[DJP]

The relaunch is now complete. Have a look. Feedback welcome:www.worldsocialism.org

[DJP]

SocialistPunk wrote:

I don't get the impression LBird is suggesting we throw the baby out with the bath water.

I think that adopting the kind of cognitive relativism that LBird holds would entail abandoning science as we understand it today.I'ts probably quite a technical issue, but there is a good summary of points for and against here:http://www.iep.utm.edu/cog-rel/

[DJP]

Vin. Theory ladeness of observation is an inescapable feature of the human condition. Though that is not quite the same thing as LBirds "ideologies"You might like this website, it goes into all the details in nice short and clear articles. "Bourgouise science" actually says a lot of the things that LBird is saying too.https://explorable.com/philosophy-of-science

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

But we Socialists disagree. ‘Nature’ never tells us anything. We know this from the results of science since Einstein. Nature is always interrogated by humans, and thus it only answers the questions that we pose. Our questions are always social and historical, and thus so are our answers. These answers, whilst ‘scientific’, are not ‘The Truth’. So, we argue that there is always an alternative to a ‘scientific’ answer, and that this recognition forms the basis of critical thought and method for humans.

Yes I agree, we do not have access to the unmediated, absolute "Truth". All informed people would agree with this, even your arch nemesis Engels (See the chapter on "Eternal Truths" in Anti-Duhring)But I don't think you have to be a socialist to think any of that, or if you don't agree you're not a socialist.I still don't know why you keep saying "since Einstein" either, the general theory of relativity is not a theory of cognitive relativism, and all this predates Einstein by a long shot..Yes there are always alternative answers, but that does not mean we have to say that it was true that the sun went round the earth, or that homeopothy is an effective treatment for cancer.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

What has 'administering medicine' got to do with the production of scientific knowledge, and the epistemological relationship between object, subject and knowledge?

Quite a lot I would have thought.

LBird wrote:

As for dialectics, I see this as Engelsian quackery.

Like it or not Marx used this concept, you're not Rosa Lichenstien are you?

LBird wrote:

You seem determined to focus on 'individuals', DJP. Is this a function of your liberal ideology? It's certainly nothing to do with class analysis or Communism.

Not at all, human individuals always exist as part of of a group. But on the other hand human groups are always composed of individuals, we are not ants.

LBird wrote:

Your continued presence on this thread baffles me, DJP. You don't appear to want to learn, but just to mystify and complicate matters. I can only presume that it's an inherent part of your elitist scientific method, which wishes to hide knowledge from workers, and thus retain an authority over them.

How on earth have I got authority over 'workers'? I'm just a lumpenproletariat auto-didact.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

So, I never mean 'individual' when I say 'subject'. A 'subject' is, in effect, a 'society/social group' (including a 'class').

That just sounds one-sided and non-dialectical. Do you think medicine should be administered to social groups and not individuals?

[DJP]

Equating "proletarian" with "socialist" seems a bit shaky to me. For one thing because it means attributing "false consciousness" to people.How can anyone really be in a position to attribute which consciousness is false and which is true? Who judges the consciousness of the consciousness jugder?In this case it does seem we do have Engels to blame…

[DJP]

For the bourgeoisie (or the proletarians under their influence) it's a 'fact' that socialism is impossible.For the proletariat (or the bourgeoisie under their influence) it's a 'fact' that socialism is possible.=Some bourgeoisie and some proletarians think that socialism is possibleand Some bourgeoisie and some proletarians think that socialism is impossibleSo… How can you work out what the "real" proletarian and the "real" borgeoisie ideas are? 

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Simply put, 'socially subjective' means one's class position.

Go, figure?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

for the proletariat (or anyone under their influence) it's a 'fact' that socialism is possible.

That's clearly false, at this moment in time at least…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

No, there is no such thing as 'objective facts'. 'Facts' are always 'theory-laden',  and are part of a framework of selection. In that sense, 'facts' are always 'subjective'.

This actually isn't that controversial. We do not experience the world, we experience the recreation of it as conjered up by our brains.Not directly related but enjoyed watching this earlier:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdBdsqSF-bgNiave realism is not only false about our observations of the external world but false about our observations of our internal experience.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

'Valid' for who?Valid for workers, or valid for the elitist academics who 'know' logic?Don't worry, I know your answer. 'Logic is not a democratic vote'.

Yes you're right 'workers' are incapable of understanding logic, even of the 'baby' kind.How elitist of me.Perhaps the more useful thing to do would have been for you to flesh out your argument. I guess that was presumptuous of me..

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

So do you. You're a 'physicalist'. Or are 'physical' things not true? If everything is 'physical', what about Marx's value? He categorically denies that it has anything 'physical' in it. 'Not an atom of matter', he insists.

Marx also catergorially and undeniably said "I am a materialist". So how could he say the below without contradicting himself?

Marx wrote:

 The value of commodities is the very opposite of the coarse materiality of their substance, not an atom of matter enters into its composition. Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however, we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity.

Because phyiscalism (or materialism) means that "everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on, or is necessitated by, the physical"Of course social relations aren't physical in the sense that you can weigh them or observe them under a microscope, but they are neccessitated by, or supervene onto, the material world.There is no problem here…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

'Objective Truth' leads to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.

Is that really true?If so what makes it true?

The deaths of hundreds of millions of workers and Communists?We've listened to the 'Objective Truthists' for far too long. But, we're learning, slowly…If only we'd listened to Marx, rather than Engels.

So..1. 'Objective Truth' leads to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.2. Hundreds of millions of workers and Communists died under Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.3. Therefore 'Objective Truth' leads to Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.I don't think you've yet got a valid argument there yet.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

They always argue that they have a method which gives them special insight into 'really what reality is'

This is pure strawman repeated for the umpteenth time. Almost no-one would claim this today.

'Almost no-one'?What is it they say about 'ruling class ideas, DJP?Or have you ditched Marx as well as workers' democracy?And it wasn't me who used the phrase 'objective truth', but your party comrade ALB.ajj, should you keep listening to these fellow party-members, because they have the best interests of the working class at heart? That's not sarcasm. They really believe it.Me? I think that the working class should decide its own interests, by a democratic vote, and reject 'objective truth' for the bourgeois myth that it is. Parties are not god, and they don't have an access to reality which is denied to the proletariat. No party does. They always claim to have this access to 'objective truth'. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the comedy duo 'DJP & ALB'…

You where previously talking about "bourgiose scientists" and that was what I was talking about. The rest of this answer is just hot air..Go and speak to some scientists, you'll find none of them believe in naive realism or think they are uncovering the absolute unmediated "Truth".But I've said this to you before many times…

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