Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"Engels, Friedrich
Philosophy
Landmarks of Scientific Socialism: "Anti-Duehring"
Engels, Friedrich
Dialectical materialism; Dühring, E. (Eugen), 1833-1921; Economics; Philosophy; Socialism
Besides Herr Duehring will never succeed in imagining an infinity
without contradiction. In the first place, infinity is a contradiction
and full of contradictions. For example it is a contradiction that
infinity should be made up of finite things and yet such is the case.
The notion of a limited universe leads to contradictions just as much
as the notion of its unlimitedness, and each attempt to abolish these
contradictions leads, as we have seen, to new and worse
contradictions. But just because infinity is a contradiction, it is
without end, endlessly developing itself in time and space. The
abolition of the contradiction would be the end of infinity. Hegel
saw that very clearly, and covers the people who entered upon
intricate arguments about this contradiction with merited scorn.
Let us proceed. Now, time has had a beginning. What was before this
beginning? The unchangeable universe incomparable with anything else.
And as no changes occur in this condition the particular concept time
is transformed into the general concept existence. In the first place
we have nothing to do with the transformation which goes on in the
brain of Herr Duehring. We are not engaged with a concept of time, but
with actual time of which Herr Duehring cannot so easily dispose. In
the second place no matter how much the concept of time is transformed
into the general concept existence it does not bring us one step
nearer the goal. For the fundamental forms of all existence are space
and time, and a thing existing outside of time is as silly an idea as
that of a being outside of space. The Hegelian "past existence in
which there was no time" and the neo-Schelling "being beyond the scope
of thought" are rational conceptions compared with this being outside
of time. For this reason Herr Duehring goes to work very cautiously
"intrinsically it may be called time, but one cannot really call it
time, as time does not consist in itself of real parts but is merely
divided by us into parts to suit our own convenience," only a real
filling up of time with distinct facts makes it capable of
calculation. It is impossible to see the significance of piling up an
empty duration. But it does not matter anyway. The question is whether
the universe in this presupposed condition continues, that is
persists, through a period of time. We have long known that it is
useless to try and measure such empty space and to calculate without
plan or aim and just because of the tiresomeness of such a proceeding
Hegel calls this infinity "miserable." According to Herr Duehring time
exists only by virtue of change, not change in and through time.
Because time is different from change and independent of it, we can
measure it by the changes, because in order to measure we need
something different from that which is to be measured. And the time in
which no recognisible changes take place is very far from being no
time, on the other hand since it is free from other ingredients, it is
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