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Reason in Revolt

Alan Woods, Ted Grant1995

A Marxist examination of modern science, dialectical materialism and the philosophical implications of discoveries in physics, biology and cosmology.

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Contents

  1. Acknowledgements
  2. Contents

Author's introduction to eBook edition

  1. The Big Bang
  2. The need for dialectics
  3. The dialectic of history
  4. Socialism and the future

Author's preface to the second English edition

  1. Role of dialectics
  2. "Intelligent design"
  3. Marxism and optimism

Authors' foreword

  1. Engels' role

Part One: Reason and unreason

  1. 1Introduction
  2. Introduction
  3. Lag in consciousness
  4. "Reason becomes unreason"
  5. Science and the crisis of society
  6. 2Philosophy and Religion
  7. Do we need philosophy?
  8. Role of religion
  9. Division of labour
  10. Materialism and idealism
  11. 3Dialectical Materialism
  12. What is dialectics?
  13. "Everything flows"
  14. Quantity and quality
  15. Mendeleyev's periodic table
  16. Phase transitions
  17. Order out of chaos
  18. Whole and part
  19. Complex organisms
  20. The molecular process of revolution
  21. The unity and interpenetration of opposites
  22. Positive and negative
  23. Nuclear fission
  24. Polar opposites?
  25. Negation of the negation
  26. The dialectics of Capital
  27. 4Formal Logic and Dialectics
  28. Formal logic and dialectics
  29. What is a syllogism?
  30. Does logic teach how to think?
  31. Limits of the law of identity
  32. Logic and the subatomic world
  33. Modern logic

Part Two: Time, Space and Motion

  1. 5Revolution in Physics
  2. Revolution in physics
  3. Waves or particles?
  4. Quantum mechanics
  5. Disappearance of matter?
  6. "Bricks of matter"?
  7. 6Uncertainty and Idealism
  8. The uncertainty principle
  9. Objectivity versus subjectivism
  10. Causality and chance
  11. Mechanism
  12. The 19th century
  13. Is prediction possible?
  14. Hegel on necessity and accident
  15. Determinism and chaos
  16. Marxism and freedom
  17. 7Relativity Theory
  18. What is time?
  19. Time and philosophy
  20. Newton and Hegel
  21. Relativity
  22. The general theory of relativity
  23. Relations between things
  24. The measurement of time
  25. Problem not resolved
  26. Idealist interpretations
  27. Mach and positivism
  28. Boltzmann and time
  29. Relativity and black holes
  30. 8The Arrow of Time
  31. The second law of thermodynamics
  32. Order out of chaos
  33. 9The Big Bang
  34. Cosmology
  35. The Doppler effect
  36. How the theory evolved
  37. The 'inflation' theory
  38. Dark matter?
  39. The neutrino to the rescue!
  40. Constant headaches, or Hubble trouble
  41. Big crunch and superbrain
  42. A 'plasma universe'?
  43. Einstein and the big bang
  44. Neutron stars
  45. Stephen Hawking
  46. Do singularities exist?
  47. An empty abstraction
  48. Thoughts in a vacuum
  49. The origins of the solar system

Part Three: Life, Mind and Matter

  1. 10The Dialectics of Geology
  2. The dialectics of geology
  3. Wegener's theory
  4. What are plate tectonics?
  5. Earthquakes and the genesis of mountains
  6. Subterranean processes
  7. 11How Life Arose
  8. Oparin and Engels
  9. How did life arise?
  10. The revolutionary birth of life
  11. Early life forms
  12. Photosynthesis and sexual reproduction
  13. The Cambrian Explosion
  14. Plants and animals
  15. Mass extinctions
  16. The epoch of the dinosaurs – the Mesozoic (850-65 million year ago)
  17. Why did the dinosaurs disappear?
  18. The cosmic terrorist – or how not to make a hypothesis
  19. 12The Revolutionary Birth of Humankind
  20. The revolutionary birth of humankind
  21. Role of toolmaking
  22. Social organisation
  23. Hypotheses on human development
  24. Engels and human origins
  25. Can apes make tools?
  26. Humans and language
  27. 13The Genesis of Mind
  28. The brain puzzle
  29. The mind – a machine?
  30. What is the brain?
  31. Evolution of the brain
  32. Importance of speech
  33. Language and thought of the child
  34. Eyes, hand and brain
  35. Vygotsky and Piaget
  36. The emergence of language
  37. Socialisation of thought
  38. 14Marxism and Darwinism
  39. Darwin's gradualism
  40. No progress?
  41. Marxism and Darwinism
  42. Darwin and Malthus
  43. Social Darwinism
  44. 15The "Selfish Gene"?
  45. Genetics
  46. Genes and environment
  47. "Intelligence" and genes
  48. IQ testing
  49. Eugenics
  50. Crime and genetics
  51. Racism and genetics
  52. Richard Dawkins
  53. The future of genetics

Part Four: Order out of Chaos

  1. 16Does Mathematics Reflect Reality?
  2. Does mathematics reflect reality?
  3. Contradictions in mathematics
  4. Does the infinite exist?
  5. The calculus
  6. Crisis of mathematics
  7. Chaos and complexity
  8. Mandelbrot's fractals
  9. Quantity and quality
  10. 17Chaos Theory
  11. Chaos theory
  12. Division of labour
  13. Chaos and dialectics
  14. 18The Theory of Knowledge
  15. The theory of knowledge
  16. What is the scientific method?
  17. Limits of empiricism
  18. Prejudice against dialectics
  19. Stalinist caricature
  20. 19Alienation and the Future of Humanity
  21. Capitalism in a blind alley
  22. Contradictions remain
  23. The scourge of unemployment
  24. Alienation
  25. Marx and alienation
  26. Morality
  27. Limitless possibilities
  28. Back to the future?
  29. Socialism and aesthetics
  30. 'Thinkers' and 'doers'
  31. Humanity and the universe
  1. Bibliography
  2. Glossary of Terms

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