Rosa Lichtenstein
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ALB:
“My argument is not that Dietzgen never read or studied Hegel but that, when he wrote The Nature of Human Brain Work in 1869, where he first put forward his view that all that existed was the ever-changing world of phenomena which was a whole, he was not influenced by Hegel and had probably never read him by then. Later he did, yes. Just re-read this work and with your knowledge of philosophy you should be able to conclude that there is no trace of Hegelian influence in it.”
Well, we can speculate all day long about this. However, the evidence from his son, and the many Hegelisms that occur in that work suggest he was familiar with Hegel’s work (directly or indirectly).
But, wherever he got this idea, it is no less an example of a priori dogmatics, and is thus non-sensical.
“What sort of logic is that? Dietzgen read Feuerbach. Feuerbach read Hegel. Therefore Dietzgen read Hegel ! Come on, you’ll have to do better than that. I don’t know which of Feuerbach’s writings Dietzgen would have read but Feuerbach’s reputation and popularity was based on him being a materialist and an atheist, not on being an ex-Hegelian.”
It’s a reasonable inference to make, given the fact that much of Feuerbach’s work is devoted to his criticism of Hegel. But, recall, that inference was explicitly connected with what Dietzgen’s son tells us — that his father read and studied the work of philosophers in the 1840s, when Hegel was all the rage.
“I don’t see anything wrong with this statement of Dietzgen’s. It’s merely saying that the unity idealist philosophers had talked about as being something non-material (God, etc), as did the famous Hermeticists you keep banging on about (was Buddha one?), was in fact something material. Or what do you think the universe is?”
1) I quoted this passage not because I think it is wrong (or right!), but to show that Dietzgen was familiar with Hegel’s work.
2) I leave it to scientists (provided they too don’t indulge in amateur metaphysics), not dogmatic, aprioristic philosophers, to tell me what the universe is.
“What are these “cosmic energies” if not occult forces? In any event, there is nothing in Dietzgen to suggest that he thought the universe was pervaded by such energies.”
I didn’t suggest he did. I quoted Magee (but there are many others I could have quoted) to support my allegation that this family of ideas has been shared by countless generations of mystics. I did not, nor do I, suggest that every single one of these mystics assented to all of these ideas, but they certainly agreed with many of them — Dietzgen included.
“If you read that passage again you will see that the contradiction was one raised by Kant not Dietzgen and that Dietzgen says it can be resolved by dropping the whole idea that there is a world of things-in-themselves behind the ever-changing and single world of phenomena that we experience.”
And it was raised, too, by Hegel — who, like Dietzgen, thought we could move beyond this ‘contradiction’.
“In Dietzgen’s version it is not a claim to knowledge but a methodological assumption. Your mistake is to assume that what Dietzgen is saying is that all the physical things in the universe exist as separate entities and are interconnected as such, and that this is statement of alleged fact that can be empirically verified or falsified. If he did make such a claim you might be right that it can’t be verified. But this is not what Dietzgen means. He is saying that, to understand the world around us, you have to start from the assumption that all that “exists” is the “one eternal and limitless union which is called by us Cosmos, Nature and universe” and so physical objects don’t exist as independent entities but as parts of this whole distinguished and named by the human mind.”
Well, it doesn’t read like a ‘methodological assumption’ but an all-embracing truth he is prepared to accept.
Moreover, it’s far too vague to be a ‘methodological assumption’.
“Another example of your eccentric logic. Some “holists” are mystics. Dietzgen is a holist. Therefore Dietzgen is a mystic.”
Or, rather, another excellent example of your penchant for putting words in my mouth — Dietzgen’s ideas are mystical for the reasons I posted earlier:
“It becomes mystical when applied to the whole of nature since it pretends to give us knowledge that is way beyond anything we could ever espouse to, and which we could never confirm, no matter how hard or how long we tried — and it originated into the mystical contemplations about ‘god’ and ‘his’ cosmos, dogmatic pronouncements promulgated by generations of boss-class theorists and mystics — like Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Hermes Trismegistus, Jakob Boehme, Hans Christoph Oetinger, and Hegel, among many others.”
This is where he got this idea — as he himself acknowledged, and as his son confirmed — from reading ‘philosophy’.
Finally, you still haven’t shown where I equivocate.
Stuart:
“If Rosa is looking for some truly nutty sounding, fantastical, mystical ideas, all he [??] has to do is try to read some modern physics. But then, I guess that’s all written by alienated bourgeois fantasists.”
And what makes you think I disagree with this?
Stuart:
“Leninism: all power to the new bosses (same as the old bosses).”
Well, I haven’t come here to debate Leninism (which I think you have confused with Stalinism), so I will just note that I don’t agree, and leave it at that.
Young Master Smeet:
“A wall is something. I cannot walk through a wall. Things that are there can be materially interacted with. Things that are not there cannot be. there is no way to touch, see, smell or apprehend nothing. Likewise, nothing cannot impede my action, nor cause effects.”
Indeed, but how are the things you told us were nothing actually nothing? And you have yet to tell us how something can struggle with nothing.
“So you accept everything is connected, ultimately?”
Not at all, I was merely drawing out a consequence of what you had said. I neither assert nor deny that everything is interconnected since that would be a metaphysical proposition, and thus non-sensical:
http://www.soviet-empire.com/ussr/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=52252
“And from that it follows that everything is simply a permutation of this initial energy (including the energy that manifests as matter). And if we follow the laws of thermodynamics, that evergy cannot be created or destroyed, then it follows that nothing can happen that does not affect other entities within the system”
But, not even this shows that everthing is connected, let alone interconnected. I think you are confusing the phrase ‘common origin’ with the term ‘interconnected’.
“I think there is a passing reference to the notion in (that name again) Brian Cox’ “Why does E=MC^2″.”
I’m sorry, but my enigma translation module seems to be out of action today, so I’ll need you to put this in plain English if I am to respond to it.
Stuart:
“Right back atcha: I personally can’t understand how a person living in the modern world could possibly subscribe to the sinister religion of Leninism. I guess it’s cos you’re alienated.”
Well, it’s certainly not a religion the way I see it — you have seen me criticise it’s core theory here, for example.
“No need to apologise. I suppose I’m a bit of a Marxist, I’m a bit of lots of things, but basically a libertarian socialist. I’m certainly someone who believes that fantasies are far less harmful than Leninism.”
1) If you are right and Leninsim is a fantasy, then the above implies it is far less harmful than itself!
2) I think Leninism is harmful, too — to the bosses.
Young Master Smeet:”Two perfect circles would make very bad clockwork, the gaps between the teeth are not there, and yet they make the whole thing go. They are defined by the something of the cogs. Likewise in the electron states of semi conductors which are either on or off: there is a definite somehing that is nothing”I am still unclear why you would want to call a gap “nothing”, or why an electron state ‘off’ is ‘nothing’. And do they really ‘struggle’ with each other? If not, why call this a ‘dialectic’?”Except everything is interconnected by its share of the initial energy impetus, if everything was once all part of one sub-microscopic spot. If we expand the light cone back, then everything in the universe leads up to point E in the diagram in that article.”What they seem to be connected with is this energy, not each other; unless you think there is some sort of instantaneous communication via this energy — which, once again, would be impossible to confirm.And the point of the light cone is that while everything might once have been connected, it isn’t so now, and nor can it be.”All light is everywhere and all light is in contact with everything at once, then everything is interconnected via light. It could be, from a certain point of view, that the universe is one still spot of light that we misinterpret as having dimensions.”Well, this reads like science fiction; I’d like to see the evidence that substantiates it.”Certainly, Great Cthulhu thinks so”.Which just goes to show I was right when I labelled this a ‘mystical notion”.
Young Master Smeet:
“Of course there is an ongoing dialectic between something and nothing. The dialectic that lies at the heart of computing and of genetics: without the absences – such as the white bits around the letters in this comment – there would be no positive meaning. The human mind also structures its apprehensions throught relational methods between object/non object.”
How are ‘absences’ nothing? And, if there is a dialectic going on here, then this ‘something’ must be ‘struggling’ with this ‘nothing’. Do we see this in computing, or in genetics?
“Leaving aside the bendier aspects of relativity which suggest that light may well be everywhere at once (IIRC), if the Big Bang theory holds, then everything in space/time is related and is just the ongoing expression of the initial explosion of energy constantly transforming itself into higher and lower concentrations of entropy.”
Of course, the Big Bang Theory is about origins; it says nothing about universal interconnection right now; in fact, as I pointed out, if relativity is correct, then not everything can be interconnected (that was the point of the link I posted about light cones).
“Leaving aside the bendier aspects of relativity which suggest that light may well be everywhere at once (IIRC)”
There is no way that this can be confirmed, but even if it could, what has it got to do with the idea that everything is interconnected?
DJB:
“So explain how you can say the above without being ‘non-sensical’. Why bother quoting Marx now you’ve proved that all philosophical theories are non-sensical? Seems to me there’s a bit of inconsistency going on here, but then I suppose that is necessary for one to be a Leninist.”
Easy — as I pointed out, non-sensical sentences are those that are incapable of expressing a sense, no matter what we try to do with them — that is, they are incapable of being true, and they are incapable of being false. But, there are many different types of non-sensical sentences, which aren’t the least bit philosophical or metaphysical. For example, rules. Rules can’t be true and they can’t be false — since they are imperatives. They can only be practical, or otherwise, useful or not, obeyed or abrogated.
Now, my sentences are elucidatory rules; they are aimed at explaining where traditional philosophy goes astray. An analogy might help. Let us suppose that a certain individual is a novice at chess, and does not really grasp the rules. Let us further suppose that I try to explain where he/she is going wrong. I will say things like this “This is the queen and she moves like this”. This can’t be false, for if it were, it would not be a rule about the queen in chess, but about a figment of my own imagination. And if it can’t be false, it can’t be true either — since I am expressing a rule. Suppose I then go on to say “No, the bishop does not move like that, it’s an important piece that moves diagonally, like this”. These sentences look like they are in the indicative mood, but their role tells us they are imperatives.
Now, my comments about metaphysics are like this; they show where traditional philosophers have gone wrong by reminding them/us how we ordinarily use language — i.e., what it’s rules are.
And this follows Marx’s advice (in the German ideology):
“The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life.”
And when we do that, we can see philosophical theses for what they are: self-important, distorted and empty strings of words.
“Seems to me there’s a bit of inconsistency going on here, but then I suppose that is necessary for one to be a Leninist.”
I think sectarian remarks like that are out of place, don’t you?
Anyway, Leninists almost en masse agree with you (and give me a hard time for arguing this way). They also think that philosophy is important and can add to our knowledge.
“I’ve read the article by the way, there’s a simple equivocation error in the middle of your argument. Can you spot it?”
No, I don’t think there is — unless, of course, you can show otherwise.
Stuart:
“I wasn’t commenting on Marx’s words but your own..”
Well, my words differed from Marx’s only in so far as I put ‘ruling ideas’ first, and not second, in my sentence about them, which, I think created the misunderstanding.
Instead of saying “The ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class”, I should have said “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.”
Having said that, your ideas seem to me to be pure fantasy, and subject to Marx’s comments about religious alienation.
“I am not a member of the SPGB.”
Well, I’m sorry for thinking you were, but you are a Marxist, I take it.
Of course, one has to read Marx’s work, as well as that of others, with some sensitivity and with no little common sense.
Here is what he said:
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.”
I don’t think we can call the transfer of ‘information’ between certain molecules a ‘ruling idea of the epoch’.
And it’s worth noting that Marx didn’t say that the ideas of the ruling class are the only ruling ideas — had he done so you might have had a point.
But, even so, I must apologise; silly me, I thought I had loggged into a socialist web site.
Or does SPGB stand for ‘Spiritual Party of Great Britain’?
I see, we have now moved away from science and into pure fantasy.
As I said, the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class…
ALB:
“I have been following my own advice and re-reading Dietzgen’s The Nature of Human Brain Work (together with Pannekoek’s introduction to it). I can’t find any evidence for him having been influenced by Hegel either in ideas or terminology. The only philosophers mentioned are Kant, David Hume, Alexander von Humboldt and Ludwig Feuerbach.”
If he read Feuerbach, then he will have read Hegel (in view of Feuerbach’s own concerns). The evidence of his son, and the circumstantial evidence I mentioned suggest that he was influenced by German idealism and/or mystical Hermeticism, most probably from Hegel himself.
Indeed, we read this in Some of the Philosophical Essays:
“Philosophy has discovered the art of thinking. That it has thereby occupied itself so much with the all-perfect Being, with the conception of God, with the ‘substance’ of Spinoza, with the ‘thing in itself’ of Kant, and with the Absolute of Hegel, has its good reason in the fact that the sober conception of the universe as of the All-One with nothing above or outside or alongside of it, is the first postulate of a skilled and consistent mode of thinking, which both of itself and of all possible and impossible objects that they all belong to one eternal and limitless union which is called by us Cosmos, Nature and universe” (pp.274-75.).
Then we flip forward a few pages and we find a whole chapter devoted to ‘Hegel and Darwin’! [pp.314-41.], where we read:
“We wish to render the now almost forgotten Hegel what is due to him as the forerunner of Darwin. Mendelssohn, in a dispute with Lessing, called Spinoza a ‘dead dog’. Just as dead appears now Hegel…. Spinoza has long since undergone resurrection from the state of a ‘dead dog’, and so will Hegel, too, find his merits acknowledged by future generations. If he has lost his influence at the present time, it is merely a temporary eclipse.” (pp.314-15.)
The rest of that chapter shows he was thoroughly familiar with Hegel’s system and method.
This not only confirms he had read and studied Hegel, but also that he got many of his ideas from him and other assorted mystics and a priori dogmatists, as I alleged.
“Nothing mystical there. No occult forces at work. Nothing occult at all.”
Well, I didn’t mention the occult, so I think you and I are operating with a different understanding of the word ‘mystical’ (but see below).
Be this as it may, the passage you quoted is full of a priori dogmatic pronouncements and Hegelisms. Dietzgen has plainly bought into Hegel’s mystical notion of a ‘contradiction’ (even though it is plain that the thing he calls a ‘contradiction’ isn’t one, and does not even look like one), among other things.
“You say, RL, that you accept the materialist conception of history. This means that, unless you think history is a series of unconnected events, you must accept the concept of history being a continuous stream and a “whole”, from which historians extract, describe and form theories about parts. So, if seeing things as an interconnected whole is acceptable here why does it suddenly become “mystical” when applied to nature and the universe?”
Just because I deny that everything is interconnected (or, rather, I claim the idea that everything is interconnected is far too vague to do anything with) does not imply I think that nothing is! Plainly, there is much in history that is connected — whether it all is, or whether it is all interconnected, will require proof (we certainly can’t assert it dogmatically).
It becomes mystical when applied to the whole of nature since it pretends to give us knowledge that is way beyond anything we could ever espouse to, and which we could never confirm, no matter how hard or how long we tried — and it originated into the mystical contemplations about ‘god’ and ‘his’ cosmos, dogmatic pronouncements promulgated by generations of boss-class theorists and mystics — like Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Hermes Trismegistus, Jakob Boehme, Hans Christoph Oetinger, and Hegel, among many others.
Incidentally, this view also provides the ‘rationale’ for Astrology and other assorted ‘New Age’ nostrums. There’s hardly a mystical system on the planet, as far as we know, that does not or has not viewed the cosmos in this way.
As Marx said: ‘The ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class’…
Check out this sacred Hermetic text, and you will see these open and honest mystics have also discovered their own form of dialectics not much different from that of Dietzgen or Engels and Plekhanov (except they did so nearly two millennia ago):
http://www.gnostic.org/kybalionhtm/kybalion.htm
Reading that work is like reading a religious version of Dietzgen, or Engels — or even Lenin!
‘The ruling ideas are always…’
Stuart:
“Yes, I’m well aware of Chris Knight’s criticisms (together we interviewed Chomsky for Radical Anthropology journal, http://www.radicalanthropologygroup.org/new/Journal.html), but I’m no longer convinced that the criticisms are even relevant to Chomsky’s concerns. Basically, Knight is asking what social conditions are necessary before we might expect language to evolve, given current sociobiological theories. Chomsky says, well, we know next to nothing about that, beyond speculation. It doesn’t impact on Chomsky’s concerns, which is, as he says in New Scientist, constructing theories that might tell us something nontrivial about the genetic predisposition for langauge and how it works.”
Well we’ll just have to disagree over what Knight is doing. Even so, I still maintain that Chomsky is not the last bit ‘open minded’, and he isn’t averse to a little speculation himself — much of it highly implausible.
I was referring to the fact that he re-interprets contrary evidence (such as that produced by Everett — but there are many others) to fit an a priori scheme he constructed back in the 1950s (in abeyance of any evidence, other than a few thought experiments and naive beliefs about how children learn to speak, and how adults learn a second language).
If you read Chris Knight’s other essays on Chomsky, you will I think, see the point.
Chomsky is also oblivious, and/or dismissive, of Marx and Engels’s belief that language is a historical/social, not an individual, phenomenon, invented by humans in order to communicate. He rejects the idea that language is communicational in anything other than a very basic sense.
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/edition.php?issue_id=803
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker2/index.php?action=viewarticle&article_id=400
http://www.chrisknight.co.uk/category/noam_chomsky/
Thanks for that Stuart, but this comment of Chomsky’s not only seems somewhat vague, it doesn’t appear to resemble the many and varied methods scientists have in fact used since at least the 17th century.
Moreover, it’s not even what Chomsky himself does — his work in Linguistics is largely a priori, and was constructed in abeyance of any evidence. He has since then operated without an ‘open mind’ (as the interview in last week’s New Scientist further confirms).
Finally, it’s important to distinguish any methods scientists might use from a philosophical theory about science.
