Is the case for socialism, one of morality, cold logic or long term survival of our species?

[DJP]

stuartw2112 wrote:

But DJP, you don't need a philosophy to get out of bed and walk down the street. You don't need Newton to stop you jumping out the window. Maybe you need some kind of intuitive philosophy, but then a great deal of this is almost certainly present from birth, built into your brain (in other words, we're born idealists).

Indeed. But isn't "intuitive philosophy" called "common sense"? And oh how that deceives 

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

I was trying to work out where you are coming from.

I'm coming from 'mechanism'.You're coming from 'substance'.All your attempts to categorise me and stuart are based upon your ideological belief in 'substance'.

This is as garbled and nonsensical as your "idealism-materialism". Haven't you wonder why no-one else uses this term?I'm going to leave it here. A meaningful conversation requires a shared framework. You're making such a mush of catergories that it's impossible to move forward…

Everyone uses the term 'theory and practice'. My use of 'idealism-materialism' is simply a way of allowing comrades to understand Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, to stress that Marx took both, rather than selected one. He wasn't a simple 'materialist'; if he was, he wouldn't require 'theory' in his method. Passive observation of matter would suffice.As to 'mush of categories', DJP, you're the one who apparently can't understand simple words like 'mechanism'.It's not that you can't understand (as an individual, you're not stupid), but that your chosen ideological framework forbids you to understand, and blinkers you to evidence, like Darwin's 'evolution'. You're like bankers, struggling with reading and understanding Capital. That book is a 'mush of categories' to them, too.The fundamental problem is your refusal to read some philosophy of science. If you did, you'd soon realise the impossibility of continuing to employ 19th century categories like 'material' or 'substance'.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Everyone uses the term 'theory and practice'. My use of 'idealism-materialism' is simply a way of allowing comrades to understand Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, to stress that Marx took both, rather than selected one. He wasn't a simple 'materialist'; if he was, he wouldn't require 'theory' in his method. Passive observation of matter would suffice.As to 'mush of categories', DJP, you're the one who apparently can't understand simple words like 'mechanism'.It's not that you can't understand (as an individual, you're not stupid), but that your chosen ideological framework forbids you to understand, and blinkers you to evidence, like Darwin's 'evolution'. You're like bankers, struggling with reading and understanding Capital. That book is a 'mush of categories' to them, too.The fundamental problem is your refusal to read some philosophy of science. If you did, you'd soon realise the impossibility of continuing to employ 19th century categories like 'material' or 'substance'.

If you read more general philosophy you'll see where you're getting into a jumbled mess..

[Anonymous]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Pick a commodity up, turn it this way and that, weigh it, prod it, you'll never discover a single molecule of value. Pick up the commodity's price tag. 

 Try consuming the commodity without paying for it. Then explain to to the police how 'exchange value' doesn't have a material existence. 

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

If you read more general philosophy you see where you're getting into a jumbled mess.

Hmmm… 'general philosophy'? You mean, like Engels' 'Dialectical Materialism'?I think I'll stick with Marx, and his unobservable, intangible, 'not one iota of matter' categories, like 'value'!Unless you address 'structures', DJP, you'll remain stuck with 'substance', which, ironically, is pretty insubstantial fare for the scientific understanding of our natural and social world.It's the difference between a 'tin of beans' and a 'commodity'. A tin of beans is only a commodity within certain structures.But… as long as you can touch a 'tin of beans' with your 'substantialist' method, well, at least alanjjohnstone is happy with your method!

[twc]

I request others to write their own scientific or philosophical credo, showing what is important to them, in whatever format, and in as much space as they need.Let’s see what we hold.

[stuartw2112]

DJP: Well, nothing's a reliable guide is it? Not even religion.Vin: Yes, well, quite: value has a social reality, not a physical one. That's what I was saying.twc: You have a problem, you look at it and think hard about it and study it, think about ways in which you might try to solve it, while reading up on how others have solved it, keeping your mind open, and being willing to be wrong, and fail, and make a fool of yourself.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

If you read more general philosophy you see where you're getting into a jumbled mess.

Hmmm… 'general philosophy'? You mean, like Engels' 'Dialectical Materialism'?I think I'll stick with Marx, and his unobservable, intangible, 'not one iota of matter' categories, like 'value'!Unless you address 'structures', DJP, you'll remain stuck with 'substance', which, ironically, is pretty insubstantial fare for the scientific understanding of our natural and social world.It's the difference between a 'tin of beans' and a 'commodity'. A tin of beans is only a commodity within certain structures.But… as long as you can touch a 'tin of beans' with your 'substantialist' method, well, at least alanjjohnstone is happy with your method!

No, you're the one obsessed with Engels not me. Just some textbook for first year students would do…Why on earth do you think that "materialism" or "physicalism"  or "monism" is unable to account for relations (i.e structures)?

[DJP]

stuartw2112 wrote:

DJP: Well, nothing's a reliable guide is it? Not even religion.

Well no, not absolutely. But there are certain methods which have (so far) proven much more reliable than others…

[twc]

Following alanjjohnstone’s request, have a genuine attempt to tell us what you hold as a socialist. 

[stuartw2112]

DJP: Yes, I agree with you, religion seems to have had a remarkably successful and resilient history.TWC: Was that addressed to me? Surely I've spelled it out often enough, on the Left Unity thread and elsewhere? Here's an example of the kind of thing I "hold as a socialist":http://bigchieftablets.wordpress.com/2014/04/13/what-is-to-be-done/

[DJP]

This is the kind of "materialism" I would more or less be in agreement with

Quote:

Mind and MatterDietzgen, as we saw, called himself a materialist. There are however various kinds of materialism and Dietzgen was careful to differentiate his dialectical materialism from what he called ‘onesided,’ ‘narrow’ and ‘mechanical’ materialism. This was the view (indeed the traditional materialist view going back to the philosophers of Ancient Greece) that the world is composed of tiny particles of tangible ‘matter’ and that the mind and thinking are simply the effects of the movement of these atoms. Writes Dietzgen:The distinguishing mark between the mechanical materialists of the 18th century and the Social-Democratic materialists trained in German idealism consists in that that the latter have extended the former’s narrow conception of matter as consisting exclusively of the Tangible to all phenomena that occur in the world.13 Every phenomenon, everything that occurs, exists, as part of the entire world of phenomena. Since non-tangible phenomena, e.g. ideas, thoughts etc., also occur, they are just as real or, if you like, just as ‘material’ as tangible phenomena:In the endless Universe matter in the sense of old and antiquated materialists, that is, of tangible matter, does not possess the slightest preferential right to be more substantial, i.e. more immediate, more distinct and more certain than any other phenomena of nature.14Dietzgen had no objection to the classification of the world of phenomena into two general categories, one consisting of tangible phenomena and called ‘matter’ and the other consisting of mental phenomena and called ‘mind.’ He had no objection either to explanations of mental phenomena in terms of tangible phenomena. What he was concerned to point out was that, in this sense, both ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ were abstractions, even if very general ones, from the real world of phenomena. The rigid distinction between ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ was a mental distinction that did not exist in the world of phenomena which, despite this mental operation, remained an undivided whole:The mind is a collective name for the mental phenomena, as matter is a collective name for the material phenomena, and the two together figure under the idea and name of the phenomena of Nature.15 This was the basis of Dietzgen’s statement, which, as we shall see, so upset Lenin, that ‘our materialism is distinguished by its special knowledge of the common nature of mind and matter’.16 By this he simply meant that both mind and matter were parts of the world of observable phenomena.Those Dietzgen called the ‘narrow’ materialists made the mistake of not thinking dialectically, that is, of not realising that the parts of the world of phenomena do not exist independently but only as interconnected parts of that world. In taking one part of the world of phenomena and making it the basis of all the other parts, they were falsely ascribing a real, independent existence to what was in fact only an abstraction:This materialism is so enamoured of mechanics, that it, as it were, idolizes it, does not regard it as part of the world, but as the sole substance of which the universe is made up.17 This was the same mistake as regarding the objects of everyday use as having an independent, separate existence. ‘Matter’ just as much as ‘table’ was a mental abstraction from the real world of phenomena; in reality tangible phenomena do not exist separately from other phenomena, they exist only as an integral part of the entire single world of all phenomena.It is worth emphasising again that this equal epistemological status of tangible and mental phenomena does not at all rule out scientific explanations of mental phenomena in terms of tangible phenomena, e.g., in terms of the physiological functioning of the brain and nervous system, or indeed of the explanation of all phenomena in terms of the movement of atoms. The fact that ‘matter’ and ‘atoms’ were metal abstractions from the world of phenomena did not in the least detract from their possible usefulness as concepts for understanding the world. As Dietzgen said of atoms:Atoms are groups. As smallest parts they exist only in our thoughts and thus give excellent service in chemistry. The consciousness that they are not plastic but only mental things, does not detract from their usefulness, but heightens it still more.18To understand the world was to divide it into necessarily abstract concepts. It was not Dietzgen’s aim to decide which was the best way to classify, describe and explain the world but to show what we were doing when we did do this. To ascribe reality to any of these mental constructs, even so general a one as (tangible) matter was a confusion, was to think undialectically; the only thing that had a separate, independent existence was the entire world of phenomena itself. Dietzgen’s criticism of one-sided, narrow materialism was a criticism of its confusion on this point, and not at all a criticism of the basic principles of materialism.Dietzgen was essentially a philosopher of science. We would not want to claim that he always expressed himself clearly or adequately (his ontological proof of the universe and his virtual pantheism will make some readers wince – or smile), but despite his shortcomings he must be given the credit for first formulating a theory of the nature of science – as basically a description of the world for purposes of prediction and control – which is now largely accepted even if it does not call itself ‘dialectical materialism’ or indeed refer to itself as ‘materialist’ at all (mainly for fear of confusion with the narrow, one-sided materialism of the past – and present-day Russia).http://mailstrom.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/joseph-dietzgen-workers-philosopher.html

[Anonymous]

stuartw2112 wrote:

Vin: Yes, well, quite: value has a social reality, not a physical one. That's what I was saying. 

So in your opinion 'social reality' is not part of our material existence?  

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

 I think I'll stick with Marx, and his unobservable, intangible, 'not one iota of matter' categories, like 'value'! 

I agree about sticking with Marx: "it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence but their social existence that determines their consciousness"

[Anonymous]

twc wrote:

Following alanjjohnstone’s request, have a genuine attempt to tell us what you hold as a socialist. 

 In my own words: To believe that ideas are not material is religious and/or idealistI really don’t think this is as complicated as we make it out to be. Ideas are produced by physical activity in the brain and they never leave the brain.     They are physical or material.  Collectively we think and create social structures that appear to have a non-material existence but they don’t:: they remain inside the human brain(s). Exchange value does not exist independent of human brains. . I accept that for analytic purposes these social structures including exchange value  can be studied as if they have an existence outside of our brains and it is  only in that sense that they do. However, remove the brains and the social structures no longer exist .  Exchange value has no existence outside of the human brain. Exchange value is a social structure created by brains.I have used my own words. I am not impressed by name dropping. I would rather hear criticism in your own words.    

[Author]

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