Science for Communists?
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Brian, I think what we regard as 'dialectics', for the most part, is another Engelsian diversion from Marx's ideas. I've dealt with this before, and won't go into it again, on this thread. I want to focus on CR for now.mcolome1, it was Marx who 'unified' idealism with materialism. I've dealt with this before, in our discussions about Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, and so I won't go into it again here. I want to focus on CR for now.
Using the Critical Realist concepts of components, structures, levels and emergence, I’d like to give some examples which might help comrades to get to grips with this approach. I’ll start with ‘rocks’, because I’ve argued previously that both physical and social phenomena must be understood by the same scientific method, if Marx’s hope for a ‘unified method’ is to be realised; that is, for both ‘rocks’ and ‘value’, for both physics and sociology.But first, a warning. CR forms an ontology or metaphysics, which in my opinion is similar to the one adopted by Marx. All scientific methods have an ontology at their heart, and this is a metaphysical choice made by humans, and is not imposed by the world, natural or social. The world does not tell us what it ‘really’ consists of, as the Engelsian ‘materialists/physicalists’ erroneously insist. Humans begin with ‘theory’, and at the core of any theory are metaphysical axioms and assumptions. This is unavoidable for humans, in their attempt to understand our world, natural and social. For those comrades who have read Lakatos, I think that his notion of a ‘hard core’ being at the centre of a ‘research programme’, a core which cannot be changed by empirical evidence, precisely because it is axiomatic, is a similar notion to an ontology chosen by humans. Physics do not determine metaphysics; on the contrary, metaphysics determine physics. Or as Einstein and Kepler maintained, preconceived ideas tell us what we can observe. Humans and their ideas are at the centre of our understanding. Rocks do not actively tell us what they are, while we passively observe them with our ‘individual senses’ [sic]. As Marx argued, in his agreement with the idealists, humans are an active participant in the production of knowledge.Rocks are not simply observable by individuals employing their own ‘biological’ senses, as the empiricists and materialists/physicalists insist. All humans employ a ‘theory’ prior to any understanding of anything, and to deny this pre-existing theory is to be either ignorantly unaware of it, or to be a liar. Most laypersons are ignorant of this, and most academics are liars about this. Laypeople haven’t learned this knowledge yet (which is our job as class conscious workers to explain to other workers, as part of our self-education as a class), and the academics pay lip service to it (they all shallowly accept ‘the theory-ladenness of facts’) but ignore it in their practice and continue to pretend to have a ‘neutral method’ which produces ‘objective knowledge’. This lie is the basis of their social power over us.So, to an example of CR and understanding ‘rocks’.It might seem an easy task to understand a rock. Simply pick it up, turn it round in one’s hands, and toss it away again. Simples. It’s hard and round, big deal: what more is to be said?: any individual can do this! Or, for the more discerning ‘scientific’ approach, pound the rock into bits in the laboratory until its ‘physical’ makeup is revealed by reduction; it clearly doesn’t contain any consciousness or ‘ideas’!So much for the empiricist ideology and method of ‘science’, which is so beloved of the ‘materialists/physicalists’.But if we approach a ‘rock’ with a different set of human assumptions, like CR, then we can reveal a better ‘picture’ of a rock, which helps our understanding of a ‘rock’. Once we begin from our axioms of ‘components, structures, levels and emergence’, which are human concepts, and are not presented to us by ‘the world’, we get a more profound understanding of a ‘rock’.The rock can be understood both as a ‘component’ and as a ‘structure’, and be located at different ‘levels’, each of which produce ‘emergent’ properties, both physical and ideal.The rock is a physical structure which can be reduced to dust, so that the structure disappears. But the rock might contain other structures at a different level, which without a theory would not even be suspected to exist. For example, the rock might contain a sub-structure of a ‘fossil’. If the rock is merely reduced to its component ‘dust parts’, then the presence of the ‘fossil’ would be missed. Of course, human society has to have previously produced the theory of ‘fossils’ for a fossil to be found in the rock. The fossil does not actively intervene in the laboratory process of ‘rock reduction to dust’ to make itself known to humans. Humans have to be actively looking for other structures within the rock structure, otherwise they are not observable. The empiricists insist that the fossil says to humans “Hello! I’m a fossil! Don’t hurt me!”. It doesn’t, and they’re lying. Nature does not actively talk to humans. Humans ask questions, and their questions are inescapably based upon theory.But, regarding our rock, it isn’t simply a structure, which might contain other structures at other lower levels, but is also a component for other higher level structures. For example, it might form part of a hill (another natural structure) or part of a road (a structure created by humans). However, if the rock is removed from its structural environment, by a human simply (and ignorantly) picking it up (and then either discarding it or taking it to a laboratory), this act destroys the structure of that which it is a component part. We have to have theories of structures, because often they are unobservable without a pre-existing theory. Unless we have a theory of ‘memorial cairns’, which embody a society’s historical events, then a pile of rocks will be regarded simply as , well, ‘a pile of rocks’, and potential knowledge of a society could be lost by rearranging the ‘pile’ into a circular hearth for a night-time fire for the explorers to keep warm.So, to summarise, a pre-existing social theory of ‘components, structures, levels and emergence’ is of far more use to humans and their understanding, than the pre-existing social theory of ‘I’m an individual and I know what I can see!’. Both of these theories are ideological, of course, and based upon metaphysical beliefs by humans, but this ontological choice of ‘what objects are composed of’ is inescapable for humans.I think Marx was a proto-Critical Realist, and I think that these metaphysical ideas are far more useful for understanding both our physical and social worlds than ‘materialism/physicalism’. Indeed, I don’t think that it’s too difficult to see the similarity between my discussion here about ‘rocks’, and about Marx’s views about ‘value’. A tin of beans is only a commodity within a certain social structure. But its ‘commodityness’ is not resident within the tin, but is a relational property of a social structure, which only emerges in certain conditions, just as the meaning of the memorial cairn is not present in its constituent rocks, but only in their relational structure.‘Value’ can only be observed by someone employing the socially-produced theory of Marx. To all intents and purposes, it won’t ‘exist’ for a bourgeois academic who is not a Communist, much the same as a ‘fossil’ won’t exist for the Neolithic hunter employing a rock as flint to light a fire.Of course, though, both the fossil and value ‘exist’, and can be observed by the ‘educated’ observer. In our case as proletarians, that means being educated in class consciousness and Communism.Lastly, whilst workers have their heads filled with Engels’ nonsense about ‘materialism’ (dialectical or otherwise), they can’t advance, and will be subject to the power of those who pretend to have a ‘special consciousness’ which gives access to the ‘material’ (like empiricist scientists or a Leninist party), a consciousness denied to workers as a mass, who are axiomatically deemed by elitists to be unable to grasp their world. But, on the contrary, I think Critical Realism (both as an ontology and as a method) and its social products of knowledge can be subject to a democratic vote, and thus it is a scientific ideology suitable for the democratic proletariat, in their attempt to build for Communism, and can provide the basis of a unified scientific method, as posited by Marx.
LBird wrote:YMS wrote:Answer, it doesn't matter, so long as the same shade/wavelength is consistently called the same thing by both of us.So, the answer is a popular vote?
No, the answer is ongoing dialogue and discussion.
Lbird wrote:Will you abide by a vote, YMS, or return to the elitist insistence, constantly made by you on this thread, that your individual senses (which you also deny are socially-produced) are a better judge of 'reality' than a democratic vote?I have never denied that individual senses are socially produced, you'll not be able to find a single instance of such a statement, you'll only find your own erroneous interpollations. I've simply said that I believe a vote would be a hinderance to the social production of knoeldge, and undemocratic. Why do you p[ersist in wanting to curtail democracy?
Lbird wrote:Have you now accepted that 'truth' is a social product, and not a 'copy of reality' which allegedly can be determined by an elitist method, which is not available to the proletariat?Have you recanted your religious claims, YMS?Yes, I've also stopped beating my wife. That is, I never, I mean, I haven't…Anyway, nonsense aside. What I wanted to point out today was that Lbird first premise is flawed, practitioners of science, even simple advocates of induction, fdon't even claim to discover the truth, theyy all acknowledge that their discoveries are contingent and may be overturned by "ruthless criticism of all that exists", by the ongoing collaborative process that is science. That is, science is a proletarian product.
Comrades, either YMS is a bluffer, or he doesn't know what he's talking about, with regard to his own ideology.
YMS wrote:I have never denied that individual senses are socially produced, you'll not be able to find a single instance of such a statement…[my bold]Your statements throughout this thread are saturated with appeals to individuals 'senses'. Here is one example:
YMS, post #728, wrote:…we know reality because it's before our eyes …You should be saying 'before our social perception', and making it clear to all that neither 'individuals' nor their 'biological senses' are the source of scientific knowledge.And if 'senses are socially produced', then why aren't they subject to a democratic vote?
YMS wrote:I've simply said that I believe a vote would be a hinderance to the social production of knoeldge, and undemocratic.Yes, you keep saying that 'voting' is 'undemocratic'. That is because you equate, as do all liberals, 'democracy' with 'individual freedom'. You think sovereignty resides in 'the individual', and not 'society', and you have a 'fear of the mob' who, being essentially stupid compared to you, you won't allow to 'tell you the truth'.You think that your 'senses' tell you the truth, and that the senses of an elite will tell the proletariat the truth.You're either a bluffer or a dangerous anti-democrat, YMS.I warn comrades to think carefully about what YMS is arguing, and how his beliefs undermine any hope for Democratic Communism/Socialism.Plus, he's hiding his beliefs, and won't expose them to us all, as I do mine, so this should set comrades' alarm bells ringing.Ask YMS yourselves what has he got to hide, because he won't answer me.[Plus he hasn't discussed CR]
Ideology is in essence a word that refers to human ideas and concepts in a way that forms a joined up thinking, such as a world view or belief system, usually with a goal in mind. This is the meaning of the word ideology to most people. I say most people because philosophers do not behave as most people do, they seem to see the world in an ever more complex spiral of hidden meaning and can wax lyrical about the most banal everyday words adding multiple meanings and a myriad of contexts.This brings us nicely to the word as seen from a Marxist perspective. We have talk of ideology as "false consciousness" something some on the WSM thread provided by mcolome1 defended while others disagreed. And we have ideology as the prevailing ideas and concepts of the ruling class. Ironically this view acknowledges the fact that ideology is about ideas and concepts, though it takes on an additional aspect of those ideas being the ideas of the ruling class.That the dominant ideas in any given society are the ideas of the ruling class is easy to understand as it can be seen in almost every aspect of life. A good example being the Scottish independence issue. The workers of Scotland have been drawn into this issue as if the outcome will change their lives to such an extent as to be unrecognisable should they vote either way. Yet once the votes are in and a decision taken, they will still wake up to a life of mind numbing employment every day, austerity measures will still be put upon them when ever their rulers deem it necessary. In short they will still find that capitalism, supported by both political sides, will still continue on relentlessly taking its toll. So the dominant ideology is that of capitalism.Now some socialists would say it is the only ideology. If ideology is viewed as something other than human ideas and concepts forming a world view, then yes it becomes the only ideology. But if we accept the every day meaning that it involves human ideas and concepts, then we are getting somewhere. We can then see that there are two ideologies in existence. The ruling ideology and the workers ideology, or as we here call it, socialism. Unfortunately most of the working class do not see that socialism is their ideology because they are born into a society that emphasises the ruling class ideology at every opportunity, at school, in church, on tv, in the press, in films the list is long.I think a socialist society will still have a socialist ideology. In order to achieve a socialist society workers need to develop a conscious awareness of what is really going on in society and where their interests as a class lie. It is my view that people in a socialist society will still need to be conscious of, if not their interests in the class struggle that will no longer exists, but of where they came from and how a truly human society was achieved. I fail to see how this can be done without being aware of the existence of the two ideologies and of which one is beneficial to all humans.If anyone thinks I've just spouted a load of bollocks please let me know, I'm here to learn.
"…we know reality because it's before our eyes …"Our*ahem*Our.But what you're saying isn't really any much different from the standard hypothesis-experiement-knowledge schema of standard science (they just don't delve very far into where the hypothesis comes from, but we can say it stems from either experience or theory). Through knocking rocks to dust, experiementally, we've found and observed crystaline structures, chromatic signatures, fossils (yes) and we've had to account for them and learn about them at each stage. What you are saying is not radical, not over throwing the domiant ideas of science, or changting anything. All you're doing is knocking down empiricism, which nobody really holds any more.The scientific debate, ruthless criticism of all that exists, is open ended.
SocialistPunk wrote:Ideology is in essence a word that refers to human ideas and concepts in a way that forms a joined up thinking, such as a world view or belief system, usually with a goal in mind. This is the meaning of the word ideology to most people. I say most people because philosophers do not behave as most people do, they seem to see the world in an ever more complex spiral of hidden meaning and can wax lyrical about the most banal everyday words adding multiple meanings and a myriad of contexts.Or, the word has been moved from its original uses, to simply mean any set of ideas, itself an ideological move to robn the word of meaning and to protect ideologists. Common sense is ideology, so you generally have to step away from copmmon meanings of words. If ideology is a system of ideas, then we need some other term for the process of the imposition of class dominance i the domain of ideas.
SocialistPunk wrote:I think a socialist society will still have a socialist ideology. In order to achieve a socialist society workers need to develop a conscious awareness of what is really going on in society and where their interests as a class lie. It is my view that people in a socialist society will still need to be conscious of, if not their interests in the class struggle that will no longer exists, but of where they came from and how a truly human society was achieved. I fail to see how this can be done without being aware of the existence of the two ideologies and of which one is beneficial to all humans.I agree with this as far as it goes, SP, but I think regarding an 'ideology' as simply about 'interests', as if these themselves are not 'ideological', as a mistake. 'Interests' are as much ideal as material.Regarding science, I think all science is ideological because I see ideologies as 'distorting lenses' through which we view ourselves and our activity.Since the act of searching for answers (both natural and social) is by definition a selective, directed search, then it will always be an ideological activity which also hides, conceals and distorts.My outline of CR shows this well: if a human directs their attention to one level (eg. a rock), they are by choice not directing their attention to other levels (eg. fossils, roads, cairns, etc.).Ideologies will direct attention to different components, structures, levels and emergent properties, and we can't direct our attention to everything everywhere because that would be impossible. Science and socialism mean ideologies, and we should be aware of it, open about it, and declare our ideology.Unless we are an omniscient god. And science teaches us that we are not.
Brian wrote:mcolome1 wrote:He sounds like the Marxist Humanist who have tried to unify idealism with materialismWould appreciate a link to that Marcus.
It is all tied to the works of Raya Dunayeskaya, the founder of News and Letters. This is a piece of that conception, but it was completely developed on her book Marxism and Freedom, and all her works departs from Marx early writtings, and most of her ideas were correctly exposed by Paul Mattickhttps://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/1965/marx-humanism.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1958/dunayevskaya.htm
Brian: The concept is also fully developed in this book:http://books.google.com/books?id=d_9BwQg4uWAC&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=the+unification+of+idealism+and+materialism,+peter+hudis&source=bl&ots=zZWRgdr0Tq&sig=lKisCWieIkgJwWPkNtScQpfYXi4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=d9UVVPftL-qoigKSzoGIBw&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false
Young Master Smeet wrote:SocialistPunk wrote:Ideology is in essence a word that refers to human ideas and concepts in a way that forms a joined up thinking, such as a world view or belief system, usually with a goal in mind. This is the meaning of the word ideology to most people. I say most people because philosophers do not behave as most people do, they seem to see the world in an ever more complex spiral of hidden meaning and can wax lyrical about the most banal everyday words adding multiple meanings and a myriad of contexts.Or, the word has been moved from its original uses, to simply mean any set of ideas, itself an ideological move to robn the word of meaning and to protect ideologists. Common sense is ideology, so you generally have to step away from copmmon meanings of words. If ideology is a system of ideas, then we need some other term for the process of the imposition of class dominance i the domain of ideas.
Hi YMSI take it you are of the opinion socialism is not an ideology? If so, would you be willing to explain why? I'm here to learn and when I asked mcolome1 and ALB, I got nothing. This issue seems to be an area where SPGB members don't always agree, as the WSM thread demonstrated, so I would appreciate an explanation from your point of view YMS.
I think the definition was already given, and from the definition you can obtain your own conclusions, and there was a link with a long conversation which remove all the unnecessary words, and you can have a proper definition of the concept of ideology, and it also explains that Engels; conception of ideology is totally incorrect.I can not put the spoon in your mouth, we have given you, the anatomical theory, the bones and the muscles, you must do your won dissection.Like Hegel said: You must go through the pain and the suffering in order to obtain the knowledge. It would be like the terms law and rules, and super-structures which are going to be totally different under a socialist society.Socialism is a socialist theory,( that is precisely what we need, we do not even need a philosophy ) but we are not going to have an ideology because we are not going to have a ruling classSocialism is not a doctrine either as it was indicated by Engels, and then, it was constantly propagated by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik, and socialism is not going to be an economical system either. PS: If we want to have a simple understanding of what Socialism/.communism is, the book: The Alternative to capitalism, would be a good reference. One of the best thing about the SP is that, we have explained complicated terms into simple definition and explanations.
We are not going to have a proletarian ideology because socialism is going to be a society without proletarian, or without wage slavery
SP, at the risk of verging off topic: no I don't consider socialism to be an ideology. I consider it to be the reutation of ideology. One of the problems with the concept of ideology, is that if it is eternal, and everyone is wrapped up in it, then how can some people claim to see out of it? It seems a ready made gift for Leninist vanguards (and, indeed, did become an issue when the vanguards seized power, and found themselves fighting the workers, the vanguard were free of ideology, and needed to rule against and over the workers blinded by it). The point of socialism is to free us from the distortions of power (and the need to maintain power) and instead live our lives in conscious accord with our own experience.Lbird: back to topic. Let me ask this. In socialism, in your democratic model, we'll still need technical experts to oeprate delcate experimental equipment, to conduct experiements and survey correctly: we can't all do the experiements and collate the data. So what we'll be voting on would be the 'selected facts'. Since we're rational people, we'll come to the conclusion the 'selected facts' demand: so won't we still be enslaved to the "enlightened" scientists? After all, we all know how appointed staff can end up controlling their oversight committees. Won't the vote, which will make all of us complicit in their facts in actuality make it harder to oppose and dispute with the scientists?
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