Science for Communists?

[LBird]

The whole tenor of your post, YMS, suggests that, like me, you are an idealist-materialist (or, historical materialist, or critical realist) and not a 'materialist'.There is something going on within your ideological view that prevents you from coming out and saying this openly. I suspect that it is the influence that Engels' thought has had on you. You might never have read Engels yourself, but his misreading of Marx's views is rife within the so-called workers' parties, amongst which I include the SPGB, where you have learned your ideological views.In plain, Engels posited only two philosophical viewpoints: 'materialism' and 'idealism'. Thus, if one follows this schema, if one says one is not a 'materialist', one has to accept that one must be an 'idealist'. This is what I think is behind your reluctance to deny 'materialism'.Of course, it's a nonsense schema, and reading either Engels' Ludwig Feuerbach (where he undermines his own dichotomous outline) or Marx's Theses on Feuerbach (where he clearly adopts a third position, taking and rejecting from both materialism and idealism) makes this very clear.My advice, YMS, is to come to realise that one can deny being a 'materialist' without thus placing oneself in the counterrevolutionary hell of 'idealism'.Everything you now say shouts "I'm an 'idealist-materialist', just like Marx!".And I agree with you and Marx.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

You're the adherent of 'physicalism', DJP.

Possibly, but I'm only using 'physicalism' as a synonym for 'materialism' or even 'naturalism'

LBird wrote:

You think ideas supervene on the material.

Well not quite, that's a really clumsy way of putting it. A better way would be saying that consciousness is entirely dependent on brain processes. A change in brain process results in a change in consciousness.

LBird wrote:

If that's not dualism, what is?

It's a kind of property dualism, as distinct from substance dualism. Property dualism is compatible with monism, substance dualism is not.

LBird wrote:

I think the material can 'supervene' (to use your ideological term) upon ideas. Marx agrees with me, as I've shown with quotes.Human ideas create material conditions, as much as material conditions create human ideas.

I don't think Marx believed in telekinesis which is what your first sentence means.Of course human action, guided by human ideas, changes material conditions – this is not ruled out by supervience.

LBird wrote:

Dietzgen also follows this view, that ideas and things are both 'real', and have the same status. Thus, to argue for physicalism is to argue against this viewpoint.

Property dualism doesn't imply that ideas are not real either. In contemporary philosophy Dietzgen is close to what is called panprotopsychism – the idea that there is a proto element of consciousness is every atomic and sub-atomic part of the universe. The more I look into the more I am tempted by this view..I fully agree with YMS above BTW.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

The whole tenor of your post, YMS, suggests that, like me, you are an idealist-materialist (or, historical materialist, or critical realist) and not a 'materialist'.

But a "historical materialist" is a type of "materialist". "Materialism" is just a broad label for many different philsophys that share some common aspects..

[alanjjohnstone]

i said prior to the revolution merely beause of your mention of post-revolution but i insist the party will not exist, therefore ideas of now members cannot be projected into post-revolution as party views.   

Quote:

I find this very naive, and is clearly based upon Engels views about the 'material' and the 'ideal'. You're arguing that, if the 'material' circumstances don't 'exist', then 'elite ideologies' can't form.

You will recall a long time ago i exempted myself from aspects of these philosophical debates because i simply have no clue what you, YMS, DJP were going on about. I still haven't got a Scooby (but i am sure  i am not alone in that) So if my naivity is based upon Engels views it is coincidental since i never bothered to study his ideological bent.You will also recall somewhere in the beginning of this thread or another i tried to ask of its relevance in practical politics andi think my occasional forays have been centred less on the philosophy but more on the political…I suppose that in post-revolution, sccools and universities…centres of education …will still exist, (although Marx was more of the opinion that they would be polytechnic colleges)…and that would be the material circumstances to impose a view on others..via a curriculum.  But since there will be few limits on counter-theories establishing themselves, the people will choose, voting with their feet for whatever ideological strand they view as in their best interest…back to the democracy and vote on what is "knowledge" and what is "truth"…but once again i recoil at your comparison with Leninism…we aren't going to have the power  to Stalinisescience…Lysenko-ism or implement Nazi racial science, denying Einstein findings because it was Jewish science…or music or art or culture…

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

So if my naivity is based upon Engels views it is coincidental since i never bothered to study his ideological bent.

As de Ste. Croix said, ignorance of one's ideology is not the same as not having an ideology.Your views are saturated with Engels' philosophy, because it couldn't be otherwise, for any Communist/Socialist in the last 130 years, because what is deemed to be 'Marxism' is mostly Engelsism. That environment is true for all of us, including me, because I joined the SWP.It's time for all of us 'to study his ideological bent', since it affects us so much.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

The whole tenor of your post, YMS, suggests that, like me, you are an idealist-materialist (or, historical materialist, or critical realist) and not a 'materialist'.

But a "historical materialist" is a type of "materialist". "Materialism" is just a broad label for many different philsophys that share some common aspects..

I don't want us to go over old ground, DJP, because I think we both already know each other's arguments.I can only echo what I said to YMS. If "'materialism' is just a broad label" for a viewpoint that includes 'ideas', why can't it as reasonably be called 'idealism', if it is acceptable to accentuate one aspect, to the exclusion of the other?Doesn't it simply make even better explanatory sense for any workers reading who are unsure, to call it 'idealism-materialism', which better decribes its content? Or, as you say, 'historical materialism' (or 'critical realism', in my opinion the best of all), which emphasises the human history behind the physical? That is, social knowledge requiring both 'physical' and 'mental'.Why would a party, that stresses the need for human consciousness, adopt a philosophy that stresses the 'material' or 'physical', terms which underplay (at best, and at worst, ignore) the inescapable human element?You've already read my response to YMS, about 'Engelsian Materialism' as an ideology. This isn't Marx's viewpoint.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

If "'materialism' is just a broad label" for a viewpoint that includes 'ideas', why can't it as reasonably be called 'idealism', if it is acceptable to accentuate one aspect, to the exclusion of the other?

It's not a question of accentuating one aspect, to the exclusion of the other.Why not call it "squibbldyfishplop"?Because the use of words and there meaning is a social process. If we want to be understood we have to try and match our meanings with those of other people. "Materialism" and "Idealism" represent two different strands of thinking in the history of philosophy, what we are talking has a history going back to the Greek atomists…Remember Marx said "I am a materialist and Hegel is an idealist" not "I am a idealist-materialist and Hegel is an idealist". But we know that Marx's "materialism" is not the same kind of "materialism" as those he critised in The Theses of Feurbach.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

But we know that Marx's "materialism" is not the same kind of "materialism" as those he critised in The Theses of Feurbach.

No, it isn't.So, why call it the same name?Marx argued for the need for the 'active side' of idealism.

DJP wrote:

"Materialism" and "Idealism" represent two different strands of thinking in the history of philosophy, what we are talking has a history going back to the Greek atomists…

So, why did Engels, on the next page, mention a third group?Why did Marx think he had overcome this age-old dichotomy about 'being' and 'conscousness' with his amalgam of 'theory and practice', which requires both? That is the revolutionary significance of the Theses on Feuerbach.While the only choices available to us are 'idealism' or 'materialism', we're lost.We have to move on from the 19th century way of thinking of Engels, and adopt Marx's forward looking approach of 'theory and practice'.'Physical things' do not do 'theory and practice', only humans.'Dialectics' can only exist as an interplay between humans and their external environment. The notion of a 'Dialectics of Nature' is simply nonsense, because 'dialectic' means 'to talk through' or 'discuss', and 'material' without consciousness does not discuss.Reality does not tell us what it is. We inescapably require social theory and practice. In a nutshell, alongside material, also IDEAS.

[DJP]

Perhaps this diagram is of some use?

[Young Master Smeet]

Just taking a quick skim through Engel's Feuerbach, and I can't see whre he reintroduce dualism, for instance:

Fred wrote:

The old materialism never put this question to itself. Its conception of history, in so far as it has one at all, is therefore essentially pragmatic; it divides men who act in history into noble and ignoble and then finds that as a rule the noble are defrauded and the ignoble are victorious. hence, it follows for the old materialism that nothing very edifying is to be got from the study of history, and for us that in the realm of history the old materialism becomes untrue to itself because it takes the ideal driving forces which operate there as ultimate causes, instead of investigating what is behind them, what are the driving forces of these driving forces. This inconsistency does not lie in the fact that ideal driving forces are recognized, but in the investigation not being carried further back behind these into their motive causes.

  whilst he recognises ideas existence, that is because, correctly he states

Fred wrote:

Everything which sets men in motion must go through their minds.

  Liekwise, this provides interesting basis for cultural materialism:

Fred wrote:

Still higher ideologies, that is, such as are still further removed from the material, economic basis, take the form of philosophy and religion. Here the interconnection between conceptions and their material conditions of existence becomes more and more complicated, more and more obscured by intermediate links. But the interconnection exists.

(the notion of further remove is something overlooked by the more boorish vulgar communists/materialists who would try to link everything to the daily motions of the stock market like some sort of orrery.  Whereas, in fact, intervening ideological causes account for he development of many cultural/ideological facets (and I note Freddy seems to have come across yet another meaning of the word ideology here).  AFAICS what he says here is consistent with the German Ideology & Marx' Theses on Feuerbach…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

But we know that Marx's "materialism" is not the same kind of "materialism" as those he critised in The Theses of Feurbach.

No, it isn't.

I'm presuming you missed the "not" above?

LBird wrote:

So, why did Engels, on the next page, mention a third group?

The next page of what? I'm not getting this from Engels… 

LBird wrote:

While the only choices available to us are 'idealism' or 'materialism', we're lost.

They're not. But as they're many kinds of 'idealism' and 'materialism' this is not a choice of two options.

LBird wrote:

'Physical things' do not do 'theory and practice', only humans.

So human beings are not physical things, intersting.

LBird wrote:

'Dialectics' can only exist as an interplay between humans and their external environment. The notion of a 'Dialectics of Nature' is simply nonsense, because 'dialectic' means 'to talk through' or 'discuss', and 'material' without consciousness does not discuss.Reality does not tell us what it is. We inescapably require social theory and practice. In a nutshell, alongside material, also IDEAS.

I agree..But ideas are just a part of nature, not something seperate or above it…

[Anonymous]

I  think it would be helpfull at this stage if LBird could list the basic tenets of: (a)  Materialism (b)  Idealism/materalism It is obvious that 'materialism' has a multitude of meanings on this thread.

[DJP]

Vin Maratty wrote:

It is obvious that 'materialism' has a multitude of meanings on this thread.

That's unavoidable because it does…

[LBird]

YMS, DJP and Vin:I'm not ignoring your posts, but we've been on this merry-go-round for over a thousand posts, on this thread alone, and I don't propose to re-do it all, again.The answers to all your questions have been given already.But, none of you will answer mine.Why call your philosophy 'materialism' (however defined, Vin), and oppose it to 'idealism', if your 'materialism' contains 'ideas'?If it does contain 'ideas', why not call it 'idealism-materialism', which 'does what it says on the tin', and so make it easier for workers coming new to these issues, to get a handle on socialist philosophy?Why persist with 'materialism' (which is drenched in Engelsism), to the detriment of 'idealism', which Marx didn't do?

[Young Master Smeet]

DJP did answer that point, because peopel have used idealism and materialism in consistent ways over long periods so the terms have an accrued historical meaning.  Because Marx and Engels both described what they were talking about as Materialism (even if only a species of materialism) and ultimately for my own part because I want to emphasise the thingness of thought that it has, kind of, a gravity and dimensions and is subject to causation (and that the universe would exist if there were no humans in it and no minds at all).I'm fine with you calling it idealism-materialism, so long as you and the rest of us realise you're just using that to desribe Marxian Materialism.

[Author]

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