The Long Awaited Materialism thread

[robbo203]

Vin Maratty wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

The point Im getting at is that we should move away from this kind of crass mechanistic notion that material conditions "produce" ideas 

It is not 'crass mechanistic' to say that a material brain is required for thinking with. 

  Thats not what I am saying at all, Vin.  No one is disputing that a brain is required for thinking.  Im talking about something quite different – the idea that material conditions (or, if you like, the "base" in the base/superstructure model of society) "produce" or give rise to, ideas .  This is what I am criticising.  It derives from a crass misreading of the statement that it is not consciousness that determines social being but social being that determines consciousness.  There has never been such a thing as social being without consciousness; consciousness is an intergal part  of our social being.

[robbo203]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

It doesn't seem as if we're going to get to the bottom of Marx's quote, on this thread, now.

It's quite simple. What makes a good a commodity and possess value is not the physical characteristics of the good itself but the social relations between the producers themselves.Now we get to the question of "what is a social relation". I'd say social relations are the aggregate outcome of the actions of people in society. How people act in society depends, to a certain degree on their consciousness and their consciousness is in turn conditioned by the society they are in. Both affect each other in a co-defining relationship.There is nothing in this that leads us to abandoning physicalism (in the metaphysical sense of the word).If you think physicalism is unable to deal with relations you are wrong.

 Up to the last sentence I would go along with what you say but your last sentence is a bit iffy.  Depends what you mean by "deal with" – which I take you to mean "account for".  If, as you say, you subscribe to a non-reductive physicalism (emergence theory) then almost by definition physicalism cannot fully account for, or "deal with", social relations.  There is something in the latter that eludes a purely physicalist explanation – even if the individuals who form social relations between themselves are physical entities.Point is they are more than just physical entities.

[DJP]

I agree there are problems with physicalism (as there are with all things once you get down to the core of it) but I am not at all sure that emergence really explains anything either, it just merely kicks the can down the road.Perhaps I should just up the vagarity levels and use "monism" instead.

[DJP]

robbo203 wrote:

 Depends what you mean by "deal with" – which I take you to mean "account for".

If you take physicalism to mean "that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical" then I don't see relationships as a particular problem…

[twc]

Crass Misreading

robbo203 wrote:

the idea that material conditions (or, if you like, the “base” in the base/superstructure model of society) “produce” or give rise to, ideas … derives from a crass misreading of the statement that it is “not consciousness that determines social being but social being that determines consciousness”.

Marx was quite familiar with your preferred non-crass reading, but you delude yourself if you think Marx could ever subscribe to it.  His materialism forbids explanation by pure immediate experience, and commits him to explanation that is mediated by abstraction from experience.Now, it is highly significant that Marx declares “social being determines consciousness” in a scientific manifesto [Contribution, 1859] in which he writes with the clarity of a manifesto.Only a moron or fraudster blunts the point of a manifesto.  Obfuscation soon enough follows as the work of affronted lackeys, who tone things down to the level of their own “non-crass” syncretism.To me Marx is clearly repudiating the abstract commonsense claims of both idealism and syncretism, and is certainly not endorsing them as you assert, presumably to favour your non-crass reading.Marx’s materialistic attack on claims for untrammelled thought effectively scuttles your own “creative” voluntarism, or utopianism, as it was then called, and this is the main reason you find his materialist message to be crass, and the main impetus for obfuscating its crystal clarity.Post #119In post #119, I retraced a suggested path of Marx’s abstract materialist development of consciousness out of social being.  The rest of Capital is the working out of this development in concrete detail.Explaining this development materialistically was claimed here to be absolutely impossible.Well, I hope that, by shining a spotlight on the unfamiliar nature [as judged by some posts] of Marx’s own materialism, I’ve helped to clarify what Marx was getting at when he said his conception of history was materialist and, equally importantly, just what Marx was not getting at.Concrete Phenomena are Not Scientific PrinciplesI am sufficiently crass a determinist to believe that a scientist means exactly what he says he means when he consciously formulates an abstract scientific principle that states:            A determines B .I am sufficiently crass a determinist to believe that the scientist intends to use his abstract scientific principle to explain the puzzling contingent concrete phenomena that it was abstracted from:            A and B appear to interact reciprocally .I am sufficiently crass a determinist to believe — contrary to syncretists — that a contingent phenomenal observation is not an abstract scientific principle.  For example, the contingent phenomenal statement:            A and B merely interactis a restatement of concrete content in the same form as a scientific principle, but it still remains contingent and concrete in content, and so void of any abstract scientific content, and is definitely not an abstract scientific principle, even if it looks like one to the syncretist.Thus I am led to the inexorable conclusion that you are simply confusing the thought-realm of deterministic scientific abstraction with the phenomenal-realm of concrete contingent experience.  Consequently, for you:            crass ≡ scientificThis issue of materialism v. syncretism is too fundamental to drop here.I fully intend to hound robbo203 for his non-crass response to my #119.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Emergence.

OK, but physicalism incorperates that and is not neccesarily reductive.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/#9

DJP, I’m still trying to find out what is actually meant by ‘supervene’ within the ideology of physicalism. For the moment, perhaps this will help. 

Quote:

This is not to suggest that living things are animated by an immaterial `vital force' or anything like that. Biological organisms are purely natural, material entities. In some cases the underlying physical and chemical mechanisms and processes that govern their behaviour are beginning to be understood. Yet this does not mean that biological phenomena as such can be described and explained in terms of mere physics or chemistry, or that such reduction will ever be possible. For biology involves a different and higher level of understanding.For example, insulin is a biological product; it is a hormone which is secreted in the pancreas. The chemical composition of insulin is known, and it can even be synthesised artificially. Some of its chemical effects in the body are understood. But this does not mean that the biology of insulin has been or can be reduced to chemistry. To describe and understand insulin in biological terms involves much more than a knowledge of its chemical composition and properties. It involves understanding its role as a hormone – that is to say, its function in the body as a whole. Chemistry can provide an account of the mechanisms underlying this role; but this role itself can be comprehended only with a different level of concepts and principles which are constitutive of biology as a distinct science.Page 5 Of course, a living organism is composed of physical and chemical constituents, and nothing more. Nevertheless, it is not a mere collection of such constituents, nor even of anatomical and physiological parts. It is these parts unified, organised and acting as a whole. This unity and organisation are not features only of our descriptions: they are properties of the thing itself; they are constitutive of it as a biological organism. Nor are the laws governing its behaviour simply a function of our theories; they are operative in the organism itself as its laws. There are real – objective and material – differences between a living thing and a merely physical or chemical entity which it is the aim of biology to describe. This is the realist and materialist view.Again, it must be stressed, this is not to suggest that living things involve a transcendent `organic unity' or that they are animated by any non-natural `vital principle'. Biological forms and laws do not transcend those of physics and chemistry; they do not supplant or replace them.  On the contrary, in a living thing the laws of the lower – physical and chemical – levels continue to operate. On this basis, however, new structures and forms develop. New – biological – principles come into effect, and physical and chemical laws, although they continue to operate, in Hegel's words, `cease to be final and decisive, and sink, as it were, to a subservient position'.21 Physical processes are subsumed within a higher law. Such biological laws have objective existence and real effects, not by acting independently of physical laws, nor by replacing them, but rather by giving a new and higher form of organisation to the physical and chemical phenomena. The biological level arises within, and exists on the basis of, the physical and chemical levels, not outside or apart from them.Process in NatureIn this way, biological concepts and principles are neither reducible to those of chemistry or physics, nor are they entirely autonomous or transcendent. These different levels are relatively autonomous: they are not only distinct but also united; there is continuity as well as difference between them. The clearest demonstration of this is provided by the fact – and modern science takes it for a fact – that biological phenomena emerge from merely chemical and physical – i.e., non-biological – conditions, by purely natural processes.Evolution of higher and more complex forms from lower and simpler ones is not peculiar to biological evolution, it is a fundamental  feature of material existence more generally. It is exhibited at a simpler level in the evolution of the universe as a whole – in the formation, development  and ultimate  death  of galaxies,  stars  and planetary  systems – described  and explained by cosmology. Likewise, geology describes the development of the material features of the planet. These phenomena are material processes which have their basis in certain physical and chemical mechanisms. Nevertheless, such processes cannot be reduced to chemistry, physics or mechanics. And this is not just for the reasons given so far: that the concepts and principles of these  sciences  are  irreducible  to  purely  physicalist  terms.  For  physicalism  involves  the reductionist view that all natural processes can be explained entirely in terms of a few simple and eternal laws of physics and mechanics. This view is blind to development and process in nature; it excludes the very ideas of the emergence and evolution of new forms and new laws within the material world. That is to say, physicalism gives an unsatisfactory account of the material world even in its physical aspect.Pages 6-7

 http://www.kent.ac.uk/secl/philosophy/articles/sayers/mental.pdf

[DJP]

Looks interesting. But note he's arguing for a "non-physicalist materialism" The trouble seems to be that 'physicalism', 'materialism' and 'realism' are used in different ways by different writers. For interests sake would you have an objection to the term 'monism'?It might help if you look up the concept of multiple realizability if you don't know it already.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/multiple-realizability/

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

Crass Misreading

robbo203 wrote:

the idea that material conditions (or, if you like, the “base” in the base/superstructure model of society) “produce” or give rise to, ideas … derives from a crass misreading of the statement that it is “not consciousness that determines social being but social being that determines consciousness”.

Marx was quite familiar with your preferred non-crass reading, but you delude yourself if you think Marx could ever subscribe to it.  His materialism forbids explanation by pure immediate experience, and commits him to explanation that is mediated by abstraction from experience.

 Get your facts straight first of all.  I did not say Marx himself suggested anything other than what you say above about his "materialism".  I was not referring to Marx  but to others including self styled Marxists who see things differently. Which is precisely why I referred to the latters'  reading of the above statement as a "crass misreading" – that is, a crass misreading of what Marx himself was trying to say.  There is no such thing as social being without consciousness.  Yes, indeed, explanation is always mediated by abstraction from experience , to use your expression.  You seem to have completely missed the point I was making, havent you? I referred you earlier to Peter Stilman's peice on Marx.  Note what the relevant extract says about social being and consciousnessThe second argument for determinism, which builds on Marx’s statement about life determining consciousness, overlooks that statement’s peculiar twist. Marx engages frequently in a kind of contrapuntal statement, where he denies a left-wing Hegelian slogan and then presents his view as the reverse. But Marx’s aphorism — “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness” — presents its assertion asymmetrically. Having denied the left-wing Hegelian stance that consciousness determines being, Marx reverses the terms but adds “social” — and “social being” is not defined but seems to be more extensive than merely forces (or forces and relations) of production and indeed as “social” likely includes consciousnessMarx’s starker statement in The German Ideology — “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life” (MER, 155) — does not add “social” but does present its own asymmetry. The left-wing Hegelians, pace Marx, think that consciousness determines life, as though consciousness were something independent of life, standing apart from it (like an individualized Geist-like spirit) and shaping it. But Marx in this section rejects the view of consciousness as independent of life (so that he goes on to reject that philosophy can be “an independent branch of knowledge”). Rather, he is trying to make consciousness a part of human life. So, when “life determines consciousness,” Marx is tautologically asserting, as part of his on-going argument, that life (a totality including consciousness) determines consciousness (because it is a part of life). As he himself writes, when we see that “life determines consciousness,” “the starting point … is real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness” (MER, 155). So these statements do not deny free will so much as they put human consciousness into an intimate relation with other aspects of human life.(http://marxmyths.org/peter-stillman/article.htm)

[LBird]

DJP, have you come across the distinction between an ‘internalist’ theory of mind (which I think you and Vin espouse), and an ‘externalist’ theory of mind, which I think fits better with Marx’s views of society and value?

Gregory McCulloch (1995) The Mind and its World Routledge, London, p. xii, wrote:

The other principal moral drawn is that these outstanding issues should be resolved in a non-Cartesian manner. Although it is customary now to reject Descartes' immaterialism, it is almost as customary to adopt a form of materialistic Cartesianism, according to which the mind is, essentially anyway, a (material) thing to be found in the head. This is the most common contemporary form of Internalism,the view that an individual's mental characteristics are wholly constituted by what goes on within the skin of that individual, so that matters in the individual's physical or cultural environment have no bearing on the identity conditions of these mental characteristics. Against this, I recommend an Externalist position which combines elements of Wittgenstein, and a dash of existentialism, in making embodiment partly constitutive of having a mind; and which blends this with Fregean themes to yield an accommodation of Putnam's influential views on natural kinds and our thoughts about them. According to the resulting position, the mind is separable neither from the body nor from the surroundings in which this body lives and moves.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mind-World-Problems-Philosophy-ebook/dp/B000FBF8L0#_Although I’m no expert on ‘mind’, this seems to me to be more appropriate to a critical realist perspective, than a physicalist perspective. Put simply, my explanation earlier about placing a single ‘x’ between the adjacent ears of two individuals captures the location of ‘mind’ better, than placing two ‘x’s between each individual’s own ears.Mind is our social, cultural and historical environment, rather than in one’s ‘grey matter’.

[Anonymous]

To deny that the MCH is determinist is tantamount to removing all hope.It is a denial that wars and poverty have a removable cause; they just happen.“Freedom does not consist in a dream of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of those laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends”      EngelsThe socialist case depends upon the fact that the MCH is determinist. Marx determined that ‘superstructural’ phenomena such as wars and poverty were/are caused by the economic base of capitalism. Such inevitability does not equal fatalism or powerlessness. Nor does it deny the power of ideas to change the world.The working class will recognise that the economic base of society determines the ‘superstructure’ and – because of this determinism – take action to free the human race. Marx believed that workers will eventually recognise this, talk to each other about it and organise for revolution. The Russian experience was a vindication of determinism, capitalism and not communism developed out of the peasant economy. Material conditions ultimately asserted themselves and history continues outside of human control until the working class makes it otherwise.We cannot 'think' wars and poverty out of existence, we have to recognise cause and effect.   

[LBird]

DJP, some further info on where I'm exploring this issue of the mind being outside our 'grey matter'

wikipedia, on EMT, wrote:

The "extended mind thesis" (EMT) refers to an emerging concept that addresses the question as to the division point between the mind and the environment by promoting the view of active externalism. The EMT proposes that some objects in the external environment are utilized by the mind in such a way that the objects can be seen as extensions of the mind itself. Specifically, the mind is seen to encompass every level of the cognitive process, which will often include the use of environmental aids.The seminal work in the field is "The Extended Mind" by Andy Clark and David Chalmers (1998).[1] In this paper, Clark and Chalmers present the idea of active externalism (similar to semantic or "content" externalism), in which objects within the environment function as a part of the mind. They argue that it is arbitrary to say that the mind is contained only within the boundaries of the skull. The separation between the mind, the body, and the environment is seen as an unprincipled distinction. Because external objects play a significant role in aiding cognitive processes, the mind and the environment act as a "coupled system". This coupled system can be seen as a complete cognitive system of its own. In this manner, the mind is extended into the external world. The main criterion that Clark and Chalmers list for classifying the use of external objects during cognitive tasks as a part of an extended cognitive system is that the external objects must function with the same purpose as the internal processes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_mindAnd I've ordered a book by Andy Clark:http://www.amazon.com/Supersizing-Mind-Embodiment-Cognitive-Philosophy/dp/0199773688#_Your questions about critical realism and emergence, and your individualist 'grey matter' counter-arguments, have spurred me on to do some more research. Thanks!

[twc]

Thanks.Carolyn Merchant, in your quote, describes a concrete social phenomenon.  If proffered as its own ineffable meaning, it is open to any interpretation you please, which possibly suits her purpose.Peter Stillman, in your quote, advances the brave politics of committed voluntarism through the insipid philosophy of non-committal syncretism.  No actual scientist abandons causality so quickly.  No actual human thinks that determinism really implies no free will.  No actual socialist ever thought other than Marx “puts human consciousness into an intimate relation with other aspects of human life.” — which is about as mind-numbingly vapid a conclusion for an article on Marx as syncretism can muster.  It is “a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing”.Your own “there is no such thing as social being without consciousness”, though equally vapid, has the virtue of bordering on its own disproof.

[robbo203]

twc wrote:

Carolyn Merchant, in your quote, describes a concrete social phenomenon.  If proffered as its own ineffable meaning, it is open to any interpretation you please, which possibly suits her purpose.

Hardly.  It places human agency and choice at the centre of a process in which certain ideas spread and gain ground and others die out.  Point being that ideas are "selected for" – not simply "produced".  This denotes an active creative role of human beings in history as opposed to seeing individuals as the merely the product of circumstances. It is in line with Marx's insight that men make their own history albeit out of materials not of their own choosing

twc wrote:

 Peter Stillman, in your quote, advances the brave politics of committed voluntarism through the insipid philosophy of non-committal syncretism.  No actual scientist abandons causality so quickly.  No actual human thinks that determinism really implies no free will.

Really? And there I was thinking there was  indeed a whole bunch of philosophers of  the "incompatibilist" school of thought who do indeed hold  that the one thing negates the other. Look up "incompatibilism" in moral philosophy.  My own position is a middle ground one of compatibilism or soft deteminism as opposed to the hard determinism of people like Ted Honderich.  Actually, Honderich himself believes that even the very idea of free will is meaningless and so he is not strictly an incompatilibilist.  But there are certainly others who are.  You seem here to be supporting the idea of free will in some form (as do I)  yet seem critical of voluntarism.  Which is confusing.  Do you not see a role for a kind of qualified voluntarism?

twc wrote:

Your own “there is no such thing as social being without consciousness”, though equally vapid, has the virtue of bordering on its own disproof.

Thats only because you dont understand what is at stake.  If you eased off on the macho posturing and the tiresome ad hominen line of attack of yours and engaged  more sympathetically with the arguments offered, you might learn something….My experience of debating with people on the Left has led me to conclude that a good many of them do indeed take up a perspective that I would call "mechanical materialism" – the argument that ideas are no more  than the product or "reflection"of "material reality".  So, for instance,  the spread of socialist consciousness upon which the establishment of socialism is absolutely dependent is said to arise out of class struggle rather than the dissemination of socialist ideas.  Whereas i would see it as emphatically the result of BOTH these things.  Clearly, socialist consciousness  does develop out of class struggle – after all, pivotal to the idea of socialism is the overthrow of class relations of production which presupposes our apprehension of "class" in the first place –  but equally  the development and spread of socialist consciousness is a process that rebounds or reacts back on class struggle helping to refine and strengthen it and invest it with a sense of direction and purpose.  There is no certainty whatsoever that the mere existence of an objective conflict of interest between classes will even lead to a sense of class identificaction, let alone a socialist outlook on life.  The influence of nationalist ideology , for instance, could smother such a possibility completely by encouraging individuals to see themselves as part of an entity called the "nation" rather than one called a class.  All of which attests to the importance of spreading ideas.  The seeds of a future socialist movement germinate in the soil of class struggle but they also depend on  the rain of socialist ideas to bring them to lifeI would have thought,as an SPGBer, .you would have been rather sympathetic to this line of thought. I have my criticism of the SPGB but I have never denied that the "abstact propagandism",  which is its trademark,  has an important role to play in the socialist revolution.  Something that sections of the so called revolutionary Left sneeringly  dismiss in vanguardist fashion.  Point is that that ridiculous posture of theirs is precisely the  logical outcome of their own crass mechanically  materialist view of the world

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

My experience of debating with people on the Left has led me to conclude that a good many of them do indeed take up a perspective that I would call "mechanical materialism" – the argument that ideas are no more than the product or "reflection"of "material reality".

I couldn't agree more, robbo. This is my experience, too, on several socialist/communist/anarchist sites.But one consequence of taking this stance, of being opposed to 'mechanical materialism', is that we have to apply our 'activist human' notion to all science, including physics.There are still comrades arguing that the (always unspecified) 'scientific method' produces 'The Truth' about the external world of nature.

robbo203 wrote:

It places human agency and choice at the centre of a process in which certain ideas spread and gain ground and others die out. Point being that ideas are "selected for" – not simply "produced". This denotes an active creative role of human beings in history [and physics] as opposed to seeing individuals [or scientific knowledge] as the merely the product of circumstances. It is in line with Marx's insight that men make their own history albeit out of materials not of their own choosing.

[my bold inserts]This putting of 'active, creative humans' is a philosophical choice entirely at one with the SPGB's view of 'class consciousness', I think.

robbo203 wrote:

I would have thought,as an SPGBer, .you would have been rather sympathetic to this line of thought. I have my criticism of the SPGB but I have never denied that the "abstact propagandism", which is its trademark, has an important role to play in the socialist revolution. Something that sections of the so called revolutionary Left sneeringly dismiss in vanguardist fashion. Point is that that ridiculous posture of theirs is precisely the logical outcome of their own crass mechanically materialist view of the world.

Yes, the SPGB's position on education and propaganda as playing a vital role (alongside class conscious action) in producing a class conscious, Communist, proletariat, only makes sense if this view is extended to physics and our understanding of nature.All scientific research has ideology intertwined in it. The sooner humans accept this, the sooner we'll have more 'socially objective' knowledge. This view puts the proletariat potentially at the forefront of human thinking. What's more, some advanced bourgeois philosophers have been moving towards this view for decades. IMO, they're simply catching up with Marx's insights in the 1840s. We have no need to stick with 'elitist' views of science, as being the provence of only the select few, an educated elite, because if humans can democratically control production, they must be able to democratically control science, which is an essential part of production. Communist society will abhor elites, in any social role, including investigating nature.

[twc]

My definition:  Voluntarism.  [politics] A movement toward socialism that operates in ignorance of, in defiance of, or in denial of any conception of social necessity, or social determinism.It includes all our opponents, but excludes the Socialist Party through its Declaration of Principles.You bring in the Left.  It is precisely the Left that advocates socialism through voluntaristic reform of capitalism or through voluntaristic non-class conscious militancy.Can you name any voluntarist group of the Left, e.g. Labour, Communists, Occupy, etc. whose socialist wings have not been fatally clipped by the social necessity, or social determinism, they ignored, defied or denied?Can you name one instance where Left voluntaristic hostility was not tamed, like a cowed horse, into servicing the once hostile needs of capital, and thereby far more dangerously proving to immediate consciousness the invincibility of master capital?Taming consciousness is precisely what the social superstructure is for in capitalist society.  The superstructure is the consciousness of the capitalist class, and that consciousness has one sentient role — to ensure capitalist society expands value, or capital behaves as capital.  Any opposition, like blustering voluntarism, is just another irritant among the many this sentient partner has to deal with as expeditiously as it must to ensure it doesn’t impede the functioning of capital.In this actual context, to seriously interpose “free will” between social determinism and human action is a sick joke, and you really know it to be vile, despite the academicism of your freak philosophical mates.Serious humans navigate life in knowledge of and subservience to natural necessity, or determinism.  They avoid falling down holes or bumping into closed doors, most of the time.  They still believe they are free to fall down holes and bump into closed doors, but they also recognize the consequences attendant upon flouting such natural necessity, or determinism, and decide not to fall down holes or bump into closed doors instead.Marx is saying no more about political action than serious people say about everyday life, in which people are cognizant of the ground rules.  So must the Socialist Party be.

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