LBird
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DJP wrote:LBird wrote:The religious are currently ahead of the proletariat in their thinking.
Oh dear!
Yeah, it's serious, isn't it?You did read ALB's quote on the Pannekoek thread, didn't you?Doesn't it concern you that religious philosophers are currently ahead of many in the SPGB, when it comes to understanding science?
DJP wrote:ALB wrote:That and the rest is all very well, but you still haven't said whether you think Pannekoek was studying and teaching "bourgeois astrology"I wonder if you'll get an answer to this. It seems at the slightest nudge LBird's profound theory collapses into contradiction. Oh well..PS i think you meant "astronomy"
Well, there's no danger of your 'theory collapsing into contradiction', because you haven't revealed yours, neither 'profound' nor 'simplistic'! What have you got to hide, DJP? Ignorance of scientific method?At least someone within the SPGB knows the difference between 'astrology' and 'astronomy', so we're making some slight 'scientific' progress!
ALB wrote:LBird wrote:All science is ideological.That and the rest is all very well, but you still haven't said whether you think Pannekoek was studying and teaching "bourgeois astrology"
You really should concentrate on discussing scientific method, ALB.All the other side-tracks just slow down the process of us all learning to distinguish Engelsian positivism from Marxian critical practice.But since you ask, of course Pannekoek was teaching 'bourgeois astronomy' (I presume your use of 'astrology' was a slip of the finger, but sometimes I wonder with positivists).The proletarian scientific method would be a mass, democratic method, which, of course, Pannekoek, teaching within a bourgeois university, was unable to employ.Whether the proletariat would reach the same conclusions as the bourgeoisie, regarding any research results, will only become clear to us in a future Communist society. No doubt, there will be some agreement, and some disagreement. Science doesn't produce the 'Truth', and so the wheat must be sorted from the chaff. Clearly, some results of 'bourgeois astronomy' will be revised.But, the method will be very different: no elite, undemocratic, privately-funded class institutions outside of our control.Pannekoek, et al, will be under the control of the proletariat.It's what he would've wanted!
Vin Maratty wrote:How did you come to that conclusion?By the proletarian scientific method.What's a 'scientific method'?I'll show you mine, if you show me yours!My advice, Vin, is to read the Pannekoek thread first, then you'll know what I'm going to say, and perhaps you can then produce a valid counter-argument, that those opposing Marx and Pannekoek have not yet been able to do.
ALB wrote:Ok, yes, there's bourgeois sociology, economics, history, etc but not bourgeois astronomy, biology, engineering, etc.So, you disagree with Marx about the possibility of a unified scientific method?Can you please describe the process of cognition that "astronomy, biology, engineering, etc" employ, which is different to the process of cognition which "sociology, economics, history, etc" employ?The ideological belief that 'natural science' is different in its philosophy and methods to 'social science' is a bourgeois ideological construct.If humanity in its entirety, employing democratic methods, isn't the source of authority for the human activity of 'science', who is?If the answer is 'scientists', doesn't this belief conflict with Marx's warning about separating society into two halves, one of which is superior to the wider society itself?All science is ideological.This is the essential lesson for the proletariat to learn, and even bourgeois philosophers of science have draw this conclusion. You yourself, ALB, posted a quote from Muslim scholars who are well aware of the fundamental weakness of this 19th positivist view of science, as a bi-fold activity, one of which produces 'The Truth' of 'Objective Fact', and the other which is 'Mere Opinion' and 'Political Intrusion on Science'. The religious are currently ahead of the proletariat in their thinking. We must meet this challenge.While proletarians cling to outdated 19th century positivist ideology, erroneously inducted into 'scientific socialism' by Engels, they can't hope to take the lead in the production of proletarian ideas in a battle with bourgeois ideology, including both central columns of the bourgeoisie, Science and The Market.
ALB wrote:What has been overlooked in these (in my opinion unfair) attacks on Engels for creating "scientific socialism" is that this was not just Engels's personal opinion or invention. It was the general view of the German Social Democratic movement of the time. Here, for instance, is what Rosa Luxemburg wrote near the end of her 1900 pamphlet Reform or Revolution:Quote:Some time ago Lassalle said: “Only when science and the workers, these opposite poles of society, become one, will they crush in their arms of steel all obstacles to culture.” … Only when the great mass of workers take the keen and dependable weapons of scientific socialism in their own hands, will all the petty-bourgeois inclinations, all the opportunistic currents, come to naught..Is she the next for the chop and inclusion in some Engels/Luxemburg/Lenin/Stalin amalgam !I don't think anyone will get us to ditch Engels. In fact to link Engels to Lenin and Stalin is a travesty as bad as linking Marx to them.
I rest my case, ALB! Add Luxembourg and Lassalle to 'The Engelsian Amalgam'! Chop, chop, chop!The formula 'science and workers' is the most damaging positivist nonsense for the proletariat.There is no 'proletarian science' outside of the workers. 'Science', without any prefix, is a bourgeois ideological construct.Those who say 'science' say 'bourgeois science'.Thus, the disastrous formulation 'bourgeois science and workers' is inimical to proletarian class consciousness.
mcolome1 wrote:Nature+society is the real conception of Marx and the proponents of socialism as the only alternative ( no alternatives ) to capitalism. It is much better than Engels' scientific socialism, but also indicating that the intention of Engels was to distinct themselves from the utopian socialists[my bold]Yes, mcolome1, the 'real conception of Marx' was the unity of nature and society.But, it is not only 'much better than Engels' scientific socialism', but the very opposite of 'Engels' scientific socialism' (sic)!Engels' 'intention' might have been praiseworthy, but in practice he ditched Marx's critical social practice and returned to crude materialism, due both to the ideological pressure of 19th century positivism and his philosophical amateurism. So, we have had to put up with over 100 years of so-called 'Marxists' insisting that 'matter' talks to us! This applies not only to the DiaMat-ists of Lenin/Stalin, but also to those who insist (when asked about the process of cognition) that 'matter/reality/physics' etc. is prior to humans. This is incorrect. Of course, reality is prior historically (it exists prior to human questions about it), but in any attempt by humans to understand that reality, humanity is prior.The social subject asks questions of the really-existing object, this 'asking' is a practical, active process (not a passive contemplation), and the product is scientific knowledge.We have to expel the so-called 'materialist' strain of Engels/Lenin/Stalin from proletarian consciousness, and replace it with the 'historical materialism' of Marx/Pannekoek.
mcolome1 wrote:We can not reduce everything to the point of view of the natural sciences, otherwise we are going to do the same thing of the vulgar materialists.[my bold]No, we must expand the natural sciences to include society. Then we will have the unified scientific method that Marx sought.Knowledge, of both nature and society, is social.
Vin Maratty wrote:Am I to take it that you also refer to medicine, physics etc.? If so, then they do a great job without 'objectivity'.But readers of tea-leaves 'do a great job', in their opinion.Surely our conception of 'science' goes further than saying it is something that 'does a great job'?
Vin Maratty wrote:'Science' cannot be pinned down and attempts to do so lead to inaction and a fear of progress. Science has many problems and it is at times a dim light but it is the only light we have.But we could replace 'science' in your statement above with 'god', and it would give us a guide as to what 'science' is, from this perspective.
Quote:'God' cannot be pinned down and attempts to do so lead to inaction and a fear of progress. God has many problems and it is at times a dim light but it is the only light we have.Sounds like good ol' 19th century postivist faith, to me! Anyone who questions just what 'science' is, and asks for an explanation of how it gives us knowledge, is pointed to 'his/its' works, and condemned as an unbeliever, who is out to destroy 'science'.But…. I'm not going to drag this discussion out, once more. If anyone's interested, read the Pannekoek thread.
mcolome1 wrote:Although most of the article is fine, I think that this particular line is outdated.
Socialist Standard wrote:Engels has had to take some stick for introducing the term “scientific socialism” but it is an accurate description of the outcome of Marx’s (and his own) encounter with the German philosophy of his day.I think that it's possible to argue precisely that 'scientific socialism' was Engels' baby, not Marx's.If 'scientific socialism' was meant to mean 'objective knowledge', then we now know that this is impossible, and would indeed give Engel 'stick' for following too closely to 19th century positivism.If 'scientific socialism' is to mean anything, it must mean 'a proletarian unified science'. And with the coming of Communism, and the end of classes, it will just be 'a human unified science', which will encompass both nature and society with a single, unified scientific method.Humans are at the centre of any science. There is no 'objective' science, in the sense meant by positivist/empiricist science. The closest we can get to 'objectivity' is a 'social objectivity' which specifies its inescapable social content.And in a class society, the 'social content' of science is always a class content.
Morgenstern wrote:I/we (arguably always we
) argue that the mind is it's own system which has only a contingent relationship to the world beyond the senses. Look at it this way. There is a time lag in acquiring sense data, making sense of it, and our being aware of it. By the time we 'see' a thing, consciously, it is long gone. We are just experiencing echoes.But the 'mind' is much more than an individual brain. Although you've acknowledged 'we', it reads like you're talking about an 'individual consciousness'.And 'echoes' sounds awfully passive, rather than regarding humans as active producers of knowledge.
Morgenstern wrote:In other words, that we have an eagle eye view of the cosmos. Our brains are like a camera obscura that reflects the cosmos through the pinhole of the senses to form an image of it in the brain.This is the 'naive realist' view of the world, based upon positivist science.This isn't the view of Critical Realism.
Morgenstern wrote:The normal, 'naive' view of reality is that it is out there and we apprehend it with our minds.Well, the alternative to this 'normal, naive view' is that the mind creates reality. Surely you're not arguing this?Certainly, the basis of Critical Realism is that there is an objective world, 'out there', which exists prior to, and separately from, our perception of it.We discussed all this on the 'Pannekoek' thread, so I won't reprise that, but human understanding comes from our subjective social interaction with an external objective reality.
Morgenstern wrote:We have nothing meaningful to say about the world beyond the senses.But, at any given point, much of the world is 'beyond our senses'.As Marx argued, 'senses' are much more than the biological receptors of an individual, and 'human senses' are social and develop with society, and so are also historical.Surely the whole point of science is to go 'beyond our senses', in some way?
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird,actually, I'm not joking, I'm in with the Singularitarians on the immnent emergence of human constructed super human intelligence (when I say "I" I obviously mean the linguistically constructed retroactive justification for the actions of the meat-bot hitting the the keyboard right now).Good one, comrade! You nearly had me there!We all know, of course, that 'super human intelligence' will only emerge with Communism.I have faith in us 'meat-bots'!
