Z A Jordan and Marx’s epistemology

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

…an elite majority…

This is an oxymoron, YMS.I suspect your individualist ideology is at root.

[Young Master Smeet]

Nope, nothing in the definition of elite says it has to be a minority, it is a chosen section of society (ooh, and the point of oxymorons is they make sense, you're trying for a contradiction in terms).

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

…ooh, and the point of oxymorons is they make sense, you're trying for a contradiction in terms

No, you're wrong, again, YMS.Oxymoron means a contradiction in terms.From the Greek oxos (sharp) and moron (blunt).So, oxymoron is an oxymoron.On your 'elite majority', it's just nonsense.

[Young Master Smeet]

"Rhetoric. A figure of speech in which a pair of opposed or markedly contradictory terms are placed in conjunction for emphasis."  Such as a bitter sweet.  The original meaning has slipped in common usage.Elite is just old French for elect, the choice (or chosen) part of a society or group, the majority can be chosen,

[Bijou Drains]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

LBird wrote:

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

…at the risk of coming across as all Jeremy Paxman…

There's no risk there, whatsoever!I think Paxman can read, for example.

Well perhaps he can, maybe I have difficulty interpreting your written material (which no doubt is clear and succinct to all who read it with the exception of me).But as you say, your role is one of explaining to the workers (of which I am one) the real meaning of Marx's writings.So whilst I accept that to the rest of the world you have given a clear answer previously, and at the risk of repetition, could this ignorant worker, humbly beseech you, L Bird, the great philosopher of the people to please clarify, just for me –  what is your opinion, of Marx's view of where humans came from if the world is their divine creation?

So I take it you don't feel able to explain your thoughts on this issue or you are too embarrassed at the answer you would have to give.

[Dave B]

If society created our world then I suppose then what needs to be asked is what created society. But no matter. I think what L bird is saying, although I am never clear about he his trying to say either, is that society created our world in the sense that it created chemistry and physics etc. Which has a certain, albeit limited, validity. However much the material world persists without human influence or affect. We didn’t invent the planet Neptune or create it upon its first observation. In fact the whole history of science or understanding is a history of humans making bollock brained rationalisations for what they see around them. Which are being continually modified through ‘improved?’ by ‘objective’ methods of observation of the material world; which couldn’t gives a rat’s arse for our understanding of it. Thus with ‘science’ we are driven by the material world, as we observe it, to develop an understanding or theoretical models that fit in with it ie the material world. Now it is true enough that you can have a ‘society created’ understandings and then refashion or create a pseudo-material world to fit in with that. And we still have plenty of pseudo-materialist and ‘scientists’ who do that. It is called confirmation bias; and is an insult in the scientific community.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

If society created our world then I suppose then what needs to be asked is what created society.

Yes, and Marx's answer is 'society created society' (and continues to create society).We are self-creators.Only the religious look for a creator outside of humanity.Hence, the Religious Materialists have faith that 'Matter' created society, and thus disagree with Marx.If you read Jordan's text, it makes clear Marx's position on your question. eg:

Jordan wrote:

Nature is considered by Marx only in so far as man, the primary object of his interest, is part of nature and man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to and reflected by nature which, in turn, is transformed by man’s practical activity into an objective world.Marx’s approach to the problem of the relation between nature and man reversed the order of inquiry accepted in the materialist tradition. Instead of the inquiry of nature paving the way for the inquiry into the nature of man, it was the inquiry into the nature of man that was to guide the inquiry into the problems of nature. While the revolution in natural science of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries destroyed the idea of man and social order established in the Middle Ages, now it was the revolution in the ‘science of man’ that was to lead to a complete philosophical reassessment of our knowledge of nature.

[my bold]

[Dave B]

So what does this mean then, with my inserts?  My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the [ …Society created …? ] life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the [ …Society created …? ] Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, [ …ie society created society..?]  is the demiurgos of the [ …Society created …? ] real [?] world, and the [ …Society created …? ] real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the[ …Society created …? ]  Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm What is the ‘nature of man’ and the ‘problems of nature’?

[LBird]

We've done this on several threads already, Dave.By 'material', Marx means 'human', as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine'.So, by 'material production', Marx means 'social production'.Marx is not talking about 'matter' (or an 'objective' world outside of human production) – that was Engels' misunderstanding.As Jordan says, and I've given a quote, Marx starts from 'social production', not 'matter-in-motion'. So, any discussion of 'nature' starts from 'humanity', which is the creator of its own 'socio-natural' world.Religious Materialists do not agree with Marx, and seek their 'god' in 'matter' as a non-human creator of our world. And the faith of the Religious Materialists in 'matter' is pretty unshakeable, as you'd expect.Those who look to Marx for inspiration usually look to humanity to provide their 'faith'. Of course, if one is not a socialist nor a democrat, and has little faith in humanity, then one will be an elitist, who will deny democracy in science, and who will pretend to be merely 'discovering' a 'real world' which 'exists' outside of humanity's production of 'it'.Marx warns of this dangerous connection between 'materialists' and elitist politics, in his Theses on Feuerbach, which I've quoted many times. If we look at the Leninists, we can see that Marx was correct to see this link.

[Dave B]

You have lost me again L Bird ! Are you saying that Karl would never have said that there are already pre-existent ‘matterial conditions’ that already exist independent of our will and under which we have to live. Or in other words?; an 'objective' world outside of human production. As they would be matter conditions?  Can you give us some examples of the two categories of ‘material’ and ‘matter’? Preferably ones that help us understand the way in which they are mutually exclusive according to your criteria. Ie  is Neptune, cosmic background radiation and gravity non material matter then? This is very difficult for me; I feel as though I am trapped in a Henrik Ibsen play or Kafka novel.

[LBird]

Dave B wrote:

You have lost me again L Bird ! Are you saying that Karl would never have said that there are already pre-existent ‘matterial conditions’ that already exist independent of our will and under which we have to live.Or in other words?; an 'objective' world outside of human production.

Dave, here's a bit more from Jordan.

Jordan, p. 27, wrote:

Nature an und fur sich, the external world of Engels and Lenin that exists without and independently of us and yet is completely knowable, was for Marx a ‘nullity’, a ‘nothing…devoid of sense’ or mere ‘externality’.[42] Its existence is not problematic, but the question as to the mode of its existence has no meaning. To reject this assertion and to maintain that we are able to discover what the universe itself is like, is to assume that man can attain an omniscient being’s view of the world.In Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The German Ideology Marx rejected as entirely wrong the theory of knowledge of the British empiricists, the French materialists, and Feuerbach, who conceived men as products of circumstances and upbringing, the human mind as a passive recipient of sensation, and perception as a mere effect wrought in the senses by outside causes. The causal theory of perception fails to explain the simplest act of cognition and applied to the whole range of human experience does not account for social change and the evolution of man. Marx was convinced that the idealists, and this meant Hegel and the Hegelians, were right in emphasizing the contribution and the role of the subject in the process of knowledge, and he put this conviction on record in the first and third of his Theses on Feuerbach.

Dave B wrote:

Can you give us some examples of the two categories of ‘material’ and ‘matter’?

For Marx, 'material' means 'human' or 'social' (as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine')Thus, 'matter' is a 'social product'. Marx always links subject and object, and argues that object is produced by subject. This linking of subject/object was part and parcel of German Idealism, from Kant, through Fichte, up to Hegel, and Marx clearly took from this tradition. 

Dave B wrote:

Preferably ones that help us understand the way in which they are mutually exclusive according to your criteria.

I'm not sure where you've got this idea of 'mutual exclusivity' from, Dave – certainly not me, or Marx.

Dave B wrote:

Ie  is Neptune, cosmic background radiation and gravity non material matter then?This is very difficult for me; I feel as though I am trapped in a Henrik Ibsen play or Kafka novel.

You seem to be mixing up the levels of politics, philosophy and physics, Dave. This incomprehension is socially produced, because we are all told by the bourgeoisie that their science has a method of producing 'objective knowledge', a method only usable by an elite of experts, who 'disinterestedly discover' an 'Eternal Truth'. This ideology claims that physics is the basis of science, and that philosophy and politics follow on. As I showed in my earlier quote from Jordan, Marx reverses this bourgeois ideology and argues that social production is the basis of philosophy and science. That is, class based production, which is political, has its 'reflection' in philosophy and physics.So, to discuss physics (and Neptune, cbr, gravity and matter), we have to clarify our views about politics and philosophy. Once that is done, perhaps physics will make more sense. Of course, this is the complete opposite to what the bourgeoisie claim, and if one is minded to follow bourgeois politics and philosophy, one will reject Marx, and pretend to start from physics and 'Objective Truth'.

[Dave B]

Ah so! Neptune and gravity are bourgeois ideologies. And we will we not have Neptune and gravity in communism. Or will it be; Neptune and gravity but not as we know it now.

[LBird]

And I had such high hopes of you, Dave.Isn't it funny that every 'materialist', without fail, when confronted with having to discuss their ideology, resort to making up stories about what Marx said.Ah well, have a nice holiday.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

By 'material', Marx means 'human', as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine'.So, by 'material production', Marx means 'social production'.

You're going to have to provcide textual proof of those claims: you've made them before, but if, humpty style, Marx says what you want him to say, thios conversation is pointless.Further, can I ask: what wopuld it take to dirsprove Marx?  What would demonstrate that he was wrong on that subject?

[Bijou Drains]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

By 'material', Marx means 'human', as opposed to 'ideal' meaning 'divine'.So, by 'material production', Marx means 'social production'.

You're going to have to provcide textual proof of those claims: you've made them before, but if, humpty style, Marx says what you want him to say, thios conversation is pointless.Further, can I ask: what wopuld it take to dirsprove Marx?  What would demonstrate that he was wrong on that subject?

In addition, if Marx meant "Social Production", when he used the phrase "Material Production", why did he not just use the phrase "Social Production" in the first place?

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