not know), a few passages from Marx (which were irrelevant to your point, if you had one) and, of course, your own towering authority in all things fantastical.

But still you demand more of me.

Well, sonny, demand away; minnows like you are but ticks on the backsides of warthogs. A pain, but no threat if treated right, and squashed -- as here.

This now from Sad Ronnie, a Gold Medallist in the art of evasion (and sadness):

But, according to you, that is what I should be doing (using language any way I “see fit”) -- just as soon as I succeed in reading Piaget correctly -- or, as you ‘read’ him.

And how is my discourse “saturated with the state”? In fact, you are the one who lionises the ruling-class --, from whom, according to you once more, humanity receives all its wisdom.

If you are right over both these claims, then you should be praising me for being “saturated with the state”; the fact that you are still moaning suggests either that you do not know what even you really think, or you have changed you mind under my relentless pressure.

I suspect the former.

Well, Ronnie baby, my comment was based on the fact that not even you --, Pope of the Puerile --, is capable of explaining it to us.

You can shut me up by becoming the first person in over 200 years to have done so.

The fact that you keep dancing around my challenge, failing to meet it suggests that, and with nothing but air between your ears, you cannot do so. [Your rather pathetic ‘attempt’ will be pulled apart below.]

But, here is your reply to my statement that no one has explained the ‘dialectic’ so far:

1) Your earlier syllogism was no syllogism. You would not know this since you do not even know any Aristotelian logic! [Hegel took time to learn some logic (not very well, but he at least tried).]

2) This is, I take it, an inadvertent admission that no one has explained the dialectic, and supports my claim that if I declare I do not understand it, I am in good company, since neither you nor anyone else does. [As we will see below, your rather confused attempt to ‘explain’ this unexplainable ‘theory’ is one of the worst I have ever seen.]

3) Because Dialectical Marxism has been such a long-term failure, your reference to quantum mechanics working is unfortunate, since, and if this is your only guide to whether a theory is correct or not, the fact that it is both incomprehensible and a failure indicates quite clearly that it should be consigned to Hume’s welcoming bonfire, alongside other crazed ruling-class theories.

And good riddance.

Bold emphasis added.

I have no new theories (which shows how much attention you have been paying), and none at all -- nor do I want any (and even if I did, your pathetic ‘theory’ would not even make the reserve list) --, just an implacable desire to terminate the mystical ‘theory’ that has colonised your brain.

And even if I had a theory, you would not know, since you have not read my work.

But, please do not read my Essays -- I would hate to think I had improved you in any way. Indeed, you are less danger to the workers’ movement if you stay ignorant.

And, translated the above comment of yours means: you like to dish it out but you cannot take it.

Tough!

You mystics have been rumbled.

You have screwed around with Marxism long enough.

Your days are numbered.

Rosa is on your case....

Finally, in response to my challenge:

we find Fido has dumped this brown and malodorous log (I suspect he thinks "log" and "logic" are the same):

This is, of course, as clear as the Nicene Creed.

What has a participle of the verb “to be” (i.e., “becoming”) got to do with anything? And what, for goodness sake is “unbecoming”? As far as I can tell it means “not very attractive”; while “becoming” means “rather attractive”.

And what makes something change from “becoming” to “unbecoming”, or is it the other way around? And how do you know all this?

What experimental evidence is there that confirms this obscure form of mystical superscience?

A Christian could agree with this, so could a capitalist.

And how do you know all this, too?

Why can’t some things just stop? Or vanish?

Here is something "that is", which wasn’t “all that once was”: Tony Blair’s resignation.

How could that possibly be or have been “all that once was”?

These are just a few of the serious objections that can be raised against your naïve understanding of Hegel.

And what happened to all those bogus ‘contradictions’ Hegel magicked as a result of his failure to understand identity (and the other two (alleged) ‘laws’ of formal logic)?

And this is not an explanation, but a set of dogmatic statements of dubious meaning.

As I said, it is quite plain that you can’t explain the ‘dialectic’, except you use odd words (of indeterminate meaning) to hide that fact.

Yes, two:

1) So, that hole in your face is indeed bigger than your brain?

2) Why did we ever doubt it?

Ok, Fido, you can go back to “yupping”—at least you are good at that!

holy jesus rosa no-one is ever going to read this thread //or// your site. Get a life - or at least a slightly less stilted style. Do you really enjoy all of this, or is it just for the good of the class?

Are you for real?

On her website Rosa Lichtenstein says that her strategy in online debate is to "go for the jugular at the get go". She's demonstrated this tendency in this thread.

In this reply I'm going to talk about logic in some detail, since this is Rosa's weapon in her online attack on dialectics. That means this will be quite long since I have to explain stuff for the uninitiated. Those not interested in logic are forewarned.

Let me start with a point where I agree with her. Her primary aim is to discredit "dialetics" which she sees -- correctly in my opinion -- as obfuscatory and ultimately elitist. Why "elitist"?

That's because of the style of language that it encourages in its practitioners. When books are written in an obscure lingo, where unneeded neologisms, obscure metaphors, and idiosyncratic use of language is piled up...perhaps to give an effect of profundity...the effect is to make any "theory" it contains not accessible to a lay reader, but only to those "in the know," or with the time to spend to figure it out, or sit at the feet of the guru. The assumption behind such writing is that theory is only for the elite, not for ordinary people. When this is done by "left" writers...Hardt and Negri's "Empire" comes to mind...this methodology of expression is in fact vanguardist (Rosa says "substitutionist"). This is a problem that was widespread among practitioners of "post-modernism".

On her website, however, Rosa attributes such a wide variety of ills to dialectics and "philosophy" -- her other bugaboo -- this undermines the more reasonable things she says. For example, I think it is really far-fetched to blame Marxist sectarianism on "dialectics".

I'll go over a some points here. But this won't be short. Rosa says that she has no idea what "philosophy" means. Fair enough, neither do I.

1. "Ordinary Language Philosophy"

Despite the aspersions she casts on "philosophy" (whatever that is), she does endorse "ordinary language philosophy", or at least, its techniques. She believes that its methods can provide a basis for rejecting idealist metaphysics, and obscurantist language such as "dialectics". I think there is an element of truth to this. I'd describe these methods as an emphasis on logical clarity, avoiding unnecessary or unemplained jargo and neologisms, and taking the vernacular uses of English by the masses as our standard of meaning.

But I find her approach a bit odd. She combines this approval of "ordinary language philosophy" with a strong attachment to a particular deductive logic theory, which is known among logic teachers as "classical Frege/Russell symbolic logic" (FRL). This is the symbolic logic taught in university classes around the world.

This is peculiar because FRL was developed to serve the technical needs of mathematics and is a technical subject. Moreover, as I will argue below, it is well known by logicians that FRL is inadequate as a theory of argument in ordinary natural languages (such as English).

She interprets Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his later writings, to be putting forth the idea that "philosophical theories" are due to "confusions" caused by language, and they can be cleared up, eliminated, by attention to ordinary language. This emphasis upon "ordinary language" became a major preoccupation of philosophers, particularly in England, after World War II.

She thus sees the "linguistic turn" in philosophy after World War II as a positive development. She thinks that this reflects the emphasis on the "common man" characteristic of that era...a product of the massive impacts of the labor movement in the '30s/'40s period. I think this conjecture of hers is not so clear.

Here I need to say a little about the evolution of "Analytic Philosophy", a creation of philosophers in the English-speaking countries in the 20th century.

Analytic philosophy began in the early 1900s as a reaction, particularly in Britain, against the obscurantist idealistic metaphysics characteristic of 19th century philosophy. It was strongly influenced by an emphasis upon the needs of mathematics and the "hard" sciences. Early analytic philsophers like Bertrand Russell, Frank Ramsey, and C.D. Broad used formal methods...the methods of the modern symblic logic...to analyze philosophical issues. The extreme empiricism and emphasis on formal logic were also shared with a group of philosophers in Austria, known as logical positivists.

By the post-World War II era, however, a division had appeared between analytic philosophy in Britain and in the USA. An emphasis upon hard science and formal techniques continued to be dominant in the USA throughout the post-War II period while "ordinary language" philosophy was more predominant in England. A number of the positivists had escaped from Nazi Germany and moved to the USA and this tended to reinforce this tendency. There were also native American positivists like WVO Quine at Harvard, who were influential in this formalist trend.

In the 1950s Bertrand Russell, who disparaged "ordinary language philosophy", and was more in keeping with the orientation of American analytic philosophy, suggested that elite professors at UK universities such as Oxford lacked a background in the hard sciences and needed to emphasize the importance of ordinary language in order to bolster their academic position.

The relationship between FRL and extreme empiricism is something that I will explore shortly. There is a relationship between extreme empiricism and bourgeois individualism, as reflected in such things as "methodological individualism" in the social sciences, and in the writings of John Locke, an early advocate of both pro-capitalist individualism and empiricism. It's not accidental that this philosophy was first developed in the 17th century, at the point of emergence of British capitalism, with things like the enclosures movement then in full swing. Altho Rosa touches upon this, she fails to see that FRL shares the same atomistic assumptions as radical empiricism.

But first I will defend my point about FRL.

3. What Logic Is About

To get to Rosa's discussion of FRL, I'm going to have to explain a bit about logic. So bear with me.

We make an inference when we infer some new idea from something we already believe or are considering. Inference is a psychological practice, that is, an activity that has criteria of success or failure. But what logic is concerned with is not what goes on inside your head. When you try to convey an inference you've made to someone else, to persuade them to believe something, or to go along with some proposed course of action, you present them with your reasoning. You do this by asserting something and then giving them reasons for thinking your assertion is true. When you do this, you're engaging in the social practice of argumentation.

Logic is concerned with argumentation, that is, with the reasonings that people generate in the course of social communication. An argument consists of sentences. One of these sentences is the thing you are arguing for, that's the "conclusion". The reasons you give for that conclusion are are also experessed in sentences, and those are the "premises".

Logic is concerned with the relationship between the premises and the conclusion. Logic is an evaluative discipline, so it is concerned with separating out the good from the bad in the inferential connection between premises and conclusion.

There are some arguments where the premises are true but this does not warrant us in thinking the conclusion is true...the conclusion "doesn't follow" or is not supported by the premises. There are other arguments where we would be warranted in inferring the truth of the conclusion IF the premises are true.

Logicians distinguish three different categories of argument based on the WAY the premises purportedly support the conclusion.

a. Deductive inference

Let's consider an argument:

(4) If most of the workers at Safeway walk out, the truck drivers won't make deliveries.
(5) Most of the workers at the local Safeways have just walked out.
(6) So, the truck drivers won't make deliveries.

Now, the thing about this piece of reasoning is that IF the two premises, (4) and (5), are true, the conclusion must also be true. There is no possibility of (4) and (5) being true with (6) being false. This is a characteristic of a valid deductive argument.

Logicians thus define deductive validity this way: An argument is deductively valid if it is impossible for it to both be the case that all the premises are true and the conclusion is false. The truth of the premises WOULD ensure the truth of the conclusion.

Notice that this argument would be valid even if in fact the workers don't walk out, and (4) is false. Being deductively valid just means that IF the premises should be true, then the conclusion must also be true.

Thus deductive validity doesn't require the premises of an argument to be true.

However, notice that validity is defined in terms of truth. Thus this means that logic presupposes that there is such a thing as being true or being false. When we evaluate a sentence as false, we are pointing out a defect of that sentence. This is why logic is evaluative. It is about how we gain access to new truths...by inferring them from other truths using methods of inference that convey the plausibility (likelihood of truth) of the premises to the conclusion.

b. Inductive inference

Most of the ordinary reasonings that people engage in, in everyday life and in the "sciences", are not deductive inferences. There are in fact two other forms of reasoning that people use to support conclusions.

For example, let's suppose some chemical company is doing required tests for their new hairspray. They test it on rabbits and notice lesions develop in the eyes of the unfortunate rabbits. So, they put a warning label "Don't spray this near your eyes." There is an inference here:

(1) Spraying this stuff near rabbits eyes caused damage to their eyes.
(2) Human eyes are relevantly similar to rabbit eyes.
(4) So, there is a good likelihood that spraying this stuff at human eyes would also cause damage.

This is a type of inductive argument called an "argument by analogy." It doesn't absolutely follow. It could be the case that somehow rabbit eyes are more susceptible to damage from this stuff. But I think we'd say this is a really plausible argument, because mammal eyes have similar structures.

Arguments by analogy are a very common type of everyday reasoning. Surprisingly, tho, despite her concern for backing up the practices of ordinary people, Rosa doesn't seem to endorse inductive logic, tho she claims above that she's said nothing about it. That may be so but her fixation on FML to the exlusion of non-deductive forms of inference is one-sided as an account of human reasoning.

b. Inference to the best explanation

This is perhaps the most important kind of inference in how humans learn about the world. This works when we come up with an idea -- a "hypothesis" as they say in the academic world -- to explain something we observe. Sets of hypotheses that explain some area of the world is what we call a "theory". It isn't just "theoreticians" or "scientists" who do this.

Let's say I walk out of my dwelling and i see that the lights are still on at Sami's market, altho it's fairly late in the evening. So i infer, "Sami's market is still open." In this case the conclusion -- Sami's market is still open -- is a hypothesis that i accept because it is the best explanation for somethign i observe -- the lights are still on at Sami's market. I might be wrong. Sami might have left in a rush and left the lights on when closing the store. I can test my hypothesis by walking down to the end of the block, and see if the store is actually open.

A necessary condition for acceptability of a hypothesis is that it must stand up to what we might call the "test of truth". This means that the hypothesis must have actual consequences in the world so that we can try to determine if those consequences actually hold. If H is a hypothesis, and we can infer P (some result that would hold in the world if H is true), then

If H then P

is true. And we can then attempt to ascertain if P is in fact true. If P is not true, then we can infer that the hypothesis H is false. The more H holds up to these tests, the more confidence we can feel in H being true.

A set of hypotheses to explain some area of the world is a "theory". Sometimes there are competing hypotheses or theories. The following quote from John Rees (cited by Rosa) indicates some of the criteria we use to evaluate how acceptable a particular hypothesis or theory is:

"A theory's validity is proven by its superior explanatory power...[which means it is] more internally coherent, more widely applicable, capable of greater empirical verification."

Despite the importance of the method of inference to the best explanation, Rosa says in her most recent screed that I complain that

"Frege/Russell logic sanctions invalid inferences, but who wants to graft onto his own ‘superior logic’ abductive inference (which is 100% invalid."

What she means is that abductive inferences (inferences to the best explanation) do not satisfy the conditions of DEDUCTIVE validity. This is true. There is the possibility that a hypothesis may be false despite the truth of all the data that confirms it, and which it accounts for. But this is just to say that an inference to the best explanation doesn't sell itself as a deductive chain of reasoning. That is quite true...but irrelevant. There are other ways to
warrant acceptance of a conclusion via inference other than deductive chains of reasoning.

It was characteristic of traditional philosophy that it disparaged inference to the best explanation and over-emphasized the importance of deductive chains of reasoning. Strange, then, that Rosa endorses this particular foible of traditional philosophy...despite all her condemnations of traditional philosophy.

Descartes' inability to show how our knoweledge of the independent physical world was justified happened because the only form of inference
from the data of our immediate experience he was willing to countenance was a deductive inference. This failure led to the proliferation of many gradiose idealist philosophical systems that tried to reduce the world to consciousness or "ideas" in one way or another....exactly the sort of philosophy that Rosa disparages.

4. How Logic is "Formal"

Rosa refers to "formal" logic. What does "formal" mean?

Logicians try to develop theories that will enable them to sort out the valid inferences from the ones that aren't valid. So, they try to come up with ideas about what it is about the connection between the premises and the conclusion that would convey truth from the premises to the conclusion (IF the premises are true). One traditional way logicians do this is by noticing patterns. They try to come up with patterns that seem to ensure validity of the argument.

In order to isolate patterns, logicians use a technique that i call the method of abbreviation. I'll show this with argument (4)-(5)-(6). Notice that sentence (4) in this argument is complex in that it has other sentences as parts. For example, premise (4) has "Most of the workers at Safeway will walk out" and "the truck drivers won't make deliveries" as parts. Let's suppose we abbreviate these sentences as follows:

W = "The workers at Safeway will walk out"
T = "The truck drivers will not make deliveries"

Then we can rewrite that argument as:

(4') If W then T
(5') W
(6') Hence, T

Now, consider another argument:

(7) If card check passes, it will be easier to unionize.
(8) Card check is going to pass.
(9) Hence, it will be easier to unionize.

Now, sentence (7) here also has parts, and I'll abbreviate them as:

C = "Card check passes"
U = "It will be easier to unionize"

This argument becomes:

(7') if C, then U
(8') C
(9') Hence, U

Notice that now that we've removed all the verbiage, suddenly what stands out is that the two arguments have exactly the same pattern. This is a pattern
that logicians call "Modus Ponendo Ponens" (MPP). It was first studied by the ancient Stoic logicians over 2,000 years ago.

Now, logicians will generalize from this. They will say that what explains why these two arguments are valid is that they both exhibit this pattern, MPP,
which is a valid form of reasoning. Any argument that exhibits this form, they say, will be valid.

So, this is the idea of "formal" logic. The logicians try to find patterns such that any argument that exhibits that form will be valid. So if you can show that an
argument is provable using forms or patterns all of which are known to be valid, that's a way of proving that a conclusion follows from premises.

Logicians also make another assumption. They assume that if you have a long chain of reasoning and each step in that chain exhibits one of these valid patterns, then the whole chain of reasoning...no matter how complex...is also valid. A chain of deductive reasoning of that sort is called a "proof".

5. Dialecticians and "Formal Logic"

Rosa shows fairly successfully that Marxist dialecticians have generally a dismal understanding...actually little direct familiarity...with actual logic, as developed by actual logicians in modern times.

In my discussion above I've pointed out how "formal" logic is based on a theory that patterns in arguments can account for the validity of arguments. This idea seems to escape the "dialecticians" who have commented on "formal logic."

Instead they interpret formal logic is being based on principles. Usually they refer to the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC), Law of Identity (LOI), and Law of Excluded Middle (LEM)

Dialecticians interpret LNC as saying something like:

Not A and not-A

But it isn't clear what the letters "A" are placeholders for. This brings up the inadequate understanding of contradiction in "dialectics".

To understand how logic understands contradictions, it's necessary to understand the idea of a negation. If P is any sentence whatever, we can form the negation of P by putting "It is not the case that" in front. Thus

(B)"It is not the case that G.W. Bush won the popular vote in 2000"

is the negation of

"Bush won the popular vote in 2000."

Of course, we'd ordinarily say "Bush didn't win the popular vote in 2000" but the more long-winded paraphrase in (B) makes the negation more explicit.

Now, in logic an explicit contradiction is a sentence conjoined with its negation:

P and it is not the case that P

The key thing about the relationship between P and its negation not-P is that both can't be true together. That's what the Law of Non-Contradition says.

A problem with "dialectics" is that dialecticians often seem to confuse contraries with contradictions. As part of the radical left's adoption of language from dialectics, people talk about "contradictions" in situations where there are internal conflicts or conflicting forces. Thus there are "conradictions" within the ruling class in California over health care right now. Some big companies support a mandated system that ensures universal coverage and other capitalist factions support the status quo, dominated by the big private insurers and private health

Now, what would it mean for there to be an existing contradiction, from the point of view of logic? It would mean that there is some descriptive sentence P such that both P and its negation are true. But that is not what the above situation describes.

Secondly, even if it is said that what each force proposes is a "contradiction" of what the other proposes, this is still wrong. This confuses a contradiction with a contrary. In this case there are actually at least three major alternatives: single-payer as advocated by most unions, the status quo as preferred by many non-union companies, and the compromise scheme of mandated coverage with state subsidies. Each of these three proposals is incompatible with the other...that is what it means to say they are CONTRARIES. but single-payer is not a "contradiction" of the Schwarzenegger-brokered mandated coverage scheme because there are other alternatives.

Consider colors. You're thinking of painting the garage. If you paint it blue then

(G) "Your garage is blue"

becomes true. But this is not a contradictory of

"Your garage is fuschsia"

That's because the contradictory of (G) is:

"Your garage is not blue"

And there are a variety of ways this negation could be made true. For example, if you painted your garage red, then it wouldn't be blue.
Being blue, being fuchsia, being white, being black...these are all contraries. Contraries exclude each other. But if A and B are contraries
they aren't contradictories because there are other alternatives.

Now, in understanding social conflict, what we observe is that there are often more than just two forces in conflict, as the example I gave about the health
care debate in California illustrates.

The Law of Identity says:

A is A

But this is not the most important principle about identity in logic. That honor goes to Leibniz's Law, which says:

(LL) If A is identical with B, then anything that is true of A is true of B and anything that is true of B is true of A.

Now one of the things that dialecticians say about "formal logic" is that it can't handle change, and LL in fact can be used to make this sort of argument. But, as I'll show, it involves a fallacy.

Jack is a growing boy and today,

(J1) Jack in 2006 is 5 foot 3 inches

is true. But next year it becomes true that

(J2) Jack in 2007 is 5 foot 6 inches.

So (J1) says Jack has a property, being five foot three inches -- call this property F. And (J2) says Jack has a property, being five foot six inches -- call this
proeprty G. These heights, F and G, are incompatible.

Yet, (LL) says that if A = B, then if A has F then B has F. And, by the Law of Identity

(J3) Jack in 2006 is the same person as Jack in 2007

and we know from (J1):

(J1') Jack-in-2006 has F

and from (J2) we know:

(J2') Jack-in-2007 has G

So, we should then be able to infer, since (J3) says Jack-in-2006 = Jack-in-2007 that

(J4) Jack has both G and F

But F is a contrary of G, so Jack's having G implies

(J5) Jack does not have F

So, this leads to an explicit contradiction:

Jack both has and doesn't have F.

The problem here is in failing to keep in mind that when we attribute a property to something...as when we say "Jack is 5 foot 6 inches", we're talking about this thing having that property at a particular time. If we use the present tense in English, we assume it is referring to the present stretch of time. In Indo-European languages tense is a feature of the verb that packs in reference to particular stretches of time, relative to the time of speaking or writing. In Chinese, on the other hand, verbs have no tense, but reference to time is contained in adverbial modifiers. The point is, we are quite capable of tacking our representations of reality to particulare points in time.

There is no assumption in "formal logic" that things are "static". As is obvious, there are things that we can say truly of any real, changing thing at one time that we won't be able to say truly of it later. We have no problem understanding the idea that the truth of particular utterances or sentences we write can be fleeting.

Formal logic has no more or less problem dealing with change than does human language and thought.

One possible source of confusion is that "identity" can refer to different things. For example, the Law of Identity and Leibniz's Law only apply to the particular time that is assumed to be the context of language use.

But we also speak of Jack being the same person over time. He's the same person, Jack, today, in his five-foot-six form as he was last year in his five-foot-three form.

But this is not identity in the sense of LOI and LL, this is a concept of the persistence of particular things thru time and change. That is a different idea, and is not captured by LOI and LL.

6. The Classical Frege/Russell Symbolic Logic (FRL)

In the late 19th century Gottlob Frege came up with a new way to systematize logic. Just as Newton's physics was superior because it provided a common theory to account for a vast range of physical phenomena that had previously been treated separately, Frege's logic was much more comprehensive than previous logic in that it provided a single theory to account for the validity of a broad range of arguments that had been treated by separate theories before (such as Boole's albegra of "and", "or" and "not" and Aristotle's syllogisms).

Today FRL is the standard symbolic logic taught in university courses around the world.

The most basic part of FRL is the logic of the connectors "and", "or" and "not". A characteristic feature of FRL is that it treats each fact that can be represented in logic as a discrete atom, logically separate from everything else in the world. Thus, according to FRL, the truth or falsity of any sentence of the form "A and B" can be determined by knowing the "truth-value" (true or false) of A, and of B, separately. You don't need to know anything about any relation between A and B. And similarly, the truth or falsity of "If A then B" and "A or B" can also be determined just from the separate truth or falsity of A and B. This theory is called "truth-functional" logic.

This method is useful for certain purposes. A major application of FRL is in digital electronics, which combines quantum mechanics (in the development of specially treated materials called "semiconductors") with FRL. Resistors were designed that imitate in their electronic behavior the properties that FRL attributes to the logical connectors "and", "or" and "not". This enables a digital electronic device to be built that can work as a mathematical calculator, because it is in fact possible to reduce mathematics to simple FRL truth-functional logic, but only so long as you're dealing with finite quantities. For non-finite quantities (such as an irrational number like pi), some method of approximations has to be used.

6. Limits of FRL

Although FRL has its uses, it doesn't quite work as a theory of deductive inference in natural languages such as English. This is why I said that i found it
peculiar that Rosa emphasizes "defending the language of the working class" and "ordinary language philosophy" while also defending FRL.

As with any other theoretical discipline, logicians develop hyotheses to account for the data. A "formal" theory of deductive inference is an attempt to capture or account for the validity of as broad a body of deductive inferences as can be done, using the method of finding patterns, as I described above. Actual deductive arguments are the "data" for the theory. Because FRL is an attempt to account for the logic of "and", "or", "not", "if", "some" and "all", if it validates fallacious arguments this is a problem for the theory. It falsifies the claim that it can account for validity of inferences that depends on these logical words.

I'll give some examples. Consider the following sentence:

(10) Jack praised Lydia and she kissed him.

Using the method of abbreviation, we can abbreviate this as:

P and K

By the rules of the FML, it is valid to infer:

K and P

This is called a rule of associativity. Translating this back into English, we have:

(11) Lydia kissed Jack and he praised her.

The problem here is that "and" in (10) suggests a causal relationship: that Lydia kissed Jack BECAUSE he praised her. But (2) suggests a different causal relationship. (2) suggests that Lydia's kissing Jack prompted him to praise her. But if (1) is true, it is FALSE that Lydia's kissing Jack prompted him to praise her. So inferring (2) from (1) is fallacious. Yet it is provable in FML. This problem arises for FML because it assumes that the two states of affairs described by the sentences on the opposite sides of "and" are logically independent of each other. In other words, FML's assumptions are atomistic.

I'll give another example. The sentence

(12) If G.W. Bush had been born in California, he'd be twenty feet tall.

is false. (12) is a conditional...a sentence of the form "if...,then...". According to FML, any conditional with a false "if" part is true. (12) has a false "if" part. But it's false. The reason that FML can't handle (12) is because many conditionals imply a causal relationship between the state of affairs described by the "if" part and the state of affairs described by the "then" part. For example:

If the dynamite found under Jack's house had detonated in the middle of the nite, Jack would have been killed.

But FML does not presuppose any connection whatsoever between the state of affairs described by the "if" part and the state of affairs described by the "then" part. This reflects the atomistic presuppositions of FML.

I'll give another example which shows the inability of FML to handle conditionals:

(13) If Alfred goes to Richard's party, he'll have a good time.
(14) Hence, if both Alfred and Betty go to Richard's party, Alfred will have a good time.

Here i'll use the method of abbreviation again:

A = "Alfred goes to Richard's party"
B = "Betty goes to Richard's party"
G = "Alfred will have a good time"

This argument then becomes:

(13') If A then G
(14') Hence, if A and B, then G

This pattern is called "antecedent strengthening" in logic, and it is provable in FML.

Now, in the actual situation this argument is based on, if Betty went to the party it would ruin it for Alfred. He'll be miserable, given how he feels about Betty. Hence (14) is false.

However, in this actual situation, there is no chance Betty will go to the party. She doesn't know Richard, isn't a part of his circle. he has no way to
even hear about the party. So (13) is true.

An argument with a true premise and a false conclusion is invalid. Remember the definition of deductive validity: If an argument is valid, there is no possibility of it happening that the premises are true when the conclusion is false.

Examples like this could be proliferated in large number. What this shows is that FML is simply not an adequate theory of the logic of conditionals ("if,then" statements) in natural languages.

Again, this happens because FML ignores real connections between states of affairs in the world. In this case, if we were to consider Betty's showing up at the party as a real possibility, actually relevant to the situation we're talking about, then we'd have to regard (13) as false. This means that for the evaluation of the truth or falsity of conditionals, it's not sufficient to just look at what actually transpires but also what the physical possibilities of the situation are.

Now in reality we know that there are all sorts of connections between states of affairs in the world....relations of one following the other, of one explaining or causing the other, and so on. And much of our reasoning about the world is based on, and reflects, these connections.

7. Conditions of Truth

When I defined deductive validity, you'll notice i had to define it in terms of truth. This means that logic presupposes some understanding of -- a theory of -- truth.

A theory of truth is where we look at the relations between words and the things we use words to talk about. When we provide a theory of this sort for a logic this is called a "semantics" for that logic. This is different than the rules of inference and use of any symbolism...that is the "syntax".

Now I said that FRL has a problem with the way that it treats conditionals, "if...then..." sentences. We can understand this by looking at the
conditions on the truth of the sentences proposed by FRL and a couple other logical theories of the conditional.

If you've ever studied "propositional logic" -- the most basic part of FRL -- you've encountered the truth tables. These provide a tidy way of stating the truth conditions for any sentence that can be expressed in the propositional logic part of FRL.

According to the truth table for a conditional, a sentence of the form

If P then Q

is true if either (1) P is false or (2) Q is true. This should indicate how the "if...then..." is interpreted in a completely atomistic way by FRL. There is no assumption of any connection at all between the "if" and "then" parts. A conditional interpreted this way is called a "material conditiional." This is what generates all the anomalies about conditionals that I've pointed out. It's been known since the early 1900s that FRL does not provide an adequate theory of the conditional.

There is another way to look at the conditions that must hold for a conditional to be true. On this other way of looking at it, we consider the connection between the state of affairs described by the "if" part and the "then" part. And we consider what the real possibilities are surrounding a situation where the "if" part is true, and consider if the "then" part would be true in those situations.

This ends up providing a solution to the example I gave about Alfred and Betty.

(13) If Alfred goes to Richard's party, he'll have a good time.
(14) Hence, if both Alfred and Betty go to Richard's party, Alfred will have a good time.

That's because (13) is true because in the actual situation, there isn't any real possibility of Betty showing up at Richard's party. She doesn't know Richard or any person in his circle.

But let's look at the real possibilities that surround the second sentence, (14). In this case, in order for the "if" part to be true, we'd have to look at a larger set of possibilities...maybe she's somehow gotten to know Richard. This isn't the actual situation but it's within the realm of real physical possibility. Let's call this expanded set of possibilities S. When we look at the real possibilities coming out of an actual situation, we're looking at, taking account, of a world of a real connections, not the atomistic world assumed by FRL.

With S, (13) is no longer true. That's because among the real possibilities in S is that if Alfred goes to the party is the real possibility of Betty showing
up, which would ruin it for Alfred. So it's not the case that all of the real possibilities in S are ones where, if Alfred shows up at the party, he'll have a good time.

In evaluating an argument one has to hold constant the set of real possibilities that surround the circumstances you're using to evaluate whether the sentences are true or not.

A conditional with this sort of semantics or truth conditions is called a "variably strict conditional." This is also known as a "relevance logic" because we're trying to get at the relevant connections between the various states of affairs described by the various sentences in the argument. The semantics and rules for this logic are more complex than for FML. But this reflects the fact that the logic of ordinary language communication is far more sophisticated in its logical capabilities than FML can account for. FML is overly simplistic as a theory of deductive inference in ordinary language. This reflects the original human purposes that motivated FML's development...namely, providing a foundation for mathematics.

Rosa seems to claim that FRL is uniquely well suited as a technique to understand for radical social theory. But is it adequate for that task when it is based on an the empiricists atomistic assumptions?

I refer the honorable, but now decidedly rattled poseur to my earlier response to him

now we see that rosa is actually the poseur. she poses as someone who allegedly knows something about logic and uses this in her attack on dialectics, and to back up her extreme empiricist interpretation of Marxism. but she can't answer the arguments i pose here.

I refer the copycat -- and seriously rattled -- poseur to my previous response to him.

Jesus, you're such an asshole. Gato just presented the most illuminating short introduction to logic I've ever seen, including within it the relevance of various points to your arguments, and you just flippantly dismiss him as a fibber.

My ordinary-language inference of your actions is that you're a pretentious snob, whose only use for the working class is to shine your monocle.

this is hilarious. good post gator.

ps Rosa what's with this 'fibber' thing anyway? 1) only infants (and patronising adults...oh...hang on...) that ludicrous word, 2) where is gator meant to have 'fibbed' anyway?

sprechen sie Deutsche, rosa? it's only a german speaker i know said that the thing with hegel's 'jargon' was that he played on the differing connotations and meanings of everyday words, so a word like 'aufheben' only becomes specialist jargon when it is translated and all the many alternative german meanings are lost. also, this thread is mental.