The gravity of the situation

[Anonymous]

Vin wrote:

LBird wrote:

Perhaps a new thread to determine just what posters here mean by 'socialism', in the light of what's been said here?

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/general-discussion/what-socialism Let's here your definition

How about it  then?If you are the only democratic communist on here then you owe it to us

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Since you insist, it's this (but it's a theory of science not an "ideology"):http://mailstrom.blogspot.co.uk/2007/04/joseph-dietzgen-workers-philosop… 

But Dietzgen argued for 'induction', that is, 'practice and theory', ALB, so his ideology was not Marx's 'theory and practice'.As I've said before, if you follow Engels in reducing all philosophy to the 'black and white', 'either/or', 'good or evil' of 'materialism' versus 'idealism', you will try to categorise me, who is not a 'materialist', as an 'idealist'.This is why you're compelled to see me as a 'Kantian'. It's the only option that fits into your ideological schema.But Marx never reduced all philosophy to this simplistic dichotomy, and I've given quotes before to show that he thought he was unifying these two strands into a  third, a philosophy of 'theory and practice'.What you really need to do, ALB, is categorise yourself, first, before using this insight into trying to categorise me.Furthermore, even Engels said that they were influenced by Kant, Fichte and Hegel – and how could it be otherwise, since they were under the influence of German Idealism, as much as of Feuerbachian Materialism?

[Young Master Smeet]

Thanks to ALB bringing Pannekoek into the discussion, I begint to see where the confusion has crept in.  As he notes, Lenin as Philosopher is interesting:

Pancake wrote:

For middle class materialism the problem of the meaning of knowledge is a question of the relationship of spiritual phenomena to the physico-chemical-biological phenomena of the brain matter. For Historical Materialism it is a question of the relationship of our thoughts to the phenomena which we experience as the external world. Now man’s position in society is not simply that of an observing being: he is a dynamic force which reacts upon his environment and changes it. Society is nature transformed through labour. To the scientist, nature is the objectively given reality which he observes, which acts on him through the medium of his senses. To him the external world is the active and dynamic element, whilst the mind is the receptive element. Thus it is emphasised that the mind is only a reflection, an image of the external world, as Engels expressed it when he pointed out the contradiction between the materialist and idealist philosophies. But the science of the scientist is only part of the whole of human activity, only a means to a greater end. It is the preceding, passive part of his activity which is followed by the active part; the technical elaboration, the production, the transformation of the world by man.

and

Quote:

Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of man. Middle-class materialism, on the other hand, from the point of view of the scientific investigator, sees all this as an element of nature itself which has been discovered and brought to light by science. Natural scientists consider the immutable substances, matter, energy, electricity, gravity, the Law of entropy, etc., as the basic elements of the world, as the reality that has to be discovered. From the viewpoint of Historical Materialism they are products which creative mental activity forms out of the substance of natural phenomena.

Herein is Lbirds apparent claims clearly and much better expressed, but note the difference, there is no denial that the external world exists or that we can just make up our science by will alone, natural science is a valid and partial form of materialism for Pancake.  There is no denial of natural phenomena in the above, but an acknowledgement that knowledge is the product of societies and ways of being in relation to that nature.Also, niote the distinction between materialisms, Pannekoek talks of 'bouregois materialism' and 'middle class materialism' (what Chuck in his Theses on Feuerbach called Old Materialism, but which we'd mostly know as mechanical materialism).

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Herein is Lbirds apparent claims clearly and much better expressed, but note the difference, there is no denial that the external world exists or that we can just make up our science by will alone…

C'mon, YMS, even you must be getting tired of repeating this old canard.Marx does not 'deny the existence of the external world' – he calls it 'inorganic nature'.For Marx, the link between 'inorganic nature' and the world-we-create, nature-for-us, 'organic nature', is active humanity, employing social theory and practice, to create our world.Even Pannekoek, in the quote you supposedly have read, says that:

Pannekoek wrote:

…[humanity] is a dynamic force which reacts upon his environment and changes it. Society is nature transformed through labour.

You simply, like a good materialist, want to passively observe 'nature'. You want to know 'nature' as it is, without human intervention.Pannekoek uses the term 'stuff of nature' for what Marx calls 'inorganic nature' – this is an ingredient into our labour, which results in our creation of our world.The 'stuff of nature' cannot be passively observed, but only used.You're following a confused Engels, and I'm following Marx and Pannekoek.You think that there are only two options, 'materialism' and 'idealism', and so, with you being a 'materialist', and me not, you can only pidgeon-hole me as an 'idealist' – hence, your continual nonsense about me 'denying an external reality'.For god's sake, YMS, read your own quotes, and admit that you're reading them from the position of Engels' materialism.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird,But as we had out before, you refused to accept that 'inorganic nature' is differentiated, and at least limits what we can do with it, and thus we have not got unbounded freedom to will some truth out of nature, we can only do with it what we can.   

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,But as we had out before, you refused to accept that 'inorganic nature' is differentiated, and at least limits what we can do with it, and thus we have not got unbounded freedom to will some truth out of nature, we can only do with it what we can.  

Who or what 'differentiates' nature, YMS?Like Marx and Pannekoek, I regard 'differentiation' as a product of an active consciousness, specifically human social theory and practice.The alternative formulation, that 'nature differentiates itself' outside of any consciousness, is a return to the separation of 'being' from 'consciousness', the bourgeois materialism that Engels fell for.If humans are not the 'active side', then there must be a 'divine' force out there.There isn't, of course, and so if it is denied that humanity is the 'active side', a smaller part of society must substitute itself for the greater part.Marx warned about this in his Theses on Feuerbach, and the Leninists proved Marx right, because Lenin was forced to posit a 'special consciousness' outside of (wider) humanity. This elite expert minority then tells us that they, and they alone, can tell us the 'differentiation of nature'. But they are the active differentiators. And so the proletariat remains passive.The search for 'The Truth' of a 'nature outside of consciousness' is a bourgeois myth.Human consciousness is inescapably involved in the creation of our nature.Read your Pannekoek quote.

[Young Master Smeet]

Pancake wrote:

Both agree insofar as they are materialist philosophies, that is, both recognise the primacy of the experienced material world; both recognise that spiritual phenomena, sensation, consciousness, ideas, are derived from the former. They are opposite in that middle-class materialism bases itself upon natural science, whereas Historical Materialism is primarily the science of society. Bourgeois scientists observe man only as an object of nature, the highest of the animals, determined by natural Laws. For an explanation of man’s life and action, they have only general biological Laws, and in a wider sense, the laws of chemistry, physics, and mechanics. With these means little can be accomplished in the way of understanding social phenomena and ideas. Historical Materialism, on the other hand, lays bare the specific evolutionary laws of human society and shows the interconnection between ideas and society.

and

Quote:

For Historical Materialism it is a question of the relationship of our thoughts to the phenomena which we experience as the external world. Now man’s position in society is not simply that of an observing being: he is a dynamic force which reacts upon his environment and changes it.

So, for Pannekoek there are phenomena and a material world, mediated and shaped by labour and a society that produces knowledge.So,

Lbird wrote:

If humans are not the 'active side', then there must be a 'divine' force out there.

That is not valid, and doesn't follow, mere accdient suffices.As I've noted before, if the stuff of nature is not differentiated, if it is all some primal goo which we shape with labour, then it doesn't exist, and we can just scrub it out of our equations.You're also, as I noted beforemisreading Marx' theses on Feuerbach, the point is that there is no outside position on which to stand (much like Einsteins later dicovery that ther is no absolute frame of reference, kind of Marx' theory of social relativity).

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

…mere accdient suffices…

Who or what determines what is 'accident'?

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

YMS wrote:

…mere accdient suffices…

Who or what determines what is 'accident'?

No one needs to, excepting that Ockham's razor suggests in the absence of further evidence we can assume accident/randomness.The point of historical materialism is that meaning isn't simply stored in one brain, but is emergent of a whole human process (which is active) and in which ideas of the world are inseperable from the objects of the world, they are not mere reflections but a part of the object and a part of all objects is the lived experience of them.  That does not make human culture a blank slate on which we may write what we like, much less the same for nature.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

YMS wrote:

…mere accdient suffices…

Who or what determines what is 'accident'?

No one needs to…

[my bold]But that is not what Pannekoek says. He says that humans are actively involved in producing our world.Marx says the same thing, and always talks about 'social production' to meet our 'needs'.So, someone 'needs' to determine what is produced.You're a materialist, YMS, and wish to passively observe the world 'as it is', and to pretend to keep 'consciousness' out of the consideration. This is a bourgeois myth.'Consciousness' and 'being' are in an inescapable relationship.We are our own producers, determiners, differentiators… we are in an active relationship with 'inorganic nature', within which creative relationship we build our own 'organic nature'.

[Young Master Smeet]

Sorry, you're skipping around arguments.  We were discussing whether a divine entity is needed to be assumed if there is a nature beyond human experience, and I said such an assumption is not necessary, which it isn't.We were also talking about the differentiation, or qualities of natural phenomena, which may delimit what humans can do, and the phenomena we experience.  If there is no difference or quality, then nature does not exist.  Maybe you could comment ont he logic of this, without appeal to authority?The object of historical materialism is the human activity in the world, but, as Pannekoek says so well: "spiritual phenomena, sensation, consciousness, ideas, are derived from the [experienced material world]."

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

…qualities of natural phenomena…

But, as we have seen with Marx and Pannekoek, 'qualities of natural phenomena' are produced by active humanity. 'Natural qualities' are relational 'qualities', not 'something out there'.Because you are a materialist, you want to know of some mythical 'qualities of natural phenomena' in themselves, without any consciounsess being involved. This is the bourgeois myth of 'knowledge' being simply a reflection of 'nature', and requires a passive stance on the part of the observer.

YMS wrote:

If there is no difference or quality, then nature does not exist.

This is an ideological statement – you wish 'nature' to exist outside of active humanity, whereas Marx and Pannekoek are talking about humans producing their own 'nature'.And I've told you, 'differences and qualities' do exist, and are produced by active humanity.You won't accept this claim, because you're not a Marxist or Pannekoekian, but an Engelsist.You want to 'know' nature as it is without any 'knower' being actively involved. At best, you'll accept a passive observer, which is a bourgeois myth.Even Einstein said 'the theory determines what we observe', therefore bolstering Marx's claims of 'theory and practice'.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

But, as we have seen with Marx and Pannekoek, 'qualities of natural phenomena' are produced by active humanity. 'Natural qualities' are relational 'qualities', not 'something out there'.

Relational between what?  If there is no quality of nature, there is no relationship.

LBird wrote:

YMS wrote:

If there is no difference or quality, then nature does not exist.

This is an ideological statement – you wish 'nature' to exist outside of active humanity, whereas Marx and Pannekoek are talking about humans producing their own 'nature'.

Ad hominem and appeal to authority. If there is no quality to nature, then there is no relationship between labour and nature, only relationships between different qualities of labour.Accordng to oyu, nature is a blank slate we can write anything on we want, is that not the case? 

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Accordng to oyu, nature is a blank slate we can write anything on we want, is that not the case?

No, I keep saying, we produce 'organic nature' from 'inorganic nature', by social theory and practice.This is nothing to do with a mythical 'blank slate nature', which is a concept that only makes sense to materialists, or humans 'doing anything they want'.It's a social production relationship.You want to discuss some mythical 'nature out there' which is fixed, and can be known passively, as it is.Our 'nature' is the dynamic product of human labour.That's why we can change it, which is the whole point of Marx's philosophical works.You want to passively observed something that is fixed, something that is not our product, and thus that we can't change.You want to interpret the world, as it is.

[Young Master Smeet]

Relational between what?  If there is no quality of nature, there is no relationship.

Quote:

No, I keep saying, we produce 'organic nature' from 'inorganic nature', by social theory and practice.

If there is no quality to 'inorganic nature' then there is no need for Marx and Pancake to refer to it (a simple textual matter). There is only social theory and practice producing organic nature (or society, for Cakey boy).What I want is for you to respond to this simple peice of logic.

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