[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Scientific knowledge (what you call "truth") is never final. There is, however, an interesting question, which you don't face, of when can a theory be accepted as temporarily "true", i.e. accepted as the best (most adequate) description for the time being of some set of phenomena, and what are the criteria for deciding this.

So, logically flowing from this statement, ALB, you accept that:17th century conceptions/scientific knowledge/truth of 'sun/earth' dynamics were 'true', then;but that 'truth' is not 'true', now, from 21st century conceptions/scientific knowledge/truth of 'sun/earth' dynamics;and that, in the,say, 24th century, our conceptions/scientific knowledge/truth now will potentially be 'untrue' from their conceptions/scientific knowledge/truth?Thus, 'truth' is dynamic, social and has a history.'Truth' is not a fixed, one-off, reflection of 'reality', which science produces by a neutral method.If you can agree with this clarification, ALB, I think that we've come to some point of agreement.

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Surely, ALB and DJP, you must acknowledge the historical materialist content of LBird’s assertion about truth…LBird well knows my misgivings over his critical realism, but I support him on this.

I'd like to thank twc for their expressed support, on this issue of 'truth' being a dynamic social construct, and not a static 'mirror reflection' of reality.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I am more Pannekoekian (or just as Pannekoekian) than thou.

Not on the issue of ‘truth’, ALB.You (and DJP) argue that ‘truth’ is located in ‘object’.I (and Pannekoek) argue that ‘truth’ is located in ‘knowledge’.For Pannekoek, as we have seen, ‘object’ is “concrete realities, which are a continuous and unbounded stream in perpetual motion”.For Pannekoek, as we have seen, ‘knowledge’ is “immutable substances, matter, energy, electricity, gravity, the Law of entropy, etc., …are products which creative mental activity forms out of the substance of natural phenomena”.Given Pannekoek’s words, how could ‘truth’ be a ‘stream in perpetual motion’? Aren’t ‘matter and electricity’ forms of ‘truth’, a ‘truth’ which is ‘produced by mind’? ‘Knowledge’ can be ‘true’, but to say ‘object’ can be ‘true’ would be meaningless. Unless, that is, one is a naïve realist, and thinks that the ‘object’ can be accessed by a neutral, positivist, scientific method.As to the ‘fixity’ of ‘truth’ (conceived as a one-off ‘discovery’ of the orbits of the planets, for example) Pannekoek says “The mind is a faculty of generalization. It forms …abstract conceptions that are essentially rigid, bounded, stable, and unchangeable. This gives rise to the contradiction that our conceptions must always adapt to new realities without ever succeeding…”.Human views of the ‘orbits of the sun and earth’ are ‘rigid abstract conceptions’ that are ‘contradicted’ by ‘new realities’. This is how we account for changes in ‘truth’.The alternative that you and DJP propose, that ‘truth’ is located in the ‘object’ and thus, once ‘known’, is a final ‘truth’, just doesn’t accord with Pannekoek’s (or indeed Dietzgen’s) expressed views.When I say 17th century views were ‘true’ then and that now they are not, you counter that they were obviously ‘false’ then. But this depends on you believing that what we know as a ‘truth’ now is the datum point for eternity, that ‘truth’ now is the measure of ‘truth’ then. This can’t be done using a Pannekoekian model of cognition. He says that our ‘conceptions’ are ‘products’, not a ‘mirror’ of ‘reality’, which they would have to be, to sustain your view of ‘truth’. He specifically says that, what you identify as ‘truth’, is an ‘unbounded stream in perpetual motion’.'Pannekoekian', ALB? No, I think you are 'DJPian'!

[LBird]

Lenin, M and E, p. 290, wrote:

These perfectly clear materialistic propositions are, however, supplemented by Dietzgen thus: “Nevertheless, the non-sensible idea is also sensible, material, i.e. real…. The mind differs no more from the table, light, or sound than these things differ from each other” (p. 54).  This is obviously false. That both thought and matter are “real,” i.e., exist, is true. But to say that thought is material is to make a false step, a step towards confusing materialism and idealism.

[my bold]Lenin goes on to say that Dietzgen is only ‘inexact’.So, Lenin adopts the same method being adopted here.a) have a preconceived yet unexplained viewpoint;b) quote Dietzgen (or Pannekoek) for support;c) accuse Dietzgen of being ‘inexact’;d) replace Dietzgen’s expressed viewpoint by one’s own so far unexpressed viewpoint;e) continue to claim the now expurgated Dietzgen as an authority for one’s differing viewpoint.If ALB and DJP don’t agree with Pannekoek or Dietzgen, then that’s fine. But then they must say who they do agree with. Lenin, here, on the 'material'?Otherwise, this discussion descends to personal opinion, anecdote, and ‘feelings’ about things being ‘silly’.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

But anyway, come off it. The use of quotes and references does not imply endorsement and the notion that only communists can say true things is rather silly.

'Rather silly'? That's a defensible opinion, DJP.Why not 'defend' it, then?Or is 'silly' obvious? Is it a mere matter of 'common sense'?Can you give us some other authority for that opinion of yours? Or are you the only one that holds it?'Rather silly'. Hmmm…. not a very scientific term, is it?Where do you get your ideas about science, DJP?

DJP wrote:

Though I guess it would follow from your relativism…

Ahhhh, so you do hold ideas, not of your making! 'Relativism', eh?I've already explained 'relativism' in terms of the tripartite theory of cognition, and then gone on to show how I don't agree with that model, and have outlined the model I do consider to be better.But… none of this from you, no attempt to explain, defend, quote authorities…No, just your 'opinion'. 'Rather silly'. No much of an argument, is it?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

In Materialism and Empiriocriticism Lenin devotes a two whole chapters to Bogdanov:http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/four5.htm#v14pp72h-226http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/six2.htm#v14pp72h-322Apologies for Lenin's style of arguing, but I see that one of his insults to Bogdanov is to call him a "cognitive socialist".

The SPGB is quoting Lenin as an 'authority', now? Lenin?Well, I've got M & E on the book shelf, so I'll have a look at his opinions on Bogdanov.

[LBird]

Once more, here’s an extract from Pannekoek’s introduction to Dietzgen’s  The Positive Outcome of Philosophy (incidently, a book translated by Untermann, one of whose books, Science and Revolution, I’m about to read also):

Pannekoek, intro, p. 33 wrote:

The mind is a faculty of generalization. It forms out of concrete realities, which are a continuous and unbounded stream in perpetual motion, abstract conceptions that are essentially rigid, bounded, stable, and unchangeable. This gives rise to the contradiction that our conceptions must always adapt to new realities without ever succeeding…

Here we have our three entities of cognition:Object: concrete perpetual motion (not ‘fixed’ things to ‘discover’, once and for all);Subject: our minds, actively forming something which is not the object (otherwise, why ‘form’, we could just passively observe and record?);Knowledge: temporary conceptions formed, which eternally contradict the object.Given this, where does this leave the notion of ‘the path of the sun going round the earth’, in the way we conceive it, now, as a ‘fixed piece of knowledge of reality’ which having been ‘discovered’, can’t be changed?You, DJP, et al, might be correct, that our ‘truth’ about the relative paths of the sun and earth is now an eternal ‘Truth’, a fixed reflection of reality, but that is not what Pannekoek (or Dietzgen) say.I know that I’m now wasting my time, and that you, DJP, et al, have already made up your minds on this issue, but, still, it would be nice if any one of you could give some evidence from Marx, Pannekoek or Dietzgen, to back up your opinions. If you can’t, it leaves one wondering just where your ideas come from. Perhaps bourgeois positivist ‘common sense’ science, the stuff we all learn as kids? Perhaps you're all just 'brilliant individuals', who don't need to 'quote' authorities, as 'cognition' is an open book to you all?Hopefully, I’ll soon be adding Untermann to my list of suitable quoters.Funnily enough, these Marxists seem to be closer to late 20th century philosophical thought (Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Bhaskar, Archer) than their own bourgeois contemporaries. That is, Communists were up to 150 years ahead of bourgeois thinkers in their ideas about science and nature.Oh, I’ve noticed that the sun has come up again, this morning.

[LBird]

Whilst we're quoting Kolakowski as an authority:

Kolakowski wrote:

Briefly: the abolition of the market means a gulag society.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Leszek_Ko%C5%82akowskiWould you trust this man's opinions on 'science', given his opinions on 'economics'?Whatever, there's no substitute for discussing our opinions about cognition, rather than widening the discussion so that it fades from view.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

As far as I can work out your views are nearer to those of Pannekoek's contemporary, Alexander Bogdanov, rather than those of Pannekoek himself…

I know nothing about Bogdanov's ideas, so I can't comment about your opinion.But I do know that I'm the one quoting Marx, Pannekoek and Dietzgen, whereas you're quoting Kolakowski's opinions of Bogdanov. You're not participating in a discussion of 'cognition', but merely insisting that what I'm saying can't be correct, without any evidence from Marx, Pannekoek or Dietzgen, to back up your opinions.From what I can tell from the quote, Bogdanov seems to be an 'instrumentalist', but that's only an impression, not a thought-out opinion.I suppose I'll have to buy Kolakowski's first volume, but it's not a priority at the moment. Schaff and cognition are.I'll have a read of the article too, later. Thanks.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

We are not 'black' underneath, but I imply from this you think that because, in all probability, modern humans are descendent from humans who were in what is now called 'Africa' that this means we are all 'black' or 'African' in origin. It doesn't. It's just that you don't really know what you're talking about.

We are not 'white' underneath, either, by the same logic. We're all the same human species.As for me 'not really knowing what I'm talking about', then we could be twins! Snap, comrade!

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

What you have confused…

Well, that's a matter of opinion, ALB!I've tried to take this discussion forward, by being open about my sources, by quoting Marx, Dietzgen and Pannekoek, by reading what comrades have suggested, and by buying two further books which have been suggested (Pannekoek and Untermann), but we're not going any further forward.If I had to make a guess, I think most here are 'naive realists', but it's difficult to tell, since 'common sense' seems to play a great part in determining attitudes, rather than a discussion of both 19th/early 20th century Marxists and late 20th century philosophers like Schaff, Kuhn and Lakatos, who all have a part to play in deepening our understanding of 'science'.Unless anyone else (other than twc) wants to discuss theories of cognition further, I'll leave things there.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

Notice the quick slippage into ad hominen for want of any meaningful response or rebuttal.Notice also the nasty reference to disabilities and the belief that this is humorous.What are you underneath?

Black! Just like you.It's not a 'skin colour', after all, is it, my confused friend!

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I think you're confusing 'non-observable' with not directly observable.

Dietzgen says it is "not seen, or felt, or heard". This means 'non-observable'; no caveat about 'direct' or 'indirect'.

DJP wrote:

If something is non-observable it cannot, by definition, be perceived either.

Dietzgen says it can be 'solely perceived by thought'. This is his 'definition'.You might not like or agree with Dietzgen, DJP, but that is what he says.You'll have to provide a quote from where-ever you get your 'definition'. I afraid 'common sense' is not sufficient.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

So now for Lbird 'true' not only means 'false' but now 'perceived' means 'non-observable'!?

Yes, according to Dietzgen, not just me, 'perceived' only by thought means 'non-observable'. Read the quote.I suppose you could try to make a meaningful contribution, DJP, but it doesn't seem to be your style.Why not give a quote from Marx, Dietzgen or Pannekoek, which backs up your ideological view of science?Or if you don't agree with Dietzgen (as expressed in the quote I gave), why not say so? Why just sniping at me, as an individual? At least twc was prepared to contribute, if a bit mystifyingly.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

‘non-observable reality’.

That's an oxymoron, surely? Certainly not a concept Dietzgen or Pannelokek would have subscribed to. 

Joseph Dietzgen, The Nature of Human Brain Work, III, wrote:

Science seeks to understand the nature of things, or their true essence, by means of their manifestations. Every thing has its own special nature, and this nature is not seen, or felt, or heard, but solely perceived by the faculty of thought. This faculty explores the nature of all things just as the eye explores all that is visible in things.

[my bold]Seems 'this nature' (a part of 'reality') is 'non-observable', according to Dietzgen, too, ALB.

[Author]

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