Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
Well on Marxmail I had posted the following in response to another poster, who had drawn a comparison between Cohen and Althusser. --- I suspect that Jerry Cohen would not have minded if people took note of his passing by debating the merits of his works. Actually, I find his reading of Marx to have been closer to the readings that were provided by such Second International Marxists like Kautsky and Plekhanov. I believe that somewhere in KMTH he makes such an acknowledgement. But yet he did seem to have to come to such a reading by way of Althusser, even though he rejected Althusserianism. G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser in his foreword to KMTH. There, after detailing some of the positive contributions of the Althusserians to Marxism (which for Cohen included the re-emphasis on Marx's more mature writings like *Capital* rather than the earlier writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* and the attention that Althusser and his followers paid to historical materialism) then proceeded to note what he regarded as some of their more negative attributes. Writing thus: Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend. Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced. Jim Farmelant -- Original Message -- From: jksc...@yahoo.com To: marxist philosophy marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 + Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment. Not much time here but I will note a few thoughts; - In the context of a sharp decline in the quantity and quality of Marxist theory, Cohen and the AMs stood for the disconnection of theory from practice, the entrenchment of Marxism as another academic exercise. In some ways this was not their fault giving the collapse of Marxism as a movement and a force in the world. - Cohen helped bring a level of rigor and precision in Marxist thinking that had been sorely lacking for a very long time. If it's complained that his work lacked popular accessibility, what are we to say about Adorno, a favorite here who gets wide discussion? - Cohen's major work on Karl Marx's Theory Of History is very valuable, but went down the wrong track in reviving a stagist, mechanical, primacy of the productive forces 2d Internat'l conception of historical materialism. (Possibly due in part to his roots in the Canadian CP.) True, Marx gave that view a lot of space, but Cohen almost totally neglected Marx's alternative class struggle view, which I think is more true and valuable and gets no less, arguably more, space. Brenner is far better on this (and no less rigorous). - Cohen's turn to traditional style moral philosophy as important, first as a complement to his idea of historical materialism, then as a replacement for Marxism and materialist analysis, was a major retrogression. No doubt there is more ethics in Marx and Marxism than Marx cared to admit, but Marx pointed the way in integrating these into materialist analysis. Cohen's own positive ethical views were, moreover, disappointingly primitive and underdeveloped. See his awful Egalitarianism book, but also earlier papers on exploitation and his paper critiquing value theory -- a real train wreck. And I don't accept value theory myself! I haven't carefully read the last book in Rawls. Btw in that book Cohen lists as the big three books on political philosophy Rawls' A Theory of Justice, Hobbes' Leviathan, and Plato's Republic. Marx's Capital doesn't make his cut. Given Cohen's a priori turn to liberal
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
I live in Oxford and clashed with G. A. Cohen at seminars at which I tried to persuade him to take Hegel's dialectics and Marx's dialectics seriously. In particular, Hegel's Science of Logic was a completely closed book to Cohen because for reasons of professional advantage, Cohen adopted the British Professional Philosopher view of Bertrand Russell etc. that Hegel's logic is simply irrational. This was always just stated as an assertion, or with a 'clever' Oxford academic 'joke', without any thought of having a real engagement with Hegel's Logic. My efforts, at least as far as Cohen were concerned, were completely forlorn, I think because his background in the Canadian CP had corroded and fixed his mind and intellect to the extent that he could not grasp Hegel's dialectics or Marx's dialectics, and he took refuge in analytical 'Marxism' and abstract moral 'theory'. His always arrogant dismissal of dialectics did, I think, do some and probably all of his students a lot of damage. He was, of course, rigorous, in an analytical philosophical kind of way, but at the level of imagination he was very limited. Ralph Dumain would have absolutely knocked spots off him, given Ralph's wide reading and relatively undogmatic approach. Look at 'Analytical Marxism' now. It has utterly disintegrated. That is partly because it never had any connection with Marx's thought, although it tried, through linguistic tricks, to claim that it did have something to do with Marx. Ask yourself the question: what are the positive proposals of 'Analytical Marxism' for how society should be in the futurean individualistic 'utopia' in which there is a strategic denial that the fundamental contradiction in human society is that between capital and labour. Phil Walden -Original Message- From: marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of farmela...@juno.com Sent: 07 August 2009 19:14 To: marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Cc: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Well on Marxmail I had posted the following in response to another poster, who had drawn a comparison between Cohen and Althusser. --- I suspect that Jerry Cohen would not have minded if people took note of his passing by debating the merits of his works. Actually, I find his reading of Marx to have been closer to the readings that were provided by such Second International Marxists like Kautsky and Plekhanov. I believe that somewhere in KMTH he makes such an acknowledgement. But yet he did seem to have to come to such a reading by way of Althusser, even though he rejected Althusserianism. G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser in his foreword to KMTH. There, after detailing some of the positive contributions of the Althusserians to Marxism (which for Cohen included the re-emphasis on Marx's more mature writings like *Capital* rather than the earlier writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* and the attention that Althusser and his followers paid to historical materialism) then proceeded to note what he regarded as some of their more negative attributes. Writing thus: Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend. Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced. Jim Farmelant -- Original Message -- From: jksc...@yahoo.com To: marxist philosophy marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Subject: [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:57:20 + Unless I missed it the death the other day of Jerry Cohen attracted no comment on a list devoted to Marxist philosophy. I know that as first a founder of analytical Marxism, then as a refugee from Marxism to liberal egalitarianism, he was not favored among the participants here. But IMHO he was one of the most influential and important Marxist thinkers of the latter half of the 20th century, and his legacy requires comment
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home
On 8/7/09, Phil Walden p...@pwalden.fsnet.co.uk wrote: I live in Oxford and clashed with G. A. Cohen at seminars at which I tried to persuade him to take Hegel's dialectics and Marx's dialectics seriously. In particular, Hegel's Science of Logic was a completely closed book to Cohen because for reasons of professional advantage, Cohen adopted the British Professional Philosopher view of Bertrand Russell etc. that Hegel's logic is simply irrational. This was always just stated as an assertion, or with a 'clever' Oxford academic 'joke', without any thought of having a real engagement with Hegel's Logic. My efforts, at least as far as Cohen were concerned, were completely forlorn, I think because his background in the Canadian CP had corroded and fixed his mind and intellect to the extent that he could not grasp Hegel's dialectics or Marx's dialectics, and he took refuge in analytical 'Marxism' and abstract moral 'theory'. ^ CB: Maybe there's a dialectical contradiction here (smile_, but CP's teach dialectics, Hegelian and Marxist. See for example , Lenin's essay on Karl Marx or Engels' _Ludwig Feuerbach_ or _Anti-Duhring_ very much featured in CP teaching in this area. _The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ is informed by dialectics. It seems very unlikely that Cohen'a dismissal of dialectics came from following any example of the Canadian CP ^ His always arrogant dismissal of dialectics did, I think, do some and probably all of his students a lot of damage. He was, of course, rigorous, in an analytical philosophical kind of way, but at the level of imagination he was very limited. Ralph Dumain would have absolutely knocked spots off him, given Ralph's wide reading and relatively undogmatic approach. Look at 'Analytical Marxism' now. It has utterly disintegrated. That is partly because it never had any connection with Marx's thought, although it tried, through linguistic tricks, to claim that it did have something to do with Marx. Ask yourself the question: what are the positive proposals of 'Analytical Marxism' for how society should be in the futurean individualistic 'utopia' in which there is a strategic denial that the fundamental contradiction in human society is that between capital and labour. Phil Walden -Original Message- From: marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-boun...@lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of farmela...@juno.com Sent: 07 August 2009 19:14 To: marxistphiloso...@yahoogroups.com Cc: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] [marxistphilosophy] G.A. Cohen Goes Home Well on Marxmail I had posted the following in response to another poster, who had drawn a comparison between Cohen and Althusser. --- I suspect that Jerry Cohen would not have minded if people took note of his passing by debating the merits of his works. Actually, I find his reading of Marx to have been closer to the readings that were provided by such Second International Marxists like Kautsky and Plekhanov. I believe that somewhere in KMTH he makes such an acknowledgement. But yet he did seem to have to come to such a reading by way of Althusser, even though he rejected Althusserianism. G.A. Cohen discussed Althusser in his foreword to KMTH. There, after detailing some of the positive contributions of the Althusserians to Marxism (which for Cohen included the re-emphasis on Marx's more mature writings like *Capital* rather than the earlier writings like the *1844 Manuscripts* and the attention that Althusser and his followers paid to historical materialism) then proceeded to note what he regarded as some of their more negative attributes. Writing thus: Above all, I found much of *Lire Capital* critically vague. It is perhaps a matter for regret that logical positivism, with its insistence on precision of intellectual commitment, never caught on in Paris. Anglophone philosophy left logical positivism behind long ago, but it is lastingly the better for having engaged with it. The Althusserian vogue could have unfortunate consequences for Marxism in Britain, where lucidity is a precious heritage, and where it is not generally supposed that a theoretical statement, to be one, must be hard to comprehend. Alas, one consequence of Cohen's work was to revive the very sort of mechanical materialism that Althusser had rejected along with humanist Marxism, but which the young Jerry Cohen seems to have imbibed along with his mother's milk, having been born and raised within the milieu of the Canadian CP. Cohen, himself, years later, came to see the inadequacy of this type of historical materialism but seemed to draw the conclusion that the problem laid with historical materialism in general rather than with the specific variety of historical materialism that he had embraced. Jim Farmelant -- Original Message -- From: jksc
