(Reminds me of a joke. Not sure if it will survive translation and internetization, but let's try.)
Two university professors talk with each other, and one of them says: "You know, I have this problem, and it's bothering me. I teach dialectics for years, but I don't understand what it really means."
The other professor, helpfully: "That's easy. I can explain it to you right now!"
The first professor: "No, thanks. I can explain it, too."
Hi, everyone.
I just started reading Total Freedom by Chris Sciabarra (warning: politics book), and a good half of it seems to be about 'dialectics' as a thinking tool, but it's been total rubbish in trying to explain it. From poking around on the internet, it seems to have been a proto-systems theory that became a Marxist shibboleth.
Am I understanding that correctly? The LW survey says about 1 in 4 of us is a communist, so I'm hoping someone can point to me resources or something. Also, I've read through most of the sequences, and it didn't use the word dialectics in there at all, which seems strange if it's such a useful thinking tool. Is there something wrong with it as an epistemological practice? Is the word just outdated?
Sorry about the (tangentially) political post, I'm just kind of confused. Help?