Briefly on Epistomology (answer to a student's email)

The dialectic was not invented by Hegel but he did a lot to develop the idea. 

The Historical Materialism of Marx was based upon Hegel's dialectics (things influence each other). 
Overdetermination as used by Resnik and Wolff is a step further than Marx's historical materialism. 
Overdetermination is a complete rejection of rationalism and empiricism.  Under overdetermination there is no absolute truth.  Everything is relative and constituted by everything else.  Entry points can be picked to allow analysis and theories fall into order, but there is no standard of truth external to the knower. 

Overdetermination is not so much a way to discredit classical epistemology, but rather intended  to destroy it.
 
Overdetermination is a form of post-modern, aka, post-structuralist, aka, anti-determinist way of thinking about things.  There is a lot of examples of post-modern thought out there if you care to look. 

As it relates to our purposes, this kind of epistemology has the implication that the economy and class are entry points but not causes.  Traditional Marxism states that if you take away the private property and free markets of capitalism, it will cause other aspects of the society to become socialist/communist.  Under a post modern perspective society is far more complex, as is the road to communism. 

Inspiration

So I have not posted in a while. The problem is not that I have been ignoring Marxism, but rather that I have been immersed in it. Studying for a comprehensive exam in Marxism while trapped in the bourgeois institution that is an American university. Sigh. I have found studying the two topics of imperialism and Marxist theories of the state interesting but not stimulating. It was not until returning to readings on epistemology and ontology that I have been compelled to think deeply again. Some of the most important theorists in this tradition (Gramsci, Althusser) have believed that a unique theory of knowledge is just as important to the revolution as acts carried out in the concrete-real. Who am I to disagree.
Contradictory to that last statement I don't have anything specific I want to write about at the moment, rather it is in examining contradiction as a concept that I perhaps have found my muse again? What will the next few days of stress and mental exhaustion bring? Often it is times of deep stress that bring great change. Viva la revolution.

The Nature of Overdetermined Existance

The nature of existence within overdetermination: some thoughts of, on and for confusion.

Classic materialism A-->B the material causes the ideal.
Classic idealism B-->A the ideal causes the material
Dialectics A <--> B

My question is regarding existence in the framework of overdetermination. A and B are each a condition of existence of the other. In the post modern language they “constitute one another”. So does not A and B become AB? Where B is nothing without A and A is nothing without B? To answer my own question it seems clear to me that AB is the result where the “gap” between knower and object that is present in other epistemologies disappears.

However my reasoning falls back into idealism in that any part of the material world cannot exist without the totality of thoughts. It could go the other way that no idea could be formulated without the totality of the material world but this seems less plausible to me due to the overdeterminates of my own thought.

For example a nebula that is newly discovered in space did not exist (in its current form) before the technology was developed to make human species aware of it. Thus is follows that constant change is the only “true” state of existence. The conditions of existence are constantly changing as are any boundaries on the ideal and/or material world.

A problem…The nebula that I have described did not exist without its conditions of existence, now that it does exist, it exists as part of the overdetermined world in a state of change. How can a constant state of change give birth to something new? That is, the newly discovered nebula?

Am I slipping into pure idealism and violating a basic premise of overdetermination? The issue of the nature of existence remains a mystery