[LBird]

Sorry, I nearly forgot:

DJP wrote:

I'm going to repeat a question posed by twc

twc wrote:

please show us just one instance of any piece of substantial scientific work performed by any natural or mathematical scientist which should, in your opinion, have been rejected but instead survived scrutiny merely because the scientist and the profession “believed in private property in the means of production”.

This is the real acid test. If you can't answer this then I think you have nothing substantial to say. But then if truth is a social construct it probably doesn't matter.

Weath of Nations by Adam Smith.In not only my opinion, but also that of Marx, this 'piece of substantial scientific work' 'should have been rejected'. I think we both agree that this work only 'survived scrutiny merely because the scientist and the profession “believed in private property in the means of production"'.Now, we here differ on what constitutes 'science', and why 'natural or mathematical' should be regarded as separate activities from 'political economy'.This is because we are employing differing 'theories of cognition'.I'd like to discuss this, and have tried all thread, but you won't disclose your cognitive method.Next installment from the positivists: 'Marx's 'value' is not scientific!'

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I have little more time for this as I'm afraid what you're putting forward is another wild goose chase and distraction from the real tasks that are necessary for the propagation of socialism.

Well, give up arguing about something you know nothing about, DJP!You stick to 'propagating socialism', and stay away from 'wild goose chases'.I just know you're not interested in defining 'wild goose chase', because you think it is not a 'social construct', but an 'objective reality'.From now on, I won't bother you, until you disclose your method of cognition. God knows, I've told you mine dozens of times, and your failure to expose yours only undermines your genuine concerns about 'relativism'.Your method ignores the subject and only concerns the object. This is incorrect. The subject interacts with the object (as Marx, Dietzgen, Pannekoek, etc. argue) and so knowledge must contain traces of 'subject'. To argue otherwise, that knowledge contains no traces of subject, is to argue that knowledge is only object (or parts of it). This is naive realism or positivism.Right, now, just ignore me, unless you wish to disclose your method. I promise to ignore you, until then.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

 was not suggesting a free hand for socialists when it comes to history or politics as long as they accept a general realism or materialism…

Unfortunately, ALB, things are not so simple.'Accepting general realism or materialism' means it is acceptable for Communists to accept 'naive realism' and 'positivism', which are 19th century-based ideological views of 'science', and would also allow Uncle Joe's 'Dialectical Materialism' in, too.I, for one, think that this is not acceptable.

ALB wrote:

Of course, when it comes to history, we defend the MCH, not any other theory even if it be materialist…

Yes, but what comprises the 'MCH'? I think what I've been arguing is entirely compatible with the 'MCH', and that yours and DJP's views about the sun/earth relationship is not.The sun/earth relationship has a history. To argue that it is, on the contrary, a 'True Discovery', is to take the 'Historical' out of MCH. Thus, we are left with a Static 'Materialist Conception'.

ALB wrote:

The same with regard to action to change society. We have our particular theory which differs from other theories even though they too are materialist.

Yes, 'change' and 'society', includes 'change to science'. We Communists must ditch the bourgeois myth of 'discovery science', and replace it with the MCH.As you rightly say, 'our particular theory differs'. But… what is 'particular' about it, if it accepts naive realism and positivist notions of 'Truth' and 'discovery science'?What is 'particular' about our 'science' is precisely its historical content. Thus, it is human science, a social science, with a history.

[LBird]

Perhaps comrades might benefit from reading:Boris Hessen's The Social and Economic Roots of Newton’s Principiahttp://www.russelldale.com/phil-material/V1_Hessen.pdf

Hessen, p. 3, wrote:

Only the proletariat, which aims to create a classless society, is free from a limited understanding of the historical process and produces a true, genuine history of nature and society.

Hessen was executed by the NKVD in 1936.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Hessen

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I thought you said you where a realist? In that case the concept that is "the law of gravity" also has to refer to something that is real in the universe. Therefore the "law of gravity" is not just a human construct but also something real in the world.

Yes, as I have been saying for the whole thread, a 'law' is a human construct based something in the real world.Law = knowledge; human = subject; real world = object; construct = interaction between subject and object.If you don't accept the necessity of an active subject, just say so.If you do accept the necessity of an active subject, say how this active subject interacts with the object to produce 'knowledge' of the object that isn't tainted by human thought. This is what positivists believed they were doing: gaining untainted access to the 'object', to produce 'objective knowledge'.

DJP wrote:

I don't see how you can claim to be a realist and disagreee with this statement. Unless I've misunderstood what is meant by "realism"…

I'm a realist, I agree with the statement, and I think you've misunderstood what is meant by "realism". Critical realism doesn't produce 'objective knowledge'. Naive realism claims to, though

DJP, post #15, wrote:

An 'object' does not have a truth value in and of itself, only propositions about an object can have a truth value.

Here, you seem to accept that 'truth' is about humans, not simply the object.I don't know how I can say this any clearer: science is an interaction between object and subject, and produces knowledge.You can't keep accusing me of ignoring the object (reality), when in fact you ignore the subject (society).Cognition requires both object and subject. Their interaction produces knowledge. Knowledge is not simply a product of object, so can't be 'objective'. Knowledge always has a social component.Hope this helps.

[LBird]

Sorry about the tone of my last post, DJP. My frustration is getting the better of me.

DJP wrote:

Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.

The 'law of gravity' is a human construct.

Pannekoek wrote:

Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of [hu]man[ity]

It seems that you're more concerned with 'what' happens, rather than 'why' it happens.On the contrary, science is trying to explain 'why' things happen, so we have some chance of changing it.

DJP wrote:

Yes you have quoted him, but it seems to me you have misunderstood.He is not saying that truth is a social construct but that what is "true for" a certain group of people in a certain time is. But when we talk about "true for" we are not talking about truth but beliefs..In the quote you used I guess there could be some ambiguity as to if he is talking about theories or entities, but this can be settled by looking at the whole of his work…

So, you separate 'truth' from 'belief'. No problems. Could you explain the method for producing 'truth'? I think we can all come up with the method for 'belief': 'The priest/teacher/policeman told me so'.If I've 'misunderstood' Pannekoek, and his 'whole works' can settle this, can you provide some pointers to the contrary position, written by Pannekoek? By the way, he says 'substances, laws and forces': I'm not sure how 'ambiguous' this is

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.

Well, if you think that that's a good enough method for Communists to understand reality, according to you DJP, that's OK by me. Has the entire thread gone over your head?Would you like, finally, to describe your theory of cognition, or is 'common sense' profound enough for you?

DJP wrote:

You are stating a cognitive relativist position here. This is quite a popular position in the Bourgeois university and runs counter to Deitzgen, Marx and Pannekoek, if you read them carefully enough.

How 'careful' is 'carefully enough'? I've just quoted Pannekoek.'Careful', as in the sense Lenin 'read' Dietzgen?Why not just expose your position on 'science', DJP, rather than merely criticise mine from an unstated position?

DJP wrote:

Instrumentalism is the exact opposite of realism. Realism takes the contents of theories as real things existing in the world…

As I never tire of explaining, I’m a realist, and as I’ve explained a thousand times (it feels like), Schaff’s theory of cognition is based upon ‘real things’.Would you care to explain how we have access to ‘real things’ with a neutral human activity? Just use ‘our senses’?

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I think this makes you some sort of an "instrumentalist" as described hereand here(like you described Bogdanov as being). This is not meant as a criticism as I think Pannekoek could be placed in this broad tradition.

ALB, I know nothing about instrumentalism, but I offer the following comments on the links that you provided.

Britannica wrote:

instrumentalism,also called experimentalism, a philosophy advanced by the American philosopher John Dewey holding that what is most important in a thing or idea is its value as an instrument of action and that the truth of an idea lies in its usefulness.

Isn’t Dewey a liberal individualist? I’m not sure that he would agree that ‘importance’, ‘value’ and ‘truth’ are socially-determined concepts, and thus open to democratic control. Scientists and philosophers who believe in private property in the means of production are suspect.

Wikipedia wrote:

Instrumentalism denies that theories are truth-evaluable; instead, they should be treated like a black box into which you feed observed data, and through which you produce observable predictions. This requires a distinction between theory and observation,…

In a Communist society, the notion that theories would not be ‘truth evaluable’ would be nonsense, because ‘truth’ and ‘theories’ are human creations, and thus would be under the control of our society. ‘Instrumentalism’ assumes a humanity that accepts ‘black boxes’, perhaps like ‘the market’. Communists wouldn’t accept such a concept; we assume humans can understand our society and its products. ‘Black boxes’ are for ruling classes, and their class-based purposes.I suspect that instrumentalism is a form of naïve realism, as far as I can tell.Given what I’ve tentatively expressed above, I don’t agree with you that “Pannekoek could be placed in this broad tradition” of instrumentalism.

ALB wrote:

To tell the truth, though this discussion is interesting (at least to those taking part), I'm beginning to wonder whether a socialist party needs to take sides in the debates on "the philosophy of science" beyond defending a general "realism" or "materialism". In other words, do we really need to take sides in the more detailed debates that go on between various schools of realist/materialist philosophies of science?

In my opinion, it is of fundamental importance that a ‘side needs to be taken’ by Communists, ‘beyond defending a general "realism" or "materialism"’. The issue is one of ‘authority’. That is, ‘Is there an authority (like ‘science’ or ‘the market’) which is (or should be) outside of our democratic control?’.If ‘truth’ lies in the object, then by definition there is a neutral scientific method, not influenced by humans and their ideologies, which can give us that ‘truth’. This ‘neutral method’ is thus available to individuals, especially ‘experts’. On the contrary, following Marx and Pannekoek, if ‘truth’ lies in the human-created ‘knowledge’, then science is always a socially-biased method, and we must democratically control that activity.The test of one’s position on these issues, it seems to me, is the question of the respective paths of the sun/earth, that we’ve discussed on this thread. Those who believe that the ‘paths’ we now ‘know’ are an ‘eternal truth’ of the object, are taking a different position to Pannekoek. That is, they are taking the position of ‘discovery science’.

Pannekoek wrote:

Man is in the first place an active being. In the Labour process he utilises his organs and aptitudes in order to constantly build and remake his environment. In this procedure he not only invented the artificial organs we call tools, but also trained his physical and mental aptitudes so that they might react effectively to his natural environment as instruments in the preservation of life. His main organ is the brain whose function, thinking, is as good a physical activity as any other. The most important product of brain activity, of the efficient action of the mind upon the world is science, which stands as a mental tool next to the material tools and, itself a productive power, constitutes the basis of technology and so an essential part of the productive apparatus.Hence Historical Materialism looks upon the works of science, the concepts, substances, natural Laws, and forces, although formed out of the stuff of nature, primarily as the creations of the mental Labour of man. Middle-class materialism, on the other hand, from the point of view of the scientific investigator, sees all this as an element of nature itself which has been discovered and brought to light by science. Natural scientists consider the immutable substances, matter, energy, electricity, gravity, the Law of entropy, etc., as the basic elements of the world, as the reality that has to be discovered. From the viewpoint of Historical Materialism they are products which creative mental activity forms out of the substance of natural phenomena.

[my bold]If an activity or its products are human, then they have to be under our democratic control.No ‘experts’ who have a special access to ‘the Truth’. That is bourgeois science.

[LBird]

Some notable extracts from DJP's link, which shed some light on our discussions on this thread, I think.

SPGB wrote:

Why then should we reserve a privileged place for science? Why exempt physical science, one of the cultural products which capitalism finds most useful, from this analysis? What else can science be but the creation of social actors in definite historical circumstances?

Relevant to our 'sun/earth' debate? That the 'truth' of their orbits is a 'creation of social actors in definite historical circumstances'. The 'sun going round the earth' was true for those in the 17th century, for their concrete purposes.

SPGB wrote:

Here defenders of the conventional view of science have little choice but to assert that there is no science except the current orthodoxy. They must accept a creed which glorifies the science of now and, in a most unhistorical way, deny that anything can be learned from the past, for it is all error to them.

And again? The 'orthodox' argument that what's 'true' now (earth goes round the sun) was 'true' then. 'A most unhistorical way', of conceiving science, knowledge and truth?

SPGB wrote:

"A science which hesitates to forget its founders is lost”, said A.N.Whitehead the mathematician. Such historical forgetfulness is a necessary condition for a science which is held to be the sacred truth to which all classes can appeal. But, with each change of theory, when the last lot of founders are forgotten, it requires that the picture of the world as seen by the scientists must change. Yet each generation tries to project its theories as being consistent, coherent and complete – scientific.

Yes, 'science' as 'classless sacred truth'. TINA. An authority outside of our democratic control.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

…I hope you fill this thread with your insults and childish inanities. That level of response is all you have when confronted with facts that are inconvenient.

Poo.

[LBird]

Hrothgar wrote:

That's the infantile level on which you conduct this debate. In fact, to call this 'reasoning' is an insult to the common toad.

Ah-ha! Not if one is dealing with a racial sub-species of the 'common toad', the 'infantile common toad', Latin name Hrothgar simpletonus all-whytus.A little known fact.

[LBird]

Brian wrote:

Thanks for that. However, it seems to me you are assuming that knowledge by default = understanding. This is not always necessarily so because we have come across endless "scientific experts" who seem to possess the 'knowledge' but fail miserably when providing an understanding of that knowledge.

Thanks for the feedback.The issue of 'knowledge not equalling understanding', is I think, a problem with the bourgeois version of 'scientific knowledge'.Within a Communist society, where we would expect science to be a mass activity, then the idea of 'experts producing a knowledge that most don't understand' would not be allowed to prevail. We would expect our human science to be available to everybody. That is, a 'scientist' would be defined as someone who can explain. I suspect the few who can't explain would be regarded as 'mystics' of some sort.

Brian wrote:

Indeed when they are reminded that change is a constant they visibly shrink at the thought that their 'knowledge' could effectively become redundant with the paradigm shift in understanding.

[my bold]I don't think that Kuhn's ideology of 'paradigms' and their 'shifts' is the best one to employ. I prefer Lakatos' 'research programmes'. The essential difference, I think, is that 'paradigms' are in 'series', so that a later one replaces an earlier one (a 'shift'). In contrast, 'research programmes' are in 'parallel', so that more than one is usually operative at the same time.This can be seen in my argument earlier, that two 'computer systems' reflecting the same business can both be 'true' whilst at the same time being different.Broadly speaking, I'm in favour of multiplicities of choices and democratic decisions between them. This is essentially an 'anti-authoritarian' approach to human society. Unlike 'bourgeois science', which people quote as an authority that can't be questioned: 'as science tells us…' or 'we know from science…'. The assumption here is that science produces 'The Truth', which is always an identical copy of the object. As I've tried to show, this can't be done, and amounts to 19th century positivism.

[LBird]

LBird wrote:

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I hope someone is going to eventually explain this thread to the rest of us in an easy to understand way so we know what it's all about

Yeah, absolutely!If these issues, complex though they appear, can't be explained to those without the requisite detailed reading to participate in this discussion at present, then we will have failed as Communists.The use of analogies, of situations with which comrades are familiar and already understand, must be employed to make these vital issues understandable and relevant to all Communists.I've had a discussion over the weekend with my son, and we're now of the opinion that computer programming methods might make this easier to understand. Are you familiar with 'programming' in any way ajj? If not, I'll have to get my thinking cap on, again!

In line with alanjjohnstone’s request for someone to try to ‘explain this thread to the rest of us in an easy to understand way so we know what it's all about’, and my suggestion that the world of computers might help, I’ll make an attempt to use the analogy of ‘building a computer system’. Of course, the problem with analogies is that, if they’re taken too literally, they obscure rather than illuminate the real issue. So, please bear this in mind, and ask questions if something seems to present a problem, rather than take something which is irrelevant to the explanation and erroneously try to follow that wrong turn and completely misunderstand.If we think of the process of building a computer system, say, for the NHS.The NHS really exists, prior to the attempt to build a computer system for it.The business analysts who ask questions of the doctors, nurses and administrators of the NHS to try to gain an understanding of the workings of the NHS, the system designers who interpret the analysis and produce a paper design of something which should work, the programmers who actively write the code following the design, and the testers who ensure that the code ‘works’ in line with the design, are all humans with pre-existing ideas, both of their own jobs, each others’ jobs, and the NHS itself. These humans have to extract relevant information from the NHS, actively design, write and use a plan reflecting the NHS.The end result of this human active process is a new product, an NHS Computer System, which in some way reflects the workings of the NHS, but is clearly not a ‘carbon copy’ of the NHS, but only a comprehensive attempt to replicate the features regarded as essential and relevant to the computer system.So, in terms of the separate entities of Schaff’s tripartite theory of cognition:the NHS is the ‘object’;the human analysts, designers, coders and testers, are the ‘subject’;the NHS Computer System is the ‘knowledge’.Is the System a ‘true’ reflection of the NHS? Yes, if it works as proposed.Is the System an identical copy of the NHS? Of course not. Another System could be built, produced by different analysts, designers, coders and testers, with different ideas about what the NHS is, and what purposes and interests the System should serve, and this second System can also be regarded as a ‘true reflection’ of the NHS, whilst still being different to the other ‘true reflection’ of the first System.As another example of this tripartite schema, perhaps posters remember DJP’s likening ‘nature’ (object) to ‘evidence’, and my response that ‘evidence’ instead was similar to ‘knowledge’ which had been selected from a ‘crime scene’. In this example, the ‘crime scene’ (object) forms the basis of an active examination by the legal offices (subject) who then build a case of evidence (knowledge).This is the cognitive method of science: scientists (subject) actively interrogate the universe (object) and employ the product (knowledge) to prove itself.Perhaps one could say that ‘knowledge’ is a representation accurate enough for the purposes of the producer. Thus, knowledge is formed by humans from the entity it represents for a reason, and the ability of the knowledge to be used for those reasons proves its accuracy.But… knowledge is not the object; knowledge is not an identical copy of object; knowledge is a selection made by an interested subject.I hope this all helps, comrades. I would appreciate some feedback from those readers who didn’t feel that they properly understood the more arcane parts of this thread, but that now they do (or don’t, as it may be).Of course, if it doesn’t work, or comrades disagree with the usefulness of the analogy, or comrades wish to explore further some things left implicit (relevant, interests, reasons, purposes, etc.), then we can continue to discuss.

[LBird]

On the sun/earth debate, and the ‘social content’ of the truth of their relationship:

Ernest Untermann, Science and Revolution, pp. 7-8 wrote:

In this sense, then, I declare that my science is a proletarian science. Not that I do not appreciate what the bourgeois scientists of the past have accomplished, or what the bourgeois scientists of to-day are doing in the way of accumulating material for the storehouse of human knowledge. But proletarian science is the expression of the revolutionary fact that the proletariat has learned to think for itself, that it refuses to accept the teachings of members of other classes without critical reservation, that it prefers to think for itself in all other sciences as it does in economics and politics, that it interprets the facts of its terrestrial and cosmic environment as it sees them from its own standpoint.

[my bold]I expose my position: that of Marx, Pannekoek, Dietzgen and, now, Untermann.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Leszek Kolakowski wrote:

Thus Marx's theory of revolution and socialism can be based only on a global understanding of society that cannot be achieved by any detailed, factual analysis.

[my bold]No, No, NO!Kolakowski must tell us which theory he's employing which determines the 'facts' to be selected for this 'detailed, factual analysis' which prove that 'Marx's theory of revolution' 'cannot achieve'.From a 'Communist perspective', it can be based on an understanding that is achieved by a detailed, factual analysis.From an 'Anti-Communist perspective', it cannot be based on an understanding that is achieved by a detailed, factual analysis.The 'facts' will be chosen from the innumerable stream to fit the assumptions of the theoretical framework, as Pannekoek and Dietzgen argue. The human social subject cannot be removed from the process of generating 'knowledge'. On one hand, the 'stream' must contain the 'facts' to be 'selected', but, on the other, the selection of what is determined to be 'relevant' is done by humans, in their society, which means 'class cognition'.The 'theory will determine what can be observed', to echo Einstein.The position of the observer must be revealed.'Facts' do not present themselves unbidden to the impartial observer. That is naive realism.'Facts' are produced as part of a pre-existing social and theoretical framework.Kolakowski is an anti-Communist.If anyone wants to employ Kolakowski's theory of cognition, fine.But declare that one is doing so.

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