[LBird]

twc wrote:

LBird sees science springing from theory … not from practice …

If I've said 'interaction between subject and object' on this thread once, I've said it a thousand times.What do you think 'interaction' is? Contemplation?And how does human 'practice' happen, without human 'theory'? Induction?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

What about: It is now known that the Sun did not move round the Earth in the 17th century and before?

As long it is mirrored by: It was then known that the Earth did not move round the Sun in the 17th century and before.'Known' is in the realm of 'human understanding', as Pannekoek argued, not in the realm of the 'nature'.

Pannekoek wrote:

…from the point of the scientific investigator, [who] sees all this [ie. Sun, Earth, nature, etc.] as an element of nature itself which has been discovered and brought to light by science.

The relative paths of the Sun and Earth are not 'discovered', but…

Pannekoek wrote:

…are products which creative mental activity forms out of the substance of natural phenomena.

If they are 'human products', they can be wrong. What's 'scientific truth' in one era can be shown to be 'untrue' in another era. That doesn't mean the external world of nature changes in either.For Pannekoek, 'mental activity' and 'natural phenomena' have to be combined to 'produce' 'the works of science'.Theory + reality = truth.'Truth' is not 'reality'.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Yes, I can. That's why I suggested that another way round your paradox was to not use the words "true" and "truth" at all. So, the statements would read: "It is a "historical fact" that up to the 17th century it was generally believed that the Sun moved round the Earth."and"So, the Sun did not go round the Earth in the 17th century and before."

But you're still doing the same thing. To make them commensurate, your second statement would have to read:It is a 'historical fact' that up to the 21st century it was generally believed that the Earth moved round the Sun.Your second statement is unhistorical, and is a claim about eternal 'discovery' in the objective world. Pannekoek says that our understanding of the Sun's movements relative to the Earth is a human creation, just like the laws of physics.

ALB wrote:

Sorry you took the news item about the Rubicon as taking the piss. I just thought it was an amusing aside to the discussion here.

My apologies. Frustration is getting the better of my sense of humour, unfortunately. That's always a bad sign.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

It is a "historical fact" that up to the 17th century it was generally believed to be true that the Sun moved round the Earth.The external reality of the relation between the Sun and the Earth has not changed. It was the same up to the 17th century as it is today.Today, in the light of further evidence and theorising, a better interpretation of this reality is that the Sun goes round the Earth and always has done.So, it was not true that the Sun went round the Earth in the 17th century and before.

[my bold]Can't you see that your two uses of 'true' here are different?The first relates to epistemology (knowledge, a human creation), whereas the second relates ontology, to the 'object', which is 'discovered'.Pannekoek's statement clearly relates to the first use, and the second relates to his view of 'materialism'.Simply put, you're using 'true' to mean 'objective'. But 'truth' relates to 'knowledge'.

ALB wrote:

Ah, but does that mean that the Pisciatello was the "true" Rubicon?

Quite frankly, taking the piss does your case no favours. Why you won't engage with the arguments is a mystery to me.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Probably because you overstate your case by saying that your version of the three-elements theory means that it was once "true" that some cats were witches, that the Sun used to move round the Earth and, presumably, that the Ether used to exist.

The simple 'historical fact' is that it was once 'true': cats were witches, and the sun went round the earth.For some reason, you're insisting that 'true' means 'reality'. It doesn't.Perhaps if I put it like this:True = reality + theoryThis allows us to explain changes in 'true': if the theory changes, the 'truth' changes – but 'reality' doesn't change. This can explain Piltdown man and The Ether. They were true, according to science, and then they weren't, according to science. Scientific theories changed.You, DJP and Ed seem to be equating 'true' (which is related to the entity of 'knowledge' (produced by humans actively combining reality + theory)) with 'reality' alone.

ALB wrote:

You are guilty of what you are accusing others of — assuming that there is no third approach and that if people don't accept that it was once true that the Sun moved round the Earth that means that they must think that "true knowledge" and the "object being known" are the same thing.

This is exactly what you're doing – equating 'object being known' (sun) and 'true knowledge' (what a society considers to be true about the sun). This can't be done.If I'm 'guilty' of anything, it's being patient, trying to explain 'science' to comrades. Let's hope it's worth it, and bears some fruit.Perhaps if some other comrades commented… if no-one agrees with me, I'll give up, though with regrets.

[LBird]

Well, if everyone else is happy that 'true knowledge' and the 'object being known' are the same thing, I'm outvoted.So, that being agreed, how do we account for Piltdown Man or The Ether?PS. I'm completely baffled why when one says one isn't a positivist/objectivist, the only alternative one can be is a subjectivist/idealist? That is, either 'true' or 'in the eye of the beholder'.I'm finding that I'm saying the same thing, over and over again, now, comrades, so I admit defeat.But… it still bothers me that you can only recognise two alternatives… why is my explanation of three not working?

[LBird]

Ed wrote:

The truth is a description of what is reality.

No.'Truth' is something created by humans, as Marx said in the Theses. Feuerbach would have regarded 'truth' as synonymous with 'reality'.Does 'reality' create the 'description' of itself, while humans passively observe?To go back to an earlier analogy that we discussed, does a 'crime scene' describe itself, or is the 'description' a human construct revolving around chosen evidence?Even if that 'evidence' is necessarily partial, does that mean it must be either 'true' or 'untrue'? Can't there be two 'descriptions' of the crime scene which are both 'true', but which also conflict?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Ok, post-modernism rules ! Next question: Does this mean that before homo sapiens evolved it was not "true" that the Earth existed.

ALB, your confusing the 'object' with 'knowledge'. Ditto DJP.Your model of cognition has only two components: the 'subject' and the 'object'. For you both, 'knowledge' is identical with the 'object', and thus 'knowledge' is not an independent entity.The model of cognition that stress those two components (object and subject) and excludes a third component (knowledge) is positivism.The model of cognition employed by me, Marx and Pannekoek is a three-component model. This model allows humans to demarcate 'knowledge' as a human product, and thus accept that with humans being fallible, 'knowledge' might be untrue knowledge. In this way, 'knowledge' has a history – we can say when is was 'true' and when it wasn't, and why 'truth' changes, due to changes in social theories.

DJP wrote:

In all seriousness though it seems to me Lbird's definition of "truth" throws all possiblity of rational discourse out of the window.

'Rational'? I suppose you think rationality, too, is an eternal idea. Clearly, you'd have no time for the argument that what's 'rational' is defined differently by classes.

DJP wrote:

Is LBird trying to make the same point as Humpty Dumpty?

DJP, here, commits the error of seeing the subject as an 'individual' (Humpty Dumpty, who continually stresses 'I'). This is bourgeois ideology dressed up as 'rational questioning'.All through this thread I've defined the 'subject' as a 'social subject', whose theories emanate from social conditions.DJP wishes to ignore what I've written, and insert their own ideological categories upon my explanations.Would ALB or DJP like to explain either Marx's or Pannekoek's ideas, using the quotes I've helpfully provided, with the two-model theory of cognition that they are employing?It can't be done. Marx explicitly mentions materialism (objectivism) and idealism (subjectivism) and goes on to unite them in a theory of praxis (interaction of object and subject (humans and nature), to produce a third category, knowledge).

DJP wrote:

Seeing as a paradigm change does not occur instantaneously …

DJP is employing the ideological categories of Thomas Kuhn, who argued that 'paradigms' succeed one another, in series, over time. One paradigm eventually predominates, even with overlaps. This notion of 'serial paradigms' is a social construct.I employ the ideological categories of Imre Lakatos, who argued that 'research programmes' compete with one another, in parallel, at the same time. There are always multiple competing programmes. This notion of 'competing programmes' is a social construct.At least I can identify the ideological bases of our respective thinking. For DJP, all this is 'Humpty-Dumpty talk'.DJP and ALB have access to 'The Truth', apparently. I don't. As a Communist, I have no more access to 'truths' than any other Communist. I'd argue that we have to discuss 'social truths which change' and explain 'why' they change.Take your pick, comrades.

[LBird]

Ed wrote:

Dictionary definition of truth

So you regard 'dictionaries' as objective statements of 'facts'?How does your dictionary define 'Communism', comrade?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

If anyone answers "yes" to this they have swallowed too much postmodern bullshit and would do well to read any of the books by Alan Sokal.

Oh dear.  'Truth' equals 'object', is your ideological position, I fear. See Jonathan Marks' comments on Sokal. Must dash.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Anyway, how do you propose that such an issue be decided in a socialist/communist society?

This, of course, is the $64,000 question! To move properly onto this issue, though, I think we first have to get some agreement about 'science'. I have to do other things now, but I'll give it some thought and post later.For now…

ALB wrote:

Does this mean it was "true" that the Sun moved round the Earth until the view that the Earth moves around the Sun became the new "truth"?

Yes, it does!Unless one identifies 'truth' with 'object', which science itself during the 20th century has shown us can't be done.If one identifies 'truth' with 'knowledge', then it was 'true' that 'the Sun moved round the Earth'. With a later examination of the 'object' by the human subject with different social theories, 'truth' was shown to be 'untrue'. Truth has a history.A tripartite theory of cognition (object, creative social subject, knowledge produced interactively) is the basis of this perspective, as opposed to positivism (passive subject, object/knowledge the same and simply appears to subject) or relativism (creative individual subject, produces knowledge from self, object disappears).

[LBird]

More thoughts, to help explain.

LBird, post #61, wrote:

Humans actively create knowledge by their interaction with the external world.'Knowledge' of a cat is not a 'cat'. Knowledge reflects the questions we ask of reality, rather than reality itself.

To deepen this example, we can ask ‘is that ‘cat’ a ‘cat’?’.In other words, we can ask is that ‘cat’ (a really existing ‘object’ that we perceive) a ‘cat’ (a piece of ‘knowledge’ that we socially produce)?So, something is really present, but what?What if the society that asks this question is 17th century England? The ‘object’ might be ‘known’ to be a ‘witch’, rather than a mere ‘cat’.This ‘knowledge’ is ‘true’. Since ‘knowledge’ is a social creation, the knowledge, to all intents and purposes is, ‘true’. It is a ‘witch’, not a ‘cat’.The ‘scientific method’ has produced a ‘truth’. Science proceeds from social assumptions, asks questions of ‘reality’ and constructs answers based on the interaction of those assumptions with nature. The subject interrogates the object and produces knowledge.A later interrogation of the object by a society working from different assumptions will indeed conclude that the ‘cat’ is indeed a ‘cat’. The 'object' retains its existence, for later re-examination.New ‘knowledge’ has displaced earlier ‘knowledge’, so what was ‘true’ is now thought to be ‘untrue’. ‘Truth’ is social and has a history.But, of course, this is not a final truth. Given a change in the theory of categorising animals (say, due to genetics unmasking appearances), the future might go on to conclude that a ‘cat’ is actually a member of the ‘dog’ family!

[LBird]

I can do no better than re-quote Anton Pannekoek, once again.

Pannekoek, Lenin as Philosopher, p. 29, 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 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.

Theories of 'butterfly spots' are a human creation, not a discovery of 'butterfly spots'.

[LBird]

Thank god I don't have to write the algorithm to capture the logic of that question!I don't think I can state my position any clearer.All scientific activity must be under democratic control, however it is defined. All aspects. Science is a social activity and its truths are social truths.All. All. All. Everything. Everything. Everything.Now, if you don't agree, you hold a different ideological opinion to me.From my perspective, you are clinging on to the bourgeois notion that some parts of science are 'neutral' and thus not amenable to democratic control.

ALB wrote:

Why should society have to decide whether a theory of how the lesser spotted butterfly got its spots is "true" or not?

Because the ‘theory’ will be a socially-constructed ‘truth’!

ALB wrote:

Why should "society" have the power to reject a finding a majority didn't find acceptable ("politically correct"?)?

Because ‘society’ should ‘have the power to reject a finding a majority didn't find acceptable’. Mengele’s findings should be subject to the acceptability of the majority.

ALB wrote:

Or to decide that "2 + 2 = 5"?

Because ‘mathematics’ is a social construct. I can show that ‘2+2=11’, in base 3. Further, if we change the meanings of the symbols ‘2’ and ‘5’, then ‘2+2=5’ would be ‘true’.

ALB wrote:

In fact, why should it want to have this power?

Because if ‘society’ doesn’t ‘have this power’, someone else will have! It’s the political implications of your ‘simple, obvious questions’ that appear to escape you.If I can be frank, ALB, I think that you’re approaching this essentially philosophical question about social power and science from the perspective of ‘the man on the Clapham omnibus’, who has to deal with ‘the real world’ using ‘common sense’.I feel similar to the communist who’s explained a theory of capitalism, value and free access communism to someone in the pub at great length, who then asks ‘But will I still be able to get a packet of fags for less than a fiver under communism?’Is the SPGB a ‘Clapham omnibus’? I think we need input to this issue, other than ours… and that of Marx, Pannekoek, Dietzgen…

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

…but deciding whether or not the findings of this activity are acceptable (are "valid" or "true") is something different.

That's an ideological position.What's more, it's one I don't share with you.

[Author]

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