{"id":667,"date":"2026-06-24T11:42:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/?p=667"},"modified":"2026-06-24T11:42:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:42:57","slug":"why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Revisit the Debate on Dialectics?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dialectics is a fundamental component of the political-theoretical tradition pioneered by Marx, which we call \u201cMarxism,&#8221; and which, as Antonio Labriola once <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/archive\/labriola\/works\/al00.htm\">suggested<\/a>, should be termed \u201ccritical communism\u201d to better convey its content and objectives, beyond the simple act of following a founder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dialectics is a fundamental component of that tradition for several reasons: a) It is grounded in the historically verified relationship between Marx\u2019s thought and that of Hegel, beyond the specific forms it took on during the various stages of the development of Marxian concepts. b) Marx himself used dialectics, employing methods distinct from Hegel\u2019s, resulting in his own reflections (neither numerous nor highly systematized) on the characteristics and scope of the \u201cdialectical method.\u201d c) Debates followed Marx\u2019s death on the question of dialectics in Marxism, which were always present.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here we can consider a trajectory that spans from the systematization efforts by Engels, Plekhanov, and Antonio Labriola up to the present day, with a significant development during the second post-war period of the 20th century. During that period, debates on dialectics in Marxism expanded significantly due to the impact of the posthumous publication, during the 1930s, of Marx\u2019s works such as the <em>1844 Manuscripts<\/em> and the <em>Grundrisse<\/em>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this context, works by Gy\u00f6rgy Luk\u00e1cs, Roman Rosdolsky, Mihailo Markovi\u0107, and Raya Dunayevskaya stand out. Others were also linked to discussions on the relationship between Marxism and various epistemological schools, including Louis Althusser, Lucio Colletti, Lucien Goldmann, Jind\u0159ich Zelen\u00fd, and Manuel Sacrist\u00e1n. Finally, there were debates on the relationship between Marxism and certain currents in 20th philosophy, such as Husserl\u2019s phenomenology or Heidegger\u2019s thought, with contributions by Carlos Astrada, Tran Duc Thao, and Karel Kosik. The authors mentioned are just a few of those who contributed to each (or multiple) of these areas of debate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, dialectics has been subject to various pseudo-systematizing interpretations that present problems as more or less resolved when they are far from it \u2014 sometimes for the sake of popularization, and other times due to the habit of taking certain ideas for granted because of cultural and ideological context. In<a href=\"https:\/\/edicionesips.com.ar\/producto\/marxismo-y-dialectica\/\"> <em>Marxism and Dialectics<\/em><\/a>, I examine three traditional approaches to dialectics that are frequently discussed in Marxist debates: the one that defines dialectics as a scientific method alternative to the \u201cofficial\u201d one; the one that defines it as the science of the general laws of nature, thought, and society; and, finally, the definition of dialectics as a logic \u201csuperior\u201d to formal logic. Let us begin by saying a few words about the first issue.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>On Methods and Fantasies<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no doubt that Marx used dialectics as a \u201cmethod\u201d: he sought to construct a theoretically complete whole; identify the contradictions or oppositions through which the structure of capitalism is driven toward crisis, constructing relational concepts that attempt to explain processes rather than describe things with attributes; and present all of this through an argument capable of being presented as an \u201cartistic whole.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The problem does not lie there, but rather in the idea \u2014 which is much more difficult to justify \u2014 that this is a scientific \u201cmethod\u201d alternative to that of mainstream science. Although Marx\u2019s approach is very rich and allows him to grasp relationships that classical economics (or the philosophy of history) had not grasped with the same clarity and intensity, it lacks a series of steps sufficiently systematized to be reproducible by anyone with even a basic grasp of the subject matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To be clear, I am not saying that Marx should have performed such a systematization or that such a systematization was indispensable for him to carry out his theoretical and political work. It is evident that this was not the case. Rather, if we wish to assert that Marx possesses such a \u201cMethod\u201d with a capital \u201cM,\u201d we should be able to demonstrate that it is systematized to the same degree as the traditional scientific method (without excluding debates on the crisis of scientism, which are also relevant to a supposedly scientific Marxist method).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In other words, I am not criticizing Marx but rather his apologists, who are reluctant to rethink these issues without resorting to clich\u00e9s. On the other hand, when Marx points out the differences between his method and Hegel\u2019s in the afterword to the second German edition of <em>Capital<\/em>, he directly alludes to differences in philosophical conception: while Hegel is an idealist and believes that method creates reality, Marx is a materialist and believes that method reflects reality in the mind of the researcher. This issue pertains to philosophical conception and is therefore outside the realm of methodology.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hence, I propose understanding Marx\u2019s method as a non-systematized method \u2014 a combination of scientific method and philosophical conception. To clarify a misunderstanding inadvertently introduced by my friend Esteban Mercatante, who was kind enough to publish an<a href=\"https:\/\/www.izquierdadiario.es\/La-dialectica-y-el-metodo-de-El-capital\"> article<\/a> containing some references to my recent book: we need to clarify not the use of dialectics from a methodological standpoint, but rather the definitions that give this method a scope it cannot have \u2014 such as replacing the hypothetical-deductive method or possessing a degree of systematization it never had.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Science with a Different Approach<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Mercatante, in my book \u2014 and especially in chapters 1, 5, and 6 \u2014 I fail to evaluate Marx\u2019s \u201cother ways of doing science\u201d more positively. It seems to me that Manuel Sacrist\u00e1n\u2019s lecture \u201cMarx\u2019s Scientific Work and His Notion of Science\u201d (1978) offers valuable insights in this regard. Sacrist\u00e1n identifies three strands in Marx\u2019s conception of science and in the type of work he carried out: what he calls \u201cnormal science\u201d (loosely borrowing Kuhn\u2019s concept), criticism (with Young Hegelian roots, which is primarily textual criticism), and \u201cGerman science,\u201d inspired by Hegel, focused on understanding the movement of reality through its contradictions and reconstructing it in terms of totality.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sacrist\u00e1n argues \u2014 in opposition to both Hegelian and scientistic readings \u2014 that the coexistence of these three strands is inseparable from the theoretical and political work carried out by Marx. One cannot take one and discard the others if one wishes to arrive at the most accurate understanding possible of the thought of the author of <em>Capital<\/em>. The situation is different when interpreting from other points of view or contexts. But Marx developed a sort of \u201c<em>sui generis<\/em> historical-social science\u201d by using all three strands and linking his scientific activity to politics. This is why it is so difficult to pigeonhole Marx into one academic discipline or another. In other words, that \u201cother way\u201d of doing science decisively includes dialectics but is not reducible to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Daniel Bensa\u00efd, in his book <em>Marx the Untimely<\/em> (1995), reinterprets Sacrist\u00e1n\u2019s lecture, emphasizing \u201cGerman science\u201d as the dominant element in Marx\u2019s conception of science and identifying the latter with the \u201cother way\u201d of doing science, whereas for Sacrist\u00e1n, that \u201cother way\u201d lay in the combination of the three strands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taking these reflections and those from the previous section into account, we could say that just as a non-systematic method should not be posited as superior to a clear and well-defined one, the same applies to the purported scientific nature of these theories. This does not mean that Marx\u2019s theoretical and scientific work should be regarded as less productive. A theory can certainly be more powerful in terms of conceptual constructs than others that adhere more strictly to certain methodological criteria. Rather, to understand Marx\u2019s \u201cother way\u201d of doing science, it is important to take into account its tensions and problems.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, there are aspects of Sacrist\u00e1n\u2019s approach that can be criticized \u2014 and which I discuss in the book \u2014 particularly his tendency to limit the contribution of dialectics to the impetus of research and the process of totalization, while assigning it less importance in the formulation of concepts. But we must start from the relevance of his contribution, insofar as it helps clarify the question of what Marx\u2019s conception of science is like, in a much more precise and multidimensional way than Bensa\u00efd \u2014 who is much better known among left-wing intellectuals and is often considered a leading authority on the subject, yet receives little criticism for how he uses verbiage to mask a lack of clarity.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Laws That Aren&#8217;t Laws<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Having discussed some issues regarding the approach to dialectics as \u201cMethod,\u201d as well as its relationship to scientific activity, let us now say a few words about the definition of dialectics as a set of general laws of nature, thought, and society.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These so-called general laws would be the classic Hegelian concepts of the unity and interpenetration of opposites, the qualitative leap, and the negation of the negation. These are useful concepts insofar as they present very general frameworks through which changes can be conceptualized. However, they are not sufficient for analyzing specific processes. In such cases, explanations are needed that reveal the concrete ways in which changes take place.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Marx himself, in explaining the laws of the capitalist system, identified and formulated specific laws such as the general law of capitalist accumulation or the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Not even someone born with Hegel\u2019s <em>Science of Logic<\/em> under their arm could derive these laws from the supposed \u201cgeneral laws\u201d without resorting to a forced and a priori construction. In this context, the contribution of Nicholas of Cusa is also relevant; he understood dialectics in terms of the coincidence of opposites and knowledge in terms of \u201clearned ignorance.\u201d Knowledge approaches reality, according to Nicholas of Cusa, just as a polygon approaches a circle. You can add as many sides to a polygon as necessary to make it almost equal to a circle, but it will never be identical to it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The assumption that \u201cgeneral laws of everything\u201d can be postulated could only be sustained within a framework that conceives of reality in its entirety as translucent \u2014 similar to a form of absolute knowledge that nullifies the difference between subject and object. There we are indeed at the very heart of Hegelianism and very far from Marxism, whose theoretical development combines totalization with the construction of explanations of specific processes, while remaining constantly aware of the relationship of approximation (rather than identity) between theory and reality.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Dialectics in Contrast to Formal Logic<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The idea that dialectics is a \u201chigher logic\u201d than formal logic is found in any introduction to dialectics, regardless of its orientation. In <em>Marxism and Dialectics<\/em>, we analyze this in greater detail based on Jindrich Zeleny\u2019s elaborations on \u201cthe logic of <em>Das Kapital<\/em>.\u201d Zeleny conducts a very interesting inquiry into the method of theory-building used by Marx, which he calls \u201cdialectical derivation\u201d and defines it as the investigation of the \u201cgenesis and development\u201d of specific forms that constitute the history and structure of a given object. The example Zeleny uses is Marx\u2019s explanation of the simple form, the expanded form, and the general form of value \u2014 leading up to the monetary form \u2014 in Chapter 1 of <em>Capital <\/em>Volume I. Convinced that this type of analysis is superior to any expression of formal logic \u2014 which focuses on logical consequence rather than on the analysis of the movement of objects \u2014 Zeleny asserts at the same time that dialectics is practically impossible to systematize at the same level as formal logic.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This conclusion raises a significant problem: if dialectics is a logic \u201csuperior\u201d to formal logic, how can it be less systematic? It is not, however \u2014 as a certain anti-dialectical Marxism believed \u2014 a matter of rejecting dialectics on the basis of a supposed superiority of formal logic, precisely because the latter does not claim any greater efficacy than other disciplines in matters of content or access to truth: the only thing formal logic guarantees is that, using correct deductive reasoning, if the premises are true (a matter that lies beyond the domain of logic), the conclusion is also true. Nothing more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The point is not to impose on dialectics, as a perspective that seeks to explain the processes of reality, a false superiority in the formal realm that it cannot, by definition, possess. Precisely because dialectics aims to understand and explain the processes of reality it has been called \u2014 more or less appropriately, depending on one\u2019s perspective \u2014 the \u201clogic of the material\u201d or similar expressions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This book will be labeled \u201canti-dialectical\u201d by people who don\u2019t like to think. That goes without saying. However, there will also be those who, based on a more careful reading and within a shared framework of defending dialectics, consider that traditional approaches deserve to be defended because they provide certain assurances or guarantees that Marxism is superior to bourgeois thought. Here it is worth reconsidering the reasons why a pseudo-systematic approach would be preferable to acknowledging an incomplete but conscious systematization of the provisional nature of its theoretical constructs. If Marxism is, as Milc\u00edades Pe\u00f1a once said, an \u201copen totality,\u201d it makes no sense to present it as a closed, neatly packaged theoretical body based on grandiloquent general definitions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Originally published in Spanish on May 26 in <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.laizquierdadiario.com\/Por-que-volver-a-discutir-sobre-la-dialectica\"><em>La Izquierda Diario<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Translation by Otto<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On understanding Marx\u2019s method of dialectics as a non-systematized method \u2014 a combination of scientific method and philosophical conception.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"crp_sub_category":"","crp_read_time":"","crp_featured":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[104,23,19],"coauthors":[103],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crp-worldwide","category-theory","tag-dialectics","tag-labor","tag-marxism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why Revisit the Debate on Dialectics? - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Revisit the Debate on Dialectics? - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On understanding Marx\u2019s method of dialectics as a non-systematized method \u2014 a combination of scientific method and philosophical conception.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-24T14:42:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-06-24T14:42:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/dialectics.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Juan Dal Maso\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Juan Dal Maso\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Andre Acier\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c\"},\"headline\":\"Why Revisit the Debate on Dialectics?\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-24T14:42:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-06-24T14:42:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2209,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/dialectics.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Dialectics\",\"Labor\",\"Marxism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"CRP Worldwide\",\"Theory\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/why-revisit-the-debate-on-dialectics\\\/\",\"name\":\"Why Revisit the Debate on Dialectics? 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