17

p Mr. Mikhailovsky gives another factual reference—and this too is a gem in its way! "As regards gentile ties," he says, continuing to put materialism right, "they paled in the history of civilised peoples partly, it is true, under the rays of the influence of the forms of production" (another subterfuge, only more obvious still. Exactly what forms of production? An empty phrase!), "but partly they became dissolved in their own continuation and generalisation—in national ties." And so, national ties are a continuation and generalisation of gentile ties! Mr. Mikhailovsky, evidently, borrows his ideas on the history of society from the tales taught to school children. The history of society—this copybook maxim runs—is that first there was the family, that nucleus of every society,  [17•*  then—we are told—the family grew into the tribe, and the tribe grew into the state. If Mr. Mikhailovskv \\ith a solemn air repeats this childish nonsense, it merely shows—apart from everything else—that he has not the slightest notion of the course taken even by Russian history. While one might speak of gentile life in ancient Rus, there can be no doubt that by the Middle Ages, the era of the Moscovite tsars, these gentile ties no longer existed, that is to say, the state was based on associations that were not gentile at all, but local: the landlords and the monasteries acquired peasants from various localities, and the communities thus formed were purely territorial 18 associalions. But one could hardly speak of national ties in the true sense of the term at that time: the state split into separate “lands”, sometimes even principalities, which preserved strong traces of the former autonomy, peculiarities of administration, at times their own troops (the local boyars went to war at the head of their own companies), their own tariff frontiers, and so forth. Only the modern period of Russian history (approximately from the seventeenth century) is characterised by the actual amalgamation of all such regions, lands and principalities into one whole. This amalgamation, most esteemed Mr. Mikhailovsky, was brought about not by gentile ties, nor even by their continuation and generalisation: it was brought about by the increasing exchange among regions, the gradually growing circulation of commodities, and the concentration of the small local markets into a single, all-Russian market. Since the leaders and masters of this process were the merchant capitalists, the creation of these national ties was nothing else than the creation of bourgeois ties.

p What the "Friends of the People" Are
and How They Fight the Social-Democrats,
Vol. 1, pp. 154-55

p ...In reality autocracy, constitutional monarchy and republic are merely different forms of class struggle; and the dialectics of history are such that each of these forms passes through different stages of development of its class content, and the transition from one form to another does not (in itself) at all eliminate the rule of the former exploiting classes under the new integument. For instance, the Russian autocracy of the seventeenth century with its Boyar Council and boyar aristocracy bears no resemblance to the autocracy of the eighteenth century with its bureaucracy, its ranks and orders of society, and its occasional periods of "enlightened absolutism"; while both differ sharply from the autocracy of the nineteenth century, which was compelled to emancipate the peasants "from above", although pauperising them in the process, paving the way for capitalism, introducing the principle of local representative institutions for the bourgeoisie. By the twentieth century this last form of 19 semi-feudal, semi-patriarchal absolutism had also become obsolete. Owing to the growth of capitalism and the increase in the power of the bourgeoisie, etc., it became necessary to introduce representative institutions on a national scale. The revolutionary struggle of 1905 became particularly acute around the issue as to who was to convene the first all-Russian representative institution, and how. ...

p How the Socialist-Revolutionaries Sum
Up the Revolution and How the
Revolution Has Summed Them [//>, Vol. 15,
p. 337

p 8. Economic foundations? Capitalism demands consolidation of domestic market. The market is the centre of commercial relations. Language is the chief instrument of human commercial relations.

p Theses for a Lecture i»i the \ational
Question. Vol. 41, p. 314

p ...Language is the most important means ol human intercourse. Unity and unimpeded development of language are the most important conditions for genuinely free and extensive commerce on a scale commensurate with modern capitalism, for a free and broad grouping of the population in all its various classes and, lastly, for the establishment of a close connection between the market and each and every proprietor, big or little, and between seller and buyer.

p Therefore, the tendency of every national movement is towards the formation of national status, under which these requirements of modern capitalism are best satisfied.

p The Right of Nations to
SeljDeterwination. Vol. 20, p. 39(i  

p FROM COMMENTS ON DIET/CKN’S BOOK MINOR PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS

p The concept o< matter and the material still remains a very confused one. Just as lawyers cannot agree on when the life of a child in its mother’s womb begins, or as 20 linguists argue about where language begins—whether the call or the love song of a bird is language or not, and whether one should include the language of mimicry and gesture in the same category as articulate speech or not—in precisely the same way materialists of tfieolcl mechanistic school
argue about what is matter: should this concept include only that which is tangible and ponderable or everything that is seen, smelled and heard and, finally, all nature, is material for research and consequently everything can be called material, even the human spirit, for this object, too, serves as material for the theory of knowledge.

p Thus, the feature which distinguishes the mechanistic materialists of the last century from Social-Democratic materialists schooled in German idealism is that the latter have extended the limited concept of only tangible matter to everything material in general.

p Philosophical Notebooks, V. I. Lenin,
Collected Works, Vol. 29, Fifth Russian
Edition, p. 434

p 3) In the theory of knowledge, as in every other sphere of science, we must think dialectically, that is, we must not regard our knowledge as ready-made and unalterable, but must determine how knowledge emerges from ignorance, how incomplete, inexact knowledge becomes more complete and more exact.

p Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
Vol. 14, p. 103

p Bogdanov, pretending to argue only against Beltov and cravenly ignoring Engels, is indignant at such definitions,^^1^^ which, don’t you see, "prove to be simple repetitions" (Empirio-monism, Bk. Ill, p. xvi) of the “formula” (of Engels, our “Marxist” forgets to add) that for one trend in philosophy matter is primary and spirit secondary, while for 21 the other trend the reverse is the case. All the Russian Machists^^2^^ exultantly echo Bogdanov’s “refutation”! But the slightest reflection could have shown these people that it is impossible, in the very nature of the case, to give any definition of these two ultimate concepts of epistemology, except an indication which of them is taken as primary. What is meant by giving a “definition”? It means essentially to bring a given concept within a more comprehensive concept. For example, when I give the definition "an ass is an animal", I am bringing the concept “ass” within a more comprehensive concept. The question then is, are there more comprehensive concepts with which the theory of knowledge could operate than those of being and thinking, matter and sensation, physical and mental? No. These are the ultimate, most comprehensive concepts, whirh epistemology has in point of fact so far not surpassed (apart from changes in nomenclature, which are always possible). One must be a charlatan or an utter blockhead to demand a “definition” of these two “series” of concepts of ultimate comprehensiveness which would not be a "mere repetition": one or the other must be taken as primary.

p Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
Vol. 14, p. 146

p ...Engels takes the knowledge and will of man, on the one hand, and the necessity of nature, on the other, and instead of giving any definitions, simply says that the necessity of nature is primary, and human will and mind secondary. The latter must necessarily and inevitably adapt themselves to the former....

p Materialism and Empirw-Crilidsm,
Vol. 14, p. 188

p ...The theory of symbols^^3^^ cannot be reconciled with such a view (which, as we have seen, is wholly materialist), for it implies a certain distrust of perception, a distrust of the evidence of our sense-organs. It is beyond doubt that an image can never wholly compare with the model, but an image is one thing, a symbol, a conventional sign, another. The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it “images”. "Conventional sign", 22 symbol, hieroglyph are t:oncepts which introduce an entirely unnecessary element of agnosticism.

p Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
Vol. 14, p. 235

p ...That both thought and matter are “real”, i.e., exist, is true. But to say that thought is material is to make a false step, a step towards confusing materialism and idealism. Basically, this is more an inexact expression of Dietzgen’s, who elsewhere correctly says: "Mind and matter at least have this in common, that they exist" (80). "Thinking," says Diet/gen, "is a work of the body.... In order to think I require a substance that can be thought of. This substance is provided in the phenomena of nature and life.... Matter is the boundary of the mind, beyond which the latter cannot pass.... Mind is a product of matter, but matter is more than a product of mind..." (64).

p Materialism and Empirio-Crilicism,
Vol. 14, p. 244

p ...That the conception of “matter” must also include thoughts, as Dietzgen repeats in the Excursions (op. cit., p. 214), is a muddle, for if such an inclusion is made, the epistemological contrast between mind and matter, idealism and materialism, a contrast upon which Dietzgen himself insists, loses all meaning. That this contrast must not be made “excessive”, exaggerated, metaphysical, is beyond dispute (and it is the great merit of the dialectical materialist Dietzgen that he emphasised this). The limits of the absolute necessity and absolute truth of this relative contrast are precisely those limits which define the trend of epistemological investigations. To operate beyond these limits with the antithesis of matter and mind, physical and mental, as though they were absolute opposites, would be a great mistake.

p Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
Vol. 14, pp. 245-46

p ..."Matter disappears" means that the limit within which we have hitherto known matter disappears and that our knowledge is penetrating deeper; properties of matter are likewise disappearing which formerly seemed absolute, immutable, and primary (impenetrability, inertia, mass, etc.) 23 and which are now revealed to be relative and characteristic only of certain states of matter. For the sole “property” of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of being an objective reality, of existing outside the mind.

p Materialism and Emfnrii>-(’.rili<i.\m,
Vol. 14, pp. 260-01

p “...The most exact definition would, perhaps, be the following: ’matter is what moves’; but this is as devoid of content as though one were to say that matter is the subject of a sentence, the predicate of which is ‘moves’. The fact, most likely, is that in the epoch of statics men were wont to see something necessarily solid in the role of the subject, an ‘object’, and such an inconvenient thing for statical thought as ‘motion’ they were prepared to tolerate only as a predicate, as one of the attributes of ‘matter’.”

p This is something like the charge Akimov brought against the Iskrists,^^4^^ namely, that their programme did not contain the word proletariat in the nominative case! Whether we say the world is moving matter, or that the world is material motion, makes no difference whatever.

p “...But energy must have a vehicle—say those who believe in matter. Why?—asks Ostwald, and with reason. Must nature necessarily consist of subject and predicate?" (P. 39.)

p Ostwald’s answer, which so pleased Bogdanov in 1899, is plain sophistry. Must our judgements necessarily consist of electrons and ether?—one might retort to Ostwald. As a matter of fact, the mental elimination from “nature” of matter as the “subject” only implies the tacit admission into philosophy of thought as the “subject” (i.e., as the primary, the starting-point, independent of matter). Not the subject, but the objective source of sensation is eliminated, and sensation becomes the “subject”, i.e., philosophy becomes Berkeleian, no matter in what trappings the word “sensation” is afterwards decked. Ostwald endeavoured to avoid this inevitable philosophical alternative (materialism or idealism) by an indefinite use of the word “energy”, but this very endeavour only once again goes to prove the futility of such artifices. If energy is motion, you have only shifted the difficulty from the subject to the predicate, you have only changed the question, does matter move? into the question, 24 is energy material? Does the transformation of energy take place outside my mind, independently of man and mankind, or are these only ideas, symbols, conventional signs, and so forth? And this question proved fatal to the “energeticist” philosophy, that attempt to disguise old epistemological errors by ;i “new” terminology.

p Materialism and Empino-Cnticism,
Vol. 14, pp. 270-71

p ...The destructibility of the atom, its inexhaustibility, the mutability of all forms of matter and of its motion, have always been the stronghold of dialectical materialism. All boundaries in nature are conditional, relative, movable, and express the gradual approximation of our mind towards knowledge of matter. But this does not in any way prove that nature, matter itself, is a symbol, a conventional sign, i.e., the product of our mind.

p Materialism and Empiric-Criticism,
Vol. 14, p. 281

p ...Social being and social consciousness are not identical, just as being in general and consciousness in general are not identical. From the fact that in their intercourse men act as conscious beings, it does not follow at all that social consciousness is identical with social being. In all social formations of any complexity—and in the capitalist social formation in particular—people in their intercourse are not conscious of what kind of social relations are being formed, in accordance with what laws they develop, etc.... Social consciousness reflects social being—that is Marx’s teaching. A reflection may be an approximately true copy of the reflected, but to speak of identity is absurd. Consciousness in general reflects being—that is a general thesis of all materialism. It is impossible not to see its direct and inseparable connection with the thesis of historical materialism: social consciousness reflects social being.

p Materialism and Empiric-Criticism,
Vol. 14, p. 323

p ...a powerful current ... from natural to social science ... remains just as powerful, if not more so, in the twentieth century too.

p Socialism Demolished Again, Vol. 20,
p. 196

25

p ...There are no “pure” phenomena, nor can there be, either in Nature or in society—that is what Marxist dialectics teaches us, for dialectics shows that the very concept of purity indicates a certain narrowness, a one-sidedness of human cognition, which cannot embrace an object in all its totality and complexity.

p The Collapse of the Second International,
Vol. 21, p. 236

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF EEUERBACH’S BOOK LECTURES ON THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION^^5^^

p “Man separates in thought the adjective from the substantive, the property from the essence.... And the metaphysical Clod is nothing but the compendium, the totality of the most general properties extracted from nature, which, however, man by means of the force of imagination—and indeed in just this separation from sensuous being, matter of nature—reconverts into an independent subject or being." (417)

p The same role is played by Logic ((418)— obviously Hegel is meant)—which converts das Sein, das Wesen   [25•*  into a special reality— "how stupid it is to want to make metaphysical existence into a physical one, subjective existence into an objective one, and again logical or abstract existence into an illogical real existence!" (418)

p ...’"Is there, therefore, an eternal gulf and contradiction between being and thinking?’ Yes, but only in the mind; however in reality the contradiction has long been resolved, to be sure only in a way corresponding to reality and not to your school notions, and, indeed, resolved by not fewer than five senses." (418)

p Philosophical Notebooks,
Vol. 38, p. 81

p NB
profoundly
correct!
NB

p Excellent
(against
Hegel and
idealism)

p beautifully said!

26

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF FEUERBACH’S BOOK LECTURES ON THE ESSENCE OF RELIGION

p NB 431-435. A good quotation from Gassendi. A very good passage: especially 433 God=n collection of adjectival words (without matter) about the concrete and the abstract.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 81

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF FEUERBACH’S BOOK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNITZ

p Leibnitz in Nouveaux essais: "Generality consists in the resemblance to each other of individual things, and this resemblance is a reality" (Book III, Chapter 3, § 12). "But is this resemblance then not sensuous truth? Do not the beings which the understanding refers to a single class, a single genus, affect also my senses in an identical, equal man-

p bien dit! ner?... What then is the difference between the faculty of understanding and that of sensuous perception or sensation? The NB

p senses present the thing, but the understand-

p ing adds the name to it. There is nothing in the understanding that is not in sensuous perception, but what is found in the sensuous perception in fact is in the understanding only in name. The understanding is the

p bien dit!

p highest being, the ruler of the world, but

p only in name, not in fact. What, however, is a name? It is a mark of difference, a striking characteristic, which I make the character, the representative, of the object in order thereby to represent it to myself in its totality...." (195)

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38,
pp. 386-87

27

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF FEUERBACH’S BOOK ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LEIBNITZ

p P. 274 (from the supplement of 1847^^6^^: "How much has been said of the deception of the senses, how little of the deception of speech, from which, however, thought is inseparable! Yet how clumsy is the betrayal of the senses, how subtle that of language! How long have I been led by the nose by the universality of reason, the universality of Fichte’s and Hegel’s Ego, until finally, with the support of my five senses, I recognised for the salvation of my soul that all the difficulties and mysteries of the logos, in the sense of reason, find their solution in the meaning of the word! For that reason Haym’s, statement ’the critique of reason must become the criticism of language’ is for me in a theoretical respect a soul-inspired statement.—As regards, however, the contradiction between me as a perceiving, personal being and me as a thinking being, it reduces itself in the sense of this note and the dissertation quoted" (of Feuerbach himself) "to the sharp contradiction: in sensation I am individual, in thinking I am universal. However, in sensation I am not less universal that I am individual in thinking. Concordance in thinking is based only on concordance in sensation." (274)

p ..."All human communion rests on the assumption of the likeness of sensation in human beings." (274)

Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38,
pp. 388-89

28

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HF.GEI.’S SCIENCE OF LOGIC

p The connection between thought and language (the Chinese language, incidentally, and its lack of development: 11), the formation of nouns and verbs. (11) In the German language words sometimes have "entgegengesetzte Bedeutung"   [28•*  (12) (not simply “different” but opposed meanings)— "a joy to thought....”

p The concept of force in Physics—and of polarity ("the things distinguished inseparably (Hegel’s italics) bound up together"). (12) The transition from force to polarity—a transition to "higher Denkverhaltnisse.”   [28•**  (12)

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 89

29

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S SCIENCE OF LOGIC

p How is this to be understood?

p Man is confronted with a web of natural phenomena. Instinctive man, the savage, does not distinguish himself from nature. Conscious man does distinguish, categories are stages of distinguishing, i. e., of cognising the world, focal points in the web, which assist in cognising and mastering it.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 93

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HECEI.’S SCIENCE OF LOGIC

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HECEL’S SCIENCE OF LOGIC

p Logic is the science not of external forms of thought, but of the laws of development "of all material, natural and spiritual things," i. e., of the development of the entire concrete content of the world and of its cognition, i. e., the sumtotal, the conclusion of the History of knowledge of the world.

p In the old logic there is no transition, development (of concept and thought), there is not "eines inner en, notwendigen Zusammenhangs"  [29•*  (43) of all the parts and “Ubergang”  [29•**  of some parts into others.

p And Hegel puts forward two basic requirements:

p 1) "The necessity of connection" and

p 2) "the immanent emergence of distinctions”.

p NB

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, pp.
92-93

30

p Very important!! This is what it means, in my opinion:

p 1. Necessary connection, the objective connection of all the aspects, forces, tendencies, etc., of the given sphere of phenomena;

p 2) The "immanent emergence of distinctions"—the inner objective logic of evolution and of the struggle of the differences, polarity.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 97

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S SCIENCE OF LOGIC

p subtle and profound!

p The dialectical =

p = "comprehending the antithesis in its unity....”

p 45 Logic resembles grammar, being one thing for the beginner and another thing for one who knows the language (and languages) and the spirit of language. "It is one thing to him who approaches Logic and the Sciences in general for the first time and another thing for him who comes back from the sciences to Logic."...

p a good comparison (materialist)

p “—Just as one and the same moral maxim in the mouth of a youth who understands it quite accurately does not have the significance and scope which it has in the mind of a man of years and experience, for whom it expresses the full force of its content.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, pp. 98, 99

31

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S
SCIENCE OF LOGIC.
THE DOCTRINE OF BEING

p Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical,—under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another,—why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another. En lisant Hegel  [31•* ....

p 134: "Limit (is) simple negation or first negation" (des Etwas.  [31•**  Every Something has its Limit) "while Other is at the same time negation of negation....”

137: "Etwas mit seiner immanenten Grenze gesetzt als der Widerspruch seiner selbst, durch den es iiber sich hinausgewiesen und getrieben wird, ist das Endliche.”

p

(Something, taken from the point of view of its immanent Limit—from the point of view of its self-contradiction, a contradiction which drives it [this Something] and leads it beyond its limits, is the Finite.)

p When things are described as finite,—that is to admit that their not-Being is their nature ("not-Being constitutes their Being").

p “They" (things) "are, but the truth of this being is their end."

32

p thoughts on
dialectics
en lisant
Hegel

p Shrewd and clever! Hegel analyses concepts that usually appear to be dead and shows that there is movement in them. Finite? That means moving to an end! Something?—means not that which is Other. Being in general?— means such indeterminateness that Being = not-Being. All-sided, universal flexibility of concepts, a flexibility reaching to the identity of opposites,—that is the essence of the matter. This flexibility, applied subjectively = eclecticism and sophistry. Flexibility, applied objectively, i. e., reflecting the all-sidedness of the material process and its unity, is dialectics, is the correct reflection of the eternal development of the world.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, pp. 109-10

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S
SCIENCE OF LOGIC.
ESSENCE

p NB

p (1) Ordinary imagination grasps difference and contradiction, but not the transition from the one to the other, this however is the most important.

p (2) Intelligence and understanding.

p Intelligence grasps contradiction, enunciates it, brings things into relation with one another, allows the "concept to show through the contradiction", but does not express the concept of things and their relations.

33

p (3) Thinking reason (understanding) sharpens the blunt difference of variety, the mere manifold of imagination, into essential difference, into opposition. Only when raised to the peak of contradiction, do the manifold entities become active (regsam) and lively in relation to one another,—they receive  [33•*  acquire that negativity which is the inherent pulsation of se If-movement and vitality.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 143

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S
SCIENCE Of LOGIC.
ESSENCE

p ..."The question cannot therefore be asked, how Form is added to Essence; for Form is only the showing of Essence in itself—it is its own immanent (sic!) Reflection...." (81)

p Form is essential. Essence is formed. In one way or another also in dependence on Essence....

p Essence as formless identity (of itself with itself) becomes matter. (82)

p “...It" (die Materie  [33•** ) "is the real foundation or substratum of Form...." (82)

p “If abstraction is made from every determination and Form of a Something, indeter’ninate Matter remains. Matter is a pure abstract. (—Matter cannot be seen or felt, etc.—what is seen or felt is a determinate Matter, that is, a unity of Matter and Form)." (82)

34

p NB

p Matter is not the (Ground of Form, but the unity of Ground and Grounded. (83) Mattelis the passive, Form is the active (tiitigcs). (8.3) "Matter must be formed, and Form must materialise itself...." (84)

p “Now this, which appears as the activity of Form, is equally the proper movement of Matter itself...." (85-86)

p ..."Both—the activity of Form and the movement of Matter—are the same.... Matter is determined as such or necessarily has a Form; and Form is simply material, persistent Form." (86)

p I’hihviophval \olelwok\ Vol. 38, pp. 144-45

p law (of appearances)

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS ()]’ HEGEL’S
SCIENCE OF L()(,IC.
ESSENCE

p ..."Many different Things are in essential Reciprocal Action by virtue of their Properties; Property is this very reciprocal relation, and apart from it the Thing is nothing...." (133)

p Die Dingheit   [34•*  passes over into Eigenschaft.  [34•**  (134) Eigenschaft into “matter” or “Stoff”   [34•***  ("things consist of substance"), etc.

p “Appearance at this point is Essence in its Existence...." (144) "Appearance ... is the unity of semblance and Existence...." (145)

p Unity in appearances: "This unity is

p the

p Law of Appearance. Law therefore is the

p positive element in the mediation of

p the Apparent". (148)

35

p [Here in general utter obscurity. But there is a vilal thought, evidently: the concept of law is one ol the stages of the cognition by man of unity and connection, of the reciprocal dependence and totality of the world process. The “treatment” and “ twisting” of words and concepts to which Hegel devotes himself here is a struggle against making the concept of lau< absolute, against simplifying it, against making a fetish of it. NB for modern physics!]!]

p Philosophical lelHioks, Vol. :58.
pp. 1 ;"><)-:> 1

p FROM TIIF. CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S
scir\ch: OF LOGIC.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION

p Essentially, Hegel is completely right as opposed to Kant. Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract— provided it is correct (NB) (and Kant, like all philosophers, speaks of correct thought)—does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, of a /ate of nature, the abstraction of value, etc.. in short all scientific (correct, serious, not absurd) abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and c o m j> I c I e /y. From living perception to abstract thought, and from this to practice,—such is the dialectical path of the cognition of truth, of the cognition of objective reality. Kant disparages knowledge in order to make way for faith: Hegel exalts knowledge, asserting that knowledge is knowledge of God. The materialist exalts the knowledge- of matter, of nature, consigning God, and the 36 philosophical rabble that defends God, to the rubbish heap.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 171

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S
SCIENCE OF LOGIC.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION

p / NB:

p / Hegel only / deifies this / "logical idea", I obedience \ to law, \ universality

p “Nature, this immediate totality, unfolds itself in the Logical Idea and Mind." Logic is the science of cognition. It is the theory of knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of nature by man. But this is not a simple, not an immediate, not a complete reflection, but the process of a series of abstractions, the formation and development of concepts, laws, etc., and these concepts, laws, etc. (thought, science ="the logical Idea") embrace conditionally, approximately, the universal law-governed character of eternally moving and developing nature. Here there are actually, objectively, three members: 1) nature; 2) human cognition =the human brain (as the highest product of this same nature), and 3) the form of reflection of nature in human cognition, and this form consists precisely of concepts, laws, categories, etc. Man cannot comprehend = reflect=mirror nature as a whole, in its completeness, its "immediate totality", he can only eternally come closer to this, creating abstractions, concepts, laws, a scientific picture of the world, etc., etc.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 182

37

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S BOOK
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY
ON PHILOSOPHY

p To be added further on Gorgias:

p In the exposition of his view that the existent cannot be imparted, communicated: "Speech, by which the existent has to be expressed, is not the existent, what is imparted is thus not the existent, but only words." (Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos. VII. § 83-84)—p. 41— Hegel writes: "The existent is also comprehended as nonexistent, but the comprehension of it is to make it universal." (42)

p NB

p cf. Feuerbach

p ..."This individual cannot be
expressed...." (42)

p Every word
(speech) already
universalizes cf.
Feuerbach.

p The senses- show
reality; thought
and word—the
universal.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 274

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S BOOK
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY
OF PHILOSOPHY

p The Socratics^^7^^

p In connection with the sophisms about the “heap” and “bald”, Hegel repeats the transition of quantity into quality and vice versa: dialectics. (Pp. 139-140.)

p 143-144: At length about the fact that "language in essence expresses only the universal; what is meant, however, is the special, the particular. Hence what is meant cannot be said in speech." (“It”? The most universal word of all.)

p NB
in language there is only the
universal

38

p Who is it? I. Every person is an I. Das Sinnliche?  [38•*  It is a universal, elc., etc. “This”?? Everyone is "this.”

p Philosophical Notebooks. Vol. 38.
pp. 27(>-77

p FROM THK CONSPECTUS OK HEGEL’S BOOK
I.ECTl’RES ON THE HISTORY
OF PHILOSOPHY

p The concept is not something immediate (although the concept is a “simple” thing, but this simplicity is “spiritual”, the simplicity of the Idea)—what is immediate is only the sensation of “red” ("this is red"), etc. The concept is not "merely the thing of consciousness"; but is the essence of the object (gegenstiindliches Wesen), it is something An sich, "in itself”.

p ..."This conviction of the nature of the Notion, Plato rlid not express so definitely...." (245)

p Philosophical Notebooks. Vol. 38, p. 281

39

p FROM THK CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S HOOK
I.ECTL’RES ON THK HISTORY
OF PHILOSOPHY

p The Philosophy of Epicurus

p NB: p. 4 8 1—on the significance of words according to Epicurus:

p “Everything has its evidence, energy, distinctness, in the name first conferred on it" (Epicurus: Diogenes Laertius, X, § 33). And Hegel: "The name is something universal, belongs to thinking, makes the manifold simple." (481)

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 292

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF HEGEL’S BOOK
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY
OF PHILOSOPHY

p 50. The constitution of a state together with its religion ... philosophy, thought, culture, "external forces" (climate, neighbours...) comprise "one substance, one Spirit....”

p 51. In nature movement takes place only in a cycle (!!)—in history, something new arises....

p 62. Language is richer among peoples in an undeveloped, primitive state—language becomes poorer with the advance of civilisation and the development of grammar.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38, p. 309

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OK l.ASSALLE’S BOOK THE PHILOSOPHY OF HERACLITL’S

p In the § on “Cratylus”, Lassalle proves that in this dialogue of Plato’s Cratylus is 40 represented (not yet as a sophist and subjectivist as he subsequently became, but) as a true disciple of Heraclitus, who really expounded his, Heraclitus’, theory of the essence and origin of words and language as an imitation of nature ("imitation of the essence of things", p. 388), the essence of things, "the imitation and copy of God", "imitation of God and the universe" (ibidem).

p The history of philosophy, ERGO:

p kurz, the history of cognition in general

p Greek Philosophy indicated all these moments

p the whole field of knowledge

p The history of the separate sciences

p “ " the mental development of the child " " the mental development of animals

p these are the fields of knowledge from which the theory of knowledge and dialectics should be built

p "language NB:

p + psychology + physiology of the sense organs

p NB

p ..."We have shown—says Lassalle—that the" (above-mentioned) "conceptual identity (precisely identity, and not merely analogy) between word, name and law is in every respect a principled view of the Heraclitean philosophy and of fundamental importance and significance in it...." (393)

p ..."Names are for him" (Heraclitus) "laws of being, they are for him the common element of things, just as for him laws are the ’common element of all’".... (394)

41

p And it is precisely Heraclitean ideas that II

p very

p Hippocrates expresses when he says: II

p important!

“Names are the laws of nature." n

p NB

p Philosophical Notebooks. Vol. 38. pp.
352-53

p FROM O.V THE QUESTION OF DIALECTICS

p In his Capital, Marx first analyses the simplest, most ordinary and fundamental, most common and everyday relation of bourgeois (commodity) society, a relation encountered billions of times, viz. the exchange of commodities. In this very simple phenomenon (in this “cell” of bourgeois society) analysis reveals all the contradictions (or the germs of all the contradictions) of modern society. The subsequent exposition shows us the development (both growth and movement) of these contradictions and of this society in the σ  [41•*  of its individual parts, from its beginning to its end.

p Such must also be the method of exposition (or study) of dialectics in general (for with Marx the dialectics of bourgeois society is only a particular case of dialectics). To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., with any proposition: the leaves of a tree are green; John is a man; Fido is a dog, etc. Here already we have dialectics (as Hegel’s genius recognised): the individual is the universal (cf. Aristoteles, Metaphysik, translation by Schwegler, Bd. II,S.4(). 3. Buch,4. Kapitel,8-9: "denn natiirlich kann man nicht der Meinung sein, daft es ein Haus (a house in general) gebe auBer den sichtbaren Hausern," ".ov ^ap av -&eiT||a,ev ELvca Tiva oixtav Trapa TOC; TIVQS oixCaq”.  [41•**  Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. 42 Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs, of the concepts of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say: John is a man, Fido is a dog, this is a leaf of a tree, etc., we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other.

p Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as in a “nucleus” (“cell”) the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general. And natural science shows us (and here again it must be demonstrated in any simple instance) objective nature with the same qualities, the transformation of the individual into the universal, of the contingent into the necessary, transitions, modulations, and the reciprocal connection of opposites. Dialectics is the theory of knowledge of (Hegel and) Marxism. This is the “aspect” of the matter (it is not "an aspect" but the essence of the matter) to which Plekhanov, not to speak of other Marxists, paid no attention.

p Philosophical Notebooks, Vol. 38,
pp. 300-62

p FROM THE CONSPECTUS OF ARISTOTLE’S BOOK METAPHYSICS

p The approach of the (human) mind to a particular thing, the taking of a copy ( = a concept) of it is not a simple, immediate act, a dead mirroring, but one which is complex, split into two, zig-zag-like, which includes in it the possibility of the flight of fantasy from life; more than that: the possibility of the transformation (moreover, an unnoticeable transformation, of which man is unaware) of the abstract concept, idea, into a fantasy (in letzter Instarz  [42•*  = God). For even in the simplest generalisation, in the most elementary 43 general idea (“table” in general), there is a certain bit of fantasy. (Vice versa: it would be stupid to deny the role of fantasy, even in the strictest science: cf. Pisarev on useful dreaming, as an impulse to work, and on empty daydreaming.)

p Philosophical \otebooka. Vol. 38,
pp. 372-73

p The whole spirit of Marxism, its whole system, demands that each proposition should be considered (a) only historically, (P) only in connection with others, (y) only in connection with the concrete experience of history.

p I o Inessa Annand, \ovfmbfr ,’?0, 1916,
Vol. 35, p. 250

p To approach this question^^8^^ as scientifically as possible we must cast at least a fleeting glance back on the history of the state, its emergence and development. The most reliable thing in a question of social science, and one that is most necessary in order really to acquire the habit of approaching this question correctly and not allowing oneself to get lost in the mass of detail or in the immense variety of conflicting opinion—the most important thing if one is to approach this question scientifically is not to forget the underlying historical connection, to examine every question from the standpoint of how the given phenomenon arose in history and what were the principal stages in its development, and, from the standpoint of its development, to examine what it has become today.

p The State, Vol. 29, p. 473

p A tumbler is assuredly both a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel. But there are more than these two properties, qualities or facets to it; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite number of “mediacies” and inter-relationships with the rest of the world. A tumbler is a heavy object which can be used as a missile; it can serve as a paperweight, a receptacle for a captive butterfly, or a valuable object with an artistic engraving or design, and this has nothing at all to do with whether or not it can be used for drinking, is made of glass, is cylindrical or not quite, and so on and so forth.

p Moreover, if I needed a tumbler just now for drinking, it 44 would not in the least matter how cylindrical it was, and whether it was actually made of glass; what would matter though would be whether it had any holes in the bottom, or anything that would cut my lips when I drank, etc. But if I did not need a tumbler for drinking but for a purpose that could be served by any glass cylinder, a tumbler with a cracked bottom or without one at all would do just as well, etc.

p Formal logic, which is as far as schools go (and should go, with suitable abridgements for the lower forms), deals with formal definitions, draws on what is most common, or glaring, and stops there. When two or more different definitions are taken and combined at random (a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel), the result is an eclectic definition which is indicative of different facets of the object, and nothing more.

p Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly, if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at and examine all its facets, its connections and “mediacies”. That is something we cannot ever hope to achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in change, in “self-movement” (as Hegel sometimes puts it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially true for its purpose, use and connection with the surrounding world. Thirdly, a full “definition” of an object must include the whole of human experience, both as a criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical logic holds that "truth is always concrete, never abstract", as the late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel.

Once Again un the Trade Unions, the Current Situation and the Mistakes of Trotsky and Bukhurin, Vol. 32, pp. 92-94

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