Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
Steve and Ralph, Thanks for all the help. Oudeyis - Original Message - From: "Steve Gabosch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and thethinkers he inspired" Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 21:31 Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst This 6/26 post by Victor seems like a good stopping place for the moment - I need to put our discussion about ideality aside for just a little while to tend to other projects, but I am certainly interested. I will follow up. Victor is perfectly correct, I must show what I claim. BTW, for anyone trying to follow this discussion, two different essays by Ilyenkov are quoted in Victor's post, both available on the internet at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/index.htm The main essay Victor and I have been debating interpretations of is: The Concept of the Ideal http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/ideal/ideal.htm This essay appeared in the book Problems of Dialectical Materialism; Progress Publishers, 1977 and was scanned by Andy Blunden. The numbering both Victor and I have been using refers to the sequence of 142 paragraphs in that essay. In Victor's 6/26 post, he quotes from paragraphs 49, 50 and 51. I have an important side point to bring up about this essay. In my scrutiny of this on-line version, the only version I have, I believe there are some scanning errors and possibly some original translation errors to contend with. There is also some reason to wonder if the original Russian that the translation was based on may also contain editorial errors. In other words, this version must be read with caution, and if something does not make sense, it may not be Ilyenkov's original writing. I bring this up because there are a handful of places in the essay where publishing errors like these seem to contribute to confusion over what Ilyenkov was really saying. In his 6/26 post Victor also quotes Ilyenkov using paragraph numbers 57, 58, 59, 60. However, these are from a different essay - chapter 8 in DIALECTICAL LOGIC (1974), Part Two Problems of the Marxist-Leninist Theory of Dialectics 8: The Materialist Conception of Thought as the Subject Matter of Logic http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay8.htm The scanned book is Dialectical Logic, Essays on its History and Theory; Progress Publishers, 1977; English translation 1977 by H. Campbell Creighton; Transcribed: Andy Blunden; HTML Markup: Andy Blunden. BTW, these paragraphs (found on pages 285-288) are from the same essay Victor mentioned on 5/26 and I quoted from on 5/30, and which were discussed a little on this list. The question of the ideal is a major topic of this essay and I agree with Victor that it should be discussed in conjunction with the Concept of the Ideal essay when we take this topic up again. The philosophical work we are doing here is to try to untangle the ideal and the material, closely studying Ilyenkov's work on this complex question in doing so. In the process, it seems we should also seek to keep untangled which citation by our philosopher-teacher we are talking about. :-)) Best, ~ Steve ___ At 07:32 PM 6/26/2005 +0200, Oudeyis (Victor) wrote: - Original Message - From: "Steve Gabosch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and thethinkers he inspired" Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2005 12:40 Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst I am responding to a 6/22/2005 post from Victor, which I quote from. The quote below is a good example of where I think Victor gets Ilyenkov wrong 180 degrees. In the general section of Ilyenkov's 1977 essay "The Concept of the Ideal" that Victor quotes from, I believe Ilyenkov is making just the opposite point that Victor attributes to him. Victor quotes Ilyenkov: "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
[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
> Victor: I'm not sure of it either. However, it appears to me that we can distinguish social labour, direct cooperation, from characteristically human labour, that is social labour that is special since it involves the production and use of tools for realization of material social goals. This distinction allows us to talk about the simplest and most abstract kinds of ideality as being pre or proto-human. It also appears to me that labour has to be social before it can be instrumental, i.e. involve the development of social practices of making and use of tools. ^^^ CB: If I might argue with you comradely here. I would say that though toolmaking and use are famously characterized as uniquely human, there are examples of chimps and other animals using tools. The qualitative aspect of instrumental action is not unique to humans. Humans are unique in the scale and complexity of their toolmaking and use, which is possible because ideality allows a toolmaking _tradition_ to develop. ^^^ Of course once men make and use tools they expand their labour practice and thereby the inventory of objectified activities embodied in idealities, and thereby make culture a universal of human life activity ___ 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] O, Dialectics! :BakhurstVictor
Victor > > CB: Here we see why the transgenerational transmission of how to make and use tools is the key type of social connection defining humans. There are studies showing that chimps , on their own , int the wild, make and use tools, such as sticks to dig in ant hills. But they don't pass on to the next generation how to do it. But they do or at least the women do: -clip- Actually, we've known for a long time that social groups of monkeys and apes develop special cultural traits that are intergenerational for the group and distinctive from those of other groups. This was first noticed by Japanese researchers into the behaviour of different groups of Japanese Macaques. Some groups wash their food others don't, some bath in the hot spring waters while others don't enter the water at all and so on. Since then animal ethologists in Africa and Asia have been mapping the "cultural traditions" of our anthropoid brothers. Clearly, monkeys and apes do have "cultural traditions" that are passed between generations, but it is much less sure that these traditions are anything more than particular features of an otherwise "non-cultural" array of practices. What distinguishes human culture from that of other creatures is its universality, i.e. man's absolute dependence on culture to learn how to behave at all. ^ CB: Yes, however, what apes and monkeys have is "monkey see monkey do" traditions, i.e. imitation. They don't have culture, because they don't have symbolling or _ideality_ . They are limited in what can be passed on to new generations by what can be taught through imitation. The distinguishing characteristic of humans is ideality which allows a qualitatively different passage of experiences between generations. ^^ In truth, we should expect that ideality (and tool making) would appear historically, first, as a particularity, an abstracted individual feature of the universal life activity that preceeded it, rather than as a full-blown universal as it is for modern humans. In principle, the development of a universal such as social labour, tool making and commodity production should first appear as an individual case, become a particular class of phenomena as it expands beyond the individual case (as it does for learned termite fishing among chimpanzees) and only become a universal when it becomes the way things are done by everyone. > Ideality is necessary for this transgenerational transmission to become as > efficient and extensive as it has among humans. > > Thus , "imagination" ( ideality) , planning, focus for days, weeks, years > at > a time on the same goal and purpose, all based on ideality and > imagination, > are the distinguishing characteristics of human labor, not tool use. > > On the other hand, the individual hunter or laborer's imagination and > ideality contains so much information because many others are able to > "put" > info into the "system" or ideological system or cultural tradition that > makes that imagination. > > Notice for example, that the significance of upright posture for hunting > is > not only , as Engels refers to, the freeing of the hands for tool and > weapon > making and use. Ancient humans defeated their prey by long distance > running. > Upright posture slowed humans down so that in a short sprint, they didn't > catch the faster prey, but they would trek the prey down with long > distance > running. This requires longer focus of attention, planning than quick > instinctive attacks. The legs are as significant as the hands in the > original human labors. > > The cooperation among those in the living generation, among the living, is > also potentially enhanced by ideality. > > Of course, after the rise of class exploitative society, ideality becomes > the basis for more anti-cooperation among humans than among chimps. > Ideality > turns into its opposite with the rise of class divided society. In > particular, predominantly physical labor is antagonized to predominantly > idealist labor, and the repressive career of the ideal is begun. > > ___ 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
