Re: Re: Re: Marx's materialism
Interesting, because Krader's work on nomadic pastoralists is also excellent. -Original Message- From: Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, April 03, 2000 7:31 PM Subject: [PEN-L:17694] Re: Re: Marx's materialism And I must forceably put forward the work of Lawrence Krader. The Dialectics of Civil Society Treatise of Social Labor as the most significant outline of Marxist materialism in the second half of the twentieth century. Rod Mathew Forstater wrote: Louis: This is the first attempt I've seen on or off the Internet to make an amalgam between Marx and Whitehead Russell Kleinbach, 1982, _Marx Via Process: Whitehead's Potential Contribution to Marxian Social Theory_, D.C.: University Press of America. Also, not Whitehead, but what I consider a complementary project: Roslyn Wallach Bologh, 1979, _Dialectical Phenomenology: Marx's Method_, London: Routledge. and the very good: David Sallach, 1973, "Class Consciousness and the Everyday World in the Work of Marx Schutz," _The Insurgent Sociologist_, 3, 4, pp. 27-37. And: Barry Smart, 1976, _Sociology, Phenomenology, and Marxian Analysis_, London: Routledge. If we're serious about grappling with these issues, I believe we must also go back to: Vygotsky, L.S, 1934, _Thought and Language_, Cambridge: MIT Press. and Voloshinov, V. N., 1930, _Marxism and the Philosophy of Language_, New York: Seminar Press. Finally: Kenneth A. Megill, "Peirce and Marx" _Transactions of the Charles Sanders Peirce Society_, V. III, No. 2, Fall 19xx? (sorry, can't read the date properly). It was Peter Rigby who insisted to me that developing a Marxian Phenomenology be an absolutely necessary part of the Marxist project. His _Persistent Pastoralists: Nomadic Societies in Transition_, 1985, Zed Press is one of the most important books I've ever read, not only for its excellent Marxist analysis of a precapitalist social formation in general and the Maasai "predicament" in particular, but for its methodological discussion (attempt to begin to develop a Marxist phenomenology). See also his _Cattle, capitalism, and class: Ilparakuyo Maasai transformations, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992, and _African images: racism and the end of anthropology_, Oxford ; Washington, D.C.: Berg, 1996. It's scary- I'm getting old enough to make going back to my dissertation bibliography nostalgic. Louis- wasn't this what you were also doing once at the Graduate Faculty of the New School?? My question is: does anyone know of any work that attempts to relate Marx to Hartshorne? -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Marx's materialism
Rod Hay wrote: Second, it not an unusual position in twentieth century social science to admit the dialectic between matter and idea. There are those who occassionally go overboard (strict structuralists, sociobiologists, etc.) but Carrol is right, very few deny the relationship. The task is to get the mix right. How much are human behaviours determined by the physical structure of the brain, (and even here it is common to the plasticity of the brain of infants in response to experience.) and how much is behaviour the result of experience and choice. The best recent book I have read on the subject is Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species: The co-evolution of the brain and language. You're using "dialectic" to mean something different from what I take Marx to mean by it. He uses it to mean not just interdependence but interdependence of a particular kind - "internal relations". "Dialectical" relations are those in which the essences of the things related are the outcome of their relations (as is claimed of the human essence in the sixth thesis on Feuerbach). One of the ontological premises defining scientific materialism is that the relations of the ultimate "bits" to which reality is assumed reducible are external relations i.e. the essential qualities of each bit are assumed to be independent of its relations to the others. Interpreted within a scientific materialist framework the brain is composite so its structure, like that of a gene, can change as a result of changes in its relation to what is external to it. This is not dialectical interdependence. Another defining premise of scientific materialism is "determinism" in the sense of the exclusion of self-determination and hence of "choice" from having anything to do with what occurs. This premise is not altered by changing the mix in causal explanation between what is attributed to the innate structure of the brain and what is attributed to the environment. This premise creates problems for any attempt to attribute ideas to a structure so conceived. Assuming it could be said in some meaningful sense to have ideas, it still would not be capable of knowledge. Knowledge isn't just ideas; its ideas we choose to believe because we have good, i.e. epistemologically adequate, reasons for doing so. It can't be coherently attributed to a structure from which self-determination has been excluded by assumption. Even if the ideas of such a structure could in some sense be said, without self-contradiction, to be in part the outcome of self-determination, how would the structure know which of its ideas were both self-determined and reasonable and which were the outcome of determinism in the restricted sense of scientific materialism? How do the exponents of evolutionary psychology claim to be able to know this about their ideas? This problem is indirectly pointed to in the third thesis on Feuerbach. The best critical discussions of scientific materialism in relation to 20th century developments in science that I know are Whitehead's e.g. Science and the Modern World. He elaborates an alternative ontological foundation for science that allows consistently for internal relations, self-determination and final causation. Marx's materialism does the same thing, in my judgment. Thanks for the Deacon reference. I'll take a look at it. Best, Ted -- Ted WinslowE-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Division of Social Science VOICE: (416) 736-5054 York UniversityFAX: (416) 736-5615 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario CANADA M3J 1P3
Re: Re: Re: Re: Marx's materialism
No point in continuing this line of discussion. We don't disagree. In a short post it is impossible to even mention all aspects of the dialectic. Interdependence is one aspect. Wholism is another. From those two internal relations can be derived. The question between materialism and idealism is the starting point of the analysis. For Hegel it was the idea, although if you read many passages of his work, it would appear that the material is the determining moment. Rod Ted Winslow wrote: Rod Hay wrote: Second, it not an unusual position in twentieth century social science to admit the dialectic between matter and idea. There are those who occassionally go overboard (strict structuralists, sociobiologists, etc.) but Carrol is right, very few deny the relationship. The task is to get the mix right. How much are human behaviours determined by the physical structure of the brain, (and even here it is common to the plasticity of the brain of infants in response to experience.) and how much is behaviour the result of experience and choice. The best recent book I have read on the subject is Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species: The co-evolution of the brain and language. You're using "dialectic" to mean something different from what I take Marx to mean by it. He uses it to mean not just interdependence but interdependence of a particular kind - "internal relations". "Dialectical" relations are those in which the essences of the things related are the outcome of their relations (as is claimed of the human essence in the sixth thesis on Feuerbach). One of the ontological premises defining scientific materialism is that the relations of the ultimate "bits" to which reality is assumed reducible are external relations i.e. the essential qualities of each bit are assumed to be independent of its relations to the others. Interpreted within a scientific materialist framework the brain is composite so its structure, like that of a gene, can change as a result of changes in its relation to what is external to it. This is not dialectical interdependence. Another defining premise of scientific materialism is "determinism" in the sense of the exclusion of self-determination and hence of "choice" from having anything to do with what occurs. This premise is not altered by changing the mix in causal explanation between what is attributed to the innate structure of the brain and what is attributed to the environment. This premise creates problems for any attempt to attribute ideas to a structure so conceived. Assuming it could be said in some meaningful sense to have ideas, it still would not be capable of knowledge. Knowledge isn't just ideas; its ideas we choose to believe because we have good, i.e. epistemologically adequate, reasons for doing so. It can't be coherently attributed to a structure from which self-determination has been excluded by assumption. Even if the ideas of such a structure could in some sense be said, without self-contradiction, to be in part the outcome of self-determination, how would the structure know which of its ideas were both self-determined and reasonable and which were the outcome of determinism in the restricted sense of scientific materialism? How do the exponents of evolutionary psychology claim to be able to know this about their ideas? This problem is indirectly pointed to in the third thesis on Feuerbach. The best critical discussions of scientific materialism in relation to 20th century developments in science that I know are Whitehead's e.g. Science and the Modern World. He elaborates an alternative ontological foundation for science that allows consistently for internal relations, self-determination and final causation. Marx's materialism does the same thing, in my judgment. Thanks for the Deacon reference. I'll take a look at it. Best, Ted -- Ted WinslowE-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Division of Social Science VOICE: (416) 736-5054 York UniversityFAX: (416) 736-5615 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario CANADA M3J 1P3 -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: Re: Marx's materialism
At 08:05 PM 04/02/2000 -0400, you wrote: I would add that to discuss Marx's materialism, one would have to take into account the twentieth century contributions to the understanding of 'matter' and 'energy' Second, it not an unusual position in twentieth century social science to admit the dialectic between matter and idea. I think that there are two matter vs. idea dialectics that are often confused. IMHO, Marx's more important dialectic of this sort has little or nothing to do with "matter in motion." Rather, it's the materialism of the THESES ON FEUERBACH and the GERMAN IDEOLOGY. This is the dialectic between consciousness and practice. Ted was talking about this. There are those who occassionally go overboard (strict structuralists, sociobiologists, etc.) but Carrol is right, very few deny the relationship. The task is to get the mix right. How much are human behaviours determined by the physical structure of the brain, (and even here it is common to the plasticity of the brain of infants in response to experience.) and how much is behaviour the result of experience and choice. The best recent book I have read on the subject is Terrence Deacon's The Symbolic Species: The co-evolution of the brain and language. I think dialectical methodology helps here (as in Lewontin Levins' DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST) but it's not really what Marx focused on. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine/JDevine.html
