Rev Left Radio
patreon
Teaser: The Role of Labor in Human Evolution
🕑 Added 2025-05-26 12:00:13 +0000 UTCThis is small snippet from a much larger episode coming soon wherein Alyson and Breht cover Friedrich Engel’s famous text “Dialectics of Nature”, in which Engels argues for dialectical materialism as a scientifically grounded, philosophically rigorous, and holistic worldview—one that understands nature, society, and thought as deeply interconnected and constantly evolving.
Find the clip used at the end of this teaser here: https://youtu.be/YbgnlkJPga4
Comments
Revolutionary Left Radio
Wow, interesting point about Lukacs!! Ill have to dive deeper into his work at some point for sure, espeicially on this topic! I appreciate that insight so much. I am familiar with Kangal's book and engaged with it indirectly during the writing of this episode, but havent read it yet. Its on my list for damn sure! Excited to hear your feedback for the episode (out now!).
BammEs
Excited about this! Haven't listened yet, but did you check Kaan Kangal's book Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature? It's a fantastic read and overview of this discussion about whether dialectics should be extended beyond the social realm or not. Highly recommend it to anyone wanting a deep dive into that exact question. Also, you mentioned Lukács as one of the people that argued against Engels on this. That's true. But he also drastically changed his mind! Nearly immediately after publishing history and class consciousness, he changed his mind due to the practice of building socialism in Hungary and certain writings of Lenin. Because of this, he prohibited people from translating his book for the longest time (some Italians did anyway iirc). In 1967 he allowed the republication of it, provided it came with a new introduction in which he explains the mistakes he makes in the book and gives historical context. This new introduction is, imo, the most valuable part of the book. His posthumously published Ontology of Social Being clarifies some of his positions, and especially Part 3 on Labour is interesting for this discussion (because, as he explains in the new introduction, you can't fully grasp labour as social metabolism if you exclude the natural from dialectics). Anyway, all this is to say I've done some studying of this issue and I'm excited to listen to the full conversation!!
Chaim Jones
I’ve had Engels’s Dialectics of Nature on a bookshelf for years. I’m eager to listen to the full episode and then finally reading the book.
