[Xmca-l] Re: Oliver Sacks/Romantic Science

Sat Sep 5 09:06:06 PDT 2015

Dear Andy,
The reason I came to you was Peg's authority and personality and brilliance of research . Now again I put my problem clearly : I have some supposition to the effect that "All true concepts are both concrete and universal" according to my previous explanation . If I'm mistaken , someone might be kind to justify the point . This is where I was led to during discussions . 

P.S. What I wrote you as Marx's evaluation of Feuerbach not being "revolutionary" is at hand but I have some more important thing to say as to clarify what I meant by "fuzzy boundaries" . 

I said of ontology as tending towards "external transformable/s [entities] . And you said of plurality of both terms . Now I give more explanation . 

By that , I wouldn't have meant just rocks and stones . In this regard , in my personal correspondence I referred you to the wrestling and involvement and therefrom to "man and his world" . That is , man , the world , actions , interactions , processes , relations , relationships , so on so forth . That is , to the extent where man still remains "man" and "his world" remains "his world" . As I understand it , this is the dimension and limits of "ontology" . 

But you're talking in a way that one might figure out that it's possible to blend some "matter" with some "idea" and some idea with some matter . This is what I meant by "fuzzy bordering" . 

If , as you say , the being of thought (spatially temporally) is something and the knowing of thought something else , the former ontological , the latter , epistemological , then what are the neuronal processes taking place in the brain ? Wouldn't you agree that this latter case might be closer to "ontology" . I say we are either dealing with thought or with the thinking man ; that is they related but distinctive . And it's when we are dealing with the thinking man as "social being" that the problem of being "revolutionary" or "non-revolutionary" or "counter-revolutionary" occurs . 

And it's O.K. for us to think over the well-known saying that "behind consciousness is BEING" . Does not this BEING , first of all , mean the Being who is born , who grows , lives , works , uses tools , acts , interacts , wrestles with , involves , gets engaged , enters processes , joins , communicates , socializes , fails , succeeds , dies , etc. ?

Please first go to the first parag in full . Others are deletable .

Best Haydi 
      From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
 To: ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> 
 Sent: Saturday, 5 September 2015, 16:47:41
 Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Oliver Sacks/Romantic Science

 But Haydi, those "fuzzy foggy boundaries" are revolutionary practice! Now you see it now you don't!

 Andy
   *Andy Blunden* 
 http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/  

On 5/09/2015 9:15 PM, ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ wrote:

   Andy, 
  Thanks for the explanation ! 
  A large part of my personal debate was about the theses , the first one in particular and you admitted that you'd seen nothing richer than them . Then , it was not a matter of recent decades , revisions , innovations or the other Marx or Marxes .  To put it simply even today : The table exists and the idea of the table exists . Does creating fuzzy foggy boundaries in between help resolve our problems ? Now , that's not our main point of reference . 

  What you're talking about was my Post-Script , an addendum to a major point . Shortly , within our bounds (Vygotsky Marxist School of the Time and beyond) , could we say : "All true concepts are both universal and concrete" ? 
  I would not provide support for this because , I think , David Kellog or Mike is able to locate if such a saying exists within Vygotsky's Collected works or some other Vygotskian's . My mind triggers blazingly though it's too old .  
  Larry ! I'll read your post again and try to provide an answer . Many thanks ! 
  Best 
  Haydi   
      From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> 
 Sent: Saturday, 5 September 2015, 4:58:38
 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Oliver Sacks/Romantic Science

 Haydi, on the question of ontology and epistemology ...
 Ontology is the study of being. That does not mean that it 
 is concerned only with independently existing entities. It 
 is the study of what forms of being there are, such as 
 "thoughts". In recent decades this has come to mean a person 
 or a culture's belief in the array of different entities 
 that may be talked of, e.g. gods, classes or individuals, so 
 it is an aspect of cultural difference.
 Epistemology is the study of knowing, in particular the 
 limits and validity of knowledge. It is not necessarily a 
 study of reflection. In recent decades it has comes to mean 
 a person or a culture's beliefs about the legitimate sources 
 of knowledge, e.g. priests, books or experience, etc.
 It was Hegel who first proposed that these sciences were 
 bankrupt and should be transcended, because every social 
 formation had its own integral "epistemology" and "ontology" 
 and there was no final answer to the question these sciences 
 proposed, so Hegel's view leads us to the modern way of 
 talking about epistemologies and ontologies in the plural 
 and aspects of a way of thinking and acting in the world.
 Hegel's Ontology is the first Book of the Logic, and I can 
 see a sense in which you could say that the Second Book is 
 about epistemology, but I don't think this is accurate.

 Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
 *Andy Blunden*
 http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/ 

 On 5/09/2015 7:08 AM, ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ wrote:
 > P.S. Many a time I've made efforts , asked others , to differentiate between ONTOLOGY and EPISTEMOLOGY ; yet I've stayed on the same spot . First thesis of Feuerbach tells us if it's the case that we imagine / conceive the objects there to themselves without any wrestling on our part to get involved with them , then science / genuine materialism would not present any meaning to us . All things arise from the wrestling and the involvement . On this point , too , in either case , our work and thinking power are involved except that with ontology , we try to conceive things as existent and trace them as external transformables in themselves while with epistemology we deal with the pertaining ideas as reflexions . Then , in the natural and physical sciences , by concrete we mean "of matter" , corporeal , while in philosophy and gnoseology which is the province of the second of our division , knowledge , concrete , of necessity , would  mean conceptual , the highest and most valued categorial philosophical term .
 > In what ways am I completely mistaken ?
 > Best
 > Haydi
 >
 >