The first one is: If you actually had already studied Dialectical Materialism, already had read at least some of those books I quoted, why did you still fall into subjectivism/agnosticism? Or in another form: Why did I bring up Post-Modernism in the first place?

While I don’t know you well enough in order to concretely answer this question, considering the angle you are taking when defining materialism and considering the impact that focaunian and post-modern thought has had among leftists over the last 50 years, I can make a very sensible guess that it is a consequence of the spread of post-modern thought that you are claiming materialism while uttering empiricism.

To give a more cohesive answer to this question it would easily take more than double of what I’ve already written, so I will focus on the main parts to keep it short.

For Post-modernism there is no scientific objective knowledge, there is no possibility to share knowledge, only the subjective knowledge of each individual, only personal experience, which is why for Foucault any attempt at integrating struggles, like seeing most of humanity as working class, to increase the power of the oppressed, leads to a metadiscourse where that unity becomes as bad as what they are fighting against, and as such we can only fight for our own individual freedom, reducing the fight against capitalism from a class struggle to a micro-level individual struggle for better conditions.

Now this post-modern denial of scientific objective knowledge and the primacy of each individual experiences/insticts over objective knowledge has lead to the common contemporaneous mistake of thinking that materialism also only deals with experiences and practices, forgetting or even denying the capacity or the validity of abstractions or scientific objective knowledge, concluding so that all that we know, and can know, is based purely on our own experiences, being as a consequence merely subjective.

Considering that this whole discussion has been around the fact that I, like all the great Dialectical Materialists that I quoted, understand that our knowledge reaches beyond our own personal experiences and contains part of the thing-in-itself, while you have been claiming that it doesn’t, that it doesn’t go beyond our own practices and experiences, that our laws have don’t even have any relation whatsoever with nature. I’ve come to the conclusion that you follow that logic because you are mistaking actual materialism with the post-modern view of it, to Empiricism.

As such, we finally reach the essence of this discussion and it becomes clear that, in its truth, it has been about post-modernism thought/empiricism masquerading itself as ignorant dialectical materialism all this time, which is why it keeps falling into subjective idealism/agnosticism, because that’s the consequence of that line of thought.

It should be noted that what I wrote before is not just a disagreement, it is not just a subjective difference of point of views, I’m not writing those words to sound mean or try to hurt your feelings, I’m writing them because they are the consequence of a line of thought that strays away from materialism, just as Lenin says in the quoted passage, the empiricist’s denial of objective knowledge, “the objective content of experience, the objective truth of knowledge through experience” inevitably leads to subjectivism/agnosticism. As I already mentioned before, those categories are not at odds with each other, but are consequences of one another, I’m not calling you names, I am bringing attention to your own line of logic.

Materialism is action based on abstractions based on reality, “From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice—such is the dialectical path of objective reality.” Empiricism, masqueraded by post-modern thought as Materialism, is practice based on pure experience, there is no object, there is only the subject, there is no objective scientific truth, only lies told by those in power, which is why there is no end to our struggle, only small wins in personal individual conditions.

Finally our last question, our second “why?”: Why does it even matter if you hold empiricism and not actual materialism, and therefore hold dialectical materialism in a subjective way? if it at the end it only was only reduced to a difference between external and internal contradictions, does it even make any difference in practice?

To answer that we again return to Lenin:

If you factor into what Lenin is saying the logic of Post-modernism (something that sadly we can’t quote him on) with their denial of a unified struggle, and its view of power and oppression as inevitable in human society, Lenin’s words gain an even stronger meaning: “Either materialism consistent to the end, or the falsehood and confusion of philosophical idealism”, “Once you deny objective reality, given us in sensation, you have already lost every weapon against fideism, for you have slipped into agnosticism or subjectivism”, Lenin’s explanation on the importance of the correct application of Dialectical Materialism is as clear as possible.

And for the last question, we shall look at Lenin quoting both Engels and Feuerbach:

You claimed that “nature does not obey any laws”, that those laws “are abstractions we create to understand reality.” because “Nature is nature, reality is reality, and they are totally external to us.” Focusing on the relationship between nature and man, we understand that according to your logic, man for being external to nature, created out of its own ingenuity laws to understand nature, laws that somehow appeared in peoples mind, but that don’t actually come from nature, because even if they work to explain nature, nature doesn’t actually follows them, and as such couldn’t help us reach them, and consequently we can’t also really explain why or how it works, it just somehow appeared and someway it works. And that’s what we call Dialectics.

However, dialectics are not a pure creation of the human mind, but the human mind’s understanding of the laws of nature, nature doesn’t follow dialectical laws because we thought so, neither are we able to think things outside nature, we are only able to understand the dialectical laws of nature, which we are a small part of, because it follows those dialectical laws in the first place.

If we then go back to the beginning of the discussion, we can understand why I was bringing attention to the objectiveness of contradictions and why its wrong usage lead to agnosticism/subjective idealism, because to think that their are based on point of reference, or are pure abstractions made by our mind with no relationship with actual reality or nature, and therefore are subjective, is agnosticism/subjective idealism. To understand that contradictions are given by nature itself, and that our knowledge is and will always be based on the laws of nature is Dialectical Materialism.

To hold the human thought above nature is absolute idealism, to hold human thought as separated from nature, following laws different than those of nature, is agnosticism/subjective idealism, to understand that our thoughts are part of nature, and as such the dialectical movement is the thing-for-us of the movement of nature itself, following the very same laws as the rest of nature, that’s actual Dialectical Materialism.

Having answered those 3 questions, we are now left with 2 new ones, two “whys?”, consequences of the answers of the first three.

To answer the second question let’s first look at some quotes from Engels and Lenin:

Engels, Marx and Lenin are in agreement when both Engels and Lenin mention not only the existence, but the capacity for human knowledge to reach those eternal truths, what they differ from the young hegelians, and other idealists, is the understanding that we arrive at those objective truths from our interaction, abstraction and practice, upon the thing-in-itself. And consequently, that those truths, even if they are “objective, absolute, eternal”, are only part of the object itself and as such have not exhausted the knowledge we can attain from it, which means we have not achieved a complete comprehension of the object we are studying, and dialectically, also means we have more to learn about it.

The understanding that our abstractions of real objects, the things-for-us of the thing-in-themselves, contain part, even if imperfect and limited by the historical conditions, of the object in reality, and that this knowledge, trough praxis, can pass the “test of nature” and consequently confirm that we objectively comprehend part of the thing, is the central logic of Dialectical Materialism.

Absolute idealism claims that our perception is equal or even the source of the object-in-itself, agnosticism/subjective idealism says that our perception cannot reach the object-in-itself, materialism understands that our perception creates an imperfect image, an imperfect copy, of the object, a thing-for-us of the thing-in-itself.

To tackle the first question I’ll use the text you yourself brought, which indeed made me very happy that you did, allowing me to be able to understand where you are basing your ideas from and to reach my own conclusions on that same basis, so first your conclusions from that text:

Marx here is ridiculing the idea of the absolute truth, in the form of the absolute fruit.

The problem of your whole confusion with objective and subjective is that you are mixing the idealist concept of absolute truth with objective reality. The idea of absolute truth is that an idea exists a priori of the objects, which are a manifestation of the idea.

However, not only is Marx not criticizing the idea of an objective truth, but he is drawing attention to how regarding the abstraction as a priori to reality leads to “the Absolute Subject” which actually goes further from understanding the thing-in-itself and attempts to determine the world based in the eyes of subject that created that abstraction. Therefore what he is actually ridiculing in the form of the “absolute fruit”, is the logic that based on a purely subjective abstraction we can reach the truth and that reality is merely a consequence of that subjective abstraction, so what is ridiculous is thinking that the object is a consequence of the subject.

Expanding the criticism that Marx made to the young hegelians to Hegel himself in an effort to answer the first question, we understand that what separates Hegelian Dialectics from Materialist Dialectics is not that the hegelian one tries to reach the object while the materialist one doesn’t and is satisfied within subjectivity, in fact, it is quite the opposite, hegelian dialectics in an attempt to reach the object trough pure thinking and holding that its own abstraction as primary to reality strays further from the thing-in-itself and consequently falls into “the Absolute Subject”, and that’s why it is Idealistic. While Materialistic Dialectics understands the primacy of reality and that to reach an “objective, absolute, eternal truth” we begin by analyzing the real thing-in-itself, and to always put our abstractions made of them trough the “test of nature”, or praxis, in order actually achieve an objective knowledge.

So not only the problem of Hegelian Dialectics is not that it tried to reach “objective, absolute, eternal truth”, but the actual problem is that it didn’t try well enough, it got too worried with its own subjective abstractions of the absolute idea that it lost sight that the actual source for those truths is reality itself. It didn’t become idealistic because it was trying to reach objective truths, but it failed to do so because it was idealistic. What Dialectical Materialism achieves, is exactly to correct that limitation, it understands that our thoughts, ideas, abstractions, are all consequence of nature itself, as such they do not stand above reality, but are based upon it. Which is why both Engels and Lenin said:

I don’t call people whose argument does not match mine as subjective idealist, agnostic, and now postmodern. If I don’t have proper knowledge in those schools of thought so I avoid using strawmen and pure repetition of what I read somewhere as some kind of clever criticism

I now regret the form that I used those words, having not put enough effort into explaining the meaning behind them, that comparison sounded as just a personal attack, and for that I apologize. Having reflected more upon that I’ve realized that I’ve have lacked focus on what this discussion has centered around, I will now attempt to rectify that:

What I’ve been claiming is that, according to dialectical materialism, we reach part of the thing-in-itself with our senses, therefore our abstractions of those things, even if subjective by nature of being abstractions, have also a part of the objective, making our thoughts a mix of objective reality as understood by subjective perceptions. As it is a mix, we must then test the correctness of those abstractions by praxis, meaning to test these abstractions we made of a thing, the thing-for-us, against the object itself, and if the object agrees with our abstraction of it, if we pass the test of reality, then our abstraction contained part of an absolute, eternal truth. This truth is just a part of the thing-in-itself and as such we have not exhausted, and because of or reliance on subjective perceptions never will, the knowledge present in the object in which we based our abstraction of, so although we made an image in our head of the object that correctly contained part of it, it did not contain the object in its totality, which is why it is only an “imperfect image” of the thing-in-itself, it is only, as Engels and Lenin call it, a thing-for-us.

Now the parts that you disagree with me as far as I’m aware:

Hegelian dialectics is profoundly idealist, because it assumes that an eternal truth exists and our knowledge, based on our observations, aims to arrive at these eternal truths. As a dialectical materialist, I don’t assume eternal truths exist, nor I am concerned in arriving at that point.

Another point I need to make is that nature does not obey any laws. It’s not like there’s a law, an idea, that bounds matter in a determinate direction or relation. The laws and theories we come up with happen a posteriori, they are abstractions we create to understand reality. (…) So nature does not give a damn about dialectics, and nature is not dialectical. Nature is nature, reality is reality, and they are totally external to us.

The problem of your whole confusion with objective and subjective is that you are mixing the idealist concept of absolute truth with objective reality. The idea of absolute truth is that an idea exists a priori of the objects, which are a manifestation of the idea.

I never denied the objective reality existed, but what I said was our knowledge of the real depends on our previous knowledge and our experience. Also in Lenin’s words, what we acquire as knowledge is a mere reflection of the objective reality, which is limited by our practice.

And again, as stated by Lenin, Engels argument related to the “dialectics of nature” is epistemological. What he is saying is the exact same thing I said. It’s not as if nature is dialectical, Engels is using the epistemology of dialectical materialism to understand nature.

So in an attempt to resume your points of disagreement:

Nature is not dialectical, nature and reality are totally external to us, and to be able to act upon this external thing that is reality, the human mind created the dialectical method in “a posteriori”. Also, while we can use dialectical materialism to act on nature, this knowledge we attain is not objective, as it is limited by our experience it is therefore enclosed within our subjective, we might be able to act trough practice upon the object, be we are not truly able to comprehend it. Which is why the idea of an “objective, absolute, eternal truth” is idealistic, because we as subjective beings can never attain a knowledge from the thing-in-itself, only the results from our subjective experiences and practices. And as such Hegelian dialectics is profoundly idealist because it aims to arrive at these eternal truths, it is because Hegel attempts to reach and comprehend the object that he becomes an absolute idealist.

So to solve the contradictions between our points of views, I’ll reduce those differences into questions:

What is the actual difference between Hegelian Dialectics and Materialist Dialectics?

Is our knowledge limited within our subjective, or does it reach the object, are we limited to only our own subjective experiences or does our knowledge contain a part of the objective thing-in-itself?

Where did Materialistic Dialectics come from, how did we reach it, and what is it’s relationship, if any, with nature?

Now here is another advantage of basing my arguments in classical authors, I don’t run the risk of looking foolish giving statements that only demonstrate my ignorance on the matter discussed:

Note that Hegelian dialectics is profoundly idealist, because it assumes that an eternal truth exists and our knowledge, based on our observations, aims to arrive at these eternal truths.

As a dialectical materialist, I don’t assume eternal truths exist, nor I am concerned in arriving at that point.

Another point I need to make is that nature does not obey any laws.

So nature does not give a damn about dialectics, and nature is not dialectical.

As if it hadn’t already become clear your ignorance of the differences between materialism and subjective idealism/agnosticism with your direct epistemological opposition to Lenin and Engels, we now reach the grand finale of this spectacle, with an act to rival Bogdanov’s, giving us a necessity of “Materialism”

If we really want to be materialists, then we need to drop the notion of wanting to achieve eternal truths.

If we really want to be materialists, then we need to drop “the materialist theory of knowledge”, truly astounding words.

It has now become clear that the reason you don’t understand the correction that I have been making, or even the importance of it, is because you are not able to, because you have no clue on what the differences between Materialism and subjective idealism/agnosticism are in the first place.

As such, we finally reach the essence of this discussion and it becomes clear that, in its truth, it has been about post-modernism thought/empiricism masquerading itself as ignorant dialectical materialism all this time, which is why it keeps falling into subjective idealism/agnosticism, because that’s the consequence of that line of thought. So I will repeat the recommendations I made in my original comment, that if one wants to go beyond the “Dialectical materialism” created in their own head and learn actual dialectical materialism they should read: Anti-Dühring by F. Engels and Materialism and Empirio-criticism by V.I. Lenin.

It is very interesting tactic to start your comment saying that I’m “using a strawman argument” and then proceed into an attempt to invalidate my arguments by attacking the notion that the subjective denies the objective, or vice-versa. I’ve never said such a thing and not only that, but the quote I made from Lenin in my last comment claims the opposite.

What I’ve actually been claiming since the beginning of this discussion is that our subjective knowledge does reach the objective, even if imperfectly, it contains part of it, so the difference between a Dialectical internal contradiction and a common external one isn’t “is just a matter of perspective”, it isn’t subjective, it is objective, because the internal contradiction belongs to the thing-in-itself, not to our perception of it. Our knowledge of them is “limited by our own subjective apprehension of that system” but they still exist beyond it and beyond us as well, which is why they are objective, as you said: “If you never studied physics and can’t comprehend the atoms it doesn’t mean the atoms don’t exist”

Also by being a part of the object in itself, the search and understanding of those internal contradictions gets us closer to the truth that is the thing-in-itself. Even if our subjective will never fully reach it, and as such will always have something new to learn about it, saying that the difference between internal and external “is based on level of abstraction” is completely missing the point of the difference between subjective and objective knowledge and only running away from the search for “objective, absolute, eternal truths”. And that’s why it falls into subjective idealism/agnosticism.

Your original comment made a “correction” based on the incorrect assumption that I believed only external contradictions were relevant

I didn’t make that “correction”, because I didn’t make that assumption, what I was assuming, and still am, is that you are trying use “contradiction” as simple opposition, or even just a mere factor, leading you to see “external contradictions” when that in itself is an philosophical absurdity. If you understand the identity of opposites how are you going to claim that they can be about things external to one another?

If we follow your example that there is a contradiction between a deer and an egg, and follow the logic of unity of opposites with that contradiction, we would arrive at the conclusion that an egg can become a deer, or that the deer can become an egg. Which is only made worse by being “just a matter of perspective.” Which would mean that if look hard enough we could find contradictions between anything and therefore claim that everything can become anything. Unless you actually believe in those absurdities, you have been mistaking the use of “contradiction”, precisely because you are forgetting that it means the “unity of opposites” and not just mere opposition, or just a relevant factor.

Lenin is very clear in describing the metaphysical “conception of motion” as “lifeless, pale and dry” because “its source, its motive” is “made external—God, subject, etc.” Which is exactly what happens if the source of the motion are “not just the internal processes” as you claim.

The contradictions are what guides the “content” internally, the “sources of the motion”, while external factors are what determine its “form” as it appears in reality, the “conditions of change”. It is because the source of the motion is internal that he denominates it “self-movement”.

And you keep saying that I’m an idealist, but now you also claim that I’m just misusing terms

You are also looking at this metaphysically and therefore also arriving at more mistakes, but this is actually a fresh example of the unity of opposites: It is a consequence of the misuse of terms that you are falling into Subjective idealism/agnosticism, it is your misunderstanding of contradictions that is “self-sublating” into defining the process of change as subjective, consequently leading you to subjective idealism/agnosticism. You are seeing them as two different things, but in fact they are one and the same, they are part of the same dialectical movement, two moments within the same thing, they are all part of the essence of your logic.

Honestly, I’m very confused by your comment, you made 3 claims in it and subsequently proceeded to undermine them:

You start with: “Perhaps Hegelian dialectics only deals with internal contradictions, but not materialist dialectics.” Therefore making both claims that: Hegelian Dialectics and Materialist Dialectics deal with contradictions differently and that at least one of those differences is the fact that the Materialist one also deals External contradictions.

But then show a quote from Mao saying quite the opposite:

He is quite literally using the dialectical materialist concept of internal contradictions where they are the basis of the change and the external causes are the condition of those changes, you even understood that yourself: “The internal contradictions of a thing are the basis for change, but those contradictions are not unaffected by external forces”. But Mao also adds that at the same time the external causes are not able to change the contradictions in themselves or in their essence, saying “In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis.”

Mao also correctly applies the Hegelian concept of the dialectical interaction between the content and its form, and the process of “self-sublation” within a thing that I noted in my first comment and that Engels used in his explanation of the negation of the negation, which not only demonstrates similarities between how Hegelian Dialectics and Marxist Dialectics see contradictions but also shows that there even more similarities between methods, it is truly no coincidence that Engels said:

Lastly you said claimed: "I didn’t call it “subjective” but followed with: “it’s based on level of abstraction. It depends on the point of reference”. Which means that when a subject is analyzing an object, the difference between external and internal contradictions is given by the abstraction made by the subject themselves, and not by the object in itself, meaning that it is not defined by the object but by the subject, or in a word, it’s subjective. So what you basically said was that you didn’t call it “subjective”, you just said that it is subjective.

So you understand the concept: “and if you view it as a part of the collective life on Earth rather than as two separate “things”, it’s an internal contradiction.” You understand that change comes through the struggle between opposites, but then deny the unity between them and say that their correlation “it’s based on level of abstraction. It depends on the point of reference.” Completely missing the concept of unity of opposites, and consequently falling into agnosticism/subjective idealism.

What is becoming clear to me is that this a problem revolving more around the term itself than a lack of of understanding of the logic. Dialectical contradiction has a meaning that goes beyond mere opposition, and reaches the “identity of opposites”, that’s why it is such a central term in Materialist Dialectics and precisely why I started my original comment defining this term as it is and how it came to be (as it should be with the Dialectical Materialist method), but you denied that definition without proper consideration, and consequently had no alternative but to lose the objectiveness of Dialectics and fall into agnosticism/subjective idealism.

The difference between an external contradiction and an internal one is just a matter of perspective

Not really though, because dialectics only deals with internal contradictions. Claiming that the difference is subjective and leaving part of it externally is exactly the logic of agnosticism/subjective idealism.

I get that obstacle personally, one of the consequences of the low popularity of Cornforth’s work is that there is no translation of it in my native language, so I can only recommend it to people with very advanced english, which is very limiting. Considering that this book was the one that allowed me to understand Dialectical Materialism, it is kind of sad that it cannot be easily recommended because is not so accessible as a consequence of not being that popular in the first place, but sadly there’s not much we can do about that now.

Also while I understand the need to make the reading as simple as possible, I do think that “Anti-Dühring” and “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” are essentials in any theory reading list, they cover in great detail both sides of Dialectical Materialism and as such are great basis for anyone looking to become a Marxist. And at least for me personally, reading more complex books after having a better understanding of the logic behind them made it much easier than before, so in the long term those books can actually become time savers.

This is also my opinion, but the way I see it, the value of reading revolutionary theory is defined by how much you can act with it, which is why I give such importance to the understanding of Marxist Dialectics, because its correct comprehension can help guide actions both in personal matters as in more complex social ones, both in short and long term.

As they are the basis of Marxism, while one can learn Marxist Dialectics without learning Marxist social-economic theory, their scope of actions will just be considerably limited, the other way around actually poses multiple dangers, they can either hold the theory as dogmas and become ultras, see contradictions as a consequences of external factors and as such become revisionists thinking that a peaceful implementation of capitalism is possible, or at best become pure intellectuals who know important facts about the developments happening in our world, but are unable to take any action upon it.

I’m sorry this became quite a rant, but my main point is that not only does understanding of Marxist philosophy help the understanding of Marxist theory, but without revolutionary philosophy the revolutionary theory leads nowhere.

I think it is important to note that what you are getting at is very similar to what lead to Politzer’s limitation of his own method, the understanding that dialectical change happens externally as in “a result of the interaction of two systems, processes, etc…”

But as I demonstrated in my original comment: “in fact dialectical contradiction is the struggle between two stages of development (two identities, two categories, two moments, two possibilities, etc.) of a thing.” Dialectical change describes the movement between to moments within the same thing, which is why we call them internal contradictions in the first place, and why Politzer could not expand dialectics to the external force, leaving it just as “the result of a purely mechanical change”, the problem is not in the separation between Mechanical and Dialetical, because that problem is a consequence of the separation between external and internal factors.

So to answer your question I’d say that probably yes, it would make sense within Politzer’s logic to say that “changes in human society” based on things “outside human influence” and therefore “not just the internal processes within that society” are “not the result of autodynamic stages; it is the result of a purely mechanical change”, because as dialectics deals with the internal movement of things it is unable to deal with a force that is external to that process. Which is exactly the conclusion that Politzer reaches in the other examples that you and I have quoted.

But if we correctly apply Dialectical Materialism we understand that if a “change in human society” is occurring “based on availability of resources” it’s certainly has been caused by “the internal processes within that society” because those changes will only happen if there is an actual necessity within that society for those resources in the first place. As quick modern example, rare-earth elements were “discovered” over 200 years ago, and have existed in nature for much longer than that, but only in modern times have humans developed abilities for it, found a use for it and consequently have had a necessity for it. So only after that necessity, generated from its own internal process, appeared, that the availability of those resources caused changes in human society.

Thanks, I have had the material for this write-up for quite some time, but only now had the situation that finaly pushed me into finishing it, definitely took longer than I expected…

Your consideration is a quite interesting one, because the book I recommend (M. Cornforth’s) doesn’t approach the history of philosophy with the same depth as Politzer’s, so even if he explains Dialectical Materialism in more complete and correct manner, there is definitely going to be some loss in replacing one by the other. But then again, almost all the good points in Politzer’s book are already contained in either Engels’s “Anti-Duhring” or Lenin’s “Materialism and empiro-criticism”, so to the person that makes that far the confusion generated by this book is likely more damaging than its merits. You should consider what is more relevant in your opinion then.

Considering the comment I just posted on the thread for Politzer’s book I need to also recommend:

M. Cornforth - Materialism and the Dialectical Method (which may seem redundant now considering its similarities with the current book)

And Mao’s - On Practice and On Contradiction (which would both complement a lot the current reading)

Part 2:

Which also leads him to fall for the Subjective Idealism of Fichtean dialectics:

Affirmation also called thesis - Negation or Anti-thesis - Negation of the negation or synthesis - These words summarize dialectical development. They are used to represent the sequence of stages, to indicate that each stage is the destruction of the preceding one. (Chapter 4.2.3.3 - “Affirmation, negation and negation of negation”)

And consequently cause the contrast we can observe between him and Engels when the latter also deals with the negation of the negation:

Which is made even more clear when they both use similar examples to explain their methods:

Chapter 4.2.3.3 - “Affirmation, negation and negation of negation”:

The chick is an affirmation born from the negation of the egg. It is one stage of the process. But the chick, in turn, will be transformed into a hen. During this transformation, there will be a contradiction between the forces which fight to make the chick become a hen and those which fight to make the chick remain a chick. The hen will thus be the negation of the chick, the latter having derived from the negation of the egg. The hen will therefore be the negation of the negation.

The chick is the negation of the egg, since by being born it destroys the egg. Similarly, the ear of wheat is the negation of the grain of wheat. The grain will germinate in the soil; this germination is the germination of the grain of wheat and will produce a plant. This plant, in turn, will flower and produce an ear; the latter will be the negation of the plant or the negation of the negation.

F. Engels - Anti-Duhring - part I - Chapter XIII:

Let us take a grain of barley. Billions of such grains of barley are milled, boiled and brewed and then consumed. But if such a grain of barley meets with conditions which are normal for it, if it falls on suitable soil, then under the influence of heat and moisture it undergoes a specific change, it germinates; the grain as such ceases to exist, it is negated, and in its place appears the plant which has arisen from it, the negation of the grain. But what is the normal life-process of this plant? It grows, flowers, is fertilised and finally once more produces grains of barley, and as soon as these have ripened the stalk dies, is in its turn negated. As a result of this negation of the negation we have once again the original grain of barley, but not as a single unit, but ten-, twenty- or thirtyfold.

With most insects, this process follows the same lines as in the case of the grain of barley. Butterflies, for example, spring from the egg by a negation of the egg, pass through certain transformations until they reach sexual maturity, pair and are in turn negated, dying as soon as the pairing process has been completed and the female has laid its numerous eggs.

If we follow Politzers logic in Engels example we’d arrive in the conclusion that: after destroying the egg, the caterpillars’ own negation, the chrysalis would already be the negation of the negation of the egg, before even getting to the butterfly. But with the dialectical Engels, the negation of the negation only appears when the insect’s process comes back to its own beggining with the egg itself, in its own re-affirmation, in its own proliferation.

There thus appears the worst consequence of the confusion between hegelian and Fitchean Dialectics:

But while negation means destruction, it does not mean just any kind of destruction, but dialectical destruction. Thus, when we crush a flea, it does not die from internal destruction, from dialectical negation. Its destruction is not the result of autodynamic stages; it is the result of a purely mechanical change. Destruction is a negation only if it is a product of affirmation, if it comes from it. (Chapter 4.2.3.3 - “Affirmation, negation and negation of negation”)

Politzer is forced to limit it’s own dialectics claiming that it does not encompass an “purely mechanical change” and therefore leaves things to a an external force, not comprehensible by dialectical laws of internal contradictions, and in this moment he falls into agnosticism himself.

Contrasting his example of crushing a flea with Mao’s example of the result of a battle:

While Politzer sees the crushing of a flea caused by external factor and hence outside of dialectical consideration, if we follow Mao’s dialectics in the same example we understand that it is a consequence of the flea’s own internal contradictions that make it possible for the external force to crush it or not, therefore the cause and, dialeticaly, the solution, of whether it is resistant enough to resist the external force or not, lies within the flea itself.

Hence, we must be very careful when we explain or when we apply the interpenetration of opposites to an example or to a study. We should avoid trying to find everywhere and to apply mechanically, for example, the negation of the negation, or to find the interpenetration of opposites everywhere, for our knowledge in general is limited and this can lead us to blind alleys. (Chapter 4.2.3.6 - Mistakes to Avoid)

He does realize the limitations of his own method, and as such warns us against it, but without adding on how to expand those limits of our own knowledge or how to approach this “purely mechanical change” he left outside dialectics, we are left in a state where there may be things that are incomprehensible by the human mind, giving even more way to agnosticism.

While still a minor mistake in his work, I’ve already seen people (even here) go against his cautions and expand this misunderstanding into the basis of dialectics, assuming that Marxist Dialectics is based on “thesis - Anti-thesis - synthesis” and consequently arriving at even greater errors.

As such even if most of this book is of great value for someone reading about dialectical materialism for the first time, it also contain a couple of misunderstandings that might lead to problems in inexperienced hands, because of that, for those that want an introduction to Dialectical Materialism I recommend to read instead: F. Engels - Socialism Utopian and Scientific, Mao - On Contradiction and M. Cornforth - Materialism and the Dialectical Method (specifically for those that already read Politzer’s book, Mao’s On Contradiction is a great way to expand in the exact aspect that this book was limited) and for a more complete comprehension of Marxist Dialectics, the essentials: F. Engels - Anti-Duhring and V. Lenin - Materialism and Empirio-criticism.

Huge comment with something that I was working some time ago:

Although Politzer makes a great job describing the history of Philosophy, Materialism and Dialectics in a way that is easy to follow. He has a crucial misunderstanding of dialectics and consequently is inconsistent in his own application of Dialectical Materialism, and as such I personally do not recommend this book for a beginner that won’t be able to separate the mistakes from the correct parts.

His misunderstanding of dialectics centers around the way he views contradictions:

This is the fourth character of the metaphysical method, which opposes opposites to one another and affirms that two opposites cannot exist at the same time. Indeed, in this example of life and death, there can be no third possibility. It is absolutely necessary for us to choose one or the other of the possibilities that we have distinguished. We consider that a third possibility would be a contradiction, that this contradiction is an absurdity and, therefore, an impossibility. (Chapter 3.1.1.4 - Opposition of Opposites)

In life, there are forces which maintain life, which tends toward the affirmation of life. Then there are also forces in living organisms which tend towards negation. In everything, some forces tend towards affirmation and others towards negation, and, between affirmation and negation there is a contradiction. Hence, dialectics observes change, but why do things change? Because they are not in agreement with themselves, because there is a struggle between forces, between internal antagonisms, because there is contradiction. Here is the third law of dialectics: Things change because they contain contradictions within themselves. (Chapter 4.2.3 - Thing turn into their opposite)

Politzer sees internal contradictions as two opposing forces inside a thing, when in fact dialectical contradiction is the struggle between two stages of development (two identities, two categories, two moments, two possibilities, etc.) of a thing.

The way that Hegelian Dialectics deals with contradictions actually comes from how Kant’s Critical Philosophy dealt with the limitations of Metaphysics:

But for dialectics, the contradictions within the determinations of things become the source of the “self-sublation” of things that lead to their continuous change.

The consequences of this misunderstanding become even more clear when he deals with “Affirmation, negation and negation of negation”

A thing begins by being an affirmation which comes from negation. (…) Destruction is a negation. (…) Hence, we see that the negation which dialectics speaks of is another way of speaking of destruction. There is a negation of what disappears, of what is destroyed. (Chapter 4.2.3.3 - “Affirmation, negation and negation of negation”)

As for him contradictions are opposite forces (not moments, categories, etc.) every dialectical step becomes a destruction of the former and not a “sublation” of the thing into another chapter of its own movement.

The American Revolution threw into crisis the principle of the ‘uselessness of slavery among ourselves’, which seemed established within the liberal movement. Now, far from being confined to the colonies, slavery acquired a new visibility and centrality in a country with a culture, religion and language of European origin, which conversed with European countries as an equal and in fact claimed a kind of primacy in embodying the cause of liberty. Declared legally void in England in 1772, the institution of slavery received its juridical and even constitutional consecration, albeit with recourse to the euphemisms and circumlocutions we are familiar with, in the state born out of the revolt of colonists determined not to be treated like ‘ni****s’. There thus emerged a country characterized by ‘a fixed and direct tie between slave ownership and political power’, as strikingly revealed both by the Constitution and the number of slave owners who acceded to its highest institutional office.

D. Losurdo - Liberalism: A Counter-History

The fundamental law of revolution, which has been confirmed by all revolutions, and particularly by all three Russian revolutions in the twentieth century, is as follows: it is not enough for revolution that the exploited and oppressed masses should understand the impossibility of living in the old way and demand changes; it is essential for revolution that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. Only when the ‘lower classes’ do not want the old way, and when the ‘upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way—only then can revolution triumph. This truth may be expressed in other words: revolution is impossible without a nation-wide crisis (affecting both the exploited and the exploiters).

V. Lenin - “Left-Wing” Communism

Approaching the matter from the standpoint of the proletariat and the proletarian revolution, Engels, like Marx, upheld democratic centralism, the republic–one and indivisible. He regarded the federal republic either as an exception and a hindrance to development, or as a transition from a monarchy to a centralized republic, as a “step forward” under certain special conditions. And among these special conditions, he puts the national question to the fore.

Although mercilessly criticizing the reactionary nature of small states, and the screening of this by the national question in certain concrete cases, Engels, like Marx, never betrayed the slightest desire to brush aside the national question

Engels proposes the following words for the self-government clause in the programme: “Complete selfgovernment for the provinces [gubernias or regions], districts and communes through officials elected by universal suffrage. The abolition of all local and provincial authorities appointed by the state.”

It is extremely important to note that Engels, armed with facts, disproved by a most precise example the prejudice which is very widespread, particularly among pettybourgeois democrats, that a federal republic necessarily means a greater amount of freedom than a centralized republic. This is wrong. It is disproved by the facts cited by Engels regarding the centralized French Republic of 792-98 and the federal Swiss Republic. The really democratic centralized republic gave more freedom that the federal republic. In other words, the greatest amount of local, regional, and other freedom known in history was accorded by a centralized and not a federal republic.

V. Lenin - State and Revolution

This book is a very good summary of how the workers are the ones responsible for the creation of value in any society, how the final price of a commodity is not based solely on wages (a fact commonly hidden by modern “economists” and sometimes forgotten even by comrades who mistakenly believe that a raise in wages or social securities for some would lead to an increased exploitation for others) and how the only way for the workers to improve their condition as a whole is through political action.

What do we mean by saying that the prices of the commodities are determined by wages? Wages being but a name for the price of labour, we mean that the prices of commodities are regulated by the price of labour. As “price” is exchangeable value (…) value expressed in money, the proposition comes to this, that “the value of commodities is determined by the value of labour,” (…) The dogma that “wages determine the price of commodities,” expressed in its most abstract terms, comes to this, that “value is determined by value,” and this tautology means that, in fact, we know nothing at all about value. Accepting this premise, all reasoning about the general laws of political economy turns into mere twaddle.

The values of commodities are directly as the times of labour employed in their production, and are inversely as the productive powers of the labour employed.

Part of the labour contained in the commodity is paid labour; part is unpaid labour. By selling, therefore, the commodity at its value, that is, as the crystallization of the total quantity of labour bestowed upon it, the capitalist must necessarily sell it at a profit. He sells not only what has cost him an equivalent, but he sells also what has cost him nothing, although it has cost his workman labour. The cost of the commodity to the capitalist and its real cost are different things.

Rent, interest, and industrial profit are only different names for different parts of the surplus value of the commodity, or the unpaid labour enclosed in it, and they are equally derived from this source and from this source alone. They are not derived from land as such or from capital as such, but land and capital enable their owners to get their respective shares out of the surplus value extracted by the employing capitalist from the labourer.

A general rise of wages would, therefore, result in a fall of the general rate of profit, but not affect values.

As to the limitation of the working day in England, as in all other countries, it has never been settled except by legislative interference. (…) the result was not to be attained by private settlement between the working men and the capitalists. This very necessity of general political action affords the proof that in its merely economical action capital is the stronger side.

They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects (…) They ought to understand that, with all the miseries it imposes upon them, the present system simultaneously engenders the material conditions and the social forms necessary for an economical reconstruction of society. Instead of the conservative motto: “A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!” they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: “Abolition of the wages system!"