LBird
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Young Master Smeet wrote:I'm not seeking to know Nature in itself, but what nature for us is.
'Nature for us' is 'properties for us'.You're arguing for 'properties in themselves'.So, you are seeking to know 'nature in itself'.
Young Master Smeet wrote:*Ahem* "Emancipated labour", "Common ownership""Humans, without power": do you see power existing in socialism? "mental states accord with its lived experience" is that not another way of saying "theory and practice" oh, I think it is. I also didn't mention moon rockets, calamari nor bovril.As I said, no workers/proletariat, democracy or revolution."mental states accord with its lived experience" is that not another way of saying "theory and practice" oh, I think it is." – no, it's a way of referring to 'individuals', their brains and biological activity, and slyly avoids mentioning 'social theory and practice', or 'democratic production'. Perhaps you're only fooling yourself."do you see power existing in socialism?"This is the clincher – of course 'power' will exist in socialism. Only those who claim 'individual sovereignty', will disagree with the view that socialism will involved social disagreement, debates, votes, decisions, and minorities who lose the social argument.That's why you avoid terms like 'democracy' and 'social production'.Why not come clean about your ideology, YMS? Are you simply unaware of it, or consciously hiding it from everyone?
Young Master Smeet wrote:A relationship involves two things, if one part adds nothng to the relationship, there is no relationship. Can you at least agree with that basic premise? If not, where is it flawed?Your argument is flawed because the 'subject' is the 'active side'.If you wish to 'know' the 'properties' of 'inorganic nature', that is, 'nature-in-itself', then you are separating subject and object.I keep telling you this, what Marx said, and what Jordan says Marx said, but you keep replacing it with your own ideological claim, that 'inorganic nature has properties-in-themselves'.Your claim differs from Marx's. Marx argues for the social production of 'organic nature' (or, 'nature-for-us'). You're arguing for 'nature-in-itself'.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Emancipated labour, under conditions of common ownership allows for the realisation of unalienated humanity, one that's mental states accord with its lived experience: a practical unity of actions and control over the world and its collective social enviornment, a conscious association that knows itself to be a human community. Its thought objects would emerge from the discussion between humans, without power, thus enabling discourse to be free and unfettered, a language of a hamanity without distortions needed to keep a subject populaion in check. The free development of each would be the condition for the free development of all, and each human would be an end in themself.You'll all notice that YMS never mentions proletariat/workers, democracy or revolution.YMS is a 'materialist' and an individualist, and wishes to realise the bourgeois dream for 'free individuals', and stresses 'practical' rather than 'social theory and practice', and avoids social concepts like 'power'.
This view of the relationship between subject and object (that the active subject produces the object) is why Marx's epistemology is a revolutionary one, and how and why it differs from the claims of the bourgeoisie. They claim that they 'discover' a 'pre-existing' world of 'objects', of 'things-in-themselves'.If the bourgeoisie are correct, then we can't change 'objective-properties'; if Marx is correct, then we can change 'properties-for-us'.I'm aware that this claim is unfamiliar (or even downright objectionable) to those brainwashed by bourgeois science, but nevertheless it is the underpinning of a revolutionary, democratic epistemology, which can provide the class conscious proletariat with the 'theory' needed for their 'practice', when they set out to change their world.
YMS wrote:A relationship for necesarily implies properties (we've been over this several tiems) which your view would deny, since you cannot admit without your whole argument crashign down) that inogranic nature brings anything to the party.YMS, either the subject-object relationship has to be present, and the subject is the 'active side', or the object has 'properties-in-itself'.I'll only say this once more, because you're not reading what I (or Marx or Jordan) write: 'properties' are a product of the relationship (ie. 'properties-for-us') and are not 'properties of objects' (ie. 'properties-in-themselves').If you want 'citations', either read what I've written already in my replies, or Jordan's text, or Marx's works.You are a 'materialist', and your ideology argues that 'properties exist outside of the subject'. Marx does not argue this, because Marx is not a 'materialist'.'Inorganic nature' doesn't have 'properties' – 'properties' are brought into 'existence' for a 'subject'. The subject is the 'active side', so 'properties' are always 'properties-for' an active subject. The active subject produces its world.This is why Marx argues for 'social labour' and 'social production', and always stresses 'relationships' within which we humans are the producers of our reality.As you say, "we've been over this several times", but you won't accept that there is a difference in what we're claiming. I have no problem accepting that we employ differing ideologies, but you don't seem to be able to see where your claims differ from Marx's, no matter how many times (more than 'several') that I (or Jordan) point this out to you.Summary:YMS – 'inorganic nature has properties' – they are 'properties-in-themselves';Marx – 'inorganic nature does not have properties' – they are social products, 'properties-for-us'.
Young Master Smeet wrote:My ideology is that of a Marxist and a humanist, I consider that human beings exist within the world, that ideas are cultural and material, that ideology is lived. Our unconscious exists in the world around us, which is structured semiotically through deferred meaning. I agreed with the Bakhtin school that signs are polyphonic and contested, meaning is historical. I agree with Serle that language is intentional and not merely algorithmic.All you have to tell us now, YMS, is how this ideology of yours allows workers to democratically control the production of their world, how workers can produce their truth.
Young Master Smeet wrote:Lbird, I do read your comments, and when I ask for genuine questions and clarifications I'm met with accusation or obstruction. The problem is …I don't think that you read my comments as I write them, but through your own beliefs, which differ from mine.I don't think that you ask genuine questions and clarifications, because it's clear that your questions often have nothing to do with what either I, Marx or Jordan write, but what you wish that we'd written.The only obstructions that you're meeting are built by your own ideology, because I've constantly answered your questions, given quotes, and tried to use analogies to explain. You simply won't read what I write.And, 'the problem is…', you hold to an ideology that I don't, and because you are hiding that ideology (perhaps unconsciously, giving you the benefit of the doubt), you are hiding the assumptions, concepts, theories, beliefs, etc. that we don't share.You're a 'materialist, YMS, and neither Marx nor I are. Unless you examine your assumptions and contrast them with Marx's (for example, 'object' versus 'object-for'), then you'll remain in the dark.Perhaps you are happy to be in the dark, but I am not, and wish to understand how Marx's epistemology provides a way for workers to democratically control their own production.
YMS, you'll have to read what I've already written, because I'm tiring of repeating myself. Just like robbo, you are refusing to read what I write (and what Marx and Jordan write), and substitute what your ideology tells you that we three should write.It'd be better for all concerned if you openly state your ideology, because then we could compare your assumptions and concepts with Marx's assumptions and concepts (which I share – but then, I don't either hide my ideology or pretend not to have one).One piece of helpful advice that I'd give youse: the concept of 'object' for 'materialism', and the concept of 'object' for Marx, are very different.For 'materialism', 'object' exists outside of any relation to a 'subject'.For Marx, 'object' is produced by (ie. comes into 'existence-for') a 'subject'.So, for 'materialism', 'existence' relates to an object (an 'object-in-itself').So, for Marx, 'existence-for' relates to a relationship between 'subject-object' (an 'object-for-a-subject').I don't mind you, robbo, Vin or mcolome1 saying that they don't agree with Marx, but at least try to understand his epistemology. Marx's views are relational.
robbo, it seems pointless for me to say the same things, once again.You can read what I'm saying, and what I'm saying is backed up by Jordan.What seems to be the problem is that you don't accept what I'm saying. Which is fair enough.But these are Marx's arguments, and I do accept what Marx says.The difference between us is an ideological difference.You use the term 'exists' – I use the term 'exists-for-us'. You thus separate object from subject, whereas I don't (for Marx, an 'object' can't 'exist' before it's produced by a 'subject'). You might not like this, but it is what Marx argues, as Jordan clearly outlines, and with which I agree.As I've said, if you think this is 'obviously absurd', then tell us what your ideology says. Then we can compare your ideology with Marx's, and I'll point out the differences.
Young Master Smeet wrote:No, please do explain how I can turn a table into cheese. Either:1) I'm radically misunderstanding your position.2) Inorganic nature is differentiated, real and our being in that world depends ono the relationship of our needs to that reality.There is a third possibility, YMS, but since the thread has been mostly comradely, and in the interests of avoiding a ban, I'll leave it to others to work it out.
You'll have to read Jordan's article if you want to understand any more, YMS.If you don't agree with Marx and Jordan, that's fine by me.Just use 'your' ideology when workers ask about epistemology. And if they prefer your ideology to mine, that's fine by me, too.
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:You'll have to explain the relevance of your model to the revolutionary proletariat who wish to change their world and democratise all social production.In your dough analogy, how would you respond to the worker who asks "How can I make a table into cheese?"
Why would a worker whose purpose is to understand Marx's epistemology ask a question irrelevant to the analogy?
Young Master Smeet wrote:LBird wrote:Unless you accept that Marx links subject and object by activity, then you won't understand the analogy, and will simply, as a 'materialist', wish to 'know' what 'dough' is, 'in-itself', outside of any baker, recipe and pie.I'm not a 'dough-in-itself-ist', and neither was Marx.Dough has properties, and qualities. But thse qualities are not dough in itself, but dough for us, we shape the dough by our approach to it, but can only do with it what we can do with dough.
That's an arguable opinion, YMS, that Marx's 'inorganic nature' has an 'existence' outside of its 'ingredientness'.But it's not Marx's opinion, as I've shown, and as Jordan confirms. Also, Bogdanov is useful here, too, because he argues that 'resistance' implies 'activity', and 'activity' implies 'resistance'. The two are inescapably interlinked, as are subject and object.Furthermore, the argument that 'inorganic nature' 'exists outside' of our usage of it, is what the bourgeoisie argue.These are opposed ideologies, but only one of those ideologies would be in the interests, and for the purposes, of the democratic proletariat.Workers have to choose their ideology. Either they chose to determine, by social theory and practice, their own object, or they passively accept the object presented to them by the active bourgeoisie (who employ their own theory and practice to produce 'object-for-them'). Obviously, class interests are involved in this choice of epistemology.
