PROFESSOR BOB NOWLAN

    I begin by noting that Marxist Theory is a vast complex of multiple, often contesting theories of many different objects developed and elaborated for now over 150 years. Therefore, I cannot reasonably claim to address "Marxist Theory" as a totality in this lecture; I must considerably narrow my focus.  Because this is part of a lecture series dealing with different approaches within critical theory, and because I think it is important to grasp fundamentals before proceeding further, I have decided to focus this lecture on a still quite ambitious topic: an Introduction to Dialectical Materialism.

    Dialectical materialism is the general philosophy of reality and existence within Classic Marxism.  As with all Marxist theory, this is a philosophy that develops by way of critical engagement with non-Marxist philosophy in each of the following distinct philosophical provinces: epistemology, ontology, methodology, axiology, and praxiology.  It is important to begin by reviewing the basic distinctions among these philosophical provinces.  The province of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge and its relation to reality is epistemology , whereas the province of philosophy concerned yet more broadly with the nature of reality itself is ontology .  Every epistemology presupposes an ontology, because every theory of the nature of knowledge is always also a theory about "knowledge of something," "knowledge from somewhere," and "knowledge for some purpose."   This relation between epistemology and ontology exists, therefore, even when it is not specified or elaborated.  Contestations over what, how, how far, and for what "we" or others "know" are always intrinsically interconnected with contestations over what is or can be known, how, how far, by whom, and for what.  To clarify this point yet further, let us take an example.  The dualist position that suggests it is possible only to know things as they appear to us and exist within forms of thought while it is impossible to know things as they exist in themselves is a position which presupposes something about the organization and differentiation of reality at the same time that it is directly concerned with addressing questions of knowledge.  According to this position, reality consists of four kinds of elements:

1. unknowable things in themselves,

2. knowable appearances,

3. representations of objects of knowledge in forms of thought derived from observation of knowable appearances and exercise of the faculties of reason, and

4. an unbridgeable gap between that which is knowable and that which is not.

The same kinds of relations between explicit statements concerning the theory of knowledge on the one hand and implicit presuppositions concerning theory of reality on the other hand can be provided for various realist, empiricist, rationalist, skepticist, and relativist positions as well.

    Turning from ontology and epistemology, methodology is the province of philosophy concerned with the general method of inquiry and examination, of interpretation and evaluation, of articulation and elaboration, and the method of argument and critique. This branch of philosophy includes what is commonly called the "logical."   Logic, in turn, may be understood in one of six broad kinds of ways:

1. as simply "a" logic in mathematical, intellectual, or linguistic terms;

2. as "the" logic of thought, reason, or language;

3. as purely a logic proper to the domain of human consciousness alone;

4. as, more narrowly, a logic pertaining merely to certain of the particular forms of manifestation of consciousness;

5. as "a" logic of entities which exist in material reality, i.e. reality which includes but also exceeds and exists outside of and independent of consciousness; or

6. as "the" logic of reality itself, including both the material and the ideal, where the material refers to objective reality, the ideal to subjective reality, and the ideal is understood to be a domain of the real that is subordinate to the material because it arises out of and is rooted in the material.

    In addition to the ontological, the epistemological, and the methodological, we also have the axiological , which refers to considerations of ethics and judgements of value, and the praxiological , which refers to questions concerning the human as an active agent in the world, one who is capable of and responsible for grasping, holding, shaping, forming, and transforming the conditions of her own existence.

    Classic Marxism is realist in epistemology, materialist in ontology, and dialectical in methodology.  In order to clarify what is meant, broadly speaking, by "realism," "materialism," and "dialectics," it is useful to begin in the realm of ontology, move from there to epistemology, and from there to methodology.  Unfortunately, limitations of time mean that I will not be able directly to address considerations of axiology and praxiology in this lecture.

    From a Classic Marxist perspective, there are two basic kinds of response to the fundamental question of what is the nature of reality: idealist and materialist responses.  All idealisms reject the objective existence of matter as the foundation of all that is real.  Idealisms reject, in other words, the proposition that "matter" is the basic stuff and substance of reality rather than a merely conceptual category, a linguistic construct, or even an illusory ideal.   Objective idealisms usually understand the fundamental "stuff and substance" of reality instead to be spirit, mind, ideas, other disembodied forms, or other metaphysical entities of an essentially insubstantial and supernatural order.  Besides this "essence," reality may also be conceived, from an idealist perspective, to include various forms of manifestation of spirit, minds, ideas, forms, and other metaphysical entities.  These forms of manifestations may take material form, and yet from an idealist perspective matter if not fundamental to what is real.  Subjective idealisms either, on the one hand, deny the existence of any independent reality outside of the forms of consciousness, or, on the other hand, they are dualistic.  Dualistic idealisms suggest that the stuff and substance of reality existing outside of consciousness -- the reality of "things-in-themselves" -- cannot be known by means of and through consciousness, and therefore it is necessary, they contend, to rest content with inquiry into the nature of only what can be known in forms of consciousness.  The "other reality" existing outside and independent of consciousness may be of a kind entirely different from that of thought or it may not be, but we can never know for sure.  From such a dualist vantage point, it is claimed that we cannot "know" the "thing in itself"; we can only know what is represented in our sensations, our perceptions, and our cognitive reflections.  We cannot, moreover, know if what is represented in sensation, perception, and cognitive reflection corresponds to anything outside of these forms of consciousness -- or at least we cannot know with any lasting or definite certainty to what these sensations, perceptions, and cognitive reflections truly correspond.

    Such a dualistic form of idealism readily leads to and provides the support for various kinds of relativism, skepticism, and pragmatism.  Dualism encourages skepticism that any object really is as it seems to be -- as it appears to us -- and that we really can know anything with any certainty to be right or true about an object.  According to a skepticist position, we therefore do not in fact actually "know" what we claim to "know" at all; we only always "think" we know or act as if we know, operating not according to the points of orientation and the imperative dictates of real knowledge but instead according merely to those of various"knowledge effects."  Dualism encourages relativism in the sense that what we know is always qualified as relative to a particular perspective, outlook, conceptual scheme, field of intellectual inquiry, and/or domain of language use -- what we know in other words is only what we know in approaching knowing it as we do, because the "same object" can in fact be known to be a very different object when approached in different ways from different vantage points.  Different perspectives, outlooks, conceptual schemes, fields of intellectual inquiry, and domains of language use will make sense of "the same object" as if it were a series of entirely different objects from the one of these to the next, and therefore this one object is in effect not one at all but many, changing radically in all that is intelligible to us from one frame of intelligibility to the next.  As a result, there can be no question of what is "The Truth" about the object, only many different "truths" about it, with these truths all equally valid on their own terms and these terms all ultimately incommensurable with and irreducible to each other.  Finally, dualism encourages pragmatism in the sense that it suggests we must simply accept what works without being able to explain why it works.  The reason that we must reach this pragmatic conclusion is that we cannot say we know what is really behind the actual workings of that which works; we only know representations of these workings in forms of thought that may or may not correspond to what is actually taking place -- and we have no means of finding out whether or not such a correspondence does or does not exist.

    All materialisms, including Marxist materialism, in contrast with all of these various kinds of idealisms, propose that reality is made up of matter and that matter has a real, objective existence: matter exists outside of and independent of how human beings think about it.  From a materialist vantage point, how we think about matter does not change whether or not matter exists -- nor does it change the real history of its various forms and stages of development, because matter is far more than a mere conceptual category or linguistic construct.  Moreover, from a materialist perspective, the ideal -- the realm of ideas and mental images -- is understood to be also ultimately material as well.  The ideal is a particular part of the totality of reality which develops out of, is based upon, and is produced by means of what is provided in material reality.  From a Marxist perspective, consciousness is the reflection of material reality in the form of mental images within the human brain, a reflection that is accompanied by the capacity to act upon what is reflected so as to interpret and evaluate it, and, on the basis of this understanding, to set goals and devise plans which orient activity in material reality.  It follows from such a conception that consciousness is secondary to material reality, and that, furthermore, this is the result of the fact that consciousness does not exist always and everywhere, but instead represents a particular form of organization at a particular level of development of matter in motion.  Therefore, although consciousness is dependent upon the material and cannot exist without it, the material is not likewise dependent on consciousness, and in fact exists far beyond what is contained within consciousness alone. In addition, consciousness is also secondary to material reality because it offers a reflection of material reality, a representation and reproduction of material entities, their properties, and their relations in the forms of thought: therefore consciousness is dependent upon material reality in the same way that a reflection is dependent upon that which it reflects, whereas, in contrast, as the reflected entity can exist independent of its reflection, so material reality can likewise exist independent of its representation and reproduction in conscious form. Consciousness, therefore, while certainly a specific psychic phenomenon that can be explained as the result of physiological processes occurring within the human brain, also develops in relation to what is reflected in consciousness, and specifically in relation to the -- especially social -- needs to which the development of consciousness responds -- including principally those which correspond to the historical development and refinement of the social division of labor.  In its relation to material reality, the reality which exists outside of and independent of what takes place within the sphere of consciousness, the reality which is the material reflected by consciousness, consciousness is itself therefore "ideal."  This ideality of consciousness means that the mental images that constitute "the reflection" do not possess the material properties of "what is reflected" by these images nor do these images possess the material properties of the physiological processes which enable the emergence of these images within the brain.  As Marx indicates, "the ideal is nothing other than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought" ("Postface to the Second German Edition," Capital Volume I 102), and as Marx elsewhere further indicates, language is itself "practical consciousness" ( German Ideology , Volume I 44), consciousness oriented towards enabling the communication necessary for cooperation in social praxis.  Therefore, language is a kind of bridge between the ideal and the material which maintains aspects of both: it is ideal insofar as it remains a form of consciousness, and it is material insofar as it is manifest in practice, in activity which extends beyond mere intelligibility towards what produces intelligibility and what intelligibility in turn enables in relation to the very same conditions of possibility and forces of generation of this intelligibility -- conditions of possibility and forces of generation that exist outside of and independent of the domain of intelligibility proper.

    Many materialisms, however, in contrast with Marxist materialism, identify matter with only one of its forms: usually the smallest discretely distinguishable of these forms.  According to such reductionist materialisms, all of reality can be explained by simply reducing complex forms to relations among the various atoms or subatomic particles that make up these complex forms.  All higher and more complex forms of matter are seen, from a reductionist vantage point, to be merely the result of the interaction of large quantities of atoms or subatomic particles.  According to this way of understanding, all real phenomena can be ultimately explained by determining the particular kinds and relations of atoms or subatomic particles present within the phenomena -- or according to the determinate effects of some other kind of basic unit such as genes, molecules, cells, or, more vaguely, "essential natures" or "basic types."

    Reductionist notions of matter are inimical to explanation of the complexity, the dynamism, the diversity and the contradictoriness of reality.  According to Marxist dialectical materialism, all of reality is matter in motion. Matter exists within a vast multiplicity of relatively autonomous forms of organization and at a vast multiplicity of relatively autonomous levels of development.  According to dialectical materialism, no concrete form of the existence of matter -- atom, molecule, or electron -- is eternal and invariable. On the contrary, matter is constantly in motion; it constantly changes.  Under precise and particular conditions matter changes from one form to another.  This process of changing form is in fact constantly continuing.  Here we can think of things as obvious as change a. from solid to liquid to gas and back again, and b. from living to dead to decomposition to contribution to new life, as well as things as complicated as changes a. from student to teacher to student, b. from ignorant to knowledgeable to ignorant, c. from subordinate to dominant to subordinate, and d. from supporter to opponent to supporter.

    What is of particular importance, in a dialectical conception of materialism is to understand matter as in motion, as constantly changing, as developing from simpler to more complex forms and moving from lower to higher stages of development -- and yet also at times moving back from the more complex to the simpler and from the higher to the lower.  It is also important to understand that each distinct, concrete form of organization and level of development of matter in motion is at the same time seen to be relatively autonomous from all others: on the one hand, a. each form of organization and each level of development of matter in motion is produced out of and is reproductive and transformative of other forms of organization and levels of development, and yet, on the other hand, b. each form of organization and level of development also involves its own particular states and properties, its own particular laws of motion and its own particular modes of operation.  From a dialectical materialist perspective, human consciousness is itself a particular form of organization, at a particular level of development, of matter in motion. As another example of dialectical versus reductionist understandings, let us consider the case of what makes a university what it is.  Without students, faculty, administration, and staff we would not have a university, and yet brought together into relation with each other as part of the one whole we all form something which is greater than merely the sum of what characterizes us as individuals: we become different in connection with each other as part of something larger than what we are or were by ourselves. Universities in other words exist in states and maintain properties which are distinctly different from the states and properties proper to the individuals who work at and as such make up the human dimension of these universities.  A university cannot be adequately explained by merely adding together the distinct qualities and attributes of all of its constituent elements; a university is determined by the productive effects generated by the ways in which these elements relate to each other within the confines of various structures and as moments within various processes.

    Let us now move from ontology to epistemology and from materialism to realism.   In epistemological terms, we have three major directions: idealism, empiricism, and realism.  Epistemological idealisms all in one way or another suggest that knowledge is knowledge only ultimately of knowledge: i.e. that the forms of human consciousness refer only to each other and not to an objective reality, a reality that exists outside of and independent of these forms of consciousness.  Epistemological empiricisms suggest that knowledge is merely the passive reflection of what is generated outside of consciousness and passed on to consciousness through sensation: consciousness is a merely passive response to external stimuli and it merely copies, in a photographic sense, what exists outside of consciousness.

    From a realist perspective, the chief problem with empiricism is that empiricism fails to account for the full complexity of both knowledge and reality.  Reality is more than mere appearances: reality includes much which is not readily apparent.  Since what we perceive by means of our senses is only that which appears to us, knowledge gained by means of sense perception alone is therefore inadequate.  Knowledge must involve more than sense perception alone: it must involve the use of reason, and it must make use of principles and categories which do not simply emanate directly from the objects of our knowledge, but rather involve reflection upon what precedes and exceeds appearances.  At the same time, because what we perceive through our senses is mediated by the intervening influence of social and cultural factors, sense perception is not the natural, neutral, and independent process which many empiricisms maintain.  Empiricism, moreover, is also at fault, from a realist vantage point, in its tendency to depict the knower as a mere passive receptacle for, or a mere passive register of, knowledge that is produced entirely outside of this knower.  If we consider the limitations in conceiving of knowledge of an object as merely like a photograph of it and the knower of this knowledge as merely like the camera which takes the picture, we can better understand the problems a realist finds with empiricism.

    From an empiricist vantage point, moreover, ontology and epistemology are virtually identical because what is known is understood to be virtually equivalent with what is. Some empiricisms do attempt to go beyond this.  They explain complex ideas and complex modes of cognitive processing which seem not to be traceable merely to sensory perceptions of real appearances as in fact reflecting complex kinds of appearances and complex modes of sensory perception which we are not yet able fully to explain but which nonetheless are simply "there" and which we will, eventually, with further scientific progress, be able to see as such for ourselves.  At the same time, some empiricisms also recognize that reason and understanding operate in ways which at least seem to be independent of what is manifest to us through our senses by producing ideas for which no empirical correspondent is immediately at hand.  And yet, these same empiricisms nevertheless still claim that the true test of whether we actually know what we think we know in even these cases is always whether or not we are able to find a correspondent in empirical reality itself to confirm the truth of what we have imagined, hypothesized, or conjectured.

    Epistemological idealisms take various forms.   Rationalism is one such form.  Rationalism recognizes the knower as active in the process of knowing, and knowledge as exceeding the limits of sense perception, but characteristically rationalism merely results in the opposite kind of problem.  Rationalisms may suggest that it is not necessary to attend to empirical reality at all, as reality can be made what we want it to be according to how we exercise our reason.  Or they may contend that empirical appearances are a mere dross which conceal what is actually real.  Rationalism tends to treat the object of knowledge as a construct of our process of knowing it.  The problem with rationalism, therefore, is that it tends to neglect the importance of paying attention to appearances as a source of knowledge; rationalism tends to imagine objects can be known without observation and investigation, that a purely deductive approach to knowledge will suffice, and that induction is unnecessary.  From a Marxist realist perspective, reality is the unity of essence and appearance: essences are in fact nothing without their appearances, without the means in other words by which they manifest themselves, by which they make themselves known to us and thereby provoke us to inquire into the possibility that they might in fact actually exist.  Appearances are not mere dross; they do not merely conceal a real content that exists beneath these surfaces.  A vital part of any real entity is, from a realist vantage point, the forms in which its essential contents appear, or, to put it in other words, the forms in which these essential contents manifest or realize themselves.  For example, freedom is not itself an empirical entity and as such is not equivalent with any one particular or even with any series of particular manifestations of various instances of freedom. And yet, on the other hand, it would not make any sense to talk about freedom if it did not manifest itself in various instances where we can see freedom at work, where we can see in other words the ways in which freedom appears.  The same thing could be said for other general categories such as class and classism, race and racism, gender and sexism, exploitation, alienation, and social and political oppression. These categories all actually do maintain an objective existence, outside and independent of and preceding and exceeding their mere representation in language or thought, and yet we do not see any of these categories in the world around us, simply in and of and all by themselves: what we see are instances and manifestations of these categories which provide us evidence that such general categories do in fact exist.  Moreover, once we understand manifestations of, for instance, racism for what they are, when we see these manifestations of racism we do in fact then see racism because our senses have been transformed -- they have been extended and refined by means of education and training to recognize more than what otherwise would be the case.

    A very popular form of epistemological idealism today is what is often called conventionalism , or, as it is sometimes also identified, (post)modern relativism.  This approach is popular among many post-structuralist and post-modernist thinkers.  According to this approach, our knowledge is always bound and limited by the conventions proper to the various conceptual paradigms or linguistic constructs within which we work. Reality is nothing but signs, and what these signs are understood to mean will differ as they are organized differently within different "discourses," different domains of language use, and within different "texts," different sites at which discourses meet and intersect and within which signs are thus "written" and "read."  What a sign or series of signs is understood to mean will depend upon the ways in which these signs are made sense of within a particular discourse, and this will in turn depend upon what rules, or conventions, a discourse prescribes for interpreting what this sign or series of signs means -- and for evaluating its worth, its significance, and its effectivity.  Knowledge is thus relative to the discourses within which we work and the conventions that prevail for making sense of the meaning and value of signs within these discourses.  Meaning, value, and knowledge are thus is in fact arbitrary in the sense of relative and conventional.  From such a conventionalist position, things could hardly be otherwise because signs are all that we perceive and these signs in fact are not signs which point to some referent for which they stand or to which they refer; signs merely refer to other signs in a potentially endless movement and not to a reality outside of and independent of these signs.  How we make sense of signs depends upon what conventions we follow in making sense of where to stop this potentially infinite motion of signs, to temporarily halt this semiotic "free play," and to establish an arbitrary ground upon which to act as if we could say that sign A means X, is worth Y, and refers to Z when in fact it only does all of this when we indicate it does.  Sign A could in other words just as easily mean Q, be worth R, and refer to S.  For example, from such a conventionalist perspective, a "rabbit" is a word which merely, in and of itself, refers to other words; we find it useful, as a matter of convention, to imagine that it stands in for and refers to a particular kind of animal, and yet it does not actually do so and need not be understood to do so -- as it can mean many other things depending upon the discourse with which we are working.  It could also, for example, refer to the nickname of a player on a team involved in some kind of competitive sport; it could refer to a particular kind of car; it could refer to a particular kind of sex act or a pet name used in addressing a lover during sex; and the list goes on.  The key here is that we know nothing, from a conventionalist perspective, of anything about any of these rabbits other than what the particular discourse within which we are working prescribes.  Knowledge is a matter of mastering the conventions of the discourses within which we are situated as language users.  These discourses are thus like language games and we are merely the inhabitants of positions as players in these games.  We win and lose according to how well we are able to master the rules of the game, rules which refer to nothing outside of the game -- to nothing about any other game -- but only to what holds while playing the particular game in question.  From this perspective, life is full of many different situations which are all games, all involving positions, rules, playing fields, obstacles and assistances, and, of course, objectives or goals.

    Contemporary, or modern, or critical, forms of realism, including Marxist realism, accept much in conventionalist critiques of empiricism.  They accept that reason and language mediate between sense and cognition.  They accept that what we perceive through our senses from the appearances of objects is not strictly equivalent with all of what is or with what is simply true.  They also accept that knowledge is socially and historically produced, and, in this sense, that knowledge is socially and historically relative. Realism accepts that developments and changes within history and society lead to developments and changes in knowledge.   At the same time, however, realism agrees with empiricism that reality includes that which exists outside of and independent of consciousness and that this "external" reality is in fact knowable by means of what is "internal" to consciousness.  To be more precise, "internal" and "external" are seen as interpenetrating: as overlapping and interrelated.  Consciousness is itself both a product of and a part within the totality of reality that precedes and exceeds what is contained within itself, and consciousness in turn enables conscious beings to engage actively as parts within the totality of reality so as to transform their relations with other parts of this totality rather than merely to maintain and reproduce it as is by simply adapting and conforming to what is.

    Epistemological realisms all see consciousness, as previously mentioned, as part of being, and knowledge as part of reality.  Epistemological realisms therefore do not simply equate being with consciousness and reality with knowledge, or all of being that is intelligible with what exists within the forms of consciousness and all of reality that is knowable with the mere forms of knowledge in and of itself. Epistemological realisms likewise do not see being and consciousness or reality and knowledge as two discretely distinct and sharply opposed realms.  Consciousness is a part of the totality of reality which is both a product of and is active in the reproduction and transformation of other parts.  Other parts of reality are reflected in consciousness and these reflections correspond more or less adequately, and more or less accurately, to the nature of these other parts as they exist in themselves.  What we think is thus, according to a realist epistemology, always ultimately a product of -- and, as such, a reflection of -- objective conditions, conditions which exist outside of and independent of consciousness alone, yet this is no mere passive and mechanical reflection because thought always also involves active alteration and transformation of what is originally received and perceived through sensation.  What we think corresponds to an objective set of conditions which gives rise to what we think, and yet thinking also involves acting upon what these conditions make available to us so that we can understand these conditions in their essence as well as in their appearance, and so that we can act to transform these conditions.  So, to sum up, according to a realist epistemology, knowledge is the result of reflection of objective reality in human consciousness in the form of ideal images and yet this reflection is neither passive nor mechanical: it is creative and constructive, and this knowledge more or less adequately and accurately corresponds to the true nature of its objects as they exist in themselves.  To illustrate some of the differences between realist and idealist epistemological positions, let us consider that the experience of exploitation can be made sense of in a number of different ways other than as exploitation.  Living and working in conditions where one is exploited does effect one's consciousness, but other factors are key as well in determining how it will effect consciousness.  These other factors mediate between the experience of exploitation and how an exploited man or woman makes sense of his or her experience: they provide means of making sense of this experience which in turn direct action or inaction in relation to it.  For instance, people who are exploited and abused may well be taught not to recognize this exploitation and abuse for what it is: not even to recognize that it exists at all, or to think it is all for the best, or to think they deserve it, or to imagine there is no way out or any realizable alternative that will be any better, or to perceive others besides those who are really responsible to be at fault.

    From a realist vantage point, truth not only is a useful conceptual category but also it does actually exist within material reality itself.  For the realist, the question of truth is neither a. simply that what is true corresponds to what is real whereas what is false corresponds to what is not, nor b. there is no truth or falsity, but only myriad different truths and falsities that vary from one conceptual scheme to another, one field of intellectual inquiry to another, one domain of language use to another.  Realism contends that knowledge does correspond more or less adequately and accurately to what really exists, and therefore is more or less true. And yet, realism also contends that the false is that which corresponds to something else in reality other than that to which it purports to correspond and which always exists as it does for some real and necessary reason. As an illustration of this point, let us recall Marx's Critique of prior Critiques of Religion in the famous passage from The Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right where he proclaimed religion to be the opiate of the masses.  The main point of this passage is not, however, to critique religious belief but rather to critique the inadequacy of prior atheist critiques of religious belief.  As Marx indicates, it is not enough to say religion is illogical and irrational because there is no proof that God exists or that there is any afterlife in an entirely different and much better world; what is needed instead is a critique which can explain why something so seemingly illogical and irrational is so pervasively accepted as "true," and exercises as much power and influence as it does.  Marx concludes that this is because religious belief corresponds to what makes useful sense in dealing with living in an illogical and irrational world, and with what compensates for the pain and hardship of such an existence.  Until the social and historical conditions, therefore, which necessitate religious belief are transformed, religious belief will continue to be necessary and will continue to respond to real needs in vital and effective ways.

    By "the truth" realism understands knowledge about reality which corresponds accurately to what actually is the case.  At the same time, however, realism recognizes that the "accuracy" of this correspondence is always only relatively absolute, at best, because truth claims about any aspect or dimension of social or natural reality are always partial and limited, and for five principal reasons:

1. Reality is in motion, constantly changing, and therefore truth claims must constantly change as well to register these changes in the objects about which they claim to provide the truth;

2. Knowledge of reality is inevitably limited by the level of development of the (technical/scientific) means and methods used to investigate and discern what actually is true, and this is the case in all areas of knowledge about natural and social reality;

3. Any claim to true knowledge of reality always, at best, only reflects

    a. a particular spatial extension and/or temporal duration of what is always ultimately much vaster and more complex,

    b. that which is recognizable at a single level or across a single series of levels of abstraction, and

    c. that which is recognizable from a single perspective or vantage point (or a slightly larger number of nevertheless still finite and limited vantage points);

4. Any claim to true knowledge of reality, even in the physical sciences, is always at least partially effected and influenced -- and potentially disenabled, potentially distorted, as well as it is enabled, made possible -- by the contest of social and political -- and ideological -- interests within a given, historically concrete society; and, finally,

5. Once knowledge about any object is ascertained, this knowledge is very often put to practical use in ways which will, intentionally or not, effect significant changes in the very same object.

    The key, then, given these qualifications, in assessing competing truth claims, must be to assess these relative to each other in terms of how more or less accurately they are able to explain what they purport to explain -- and to do so without significant gaps, incoherences, and inconsistencies -- as well as, and this is perhaps even more important, what kinds of ends and interests these competing truth claims respectively enable (actually or potentially), and how more or less adequately they do this.

    Now however that we have addressed ontology and epistemology it is time to discuss the materialist dialectics of Marxism.   Dialectics is a mode of thought -- or logic -- which reproduces reality intellectually, i.e. it reproduces objective reality -- reality which exists outside of and independent of human consciousness -- in the form of ideas and mental images.

    Dialectics can be contrasted with formal logic in the following way: formal logic (the logic of Aristotle, Kant, and modern positivism, among others, and also the most common logic in "everyday life") makes no claim to reproduce reality; it makes no claim about the relation between thought and reality at all.  It is merely interested in the relation between thought categories, in what is common to all forms of thought (e.g. notions of time and space, of causality, etc.).  This is because formal logic presupposes that the subjective and the objective are two radically different and incommensurable orders of existence.  Dialectics, on the other hand, is monistic, rather than dualistic -- it sees thought as one aspect of reality within reality as a single whole.

    This is very important: from the vantage point of dialectical materialism, thought is part of reality, a particular part yes but a part nonetheless: it is produced out of and in turn contributes towards the reproduction and transformation of other parts of reality.  Being and consciousness are not two separate kinds of reality: consciousness is a part of being. 

    Only in this way can we properly understand Marx's famous claim that it not consciousness that determines social being but rather social being that determines consciousness.  Consciousness is not merely the passive reflex of something outside of consciousness: consciousness is itself part -- and an active part -- of social being. Social being is larger than consciousness alone; consciousness occupies a particular place within the totality of social being.

    Dialectics does not reject formal logic: it supersedes it.  In other words, dialectics goes beyond formal logic to explain conditions and circumstances that formal logic is unable to explain -- conditions and circumstances involving interconnection and change.  Formal logic works in terms of rigid declarations of either/or; dialectical logic explains conditions and circumstances in which either/or is no longer correct, but instead both/and is correct.

    There are three classic laws of formal logic.  Dialectics explains conditions and circumstances in which these laws no longer hold or their strict application leads to an inaccurate or inadequate explanation of reality as it actually exists -- reality as it exists in the process of interconnection, motion, and change.

1. The first law of formal logic is the law of identity according to which A is always equal to A; a thing is always equal to itself.  However, in reality A is not always, and in fact often not simply equal to A.  To illustrate, an individual human being changes and is no longer the same person; a relationship -- say a romantic relationship -- between two people changes, and the two people grow apart and even antagonistic.  The key here is change.

2. The second law of formal logic is the law of contradiction (or non-contradiction, as it is sometimes described).  According to this law, A is different from non-A; A can never equal non-A.  Contradictions, from this vantage point, are simply errors, falsities, and mistakes.  Again, however, in reality this is not always by any means true.  To illustrate a case where an entity can be both A and non-A, a unity of opposing forces or tendencies within the one whole, consider any person, any personality for that matter, experiencing a tension between opposing inclinations or commitments -- for example a person who is both a good student and a bad student at the same time, or who is both, at the same time, inclined towards pursuit of an intellectual life concentrated within the academy and disinclined towards this pursuit, or who is both a good friend, lover, sibling, or child, and not a good friend, lover, sibling, or child at the same time.  Resolution of tensions resulting from this unity of opposites within the one person or personality will in fact be crucial in determining where he or she will go and what he or she will do in his or her life from this point onward.  From a dialectical perspective change follows from the resolution of contradictions.

3. The third law of dialectics is the law of exclusion or the law of the excluded middle according to which A is either A or non-A; nothing can be neither A or non-A.  And yet once again, in reality this is not always by any means strictly true. As an illustration sometimes a person may be neither happy nor sad, satisfied nor dissatisfied, content nor discontent.  They may be neither one of these poles nor some combination of the two poles but rather something else entirely.  So, therefore, from a dialectical perspective, it makes perfect sense to say I am not happy but also I am not unhappy.

What is of key importance in this contrast with formal logic, is that dialectics, from a Marxist perspective, is the logic of reality as a reality in motion.

    According to Marxist dialectics, moreover, reality is itself a structured whole, and this whole is in turn made up of a vast multiplicity of interconnected and interpenetrating structured wholes.  Each aspect or element of the whole has its significance only in its relations with all the other elements within the whole.  At the same time, the whole only exists in and through the interrelations among these elements: there is no "organic whole" which exists outside of or prior to any of its elements.

    Again, in this conception of totality, we see presupposed a conception of reality which differs from atomistic and mechanistic conceptions of reality.  These latter conceptions either reduce reality to the singular determinate effects of its smallest discretely distinguishable parts (atomistic) -- or they conceive of reality in terms of discretely distinct and externally related spheres and combinations (mechanistic). The dialectical conception of reality as a concrete totality also differs from various forms of empiricism which see reality as merely a vast, chaotic bundle of stimuli and responses.  And finally, this conception of reality also differs from conceptions of reality which perceive logic as merely formal rather than natural -- as a strictly human invention, pertaining only to the forms of human consciousness and communication and not to nature itself. According to a Marxist dialectics, dialectics is not a merely formal and cognitive tool: it is the logic of nature itself.

    In addition to conceiving of reality as a structured totality, Marxist dialectics conceives of this reality as in motion: all concrete modes of existence have a beginning and an end, they emerge, develop, decline, and end as they are absorbed within and superseded by new modes.  The causes of the development and disappearance of any object are internal and intrinsic to the object: any object carries within itself the preconditions of its own negation or dissolution, i.e., the preconditions of its own disintegration and reappropriation by other objects or processes in a new combination.  Dialectics is a logic of both evolution and revolution: once an object attains reality (that is becomes self-reproducing in accord with its own intrinsic laws of motion), its development can be described primarily in evolutionary terms: in terms, that is, of "adaptation," the emergence of new functions and organs (and the disappearance of other which are no longer necessary, etc.).  However, this does not exclude the aspect of revolutionary change -- either the overturning of the laws of motion themselves and the substitution of a new, radically different set of laws, or a fundamental reconstruction of the system of relations between the elements.

    To further understand what is involved in revolutionary change, we have to move now to a more detailed consideration of the question of contradiction.  The notion of contradiction is the most important characteristic which distinguishes dialectics from other modes of thinking.  A contradiction is a relation involving a unity of opposing forces or tendencies which not only differ from but also struggle against each other within the space of this unity. For formal logic, there can only be contradictions within thought, or "logical contradictions."  For dialectics, contradiction is an aspect of reality, and, in fact, the fundamental aspect. Now that we have discussed totality and development, we are ready to understand contradiction.

    From a dialectical materialist vantage point, contradictions can also be classified into at least four different pairs of opposing kinds of contradiction:

1. Internal Contradictions -- contradictions between aspects or dimensions of the same, single phenomenon -- vs. External Contradictions -- contradictions between aspects or dimensions in different phenomena.

2. Essential Contradictions -- contradictions between opposing aspects of the essence of a phenomenon -- vs. Non-Essential Contradictions -- contradictions between opposing aspects of a form or of forms of appearance of a phenomenon.

3. Basic Contradictions -- contradictions that determine all the more or less essential aspects of a phenomenon and do so at every stage of its development -- vs. Non-Basic Contradictions -- contradictions that characterize only a particular and non-essential aspect or a series of interconnected particular and non-essential aspects of a phenomenon and its course of development.

4. Antagonistic Contradictions -- between classes and other social groups which have ultimately, fundamentally, and irreconcilably opposing objective interests --- versus Non-Antagonistic Contradictions -- between classes and other social groups which maintain ultimately, fundamentally, and reconcilably common objective interests.

    What is most important in understanding contradiction, from the perspective of a Classic Marxist materialist dialectics, is that contradictions are universal within and throughout the objective reality of nature and society. For formal logic, there can only be contradictions within thought, or "logical contradictions."   For dialectics, contradiction is an inherent dimension of objective as well as subjective reality, and, in fact, contradiction is perhaps the most important dimension of reality in determining change and development within and of reality.

    In order better to understand this, it is necessary to connect contradiction with what we have already discussed in relation to concrete totality and development. Any concrete totality is a product of the history of its development: it is a combination within a new whole of a series of heterogeneous processes or categories.  However, this is not a combination or unity among equals: any such combination is always the result of the subordination of one process or object (or one set of processes or objects) to the logic of another.  This subordination may simply involve the elimination of the subordinated process or object. However, it may also mean that one element links itself to another in a way such that the former becomes dominant and the latter becomes subordinate.  What had previously been two extrinsic aspects of reality are now made into intrinsically opposing principles within a new organization of reality.  This new organization is instigated and driven forward by the dominant term, but at the same time the new organization compels the subordinate term to posit itself (in order for the subordinate to ensure its own reproduction) as the principle which will dominate within a potential further new re-organization of reality, one which would assimilate all that is necessary or beneficial in the existing organization of reality, and at the same time supersede this -- thereby creating a higher and more universal organization of reality.

    Two things happen in the course of this process: first, what was originally a subordinate category must, to insure its own continued existence in the struggle against that which dominates over it, supersede and transform both itself and the conditions of its own existence -- as subordinate.  Second, this organization of reality must show itself to be based on the contradiction between that actual organization and the possibility of its own supersession. Perhaps the most famous instance of dialectical thinking within Marxism is Marx's contention that capitalism involves a contradictory unity in struggle between a dominant exploitative capitalist class and a subordinate exploited proletarian class where the latter can only liberate itself from its position of subordination through exploitation by displacing the former as dominant through a process of revolutionary transformation in which capitalism itself will be superseded.

    Dialectical categories are tools of thinking.  They are what we could call "a priori" ideas or abstractions -- "a priori" because they precede and guide the investigation at hand.  This does not mean that they are "a priori" in any absolute sense: they are the products of prior investigations, past theoretical work -- and in fact, of the whole history of language and thought.  Any self-conscious theoretical investigation -- one which does not merely assume it is working with facts which speak for themselves -- has to clarify the categories by which it is appropriating reality in an intellectual way.  I will now discuss three pairs of principal categories of dialectical materialism.

    First, abstract and concrete.  Any abstraction seeks to isolate some common quality which unites a multiplicity of different objects.  For example, if I refer to an object as a "table," I am working with an abstraction -- I am assuming that this "table" has something in common with a multiplicity of objects (e.g. millions of tables in the world, all of which are of different sizes, shapes, colors, and made from different materials).  The word "table" allows me to fix on some similarity and to exclude from consideration the differences between them.  From this example it should be clear that we cannot think or comprehend any aspect of reality without the use of abstractions.

    The question of abstraction is another excellent place to contrast formal logic, or metaphysical thought, with dialectics.  For formal logic, abstractions are merely subjective, and express nothing necessary about or inherent within the objects which are understood through these abstractions.  For formal logic, abstractions are merely convenient instruments with which to find our way around in the world.  Formal logic does not ask is there any actual object which is described or explained by these abstractions; it will insist that such a question is not its business.  This makes the process of producing abstractions wholly abstract; and the production of knowledge merely quantitative.  Returning to the "table" I have already mentioned, formal logic will attach a potentially infinite number of abstractions to it -- "red," "square," "three-legged," "wood," "old," etc.  Formal logic cannot tell us which of these abstractions might be more or less important, what the relations between these are, or what would characterize sufficient or adequate knowledge of the table (because, in principle, one could easily attach virtually an infinite number of abstractions to this or any object -- and how then could we have the arrogance to suggest that we know something about it if we have only collected 10 or 20 or 100 of these?).

    For dialectical logic, the function of what Marx called the "rational abstraction" is to fix upon not just any "aspect" of the object, but upon that which defines its essence, and accounts for its development.  If we look at, for example, capitalist society from a "formal" point of view, we will see that it has many characteristics. Every capitalist society seems to have some poor and some rich people, the market seems to be important in every capitalist society, all capitalist societies have states with armies, police forces, etc., and all seem to have dominant ideologies based upon freedom and individualism.  For all its pretensions to comprehensiveness, such an approach can really tell us nothing about capitalist societies.  Which of these characteristics are most important?  What are the relations between them (is one determining, the other determined)?  How do we account for the fact that these characteristics will appear differently in different societies, and at different times in the development of the same society?  Formal logic cannot really answer any of these questions.

    Dialectical logic, on the other hand, can produce an abstraction which will be able to answer all of these questions.  Marxism defines capitalism as a society based upon generalized commodity production. All of the other characteristics previously noted -- inequality, political domination, etc. -- as well as others (like the separation of the laborer from the means of production, competition, and capitalist accumulation) can be explained on the basis of this definition, and on an analysis of the commodity.  This is what Marx does in Capital : show that all of the contradictions in bourgeois society (including political and ideological ones) can be understood on the basis of the contradictions implicit in the fundamental unit or "cell" of bourgeois society, the commodity.

    How is the rational, or dialectical, abstraction produced? First, through a critical appropriation and transformation of the abstractions produced through investigations based upon formal logic.  The dialectical approach asks what does the formal abstraction explain and what does it leave unexplained?  Where are the gaps and contradictions in this investigation, how are they to be explained, and how could they be remedied?   Second, the dialectical abstraction tries to answer the question "how is the object in question reproduced?"  How moreover is this object reproduced in a world of competing possibilities over a period of time in which its existence is challenged?

    Understanding of "the concrete" also illustrates the differences between the two approaches of formal and dialectical logic.  For formal logic, the concrete is the most immediately perceptible object -- this table, this chair, this person, etc., is taken to be absolutely concrete.  For dialectical logic, "this X" is, in fact, the most abstract concept.  It is the most general and one-sided mode of appropriating an object: the "thisness" of the object merely unites it with all other "thises" in the world (i.e. every other object); it is a mere tautology which tells us nothing about the object other than that it is an object -- one cannot get any more abstract than this.

    Dialectics defines the concrete as a unity of the diverse -- the concrete is a combination of abstractions which appropriates the wealth and history of those abstractions and organizes them in a specific way. It is therefore the end-point of the investigation, and not the beginning.  The concrete is, indeed, a "this X" but a "this X" which is now grasped not in its immediacy (the object right in front of me) but in its difference from all other "Xs"; (and "Ys" and "Zs"), and in its complex and constantly changing interconnections with these.

    Finally, Marxist dialectical processes of abstraction involve three principal -- and interconnected and interdeterminant -- dimensions.  These three dimensions function versus both the part abstracted and the dynamic and systematic totalities of which it is a particular part. Each of these three dimensions refers to a different aspect of the process of boundary setting and bringing into focus which lies at the heart of the process of abstraction.

    First, each abstraction can be said to involve a certain extension in the part abstracted in both space and time.  Abstracting boundaries in space sets limits on the range of interactions taking place at a given moment in time which are to be focused upon while abstracting boundaries in time sets limits on the expanse of time over which a range of interactions to be focused upon will be isolated and studied.

    Second, each abstraction can be said to involve a certain level of generality which, like a microscope adjustable to different degrees of magnification, allows us to focus in on the part abstracted in terms of its different places and functions within different kinds of totalities -- such as its place within nature and natural history, within the history of humanity and human society in general, within class society and the history of class society, within capitalism and the history of capitalism, within late capitalism and the history of late capitalism, and within late capitalist United States of America today, etc.

    Third, as well as involving a certain extension and level of generality, each abstraction also involves a certain vantage point or place within the relationship or nexus of relationships abstracted from which to view, piece together, and think about the other components of this relationship or nexus of relationships.  Vantage point is, in other words, a matter of perspective.

    Choice of extension, level of generality, and vantage point or of shifts and changes in extension, level of generality, and vantage point, are always closely interlinked with the particular interests, objectives, and ends which guide -- consciously, unconsciously, or semi-(un)consciously -- the particular uses of -- what is to be done with -- that which is abstracted.

    Let us turn now to the next pair of dialectical categories, form and content.  Form is that aspect of any object which can be abstracted from that object and repeated or reproduced in other objects regardless of specific context, either in time or in space.  This is why, when we talk about a "formal affair" or about someone behaving in a "formal" way, we usually have in mind some set of conventions which are merely repeated without regard to particular meaning or use.  Form is, therefore, whatever is at least relatively rigid or unchanging in some object or group of objects -- in relation to content, form is conservative and resists change.

    Content refers to whatever is specific about an object, whatever provides it with its own dynamic, its laws of motion, and its concreteness.  Content, therefore, is what produces change, in opposition to formal limits. Form is what differentiates classes of phenomena; content is what connects and unites them within a process.  Or, in other terms content denotes the totality of interactions and resultant changes within a phenomenon whereas form refers to the relatively stable system of connections which link these various aspects and provide the structure of this totality.

    Any object is a contradictory unity of form and content.  Form is what makes the reproduction of an object possible; it enables the preservation of the results of past development.  The transformation of any object becomes possible when its form comes into contradiction with its content.  For example, when conventions of politeness become merely formal, this indicates that these forms have been outstripped by a content -- such as increasingly antagonistic, distanced, and reified social relations -- which no longer can "fit" into these forms.

    To think about form and content dialectically is to think about them relatively: what was content can become form, and form can become part of a new content.  For example, the exchange of products of labor is at a given moment in history a motor of change, and a force of production in its own right.  Exchange between commodities can restructure the division of labor both between and within a community. Within a developed capitalist system, however, commodity exchange is more of a form, determined by and in contradiction with the real content of the capitalist economy -- the production process, the exploitation of labor, and the accumulation of capital.  Furthermore, at a certain point in the history of capitalism, the exchange relation, which makes the vast apparatuses of production in a modern society dependent upon the uncertainties of the market, comes into contradiction and eventually conflict with the process of production.  Content has outgrown the forms which contained it. With the supersession of capitalist relations, and the institution of a planned economy -- a new form of economic regulation now commensurate with the existing state of the production forces -- the content implicit in the previous commodity exchange form -- which, for example, teaches such concepts and skills as "fairness," "equality," the careful measuring of quantities, etc. -- will be appropriated and realized within the totality of the content of a socialist society.

    Next, let us turn now to essence and appearance .  Marx wrote that if the essence of reality was given immediately, in appearance, there would be no need for science.  In other words, scientific and philosophical thinking can almost be defined by the progression, in thought, beyond those perceptions, images, categories, etc. which characterize our most immediate, practical, and abstract approach to the reality which surrounds us, towards a discovery of those laws and processes which under "normal," "everyday" conditions remain hidden from us.  For formal logic, this process is an extremely one-sided one: formal logic sees appearances as arbitrary, merely "subjective," and therefore irrelevant to true knowledge.  One arrives at the essence (e.g. the light waves affected by an object) and simply discards the appearance (the color seen by the eye).  For dialectics, in contrast, the appearance cannot be disconnected from the essence -- the forms of appearance of an object are the manifestations of that essence which make that essence available to us.  The very distance between appearance and essence needs to be explained, and all of the intermediate and interconnecting links between essence and appearance made part of this explanation.  For example, when we go to the store to buy something it appears to us as if we are engaging in a free, equal exchange.  Something is given, something is received by each partner; nobody is forcing either of us -- I could go to the store down the street, etc.

    However, this free, equal exchange obscures a more fundamental process -- the final act of exchange is just one (albeit necessary) link in a long chain of acts and relations which involve the exploitation of workers (in which workers give something for nothing).  This investigation will demonstrate that the process appears to us on the surface as free and equal precisely because of the nature of the commodity, as a social relation in which labor is abstracted from the concrete activity of the laborer; represented in value as "homogenous" labor power, and reflected in exchanges mediated through money.  That is, the apparent possibility of fair and equal exchange and its real impossibility are both implicit in the commodity form.  In this way, by moving past appearances, we arrive at an understanding of the essence (of the bourgeois economic structure) and from an understanding of the essence we arrive at an explanation of the appearance as appearance.

    Many other dialectical categories besides abstract and concrete, form and content, and essence and appearance are also very important, although we do not have time today to discuss them.  Among some of the most famous of these others within Marxist theory are quantity and quality, immediacy and mediation, and negation of negation.  What we need to do now is to discuss a dialectical materialist understanding of intrinsic versus extrinsic relations.

    Dialectics explains what an object in reality is by explaining how the object is formed and what it in turn forms, reforms, and transforms as itself a particular concrete totality which in turn comprises a particular part of a larger concrete totality, or, more precisely, a particular part of a complex of larger interconnected and interdeterminant concrete totalities.  Dialectics explains the movement and development of an object in turn as a result of the movement and development of the intrinsic (or internal) relations which constitute the object and its contradictions.

    Let us attempt to understand what this means.  To begin, any given object is taken, from a dialectical materialist vantage point, as itself a concrete totality (as, in other words, a combination of many abstractions within a single object).  This concrete totality is, further, taken to be self-determining and self-reproducing (in other words, it is understood to posit its own conditions of perpetuation and expansion as well as its own conditions of transformation or self-supersession).  Any such concrete totality is constituted by a primary contradiction (that which governs its motion and development) and by secondary ones (those which can modify or qualify the particular outcome of a given process, or its form of appearance, but cannot explain its main tendency).  There are antagonistic contradictions (in which one term must seek to dominate and ultimately cancel the other) and nonantagonistic contradictions (in which some form of "co-existence" is possible indefinitely).

    Finally, within any contradiction there is a dominant and a subordinate term.  The dominant term initially arranges the categories governed by the contradiction and sets up the subordinate term in opposition to itself; the subordinate term, in the course of time, becomes the dominant one, transforming the essence of the system.  This is the secret of what dialectics describes as the negation of the negation: the subordinate term cancels and supersedes the dominant one (e.g., the working class cancels the progressive and universal quality of the bourgeoisie), transforming the previously dominant term into its opposite (the bourgeoisie becomes a reactionary class, blocking the further development of human capacities) and paving the way for the transformation of the system as a whole into its opposite -- one governed by the principle implicit in the constitution of the subordinate term (communism, based upon the collectivism implicit in the objective socialization of the working class as a concrete constituent category of capitalist economy and society).

    My focus in this presentation of dialectics has so far been on the notion of intrinsic relations -- indeed, this is the outstanding feature of dialectics which distinguishes it from dominant modes of thought. However, the question of a dialectical conception of extrinsic (or external) relations is ultimately just as important.  A fully constituted, concrete object reproduces itself and the conditions of its further existence according to its own intrinsic relations and laws.  However, such an object is necessarily at the same time dependent for the conditions and elements of its reproduction upon extrinsic objects, also governed by their own intrinsic laws of motion.  For example, as Rosa Luxemburg was the first to show, capitalism, while driven by its own contradictions, relies upon its access to pre-capitalist modes of production -- in fact, its continued reproduction depends upon constantly expanding the commodity relation into non-capitalist areas, and transforming all needs and powers in these areas into needs which are satisfied in the market and powers which are exercised in accord with bourgeois property relations.  The same is true, in another sense, of any individual undergoing a process of emotional and intellectual development who assimilates, appropriates, and seeks to subordinate to her own needs and concerns already existing cultural objects and activities (which are as such, up until the point of assimilation and appropriation, extrinsic to her).

    The category of link accounts for these interdependencies between extrinsically related phenomena.  Any such link between extrinsic objects, furthermore is necessarily unequal: as each object tends to appropriate and assimilate the other in the interests of its own reproduction, one object will subordinate the other to its own "logic" and mode of reproduction.  Meanwhile, the dominant category necessarily undergoes modification while subordinating the other and transforming it into an element of its own reproduction, making it intrinsic to its own laws of motion.

    Thus we have a conception of dialectics as a universal interconnectedness, furthermore, connects the various categories discussed previously.  First, the process by which one object forms a link with an extrinsic object, and transforms that link from an extrinsic to an intrinsic relation (from relation between a dominant and a subordinate object to a relation between a dominant or subordinate term within a contradiction or to a relation between a primary and a secondary contradiction within an object) is precisely the movement from the abstract to the concrete.  Concrete categories become abstract (one-sided, partial) aspects of a new concrete totality.

    Second, the dominant category does not destroy the subordinated ones (and their content) but rather transforms these into the formal conditions of its own reproduction.  So, for example, the family, which in pre-capitalist societies is an economic and political unit with a concrete historical content in its own right -- the family as a distinct mode of social production and as a distinct mode of social governance -- becomes progressively under capitalism a category which links (and thereby mediates) different aspects of bourgeois society: e.g. production (of labor-power) and consumption; and the individual with institutions of the state (like the school).  The content of the family (as site of production of goods, education, and care of young; as political unit; etc.) is progressively "emptied out" as it is subordinated to the logic of the capitalist economy and bourgeois society as a whole.  Thus more immediate links become merely intermediate links within a more universal series of interconnections which is governed by the links between more inclusive totalities (firms, nations, town and country, etc.).

    Third, those links which appear most immediately and abstractly to the individual -- links within the family and between families, the commodity exchange relation described previously, the authoritarian relations of domination which link us to virtually all institutions of capitalist society (school, corporation, etc.) are those which provide the categories of appearance for the subject.  It is in these most immediate links that the conditions of reproduction of the individual (material and intellectual, physical and emotional conditions of reproduction) are given; it is therefore in these links and in their reproduction that the most immediate and urgent interests of any concrete individual are most likely to appear.  This is why formal categories and forms of appearance alike are most resistant to change, and ultimately come into a confrontation with their social and historical content (the totality of links or interconnections which govern, give shape to, and are obscured by these most immediately given links and interconnections).  It is precisely when a category becomes more and more formal (like the category of the family) that more and more effort must be invested in providing for its reproduction and preservation, and more and more resistance put up to alternatives which are, of course, becoming increasingly necessary.

    Finally, each of the subordinated categories which goes into the constitution of the concrete totality maintains a relative autonomy; i.e. some remnant of its intrinsic laws of motion and therefore some resistance, some "centrifugal force" relative to the dominant category remains.  These subordinate categories, or formal links, exist, as Marx said of the various links in the circulation process of capital, as "so many mines" waiting to "blow up" the dominant category.  For example, as I mentioned previously, capitalism (as represented by the capitalist class and by its dominant fraction) gathers strength by tying and subordinating precapitalist modes of production to its own logic.  In so doing, it creates a world system, linking capitalist, semi-capitalist and pre-capitalist (or non-capitalist) modes.  It transforms peasants into workers, destroys familial and communal relations, and creates a surplus population, gigantic new means or production, and a world market.  However, this process also produces an organized working class (forming new links intrinsic to the reproduction of this organization), peasant revolts, the Third World guerilla fighter and revolutionary, etc. from the dissolution of pre-capitalist societies.  Furthermore, the process coincides with the development of the proletariat from a subordinate category (forged by the economic and political needs of the bourgeoisie out of the dissolution of feudalism) to a dominant one, capable of remaking society according to its own principles.  This makes it possible for the links tying the bourgeoisie to subordinate groups (like peasants) or obstacles to links between various subordinate groups (like divisions between proletarians of different nations, industries, or strata) to be replaced by a new system of links tying subordinate groups to the hegemony of a united proletariat.

    It is precisely those sites where the potential for such a new system of links (a new concrete category) is greatest that constitute the weakest links of the global capitalist system.  The breaking apart of the system beginning at its weakest links involves first, the formation of intrinsic links within the proletariat (among various strata, elements, sites, etc. of the proletariat as well as between economics and politics and politics and ideology) as the proletariat becomes a class-for-itself.  Second, this process involves the formation of extrinsic links with other classes and social groups and groupings (under the hegemony of the proletariat) which, given the victory and dictatorship of the proletariat, contain the preliminary anticipatory elements of communism. Finally, the intrinsic links historically formed among different sites of production and consumption, different national economies, etc. can in times of crisis (when the internal contradictions -- the antagonism which also constitutes these links -- comes to dominate the cooperation) become extrinsic and opposed objects.  Such a situation would, ultimately, require the intervention of the proletariat (to save a decaying culture) in order to reproduce these links within a new, higher developed, and more universal system: communism.

    The mode of determination specific to a concrete totality constituted by intrinsic relations is that of governing of the object (e.g. the capitalist economy) by its internal laws of motion (e.g. the law of value). The mode of determination specific to extrinsic relations is one of regulation in which one of many possible outcomes or one of many forms of appearance -- of a given tendency, object, or process -- is decided by another object.  So, for example, the development of the economic system of capitalism is determined by its intrinsic workings; but its ultimate perpetuation or replacement by another system -- the outcome of this development -- is decided by the political strength of the proletariat relative to the bourgeoisie.  This regulation, moreover, always takes place within a relation of subordination: the subordinate object regulates the other by allowing one tendency to develop at the expense of another, or by giving it one form as opposed to another; the dominant object regulates the subordinate by fixing and abstracting one aspect of it as subject to further extension, development, and transformation.  Also, what is a relation of "governing" on one level can be one of "regulation" on another": for example, in general, base governs superstructure as the forces and relations of production dynamic governs social and historical development; yet, in any given society, taken as a concrete totality, the uneven and combined relations within and between base and superstructure will display many relations of regulation -- and for that matter what is subordinate on one level may be dominant on another and vice-versa (for example: in general the consumer is subordinate to the capitalist; however, in a given instance, a coordinated effort of consumers can put a single firm out of business and/or control its behavior).  In addition, this relationship of governing to regulating and that of governing and regulating to dominant and subordinate depends upon whether we take a long, medium, or short term outlook, are interested in fully developed or transitional systems, are interested in whole systems or aspects of systems, etc. Like all dialectical categories, these categories must be used flexibly, imaginatively, creatively, and concretely -- in constant contact with empirical material and an investigation of some actually existing object.

    Finally, I would like to include by discussing the importance of labor for Marxist dialectics.  The structure of labor reflects and reproduces the structure of dialectics; an understanding of labor as the most universally human mode of relating to reality is a precondition for an understanding of the dialectical processes of nature and society.

    Labor is the most immediate link between human beings and nature.  Human beings must assimilate, appropriate, and transform nature in order to meet their needs.  However, human labor is distinct from "similar" activities on the part of other species in that human beings approach their labor with a project or telos in mind. Human beings, unlike animals, consciously regulate nature.  They do so, by counterposing natural objects and capacities to the workings of nature.  For example, the physical qualities of metal are given new meaning when the metal is sharpened and used as a knife.

    Labor, then represents the process by which one system of relations and processes is transformed into another one which appropriates its content and gives it a new set of meanings.  As a result, two interlocking systems take the place of a single one.  Labor is a synthesis: it adds something to natural processes by combining them in new ways, by organizing them in accord with a purpose extrinsic to physical, chemical, and biological laws.  A waterfall diverted so as to irrigate a field; human muscle and brain power employed so as to hollow out a cave to make it fit for habitation; the use of natural gas so as to set in motion a chain of reactions and start an automobile engine -- are all examples of this process.  At the same time, labor remains a link in the overall chain of natural processes -- the waterfall floods the field which is abandoned and becomes a lake; the cave is overgrown with vegetation and becomes a lodging for hibernating animals; the gas is expelled from the automobile exhaust and interferes with the "environment," becoming "pollution."  Finally, labor represents a mediation within nature which allows nature to be transcended: to operate upon nature in such a way that the labor process becomes self-reproducing and not contingent, as when a monkey uses a stick it comes across to pry some ants from a log, or a lion crouches behind a rock to surprise some antelope.  When the instruments of labor are themselves objects of purposeful activity, new links are introduced into the relations between workers and between those workers and nature.  These links take on a relative autonomy and a logic of their own. In this way labor is raised to a higher level.  At the same time, every such link can threaten to become a chain or obstacle and from this to lead to a collapse of an increasingly complex system of interdependencies.

    All of the categories of dialectics are here in "embryonic" form .  There is self-development through contradiction (e.g. contradiction between nature and culture and contradictions immanent to the category of labor as a combination or synthesis of the diverse [the original need and telos which sets the labor process in motion must coordinate and combine a variety of different capacities, knowledges, etc. within a new combination, including a division of labor, and this combination of subordinate categories, meanwhile, tends toward the positing of new needs, new means, and new goals which transcend -- by constituting a new dominant term -- the original motive for the act of labor and in so doing raise the whole labor process to a new level with new contradictions, etc.]).  There is the changing and increasingly complex relations between mediation -- interposition of links between cause and effect, ideas/aspirations and fulfillment, etc. -- and immediacy.  There is negation of the negation -- human beings as constituent elements of natural reality, subordinate to natural laws, become regulators and transformers of nature and come to dominate it in part by subordinating it to social relations, social needs, and technological processes. There is the relation between form and content -- labor gives form, a new regularity and a law-like character to natural process.  There is the relation between the abstract and the concrete -- the "addition" made by labor to concrete natural processes is an act of abstraction -- a drawing out and forcing of a single aspect of those processes to the exclusion of all the others -- while the totality and systematic character of labor as an activity synthesizes (and links) all these (separate forms or) abstractions, creating a new concrete human social reality or human culture, at least in potential richer than, while yet also inclusive of those aspects and dimensions of nature and of natural reality out of which this new second reality emerges and develops.

***** I want to thank all of my comrades within the Marxist Collective at Syracuse University for their indispensable contributions to the shape and substance of this lecture. In particular I thank my then fellow English Department Ph.D. student colleague Adam Katz, who wrote the rough draft for the version of this lecture we used as a part of the material we presented in teaching Marxist Philosophy for the Free University of Syracuse we organized and conducted from 1990 through 1992 in Syracuse, New York.  Dr. Katz provided the principal source and inspiration for this work.  I also would like to acknowledge my considerable indebtedness to the work of Marxist philosopher Bertell Ollman in developing and articulating a number of the ideas in this talk. *****

Return to Professor Bob Nowlan's Home Page

This material is copyrighted (©)