LBird
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robbo203 wrote: “Subjectivity is a function of the individual alone since “society” is not some entity capable of “thinking”
Yet again LBird has shot himself in the foot!” [my bold]
LOL! Ironic!
robbo203 wrote: “But sensory perception has to operate on something independent of itself otherwise the very term makes no sense.”
This ideological statement just shows your ignorance of Marx and Dietzgen.
Your ‘subject’ is the biological individual, and so you assume ‘something independent of itself’. This is dealt with by Dietzgen earlier.
Having started from this political assumption, you then assume that the biological individual brain is passive, so that ‘something independent’ actively impinges upon the brain. You make the ‘independent’ into the ‘active side’, to quote Marx.
As Marx and Dietzgen made clear, the ‘subject’ is humanity (not individuals), and so is a social subject. This subject is the active side, which socially produces what it knows.
So, since you’re not a Marxist or social productionist, you conclude that ‘the very term makes no sense’. It doesn’t ‘operate on’, it ‘produces it’. Nothing ‘exists for us’ until we produce it.
Stick to your passive, individualist, biological, understanding of ‘something independent’, and remain in the 18th century.
robbo203 wrote: “Also, since we cannot directly apprehend what goes on in the minds of other human beings, we cannot directly experience what they are thinking, Their minds are unknowable”
Spoken like a true bourgeois individual, robbo! Society is a mystery to you! So is its production of your world.
Adam Buick wrote: “Included in the Kerr edition of Dietzgen’s
Philosophical Essays is an essay on Max stirner by
Eugene wherein we read that ‘whatever does not
partake of the psycho-physical nature of the
universe, cannot exist for us’ and that ‘phenomena
outside of us … exist independently of individual
man, although they cannot exist for mankind
independently of human consciousness. [my bold]”AB quotes Dietzgen. It’s the same argument I made in my previous post.
‘Phenomena’ exist independently of biological brain, but not independently of conscious social activity.
Humans produce their universe.
When Adam Buick writes “what human beings perceived had a real existence independent of their perception of it“, what AB means is that this ‘what’ is ‘independent’ of AB’s brain. And thus this ‘what’ is outside of every individual’s brain.
This opinion is based upon AB’s materialism (for which ‘matter’ is independent of ‘mind’, and ‘mind’ is equated to individual ‘brain’). For Marx, ‘mind’ is a social product, not a property of ‘individual brain’.
Of course, Marx argued that we externalise (Entausserung) our nature. So, we produce what’s external to our brains. This ‘what’ is a social product, and thus can be changed.
But… this ‘what’ is not ‘independent’ of humanity’s conscious activity – otherwise, we couldn’t ‘perceive it’. Nothing, not even ‘nature’ or ‘universe’, is ‘independent’ of us. We socially produce ‘nature for us’. It’s our product, and since products are external to their producer, these products are outside of individual brains.
But these products are not ‘independent’ of us as producers.
This is the key to understanding Marx and Dietzgen – we can only know what we socially produce.
This is completely different to AB’s analysis, in his 1975 article. AB is a materialist, not a Marxist.
Adam Buick wrote: “Dietzgen was a thoroughgoing empiricist and materialist. For him all knowledge was derived from
sense-perception; and what human beings perceived
had a real existence independent of their perception of it.”This is a complete travesty of Dietzgen’s views.
Dietzgen, like Marx, ‘reconciled’ idealism with materialism.
This means, not ’empiricism’, but ‘theory and practice’.
Human knowledge is not ‘derived from sense perception’, but from ‘social production’.
Nothing can have a ‘real existence independent’ of humanity, because humans couldn’t know it.
The key is that ’empiricism’ and ‘sense perception’ require passivity in humanity, so that the ‘thing-in-itself’ is the ‘active side’.
Marx and Dietzgen both argued for active humanity, which produces its knowledge. Humanity produces its ’empirical’ and its ‘sense perception’, both by social theory and practice. Humanity can change its ’empirical’ and its ‘sense perception’. Nothing is ‘independent’ of human production.
Adam Buick, if he ever understood this, seems to have forgotten. Perhaps he’s never understood Marx.
Materialism: matter produces mind.
Idealism: mind produces matter.
Marx and Dietzgen: humanity produces matter and mind.ALB wrote: “…both matter and mind are equally real…”
You’ve lied about this before, many times.
You don’t consider ‘matter’ and ‘mind’ as ‘equal’.
You consider ‘matter’ as the source of ‘mind’. That’s why you’re a materialist.
Marx considers humanity the source of both matter and mind. Dietzgen agreed with Marx. You don’t.Well, trashing me is one thing, but if you can read Dietzgen, you might stop trashing him.
Probably not, it’s the materialist method, and you’ve become an adept at it, alan.
If you bother to read it, I’ll answer your questions.Much more useful:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249960065_Joseph_Dietzgen_and_the_History_of_Marxism
Read it, alan, and you’ll re-think your ‘materialism’. Dietzgen had no time for the ‘old materialism’, which is the ideology that you currently espouse.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “LBird, have you the satisfaction of convincing anybody on this forum?
You joined the forum almost 8 years ago and regardless of whether you are right or wrong in your views, all that time you have been banging your head against a brick-wall.
Isn’t it time you gave us all up as a lost cause and moved on…”
I think that you are right, alan. I had hoped that the deadweight of ‘materialism’ could be lifted from an allegedly democratic party of socialists, given some reasonable debate over a reasonable period of time. Unfortunately, ‘materialism’ has turned out to be a more powerful religion than I could have supposed. To me, materialism makes sense in the Leninist parties, which is why they adhere to it, and it can’t be changed. But, for ‘democrats’, materialism prevents democratic practice, and leaves it in the hands of an elite, as Marx said it would. So, I had hope… but it is ‘a brick wall’.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “So we are an undemocratic party of Engelsite-Leninist elitists, lacking any understanding of the depths of Marx’s position. Well, so be it, then. That may well explain our inability to connect with our fellow-workers, although i very much doubt it is the reason.”
Yes, youse are, and youse do, and it does. I’ve no doubt whatsoever. Not one SPGB member or sympathiser has defended democratic social production. Some pretend to defend it, but always backtrack, and move to something they wish to defend more dearly: ‘material’. As I’ve said, if the mythical ‘Scientific Socialism’ is pressured, they always defend the ‘Science’ not the ‘Socialism’.
alanjjohnstone wrote: “I was always tolerant of your presence but now i believe you have over-stayed your welcome here and are diverting members from concentrating and contributing to other debates and discussions with the promise of more constructive conclusions.
ta-ta, bye-bye”
Yeah, diverting them from debates, discussions and conclusions which have nothing to do with Marx, democracy, social production, revolution, or workers.
Well, I haven’t wasted my developmental time, because in pursuit of clarifying Marx’s ideas, I’ve read and understood a great deal, about science, philosophy and history. I had hoped that others, like you, would join in this development, to help build a democratic workers’ movement, but it’s clear now that none of youse have that aim in mind, never mind putting it into practice.
So, as you say, it’s time to go our separate ways.
Your organisation to its death, and me on my journey to find those who want democratic socialism.
See yer, mate!
Still opposed to workers’ democracy, twc?
Still wondering why workers aren’t beating a path to your door?
Why not just be honest with us?
Or do you really believe that you’re following Marx and attempting to build democratic socialism?
But without the ‘democratic’ bit, eh? Sounds like Lenin – another materialist.
robbo, if anyone’s ‘living in a complete dreamworld’, it’s those who believe science is powerless.
It’s been obvious since the 19th century that science is powerful, and the 20th century has demonstrated many times the destructiveness of that power upon humanity.
And since you’ve returned, as I always predict materialist will, to insults rather than reasoned discussion, I’ll now return to ignoring your naive questions.
Dream on.
robbo203 wrote: “[LBird wrote:] The self-emancipation of the proletariat means we will determine ‘science’ (both its theories and its practices), by democratic means.
How? How are tens of thousands of scientific theories going to be voted on by the workers of the world (nearly 8 billion of us)?
Why is it even necessary? What do you hope to achieve by voting on a scientific theory?
Explain”
Once more, robbo, if 8 billion workers (to use your terms) are not going to democratically determine science in its entirety, who is?
Democracy is necessary because ‘democratic socialism’ implies democratic social production.
I’m open about my argument, robbo, why can’t you be open about yours?
It’s no way to continue, by refusing to state your case, and just insulting Marx’s. Marx argued for democratic social production. If you don’t, fair enough, tell us who and how ‘science’ is to be politically controlled, according to your case.
If you wish to argue, for example, ‘science’ is too difficult for humanity as a whole, just say that, and acknowledge it implies no political control by democracy, of this social activity.
In opposition to that, I’ve already argued that ‘science’ must be made understandable by us workers, and I’ve used the analogy of Bible, Latin and Priests to illustrate the problem of Reality, Maths and Physicists. Forcing the Bible to be published in the vernacular was a revolutionary act, and undermined the power of Priests.
ALB wrote: “There is an interview in today’s Times with Richard Dawkins on his 80th birthday in which the interviewer writes:
“My all-time favourite Dawkins tweet is from 2019: ‘Accosted in restaurant by Flat Earth zealot who intrusively talked at us while friend & I were trying to enjoy our meal. Finally I lost it and said, ‘You are an ignorant lunatic’”.
We know the feeling.”
So, Dawkins and The Times is ALB’s inspiration for insulting a Democratic Communist and Marxist worker who has read Marx and philosophy, and understand both better than ALB, and dares to ask ‘where’s the democracy?’ in ALB’s politics?
It’s the materialist way, isn’t it? Don’t argue, because you’ll lose, just give false information about, and distort, what you opponent is claiming, argue with the strawman to ‘prove’ your case, and finally call them ‘lunatics’. Lenin’s method.
Keep digging, ALB and twc!
twc wrote: “…might gain some respect for Newton’s towering intellect. Likewise for the towering intellect of Marx…”
This, in a nutshell, is indicative of twc’s belittling attitude to us workers and democratic communists.
You’ve got it completely the wrong way around, twc.
It’s Newton and Marx who will gain some respect for us.
As will Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Hawking, and Engels, Kautsky, Plekhanov, Lenin.The self-emancipation of the proletariat means we will determine ‘science’ (both its theories and its practices), by democratic means.
You’ve made a big political slip, and you’re letting your elitism show, twc.
Who determines ‘Respect’, and how is it determined, according to you, twc?
It’s amazing how hostile the reaction has been to talk of democracy within the communist mode of production.
Not one of you has suggested who (and how they’ll do it) will control the power of social production.
My best guess, based upon what’s been written here, is that the SPGB favours a non-democratic control by ‘Specialists’.
That is, the social theory and practice of ‘physics’ will be controlled by an elite of ‘physicists’.
The social theory and practice of ‘education’ will be controlled by an elite of ‘educationalists’.
The social theory and practice of ‘academia’ will be controlled by an elite of ‘academics’.
And so on…
No mention whatsoever of the self-emancipation of the proletariat.
I think that it’s very clear from Marx’s writings that he argued that the social theory and practice of ‘human production’ will be democratically controlled by humanity.
All these social productive activities – physics, education, academia, and all others – must be democratically controlled, for the mode to be ‘democratic socialism’.
I don’t think that there’s any political intention here to allow workers to decide for themselves. That, at least, has been made very clear.
