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DM -- The Long Version
Ira Gollobin's book, Dialectical Materialism. Its Laws, Categories And Practice, has just landed on my desk.
[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]
Had I known how detailed this book turned out to be, I'd have tried to obtain a copy much earlier, but those on sale on the internet were rather pricey, that is, up until a week or so ago.
Nevertheless, I now have a copy of the book that many say is the best available.
That judgement is, I think, partially correct. The only other books that come close are Bukharin's Philosophical Arabesques, and Woods and Grant's Reason in Revolt [RIRE].
Even so, my initial response is one of disappointment, since the book makes all the usual mistakes and rehearses the same tired old theses, except it does this at great length, dealing with few of the countless problems this 'theory' faces, many of which have been aired at this site (especially here).
The 'section' on Analytic Philosophy, however, is a joke (it's two pages long!), and the book pointedly fails to tackle the logical problems Hegel bequeathed to those who look to him for inspiration. This is no surprise; Gollobin shows no sign he has read a single logic book written since 1830, and then only one (seriously misnamed "Logic"), written by an incompetent called "Hegel".
[Correction: having now checked, Gollobin does list two books of modern logic in his bibliography: Cohen and Nagel's introductory text, and the far more substantial Introduction to Logic by Alfred Tarski. However, he doesn't seem to have put either of them to much use, and their presence looks merely ornamental. Indeed, Gollobin repeats the same egregious errors that other DM-fans commit in this area (pp.402-06), and he continually quotes the amateurish ruminations of Jean Piaget as an authority on logic(!). Piaget was not a logician, but, just like dialecticians, he managed to confuse logic with the 'laws of thought'. If logic were the science of what went on in people's heads, if it concerned the 'laws of thought', logicians would busy themselves with brain scans, surveys, psychometric tests, and the like. They certainly wouldn't bother with all those useless theorems and proofs. Gollobin even quotes Lenin as an authority on logic! Now, Lenin is certainly a great revolutionary, but it is quite plain from his writings that he knew as much about logic as George W Bush does about High Energy Physics. I wonder Gollobin didn't refer us to the thoughts of Enid Blyton, too, and be done with it!]
The bulk of Gollobin's book thus reads like a lengthy version of Baghavan's amateurish attempt to defend the indefensible. Like Baghavan, Gollobin's scriptural approach to truth means that the mere quotation of someone's opinion (like Piaget's, or Mao's!) is all the proof he needs. This approach is aggravated by Gollobin's habit of throwing undigested examples at the reader -- contrary argument and evidence having been quietly ignored -- which makes his book seem like a slightly less breathless, and far less sarcastic and bombastic version of Woods and Grant's work of popular theology, RIRE.
[Except: Gollobin uses dialectics to justify that terror state sometimes known as "The People's Republic of China", even while RIRE uses the same 'theory' to rubbish all forms of Stalinism/Maoism.]
Clearly, this mis-begotten 'theory' can be used to excuse/condemn anything a given author likes/dislikes, and its opposite. [Evidence, here.]
This means that Bukharin's book is still the best available defence/explication of this recently re-incarnated Hermetic monstrosity.
However, the dismissal of such a serious and carefully written work as this -- to be sure, in about the same space it takes Gollobin to rubbish Analytic Philosophy! -- would be grossly unfair. Hence, over the coming years, I will be adding specific comments about its content to the relevant published Essays. [These have now been added to Essays Two and Seven; readers can use the search pane to find them.]
My view of the book might, of course, alter as I study it more carefully, but, on the other hand, experience has taught me that the opposite is far more likely to be the case. My impatience with such work tends to grow as I witness yet another intelligent comrade try to defend this morass of confusion, just as I tend to get angry with scientists who try to sell us Creationism.
------------oOo------------
Baghavan, R. (1987), An Introduction To The Philosophy Of Marxism (Socialist Platform).
Bukharin, N. (2005), Philosophical Arabesques (Monthly Review Press).
Gollobin, I. (1986), Dialectical Materialism. Its Laws, Categories And Practice (Petras Press).
Woods, A., and Grant, T. (1995), Reason In Revolt. Marxism And Modern Science (Wellred Publications).
© Rosa Lichtenstein 2010
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