Dialectics Deep Dive: History & Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism

[@thefruitcakelad]

"Better fewer, but better" applies to cadre but also how one approaches study as well!

[@Misho83]

This was sooo good and really, really informative.

[@AsirIset]

just purely amazing

[@Sahilkumar-dr4en]

Music is so dope.

[@Booer]

Yo have you heard of bernardo kastrup and analytic idealism?

[@philipm3173]

The only thing idealism is good for is tenure

[@Ixam13]

37:20 I don't quite get why you would want to get rid of your self consciousness or uncover this veil. Our ex-centricity and ability to reflect, is what makes us human and able to gain actual consciousness of the world around us, instead of just super abstract "certainty". There is a contradiction of knowledge between abstractness and concreteness. The more abstract our mental objects , the more concrete our acquired knowledge becomes. When we seemingly have the most concrete and immediate sensual experiences, we acutally have the emptiest and most abstract thoughts. "Everything is in flux" "The self is nothingness", "We are all connected" or simply "Every things *is*". By trying to experience everything you actually expierence nothing. Only by introducing distinctions and abstracting categories and concepts out of this great flux to knit them into our veil, we are able to aquire concrete knowledge. Like when you close your eyes and focus on your breathing you do not open yourself to the flux, but cut everything else out instead. However, opposites turn into each other and at some point absolute focus turns into absolute focuslessness (like being really concentrated and "in the flow" comes on some level very close to sleeping). Maybe that is some of the episodes you describe. I just don't see what is great about it. I can, however, see the use of meditation. And I also think the left's concept of religion or spirituality often falls behind historical experience. But I take issue with the romantisation of immediate knowledge (especially through drug use) as well as of mysticism. The mystics are in a way the sectarian ultra left of religion. Trying to pursue spiritual purity to the the detriment of loosing all connection to the real world. If you go to a cave and try to find yourself, you will find only nothingness. And not because that is the truth of being, but because you have cut off all connections that make you you. Self consciousness is a relation to other people, not something that you can find within. The more you try to find yourself by turning inwards, the more you are actually getting away from yourself (which may be the appeal). Much like you need a mirror to look at yourself, you need other people to differentiate from and to be aknowledged by. 10 people in 10 caves are all the same. But put 10 people in one cave and you can differentiate yourself and throw a nice party. In the same way, you won't find god by introspection, but by dealing with the world through policitical and social praxis. Hell is other people. But so is Heaven.

[@Ixam13]

@@anewmaninchrist But we are neither impenetrable and self-direct object, nor total collective flux. Our identity may be fluid, but it is an identity, an equivalence of states within change. Dialectics is negation of negation, whereas some of this spiritual stuff goes in the direction of absolute negation. When we see us as part of the whole, we see us apart from it. Meaning, we do not dissolve.The veil can obstruct our view, but it also holds us together and prevents us from freezing and dying by dispersion.

[@oats9755]

Where did this “ex-centricity” come from? Helmuth Plessner?

[@Ixam13]

@@oats9755 yup

[@Ixam13]

@@oats9755 According to Hans-Heinz Holz Plessner practically gives a dialectical anthropology. I've read Stufen des Organischen and it is indeed very interesting, once you've chewed through the terminology. Plants are decentralised, as they have their organs basically lying around. Animals are centralised, organised around a central brain organ. And humans are ex-centrical because they are in interaction with nature and are also able to reflect on this interaction "from above", i.e. have self-consciousness. He also shows in close connection to the field of biology that "Grenze" (border) is the main category of life. A living being distinguishes itself by continously setting up (and breaking down) a border between itself and the environment. The border belongs to the being, unlike for example a stone whose border is contingent. This gives some very nice analogies to contradiction as the main category of thought, with respect to dialectical thought as "living" thought. All life is struggle.

[@negationofthenegation4685]

My man does sound like Neil deGrasse Tyson lmao

[@maxheadrom3088]

you start the history of dialectics too late ...