[LBird]

Using the Critical Realist concepts of components, structures, levels and emergence, I’d like to give some examples which might help comrades to get to grips with this approach. I’ll start with ‘rocks’, because I’ve argued previously that both physical and social phenomena must be understood by the same scientific method, if Marx’s hope for a ‘unified method’ is to be realised; that is, for both ‘rocks’ and ‘value’, for both physics and sociology.But first, a warning. CR forms an ontology or metaphysics, which in my opinion is similar to the one adopted by Marx. All scientific methods have an ontology at their heart, and this is a metaphysical choice made by humans, and is not imposed by the world, natural or social. The world does not tell us what it ‘really’ consists of, as the Engelsian ‘materialists/physicalists’ erroneously insist. Humans begin with ‘theory’, and at the core of any theory are metaphysical axioms and assumptions. This is unavoidable for humans, in their attempt to understand our world, natural and social. For those comrades who have read Lakatos, I think that his notion of a ‘hard core’ being at the centre of a ‘research programme’, a core which cannot be changed by empirical evidence, precisely because it is axiomatic, is a similar notion to an ontology chosen by humans. Physics do not determine metaphysics; on the contrary, metaphysics determine physics. Or as Einstein and Kepler maintained, preconceived ideas tell us what we can observe. Humans and their ideas are at the centre of our understanding. Rocks do not actively tell us what they are, while we passively observe them with our ‘individual senses’ [sic]. As Marx argued, in his agreement with the idealists, humans are an active participant in the production of knowledge.Rocks are not simply observable by individuals employing their own ‘biological’ senses, as the empiricists and materialists/physicalists insist. All humans employ a ‘theory’ prior to any understanding of anything, and to deny this pre-existing theory is to be either ignorantly unaware of it, or to be a liar. Most laypersons are ignorant of this, and most academics are liars about this. Laypeople haven’t learned this knowledge yet (which is our job as class conscious workers to explain to other workers, as part of our self-education as a class), and the academics pay lip service to it (they all shallowly accept ‘the theory-ladenness of facts’) but ignore it in their practice and continue to pretend to have a ‘neutral method’ which produces ‘objective knowledge’. This lie is the basis of their social power over us.So, to an example of CR and understanding ‘rocks’.It might seem an easy task to understand a rock. Simply pick it up, turn it round in one’s hands, and toss it away again. Simples. It’s hard and round, big deal: what more is to be said?: any individual can do this! Or, for the more discerning ‘scientific’ approach, pound the rock into bits in the laboratory until its ‘physical’ makeup is revealed by reduction; it clearly doesn’t contain any consciousness or ‘ideas’!So much for the empiricist ideology and method of ‘science’, which is so beloved of the ‘materialists/physicalists’.But if we approach a ‘rock’ with a different set of human assumptions, like CR, then we can reveal a better ‘picture’ of a rock, which helps our understanding of a ‘rock’. Once we begin from our axioms of ‘components, structures, levels and emergence’, which are human concepts, and are not presented to us by ‘the world’, we get a more profound understanding of a ‘rock’.The rock can be understood both as a ‘component’ and as a ‘structure’, and be located at different ‘levels’, each of which produce ‘emergent’ properties, both physical and ideal.The rock is a physical structure which can be reduced to dust, so that the structure disappears. But the rock might contain other structures at a different level, which without a theory would not even be suspected to exist. For example, the rock might contain a sub-structure of a ‘fossil’. If the rock is merely reduced to its component ‘dust parts’, then the presence of the ‘fossil’ would be missed. Of course, human society has to have previously produced the theory of ‘fossils’ for a fossil to be found in the rock. The fossil does not actively intervene in the laboratory process of ‘rock reduction to dust’ to make itself known to humans. Humans have to be actively looking for other structures within the rock structure, otherwise they are not observable. The empiricists insist that the fossil says to humans “Hello! I’m a fossil! Don’t hurt me!”. It doesn’t, and they’re lying. Nature does not actively talk to humans. Humans ask questions, and their questions are inescapably based upon theory.But, regarding our rock, it isn’t simply a structure, which might contain other structures at other lower levels, but is also a component for other higher level structures. For example, it might form part of a hill (another natural structure) or part of a road (a structure created by humans). However, if the rock is removed from its structural environment, by a human simply (and ignorantly) picking it up (and then either discarding it or taking it to a laboratory), this act destroys the structure of that which it is a component part. We have to have theories of structures, because often they are unobservable without a pre-existing theory. Unless we have a theory of ‘memorial cairns’, which embody a society’s historical events, then a pile of rocks will be regarded simply as , well, ‘a pile of rocks’, and potential knowledge of a society could be lost by rearranging the ‘pile’ into a circular hearth for a night-time fire for the explorers to keep warm.So, to summarise, a pre-existing social theory of ‘components, structures, levels and emergence’ is of far more use to humans and their understanding, than the pre-existing social theory of ‘I’m an individual and I know what I can see!’. Both of these theories are ideological, of course, and based upon metaphysical beliefs by humans, but this ontological choice of ‘what objects are composed of’ is inescapable for humans.I think Marx was a proto-Critical Realist, and I think that these metaphysical ideas are far more useful for understanding both our physical and social worlds than ‘materialism/physicalism’. Indeed, I don’t think that it’s too difficult to see the similarity between my discussion here about ‘rocks’, and about Marx’s views about ‘value’. A tin of beans is only a commodity within a certain social structure. But its ‘commodityness’ is not resident within the tin, but is a relational property of a social structure, which only emerges in certain conditions, just as the meaning of the memorial cairn is not present in its constituent rocks, but only in their relational structure.‘Value’ can only be observed by someone employing the socially-produced theory of Marx. To all intents and purposes, it won’t ‘exist’ for a bourgeois academic who is not a Communist, much the same as a ‘fossil’ won’t exist for the Neolithic hunter employing a rock as flint to light a fire.Of course, though, both the fossil and value ‘exist’, and can be observed by the ‘educated’ observer. In our case as proletarians, that means being educated in class consciousness and Communism.Lastly, whilst workers have their heads filled with Engels’ nonsense about ‘materialism’ (dialectical or otherwise), they can’t advance, and will be subject to the power of those who pretend to have a ‘special consciousness’ which gives access to the ‘material’ (like empiricist scientists or a Leninist party), a consciousness denied to workers as a mass, who are axiomatically deemed by elitists to be unable to grasp their world. But, on the contrary, I think Critical Realism (both as an ontology and as a method) and its social products of knowledge can be subject to a democratic vote, and thus it is a scientific ideology suitable for the democratic proletariat, in their attempt to build for Communism, and can provide the basis of a unified scientific method, as posited by Marx.

[LBird]

Brian, I think what we regard as 'dialectics', for the most part, is another Engelsian diversion from Marx's ideas. I've dealt with this before, and won't go into it again, on this thread. I want to focus on CR  for now.mcolome1, it was Marx who 'unified' idealism with materialism. I've dealt with this before, in our discussions about Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, and so I won't go into it again here. I want to focus on CR for now.

[LBird]

I've decided to re-post my outline of CR, in an attempt to get this discussion moving again.I'm not going to answer any queries unless they are directed at my post, rather than somebody else's hidden ideological views on science.

LBird, post #398 wrote:

I thought I’d begin today by trying to outline the basics of Critical Realism, for any comrades who are unfamiliar with CR. As usual, there is no substitute for actually reading deeper into these necessarily skimpy outlines, but I always think that it is a central role for Communists to try to explain, to other workers, complex ideas in far simpler terms than academics do. Much of what bourgeois academics write is intended, not to explain, but to hide, as part of their elitist ideology. I do think that Communists have a didactic role within the class, but this is a two-way relationship. If the class shout “Piss off, and come back when you’ve thought of a way to explain it better, in a way that we can understand!”, I would recommended this as the scientific method in action for the proletariat, when dealing with professors (or, indeed, with Communists). Science, in every discipline, must be explained and be accessible. This attitude must be at the forefront of any movement which claims to be the forerunner of the organised revolutionary proletariat, whose final aim is the democratisation of the means of production. Democracy, by its very nature, demands widespread understanding of all issues, whether these issues are classed as political, economic or scientific.The four key concepts in CR are: components, structures, levels, and emergent properties.A component is a building block of a structure.A structure is a set of components organised in a specific way, that is, a set of components in particular relationships to each other.A level is a certain set of structures which are themselves related to each other. The key points here are: a) that structures can themselves as act as components for higher level structures; and b) that components can be examined as structures formed from lower level components.Emergent properties are properties, attributes, powers, etc. that only emerge at a certain structural level. This means that the ‘emergent’ does not exist at the component level of that structure. One can’t break up the structure in search of the origin of the property, because it isn’t there. It exists as part of relationships. This applies at all levels, too. Higher and higher levels of structures have properties emerging at each level, which can’t be reduced to a lower level structure or component, and certainly can’t be reduced to some notional ‘lowest’ level component, because, according to our concepts, any so-called ‘lowest’ level component is always a structure, too.Some example would obviously help here, for those comrades entirely unfamiliar with CR, and for whom the above outline is a bit ‘dry’.Perhaps an example of a structure is a car. Notice, that I have chosen this as at a structural level for my explanation. This structure is made up of components, like engine, wheels, seats, etc. But these components are themselves structures, too, and I could have chosen to use any of them as a structure, rather than as a component, within my explanation. An emergent property of a car is speed. But this only exists at the car structural level, and examining the seats, wheels or engine for speed won’t reveal it. If these components are laid out, unstructured and unrelated, on a garage floor, they do not contain ‘speed’. Similarly, if cars are brought together in a specific structural relationship called traffic (that is, the structure ‘car’ is now acting as a ‘component’ for a higher structure), other properties emerge which don’t exist at the car level, like a ‘jam’. A hundred cars spread out over a city do not constitute a ‘traffic jam’ (with its lack of speed); it’s only a jam if the cars are brought together in the same street at the same time, in a certain relationship. A ‘jam’ does not exist at the car level, nor at the seat level.Four points: I think that CR can help explain scientific issues in both physical and social science; CR is the imposition of human theory upon the world (not 'induction' nor 'practice and theory') and thus follows the slogan 'theory and practice'; CR is essentially ‘relational’; CR is bound up with ideology, and it is anathaema to ‘individualist’ or ‘reductionist’ thought. In all these ways, I think CR is compatible with Marx’s views on science and nature.Science necessarily focuses upon a certain level: this is a human choice, not something that a structure forces upon the human. Perhaps the next stage is to show how this theory can be applied to help us to understand both rocks and value (ie. both physical and social phenomena), as I’ve already insisted that a ‘unified method’ must be able to do.

I should add that I'm assuming agreement with the ontological belief that 'material' and 'ideal' have the same status, so anyone who's an ideological 'materialist/physicalist' will be ignored from now on.

[LBird]

Once again, Engels as the unwitting culprit for nonsense assigned to a 'Marxism', which is nothing to do with Marx.

Joseph McCarney wrote:

Any appearance of supporting the dominant view has thereby vanished and it is left without a basis in Marx’s work.The discussion should seek by way of conclusion to trace the false consciousness theme to its source. This is to be found beyond all question in Engels:‘Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces’.[10]It would be idle to deny that some conceptual connection is being proposed here between ideology and false consciousness. Yet more needs to be said if its weight is to be assessed correctly. The first point to make is that the proposal, Engels’s only explicit reference to ‘false consciousness’, comes from a letter written some ten years after Marx’s death. Moreover, Engels himself has a sharp sense of the division between private correspondence and work intended for the public realm. A short time later he was to warn another correspondent: ‘Please do not weigh each word in the above too scrupulously… I regret that I have not the time to work out what I am writing to you so exactly as I should be obliged to do for publication’.[11] The conception that was sketched in his private correspondence plays no part, it should be noted, in Engels’s own use of the concept of ideology in works written for publication, even in those of which he was the sole author.[12] Moreover, his warning has in one sense been thoroughly heeded. For very little attention has been paid in the later literature to the particular shade of meaning he wished to attach to the notion of false consciousness. What he seems to have had in mind is a quite specific kind of cognitive failure on the part of an individual, a failure of self-awareness, a lack of insight into the ‘motive forces’ of their own thinking. What is generally in question later under the rubric of false consciousness is, as was suggested above, some form of collective illusion of much more general scope. Plainly this cannot claim even so much of the authority of Engels as would otherwise attach to the contents of the false consciousness letter.It should be added that this letter is not the only source of guidance on the question of ideology that Engels has to offer after Marx’s direct influence on him was removed. In a text Engels did intend for publication, and indeed over which he might be assumed to have taken particular care, he speaks of ‘the great law of motion of history, the law according to which all historical struggles, whether they proceed in the political, religious, philosophical or some other ideological domain, are in fact only the more less clear expression of struggles of social classes’.[13] This may surely be taken as a version of the formulation of Marx’s ‘Preface’ that is helpfully more explicit in one important respect, its reference to ‘the struggles of social classes’, than the earlier work could afford to be in its own time. An attempt to develop a positive account of what ideology means to Marx and, a lone aberration apart, to Engels also, could hardly do better than to start here. To do so would be a more fitting tribute to Engels’s intellectual legacy than that represented by the pursuit of the spectre of false consciousness he so lightly conjured into existence.

[my bold]Engels is the source for much misunderstanding of Marx, including in questions of science.

[LBird]

Extract from Vin's link:

Joseph McCarney wrote:

The correct conclusion is surely that, for Marx, ideology is conceptually compatible with both theoretical comprehension and incomprehension. This is to suggest that ideology is not, for him, an epistemological category of any kind. In more concrete terms he is, it may be said, indifferent to questions of truth status in deciding to designate items as ‘ideological’.

Whether an ideology gives 'comprehension' or 'incomprehension' depends on one's class viewpoint.Bourgeois ideology gives incomprehension to the proletariat, but comprehension to the bourgeoisie.Proletarian ideology gives incomprehension to the bourgeoisie, but comprehension to the proletariat.And so it is, too, with science.

[LBird]

I think this is another link to Vin's article, which should work.https://www.marxists.org/archive/mccarney/2005/false-consciousness.htm

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Answer, it doesn't matter, so long as the same shade/wavelength is consistently called the same thing by both of us.

So, the answer is a popular vote?Will you abide by a vote, YMS, or return to the elitist insistence, constantly made by you on this thread, that your individual senses (which you also deny are socially-produced) are a better judge of 'reality' than a democratic vote?Have you now accepted that 'truth' is a social product, and not a 'copy of reality' which allegedly can be determined by an elitist method, which is not available to the proletariat?Have you recanted your religious claims, YMS?

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Seen in that way, a science that corresponds with reality is possible, and a non-ideolofgical science is possible.

The religious fanatics will not give up, even though they cannot substantiate their claims, by telling us all their 'non-ideological' method, no matter how many times we ask them to reveal this.Workers should be wary of these elitists.The elitists do not have a 'non-ideological' method. All science is a product of human enquiry. It is not, as they allege, a method to produce a copy of reality.If pushed, these elitists will always deny the power of the proletariat to make its own decisions about the nature of both the social and physical worlds.The elitists are not democrats. They claim to have a method that workers cannot possibly understand, otherwise they would teach this method to workers, with every confidence in workers' ability to employ it.They fear workers.

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

This is a long discussion that we had at the WSM forum about the concept of ideology. We have a socialist theory, but we do not have an ideology

If we define 'ideology' to be a 'theory' that 'distorts reality' (and I think you would agree that this is what 'ruling class' ideas do), and you claim that 'socialist theory' is not an 'ideology', then you must be claiming that 'socialist theory' does not distort, but gives a clear picture of reality.This, in effect, is Lenin's claim. It is also the claim made by the ruling class in the 19th century, and is still taught in schools and through the media to the unwary today. It is an anti-democratic claim, because if you have a 'theory' that doesn't distort, you can claim access to The Truth, in both physics and politics, and that 'Truth' then cannot, by its nature, be voted against. This theory legitimates minority control and elite power.To argue that 'my theory is non-ideological' is a religious claim.

SocialistPunk wrote:

There is also the disconcerting attitude that LBird points out, as it is a statement that claims absolute authority with no room for error. It reminds me of someone saying something along the lines of, "I know the world was created in 6 days because it says so in the bible."

Yes, this 'belief' in the 'objective power of one's theory' is a religious belief, and will have the same effects in our society as does religion. This religious belief is named 'materialism' (or its contemporary name, 'physicalism').Plus, we know from science that there is no 'neutral theory' in physics, never mind politics.To sum up, the claim to have a 'non-ideological theory' is a religious claim, and the basis of ruling class ideas, and it can't be the basis of a democratic and emancipatory Communism/Socialism for the proletariat.

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

SocialistPunk wrote:

Hi mcolome1When you say that, do you also include the ideology of socialism/communism?

I do not think that socialism/communism is an ideology, or an economical system. Ideology are the prevailing ideas of the ruling class. Are we going to have a ruling class under a sociaist/communist society ? 

If we define 'ideology' to be ruling class ideas, then you can't be argued with, mcolome1.But if we define 'ideology' to be human ideas which distort reality, and we know that any scientific method distorts reality (and it must, otherwise we must argue for a 'copy theory of knowledge' (that is, Lenin's view in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism that knowledge is a reflection of reality, a mirror-image)), then we can see that any scientific method is also an 'ideology'.Science tells us that there is no perfect, objective vantage point in nature, so it seems best that we should learn from science, accept our partiality, and be open about our 'ideology' when studying either the natural or social worlds.This could provide a basis to develop Marx's hopes for a 'unified scientific method'. That is, all science, from physics to sociology, employing a similar method.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

… we know reality because it's before our eyes …

Bingo!Individual sense impressions.And not my ideology, social theories.Now, will you piss off and leave me alone?Moderator1 1st Warning: 7. You are free to express your views candidly and forcefully provided you remain civil. Do not use the forums to send abuse, threats, personal insults or attacks, or purposely inflammatory remarks (trolling). Do not respond to such messages.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Hang on a sec. You're a communist? When did that happen? I'm shocked. Shocked and surprised. I never knew.

Back to taking the piss, and avoiding telling us how you know 'what reality is' and what ideology you employ to understand the world, both natural and social.That's us finished, YMS. More fool me for thinking you would engage in a discussion.

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

Science has to follow reality.

Back to post 1.What is 'reality', YMS?Do you have a 'neutral method' which tells us what 'reality' is?If so, why not tell us what that 'method' is?

YMS wrote:

That's how I'd read the section.

Your 'reading' of Marx's words is not a Communist one, which I'm openly using.What ideology are you using, YMS, to understand Marx's words?

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

And herewith Chucks section from his blast against proudhon:

Quote:

… But in the measure that history moves forward, and with it the struggle of the proletariat … From this moment, science, which is a product of the historical movement [and class struggle], has associated itself consciously with it [the class struggle], has ceased to be doctrinaire and has become revolutionary.

[my inserts]http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/poverty-philosophy/ch02.htmIn some ways, quite relevent to this discussion. 

So, 'science' is a 'product' (not a 'reflection' of the 'physical').'Science' is a product of 'historical class struggle' (not a product of 'academics' or 'elite experts').The existing 'doctrinaire science' of the bourgeoisie has to associate itself with the 'revolutionary class of the proletariat' (and not the proletariat adopt existing science).Do you agree with this, YMS?

[LBird]

YMS wrote:

So, I came to discuss, based on a bit of reading, and Lbird chose not to discuss.

I'm afraid you are going to have to discuss with people who share the politics of the sites that you've been reading, YMS, rather than with a proponent of Communist Democracy, who looks to Marx for inspiration, like me.I've no interest in doing the work required to help you explore your ideological interests.

[Author]

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