Z A Jordan and Marx’s epistemology

[LBird]

If you read what I've written, robbo, then we do actually produce our 'physical world'.Jordan supports this view of Marx's epistemology.If you're not interested in this, why keep posting?

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

If you read what I've written, robbo, then we do actually produce our 'physical world'.Jordan supports this view of Marx's epistemology.If you're not interested in this, why keep posting?

 Like I said, LBird, your way of expressing yourself is misleading.  We don't actually "produce" the physical world because, taken literally, that would mean human beings predate the physical world in which they find themselves. Unless you've gone bonkers that is obviously not what you mean but you need to say what you mean more clearly without resorting to this poseur style of cod philosphy

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

If you read what I've written, robbo, then we do actually produce our 'physical world'.Jordan supports this view of Marx's epistemology.If you're not interested in this, why keep posting?

 Like I said, LBird, your way of expressing yourself is misleading.  We don't actually "produce" the physical world because, taken literally, that would mean human beings predate the physical world in which they find themselves. Unless you've gone bonkers that is obviously not what you mean but you need to say what you mean more clearly without resorting to this poseur style of cod philosphy

robbo, I can't express myself more clearly. I'll put it in bold/italic for you, if it will help:We do actually "produce" our physical world.  This is what Marx argued, this is what Jordan in his book says that Marx argued, and this is what I agree that Marx argued.I've told you what the problem is, that prevents you reading what Marx, Jordan and I write: it's your 'materialist' ideology. The sooner you examine that, the sooner you'll be able to understand Marx, yourself, and why you disagree with Marx.One symptom of this is your refusal to use the concept "our physical world", which your ideology tells you should be "the physical world".The use of 'the', the definite article, is part of an ideology that claims universal application: 'the physical'. Thus, 'the physical' is external to any human activity. 'The physical' just 'is', simply 'as it is'.The use of 'our', a pronoun, is part of an ideology that claims relative social application: 'our physical'. Thus, 'our physical' is relative to (and created by) some human activity. 'Our physical' is a 'product', of a complex 'production' process, which varies with time and place.You'll either have to start studying Marx's epistemology, or keep resorting, as all 'materialists' do, to insults like 'bonkers', 'poseur' and 'cod'.I'm not being insulting when I say that it's only your ignorance that's preventing you from understanding these issues.Read Jordan's text again, and compare how a 'materialist' would understand it with how a Marxist would understand it, now that you should be able to do this.Of course, this all depends upon you being interested in doing so – I can't make you read what Marx, Jordan and I 'literally' write.

[LBird]

Jordan, pp. 29-30, wrote:

Marx rightly argued that naturalism thus understood ‘distinguishes itself both from idealism and materialism, constituting at the same time the unifying truth of both’. Although what men see, touch, or grasp are responses to external stimuli, the external objects are determined by the selective activity of the senses and the senses in turn are constantly modified by the biological, social, and cultural evolution of the human species. In a certain, sense, then, there are no natural data, no God-given external facts of nature, but only socially mediated objects.[45]The world as known to man is a man-made world; it is the totality of ‘things for us’ and not of ‘things-in-themselves’. The only knowable is the world that appears in man’s experience, that is causally transformed by human action, divided into species and particulars, class members and classes, articulated into objects and their relations, into things with a definite form, arrangement, and structure, and cut out from the chaotic mass of the pre-existing world as it persists by itself. This humanized world is knowable because it is a world determined by man, the outcome, as Marx said in the first Thesis on Feuerbach, of ‘human sensuous activity’. As a natural being man shapes the environment according to his needs, and the needs determine the articulation of the world into separate things and their connections. External objects are, as it were, the objectified centres of resistance in the environment encountered by the human drives striving for the satisfaction of needs. If the needs were different, the world would look differently too, as it does to other animal species.

[my bold]This is a longer version of my statement: humans socially produce their own world, our nature is our product.It is 'nature-for-us', 'reality-for-us', 'truth-for-us', 'object-for-us', 'fact-for-us'…… and not 'nature-as-it-is', 'reality-as-it-is', 'truth-as-it-is', 'object-as-it-is', 'fact-as-it-is'.This is why Marx's epistemology is revolutionary: it allows us to change our world. It denies the bourgeois myth that the world we live in (their social product) can't be changed, but must be simply endured, 'as-it-is'. They claim that their product is not their product, but a universal 'reality', 'nature-as-it-is', which their bourgeois science claims to simply, disinterestedly, objectively, 'discover'. Which can't be changed, because their elite 'Knows Eternal Truth', of 'Matter' (or, 'The Physical').

[robbo203]

LBird wrote:

 robbo, I can't express myself more clearly. I'll put it in bold/italic for you, if it will help:We do actually "produce" our physical world.  .

Sigh. What I am trying to do, LBird,  is to encourage you to modify your language in a way that makes clear in what sense we "produce" our physical world,.  You are not seriously suggesting here  that the we actually literally produce the physical world  are you?  At least, I hope not!  As far as is known the physical universe preceded the appearance of human beings by, well,  millions upon millions of years, right?  To a peasant like me that sounds as if its highly unlikely that we "produced" this universeWhat I suggest we "produce" is not the physical world as such  but an IDEA of the physical world.  Thats what I am trying to get you to see but you don't see it.  You continue to use this obscure elitist academic language you have such such a fondness for

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

 robbo, I can't express myself more clearly. I'll put it in bold/italic for you, if it will help:We do actually "produce" our physical world.  .

Sigh. What I am trying to do, LBird,  is to encourage you to modify your language in a way that makes clear in what sense we "produce" our physical world,.  You are not seriously suggesting here  that the we actually literally produce the physical world  are you?  At least, I hope not!  As far as is known the physical universe preceded the appearance of human beings by, well,  millions upon millions of years, right?  To a peasant like me that sounds as if its highly unlikely that we "produced" this universe

Sigh. Even bold/italic doesn't help you to read 'words'.'What you are trying to do, robbo' is to read what I'm writing from the ideology of 'materialism'. I've patiently (with much 'sighing') tried to explain this to you, but you won't read these 'words', either. So much for 'materialism' eh? It prevents 'words' being read, apparently. Must be a 'real', even 'physical', barrier to understanding.

robbo wrote:

What I suggest we "produce" is not the physical world as such  but an IDEA of the physical world.  Thats what I am trying to get you to see but you don't see it.  You continue to use this obscure elitist academic language you have such such a fondness for

And you keep using 'this obscure elitist academic and bourgeois language you have such a fondness for': 'materialism'. That's what I am trying to get you to see but you don't see it.And what 'you' (ahem) 'suggest' is a well-attested ideology, an ideology that pretends not to be a social ideology, but common-or-garden, simple, basic, individual common sense!You're the one separating 'idea' from 'physical' – which is an ancient philosophy, which separates the 'subject' from the 'object' (or, the 'idea' from the 'physical'; or, 'consciousness' from 'being'; or, 'ideal' from 'material', etc.).Once more, robbo – and please, please, please, read my words – Marx doesn't do this. Marx maintains the link between the 'subject' and the 'object', and claims that this link is human activity (or, 'social labour'; or, 'social production').Now, if you wish to separate 'idea' and 'physical', by all means do so. But don't pretend that this has anything whatsoever to do with Marx's epistemology. Just openly state your ideology of 'science', your philosophy of 'epistemology', your definition of the 'subject' (which will be 'an individual', rather than Marx's 'social subject').Once you openly state your ideology, it will not only be clearer to all reading here, but, I think, will make your 'own' ideas clearer to yourself. And, hopefully, Marx's ideas clearer to everyone.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

I should add, YMS, that the selections that you've quoted from Jordan, above, actually support my argument regarding Marx's views, of social theory and practice upon inorganic nature producing organic nature, and that organic nature is thus socio-historic, and so we can change it.

But we do not change it ex-nihil.  There might not be a thing in itself but  there is a thing for us.  As we've discussed before, if nature possesses no qualities, it does not exist, for there to be a real, there must be a real substance.  We do not have access to the real, or to the thing in itself, and so, per Occam, we should not bother postulating it.  Indeed, we can change our world, by acting in it, not by mere whim.Lets takelanguage, language is socially produced, but it would be absurd, hunmpty-dumpty like to vote on the meaning of words (any prescriptive efort will fall in the face of actual practice).  We can only work with the socio-historical world as we find it and reproduce it: the change comes from changing ourselves and our being in the world.  What we produce are thought objects, which have causitive effect on ourselves and others, and when we come to real objects the thought objects mediate, but as if they are real objects, they have substance and need to be shaped.  As Jordan points out, this is a naturalist approach, in which humans are a part of the system, not outside or above free to act as they wish.I find it hard to see how the Marx's words ‘the priority of external nature unassailed’ can be squared at all with your reading.  I'd be interested for you to explain.  Also ‘sensuous external world'  would suggest to me that the external world possesses quality.  Yes, we only come to it through society, just as language means we exist first and foremost for others.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I find it hard to see how the Marx's words ‘the priority of external nature unassailed’ can be squared at all with your reading.  I'd be interested for you to explain.  Also ‘sensuous external world'  would suggest to me that the external world possesses quality.

So, I'm being 'tag-teamed', now, am I?Can't you and robbo co-ordinate your posts, so I don't have to say the same thing twice?Anyway, here's the short answer.Marx argues that 'inorganic nature' is laboured upon to produce 'organic nature'. Is that clear, once again?'Physical' or 'matter' is part of 'organic nature' – that is, we produce 'matter'.Engels, and the 'materialists' don't agree with Marx's 'social productionism', but argue that 'matter' pre-exists its social production. This is an ideology, produced by the bourgeoisie, and is opposed to Marx's views.The 'external world' (by which you mean 'inorganic nature') does not possess 'quality' (no matter what you 'suggest' – your 'suggestion' is an ideology, which you refuse to confront or expose).'Qualities' are produced by social labour, and 'exist' within 'organic nature' (ie., 'nature-for-us').The ideology of 'materialism' doesn't agree with Marx, and neither do you, and that's fine by me. Just don't pretend that what your ideology argues is what Marx argues.PS. re-read Jordan's quote, above – we create our objects.

[Young Master Smeet]

I don't read Robbo's posts or your replies to them.Anyway:

Quote:

External objects are, as it were, the objectified centres of resistance in the environment encountered by the human drives striving for the satisfaction of needs.

Things [possessing no quality could not be centres of resistance.Humans have alweays terraformed their world, and we live in a world "cut out from the chaotic mass of the pre-existing world as it persists by itself. "The method of looking first at humans in the world does not deny that there is a world, but means we start our science from assuming that we alter by investigating, and understanding our diexis.

[LBird]

Perhaps if I use an analogy, that any worker can understand (I just know that I’m going to regret doing this, because analogies are always open to being read in a way not intended – and the ‘materialists’ will always ‘read’ in a different way).A baker takes dough and produces a pie.This is essentially Marx’s model – ‘baker’ = ‘active human’, who has an idea of what they wish to produce; ‘dough’ = undifferentiated ‘inorganic nature’, which is an ingredient into the labour of the ‘active human’; ‘pie’ = ‘object’, which is part of our ‘organic nature’.The bourgeoisie argue that their ‘baker’ simply ‘discovers’ their ‘pies’ on the shelf of the shop, and that their baker does not produce pies, but simply sells an existing object.With Marx’s model, we can determine for ourselves what ‘dough’ we choose to take, based upon what our interests and purposes are in producing our ‘pie’. We don’t simply accept a ‘pie’ which is a ‘shit pie’, and is damaging to us (for ‘shit pie’, read ‘scientific eugenics’, for example).With the bourgeois materialist model, we can’t refuse ‘shit pie’ – after all, the nice ‘baker’ simply gives us what they must, that object which magically appears on their shelf, for disinterested distribution.Comrades, please take this for what it is – a simple attempt to point those interested in epistemology in the right direction.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

I don't read Robbo's posts or your replies to them.

Why doesn't that surprise me?A conversation that YMS is participating in, but doesn't bother to read.Y'couldn't make it up!The 'materialist' blinkers fully at work!You'd probably be more accurate to say:

Young Master Smeet shouldve wrote:

I don't read Robbo's or LBird's posts or his or your replies to them.I'm a 'materialist'. My faith sustains me.

[Young Master Smeet]

To take an old philosophcal saw: imagine a child blind from birth, who sees for the first time.  She can only blink for a few seconds at a time.  So, before her on the table is a can of coke.  Some joker keeps turning the can of coke between each blink: she sees it from a new angle each time, all around the aysmmetrical sides, and each end.Now, this is usually used as an argument about the thing in itself, or how we construct our perceptual world.  For an empiricist, this would be many different objects.  As a matter of fact and record, we know that a cylinder of coke is throwing off light in a sphere, it is only our eyes and our evolved brain that trims it down to shape: change our eyes, and we change the way we see things (for instance, constructing holograms make photographic paper part of our eyes; or wearing glasses;telescopes, etc.).The point, as I understand Marx, is that collectively, it doesn't matter that there is an essential coke can, but just as we create it (in this instance, by lookoing at it).  Doesn't mean it isn't there, but, per occam, why bother about it?  Our mythical girl begins to understand the coke can is a singular object (partly because otehrs tell her it is so), and as she picks it up and drinks from it, or marvels in its aeshetics, she creates her object world.  but the can still has mass, and is not reflecting light of all colours (but maybe some colours her retinas cannot register).I don't think Lbird's dough stands up, as it were. He needs an express citation from Marx to make that stand, because otherwise I think he is misreading Marx (and to an extent Jordan).

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

A conversation that YMS is participating in, but doesn't bother to read.

I'm not participating in that conversation.

[LBird]

You'll have to explain the relevance of your model to the revolutionary proletariat who wish to change their world and democratise all social production.This a site (supposedly) dedicated to politics, especially socialist/communist politics, and this is a discussion about Marx's epistemology, which I'd argue is a key issue for the class conscious proletariat.As for 'dough', read 'ingredient'.An 'ingredient' requires a baker with a pie recipe, whose aim is to produce a pie.Unless you accept that Marx links subject and object by activity, then you won't understand the analogy, and will simply, as a 'materialist', wish to 'know' what 'dough' is, 'in-itself', outside of any baker, recipe and pie.I'm not a 'dough-in-itself-ist', and neither was Marx.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

A conversation that YMS is participating in, but doesn't bother to read.

I'm not participating in that conversation.

I don't think you're participating in any conversation.And to refuse to read what's being said by others about issues relevant to your 'conversation', is quite revealing of your 'individualist' method: the 'materialist monologue', perhaps?

[Author]

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