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[LBird]

twc wrote:

Drivel.

Glad to see you're keeping up with human thought.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

That won't work because it assumes that the word "know" meant the same then as it does today. Which it didn't, so we'd be using the word in two different senses.

You're making this up as you go along, mate!Why not discuss what I've said about Pannekoek, and indeed Marx?We've not even got to Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend or Lakatos.I'll let you have the last word, ALB, because we're clearly not taking this forward, and the 'contributions' of twc make me despair.Thanks, anyway, for the discussion, comrade.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

ALB wrote:

That won't work because it assumes that the word "know" meant the same then as it does today. Which it didn't, so we'd be using the word in two different senses.

You're making this up as you go along, mate!

No, I'm making a serious point. On what basis did those who in the 17th century said that the Sun went round the Earth say this? Because the bible said so (Joshua was supposed to have stopped the Sun in its orbit round the Earth). So, unless you think that the bible is a legitimate source of knowledge, there is no reason for saying that people in the 17th century and before "knew" that the Sun went round the Earth. In modern terms, they claimed this but, by the standards which we employ to validate a claim to be "knowledge", this claim was not valid. So, however you do describe their claim ("belief", perhaps?) the words "know" cannot be applied in relation to it.On the other hand, if you base your claim about them "knowing" that the Sun went round the Earth on them considering the bible a legitimate source of knowledge, then you need to explain when (and why) the bible ceased to be this. Otherwise, you won't be able to refute a claim made today on the basis of what the bible says that the Sun still goes round the Earth. There must be some people who still claim this, so in fact how would you refute them?

LBird wrote:

Why not discuss what I've said about Pannekoek, and indeed Marx?

Nothing to discuss. I agree (and have long agreed) with Pannekoek's theory of the nature of science and knowledge. I even agreed with the description of "critical realism" you gave to the ICC. What I'm not agreeing with is the conclusion you have drawn from it that in the past "knowledge" varied from time to time or even in different places at the same time.

LBird wrote:

We've not even got to Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend or Lakatos.

Last year a comrade (not one who has taken part in this discussion) gave a talk on "Marxism, Physics and Philosophy". It can be listened to here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/marxism-physics-and-philosophy

[LBird]

Marxism, Physics and Philosophy pt.1.mp3, 29:19, said not wrote:

We make the truth

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Drivel. We acted before we were conscious of it. Consciousness comes after.

Marxism, Physics and Philosophy, pt.1.mp3, 30:02, said not wrote:

Practical action is conscious deliberate action.

[ALB]

I knew you'd like it. Here's the passage in full from the paper version:

Quote:

Marxist philosophy starts from the premise that the world around us isn’t something objective or external which we can study from outside. As we are part of the world, we interact with it, rather than just observe it. This is one of the meanings of his famous quote “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it”. I know that this quote isn’t usually interpreted in quite this way, but that’s because it’s been taken out of context. The usual meaning of this quote is that there’s little point in sitting around theorising about society and its problems, it’s more important to do something about it. And Marx does mean this as well. But, as he wrote it, it came at the end of his eleven short Theses on Feuerbach. This is probably the most famous part of his early, more philosophical writings. These works formed the philosophical foundations of his later economic writings, and therefore they shouldn’t be seen as less important than what’s in Das Capital. When the quote “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” appears, it’s after a discussion on how Marx thinks scientific explanations can ignore the vital role of human experience. After all, scientific explanations wouldn’t be there in the first place, if people hadn’t come up with them. So, Marx deliberately gave a double meaning to his quote. The more well-known meaning, and the meaning that the truth isn’t an abstract thing to be studied. We make the truth. The second Thesis on Feuerbach expands on this notion: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question” (Early Writings, p.422-423).So, Marx is saying that practical action is part of the way to reach the truth, it can’t be separated from it. And here, practical action must surely mean conscious, deliberate action.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Marxism, Physics and Philosophy pt.1.mp3, 29:19, said not wrote:

We make the truth

Not the same of course as "we make up the truth" ! Marx's position here is more like "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" (as I think Engels once remarked). It also seems near to the position of the "Pragmatist" school of philosophy (at least as explained in this passage from wikipedia):

Quote:

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that began in the United States around 1870. Pragmatism is a rejection of the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. Instead, pragmatists develop their philosophy around the idea that the function of thought is as an instrument or tool for prediction, action, and problem solving. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics–such as the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief, and science–are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes rather than in terms of representative accuracy.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

…as I think Engels once remarked…

Engels?!Christ, we are on a slippery slope here, comrade, if we're turning to Engels' ideas on philosophy!Perhaps you should consult within the party, ALB? How about the chap who did that talk you linked to?

[ALB]

Engels isn't that bad. In fact, his Socialism, Scientific and Utopian is the best introduction there is to "Marxism". It can even be called its founding document.His comment about the "proof of the pudding" is in the introduction he wrote for English edition of 1892. Here's what he wrote:

Quote:

Again, our agnostic admits that all our knowledge is based upon the information imparted to us by our senses. But, he adds, how do we know that our senses give us correct representations of the objects we perceive through them? And he proceeds to inform us that, whenever we speak of objects, or their qualities, of which he cannot know anything for certain, but merely the impressions which they have produced on his senses. Now, this line of reasoning seems undoubtedly hard to beat by mere argumentation. But before there was argumentation, there was action. Im Anfang war die That. [from Goethe's Faust: "In the beginning was the deed."] And human action had solved the difficulty long before human ingenuity invented it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. From the moment we turn to our own use these objects, according to the qualities we perceive in them, we put to an infallible test the correctness or otherwise of our sense-perception. If these perceptions have been wrong, then our estimate of the use to which an object can be turned must also be wrong, and our attempt must fail. But, if we succeed in accomplishing our aim, if we find that the object does agree with our idea of it, and does answer the purpose we intended it for, then that is proof positive that our perceptions of it and of its qualities, so far, agree with reality outside ourselves. And, whenever we find ourselves face-to-face with a failure, then we generally are not long in making out the cause that made us fail; we find that the perception upon which we acted was either incomplete and superficial, or combined with the results of other perceptions in a way not warranted by them — what we call defective reasoning. So long as we take care to train our senses properly, and to keep our action within the limits prescribed by perceptions properly made and properly used, so long as we shall find that the result of our action proves the conformity of our perceptions with the objective nature of the things perceived. Not in one single instance, so far, have we been led to the conclusion that our sense-perception, scientifically controlled, induce in our minds ideas respecting the outer world that are, by their very nature, at variance with reality, or that there is an inherent incompatibility between the outer world and our sense-perceptions of it.

Make of it what you will.

[twc]

LBird wrote:

Glad to see you’re keeping up with human thought.

Really?[Gone beyond it.]Of course I recognize your Kuhnian point. It is the central plank of your Lakatosian/Kuhnian/Feyerabendian [LKF] inspiration that, because theory dictates scientific practice, science must start with theory.Anyone who reads and rereads the remarkable “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” cheers when Kuhn murders Popper on this very point.Again, I am not alarmed as you are by the fact that the social superstructure [which includes science and class ideology, proper] is a social construct.Marx’s, apparently dismissible materialist conception of history “social being determines consciousness” presented that to the world a century before LKF, who took it off him in timid emasculated form.Sure, capitalist ideology is our target.But I suggest you look at how the Marxian economists of the world absolutely and mercilessly demolished Marx on the basis of the honest, openly transparent — all assumptions exposed — mathematical tract by Piero Sraffa [1960] on the “Production of Commodities by Commodities”.[Seek out if you want to be humiliated by friendly fire, Steedman’s [1977] apparently devastating demolition “Marx after Sraffa”. And Sraffa’s intention was to trounce the marginalists and to shore up Marx, not to destroy him in the process.]You then might realize that the problems we face here and now run deeper than your simplistic fear of that 18th century materialist dogma that “ideology rules the world”.To rejoin the actual world, where fierce battles are fought, read Andrew Kliman’s [2008] amazing rescue of Marx — “Reclaiming Marx’s Capital ”. Then you may observe a striking instance of how ideology actually operates to paralyze thought and action.Theory and PracticeSure, theory decides what observation is and how to make it. Not a difficult concept to understand, since theory was abstracted from observation expressly for this purpose. But, despite this, it is equally apparent that observation just as certainly determines how to make theory.Both statements demonstrably apply at the level of immediate experience — at the level of appearance.The explanation can never be, as you surmise, one of mere interaction, or alternation. between both. Thereby hangs the miraculous metaphysical assumption that two opposing determinisms are exactly equally balanced or are somehow harmonically coupled as swings and roundabouts — extraordinary equalities or couplings worth trumpeting to the skies.The solution to such paradoxes [man makes history but history makes man; social existence determines consciousness but consciousness determines social existence; theory determines observation, but observation determines theory] lies in precisely acknowledging that both horns are equally correct at the phenomenological level.The point is that this acknowledged complementarity, being appearance, is what must be explained by reality — by science. Hegel always saw such doubles as two sides of the same coin, and therein lies the secret to building the science.But, building a science is hard work. When we come to theorize the science, we abstract from appearance, which implies we must analyze that appearance, for it is that appearance we want to explain.And what we abstract from appearance will always be experientially false, simply because our abstractions are not the same as immediate experience. [They could hardly hold for all material instances if they actually held for any one of them.]Take the sciences that LKB study. Those sciences work for us precisely because their abstractions [categories and determinisms] also don’t apply immediately to any actuality. They only apply as abstract categories mediated by abstract determinism. [Both categories and determinism are abstracted from appearance.]That makes your Kuhnian point that it’s the abstract theory which is on trial, and not any one of its determinations [or, viewed as appearance, any one observation].The trouble is that LKF work with appearances when they theorize the science of science. Marx, who understood these issues more deeply than they, consciously works with abstractions and deterministically derives appearances from them. That is also how LKF’s sciences operate. But it is not how these philosophers operate.Consequently these philosophers [at least one, Kuhn, is a giant, while Lakatos with his minor “research programs” circles like a minor planet around his Kuhnian sun, and Feyerabend is somewhere off in the Kuiper Belt] trail a legacy, taken up by non-determinists who learn their own science by cherry-picking from LKF’s philosophical science of science.The pitiable residue is little more than “IDEOLOGY RULZ”. What a sorry fate for such remarkable work.Marx explains the appearance of scientific practice by decidedly coming out against your confident clinging to appearance — as true disciple of the ideological streak in LKF.Theoretically for Marx — and theory is the only reality for us — practice precedes theory. At the level of the theory of theory: Social being determines consciousness.PostscriptSurely you recognize the formalism of deterministic science as subsuming your static tripartite model, supplying the necessary dynamics that turns your schema into a process, and the necessary determinism that turns theory, in principle, into a self-checking and self-correcting human enterprise.I have no fears of ideology under socialism [but that’s another thread].I oppose your restrictions on human thought and human endeavour. I consider them to be utter madness.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Engels isn't that bad. In fact, his Socialism, Scientific and Utopian is the best introduction there is to "Marxism". It can even be called its founding document.

Now I know why our stances are different, ALB.My mistake, I've made a gross error, if the SPGB look to Engels' (and Plekhanov, Kautsky and Lenin's) philosophical views of 'materialism'.The very antithesis of Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, and Pannekoek's views of praxis (the unity of theory and practice).19th century 'materialism', eh? Personally, I blame Charlie – if he'd written a bit clearer, we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.[and I know Charlie wrote chapter 2.10 of Anti-Duhring]

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

My mistake, I've made a gross error, if the SPGB look to Engels' (and Plekhanov, Kautsky and Lenin's) philosophical views of 'materialism'.

You're mistaken if you think there is some kind of homogenous 'party line' on this matter, you're also mistaken if you think all the contributors to this thread are SPGB members.But I would like to know where or how specifically you think Anti-Duhring is antithetical to Lenin as Philosopher.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

You're mistaken if you think there is some kind of homogenous 'party line' on this matter, you're also mistaken if you think all the contributors to this thread are SPGB members.

Perhaps there isn't a formal 'party line', even amongst the non-members, but the lack of any support at all for my arguments regarding science, truth and knowledge on this thread clearly shows that I'm in the wrong place.There's no problem, as I said, it's my mistake.

DJP wrote:

But I would like to know where or how specifically you think Anti-Duhring is antithetical to Lenin as Philosopher.

I haven't got the energy any longer, comrade. I know when I'm beaten.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Now I know why our stances are different, ALB.My mistake, I've made a gross error, if the SPGB look to Engels' (and Plekhanov, Kautsky and Lenin's) philosophical views of 'materialism'.

As DJP has pointed out, this is wrong inference. The only "philosphical " requirement for joining the SPGB is that you are not religious, i.e. are some sort of materialist. Which of course covers a multitude of sins. Personally, I like Dietzgen and Panneloek. Others like Plekhanov (I don't). There are even people who like Hegel (not me, I'm an anti-Hegelian). I don't think anybody likes Lenin Matertialism and Empirio-Criticism. Some members like Logical Positivism. Basically, as long as you're not religious (or idealist), anything goes (including yours!)  After all, socialism is a practical proposition, not a philosophical one.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Basically, as long as you're not religious (or idealist), anything goes (including yours!) After all, socialism is a practical proposition, not a philosophical one.

But I think that there are political implications from what I've argued.To me, anyone who wants to leave scientists in charge of science might as well be wanting to leave property owners in charge of property. I regard 'science' as a central bastion of bourgeois authority, a bit like the 'market', in that its 'rules' are not subject to human control.As I've said, I've read other comrades argue that 'according to science…'. This is identical to saying 'according to the market…'.This all sprang from the use of that type of argument against Sotionov (remember them, long ago?). Science is not a value-free method of producing the 'truth'. I think it's bourgeois ideology to argue that it is. You can see the political problems that would flow from that.

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