[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I don't know where you get the idea that myself and YMS are liberals from. We are both libertarian free marketeers following the teachings on Ayn Rand, after all this is the majority position in the SPGB these days so it must be true.

This shows that you don't know what a liberal is. You think that 'liberal' means 'economic liberal'.If I ask you if you're an individual, you (and YMS) reply 'Yes'.If I'm asked if I'm an individual, I reply 'No, I'm a worker'.Because I'm a Communist, and employ Critical Realism, I locate components within structures.Because you're a liberal, and employ individualism, you locate 'existing' within biological components and ignore social strutures.Thus, when I ask which ideology of science either you or Strawson employ, you are baffled by the question, because, for you, Strawson, you and YMS are all individuals entitled to their opinons, both social and scientific.You don't realise that you are all ideologists for the bourgeoisie.That's why you don't like me, because as a Communist I undermine your individualism.Thus, you hide this reality in dismissive replies, and pretend you're being accused of being a 'free marketeer'.Why you are not a 'free marketeer' in economics, since you are a 'free marketeer' in philosophy and science, only you can say. I think that you're confused and ignorant, but you won't try to critically think these issues through, although I've tried to help you to do so, numerous times.So, back to calling names, DJP! The world's a mystery to you, eh?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

So LBird how do you square the above with the fact that you are the ONLY person that has been putting forward certain viewpoints?

You want to try reading the other thread, where both I and alanjjohnstone (to say nothing of Marx, Pannekoek, Dietzgen and even Engels in his more Marxist moments) put forward similar viewpoints. But then, we share the same ideology, unlike the liberals YMS and DJP.Or should I just answer in your childish terms given above, and just say 'Nah, nah… nah, nah, naaah…'.Do us all a favour, and try critical thinking, and make a contribution to the discussion, rather than throwing your dummy from the pram, because you don't like (or even understand) my Communist views.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

But i probably posted a simplistic baby-version of what is being discussed here. i better bow out

No, what you're saying is very much in line with what I (and many other Marxists) have argued. Don't 'bow out', because you have a better grasp of both the philosophy and the political implications of that philosophy, than most others who have contributed on these threads.One thing worth considering, though.When Marxists use the terms 'material', 'forces', 'production', 'science', 'economics' (and any other terms that I've missed from your quotes from Pannekoek), these terms also include human 'ideas'.So, to argue that 'forces' (for example) determine ideology is to say no more than 'ideas and material' in a 'production of life' (being) capacity determine 'ideas and material' in a 'production of ideas' (consciousness) capacity.That is, a 'base' of 'ideas and reality' determine a 'superstructure' of 'ideas and reality'. 'Being and consciousness' must be taken together, as an indissoluable whole. That is the lesson from Marx's Theses on Feuerbach.It is NOT a division of the 'material' and the 'ideal' or 'being' and 'consciousness'.

AJJ wrote:

Bu i probably raise the wrath of Lbird who may well consider Pannekoeks understanding of Dietzgen expresses the same weakness Engels does of Marx…

This would be a very interesting discussion, because I think I do have criticisms of Dietzgen and Pannekoek, as much as of Marx and Engels, but perhaps a different thread is required, and I would have to read further.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

IMNSHO everything I say here is my opinion only, and so does not need to be prefaced by an IMNSHO.

Gof forbid, that on a politics site, it might dawn on you that 'opinions' are not 'individual', but are expressions of political ideologies.But then, your ideology tells you that 'everyone is entitled to their opinion', as if all 7 billion individuals have their own 'ideology'.For a Communist, as I am (so no-one gets the wrong idea about my ideology, and won't take me for a 'free-thinking individual'), 'opinions' are rooted in ideologies.So, from a Communist perspective, 'everything you say here' is not 'your opinion only', but is a reflection of your socialisation, education and political influences.From what you say, I'd say that you've had bourgeois socialisation, bourgeois education and bourgeois political influences.Of course, this is all over the heads of 'individuals' with 'their opinions'.You'd think Marx had never written anything. But then he hasn't, for most 'individuals', who carry on 'consuming', from the 'market' that they thought up, all by themselves, as individuals.Don't make me larf! 'Individual opinions'! My arse.

[LBird]

firstly YMS wrote:

No such position occurs because of kicking a ball and running quickly.

This is a judgement call, one made by you as an individual, which is your chosen ideological method, as we've seen displayed throughout all the threads in which you participate.

then YMS wrote:

Yes, it is a judgement call, and one worthy of debate.

Now, you've changed your ideological position, to one of 'making by society'.You're an ideological chameleon, YMS, with no philosophical ballast whatsoever, and you merely repeat the last thing you read.You do this constantly, which is why you can neither discuss nor understand any ideological positions, neither your own nor anyone else's.From my Communist perspective, you're an 'individualist'.But then I expose my ideology, whereas you just laugh at my openness, and take the piss out of my declaration that 'I'm a Communist'.You do this because you don't think political ideology plays any part in your understanding, or in the understanding of scientists.You think that you are a 'free-thinking individual', and as such are a repository of bourgeois ideology, that constantly diverts discussion on these boards.I regard you as a threat to working class self-development.Oh, sorry, you don't recognise 'class', do you? And its effects upon social thinking? No, you judge for yourself, like a good bourgeois, and 'democracy' be damned.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird,how do you square the above with the Critique of the Gotha Programme?

YMS,how do you keep avoiding the issue, by constantly moving the goalposts? If I spend days addressing the CotGP, you'll just ask, 'LBird, how do you square that with his Letter to Bloggs?'.After spending days addressing the LtB, you'll just ask, 'LBird, how do you square that with Engels' Dialectics of Nature?' (or Pannekoek, Dietzgen, Untermann, Korsch, Lukacs, Mach, Lenin, etc. etc.)After chasing round the houses for months, nay years, you'll return to the discussion above, as a contrast to whatever text you had last thought of.And off we go again.Why don't you, just for once, try discussing Marx's philosophy and epistemology?Why won't you tell us your ideological view of science?[edit: I consider your method to be the equivalent of trolling, after my continuous experience of that method over the last 15 months. And it is a method, not just the innocent questions of one keen to learn, but the deliberately obstructive technique of the religious threatened by critical thinking – the constant return to 'textual' proofs, the view that 'But, Marx says 'material' in the Bible', rather than engaging in critical discussion about sources using the advances since the texts were written]

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Some people lose their livelihoods through such convictions: teachers, doctors,e tc. but that is a preventetive measure because of the risks associated with their positions of trust. No such position occurs because of kicking a ball and running quickly.

[my bold]This is the equivalent of saying 'no such position occurs because of moving chalk and writing quickly on a board'.The notion of 'trust', and the 'positions' deemed to be included, is a social decision.If 'playing professional football' is deemed to be as much a 'position of trust' (due to its ability to influence both young and old) as is being a teacher or doctor (due to their ability to influence both young and old), then those holding a 'position of trust' would be put under 'preventative measures' by society.'Position of trust' is not an 'objective' position which tells us 'what it is', if we passively contemplate it. We actively create our world.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

…I thought I heard him say at one point that only the physical forms part of "concrete reality". But isn't thisbegging the question since "concrete" and "physical" mean more or less the same?

It's just playing with words, to avoid the point that Dietzgen, amongst others (and agreed with by Critical Realists), that the 'ideal' and the 'material' are the same 'stuff'.Unfortunately, those comrades who follow Engels intepret 'material' to mean 'concrete' or 'physical' or 'reality' or 'object'. This is why the Leninists/Trotskyists are always going on about the 'concrete'.Those who follow Marx interpret Marx's 'material' to mean 'real', and 'real' is both 'ideal' and 'material'. This interpretation of Marx's use of 'material' to mean 'real' (and not 'concrete' or 'physical') is the only interpretation that fits with Marx's usage of 'material' as always linked with 'production' (which is human, and thus related to 'theory and practice', which requires both 'ideas' and 'reality').These opposing interpretations of what 'real' means (either 'material' meaning 'concrete', or 'ideal' and 'material') are ideological beliefs. The former ('material' means 'concrete') is based upon 19th century positivism, which deflected Engels from Marx's meaning ('material' meaning 'human production').As ideological beliefs, they have political implications. The 'materialists' will pretend that they have access to the 'concrete', which humans don't, because Marx argued that humans produce their 'material' world, and so the 'concrete' is a product of human ideas practiced upon nature.The 'concrete' of the 'materialists' is uncriticisable, because 'what is' is, well, 'what is'. It is 'being'.For Marx, since 'material production' is by humans, and human products can be changed or proved wrong with new theories, the 'concrete', being a product (including ideas/knowledge, as much as bricks) can be criticised. Marx does not separate 'being' from 'consciousness', but unites them in a philosophy of praxis, of 'theory and practice', the interaction of subject and object (and not merely the 'object', as for 'materialists'). Change can only come from criticism, which is human ideas. Pretending 'ideas' are less worthy than the 'concrete' will lead to a minority providing the 'ideas' to the class; a minority like elite scientists and Party Cadre. The 'concrete' or 'materialism' is the philosophical basis of Leninism. It's roots are in bourgeois positivist science of the 19th century.Whilst workers listen to the 'materialists', they will not understand Marx's views. Marx unified insights from both idealists (like Kant and Hegel) and materialists (like Feuerbach). He was not a 'materialist'.Read the Theses on Feuerbach, comrades.

[LBird]

So, no answer.I thought not.More fool me.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Why not the 'broad sense' of including 'idealism' within 'materialism'? Which is what Marx included.

This is confused because you seem think that "idealism" means "ideas" and "materialism" means "matter (which excludes ideas)". In short you seem to be stuck in a dualist way of thinking.

I'll take your statement at face value, DJP, though, god knows, I've been duped enough times.I'm not a dualist, because I can state what ideas I use to understand the material, because it's impossible to separate the two.Every time I've asked you to do the same, that is, tell me what ideology you use to understand the physical (or what ideology Strawson, or the other 'mind'-related theorists, whose links you have provided, employ), you haven't done so.This is because, I claim, you are not basing your ideas upon 'theory and practice', which was Marx's method. If I'm wrong, just tell us your ideology of science, that you employ to understand the physical.So, my 'theory' is Critical Realism, which I think is the same as Marx's method, because CR can be used to explain both rocks and value. I think CR is entirely compatible with both Communism and Democracy, and can provide a basis for a unified scientific method, which Marx sought. I'm always willing for comrades to point out how they think CR is not compatible, but no-one has.I'm open about my 'monist' ideology regarding science, so here's your chance to tell us what unites the ideal and physical in your ideology of science.If you don't 'expose' this in return, as I have 'exposed', I'll assume you're just trolling me, as you have done so far.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

But "materialist-critical socialism" is as ok by me as well as "the materialist conception of history" or even "historical materialism". I don't think they are misleading (unless you want to be misled).

So, why not 'idealism-materialism', which captures both elements in Marx's double-barrelled 'concept'?That's not 'misleading', either.

ALB wrote:

So this is a never-ending argument about definitions.. As I say, I'm happy to call myself, like Marx was, to a "materialist" in some broad sense.

Why not the 'broad sense' of including 'idealism' within 'materialism'? Which is what Marx included.

ALB wrote:

I don't think that either "productionism" or "idealism-materialism" is a better name than "historical materialism". In fact, the second is a bit of an oxymoron like "square circle", "military intelligence" or "Islamic scholar".

Yes, but an oxymoron must be condemned on account of both elements, because it is the putting together of both that causes the clash of 'sharp/blunt' or 'clever/stupid' (which is what 'oxymoron' means in Greek). Either element on its own is just a term.So, if 'idealism-materialism' is to be condemned as an oxymoron, 'materialism' is part of the problem, too.Whereas I'm prepared to accept that 'historical materialism' can be regarded as a synonym for 'idealism-materialism', you are clearly not.Why? What is the sticking point in the discussion between us in accepting both parts of Marx's concept, as outlined both in the Theses in 1845 and in his letter to Sorge in 1877, to which your quote from Bottomore and Rubel drew my attention.This is the crux of our problem, and it's a philosophical difference, rather than a definitional one. If it was 'mere words', you'd have no problem with my suggestion.Unless the philosophical issue (and for us, the political implications, too) is resolved, then it remains a mystery to most workers, and Leninism and its 'materialism' will remain a threat to our class consciousness.

[LBird]

LBird, post #20, wrote:

A further reference for ALB.

Marx, quoted in Bottomore and Rubel, p. 31, wrote:

…materialist-critical socialism…

In Marx Engels Selected Correspondence, this is given as

Marx, MESC, p. 310, wrote:

…materialistically critical socialism…

Marx to F. A. Sorge, October 19th, 1877

Since ALB hasn’t yet come back with a comment on the quote above, I’ll give the wider quotes, which also point to regarding part of ‘idealism’ as being a constituent of his ‘materialism’.

Bottomore and Rubel, p. 31 wrote:

In a later passage of the same letter he [ie. Marx] criticizes ‘Utopian Socialism’, which ‘in the period before materialist-critical socialism had contained the latter in germ…

And

Marx, MESC, p. 310, wrote:

It is natural that utopianism, which before the era of materialistically critical socialism concealed the latter within itself in embryo…

[his italics]Thus, the ‘embryo’ or ‘germ’ of Marx’s ‘materialism’ was ‘contained’ / ‘concealed’ within ‘idealism’.Thus, we can see that whatever Marx’s ‘materialism’ was, it wasn’t simply ‘materialism’, which is why it is always prefixed by other terms which try to capture this element of ‘idealism’, whether ‘historical’, ‘dialectical’, ALB’s suggested ‘social’, or my suggested ‘idealism’.The stress on the ‘materialism’ within Marx’s thinking is only acceptable if there is also a comparable stress on the ‘idealism’ within his thinking. And to reject this equally valued element in his thinking, by focussing merely upon ‘materialism’ to the exclusion of ‘idealism’, is to return to mechanical materialism, and its focus on ‘matter’ or the ‘physical’ or ‘being’, and its exclusion of ideas and consciousness. In short, its refusal to expose its own ideologically grounding, the basis of its own 'theory and practice'.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Anyway, I think, since you're willing to rely on the german Ideology for a phisolosophical basis…

I'm not willing to rely on any text, YMS. I want a discussion with comrades who also want to develop their ideas.Unlike you, I'm not the adherent of a religious ideology.Their god is 'matter'.And all those who dare to question 'matter', are condemned as heretics, trolls, and… wait for it… idealists!The religious know so, because the prophet Engels told them so.Although, most have never read either Marx or Engels, but they have it on the good authority of someone who has, so they say, read and understood the words of the masters. These are the priests of the religion of 'materialism', who tell the laity about 'materialism' and its goodness and the evilness of (boo, hiss) 'idealism'.I've even given the page number in Engels' pamphlet, where the priests got this nonsense from, so that the unread laity can refer to it and can start to develop their own understanding. But the laity are wary….  they've been warned, constantly, about the nasty 'idealists'… even the very word sends shudders through their bodies…… after all, 'idealism-materialism' is a contradiction, isn't it?Why 'theory and practice' was ever used by Communists, is anyone's guess. Surely it should be 'practice and theory', or just 'practice'…No, comrades, I'm afraid it's 'theory and practice', and I want to know what ideological theory each scientist employs in their practice.They always deny having an ideology, of course, because the 'material' talks to them…19th century bullshit, and whilst any socialists follow it, the working class will get nowhere. Except more 'leaders' in The Party, who supply, surreptitiously, the ideas missing from the material.Like 'scientists', they have a special consciousness denied to our class, which ensures that a democratic vote can never be taken on what either physicists or cadre tell us.I've said all this before, but… back to 'materialism'. "But it's solid, LBird, unlike an idea…"

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

BTW, are you still a Communist?

I know you're still not, so I don't need to ask. Troll.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

But I'm stopping now because as far as I'm concerned you're just trolling…

If anyone is trolling around here, it's you and YMS.No matter how many times I explain, give quotes, construct detailed analogies, you can guarantee that you and YMS will chirp in with "But it's material!"When asked which ideology says 'But it's material!', neither of you can give an answer.And your endless reference to 'physicalists' shows that you don't have a clue what's being discussed.Strawson and the rest are just as clueless, too.

[Author]

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