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[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Are you sure that "positivism" teaches that science can discover "Absolute Truth" or that this claim is the dominant one in contemporary theory of science?Ironically, it is Lenin's theory of "truth" (that knowledge is a mirror reflection of reality) that comes closer to this…

Yeah, positivism's view that scientific knowledge is 'True' is much the same, as far as I've been able to discover, as Lenin's 'knowledge as reflection' view.The 'scientific fact' (according to late 20th philosophers of science) is that 'absolute truth' of any part of reality can never be fully known. 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.If anyone's interested in a more in-depth discussion of 'scientific method', I recently contributed to several threads on the ICC's site.One of them is:http://en.internationalism.org/forum/1056/fred/6429/beliefs-science-art-and-marxismThere are others, if anyone wants the links, I could provide them upon request.I hope that providing links to other groups is allowed on this site. If it's frowned upon, my apologies, I'll remove it if asked.

[jondwhite]

Just to say this topic has become very interesting.

[alanjjohnstone]

I got lost after 1+1=2 but does it xchanges. But to return to an earler part of the thread, this By Luxemburg caught my eye:-""Socialism cannot be realized with lazy, careless, egotistic, thoughtless and shiftless men and women. A Socialist state of society needs people everyone of whom is full of enthusiasm and fervor for the general welfare, full of a spirit of self-sacrifice and sympathy for his fellow men, full of courage and tenacity and the willingness to dare even against the greatest odds.But we need not wait centuries or decades until such a race of human beings shall grow up. The struggle, the Revolution will teach the proletarian masses idealism, has given them mental ripeness, courage and perseverance, clearness of purpose and a self-sacrificing spirit, if it is to lead to victory. While we are enlisting fighters for the revolution, we are creating Socialist workers for the future, workers who can become the basis of a new social state."http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/12/20-alt.htm

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

The 'scientific fact' (according to late 20th philosophers of science) is that 'absolute truth' of any part of reality can never be fully known. Humans actively create knowledge by their interaction with the external world.

That's is more or less what I thought was the dominant "theory of science" today, but isn't it also yours? In which case doesn't it contradict your previous statement:

Quote:

that the bourgeoisie cling onto this 19th century view [which claims it can 'know' the external object (ie. reality) completely, absolutely, and thus produce 'The Truth'], and teach it in schools and through the media, is that this mythical 'scientific method' can serve as an unquestionable authority, much like the market claims that 'There is no alternative'.. The 'Market' and 'Science': the twin bastions of bourgeois authority. We need to question the underpinnings of both.

To tell the truth, I don't think that the "bourgeoisie" has ever held this view or that it is what "positivism" and "empiricism" teach (more the opposite actually).In any event, I think we should avoid general criticisms of "science" like this as this helps intuitionists, primitivists, postmodernists and other irrationalists. Surely, we are in favour of a scientific method (even if not the outdated and rejected one you mention).

[ALB]

That quote from Luxemburg, Alan, is the sort that makes me cringe. It starts off by implicitly and gratuitiously criticising the working class as "lazy, careless, egotistic, thoughtless and shiftless" and then raises the nightmare of a society where "everyone" is "full of enthusiasm and fervor for the general welfare, full of a spirit of self-sacrifice and sympathy for his fellow men, full of courage and tenacity and the willingness to dare even against the greatest odds." I for one don't want to live in a society inhabited by such an exalted (in both senses of the word) "race of human beings". Nor, I suspect, would most other people. Such talk will only put people off the idea of socialism both because they don't believe it and because they wouldn't want it. No doubt a high degree of enthusiasm will be needed to carry out the socialist revolution, but afterwards we can settle down to a less intense mode of life, essentially like today but without money or money worries, with people like today.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

That's is more or less what I thought was the dominant "theory of science" today, but isn't it also yours? In which case doesn't it contradict your previous statement:

There’s a difference between the ‘dominant’ theory and the ‘latest’ theory. The latter is what I think we both agree on, but the scientifically-discredited positivist view of science is the view of science that the overwhelming majority of the public still believe. That is, that science produces the truth, that there can only be one truth, that science is socially neutral, etc. So I don’t think that my view contradicts itself. I think the bourgeoisie are happy for people to carry on believing this idea that ‘science’ is a value-free, objective, truth-producing method. For example:

Ed, post #16, wrote:

Which I'm sure you'll agree is not a scientific way to view evidence.

ALB, post #34, wrote:

It can be understood by anyone with an elementary knowledge of the scientifc findings of social anthropology.

alanjjohnstone, post #39, wrote:

Socialists do make assumptions but a phrase out of favour and unpopular these days is that our political ideas is based upon "scientific socialism", we arescientific socialists.

Ed, post #40, wrote:

Absolutely the case for socialism is scientific.

Ed, post #47, wrote:

So yeah I think socialists should endeavour to discard all ideology and only base their theories on the scientific method.

Ed, pos #50, wrote:

When you examine the evidence of the two theories one is either discredited through that process or both are. The discredited theory then becomes unscientific…It is pseudo-science which is biased by ideology, factual science is objective, proven, fact

ALB, post #52, wrote:

Socialism is, as a matter of objective fact not mere opinion, the only framework within which the problems facing the working class in particular (and humanity in general) can be lastingly solved. Socialist theory is a recognition of this objective fact.

I’d argue that the words ‘scientific’ and ‘objective’ are being used in all these posts as a synonym for ‘true’.

ALB wrote:

To tell the truth, I don't think that the "bourgeoisie" has ever held this view or that it is what "positivism" and "empiricism" teach…

On the contrary, the bourgeoisie did hold this view before Einstein, and academics even tried to use this ‘objective method’ to write ‘objective history’, von Ranke’s ‘simply to show how is was’.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_von_Ranke

wikipedia wrote:

While Ranke's method remain influential in the practice of history, his broader ideas of historiographyand empiricism are now regarded as outdated and no longer credible. It held sway among historians until the mid-twentieth century, when it was challenged by E. H. Carrand Fernand Braudel. Carr opposed Ranke's ideas of empiricism as naive, boring and outmoded, saying that historians did not merely report facts — they choose which facts they use. Braudel's approach was based on the histoire problème.[citation needed]Remarking on the legacy of Ranke's dictum that historians should represent the past "wie es eigentlich gewesen" (as it actually happened),[14]Walter Benjaminscathingly wrote that it represented "the strongest narcotic of the [nineteenth] century”

The same criticisms can be made of scientific method, as indeed you’ve already agreed. But this is still the layperson’s view of ‘science’, and ‘science’ is used to avoid ‘human’ problems of ideology, as I think that the comrades’ quotes above confirm.

ALB wrote:

In any event, I think we should avoid general criticisms of "science" like this as this helps intuitionists, primitivists, postmodernists and other irrationalists. Surely, we are in favour of a scientific method (even if not the outdated and rejected one you mention).

Why ‘avoid’ criticism of ‘science’? Surely that really is ‘unscientific’?But, yes, I am ‘in favour of a scientific method’, and I think we all are.But ‘science’ doesn’t produce ‘The Truth’, and it can produce competing ‘truths’, so merely appealing to ‘the scientific method’ does not get us out of our problems with humans and their ideologies.Back to our original issue with Sotionov?

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Just to say this topic has become very interesting.

Yeah, 'science and its method' is 'very interesting' as a topic in its own right.But, further, I think that the topic has some very profound political implications. Perhaps a new thread would be better for that particular discussion?

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

But ‘science’ doesn’t produce ‘The Truth’, and it can produce competing ‘truths’, so merely appealing to ‘the scientific method’ does not get us out of our problems with humans and their ideologies.

Agree that science does not produce "The Truth" but not that it produces "competing truths'. It is more useful to think in terms of science  producing  a tentative "truth" about some phenomenon, subject to revision in the light of further experience, empirical research and practice.  There is only one such tentative truth at any time, which is not a matter of choice or point of view.

LBird wrote:

Back to our original issue with Sotionov?

OK, but his theory of human nature is not just a competing truth but is untrue, i.e a faulty theory for prediction, action and problem-solving.

[Ed]

The truth is not relative to the current ruling ideology it is a constant which exists externally from the individual and society. In this sense I am using truth to mean reality. Science tries but often fails to explain the truth/reality, due, as LBird has said to ruling ideological hegemony. Science which is biased in this way but still produces a correct result I would call truth apt. That is because even though it can produce the correct result it is still built on a fallacy and thus is only fit to offer a description of the truth/reality. The reason I used the mathematical example is because math is a pure science which cannot be biased, something is either correct or it is not (ALB's true by definition?). LBird has accused me of supporting positivism, this is incorrect. A far more appropriate term would be realism, in sharp contrast to idealism a long discredited bourgeois doctrine which is completely incompatible with materialism. The reason I feel this debate cannot really go anywhere is because we are using completely different definitions of the truth. LBird is positing the truth as being whatever the ruling paradigm happens to be at any given moment (an idea). Which is the complete opposite of the definition supplied in this post. Even though the scientific method can be biased by ideology it is still the best means by which we can attempt to understand the truth/reality. Which is why I reiterate my previous sentiment that when seeking the truth an attempt must be made to expel ideology from logical reasoning, i.e. to remove false and unfounded evidence from your analysis.A good analogy for this debate I feel is the old chestnut if a tree falls in the forest with no-one around to hear it, does it make a sound? I would answer emphatically yes it does. I suspect LBird's answer would be "whatever the individual or society thinks at the current time."

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Agree that science does not produce "The Truth" but not that it produces "competing truths'. It is more useful to think in terms of science producing a tentative "truth" about some phenomenon, subject to revision in the light of further experience, empirical research and practice. There is only one such tentative truth at any time, which is not a matter of choice or point of view.

[my bold]Any study of the actual practice of science will show that this can be proved to be an untrue statement. Kuhn, Feyerabend or Lakatos show that 'competing tentative truths' just about sums up the actual practice of science.

ALB wrote:

OK, but his theory of human nature is not just a competing truth but is untrue, i.e a faulty theory for prediction, action and problem-solving.

Are you trying to claim that no anthropologists would support Sotionov's position? If some do, and also claim themselves to be doing 'scientific anthropology', how do we decide between these competing claims about 'human nature', if not through our ideological position as Communists? Don't forget, I share your viewpoint, not Sotionov's, but I'm claiming the basis of this is not some long-disproved notion of 'truth from science', but our shared ideological scientific assumptions. All scientists have assumptions – we should expose these through discussion, rather than deny them.

[LBird]

Ed wrote:

The truth is not relative to the current ruling ideology it is a constant which exists externally from the individual and society. In this sense I am using truth to mean reality.

But 'truth' doesn't mean 'reality'. 'Truth' is a human, social construct, and has a history (ie. 'truth' changes). 'Reality' is the object at which we aim our questions. That's what's at the heart of this discussion, and of late 20th philosophy of science.To argue that 'truth means reality' is to look towards positivism, which is scientifically discredited.

Ed wrote:

A good analogy for this debate I feel is the old chestnut if a tree falls in the forest with no-one around to hear it, does it make a sound? I would answer emphatically yes it does. I suspect LBird's answer would be "whatever the individual or society thinks at the current time."

You'd 'suspect' wrong. Please read the contributions I made on the site that I linked to earlier. It might give you more of a 'feel' for the parameters of this debate.

[LBird]

Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach (extract), wrote:

IThe chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity.

[my bold]'Humanity' cannot be removed from 'science'. It's 'method' is not a value-free method of contemplation.If humans are involved, ideology is involved. 'Scientists' are humans, and are not non-ideological beings, but are products of our class-divided society.

[Young Master Smeet]

LBird wrote:

If humans are involved, ideology is involved. 'Scientists' are humans, and are not non-ideological beings, but are products of our class-divided society.

No amount of ideology, though, will allow anyone to square a circle : the scientific process exists between humans, and the moves in its language game are valid or invalid according to to the process and irrespective of any ideational set.

[ALB]

I don't think anyone is arguing that humanity can be removed from science or that the scientific method is simply one of contemplation. After all, science, or knowledge, is human knowledge, humans' attempts to understand the world around them with a view to better surviving in it.Science is essentially a description of parts of the outside world (which does imply an active human role) whose "truth" can be judged in terms of its accuracy for prediction and so usefulness for action and problem-solving. Science advances by making more detailed descriptions permitting more accurate predictions.You seem to be saying more than this: that science is subjective in that  the descriptions which scientists give of the external world depend on their "values" and/or class position. Which could suggest that you think that there is no such thing as an objective external world. I don't suppose this is your position but no wonder Ed sees you as an "idealist".I don't see the fact that most people are, from a philosophical point of view, "common sense realists" (i.e think that the world is as they experience it, exists when no-one is experiencing it, and existed before there were any humans) is a problem. This is enough for everyday living and no doubt will continue to be the popular perspective even in socialism. I don't see it as being a pillar of capitalist society.  It has to be the starting point for any more sophisticated theory of what science is.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

You seem to be saying more than this: that science is subjective in that the descriptions which scientists give of the external world depend on their "values" and/or class position. Which could suggest that you think that there is no such thing as an objective external world. I don't suppose this is your position but no wonder Ed sees you as an "idealist".

This is the accusation which is always levelled against critical realists who argue against 'objectivism' or positivist notions of science. It assumes that there are only two positions: objective and subjective. So, if one isn't a positivist, one must be a subjectivist/idealist.The basis of the argument, though, is the same as Marx's, above. There are three positions: objectivist/materialist, subjectivist/idealist, and human interactionist/critical realist. He clearly regards there as being three possibilities. I've described this in more detail on the link I provided, but I suppose I need to repost one of my posts here. I will do this in a separate post.

ALB wrote:

I don't see the fact that most people are, from a philosophical point of view, "common sense realists" (i.e think that the world is as they experience it, exists when no-one is experiencing it, and existed before there were any humans) is a problem. This is enough for everyday living and no doubt will continue to be the popular perspective even in socialism. I don't see it as being a pillar of capitalist society.

I was quite shocked by this paragraph, ALB. Since when have 'common sense', 'everyday living' and 'popular perspective' been standards of judgement for Communists? They have traditionally been seen as the preserve of a conservative worldview.Of course, I'm not suggesting that you are a conservative, far from it, but it does display to me the power of bourgeois ideology around these issues. I'll dig out that post I made on the ICC thread, comrade.

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