The Power of Negativity

Spanish Translation:

La versión en español del libro “El poder de la negatividad” de Raya Dunayevskaya

11 de septiembre de 2012

Anunciamos el lanzamiento de la versión en español del libro “El poder de la negatividad” de Raya Dunayevskaya, cuya edición fue realizada por Peter Hudis y Kevin B. Anderson. La Editorial argentina Biblos, que aparentemente no había recibido la información correcta por parte de los propietarios de los derechos de autor norteamericanos de las obras de Dunayevskaya, lamentablemente ha excluido de la versión en español la mención a Hudis y a Anderson por su labor en lo referente a la selección, edición y las anotaciones realizadas en la obra.

Esto constituye una grave distorsión histórica, no solo porque omite identificar a los editores del libro, sino porque además deja una falsa impresión de que fue la misma Dunayevskaya quien llevó a cabo la compilación. Éste es un dato erróneo ya que la primera edición de la obra en inglés fue publicada 15 años después de la muerte de Dunayevskaya.

Sin embargo, estamos agradecidos ya que la edición argentina ha incluido la introducción de Hudis y Anderson, la cual consta de un total de treinta páginas. Recordemos que en el 2009 la edición Mejicana de Juan Pablos, que también fue coordinada por los propietarios de los derechos de autor con sede en Estados Unidos, había excluido esta introducción y había eliminado toda referencia a los editores originales que dedicaron su trabajo a esta obra  por más de una década –

Los editores de http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org

Book Review – English:

• Shannon Brincat, Socialism and Democracy, Vol. 25, No. 2 (July 2011)
• Stacey Whittle, “Philosophy on the Barricades,” International Socialism No. 127 (Summer  2010)
• Angelica Nuzzo, Hegel-Studien (Germany), Bd. 42 (2007)
• Dialogue with Chris Arthur, News & Letters, Feb-Mar & Apr-May 2006 (also appeared in Studies in Marxism, No. 9, 2002-03 & No. 11, 2007)
• Patricia Johnson, The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 57, No. 1, September 2003
• Eli Messinger, Science & Society, Vol. 68, No. 1, Spring 2004
• Eric Piper, Historical Materialism, Vol. 13, No. 3, 2005
• Anne Pomeroy, “Why Marx, Why Now?: A Recollection of Dunayevskaya’s Power of Negativity,” Cultural Logic, 2004
• Russell Rockwell, Critical Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 2, 2003
• Ben Watson’s Review in Radical Philosophy and David Black’s Response (2002-04)
• A Chinese Student, “Reflections on Hegel, Marx and Mao,” News & Letters, Aug.-Sept. 2002

Book Review – Other Languages:

• (German) Interview by Simon Birnbaum with Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson on US Left, Jungle World, 18:2, May 2007

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“Brilliant theorist, committed activist, and passionate scholar, Raya Dunayevskaya was a role-model for my generation We are fortunate to have her back in this wonderfully edited work that conveys the excitement of a time when, for Raya and her interlocutors (C. L. R. James and Herbert Marcuse among others), philosophy and the struggle against social injustice were two sides of the same urgent endeavor. Her understanding of dialectics as a method whereby each generation has to discover its own revolutionary task, her insistence that Marxism means humanism in the most inclusive sense and that socialism means the social actualization of individual freedom — these are ideas that appear young and fresh against the weary and sophistic pessimism that dominates much theory in the academy today. And more: in contrast to the boring pap of commodified culture and political sound bites, Raya’s interpretation makes the logic of Hegel’s absolute idea a fascinating and compelling read.”

—Susan Buck-Morss, Cornell University, author of The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project

“As we enter a new millennium, critical and dialectical thinking is more important than ever in charting the vicissitudes of capital and political struggle. Raya Dunayevskaya’s writings on Hegelian and Marxian dialectics are highly insightful and relevant to the theory and politics of the contemporary moment. Thus Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson’s collection of some of her most important writings provide access to a valuable theoretical and political legacy.”

—Douglas Kellner, UCLA, author of Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity

“Dunayevskaya writes, particularly in the letters and talks, like a person ‘drunk’ on Hegel. But rather than causing her to lose control, this drunkenness is a measure of her intellectual excitement, an infectious one that gets transferred to her readers. She is especially good in linking Hegel, Marx, and Lenin. Her varied attempts to explain the importance of Hegel’s absolute idea and theory of negation for the traditions that followed, but also for the hoped-for revolution, are as clear and convincing as any I’ve seen from her pen. It’s a truly impressive display, and one that will delight as well as instruct most readers.”

—Bertell Ollman, New York University, author of Dialectical Investigations

“[This book] is the portrait of an exceptional mind at work, and a treasure trove of insights and provocative ideas. The matters Dunayevskaya brought forward remain of supreme historical importance. The editors have made this a labor of love, with fastidious footnoting, intertextual referencing, and a superb introduction. Dunayevskaya’s courage and vitality shine through and through.”

—Joel Kovel, Bard College, author of The Enemy of Nature

“With the writings of Raya Dunayevskaya, the continent of revolutionary thought underwent a seismic shift, the world-historical reverberations of which we are still feeling today and which continue to grow stronger in this new millennium as the crisis of world capitalism intensifies. Dunayevskaya is one of the great revolutionary thinkers of the last century and her work on the dialectics of philosophy is unsurpassed in the development of Marxist humanism. Expertly edited by Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson, this volume is destined to become a classic. History bequeaths us few gifts, and it is up to the present generation of revolutionaries to take advantage of this opportunity to engage with Dunayevskaya’s most important ideas, condensed in this exceptional edited edition.”

—Peter McLaren, UCLA, author of Capitalists and Conquerors: A Critical Pedagogy Against Empire

The introduction by Peter Hudis and Kevin Anderson is a fine essay – so lucid and explicit yet sacrificing no complexity. It should be accessible to a range of people – students, or people recently stimulated to think about the nature of capitalism and the requirements of a different society, as well as longtime socialists who need the “placing” of Raya’s thought as it’s provided here.”

—Adrienne Rich, author of What Is Found There, on the introduction

Part I. The Philosophic Moment of Marxist-Humanism

Ch. 1. Presentation on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy (June 1, 1987) — The Philosophic Point — Dialectics of Organization — Conclusion: Untrodden Paths in Organization –

Ch. 2. Letters on Hegel’s Absolutes of May 12 and 20, 1953 — Letter on Hegel’s Science of Logic (May 12, 1953) — Letter on Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind (May 20, 1953)

Part II. Studies in Hegelian and Marxian Dialectics, 1956-63

Ch. 3. Notes on Hegel’s Phenomenology

Ch. 4. Rough Notes on Hegel’s Science of Logic — Volume I: Objective Logic — Volume II: Subjective Logic or the Doctrine of the Notion

Ch. 5. Notes on the Smaller Logic from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences — Chapter Two – Preliminary Notion — Chapter Three – First Attitude of Thought Toward the Objective World — Chapter Four – Second Attitude of Thought Toward the Objective World — Chapter Five – Third Attitude of Thought Toward the Objective World — Chapter Six – The Proximate Notion of Logic with its Subdivision — Chapter Seven – First Subdivision of Logic – The Doctrine of Being — Chapter Eight – Second Subdivision of Logic – The Doctrine of Essence — Chapter Nine – Third Subdivision of Logic – The Doctrine of the Notion

Ch. 6. Dialogue on the Dialectic — Letter on Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 until Today (May 18, 1956) — Letter to Herbert Marcuse (July 15, 1958) — Letter to Herbert Marcuse (October 16, 1960) — Letter to Herbert Marcuse (January 12, 1961) — Letter to Charles Denby (March 10, 1960) — Letter to Jonathan Spence (June 1, 1961) — Letter to Erich Fromm (November 11, 1963)

Part III. Theory and Practice at a Turning Point, 1964-71

Ch. 7. Letter of October 27, 1964, to Herbert Marcuse

Ch. 8. Hegel’s Dialectic and the Freedom Struggles of the 1960s — Lecture in Japan on Hegel — Presentation of Black/Red Conference — Logic as Stages of Freedom, Stages of Freedom as Logic, or the Needed American Revolution

Ch. 9. Toward Philosophy and Revolution, from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao — Letter on Hegel’s Theory of Tragedy (November 17, 1968) — Letter on Draft of Chapter 1 of Philosophy and Revolution (October 13, 1968) — The Newness of our Philosophic-Historic Contribution

Part IV. After Philosophy and Revolution: Hegel’s Absolutes and Marx’s Humanism, 1972-81

Ch. 10. Hegel’s Absolute as New Beginning

Ch. 11. Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Fanon, and the Dialectics of Liberation Today

Ch. 12. On Lukacs’ Marxism — Letter on Lukacs (December 14, 1972) — Lukacs’ Philosophic Dimension

Ch. 13. The Hegel-Marx Relation Revisited — Letter to Harry McShane — On the 150th Anniversary of Hegel’s Death: How Valid for our Day Are Marx’s Hegelian Roots?

Part V. The Changed World and the Need for Philosophic New Beginnings, 1982-87

Ch. 14. Marxist-Humanism and the Battle of Ideas — On the Battle of Ideas: Philosophic-Theoretic Points of Departure as Political Tendencies Respond to the Objective Situation — Letter on Karl Korsch (1983) — Marxist-Humanism: The Summation That Is a New Beginning, Subjectively and Objectively (1983)

Ch. 15. Forces of Revolt as Reason, Philosophy as Force of Revolt — Not by Practice Alone: The Movement from Theory — Letter to the Youth on the Needed Total Uprooting of the Old and the Creation of New Human Relations — Dialectics of Revolution and of Women’s Liberation — The Power of Abstraction

Ch. 16. Another Look at Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind — Letter on Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind (June 26, 1986) — Introduction to “Why Hegel’s Phenomenology? Why Now?”

Ch. 17. Reconsidering the Dialectic: Critiquing Lenin … and the Dialectics of Philosophy and Organization — Letter to Louis Dupré — Letter to George Armstrong Kelly — Talking to Myself — On Political Divides and Philosophic New Beginnings

Appendix: Excerpts from 1949-51 Philosophic Correspondence with C. L. R. James and Grace Lee Boggs