Marx was a Productionist, not a Materialist

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

I think that your colleague is probably a bit of a bluffer.

And herein, ladies and gentlemen, we have LBird's scientific method: theorising in advance (or without or even irrespective) of the facts.  They are prepared to make that statement without knowing the person, their background, details or even the precise nature of the discussion.

Humour isn't your strongpoint, is it, YMS?Or philosophy. Or science. Or socialism. Or democracy.No, you stick to your touching faith in your colleagues, who are not even participating in these discussions, and so, unlike the guff you spout, can't be subject to criticism.So, now you have it on 'good' authority (I'm tempted to say 'elite') that no-one united the material and ideal, where does that leave you?

[LBird]

LBird wrote:

In the hope that you're genuinely interested in this discussion, DJP, I'll say that it's obvious that Strawson separates 'concrete' and 'abstract'. He argues that numbers are not 'real objects'.

DJP, in the hope that you are actually interested, perhaps a distinction that Margaret Archer draws in her book Realist Social Theory might help (p 23, and elsewhere).She refers to two competing criteria of existence, which determines what is 'real', for a viewpoint.She refers firstly to a 'perceptual criterion of existence', as defining 'real'.Secondly, she refers to a 'causal criterion of existence' as defining 'real'.The first is clearly related to individual observation and empiricism.The second is far more suited to Marx's viewpoint, and suggests that as 'ideas' cause events to happen, that 'ideas' are as 'real' as something one can touch.You don't have to agree with this, I'm merely trying to help you see the differences between 'materialism' (perceptual existence, something to be sensed) and 'realism' (causal existence, a power to make things happen). The latter makes more sense of Marx's works, and the power of the proletariat to consciously build Communism.PS, also 'power' and 'causal' fits far better with Marx's concept of 'value', which does not contain 'matter'.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

So, now you have it on 'good' authority (I'm tempted to say 'elite') that no-one united the material and ideal, where does that leave you?

Herein, Ladies and gentlemen, we Lbird's scientific method: theorising well in advance of the evidence, and reading things into texts that are not said. 

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

So, now you have it on 'good' authority (I'm tempted to say 'elite') that no-one united the material and ideal, where does that leave you?

Herein, Ladies and gentlemen, we Lbird's scientific method: theorising well in advance of the evidence, and reading things into texts that are not said. 

You wouldn't know a 'scientific method' if it bit you on the arse, YMS.I've tried to get you to tell us yours, but no joy.Your 'method' seems to consist of 'your opinion'. Typical, for an individualist.So, what's your opinion on the various attempts to unify materialism and idealism in the 19th century? Do you think Marx achieved this, or not?If not, where does that leave the proletariat and its attempt to use 'theory and practice' to build a Communist society?Hasn't your 'colleague' told you yet? Whatever happened to your ability to form your own opinion based on over a year's discussion on this site?

[Young Master Smeet]

Quote:

So, what's your opinion on the various attempts to unify materialism and idealism in the 19th century? Do you think Marx achieved this, or not?

Yes, I think he did.  See, life is much easier when you ask me my opinions rather than assuming them, incorrectly, based on misreadings of my posts.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Quote:

So, what's your opinion on the various attempts to unify materialism and idealism in the 19th century? Do you think Marx achieved this, or not?

Yes, I think he did.  See, life is much easier when you ask me my opinions rather than assuming them, incorrectly, based on misreadings of my posts.

Great! We're getting somewhere!So, given the unity of ideal and material, what ideology do you employ to understand nature?I'm open about mine, because I agree with you that Marx succeeded in this task, with his idea of 'theory and practice', and his hope for the methodological unity of physics and sociology (for example) is something we can attempt to produce.So, if you accept 'sociology' is ideological, then 'physics' is ideological, too.What political ideology should the proletariat employ within proletarian science?Yeah, it's so much easier when we discuss, and answer each others questions, isn't it?

[Young Master Smeet]

Lbird,well my starting point would be that I understand the term ideology very different from you, I don't use it to mean a set of ideas or creed but a process of power relations and their effect on ideas and prceptions of the world.  In that sense I don't subscribe to an ideology.I'd say that the objects of study are different for sociology and physics, but that both are amenable to historical explication and analysis.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

…I understand the term ideology … to mean …a process of power relations and their effect on ideas and prceptions of the world.

And you don't think that 'power relations' affect our understanding of 'nature'?I do, which is why I think physics is human and thus ideological, because physics is theorised and done within a society.

YMS wrote:

I'd say that the objects of study are different for sociology and physics…

But if 'objects' are 'real' (whether 'material' or 'ideal'), how can they be 'different'?To me, this ideological belief in the 'objective difference' between 'humans' and 'rocks' is the basis of the separation of the sciences into the 'real' sciences (ie. physics) and the 'pretend' sciences (ie. sociology, politics, etc.).Whenever a Communist talks of the science of society, the bourgeois academics reply "But that's not real science!".They believe that 'real science' is outside of politics and opinions, and is based on 'reality' (meaning 'physical'), because they have a neutral method which gives them access to 'reality'.And where does your belief, that 'objects of study' are different, leave Marx's project for methodological unity of science? Do you think that this is impossible? Remember, I consider either belief an ideological belief, with implications for politics, especially the democratic control of the economy (and forces of production, like science).

[Young Master Smeet]

The objects of study are different because some are repeatable and amenabl to experiment, whereas some events are not repeatable and capable only of explanation.  The unifying force is history and historical explanation and the understaqnding of the human role in both processs.  No amount of power effects the peterbations of venus but it can (has and does) effect the decision and process to look at them.Science, to me, is any organised system of knowledge.  Hence the sweet science of boxing.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

The objects of study are different because some are repeatable and amenabl to experiment…

Well, this is certainly a basic staple of bourgeois ideology about science, YMS! In fact, much of physics is not even 'experimentable', never mind 'repeatable'. And experiments are human constructs, not contemplation of the object, which Marx condemned. So, to 'experiment' is to interfere.

YMS wrote:

…whereas some events are not repeatable and capable only of explanation.

So, for you, some science, at least, is not capable of explanation? That's a strange position to take. Perhaps I've misunderstood you.

YMS wrote:

The unifying force is history and historical explanation and the understaqnding of the human role in both processs.

[my italics]But 'understanding of the human role' applies to 'rocks', just as much as 'the state', surely?'Understanding' in physics has a history, which is recognised by the bourgeois thinkers, as much as by us. Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lakatos come to mind. 'Selecting' which rock to study, for example, is a human choice. Rocks do not force themselves upon us! And rocks are parts of structures, so selecting a 'rock' to study requires parameters of selection which discard some aspects of the rock.

YMS wrote:

No amount of power effects the peterbations of venus but it can (has and does) effect the decision and process to look at them.

But science isn't about 'the peterbations of venus', but is about 'our understanding of the peterbations of venus', a human and social understanding which is entirely within the range of 'power'.This distinction is at the heart of the debate with positivists: they claim to know the 'object' (the p of v), whereas scientists since Einstein have known that they are dealing with 'knowledge' of the object (social knowledge of the p of v).'Knowledge' and 'Object' are different things, unless one subscribes to a reflection theory of knowledge (naive realism), like Engels, Lenin and the positivists. Marx though that both subject and object, by their interaction, produce knowledge. That is, 'theory and practice' produce knowledge.My comradely advice, YMS, is to look further into some of the ideological beliefs that you hold about 'science'. I mean this advice well.

YMS wrote:

Science, to me, is any organised system of knowledge.

Hmmmm… religion is an 'organised system of knowledge', too. Surely you're interested in 'who' does the 'organising'? I prefer the democratic proletariat to do my 'organising of knowledge', rather than priests.

[ALB]

DJP wrote:

ALB wrote:

Is he saying that German materialism is a form of his "naturalistic realism" or that "German idealism" is?

Can't quite work it out either but after watching the questions and answers in that video (the last 15 minutes) wouldn't be suprised if he is talking about Idealism..

If that's the case it's not clear what he's trying to get at here. Even less when he entitles a talk or article:

Quote:

"Realistic monism: why physicalism entails panpsychism"

Sounds a bit like our friend here who says that "idealism" and "materialism" can we combined. But there are two levels involved here.1. What is knowledge (epistemology)?2.  The contents of knowledge (theories about the world)?Re 1. Dietzgen and Pannekoek argue that knowledge is a description of the ever-changing passing world of phenomena. I agree with Bottomore and Rubel here that the theory of knowledge (epistemology) was not something Marx took an interest in. Even less in ontology, the theory of the nature of reality, which for Dietzgen and Pannekoek  was the whole universe (everything as a whole). I'm not sure that Engels was interested in this sort of thing either. They were more interested in explaining what happened in history and in changing society. The both of them probably just assumed that what the scientists of their day were doing (and Marx was as interested in this as Engels) was "discovering" or "uncovering" the physical world "as it really was". I could be wrong. It doesn't matter all that much anyway.Re 2. is about the status (valid, useful, etc) of desciptions of parts of the world of phenomena (parts of reality).  This is where idealism, materialism, etc come in. They are rival descriptions of parts of reality. Personally I've long been convinced that materialism is the best/most useful description in terms of describing what happened and predicting what will happen (if something else happens), e.g. that the physical world existed before life, that a brain can't function in the absence of living physical body, that there is no afterlife,that  no supernatural being intervened or intervenes in the evolution either of the physical world or of life or of history or of present-day society.  I'm sure both Marx and Engels would have been materialists in this sense. After all, it was atheism (the criticism of religion) that led them to socialism (the criticism of the existing material conditions of life).I don't know why Stawson wants to give some credibilty to "panpsychism"(that mind is part of everything). which strikes me not only as a useless theory but as mumbo-jumbo. Or was he being ironic or provocative?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

I'm merely trying to help you see the differences between 'materialism' (perceptual existence, something to be sensed) and 'realism' (causal existence, a power to make things happen). 

Sorry last time I checked that is not what "realism" means..http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

I don't know why Stawson wants to give some credibilty to "panpsychism"(that mind is part of everything). which strikes me not only as a useless theory but as mumbo-jumbo. Or was he being ironic or provocative?

I think he's just trying to formulate a coherent materialist philosophy of mind and how you fit experiential reality into that.Very roughly we have three options.1. Experientail reality does not exist it just seems like it does.2. Experiential reality arrises out of or is an emergent property of non-experiencal matter when organised in the right way.3. Experiental reality "goes all the way down". That is there is little a proto-element of experience in the smallest components of matter, not that there is a "something it is like to be" for rocks, tables and chairs.The problem with number two is demonstrated below: Perhaps number 3 isn't as mad as it first seems. There's a 10 minute podcast here:http://philosophybites.com/2012/05/galen-strawson-on-panpsychism.htmlBut I don't think the question of socialism turns on any of these things…

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

But there are two levels involved here.

Just pulled this from wikipedia…

wikipedia wrote:

One must distinguish "stuff monism" from "thing monism".[3] According to stuff monism there is only one kind of stuff (e.g. matter or mind), although there may be many things made out of this stuff. According to thing-monism there exists strictly speaking only a single thing (e.g. the universe), which can only be artificially and arbitrarily divided into many things.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism

So Deitzgen would be a "thing monist" I guess.But I'm not sure how well the distinction holds, can't we say that there is one single thing (the universe) and that is made of one kind of stuff (matter)? I guess the distinction mirrors the differences between metaphysical materialism and epistemic materialism…

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

I'm merely trying to help you see the differences between 'materialism' (perceptual existence, something to be sensed) and 'realism' (causal existence, a power to make things happen). 

Sorry last time I checked that is not what "realism" means..http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/

Well, I've tried to help you, DJP.Unless you start to question what ideology your links are espousing, you'll remain confused.If you want to know what 'realism' means, why not ask comrades their opinion, and then think about it, rather than posting an uncriticised link?Essentially, what you're doing is responding to Marxists trying to explain what 'value' means, by posting links to sites written by neo-classical economists.Well, it's no point you reading any further when I discuss 'realism', because you're using the wrong ideology to understand me. If you're not prepared to try to understand realism in terms that a realist uses, then I can't help you any further.I suspect you think that there is an 'objective point' in the universe, and that plato.stanford.edu has access to it.

[Author]

Posts