From: Paul Healey

As Andy suggested we should do, I had a look at Tony Smith's " Logic of Marx's Capital, a reply to Hegelian criticisms "

Under the paragraph entitled, The Dependence of the Thought Process on the Real Process, I found the typically subjective argument: this is the one that employs history as a tool for verification. This is quite different from assuming there is a real process for validating decisions made by thought processes. What Hegel meant is that a thought process is a real process in that it has a schema. A real process on the other hand can be described as a function. A function cannot make decisions. Dependence would therefore mean they are not categorically distinct. Hence, Smith is attempting to invalidate Hegel's logic.

When Smith, also informs us, that

" These structures can then be systematically ordered such that a linear progression of categories is constructed that moves in a step-by- step fashion from simple and abstract determinations to categories that are complex and concrete. " ,

it is clear, that he does not actually know how this dialectical schema works ! This explains why he believes that thought supervenes history. History and thought are a priori ( follow from axioms ) because the real process is relative. Using the mind to account for a real process, explains why assumptions can be ungrounded. One of these is that dialectical gain is dependent upon historical advance; this assumes history is a thought process.

Paul Healey