Wez
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‘Not according to Marx, Wez. Humans socially produce their ‘nature’.
Otherwise, ‘material conditions’ will determine ‘socialism’, rather than humanity.’LBird – perhaps it would be more correct to say that material conditions have created consciousness that will enable (through the socialist revolution) people to impose their consciousness on material conditions for the first time in history.
I suppose people come to an understanding and acceptance of the case for socialism in different ways. For me it was through comparing ideas about the world, how it functions and what can be done to change it. Such ideas had to exhibit a corresponding truth which helped explain my experience of life. Presumably others achieve consciousness without an exclusively intellectual approach although surely this always has to be an element at whatever level. This is why I demur from Marx’s apparent belief that the praxis of ‘scientific socialism’ replaced philosophy as the way forward. The ‘idea’ that socialism represents the end of philosophy seems to me to be as nonsensical as Fukuyama’s belief that capitalism represented the end of history. By the by LBird I believe Marx thought that philosophy enabled and/or created an elite in the past and that science was more democratic – hasn’t really turned out like that has it?
‘This has arguably led not only to the rise of pseudoscience and religious fundamentalism, but also to a shrinking pool of scientific jobs and research funds.”
‘Obviously we can have nothing to do with a view which provides an intellectual justification for pseudoscience by putting it on a par with science. However, during the next lockdown, I might add him to my reading list alongside Piers Corbyn and David Icke.’
What a tragedy that to blacken the name of somebody with whom you disagree you force him into the company of the likes of ‘David Icke’! People are not responsible for the misuse of their ideas after their death – look at Marx. Anyway we’ll have to start a new thread if anyone wants to continue the debate.
‘It would seem, therefore, that here the theory of value is incompatible with the actual process, incompatible with the real phenomena of production, and that for this reason any attempt to understand these phenomena should be given up.’
I’m no expert on economics and I’m sure that our economic guru (ALB) will enjoy answering your query in full but I think the key words in the passage you quote are ‘it would seem…’ i.e. a contradiction between appearance and reality. I may be wrong and as I say we have comrades steeped in Marxian economics so you won’t have long to wait for a better answer.
‘Therefore to simply dismiss the results of these workers’ efforts, because of the social system they were produced in is a little like denying the artistic value of Michealangelo’s work because the Pope paid for it.’
‘To put it into context, 100s of people are dying daily in the UK, due to Covid. Do you seriously believe that “big Pharma” and the government are suppressing big numbers of deaths or illness from the vaccine???’BD – Where do you get the impression that I dismiss the results of the worker’s efforts?? Also where does the idea that I believe that big pharma and the government are involved in a conspiracy come from?? Why do I have to keep repeating that I’m not an antivaxxer? It would appear that nobody actually reads what I say.
My contention is that government and big pharma have lost credibility because of the lies of the past. As a lifelong recipient of NHS treatment I can tell you with confidence that what one doctor tells you will be flatly contradicted by another – it is very difficult to maintain a belief in the coherence of medical science at the sharp end. The debate about the nature of science itself is a complex subject that perhaps wasn’t appropriate on this thread.Alan – Was the Chartist movement widespread among the working class? Were they not a minority? Of course you’re correct that the inequalities were more obvious at that time but I wouldn’t call it ‘common sense’ because the term is now associated with prejudice and reactionary conditioning – perhaps ‘class conscious’ is a better term? Would you call their movement a success historically? Other movements like the Luddites and various religious organisations seem to have been more popular – but I defer to your knowledge of that time in working class history. Ultimately they all failed of course because from the diggers to the chartists they were fundamentally idealistic and we had to wait for Marx to give us the reason for their failure.
‘Have we over-complicated the whole socialist case? It was all so much easier in the past…’
Alan – perhaps the reverse is true. Some in the Party seem to want us to jump on the populist platform and proclaim our anti-intellectualism. I’ve been trying to communicate our case for 40 years and I don’t remember it being any easier.
‘But, to return to the subject of the thread, what is the evidence that current medical practice is not appropriate to deal with the pandemic? It’s not the bogey of “capitalist medicine” which once got a mention here before being slapped down, is it?’
ALB – At the risk of repeating myself I’m only trying to explain why some are dubious and even suspicious about the vaccines. As for my sympathy for a ‘notorious critic of science’ all I can say is that his work is quoted in many serious philosophical studies of science and he has mainly been branded as notorious by those who fear any alternative to their faith systems. Don’t forget that many on the Left regard us as notorious renegades but that doesn’t make them correct does it? I recommend you read some of his work and make up your own mind.
ALB – What do you think of the use of science in the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, psychology etc.? None of them seem favourable to socialism as far as I know.
Don’t know where my last post went so I’ll repeat it:
MN – Absolutely.
Alan – You know, as well as I, that ‘common sense’ arguments tend to legitimize prejudice and ideological conditioning. Many would regard it as common sense that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder or that slapping a child provides it with a moral compass. Indeed most would say that the case for socialism was against all common sense.MN – Absolutely.
Alan – You know, as well as I, that common sense arguments tend to legitimize prejudice and ideological conditioning. For instance the idea that capital punishment is a deterrent to murder or that slapping children provides them with a moral compass. Most people would regard the case for socialism as ‘against all common sense’.‘Someone here expressed sympathy for this sophism and had to be called out.’
ALB – Blimey – I hope you don’t mean me! I’m simply calling for the same skepticism in this matter as we use in all of our analysis. ‘Science’ is not what most people think it is and contains a great deal of ‘speculation’.
Alan – preserve us from ‘common sense’ since this is usually just another word for ignorance.
MS – This debate is about ‘coronavirus’ and about the reason why many are distrustful of their governments and their experts when it comes to information about the virus. Governments have lied so often in the past that people are rightly very skeptical about what they are told. For us this is both a good and bad thing – good in that people are no longer prepared to swallow any propaganda that comes from their governments and bad in that it creates conspiracy theories that lead to movements like QAnon and anti-vaxxers etc.‘In any event, philosophers have nothing useful to say about the coronavirus vaccines and their efficacy.’
Would it be ‘true’ to say that, for you ALB, philosophers have nothing useful to say about anything?
He most definitely was not an ‘anti-science philosopher’ – talk about tabloid journalism. What he was against was all the hype and myth that surrounds science notably the idea that there is a universal ‘method’ that, like a magic spell, can be used to discover truth.
