[DJP]

ALB wrote:

No doubt some of those who call themselves "materialists" or "physicalists" do think that the physical does "supervene" on the non-physical in "reality" (and so are "dualists").

Bear in mind there are two kinds of dualism. Property dualism (there are two kinds of properties mental and physcal) is compatible with materialist monism whilst substance dualism (there are two kinds of substances the mental and the physical) is not.Strawson is a property dualist and he makes the distinction between "stuff monism" and  "thing monism".

wikipedia wrote:

According to stuff monism there is only one kind of stuff (e.g. matter or mind), although there may be many things made out of this stuff. According to thing-monism there exists strictly speaking only a single thing (e.g. the universe), which can only be artificially and arbitrarily divided into many things.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism

Note I'm only mentioning Strawson because he mentions stuff that seems useful to our discussion. I haven't read that much of his stuff but have previously heard of him in the textbooks…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

This is different to Marx and Dietzgen's ideology, which is 'real=(material/physical/concrete) or ideal'.

There's no Dualism in Marx or Dietzgen so this is wrong. And as far as I know this is not the definition of "real" that is put forward by the critical realists either (see previous posts in the thread)…

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

At least 'real' will cause them to ask, 'what does that mean?', and we can answer 'material and ideal'.

And then awkward buggers like me will ask what do you mean by 'material' and 'ideal' and what it is that separates the two?

[DJP]

This description and defence of a realistic materialist monism is pretty good, though I'm not sure I would take a panpsychist position as Strawson (and Deitzgen) do. Though perhaps that is me being inconsistent. As far as philosophy of mind is concerned this is my "ideology" LBird…http://cognet.mit.edu/posters/TUCSON3/Strawson.html

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

3. Knowledge=product of interaction between Subject (NB. a society, not an individual) and Object (Social Objectivism, Critical Realism, 'the practice of idealism-materialism', Marxism)=Truth as a social and historical Product.

I don't have any problems with this as a description of knowledge that produces small t "truth". But this is not incompatible with materialism.But if you reject materialism, what is the "object"?My ideology is Pastafarianism BTW.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

To 'God', for example, I can add 'Value'.Neither god nor value have substance (or as Marx says, 'not an atom of matter'), but are 'real', nevertheless.Since your ideology of physicalism defines 'real' as 'material', DJP, you can't agree with me.

So presumably you think that materialism entails denying the existence of patterns and relationships? Neither of these are "material" either.You still haven't explained what "causal powers" are and how they exert their influence.

[DJP]

So, to follow the same logic it must have been both true and false in the 15th centrury that the earth went around the sun.In others words "truth" is just what people believe.Sounds very PoMo to me.But what are these magical "causal powers" and how do they exert themselves?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

So, I can say both that "in the 21st century, the earth goes round the sun" and that "in the 15th century, the sun went round the earth".

OK you can say what you like.But to be consistent you are going to have to say that in the 21st century it is true that a God exists, and the non-religious are wrong. Since apparently 84% of the world population are still religious.Are you happy to do that?

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

So that's a 'No', then, to "workers' control"?What sort of 'Communism' do you stand for, YMS?

No there wont be workers control in communism because there will be no workers."Workers control" is not a description of communismhttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1960s/1965/no-725-january-1965/workers-control

[DJP]

The only reason at present is because that is the only way the yahoo groups lets you do it..

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

ALB wrote:

I don't think any comrades here are — except for comrade Strawman of your creation.

I think DJP regards his model of 'one-way supervenience' of the ideal upon the material as transhistorical and universal.I think DJP regards this model as an 'objective truth' based upon 'reality'.I'm not making a 'strawman'. When I ask him where he gets that ideology from, he won't answer. He regards it, not as an ideological model, but simple 'reality'.Why you feel the need to accuse me of 'strawmanning', I'm not sure. Probably your failure to identify your own ideology, and your continued hope that science will prove to be non-ideological, if you drag this out long enough.

No, it's just a model / concept put forward by some people to help explain and understand observed phenomena and to try to deal with theoretical problems. Sorry nothing about the "Absolute Truth" in there. You'll need to speak to God for that.But anyway I don't really have any ideas about the "ideal upon the material" since I reject dualism.FWIW my ideology is wiffypiddledoodahism.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

But this is not what DJP argues.That's why I'm asking if you differ in your ideological views.

But I don't think what you think I think.Attempt 4 (or 5?)

wikipedia wrote:

supervenience is an ontological relation that is used to describe cases where (roughly speaking) the lower-level properties of a system determine its higher level properties.[…][…]social properties supervene on psychological properties, psychological properties supervene on biological properties, biological properties supervene on chemical properties.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervenience

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Regarding the 'physicalism' and 'materialism' that DJP refers to, here is a link to an article which might inform our discussion about the meaning of 'physicalism'.http://www.academia.edu/3035461/MAKING_ROOM_FOR_THE_MENTAL

Sayers wrote:

According to materialism, everything that exists or happens is ultimately material or physical. Insome form or other, this philosophy is a fundamental component of modern thought. For, withthe development of modern science, it has become increasingly clear that natural phenomena canbe described and understood in materialistic terms, without recourse to the notions of a divinecreator or an immaterial human mind.However, the general philosophical outlook of materialism can take different forms. In particular,materialism is often put forward as a mechanistic and reductionist philosophy. In the eighteenth century, materialism of this sort was called `mechanical' materialism; nowadays it goes under the title of `physicalism'. Quite standardly, it is treated as if it were the only form of materialism.

[my bold]

Well I've skim read the article. I don't think current usage agrees with the above. See this:http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/…especially the section on non-reductive physicalism which was developed, in part at least, in responce to Davidson (who is mentioned in the article you link to)

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

What about the 'physical' that 'supervenes' upon 'ideas'?

There is no physical that supervenes on ideas, that is not what supervenience means.Third time lucky…. The upper levels supervene on the lower..

LBird wrote:

Humans 'create' their world of knowledge, understanding and explanation, of production, distribution and consumption, much of which is not 'physical' in any meaningful sense, and much of which is the product of 'ideas', rather than the 'physical', so why the emphasis upon the 'physical'?

There is no particular "emphasis on the physical". It depends on what level of explanation is relevant to what you want to explain..

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

This can't be done. 'Physicalism', with its emphasis on 'material', seeks to continue this wild goose chase.

I see what you've done now. You think still think that "Physicalism" is the same as "crude materialism".The thing is that a lot modern work in philosophy of mind / language and neuroscience / psychology comes from a physicalist background and quite independently of Marx or Deitzgen or Pannekoek is also supporting the idea of the social nature of consciosness and language and knowledge etc..

[Author]

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