Published In

Nature and System: Philosophical Studies of Natural and Artificial Systems

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1979

Subjects

Catastrophes (Mathematics), Dialectical materialism, System theory -- Social aspects, Metaphysics, Philosophy

Abstract

The three classical "laws" of dialectics of Hegel and Engels, ( 1) the transformation of quantity into quality, (2) the interpenetration of opposites, and (3) the negation of the negation, can be given precise meanings in terms of the Catastrophe Theory of Rene Thom and E. C. Zeeman. This suffices to counter the charge that dialectics is scholasticism or empty metaphysics, but does not support claims of universality for the dialectical principles, nor guarantee the validity of any particular application of these principles.

Rights

Reprinted from Nature and System, Vol. 1 1979 pages 177-187.

Nature and System: Philosophical Studies of Natural and Artificial Systems ceased publication in 1984. The editiorial aim was to seek to continue the theorizing spirit of traditional philosophy of nature within a contemporary scientific context: as such it encourages the reflective investigation of philosophic foundations and presuppositions as well as the creative synthesis of new ideas and models.

Description

This paper is a modification of a talk presented at the Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association, San Francisco, March 23-25, 1978, which was originally titled, "Dialectical Laws and Elementary Catastrophes," archived here: https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42816

A subsequent article, "Dialectics and Catastrophe" (pp. 129-154 in Sociocybernetics, Vol. I, F. Geyer and J. van der Zouwen, eds., Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, The Netherlands, 1978), offers some illustrations of these ideas from the social sciences literature.

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42825

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