Essay Seven Part One: Engels's Three 'Laws' Of Dialectics
Readers should take note of the fact that this Essay does not represent my final views on any of the issues raised. It is merely 'work in progress'.
If you are viewing this with Mozilla Firefox you might not be able to read all the symbols I have used.
[A US comrade (Brian Jones) has attempted to respond to a letter I sent to the International Socialist Review concerning several of the issues raised in this Essay. You can read the original letter here, comrade Jones's reply here, and my response to him here. More recently, a UK comrade has also tried to reply to some of my criticisms; the details can be found here and here. More recently still, another US comrade has also tried to respond to some of the points I have made in this Essay. On that see, here.]
This Essay is just over 130,000 words long; three short summaries of its main ideas can be accessed here.
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(A) Introduction
(1) Not Everything Changes In 'Leaps'
(3) Awkward Facts Dialecticians Prefer To Ignore
(4) Reciprocal?
(5) Counter-Examples Begin To Mount Up
(6) Isomers Refute First 'Law'
(7) Tautomers, Resonance And Mesomers -- More Nails In The DM-Coffin?
(8) Counterexamples Just Keep Stacking-Up
(10) Trotsky In The Soup
(11) "Quality" Defined?
(12) Back In The Soup
(13) Quantity And Quality Once More
(14) Boiling Water And Balding Heads
(15) DM And Mickey Mouse Science
(C) The Interpenetration Of Opposites
(1) Why Dialectics Can't Explain Change
(2) Is Everything Really A 'Unity Of Opposites'?
(3) Suicidal Cats
(4) Not Just Bad News For Cats
(5) Plastic Laws
(6) Lenin Maxes Out
(7) Single-celled Reactionaries?
(8) Every Confirmation Is Also A Refutation
(9) The Dialecticians' Dilemma
(10) The Revenge Of The Petty-Bourgeois Cell
(iii) Change Into What?
(iv) A New Theory?
(11) Engels, Marx And Mathematics
(12) Dialectics Meets The Calculus -- And Comes To Nought
(13) Dialectical -- Or Just Plain Dotty?
(14) Is The Second 'Law' Incompatible With The First?
(D) The Negation Of The Negation
(2) Terminator Four: The Rise Of Monsanto
(3) Socialism Introduced From Without -- Perhaps By Aliens
(E) Notes
(F) References
Abbreviations Used At This Site
For many dialecticians, "Three Laws Of Dialectics" encapsulate the core ideas of classical DM. Others regard these 'Laws' as far too crude and formulaic. TAR, however, takes the middle course, downplaying their significance somewhat, while preferring to define DM in terms of mediated Totality and change through "internal contradiction", etc. [p.5.] Nevertheless, its author noted that:
"The 'three laws' are...useful reminders of forms in which dialectical contradictions sometimes work themselves out.... The three laws are not, even in Hegel, the only way in which dialectical development can take place. They can't be understood without the broader definition of the dialectic discussed above [pp.3-8]. They are not, as Marx and Engels were quick to insist, a substitute for the difficult, empirical task of tracing the development of real contradictions, not a suprahistorical master key whose only advantage is to turn up where no real historical knowledge is available." [Rees (1998), pp.8-9.]
[DM = Dialectical Materialism; TAR = The Algebra of Revolution; i.e., Rees (1998).]
However, as Essay Two has shown, this is precisely how these 'Laws' (and other dialectical principles) have been interpreted by dialecticians for over a century -- that is, as just such a master key.
Indeed, in a recent article in Socialist Review, John Rees endorsed this 'Law' unreservedly; on the basis of just one example -- the hardy perennial, water freezing and/or boiling -- he was happy to assert:
"Indeed this is a feature of many different sorts of change, even in the natural world. Water that rises in temperature by one degree at a time shows no dramatic change until it reaches boiling point when it 'suddenly' becomes steam. At that point its whole nature is transformed from being a liquid into a vapour.
"Lower the temperature of water by a single degree at a time and again there is no dramatic change until it reaches freezing point, when it is transformed from a liquid into a solid -- ice.
"Dialecticians call this process the transformation of quantity into quality. Slow, gradual changes that do not add up to a transformation in the nature of a thing suddenly reach a tipping point when the whole nature of the thing is transformed into something new." [Rees (2008), p.24. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
From that, Rees suddenly "leaps" to this conclusion:
"This is why Marx described the dialectic as 'an abomination to the bourgeoisie' and why Lenin said of this method that it 'alone furnishes the key to 'self-movement' of everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to 'leaps', to the 'break in continuity'...to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new'". [Ibid. Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
So, here we see yet more a priori dogmatism, based on little or no evidence. One minute, these 'Laws' aren't a master key, next they are and then are imposed peremptorily on "everything existing".
As we will soon discover, Rees ignored the many cases where "qualitative" change is not "sudden", just as he ignored the many examples where this 'Law' just does not work.
Nevertheless, this Essay is aimed at showing that these 'Laws' are at best false, at worst terminally vague, and in the case of the last two, far too vague and confused even to be assessed for their truth or falsehood.
They are certainly of no use at all in helping revolutionaries understand and therefore change the world.
Even so, Engels summarised these 'Laws' in the following way:
"The law of the transformation of quantity into quality, and vice versa; The law of the interpenetration of opposites; The law of the negation of the negation." [Engels (1954), p.62.]
Earlier, he had characterised them thus:
"Dialectics as the science of universal inter-connection. Main laws: transformation of quantity into quality -- mutual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other when carried to extremes -- development through contradiction or negation of the negation -- spiral form of development." [Ibid., p.17.]
'Law' One: Quantity Into Quality
Engels outlined the First 'Law' as follows:
"...[T]he transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Ibid., p.63. Bold emphasis alone added.]
Exactly how Engels knew that it's impossible to "alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion" he annoyingly kept to himself. His certainty in this regard can't have been based on the limited evidence available in his day, for there is no body of evidence that could confirm that it's "impossible" to alter the "quality" of a body in the way he says. The vastly increased amount of data we have today can't even show that this is an "impossibility".
Perhaps Engels was simply being careless in his choice of words (in these private notebooks)? Maybe so, but no dialectician since his day has noticed that it isn't possible to derive an "impossibility" from a set of contingent facts, no matter how large that set is.
This puzzle is made all the more acute when we recall that for Engels, matter itself is just an abstraction [cf., Engels (1954), p.255]; in that case, it seems energy must be, too. If so, how can anything be altered by the addition (or subtraction) of an abstraction?
[But, we already know the answer; Engels didn't derive this 'Law' from a research tradition in the physical sciences, he copied it from Hegel, who similarly based it on a handful of anecdotal examples.]
To be sure, his characterisation of this 'Law' is slightly more tempered in AD:
"This is precisely the Hegelian nodal line of measure relations, in which, at certain definite nodal points, the purely quantitative increase or decrease gives rise to a qualitative leap; for example, in the case of heated or cooled water, where boiling-point and freezing-point are the nodes at which -- under normal pressure -- the leap to a new state of aggregation takes place, and where consequently quantity is transformed into quality." [Engels (1976), p.56. I have used the online version here, but quoted the page numbers for the Foreign Languages edition. Bold emphasis added.]
"With this assurance Herr Dühring saves himself the trouble of saying anything further about the origin of life, although it might reasonably have been expected that a thinker who had traced the evolution of the world back to its self-equal state, and is so much at home on other celestial bodies, would have known exactly what's what also on this point. For the rest, however, the assurance he gives us is only half right unless it is completed by the Hegelian nodal line of measure relations which has already been mentioned. In spite of all gradualness, the transition from one form of motion to another always remains a leap, a decisive change. This is true of the transition from the mechanics of celestial bodies to that of smaller masses on a particular celestial body; it is equally true of the transition from the mechanics of masses to the mechanics of molecules -- including the forms of motion investigated in physics proper: heat, light, electricity, magnetism. In the same way, the transition from the physics of molecules to the physics of atoms -- chemistry -- in turn involves a decided leap; and this is even more clearly the case in the transition from ordinary chemical action to the chemism of albumen which we call life. Then within the sphere of life the leaps become ever more infrequent and imperceptible. -- Once again, therefore, it is Hegel who has to correct Herr Dühring." [Ibid., pp.82-83. Bold emphasis added.]
"We have already seen earlier, when discussing world schematism, that in connection with this Hegelian nodal line of measure relations -- in which quantitative change suddenly passes at certain points into qualitative transformation -- Herr Dühring had a little accident: in a weak moment he himself recognised and made use of this line. We gave there one of the best-known examples -- that of the change of the aggregate states of water, which under normal atmospheric pressure changes at 0°C from the liquid into the solid state, and at 100°C from the liquid into the gaseous state, so that at both these turning-points the merely quantitative change of temperature brings about a qualitative change in the condition of the water." [Ibid., p.160. Bold emphasis added.]
However, in that book, and surprising though this might seem, Engels had already provided a neat refutation of his own 'Law':
"Whereas only ten years ago the great basic law of motion, then recently discovered, was as yet conceived merely as a law of the conservation of energy, as the mere expression of the indestructibility and uncreatability of motion, that is, merely in its quantitative aspect, this narrow negative conception is being more and more supplanted by the positive idea of the transformation of energy, in which for the first time the qualitative content of the process comes into its own, and the last vestige of an extramundane creator is obliterated. That the quantity of motion (so-called energy) remains unaltered when it is transformed from kinetic energy (so-called mechanical force) into electricity, heat, potential energy, etc., and vice versa, no longer needs to be preached as something new; it serves as the already secured basis for the now much more pregnant investigation into the very process of transformation, the great basic process, knowledge of which comprises all knowledge of nature." [Ibid., p.15. Bold emphases added.]
Attentive readers will no doubt note that Engels argues that the same amount of energy can be transformed and appear in a different form, with a whole new set of qualities. So, here we have qualitative change with no addition of matter or energy. In all my years studying DM (over thirty and counting...), I have yet to encounter a single author (DM-supporter and critic alike) -- and I have waded through far more than is good for any human being to have to endure -- who has spotted this major faux pas in this classical DM-text.
But, even this will sail right over the heads of the DM-faithful.
The fact that Engels has himself killed off this part of DM is an academic, pedantic detail -- a nit-picking point, mere 'semantics', "logic-chopping" --, etc., etc.
However, it's worth recalling this isn't a minor point; these energetic changes govern much that happens in the entire universe -- indeed, as Engels points out;
"[I]t serves as the already secured basis for the now much more pregnant investigation into the very process of transformation, the great basic process, knowledge of which comprises all knowledge of nature." [Ibid.]
Putting this fatal and self-inflicted blow to one side, Engels did at least try to deny that his:
"...laws [have been] foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them." [Engels (1954), p.62.]
He also declared:
"Finally, for me there could be no question of superimposing the laws of dialectics on nature but of discovering them in it and developing them from it." [Engels (1976), p.13. Bold emphasis added.]
But, his precipitous deduction of a necessary law (i.e., one that uses the word "impossible") from only a handful of cases -- largely drawn from certain areas of nineteenth century chemistry, buttressed by a few quirky, anecdotal examples taken from everyday life and/or from the popular science of Engels's day -- is a neat trick dialecticians alone seem capable of performing. Even if Engels had access to evidence several orders of magnitude greater than we have today, that would still not justify his use of "impossible" above.
Less partisan observers might be forgiven for concluding that Engels either did not know what the word "foisted" meant, or he hoped no one would notice when he actually indulged in a little of it himself.
Despite this, it might seem that Engels already had an answer to this objection (and one he also lifted from Hegel):
"'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. The form of universality is the form of completeness, hence of the infinite. We know that chlorine and hydrogen, within certain limits of temperature and pressure and under the influence of light, combine with an explosion to form hydrochloric acid gas, and as soon as we know this, we know also that this takes place everywhere and at all times where the above conditions are present....The form of universality in nature is law, and no one talks of the eternal character of the laws of nature than the natural scientists.... All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and hence the essentially absolute.
"...[This] can only take place in an infinite asymptotic progress." [Engels (1954), pp.234-35. Italic emphases in the original.]
However, since the scientists in Engels's day (from whose work he was generalising) were Christians, as was Hegel, you'd expect them to talk this way. But, their own conclusions (about these alleged "laws") do not follow from the evidence any more than the existence of God does. As we will see in a later Essay, in their attempt to explain the content of their work to non-specialists, scientists often indulge in amateur metaphysics, but this should no more influence us than their political opinions do. And, since scientists are constantly changing their minds over what these 'eternal' laws are, only the unwise would base their philosophy on shifting sands such as these.
As I argued in Essay Eight Part Two:
"How is it possible to translate the word 'infinite' as 'law-governed process'? Now Engels tries to equate the two, but an 'always' and 'at all times' are not an 'infinite'.
"In a later Essay, we will see that this view of scientific law is a carry-over from ancient animistic ideas about nature, and so it is no surprise to see this idea re-surface here in such Hermetically-compromised company. [On this see here, and here; the first is Swartz (2009), the second Swartz (2003).]" [This is quoted from here, as part of my demolition of this aspect of Hegel's a priori Superscience.]
Nevertheless, Engels's First 'Law' is, at best, only partially true; as we shall see, countless processes in nature in fact 'disobey' it, so it can't be a law (in any sense of that word). Even where it seems to work, it does so only because Engels left several key terms undefined -- in which indeterminate state they remain to this day.
It could be argued that many scientific laws face the same problems with regard to isolated exceptions. That objection has been fielded here.
Engels's First 'Law' is supposed to work discontinuously (i.e., "nodally"), allowing nature and society to develop by making "leaps" (a term all DM-fans like to use, even while they leave it studiously vague).
Here is how Hegel depicted things:
"It is said, natura non facit saltum [there are no leaps in nature]; and ordinary thinking when it has to grasp a coming-to-be or a ceasing-to-be, fancies it has done so by representing it as a gradual emergence or disappearance. But we have seen that the alterations of being in general are not only the transition of one magnitude into another, but a transition from quality into quantity and vice versa, a becoming-other which is an interruption of gradualness and the production of something qualitatively different from the reality which preceded it. Water, in cooling, does not gradually harden as if it thickened like porridge, gradually solidifying until it reached the consistency of ice; it suddenly solidifies, all at once. It can remain quite fluid even at freezing point if it is standing undisturbed, and then a slight shock will bring it into the solid state." [Hegel (1999), p.370, §776. Bold emphasis alone added.]
And here is Engels, again:
"With this assurance Herr Dühring saves himself the trouble of saying anything further about the origin of life, although it might reasonably have been expected that a thinker who had traced the evolution of the world back to its self-equal state, and is so much at home on other celestial bodies, would have known exactly what's what also on this point. For the rest, however, the assurance he gives us is only half right unless it is completed by the Hegelian nodal line of measure relations which has already been mentioned. In spite of all gradualness, the transition from one form of motion to another always remains a leap, a decisive change. This is true of the transition from the mechanics of celestial bodies to that of smaller masses on a particular celestial body; it is equally true of the transition from the mechanics of masses to the mechanics of molecules -- including the forms of motion investigated in physics proper: heat, light, electricity, magnetism. In the same way, the transition from the physics of molecules to the physics of atoms -- chemistry -- in turn involves a decided leap; and this is even more clearly the case in the transition from ordinary chemical action to the chemism of albumen which we call life. Then within the sphere of life the leaps become ever more infrequent and imperceptible. -- Once again, therefore, it is Hegel who has to correct Herr Dühring." [Engels (1976), pp.82-83. Bold emphasis added.]
"We have already seen earlier, when discussing world schematism, that in connection with this Hegelian nodal line of measure relations -- in which quantitative change suddenly passes at certain points into qualitative transformation -- Herr Dühring had a little accident: in a weak moment he himself recognised and made use of this line. We gave there one of the best-known examples -- that of the change of the aggregate states of water, which under normal atmospheric pressure changes at 0°C from the liquid into the solid state, and at 100°C from the liquid into the gaseous state, so that at both these turning-points the merely quantitative change of temperature brings about a qualitative change in the condition of the water." [Ibid., p.160. Bold emphasis added.]
Here, too, is Plekhanov:
"[I]t will be understood without difficulty by anyone who is in the least capable of dialectical thinking...[that] quantitative changes, accumulating gradually, lead in the end to changes of quality, and that these changes of quality represent leaps, interruptions in gradualness…. That is how all Nature acts…." [Plekhanov (1956), pp.74-77, 88, 163. Bold emphases alone added.]
And this is what Lenin had to say:
"The 'nodal line of measure relations'... -- transitions of quantity into quality.... Gradualness and leaps. And again...that gradualness explains nothing without leaps." [Lenin (1961), p.123. Bold emphasis alone added. Lenin added in the margin here: "Leaps! Leaps! Leaps!"]
"What distinguishes the dialectical transition from the undialectical transition? The leap. The contradiction. The interruption of gradualness. The unity (identity) of Being and not-Being." [Ibid., p.282. Bold emphasis added.]
"The identity of opposites (it would be more correct, perhaps, to say their 'unity,' -- although the difference between the terms identity and unity is not particularly important here. In a certain sense both are correct) is the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society). 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 'leaps,' to the 'break in continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of the old and the emergence of the new." [Ibid., pp.357-58. Bold emphasis alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
Unfortunately for these a priori dogmatists, many things in nature change qualitatively without passing through such "nodal points" -- with not even so much as a tiny "leap".
These include the following: melting or solidifying plastic (polymers), metal, resin, rock, sulphur, tar, toffee, sugar, chocolate, wax, butter, cheese, and glass.01 As these are heated or cooled, they gradually change (from liquid to solid, or vice versa). There isn't even a "nodal point" with respect to balding heads! Individuals do not suddenly become bald.01a In fact, it's difficult to think of many state of matter transformations (from solid to liquid (or vice versa)) that exhibit just such "nodal points" -- and these include the transition from ice to water (and arguably also the condensation of steam). Even the albumen of fried or boiled eggs changes slowly (but non-"nodally") from clear to opaque white while they are being cooked.1
[Those who think that the above comments are seriously mistaken should consult Note One, as well as this and this, and then think again.]
Naturally, all this depends on how the duration of a "nodal" point is defined. Unfortunately DM-fans have to this day failed to specify their length (nor have they even so much as mentioned their duration -- indeed, in discussions on the Internet, this objection wrong foots most DM-fans, so they either ignore it, or call it "pedantic"). Because of this, dialecticians are free to indulge in some sloppy, subjective, off-the-cuff, a priori Superscience (which they all seem fond of doing -- hardly one fails to come up with his or her own favourite and/or idiosyncratic example, tested, of course, only in the laboratory of the mind, and studiously un-peer reviewed -- which is why I have called this part of DM: Mickey Mouse Science!).
[Since writing the above, I have discovered that this is not strictly true. The very first book I have encountered (in over 25 years of trawling through the wastelands of DM-literature) that actually tries to deal with this 'difficulty' is Kuusinen (1961) -- which I first obtained in 2007. Several comments on this work can be found here.]
Another favourite example offered up in this regard is Steven Jay Gould's theory of "Punctuated Equilibria". Unfortunately, amateur dialectical palaeontologists have failed to notice that the alleged "nodal" points here last tens of thousands of years! This is a pretty unimpressive "leap" -- it's more like a painfully slow crawl. Snails on downers are more nimble!
Moreover, since no individual organism actually changes into a new species, there is no obvious object or body here which alters in quality as quantitative variations accumulate. This contradicts Engels once more:
"Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Engels (1954), p.63. Emphasis added.]
Again, we seem to have neither an Hegelian, nor yet an Aristotelian "substance" in which such "qualities" can inhere, and hence change. Worse still, it's not easy to see what the alleged quantities here are supposed to be, either.
It could be objected that these "quantities" are quite clearly the many minor variations that accumulate in populations of organisms, which lead at some point to a qualitative species-change. But, many small variations are qualitative already, and many of those occur in different organisms, not cumulatively in just one organism. And novel qualitative changes introduced by mutation can't arise slowly (and then make a DM-"leap" after they have been accumulated), since they already appear suddenly. In other words, there is no slow gradual change here, no "interruption in gradualness" (since there is no obvious gradualness), leading to a mutational "leap"; mutations themselves are sudden and already qualitative.
So, at least here we appear to have changes in quality caused by no obvious or straight-forward changes in quantity!
In any case, even if the above comments are rejected for some reason, the following questions remain: What precisely is being slowly quantitatively accumulated here? And in what are all these quantitative changes occurring? No one supposes that if, for example, several hundred thousand Canada Geese all change colour slightly (for instance, if they all become slightly pinker), that these will all additively combine somehow into one big qualitative change (i.e., very deep pink in one of them!) --, or that if, say, several thousand Red Deer can all run a little faster, that all these extra cm/sec increases in each animal will combine to make an extra km/sec in one specific deer.
Natural selection, so we are told, will impact on those populations of organisms that produce less (surviving) offspring, so that certain characteristics are preserved, which then proliferate in the descendants of those who produce the most (or which survive the most). But, speciation is the result of much more complex processes than mere additive increase (even if we knew what was being 'added' here, DM-style). [On this, see Coyne and Orr (2004).]
On the other hand, if a species is to be regarded as an object in its own right -- perhaps stretched out in time, as some taxonomists picture things --,1a then that 'object' will only seem to alter as 'changes' accumulate. That is because, if a species is defined in this way (as a temporally-extended 'object'), then it can't actually change in any straight-forward sense. [To be sure, that depends on how we define the object in question and how we depict change.]
It's no surprise therefore to find both these notions have been left impressively vague by comrades who quote this example in support of the First 'Law', which is probably part of the reason they think they can get away with appealing to it. [For example, here.]
Hence, if a species is characterised in this way (as a sort of four-dimensional 'sausage' -- i.e., as a manifold in 4-space), then even if the First 'Law' actually applied to it, this 'species' will not have changed as a result of its 'internal contradictions', or as a result of anything else, for that matter. That is because such manifolds do not change; four-dimensional objects do not 'exist' in time to change -- time is one of their 'in-built' dimensions, as it were. Indeed, and on the contrary, 'time' exists in them, they neither perdure nor endure in it. Since everything temporally-true of this manifold is true of the whole of it 'all at once' (so to speak -- because it's a single four-dimensional 'object'), it can't lose or gain properties or "qualities" --, unless, of course, we embed it in a fifth-dimension and (confusingly) call this new context "Time", too. [But then, of course, this five-dimensional 'object' would not change, and for the same reason. More on this in Essay Eleven Part One.]
Without this extra-dimension, any predicates true of this four-dimensional manifold will stay true of it for good, for there is no past, present or future as far as this 'object' is concerned. In that case, 'change' would perhaps amount to no more than our subjective mis-perception of a 'succession' of orthogonal hyper-plane 'slices' through this manifold that we happen to experience.
[This forms part of the so-called "Block view of time". On this, see the PDF article here. Incidentally, I take no stance on this view of time here; I will, however, in a later Essay.]
As should now seem obvious, dialecticians can only afford to view the universe in this way if they are prepared to abandon their belief in change -- or consign the latter merely to our 'subjective' apprehension of reality.
Alternatively, if a species is not defined in this way as a four-dimensional collective sort of 'object', then because no single organism actually evolves, change to a species would not be the result of its 'internal contradictions', once more -- since, on this view, such a species would be a certain sort of collection, not an object. Moreover, in populations, individual animals/plants do not change by "contradicting" one another (or their environment), howsoever that word is understood. There are no 'internal contradictions' in such populations here to cause change -- or, if there are, dialecticians have yet to point them out. Indeed, no single thing actually changes in an evolutionary sense, only whole populations, and they manifestly do so non-dialectically.1b
In that case, not only is Gould's theory not an example of this 'Law' at work, not even Darwin's is!1c
Recently, dialecticians have appealed to Chaos and Catastrophe Theory in their endeavour to show that this nineteenth century 'Law' is bang up-to-date. Processes in nature studied in this branch of science clearly change rapidly. However, it's important to note that rapid change in nature and society is neither being denied or asserted in this Essay. What is being challenged is the thesis that all change is "nodal". Some are, many aren't. Moreover, as we will see, the term "quality" is defined in DM-circles in terms that would rule-out many of these catastrophic changes as 'dialectical'. That is because no new DM-"qualities" actually emerge in many such transitions.
For example, in the famous "three body" problem, whatever the outcome, the planetary bodies involved are still planets and they are still satellites; their orbits are still orbits. What new DM-"quality" has "emerged" in this case?
[Here is a JavaScript simulation. Indeed, the transitions in this example appear to be non-"nodal" -- you can alter the parameter in the top left hand corner of the page.]
Moreover, chaotic (turbulent) flows, either side of the alleged "node", are still flows, and the liquids/gases involved are still the same substances. No new Aristotelian/Hegelian "quality" has "emerged" here, either.
To be sure, some chaotic systems certainly seem to conform to this 'Law' -- but, that is only because the phrase "nodal change" has been left conveniently vague, and only because few dialecticians are prepared to ask awkward (but obvious) questions about what a DM-"quality" is supposed to be. [On that, see here, here and here.]
However, there are alternative scientific and/or mathematical models of reality that explain chaotic systems (indeed, they do so with far more clarity) --, and they do not fall foul of the other examples listed in this Essay, which refute this 'Law'.
Facts Dialecticians Usually Ignore
The difficulties the First 'Law' faces do not stop there. For example, when heated, objects change in quality from cold to warm and then to hot, with no "nodal" point separating these particular qualitative stages. The same happens in reverse when they cool. Moving bodies similarly speed up from slow to fast (and vice versa) without any "nodal" punctuation marks affecting this transition. In like manner, the change from one colour to the next in the normal colour spectrum is continuous, with no "nodal" points evident at all -- and this is also the case with the colour changes that bodies experience when they are heated until they are red- or white-hot. Sounds, too, change smoothly from soft to loud, in pitch from low to high, and back again in a "node"-free environment. In fact, with respect to wave-governed phenomena in general, change seems to be continuous rather than discrete, which means that since the majority of particles/objects in nature move in such a manner, most things in reality seem to disobey this aspect of Engels's unimpressive 'Law' -- at least, at the macroscopic level. Hence, here we have countless changes in "quality" that are non-"nodal".
To be sure, some wave-like changes are said to occur discontinuously (indeed, the word "node" is used precisely here by Physicists), but this is not the result of continuous background changes. For example, quantum phenomena are notoriously discontinuous, but such changes are not normally preceded by continual quantitative increases, as this 'Law' would have it. They occur suddenly with no build-up. So, discontinuous quantum phenomena can't be made to fit this 'Law' -- unless, of course, it's altered so that they can. Naturally, that done, this 'Law' would no longer be 'objective'.
Several more comments on the application of this 'Law' to microscopic and/or quantum phenomena will be added at a later date.
Dialecticians often apply this "nodal" aspect of the First 'Law' to Capitalism -- in a bid to illustrate by analogy the revolutionary change from one Mode of Production to another, as quantity allegedly builds into quality, at some point initiating a sudden revolutionary 'leap'. [An excellent example of this can be found here, a more recent one is Rees (2008); another is here.] But, how do we know that social changes like this are not like solid-to-liquid phase or state of matter transformation we witness in metals, glass or plastic; i.e., how do we know that they aren't gradual, too? Since Capitalism is clearly not a liquid, but a solid of sorts, the transition to socialism should go rather smoothly, if we rely on this analogy (on this see Note 9).
Interpreted that way, it looks as if the First 'Law' is of little use to revolutionaries since it clearly suggests that they aren't needed, and that Capitalism can be reformed away non-discontinuously -- a bit like the way metal, say, can slowly melt, or the way that heads can slowly turn bald as they lose their hair. But, if dialectical revolutionaries aren't needed, their antiquated theory isn't either.2
[I hasten to add that I do not think capitalism can be reformed away, but must be overthrown -- however, the analogy drawn with Engels's First 'Law' could suggest this.]
But, this 'Law' is in difficulties in other respects, too. Clearly not every change in quantity "passes over" into a change in quality. And yet, one way of reading the "vice versa" codicil attached to this law suggests that they should:
"The first law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Engels (1954), p.63. Bold emphasis added.]
"Yet the 'mechanical' conception amounts to nothing else. It explains all change from change of place, all qualitative differences from quantitative ones, and overlooks that the relation of quality and quantity is reciprocal, that quality can become transformed into quantity just as much as quantity into quality, that, in fact, reciprocal action takes place." [Ibid., p.253. Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
And he said the same in published work:
"In proof of this law we might have cited hundreds of other similar facts from nature as well as from human society. Thus, for example, the whole of Part IV of Marx's Capital -- production of relative surplus-value -- deals, in the field of co-operation, division of labour and manufacture, machinery and modern industry, with innumerable cases in which quantitative change alters the quality, and also qualitative change alters the quantity, of the things under consideration; in which therefore, to use the expression so hated by Herr Dühring, quantity is transformed into quality and vice versa. As for example the fact that the co-operation of a number of people, the fusion of many forces into one single force, creates, to use Marx's phrase, a 'new power', which is essentially different from the sum of its separate forces." [Engels (1972), p.160. Bold emphasis added; italic emphasis in the original. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
Engels is quite clear here: just as quantity passes over in quality, the reverse is also true, quality passes over into quantity.
If this is so, then we should expect all changes in quantity to "pass over" into changes in quality (or there would seem to be no point to the vice versa codicil).
However, I have not been able to find a single DM-theorist who interprets this 'Law' in this way (i.e., "reciprocally", as Engels calls it), so perhaps I am the only one who has ever noticed this loop-hole (but it's more like a Grand Canyon) in this 'Law'. But, even if this were not so, it would still be difficult to explain why only some changes in quantity "pass over" into changes in quality. One will look in vain for any attempt to address this problem in the highly clichéd and repetitive writings of DM-fans (where quantity definitely does not morph into quality) -- or for some sort of vague recognition that such a difficulty even exists.
But, the "reciprocal" action of this 'Law' is hard to understand. Engels is saying that a "qualitative" change in matter passes over into "quantity", i.e., that, say, the change from liquid water to steam adds energy to the process? Or that, bald heads make them lose hair? If not, it is not easy to see what this "reciprocal" aspect implies. [More on this later.]
It could be argued that when steam condenses, or when ice melts, latent heat is released. So, a change in quality produces energy, just as Engels says. However, quite apart from the fact that there is no change in quality here (since the substance involved stays H2O throughout), the reverse rule, if applied across the board, descends into absurdity. For example, if a bald man loses his baldness, does this create new matter or energy? Of course, the change itself is the result of new hair growing, but that's an application of this 'Law' in forward gear, as it were -- that is, the gradual addition of new hair will change one quality (bald) into another (hirsute). But, there is no way of making sense of the idea that the change in quality here, of itself, creates new hair, which it would have to do if this 'Law' is to work backwards. [I consider another example of this 'law' supposedly working in reverse, here.]
[Word of warning: When confronted with examples like those mentioned below, DM-fans generally respond by pointing out that Engels's' Law only applies to developing bodies and systems, which rules these counter-examples out. I deal with that reply here and here.]
As we delve deeper, several more problems arise: for example, the same number of molecules at the same energy level can exhibit widely differing properties/qualities depending on circumstances. Think of how the same amount of water can act as a lubricant, or have the opposite effect, say, on wet clothes; the same amount of sand can help some things slide, but prevent others from doing so; the same amount of poison given over a short space of time will kill, but given over a longer period (in small doses) it could benefit the recipient -- Strychnine comes to mind here.
To be sure, the effect of quantitative stability of this sort (supervenient on definite qualitative change) is also sensitive to (1) time constraints and (2) levels of concentration (of the substances involved), but this extremely vague First 'Law' says nothing of these. And, try as one might, it's not easy to see how these unquestionably material aspects of nature (concentration levels and duration) can be accommodated to the Ideal dialectical universe Engels uncritically lifted from Hegel (upside down or 'the right way up').
But, what sort of scientific 'Law' leaves details like these out? In fact, if a Mickey Mouse 'Law' like this were to appear in any of the genuine sciences, its author(s) would be treated with derision -- even if it had been aired in an undergraduate paper!
However, other recalcitrant examples rapidly spring to mind: if the same colour is stared at for several minutes it can undergo a qualitative change into another colour (several optical illusions are based on this fact). Something similar can happen with regard to many two-dimensional patterns and shapes (for example the Necker Cube and other optical illusions); these undergo considerable qualitative change when no obvious quantitative differences are involved. There thus seem to be numerous examples where quantity and quality do not appear to be connected in the way that DM-theorists would have us believe.3
In fact, there are so many exceptions to this 'Law' that it might be wise to demote it and consign it to a more appropriate category, perhaps classifying it alongside trite rules of thumb that sometimes work -- a bit like "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", or even "A watched kettle never boils".
Indeed, given the fact that this 'Law' has no discernible mathematical content it's rather surprising it was ever called a law to begin with.
Nevertheless, the situation is even worse than the above might suggest; there are countless examples in nature where significant qualitative change can result from no obvious quantitative difference. These include the qualitative dissimilarities that exist between different chemical compounds for the same quantity of matter/energy involved.
For instance, Isomeric molecules (studied in stereochemistry) represent a particularly good example of this phenomenon. This is especially true of those that have so-called "chiral" centres (i.e., centres of asymmetry). In such cases, the spatial ordering of the constituent atoms, not their quantity, affects the overall quality of the resulting molecule (which Engels said could not happen).
"[Q]ualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Engels (1954), p.63. Bold emphasis alone added.]
Here, a change in molecular orientation, not quantity, effects a change in quality.
Consider one example of many: (R)-Carvone (spearmint) and (S)-Carvone (caraway); these molecules have the same number of atoms of the same elements, and the same bond energies, but they are nonetheless qualitatively distinct because of the different spatial arrangement of the atoms involved. The same is true of some of the Fullerenes.
Change in geometry -- change in quality.
This non-dialectical aspect of matter is especially true of the so-called "Enantiomers" (i.e., symmetrical molecules that are mirror images of each other). These include compounds like (R)-2-clorobutane and (S)-2-chlorobutane, and the so-called L- and D-molecules, which rotate the plane of polarised light the left (laevo) or the right (dextro) -- such as, L- and D-Tartaric acid. What might at first sight appear to be small energy-neutral differences like these have profound biochemical implications; a protein with D-amino acids instead of L- will not work in most living cells since the overwhelming majority of organisms metabolise L-organic molecules. These compounds not only have the same number of atoms in each molecule, there are no apparent energy differences between them. Even so, they have easily distinguishable physical qualities.
Change in quality -- identical quantity.4
In response, it could be argued that Engels had already anticipated the above objection:
"It is surely hardly necessary to point out that the various allotropic and aggregational states of bodies, because they depend on various groupings of the molecules, depend on greater or lesser quantities of motion communicated to the bodies.
"But what is the position in regard to change of form of motion, or so-called energy? If we change heat into mechanical motion or vice versa, is not the quality altered while the quantity remains the same? Quite correct. But it is with change of form of motion...; anyone can be virtuous by himself, for vices two are always necessary. Change of form of motion is always a process that takes place between at least two bodies, of which one loses a definite quantity of motion of one quality (e.g. heat), while the other gains a corresponding quantity of motion of another quality (mechanical motion, electricity, chemical decomposition). Here, therefore, quantity and quality mutually correspond to each other. So far it has not been found possible to convert motion from one form to another inside a single isolated body." [Ibid., pp.63-64. Bold emphases added.]
However, Engels slides between two different senses of "motion" here: (1) change of place, and (2) energy added/subtracted. In this way, he is able to argue that any change in the relation between bodies always amounts to a change in energy. But, this depends on the nature of the field in which these bodies are embedded (on this, see below, and in Note 4a); Engels's profound lack of mathematical knowledge clearly let him down here.
Independently of this, Engels also confused the expenditure of energy with energy added to a system. The difference between the two is easy to see. Imagine someone pushing a heavy packing case along a level floor. In order to overcome friction, the one doing the pushing will have to expend energy. But that energy has not been put into the packing case (as it were). Now, if the same case is pushed up a hill, Physicists tell us that recoverable energy has been put into the case in the form of Potential Energy.
Now, as far as can be ascertained in the examples of interest to dialecticians (but again, they are not at all clear on this), it's the latter form of energy (but not necessarily always Potential Energy) that is relevant to this 'Law', not the former. The former sort does not really change the quality of any bodies concerned; the latter does. If that is so, then the above counter-examples (e.g., involving Enantiomers) still apply, for the energy expended in order to change one isomer into another is generally of the first sort, not the second.
To be sure, some of the energy in the packing case example will appear as heat (and/or perhaps sound), and will warm that case slightly. But that energy will not be stored in the case as chemically recoverable (i.e., structural, or new bond) energy.
Despite this, a few die-hard dialecticians could be found who might want to argue that any expenditure of energy is relevant here. That would be an unfortunate move since it would make this 'Law' trivial, for in that case it would amount to the belief that any change at all (no matter how remote), since it involves the expenditure of some form of energy somewhere (but not necessarily energy put 'into' the bodies concerned), is the cause of qualitative change to other bodies somewhere else. This would make a mockery of Engels's claim that only energy added to the bodies concerned is relevant to this 'Law'.
"Change of form of motion is always a process that takes place between at least two bodies, of which one loses a definite quantity of motion of one quality (e.g. heat), while the other gains a corresponding quantity of motion of another quality (mechanical motion, electricity, chemical decomposition)." [Ibid. Bold emphasis added.]
Several examples of this sort of change are given below. The problems this creates are discussed at length in Note 5 and Note 6a, where attempts to delineate the thermodynamic boundaries of the local energy budget involved (which would have to be specified in order to prevent remote objects/energy expenditure being allowed to cause proximate change) are all shown to fail.
Moreover, and more significantly, Engels himself considered isomers as an example of the 'Law', even though there is no "development" in this case! [On that, see here.]
Finally, Engels seems to think it's always clear what constitutes a single body:
"Here, therefore, quantity and quality mutually correspond to each other. So far it has not been found possible to convert motion from one form to another inside a single isolated body." [Ibid.]
However, nature is not quite so accommodating. In fact, when we look at the material world, and refuse to impose an a priori schema on it, we see that the picture is not as straightforward as Engels would have us believe. Indeed, as we will soon discover, it's easy "to convert motion from one form to another inside a single isolated body." The reader is again directed to Note 5 and Note 6a for more details.
Tautomers, Resonance And Mesomers
Even more embarrassing for this 'Law' are tautomers; these feature as an:
"isomerism in which the isomers change into one another with great ease so that they ordinarily exist together in equilibrium." [Quoted from here.]
Wikipedia characterises them in the following way:
"Tautomers are organic compounds that are interconvertible by a chemical reaction called tautomerization. As most commonly encountered, this reaction results in the formal migration of a hydrogen atom or proton, accompanied by a switch of a single bond and adjacent double bond. In solutions where tautomerization is possible, a chemical equilibrium of the tautomers will be reached. The exact ratio of the tautomers depends on several factors, including temperature, solvent, and pH. The concept of tautomers that are interconvertible by tautomerizations is called tautomerism. Tautomerism is a special case of structural isomerism and can play an important role in non-canonical base pairing in DNA and especially RNA molecules.
"Tautomerizations are catalyzed by:
"1. base (a. deprotonation; b. formation of a delocalized anion (e.g. an enolate); c. protonation at a different position of the anion).
"2. acids (a. protonation; b. formation of a delocalized cation; c. deprotonation at a different position adjacent to the cation).
"Common tautomeric pairs are:
"3. ketone -- enol, e.g. for acetone (see: keto-enol tautomerism).
"4. amide -- imidic acid, e.g. during nitrile hydrolysis reactions.
"5. lactam -- lactim, an amide -- imidic acid tautomerism in heterocyclic rings, e.g. in the nucleobases guanine, thymine, and cytosine.
"7. enamine -- enamine, e.g. during pyridoxalphosphate catalyzed enzymatic reactions.
"Prototropic tautomerism refers to the relocation of a proton, as in the above examples, and may be considered a subset of acid-base behaviour. Prototropic tautomers are sets of isomeric protonation states with the same empirical formula and total charge.
"Annular tautomerism is a type of prototropic tautomerism where a proton can occupy two or more positions of a heterocyclic system. for example, 1H- and 3H-imidazole; 1H-, 2H- and 4H- 1,2,4-triazole; 1H- and 2H- isoindole.
"Ring-chain tautomerism occurs when the movement of the proton is accompanied by a change from an open structure to a ring, such as the aldehyde and pyran forms of glucose.
"Valence tautomerism is distinct from prototropic tautomerism, and involves processes with rapid reorganisation of bonding electrons. An example of this type of tautomerism can be found in bullvalene. Another example is open and closed forms of certain heterocycles, such as azide -- tetrazole. Valence tautomerism requires a change in molecular geometry and should not be confused with canonical resonance structures or mesomers." [Quoted from here; accessed 05/10/08. Paragraph numbering altered; spelling changed to conform to UK English.]
One standard Organic text defines tautomers as follows:
"Tautomers are isomers differing only in the position of hydrogen atoms and electrons. Otherwise the carbon skeleton is the same." [Clayden et al (2001), p.205.]
On enol tautomerism, it adds:
"In the case of dimedone, the enol must be formed by a transfer of a proton from the central CH2 group of the keto form to one of the OH groups.
"Notice that there is no change in pH -- a proton is lost from carbon and gained on oxygen. The reaction is known as enolization as it is the conversion of a carbonyl compound into an enol. It is a strange reaction in which little happens. The product is almost always the same as the starting material since the only change is the transfer of one proton and the shift of the double bond." [Ibid., pp.524-25.]
Even though many of these reactions require catalysts (which add no energy or matter to the original compounds), these are qualitatively different substances, refuting the First 'Law'. This is a particularly intractable series of counter-examples because it involves the "development" of one substance into another.
Of course, it could be argued that the above Wikipedia source acknowledges the fact that there is a change in matter or energy between the resonating isomers -- for example, here:
"Tautomers are organic compounds that are interconvertible by a chemical reaction called tautomerization. As most commonly encountered, this reaction results in the formal migration of a hydrogen atom or proton, accompanied by a switch of a single bond and adjacent double bond. [Wikipedia. Bold added.]
But, no energy is added to the molecule, it is merely re-distributed, as Clayden et al points out.
Resonance (mesomerism) is more controversial,4a0 but no less fatal to this 'Law':
"Though resonance is often introduced in such a diagrammatic form in elementary chemistry, it actually has a deeper significance in the mathematical formalism of valence bond theory (VB). When a molecule can't be represented by the standard tools of valence bond theory (promotion, hybridisation, orbital overlap, sigma and pi bond formation) because no single structure predicted by VB can account for all the properties of the molecule, one invokes the concept of resonance.
"Valence bond theory gives us a model for benzene where each carbon atom makes two sigma bonds with its neighbouring carbon atoms and one with a hydrogen atom. But since carbon is tetravalent, it has the ability to form one more bond. In VB it can form this extra bond with either of the neighbouring carbon atoms, giving rise to the familiar Kekulé ring structure. But this can't account for all carbon-carbon bond lengths being equal in benzene. A solution is to write the actual wavefunction of the molecule as a linear superposition of the two possible Kekulé structures (or rather the wavefunctions representing these structures), creating a wavefunction that is neither of its components but rather a superposition of them, just as in the vector analogy above (which is formally equivalent to this situation).
"In benzene both Kekulé structures have equal weight, but this need not be the case. In general, the superposition is written with undetermined constant coefficients, which are then variationally optimized to find the lowest possible energy for the given set of basis wavefunctions. This is taken to be the best approximation that can be made to the real structure, though a better one may be made with addition of more structures.
"In molecular orbital theory, the main alternative to VB, resonance often (but not always) translates to a delocalization of electrons in pi orbitals (which are a separate concept from pi bonds in VB). For example, in benzene, the MO model gives us 6 pi electrons completely delocalised over all 6 carbon atoms, thus contributing something like half-bonds. This MO interpretation has inspired the picture of the benzene ring as a hexagon with a circle inside. Often when describing benzene the VB picture and the MO picture are intermixed, talking both about localized sigma 'bonds' (strictly a concept from VB) and 'delocalized' pi electrons (strictly a concept from MO)." [Quoted from here; accessed 05/10/08.]
Figure One: Examples Of Resonance
In view of the fact that these are distinct qualitative variations on a common theme, created by no new energy or matter, it seems therefore this luckless First 'Law' has been refuted yet again.
Counter-Examples Just Keep Stacking-Up
[Another word of warning: When confronted with examples like those listed below, DM-fans generally respond by pointing out that Engels's' Law only applies to developing bodies and systems, which rules these counter-examples out. I deal with that reply here and here.]
Moving into Physics; consider the Triple Point:
"In thermodynamics, the triple point of a substance is the temperature and pressure at which three phases (for example, gas, liquid, and solid) of that substance coexist in thermodynamic equilibrium. For example, the triple point of mercury occurs at a temperature of −38.8344°C and a pressure of 0.2 mPa." [Quoted from here.]
Hence, here we have changes in quality with no addition of energy or matter at that point.
Moreover, if two or more forces are aligned differently, the qualitative results will invariably be altered (even when the overall magnitude of each force is held constant).
Consider just one example: let forces F1 and F2 be situated in parallel (but not along the same line of action), but diametrically opposed to one another. Here these two forces can exercise a turning effect on a suitably placed body. Now, arrange the same two forces in like manner so that they are still parallel, but act diametrically along the same line. In this case, as seems clear, these forces will have no turning effect on the same body. Change in quality with no change in quantity, once more. Since there are many ways to align forces (as there are with other vector quantities, like velocities and accelerations, etc.), there are countless counter-examples to the rather pathetic First 'Law' here alone.4a
Perhaps more significantly, this 'Law' takes no account of qualitative changes that result from (energetically-neutral) ordering relations in nature and society. Here, identical physical structures and processes can be ordered differently to create significant qualitative changes. One example is the different ordering principles found in music, where an alteration to a sequence of the same notes in a chord or in a melody can have a major qualitative impact on harmony, with no quantitative change anywhere apparent. So, the same seven notes (i.e., tones and semi-tones) arranged in different modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aolean and Locrian) sound totally different to the human ear. Of course, there are other ways of altering the quality of music in an energetically neutral environment over and above this (such as timing).
Another example along the same lines concerns the ordering principles found in language, where significant qualitative changes can result from the re-arrangement of the same parts of speech. For instance, the same number of letters jumbled up can either make sense or no sense, as the case may be -- as in, say, "dialectics" and "csdileati" (which is "dialectics" scrambled up; but, which one of these two makes the more sense I will leave to the reader to decide).
Perhaps more radically, the same words can mean something qualitatively new if sequenced differently, as in, say: "The cat is on the mat" and "The mat is on the cat". Or, even worse: "It is impossible to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic", compared with "It is impossible to understand Hegel's Logic, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Marx's Capital." Here there is considerable qualitative difference with no quantitative change at all.
[What are the odds that Engels would have tried to alter his First 'Law' to counter that awkward fact?]
There are many other examples of this phenomenon, but a few more should suffice for the purposes of this Essay: a successful strike (one that is, say, planned first then actioned second) could turn into its opposite (if it is actioned first and planned second). Now even though the total energy input here would be ordered differently in each case, the overall energy budget of the system (howsoever that is characterised) need not be any different. So, the addition of no extra matter or energy here can turn successful action into disaster if the order of events is reversed. Of course, we can all imagine situations where this particular example could involve different energy budgets, but this is not necessarily the case, which is all I need.
There are literally thousands of everyday examples of such qualitative changes (where there are no obvious associated quantitative differences), so many in fact that Engels's First 'Law' begins to look even more pathetic in comparison. Who for example would put food on the table then a plate on top of it? A change in the order here would constitute a qualitatively different (and more normal) act: plate first, food second. Which of us would jump out of an aeroplane first and put their parachute on second -- or cross a road first, look second? And is there a sane person on the planet who goes to the toilet first and gets out of bed second? Moreover, only an idiot would pour 500 ml of water slowly into 1000 ml of concentrated Sulphuric Acid, whereas, someone who knew what they were doing would readily do the reverse. But all of these have profound qualitative differences if performed in the wrong order (for the same energy budget).5
How could Engels have missed examples like these? Is dialectical myopia so crippling that it prevents dialecticians using their common sense?
Pushing these ideas further: context, too, can affect quality in a quantitatively neutral environment. So, a dead body in a living room has a different qualitative significance compared to that same body in the morgue (for the same energy input). A million pounds in my bank account has a different qualitative feel to it when compared to the same money in your account (and vice versa).
"Ceci nest pa une pipe" has a different qualitative aspect if appended to a picture of a pipe, compared to being attached to a picture of, say, a cigarette. Indeed, "Ceci nest pa une pipe" itself can change from qualitatively false to true depending on how it is interpreted. Hence, as a depiction of what the painting by Magritte is about (i.e., a pipe) it is false. But, despite this, it is also literally true, since manifestly a picture of a pipe is not a pipe! Change in quality here, but no change in quantity.6
Figure Two: Gallic Refutation?
Furthermore, qualitative change can be induced by other qualitative changes, contrary to Engels's claim:
"...[Q]ualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion...." [Engels (1954), p.63. Emphasis added]
For example, in a 1:1 mixture of paint, one litre of brown can be made by mixing two half litres each of red and green, but the same qualitative effect can be achieved by using less or more of both (say, 2 litres of each), but in the same ratio. Here a change in the quantity of mixed paints has no effect on the qualitative properties of the mixture (i.e., its colour), while the qualities mixed do. In this case, two qualities (two colours) will have changed into a new quality (a new colour) when mixed. Not only do the same amounts (and proportions) of red and green paint exist before and after mixing, for any fixed amount of each, the two former qualities will have merged into a single quality. So, here we have qualitative change produced by qualitative change.
Of course, it could be argued that the mixture contains more paint than it did before (which means that there actually has been a quantitative change), but this is not so. In general, prior to mixing there were n litres of each colour (and 2n litres of both) preserving the 1:1 ratio; after mixing the same amount of paint still exists, namely n litres of each (and 2n litres of both, for any n), still preserving the 1:1 proportion. The qualitative change in colour has nothing to do with the quantities involved, but everything to do with the mixing of the two previous qualities in the same ratio.
To be sure, if the ratio of the mixed paints were changed, a different qualitative outcome would emerge, but as noted above, even this does not happen "nodally", and so it seems to be of little relevance to the First 'Law'. So, if the ratio is kept the same, we would have here a change in quality initiated by qualitative change only, and not by an increase in quantity.6a
And this example applies to the development of this body of matter; at the start we had 2n litres of paint, and at the end we had 2n litres. But at the end we also have a new quality (a new colour) created by no increase in matter. And what applies to colour can apply to other qualities, too -- for example, heat (where the mixing of two 2n litres of hot and cold water creates a warm mixture of 2n litres).
Also, mixing 2n litres of molten metal (with severally different qualities) can lead to a qualitatively new alloy, for example, brass or pewter. This point clearly applies to any mixing of 2n units (or other amounts) of any sort of matter. Indeed, something similar can be achieved with the mixing of most chemicals, as it can with light, sound and taste.7
Matter in general is thus reassuringly non-dialectical.
Any who object to these examples need only reflect on the fact that they do not represent a challenge to materialism (since they are all manifestly material changes), they merely throw into doubt Engels's rather restrictive 'Law'.
In short, only someone more intent on defending Engels than they are in understanding nature will find reason to cavil at this point.
Other instances of qualitative change where there is no implied change in quantity include the following: the "Big Bang" (if it actually happened) led to the formation of a whole universe of qualitative changes, with no overall increase in energy or matter (in the universe). Now, here we have a massive change in quality (with Galaxies and planets, and all the rest, emerging out of the original debris) with no overall change in the quantity of energy (in the universe).
On the other hand, if the 'Big Bang' is rejected, and an infinite universe is postulated, since there can be no increase in energy in the entire universe, any qualitative changes in nature will occur with no increase in the universal quantity of energy.
More counter-examples rapidly stack up: a child living in, say, Paris can become an orphan (qualitative change) if both of its parents die in South Africa (meaning that no quantitative change will have happened to that child -- unless, of course, we are meant to re-interpret a change in a distant geographical/familial relation as a quantitative change).
The largest cut diamond on earth (in a safe, say, in New York) could change into the second biggest if another, bigger diamond is cut in, say, Amsterdam. This example also applies to other remote changes. For example, the biggest star in a galaxy could become the second biggest if another star hundreds of millions of light years away (but in the same galaxy) grows in size (perhaps over millions of years) through accretion of matter. So, in both cases, there would be a qualitative change to the first object with no relevant matter or energy added or subtracted from/to that object. There are countless examples of remote change like this.
A cheque drawn, say, in New York will become instantaneously worthless (qualitative change) if the issuing bank in Tokyo goes bust (meaning that no quantitative change will have happened to that cheque).
A Silver Medallist in, say, the Olympics can become the Gold Medal winner in an event (qualitative change) if the former Gold medallist is disqualified because of drug-taking (meaning that no quantitative change will have occurred to that Silver Medallist).
Two identical "Keep off the Grass" signs can mean something different (qualitative change) if one of them is posted on a garden lawn and the other is positioned near a stand of Marijuana plants, at the same height above sea level (thus with no difference in energy).
A circle looks like an ellipse (qualitative change) when viewed from certain angles for no change in energy.
The same three mathematical (or physical) points can undergo a qualitative change if, say, from being arranged linearly they are then re-arranged as the corners of a triangle (with no energy added to these points). Here, there would be a qualitative change with no quantitative change, once again. There are, of course, a potentially infinite number of examples of that sort of change imaginable for 2-, or 3-dimensional shapes, for n points (be they mathematical or physical -- so this is not necessarily an abstract set of counter-instances).8
In The Soup, And Vice Versa
Worse still, as we saw earlier, the aforementioned "reciprocal" "vice versa" codicil attached by Engels to this 'Law' renders it totally useless -- if not completely crazy --, since it suggests, for instance, that qualitative change can effect quantitative material change. Consider this example of Trotsky's:
"A housewife knows that a certain amount of salt flavours soup agreeably, but that added salt makes the soup unpalatable. Consequently, an illiterate peasant woman guides herself in cooking soup by the Hegelian law of the transformation of quantity into quality…." [Trotsky (1971), p.106.]
Engels's vice versa codicil suggests that a change in quality from "palatable" to "too salty" can create an increase in the salt content of soup!
Now, this is not an unsympathetic interpretation on my part, for, as we have already seen, Engels himself signed up to it:
"Yet the 'mechanical' conception amounts to nothing else. It explains all change from change of place, all qualitative differences from quantitative ones, and overlooks that the relation of quality and quantity is reciprocal, that quality can become transformed into quantity just as much as quantity into quality, that, in fact, reciprocal action takes place." [Engels (1954), p.253. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
As did Novack:
"The dialectical process of development does not end with the transformation of quantity into quality…. The process continues in the opposite direction and converts new quality into new quantity." [Novack (1971), p.92.]
This suggests that changes in quality are capable of inducing quantitative changes, that is, that new matter or energy can be created by a qualitative change!
Hence, as noted above, if this vice versa codicil is to be believed, a qualitative change from, say, unpalatable soup to tasty-soup would in effect produce a quantitative pay-off: it must cause soup to have more salt in it! Clearly this magic trick will be of interest to those who still (foolishly) think that matter and energy can't be created ex nihilo. And yet there seems to be no other way of reading the vice versa codicil except as just such a 'metaphysical blank cheque'.
It could be objected that such a qualitative change will have been produced by a quantitative increase in salt, but that's the First 'Law' applied in forward gear, as it were. If we apply that 'Law' in reverse, then we can't appeal to a quantitative increase leading to a qualitative change, but must appeal to a qualitative change inducing a quantitative change -- that is, that a change in taste must be able to create salt out of thin air.
Nevertheless, it's worth examining Trotsky's anecdote more closely, since it will help expose the many serious errors and confusions that afflict even the few examples dialecticians have scraped together to illustrate this ramshackle 'Law.'
"Every individual is a dialectician to some extent or other, in most cases, unconsciously. A housewife knows that a certain amount of salt flavours soup agreeably, but that added salt makes the soup unpalatable. Consequently, an illiterate peasant woman guides herself in cooking soup by the Hegelian law of the transformation of quantity into quality…. Even animals arrive at their practical conclusions…on the basis of the Hegelian dialectic. Thus a fox is aware that quadrupeds and birds are nutritious and tasty…. When the same fox, however, encounters the first animal which exceeds it in size, for example, a wolf, it quickly concludes that quantity passes into quality, and turns to flee. Clearly, the legs of a fox are equipped with Hegelian tendencies, even if not fully conscious ones. All this demonstrates, in passing, that our methods of thought, both formal logic and the dialectic, are not arbitrary constructions of our reason but rather expressions of the actual inter-relationships in nature itself. In this sense the universe is permeated with ‘unconscious’ dialectics." [Trotsky (1971), pp.106-07.]
But, what exactly did Trotsky imagine the change of quantity into quality to be, here?
Does an increase in the quantity of salt alter the salt's own quality? Presumably not. Does the quantity of soup change? Perhaps only marginally; but even so, the quantity of soup is not what allegedly changed the quality of the soup -- that is supposed to have resulted from the quantity of salt added.
In fact, the quantity of the original soup has not actually changed -- merely the quantity of the salt/soup mixture --; and neither has the quality of the salt altered (just its alleged quantity).
What appears to have happened (in this less than half-formed 'thought experiment') is that the addition of too much salt to the soup is supposed to change the taste of the resulting salt/soup mixture perceived by the taster. Hence, at a certain ("nodal") point, a further increase in the quantity of salt alters the quality (i.e., the taste) of the soup, so that its acceptability changes either side of that point.
But, once more, even here the increased quantity of salt has not passed over into any change in its own quality. What has occurred is that one quality (a palatable taste) has morphed into another quality (an unpalatable taste) as a result of a quantitative change made to one ingredient (salt) added to the salt/soup mixture. So, a certain quality of the soup has changed from being acceptable to being unacceptable as a result of the increased quantity of salt that the mixture contains.
However, the relevant quality of the added salt remains the same no matter how much is added. Salt is (largely) Sodium Chloride, and it tastes salty whether it is delivered by the spoon, the bucket or the train-load. In that case, neither the quantity nor the quality of the salt has "passed over" into anything in the salt; there does not therefore seem to be anything in the initial part of this story for that particular aspect of the salt to "pass over" into.
Consequently, the first half of this 'Law' is either mis-stated or it does not apply in this case.
As far as the second half is concerned (i.e., the alleged alteration in quality), the postulated change relates to the taste of the soup. But manifestly, the soup remains salty no matter how much salt is poured in, as we saw. What we have here is a batch of soup that becomes increasingly salty as more salt is added.
What qualitative change then is meant to have taken place? Again, it seems that this change relates to the acceptability of the taste of the soup as perceived by the taster. Hence, at -- or slightly beyond -- the alleged "nodal" point, the taste of the soup will become objectionable. But, this particular change is confined to the one doing the tasting. Manifestly, it's not the soup that alters in this respect. On one side of the "nodal" point the soup is objectively salty (i.e., it contains dissolved salt); on the other side it is still objectively salty, but with more salt in it. The difference is that on one side, the taster tolerated the taste and continued to like it, but on the other side the taste became intolerable and she ceased to enjoy what she was eating. So, this means that the soup itself has not actually changed in this respect, merely the taster's appreciation of it that has.
It now seems that a change in the quantity (of salt) does not actually affect the soup –- except, perhaps, its volume (very slightly) and its composition as a salt/soup mixture. No matter how much salt is dumped into the soup it remains just that, a salt/soup mixture, only with higher proportions of the former ingredient -– and this is so even at the limit where it perhaps turns into sludge or a semi-solid lump, or whatever. A trillion tons of salt can't change that.8a
Consequently, even with respect to the relevant quality (interpreting the latter as this salt/soup mixture, if it can be so described), the concoction does not change (or, at least, not in a way that is relevant to Trotsky's purposes). Hence, a change in the quantity of salt has not "passed over" into a change in the quality of the soup (as soup), which means that the second part of this 'Law' seems to be defective, too.
If there is a qualitative change anywhere at all (which is relevant to the point Trotsky is trying to make) it seems to occur in the third party -– that is, in the taster. We are forced to interpret things this way unless, of course, we are to suppose that tastes actually reside 'objectively' in soups, as one of their alleged 'primary' qualities. If that were so, qualities like this (that reside in soups, and not solely in tasters) would have to be able to alter 'objectively', even when they are not being tasted! But, it can't mean that; no sane dialectician (one imagines!) believes that tastes reside in the objects we eat. Hence, if this 'Law' is to work in this case, the qualitative change must reside in the soup-taster, not the soup.8b
If so, this qualitative change must have been induced by a quantitative change in the taster, if the 'Law' is to apply to her. But, what quantitative change could have taken place in this taster that might have prompted a corresponding change in (her) quality, or in her changed perception of a quality? Does she grow new nerve cells, or an extra head? In fact, there's none at all -- or, none that Trotsky mentioned, and certainly none that is obvious.
Plainly, it's a quantitative change in the salt/soup mixture that altered its quality as perceived by that taster, but it had no effect on any quality actually in the soup (as previous comments sought to show -- tastes do not reside in soups!). But, there now seem to be no (relevant) quantitative changes in the taster which initiate a corresponding qualitative change in her.
In that case, the best that can be made of this half-baked example is that while quantitative change leads to no qualitative change in some things (i.e., soups), it can prompt certain qualitative changes in other things (i.e., tasters), the latter of which were not caused by any quantitative changes in those things themselves, but by something altogether mysterious.
So, the second part of the 'Law' is now doubly defective.
Of course, it could be objected that there is indeed a quantitative change in the said taster, namely the quantitative increase in salt particles hitting her tongue. But, this just pushes the problem one stage further back, for unless we are to suppose that tastes reside in salt molecules (or in Sodium and Chlorine ions), the qualitative change we seek will still have occurred in the taster and not in the chemicals in her mouth -- and we are back where we were a few paragraphs back. There seems to be no quantitative change to the taster apparent here; she does not grow another tongue or gain more taste buds. It's undeniable that there will have been an increase in salt molecules hitting her tongue, and that these will have a causal effect on the change of taste as she perceives it, but even given all that, no change in quantity to the taster herself will have taken place.
Again, it could be objected that there is a material/energetic change here; matter or energy will have been transferred to the taster (and/or her central nervous system) which causes her to experience a qualitative change in her appreciation of the soup.
In fact, what has happened is that the original salt has merged/interacted with the taster's tongue/nervous system upon being ingested. But, it is at precisely that point that the earlier problems associated with the salt/soup mixture now transfer to the salt/nervous system 'mixture'. Since tastes do not exist in nerves any more than they exist in soups, we are no further forward. And as far as changes to the quantity of the taster is concerned, this will depend on how we draw the boundaries between inorganic salt molecules and living cells. Since this is considered in more detail below, no more will be said about it here.
In any case, it seems rather odd to describe a change in taste (or in the appreciation of taste) as a qualitative change to a taster, whatever caused it. As the term "quality" is understood by dialecticians, this can't in fact be a qualitative change of the sort they require. Qualities, as characterised by dialecticians -- or, rather, by those that bother to say what they mean by this word -- are those properties of bodies/processes that make them what they are, alteration to which will change that body/process into something else:
"Each of the three spheres of the logical idea proves to be a systematic whole of thought-terms, and a phase of the Absolute. This is the case with Being, containing the three grades of quality, quantity and measure.
"Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so identical that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus, e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker." [Hegel (1975), p.124, §85.]
As the Glossary at the Marx Internet Archive notes:
"Quality is an aspect of something by which it is what it is and not something else and reflects that which is stable amidst variation. Quantity is an aspect of something which may change (become more or less) without the thing thereby becoming something else.
"Thus, if something changes to an extent that it is no longer the same kind of thing, this is a 'qualitative change', whereas a change in something by which it still the same thing, though more or less, bigger or smaller, is a 'quantitative change'.
"In Hegel's Logic, Quality is the first division of Being, when the world is just one thing after another, so to speak, while Quantity is the second division, where perception has progressed to the point of recognising what is stable within the ups and downs of things. The third and final stage, Measure, the unity of quality and quantity, denotes the knowledge of just when quantitative change becomes qualitative change." [Quoted from here. Accessed August 2007. This definition has been altered slightly since.]
This is an Aristotelian notion.
Cornforth tries gamely to tell us what a 'dialectical quality' is:
"For instance, if a piece of iron is painted black and instead we paint it red, that is merely an external alteration..., but it is not a qualitative change in the sense we are here defining. On the other hand, if the iron is heated to melting point, then this is such a qualitative change. And it comes about precisely as a change in the attraction-repulsion relationship characteristic of the internal molecular state of the metal. The metal passes from the solid to liquid state, its internal character and laws of motion become different in certain ways, it undergoes a qualitative change." [Cornforth (1976), p.99.]
And yet, as we have seen, no new substance emerges as a result; liquid iron, gold and aluminium is still gold, iron and aluminium. [Worse, metals melt slowly, not nodally!]
Of course, it could be argued that liquid and solid states of matter are, as Cornforth seems to think, different "kinds of things", as required by the definition. But, to describe something as a liquid is not to present a kind of thing, since liquids comprise many different kinds of things. The same is true of gases and solids. So, a state of matter is not a "kind of thing" but a quality possessed by kinds of things; and if that quality changes, the "kind of thing" that a particular substance is does not (in general) change. To be sure, some substances change when heated -- for example, Ammonium Chloride (solid) sublimates into Ammonia gas and Hydrochloric Acid when heated, but this is not typical. [In fact, DM fans would be on firmer ground here than they are with their clichéd water as a liquid, solid or gas example.] Liquid Mercury is still Mercury just a solid mercury is. Melted sugar is still sugar. So is plastic, and so are all metals. The elements aren't situated where they are in the Periodic Table because they are solid, liquid or gas, but because of their Atomic Number. This shows that states of matter aren't "kinds of things"; if they were, solid Mercury would no longer be Mercury.8b1
But, the volunteered DM-objection at the beginning previous paragraph, should it ever be advanced by a dialectician, only goes to show how vague this 'definition' is. It allows DM-fans to count different states of matter -- but not shape, colour, heat or motion -- as different "kind of things", so that, for example, an object in motion is not counted as a different "kind of thing" from the same object at rest; or that spherical or cylindrical ingots of iron aren't different "kinds of thing". Sure, gases, liquids and solids have different physical properties, but so do moving and stationary bodies, and so do spherical and cylindrical objects. And so do different colours. It's not easy to see why green and red objects aren't different "kinds of things" if liquids and solids are allowed to be. And it's no use pointing to the "objective" nature of states of matter as opposed to the "subjective" nature of colour, since shape and motion are just as "objective".
[The "subjective" nature of colour will be questioned, anyway, in Essay Thirteen Part One -- as will the philosophical use of the terms "subjective" and "objective".]
Other than Cornforth, Kuusinen is one of the few DM-theorists who seems to make any note of this 'difficulty':
"The totality of essential features that make a particular thing or phenomenon what it is and distinguishes it from others, is called its quality.... It is...[a] concept that denotes the inseparable distinguishing features, the inner structure, constituting the definiteness of a phenomenon and without which it cease to be what it is." [Kuusinen (1961), pp.83-84. Italic emphasis in the original.]
But, it's not at all clear that someone's liking/not liking soup defines them as a person -- or as a being of a particular sort. While scientists might decide to classify certain aspects of nature (placing them in whatever categories they see fit), none, as far as I'm aware, has so far identified two different sorts of human beings: "soup-likers for n milligrams of salt per m litres of soup versus soup-dislikers for the same or different n or m". And even if they were to do this, that would save this part of DM by means of a re-definition, since it is reasonably clear that these two different sorts of human beings do not actually exist -- , or, at least, they didn't until I just invented them. Once again, that would make this part of DM eminently subjective, since it would imply that changes in quality are relative to a choice of descriptive framework. Plainly, this introduces a fundamental element of arbitrariness into what dialecticians claim is a scientific law.
Moreover, as has also been noted, H2O as ice, water or steam, is still H2O. If so, these changes can't apply to any of the qualities covered by the DM/Aristotelian/Hegelian principles quoted above. So, it now seems that these hackneyed examples of Q«Q either undermine the meaning of a key DM-concept on which this 'Law' was supposedly based (i.e., "quality"), vitiating its applicability in such instances -- or they aren't examples of the operation of this 'Law', to begin with.8b2
Given this new twist, it now seems that quantitative changes to material bodies (such as salt/soup mixtures) actually cause changes to sensory systems (of a vague and perhaps non-quantitative -- or even non-qualitative -- kind); these in turn bring about some sort of qualitative change in the sensory modalities of the tasters involved. If so, the original 'Law' (applied in this area) is woefully wide of the mark; it should have read something like the following:
E1: Change in quantity merely causes change in quantity to the material bodies involved [no misprint!], but at a certain point this causes qualitative alterations (but these might not be Hegelian, or even Aristotelian, qualities) to the way some human beings perceive the world, even though these individuals have not undergone a quantitative change themselves.
Put like this, it's not at all clear that anyone would conclude this (or anything like it) from their cooking soup (as Trotsky maintained). And we can be pretty sure about that -- since not even Engels got close to this more accurate version of his own 'Law'. Nor did Trotsky! It's scarcely credible that non-dialectical cooks, workers, or anyone else, for that matter, would advance much further -- or even this far -– based only on their own experience.
Of course, this can only mean that peasant cooks are not "unconscious dialecticians", and neither is anyone else outside the DM-fraternity --, and this is probably because they are not quite so easily conned by mystical Idealists.
[I resume my analysis of the other things Trotsky said above (about foxes, etc.) in Essay Nine Part One.]
Anyone who still thinks Trotsky is right in what he says about animals should check out this video, which shows an ordinary-sized domestic cat fighting, and then chasing off two large alligators. Yet another catastrophic failure of Engels's 'Law'...?
Quantity And Quality Once More
Nevertheless, the above 'definitions' of "quantity" and "quality" are not without their own problems.
"Each of the three spheres of the logical idea proves to be a systematic whole of thought-terms, and a phase of the Absolute. This is the case with Being, containing the three grades of quality, quantity and measure.
"Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so identical that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus, e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker." [Hegel (1975), p.124, §85.]
"Quality is an aspect of something by which it is what it is and not something else and reflects that which is stable amidst variation. Quantity is an aspect of something which may change (become more or less) without the thing thereby becoming something else.
"Thus, if something changes to an extent that it is no longer the same kind of thing, this is a 'qualitative change', whereas a change in something by which it still the same thing, though more or less, bigger or smaller, is a 'quantitative change'.
"In Hegel's Logic, Quality is the first division of Being, when the world is just one thing after another, so to speak, while Quantity is the second division, where perception has progressed to the point of recognising what is stable within the ups and downs of things. The third and final stage, Measure, the unity of quality and quantity, denotes the knowledge of just when quantitative change becomes qualitative change." [Quoted from here.]
First of all, it's not too clear if there is a real distinction between "quantity" and "quality" here if we rely on what Hegel says:
"[A] house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker." [Hegel (1975), p.124, §85.]
For Hegel, house size seems to be the "quantity" here, but beyond a certain size, houses are no longer houses. Hence, a 'house' the size of a grain of sand is not a house. Isn't this a "qualitative" change? So, size is also a "quality". And, extremely dark blue is no longer blue (since it is indistinguishable from black). Is this another "qualitative" change? Or is it "quantitative"? In that case, there seems to be no clear distinction here between what is "quantitative" and "what is "qualitative" change. And it's no use appealing to the 'get-out-of-a-dialectical-hole-free--card', saying that quantity has "passed over" into quality in these instances, since this slide affects the definition of these two terms. If we have no clear idea what we are talking about, then it's not possible to say what has "passed over" into what. Moreover, where is the alleged "development" here? Or, are we to suppose that the same house is gradually reduced in size so that it gradually assumes the size of a grain of sand?
Secondly, as we have seen the phrases "something new" and "ceasing to be what it is" are hopelessly vague, too. We are not told what constitutes novelty or what "ceasing to be" amounts to, either. As we have seen, dialecticians, including Hegel, regard ice, water and steam as "something new", when we now know they aren't. But, such equivocation 'allows' dialecticians to apply this 'Law' when is suits them, just as it 'allows' them to refuse to acknowledge counter-examples when and where they like, too. Several of the counter-examples listed above will be rejected out-of-hand by dialecticians on this basis. For instance, heating water from cold to very hot is a "qualitative" non-"nodal" change by any ordinary standard, but it produces nothing "new" -- if by "new" we mean a "new substance", or a "new kind of thing". And yet, if we mean either of these, then ice and steam aren't "new" either. But, you'll find dialecticians who either brush these off as irrelevant; either that, or they just ignore them. [A good example of both can be found here. There are plenty more here.]
What is finally decided upon here will, of course, depend on how we view the status of Aristotelian "essences" (or "essential properties"). However, further discussion of this will take us too far away from the main topic of this Essay, so no more will be said about it here.8c
Boiling Water And Balding Heads
The other hackneyed examples DM-theorists regularly roll out to illustrate this 'Law' (i.e., boiling water, balding heads, Mendeleyev's table, the alleged fighting qualities of Mamelukes, and, of late, Catastrophe and Chaos Theory), in fact only seem to work because of the way that the word "quality" has been 'defined' (or, rather, the way is hasn't been clearly defined) by dialecticians.9
For example, in the case of boiling water, the increase in quantity of one item (i.e., heat) is alleged to alter the quality of the second (i.e., water). As noted above, "quality" is characterised in Hegel's work in Aristotelian terms (i.e., as that property which is essential to a substance/process, without which it must change into some other --, or as "determinate being", to use the Hegelian jargon; on this, see Inwood (1992), pp.238-41). And yet, by no stretch of the imagination is liquidity an essential property of water. Once again, either side of the alleged "qualitative" change, this substance remains H2O. Boling or freezing does not change it into another substance; water in its solid, liquid or gaseous form is still H2O. Quantitative addition or subtraction of energy does not result in a qualitative change of the required sort; no new Hegelian or Aristotelian "quality" emerges here. No "new kind of thing" emerges as a result. [On this, also see Note 9.]
Unfortunately, this means that the most widely-, and over-used example in the DM-book-of-tricks supposedly illustrating this 'Law' does not in fact do so!
In that case, this 'Law' should perhaps be re-written in the following way:
E1: An increase in the quantity of one item leads to a change in what is perhaps not one of the qualities of another.
With that, much of the 'metaphysical bite' of this 'Law' disappears; in fact it becomes rather toothless.
In addition, it seems a little odd to describe an increase in heat as an increase in quantity when what happens is that the relevant water molecules just move about faster if energy is fed into the system. Of course, it could be objected that this is precisely Engels's point; since energy can be measured (here, as an increase in heat, say), then that increase in heat is indeed an increase in quantity -- in this case, "quantity of motion". But, the original idea appeared in Hegel at a time when heat was regarded as a substance, Caloric. [For Hegel's view, see here.] We now know that what really happens is that molecules just move faster -- after having interacted with still other faster moving molecules. [This is something Engels admits anyway; see Engels (1954), pp.63-64.]
So, when Engels speaks here of an increase in energy as a quantitative increase, he was either using a façon de parler, or he had not quite abandoned the old idea that heat is a substance. Of course, we might still want to call this phenomenon an increase in "energy" if we so wish, but if we do, that would merely plunge this part of the First 'Law' into complete darkness, since the word "energy" (if it too is not a façon de parler) is not the name of an identifiable substance that can be qualified in this way.10
Furthermore, using "quantity" to depict the change in motion of molecules is rather dubious, anyway. Certainly, we can speak of an increase in velocity here, but there is no such thing as a quantity of velocity that could sensibly said to increase. Velocity is not a substance either, and although we certainly use numbers to depict it, we do not refer to anything called the "quantity of velocity" (except again, perhaps as a façon de parler). Since velocity is a vector, its magnitude is given by a scalar, but velocity itself is just that scalar operating in a that direction. To call the magnitude of a vector a "quantity" would be to confuse a vector (or indeed a direction) with a substance.
And this is not mere pedantry. As we saw above, this is in line with Hegel's own definition of the word:
"Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so identical that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus, e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker." [Hegel (1975), p.124, §85.]
This too is underlined by the Glossary at the Marx Internet Archive:
"Quantity is an aspect of something which may change (become more or less) without the thing thereby becoming something else.
"Thus, if something changes to an extent that it is no longer the same kind of thing, this is a 'qualitative change', whereas a change in something by which it still the same thing, though more or less, bigger or smaller, is a 'quantitative change'.
"In Hegel's Logic, Quality is the first division of Being, when the world is just one thing after another, so to speak, while Quantity is the second division, where perception has progressed to the point of recognising what is stable within the ups and downs of things. The third and final stage, Measure, the unity of quality and quantity, denotes the knowledge of just when quantitative change becomes qualitative change." [Quoted from here. Bold added.]
Hence, if we adhere to this definition strictly, there can be no "quantity" of energy, because it is not a "thing", or an "aspect" of a thing in any meaningful sense of these words.
Nevertheless, even if it were appropriate to depict energy in this way, neither the heat nor the faster molecules change in quality themselves. Any amount of heat still stays as heat; motion is still motion. This shows that energy and heat are not "kinds of things", and hence that their increase isn't even quantitative, since they can't therefore be "aspects of something. If they were then according to this 'Law' and increase in energy at some point would "pass over" and it would change into a "new kind of thing".
If so, then the "quantitative" aspect of Engels's First 'Law' is defective, since, given that quantity has to be an aspect of certain "kinds of thing", and energy and motion are not "kinds of things", they can't increase or decrease in quantity.10a00
Hence, the First 'Law' does apply to this 'phenomenon'!
In that case, it should now perhaps be re-written along the following lines:
E2: An increase in the quantity of one item (e.g., heat) leads to no qualitative change in that item, while it can induce an alteration in the quality of another item (e.g., water), which will in turn have changed in quality while undergoing no quantitative change itself -- but which qualitative change is inadmissible anyway since it's not a quality definitive of the latter (e.g., water as H2O).
Or, even:
E3: An increase in what isn't the quantity of one item (e.g., heat) leads to no qualitative change in that item, while it can induce an alteration in the quality of another item (e.g., water), which will in turn have changed in quality while undergoing no quantitative change itself -- but which qualitative change is inadmissible anyway since it's not a quality definitive of the latter (e.g., water as H2O).
This is not an impressive 'Law'; still less is this hackneyed example (water) a convincing instance of it.
As far as balding heads are concerned, it's not easy to see how this over-worked example illustrates the First 'Law', either. That is because it's difficult to believe that someone with, say, n hairs on his or her head is hirsute, when the same person with n-1 hairs is objectively bald -- even if at some point or other (and not necessarily the same point) we all might subjectively change the words we use to depict either.
Now, if it could be shown that those with precisely n-1 hairs on their heads (for some specific n) are always objectively bald, and that this is an essential defining quality of baldness, or of bald people (in the Aristotelian/Hegelian sense required), so that a change from n to n-1 hairs always results in baldness, and which rule is true for all hirsute human beings, then the First 'Law' might have some life left in it in this one instance. It could then be a dialectical 'Law' that applies only to the balding parts of nature, but nothing else. [Which is longhand for saying it can't therefore be a law.]
Anyway, is baldness really a "new kind of thing"? With respect to baldness, human anatomists (and even hairdressers) have yet to define hair loss in such Aristotelian terms. Hence, and unfortunately for DM-fans, they have so far failed to categorise all follically-challenged individuals in this way, declaring that anyone with n-1 hairs is essentially bald, whereas anyone with n hairs is still essentially non-coot. Until they do, there are no "nodal" points here, just as there seem to be no particular (Aristotelian/Hegelian) "qualities" definitive of bald human beings for dialecticians to latch onto. So, in this case, too, it's impossible to see how an 'objective' example of this dialectical 'Law' could apply --, merely a 'subjective' impression of it, and one that has to rely on a quirky application of an already vague Aristotelian/Hegelian 'definition' of "quality".
So, it seems that the change in "quality", if it occurs here, takes place not in the one going bald, but in the one describing him/her that way. In whi8ch case, with respect to human balding, a change in the quantity of hair on one person's head will merely change the quality of someone else's opinion of him/her -- and even that occurs subjectively and (possibly even) non-"nodally", too.
There isn't much here on which to base a dialectical 'Law', at least nothing that would fail to brand this part of DM as a fringe science, at best.
Clifford Conner tries to sell us this example of a change in "quality":
"Atomic bombs and nuclear reactions have given us an unsurpassable illustration of this law, and Engels would surely have appreciated this one, too. When the nuclear fuel is brought together, if there is less than a certain exact amount, which is called the 'critical mass', nothing will happen. But, if a little more fuel is added, and a little more, and a little more, eventually the 'critical mass' will be reached and the nuclear chain reaction will be initiated." [Conner (1992), p.29. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
But, has a new "kind of thing" emerged here? In fact, no "new kind of thing" has resulted from this process. All that happens is that a certain sort of reaction speeds up dramatically:
"Fission chain reactions occur because of interactions between neutrons and fissile isotopes (such as 235U). The chain reaction requires both the release of neutrons from fissile isotopes undergoing nuclear fission and the subsequent absorption of some of these neutrons in fissile isotopes. When an atom undergoes nuclear fission, a few neutrons (the exact number depends on several factors) are ejected from the reaction. These free neutrons will then interact with the surrounding medium, and if more fissile fuel is present, some may be absorbed and cause more fissions. Thus, the cycle repeats to give a reaction that is self-sustaining.
"Nuclear power plants operate by precisely controlling the rate at which nuclear reactions occur, and that control is maintained through the use of several redundant layers of safety measures. Moreover, the materials in a nuclear reactor core and the uranium enrichment level make a nuclear explosion impossible, even if all safety measures failed. On the other hand, nuclear weapons are specifically engineered to produce a reaction that is so fast and intense it can't be controlled after it has started. When properly designed, this uncontrolled reaction can lead to an explosive energy release." [Wikipedia, accessed 08/11/11.]
Figure Three: A Non-Dialectical Chain Reaction
As another source points out:
"Although two to three neutrons are produced for every fission, not all of these neutrons are available for continuing the fission reaction. If the conditions are such that the neutrons are lost at a faster rate than they are formed by fission, the chain reaction will not be self-sustaining.
"At the point where the chain reaction can become self-sustaining, this is referred to as critical mass.
"In an atomic bomb, a mass of fissile material greater than the critical mass must be assembled instantaneously and held together for about a millionth of a second to permit the chain reaction to propagate before the bomb explodes.
"The amount of a fissionable material's critical mass depends on several factors; the shape of the material, its composition and density, and the level of purity.
"A sphere has the minimum possible surface area for a given mass, and hence minimizes the leakage of neutrons. By surrounding the fissionable material with a suitable neutron 'reflector', the loss of neutrons can reduced and the critical mass can be reduced.
"By using a neutron reflector, only about 11 pounds (5 kilograms) of nearly pure or weapon's grade plutonium 239 or about 33 pounds (15 kilograms) uranium 235 is needed to achieve critical mass." [From here. Accessed 08/11/11. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
So, and again, no "new kind of thing" results from this process -- the "old kind of thing" merely speeds up. Hence, this can't be an example of the First 'Law'.
Conner continues:
"I was reminder of the transformation of quantity into quality by an article i read...about resort beaches in New Jersey. Health inspectors periodically check the ocean water for faecal coliform bacteria. They measure it in parts per millilitres of water. If it is below 200 parts, the allow the beaches to remain open; above that number they close them down. Some resort owners were caught throwing chlorine tablets into the ocean just before the inspectors were dues to arrive.
"It was a futile attempt, as it turned out, to prevent a transformation of quantity into quality, but it was rather remarkable to see capitalists sneaking around trying to 'unpollute' the environment." [Conner (1992), p.29. Spelling altered to UK English; Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
But, this isn't as remarkable as seeing DM-fans scratching around, desperately trying to impose their ramshackle 'theory' on the world. In this latest example of Mickey Mouse Science, Conner failed to ask himself what the new "quality" is that is supposed to have come into being here. But, no new "kind of thing" has emerged; all we have are more bacteria in the water over and above a figure set by the authorities. Either side of this figure, the water is still polluted, it's just that above 200 the authorities deem that it's 'cost effective' to close the beach.
As Karl Popper noted, just like Freudians (and he could have added just like Fundamentalist Christians, too), Dialectical Marxists only look for conformation of their 'theory', and even then they have to ignore what that theory actually tells them!
"I found that those of my friends who were admirers of Marx, Freud, and Adler, were impressed by a number of points common to these theories, and especially by their apparent explanatory power. These theories appear to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, open your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirmed instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refuse to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still 'un-analyzed' and crying aloud for treatment.
"The most characteristic element in this situation seemed to me the incessant stream of confirmations, of observations which 'verified' the theories in question; and this point was constantly emphasize by their adherents. A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation -- which revealed the class bias of the paper -- and especially of course what the paper did not say. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their 'clinical observations.' As for Adler, I was much impressed by a personal experience. Once, in 1919, I reported to him a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. 'Because of my thousandfold experience,' he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: 'And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold.'
"What I had in mind was that his previous observations may not have been much sounder than this new one; that each in its turn had been interpreted in the light of 'previous experience,' and at the same time counted as additional confirmation. What, I asked myself, did it confirm? No more than that a case could be interpreted in the light of a theory. But this meant very little, I reflected, since every conceivable case could be interpreted in the light Adler's theory, or equally of Freud's. I may illustrate this by two very different examples of human behaviour: that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. Each of these two cases can be explained with equal ease in Freudian and Adlerian terms. According to Freud the first man suffered from repression (say, of some component of his Oedipus complex), while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority (producing perhaps the need to prove to himself that he dared to commit some crime), and so did the second man (whose need was to prove to himself that he dared to rescue the child). I could not think of any human behaviour which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory. It was precisely this fact -- that they always fitted, that they were always confirmed -- which in the eyes of their admirers constituted the strongest argument in favour of these theories. It began to dawn on me that this apparent strength was in fact their weakness." [Popper (1966), pp.34-35. Spelling altered to conform to UK English; quotation marks adjusted to the conventions adopted at this site.]
Of course, Popper used this observation to attack Marx's Theory of History, but as we will see in a later Essay, that was misguided. Even so, his comments certainly fit the sort of Mickey Mouse Science we find DM-apologists peddling.
As I noted above:
The phrases "something new" and "ceasing to be what it is" are hopelessly vague.... We are not told what constitutes novelty or what "ceasing to be" amounts to, either.... Dialecticians, including Hegel, regard ice, water and steam as "something new", when we now know they aren't. But, such equivocation 'allows' dialecticians to apply this 'Law' when is suits them, just as it 'allows' them to refuse to acknowledge counter-examples when and where they like, too.
Several more examples will be added at a later date.
As far as the other examples dialecticians use to illustrate this 'Law' are concerned: there are far too few in number that actually work (even when the above difficulties are ignored) to justify the epithet "Law" being attached to any of them. If, in comparison, say, Newton's Second Law of motion worked as fitfully as this 'Law' does (or was as vaguely-worded and was as non-mathematical), physicists would certainly refuse to describe it as a law. If, for instance, the rate of change of momentum even under controlled conditions were in fact proportional to the applied force in now and then (and even then, if this were the case only if key terms were either ignored, remained ill-defined or were twisted out of shape), no one would have taken Newton seriously. And rightly so.
But, this is Mickey Mouse Science, after all...
'Hard' Science Vs Amateurish Anecdote
The reason why I have called DM "Mickey Mouse Science" is quite plain. The examples usually given by DM-fans to illustrate the First 'Law' are (almost without exception) either amateurish, anecdotal or impressionistic. If someone were to submit a paper to a science journal purporting to establish the veracity of a new law with the same level of vagueness, imprecision, triteness, lack of detail and/or mathematics, aggravated by comparable theoretical naivety, it would be rejected out-of-hand at the first stage, its author's reputation forever tarnished.
Indeed, dialecticians would themselves treat with derision any attempt to establish, say, either the truth of classical economic theory or the falsity of Marx's work with an evidential display that was as crassly amateurish as this --, to say nothing of the contempt they would show for such theoretical wooliness. In circumstances like these, dialecticians, who might otherwise be quick to cry "pedantry" at the issues raised here (and in other Essays published at this site), would become devoted pedants themselves, and would nit-pick with the best at such inferior anti-Marxist work.10a0
[Indeed, they already do this to my work. In one breath they complain about my alleged "pedantry", in the next they home in on what they assume are minor errors (in detail or in wording) that I have supposedly committed. Here is just the latest example; concentrate on the comments of one "Gilhyle". Here is another. Toward Engels they show infinite patience; critics like me are pilloried for the simplest of assumed errors.]
Now, anyone who has studied or practiced real science will already know this. It's only in books on DM (and internet discussion boards) that Mickey Mouse material of this sort seems acceptable.10a
At this point we might wonder where Engels's predilection for Mickey Mouse Science came from. After all, he was familiar with the careful and detailed work of contemporary scientists (like Darwin). Why then was he prepared to assert that his 'Laws' were indeed laws on the basis of very little primary data (or none at all), but relied on secondary or tertiary (but nonetheless selectively-chosen) evidence and sloppy analysis, instead? Well, we need look no further than Hegel for a clue, for Hegel was the original Mickey Mouse Scientist (making Engels merely the Sorcerer's Apprentice).
Figure Four: Researching For A PhD In Dialectics?
Here is Hegel's detailed 'proof' of this 'Law':
"The system of natural numbers already shows a nodal line of qualitative moments which emerge in a merely external succession. It is on the one hand a merely quantitative progress and regress, a perpetual adding or subtracting, so that each number has the same arithmetical relation to the one before it and after it, as these have to their predecessors and successors, and so on. But the numbers so formed also have a specific relation to other numbers preceding and following them, being either an integral multiple of one of them or else a power or a root. In the musical scale which is built up on quantitative differences, a quantum gives rise to an harmonious relation without its own relation to those on either side of it in the scale differing from the relation between these again and their predecessors and successors. While successive notes seem to be at an ever-increasing distance from the keynote, or numbers in succeeding each other arithmetically seem only to become other numbers, the fact is that there suddenly emerges a return, a surprising accord, of which no hint was given by the quality of what immediately preceded it, but which appears as an actio in distans [action at distance -- RL], as a connection with something far removed. There is a sudden interruption of the succession of merely indifferent relations which do not alter the preceding specific reality or do not even form any such, and although the succession is continued quantitatively in the same manner, a specific relation breaks in per saltum [leaps -- RL].
"Such qualitative nodes and leaps occur in chemical combinations when the mixture proportions are progressively altered; at certain points in the scale of mixtures, two substances form products exhibiting particular qualities. These products are distinguished from one another not merely by a more or less, and they are not already present, or only perhaps in a weaker degree, in the proportions close to the nodal proportions, but are bound up with these nodes themselves. For example, different oxides of nitrogen and nitric acids having essentially different qualities are formed only when oxygen and nitrogen are combined in certain specific proportions, and no such specific compounds are formed by the intermediate proportions. Metal oxides, e.g. the lead oxides, are formed at certain quantitative points of oxidation and are distinguished by colours and other qualities. They do not pass gradually into one another; the proportions lying in between these nodes do not produce a neutral or a specific substance. Without having passed through the intervening stages, a specific compound appears which is based on a measure relation and possesses characteristic qualities. Again, water when its temperature is altered does not merely get more or less hot but passes through from the liquid into either the solid or gaseous states; these states do not appear gradually; on the contrary, each new state appears as a leap, suddenly interrupting and checking the gradual succession of temperature changes at these points. Every birth and death, far from being a progressive gradualness, is an interruption of it and is the leap from a quantitative into a qualitative alteration.
"It is said, natura non facit saltum [there are no leaps in nature]; and ordinary thinking when it has to grasp a coming-to-be or a ceasing-to-be, fancies it has done so by representing it as a gradual emergence or disappearance. But we have seen that the alterations of being in general are not only the transition of one magnitude into another, but a transition from quality into quantity and vice versa, a becoming-other which is an interruption of gradualness and the production of something qualitatively different from the reality which preceded it. Water, in cooling, does not gradually harden as if it thickened like porridge, gradually solidifying until it reached the consistency of ice; it suddenly solidifies, all at once. It can remain quite fluid even at freezing point if it is standing undisturbed, and then a slight shock will bring it into the solid state.
"In thinking about the gradualness of the coming-to-be of something, it is ordinarily assumed that what comes to be is already sensibly or actually in existence; it is not yet perceptible only because of its smallness. Similarly with the gradual disappearance of something, the non-being or other which takes its place is likewise assumed to be really there, only not observable, and there, too, not in the sense of being implicitly or ideally contained in the first something, but really there, only not observable. In this way, the form of the in-itself, the inner being of something before it actually exists, is transformed into a smallness of an outer existence, and the essential difference, that of the Notion, is converted into an external difference of mere magnitude. The attempt to explain coming-to-be or ceasing-to-be on the basis of gradualness of the alteration is tedious like any tautology; what comes to be or ceases to be is assumed as already complete and in existence beforehand and the alteration is turned into a mere change of an external difference, with the result that the explanation is in fact a mere tautology. The intellectual difficulty attendant on such an attempted explanation comes from the qualitative transition from something into its other in general, and then into its opposite; but the identity and the alteration are misrepresented as the indifferent, external determinations of the quantitative sphere.
"In the moral sphere, in so far as it is considered under the categories of being, there occurs the same transition from quantity into quality and different qualities appear to be based in a difference of magnitude.
"It is through a more or less that the measure of frivolity or thoughtlessness is exceeded and something quite different comes about, namely crime, and thus right becomes wrong and virtue vice. Thus states, too, acquire through their quantitative difference, other things being assumed equal, a distinct qualitative character. With the expansion of the state and an increased number of citizens, the laws and the constitution acquire a different significance. The state has its own measure of magnitude and when this is exceeded this mere change of size renders it liable to instability and disruption under that same constitution which was its good fortune and its strength before its expansion." [Hegel (1999), pp.368-71, §§774-778. Emphases in the original.]
"The identity between quantity and quality, which is found in Measure, is at first only implicit, and not yet explicitly realised. In other words, these two categories, which unite in Measure, each claim an independent authority. On the one hand, the quantitative features of existence may be altered, without affecting its quality. On the other hand, this increase and diminution, immaterial though it be, has its limit, by exceeding which the quality suffers change. Thus the temperature of water is, in the first place, a point of no consequence in respect of its liquidity: still with the increase of diminution of the temperature of the liquid water, there comes a point where this state of cohesion suffers a qualitative change, and the water is converted into steam or ice. A quantitative change takes place, apparently without any further significance: but there is something lurking behind, and a seemingly innocent change of quantity acts as a kind of snare, to catch hold of the quality. The antinomy of Measure which this implies was exemplified under more than one garb among the Greeks. It was asked, for example, whether a single grain makes a heap of wheat, or whether it makes a bald-tail to tear out a single hair from the horse's tail. At first, no doubt, looking at the nature of quantity as an indifferent and external character of being, we are disposed to answer these questions in the negative. And yet, as we must admit, this indifferent increase and diminution has its limit: a point is finally reached, where a single additional grain makes a heap of wheat; and the bald-tail is produced, if we continue plucking out single hairs. These examples find a parallel in the story of the peasant who, as his ass trudged cheerfully along, went on adding ounce after ounce to its load, till at length it sunk under the unendurable burden. It would be a mistake to treat these examples as pedantic futility; they really turn on thoughts, an acquaintance with which is of great importance in practical life, especially in ethics. Thus in the matter of expenditure, there is a certain latitude within which a more or less does not matter; but when the Measure, imposed by the individual circumstances of the special case, is exceeded on the one side or the other, the qualitative nature of Measure (as in the above examples of the different temperature of water) makes itself felt, and a course, which a moment before was held good economy, turns into avarice or prodigality. The same principles may be applied in politics, when the constitution of a state has to be looked at as independent of, no less than as dependent on, the extent of its territory, the number of its inhabitants, and other quantitative points of the same kind. If we look, e.g. at a state with a territory of ten thousand square miles and a population of four millions we should, without hesitation, admit that a few square miles of land or a few thousand inhabitants more or less could exercise no essential influence on the character of its constitution. But on the other hand, we must not forget that by the continual increase or diminishing of a state, we finally get to a point where, apart from all other circumstances, this quantitative alteration alone necessarily draws with it an alteration in the quality of the constitution. The constitution of a little Swiss canton does not suit a great kingdom; and, similarly, the constitution of the Roman republic was unsuitable when transferred to the small imperial towns of Germany." [Hegel (1975), pp.158-59.]
Readers will no doubt note that rank amateurism is not confined to Engels (or even Woods and Grant); Hegel could 'amateur' with the best of them.10a1
So, this 'Law' can be made to work in a few selected instances if we bend things enough (and if we fail to define either "quality", "node", "leap", "same body", "new kind of thing", and "addition of energy" -- or, if we ignore Hegel's own vague 'definition' of "quality" into the bargain).
In contrast there are countless examples where this 'Law' does not apply, no matter how we try to twist or bend it.10b
Why Engels's First 'Law' was ever called a law is therefore something of a Dialectical Mystery.
[Other examples of this 'Law', to which DM-fans appeal, are discussed in more detail in Note 9.]
'Law' Two: The Interpenetration Of Opposites
The Second 'Law' of dialectics -- unsurprisingly -- fares no better.
We saw above how Engels depicted it:
"The law of the interpenetration of opposites.... [M]utual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other when carried to extremes...." [Engels (1954), pp.17, 62.]
Here, in a published work, he says more or less the same:
"Already in Rousseau, therefore, we find not only a line of thought which corresponds exactly to the one developed in Marx's Capital, but also, in details, a whole series of the same dialectical turns of speech as Marx used: processes which in their nature are antagonistic, contain a contradiction; transformation of one extreme into its opposite; and finally, as the kernel of the whole thing, the negation of the negation. [Engels (1976) p.179. Bold emphasis added.]
Lenin added a few extra details:
"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]….
"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…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….
"The unity…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.221-22, 357-58. Emphases in the original.]
It's worth noting at the outset that the doctrine that nature and all it contains is a UO, and that change is powered by their 'contradictory' interaction, is also found in all known mystical religions/philosophies. [More on that in Essay Fourteen Part One (summary here). Until that Essay is published, the reader is directed here.]
Dialectics Can't Explain Change!
Surprisingly, DM-theorists (like Lenin and Engels, quoted above) are decidedly unclear as to whether objects/processes change because of (1) A contradictory relationship between their internal opposites, or because (2) They change into these opposites, or even whether (3) Change itself creates such opposites.
[FL = Formal Logic; NON = Negation of the Negation: UO = Unity of Opposites; DM = Dialectical Materialism.]
Lenin's words merely illustrate this confusion in an acute form: he speaks, for instance, of the "transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other…." We will see below the havoc such an idea would create, if true.
Engels is equally unclear: "[M]utual penetration of polar opposites and transformation into each other...." The same can be said of Plekhanov:
"And so every phenomenon, by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or later, but inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite…." [Plekhanov (1956), p.77. Bold emphasis added.]
And, here is Mao:
"Why is it that '...the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another'? Because that is just how things are in objective reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself into its opposite....
"In speaking of the identity of opposites in given conditions, what we are referring to is real and concrete opposites and the real and concrete transformations of opposites into one another....
"All processes have a beginning and an end, all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute." [Mao (1961b), pp.340-42. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases added.]
Once more, these tell us that objects and processes not only change (1) Because of a struggle between their 'internal opposites', but also that (2) They change into these opposites (and, according to Lenin, they change into all of them!) as a result of that "struggle", as well as (3) They also produce these opposites while they change --, or they do so as a result of that change.10b1
As we are about to see, this idea -- that there are such things as "dialectical contradictions" and "unities of opposites" (etc.), which cause change -- presents DM-theorists with some rather nasty dialectical headaches, if interpreted along the lines expressed in the DM-classics (quoted above and at greater length in Note 10b1).
To see this, let us suppose that object/process A is comprised of two "internal contradictory opposites", or "opposite tendencies", O* and O**, and it thus changes as a result.
But, O* can't itself change into O** since O** already exists! If O** didn't already exist then, according to this theory, O* could not change at all, for there would be no opposite to bring that about.
[The same problems arise if these are viewed as 'external' contradictions. However, as we will see in Essay Eight Part One, the latter option attracts serious difficulties of its own.
I have not used "A" and "non-A" here in order to prevent certain options from being closed off too soon. Not much hangs on this, anyway, which readers will readily see if they replace O* and O** with "A" and "non-A" respectively throughout.
Hence, concentrating on A alone will not help the beleaguered dialectician. If A changes into not-A, A will have to exist at the same time as not-A, or A and not-A could not 'struggle' with one another so that A can change into not-A. But, if not-A already exists, A can't change into it, since not-A is already there! (Objections to this line of attack are neutralised below.)]
And these 'opposites' have to co-exist -- as Gollobin notes:
"Opposites in a thing are not only mutually exclusive, polar, repelling, each other; they also attract and interpenetrate each other. They begin and cease to exist together.... These dual aspects of opposites -- conflict and unity -- are like scissor blades in cutting, jaws in mastication, and two legs in walking. Where there is only one, the process as such is impossible: 'all polar opposites are in general determined by the mutual action of two opposite poles on one another, the separation and opposition of these poles exists only within their unity and interconnection, and, conversely, their interconnection exists only in their separation and their unity only in their opposition.' In fact, 'where one no sooner tries to hold on to one side alone then it is transformed unnoticed into the other....'" [Gollobin (1986), p.113; quoting Engels (1891), p.414.]
Mao underlines the same point:
"The fact is that no contradictory aspect can exist in isolation. Without its opposite aspect, each loses the condition for its existence. Just think, can any one contradictory aspect of a thing or of a concept in the human mind exist independently? Without life, there would be no death; without death, there would be no life. Without 'above', there would be no 'below').... Without landlords, there would be no tenant-peasants; without tenant-peasants, there would be no landlords. Without the bourgeoisie, there would be no proletariat; without the proletariat, there would be no bourgeoisie. Without imperialist oppression of nations, there would be no colonies or semi-colonies; without colonies or semicolonies, there would be no imperialist oppression of nations. It is so with all opposites; in given conditions, on the one hand they are opposed to each other, and on the other they are interconnected, interpenetrating, interpermeating and interdependent, and this character is described as identity. In given conditions, all contradictory aspects possess the character of non-identity and hence are described as being in contradiction. But they also possess the character of identity and hence are interconnected. This is what Lenin means when he says that dialectics studies 'how opposites can be ... identical'. How then can they be identical? Because each is the condition for the other's existence. This is the first meaning of identity.
"But is it enough to say merely that each of the contradictory aspects is the condition for the other's existence, that there is identity between them and that consequently they can coexist in a single entity? No, it is not. The matter does not end with their dependence on each other for their existence; what is more important is their transformation into each other. That is to say, in given conditions, each of the contradictory aspects within a thing transforms itself into its opposite, changes its position to that of its opposite. This is the second meaning of the identity of contradiction.
"Why is there identity here, too? You see, by means of revolution the proletariat, at one time the ruled, is transformed into the ruler, while the bourgeoisie, the erstwhile ruler, is transformed into the ruled and changes its position to that originally occupied by its opposite. This has already taken place in the Soviet Union, as it will take place throughout the world. If there were no interconnection and identity of opposites in given conditions, how could such a change take place?" [Mao (1961a), pp.338-39. Bold emphases added.]
In that case, these 'opposites' must co-exist.
Hence,
it's no good propelling O** into the future so that it is what
O* will change into, since O* will do no such thing unless
O** is already there, in the present, to make that happen!
[Which is of course why these opposites have to co-exist.]
So, if object/process A is already composed of a 'dialectical union' of
O* and
not-O*
(interpreting
O** now as not-O*),
O* can't change into not-O*
since
not-O*
already exists.
Several alternatives now suggest themselves which might allow dialecticians to dig themselves out of this hermetic hole.
Either:
(1) O* 'changes', not into not-O*, but into not-O1*, meaning (a) There are now two not-O*s where once there was only one (unless, of course, one of these not-O*s just vanishes into thin air -- see below), and (b) O* will have changed, not into its opposite, but into something that isn't its opposite, and with which it hasn't struggled; or:
(2) O* does not change, or it simply disappears. Plainly, O* can't change into what already exists -- that is, O* can't change into its opposite, not-O*, without there being two of them (see (1) above). But even then, one of these will not be not-O* just a copy of it. In that case, once more: O* either disappears, does not change at all, or changes into something else; or:
(3) Not-O* itself disappears to allow a new (but now copy of) not-O* to emerge that O* can and does change into. If so, questions would naturally arise as to how the original not-O* could possibly cause O* to change if is has just vanished. Of course, this option merely postpones the evil day, for the same difficulties will afflict the new not-O* that afflicted the old. If it exists in order to allow O* to change, then we are back where we were a few paragraphs back; or:
(4) O* and not-O* change into one another. But, as we will see later, this options presents DM-theorists with even more serious difficulties, since it implies that capitalism must change into socialism, and socialism must change into capitalism! But, worse, it's not easy to see how this can happen if both of these already exist.
Anyway, as should seem obvious, among other things already mentioned, alternative (2) plainly means that O* does not in fact change into not-O*, it is just replaced by it. Option (1), on the other hand, has the original not-O* remaining the same (when it was supposed to turn into its own opposite -- i.e., O* -- according to the DM-classics), and options (2) and (3) will only work if matter and/or energy can either be destroyed or created from nowhere!
In addition, option (4) has O* and not-O* changing into one another, meaning that (a) there is not net change, or that (b) these have just replaced one another. So, if we label, for instance, Capitalism, "C" and socialism, "S", then these two must co-exist if they are to "struggle" with one another (as Mao pointed out above), the net result being that in the end S and C still co-exist, only they will have now swapped places! Of course, if S already exists, C need not change into it, and socialists need not fight for it! [More on this, and other absurd consequences of this 'theory', below.]
Naturally, these problems will simply re-appear at the next stage as not-O* readies itself to change into whatever it changes into. But, in this case there's an added twist, for there is as yet no not-not-O* in existence to make this happen. This means that the dialectical process will grind to a halt, unless a not-not-O* pops into existence (out of thin air) to start things up again. But what could possibly have engineered that?
Indeed, at the very least, this 'theory' of change leaves it entirely mysterious how not-O* itself came about in the first place. It seems to have popped into existence from nowhere, too. [Gollobin (above) sort of half recognises this without realising either his error or the serious problems this creates.]
For example, in option (4) above, S must already exist, or there can be no struggle, but where did it come from? From C? And yet it can't have done that, since for C to change and produce S, S must already exist (or there would be no struggle)! And, where did C itself come from? Of course, C came from F (Feudalism), but that in turn means that C and F must co-exist, too, so C can't have come from F (since they must co-exist)! Hence, this 'theory' implies means that either (i) C, S and F must all co-exist, or (ii) All three sprang into existence from nowhere.
Of course, C, S and F are all abstractions, and so can't possibly struggle with one another, but the same problems emerge if we concentrate on things that can and do struggle. Let W1 be any randomly selected worker or section of workers in struggle, and let C1 be those capitalists or sections of the capitalist class and their bully-boys with which they struggle. According to the DM-classics, W1 must change into C1 and vice versa. But, this can't happen since both of these already exist; so at best, all they can do is replace one another. Do we see this in the class struggle?
The same difficulties
arise if we project this into the future and consider the final struggle to
overthrow capitalism (if and when that takes place). In that case, let W2
be that section of the workers' movement in actual struggle, and let C2
be those capitalists (and/or those elements that fight their battles for them)
with which they are struggling. According to the DM-classics, W2
must change into C2
and vice versa. Again, this can't happen since both of these already
exist; so at best, all they can do is replace one another. Are we really
all struggling just to become capitalists?
Returning to the main argument: in like manner, not-O*
can't have come from
O* itself, since
O* can only change because of the operation of
not-O*,
which does not yet exist! And pushing the process into the past (via a
'reversed' version of the NON)
will merely reduplicate the above problems, as we have just seen with C,
S, and F.
[However, on the NON, see below.]
It could be objected that all this seems to place objects and/or processes in fixed categories, which is one of the main criticisms dialecticians make of FL. Hence, on that basis, it could be maintained that the above argument is entirely misguided.
Fortunately, repairs are easy to make: let us now suppose that object/process A is comprised of two changing "internal/external opposites" O* and O**, (the latter once again interpreted as not-O*), and thus develops as a result.
The rest still follows as before: if object/process A is already composed of a changing dialectical union of O* and not-O*, and O* develops into not-O* as a result, then this can't happen. It's not possible for O* to change into not-O* when not-O* already exists.
Of course, it could be argued that not-O* develops into O* while not-O* develops into O*.
[This objection might even incorporate that eminently obscure Hegelian term-of-art: "sublation". More on that presently.]
If that were so, while it was happening, these two would no longer be 'opposites' of one another --, not unless we widen the term "opposite" to mean "anything that an object/process turns into, and/or any intermediate object/process while that is happening". Naturally, that would make this 'Law' work by definitional fiat, rendering it eminently 'subjective', once more.
But, if we ignore that 'difficulty' for now, and even supposing it were the case that not-O* 'developed' into O* while not-O* 'developed' into O*, and such process were governed by the obscure term "sublation", this alternative will still not work (as we are about to see).
Developing this option further, before it is demolished, it could be argued that Engels had anticipated the above objections when he said:
"[RL: Negation of the negation is] a very simple process which is taking place everywhere and every day, which any child can understand as soon as it is stripped of the veil of mystery in which it was enveloped by the old idealist philosophy and in which it is to the advantage of helpless metaphysicians of Herr Dühring's calibre to keep it enveloped. Let us take a grain of barley. Billions of such grains of barley are milled, boiled and brewed and then consumed. But if such a grain of barley meets with conditions which are normal for it, if it falls on suitable soil, then under the influence of heat and moisture it undergoes a specific change, it germinates; the grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilised and finally once more produces grains of barley, and as soon as these have ripened the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation of the negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten-, twenty- or thirtyfold. Species of grain change extremely slowly, and so the barley of today is almost the same as it-was a century ago. But if we take a plastic ornamental plant, for example a dahlia or an orchid, and treat the seed and the plant which grows from it according to the gardener's art, we get as a result of this negation of the negation not only more seeds, but also qualitatively improved seeds, which produce more beautiful flowers, and each repetition of this process, each fresh negation of the negation, enhances this process of perfection. [Engels (1976), pp.172-73. Bold emphases added.]
"But someone may object: the negation that has taken place in this case is not a real negation: I negate a grain of barley also when I grind it, an insect when I crush it underfoot, or the positive quantity a when I cancel it, and so on. Or I negate the sentence: the rose is a rose, when I say: the rose is not a rose; and what do I get if I then negate this negation and say: but after all the rose is a rose? -- These objections are in fact the chief arguments put forward by the metaphysicians against dialectics, and they are wholly worthy of the narrow-mindedness of this mode of thought. Negation in dialectics does not mean simply saying no, or declaring that something does not exist, or destroying it in any way one likes. Long ago Spinoza said: Omnis determinatio est negatio -- every limitation or determination is at the same time a negation. And further: the kind of negation is here determined, firstly, by the general and, secondly, by the particular nature of the process. I must not only negate, but also sublate the negation. I must therefore so arrange the first negation that the second remains or becomes possible. How? This depends on the particular nature of each individual case. If I grind a grain of barley, or crush an insect, I have carried out the first part of the action, but have made the second part impossible. Every kind of thing therefore has a peculiar way of being negated in such manner that it gives rise to a development, and it is just the same with every kind of conception or idea....
"But it is clear that from a negation of the negation which consists in the childish pastime of alternately writing and cancelling a, or in alternately declaring that a rose is a rose and that it is not a rose, nothing eventuates but the silliness of the person who adopts such a tedious procedure. And yet the metaphysicians try to make us believe that this is the right way to carry out a negation of the negation, if we ever should want to do such a thing. [Ibid., pp.180-81. Bold emphases added.]
Engels's argument seems to be that "dialectical negation" is not the same as ordinary negation in that it is not simple destruction. Dialectical negation "sublates"; that is, it both destroys and preserves, so that something new or 'higher' emerges as a result. Nevertheless, we have already seen here, that Hegel's use of this word (i.e., "sublate") is highly suspect in itself, and we will also see below that this 'Law' (i.e., the NON) is even more dubious still (partly because Hegel confused ordinary negation with 'cancelling out', or with destruction, as, indeed, did Engels).
Well, despite all this, is it the case that the above comments neutralise the argument presented in this part of the Essay? Is the argument here guilty of the following:
"These objections are in fact the chief arguments put forward by the metaphysicians against dialectics, and they are wholly worthy of the narrow-mindedness of this mode of thought." [Ibid.]
To answer this, let us once again suppose that object/process A is comprised of two changing "internal opposites" O* and not-O*, and thus develops as a result. On this scenario, O* would change/develop into a "sublated" intermediary, but not into not-O* -- incidentally, contradicting the DM-worthies quoted earlier. Given what they tell us, O* should, of course, change into not-O*, not into some intermediary.
Putting this minor quibble to one side, too: Given this 'revised' view, let us suppose that O* does indeed change into that intermediary. To that end, let us call the latter, "Oi*" (which can be interpreted as a combination of the old and the new; a 'negation' which also 'preserves'/'sublates').
If so, then Oi* must remain forever in that state, unchanged, for there is as yet no not-Oi* in existence to make it develop any further!
[Recall that on this 'theory', everything (and that must include Oi*) changes because of a 'struggle' with its 'opposite'.]
So, there must be a not-Oi* to make Oi* change further. To be sure, we could try to exempt Oi* from this essential requirement on an ad hoc basis (arguing, perhaps, that Oi* changes spontaneously with nothing actually causing it), and yet if we do that, there would seem to be no reason to accept the version of events contained in the DM-classics, which tells us that every thing/process in the entire universe changes because of the "struggle" of opposites (and Oi* is certainly a thing/process). Furthermore, if we make an exemption here, then the whole point of the exercise would be lost, for if some things do and some things do not change according this dialectical 'Law', we would be left with no way of telling which changes were and which were not subject to it.
[That would also mean that the Second 'Law' was not a 'law' either, just like the First isn't.]
This is, of course, quite apart from the fact that such a subjectively applied exemption certificate (issued to Oi*) would mean that nothing at all could change, for everything in the universe is in the process of change, and is thus already a 'sublated' version of whatever it used to be.
Ignoring this, too, even if Oi* were to change into not-Oi* (as we suppose it must, given the doctrine laid down in the DM-classics), then all the earlier problems simply reappear, for this could only take place if not-Oi* already exists to make it happen! But not-Oi* can't already exist, for Oi* has not changed into it yet!
Once more, it could be objected that the dialectical negation of O* to produce not-O* is not ordinary negation, as the above seems to assume.
In that case, let us say that O* turns into its 'sublated' opposite not-Os*. But, if that is to happen, according to the Dialectical Classics, not-Os* must already exist! If so, O* can't turn into not-Os*, for it already exists! On the other hand, if not-Os* does not already exist, then O* can't change, for O* can only change if it "struggles" with what it changes into, i.e., not-Os*.
Once again, we hit the same non-dialectical brick wall.
It could be objected that the above abstract argument misses the point; in the real world things manifestly change. For example, to use Mao's example, peace changes into war, and vice versa. Love can change into hate, and so on.
Even so, DM can't explain why this is so. For peace to change into war, or vice versa, it would have to struggle with it. Has anyone witnessed this? Can these abstractions struggle with one another? But both Mao and Lenin tell us:
"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…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….
"The unity…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 added.]
"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.
"Engels said, 'Motion itself is a contradiction.' Lenin defined the law of the unity of opposites as 'the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society)'. Are these ideas correct? Yes, they are. The interdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things and the struggle between these aspects determine the life of all things and push their development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist....
"The contradictory aspects in every process exclude each other, struggle with each other and are in opposition to each other. Without exception, they are contained in the process of development of all things and in all human thought. A simple process contains only a single pair of opposites, while a complex process contains more. And in turn, the pairs of opposites are in contradiction to one another.
"That is how all things in the objective world and all human thought are constituted and how they are set in motion....
"War and peace, as everybody knows, transform themselves into each other. War is transformed into peace; for instance, the First World War was transformed into the post-war peace, and the civil war in China has now stopped, giving place to internal peace. Peace is transformed into war; for instance, the Kuomintang-Communist co-operation was transformed into war in 1927, and today's situation of world peace may be transformed into a second world war. Why is this so? Because in class society such contradictory things as war and peace have an identity in given conditions.
"All contradictory things are interconnected; not only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full meaning of the identity of opposites. This is what Lenin meant when he discussed 'how they happen to be (how they become) identical -- under what conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another'....
"Why is it that 'the human mind should take these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming themselves into one another'? Because that is just how things are in objective reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself into its opposite. Reflected in man's thinking, this becomes the Marxist world outlook of materialist dialectics. It is only the reactionary ruling classes of the past and present and the metaphysicians in their service who regard opposites not as living, conditional, mobile and transforming themselves into one another, but as dead and rigid, and they propagate this fallacy everywhere to delude the masses of the people, thus seeking to perpetuate their rule....
"All processes have a beginning and an end, all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the transformation of one process into another is absolute.
"There are two states of motion in all things, that of relative rest and that of conspicuous change. Both are caused by the struggle between the two contradictory elements contained in a thing. When the thing is in the first state of motion, it is undergoing only quantitative and not qualitative change and consequently presents the outward appearance of being at rest. When the thing is in the second state of motion, the quantitative change of the first state has already reached a culminating point and gives rise to the dissolution of the thing as an entity and thereupon a qualitative change ensues, hence the appearance of a conspicuous change. Such unity, solidarity, combination, harmony, balance, stalemate, deadlock, rest, constancy, equilibrium, solidity, attraction, etc., as we see in daily life, are all the appearances of things in the state of quantitative change. On the other hand, the dissolution of unity, that is, the destruction of this solidarity, combination, harmony, balance, stalemate, deadlock, rest, constancy, equilibrium, solidity and attraction, and the change of each into its opposite are all the appearances of things in the state of qualitative change, the transformation of one process into another. Things are constantly transforming themselves from the first into the second state of motion; the struggle of opposites goes on in both states but the contradiction is resolved through the second state. That is why we say that the unity of opposites is conditional, temporary and relative, while the struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute.
"When we said above that two opposite things can coexist in a single entity and can transform themselves into each other because there is identity between them, we were speaking of conditionality, that is to say, in given conditions two contradictory things can be united and can transform themselves into each other, but in the absence of these conditions, they can't constitute a contradiction, can't coexist in the same entity and can't transform themselves into one another. It is because the identity of opposites obtains only in given conditions that we have said identity is conditional and relative. We may add that the struggle between opposites permeates a process from beginning to end and makes one process transform itself into another, that it is ubiquitous, and that struggle is therefore unconditional and absolute.
"The combination of conditional, relative identity and unconditional, absolute struggle constitutes the movement of opposites in all things." [Mao (1961b), pp.316, 337-38, 339-40, 342-43. Bold emphases alone added; quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
If so, how can peace change into war unless it struggles with it?
It could be argued that the contradictory aspects (or underlying processes) of a given society, or societies, which might give the appearance of peace, are what turn peace in to war; it's the mutual struggle of these contradictory aspects (or underlying processes) that changes the one into the other.
In that case, let us call these underlying contradictory processes (etc.) A and A*. If the above is correct, it's the struggle between A and A* that changes Peace (P) into War (W). If so, then the DM-classics are wrong; P and its opposite, W, do not struggle with one another, or change one another, even though they are opposites, and even though they should do this (if the DM-classics are correct). What changes P into W is a struggle between their non-opposites, A and A*. But, if A or A* changes P, then they must be the opposite of P, and if they are the should change into P! Either that, or the DM-classics are wrong.
On the other hand, if A and A* are opposites of one another, they should change into one another. But they can't do that since they already exist!
Once again, we hit the same non-dialectical brick wall.
It could be argued that if we consider a more concrete example, we might be able to understand what the DM-classics meant when they claimed that things change into their opposites. While it might be the case that John is a boy, in a few years time it will be the case that John is a man (all things being equal). Now, the fact that other individuals are already men, doesn't stop John changing into a man (his opposite). So, John can change into his opposite even though that opposite already exists. So, the above objection fails.
Or, so it could be maintained.
But, as we have seen, this theory tells us that all things/processes change because they "struggle" with their opposites, and that they "struggle" with what they will become (i.e., that opposite).
If so, are we to assume that John has to struggle with all the individuals that are already men if he is to become a man himself (if we now treat all these other men as John's opposites)? Or, are we to suppose that John struggles with what he is to become, even before it/he exists? If not, then the above response is beside the point. Moreover, in view of the fact that John must turn into his opposite, does that mean he has to turn into these other men, too -- or, perhaps, into just one of them? But, it seems he must if the Dialectical Classics are to be believed.
Anyway, according to the DM-worthies quoted above, John can only change because of a struggle between opposites taking place in the here-and-now. If so, are we really supposed to believe that "John-as-a-man" is struggling with "John-as-a-boy"? Or, that the abstraction, manhood, is struggling with that other abstraction, boyhood?
Some might be tempted to reply that this is precisely what adolescence is, and yet, in that case, John-as-boy and John-as-a-man would have to be locked in struggle in the present. [Of course, adolescence can't struggle with anything, since it, too, is an abstraction. And a struggle in John's mind over what he is to become can't make him develop into a man, either!] But, John-as-a-man does not yet exist, and so John-as-a-man can't struggle with John-as-boy. On the other hand, if John-as-a-man does exist, so that 'he' can struggle with his youthful self, then John-as-boy can't change into 'him', for John-as-a-man already exists!
To be sure, John's 'opposite' is whatever he will become (if he is allowed to develop naturally), but, as noted above, that 'opposite' can't now exist otherwise John would not need to become him! But, if it doesn't exist, John can't change.
Looking at this more concretely, in ten or fifteen years time, John will not become just any man, he will become a particular man. In that case, let us call the man that John becomes "ManJ". But, once again, ManJ must exist now or John can't change into him (if the DM-classics quoted earlier are to be believed) -- for John can only become a man if he is now locked in struggle with his own opposite, ManJ.
Once more: if that is so, John can't become ManJ since ManJ already exists!
Consider another concrete example: wood being fashioned into a
table. Once more, according to the dialectical classics, all objects and
processes change because of a 'struggle' of opposites, and they also change
into those opposites.
So, the wood that is used to make a table, according to this 'theory', has to
'struggle' with what it turns into; that is, this wood has to 'struggle' with
the table it turns into!
In that case, the table must already exist, or it could not 'struggle' with the
wood from which it is to be made.
But, if the table already exists, then the wood can't be changed into it.
Indeed, why bother making a table that already exists?
On the other hand, if the table doesn't already exist, then the wood can't
'struggle' with its own opposite; that is, it can't 'struggle' with the table it
has yet to become!
Either way, change couldn't happen, according to this 'theory'.
And, it's little use introducing human agency here, for if a carpenter is required to make a table, then he/she has to 'struggle' with the wood to make it into that table -- since we are told that every object and process in nature is governed by this 'Law'. But, according to the Dialectical Classics, objects and processes 'struggle' with their dialectical 'opposites', and they turn into those opposites. If so, wood must turn into the carpenter, not the table! And the carpenter must change into wood!
With a crazy theory like this at its core, is it any wonder
Dialectical Marxism is a by-word for failure?10b2
[These, of course, are simply more concrete versions of the general argument outlined above.]
Consider another hackneyed example: water turning into steam at 100oC (under normal conditions). Are we really supposed to believe that the opposite that water becomes (i.e., steam) makes water turn into steam? But, this must be so if the Dialectical Classics are to be believed.
Hence, while you might think it's the heat/energy you are putting into the water that turns it into steam, what really happens, according to these wise old dialecticians, is that steam makes water turn into steam!
In that case, save energy and turn the gas off!
To that end, let us track a water molecule to see what happens to it. To identify it, we shall call it "W1", and the steam molecule it turns into "S1". But, if the DM-classics above are correct, S1 must already exist, otherwise W1 can't struggle with it and thus change into it! Again, if that is so, where does S1 disappear to if W1 changes into it?
In fact, according to the Dialectical classics, since opposites turn into one another, S1 must change into W1 at the same time as W1 is turning into S1! So while you are boiling a kettle, according to this Superscientific 'theory', steam must be condensing back into the water you are boiling, and it must be doing so at the same rate!
One wonders, therefore, how dialectical kettles manage to boil dry.
This must be so otherwise when W1 turns into S1 -- which already exists, or W1 could not change into it -- there would have to be two S1s where there used to be only one! [Matter created from nowhere?]
Of course, the same argument applies to water freezing (and to any and all other alleged examples of DM-change).
It could be objected that the opposite that liquid water turns into is a gas; so the dialectical classicists are correct. However, if we take them at their word, then that gas must 'struggle' with liquid water in the here-and-now if water is to change into it. But that gas does not yet exist; in which case, water would never boil if this 'theory' were true. And yet, even if it did, it's heat that causes the change not the gas! However we try and slice it, this 'theory' is totally useless -- that is, what little sense can be made of it.
It could be argued that what happens is that it's heat energy input into this system that makes water boil. Indeed, but then, if heat makes water boil, that water must struggle with this heat, and then change into it, just as heat must change into water!
If not, the DM-classics are wrong, and dialecticians are left with no theory of change.
Finally, it could be pointed out that Lenin in fact argued as follows:
"The identity of opposites (it would be more correct, perhaps, to say their 'unity,' -- although the difference between the terms identity and unity is not particularly important here. In a certain sense both are correct) is the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society). 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)." [Lenin (1961), pp.357-58. Bold emphasis alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform to the conventions adopted at this site.]
As one critic of my argument put things:
"This is a complete misreading of the law of unity and interpenetration of opposites. To borrow Rosa's symobology (sic), a contradiction means in essence that an entity A contains internally contradictory tendencies O* and O** which cause A to turn into not-A. The struggle within A is between O* and O**, the internal tendency for it to stay the same (O*) and the internal forces acting on it to change (O**). The whole essence of dialectics is that O* and O** can not exist within a stable equilibrium. Rosa quotes Lenin saying quite clearly that we are not dealing with O* turning into O**, but with the working-out of 'internally contradictory tendencies' within A.
"Now, Rosa may point out that some presentations of dialectics may say that things 'struggle with and become' their opposites. This is looking at the outside -- the change from A to not-A, because of the internal tendencies O* and O**. Not-A does not yet exist as a realized entity; it does not need to. The struggle is the internal struggle between O* (which preserves A) and O** (which causes its transformation into not-A). In essence we can say that O** is the seed of the unrealized entity not-A which exists within the realized entity A, and A struggles (in the form of O*) against its transformation into not-A (through the operation of O**).
"Now, Rosa's going to object that dialectics pictures entities that 'struggle with' what they are going to become, which presupposes that these entities already exist. But this is because she fails to distinguish between the realized entities A and not-A, and the internal tendencies O* and O**. When A exists, both O* and O** exist, and struggle with one another. These may be united within a physical object such as a seed, which contains structures that form its O* to keep it a seed, and yet has a tendency O** to transform into its opposite, a seedling. Or they may be united in capitalist society, such as the capitalist class O* which struggles with the working class O** over the control of the means of production. The working out of this contradiction is nothing less than the struggle for socialism....
"Again, Lenin talks about these tendencies
in phenomena and processes that elude your grasp. The above is precisely what I
have been illustrating with the difference between A (the entity) and O*/O**
(its contradictory tendencies) that you have not understood.
"Things do not change into their contradictions, which is what your
mock-refutation entails, they change into their opposites. That is, A does not
change into O**, but into not-A.
O* does not change into O** but into not-O*."
Readers will look long and hard and to no avail to find where I say that things "change into their contradictions", but into their contradictories, in this case into not-A (which is what the DM-classics say). The above critic will need to tell us why not-A isn't the contradictory of A.
When asked, the above critic refused to comment on this quotation from Lenin:
"Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical, -- under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another, -- why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another." [Lenin (1961), p.109. Bold emphasis alone added.]
According to this critic's argument, the opposite tendencies within A -- that is, "the internal tendency for it to stay the same (O*) and the internal forces acting on it to change (O**)" must change into one another. But how can they do that if each one already exists? No wonder this critic ignored Lenin's words.
But, what about this?
"Now, Rosa may point out that some presentations of dialectics may say that things 'struggle with and become' their opposites. This is looking at the outside -- the change from A to not-A, because of the internal tendencies O* and O**. Not-A does not yet exist as a realized entity; it does not need to. The struggle is the internal struggle between O* (which preserves A) and O** (which causes its transformation into not-A). In essence we can say that O** is the seed of the unrealized entity not-A which exists within the realized entity A, and A struggles (in the form of O*) against its transformation into not-A (through the operation of O**)."
Unfortunately, this ignores the philosophical background to Hegel's theory (which Lenin accepted, even if he had to put it "back on its feet"). That background is outlined here.
But, what of the argument itself? Are "tendencies" causal agents? Aren't they rather the result of other causes? For example, do we say that the "tendency" of glass to break is what makes it break, or do we appeal to inter-molecular forces within glass, and an external shock? But, can't we call these inner forces a "tendency", too? Are there such inner "tendencies" in glass? If there are, what are their causes? Or, are they uncaused? in fact, if we just appeal to "tendencies" to explain things, noting is explained. "Why did that glass break?" "It just has a tendency to do so." "Why is it raining?" "It simply has a tendency to do so in this area." "Why did those cops attack the strikers?" "They have a tendency to defend bosses." So, an appeal to a "tendency" is no explanation at all.
What about the "tendency" of the rate of profit to fall? Is this uncaused? But, no Marxist will admit this; indeed, Marxists point to several contributory causal factors that combine to make the rate of profit fall over time. Would any of us have been satisfied if Marx had simply said there was this tendency for the rate of profit to fall, and made no attempt to highlight its cause?
Hence, "tendencies" aren't causes; they are themselves the result of several causes. So, this critic is mistaken, an internal "tendency" can't "preserve A", nor can the opposite "tendency", O**, cause a "transformation into not-A", since these "tendencies" are derivative not causative. Indeed, as the DM-classics inform us, the cause of these "tendencies" is the "unity and interpenetration of opposites", the "contradiction" and the "struggle" that results from this.
As Gollobin points out (quoting Engels):
"Opposites in a thing are not only mutually exclusive, polar, repelling, each other; they also attract and interpenetrate each other. They begin and cease to exist together.... These dual aspects of opposites -- conflict and unity -- are like scissor blades in cutting, jaws in mastication, and two legs in walking. Where there is only one, the process as such is impossible: 'all polar opposites are in general determined by the mutual action of two opposite poles on one another, the separation and opposition of these poles exists only within their unity and interconnection, and, conversely, their interconnection exists only in their separation and their unity only in their opposition.' In fact, 'where one no sooner tries to hold on to one side alone then it is transformed unnoticed into the other....'" [Gollobin (1986), p.113; quoting Engels (1891), p.414.]
So, as Lenin also noted, these 'internal opposites' not only struggle, they turn into one another:
"Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical, -- under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another, -- why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another." [Lenin (1961), p.109. Bold emphasis added.]
But, this can't happen, as we have seen.
Well, perhaps it's the struggle between these "opposite tendencies" that causes A to change? Here is my critic again:
"When A exists, both O* and O** exist, and struggle with one another. These may be united within a physical object such as a seed, which contains structures that form its O* to keep it a seed, and yet has a tendency O** to transform into its opposite, a seedling. Or they may be united in capitalist society, such as the capitalist class O* which struggles with the working class O** over the control of the means of production. The working out of this contradiction is nothing less than the struggle for socialism...."
But the DM-classics are quite clear, when these opposites struggle, they change into their opposites, as noted several times above. So, O* must change into O**, and vice versa. Otherwise, O* and O** will be changeless beings. If they have causal powers then they must be objects (structures?) or processes of some sort. If so, they, too, must change. If they don't have causal powers, of course, they can't cause change themselves.
However, this critic admits they do change:
"That is, A does not change into O**, but into not-A. O* does not change into O** but into not-O*."
And yet, this can only happen if O* struggles with not-O*, which puts us exactly where we were several paragraphs back.
So, my refutation still stands.
[Readers are encouraged to read my lengthier reply to this critic, here. Several more objections are fielded here.]
This, of course, does not deny that change occurs, only that DM can't account for it.
Alternatively, if DM were true, change would be impossible.
Howsoever we try to re-package this 'Law' we end up with the same insuperable problems, which can't simply be Nixoned away.
[As far as social change is concerned, see here, here and here.]
However, this 'theory' is, of course, just an elaboration of the following example of a priori Superscience invented by the Mystery-Meister himself:
"Neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor nature, is there anywhere an abstract 'either-or' as the understanding maintains. Whatever exists is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things with then lie in the want of correspondence between their immediate being and what they essentially are. Thus, in inorganic nature, the acid is implicitly at the same time the base: in other words its only being consists in its relation to its other. Hence the acid persists quietly in the contrast: it is always in effort to realize what it potentially is. Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world." [Hegel (1975), p.174. Bold emphases added.]
As this quotation indicates, and as the next few sections and Essay Eight Part Three will demonstrate, Hegel made a quasi-'logical' attempt to 'derive' such 'opposites' from his criticism of the LOI, but his reasoning was defective from beginning to end -- and demonstrably so. The bottom line is that, far from specifying that each object was paired with its unique dialectical "other", Hegel inadvertently conceded that objects and processes were confronted on all sides by countless "others", fatally wounding his theory of change.
Leaving such technicalities aside, and ignoring for the moment the question of how Hegel, Engels, Lenin and Plekhanov knew this 'Law' was true of everything in the entire universe, for all of time (this topic was examined in more detail in Essay Two), based only on a ham-fisted 'thought experiment', it is worth pointing out that many things seem to have no internally-interconnected opposites. For example, electrons, which, while they appear to have several external opposites (but, while it's not clear too what the opposite of an electron is -- is it a positron or is it a proton? --, it is clear electrons do not seem to turn into either of them), they seem to have no internal opposites as far as can be ascertained. In that case, they must be changeless beings -- or, if they do change, it can't be as a result of their "internal contradictions".10c Admittedly, electrons had only just been discovered in Lenin's day, but that just makes his dogmatism even more puzzling -- especially when it's recalled that it was Lenin who insisted that all knowledge is provisional and relative.
Is Everything Really A 'Unity Of Opposites'?
It's worth noting at the start that the relevancy of the comments in this section depend on what dialecticians mean by "internal opposite". Sometimes they seem to mean "topologically-internal", at other times they appear to mean "logically-internal". This ambiguity is examined in more detail in Essay Eight Part One. However, much of this section, and subsequent ones, depends on interpreting "internal opposites" in one way -- topologically. [The other alternative (i.e., interpreting "internal opposites" logically) will also be considered presently.]
Despite the above fatal flaws, it's difficult to believe Lenin and the others were serious in claiming that everything is a UO -- just as it's impossible to give credence to Lenin's claim that "every determination, quality, feature, side, property [changes] into every other…."
"[Among the elements of dialectics are the following:] [I]nternally contradictory tendencies…in [a thing]…as the sum and unity of opposites…. [This involves] not only the unity of opposites, but the transitions of every determination, quality, feature, side, property into every other [into its opposite?]…." [Lenin (1961), pp.221. Emphases in the original.]
Are we really supposed to believe that, say, a domestic cat is a UO? But, what is the opposite of a cat? A dog? A tulip? A tin of beans?
Is it a 'non-cat'? And yet, if a 'non-cat' were the opposite of a cat, it would mean that if everything does indeed change into its opposite, cats must change into everything that they are not -- that is, they must change into any one or more of the following 'non-cats': oak trees, sandy beaches, cuff links, dog baskets, rift valleys, petrol stations and galaxies, to name but a few. [The obvious dialectical response to this objection will be considered presently.]
Not only that, but according to Lenin cats must contain all these things if they are indeed unities of their opposites (or, they must be "internally related" to them in some way) -- i.e., they must presumably be a unity of cat and 'non-cat' --, especially if the latter (i.e., this 'non-cat') is what causes a cat to change. Is, therefore, each unassuming domestic moggie a repository of all its myriad opposites, and do these opposites contain their own sets of opposites, ad infinitem, like glorified Russian Dolls?
Well, it seems they must if, according to Lenin: "every determination, quality, feature, side, property [changes] into every other…." If change is the result of an internal struggle between opposites (declared above to be an "absolute" by Lenin), and everything changes into everything else, or at least into its 'opposite', then cats must both contain and change (at some point) into a host of things, which must in turn contain and change into yet more (or even, perhaps, back into cats).10d
It's little use complaining that these are ridiculous conclusions; if everything changes into its 'opposite' (or into all of them), then they must follow. Those who still object should rather pick a fight with dialecticians -- not me -- for championing such a crazy view of reality.
[The obvious objection that this discussion ignores 'mediated essences' is fielded in Note 10e.]10e
Figure Five: Another Dialectical Catastrophe?
So, if cats do change, as they do, then they must change into their opposites. But where are these 'opposite cats'? And how do they feature in and cause the changes they allegedly produce in the original animal? On the other hand, if they don't do this, does this mean that feline parts of nature are not subject to dialectical law? Is this why cats have nine lives?
Now, Engels did try to answer these fatal objections by arguing that we must learn from nature what the actual properties of objects and processes are in each case, and hence, presumably, what each can legitimately change into. [To be sure, he made this point in relation to the First and Third of his 'Laws', but there is no reason to believe he would have denied this of the Second 'Law'.] Once more, he also pointed out that dialectical negation is not annihilation. [Engels (1954), p.63 and (1976), p.181.]
However, nature is annoyingly ambiguous on this score. For example, lumps of iron ore can turn, or be turned into many different things (with or without the addition of labour, etc.). These include: cars, car parts, rolling stock, aeroplane components, ships, submarines, magnets, surgical equipment, cutlery, kitchen utensils, scaffolding, chains, bollards, cranes, plant machinery, tubes, engines, ornaments, jewellery, girders, weapons, sheet metal, tools, instruments, wire, springs, furniture, doors, locks, keys, gates, grates, manhole covers, lifts, escalators, anchors, railings, rail tracks, wheels, zips, bars, handcuffs, bullets, iron filings, rivets, nails, screws, steel wool, steel helmets, armour, iron supplements -- and other assorted chemical compounds such as, cytochrome nitrogenase, haemoglobin, hematite, magnetite, taconite, countless ferrous and ferric compounds (including rust, Ferrous and Ferric Sulphides, Fools Gold, etc., etc.) -- to name but a few.
Are we to believe that all of these reside inside each lump of iron? Or, which are 'logically' connected with such lumps, as one of Hegel's unique "others"? If we adopt the logical view of "internal opposites", how can they all be logically-related to iron ore? If not, what exactly is the point of this 'Law'?
Again, switching back to the 'topological view' of "internal opposites": if these items don't exist inside each lump of iron -- or, even if they do not confront each other as antagonistic external or 'logical' opposites --, how is it possible for human labour and/or natural forces to turn iron ore into such things while remaining in conformity with 'dialectical Law'? Does human labour work with, or work against the 'Laws' of dialectics? If a lump of iron does not (logically, or physically) 'contain', say, a carving knife, how is it possible for human beings to change iron into carving knives, and for them to do this dialectically? Are there changes in reality that are not governed by dialectics?
Are these iron 'Laws' not in fact applicable to iron itself?
In that case, exactly which opposites are ('logically'/physically) united in, or with a lump of iron ore?
Of course, it could be argued that the above considerations completely misconstrue the nature of this 'Law'. No one supposes that cats and nuggets of iron ore contain their opposites. Indeed, this is how Woods and Grant explained things:
"Nature seems to work in pairs. We have the 'strong' and the 'weak' forces at the subatomic level; attraction and repulsion; north and south in magnetism; positive and negative in electricity; matter and anti-matter; male and female in biology, odd and even in mathematics; even the concept of 'left and right handedness in relation to the spin of subatomic particles.... There are two kinds of matter, which can be called positive and negative. Like kinds repel and unlike attract." [Woods and Grant (1995), p.65.]11
However, if nature works in pairs (at least), what is the paired opposite of a cat that causes that animal to change? If cats have no opposites, then it must be that such feline parts of nature (at least) do not work in pairs. But, what applies to cats must surely apply to countless other things. What then are the external and/or internal opposites of things like Giraffes, Snowy Owls, Mountain Gorillas, Daffodils, Oak trees, Chinese Puzzles, broom handles, craters on the Moon, copies of Anti-Dühring, and the question mark at the end of this sentence? All of these are subject to change, but not, it seems, as a result of any obvious oppositional pairing or tension. [Is a question mark, for example, really locked in a life-and-death struggle with other punctuation signs? Or with its Hegelian 'other'? But, what is the 'other' of a "?"? An "!"?]
It could be objected to this that in the case of cats (and many of the other objects listed above), the opposites concerned are plainly "male" and "female". But even if that were so, these are manifestly not "internal opposites", and neither are they "internally related" to each other -- they are causally, historically and biologically related. Sexual diversity is not a logical feature of reality -- if it were there would be no hermaphrodites or asexual organisms. So, change here can't be the result of 'internal contradictions'. But, even if this were not so, is it really the case that males and females must always conflict? [Anyone who has, for example, seen Leopard Slugs mating might be forgiven for thinking that these fortunate creatures have had a dialectical exemption certificate encoded into their DNA at some point. They do not 'conflict'!]
To be sure, modern medicine is quite remarkable; a few snips of the surgeon's scissors and Bob's your aunty. And yet -- but this should hardly need pointing out -- males do not change into females (nor vice versa) of their own accord, which is what the DM-classics tell us must happen with such opposites.
Moreover, while it is true that cats are able to reproduce because of well known goings-on between males and females, cats themselves do not change because of the relationship between the opposite sexes of that species. If they did, then a lone cat on a desert island would be capable of living forever (or, at least, of not changing). In that case, as long as this eternal (and miserably celibate) moggie stayed clear of members of the opposite sex, it would be able to look forward to becoming a sort of feline Super-Methuselah.
But, what are we to say of those organisms that do not reproduce sexually. And worse, what are we to make of, say, hermaphrodites? Are the latter an expression of some sort of cosmic, bourgeois plot against DM? Even worse, what about Pseudohermaphroditism?
And what should we conclude about things like broom handles and copies of Trotsky's IDM? Do they change because of the tension created by their own inner/outer or 'logical' opposites? But what could they possibly be? Is the opposite of IDM, Mein Kampf or Stalin's Problems of Leninism? Could it even be these Essays?
In view of the fact that the Dialectical Gospels tell us that such opposites "turn into one another", does this mean that IDM will change into one of my Essays? Well, perhaps TAR will, since my work was originally aimed specifically in opposition to that book. In which case, had this work not been undertaken, would TAR and IDM have been eternally changeless books?
[IDM = In Defense of Marxism; TAR = The Algebra of Revolution (i.e., Rees (1998); RIRE = Reason In Revolt.]
In that case, the above passage from RIRE does little to help resolve this problem.
On the other hand, if cats do not change as a result of the machinations of their external or 'logical' opposites, but because of their 'internal contradictions', then factors internal to cats must surely be responsible for their development (if, as noted above, we interpret "internal" topologically -- since we seem to have got nowhere interpreting it 'logically'). Should we now look inside cats for these illusive opposites? If so, do these opposites appear at the level of that animal's internal organs? But what is the opposite of, say, a cat's liver? Does it have one? If not, is it an everlasting liver? On the other hand, if it does, will a cat's liver one day turn into a cat's 'non-liver' (a fossil trilobite, say, or the Dog Star, maybe)?
In order to discover what the 'internal contradictions' are in this case, perhaps we should delve even deeper into the inner workings of these awkward, feline aspects of 'Being'?
If cats' livers have no opposites, then perhaps their liver cells do? But once more, what is the opposite of a cat's liver cell? A kidney cell? A blood cell? (An onion cell?)
As we ferret deeper into the nether regions of feline inner space, perhaps these elusive opposites will appear at the molecular or atomic level? Some dialecticians seem to think so -- but they have only been able to pull this dodge by ignoring their own claims that all of nature works in pairs. [In that case, we have yet to be told what, say, the River Amazon is twinned with, let alone what the Oort Cloud's dialectical alter ego -- its "other" -- could possibly be.]
Nevertheless, it could be argued that 'internal opposites' actually involve the relations that exist between sub-atomic or inter-atomic forces and processes at work inside lumps of iron, cats, and much else besides.12
But, if each thing (and not just each part of a thing), and each system/process in the Totality, is a UO (as we have been assured they are by the above DM-luminaries), then cats and iron bars (and not just electrons, π-mesons (Pions) and positrons, etc.) must have their own internal and/or external opposites -- that is, if they are to change.
So, for a cat to become a 'non-cat' -- which is, presumably, the 'internal' or 'external' opposite it's supposed to turn into --, it must be in dialectical tension with that opposite in the here-and-now, if the latter is to help cause it to change. [We saw this in an abstract form earlier.] If not, then we can only wonder what dialecticians imagine the forces are (and from whence they originate) that cause cats or lumps of iron to change into whatever their opposites are imagined to be.
And even if molecular, inter-atomic or sub-atomic forces actually power the development of cats, cats in general will still have to change because of their paired macro-level opposites (whose identities still remain a mystery). It's not as if each cat is struggling against all the protons, electrons and quarks there are beneath its fur. Nor are we to suppose that cats are constantly conflicting with their internal organs, fur or whiskers. If they were, then according to DM-lore recorded earlier, cats would have to turn into their internal organs, fur or whiskers, and the latter would have to turn into cats!
And even if sub-atomic particles were locked in a sort of quantum wrestling match with one another, the changes they induced in the average dialectical moggie must find expression in macro-phenomena at some point, or cats would not alter at all. But what on earth could those macro-phenomena be?
Furthermore, if change is to be located ultimately at the quantum level, then what are all those sub-atomic particles changing into? Many are highly stable. But, even supposing they weren't, and if the DM-classics are to be believed, whatever they change into must exist right now if it is to cause them to change into it. And yet, if these opposites already exist, the original particles can't change into them. The very best that could happen here is that these 'opposite particles' must replace the originals (which then magically disappear!).
But, that's where we came in...
In which case, given this view of nature, things do not actually change, they just vanish, and other (seemingly identical) things take their place -- and they do so undialectically, too, since their opposites will have just vanished. Plainly, with no more opposites to motivate them any more, they can't change any further.
Moreover, if the forces that cause cats to change are solely internal to cats, then as far as the mutability of such mammals is concerned, they must be hermetically sealed-off from the rest of nature (as must everything else -– this dire dialectical difficulty is examined in more detail in Essay Eight Part One, and Essay Eleven Parts One and Two), otherwise change would not be internal to cats.
If, on the other hand, the causes of feline change are external to cats, then 'internal contradictions' can't be responsible for changing them into 'non-cats', and we are back where we started.
Furthermore, if we now ignore this 'either-or', and claim that cats change because of 'internal' and 'external' contradictions, then we would be faced with the prospect of cats changing into their internal and external opposites, if the Dialectical Prophets are to be believed. But, and once more, if these opposites already exist (which they must do if they are to help bring about such changes), then cats can't change into them!
The same difficulties apply to sub-atomic particles: if the forces that cause change are solely internal to such particles, then as far as their mutability is concerned, they must be hermetically sealed-off from the outside world, otherwise change would not be internal to these particles. If, on the other hand, the causes of particulate change are external, then 'internal contradictions' can't be responsible for changing them into a 'non-whatever'.
Alternatively, once more, if the opposites of such particles cause them to change into such opposites, then they needn't bother changing, for those opposites already exist. On the other hand, if those opposites do not already exist, what could possibly cause these changes?
In the macro-world, the idea that change is the result of 'internal contradictions' would seem to mean that when, say, a cat gets run over, that cat actually self-destructs, and the car that hit it had nothing to do with flattening it. One might well wonder then why nature produced such suicidal beasts. [Is this perhaps an example of natural de-selection?]
This seems to be the implication of the sort of things dialecticians say:
"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…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing….
"The unity…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 added. There are plenty more quotations of the same sort listed here.]
Of course, it could be argued (along Leibnizian lines) that had the cat been internally strong enough it would have survived its unequal tussle with the car. So, the real cause of this cat's changed shape is in fact to be found inside that cat. [This argument is outlined here.] As we will see in Essay Eight Part One, some DM-theorists do indeed argue along similar lines.
There is something to be said for this argument, but fortunately not much. Whatever it is that causes a cat to alter when run over is clearly not whatever it is that maintains that cat's anatomical integrity from day to day. Something must have upset this regime in order to transform that cat's shape; cats do not spontaneously flatten themselves. Few of us would be happy to be told by a Leibnizian drunk driver that it is not his fault that the family pet is spread half-way across the road because the cat itself is the cause of its radically altered anatomy. In such cases, we clearly have an example of interacting causes for the demise of that cat, none of which can be put down solely to events internal to that unfortunate animal. Of course, dialecticians do not deny this, but as Essay Eight Part One will show, their 'theory' can't account for such complexities.
Someone could object that dialectics can account for such catastrophic reconfigurations of cats. A combination of internal and external forces is the cause of their new geometry. But, not even that will work, for if a cat is to change into a flat cat, then according to the DM-worthies quoted here (where we are told that all objects and processes "inevitably" turn into their opposites), such a flat cat must already exist in order to flatten the non-flat cat into a flat cat. So the driver (unless we are desperate enough to describe her/him as a "non-flat cat", on the basis that he/she is the obvious cause of the flattened cat in question), given this new turn of events, did not flatten the cat, the non-existent non-flat cat did that.
[Or, of course, if we are even more desperate to find a cause, some cause, any cause, to rescue this theory, we could suppose there are ethereal flat cats (in a nether world somewhere) working evil on their less pancake-like counterparts this side of the veil -- and just in time, too, for lorries to run them over. Is this too stupid an explanation to contemplate? Well DM-theorists already postulate the existence of all manner of weird and wonderful 'abstractions' -- which are nowhere to be found in the material world -- to account for events and processes in nature. So, perhaps this is an 'abstract' non-flat cat? (In fact, those who already "understand dialectics" should be able to get their heads around this conundrum with ease.)]
Furthermore, if we opt for that earlier get-out clause and describe the driver as a "non-flat cat", so that at least we would have a dialectical sort of cause that reconfigured such cats, then that driver (this 'non-flat cat') must likewise turn into her/his opposite, too, if the Dialectical Gospels are to be believed. Alarmingly, this opposite must either become a non-driver or a flat cat! So, in this Hermetic pile-up both driver and cat become flat cats! And the non-flat cat that the car hit must become a car driver!
A nice coincidence of opposites, this!
Despite this, and whatever their commitment to this 'Law' finally amounts to, one supposes(!) that no dialectician still in command of her/his senses would excuse, say, a policeman for inflicting on her/him actual bodily harm on the basis that Leibnizian nature unwisely failed to incorporate into the heads of militants the ability to withstand Billy Clubs.
Once again, dialectics would be disproved in practice; gashed heads on picket lines are not produced by "self-development".
Alternatively, if the causes of feline (or cranial!) mutability are both internal and external, then change can't be the sole result of 'internal contradictions', and things would not be "self-developing", as Lenin maintained.
Alas, as we have seen, there does not appear to be any way we can squeeze into this picture an 'opposite' that non-flat cats turn into so that that 'opposite' can help produce the required flattening in the said feline.
So, even while unfortunate moggies sometimes turn into pancake-like non-cats in traffic accidents, the opposite that they 'develop' into can't have been part of the UO that ironed them into that novel shape.
In which case, it remains a mystery what the 'opposite' of a cat is (i.e., what a cat must turn into), which is part of the UO that brings about such topological re-configurations --, if the DM-worthies are to be believed. Is there a third causal item here (as we supposed above), yet to be discovered either by Zoologists, forensic scientists, time travellers, or cat psychics -- over and above the non-flat cat and the flat cat -- which is part of such all too common feline tragedies?
The flat cat catastrophe is not just isolated to furry mammals; it applies in 'Materialist Dialectics', too --, for if all things change into their dialectically-paired opposites, and change is caused by the dialectical tension between such things and such opposites, and if Capitalism is to change into Socialism -- then Socialism must now exist somewhere for this to happen!
The same must be said for the connection between, say, capitalism and communism
(or better, Capitalist Relations of Production [CRAP]), and Socialist
Relations of Production [SORP]) --, and, indeed, for the connection between the forces and
relations of production (where it's patently obvious that neither of these change into the other
(their 'other', their 'opposite')).
For the purposes of argument, let us assume that SORP does not actually exist in the here-and-now.
However, given
the above DM-theses, if CRAP is to change into SORP, SORP must already exist
in the here-and-now for CRAP to change into it.
But, if that opposite (SORP) already exists it can't have come from CRAP
(its 'opposite') since CRAP can only change because of the action of its own
opposite (namely -- SORP!) -- unless SORP existed before it exists!
[The same comments would apply to "potential SORP" (or even to some sort of "tendency to produce SORP", be this a 'sublated' tendency, or
indeed an actuality -- it
matters not), but the reader is left to
work the details out for herself. Help can be found
here, and
here.]
So, this opposite (SORP) must have popped into existence from nowhere --, or it must
always have been in existence, if DM is correct.
Once more, this is not to deny change, nor is it to suggest that the present author does not want to see the back of CRAP, and the establishment of SORP; but if DM were correct, these will never happen.
To be sure, in the real world very material workers struggle against equally material Capitalists, but neither of these turn into one another, and they can't help change CRAP into SORP, since neither of these is the opposite of CRAP or SORP, nor vice versa, either.
[On the 'contradictions' Marx which speaks about in Das Kapital, see here. On 'real material contradictions', see here.]
If it's further complained that in many of the above examples it is human intervention that has changed things that already occur, or might occur, naturally. Because of that, different principles apply (since our activity will have interfered with the normal operation of the natural opposites of things like iron ore).
But, aren't we part of nature?
Putting this awkward reminder to one side for now, what about substances that did not exist (so far as we know) before human beings made them?
Is plastic, for instance, governed by dialectical 'Law'? What then is the natural 'opposite' of polyethylene? Is that 'opposite' the same 'opposite' of Polypropylene, polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polymethylpentene (TPX)?
If not, has humanity made things that are above and outside the dialectical 'Law'? Again, if not, and if each of these plastics does have an opposite (which they must have, or they could not change), how is it that human labour was able to make each of these opposites at the same time as making these plastics? Or, was this done by default, as it were?
Furthermore, if human labour is able to turn these substances into all manner of other things/objects (such as bottles, bags, food containers, guttering, drainpipes, insulation, etc., etc.), do they not therefore have countless artificial (or is it natural?) opposites themselves -- namely the things we turn them into? [I.e., do they have as many opposites as the things we can change these plastics into?] And were all these artificial opposites created the moment the original substances were manufactured? All of them? But they must have been, since, according to the dialectical classics, every object in the universe has an opposite, and sooner or later turns into that opposite -- and they do so by struggling with them (or, this happens because we struggle with these opposites -- has anyone in human history struggled with the plastic bag they hope to manufacture?)
On the other hand, and once again, if these opposites only popped into existence when these plastics are changed into them (meaning that human labour can't have created these opposites in the act of making the original plastic substance), how is it possible for those non-existent opposites to 'contradict' the existent unchanged plastic so that the plastic could be changed into them?
But worse, if the opposite of, say, PVC causes it to change, how then does human labour feature anywhere in the transformation? What is the point of building factories and studying polymer chemistry if the opposite of PVC is what changes lumps of PVC into plastic buckets, or storage containers, all by itself? When human beings work on PVC to change it into all the many things that they can and do (using complex techniques and expensive machinery), are they merely onlookers -- not part of the action, as it were --, just viewing things that would have happened anyway, naturally?
Or, have the capitalists discovered a way of by-passing dialectical 'Law'? Are all plastic commodities therefore reactionary?
But, if human labour [HL] can change such things into their opposites, then that must mean that HL is the opposite of, say, PVC, otherwise it could not actually change it (according to the above DM-worthies). In that case, HL must change into PVC -- and vice versa!
Of course, dialecticians can be found who will tell you, dear reader, that exchange value [EV] is "condensed labour power" [LP], and hence LP and EV are 'opposites'. But, if that is the case, according to the Dialectical Gospels, LP must struggle against EV. Has anyone ever witnessed this abstract wrestling match?
This is, of course, a serious problem, since use value [UV] is supposed to contradict EV, too -- but, UV and EV do not seem to "struggle" much either.
Again, even this can't work, for if LP turns into EV, then they must both exist at the same time, as we have seen dozens of times already. Otherwise one of these opposites (EV) could not bring about a dialectical change in the other (LP). And whatever intermediaries we throw in here to rescue this self-destructing 'theory' (be they very real workers, machines, banks, or even CRAP itself), if such things are to cause a DM-style change, they must be opposites of either one another or of EV and/or LP, and hence they must turn into one another (if the Dialectical Holy Books are to be believed). In that case we might well wonder where all those workers are who are changing into EVs? And where on this planet is CRAP morphing into, say, a hydro-electric dam (if the relations of production really do 'contradict' the forces of production, and thus 'develop' into them)?
Of course, in Marxist economics we have LP and Capital [C] cycles, and the like, but does LP really "struggle" against C? Not obviously so, it would seem. As we have already noted, very material workers most certainly struggle against their equally material bosses, but how is it possible for LP to struggle against C?
Someone might object that this misrepresents DM; it's the inherent dialectical contradiction between capital and labour (or that between their relevant classes) that foments struggle.
Perhaps so, but until we are told what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, that response itself is devoid of sense (since it contains a meaningless phrase: "dialectical contradiction"). [More on that in Essay Eight Parts One, Two and Three.]
Once more, this is not to deny change, merely to underline the fact that DM can't account for it.
Furthermore, is it really the case that everything turns into its 'opposite', and is made to do so by "struggling" with its "opposite", its "other", as Hegel, Engels, Lenin, Mao and Plekhanov said? To be sure, certain states of matter do change into what might conventionally be called their "opposites" (e.g., a hot object might change and become cold; something above might later be below, and so on -- but even here, these opposites do not cause these changes!), but this is certainly not true of everything. Do men, for instance, turn into women, fathers into sons, brothers into sisters, left- into a right-hands, the working class into the capitalist class, forces of production into relations of production, use values into exchange values, negative numbers/electrical charges into positive numbers/electrical charges, electrons into protons, and matter into 'anti-matter'? If not, what is the point of saying that everything changes into its opposite? And why claim that objects and processes have internal or external opposites if in most cases they feature nowhere in the action --, or, again, if many things do not turn into them?12a
Furthermore, if Lenin were correct when he said that "every determination, quality, feature, side, property [changes] into every other…", it would mean that everything (and every property) must change into every other property!
But, if that were so, heat, for example, would change into, say, colour, hardness and generosity (and much else besides); liquidity would transform itself into brittleness, circularity and inquisitiveness (and much else besides); gentleness would turn into speed, opacity and bitterness (and much else besides); triangularity would develop into arrogance, honesty and duplicity (and much else besides), and so on.
Is there a single person on the planet not suffering from dialectics who believes any of this?
Once again, if these bizarre changes aren't the case (as they plainly are not!), and if such things are not implied by these terminally vague 'Laws' or by what Lenin said, what is the point of him asserting that this is precisely what everything does?
Of course, it could be pointed out that these comments were recorded in notebooks, so we shouldn't interpret them too literally, or regard them as expressing Lenin's more considered beliefs. But, has a single dialectician ever pointed this out about this comment when they have quoted it? Hardly. Anyway, as we have seen, since Hegel's unique 'other' requirement is unsustainable, this is indeed a consequence of the Second 'Law'.
That was the point of the observation made earlier about dialecticians vacillating between the idea that UOs cause change and the belief that objects and processes change into their opposites -- sometimes veering toward the doctrine that change produces these opposites. The first of these alternatives is examined in Essay Eight Part One, but if the second alternative were the case, we would surely witness some bizarre transformations in nature and society as men changed into women, cats into dogs, banks into charities and the Capitalist Class into the Working Class -- and then back again!
However, as has been argued in detail above, if change merely creates these opposites then, plainly, that outcome can't have been the result of a "struggle" between two co-existing opposites -- clearly not, since at least one of them would not yet exist! Hence, with respect to objects in the latter category, change would create them, not them it.
This completely scuppers the DM-account of change for it's now clear that there is nothing in the DM-scheme-of-things that could cause the many and varied changes we see in nature and society.
In which case, and once again: if and when change occurs, dialectics -- the much vaunted theory of change -- can't explain it.
Indeed, if DM were true, change would be impossible.
However, turning to specifics, Engels claimed that:
"…life consists precisely and primarily in this -- that a living thing is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly asserts and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to and end, and death steps in." [Engels (1976), p.153.]
But what is the 'contradiction' supposed to be here? Is it: (1) Living cells contain dead matter; (2) Life is a constant struggle to avoid death; (3) Life can only sustain itself by a constant struggle with dead matter; or is does it consist in (4) The contrast and/or conflict between these two (processes?) -- life and death --, which conflict creates the dynamism we see in living things? And, what on earth is the (5) "Something else" that each living thing is supposed to be, or to become, according to Engels?
As far as (1) is concerned, the contrast between living and dead matter seems to depend on the obsolete idea that there is an intrinsic difference between living and non-living molecules -- that there is a 'life force' at work in nature. While it's unclear whether Engels believed this or not (in fact, in several places he seems to reject this idea --, e.g., Engels (1954), p.282), it's reasonably clear that subsequent dialecticians don't accept it. So, it seems reasonable to conclude that this can't be what underlies the 'contradiction' in this case.
With respect to (2): while it's undeniable that most living things constantly strive to stay alive, it's still unclear what the alleged UO is supposed to be here. If a living cell is a UO, and the scene of a bitter struggle between life and death -- in the sense that each cell contains within itself both life and death, slugging it out, as it were --, what physical form do these mysterious processes/beings take? It's not as if we could easily identify either or both -- as we can with, say, magnetic or electrical phenomena. There, the presence of apparently opposite poles and/or charges is specifiable and measurable. Here (with respect to life), there do not seem to be any easily identifiable opposing forces. [Anabolic and catabolic processes will be considered presently.]
But, if dialecticians are correct, and everything is indeed a UO, each living cell should (it seems) contain death within itself (as an 'internal opposite'), and not just have it confronting it externally. But what material form does 'death' take? Are we to imagine that a black, shrouded figure, sickle in hand, inhabits every living cell?
Figure Six: The Two Main Protagonists In Each Dialectical Cell?
If not, how is 'death' to be conceived in this case? Indeed, what form does 'life' itself take? Is it perhaps an incarnation of the Archangel Gabriel? Or, maybe Louis Pasteur?
On the other hand, if this particular UO is a set of opposing processes (or, indeed, if it's to be regarded as a special type of interaction between certain sorts of forces), as options (3) and (4) seem to suggest (picturing living systems constantly battling against disintegration, the latter perhaps manifested in catabolic reactions), then we are surely on firmer ground.
But, why would anyone want to call such a set-up a UO? What exactly are the opposites that are struggling here? It's not as if inside each vibrant cell there is another older (or even a decaying) cell waiting to emerge, nor yet one that is fighting the embattled host cell all the time, stabbing it 'inside the back', as it were. Nor is it credible to suppose that catabolism and anabolism are locked in constant struggle. Indeed, it's not easy to see catabolism as directly 'contradictory' even to anabolism (howsoever the word "contradiction" is understood). These processes do not oppose one another by preventing the other working, or by immediately picking apart what the other has produced; they just work in different ways, often in separate parts of a cell. Nor are they 'internally-related', as they should be if they constitute a genuine 'dialectical contradiction' -- of if they are, DM-fans have been remarkably coy about the details.
They certainly do not turn into one another (as we have been led to believe they should by the dialectical classics). Nor do the outputs of one always turn into the inputs of the other. For example, the Krebs metabolic cycle produces water and carbon dioxide from carbohydrates, fats and proteins. But no cycle in animal cells does the reverse. Sure, these products are broken down, but not in a reverse Krebs cycle.
So, anabolic and catabolic processes do not typically confront one another in normal cells, opposing whatever the other does. To imagine such a set-up as 'contradictory' would be about as intelligent as, say, maintaining that a group of men digging a road up somewhere was 'contradicting' ("opposing" or "struggling against") another group repairing a house a few hundred yards down the way. Or, that, say, the manufacture of aeroplanes 'contradicts' the scrapping of aluminium chairs!
And, even if it were accurate to describe catabolism as undoing the results of anabolism, that would still not amount to either of them 'contradicting' one another. Undoing is not 'contradicting' -- if it were, then doing would be a tautology!
Of course, if someone were to insist that despite the above, such processes are contradictory, they would owe the rest of us an explanation of the literal nature of the contradiction allegedly involved here. In that case, it would be pertinent to ask how either process could possibly be "gainsaying" the other.12b
But even if this, too, were rejected, DM would still not be out of the non-dialectical woods. While it could be argued that in this case we do have 'opposites' that are internal to cells, we do not as yet have opposites internal to anabolic or catabolic processes themselves. So, if either of these two cause the other to change, that would clearly be another example of an externally-motivated transformation. Moreover, as noted above, anabolism would have to turn into catabolism, and vice versa -- that is, if the Dialectical Gospels are to be believed.
However, according to Lenin all change is internally-motivated, and everything develops of itself:
"Dialectical logic demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should be taken in development, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts it)…." [Lenin (1921), p.90.]
Anabolic processes certainly involve objects (i.e., molecules), but if they undergo development, that can't be the result of an interaction (or 'struggle') with catabolic processes (which would be an external influence, once more). On the other hand, if they alter each other (but how?), then Lenin's "demand" and "requirement" will have to be withdrawn.
Nevertheless, here, as elsewhere, the words dialecticians employ look decidedly figurative -- except, in this case it's not easy to see what the trope could possibly be. And yet, if these words are figurative, that would be all to the good; it would at least allow the interpretation of the 'contradictions' referred to by this 'Law' to be viewed, say, poetically. No one minds if poets contradict themselves (e.g., Walt Whitman), or one another.
Even if the word "struggle" were substituted for "contradict", the situation would not change noticeably. Since literal struggles can only take place between agents, that would mean that this part of DM could work only if biochemical reactions in vivo are personified, or if they are under the control of an agent of some sort. In that case, this use of the word "struggle" would clearly be figurative, too. [More on this here, here, and here.]
Anyway, as pointed out above, catabolic and anabolic process do not 'struggle' with one another.
Every Confirmation Is Also A Refutation
However, it could be pointed out that the above considerations are highly abstract, and are thus irrelevant (although it's not easy to see how a cat is abstract). Hence, it could be objected that DM is in fact concerned with real material contradictions confirmed in practice.13
But, how could such things be checked to make sure they are genuine "material contradictions"? Fortunately, John Rees explained how (but in relation to concepts drawn from HM:
"[O]nce we are sure that our concept of 'capital' is a true reflection of the actual existing capital –- then we can also be sure that any further categories that emerge as a result of contradictions which we find in our concepts will necessarily be matched by contradictions in the real capitalist world." [Rees (1998), p.110.]
However, he added the following proviso:
"This…is only a safe assumption on the basis of constant empirical verification…." [Ibid., p.110.]
The idea appears to be that any contradictions that remain (in a theory that has itself been thoroughly checked against reality at every stage) must "of necessity" be a genuine reflection of actual objects and processes in nature and society (or, in Rees's case, only in society, perhaps). This safeguard is necessary to rid 'materialist dialectics' of the Idealist 'excesses' of Hegel, as well as prevent any of its theories from being. or becoming. defective (in that defective theories are self-contradictory; more on this in Essay Eleven Part One). [Rees (1998), pp.52-53, 108-18.] As Novack points out:
"A consistent materialism can't 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.]
[This demand must be distinguished from Positivism and/or Empiricism -- on that, see Note 15a.]
Nevertheless, as far as DM-contradictions are concerned, it's not at all clear how this process is supposed to work -- even when it's executed exactly as intended. Presumably, on this basis, 'incorrect' contradictions will be eliminated because: (1) They are self-contradictions, or (2) They have been falsified by experience, or (3) They could not be verified (by appropriate methods).
But, with respect to any of the contradictions that theorist might want to retain (and thus regard as correct 'reflections' of reality), how could they be sure that future contingencies would never arise (in the shape of further evidence) that would require their elimination? [On this, see below.] In view of Lenin's declaration that all knowledge is incomplete, it seems they can't.
Despite this, (1) can't be right, otherwise we should have to reject Engels's analysis of motion, which pictures it as self-contradictory. Along with that would go many other 'dialectical contradictions'. [On this, see Essay Five and Essay Eleven Part One.]
In connection with option (2), what evidence could possibly refute a contradiction? How is it possible for a contradiction to be falsified by experience? Presumably, that would occur if propositions appertaining to experience contradicted something that was already contradictory to begin with. But, what sort of monstrosity would that be?
Consider again Engels's depiction of the contradictory nature of living cells:
"We saw above that life consists precisely and primarily in this –- that a living thing is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly asserts and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to and end, and death steps in." [Engels (1976), p.153.]
"Abstract identity (a = a; and negatively, a can't be simultaneously equal and unequal to a) is likewise inapplicable in organic nature. The plant, the animal, every cell is at every moment of its life identical with itself and yet becoming distinct from itself, by absorption and excretion of substances…, in short, by a sum of incessant molecular changes which make up life….
"Life and death. Already no physiology is held to be scientific if it does not consider death as an essential element of life (note, Hegel, Enzyklopädie, I, pp.152-53), the negation of life itself, so that life is always thought of in relation to its necessary result, death, which is always contained in it in germ. The dialectical conception of life is nothing more than this…. Living means dying." [Engels (1954), pp.214, 295.]
[The problems connected with Hegel's and Engels's egregious understanding of the LOI will be tackled in Essays Six, Eight Part Three and Twelve (summary here).]
This new batch of difficulties faced by Engels's 'theory' can be brought out by the following argument:
L1: Cell C1 is both alive and not alive.
L2: Experimental evidence shows that C1 is alive.
L3: Experimental evidence also shows that C1 is not alive.
L4: L2 falsifies L1.
L5: L3 falsifies L1.
L6: However, the conjunction of L2 and L3 verifies L1.
L7: Therefore, L1 has been falsified and verified.
[It's worth noting that this 'argument' is not valid, and is only reproduced here to try to make sense of what Rees and Engels could possibly have meant.]
From this it's quite clear that confirmation of a 'dialectical contradiction' is all of a piece with its refutation. So, it's still not clear how they can be verified by experience that also refutes them.
It could be pointed out that, in this case, DL shows its superiority over 'formal thinking' concerning the point of death, when a cell or organism is still alive, but just about to die, since it's the logic of change. And yet, this response looks rather hollow now that we know that DL, if true, would make change impossible.
Finally, it could be argued that observation might confirm that a cell is alive and not-alive all at once -- i.e., it could be claimed that dialectical contradictions can in fact be observed. That response will be considered below.
However, as noted above, if reality itself were contradictory, the 'falsification' of a contradiction would also amount to its automatic 'verification', and vice versa. So, it seems that option (2) above is closed-off as far as the investigation of 'dialectical contradictions' is concerned. This must mean that Rees's requirement that contradictions be tested against experience is an empty gesture, since, with respect to DM-contradictions, if reality were contradictory, it would both confirm and refute their presence. In which case, DM-theorists would have no reason whatsoever to reject a single contradiction that featured in their theory. On the other hand, they would at the same time have eminently good reason for rejecting all of them -- at least to prevent their theory from becoming defective. [More on this in Essay Eleven Part One.]
The quandary now facing dialecticians we might call the "Dialecticians' Dilemma" [DD]. The DD arises from the uncontroversial observation that if reality is fundamentally contradictory then a true theory should reflect this supposed state of affairs. [Why this is so is explained here.] However, and this is the problem, in order to do this any such theory must contain contradictions itself, or it would not be an accurate reflection of nature. But, if the development of science is predicated either on the removal of contradictions from theories, or on the replacement of older theories with newer, less contradictory variants, as DM-theorists contend (on this see Essay Thirteen Part Two, when it is published), then science couldn't advance toward a 'truer' and fuller account of reality. That's because scientific theories would then reflect the world less accurately, having had all (or most) of their contradictions removed.
[Of course, if the advancement of science is not dependent on the removal of all or most contradictions, then scientists would face intractable difficulties of their own -- for example: How to tell a defective theory (i.e., one that is shot through with contradictions) from a non-defective theory. Fortunately, to date, scientists have not adopted either of these ill-advised dialectical tactics, and have remained stubbornly loyal to the protocols of FL.]
[FL = Formal Logic.]
Conversely, if a true theory aims to reflect more accurately the contradictions in nature (which it must do if reality is contradictory) then, in order to be consistent with such dialectical demands, scientists shouldn't attempt to remove contradictions from -- or try to resolve them in, or between -- theories. Clearly, on that score, science could not advance, since there would be no reason to replace a contradictory theory with a less contradictory one. Indeed, if DM were correct, scientific theories should become more contradictory -- not less -- as they reflected supposedly 'contradictory' reality more fully. This means, of course, that scientific theory as a whole should become more defective over time!
On the other hand, if science advances because of the elimination of contradictions then a fully true theory should have had all (or most) of its contradictions removed.
Science should then reflect (in the limit) the fact that reality contains no contradictions!
[It's worth noting here that critics of DM have already arrived at that unsympathetic conclusion, and they managed to do that without an ounce of dialectics to slow them down.]
However, according to DM, scientific theories should be replaced by those that more faithfully depict reality as fundamentally contradictory -- despite the fact that scientists will have removed every (or nearly every) contradiction in order reach that point! On the other hand, if scientists failed to remove contradictions (or, if they refused to replace an older theory with a newer, less contradictory one), so that their theories reflected the contradictory nature of reality more accurately, they would then have no good reason to reject any particular theory no matter how inconsistent it might be.
Whichever way this rusty old DM-banger is driven, the 'dialectical' view of scientific progress (and of 'contradictions') hits a very material brick wall in the shape of the DD every time.
Once more, it could be objected that dialecticians do not believe that scientific theories should have all or most of their contradictions removed if science is to advance, merely those that hold up progress.
However, dialecticians have so far failed to distinguish those contradictions which are the mere artefacts of a defective theory from those that supposedly reflect the 'objective' state of the world. But, how is it possible to distinguish the latter from the former in DM-terms? How is it possible to decide whether a contradiction is an accurate reflection of reality or whether it's a result of a faulty theory if all of reality (including scientific theory) is supposed to be contradictory?
An appeal to practice here would be no help, either, since that takes place in the phenomenal world, at the level of experience, which is itself riddled with DM-contradictions! In that case, it's not easy to see how practice can help confirm (or refute) a theory if its deliverances are themselves part of the same contradictory reality on test.
[We saw above that, given DM, confirmation and refutation are all of a piece, anyway. And, as we will see in Essay Ten Part One, practice is no friend of dialectics, anyway.]
Consider a concrete example: DM-theorists generally agree that the wave-particle duality of light confirms the thesis that nature is fundamentally contradictory/dialectical. In this case, light is supposed to be a UO of wave and particle. Precisely how they are a unity (i.e., how it could be true that matter at this level is fundamentally particulate and fundamentally non-particulate all at once) is of course left eminently obscure. Moreover, exactly how this phenomenon helps account for the material world is even less clear.
Even though all dialecticians refer to this 'contradiction', not one has yet explained how and why it is a contradiction, nor less how and why it is a 'dialectical contradiction' (even if we knew what these were).
Consider these two propositions:
Q1: Light is a wave.
Q2: Light is particulate.
Now, Q1 would contradict Q2 if the following were the case:
Q3: No wave can be particulate.
Q4: Light must be one or the other, wave or particle.
[Q4 is required or Q1 and Q2 would merely be inconsistent.]
But is Q3 true? Surely not, for if physicists are correct, light is both!
However, that would beg the question. So, independently of the latter, there are plenty of examples of waves in nature which are particulate; e.g., sound waves, water waves and Mexican waves. So, Q3 is in fact false!
Moreover, Q4 could be false, too. Light could turn out to be something else about which we do not yet have a concept. That, of course, would make Q1 and Q2 merely inconsistent. Do 'dialectical logicians' know what to do with 'dialectical inconsistencies'?13a0
But, even if in some way this were a contradiction, it does nothing to explain change -- unless we are supposed to accept the idea that the fact that light is a particle changes it into a wave, and vice versa. Are we to conclude therefore that these two states/processes are 'struggling' with one another? But what is the point of that? What role does this particular 'contradiction' play either in DM or in Physics? At best, it seems to be merely ornamental.
[One benighted DM-fan, when confronted with this objection in private correspondence, claimed that these were 'illustrative' contradictions (even though they do no dialectical work). This can only mean that dialecticians now resemble Fundamentalist Christians even more than one might have thought. Many of the latter think that, say, the three-dimensionality of space 'illustrates' the truth of the Trinity, God having left this and other clues littered across reality for us to find. [Don't believe me? Then check this out.] In a similar way, and with regard to dialectics, perhaps 'Being' Itself has sent this conundrum our way to inform DM-fans they are on the right path to Dialectical Nirvana: the 'illustrative', but useless, duality of wave and particle! But what exactly does it '"illustrate"? The fact that this contradiction does no work? The fact that waves and particles of light are locked in a pointless 'struggle'?]
Now, if we put to one side the 'solution' to this puzzle offered by, say, Superstring Theory, there are in fact more than a handful of Physicists -- with, it seems, a more robust commitment to scientific realism than the average dialectician can muster -- who believe that this 'paradox' can be resolved within a realist picture of nature. [Evidence appears here, and here. See also Wick (1995).] Whether or not they are correct need not detain us since DM-theorists (if consistent) ought to advise these rather rash Scientific Realists not to bother trying to solve this riddle. That's because dialectics has already provided us with an a priori solution: since nature is fundamentally contradictory there is in fact no solution --, which paradoxical state of affairs should, of course, simply be "grasped", or "Nixoned".
However, in this case it's possible to see how practice can't help; if experiments are conducted, which allegedly show that light is both a particle and a wave, then DM-theorists would have no reason to question this supposedly contradictory data, nor to try to resolve this difficulty.
Nevertheless, anyone not committed to such an obtuse view of reality would have good reason to question it; and this might, for all anyone knows, assist in the advancement of science.
Not so with DM-fans, whose advice could permanently hold things up.13a
[However, so far experiments have merely shown that under certain conditions light is particulate, under others it is wave-like, but not both.]
In that case, practice alone can't distinguish between these two views (the realist and the dialectical), even though one of these will seriously hold up progress. Moreover, since we know that practically any theory can be made to conform to observation if enough adjustments are made elsewhere, this criterion is doubly defective.
[This allegation will be substantiated in more detail in Essay Ten, and in a later Essay on the nature of science -- Thirteen Part Two.]
[QM = Quantum Mechanics.]
Once more, in advance of any test, if they are consistent, DM-theorists should advise scientists not to bother trying to refute the orthodox interpretation of QM, or resolve the paradox upon which it is based, since there is no point do so in view of their a priori theory, which sees nature as fundamentally contradictory.
Unfortunately, if physicists took this advice, science could not advance to a superior view of nature (if one exists) by eliminating this alleged contradiction. At best, this a priori to knowledge would close available options down, forcing scientists to adopt a view of reality that might not be correct -- and, given what we already know about the history of Physics, probably isn't correct.13b
Fortunately, there is little evidence that Physicists have taken any note of this aspect of dialectics, even if any of them have ever heard of it.
Now, only those who disagree with Lenin about the incomplete nature of science (or, alternatively, who have a rather poor grasp of the history of Physics) would risk concluding that contemporary science has a final and complete picture of reality, at least in this particular area. If so, Physics could only advance by resolving this alleged paradox -- hence eliminating one of the best examples in the DM-Grimoire which allegedly shows that nature is fundamentally contradictory.
Of course, only those who wish to foist their ideas on nature would object at this point.
On the other hand, if DM-theorists' advice to scientists is that they should in general try to replace contradictory theories (such as this part of QM, as it is alleged to be) with less logically-challenged ones, then they will have to abandon the idea that nature is fundamentally contradictory -- at least here. This conclusion is all the more pressing in view of the fact that some scientists think they have already solved this problem -- David Bohm, for example, being one of the most important.14
But, this is just the DD once again: the dialectically-inspired belief in the 'contradictory' nature of reality, coupled with the claim that science can only advance by removing contradictions can't, it seems, distinguish between contradictions that hold up the progress of science (and which are therefore artefacts of a defective or incomplete theory) from those that reveal the essentially 'contradictory' nature of reality.
Although some (like Plekhanov) have acknowledged the problem, it remains unresolved to this day.
The various ways there might be for DM-theorists to extricate themselves from this hole they have dug themselves will be examined in a later Essay, and shown to fail.
Dialecticians are therefore advised to stop digging.
In addition, it's unclear how option (3) above itself is supposed to work. How is it possible for anyone even to try to verify a DM-contradiction? For example, does humanity possess technology sensitive enough to observe time intervals of the order of, say, 10-100 seconds, so that Engels's claims about motion can be checked? What then about intervals of 10-1000 seconds? And yet, observation of motion would have to be made using time intervals of this order of magnitude (and far better) in order to confirm whether this phenomenon remains contradictory at this level of accuracy, at least. But, where do we stop?
Naturally, some might want to appeal to Planck time intervals (of the order of 5 x 10-44 seconds) to provide a natural place to halt, but this is no help at all. A single one of these Planck 'instants' is, so we are told, 1026 times shorter than the shortest time interval so far measured -- an alto-second (or 10-18 seconds). In that case, there is little prospect that these far shorter intervals will ever be measured. And since Planck intervals are theoretical entities, the chances are that this limit too will be revised away one day (in line no doubt with Lenin's claim that knowledge is never final).
Anyway, the answer to this particular 'difficulty' is irrelevant. That's because, no matter how slender the time frame, no measurement could conceivably test whether a moving object was in two places at once, only whether it is in two places in the same finite interval. [More on that in Essay Five.]14a
The Revenge Of The Petty-Bourgeois Cell
To resume the argument -- more specifically: with respect to the alleged contradiction outlined in L1, above (i.e., "Cell C1 is both alive and not alive"), how would it be possible to confirm the alleged fact that a cell was alive and dead at the same time? Certainly, just looking at cells won't help. Nor is it much use referring to the vagueness of the boundary between life and death. That's because Engels himself regarded living cells as a unity of living and dead processes (or of opposing tendencies) while such cells were still alive, and this is the alleged contradiction that needs to be verified.
Now, it's worth reminding ourselves at this point that confirmation is required to prevent this theory being branded dogmatic, a priori and thus Idealist. This is in fact a demand that DM-theorists also insist upon:
""All three are developed by Hegel in his idealist fashion as mere laws of thought: the first, in the first part of his Logic, in the Doctrine of Being; the second fills the whole of the second and by far the most important part of his Logic, the Doctrine of Essence; finally the third figures as the fundamental law for the construction of the whole system. The mistake lies in the fact that these laws are foisted on nature and history as laws of thought, and not deduced from them. This is the source of the whole forced and often outrageous treatment; the universe, willy-nilly, is made out to be arranged in accordance with a system of thought which itself is only the product of a definite stage of evolution of human thought." [Engels (1954), p.62. Bold emphasis alone added.]
"Finally, for me there could be no question of superimposing the laws of dialectics on nature but of discovering them in it and developing them from it." [Engels (1976), p.13. Bold emphasis added.]
"The dialectic does not liberate the investigator from painstaking study of the facts, quite the contrary: it requires it." [Trotsky (1986), p.92. Bold emphasis added]
"Dialectics and materialism are the basic elements in the Marxist cognition of the world. But this does not mean at all that they can be applied to any sphere of knowledge, like an ever ready master key. Dialectics can't be imposed on facts; it has to be deduced from facts, from their nature and development…." [Trotsky (1973), p.233. Bold emphasis added]
"A consistent materialism can't 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]
"This…is only a safe assumption on the basis of constant empirical verification…." [Rees (1998), p.110.]
"Our party philosophy, then, has a right to lay claim to truth. For it is the only philosophy which is based on a standpoint which demands that we should always seek to understand things just as they are…without disguises and without fantasy….
"Marxism, therefore, seeks to base our ideas of things on nothing but the actual investigation of them, arising from and tested by experience and practice. It does not invent a 'system' as previous philosophers have done, and then try to make everything fit into it…." [Cornforth (1976), pp.14-15. Bold emphases added.]
"Engels emphasises that it would be entirely wrong to crudely read the dialectic into nature. The dialectic has to be discovered in nature and evolving out of nature....
"Of course, that does not mean we should impose some a priori dialectical construct upon nature. The dialectic, as Engels explains time and again, has to be painstakingly discovered in nature....
"Engels did not make the laws of nature dialectical. He tried, on the contrary, to draw out the most general dialectical laws from nature. Not force artificial, preconceived, inappropriate notions onto nature." [Jack Conrad, Weekly Worker, 30/08/07. Bold emphases added.]
Once more: how is it possible to confirm that cells are indeed as dialecticians say they are?
Perhaps a digression into a consideration of the nature and application of vague predicates (such as "...is alive", or "...is dead") would be useful here --, at least, so far as this alleged 'contradiction' is concerned?
However, such a detour is unlikely to help. That can be seen from a consideration of another less fraught but equally vague distinction: the imprecise boundary between night and day. In relation to this transition, few DM-theorists would want to argue (it is to be hoped!) that daylight is itself a contradictory combination of night and day at any specific point on earth not near the boundary of the Sun's westward moving shadow. Hence, at mid-day in high summer on the Tropic of Cancer in blazing sunlight, say, only a complete fool would want to argue that because the boundary between night and day is vague, and because day eventually turns into night, bright daylight is a contradictory combination of night and day (or of darkness and light). And even if it were possible to find a few maverick, hard-core DM-fans who were prepared to argue along these lines, even fewer would agree with them -- except they might both agree and disagree, just to wind them up.
Less supercilious critics would ask these mad dog dialecticians for the empirical evidence that backs up the odd idea that light itself (in the form of bright mid-day tropical sunshine) is a UO of light and darkness (or, perhaps of night and day) 'dialectically' slugging it out. Indeed, they might also want to know what work this idea could possibly do in DM, even if it were correct. Are we to suppose that light 'struggles' with its opposite, darkness, at mid-day? Presumably not. Must we argue that darkness makes light change into darkness, and vice versa (which is what the DM-classicists tell us all such 'opposites' do)? If they are prepared to argue that way, this innovative piece of Physics will no doubt force scientists to re-write their theory of light, for up to now they had recklessly assumed that light was created by the way sub-atomic particles behave, and that this was itself the result of a transformation of one form of matter/energy into another. They had certainly given no thought to the possibility that it was the result of the operation of a privation -- the lack of light -- on light itself, which made nightfall occur!
In the real world, the latter, of course, has more to do with the rotation of the Earth, and nothing at all to do with a battle between photons and the absence of photons.
In that case, it seems that this 'dialectical union' of light and dark does no work at all, even if we were foolish enough to believe in it.
So, there are circumstances where even potentially vague predicates have clear applications -- or they can be paraphrased so that they mimic those that do. In that case, in order to test Engels's claims about living things, we would need a way of deciding whether a certain cell was a UO while it was still unambiguously alive. That is why it was argued (above) that a digression into the applicability of vague predicates would be of no use to dialecticians. No matter how vague the predicate, it would still be impossible to verify Engels's claim that a cell is alive and dead at the same time (or that it's a dialectical mix of the two, or of two such 'tendencies' (anyway, how does one confirm a tendency?)) while it was still clearly and unambiguously alive.
Even at the boundary between the life and death, we do not possess equipment sensitive enough to verify Engels's a priori thesis, even if we knew how to go about doing it.
Of course, it would always be open to a DM-supporter to point out that a living cell is constantly exchanging dead matter with its environment, or that certain parts of the cell are not actually alive while the rest of that cell is. Nevertheless, exactly how this confirms the claim that a cell is alive and dead all at once (or is a combination of such 'tendencies') is still unclear. At best, it would simply demonstrate that living things contain dead matter. It would no more show that when a cell is alive it is also dead than would an analogous claim demonstrate that people are clothed and naked at the same time (or that they possess hidden 'tendencies to dress and undress') because they all have nothing on underneath their garments, and were contradictory UOs for all that.
On the other hand, if anyone were foolish enough to suppose this, they would have to suppose further that one of these opposites (being naked, say) was locked in 'dialectical' tension with the other (being clothed), and hence that these were caught up in some sort of "struggle" -- or the aforementioned 'tendencies' were --, which 'explains' why we put clothes on or take them off at various times in the day! In that case, if this 'theory' is to be believed, it's not we who struggle to take our clothes off, but our nakedness that makes us to this!
Again, it could be objected that the issue here is in fact the following: living things are changing all the time; hence, they are a dialectical unity of living and dead matter, or of analogous processes and tendencies. Cells constantly absorb dead matter from their environment and turn it into living matter. Dialecticians certainly do not maintain that an organism (or a cell) is wholly alive and completely dead all at once, as the above comments foolishly suggest. Cells are a dialectical union of two contradictory processes, which union slowly changes the host organism, perhaps even killing it.
Or so it could be argued.
Nevertheless, such a response will not do. This discussion is centred on the controversial idea that DM-'contradictions' can be verified or falsified in some way, not that they can be re-jigged theoretically (or 'sanitised') every time this theory encounters an objection. [That particular ploy will be addressed in a later Essay.]
It's worth recalling that this is required in order to silence claims that DM is just another form of a priori Idealism.
The introduction of yet more jargon here does not help, nor does it amount to confirmation. It does however increase suspicion that this is all that dialecticians are able to offer in order to 'substantiate' their theory: yet more jargonised expressions. And if that is so, the self-imposed requirement that dialecti