[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

When I put an ingredient into a cake, it has properties: sugar sweetens, flour thickens, water smooths, different ingredients do different things.

Yes, but we're discussing epistemology and Marx's views on social production, not 'Mary Berry bakes a cake'.As I've said previously, you keep trying to investigate the 'properties' of things outside of their ingredient relationship to creative humans, as do all Engelsian 'materialists', but I wish to continue with Marx's method.You seem to be trying to understand Marx, without Marx's ideas being involved. I don't know why you just don't openly say this to everyone. It would make the discussion easier for the uninitiated to follow.Put simply, there are two competing ideologies in play in this debate, Marx's and Engels'.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

We 'differentiate'. That is, humans are the active side in this relationship, as Marx argued, in his Theses on Feuerbach.

So, erm, what role does this ingredient play?  Does it have any properties?

The 'ingredient' is, err.. an 'ingredient'. Do I have to provide another term/phrase for you? Input into the active side?'Properties' of 'reality-for-us' are a social product of our theory and practice.If you want 'properties in themselves', YMS, you'll have to look to Engels' 'materialism', and not Marx's ideas about us humans creating our object.That's your choice, of course, but not mine. I prefer Marx.

[LBird]

Young Master Smeet wrote:

LBird wrote:

He called this 'external reality' inorganic nature, and it is an ingredient into social theory and practice.

Is this ingredient uniform or differentiated? 

We 'differentiate'. That is, humans are the active side in this relationship, as Marx argued, in his Theses on Feuerbach.

YMS wrote:

Are there things we cannot do with this ingredient?

This can only be answered by social theory and practice, so any answer would also be historical, and related to the 'social production' of any particular 'mode of production'.These axioms are all Marx's: a 'social theory and practice' which changes over time, and which is understood in relation to various 'modes of social production'.

[LBird]

SocialistPunk wrote:

It's all relative then.

Yes, depending upon the mode of production.Just as Marx argued.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I don't think Marx subscribed to the view that there was no "external reality" before the human mind evolved…

He didn't, and neither do I.He called this 'external reality' inorganic nature, and it is an ingredient into social theory and practice.The difference in the ideologies of Engels' (and your) 'materialism', and Marx's (and my) 'idealism-materialism', is that the former sees 'external reality' 'as it is', outside of social activity (labour), whereas the latter sees 'external reality' 'as an input' into social activity (labour).Thus, for Marx, 'external reality' can only be known by our creative theory and practice, by which we transform an 'ingredient' into a 'reality-for-us', and a world we create and can change. This is a socio-historical notion of 'our reality', rather than the 'Eternal Knowledge' or 'Truth' posited by 'materialism', which pretends to 'discover' a once-and-forever 'Truth', which it then merely contemplates eternally. Like 'Mars'.

ALB wrote:

… than he did to the "20 trillion flies can't be wrong" theory of truth. If he had, his critics would have had a field day.

Once again, this is the materialist account of a 'democratic theory of truth', and shows the elitist contempt for the developmental abilities of the proletariat, which ALB (and I'll accept unwittingly) likens to mass of flies.Since ALB implies 6 billion workers in a socialist society can be wrong, he must clearly have an idea of what the 'expert elite', who will 'know' that the 6 billion are 'wrong', looks like. I wish he'd tell us who this elite is. Perhaps 'academics' or 'intellectuals' (like Searle, who DJP erroneously looks towards for his ideology, rather than Marx).Maarx argued that socialism can only be brought about by the democratic wishes and actions of the majority.That is, the "20 trillion flies can't be wrong" actually is his 'theory of truth'.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

John Searle's "Refutation of Relativism" might be of interest herehttp://www.luxautumnalis.de/john-searle-refutation-relativism-englisch-und-deutsch/

Thanks for that DJP.From the start, Searle is clearly wrong, from a Marxist point of view.

Searle wrote:

Relativism is the theory that the truth (or falsity) of any proposition is always relative to certain sorts of psychological attitudes on the part of the person who states, believes or otherwise judges the truth of the proposition.

[my bold]He's clearly starting from the 'common sense' view of bourgeois individualism, with his axioms of 'psychological attitudes' and 'the person'.For socialists, the axioms are 'social ideologies' and 'social classes'.So we would have an opening statement of:

Quote:

Relativism is the theory that the truth (or falsity) of any proposition is always relative to certain sorts of social ideologies on the part of the social class which states, believes or otherwise judges the truth of the proposition.

This would be entirely consistent with Marx's views.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Sympo wrote:

But something is true, or false, independently from what we think of the subject, right?

There is something out there that's independent of our minds, the "outside world" if you like, statements about which are either true or false according to a particular theory of truth. But, as statements are the product of minds, it can't be said "truth" or "falsity" are independent of minds.In other words, there is an external world outside the mind (or, more accurately, of which human minds are part). Only philosophical idealists (better idea-ists) hold that this is creation of mind (whether the mind of a "God" or of collective humanity or a single individual) but, in practice, they don't really believe this as they, like the rest of us, behave as if there was an independent, external world.

ALB account is a good one, until he labels those who follow Marx's theory that 'collective humanity create their reality' as 'idealists'.The basis of ALB's ideology is Engels' 'materialism', which holds that either one is a 'materialist', or one is an 'idealist'.However, there are three positions: idealism (god creates the world/reality), materialism (the 'external world' is this world/reality') and Marx's idealism-materialism (that humans create their own 'reality' from an 'external world').So, from the perspective of ALB and Engels, anyone who argues that 'something creates their own world' (the materialists do not distinguish between 'god' and 'humanity') is an 'idealist'.From the perspective me and Marx (and we do distinguish between a 'creative god' and a 'creative humanity') anyone who argues that 'the external world just exists, and there is no active creation involved', is a 'materialist'; that anyone who argues that 'god creates the world' is an 'idealist'; and those who argue that 'humans create their own reality, by social theory and practice' are Marxists.This third, unified, position of Marx, allows him to argue that humans can change their world (as it's a creation of their own social activity), whereas the Engelsian materialists can only contemplate 'external reality', the 'Truth' which has been 'discovered' (for example, the view that  'the earth goes round the sun' is not able to be changed, and is regarded as a final truth of an external reality).So, we have 'idealism' (god), 'materialism' (contemplation) and Marx (change).You have to choose, Sympo.

[LBird]

Sympo wrote:

But something is true, or false, independently from what we think… right?

[my bold]Your question can only be answered from the basis of a 'theory of truth', Sympo.Based upon a 'correspondence theory', the answer is 'Yes'.Based upon a 'democratic theory', the answer is 'No'.The former stresses the 'independence' of an 'objective reality' which is separate from the 'subject', whereas the latter stresses the 'creation' of a 'reality-for-us' which is related to the 'subject'.Marx argued that we (as the social subject) create our object.

[LBird]

Sympo wrote:

After reading what "correspondence theory of truth" means, then yes this is what I think is correct at the moment. It appears that it isn't just "those who follow the 'materialist' ideology of Engels and Lenin" that believe in this. A lot of other people seem to believe in this.

Your're quite correct, Sympo, that 'a lot of other people seem to believe in this [correspondence theory of truth]'.The simple reason for this belief is that it is one of the ruling class ideas, which Marx claims dominate the thinking of a class society.There are always other ideas, though, which have their roots in the exploited class, and the belief in a 'democratic theory of truth' is one of those.The key point for you, though, is that you have realised that different people have different ideas about what constitutes 'truth'. It's for you, now, to research and debate these 'theories of truth', and weigh them up, and decide for yourself which one says most to you about your life in this society.

[LBird]

Sympo wrote:

I don't understand. What is your definition of truth?

My 'definition of truth' is the same as Marx's.We create 'truth' by social theory and practice, which is democratic productive activity.The theory of truth that I employ is a 'democratic theory of truth' (often called consensus gentium (Latin for Agreement of the people)).Those who follow the 'materialist' ideology of Engels and Lenin employ a 'correspondence theory of truth'. I presume that you, too, employ this 'reflection' theory of the creation of knowledge.If you decide to look these issues up, note the connections between 'reflection' (regarding 'knowledge creation') and 'correspondence' (regarding 'truth'). They are the basis of the 'materialist' ideology.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Only quote on gravity i could find as follow-on to my earlier post. As you say…i am always left in the dark by these sort of debates…Reminds me of Rosa Lichtenstein's contributions to dlalectics…i'm sure what she is saying is contributing something, but i don't have an earthly clue what and don't really care…luckily i'm supported by  Paul Mattick.https://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1960/new-physics.htm

Yeah, I can recommend Mattick's book Anti-Bolshevik Communism, which contains the essay Marxism and the New Physics, and another on Karl Korsch. Both of these are thought-provoking, even if I have some criticisms.And Pannekoek, like Marx, Mattick and Korsch, stressed the creativity of workers in building their knowledge. This is very different from 'materialism' (of both Engels and Lenin), which emphasises 'passivity' in the face of 'matter'.And I've got a lot of time for Rosa Lichtenstein, who I've discussed with a few times! Although, yet again, I have differences with…Keep asking questions, alan, and something will 'click' at some point, about the difference between 'bourgeois materialism', passivity in workers and an elite group of 'knowers', compared with Marx's view that humans create their own objects, and that Communism is this creative act put under the democratic control of all.

[LBird]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/preface.htm

Quote:

Once upon a time a valiant fellow had the idea that men were drowned in water only because they were possessed with the idea of gravity. If they were to knock this notion out of their heads, say by stating it to be a superstition, a religious concept, they would be sublimely proof against any danger from water. His whole life long he fought against the illusion of gravity, of whose harmful results all statistics brought him new and manifold evidence. This valiant fellow was the type of the new revolutionary philosophers in Germany.

 

nice try, alan.Unfortunately, it only exposes your distance from any understanding of the issues (which you yourself have admitted in the past), and leaves you lining up behind the 'materialists' in seeing any developments as 'idealism'.This always surprises me more, in your case.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

…idealistic…

The usual reply by 'materialists', when questioned about modern developments in politics, philosophy and physics since the 19th century heyday of materialism, is to revert to the good-versus-evil approach.That is, materialists wear the white hats, and the evil idealists wear the black hats.They got this from Engels, too.What any worker, who knows about 20th century physics, and has read Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Plank, de Broglie, Born, Smolin, Rovelli, etc., makes of this ancient, outdated, 'materialism'……anyway, it's certain that the 'materialists' haven't read what those physicists say about physics.They'd all be called 'idealists'.

[LBird]

Tim Kilgallon wrote:

gnome wrote:

SocialistPunk wrote:

There is a possibility in the future that the earth will no longer go around the sun. There's the possibility it will end up being swallowed up by the sun.

Actually in around 5 billion years or so that's precisely what will happen and as I know very little about astrophysics I'm quite prepared to accept the calculations of those who do.   No vote by the then inhabitants of planet earth, in the unlikely event the human species will have survived that long, will alter that "truth".

You see Gnome, that's where you're wrtong, that will only happen if the workers democratically vote for it!

More contempt for 'workers' and their abilities and potential development.Keep it coming, boys!You'll be changing your party title to the Superior People of Great Britain – tagline: The Party that knows the Truth already, so you dumb workers don't have to bother becoming active!

[LBird]

gnome wrote:

 No vote by the then inhabitants of planet earth, in the unlikely event the human species will have survived that long, will alter that "truth".

A perfect statement by a 'materialist', that workers will not be allowed to vote to change 'Truth'.This belief appears to be at least un-official policy of the SPGB.Why not make it official, and stop pretending to workers that they will democratically control the production of their own 'truth' in the SPGB's version of 'socialism'?

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