Pannekoek’s theory of science

[twc]

Mixed-up Schaff

LBird wrote:

Schaff … makes it very clear … the ‘subject’ is ‘social’

Schaff proclaims the universal subject but can’t free himself of the individual subject, e.g., as here:

Schaff wrote:

“Firstly, the recognition of the objective existence of the object of cognition, i.e. its existence outside of any perceiving mind and independently of it.”

Schaff’s any perceiving mind implies the individual subject — any [= individual] is not the ensemble [= universal].Here Schaff unconsciously slips out of the universal subject and into the solipsism-freed Cartesian individual subject.Where does Schaff’s individual subject come from?   I assume it comes from the individual naive realism he is trying to reconcile with universal critical realism — a task apparently beyond his ability to solve consistently.

[twc]

Why I’m Not a Critical RealistCritical realism assigns highly restrictive attributes to its object of cognition:

Schaff wrote:

“the objective existence of the object of cognition, i.e. its existence outside of any perceiving mind and independently of it.”“the objectively existing object of cognition is the external source of sensual impressions without which the process of cognition would be impossible.”

Critical realism’s perceiving mind is the universal subject — the consciousness of society at its historical stage of development.Critical realism’s object is the individual object of its starting point — naive realism.   This follows from prior recognition [1].Critical realism’s stipulation that its objects of cognition must lie outside of any perceiving mind and independently of it means that it only cognizes objects that are not theoretical and not social.By prior recognition, critical realism restricts its objects to our immediate experience of the world of appearance.Theoretical ObjectsJust like its foundation [naive realism], critical realism doesn’t cognize the objects of mediated experience — theoretical objects — since mediation is a process that is not outside of any perceiving mind and independent of it.Critical realism’s objects of cognition might be thought sufficient for natural science, whose objects are tangible and measurable.   That’s because critical realism relies on critical reflection — active science’s mediating role — to comprehend its tangible and measurable objects theoretically.However, theoretical objects introduced by the reflection process — objects such as abstract scientific categories — fall beyond critical realism’s prior-declared scope.Social ObjectsSocial objects differ in kind from the mediated theoretical objects of natural science.   Social objects are significant to socialists precisely because they mediate and express social relationships that are essential to [a given] society, e.g., money.Social objects remain purely social, no matter what tangible object performs their function, or acts as their immediate social carrier — their physical conduit. Social objects are definitely beyond the scope of critical realism.That stupidity, expressly designed to make critical realism materialist, excludes most of marxian science from being cognized by it.Materialist Monist CognitionThe critical realist object is a fossil throwback to the 18th century relative to the marxian object of materialist monist cognition.For materialist monist cognition, the object may be both immediate or mediated; concrete or abstract; theoretical or social; or just plain old 18th century mechanical   Such an object is the object of materialist monistic cognition for Marx, Engels, Dietzgen, Pannekoek, etc.The object of materialist monist cognition is important for socialists precisely because it comprises the concrete and the abstract — precisely because it comprises theoretical objects and social objects that depend critically upon perceiving social minds.Take any marxian category, e.g., value.   It is a materialist monist object that happens to be simultaneously abstract, theoretical and social. It cannot be a critical realist object of cognition.   That is a devastating socialist critique of critical realism.Take the most significant marxian category surplus value.   It does not exist outside of any perceived mind and independently of it.   Its various forms of appearance — profit, interest, rent — may at first sight appear to exist outside of any perceived mind and independently of it.Yet these various forms of appearance are of significance to us precisely because of the materialist monist way we both conceive [and mostly misconceive] them socially — not because of what they are physically.Their significance for us — their very existence for us — would vanish if society were to vanish, and they may perish when society changes to socialism.   They will do so even if the objects that bear these forms — that represent the significant social object of our materialist monist cognition — happen to persist after society abolishes the social object.Cognition of social objects of significance to socialists — capital, surplus value, exploitation, capitalism, socialism — depends precisely on the hold these objects have over our minds — the universal subject.   Cognition of their hold over us can only be materialist monist cognition.Critical Realism’s 18th Century ObjectAll social forms of appearance are entirely dependent upon the social mind — the universal subject.   So much for the futility of critical realism.What recommends a “socialist” theory of cognition that precludes the categories of thought that are significant for socialists?Critical realism makes do with the fossilized tangible objects of 18th century mechanistic materialism that are not social.Is this really the best that soviet philosophy could devise in a vain attempt to save Leninist reflection from oblivion?

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Schaff’s any perceiving mind implies the individual subject —any [= individual] is not the ensemble [= universal].

Since Schaff explicitly uses Marx's quote, I'm not sure what you mean, twc.For you, what is the entity 'cognising subject'?If it's not 'social individuals', what is it?Could you try to make your reply as succinct as possible, because your longer posts raise more questions than they give answers? I'd like to get round to discussing all of what you are saying, but we'll have to do it in 'bite-size chunks', to ensure that we understand each other's positions. Thanks.

[twc]

Can't you see that I'm pointing out that Schaff has got himself into a muddle. Is that really beyond your capacity?

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Can't you see that I'm pointing out that Schaff has got himself into a muddle. Is that really beyond your capacity?

Oh, No!I thought that you'd given up on the insults, and were actually trying to explain your 'views'.But it seems I was right all along.You talk shite, and then when you're asked, in a very polite, comradely way, to explain, you can't. Ooo, sorry, I mean 'Your intellect is beyond my capacity'.You stick to your inexplicable twaddle, twc, and I'll go back to ignoring you. Then we're both happy.Anyone else up for discussing Schaff and his theories of cognition?[edit]P.S. I'm so disappointed at this turn of events, comrades.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

‘non-observable reality’.

That's an oxymoron, surely? Certainly not a concept Dietzgen or Pannelokek would have subscribed to. 

Joseph Dietzgen, The Nature of Human Brain Work, III, wrote:

Science seeks to understand the nature of things, or their true essence, by means of their manifestations. Every thing has its own special nature, and this nature is not seen, or felt, or heard, but solely perceived by the faculty of thought. This faculty explores the nature of all things just as the eye explores all that is visible in things.

[my bold]Seems 'this nature' (a part of 'reality') is 'non-observable', according to Dietzgen, too, ALB.

[DJP]

So now for Lbird 'true' not only means 'false' but now 'perceived' means 'non-observable'!?As a slight tangent, though relevant here, is a good short article on moral relativism in this months issue of Philosophy Nowhttp://philosophynow.org/issues/97/Moral_Relativism_Is_Unintelligible

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

So now for Lbird 'true' not only means 'false' but now 'perceived' means 'non-observable'!?

Yes, according to Dietzgen, not just me, 'perceived' only by thought means 'non-observable'. Read the quote.I suppose you could try to make a meaningful contribution, DJP, but it doesn't seem to be your style.Why not give a quote from Marx, Dietzgen or Pannekoek, which backs up your ideological view of science?Or if you don't agree with Dietzgen (as expressed in the quote I gave), why not say so? Why just sniping at me, as an individual? At least twc was prepared to contribute, if a bit mystifyingly.

[DJP]

I think you're confusing 'non-observable' with not directly observable.If something is non-observable it cannot, by definition, be perceived either.I'll come back on the other points later…

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I think you're confusing 'non-observable' with not directly observable.

Dietzgen says it is "not seen, or felt, or heard". This means 'non-observable'; no caveat about 'direct' or 'indirect'.

DJP wrote:

If something is non-observable it cannot, by definition, be perceived either.

Dietzgen says it can be 'solely perceived by thought'. This is his 'definition'.You might not like or agree with Dietzgen, DJP, but that is what he says.You'll have to provide a quote from where-ever you get your 'definition'. I afraid 'common sense' is not sufficient.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Seems 'this nature' (a part of 'reality') is 'non-observable', according to Dietzgen, too, ALB.

Sorry I can't help you with Schaff (heard of him, but not read him), but I'm a bit surprised that you are digging yourself into another hole by trying to defend the concept of "non-observable reality".This goes against the whole basic premise of Dietzgen's theory (and Pannekoek's too): that the only "reality" is the ever-changing "world of phenomena", i.e what "appears" and which humans can "perceive" in one way or another.  Deitzgen and Pannekoek argue that only what can be observed/perceived can be the object of "understanding" or "knowledge". What can't be observed is not part of "reality". "Non-observed" is of course not the same as "non-observable" which means what cannot be observed.To imagine that there is some part of "reality" behind what can be observed/perceived is metaphysics:

Quote:

Dietzgen was a thoroughgoing empiricist and materialist. For him all knowledge was derived from sense-perception and what human beings perceived had a real existence independent of their perception of it.The Nature of Human Brainwork (1869) presents an empiricist theory of knowledge derived from a rejection of Kantian dualism. Kant had claimed that Reason (=science, knowledge) could only deal with the world of experience, but the world of experience, according to him, was only a world of appearances or, to use a word derived from Greek meaning the same, a world of ‘phenomena’. Thus science could never come to understand the world as it really was, the world of what Kant called ‘things-in-themselves’ of which he supposed the world of phenomena to be but appearances. For Kant, there were two worlds: a world of phenomena, which was all the human mind could come to understand, and a world of things-in-themselves beyond human experience and understanding.For Dietzgen, to posit the existence of a second world beyond the world of experience was simply metaphysical nonsense. ‘Phenomena or appearances appear – voilà tout.’ The world of phenomena was the only world; phenomena were themselves real, the substance of the real world. Phenomena, however, says Dietzgen, do not exist as independent entities; they exist only as parts or the entire single world of phenomena. The world of reality is a single entity embracing all observable phenomena, past, present and future. Reality is thus infinite, having no beginning nor end. It is constantly changing. The universe and all things in it consist of transformations of matter, which take place simultaneously and consecutively in space and time.

Or as Pannekoek puts in Lenin As Philosopher:

Quote:

In the word phenomenon “that which appears”, there is contained an oppositeness to the reality of things; if we speak of “appearings” there must be something else that appears. Not at all, says Dietzgen; phenomena appear (or occur), that is all. In this play of words we must not think, of course, of what appears to me or to another observer; all that happens, whether man sees it or not, is a phenomenon, and all these happenings form the totality of the world, the real world of phenomena.

So, to talk of "non-observable reality" is either metaphysics or nonsense (the same thing, actually).What you have confused is the distinction Dietzgen makes between the external world of phenomena and our ideas about it. But of course our ideas, thoughts, even illusions and hallucinations, are also part of the world of phenomena and so also of "observable reality" (a tautology).

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

What you have confused…

Well, that's a matter of opinion, ALB!I've tried to take this discussion forward, by being open about my sources, by quoting Marx, Dietzgen and Pannekoek, by reading what comrades have suggested, and by buying two further books which have been suggested (Pannekoek and Untermann), but we're not going any further forward.If I had to make a guess, I think most here are 'naive realists', but it's difficult to tell, since 'common sense' seems to play a great part in determining attitudes, rather than a discussion of both 19th/early 20th century Marxists and late 20th century philosophers like Schaff, Kuhn and Lakatos, who all have a part to play in deepening our understanding of 'science'.Unless anyone else (other than twc) wants to discuss theories of cognition further, I'll leave things there.

[twc]

Concrete and Abstract Objects of CognitionI’ve labelled objects as “[concrete]” or “[abstract]” according to whether they inhabit the world of concrete phenomena [= appearance; immediate experience] or the world of abstract phenomena [= thought categories; mediated experience].Quotations

Dietzgen, Nature of Human Brain Work wrote:

“Every [concrete] thing has its own special [abstract] nature, and this [abstract] nature is not seen, or felt, or heard, but solely perceived by the faculty of [abstract] thought.”

Historical materialism recognizes both [concrete] things and [abstract] categories as objects of cognition.   Critical realism recognizes only [concrete] things.

Pannekoek wrote:

“Natural scientists consider the [abstract] immutable substances:  matter, energy, electricity, gravity, the Law of entropy, etc.,  as the basic elements of the world, as the [concrete] reality that has to be discovered.   From the viewpoint of Historical Materialism, they are products which creative [abstract] mental activity forms out of the substance of [concrete] natural phenomena.”

Natural scientists — in Pannekoek’s day — generally conceived the [abstract] categories and principles of physics as [concrete] reality.   Historical materialism, however, conceives them as mentally created [abstract] reality.Historical materialism recognizes the [abstract] categories and principles of theoretical physics as objects of cognition.   Critical realism does not.

Schaff, History and Truth wrote:

“Firstly the recognition of the [concrete] objective existence of the [concrete] object of [abstract] cognition, i.e. its [concrete] existence outside of any perceiving [abstract] mind and independently of it.”

Critical realism excludes [abstract] thought objects, by prior recognition, from its [concrete] objects of cognition.Challenge to LBirdI could be wrong about critical realism.Can you please show us where critical realism recognizes [abstract] thought categories as objects of cognition?Do you recognize an [abstract] thought category as an object of cognition?

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

I've tried to take this discussion forward, by being open about my sources, by quoting Marx, Dietzgen and Pannekoek,

As far as I can work out your views are nearer to those of Pannekoek's contemporary, Alexander Bogdanov, rather than those of Pannekoek himself even though both took the ideas of Ernst Mach as a starting point.According to Leszek Kolakowski in his Main Currents of Marxism Bogdanov held that:

Quote:

… the validity of the results of cognition does not consist in their being ‘true’ in the usual sense, but in the help they afford in the struggle for survival. We thus reach a position ol extreme relativism: different 'truths' may be useful in different historical situations, and it is quite possible that any truth is valid only for a particular epoch or social class. (pp.709-10)

and

Quote:

In a pamphlet entitled Science and the Working Class (1920) and in other writings Bogdanov proclaimed the slogan of 'proletarian science'. Marx, adopting the standpoint of the working class, had transformed economics; it was now time to recast all sciences in accordance with the proletarian world-view, not excluding, for example, mathematics and astronomy. Bogdanov did not explain what proletarian astronomy or integral calculus would be like, but he declared that if workers had difficulty in mastering the various sciences without long, specialized study it was chiefly because bourgeois scientists had erected artificial barriers of method and vocabulary so that the workers should not learn their secrets. (p. 714)

I can't vouch for the accuracy of Kolakowski's account since most of Bogdanov's writings have not been translated from Russian except that the pamphlet Science and the Working Class is available in French and the quip about "socialist proletarian" is unfair (Bogdanov is constrasting the bourgeois and proletarian attitudes to science, the former being individualistic; the latter collectivist).In any event there seems to be a similarity between the views Kolakowski attributes to Bogdanov and the views you have expressed here. Nothing wrong with that of course. Bogdanov seems to have been an interesting person and someone who both stood up to Lenin and recognised that Bolshevik Russia was state-capitalist.There was an article on him in the April 2007 Socialist Standard:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2007/no-1232-april-2007/bogdanov-technocracy-and-socialism

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

As far as I can work out your views are nearer to those of Pannekoek's contemporary, Alexander Bogdanov, rather than those of Pannekoek himself…

I know nothing about Bogdanov's ideas, so I can't comment about your opinion.But I do know that I'm the one quoting Marx, Pannekoek and Dietzgen, whereas you're quoting Kolakowski's opinions of Bogdanov. You're not participating in a discussion of 'cognition', but merely insisting that what I'm saying can't be correct, without any evidence from Marx, Pannekoek or Dietzgen, to back up your opinions.From what I can tell from the quote, Bogdanov seems to be an 'instrumentalist', but that's only an impression, not a thought-out opinion.I suppose I'll have to buy Kolakowski's first volume, but it's not a priority at the moment. Schaff and cognition are.I'll have a read of the article too, later. Thanks.

[Author]

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