[LBird]

Vin Maratty wrote:

Your last post has been said by you a hundred times. You really do need to change the record, LBird. Why not engage with what is being said to you instead of repeating yourself with the same old insult and accusations that we are all Ignorant Stalinists or Leninists.

I can, and will, keep saying it, too.Particularly since no-one in the SPGB seems to be able to argue a sustainable position which opposes it. Especially not you.It's simple, Vin. The nonsense that twc, DJP, you and others are putting forward is of no use for the workers' movement, because the political ideology based upon that Engelsian philosophy is Leninism.The simplest of tests is to ask "who determines 'truth'?".The religious and idealists say 'god'.The Engelsian-Leninists and materialists say 'objective reality' (but they won't disclose their method for accessing this 'objective truth').The Marxists and 'idealist-materialists' say 'the proletariat'.That's what Marx's Theses on Feuerbach was all about.I can clearly say that 'democratic methods' should be used by humanity for all of its social activities, including science, but none of you can say that.You're all bluffers about workers' power and Socialism.Half of you are bourgeois individualists, and the other half are crypto-Leninists.At least there is some hope, though, from those who aren't posting in opposition to me, and are reading the arguments carefully, as I know some are.

[LBird]

I've said this before, twc, and I'll say it again.It's a shame that you won't engage in discussion, as opposed to just blindly repeating Engelsianism.

twc wrote:

The Theses on Feuerbach are Marx’s final severance, his parting of the ways, with subjective philosophical thought.They record Marx’s discovery of how society actually comes to comprehend objective truth.

This is an assertion which does not stand up to any examination.If you disagree with my characterisation of Critical Realism as being (a) very close to Marx's own method, and which helps us to explain 'value' to workers; and (b) a potential source, when combined with a Communist ideology, of a unified scientific method that Marx sought, then why not engage with me?Finally, my overall philosophical approach, with its intimate emphasis on proletarian democracy being necessary for all human activity (political, economic and scientific), is the one more suited to the supposed views of the SPGB.In constrast, your Engelsianism, with its 19th century emphasis on 'objective truth', is a philosophy more suited to the Leninist conception of workers' consciousness, and the need for a cadre party and central committee, who pretend to have access to 'objective reality', whilst the masses clearly don't, and so is fundamentally undemocratic.

[LBird]

I’d like to give an example of this method of Critical Realism being employed by humans in trying to understand and explain both physical and social phenomena. This is also part of an attempt to realise Marx’s hope for a unified scientific method.Don’t forget, this method is Marx’s method of ‘theory and practice’ upon a world that really exists outside of the enquirer, and so we have to declare our theory first, if we are to claim that it’s a scientific method.Theories consist of two parts: an ontology (what humans claim ‘being’ is; remember, the ‘facts’ do not talk to humans) which cannot be disproved empirically (an ontology, or metaphysics, is similar to Lakatos’ ‘hard core’ of a ‘research programme’ and consists of definitions, axioms and assumptions, which pre-exist the scientific enquiry, and inescapably exist prior to ‘practice’), and a hypothesis (which is the part of theory to be tested and proved by practice, and so can be refuted empirically). Various ontologies are a part of creative human thinking, and are a product of societies.So, all humans employ theory (their ontology, often chosen for non-scientific reasons, and a discipline-based hypothesis) to guide their research and select their results. The 19th century positivists, 20th century empiricists, and today’s physicalists, lie when they say they do not have a prior ontology. We Communists must insist that Marx was correct to talk of ‘theory and practice’. Those who argue for ‘practice and theory’ are ideological inductivists, who conceal their ‘theory’, and then pretend (often to themselves) to have stumbled upon ‘theory’ in amongst their ‘empirical facts’, which they pretend to have discovered ‘objectively’. This is the mythical ‘discovery science’ excoriated by Pannekoek.So, the ontology of CR consists of components, structures, levels and emergent properties, and the belief that ‘ideas’ and ‘material’ have the same status (that is, neither is the basis of the other). These comprise the ontology of CR, and can’t be disproved empirically. They are human assumptions which exist prior to the scientific process of enquiry. They are human axioms about ‘what exists’.As an example of the CR approach to the ‘physical’, we can take the analogy of firefighting with either atoms (components, elements) or molecules (structures, compounds). [For those comrades who are not familiar with chemistry, water is nothing more than hydrogen and oxygen]. If the firefighters place water on a fire, it is extinguished. But if they place hydrogen and oxygen, in their raw, separated state, on the fire, then an explosion results.Here we have components which if put together in a specific relational structure produce an emergent property. That is, hydrogen and oxygen chemically combined produce ‘wetness’, which extinguishes fire. This ‘wetness’ does not exist at the level of the component elements hydrogen or oxygen, but emerges at the structural level of molecules of water. At the component level, hydrogen and oxygen are explosive, not wet.The obvious example of the CR approach to the ‘social’ is Marx’s explanation of ‘value’. If we take a tin of beans as an example of a commodity, it is clear that ‘value’ does not exist in the tin of beans. It’s not included amongst the list of ingredients on the label, and that’s because ‘value’ is not an ingredient of either beans or tin cans. But, just like with regarding chemical components as part of a ‘water structure’, if the tin is observed as part of the structure of capitalism, then we can perceive the social relationships between all of the commodities (tins of beans and every other useful thing) as producing ‘capitalism’. And just as water has emergent properties like ‘wetness’ which has the power to put out fires, so capitalism has emergent properties like ‘value’ which has the power to compel human individuals to act in ways detrimental to themselves, whether capitalists or workers.

Marx, Capital I, p. 739, wrote:

But, so far as he is personified capital, it is not values in use and the enjoyment of them. but exchange-value and its augmentation, that spur him into action. Fanatically bent on making value expand itself, he ruthlessly forces the human race to produce for production’s sake; he thus forces the development of the productive powers of society, and creates those material conditions, which alone can form the real basis of a higher form of society, a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle. Only as personified capital is the capitalist respectable. As such, he shares with the miser the passion for wealth as wealth. But that which in the miser is a mere idiosyncrasy, is, in the capitalist, the effect of the social mechanism, of which he is but one of the wheels. Moreover, the development of capitalist production makes it constantly necessary to keep increasing the amount of the capital laid out in a given industrial undertaking, and competition makes the immanent laws of capitalist production to be felt by each individual capitalist, as external coercive laws. It compels him to keep constantly extending his capital, in order to preserve it…

[my bold]https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm#S3Capitalism cannot be understood at the level of components (commodities, individuals), but only at the structural level (socio-economics, or Political Economy). And whereas the emergent property of ‘wetness’ can have beneficial powers for humans, like putting out fires or quenching our thirst (although it can also drown us!), the emergent property of ‘value’ is entirely detrimental to humanity. It has no redeeming features. It’s not too rhetorical to call value a ‘social acid’, so that rather than having some constructive features, it is entirely destructive.Neither Hayek, Keynes nor Piketty can observe ‘value’ because their choice of ideology (ie. a theory comprising ontology and method) doesn’t allow them to ‘see’ it. But we do have an ideology which does: Marx’s scientific method of theory and practice, combined with his Communism.It’s my opinion that Critical Realism combined with Communism gives us the unified scientific method that Marx argued was possible. It is the humanising of nature.Communism without Critical Realism has to erroneously rely on Engels’ mistaken beliefs about ‘dialectical’ nature and unexamined 19th century positivism. Critical Realism without Communism remains a plaything of liberals and radicals, who try to keep the separation of physical nature from social humanity. But Marxism can combine both Communism and Critical Realism (which is simply a synonym for Marx’s ‘theory and practice’, and reflects his double-barrelled usage of ‘material’ and ‘history’) into a proletarian science to help workers to understand and explain their world (physical and social) in the process of building for Communism. This unified science will then form the basis of human science after we get rid of capitalism.

Karl Marx, EPM, CW3 pp. 303-4, wrote:

History itself is a real part of natural history – of nature developing into [hu]man[ity]. Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of [hu]man[ity], just as the science of [hu]man[ity] will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

[LBird]

Though Harman must be read critically, I think this text of his is very useful for identifying our problem (if not for helping us to solve it, because Harman was a Leninist).

Chris Harman (blog extract) wrote:

From: Philosophy and Revolution, ISJ 21 (1983)http://chrisharman.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/philosophy-and-revolution.htmlMarx argued in the Theses on Feuerbach that philosophy before him divided into two main streams.One was materialist, in the sense of recognising a world external to human sensation and thought. But it soon ran into a problem: how can we test the validity of our impressions of the world, since all our contact with the world is through these impressions?Some materialist philosophers (eg Locke) attempted to make a distinction between some impressions of the world which 'resembled' external reality, and others that didn't. But the procedure was bound to be very arbitrary and to tend to accept as 'real' that which fitted in with current ideology. It certainly proved no basis for developing a scientific perspective which challenged existing preconceptions. Some philosophers (eg Hume) drew the conclusion that we could know nothing with certainty, and what we thought of as truth was really a product of our own psychological disposition. Still others (eg Berkeley) reached back to an essentially religious conception to explain knowledge: it was God who organised our perceptions.The 'correspondence' theory of truth of the materialists seemed to work so long as no one questioned the common sense interpretations of human impressions that prevailed in existing society. The moment anyone started making critical judgements, it fell apart, giving way to idealism or scepticism.The second philosophical tendency was that of 'idealism'. The philosophers in this tradition insisted that the key to truth lay with human reasoning. Any idea we could deduce from certain basic principles was true; any idea we could not was false. The logical coherence of our ideas was the test of their truth, not any one-to-one correspondence with reality.This did not mean these philosophers denied the existence of the external world. It did mean, however, they tended to see the external world itself as in some way produced by (or corresponding to) thought (or, at least, the valuable elements in the external world as produced by thought). It was ideas (whether human or of God) which underlay what we think of as the impressions of material things.But this view led to all sorts of problems. As the German philosopher Kant showed, from simple 'first principles', it was quite easy to deduce quite opposed notions (what he called 'antinomies'). The search for coherence in the realm of ideas alone led you straight into contradiction.In the Theses on Feuerbach Marx suggests that the materialist 'correspondence' theory of truth and the idealist 'coherence' theory both fail because they are one sided.The materialist view correctly sees that human beings are part of the material world. But it fails to work out any criteria for judging how correct our knowledge of that world is. This is because it conceives of our relation to it as purely passive, contemplative. Impressions of the world around us hit us, and our brains have somehow to make sense of them.Idealism, by contrast, falls down because it tends to deny the independent existence of the external world. But it does have one advantage over traditional materialism. It sees the role of the human mind as active – as intervening in reality.Marx argued that for materialism to overcome its problems, it has to integrate this element of activity into its own ideas. It has to conceive of humanity's relationship with the world not as contemplative, but as practical.It is because human beings are engaged in transforming the world in practice that they can come to grasp which ideas about it are true and which false. Above all, it is the revolutionary activity of a class which enables it to approach the truth, because in making a practical challenge to all of existing reality it is testing all ideas about existing reality. As Marx put it:"The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but a practical question. Man must prove the truth, ie the reality and power, the this-worldliness of his thinking, in practice. The dispute over the reality and non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question… All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory into mysticism find their rational practical solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice."Althusser will have none of this. He downgrades the importance of the Theses on Feuerbach. They were produced, he claims, during the 'break', before Marx got his ideas clear. As a result they are 'riddles'. The mature Marx, he insists, did not see truth as based in revolutionary practice, but in 'theoretical practice', something done by scientists according to their own procedures. But this leads the Althusserian school into all the problems classically associated with philosophy. Althusser's starting point is that of a 'contemplative materialist', with a correspondence theory of truth. But he then has to find some criteria for distinguishing 'true' from 'false' impressions. 'Theory' (with a capital T, remember), he says, will provide the answer. This, he says, enables us to process existing notions of the world and develop more advanced ones. Theory comes to validate itself.But this merely shifts the question from being about how you distinguish a true impression from a false one, into how you distinguish a true theory from a false one. We are back in the old problem of all idealist 'coherence' theories of truth – why should one view of the world developed logically out of first principles be better than another developed in the same way?It is a very short step from Althusser to the view that there are many, different 'theoretical discourses' (a Marxist, a feminist, a psychoanalytical, etc) all equally valid – or even to the views adopted by some ex-Althusserians in France, who deny the validity of any theory. By abandoning the Theses on Feuerbach, Althusser slides down the slope from materialism through idealism to complete subjectivism!

[my bold]The key step which neither Harman nor other so-called ‘Marxists’ (really, they are Leninists in politics) make is to provide a measure of ‘better’ or ‘valid’ which overcomes these problems besetting both ‘materialism’ and ‘idealism’. That is, overcomes the problem without appealing either to elites in science or to elites in politics to provide the measure or judgement of ‘better’ or ‘valid’.The ‘measure’ for the proletariat is its own opinions (not the opinions of academics or central committees).Proletarian democracy has to determine ‘better’ and ‘valid’ by its own ‘theory and practice’ within both science and politics, and this ‘democratic and unified scientific method’ must provide the basis for a future Communist society.

Marx wrote:

All mysteries which lead theory into mysticism find their rational practical solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.

[my bold]For us Communists, ‘human practice’ is always social, and its ‘comprehension’ is always social. ‘Rational Practice’ (theory and practice) can only be determined socially by the proletariat itself, collectively and democratically.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Now, I'd be a lot happier (per he science debate) if people used 'culture' where 'ideology' is often used. To say that knowledge is cultural, and that we have inevitable cultural biases, to my mind, avoids the perjorative sense of ideology, and in fact emphasisies the entirely antural state of culture…

I'm only going to make a short comment on this thread, because what I'm about to say has been said often enough on the 'science' thread.If one accept 'cultural bias', then one is fooling oneself by avoiding the use of 'ideology'.Culture is ideological, not 'natural' (which is a meaningless statement once one accepts culture is a human product, and thus variable). 'Natural' is always used by conservatives to emphasise the status quo.Being 'pejorative' about human knowledge is no more than 'coming to consciousness'.Humans produce distorted knowledge.To argue otherwise necessitates arguing for a 'copy theory of knowledge', that we are at one with 'nature'.As for your comments about 'socialism', it's totally ahistorical and idealistic. So much for your alleged 'materialism'.That's it, on this thread.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Well, the truth sucks, don't it? I don't exist, the meatbot does.

Where did you dig this little gem of 'truth' up from, YMS?Don't bother to answer, it's a rhetorical question. As I said:

LBird wrote:

Mind you, none of this discussion, for you, is really about the problems of 'Science for Communists', is it?

[LBird]

'Meatbots', eh?Are you sure that sort of talk is attractive to workers, YMS? Y'know, calling them 'meatbots'? It's very similar to how bosses regard them.Mind you, none of this discussion, for you, is really about the problems of 'Science for Communists', is it?

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

That hardly warrants a correction, the significant point remains it is about senses, and sensation…

No, YMS it relates to perception, not merely sensation.That is, to mind, not merely physical feeling.And since 'mind' is social, it relates to 'social perception', which is historical, and so what 'senses' experience is different in different societies. That is, 'sensation' is not simply matter impinging upon a biological individual, but the 'material' in relationship to the 'ideal'.But I've said all this dozens of times before, and I know that you don't do 'discussion', in the sense of 'progression', but only the stillness of 'religious certainty'.You stick to 'senses', I'll stick to 'perception'.You stick to 'matter', I'll stick to 'criticism'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

From Wikipedia:

Quote:

The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός (aisthetikos, meaning "esthetic, sensitive, sentient"), which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι (aisthanomai, meaning "I perceive, feel, sense").[7] The term "aesthetics" was appropriated and coined with new meaning in the German form Æsthetik (modern spelling Ästhetik) by Alexander Baumgarten in 1735.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics#EtymologyIt is the relation os the senses, and by extension, the human body, to the world (this is important, because it puts the human at the centre of aesthetics)

[my bold]And αἰσθάνομαι also means 'perceive by the mind, understand, learn' and, with the genitive, 'to have perception of'.Apparently, a verb you are unfamiliar with, both in Greek and English.[And it's pronounced 'ice-than-oh-my', if anyone's interested]

[LBird]

YMS, I'll have to leave you with your own thoughts now (sorry, 'matter'), because I'm beginning to doubt my sanity, on reading your contributions.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

Aesthetics is vary real and very physical, not ideal at all.  It is about human sensual relationship to their world.  It's not one-sided contrasted with two sided, but incomplete with complete (many sided, rich).  Yes, Charlie stands for philsophical monism (as has been mentioned before here), and 'new materialism' not abstract contemplative materialism (per These on Feurbach).  Human criticism is matter.  thought is material, culture is material, it is all part of one world.  You can't get less ideal than Aesthetics.

God help us.This is a stunningly stupid claim.If this is the line taken by the SPGB, I'm going to fall in with the tories or new labour. It's no wonder that 'socialists' of this tenor have no influence on the working class. You'd be a laughing stock taking this line with anyone who's read any philosophy of science.I really am gob-smacked.

YMS wrote:

(I'd add you don't get much more positivist than Thesis II:

Quote:

The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

)

What part of 'theory and practice' are you unable to read, YMS? Why do you keep reading it as 'theory'?I really am dealing with a religious fanatic, who is impervious to reason. No explanation, quotes or discussion, for 12 months, have had any effect on your religious devotion to 'materialism' and uncritical certainty.No wonder you don't trust workers to make democratic decisions. You have the Revealed Truth.'Matter'.PS. did you read the Koestler extracts that I posted?

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

What Marx criticises is mechanical or one sided materialism, that doesn't account for aesthetics.

So why should we persist on calling it 'materialism', if it doesn't account for aesthetics? It doesn't get more social, human, ideal, than aesthetics.If Marx criticises 'one sided materialism' (and he does), why not accept that he was in favour of some sort of 'two sided materialism'?Leaving aside his polemics with the religious and prize fighters of the bourgeoisie (who he lumped together as 'idealists'), his 'practical' use of 'materialism' in his works was of the 'two sided' variety.What is the best candidate for this 'other side' to 'materialism'? In his Theses on Feuerbach, it is clear that the candidate is none other than a part of 'idealism', the 'active side' of humanity.He unites parts of both materialism and idealism into a unified method of 'theory and practice'. Thus, he can account for 'aesthetics' in the 'theory' part of his social practice.He, and others (as you quote), "developed, like Robert Owen, the materialist doctrine into real humanism and the logical basis of Communism".'Real humanism' is not pretending that 'rocks talk to us', as do the defenders of empiricism, physicalism, 19th century positivism, and Engels.'Real Humanism' is 'Critical Realism', 'the materialist conception of history, 'historical materialism', or, for polemical purposes when discussing the Theses on Feuerbach (because those are the terms used in that tract), 'idealism-materialism'.All of these terms are doubled-barreled, because they are not simply 'materialism'. There is something else, and that is humanity, and their societies, culture, ideals, creativity, history, politics and aesthetics.Whilst workers are introduced to 'materialism' as the basis for workers' thinking, building Communism will be impossible.It's not simple 'matter' we require, but human criticism and creativity, artfulness and ethics. Poets are as important as physicists for our democratic understanding of the world.For Marx, 'value' does not contain an atom of matter. 'Value' is a product of human relationships.Value is as much about aesthetics and ethics, as it is about 'economics'.The bourgeoisie, and their prize fighters like Piketty, are blind to 'value'. They know the price of everything, but the value of nothing. We shouldn't trust them – we must develop our own prize fighters, our class must develop into being Communists.That includes the physicists – they live in our social world.

[LBird]

twc wrote:

Social practice that changes itself seems to have driven hominid brain complexity.

Who's arguing against this theory? I'm certainly not.'Social practice' nicely sums up 'idealism-materialism' or 'theory and practice' or 'critical realism'.What is 'social', what does 'social' mean, if not something about humans, and their culture, ideas, creativity, morality, ethics?'Practice' is impossible for humans without society and its manifold factors.To understand 'practice', it is necessary to locate it within historical and social contexts.Individuals and biological senses do not do 'practice'.'Practice' is always 'social', not least because of 'language', and the 'meaning' given to 'practice' by language. And Marx points out that 'senses' themselves develop in society. What we see, hear, touch, smell and taste is shaped by our social upbringing.Scientists do not have a 'neutral method' which stretches across the ages, which is universal and outside of social factors. Scientists are products of their society, and their attempts to understand 'reality' are not 'objective' but human. Scientists are 'social practitioners'.Whilst we, as a society, venerate scientists as having a 'special method', not comprehensible by the rest of society, we'll remain in their power.This cannot be acceptable to Communists, who must build up the confidence of workers to accept that they can develop their ability to run their society. There cannot be any 'elite', specialists and experts, who claim, like a priesthood or party central committee, to have an understanding that is denied to the masses. The development of science since Engels has actually revealed this claim to 'neutral method' to be a lie.This is an issue of political power, and I'm on the side of democracy.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

You see you can agree with all that and still call yourself a "materialist" for the reasons I said in the post above.

But I'm not a 'materialist', but an adherent of Marx's 'theory and practice' (ie. 'idealism-materialism'), which Marx made clear in the Theses on Feuerbach was a separate position from both 'materialism' and 'idealism'. It was a new unity, encompassing both.In my opinion, Critical Realism reflects this unity of Marx's, whereas Engels' 'materialism' has been long left behind.It's best that other comrades are aware of these competing positions, because they have political implications.

[LBird]

DJP, 'supervene' is an ideological concept within 'physicalism', so of course you can't see 'material' supervening upon 'ideal'.But that's because of your 'idea' of 'supervene', rather than anything to do with 'reality'.I thought you had the wit to recognise a piss-take!In the 'real' world, of course, IVF is an idea which creates life.That's why your ideology is useless when it comes to the 'real' world, as opposed the mythical world of 19th century 'matter'.Try reading the extract from Koestler's book, where he addresses the space between electrons and protons. 'Matter' is overwhelmingly 'nothing'.If you can be bothered. Or is learning 'wasting your time', too?

[Author]

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