robbo203
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So LBird, when are you ever going to get round to dealing with this point
“If there is no objective reality then there can be no other people as part of that objective reality. If there are no people as part of objective reality then there can be no such thing, according to you, as a society or a social mind. Consciousness can only ever be YOUR consciousness – your individual mind – and everything you experience and perceive in the world can only be a product of your individual mind”
Are you going to repeatedly ignore this – just as you repeatedly ignored explaining why or how you propose to have the entire world population vote on in order to validate the “truth” of tens of thousands of scientific theories?
Every time anyone presents an inconvenient question to you, you run away and hide or deftly change the subject….
Yeah, ALB, ‘Generatio aequivoca’ means ‘self-emancipation’.
Every quote you make from Marx, or even the Socialist Standard, undermines your anti-democratic Leninist Materialism.
LOL more hilarious rubbish from LBird, the same person who accuses others of lying and then lies about his opponents who have made crystal clear their opposition to Lenin’s mechanical one-way brand of “materialism”
“Generatio aequivoca” does not mean “self emancipation” (a political construct). Rather the idea which goes back to Aristotle refers to the process of spontaneous generation by which new life forms supposedly emerge in the physical world (the real existence of which is something that LBird as an idealist, denies)
Actually, Marx’s explanation was quite wrong and theories of spontaneous generation were increasingly discarded from the mid 19th century onward after the experimental discoveries of scientists like Pasteur. Nevertheless, Marx was quite correct in locating the process by which new life forms in the external physical world rather than in the conscious mind which is LBird’s view
LBird
Instead of accusing your opponents of lying – which is rich coming from you since you have constantly lied throughout this thread (for instance, equating the views of this Party with mechanical materialism) – and patronisingly urging them to “study philosophy” as if they know nothing about the subject, why don’t you ever deal with the crux of the argument that shows you to be a philosophical idealist from start to finish?
You have explicitly denied the existence of an objective reality external to our minds. As explained to you the fact that we only apprehend that reality through our minds is no proof against the existence of such a reality and this is a huge problem for you. It actually destroys everything you have been arguing for hitherto
If there is no objective reality then there can be no other people as part of that objective reality. If there are no people as part of objective reality then there can be no such thing, according to you, as a society or a social mind. Consciousness can only ever be YOUR consciousness – your individual mind – and everything you experience and perceive in the world can only be a product of your individual mind
So it turns out your philosophy is precisely the philosophy of the bourgeois philosophers you pretend to criticise. Though you may vehemently protest against this conclusion, you reject the idea of society and social production in favour of pure individualism and this all stems from the fact that you are a philosophical idealist. Nothing (including other people) has a real existence outside of the conscious mind which can only ever be YOUR own individual conscious mind.
Either ‘mind’ is ‘social’, as Marx and the Socialist Standard argue, or ‘mind’ is ‘individual’, which is what the bourgeoisie argue.
Once again, LBird, if the mind is social that necessarily implies that there must be an objective reality even if we can only apprehend this reality through our own conscious minds. It is our conscious minds that act to persuade us that such an objective reality exists.
“Social” implies the existence of other people apart from ourselves who therefore constitute part of this objective reality. Yet you have consistently argued from your philosophical idealist standpoint that there is no such thing as an objective reality and that “Nothing can have a ‘real existence independent of humanity because humans couldn’t know it.” So dinosaurs couldn’t have really existed, according to you, even though the fossil record shows that they did exist and became extinct long before human beings came into existence.
But equally, according to you, there is no reason to believe that other people exist in an objective sense given that you deny that there is such a thing as objective reality. That being the case, I still want to know from you then how you can possibly argue from your point of view that there is such a thing as a social mind? That is not a problem for me to explain since I do hold other people exist in an objective sense and it is through our social interactions with these other people that our consciousness takes shape
You, on the other hand, have no way of explaining how the social mind arises. If the social mind implies the objective existence of other people, and if you dispute that other people exist in this objective sense, then the very concept of a social mind becomes meaningless in your terms.
All thoughts, all consciousness, begins and ends in your own mind by your own reasoning since it is only your own mind that you have access to, not the minds of other people whose objective existence you deny. In other words, you argue for the very thing that you say the bourgeois argue for – the individual mind
You appear to have a ‘correspondence theory’ of ‘truth’, which argues that the ‘idea’ reflects the ‘referent’.
That’s rubbish. I have explicitly argued against that position in my advocacy of emergence theory. To reiterate, emergence theory holds that higher levels of reality are dependent or supervene on lower levels of reality but are not reducible to the latter. Consciousness does not simply reflect objective reality but actively interprets it
There is no such thing as a unicorn, for example. But the features that make up this mythological creature are drawn from objective reality and imaginatively reassembled in a particular configuration that is our imaginary unicorn
As I have constantly pointed out, there is a two-way interaction between objective reality and subjective consciousness. By denying the very possibility of an objective reality, you deny also the possibility of any such interaction. The very concept of social production which you go on about at length is incompatible with your own philosophical idealism.
For something to be a product of something else implies the latter is external to the former but it is this precisely externality that you have called into question in the first place
Thus, for Marx, both ‘value’ and ‘matter’ are social products, which have a history, and can be changed by their creator, us, humanity.
Not according to you, LBird. Because according to your idealist philosophy, humanity – other people – doesn’t exist objectively outside of your mind. Therefore according to you, we have no way of knowing whether ‘value’ and ‘matter’ were created by them
And your mind, as the Socialist Standard article says, is socially produced.
Yes and according to your idealist philosophy, other people (and therefore society) are a product of your mind and, like dinosaurs, do not have a real existence independent of your mind. So how can the mind be a product of society by that logic if society is nothing more than a product of the mind???
It’s not me that has a problem with recognising that minds are socially produced – but you! Your idealist philosophy rules out the possibility of any kind of dialectic between mind and objectivity reality. It is indeed the mind that allows us to see that such an objective reality exists – to know that “The “idea” of a dinosaur is different from the object to which the idea refers – the referent.”
But being a pure idealist you have no way of explaining where that idea comes from since according to you it cannot originate outside of the mind. It cannot be socially produced, following your logic, because society – other people – don’t exist outside your mind in the same way that you believe dinosaurs never existed objectively. They are entirely a figment of your imagination as is this entire thread
robbo, you’ll have to explain how you know what a dinosaur is, without using your mind. And if you’re using your mind, as the Socialist Standard says, it’s a product of society.
LOL LBird of course you have to use your mind to explain what a dinosaur is. But that’s not the issue is it? The “idea” of a dinosaur is different from the object to which the idea refers – the referent. The fact that we cannot apprehend what we call a dinosaur without using our minds does not mean the existence of dinosaurs is dependent on our minds
The argument you are putting forward is precisely the same one as that advanced by that famous idealist Bishop Berkeley (1685—1753) who like you contended that the “opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a world all sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct from being perceived” is “a manifest contradiction” As a philosophical idealist, you don’t believe there is such a thing as an objective reality. Everything is in the mind for you – even when the mind demonstrates to itself that the object it refers must logically have a real existence independent of the mind even if we cannot apprehend this existence apart from, or outside, of our minds.
So in the case of dinosaurs, our own minds inform us when we look at the fossil record that dinosaurs must have had a real existence independent of humanity since they predate humanity and human minds themselves. Since human beings weren’t around when dinosaurs were around how can the existence of the latter be dependent on the former??? The extinction of dinosaurs sixty-odd million years ago happened all the same, even when we were still ignorant of the past existence of these creatures – or do you really want to deny this?
As for your claim that if “you’re using your mind, as the Socialist Standard says, it’s a product of society” well now you have well and truly destroyed your own argument! You have just shot yourself in the foot big time
See, the problem for you as a philosophical idealist is that you have no way of knowing whether there is such a thing as “society”. Insofar as society consists of other people how do you know these other people exist? Why should they exist but not dinosaurs, independent of your own mind, huh? You are not me and I am not you so how do you know I exist? If dinosaurs don’t exist outside your mind why is that not also true of society as well? In which case how does your mind come to be a product of society when society does not exist outside of your mind????
robbo203 wrote: “Yes, but since you reject Marx’s “new materialism” in a favour of straightforward idealism…”
This is a figment of your own imagination, robbo, and doesn’t reflect anything that I’ve written here.
Actually, rather a lot of what you have written here, LBird, shows unequivocally that your view is one of “straightforward idealism”. Take your comment, that “Nothing can have a ‘real existence independent of humanity because humans couldn’t know it.” As I have explained to you many times what this very clearly means is that you think, for instance, that dinosaurs could have not have had a “real existence independent of humanity” even though the fossil record shows they existed and became extinct long before there were human beings around to “know” they existed. Your idealist philosophy is therefore anti-science, amongst other things.
I appreciate that it must be difficult for you, being a Marx cultist, to come to terms with the fact that your whole idealist philosophy and outlook on life is radically different from Marx’s. Not that that matters too much. I disagree with some of Marx views as well but at least I don’t pretend to agree with him in cases where I actually disagree with him just for the sake of wanting to appear as a Marxist as you do
For example, if only Marx had made clear that his ‘new materialism’ wasn’t just ‘materialism’ with a meaningless prefix, like ‘chocolate materialism’, but that the content of his ‘new’ was revolutionary.
Yes, but since you reject Marx’s “new materialism” in a favour of straightforward idealism – nothing exists (or like dinosaurs, existed) independently of our ideas, according to you – perhaps you need to make this clear. Otherwise, people here might get the quite wrong impression that you are some kind of “Marxist” who believes that other people exist independently of our ideas we as individuals hold in our heads or that there is such a thing as “social production”
Haven’t you read Marx?
Or are you, like robbo and now alan, now going to ditch Marx?Well, unlike LBird, I’m not a Marx cultist – there was stuff that Marx wrote that was clearly wrong and that I am quite happy to ditch. But having said that, Marx would probably laugh his head off at the thought that the idealist drivel that LBird has been coming out with has anything to what with what he (Marx) was saying.
The idea that dinosaurs did not exist independently of human beings thinking about them (which is what LBird is saying) is about as far removed from Marx and Marxism as it is possible to get. And since only the human individual is capable of thinking, it follows that nothing can exist independently of this individual and therefore influence what this individual thinks. For LBird there is no point in democracy since other individuals don’t really exist independently of him. This also means LBird rejects the very concept of social production.
But that’s fine LBird – you don’t have to pretend to be a Marxist for our sakes. I don’t think anyone here would judge you too harshly if you were to just honestly admit that you disagree fundamentally with Marx’s own philosophical standpoint which was very clearly NOT the idealist philosophy you very clearly embrace
LBird
If it is a “false allegation” that I made that your position is a purely idealist one and that you don’t allow for the influence of the “materialism” side in your “materialism-idealism” configuration then how come you come out with statements like this:
Nothing can have a ‘real existence independent of humanity because humans couldn’t know it..
So dinosaurs, according to you couldn’t possibly have had a real existence independent of humanity – even though the fossil record unequivocally shows they really existed and then became extinct millions of years before humans existed. What is this if not sheer idealism on your part?????
There are many other examples I could cite to back up my claim. For example, you believe individual consciousness was the product of social consciousness in the sense that you think that social consciousness is what enables us to experience individual consciousness. Clearly, this is idealist bunkum. Social consciousness profoundly shapes individual consciousness – the contents of our thoughts – but it cannot account for our capacity to experience consciousness as individuals. On the contrary social consciousness presupposes this capacity
You’re never one to disappoint those who know your materialist ideology, and its ideological belief that there are only two basic philosophies.
No, I don’t. I have explicitly stated there are 3 NOT 2 basic philosophies in this regard:
MECHANICAL MATERIALISM – causation is one way, from matter to ideas, from the brain to thoughts, from individuals (and so-called human nature) to society. I reject this materialism as does the SPGB despite your relentlessly misrepresenting the views of the Party
IDEALISM – causation is one way too but in the opposite direction. Ideas create reality so that “Nothing can have a ‘real existence independent of humanity, because humans couldn’t know it” This is your position.
EMERGENCE THEORY/HISTORICAL MATERIALISM/MARXISM causation is two way. Higher-order phenomena, such as the mind, are dependent or supervene on lower-order phenomena (in this case the brain) but are not reducible to the brain. This is because the former is able to exert downward causation along with being subject to upward causation. Mental states can influence neurophysical states but neurophysical states can also influence mental states. There is a reciprocal relationship between them. Same with the relationship between individuals and society. This is my view
As an idealist, you reject the very idea of a reciprocal relation. So individual consciousness or the individual is, for you, simply the product of social consciousness or society and can’t possibly contribute to social consciousness. You completely lack any notion of a dialectic going on between these two constructs. You are a thoroughgoing idealist determinist and have shown this over and over again, despite paying spurious lipservice to Marxism
That’s because, according to Marx’s standpoint, there are only ‘ideal-material factors’.
Yes, and you reject completely the influence of the material side of this configuration. For you, material factors don’t exist. That makes your standpoint an idealist one in complete opposition to Marx’s standpoint and the standpoint of the SPGB
So, Pannekoek agrees with Marx, as do I.
You don’t.How can you possibly agree with Marx or Pannnekoek, LBird, when your perspective is a purely idealist one, and when you don’t allow for any interaction whatsoever between lower and higher levels of reality such as brain and mind or individuals and society?
For you, dinosaurs have never existed outside the idea of dinosaurs we hold in our minds – even though the fossil record refutes your idealist claim. You reject science and yet you want the entire world population to vote on tens of thousands of scientific theories for some obscure reason you have never made clear, rather than just have people agree to disagree on the merits of any theory
There is a contradiction between the SPGB’s alleged ‘democracy’ and ‘materialism’. One has to give way to the other.
Here we go again. Yet more misrepresentation from LBird. Are you ever going to stop with this relentless misrepresentation?
There is nothing “alleged” about the SPGB’s adherence to democracy both in principle and practice. As an organisation, the SPGB is unrivalled in the way it runs itself along democratic lines: Leaderless, no secrets, all it’s business conducted in the open, the rigorous control exercised by the membership as a whole over the Party via Conference, ADM and Party Polls …..
Democratic control is also fundamental to our objective – socialism – as stated in our literature: The establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.
Just because we don’t go along with your ludicrously impractical and pointless suggestion that tens of thousands of scientific theories should be subjected to a democratic vote by the world’s population does NOTmean we reject democracy
Where did you get the silly idea that
Democratic socialism will require a democratic science, and Marx can give us some pointers how this can be so.
What are these pointers indicating that Marx suggested scientific theories should be subjected to a democratic vote? Name a single one.
According to you
Marx reconciled both idealism and materialism, into a third philosophy – social productionism (in effect, part-idealism-part-materialism).
So that presumably means you advocate part-materialism alongside part-idealism. But if there is a contradiction between materialism and democracy as you claim then your advocacy of “part materialism” implies by your own reasoning that you too must accept there is some limit to the scope of democratic decision-making in any society, including socialism. Or do you expect a global socialist society will have a vote on what I can eat for breakfast or what I can wear to work?
I would argue that you are not even “part materialist” but are an idealist through and through.
Marx was critical of the kind of views you express. In his Theses On Feuerbach, he attacked the kind of mechanical materialism to which the SPGB is also opposed, as follows
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism – that of Feuerbach included – is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism – which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
The reference to idealism here precisely sums up your position. You make no allowance for the influence of material factors. They don’t even exist from your standpoint. There is no sense of a two-way interaction between brain and mind, or between individuals and society. Dinosaurs for you don’t exist outside our idea of them even though the fossil record tells us that dinosaurs preexisted human beings and their ability to think human thoughts, by millions of years. For you the fossil record means nothing.
Actually, the construct you have come up with – idealism-materialism – is what would sum up the position of the SPGB. Although the terminology is misleading I get what you are trying to say. Except that you actually reject “idealism-materialism” in favour of pure idealism since you do not allow the “materialism” part of this construct to have any role or influence whatsoever. It’s a purely one-way relationship in your view – from ideas to matter (which becomes itself just another idea)
The SPGB view is quite different. As our Historical Materialism pamphlet notes:
The Materialist Conception does not deny the influence of ideas on history. In fact, there would be no revolutionary changes if ideas did not play a part. What it does is to trace the source of the ideas, but to deny the power of ideas alone
Note that last word, “alone”
You assert in response to my comment that the “SPGB’s materialism IS Marx’s materialism.”:
I’ve shown time and time again that this is an untrue claim. Marx was a democrat, Lenin wasn’t. The SPGB currently espouses the same ideology as Lenin did. But… the SPGB can change itself – unlike the SWP.
This is about as wrong as you can possibly get and, no, you have not once shown my claim is untrue. I recently came across an interesting review of Anton Pannekoek’s Lenin as Philosopher in the Western Socialist (Fall 1976), a previous journal of our companion party in the United States, which was actually written by ALB himself whose views you have been constantly misrepresenting
Pannekoek talked of there being two kinds of materialism – 1) the mechanical or middle-class materialism endorsed by some of the early advocates of capitalism in their struggle against religion and the aristocratic state and 2) the historical materialism of Marx and others. The review article very clearly comes down on the side of Pannekoek in his critique of Lenin’s middle-class materialism
Your own brand of idealism, LBird, is the exact mirror image of Lenin’s mechanical materialism. You both have an over-deterministic view of the relationship between “ideas” and “matter” seeing it as an essentially one-way movement rather than interactive. The difference is that whereas Lenin saw matter determining ideas you see ideas determining matter, (despite you pretence at adopting a part-materialist stance). The “materialism” part in your formulation is completely stripped of any determinative power
Marx and the SPGB would unquestionably oppose both you and Lenin!
The sooner that the SPGB says ‘Goodbye-ee’ to materialism, the better!
Have you kept up with this thread, and decided to side with Marx?
I wish you would stop misrepresenting what you call the SPGB’s “materialism”. You know very well by now it is emphatically not the 18th-century mechanical materialism espoused by the likes of Lenin and co
The SPGB/s materialism IS Marx’s materialism. It recognises that the
mind supervenes on matter/brain but is not reducible to the latter insofar as it exerts downward causation on the latter. Same with society and the individual. There is always a two-way interaction between these different levels of reality – a point made by Engels who noted how ideas are not simply the product of the economic base but react upon the base.Unless you recognise and acknowledge this interactive aspect between different levels of reality, you will be trapped within the limitations of a purely idealist framework. Matter exists even if we can’t directly apprehend it apart from our human cognitive apparatus; we can still infer that it exists.
Dinosaurs existed and became extinct millions of years before human beings roamed the earth and thought thoughts. Denying this in the face of the fossil record is the height of folly
Or as the Preface to the German Ideology put it:
“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.”
Do you believe we are subject to the law of gravity LBird?
