[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Doesn't it concern you that religious philosophers are currently ahead of many in the SPGB, when it comes to understanding science?

Religious apologists just latch on to any argument that seems to support there cause. I honestly don't think that what is being demonstrated is a higher understanding of science..

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

 What have you got to hide, DJP? Ignorance of scientific method?

I have nothing to hide. But I don't have the time to write an amateur expose' on the scientific method. Read Chapters 6 and 7 of "Beyond The Hoax" by Alan Sokal as I think this highlights where our views diverge quite well…

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

That and the rest is all very well, but you still haven't said whether you think Pannekoek was studying and teaching "bourgeois astrology"

I wonder if you'll get an answer to this. It seems at the slightest nudge LBird's profound theory collapses into contradiction. Oh well..PS i think you meant "astronomy"

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

The religious are currently ahead of the proletariat in their thinking.

Oh dear!

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

DJP, what do you think of my post 265, which I wrote with you in mind, since you mentioned Bertell Ollman's book and critical realism?

Hi. Looks like it's an interesting one but haven't had the chance to read it properly yet!

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

The real issue now is Rosa's holding of an apriori theory, that of Leninism. If Rosa doesn't want to discuss this, that's OK by me.

OK you've lost me now. How is Leninism an a priori theory? 

[DJP]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Well, one can't get more "opposite" to Hegel than to excise him completely from one's work

That's not what "opposite" means.

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Karl Marx wrote:

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first volume of “Das Kapital,” it was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Epigonoi [Epigones – Büchner, Dühring and others] who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in same way as the brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a “dead dog.” I therefore openly avowed myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and there, in the chapter on the theory of value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.

Attentive readers will no doubt have noticed that Marx puts his 'avowal' of Hegel in the past tense — "avowed". And there was good reason for this, since his views had changed.

Or rather than attempting mind reading or spirit channeling isn't it simpler to assume he uses the past tense because he is talking about a period of time in the past when he was working on Capital Vol 1?

[DJP]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Well, I reject all of philosophy as non-sense — not 99.99%, but 100% — and that inlcudes Dietzgen and Pannekoek's versions of it.

Well that's all well and good but the evidence suggests that if you're going to be consistent you're going to have to add Marx to the list too.

[DJP]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

Well, I don't have, nor do I want an a priori theory.

Well you may think that but hasn't it been shown that every theory has to rest on a certain set of unquestionable a priori assumptions?Hence why the "linguistic turn" has been in somewhat of a retreat in recent decades..

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

This lends some credence, I think, to my suggestion that 'dialectics' would best be seen as Marx's early attempt to employ what we now would call 'critical realism'.

In the book isn't Ollman at least partially in agreement with this?

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

Do you think it is possible to understand Marx's Capital without first having mastered Hegel's Logic? Hopefully, the answer will be "no", but what if it's "yes"?

I could ask that I'm not sure what he would answer though if it is "yes" I wouldn't be that surprised, he is a devotee of Dunayevskaya after all…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

Where exactly is it that dialectics has been "so influential"? I'd love to know, everyone I try to start discussing it with at the bus-stop just looks at me funny and runs away!

Well, DJP, it's 'been so influential' enough that SPGB posters here keep mentioning it!

LOL.Who bought this up anyway?But seriously my interest is because I think Marx has something useful to say about the present moment, and in various postfaces, prefaces and footnotes he describes the method he used to construct this work as "dialectical". Now what Marx meant by this, and how this is different from what other people have meant by it is, to me at least, a useful and practical question since I hope the answer will help me in my own work.It is also interesting to compare Marx to others who would not have described their methods as "dialectical". So for example; Do you think it would have been possible to write Capital using the methods based on linguistic analysis that Wittenstien used? What use are the methods of analytic philosophy for creating a critical social theory like the one constructed in Capital?This is where my interests in "dialectic" lie, not in trying to uncover some mystic driving force that controls the universe.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Whilst any comrades think that there is anything to dialectics, we have to confront and discuss it, because it has been so influential and damaging for the proletariat.

Where exactly is it that dialectics has been "so influential"? I'd love to know, everyone I try to start discussing it with at the bus-stop just looks at me funny and runs away!

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

'Dialecticians' pretend to have access to an unmediated 'structure'. That is why Leninists favour 'dialectics'. They can claim to have access to a special method, which is not accessible to the class, so they have a more profound consciousness.

Yes but we are not Leninists (except for RL) or "dialecticians" either. Now Marx did have a method that he refered to as "dialectic" if we want to we could discuss what he meant by this and how his method is different from others e.g Wittgenstein.But I don't think the outcome of the world revolution depends on what we come up with!

[DJP]

Rosa Lichtenstein wrote:

So, are there any more 'proof texts' you'd like me to shoot down in flames?

Have you really done that? Anyone who is interested enough and knows how to read and think for themselves can just refer back to the primary texts. I really don't care what you think you have proved or disproved.

[Author]

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