Dialectical Materialism VS. Metaphysical Naturalism

[Daniel Mullarkey]

The dialectical materialism that Communists like to profess is in no sense “real atheism”, but just religious concepts in a cult-like form. Real atheism is based on metaphysical naturalism for which there is no room for the existence of anything divine, mystical, or supernatural. In this sense agnosticism, and even some forms of atheism, may be based on some level of metaphysical uncertainty, but these may indeed be minds that have probably never even heard of metaphysical naturalism or even the very concept of metaphysics.

[Jeanne Douglas]

In article <59f6690b-484d-4d2d...@googlegroups.com>,

Daniel Mullarkey <corresp...@danielmullarkey.me> wrote:

> The dialectical materialism that Communists like to profess is in no sense

> łreal atheism˛, but just religious concepts in a cult-like form. Real atheism

> is based on metaphysical naturalism for which there is no room for the
> existence of anything divine, mystical, or supernatural. In this sense
> agnosticism, and even some forms of atheism, may be based on some level of
> metaphysical uncertainty, but these may indeed be minds that have probably
> never even heard of metaphysical naturalism or even the very concept of
> metaphysics.

I must say, your chosen last name is highly appropriate.

--

JD

"Osama Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive."--VP Joseph Biden

[Burkhard]

On Saturday, September 7, 2013 5:44:04 PM UTC+1, Daniel Mullarkey wrote:
> The dialectical materialism that Communists like to profess is in no sense “real atheism”, but just religious concepts in a cult-like form. Real atheism is based on metaphysical naturalism for which there is no room for the existence of anything divine, mystical, or supernatural.

That is all rather muddled. DiaMat, for all intends and purposes,
is a form of metapahysical naturalism. You find that very clearly
in Engel's "Anti-Duehring", and even more so in Lenin's "On
the Significance of Militant Materialism"

You could debate of dialectism itself was a naturalist philosophy,
btw. Recently some historians of philosophy have argued that once
you look behind the arcane language, Hegel himself was both a
naturalist and atheist - when he talks about "God" in the
Phenomenology of Pure Spirit, he simply means "mankind"
(so e.g. Robert C. Solomon, In the Spirit of Hegel, 1983)

Be it as it may, Marx, Engles and Lenin kicked out any
non-natural objects that may have been in hegels system,
and DiaMat is most certainyl a naturalist philosophy
Both extend the idea way beyond rejecting merely divine, mystical
etc concepts to all the other areas where metaphysical naturalists
advocate a reductionist ontology that only allows physical objects,
including mathematics (anti-Duehring p.52 ff) and of course
moral judgements (ibid, part II)

If you disagree, feel free to identify which objects in their
ontology are not materialistic, natural or physical objects.
DiaMat is simply a specific way to argue for metaphysical
naturalism - one that of course lots of people (rightly, in
my view) consider flawed,but that does not change the fact that
it is a form of metaphyscial naturalism, just not a very
convincing variety.

But DiaMat is not the same as communism - communism is much older
than Marx to start with. Some early forms of communism e.g.
have been decidedly theistic, and some always have
been indeed Christian in roots e.g. the liberation theology
of South America Rather, some forms of communism also embraced
DiaMat. And of these some did indeed install systems that
makes them "religions for the way a sociologist might use
the term.

But that does not mean that they stop to be atheist, you
just get secular religions as a result. No contradiction
in term, various flavours have been around for millennia,
and more recently we got e.g. the "religion of pure reason"
during the French revolution.

So your first mistake is to equate DiaMat with communism,
the second is to equate religion with theism.

Finally, you also have a somewhat limited notion of
what metaphysical naturalism is. True, it does as you
say "reject all notions of the divine, mystical or
supernatural". (just as DiaMat does). It goes however
further and says that there are no non-material
entities, also in fields that have nothing to do
with religion, such as mathematics, cognitive science,
economics, politics or morality.
There is no reason why atheists should not have
widely differing views on all these issues (Do
numbers exist? States? Qualia?)
Therefore, while all metaphysical naturalists are
indeed atheists - and since all dialectical materialists
are metaphyscial naturalists, they too are atheists -
not all atheists are metaphysical naturalists, let alone
dialectical materialists.

[Burkhard]

On Monday, September 9, 2013 10:32:59 PM UTC+1, Jeanne Douglas wrote:
> In article <59f6690b-484d-4d2d...@googlegroups.com>,
>
> Daniel Mullarkey <corresp...@danielmullarkey.me> wrote:
>
>
>
> > The dialectical materialism that Communists like to profess is in no sense
>

> > ³real atheism², but just religious concepts in a cult-like form. Real atheism

>
> > is based on metaphysical naturalism for which there is no room for the
>
> > existence of anything divine, mystical, or supernatural. In this sense

>
> > agnosticism, and even some forms of atheism, may be based on some level of
>
> > metaphysical uncertainty, but these may indeed be minds that have probably
>
> > never even heard of metaphysical naturalism or even the very concept of
>

> > metaphysics.
>
>
>
>
>
> I must say, your chosen last name is highly appropriate.

>

> JD
>

Unless you have reasons to believe that he changed his name by deed poll, it
seems that this is the name he inherited from his parents.

Mullarkey isn't that unusual a name, though possibly more common in the UK
than the US
Neil Mullarkey is a quite well known actor, and Sam Mullarkey is a footballer.

On the other side of the pont though, there is Mary Mullarkey, former judge at the
Colorado Supreme Court whom I had reasons to cite in n one of my papers
( for her reasoning inPeople v Arias)