I don't have the book at hand now, but there's one more important thing I
should mention:
I'm pretty sure Lukacs refers to Marx's quote (but would this have been
accessible in 1925?) that there will be one science, the science of history.
Actually, Lukacs attempts to paint a picture of what that one science might be
like. What he says is not terribly clear, but it's important for us to pursue
it.
Now for some responses:
(1) Theses on Feuerbach: Marx says something crucial here (If I'm remembering
my sources aright): the educator must be educated, dividing the world into two
parts . . . The problem with the old materialism (i.e. of early modern
philosophy from Descartes) is its providing of a philosophical underpinning for
the administrative/managerial mentality, thought separated from action-- the
incorporeal mind guiding the mechanical body. CLR James & his group explicitly
made this point with respect to Descartes (they were the first to translate the
1844 mss into English), but others have made it too.
I don't think it would be accurate to say that Marx meant this as a foundation
for natural science, but rather that natural-scientific materialism as he found
it was incapable of doing justice to a perspective transcending class society
with its organization of production and social division of labor.
The above is very very crucial, even more important than commenting on
'practice' as a generic concept. In fact, the importance of 'praxis'
highlighted by Lukacs, and decades later by the Yugoslav Praxis School and
others, was to recover this essential insight of the unity of subjective and
objective activity which was lost by the Second & 3rd Internationals. The
irony is that Lukacs was a Bolshevik who couldn't quite see at the time that
the 3rd International was basically only a continuation of the premises of the
2nd with a twist. What was true of Deborin and Rudas was pretty much true of
the whole lot of them.
(2) politics of natural science vs. social science: You have already guessed
where I see the difference. Obviously, a critique of natural science as a
socially oragnized institutional practice is also necessary, but as I've
indicated above, the object of social science involves something qualitatively
different at the root. Gouldner has expressed this quite well.
I am making here an oversimplification, for the boundaries are not so neat,
e.g. sociobiology, artificial intelligence, and some other areas where the mind
and body meet, so to speak. I've written at lenght on this on my
marxistphilosophy list. I think that as the scientist wides his world-pciture
to the limit, certain issues come up that challenge basic premises, and that
some of the silly stuff going on in cosmology and evolutionary biology may
reflect at some deep level the crisis of the bourgeois antinomies. This is
another discussion. See my emergence blog for a sense of what I'm getting at.
(3) When scientific knowledge emerges:
>On the other hand, maybe what you discover, what you find is significantly
>dependent upon what you are looking for and where you look. And since these
>goals are socially determined....Egytians or Mayans might discover the
>universe in a different order than Greeks.
This is an object of empirical historical study: how did scientific knowledge
develop in China, India, etc? There's a lot of interesting info out there
(e.g. Needham's work on China), but I can't answer your question off the cuff.
This is, though, a different question from that of the universality and
objectivity of scientific knowledge, which comes into its own in the modern era.
(4) I have no argument with the demand for social responsibility of scientists.
After all, I have to live with the amorality of bourgeois professionals here
in Washington DC, and it is insufferable. There are, though, as you admit,
objective constraints on knowledge. I've had bad experiences with obnoxious
left-liberals like Marcus Raskin who used to argue, as middle class liberals
would, that nicer people would produce nicer science. With these people
everything is striking a pose and thinking yourself a nice guy, without ever
having to acknowledge objective reality.
(5) I'm always interested in whatever has to say about comedy or aesthetics in
general.
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Nov 17, 2005 5:11 PM
To: 'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and
the thinkers he inspired' <marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Tailism and the Dialectic
CB: I apologize for "smart" remarks last. :>)
(3)Ralph Dumain rdumain _
RD: You did indeeed catch me in one goof: I got mixed up in using 'subject'
and 'object' inconsistently in discussing the experimenter. I used
'subject' when meant 'object', probably because I was thinking of 'subject'
in the sense of intellectual discipline--the subjects you take in school:
chemistry, sociology, etc. What I meant to say was that natural science is
decisively different from social science, in that in the former human social
activity is not the object of investigation, but in the latter the
experimenter is implicated in the object of investigation--society--and
hence his social role decisively affects the nature of his science.
^^^^^
CB: This is especially true for a Marxist social scientist , who, following
Marx's charge to praxis, to change the world, not just interpret it, places
great emphasis on practice, unity of theory and practice, thaxis and praxis
together, practical critical activity, an activated subject, that is actor,
not a passive contemplative "materialist" of old,like all previous
materialisms. The Marxist social experimenter is driven to not just
experiment but to social industry, full social practice. This is also
Marxists' scientific test ( Take that Popper !)of social theory.
The question is didn't Marx intend for the Theses on Feurbach, especially 1,
2 and 11, to be a foundation for natural science too, not just social
science ? Surely, what you say is true. The social science experimenter is
implicated in her object. The natural scientist is not implicated in her
object entirely in the same way, though importantly as discussed below.
Objective reality outside of society, things-in-themselves, is the same for
workers and capitalists. I think you think I said something contradicting
this this and that's the "confusion" you think I have, no ? But then who
cares about things-completely-to-themselves, with no contact with society ?
Yes, there is a sort of Uncertainty Principle wherein the social scientist's
activities , if they impact her object, society, can change that object of
study. This happens with Marxism. The coming into existence of the Soviet
Union was the Marxist social scientists ( Bolsheviks and Lenin) changing the
object of their study as they study it. Capitalism,imperialism, was
qualitatively different with a socialist nation in the world. So, socialist
scientists had to modify their theory based on the impact of their practice
on their object of study.
This is a different side or developed aspect of what you are talking about.
You may be talking more about the fact that the social scientist is part of
the society she studies, so her subjectivity may be impacted by the object
of her study.
^^^^^^^
^^^^
RD: Alvin Gouldner explained this very clearly and accessibly in his works.
Perhasp some of the excerpts of his work I have on my web site would help
here.
Of course, the social and political organization of science also affects the
direction of the natural sciences as well, but a critical self-consciousness
of the natural scientist makes quite different demands as a rule.
^^^^
CB: Might you elaborate what these different demands are ?
The developments in science and technology have a very direct social impact
in capitalism. Marx and Engels noted the tendency of increasing impact and
the science becoming a socalled direct force of production, with the
implication of the social impact of this. The physicist's work, chemists,
natural scientists are social practictioners whether they want to be or not.
I guess you want to say it is the objective "shape" of things-in-themselves
that affects the order and way in which the universe is discovered by
humans, and that this shape is the same from the standpoint of working class
scientists ( scientists discovering for the working class) capitalist
scientists ( scientists discovering for the capitalists), and politically
neutral scientists, and all different shades and combinations, and even
reeligious scientists , etc.
I suppose. I suppose the universe has a tendency for some parts of it to be
discovered before others from where humans "sit" in relation to it. I
suppose. This is sort an argument for a "deductivity" in the shape of the
universe. Unfolding, development of science.
Anyway, isn't this what has to be what you are saying is objective to all
classes, and people, the same for everyone, despite their politics ? That
even outside of a capitalist history, Newtonian physics would have been
discovered before Einsteinian physics and the like. There is an objective
discovery protocol of the universe ? Things actually do "unfold" to us to
some extent, and some laws of the universe are earlier in the folding than
others ?
On the other hand, maybe what you discover, what you find is significantly
dependent upon what you are looking for and where you look. And since these
goals are socially determined....Egytians or Mayans might discover the
universe in a different order than Greeks.
^^^^^^
Again, I'm, not happy with Lukacs' use of language 'contemplative attitude'.
In the TAILISM ms at least, he puts the concept to acceptable use: remember,
the problem is the notion of a detached observer of a social
experiment--i.e. the importation of a natural-scientific perspective into
sociopolitical affairs. Now the marxist-Leninist would argue for the unity
of theory and practice, and that the Bolshevik is not just a detached
observer. But Lukacs argues that this is a deceptive stance--on the part of
Rudas and Deborin--that n actual fact their party activism obscures their
essential world-view determinist world view, which denies the proper role of
subjectivity as a dimension of objectivity.
Agaun, I call for a comparison of Soviet Marxism in the 1920s to what the
New Turn in Soviet philosophy of the 1930s brought--what I call the
Stalinist double-cross--an ecclesiastical conception of the party as the
mediator of theory and practice.
Any other confusions due to my incomplete reporting may have to be addressed
by reading the full text yourself.
^^^^
CB: Yea, I'll try that. But I appreciate your reporting so much on it.
Thanks for that.
^^^^^
However, there's one point I must insist on, the necessity to insist on the
distinction between the content of scientific knowledge itself (e.g.
physics) and the uses to which it is put. Both are of concern to the
marxist, but they are distinct.
>What you refer to as "the objective understanding of the laws of
>nature" can only be understood through practice and we are only
>interested in it to the extent it goes into practice.
>Things-off-by-themselves without any impact on us ARE OF ABSOLUTELY NO
>INTEREST TO US. We are only interested in things, objective realty, to the
extent that it impacts us.
This is confused nonsense, really dangerously confused nonsense. tHIS IS
PRECISELY THE KIND OF THINKING THAT LED TO THE DISASTERS of the 1930s--
politicization of everything sans objective, rational accountability.
Indiscriminate propaganda about 'practice'--the crap the stalinists and
Maoists preached--is just manipulative propaganda without conceptual
content. At least Lukacs was more sophisticated than the usual nonsense
Marxismt-Leninism pumped into its cadres' heads.
^^^^^^
CB: I'm pretty clear here. I reiterate it elsewhere.
Think of it this way. For Marx, the only way to measure, test something
objectively and with rational accontability is with practice, in both
natural and social science. This goes for both natural and social
scientists. Practice of natural science is not only experimentation but also
industry. Without seeing where natural scientific discovery from
experimentation is used in industry, we have an incomplete Marxist
epistemological, theory of knowledge test of it. When Engels defines
practice as experimentation and industry, the "and" is a logical indicator.
He doesn't mean "experiment _or_ industry." Gotta have both to have complete
practice. This is humanist ethics at the heart of science. What's the impact
on humanity, not just in a controlled laboratory, abstracted and alienated
like the Hollywood Dr. Frankenstein in the movie ( book was different). Or
more realisitically isolated in the Bell labs or government classified
places.
It's not quite indiscriminate , rather very logical and humanist, "for-us"
is a moral requirement put on natural scientists. Afterall, think of all
those physicists in Germany during WW I inventing mustard gas and the like.
Einstein was appalled at his colleagues. But then Einstein's discoveries,
_in a capitalist, warmongering, imperialist ruling class's ruling ideas,
were eventually a critical basis for the development of the most horrendous
W'sMD ever. As much as I love Einstein, his freedom of thought and
scientific inquiry _in the context of imperialism_, has wrought disaster.
And , as I say, Einstein had better politics than the vast majority of
natural scientists of his day ! Even that standard didn't prevent the
stealing of his ideas by the warmerchants and gangsters. But I am after an
objective result ! This is a result standard ! The strictest type of
standard. No excuses how the capitalist got nukes out of E = MC squared; it
makes it an ethical failure, even though it is a profound truth about
things-in-themselves , out there, the way it's coming into society is
against-us. This is actually the most discriminating, (nothing but the best
for the working class,) type propaganda, yes, political education; and
education about epistemology _is_ political too.
My position has the highest humanist and ethical ground on this issue. It
is Marxist humanism. I am trying to figure a way to put the strictest
humanist ( for-us, humanity) standard in place. Calling me a Stalinist is
"confused" morality or ethics, and _ad hominem_ to boot. It is not an
argument, in the sense of detached, logical discourse. It is redbaiting _ad
hominem_, not scientific analysis.
Everything _is_ objectively political, comrade. Engels was involved in the
original "Science for the People" . Natural science is a direct force of
production more than ever, and thereby even more political. The
non-political aspects and impacts of natural science are trivial or we are
indifferent to them. This logic goes like this ultimately: If something is
such a thing-in-itself, so remote and never to have any interaction with
human society, never to become any sort of thing-for( or against)- us humans
whatsoever, absolutely, then we don't care about it. We only care how
things-in-themselves impact and affect us.
This is on the topic of the identity of Marxist ethics and epistemology or
theory of knowledge. It's a big conceptual pun, like you say.
On the pun, recall that Hegel held that comedic logic is superior to
grandeloquent logic. Comedy is superior to Tragedy, contra the implication
of typical bourgeois education.
Ralph Dumain's The Autodidact Project
http://www.autodidactproject.org
The C.L.R. James Institute
http://www.clrjamesinstitute.org
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