While I have some idea of what I don't like about the other arguments
presented so far, I am baffled by this one. What exactly are you asserting
about the relation of philosophy and politics?
What do you think about the assertion made by Chris (and others over the
past century) that Lenin was only using the philosophical disagreement with
Bogdanov and others for pragmatic political purposes and was not serious
about the intrinsic philosophical issues in their own right? I don't buy
it, myself, but I haven't the time for a detailed historical
exploration. What does Dasvid Joravsky have to say about this, for
example? I read somewhere that he shows that Lenin was trying to separate
out the political from the philosophical issues, and to combat the
_partisan_ use of empiriocriticism with party sanction.
BTW, as you may know, Lenin recognized that Engels had vastly
oversimplified matters for purposes of popularization, but this was, I
believe, in later writings (crica 1914?) and not in MAEC. I don't think
that either Engels or Lenin was engaged in a trivial enterprise. However,
a century (and more) later we ought to be able to express ourselves with
greater depth and clarity in light of our historical perspective and the
tools of analysis at our disposal now. The Marxist-Leninist tradition
ingrained a number of very harmful habits. Instead of acting like parrots
on our deathbeds, we can still think, can't we? We aren't required to be
the zombies of Marxism-Leninism or council communism. Why rehash all these
dead issues unless we are prepared for more incisive thinking?
At 04:47 PM 5/25/2005 +, gilhyle wrote:
Let me get this right:
If you are involved in building a political party and someone advocates a
philosophy which influences people in that party so as to weaken the
commitment of party members to political positions you advocate, you are not
permitted to enter the lists to debate with that person until you have worked
out all the problems of philosophy.
It is - apparently - not permitted to draw out the implications of realism
and the
opposing point of view in abstraction from the related philosophical
questions
in order to achieve an important POLITICAL result...seems quite the
opposite to obvious to me !
Polemic has an urgent political purpose, you do your best now with the tools
available. Later when there is a world war on that means you are shut up in
Switzerland, you might take some time to go off and study some Hegel.
What is wrong with that?
(By the way, I dont recall Lenin significantly misquoted Kant - any examples?)
Apparently it isn't permitted, either, to point out the obvious (as Engels
did)
since to do so involves making a banal point. That is not obvious to me
either,
but maybe I'm being banal in saying that.
Then lets look at the draft Dialectics of Nature - did Engels rely on banal
'dialectical laws' to draw profound conclusions without regard to the
detail of
the science concerned. I don't see it there.
It never ceases to amaze me that people can rely on the difficulty (undoubted
difficulty) in articulating a coherent and comprehensive statement about
realism and ontology to suggest that Lenin and Engels were incredibly
negligent or incoherent. SInce neither man was practising philosophy, it is
hardly surprising that they didn't produce it.
All this means is that Marxism then had not and maybe did not need to have
resolved all the problems of philosophy. Of course Pannokoek might (falsely)
have though otherwise.
Now, if you want to leave Engels and Lenin alone and try to talk about
realism
and ontology, I will await with interest and growing impatience your
articulation of what Engels and Lenin should have said...I haven't
heard it
so far.
___
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
