>>First of all, the theories of knowledge of Engels and Lenin lack the specificity to grapple with axiomatic systems as we've come to understand them. Secondly, the philosophical extrapolations and analogies presented here are not very good interpretations of Godel. Putting these two components together, much of the reasoning we see here is nebulous and vague verbiage about "dialectics", communicating very little. [vfr] Nor should they. Engels and Lenin follow Marx who in turn follows Hegel in discarding formal logic as useless for the development of empirical theories for designing social practice. I can't claim to be an expert in Popper, but I had a specific argument as to why philosophical reasoning is inadequate as a model for the gaining of knowledge through practical engagement with the world.<< Comment So true and the problem is philosophy or rather Marxism as philosophy or more accurately "Marxists Philosophy" as philosophy. The method or standpoint or approach deployed by Marx, once stripped of philosophy, displays - in MY PERSONAL OPINION, an acute power of observation. Is it in fact a category of philosophy to state that man must eat, drink water and self reproduce to exist or a fact of existence? Much verbiage is attached to the word and concept - (concept!), of dialectics. In many places the word "dialectic" or "dialectical" is used one could easily replace it with the word "magic." The "dialectic of the proletariat" may as well be "the magic of the proletariat," more often than not. My inclination was to leave this discussion alone because we inevitably end up with politics parading as a philosophic materialism predicated upon assumptions that requires ones prior agreement to make sense. The tendency is to treat the "Theory of Knowledge" as something more than a "theory of knowing" or how wo/man comes to know and how this "coming to know" is compounded and enriched. The theory of knowing - as I understand Engles and Lenin, is by definition subject to human agency and agreements because it is human agency. "Objective Truth" is an agreement - a social contract, and subject to the compounding of knowledge during a given era and epoch, although a militant segment of materialism claims otherwise and blur the important distinction between truth and fact. There is a difference. For example, the existence of the Sun and Earth is not an "objective truth." Truth by its own definition is subject to and manifest human agency, while the existence of the Sun and earth does not. The Sun and earth exist outside the category of "objective truth."
Man exists in relationship to the Sun and not the other way around. WIth the coming of man Stating that something is dialectical or manifest the dialectic is a self contained truth predicated upon a philosophic agreement between participants that amounts to a social contract based on agreeing that "matters self movement is inherently dialectical." The thing being observed in its motion and movement has no need to prove itself. We attempt to understand - by engagement (wo/man as social being) and discernment, the self movement of things - life, in its internal connections, unity, strife, environment and our impact upon that being witnessed as it impacts us. Then we seek agreement. The materialist approach to the theory of knowing means the theory of the process of the mind (knowing) - discernment and engagement, as mediated and mediator of human agency, as distinct from the brain. Here is where materialism as philosophy finds its feet or rather, one foot, firmly planted in mid air. Not because it is "wrong" but because the distinction between the brain and mind is blurred on the basis of the category called "objective truth." "Objective truth" has to be torn from a category of philosophy and truth wedded to history evolution. The question complicates itself on the basis of itself in society because history unfolds - is created, by human beings as they are productively active. The Sun requires no proof of its existence. That is to say, everyone on earth understands as a law of our existence, that the Sun does not require human agency and man to be what is has been and shall be. The existence of the Sun cannot be proven by "objective truth" because it is not a product of human agency and is there to be witnessed by all. "Knowing" the Sun is a different matter altogether and this knowing is the "subject" and slave of the mind. The mind is "subjective human agency" and the brain is a metabolic process housing the mind. One is not the other in a very important area. The brain is subject to definable and increasingly knowable material agents and metabolic processes impacting the mind as it excites and bring to life the power of observation and knowing. Accuracy of observation is not the same as knowing or what is the same, the theory of know(ledge). The theory of knowing is fully subject to and evolves within the framework of history as human agency. The power of observation is subject to a different law system. Marx materialism or rather the approach and method of Marx proceeds magnificently from a self contained fact + truth that human knowing evolves in the same direction as the progressive development of the productive forces and this development of the material power of production defines the meaning of history or "his story of coming to know." We tend to fight battles that Marx already won. When Marx wrote "that the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it," this was "right on" - a good thing and he wrote as a revolutionary. Today the question has deepened with knowing. In what direction and on what metabolic basis? Since we can only change society in the direction it is already going as history, the battle becomes a contest of will + knowing + discernment and art. Pardon my different direction or anti-philosphy "Philosophy." The theory of knowledge needs both feet planted in the soil of man. What determines the "power of observation" is lacking in virtually all Marxists writings I have encountered over the years. The "power of observation" does not mean "knowing" or the theory of knowing evolution as history. If the theory of knowing in the hands of Marx, Engels and Lenin is predicated upon history and history is measurable as it creates and is the progressive development of the material power of production, then Marxism defines itself as subject to the same history it observes. The instruments of "the Marxists" critique has to be critiqued on the basis of the method of Marx rather than a self contained knowing of Marxism as philosophy. It can be assumed - seemingly apriori, that the previous generations of Marxists are historically incorrect in their history view of the proletariat becoming that which is not visible during one particular era of engagement. The Marxists are historically incorrect - and everyone else, because knowing is subject and slave to history creation as the progressive development of the means and material power of production. Formal logic today is not the formal logic of the era of Marx, although I do not campaign on behalf of formal logic unless it becomes a formal framework outside the mechanical logic that has characterized - not simply philosophy, but the industrial era and epoch. Marxism as such can only critique itself in relationship to history or a historical specific boundary in the progressive development of the material power of production as knowing. Every day, many of "the Marxists" political categories of the past run into the wall of history and reveal themselves as industrial categories. Those who aspire to inherit and propagate the method of Marx can be confident as individuals, provided we subject our own knowing to the most relentless criticism. Waistline _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
