Hegelism is like a mental disease; you can't know what it is until you get

 it, and then you can't know because you have got it -- Max Eastman

Hardcore dialecticians, who tend to reject everything at this site without bothering to read a single Essay, can instead try their hands at the 2016 Dialectics Final Exam, kindly set by The Guild Of The Mediated Totality.

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I recently had a letter concerning Marx and Hegel published in Socialist Worker.

Two comrades replied, but my second response wasn't published. Read the entire correspondence, and more, here.

And here is another letter I sent to the above paper; they didn't publish that, either.

Here is yet another letter I sent in June 2008, which they failed to publish, too.

In August 2008, a supporter of this site sent a letter to Socialist Review, which the editor decided not to publish. You can read it here.

In November 2008, the same supporter sent another letter to Socialist Review in response to an article on dialectics by John Rees. The editor chose not to publish it, either. You can read that letter here.

In September 2008, I sent a letter to the International Socialist Review, which they then published in the September/October issue.

A comrade replied to my letter; you can read the original letter, his reply and my response -- Engels And Mickey Mouse Science -- here.

July 2012: A supporter of this site sent a letter to Socialist Worker, which they chose not to print. You can read it here, and then try to guess why the editors declined to publish it.

October 2012: The same supporter sent a couple of letters to the editors of Socialist Review and Socialist Worker in response to two articles about John Molyneux's new book, The Point Is To Change It: Introduction To Marxist Philosophy.

They chose not to publish either of them (no surprise there, then!). They can both be accessed here.

Anyone trying to view these Essays with Mozilla Firefox might find that some of the symbols I have used won't show up on their screens; in addition, the page formatting might change rather erratically.

The editor I have used to write this material is Microsoft's FrontPage 2003, which doesn't seem to 'like' Firefox.

What's New:

November 2016:

I have just re-written one of the summaries of Essay Twelve Part One -- Why All Philosophical Theories Are Non-Sensical.

The argument is now, I think, far more perspicuous.

October 2016:

30/10/16 -- I have now finished re-formatting the entire site (other than this page!).

I have also finished re-writing Essay One -- Why I Began This Project. It is now about 10% longer.

I am also in the middle of replying to another largely incoherent video published by 'The Finnish Bolshevik'. The first four of my responses can be accessed here, here, here, and here.

~~~~oOo~~~~

I am in the middle of reformatting the Essays published at this site, replacing much of the garish red font with black. I am also having to correct several other serious formatting glitches mysteriously introduced by the editor I have used, Microsoft's FrontPage. This should take another two or three weeks to complete.

August 2016:

18/08/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eight Part Two -- Why Opposing Forces Aren't Contradictions -- adding just over 18,000 words of new material, making it approximately 22% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

In addition, I have added a section on Immanuel Kant's attempt to introduce 'real opposition'/'negation' into philosophy, which 'concept', we are told, was integral to Hegel's own invention of 'dialectical contradictions'.

I have also critically analysed Tom Weston's attempt to link a throw-away remark Marx added to Volume One of Das Kapital (about elliptical motion) to Hegel's confused introduction of 'dialectical contradictions'.

I will say more about Weston's ill-considered article in a later re-write of Essay Nine Part One.

13/08/16: A couple of months ago I re-wrote Essay Six -- Trotsky And Hegel -- Or, How To Misconstrue The 'Law' Of Identity, but on re-reading it, it was apparent that the argument wasn't as clear as it could or should be. I have now re-written it again, adding just under 3,000 words of new material, making it approximately 5% longer still, greatly clarifying the argument and correcting several errors and typos.

June 2016:

25/06/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eight Part One -- Change Through 'Internal Contradiction' -- An Incoherent Dogma. I have added approximately 3,500 words of new material, making it 8% longer.

I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

12/06/16: Last year, a self-styled 'Marxist-Leninist' (who calls himself 'The Finnish Bolshevik' [TFB]) published a video at YouTube criticising an Essay I wrote some time ago at the behest of one or two younger comrades who wanted a basic introduction to my criticisms of DM. I subsequently published a reply to this video, but TFB has now posted a second video at YouTube attempting to respond to a few of my replies to him.

I have now published the first part of my response to this latest video.

[Links to the first video and my replies to it can be found at the above link.]

04/06/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic And Change. I have added approximately 13,500 words of new material, making it roughly 17% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

May 2016:

04/05/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Six -- Trotsky And Hegel -- Or, How To Misconstrue The 'Law' Of Identity. I have added just over 5,000 words of new material, making it approximately 11% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

04/05/16: Here's a new book by Richard Seymour I can heartily recommend:

From the publisher's website:

April 2016:

24/04/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eleven Part Two -- Dialectical Wholism -- Full Of Holes. I have added just over 3,000 words of new material, making it approximately 5% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

17/04/16: Having re-written Essay Three Part One, I thought it wise to do the same to its sequel, Essay Three Part Two -- Abstractionism: 'Science' On The Cheap. I have added approximately 4000 words of new material, making it about 5% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

02/04/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Three Part One -- How Abstractionism Undermines Language And Science. I have added just over 25,000 words of new material, making it approximately 26% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

However, the biggest change is that I have added an Appendix which contains a detailed criticism of an attempt to defend Hegel against criticisms advanced by Bertrand Russell.

February 2016:

10/02/16: Essay Thirteen Part One -- Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter -- has just been re-written. I have added just over 3,000 words of new material, making it approximate Ely 4% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

02/02/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay One -- Why I Began This Project. I have added approximately 3,000 words of new material, making it roughly 10% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

January 2016:

22/01/16: I have just finished re-writing Essay Seven Part One -- Engels's Three 'Laws' Debunked. I have added just over 15,000 words of new material, making it approximately 10% longer. I have also clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

December 2015:

28/12/15: I have just re-written Essay Seven Part Three -- Why Dialectical Materialism Can't Explain Change.

I have added just over 1000 words of new material, making it approximately 2% longer. I have also made the argument clearer and have corrected several errors and typos.

November 2015:

27/11/15: I have just finished yet another re-write of Essay Eleven Part One -- The 'Totality' -- WTF Is It?

I have added just short of 14,000 words of new material, making it approximately 12% longer. I have also made the argument clearer and have corrected several errors and typos.

I have re-written this Essay again so soon after the last re-write because, as I say in the preamble, I wasn't happy with the way I had approached this topic. This means that it will have to be re-jigged many more times before I am content with the end product.  

August 2015:

24/08/15: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eleven Part One -- The 'Totality' -- WTF Is It?

I have added 11,000 words of new material, making it just over 10% longer. I have also made the argument clearer and have corrected several errors and typos.

10/08/15: I recently spotted an article in Weekly Worker written by Jack Conrad that attempted to defend both DM and the traditional view that Marx and Engels were of one mind when it came to that theory/method.

I wrote a 2000 word reply which they published in edited form as a letter.

The full, un-edited version can be accessed here.

June 2015:

26/06/15: I have just finished a re-write of Essay Four: Formal Logic Can Handle Change.

I have added just over 6000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately 8% longer. I have also clarified the argument, and corrected several mistakes and typos.

18/06/15: Over the last three or four months my time has largely been occupied correcting the formatting problems at this site (mentioned above). That onerous task is now nearly complete.

The next Essay to be published at this site -- devoted to DM and Science -- should appear before the end of the year.

April 2015:

12/04/15: I have now finished a re-write of Essay Five: Why Motion Isn't Contradictory.

I have added just under 4000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately 6% longer. I have clarified the argument, and corrected several mistakes and typos.

December 2014:

31/12/14: I have just finished re-writing Essay Seven Part Three: Why Dialectical Materialism Can't Explain Change.

I have made the argument clearer and added about 3000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately 7% longer.

20/12/14: A few years ago (and long before their disastrous handling of rape allegations made against a former leading member of the UK-SWP) I wrote a letter to Socialist Worker about, would you believe, Gödel's theorem. I made the point that the results of that theorem should only be accepted by Platonists.

They chose not to publish it.

Since then, I have been regularly adding new material to a series of addendums to that letter. I have now added the latest batch of new material (which largely relates to a paper I have just read that was written by a Professor of Mathematics concerning the incoherence of the idea that there are, or could be, infinite sets).

15/11/14: I have now finished a re-write of Essay Five: Motion Isn't Contradictory.

I have added just over 5000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately 7% longer. I have clarified the argument, and corrected several mistakes and typos.

November 2014:

15/11/14: I have just received a copy of Henri Wald's seriously mis-titled Introduction To Dialectical Logic. I would have obtained this work long ago, but copies on the Internet were far too expensive. However, a few weeks ago, one became available in my price range.

This book is, however, a classic example of how not to introduce a topic, since it is full of technical jargon and seems to have been written by someone who believes that if a complicated and incomprehensible sentence can be substituted for simpler words, then that on its own somehow elevates any thought it attempts to communicate into a superior form of philosophy. This is typical of Traditional Thought in this area, and, as several Essays published at this site show, dialecticians are only too keen to demonstrate how traditional and conservative they are in this respect. 

One would have thought that Marx's advice -- that we return to the use of ordinary language and reject the empty abstractions of Traditional Thought -- would have informed Wald's approach ("would have thought", that is, at least in an Introductory text, and one that seeks to advance Marxist theory!).

Be this as it may, Wald has made some attempt to respond to several criticisms I have levelled against this ruling-class import into the workers' movement (clearly without any knowledge of my work, since Wald's book was published long before I began to write these Essays!). That being the case, over the next few months I will be adding (to several of my Essays) a series of rebuttals to Wald's rather weak attempt to defend this indefensible theory [DM].

11/11/2014: I have just finished re-writing Essay Ten Part One -- Dialectical Materialism: Refuted By Practice And History?

I have made numerous small changes, corrected several errors and typos -- as well as adding about 5000 words of new material, making the Essay approximately 10% longer.

October 2014:

30/10/2014: I have just finished re-writing an Essay I posted a year ago: Was Wittgenstein A Leftist?

I have made numerous small changes, corrected several errors and typos, and added about 1600 words of new material.

18/10/2014: I have just finished re-writing Essay Three Part Two --Abstractionism -- 'Science' On The Cheap

Nearly 5,000 words of new material have been added (making the Essay approximately 7% longer), several errors and typos have been corrected, and the argument has been clarified throughout.

September 2014:

06/09/2014: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eleven Part One -- The 'Totality': WTF Is It?

I have added just over 10,000 words of new material (making the Essay approximately 10% longer), corrected several errors and typos, and clarified the argument considerably.

August 2014:

01/08/2014: I have just finished re-writing Essay Thirteen Part Three -- 'Mind', Language, And 'Cognition; Voloshinov (And Several Others) Debunked

I have added over 13,000 words of new material (making the Essay approximately 7% longer), corrected several errors and typos, and clarified the argument.

May 2014:

24/05/2014: I have just finished re-writing Essay Three Part One -- How Abstractionism Undermines Language And Science.

I have added just under 21,000 words of new material (making it approximately 28% longer), corrected several errors and typos, and have made the argument much clearer.

April 2014:

03/04/2014: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eleven Part One -- The 'Totality': WTF Is It?

I have added about 6500 words of new material (making it approximately 7% longer), corrected several errors and typos, and have made the argument much clearer.

March 2014:

23/03/2014: A new book by a friend of mine has just been published:

Here is the blurb from the publishers website:

"Five years into capitalism's deepest crisis, which has led to cuts and economic pain across the world, Against Austerity addresses a puzzling aspect of the current conjuncture: why are the rich still getting away with it? Why is protest so ephemeral? Why does the left appear to be marginal to political life?

"In an analysis which challenges our understanding of capitalism, class and ideology, Richard Seymour shows how 'austerity' is just one part of a wider elite plan to radically re-engineer society and everyday life in the interests of profit, consumerism and speculative finance.

"But Against Austerity is not a gospel of despair. Seymour argues that once we turn to face the headwinds of this new reality, dispensing with reassuring dogmas, we can forge new collective resistance and alternatives to the current system. Following Brecht, Against Austerity argues that the good old things are over, it's time to confront the bad new ones."

January 2014:

20/01/14: I have just begun work on a new addition to this site: Essay Twelve Part Four -- Dialectical Materialism And Linguistic Idealism. Is Nature 'Rational'?

This Essay continues from where Essays Three Part One and Twelve Part One left off and examines the 'world-view' DM-theorists inherited from Mystical Christianity and Hermetic Philosophy, via Hegel (upside down or 'the right way up') -- i.e., that 'reality' not only has a 'rational' structure, humans beings (in the shape of DM-theorists) can comprehend it.

It should be ready to publish by Easter.

18/01/14: A supporter of this site has just started a new thread over at RevLeft -- A Beginners Guide To Anti-Dialectics.

17/01/14: I have just re-written Essay One -- Why I Began This Project -- to take account of the recent implosion of the UK-SWP.

I have corrected several errors and typos, and clarified the argument. The Essay is now just over 2000 words (or approximately 10%) longer.

02/01/14: I have now finished the Essay mentioned below -- Essay Seven Part Three: Why Dialectical Materialism Can't Explain Change.

December 2013

28/12/13: I am at the moment putting the final touches to a new Essay (which is in fact a complete re-write of material drawn from several other Essays): Essay Seven Part Three -- Why Dialectical Materialism Can't Explain Change.

I am posting the updates as they are being written, but I hope to have the Essay finished before the end of next week.

October 2013

28/10:13: The North Star magazine has just published an Interview with me, and an article of mine: Wittgenstein -- Radical Or Conservative Mystic?

However, if you are using Internet Explorer 10, you might find some of the links I have used in both of the above won't work properly unless you switch to 'Compatibility View' (in the Tools Menu).

These two items unfortunately also contain a few rather annoying typos (and bad links); these will be corrected and the final versions will appear here at a later date.

September 2013

27/09/13: I have just re-written Essay Ten Part One -- Practice And History Refute Dialectics.

Approximately 1,500 words of new material has been added (thus making the Essay just over 3% longer). I have also corrected several errors and typos, and clarified the argument.

17/09/13: I have just re-written Essay Nine Part One -- Why Workers Will Always Ignore 'Materialist Dialectics'.

Approximately 3,000 words of new material have been added (thus making the Essay just over 6% longer). I have also corrected several errors and typos, and clarified the argument.

12/09/13: I have just re-written Essay Five -- Motion Isn't Contradictory.

I have added approximately 3,500 words of new material (thus making the Essay nearly 6% longer), corrected several errors and typos. I have also clarified the argument.

09/09/13: I have just written a reply to a comrade who criticised my Essay on Wittgenstein -- Hit The Bottle.

04/09/13: I have also republished John Moran's path-breaking New Left Review article -- Wittgenstein And Russia -- originally published in May-June 1972.

03/09/13: I have just finished and posted my new Essay -- Was Wittgenstein A Leftist?

This Essay contains original research into the links between Hegel, Marx, Engels, and Wittgenstein's work not spotted before by anyone, including myself.

In the Introduction and Conclusion I also explain my motivation for writing this Essay and why this isn't just an academic exercise.

August 2013

08/08/13: I am putting the finishing touches to a new Essay -- Was Wittgenstein A Leftist?

It should be ready to post a few weeks.

June 2013

01/06/13: I have just finished the re-write of two more Introductory Essays: the Summary of Essay Twelve Part One -- Why All Philosophical Theories, Including Dialectical Materialism, Are Nonsensical; and the Summary of Essay Thirteen Part One -- Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter.

May 2013

28/05/13: At the request of one or two comrades who are interested in my ideas, I have responded to a new batch of critics of my ideas over at RevLeft.

This new Essay is called Dialectical Confusion 2.

20/05/13: I have just re-written Essay Two -- Dialectics -- Imposed On Reality, Not Read From It.

I have added about 4,500 words of new material, clarified the argument and corrected several typos and errors.

I have also re-written the Introductory Essay -- Why All Philosophical Theories Are Non-Sensical -- correcting a few errors and, I hope, making the argument much clearer.

This essay shouldn't be confused with the one mentioned below. In fact, it's a summary of the Essay below! A summary of a summary!

13/05/13: I am in the process of re-writing each of the Summary Essays.

As of this week, I have finished all of them up to and including the Summary Of Essay Twelve Part One -- Why All Philosophical Theories, Including Dialectical Materialism, Are Non-sensical.

After that, I plan to start work on Essay Twelve Part Four -- Linguistic Idealism: Is Nature Rational?

That should be ready by the spring of 2014.

April 2013

25/04/13: At the request of one or two comrades who are interested in my ideas, I am in the process of responding to several critics of my ideas over at RevLeft.

This new Essay is called Dialectical Confusion.

16/04/13: I have completely re-written and re-formatted The Dialectical Materialism Exam, adding several new questions.

09/04/13: For some reason I can't work out, the web editor I have been using for the past seven or more years decided to scramble Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism -- , rendering much of it unreadable and to such an extent that it has taken me the best part of a month to reconstruct it from an earlier saved copy.

That is one reason why there has been nothing new to announce at this site for five or six weeks.

Anyway, I took this opportunity to re-write that Essay to take account of the crisis that has been brewing in the UK-SWP since the turn of the year.

February 2013

23/02/13: I have just finished re-writing Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism -- to take account of the on-going crisis in the UK-SWP.

I have added approximately 35,000 words of new material (thus making the Essay 25% longer), corrected several errors and typos; I have also clarified the argument.

05/02/13: As noted below, because of the on-going crisis in the UK-SWP, I am re-writing Essay Nine Parts One and Two, posting the changes as they are being made.

January 2013

25/01/13: The re-write of Essay Thirteen Part Three -- Mind, Language, And Cognition -- has just been finished.

I have added just over 21,000 words of new material (making the Essay about 12% longer), and have corrected several errors and typos, and clarified the argument considerably.

15/01/13: The re-write of Essay Thirteen Part Three has had to be shelved for a week because of the looming crisis in the UK-SWP. [On that, see here.]

I have had to re-write large sections of Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism --, which deals with such matters, in the light of these developments.

08/01/13: Here's a new book out this January that is well worth checking out:

This is from the publisher's website:

03/01/13: I am in the process of re-writing Essay Thirteen Part Three -- Mind, Language, And Cognition -- posting the changes as they are being made.

It should be finished within the next week or so.

December 2012

02/12/12: I have just finished the re-write of Essay Thirteen Part One -- Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter.

I have added about 7,000 words of new material (making it approximately 12% longer), clarified the argument, and corrected several errors and typos.

November 2012

23/11/12: I have just posted Chapter Eight of Guy Robinson's unpublished book, Philosophy and Demystification -- Philosophy In The Service Of History. This is the last chapter of the above book.

October 2012

31/10/12: I have just posted Chapter Seven of Guy Robinson's unpublished book, Philosophy and Demystification -- Newton, Marx and Wittgenstein.

08/10/12: A supporter of this site has sent a couple of letters to the editors of Socialist Review and Socialist Worker in response to two articles about John Molyneux's new book, The Point Is To Change It: Introduction To Marxist Philosophy.

They chose not to publish either of them (no surprise there!). They can both be accessed here.

05/10/12: I have just finished the re-write of Essay Twelve Part One -- Why All Philosophical Theories, Including Dialectical Materialism, Are Non-Sensical.

I have added about 26,000 words of new material (making it approximately 30% longer), clarified the argument, and corrected several errors and typos.

September 2012

08/09/12:  I have just posted Chapter Five of Guy Robinson's unpublished book, Philosophy and Demystification -- Creating Creativity.

I am in the process of completely re-writing Essay Twelve Part One, which is taking an inordinate amount of time, hence the dearth of material posted of late.

I am publishing the changes as they are being made, but I should have this finished in the next few weeks.

August 2012

02/08/12: A few weeks ago (mid July 2012) a supporter of this site sent a letter to Socialist Worker, which they chose not to publish. You can read it here, and then try to guess why...

In addition, I have just found out that John Molyneux's latest book, The Point Is To Change It, has now been published. I have ordered a copy, and will post a few comments about it in a week or so.

However, I have seen advanced copies of this book, and the sections that deal with dialectics make all the usual mistakes.

No surprise there then.

July 2012

23/07/12: Just a reminder that the Second Edition of The Liberal Defence of Murder is now out in paperback, with a new Afterword.

"Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of prominent thinkers on the Left found themselves increasingly aligned with their ideological opposites. Over the last decade, many of these thinkers have become close to Washington; forceful supporters of the War on Terror, they help frame arguments for policymakers and provide the moral and intellectual justification for Western military intervention across the globe. From Kanan Makiya, one of the chief architects of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, to Bernard Henri-Levy’s advocacy of 'humanitarian' intervention, The Liberal Defense of Murder traces the journey of these figures from left to right and explores their critical role in the creation of the new American empire. With wide-ranging testimony from many key figures on the left, this is a crucial account of the emergence of the 'pro-war left,' and its shaping of our post-9/11 world."

Critical comments about the first edition:

11/07/12: A character from Finland, or so I assume, is re-publishing large chunks of my Essays at an obscure Finnish site, [the posts have now been taken down -- September 2012] only then to add offensive (often scatological), superficial, and misleading comments about them.

I can't read Finnish, the language in which these impertinent remarks have been written, but from the imperfect translation Google supplies, it is clear that this character hasn't read my work with any care at all.

This is typical of Dialectical Mystics -- as I have pointed out at the foot of this page. 'He' certainly hasn't the courage to take me on directly (here, for example), so 'he' simply snipes away at me, posting little other than abuse, irrelevant comments and lies.

Which is, of course, further confirmation I'm on the right track...   

10/07/12: I have just posted Chapter Four of Guy Robinson's unpublished book, Philosophy and Demystification -- The Material and the External.

June 2012

24/06/12: I have just posted the next chapter of Guy Robinson's unpublished book, Philosophy and Demystification -- 'Forms of Life and the Construction of Reality'.

15/06/12 -- Back in the 1990s, I came across an odd article in a collection of essays about Hegel, called 'The Formalisation of Hegel's Dialectical Logic', by Michael Kosok. When I first read it I concluded it was either a joke or a hoax since it was written by someone who either didn't know what a formalisation even looked like, or who was writing for those who didn't know and who would thus swallow any old rubbish.

Even so, that didn't stop dialectically distracted comrades from referring me to this odd piece of work, perhaps in the mistaken view it would 'sort me out'.

Well, I have now published what is, I believe, the very first detailed demolition of this 'formalisation'. Visitors can access it here.

In addition, Essay Eight Part Three -- Dialectical 'Contradictions' and Dialectical 'Logic' -- where the above takedown appears, has been completely re-written.

I have added about 32,000 words of new material, clarified the argument and corrected several typos and errors, making it approximately twice its previous length.

Incidentally, the on-line version of Kosok's essay is riddled with typos -- many minor, several major. In the above takedown, I have quoted Kosok extensively, and corrected these errors.

07/06/12: Although I was aware of this book several years ago, I have just received a copy of Radical Currents in Contemporary Philosophy (Warren Green Inc, 1971), edited by David DeGrood, Dale Riepe and John Somerville.

This book contains what is easily the best analysis of an obscure dialectical doctrine, The Unity of Opposites (by V J McGill and W T Parry) that I have encountered in over 25 years researching this 'theory'.

Having said that, these authors have simply ignored the numerous serious philosophical problems this theory faces, many of which I have levelled against this doctrine in Essay Seven Part One, problems which  should have been obvious to anyone who approached this mystical 'theory' with a healthy dose of materialist-inspired scepticism.

Even so, I will add several comments on this article in a later re-write of Essays Four Part One, Seven Part One and Eight Part Three.

I am in the process of completely re-writing the last of the above Essays -- Dialectical 'Contradictions' and Dialectical 'Logic', uploading the new material as it is being written.

In addition to adding this material, I will include a long-overdue criticism of Michael Kosok's misguided and confused attempt to formalise 'Hegel's Dialectical Logic'.

It should be ready to post in the next week or so.

May 2012

28/05/12: I have re-written and re-organised the Essay on Wittgenstein, adding 2000 words of new material (making it about 10% longer). I have also corrected a few errors and typos.

21/05/12: I have now posted another chapter from Guy Robinson's unpublished book Philosophy and Demystification: 'Historical and Ahistorical Views of the World'.

13/05/12: Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism -- has just been completely re-written.

I have corrected several errors and typos, clarified the argument, and added about 15,000 words of new material -- which makes this Essay about 12% longer.

08/05/12: American Insurgents: A Brief History of American Anti-Imperialism, by Richard Seymour is a new book well worth checking out, available in the UK next month.

From the publishers website:

"American Insurgents is a revealing, often surprising history of anti-imperialism in the United States since the American Revolution. It charts the movements against empire from the Indian Wars and the expansionism of the slave South, to the Anti-Imperialist League of Mark Twain and Jane Addams; from the internationalists opposing World War I to the Vietnam War and beyond. It shows that there is a surprising, often ignored tradition of radical anti-imperialism in the US. Far from being 'isolationist' in the fashion of Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan, the book contends, these traditions were often the most internationalist and cosmopolitan currents in US political history. The most ambitious movements formed direct relationships with the victims of US expansionism, from the abolitionists uniting with Native Americans to stop colonial genocide to the solidarity movements in central America and the 'human shields' in Palestine and Iraq. Far from being the privilege of the rich and educated, antiwar activism has been most evident among the poor and oppressed. It has been most militant when visibly connected to domestic struggles and interests, such as slavery, civil rights, women’s oppression and class. Above all, the book contextualizes each anti-imperialist movement in the evolving structure of US expansionism and dominance, and explains how some movements succeeded while others failed. In so doing, it offers a vital perspective for those organizing antiwar resistance today."

Excerpt available here.

Also worth mentioning: Richard's earlier book, The Liberal Defense of Murder, will be re-issued in paperback, 04/07/2012, with a new chapter added bringing the story up-to-date:

"Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of prominent thinkers on the Left found themselves increasingly aligned with their ideological opposites. Over the last decade, many of these thinkers have become close to Washington; forceful supporters of the War on Terror, they help frame arguments for policymakers and provide the moral and intellectual justification for Western military intervention across the globe. From Kanan Makiya, one of the chief architects of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, to Bernard Henri-Levy’s advocacy of 'humanitarian' intervention, The Liberal Defense of Murder traces the journey of these figures from left to right and explores their critical role in the creation of the new American empire. With wide-ranging testimony from many key figures on the left, this is a crucial account of the emergence of the 'pro-war left,' and its shaping of our post-9/11 world."

Critical comments about the first edition:

April 2012

07/04/12: I have just finished a re-write of Essay Three Part Two: Abstract Ideas -- Science On The Cheap.

I have added about 4,000 words of new material -- making it about 6% longer. I have also corrected several errors and typos, and have updated and made the argument clearer.

02/04/12: The rate at which I am re-writing the main Essays at this site has been greatly slowed by several time consuming debates I have been engaged in over the last few weeks: here, here, here, here and here.

I have also written and posted a much shorter summary of the core argument of Essay Twelve Part One -- entitled Why All Philosophical Theories Are Non-sensical.

Since I am endeavouring to make a very complex argument as clear and straight-forward as possible, it will require several more re-writes before I am happy with it.

March 2012

12/03/12: I have now completely re-written Essay Eleven Part Two: Dialectical Wholism, Full Of Holes.

I have added about 8,000 words of new material -- making it about 16% longer. I have also corrected several errors and typos, and have updated and made the argument clearer.

February 2012

17/02/12: Essay Ten Part One -- Dialectics, Refuted By Practice And History -- has just been re-written.

I have added about 3,000 words of new material -- making it about 8% longer --, corrected a few errors and typos, updated and made the argument clearer.

12/02/12: I have now re-written Essay Nine Part One -- Why Workers Will Always Ignore Dialectics.

I have added about 5,000 words of new material -- making it about 10% longer --, corrected a few errors and typos, and made the argument clearer.

03/02/12: Ok, I have now completed that major re-write of Essay Eight Part Two -- Why Opposing Forces Aren't Contradictions.

I have added about 12,000 words of new material -- making it just over 20% longer. In addition, I have corrected a few errors and typos, and made the argument much clearer.

02/02/12: I have just re-written Essay Two -- Dialectics, Imposed On Reality, Not Read From It.

I have added about 4,000 words of new material -- making it just under 10% longer --, corrected a few errors and typos, and made the argument clearer.

In the next few days I'll be posting a major re-write of Essay Eight Part Two -- Why Opposing Forces Aren't Contradictions.

It has taken a little longer than I had expected to finish this Essay.

In addition, I have also re-written the Basic Introductory Essay -- Why I Oppose Dialectical Materialism.

I have added over 2000 words of new material, corrected a few errors and typos, and made the argument clearer.

01/02/12: A few years ago, I obtained a copy of Ian Hunt's Analytic and Dialectical Marxism. I posted a few remarks on this book here, but I have now started to add more considered comments, aimed at showing that despite Hunt's commitment to "clarity and rigour" in defence of dialectics, he fails miserably to live up to both those aims.

January 2012

15/01/12: I have just re-written Essay One -- Why I Began This Project.

I haven't added much material (only about 500 words in all), but I have corrected a few mistakes and typos and I've made the argument clearer.

12/01/12: Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism -- has just been completely re-written.

I have corrected several errors and typos, clarified the argument, and added about 20,000 words of new material -- which makes this Essay about 20% longer.

December 2011

09/12/11: I have just finished a complete re-write of Essay Eight Part One -- Change Through 'Internal Contradiction'.

I have corrected several errors and typos, clarified the argument, and added about 7000 words of new material -- which makes this Essay about 20% longer.

November 2011

27/11/11:  I have now finished re-writing Essay Seven Part One -- Engels's Three 'Laws'. I have added just under 25,000 words of new material, strengthening the argument and clarifying it extensively.

23/11/11: I am about half of the way through re-writing Essay Seven Part One -- Engels's Three 'Laws'.

This is in fact a major re-write of this Essay which has up to now taken me the best part of a month to do.

So far this Essay about 25% longer -- at approximately 128,000 words.

I am posting the changes as they are being made.

19/11/11: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eight Part Three -- What Are 'Dialectical Contradictions'? -- correcting several errors and typos, and making the argument clearer. I have added about 1000 words of new material.

I have also just re-written the Basic Introductory Essay -- Anti-Dialectics For Dummies -- hopefully making the argument even clearer.

October 2011

27/10/11: I have just finished re-writing the Summary Of The Rest Of Essay Twelve.

Even though Essay Twelve Part One itself appeared several years ago, last year I decided to post this Summary of the rest of Essay Twelve (which forms the core of my case against metaphysics, and the forms-of-thought one finds in Hegel and 'materialist dialectics') since Sections Two to Seven of Essay Twelve will not be published for many years. This delay has created a gaping hole in my argument. This Summary partially fills it.

26/10/11: I have just finished a complete re-write of Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic Can Handle Change.

I have added about 10,000 words of new material (so the Essay is now approximately 20% longer), corrected a few mistakes and typos, and made the argument clearer and more comprehensive.

September 2011

27/09/11: Essay Six -- The Law Of identity Does Not Preclude Change -- has just been completely re-written. I have added approximately 7000 words of new material (which makes it about 15% longer), corrected several errors and typos and made the argument clearer.

13/09/11: I have just finished a complete re-write of Essay Five -- Motion Is Not Contradictory.

As with Essay Three Part Two, I have added approximately 10,000 words of new material (which makes it about 20% longer), corrected several errors and typos, and have made the argument clearer.

August 2011

29/08/11: I have just finished a complete re-write of Essay Three Part Two -- Abstract Ideas 2: Science On The Cheap.

I have added about 10,000 words of new material (which makes it nearly 20% longer), corrected several errors and typos, and have made the argument clearer.

13/08/11: Because it is central to some of the main ideas presented at this site, Essay Three Part One -- Abstract Ideas 1, The Heart Of The Beast -- has just been completely re-written. I have added about 12,000 words of new material (which makes it about 20% longer), corrected several errors and typos, and have made the argument much clearer.

July 2011

27/07/11: I have just finished a complete re-write of Essay Twelve Part One: Dialectics And Metaphysics -- Or, Lenin Thinks The Unthinkable.

I have added about 13,000 words of new material (so the Essay is approximately 15% longer), made the argument considerably clearer and more comprehensive, and corrected several errors and typos.

20/07/11: I wasn't able to post much in June since I was away for a couple of weeks and then my old computer finally gave up the ghost and died on me.

The first posting therefore from my new computer is a complete re-write of Essay Eleven Part One -- The 'Totality': WTF Is It?

I have corrected several errors and stylistic infelicities, clarified the argument somewhat and added 4000 words of new material.

Incidentally, the Dialectical Mystics over at RevLeft, who have recently gained a majority hold over the Admin department, banned me from posting any more of my 'awkward' posts at their site. They have done this since they certainly can't win an argument with me.

A supporter of my site, 'LJJW', who helped me write some of my Essays, has agreed to post there in my stead, although he will not be able to do so quite as often as I used to.

May 2011

14/05/11: I have just re-written the Basic Introductory Essay -- Why I Oppose Dialectical Materialism -- correcting a few errors and typos, making the argument clearer and adding 1000 words of new material.

08/05/11: A character at RevLeft has tried to respond to some of my arguments against Engels's so-called "First Law" -- The Transformation of Quantity into Quality. I have responded to his criticisms here.

05/05/11: The central sections of Essay Thirteen Part Three (i.e., (3) to (5) inclusive) have just been re-written. These deal largely with Voloshinov's confused ideas about language and cognition. I have made the argument much clearer, corrected a few errors and typos and have added over 1000 words of new material.

April 2011

17/04/11: I have just re-written Essay Eight Part Two -- Opposing Forces Aren't Contradictions -- correcting several errors and typos, and making the argument clearer. I have also added approximately 2000 words of new material. 

March 2011

16/03/11: The Summary of Essay Thirteen Part One -- Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter --- has just been published. This is an entirely new Summary which hasn't appeared here before.

13/03/11: The Summary of Essay Twelve Part One -- Dialectics And Metaphysics -- has just been completely re-written.

I have made the argument considerably clearer and easier to follow. Since it encapsulates many of the core ideas presented at this site, readers might find helps them see where I am coming from.

05/03/11: The Summary of Essay Eleven Part Two -- Dialectical Wholism Full of Holes -- has just been re-written.

04/03/11: I have just completely re-written the Summary of Essay Eleven Part One -- The 'Totality', WTF Is It?

February 2011

18/02/11: The Summary of Essay Ten Part One -- Practice And History Refute Dialectics -- has just been re-written.

11/02/11: I have just finished re-writing Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism.

January 2011

28/01/11: I have just finished re-writing Essay Nine Part One -- Why Workers Will Always Reject Materialist Dialectics.

27/01/11: The Summary of Essay Eight Part Two -- Forces And Contradictions -- has now been fully re-written.

24/01/11: I have just re-written the Summary of Essay Eight Part One -- Change Through 'Internal Contradictions', Refuted.

22/01/11: The Summaries of all three Parts of Essay Seven have now been completely re-written: Part One -- Quantity And Quality, Demolished; Part Two -- Dialectics Can't Explain Change; Part Three -- The Negation Of The Negation Implodes.

12/01/11: The Summaries of Essays Five and Six -- Motion Is Not Contradictory, and Identity Is No Enemy Of Change -- have just been completely re-written.

08/01/11: I have just completed the re-write of the Summary of Essay Four Part One -- Formal Logic Can Handle Change.

06/01/11:  The Summary of Essay Three Part Two -- Abstraction: Science On The Cheap -- has now been completely re-written, too.

03/01/11: I have now completely re-written the Summary of Essay Three Part One -- Abstraction: The Heart of the Beast.

I have endeavoured to make the argument clearer and less repetitive.

December 2010

29/12/10: Having finished re-writing all the main Essays at this site, I am now in the process of doing likewise with the summaries. To that end, I have now completely re-written the Summary of Essay Two -- DM: Imposed on Nature.

23/12/10: I have just published another essay by Guy Robinson -- On Misunderstanding Science --, an exposition of Thomas Kuhn's work. Until Guy sends me some more material, this is the last of the his essays I will be publish.

I am now working on Essay Thirteen Part Two -- Dialectical Materialism And Science. All being well, it should be ready to publish in the summer of 2012.

October 2010

23/10/10: I have just finished re-writing Essay Thirteen Part Three -- Mind, Language And Cognition; Voloshinov (And Others) Debunked.

I have corrected several errors and typos, made the argument clearer, and added about 9000 words of new material. That Essay is now over 150,000 words long.

August 2010

26/08/10: I have just finished re-writing Essay Thirteen Part One -- Lenin and the Disappearing Definition of Matter.

I have corrected several errors and typos, made the argument clearer, and added about 3000 words of new material.

15/08/10: I have just finished re-writing Essay Twelve Part One -- Dialectics And Metaphysics, Or Lenin Thinks The Unthinkable.

I have corrected several errors and typos, made the argument clearer, removed about 3000 words (that now appear in other Essays), and added about 10,000 words of new material.

July 2010

27/07/10: I have just re-written Essay Eleven Part Two -- Dialectical Wholism, Full Of Holes.

I have corrected several errors and typos, made the argument clearer and added over 2000 words of new material.

10/07/10: Essay Eleven Part One -- The Mysterious "Totality" -- has just been re-written.

I have added approximately 5,000 words of new material, corrected several errors and typos and made the argument clearer.

June 2010

28/06/10: I have just finished re-writing Essay Ten Part One -- Practice Refutes Dialectics.

I have added approximately 2000 words of new material, clarified the argument and corrected several errors and typos.

May 2010

21/05/10: I have just finished re-writing Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism.

I have added about 4500 words of new material, clarified the argument considerably, and corrected several errors and typos.

I'd like to bring to visitors' attention to the publication (at the end of May) of a Marxist analysis of modern Toryism, The Meaning of David Cameron, by Richard Seymour:

"Richard Seymour, blogger of Lenin's Tomb fame, and author of The Liberal Defence of Murder will be in store discussing his latest publication, The Meaning of David Cameron.

Date and Time: Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 7:00pm - 9:00pm.

Location: Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, London.

"The Tories are posing as a 'progressive' and 'radical' alternative to New Labour. Drawing from George W Bush's 'compassionate conservatism', they maintain that the 'Big Society' can do what 'Big Government' can't -- produce a cohesive, mutually supportive, happy society. Cameron's court intellectual, Philip Blond, maintains that this is a viable alternative to the failures of the egalitarian left and the excessively pro-market right. But is this more than campaign mood music? And are the conservative traditions that they draw on -- from the bucolic, pseudo-medievalism of G K Chesterton to the anti-statism of Friedrich Hayek -- really a bulwark of progress and radicalism?

"Richard Seymour argues that such ideas can only seem 'progressive' in light of New Labour's acquiescence to Thatcherism. To understand the Cameronites, it is necessary to understand how the social landscape and corresponding political language was transformed by the collapse of post-war social democracy and its more radical competitors. To resist the Cameronites, he argues, it is necessary to attack the neoliberal consensus on which all major parties found their programme."

April 2010

08/04/10: I have now published another of Guy Robinson's essays, Chapter Two of his unpublished book Philosophy and Demystification -- "The Concept of Nature, its Mystification and Demystification".

February 2010

18/02/10: I have now published another of Guy Robinson's essays, the Introduction to his second book, Philosophy and Demystification, which has yet to find a publisher.

I have also published a reply to a comrade, who, when he is not trying to be normal, doubles-up as the in-house Fool of the Far Left -- our old friend, Mr G.

January 2010

31/01/10: Over the next few weeks I will be publishing several of Guy Robinson's Essays. These had until recently been posted at Guy's site, which no longer seems to exist.

The first Essay -- Making Materialism Historical -- has been posted here.

In my opinion, Guy is one of the few Marxist Philosophers whose work is genuinely worth reading. Indeed, I'd go much further: I can't praise his book, Philosophy and Mystification (Fordham University Press, 2003), too highly; it seems to me that this is how Marxist Philosophy should be done.

I only encountered Guy's work in 2005, but I soon saw that he had anticipated several of my own ideas -- except he manages to express in two paragraphs what it takes me several pages to say! Unlike the vast majority of work that claims to be Marxist, Guy's work is a model of clarity. It is no accident, therefore, to see Guy writing in the Wittgensteinian tradition.

I am posting these essays here with his permission, but no one should assume that he agrees with any of the views expressed at this site -- other than those already contained in his essays.

20/01/10: I have re-written Essay Eight Part Three -- What Are Dialectical Contradictions? --  correcting several errors and typos, and adding approximately 3000 words of new material. The Essay is now just over 10% longer.

13/01/10: I have just re-written Essay Eight Part Two -- Forces Aren't 'Contradictions'. I have corrected several errors and typos, made the argument clearer and added about 4000 words of new material.

I have also deleted a 25,000 word section entitled "What are Dialectical Contradictions?", which was reposted as Essay Eight Part Three a year or so ago. It made no sense to leave it in Part Two, therefore.

December 2009

19/12/09: I have just finished re-writing Essay Eight Part One -- Change Through 'Internal Contradictions'. I have corrected several errors, clarified the argument, and deleted a long passage that now appears in Essay Ten Part One.

In have added about 2000 words of new material, but because of the deletion, the Essay is about 5% shorter.

07/12/09: Essay Seven Part One -- Engels's Three Laws -- has just been re-written. I have made the argument clearer, corrected several errors and typos, and added 5000 words of new material.

November 2009

10/11/09: Essay Six -- Identity Is No Threat To Change; Trotsky On Identity -- has just been re-written. I have cut a long passage that is now to be found in Essay Four, corrected several errors and typos, and added about 2500 words of new material.

02/11/09: Essay Five -- Motion is Not Contradictory -- has just been re-written. I have corrected several errors and typos and added over 6000 words of new material.

October 2009

28/10/09: I have just finished re-writing the Summary of the rest of Essay Twelve. Even though Essay Twelve Part One itself appeared several years ago, last year I decided to post this Summary of the rest of Essay Twelve (which forms the core of my case against metaphysics, and the forms-of-thought one finds in Hegel and 'materialist dialectics') since sections Two to Seven of Essay Twelve will not be published for many years. This delay has created a gaping hole in my argument. The Summary partially fills it.

Anyway, I thought this Summary was badly written and somewhat repetitive, so I decided it needed a make-over. I have also added about 2000 words of new material.

12/10/09: I have just finished re-writing Essay Four: Formal Logic Can Handle Change, correcting several errors and typos. I have added about 5% of new material, or 2500 words.

10/10/09: An old enemy of this site has once again put himself in the crosshairs, here.

06/10/09: The debate mentioned below has continued here, here, here and here.

04/10/09: In the debate below, a rather irascible Dialectical Mystic has tried to reply to me; I have responded here.

Links at the above page.

03/10/09: Several comrades have attempted to reply to one or two things I have said in the response mentioned below. I have now replied to them here.

02/10/09: Yet another obnoxious dialectician has tried to take me on. Anyone interested in seeing him receive a good materialist slapping should read this.

September 2009

27/09/09: I have jut re-written Essay Three Part Two: Abstract Ideas -- Science On The Cheap. Again, I have clarified the argument, corrected a few errors and typos, and added about 4000 words of new material, making it just under 10% longer.

15/09/09: Essay Three Part One: (Abstract Ideas -- The Heart Of The Beast) has just be re-written. I have clarified the argument, corrected a few errors and typos, and added about 5000 words of new material, making it just under 10% longer.

A debate took place recently at the Marxist Humanist Initiative site over the nature of 'dialectical contradictions'.

The discussion was reasonably comradely until I thought to question a few of the things one of these dialecticians (one "Jurriaan") had to say. Upon that, he soon descended into the by-now-to-be-expected dialectical abuse, vituperation, use of scatological language and resort to lying. My reply to him has not yet been published (it is awaiting moderation, which might take some time since I am told the site is being re-designed), but it can be read here in the meantime.

August 2009

28/08/09: Essay Two (Dialectics: Imposed On Nature) has just been re-written. I have corrected a few errors and typos, clarified the argument and added about 3000 words of new material.

18/08/09: I have completely re-written the Summary of Essay Twelve Parts Two to Seven; when the rest of Essay Twelve has been published, I will split it up into more manageable sections, since it is far too long as it is.

I have only posted it so that visitors can see where my argument will go in the future.

----oOo----

Ok, I have moved the entire site to this new address.

Most of the links below now work.

In the intervening months I have completely re-written the Basic Introductory Essay to make it clearer and strengthen the arguments.

May 2009

19/06/09: I have just re-written Essay Thirteen Part One: Lenin's Disappearing Definition of Matter. I have corrected several errors and typos, clarified the argument and added about 5% of new material.

Incidentally, I have to move home at the end of June, so there will be very few new updates published here over the next three months or so.

May 2009

15/05/09: I have just re-written the Basic Introductory Essay. I have added approximately 1000 words of new material, corrected a few errors and re-worked the argument in places to make it clearer.

April 2009

23/04/09: I have just finished a long re-write of Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism --, correcting several errors and typos, and making the argument clearer. I have also added about 14,000 words of new material.

March 2009

17/03/09: I have just received a copy of Science & Society, volume 72, October 2008. In this number, noted Marxist economist Guglielmo Carchedi tries in vain to make sense of Marx's ideas on the calculus. Alas, his arguments have already been neutralised in Essay Seven Part One (here).

This is doubly unfortunate, since the latest edition of International Socialism contains a review by Chris Harman which recommends the above article.

In view of the recent split in UK-Respect, the depressingly poor results chalked up by the Left List, and the internal wrangling in the UK-SWP, it looks like my prediction that comrades will openly return to this mystical 'theory' in times of defeat and set-back has once again proved to be correct.

February 2009

23/02/09: Ok, at last Essay Thirteen Part Three, Mind. Language and Cognition, has been published!

It is by far the longest Essay at this site (at over 141,000 words), hence the repeated delays.

17/02/09: I will be posting Essay Thirteen Part Three in the next few days; yet more delays I'm afraid. Anyway, it is now about 99% complete.

01/02/09: Essay Thirteen Part Three (on 'Mind', Language and Cognition) is almost finished -- illness and the fact that it is easily the longest Essay I have so far written (it is fast approaching 120,000 words) have delayed it by another week to ten days.

January 2009

11/01/09: A couple of months ago, a supporter of this site sent a letter to the editor of Socialist Review in response to an article on dialectics by John Rees. The editors did not publish that letter, but you can read it here.

04/01/09: Visitors can view here the pictures I took of the demonstration in London yesterday protesting the Zionist slaughter in Gaza.

There were at least 50,000 on the march, which was amazing really, in view of the fact that it had only been called three days earlier.

December 2008

12/12/08: I have just re-written Essay Three Part One -- Abstraction: The Heart of the Beast.

I have added about 5000 words of new material, corrected several errors and typos, and made the argument clearer.

02/12/08: Another dialectical punch-up has developed at Liam Macuaid's excellent blog. Anyone who checks it out will see the same hackneyed examples wheeled out for the thousandth time, the same evasive and abusive tactics, the same scatological language.

These erstwhile apostles of universal change are living proof that Heraclitus got it all wrong -- they never change.

Incidentally, Essay Thirteen Part Three (on 'Mind', Language and Cognition) is on course to be published before the end of January. The long delay is down to the fact that this is easily the longest Essay so far published.

November 2008

20/11/08: More Socialist Unity mayhem here. Visitors will once again notice the same bluster, prevarication and abuse from our mystically-compromised comrades.

10/11/08: The argument at Socialist Unity of the 7th (see below) has kicked-off again, but I am not allowed to post my reply there. However, comrades can read my response here.

A few months ago I mentioned a book that was soon to be published, The Liberal Defence of Murder (Verso Books, 2008). Well it has now appeared, and I can whole-heartedly recommend it.

This is from the publishers web site:

"Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of prominent thinkers on the Left found themselves increasingly aligned with their ideological opposites. Over the last decade, many of these thinkers have become close to Washington; forceful supporters of the War on Terror, they help frame arguments for policymakers and provide the moral and intellectual justification for Western military intervention across the globe. From Kanan Makiya, one of the chief architects of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, to Bernard Henri-Levy’s advocacy of 'humanitarian' intervention, The Liberal Defense of Murder traces the journey of these figures from left to right and explores their critical role in the creation of the new American empire. With wide-ranging testimony from many key figures on the left, this is a crucial account of the emergence of the 'pro-war left,' and its shaping of our post-9/11 world.

"Richard Seymour lives and writes in London. His website Lenin's Tomb comments on issues such as imperialism, Zionism, Islamophobia and anti-capitalism, and covers strikes and protests with footage, images and reportage. It has been cited in, among others, Private Eye, the Guardian and Slate. This is Richard Seymour's first book."

07/11/08: Over the last few days an argument over dialectics has broken out at the Socialist Unity blog. Several comrades there were content merely to abuse me (for no good reason) and post 'fibs' about me and my beliefs.

[Par for the course, or what?]

However, before I could respond to the latest allegations about my work, the owner of the site closed the thread!

No worries; I have now written that response, and you can read it here.

03/11/08: I have just re-written Essay One, which is an Introduction to this site, and which explains why I began this project.

I am still on course to finish Essay Thirteen Part Three ('Mind', Language and Cognition) before Xmas.

October 2008

21/10/08: In the light of a few criticisms I have received from certain comrades, I have completely re-written Essay Seven Part One. It is now approximately 15% longer at just under 91,000 words.

I am still working on Essay Thirteen Part Three ('Mind', Language and Cognition); it should be ready to publish before the end of December.

September 2008

28/09/08: I regularly search the internet for comments on my work. Some is supportive, some not; but some is quite poor. Here is the latest example of the latter. I have straightened these comrades out here.

24/09/08: I have now completely re-written the response to comrade Jones I posted at RevLeft, mentioned below. I have entitled it "Engels and Mickey Mouse Science".

12/09/08: I have just been informed that the International Socialist Review has in fact published the letter I sent them, in the September/October issue, contrary to what I asserted below (entry for August 18th).

Comrade Jones (the author of the article that was the subject of my letter) has responded with a surprisingly trite rebuttal.

I have already posted a long reply to him here; a more considered response will appear at this site in the next few weeks.

However, anyone who accesses my reply will need to note that it was based on a typed-out copy of the original response (by comrade Jones) posted at RevLeft by yet another comrade (who made a few typos). I used that version of comrade Jones's rebuttal since the link to the letters page at the International Socialist website was not working (until I informed them of that fact!), so I could not cut and paste his response.

That will be rectified in the version I will be posting here.

11/09/08: In August 2008, a supporter of this site sent a letter in to Socialist Review. The editor decided not to publish it. You can read it here.

10/09/08: A week or so ago I received a copy of Ellen Meiksins Wood's latest book Citizens To Lords. A Social History Of Western Political Thought From Antiquity To The Middle Ages (Verso, 2008). I was pleasantly surprised to find that several of her main theses amply confirm a number of my own. One of these is summarised by Neil Faulkner in the latest issue of Socialist Review:

"Greek democracy was traumatic for the ancient ruling class. Ellen Wood is right to root her analysis of western political thought in the context of this extraordinary historical experiment. For around 200 years, in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, Athens and many other Greek city-states were ruled by ordinary citizens. Major decisions -- like whether to go to war - were made at mass meetings of thousands. The poorest hill farmer had the same rights as the richest landowner. While it lasted, it was impossible for rulers to screw their own people. Instead the rich faced wealth taxes and corruption trials.

"The Greek ruling class never forgot or forgave. They later combined with Macedonian kings and Roman viceroys to smash democracy. This ancient class war between landowners and peasants is the starting point for western political thought. Other civilizations -- based on brutally enforced obedience -- had no need for political theory: there was a king, he was backed by god, his authority was beyond question, and that was that. But the city-state was a community of free citizens, all doing military service, all having political rights. Anything could happen -- like cancellation of debts and redistribution of land (the two great demands of the ancient left) -- and right wing intellectuals spent much time concocting theories to justify inequality. This is the origin of Greek philosophy." [Emphases added.]

The main thrust of the last sentence above forms one of the main themes to Essays Two, Nine Part One, Twelve Parts One to Seven, and Fourteen Part One: that philosophy has always expressed the most abstract forms of ruling-class ideology.

Hence, the importation of Hegel's philosophical ideas into Marxism (upside down, or the 'right way up') has meant that "ruling ideas" now dominate revolutionary socialism in the form of 'Materialist Dialectics'.

August 2008

18/08/08: A few weeks back I sent a letter to the editors of the International Socialist Review about an article they published on Engels's Anti-Dühring. They chose not to publish that letter.

A copy can be found here.

The next Essay to be published will be 13-03, Mind, Language and Cognition. It will be ready before the end of September.

July 2008

29/07/08: The Summary of Essay Eleven Part Two (Dialectical Wholism -- Full of Holes) has just been posted.

13/07/08: I have just re-written Essay Two -- Dialectics Imposed On Nature, Not Read From It -- taking the opportunity to correct several errors and typos, and to make the argument clearer. I have also added 10,000 words of new material, so the Essay is now well over 30% longer.

11/07/08: Levins and Lewontin's Biology Under The Influence (Monthly Review Press, 2007) has just landed on my desk. This book was given a glowing review by Phil Webster in the latest issue of Socialist Review.

However, where this book touches on dialectics, it makes all the usual mistakes, which Webster either does not know about, or missed. I will be adding a few comments on this book in a later re-write of Essay Seven Part One, and Essay Eleven Part Two.

A supporter of this site will be sending a letter about the review to the editor; we will see if she publishes it.

10/07/08: I have just re-written Essay Eleven Part Two -- Dialectical Holism, Full of Holes -- correcting several errors and typos, making the argument clearer, and adding over 2500 words of new material.

June 2008

29/06/08: I have just re-written Essay Twelve Part One -- Dialectics And Metaphysics. I have corrected several errors, clarified the argument and added some new material. It is now about 5% longer.

23/06/08: The Summary of Essay Twelve Part One -- The Metaphysical Status Of Dialectics -- has just been published.

16/06/08: I have just re-written Essay Nine Part Two -- The Damage Petty-Bourgeois Theorists And Dialectical Materialism Have Inflicted On Marxism --, correcting several mistakes and typos; I have also added about 3500 words of new material.

06/06/08: I have just re-written essay Eight Part Three "What Are 'Dialectical Contradictions'", correcting several errors and infelicities, adding new material. It is now just over 10% longer.

May 2008

30/05/08: I have just added 1500 words of comment and argument to Note 4 of Essay Seven Part One, in view of the fact that my original argument had a few gaping holes in it.

I have also added new links to this page, which records the many 'debates' I have had on the Internet with dialecticians (mostly at RevLeft).

25/05/08: I have re-posted, as a separate Essay (i.e., as 08-03 -- "What are 'Dialectical Contradictions'"), a long footnote that appeared in Essay Eight Part Two.

Because of its length, this footnote has in fact taken on a life of its own. Buried as it was in 08-02, it was not easy to access.

25/05/08: I have now published the Summary of Essay Eleven Part One: "The 'Totality' -- WTF Is It?"

-----oOo-----

I have been away for over three weeks, hence the lack of activity at this site of late.

The next work to be published will be a summary of Essay Eleven Part One; that will be followed sometime in July by Essay Thirteen Part Three: "Dialectics, Language, 'Mind' and 'Cognition'".

April 2008

26/04/08: I am progressively re-writing Essay Sixteen, which is an extended summary of my ideas. Because of its length, it has been broken up into manageable sections, each corresponding more-or-less to one of the main Essays.

To that end, I have just finished the summary of Essay Ten Part One: Dialectics -- Refuted By History.

24/04/08: Because of the interest it is receiving (in fact it is currently the most visited page at this site), I have just re-written Essay Ten Part One, making numerous small changes and correcting a few errors and typos.

23/04/08: Essay One has just be re-written. This Essay explains the background to my work, and serves as an Introduction.

21/04/08: The re-write of Essay Thirteen Part One (on Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-criticism) has just been completed.

I have corrected several errors and typos and added about 3500 words of new material.

17/04/08: I have just re-written Essay Five, since it is still attracting much interest.

I have corrected a few errors and typos, made the argument clearer and added small amounts of new material.

It is now just short of 5% longer.

I am also in the process of re-writing Essay Thirteen Part One, posting the changes as they are being made.

March 2008 Latest

31/03/08: The summary of Essay Nine Part Two has just been published -- 'Militants on Methadone'.

This outlines the reasons why I think dialecticians have swallowed this ruling-class theory, and the consequent damage this has done to Marxism.

27/03/08: I have now written and posted a summary of Essay Nine Part One: 'Dialectics -- A Ruling-Class Theory'.

24/03/08: I have just written the Summary of Essay Eight Part Two -- Why 'Dialectical Contradictions' can't be equated with opposing forces.

20/03/08: Over the last few months I have been completely re-writing Essay Sixteen (which is an extended introduction to and summary of my work), breaking it up into manageable parts.

Well, as part of that, I have now written the Summary to Essay Eight Part One.

18/03/08: I have just re-written Essay Twelve Part One, correcting several errors, and adding new material. I have also tried to make the argument even clearer.

That Essay is now approx 3,500 words longer.

17/03/08: Visitors can find my pictures of the recent anti-war demonstration in London, here.

07/03/08: I have just finished re-writing Essay Five -- 'Motion is not Contradictory' -- making numerous small changes, correcting several errors and typos, and adding some new material. It is now about 1000 words longer.

05/03/08: A few weeks ago, a sympathetic reader of my Essays added a comment about my work to the article on DM at Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, a rather miffed Maoist and a thin-skinned Trotskyist deleted it (the latter after it had been restored).

Apparently, such 'scientific' comrades can't tolerate the idea that their theory has been systematically demolished, and think that censoring me will make me or my ideas go away.

However, the original poster has restored it again. You can read it here (if it is still there!).

[It can be accessed in the History section of that article anyway.]

04/03/08: The seminar in Oxford went well. I filmed the talk and subsequent discussion, but the lighting was poor. If I can improve the quality of the video on edit, I'll post it on YouTube.

I'll also post a transcript of the talk, and discussion at a later date.

February 2008

28/02/08: Essay Nine Part Two has just been re-written; I have corrected a few errors, clarified the argument somewhat and added new material. It is now just under 2000 words longer.

Essay Five is still being re-written

Also, I have just received the second edition of Reason In Revolt by Woods and Grant.

The chapter on logic is still among the worst I have ever seen in a book about dialectics, even though, at my suggestion, Alan Woods has removed the syntactic mess that used to appear on page 98.

The book still makes grossly erroneous remarks about Wittgenstein (among others), and it repeats all the old errors (debunked at this site) as if they were eternal truths.

On page 101, the authors still manage to get George Boole's name wrong (they call him 'George Boyle') even though I pointed this error out to Woods in 2004 -- just as they mis-spell Gottlob Frege's name on the same page.

These might seem small errors, but they reveal how sloppy dialecticians are when it comes to logic -- even after such things have been pointed out to them!

[There are plenty more examples of this sort of thing here.]

25/02/08: I have just received a copy of Science, Marxism and the Big Bang, by Peter Mason. While this book is a short critique of Woods and Grant's Reason in Revolt, it is by far and away the most measured and reasonable defence I have ever seen of Dialectical Materialism. I will add a few comments about this book to Essay Seven at a later date.

Added later:  I wrote the above after reading only half of the said book. However, much of the second half is highly repetitive, the author becoming fixated on infinity, saying more or less the same thing over and over again for the next 60 pages!

I am also in the process of re-writing Essay Five in view of the fact that it is attracting quite a few visitors right now.

21/02/08: I have just re-written Essay One, correcting several errors, and adding new material. It is now about 5% longer.

14/02/08: A few months ago, I wrote a very basic outline of the egregious logical errors Hegel committed, which launched the 'dialectic', and which subsequent prominent Marxists accepted uncritically.

I have now re-written it to make the argument even clearer.

It was originally designed for those who found the extended argument  here, here, here and here a little too daunting.

That being so, the dialectic has no foundation in logic, or in fact.

It is no surprise therefore to find it has presided over 150 years of almost total failure.

12/02/08: After a long delay, I have finally published Essay Thirteen Part One: Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter.

This Essay took me far longer to complete than I had imagined!

01/02/08: The next Essay to be published will be ready to post in the next week or so. It is Essay Thirteen Part One, which will demolish what is easily Lenin's worst published work: the lamentable Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.

Apologies for the delay, but it has been far harder to finalise than I had anticipated.

A supporter of this site will be addressing a conference on the renewal of the left, to be held at Oxford University at the end of February.

More details here.

What Else Is New?

Blogs:

Lenin's Tomb

Par En Bas

John Molyneux

Splintered Sunrise

Through The Scary Door

International Rooksbyism

The Dialectical Dialogues

Respect Blog

Killing Time

Cliffism

[Several of the above are no longer being updated!]

It is worth adding that I do not necessarily agree with everything published at the above sites; indeed, John Molyneux's otherwise excellent blog endorses the very theory under attack here!

~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~

Special Mention:

Guy's Philosophical Nuggets

Unfortunately, the above link no longer works, but many of Guy's essays have been reposted here.

Other Links

Hurfinator

ff

Dialectical Materialism (DM) and 'Materialist Dialectics' (MD) have been the official philosophies of active revolutionary socialists for over a hundred and thirty years.

During that time, Dialectical Marxism has 'enjoyed' spectacular lack of success.

[Please note my use of the term 'Dialectical Marxism' -- the non-dialectical version hasn't been road tested yet. On the difference between HM and DM, see here.]

Given the fact that dialecticians assure us that truth is tested in practice, and that MD is the main-spring of all they do, this can only mean that this 'theory' has been tested and shown to fail.

However, not only is it virtually impossible for most Dialectical Marxists to accept this negative picture of their own 'success', it is more difficult still for them to blame it even so much as partially on the misbegotten theory they have inherited from Hegel.

In fact, it doesn't even make the bottom of the reserve list.

This must mean that in a world where dialecticians claim that everything is interconnected, the only two things in the entire universe that are not inter-linked are the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism and its core theory: MD!

This is impossible to believe.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned denial means that Dialectical Marxists never seem to learn from their mistakes --, they just blame long-term failure on anything and everything else.

Naturally, this just leads to yet more failures, and the cycle continues year after year.

This site has been set up to substantiate these allegations, as well as to advance several more; among which are the following:

Of course, highly controversial claims like these require considerable proof; that is why the Essays posted here go into such unprecedented detail.

Unfortunately, when I write short articles, dialecticians complain about their "superficiality". Then, in response to my greatly extended Essays, they moan that they are too long!

The plain fact is, of course, that dialecticians already have the truth, and despite what Lenin said (about no theory being final), they treat theirs as if it had been delivered to them from on high on stone tablets.

Despite their belief that all change is the result of contradiction, dialecticians do not like to be contradicted.

Great care has been taken with these Essays; they have been distilled from work I have been doing for the last fifteen years, even though I have been mulling over these ideas for twenty-five or more. Literally thousands of hours have gone into writing, re-writing and re-thinking this material. In addition, I have spent more money than I care to mention obtaining literally thousands of obscure books, theses and papers on a whole range of topics directly or indirectly connected with DM/MD.

In that case, anyone who can't bring to this discussion the seriousness it deserves is encouraged to go and waste their time elsewhere. I am not interested in communicating with clowns.

Essay One expands on the above comments, and explains: (1) Why I began this project, (2) Why the tone I have adopted is unremittingly hostile, and (3) Why I have gone into such unprecedented detail.

Preliminary Points

As of November 2016, I have posted Essays and other material totalling in excess of three million words.

This is approximately 80% of all the material I have. Far more will be added as my researches continue.

Anyone who objects to the length of these Essays should rather pick a fight with Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin and Trotsky -- and Hegel -- whose collected work easily dwarfs my own.

Even Zizek's latest book, Less Than Nothing, easily dwarfs any one of my Essays!

Figure Twenty-Seven: Exhibit A For The Defence -- Das Kapital