The Revolutionary Dialectic

07/12/2024

Science and Technology • Authors • Books • Marxism

By NILDO VIANA*

Excerpts, selected by the author, from the first chapter of the recently released book

Revolutionary dialectics has gone through several moments. The first moment was expressed in the inaugural contribution of Marx and, subsequently, of Antonio Labriola, Karl Korsch and others, with one or another author bringing a rescue or addition to Marxist dialectics, in a process in which the deformation that transforms it into positivism or adapts it to any other hegemonic ideology predominates.

The two major moments were the emergence of dialectics with Karl Marx and its revival by Karl Korsch and György Lukács, during the period of attempted proletarian revolutions. Capitalist stability and counterrevolutions cause stagnation or even regression in Marxist dialectics. The moments of rising workers' struggles and unfinished proletarian revolutions contribute to its recovery and advancement.

It is essential to understand that Marx carried out a theoretical and methodical revolution and, in this context, opened up broad perspectives that had not been developed due to the process of class struggle and the concrete supremacy of the bourgeoisie as the dominant class and the cultural struggle and hegemony that it establishes. The ideological representatives of the bourgeoisie have always sought to attack Marxism, and in this process, dialectics, and the most common way is through its simplification and refutation of the simplified version, as well as generally choosing the weakest representatives in order to be more convincing.

The process of simplification, however, not only has the effect of facilitating pseudo-criticism and false refutation, but also generates a popularization of a simplified and distorted conception that is reproduced even by sympathizers and supposed followers of “Marxism”.

However, Marxist dialectics can be found, in its first version, in Marx's writings. Even in this case, there may be confusion, caused by problematic translations, formal issues [...], incompleteness of the work, etc. In any case, a rigorous and broad reading (not selecting a canonical text and throwing others into limbo) allows us to reconstruct this conception. Karl Korsch had the merit of emphasizing the revolutionary character of dialectics, and György Lukács, to a lesser extent but with greater depth in some aspects, made it possible to rescue the dialectical method.

From these readings it becomes clear that dialectics is part of the cultural struggle for proletarian revolution. Dialectics is a part of Marxism as revolutionary thought. It is revolutionary not only because of its connection with the proletarian revolution and Marxism as revolutionary thought, but because it is itself revolutionary, being a “methodical revolution.”

The path we have presented here has shown the concept of dialectics, something unusual and common in the prevailing ideological confusion, and the process of constitution and development of Marxist dialectics. This process allows us to have an idea of what Marxist dialectics is, its constitution and evolution, and some of its main characteristics. However, there is still much that has not been clarified and Marxist dialectics still has many gaps and needs to respond to several existing criticisms and contemporary questions.

The first point to highlight, at the current stage of general understanding of dialectics, is the need for clarification and deepening of several issues. In addition to clarification on the issue of consciousness (which is the cultural issue most developed by Marxism to date, but even so, still incomplete and little understood by many) and reality. Dialectics, as we have previously explained, is a manifestation of human consciousness inserted within a form of consciousness that is Marxism.

But what is specific about dialectics? And what about Marxism? This also brings with it the need to delve deeper into what a method is. What does it mean to say that dialectics is a “materialism”, a controversial element that has yielded several interpretations in pseudo-Marxism. The question of the theory of reality is even more complex and less worked out. Should dialectics be used only to analyze society or also nature? What is society? What is nature? Or, in a broader sense, what is reality? Does the development of the natural sciences affect dialectics? Is dialectics still the most appropriate method? What can dialectics say about the development of the natural sciences?

These questions depend on other questions, which philosophy has addressed in a more abstract way (most often in an abstracted form) about what reality is and how to access it. In this field, we will have to go beyond the debate about idealism and materialism and enter into the fundamental categories of dialectics.

However, although Marx offered a synthesis and others have contributed later, it is essential to clarify and deepen a reflection on how a dialectical analysis is carried out, that is, using the dialectical method. The synthetic indications of the passage from the abstract to the concrete and the use of the process of abstraction are insufficient and need to be clarified and developed. Likewise, the categories of dialectics are not sufficiently understood and many are still underdeveloped.

What is abstract and concrete? How can abstraction and concretion be carried out? What phenomena can be analyzed? Is there a difference in relation to each phenomenon with its specificity? What is the degree of reliability in the use of the dialectical method? And what is the reliability of its adequate use? How can we identify whether or not the dialectical method has been used? How can we use the categories of dialectics?

The last question is one of the most important for the development of the dialectical method. This is not about saying what dialectics is and how to use it, or about rescuing the thought of Marx or other Marxists (or criticizing pseudo-Marxism), but rather about answering unanswered and, in many cases, unformulated questions. Marx, for example, did not distinguish between concepts and categories. This distinction is fundamental, as is the clarification of these concepts and their differences.

Since the process of humanization, outlines of categories and concepts have emerged, with contradictions, ambiguities, etc., until reaching Marxism, which carries out a self-conscious reflection on how the process of reason proceeds and how it is used to analyze reality. However, both the philosophers who worked explicitly on the issue of categories (mainly Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), and the pseudo-Marxists of the former Soviet Union and other countries, have given little depth to this issue.

What are categories? What are the categories of dialectics? How do categories emerge and develop? Are categories, as Kant (1984) put it, formed a priori in the human mind? Are they objective and external things that are reflected by the human brain, as Engelsians and Leninists say? What is the usefulness and importance of categories for dialectics? What can Marx and later Marxists contribute to this discussion? What is needed to develop this question?

[...]

And many other issues are involved with these and will be addressed later. One of them is about the superiority of dialectics over other methods, the relationship of dialectics with the proletariat when the latter is, for many, just a “myth”, among many others. Without a doubt, it will not be possible to address all the controversies, but many of them will receive at least an infotext and others will be discussed in more depth.

The question of the relationship between Marxism and science and philosophy is a question that needs to be discussed, not least to demonstrate that Marxism is a critique and overcoming of philosophy and science, including the natural sciences, which are at a primitive stage of development. This last statement may surprise believers in science, whose attitude towards it is semi-religious.

Science is not sacred and even if some, whether to sustain their dogmatic atheism or other beliefs and needs and interests, or their certainties before the world, need to worship it, it is historical and transitory knowledge, with indissoluble links with capitalist society and therefore must be criticized intellectually and overcome practically […].

Science, the sacred cow of bourgeois thought, is a replica of the theology of feudal society and, like the latter, it “works” and is therefore convincing, but, although it has important elements and contributions to the development of human consciousness, it has insurmountable limits that are those of bourgeois society and, therefore, for this consciousness to advance, it is necessary to carry out criticism and advance beyond the insurmountable limits of the bourgeois episteme.

[...]

What is important here is that dialectics is revolutionary, which justifies the title of this work and reveals its essence. And that is why it is difficult to think about dialectics, because human beings generally think based on their time and society and their situation and location within it, as well as what is derived from their interests, values, feelings, and previous conceptions, which are socially produced. The way of thinking of our society is bourgeois, that is, it is based on episteme bourgeois. Individuals who are well-educated scientists, who have mastered the modus operandi of modern science, are surrounded by a set of ideas, procedures, etc., which will certainly consider the present writing as “unscientific”, as do the pseudo-Marxists.

In fact, if this writing were written by a pseudo-Marxist, he would do everything he could to prove that such a work is “scientific.” And here we have a fundamental difference between a Marxist and a pseudo-Marxist. An authentic Marxist does not seek popularity, recognition in the scientific sphere, social acceptability, nor does he adopt idolatry, not even of science, that sacred cow of capitalism. And that is exactly why he brings something new to the level of thought, as well as expressing the struggle for a new, radically different society. These two things are inseparable (in authentic Marxism) and that is why dialectics is as difficult to understand for those who are linked to hegemonic knowledge as the idea of a new society.

[...]

Finally, what the above example from everyday life reveals is that it takes a lot of courage and boldness to make human consciousness advance, to tell the truth, or at least get closer to it. And this is something that affects the individual, because being brave and not telling lies (from the simplest and most everyday to the most complex and far-reaching) is a risk and a struggle, and many have already died for “rehearsing” this. The problem is that it affects society as a whole, because the world of lies and illusions can guarantee the reproduction of its current form, but at the same time, it tends to lead it to its self-destruction.

Therefore, courage and boldness are required today, no matter how painful, exhausting, or disappointing it may be, in the immediacy of existing social relations. Only in this way can we go beyond the blinders that prevent us from seeing and real knowledge emerge, which can contribute to human liberation. Revolutionary dialectics are proletarian and universal, and this is their secret, which pseudo-Marxists have failed to understand (and for this reason some have leaned toward partisanship and others toward scientism), which leads to the discussion about nature, humanity, capitalism, categories of dialectics, and much more.

This book is a challenge to the courage to read, reflect and act, because its objective is not contemplative but transformative. This chapter/volume has offered only a brief introduction. The remaining chapters/volumes will develop, deepen, revisit and expand the set of elements that have only been outlined here and others that have not been worked on. This first chapter/volume is an invitation to an intellectual adventure, with its demands, which is sometimes arid, sometimes abstract, but necessary.

The easy way may be better in some specific cases, but when it comes to human liberation, the destiny of humanity, and the understanding of the complexity of reality, it is not the right way. So, for the persistent readers who will reach the end of this journey, we only issue the final warning: the end is just another beginning.

*Nildo Viana is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG). Author of, among other books, Bourgeois hegemony and hegemonic renewals (CRV).

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