[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

The MCH is 'science'.

I think you're taking it too far here..Explain how the materialist conception of history enables us to dig stuff out of the ground, process it and arrange it in such a way as to enable us to have this discussion in the format we are having.

Yeah, whether we should regard "uniting the 'natural' and 'social'" as 'taking it too far', is the essence of our differences, DJP.As a Communist, I think it is necessary to find a unified scientific method. I think Marx thought this, too.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Next installment from the positivists: 'Marx's 'value' is not scientific!'

Next instalment from the relativists: Marx's 'value' is not scientific because most people in capitalist society don't think it is scientific!

Yeah! Bastard relativists! Just like the bastard positivists!Thank Marx we have a third alternative, the MCH, eh?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Of course the MCH can be applied to history of science…

Just read this again. I disagree.The MCH is 'science'.There is no scientific method outside of society. The MCH is the method that unites 'natural' and 'social' sciences, as Marx hoped to do.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

After all, when it comes to everyday living you too will be a naive realist, i.e treat everyday objects as if they really were separately-existing things.

But… 'when it comes to everyday living', we all accept the 'market', because we have no choice.If this 'common sense' basis for understanding 'reality' is acceptable, why are we Communists?'Naive realism' is a conservative method.I think this should be discussed. This means discussing comrades' theories of cognition.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Adam Smith was not a natural or mathematical scientist…

Of course, this is an 'objective' statement, which thus can't be argued with, it has 'authority', and it is not a 'social construct'.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Adam Smith was not a natural or mathematical scientist…

What did I predict!What method separates 'natural or mathematical science' from Marx's 'Political Economy'?I can tell you, but you can't tell me.To me, it's a 'theory of cognition', which I don't share with you.To you, it's a 'wild goose chase', mere 'straw man'.

[LBird]

Sorry, I nearly forgot:

DJP wrote:

I'm going to repeat a question posed by twc

twc wrote:

please show us just one instance of any piece of substantial scientific work performed by any natural or mathematical scientist which should, in your opinion, have been rejected but instead survived scrutiny merely because the scientist and the profession “believed in private property in the means of production”.

This is the real acid test. If you can't answer this then I think you have nothing substantial to say. But then if truth is a social construct it probably doesn't matter.

Weath of Nations by Adam Smith.In not only my opinion, but also that of Marx, this 'piece of substantial scientific work' 'should have been rejected'. I think we both agree that this work only 'survived scrutiny merely because the scientist and the profession “believed in private property in the means of production"'.Now, we here differ on what constitutes 'science', and why 'natural or mathematical' should be regarded as separate activities from 'political economy'.This is because we are employing differing 'theories of cognition'.I'd like to discuss this, and have tried all thread, but you won't disclose your cognitive method.Next installment from the positivists: 'Marx's 'value' is not scientific!'

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I have little more time for this as I'm afraid what you're putting forward is another wild goose chase and distraction from the real tasks that are necessary for the propagation of socialism.

Well, give up arguing about something you know nothing about, DJP!You stick to 'propagating socialism', and stay away from 'wild goose chases'.I just know you're not interested in defining 'wild goose chase', because you think it is not a 'social construct', but an 'objective reality'.From now on, I won't bother you, until you disclose your method of cognition. God knows, I've told you mine dozens of times, and your failure to expose yours only undermines your genuine concerns about 'relativism'.Your method ignores the subject and only concerns the object. This is incorrect. The subject interacts with the object (as Marx, Dietzgen, Pannekoek, etc. argue) and so knowledge must contain traces of 'subject'. To argue otherwise, that knowledge contains no traces of subject, is to argue that knowledge is only object (or parts of it). This is naive realism or positivism.Right, now, just ignore me, unless you wish to disclose your method. I promise to ignore you, until then.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

 was not suggesting a free hand for socialists when it comes to history or politics as long as they accept a general realism or materialism…

Unfortunately, ALB, things are not so simple.'Accepting general realism or materialism' means it is acceptable for Communists to accept 'naive realism' and 'positivism', which are 19th century-based ideological views of 'science', and would also allow Uncle Joe's 'Dialectical Materialism' in, too.I, for one, think that this is not acceptable.

ALB wrote:

Of course, when it comes to history, we defend the MCH, not any other theory even if it be materialist…

Yes, but what comprises the 'MCH'? I think what I've been arguing is entirely compatible with the 'MCH', and that yours and DJP's views about the sun/earth relationship is not.The sun/earth relationship has a history. To argue that it is, on the contrary, a 'True Discovery', is to take the 'Historical' out of MCH. Thus, we are left with a Static 'Materialist Conception'.

ALB wrote:

The same with regard to action to change society. We have our particular theory which differs from other theories even though they too are materialist.

Yes, 'change' and 'society', includes 'change to science'. We Communists must ditch the bourgeois myth of 'discovery science', and replace it with the MCH.As you rightly say, 'our particular theory differs'. But… what is 'particular' about it, if it accepts naive realism and positivist notions of 'Truth' and 'discovery science'?What is 'particular' about our 'science' is precisely its historical content. Thus, it is human science, a social science, with a history.

[LBird]

Perhaps comrades might benefit from reading:Boris Hessen's The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principiahttp://www.russelldale.com/phil-material/V1_Hessen.pdf

Hessen, p. 3, wrote:

Only the proletariat, which aims to create a classless society, is free from a limited understanding of the historical process and produces a true, genuine history of nature and society.

Hessen was executed by the NKVD in 1936.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Hessen

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I thought you said you where a realist? In that case the concept that is "the law of gravity" also has to refer to something that is real in the universe. Therefore the "law of gravity" is not just a human construct but also something real in the world.

Yes, as I have been saying for the whole thread, a 'law' is a human construct based something in the real world.Law = knowledge; human = subject; real world = object; construct = interaction between subject and object.If you don't accept the necessity of an active subject, just say so.If you do accept the necessity of an active subject, say how this active subject interacts with the object to produce 'knowledge' of the object that isn't tainted by human thought. This is what positivists believed they were doing: gaining untainted access to the 'object', to produce 'objective knowledge'.

DJP wrote:

I don't see how you can claim to be a realist and disagreee with this statement. Unless I've misunderstood what is meant by "realism"…

I'm a realist, I agree with the statement, and I think you've misunderstood what is meant by "realism". Critical realism doesn't produce 'objective knowledge'. Naive realism claims to, though

DJP, post #15, wrote:

An 'object' does not have a truth value in and of itself, only propositions about an object can have a truth value.

Here, you seem to accept that 'truth' is about humans, not simply the object.I don't know how I can say this any clearer: science is an interaction between object and subject, and produces knowledge.You can't keep accusing me of ignoring the object (reality), when in fact you ignore the subject (society).Cognition requires both object and subject. Their interaction produces knowledge. Knowledge is not simply a product of object, so can't be 'objective'. Knowledge always has a social component.Hope this helps.

[LBird]

Sorry about the tone of my last post, DJP. My frustration is getting the better of me.

DJP wrote:

Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.

The 'law of gravity' is a human construct.

Pannekoek wrote:

Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of [hu]man[ity]

It seems that you're more concerned with 'what' happens, rather than 'why' it happens.On the contrary, science is trying to explain 'why' things happen, so we have some chance of changing it.

DJP wrote:

Yes you have quoted him, but it seems to me you have misunderstood.He is not saying that truth is a social construct but that what is "true for" a certain group of people in a certain time is. But when we talk about "true for" we are not talking about truth but beliefs..In the quote you used I guess there could be some ambiguity as to if he is talking about theories or entities, but this can be settled by looking at the whole of his work…

So, you separate 'truth' from 'belief'. No problems. Could you explain the method for producing 'truth'? I think we can all come up with the method for 'belief': 'The priest/teacher/policeman told me so'.If I've 'misunderstood' Pannekoek, and his 'whole works' can settle this, can you provide some pointers to the contrary position, written by Pannekoek? By the way, he says 'substances, laws and forces': I'm not sure how 'ambiguous' this is

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.

Well, if you think that that's a good enough method for Communists to understand reality, according to you DJP, that's OK by me. Has the entire thread gone over your head?Would you like, finally, to describe your theory of cognition, or is 'common sense' profound enough for you?

DJP wrote:

You are stating a cognitive relativist position here. This is quite a popular position in the Bourgeois university and runs counter to Deitzgen, Marx and Pannekoek, if you read them carefully enough.

How 'careful' is 'carefully enough'? I've just quoted Pannekoek.'Careful', as in the sense Lenin 'read' Dietzgen?Why not just expose your position on 'science', DJP, rather than merely criticise mine from an unstated position?

DJP wrote:

Instrumentalism is the exact opposite of realism. Realism takes the contents of theories as real things existing in the world…

As I never tire of explaining, I’m a realist, and as I’ve explained a thousand times (it feels like), Schaff’s theory of cognition is based upon ‘real things’.Would you care to explain how we have access to ‘real things’ with a neutral human activity? Just use ‘our senses’?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I think this makes you some sort of an "instrumentalist" as described hereand here(like you described Bogdanov as being). This is not meant as a criticism as I think Pannekoek could be placed in this broad tradition.

ALB, I know nothing about instrumentalism, but I offer the following comments on the links that you provided.

Britannica wrote:

instrumentalism,also called experimentalism, a philosophy advanced by the American philosopher John Dewey holding that what is most important in a thing or idea is its value as an instrument of action and that the truth of an idea lies in its usefulness.

Isn’t Dewey a liberal individualist? I’m not sure that he would agree that ‘importance’, ‘value’ and ‘truth’ are socially-determined concepts, and thus open to democratic control. Scientists and philosophers who believe in private property in the means of production are suspect.

Wikipedia wrote:

Instrumentalism denies that theories are truth-evaluable; instead, they should be treated like a black box into which you feed observed data, and through which you produce observable predictions. This requires a distinction between theory and observation,…

In a Communist society, the notion that theories would not be ‘truth evaluable’ would be nonsense, because ‘truth’ and ‘theories’ are human creations, and thus would be under the control of our society. ‘Instrumentalism’ assumes a humanity that accepts ‘black boxes’, perhaps like ‘the market’. Communists wouldn’t accept such a concept; we assume humans can understand our society and its products. ‘Black boxes’ are for ruling classes, and their class-based purposes.I suspect that instrumentalism is a form of naïve realism, as far as I can tell.Given what I’ve tentatively expressed above, I don’t agree with you that “Pannekoek could be placed in this broad tradition” of instrumentalism.

ALB wrote:

To tell the truth, though this discussion is interesting (at least to those taking part), I'm beginning to wonder whether a socialist party needs to take sides in the debates on "the philosophy of science" beyond defending a general "realism" or "materialism". In other words, do we really need to take sides in the more detailed debates that go on between various schools of realist/materialist philosophies of science?

In my opinion, it is of fundamental importance that a ‘side needs to be taken’ by Communists, ‘beyond defending a general "realism" or "materialism"’. The issue is one of ‘authority’. That is, ‘Is there an authority (like ‘science’ or ‘the market’) which is (or should be) outside of our democratic control?’.If ‘truth’ lies in the object, then by definition there is a neutral scientific method, not influenced by humans and their ideologies, which can give us that ‘truth’. This ‘neutral method’ is thus available to individuals, especially ‘experts’. On the contrary, following Marx and Pannekoek, if ‘truth’ lies in the human-created ‘knowledge’, then science is always a socially-biased method, and we must democratically control that activity.The test of one’s position on these issues, it seems to me, is the question of the respective paths of the sun/earth, that we’ve discussed on this thread. Those who believe that the ‘paths’ we now ‘know’ are an ‘eternal truth’ of the object, are taking a different position to Pannekoek. That is, they are taking the position of ‘discovery science’.

Pannekoek wrote:

Man is in the first place an active being. In the Labour process he utilises his organs and aptitudes in order to constantly build and remake his environment. In this procedure he not only invented the artificial organs we call tools, but also trained his physical and mental aptitudes so that they might react effectively to his natural environment as instruments in the preservation of life. His main organ is the brain whose function, thinking, is as good a physical activity as any other. The most important product of brain activity, of the efficient action of the mind upon the world is science, which stands as a mental tool next to the material tools and, itself a productive power, constitutes the basis of technology and so an essential part of the productive apparatus.Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of man. Middle-class materialism, on the other hand, from the point of view of the scientific investigator, sees all this as an element of nature itself which has been discovered and brought to light by science. Natural scientists consider the immutable substances, matter, energy, electricity, gravity, the Law of entropy, etc., as the basic elements of the world, as the reality that has to be discovered. From the viewpoint of Historical Materialism they are products which creative mental activity forms out of the substance of natural phenomena.

[my bold]If an activity or its products are human, then they have to be under our democratic control.No ‘experts’ who have a special access to ‘the Truth’. That is bourgeois science.

[LBird]

Some notable extracts from DJP's link, which shed some light on our discussions on this thread, I think.

SPGB wrote:

Why then should we reserve a privileged place for science? Why exempt physical science, one of the cultural products which capitalism finds most useful, from this analysis? What else can science be but the creation of social actors in definite historical circumstances?

Relevant to our 'sun/earth' debate? That the 'truth' of their orbits is a 'creation of social actors in definite historical circumstances'. The 'sun going round the earth' was true for those in the 17th century, for their concrete purposes.

SPGB wrote:

Here defenders of the conventional view of science have little choice but to assert that there is no science except the current orthodoxy. They must accept a creed which glorifies the science of now and, in a most unhistorical way, deny that anything can be learned from the past, for it is all error to them.

And again? The 'orthodox' argument that what's 'true' now (earth goes round the sun) was 'true' then. 'A most unhistorical way', of conceiving science, knowledge and truth?

SPGB wrote:

"A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost”, said A.N.Whitehead the mathematician. Such historical forgetfulness is a necessary condition for a science which is held to be the sacred truth to which all classes can appeal. But, with each change of theory, when the last lot of founders are forgotten, it requires that the picture of the world as seen by the scientists must change. Yet each generation tries to project its theories as being consistent, coherent and complete – scientific.

Yes, 'science' as 'classless sacred truth'. TINA. An authority outside of our democratic control.

[Author]

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