Essay Three Part Two: Abstractionism -- Or, Science And Mathematics On The Cheap --

How This Actually Undermines Dialectical Materialism Itself

 

This Essay is currently undergoing a complete overhaul, re-edit and re-write, which should be finished by early 2025.

 

I am actively uploading the changes as they are being made.

 

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Visitors are encouraged to read Part One of this Essay first, where much that is apparently taken for granted below has been fully substantiated.

 

Technical Preliminaries

 

Internet Explorer 11 will no longer play the videos I have embedded below. As far as I can tell, they play as intended in other browsers. However, if you have Privacy Badger [PB] installed, they won't play in Google Chrome unless you disable PB for this site.

 

[Having said that, I have just discovered that they will play in IE11 if you have upgraded to Windows 10 or 11. It looks like the problem was with Windows 7 and earlier versions of that operating system.]

 

If you are using Internet Explorer 10 (or later), you might find some of the links I have used won't work properly unless you switch to 'Compatibility View' (in the Tools Menu); for IE11 select 'Compatibility View Settings' and add this site (anti-dialectics.co.uk). Microsoft's browser, Edge, automatically renders these links compatible; Windows 10 and 11 do likewise.

 

However, if you are using Windows 10 or 11, IE11 and Edge unfortunately appear to colour these links somewhat erratically. They are meant to be mid-blue, but those two browsers render them intermittently light blue, yellow, purple and even red!

 

It looks like Firefox and Chrome reproduce them correctly.

 

Unfortunately, several browsers also underline these links erratically. Many are underscored boldly in black, others in light blue! They are all meant to be underlined in the same colour as the link itself.

 

Finally, if you're viewing this with Mozilla Firefox, you might not be able to read all the symbols I have used. Mozilla sometimes replaces them with an "º'.

 

There are no such problems with Chrome, Edge or Internet Explorer, as far as I can determine.

 

I don't know if that is the case with other browsers.

 

Preface

 

This Second Part of Essay Three has perhaps been written and re-written more times than any other at this site (in fact well over eighty times -- and that number is no exaggeration, either!). That is partly because several sections contained rather too many mixed metaphors and stylistic monstrosities, which approach was in turn adopted because I had wanted to experiment with new ways of covering two major topics in the History of Philosophy that have been analysed and debated countless times over the last 2400 years by Traditional Theorists: (i) The so-called 'Problem of Universals' and (ii) 'The process of abstraction'. As a result of those re-edits I have managed to eliminate or tone down most of the ornate rhetorical flourishes and mixed metaphors, but the material below still requires a several more revisions before I will be completely happy with the final version. Hence, the reader's patience is required here perhaps more than elsewhere at this site. Having said that, those familiar with the history of the above issues will perhaps find the novel approach adopted here rather refreshing -- and, with luck, illuminating.

 

Added on Edit: January 20524: I have just spent the last eleven months completely re-structuring and re-writing this Essay (again(!)), which means I have eliminated even more of the stylistic monstrosities referred to earlier. I have also added a brief explanation why many of the remaining metaphors and other 'colourful images' were originally chosen and have been left in. This should be completed by mid-winter.

 

[DM = Dialectical Materialism/Materialist, depending on the context; HM = Historical Materialism/Materialist, again depending on the context.]

 

Some readers might wonder why I have quoted extensively from a wide variety of DM-sources in the Essays published at this site. In fact a good 10-20% of the material in many of them is comprised of just such quotations. Apologies are therefore owed the reader in advance for the length and extremely repetitive nature of most of these quoted passages. The reason for their inclusion is that long experience has taught me that Dialectical Marxists simply refuse to accept that their own classicists -- e.g., Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky and Mao, alongside countless 'lesser' DM-theorists --, actually said the things I have attributed to them. That is especially the case after they are confronted with the absurd consequences that flow from their words; and that remains the case unless and until they are shown chapter and verse and in extensive detail. In debate, when I quote only one or two passages in support of what I allege, they are simply brushed off as a "outliers" or as "atypical". Indeed, in the absence of dozens of proof texts drawn from many such sources (across all areas of Dialectical Marxism) they tend to regard anything that a particular theorist had to say -- regardless of whether they are one of the aforementioned classicists -- as either "far too crude", "unrepresentative" or even(!) unreliable. Failing that, they often complain that any such quotes have been "taken out of context". Many in fact object since -- surprising and sad though this is to say --, they are largely ignorant of their own theory or they simply haven't read the DM-literature with due care, or at all! The only way to counter such attempts to deflect, reject and deny is to quote DM-material frequently and at length.

 

Furthermore, because of the highly sectarian and partisan nature of Dialectical Marxism, I also have to quote a wide range of sources from across the entire 'dialectical spectrum'. Trotskyists object if I quote Stalin or Mao; Maoists and Stalinists complain if I reference Trotsky -- or even if I cite "Brezhnev era revisionists". Non-Leninist Marxists bemoan the fact that I haven't confined my remarks solely to what Marx or Hegel had to say, advising me to ignore the confused, even "simplistic", ideas expressed by Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Trotsky! This often means I have to quote the lot!

 

That itself has had the (indirect) benefit of revealing how much and to what extent they (the classicists and subsequent epigones across all areas of Dialectical Marxism) largely agree with each other (despite sectarian rhetoric to the contrary), at least with respect to DM!

 

Some critics have complained that my linking to Wikipedia completely undermines the credibility of these Essays. When I launched this project on the Internet in 2005, for the vast majority of topics there was very little material easily available on-line to which I could link other than Wikipedia. In the intervening years alternative sites have become available (for example, the excellent Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy), so I have been progressively replacing most of the old Wikipedia links with links to these other sources. Having said that, I haven't done so for some of the Wikipedia links -- for instance, any that are connected with geographical, historical, scientific, biographical (etc.) topics, where the relevant areas aren't considered controversial, at least by fellow Marxists. In every instance, I have endeavoured to avoid linking to Wikipedia in relation to key areas of my arguments against DM so that at no point does my criticism of this theory/method depend exclusively on such links.

 

In addition to the above (as readers will soon see if they consult the Bibliography) I have provided copious references to other published academic and non-academic books and articles (posted on-line or printed in hard copy) in the End Notes to this Essay, which further develop or substantiate anything I argue, claim, allege or propose.

 

Several others have complained about the sheer number of links I have added to these Essays (because they say it makes them very difficult to read). Of course, DM-supporters can hardly grumble about that since they believe everything is interconnected, which must surely apply to Essays that attempt to debunk that very idea. However, to those who find this does make these Essays difficult to read I say this: ignore the links(!) -- unless, of course, you want to access further supporting evidence and argument related to a particular point, or a specific topic fires your interest.

 

Still others wonder why I have linked to familiar subjects and topics that are part of common knowledge (such as the names of recent US Presidents, UK Prime Ministers, the names of rivers and mountains, the titles of popular films or the definition of certain words in common usage). I have done so for the following reason: my Essays are read all over the world and by people from all 'walks of life', so I can't assume that something which is part of common knowledge in 'the west' is equally well-known across the planet -- or, indeed, by those who haven't had the benefit of the sort of education that is generally available in the 'advanced economies', or any at all. Many of my readers aren't native English speakers, either, so any help I can give them I will continue to provide.

 

Finally on this specific topic, several of the aforementioned links connect to web-pages that regularly change their URLs, or which even vanish from the Internet altogether. While I try to update them when it becomes apparent that they have changed or have disappeared, I can't possibly keep on top of this all the time. I would greatly appreciate it, therefore, if readers informed me of any dead or incorrect links they happen to notice. In general, links to Haloscan no longer seem to work, so readers needn't tell me about them! Links to RevForum, RevLeft, Socialist Unity and The North Star also appear to have died.

 

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As is the case with all my Essays, nothing at this site should be read as an attack either on HM -- a scientific theory I fully accept --, or, indeed, on revolutionary socialism itself. I remain as committed to the self-emancipation of the working class and the dictatorship of the proletariat as I was when I first became a revolutionary over thirty-five years ago. The difference between DM and HM, as I see it, is explained here.

 

It is also worth noting that phrases like "ruling-class theory", "ruling-class view of reality", "ruling-class thought-forms",  and "ruling-class ideology" (etc.), used at this site in connection with Traditional Philosophy and DM, aren't meant to suggest that all or even most members of various ruling-classes invented these ways of thinking or of seeing the world (although some of them did -- for example, Heraclitus, Plato, Cicero and Marcus Aurelius). They are intended to highlight theories (or "ruling ideas") that are conducive to, or which rationalise, the interests of the various ruling-classes history has inflicted on humanity, whoever invents them. Up until recently this dogmatic approach to 'knowledge' had almost invariably been promoted by thinkers who either relied on ruling-class patronage, or who, in one capacity or another, helped run the system for the elite.**

 

However, that will become the main topic of Parts Two and Three of Essay Twelve (when they are published); until then, readers are directed here, here and here for further details.

 

[**How and why this accusation applies to Dialectical Marxists and DM will, of course, be explained in the other Essays published at this site (especially here, here and here). In addition to the three links in the previous paragraph, I have summarised the argument in its support of that claim -- but in this instance with absolute beginners in mind --, here.]

 

It is also worth adding that at least one third of my case against DM in this Essay has been relegated to the End Notes and the Appendices. Indeed, much of the supporting evidence is to be found there. That approach has been adopted in order to allow the main body of the Essay to flow a little more smoothly. This means that readers who want fully to evaluate my case against DM should consult that material, too. In many cases, I have added numerous qualifications and considerably more supporting evidence to what I have argued in the main body. In addition, I have raised several objections (some obvious, many not -- and some that will doubtless have occurred to the reader) to my own arguments and accusations, which I have then answered.

 

[I have explained why I structured the material published at this site that way in Essay One.]

 

If readers skip this material, then my answers to any objections or qualms they might have will be missed, as will the extra supporting evidence and the numerous qualifications I have added. Since I have been debating this theory with comrades for well over thirty years, I have heard all the objections there are!

 

[Most of the on-line debates have been listed here. (Unfortunately, many of the links on that page have now died!)]

 

Three final points: First of all, readers will soon notice that in what follows the word "reality" has often been put in 'scare' quotes. That doesn't mean I think the world doesn't exist, or that everything is just an 'illusion', a 'simulation' or even that language actually constructs the world! I am in fact indirectly highlighting the fact that I object to the philosophical use of this word. I explain why that is so here and here -- but in more detail in Essay Twelve Part One.

 

Second, throughout this site I have employed the term "Dialectical Marxism" in order to distinguish Marxism from the 'dialectical aberration' that has completely dominated revolutionary socialism for over 150 years. So, the terms 'Dialectical Marxism' and 'Dialectical Marxist' are used to refer to the mainstream 'Marxist' tradition that, in one form or another, has accepted the validity of DM, and either applies it to all of 'reality', or restricts it to social development (i.e., it is confined solely to HM). However, I distance Marx himself from this toxic mutation; why that is so has been explained here and here. Furthermore, why this Hegelianised Hybrid (but not Marxism itself) has been an abject failure for well over a century is explained here and here. [That argument has been summarised here and here.]

 

Finally, anyone puzzled by the unremittingly hostile tone I have adopted toward DM might find it helpful to read this first.

 

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As of March 2024, this Essay is just over 124,500 words long; a much shorter summary of some of its main ideas can be accessed here.

 

The material presented below does not represent my final view of any of the issues raised; it is merely 'work in progress'.

 

[Latest Update: 14/08/2024.]

 

In fact, as noted at the top the page, this Essay is being updated continually.

 

Quick Links

 

Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections.

 

If your Firewall/Browser has a pop-up blocker, you will need to press the "Ctrl" key at the same time or these and the other links here won't work!

 

I have adjusted the font size used at this site to ensure that even those with impaired vision can read what I have to say. However, if the text is still either too big or too small for you, please adjust your browser settings!

 

(1) Introduction

 

(2) Dialectical Traditionalism

 

(3) The Traditional Approach To Abstract General Ideas -- Rationalism, Empiricism And 'Original Syntax'

 

(a) Rationalism Versus Empiricism

 

(4) Rationalism And 'The Problem Of Universals'

 

(a)  Traditional Theory And Its Connection With DM

 

(b)   How Not To Solve A Philosophical Problem: Begin By Doubling It

 

(c)  Dialectical Materialists Agree With Idealists -- Matter Is An 'Abstraction'

 

(d)  'Self-Predication'

 

(e)  Descent Into A Metaphysical Abyss

 

(5) Empiricism And The 'Anthropomorphic Brain'

 

(a)  The Empiricist 'Mind' Hits A Brick Wall

 

(b)  Bourgeois Individualism

 

(c) How Not To Solve Philosophical 'Problems' 2.0

 

(d) Intelligent Ideas Versus A 'Little Man' In The Head

 

(i) Added On Edit, February 2025 -- Further Background

 

(ii) Yet More Problems

 

(6) Even More Headaches For Dialecticians

 

(a) Induction And The Social Nature Of Knowledge

 

(i)  Particular Problems With Abstractions

 

(ii) A New Approach Called For

 

(iii) 'Epistemological Thermidor'

 

(iv) The Anti-Democratic Decay Of Dialectical Marxism

 

(v)  Problems Continue To Multiply Like Japanese Knotweed

 

(b) Driven To Abstraction

 

(c) 'Reality': Abstract, Concrete -- Or Both?

 

(d) Collective Error Over General Terms

 

(7) Abstractionism: Have We Come To Bury It -- Or Praise It?

 

(a) You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Confusion

 

(b) Public Criteria Versus Private Gain

 

(c) Particular Problems With 'Dialectical Generality'

 

(8) Anti-Abstractionism

 

(a) 'Mental Strip-Tease'?

 

(i) Interlude One: Why Properties And Relations Aren't Objects In Their Own Right (Under Construction)

 

(b) Don't Scientists Employ Abstraction?

 

(c)  Are Abstractions 'Mentally' Processed?

 

(d) 'Mentally-Processed', According To Marx Himself

 

(e) Anti-Abstractionism

 

(i)   Berkeley And Frege

 

(ii)  The Young Marx And Engels

 

(9) 'Appearance' And 'Reality'

 

(a) The Underlying 'Essence' Of 'Being'

 

(b) Does 'Reality' Contradict 'Appearances'?

 

(i)    'Essence' And 'Appearance'

 

(a) Hegel

 

(b) Dialectical Marxists

 

(ii)   'Commonsense'

 

(iii)  Contradictions Supposedly Generated By Science

 

(iv)  The 'Contradiction' Between Science And 'Commonsense'

 

(v)   Does The Earth Move?

 

(c) Why Science Can't Undermine Common Sense

 

(i)   Ordinary Language Conflated With Common Sense

 

(ii)  Why Scientists Can't Afford To Undermine Common Sense

 

(iii) Can 'Appearances' Be Trusted?

 

(iv) Taking A Rise Out Of The Sun?

 

(v) 'Contradictory' Capitalism?

 

(d) Adrift In A Sea Of 'Appearances'

 

(i)   'Dialectical' Practice Can't Be 'Objective'

 

(ii)  Are All 'Appearances' False?

 

(iii) Dialectics Engages Auto-Destruct Mode

 

(10) Appendix One: Bertell Ollman's Traditionalism

 

(a) Initial Disappointment

 

(b) The Highly Secretive, Mysterious, Privatised 'Process Of Abstraction'

 

(i) Interlude Two -- A Recent Failed Attempt To Prove There Actually Is A 'Process Of Abstraction' (Under Construction)

 

(c) Karl Marx -- A Magician?

 

(d) The Young Marx And Engels Torpedo 'Abstractionism'

 

(e) Ollman Misconstrues The Nature Of Change

 

(f) 'Internal Relations' To The Rescue?

 

(g) Welcome To The Desert Of The Reification

 

(h) Brain Scans Required?

 

(i) Ollman Versus The Critics

 

(11) Appendix Two: Plato And Aristotle

 

(a) The Link Between 'The Soul', 'Rationality' And A 'Well-Ordered' City

 

(b) Under Construction

 

(12) Appendix Three: John Rees Attempts To Rescue Lenin (Under Construction)

 

(a) Background Details

 

(b) Rees's Defence

 

(13) Appendix Four: Ernest Mandel On 'Essence', 'Appearance' And 'Abstraction' (Under Construction)

 

(14) Appendix Five: Sean Sayers And The Dialectics Of Confusion (Under Construction)

 

(15) Notes

 

(16) References

 

 

Summary Of My Main Objections To Dialectical Materialism

 

Abbreviations Used At This Site

 

Return To The Main Index Page

 

Contact Me

 

Introduction

 

Part Two of Essay Three continues where Part One left off, focusing on four inter-related topics:

 

(i) Traditional philosophical 'solutions' to 'the problem of generality', which involved, inter alia, the concoction of 'Universals', 'Forms', 'Abstract Ideas', 'Categories', 'Concepts', 'Representations', and 'Essences' (etc.), many of which were also covered in Part One;

 

(ii) The invention of the 'Process of Abstraction' that supposedly helped create, generate or construct one of more of the above items;

 

(iii) The subsequently negative effect this has had on Dialectical Marxism;

 

(iv) The connection that exists between the above three topics and the traditional distinction often drawn between "appearance" and "essence"/"reality"; and finally,

 

(v) How the above are implicated with archaic theories concerning 'the underlying rational order of reality'.

 

However, it is important to state up front that in what follows I am neither asserting nor denying there is a 'rational order to reality' (since both alternatives would be metaphysical -- a subject area relentlessly criticised at this site -- summarised here and here). What is being questioned is an entire tradition in Metaphysics that attempted to explain the world along lines first promoted (in 'the West') by Ancient Greek Philosophers (principally, Plato and Aristotle) -- i.e., that there is a 'rational order to reality' which can be accounted for by an appeal to 'universals', 'categories', 'concepts' or 'representations' generated by what later came to be known as the 'Process of Abstraction'.

 

In order to tackle Item (i) above (and relate it to Items (ii)-(v)), several traditional attempts to account for generality -- which intimately connect this with the nature and scope of scientific knowledge -- will be examined first.01

 

[Generality in ordinary speech is typically expressed by the use of common nouns and adjectives; whether it also involves adverbs and other parts of speech will be put to one side for now. Verbs were covered in Part One, and will be again, in what follows. Unfortunately, in this area of Traditional Philosophy and Logic it is all too easy to get lost in the weeds. I have tried to avoid that in this Essay but some complexity is inevitable. On this, see Note 01 (link above).]

 

Dialectical Traditionalism

 

Part One of this Essay revealed that, beyond a few superficial differences, Dialectical Marxists have latched onto a thoroughly traditional interpretation of the nature and origin of 'abstract general ideas' (expressed by sub-categories of the aforementioned common nouns and adjectives). That Essay also showed how the 'philosophical problem' underlying this approach to 'knowledge' arose out of a series of ideologically-motivated, logical and grammatical moves (which amounted to logical blunders) committed by Ancient Greek, ruling-class theorists. This meant the common nouns, verbs and adjectives involved were transformed into the Proper Names of Abstract Particulars [APs], which destroyed their generality.

 

Unfortunately, those moves vitiated the entire project, in which broken state it remains to this day.

 

Among other things, this Part of Essay Three will further underline how conservative and corrosive this approach to knowledge is, especially in the way it has negatively impacted on theories developed by Dialectical Marxists. Several other Essays at this site will further explore these (disastrous) implications.

 

The Traditional Approach -- Rationalism, Empiricism And 'Original Syntax'

 

Rationalism versus Empiricism

 

A comprehensive examination of the differences between Rationalist and Empiricist Epistemologies is way beyond the scope of this Essay and this site. But, since DM-theorists share with both of these major strands in Traditional Thought much common ground concerning the connection that supposedly exists between the 'process of abstraction' and our knowledge of the world, a detailed analysis of how dialecticians have attempted to explain this 'process' and its (imagined) results is central to the criticisms of Dialectical Marxism advanced at this site.

 

[Also largely omitted from this Part of Essay Three will be an analysis of the difference between Realist and Conceptualist theories of the mode of signification (i.e., the semantic status and role) of general terms. That topic will be covered more extensively in Essay Twelve Part Four. Nominalism will be completely ignored -- mainly because it has had zero influence on Dialectical Marxism.]

 

In rather broad (and slightly misleading) terms, the main difference between these two main intellectual currents (in relation to the above remarks) is that (a) Rationalists tend to view the 'process of abstraction' in terms of recurrence, while, (b) Empiricists do so it in terms of resemblance. In addition, they both (c) Interpret the 'process of abstraction' itself significantly differently. [More about that presently.]

 

To put this at its crudest, for something to recur it has either to, (i) Exist or be present before it is cognised (Realism), or it has to be an (ii) Integral component in the cognitive process itself, such that the latter couldn't take place without it (Conceptualism). By way of contrast, since resemblance is relational (e.g., A resembles B in such and such a respect, or they both share this or that), for some sort of resemblance to be registered or recognised, (iii) The cognitive process itself has to create or construct the said relation between the cognised relata as well as the relational concepts. Plainly, this means the said resemblance, the hypothetical relation and/or the ideas and 'representations involved, typically don't need to exist prior to the relevant 'cognitive acts'. [Or so an anti-Realist might claim. Realists and some Conceptualists will, of course, resist any such conclusion.]

 

As noted above, these distinctions are rather crude, and, as we will see throughout the history of Traditional Thought in this area, there has been much 'cross-pollination' and 'boundary-incursion' by or between the above two main approaches. Roughly speaking Rationalists tend to adopt one or other of approaches (a)-(i) and (a)-(ii), while Empiricists opt for some form of (b)-(iii). But, as also intimated earlier, this entire area of Traditional Thought is a veritable briar patch, so the material that follows in this Essay has had to be greatly simplified, and that is partly because Dialectical Marxists themselves have adopted highly simplified theories in this respect. Furthermore, resemblance itself is fraught with its own pitfalls and layers of complexity. For instance, there are many ways in which objects, properties and processes are or can be judged 'similar'. [On that, see for example, Goodman (1970).]

 

[Having said that, the above reaction of Dialectical Marxists was only to be expected. In general they have been more interested in changing the world than in disappearing down philosophical rabbit holes like this. Revolutionary theory isn't, nor should it be, the equivalent of a post-doctoral seminar on the scholastic distinctions that can be drawn in this area (some of which were briefly outlined in Note 01), or any other. The same is the case with the Essays published at this site -- except where lack of attention to detail has (demonstrably) led dialecticians astray. Whenever that happens it will, of course, be pointed out. (On that see the next few paragraphs.)]

 

As we will discover. DM-theorists have by-and-large conflated approaches (a) and (b), which means they have ended up with a theory that is as muddled as it is unworkable -- at any level. But, they aren't alone in this, either; many Traditional Theorists have also conflated (a) and (b) to a greater or lesser extent. As with much else in Traditional Thought, systematic confusion like this has arisen directly out of the use of radically distorted language -- which was already vague and ambiguous before it was systematically mangled by ruling-class ideologues and dialectical day-dreamers.

 

[Indeed, just as Marx himself pointed out. Incidentally, the above remarks aren't meant to disparage ordinary language. As will be argued in Essay Twelve Part Seven, vagueness and ambiguity turn out to be two of its many strengths. Failure to take this aspect of language into account had led Philosophers astray for well over two thousand years. One particularly notorious example of this -- the alleged 'contradictory nature of motion' -- has already been subjected to detailed examination in Essay Five.] 

 

Also in what follows, Rationalist and Empiricist 'solutions' to this pseudo-problem have been painted with rather broad brushstrokes (since, once again, this Essay isn't meant to be a post-Doctoral study of this major wrong turn in the intellectual history of our species; it is merely a means to a specific end -- the complete demolition of DM-Epistemology).

 

[Why this is a pseudo-problem was explained in Part One (on that, see for example Note 39 and Note 40), but it will be covered again from a different angle in what follows.] 

 

Rationalism And The 'Problem Of Universals'

 

Traditional Theory And Its Connection With DM

 

As already noted, for ideological reasons (to be explored further below and in subsequent Essays), Ancient Greek Metaphysicians concluded that our ability to express generality in language represented a 'philosophical problem'. As a result, they initiated what can only be described as an interminable 'wild goose chase' involving countless theorists across many centuries in a futile attempt to explain the origin, scope and nature of generality itself. This pointless exercise resulted in a completely distorted analysis of the mode of signification and use of common nouns, verbs and adjectives, a they function in indicative sentences. The entire topic was regarded as especially important in view of the key role these terms occupied in the formation and growth of knowledge (both scientific and 'philosophical').

 

This pseudo-problem was subsequently given a grandiose title: 'The Problem of Universals'.1

 

As is the case with much of 'Western Philosophy', this 'problem' originated in Ancient Greece, most notably in the work of Plato and Aristotle, whose theories came to overshadow the next 2500 years of Traditional Thought:

 

"The essence of the theory of Ideas lay in the conscious recognition of the fact that there is a class of entities, for which the best name is probably 'universals', that are entirely different from sensible things. Any use of language involves the recognition, either conscious or unconscious, of the fact that there are such entities; for every word used, except proper names -- every abstract noun, every general noun, every adjective, every verb, even every pronoun and every preposition -- is a name for something of which there are or may be instances. The first step towards the conscious recognition of this class of entities was, if we may believe Aristotle, taken by Socrates when he concentrated on the search for definitions; to ask for the meaning of a general word was a step from the mere use of such a word towards the recognition of universals as a distinct class of entities. But Socrates seems to have been interested in the defining of one thing at a time, and not to have seen the general significance of what he was doing; Plato did see that what was common to all searches for definitions was the assumption that there are such things as universals. He saw, too, that the objective difference between universals and particulars answers to the subjective difference between science and sense-perception. The senses present to us a world of particular events in which qualities are present almost inextricably conjoined and confused; if we were left to the senses alone we should never be able to disentangle them and reach a clear understanding of the structure of the world. But in reason we have a faculty by which we can grasp universals in their pure form and to some extent see the relations that necessarily exist between them." [Ross (1961), p.225. Bold emphases and link added.]

 

"There have been periods when the problem of universals was the dominating theme of philosophical speculation. One such period was the medieval; another was that of Plato and Aristotle. A strong case might be made, too, for the view that the crux and testing-point of the empiricist argument in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries lay in its theory of universals and that Locke and Berkeley were well aware of this.... The problem of universals, rightly posed, is still fundamental and urgent; for to understand universals is to begin to understand thinking.... What we call conceptual thinking involves the use of general words and no explanation of the successful use of the general word is possible without facing and solving the problem of universals." [Aaron (1967), p.vii. Links added.]

 

Rationalist Philosophers tend to argue that general words/'concepts' (or what they supposedly refer to or reflect) were either anterior to experience or they were 'applied' to 'particulars' encountered in experience, which was itself based on, or was the result of, some form of 'rational cognition' or 'innate intuition' (what Lenin later would call a "law of cognition"). 'Particulars' encountered in experience (such a cat, a dog, a table, or another human being) were thus to be understood as individual objects of a certain kind (spoken about using so-called 'thing words' -- substantivals -- such as, "cat", "dog", "table", or, before women's rights were even on the agenda, "man"), whose generality was either, (A) The product of 'pure thought', (B) Pre-installed in cognition, or (C) 'Apprehended' in some way during experience. [Something similar, but far less fundamental, for want of a better term, was the case with property words/adjectives (such as "red", "hard", or "hot"), and relational expressions (such as "taller", "slower", and "more than").] As such, 'cognitive acts' like these enabled, organised or made experience possible. The 'Concepts', 'Categories', 'Representations', and 'Ideas' implicated in this were supposed to 'stand for', 'reflect' or even 'reveal' the 'formal', 'constitutive' or 'essential' properties belonging to, or instantiated by, each particular --, and they often did so with respect to their more ordinary, 'inessential', properties and relations (also known as their 'accidents'). The former made each particular what it was and not something else, the latter did not. So, if some property, F, was viewed as 'essential', a particular, A, to which it belonged could not be the individual it actually was, but something essentially different, if it lacked that 'property' or failed to instantiate it. For instance, the 'essential' property of the (fictional) character' John we met in Part One was supposed to be his being a man -- in effect his instantiation of 'Manhood'.

 

[In Essay Thirteen Part Two we will have good reason to question whether there are any such 'essential properties' -- to be published sometime in 2026. Until then, readers are directed to these comments in Essay Eight Part Two.]

 

So, depending on which Rationalist was telling the tale, particulars were either (1) Already categorised as such in 'external reality' (by 'God', or by some sort of 'collective intelligence' -- Realism, again), (2) Latterly categorised as such by 'the mind' as an integral component of 'cognition' (some forms of Conceptualism), or (3) An ad-mixture of both (Realist-Conceptualism).

 

Either way, a sub-set of these 'abstract general ideas' were held to be 'formal properties' that defined the particulars that instantiated them; others perhaps occupied a less important role (as 'accidents'). The former were 'apprehended' by 'rational thought', the latter often encountered in experience (but for some Rationalists even these weren't based on experience). As noted earlier, depending on their precise nature and provenance, these 'abstractions' were variously characterised as "essential", "primary", or "secondary" qualities that individuals (i.e., 'particulars of a certain sort') either instantiated or in which they were said to "participate". So, 'universals' were either 'pure, rational concepts' or they were 'accidental'/'empirical'. ["Broad brushstrokes", remember!]

 

Although I will later briefly consider questions concerning the possible existence of what came to be known as "bare particulars" -- i.e., particulars that supposedly have no (removable or un-removable) properties (actual or theoretical, essential or inessential), but which can and do somehow possess/'wear' them 'like clothing', and hence are 'bare' without them --, I don't propose to enter into that insoluble metaphysical 'problem' here. Any of my readers who would like to know more, who are eager to develop yet another pointless headache, are encouraged to follow the above link and 'then check out Allaire (1963, 1965), Aune (1986), pp.46-54, Aune (2002), pp.132-36, Campbell (1981, 1990), Casullo (1988), Chappell (1964), Moore (1923), Quine (1948), Sider (2006), Simons (1994), Stout (1921, 1923), van Cleve (1985) and Williams (1953 I, 1953 II) for relatively recent, traditional approaches to this 'problem'. A more recent survey of this tangled, briar-patch area of Traditional Metaphysics (that also has an extensive Bibliography) can be found in Orillia and Paoletti (2020).1a0

 

[An 'un-removable property' would seem to be one that is a 'formal' or defining characteristic of a given object or type of object -- such as its number, or its spatio-temporal location, or even that it is a 'physical entity'. They could also involve what Traditional Theorists call their 'essential properties', such as the fact that an individual is a human being -- or, as we saw in Part One, the fact that John is a man, etc., etc. Removable properties would then supposedly be those we can alter or imagine a particular lacking/losing without it fundamentally changing --, for instance, its colour or its size, although there might be 'problems' if some of them are changed too much, or too many are lost. On this, see Mellor and Oliver (1997), and Orilia and Paoletti (2020). I briefly return to this topic again below, where I will suggest a way to dissolve this pseudo-problem. Much of what I will be arguing is based on detailed comments posted in Essay Four Part One, specifically here and Note 13 and Note 14.]

 

Here is the late Fraser Cowley on the origin of this approach to understanding general terms and the immediate problems it created (readers are encouraged to keep the last sentence of Cowley's remarks in mind as this Essay unfolds):

 

"The notion of a universal and with it the celebrated problem of universals was invented by Plato.... The distinction of particulars and universals is complemented in many doctrines since Plato with the distinction and division of labour between the senses and the reason or intellect, or understanding. According to these doctrines, what is given to the bodily senses is merely particular, and the understanding or reason alone apprehends, or constructs or derives, the universal. Many philosophers take the problem of universals to be that of the meaning of general terms without realising that what makes the meaning of general terms a problem is the very concept of a universal." [Cowley (1991), p.85. Spelling modified to agree with UK English. Bold emphases added.]

 

"The dispute between rationalism and empiricism concerns the extent to which we are dependent upon sense experience in our effort to gain knowledge. Rationalists claim that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience.... Rationalists generally develop their view in two ways. First, they argue that there are cases where the content of our concepts or knowledge outstrips the information that sense experience can provide. Second, they construct accounts of how reason in some form or other provides that additional information about the world." [Markie (2021). Paragraphs merged. Bold emphases added.]

 

[As Cowley suggests, and as I have explained below, how this entire approach to generality -- which I will hereinafter call 'Abstractionism' (i.e., the overall idea that later morphed into the theory that there is a 'process of abstraction' we are all supposed to be capable of accessing or utilising (either consciously or unconsciously), which results in the creation, or the production, of 'abstract general terms') -- in the end turns out to be, or was even meant to be, a Theory of Meaning. This isn't just an academic point; it is central to understanding how and why DM-theorists have constructed an unworkable, if not incoherent, theory in this respect. As such, what follows is therefore connected with the contribution DM has itself made to the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism. (Note, once again, I am not claiming Marxism has been a failure, just its 'dialectical' alter-ego!)]

 

For Rationalists in general, 'genuine' or 'reliable knowledge' was deemed to be in some way, or in some respect, "in-born", a consequence of 'concepts' or 'faculties' that were themselves "innate", or were in the end based on cognitive processes and structures created and underwritten by 'God' -- or, indeed, which enabled, or were enabled by, the very possibility of knowledge. In support of such theories several so-called 'Transcendental Arguments' were invented as the need arose.

 

Here is Descartes (expressing ideas that were typical of this sub-branch of ruling-class ideology):

 

"For since God has endowed each of us with some light of reason by which to distinguish truth from error, I could not have believed that I ought for a single moment to rest satisfied with the opinions of another, unless I had resolved to exercise my own judgment in examining these whenever I should be duly qualified for the task...." [Descartes (1997b), Part 3, p.88. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"The most important point is that I find in myself countless ideas of things that can’t be called nothing, even if they don’t exist anywhere outside me. For although I am free to think of these ideas or not, as I choose, I didn’t invent them: they have their own true and immutable natures, which are not under my control. Even if there are not and never were any triangles outside my thought, still, when I imagine a triangle I am constrained in how I do this, because there is a determinate nature or essence or form of triangle that is eternal, unchanging, and independent of my mind. Consider the things that I can prove about the triangle – that its three angles equal two right angles, that its longest side is opposite its greatest angle, and so on. I am forced to agree that the triangle has these properties, even if I didn’t give them a thought when the triangle first came into my mind. So they can’t have been invented by me." [Descartes (1997c), Fifth Meditation,  pp.170-71. (This links to a different translation.) Bold emphases alone added. The clear implication is that 'God' not only invented these 'ideas', they were implanted by 'Him'. That is certainly how Descartes argues throughout his work.]

 

"The mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on him entirely no less than the rest of his creatures. Indeed to say that these truths are independent of God is to talk of him as if he were Jupiter or Saturn and to subject him to the Styx and the Fates. Please do not hesitate to assert and proclaim everywhere that it is God who has laid down these laws in nature just as a king lays down laws in his kingdom." [Descartes (1991), p.23. Letter to Mersenne, 15/04/1630, in Bennett (2019), p.14. (This links to a PDF.) Bold emphases added.]

 

"As for the eternal truths, I say once more that they are true or possible only because God knows them as true or possible. They are not known as true by God in any way which would imply that they are true independently of him. If men really understood the sense of their words they could never say without blasphemy that the truth of anything is prior to the knowledge which God has of it. In God willing and knowing are a single thing in such a way that by the very fact of willing something he knows it and it is only for this reason that such a thing is true. So we must not say that if God did not exist nevertheless these truths would be true; for the existence of God is the first and the most eternal of all possible truths and the one from which alone all others proceed." [Ibid., p.24. Letter to Mersenne, 06/05/1630, in Bennett (2019), p.16. (This links to a PDF.) Bold emphasis added.]

 

Leibniz also expressed similar ideas:

 

"Reflection is nothing but attention to what is within us, and the senses do not give us what we carry with us already. In view of this, can it be denied that there is a great deal that is innate in our minds, since we are innate to ourselves, so to speak, and since we include Being, Unity, Substance, Duration, Change, Action, Perception, Pleasure, and hosts of other objects of our intellectual ideas? And since these objects are immediately related to our understanding and always present to it (although our distractions and needs prevent our being always aware of them), is it any wonder that we say that these ideas, along with what depends on them, are innate in us? I have also used the analogy of a veined block of marble, as opposed to an entirely homogeneous block of marble, or to a blank tablet -- what the philosophers call a tabula rasa. For if the soul were like such a blank tablet then truths would be in us as the shape of Hercules is in a piece of marble when the marble is entirely neutral as to whether it assumes this shape or some other. However, if there were veins in the block which marked out the shape of Hercules rather than other shapes, then that block would be more determined to that shape and Hercules would be innate in it, in a way, even though labour would be required to expose the veins and to polish them into clarity, removing everything that prevents their being seen. This is how ideas and truths are innate in us -- as inclinations, dispositions, tendencies, or natural potentialities, and not as actualities; although these potentialities are always accompanied by certain actualities, often insensible ones, which correspond to them." [Leibniz (1996), p.53. This links to a PDF of The Preface and Book One of this translation; links and bold emphases alone added.]

 

Here, too, is a contemporary Rationalist:

 

"In short, the structure of particular languages may very well be largely determined by factors over which the individual has no conscious control and concerning which society may have little choice or freedom. On the basis of the best information now available, it seems reasonable to suppose that a child cannot help constructing a particular sort of transformational grammar to account for the data presented to him, any more than he can control his perception of solid objects or his attention to line and angle. Thus it may well be that the general features of language structure reflect, not so much the course of one's experience, but rather the general character of one's capacity to acquire knowledge -- in the traditional sense, one's innate ideas and innate principles." [Chomsky (2015), p.61. Bold emphasis added.]

 

Chomsky often quotes Descartes in support -- for example here:

 

"A rather different approach to the problem of acquisition of knowledge has been characteristic of rationalist speculation about mental processes. The rationalist approach holds that beyond the peripheral processing mechanisms, there are innate ideas and principles of various kinds that determine the form of the acquired knowledge in what may be a rather restricted and highly organized way. A condition for innate mechanisms to become activated is that appropriate stimulation be presented. Thus for Descartes..., the innate ideas are those arising from the faculty of thinking rather than from external objects:

 

'Nothing reaches our mind from external objects through the sense organs except certain corporeal motions, as our author himself asserts in article nineteen, in accordance with my own principles. But neither the motions themselves nor the figures arising from them are conceived by us exactly as they occur in the sense organs, as I have explained at length in my Optics. Hence it follows that the very ideas of the motions themselves and of the figures are innate in us. The ideas of pain, colours, sounds and the like must be all the more innate if, on the occasion of certain corporeal motions, our mind is to be capable of representing them to itself, for there is no similarity between these ideas and the corporeal motions.' [Chomsky is here Quoting Descartes (1647) p.443; I have actually quoted a more recent translation published in Descartes (1985), p.301 -- RL.]" [Chomsky (2015), pp.49-50.]

 

[Chomsky's idea are subject to sustained criticism throughout Essay Thirteen Part Three.]

 

This meant that for such thinkers objects and events in the physical universe were somehow 'less real' than the abstractions that supposedly lent them both their substantiality and their 'essence' -- or, indeed, which allowed them to exist or even be experienced. This 'hidden world of abstractions' and 'essences' was therefore more 'real' than the world we see around us. [Why that is so will be explored below.]

 

[In Part One we saw theorists like Engels and Lenin echo these sentiments; here in Part Two we will witness DM-theorists in general further promote these anti-materialist ideas.]

 

Partly because of this, in the Rationalist Tradition the general, the 'essential', and the 'rational' came to dominate over the particular, the 'accidental' and the 'irrational'. In like manner the Ideal and the 'necessary' were given precedence over the physical and the contingent. Hence, as noted above, invisible and in principle undetectable 'essences' were regarded as more real than the individual objects and events we encounter in everyday life. Here is Plato giving expression to this idea:

 

"If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only." [Plato (1997c), 51e-52a, pp.1254-55. I have used the on-line version here. Bold emphases added. The published edition translates the third set of highlighted words as follows: "It is indivisible -- it cannot be perceived by the senses at all -- and it is the role of the understanding to study it." Cornford renders it: "[It is] invisible and otherwise imperceptible; that, in fact, which thinking has for its object." (Cornford (1997), p.192.)]

 

And, concerning the Rationalist Philosophers who directly influenced the DM-classicists, we read the following:

 

"Already with Fichte the idea of the unity of the sciences, of system, was connected with that of finding a reliable starting-point in certainty on which knowledge could be based. Thinkers from Kant onwards were quite convinced that the kind of knowledge which came from experience was not reliable. Empirical knowledge could be subject to error, incomplete, or superseded by further observation or experiment. It would be foolish, therefore, to base the whole of knowledge on something which had been established only empirically. The kind of knowledge which Kant and his followers believed to be the most secure was a priori knowledge, the kind embodied in the laws of Nature. These had been formulated without every occurrence of the Natural phenomenon in question being observed, so they did not summarise empirical information, and yet they held good by necessity for every case; these laws were truly universal in their application." [White (1996a), p.29. Bold emphasis added.]

 

As we have just seen this approach originated with Plato. On that, see Appendix 2b.

 

Here, too, is Hegel echoing and amplifying this idea, but overlaying it with an overtly theological gloss:

 

"The view that the objects of immediate consciousness, which constitute the body of experience, are mere appearances (phenomena) was another important result of the Kantian philosophy. Common Sense, that mixture of sense and understanding, believes the objects of which it has knowledge to be severally independent and self-supporting; and when it becomes evident that they tend towards and limit one another, the interdependence of one upon another is reckoned something foreign to them and to their true nature. The very opposite is the truth. The things immediately known are mere appearances -- in other words, the ground of their being is not in themselves but in something else. But then comes the important step of defining what this something else is. According to Kant, the things that we know about are to us appearances only, and we can never know their essential nature, which belongs to another world we cannot approach. Plain minds have not unreasonably taken exception to this subjective idealism, with its reduction of the facts of consciousness to a purely personal world, created by ourselves alone. For the true statement of the case is rather as follows. The things of which we have direct consciousness are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature; and the true and proper case of these things, finite as they are, is to have their existence founded not in themselves but in the universal divine Idea. This view of things, it is true, is as idealist as Kant's; but in contradistinction to the subjective idealism of the Critical philosophy should be termed absolute idealism. Absolute idealism, however, though it is far in advance of vulgar realism, is by no means merely restricted to philosophy. It lies at the root of all religion; for religion too believes the actual world we see, the sum total of existence, to be created and governed by God." [Hegel (1975, §45, p.73. Links in the original. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

 

"[O]nly...God is actual... He is the supreme actuality, that He alone is truly actual; but also, as regards the logical bearings of the question, that existence is in part mere appearance, and only in part actuality." [Ibid., p.9, §6; bold emphasis added.]

 

Allen Wood (not to be confused with Alan Woods!) neatly summarised Hegel's entire approach in the following terms:

 

"Hegel sees reality as structured organically and developmentally. Things display their essential natures when they are seen as organized wholes or systems, and as elements of larger wholes or systems. These systems are characterized by tendencies not only to self-harmony and self-maintenance, but also to development, both temporally and hierarchically. Things which exist through time have essential tendencies to develop, to unfold their natures by continually changing or revolutionizing their organic structures. Organic structures themselves display a hierarchy, developing or unfolding a certain abstract essence or basic principle toward its full concreteness. A theory which captures the structure of reality must conceive things as organized totalities. It must attend to their essential tendencies to temporal development, and it must analyze their organic structure through a hierarchy of concepts of or viewpoints on a whole which reveal all the levels or stages belonging to its nature. Hegel is sure reality has this structure on purely metaphysical grounds. Hegel believes that absolute reality is self-positing spirit. The marks of thought and its creative self-expression are organic interconnection and development. Consequently, whatever appears or is actual must be an expression or manifestation of spirit, and must display the marks of its spiritual origin. Further, the creative activity of thought is simultaneously the activity of God's original creation; the activity of human thought which apprehends the inherent structure of thinking thus brings God's thoughts to self-consciousness. Since the dialectical structure of thinking is apprehended not by the senses but by reason, our key to the structure of reality is not casual sense observations but the necessary movement of thought, which philosophers can produce out of their own minds. The task of philosophy is to penetrate these observations and 'give to their contents the essential shape of thoughts freedom (the a priori)'." [Wood (2004), pp.215-16. Bold emphasis alone added; paragraphs merged. Wood is (partially) quoting Hegel (1975), p.18, §12.]

 

And here is Mega-DM enthusiast, George Novack, underlining how far dialecticians like him are prepared to bend over to accommodate the mystical ideas they appropriated from Hegel:

 

"We have already seen what great measure of truth there is in the proposition that the real is rational. We have ascertained that all things come into existence and endure in a lawful and necessary way. But this is not the whole and final truth about things. It is one-sided, relative, and a passing truth. The real truth about things is that they not only exist, persist, but they also develop and pass away. This passing away of things, eventuating in death, is expressed in logical terminology by the term 'negation.' The whole truth about things can be expressed only if we take into account this opposite and negative aspect. In other words, unless we introduce the negation of our first affirmation, we shall obtain only a superficial and abstract inspection of reality. All things are limited and changing. They not only force their way and are forced into existence and maintain themselves there. They also develop, disintegrate and are pushed out of existence and eventually disappear. In logical terms, they not only affirm themselves. They likewise negate themselves and are negated by other things. By coming into existence, they say: 'Yes! Here I am!' to reality and to thought engaged in understanding reality. By developing and eventually going out of existence, they say on the contrary: 'No, I no longer am; I cannot stay real.' If everything that comes into existence must pass out of existence, as all of reality pounds constantly into our brains, then every affirmation must inexorably express its negation in logical thought. Such a movement of things and of thought is called a dialectical movement.

 

'All things...meet their doom; and in saying so, we have a perception that Dialectic is the universal and irresistible power, before which nothing can stay, however secure and stable it may deem itself,' writes Hegel. (Shorter Logic, p.128.) [I.e., Hegel (1975), p.118, §81 -- RL.]

 

"There is a fable in The Arabian Nights about an Oriental monarch who, early in life, asked his wise men for the sum and substance of all learning, for the truth that would apply to everything at all times and under all conditions, a truth which would be as absolutely sovereign as he thought himself to be. Finally, over the king's deathbed, his wise men supplied the following answer: 'Oh, mighty king, this one truth will always apply to all things: "And this too shall pass away".' If justice prevailed, the king should have bequeathed a rich reward to his wise men, for they had disclosed to him the secret of the dialectic. This is the power, the omnipotence of the negative side of existence, which is forever emerging from, annihilating and transcending the affirmative aspect of things. This 'powerful unrest,' as Leibnitz (sic) called it, this quickening force and destructive action of life -- the negative -- is everywhere at work: in the movement of things, in the growth of living beings, in the transformations of substances, in the evolution of society, and in the human mind which reflects all these objective processes.

 

"From this dialectical essence of reality Hegel drew the conclusion that constitutes an indispensable part of his famous aphorism: All that is rational is real. But for Hegel all that is real is not without exception and qualification worthy of existence. 'Existence is in part mere appearance, and only in part reality.' (Introduction to the Shorter Logic, §6.)  [I.e., Hegel (1975), p.9, §6 -- RL.] Existence elementally and necessarily divides itself, and the investigating mind finds it to be so divided, into opposing aspects of appearance and essence. This disjunction between appearance and essence is no more mysterious than the disjunction between the inside and outside of an object. What distinguishes essence or essential reality from mere appearance? A thing is truly real if it is necessary, if its appearance truly corresponds to its essence, and only so long as it proves itself to be necessary. Hegel, being the most consistent idealist, sought the source of this necessity in the movement of the universal mind, in the Absolute Idea. Materialists, on the other hand, locate the roots of necessity in the objective world, in the material conditions and conflicting forces which create, sustain and destroy all things. But, from the purely logical standpoint, both schools of philosophy agree in connecting reality with necessity. Something acquires reality because the necessary conditions for its production and reproduction are objectively present and operative. It becomes more or less real in accordance with the changes in the external and internal circumstances of its development. It remains truly real only so long and insofar as it is necessary under the given conditions. Then, as conditions change, it loses its necessity and its reality and dissolves into mere appearance.

 

"Let us consider a few illustrations of this process, this contradiction between essence and appearance, resulting from the different forms assumed by matter in its motion. In the production of the plant, seed, bud, flower and fruit are all equally necessary phases or forms of its existence. Taken separately, each by itself, they are all equally real, equally necessary, equally rational phases of the plant's development. Yet each in turn becomes supplanted by the other and thereby becomes no less unnecessary and non-real. Each phase of the plant's manifestation appears as a reality and then is transformed in the course of development into an unreality or an appearance. This movement, triadic in this particular case, from unreality into reality and then back again to unreality, constitutes the essence, the inner movement behind all appearance. Appearance cannot be understood without an understanding of this process. It is this that determines whether any appearance in nature, society or in the mind is rational or non-rational. Yet each in turn becomes supplanted by the other and thereby becomes no less unnecessary and non-real. Each phase of the plant's manifestation appears as a reality and then is transformed in the course of development into an unreality or an appearance. This movement, triadic in this particular case, from unreality into reality and then back again to unreality, constitutes the essence, the inner movement behind all appearance. Appearance cannot be understood without an understanding of this process. It is this that determines whether any appearance in nature, society or in the mind is rational or non-rational." [Novack (1971), pp.84-87. Several paragraphs merged; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. I have reproduced the version of Hegel's work used by the editor of Novack's on-line text, Andy Blunden, not the one that appears here. Links and bold emphases added.]

 

[I have subjected Novack's remarks to detailed criticism in Note 29b.]

 

According to the above, whatever isn't 'rational' can't therefore be 'real'. So, if objects (like plants, for instance) are to be counted as (even temporarily) real, that would only be because of the (undetectable) 'rational principles' they supposedly instantiate, or to which they are 'identical'.

 

But, where exactly are these 'rational principles', these 'abstractions', to be found? Somewhere in the world or just in each head?

 

As we discovered in Part One (Sections Two and Three), the answer to that question is neither -- 'dialectical abstractions' are nowhere to be found in the physical universe, nor are they (apparently) in each head! Even so, they are supposed to be 'more real' than the objects and events that instantiate them. Go figure...

 

This from an avowed materialist!

 

This is the extent to which Traditional Thought has compromised the ideas Dialectical Marxists are prepared to entertain. It also helps explain why they find it impossibly difficult to tell the rest of us (or even each other, for goodness sake!) exactly with what in 'extra-mental reality' their 'abstractions' actually correspond. [Here is a just recent example of the corner into which they have painted themselves.] If there were anything in the physical universe with which these 'abstractions', these 'rational principles', actually corresponded, that would clearly imply nature is 'Mind' or the product of 'Mind'. How else could such thoroughly 'mental entities' exist in the universe if the latter wasn't 'Mind' or the product of 'Mind'? If they really do exist in 'extra-mental reality', 'mind must precede matter'. No one supposes these 'essences' sprang into existence across the universe the moment human beings began to 'abstract' them, but how could they be rational if they weren't; the product of 'mind'? In addition, if, as we will see later, matter itself is also regarded as an 'abstraction' by DM-theorists, 'reality' must ultimately be 'Mind' or 'Mind-like', all the way down. On the other hand, if there isn't anything in nature or society with which these 'mental entities' correspond, what possible use could they serve? Have they simply been invented to help boost the morale of Dialectical Marxists? Or perhaps give them something over which they can endlessly bicker, allowing them to accuse each other, or the rest of us, of 'not understanding dialectics'?

 

[Of course, the answer often given is that 'abstractions' help scientists and philosophers 'understand'/'manipulate' 'reality', but as we are about to find out, not even that is true.]

 

As the Book of Genesis would have us believe, it takes the 'Word of God' (or something analogous to it) to give life and form to matter, creating 'everything out of nothing'. Without that, the universe would have remained lifeless, chaotic and might even cease to exist --, or, indeed, might never have begun to exist:

 

"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.... And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God called the firmament Heaven.... And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so...." [Genesis, Chapter One, verses 2-11. Bold emphases added.]

 

"In the beginning was the Word [λόγος -- logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been madeIn him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind." [John 1:1-4. Bold emphasis added.]

 

'Abstractions' were likewise conjured into existence in a similar but less overtly religious way. They are and have always been Ideal 'objects of thought' -- that is, they either represent a given philosopher's 'Ideas' or they are integral to the 'thoughts' attributed to one or more of the many 'deities' humans have dreamt up throughout history -- and that includes Hegel's 'Absolute'. As we will see, every single DM-theorist calls the 'abstractions' they have conjured into existence, "mental" entities. [On that, see Sections 8c and 8d, below.]

 

This is the ideological cess pit out of which DM-theorists dredged their theory!

 

As I also noted in Part One:

 

Since Ancient Greek times, Traditional Philosophy has been universally viewed as a unique, special source of Super-Knowledge -- knowledge that isn't just anterior to, it is more fundamental than, anything the sciences could possibly deliver. It is 'Super-Scientific' because its theories reveal Super-Necessities that underpin 'Being' itself, knowledge of which is only attainable by the application of 'reason'. As Immanuel Kant noted, echoing Plato:

 

"First, concerning the sources of metaphysical cognition, it already lies in the concept of metaphysics that they cannot be empirical. The principles of such cognition (which include not only its fundamental propositions or basic principles, but also its fundamental concepts) must therefore never be taken from experience; for the cognition is supposed to be not physical but metaphysical, i.e., lying beyond experience. Therefore it will be based upon neither outer experience, which constitutes the source of physics proper, nor inner, which provides the foundation of empirical psychology. It is therefore cognition a priori, or from pure understanding and pure reason.... Metaphysical cognition must contain nothing but judgments a priori, as required by the distinguishing feature of its sources." [Kant (1953), pp.15-16. (This links to a PDF.) I have quoted the on-line version which is a different translation to the one I have referenced. Bold emphases and link added; paragraphs merged.]

 

"Lying beyond experience", of course, implies philosophical knowledge is superior to anything science has to offer.

 

As we also saw in Part One, in the end these 'objects of thought' turned out to be Abstract Particulars (or the Proper Names thereof). This meant that for Rationalists, while 'reality itself' was held to be essentially Ideal, the physical universe was in effect a Shadow World, not fully 'real', since it was where contingency, brute facts, 'appearances', finitude and uncertainty reigned supreme. But, as Plato and Hegel argued, the 'rational structure'/'order' that supposedly lay 'behind appearances' is the really real world; the world of everyday experience, where workers eke out their existence, is temporary and ephemeral, fit only for derision and destruction as the wheels of change grind all into dust -- as Novak argued (quoted earlier), and as Hegel underlined:

 

"The being of something is determinate; something has a quality and in it is not only determined but limited; its quality is its limit and, burdened with this, it remains in the first place an affirmative, stable being. But the development of this negation, so that the opposition between its determinate being and the negation as its immanent limit, is itself the being-within-self of the something, which is thus in its own self only a becoming, constitutes the finitude of something. When we say of things that they are finite, we understand thereby that they not only have a determinateness, that their quality is not only a reality and an intrinsic determination, that finite things are not merely limited -- as such they still have determinate being outside their limit -- but that, on the contrary, non-being constitutes their nature and being. Finite things are, but their relation to themselves is that they are negatively self-related and in this they are negatively self-related and in this very self-relation send themselves away beyond themselves, beyond their being. They are, but the truth of this being is their end. The finite not only alters, like something in general, but it ceases to be; and its ceasing to be is not merely a possibility, so that it could be without ceasing to be, but the being as such of finite things is to have the germ of decease as their being-within-self: the hour of their birth is the hour of their death." [Hegel (1999), p.129, §§248-49. Bold emphases alone added. I have used the on-line version here; paragraphs merged.]

 

Indeed, as we saw, for Hegel only 'God' was "truly actual", fully 'real'. In that case, the invisible world that supposedly underpins the material universe, which was/is home to humanity's countless deities and (now) 'abstractions', may only be accessed by non-physical means -- solely via 'thought'. But, this had to be 'thought' of a rather special kind, and it had to be the 'thought' of a select group of socially-privileged thinkers'/'ideologues' -- "prize-fighters" of the ruling elite.

 

And now, DM-theorists.

 

[A brute fact is one for which no other fact is necessary in order to 'explain' it. So, if an object falls to the earth, that fact needs further facts about gravity to explain what happened and why it did. But what then explains gravity? Well, there may be 'something that explains gravity'. But, at some point we are going to hit a brick wall where we have to say, "Well, that's just how nature works!" That would be a brute fact. Of course, exactly when and where we hit this brick wall will change over time, but even if we hit an 'ultimate fact' -- maybe one such will be part of a Grand Unified Theory, a GUT (which term all the rage twenty or so years ago) that supposedly explained everything -- the next question would be: "Ok, so what explains that?" Even an appal to 'god' won't prevent this slide, since any question about what explains why 'god' did what 'he' did will hit the "It's all a mystery!" brick wall -- leaving us with a 'mysterious brute fact' -- 'the will of god'. Which is, of course, where all 'proofs' for the existence of this imaginary 'being' end anyway -- i.e., with 'mysterious brute facts'. On this, see also here.]

 

If general terms -- e.g., common nouns, such as "cat", "table", "human", "money", "value", "population", or adjectives such as "red", "cold" or "heavy", etc., etc. -- were in some way capable of reflecting the 'essence' of material bodies (and/or their 'accidental properties', their inter-relationships, etc', if we also include the use of verbs and adverbs), then, according to this approach that would be because of the Abstract Particulars [APs] to which they supposedly refer or which they instantiate. [For example, these APs might be 'The Form of the Cat', 'The Concept, Table', 'The Population', 'Redness', 'Sameness', etc., etc.] In which case, APs must be 'ontologically'-, and even 'epistemologically'-, anterior to the objects to which we supposedly refer by our use of certain (often obscure) terms. So, for Rationalists, APs exist (in some form or other) prior to, or in conjunction with, the objects they instantiate. This means APs underpin the latter's limited, temporary, or 'apparent', actuality. For other Rationalists they were merely 'mental constructs' to which reference must be made in order to understand/explain 'extra-mental reality'.1a

 

We will see Engels, Lenin and other DM-theorists reach similar conclusions, arguing that the 'concrete' only succeeds in being concrete (or is only concrete) because of the abstractions to which we have to appeal in order for them even to be considered concrete in the first place. That clearly implies there are no concrete objects and processes until they have been so processed! Oddly enough for those who at least claim to be materialists, this implied 'matter was also an abstraction'! Hence is it was that these self-proclaimed, 'hard-headed materialists' found themselves tail-ending Idealist Philosophers by their adoption of at least four core principles of Rationalism (not that these are its only defining characteristics):

 

(i) Abstract knowledge is not only superior to empirical knowledge, it is its necessary pre-requisite;

 

(ii) Matter is fundamentally abstract;

 

(iii) There is an 'underlying rational order to reality', accessible to thought alone; and,

 

(iv) 'Appearances' are in some way, or to some extent, 'deceptive'!

 

[As we will also see in Essay Thirteen Part One, Lenin added another item to the above list, when he based all his (and humanity's) knowledge on 'images'.]

 

It is here where we witness (yet again) the conflation of 'talk about talk' with 'talk about the world' -- i.e., a method that confuses linguistic and logical categories with 'reality itself', a profound muddle analysed in Part One (and Essay Twelve Part One).  We met it, for example, when we examined the ideas of theorists who interpreted predicates as:

 

(a) The referents of general terms (i.e., the objects or sets of objects in the world supposedly designated or named by predicate expressions) -- which (often) also supposedly stood for the properties of objects and events; and,

 

(b) Linguistic expressions in their own right.

 

Hence, for such theorists, predicates were both linguistic and extra-linguistic, at the same time!

 

A semantic slide like this definitely helped confuse Hegel; it prompted him into imagining that what went on in his head (as he juggled with certain words/'concepts') reflected, if not constituted, objects and events in the 'external' world. As a result, he thought he was free to project the contents of his head onto 'external reality'. As should seem obvious, that is as egregious a case of Epistemological Megalomania as one could wish to find. A sort of cosmic version of disturbed individuals who think they are Napoleon, The 'Messiah', or even 'God'.

 

 

Figure One: Megalomania Clearly Isn't Confined To German Mystics,

Who Also Happen To Talk Complete Boll*cks

 

While Descartes imagined there were two substances -- 'Mind' and 'Matter' --, it soon became apparent (in the work of Spinoza, but in a somewhat different form in Leibniz's work, and later still in Hegel's 'theory' -- but now on steroids) that there is only one 'rational', 'actual' or 'real' substance: 'Mind'. Everything else is an 'appearance', or even an 'emanation', and, as such, is 'accidental', 'ephemeral', transient, contingent.

 

[Readers might now like to go back and re-check Novak's comments to see to what extent ideas like these have been thoroughly internalised by DM-theorists. While he is typical of the genre, he isn't the most extreme. I will name names in Essay Nine Part Two.]

 

The traditional approach, which particularises common nouns and adjectives, and nominalises verbs, has, in one form or another, dominated Western Thought -- and, currently, DM -- for the best part of 2500 years. Its 'logical apex' (for want of a better term) was achieved in the metaphysical systems constructed by Leibniz and Hegel, which only serves to underline the claim advanced at this site that all ancient, medieval, early modern and contemporary versions of Rationalist Philosophy are just different forms of Idealism (and that includes DM -- as we saw in Essays Twelve Part One and Thirteen Part One). As we will also see, this approach to generality (and the meaning of general terms) has leached into every subsequent metaphysical system, to such an extent that it is now perfectly clear that all forms of Traditional Philosophy -- Rationalist, Nominalist, Realist, Monist, Dualist, Empiricist and Positivist -- are simply different forms of Idealism.

 

Which is one of the few things Hegel managed to get right:

 

"Every philosophy is essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out." [Hegel (1999), pp.154-55; §316. Bold emphasis added.]

 

[Why that seemingly controversial remark also applies to Empiricism, Nominalism and Positivism will be entered into presently. Follow the above links for an explanation of what "particularises" and "nominalises" mean.]

 

These "ruling ideas" -- in written form (in 'the West') were originally concocted by Ancient Greek Philosophers -- have now found a home in contemporary bourgeois thought, albeit with brand new content mirroring the novel social and economic conditions in which they were conceived and now flourish.

 

Even when Hegel's obscure version is flipped "right-side up" (or "put back on its feet" -- supposedly by dialecticians), the material world is still pictured as secondary, derivative, dependent, not fully real. Witness once again where erstwhile materialists try to tell us that matter is an abstraction. The physical universe, according to DM-theorists, requires the 'rational, non-physical principles' encapsulated in DL to give it life and form. Only they can render it 'concrete'. After all, 'underlying essence contradicts appearances', and in that 'philosophical wrestling match', it is "essence" that always ends on top.1aa

 

Here, for example, is Lenin:

 

"Logical concepts are subjective so long as they remain 'abstract,' in their abstract form, but at the same time they express the Thing-in-themselves. Nature is both concrete and abstract, both phenomenon and essence, both moment and relation." [Lenin (1961), p.208. Italic emphases in the original.]

 

"Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract -- provided it is correct (NB)… -- does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, the law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely." [Ibid., p.171. Italic emphases in the original.]

 

Notice that it is abstraction that drives thought closer to the truth. Moreover, as we saw in Part One, according to Engels and Lenin, the concrete only emerges (or can only be appreciated as concrete) at the end of an infinite process. In that case, nothing could ever rightly be said to be concrete until that endless task had been completed, which is clearly impossible. [We will also see later that Lenin is even less ambiguous concerning several other things he had to say about the mysterious 'process of abstraction' (here and here).]

 

Here is how the point was made in in Part One:

 

Worse still, both of these terms (i.e., "abstract" and "concrete") appear to be abstract themselves. Neither would pass, for example, TAR's 'gastronomic test': "no one has ever eaten, tasted, smelt, seen or heard" either of these 'concepts'. [Rees (1998), p.131.] Admittedly, when vocalised or committed to paper, these two words -- "abstract" and "concrete"--  are material objects in their own right, but that fact alone can't ground 'the content' of either of them in the material world, nor can it legitimate their use. If it could, we should all have to start believing in "God" just as soon as that word had been spoken aloud or written down somewhere.

 

Far worse than that: according to Lenin it now seems that no one could even "eat (etc.)" a single concrete object:

 

"But there are more than these two properties and qualities or facets to [any material object]; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite number of 'mediacies' and inter-relationships with the rest of the world…. [I]f we are to have true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and 'mediacies'. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely…. [D]ialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially true for its purpose, use and connection with the surrounding world." [Lenin (1921), pp.92-93. Italic emphases in the original; paragraphs merged.]

 

If not even an everyday tumbler is concrete unless it has been set against, and then interlinked with, an "infinite number of mediacies", who is there alive that could swear truthfully that a tumbler is in fact concrete? Assuming these connections are "infinite", then no matter how many interconnections we set up for it, there will always be an infinite number still left to connect, leaving any judgement we make about it stranded infinitely far from the truth with an infinitely high probability of being false.

 

[The response that only 'relevant' connections should be considered in this regard has been batted out of the park in Essay Ten Part One, here.]

 

Clearly, whatever applies to tumblers applies equally well to things we think we can eat; perhaps they aren't concrete, either? In that case, TAR's 'gastronomic, touchy-feely test' fails to pick out even concrete objects! If so, how it can be used to test whether something is 'abstract' or 'concrete', or distinguish the one from the other, is far from clear, to say the least.

 

Of course, it could be argued that whether we know it or not, concrete objects are still concrete for all that. But are they? Who says? And where is the infinite body of knowledge which would be needed to substantiate a 'cosmically' bold (abstract) claim such as that? Moreover, if Lenin is right that "all truth is concrete, never abstract", then the abstract claim that "whether we know it or not, concrete objects are still concrete" can't itself be true.

 

Such are the 'consolations' of 'dialectics'.

 

For example: Is, say, the apple you might pluck from a tree or buy in a shop now actually interconnected with everything in reality? Just in case an impatient dialectician is tempted to snap back with a hasty "Yes, of course it is!" in response to such an impertinent question, it is worth pointing out that that fact (if it is one) could never itself be confirmed, but must either be imposed on the said apple or accepted as an article of faith. In that case, whatever it is that dialecticians now claim they know about allegedly concrete objects (like that apple) must, it seems, be foisted on them, too, since no one at present would or could ever be justified in calling anything "concrete" unless they had pointed to their knowledge of the infinite number of "mediacies" Lenin insisted were required to that end --, or they had actually gathered an infinite amount of evidence in support of such a hyper-bold contention:

 

"But there are more than these two properties and qualities or facets to [any material object]; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite number of 'mediacies' and inter-relationships with the rest of the world…. [I]f we are to have true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and 'mediacies'. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely…." [Ibid., bold added.]

 

Do we have this much information about a humble apple?

 

Could we cope with it even if we had?

 

Again, if Lenin were right that "all truth is concrete, never abstract", then the abstract claim that the aforementioned apple is "actually interconnected with everything in reality" can't itself be true -- whenever it is asserted this side of the completion of the above infinitary task.

 

[This topic is discussed in greater detail in Essays Two, Ten Part One, Eleven Parts One and Two, and Thirteen Part One -- and again in more detail in several places in Part Two, for instance, here.]

 

As has already been pointed out, both of these words (i.e., "abstract" and "concrete") are time-honoured, philosophical terms-of-art, invented by thinkers intent on 'justifying' and rationalising the status quo, or the world-view upon which their patrons' hegemony was predicated. However, it is plain that even though they have since become highly clichéd by their over-use, DM-theorists uncritically appropriated them simply because they encountered them in Hegel's work (or the work of some other Traditional Theorist), and, apparently, for no other reason. In like manner, Hegel employed them simply because of their status as key entries in the Idealist Philosophers' Phrase Book.

 

Even worse still, and as far as can be ascertained, no attempt has ever been made by DM-theorists to show precisely how a single abstract 'concept' can be derived from, or even be seen in, concrete particulars -- or from anywhere else, for that matter -- other than, of course, by importing that idea from Hegel and Traditional Thought. Nor is this surprising; no one has been able to demonstrate how this miraculous trick is humanly possible. To be sure, theorists have dreamt-up countless abstract terms over the centuries, and muttered various incantations over them as they were recruited into Traditional Philosophical discourse, but materialists should be no more impressed with verbal gymnastics like this than they are with those that supposedly support belief in God.

 

So, according to DM-theorists, the 'Dialectical Logos' (i.e., 'DL') is required, not just to add form to formless matter, but to call it into existence, give it life, make it move, and for all of this literally to have emerged out of 'Nothing'. Creation ex nihilo isn't just a Christian doctrine, it is also a DM-dogma, courtesy of Hegel's 'derivation' of everything from 'Being' and 'Nothing' -- via 'Becoming'.

 

Here is what I have written elsewhere about this 'derivation' by Hegel (slightly edited):

 

One particular 'argument' is of special interest here; it crops up in different forms in several places in Hegel's work, and attempts to connect "Being" with "Nothing" and then both with "Becoming", by magically 'deriving' all three from the verb "to be"....

 

Amazingly, this 'argument' was praised by Lenin and Trotsky....

 

Rees summarised thus 'argument' in the following way:

 

"The 'Science of Logic' begins with the most abstract of all human ideas, Being. This is the bare notion of existence shorn of any colour, size, shape, taste or smell. This first concept is also, in its way, a totality. Although Being reveals no characteristics or distinguishing marks, it does, nevertheless, include everything. After all, everything must exist before it can take on any particular characteristics. Being is therefore a quality that is shared by everything that exists; it is the most common of all human ideas. Every time we say, 'This is --,' even before we say what it is, we acknowledge the idea of pure Being…. But Being also contains its opposite, Nothing. The reason is that Being has no qualities and no features that define it. If we try to think about pure Being…we are forced to the opposite conclusion, Being equals Nothing. But even Nothing is more than it seems. If we are asked to define Nothing, we are forced to admit that it has at least one property -– the lack or absence of any qualities…. This presents us with a strange dilemma: being is Nothing and yet Nothing is something. Hegel, however, is not so stupid as to think that there is no difference between being and Nothing, even though this is what our logical enquiry seems to suggest. All that this contradiction means is that we must search for a new term that…can explain how Being and Nothing can be both equal and separate (or an 'identity of opposites'…). Hegel's solution is the concept of Becoming." [Rees (1998), pp.49-50. Spelling adjusted in line with UK English; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; paragraphs merged.]

 

But, there is no way these concepts ("Being", "Nothing" and "Becoming") could have been derived from "careful empirical work", nor can they be "tested in practice" -- let alone abstracted from anything that is recognisably material.

 

In the end, the fact that erstwhile materialists (like Lenin and Trotsky -- or even Rees, since he nowhere criticises this 'argument') praised this prime example of linguistic mystification isn't the least bit surprising -- when their own ideas are viewed against the class-compromised background of Traditional Thought.

 

This is how Trotsky characterised it:

 

"The identity of Being (Sein) and Nothingness (Nichts), like the contradictoriness of the concept of the Beginning, in which Nichts and Sein are united, seems at first glance a subtle and fruitless play of ideas. In fact, this 'game' brilliantly exposes the failure of static thinking, which at first splits the world into motionless elements, and then seeks truth by way of a limitless expansion [of the process]." [Trotsky (1986), p.103.]

 

Whereas Lenin thought it was:

 

"Shrewd and clever! Hegel analyses concepts that usually appear dead and shows that there is movement in them." [Lenin (1961), p.110.]

 

However, at no point do Rees and other DM-fans repudiate this style of reasoning, only some of its 'Ideal' implications -- which, coupled with the praise Lenin and Trotsky heaped upon it, indicates that, for dialecticians, the rejection of Hegelian Absolute Idealism is purely formal, and clearly superficial. By no stretch of the imagination have any of the above conclusions been drawn from "an analysis of real material forces", or anything even remotely like one. The fact that leading DM-classicists could claim to learn anything about the nature of "static thinking" from such woefully defective 'logic' reveals how superficial their frequent and vociferous rejection of Absolute Idealism really is. The 'logic' of this passage is entirely bogus and thoroughly Idealist, again, as George Novack noted:

 

"A consistent materialism cannot proceed from principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition, self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice...." [Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]

 

The concepts Hegel employed are the result of grossly exaggerated abstractions, tortured 'logic' and terminally dubious assertions....

 

In fact, this Hegelian 'derivation' has set a new gold standard for all forms of LIE, for from it everything in existence -- every object, thought and process -- can be 'derived' miraculously from the verb "to be"!

 

[LIE = Linguistic Idealism; follow that link for an explanation.]

 

So, even for dialecticians, matter isn't sufficient to itself -- indeed, as we have seen, it is an 'abstraction'. Which is, of course, why Hegel and Dialectical Marxists found they had to appeal to a linguistic form -- i.e., to 'contradiction' -- to set things in motion, keep them moving and give them life. Uncoincidentally, as we also saw earlier, according to the Bible, the universe, life and movement were created by, and are now sustained via, language and 'logic' (i.e., the Logos, again). In DM, these ideas are mirrored by the above linguistic forms, which have been projected onto reality, but in a secular form. That should surprise no one given the fact that Hegel was a Christian Mystic:

 

"Contradiction is the root of all movement and life, and it is only in so far as it contains a contradiction that anything moves and has impulse and activity." [Hegel (1999), p.439, §956. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"So long as we consider things at rest and lifeless, each one by itself…we do not run up against any contradictions in them…. But the position is quite different as soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence. Then we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction…. [T]here is a contradiction objectively present in things and processes themselves, a contradiction is moreover an actual force...." [Engels (1976), pp.152-53. Bold emphases added.]

 

"Dialectics…prevails throughout nature…. [T]he motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites…determines the life of nature." [Engels (1954), p.211. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement,' in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites. The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation). In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject, etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of 'self'-movement. The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the 'self-movement' of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the 'leaps,' to the 'break in continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new. The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute." [Lenin (1961), pp.357-58. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Paragraphs merged.]

 

"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.... As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development.... The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end....There is nothing that does not contain contradictions; without contradiction nothing would exist.... Thus it is already clear that contradiction exists universally and is in all processes, whether in the simple or in the complex forms of motion, whether in objective phenomena or ideological phenomena.... Contradiction is universal and absolute, it is present in the process of the development of all things and permeates every process from beginning to end...." [Mao (1937), pp.311-18. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

 

Because of this, it isn't possible to find -- nor even to suggest there might be -- a single physical correlate in nature or society for the 'abstractions' dialecticians have dreamt up (or, to be more honest, for the 'abstract concepts' imported from Hegel and other ruling-class ideologues) to correspond with. But, since they form the 'essential nature' of material objects and processes, this can only mean that, for DM-fans, they must be Ideal, too.

 

And, in a nutshell, that is why Dialectical Marxists think matter is an 'abstraction', and hence why the aforementioned "flip" they allegedly performed on Hegel's system was actually through the full 360º, not the 180º they now try to sell the rest of us. Nor is it at all surprising to find that they have had to denigrate, or at least depreciate, ordinary language and with it the lives and experience of ordinary workers -- accusing them of being trapped by 'commonsense', 'formal thinking' and 'false consciousness' (thus reprising a rhetorical flourish perfected by countless generations of ruling-class hacks), in order to 'justify' and rationalise the importation of Hegelian concepts into the workers' movement.

 

[The above accusations will be substantiated in Essay Twelve (summary here). They have already been covered from a different angle in Essay Nine Parts One and Two, where the underlying motives driving DM-advocates in this direction were exposed.]

 

As we will discover throughout the rest of this site, because of their reliance on the traditional thought-forms dialecticians have only succeeded in saddling themselves and our movement with a set of insoluble 'philosophical problems'. This also helps explain why every single dialectician slips into a priori, dogmatic mode at the drop of a copula --, and why they all fail to notice they have done so even after it has been pointed out to them!

 

[The reason for the copula remark will be clear to anyone who has read Part One of this Essay.]

 

Moreover, as indicated earlier, this version of 'rotated Idealism' [i.e., DM] pictures the material world as less 'real' than the Ideal world which lends it its substance, its 'essence', and which in the end determines what its theorists finally regard as "concrete".

 

And we can now see why that is so: for dialecticians, material objects are only "concrete" in the Ideal Limit, at the end of an 'infinite journey'. But, since that limit is forever unattainable, it means that, for them, there are in effect no concrete objects or processes whatsoever!

 

How Not To Solve A Problem: Begin By Doubling It

 

Almost as if to spoil the metaphysical merriment, Aristotle pointed out (in reference to Plato's Theory of Forms and the so-called "Third Man Argument") that it is surely a bad idea when trying to solve any problems you face to begin by doubling them.

 

[Although the "Third Man Argument' first saw light of day in Plato (1997d), p.366, 132a-132b. Yes, I am aware that several commentators have tried to argue that Plato abandoned The Theory of Forms in that dialogue, but I really don't want to become embroiled in a lengthy discussion of this topic, since it is based on a currently unanswerable question (viz.: "Did Plato abandon his Theory of Forms?"). I will, however, assume along with other Plato scholars that he still retained a level of commitment to this theory. On that see, for example, Meinwald (1990, 1992).]

 

By this, Aristotle meant that if there is a 'difficulty' explaining the similarities that exist between particulars given in experience (which 'problem' gave birth the idea there must be 'Abstract Universals', or 'Forms', that accounted for these similarities, and hence for generality itself), there must surely be a similar 'difficulty' accounting for those that exist between the particulars themselves and the 'Forms' they supposedly instantiate.

 

So, where previously there was only one 'problem', now we have two.

 

The problem Plato's theory faced is explained rather well by Hilary Staniland:

 

"[W]hen Plato tells us that men are men in virtue of their relation to the Form of Man, or that beautiful things are beautiful in virtue of their relation to the Form of Beauty, he definitely does claim to be telling us something new. And the puzzle is to understand what this new information can possibly be. What on earth is 'imitating' or 'participating' in the Form of Beauty, if it is not the same thing as just being beautiful? Plato himself was seriously concerned about this problem. In one of his later dialogues, the Parmenides, he advances arguments attacking his own theory at precisely this point, and it has even been maintained by some commentators that toward the end of his life he abandoned the Theory of Forms because of these very difficulties. The two most important arguments in the Parmenides are directed against the metaphors of 'imitation' and 'participation' respectively. The argument against the metaphor of 'imitation' is as follows. According to the 'imitation' version of the Theory of Forms, the resemblance between particular beautiful things, in virtue of which we call them all 'beautiful,' can be made intelligible only by postulating a Form of Beauty which all the particular beautiful things resemble. But if the first resemblance really stands in need of an explanation of this kind, surely the second resemblance does too. So in order to make the resemblance between particular beautiful things and the Form of Beauty intelligible, we shall have to postulate a second Form which all the particular beautiful things and the Form of Beauty resemble, and so on ad infinitum. At each stage we still have an unexplained resemblance on our hands, and so the explanation can never be completed. This sort of difficulty is inevitable if we assume on the one hand that resemblances, as such, stand in need of explanation, and on the other that they can be explained only in terms of further resemblances. (Plato himself does not use the example of the Form of Beauty, but simply states the argument in general terms. Later, the Form of Man came to be the standard example, and the argument is therefore traditionally known as the 'Third Man Argument.')

 

"The kind of difficulties Plato found himself in with the alternative metaphor of 'participation' may be brought out as follows. The idea here is that the Form is somehow shared in by the particulars. Each beautiful thing has a share of Beauty, each human being a share of Humanity, and so on. The difficulty here is as follows. Are we to think of the particulars as sharing in the Form in the way that several people might share a cake? Then the Form will be divided into separate parts belonging to different particulars. But then we have to explain how it is that all these separate parts nevertheless constitute one thing. So we have merely replaced the problem of explaining why this beautiful thing and that may both be called by the same name by the problem of explaining why the beauty of this thing and the beauty of that thing may both be called parts of the same Form, which is hardly an advance. Should we say, then, that the whole Form is present in each of the particulars? Then we shall have to say that the Form is in many separate places at the same time. And even if we do not disallow this as absurd, we shall still have to explain how 'Beauty' can be the name both of what is to be found in this thing and of what is to be found in that thing. So again, we have only replaced one problem by another." [Staniland (1973), pp.22-24. Several paragraphs merged; italic emphases in the original. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. We will have occasion to return to this specific topic later, where it will soon become clear that the DM-theory of 'abstraction' faces similar 'difficulties'.]

 

Worse still, if the solution to this ancient conundrum implied there were a link of some sort between particulars and a 'we-know-not-what' (i.e., a 'Form' or a 'Universal', located 'we-know-not-where', in a mysterious world anterior to experience, or even apprehended in experience, but accessible to thought alone), it would be a 'solution' in name alone.

 

Hence, if an abstract term is required to account for the similarities that exist between particulars (for instance, between each man), a third term would clearly be required to account for the similarity between that abstraction and those particulars themselves (which is what generates the need for a 'third man' to account for that similarity). Otherwise, the supposed connection wouldn't be rational, merely fortuitous or accidental, undermining the whole point of the exercise.

 

As we saw in Part One, this helps explain why the Medieval, 'Identity Theory of Predication' (this links directly to a downloadable .doc file), was invented by Roman Catholic Theologians -- subsequently appropriated by Hegel. That was done in order to re-establish the necessary connection that was supposed to exist between a subject and its predicates, or between an object and its properties. [How and why that 'necessary connection' was broken will be revealed below.]

 

Here is Hegel scholar, Katharina Dulckeit (summarising this aspect of Hegel's theory and why he accepted it):

 

"[It] must be remembered that [Hegel's] analysis of the forms of judgment in the Logic is motivated by his interest in essential judgement. There are two conditions for such judgements. To begin with, a judgement is an essential judgement only if P tells us precisely and exclusively what S is; no less and no more. But merely predicating universals of particulars is insufficient for this, unless the term in the predicate position at once expresses the essential nature of the subject. This, in turn, argues Hegel, is possible only if the 'is' expresses some identity between S and P. For if essential determination were possible exclusively via predication, the subject and the predicate would remain separate and the relation between them expressed by the copula would remain external. As a consequence, S would refer to one thing, namely an individual, while P would designate something distinct from S, namely a universal. But the truth of sense-certainty in the Phenomenology has already been shown that qua individual, an individual is grasped only through the mediation of universals. It follows that divorced from these, it would then have to be an individual without a universal nature, i.e., a bare individual.... Thus, if S and P are utterly distinct they must be mutually exclusive, which means that S will necessarily be bare, and P necessarily abstract.... Clearly then, where judgements of essence are concerned, the 'is' of predication will not do because it entails the distinction between S and P which would commit us to a metaphysical thesis already overcome in the Phenomenology." [Dulckeit (1989), pp.115-16. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; links added. I have subjected passages like this to sustained criticism in Appendix D of Part One. The letter "S" has been capitalised; it is in small case in the original. Here "P" clearly stands for "predicate" and "S" for "subject". As we saw earlier, a "bare particular" is a particular that has no properties, or to which no predicates apply -- which is clearly impossible. More about that later and in Essay Twelve Part Six.]

 

As we have also seen, the introduction of a third term (such as, in this case, "Identity" -- but any 'Universal' will do) simply reproduces the original problem. That is because questions would now surely arise over the link between this new term and the rest -- i.e., between each particular and this hypothetical 'Universal' -- which had originally been invented in order to explain the original connection between particulars! But, for those who dote on this way of theorising, any attempt to undermine the 'necessary connection' that Plato and Hegel envisaged here would introduce contingency into nature, which would in turn undermine belief in 'God', thereby implying some form of atheism. Medieval theologians saw this only too clearly, which is why they invented the 'Identity Theory of Predication' that Hegel readily accepted. [I enter into this topic again, but in more detail in several places below, particularly here.]

 

While 'Abstract Universals' like this 'exist' in an 'Ideal World' anterior to the world we see around us, they also supposedly enjoy 'connections of some sort' with particulars in this world, connections that are of a different order/kind to those that material particulars presumably experience among themselves. That would have to be the case if such 'abstractions' don't actually exist in the material world themselves. Unfortunately, this leaves the 'abstract', other-worldly side of this family of proposed 'solutions' (and the connections they allegedly have with material particulars in this world) forever shrouded in mystery -- with no hope of resolution, either.

 

Which is where this 'problem' remains to this day.

 

Hence, if the introduction of a Universal, Concept, Idea or 'abstraction' -- call it/them, "C1" -- is required in order to account for the common features/properties shared, for instance, by 'objects', A and B, then a new Universal, Concept, Idea or 'abstraction' -- call it/them, "C2" (a third term) -- will be required to account for the commonality between C1 and A, and between C1 and B, and so on. As noted above, the whole exercise thus threatens to generate an infinite regress, as similar questions will now be asked about the relation between C1 and C2, thus requiring the introduction of a fourth term, "C3", and so on, leaving nothing explained. [On this topic, see Passmore (1970), Chapter 2. This age-old conundrum is also connected with the so-called 'Problem of Self-Predication', which I have dealt with briefly below. On that, see Allen (1960). (This links to a PDF.)]

 

Donald Davidson put this point rather well, too:

 

"In one dialogue or another Plato tells us that the forms are not perceived by the senses, but are objects of the mind; that they are imperishable; that they are indivisible; that they are superior to material objects; that they are norms by which we judge material things; that they have a certain creative power (the form of wisdom 'makes' Socrates wise). Material objects participate in, resemble, copy, or are modelled by the forms. Problems arise because some of these characteristics of the forms turn out to clash with others. If material things resemble the forms they instantiate to various degrees, then material things have something in common with any form they resemble. If a well-drawn circle resembles the form of circularity, it must be because both the particular drawn circle and the form of circularity share the property of circularity; but then what the particular and the property share must be still another form. Scholars of Plato have puzzled over this problem, the problem of the 'third man,' because it seems to lead to an infinite regress." [Davidson (2005), pp.78-79. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases added.]

 

Of course, Davidson goes on to argue that Plato appears to have 'solved' this problem by claiming that it is a mistake to think that shapes also have a shape (i.e., that the 'Form of Shape' itself has a shape) or that Socrates resembles the concept of a man, thus ruling out what has come to be known as 'the problem of self-predication', mentioned above.

 

In some instances that might well be the case, but it isn't easy to see how the Forms could be exemplars that each particular supposedly instantiates if they share nothing with them. Indeed, why call something the 'Form of Circularity' if there is nothing circular about it? Or if there is nothing in common between this Form and circles that have been, or could be, drawn in this world? Otherwise why wouldn't circles exemplify the 'Form of Squareness' or of 'Triangularity', with which they also share nothing? There has to be some reason why the 'Form of Circularity' expresses what all circles have in common that prevents the 'Form of Squareness', 'Triangularity', or even 'Happiness', from doing it. But, just as soon as it is acknowledged there is something unique held in common between a given Form and the particulars that supposedly fall under it (and which thereby rules out the applicability of any other Form in that respect to those specific particulars), the 'Third Man Argument' simply reasserts itself.

 

Of course, exemplary rules (if that is what the Forms are supposed to express or represent) in no obvious way resemble the objects to which they are, or can be, applied -- so, the rules of chess don't in any meaningful way resemble the moves they legislate -- but there is little in Plato to suggest he regarded his Forms as rules. Even if the Forms were supposed to be exemplars, there would have to be a rule of some sort that informed those who used them, or their linguistic counterparts, as exemplars how they should be applied, and how to do so correctly. But, there are no such rules, or none that Plato ever mentioned. A wordless object, a Form, can't tell anyone how to use or apply it, let alone how to do so correctly. An interpreted rule can and does. [Exactly how such interpretations work or are actioned will be covered in Essay Twelve Part Seven.] A chess piece, for example, can't tell a novice chess player how it should be moved. The rules of chess, once understood, typically serve in that capacity. But it takes a human being to interpret each rule. In which case, the Forms, without rules that show how they apply or are to be used (correctly) as exemplars, would be inert (for want of a better term), and thereby useless. But no rule is self-interpreting. Again, a human being is required, and human beings are social agents. Considerations like these (which, once more will be expanded on in Essay Twelve) bring this entire topic down to earth and situate it in the open, on home turf for the left, in the public domain.

 

[Some might claim that computers interpret rules (i.e., programmes); that riposte will also be covered in Essay Twelve Part Seven; until then readers are referred to Shanker (1986b, 1987a, 1987b, 1987c, 1988, 1995, 1996b, 1997, 1998); see also my comments in Essay Thirteen Part Three. The significance of the comments in the previous paragraph shouldn't be lost on fellow Marxists, and will become even clearer as this Essay and others at this site unfold. Wittgenstein made a similar point about 'signs' and 'mental images'; on that see Note 40a, below. There is a sophisticated defence of Plato in Meinwald (1990, 1992). The reader will have to decide for herself whether or not it is successful. However, as we will see, this pseudo-problem is easily resolved, as this Essay, in tandem with Part One, demonstrates. Having said that, the case against DM-Epistemology is in no way affected if Plato's theory survives the 'Third Man Argument' or crashes and burns as a result.]

 

Well, this might be to misinterpret the nature of Plato's Forms, perhaps even anachronistically. In fact, Plato talks as if we just 'see' or 'remember' the Forms (on that, see Note 6a), and that that is all there is to it. But, once more, if we are to recognise the 'Form of Circularity' and distinguish it from, say, the 'Form of Squareness', there must be something about the former that isn't the case with the latter, and which the former shares with examples of circularity we encounter in this world that it doesn't share with squareness. But, what could that be? A name or label of some sort? But, names don't seem to resemble other names, nor can they express a rule. That is also the case with labels. Of course, we already know what circularity is so our understanding has already been biased in that direction (so to speak), but just looking at the alleged 'Form of Circularity' in Platonic Heaven before we were born (which is how Plato apparently conceived of this pre-natal, Cosmic Drama), without knowing what it represents or how to apply it would tell us nothing. Maybe, in our 'pre-existent state', we were all given a guided tour or were given an 'Empyrean Form-User's Handbook' of some description? If so, that would make this a social conception of knowledge, and all the problems Plato associated with banausic theories like that would surely apply to each and every 'heavenly' correlate of the same.

 

What, for example, would be common to 'The Form of Dog', or the 'Forms of Cat, Lion, Horse, Rat and Crocodile' that would make them all partake in the 'Form of Vertebrate', 'Form of Animal' and 'Form of Living Organism'? Any convincing answer to such questions (should there even be one!) would once again re-introduce the 'Third Man Argument'/'Objection', only now applied to the Forms themselves!

 

Maybe Platonic Heaven works in 'mysterious ways', and 'Cosmic Knowledge' is different from ordinary, boring, earthly knowledge? But, that is precisely the point at issue, for Plato's theory kicks this 'problem' off into the 'ethereal long grass', a fundamentally mysterious world which is (currently) accessible to no one this side of 'the heavenly veil'.

 

Similar 'difficulties' subsequently plagued Hegel's theory, but in a different form (no pun intended). That is because he had no way of knowing whether or not his apprehension of the concepts that were of interest to him were genuine copies of those processed by 'the Absolute Itself' --, or, for that matter, whether or not they were the same as anyone else's 'concepts'. He certainly imagined he was investigating the 'nature of thought itself', and that peremptory presupposition -- in what was after all supposed to be a presuppositionless enquiry! -- 'allowed' him to credit everyone else with the content of his thoughts, as though we all need a Christian Mystic to tell us what we are (really) thinking if we but knew it. And, of course, if we all actively prevented 'ordinary understanding' from getting in the way! But, as we are about to see, there is good reason -- beyond the ridiculous implausibility of any such presupposition -- to question Hegel's confidence in this matter. [To put this at its mildest!] In fact, he would have no way of knowing whether or not he had interpreted these 'concepts' correctly, or had even grasped what they 'really meant'. Having the name of a concept (such as "Being") would be of no more use to Hegel than seeing the 'Form of Circularity' would be to our 'pre-existent selves' in 'Platonic Heaven'. The name of a concept provides no clue as to how it should be applied -- or even what it means -- certainly no more than 'the word' "Meskonation" would help you, dear reader, if you simply stared at it or thought about it for weeks on end.

 

[Don't bother to look that 'word' up! I invented it -- just like Philosophers invented "Being".]

 

Of course, it could be argued that Hegel inherited a range of concepts from previous generations of philosophers (such as, "Being", "Nothing", "Form", "Substance", and even "Concept" itself), which isn't the case with "Meskonation". That is undeniable, but it misses the point. Hegel could stare at the word "Being" all day long and that would still fail to tell him that what he meant by that word was the same as, or was different from, what previous thinkers had meant by it -- or, indeed, that the meaning of any of the words they had used in their explanation of what they thought they meant by "Being" were the same as, or were different from, what he now meant by those words -- without a social theory or social explanation of meaning to assist him, or them. The fact that Hegel processed these ideas 'in the privacy of his head' undermines any attempt on his part to formulate just such a social theory/explanation. And it is little use, either, pointing to his copious writings, or even those of previous thinkers on whom he relied, as a way of extricating Hegel from this theoretical impasse. That is because those ideas, expressed in print, are neither locked inside Hegel's skull nor theirs. Those writings merely record (on paper) the results of their private musings, they don't in any way alter their provenance or meaning (that is, if they ever had any!), still less do they establish their legitimacy.

 

Someone might object that if the aforementioned writings were examined in detail, it would be possible to ascertain their meaning by the way each author used such words. But, if the one reading those writings only has available to them their own private meanings of words -- like "meaning", "word" and "use", never mind "same" -- they would still fail to ascertain what any given author meant by their words. Even worse, the same would apply to their own use of words; they would have no way of knowing, from moment-to-moment, what their own words meant. Nor is it any use appealing to memory here since that word attracts the very same problems, as do any 'internal ideas' they supposedly represent. As argued in Note 40a, 'internal signs'/'ideas' can no more tell us what they mean than external ones can. Social agents are required to establish meaning, and that is actioned and achieved in the open, in a social context. Indeed, as we have seen (in Part One), and will see throughout the rest of this Essay (and this site -- especially Essay Thirteen Part Three), it isn't possible to build a social theory of language, meaning or even knowledge if one starts with privately processed 'abstractions', 'representations', 'ideas' or 'concepts' -- no matter how carefully it is done, no matter the supposed 'genius' of the one supposedly doing it.

 

[And that is especially the case with theories constructed by those -- like Hegel and DM-theorists -- who also believe in the Heraclitean Flux. (Why that is so is explained below.)]

 

This is precisely where Hegel's non-social theory of knowledge -- i.e., his bourgeois individualism (for that is what this is an example of; once again, Hegel worked all this out, individualistically, in the 'privacy of his head') -- landed his theory of 'conceptual development'. Simply grafting a temporal component onto Plato's Theory of Forms (even if they are given an Aristotelian veneer) is no solution. Time can't add a dimension of meaning where there was none to begin with.

 

[I have said more about this here and here.]

 

Any who doubt this need only ask themselves in, say, a few months' time if "Meskonation" now means something to them (i.e., if they constantly mull it over 'in their heads' across the intervening days and weeks), and then whether or not it means the same to anyone else as it does to them. Then ask the same question in, say, twenty years time.

 

[There is more about this below, too -- here and here.]

 

Hegel could assert and insist all he liked -- and could do so until his face turned blue (as, indeed, can any of his epigones) -- that the results he had achieved were 'objective' and delineate how 'all thought actually proceeds' -- or that he had uncovered 'the nature of thought itself' --, if carried out in the way he (sort of) described, but that would simply be the philosophical equivalent of thumping the table. And thumping the table carries no force philosophically, no matter how much better it might make any given table-thumper feel. But, because Hegel began by using the traditional concepts and methods he inherited from previous generations of mystical day-dreamers (albeit adapted and transformed to suit his own ends), and he did all this 'in his head', there is no way out of the 'subjective hole' he had dug for himself -- as the above remarks, the rest of this Essay and much of Essay Twelve and Thirteen Part Three will substantiate. And we should refuse to give Hegel the benefit of the doubt on this score until he returns and explains himself in comprehensible, gobbledygook-free, language.

 

And the same applies to anyone foolish enough to adapt or employ his method.

 

Be this as it may, Davidson makes the point that even if Plato had managed to circumvent these 'difficulties', his theory falls foul of another, even more intractable, infinite regress: one involving the 'problem of predication' and the 'unity of the proposition' -- covered in extensive detail in Part One of this Essay.

 

Dialectical Materialists Agree With Idealists -- Matter Is An 'Abstraction'

 

Plato's theory demotes the status of the 'evidence' sense experience presents each 'knowing subject', rendering it of secondary importance (or even of no real importance) compared with whatever is contributed by 'reason', 'thought', or 'tradition' -- as Plato's Allegory of the Cave amply confirms. [On that, see Appendix B of Essay Eight Part Two. Having said that, there are passages in Plato's dialogues which seem to contradict sweepingly negative interpretations like this of his approach, but they certainly aren't decisive and they are inconsistent with his Aristocratic contempt for anything ordinary. On that, see Silverman (2014).]

 

[Indeed, we will soon see, this anti-scientific Platonic attitude re-surface in the ideas promoted by several DM-theorists, who argue that facts are not only an impediment, they are entirely misleading! After all, 'appearances contradict essence', according to them, and that must include what would ordinarily be counted as facts. In Essay Two, we have already seen CLR James arguing along such lines.]

 

This Aristocratic depreciation of the material world, with its 'irrational contingency', accompanied by an all-too-familiar, arrogant denigration of the thought, lives and experience of ordinary human beings spilled over into subsequent Platonic and Neoplatonic revivals, core ideas from both of which find clear expression in Hegel's work, and hence in DM.

 

[On that, see O'Regan (1994). In fact, Hegel himself devoted an entire book (all of 452 pages!) to Plato and the Platonists; i.e., Hegel (1995b). He clearly saw in that ancient ruling-class warrior a kindred spirit, openly regarding him as an intellectual mentor. On this aspect of Plato, his trenchant opposition to democracy, see De Ste. Croix (1981), pp.70-71, 284, 411-12. For a revisionist view of Plato and his anti-democratic prejudices, see Monoson (2000). For a critique of the latter, see Miller (2003), Schaeffer and Nichols (2003), and Arnhart (2001). Of course, the classic work in this area is Popper (1966), which pushed this criticism of Plato to the extreme, accusing Plato of supporting or promoting totalitarianism (something that would actually have been physically impossible in Ancient Greece), and, since Popper also traduces Marx (in Volume Two of the same work) along similar lines, it can hardly be recommended without qualification by the present author. Anyway, this theme will be explored at greater detail in Essay Twelve Parts Two, Three and Seven, as well as Essay Fourteen Part One (summaries here and here).]

 

In which case, if "What is rational is real, and what is real is rational" [Hegel (2005), p.xix] actually were the case, both the 'real' and the 'rational' would remain forever inaccessible to the senses (and would thereby conveniently lie beyond easy refutation), which means the outward appearance of objects and processes will (always) fail to match their 'real form'/'essence'. That is because only 'the Mind' is 'rational', and since material things aren't 'Mind', they can't be 'rational'. In that case, material bodies have be 'governed' by 'rational principles' in order to have life, move or even exist. Or so this Mystical Tradition, and Dialectical Marxists, would have us believe:

 

"Matter is not the Ground of Form, but the unity of Ground and Grounded. Matter is the passive, Form is the active." [Lenin (1961), p.145. Bold emphasis alone added. Lenin is here paraphrasing Hegel.]

 

[The various responses that could be made to the seemingly dogmatic assertions (in the previous paragraph) will be considered in Essay Twelve Part Four. I have already covered some of the issues involved in Essay Thirteen Part Three, here, here and here.]

 

Or, perhaps better: if the validity of  the above Platonic/Aristocratic approach is taken for granted, the 'problem' of the relation between matter and 'mind' can only be resolved if the material world is re-interpreted as an aspect of 'Mind', an "abstraction" of some sort, or even an Ideal Entity in its own right. So, the logical conclusion of this way of regarding 'knowledge', as Hegel clearly seemed to believe, is that, despite appearances to the contrary, everything must be 'Mind', an aspect of 'Mind' or a reflection/expression of 'Mind' in 'self-development'.

 

That helps explain why Hegel thought every philosophy was in effect a different form of Idealism (quoted earlier):

 

"Every philosophy is essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out." [Hegel (1999), pp.154-55; §316. Bold emphasis added.]

 

Here, too, is Hegel on why everything material is (really) an 'abstraction' (and hence in some way, fundamentally 'mental'/'mind-like'):

 

"If abstraction is made from every determination, from all form of anything, what is left over is indeterminate matter. Matter is a sheer abstraction. (Matter cannot be seen, felt, and so on -- what is seen, felt, is a determinate matter, that is, a unity of matter and form). This abstraction from which matter proceeds is, however, not merely an external removal and sublating of form, rather does form, as we have seen, spontaneously reduce itself to this simple identity." [Hegel (1999), pp.450-51, §979. Bold emphasis alone added. (Typos in the on-line version have been corrected.)]

 

Here is Engels faithfully parroting the above:

 

"Matter as such is a pure creation of thought and an abstraction. We leave out of account the qualitative differences of things in lumping them together as corporeally existing things under the concept matter. Hence matter as such, as distinct from definite existing pieces of matter, is not anything sensuously existing." [Engels (1954), p.255. Bold emphases added. I have dealt with this issue in much more detail, here.]

 

Puzzled readers who (naively) imagined Engels was a materialist might well ask: "What on earth is an avowed materialist doing repeating such garbage!?"

 

Not to be outdone, here is Lenin, quoting Hegel (again!) approvingly:

 

"'If abstraction is made from every determination and Form of a Something, indeterminate Matter remains. Matter is a pure abstract. (-- Matter cannot be seen or felt, etc. -- what is seen or felt is a determinate Matter, that is, a unity of Matter and Form)." [Lenin (1961), pp.144-45. Bold emphasis alone added. The original passage Lenin is here quoting has been reposted in Note 57 of Essay Thirteen Part One. In the same Essay, I have also quoted several other DM-fans who say much the same as Hegel, Engels and Lenin; see also Note 54a, Note 56a and Note 65a of that Essay for just such DM-theorists, those who also claim matter is an 'abstraction'!]

 

It is worth recalling that according to DM-theorists 'abstractions' are 'creations of the mind', which, once more, can only mean that, for them, matter is, too!

 

While it might be expected that an Absolute Idealist like Hegel (or a Subjective Idealist, like George Berkeley) would consign matter to a 'metaphysical waste bin' labelled "Dump Your Trash In Here!", it is alarming to see erstwhile materialists in effect agreeing with him/them!

 

Indeed, we read this about Berkeley:

 

"In the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous [i.e., Berkeley (2016) -- RL], George Berkeley argues that physical matter, external to our minds, does not exist. The objects that we perceive are physical objects, insofar as we perceive them, but they do not exist in the absence of perception. Physical objects are only intricate ideas of perception; i.e., they are not actual objects of matter, the way we ordinarily think of them." [Welsh (2000), p.93. Quoted from here. Bold emphasis and link added; italics in the original. Minor typo corrected. See also Downing (2011).]

 

[This is clearly Berkeley's version of Lenin's comment a few paragraphs back, as well as John Rees's "No one has ever eaten, tasted, smelt, seen or heard" an abstraction, such as matter -- Rees (1998), p.131.]

 

The reader might now perhaps be able to recognise the pernicious influence Hegel's ideas have exercised on Dialectical Marxism; the adoption of his method (upside down or 'the right way up') has created generations of 'materialists' who think matter is an abstraction, a 'creation of the mind'!

 

At best, this means that, for DM-fans, 'appearances' must in some way be misleading, or to some extent 'untrustworthy'. At worst, it suggests 'appearances' are 'contradicted' by underlying 'essence'. As history confirms, in any such confrontation between the 'evidence' the senses supposedly deliver and the rational principles upon which 'the Mind' allegedly relies, Traditional Theorists have always privileged the latter over the former, as the following authors point out:

 

"Empirical, contingent truths have always struck philosophers as being, in some sense, ultimately unintelligible. It is not that none can be known with certainty…; nor is it that some cannot be explained…. Rather is it that all explanation of empirical truths rests ultimately on brute contingency -- that is how the world is! Where science comes to rest in explaining empirical facts varies from epoch to epoch, but it is in the nature of empirical explanation that it will hit the bedrock of contingency somewhere, e.g., in atomic theory in the nineteenth century or in quantum mechanics today. One feature that explains philosophers' fascination with truths of Reason is that they seem, in a deep sense, to be fully intelligible. To understand a necessary proposition is to see why things must be so, it is to gain an insight into the nature of things and to apprehend not only how things are, but also why they cannot be otherwise. It is striking how pervasive visual metaphors are in philosophical discussions of these issues. We see the universal in the particular (by Aristotelian intuitive induction); by the Light of Reason we see the essential relations of Simple Natures; mathematical truths are apprehended by Intellectual Intuition, or by a priori insight. Yet instead of examining the use of these arresting pictures or metaphors to determine their aptness as pictures, we build upon them mythological structures.

 

"We think of necessary propositions as being true or false, as objective and independent of our minds or will. We conceive of them as being about various entities, about numbers even about extraordinary numbers that the mind seems barely able to grasp…, or about universals, such as colours, shapes, tones; or about logical entities, such as the truth-functions or (in Frege's case) the truth-values. We naturally think of necessary propositions as describing the features of these entities, their essential characteristics. So we take mathematical propositions to describe mathematical objects…. Hence investigation into the domain of necessary propositions is conceived as a process of discovery. Empirical scientists make discoveries about the empirical domain, uncovering contingent truths; metaphysicians, logicians and mathematicians appear to make discoveries of necessary truths about a supra-empirical domain (a 'third realm'). Mathematics seems to be the 'natural history of mathematical objects' [Wittgenstein (1978), p.137], 'the physics of numbers' [Wittgenstein (1976), p.138; however these authors record this erroneously as p.139 -- RL] or the 'mineralogy of numbers' [Wittgenstein (1978), p.229]. The mathematician, e.g., Pascal, admires the beauty of a theorem as though it were a kind of crystal. Numbers seem to him to have wonderful properties; it is as if he were confronting a beautiful natural phenomenon [Wittgenstein (1998), p.47; again, these authors have recorded this erroneously as p.41 -- RL]. Logic seems to investigate the laws governing logical objects…. Metaphysics looks as if it is a description of the essential structure of the world. Hence we think that a reality corresponds to our (true) necessary propositions. Our logic is correct because it corresponds to the laws of logic….

 

"In our eagerness to ensure the objectivity of truths of reason, their sempiternality and mind-independence, we slowly but surely transform them into truths that are no less 'brutish' than empirical, contingent truths. Why must red exclude being green? To be told that this is the essential nature of red and green merely reiterates the brutish necessity. A proof in arithmetic or geometry seems to provide an explanation, but ultimately the structure of proofs rests on axioms. Their truth is held to be self-evident, something we apprehend by means of our faculty of intuition; we must simply see that they are necessarily true…. We may analyse such ultimate truths into their constituent 'indefinables'. Yet if 'the discussion of indefinables…is the endeavour to see clearly, and to make others see clearly, the entities concerned, in order that the mind may have that kind of acquaintance with them which it has with redness or the taste of a pineapple' [Russell (1937), p.xv (this links to a PDF); again these authors record this erroneously as p.v; although in the edition to which I have linked, it is p.xliii -- RL], then the mere intellectual vision does not penetrate the logical or metaphysical that to the why or wherefore…. For if we construe necessary propositions as truths about logical, mathematical or metaphysical entities which describe their essential properties, then, of course, the final products of our analyses will be as impenetrable to reason as the final products of physical theorising, such as Planck's constant." [Baker and Hacker (1992), pp.273-75. Referencing conventions in the original have been altered to conform with those adopted at this site. Italic emphases in the original; links added.]

 

"Already with Fichte the idea of the unity of the sciences, of system, was connected with that of finding a reliable starting-point in certainty on which knowledge could be based. Thinkers from Kant onwards were quite convinced that the kind of knowledge which came from experience was not reliable. Empirical knowledge could be subject to error, incomplete, or superseded by further observation or experiment. It would be foolish, therefore, to base the whole of knowledge on something which had been established only empirically. The kind of knowledge which Kant and his followers believed to be the most secure was a priori knowledge, the kind embodied in the laws of Nature. These had been formulated without every occurrence of the Natural phenomenon in question being observed, so they did not summarise empirical information, and yet they held good by necessity for every case; these laws were truly universal in their application." [White (1996a), p.29. Links and bold emphases added.]

 

But, as we will see (in Essays Ten Part One and Twelve Part One), not only is the search for a priori 'knowledge' a pipe dream (in that it can't deliver what has just been advertised for it), it destroys the capacity we have for articulating anything at all!

 

[Why that is so was explained in Part One.]

 

The same is largely the case with the methods adopted by Dialectical Marxists. Perhaps even worse, they have from the beginning shown they are only too willing to appropriate this anti-materialist, ruling-class 'view of reality'. The 'ruling ideas' that Marx spoke about now proudly rule what were supposed to be radical minds. The sad truth is that this 'approach to knowledge' ironically has had the opposite effect: it delivers no knowledge at all.

 

In fact, if, per impossible, DM were 'true', it would completely undermine science.

 

This means that while DM-theorists have hocked the 'materialist cow', they haven't even received a handful of beans in return:

 

 

Figure Two: Jack Negotiates A Far Superior Deal

 

[This also helps explain why DM readily collapses into incoherence -- as the next ten Essays at this site will amply demonstrate.]

 

Davidson (from earlier) then turned our attention to Aristotle's non-solution (and since Hegel adopted/adapted Aristotle's theory -- albeit buried under several tons of gobbledygook --, the following remarks also apply to his version):

 

"Aristotle again and again reverts to the claim that if the forms are to serve as universals, then they cannot be separate from the entities of which they are properties. Aristotle agrees with Plato that universals, like the forms, are the objects of scientific study.... Where Aristotle differs from Plato was in holding that universals are not identical with the things of which they are properties, they exist only by virtue of the existence of the things of which they are properties. If universals existed independently, they would take their place alongside the things that instantiate them. Separate existence is just what would make universals like other particulars and thus no longer universal. But doesn't this argument show Aristotle to be confused? If universals can be talked about, they can be referred to. Yet whatever can be referred to is a particular. Confusion seems to have set in: universals are both particulars and at the same time necessarily distinct from particulars." [Davidson (2005), pp.89-90. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

 

The 'necessary' connection that was supposed to exist between these 'forms' and the particulars they exemplified ends up reducing them to the level of particularity, too, thus vitiating the whole exercise. That is because these moves destroy generality, the very thing the 'forms' had originally been introduced to explain.

 

On the other hand, if that isn't done (i.e., if the above 'necessary connection' is severed by rejecting 'The Identity Theory of Predication'), rationality will be threatened, since necessity is integral to it, as we saw earlier. That would introduce contingency into nature and society by making the connection between a particular and its properties (even those deemed 'essential') accidental or fortuitous, which would, of course, threaten the (assumed) legitimacy of the status quo. [I explain in more detail why that is so below, but even more fully here and in Essay Twelve Part Two). But as we will see, this (traditional) approach to knowledge either collapses into incoherence or it only succeeds in undermining itself.

 

Alternatively, if C1 (from earlier) can't connect A and B directly on its own, what then is the point of introducing it?

 

Of course, it could be argued that C1 belongs to a different category to A and B, so the above criticisms are misconceived.

 

Well, they would be if 'Universals' hadn't already been transformed into Abstract Particulars -- or, rather, into the Proper Names thereof -- as a result of the syntactical segue exposed in Part One (also alluded to by Davidson, above). But, because Traditional Theorists have been doing precisely this -- at least since the heyday of the Presocratics -- Aristotle's 'Third Man Argument' (suitably adapted in each case) applies to every known version of this theory. In which case, it turns out that all such 'Universals', 'Concepts', 'Ideas', 'Representations', 'Categories' and 'Abstractions' (as they are employed in and by Traditional Thought -- and that includes DM), can't be general. They are just particulars of a rather peculiar, rather grandiose sort, ashamed in many cases to come out of the Idealist Closet.

 

The 'philosophical' question therefore remains: Is there a general term, or any term, that is capable of connecting ordinary objects and events/processes given in experience with the Abstract Particulars of Traditional Lore, and in the manner imagined? Is there any way of avoiding the catastrophic consequences that were exposed in Part One? The negative answers that return for each such question are part of the reason why this pseudo-problem is being addressed the way it is in all Parts of Essay Three. Their aim is to explain and expose the bogus syntactic and semantic moves that originally motivated this ancient conundrum -- i.e., how generality can be accounted for by reference to what turn out to be (invisible) Abstract Particulars, where predicate expressions have been transformed into the Proper Names thereof. As we have seen, Aristotle himself half recognised this but the logic he (single-handedly) invented wasn't sophisticated enough to account for it, which is one of the reasons why he left it unresolved. In fact, he ended up promoting a precursor of this logical and grammatical error -- i.e., in relation to what turned out to be an early version of the Identity Theory of Predication, discussed in Part One. [On that, see Geach (1972b).]

 

On the other hand, if the aforementioned "third term" (i.e., C2, also from earlier) is superfluous, if a new general term like this isn't needed (in order to connect an 'abstraction' to each material particular -- even if only 'in the mind'), then it is difficult to see why particulars themselves need a second term (i.e., C1) to link them, in the first place. The resolution of this quandary becomes all the more pressing when it turns out that this 'general term' (C1, again) is incapable of doing the job imagined for it -- once more, because it has been transmogrified into an Abstract Particular itself, or the Proper Name thereof!

 

Proper Nouns aren't general nouns, and no amount of spin, or Hegelian jargon, can turn the former into the latter.

 

But, if it is possible to inter-relate objects in the world without an entire hierarchy of 'abstract intermediaries' (which appear to be the metaphysical equivalent of the Epicycles of Ptolemaic Astronomy) -- or, perhaps better, if speakers manage to use general terms every day of the week without all this fuss --, what need is there for a single 'philosophical abstraction', to begin with?1bb

 

Alternatively, if the relation between Universals and Particulars isn't one of resemblance (i.e., if C1 itself fails to resemble A or B, also from earlier) -- or even of recurrence --  then the relation between each particular and its (invisible, Ideal) 'exemplar' -- i.e., a 'Universal'/'abstraction' --, must remain mysterious. If Universals and Particulars don't resemble one another (and if each of the former can't recur over and over again -- since they have all lost their generality!), in what way can Universals and Particulars possibly be connected? How could any one of the factors we have so far met connect the other two if they share nothing in common? Or, even worse: what if these so-called Universals are no longer even that -- i.e., universal?

 

Indeed, it is far from clear what a Universal could possibly lend a particular that our use of general words doesn't already provide. And that worry isn't assuaged when it is recalled that, in Traditional Thought, Universals were pictured in a way that deprived them of the capacity to fulfil the very role that had originally been assigned to them -- accounting for generality.1b

 

'Self-Predication'

 

[The following material is a continuation of remarks made earlier.]

 

For many logicians and Plato scholars there seemed to be a much deeper and more important logical principle underlying the Third Man Argument: the 'problem of self-predication' (with which some commentators and critics have tried to saddle Plato). This 'problem' arises when it is asked whether, say, the 'Form of the Small' is itself small, or the 'Form of the Heavy' is itself heavy.1bc

 

As Richard Allen explains:

 

"Briefly, the problem is this: the dialogues often use language which suggests that the Form is a universal which has itself as an attribute and is thus a member of its own class, and, by implication, that it is the one perfect member of that class. The language suggests that the Form has what it is: it is self-referential, self-predicable. Now such a view is, to say the least, peculiar. Proper universals are not instantiations of themselves, perfect or otherwise. Oddness is not odd; Justice is not just; Equality is equal to nothing at all. No one can curl up for a nap in the Divine Bedsteadity; not even God can scratch Doghood behind the Ears. The view is more than peculiar; it is absurd. As Plato knew, it implies an infinite regress, one which he doubtless regarded as vicious. Indeed, if a recent critic, Professor Gregory Vlastos, has analyzed the Third Man correctly, it implies still more. We must suppose that Plato could swallow, without gagging, a flat self-contradiction; that the reason for this, presumably, was that the author of the Third Man -- one of the more brilliant of philosophical demonstrations -- lacked the wit, or perhaps the diligence, to identify the premises of his argument; that the man who first explicitly distinguished between universals and particulars confused them; and, finally, that a central thesis of his ontology, the doctrine of degrees of being and reality, rests on this elementary mistake. Such thorough confusion is not lightly to be imputed to any man, let alone to Plato." [Allen (1960), pp.147-48. Paragraphs merged; link added. Allen is here referencing Vlastos (1954).]

 

The above two examples (of mine) are hereby translated into quasi-Plato-speak:

 

P1: Small is small.

 

P2: Heavy is heavy.

 

P1a: The Form of The Small is small.

 

P2a: The Form of The Heavy is heavy.

 

It has been argued that in P1, for example, the predicate, "small", is predicated of the other predicate term, "Small" (now misleadingly operating as a subject term), which results in what is now called "the problem of self-predication". But, this is just another pseudo-problem. That is because the first "small" in P1 is no longer a predicate; it now functions as the Proper Name of the abstract particular, 'Small' (again, as we saw in Part One). Of course, what we actually have here is a predicate expression, "ξ is small", attached to a subject term, "Small" (the reference of which is now entirely mysterious).

 

[Academic articles on this topic -- especially those devoted to the supposed origin of this idea in Plato's dialogue, Parmenides (i.e., Plato (1997d); on this, see Rickless (2020) and Section 3 of Silverman (2014)) -- often go astray right from the start when they try to analyse the 'logic' of such sentences using schemas like the following: "F is F", or "The F is F", where "F" stands for any relevant predicate expression, such as "small". But this analysis goes wrong right from the start, since it already equates the two occurrences of "F", this assuming what was to be proved, that they are the same to begin with! In so doing, it ignores the fact that predicate expressions are incomplete -- i.e., they require subject terms to complete them -- which is what distinguishes these two use of "F" that has just been ignored! At this site, that difference is highlighted by the use of schematic stencils, like the following: "ξ is small", or more generally, "ζ is F" or even, "ή is φ". Plainly, predicate expressions can't work as subject terms for that very reason. For 'self-predication' to work (at least 'in theory'), we would have to have something like the following: "ξ is small is small" or even "ζ is F is F", and "ή is φ is φ", where an actual predicative expression completes another incomplete expression (using the same gap-marking letter)! The result is just plain gibberish. As we also saw in Part One, calling "small" (or even "...small") a predicate, as opposed to using "ξ is small" as a predicative expression, creates the sort of confusion that plagued Traditional Philosophy for over two thousand years, no less so here. This use of neo-Fregean symbols makes that impossible, which is just one more reason it is to be preferred. Unfortunately, the aforementioned 'academic studies' seem intent on keeping those confusions alive for another couple of thousand! Readers are referred back to Note 15a of Part One for more details (a topic also briefly covered again below). The use of Greek letters like those above, and why a predicable (so used) is the linguistic expression of a rule, were explained in Part One of this Essay, here and here, where the rationale for this way of analysing such sentences was explained. On this in general, see Long (1969, 1976, 1982, 1984). Long's articles aren't an easy read, but they nevertheless merit close attention. My approach in this area has been heavily influenced by them. That isn't to suggest Long would agree with the way I have used/adapted some of his ideas! Far from it.]

 

Well, this would be a 'more important logical principle' if it hadn't been based on the transformation of predicate expressions into singular terms, which in the end means that nothing has actually been 'self-predicated', nor could it be! This ancient pseudo-problem was conjured into existence by spurious linguistic moves like these, and nothing more. That is because, in P1 and P2, there has been no predication applied to a predicate expression, and that means there has been no 'self-predication' for a single logician to worry about. What has happened is that a predicate expression has been attached to a singular term that is typographically identical to part of that predicate expression itself.

 

P1: Small is small.

 

P2: Heavy is heavy.

 

In which case, this 'confusion' arose largely because of two inter-related considerations:

 

(i) Those who commit this error focus on superficial linguistic factors -- i.e., if something looks like a predicate expression, it must be a predicate expression --, instead of examining the logical role such expressions occupy in indicative sentences; and,

 

(ii) The adoption of an Ancient Greek interpretation of predicate expressions (again, covered in Part One of this Essay).

 

If you regard a predicate expression (for example, "heavy" or "small", expressed in traditional terms) as an inscription of some sort, and not the linguistic expression of a rule (for example, "ξ is heavy", or "ξ is small", expressed in contemporary terms), then it will seem completely legitimate to swap their roles in indicative sentences, inserting them into a space validly (and rightly) occupied by a subject term. That done, putting "heavy" and "small" at the beginning of P1 and P2, for instance, will seem perfectly acceptable, when all that that will have achieved is to change what had been a general noun into a singular term, meaning it can no longer operate as a predicate expression, and, as such, it is no longer general. So, in P1, for example, the word "small" at the beginning ceases to be a predicate expression; it is now a singular term, a Proper Noun (which 'names' a mythical Abstract Particular/Form, 'Small').

 

Hence, this means that self-predication is in fact impossible.

 

[The word "inscription" used above applies to physical marks (on a page, screen, poster, billboard, blackboard, whitescreen, cavewall...) that aren't considered random or accidental, but are held to be the product of intentionality, part of a natural-, or even a formal-language -- or perhaps even a work of art, no matter how 'primitive'. It is also important to point out that I don't think, "small", for example, is a Proper Name -- since I reject the validity of sentences like P1 and P2 -- I am, once again, exposing the ridiculous way that language has to be distorted to try to normalise such weird inscriptions.]

 

On the other hand, as noted earlier, if the above were still to be regarded as examples of 'self-predication', we would have to have something like the following:

 

P1b: ξ is small is small (sic).

 

P2b: ζ is heavy is heavy (sic).

 

In P1b and P2b we now have two instances of attempted 'self-predication', but all they manage to do is expose the hidden nonsense at work here, revealing it as obvious nonsense.

 

And that is why I haven't considered this 'important logical principle' in any of my criticisms of Plato.

 

Like so much else in Traditional Thought, 'self-predication' is a pseudo-problem.

 

Mystery solved!

 

Nothing to see here...

 

[That isn't to suggest this specific 'problem' is quite so easily disposed of -- especially in the extremely brief manner attempted above. But, any further detour in that direction would catapult this Essay into a lengthy consideration of this 'conundrum', which would then lead us too far away from the main aim of this Essay. On the other hand, if this Essay were specifically devoted to the Philosophy of Logic, I would say much more, expanding on ideas aired by Peter Geach, among several others.]

 

Descent Into A Metaphysical Abyss

 

Unfortunately, this ancient syntactical error has been passed down the centuries to later generations of Traditional Theorists, a fall from linguistic grace that has traduced the entire family of flawed 'solutions' descending from it with modification by unnatural selection -- including the 'poor cousin' we find in DM.

 

[Apologies are owed the reader for those mixed metaphors!]

 

Empiricism And The 'Anthropomorphic Brain'

 

The Empiricist 'Mind' Hits A Brick Wall

 

Philosophers of a -- shall we say -- more practical, maybe even a more worldly, Empiricist frame-of-mind, approached this 'problem' from what at first seemed to be an entirely different angle. They held that general terms (and their meanings) were 'constructions' of some sort, cobbled-together (somehow) by 'the mind'.

 

It is worth noting at this point that (in general) just like the Rationalists, Empiricists' approach to the origin and status of 'philosophical' and scientific knowledge meant that the 'mental' side of the equation took precedence, even though philosophers in this tradition appealed to experience far more than the Rationalists, and at least claimed to take the 'information' it delivered seriously. But, in this case, it was experience processed by 'the mind' which held primacy -- that is, this tradition focused on what an individual 'mind' was capable of making of experience that was important, if not decisive. In fact, for both traditions, each individual 'mind' in the end was the sole arbiter, not the world -- which was, at best, either a 'mental-construct', a 'product of mind' (i.e., a product of 'God's mind' or of each individual 'human mind'), or it was imaginary, a pure invention. The deciding factor in such circumstances certainly wasn't how human beings collectively use words in everyday life, nor was it based on any belief that language and knowledge were social products (which is how Dialectical Marxists say they view discourse, at least in their saner moments). It was based on the idiosyncratic meaning of the words such theorists invented or twisted out of shape so that they said what they wanted them to say.

 

The difference between the above two traditions (largely) lies in:

 

(a) The means by which each 'mind' supposedly arrives its conclusions;

 

(b) The emphasis placed on (i) experience or (ii) 'reason', as a sole/final arbiter; and,

 

(c) What assumptions a given theorist begins with and subsequently employs in support of the above. [More about those later.]

 

[The further difference between diverse traditions within Empiricism itself in this specific area revolved (and to a large extent still revolves) around whether the 'process of abstraction' involved 'the mind' refining inputs directly from experience or whether it was done indirectly, via 'content already present' (howsoever the latter actually got there -- or even, what exactly was mean by "content"). It will take us too far away from the aims of this Essay and this site to dive into the weeds on this topic (specifically in relation to the difference between Locke, Berkeley and Hume's approaches to such questions -- or, indeed, the theories promoted by contemporary Empiricists); even so, a few words will clearly be called for.]

 

Nevertheless, the 'high road' (Rationalism) and the 'low road' (Empiricism) both channelled Traditional Theorists in the direction of one or other form of Idealism -- indeed, as we saw Hegel himself point out. That is largely because, to a greater or lesser extent, post-Renaissance Philosophers were consciously working within the confines set by the Cartesian Paradigm (which was itself an extension of the Platonic/Christian Paradigm). Its basis was never fundamentally questioned --, or, at least, not for several more centuries. In fact, its first major challenge had to wait well into the 20th century (and had to wait for philosophers who had been influenced by Wittgenstein), as the late Hilary Putnam pointed out:

 

"[V]irtually no philosopher doubted, from the time of Locke until roughly 1914, that, whatever concepts and ideas were, they were clearly mental objects of some kind. And no large-scale and comprehensive demolition job was done against this particularly wide-spread and influential philosophical misconception until Wittgenstein produced his Philosophical Investigations...." [Putnam (1975b), p.7. Bold emphasis added. I return to this again below, but in much more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Three (follow the 'Cartesian Paradigm' link above).]

 

So, the core Cartesian belief that knowledge begins with, and is confirmed/ratified by, each individual 'mind' -- as it 'processes' its 'contents', using 'principles' that seem self-evidence to that individual -- has overshadowed 'western thought' for the best part of four centuries. (Earlier theorists conceptualised knowledge differently, deferential to authority and tradition and tended to view it as a more collective enterprise; Descartes broke with this -- or so he imagined (more about that later) -- and completely flipped this approach from its base in the community to it centre on the individual.) As noted above, the method of justification and background assumptions were in the end what largely distinguished between the two main camps (i.e., whether reliance was placed solely on experience or uniquely on 'rational principles'). It was no accident, therefore, that the re-orientation of both traditions took place in early modern Europe, 'coinciding' with the rise of the Capitalist Mode of Production and the parallel ascendancy of the Bourgeois Individual. As we will see, contemporary 'cognitive theory' still remains locked in this Paradigm -- even though a tiny minority of contemporary philosophers have been brave enough to challenge it. [On that, see Bennett and Hacker (2008, 2022), Hacker (1996) and Kenny (1992). See also, Hanfling (2001). On Descartes's break with the past, see Copleston (2003d), pp.67-89, Roberts (1991), and Williams (1990), Chapter Two.]

 

The Bourgeois Individual was now inducted into, and proceeded to take over and dominate Traditional Philosophy.

 

While the three leading theorists in the Early Modern Empiricist tradition (i.e., Locke, Berkeley and Hume) differed among themselves over the precise details, they all held that 'the mind' was somehow capable of 'apprehending' the 'common' features supposedly shared in, or exhibited by, 'particulars given in experience' (even though they disagreed over that too!). The 'mental' processes that managed to do all this manifested themselves internally, in the production or the 'processing' of "ideas", "images", "impressions", or "representations". More recently, other artificial terms have been called in off the bench and sent into play; so now we have "sense data" and even more recently, "qualia", "tropes", "data inputs" -- or even "bits".

 

In this tradition, the above 'psychological conjuring tricks' (i.e., 'the creation/processing of abstractions') was somehow achieved by one or more of the following:

 

(i) A recognition of certain 'resemblances' that supposedly exist between particulars, or their 'impressions', 'images', etc., etc.;

 

(ii) A process of 'mental subtraction' (of the kind also accepted and promoted by several DM-theorists, for example this one); in tandem with,

 

(iii) Some form of behavioural or psychological 'habituation' (described below).

 

[Having said that, some philosophers have mysteriously, and confusingly, attempted to distinguish between 'thought' and 'mind' (I won't enter into the byzantine reasoning offered in support; readers can check that for themselves by following the reference I am about to give), but this simply means their ideas rapidly collapse into a tangled heap as a result -- as we see, for example, in Ruben (1979), pp.64-66, which is an otherwise thoughtful and careful study of core aspects of DM-Epistemology. There are far better ways of distinguishing among the factors upon which Ruben, for instance, focuses his attention. That can be achieved by a detailed consideration of how we actually use ordinary language in this area (as Marx himself suggested) -- to be covered in more detail Essay Three Part Six, where Ruben's ideas will be examined at greater length. (That has also been done in broader terms in Essay Thirteen Part Three.) Suffice it to say that Ruben's book was ruined as much by his failure to follow Marx's advice (about returning to the use of ordinary language) as it was by his failure to learn anything substantive from Wittgenstein. In what follows I won't be drawing the above distinction (between 'thought' and 'mind'), nor will I try to show how confused it is (on that, check out the references listed in Note 86 of Essay Thirteen Part Three), even if I end up referring to it from time to time. Another dialectician who has valiantly tried to defend Lenin is Sean Sayers; I have relegated several criticisms of his book -- Sayers (1985) -- to Appendix Five, but in more detail in Part Six of Essay Three. Criticism of Althusser (2001), who also tries to defend (a version of) Lenin's theory of knowledge, has also been postponed to Part Six. Detailed consideration of the above works has been relegated in this way because the present Essay is already far too long!]

 

Theorists working in the Empiricist Tradition tended to disagree over whether 'Universals' were genuine features of 'reality' (i.e., whether or not they were 'extra-mental' -- this view tending to shade off more recently into various forms of 'Philosophical Realism') or were simply a by-product of an overactive imagination (which is one way of characterising Conceptualism) --, or, indeed, whether they were, according to the Nominalists, just 'empty terms' (flatus vocis -- "mere breath"), perhaps even "useful fictions" (an interpretation that has dominated the Positivist wing of this particular current). [On that in general, see Eklund (2024).]

 

As soon became obvious, these seemingly profound differences mattered little in the end. Given this overall approach, general words (common nouns/adjectives, or even verbs and adverbs) were once again demoted, having now been transformed into the Proper Names of 'mental particulars' of one sort or another -- i.e., they were now the Proper Names of the 'ideas', 'representations', or 'concepts' lodged in each head, or they were the Proper Names of something-we-know-not-what out there in 'extra-mental reality' -- if there even is such a place according to some of this ilk). Even though Berkeley, for example, saw the importance of escaping the confines of this theoretical cul-de-sac, with its reliance on obscure 'abstractions', his 'solution' only succeeded in sinking the Empiricist Tradition even deeper into the same Idealist quick sands.

 

Unfortunately, there were additional problems over and above those bequeathed to Empiricist Philosophers as a result of the syntactical sins of their theoretical forebears (covered in Part One), which 'errors' also (but, as we will see, not uncoincidentally) bedevilled Rationalism. That is, the 'general' ideas 'processed' by each lone abstractor were particular to that individual 'mind', which had to be the bottom line for both traditions. That is because (obviously!) no two individuals (whether they were died-in-the-wool Empiricists or card-carrying Rationalists -- or all stations in-between) share the 'same mind', experience the same sensory inputs or even draw the same conclusions from them. And that includes the same idea about 'same'! In that case, any ideas that emerged as a result couldn't be general across an entire population, not just in fact but in theory, too! This clearly meant that every 'general idea' was exclusive to each individual. But, as Bertell Ollman correctly pointed out, this approach to 'abstraction' only succeeded in creating a private language, unique to each lone abstractor. That unfortunately also implied inter-subjective communication was impossible, which in turn meant that the status and validity of scientific knowledge was itself now fatally compromised.

 

The 'process of abstraction' (as it had been conceived by Empiricist Philosophers) had simply created Empiricist Abstract Particulars --, or the Proper Names thereof --, just as earlier versions of the 'same process' had manufactured Rationalist Abstract Particulars.

 

Different input -- same output.

 

But, those working in the Empiricist Tradition seemed perfectly happy to accept, and even elaborate upon, these (Ancient Greek) false moves. In fact, they were equally happy to promote the Epistemological Individualism the new 'Cartesian Paradigm' implied. These "ruling ideas" (i.e., a commitment to 'abstractionism' alongside the existence of 'abstractions' generated by 'individual minds') thus succeeded in colonising a new batch of compliant 'intellects' -- those belonging to early modern, petty-bourgeois philosophers. So, this antiquated ideology had now found a fresh home -- which is where it largely remains to this day.

 

Indeed, this novel turn subsequently coalesced around Classical and Neo-Classical criticisms of Marx's economic theory (briefly mentioned elsewhere at this site), and later still formed a basis for what came to be known as 'Methodological Individualism'.

 

However, the problems these moves generated only succeeded in threatening their legitimacy from the start, since they were analogous those that had confronted Rationalists for nigh on two millennia.

 

To see this, assume thinker, T1, has (in some way) formed the 'general idea', G1, of whatever it supposedly 'represents' or 'reflects' (in the head, in the world, or wherever) -- call the latter, "g1" --; and thinker, T2, forms the 'same general idea', G2, of supposedly the 'same property, object or process' in 'reality' -- i.e., this is g1, again. Hence, G1 supposedly 'represents' or 'reflects' g1, which is also supposedly 'represented' or 'reflected' by G2. Now, in order to be able to say of these two 'general ideas' (G1 and G2) that they are ideas of the 'same thing' (or are even the 'same general idea'), a third term will be required to connect them. That is because, in this case G1 and G2 would both presumably be exemplars of the same general, general idea (that isn't a typo!), G, -- so that it could legitimately be said that G1 and G2 were instances of the same 'concept', 'idea' or 'abstraction' (in this case, they were both instances of G). Of course, as noted above, if that weren't the case (if there were no 'general, general term', G, that linked G1 and G2), communication would be impossible. That is because there would be no way for T1 to determine whether or not she meant the same by her use of G1 that T2 meant by his use of G2. Without G itself, that would be impossible. But, if there actually is a G that manages to do all this connecting, it would now threaten to spiral off into infinity, just like the 'The Man Argument' did. So, if G is required to connect G1 and G2, what connects G with G1? Or with G2? Given this theory, yet another linking term, G', would be required, and then G'', and then G'''..., and so on ad infinitem...

 

[There is more on this below. It could be objected that neither T1 nor T2 need be aware of G in order to communicate; they could simply use the same words -- for instance, "cat" or "table". But, given this individualistic theory, these two abstractors, T1 and T2, wouldn't mean the same by their use of these words, and hence would fail to communicate. In response, it might be pointed out that human beings typically fail to communicate, and yet the heavens don't fall as a result. I have dealt with that rather common objection below. Finally, it could now be argued that communication might easily be secured if reference is made to the actual objects themselves -- for instance pointing to a cat or a table. Quite apart from the fact that not all such 'objects' can be pointed at -- for example, trying pointing at Mt Everest when in the USA; a picture won't do, since that would mean the word "Mt Everest" stood for the picture not the mountain -- pointing gestures are ambiguous. When NN points at a cat, is she trying to explain the meaning of "animal", "mammal", "vertebrate", "one", "hairy object", "quadruped", or what? And it is no good using other words to help clarify NN's meaning since they, too, are subject to the same sceptical questions about common meaning being undermined by individualistic epistemologies. On this see, Cowie (2002), pp.1-68, and Baker and Hacker (2005), pp.7-9, 81-106.]

 

Hence, and to be a little more 'concrete', if intrepid Abstractor A, forms what she takes to be 'the general idea of green1' encountered in experience -- call the idea/'representation' she forms as a result, "Green1", -- and based on her perception of a series of 'green1 objects'; and Abstractor B, forms what he takes to be 'the general idea of green2' also met in experience -- call the idea/'representation' he forms as a result, "Green2" --, then in order to determine that these are in fact two ideas/'representations' of 'green itself' (or 'the same idea/'representation' of green', whatever that means!) -- so that Green1 and Green2 could both be said to 'reflect' the same Universal, Concept or Abstraction (or even were the same abstraction) --, a new term would be needed to connect them, namely "Green Itself" (or, 'Green'/'Greenness'). Without this third term there would be no way of determining whether or not A and B had formed a common/shared idea/'representation' of green, but had instead formed two different ideas/'representations' of 'green'. Worse still, if there were no such third connecting term, there would be no way of deciding they had any idea/'representation' at all of green (in any shape or form), or even if there were two or more occurrences of what might be taken to be green1, by A herself. [Recall there would have to be more than one occurrence, instantiation or example of green1 (registered in or by experience) for it to be counted by A as having been 'reflected' by the general term "Green1", to begin with, and for A even to be able to call it to mind, or 'think it'.] That is, they would have to be actual occurrences of green1, as opposed to 'something entirely different' (otherwise A would be 'naming the wrong thing' because of that.

 

As should now seem clear: the same problem confronts each lone abstractor, even with respect to their own ideas (never mind what other abstractors might have 'in their heads'!), since they would now need a linking term connecting the idea they had of 'green' yesterday with the one they entertained today -- call them "GreenY" and "GreenT", respectively -- or even such ideas from a few seconds earlier! And that would also apply to any memories they had of the 'Greens' so far mentioned, and those not yet mentioned -- i.e., Green1, Green2, Green3,..., Greeni,..., Greenn-2, Greenn-1, and Greenn. But, without this third term (and all the rest to infinity!) no statement based on the 'memory' of any of these 'Greens'/'greens' could truthfully be asserted.

 

[Henceforth, to save on needless and irritating repetition, I will simply refer to the ideas formed, not the ideas/'representations' -- but the latter should be taken to be what is intended, unless stated otherwise. In addition, I have drawn a distinction between the ideas an abstractor might form (e.g., Green1) and the 'extra-mental' objects or properties they supposedly 'reflect' (e.g., green1). Nevertheless, it is my contention that no such distinction can legitimately be drawn by Empiricists (or even by Rationalists!). The rest of this Essay will try to explain why that is so, but in the meantime I am simply assuming it can be drawn in order to put pressure on the 'strongest version' of this theoretical current in post-Renaissance Epistemology.]

 

So, without this third term -- and all the rest to infinity(!) -- no 'process of abstraction' could even begin!

 

In other words, each lone abstractor must have 'a concept of green already installed', or they must have access to an 'infinite set of such linking terms'. Since the latter is impossible, that means each one would already have to have a grasp of the general terms involved, otherwise the 'process of abstraction' (always assuming there is such a 'process'!) couldn't even get off the ground.

 

But, if each prospective abstractor already understands these general terms -- if each one already has a grasp of green, for example -- what need is there for abstraction, in the first place?

 

[For those who think colour terms and other 'secondary properties'/'qualities' are subjective and don't actually exist in the 'outside world', just replace "Green1" and "Green2" (etc.) with "Table1" and "Table2", or "Flat surface1" and "Flat surface2", in the above. In order to connect them (even in or via the memory) there would have to be a third term, such as "table itself", "tabularity", "Tableness" -- or, "flat surface itself" and even "Flat-Surfaceness"(!). The rest follows as before. (However, I have dealt with the confused idea that colours exist 'only in the mind' in Essay Thirteen Part One, here. In the meantime, readers are directed to Hacker (1987), Bennett and Hacker (2022), pp.140-46, and Stroud (2000). To those who think we never really communicate, anyway, I say this: "I'm sorry, are you trying to communicate something?" I have said much more about that oft-repeated objection in Essay Thirteen Part Three, here.]

 

So, for this family of theories to work, a third linking term and all the rest 'to infinity' are required; but, given the tenets of Empiricism, where such terms might come from is a mystery best passed over in silence (since it can't have come 'from experience' -- or, it can't without the very same problems arising, and so on...).

 

[This unanswerable question has prompted several contemporary philosophers (many of whom have been influenced by the neo-Rationalist theories developed by Chomsky; I have examined the ideas of two such theorists -- Laurence and Margolis -- in Interlude Two, and Chomsky's theories themselves in Essay Thirteen Part Three) to argue that all such ideas and concepts are 'innate'. That is, of course, what Rationalists have always maintained. I will say much more about this bogus solution throughout the rest of this Part of Essay Three, as well as other subsequent Parts; see also Essay Thirteen Part Three (link above). See also my earlier comments about Chomsky.]

 

Plainly, as we have just seen, each 'new term' is susceptible to Aristotle's objection, which means that every single 'solution' concocted by those working in the Empiricist Tradition suffers from the same fatal defects that had blighted those dreamt up by the Rationalists. Without these 'new linking terms' (which, once more, can't have come from experience), all communication would cease -- and our memory of the meaning of the words we use would fail, too. But, since we actually do manage to communicate -- and remember the meaning of the words we use -- nearly every day of our lives, this approach isn't even plausible, never mind its other fatal defects (outlined in what follows).

 

As we will see, this not only makes it impossible for Traditional Theorists -- those drawn from right across the philosophical spectrum -- to account for inter-communication, representation, language use, and learning, it also empties generality of all content, thus vitiating the whole exercise.

 

[Exactly how this approach to knowledge would make communication (etc.) impossible will be re-examined below, and in even more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Three. But the basic argument was set out earlier.]

 

Of course, it could be objected that such ideas had intentional generality built into them --, whereby their inventors intended they should refer to general features of reality. But, as should seem obvious, 'intentional generality' is similarly trapped in this closed, solipsistic loop, since it itself is the Proper Name of yet another particular, 'Intentional Generality'.

 

[To see this, just replace "G1" with "intentionally general idea, G1" in the above argument; the rest follows. The fact that this approach to knowledge leads to solipsism was established in Essays Ten Part One and Thirteen Part One, but it will be dealt with more fully in Essay Three Part Four. {Spoiler: If all that a 'knowing subject' has available to her are these individually-formed or generated ideas/concepts, and she has no way of checking that any she possessed, even a moment earlier, were of the same general type, all she can possibly 'know' is the immediate present (and her own experience of 'it'), but with no way of determining if such ideas represent anything in the 'outside world' -- not least because the phrase "outside world" is subject to the same epistemological constraints. This theory therefore traps each such 'knowing subject' in their own private, solipsistic universe, with no way out.}]

 

Clearly, this is just another way of saying that intentions can't create generality any more than wishes can improve a beggar's prospective quadrupedally-enabled travel plans.

 

Indeed, simply gluing the word "general" onto the word "concept" (perhaps as part of an 'intention' to refer to a "general concept") would merely saddle each prospective user of that phrase with a term born of the same defective logic, for the phrase "general concept" is the Proper Name of a yet another particular.

 

[To see this, just replace "G1" with "general concept, G1" in the above argument; the rest follows.]

 

In fact, given this entire 'family of theories', any attempt to derive generality from the atomised conceptual fragments that float (aimlessly) into each individual head (via the senses, or any that are somehow cobbled-together in, or by, 'the mind') will always hit the same brick wall: abstraction only ever succeeds in generating the Proper Names of abstract particulars --, whoever indulges in it, whenever they so indulge and with whatever 'noble philosophical intentions' they might come up with to rationalise any such persistent attempts.

 

Fortunately, for genuine materialists the logic of predication (as it shapes our use of such terms in ordinary discourse) has already loaded the dice and fixed the result in their favour, and there is no leave to appeal its uncompromising verdict. Generality is a feature of the way we use words, not a property of those words themselves -- nor, indeed, is it a property of the 'images', 'ideas', 'impressions', 'representations', or 'signs' that supposedly underpin, or are reflected by, them. Human beings decide what is to be counted as general by their social, not their individual (verbal and practical) behaviour, and, to state the obvious, words aren't human beings. Nor are 'ideas', 'images', 'representations and 'concepts'.

 

[That 'surprising conclusion' was established in Part One of this Essay.]

 

It could be countered that inter-communication isn't threatened by empiricist versions of abstraction, since communication with others is not only possible, it is actual. Manifestly, people share their thoughts and ideas.

 

But, quite apart from the above response assuming what was to be proved, it runs aground almost immediately. That is because it reproduces Aristotle's original problem -- only now greatly magnified. It is an even worse idea to multiply one's difficulties by a factor of several billion -- right across the entire human race -- in an attempt to account for generality by appealing to the abstractions supposedly engineered by, and now trapped in, each socially-isolated skull. [On that, see the next sub-section.]

 

[To see this, just replace the "G1" or "G2" with "G3 to Gn", where "n" can take any value from one to seven billion, or more, in the above argument, and the rest will still follow.]

 

In that case, we wouldn't just have the two theorists mentioned above -- A and B, or even P1 and P2 (where the latter two stand for a pair of randomly-selected Philosophers) --, each with their individually-formed 'general' ideas of 'green' ('table' or 'flat surface'), we would have billions of 'minds' with countless individual ideas of 'green' ('table' or 'flat surface') to interconnect. [I.e., "G3 to Gn", above.]

 

And the same difficulties confront anyone who tries to find a general solution to this spurious problem. Attempts along such lines are doomed to fail because any explanation of how the particular ideas of general terms located in each individual head actually resemble the same general features of reality they supposedly express, reflect or mirror -- or even the same particular ideas of these (allegedly) general terms located in anyone else's head --, would require its own linking term along lines explored earlier. Accounting for them would, of course, make squaring the circle look like child's play in comparison. That pointless task would simply create yet more abstract particulars locked in the individual mind of anyone foolish enough to wander down that blind alley.

 

Struggling to escape these 'metaphysical quicksands' will only sink the trapped Philosopher ever deeper. Given the traditional approach, Abstract Particulars are required at every turn, as yet more of them are required to account for the last batch that had just been pulled out of a given philosopher's hat. Since none of them are capable of developing into a higher general form by their own efforts, this approach to knowledge simply creates an endlessly ascending hierarchy of Abstract Particulars, each even more obscure than the one below.

 

[Apologies are once again owed the reader for those mixed metaphors!]

 

Bourgeois Individualism

 

Just as Rationalist ideas originally grew out of, and were inspired by, aristocratic imperatives promoted, and then rationalised, by Ancient Greek Philosophers -- somewhat similar developments were taking place 'in the East', to be covered in Essay Twelve Parts Two and Three --, concerning the 'divine' order that supposedly underpinned the Universe, motivated by a pressing need to 'justify' ruling-class power, social stratification, exploitation, oppression and inequality, so the origin of more recent Empiricist theories of 'Universals' was itself connected with the novel ideological landscape that was taking shape in early modern, bourgeois society with its emphasis on "possessive individualism". [On that, see Note 2.]

 

If this new social and political order was (in the end) meant to be 'democratic' (but only "within certain limits"), founded on the presumed psychology and self-serving 'rationality' of the fabled, 'Bourgeois Individual', then private ownership in the means of 'mental production' began to make perfectly good sense. Central to this was the complete re-orientation of philosophy and scientific research, centring it on this 'new self-defining and self-serving individual':

 

"In this study I focus on Descartes' Meditations and aim to show its revolutionary importance in the history of philosophy. I argue that its significance cannot be understood by abstracting it from its historical context.... [T]he Cartesian reconstruction of philosophy and science begins with the introduction of the notion of a self-defining subject -- a knowing subject whose existence is demonstrated, and essence defined, independent of the cosmic order. By this means, Descartes initiated a major 'paradigm shift'." [Roberts (1991), pp.i-ii. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

Of course, this 'knowing subject' was now divorced from the world, which meant it had to be re-connected with the 'object' of its supposed knowledge. The old 'problem' of the relation between 'the Knower' and 'the Known' was now given a new lease of life and, as we will see, became the main Problematic of German Idealism, and hence of Dialectical Marxism.

 

But, the question remains: How are these changes connected with the (supposed) 'relation between an object and it properties', or, indeed, with the 'problem of Universals'?

 

The answer to both can be found in the social, and political developments rapidly spreading across post-Renaissance Europe. The social, economic and political fragmentation introduced into society by the break-up of Feudal Relations of Production (as a result of the rise of Capitalism) mirrored the earlier, analogous splintering of Aristotelian 'Universals' (as the old Aristocratic-Slave society itself gave way to Feudalism). In this new ideological terrain, 'Universals' were rebranded as just so many 'ideas' scattered across countless epistemologically-isolated, bourgeois heads. Out of the window went the 'necessary link' that was presumed to exist between an 'object and its properties', or between a 'subject and its predicates' -- a conceptual union that had been considered unquestionably true by influential Ancient Greek and Medieval Rationalists. Out with that went the conceptual link that was thought to exist between a general term and what it supposedly represented or reflected in 'reality' -- or even what it tokened in 'the mind'. If all knowledge is based on experience, there could be no 'necessary connections'. After all, "No one has ever eaten, tasted, smelt, seen or heard" a 'necessary connection' -- to paraphrase Rees (1998), p.131.

 

However, for many early modern theorists, moves like these threatened the 'rationality of the universe', raising the spectre of Atomism, and with that Republicanism, Atheism and early forms of Communism. [More on that presently.] 

 

 

Figure Three: Traditional Theorists React To Empiricism, Atomism

And Contingency

 

If the connection between an object and its properties turns out to be merely adventitious or accidental, then, at its deepest level, 'reality' can't be 'rational' and that in turn implies 'God Himself' can't be 'rational', either. 'Dangerous ideas' like these began to threaten the 'legitimacy' of Kings and Queens, and, along with that, aristocratic and priestly authority. The rapidly eroding hierarchy that had dominated Europe for countless centuries had always depended -- at least ideologically -- on its 'divine origin', which in turn was based on the presumed 'rationality of reality', with everything in its assigned place in the 'Cosmic Pecking-Order'. If legitimacy was to be restored, the 'necessary connections' that had just been sundered had to be re-instated, and as a matter of some urgency, too. Revolution was now in the air in Europe (but not just in the air, on the ground, too  -- on that, see Rees (2016, 2024)). A spectre was beginning to stalk Europe, which meant a 'favourable' ideological re-alignment -- 'favourable' to the ruling elite -- now became essential. [More on that presently, too.]

 

 

Figure Four: Medieval Hierarchy -- 'Guaranteed' By Rationalist Metaphysics

 

[I have said more about this metaphysical aspect of Christian Theology along with its political implications, below.]

 

Once again, this helps explain why Hegel adopted the 'Identity Theory of Predication' (mentioned earlier), since that theory re-established the aforementioned 'necessary connection' between an object and its properties. That was why it served as a key component of Hegel's response to Hume's sceptical criticism of rationalist theories of causation, which seemed to have dissolved all such 'necessary connections'.

 

Just as capitalism increasingly 'freed' workers from the land and from feudal ties to Lords and Ladies, so Empiricism 'freed' bourgeois ideas from 'oppressive', aristocratic, Platonic 'Forms' and Aristotelian 'Universals'. The old ontological pecking-order began to fall apart as new market conditions and ideological priorities swept all before them. These development weren't lost on Marx and Engels:

 

"The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his 'natural superiors', and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous 'cash payment'. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.... The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.... But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons -- the modern working class -- the proletarians." [Marx and Engels (1968b), pp.38-41. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; bold emphases added. Paragraphs merged.]

 

"In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life.... In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic -- in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production." [Marx (1968), pp.181-82. Bold emphases added.]

 

As a result, those in power, alongside their compliant ideologues, soon recognised there was a pressing need to 'justify' undemocratic, hierarchical state power while also rationalising the newly emerging class relations that began to crystallise in early modern Europe. This meant that ruling-class theorists now had to find a novel way of conceptualising 'bourgeois reality', showing that it, too, was somehow 'god-ordained' -- possibly even 'natural' and 'necessary' -- even if it was now subject to limited forms of change.

 

In this respect, Empiricism couldn't rise to this new challenge. A fresh wave of Rationalist thought was urgently required, in order to:

 

(i) Counter the politically dangerous fragmentation of knowledge threatened by the rise of Empiricism, Atomism and Republicanism;

 

(ii) Re-construct and launch a new version of Metaphysical Holism, which was required to 'justify' the Absolutist Nation States that were coalescing across Europe;1bd and,

 

(iii) Rationalise 'God-given' Royal, Aristocratic, and Ecclesiastic power, wealth and legitimacy, alongside the newly acquired riches and social-position of the bourgeoisie themselves.

 

The theories concocted by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Wolff, Kant and Hegel proved to be just what the bourgeois doctor ordered, as fresh waves of Metaphysics flowed freely from the pens of these theorists, who lay behind this latest upsurge in ruling-class ideology.1c0

 

But, it wasn't just workers who got screwed (in a new way) by the 'market economy'; general ideas were similarly shafted (but in the same old way).1c

 

However, this hasty, if not desperate, turn to Rationalism proved to be philosophically futile. The fragmentation that general ideas had suffered at the hands Ancient Greek theorists can't be reversed, whoever tries to do it. Any such attempt will always flounder while the syntactic false moves committed by Europe's philosophical forebears remained in place.

 

No surprise then that, despite countless claims to the contrary, the novel theories that emerged from the 17th century failed to deliver what they had been invented to fix: generality. This didn't just present problems for Philosophy; left unresolved it threatened to undermine the nature, scope and validity of science itself. If generality was merely an aspect, a consequence or a result of the operation of each individual 'mind' (not a genuine feature or component of 'things-in-themselves' -- as Rationalists at least liked to think), it was difficult to see what could possibly remain intact of the famed 'objectivity of science'.

 

Associated with this was an additional problem: what was it about each particular idea of the general that actually made it general, or even appear to be general (especially now that all such ideas had been re-located and now reside in individual bourgeois heads)?2 Given this post-Renaissance approach to knowledge, there would be nothing but individual ideas floating about in epistemologically-isolated heads, loosely tied together in a manner that became increasingly impossible to fathom, let alone explain.

 

[At this point, it is worth reminding ourselves that it was assumed by early-modern bourgeois theorists (drawn from both wings, Empiricist and Rationalist) that we all construct our 'knowledge of the world' as individuals. It isn't being argued here that these thinkers were actually socially-isolated, only that, as far as their theory of knowledge was concerned, they might as well have been. More has been said about that, here.]

 

Given this 'family of theories', even a general idea that -- in a vain attempt to conjure 'objectivity' out of 'subjectivity', was re-labelled "Thought", "The Understanding", or even "Speculative Reason", and which attempted to rope in "every individual" and then inform us what must take place in every 'thinking brain' on earth -- is devoid of sense. If philosophers couldn't account for generality -- largely because they had killed it stone dead over two thousand years earlier (as we discovered in Part One) --, they had no way of accounting for its re-appearance anywhere else, either among the general population, or in the privacy of their own heads! How is it even possible to speak about "the general population" or "every head"/"brain", for example, with anything other than empty phrases if generality had been laid to rest long ago --, including the general nature of words like "population", "understanding", "thought", "head" or "brain"?2a

 

Naturally, some attempt might be made to attach another, yet-to-be-explained, term to the word "idea" -- i.e., "general", as in "general idea" --, but, if all meaningful words in circulation have to be backed by genuine 'mental bullion' (i.e., if they all have to be cashed-out in terms of 'ideas' in 'the mind', as this 'family of theories' consistently maintained), then a phrase like "the general idea of..." would itself still be a particular in 'the mind' of whomsoever invented it, and whatever associationist or "clear and distinct" incantations had been muttered over it.

 

Given the results of Part One, it should now be clear that since traditional theories of predication had turned general words into singular terms (i.e., into Proper Names or Definite Descriptions), each of which denoted an Abstract Particular, then the sentence, "This is the general idea of F" must face the same awkward, but ultimately unanswerable questions. That is because the phrase, "The general idea of F", is yet another singular term designating an Abstract Particular! [The definite article, of course, gives the game away.]

 

So it was that, in the Empiricist Tradition, there followed several more centuries of pretentious, a priori 'science-on-the-cheap', involving an appeal to the mythical 'process of abstraction', the results of which were backed, not even by printed currency, just more fake moves.

 

[Some might object that Empiricist Epistemology is a posteriori, not a priori. Well, so the official brochure would have us believe. Nevertheless, that approach to knowledge had always been predicated on rather fanciful, a priori, Associationist Psychology, supported by what was in effect little more than fanciful science fiction. (I have said more about that in Essay Thirteen Part Three.)]

 

To suppose otherwise -- i.e., that the word "general" (or any other term, for that matter) is capable of creating generality by its own efforts -- would be tantamount to imagining words themselves are capable of determining, and then projecting, their meanings across the whole of 'semantic space' (with this trick perfectly coordinated across every single epistemologically-isolated, bourgeois brain), as if words themselves were autonomous agents, not the individuals who use them that are. But, unaided -- as a simple mark on the page, or even as an "idea" in the head -- the word "general" seems utterly incapable of rising to the challenge, creating generality out of thin air.

 

Lifting yourself by your bootstraps would be a doddle in comparison.

 

[As noted earlier, Wittgenstein made a similar point about images and signs. See also Note 40a.]

 

On the other hand, if general ideas were capable of representing or "reflecting" "things-in-themselves" (that is, if there actually are 'real universals' that exist 'somewhere', to which general words supposedly 'correspond' or 'refer') -- as the Scientific Realist wing of this approach to epistemology and ontology maintained -- it would prove impossibly difficult to explain the mode of signification of the term, "general idea", without admitting it was no longer general (as we are about to find out).

 

If each general idea or noun (or adjective, etc.) successfully refers to something, somewhere, 'in reality' -- in Platonic Paradise, Aristotelian Arcadia, Hegelian Hell, Bourgeois Bliss, or, indeed, anywhere else, for that matter -- they could only do so if they functioned as Singular Terms. But, as we saw in Part One, if that were so, neither general ideas nor general words would actually be general, just singular.2b

 

As Donald Davidson remarked (with respect to Aristotle's theory -- but his words apply to any general terms so transformed):

 

"Aristotle again and again reverts to the claim that if the forms are to serve as universals, then they cannot be separate from the entities of which they are properties. Aristotle agrees with Plato that universals, like the forms, are the objects of scientific study.... Where Aristotle differs from Plato was in holding that universals are not identical with the things of which they are properties, they exist only by virtue of the existence of the things of which they are properties. If universals existed independently, they would take their place alongside the things that instantiate them. Separate existence is just what would make universals like other particulars and thus no longer universal. But doesn't this argument show Aristotle to be confused? If universals can be talked about, they can be referred to. Yet whatever can be referred to is a particular. Confusion seems to have set in: universals are both particulars and at the same time necessarily distinct from particulars." [Davidson (2005), pp.89-90. Bold emphasis added; paragraphs merged.]2c

 

Even if each individual 'bourgeois mind' had its own idea of a given 'general name' (or what it supposedly 'reflected'), which was particular to that 'mind' (as it couldn't fail to be!), the universality that post-Renaissance theorists sought would forever remain elusive, fragmented as it now was in the socially-isolated skulls of all who played this futile game.

 

[I have explained what I mean by "socially-isolated", here.]

 

But, don't just take Davidson's word for it; this is something Hegel himself acknowledged:

 

"The spectacle of so many and so various systems of philosophy suggests the necessity of defining more exactly the relation of Universal to Particular. When the universal is made a mere form and co-ordinated with the particular, as if it were on the same level, it sinks into a particular itself. Even common sense in everyday matters is above the absurdity of setting a universal beside the particulars. Would any one, who wished for fruit, reject cherries, pears, and grapes, on the ground that they were cherries, pears, or grapes, and not fruit? But when philosophy is in question, the excuse of many is that philosophies are so different, and none of them is the philosophy -- that each is only a philosophy. Such a plea is assumed to justify any amount of contempt for philosophy. And yet cherries too are fruit. Often, too, a system, of which the principle is the universal, is put on a level with another of which the principle is a particular, and with theories which deny the existence of philosophy altogether. Such systems are said to be only different views of philosophy. With equal justice, light and darkness might be styled different kinds of light." [Hegel (1975), p.19 §13. Except for the word "besides", bold emphasis alone added.]

 

And, in a roundabout way, so did the young Marx and Engels:

 

"The mystery of critical presentation…is the mystery of speculative, of Hegelian construction.… If from real apples, pears, strawberries and almonds I form the general idea 'Fruit', if I go further and imagine that my abstract idea 'Fruit', derived from real fruit, is an entity existing outside me, is indeed the true essence of the pear, the apple, etc., then -- in the language of speculative philosophy -- I am declaring that 'Fruit' is the 'Substance' of the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. I am saying, therefore, that to be an apple is not essential to the apple; that what is essential to these things is not their real existence, perceptible to the senses, but the essence that I have abstracted from them and then foisted on them, the essence of my idea -- 'Fruit'…. Particular real fruits are no more than semblances whose true essence is 'the substance' -- 'Fruit'…. Having reduced the different real fruits to the one 'fruit' of abstraction -- 'the Fruit', speculation must, in order to attain some semblance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from 'the Fruit', from the Substance to the diverse, ordinary real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea 'the Fruit' as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction….

 

"The main interest for the speculative philosopher is therefore to produce the existence of the real ordinary fruits and to say in some mysterious way that there are apples, pears, almonds and raisins. But the apples, pears, almonds and raisins that we rediscover in the speculative world are nothing but semblances of apples, semblances of pears, semblances of almonds and semblances of raisins, for they are moments in the life of 'the Fruit', this abstract creation of the mind, and therefore themselves abstract creations of the mind…. When you return from the abstraction, the supernatural creation of the mind, 'the Fruit', to real natural fruits, you give on the contrary the natural fruits a supernatural significance and transform them into sheer abstractions. Your main interest is then to point out the unity of 'the Fruit' in all the manifestations of its life…that is, to show the mystical interconnection between these fruits, how in each of them 'the Fruit' realizes itself by degrees and necessarily progresses, for instance, from its existence as a raisin to its existence as an almond. Hence the value of the ordinary fruits no longer consists in their natural qualities, but in their speculative quality, which gives each of them a definite place in the life-process of 'the Absolute Fruit'. The ordinary man does not think he is saying anything extraordinary when he states that there are apples and pears. But when the philosopher expresses their existence in the speculative way he says something extraordinary. He performs a miracle by producing the real natural objects, the apple, the pear, etc., out of the unreal creation of the mind 'the Fruit'…. It goes without saying that the speculative philosopher accomplishes this continuous creation only by presenting universally known qualities of the apple, the pear, etc., which exist in reality, as determining features invented by him, by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, to abstract formulas of reason, finally, by declaring his own activity, by which he passes from the idea of an apple to the idea of a pear, to be the self-activity of the Absolute Subject, 'the Fruit.' In the speculative way of speaking, this operation is called comprehending Substance as Subject, as an inner process, as an Absolute Person, and this comprehension constitutes the essential character of Hegel's method." [Marx and Engels (1975a), pp.72-75. Bold emphases alone added. Several paragraphs merged.]

 

As Davidson noted (with which Hegel appeared to concur, as did Marx and Engels), if anything that is supposed to be general is capable of being given a Proper Name, or referred to by means of a singular term (e.g., a definite description, such as "the Fruit"), it can't be general, but must be particular.

 

And generality, like virginity, once lost can't be restored -- not without radical surgery.3

 

As Marx and Engels also noted:

 

"Having reduced the different real fruits to the one 'fruit' of abstraction -- 'the Fruit', speculation must, in order to attain some semblance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from 'the Fruit', from the Substance to the diverse, ordinary real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea 'the Fruit' as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction…." [Ibid; bold emphasis alone added.]

 

How Not  To Solve Philosophical 'Problems' 2.0

 

As might be expected, Empiricists didn't just sit on their thumbs for a couple of centuries, they made numerous attempts to solve these 'problems', doing so by the simple expedient of diverting attention from them, onto unrelated side-issues (to be examined presently). None of them even so much as questioned the complex word-juggling that had given life to this ancient pseudo-problem (again, analysed in detail in Part One), which, of course, meant all their efforts were in vain. One aspect of their attempt to deflect from their (obvious) predicament involved the invention of an irrelevant 'mental' capacity, an almost magical ability the 'mind' allegedly possessed, which 'enabled' it to 'discern' resemblances between the various 'impressions', 'images', 'ideas' the senses sent its way, or which were supposedly cobbled-together from, or by means of, them.

 

But, once again, Aristotle's objection reared its ugly head, only now in a more pernicious form: if there is a problem over the 'resemblances' that exist between objects (of a certain sort) in 'external reality', it is surely a bad idea to retreat from the Real into the Ideal (i.e., into 'the mental') in an attempt to resolve it. Indeed, if this 'process' is hidden away in the recesses of 'the mind', the philosophical 'problem' that this new approach sought to address will now re-appear in a completely intractable form. That is because 'internal processes' like these are even more problematic -- clearly, because they lie beyond any hope of objective or subjective investigation.4

 

Generality, driven inwards in this way, is even more difficult to coax out of solitary confinement.5

 

Platonic Realism, Aristotelian Conceptualism and fashionable Bourgeois Empiricism -- along with a host of other metaphysical doctrines that have since attempted to solve this pseudo-problem -- all ran aground on these unyielding rocks.

 

[To see this, just replace "G1" from earlier with any of the 'abstractions'/'ideas'/'concepts'/'representations'/'Universals' (etc.) concocted by the above traditionalists and contemporary theorists; the rest will follow as before.]

 

By way of stark contrast, ordinary language not only enables, it allows for the expression of generality when it is left to those who employ common nouns, verbs and adjectives every day of their lives, and with none of the above fuss. But, these terms soon lose their generality when they are elbowed aside, replaced by the abstract singular terms concocted by Traditional Philosophers.6

 

However, placing such emphasis on an individual's apprehension of generality (howsoever the latter was supposedly achieved by 'the mind') meant that theorists found they could only hope to account for generality by surreptitiously re-employing it elsewhere. This untoward turn-of-events arose largely because Traditional Thinkers tended to conceive this 'problem' epistemologically, perhaps even psychologistically. Unfortunately, the logical and grammatical 'fall from grace' that gave birth to the original 'conundrum' in Ancient Greece was almost totally ignored, buried under centuries of irrelevant psycho-babble, metaphysical gobbledygook and pseudo-scientific jargon.

 

Which is where it largely remains to this day.6a0

 

As far as Empiricists conceived this 'problem', if sensory experience presents the 'mind' with particular 'impressions', generality had to be cobbled-together from whatever 'resemblances' the 'mind' (or the brain) happened to 'notice' in each exemplar ('the mind'/brain now having replaced the individual concerned; more about that surreptitious move later, but in much more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Three -- for example, here). This made the entire 'problem' look as if it depended on an individual mind's, or an individual brain's, internal 'recognitional capacities' (with clear echoes of Plato's theory working behind the scenes here, but now located in each head not in 'Platonic Heaven'), as if the fragmented contents of each skull -- i.e., all those 'ideas', 'impressions', 'abstractions'. 'representations', and 'concepts' -- could be inspected like the faces of long lost friends and relatives who had now wandered fortuitously into the same arena and in some sort of 'pre-arranged order'.

 

[As we have seen, there are countless 'resemblances'/'similarities' between objects and processes, so how 'the mind' manages to focus on only a narrow range of them is, to say the least, mysterious. On that, see Goodman (1970). Henceforth, in order to eliminate needless repetition, I will only refer to 'the mind', but readers should assume I also include 'the brain'/CNS in this, unless otherwise stated. On why the phrase "the mind" has often been put in 'scare quotes', see Essay Thirteen Part Three.]

 

Our friends we can almost always recognise, but how on earth is it possible to 'recognise' an idea/concept (let alone any of its 'resemblances') that the individual concerned has never encountered before?

 

No good constructing a photo-fit.6a

 

Worse still, none of these 'impressions' or 'ideas' would 'resemble' the next in line without the use of the general terms this 'theory' was itself meant to explain. [That was established earlier.]

 

[Of course, this takes care of the objection that all 'the mind' has to do is spot similarities between 'ideas'/'impressions' in such circumstances, so, a given individual can recognise similarities between 'impressions' they have never met before. Maybe so, but only if they already have access to the right general term so they are able to conclude, "This is the same F as that" (where "F" stands for the general term involved). Without that there would be nothing to compare or contrast anything with, no means by which it could be accomplished. "This is the same...", where that empty space (marked by those dots) is empty and remains empty (of content), which means it is no use at all in this regard. Of course, it could now be countered that individuals who have no language (either they are too young or are impaired in some way) can certainly recognise similarities between 'impressions' they have never met before, as can many animals. I have dealt with replies like this immediately below, as well as here.]

 

In which case, "Ah, here is yet another (impression of a) cat!" could never legitimately be uttered by an Empiricist at the beginning of their associationist career, since, at best, what they would really mean is this: "Ah, here is yet another impression/image/sensation of something I haven't right now got a word for...". Or even: "Ah, here is yet another something of something (that isn't a typo!) I haven't right now got any words for...". Furthermore, as that individual's 'epistemological career' progressed, the very best they would be able to do is access an 'idea of cat' -- but, where the word "cat" has come from is, unsurprisingly, left entirely mysterious -- but, as we have seen, the Proper Name, "CAT", would thereby neutralise the generality of "...is a cat".

 

[This sorry tale merges with recent discussions of Wittgenstein's comments about whether or not it is possible for anyone to invent their own private language from scratch. That topic is far too big to enter into here, so readers are directed to Candlish (2019) for an overview. But, Marx himself argued against any such possibility (since it would completely undermine the social nature of language); in which case it is difficult to see how anyone who agrees with him can also give credence to any theories that rely on the 'process of abstraction', which, as Bertell Ollman has pointed out, is based on that very possibility -- the formation of a private language.]

 

The usual response to the above is that each individual learns to associate words like "cat" with their 'ideas'/'impressions'/'representations' of that animal. I will return to discuss the defunct 'associationist psychology' that underpins theories like this later on in the Essay. It is sufficient to note here that any such 'associations' will also be triggered by the word "mammal" and "animal" (or even "object") as much as they would by "cat".

 

[There are similar 'triggering problems' with other co-extensive (and even partially co-extensive) terms. For example, "red" is co-extensive with "colour" (whatever is red is also coloured, but that isn't so the other way round), which associations can't discriminate between. On this, see Cowie (2002) and Mandelbaum (2020). Also see Laurence and Margolis (2012), pp.1-10).]

 

Anyway, given this 'family of theories', general terms have to be painstakingly distilled from a finite range of exemplars, those that fortuitously confront each lone abstractor -- or as each 'mind' supposedly processes them in an unshared and unshareable manner.

 

However, if each socially-isolated 'mind' is supposed to extrapolate successfully from what few particulars it experiences ('internally' or 'externally'), then, in order to construct the relevant 'abstract general idea' from such meagre resources, each 'sensation', 'impression', 'idea', or 'representation' would have to be given a general make-over of some sort -- for want of a better term -- since each is experienced individually. And, in order to do that, the 'mind' would have to re-connect each of these 'epistemological atoms' -- all the 'sensations', 'impressions', 'ideas' and 'representations' it encounters  -- with others of the 'same sort', using whatever similar features it happened to notice in each. But, as we saw earlier, not only does that make it impossible to explain how any two lone abstractors could ever form the 'same idea' (of anything), it makes the whole process dependent on a suspiciously loose notion of "similarity", a term whose meaning itself presupposes generality! In that case, if two 'impressions', a and b, are said to share a "similar" property, designated by the use of a common noun or adjective, "F", -- so that it might be judged that a is F and b is F, and hence that that was enough to be able to decide that a is 'similar' to b in so far as they both share F -- that would only be possible if F were already a general term, otherwise it couldn't be shared, nor could it collect a and b together as 'legitimate members' of its "extension".

 

Clearly, this new twist only succeeds in introducing a general idea through the back door while failing to explain either the general or the particular that had earlier slipped out the front. If the two 'impressions' mentioned above are indeed similar, then that would only be so with respect to some 'feature', F, that they both held in common, which feature (of necessity) can't itself be another particular (otherwise it couldn't be held in common -- or at least couldn't apply generally).

 

So, in order to rescue generality from such radical particularisation, a new general term will have to be smuggled in while no one is looking -- or their attention had been distracted by yet more psychobabble and science fiction.7

 

More about that tactic, presently.

 

[But, what about those with no language, mentioned earlier? They can surely recognise similarities they have never experienced before. Putting to one side worries about the applicability the loose term "similarity" (again, on that see Goodman (1970)) in such circumstances, maybe they can, but specifying what they register requires our use of general terms. But, doesn't that concession reveal that the use of language isn't necessary, after all? Doesn't it show that without language it is possible to recognise similarities that haven't been encountered before, contrary to what was argued earlier? A language-user might require access to general terms, but not a subject without a language, such as an animal, an infant or an impaired individual. However, the original challenge was this: "How is it possible to 'recognise' an idea no one has never encountered before?" That wasn't aimed at the ability to recognise similarities between impressions, but the recognition of novel impressions never met before. In order to re-cognise one such it would have to have already been 'cognised' -- otherwise it couldn't be re-cognised, obviously. What languageless beings may or may not be able to do is hardly relevant here, since this 'problem' revolves around the use of general terms, which a languageless being doesn't have, by definition. In which case, such languageless subjects can hardly be said to 'abstract' anything if that involves the use of general nouns, adjectives or verbs (etc.), since they have no words. Hence what they are supposed to be able to re-cognise -- about which we know even less than we know about the 'mysterious process of abstraction' itself(!) --, is surely irrelevant. What general features can such languageless 'beings' formulate if they have no general terms by means of which to do it? If anyone still disagrees, please feel free to email me with your best counter-argument.]

 

Independently of the above, just as theologians soon discovered centuries ago -- in relation to the Doctrine of the Trinity (expressed, for example, in the Athanasian Creed: "Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance") --, Empiricists also found that, with regard to their fragmented ideas of generality, it was impossible for them not to confound the particular without dividing the Universal.6b

 

[Note 6b above should in fact be Note 7b, but it would create far too many problems for other links if it were changed!]

 

What now follows is the DM-equivalent of the problem Plato's theory faced in connection with "participation", mentioned earlier. [On this, see Staniland (1973), pp.15-27.]

 

Hence, if each individual shares exactly the same universal of resemblance (call it, "R"), then it will be particular and unique to that individual abstractor; indeed, as we found was the case with "CAT", earlier. That is because the 'general', now faced with futile attempts to distribute it across the entire set of novice abstractors (in order to secure some level of agreement between them), can't escape from its now fragmented nature. So, if "CAT" is understood differently by each lone abstractor (as it must be, given this 'family of theories'), it can no longer be general, but must be particular to each 'mind'. That means R must be fragmented. Each lone abstractor now has their own unique, 'mental idea', 'CAT', which would resemble no one else's idea, 'CAT', unless someone (call her, "NM") had access to the contents of every 'mind' involved and could attest to their identity, using yet another non-fragmented general term!. But, NM, by some miracle, must thereby be able to by-pass the entire 'abstractive process' and declare every individual exemplar, 'CAT', is the same, and 'reflects' the same, as all the rest, with that judgement itself not having been based on NM's own 'ideas', but on 'reality itself' (whatever that might now mean!). Failing that, no one would be able to declare that all these lone abstractors had the same idea/concept, 'CAT', never mind any other such.

 

[So, NM would have to by-pass this entire 'process' and base her judgement on 'reality itself' -- thereby abandoning Empiricism -- otherwise her ideas would be fed into the same epistemological shredder, thus rendering them useless in this regard.]

 

But, what is true of 'CAT' will be true of all other 'abstractions', and that includes R. All such will be fragmented across an entire population.

 

This divides the Universal.

 

Alas, the universal, now divided, will always be defeated.

 

Conversely, if the above distribution of general ideas hadn't been carried out in a perfectly egalitarian manner, the relevant particulars wouldn't be collected together under the same general term, shared equally by one and all. But, if that were the case, if R had been shared equally across an entire population, so that every abstractor had exactly the same idea of 'CAT', its individuality would be lost -- it would thereby have been confounded, just as predicted.

 

Alas, the individual confounded has now been defeated.

 

So, the general, the Universal, was either divided (and was thereby unique to each lone abstractor) or the particular was confounded (since any ideas held about it/them would all be identical).

 

If the individual is confounded, there would be no individuals of a given type, there would only be one substance, one Universal, one Abstract Idea, equally spread out, as it were across every one of its apparent instances/'moments'. Each 'seeming particular' would just be a 'local appearance' or 'manifestation' of The One Universal -- rather like an emanation or instantiation of 'God' (a doctrine actually propounded by certain forms of Mystical Christianity, and other religions/philosophies based on just sich 'reasoning'), 'who' is supposed to be everywhere all at once.

 

So, to bring this down to earth, each 'seemingly individual' CAT would simply be a 'manifestation' of 'CAT-in-General'. 'Appearances' would then be misleading. While you might foolishly think you are seeing a concrete particular (an individual cat!), in reality all you would be seeing is a 'moment' in the life of a 'Concept' -- 'CAT'. The cat you now think you see is but a mere 'appearance', a brief 'manifestation' of 'CATHOOD'. Its 'reality' would be defined by the Universal, which 'shines' in your direction. We will meet this quandary again later, as DM-theorists vainly try to explain why 'essence contradicts appearances', and why they think 'matter' is just an 'abstraction'. However, those who know enough Hegel will no doubt recognise where this train-of-thought is headed. (These points also depend on an earlier argument and might not be fully appreciated by anyone who hasn't read it or hasn't called it to mind.) The critical points raised in this paragraph are, in effect, the same as those advanced by Marx and Engels in a passage quoted several times below.

 

Radically divergent interpretations of the above led Traditional Theorists in completely different directions. The stark choice between confounding the individual or dividing the substance (i.e., dividing the general) challenged Empiricists and Rationalists alike, just as it had the Trinitarians -- and for the same basic reason. That is because this entire family of doctrines had descended with modification from the same ancient syntactic screw up we met in Part One. Like Adam's famed 'fall from grace' that supposedly 'tainted' us all, so this 'syntactic sin' stained every theory that descended from it with modification.

 

All of which helps explain the continual oscillation in Traditional Ontology between Monism, Dualism and Pluralism -- and why Metaphysicians can't decide between competing versions of Rationalism, Conceptualism and Nominalism.

 

And it is also why Dialectical Marxist constantly oscillate, back-and-forth, between all three. [That will be established in Part Six of Essay Three.]

 

To paraphrase Wittgenstein: here we have witnessed an entire Metaphysic distilled out of a drop of grammar! [Wittgenstein (2009), p.233, §315. (This links to a PDF.) Again, Wittgenstein's point was one of the main themes of Part One.]

 

Much of the rest of the Part of Essay Three will explore the ramifications of these philosophical dead-ends.

 

Intelligent Ideas Versus A 'Little Man' In The Head

 

Added On Edit, February 2025 -- Further Background

 

[The material below, and the next few sub-sections, contains perhaps the most 'flowery' language in the entire Essay (and possibly even the entire site!), where metaphors and other rhetorical images seem to take over. Mercifully, I have progressively edited much it out, but not all!]

 

To continue what was posted in the Preface: the reason for all this 'purple prose' is that I am trying tell a very familiar story in an entirely new way, and with a political twist thrown in for good measure. The point is to underline the challenges that confronted Christian Theology (and hence much of 'Western Philosophy') by the realisation that contingency exists in nature coupled with the 'threat' this posed the 'social order' in general. An unruly, disorderly world where there was no overall rationality, no overall plan or purpose, meant there was either no 'God' (an idea that completely undermined Royal 'legitimacy' and with it ruling-class power and privilege), or 'God Himself' was disorderly (an idea that also threatened 'established hierarchy'). The profound social and economic transformations that swept across post-Renaissance Europe that resulted in the  replacement of Feudalism with capitalist relations of production (etc.), also brought in their train several novel threats. [How this was represented ideologically will be explained in what follows and in other Essays published at this site, but most Marxists are already aware of the factors involved, even if they might not be cognisant of the specific issues raised in this Essay and at this site.]

 

If social order and legitimacy were to be restored, a philosophical and necessitarian basis for knowledge had to be re-established, and that itself had to be based on at least two related factors:

 

(a) The 'rational nature' of the universe itself;

 

(b) The rational nature of human cognition; and,

 

Given the new political and social environment, with the rise and central importance of the bourgeois individual, justification for each of the above had to be tailored for each individual. That is part of what made Descartes's philosophy so revolutionary and so paradigmatic. It hit the right notes at just the right time. [Ben-Yami (2015).] As noted above:

 

"In this study I focus on Descartes' Meditations and aim to show its revolutionary importance in the history of philosophy. I argue that its significance cannot be understood by abstracting it from its historical context.... [T]he Cartesian reconstruction of philosophy and science begins with the introduction of the notion of a self-defining subject -- a knowing subject whose existence is demonstrated, and essence defined, independent of the cosmic order. By this means, Descartes initiated a major 'paradigm shift'." [Roberts (1991), pp.i-ii. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

In that case, some way had to be found to show that what seemed to be a disorderly and contingent way that human beings experienced the world, and then formed ideas about it, didn't undermine 'rational and orderly nature of the universe', but in the end actually 'reflected' it.

 

Hence, this section and those that follow will add to what has already been established above (and in Part One in this respect). As such they are aimed at highlighting the different ways in which the 'restoration of order' (both in 'thought' and 'reality') was attempted by post-Renaissance Philosophers. In addition, they will show how the DM-Classicists (and subsequent Dialectical Marxists) were seduced by this novel re-orientation and these new ideas, and, as a result, how "ruling ideas" came to dominate DM.

 

[How and why the above revolutionaries were so easily misled/duped will be explained in Essay Nine Parts One and Two.]

 

With respect to the aforementioned DM-Classicists, contingency in nature and society also threatened their ideas. An irrational world completely undermined Hegelian 'logic' and its associated Teleology. That in turn threatened the legitimacy of any challenge made to class society. If the world was fundamentally irrational, governed by chance, what sort of rational justification could there be for communism? What sort of guarantee could there be that a revolution would even be successful? or would have the 'right result'? This meant the DM-classicists had to find a way of legitimating both their own opposition to the status quo and the society they claimed would emerge as a result. Given the doctrinal and intellectual tradition in which they had all been socialised (with well-established, deeply-entrenched "ruling ideas" forming a core factor -- e.g., they were all brought up as Christians, or, in Mao's case, as a Confucian7b), the only way that these lofty aims could be secured was to look for 'logical principles' that were somehow stitched into 'the fabric of reality' and which were also mirrored by, or were 'reflected in', human cognition, This would require 'concepts' that told them change was not just a core component in, it was a rational component of, the 'cosmic order'. Hence, the 'principles'/'laws' they borrowed from Hegel (upside down or the 'right way up') were dutifully stitched into the 'dialectic of reality' and knitted into the way human beings also cognised that 'reality' -- in a 'like reflecting like' manner, again. The revolution would be successful and would produce the right result, if 'dialectical thought' was in tune with 'the pulse of reality', with 'dialectical logic'. Success would thereby be guaranteed. After all, if the Universe -- the 'Totality' -- runs along lines that harmonise with our own (genuine, dialectical) thought processes, and if all things are 'inter-connected', how could Dialectical Marxism possibly fail? Teleology was thereby smuggled into the workers' movement through the back door -- by non-workers! Concepts were re-connected so that the link between each one and extra-mental 'objects'/'processes' was once again 'rational'/'logical'. Contingency was thereby cast into outer darkness. And that is why the DM-classicists latched onto Hegel's system so readily and so enthusiastically. It gave them exactly what they were looking for (if flipped the 'right-side up'). In this way, a set of ancient, anthropomorphic, quasi-religious metaphors (that pictured human knowledge 'reflecting' or 'mirroring' nature -- both of which were key components in the Hermetic World-View, and which underpinned Hegel's entire system) came to dominate this (now corrupted) version of Marxism. That is why every DM-fan sees 'contradictions' and 'negations' everywhere they look -- as indeed anyone would whose theory had just anthropomorphised the entire Universe, and who also imagined it was a 'reflection' of the way human beings reason and talk!

 

And here is Lenin summarising these very ideas (notice how it all follows from the sort of language analysed in Part One!):

 

"Such must also be the method of exposition (i.e., study) of dialectics in general.... To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., with any proposition: the leaves of a tree are green; John is a man: Fido is a dog, etc. Here already we have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognised): the individual is the universal.... Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes) etcHere already we have the elements, the germs, the concepts of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say: John is a man, Fido is a dog, this is a leaf of a tree, etc., we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other. Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as in a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general. And natural science shows us (and here again it must be demonstrated in any simple instance) objective nature with the same qualities, the transformation of the individual into the universal, of the contingent into the necessary, transitions, modulations, and the reciprocal connection of opposites. Dialectics is the theory of knowledge of (Hegel and) Marxism. This is the 'aspect' of the matter (it is not 'an aspect' but the essence of the matter) to which Plekhanov, not to speak of other Marxists, paid no attention." [Lenin (1961), pp.359-60. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

 

In such terms Lenin succeeded in dividing the Universal while confounding the individual, echoing the predicament in which Trinitarian Christians found themselves (as noted earlier). Notice, too, how Lenin thought he (or his interpretation of Hegel) had reintroduced necessity into nature and society, thereby banishing contingency; viz: "the transformation of the individual into the universal, of the contingent into the necessary...".

 

'Dialectical legitimacy' was back on the table again -- alongside but also in competition with bourgeois legitimacy --, all a product of (distorted) language.

 

In this way, an archaic set of "ruling ideas" was given a pseudo-materialist coat of paint, which is how and why ruling-class ideology found its way into Dialectical Marxism, where it remains to this day. [These ideas have been laid out in extensive detail in Essay Nine Parts One and Two. This Part of Essay Three is also aimed at exposing the intellectual forces that pushed the founders of our movement in this direction.]

 

However, in what follows there is a parallel image I am also trying to explore, which focuses on the connection between:

 

(i) The 'unruly' impressions and ideas the senses (supposedly) deliver 'the mind', allied with a need to impose some sort of 'order' on them (for the above reasons);

 

(ii) The (supposed) 'order' underlying or 'governing' the universe (which was required in order to 'justify' these moves); and,

 

(iii) The 'unruly' working class upon whom the ruling-class and their ideologues also have to impose some sort of order. So, if the world, or our impression of it, had to have order imposed on it (to counteract contingency and atheism), that was also the case with the working class -- in order to regulate and maximise the flow of profit, counteract 'lawlessness', water-down the effect, or the spread, of democracy/republicanism, and, 'god'-forbid(!), prevent revolution.

 

Ruling-class Theorists certainly made the following connection: if there was no underlying order to the universe (if everything were fundamentally adventitious and contingent), how would it be possible to rationalise or justify the status quo, class division, oppression and inequality? How would it be possible to legitimate the top-down control of the 'disorderly', 'ignorant masses'? That message wasn't lost on Dialectical Marxists, either, who also echoed this reactionary attitude aimed at the working class. As other Essays at this site have shown, as far as Dialectical Marxists were concerned, the working class is not only unruly --, which means the party must discipline it, or even substitute itself for it -- it is also (even worse!) 'ignorant of dialectics', and, as such, is ideologically backward and in need of teachers who have 'seen the light'. That in turn is because workers have been intellectually befuddled by 'formal thinking', a debased condition compounded by the 'banalities of commonsense'. In addition, their thought has been crippled by an unwise reliance on strictly limited (even 'defective') ordinary language, which means they are all trapped in an 'epistemological fog' generated by their unwise reliance on 'appearances'.

 

In that case, self-appointed, dialectical prophets have to bring the good news to the benighted masses -- "from the outside" --, becoming 'Great Teachers', or even 'Great Helmsmen', of and for the 'ignorant masses'. Plainly, these self-declared prophets need a philosophy all of their own that only they 'understand', which not only helps 'justify' substitutionism, it rationalises their 'superiority' over the class. [On that, see here, here and here.]

 

Enter DM, courtesy of the non-working-class founders of Dialectical Marxism and the befuddled musings of a Christian Mystic.

 

That helps explain why these 'dialectical prophets' cling to DM like terminally insecure limpets and why they become extremely emotional and abusive when it is challenged.

 

Again, all of this is set out in detail in Parts One and Two of Essay Nine. This Essay merely presents some of the ideological background to the above moves, which helps explain why Dialectical Marxism has been such an abject, long-term failure.

 

After all, if a revolutionary party adopts and is guided by a philosophy that is a pale reflection of ruling-class ideology and Christian Mysticism, how could anyone have realistically expect any other outcome?

 

Yet More Problems

 

Unfortunately, the 'problems' aired in previous sections don't end there. Nor do they become any the less intractable.

 

As should by now seem reasonably clear, convincing answers were required for a range of 'awkward questions', not the least of which was this: Exactly how is 'the mind' able to sift through the 'ideas' and 'impressions' the senses supposedly send its way? [Henceforth, these 'ideas' and 'impressions' will simply be called 'inputs'.] An effective response to such a question would have to include definitive answers to further queries about how 'the mind' manages to sort these 'inputs' into the 'correct mental boxes', with the 'right' general noun or adjective either attached, associated with, or attributed to, each of them. But, as we have just seen, an effective response would depend on the individuals concerned, or their 'mind', already having a grasp of the relevant general terms in order to produce the 'correct results', never mind any that were consistent. So, the individual in question would already have to have a command of the relevant terms (i.e., they would have to be able to use them 'correctly'), which, of course, means that whatever the 'mind' is supposed to be able to do is parasitic on publicly-acquired and communally-performed skills, not the other way round. That is just a long-winded way of saying we are all taught what out words mean, we don't attach out own meaning to them. [I have covered this topic in much greater detail in Essay Thirteen Part Three -- Sections 4 to 8.]

 

[Always assuming, of course, that 'the mind' is able to do anything at all -- on that, see the rest of this sub-section. The reason for all the 'scare' quotes around several of the above words -- like "correct" and "right" -- should become clear reasonably soon. If not, readers might like to skip forward to this section. Why the word "mind" is similarly encased is also explained in Essay Thirteen Part Three, link above.]

 

This is something that began to dawn on Kant (in his own confused way -- confused, since he, too, located this 'sorting' faculty in 'the mind', unwisely ignoring socialisation and the public use of language):

 

"Our cognition arises from two fundamental sources in the mind, the first of which is the reception of representations (the receptivity of impressions), the second of the faculty for cognizing an object by means of these representations (spontaneity of concepts); through the former an object is given to us, through the latter it is thought in relation to that representation (as a mere determination of the mind). Intuition and concepts therefore constitute the elements of all our cognition, so that neither concepts without intuition corresponding to them in some way nor intuition without concepts can yield a cognition.... Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." [Kant (1998), pp.193-94, A51/B75. Bold emphases in the original; italic emphasis added. Paragraphs merged. (By "intuition" Kant meant something like "immediate experience" -- Caygill (1995), pp.262-66.)]

 

"Our knowledge springs from two main sources in the mind, first of which is the faculty or power of receiving representations (receptivity for impressions); the second is the power of cognizing by means of these representations (spontaneity in the production of conceptions). Through the first an object is given to us; through the second, it is, in relation to the representation (which is a mere determination of the mind), thought. Intuition and conceptions constitute, therefore, the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither conceptions without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without conceptions, can afford us a cognition." [Online version of the above. As we saw in Part One, Hegel also made a similar point, except he claimed that what Kant called an "intuition" was already conceptualised. How that was even possible he left rather vague.]

 

But, without this necessary pre-condition (i.e., socialisation and the public use of language), 'inter-subjective objectivity' will always remain a vacuous concept.

 

Indeed, this is just another way of saying that these 'inputs' can't be expected to sort themselves neatly into the 'right' groups -- as if they were autonomous, self-directed agents --, since they have neither the wit nor the intelligence to do so. Even for Kant, they required some form of regimentation, externally imposed on them. [That is, this 'sorting' would require regimentation external to the 'inputs' themselves, which would supposedly be provided by 'the mind', its 'cognitive apparatus' or its 'concepts'. How any of that actually worked Kant, alas, kept to himself.]

 

However, in the age-old battle between the One and the Many, the Many have always shown themselves far too 'unruly' and 'ill-disciplined' (so to speak) to be able to regiment themselves in the required manner, while the One was far too 'aloof', and hence 'feeble' and 'weak' (so to speak, once more) to do any such regimenting. Nevertheless, if it were even possible to impose some sort of order, 'principles' external to these disorderly 'inputs' (the Many) had to be found in order to lend 'the mind' (the One) a helping hand. Never was care in the Community of Ideas more needed than here. And yet, if such 'inputs' were to become more than a 'heap of conceptual dust' (so to speak, again) -- haphazardly deposited inside each cognising skull (i.e., if they weren't to be left unsorted, uncategorised, unconnected) --, some sort of 'care' was essential, which had to be sought from somewhere, and quickly.

 

[Recall, these 'inputs' are the 'impressions' and 'ideas' that the senses supposedly send the 'mind'. The reason for the above stress on urgency was explained earlier.]

 

As seems plain, 'sortal principles' -- necessary to whip all these disorderly 'inputs' into shape -- can't be self-explanatory, nor can they be self-regulating or even self-directing. On the other hand, if they were, there would seem to be no reason why that couldn't also be the case with the 'inputs' themselves. Or, indeed, why the latter couldn't be expected to troop unaided into the 'right metaphysical pigeon holes', certifying their own inter-subjective 'resemblance' with others of their 'kin'. That is, there was no good reason why any such 'inputs' couldn't just assemble themselves under the 'correct' general term without a 'guiding hand' to do it for them or impose it on them.

 

Indeed, if these 'inputs' were capable of self-regulation, or could sort themselves, that would remove the need for a 'mind' and its 'attendant goons' (all those 'concepts' and 'categories') to whip them into shape.

 

Clearly, the first of the above two options would see 'the mind', or its 'principles', as some sort of 'drill-sergeant', thus anthropomorphising them. The second would throw this 'sergeant' on the scrap heap, thereby implying 'inputs' were in fact autonomous agents -- anthropomorphising them, instead.

 

[They would all be anthropomorphised since they would thereby have been credited with human capacities and skills, the very thing such theories were introduced to avoid! (As we are about to see, that is still the case with theories developed in contemporary Cognitive Theory.)] 

 

Hence, several awkward questions remained: Is 'the mind' actually in control here? Or are these 'inputs' autonomous agents, after all? Could such questions even be addressed without gifting both with human characteristics?

 

[There are faint echoes of both halves of the above dilemma in contemporary Cognitive Psychology and Behaviourism. The former anthropomorphises the brain (picturing it as some sort of diminutive human being, lodged inside each skull, an homunculus); the latter scraps 'the mind' altogether, leaving all such 'inputs' to fend for themselves. (There is much more on this in Essay Thirteen Part Three -- where an explanation is given how and why contemporary Cognitive Theory has ended up anthropomorphising the brain and/or its contents.) On this, see Kenny (1984b).]

 

Of course, many Empiricists claimed that 'the mind' was somehow capable of extrapolating way beyond the limited set of 'inputs' the senses sent its way, allowing it to form general ideas, which is what all those 'resemblances' supposedly implied anyway. Unfortunately, this 'solution' left unexplained exactly how any such 'extrapolations' might be carried out without 'the mind' having a (pre-installed) notion of the general to guide it. But that was the very thing that required explanation, to begin with! As we saw earlier, in order to conjure into existence even one such 'abstract general idea', 'the mind' must already have grasped that concept itself, vitiating the whole exercise.

 

As Kant himself might well have asked: Where on earth might that have come from?

 

[The phrase "arguing in a circle" now comes to mind, for some reason. Here is another less abstract way of making the same point: sheepdogs don't spontaneously know how to herd sheep, and drill-sergeants don't grow on trees. It took countless centuries of human social and technological progress to bring humanity to the stage where both (i.e., the sheepdogs and the drill sergeants) were able to do what they now do. If there are 'minds' that are capable of regimenting the inputs they receive, they would only be able to do so as a result of analogous forms of social conditioning, not a mythical 'process of abstraction'. Even if there were such a 'process', it would require mastery of the very concept it was originally introduced to explain, generality. And, that would be the result of a socially-acquired skill, not a privately performed trick, which is how abstractionism pictures it.]

 

Nevertheless, if particulars (these 'inputs') are to be marshalled, or 'cognised', into the 'correct' sortal categories by 'the mind' (or by the use of 'rational principles'), there seemed to be only two ways that that might be achieved (both of which have already been hinted at):

 

(A) The first involved reference to specific 'mental faculties' (these days re-branded as "modules") that each novice abstractor supposedly possessed, or to which they had automatic, even privileged, access, to do all this regimenting for them -- "mental bodies of armed men", as it were. Bourgeois Ideas, supposedly born free, would now be clapped in chains. [This is the 'mental' equivalent, perhaps, of the Absolutist State.]

 

(B) The second way had to appeal to the 'natural propensities' supposedly possessed by any such 'inputs', which meant that they were capable of regimenting themselves, marching 'voluntarily' into the 'right' 'mental boxes' with no outside assistance. [This is the 'mental equivalent', perhaps, of an 'Anarchist Utopia'.]

 

Taking each in turn:

 

(A) One version of this alternative postulated the existence of "innate ideas"/"principles" that were somehow 'programmed into the mind', either activated or guided by the "laws of thought", the "natural light of reason", or some other factor inherent of a given individual's 'mental architectonic'. [Caygill (1995), pp.84-85.]

 

[More recent analogues of this 'mental assembly-line' have these 'cognitive factors' hard-wired into the brain as a "transformational grammar" -- now re-christened, "Unbounded Merge" --, or even as a "Language of Thought", about which we know even less than we do about Dark Matter and the deepest recesses of our planet's oceans.]

 

[On this in general, see Cowie (2002).]

 

A much older version held that 'innate ideas' (also misleadingly labelled "clear and distinct") were, at some level, capable of unerringly guiding aspiring thinkers, allowing them to classify each particular given in experience (or even actioning this universally, prior to experience) under the 'correct' general term. How an individual cognisor knew what was 'correct' and what was 'incorrect' -- or even how each one might arrive at some form of agreement across an entire population over this -- we must pass over in silence, mainly because those who (still) promote this theory, or its modern day reincarnation, also pass over it in silence.

 

Of course, this means Option (A) sits neatly in the Rationalist Camp, and perhaps because of this the temptation became irresistible to bury the source of these 'innate principles' in the mists of time -- boosted of late with a steady stream of Neo-Darwinian 'just-so-stories' projected back into the Pleistocene -- original syntax now based on Genetics, not 'Genesis'.8

 

Other versions of Option (A) weren't even remotely Empiricist, staging their appearance in the Cartesian-Leibnizian-Kantian-Hegelian tradition of a priori myth-making.

 

Nevertheless, each variant shared the same fundamental premiss: 'abstractions' were alive and well, and were either living in a skull near you or were perhaps camped out somewhere in 'objective reality' waiting to be enlisted to the cause -- presumably, merely by being 'thought about' by a suitably clued-in 'abstractor' or fast-talking, idealistically-inclined Smart Alec.

 

Even more convenient was the additional fact that while 'abstract ideas' were (somehow) thought to be real, they were also (somehow) capable of transcending actual or possible experience. Indeed, in this respect alone they bore an uncanny resemblance to the 'gods' of yore, and, as was also the case with those defunct 'divinities', these mysterious 'abstractions' underpinned, made possible, gave substance to, or even created, the material world we see around us.

 

This happened, for instance, when a lively subset of these 'autonomous ideas' unceremoniously 'self-developed' while they lived, rent free, in Hegel's head.

 

Unfortunately, for those who have fallen for, or have surrendered their critical faculties to, this way of approaching generality/knowledge, abstract ideas turn out to be more real than the material world we see around us. The physical universe is, after all, full of lowly, debased, contingent objects and processes that are fit only for destruction, according to Hegel -- as such hardly worth mentioning in Ideal company.

 

Moreover, since these abstractions had been given grandiose titles, that alone (surely!) implied they must exist...somewhere. How could they possibly fail to do so if generation after generation of 'leading minds' and 'influential thinkers' had not only gone to the trouble of identifying them, they had also very kindly named them for us? Such 'edgy' and daring acts of reification called for -- even demanded -- philosophical genuflection, their inventors labelled 'geniuses' as a result --, which acts of theoretical deference transformed them, rendering them all not just real, but Super-Real. Here is a copy of Lenin's very own surrender to the dark side:

 

"To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other…. Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general." [Lenin (1961), pp.357-58, 359-60. Bold emphasis alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; paragraphs merged.]

 

These 'abstractions' were in effect 'Super-Real' plainly because their 'ontological status', reflecting 'essence', was deemed far superior to the lowly rank now occupied by 'unreliable appearances'. This meant, of course, that 'abstractions' alone were capable of generating the Super-Scientific Truths of Traditional Metaphysics -- and now DM.

 

As James White pointed out (quoted earlier):

 

"Already with Fichte the idea of the unity of the sciences, of system, was connected with that of finding a reliable starting-point in certainty on which knowledge could be based. Thinkers from Kant onwards were quite convinced that the kind of knowledge which came from experience was not reliable. Empirical knowledge could be subject to error, incomplete, or superseded by further observation or experiment. It would be foolish, therefore, to base the whole of knowledge on something which had been established only empirically. The kind of knowledge which Kant and his followers believed to be the most secure was a priori knowledge, the kind embodied in the laws of Nature. These had been formulated without every occurrence of the Natural phenomenon in question being observed, so they did not summarise empirical information, and yet they held good by necessity for every case; these laws were truly universal in their application." [White (1996a), p.29. In fact, Rationalists since Plato was in diapers had already concluded this.]

 

Even better, our ancestors had helpfully, if not mischievously, buried these 'abstractions' behind what appear to be a perfectly ordinary and familiar grammatical quirk of everyday discourse: the subject-copula-predicate form -- even if this supposedly important linguistic artifice only succeeded in advertising its presence in the Indo-European family of languages, rarely anywhere else. Even then (as we saw in Part One), this turned out to be the case only when that form had been twisted way beyond the knotted pretzel stage.

 

As we also saw in Part One, this phony, 'never-never-approach-to-knowledge' -- such 'science-on-the-cheap' --  has dominated practically all forms of Traditional Thought since Thales and Anaximander wore diapers. It is, indeed, one of the perennial "ruling ideas":

 

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch." [Marx and Engels (1970), pp.64-65, quoted from here. Bold emphases added.]

 

Or, to call-back to an earlier image, this theory pictures 'inputs' as if they are analogous to sheep, which require herding into the 'correct sheep pens'. In that case, do 'concepts', 'categories' and 'rational principles' act like sheepdogs? Or is that just true of 'the intellect' or maybe 'one of its modules'?

 

 

Video One: Is This How 'Cognition' Collects Together

Particulars Under General Terms?

 

But, sheep spontaneously form herds, even though they need a sheep dog (or its equivalent) to 'encourage' them into the right 'boxes'/sheep pens. Is that how 'the mind' coerces 'inputs'? Like sheep, do the latter naturally congregate into herds and march as a unit into the right pen? Sheep have evolved this tendency as a survival strategy. But, who or what is hunting all these 'inputs' so that they, too, need an analogous survival instinct to drive them into herds? Good luck trying to train a sheepdog to herd animals that don't naturally congregate -- like cats! So, are 'inputs' cat-like or sheep-like? More to the point: Is the 'mind' sheepdog-like?

 

Such questions naturally lead us into a consideration of the next main Option:

 

(B) The second of the above two Options implied that these 'inputs' somehow congregated 'naturally', willingly trooping into the 'right mental categories' (labelled or 'determined' by the 'correct' general noun or adjective). But, if they were capable of spontaneously assembling in the relevant classes, that might suggest they possessed a 'herd instinct' of their own.

 

Clearly, in order for them to do that 'correctly' they must either:

 

(B1) Possess their own form of 'intellect'; or,

 

(B2) Be capable of 'obeying', or being 'guided by', specific natural, logical or even psychological 'laws' of some sort.

 

As far as (B1) is concerned, these 'inputs' were not only capable of automatically 'recognising' those of 'their kind', they were sufficiently compliant and intelligent to be able to flock together with no further ado. That in turn implied they were able to:

 

(B1a) 'Detect' the 'resemblances' they shared with others of their ilk -- suggesting they were surrogate 'minds' themselves, skilled at 'correctly' and unerringly identifying their own close 'mental relatives'. [Echoes here of Plato again.]

 

Alternatively, such spontaneously gregarious 'inputs' were:

 

(B1b) 'Programmed' to behave as if they could act that way.

 

In short, these two sub-options (B1a and B1b) traded on the further belief that:

 

B1a(i): These 'inputs' were minds writ small; or,

 

B1a(ii): 'Minds' were, in effect, incarnate 'Ideas'.

 

As history reveals: Option B1a(i) found safe haven in Leibniz's mind -- whether this was his own idea or he was programmed to think it was is somewhat unclear -- where everything in the universe is 'really' composed of countless pre-programmed, inter-connected 'tiny minds' (i.e., all those "windowless Monads").

 

["Inter-connected" here means each Monad was programmed (by 'God') to behave as if it were reacting to all the rest, when it wasn't. So, the 'connection' was formal not physical -- rather like all those 'internal relations' Hegel concocted.]

 

In a much grander, if not megalomaniacal and narcissistic form, Option B1a(ii) parasitized Hegel's brain. There, 'Mind' became self-developing 'Idea', the Supreme Controller of a vast and impressive Cosmic Mystery Tour. Hegel certainly thought he was the engineer of his own ideas, but if he were correct, he was just the oily rag.

 

However, in relation to B2, the implication seemed to be that 'natural laws' operating on the contents of 'the mind' could account for the regimentation of any 'inputs' it received (or even created) -- a rather odd idea that has resurfaced more recently in several 'naturalistic' theories of mind. But, this Option simply reduplicates the very problem it was meant to address, since it implies an external 'Will' (of some sort) runs both the 'inner' and the 'outer' world, as everything in this 'Mental Cosmos' obeys orders like so many law-abiding citizens.

 

Recall what Descartes had to say about this:

 

"The mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on him entirely no less than the rest of his creatures. Indeed to say that these truths are independent of God is to talk of him as if he were Jupiter or Saturn and to subject him to the Styx and the Fates. Please do not hesitate to assert and proclaim everywhere that it is God who has laid down these laws in nature just as a king lays down laws in his kingdom." [Descartes (1991), p.23. Letter to Mersenne, 15/04/1630. Bold emphasis and link added.]

 

Here are the considered remarks of Biochemist and Marxist Historian of Science, Joseph Needham:

 

"There can be little doubt that the conception of a celestial lawgiver 'legislating' for non-human natural phenomena has its first origin among the Babylonians. Jastrow gives the translation of Tablet No.7 of the Later Babylonian Creation Poem, in which the sun-god Marduk (raised to a position of central importance contemporaneously with the unification and centralization under Hammurabi about 2000 B.C.) is pictured as the law-giver to the stars. He it is 'who prescribes the laws for (the star-gods) Anu, Enlil (and Ea), and who fixes their bounds'. He it is who 'maintains the stars in their paths' by giving 'commands' and 'decrees'. The pre-Socratic philosophers of Greece speak much of necessity..., but not of law...in Nature. But 'the Sun', Heraclitus says (c.500 B.C.), 'will not transgress his measures; otherwise the Erinyes [the Furies -- RL], the bailiffs of Diké (the goddess of justice) will find him out'. Here the regularity is accepted as an obvious empirical fact, but the idea of law is present, since sanctions are mentioned. Anaximander, too (c.560 B.C.), speaks of the forces of Nature 'paying fines and penalties to each other'. But the conception of Zeus Nomothetes [Law-Giver -- RL] in the older Greek poets pictures him as giving laws to gods and men, not to the processes of Nature, for he himself was not truly a Creator. Demosthenes, however (384 to 322 B.C.)...uses the word 'law' in its most general sense when he says: 'Since also the whole world, and things divine, and what we call the seasons, appear, if we may trust what we see, to be regulated by Law and Order'.

 

"Nevertheless, Aristotle never used the law-metaphor, though, as we have noted, he occasionally comes within an inch of doing so. Plato uses it only once, in the Timaeus, where he says that when a person is sick, the blood picks up the components of food 'contrary to the laws of nature'.... But the conception of the governance of the whole world by law seems to be peculiarly Stoic. Most of the thinkers of this school maintained that Zeus (immanent in the world) was nothing else but...Universal Law; for example Zeno (fl. 320 B.C.); Cleanthes (fl. 240 B.C.); Chrysippus (d. 207 B.C.); Diogenes (d.150 B.C.). It seems more than likely that this new and more definite conception was derived from Babylonian influences, since we know that about 300 B.C. astrologers and star-clerks from Mesopotamia began to spread through the Mediterranean world. Among these one of the most famous was Berossus, a Chaldean who settled in the Greek island of Cos in 280 B.C. Zilsel, alert for concomitant social phenomena, notes that just as the original Babylonian conceptions of Laws of Nature had arisen in a highly centralized oriental monarchy, so in the time of the Stoics, a period of rising monarchies, it would have been natural to view the universe as a great empire, ruled by a divine Logos. Since, as is known, the Stoic influence at Rome was great, it was inevitable that these very broad conceptions should have their effects in the development of the idea of a natural law common to all men whatever might be their cultures and local customs. Cicero (106 to 43 B.C.), of course, reflects this, saying... 'The universe obeys God, seas and land obey the universe, and human life is subject to the decrees of the Supreme Law.'" [Needham (1979), pp.301-03. Bold emphases and links added. Several paragraphs merged. Two minor typos corrected. The rest of the chapter is highly relevant, as are the longer articles, Needham (1951a) and (1951b). See also Zilsel (1942). ]

 

[I have covered this specific option in more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Three -- especially in relation to recently re-branded neo-Hegelian theories that have coalesced around what has ironically been called (by its adherents), Critical Realism. A misnomer if ever there was one! See also my comments about Christian Theology, below, as well as my remarks in Part One about such 'laws'.]

 

Clearly, in order for something to be capable of "obeying orders" it must be, in some way or to some extent, intelligent (otherwise, the word "obey" must have assumed a completely different meaning -- I will cover the reasons for saying that in more detail in Essay Three Part Five, but some of that material has already appeared in Essay Thirteen Part Three, here and here). Hence, B2-type 'inputs' must be, in some way or to some extent, intelligent. Except, they are now 'controlled' by, and obey, the 'laws of thought', which is just an updated version of the 'mental architectonic' mentioned earlier. However, none of these 'inputs' turn out to be passive occupants of the brains they happen to colonise. Quite the reverse. They are meant to be active agents, contributing in their own unique way to the 'internal cognitive community' in which they find themselves (aka 'consciousness'). As a result this Inner Microcosm was thought capable of 'reflecting' the Outer Macrocosm -- and, vice versa, as mystics never tire of telling anyone who will listen. They reflect the world since the world reflects them, in a 'like-recognises-like' sort of way. This clearly amounted to a re-vamped, this-worldly version of Plato's Metaphysic. It turns out that a 'properly functioning mind' will be 'well-ordered' because the Cosmos is 'well-ordered' -- and vice versa. Indeed, this is where the word "rational" originally came from. [On that, see Dodds (1951)]. The Inner and the Outer ('Thought' and 'Being') were thus capable of knowing -- i.e., reflecting -- each other, because both were fundamentally the same, both were 'Mind', or the product of 'Mind'.

 

There are faint echoes of this reified metaphor in Kant; an ear-splitting thunder clap in Hegel.

 

[The above elaborates on similar points made earlier; see also the Additional Note.]8ao

 

Small wonder then that Traditional Theories of causation (especially those that invoke or rely on 'physical law' -- more on that in Essay Three Part Five, too) are shot-through with mysterious forces, anthropomorphic concepts and animistic language -- that can only be made 'to work' if inappropriate modal terms (like "necessary" and "must") are pressed into service.8a

 

["Inappropriate" for reasons set out in Essays Twelve Part One and Thirteen Part Three.]

 

That in turn suggests these 'laws' -- and, indeed, the objects and processes that 'obey' them -- were both a reification of, and a projection onto, 'reality' of subjective psychological/'mental' capacities and dispositions. Philosophers who thought along such lines in effect found themselves peering down a deep well of metaphysical fantasy and, unsurprisingly, seeing their own reflection looking back up at them.9

 

That might help explain the use Marx himself made with some of Feuerbach's main conclusions:

 

"Feuerbach's great achievement is.... The proof that philosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned...." [Marx (1975e), p.381. I have used the on-line version, here. Bold emphasis and link added.]

 

"The characteristic human mode of being, as distinct from that of the animal, is not only the basis, but also the object of religion. But religion is the consciousness of the infinite; hence it is, and cannot be anything other than, man’s consciousness of his own essential nature, understood not as a finite or limited, but as an infinite nature. A really finite being has not even the slightest inkling, let alone consciousness, of what an infinite being is, for the mode of consciousness is limited by the mode of being. The consciousness of the caterpillar, whose life is confined to a particular species of plant, does not extend beyond this limited sphere; it is, of course, able to distinguish this plant from other plants, but that is the entire extent of its knowledge. In a case where consciousness is so limited but where, precisely because of this limitation, it is also infallible and unerring, we speak of instinct rather than consciousness. Consciousness in the strict sense, or consciousness properly speaking, and consciousness of the infinite cannot be separated from each other; a limited consciousness is no consciousness; consciousness is essentially infinite and all-encompassing. The consciousness of the infinite is nothing else than the consciousness of the infinity of consciousness. To put it in other words, in its consciousness of infinity, the conscious being is conscious of the infinity of its own being." [Feuerbach (1957), pp.2-3. The online version I have quoted is different from the 1957 edition here referenced. Bold emphases alone added.]

 

In other words, when humans think they 'see god' they actually see themselves, writ large. In like manner, Philosophers fool themselves, too; where, for instance, they think they see 'Being' in fact they see themselves, writ large. No surprise then that Hegel found he had to re-enchant the universe in order to make his ideas 'work'. No surprise then that Empiricists had to credit 'ideas' with surrogate human capacities, or that Rationalists transformed 'the human mind' into an homunculus, where 'consciousness' was in effect 'a little man' in the head. It is also why DM-fans claim to see human conversations taking place everywhere, right across the universe, in the shape of all those 'contradictions' and 'negations'.

 

So, it turns out that Feuerbach was more perceptive than he, or Marx, ever suspected.

 

This 'family of  theories' also implied 'the human mind' was intelligent/rational simply because the universe was. That peculiar (reversed) theory can be seen in the equally odd idea that the universe became 'self-conscious' with the emergence of humanity -- a doctrine implicit in Hegel, but openly promoted by the likes of Teilhard de Chardin, Bergson, and, perhaps even more surprisingly, several Marxist dialecticians (Ted Grant, for one). This animistic inference was itself a consequence of the tortured 'logic' that supposedly mirrored the 'self-developing concepts' of the Superhuman (Hegelian) Alter-Ego that allegedly ran the entire show: 'The Absolute' (that we met in Part One), or "the Totality" (that we will meet in Essay Eleven Part One).

 

Given this overall approach, not only was the Real Rational and the Rational Real, there was only the Rational, only 'the Mind'. That alone was 'Real'.

 

Here is Hegel, laying the 'blame' where it ultimately belonged:

 

"Plato, who must be numbered among the Socratics, was the most renowned of the friends and disciples of Socrates, and he it was who grasped in all its truth Socrates' great principle that ultimate reality lies in consciousness, since, according to him, the absolute is in thought, and all reality is Thought. He does not understand by this a one-sided thought, nor what is understood by the false idealism which makes thought once more step aside and contemplate itself as conscious thought, and as in opposition to reality; it is the thought which embraces in an absolute unity reality as well as thinking, the Notion and its reality in the movement of science, as the Idea of a scientific whole. While Socrates had comprehended the thought which is existent in and for itself, only as an object for self-conscious will, Plato forsook this narrow point of view, and brought the merely abstract right of self-conscious thought, which Socrates had raised to a principle, into the sphere of science. By so doing he rendered it possible to interpret and apply the principle.... Plato is one of those world-famed individuals, his philosophy one of those world-renowned creations, whose influence, as regards the culture and development of the mind, has from its commencement down to the present time been all-important. For what is peculiar in the philosophy of Plato is its application to the intellectual and supersensuous world, and its elevation of consciousness into the realm of spirit. Thus the spiritual element which belongs to thought obtains in this form an importance for consciousness, and is brought into consciousness; just as, on the other hand, consciousness obtains a foothold on the soil of the other. The Christian religion has certainly adopted the lofty principle that man's inner and spiritual nature is his true nature, and takes it as its universal principle, though interpreting it in its own way as man's inclination for holiness; but Plato and his philosophy had the greatest share in obtaining for Christianity its rational organization, and in bringing it into the kingdom of the supernatural, for it was Plato who made the first advance in this direction." [Hegel (1995), pp.1-2. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

 

No, excuses comrades; this is where your core ideas originated -- in the fevered imagination of that card-carrying, ruling-class mystic, Plato.

 

Here is Hegel again, with one of the few conclusions he managed to get right:

 

"Every philosophy is essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out." [Hegel (1999), pp.154-55; §316. Bold emphasis added.]

 

But, as Hegel knew full well, the above readily collapse into one or other of the Idealisms he speaks about -- Subjective or Objective -- indeed, as we have just seen.10

 

Even More Headaches For Dialecticians

 

As we are about to discover, 'problems' like these have turned DM into a chronic source of Dialectical Migraine.

 

Traditional 'solutions' to such spurious 'philosophical problems' -- spurious because, in the 'West', they were originally based on a class-motivated misconstrual of a small and unrepresentative structural quirk of Indo-European grammar (as we saw in Part One and Essay Two). Unfortunately, the 'solutions' offered by post-Renaissance Philosophers only succeeded in creating two further difficulties for Traditional Thought to have to grapple with.11

 

Oddly enough, both re-surfaced in a modified form in 'the DM-theory of abstraction', as we are about to find out.

 

Induction And The Social Nature Of Knowledge

 

The first of the aforementioned 'difficulties' subsequently came to be known as the "Problem of Induction", which was itself based on the (presumed) theoretical possibility that future objects, processes and events might fail to behave the way they have always done (or seemed to have done) in the past.12

 

[In what follows I have deliberately ignored the difference between Inductive Logic and 'everyday inductive reasoning', just as I have passed over in silence whether or not human beings in general actually rely on inductive reasoning of any sort. I have also ignored specialised areas (outwith the sciences) where this form of reasoning is relied on as a matter of course -- for example, in opinion poll surveys, market research, census taking, betting, non-specialised weather forecasting, personality tests, 'public relations', advertising, popular questionnaires, on-line amateur polling (on Facebook or Twitter), entertainment, etc., etc. Nor am I concerned here with Mathematical Induction. My aim is simply to look at how and why some philosophers have questioned 'inductive-style reasoning' (howsoever it is conceived), and in what way it impacts on issues that are relevant to the main aims of Essay Three (in all its Parts).]

 

As noted above, the 'Problem of Induction' was based on the supposed fact that generalisations about the course of nature can in no way provide a deductively sound basis for a belief that objects, processes or events will always behave 'the same way' in the future as they have in the past, or are currently doing. More generally, it raises doubts about the regular course of nature, whether or not it will remain constant, or even predictable, from day-to-day (howsoever that itself might be understood). So, for example, just because water has always frozen at a certain temperature that doesn't mean it will continue to freeze at that temperature in future (always assuming the water concerned has the same level of purity and is cooled at 'normal' atmospheric pressure, etc., etc.), or even that is was deductively sound to conclude it would. To use David Hume's example, just because bread has always nourished us in the past that doesn't mean it always will. In that case, he claimed there is no contradiction in supposing it wouldn't:

 

"All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, relations of ideas, and matters of fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of geometry, algebra, and arithmetic, and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible, because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise." [Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Part I. Link and bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

 

The overall idea here was brought out rather well by the following comment -- which neatly link this topic with generality and (traditional) references to 'universals':

 

"But there is a price to be paid for this new methodology. About a hundred years after Bacon, Hume (1711-1776) pointed out the problem.

'The bread, which I formerly eat, nourished me; that is, a body of such sensible qualities was, at that time, endued with such secret powers: But does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must always be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise necessary.' [This passage is taken from Part II of Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which can be accessed here -- RL.]

"If we want to be very careful and not lump things into the same category, if types are not real, if the only real things are particular individuals, then there are no general truths about bread. We can describe the colour, shape, texture, taste and so on of this piece of bread, but if the general kind 'bread' isn't real, then whatever I learn about this piece of bread won't help me learn anything about the next piece of bread. That is the crucial usefulness of real types: if 'cat' is a real type, and not simply a nominal type, then whatever I learn about this particular cat will help me understand all cats. I can learn and know something about how to cure a problem with your cat if I have studied other cats, as long as they are identical in nature. If there is no reality to their unity as cats, then every new particular is just a new thing, and we can learn about it only by studying it; nothing else we study can possibly help us. So the existence of universals turns out to have a very profound impact on scientific methodology and epistemology." [Quoted from here. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; spelling modified to agree with UK English. Links and bold emphases added.]

 

[I hasten to add that neither the above opinions nor what follows in the next sub-section represent my view. Once again, the aim here is simply to underline the serious (and ultimately insoluble) problems faced by traditional attempts to address the 'problem of induction', and, by implication, the 'solution' offered by different forms of Essentialism.]

 

Of course, where Hume went wrong was to overlook the fact that if something that is taken to be bread failed to nourish those who ate it (all things being equal!), we would have good reason to question whether it was bread to begin with.

 

Hume's overall argument (in this instance) also borders on science fiction, the philosophical mis-use of which I have criticised in Essay Thirteen Part Three.

 

However, as we have already seen several times, traditional 'answers' to the 'problem of Universals' only succeeded in transforming it into another conundrum involving Abstract Particulars, which, if they exist, may or may not themselves behave the same way tomorrow as they do today! In that case, while these Abstract Particulars might be thoroughly Ideal -- i.e., they appear to be 'Mental' or 'Heavenly' entities of some sort -- there is no guarantee that even if they faithfully tow the line on Wednesday, they will continue doing so one minute past midnight, Thursday morning.

 

The significance (and relevance) of that remark should become clear as this Essay unfolds.

 

Particular Problems With Abstractions

 

It could be objected that we are actually dealing here with changeless abstractions (although it isn't too clear that DM-fans can consistently endorse that response -- and for reasons about to be made abundantly clear). Even if that were so, the words used to express any such ideas aren't abstract (i.e., words are typically (and obviously!) physical objects, or form part of very real material processes, such as speech), and, given this theory, there is no guarantee that any such words will mean the same next week what they mean today. Or even that any memories we have of such words and their meanings -- or even the meaning of the 'abstractions' themselves -- will remain fixed, either.

 

[If everything does change, including these 'abstractions', the following question naturally arises: Do they do so dialectically or non-dialectically? If the former, does Abstractor A's 'abstractions' change at exactly the same rate as Abstractor B's? If they do, then we have here something that is identical, namely the rate at which these 'abstractions' are changing, contrary to the DM-claim that nothing is identical. On the other hand, if they change at different rates, then these two characters must fail to communicate since they will mean something different by their 'abstractions'. Furthermore, if this change is dialectical, what are the 'internal contradictions' involved here? According to the DM-classics, change occurs when 'dialectical opposites' struggle among themselves and then change into each other. What then are these 'opposites'? And if abstraction, G1 (from earlier), has an 'opposite' it must be not-G1 (but where that has come from might be difficult to explain -- it can only come from its own opposite, which is G1!). So, according the aforementioned classics, G1 and not-G1 must 'struggle' with each other (but, how an 'abstraction' can struggle with anything, let alone another 'abstraction', might be even harder to explain -- I have said much more about questions like this in Essays Seven Part Three and Eight Part Two), and then change into their opposites. In that case, G1 must change into not-G1 and not-G1 must change into G1! if so, what exactly is the resulting difference? We began with G1 and not-G1 -- and we end with G1 and not-G1! It looks like we have here change with no change, a fitting 'dialectical conundrum' (for those who like this way of confusing themselves and others) to solve. Alternatively, if this change isn't 'dialectical', then DM isn't a comprehensive theory and Engels was wrong when he said this about it: "Dialectics, however, is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought." (Engels (1976), p.180. Bold added.) 'Abstractions' are part of 'thought', one presumes. Of course, if 'abstractions' don't change, then the DM-criticism of the LOI is itself misconceived. Either way, DM suffers yet another fatal blow. (On this, see also my comments on the Heraclitean Flux [HF], below.]

 

[LOI = Law Of Identity.]

 

It is worth reminding ourselves that the whole point of inventing 'Universals' (and 'abstractions') in the first place was to secure a reliable basis for knowledge by imposing some sort of control and order -- i.e., identity, regimentation, definition and unification -- on particulars (as the above passage and those quoted below remind us). Empirical, piece-meal and changeable 'knowledge' was regarded as inferior and unreliable, which is why appeal was originally made to 'rational principles' to save the day. But, the result was a creation of yet more particulars -- a novel 'abstract' variety -- that had been stripped of their generality in the very act of creating them!. But, if the general is now particular itself (i.e., if each of these 'Universals'/'abstractions' has had generality surgically removed -- developments that were analysed in detail in Part One), what could now do all this identifying, controlling, regimenting, collecting and defining? The general was supposed to be the exclusive purview of the 'rational intellect' with its 'abstractions'; sense experience only interfaced with the particular (so we have been told). After all, who has ever seen a 'general cat'? What would 'one' even look like? Who has ever eaten a 'general fruit'? What would 'one' of those look like? How would 'one' even taste? Who has ever smelt a general rose or felt a general pain? That is why the formation of 'the general idea of a cat', or 'of fruit', required the exercise of the 'mental skill of abstraction', or so we have also been told. No one has ever even claimed to have 'abstracted' anything using just their eyes, their ears, their nose, their finger tips or their taste buds. In this area of 'knowledge' the senses in the end drop out as irrelevant -- or, at best, they are merely conveyers of data, lowly 'messengers' -- since the body (and hence sense experience) was held in Platonic and Neoplatonic contempt in the Rationalist/Christian tradition. But, as history has repeatedly shown, this branch of Philosophy seemed only too happy to kill the messenger.

 

[But, what could possibly count as the general smell of a rose? Or even the smell of a general rose? What could conceivably count as the general experience of pain? Or even the experience of general pain? What actually is a 'general pain', a 'general experience' or even a 'general rose'? Has anyone ever felt a general itch? Faced with such questions, abstractionism appears to be falling apart before our eyes (no pun intended) -- or, rather, before our general eyes... Nevertheless, such awkward questions will have to be passed over in silence for now. I will return to them again later in this Essay.]

 

As we have seen, DM-theorists define the (allegedly) 'abstract' nature of facts, or even 'matter itself', along just such lines:

 

"[A]ll science generalizes and abstracts from 'empirically verifiable facts.' Indeed, the very concept of 'fact' is itself an abstraction, because no one has ever eaten, tasted, smelt, seen or heard a 'fact,' which is a mental generalization that distinguishes actually existing phenomena from imaginary conceptions. Similarly, all science 'deductively anticipates' developments -- what else is an hypothesis tested by experimentation? The dialectic is, among other things, a way of investigating and understanding the relationship between abstractions and reality. And the 'danger of arbitrary construction' is far greater using an empirical method which thinks that it is dealing with facts when it is actually dealing with abstractions than it is with a method that properly distinguishes between the two and then seeks to explain the relationship between them." [Rees (1998), p.131. Bold emphasis added.]

 

In that case, whatever the material body experiences (i.e., 'sensation' and 'appearances') was suspect from the beginning and required ratification by an appeal to 'abstractions'. If that weren't the case, why appeal to abstraction to begin with? Here is Lenin again:

 

"Logical concepts are subjective so long as they remain 'abstract,' in their abstract form, but at the same time they express the Thing-in-themselves. Nature is both concrete and abstract, both phenomenon and essence, both moment and relation." [Lenin (1961), p.208. Bold emphases alone added.]

 

"Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract -- provided it is correct (NB)… -- does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, the law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely." [Ibid., p.171. Bold emphases alone added.]

 

Why say this if the what the body experiences is fully trustworthy? This is just Platonic/Christian contempt for the body given a 'Marxist' veneer.

 

Analogous criticisms were central to the objections Marx and Engels's levelled against Hegel's method early on in their intellectual development (whatever else they later came to believe). There is no such contempt expressed in the following; quite the reverse in fact:

 

"The mystery of critical presentation…is the mystery of speculative, of Hegelian construction.If from real apples, pears, strawberries and almonds I form the general idea 'Fruit', if I go further and imagine that my abstract idea 'Fruit', derived from real fruit, is an entity existing outside me, is indeed the true essence of the pear, the apple, etc., then -- in the language of speculative philosophy -- I am declaring that 'Fruit' is the 'Substance' of the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. I am saying, therefore, that to be an apple is not essential to the apple; that what is essential to these things is not their real existence, perceptible to the senses, but the essence that I have abstracted from them and then foisted on them, the essence of my idea -- 'Fruit'…. Particular real fruits are no more than semblances whose true essence is 'the substance' -- 'Fruit'…. Having reduced the different real fruits to the one 'fruit' of abstraction -- 'the Fruit', speculation must, in order to attain some semblance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from 'the Fruit', from the Substance to the diverse, ordinary real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea 'the Fruit' as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction….

 

"The main interest for the speculative philosopher is therefore to produce the existence of the real ordinary fruits and to say in some mysterious way that there are apples, pears, almonds and raisins. But the apples, pears, almonds and raisins that we rediscover in the speculative world are nothing but semblances of apples, semblances of pears, semblances of almonds and semblances of raisins, for they are moments in the life of 'the Fruit', this abstract creation of the mind, and therefore themselves abstract creations of the mind…. When you return from the abstraction, the supernatural creation of the mind, 'the Fruit', to real natural fruits, you give on the contrary the natural fruits a supernatural significance and transform them into sheer abstractions. Your main interest is then to point out the unity of 'the Fruit' in all the manifestations of its life…that is, to show the mystical interconnection between these fruits, how in each of them 'the Fruit' realizes itself by degrees and necessarily progresses, for instance, from its existence as a raisin to its existence as an almond. Hence the value of the ordinary fruits no longer consists in their natural qualities, but in their speculative quality, which gives each of them a definite place in the life-process of 'the Absolute Fruit'.

 

"The ordinary man does not think he is saying anything extraordinary when he states that there are apples and pears. But when the philosopher expresses their existence in the speculative way he says something extraordinary. He performs a miracle by producing the real natural objects, the apple, the pear, etc., out of the unreal creation of the mind 'the Fruit'…. It goes without saying that the speculative philosopher accomplishes this continuous creation only by presenting universally known qualities of the apple, the pear, etc., which exist in reality, as determining features invented by him, by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, to abstract formulas of reason, finally, by declaring his own activity, by which he passes from the idea of an apple to the idea of a pear, to be the self-activity of the Absolute Subject, 'the Fruit.' In the speculative way of speaking, this operation is called comprehending Substance as Subject, as an inner process, as an Absolute Person, and this comprehension constitutes the essential character of Hegel's method." [Marx and Engels (1975a), pp.72-75. Bold emphases alone added. Several paragraphs merged.]

 

So, abstractionism creates 'semblances' of fruit, not fruit, and since no one has ever eaten the 'semblance of an apple' (to state the obvious, they just eat apples!), this theory makes a mockery of our everyday (materialist) experience of the world. Hence, by-passing the body and everyday experience, abstraction ends up destroying the particular since it generates, or turns them into, mere 'semblances'. The material world, which seems to be composed only of particulars, has thereby been demoted -- after all, has anyone ever sat on a general chair, bought a general can of beer, walked a general dog or even read a general book written by Marx or Lenin? Given this (Idealist) approach to 'knowledge', the physical universe isn't 'fully real', it is a shadow world populated by what look like ghosts. What is really real, really substantial, is the hidden/'mental' world of 'abstractions', which, like the 'gods', no one has ever experienced, nor could they. Is it any wonder then that DM-theorists distrust 'appearances' and, like Hegel, regard 'the abstract' as the only source, or the only guarantor, of (genuine) knowledge --, even if they then (inconsistently!) go on to declare that "truth is always concrete":

 

"Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly, if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and 'mediacies'. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially true for its purpose, use and connection with the surrounding world. Thirdly, a full 'definition' of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical logic holds that 'truth is always concrete, never abstract', as the late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel...." [Lenin (1921), pp.90-93. Bold emphases alone added; quotation marks altered to conform with conventions adopted at this site.]

 

Here is where Lenin got that idea -- not from scientists, or his own experience of the world, but from a Christian Mystic:

 

"The same evolution of thought which is exhibited in the history of philosophy is presented in the System of Philosophy itself. Here, instead of surveying the process, as we do in history, from the outside, we see the movement of thought clearly defined in its native medium. The thought, which is genuine and self-supporting, must be intrinsically concrete; it must be an Idea; and when it is viewed in the whole of its universality, it is the Idea, or the Absolute. The science of this Idea must form a system. For the truth is concrete; that is, while it gives a bond and principle of unity, it also possesses an internal source of development. Truth, then, is only possible as a universe or totality of thought; and the freedom of the whole, as well as the necessity of the several sub-divisions, which it implies, are only possible when these are discriminated and defined." [Hegel (1975), p.19, §14. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"In such a sentence as 'God is eternal', we begin with the conception of God, not knowing as yet what he is: to tell us that, is the business of the predicate. In the principles of logic, accordingly, where the terms formulating the subject-matter are those of thought only, it is not merely superfluous to make these categories predicates to propositions in which God, or, still vaguer, the Absolute, is the subject, but it would also have the disadvantage of suggesting another canon than the nature of thought. Besides, the propositional form (and for proposition, it would be more correct to substitute judgment) is not suited to express the concrete -- and the true is always concrete -- or the speculative. Every judgment is by its form one-sided and, to that extent, false." [Ibid., §31, p.51. Bold emphasis added.]

 

Which conclusions Hegel, of course, connected with his rather odd concept of 'God':

 

"The division of Logic now given, as well as the whole of the previous discussion on the nature of thought, is anticipatory; and the justification, or proof of it, can only result from the detailed treatment of thought itself. For in philosophy, to prove means to show how the subject by and from itself makes itself what it is. The relation in which these three leading grades of thought, or of the logical Idea, stand to each other must be conceived as follows. Truth comes only with the notion; or, more precisely, the notion is the truth of being and essence, both of which, when separately maintained in their isolation, cannot but be untrue, the former because it is exclusively immediate, the latter because it is exclusively mediate. Why then, it may be asked, begin with false and not at once with the true. To which we answer that truth, to deserve the name, must authenticate its own truth: which authentication, here within the sphere of logic, is given, when the notion demonstrates itself to be what is mediated by and with itself, and thus at the same time to be truly immediate. This relation between the three stages of the logical Idea appears in a real and concrete shape thus: God, who is the truth, is known by us in His truth, that is, as absolute spirit, only in so far as we at the same time recognize that the world which He created, nature and the finite spirit, are, in their difference from God, untrue." [Ibid., §83, p.122. Bold emphases added.]

 

How the apparent inconsistency between the claims that "truth is concrete" and knowledge depends on abstraction might be resolved was dealt with in Part One (briefly summarised, below). How the other problem that has emerged (i.e., the fact that the 'process of abstraction' turns particulars into 'semblances') is also to be resolved will have to be passed over in silence since DM-theorists have yet to address it. [Once more, I will return to this topic later in this Essay, when I examine the (connected) distinction that has traditionally been drawn between 'appearance' and 'reality'/'essence', which DM-fans have also unwisely bought into.]

 

In the meantime, here is Hegel making the same point (about fruit), but drawing all the wrong conclusions from it (which errors were exposed by Marx and Engels, earlier):

 

"The spectacle of so many and so various systems of philosophy suggests the necessity of defining more exactly the relation of Universal to Particular. When the universal is made a mere form and co-ordinated with the particular, as if it were on the same level, it sinks into a particular itself. Even common sense in everyday matters is above the absurdity of setting a universal beside the particulars. Would any one, who wished for fruit, reject cherries, pears, and grapes, on the ground that they were cherries, pears, or grapes, and not fruit? But when philosophy is in question, the excuse of many is that philosophies are so different, and none of them is the philosophy -- that each is only a philosophy. Such a plea is assumed to justify any amount of contempt for philosophy. And yet cherries too are fruit. Often, too, a system, of which the principle is the universal, is put on a level with another of which the principle is a particular, and with theories which deny the existence of philosophy altogether. Such systems are said to be only different views of philosophy. With equal justice, light and darkness might be styled different kinds of light." [Hegel (1975), p.19 §13. Except for the word "besides", bold emphasis alone added.]

 

"Essence becomes matter in that its reflection is determined as relating itself to essence as to the formless indeterminate. Matter is therefore the differenceless identity which is essence, with the determination of being the other of form. It is consequently the real basis or substrate of form, because it constitutes the reflection-into-self of the form-determinations, or the self-subsistent element to which the latter are related as to their positive subsistence. If abstraction is made from every determination, from all form of anything, what is left over is indeterminate matter. Matter is a sheer abstraction. (Matter cannot be seen, felt, and so on -- what is seen, felt, is a determinate matter, that is, a unity of matter and form). This abstraction from which matter proceeds is, however, not merely an external removal and sublating of form, rather does form, as we have seen, spontaneously reduce itself to this simple identity." [Hegel (1999), pp.450-51, §§ 978-979. Bold emphasis alone added. Typos in the on-line version corrected. Paragraphs merged.]

 

And yet, the above is exactly what Engels himself subsequently concluded (and, rather fittingly, he did so by contradicting his earlier thoughts):

 

"It is the old story. First of all one makes sensuous things into abstractions and then one wants to know them through the senses, to see time and smell space. The empiricist becomes so steeped in the habit of empirical experience, that he believes that he is still in the field of sensuous experience when he is operating with abstractions.... The two forms of existence of matter are naturally nothing without matter, empty concepts, abstractions which exist only in our minds. But, of course, we are supposed not to know what matter and motion are! Of course not, for matter as such and motion as such have not yet been seen or otherwise experienced by anyone, only the various existing material things and forms of motions. Matter is nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is abstracted and motion as such nothing but the totality of all sensuously perceptible forms of motion; words like matter and motion are nothing but abbreviations in which we comprehend many different sensuous perceptible things according to their common properties. Hence matter and motion can be known in no other way than by investigation of the separate material things and forms of motion, and by knowing these, we also pro tanto know matter and motion as such.... This is just like the difficulty mentioned by Hegel; we can eat cherries and plums, but not fruit, because no one has so far eaten fruit as such." [Engels (1954), pp.235-36. Bold emphases alone added.]

 

Here, too, is Lenin, emulating both Hegel and Engels:

 

"If abstraction is made from every determination and Form of a Something, indeterminate Matter remains. Matter is a pure abstract. (-- Matter cannot be seen or felt, etc. -- what is seen or felt is a determinate Matter, that is, a unity of Matter and Form)." [Lenin (1961), pp.144-45. Bold emphasis alone added. The original passage from Hegel has been reposted in Note 10a.]10a

 

Subsequent DM-theorists (including John Rees, quoted above) argued along similar lines. Here are two more examples, but this time drawn from diametrically opposite wings of Dialectical Marxism (both of them using the same example -- fruit/cherries!):

 

"Engels…attacks those who fail to see [that scientific] concepts are abstractions from real experience, and [who] ask about what is 'matter as such' or 'motion as such'. 'Matter as such and motion as such have not yet been seen or experienced by anyone, but only the various, actually existing material things and forms of motion. Matter is nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is abstracted, and motion as such nothing but the totality of sensuously perceptible forms of motion; words like matter and motion are nothing but abbreviations in which we comprehend many differently sensuously perceptible things according to their common properties. Hence matter and motion can be known in no other way than by investigation of the separate material things and forms of motion'. Engels gives us an analogy, 'We can eat cherries and plums, but not fruit, because no one has so far eaten fruit as such.'" [McGarr (1994), pp.152-53; quoting Engels (1954), pp.235-36 (reproduced above). Paragraphs merged; bold emphases added.]

 

"One quite often hears people say 'all things consist of matter'. They do not consist of matter. They are the specific, concrete forms of its manifestation. Matter as such is an abstraction. Looking for a uniform matter as the principle of everything is like wanting to eat not cherries but fruit in general. But fruit is also an abstraction. Matter cannot be contrasted to separate things as something immutable to something mutable. Matter in general cannot be seen, touched or tasted. What people see, touch or taste is only a certain form of matter. Matter is not something that exists side by side with other things, inside them or at their basis. All existing formations are matter in its various forms, kinds, properties and relations. There is no such thing as 'unspecific' matter. Matter is not simply the real possibility of all material forms, it is their actual existence. The only property that is relatively separate from matter is consciousness as an ideal and not material phenomenon." [Spirkin (1983), p.67. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

 

Which is why Lenin also said the following (partly quoted above):

 

"Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract -- provided it is correct (NB)… -- does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, the law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely." [Lenin (1961), p.171. Bold emphasis alone added.]

 

"Knowledge is the reflection of nature by man. But this is not simple, not an immediate, not a complete reflection, but the process of a series of abstractions, the formation and development of concepts, laws, etc., and these concepts, laws, etc., (thought, science = 'the logical Idea') embrace conditionally, approximately, the universal, law-governed character of eternally moving and developing nature." [Ibid., p.182. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis alone added.]

 

This helps resolve an (apparent) inconsistency, noted earlier. While, for Lenin, it is still true that "all truth is concrete", it is the abstract that (supposedly) enables a theorist to grasp the particular and hence the concrete, even if that will only ever fully be realised at the end of an 'infinite process'. [We will return to that aspect of the theory later, too. As noted above, how this implies particulars cease being mere 'semblances' and become 'concrete' is still unclear; more about that below, too.]

 

So, just like Plato and every other Rationalist, Lenin thought that genuine knowledge arose out of, or was enabled by means of, the general, not the particular. In which case, particulars not only have to be collected-together, or even amalgamated, under a general concept/term, each one in the end is only a particular because of this. Hence, each individual given in experience is an individual of a certain type (i.e., it instantiates a specific 'Universal', 'concept' or 'abstraction'), and that is what (supposedly) guarantees its future (law-like) behaviour. So, particulars aren't free 'to do whatever they like'; they are born in chains and there they remain until the day they "perish".

 

[We will also return to that image, later.]

 

Hegel scholar, Katharina Dulckeit, neatly summarised Hegel's views (also quoted earlier) in the following terms:

 

"[It] must be remembered that [Hegel's] analysis of the forms of judgment in the Logic is motivated by his interest in essential judgement. There are two conditions for such judgements. To begin with, a judgement is an essential judgement only if P tells us precisely and exclusively what s is; no less and no more. But merely predicating universals of particulars is insufficient for this, unless the term in the predicate position at once expresses the essential nature of the subject. This, in turn, argues Hegel, is possible only if the 'is' expresses some identity between s and P. For if essential determination were possible exclusively via predication, the subject and the predicate would remain separate and the relation between them expressed by the copula would remain external. As a consequence, s would refer to one thing, namely an individual, while P would designate something distinct from s, namely a universal. But the truth of sense-certainty in the Phenomenology has already been shown that qua individual, an individual is grasped only through the mediation of universals. It follows that divorced from these, it would then have to be an individual without a universal nature, i.e., a bare individual.... Thus, if s and P are utterly distinct they must be mutually exclusive, which means that s will necessarily be bare, and P necessarily abstract.... Clearly then, where judgements of essence are concerned, the 'is' of predication will not do because it entails the distinction between s and P which would commit us to a metaphysical thesis already overcome in the Phenomenology." [Dulckeit (1989), pp.115-16. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; links added. I have subjected passages like this to sustained criticism in Appendix D of Part One.]

 

Which is a point Lenin was trying to make in this passage:

 

"To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other…. Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general." [Lenin (1961), pp.359-60. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

It is also why Engels added the following remark:

 

"'Fundamentally, we can know only the infinite.' In fact all real exhaustive knowledge consists solely in raising the individual thing in thought from individuality into particularity and from this into universality, in seeking and establishing the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory…. All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and essentially absolute…. The cognition of the infinite…can only take place in an infinite asymptotic progress." [Engels (1954), pp.234-35. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

And here is a passage from a dusty old Stalinist text from the 1930s that expands on these (rather odd) ideas:

 

"The central fallacy involved in all metaphysical reasoning is -- expressed in terms of logic -- the complete confusion of the relations between the categories of Particular and General: of Unique and 'Universal.' Thus, for instance, if I affirm: 'John is a Man' I affirm that 'John' is a particular specimen of the general (or 'universal') category 'Man'. I understand what 'John' is by subsuming him under (or 'identifying him with') the wider category 'Man'. Metaphysical reasoning proceeds on the tacit or explicit assumption that the general category 'Man' and the particular category 'John' exist independently of each other: that over and above all the Particular 'Johns' in creation (and 'Toms,' and 'Dicks' and 'Harrys' and so on) over and above all particular men, there exists somewhere -- and would exist if all particular men ceased to be, or had never been -- the general category 'Man.'...

 

"The dialectical method traverses this rigid metaphysic completely. The category 'Man' includes, certainly, all possible 'men.' But 'Man' and 'men', though distinct, separate, and separable logical categories, are only so as logical discriminations, as ways of looking at one and the same set of facts. 'Man' -- is -- all men, conceived from the standpoint of their generality -- that in which all men are alike. 'Men' is a conception of the same fact -- 'all men' -- but in respect of their multiplicity, the fact that no two of them are exactly alike. For dialectics, the particular and the general, the unique and the universal -- for all their logical opposition -- exist, in fact, in and by means of each other. The 'Johniness' of John does not exist, cannot possibly be conceived as existing, apart from his 'manniness'. We know 'Man' only as the common characteristic of all particular men; and each particular man is identifiable, as a particular, by means of his variation from all other men -- from that generality 'Man' by means of which we classify 'all men' in one group.

 

"It is the recognition of this 'identity of all (logical pairs of) opposites,' and in the further recognition that all categories form, logically, a series from the Absolutely Universal to the Absolutely Unique -- (in each of which opposites its other is implicit) -- that the virtue of Hegel's logic consists…. Let us now translate this into concrete terms. John is -- a man. Man is a category in which all men (John, and all the not-Johns) are conjoined. I begin to distinguish John from the not-Johns by observing those things in which he is not -- what the other men are. At the same time the fact that I have to begin upon the process of distinguishing implies…that, apart from his special distinguishing characteristics, John is identical with all the not-Johns who comprise the rest of the human race. Thus logically expressed, John is understood when he is most fully conceived as the 'identity' of John-in-special and not-John (i.e. all man (sic)) in general.

 

"…When I affirm that 'John is a man' I postulate the oppositional contrast between John and not-John and their coexistence (the negation of their mutual negation) all at once. Certainly as the logical process is worked in my mind I distinguish first one pole, then the other of the separation and then their conjunction. But all three relations -- or better still, the whole three-fold relation -- exists from the beginning and its existence is presupposed in the logical act…." [Jackson (1936), pp.103-06. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases alone added. Several paragraphs merged. Again, I have subjected this passage to sustained criticism in Part One. Comrade Jackson failed to notice that in speaking this way he had only succeeded in shooting generality in the head -- indeed, as we have seen.]

 

Here, too, is Bertell Ollman (also emulating Plato), arguing that sense experience (on its own) is far too random, the data it has to deal with far too varied, complex and reliant on the particular to be comprehensible (as such), which is why he claims we all have to engage in 'abstraction'; we all have to 'mentally process' whatever the senses supposedly send the 'mind'. That is, we all allegedly focus on certain aspects of reality and 'mentally collect together' the particulars we experience there (or, rather, we do so with their 'reflections'/'images'), but they have already somehow been grouped together under specific concepts (since we never experience what is called 'a bare particular'. Because we don't encounter generality in experience, we have to apply/supply generality, or general concepts, in order to be able to experience the world and begin to comprehend it (even if only partially/'relatively'), which, as we have seen, is a thoroughly Kantian idea:

 

"In one sense, the role Marx gives to abstraction is simple recognition of the fact that all thinking about reality begins by breaking it down into manageable parts. Reality may be in one piece when lived, but to be thought about and communicated it must be parceled (sic) out. Our minds can no more swallow the world whole at one sitting than can our stomachs. Everyone then, and not just Marx and Marxists, begins the task of trying to make sense of his or her surroundings by distinguishing certain features and focusing on and organizing them in ways deemed appropriate. 'Abstract' comes from the Latin, 'abstrahere', which means 'to pull from.' In effect, a piece has been pulled from or taken out of the whole and is temporarily perceived as standing apart. We 'see' only some of what lies in front of us, 'hear' only part of the noises in our vicinity, 'feel' only a small part of what our body is in contact with, and so on through the rest of our senses. In each case, a focus is established and a kind of boundary set within our perceptions distinguishing what is relevant from what is not. It should be clear that 'What did you see?' (What caught your eye?) is a different question from 'What did you actually see?' (What came into your line of vision?). Likewise, in thinking about any subject, we focus on only some of its qualities and relations. Much that could be included -- that may in fact be included in another person's view or thought, and may on another occasion be included in our own -- is left out. The mental activity involved in establishing such boundaries, whether conscious or unconscious -- though it is usually an amalgam of both -- is the process of abstraction." [Ollman (2003), p.60. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

[The only problem here is that for Hegel (as Dulckeit pointed out), whatever is given in experience is already a 'particular of a certain type'. (That was integral to Hegel's criticism of Kant.) Particulars can't be experienced in any other way. How any of this is actually supposed to work is, alas, still a mystery (i.e., it is if we insist on approaching this topic in the way Traditional Philosophers have always done -- ignoring the public use of ordinary language). Nevertheless, I will also have to draw a veil over this intractable 'problem' for the present.]

 

We have met the following passage several times already, but it neatly sums up an attitude promoted by the theorists who influenced the above DM-classicists:

 

"Already with Fichte the idea of the unity of the sciences, of system, was connected with that of finding a reliable starting-point in certainty on which knowledge could be based. Thinkers from Kant onwards were quite convinced that the kind of knowledge which came from experience was not reliable. Empirical knowledge could be subject to error, incomplete, or superseded by further observation or experiment. It would be foolish, therefore, to base the whole of knowledge on something which had been established only empirically. The kind of knowledge which Kant and his followers believed to be the most secure was a priori knowledge, the kind embodied in the laws of Nature. These had been formulated without every occurrence of the Natural phenomenon in question being observed, so they did not summarise empirical information, and yet they held good by necessity for every case; these laws were truly universal in their application." [White (1996a), p.29. Bold emphasis added.]

 

It is also worth noting at this point that the passages quoted above -- and this is especially true of the ideas Plato, Hegel and Engels concocted -- directly link DM-ideas on this topic to ancient, mystical theories of knowledge, which directly connects the latter with a given Knower's access to 'the mind of god' (which is the 'ultimate reality' for Plato and Hegel -- and, as it turns out, the only 'reality'). We see this attitude further underlined in the following:

 

"The view that the objects of immediate consciousness, which constitute the body of experience, are mere appearances (phenomena) was another important result of the Kantian philosophy. Common Sense, that mixture of sense and understanding, believes the objects of which it has knowledge to be severally independent and self-supporting; and when it becomes evident that they tend towards and limit one another, the interdependence of one upon another is reckoned something foreign to them and to their true nature. The very opposite is the truth. The things immediately known are mere appearances -- in other words, the ground of their being is not in themselves but in something else. But then comes the important step of defining what this something else is. According to Kant, the things that we know about are to us appearances only, and we can never know their essential nature, which belongs to another world we cannot approach. Plain minds have not unreasonably taken exception to this subjective idealism, with its reduction of the facts of consciousness to a purely personal world, created by ourselves alone. For the true statement of the case is rather as follows. The things of which we have direct consciousness are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature; and the true and proper case of these things, finite as they are, is to have their existence founded not in themselves but in the universal divine Idea. This view of things, it is true, is as idealist as Kant's; but in contradistinction to the subjective idealism of the Critical philosophy should be termed absolute idealism. Absolute idealism, however, though it is far in advance of vulgar realism, is by no means merely restricted to philosophy. It lies at the root of all religion; for religion too believes the actual world we see, the sum total of existence, to be created and governed by God." [Hegel (1975, §45, p.73. Links in the original. Bold emphases alone added.]

 

"The Essence must appear or shine forth. Its shining or reflection in it is the suspension and translation of it to immediacy, which, while as reflection-into-self it is matter or subsistence, is also form, reflection-on-something-else, a subsistence which sets itself aside. To show or shine is the characteristic by which essence is distinguished from Being -- by which it is essence; and it is this show which, when it is developed, shows itself, and is Appearance. Essence accordingly is not something beyond or behind appearance, but -- just because it is the essence which exists -- the existence is Appearance (Forth-shining).

 

"Existence stated explicitly in its contradiction is Appearance. But appearance (forth-showing) is not to be confused with a mere show (shining). Show is the proximate truth of Being or immediacy. The immediate, instead of being, as we suppose, something independent, resting on its own self, is a mere show, and as such it is packed or summed up under the simplicity of the immanent essence. The essence is, in the first place, the sum total of the showing itself, shining in itself (inwardly); but, far from abiding in this inwardness, it comes as a ground forward into existence; and this existence being grounded not in itself, but on something else, is just appearance. In our imagination we ordinarily combine with the term appearance or phenomenon the conception of an indefinite congeries of things existing, the being of which is purely relative, and which consequently do not rest on a foundation of their own, but are esteemed only as passing stages. But in this conception it is no less implied that essence does not linger behind or beyond appearance. Rather it is, we may say, the infinite kindness which lets its own show freely issue into immediacy, and graciously allows it the joy of existence. The appearance which is thus created does not stand on its own feet, and has its being not in itself but in something else. God who is the essence, when he lends existence to the passing stages of his own show in himself, may be described as the goodness that creates the world: but he is also the power above it, and the righteousness, which manifests the merely phenomenal character of the content of this existing world, whenever it tries to exist in independence." [Ibid., §131, pp.186-87. Links in the original; bold emphases added.]

 

"[W]e must presuppose intelligence enough to know, not only that God is actual, that He is the supreme actuality, that He alone is truly actual; but also, as regards the logical bearings of the question, that existence is in part mere appearance, and only in part actuality." Ibid., p.9, §6; bold emphasis added.]

 

"This objective thinking then, is the content of pure science. Consequently, far from it being formal, far from it standing in need of a matter to constitute an actual and true cognition, it is its content alone which has absolute truth, or, if one still wanted to employ the word matter, it is the veritable matter -- but a matter which is not external to the form, since this matter is rather pure thought and hence the absolute form itself. Accordingly, logic is to be understood as the system of pure reason, as the realm of pure thought. This realm is truth as it is without veil and in its own absolute nature. It can therefore be said that this content is the exposition of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of nature and a finite mind. Anaxagoras is praised as the man who first declared that Nous, thought, is the principle of the world, that the essence of the world is to be defined as thought. In so doing he laid the foundation for an intellectual view of the universe, the pure form of which must be logic. What we are dealing with in logic is not a thinking about something which exists independently as a base for our thinking and apart from it, nor forms which are supposed to provide mere signs or distinguishing marks of truth; on the contrary, the necessary forms and self-consciousness of thought are the content and the ultimate truth itself." [Hegel (1999), pp.50-51, §53-54. Bold emphases alone added. Links also added; paragraphs merged.]

 

"If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only." [Plato (1997c), 51e-52a, pp.1254-55. I have used the on-line version here. Bold emphases added. The published edition translates the third set of highlighted words as follows: "It is indivisible -- it cannot be perceived by the senses at all -- and it is the role of the understanding to study it." Cornford renders it thus: "[It is] invisible and otherwise imperceptible; that, in fact, which thinking has for its object." (Cornford (1997), p.192.)]

 

This shows that Hegel and Plato (from whom DM-theorists ultimately derived their core ideas, especially concerning 'abstraction' and its intimate connection with the formation of knowledge) held these peculiar beliefs for theological reasons. This is the original inspiration for remarks like the following from Engels and Lenin (even though they both repudiated the theism involved):

 

"'Fundamentally, we can know only the infinite.' In fact all real exhaustive knowledge consists solely in raising the individual thing in thought from individuality into particularity and from this into universality, in seeking and establishing the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory…. All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and essentially absolute…. The cognition of the infinite…can only take place in an infinite asymptotic progress." [Engels (1954), pp.234-35. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

"To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other…. Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general." [Lenin (1961), pp.359-60. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

The above remarks simply represent a non-theological way of making basically the same point as Plato and Hegel: everything around us -- every concrete object and process -- only exists and is concrete because of an invisible world of 'Universals'/'Concepts'/'abstractions' that underpin, constitute or define them. But, these 'Universals' (etc.) can only be ascertained via, or at the end of, an 'infinite epistemological journey', mediated by practice (which is eerily analogous to the infinite voyage every soul supposedly has to embark upon in their return to its source in 'god' -- the ultimate form of Subject-Object Identity). As such, for DM-theorists, these particulars can't ever actually be 'concrete' (why that is so will be explained below), but must forever remain mere 'semblances', at some level or to some extent.

 

For DM-supporters, this dalliance with Hegelian Mysticism (upside down or 'the right way up') means there are no real particulars -- all are mere 'semblances' (at least those given in experience). Even matter itself doesn't exist (having been declared an 'abstraction'); there are simply particular instances of 'it' -- but what this 'it' is we are never told! [Or, rather according to Lenin, matter is simply what we experience in sensation, and we have just seen that Dialectical Marxists don't trust experience -- unless there is an 'abstraction' on hand to legitimate it, or lend it substantiality.]

 

Despite this, the use of words like "mystery", "mysterious", "mysticism" and  "mystical" might cause some offence (especially among DM-fans); but these are terms that Marx and Engels themselves used to describe the results of the 'process of abstraction' and the transformation of particulars into 'semblances':

 

"The mystery of critical presentation…is the mystery of speculative, of Hegelian construction.… If from real apples, pears, strawberries and almonds I form the general idea 'Fruit', if I go further and imagine that my abstract idea 'Fruit', derived from real fruit, is an entity existing outside me, is indeed the true essence of the pear, the apple, etc., then -- in the language of speculative philosophy -- I am declaring that 'Fruit' is the 'Substance' of the pear, the apple, the almond, etc. I am saying, therefore, that to be an apple is not essential to the apple; that what is essential to these things is not their real existence, perceptible to the senses, but the essence that I have abstracted from them and then foisted on them, the essence of my idea -- 'Fruit'…. Particular real fruits are no more than semblances whose true essence is 'the substance' -- 'Fruit'…. Having reduced the different real fruits to the one 'fruit' of abstraction -- 'the Fruit', speculation must, in order to attain some semblance of real content, try somehow to find its way back from 'the Fruit', from the Substance to the diverse, ordinary real fruits, the pear, the apple, the almond etc. It is as hard to produce real fruits from the abstract idea 'the Fruit' as it is easy to produce this abstract idea from real fruits. Indeed, it is impossible to arrive at the opposite of an abstraction without relinquishing the abstraction….

 

"The main interest for the speculative philosopher is therefore to produce the existence of the real ordinary fruits and to say in some mysterious way that there are apples, pears, almonds and raisins. But the apples, pears, almonds and raisins that we rediscover in the speculative world are nothing but semblances of apples, semblances of pears, semblances of almonds and semblances of raisins, for they are moments in the life of 'the Fruit', this abstract creation of the mind, and therefore themselves abstract creations of the mind…. When you return from the abstraction, the supernatural creation of the mind, 'the Fruit', to real natural fruits, you give on the contrary the natural fruits a supernatural significance and transform them into sheer abstractions. Your main interest is then to point out the unity of 'the Fruit' in all the manifestations of its life…that is, to show the mystical interconnection between these fruits, how in each of them 'the Fruit' realizes itself by degrees and necessarily progresses, for instance, from its existence as a raisin to its existence as an almond. Hence the value of the ordinary fruits no longer consists in their natural qualities, but in their speculative quality, which gives each of them a definite place in the life-process of 'the Absolute Fruit'.

 

"The ordinary man does not think he is saying anything extraordinary when he states that there are apples and pears. But when the philosopher expresses their existence in the speculative way he says something extraordinary. He performs a miracle by producing the real natural objects, the apple, the pear, etc., out of the unreal creation of the mind 'the Fruit'…. It goes without saying that the speculative philosopher accomplishes this continuous creation only by presenting universally known qualities of the apple, the pear, etc., which exist in reality, as determining features invented by him, by giving the names of the real things to what abstract reason alone can create, to abstract formulas of reason, finally, by declaring his own activity, by which he passes from the idea of an apple to the idea of a pear, to be the self-activity of the Absolute Subject, 'the Fruit.' In the speculative way of speaking, this operation is called comprehending Substance as Subject, as an inner process, as an Absolute Person, and this comprehension constitutes the essential character of Hegel's method." [Marx and Engels (1975a), pp.72-75. Bold emphases alone added. Several paragraphs merged.]

 

So, readers might now see why words like "mystical" and "mysticism" are both appropriate and justified. Not only is 'the process of abstraction' a complete mystery (we have seen that no one who imagines there is such a process has ever been able to describe it in anything other than the vaguest of terms), but the results themselves are no less mysterious. For example, not one single DM-fan has ever been able to explain what any of the 'abstractions' that emerge at the end of this 'process' actually are. Nor can they tell us where they supposedly exist, or even how they relate to the particulars that allegedly instantiate them. The entire theory has been shrouded in mystery for over two thousand years -- where it remains to this day.

 

DM-fans don't even ask these questions!

 

[Having said that, I recently discovered an attempt made to describe the 'process of abstraction' in some detail: Laurence and Margolis (2012). I will say more about this failed attempt in Interlude Two.]

 

That should hardly surprise any of my readers, given the origin of this approach to 'knowledge' in Ancient Greek Mysticism, later fortified by the infusion of a heady dose of Christian Hermeticism, courtesy of Hegel. But, we have here an entire metaphysic based on a 'process' that to this day remains a total mystery.

 

So, the above 'laws' (or 'principles of cognition'), that the aforementioned Rationalists were seeking, involved an appeal to the general, and hence to 'Universals', in order to comprehend, or at least articulate, the particular. Paradoxically, that was also true of the Empiricists, who also had to acknowledge that 'genuine knowledge' only emerged as 'the mind' somehow cobbled-together the general from the particular. [But, often in their case, these inputs were dreaded 'bare particulars' -- involving the 'myth of the given'. On that, see Sellars (1997). (This links to a PDF.)]

 

But, as we have also seen, both traditions led 'post-Renaissance 'bourgeois thought' down yet another blind alley -- and there it, too, remains to this day.

 

In that case, an appeal to 'Universals' (in order to resolve the 'Problem if Induction') turns out to be no help at all -- since they are all particulars, too. Because of that they can no more guarantee their own future 'law-like' behaviour, than ordinary particulars can -- or, at least, not without another hierarchy of 'Universals' to do that for them, and so on ad infinitem...

 

Of course, any theory  based on the Heraclitean Flux [HF] -- such as DM -- only succeeds in torpedoing itself. That is because, if there is a universal HF, in what way could what happens in the future be identical with the past? Perhaps worse, under such circumstances not even the words "identical" and "resemble" will remain the same from moment-to-moment! If everything is always changing, that must surely apply to words and their meanings, which must also be the case with each and every 'abstraction', too. How could any of this be otherwise if the HF is in charge?

 

[The 'relative stability of language' response, which is often wheeled out at this point, has been neutralised here.]

 

This 'problem' also partly arose out of the mistaken belief that scientific theories themselves express a special sort of truth. When that idea is questioned, a solution to the 'problem of induction' soon suggests itself.

 

[Notice the use of the word "theory" here. I am not impugning scientific facts -- or even scientific theory! To state the obvious: facts aren't the same as theories. These rather controversial claims will be expanded upon and defended in Essay Thirteen Part Two.]

 

Nevertheless, when the above train-of-thought (in relation to the HF) is pressed more emphatically than is usually the case, several rather surprising conclusions soon follow: Since both the flow of ideas 'in the mind' (or even those 'in the brain' of an Über-Rationalist, like Hegel), alongside any sensations that accompany (or cause) them), are also events, 'subjective' experience itself can't avoid being thrown into doubt, which in turn raises questions about the future behaviour even of 'mental events'.

 

[The reader should keep in mind the fact that the following comments only apply if we were to adopt the above way of conceptualising knowledge. Again, they don't represent my views, even though they do represent my way of undermining this long-standing tradition.]

 

In that case, our experience of anything that has yet to occur (which must also include our own future thoughts and actions) might fail to 'resemble' what they had been, or seemed to have been, in the past. Even the nature and behaviour of our sensations and ideas could also alter from moment-to-moment, given this approach to knowledge (and especially if we factor in the HF). If we experience an idea now as an idea of a certain sort, it could be experienced, thought of, or interpreted as something totally different tomorrow, even though it might prove impossible to say right now what that might be. That itself would either be because we don't yet possess the relevant language or because that language might itself have changed before we succeed in uttering, or even thinking, anything at all.

 

[The moral of these rather sobering thoughts is that the HF is no respecter of ideas or of those who are foolish enough to give it any credence. If true, it holds sway over everything they experience, conclude, think, say or believe -- not one atom of which will be the same now as it was a fraction of a second earlier. If HF-ers (i.e., those who give credence to the theory there is an HF) imagine otherwise, they aren't bona fide HF-ers. They are just inconsistent philosophical windbags.]  

 

Recall, 'abstractions' were originally invented to provide some sort of philosophical -- or even scientific -- stability to the deliverances of the senses. They were supposed to help provide a secure foundation for knowledge, a basis that transcended the particular by 'ascending' to the general -- i.e., to 'Universals', 'Concepts' and 'Categories'. They were supposed to be far superior to, and more reliable than, ephemeral, contingent, transient facts based on experience/'appearances'. That is why Plato and his ilk invented them. It was the whole point of his Allegory of the Cave. [On that, see Appendix B of Essay Eight Part Two.] It was also the attitude motivating the German Idealists (this was quoted earlier):

 

"Already with Fichte the idea of the unity of the sciences, of system, was connected with that of finding a reliable starting-point in certainty on which knowledge could be based. Thinkers from Kant onwards were quite convinced that the kind of knowledge which came from experience was not reliable. Empirical knowledge could be subject to error, incomplete, or superseded by further observation or experiment. It would be foolish, therefore, to base the whole of knowledge on something which had been established only empirically. The kind of knowledge which Kant and his followers believed to be the most secure was a priori knowledge, the kind embodied in the laws of Nature. These had been formulated without every occurrence of the Natural phenomenon in question being observed, so they did not summarise empirical information, and yet they held good by necessity for every case; these laws were truly universal in their application." [White (1996a), p.29. Bold emphasis added.]

 

Here again is Hegel echoing and amplifying these very ideas:

 

"The view that the objects of immediate consciousness, which constitute the body of experience, are mere appearances (phenomena) was another important result of the Kantian philosophy. Common Sense, that mixture of sense and understanding, believes the objects of which it has knowledge to be severally independent and self-supporting; and when it becomes evident that they tend towards and limit one another, the interdependence of one upon another is reckoned something foreign to them and to their true nature. The very opposite is the truth. The things immediately known are mere appearances -- in other words, the ground of their being is not in themselves but in something else. But then comes the important step of defining what this something else is. According to Kant, the things that we know about are to us appearances only, and we can never know their essential nature, which belongs to another world we cannot approach. Plain minds have not unreasonably taken exception to this subjective idealism, with its reduction of the facts of consciousness to a purely personal world, created by ourselves alone. For the true statement of the case is rather as follows. The things of which we have direct consciousness are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature; and the true and proper case of these things, finite as they are, is to have their existence founded not in themselves but in the universal divine Idea. This view of things, it is true, is as idealist as Kant's; but in contradistinction to the subjective idealism of the Critical philosophy should be termed absolute idealism. Absolute idealism, however, though it is far in advance of vulgar realism, is by no means merely restricted to philosophy. It lies at the root of all religion; for religion too believes the actual world we see, the sum total of existence, to be created and governed by God." [Hegel (1975, §45, p.73. Links in the original. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

 

However, the above approach will always prove to be futile, if not counter-productive. That is because anyone who accepts it will now have to appeal to 'abstractions' -- i.e., 'Universals', 'Concepts', 'Categories', 'Principles' and 'Ideas', every one of which has been privately processed and created -- in order to guarantee the stability and permanence of 'rational knowledge', setting it above 'empirical instability', or 'variability' -- ensuring the latter don't undermine the status of philosophical/scientific knowledge. But, as we have seen, each of these 'abstractions' is a particular (or the Proper Names thereof), so they are absolutely no use in this respect. As such they are subject to the very same suspicions about their own future constancy that (allegedly) confront ordinary material particulars (e.g., the regular occurrence of sunrise and the nourishing property of bread, mentioned earlier). In which case, any theory that countenances the validity of the HF implies that no particular -- abstract or concrete -- is capable of providing a secure basis for a single general conclusion about the future constancy of nature and 'rational' thought.

 

There are no self-certifying ideas to be had here -- given this self-torpedoing way of conceiving this 'problem'.

 

Worse still: any 'solution' to this 'problem' (should one ever be found!) will be subject to the same suspicions, and hence could itself be experienced as a non-solution the very next day -- especially if we were foolish enough buy into the HF.

 

Naturally, expressed the way this entire topic has been for countless generations, any attempt to 'solve the problem of induction' -- i.e., demonstrate how the present 'binds' the future so that it 'resembles' the past -- has already lost its way. In fact, as should now seem clear, phrases like "The present" and "The future" are also particulars (or they are singular terms that 'refer' to certain Abstract Particulars, alongside that other Abstract Particular, 'Time'), and are, as such, totally incapable of preventing the theories adopted by anyone who accepts this approach to knowledge from sliding off into oblivion.

 

And, therein lies a clue to the dissolution to this family of 'problems': as Marx himself suggested, the solution here is to reject this entire way of doing philosophy.

 

Not even the anti-materialist, Aristocratic Philosophers who invented it could make head or tail of it!

 

Nor has anyone since...

 

A New Approach Called For

 

As we now know -- mainly because it was revealed in Part One -- the original source of these 'difficulties' lay in a series ideologically-driven, linguistic tricks engineered by Ancient Greek metaphysicians, logicians and grammarians. In which case, the dissolution of over two millennia of such class-compromised confusion recommends itself.

 

Or it does so to genuine materialists.

 

The bottom line here is the realisation that if 'the mind' is capable of experiencing only a finite number of exemplars from which it has to piece-together (or apply) general ideas, subsequent experience could always refuse to play ball, as it were. In that case, given this way of picturing 'reality', the future might fail to 'resemble' the past in any meaningful sense. Not only might the Sun fail to rise (tomorrow), and water fail to boil at a given temperature, but cats might refuse to walk about on mats and Hegel might even begin to make sense.

 

Of course, as already noted, it might prove possible side-step such 'difficulties' if 'the mind' was thought capable of gaining direct access to a 'Third Realm' where these 'abstract ideas' (i.e., Universals, General Concepts and Categories, etc., etc.) supposedly hang out, and which, when 'reflected' in, or used by, 'the mind' were somehow capable of regimenting whatever 'inputs' the senses sent its way. Alternatively, if we are prepared to go all the way, and on a good day, they might even be able to 'construct reality itself' (which seems to be the mad dog approach Hegel adopted, as have more than a handful of Empiricists). In that case, that would mean any such theorist could legitimately claim the future course of events is guaranteed to resemble the past (in the manner indicated above).

 

However, in relation to the above Empiricists, if 'the mind' were to prove capable of controlling the 'unruly inputs' delivered by the senses, something a little more robust than Locke's Social Contract or Hume's 'habits of mind' would be required. Unfortunately, Ancient Greek theories that spoke about, or which relied on, there being a rational and ordered Cosmos (upon which basis a rational and orderly society might be built) didn't sit too well with the socially-, and politically-fragmented bourgeois world that began to emerge in the 17th and 18th centuries. This Humpty-Dumpty couldn't be put back together again:

 

 

 

Figure Five: A Smashing Metaphor For Empiricist Epistemology? 

 

 

A completely novel approach, specifically designed fit the new social landscape, was called for.

 

As already noted, Hume attempted to address this 'problem' by appealing to rather vague 'habits', which amounted to an Associationist theory of human cognition. This was (somehow!) thought capable of forming a secure basis for expectations about the future course of events, predicated on past experience, shaped by these 'habits'. Clearly, this nebulous theory was susceptible to the challenges set out in earlier paragraphs of this sub-section -- because of which, any series of events -- past, present or future -- will become the target of the same sceptical questions. In that case, it is difficult to see how 'habits of mind' would emerge unscathed. Or must we now appeal to a habit of the habits of the mind to guarantee the constancy of any given habit? Or are 'habits of the mind' the only processes in the entire universe that always behave tomorrow like they have today? Assume that on day one, Habit1 underpins the expectation that B should follow A (where "A" and "B" are event tokens). But, what if on day two Habit1 now registers the expectation that C should instead follow A? Would there not now have to be a second order habit, Habit2, that underpinned the expectation that Habit1 will behave itself and guarantee the expectation that B follows A, once more? What is to stop Habit2 from now 'misbehaving'? What is to stop it from manifesting the expectation that Habit1 underpins the expectation that D follows A? Maybe then there is a third order habit, Habit3, that will rescue the day? But, what if it, too, 'misbehaves'...?

 

One suspects another infinite regress is gathering in the wings.

 

The abandonment of the 'logical', or necessary connection between a Universal and the particulars that fall under it -- i.e., the 'rational' or 'metaphysical' relationship between an object and its properties (which we also met earlier) --, that took place in the High Middle Ages (with the rise of Nominalism (but the cracks were already forming in the work of several post-Aristotelian theorists; the Nominalists merely forced them wide enough for all to see), introduced radical contingency, not just into Traditional Theories of Causation, but 'Reality Itself'. This development wasn't, of course, unconnected with a decline in the power of the Papacy as Feudalism itself began to unravel, giving way to early forms of the 'free' market economy.

 

[Those tantalising threads will be pulled on much further in another Essay.]

 

Rationalist Philosophers (like Spinoza and Leibniz) made valiant attempts to repair the damage such untoward developments had inflicted on the 'Rational Order of Reality', the 'God' of Christianity and 'His' relation to 'creation'. To that end, they constructed entirely new 'necessitarian' theories that sought to re-establish a logical connection between a given substance and its 'accidents', linking a given object with its properties. Unfortunately, these theories were themselves based on the same old "ruling ideas" -- i.e., principally on:

 

(i) The quasi-religious dogma that 'Reality' is 'Rational', which meant that fundamental 'truths' about 'it' may be derived from thought/language alone; and,

 

(ii) The same defective analysis of subject-predicate propositions that gave rise to these 'problems' in the first place.

 

[On the general background to this, see, for example, Copleston (2003a, 2003b, 2003c), and the references given below.]

 

Here is how I have made similar points in Essay Eleven Part Two -- which formed part of a brief consideration of certain aspects of Christian Fundamentalism and 'Intelligent Design' that also happen to be relevant to the above issues:

 

There is an excellent summary of the two main avenues theists have taken in their attempt to conceive of the relationship between 'God' and 'His' creation in Osler (2004), pp.15-35. [Not unexpectedly, these neatly mirror the tensions that plague the DM-account of nature, too.]

 

Here follows a summary of the relevant parts of Osler's thesis (with a few additional comments of my own thrown in for good measure):

 

Traditionally, there were two ways of conceiving 'God's' relation to material reality:

 

(a) 'He' is related to it by necessity, as an expression of 'His' nature; or,

 

(b) 'He' is related to it contingently -- as an expression of 'His' 'free will'.

 

If (a) were the case, there would be a logical connection between the properties of created beings and their 'essence' -- i.e., the logical core of each being, which is either an expression of its unique nature, or of the 'kind' to which it belongs. In turn, this would be a consequence of the logical or conceptual links that exist between 'creation' and 'God's Nature'. If that weren't the case, it would introduce radical contingency into creation, undermining 'God's Nature' and 'His' control of 'Creation'. As a result language and logic must constitute reality (why that is so is outlined here).

 

[Also worth pointing out is the fact that Super-Truths like this -- about fundamental aspects of 'reality' -- may only be accessed via speculative thought.]

 

This means that all that exists is either:

 

(i) An expression of the logical properties inherent in 'God'; or,

 

(ii) An emanation from 'God'.

 

That is, material reality must be logically 'emergent' from, and hence connected with, the 'Deity'. So, the universe 'issues' forth from 'His' nature 'eternally' and a-temporally, outside of time, since that is where 'He exists'. Everything must therefore be inter-linked by 'internal', or 'necessary', relations, all of which are derived from, and constituted by, 'concepts' implicit in 'God', which are consequently mirrored in fundamental aspects of creation. This idea is prominent in Plotinus and subsequent Neo-Platonists, like Hegel.

 

Given this approach, it is clear that the vast majority of 'ordinary' human beings are incapable of accessing, nor can they even comprehend, this 'rational' view of 'reality'. Their lack of knowledge, education and 'divine illumination' means that, at best, they misperceive these 'logical properties' as contingent qualities. Hence, for them, appearances fail to match underlying "essence". Naturally, this implies that "commonsense" and ordinary language are fundamentally unreliable.

 

Now, where have we heard all that before? Email me if you know.

 

Option (b), on the other hand, implied that 'God' acted freely when 'He' created the world. So, if 'He' wasn't acting under any form of 'compulsion', logical or conceptual -- i.e., 'He' wasn't acting on the basis of the logical properties inherent in 'His' nature -- then there will be no logical or necessary connection between 'The Creator' and 'His Creation'. Nor, indeed, would there be such between each created being. Every object and process in reality would therefore be genuinely contingent, and appearances will no longer be 'deceptive', since they can't mask the hidden, esoteric 'essences' mentioned above -- for there are none. That being the case, there are no synthetic a priori truths (as these later came to be known) ascertainable by thought alone. The only path to knowledge was through observation, experiment, and a careful study of the 'Book of Nature'. It is no coincidence then that the foundations of modern science were laid in the Middle Ages largely by theorists who adopted this view of 'God' -- for example, Jean Buridan.

 

[On this, see also: Copleston (2003c), pp.153-67, Crombie (1970, 1979), Grant (1996), Hannam (2009), Lindberg (2007).]

 

In post-Renaissance thought, the 'necessitarian' tradition re-surfaced in the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Wolff, and Hegel; the 'voluntarist' tradition saw the light of day in an attenuated form in the work of Newton, the Empiricists, and the so-called "mechanists". They all tended to stress the connection between 'God's' free will and contingency in nature, alongside the primacy of empirical over a priori knowledge and the superiority of observation and experiment over speculation and abstract theory.

 

[Admittedly, the above categories are rather crude; for example, Descartes was a mechanist, but his theory put him on the same side of the fence as Spinoza and Leibniz, whereas Gassendi was also a mechanist, but his ideas aligned him with the voluntarists. On this, see Copleston (2003d).]

 

So, when Fundamentalist Christians, for example, look at nature and see design everywhere, they also claim to see 'irreducible complexity' -- the handiwork of 'God' -- and they either put this down to 'His' free creation, or they see it as an expression of logical properties imposed on nature by the Logos (depending, of course, on how they view the nature of 'The Creator' and 'His' relation to the world).

 

Christian mechanists saw design in nature, too, but their theories became increasingly deistic, and later openly atheistic. The admission of a contingent link between 'God' and nature severed the logical connection that earlier theorists had postulated, making "the God hypothesis" seem increasingly redundant. [Laplace -- "I have no need of that hypothesis".]

 

[On this, see Lovejoy (1964). [This links to a PDF.] There is an excellent account of this in Redwood (1976); see also Dillenberger (1988). A classic expression of these developments can be found in the debate between Leibniz and Clarke. Cf., Alexander (1956), and Vailati (1997).]

 

Much of this controversy had been motivated much earlier by the work of the Medieval Nominalists, whose theories also sundered the logical link between a substance and its properties as part of a reaction to the tradition begun by Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, with his separation of 'essence' and 'existence' in created beings), Averroës (Ibn Rushd), and the so-called "Latin Averroists" (e.g., Siger of Brabant). The latter argued strongly in favour of Aristotle's doctrine of natural necessity, thus undermining 'God's' free will -- at least, so far as the Roman Catholic Church saw things. This reaction was also prompted by philosophical worries about the nature of transubstantiation and the relation between the 'essence' of the emblems (the bread and the wine in the Eucharist) and their 'accidents' (their apparent properties). Here 'appearances' most definitely couldn't reflect 'essence' otherwise the bread would look like human flesh and the wine would smell of blood!

 

The aforementioned reaction was occasioned by the 'Condemnations of 1277', whereby the Bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, condemned 219 propositions, among which was the Averroist interpretation of Aristotle -- particularly the idea that the created order was governed by logical necessity. The most important response to these condemnations appeared in the work of the Nominalist, William of Ockham, who, as a result, stressed the 'free will of God' and thus the contingent nature of the world. For Ockham, this meant that there were no 'essences' in nature, nor were the apparent properties of bodies (their 'accidents', again) logically connected with their 'nominal essence' (as this later came to be called by Locke).

 

[On this, see: Osler (2004), Copleston (2003b), pp.136-55, 190-95, 437-41, Copleston (2003c), pp.43-167, and Copleston (2003e), pp.79-107.]

 

In the 18th century, a resurgence of the 'necessitarian' tradition motivated, among other things, the "re-enchantment" of nature in the theories concocted by the Natürphilosophers and Hegel -- and later still in those invented by Marxist Dialecticians.

 

[On this, see Harrington (1996), Lenoir (1982), Richards (2002), and Essay Fourteen Parts One and Two, when they are published. More details can be found in Foster (1934), Hooykaas (1973), Lindberg (2007), and Osler (2004). For the Hermetic background to all this, see Magee (2008). Cf., also Essay Twelve (summary here). At a later date I will publish an essay on Leibniz I wrote as an undergraduate, which anticipated some of the ideas in Osler's book, for example.]

 

So, where Christians see design, DM-fans see "internal relations". Same problematic, same tainted source, same bogus 'solution' to this set of pseudo-problems.12a

 

In such inhospitable surroundings not only must the 'Concepts' and 'Abstractions' (i.e., those judged capable of 'guiding' 'ideas' into the 'right mental pigeonholes') be robust enough to do all the 'sorting' ('behind the backs of the producers', as it were, since no one is normally aware this is taking place -- which is, of course, why it took several fast-talking philosophers to 'discover' it and then persuade a few in their gullible audience to give it some credence), they must also exist prior to, and be independent of, experience. If that weren't the case, they would risk suffering the very same slings and arrows of outrageous fortune themselves. So, if experience were incapable of delivering 'genuine knowledge' (or so we have been told by generations of Rationalists), 'Universals', 'Principles', 'Concepts', Representations' and 'Abstractions' have to be held aloof, elevated way beyond the contingent world of 'appearances', or suffer the same sceptical mauling.

 

After all, 'bad associations' spoil useful 'abstractions'.

 

'Epistemological Thermidor'

 

Initially, at least as far as 'crude materialists' were concerned, it wasn't easy to account either for the source or the 'effectiveness of these 'muscular concepts' -- i.e., all those 'mental constructs' ('frameworks', 'principles', 'categories', and 'abstractions', etc., etc.), which did all the regimenting and permitted of no exceptions. However, it turned out that this 'entirely new approach' -- the aforementioned 'philosophical rescue' (for want of a better term) -- came from an entirely unexpected source: German Idealism. More specifically, and even more revealingly, it strode onto the intellectual stage in the form of an impossibly convoluted re-vamp of Ancient Greek Neoplatonism with just enough Hermeticism thrown in to attract the attention of those who dote on totally incomprehensible gobbledygook, who also imagine there's a 'hidden meaning' buried in all that impenetrable verbiage...somewhere.

 

The baroque systems of thought concocted by these Teutonic Idealists saw the invention of Self-Developing, Super-'Concepts', fortified by Industrial Strength 'Categories' that packed enough metaphysical clout to control the 'untamed' deliverances of the senses. These days such 'heavy-duty principles' have been boosted even further by the addition of a handful of impressive-sounding phrases -- such as, "natural-", "ontological-", "metaphysical-necessity", and "apodictic certainty". Such rugged, hairy-chested jargon was mandatory otherwise the feral 'inputs' the senses sent the mind's way might refuse to behave, which might in turn imply the unexpected, the adventitious, the seemingly impossible, happens on a regular basis. This might even mean fires begin freezing water, fish spontaneously break out in song, Conservatives stop lying, and Dialectical Marxism -- no, stop laughing at the back(!) -- becoming a ringing success.13

 

Furthermore, such testosterone-infused 'Concepts', 'Categories' and 'Principles' also had to be logical -- indeed, 'dialectical' --, if they were to prove capable of exercising rigid control over the future course of events -- or even the future deliverances of the senses and the overall direction of 'thought' --, ensuring that every single 'input' was efficiently processed and slotted into the 'right' metaphysical pigeon holes, each labelled with the 'correct' general term.

 

This is, of course, where the traditional confusion of talk about talk with talk about the world came into its own. If you run-together the relationship between 'concepts' and the 'particulars' they supposedly regiment, it a little too easy to imagine that objects and their properties must be related in the same way in 'extra-mental reality' as the former are in 'the mind'. A few short steps further soon motivates the hyper-bold idea that the entire universe is controlled the same way -- leading to the conclusion that how a given thinker just so happens to knit concepts and objects together in 'consciousness' is how 'reality itself' actually operates. But, only those who want to be counted as Conceptual Megalomaniacs will allow that train of thought to run to its illogical conclusion.

 

Here once again is Hegel scholar, Katharina Dulckeit, who reveals how Hegel proposed to 'repair the damage' inflicted on necessitarianism as a result of the dissolution of Feudalism and the rise of Capitalism (a fall from 'philosophical grace' epitomised by the 'English' turn to Empiricism in the 17th and 18th centuries):

 

"[It] must be remembered that [Hegel's] analysis of the forms of judgment in the Logic is motivated by his interest in essential judgement. There are two conditions for such judgements. To begin with, a judgement is an essential judgement only if P tells us precisely and exclusively what s is; no less and no more. But merely predicating universals of particulars is insufficient for this, unless the term in the predicate position at once expresses the essential nature of the subject. This, in turn, argues Hegel, is possible only if the 'is' expresses some identity between s and P. For if essential determination were possible exclusively via predication, the subject and the predicate would remain separate and the relation between them expressed by the copula would remain external. As a consequence, s would refer to one thing, namely an individual, while P would designate something distinct from s, namely a universal. But the truth of sense-certainty in the Phenomenology has already been shown that qua individual, an individual is grasped only through the mediation of universals. It follows that divorced from these, it would then have to be an individual without a universal nature, i.e., a bare individual.... Thus, if s and P are utterly distinct they must be mutually exclusive, which means that s will necessarily be bare, and P necessarily abstract.... Clearly then, where judgements of essence are concerned, the 'is' of predication will not do because it entails the distinction between s and P which would commit us to a metaphysical thesis already overcome in the Phenomenology." [Dulckeit (1989), pp.115-16. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; links added. I have subjected passages like this to sustained criticism in Appendix D of Part One.]

 

As we will see in Essay Seven Part Three, Lenin latched onto Hegel's 'Rationalist' response to Empiricist Theories of Causation, which subsequently formed the central core of 'the dialectical theory of change'. [Readers are referred to that Essay for more details.]

 

So, bourgeois ideas, supposedly 'born free' ('free' at least of archaic notions of necessity) were now clapped in chains. The 'free market of ideas' that the 17th and 18th century 'revolution in the head' ushered in was now over. This Rationalist/Idealist 'rescue mission', with its industrial strength 'concepts', looked far more like a 'mental Thermidor' than it did any sort of liberation.14

 

[CNS = Central Nervous System.]

 

But, one nagging question remained: How could something even as 'powerful' as these heavy duty 'Logical Principles' (involving the supposed 'identity between a subject and a predicate') guarantee that future events, or our impressions of them, will always behave as expected? Unfortunately for Hegel (and those who paid him any heed), the 'rational principles' living rent-free in his head turned out to be particulars, too, and as such were no less in need of regimentation themselves. Otherwise, there would be no good reason to see why ordinary particulars needed regimenting, in the first place. After all, how could an abstraction (physically-, and causally-divorced from the material world) actually control anything? Why would something that is physical -- in 'external reality', or even in the CNS, such as an 'input' -- 'obey' an abstraction? How could anything that lacks intelligence, or even sentience (i.e., all those 'inputs', once more) do any obeying to begin with? How could something non-material control anything material?

 

After all, not even concepts-on-steroids can actually make anything happen.

 

[That knotty problem -- which is similar to the one that confronted Descartes as he tried to explain how a non-material 'soul' could affect a material body, or the one Platonists/neo-Platonists face when they attempt to explain how mathematical objects and structures are capable of interacting with the world (i.e., whether or not they are causally efficacious) --, has yet to be solved by scientists and philosophers alike. In fact, after well over two thousand years, they're not even close! (This extra pseudo-problem will be addressed in Essay Three Part Five. Some of that material has already been published in Essay Thirteen Part Three, here and here.)]

 

The point at issue here is in fact reasonably straightforward: logical principles per se can't create generality out of thin air; generality emerges from the application of a rule, which neither words nor 'Concepts' -- nor even 'Principles' and 'Categories' -- can quite manage on their own. It requires human beings (and then only when acting as social agents, part of a collective) to determine what constitutes the correct application of a rule, As has been pointed out several times, that is because 'Concepts', 'Abstractions', 'Categories' and 'Principles' have neither the wit, intelligence nor social structure sufficient to the task.

 

[It is worth reminding the reader, again, that what follows isn't simply my opinion of bourgeois theory, it is implied by their own words.]

 

That was, indeed, the point of emphasising the social and theoretical atomisation that gave birth to the bourgeois, 'logical' principles mentioned earlier in this Essay. The fragmentation introduced into epistemology (in both its Rationalist and Empiricist wings) meant that, in the heads of these socially-isolated thinkers, 'Concepts' (etc.) could only operate as the Proper Names of Abstract Particulars -- or, indeed, as those Particulars themselves --, destroying generality and undermining the unity of the proposition.14a0

 

[So, for example, 'The concept of time' (in Kant) and 'The concept of Being' (in Hegel) are both Abstract Particulars (or they are singular terms designating such).]

 

Clearly, 'Logical Principles' like these could only succeed in regimenting 'inputs' delivered to them by the senses if they managed to control the latter's future behaviour, which implied they were intelligent -- or even social -- agents themselves. Indeed, the way they were characterised suggested they might actually exist in 'external reality', and were even 'Ideas in self-development'. [That inference, courtesy of Hegel, represents a classic example of the conflation of talk about talk with talk about the world.] Either that, or they were 'internal regulative principles' that whipped the 'raw deliverances of the senses' into shape. [That anthropomorphic inference we can pin on Kant.]

 

In Hegel, this doctrine completely eroded the distinction between Mind and Matter -- which is clearly why Engels thought he could get away with arguing that matter is just an abstraction, employing virtually same argument (and even using the same example!) as Hegel:

 

"When the universal is made a mere form and co-ordinated with the particular, as if it were on the same level, it sinks into the particular itself. Even common sense in everyday matters is above the absurdity of setting a universal beside the particulars. Would anyone, who wished for fruit, reject cherries, pears, and grapes, on the ground that they were cherries, pears or grapes, and not fruit?" [Hegel (1975), p.19, §13, quoted from here. Bold emphasis alone added.]

 

"It is the old story. First of all one makes sensuous things into abstractions and then one wants to know them through the senses, to see time and smell space. The empiricist becomes so steeped in the habit of empirical experience, that he believes that he is still in the field of sensuous experience when he is operating with abstractions.... The two forms of existence of matter are naturally nothing without matter, empty concepts, abstractions which exist only in our minds. But, of course, we are supposed not to know what matter and motion are! Of course not, for matter as such and motion as such have not yet been seen or otherwise experienced by anyone, only the various existing material things and forms of motions. Matter is nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is abstracted and motion as such nothing but the totality of all sensuously perceptible forms of motion; words like matter and motion are nothing but abbreviations in which we comprehend many different sensuous perceptible things according to their common properties. Hence matter and motion can be known in no other way than by investigation of the separate material things and forms of motion, and by knowing these, we also pro tanto know matter and motion as such.... This is just like the difficulty mentioned by Hegel; we can eat cherries and plums, but not fruit, because no one has so far eaten fruit as such." [Engels (1954), pp.235-36. Bold emphasis alone added.]

 

"N.B. Matter as such is a pure creation of thought and an abstraction. We leave out of account the qualitative differences of things in lumping them together as corporeally existing things under the concept matter. Hence matter as such, as distinct from definite existing pieces of matter, is not anything sensuously existing." [Ibid., p.255. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"When the universal is made a mere form and co-ordinated with the particular, as if it were on the same level, it sinks into the particular itself. Even common sense in everyday matters is above the absurdity of setting a universal beside the particulars. Would anyone, who wished for fruit, reject cherries, pears, and grapes, on the ground that they were cherries, pears or grapes, and not fruit?" [Hegel (1975), p.19, §13, quoted from here. Bold emphasis alone added.]

 

"Essence becomes matter in that its reflection is determined as relating itself to essence as to the formless indeterminate. Matter is therefore the differenceless identity which is essence, with the determination of being the other of form. It is consequently the real basis or substrate of form, because it constitutes the reflection-into-self of the form-determinations, or the self-subsistent element to which the latter are related as to their positive subsistence. If abstraction is made from every determination, from all form of anything, what is left over is indeterminate matter. Matter is a sheer abstraction. (Matter cannot be seen, felt, and so on -- what is seen, felt, is a determinate matter, that is, a unity of matter and form). This abstraction from which matter proceeds is, however, not merely an external removal and sublating of form, rather does form, as we have seen, spontaneously reduce itself to this simple identity." [Hegel (1999), pp.450-51, §§ 978-979. Bold emphasis alone added. Typos in the on-line version corrected. Paragraphs merged.]

 

In which case, controlling the future behaviour of anything that might seem to be accidental or adventitious (in the mind or in the world) now became a question concerning the self-discipline of, and oversight by, a series of self-developing 'Concepts'. In fact, these 'Concepts' controlled the future because they possessed, or even embodied, a 'revolutionary new logic', a 'dialectical logic', which a was, fortuitously, capable of powering the entire Cosmos. In which case, it now seemed plain that this all-conquering logic could easily take care of all these apparent 'contingencies' (since they were now magicked into necessities), thus guaranteeing the (underlying) rational course of nature.

 

[This 'logic' was itself based on a mis-applied metaphor about how arguments themselves 'edge toward' a conclusion. That at least explains the presence of the word "contradiction". There is no other reason for using it.]

 

This new 'logic' laid down the law, which meant that everything in nature -- Mind and Matter -- bent the knee to its Contradictory Will. We saw this earlier in Lenin's appropriation of these Hegelian fantasies:

 

"To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other…. Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a 'nucleus' ('cell') the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general." [Lenin (1961), pp.359-60. Bold emphases alone added; paragraphs merged.]

 

Compare that with what we read earlier:

 

"[It] must be remembered that [Hegel's] analysis of the forms of judgment in the Logic is motivated by his interest in essential judgement. There are two conditions for such judgements. To begin with, a judgement is an essential judgement only if P tells us precisely and exclusively what s is; no less and no more. But merely predicating universals of particulars is insufficient for this, unless the term in the predicate position at once expresses the essential nature of the subject. This, in turn, argues Hegel, is possible only if the 'is' expresses some identity between s and P. For if essential determination were possible exclusively via predication, the subject and the predicate would remain separate and the relation between them expressed by the copula would remain external. As a consequence, s would refer to one thing, namely an individual, while P would designate something distinct from s, namely a universal. But the truth of sense-certainty in the Phenomenology has already been shown that qua individual, an individual is grasped only through the mediation of universals. It follows that divorced from these, it would then have to be an individual without a universal nature, i.e., a bare individual.... Thus, if s and P are utterly distinct they must be mutually exclusive, which means that s will necessarily be bare, and P necessarily abstract.... Clearly then, where judgements of essence are concerned, the 'is' of predication will not do because it entails the distinction between s and P which would commit us to a metaphysical thesis already overcome in the Phenomenology." [Dulckeit (1989), pp.115-16. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site; links added. I have subjected passages like this to sustained criticism in Appendix D of Part One.]

 

Plato's World Soul was thereby given a new lease of life (and not just to run amok in Dialectical Marxism). It now ran the entire show, which meant the future course of events was under the iron control of this bright and shiny new 'logic' -- which was, disappointingly, just a revamped version of that Soul's 'animating spirit'. Words, whose meaning had originally been based on the social application of linguistic rules, were now re-configured as a universal expression of 'Self-Developing Consciousness'. The individual 'Bourgeois Mind' was thus magnified and projected across the universe so that it now ran the entire show (at least in the imagination).

 

[And if you agree, don't forget to pick up your complementary, 'I am a Conceptual Megalomaniac' t-shirt, designed for all who think like you, waiting in the Idealist Gift Shop on the way out!]

 

As we have also seen, Ancient and Medieval Logicians -- by their mis-characterisation of predication, in tandem with the invention of all these 'abstractions' -- destroyed any possibility of expressing generality. In its place, an ersatz 'generality' was substituted for it (as an expression of 'God's Mind' -- conveniently working away inside Hegel's skull). Unfortunately for Dialectical Marxists, even when this fantasy is flipped and then "put back on its feet", the logical blunders on which it was based remain in place. Blunders don't cease being blunders by the simple expedient of rotating them through 180º! Indeed, in Hegel's hands, logic was fetishised all the more, transmogrified into a 'spirit' that animated 'inert matter'. This now breathed life into the (moribund) concepts of matter invented by 'crude materialists'. Indeed, without this 'animating spirit' -- without all those 'contradictions', 'negations and 'mediations' -- matter would remain forever inert. 'Reality' itself would be like "a clock without a spring":

 

"Contradiction is the root of all movement and life, and it is only in so far as it contains a contradiction that anything moves and has impulse and activity." [Hegel (1999), p.439, §956. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"It was absolutely necessary to explain why the American 'radical' intellectuals accept Marxism without the dialectic (a clock without a spring)." [Trotsky (1971), p.56. Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]

 

Hegel's 'Self-Developing Mind' -- now "back on its feet" --, 're-animated matter', which, in effect, amounted to the re-enchantment of Nature. [Harrington (1996).]14a1

 

Paradoxically, but no less implausibly, the 'Iron Laws of the Cosmos' were supposed to be wholly compatible with human freedom! These 'Self-Developing Concepts' were, of course, 'free' because they were a law unto themselves. Indeed, they even seemed to control 'God', who, it turned out, was actually being led like a dog on a leash, dragged along by 'His' very own 'self-developing Ideas', almost as if 'He' couldn't help 'Himself'. 'He' was both 'object' and 'subject' of the all-powerful 'dialectic'. The 'Master' turned into 'Slave' -- the 'Slave' into 'Master'.

 

But, as far as humanity was concerned, the 'good news' turned out to be the exact opposite; according to this theory, the more an individual subjects herself to these 'Laws', the 'freer' she became!

 

So, ironically, the more human beings are in chains, the less they are in chains!

 

Such are the Consolations of The Dialectic...

 

Christianity is supposed to be the religion of slaves, so it is hardly surprising that DM (i.e., 'right side up Christian Mysticism') turns out to be the philosophy of 'radical' slaves.

 

Here is a classic statement of this counterintuitive idea (by Engels himself):

 

"Another opposition in which metaphysics is entangled is that of chance and necessity. What can be more sharply contradictory than these two thought determinations? How is it possible that both are identical, that the accidental is necessary, and the necessary is also accidental? Common sense, and with it the majority of natural scientists, treats necessity and chance as determinations that exclude each other once for all. A thing, a circumstance, a process is either accidental or necessary, but not both. Hence both exist side by side in nature; nature contains all sorts of objects and processes, of which some are accidental, the others necessary, and it is only a matter of not confusing the two sorts with each other.... And then it is declared that the necessary is the sole thing of scientific interest and that the accidental is a matter of indifference to science. That is to say: what can be brought under laws, hence what one knows, is interesting; what cannot be brought under laws, and therefore what one does not know, is a matter of indifference and can be ignored.... That is to say: what can be brought under general laws is regarded as necessary, and what cannot be so brought as accidental. Anyone can see that this is the same sort of science as that which proclaims natural what it can explain, and ascribes what it cannot explain to supernatural causes; whether I term the cause of the inexplicable chance, or whether I term it God, is a matter of complete indifference as far as the thing itself is concerned. Both are only equivalents for: I do not know, and therefore do not belong to science. The latter ceases where the requisite connection is wanting.

 

"In opposition to this view there is determinism, which passed from French materialism into natural science, and which tries to dispose of chance by denying it altogether. According to this conception only simple, direct necessity prevails in nature.... [T]hese are all facts which have been produced by an irrevocable concatenation of cause and effect, by an unshatterable necessity.... With this kind of necessity we likewise do not get away from the theological conception of nature. Whether with Augustine and Calvin we call it the eternal decree of God, or Kismet [Destiny -- RL] as the Turks do, or whether we call it necessity, is all pretty much the same for science. There is no question of tracing the chain of causation in any of these cases; so we are just as wise in one as in another, the so-called necessity remains an empty phrase, and with it -- chance also remains -- what it was before.... Hence chance is not here explained by necessity, but rather necessity is degraded to the production of what is merely accidental. If the fact that a particular pea-pod contains six peas, and not five or seven, is of the same order as the law of motion of the solar system, or the law of the transformation of energy, then as a matter of fact chance is not elevated into necessity, but rather necessity degraded into chance....

 

"In contrast to both conceptions, Hegel came forward with the hitherto quite unheard-of propositions that the accidental has a cause because it is accidental, and just as much also has no cause because it is accidental; that the accidental is necessary, that necessity determines itself as chance, and, on the other hand, this chance is rather absolute necessity. (Logik, II, Book III, 2: Reality.) Natural science has simply ignored these propositions as paradoxical trifling, as self-contradictory nonsense, and, as regards theory, has persisted on the one hand in the barrenness of thought of Wolffian metaphysics, according to which a thing is either accidental or necessary, but not both at once; or, on the other hand, in the hardly less thoughtless mechanical determinism which in words denies chance in general only to recognise it in practice in each particular case.... The previous idea of necessity breaks down. To retain it means dictatorially to impose on nature as a law a human arbitrary determination that is in contradiction to itself and to reality, it means to deny thereby all inner necessity in living nature, it means generally to proclaim the chaotic kingdom of chance to be the sole law of living nature.... The evolution of a concept, or of a conceptual relation (positive and negative, cause and effect, substance and accidency) in the history of thought, is related to its development in the mind of the individual dialectician, just as the evolution of an organism in palaeontology is related to its development in embryology (or rather in history and in the single embryo). That this is so was first discovered for concepts by Hegel. In historical development, chance plays its part, which in dialectical thinking, as in the development of the embryo, is summed up in necessity." [Engels (1954), pp.217-22. Bold emphases and links alone added. Several paragraphs merged. Four minor typos corrected. (I have informed the editors over at the Marxist Internet Archive). On this, see also here.]

 

Exactly how that settles this knotty problem Engels unfortunately neglected to say. Merely reminding his readers that Hegel asserted this, or claimed that, is no explanation if what the latter dogmatically opined is even more obscure than the 'problem' it was meant to solve!

 

No doubt we will be told that the answer to such questions is: 'The dialectic works in mysterious ways...'.

 

But, not only is a rose by any other still a rose, so is slavery.

 

Rousseau thought he could justify social control somewhat similarly (but less mysteriously):

 

"In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses." [Rousseau (1913), p.15; Book One, Chapter Seven. Bold emphasis added.]

 

But what he had in mind wasn't the sort of 'Ideal Thermidor' required to control all these (potentially) unruly 'inputs' (or even what they supposedly 'reflected'). In sharp contrast, while Hegel's 'logic' seemed to offer real hope in this direction, he soon discovered that his Ideas controlled him, not he them. By fetishising the thoughts he imagined were ('logically') fighting it out inside his head, he turned them into what were in effect self-directed agents, and himself into a compliant stooge. By these means he magicked the animated contents of his head into 'laws' that ran the entire universe. Hence, for him, what had once been the product of the social relations between human beings (language, inference, negation, contradiction) not only ended up manipulating his thoughts, they now powered 'Reality'!

 

As noted earlier, critics might be forgiven for labelling this, 'Ontology for Megalomaniacs'. It is indeed the philosophical equivalent of a seriously deranged individual claiming to be Napoleon -- or, perhaps even worse, 'God Himself'.

 

According to Hegel, his crazy Ideas appear to have taken over the Asylum! Instead of the 'psychologically-challenged' contradicting themselves, Hegel's universe did that for them!

 

 

Video Two: The Marat-Sade -- A Fitting Dramatisation

Of The Contents Of Hegel's Head

 

[The full title of the above infamous play by Peter Weir is: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade.]

 

In relation to this, Feuerbach plainly got things (slightly) wrong: Hegel's 'God' in fact results from the projection of linguistic rules and human characteristics both inwards and outwards -- into himself, and then onto the universe.

 

This should therefore be renamed, Feuerbach 2.0, involving:

 

Speculation on Steroids, Metaphysics on Mescaline, Anthropomorphism on Amphetamines, Epistemology on Ecstasy, Ontology on OxyContin and Logic on LSD!

 

[These are the 'substitute opiates' Marx might very well have spoken about if he were alive today -- and this is why he would have been right.]

 

But, it is precisely here, over such issues, that the fetishisation of language -- detailed in Part One -- elbowed its way into Dialectical Philosophy, and hence into Dialectical Marxism.

 

Subsequently for DM-fans, their ideas supposedly 'reflected' the world, but that turns out to be the case only if Hegel's 'logic' is allowed to control their thoughts and lead them by the nose, too.14a2

 

No wonder then that Max Eastman expressed himself as follows:

 

"Hegelism is like a mental disease; you can't know what it is until you get it, and then you can't know because you have got it." [Eastman (1926), p.22. Bold emphasis added.]

 

[Anyone who objects to my quoting Max Eastman should check this out and then perhaps think again.]

 

Which, of course, helps explain the quasi-religious fervour with which 'The Sacred Dialectic' is protected and defended by all those whose brains it has colonised.

 

[On that, see here and here.]

 

The Anti-Democratic Decay Of Dialectical Marxism

 

As we will see in Essay Nine Part Two, Hegel's 'logic' turned out to be far too feeble to be able to control anything (other than, perhaps, cloud the thought-processes of the unfortunates who look to him for guidance), which has meant that the leaders of Marxist parties find they have to control the ideas in their party members' heads, externally. That is, they have to do so by force, imposing DM-ideology undemocratically -- by means of ostracisation ('organisational quarantine'), silencing, demotion, expulsion, (sectarian) party fragmentation, exiling, incarceration, assassination, or even execution ('where necessary').

 

[How many of the above DM-inspired tactics actually work has been detailed in Essay Nine Part Two (for instance, here and here). In addition, the truly disastrous effect that Hegel's ideas have had on Dialectical Marxism has been set out at length in Sections Two to Eight of the same Essay. Readers are directed there for more information and supporting proof.]

 

So much, then, for 'dialectical freedom' and inner-party democracy...

 

However, Hegel's Idealist 'solution' only succeeded in creating another, related problem: If autonomous 'concepts'/'principles' such as these were necessary if order were to be re-imposed on recalcitrant reality -- or, at least, on any ideas held about it --, and if knowledge is still dependent on the vicissitudes of human cognition, then DM-'principles' only succeed in undermining themselves. If the 'Cosmic Order' can only be comprehended by being put into some sort of 'order' inside each compliant skull (by anthropomorphising 'reality' via the ideas held about it), then that approach can't avoid self-destruction. That is because, if ordinary human beings can't be relied on (i.e., if the vernacular and 'commonsense' are untrustworthy -- which is the ideologically-motivated accusation that originally helped give birth to this family of theories in Ancient Greece), then these 'inner human beings' (these anthropomorphised, 'Self-Developing Hegelian Ideas'), and their mysterious 'internal relations', must be equally suspect.

 

If the ideas of everyday, material human beings can't be trusted because of their reliance on 'appearances', what confidence can be placed on the reliability of these inner, ghostly spectres, these 'shadow human beings'?

 

[We will see that issue return to haunt DM-apologists later on in this Essay.]

 

Worries like these are all the more problematic not just because it is challenging enough to account for the social nature of knowledge in the individual case, but because it becomes impossibly difficult when generalised to take into account an entire community of individuals supposedly able to perform the same trick and arrive at the same conclusions from their limited experience and finite stock of ideas. [As we saw earlier.]

 

Given this Bourgeois Individualist approach, conceptual coordination across the whole of humanity would surely be miraculous. Indeed, that would still be the case if this were restricted to the inhabitants of a small village, let alone a large city or a nation state.

 

In fact, it is far more likely that every member of this self-appointed panel of 'professional abstractors' (i.e., DM-theorists) -- or, indeed, every single Hegel scholar -- is actually dancing to a different 'dialectical tune' playing in each socially-atomised, epistemologically-isolated head.

 

[Apologies again for all those mixed metaphors!]

 

The problems we met earlier (concerning the social, psychological and epistemological fragmentation introduced into 'western thought' by the rise of capitalism) re-surfaces precisely here. Hence, in the realm of ideas alone, it now proves impossible to undo the effect that bourgeois social relations introduced into epistemology -- but only if these pseudo-problems are addressed along lines criticised at this site. The bottom line is that if every single human being (never mind every single dialectician) has to perform these yet-to-be-described-with-any-clarity 'feats of abstraction' in their socially-isolated heads, there can be no such thing as socialised knowledge.

 

[I have explained what is meant by the term, "socially-isolated", below.]

 

This helps account for the countless failed 'theories of knowledge' post-Renaissance Philosophers have concocted over the last four hundred years, to add to those that had been dreamt up over the previous two thousand.

 

Nevertheless, in connection with Dialectical Marxism the individual was encouraged to strike back, initially disguised as the Dialectical Guru Himself -- Hegel. Only he (and perhaps his DM-progeny) were 'licensed' to comprehend these 'self-developing concepts', and thereby understand the course of history, generously passing the 'good news' on to the rest of humanity (who, mysteriously, failed to pay much attention or even express the slightest hint of gratitude). Dialectical Philosophers now became Dialectical Prophets -- the 'Marxist wing' promoting what was in effect a Substitutionist Ideology as its founding creed.14a

 

Once more, given this approach to knowledge, no matter how robust the physical or psychological coercion involved, coordination across an entire population (or even a significant proportion of it -- let alone a single party!) would be nigh on miraculous. Or, it would be unless, of course, it had been un-democratically imposed on party members by the party Itself -- or by the Glorious Leader, 'The Great Helmsman'. Hence it is that in much of Dialectical Marxism, 'logic' and reasonableness were replaced by the Mailed Fist of the Stalinised State (or its less oppressive western correlates -- various Central Committees). Failing that, in non-Stalinist parties, the ever watchful Guardians of Orthodoxy took over -- one prize example of which has been described in detail, here. Given DM-Epistemology, we can now see why this must be so: the only viable way to turn 'knowledge' based on 'abstraction' into party doctrine is via enforced conformity and coercion. That certainly helps explain the ideological centralisation and the lack of internal discussion on issues connected with 'dialectics' in all such parties (except within certain very limited respects) -- as well as the level and intensity of the vitriol aimed at (internal) DM-critics by the faithful.

 

If DM were a valid, well-supported theory, none of this would be necessary.

 

That is why the much more effective Mailed Fist of The Dialectical Magus -- which sometimes assumes the portly shape of a Gerry Healy, elsewhere that of a Mao Zedong, a Castro, a Bob Avakian, a Marlene Dixon, an Abimael Guzmán, or even the Great Teacher Himself, Stalin -- helps guarantee 'good epistemological order' inside each dialectical party and each 'compliant' dialectical skull.

 

[As noted above, exactly how 'Epistemological Stalinism' like this has worked its way into practically every area of Dialectical Marxism, and hence into virtually every party and tendency on the far left, is explored at length in Essay Nine Part Two.]

 

Problems Continue To Multiply Like Japanese Knotweed

 

Despite this, the fact that, in every day life, inter-subjective agreement actually takes place (and countless times, 24/7) suggests the above fanciful, bourgeois individualist approach to knowledge is thoroughly misguided. Indeed, when the day-to-day requirements imposed on each active agent by the natural and social world are factored in, this Post-Renaissance approach to knowledge falls apart even faster than a Kier Starmer 'pledge'.

 

The reasons for asserting this aren't hard to find, either, and they are even more problematic than any that have already been suggested (but, once again, only if we assume 'abstractionism' is a valid theory). Not only is it is highly unlikely that each abstractor would form the same general idea of the same objects and processes based on their limited stock of data -- which is itself challenging enough in view of the fact that no two people share exactly the same experiences or draw the same conclusions from them, but, the word "same" attracts the same difficulties (irony intended!) -- as we are about to see. If no two minds can check the supposed 'similarities' in or between the ideas held by any other mind, there is no way that a social process based on abstraction could even begin to work. Questions would naturally arise whether the 'same' ideas of anything (abstract, particular, concrete, general, or even dialectical) had actually taken root in such 'epistemologically-isolated', 'dialectical brains'. And those worries would persist until it had been established whether or not each abstractor had the 'same' idea about the word "same", never mind anything else.14b

 

And, how on earth might that be established, for goodness sake?

 

Worse still: given the 'dialectical view of identity', the 'problem' itself can't even be stated, let alone resolved. The peremptory DM-rejection of the LOI (or the DM-criticism levelled against it) now returns to haunt Dialectical Marxism, but in a novel way. By confusing a logical issue with an epistemological red-herring, the search for what had been touted as a superior form of 'dialectical knowledge', or 'logic', finds itself trapped in the solipsistic dungeon mentioned in Note 15 (link below).

 

[LOI = Law of Identity.]

 

Once more, that is because it has yet to be explained how any two 'dialectical abstractors' could form the same general, or even the same particular, idea of anything whatsoever -- even before the 'dialectical juggernaut' begins to roll --, let alone how a check might be made whether or not either of them had managed to perform this miraculous trick correctly. And, that isn't so much because no aspiring abstractor has access to the 'content' of the minds belonging to other abstractors, it is because it has yet to be established whether they even have the same idea of the word "correct"!15

 

Once more: how on earth might that be established, for goodness sake?

 

Again, it is no use looking to practice to rescue this ramshackle theory from itself, for it has yet to be established whether or not any two abstractors have the same abstract (or even 'concrete') idea of practice!

 

Once more, how on earth might that...?

 

[The reader is encouraged to finish that sentence for herself.]

 

[By "socially-isolated" I don't mean to suggest that each intrepid abstractor is literally isolated from all the rest -- as if they all lived on separate desert islands -- only that DM-epistemology holds that knowledge (etc.) begins with whatever they manage to process in their head as an individual, which must be the case from birth onwards. Clearly, this means that as far as language and knowledge are concerned, they might as well be literally isolated. Given this view of abstraction it is impossible to build a workable, or even a believable, theory of the social nature of language and knowledge. As Bertell Ollman pointed out, each abstractor will have constructed what is, in all but name, a private language, which, in tandem with Lenin's theory of knowledge, ends up isolating every single one of them from all the rest. The final result is that, with respect to any such shared language, they all live inside what is in effect a solipsistic universe. (I have developed this line-of-thought more extensively in Essay Thirteen Part One; readers are directed there for more details. See also Appendix Three of this Essay.)]

 

It is equally unclear how even this seemingly minor worry (about the generality of what were supposed to be general ideas) may be communicated between members of this 'community' of lone abstractors, at least not without employing the very concept that originally required explanation -- generality --, along with the application of the LOI as a rule of language.16

 

Perhaps more problematic still (i.e., for those who at least say they accept even a minimally social view of language and knowledge -- i.e., Dialectical Marxists in their saner moments) is the following: How might it be ascertained whether or not the same ideas of anything (abstract, concrete, general or particular) have been inherited correctly from previous generations of intrepid abstractors? Without access to a time machine, mind probes -- and, once more, a pre-installed grasp of the very things that had supposedly been bequeathed to later generations (i.e., general ideas, again!) -- no one would be in any position to determine the accuracy of a single 'concept' allegedly belonging to, or passed along by, this 'shared inheritance'.

 

Of course, given the validity of DM-epistemology, no start could even be made constructing knowledge of any sort or description. Not only would such an 'intentional edifice' have no secure foundation -- since its basis (i.e., supposedly inherited knowledge) has already been shown to be no firmer than quicksand -- no two prospective 'labourers' would have the same plot of land on which to work, nor would they have the same plan to guide them, the same materials to work with, or the remotest idea about what could even count as the 'same brick'!

 

This means that, based on the strictures dialecticians have placed on any concrete application of the LOI, no two people could have the same general -- or even the same particular -- idea of anything whatsoever. Nor could they even have the same idea about approximate identity (so that they could conclude their ideas only roughly coincided with those held by anyone else). If the word "same" can't be the same in any two heads (which it can't if the LOI is rejected), the phrase "approximately the same" stands no chance.

 

Worse still, if the DM-criticisms of the LOI are valid, no dialectician would have the same (or even approximately the same) general (or particular) idea that they possessed about anything a few seconds earlier, so that they could say, concerning their own opinions, that they were even approximately stable from moment-to-moment.

 

In that case, of course, the 'process of abstraction' can't even get off the ground!

 

At this stage it should hardly need pointing out that 'the process of abstraction' can make no start, nor register any progress, where there is nothing common to abstract, or no shared ideas, impressions or concepts to work with from moment-to-moment -- never mind those that can't be shared across an entire population of socially-isolated dialectical abstractors.

 

[Once more, the 'relative stability of language' defence was neutralised in Essay Six -- as was the reply that DM-theorists don't reject the LOI, they just question its applicability, especially in relation to change.]16a

 

An appeal to memory at this point would be to no avail, either. That is because, not only are memories themselves subject to the HF, it has yet to be established whether or not anyone involved in this intellectual merry-go-round has the same memory even of the meaning of the word "memory", from moment-to-moment, let alone the words "language" or "word"!

 

Once again: how on earth might any of that be established, for goodness sake?

 

[I hasten to add, once again, that the above sceptical remarks do not represent my views! They are only being aired here to expose the yawning chasm of scepticism and radical doubt implied both by Traditional-, and DM-Epistemology.] 

 

In this way, abstractionism has not only undermined the legitimate status of every single dialectical proposition (a result also established in Part One of this Essay), the entire project has only succeeded in strangling itself before birth, since its adherents unwisely bought into the bourgeois doctrine that we all form abstractions in the privacy of our own heads.

 

[Readers who question that assertion are encouraged to check this and this out, where it has been fully substantiated.]

 

Of course, that is why a claim was made at the end of Part One that the (hypothetical) activities of our heroic 'ancestral abstractors' couldn't have taken place, since no sense can be made of the supposition that they could.

 

Driven To Abstraction

 

The above points could be brushed aside as a grossly unfair misrepresentation, perhaps even a distortion, of DM, typical of these Essays and this site.

 

After all, as TAR notes:

 

"…[A]ll science 'deductively anticipates' developments -- what else is an hypothesis tested by experimentation?" [Rees (1998), p.131.]

 

That appears to contradict the claim made earlier that DM-epistemology can't cope with future contingencies. If scientists actually use abstractions -- and legitimately so in order to predict the future course of events, and with great accuracy -- how could it be problematic for DM-theorists to do likewise? What stops dialecticians from projecting their ideas into the future, especially when their theories are subject to constant check? Alas for Ms Lichtenstein, successful practice refutes the countless negative conclusions drawn at this site.

 

Or, so it might be argued...

 

Quite apart from the fact that practice has actually delivered the opposite verdict (on that, see Essay Ten Part One), it is worth pointing out that, based on DM's own principles (not mine!), the above neat and tidy, pro-DM picture would only work if 'reality itself' were Ideal. That is because, even if the author of TAR were correct that science "'deductively anticipates…' developments", that would only be possible if reality already had an 'underlying logical structure', was 'externalised thought' and, as such, were no different in form from Objective Idealism.

 

[The reasons for making such bold counter-claims were given at the beginning of Part One of Essay Three. Readers are directed there for more details. This topic will be re-examined at greater length in Essay Twelve (summary here).]

 

Among other things, Part One showed that:

 

(i) Traditional Theorists, at best, extrapolate from a limited body of (presumed) facts -- resulting in what they acknowledge is merely 'partial knowledge' -- to conclusions about all of reality, for all of time; and,

 

(ii) This approach was motivated by an ideologically-driven, but syntactically inept re-interpretation of general words as the Proper Names of Abstract Particulars, thus destroying generality -- which, ironically, it had originally sought to account for and explain. The serious errors generated by this grammatical 'wrong turn' were magnified when the 'abstractions' that had just been invented were projected onto what was in effect a 'shadow-reality' that exists anterior to 'appearances', which supposedly underpins the material world. This ersatz-reality was then regarded as 'more real' than the physical universe we see around us. Based on this, even a 'right-way-up' version of Hegelianism (i.e., DM) will always turn out to be just as Ideal as the original ('upside down') version.

 

As a result of the influence that Hegel's system/method has had on the founders of our movement, Dialectical Marxists in general have bought into this unworkable theory of knowledge (for reasons explored in Essay Nine Part Two), even though it undermines their entire worldview. That is because it is based on a series of linguistic tricks and distortions, not on scientific evidence -- or even on evidence drawn from everyday experience, still less from revolutionary practice.17

 

[What scientists supposedly do or do not do will be covered later on in this Essay.]

 

Of course, dialecticians certainly don't see things this way. They view DM as philosophically sound and quintessentially scientific, but the evidence and argument presented so far (and set out in the rest of this Essay, and at this site) throws considerable doubt on that rather peremptory conclusion.

 

'Reality': Abstract, Concrete -- Or Both?

 

The second difficulty (mentioned earlier) isn't unconnected with the first, but has somewhat different implications.

 

As we have seen, traditional solutions to the 'problem of Universals' only appeared to succeed because they either:

 

(i) Anthropomorphised the brain (along with its ideas); or they,

 

(ii) Fetishised language, so that the product of social interaction (language) was reified and transformed into the relation between objects and processes, or it became those objects and processes themselves. We saw this happen throughout Part One in connection with Traditional Theorists and dialecticians' confusion of talk about talk with talk about the world -- for example, here and here

 

As we have also discovered, in order to explain the operation of 'the mind', Empiricists found that they had to postulate the existence of what were in effect 'intelligent ideas', which were either spontaneously gregarious or were somehow capable of 'intelligently obeying' externally imposed rules/laws.

 

On the other hand, Rationalists held that contingent objects and processes themselves (or the 'unreflective' ideas we have of them) couldn't form a secure or reliable basis either for scientific or for philosophical knowledge. In fact, as they reasoned, the reverse was the case: it was the nature and development of their own ideas, or the operation of principles hard-wired in their 'consciousness'/'mind' (by 'God' or by 'nature'), that explained the 'outer' world. So, 'rational thought' was the key to understanding 'reality'. Naturally, this inverted the 'direction' of epistemology, which ended up dictating to nature what it must be like or what it must contain, as opposed to finding out what it actually contained or what it was actually like. That in turn implied 'reality' was fundamentally Ideal, fundamentally 'mind-like'.

 

All this is so far reasonably clear.

 

The next part isn't.

 

On the basis of the 'entire family of rationalist world-views', Traditional Theorists thought they had constructed (or had even 'discovered') what they took to be nature's fundamental "principles"/"laws", but what they didn't do was conclude that their theories were true merely because nature and society were law-governed. On the contrary, many held that the connection was much tighter than this. They imagined they were able to read these 'laws' into nature and society because the mind was structured in a specific way. Furthermore, the very 'possibility of experience' meant that the world (both natural and social) had to be structured in the same way, otherwise we couldn't experience it or know anything about it.18 This placed human rationality -- or, to be honest, the 'rationality' of the select few who thought along these lines (and who either had sufficient leisure time to be able to do all this 'thinking', or who enjoyed the financial backing of a rich patron; now often replaced the long-suffering tax-payer) -- right at the centre of 'the meaning'/'cognitive universe'. So, what was supposed to have been a 'Copernican Revolution' in Philosophy and Science turned out to be the exact opposite: its Ptolemaic reorientation. 'The human mind' now constructed the world and as such lay at its 'cognitive centre', not the other way round. Human thought became the arbiter of what did, or even could, exist -- or what couldn't -- based on a distorted view of language. Indeed, for a few hard core Rationalists, 'the mind' and its machinations actually constituted the world.

 

And it was to these 'Mad Dog Rationalists' that early Dialectical Marxists unwisely paid heed.

 

[On the pernicious nature of Idealism and why many still opt for it (several of which motivating factors unfortunately apply with equal measure to Marxist dialecticians), see: 'Idealism: A Victorian Horror-Story, Parts I and II', in Stove (1991), pp.83-177. (However, in relation to Stove's work, readers should take note of the caveats and warnings posted here.)]

 

This also helps explain why so many DM-fans end up as open-and-honest Mystics, or even Buddhists! Here is what I have written about that elsewhere at this site:

 

Indeed, the esoteric language Hegel himself used suggests, to those who dote on jargon like this, that there are 'ineffable truths' that lie beyond language, toward which Hegel and those who follow him can only hope to grope, and which can be grasped (in howsoever an attenuated form) by those who 'understand' dialectics -- i.e., exclusively those capable of contemplating these 'ineffables' directly via the 'concepts' to which Hegel alluded, as opposed to the actual words he used, but by no one else. Of course, that is only to be expected of genuine mystics, or, indeed, expected of the aspiring DM-Mystics who litter Dialectical Marxism.

 

This helps explain why so many dialecticians express a liking for Daoism and/or Buddhism, and why some even revert to open and honest mysticism (Michael Kosok, Roy Bhaskar, Andrew Collier, Graham Priest, and Terry Eagleton perhaps being the latest examples). Indeed, the tendency for radicals to become mystics is what motivated Lenin to write MEC. This also explains why Counterfire, home of leading Dialectical Marxists and ex-members of the UK-SWP, can publish an article extolling the virtues of Buddhism, even roping Marx himself in this! On that, see Ledwith (2023). It also explains why dialectician extraordinaire, Graham Priest, accepts some form of Buddhism. On that, see here and Priest (2014). Then there is this unfortunate video about Buddhism and Science, by Priest. In addition, he has written about the use of "contradictions" in Buddhism; cf., this on-line article by Yasuo Deguchi, Jay Garfield and Graham Priest (this links to a PDF). No wonder he also has a penchant for Hegel and the latter's dalliance with "contradictions".

 

[I have said more about the connection between Daoism and 'dialectics', especially the Maoist strain, in Note 07b. A detailed survey of the close link that exists between Daoism and Maoist 'Dialectics' can now be accessed here.]

 

If, as tradition would have it, both the world and the human 'mind' are 'reflections' of 'God's Mind', then the 'inter-reflection' between 'mind' and world, world and 'mind', would appear to guarantee that philosophical thought, left to its own devices, was capable of penetrating beneath 'surface appearances', right to the heart of 'Being Itself', uncovering its 'hidden essence'. General laws thus seemed to be either the result of these 'self-directed' concepts, which accurately captured or mirrored nature's deepest secrets, or they were in effect their constitutive cause (i.e., what Aristotle might have called their material and formal cause).

 

Hermetic Philosophers imagined that the Microcosm of the human 'mind' reflected the Macrocosm of 'God's' creation because both were the same 'substance', 'Mind'. As we have seen, that idea dates back at least to Plato:

 

"If mind and true opinion are two distinct classes, then I say that there certainly are these self-existent ideas unperceived by sense, and apprehended only by the mind; if, however, as some say, true opinion differs in no respect from mind, then everything that we perceive through the body is to be regarded as most real and certain. But we must affirm that to be distinct, for they have a distinct origin and are of a different nature; the one is implanted in us by instruction, the other by persuasion; the one is always accompanied by true reason, the other is without reason; the one cannot be overcome by persuasion, but the other can: and lastly, every man may be said to share in true opinion, but mind is the attribute of the gods and of very few men. Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only." [Plato (1997c), 51e-52a, pp.1254-55. I have used the on-line version here. Bold emphases added. The published edition translates the third set of highlighted words as follows: "It is indivisible -- it cannot be perceived by the senses at all -- and it is the role of the understanding to study it." Cornford renders it thus: "[It is] invisible and otherwise imperceptible; that, in fact, which thinking has for its object." (Cornford (1997), p.192.) See also Note 1b.]

 

And we have already seen Descartes rehearse similar thoughts and ideas:

 

"The mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on him entirely no less than the rest of his creatures. Indeed to say that these truths are independent of God is to talk of him as if he were Jupiter or Saturn and to subject him to the Styx and the Fates. Please do not hesitate to assert and proclaim everywhere that it is God who has laid down these laws in nature just as a king lays down laws in his kingdom." [Descartes (1991), p.23. Letter to Mersenne, 15/04/1630. Bold emphasis added.]

 

Mystical versions of this doctrine (which found their way into NeoPlatonism and Christian Hermeticism) held that union with 'God' was of a piece with union with Nature (or, rather, with its 'Essence'), which helps explain the origin of what turned out to be the main problematic of German Idealism: 'Subject-Object Identity'. Here is Engels on this topic (and by "thinking" he clearly meant "thinking subject"):

 

"The great basic question of all philosophy, especially of more recent philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being. From the very early times when men, still completely ignorant of the structure of their own bodies, under the stimulus of dream apparitions came to believe that their thinking and sensation were not activities of their bodies, but of a distinct soul which inhabits the body and leaves it at death -- from this time men have been driven to reflect about the relation between this soul and the outside world.... But the question of the relation of thinking and being had yet another side: in what relation do our thoughts about the world surrounding us stand to this world itself? Is our thinking capable of the cognition of the real world? Are we able in our ideas and notions of the real world to produce a correct reflection of reality? In philosophical language this question is called the question of identity of thinking and being, and the overwhelming majority of philosophers give an affirmative answer to this question.... The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets is practice -- namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the Kantian ungraspable 'thing-in-itself'. The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained just such 'things-in-themselves' until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the 'thing-in-itself' became a thing for us...." [Engels (1888), pp.593-95. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Spelling modified to agree with UK English. Paragraphs merged.]

 

In Hegel's system, the union between the 'Knower and the Known' was itself guaranteed by the correct application of Divine -- aka 'Dialectical' -- 'Logic'. The Mystical 'Rosicrucian Wedding' had finally been consummated.18a

 

As one on-line commentator pointed out in relation to Engels's version of this idea (and in response to John Rees):

 

"Thus our dialectical thought process is a reflection of a material dialectic; we are able to grasp and understand nature because we are able to understand its essential processes. This is horribly close to Hegel's claim that the root of all being is the Concept, and that we are able to understand the world because it is, at its base, rational. Now, if [Engels is] saying that the mind mirrors the world that's one thing, as the distinction between mind and matter is preserved. But...it seems that he's in fact saying that we can grasp the world because we think dialectically, and because the world is itself dialectical. There is therefore an identity between the two, rather than an opposition. This would seem to convict him of idealism, of replicating the same errors previously identified in Hegel: namely, the transposition of human agency onto some kind of cosmic force." [Quoted from here, accessed 06/06/2024. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged. Minor typo corrected.]     

 

Empiricist theories arrived at vaguely analogous conclusions, but from a completely different direction, expressed in markedly different language.19

 

Either way -- as Hegel himself pointed out -- every current, branch and form of Traditional Philosophy sooner or later found its way back to the Ideal home from whence it had evolved:

 

"Every philosophy is essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out." [Hegel (1999), pp.154-55; §316. Bold added.]20

 

Nevertheless, the serious problems this approach to knowledge brought in its train re-surfaced in DM, only now in a much more acute form. Dialecticians claim that their system somehow reverses the above process of cognition (in order to neutralise its obvious Idealist implications, albeit after its "mystical shell" has been removed, leaving behind its "rational kernel" -- I am quoting Marx here, not to censure him but to criticise the use to which his words have been put; I have taken a completely different view of them, drawn from the Afterword to the Second Edition of Das Kapital, in Essay Nine Part One). Hence, dialecticians claim their theory has rotated Hegel's system through 180º, which means it now stands proudly on its own materialist legs -- hardly noticing that the Ideal backside is now located where the materialist head used to be.

 

Well, that at least helps account for all the 'hot air'...

 

However, 'logical chicanery' like this wasn't designed to operate in reverse, which is why Idealist Forward Gear always remains engaged.

 

As Essay Two has shown, dialecticians proceed as if it were quite natural, if not completely uncontroversial, to derive universal and necessary truths about nature and society from thought, from language or from 'concepts' alone. Not only do they act as if they think their laws and a priori theories are applicable to all of reality, for all of time, they have to talk this way. It comes with the territory.

 

[Those who think that the above allegations are wildly inaccurate are invited to check Essay Two for themselves (link above), along with the scores of quotations from the DM-classics (and even more from secondary DM-theorists), which confirm their accuracy. Why they think this way is revealed in Essay Nine Part Two.]

 

Here is part of the reason: The Dialectical Macrocosm and the Dialectical Microcosm are two sides of the same coin. That is because this entire world-view was inherited (in a modified form) from Aristocratic Greek thinkers who designed it and fully intended it should work this way. These ancient "ruling-ideas" now rule 'radical' brains because, to DM-fans, they seem so natural, so quintessentially 'philosophical', who could possibly doubt them (other than political enemies)? If DM-theorists didn't think and talk like this, they wouldn't have a 'genuine philosophy' to call their own, certainly not one that Lenin claimed was the final and legitimate heir of the 'very best elements' of 'western thought':

 

"The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling 'sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism. The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism." [Lenin, Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism. Bold emphases alone added. Paragraphs merged.]20a

 

Hence, DM-theorists are lapel-clutchingly desperate to be seen as the rightful heirs of the 'western' philosophical tradition -- which is, of course, the intellectual equivalent of wanting to 'hang with the cool kids'.

 

It is also one of the main reasons HCDs both dislike and disregard my Essays; my work repudiates this entire tradition and (as they see things) it compounds that 'error' by failing to use post-Kantian philosophical gobbledygook. In the meantime, they have well and truly 'sold their radical souls' to these ruling-class forms-of-thought, which means they resent anyone who has the temerity to point this out, or whose refusal to join in a sell-out of this magnitude exposes their inexcusable compromise and ideological complicity with the class enemy.

 

Harsh words indeed, but they are as merited as they have been well earned.

 

Nevertheless, if DM-abstractions provide the 'metaphysical glue' that supposedly binds together what would otherwise be rather fragmentary, even unreliable, knowledge -- or which even enables the formation of knowledge, as Lenin argued --, what else could these remnants of Ancient Greek Word-Magic imply about Nature except that it is just One Big Idea? Our knowledge is guaranteed by abstraction because, deep down, the world is just One Big Abstraction.

 

"Logical concepts are subjective so long as they remain 'abstract,' in their abstract form, but at the same time they express the Thing-in-themselves. Nature is both concrete and abstract, both phenomenon and essence, both moment and relation." [Lenin (1961), p.208. Italic emphases in the original.]

 

"Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract -- provided it is correct (NB)… -- does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, the law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely." [Ibid., p.171. Italic emphases in the original.]

 

Perhaps we can also now understand why Lenin argued this way: DM is the Ideal Offspring of an equally Ideal Family. And this family tree stretches right back into the mists of ruling-class time.

 

That also explains why DM-theorists think matter is abstract.

 

Of course, dialecticians never tire of telling us that their 'abstractions' have been derived from nature and society (via some sort of 'law of cognition'), and have been "tested in practice":

 

"Testing by facts or by practice respectively, is to be found here in each step of the analysis." [Lenin (1961), p.318.]

 

Unfortunately, the above considerations cast serious doubt on the validity of that claim.

 

Nevertheless, as the Essays published at this site unfold, these 'infant doubts' will mature quite alarmingly.

 

Collective Error Over General Terms

 

Nominalism aside, traditional theories concerning the origin and nature of Abstract General Ideas all shared the belief that 'the mind' was somehow capable of ascending from particulars (given in experience) to the general (not so given) -- or, perhaps the other way round (depending on which Idealist was telling the tale): 'the mind' was supposedly capable of 'ascertaining' general 'concepts' by unifying particulars under an 'objective law', or by means of something called an "apprehension". The first alternative envisioned this taking place as 'the mind' progressively disregarded the unique ("accidental" or "inessential") properties and predicates (these two terms/concepts now irreversibly conflated) belonging to particulars given in experience. The second had 'the mind' searching for wider connections in order to 'uncover', or expose, the hidden 'essences' that lay behind 'appearances'.21

 

That alone should have prompted anyone who at least claimed to be materialists to pause for more than just a moment. What on earth could be so materialist about a theory that has to withdraw from the material into the Ideal, or which had to disregard multiple features of the material world in such an irresponsible and peremptory manner, in order to 'advance knowledge'?

 

The pay-off, so we have been led to believe, was the greater 'explanatory power and understanding' both approaches supposedly enabled. But, if the latter is gained at the expense of populating the world with nearly as many 'abstractions' as there are material bodies, and which, paradoxically, turn out to be 'more real' than those material bodies themselves(!) -- since these 'abstractions' are required in order to explain the nature and behaviour of objects and process in 'reality', not the other way round -- one wonders what sort of victory has been won over Idealism. One would have thought the word "capitulation" was more appropriate. At best, it would represent a 'victory' of the same order, perhaps, as that of the Church over 'sin', 'crime' and war -- or, that of Social Democracy over Capitalism. This question becomes all the more ironic when it is recalled that dialectics is incapable of explaining anything (which the reader will, I am sure, increasingly appreciate as the Essays published at this site unfold), a disconcerting outcome further compounded by the additional fact that Dialectical Marxism has been such an abject, long-term failure. [Those two features aren't, of course, unrelated.]

 

In fact, the opposite outcome looks far more likely (which is yet another rather fitting 'dialectical inversion'' for readers to ponder). That is because this entire approach is based on the ancient, Idealist dogma that the material world is somehow insufficient to itself, that it isn't fully real, and that it 'essentially' depends on something that is 'real', which has therefore to be immaterial for the material world to be 'real', an idea that itself depends on the mystical dogma that the universe requires an underlying superstructure of Ideal Principles to make it work, if not allow it to exist or even keep it in existence.

 

The result is that DM-theorists (would you credit it!) also believe that matter is far too crude and lifeless to do anything on its own (recall: Engels, taking his lead from Hegel, actually called matter an "abstraction"!) -- even though this appears to be all that nature has to offer. According to these Idealists (and their enablers in Dialectical Marxism), nature also requires a 'Logic' of some sort to make it tick, give it life and even lend it 'substance'.

 

"Contradiction is the root of all movement and life, and it is only in so far as it contains a contradiction that anything moves and has impulse and activity." [Hegel (1999), p.439, §956. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"So long as we consider things at rest and lifeless, each one by itself…we do not run up against any contradictions in them…. But the position is quite different as soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence. Then we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction…. [T]here is a contradiction objectively present in things and processes themselves, a contradiction is moreover an actual force...." [Engels (1976), pp.152-53. Bold emphases added.]

 

"Dialectics…prevails throughout nature…. [T]he motion through opposites which asserts itself everywhere in nature, and which by the continual conflict of the opposites…determines the life of nature." [Engels (1954), p.211. Bold emphasis added.]

 

"The identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their 'self-movement,' in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of opposites. The two basic (or two possible? or two historically observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites (the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal relation). In the first conception of motion, self-movement, its driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject, etc.). In the second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the source of 'self'-movement. The first conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second alone furnishes the key to the 'self-movement' of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to the 'leaps,' to the 'break in continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new. The unity (coincidence, identity, equal action) of opposites is conditional, temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute." [Lenin (1961), pp.357-58. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Paragraphs merged.]

 

"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.... As opposed to the metaphysical world outlook, the world outlook of materialist dialectics holds that in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within the thing. There is internal contradiction in every single thing, hence its motion and development.... The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end....There is nothing that does not contain contradictions; without contradiction nothing would exist.... Thus it is already clear that contradiction exists universally and is in all processes, whether in the simple or in the complex forms of motion, whether in objective phenomena or ideological phenomena.... Contradiction is universal and absolute, it is present in the process of the development of all things and permeates every process from beginning to end...." [Mao (1937), pp.311-18. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged.]

 

Well, we all know which religion is based on anthropomorphisms like these -- and, on a belief in The Logos.

 

Spoiler: apparently, in one form or another, the vast majority! We have already seen this from the Gospel of John:

 

"In the beginning was the Word [λόγος -- logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind." [John 1:1-4. Bold emphasis added.]

 

And this also helps explain why Lenin could declare that he preferred intelligent Idealism to "crude materialism". Plainly, he hadn't fully shaken off the regressive influence of the sort of Christian Mysticism that had been forced down his throat as a child (his family was Russian Orthodox, into which faith Lenin had been baptised and inducted):

 

"Intelligent idealism is closer to intelligent materialism than stupid materialism. Dialectical idealism instead of intelligent; (sic) metaphysical, undeveloped, dead, crude, rigid instead of stupid." [Lenin (1961), p.274. Bold emphasis added. (I explain why he said this, here.)]

 

From this, it is quite clear that Lenin meant "Dialectical idealism is closer to intelligent materialism than crude materialism...".22

 

Many other dialecticians quote this passage, always approvingly -- for example, here, here, here, here and here (the last of these links to a PDF).

 

By nailing their colours to this (class-compromised) mast, DM-fans have unfortunately placed themselves on the side of the 'Gods'.

 

Diodorus Siculus was, I think, the originator of that particular trope:

 

"When the Gigantes about Pallene chose to begin war against the immortals, Herakles fought on the side of the gods, and slaying many of the Sons of Ge [or Gaia, the 'Earth Goddess' -- RL] he received the highest approbation. For Zeus gave the name of Olympian only to those gods who had fought by his side, in order that the courageous, by being adorned by so honourable a title, might be distinguished by this designation from the coward; and of those who were born of mortal women he considered only Dionysos and Herakles worthy of this name." [Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.15.1.]

 

That metaphor alludes to an image painted in Hesiod's Theogony (links at the end), later put to use by Plato in his dialogue, Sophist (i.e., Plato 1997b), which is one of his more profound surviving works. Indeed, the Sophist and two of his other dialogues -- Theaetetus (Plato (1997e)) and Parmenides (Plato (1997d)) -- are the principle source of much of subsequent Idealism.

 

The following excerpt from the Sophist reports on a conversation between an Eleatic "Stranger" (who appears to be a follower of Parmenides) and a character called "Theaetetus":

 

"Stranger. We are far from having exhausted the more exact thinkers who treat of being and not-being. But let us be content to leave them, and proceed to view those who speak less precisely; and we shall find as the result of all, that the nature of being is quite as difficult to comprehend as that of not-being....

 

"...There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on amongst them; they are fighting with one another about the nature of essence.

 

"Theaetetus. How is that?

 

"Stranger. Some of them are dragging down all things from heaven and from the unseen to earth, and they literally grasp in their hands rocks and trees; of these they lay hold, and obstinately maintain, that the things only which can be touched or handled have being or essence, because they define being and body as one, and if any one else says that what is not a body exists they altogether despise him, and will hear of nothing but body.

 

"Theaetetus. I have often met with such men, and terrible fellows they are.

 

"Stranger. And that is the reason why their opponents cautiously defend themselves from above, out of an unseen world, mightily contending that true essence consists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas; the bodies of the materialists, which by them are maintained to be the very truth, they break up into little bits by their arguments, and affirm them to be, not essence, but generation and motion. Between the two armies, Theaetetus, there is always an endless conflict raging concerning these matters.

 

"Theaetetus. True.

 

"Stranger. Let us ask each party in turn, to give an account of that which they call essence.

 

"Theaetetus. How shall we get it out of them?

 

"Stranger. With those who make being to consist in ideas, there will be less difficulty, for they are civil people enough; but there will be very great difficulty, or rather an absolute impossibility, in getting an opinion out of those who drag everything down to matter. Shall I tell you what we must do?

 

"Theaetetus. What?

 

"Stranger. Let us, if we can, really improve them; but if this is not possible, let us imagine them to be better than they are, and more willing to answer in accordance with the rules of argument, and then their opinion will be more worth having; for that which better men acknowledge has more weight than that which is acknowledged by inferior men. Moreover we are no respecters of persons, but seekers after truth." [Plato (1997b), pp.267-68, 246a-246d. I have used the on-line version here. Bold emphases added.]

 

[As noted earlier, this battle is described in Hesiod's Theogony (lines 675-715), a copy of which is available here.]

 

Again: from this it is quite clear that Marxist Dialecticians are far closer to the 'Idealist Gods' than they are to the 'Materialist Giants'!23

 

Clearly, that further explains why DM-theorists insist matter is just an 'abstraction'.

 

They are, if nothing else, consistent team-players -- alas, for the wrong team!

 

Abstractionism: Have We Come To Bury It -- Or Praise It?

 

You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Confusion

 

Unfortunately, unlike Capitalism, Abstractionism has attracted few effective gravediggers, and those it has managed to accrue have proved to be even less successful at overthrowing the latter than workers have been at toppling the former. That is largely because these would-be-undertakers were (and still are) far more content simply to underline the psychological impossibility of the 'abstractionist project' than they are to expose its logical flaws --, or, indeed, reveal its ideologically-compromised origin and motivating factors.

 

So, this "ruling idea" lumbers on to "rule" another day and another compliant DM-fan.

 

More recently, however, Abstractionism has been subjected to a series of destructive critiques, but still it limps along. That in turn is partly because many of those who avowedly came to bury it -- unlike Shakespeare's Mark Antony -- ended up praising it by emulating it. In so doing they only succeeded in breathing new life into its moribund corpse, and that they did by inventing brand new 'essentialist' theories of their own.24

 

Public Criteria Vs Private Gain

 

As we have seen, an ability to talk about cats and dogs, for instance, depends on an already established grasp (in use) of the relevant general terms (otherwise, plainly, nothing could be said about these animals). This fact needs no explanation, nor could one be offered that didn't also have to employ the very language which required explaining in the first place --, i.e., general terms.25

 

If the above observations have anything going for them, it perhaps lies in the fact they re-direct our attention away from any attempt to investigate (obscure) 'internal processes' and 'privately executed' capacities -- supposedly possessed by each 'lone abstractor' --, and re-directs it toward socially acquired, publicly performed, checkable skills and abilities, in order to understand the linguistic expression of generality, and how it is connected with socially-acquired, socially-legitimated and socially-disseminated knowledge.

 

Of course, only an anti-materialist would register a complaint at this point.

 

Which is why emphasis has been placed at this site -- in accord with Marx's advice -- on our use of ordinary language in a public domain. It is also why serious questions have been raised about the ability we are all supposed to possess of being able to 'squeeze abstract epistemological juice' out of 'desiccated discourse', in the 'privacy of our own heads'.

 

In contrast once more, the approach adopted here means that human cognition is open to view, subject to public scrutiny and inter-subjective verification, unlike the mysterious, 'internal rituals' that supposedly constitute the 'process of abstraction' --, which, it is worth recalling, no one seems able to describe with any clarity, and which even fails to deliver what had all along been advertised for it.26

 

Particular Problems With 'Dialectical Generality'

 

It has been argued at length (both above and in Part One) that instead of beginning with the general as a way of advancing toward knowledge of the particular, the DM-'process of abstraction' in fact turns general words into the Proper Names of Abstract Particulars -- and it then goes precisely nowhere with them. That not only distorts the way language actually works (destroying the capacity it has for saying anything at all along the way), it stalls the 'dialectical juggernaut' in its tracks even before it can be tested in practice.

 

Much of the rest of Essay Three is aimed at elaborating upon, and then substantiating, these sweeping accusations.

 

Anti-Abstractionism

 

'Mental Strip-Tease'?

 

[This used to form part of Note 24.]

 

While we are at it, what exactly are the common features that can be abstracted from (or even attributed to) all shades of, say, the colour blue? Or, the notes played on the trombone or even a set of bagpipes? What is common to the taste of different wines or different herbs? Or, the feel of silk, wool and nylon? Or, the smell of roses, honeysuckle and wet dogs?

 

Admittedly, in relation to several of the above the use of other general terms might come into play -- but they, too, will attract similar questions. For instance, an appeal might be made to certain tastes or aromas that can be detected in different wines -- such as: "a fruity bouquet". But, once more, what are the common features of "fruity bouquets"? One answer to that question might involve a reference to the taste or smell of Lychees, for example. But, what are the common features of the taste/smell of Lychees? And so on, ad infinitem.

 

[I owe this general point to Geach (1957); on this see also Cowie (2002) and Laurence and Margolis (2012), pp.1-10. Of course, considerations like these raise issues concerning the relation between science and 'common sense', a topic entered into in more detail below. This topic also involves the ancient and erroneous idea that the properties of bodies can be treated as objects in their own right, an idea that is not unconnected with the equally odd idea that there can be 'bare particulars;' -- that is objects that have lost all their properties (mentioned earlier), either actually or in thought alone. I will have more to say about this presently.]