----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 17:45
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
At 11:18 AM 6/22/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:
This is pure Ilyenkov. He uses this argument to explain how
ethical/cultural descriptions are given the status of statements on
Nature. For example a statement that nature provides man with a natural
calendar in the yearly solar and lunar cycles, a natural compass in the
North star and a clock in the revolution of the zodiac and the daily
changes of position of the sun are all pseudo-scientific statements about
nature that accord to humanly created instruments the status of natural
phenomena. On the one hand they accord to nature the tool-making faculty
of man and on the other anthropomorphize nature imparting to it the
purposes of men.
I have a vague idea of what you're getting at, but the logic of this
argument escapes me. Calendars, compasses, and the movements of heavenly
bodies as time markers are human conceptual or material artifacts built up
on objective realities. The meaning of the word 'natural' in your
sentence above is not sufficiently specific to enable determination as to
whether this is anthropomorphizing nature. None of these assertions would
be considered scientific statements by anyone. They are metaphorical
expressions. It well may be 'natural' for us to orient ourselves to
natural phenomena in this way, even though 'nature' didn't intend for us
to do this.
The logic of the argument:
1. Calendars, compasses, and clocks are human idealities (material
representations of concepts) that objectify the active division of duration
into hierarchies of commensurable units. The function of these concepts and
the material forms embodying them is as a means for imaging and transmitting
information about the timing, sequence, and duration of activities essential
for coordinating objective collaborative operations.
2. Regular celestial phenomena used to indicate regular units of time are
not self-evident natural phenomena. All represent selection of some
objective celestial phenomena over others because of the appropriateness of
their regular manifestations to the particular social requirements to be
fulfilled by their use. As with the use of gold as a universal commodity of
trade, the determination of the utility of a celestial regularity is a
function of the fitness of its duration as useful units for temporal
organization of social activity. The orientation of human time measuring
practice to regular natural occurrences is natural is only true to the
extent that all human social practice has its ultimate origins in pre or
proto-intellectual conditions.
3.The concept of clock, compass, or calendar as having their origins in
nature were not invented by me. They are common usage and reflect the
normal human practice of treating ideality as identical to material reality:
"Ideality" in general is in the historically formed language of philosophy a
characteristic of the materially established (objectivised, materialised,
reified) images of human social culture, that is, the historically formed
modes of human social life, which confront the individual possessing
consciousness and will as a special "supernatural" objective reality, as a
special object comparable with material reality and situated on one and the
same spatial plane (and hence often identified with it)." (Ilyenkov 1977
Concept of the Ideal, paragraph 42)
Marx's discussion of the common interpretation of reified social practice as
natural phenomena may be found in Capital, Chapter 1, Section 4, "The
Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof"
4. I'm not familiar enough with the relevant fields to discuss whether the
transmutation of reified social practices of measuring duration are or are
not incorporated into scientific theory, but I have no problem arguing that
the identification of reified social productive practice with natural
(material) reality forms a basis for most modern economic theory starting
with game theory and extending into virtually every nook and cranny of this
supposedly scientific field.
The delimitation of what Ilyenkov calls the "whole socially organised
world of intellectual culture" and the "real world as it exists outside
and apart from its expression in these socially legitimised forms of
"experience." can only be based on the distinction between the socially
learned and confirmed concepts or ideas of the tribe and the concepts
formulated by reflecting on practical material activity, i.e. labour
activity: the operations carried out, the physical and material response
of the instruments and material of production to these activities and
finally the effectivity of the operations relative to their purposes.
I'm having trouble understanding this sentence. Furthermore, this
constant use of phrases such as 'labor activity', 'production',
'practical material activity' unfortunately fail to characterize the
nature of scientific research and theory construction.
In truth I'm rethinking considerable parts of this paragraph.
On the issue of the relation between labour activity and science:
The long and complex history of the development of modern scientific
research and theory in the course of the accelerated diversification of
labour characteristic of the growth of industrial society accounts for the
current state of science as a field apparently divorced from all other forms
of practical labour. (I expect that among the characteristics of modern
scientific research and theory construction you include the division of
labour between theoretical scientists, scientists who determine the general
design of experimentation , engineers and contractors who build the
experimental equipment, and research assistants who carry out much of the
actual experimental work, and professional science writers who write up the
articles).
When I describe natural science as reflection on labour practice I'm
referring to the germinal notion of science, of science as an abstract,
universal activity. This includes the simple, abstract process whereby the
workman reflects upon his efforts to realize the aims of his work through
the operations of his body and the effective use of instruments on the
material or subjects of production and thereby acquires a working knowledge
of the laws and principles that he must attend to realize the desired
product no less than the mind boggling complexities of modern scientific
practices.
"the representation of scientific knowledge involves "hijacking" the
mode of representation of ethos and using it to represent theories
regarding the universal laws etc. involved in the practical realization
of ideas through labour and regarding the relevance of these laws to the
work at hand."
Let's put it this way. When we produce scientific theory the rational
process for reflecting upon labour activity, i.e. the dialectical process
and the tools we use to describe the outcomes of thought to others, i.e.
language forms are exactly the same used by the idealist philosopher in
his investigation and proclamations concerning the ethical life and by
the theologian in his construction and revelation of the true nature of
god. The essential difference is in the subject of our rational activity
and, social expression.
Ilyenkov (and I suggest Marx as well) argue that the ideal originates as a
tool for regulation of social life and only later is appropriated
(hijacked may be too strong a word) to the purposes of describing material
reality (labour activity).
Does that help?
No. To me this is nonsense. I have an especial dislike for this
sentence:
Ilyenkov (and I suggest Marx as well) argue that the ideal originates as a
tool for regulation of social life and only later is appropriated
(hijacked may be too strong a word) to the purposes of describing material
reality (labour activity).
Interesting, Why so?
I'll wait on your answer to discuss this.
Just a few relevant comments:
Ilyenkov in his work on the ideal (Concept of the Ideal 1977 and in
Dialectical Logic 1974, Chapter 8 makes the point that consciousness and
will are functions of the ideal and have their origins in the development
of, respectively, awareness of one's own active relations with others as an
object to be managed and self control of personal motives to achieve a state
of harmonious cooperation with others that are necessary for effective
social cooperation. If awareness and will are on the one hand critical to
the labour process and on the other hand are a function of the needs of
social cooperation then it is reasonable to argue that the role of the ideal
(theory or conscious determination of means and ends) in human labour
practice has its origins in social cooperation.
The second comment is based on Marx's discussion of the role of direct
cooperation in the initial development of social labour. See Economic
Manuscripts 1861-63 Section 3 Relative Surplus Value Notebook IV
Cooperation. Marx discussion is interesting because his discussion of crude
direct cooperation could apply to intra-genus cooperation between
non-toolmaking and using thinking and learning creatures such as wolves,
apes, and lionesses just as well as to men. Could this serve as an argument
for the primacy of direct social cooperation as a condition for the
development of tool making and using?
Oudeyis
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