[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

The New Yorker has a long article on Marx that is an interesting read with some things said that could be an interesting debate.http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/karl-marx-yesterday-and-today

article wrote:

This was the essence of Marx’s Hegelianism. Hegel argued that history was the progress of humanity toward true freedom, by which he meant self-mastery and self-understanding, seeing the world without illusions—illusions that we ourselves have created. The Young Hegelians’ controversial example of this was the Christian God. (This is what Feuerbach wrote about.) We created God, and then pretended that God created us. We hypostatized our own concept and turned it into something “out there” whose commandments (which we made up) we struggle to understand and obey. We are supplicants to our own fiction.

[my bold]We are supplicants to our own fiction, 'matter', according to the Religious Materialists. It is simply 'something out there', which we must simply 'obey'. 'Matter' is our 'illusion', our 'god'.We can change it.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

This is incomprehensible, YMS.You call this your 'scientific method'?And you're still bangin' on about "I", rather than social production.No wonder you won't have workers' democracy, but argue for elites, like you, who 'know' (but not 'difference') what the rest of us apparently can't.

No it isn't.No I don't.I am socially produced.No I don't.

And this is the SPGB dealing with epistemology, and the politics of 'science'?Hmmmm…. curiouser and curiouser… as Alice said. I've heard of a politics without a party, but never a party without a politics.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

Enjoy your self imposed exile to Alice's wonderland, LBird

Thanks, robbo!I presume I won't be seeing you there, and only those interested in Marx and social production will make the journey.Say "Hello!" to 'reality' for me, robbo, since only you and your elite 'know' what 'reality' actually 'is'.Right! Off to the socialist wonderland, comrades, but unfortunately robbo won't be joining us.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

You clearly claim to know that something is not 'in itself', so you must know 'in itself' to say that something is not 'it'.

Not at all, sometime all I can know of one thing is that it is not another thing. Whatwe do know, is that there is a difference, not necessarily what the difference is.

This is incomprehensible, YMS.You call this your 'scientific method'?And you're still bangin' on about "I", rather than social production.No wonder you won't have workers' democracy, but argue for elites, like you, who 'know' (but not 'difference') what the rest of us apparently can't.

[LBird]

Ah! What a shame, robbo.You were playing games all along!You still won't read what I'm writing.Ah well, back to the merry-go-round:end of the snake in box 42, robbo.I'll have to wait now until someone posts who's genuinely interested in discussing Marx's social theory and practice, and democratic production.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

My philosopy is what you  call "idealism-materialism" since I hold that science is never value free and that the facts are always selected in accordance with our preexisting theories.

Nice one, robbo! We're getting somewhere, at last!Right! Since 'theories' are social, and related to interests and purposes, can you tell me whose 'interests and purposes' are behind the 'preexisting theories' that you adopt?I'm a Democratic Communist, and look to Marx's ideas about social production of 'theories', which are linked, within a class-divided society, to the 'interests and purposes' of conflicting classes.So, 'science' is an arena of class struggle, and one aspect of this is that the democratic proletariat must decide for itself its own 'interests and purposes', and so any 'theory' to be adopted by the producers must be examined and debated by the producers themselves, never mind the 'practice' which follows!And whether the social product of the proletariat's theory and practice is 'true' or not, can only be decided by the producers themselves. Often, a 'knowledge product' of 'science' can be 'true' in one historical era (or decade!) and 'false' in another, so its status can only be determined by a vote. Only the producers can change the status of a socio-historical product.Is this Marxist, class-based, democratic, social productionist model of the 'scientific method' the one that you, too, argue for?

[LBird]

Matt wrote:

Quit the games and answer the question. It is bad enough posts aren't trimmed and we have to read all this.

Yeah, robbo and YMS, "quit the games and answer the question"!Tell us what your social theory and practice is. What is your ideology and method?Good 'intervention', Matt! They don't like 'intervention', the 'materialists'!

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

I can read perfectly well LBird.  Stop playing games . Refer me to your alleged answer to the question I posed above.  I genuinely cannot find your answer amongst the the tons of stuff you have written.  Where is it?

Yes, robbo, at the bottom of the snake, in box 42.

 What are you on about. Post number 42 on this thread is by Capitalist Pig, not you. Can toy kindly copy and paste your response to my question

Snakes and ladders is a 'game', robbo.And '42' is the answer to life, the universe and everything.I'm playing a 'game', just like you, robbo.

[LBird]

Pre-class, the 'bodies of armed men' are the tribe in arms. There are no 'bodies of unarmed men'. All producers are warriors. All production is socially controlled.The problem starts when the 'bodies of armed men' are not the tribe in arms, but a select group, and there are bodies of unarmed producers, who produce a surplus, which can support the now unproductive 'bodies of armed men'.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

I can read perfectly well LBird.  Stop playing games . Refer me to your alleged answer to the question I posed above.  I genuinely cannot find your answer amongst the the tons of stuff you have written.  Where is it?

Yes, robbo, at the bottom of the snake, in box 42.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird wrote:

robbo203 wrote:

LBird is hiding his pure idealist ideology which puts him at odds with "idealism-materialism" by refusing to explain what existed prior to the evolution of human consciousness …

You'll have to read the answer that I've already given, robbo.You might not like it, but it's there.When you show that you understand my answer (not 'agree with', but just understand), we can continue to discuss these epistemological issues.We're not getting anywhere by you ignoring (or, worse, failing to understand) what I write.I'm happy to help – try to understand the various claims for the 'subject-object' relationship. I follow Marx on his view of this relationship. I don't hide my ideology.

 But you havent provided an answer to the question I posed – what existed before human consciousness evolved if not matter?  If you have provided an answer show me where it is .  Copy and paste it here for all to see!

If you can't read and understand the first time, a second won't help.You'll have to read for yourself. I can't read for you.

[LBird]

YMS, post #385 wrote:

But the social product is a thought, a sign, a signifier, not yellow in itself.

You clearly claim to know that something is not 'in itself', so you must know 'in itself' to say that something is not 'it'.

Young Master Smeet, post #388 wrote:

LBird wrote:

Young Master Smeet wrote:

… not yellow in itself.

How do you know 'yellow', in itself, YMS?You must have a method that allows you, alone, to 'know' stuff 'in itself'.Your claim is nothing to do with Marx's method, of social theory and practice.

Nope, don't need to have such a method, perfectly legit to say we cannot know the thing in itself.

Now, you claim that "we cannot know the thing in itself".You have to clarify for yourself what you can or can't know, YMS, because you're just contradicting yourself.Or, bit of advice, keep your contradictory claims further apart than 3 posts, because it's too easy to see your mistakes.

[LBird]

robbo203 wrote:

LBird is hiding his pure idealist ideology which puts him at odds with "idealism-materialism" by refusing to explain what existed prior to the evolution of human consciousness …

You'll have to read the answer that I've already given, robbo.You might not like it, but it's there.When you show that you understand my answer (not 'agree with', but just understand), we can continue to discuss these epistemological issues.We're not getting anywhere by you ignoring (or, worse, failing to understand) what I write.I'm happy to help – try to understand the various claims for the 'subject-object' relationship. I follow Marx on his view of this relationship. I don't hide my ideology.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

… not yellow in itself.

How do you know 'yellow', in itself, YMS?You must have a method that allows you, alone, to 'know' stuff 'in itself'.Your claim is nothing to do with Marx's method, of social theory and practice.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

What are these 'qualities', YMS?

It doesn't matter what they are, all that matters is that they are.  

But how do you 'know' what 'they are'?You must have a scientific method which tells you what they are.Also, because you won't have the rest of us employing the same method, and then voting on its results of 'what they are', your method must be an elite one, that the rest of us can't employ.Marx, on the contrary, argues that we 'know qualities' because we act upon inorganic nature, and produce our 'knowledge of qualities'.So, 'qualities' are a social product of a relationship between an active subject and inorganic nature, which produces their 'object'.'Yellow' is a social product. I've said all this before, but like all 'materialists', you refuse to read what I write, and simply insert your own ideological terms (like 'matter'), and proceed to insist that you, individually, 'know qualities'.When you talk of 'yellow', you never mention society, history, Marx, the proletariat, epistemology, subject-object relationship, scientific method……it's almost as if you're employing bourgeois ideology, and think that individuals 'know', outside of all the factors that I've mentioned, and many more.You're not a democratic socialist or a Marxist, YMS. You never mention either when discussing how you know 'yellow'.Why not just come clean about your own ideology?Ahhh, sorry – 'materialists' hide their ideology, so that they can pretend to workers that only the 'materialists' know qualities, and so workers cannot vote upon what they think that 'qualities' are.'Materialism' hides a complete contempt for the masses, and it is fundamentally undemocratic, and thus anti-socialist.Why are you hiding your ideology and method? What have you to fear from telling workers your theory and practice?

[Author]

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