Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
As I see it, your clarifications are even more nonsensical than your original statements. Science is the representation of reflections on practical labour activity rather than on social activity. Comment: it is the identity of the means of representation of ethics and of science both in conscious thought and in material symbolical form that is the source of confusion regarding the distinction between the ideal and the real. 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. Utter nonsense! You started out with something original to say and now you're sabotaging your own efforts with this gibberish. At 10:46 AM 6/21/2005 +0200, Victor wrote: - Original Message - From: Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 10:17 Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst What in bloody hell does this mean? At 09:32 AM 6/21/2005 +0200, Victor wrote: Science is founded as ideas, but unlike Hegel's ideal (which as Marx put it is as nothing else but the form of social activity represented in the thing or conversely the form of human creativity represented as a thing as an object) Science is the idea as a reflection on practical labour activity rather than on social activity. - Sorry, wrote this in a hurry. It should read: Scientific knowledge is represented in the form of ideas, but unlike the ideal (which as Marx put it is as nothing else but the form of social activity represented in the thing or conversely the form of human creativity represented as a thing as an object) Science is the representation of reflections on practical labour activity rather than on social activity. Comment: it is the identity of the means of representation of ethics and of science both in conscious thought and in material symbolical form that is the source of confusion regarding the distinction between the ideal and the real. That is to say, in Science the idea is hijacked to formulate 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. -- This should be rewritten to read: That is, 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. Oudeyis ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
I am confused by this beyond the reasonably clear first and third sentences of the first paragraph and the first sentence of the second paragraph. At 07:51 PM 6/20/2005 +0200, Victor wrote: I regard Ilyenkov's contribution rather as the Logic (method or met) for a practical (materialist or natural science) of ethics (ethos). There is a restriction as to what degree social relations are actually embodied in all cultural objects, this restriction being those imposed by the universal natural laws and principles as they apply to the interaction of labour, instruments and the subjects of production (materia, parts etc.) involved in the productive process. It is the irreducible fact that production involves relations that are entirely indifferent to human social activity and to human consciousness collective or otherwise that compromises any hypothesis that artefacts may be the representations of ideals or of social life. I would go further than this and argue that it is the very irreducibility of human labour to a simple replication of idealized objects that forms the material basis for the dynamics of human development and the indeterminism intrinsic to all human endeavor. Ilyenkov by presenting a materialist theory of the ideal, the ideal as a product of men's socialization of productive experience be of his own labour or of mobilizing and controlling the labour of others, provides us with a model for explaining how practical activity becomes ethical activity. This is extremely important not only to Marxist theory but to the general model of historical development, since the ideal as the means whereby men coordinate their activity with others is not the creative activity that enables human adaptation to world conditions. It more than any other theory of social life explains the contradiction implicit in adaptively; conservation of historical developments together with creative modification of labour and means of production in response to changing natural conditions. Oudeyis ___ 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
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? 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? 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. ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
The originals were certainly rubbish and needed revision. Your objections to the revisions need to be explained. - Original Message - From: Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 10:11 Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst As I see it, your clarifications are even more nonsensical than your original statements. Science is the representation of reflections on practical labour activity rather than on social activity. Comment: it is the identity of the means of representation of ethics and of science both in conscious thought and in material symbolical form that is the source of confusion regarding the distinction between the ideal and the real. 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. Paragraph 53: It is this fact, incidentally, that explains the persistent survival of such semantic substitutions; indeed, when we are talking about nature, we are obliged to make use of the available language of natural science, the language of science with its established and generally understood meanings. It is this, specifically, which forms the basis of the arguments of logical positivism, which quite consciously identifies nature with the language in which people talk and write about nature. Paragraph 54: It will be appreciated that the main difficulty and, therefore, the main problem of philosophy is not to distinguish and counterpose everything that is in the consciousness of the individual to everything that is outside this individual consciousness (this is hardly ever difficult to do), but to delimit the world of collectively acknowledged notions, that is, the whole socially organised world of intellectual culture with all its stable and materially established universal patterns, and the real world as it exists outside and apart from its expression in these socially legitimised forms of experience. (Ilyenkov The Concept of the Ideal 1977) 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. 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 proclaimations 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? Utter nonsense! You started out with something original to say and now you're sabotaging your own efforts with this gibberish. At 10:46 AM 6/21/2005 +0200, Victor wrote: - Original Message - From: Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 10:17 Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst What in bloody hell does this mean? At 09:32 AM 6/21/2005 +0200, Victor wrote: Science is founded as ideas, but unlike Hegel's ideal (which as Marx put it is as nothing else but the form of social activity represented in the thing or conversely the form of human
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
I've isolated the difficult passages and commented on them below. - Original Message - From: Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 10:16 Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst I am confused by this beyond the reasonably clear first and third sentences of the first paragraph and the first sentence of the second paragraph. At 07:51 PM 6/20/2005 +0200, Victor wrote: I regard Ilyenkov's contribution rather as the Logic (method or met) for a practical (materialist or natural science) of ethics (ethos). There is a restriction as to what degree social relations are actually embodied in all cultural objects, this restriction being those imposed by the universal natural laws and principles as they apply to the interaction of labour, instruments and the subjects of production (materia, parts etc.) involved in the productive process. It is the irreducible fact that production involves relations that are entirely indifferent to human social activity and to human consciousness collective or otherwise that compromises any hypothesis that artefacts may be the 'representations' of ideals or of social life. You're right, 'representations' should be changed to replications. My problem here was how to respond to Bakhurst's argument that artefacts are ideal representations. I would go further than this and argue that it is the very irreducibility of human labour to a simple replication of idealized objects that forms the material basis for the dynamics of human development and the indeterminism intrinsic to all human endeavor. Ilyenkov by presenting a materialist theory of the ideal, the ideal as a product of men's socialization of productive experience be of his own labour or of mobilizing and controlling the labour of others, provides us with a model for explaining how practical activity becomes ethical activity. This is extremely important not only to Marxist theory but to the general model of historical development, since the ideal as the means whereby men coordinate their activity with others is not the creative activity that enables human adaptation to world conditions. Less than crystal clear, but in essence correct. The first part the general model of historical development refers to the serious difficulties reconciling synchronic and diachronic theories of culture history common to the whole body of social theory (including orthodox Marxism). The second part of the sentence specifies that the problem with these theories is that they fail to distinguish, as does Ilyenkov between ethical theory and natural scientific theory or in other words theory regarding correct social practice and theory regarding effective labour activity. It more than any other theory of social life explains the contradiction implicit in 'adaptively'; conservation of historical developments together with creative modification of labour and means of production in response to changing natural conditions. 'Adaptively' is a typo it should be adaptivity. Adaptation is a dialectic process in which past historical developments are sublated in the creative response of labour activity to changing natural conditions. Oudeyis ___ 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 ___ 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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
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
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
At 02:12 PM 6/22/2005 +0200, Victor wrote: 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. I can't help you answer my question, but it _is_ the question (Hegel's specific view of labor activity) which you did not clearly address in your exposition. 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. How does this differ from Hegel's view? Hegel as an inheritor of idealist tradition would not express himself this way, but presumably he has a way of accounting for the testing of our subjective notions about nature. 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 is what bugs me about your conception of scientific theory, which is not about labor activity. I don't like this way of expressing things. 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.
