Do We Need the Dialectic?
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Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:Well, my work has nothing to do with Ordinary Language Philosophy. And, despite what you might have been told, neither has Wittgenstein's.
You say that, but later on your give a series of quotes from him which form the basis of Ordinary Language Philosophy, eg:
Quote:When philosophers use a word — 'knowledge', 'being', 'object', 'I', 'proposition/sentence', 'name', — and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used this way in the language in which it is at home?Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:You plainly didn't read my article on WittgensteinI have now. Very interesting. I hadn't realised before he was such a fellow traveller of the Russian state capitalist regime. Nor that he converted to Roman Catholicism even if on his deathbed (enough to damn anyone in my eyes). But I notice that you describe him as a "philosopher" and even use his flirting with Hegelian language as evidence for him being a leftwinger !Since you obviously have some sympathy for Ordinary Language Philosophy (acquitting it of the charge of being a part of ruling class ideology) you might be interested in this book written by a member of the SPGB in his work capacity:Keith Graham J. L. Austin: A Critique of Ordinary Language Philosophy
Where we were last time:Rosa accepts the dialecticI quoted:
Schopenhauer wrote:Dialectic, on the other hand, would treat of the intercourse between two rational beings who, because they are rational, ought to think in common, but who, as soon as they cease to agree like two clocks keeping exactly the same time, create a disputation, or intellectual contest. Regarded as purely rational beings, the individuals would, I say, necessarily be in agreement, and their variation springs from the difference essential to individuality; in other words, it is drawn from experience.To which Rosa said:
Lichtenstein wrote:I'm OK with the classical definition of 'dialectic' (connected with argument), although I prefer to avoid it since it creates confusion when I say such things; what I am not Ok with is the metaphysical version of the dialectic many of you seem to have accepted.Now, accepting the dialectical approach described by Schopenhauer means accepting that knowledge is contingent and emergent as part of an ongoing process, which is precisely what the "metaphysical" approach says in it's entirety. Rosa Lichtenstein may have spent 30 years of study on this, but I've spent five minutes in my coffee break this morning, and I get that. This post contains everything you need to know about dialectic. All else is detail.
This is only a classroom discussion, nothing else. A show of who knows more, or who knows less. In this world we need workers with class consciousness and political knowledge in order to overthrow this stupid economical system
L Bird: "Errr… no, it would amount to regarding Marx's words as often totally one-sided and rhetorical, and would amount to realising that you're taking his words at simple face value. "Marx wasn't a god. We can argue with his words. We can change his words, to those that we think fit better with his intended meaning, given the whole body of his work. So, when he says that 'the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class', to modify it to fit with reality. Clearly, 'ruling ideas' are not always 'those of the ruling class'. Most of the time, yes; the vast majority of the time, yes; almost always, yes. But 'common sense' tells us that Marx was employing political rhetoric during the 19th century to stress what had never been acknowledged until then: we workers are under constant ideological pressure to see the world from the viewpoint of the ruling class. There are also oppositional, minority, hidden, ideas in the exploited classes. We have to cultivate them. That view is more in keeping with what Marx meant to say." In fact Marx didn't say "the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class" but: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas", which carries with it a totally different connotation. But, you are right to remind us that Marx wasn't a deity, and we mustn't treat his words as holy writ. Having said that, Marx nowhere says there aren't other ideas in society, only that the ideas of the ruling-class are the ruling ideas, which is what you'd expect of the rich and powerful, that they'd control the production and dissemination of ideas, and that they'd ensure that the ideas they control (or that those they'd employ to control them) represent their view of the world. [On that, see my earlier reply to ALB.] So, Marx's claim is at least plausible. But, is it true? Well, I'm not so much concerned here with other aspects of ruling-class ideology, only those that have dominated Philosophy since Ancient Greek times, and there we can see a very clear thread running through all of traditional Thought: that is, the idea that there is a hidden world anterior to experience, which is more real that than world we see around us, and which can be accessed by thought alone. Moreover, theses about this world — about 'Being', 'thought', 'consciousness', 'time', 'space', 'sensation', 'perception', etc., etc., — can be derived from thought/language alone, and can then be imposed on reality dogmatically and aprioristically. [Again, in an earlier post I explained briefly why this represents a ruling-class view of reality.] This thought-form has dominated traditional Philosophy for over 2500 years ('East' and 'West') — so, the evidence suggests that, at least with respect to traditional Philosophy, Marx was right: "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." Bold added. Now, if you can show me evidence that there was a time when the ideas of the ruling-class weren't the dominant ideas, I'd be interested to see it, but you have yet to produce it, confining yourself merely to assertion. L Bird: "This is a philosophical assumption, and one I don't share. Well, it isn't a philosophical assumption, but an observation of what happens when workers enter struggle — they soon see that the state, the courts, the media, and the cops aren't neutral. They also have to set up their own mini-socialist state for the distribution of money, food, ideas, planning and strategy formation, and that teaches them how to organise and share according to need. They also have to set up their own security and communication systems. Ideas they once held (about women, gays, ethnic minorities, etc.) are often challenged, and changed. All of these, and more, happened in, for example, the Great Miners' Strike of 1984-85 — I was involved in it and saw it for myself. Workers who were indifferent, or resistant, to socialist ideas before the strike, were highly receptive to them during that strike. Moreover, many of these ideas weren't changed by us Trotskyists; the fact that the miners themselves had to depend on their women to support them, and do much of the organising when they were on picket duty, changed their ideas about their women-folk. And they didn't need us Leninists to tell them what the cops, the media, or the courts were doing. The support they received from the gay community meant that gay banners were at the front of many miners' demonstrations, and so on. Us Leninists had absolutely no input in this respect. LB: "I think that to argue so is an elitist position. It's used by Leninists to justify them providing 'new ideas' for workers who are struggling and so to hijack the 'struggle'. With that attitude, you'd never communicate any ideas to workers, whether they were in struggle or not. I can see no reason why you'd want to characterise the communication of ideas to workers in struggle as 'elitist' but refrain from so characterising ideas communicated to them when they aren't. If one of these is 'elitist', the other must be, too. What do you think the SPGB's publications do? Communicate ideas to anyone but workers? And you have an odd idea of workers on strike — as if a few hundred Leninists/Trotskyists can bamboozle several thousand (or, in some cases, several hundred thousand) workers and 'hijack' their strike. You must think workers are either fools or soft-headed. LB: "But this reads like the words of an elitist. 'We' use narcotics, whilst 'you', presumably don't." It could indeed be read that way — that is, until you recall that I have actually taken Marx's advice to heart (whereas you are still resisting it): "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…. "One has to 'leave philosophy aside'…one has to leap out of it and devote oneself like an ordinary man to the study of actuality, for which there exists also an enormous amount of literary material, unknown, of course, to the philosophers…. "Philosophy is nothing else but religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally to be condemned…." Bold added. So, my anti-philosophical stance has at least this going for it: it isn't infected with this particular form of ruling-class ideology — it's not an opiate, unlike yours (which helps explain why you want to cling on to it, like the genuinely religious). Is it my fault if you (still) refuse to take Marx's advice, but prefer your opiates to looking at the world "like an ordinary man [and] study…actuality"? And yet you want me to join you and become dependent on opiates, too! Indeed, the fact that you refuse to adopt this 'working-class view of reality' (I am a worker, too!) means that it is you, my fine friend. who is the elitist — disseminating boss-class ideas among workers. In this respect, at least, I am the anti-elitist here. LB: "Well, I agree with you about DiaMat, but don't agree with your elitist rejection of workers' ability to philosophise (or, to adopt your common sense language, 'dig the Suez Canal')." Where have I rejected the capacity of workers to philosophize? You'd do well to focus on what I have actually said, as opposed to what you might think I have said. LB: "You clearly have a philosophy, but either you don't recognise it, or wish to hide it." You'd like to think I have one, wouldn't you? But not only do I not have one, I don't want one, and don't think we need one. Moreover, you have no evidence to that I do have one. Indeed, if you ever do find any evidence that I have a philosophy, I'll reject and disown that philosophy instantly, and then apologise profusely. LB: "I'm still not sure which of the above applies. I hope that it's the former, and you join in helping to explain the world to workers, like all of us, and yourself, rather than denigrate your class." 1) Where have I 'denigrated' my class? 2) Isn't "explaining the world to workers" (given your view, not mine) 'elitist'?
Morgenstern:"Socialist Unity in 2008 was a blast too. They boxed him."I'm not too sure who this 'him' is, but I was banned from SU back in 2012 for being rather too good at attacking 1) Dialectics, and 2) Opposing the sexist posts of one or two of those who post there regularly.I also attracted the ire of the owner of that site (Andy Newman) for reminding him that he had been a supporter of/believer in Dialectical Materialism [DM] back in 2008 (when he was cuddling up to the Green Party, whose leading light was a DM supporter, too), but wanted everyone to forget about that in 2012, when he was cuddling up to the left of the Labour Party.
ALB:"You say that, but later on your give a series of quotes from him which form the basis of Ordinary Language Philosophy,"Like Marx, he certainly advocated a return to ordinary language, but he was at no time part of the Ordinary Language Philosphers (who were largely situated at Oxford), and his work is nothing like theirs. Some of them did learn from him but the influence went only one-way.ALB:"I have now. Very interesting. I hadn't realised before he was such a fellow traveller of the Russian state capitalist regime. Nor that he converted to Roman Catholicism even if on his deathbed (enough to damn anyone in my eyes). But I notice that you describe him as a "philosopher" and even use his flirting with Hegelian language as evidence for him being a leftwinger !"Yes, and he is to be criticised for that, too. No one is perfect.[You can console yourself with the thought that I am a militant atheist.]I also added this comment to the longer version of that article:"One of the difficulties with trying to prove to revolutionaries/socialists that someone is 'of the left' is that the bar has already been set rather high; even worse, it is set at different heights by different comrades. This is one of the unfortunate consequences of the sectarian approach to 'orthodoxy' we often encounter on the far-left: a pharisaical requirement for doctrinal purity placed on all those who are, or claim to be, Marxists appears to be an inherent character trait of this corner of the radical market. "Hence, if comrade C is, for instance, a Trotskyist, then, concerning individual P, unless it can be shown to C that P is a member of the very same Tendency or Party as C, he/she is unlikely to accept any amount of evidence purporting to show that P is 'of the left' (or, what is far more likely, of 'the genuine left'). The same is true, mutatis mutandis, if C is a Stalinist, Maoist, or Libertarian Communist — or, indeed, hails from some other wing of the countless options on offer in revolutionary and far-left politics. Hence, the material presented above is unlikely to convince any who are like comrade C."So, and with all due respect, I do hope you will drop your sectarian approach to orthodoxy, even if only for a short while, and only here.Wittgenstein is on record saying (and you must have seen this in that article) that he'd lose all sympathy with the Stalinist regime if class distinctions returned. He didn't live long enough to see that they had. So, his heart was in the right place, even if his head wasn't (that is, as far as politics was concerned).And, yes, I did use the word 'philosopher' to describe him — but, then again, I meant 'philosophy' in his sense of the word:"One might say that the subject we are dealing with is one of the heirs of the subject which used to be called 'philosophy.'" [Blue and Brown Books, p.28.]You see, in a short article, I can't take on too many controversial topics, or go into too much detail; my sole aim there was to counter the idea that he was a conservative mystic (and I had been commissioned by the editors to do just this). In my longer essays, I point out that Wittgenstein was employing a different sense of the word 'philosophy' — whose task now was to unravel the confusions we get into when we try to do Traditional Philosophy."The correct method of philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said…, and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person — he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy — this method would be the only correct one." [Tractatus, p.153.]ALB:"Since you obviously have some sympathy for Ordinary Language Philosophy (acquitting it of the charge of being a part of ruling class ideology) you might be interested in this book written by a member of the SPGB in his work capacity:"Yes, I am familiar with Keith's work.
mcolome1:"This is only a classroom discussion, nothing else. A show of who knows more, or who knows less. In this world we need workers with class consciousness and political knowledge in order to overthrow this stupid economical system"In which there is no place for dialectics. Agreed!
Morgenstern:"Second young Master Smeet."I see. Little Sir Echo has no original thoughts of his own, eh?
Morgenstern (who has, wisely, given up arguing, and is merely content to post personal attacks):"Could I suggest that all here google "Rosa Lichtenstein" in order to inform their future debate? Or, as seems increasingly likely, Ross Lichtenstein. The Steve Wallis exchange was quite illuminating. Of course, it's a little humiliating for our forum that (s)he has come here when their fortunes had sunk so low."Oh dear, yet another wally who has Googled Socialist Steve's comments!You do know that this comrade has serious psychiatirc problems, don't you (and has tried to commit suicide)?You can tell that not all is right with him by the way he interpreted a comment of mine about the "alien-class" ideas of the ruling-class — he thinks that this means I think the ruling-class is a caste of shape-shifing lizards!And who is this 'Ross' person?
Young Master Smeet, quoting me:"I'm OK with the classical definition of 'dialectic' (connected with argument), although I prefer to avoid it since it creates confusion when I say such things; what I am not Ok with is the metaphysical version of the dialectic many of you seem to have accepted."Sure, I am Ok with the classical defintion, but that doesn't mean I accept it as a viable technique, or one I'd use even if it were viable.YMS:"Now, accepting the dialectical approach described by Schopenhauer means accepting that knowledge is contingent and emergent as part of an ongoing process, which is precisely what the "metaphysical" approach says in it's entirety. Rosa Lichtenstein may have spent 30 years of study on this, but I've spent five minutes in my coffee break this morning, and I get that. This post contains everything you need to know about dialectic. All else is detail."And thank you for putting the world to rights in all of five minutes; I can see you are a profound thinker and more than a match for me (and Schopenhauer, who spent much more than five minutes on what he had to say).In fact, you remind me of the character from Spinal Tap who reckoned he was a great guitarist: "I could play Stairway to Heaven on my guitar when I was just 21 and Jimmy Page didn't write it until he was 27. I think that says a lot".What next, Quantum Mechanics in five minutes, too?
I still say, RL, that you are on to a loser in trying to argue that Wittgenstein meant something different by "philosophy" than the Logical Positivists and the Ordinary Language Philosophers. All of them were concerned with analysing the meaning of everyday language and eliminating most of what traditional philosophy had studied as "metaphysics". Anyway, you have conceded that Wittgengstein did philosophy and was a philospher, even if a sort of anti-philosophy philosopher.You are on to a loser too is trying to argue that by "the philosophers" Marx meant more than the German "critical critics" that he'd once been associated with himself and that the quotes you have given about him saying they were quasi-religious, ought to come down to earth, were only concerned with discussing and changing ideas, etc, etc don't refer to them. Engels actually says so in his preface to his Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Referring to what was later to be published (after his death) as The German Ideology, he wrote:
Quote:In the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, published in Berlin, 1859, Karl Marx relates how the two of us in Brussels in the year 1845 set about:“to work out in common the opposition of our view” — the materialist conception of history which was elaborated mainly by Marx — to the ideological view of German philosophy, in fact, to settle accounts with our erstwhile philosophical conscience. The resolve was carried out in the form of a criticism of post-Hegelian philosophy.So, for Marx, "die Philosophen" in your quotes were the exponents of this, not philosphers in general.Having said this, I don't like the term "Marxist philosophy" as I agree with you that there is no such thing, "philosophy" (all philosophies of history, not just German) having been replaced by the materialist conception of history and all "philosophies of nature" by science.But this discussion about the meaning of philosophy is a bit of a side-show. More important are the differences over Leninism and its political tactics and practice, as an ideology of state capitalism, arising from the meaning of the ruling ideas being those of the ruling class and how to deal with this.
RL:I could do Quantum mechanics in one minute. Probably.I note, though, that you don't provide any refutation for the dialectical method of two people disagreeing based on experience reconciling their knowledge through discussion.I'm sorry if you feel you've wasted thirty years of your life.
The discoveries made by Lewis Morgan forced Marx and Engels to redefine their definition about class and ideology, therefore it was not in every epoch, they exist only in class society
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