Science for Communists?

[Young Master Smeet]

And the process of science is around minimising the potential for bias.  You or  could have an interesting argument down the pub arguing whether or not a wall was yellow.  We couldn't dispute, after measured, whether it was reflecting light with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nanometers.  Per Azimov's essay, we could refine that reading down with sucessively more powerful instruments, and get to ever smaller decimal places in our findings.  That would be a fact which exists for me because it exists for another.  Whether I choose to accept that fact will play with my biases.  What I do with that fact will depend on my biass (yes, the truth is ideological too).

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

…yes, the truth is ideological too…

I'll take that as a small crumb of comfort for twelve months' hard work…

[Young Master Smeet]

Also, I'll pray in aid:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problemFermi estimation: sometims a rule of thumb is good science.  Assumingfootballers are simply two metre high cones produces roughly useful figures for modelling rugby tackles, for instance.  Truth just has to coincide with the world enough.

[Young Master Smeet]

An example of the ideology of truth: it is entirely true that some people fiddle the welfare.  This is incontrovertible.  If this becomes the significant fact that is dwelt upon, that is an action of ideology.  It doesn't change the truth (in fact, no factual disputation will avail, dole is for scroungers becomes the whole of thought).I would thus argue that ideology is distinct from error, misaprehension and social deixis.

[Anonymous]

 I came across this criticism of  'ideological truth' from Lenin: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/two4.htm but then he seems to argue that the working class struggle is an ideological one! https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/may/04.htm

[pgb]

I think YMS makes a fair point in saying that “ideology almost by definition is unconscious…” and "knowing ideology as ideology destroys its status as ideology". I mean only that his statements sit well with Marx's concept of ideology. For Marx, opinions, points of view, political programs etc are "ideological" where those who hold them imagine them to be the result of intellectual reasoning, or logic, or divine revelation etc, and are unaware of their origin in social conditions and the part they play in justifying and maintaining those conditions. The ideologist is unaware of this functional relationship between his ideas and the social conditions they express (including class interests), hence the association of the concept ideology with "mystification", "delusion", "false consciousness" etc. “False consciousness” does not imply empirical falsehood. Calling ideas or theories "ideological" does not involve any judgement as to their truth or falsehood in a cognitive sense. Marx could never have used the term “scientific ideology” or the “ideology of science” since he saw science as an activity or social practice free of mystification and distortion. Having said that, I cannot make any sense of YMS’ remark that “even the truth is ideological”. Maybe we should declare a moratorium on the use of the term since it’s being used in many different and often contradictory ways.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

The days of 'naive realism', and Lenin's 'reflection theory', that knowledge is a 'copy' of reality, are long gone.How any comrades think that this sort of 'objective truth' stuff can serve as a basis for Communist thinking, baffles me.

I don't think any comrades here are — except for comrade Strawman of your creation. All that has been claimed is that some statements can be said to be "true". This does not imply any general theory of Truth, or any theory of general Truth. In fact, such statements could be expressed without using the word "true" at all, e.g. to say "it is true that London is the capital of Britain" is no different from saying "London is the capital of Britain".Or are you saying that it can't/shouldn't be said that London is the capital of Britain? If so, how would you express this?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I don't think any comrades here are — except for comrade Strawman of your creation.

I think DJP regards his model of 'one-way supervenience' of the ideal upon the material as transhistorical and universal.I think DJP regards this model as an 'objective truth' based upon 'reality'.I'm not making a 'strawman'. When I ask him where he gets that ideology from, he won't answer. He regards it, not as an ideological model, but simple 'reality'.Why you feel the need to accuse me of 'strawmanning', I'm not sure. Probably your failure to identify your own ideology, and your continued hope that science will prove to be non-ideological, if you drag this out long enough.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

ALB wrote:

I don't think any comrades here are — except for comrade Strawman of your creation.

I think DJP regards his model of 'one-way supervenience' of the ideal upon the material as transhistorical and universal.I think DJP regards this model as an 'objective truth' based upon 'reality'.I'm not making a 'strawman'. When I ask him where he gets that ideology from, he won't answer. He regards it, not as an ideological model, but simple 'reality'.Why you feel the need to accuse me of 'strawmanning', I'm not sure. Probably your failure to identify your own ideology, and your continued hope that science will prove to be non-ideological, if you drag this out long enough.

No, it's just a model / concept put forward by some people to help explain and understand observed phenomena and to try to deal with theoretical problems. Sorry nothing about the "Absolute Truth" in there. You'll need to speak to God for that.But anyway I don't really have any ideas about the "ideal upon the material" since I reject dualism.FWIW my ideology is wiffypiddledoodahism.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

FWIW my ideology is wiffypiddledoodahism.

At last. At least we know now that you're not using Marxism as your ideology, then, or you would have said so.

DJP wrote:

No, it's just a model / concept put forward by some people to help explain and understand observed phenomena and to try to deal with theoretical problems.

So, you admit it does not come from nature, but humans. We are getting far this evening.Perhaps, with you now being so helpful, you'll tell us the ideology of these mysterious 'some people', who've been hiding in the background, totally unmentioned by you, for the last twelve months.

DJP wrote:

Sorry nothing about the "Absolute Truth" in there. You'll need to speak to God for that.

But if god isn't responsible for the 'ideal supervening upon the physical' who is?You can't answer 'nature', because that's your god (you're a physicalist/materialist, remember?), but you've just denied the messiah.And, indeed, you've just told us it's not 'nature', but 'some people' who are responsible for the 'ideal supervening upon the physical'. Who are these 'thinkers', who clearly use 'ideas'?Are you an 'idealist', DJP? Ohhhhh…. curiouser and curiouser…

[LBird]

pgb wrote:

Marx could never have used the term “scientific ideology” or the “ideology of science” since he saw science as an activity or social practice free of mystification and distortion.

I'd like to see your evidence for this assertion, pgb, since it goes against everything I've read by Marx on the issue.Marx even claimed 'senses' are social (and thus historical), so it's hard to see how different societies' senses could experience the world in different ways and yet could be 'free of mystification and distortion'.One society's 'true account' would be another's 'mystification and distortion', and vice versa.Unless one society had unmediated access to 'nature'. The bourgeoisie claimed that they had this during the 19th century, but we now know that was untrue.On the contrary, Marx claimed that humans would 'humanise nature', and since humans are ideological, it seems hard to picture Marx arguing for 'Knowledge as Eternal Truth', which would be the result of a 'science free of mystification and distortion'.

[ALB]

Why would a "science free of mystification and distortion" have to be one committed to arguing "Knowledge as Eternal Truth"? Another one of your typical exaggerations and non sequiturs. It just doesn't follow. Couldn't it be committed just to "Knowledge as Relative Truth"? Or even dispense with idea of Truth altogether?. And what about science in socialism/communism ,would it also be mystified and distorted? And if it was, how would society be able to use it to provide plenty for all in an efficient and ecologically sustainable way?Anyway, over to you, pgb.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

And what about science in socialism/communism ,would it also be mystified and distorted?

It wouldn't be if we could get rid of the problem of selection, ALB.But since you already know of the selection problem (you've read Carr), I'm not sure why you appear to be unclear about its consequences.Theories provide selection parameters, which determine what is to be chosen and what is to be avoided. There is no 'complete' appropriation of 'reality': our 'knowledge' is necessarily 'mystified and distorted' in some way. That's part of the human condition, which science has been aware of since Einstein. Hence, all the debates within the philosophy of science. We're trying to deal with the fall-out from science itself.For those who've read Lakatos, these parameters are contained within what he decribes as the 'hard core' of a 'research programme'.

ALB wrote:

Why would a "science free of mystification and distortion" have to be one committed to arguing "Knowledge as Eternal Truth"? Another one of your typical exaggerations and non sequiturs. It just doesn't follow. Couldn't it be committed just to "Knowledge as Relative Truth"?

But if some 'knowledge' is 'relative', it's 'mystified and distorted' in some way, as compared with another 'relative' version of 'knowledge'.So, once more, your unwelcome accusations of me using "typical exaggerations and non sequiturs" is, in fact, just a display of your inability to think critically about what you're discussing. I don't know why you can't argue without resorting to personal abuse; but it shows the weakness of your position, and failure to engage with the issues at hand.

ALB wrote:

Or even dispense with idea of Truth altogether?.

So, now it's you who's suggesting something like Post Modernist 'individual relativism'? This is a view I've constantly argued against, because I follow Marx in his belief that 'knowledge is social' and is thus is 'true' for that society.To dispense with 'truth' is to dispense with 'science'.

ALB wrote:

Anyway, over to you, pgb.

Yes, I would still be very interested to read some text which backs up pgb's assertions about Marx, which show that he was an 'objectivist', which would take 'society' out of the process of knowledge creation.

[ALB]

I was just challenging your view that a science free of "mystification and distortion" would have to be committed to one particular theory of "Truth" and was merely listing, without endorsing. other possible theories about "Truth" to the one you mentioned, i.e that Knowledge is Absolute Truth. Of course all knowledge, not just science but what we need to know for everyday living, involves selection (or, as you put it, there can be no "complete" appropriation of "reality"), but does selection have to involve mystification and distortion?.If you had talked about the impossibility of a selection-free science that would have been ok, but — and this is what I meant by you exaggerating — you talked  instead about mystification and distortion. Is it not possible for the selection to be based on "rational" grounds, e.g. what is useful for some human purpose, and for this to be clearly understood and accepted? In fact I thought that this was what you say will/should happen in a socialist/communist society.While you look forward to pgb's answer to your charge of him making Marx an "objectivist", I'm still looking forward to your explanation of your claim that Marx was a "realist" (I'm not sure I have understood the difference between an "objectivist" and a "realist") and in what sense.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Of course all knowledge, not just science but what we need to know for everyday living, involves selection (or, as you put it, there can be no "complete" appropriation of "reality"), but does selection have to involve mystification and distortion?.

[my bold]I'm glad that you've stated clearly, the text that I've bolded. This gives us some basis on which to proceed. But, be aware, I'll refer to that statement in the future! I completely agree with it, but I'm not sure the other posters will.On the issue of "selection='mystification and distortion' ". I'll allow you to choose two terms to replace 'm&d', which you think will be less pejorative. Because clearly, as you say above, 'selection' implies 'no complete appropriation of reality'. If it's not 'complete', I'd say 'distorted' is an acceptable term, but you might prefer 'partial', or whatever.For me, I'd rather call 'a spade a spade', and openly proclaim to all workers that my method (and Marx's) DOES NOT LEAD TO THE TRUTH. I'd say the scientific method, as well as providing 'knowledge' also necessarily 'distorts and mystifies', and we should all be aware of this fact of human existence.For us, within Communism, this would provide a basis for a critical approach to all authoritative knowledge, and so ensure our society is a critically-thinking society, which already knows it doesn't know 'The Truth'. This in itself completely undermines the notion of the Leninist Party as having a 'special consciousness' which workers as a class don't share. We must insist upon democratic decision-making in all areas of social life, economic production, political power and scientific knowledge.

ALB wrote:

Is it not possible for the selection to be based on "rational" grounds…?

Who determines the 'rational', ALB? Does it come from outside humans, or is it in our gift to decide, as a society, 'what is rational' (in the sense of "what does 'rational' mean?").

ALB wrote:

While you look forward to pgb's answer to your charge of him making Marx an "objectivist", I'm still looking forward to your explanation of your claim that Marx was a "realist" (I'm not sure I have understood the difference between an "objectivist" and a "realist") and in what sense.

Let's hope pgb can give some details.An 'objectivist' thinks 'knowledge' is the same as the 'object'.A 'realist' thinks 'knowledge' comes from an 'object'.This is simple, but I think it captures the essence. Of course, it is more complex, but this will suffice for your immediate question.

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