On the beautiful usefulness of dialectic, as Marx expressed in a letter to Engels about a predictive claim he’d made:
“It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way.”
File under Honesty, Intellectual.
Source: Karl Marx, in a letter to Engels, August 15, 1857
This is interesting but are we reasonably secure that this is authentic? Very common move by novelists- immediately think of Ulysses by Joyce and some of the letters around that ;-).
The original text:
„Es ist möglich, dass ich mich blamiere. Indes ist dann immer mit einiger Dialektik zu helfen. Ich habe selbstverständlich meine Aufstellungen so gehalten, dass ich im umgekehrten Fall auch Recht habe.“
Source: Marx & Engels intim
Hi Mike. Yes, it is authentic. It’s impossible to say what the import of it is, but read in context it sounds a little jokey. Marx here is hedging his bets on a piece of journalism he’s writing on the Indian Mutiny, apparently on behalf of Engels. (Engels was well versed in military tactics, Marx less so). On its own I don’t think much can be read into it – unless of course you want to.