Author: skzb

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Engels_Anti_Duhring.pdf

On cosmology: Engels discusses Kant’s hypothesis of celestial bodies forming from primordial nebulae. “It is primordial nebula, on the one hand, in that it is the origin of the existing celestial bodies, and on the other hand because it is the earliest form of matter which we have up to now been able to work back to. This certainly does not exclude but rather implies the supposition that before the nebular stage matter passed through an infinite series of other forms.”

My own limited understanding is that Engels is wrong here with regards to the word infinite–there is a definite limit to the different stages; but he is right regarding the existence of stages before the coalescing of the nebulae.  I speak under correction here.

“Motion is the mode of existence of matter. Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be.”

Okay, this is me speculating: Might it be accurate to define energy as That form of matter that causes motion?  And then we can define matter as That form of energy that is subject to motion.  I might also be totally full of shit here.  My knowledge of physics and mechanical motion and heat transfer &c is almost nil, which makes it very dangerous to speculate. But then, Dühring did, and it seemed to…er…never mind.

“All rest, all equilibrium, is only relative, only has meaning in relation to one or other definite form of motion.”

It was, in fact, in my lifetime (maybe around 1970?), that certain subatomic particles were held by some to be motionless relative to certain others within an atom, which was held out as a proof that the above stated law is incorrect. Or that was the argument I heard in high school. Of course, even if that hypothesis disproved what Engels said, the hypothesis only lasted until the next round of discoveries about subatomic particles.

“On the earth, for example, a body may be in mechanical equilibrium, may be mechanically at rest; but this in no way prevents it from participating in the motion of the earth and in that of the whole solar system, just as little as it prevents its most minute physical particles from carrying out the vibrations determined by its temperature, or its atoms from passing through a chemical process.”

“In ordinary mechanics the bridge from the static to the dynamic is — the external impulse.”

“Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself; as the older philosophy (Descartes) expressed it, the quantity of motion existing in the world is always the same.”

“To be sure, it is a hard nut and a bitter pill for our metaphysician that motion should find its measure in its opposite, in rest. That is indeed a crying contradiction, and every contradiction, according to Herr Dühring, is nonsense.”

“From the dialectical standpoint, the possibility of expressing motion in its opposite, in rest, presents absolutely no difficulty. From the dialectical standpoint the whole antithesis, as we have seen, is only relative; there is no such thing as absolute rest, unconditional equilibrium. Each separate movement strives towards equilibrium, and the motion as a whole puts an end again to the equilibrium. When therefore rest and equilibrium occur they are the result of limited motion, and it is self-evident that this motion is measurable by its result, can be expressed in it, and can be restored out of it again in one form or another.”

Any motion that results in equlibrium initates motion that destroys another equilibrium, and so on (and here is an infinity I can grasp). This is one of the contradictions of motion; others will follow.

 

“Stop! You’re both right! New Sparkles is a floor wax and a dessert topping!” — Saturday Night Live, Season 1

Before I go on, a brief word from our sponsor concerning the word “contradiction.”  The most common colloquial use of the word refers to intellectual dispute.  That is, “Light behaves as a wave.” “No, I must contradict you: light behaves as a particle.”  Some use (or seem to use) the word as if it were equal to paradox or impossibility–that is, as something that can exist in the human mind, but not in nature.

What it means, in the Hegelian-Marxist sense, is something that is at once itself and its opposite.

Nature abounds with these. Mechanical materialists are profoundly disturbed at the notion that there can be contradiction in nature, and twist themselves into pretzels finding ways the contradictions they see are not contradictory.  (A favorite technique is to make a long explanation that boils down to, “because it exists in nature, it cannot be a contradiction. Therefore it is not a contradiction. Therefore your argument that nature is full of contradictions is without support.”  St. Thomas would have been proud.)  The thorough-going idealist, meanwhile, has no trouble with nature being contradictory, but sees it as contradictions imposed by the mind–his own or God’s, as the case may be.

I’ll add that certain schools of vulgar Marxism use the word as a club, much as a weak academic  uses the word “subtext.” That is, as the end of a conversation where it ought to be the beginning. One points out to one of these fellows that he has said both that the working class must be broken from their reliance on the bourgeois parties and that it is important to support the Democratic Party in it’s fight for Gay marriage. This ingenious fellow might reply, “That’s the contradiction,” and stop. One thing contradictions do is  resolve. If one is going to say, “That’s the contradiction” in answer to an argument, it must be followed with, “Here is the movement of forces which resolves that contradiction, this is why such an action is permissible, and here is the way forward it indicates.”

Contradictions certainly exist in society, and most people don’t have trouble with that.  I can point out that Lincoln suspended parts of the constitution in order to save the constitution, and that isn’t a problem.  I can point out that Bush and Obama are doing the same thing Lincoln did only for the opposite reason–to destroy the constitution–and people don’t have a problem with that.  To me, this is very significant: Society is one thing, the natural world another. But society grew out of nothing except the natural world. That, in itself, is a contradiction.  Discovering it’s resolutions is exactly what the social sciences are (or ought to be) about.

Contradictions do occur in nature, but not just any contradiction anywhere someone wishes it to be for convenience. Indeed, discovering the contradictions and how they resolve to create new contradictions is the very essence of the job of the scientist.

This brief interlude isn’t meant to be either exhaustive or convincing.  I am, for now, only establishing a definition. We will come back to this in more detail, because it is vital for how we analyze everything from the freezing of water to the US policy of assassination. But for now, just keep in mind that I use contradiction to refer to something that is simultaneously itself and its opposite.

 

 

Click to access Engels_Anti_Duhring.pdf

This whole chapter gives me the headache. For one thing, I had more trouble here than usual in separating Dühring, Hegel, and Engels. I wish he’d used more direct quotes, or been more precise about when he was summarizing. But even aside from that, contemplating infinity hurts, and, before I attempt it, I want some reason to believe it will be useful. I mean, I accept that Herr Dühring said some idiotic things about it, but that isn’t the point of reading this book. Do Engels’ considerations about infinity of time and space actually produce any positive knowledge? Let’s see.

Okay, we’re mostly dealing with absurd definitions of infinity, and attempts to treat it as if it were finite, with predictable results.

And then he quotes Kant, about whom the most that can be said is that he is more easily comprehended than Hegel. But then, so is Cervantes in the original Spanish, and I don’t speak Spanish.

Alright, that next part I sort of get. There is a distinction between an infinite series–which starts at 1 and continues forever; and infinity in space, which has no starting point in any direction. Gotcha. Now onto time:

“But if we think of time as a series counted from one forward, or as a line starting from a definite point, we imply in advance that time has a beginning: we put forward as a premise precisely what we are to prove.”

“For that matter, Herr Dühring will never succeed in conceiving real infinity without contradiction. Infinity is a contradiction, and is full of contradictions. From the outset it is a contradiction that an infinity is composed of nothing but finites, and yet this is the case.”

“It is just because infinity is a contradiction that it is an infinite process, unrolling endlessly in time and in space. The removal of the contradiction would be the end of infinity.”

Okay, yeah. Infinity is itself a contradiction–that is, simultaneously one thing and its opposite (I know there are those who do not believe contradictions are possible in nature; we will deal with them in due course).

“For the basic forms of all being are space and time, and being out of time is just as gross an absurdity as being out of space.”

In essence, Herr Dühring is suggesting a state previous to time, and thus previous to motion. With the entire world in such a state, whence would come the initial motion? Answer: from outside the world, or, in other words, God. Therefore, if we are not to become hopelessly tangled in absurd contradictions–or bring in God by the back door–we cannot assign a beginning to time apart from matter. Time exists as the motion of matter; matter moves through in time. Engels does not actually say that time is a fourth dimension, but he sniffs around it a bit, which is fairly impressive in the 1870s.

Really, I didn’t find a lot in this chapter that did more than crush Herr Dühring.  This by itself may give us a clue as to the importance of infinity to Engels’ worldview.