Dance of the Dialectic: STEPS IN MARX'S METHOD

Marx Made Extremely Creative Use Of Dialectical Method To Analyze The Origins, Operation, And Direction Of Capitalism. Unfortunately, His Promised Book On Method Was Never Written, So That Readers Wishing To Understand And Evaluate Marx's Theories, Or To Revise Or Use Them, Have Had To Proceed Without A Clear Grasp Of The Dialectic In Which The Theories Are Framed. The Result Has Been More Disagreement Over What Marx Really Meant Than Over The Writings Of Any Other Major Thinker. In Putting Marx's Philosophy Of Internal Relations And His Use Of The Process Of Abstraction--two Little-studied Aspects Of Dialectics--at The Center Of This Account, Ollman Provides A Version Of Marx's Method That Is At Once Systematic, Scholarly, Clear And Eminently Useful. Ollman Not Only Sheds Important New Light On What Marx Really Meant In His Varied Theoretical Pronouncements, But In Carefully Laying Out The Steps In Marx's Method Makes It Possible For A Reader To Put The Dialectic To Work In His Or Her Own Research. He Also Convincingly Argues The Case For Why Social Scientists And Humanists As Well As Philosophers Should Want To Do So.-- Introduction: Marxism, This Tale Of Two Cities -- The Meaning Of Dialectics -- Social Relations As Subject Matter -- The Philosophy Of Internal Relations -- In Defense Of The Philosophy Of Internal Relations -- Putting Dialectics To Work : The Process Of Abstraction In Marx's Method -- Studying History Backward : A Neglected Feature Of Marx's Materialist Conception Of History -- Dialectic As Inquiry And Exposition -- Marxism And Political Science : Prolegomenon To A Debate On Marx's Method -- Why Dialectics? Why Now? Or, How To Study The Communist Future Inside The Capitalist Present -- Critical Realism In Light Of Marx's Process Of Abstraction -- Marx's Dialectical Method Is More Than A Mode Of Exposition : A Critique Of Systematic Dialectics -- Why Does The Emperor Need The Yakuza? Prolegomenon To A Marxist Theory Of The Japanese State. Bertell Ollman. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [217]-222) And Index.