[ALB]

LBird wrote:

I'd like to thank twc for their expressed support, on this issue of 'truth' being a dynamic social construct, and not a static 'mirror reflection' of reality.

I second that vote of thanks.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

The alternative that you and DJP propose, that ‘truth’ is located in the ‘object’ and thus, once ‘known’, is a final ‘truth’, just doesn’t accord with Pannekoek’s (or indeed Dietzgen’s) expressed views.

I don't recall saying that or anything like it. It is not my view. Scientific knowledge (what you call "truth") is never final. There is, however, an interesting question, which you don't face, of when can a theory be accepted as temporarily "true", i.e. accepted as the best (most adequate) description for the time being of some set of phenomena, and what are the criteria for deciding this. Why, for instance, is Darwin's theory of evolution considered more adequate than Creationism?

LBird wrote:

When I say 17th century views were ‘true’ then and that now they are not, you counter that they were obviously ‘false’ then. But this depends on you believing that what we know as a ‘truth’ now is the datum point for eternity, that ‘truth’ now is the measure of ‘truth’ then.

No it doesn't. It merely implies that current theories are (to use your terminology) "truer" than those current up to the 17th century, not that today's theories are eternally true. I don't see anything wrong in judging what people in the past believed by today's (temporary, partial, relative, non-absolute) understanding.

LBird wrote:

This can’t be done using a Pannekoekian model of cognition. He says that our ‘conceptions’ are ‘products’, not a ‘mirror’ of ‘reality’, which they would have to be, to sustain your view of ‘truth’. He specifically says that, what you identify as ‘truth’, is an ‘unbounded stream in perpetual motion’.

That's what I say too. The only "absolute truth" is the never-ending, ever-changing stream of phenomena, past, present and future. I don't know who you are arguing against but it's not me. Sounds as if it could be Comrade Strawman.

[ALB]

I agree that anyone who takes on responsibility for adminstering capitalism will have to act, and take responsibility for, against the interests of capitalism. So it doesn't matter whether they are saints or psychopaths. Even so, I can't bring myself to say that Benn (or anyone else) was as bad as Thatcher. After all, when she snuffed it, all of us here danced on her grave including Steve even though this was quite illogical.

[ALB]

dweenlander wrote:

I am an autonomist by inclination, and somebody struggling to find common ground between post-Marx Marxist theory and the history of working class practice by intellectual predilection.

Post-Marx Marxist theory? Sounds like an interesting subject for another, separate thread.

[ALB]

Hrothgar wrote:

The 'game' or 'test' is ridiculous and thoroughly disingenuous.  It does not present racial categories and is deliberately designed to confuse people and, in doing so, undermine any sense of racial identity in the minds of the suggestible. 

Sorry you didn't find it useful to identity who your grandchildren should and should not be allowed to play with and later choose as sexual partners. The good news is that they will probably make up their own minds, as they should. The last laugh will be on you.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

Lenin, M and E, p. 290, wrote:

These perfectly clear materialistic propositions are, however, supplemented by Dietzgen thus: “Nevertheless, the non-sensible idea is also sensible, material, i.e. real…. The mind differs no more from the table, light, or sound than these things differ from each other” (p. 54).  This is obviously false. That both thought and matter are “real,” i.e., exist, is true. But to say that thought is material is to make a false step, a step towards confusing materialism and idealism.

[my bold]If ALB and DJP don’t agree with Pannekoek or Dietzgen, then that’s fine. But then they must say who they do agree with. Lenin, here, on the 'material'?

This crossed with my last post. I agree with Dietzgen not Lenin, of course. As Pannekoek put it in that 1937 article:

Quote:

The human mind is entirely determined by the surrounding real world. We have already said that this world is not restricted to physical matter only, but comprises everything that is objectively observable. The thoughts and ideas of our fellow men, which we observe by means of their conversation or by our reading are included in this real world. Although fanciful objects of these thoughts such as angels, spirits or an Absolute Idea do not belong to it, the belief in such ideas is a real phenomenon, and may have a notable influence on historical events.

In other words, thoughts, etc are just as much a part of the "real world" as physical, tangible things.I'm afraid I am unable to resist pointing out that Pannekoek's view here excludes the concept of "non-observable reality" …..

[ALB]

Just re-read part III of Pannekoek's 1937 article "Society and Mind in Marxian Philosophy":http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/society-mind/ch03.htmBrilliant stuff. I agree with every word of it.I am more Pannekoekian (or just as Pannekoekian) than thou.

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

The SPGB is quoting Lenin as an 'authority', now? Lenin?

Don't be silly. Of course not.I was just referring you to more information (more likely, misinformation) about Bogdanov and placing him in his political and historical context.  You really ought to follow up on Bogdanov because he does seem to have put forward a theory similar to yours, including (I think) the view you (I think) were going to develop that the "subject" is social and that  how "reality" is perceived is a construct of the social mind. Hence the possibility of a social mind at different times and/or places interpreting "reality" differently and so having different, even contradictory, concepts of what is "true".

[ALB]

LBird wrote:

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.

That's an odd statement as which theory of "cognition" is correct cannot depend on quotes from Marx, Pannekoek or Dietzgen. All quotes from them would show is what they thought about the matter but we're not arguing about that. Or are we? If we are, if you claim that they held that, for instance, creationism was once true in any sense then it's up to you to show this. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.I'm sorry you didn't find helpful what I said about Bogdanov (and I only quoted Kolakowski guardedly simply to give an idea of Bogdanov's ideas. No need to buy the book). In Materialism and Empiriocriticism Lenin devotes a two whole chapters to Bogdanov:http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/four5.htm#v14pp72h-226http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/six2.htm#v14pp72h-322Apologies for Lenin's style of arguing, but I see that one of his insults to Bogdanov is to call him a "cognitive socialist".

[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

[ALB]

dweenlander wrote:

By the way, my post has been flagged as offensive. You are clearly more experienced on this site than I am, would you happen to know why that might be?

I noticed that too and so has one from AlexW. I can't see why in either case but any forum member can flag any post. Whether the moderator takes any notice is another matter. In any event it will be some forum member not the moderator who will have done this.

[ALB]

Hrothgar wrote:

having reviewed the thread you've linked to, it looks to me like he was running rings round you

If you think he ran rings about us, I challenge you do to the same test we asked him to do but which he ran away from:

Ed wrote:

`Hi Tom would you be willing to try out this quick game it's designed to help people see the ridiculousness of race.Downloadable version (better)http://www.gamesforchange.org/play/guess-my-race/Online versionhttp://www.pbs.org/race/002_SortingPeople/002_01-sort.htm

Let us know how you got on.

[ALB]

SocialistPunk wrote:

Mehdi Hasan made some insightful points, one in particular aimed at, Damian Green, as a rebuttal to Green's mantra about chemical weapons being illegal. Mehdi asked why the Tory government of 1988 turned a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's use of chemical agents against his own people and Iran. Can anyone guess what Green's answer was?

What was it? That that was then, but now is now? Can't have been that the West was supporting Iraq in the Iraq-Iran war, can it?

[ALB]

Here's a picture of what it used to look like till a couple of years ago:http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarflondondunc/540301763/The removal of the bricked wall (originally built at the time the Anti-Nazi League were fighting the National Front and the NF were retaliating against any organisation with "socialist" in its name) is a huge improvement. More passers-by venture inside. Personally, I don't see the need to waste any money changing anything else. The improvements have been made. Let's leave it at that.

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

A very interesting interview with a Syrian anarchist here.http://truth-out.org/news/item/18617-syrian-anarchist-challenges-the-rebel-regime-binary-view-of-resistance"….The left has been very hostile to the Syrian uprising, …."

Has it? It would have been helpful if he has defined what he means by "the left" and/or given some examples. As far as I can see, on the contrary, most of "the left" are very enthusiastically (and very naively) in favour of the rebels. See, for instance:http://www.mail-archive.com/marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/msg22091.htmlThey love taking sides in wars, even proxy ones, instead of the socialist position that no war is worth the shedding of a single drop of working-class blood.

[Author]

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