Diyalektiğin Dansı: Marx Yönteminde Adımlar

by Bertell Ollman, Cenk Saraçoğlu (Translator)

Kapitalizm üzerine fikir yürüten çoğu düşünürün görüntülere takılıp kalmasına karşılık Marx'ın tüm üstü örtük ilişkileri kavramasını sağlayan şey, onun diyalektik yöntemidir.

Bertell Ollman bu kitapta Marksizmde vazgeçilmez bir rol üstlenen diyalektiğin Marx'ın kendi eserlerinde nasıl çalıştırıldığını ve bugün dünyayı anlamak ve değiştirmek için bizim diyalektiği nasıl kullanmamız gerektiğini ortaya koyuyor. Marksist külliyatı yine Marksist araçlarla soyutluyor; Marksizmin bizzat kendisini diyalektiğin ışığında inceliyor. Kısacası Ollman'ın yaptığı şey Marx'ın düşünsel dünyasının Marksist bir analizidir. Marx kapitalizmi anlamak, Ollman da Marx'ı anlamak için diyalektiğin dansındaki adımları takip eder.

Marx'ın kendi yönteminin incelikleri üzerine herhangi bir çalışma ortaya koymamış olması onu tartışanlar veya takip edenler arasında metinlerinin ve fikirlerinin nasıl yorumlanması gerektiği konusunda alevli tartışmalara ve ihtilaflara yol açmıştır. Ollman bu kitabıyla Marx'ın belirli bir kavramı, belirli bir argümanı nasıl bir düşünsel sürecin sonucunda ürettiğini göstererek bu ihtilafların pek çoğuna noktayı koymuş oluyor.

2003 yılında yayınlanan Diyalektiğin Dansı, yazarın kendisinin de ifade ettiği gibi Ollman'ın en olgun ve en yetkin eseridir.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Theory, Nonfiction, Economics, Sociology

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 2003

About the author

Bertell Ollman is a professor of politics at New York University. He teaches both dialectical methodology and socialist theory. He is the author of several academic works relating to Marxist theory.
Ollman is also the creator of Class Struggle, a board game based around his Marxist beliefs, and from 1978-1983 was president of Class Struggle, Inc., the company that initially produced and marketed the game. The game was later released by a major board game company, Avalon Hill. It received publicity due to its unusual and controversial theme.

Reviews

[Noor · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand what Marx means when he uses Dialectics in his books, this is your go-to.

[Antonio Wolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting, but Ollman ends up saying very little about dialectics itself. It doesn't really help much.

My honest judgment: Don't buy it.

If you want to know about dialectics please just read Hegel's prefaces/introductions and chapters 1 and 2 of the Science of Logic and see it directly. It's not a mystery, and that people think it is is the one of the worst academic failures of modernity. How someone cannot just get what it is when it is so simple is beyond belief.

[An · Rating 4 out of 5]

M'ha agradat bastant i és molt accessible donada la complexitat que m'he trobat en la majoria dels llibres que he anat llegint sobre dialèctica. Està centrat en la dialèctica de Marx, particularment en la dialèctica quant a mètode. Segons Ollman, el mètode dialèctic es pot desglossar en sis "moments": ontologia, epistemologia, investigació, reconstrucció intel·lectual, exposició i praxi. Tanmateix, és un llibre centrat en el moment epistemològic i específicament en l'abstracció i la filosofia de les relacions internes (aquesta segona seria l'element de continuïtat Hegel-Marx). Al llarg del llibre m'ha anat molestant l'abandonament del moment ontològic, perquè, tot i no ser l'objecte principal del llibre, es troba per sota de molts dels pressupòsits del text. Em sembla que afirmar que el món no només ha de ser comprès dialècticament, sinó que *és* dialèctic, requereix com a mínim una mica de justificació. A l'últim capítol Ollman "m'ha contestat" la inquietud respecte de la poca presència del moment ontològic, però un cop acabat el llibre segueixo una mica insatisfeta.

Sigui com sigui, estic massa cansada i la dialèctica és molt complexa. Dit això, és un bon llibre per llegir millor a Marx, i per això us animo a llegir-lo (l'editorial dos cuadros l'ha traduït al castellà i ha alliberat el pdf).

Petonets que retrospectivament produeixen les seves precondicions, muac <3

[Peter Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book presents a detailed analysis of Marx's dialectical method, not only as the means he uses to present his thinking in his published works, but also as the mechanisms he used to understand capitalism.

The focus is wholly on method throughout, highlighting areas including a philosophy of internal relations, abstraction, contradiction among others. Ollman makes it clear that many other writers - both allies and enemies of Marx - have shown only partial understandings and that by highlighting one or another aspect have not understood the flexible and nuanced approach used by Marx. It is this flexibility which makes Marx appear inconsistent but once grasped, and accepting the sometimes opaque Hegelian language, is a truly insightful mechanism for understanding and analysing the world.

In practical terms, the book is a collection of essays previously published elsewhere. As such it does occasionally feel somewhat repetitive, covering the same ground from different angles. The final chapters show the method in action.

I do not believe that Marx can get be understood without also understanding dialectical thinking - the more "Hegelian" aspects if you like. This book is a superb starting point to getting to grips with that thinking (and to understanding other thinkers using dialectics such as Slavoj Zizek) and is an essential part of the toolkit (along with David Harvey's "Companion") to reading Marx.

8 July 2022: on second reading I still found this an interesting exploration of Marx's method, but with the advantage now of a deeper reading it doesn't really cover that much on dialectics themselves. There's a much stronger focus on the mechanisms of abstraction. It's an important contribution but perhaps not the key to unlocking dialectics that I perhaps thought first time around.

21 May 2023: third reading as part of my theme on Marx's life and method (https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...) and this still strikes me as an excellent starting point to understanding how Marx approaches his work - whether or not that formally counts as "dialectics" or not.

I added a post on my understanding of Marx's method based on Ollman's reading here >> https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...

The notes I took on reading this first time around can be found on my blog here:
https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...
https://marxadventure.wordpress.com/2...

[Joel · Rating 3 out of 5]

mostly chapters from dude's older books cheekily presented as if they formed a cohesive whole; hence great deal of repetition that i didnt mind as it does suit the subject. this town is a part of us all. a part of us all. a part of us all!

[Koray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ollman, Marx'ın düşünce sisteminin sadece kuru bir teori olmadığını, aksine yaşayan ve dinamik bir analiz aracı olduğunu net bir şekilde ortaya koymuş. Bu düşünce biçiminde diyalektiği soyut felsefi bir tartışma olmaktan çıkarıp; kapitalist toplumu, ücretli emeği, sermayeyi ve bunlara içkin olan tüm çelişkileri analiz etmeye yarayan somut bir araç haline getiriyor. İlişkisellik, süreç ve soyutlamanın rolü gibi temel kavramları derinlemesine incelemesi, Marx'ın düşüncesinin temelindeki metodolojik mantığı kavramayı oldukça kolaylaştırmış. Bu yönüyle Marx'ın eserlerini okumuş ancak yöntemsel zorluklar yaşayan okuyucular için iyi bir rehber niteliğinde.

[Blaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm suspicious whenever people seem to be "thinking about thinking" instead of "thinking about things"—maybe another way of saying I'm suspicious of philosophy—but I was also curious what philosophers mean when they talk about "Marxist dialectics" as an intellectual methods rather than a theory of capital. This collection gives an admirable and interesting answer in its first few essays, then repeats the essential features of its answer for the rest of its length. Apparently Ollman ran out of things to say about dialectics in the abstract. At that point it's time to put the book down and start thinking about the world again.

The last essay, about the Japanese state, was real good, which makes me think this could have been a better collection if it took a little more interest in things.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great and useful book about Marx's method. By systematizing it Ollman brings out a lot of detail which contextualizes many criticisms of Marx's work, such as the "elastic meanings" in his use of terms, from both Marxists and non-Marxists alike.

As for Ollman's own work, he is perhaps among his own strongest critics:

Most discussions of Marx's method have focused either on his philosophy, particularly on the laws of the dialectic as outlined by Engels, or on the strategy of exposition used in Capital I. Such accounts, even when accurate, are very lopsided and, what is worse, useless for the scholar interested in adopting this method for his or her work. Numerous assumptions and procedures are left out, and their place in the construction and elaboration of Marx's theories are vague at best. In attempting to make up for these lapses, I may have fallen victim to the opposite error of overschematization, and this is a danger that readers of the following pages should bear in mind.

I found the criticism helpful and think it a good thing to keep in mind as you read these essays. That said, Ollman's dance has five steps (or, depending on which essay—written between 1979 and 2002—from four to six steps, and also depending on the vantage point of its usage). The core of these various steps are the philosophy of internal relations (Step 2 in the table of contents):

We have only recognized the complex relations and changes that everyone admits to being in the world in a way that highlights rather than dismisses or minimizes them in investigating any problem. The world of independent and essentially dead "things" has been replaced in our thinking by a world of "processes in relations of mutual dependence." This is the first step in thinking dialectically.

And also abstraction (Step 3 in the table of contents): isolating relevant properties to a given study and systematizing them in a relevant manor, just as Ollman has done here with the dialectic as a whole.

[Cameron Mackintosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a good book but it's very in depth if you don't know much about dialectics in the first place. It reads like a philosophy textbook and many of the ideas are repeated throughout the book since it seems to be more of a collection of essays than a coherent full book. It took me a long time to push myself through this and it may be worth reading "On Contradiction" by Mao, "Dialectical and Historical Materialism" by Stalin in addition to Lenin's notes on Dialectics to have some background understanding.
The section on abstractions was really interesting and through provoking and I think if you are super into dialectics (as I am) it can still be interesting, it's still definitely easier than reading Hegel, but it may be worth skipping over some chapters that are complex: "In defence of the Philosophy of internal relations." was particularly challenging since I could barely understand the critique let alone his rebuttal.
Still worth a read though if you want a good book to help you understand dialectics properly, people seem to throw around the word without understanding it properly.

["Nico" · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essays in this composition overlap far too much in their explanation of concepts and parts of concepts, in a way that felt not just thoughtless but disrespectful. There are valuable insights here—certainly the man knows his Marx—but it can be a slog at times wading through increasingly overfamiliar territory.

Though this isn't weighed in the rating, I was hoping that the focus would be less on Marx and more on dialectics itself. This kind of approach has always struck me as insufficiently materialist. Still, Olmann does provide valuable insights.

[Mason Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the finest sources on Dialectical Materialism. I loved the diction and overall writing style. Often people are really misinformed, I have seen really well educated people, even some so-called Marxists reducing dialectics to only triads of thesis antithesis and synthesis. I wish only more people would read it and get informed and know how misinformation is so common and why we should at all costs avoid the fallacy of appeal to authority.

[Jordan Sheldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little collection of essays that lay out a fairly cohesive picture of what a "dialectical method" for social inquiry may look like. Slightly repetitious at times due to the essay collection format, but a very good starting point for getting people to think "dialectically" in a more practical form then is typically offered.

[Cemal Ersin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marx 'ın diyalektiği hakkında okuduğum en iyi kitaplardan biri diyebilirim. Bunun tamamlayıcısı olarak yazarın Yabancılaşma adı kitabı da okunabilir. Marx 'ın diyalektiği nasıl kullandığı kapsam, soyutlama ve içsel ilişkiler felsefesi çok yalın ve akıcı biçimde anlatılmış

[Paddy Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Profoundly changed my understanding (or misunderstanding) of pretty much every book I have read in the last 5+ years! I will have to return to many of the classic texts I read early on in my learning now with this under my wing!

[Logan Kilinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is less of an introduction to "Marx's method" and dialectics than it is teaching one how to read Marx. you will not learn about dialectics from this book. I think its best use case would be explaining Marx in a sociology class.

[Jeremy Savage · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been wanting to read a book exactly like this for a while, happy to have finally gotten the chance!

[Mel Stead]

Review from the March 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard:

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blog...

[Faraz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly one of the best books I've ever read

[Băcilă Marcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

AWESOME!

[Emily Laurent-Monaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

somewhat shite

[Deepak Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a very useful book in understanding Marx's method in making sense of the society. Bertell Ollman offers a guide to the philosophy of internal relations and dialectics, two core aspects of Marx's thought. After covering these concepts in detail in different chapters, an application --- that is, dialectical thinking in action --- can be seen in the final chapter, where the author analyses the Japanese society.

I found the philosophy of internal relations particularly difficult to grasp. It explains the tradition of Hegel and other philosophers, which conceptualises everything around us related to each other ("relations" rather than seeing individual components separately). Reading this along with some of the texts by Marx would have given more information on how this plays out in Marx's thinking.

But the part on dialectics was very relatable. I think the book was extremely helpful in elaborating this concept. The foundational aspect of seeing things in totality, with all its contradictions, is made really well in the book. It is clear that we should be watchful of our analysis and we should neither "miss forest for the trees... [or] play down or even ignore the parts, the details, in deference to making generalizations about the whole."

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ollman does three things: explains how Marx understood and deployed the method of dialectics; demonstrates that dialectics was not the only method Marx used; and he teaches us how to read Marx by alerting us to his eclectic methodological deployments.

Chapter 5 is key. It is the longest and the most detailed. Ollman gives us three tools to understand Marx's dialectics: three ways that Marx makes abstractions -- these he calls "extension"; seven levels of generality; and Marx's shifting vantage points.

The entire book is dedicated to what he calls "internal relations" contrasted with "external relations" in non-dialectical logic. The central problem is creating a method that understands how a dynamic and evolving system can be understood through the interrelations of all its parts.

Chapter 6 is a clear exposition of Marx's understanding and use of the relationship between history and logic/system.

Chapter 8 breaks down Marx's methods into five basic headings: ontology, epistemology, inquiry, intellectual reconstruction, exposition. A sixth heading, praxis, is added in chapter 9.

Chapter 11 is a critique of those Marxists who stress the Hegelian element in reading Marx. This chapter explains why the non-systematic parts of Marx's texts are also important. Here is an Ollman quote to give you a sense. Ollman is speaking about Marx's Capital I:

"Marx had other aims besides presenting the dialectical relations between the main categories of political economy. The short list would have to include unmasking bourgeois ideology (and ideologists), displaying the roots of capitalist economics in alienated social relations, showing capitalism's origins in primitive accumulation and its potential for evolving into communism, mapping out class struggle, and raising workers' class consciousness, and all these aims required strategies of presentation that have little to do with Hegel's conceptual logic."

In sum, Ollman shows Marx's various textual purposes and tells us that it is this complexity that makes the text both difficult and lively.

Chapter 12 is about the theory of the state, both the historical origins of the contemporary Japanese state and also the general relations between capitalism, capitalists, and the state.

The 12 previously published chapters are aggregated into a book making the themes repetitive. But iI found the repetition welcome since the topic is difficult.

I finished the book knowing I will need to read it again.

[KT · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good and instructive read on applying dialectics in academic practice

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it is a good exposition of the dialectic method in sociopolitical and historical issues, it ignores the other half of dialectics which is the understanding of nature and the laws of movement (Engels exposition in ‘Dialectics of Nature’).

Also there is a null discussion of Hegel (which is really important if you want to talk about dialectics).

Better read Stalin’s work if you want to understand dialectics in both the social and natural appliances.

[Arjun Ravichandran · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introduction ; Ollman is good at simplifying complex topics. Get his "Alienation" as well.