Comments on the commentary included below.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 10:25
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
Comments to selected extracts below....
At 01:43 PM 6/19/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:
Ideality like spoken language is not one thing or another, but two things,
the objectified notion in consciousness and its material representation by
some form of language, united as a more concrete concept, the ideal. The
ideal cannot just be a manifestation of consciousness (Dubrovsky's
argument) in which case it would be a purely subjective product, at best
the internal expression of the individuality of the thinker (whatever that
might be). Nor can it be just the symbolic representation since this after
all is ultimately just a thing, a material object. It is only when
consciousness is given material form by symbolic representation and the
material artefact is made significant by its embodiment of conscious
reflective thought that the ideal can be said to exist.
Fascinating.
.........In short, ideality is expressed in a cultural artefact through
human labour informed by the image of the object of his labour activity.
For an idealist such as Hegel who regards human activity as beginning and
ending with the ideal, the outcome of human labour is a simple
materialization of the ideal.
I can see the Hegelian view that the empirical world is a materialization
of Geist, but does Hegel make this specific claim about human labor?
Hegel regards objectification as simply the alienation of spirit in the
object. The ideal itself is the alienated spirit that has become a
universal through the mediation of language. True, I've not addressed the
problem of whether Hegel regarded labour activity (transformation of the
ideal as consciousness joined with language forms by its expression in
labour activity) but if I recall correctly he does not really concern
himself with this problem. The question of the effect, if any, of labour
activity on the ideal certainly does not appear in the Logic. Marx in his
1844 Critique of Hegelian Philosophy takes Hegel to task for regarding the
nature that becomes the subject of logos as the abstracted nature of theory
rather than the material nature external to intellect. It is however an
interesting question, and I would appreciate any additional information on
this. Meanwhile I'll do some investigation on my own.
For a Marxist materialist, labour practice involves far more than just the
expression of the ideal in material form. Labour activity involves the
interaction between men as creatures of nature (you know; arms, legs,
hands, eyes and things like that.) and nature and therefore the
"intervention" of natural laws and principles that are external to the
ideal and are entirely indifferent to the social conventions of mankind.
Thus the outcome of labour is a considerably more complex product than the
idealists would have us believe it is.
OK, but is Hegel's view really contravene your characterization of labor?
In respect to the relation between reason and nature for sure (see above).
While it is true that the laws and principles that govern material practice
directed towards the realization of the objectives of labour activity are
abstract theoretical representations they or at least their application are
subject to the test of nature which is not dependent solely on human
knowledge but also involves phenomena that is entirely indifferent to the
intellectual creations of men. Thus theory, even natural science theory,
can never precisely describe actual labour activity if only because the
natural conditions confronting labour are in a constant state of change.
Thus the natural laws or application of natural laws incorporated into the
design of any given labour activity will never be exactly those encountered
in the course of actual labour activity. This, by the way, is how Lenin
regards Engels theory of freedom and necessity in human activity.
"Secondly, Engels does not attempt to contrive "definitions" of freedom and
necessity, the kind of scholastic definition with which the reactionary
professors (like Avenarius) and their disciples (like Bogdanov) are most
concerned. Engels takes the knowledge and will of man, on the one hand, and
the necessity of nature, on the other, and instead of giving definitions,
simply says that the necessity of nature is primary, and human will and mind
secondary. The latter must necessarily and inevitably adapt themselves to
the former. Engels regards this as so obvious that he does not waste words
explaining his view. It needs the Russian Machians to complain of Engels'
general definition of materialism (that nature is primary and mind
secondary; remember Bogdanov's "perplexity" on this point!), and at the same
time to regard one of the particular applications by Engels of this general
and fundamental definition as "wonderful" and "remarkably apt"!
Thirdly, Engels does not doubt the existence of "blind necessity." He admits
the existence of a necessity unknown to man. This is quite obvious from the
passage just quoted. But how, from the standpoint of the Machians, can man
know of the existence of what he does not know? Is it not "mysticism,"
"metaphysics," the admission of "fetishes" and "idols," is it not the
"Kantian unknowable thing-in-itself" to say that we know of the existence of
an unknown necessity? Had the Machians given the matter any thought they
could not have failed to observe the complete identity between Engels'
argument on the knowability of the objective nature of things and on the
transformation of "things-in-themselves" into "things-for-us," on the one
hand, and his argument on a blind, unknown necessity, on the other. The
development of con-sciousness in each human individual and the development
of the collective knowledge of humanity at large presents us at every step
with examples of the transformation of the unknown "thing-in-itself" into
the known "thing-for-us," of the transformation of blind, unknown necessity,
"necessity-in-itself," into the known "necessity-for-us." Epistemologically,
there is no difference whatever between these two transformations, for the
basic point of view in both cases is the same, viz., materialistic, the
recognition of the objective reality of the external world and of the laws
of external nature, and of the fact that this world and these laws are fully
knowable to man but can never be known to him with finality. We do not know
the necessity of nature in the phenomena of the weather, and to that extent
we are inevitably slaves of the weather. But while we do not know this
necessity, we do know that it exists. Whence this knowledge? From the very
source whence comes the knowledge that things exist outside our mind and
independently of it, namely, from the development of our knowledge, which
provides millions of examples to every individual of knowledge replacing
ignorance when an object acts upon our sense-organs, and conversely of
ignorance replacing knowledge when the possibility of such action is
eliminated. (Lenin (1908) Materialism and Emperio-Criticism Chapter 6)
By the way I've one reservation concerning Lenin (and Engels) view regarding
the issue of natural laws. They appear to argue, correct me if I'm wrong,
that the natural law to which men must conform is that which is universal to
all nature. I would argue that we do not and cannot know the laws universal
to nature, but only the particular manifestation of natural law as it
pertains to human labour activity and that these are not identical. That
is, natural laws regarding human interaction with nature are universal only
as regards the labour activity of all men in nature. To argue otherwise
departs from the essentially activist paradigm of Hegel and Marx and
describes human knowledge of nature as that of an essentially disinterested
being contemplating nature free of the restrictions of his own properties
and interests.
"I would also add here that not only is production a unity of
consciousness (ideality) and physical/sensual activity, but so too is the
acquisition of labour skills.
A person cannot pass the ideal as such to another person, as the pure form
of activity. One can observe the activity of a painter or an engineer as
long as one likes, striving to catch their mode of action, the form of
their activity, but one can thus only copy the external techniques and
methods of their work but never the ideal image itself, the active faculty
itself. The ideal, as the form of subjective activity, is only masterable
through active operation with the object and product of this activity,
i.e. through the form of its product, through the objective form of the
thing, through its active disobjectification. The ideal image of objective
reality therefore also only exists as the form (mode, image) of living
activity, coordinated with the form of its object, but not as a thing, not
as a materially fixed state or structure." (Ilyenkov Dialectical Logic
Chapter 8 paragraph 50)
Fascinating.
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