[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Charles Brown]

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!
Steve Gabosch bebop101 at comcast.net 
Thu Jun 2 18:45:46 MDT 2005 

Previous message: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! 
Next message: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! 
Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] 



Charles, your logic below unsuccessfully explains the relationship between 
human biology and human society.  You merely repeat something no one 
disputes.  All animals reproduce, just as they all breathe, and would die 
without doing so.  But only humans produce - and probably would not even 
survive as animals anymore if they did not do so.  The key question in my 
opinion is to address just what humans do that is new and different from 
other species.  What makes humans "human"?  Clearly, the answer begins with 
production and related activities.  What is it about production and related 
activities, such as intergenerational transmission of culture, language, 
etc., that allows human collectives to continually transform both nature 
and themselves (including their methods of reproduction, family systems 
etc.)?  A dialectical analysis of this continual process requires, in my 
opinion, a grasp of the fundamental "logic" of how human social labor and 
production creates an entirely new domain of life-existence unknown in 
non-human species.  To see how little your paragraphs below contribute to 
this kind of understanding - I am not saying this about you, just the 
passages you offer below - substitute the term "respiration" for 
"reproduction" below - or for that matter, substitute any essential 
biological function.  Humans would die from the lack of any of them 
(digestion, excretion, etc. etc.).  You make this point yourself 
explicitly.  But this point that humans absolutely require a successful 
biological existence to become the historical creatures we have become is 
certainly true, but unenlightening - even, if you will allow me to put this 
sharply, trivial, if that is as far as one goes.  Who would dispute 
you?  The challenge is to explain how we grew from being once upon a time 
*just* mammals to the sociological humans we are today - and the communists 
we aspire to be in the future.  This line of inquiry is what Marx and 
Engels invented, and which I encourage all to continue developing.

Again to put it bluntly, simply placing an equal sign between biology and 
sociology does not seem to contribute anything of much value that I can 
see.  On the other hand, showing how the biological becomes sociological is 
very helpful. How did humanoid primates became historical beings?  For 
example, a study into the role cultural transmission plays in production 
and socio-historical development, the investigation you suggested yesterday 
- based, I would urge, on the classical Marxist insights into the role of 
production in history as the motor force of the creation of humanity - 
could well qualify as such a helpful piece.  That is my motivation for 
encouraging you to pursue your insights and studies on this - I believe 
this kind of study enhances Marxism and human science.  On the rich 
question of reproduction that you raise below, much study is needed there, 
too - on how modes of reproduction have originated and developed in 
history, and how forms of reproduction, family systems, etc. have been 
major motor forces in the development (forward, backward, sideways and 
other ways) of human society and human psychology.  Perhaps this is another 
formal piece of writing you could work on.  Good luck!

- Steve




At 11:32 AM 6/2/2005 -0400, Charles Brown wrote:

>Actually , this essay ( rough copy here) is not on the issue that Steve
>suggested I develop. But it does deal with the anthropological passages at
>the beginning of _The German Ideology_ that are close to the one Steve first
>adduced for discussion.
>
>As I read this essay, I am claiming that M and E are not materialist enough
>in the GI. I don't have the part here, but in _The Origin of the Family,
>Private Property and the State_ Engels has much more advanced anthro
>knowledge than in _The G I_ , and in the Preface , he says production AND
>the family are cofundamental in determining _history_.
>
>   I sent this to Thaxis several years ago
>
>http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/1998-April/008694.html 
>
>Charles
>
>
>For Women's Liberation : Whoever heard of a one genearation species ?
>
>
>  Every Marxist knows the A,B,C's of historical
>materialism or the materialist conception of history.
>The history of all hitherto existing society, since the
>breaking up of the ancient communes, is a
>history of class struggles between oppressor and
>oppressed.
>  In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels
>asserted an elementary anthropologi

[Marxism-Thaxis] O and class struggle

[Charles Brown]

Thomas Frank on the latest Obama flap
Charles Brown 



Hi Eli

I thin it is interesting how Obama, for whatever reason, is violating
key
taboos.  He has talked about race in an amazingly open way for a
bourgeois
politician and now he is actually approaching the question of class
politics
and the hidden injuries of class.  That is of course the No-No of all
No-Nos.

regards

Gary


Gary,

This is a perceptive observation from afar.

This is exactly why so many are trying to twist the latest comments
into a sign that he is an "elitist"  . Of course, it is the opposite.
The tone  and purpose of O's statement was sympathetic to these
victims
of the capitalist system. Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that O
does _know_ that it is a systemic problem.  That's why several of the
establishment commentators attacked his statement as Marxist. O is not
that dense or ignorant of the main theories of society. He certainly
was
not blaming the victims of economic devastation as individuals
responsible for their own plight. What other theory is left for him to
think _but_ a theory that there are systemic problems ?

Charles




___
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 analysis from Marxism list

[Charles Brown]

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism/2008-April/026811.html

Fred wrote:
Ruthless can hear condescension in and contempt in Obama's
criticism but not at all in Clinton's and McCain's orgies of praise for
the
decent, hard-working, glorious, salt of the earth, patriotic, fantasy-
or
really gun-toting "middle class"

Clueless responded:
Of course *I* recognize McCain's or Clinton's condescension. That is
not the point here. The point is that the objects of condescension do
not recognize it. (If they did, why would they have voted twice for
Bush, who condescended to them just as McCain or Clinton do?)

The point is that intellectualized-seeming, professorial-seeming
condescension (as in Gore's or Obama's) does not pass muster in the
USA. Condescension disguised in populist rhetoric (as in Bush's,
McCain's or Clinton's) passes muster.

And Fred responds:
Note Clueless' version of US history. To hear him tell it, Gore lost
because
he was viewed as intellectual. But Gore won the popular vote, that is,
he
outvoted Bush. And the entire election hinged in the end on the
electoral
votes of Florida, where a Republican state machine seems pretty clearly
to
have stolen the election.  In 2004, Clueless seriously believes that
Kerry
was defeated by a video of him windsurfing, which someone or other is
supposed to have regarded as condescending to people who don't
windsurf, and
of course Clueless is completely unaware of the fact that debates still
rage
over methods that were used to block Kerry from winning in Ohio, which
would
have given HIM the electoral college even though he was behind (but
hardly
nonexistent, as Clueless' analyses would suggest - the result was
fairly
close) in the popular vote.

And on this basis, Clueless confidently pronounces that no
self-respecting
white worker will vote for Obama and he is "unelectable."

And by the way, does anybody notice the awesome condescension toward
white
working people in Clueless's comments. ("They" voted for Bush in 2000
and
2004, therefore THEY (this undivided body of white workers whish is
today
presented as voting only as a bloc, like the denizens of that one white
bar
in Levittown) will vote, in the last analysis, for McCain after Clinton
has
finished off Obama.

Okay, now for some further information for Clueless. The United States
is
not, as he imagines (and I am sure he is not alone) history-less. They
voted
for Bush in 2000-2004 (leaving aside whether THEY did or not. Therefore
they
will vote the same way again and Obama is "unelectable" and we should
support candidates from non-imperialist parties -- advice we don't
need
because almost all of us, including myself, are already doing that).  

What happened in 2000 and 2004 is not likely to be repeated exactly
again.
In the interim, all the key policies of Clinton-Bush have collapsed
(globalization, financialization, war against social security beginning
with
the abolition of welfare as we knew it, war against Iraq, intensified
blockade of Cuba, war on the table against Iran) have come acropper.

It is clueless, Clueless, to treat this as irrelevant to this election.
 It
is clueless, Clueless, not to look for change rather than to
confidently
assume sameness.

Of course, I have to be more patient myself.  My view of the endless
stability of American politics was corrupted by my participation in
the
Black liberation struggle in the 1960s and the antiwar movement, and
the
socialist movement, such as it was. I see what is going on around the
Obama
campaign as an indication of the beginnings of change. Frankly and
ultimately, I don't care whether he is "electable" or not. I support
McKinney. But I have seen change and I know it is possible, including
among
white workers.

Unfortunately, and not really his fault, this is totally outside
Clueless'
imaginative reach today. But it is happening today nonetheless, I
think.
Fred Feldman


___
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 discussion

[Charles Brown]

obsessive opposition to Obama
Fred Feldman 

Walter quotes the Militant:
A March 18 speech on race relations by Barack Obama
helped convince a broader layer of the U.S. ruling class that he is
competent to be president for the next four years. It also opened a
discussion on racism in the United States in the big-business media,
on factory floors, and college campuses.

In the days following the talk, the Democratic Party leadership
quickened its process of lining up behind Obama. The Florida and
Michigan parties ruled out the possibility of redoing the primaries
in those states, a maneuver that could have helped rival Hillary
Clinton.

Fred replies:

I think this is wrongly presented as an example of "obsessive
opposition to
Obama." The statements are factual.  In the end, THE WRIGHT STUFF HAS
NOT
BROKEN THE BASIC MOMENTUM OF THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN, which is reviving with
the
resilience it has shown from the beginning. Obama's speech did wun him
more
support than he had had before in the ruling class, I estimate. Clearly
the
Democratic Party is more and more, not less and less, accepting that he
will
be their nominee. The break of a dedicated anti-abortion Clintonite,
Sen. 
Casey of Pennsylvania, and the latter's descriptions of the support he
finds
among his family members, indicate clearly that Obama is gaining, not
losing, traction in Pennsylvania right now.

The general tone of the Militant article is not obsessive about Obama.
They
do not treat him as the main candidate who must be fought tooth and
nail
because of the illusions he can create. They do not treat him, as
Black
Agenda does, as the greater evil who can single-handedly destroy the
Black
liberation struggle and suppress all discussion of Black oppression.
(Has
his candidacy really done that. As the Militant suggests, not really
at
all.)

There is real "obsessive opposition" in the article.  Not about Obama
but
Rev. Wright. 

Newton writes: 
Obama presented Wright as someone marred by "the anger and bitterness
of
those years" of legal segregation in this country. Obama's explanation
belittled not only Wright but other demagogues like him who have built
their
careers on race-baiting and conspiracy theories. "For the men and women
of
Reverend Wright's generation," Obama said, "the memories of humiliation
and
doubt and fear have not gone away"

Newton seems to be suggesting that Wright must be regarded not as
someone
motivated by anti-racism in any way, shape, or form, but, at least in
an
incipiently incipient way, an incipient fascism. His denunciation of
Zionism
and the oppression of Palestinians is place in this context,
suggesting
without proof that he is really an anti-Semite.

Around the time of the discussions over the neoconservative trend, the
Militant argued that criticism of them was "Jew hatred." And to
demonstrate
this beyond the possibility of denial, the Militant explained that all
--
every last one -- middle-class liberals and middle class radicals were
Jew
haters by nature. Yes, that includes the thousands and even millions of
Jews
who fall into these designations. Obviously if they are all Jew
haters,
Wright must be a virtual Hitler.

It is a fact that Hilary Clinton is still losing ground. It is a fact
that
John McCain is a candidate who stands on the record of the Bush
administration, blames homeowners (but not banks) for their reckless
investments, and promises to stay in Iraq for 100 years. And why not
1,000,
by God! And this at a time when the United States may be unusually
isolated
in Iraq, as the only force fighting the Mahdi movement headed by Sadr.

The economy has experienced a crash like 1929. The big question is
whether
the combination of the fed and the government, printing money like
there was
no tomorrow can prevent a 1931. And nobody knows the answer.

The war in Iraq is stalemated at best. None of the original goals have
been
achieved. None of the substitute goals have been achieved either.  The
Iraq
policy has failed. The Cuba policy has failed. The administration is
too
weak to take effective advantage of China's vulnerability on the Tibet
issue. The Cuba policy is in shreds, with the successful transition
from
Fidel to Raul Castro.

In addition to all his other survivals, Obama has survived the most
devastating blow of all: Comrade Ruthless C.O.A.T. Exists' proclamation
that
"Obama is toast" because of his association with Rev. Wright.

In all these circumstances, both the rulers and the masses have good
reason
to grope for something new. I think we are headed for an Obama
presidency.

Enjoy your trip, Walter.




___
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 and racism

[CeJ]

^
>  CB: There was a long term 20th Century pattern , division of labor
>  between Dems and Reps, wherein Dems brought war and Reps brought
>  depression , with Reps not bringing war and Dems not bringing economic
>  downturn. This pattern was broken by Carter not bringing a war.>>

Well, I think that might have been the inherent fiscal conservatism
amongst the 'socially liberal' libertarian type Repugnicans. But now
that US militarism has become part of the national religion worshipped
by both parties, there has been quite a shift in the Repubnican Party.
Fiscal conservatism and even libertarianism exclude the military
complex from their considerations--as they would say, limit the
federal government to its 'natural' role of providing national
security.

>  ^^^
>  CB: Believe me, Bill Richardson is not the only Hispanic who became an
>  O supporter when Richardson did.  Colored solidarity took a big leap
>  with the racist moves on O. Richardson could feel it, because he has
>  experienced similar things. All people of color have analogous
>  experiences.  O is quite international.

I think he is the one candidate who has managed to play both
sides--the Demoncrat establishment and the people who are interested
in his candidacy as something outside that. That bodes well for an
independent surge that favors Obama. On the other hand, independents
do not even have limited party affliliation, so their registration
numbers may not represent all those out there who want nothing to do
with either party but could be led on issues like the Iraq war and
health care is someone would lead. If Obama can get rid of the Hillary
nuisance,  we would have to see what he actually does in terms of
these sort of potential voters.

The problem with the Richardson endorsement is it comes from such a
lightweight. Carville actually did O. a favor on that, by getting it
more attention than it normally would have got.
I don't know enough about what diversifies and also unifies Latino
and/or Hispanic voters in terms of them being a 'bloc'. Will have to
look into this.

CJ

___
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 and racism

[Charles Brown]

>>> CeJ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/29/2008 12:17 AM >>>
Poor Bill, if only he had Cameron Diaz's surname! This is why I say
Obama needs either an ethnic or Hispanic strategy, and I think he is
probably smart enough that he does have one--as soon as he gets rid of
the Clintons.

^^^
CB: Believe me, Bill Richardson is not the only Hispanic who became an
O supporter when Richardson did.  Colored solidarity took a big leap
with the racist moves on O. Richardson could feel it, because he has
experienced similar things. All people of color have analogous
experiences.  O is quite international. 



 However, by his very nature, he has upset the status quo
of the Demoncrats. They are getting ready to absorb him into their
bourgeois collective. The question is, will he see it as a loser
strategy and do something really different with his one chance at the
presidency and this election? If he loses, whatever strategy he
chooses will always be second guessed. So chances are he will throw in
with the Demoncrat consensus. If I were a betting man, that would give
slightly better than even odds to win (because McCain thus far has
failed to raise much money, because national security state types are
showing up on the side of the Demoncrats too, not just the Repugs, and
because the Repug in not an entrenched incumbent). OTOH, it all seems
dicey precisely because of the racism, because of a lack so far of
Hispanic support to Obama (or am I being misled by the
media--afterall, he won Nevada, right?), and because the Demoncrats
lose close elections because of the
conservative/Repug/rural/southern/western biases built into the
electoral system (and Senate too). They need a blow out. For a blow
out strategy, Obama will have to lead. He will have to step outside
the Demoncrat party that has rewarded him so far.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/61293.html 

key quote:

>>More than half of Latino voters in 23 states said no Latino was
running for president. Only a quarter recognized Richardson as a
Hispanic in the race.>>

>>2008 Presidential election: Richardson races to gain Hispanic
recognition
Related

News---New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Democratic candidate for
president, holds a forum with the Culinary Union at union headquarters
Tuesday May 1,2007.

Also on the Web

  More Richardson video resources
  The Richardson File

Advertisement

By Barbara Ferry | The New Mexican

Sat May 5, 2007 10:31 pm

Poll shows majority of Latinos unaware of governor's heritage

If Bill Richardson's mother had been an American banker and his father
had been the son of a prominent Mexico City clan, things might be
different. As it is, the native Spanish-speaking presidential
candidate with an Anglo last name faces a challenge convincing
Hispanic voters that he, too, is Hispanic.

``For all the Latinos here, I want you to know that I'm Latino,''
Richardson said in Spanish at a recent campaign stop in California,
according to a report by New American Media, a coalition of ethnic
media outlets. ``I can't convince people with this last name.''

Richardson has repeated that he's running not as a Hispanic candidate
but as a ``mainstream candidate'' who is proud of his heritage. He's
also repeated that he's running on his resume and not as ``a rock
star'' like Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

But in the Hispanic press, Richardson has celebrity status.

At campaign stops in Texas, Spanish outlets arrived en masse.

He's been featured heavily on media such as Telemundo, which asked in
one segment whether America was ready for ``a Mexican'' in the White
House.

In Los Angeles, he made history by giving a half-hour radio interview
in Spanish to popular radio host Eddie ``El Piolin'' Sotelo. Univision
anchor Maria Elena Salinas greeted him with a kiss at a convention of
Hispanic journalists and wrote a boosterish column about him, ``El
Presidente Richardson,'' on her Web site. In New York, Spanish radio
station owners hosted a fundraiser for him.

America Rodriguez, a professor of radio and television at the
University of Texas at Austin, said Richardson's heritage and fluency
in Spanish boosts him out of third-tier status for her and other
Latinos.

``When it gets around to election time, we usually hear these
candidates speaking this horrible Spanish,'' said Rodriguez, author of
the book Making Latino News. ``For Latinos to be hearing someone who
speaks our language correctly is very exciting.''

``That's what makes him interesting to me,'' said Rodriguez, who is
Cuban American. ``Otherwise, he's just another mainstream Democrat.''

Despite the Spanish media's excitement over having a candidate who can
handle more than ``si se puede'' and other tired slogans, Richardson
has an uphill battle ahead of him with Latino voters, according to one
recent national poll.

More than half of Latino voters in 23 states said no Latino was
running for president. Only a quarter recognized Richardson as a
Hispani

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O and racism

[Charles Brown]

>>> CeJ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/28/2008 9:54 PM >>>
Another thing the discussion so far seems to have overlooked is
finances. McCain isn't Bush 3.0 (or is that Bush 1.2?) because unlike
Poppy Bush and Bushwa Jr., he can't seem to raise money. The
fundamentalists and evangelicals aren't going to pay for his campaign
(they didn't even really pay for Huckabee's). But the corporate
establishment seems to be betting that the crisis is like the downturn
at the end of Poppy's presidency and that a Democrat can fix it. That
is also why national security state establishment types keep popping
up (usually dressed like 'common people') at Obama rallies.

^^^
CB: There was a long term 20th Century pattern , division of labor
between Dems and Reps, wherein Dems brought war and Reps brought
depression , with Reps not bringing war and Dems not bringing economic
downturn. This pattern was broken by Carter not bringing a war.

That is about the only way to explain why Clinton and Obama both have
so much money.
We might be seeing a fundamental shift, too, like the way the business
and military establishment got behind Blair's purged Labour Party and
made it the party of the British establishment. But it is THE empire
we are talking about here, not a former one. So the analogy is a weak
one most likely.

I would say it's still the Demoncrat's election to lose. I really hope
that Obama becomes president and that his first appointment to the
Supreme Court is Anita Hill. Then I would know he really is different.

Guess I could have titled this with the crisis thread title.

CJ

___
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 and racism

[CeJ]

Poor Bill, if only he had Cameron Diaz's surname! This is why I say
Obama needs either an ethnic or Hispanic strategy, and I think he is
probably smart enough that he does have one--as soon as he gets rid of
the Clintons. However, by his very nature, he has upset the status quo
of the Demoncrats. They are getting ready to absorb him into their
bourgeois collective. The question is, will he see it as a loser
strategy and do something really different with his one chance at the
presidency and this election? If he loses, whatever strategy he
chooses will always be second guessed. So chances are he will throw in
with the Demoncrat consensus. If I were a betting man, that would give
slightly better than even odds to win (because McCain thus far has
failed to raise much money, because national security state types are
showing up on the side of the Demoncrats too, not just the Repugs, and
because the Repug in not an entrenched incumbent). OTOH, it all seems
dicey precisely because of the racism, because of a lack so far of
Hispanic support to Obama (or am I being misled by the
media--afterall, he won Nevada, right?), and because the Demoncrats
lose close elections because of the
conservative/Repug/rural/southern/western biases built into the
electoral system (and Senate too). They need a blow out. For a blow
out strategy, Obama will have to lead. He will have to step outside
the Demoncrat party that has rewarded him so far.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/61293.html

key quote:

>>More than half of Latino voters in 23 states said no Latino was
running for president. Only a quarter recognized Richardson as a
Hispanic in the race.>>

>>2008 Presidential election: Richardson races to gain Hispanic recognition
Related

News---New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Democratic candidate for
president, holds a forum with the Culinary Union at union headquarters
Tuesday May 1,2007.

Also on the Web

  More Richardson video resources
  The Richardson File

Advertisement

By Barbara Ferry | The New Mexican

Sat May 5, 2007 10:31 pm

Poll shows majority of Latinos unaware of governor's heritage

If Bill Richardson's mother had been an American banker and his father
had been the son of a prominent Mexico City clan, things might be
different. As it is, the native Spanish-speaking presidential
candidate with an Anglo last name faces a challenge convincing
Hispanic voters that he, too, is Hispanic.

``For all the Latinos here, I want you to know that I'm Latino,''
Richardson said in Spanish at a recent campaign stop in California,
according to a report by New American Media, a coalition of ethnic
media outlets. ``I can't convince people with this last name.''

Richardson has repeated that he's running not as a Hispanic candidate
but as a ``mainstream candidate'' who is proud of his heritage. He's
also repeated that he's running on his resume and not as ``a rock
star'' like Democratic front-runners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

But in the Hispanic press, Richardson has celebrity status.

At campaign stops in Texas, Spanish outlets arrived en masse.

He's been featured heavily on media such as Telemundo, which asked in
one segment whether America was ready for ``a Mexican'' in the White
House.

In Los Angeles, he made history by giving a half-hour radio interview
in Spanish to popular radio host Eddie ``El Piolin'' Sotelo. Univision
anchor Maria Elena Salinas greeted him with a kiss at a convention of
Hispanic journalists and wrote a boosterish column about him, ``El
Presidente Richardson,'' on her Web site. In New York, Spanish radio
station owners hosted a fundraiser for him.

America Rodriguez, a professor of radio and television at the
University of Texas at Austin, said Richardson's heritage and fluency
in Spanish boosts him out of third-tier status for her and other
Latinos.

``When it gets around to election time, we usually hear these
candidates speaking this horrible Spanish,'' said Rodriguez, author of
the book Making Latino News. ``For Latinos to be hearing someone who
speaks our language correctly is very exciting.''

``That's what makes him interesting to me,'' said Rodriguez, who is
Cuban American. ``Otherwise, he's just another mainstream Democrat.''

Despite the Spanish media's excitement over having a candidate who can
handle more than ``si se puede'' and other tired slogans, Richardson
has an uphill battle ahead of him with Latino voters, according to one
recent national poll.

More than half of Latino voters in 23 states said no Latino was
running for president. Only a quarter recognized Richardson as a
Hispanic in the race. >>

___
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 and racism

[CeJ]

Another thing the discussion so far seems to have overlooked is
finances. McCain isn't Bush 3.0 (or is that Bush 1.2?) because unlike
Poppy Bush and Bushwa Jr., he can't seem to raise money. The
fundamentalists and evangelicals aren't going to pay for his campaign
(they didn't even really pay for Huckabee's). But the corporate
establishment seems to be betting that the crisis is like the downturn
at the end of Poppy's presidency and that a Democrat can fix it. That
is also why national security state establishment types keep popping
up (usually dressed like 'common people') at Obama rallies.

That is about the only way to explain why Clinton and Obama both have
so much money.
We might be seeing a fundamental shift, too, like the way the business
and military establishment got behind Blair's purged Labour Party and
made it the party of the British establishment. But it is THE empire
we are talking about here, not a former one. So the analogy is a weak
one most likely.

I would say it's still the Demoncrat's election to lose. I really hope
that Obama becomes president and that his first appointment to the
Supreme Court is Anita Hill. Then I would know he really is different.

Guess I could have titled this with the crisis thread title.

CJ

___
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 and racism

[CeJ]

>>> CeJ  03/25/2008 8:07 PM >>>
About Richardson. Does anyone outside New Mexico know he is Hispanic?


Yes,. Everybody knows. It is very significant that he came out for O
after the important speech on race, because, as I had anticipated, a lot
of other people of color would really "get it"  on O speech on race.

What I meant is most don't even know who he is. Unlike Obama, he seems
to have a race or ethnic authenticity issue. There was no upswell of
Hispanic support for the man, and now that he no longer dyes his hair
Elvis black, his natural Elvis hair (Elvis dyed his hair to make
himself look like an Italian 'idol') looks more Caucasian than
anything else, as does the very Spanish or Portugese looking beard he
now wears.

>>Richardson said O is a once in a lifetime leader . Pretty strong
language.>>

Coming from a Clinton regime dufus though.

IF Carville hadn't opened his big mouth, most would have let the
Richardson endorsement drop from the news in about a week.


>>He looks very white male ethnic
^
CB: Actually, no, not "very", and not white, but colored ethnic.>>

Perhaps because I'm of southern Italian extraction, he looks pretty white to me?


>>, but his name says Anglo-Celtic elite.
He seems to have positioned himself with a future Obama presidency,
perhaps he does have V.P. stars in his eyes.


CB: He was a Presidential candidate this year.>>

I know that CB. He had less of an impact than Dodd or Biden did.



^^^

I think an Hispanic from California or Texas is a risky strategy, but
that now is not the time for Obama to play it safe. That is my hunch.
Playing it safe makes him the next John Kerry.
He may help JK  and Dean get rid of the influence of the Clintons, but
he doesn't do more than this.


CB:  Uhh no, O is not the next John Kerry . Uh no



The demographics of how he might lose look very similar. If he loses
Ohio. Plus remember, he is the guy who got to speak at the Dem Nat
Convention and launch himself into political stellardom because Kerry
chose him.


>>But I think the white male ethnic Roman Catholic demographic is also
worth considering. Hillary Clinton does better with this category over
Obama, but not that much better. That is one reason why he has got
this far. This type of voter doesn't like the professorial type. Both
Mondale and Dukakis were too professorial for them (though Dukakis
comes out of this demographic, if you call Greek Orthodoxy another
form of catholicism).

>>
CB: This fails to understand a subtley of the race dynamic.  A Black
candidate must adhere to a higher standard than whites. This is a
fundamental known to Black people not just for political candidates but
all areas of life for decades. I'm not going to explain the whole thing
now, but just assert it conclusorily.  In this case, "professional" is a
higher standard than "casual". Notice the speech patterns. Obama must be
very "professional" or be seen as a lower down negro. >>

Actually, if you look at the speech patterns of Obama and Clinton when
they address black audiences, they both start trying to sound like
Martin Luther King. Do you think Obama's white mother or white
grandmother taught him to speak like that? It all looks affected to
me.


>>He doesn 't have
the luxury of being folksy for white workers. In fact, of course,
Clinton and McCain are much more hooked up with the ruling class than O,
despite their folksier manners.>>

Well look maybe his campaign has a surprise for Clinton. If he takes
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and gets a near draw in PA, it is
definitely all over for Clinton. Period. Done.


>>CB: Clinton would be the best VP if she hasn't trashed O too much. >>

It's amazing how blind to the race issue you are actually being here
CB. A senior white woman subordinate to a black man? That is symbolic
and emotional poison with the very sort of elements you are most
worried about.

No, I think I'm on to something. He needs to pick someone close to his
age and avoid all those old loser strategies that the Democrats have
been pursuing in the 80s and 90s and this century.

>>How you gonna say the Republican is better prepared to
be President than your fellow Democrat ! That's party treason.>>

Oh, the Dems have been all over this long long before. Gore picking
Blubberman, a zionist who is about as 'liberal' as McCain and showed
even less enthusiasm campaigning with Gore than did Sen. Bentsen for
Dukakis . Then John Kerry flirting with choosing McCain as a V.P.
candidate. Etc. Many Democrats will probably think McCain is better
qualified to run their foreign empire, that's all.

CJ

___
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 and racism

[Charles Brown]

>>> CeJ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/25/2008 8:07 PM >>>
About Richardson. Does anyone outside New Mexico know he is Hispanic?


Yes,. Everybody knows. It is very significant that he came out for O
after the important speech on race, because, as I had anticipated, a lot
of other people of color would really "get it"  on O speech on race.
They can identify , shall we say. There are no doubt masses of people of
color who got it, when O had to "defend" Wright, explain racism to white
people for the ten millionth time.

Richardson said O is a once in a lifetime leader . Pretty strong
language.

Carvill ,the Clintonian, disgracefully called Richardson a "Judas" (!)
, right around Easter, as if the Clintons are Jesus ?! Jeeezzus that was
gross.  Anyway, it was also significant that he had been a Clinton
cabinet member.   For him to choose O over C, is a very strong message
for O.

^^^


He looks very white male ethnic

^
CB: Actually, no, not "very", and not white, but colored ethnic.

^

, but his name says Anglo-Celtic elite.
He seems to have positioned himself with a future Obama presidency,
perhaps he does have V.P. stars in his eyes.


CB: He was a Presidential candidate this year.

^^^

I think an Hispanic from California or Texas is a risky strategy, but
that now is not the time for Obama to play it safe. That is my hunch.
Playing it safe makes him the next John Kerry.
He may help JK  and Dean get rid of the influence of the Clintons, but
he doesn't do more than this.


CB:  Uhh no, O is not the next John Kerry . Uh no



But I think the white male ethnic Roman Catholic demographic is also
worth considering. Hillary Clinton does better with this category over
Obama, but not that much better. That is one reason why he has got
this far. This type of voter doesn't like the professorial type. Both
Mondale and Dukakis were too professorial for them (though Dukakis
comes out of this demographic, if you call Greek Orthodoxy another
form of catholicism).


CB: This fails to understand a subtley of the race dynamic.  A Black
candidate must adhere to a higher standard than whites. This is a
fundamental known to Black people not just for political candidates but
all areas of life for decades. I'm not going to explain the whole thing
now, but just assert it conclusorily.  In this case, "professional" is a
higher standard than "casual". Notice the speech patterns. Obama must be
very "professional" or be seen as a lower down negro. He doesn 't have
the luxury of being folksy for white workers. In fact, of course,
Clinton and McCain are much more hooked up with the ruling class than O,
despite their folksier manners.



Perhaps a white ethnic female might make the best VP choice? Nancy
Pelosi?
Diane Feinstein? But since so much of this is symbolic and emotional,
I think his VP choice should be around his age or younger by a year or
two.

CJ

^
CB: Clinton would be the best VP if she hasn't trashed O too much. She
has done a suicide job, by saying McCain is ready and O isn't. That was
absolutely astonishingly treacherous. Right now you have McCain,
Clinton, Clinton and Ferraro white ganging up on O. It is amazingly
revealingly racist. Clinton literally had an ongoing theme basically
endorsing McCain over Obama. I can't think of an adjective to describe
how outrageous that is in terms of "party loyalty'. She basically was
trying to get the nomination by wrecking Obama and then saying to the
superdelegates ,in effect, O is ruined by me so, if you want to win in
November , you have to pick me. " Not just " I can win in November but
he cant' , " but " I'm going to say and do things ( McCain is
presidentially ready and he isn't. O isn't ready to answer the red 
phone, but McCain and I are) and have Ferraro say something, that would
stir up the racist and "patriotic" votes against O , now, so that he
can't win in November _ by Clinton's own statements in conjunction with
McCain_.  Literally, what she did should be grounds for reprimand by the
Democratic Party. How you gonna say the Republican is better prepared to
be President than your fellow Democrat ! That's party treason.

___
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 and racism

[CeJ]

About Richardson. Does anyone outside New Mexico know he is Hispanic?
He looks very white male ethnic, but his name says Anglo-Celtic elite.
He seems to have positioned himself with a future Obama presidency,
perhaps he does have V.P. stars in his eyes.

I think an Hispanic from California or Texas is a risky strategy, but
that now is not the time for Obama to play it safe. That is my hunch.
Playing it safe makes him the next John Kerry.
He may help JK  and Dean get rid of the influence of the Clintons, but
he doesn't do more than this.

But I think the white male ethnic Roman Catholic demographic is also
worth considering. Hillary Clinton does better with this category over
Obama, but not that much better. That is one reason why he has got
this far. This type of voter doesn't like the professorial type. Both
Mondale and Dukakis were too professorial for them (though Dukakis
comes out of this demographic, if you call Greek Orthodoxy another
form of catholicism).

Perhaps a white ethnic female might make the best VP choice? Nancy Pelosi?
Diane Feinstein? But since so much of this is symbolic and emotional,
I think his VP choice should be around his age or younger by a year or
two.

CJ

___
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 and racism

[Charles Brown]

>>> Ralph Dumain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/25/2008 10:36 AM
>>>
It was a fatally flawed program from the start, but amazingly, Obama
has made it this far.  I'm sure that if he survives this Jeremiah Wright
"crisis" that he will face equally formidable obstacles in the months to
come.  I was singularly unimpressed by Obama's allegedly inspiring 2004
speech.  I haven't looked at his autobiography to see what happened to
him between the time he was community organizer (whatever that means,
exactly), the his entry into the electoral arena.  Clearly he was a
shrewd operator to make it to this point, but I wonder if he believes
his own propaganda to the point that he thinks he can pull this off on
the basis of the premises of this campaign.


CB: I wonder whether this much success is a surprise to him, too. So,
maybe he says, "I didn't think I could get this far, and I got this far,
so it may be possible that I can win the whole thing."

^^^

I have been disappointed by this whole campaign season. I don't see an
easy way out of the current situation.  It disturbs but doesn't surprise
me that white voters are reacting adversely to the sudden discovery that
Obama is black (according to the one-drop rule).  Still, he is likely
the lesser of two evils compared to Hillary, who was once annointed as
the shoe-in.

So what do you think of Bill Richardson as a running mate?

^^^
CB: I'm thinking Clinton should be the running mate, or O as vp for
Clinton. Otherwise, some of their followers may not vote Dem or at all.

-Original Message-
>From: CeJ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Mar 24, 2008 10:16 PM
>To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu 
>Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O and racism
>
>I think the biggest problem O. has got is that he won a lot of states
>in the primaries and caucuses that no Democrat, of any race or
gender,
>is going to win in a national election. Also, the Republicans benefit
>from the OVER-REPRESENTATION of some states at the expense of more
>populous states. So unless he gets the NE, the MW and Florida, while
>keeping California, he has no chance in the electoral college.
>
>I look at the primaries as something like this: suppose we had a
>series of cola taste tests nationwide. Two brands emerge, Coke and
>Pepsi. Right now Hilary is RC Cola, Obama is Pepsi, and McCain is
>Coke.
>
>The Demoncrats will have to come up with a marketing strategy for
>their brand, Pepsi/Obama. If they do about as well as they did last
>time, Obama's book sequel should be titled, 'The Audacity of
>Cluelessness'.
>
>This is the ultimate test of his leadership. But he might have signed
>on to a ship of the damned. He might well have made choices in what
>policies and ideas he was going to stand for that now doom him. I
>believe his fatal mistake made sometime after Kerry picked him to
>speak at the Demoncrat Convention last time was that he staked a
>position too far right.
>These mainstream Demoncrats like Obama never ever learn.
>
>OTOH, McCain looks an awful lot like Bob Dole. If that goober from
>Arkansas, Huckabee, flares up, it could sink McCain. A right-wing
>fundamentalist third party campaign from Huckabee would certainly
help
>the Demoncrats right now. Since the press is ignoring Huckabee right
>now, I don't know if he has been appeased by the Repug bigwigs or
not.
>If he has,  then it looks pretty bad for Obama. It might go more like
>it did for Kerry than it did for Gore (whose key mistake was to
choose
>Joe Blubberman as VP candidate).
>
>CJ
>

___
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 and racism

[Ralph Dumain]

It was a fatally flawed program from the start, but amazingly, Obama has made 
it this far.  I'm sure that if he survives this Jeremiah Wright "crisis" that 
he will face equally formidable obstacles in the months to come.  I was 
singularly unimpressed by Obama's allegedly inspiring 2004 speech.  I haven't 
looked at his autobiography to see what happened to him between the time he was 
community organizer (whatever that means, exactly), the his entry into the 
electoral arena.  Clearly he was a shrewd operator to make it to this point, 
but I wonder if he believes his own propaganda to the point that he thinks he 
can pull this off on the basis of the premises of this campaign.

I have been disappointed by this whole campaign season. I don't see an easy way 
out of the current situation.  It disturbs but doesn't surprise me that white 
voters are reacting adversely to the sudden discovery that Obama is black 
(according to the one-drop rule).  Still, he is likely the lesser of two evils 
compared to Hillary, who was once annointed as the shoe-in.

So what do you think of Bill Richardson as a running mate?

-Original Message-
>From: CeJ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Mar 24, 2008 10:16 PM
>To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
>Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O and racism
>
>I think the biggest problem O. has got is that he won a lot of states
>in the primaries and caucuses that no Democrat, of any race or gender,
>is going to win in a national election. Also, the Republicans benefit
>from the OVER-REPRESENTATION of some states at the expense of more
>populous states. So unless he gets the NE, the MW and Florida, while
>keeping California, he has no chance in the electoral college.
>
>I look at the primaries as something like this: suppose we had a
>series of cola taste tests nationwide. Two brands emerge, Coke and
>Pepsi. Right now Hilary is RC Cola, Obama is Pepsi, and McCain is
>Coke.
>
>The Demoncrats will have to come up with a marketing strategy for
>their brand, Pepsi/Obama. If they do about as well as they did last
>time, Obama's book sequel should be titled, 'The Audacity of
>Cluelessness'.
>
>This is the ultimate test of his leadership. But he might have signed
>on to a ship of the damned. He might well have made choices in what
>policies and ideas he was going to stand for that now doom him. I
>believe his fatal mistake made sometime after Kerry picked him to
>speak at the Demoncrat Convention last time was that he staked a
>position too far right.
>These mainstream Demoncrats like Obama never ever learn.
>
>OTOH, McCain looks an awful lot like Bob Dole. If that goober from
>Arkansas, Huckabee, flares up, it could sink McCain. A right-wing
>fundamentalist third party campaign from Huckabee would certainly help
>the Demoncrats right now. Since the press is ignoring Huckabee right
>now, I don't know if he has been appeased by the Repug bigwigs or not.
>If he has,  then it looks pretty bad for Obama. It might go more like
>it did for Kerry than it did for Gore (whose key mistake was to choose
>Joe Blubberman as VP candidate).
>
>CJ
>

___
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 and racism

[CeJ]

I think the biggest problem O. has got is that he won a lot of states
in the primaries and caucuses that no Democrat, of any race or gender,
is going to win in a national election. Also, the Republicans benefit
from the OVER-REPRESENTATION of some states at the expense of more
populous states. So unless he gets the NE, the MW and Florida, while
keeping California, he has no chance in the electoral college.

I look at the primaries as something like this: suppose we had a
series of cola taste tests nationwide. Two brands emerge, Coke and
Pepsi. Right now Hilary is RC Cola, Obama is Pepsi, and McCain is
Coke.

The Demoncrats will have to come up with a marketing strategy for
their brand, Pepsi/Obama. If they do about as well as they did last
time, Obama's book sequel should be titled, 'The Audacity of
Cluelessness'.

This is the ultimate test of his leadership. But he might have signed
on to a ship of the damned. He might well have made choices in what
policies and ideas he was going to stand for that now doom him. I
believe his fatal mistake made sometime after Kerry picked him to
speak at the Demoncrat Convention last time was that he staked a
position too far right.
These mainstream Demoncrats like Obama never ever learn.

OTOH, McCain looks an awful lot like Bob Dole. If that goober from
Arkansas, Huckabee, flares up, it could sink McCain. A right-wing
fundamentalist third party campaign from Huckabee would certainly help
the Demoncrats right now. Since the press is ignoring Huckabee right
now, I don't know if he has been appeased by the Repug bigwigs or not.
If he has,  then it looks pretty bad for Obama. It might go more like
it did for Kerry than it did for Gore (whose key mistake was to choose
Joe Blubberman as VP candidate).

CJ

___
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 and racism

[Ralph Dumain]

People should have seen this development coming long ago. The only surprise is 
the timing and the slimy tactics of the Clintonites.

I've watched some of the spin doctors, and of course the tenor of the Obama 
discussion hasw changed, including what the media mavens who were saying a 
couple weeks ago and months before how exciting he is.

The susecptibility of an ignorant public to visceral stimuli sans any deep 
grasp of the political landscape is a big problem now bearing bitter fruit.

The marketing of Obama's image, which got him this far, is now taking a big 
hit. The question is how long this will persist, now that reality is once again 
rearing its ugly head.

I caught part of an interview Tavis Smiley did with Skip Gates.  Gates, as a 
secular rather than religious figure, was mighty astute about this situation.  
He even suggested that bridging the black-white divide necessitates an economic 
pitch that would address the economic disadvantages of white workers and 
blacks.  Both Tavis and Skippy wondered aloud whether Obama or Clinto were 
exactly the black or female candidates bestsuited to make the historic leap 
into the presidency.

The manipulation of imagery, the packaging of candidates based on personality 
profiles and emotional appeals, the need to placate too many constituencies at 
once, all this renders all the Democratic candidates vulnerable to sudden 
reversals of public opinion, which have happened with both Clinton and Obama.  
The obvious vulnerabilities may well have been calculated by the media 
gatekeepers who set up Clinton and Obama as the front-runners in the first 
place.

I haven't changed my overall perspective, but it was Obama's speech and the 
aftermath that made me pro-Obama doe the first time, not because I harbor any 
illusions, but the excessive reaction to the race issue based on a minor 
offense of being associated with a blowhard preacher has me alarmed, esp. since 
the Clinton camp has alienated so many people.


-Original Message-
>From: Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Mar 24, 2008 2:41 PM
>To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu
>Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O and racism
>
>
>Of course, the term "racist" should be used here. Obama has racist obstacle in 
>his path.  He took a tack of "transcending" race as the only way he could 
>remotely get masses of white votes.
>
>Charles
>
>Racial problems transcend Wright
>By JIM VANDEHEI & JOHN F. HARRIS | 3/18/08 8:16 PM EST  Text Size: 
>
>

___
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 and racism

[Charles Brown]

Of course, the term "racist" should be used here. Obama has racist obstacle in 
his path.  He took a tack of "transcending" race as the only way he could 
remotely get masses of white votes.

Charles

Racial problems transcend Wright
By JIM VANDEHEI & JOHN F. HARRIS | 3/18/08 8:16 PM EST  Text Size: 



Recent controversy and response show that Barack Obama knows how much peril his 
candidacy faces.
Photo: AP 
 
 
 
Barack Obama’s plunge into the race issue in Philadelphia on Tuesday at times 
sounded more like a sermon than a speech. 

But beneath the personal anecdotes and historical allusions, it was a 
delicately crafted political statement — one that makes clear that Obama 
understands exactly how much peril he is facing. 

Even before the Jeremiah Wright controversy erupted in recent days, voting 
patterns in several states made clear — for all the glow of Obama’s reputation 
as a bridge-builder — how uneven his record really is when it comes to 
transcending deep racial divides. 

The Philadelphia speech offered lines calculated to reassure all the groups 
with which he is most vulnerable. 

For working-class whites — whose coolness toward Obama helped tilt Ohio to 
Hillary Rodham Clinton — Obama spoke with understanding about why they dislike 
busing and affirmative action. “Like the anger in the black community, these 
resentments aren’t always shared in polite company,” he said.

See Also
GOP sees Rev. Wright as pathway to victory 
Speech doesn't pander; does it explain? 
Obama's message resonates 
For Hispanics, who have sided with Clinton in the vast majority of states this 
election, he lashed pundits scouring polls for signs of tension between “black 
and brown” and said the two communities face a common heritage of 
discrimination and inadequate public services. 

Finally, Obama sought to connect with white Jewish voters — potentially one of 
the rawest nerves of all amid the Wright controversy — denouncing those blacks 
who see “the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of 
stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful 
ideologies of radical Islam.” 

It will take weeks, at least until the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, to know 
whether all of Obama’s political and cultural base-touching succeeded. 

Even before that verdict arrives, the speech counts as a remarkable event — 
most of all for the specificity with which Obama discussed racial attitudes and 
animosities that politicians usually prefer to leave unmentioned. 

Of his own candidacy, Obama said, “I have never been so naive as to believe 
that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with 
a single candidacy — particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.” 

Truth be told, Obama and his most fervent supporters often have acted as if he 
could end some of the most persistent divisions in American life by 
proclamation. 

When pressed on racial questions, Obama usually invoked his own biography and 
achievements and appealed to America’s hunger for unity. When pressed on a 
voting record that the National Journal called the most liberal in the Senate, 
Obama dismissed ideological labels as “old politics.” 

The Wright uproar showed that there is no way to sneak race and ideology 
through customs, blinding skeptics with his life story and phrase-making. The 
candidate will need to address these volatile topics directly. 

But this was becoming clear even before the Wright story caught fire.
 



Recent controversy and response show that Barack Obama knows how much peril his 
candidacy faces.
Photo: AP 
 
 
 
Page 2

It is true that Obama won a majority of white voters — a precedent-shattering 
achievement for a black presidential candidate — in an array of states like 
Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Virginia. 

But many of his recent victories came when he got the better end of highly 
polarized voting patterns. He lost the white vote, sometimes by gaping margins 
in states like Alabama (whites went 72 percent for Clinton to Obama’s 25 
percent), Maryland (52 percent to 42 percent) and Louisiana (58 percent to 30 
percent). He compensated only with overwhelming support by black voters. 

In Ohio, it was Clinton who benefited from the racial pattern in the voting. 
She took 64 percent of the white vote, according to exit polls. That was easily 
enough to offset his 87 percent of the black vote. Overall, she won the state 
by 8 percentage points. 

This result could haunt Obama. The past two general elections were tipped by 
narrow GOP victories in Ohio and these rural whites are a prototypical swing 
bloc in elections stretching back decades. Obama failed to win more than 35 
percent of the vote in 11 of the 12 rural counties that border Pennsylvania and 
West Virginia. 

Obama’s cross-racial and even cross-partisan support has been driven by a 
belief that he is a new-era politician, not defined by the grievances and 
ideologica

[Marxism-Thaxis] O

[Charles Brown]

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/01/lawyers_for_git.html

http://habeaslawyersforobama.blogspot.com/ 
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/29/7373/ 
 See discussion of Senate Amendment 4882 at 
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/22/hillaryclinton.barackobama




___
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

[Charles Brown]

Obama's Community Roots  
David Moberg 
 
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg
 
  
  
In 1985, freshly graduated from Columbia University and working for a
New York business consultant, Barack Obama decided to become a community
organizer. Though he liked the idea, he didn't understand what the job
involved, and his inquiries turned up few opportunities. 

Then he got a call from Jerry Kellman, an organizer working on
Chicago's far South Side for a community group based in the churches of
the region, an expanse of white, black and Latino blue-collar
neighborhoods that were reeling from the steel-mill closings. Kellman
was looking for an organizer for the new Developing Communities Project
(DCP), which would focus on black city neighborhoods.

Obama, only 24, struck board members as "awesome" and "extremely
impressive," and they quickly hired him, at $13,000 a year, plus $2,000
for a car--a beat-up blue Honda Civic, which Obama drove for the next
three years organizing more than twenty congregations to change their
neighborhoods.

 
 
 
 
Despite some meaningful victories, the work of Obama--and hundreds of
other organizers--did not transform the South Side or restore lost
industries. But it did change the young man who became the junior
senator from Illinois in 2004, and it provides clues to his worldview as
he bids for the Democratic presidential nomination. 

"I can't say we didn't make mistakes, that I knew what I was doing,"
Obama recalled three years ago to a boisterous convention of the
still-active DCP. "Sometimes I called a meeting, and nobody showed up.
Sometimes preachers said, 'Why should I listen to you?' Sometimes we
tried to hold politicians accountable, and they didn't show up. I
couldn't tell whether I got more out of it than this neighborhood."

But, he continued, "I grew up to be a man, right here, in this area.
It's as a consequence of working with this organization and this
community that I found my calling. There was something more than making
money and getting a fancy degree. The measure of my life would be public
service."

After a transient youth and an earnest search for identity, Obama also
found a home--a community with which he continued relationships, a
church and a political identity. He honed his talent for listening,
learned pragmatic strategy, practiced bringing varied people together
and developed a faith in ordinary citizens that still influences his
campaign message. He discovered the importance of personal storytelling
in politics (and wrote short stories that refined his style). 

Later, as a politician, he worked closely with community groups (though
not as ardently as another community organizer turned politician, the
late Senator Paul Wellstone). As a presidential candidate, he frequently
refers to his community organizing, asking supporters to treat his
campaign as a social movement in which he is just "an imperfect vessel
of your hopes and dreams."

Obama worked as an organizer at a time when Harold Washington's
election as mayor stirred his hopes and dreams, as well as those of
blacks and progressives in the city. Interviews with people who worked
with him during that time elicited few complaints--virtually everyone
described him in glowing terms, including dedicated, hard-working,
dependable, intelligent, inspiring, a good listener, confident but
self-effacing. They expressed admiration for him as an organizer who
trained strong community leaders while keeping himself in the background
and as a strategist who could turn general problems into specific,
winnable issues. Loretta Augustine-Herron, a member of the DCP board
that hired him, remembers him as someone who always followed the high
road. "You've got to do it right," she recalls him insisting. "Be open
with the issues. Include the community instead of going behind the
community's back--and he would include people we didn't like sometimes.
You've got to bring people together. If you exclude people, you're only
weakening yourself. If you meet behind doors and make decisions for
them, they'll never take ownership of the issue." 

Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made
Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing, as translated
through the Gamaliel Foundation, one of several networks of faith-based
organizing. Often by confronting officials with insistent
citizens--rather than exploiting personal connections, as traditional
black Democrats proposed--Obama and DCP protected community interests
regarding landfills and helped win employment training services,
playgrounds, after-school programs, school reforms and other public
amenities. 

One day a resident at Altgeld Gardens, a geographically isolated public
housing project surrounded by waste sites, brought a notice about
planned removal of asbestos from the project manager's office. Obama
organized the community to find out if there was asbestos in their
apartments. They persisted as officials lied and delayed, then

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst (response toarrowlessness)

[Victor]

Steve,
Enjoyed it immensely.  Also helped considerably in "finalizing" (if that's 
possible) the concepts I've been working with.  Must do it again some time.

Regards,
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: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 13:36
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst (response 
toarrowlessness)



At 12:00 PM 7/5/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote: "Steve, I really do not have 
enough time to devote to answering this message as it deserves.  So please 
excuse the briefness of my responses."


No problem at all.  I am happy to let that response be the last major word 
on this discussion for now, which we can certainly return to when time 
permits.


As for the final question asked, "What say you comrade?" I say, thank you 
for the stimulating discussion, we'll get back to these important and 
stimulating topics as time goes on.


Below are some passages that stand out for me as excellent thinking and 
research points for me to work with.


Victor suggests, asks, points out:

*  that I am "... arguing that all reflective thought is ideal ..."

* "So what do you call reality?  Ilyenkov is quite clear as to what he 
calls reality ..."


* "What is virgin materiality?  If by virgin materiality you mean that 
part of nature men have yet to have contacted ..."


* Sorry, but I'm afraid your argument that thought as a function of 
practice and thought as received social wisdom are both ideal are not 
acceptable to me or to Ilyenkov."


* "Your views that all reflective thought is ideal is much more consistent 
with the views of Lukacs, Adorno, Marcuse and Horkheimer and more recently 
of Habermas than with Ilyenkov ..."


* "... you've determined that all human consciousness is ideal ..."

* "Wow! I wrote the previous paragraph before reading this one ..."

* " ... you are confirming my description of your argument as more 
consistent with Critical Theory than with EVI's Marxist-Leninism."


* "The identification of scientific theory as an integral part of the 
ideal is an invention of Lukacs that was expanded by his Critical Theorist 
epigones."


* "At no point does Ilyenkov describe scientific work as ideal."

* "What say you comrade?"  Oudeyis

I say: thanks again,
- Steve





___
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 (response to arrowlessness)

[Steve Gabosch]

At 12:00 PM 7/5/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote: "Steve, I really do not 
have enough time to devote to answering this message as it 
deserves.  So please excuse the briefness of my responses."


No problem at all.  I am happy to let that response be the last major 
word on this discussion for now, which we can certainly return to 
when time permits.


As for the final question asked, "What say you comrade?" I say, thank 
you for the stimulating discussion, we'll get back to these important 
and stimulating topics as time goes on.


Below are some passages that stand out for me as excellent thinking 
and research points for me to work with.


Victor suggests, asks, points out:

*  that I am "... arguing that all reflective thought is ideal ..."

* "So what do you call reality?  Ilyenkov is quite clear as to what 
he calls reality ..."


* "What is virgin materiality?  If by virgin materiality you mean 
that part of nature men have yet to have contacted ..."


* Sorry, but I'm afraid your argument that thought as a function of 
practice and thought as received social wisdom are both ideal are not 
acceptable to me or to Ilyenkov."


* "Your views that all reflective thought is ideal is much more 
consistent with the views of Lukacs, Adorno, Marcuse and Horkheimer 
and more recently of Habermas than with Ilyenkov ..."


* "... you've determined that all human consciousness is ideal ..."

* "Wow! I wrote the previous paragraph before reading this one ..."

* " ... you are confirming my description of your argument as more 
consistent with Critical Theory than with EVI's Marxist-Leninism."


* "The identification of scientific theory as an integral part of the 
ideal is an invention of Lukacs that was expanded by his Critical 
Theorist epigones."


* "At no point does Ilyenkov describe scientific work as ideal."

* "What say you comrade?"  Oudeyis

I say: thanks again,
- Steve





___
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 (response to arrowlessness)

[Victor]

Wha' happened to the arrows??
- Original Message - 
From: "Victor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marxand 
thethinkers he inspired" 

Sent: Tuesday, July 05, 2005 11:47
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst


Steve,
I really do not have enough time to devote to answering this message as it
deserves.  So please excuse the briefness of my responses.
__
- Original Message - 
From: "Steve Gabosch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and
thethinkers he inspired" 
Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 19:36
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst


Here is a follow-up on a passage Victor offered
in an interpretation of an Ilyenkov quote.  I
made some claims and promised to try to show
their basis.  First, I deconstruct both of these
passages from my viewpoint and criticize Victor's
formulation.  Second, I touch on why Victor's
formulation reminds me more of Hegel than
Ilyenkov.  But I do this in a (hopefully) more
relaxed way than the manner in which I initiated
this thought on 6/26, which on retrospect may
have been unnecessarily sharp and
argumentative.  I hope this post does not come off in that way.

At 11:18 AM 6/22/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

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)


[Victor's interpretation:]
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.


Allow me to break these complex passages into
smaller pieces and comment on them:

Paragraph 54 (Ilyenkov The Concept of the Ideal 1977):
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".

Steve comments:
This is a huge statement by EVI: he is defining
"the main problem of philosophy."  He is
suggesting that the main historical division of
philosophy between idealism and materialism,
emphasized so much by Marx and Engels, revolves
around a different kind of boundary than is
usually assumed.  The usual boundary is between
that which is "inside" and "outside" individual
consciousness.  EVI polemicizes again and again
against using this division in this
essay.  Instead, EVI proposes a different
boundary.  It is where EVI places this
alternative boundary that is the source of debate.

I believe, although his formulations are less
than transparent, that EVI is delimiting the
fundamental difference as that between the ideal
- "the world of collectively acknowledged
notions" - and the "real world as it exists outside and apart" from the
ideal.


[Victor 6/22:]
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 activit

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

Steve,
I really do not have enough time to devote to answering this message as it 
deserves.  So please excuse the briefness of my responses.
- Original Message - 
From: "Steve Gabosch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and 
thethinkers he inspired" 

Sent: Monday, July 04, 2005 19:36
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst


Here is a follow-up on a passage Victor offered
in an interpretation of an Ilyenkov quote.  I
made some claims and promised to try to show
their basis.  First, I deconstruct both of these
passages from my viewpoint and criticize Victor's
formulation.  Second, I touch on why Victor's
formulation reminds me more of Hegel than
Ilyenkov.  But I do this in a (hopefully) more
relaxed way than the manner in which I initiated
this thought on 6/26, which on retrospect may
have been unnecessarily sharp and
argumentative.  I hope this post does not come off in that way.

At 11:18 AM 6/22/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

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)


[Victor's interpretation:]
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.


Allow me to break these complex passages into
smaller pieces and comment on them:

Paragraph 54 (Ilyenkov The Concept of the Ideal 1977):
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".

Steve comments:
This is a huge statement by EVI: he is defining
"the main problem of philosophy."  He is
suggesting that the main historical division of
philosophy between idealism and materialism,
emphasized so much by Marx and Engels, revolves
around a different kind of boundary than is
usually assumed.  The usual boundary is between
that which is "inside" and "outside" individual
consciousness.  EVI polemicizes again and again
against using this division in this
essay.  Instead, EVI proposes a different
boundary.  It is where EVI places this
alternative boundary that is the source of debate.

I believe, although his formulations are less
than transparent, that EVI is delimiting the
fundamental difference as that between the ideal
- "the world of collectively acknowledged
notions" - and the "real world as it exists outside and apart" from the 
ideal.



[Victor 6/22:]
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.

Steve comments:
Victor suggests the boundary EVI is speaking of
is revealed in the following distinction: between
the ideas/concepts of the tribe - and reflections
o

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Steve Gabosch]

Here is a follow-up on a passage Victor offered 
in an interpretation of an Ilyenkov quote.  I 
made some claims and promised to try to show 
their basis.  First, I deconstruct both of these 
passages from my viewpoint and criticize Victor's 
formulation.  Second, I touch on why Victor's 
formulation reminds me more of Hegel than 
Ilyenkov.  But I do this in a (hopefully) more 
relaxed way than the manner in which I initiated 
this thought on 6/26, which on retrospect may 
have been unnecessarily sharp and 
argumentative.  I hope this post does not come off in that way.


At 11:18 AM 6/22/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

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)


[Victor's interpretation:]
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.


Allow me to break these complex passages into 
smaller pieces and comment on them:


Paragraph 54 (Ilyenkov The Concept of the Ideal 1977):
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".


Steve comments:
This is a huge statement by EVI: he is defining 
"the main problem of philosophy."  He is 
suggesting that the main historical division of 
philosophy between idealism and materialism, 
emphasized so much by Marx and Engels, revolves 
around a different kind of boundary than is 
usually assumed.  The usual boundary is between 
that which is "inside" and "outside" individual 
consciousness.  EVI polemicizes again and again 
against using this division in this 
essay.  Instead, EVI proposes a different 
boundary.  It is where EVI places this 
alternative boundary that is the source of debate.


I believe, although his formulations are less 
than transparent, that EVI is delimiting the 
fundamental difference as that between the ideal 
- "the world of collectively acknowledged 
notions" - and the "real world as it exists outside and apart" from the ideal.



[Victor 6/22:]
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.

Steve comments:
Victor suggests the boundary EVI is speaking of 
is revealed in the following distinction: between 
the ideas/concepts of the tribe - and reflections 
on practical/labor activity.  Simplifying even 
more what I believe Victor is suggesting, he 
appears to place the essential boundary between 
the ideal, on one hand, and reflections on activity, on the other.


My opinion - and of course, Victor's 
interpretation of his own words takes precedence 
over any opinions I may express - is that 
Victor's distinction does not capture the point 
EVI was making.  In fact, as I see it, Victor's 
formulation quite dramatically loses the very 
distinction between the ideal and the "real world 
as it e

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

Hello Victor ,

Comments below

1. We tend to exaggerate the importance of linguistic communication or at
least the importance of developed language in linguistic communication.[Noam
Chomsky is the paragon of this.  He's so impressed by the size and
complexity of the syntactic analytical system he developed to explain the 
formation of well-formed sentences that he despairs of men's ability to
learn and use it].

Vygotsky among many others, especially novelists and playwrights, have noted
just how little a vocabulary (much less syntax) is needed to communicate
complex information.  Personally I've had quite a few fairly rich
conversations consisting almost entirely of the F and S words.  Looking over
some of the recordings made by discourse analysts like Potter and Antaki it
appears in many cases that in elaborating of the language tool man has
developed an A Bomb to crack a walnut.


CB: Yes, I don't disagree with this. However, some very elementary language
and symbolling, not nearly as complex as modern language which has , of
course, written language impacting spoken, etc, etc., very elementary
language is a qualitative leap for learning as compared with only imitation.
The early humans still had imitation, but they had rudimentary language and
_symbolling_ . Symbolling is a bit more general than just language.

^^^

Then too, much practical learning cannot really be carried out by verbal
description.  For Ethiopian farmers one of the greatest hurdles for learning
to use the computer  was simply to learn how to use the mouse and keyboard.
The physical activity, that is, the logic they picked up right away. It was 
almost impossible to describe to them just how hard to hit the keys or how
far to jiggle the mouse.  The best tool was demonstration, often with the
instructor guiding the student's hand with his own.  I've also taught
sketching and while there are a good many interesting tricks for teaching
people how to see and translate what they see into marks on paper and so on,
almost none are verbal.

It seems to me that our theories of language use are not nearly concrete
enough to accurately explain many features of actual language use and its 
role in social life.

2. When we compare human information transmission systems with those of
other life forms, we tend to use our own highly developed communication
systems as the typical human system.  It isn't really very typical at all.
In the some 200,000 years of H. Sapiens's existence on the planet, his
technological array only began to show serious signs of surpassing that of
his close relatives about 60,000 years ago.  

^^^
CB: True. What is the implication of this fact for the issue of the role of
labor and toolmaking in the transition from ape to man ? Seems to imply that
the growth of labor and tool use was very slow.
Wouldn't you agree that at the points that you mark leaps in labor and
toolmaking , learning is predominantly by symbolic communication, not
imitation ? The traditions that are developed rely necessarily on symboling
and culture ?

^^^


Settled human life begins maybe 10,000 years ago while writing is no older
than about 5,000 years ago. 
Almost all the fancy equipment we now use to communicate with and by is less
than 100 years of age.  But this is not all. The repertory of human
artefacts remains disappointingly small (for most men) until up to nearly
modern times.  The probability is that men had much less to say to each
other than we are accustomed to and much of what they had to communicate
could better (see above) by means other than language.

^
CB: To the extent the human repertory of artefacts was small, that's not
time we are trying to explain, if you follow me. We are trying to explain
the times when the repertory of human artefacts leaped foreward.  Were the
leaps based on a system of passing on information to youth mainly by
imitation or mainly and critically language and ideality saturated ( even if
less complex language than in modern times and Chomsky's theories). 

Also, lets imagine a hunting group.  How is imitation going to give as
rapid, flexible and precise communication as language ? It's not close.  As
Marx said, human labor is distinguished by imagination, planning first. This
is not done by "imitation".  The hunting group can sit around and plan the
hunt before they do it when they have language. This makes it much, much
more effective. They can plan to have one group chase the prey into a
waiting group with arms. All types of things that cannot be organized if
imitation is the only way to communicate.

^

 The point is that the development of modern human information systems and
the rich collection of subjects of interest is the product of the
dialectical development of human culture from very simple origins to its
present developed state.  It is quite likely that we would find that the
great gulf of language and culture that separates men from the more
developed animals was far less ev

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

CB,
Good points.  The one concerning the development of language as a instrument 
of reproduction is particularly interesting.  I've been playing around with 
the idea of a dialectical prehistory/history of information systems as the 
development of reproductive systems (starting with the highly abstract 
systems of subcellular organic reproduction to the very very concrete forms 
of learned human communication systems).  Maybe some day.


You are of course correct all human learning is always thoroughly saturated 
with talk and language.

BUT,
1. We tend to exaggerate the importance of linguistic communication or at 
least the importance of developed language in linguistic communication.[Noam 
Chomsky is the paragon of this.  He's so impressed by the size and 
complexity of the syntactic analytical system he developed to explain the 
formation of well-formed sentences that he despairs of men's ability to 
learn and use it].


Vygotsky among many others, especially novelists and playwrights, have noted 
just how little a vocabulary (much less syntax) is needed to communicate 
complex information.  Personally I've had quite a few fairly rich 
conversations consisting almost entirely of the F and S words.  Looking over 
some of the recordings made by discourse analysts like Potter and Antaki it 
appears in many cases that in elaborating of the language tool man has 
developed an A Bomb to crack a walnut.


Then too, much practical learning cannot really be carried out by verbal 
description.  For Ethiopian farmers one of the greatest hurdles for learning 
to use the computer  was simply to learn how to use the mouse and keyboard. 
The physical activity, that is, the logic they picked up right away. It was 
almost impossible to describe to them just how hard to hit the keys or how 
far to jiggle the mouse.  The best tool was demonstration, often with the 
instructor guiding the student's hand with his own.  I've also taught 
sketching and while there are a good many interesting tricks for teaching 
people how to see and translate what they see into marks on paper and so on, 
almost none are verbal.


It seems to me that our theories of language use are not nearly concrete 
enough to accurately explain many features of actual language use and its 
role in social life.


2. When we compare human information transmission systems with those of 
other life forms, we tend to use our own highly developed communication 
systems as the typical human system.  It isn't really very typical at all. 
In the some 200,000 years of H. Sapiens's existence on the planet, his 
technological array only began to show serious signs of surpassing that of 
his close relatives about 60,000 years ago.  Settled human life begins maybe 
10,000 years ago while writing is no older than about 5,000 years ago. 
Almost all the fancy equipment we now use to communicate with and by is less 
than 100 years of age.  But this is not all. The repertory of human 
artefacts remains disappointingly small (for most men) until up to nearly 
modern times.  The probability is that men had much less to say to each 
other than we are accustomed to and much of what they had to communicate 
could better (see above) by means other than language.


The point is that the development of modern human information systems and 
the rich collection of subjects of interest is the product of the 
dialectical development of human culture from very simple origins to its 
present developed state.  It is quite likely that we would find that the 
great gulf of language and culture that separates men from the more 
developed animals was far less evident for the first 120,000 years of human 
development and only now appears to be absolutely insurmountable.

Oudeyis



- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 20:03
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Victor :

CB,
Continued from last message.

First, let's not forget that a lot of human learning is "human see human
do."  And some of the things we learn this way are as complex as 
ant-fishing
with a straw.[it's actually quite a complicated affair to get it just 
right.

I've tried
it though I drew a line at eating the ants.]



CB: Yes, but, the human see-do learning is always thoroughly saturated 
with

talk and language. Imagine trying to teach all the human see-do stuff
restricted to pantomime.  It is not close. Symbols allow the "imitation" 
of

the actions of dead people; "imitation" without direct observation.

^^^


According to Vygotsky, a truly creative relation to cultural conventions
(the development of conceptual speech) is a rather late stage in the
development of the child.


CB: Most of the symbol

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Ralph Dumain]

I've not had time to keep up with your ongoing debate on Ilyenkov.  Since 
you are apparently preparing something for publication, I hope you will 
apprise us of the finished product.  This line of enquiry, it seems to me, 
is much more important than most philosophical projects being undertaken.


I have yet to address our last round on science as labor.  I'll have to 
review the last few posts so that I can state my misgivings more 
clearly.  I seem to be suffering from the aftereffects of the Stalinist 
equation of science with production.


At 09:03 AM 6/27/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

Steve and Ralph,
Thanks for all the help.
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! :BakhurstVictor

[Victor]

CB,
Continued from last message.

First, let's not forget that a lot of human learning is "human see human 
do."  And some of the things we learn this way are as complex as ant-fishing 
with a straw.
[it's actually quite a complicated affair to get it just right.  I've tried 
it though I drew a line at eating the ants.]
According to Vygotsky, a truly creative relation to cultural conventions 
(the development of conceptual speech) is a rather late stage in the 
development of the child.


Second, Ilyenkov sees the origins of ideality in social labour, i.e. direct 
cooperation, rather than in tool using.  If I were to search for examples of 
pre-human ideality I would look for collective work activity rather than 
tool use.  A number of pre-human predators; female lions and house cats, 
canines of all sorts, and chimpanzee males engage in cooperative chase and 
ambush of game (and in the case of chimpanzees of each other).  Chase and 
ambush of living game is a complex and very fluid activity requiring 
considerable coordination between participants if it's to succeed, and could 
conceivably be a basis for the establishment of ideal forms (rules or 
principles of action designed to collectively achieve communal goals). It's 
also possible that collective care and nursing of young characteristic of 
prides of lionesses and of house cats, most canines and many of the primates 
might also qualify here.   Like pre-human toolmaking and use these primitive 
ideals would be very abstract and particular to certain kinds of activities 
and never reach the concreteness and universality of human ideality.

Oudeyis

- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 17:08
Subject: [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 beca

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

CB,
Sorry for the delay.
Getting through a real tough passage in my rewrite on Ilyenkov.

No argument with you concerning the tool using activities of non- and 
proto-human life forms.  I would distinguish between their toolmaking and 
that of men , as I understand you do, by the universal relevance of tool 
making and using for all human life activity.  All human activity is 
instrumentally enhanced if not enabled.


While I agree that ideality is the essence of tradition, it appears to me 
that primitive and particularistic manifestations of ideality precede its 
universality in human social activity.

Oudeyis

- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 16:49
Subject: [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 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

[Charles Brown]

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

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

 
> 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

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

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 
acknowledg

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Steve Gabosch]

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 the real world as it exists 
outside and apart from its expression in these 
socially legitimised forms of "experience&quo

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

- 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 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)



Victor comments:
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.


Victor says the delimitation that Ilyenkov makes (I am adding ...'s to 
make Victor's complex sentence a little more readable) "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."


But this is decidedly *not* the distinction Ilyenkov makes.

The essential discussion we are having here is over this question: where, 
precisely, is the boundary between ideality and materiality?


Victor draws the boundary between socially learned concepts, on one hand, 
and conceptualizing practical activity/carrying out practical activity/the 
consequences of practical activity - on the other.


Ilyenkov draws a very different distinction.  Ilyenkov is investigating 
the distinction - and he refers to this as the "main problem of 
philosophy" - between the "whole socially organised world of intellectual 
culture" and "the real world as it exists outside and apart from" this.


I believe I can draw on Ilyenkov, and: a) show where Ilyenkov makes his 
distinction between the ideal and the real and b) demonstrate that Victor 
is committing the very idealist error that Ilyenkov criticizes Hegel and 
Bogdanov for making.  In the essay "The Concept of the Ideal," my 
annotations offer the subtitles "Hegel's Concept of the Ideal" to 
paragraphs 45-49, "The Secret Twist of Idealism" to paragraphs 50-53, and 
"The Distinction Between the Ideal and the Real" to paragraphs 54-57. 
Interestingly, my reading of Victor's writings on the question of the 
ideal, such as in the quote above, is that his concept of the ideal is 
much closer to Hegel's than Ilyenkov's or Marx's, he is actually 
performing the same kind of "secret twist of idealism" that Ilyenkov 
attributes to Hegel and others, and Victor's distinction or boundary 
between the ideal and the real is not consistent with Ilyenkov's.


It'

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

This is going to take a little time, you raised some heavy questions here.
Oudeyis
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 17:17
Subject: 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.


Hegel wrote quite a bit on labour, but it appears that most of his
commentary on the subject is in regards to its social rather than
epistemological role.  The master-slave stuff from the Phenomenology and his
discourses on the Korporations and such in his Philosophy of Right.  See
Ashton's interesting discussion on the subject in the MIA:
www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/txt/ashton.htm

Hegel's discussion of the relation of the ideal to life is about as close as
one can get to a Hegelian epistemology of the relation of
the ideal to the practical:

Interestingly, but expectedly, the resemblances and differences between
Hegel and Marx's concepts of the practical are exactly paralleled in those 
of

their respective concepts of the ideal.  Ilyenkov describes Marx as adopting
the meaning or essence of Hegel's ideal  but revising Hegel's
concept of ideality:

61.  In Capital Marx quite consciously uses the term "ideal" in this formal
meaning that it was given by Hegel, and not in the sense in which it was
used by the whole pre-Hegelian tradition, including Kant, although the
philosophical-theoretical interpretation of the range of phenomena which in
both cases is similarly designated "ideal" is diametrically opposed to its
Hegelian interpretation. The meaning of the term "ideal" in Marx and Hegel
is the same, but the concepts, i.e., the ways of understanding this "same"
meaning are profoundly different. After all, the word "concept" in
dialectically interpreted logic is a synonym for understanding of the
essence of the matter, the essence of phenomena which are only outlined by a
given term; it is by no means a synonym for "the meaning of the term", which
may be formally interpreted as the sum-total of "attributes" of the
phenomena to which the term is applied." Concept of the Ideal 1977)

Hegel describes the ideal as the reification of human activity, i.e. the
embodiment of activity - "pure activity", "pure form-creating activity"in
the form of a thing.  Hegel's explanation of the relation of activity to its
objective form is, of course, his theory of activities as a function
conceptualised (objective) social ideas that describe and circumscribe
ethical social life.  To explain how concepts become material activity Hegel
describes the production of activity as the consequences of the operations
of consciousness and will. Consciousness and will are the "transcendental"
pattern of the psyche and the will that realises the ideal form, the ideal
form being the law that guides man's consciousness and will, as the
objectively compulsory pattern of consciously willed activity.

While Marx adopts the essence of the Hegelian ideal as the embodiment or
reification of activity as social practice, he regards the ideal as a
product of activity rather than as its law and guide.  Take for example the
ideal concept of Value: " Value-form is understood in Capital precisely as
the reified form (represented as, or "representing", the thing, the
relationship of things) of social human life activity. Directly it does
present itself to us as the "physically palpable" embodiment of something
"other", but this "other" cannot be some physically palpable matter... in
the sphere of economic activity this substance was, naturally, decoded as
labour, as man's physical labour transforming the physical body of nature,
while "valu

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Steve Gabosch]

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 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)



Victor comments:
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.


Victor says the delimitation that Ilyenkov makes (I am adding ...'s to make 
Victor's complex sentence a little more readable) "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."


But this is decidedly *not* the distinction Ilyenkov makes.

The essential discussion we are having here is over this question: where, 
precisely, is the boundary between ideality and materiality?


Victor draws the boundary between socially learned concepts, on one hand, 
and conceptualizing practical activity/carrying out practical activity/the 
consequences of practical activity - on the other.


Ilyenkov draws a very different distinction.  Ilyenkov is investigating the 
distinction - and he refers to this as the "main problem of philosophy" - 
between the "whole socially organised world of intellectual culture" and 
"the real world as it exists outside and apart from" this.


I believe I can draw on Ilyenkov, and: a) show where Ilyenkov makes his 
distinction between the ideal and the real and b) demonstrate that Victor 
is committing the very idealist error that Ilyenkov criticizes Hegel and 
Bogdanov for making.  In the essay "The Concept of the Ideal," my 
annotations offer the subtitles "Hegel's Concept of the Ideal" to 
paragraphs 45-49, "The Secret Twist of Idealism" to paragraphs 50-53, and 
"The Distinction Between the Ideal and the Real" to paragraphs 
54-57.  Interestingly, my reading of Victor's writings on the question of 
the ideal, such as in the quote above, is that his concept of the ideal is 
much closer to Hegel's than Ilyenkov's or Marx's, he is actually performing 
the same kind of "secret twist of idealism" that Ilyenkov attributes to 
Hegel and others, and Victor's distinction or boundary between the ideal 
and the real is not consistent with Ilyenkov's.


None of my opinions or claims, of course, negate Victor's good advice and 
inspiration to me to study and make copious notes about the other books 
Ilyenkov has in English, as well as study relevant writings by Marx, Lenin, 
and Hegel.  Nor do my philosophically sharp criticisms of what I perceive 
as erroneous interpretations by Victor of Ilyenkov's theory of the ideal 
take away from the respect and admiration I have for Victor's many 
intellectual accomplishments, which I have been privileged to learn much 
from in various internet venues.  In all worthwhile discus

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :BakhurstVictor

[Victor]

- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 19:01
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :BakhurstVictor





Victor

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


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:
NYT Science Desk June 14, 2005, Tuesday

FINDINGS; She's Studying. He's Playing.

By JOHN SCHWARTZ (NYT) 413 words
Late Edition - Final , Section F , Page 1 , Column 1

DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 413 WORDS - Little girls watch and learn; little boys
goof off and horse ... At least this seems to be the case with chimpanzees,
according to new research. ...
Chimpanzees like to snack on termites, and youngsters learn to fish for them
by poking long leaf spines and other such...



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.

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 amon

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 17:38
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Victor:
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).


> CB: I'm not so sure about this. At the origin of the ideal, symboling, 
> the

"social" and social labor are all kind of one big thing together. There
isn't the separation between "social life" and "labour activity" implied
above. The origin of humanly unique labor is in its sociality. The leap in
productivity of human labor is due precisely to its increased sociality. 
The

ideal thrives at its origin in human society _because_ it allows expansion
of the sociality or socialness exponentially and qualitatively.


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.


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.



The ideal doesn't just regulate social life,though it does that. The idea
allows expansion of the amount and qualitity of social connections through
expanded communication.

The word "communication" is perfect here. The ideal allows creation of the
original communes.


Agreed.
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

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :BakhurstVictor

[Charles Brown]

 
 
Victor  

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


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. 

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

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
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&

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Ralph Dumain]

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 ot orient ourselves to 
natural phenomena in this way, even though 'nature' didn't intend for us to 
do this.


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.


 "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?


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).




___
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

[Ralph Dumain]

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 

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

Victor:
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).



CB: I'm not so sure about this. At the origin of the ideal, symboling, the
"social" and social labor are all kind of one big thing together. There
isn't the separation between "social life" and "labour activity" implied
above. The origin of humanly unique labor is in its sociality. The leap in
productivity of human labor is due precisely to its increased sociality. The
ideal thrives at its origin in human society _because_ it allows expansion
of the sociality or socialness exponentially and qualitatively.

The ideal doesn't just regulate social life,though it does that. The idea
allows expansion of the amount and qualitity of social connections through
expanded communication.

The word "communication" is perfect here. The ideal allows creation of the
original communes.


___
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

[Victor]

Comments on the commentary included below.
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
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

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Victor]

I've isolated the difficult passages and commented on them below.
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
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

[Victor]

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: 
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: 
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

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Ralph Dumain]

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

[Ralph Dumain]

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

[Ralph Dumain]

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: 
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

[Victor]

- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
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





___
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

[Ralph Dumain]

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.  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.



___
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

[Victor]

CB,
See below:
- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 21:06
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst




Victor victor

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.

^^^

A correction or, better, an elaboration of the last sentence.

For Hegel the representation of spirit (activity) in the object (not by the 
simple material object but by the object of activity which is the idea that 
serves as the goal of labour activity as described by Marx in his 
description of Labour activity in Capital) is spirit alienated by its 
embodiment in a thing (remember, this is not a material thing but a thing an 
object imaged in conscious thought).


Marx in his 1844 critique of Hegelian philosophy argued that Hegel's theory 
of alienation of spirit in thingness was a topsy turvey representation of 
the true state of the relation of thought to experience.  For Marx it is the 
abstraction of thought that alienates human perception of the world from the 
physical/sensual concreteness of nature as it confronts men as whole beings 
having a few more avenues for percieving reality than the operations of 
mind.  The artefact as a product of human labour certainly does represent 
the impact of the ideal on the labour process, but this is hardly the same 
as saying that the ideal is what is produced by human labour or that it is 
only the impact of the ideal that determines the outcome of labour.  The 
outcome of labour like the ideal itself is a dialectical product that 
sublates the ideal in physical material processes that result in a material 
artefact.  The artefact itself is no more ideal or a social product than it 
is a manifestation of the natural laws etc. that were involved in its 
production. The product of absolute men in an absolute nature.

^^^

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.

^^^
CB: When an idea grips masses, it becomes _a_ material force, not all the
material force involved in human affairs.

^
Yes it does, but as a material force it is no longer just an ideal it is the 
concrete and very complex social process of a revolution!

^

Science is ideas which allow a certain finite and sufficient mastery of
nature , and consequent freedom, as pointed out by Hegel and Engels.

^
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.  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.

^
Leaving the realm of necessity and entering the "realm of freedom" is
historical materialism, the theory of class society and its history,
rendering itself obsolete. Production can proceed by planning rather than 
by

a process that goes on behind the backs of the producers , etc.

^
I'm less sure of this than I used to be.  Historical materialism as a 
practical science is not necessarily identical with Marx's own view of 
socialism, and certainly not with the historical experiments with socialism 
we've witnessed to date. The history of dialectical materialism is complex 
but the fact that the transformation of Capital from an analysis of the 
capitalist mode of production to a doctrine had the adverse effect on its 
development as a practical science is undebatable.


Take for example the issue of planning production.  Several years back the 
BBC put out an interesting documentary on the decline and fall of the Soviet 
system in which it was argued that it was th

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

 Victor victor 

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.

^^^
CB: When an idea grips masses, it becomes _a_ material force, not all the
material force involved in human affairs. 

Science is ideas which allow a certain finite and sufficient mastery of
nature , and consequent freedom, as pointed out by Hegel and Engels.

Leaving the realm of necessity and entering the "realm of freedom" is
historical materialism, the theory of class society and its history,
rendering itself obsolete. Production can proceed by planning rather than by
a process that goes on behind the backs of the producers , etc.

^

^

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


CB: We need ethical theory to answer , once again, the question "what is to
be done ?"


- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis> >
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis> >
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 15:24
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst


>
> Victor
>
>> As I see it, the key concept in this regard that Ilyenkov offers is that
> just as Marx discovered how social relations can be "embodied" into things
> in the form of commodities - through the incorporation of abstract labor
> into the value-form - so too, Marxists can explain that social relations 
> are
> embodied in all cultural objects - through the incorporation of meaningful
> cultural activity into the ideal form.
>
> 
> CB: When an idea grips masses ( is social), it becomes a material force.
>
>


___
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

[Victor]

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


- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 15:24
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst




Victor


As I see it, the key concept in this regard that Ilyenkov offers is that

just as Marx discovered how social relations can be "embodied" into things
in the form of commodities - through the incorporation of abstract labor
into the value-form - so too, Marxists can explain that social relations 
are

embodied in all cultural objects - through the incorporation of meaningful
cultural activity into the ideal form.


CB: When an idea grips masses ( is social), it becomes a material force.



___
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

[Victor]

Right
and I'd like to see someone wear "The coat".  Must be a truly mystical 
experience.

Oudeyis
- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 15:43
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst





Victor


The social relations are not embodied in a particular coat or in a
particular bale of linen.  These are material objects whose concreteness 
are

beyond the capacity of human conceptualisation.  After all a particular
linen coat may have been made by an apprentice and taken twice as long to
produce than a similar coat made by a master tailor. The linen coats and
bales of linen cloth referred to by Marx are not actual material coats and
cloths but an abstract representation of them.  And that's not all. 
Labour

value itself is not a description of physical and sensual labour activity
but of abstract labour.  Labour from which all concrete relations have
beenabstracted out but for labour time or the average time necessary to
produce a particular object.  It does not take into account whether the
labourer was weakened by starvation, was preoccupied with whether he could
pay next months rent, or couldn't find whetstone to sharpen his scissors.


CB: Sounds like the difference between " the coat" and "a coat".




The 'thing' Marx is referring to is not the physical sensual thing as it
comes off the production line, but the abstract idea of the thing as it is
manifested in the consciousness of the labourer, his boss, the salesman 
who

sells it and the purchaser who buys it. A commodity is not a physical
sensual object but a concept of objects, objects abstracted into things to
be bought and sold and that's it.


CB: "The thing" , for Marx , is to _change_ the world. "Things" are
importantly activity, world changing activity, not just the objects that
result. The thing is practical-critical _activity_.  Goods and _services_
constitute things.

^


Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the

error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being
the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual 
human

head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical materialism,
ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of the composition
of each
object

^

CB: Object and activity. Objective reality _is_ human activity, practice,
especially, for Marxists.

^^^

- both the composition of the physical

attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the

composition of its social origins and social context, which are the

sources of its ideality - just as Marx analyzed the composition of the

commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, OBJECTS  within the human
cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just as
commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract labor,
possess both use-value and exchange-value.


CB: Objects _and_ activity; an "object" is the human activity in relation 
to
it. Objects: "the ball", "the rock", "the tree", "the star". These _are_ 
the
human activity in relaion to them. "A ball" is an human activity in 
relation

to it.

Labor is activity. The resulting commodity is the labor in it or in 
relation

to it.

^^

This is not, by the way, Ilyenkov's invention, but the essence of Marx's
critique of Feuerbach in Ad Feuerbach and of Lenin's critique of Plekhanov
in the Conspectus.  The boundary between ideal and real is objective,
external to the subjective consciousness of the individual.

^^
CB: Yes, the boundary between the  ideal and real is itself objective to 
the
individual, and both the ideal and real are taken into the consciousness 
of
the individual consciousness, as well. So , the boundary is both inside 
and

outside of the individual.



___
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

[Victor]

Indeed.
It was Hegel that first made the critique of metaphysical synthesis as 
presented by Kant.  For Kant an antinomy could only be resolved by a choice; 
e.g. in the antinomy presented by the concept of the idea as materialized 
consciousness Kant would insist that we either choose to regard the idea as 
in the head as purely subjective thought or as outside the head in the 
material representations of ideas in language, logic, etc.  Marx following 
Hegel and Lenin and Ilyenkov following Marx entirely rejected Kant's 
metaphysical synthetics and the formal logic that underwrites it.  They 
regarded the antinomy, i.e. the contradiction, as the kernel of the process 
of what Ilyenkov calls ascension from the abstract to the concrete.


By determining the formulation that unites the contradictory elements of an 
antinomy into a single notion (inevitably a more complex or more concrete 
notion of the abstractions of the contradictory notions that comprise it). 
For example, direct commodity exchange involves the unity of two kinds of 
valuation of goods, that of the consumer who is buying the good's use value 
and that of the seller/producer who is selling the investment of labour time 
in production of the good, its exchange value or value. The resolution of 
these two bases in valuation of the good is a concept of universal value 
measured in abstract labour and represented by a single commodity (usually 
precious metals) that represents universal value and describes the value of 
specific goods in accordance to their equivalent value in gold or silver, 
i.e. their price.


Incidentally, a dialectical synthesis does not "eliminate" the antinomy, 
rather it "kicks it upstairs" where it usually reappears in a more complex 
and concrete form.  Thus the establishment of universal value only resolves 
the contradiction between the purchaser's and the seller's evaluation of 
goods on the abstract level of immediate exchange.  The contradiction 
reappears on more concrete levels in the periodic maladjustments between 
capitalist systems of industrial production and the marketability of goods 
(depressions, business cycles etc.).

Oudeyis

- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 15:18
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst




And to be more precise, Oudeyis, I think the point below is that the 
matter

of deriving the materiality discussed here based on what is "outside" of a
concrete individual's head, and a concrete individual's interaction with 
her

non-human "outside" is a main error of positivism and much bourgeois
thought.


"...the error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal 
as
being the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each 
individual

human head "

This is a materiality that each individual must take account of, but on 
the

other hand each individual must become aware that this is not the main
boundary between materiality and ideality for that person _as an 
individual_

, either. The individual's world is very social as well, though there is
physiology.


Charles



CB
I recall a lecturer on S. Freud that asserted and successfully 
demonstrated

that psychoanalysis is a social psychology.
Oudeyis





Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the
error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as 
being

the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual
human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical
materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of
the composition of each object - both the composition of the physical
attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the
composition of its social origins and social context, which are the
sources of its ideality -



^
CB: This distinction between inside and outside of the individual's head
is
what I was getting at in saying all psychology is social psychology.

^





___
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

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

Steve Gabosch 



a) where is ideality "located"?
I would answer a) "in cultural artifacts," using the term in its broadest 
possible sense (tools, signs, all human creations and observations, 
etc.)  I think you would answer a) "in representations."

^
CB: How about in the relationship between the representations and
represented ? Ideality is a relationship.

^^^

b) where is value "located"?
I would answer b) with "each particular commodity."  It appears that you 
would answer b) in concepts of commodities, but definitely not specific 
commodities.

^^
CB: Value is an abtraction. It has no concrete location.

^^

c) what is the "essence" of ideality?
I would answer c) with "human activity."  You answer c) with
"representation."

^^
CB: Doesn't ideality guide human action, as imagination guides the human
laborer unlike the spider or ant or chimp ?

^

d) what is the "essence of value"?
I would answer d) with abstract labor, or socially determined necessary 
labor time.  I am not sure how you would answer this one.

^
CB: The esssence of an abtraction, would be its definition in symbols.

^^

e) what is "represented" in a commodity?
I would answer e) in terms of particular commodities being a combination of 
concrete and abstract labor.  I am not yet clear on how you would answer 
this one.

^^^
CB: Abstract labor represents the concrete labor ?



f) what does the "stamping" of ideality on a cultural artifact?
I would answer f) direct human activity.  You answer f) the interpretation 
of the ideal through human activity, but I am not yet clear on what this 
precisely means.

^
CB: When an idea grips masses it becomes a material force, can make cultural
artifacts ?

^^^

There are several areas to clarify, but the pattern that seems to be 
emerging is that on several important issues I tend to think in terms of 
direct human activity where you tend to think in terms of concepts and 
representations.

Thoughts?

- Steve




___
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! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

Victor 


The social relations are not embodied in a particular coat or in a
particular bale of linen.  These are material objects whose concreteness are
beyond the capacity of human conceptualisation.  After all a particular
linen coat may have been made by an apprentice and taken twice as long to
produce than a similar coat made by a master tailor. The linen coats and
bales of linen cloth referred to by Marx are not actual material coats and
cloths but an abstract representation of them.  And that's not all.  Labour
value itself is not a description of physical and sensual labour activity
but of abstract labour.  Labour from which all concrete relations have
beenabstracted out but for labour time or the average time necessary to
produce a particular object.  It does not take into account whether the
labourer was weakened by starvation, was preoccupied with whether he could
pay next months rent, or couldn't find whetstone to sharpen his scissors.


CB: Sounds like the difference between " the coat" and "a coat".




The 'thing' Marx is referring to is not the physical sensual thing as it
comes off the production line, but the abstract idea of the thing as it is
manifested in the consciousness of the labourer, his boss, the salesman who
sells it and the purchaser who buys it. A commodity is not a physical
sensual object but a concept of objects, objects abstracted into things to
be bought and sold and that's it.


CB: "The thing" , for Marx , is to _change_ the world. "Things" are
importantly activity, world changing activity, not just the objects that
result. The thing is practical-critical _activity_.  Goods and _services_
constitute things.

^

> Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the
error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being
the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual human
head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical materialism,
ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of the composition
of each 
object

^

CB: Object and activity. Objective reality _is_ human activity, practice,
especially, for Marxists.

^^^

 - both the composition of the physical
> attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the
composition of its social origins and social context, which are the
> sources of its ideality - just as Marx analyzed the composition of the
commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, OBJECTS  within the human
cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just as
commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract labor,
possess both use-value and exchange-value.


CB: Objects _and_ activity; an "object" is the human activity in relation to
it. Objects: "the ball", "the rock", "the tree", "the star". These _are_ the
human activity in relaion to them. "A ball" is an human activity in relation
to it.

Labor is activity. The resulting commodity is the labor in it or in relation
to it.

^^

This is not, by the way, Ilyenkov's invention, but the essence of Marx's
critique of Feuerbach in Ad Feuerbach and of Lenin's critique of Plekhanov
in the Conspectus.  The boundary between ideal and real is objective,
external to the subjective consciousness of the individual.

^^
CB: Yes, the boundary between the  ideal and real is itself objective to the
individual, and both the ideal and real are taken into the consciousness of
the individual consciousness, as well. So , the boundary is both inside and
outside of the individual.



___
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! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

Victor 

> As I see it, the key concept in this regard that Ilyenkov offers is that
just as Marx discovered how social relations can be "embodied" into things
in the form of commodities - through the incorporation of abstract labor
into the value-form - so too, Marxists can explain that social relations are
embodied in all cultural objects - through the incorporation of meaningful
cultural activity into the ideal form.


CB: When an idea grips masses ( is social), it becomes a material force.



___
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! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

 And to be more precise, Oudeyis, I think the point below is that the matter
of deriving the materiality discussed here based on what is "outside" of a
concrete individual's head, and a concrete individual's interaction with her
non-human "outside" is a main error of positivism and much bourgeois
thought.


 "...the error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as
being the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual
human head "

This is a materiality that each individual must take account of, but on the
other hand each individual must become aware that this is not the main
boundary between materiality and ideality for that person _as an individual_
, either. The individual's world is very social as well, though there is
physiology.


Charles



CB
I recall a lecturer on S. Freud that asserted and successfully demonstrated 
that psychoanalysis is a social psychology.
Oudeyis




> Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the
>> error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being
>> the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual
>> human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical
>> materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of
>> the composition of each object - both the composition of the physical
>> attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the
>> composition of its social origins and social context, which are the
>> sources of its ideality -
>
>
> ^
> CB: This distinction between inside and outside of the individual's head 
> is
> what I was getting at in saying all psychology is social psychology.
>
> ^
>



___
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

[Victor]

Steve,
All but these directions is included in the body of your text.
- 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 19, 2005 10:11
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Victor,
I have read your response carefully.  I think I am getting a handle on our 
differing approaches.  They seem to emerge in the way we understand issues 
such as:


a) where is ideality "located"?
b) where is value is "located"?
c) what is the "essence" of ideality?
d) what is the "essence" of value?
e) what is "represented" in a commodity?
f) what does the "stamping" of human activity on a cultural artifact?

Please correct me if I am getting your views wrong in any way.  On several 
questions, I am not yet clear on what your answer would be.
I am speaking roughly for each of us, hoping to drive out any essential 
paradigm differences.


a) where is ideality "located"?
I would answer a) "in cultural artifacts," using the term in its broadest 
possible sense (tools, signs, all human creations and observations, etc.) 
I think you would answer a) "in representations."


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.



b) where is value "located"?
I would answer b) with "each particular commodity."  It appears that you 
would answer b) in concepts of commodities, but definitely not specific 
commodities.


Abstract value is indeed a concept and can only be represented in material 
form by symbolic forms such as speech and text.  The specific value of 
concrete goods is price, but this too is only expressible in symbolic forms 
such as dollars and cents and pounds and pence be it in speech, in the 
little labels they attach to marketed goods, or in the exchange of coinage 
for the desired good.


c) what is the "essence" of ideality?
I would answer c) with "human activity."  You answer c) with 
"representation."


The essence of ideality is representation, the subject of ideality is human 
activity represented as the object of that activity.




d) what is the "essence of value"?
I would answer d) with abstract labor, or socially determined necessary 
labor time.  I am not sure how you would answer this one.


Value represents labour activity.  The essence of value is commodity 
production, that is the production of goods for trade.


e) what is "represented" in a commodity?
I would answer e) in terms of particular commodities being a combination 
of concrete and abstract labor.  I am not yet clear on how you would 
answer this one.


A commodity is an article produced for the express purpose of exchanging it 
for other articles. See MIA's encyclopedia of Marxism:
"A commodity is something that is produced for the purpose of exchanging for 
something else, and as such, is the material form given to a fundamental 
social relation - the exchange of labour."




f) what does the "stamping" of ideality on a cultural artifact?
I would answer f) direct human activity.  You answer f) the interpretation 
of the ideal through human activity, but I am not yet clear on what this 
precisely means.


Here Marx's description of labour activity is relevant:
"We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A 
spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts 
to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what 
distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the 
architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in 
reality. At the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already 
existed in the imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He not only 
effects a change of form in the material on which he works, but he also 
realises a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and 
to which he must subordinate his will [emphasis is mine VTFR]. And this 
subordination is no mere momentary act. Besides th

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Steve Gabosch]

Victor,
I have read your response carefully.  I think I am getting a handle on our 
differing approaches.  They seem to emerge in the way we understand issues 
such as:


a) where is ideality "located"?
b) where is value is "located"?
c) what is the "essence" of ideality?
d) what is the "essence" of value?
e) what is "represented" in a commodity?
f) what does the "stamping" of human activity on a cultural artifact?

Please correct me if I am getting your views wrong in any way.  On several 
questions, I am not yet clear on what your answer would be.
I am speaking roughly for each of us, hoping to drive out any essential 
paradigm differences.


a) where is ideality "located"?
I would answer a) "in cultural artifacts," using the term in its broadest 
possible sense (tools, signs, all human creations and observations, 
etc.)  I think you would answer a) "in representations."


b) where is value "located"?
I would answer b) with "each particular commodity."  It appears that you 
would answer b) in concepts of commodities, but definitely not specific 
commodities.


c) what is the "essence" of ideality?
I would answer c) with "human activity."  You answer c) with "representation."

d) what is the "essence of value"?
I would answer d) with abstract labor, or socially determined necessary 
labor time.  I am not sure how you would answer this one.


e) what is "represented" in a commodity?
I would answer e) in terms of particular commodities being a combination of 
concrete and abstract labor.  I am not yet clear on how you would answer 
this one.


f) what does the "stamping" of ideality on a cultural artifact?
I would answer f) direct human activity.  You answer f) the interpretation 
of the ideal through human activity, but I am not yet clear on what this 
precisely means.


There are several areas to clarify, but the pattern that seems to be 
emerging is that on several important issues I tend to think in terms of 
direct human activity where you tend to think in terms of concepts and 
representations.


Thoughts?

- Steve



___
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

[Victor]

Yeah I'm writing it up now.
Oudeyis
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 18:55
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst


This is refreshing after wasting my time reading Rorty's worthless crap. 
Have you published anything on these subjects?


Also, it seems a thoroughgoing analysis of Popper's 3-worlds schema is in 
order.  The Soviets criticized Popper, but not in sufficient detail, it 
seems.


At 01:41 PM 6/17/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

Steve,
Commentary interleaved with your commentary and citations. [note I do not
comment on every citation, some responses cover more than one citation].

Sorry, I've included very few citations here. I'm in the middle of writing
and somewhat pressed for time. Still the opportunity to try out the ideas 
in

the paper in this response is much appreciated.

...


___
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

[Victor]

CB
I recall a lecturer on S. Freud that asserted and successfully demonstrated 
that psychoanalysis is a social psychology.

Oudeyis

- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Friday, June 17, 2005 21:58
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the

error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being
the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual
human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical
materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of
the composition of each object - both the composition of the physical
attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the
composition of its social origins and social context, which are the
sources of its ideality -



^
CB: This distinction between inside and outside of the individual's head 
is

what I was getting at in saying all psychology is social psychology.

^




just as Marx analyzed the composition of the

commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, objects within the human
cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just as
commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract labor,
possess both use-value and exchange-value.


This is not, by the way, Ilyenkov's invention, but the essence of Marx's
critique of Feuerbach in Ad Feuerbach and of Lenin's critique of Plekhanov
in the Conspectus.  The boundary between ideal and real is objective,
external to the subjective consciousness of the individual.



CB: Perhaps from Marx's practical-critical activity, the "practical"
corresponds to Ilyenkov's "material" and the "critical" corresponds to
Ilyenkov's "ideal"



___
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

[Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Charles Brown]

Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the
> error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being
> the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual
> human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical
> materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of
> the composition of each object - both the composition of the physical
> attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the
> composition of its social origins and social context, which are the
> sources of its ideality -


^
CB: This distinction between inside and outside of the individual's head is
what I was getting at in saying all psychology is social psychology.

^




 just as Marx analyzed the composition of the
> commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, objects within the human
> cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just as
> commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract labor,
> possess both use-value and exchange-value.

This is not, by the way, Ilyenkov's invention, but the essence of Marx's
critique of Feuerbach in Ad Feuerbach and of Lenin's critique of Plekhanov
in the Conspectus.  The boundary between ideal and real is objective,
external to the subjective consciousness of the individual.



CB: Perhaps from Marx's practical-critical activity, the "practical"
corresponds to Ilyenkov's "material" and the "critical" corresponds to
Ilyenkov's "ideal" 



___
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

[Ralph Dumain]

This is refreshing after wasting my time reading Rorty's worthless 
crap.  Have you published anything on these subjects?


Also, it seems a thoroughgoing analysis of Popper's 3-worlds schema is in 
order.  The Soviets criticized Popper, but not in sufficient detail, it seems.


At 01:41 PM 6/17/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

Steve,
Commentary interleaved with your commentary and citations. [note I do not
comment on every citation, some responses cover more than one citation].

Sorry, I've included very few citations here. I'm in the middle of writing
and somewhat pressed for time. Still the opportunity to try out the ideas in
the paper in this response is much appreciated.

...


___
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

[Victor]

Steve,
Commentary interleaved with your commentary and citations. [note I do not
comment on every citation, some responses cover more than one citation].

Sorry, I've included very few citations here. I'm in the middle of writing
and somewhat pressed for time. Still the opportunity to try out the ideas in
the paper in this response is much appreciated.

- Original Message - 
From: "Steve Gabosch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and
thethinkers he inspired" 
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 4:16
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Victor,

I spent a little time reviewing Ilyenkov's article "The Concept of the
Ideal" (available on MIA ), and the notes I published on xmca about it
last year.  Below, I have copied paragraphs 66 - 90 from EVI's
142-paragraph essay.  I don't find your comments today about ideality and
materiality consistent with Ilyenkov's theory as I interpret it.

Even were I to somehow convince you of that, it still would not
necessarily make Bakhurst right, of course.  I notice that one big problem
with Bakhurst's presentation in his chapter on the concept of the ideal is
he does not focus on or even mention how Ilyenkov's concept of the ideal
is a generalization of the labor theory of value to all human activity.
In fact, he does not mention the labor theory of value at all.  As I think
about it, this avoidance of the most important argument by Ilyenkov
considerably weakens his presentation.  But as I say, I don't think the
real issue is Bakhurst's comprehension of Ilyenkov's theory of the ideal.
I think the real issue is Ilyenkov's theory itself, whether it can flow
from the labor theory of value, and how does it apply.

As I see it, the key concept in this regard that Ilyenkov offers is that
just as Marx discovered how social relations can be "embodied" into things
in the form of commodities - through the incorporation of abstract labor
into the value-form - so too, Marxists can explain that social relations
are embodied in all cultural objects - through the incorporation of
meaningful cultural activity into the ideal form.


The social relations are not embodied in a particular coat or in a
particular bale of linen.  These are material objects whose concreteness are
beyond the capacity of human conceptualisation.  After all a particular
linen coat may have been made by an apprentice and taken twice as long to
produce than a similar coat made by a master tailor. The linen coats and
bales of linen cloth referred to by Marx are not actual material coats and
cloths but an abstract representation of them.  And that's not all.  Labour
value itself is not a description of physical and sensual labour activity
but of abstract labour.  Labour from which all concrete relations have been
abstracted out but for labour time or the average time necessary to produce
a particular object.  It does not take into account whether the labourer was
weakened by starvation, was preoccupied with whether he could pay next
months rent, or couldn't find whetstone to sharpen his scissors.

The 'thing' Marx is referring to is not the physical sensual thing as it
comes off the production line, but the abstract idea of the thing as it is
manifested in the consciousness of the labourer, his boss, the salesman who
sells it and the purchaser who buys it. A commodity is not a physical
sensual object but a concept of objects, objects abstracted into things to
be bought and sold and that's it.


Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the
error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being
the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual
human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical
materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of
the composition of each object - both the composition of the physical
attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the
composition of its social origins and social context, which are the
sources of its ideality - just as Marx analyzed the composition of the
commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, objects within the human
cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just as
commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract labor,
possess both use-value and exchange-value.


This is not, by the way, Ilyenkov's invention, but the essence of Marx's
critique of Feuerbach in Ad Feuerbach and of Lenin's critique of Plekhanov
in the Conspectus.  The boundary between ideal and real is objective,
external to the subjective consciousness of the individual.

So how do we account for the objectivity of the ideal if it is as an object
manifested only in subjective consciousness?  That's the whole 

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst

[Ralph Dumain]

Thanks.  Popper has an idea of how the 3 worlds interact (which has direct 
causal impact on which), but I don't remember exactly how.  I'm not happy 
with the terminology, which seems to me misleading, and I'm not certain how 
in his scheme something belongs to more than one world at one time.  But a 
comparison is in order.


I should also remember Sohn-Rethel better.  His key idea is real 
abstraction, which presumably roughly corresponds to ideality (though 
covering a restricted range of phenomena I believe--scientific & 
philosophical abstraction, value form).  Some extracts:


http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/sohn-rethel-x.html

I also vaguely recall Dubrovsky restricted ideality to subjectivity.  I put 
some extracts online some time ago:


http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/dubrov1.html

At 09:19 PM 6/16/2005 -0700, Steve Gabosch wrote:
I am not at all up to speed on the German Marxist Sohn-Rethel (please 
help), but a thought immediately comes to mind on Popper's "Three Worlds" 
cosmology.


If one ignores the positivist framework of these three worlds invented by 
Popper and attempts to make them as dynamic and "dialectical" as possible, 
one might have some success drawing some rough correspondence between a) 
Popper's world 1, the world of physical objects and organisms, and 
Ilyenkov's material world; b) Popper's world 2, of mental activity, and 
Ilyenkov's will and consciousness; and c) Popper's world 3, the products 
of the human mind, and Ilyenkov's realm of ideality.


But there is still a fundamental difference that makes the two world views 
completely different.  If we are to make Popper's three worlds dynamic and 
historical, and assign any meaning to his numbering system, then world 1, 
objects and organisms, must generate an emerging world 2, mental 
activities, which in turn (in conjunction with each other) generate world 
3, the world of products of the human mind.


Ilyenkov, however, makes it crystal clear that he sees just the opposite 
genetic-historic relationship between world "2" and world "3".  He argues 
that it is ideality that generates will and consciousness, not the other 
way around.  See paragraph 76.  Also note Ilyenkov's brief mention of 
Popper in paragraph 77.


To expand on Ilyenkov's discussion of the "secret twist of idealism," 
(discussed earlier in the essay "the Concept of the Ideal), it is this 
"inversion" of ideality, on one hand, and will and consciousness, on the 
other, that creates a major stumbling block in philosophy and 
science.  When plain materialists and empiricists do this, they are 
committing an essential idealist error.  It is one of the most common 
errors in bourgeois social science.


- Steve



At 01:02 PM 6/16/2005 -0400, Ralph wrote:
This is the key.  How would you compare Ilyenkov's view to that of 
Sohn-Rethel, or to Popper's 3-worlds theory?


At 07:16 PM 6/15/2005 -0700, Steve Gabosch wrote:

..

As I see it, the key concept in this regard that Ilyenkov offers is that 
just as Marx discovered how social relations can be "embodied" into 
things in the form of commodities - through the incorporation of 
abstract labor into the value-form - so too, Marxists can explain that 
social relations are embodied in all cultural objects - through the 
incorporation of meaningful cultural activity into the ideal form.


Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the 
error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as 
being the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each 
individual human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to 
dialectical materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished 
in terms of the composition of each object - both the composition of the 
physical attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, 
and the composition of its social origins and social context, which are 
the sources of its ideality - just as Marx analyzed the composition of 
the commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, objects within the human 
cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just 
as commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract 
labor, possess both use-value and exchange-value.



___
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

[Steve Gabosch]

I am not at all up to speed on the German Marxist Sohn-Rethel (please 
help), but a thought immediately comes to mind on Popper's "Three Worlds" 
cosmology.


If one ignores the positivist framework of these three worlds invented by 
Popper and attempts to make them as dynamic and "dialectical" as possible, 
one might have some success drawing some rough correspondence between a) 
Popper's world 1, the world of physical objects and organisms, and 
Ilyenkov's material world; b) Popper's world 2, of mental activity, and 
Ilyenkov's will and consciousness; and c) Popper's world 3, the products of 
the human mind, and Ilyenkov's realm of ideality.


But there is still a fundamental difference that makes the two world views 
completely different.  If we are to make Popper's three worlds dynamic and 
historical, and assign any meaning to his numbering system, then world 1, 
objects and organisms, must generate an emerging world 2, mental 
activities, which in turn (in conjunction with each other) generate world 
3, the world of products of the human mind.


Ilyenkov, however, makes it crystal clear that he sees just the opposite 
genetic-historic relationship between world "2" and world "3".  He argues 
that it is ideality that generates will and consciousness, not the other 
way around.  See paragraph 76.  Also note Ilyenkov's brief mention of 
Popper in paragraph 77.


To expand on Ilyenkov's discussion of the "secret twist of idealism," 
(discussed earlier in the essay "the Concept of the Ideal), it is this 
"inversion" of ideality, on one hand, and will and consciousness, on the 
other, that creates a major stumbling block in philosophy and 
science.  When plain materialists and empiricists do this, they are 
committing an essential idealist error.  It is one of the most common 
errors in bourgeois social science.


- Steve



At 01:02 PM 6/16/2005 -0400, Ralph wrote:
This is the key.  How would you compare Ilyenkov's view to that of 
Sohn-Rethel, or to Popper's 3-worlds theory?


At 07:16 PM 6/15/2005 -0700, Steve Gabosch wrote:

..

As I see it, the key concept in this regard that Ilyenkov offers is that 
just as Marx discovered how social relations can be "embodied" into 
things in the form of commodities - through the incorporation of abstract 
labor into the value-form - so too, Marxists can explain that social 
relations are embodied in all cultural objects - through the 
incorporation of meaningful cultural activity into the ideal form.


Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the 
error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being 
the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual 
human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical 
materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of 
the composition of each object - both the composition of the physical 
attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the 
composition of its social origins and social context, which are the 
sources of its ideality - just as Marx analyzed the composition of the 
commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, objects within the human 
cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just as 
commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract labor, 
possess both use-value and exchange-value.



___
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

[Ralph Dumain]

This is the key.  How would you compare Ilyenkov's view to that of 
Sohn-Rethel, or to Popper's 3-worlds theory?


At 07:16 PM 6/15/2005 -0700, Steve Gabosch wrote:

..

As I see it, the key concept in this regard that Ilyenkov offers is that 
just as Marx discovered how social relations can be "embodied" into things 
in the form of commodities - through the incorporation of abstract labor 
into the value-form - so too, Marxists can explain that social relations 
are embodied in all cultural objects - through the incorporation of 
meaningful cultural activity into the ideal form.


Ilyenkov explains that plain materialists and idealists alike make the 
error of viewing the boundary between the material and the ideal as being 
the world of the inside versus that of the outside of each individual 
human head.  In contrast, he argues that according to dialectical 
materialism, ideality and materiality must be distinguished in terms of 
the composition of each object - both the composition of the physical 
attributes, which of course are the sources of its materiality, and the 
composition of its social origins and social context, which are the 
sources of its ideality - just as Marx analyzed the composition of the 
commodity.  According to Ilyenkov's theory, objects within the human 
cultural realm objectively possess both materiality and ideality, just as 
commodities in a market economy possess both concrete and abstract labor, 
possess both use-value and exchange-value.



___
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

[Steve Gabosch]

 with the material artefact it images. In truth, he also 
managed to confuse me as well.


Anyway the ideal as objectification of practice is just that imaged or 
imagined object that Marx describes as the conscious objective of physical 
sensual labour activity.  Marx and certainly Hegel do not describe this 
objectified practice as a material object, it is the socially originated 
and endorsed, authorized, sanctioned etc. etc. object of labour as it is 
manifest in consciousness.  The material representation of the ideal is in 
conventional symbolic forms that have no material resemblance either to 
the objectified practice, the practice objectified, or to the material 
products of that practice.


It is not the artifacts that represent the activity to which they owe 
their existence as artifacts but the it is the ideal artefact (in 
consciousness) that provides the "paragon" by which the labourer measures 
the effectiveness of his work.  The material artefact certainly has 
significance to those who recognize its correspondence in form and 
substance to the imagined ideal, but it cannot ever approach the abstract 
"perfection" of the imagined ideal. Remember Pygmalion either Shaw's or 
the "Rain in Spain" version. The environment of significance that educates 
is not that of the material artefacts themselves, but that of the 
discourse (regarded here broadly) between people.  It is through this 
discourse mediated of course by language that the ideal becomes 
a  consciousness common to the community.


Bakhurst's peculiar rendering of the ideal as the material artefact is 
certainly an original idea.  It's reification with a 
vengeance.  Reification that not even the most committed objective 
idealist dares do.  The Hegelians and Neopositivists are quite content to 
argue that human consciousness is determined by ideality and that human 
knowledge begins and ends with the customs (understood by them as 
concepts) of the tribe.  Bakhurst has declared that material reality is 
ideality or, in other words that custom and only custom determines 
objective reality.  What I don't fully understand yet is why Bakhurst 
agonizes over Ilyenkov's materialism.  After all, if ideality is material 
reality, then being an idealist is being a materialist! I suspect that 
he's not fully convinced by his own arguments, but maybe you have a better 
insight.


   By the way, I'm rewriting the paper I sent you.  I've restricted to 
interpreting how Ilyenkov integrates the ideal into Historical 
Materialist theory and I think you'll recognize his work in this paper. 
Thanks for 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: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 4:30
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Hi Victor,

Interestingly, footnote one in a paper by Lantolf and Thorne that is 
getting discussed on the xmca list - the paper is at
<http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/JuneJuly05/LantolfThorne2005.pdf>Introduction, 
in Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development - 
has a relevant quote from Bakhurst on the very topic you raise and we are 
discussing, the relationship of material (natural) objects and ideality. 
It is from page 183 in Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy 
(1991).


from Lantolf and Thorne:
footnote 1 "David Bakhurst characterizes the production of objective 
culture this way: [BTW, the quoted Bakhurst sentence begins: "To sum up, 
Ilyenkov holds that ..." -sg] '. by acting on natural objects, human 
beings invest them with a significance or "ideal form" that elevates them 
to a new "plane of existence."  Objects owe their ideality to their 
incorporation into the aim-oriented life activity of a human community, 
to their *use*. The notion of significance is glossed in terms of the 
concept of representation: Artifacts represent the activity to which they 
owe their existence as artifacts.' (1991: 183)."


- Steve

___
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

[Victor]

Nice work!
That's just it. Bakhurst confuses the ideal as objectification of practice 
in consciousness with the material artefact it images. In truth, he also 
managed to confuse me as well.


Anyway the ideal as objectification of practice is just that imaged or 
imagined object that Marx describes as the conscious objective of physical 
sensual labour activity.  Marx and certainly Hegel do not describe this 
objectified practice as a material object, it is the socially originated and 
endorsed, authorized, sanctioned etc. etc. object of labour as it is 
manifest in consciousness.  The material representation of the ideal is in 
conventional symbolic forms that have no material resemblance either to the 
objectified practice, the practice objectified, or to the material products 
of that practice.


It is not the artifacts that represent the activity to which they owe their 
existence as artifacts but the it is the ideal artefact (in consciousness) 
that provides the "paragon" by which the labourer measures the effectiveness 
of his work.  The material artefact certainly has significance to those who 
recognize its correspondence in form and substance to the imagined ideal, 
but it cannot ever approach the abstract "perfection" of the imagined ideal. 
Remember Pygmalion either Shaw's or the "Rain in Spain" version. The 
environment of significance that educates is not that of the material 
artefacts themselves, but that of the discourse (regarded here broadly) 
between people.  It is through this discourse mediated of course by language 
that the ideal becomes a  consciousness common to the community.


Bakhurst's peculiar rendering of the ideal as the material artefact is 
certainly an original idea.  It's reification with a vengeance.  Reification 
that not even the most committed objective idealist dares do.  The Hegelians 
and Neopositivists are quite content to argue that human consciousness is 
determined by ideality and that human knowledge begins and ends with the 
customs (understood by them as concepts) of the tribe.  Bakhurst has 
declared that material reality is ideality or, in other words that custom 
and only custom determines objective reality.  What I don't fully understand 
yet is why Bakhurst agonizes over Ilyenkov's materialism.  After all, if 
ideality is material reality, then being an idealist is being a materialist! 
I suspect that he's not fully convinced by his own arguments, but maybe you 
have a better insight.


   By the way, I'm rewriting the paper I sent you.  I've restricted to 
interpreting how Ilyenkov integrates the ideal into Historical Materialist 
theory and I think you'll recognize his work in this paper. Thanks for 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: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 4:30
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Hi Victor,

Interestingly, footnote one in a paper by Lantolf and Thorne that is 
getting discussed on the xmca list - the paper is at
<http://communication.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/JuneJuly05/LantolfThorne2005.pdf>Introduction, 
in Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development - 
has a relevant quote from Bakhurst on the very topic you raise and we are 
discussing, the relationship of material (natural) objects and ideality. 
It is from page 183 in Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy 
(1991).


from Lantolf and Thorne:
footnote 1 "David Bakhurst characterizes the production of objective 
culture this way: [BTW, the quoted Bakhurst sentence begins: "To sum up, 
Ilyenkov holds that ..." -sg] '. by acting on natural objects, human 
beings invest them with a significance or "ideal form" that elevates them 
to a new "plane of existence."  Objects owe their ideality to their 
incorporation into the aim-oriented life activity of a human community, to 
their *use*. The notion of significance is glossed in terms of the concept 
of representation: Artifacts represent the activity to which they owe 
their existence as artifacts.' (1991: 183)."


- Steve
___
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

[Steve Gabosch]

Hi Victor,

Interestingly, footnote one in a paper by Lantolf and Thorne that is 
getting discussed on the xmca list - the paper is at
Introduction, 
in Sociocultural Theory and the Genesis of Second Language Development - 
has a relevant quote from Bakhurst on the very topic you raise and we are 
discussing, the relationship of material (natural) objects and 
ideality.  It is from page 183 in Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet 
Philosophy (1991).


from Lantolf and Thorne:
footnote 1 "David Bakhurst characterizes the production of objective 
culture this way: [BTW, the quoted Bakhurst sentence begins: "To sum up, 
Ilyenkov holds that ..." -sg] ‘… by acting on natural objects, human beings 
invest them with a significance or “ideal form” that elevates them to a new 
"plane of existence.”  Objects owe their ideality to their incorporation 
into the aim-oriented life activity of a human community, to their *use*. 
The notion of significance is glossed in terms of the concept of 
representation: Artifacts represent the activity to which they owe their 
existence as artifacts.’ (1991: 183)."


- Steve
___
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

[Steve Gabosch]

Victor,

Thanks for the refresher course on Rosenburg, which becomes a history of 
the Nazi party from 1921.  It is always good to be reminded of what 
happened in Germany.


Your comments on Dubrovsky are very interesting, as is your analysis of 
Bakhurst.  I also read your descriptions of ideality with great interest.


It would help me if, to start out, (when you have a chance), you would 
locate some specific quotes from David Bakhurst that illustrate these 
observations that you make:


"Bakhurst argues that the material objects themselves are ideal."

"Bakhurst's identification of the ideal with the material goes beyond 
idealist hypostasy and takes idealist reification to ridiculous extremes ..."


Thanks,
- Steve



At 07:08 PM 6/14/2005 +0200, you wrote:

Steve
On Alfred Rosenberg: (Born January 12, 1893- Executed October 16, 1946)
Alfred Rosenberg was a Nazi ideologist and politician.
 Rosenberg was one of the earliest members of the German Workers Party
(later better known as the NSDAP or the Nazi Party), joining in January
1919; Hitler did not join until October 1919
Rosenberg became editor of the Völkischer Beobachter (National
Observer),
the Nazi party newspaper, in 1921. In 1923 after the failed Beer Hall
Putsch, Hitler appointed Rosenberg leader of the Nazi Party, a position the
latter occupied until Hitler was released from prison.
In 1929, Rosenberg founded the Militant League for German Culture. He
became
a Reichstag deputy in 1930 and published his book on racial theory The Myth
of the Twentieth Century (Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts). He was named
leader of the foreign political office of the NSDAP in 1933 but played
little actual part in office. In January 1934 he was deputized by Hitler
with responsibility for the spiritual and philosophical education of the
NSDAP and all related organizations.
   In 1940 he was made head of the Hohe Schule (literally "high school"),
the
Centre of National Socialistic Ideological and Educational Research.
Following the invasion of the USSR Rosenberg was appointed head of the Reich
Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories. Alfred Meyer was his deputy
and represented him at the Wannsee conference.
Rosenberg was captured by Allied troops at the end of the war. He was
tried
at Nuremberg and found guilty of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace;
planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes; and crimes
against humanity. He was sentenced to death and executed with other guilty
co-defendants at Nuremberg on the morning of October 16, 1946.  He is
considered the main author of key Nazi ideological screeds, including its
racial theory, Lebensraum, abolition of the Versailles Treaty, and
persecution of the Jews and of Christian churches. This article is about
race as an intraspecies classification.

Just another intellectual grotesque become monster.
To separate the 
beasts from the confused.

About Bakhurst:
   Bakhurst is not only a liberal social-democrat, he's also is a
representative of exactly the kind of Logical Positivism, Neo-Kantianism,
Neo-positivism, Machism, Empirio-criticism or what have you (the precise
name of the movement is more a function of the provenience of the theorist
than of his ideas) that motivated Lenin to write Materialism and
Emperio-criticism (1908).  The irony of Bakhurst's current stature as the
interpreter of Ilyenkov is that his kind of thinking is receives more
criticism from Ilyenkov than even the objective idealism of Plato and Hegel.

Bakhurst, like D. Dubrovsky who Bakhurst wrongly calls a mechanist, just
cannot comprehend the essence of dialectical synthesis.  Where Ilyenkov
describes the essence of ideality as the unity of consciousness (the
subjectively imaged object of labour) and material formations (the material
symbolic representations that embody and thereby enable transmission of
ideal objects), Bakhurst argues that the material objects themselves are
ideal.  Material objects certainly acquire significance from their
resemblance (perhaps correspondence is a better word) to the ideal, but
material objects, i.e. physically and sensually perceived objects, as
concrete objects are far to diversified to be regarded as ideal forms.
After all, diversity is a basic property of being for both Hegelian and
Marxist theories of knowledge [check out Hegel's criticism of the identity
of A = A for this].

Dubrovsky, like Bakhurst, does not know how to handle dialectical synthesis,
and his solution of the ideal/material antinomy is to identify the ideal as
pure subjective consciousness. While Bakhurst's identification of the ideal
with the material goes beyond idealist hypostasy and takes idealist
reification to ridiculous extremes, Dubrovsky's restriction of the ideal to
pure subjectivity compels him to regard all conceptualisation as a product
of some internal transcendental features common to all human thought
processes, i.e.

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!: domains

[Steve Gabosch]

CB said:

However, analogizing to chemistry and biology, biology does not reduce to
chemistry.  Human psychology does not reduce to individual physiological
psychology.



Absolutely.  On the first point, yes, biology cannot be reduced to 
chemistry.  On the second point, I also completely agree:  in the same way 
that biology does not reduce to chemistry, psychology does not reduce to 
physiology.


These points, common among anti-reductionist thinkers such as Marxists, 
fits into a larger framework, in my opinion.  I believe that comprehending 
and explaining the relations between, the structures of, and the functions 
of domains - and doing so in terms of their real genetic-historical 
development - are among the great challenges of modern science that I 
believe dialectical materialism can play a leading role in moving 
forward.  In fact, differences in theoretical outlooks may be explainable 
by seeing conflicting views as conceptualizing domains differently - seeing 
the relations, structures, and functions of various "domains" in different, 
often opposite, ways.  Hence, ontology remains a hot area of dispute and 
always will as long as different class outlooks remain in mortal struggle 
and conceptualize the domains of reality in incompatible ways.


This argument of course begs for a clear explanation of what a "domain" 
is.  Very good question!


- Steve








___
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

[Victor]

fuscated representation of one of the  most profound and 
brilliant of Historical Materialist theoreticians.  Too bad.

Oudeyis

- Original Message - 
From: "Steve Gabosch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 2:10
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst



Hi Victor,

If I am getting your first point, that Bakhurst incorrectly takes "Diamat"
as serious theory, then you are speaking to what I referred to (perhaps
too softly) as Bakhurst's "tendency to see Stalinism as a form of
Bolshevism."   I see this as a grave error.  It sounds like we may have
agreement on this. Trotsky's discussion of Stalinism's tendency to play
fast and free with theory, using it for its narrow bureaucratic and
political needs of the moment, zig-zagging here, there, everywhere,
transforming Marxism into an obscurantist dogma, and using the consequent
... manufactured crap ... to justify the work of its massive murder
machine and other crimes against the world working classes and toiling
masses - seems very relevant here.  When it comes to either Lenin or
Stalin, Bakhurst is no revolutionary Marxist, and his philosophical
analysis indeed suffers.  As I think you are pointing out, he does attempt
to treat some of the production of the Stalinist apparatus in the
ideological department as "serious" intellectual  work.  It is not.

I have not read Bakhurst's thoughts on the reactionary writings you
obviously speak of facetiously.  If your point is to compare Mein Kampf
etc. with the  "theoretical" work of the Stalinist school of "crap" -
falsification, dogma and tripe -  I agree with the comparison, and accept
your point.  This whole category of reactionary writing - fascist,
Stalinist, etc. - can be considered the product of reactionary Bonapartist
regimes.  It is the opposite of scientific work.

(BTW I am not offhand remembering Rosenburg, please refresh).

But back to Ilyenkov, I do think Bakhurst, up to a point, grasps and
explains Ilyenkov's concept of the ideal, as well as certain central ideas
in Vygotsky's program, in a valuable way.  Debates we have had on Ilyenkov
seem to center on our interpretation of the concept of the ideal, and what
ideality actually is (I identify ideality with the general notion of
meaning).

But I am open to a serious critique of Bakhurst's shortcomings.  His
liberal/social-democratic view of the relationship of Leninism and
Stalinism does give me pause.  Perhaps I am being entirely too soft on
him.  If you like, fire away!

- Steve

PS  Tell us more about your old man!



*
6/8/2005  Victor wrote:

Steve,
Doesn't it make you wonder? A philosopher who regards the Diamat and
all that utter rubbish as theory to be comparable to the works of Marx,
Lenin, Deborin and Ilyenkov?  It's Propaganda, certainly, theory, never!

I'll never forget my old man's colourful reaction to Stalin's perceptive
contribution to linguistics, and he didn't even finish High School!

Do you think D Bakhurst classifies the classic philosophic work, Mein
Kampf, Rosenburg's brilliant meanderings about race and destiny, and
Mussolini's masterful contributions to human thought as serious theory?

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: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 0:36
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!



I continue to enjoy this thread, but will be gone for some days and it
will probably be a little while after that before I can reengage.  I will
think about the position Charles and Ralph have taken on the relationship
of the brain to the origins of humanity.  I think Engel's argument about
how labor created the human hand applies also to the brain, language
organs, bipedalism, etc. so I will try to make a case for that.  And I
have been enjoying the exchanges between Ralph and Victor, especially on
the issues of the role of practice in science, the nature of scientific
thought, and the big question, just what is nature - and can humans
really "know" what nature is in any fundamental ontological sense.  I
recently read the book by Bakhurst that Victor mentions, and have a
different take on it.  Briefly put, I disagree with Bakhurst's negative
assessment of Leninist politics, his tendency to see Stalinism as a form
of Bolshevism, and his general opinion of dialectics.  But I agree with
many of his insights into Ilyenkov and Vygotsky.

Oops, got to get packing.  See you all again soon.

- Steve



___
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!

[Charles Brown]

Steve Gabosch 

On CB's second comment, about the subject matter of Marxist psychology, I
think it is true that a dialectical materialist psychology must begin with
sociology and social psychology, and the study of the individual must be
based on sociology and social psychology - and as CB I think implies, cannot
be developed without it.  But in response to the phrase "For Marxism there
is only social psychology, no individual psychology separate from social
psych" I want to add the thought that the task of comprehending the
individual cannot be *reduced* to the study of social psychology - that the
individual constitutes a higher "level" or "domain" of complexity and
requires a study of the laws of development and so forth associated with
that realm - generalizations and observations that are not identical with
those of social psychology, and require their own scientific study, etc.  An
analogy would be the study of chemistry compared with biology.

- Steve

^^^
CB: Yes, I may have overstated the "social psych" point, although it applies
to much of psych.  Physiological psychology as of the individual brain are
legit. 

However, analogizing to chemistry and biology, biology does not reduce to
chemistry.  Human psychology does not reduce to individual physiological
psychology.





___
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!

[Steve Gabosch]

On CB's first comment on SOCIO-history, I certainly completely agree, and 
think Ilyenkov would, too.


On CB's second comment, about the subject matter of Marxist psychology, I 
think it is true that a dialectical materialist psychology must begin with 
sociology and social psychology, and the study of the individual must be 
based on sociology and social psychology - and as CB I think implies, 
cannot be developed without it.  But in response to the phrase "For Marxism 
there is only social psychology, no individual psychology separate from 
social psych" I want to add the thought that the task of comprehending the 
individual cannot be *reduced* to the study of social psychology - that the 
individual constitutes a higher "level" or "domain" of complexity and 
requires a study of the laws of development and so forth associated with 
that realm - generalizations and observations that are not identical with 
those of social psychology, and require their own scientific study, 
etc.  An analogy would be the study of chemistry compared with biology.


- Steve




At 12:23 PM 6/10/2005 -0400, you wrote:



>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/31/05 07:48AM >>>
>
>>from page 283:
>>"A consistently materialist conception of thought, of course, alters the
>>approach to the key problems of logic in a cardinal way, in particular to
>>interpretation of the nature of logical categories.  Marx and Engels
>>established above all that [the] external world was not given to the
>>individual as it was in itself simply and directly in his contemplation,
>>but only in the course of its being altered by man: and that both the
>>contemplating man himself and the world contemplated were products of 
history."




CB: "History" here being critically SOCIO-history, i.e. not just the 
individual doing the logic , but many people.  A key Marxist modification 
of the notion of logic is that it is not the product of an individual 
brain, or the qualities of an individual organ, but the product of many 
people's experiences, including people who are dead at the time the 
particular individual in question is doing the logic. "History" here 
refers to people who "are history", i.e. dead.


Not just practice, but SOCIAL practice. Not just the result of one human's 
interaction and alteration of nature, but of many people's interaction and 
alteration of nature.





>>
>>from page 285:
>>"Psychological analysis of the act of reflexion of the external world in
>>the individual head therefore cannot be the means of developing logic.
>>The individual thinks only insofar as he has already mastered the general
>>(logical) determinations historically moulded before him and completely
>>independently of him. And psychology as a science does not investigate
>>the development of human culture or civilisation, rightly considering it
>>a premise independent of the individual."

CB: "does not" or "does" ?  For Marxism there is only social psychology, 
no individual psychology separate from social psych.





>>
>>from page 286-287:
>>"In labour (production) man makes one object of nature act on another
>>object of the same nature in accordance with their own properties and
>>laws of existence. Marx and Engels showed that the logical forms of man's
>>action were the consequences (reflection) of real laws of human actions
>>on objects, i.e. of practice in all its scope and development, laws that
>>are independent of any thinking. Practice understood materialistically,
>>appeared as a process in whose movement each object involved in it
>>functioned (behaved) in accordance with its own laws, bringing its own
>>form and measure to light in the changes taking place in it."
>
>
>___
>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


___
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

[Steve Gabosch]

Hi Victor,

If I am getting your first point, that Bakhurst incorrectly takes "Diamat" 
as serious theory, then you are speaking to what I referred to (perhaps too 
softly) as Bakhurst's "tendency to see Stalinism as a form of 
Bolshevism."   I see this as a grave error.  It sounds like we may have 
agreement on this. Trotsky's discussion of Stalinism's tendency to play 
fast and free with theory, using it for its narrow bureaucratic and 
political needs of the moment, zig-zagging here, there, everywhere, 
transforming Marxism into an obscurantist dogma, and using the consequent 
... manufactured crap ... to justify the work of its massive murder machine 
and other crimes against the world working classes and toiling masses - 
seems very relevant here.  When it comes to either Lenin or Stalin, 
Bakhurst is no revolutionary Marxist, and his philosophical analysis indeed 
suffers.  As I think you are pointing out, he does attempt to treat some of 
the production of the Stalinist apparatus in the ideological department as 
"serious" intellectual  work.  It is not.


I have not read Bakhurst's thoughts on the reactionary writings you 
obviously speak of facetiously.  If your point is to compare Mein Kampf 
etc. with the  "theoretical" work of the Stalinist school of "crap" - 
falsification, dogma and tripe -  I agree with the comparison, and accept 
your point.  This whole category of reactionary writing - fascist, 
Stalinist, etc. - can be considered the product of reactionary Bonapartist 
regimes.  It is the opposite of scientific work.


(BTW I am not offhand remembering Rosenburg, please refresh).

But back to Ilyenkov, I do think Bakhurst, up to a point, grasps and 
explains Ilyenkov's concept of the ideal, as well as certain central ideas 
in Vygotsky's program, in a valuable way.  Debates we have had on Ilyenkov 
seem to center on our interpretation of the concept of the ideal, and what 
ideality actually is (I identify ideality with the general notion of 
meaning).


But I am open to a serious critique of Bakhurst's shortcomings.  His 
liberal/social-democratic view of the relationship of Leninism and 
Stalinism does give me pause.  Perhaps I am being entirely too soft on 
him.  If you like, fire away!


- Steve

PS  Tell us more about your old man!



*
6/8/2005  Victor wrote:

Steve,
Doesn't it make you wonder? A philosopher who regards the Diamat and 
all that utter rubbish as theory to be comparable to the works of Marx, 
Lenin, Deborin and Ilyenkov?  It's Propaganda, certainly, theory, never!


I'll never forget my old man's colourful reaction to Stalin's perceptive 
contribution to linguistics, and he didn't even finish High School!


Do you think D Bakhurst classifies the classic philosophic work, Mein 
Kampf, Rosenburg's brilliant meanderings about race and destiny, and 
Mussolini's masterful contributions to human thought as serious theory?


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: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 0:36
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


I continue to enjoy this thread, but will be gone for some days and it 
will probably be a little while after that before I can reengage.  I will 
think about the position Charles and Ralph have taken on the relationship 
of the brain to the origins of humanity.  I think Engels' argument about 
how labor created the human hand applies also to the brain, language 
organs, bipedalism, etc. so I will try to make a case for that.  And I 
have been enjoying the exchanges between Ralph and Victor, especially on 
the issues of the role of practice in science, the nature of scientific 
thought, and the big question, just what is nature - and can humans 
really "know" what nature is in any fundamental ontological sense.  I 
recently read the book by Bakhurst that Victor mentions, and have a 
different take on it.  Briefly put, I disagree with Bakhurst's negative 
assessment of Leninist politics, his tendency to see Stalinism as a form 
of Bolshevism, and his general opinion of dialectics.  But I agree with 
many of his insights into Ilyenkov and Vygotsky.


Oops, got to get packing.  See you all again soon.

- Steve



___
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




___
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!

[Charles Brown]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/31/05 07:48AM >>>
>
>>from page 283:
>>"A consistently materialist conception of thought, of course, alters the 
>>approach to the key problems of logic in a cardinal way, in particular to 
>>interpretation of the nature of logical categories.  Marx and Engels 
>>established above all that [the] external world was not given to the 
>>individual as it was in itself simply and directly in his contemplation, 
>>but only in the course of its being altered by man: and that both the 
>>contemplating man himself and the world contemplated were products of 
>>history."



CB: "History" here being critically SOCIO-history, i.e. not just the individual 
doing the logic , but many people.  A key Marxist modification of the notion of 
logic is that it is not the product of an individual brain, or the qualities of 
an individual organ, but the product of many people's experiences, including 
people who are dead at the time the particular individual in question is doing 
the logic. "History" here refers to people who "are history", i.e. dead.

Not just practice, but SOCIAL practice. Not just the result of one human's 
interaction and alteration of nature, but of many people's interaction and 
alteration of nature.




>>
>>from page 285:
>>"Psychological analysis of the act of reflexion of the external world in 
>>the individual head therefore cannot be the means of developing logic. 
>>The individual thinks only insofar as he has already mastered the general 
>>(logical) determinations historically moulded before him and completely 
>>independently of him. And psychology as a science does not investigate 
>>the development of human culture or civilisation, rightly considering it 
>>a premise independent of the individual."

CB: "does not" or "does" ?  For Marxism there is only social psychology, no 
individual psychology separate from social psych.




>>
>>from page 286-287:
>>"In labour (production) man makes one object of nature act on another 
>>object of the same nature in accordance with their own properties and 
>>laws of existence. Marx and Engels showed that the logical forms of man's 
>>action were the consequences (reflection) of real laws of human actions 
>>on objects, i.e. of practice in all its scope and development, laws that 
>>are independent of any thinking. Practice understood materialistically, 
>>appeared as a process in whose movement each object involved in it 
>>functioned (behaved) in accordance with its own laws, bringing its own 
>>form and measure to light in the changes taking place in it."
>
>
>___
>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


___
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!

[Charles Brown]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/31/05 07:48AM >>>
>
>>from page 283:
>>"A consistently materialist conception of thought, of course, alters the 
>>approach to the key problems of logic in a cardinal way, in particular to 
>>interpretation of the nature of logical categories.  Marx and Engels 
>>established above all that [the] external world was not given to the 
>>individual as it was in itself simply and directly in his contemplation, 
>>but only in the course of its being altered by man: and that both the 
>>contemplating man himself and the world contemplated were products of 
>>history."



CB: "History" here being critically SOCIO-history, i.e. not just the individual 
doing the logic , but many people.  A key Marxist modification of the notion of 
logic is that it is not the product of an individual brain, or the qualities of 
an individual organ, but the product of many people's experiences, including 
people who are dead at the time the particular individual in question is doing 
the logic. "History" here refers to people who "are history", i.e. dead.

Not just practice, but SOCIAL practice. Not just the result of one human's 
interaction and alteration of nature, but of many people's interaction and 
alteration of nature.




>>
>>from page 285:
>>"Psychological analysis of the act of reflexion of the external world in 
>>the individual head therefore cannot be the means of developing logic. 
>>The individual thinks only insofar as he has already mastered the general 
>>(logical) determinations historically moulded before him and completely 
>>independently of him. And psychology as a science does not investigate 
>>the development of human culture or civilisation, rightly considering it 
>>a premise independent of the individual."

CB: "does not" or "does" ?  For Marxism there is only social psychology, no 
individual psychology separate from social psych.




>>
>>from page 286-287:
>>"In labour (production) man makes one object of nature act on another 
>>object of the same nature in accordance with their own properties and 
>>laws of existence. Marx and Engels showed that the logical forms of man's 
>>action were the consequences (reflection) of real laws of human actions 
>>on objects, i.e. of practice in all its scope and development, laws that 
>>are independent of any thinking. Practice understood materialistically, 
>>appeared as a process in whose movement each object involved in it 
>>functioned (behaved) in accordance with its own laws, bringing its own 
>>form and measure to light in the changes taking place in it."
>
>
>___
>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


___
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!

[Victor]

Again, my stuff is shelved just below your commentary:
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 3:51
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!



Note my interleaved comments on a fragment of a key post of yours

At 03:08 AM 5/28/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

..
> I don't see this.  I see the problem this way: that stage of the
> development of materialism is inadequate to grasp the nature of human
> activity, both practical and cognitive.  Labels such as 'nature as 
> such'

or
> 'contemplative' don't work for me without such clarification, though it
> does seem that your characterization here is consistent with me though
> apparently not synonymous.  The old materialism, as well as the course 
> of

> development of modern natural science, is such that it begins with the
> study of the lowest levels of the organization of matter and works its 
> way
> up.  But once it works its way up to the human species itself as an 
> object
> of study, its intellectual limitations become manifest.  And I think 
> this

> is where Marx intervenes.

 If I understand you correctly, you argue that so long as the natural
sciences dealt with phenomena that was simple enough to contemplate 
without
our needing to be aware o the activity of the contemplating subject, the 
old

materialism served as a sufficient paradigm for explanations of the
observed.  It is only when we deal with men, i.e. ourselves that we must
take into account our own subjectivity to understand what's going on.

 I prefer to stand your argument on its head.  As long as human needs 
could

(and given the available technology, only could) be satisfied by
manipulation of his world on a purely mechanical level, the contemplative
and mechanical paradigms of classical materialism was a viable system for
explaining the effectiveness of human practice.


In turn, I could stand your argument on its head.  What is the vantage 
point: objective reality with the relation of human practice as a 
reflection of it, or the justification of practice by its ability to 
fulfill needs?  Either vantage point could be considered a question of 
perspective from one angle or the other.  They could be equivalent.  Yet I 
see my argument as basic as yours as derivative, though that perspective 
is also valid, i.e. explaining the effectiveness of human practice under 
defined conditions.


It appears that my argument is not clear enough here.  The point is that the 
determination any objective reality is always a function of some sort of 
practical activity.


To try first to describe object reality in all its concreteness and then to 
try to determine which part of that reality is relevant to practical 
activity is an impossible task.  To carry out an aimless effort to produce a 
comprehensive (concrete) representation of objective reality is one with the 
kinds of hopeless sisyphusian tasks that Borges likes to write about.  The 
determination of objective reality can only be seriously countenanced when 
we've decided what we want to do with that reality.  Once we've determined 
the aims of our theorizing activity we can determine the essence of the 
problem (which is a description of the universal property or properties of 
the object of our theory) and then proceed to a rational determination of 
the concrete (particular) conditions of the world and of our activities 
relevant to the object of our theorizing.



With the development of new
technologies and new needs, (like the development of machinery and
instruments powered by electricity). One of the earliest examples of this
development in Physics was the birth (emergence?) Heisenberg principle in
Quantum physics.  Newtonian physics dealt with big things that could be
measured with instruments that  had no apparent effect whatsoever on the
measure itself, thus the measurement itself could be factored out of the
explanation of the activities of the things measured.  Small particle, 
high

energy physics deals with things so small and so sensitive to the effects
even of light that physicists must at very least take into account the
effect of their measuring activities on the subjects of their research.

As I suggest below the big revolution in modern natural science, the
revolution that is giving birth to concepts such as autopoiesis, emergence
and non-linear causality (attractors and Feigenbaum trees) is mostly, (if
not mistaken the attractor was first formally described by Lorenz in 1963 
a

weatherman and the term "strange attractor was first used in 1971 by
Ruelle and Takens to describe fluid dynamics) connected to the 
investigation
of systems that are ever more sensitive to our handling of their 
components;

such as weather, the behaviour of ecosystems, animal ethology and so o

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Victor]

Steve,
Doesn't it make you wonder? A philosopher who regards the Diamat and 
all that utter rubbish as theory to be comparable to the works of Marx, 
Lenin, Deborin and Ilyenkov?  It's Propaganda, certainly, theory, never!


I'll never forget my old man's colourful reaction to Stalin's perceptive 
contribution to linguistics, and he didn't even finish High School!


Do you think D Bakhurst classifies the classic philosophic work, Mein Kampf, 
Rosenburg's brilliant meanderings about race and destiny, and Mussolini's 
masterful contributions to human thought as serious theory?


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: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 0:36
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


I continue to enjoy this thread, but will be gone for some days and it will 
probably be a little while after that before I can reengage.  I will think 
about the position Charles and Ralph have taken on the relationship of the 
brain to the origins of humanity.  I think Engels' argument about how labor 
created the human hand applies also to the brain, language organs, 
bipedalism, etc. so I will try to make a case for that.  And I have been 
enjoying the exchanges between Ralph and Victor, especially on the issues 
of the role of practice in science, the nature of scientific thought, and 
the big question, just what is nature - and can humans really "know" what 
nature is in any fundamental ontological sense.  I recently read the book 
by Bakhurst that Victor mentions, and have a different take on it.  Briefly 
put, I disagree with Bakhurst's negative assessment of Leninist politics, 
his tendency to see Stalinism as a form of Bolshevism, and his general 
opinion of dialectics.  But I agree with many of his insights into Ilyenkov 
and Vygotsky.


Oops, got to get packing.  See you all again soon.

- Steve



___
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!

[Victor]

I'm writing up an alternative interpretation to Ilyenkov's writings on 
ideality as the integration of the concept of ideality into Marxist-Leninist 
Theory.  When I finish that...

Thanks for the offer.
Oudeyis
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 16:22
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


Yes, I have this book somewhere.  So are you going to forward your review 
to this list?


At 03:31 PM 6/7/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:
Unfortunately, the mainstay of Western interpretations of

Ilyenkov's works is the absolutely wierd product of a Brit academic who
represents them as a sort of sociologically oriented form of 
Neo-positivism

(itself a contradiction!).  I wrote a first draft on his work that was
totally unsatisfactory (too lacking in focus), and am now finishing up 
the
outline of a revision which hopefully will be the basis of a more 
accurate

presentation than was my first effort.


I don't quite get this.  But my first question is: who is this Brit 
neo-positivist academic?


Dave Bakhurst of Queens College Ontario and author of Consciousness and 
Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov. 
1991



___
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!

[Victor]

Commentary inserted below:

- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 16:35
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!



Very interesting post.  Just a few isolated comments to begin . . .

At 03:10 PM 6/7/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

..

The fact that life forms activities are directed to concrete future 
states, they are, no matter how simple or mechanical, exercises in reason. 
This why, if you will permit a reference to an earlier thread, I regard 
the investigation into biosemiology to be a vitally important exploration 
of the roots of reason.  The most primitive forms of self reproduction are 
a totally mechanical process yet

they are at the very root of the rational process.

We are not here proposing that nature has a rational aspect, a la Spinoza.
As I wrote earlier I really have no idea what nature or Nature is. What I 
am

proposing is that the roots of rationality are in the mechanical purposive
activity of life forms and that whatever life forms "know" [including
ourselves of course] is a function of our practical activities in nature
FROM THE VERY ORIGINS OF THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE in whatever form it
may be acquired, stored, recovered etc.




But biosemiology itself seems to be rather obscurantist, more akin to 
Whitehead's philosophy of organism than to Marx.


I'm more interested in Sharov's work (despite indications that his general 
methodological approach is Dubrovskian*) than in Hoffmeyer and the Western 
Biosemiologists.


2.  Objectivity:  In its essence objectivity refers to conscious 
reflection
on something rather than the reflection of something in consciousness. 
That

is to say that objectivity is the function of a activity and not something
we passively assimilate as we confront the daily world.  Some of the 
things

or, better, activities we objectify (very few in my opinion) are those of
our own subjective consciousness.  Most are not.  Most of our objectifying
involves activities that are the preconditions for our own subjectivities,
either the activities that emerge out of the collective subjective 
activities
of men learned or developed in the course of collaborative activities 
while

others involve activities that are preconditions for consciousness in all
its aspects.  Hegel, for example, divides his system of logic into two
parts, objective logic and subjective logic or notional logic where the
former is that logic which we enact without subjective reflection. 
Objective

logic is objective because the only way we can deal with it intellectually
in any other fashion than just doing it is as an object of reflection [I
expect AB to come down on me like a ton of bricks on this one].

In its many concrete manifestations in human activity, intellectual and
material, the principle of self-perpetuation, at least for men, is as
subjective an issue as is the concept of self; the idea of property, of
individual interests and even of "family values" are directly related to 
the

activity of  primitive self-perpetuation, though highly charged with many
concrete connections to the complexities of human social existence.  These
slogans of  superficial individualism  of  Social Darwinism and its
inheritors, the bio-sociologists and others like them, only scratch the
surface of things.  Regarded objectively, the self-perpetuating activity 
of
life forms is sublated in virtually all forms of human activity from 
eating

and intercourse to social labour, wage slavery, and social revolution.


Sounds like some version of Lenin's (or the Soviets' in general) theory of 
reflection.  Life activity is a form of reflection.  However, the 'roots 
of reason' strike me as no more than roots, not reason.


No, not at all.  As you must of read further on in this message I reject 
Lenin's passivist, "reflection in consciousness", for the activist, 
"conscious reflection on...".

See point 2 in the original message:
"2.  Objectivity:  In its essence objectivity refers to conscious reflection
on something rather than the reflection of something in consciousness.  That
is to say that objectivity is the function of a activity and not something
we passively assimilate as we confront the daily world. "


...
The natural sciences reflect exactly this relation between intellect and
practice.  There are no real ontological truths in science.  Nothing is 
holy

or beyond question and the only real proof is a sort of abstracted form of
practice, experimentation.  Whatever ontologising scientists do, and some
do, is tolerated by the scientific community only insofar as it remains
speculation and does not interfere with the scientific process.  Great
scientists have had "ideas";  Newton philosophized that the world was a
clock wound up by the creator and then left t

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Steve Gabosch]

I continue to enjoy this thread, but will be gone for some days and it will 
probably be a little while after that before I can reengage.  I will think 
about the position Charles and Ralph have taken on the relationship of the 
brain to the origins of humanity.  I think Engels' argument about how labor 
created the human hand applies also to the brain, language organs, 
bipedalism, etc. so I will try to make a case for that.  And I have been 
enjoying the exchanges between Ralph and Victor, especially on the issues 
of the role of practice in science, the nature of scientific thought, and 
the big question, just what is nature - and can humans really "know" what 
nature is in any fundamental ontological sense.  I recently read the book 
by Bakhurst that Victor mentions, and have a different take on it.  Briefly 
put, I disagree with Bakhurst's negative assessment of Leninist politics, 
his tendency to see Stalinism as a form of Bolshevism, and his general 
opinion of dialectics.  But I agree with many of his insights into Ilyenkov 
and Vygotsky.


Oops, got to get packing.  See you all again soon.

- Steve



___
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!

[Ralph Dumain]

Very interesting post.  Just a few isolated comments to begin . . .

At 03:10 PM 6/7/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:

..

The fact that life forms activities are directed to concrete future 
states, they are, no matter how simple or mechanical, exercises in 
reason.  This why, if you will permit a reference to an earlier thread, I 
regard the investigation into biosemiology to be a vitally important 
exploration of the roots of reason.  The most primitive forms of self 
reproduction are a totally mechanical process yet

they are at the very root of the rational process.

We are not here proposing that nature has a rational aspect, a la Spinoza.
As I wrote earlier I really have no idea what nature or Nature is. What I am
proposing is that the roots of rationality are in the mechanical purposive
activity of life forms and that whatever life forms "know" [including
ourselves of course] is a function of our practical activities in nature
FROM THE VERY ORIGINS OF THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE in whatever form it
may be acquired, stored, recovered etc.




But biosemiology itself seems to be rather obscurantist, more akin to 
Whitehead's philosophy of organism than to Marx.




2.  Objectivity:  In its essence objectivity refers to conscious reflection
on something rather than the reflection of something in consciousness.  That
is to say that objectivity is the function of a activity and not something
we passively assimilate as we confront the daily world.  Some of the things
or, better, activities we objectify (very few in my opinion) are those of
our own subjective consciousness.  Most are not.  Most of our objectifying
involves activities that are the preconditions for our own subjectivities,
either the activities that emerge out of the collective subjective activities
of men learned or developed in the course of collaborative activities while
others involve activities that are preconditions for consciousness in all
its aspects.  Hegel, for example, divides his system of logic into two
parts, objective logic and subjective logic or notional logic where the
former is that logic which we enact without subjective reflection. Objective
logic is objective because the only way we can deal with it intellectually
in any other fashion than just doing it is as an object of reflection [I
expect AB to come down on me like a ton of bricks on this one].

In its many concrete manifestations in human activity, intellectual and
material, the principle of self-perpetuation, at least for men, is as
subjective an issue as is the concept of self; the idea of property, of
individual interests and even of "family values" are directly related to the
activity of  primitive self-perpetuation, though highly charged with many
concrete connections to the complexities of human social existence.  These
slogans of  superficial individualism  of  Social Darwinism and its
inheritors, the bio-sociologists and others like them, only scratch the
surface of things.  Regarded objectively, the self-perpetuating activity of
life forms is sublated in virtually all forms of human activity from eating
and intercourse to social labour, wage slavery, and social revolution.


Sounds like some version of Lenin's (or the Soviets' in general) theory of 
reflection.  Life activity is a form of reflection.  However, the 'roots of 
reason' strike me as no more than roots, not reason.



...
The natural sciences reflect exactly this relation between intellect and
practice.  There are no real ontological truths in science.  Nothing is holy
or beyond question and the only real proof is a sort of abstracted form of
practice, experimentation.  Whatever ontologising scientists do, and some
do, is tolerated by the scientific community only insofar as it remains
speculation and does not interfere with the scientific process.  Great
scientists have had "ideas";  Newton philosophized that the world was a
clock wound up by the creator and then left to its own devices,  Einstein
was sure that "God does not play dice", and Hawkins was until a few years
ago sure that unified field theory would answer all the questions of
physics.  Most of these and many more are, fortunately, either forgotten or
on the way to being forgotten, though the scientific contributions of their
makers remain important, even vital, components of the giant artefactual
system men have built to enable their persistence in the world.


The Royal Society started this practice, to keep metaphysics and theology 
out of empirical science.



Finally, the natural science of human activity and history, and this is what
Historical Materialism, should be and sometimes is, can least afford the
ontologising  forays that occasionally crop up in fields such as physics,
chemistry and organic sciences.  The very abstractness of the subjects of
these sciences renders the prononciamentos of important scientists fairly
harmless in the long run.  The natural science of human a

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Ralph Dumain]

Yes, I have this book somewhere.  So are you going to forward your review 
to this list?


At 03:31 PM 6/7/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:
Unfortunately, the mainstay of Western interpretations of

Ilyenkov's works is the absolutely wierd product of a Brit academic who
represents them as a sort of sociologically oriented form of Neo-positivism
(itself a contradiction!).  I wrote a first draft on his work that was
totally unsatisfactory (too lacking in focus), and am now finishing up the
outline of a revision which hopefully will be the basis of a more accurate
presentation than was my first effort.


I don't quite get this.  But my first question is: who is this Brit 
neo-positivist academic?


Dave Bakhurst of Queens College Ontario and author of Consciousness and 
Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov. 1991



___
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!

[Charles Brown]

 

Charles Brown 

Victor victor 
Of course objectivity reality exists, but we have to realize that what Marx,

Lenin and other intelligent Marxists like Ilyenkov meant by objective 
reality is not  reality contemplated by some totally uninvolved 
philosophical being.  Just the reverse is true objective reality is only 
known through what Lenin calls "revolutionary practice", the transformation 
of one object into another through labour.  It is only when we know how and 
under what conditions (including of course our own activities) an object 
becomes something else that we cognize its real character.  This is as true 
of the child knocking about a gewgaw hanging over his crib as it is for the 
physicist smashing atoms.

There is virtually no aspect of human knowledge (not human activity) that is

truly a priori.
Oudeyis

^^
CB: Yes,in saying that objective reality exists, I did NOT indicate any
break
with The Theses on Feuerbach ,esp. 1, 2 and 11 here.  Marx distinguishes his
materialism from all those hitherto existing by  by making the subject
active not contemplative, like Feuerbach.  Practice is the test of theory,
otherwise it's scholastic. Philosophers have interpreted the world, the
thing is to change it.  

Lenin's _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_ is thoroughly infused with
Engels' elaboration of these principles in _Anti-Duhring_.


^^^
CB: There should be a "not" above (capitalized), "I did NOT indicate, etc."

Marx terms the activity of the active subject practical-critical, or
revolutionary activity.

Engels defines practice as experimentation and industry.

Through practice we turn Kant's things-in-themselves into things-for-us,
hopefully, though that's harder said than done. Even Einstein's discoveries
are problematic as to whether they turn some things into "for us" or "agin
us".  General Relativity's main impact in most people's lives has ben as
premise for nuclear fission, I think.   Nuclear weapons are
things-against-us. 

What about influence at a distance ? Fields of energy and humans being
influenced by the world at a distance :>)



___
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] Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Charles Brown]

to Dawkin's projection of the mechanics of
>population genetics to the science of culture (memics and all that).


CB: Interestingly this "memics" thing reminds of both Levi-Strauss and
Marvin Harris who analogized to the idea in phoneme, with the emphasis on
"eme", from phonetics and linguistics.

Phonemes are meaningful sound units, i.e. those that can make a difference
in meaning between two words ,like the difference between  voiced and
unvoiced between "big" and "pig". 

Anyway, Harris and L-S use this to define cultural units , socalled, so it
sound like it converges with Dawkins , but coming from another direction
than biology.


___
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!

[Victor]

I've inteleaved my comments in the foliage of your commentary.
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 3:51
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!



Interleaved comments on further fragments of your post:

At 03:08 AM 5/28/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

..
I see your not going to let me deal with the dogmatics of classical
materialism briefly.

The kernel of my argument is that in general, discourse segregated from
practice can only be theological, i.e. concerning articles of faith rather
than descriptions of demonstrable practice. I say in general, since
scientists usually discuss their findings with only minimal reference to 
the
practicalities that are the origins and ultimate objects of their work. 
This

is mostly a manifestation of the extreme division of labour that isolates
professional researchers from all but the immediate subjects of their 
work.

In any case, I've yet to see a monograph or article of a natural scientist
that presents his work as having universal significance. There are
exceptions to this rule such as Hawkins in physics and Dawkins in 
population
genetics, and the result is invariably utter nonsense. I'm referring here 
to
Hawkins conviction that unified field theory will provide an ultimate 
theory

of the physical world and to Dawkin's projection of the mechanics of
population genetics to the science of culture (memics and all that).

Science as the theory of practice is implicitly restricted in relevance to
the conditions of the moment (even when the problems it is designed to 
treat
are projected into the near or far future). The discoveries of this kind 
of

science are inevitably relevant only to the particular circumstances of
their production, and to the specific subjects of their focus and have no
claim as eternal truths.  Einstein, Newton and Galileo will never acquire
the sainthood of the revealers of final truths.  On the contrary, their
ideas will only remain significant so long as they are relevant to the
practices and technologies that we men need to perpetuate ourselves,
"ourselves" here meaning the entire complex of organic and inorganic
components of our individual and collective life activities.  Thus, 
science

as the theory of practice is an inherently revolutionary activity.


This is interesting as a vantage point, i.e. beginning from the scope of 
praxis and explaining why scientists can be blockheads when they venture 
beyond the specific praxis that enabled them to achieve what they did. 
But I find this approach more credible when it is re-routed back to 
objectivity.


Come again?

Discussion on the nature of being, on the substance of nature, and so on 
is

from the point of view of historical materialism no less restricted to the
conditions of its production than is practical science.  However, the
inherent object of such discussions is the determination of the absolute 
and

final nature of things at all places and in all times.  The ostensible
object of the advocates of such metaphysical finalities is the expression 
of

ultimate truths regarding the universe and its parts, the absolute
contradiction to the objects of practice and the science of practice.

Anyway, it is one thing to develop theories concerning particularities of
that grand everything we call nature, it's quite another to present
particular results as universals about the universe.  The former can be
demonstrated, proved if you will, the latter extends beyond all
possibilities of human experience, hence it can only be a product either 
of

divine revelation or of normative practice, i.e. ethos. I prefer ethos to
divine revelation.


I'm afraid I don't quite grasp this.  You are suggesting, I think, that 
general ontological pronouncements not tied to some current concerns of 
praxis become fruitless or even retrograde metaphysics.  I don't quite 
agree with this, but I do agree that these traditional philosophical 
concerns become more dynamic and fruitful when connected to specific 
problems of the present.


The utility of general ontological pronouncements is not in question. 
Undoubtedly they are useful otherwise they would never be made.  I'm arguing 
that ontological pronouncements are retrograde metaphysics and bad science.

..
> I think you're right.  The question then is--how to put this?--the line 
> of

> demarcation between nature in itself and . . . nature for us . . . and
> science.  I've been cautious about making claims about the 'dialectics 
> of
> nature' in se, i.e. apart from our methods of analysis (which I guess 
> you

> might call 'contemplative'.  This is the old problem, as traditional
> terminology puts it, of the relation between (or very existence of)
> subjective (dialectical logic as subject of debate

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Victor]

The problem here is simply that I'm not sure of the ground of our 
discussion. If this is tautological to you, then we share at very least the 
point of view that science is at root a product of men's response to their 
needs and not simply a reflection of the universe in consciousness.

Oudeyis
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 4:15
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


Well, my reaction here re-invokes my sense of the tautology of all such 
arguments.  That is, there can be no meaningful claims about the universe 
apart from our interaction with the universe since we can't make any 
claims about anything without interacting with the phenomena about which 
we are making claims.  Your claim that all our knowledge claims about the 
universe from the Big Bang on, are expressions of human need, is 
tautologically true, and hence not very interesting or revealing.


At 11:51 AM 5/28/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:


- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


>
> but what about history of nature? I mean before there  wasn't  anything
that
> can be qualified as man's interaction withthe  world. does in your view
> dialectics start with the appearance of a species that  does not simply
adjust
> itself to nature like other animals but starts changibng  it more or 
> less

> conscioulsy by labour?
>
> NOTE,  THAT THE ISSUE OF THE RELEVANCE OF LOGIC (DIALECTICS) TO HUMAN
HISTORY
> IS  NOT A MATTER OF THE NATURE OF THE WORLD BUT OF MAN'S INTERACTION 
> WITH

THE
> WORLD

Whether or not nature has a history is a question for nature, of little
relevance for the practical realization of human needs.

Man, in order to better determine his needs and the means necessary to
realize them investigates through reason and practice (experimentation and
informed search) the development of the relevant (essential) incohoate
features of the natural world, including those of his own activities.  The
result is the objective determinations of past events in the natural world
and of their relevance to the form and substance of our current needs and 
to

the realization of these in practical activity. The laws and principles as
well as the developmental schemas produced by our research into what is
called Natural History are a product of and the means for realization of
strictly human objectives. Is this a history of nature?  Well, we are
ourselves an integral part and force of the natural world and the massive
array of objects we depend on for perpetuation of our life activity have
their ultimate origin in nature, but that's a far cry from arguing that
human beings and their essential equipage is identical with the totality 
of

nature or that our activity in nature involves nature as a whole.
Regards,
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!

[Victor]

My full response is in the prior message. So here I'll just make a couple of 
short responses (see below).
- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 4:24
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!



Your reasoning is fine up until the braking point I note below.

At 03:10 PM 5/29/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

Steve,
Well, now I know what comes after the .

First paragraph:
Oudeyis is saying nothing about what nature is, but rather is writing that
whatever understandings man has of nature are a function primarily of his
active interaction (his labour) with the natural conditions of his
existence.  The difference between knowing what nature is (i.e. its
essential being or "nature" if you will) and having a working knowledge of
world conditions is all the difference between the treatment of nature in
Marxist and classical materialist theory.  Now then, the only part of 
nature

humanity can  know is that part of it with which he has some sort of
contact, and at least for Marxism, the only part of nature about which man
can develop theories of practice is that which he can or has changed in 
some

fashion.  When it comes to explaining the practical foundation scientific
cosmology we argue that the theories regarding the behaviour of huge 
masses

of material over barely conceivable periods of time and spatial dimensions
are projections based more often as not on experimentation with some of 
the

very smallest of the universe's components; atoms, quarks, and so on).
Anyway, its hard to imagine how men would know things about which they 
have

absolutely no experience and how they would know how things work without a
working experience with them or with things like them. Divine revelation
perhaps?  Finally, there is no doubt that nature must also include that
which is beyond the observed and acted upon and that its existence is
important for the creation of a materialist ideology. There are three ways
the "unknown" makes itself felt in material human experience:

1.The fact that human practice and the science that represents it in 
thought

is open ended or, better yet, appears to have no outward limits is a clear
indication of the existence of more to nature than that which is treated 
by

our current state of knowledge and practice.

2. The classic observations by Marx in the first chapter of German 
Ideology
(1845) and the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy (1844) that the physical 
and
sensual interface between man a nature in human labour is far more 
concrete

than can ever be represented by even the most developed dialectics.  The
rational representation of men's activity in the world is then an 
inherently

uncompletable task.

3.  Hegel in his discussion of being makes the point that the logical
formula A = A has no demonstrable correspondence with actual experience;
diversity is an inherent property of identity (Andy B. presents a pretty
thorough discussion on this in his The Meaning of Hegel, Chapter iv 
section,

" Diversity(essential Identity )" ).  The whole basis of all rational
activity, all dialectics, conscious and unconscious, deliberated and
automatic, is the unity between the essential transitoriness of 
experienced
moments and the determination of identities; qualities, quantities, 
measure
and all the other things we have to "know" to develop a working model of 
the

world.  It's the unity of logical categorization and the essential
temporality of immediate experience that fuels the dialectic and makes it 
so

important a tool for exploration of the unknown.

Second paragraph:
The clarification of what exactly is the significance of the *objective*
nature of nature is probably Ilyenkov's most important contributions to
Scientific Marxism. Indeed for orthodox Marxists, including Lenin in his
earlier writings (prior at very least to his readings in Hegel in 1914 and
possibly as early as his article on Emprio-positivism), did indeed inherit
the classical materialist concept of the objectivity of nature in the
metaphysical sense of the essential being of nature; known, unknown,
whatever.   Ilyenkov in the last paragraphs of chapter 8 of Dialectical
Logic summarizes the reasoning that is the basis of the concept of nature 
as

prior to and independently of humankind.


So far so good.


Here he distinguishes between Marx
and Engel's theories of human activity and Hegel's idealism by
recapitulating their description of man as a product and force of nature
that transforms nature into the instruments of his activity in 
appropriating
nature's goods and producing from them the means for the perpetuation of 
his

body organic and inorganic.


Fine, except that with the diversification of human expertise, the 
self-reproduction of society's cognitive and practical interests means 
that some investigati

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Victor]

tologising scientists do, and some
do, is tolerated by the scientific community only insofar as it remains
speculation and does not interfere with the scientific process.  Great
scientists have had "ideas";  Newton philosophized that the world was a
clock wound up by the creator and then left to its own devices,  Einstein
was sure that "God does not play dice", and Hawkins was until a few years
ago sure that unified field theory would answer all the questions of
physics.  Most of these and many more are, fortunately, either forgotten or
on the way to being forgotten, though the scientific contributions of their
makers remain important, even vital, components of the giant artefactual
system men have built to enable their persistence in the world.

Finally, the natural science of human activity and history, and this is what
Historical Materialism, should be and sometimes is, can least afford the
ontologising  forays that occasionally crop up in fields such as physics,
chemistry and organic sciences.  The very abstractness of the subjects of
these sciences renders the prononciamentos of important scientists fairly
harmless in the long run.  The natural science of human activity is as
concrete as a science can be.  It deals directly with human activity and
with its consequences, and philosophic dogmatism of the left and of the
right can only cause disaster, to real people and real communities
(as we have witnessed in the past and as we do witness today).  The only way
to avoid these disasters, to the extent they can be avoided at all, is
through adopting a critical and practical approach to theorizing and to
subject every idea to serious debate and testing much as we are doing here.
Oudeyis


- Original Message - 
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

To: 
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 4:28
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!



A question on one of your assertions:


 Note that this is not the same as saying that nature is dialectical, but
rather is an assertion that dialectics is a universal property of all life
activity no matter how primitive.


How can dialectics be a property of all life no matter how primitive when
you deny a dialectics of nature apart from praxis, which assumes cognitive
activity?  Is an amoeba a being-for-itself in addition to a
being-in-itself?

At 03:47 PM 5/29/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

Nicely put.

Several tentative responses:
The question remains, though, even within our sphere of
> action, discovering nature's properties independent of us, is
> dialectics
> just a matter of cognition, or the structure of social activity more
> generally, or does it begin in the natural processes apart from
intelligent
> life activity that, after all, have ultimately generated conscious
> beings? Is there an objective dialectics in this latter sense?

Following Hegel's schema of the development of logic, I would argue that
just as there is objective logic (i.e. logical activity that can only be
"known reflectively" as an object of reflection) there is an objective
dialectic.  The basic kernel of both logic and dialectic (they are after
all
the same) is purposive activity.  It matters not that the agents of
purposive activity are fully or even at all conscious of their cognitive
activity, the very prosecution of intentional activity implies
logic/dialectics.

 Note that this is not the same as saying that nature is dialectical, but
rather is an assertion that dialectics is a universal property of all life
activity no matter how primitive.

> Science, let us say, correctly characterizes the natural world
independently of us. But is dialectics pertaining to this
> independent external world the dialectics of nature itself or the
> dialectics of science?

I think I gave a partial answer to this question in my response to Steve's
last message.  The products of human activity should never be regarded as
the issue of pure logic or of the unfettered human imagination.  Even
Hegel
would not accept this proposal.

Science no less then the material products of human labour represent a
unity
of human activity in an independent external world that has existed prior
to
man's emergence and confronts men's ambitions with conditions to which he
must accommodate his activity if they are to realize their goals.  Labour
is
a cooperative activity in which men work with nature as their partner.

Oudeyis

- Original Message -
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


> I will need to address subsequent posts on this topic, but first: there
> is
> an interesting implicit subtlety here.  If the question is not whether
> nature is dialectical but whether science (the study of nature) is
> dialectical, then even though nature exists independently of man,
>

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Ralph Dumain]

A question on one of your assertions:


 Note that this is not the same as saying that nature is dialectical, but
rather is an assertion that dialectics is a universal property of all life
activity no matter how primitive.


How can dialectics be a property of all life no matter how primitive when 
you deny a dialectics of nature apart from praxis, which assumes cognitive 
activity?  Is an amoeba a being-for-itself in addition to a being-in-itself?


At 03:47 PM 5/29/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

Nicely put.

Several tentative responses:
The question remains, though, even within our sphere of
> action, discovering nature's properties independent of us, is dialectics
> just a matter of cognition, or the structure of social activity more
> generally, or does it begin in the natural processes apart from
intelligent
> life activity that, after all, have ultimately generated conscious
> beings? Is there an objective dialectics in this latter sense?

Following Hegel's schema of the development of logic, I would argue that
just as there is objective logic (i.e. logical activity that can only be
"known reflectively" as an object of reflection) there is an objective
dialectic.  The basic kernel of both logic and dialectic (they are after all
the same) is purposive activity.  It matters not that the agents of
purposive activity are fully or even at all conscious of their cognitive
activity, the very prosecution of intentional activity implies
logic/dialectics.

 Note that this is not the same as saying that nature is dialectical, but
rather is an assertion that dialectics is a universal property of all life
activity no matter how primitive.

> Science, let us say, correctly characterizes the natural world
independently of us. But is dialectics pertaining to this
> independent external world the dialectics of nature itself or the
> dialectics of science?

I think I gave a partial answer to this question in my response to Steve's
last message.  The products of human activity should never be regarded as
the issue of pure logic or of the unfettered human imagination.  Even Hegel
would not accept this proposal.

Science no less then the material products of human labour represent a unity
of human activity in an independent external world that has existed prior to
man's emergence and confronts men's ambitions with conditions to which he
must accommodate his activity if they are to realize their goals.  Labour is
a cooperative activity in which men work with nature as their partner.

Oudeyis

- Original Message -
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2005 12:29 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


> I will need to address subsequent posts on this topic, but first: there is
> an interesting implicit subtlety here.  If the question is not whether
> nature is dialectical but whether science (the study of nature) is
> dialectical, then even though nature exists independently of man, science
> as a form of human activity and cognition does not, since, tautologically,
> we only know what exists via interaction with the rest of nature and can't
> speak of anything else except as a hypothetical metaphysical
> possibility.  The question remains, though, even within our sphere of
> action, discovering nature's properties independent of us, is dialectics
> just a matter of cognition, or the structure of social activity more
> generally, or does it begin in the natural processes apart from
intelligent
> life activity that, after all, have ultimately generated conscious
> beings?  Is there an objective dialectics in this latter sense?  Again,
> here's the ambiguity.  Science, let us say, correctly characterizes the
> natural world independently of us. But is dialectics pertaining to this
> independent external world the dialectics of nature itself or the
> dialectics of science?
>
> More to come.
>
> At 12:14 PM 5/27/2005 -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >but what about history of nature? I mean before there  wasn't  anything
that
> >can be qualified as man's interaction withthe  world. does in your view
> >dialectics start with the appearance of a species that  does not simply
> >adjust
> >itself to nature like other animals but starts changibng  it more or less
> >conscioulsy by labour?
> >
> >NOTE,  THAT THE ISSUE OF THE RELEVANCE OF LOGIC (DIALECTICS) TO HUMAN
HISTORY
> >IS  NOT A MATTER OF THE NATURE OF THE WORLD BUT OF MAN'S INTERACTION WITH
THE
> >WORLD



___
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!

[Ralph Dumain]

Your reasoning is fine up until the braking point I note below.

At 03:10 PM 5/29/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

Steve,
Well, now I know what comes after the .

First paragraph:
Oudeyis is saying nothing about what nature is, but rather is writing that
whatever understandings man has of nature are a function primarily of his
active interaction (his labour) with the natural conditions of his
existence.  The difference between knowing what nature is (i.e. its
essential being or "nature" if you will) and having a working knowledge of
world conditions is all the difference between the treatment of nature in
Marxist and classical materialist theory.  Now then, the only part of nature
humanity can  know is that part of it with which he has some sort of
contact, and at least for Marxism, the only part of nature about which man
can develop theories of practice is that which he can or has changed in some
fashion.  When it comes to explaining the practical foundation scientific
cosmology we argue that the theories regarding the behaviour of huge masses
of material over barely conceivable periods of time and spatial dimensions
are projections based more often as not on experimentation with some of the
very smallest of the universe's components; atoms, quarks, and so on).
Anyway, its hard to imagine how men would know things about which they have
absolutely no experience and how they would know how things work without a
working experience with them or with things like them. Divine revelation
perhaps?  Finally, there is no doubt that nature must also include that
which is beyond the observed and acted upon and that its existence is
important for the creation of a materialist ideology. There are three ways
the "unknown" makes itself felt in material human experience:

1.The fact that human practice and the science that represents it in thought
is open ended or, better yet, appears to have no outward limits is a clear
indication of the existence of more to nature than that which is treated by
our current state of knowledge and practice.

2. The classic observations by Marx in the first chapter of German Ideology
(1845) and the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy (1844) that the physical and
sensual interface between man a nature in human labour is far more concrete
than can ever be represented by even the most developed dialectics.  The
rational representation of men's activity in the world is then an inherently
uncompletable task.

3.  Hegel in his discussion of being makes the point that the logical
formula A = A has no demonstrable correspondence with actual experience;
diversity is an inherent property of identity (Andy B. presents a pretty
thorough discussion on this in his The Meaning of Hegel, Chapter iv section,
" Diversity(essential Identity )" ).  The whole basis of all rational
activity, all dialectics, conscious and unconscious, deliberated and
automatic, is the unity between the essential transitoriness of experienced
moments and the determination of identities; qualities, quantities, measure
and all the other things we have to "know" to develop a working model of the
world.  It's the unity of logical categorization and the essential
temporality of immediate experience that fuels the dialectic and makes it so
important a tool for exploration of the unknown.

Second paragraph:
The clarification of what exactly is the significance of the *objective*
nature of nature is probably Ilyenkov's most important contributions to
Scientific Marxism. Indeed for orthodox Marxists, including Lenin in his
earlier writings (prior at very least to his readings in Hegel in 1914 and
possibly as early as his article on Emprio-positivism), did indeed inherit
the classical materialist concept of the objectivity of nature in the
metaphysical sense of the essential being of nature; known, unknown,
whatever.   Ilyenkov in the last paragraphs of chapter 8 of Dialectical
Logic summarizes the reasoning that is the basis of the concept of nature as
prior to and independently of humankind.


So far so good.


Here he distinguishes between Marx
and Engel's theories of human activity and Hegel's idealism by
recapitulating their description of man as a product and force of nature
that transforms nature into the instruments of his activity in appropriating
nature's goods and producing from them the means for the perpetuation of his
body organic and inorganic.


Fine, except that with the diversification of human expertise, the 
self-reproduction of society's cognitive and practical interests means that 
some investigations by some individuals may not necessarily be directed 
towards the ends of instrumental self-preservation, though of course 
indirectly every human activity--play being the most universal 
example--develops skills that are always instrumentally useful in the end.




Nothing could more clearly describe the
independence of abstract nature from the emergence of human activity in the
world.   After all, if man has his origins in the d

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Ralph Dumain]

Well, my reaction here re-invokes my sense of the tautology of all such 
arguments.  That is, there can be no meaningful claims about the universe 
apart from our interaction with the universe since we can't make any claims 
about anything without interacting with the phenomena about which we are 
making claims.  Your claim that all our knowledge claims about the universe 
from the Big Bang on, are expressions of human need, is tautologically 
true, and hence not very interesting or revealing.


At 11:51 AM 5/28/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:


- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: 
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!


>
> but what about history of nature? I mean before there  wasn't  anything
that
> can be qualified as man's interaction withthe  world. does in your view
> dialectics start with the appearance of a species that  does not simply
adjust
> itself to nature like other animals but starts changibng  it more or less
> conscioulsy by labour?
>
> NOTE,  THAT THE ISSUE OF THE RELEVANCE OF LOGIC (DIALECTICS) TO HUMAN
HISTORY
> IS  NOT A MATTER OF THE NATURE OF THE WORLD BUT OF MAN'S INTERACTION WITH
THE
> WORLD

Whether or not nature has a history is a question for nature, of little
relevance for the practical realization of human needs.

Man, in order to better determine his needs and the means necessary to
realize them investigates through reason and practice (experimentation and
informed search) the development of the relevant (essential) incohoate
features of the natural world, including those of his own activities.  The
result is the objective determinations of past events in the natural world
and of their relevance to the form and substance of our current needs and to
the realization of these in practical activity. The laws and principles as
well as the developmental schemas produced by our research into what is
called Natural History are a product of and the means for realization of
strictly human objectives. Is this a history of nature?  Well, we are
ourselves an integral part and force of the natural world and the massive
array of objects we depend on for perpetuation of our life activity have
their ultimate origin in nature, but that's a far cry from arguing that
human beings and their essential equipage is identical with the totality of
nature or that our activity in nature involves nature as a whole.
Regards,
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!

[Ralph Dumain]

Interleaved comments on further fragments of your post:

At 03:08 AM 5/28/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

..
I see your not going to let me deal with the dogmatics of classical
materialism briefly.

The kernel of my argument is that in general, discourse segregated from
practice can only be theological, i.e. concerning articles of faith rather
than descriptions of demonstrable practice. I say in general, since
scientists usually discuss their findings with only minimal reference to the
practicalities that are the origins and ultimate objects of their work. This
is mostly a manifestation of the extreme division of labour that isolates
professional researchers from all but the immediate subjects of their work.
In any case, I've yet to see a monograph or article of a natural scientist
that presents his work as having universal significance. There are
exceptions to this rule such as Hawkins in physics and Dawkins in population
genetics, and the result is invariably utter nonsense. I'm referring here to
Hawkins conviction that unified field theory will provide an ultimate theory
of the physical world and to Dawkin's projection of the mechanics of
population genetics to the science of culture (memics and all that).

Science as the theory of practice is implicitly restricted in relevance to
the conditions of the moment (even when the problems it is designed to treat
are projected into the near or far future). The discoveries of this kind of
science are inevitably relevant only to the particular circumstances of
their production, and to the specific subjects of their focus and have no
claim as eternal truths.  Einstein, Newton and Galileo will never acquire
the sainthood of the revealers of final truths.  On the contrary, their
ideas will only remain significant so long as they are relevant to the
practices and technologies that we men need to perpetuate ourselves,
"ourselves" here meaning the entire complex of organic and inorganic
components of our individual and collective life activities.  Thus, science
as the theory of practice is an inherently revolutionary activity.


This is interesting as a vantage point, i.e. beginning from the scope of 
praxis and explaining why scientists can be blockheads when they venture 
beyond the specific praxis that enabled them to achieve what they did.  But 
I find this approach more credible when it is re-routed back to objectivity.




Discussion on the nature of being, on the substance of nature, and so on is
from the point of view of historical materialism no less restricted to the
conditions of its production than is practical science.  However, the
inherent object of such discussions is the determination of the absolute and
final nature of things at all places and in all times.  The ostensible
object of the advocates of such metaphysical finalities is the expression of
ultimate truths regarding the universe and its parts, the absolute
contradiction to the objects of practice and the science of practice.

Anyway, it is one thing to develop theories concerning particularities of
that grand everything we call nature, it's quite another to present
particular results as universals about the universe.  The former can be
demonstrated, proved if you will, the latter extends beyond all
possibilities of human experience, hence it can only be a product either of
divine revelation or of normative practice, i.e. ethos. I prefer ethos to
divine revelation.


I'm afraid I don't quite grasp this.  You are suggesting, I think, that 
general ontological pronouncements not tied to some current concerns of 
praxis become fruitless or even retrograde metaphysics.  I don't quite 
agree with this, but I do agree that these traditional philosophical 
concerns become more dynamic and fruitful when connected to specific 
problems of the present.



..
> I think you're right.  The question then is--how to put this?--the line of
> demarcation between nature in itself and . . . nature for us . . . and
> science.  I've been cautious about making claims about the 'dialectics of
> nature' in se, i.e. apart from our methods of analysis (which I guess you
> might call 'contemplative'.  This is the old problem, as traditional
> terminology puts it, of the relation between (or very existence of)
> subjective (dialectical logic as subject of debate) and objective
> dialectics (which, with respect to nature, is the focus of positive and
> negative engagements with dialectical thought).  It's not clear to me
> whether you would go along with my various analyses of this problematic
> over the past dozen years, or even accept such a conceptual
> distinction.  But I think that the mess we've inherited shows up its
> historical importance.  While I agree we need an overarching conception
> that somehow interrelates "nature, society, and thought", the direct
> identification of all of these components with the same dialectical laws
> is, I think, a logically blurred mistake.  I believe this implicit p

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Ralph Dumain]

Note my interleaved comments on a fragment of a key post of yours

At 03:08 AM 5/28/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:

..
> I don't see this.  I see the problem this way: that stage of the
> development of materialism is inadequate to grasp the nature of human
> activity, both practical and cognitive.  Labels such as 'nature as such'
or
> 'contemplative' don't work for me without such clarification, though it
> does seem that your characterization here is consistent with me though
> apparently not synonymous.  The old materialism, as well as the course of
> development of modern natural science, is such that it begins with the
> study of the lowest levels of the organization of matter and works its way
> up.  But once it works its way up to the human species itself as an object
> of study, its intellectual limitations become manifest.  And I think this
> is where Marx intervenes.

 If I understand you correctly, you argue that so long as the natural
sciences dealt with phenomena that was simple enough to contemplate without
our needing to be aware o the activity of the contemplating subject, the old
materialism served as a sufficient paradigm for explanations of the
observed.  It is only when we deal with men, i.e. ourselves that we must
take into account our own subjectivity to understand what's going on.

 I prefer to stand your argument on its head.  As long as human needs could
(and given the available technology, only could) be satisfied by
manipulation of his world on a purely mechanical level, the contemplative
and mechanical paradigms of classical materialism was a viable system for
explaining the effectiveness of human practice.


In turn, I could stand your argument on its head.  What is the vantage 
point: objective reality with the relation of human practice as a 
reflection of it, or the justification of practice by its ability to 
fulfill needs?  Either vantage point could be considered a question of 
perspective from one angle or the other.  They could be equivalent.  Yet I 
see my argument as basic as yours as derivative, though that perspective is 
also valid, i.e. explaining the effectiveness of human practice under 
defined conditions.




With the development of new
technologies and new needs, (like the development of machinery and
instruments powered by electricity). One of the earliest examples of this
development in Physics was the birth (emergence?) Heisenberg principle in
Quantum physics.  Newtonian physics dealt with big things that could be
measured with instruments that  had no apparent effect whatsoever on the
measure itself, thus the measurement itself could be factored out of the
explanation of the activities of the things measured.  Small particle, high
energy physics deals with things so small and so sensitive to the effects
even of light that physicists must at very least take into account the
effect of their measuring activities on the subjects of their research.

As I suggest below the big revolution in modern natural science, the
revolution that is giving birth to concepts such as autopoiesis, emergence
and non-linear causality (attractors and Feigenbaum trees) is mostly, (if
not mistaken the attractor was first formally described by Lorenz in 1963 a
weatherman and the term "strange attractor was first used in 1971 by
Ruelle and Takens to describe fluid dynamics) connected to the investigation
of systems that are ever more sensitive to our handling of their components;
such as weather, the behaviour of ecosystems, animal ethology and so on.
This is of course a function of the kinds of needs that our once largely
mechanical handling of the conditions of our existence has produced.  Thus,
for example, the development of air transport has created an urgent demand
for extremely accurate weather prediction, much more accurate than the
simple Newtonian based physics of atmospherics and energetics (the
meteorology we learned in Highschool) can provide. The modern aircraft which
is still, perhaps only barely, a mechanical instrument has compelled the
development of meteorology into a science in which mechanism is entirely
sublated into a system that cannot be regarded as mechanical by any
definition.


But note it's not just our needs, but the objectivity of the realities 
under investigation, for whatever reason we needed to engage them, that 
force methodological and philosophical revisions.  One could easily argue 
for a dialectics of nature on this basis and not just a dialectic of 
science.  Your perspective is interesting because it begins from the 
vantage point of practice.  But do you really prove anything different from 
my perspective?



It is not enough to explain the increasing dominance of processual and
teleological explanations in natural science as a function of the subjects
of scientific investigation.  This is obvious.  The real issue is the effect
of the development of human needs (mostly as a consequence of the
transformations men have ma

Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!

[Victor]

to CB
Right, I hear the same language.
Oudeyis
- Original Message - 
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx 
andthe thinkers he inspired'" 

Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 16:25
Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics!



Victor victor
Of course objectivity reality exists, but we have to realize that what 
Marx,


Lenin and other intelligent Marxists like Ilyenkov meant by objective
reality is not  reality contemplated by some totally uninvolved
philosophical being.  Just the reverse is true objective reality is only
known through what Lenin calls "revolutionary practice", the 
transformation
of one object into another through labour.  It is only when we know how 
and

under what conditions (including of course our own activities) an object
becomes something else that we cognize its real character.  This is as 
true
of the child knocking about a gewgaw hanging over his crib as it is for 
the

physicist smashing atoms.

There is virtually no aspect of human knowledge (not human activity) that 
is


truly a priori.
Oudeyis

^^
CB: Yes,in saying that objective reality exists, I did indicate any break
with The Theses on Feuerbach ,esp. 1, 2 and 11 here.  Marx distinguishes 
his

materialism from all those hitherto existing by  by making the subject
active not contemplative, like Feuerbach.  Practice is the test of theory,
otherwise it's scholastic. Philosophers have interpreted the world, the
thing is to change it.

Lenin's _Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_ is thoroughly infused with
Engels' elaboration of these principles in _Anti-Duhring_.




___
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