[LBird]

twc wrote:

…no political axe to grind…

Non-political, simple, objective 'science', eh?Marx would weep at the continuing strength of this ruling class idea, a bourgeois myth, of human social activities being practised 'without politics'.And this is supposedly a political site, supposedly providing a socialist lead for workers, to help those workers curious about their social existence to learn about their world.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

Your admission, that you 'have little clue' about these issues, doesn't forbode well for the ability of the proletariat to run the means of production.

To each to their own.

I can't say that I'm not disappointed at your framing of this issue, alan.I'm a Democratic Communist, who wishes to see a society that collectively determines all of its productive activities, by the means of democratic politics.But, to me, a response of 'to each to their own' has a very individualistic ring to it.Using your phrase when talking to, say, office or factory workers about the collective use of their production and who should decide that usage, would lead them to think that you were suggesting a Thatcherite solution to their collective problems, of 'each to their own'. If one worker produces more than another, that worker should have more than another. No notion of all production being 'social', and the social product being put into a 'collective pot', and then distributed according to need, which itself is determined collectively by democratic means.This perspective of yours, of 'to each to their own' throws a lot of light on your hesitation about the notion of what Marx meant by 'material'.That is, unless there is an individualistic category of 'matter', which an individual can identify by their own touch, then the whole notion of 'to each of their own' falls down.If what we experience is social (rather than the individualistic stuff of 'matter'), then we can only identify our product by social means: as Marx says, there is no 'matter' in 'value'. Value can't be seen or touched, and can only be 'experienced' by social theory and practice.Which takes us back to Kline's discussion, about Marx's meaning of his term 'material'.I've suggested that for Marx 'material' means 'human production' (Kline's 'economic'), which Marx contrasts with 'ideal' meaning 'divine production'.That is, Marx in not referring to a category of 'matter' which 'each' produces and controls 'to their own' purposes.Finally, since you are one of the comrades in the SPGB that I thought was committed to democratic production (unlike some who have admitted that they are not committed to workers' democracy, but to 'individualism'), it's brought me up short, and made me actually question the very nature of the SPGB. I had thought that the problems with the SPGB were simply a few individuals ignorant of Marx, but perhaps the issue runs deeper, and my 'Democratic Communist' politics really are out of phase with the majority, including you.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I've come back to my senses and realised that we spent ages going around in circles with this years ago. I'm not going to waste any more of my time with you again.FWIW in the talk in the original post I think it is John Searle who is right, but he can't really be classified under your two categories – I don't think anyone really can…

But you've not 'come back to your senses', DJP, but fallen back upon your faith.Back to 'hide the category', and pretend that you have a method to reveal unvarnished 'Truth'.I predicted this outcome in my initial post.Religious Materialism is so predictable, and so 19th century.Nothing for workers to look towards, for socio-historical answers to their questions. Just The Bourgeois Eternal Truth.A ruling class category.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

But YMS's post is in support of 'materialism'.

"materialism" is a kind of "naturalism".

LBird wrote:

So, we all stop calling Marx a 'materialist', and all start calling him a 'naturalist'…

He was both.

[my bold]So, why not call him 'both'?

DJP wrote:

But it is your "idealism-materialism" that is nonsensical.FIN.

Putting your hands over your ears, shouting 'La, La, La, La…', and stamping your feet, is not solution, DJP. We're all grown-ups, not to mention Communists.You're nearly, there, comrade! One last effort, now, to use your own words, all chant together now with DJP, in unison…He was both, he was both, he was both…But… 'both' what?[over to DJP]

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

OK. So, truth is a relationship between what?

From which perspective?From the perspective of the 'reflection theory of truth', it isn't a relationship. End of.From the perspective of the 'relational theory of truth', it's a relation between 'theory' and 'practice'.The latter, of course, refers to social groups, like classes, and their creation over time of their 'object'. Thus, their 'truth' is a socio-historical creation, which changes between societies and through history.If you don't hold with the latter 'relational theory of truth', DJP, that's fine by me, but why not tell everyone else that you hold to the 'reflection theory of truth', which by its nature is not socio-historical, but argues for a one-off discovery of 'Truth', which, once discovered by any elite human, is 'True'.For those reading and wishing to get ahead of the game and prepare questions, ask yourself which 'theory of truth' would benefit a ruling class that wishes to 'eternalise' its rule. I know it's a toughie, but that's the trouble with trying to think critically: difficult problems. 'Truth' (forevermore), or 'truths' (produced by human societies, like various 'modes of production'…)?Hmmm… bit of bias there, I think… if only education could be 'objective', eh?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

DJP wrote:

But what is truth?

I already explained this, DJP.There are two theories that I've already outlined, but just for you I'll repeat myself:1. 'Truth' is a reflection; or2. 'truth' is a relation.

This looks more like a description of direct and indirect realism than an explanation of what "truth" is. It doesn't answer the questions: What kind of things can be true and what is the criteria for them being so?If I say "the cat is on the mat" what conditions need to be met for the sentence to be true?

What's happening here is precisely what I predicted in my first post.If one believes 'truth is a reflection', then one can sidestep the issue of 'theories of truth', which are clearly ideas held by people.You are doing precisely this: off-the-cuff dismissal of the fundamental issue of conceptual definition, and straight into 'the real world' of 'things'.Thus, I can conclude that you are employing a 'reflection theory of truth', and that, either you are lying about knowing this, or that you are ignorant of holding this belief.Since I've openly said that I follow Marx's relational approach to our world, I believe that 'truth is a relationship', so I'm neither hiding anything from other comrades, nor ignorant of my own conceptual starting point.Why won't you be so open, DJP?Do you, like the Leninists, have something to hide from your fellow workers? Why not discuss our respective 'theories of truth'?PS. Your response is like someone asking about 'the worth of money' and being told about Marx's concept of 'value', and simply responding that you don't want to talk about 'value' or any concepts, but simply want to look at a £10 note and simply conclude that its 'worth £10'.You want to simply 'live in the real world'. After all, simply everybody knows what a £10 note is worth! £10 or two fivers! It's there in the writing on the bloody note! And bollocks to the theorising of Commie bastards like Marx.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

OK fine, I have no problems using the term "naturalism". I think everything of use has been summed up in YMS's post a couple above this one.

But YMS's post is in support of 'materialism'.If you are to agree with Marx's use of the term 'naturalism', it's to agree to stop using 'materialism', and to agree to Marx's unifying of idealism and materialism.So, 'naturalism', for Marx equals 'idealism-materialism'.So, we all stop calling Marx a 'materialist', and all start calling him a 'naturalist'…… which is tantamount to calling him an 'idealist-materialist'.Which is the exact opposite of YMS's post. Your illogical post baffles me, DJP.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Quote:

Happy new year Lbird, I think you elevate the level of discussion here even if some users find it a bit repetitive.

I also like seeing a good battle of wits too, even when i have little clue of what is being argued…. Ding Dong, Next round …

I know you're joking, alan, but if only you and some others would join in, and ask some different questions about something that you don't quite grasp, we might make some advances.Perhaps I might suggest an issue for you to ruminate upon.If you're believer in democratic politics within the workers' movement now, and in social production in any future socialism (which I think that you are, as am I), why wouldn't you extend this democratic sensibility to, say, physics or maths (which perhaps you wouldn't, at first sight)?Your admission, that you 'have little clue' about these issues, doesn't forbode well for the ability of the proletariat to run the means of production.

[LBird]

jondwhite wrote:

Happy new year Lbird, I think you elevate the level of discussion here even if some users find it a bit repetitive.

Happy new year to you, too, jdw.The problem with your analysis, though, is that to 'elevate the discussion here' requires lifting on behalf of both parties. No elevation or comprehension ever seems to really take place, because, as you've noticed, I have to repetitively keep answering the same questions.Now, we're onto them asking for the same quotes from Marx, all over again!We're barely bumping along on the bottom, continuously, round and round…At least if you yourself asked me some different questions, we might at least have different round of repetition for the new year.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

We could choose another term entirely, which doesn't employ either 'materialism' or 'idealism' (Marx suggested 'humanism' or 'naturalism')

Citation needed.

It's not a citation that's needed, DJP, but for you to question your Engelsian faith.I've given this quote several times on different threads before, and it's not had any noticable affect on your long-held Religious Materialism, but here goes anyway. Other comrades might benefit from reading Marx, even if you, twc and Vin don't:

Marx, EPM, Collected Works 3, p. 336, wrote:

Here we see how consistent naturalism or humanism is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/hegel.htmEdit: add YMS to the list.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

But what is truth?

I already explained this, DJP.There are two theories that I've already outlined, but just for you I'll repeat myself:1. 'Truth' is a reflection; or2. 'truth' is a relation.Once you have had a think about these two, and tell us which one you adhere to, we can continue with your other questions.To give you some indication of where Marx and I stand, we adhere to 2. This shouldn't come as any surprise to those who look to Marx, who was always bangin' on about 'relationships'.We can then proceed to outline both theories' views about things, criteria and sentences.

[LBird]

twc wrote:

…without mediation of practice…

This is why I can't have a reasoned discussion with you, twc.Who, out of any of us, is arguing for 'no practice'?Your posts are full of this, a litany of the supposed faults of Marx's idealism-materialism, which are nothing to do with idealism-materialism, but to do  with idealism.I keep explaining why you do this: because the ideology you follow only permits two alternatives, materialism and idealism. Thus, by logic, if my position is not materialism, and it isn't, then by Engels' logic, it must be idealism.So, no matter how many times I stress the necessity of 'practice' in Marx's formula of 'theory and practice', you are blind to this and read it as 'theory', alone.And following Engels, you counterpose the mere 'theory' of idealism, to 'practice and theory' of Engels' materialism.But, Marx's method was 'theory and practice', the exact opposite of the inductive method argued for by Engels.Humans don't start from 'practice', but 'theory'. Read the quote that I gave from Marx earlier, from Capital. [edit: see next post for the quote, again]Anyway, unless you stop arguing with a figment of your own fears and engage with what I'm actually saying, you won't ever even learn the epistemological views of Marx, much less agree with them. You're following Engels, not Marx, twc.

[LBird]

Marx wrote:

 Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first instinctive stage. We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will. And this subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman’s will be steadily in consonance with his purpose.

[my bold] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htmPurposive action is 'theory and practice'.'Practice and theory' is the pretence that humans generate theory from their actions. It is induction, and the method of Engels.Marx argues that our 'imagination' comes first, not 'primitive instinct'.

[LBird]

Vin wrote:

I have to say, LBird, in  all my time in academia and political debate I have never come across so much  twaddle  Happy new year

Problem is, Vin, you have never come across academic and political debate, otherwise you would engage in a debate, for example, about 'theories of truth', as on DJP's thread about that.The 'twaddle' is the materialism of Engels, which is entirely outdated, and can't stand up to informed debate, and has degenerated into a 'faith' followed by people who put their trust in other misguided socialists.Anyway, happy new year – perhaps this year, we'll make some progress in our discussions.

[LBird]

twc wrote:

LBird wrote:

twc … is simply reflecting the 'concrete object' as 'it really is'.

No, not twc, but Marx, who assertsI do not proceed from “concepts”.I analyse a concretum, the commodity.I proceed from the simplest social form in which the product of labour presents itself in contemporary society, and this is the “commodity”.I analyse the commodity, initially in the form in which it appears.Why would Marx, or anyone else, analyse something he already knew as “it really was”?

Let's look at the logic of this.I assert twc is talking about 'it really is'.twc then asserts that it is 'not twc, but Marx, who asserts' this.Then, twc asks, apparently askance, why would Marx analyse as 'it really was'.But, a 'commodity' is a 'social form'.'Society' involves 'ideas'.No wonder workers ignore this 'materialist' nonsense.If the SPGB continues along this non-democratic path, in which the 'concrete' is the 'active side', it will disappear. And it's nothing to do with Marx.

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