Materialism, aspects and history.
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John Oswald wrote:Consciousness in my view is a property of matter, not something separate.It depends on what you mean by 'a property', John.If you agree with Marx's idealism-materialism, which regards both 'ideal' and 'material' to have the same status as being 'natural', and that neither can be separated from the other when discussing humans and their knowledge of their world (both ideal and material), then there's no problem.When we're discussing humans and their production of knowledge, both ideal and material are involved.But the bourgeoisie, when they took control of 'science' in the latter part of the 17th century, insisted that they had a method ('induction') that allowed them to 'know' the 'material' without any intervention of the 'ideal'. That is, they claimed that they could produce 'objective knowledge', by which they meant a 'copy' of the 'material'. This ideological belief in the removal of 'ideas' from 'knowledge' allowed them to claim that they were simply 'discovering' nature as it is, rather than what humans actually do (and as Marx pointed out), which is use ideas to change the material.Marx argued for 'theory and practice', which stresses the need to identify the 'theory' prior to the 'practice', because human ideas play an active part in the process of producing 'knowledge'. From this, we can tell, because human ideas are always involved, and ideas are always social, that 'knowledge' can't be 'objective' (in the sense of being identical to 'matter'), but is always a social (and thus historical) product. So, our knowledge of 'rocks', for example, is a social creation, rather than a 'mirror' of something 'out there'. So, different societies understand 'rocks' differently.This is, of course, anathema to bourgeois science, which reached its height in the 19th century with 'positivism', because it is necessary for any ruling class to eternalise its rule, and pretend that its philosophies and practices are 'universal'. Bourgeois science insists that at root 'nature' is 'material', and that their 'knowledge' of the 'material' is final and can't be criticised or changed.Unfortunately for us Communists (and Marxists), 19th century positivism was having its greatest triumph just when Engels was taking an (amateur) interest in epistemology. He forget (or never understood) what Marx had argued in the 1840s, that even our senses are social (and so, different individuals in different societies would 'experience' their 'material world' differently). Engels fell for bourgeois ideology, and started to argue that 'matter' could be understood outside of politics. This is still a battle cry of ruling class ideology, to 'keep politics out of physics'. As if!
JO wrote:Matter thinks, feels.No, consciousness 'thinks, feels'.Nature consists of both 'consciousness' and 'being' (subject and object, ideas and rocks, intangible and tangible, etc.) and so to reduce nature to matter (that is, to reduce 'consciousness' to 'matter') is to follow bourgeois ideology.The word to focus on here, John, is 'reduction'. 'Religious Materialists' always reduce 'consciousness' to 'matter', and so end up smuggling in through the back door 'consciousness' is some other form, usually as their own 'consciousness'. The RM-ers are always elitists, like the Leninists who also subscribe to Engels' erroneous ideas on 'matter', and they insist that some elite does have a consciousness which is denied to the rest of society. Thus, the RM-ers refuse to allow democracy in the social creation of truth, because they argue that only they have a special method which only they can employ and which produces 'The Truth'.Marx warned of this in his Theses on Feuerbach, that society would be separated into two parts, the one smaller part claiming to be superior to the other larger part, and so outside of the reach of democracy.If you would like to read the relevent things that Marx wrote about these issues, I can provide them in another post. Just ask.In these discussions, prior to your arrival, I always used to back up what I said about idealism-materialism (theory and practice) with quotes, extracts from passages, to which I always provided a link to the original text, so the other comrades could read the extracts for themselves in context. But I found that the Religious Materialists, as true believers, refused to read and discuss what Marx, Engels, Pannekoek and many others actually wrote, but merely reiterated their beliefs, which they held dear and would not criticise.Be warned, John. 'Matter' plays the role of 'God' in their formulations. Marx does not discuss 'matter', and when he refers to 'material' he is always referring to human production, not 'matter' outside of 'consciousness'. By 'material', Marx means social production, and so is always talking about human ideas and human practice.
LBird wrote:Any 'materialism' which separates nature into two essences (the 'material' and the 'ideal', of which only the former is regarded as 'real') is forced to bring in 'ideas' and 'consciousness' by the back door. Engels was the thinker who brought this 'old-style mechanical materialism' back into socialist thought, after Marx had attempted to unite the two in a philosophy of 'theory and practice', which by its nature requires both the 'ideal' (consciousness, spirit, geist) and 'material' (a 'material substratum' to quote Marx) to be worked upon by human labour (mental and physical).And yet Engels is the guy who wrote this…"And, in fact, with every day that passes we are acquiring a better understanding of these laws and getting to perceive both the more immediate and the more remote consequences of our interference with the traditional course of nature. In particular, after the mighty advances made by the natural sciences in the present century, we are more than ever in a position to realise, and hence to control, also the more remote natural consequences of at least our day-to-day production activities. But the more this progresses the more will humanity not only feel but also know their oneness with nature, and the more impossible will become the senseless and unnatural idea of a contrast between mind and matter, humanity and nature, soul and body, such as arose after the decline of classical antiquity in Europe and obtained its highest elaboration in Christianity." (my emphasis) https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/
Yes, robbo, Engels did write that, amongst other things that contradicted it. He was confused.But, even given what you've quoted, the Religious Materialists still insist that 'consciousness' can be reduced to 'matter'.'Matter' was a hobbyhorse of Engels, not of Marx.When Marx wrote of 'material', he was talking about 'human production', not 'matter'.You've heard of 'theory and practice', I presume.If 'consciousness' reduces to 'matter', then there is no need for 'theory', just passive observation, and thus the revealed 'Truth'.The Religious Materialists claim to be at one with 'matter', and having 'discovered' it, then it is 'known' for ever.The RM-ers don't agree with Pannekoek, who claims, rightly, that humans create the so-called 'laws of physics'. He knows that we can't separate a knowing subject from a known object.Theory is an essential part of 'knowing', which is a creative human act, by a society. And so, 'knowledge' being social, it is also historical, and we can place when science produces 'knowledge' and when it later rejects that 'knowledge'. Thus, we can have a history of 'Truth' and show its creation and dissolution by humans, over time and within different societies.This is all anathema to those RM-ers who follow positivism, and have faith that once 'science' has produced a 'Truth', that it is an 'Eternal Truth'.They believe that 'Truth', once known, is forever 'True'. To argue otherwise, would undermine the authority of bourgeois science and physics, and the RM-ers won't have that.They certainly won't have the producers voting on what they create: their socio-historical truths.'Truth' must be elected, otherwise workers cannot democratically control the means of production, and thus socialism is impossible.
Anyone wishing to expand their knowledge of LBird's theory of idealism- materialism should visit:bollocks.com or if in the UK:bollocks.co.uk
Quote:The RM-ers don't agree with Pannekoek, who claims, rightly, that humans create the so-called 'laws of physics'.Isn't there a section in the Andrew Kliman talk where he quotes Stephen Hawkings saying …"In physics what you believe doesn't matter "
alanjjohnstone wrote:Quote:The RM-ers don't agree with Pannekoek, who claims, rightly, that humans create the so-called 'laws of physics'.Isn't there a section in the Andrew Kliman talk where he quotes Stephen Hawkings saying …"In physics what you believe doesn't matter "
I suppose it all depends on where you think we should look for some suggestions which can help us produce the answers that are needed for us to build towards socialism, alan.Pannekoek, a Communist, who knew that classes and exploitation exist in our society, and that our ideas of our world are shaped by classes.Or, mere physicists, like Hawking, who haven't got a clue about our world, its society and history.Your choice is predetermined, of course, if you already believe the bourgeois myth of a scientific method that produces 'Truth', a truth that is outside of social consciousness.Hawking can only believe that statement if he also believes that 'the rocks talk to him, but not us'.It's a 'ruling class idea', alan, and Hawking, according to your quote, apparently has swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.Let's hope you and other comrades dig a bit deeper into this myth, that 'belief' plays no part in human knowledge, and 'scientific knowledge' is a copy of 'out there'.As a pointer, don't forget about Marx's fundamental concept of a 'mode of production'. If 'knowledge' is 'produced', we should expect 'knowledge' to reflect its 'mode', and if the 'mode' is a class-divided one, we should expect competing ideas about 'knowledge' and its 'production'.Or, we could just say 'Bollocks!' to politics, and just let the physicists tell us 'The Truth'.Hmmmm…. does Hawking reject commodities, money and markets, and do the workings of the market, outside of what we believe about it, just simply 'work', for him? No need to read Capital, then, eh?'Forget Marx, listen to Hawking!' should be the motto of those who wish to keep politics out of physics.
LBird wrote:Yes, robbo, Engels did write that, amongst other things that contradicted it. He was confused.But, even given what you've quoted, the Religious Materialists still insist that 'consciousness' can be reduced to 'matter'.'Matter' was a hobbyhorse of Engels, not of Marx.I'm not convinced that Engels is quite the reductionist you make him out to be. Where is your evidence? His later writings, like the quote I provided seem, if anything, to provide good evidence of an anti reductionist position. To wit, his famous letter to Joseph Bloch (September 21, 1890) in which he said. According to the materialist conception of history the determining element in history is ultimately the production and reproduction in real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted.If therefore somebody twists this into the statement that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms it into a meaningless, abstract and absurd phrase.The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political forms of the class struggle and its consequences, constitutions established by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc. – forms of law – and then even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the combatants: political, legal, philosophical theories, religious ideas and their further development into systems of dogma – also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form.There is an interaction of all these elements in which, amid all the endless host of accidents (i.e., of things and events, whose inner connection is so remote or impossible to prove that we regard it as absent so and can neglect it) the economic movement finally asserts itself as necessary. Otherwise the application of the theory to any period of history one chose would be easier than the solution of a simple equation of the first degree.(my emphasis) If anything this seems closer to an emergence perspective than a reductionist perspective
robbo203 wrote:LBird wrote:Yes, robbo, Engels did write that, amongst other things that contradicted it. He was confused.But, even given what you've quoted, the Religious Materialists still insist that 'consciousness' can be reduced to 'matter'.'Matter' was a hobbyhorse of Engels, not of Marx.I'm not convinced that Engels is quite the reductionist you make him out to be. Where is your evidence? His later writings, like the quote I provided seem, if anything, to provide good evidence of an anti reductionist position.
I know that you're not convinced, robbo, and you won't accept the evidence that I've provided time and again, that show two things:1. Engels can be quoted to support either position;2. Some of Engels' formulations were not shared by Marx.Further, I have shown that Marx, too, was often sloppy in his use of terms, and can be read at times to be agreeing with Engels' mistaken views, that contradict Engels' correct views.Really, to get to the bottom of this, as I've said before, we need to decide what we think is necessary for us to build for socialism (and by this, I mean 'the democratic control of production'), in the form of our ideas about 'science', 'knowledge' and 'truth'.As you have shown, Engels can be quoted to show that mind can't be reduced to matter, but unfortunately he can also be quoted to support the very opposite. That very opposite, just so happens, by pure coincidence [/sarcasm], to be the view held by bourgeois science at its most powerful and influential when Engels was trying to teach himself about 'science'.The fact that Marx had already shown that 'positivism' was philosophically untenable (and which then also became apparent to those physicists in the 20th century who cared to think about it, like Einstein and Bohr), completely missed Engels.The shortest way to get to the root of this is to realise that Marx didn't reject 'idealism', which Engels did do, and then build upon that realisation.But… I've said all this before, and you apparently remain convinced that Marx was a 'materialist', which, if true, would lead us to Hawking's stance.Simply, that belief is the end of any attempt to build for the democratic control of production.We remain the slaves to the thinking of our 'betters', the 'priest-physicists', who 'explain' in 'Latin-maths', and the vast majority simply place their trust, rather than actively engage and change their world, both ideal and material.Only the other week, in The Guardian, Brian Cox said that physicists are merely plumbers.http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/14/brian-cox-interview-royal-societyBut, the Religious Materialists still insist that 'science tells us' and that we should listen to physicists like Hawking.In fact, 'plumbing' is not an authority to be quoted as a final say, the supposed clinching argument, and the 'plumber' Hawking is talking out of his arse. Leave him alone with his mud pies, and let us get on with building for socialism.We have to question the current faith in 'plumbing', as so many contemporary 'plumbers', like Cox, Rovelli and Smolin, do already, and as so many 'plumbers' like Einstein have been doing for nearly a century now.
LBird wrote:[I know that you're not convinced, robbo, and you won't accept the evidence that I've provided time and again, that show two things:1. Engels can be quoted to support either position;2. Some of Engels' formulations were not shared by Marx.I haven't seen this evidence you say you have produced to support the view that Engels was a crude reductionist. Could you please resubmit this evidence or point me in the direction where it can be found
robbo, go back and read some of the numerous threads in which I've discussed these things with you and others, and provided copious evidence.To be truthful, I've been caught out before by the Religious Materialists, and spent hours, days and weeks 'providing evidence', explanation and discussion, but the RM-ers will not engage.If you hold the belief that Marx was a 'materialist', nothing I write here for you will shake your faith. Sorry, but you're going to have to do the work, this time.
Since we've looked at Marx's Theses on Feuerbach many times to prove his 'idealism-materialism', here's another quote from Charlie:
Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (CW3, p. 336), wrote:Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both.[my bold/italics]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htmMarx wasn't a 'materialist'.If we have to give a name to his 'philosophy', it makes much more sense to term it 'idealism-materialism', rather than the obviously one-sided 'materialism'. In fact, if one-sidedness is acceptable, it makes just as much sense to claim that 'Marx is an idealist'.No, he is neither simply an 'idealist' nor simply a 'materialist'.He unifies both in an ideology of 'theory and practice' (what I would describe as 'idealism-materialism', if we are to locate it in its context of the terms then used).The 'belief' that 'Marx was a materialist' (in the sense 'material' is commonly understood, ie. 'matter') comes from Engels.Later, Engels went even further, and claimed that there were only two ways of seeing the world, 'idealism' which was bad, and 'materialism', which was good. This was simply a return to pre-Marxian 'mechanical materialism', in which 'matter' is the 'basis' of all things.As robbo has shown, above, Engels at the end of his life, after Marx's death, seemed to finally be realising where his amateur philosophising was heading, in politics, and wished to backtrack from it, as many of his later letters show (see Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence).Owl of Minerva stuff, eh?
LBird are you saying that because Marx and Engles either fumbled or were confused on the subject we have to decide for ourselves how to establish truth? If so, we have to agree on a starting point and a methodology. Once this is decided on then we have the problems of: 1. Pursuing this objective under the current conditions or keeping it on the shelf until the establishment of socialism? 2. Deciding whether or not this objective is fundamentally necessary to the revolutionary process in its initial stages?
LBird wrote:robbo, go back and read some of the numerous threads in which I've discussed these things with you and others, and provided copious evidence.To be truthful, I've been caught out before by the Religious Materialists, and spent hours, days and weeks 'providing evidence', explanation and discussion, but the RM-ers will not engage.If you hold the belief that Marx was a 'materialist', nothing I write here for you will shake your faith. Sorry, but you're going to have to do the work, this time.LBird, there are numerous threads and tons of posts to plough through to get the precise informationm I asked for – whether Engels was a crude reductionist as you claim he was. I frankly do not have the time to go through all of that. I cannot see why, if you claim to be so familiar with the subject that you cannot reproduce here one or two quotes that you have at your fingertips from Engels to substantiate your view of him You already know my views on "materialism". I was arguing long before you appeared on this forum that the "fact-value" distinction was a bogus one and made clear that I favoured an emergence paradigm over a reductionist model. I have also made a sharp distinction between historical materialism and metaphysical materialism and a particular quarrel I have with the Party is that it – totally unecessarily – makes membership of the organisation effectively conditional upon acceptance of the latter as though it served as some kind of sheet anchor for the former. Hence its bar on religious socialists. I dont think it does and I agree with Alison Assister , an ex SPGBer, that " Marx’s materialism should not be seen as philosophical materialism’ (Alison Assiter "Philosophical Materialism or the Materialist Conception of History", Radical Philosophy, 23 (Winter 1979). In Marx's materialism, theory and practice are indeed unified. In the so called base-superstructure model, there is no such thing as a base which is somehow idea-free and then, functionalist-fashion, "gives rise" – like mushrooms in a compost – to a set of ideas that are conducive to the perpetuation of that base . "Ideas" are there right from the get-go . Property relations presuppose a certain set of social expectations and values and the productive forces are themselves the product of the application of ideas interacting with cicumstances
Brian wrote:…we have the problems of: 1. Pursuing this objective under the current conditions or keeping it on the shelf until the establishment of socialism? 2. Deciding whether or not this objective is fundamentally necessary to the revolutionary process in its initial stages?In answer to 1., if we see building socialism as a process, in which our activity now prefigures what we'll have in socialism, then we have to pursue it under capitalism. Unless there is a critical alternative to capitalism, then capitalism will remain the only alternative.I think the response to 1. also answers 2., too.Whilst markets, individualism and so-called 'objective science' remain unquestioned, the bourgeoisie will retain the upper hand.Unless one believes in the bourgeois myth that the 'material conditions' talk to us, of course…… but the belief in that myth will determine different answers being given to your two questions, Brian. I don't believe in that myth. It is the Leninist myth.
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