Bruce,
I just want to respond quickly to say your message is great as you discuss
directly one of the most commonly encountered and difficult issues in
dialectics: the apparently necessary circularity of its construction of the
object (of which mike's question about negation might be considered an
example). This is clearly related to both Ilyenkov's "concrete universal"
and Lukacs "totality". I want to respond to this but synthesize the
notes I've been making on your two papers and the others responses you've
posted here.
I really appreciate the time and care you've taken to address the concerns I
expressed. I'm gaining a lot from reading your papers and discussing them
here. I guess I'm also taking advantage of the fact that you're the
February author-of-the-month to formulate good enough questions to tap your
extensive knowledge of dialectics (something not extremely common).
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Robinson <bruce.rob@btinternet.com>
To: 'xmca list' <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 5:08 AM
Subject: Reply to Paul D. Part 2: Ilyenkov and concrete universals
> Here is the long-awaited (??) second part of my reply to Paul Dillon's
> comments on my paper. Before I get on to Ilyenkov and concrete universals,
> I'll just say a couple of fundamental things about dialectics, which I
> think are relevant here.
> There are I think two types of arguments as to why dialectics is a
> preferable method of conceptualisation. The first is that its core
concepts
> (change, contradiction and interconnection) reflect the way that the world
> really is and have a real existence which is not captured by commonsense
> reasoning or formal logic. In this view, (which to my mind is the only
> materialist foundation for dialectics), dialectical method flows from the
> need to find ways that make those aspects of the world explicit and
> understandable. The method of conceptualisation and the core concepts
> therefore flow from generalising how that real existence can best be
> captured in thought. Ollman gives a rather extreme version of this view,
> writing:
> "..nor does it provide a formula that enables us to prove or predict
> anything; nor is it the motor force of history. The dialectic, as such,
> explains nothing, proves nothing, predicts nothing and causes nothing to
> happen. Rather, dialectics is a way of thinking that brings into focus the
> full range of changes and interactions that occur in the world. ?it
> includes how to organize a reality viewed in this manner for purposes of
> study and how to present the results of what one finds to others?"
> The second reifies the relationship between dialectic and its object so
> that it comes to stand on its own as a collection of categories, rules
and
> methods, which can guarantee a 'good result' by a mechanical application
to
> a given problem. This rather easily becomes mystical schematism, as in
> Stalinist 'diamat'. The categories and methods, themselves the product of
a
> high degree of generalisation and abstraction from the world, appear to
> take on a life of their own. This is not to say that the categories etc.
> cannot be applied, but that as categories, as the movement of thought,
they
> are themselves one-sided and abstract. For Hegel, these two approaches to
> dialectics were identical precisely because he saw the movement of the
> categories as the movement of the world. However, this is exactly "the
> mystical shell" within which Marx saw "the rational kernel".
> I'm not sure that Ilyenkov totally overcomes the dangers of schematism and
> certainly when Paul uses expressions like "the concrete universal might be
> considered the telos that guides the process of abstraction in Ilyenkov",
> certain alarm bells start to ring. Ilyenkov, at least on Bakhurst's
> account, seems to be caught between seeing the concrete universal as the
> necessary essence of adequate conceptualisation (and hence the
> pre-determined goal of dialectical method and analysis) and, on the other
> hand, letting the conceptualisation take the path "demanded" (to use
> Vygotsky's term) by the subject matter in the course of a critical exami
> nation of it. (This again relates to the distinction between 'general
> dialectics' and 'dialectics of x' that Vygotsky makes.) Thus, unlike
Hegel,
> Ilyenkov does not provide a general methodological path towards the
> concrete universal beyond a transposition of the method of 'Capital', but
> he still insists that in every area of knowledge a concrete universal must
> lurk. This is probably because he realises precisely that providing a
> universal method would lead back to Hegel-style mysticism (cf chapter 7 of
> Dialectical Logic), but still insists that the concrete universal is the
> only adequate goal of conceptualisation.
> Thus Bakhurst states:
> "Ilyenkov is warning the theorist not to try to establish the concrete
> universal by appeal to some rule or law derived from logic, dialectics or
> by abstract generalisation from the history of science. Rather, the
> principle of organisation of the object of study will only be revealed by
a
> detailed analysis of the object itself?" (p.161)
> He then goes on to describe how the method that Ilyenkov advocates in
order
> to do this:
> "?the theorist's starting point is? a historically forged conception of
> [the object] derived from the tradition in which he or she is working. It
> is thus the object's presentation in this tradition which must form the
> basis of the theorist's judgements about its concrete universal? the
object
> is presented to him or her as something problematic, as something ? not
> fully understood. It is by exploring the 'contradictions' in our present
> conceptions that the theorist can come to decide that a certain entity is
> best seen as the principle of organization of the whole.
> "In a sense, the theorist's choice of concrete universal is an intuition?
> in the sense that it carries no guarantee of success." (p.162)
> Now, coming back to my paper, as Paul points out, this was precisely the
> method I used in applying the basic concepts of dialectics to information
> systems. Yet I failed to come up with a "concrete universal" or a cell
> form, though I think I did define a "concrete totality" (i.e. an adequate,
> multi-facetted whole within which information systems modelling takes
> place as one moment of the process as a whole) in the section "Modelling
as
> a dialectical process". There are three reasons why I might have failed to
> find the concrete universal of information systems:
> (1) Inadequate or incomplete conceptualisation of the subject matter. I
> wasn't looking for a concrete universal and perhaps that's why I didn't
> find one. Certainly I'll go back and look for candidates, though I'm a bit
> doubtful that I'll find a single object that will fulfill that role.
> (2) Inadequate or incomplete development of the object of study. This was
> Paul's suggestion - that the real development of information systems had
> not yet reached the point where the relevant entity had become apparent
> While I generally like this historical approach, I do not think it holds
up
> in this particular case (for reasons I'm prepared to go into if anyone's
> interested and which are hinted at in the paper on the Crisis of the IS
> Discipline).
> (3) Concrete universals are not an absolutely necessary feature of an
> adequate conceptualisation - as implied by Bakhurst's (also Ilyenkov's?)
> view that the search for one carries "no guarantee of success".
> Before discussing whether (3) holds, I'll look a bit more at how concrete
> universals are defined. Tony Smith ("Value Theory and Dialectics" Science
> and Society, 62:3) states:
> "In material reality there are systematic interconnections that unite
> different elements within complex and dynamic wholes. Such wholes cannot
be
> adequately understood in terms of their individual moments taken
separately
> and in external relations to each other. The unity of complex wholes is
as
> much an ontological reality as the particular moments unified. And so
Hegel
> introduced the notion of a 'concrete universal' to capture the principle
of
> unity underlying the material complexity of dynamic wholes."
> If all this is saying is that there must be an underlying unifying factor
> to justify the choice of particular dynamic wholes as adequate
> conceptualisations, then I don't have a problem with it. It seems also to
> suggest that the 'principle of unity' may be found in taking the object as
> a totality and looking at its processes of development. But Smith's
> definition seems quite a way from Ilyenkov's statements which Bakhurst
> generalises as "for any object O that is a concrete whole, there will be
> some particular component C that determines the position of all the other
> components. C is thought of as an elementary form of the whole." This
> 'cell-form' is "the essence of O." It seems to me that there is no
> necessary reason why every area of knowledge should necessarily have this
> structure, while, conversely, for Ilyenkov "the conception of a universal
> concept underlying the entire system of the categories of science, applied
> [in Capital] by Marx, cannot be explained by the specificity of the
subject
> matter of political economy. It reflects the universal dialectical law of
> the unfolding of any objective concreteness?" (The Dialectics of the
> Abstract and Concrete, p.224) Leaving aside that this sounds rather
> mystical and is counterposed to Ilyenkov's insistence that we study the
> specifics of each area of knowledge, his argument as to how we get to the
> concrete universal seems to me to be circular. He states: "?the concrete
> universal principle.. must be understood in science before any other and
> first of all on its own merits, from the internally consistent concrete
> universal contradictions. (DA&C, p.219)" If I understand this, it can only
> mean that we study the cell-form prior to the object as a whole. But how
> then do we know that it is a cell-form? Marx could only arrive at the
> commodity as the cell-form of capitalism by studying capitalism as a whole
> and showing that the contradictions of the whole were reflected in those
of
> the commodity.
> I'm also far from convinced by his examples in chemistry and biology
(DA&C,
> p. 224-5), where he seems to me to be saying that to capture essences one
> always has to start from the simplest, non-decomposable element of the
> whole. But how then does one know where to start without first having a
> conception (albeit in his terms an abstract universal) of the things
simple
> and more complex forms have in common, without at least a hypothesis of
the
> significance of the whole? So in general I would say that Ilyenkov seems
to
> be arguing a priori for the necessary existence of concrete universals
> without demonstrating why that should be the case.
> Perhaps this is connected to a feeling I have that his conceptions of
> 'concreteness', which he sees as the guarantee of adequate
> conceptualisation is too absolute and mechanical. Even the best concrete
> totality results from an analysis of some partial, context dependent slice
> of reality and can therefore be subsumed in other totalities that are
> equally adequate in terms of their own goals and definition. Lukacs'
> definition of totality states:
> "...first of all the concrete unity of interacting contradictions...;
> secondly, the systematic relativity of all totality both upwards and
> downwards (which means that all totality is made up of totalities
> subordinated to it, and also that the totality in question is, at the
same
> time, overdetermined by totalities of a higher complexity...) and thirdly,
> the historical relativity of all totality... [which] is changing,
> disintegrating, confined to a determinate, concrete historical period."
> The 'systematic relativity' seems to me to be missing here.
> Having said all this, I'm not an Ilyenkov expert and it may be that I'm
> missing something. But I think to make the case, it is necessary to do
more
> than show that the movement of the categories is consistent within its own
> framework but to show in specific instances how it enables one to reach a
> better understanding of the world.
>
> Bruce
> =====================================
>
> Bruce Robinson
> Information Systems Research Centre
> University of Salford
> Salford M5 4WT
> UK
>
> Phone / fax: 0161 861 7160
> Email: bruce.rob@btinternet.com
>
> =====================================
>
>
>
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