Re: dialectics and CHAT

Arne Raeithel (raeithel who-is-at informatik.uni-hamburg.de)
Mon, 6 May 1996 20:13:20 +0200

Vera,

there are many historical variants of "dialectics", before Hegel
and after Marx, and of course Hegel's work. I regard these essentially
as precursors of today's theories of evolution, history and development.
It is not possible to "have" a cultural-historical theory without
a conception of history and development, of course.

I believe that today's students would profit much from reading the
historical sources, but I am sure that studying specific developmental
or historical problems is much more fruitful than those very general
texts on dialectics as a meta-logical tool for understanding every-
thing vaguely as everchanging because of internal contradictions.
I am not saying that you would advocate using them, to be sure.
They were quite widespread here in Germany in the early seventies,
and I am glad they aren't available anymore. They caused a lot of
unjustified superiority feelings ("we have the better theory"), but
didn't help in any specific way those doing research, as far as I know.

In any case, here, at present, there is no chance for Marx or Engels.

Arne.