Young Master Smeet
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No, what Marx meant when he used the word 'Material' was 'Tuesday', so he wa only referring to things that make Tuesday happen.
Humty wrote:When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’I love this method of exegesis wherein Marx (through Engels' pen, whose handwriting that passage is in) meant something else entirely.I dunno, though, we have on the one hand the gnomic 'Theses on Feuerbach' and some comments from the manuscripts, but in a book length critique of Feuerbach, written in collaboration with otehr humans (social production) for publication, we should take teh former over the latter. See, it's hard to square your reading with the preface:
Chaz & Fred wrote: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.(Or Lbird).
I find Marx & Engels prose to be so much clearer, but the emphasis is on the material production of ideas, and the possession of the means of mental production is the key difference. So, the class that has the time to think, the means to communicate, acess to that communication, will dominate the battle of ideas. It follows that a change in material circumstances will change the ideas.I was going to try and get us back on track by discussing this:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pirate-website-offering-millions-of-academic-papers-for-free-refuses-to-close-despite-law-suit-a6875001.htmlThe practitioners of academe and science these days are not personally 'gentlemen of independent means' and most have nothing but a public salary, although there are contned attempts by governments to comemrcialise academia (by, say, making academics seek grants and research funding, i.e. make them behave as entrepreneur as well as thinkers) many resist, and the practice of science itself means a focus on the use value over exchange values. Science is largely performed by proletarians, by waged and salaried workers, and information is owned in common.The practices of the publishing firms to restrict access are against the values of the daily practice of the scientists, hence the ideological battle between academia and the science publishers over the means of communication.
Erm, Lbird, "All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind." It's a metaphor, and as the continued quote demonstrates, is coupled with a notion of realism. The paragraph as a whole demonstrates:
Quote:The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.The "solid" is the "train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions".Now, as to yourself:
Quote:This concept of 'private property' is thus then similarly reproduced within philosophy, where it is called 'matter'. By its nature, this concept precludes any 'democratic interference' in itself. 'Matter' just 'is', and it is alleged by those with power to be eternal, and not subject to socio-historical analysis of its emergence, and thus not changable.That simply isn't rue, the theory of materialism incorporates the mutability of matter, Zeno of Elea isn't the only materialist philosopher in history.
Anyway, back to the German ideology by Marx and Engels to clarify matters:
Quote:The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.”"Ruling" ideas, not only ideas, other ideas exist and contest with the dominant (or to be poncey, hegemonic) ideas.
Quote:The existence of revolutionary ideas in a particular period presupposes the existence of a revolutionary classand
Quote:For each new class which puts itself in the place of one ruling before it, is compelled, merely in order to carry through its aim, to represent its interest as the common interest of all the members of society, that is, expressed in ideal form: it has to give its ideas the form of universality, and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones.Finally:
Quote:This whole semblance, that the rule of a certain class is only the rule of certain ideas, comes to a natural end, of course, as soon as class rule in general ceases to be the form in which society is organised, that is to say, as soon as it is no longer necessary to represent a particular interest as general or the “general interest” as ruling.The end of class rule is the end of ideology.https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm#b3
Anywa, diversion over:
Quote:Great scientific discoveries often raise more questions than they answer. Just days after the announcement that gravitational waves from two merging black holes have been detected, astrophysicists are already pondering what this means for our understanding of stars. New studies are already being released and we can expect a flood of creative ideas in the near future.Like the discovery of the telescope, the laser interferometer is bringing about the creation of new ideas.
How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What's your opinion? I'm not the only person here, others watching might be interested to hear, ignore me, reply as if I were dead and my ideology with me. Give your opinion to the world.
How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What's your opinion?
Quote:Engels says that it doesn't.Engels is dead, he has no opinion of anything.How does activity create matter?Does "inorganic nature" exist prior to activity?What do you think? You're not dead, are you?
