Reason and Science in Danger.
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L.B. Neill wrote: “It is an example you ask for. And hope my tired attempts help (it has been a long year).
Stay safe
LB”
Thanks – in fact, you gave several examples!
It’s clear to me that we’re very far apart in our respective views about society, reality and science.
My views flow from Marx – I’m a Democratic Communist, so my views about all three of those start from the need for a political theory that stresses ‘democratic social production‘.
I don’t think that looking to ‘individual biological opinion‘ is useful in any of these areas.
I believe that society, reality and science are socio-historical productions, so that they can always be located in specific societies at specific times. I don’t agree that there are any ‘universal’ or ‘absolute’ things or ‘stuff’, about which the bourgeoisie has, for the first time in human history, been given a way to this ‘absolute’.
Ironically, given that you declare that you are a postmodernist (in some way), many of your statements above (like ‘stubbing your toe’ and ‘reality’) show that you have far more in common with the materialists here, than the Marxists!
It would be very interesting to explore this affinity of postmodernism with materialism, and the complete absence in both of any mention of ‘democracy’ when determining ‘reality’, but perhaps we’ve gone as far we can, on this forum.
Thanks again, L.B., for an enlightening discussion.
Ok, LBN, I can see what he’s done. He’s taken a concept originally intended to be about the social sciences, added plebiscitary democracy and extended it to the physical sciences — and ended up in a complete theoretical mess, inadvertently disproving his theory on the principle of reductio ad absurdum ie shoots himself in the foot.
What is annoying is that he drags in Marx who never dabbled in such ideas and attributes them to him.
Remember that Vladimir Lenin created his own Marxism, and used Marxist phraseology but in essence, it was a distortion, he is doing the same thing. School of Frankfurt in disguise
Probably they should join the School of Henry George
ALB wrote: “What is annoying is that he drags in Marx who never dabbled in such ideas and attributes them to him”
Marx certainly did ‘dabble in’ democratic social production.
Only the bourgeoisie separate ‘nature’ from ‘society’ – Marx certainly didn’t. ‘Nature’ separate from ‘Society’ is a ruling class idea.
It’s as if you’ve never actually read Marx, ALB!
Good luck with ‘the physical’! It’s as if Marx never wrote a word that you understand.
‘Value’ and ‘Matter’ are social creations, and we can change them. We do not need to ‘contemplate’ them.
If a ‘biological individual’ can determine ‘matter’, then a ‘biological individual’ can determine ‘value’.
Your ideology and politics are suitable for bourgeois economics and bourgeois science. ‘Value/Matter’ is regarded by you as an individual estimation, rather than a social product, which we can change.
It must be very annoying for you to keep reading about Marx and Democratic Communism, ALB, but this is your future. You’re going to have to come out of the 18th century, reject bourgeois ruling class ideas, and embrace democracy.
Isn’t that what the SPGB is supposed to be about? Why keep denying democracy?
Marx defined ideology as the prevailing ideas of the ruling class, and the actual one is the bourgeoise ideology, according to several messages in this thread, it looks that there are several bourgeoise ideologies, and that everything is an ideology, even more, communism is not an ideology and it is not philosophy either
Philosophy is not ideology. Materialism is philosophy.
Bolshevism, Maoism, Hitlerism are ideologies.
Do not change my ideas, I am an old fox, I said socialism is not a philosophy and it is not an ideology, the working class is not a ruling class, for Marx philosophy are the ideas of the ruling class, and he considered philosophy as. speculation and contemplation of the world. Bolshevism, Maoism and Hitlerism are not socialist conceptions, they are bourgosie reformist conceptions
LBird,
Yes it certainly provided for debate- it is important to any healthy democratic society.
When I discuss social science and its usefulness- it is to communicate how important it can be to a healthy social formation (people and persons).
Norman Fairclouth is a useful example of how Marxism and social science open up the field of discourse in helping professions. He founded a particular methods, Critical Discourse, that are significantly utilised in social work, counselling and social research. You can trace the development of his ideas back to to some of Foucault, and yet further back (using the bibliography or references in each test), and at many points arrive to Marx, leading to the development of CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis). You see, traces of Marx find their way into helping profession journals often- if he is not referenced directly, then indirectly through more recent critiques.
Disciplines do form specialised ways of working, and borrow from each other too.
Mental and the material is like saying: how do we tell the dancer from the dance. Matter will exist even if we fail to even see it- but when we do see it and cognise it, we develop schemas, thoughts and representations about it. Yes we socially construct democracy, and we are socially informed by it through our community. It is a sociopolitical activity- it is socially mediated by a community- otherwise we would not be able to think in its terms.
And that is the best I can do early in the morning on the other side of the globe- less my brain quits its job and leaves me stranded.
Stay safe,
In section 3 of Volume I of Capital, Marx says that a commodity has two forms: “a physical or natural form, and a value form” and goes on:
”The value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity”
So. Marx does indeed say that value has a “purely social reality” in that it is an expression of a non-physical social relation. But this not mean that its magnitude is purely arbitrary and can be changed by a vote or some other act of collective will. It depends, as he says, on the amount of socially necessary labour that has been embodied in it.
Marxian economics certainly does not hold that the value of a commodity depends on what people collectively decide it is (though there is a school of capitalist economic theory that does hold that view).
And it certainly does mean that the other form of a commodity — its “physical or natural form” — also has a “purely social reality” and so even less that the “matter” (Marx’s term) which forms its substance can be decided or changed by a vote.
twc wrote:
If “we” constructed “our” world “for
us”, “we” did a lousy job.I sound like Lenin reading the Science of the logic of Hegel
Just wanted to say to all,
Thanks for the challenge- I discovered so much and about how I am tracking and developing in Socialist thought. Even when the challenge gets near on personal- it is ideas being wrestled- and so much pops up!
I am about to embark on reading Capital with a more astute reading posture … I will post if I run in to any complexes…
🙂 thanks
LB- no need to use the Neill- sounds formal.
L.B. Neill wrote: “Mental and the material is like saying: how do we tell the dancer from the dance. Matter will exist even if we fail to even see it…”
But your second sentence contradicts your first, L.B.
The second says (in effect) ‘the dance will exist without the dancer‘.
This is the whole point of post-Kantian, German Idealist, and Marx’s philosophy. There has to be a ‘dancer’, in any account of ‘the dance’.
There isn’t a ‘dance’ simply ‘out there’, taking place without ‘the dancer’.
It’s been pointed out by many philosophers that ‘materialism’ is, ironically, a form of ‘idealism’.
Materialism simply replaces ‘god’ as the active dancer, with ‘matter’ as the active dancer. As Marx realised, both regard ‘humanity’ as the passive element.
For Marx, ‘the dance’ is a social product, and ‘the dancer’ is humanity. Both idealism and materialism deny this. Again, as Marx pointed out, if the ideology pretends that humanity is the passive element, it has to smuggle in human activity for an elite: hence, either ‘priests’ or ‘scientists’, who are outside of any democratic controls.
Lenin’s ‘party consciousness’ also provided this elite, separated from the political control of the whole class. That’s why Lenin defended ‘materialism’ to the death.
Oh LBird,
Both the mental and the material matter. The terms ‘matter’ (what counts for something) and ‘matter’ (a tangible substance, even if we can’t see it) are linguistic units. If we keep collapsing their significance- and reducing them into even small, less able to sign parts- the debate will find no closure, and all becomes a relativism “saying A is as good as B is as good as .C”
We are all in it together, working it out, and making it count for something.
Material and mental need each other. If I think then my neurons fire: a mental material process. I am able to dance because I am physical, and I dance as a dancer. I am a poor dancer- I dance like Mr Bean, poorly.
We are not passive elements- or why seek to educate that we can consciously change the mode of production? The base was created, and yes, the base can be changed.
I hope my part in this debate was helpful- you know, as ALB may have clarified:
“In section 3 of Volume I of Capital, Marx says that a commodity has two forms: “a physical or natural form, and a value form” and goes on:
”The value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity”
So. Marx does indeed say that value has a “purely social reality” in that it is an expression of a non-physical social relation. But this not mean that its magnitude is purely arbitrary and can be changed by a vote or some other act of collective will. It depends, as he says, on the amount of socially necessary labour that has been embodied in it.
Marxian economics certainly does not hold that the value of a commodity depends on what people collectively decide it is (though there is a school of capitalist economic theory that does hold that view).
And it certainly does mean that the other form of a commodity — its “physical or natural form” — also has a “purely social reality” and so even less that the “matter” (Marx’s term) which forms its substance can be decided or changed by a vote.”
I think he puts it well- or puts it in a way that is helpful to me.
Metaphors are funny things- and encourage memory and thought- and yet might differ depending on who uses them and with what intention.
I think along the way the argument dived into so much, and with so little room… but I am glad to have debated with you , and the others. We learn from it.
Be well
LB,
Thanks too, L.B.
If I had to put my finger on the difference between us, it’s that, as a Democratic Communist, I have to espouse an ideology that allows for the democratic control of ‘matter’.
This political aim isn’t, from what I can tell, part of your problematic. Which is fair enough, most people on this planet, at present, don’t want democratic control of ‘matter’.
But, this political aim is a fundamental part of the socialist project – if humanity as a whole, employing democratic methods, doesn’t control ‘matter’, who does? The answer must be an elite. Even if that ‘elite’ is the isolated, biological individual, the Robinsonade, as Marx called them, who, simply by ‘kicking their toe against a rock’, can assure themselves that they, as an individual, ‘know reality’. No need to educate oneself about history, society, science, politics, philosophy… just a kick, and all that need for political self-education as a class simply goes away!
Well, L.B. if you’re satisfied with ‘the physical’ as the last word… as I said, ‘the democratic production of the physical’ isn’t part of your ideology, so that’s fine for you. 😛
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