Ludwik Fleck – a recommendation for reading, for those interested in science

[my bold]What I, Fleck, Pannekoek and Marx actually say is that 'facts even of physical science are ideological'.The only people who argue that 'facts' are not related to a consciousness, that 'scientific knowledge' is a mere reflection of something 'out there', that 'Truth', once 'discovered', is 'True' forever, are those ideologically influenced by bourgeois 19th century science, which, most tragically, also included Engels. That is, so-called 'materialists'.The political importance of this (which is why it's so important that comrades not so interested in physics or maths must also take some interest in the discussion) is that if 'Truth' isn't a social creation, but is the product of an elite, and it's a product that cannot be voted on (so we must take the word of an elite and cannot criticise or remove that elite), then…… workers cannot democratically control the means of production.We would remain the passive recipients of 'Scientific Knowledge', who would only control the production of 'factory widgets', but not the production of our universities and our research.An elite would remain in command of social thinking.This, politically, is Leninism. That's why Lenin was a 'materialist'.Fleck's work is a good starting point for workers to begin to challenge the ideological hegemony of bourgeois science, and thus Engels' 'materialism'.The only way forward for us is to argue for 'democratic science', which clearly includes 'democratic physics' and 'democratic maths'. This can't be done if one holds to 'materialism', because 'matter', to the exclusion of 'social consciousness', is the determinant of 'Truth', and the elite claim to know what 'matter' says, and that this can't be voted upon by the majority.

Yeah, Russell was an elitist, who thought that his 'average man', 'the majority of the population', were collectively unable to out-think him. What a knob.It's easy to show how '2+2=11', and I'm sure that the interplay of temperature and pressure makes his 'cold/freeze' and 'hot/boil' relationships much more debateable, without even introducing the question of the framework of consciousness that determines what counts as a 'relationship'.

But I do 'accept the vote', Vin.The SPGB has made it clear to me, a non-member, that my view of a 'democratic proletariat' has been rejected, in favour of the view of a 'democratic party'.That's why I'm a non-member. Clearly, at any time my minority view (in party terms) can be banned, if it is believed that I'm gaining some minority traction anongst the membership, and that was seen as destructive of 'democratic party-ism'. By your party view, that would be a 'democratic banning', and I can't argue with that. I would just stop trying to post, if I was unable to post.That would be the paradox: a democrat democratically banned.Of course, the solution is 'worker's democracy', rather than 'party democracy', but we aren't there yet, are we? The SPGB argues for a 'democracy' outside of 'workers', just as it argues for 'matter' outside of 'consciousness'.That will allow the post-revolutionary regime to be one of a party elite, which is Leninism.

A 'minority' is not necessarily an 'elite', Vin.I'm surprised that I have to explain this to you: 'an elite' is 'a minority with power'.I'm a minority in the democratic sense, which we'll always have with us, as long as we argue for democracy: I'm 'a minority without power', and so not 'an elite'.An 'elite' cannot be outvoted (so 'materialists' cannot be outvoted: they have a special access to 'matter'), but a 'minority' is always outvoted, by definition.