IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/euhchp/978-3-031-10115-1_6.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Engels’ Conceptions of Dialectics, Nature, and Dialectics of Nature

In: 200 Years of Friedrich Engels

Author

Listed:
  • Kaan Kangal

    (Nanjing University)

Abstract

Engels’ name stands and falls today with a variety of his contributions to socialist thought and Marxist philosophy. Yet there is one particular component of the Marxist body of thought that has been subject to a group of controversies for quite some time for which Engels is usually held responsible: dialectics and dialectics of nature. It is curious that a theoretical contribution to an intellectual tradition within the history of European political philosophy could be perceived and depicted as a major distortion of that tradition. In Engels’ case, this irony is captured by the phrase “the Engels problem.” In this chapter, I will first briefly summarize what “the Engels problem” is about and lay out its connection to the reception history of Engels’ dialectics. Then, I will delve into the general outlines of Engels’ dialectics and focus on his intentions, tasks, and purposes in pursuing dialectics in some of his prominent works on this theme from 1870s to 1880s, most notably in Anti-Dühring and the Dialectics of Nature. In the final section, I will briefly discuss some of the open questions of Engels’ natural dialectics.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaan Kangal, 2022. "Engels’ Conceptions of Dialectics, Nature, and Dialectics of Nature," The European Heritage in Economics and the Social Sciences, in: Jürgen Georg Backhaus & Günther Chaloupek & Hans A. Frambach (ed.), 200 Years of Friedrich Engels, pages 77-90, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:euhchp:978-3-031-10115-1_6
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-10115-1_6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:euhchp:978-3-031-10115-1_6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.