[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Re: What is science?: Where to start doctoral students?

Andy Blunden andyb@marxists.org
Sat Nov 3 19:01:43 PDT 2018


Yes, Martin, Marx and Hegel can both be counted as
Aristotleans, though self-evidently only "in a certain way."
Hegel was so much an admirer of Aristotle that Aristotle is
the only great philosopher who is not pinned at a certain
finite point in the "unfolding of the Idea" in Hegel's
History of Philosophy, and at the completion of the
Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, when it comes
full circle to a fully reconstructed Being, Hegel merely
quotes a passage from Aristotle in the original Greek,
without translation!

The restoration of Hegel to his proper place in Marxism was
begun by Lenin in 1914:

    “It is impossible completely to understand
    Marx's /Capital/, and especially its first chapter,
    without having thoroughly studied and understood
    the /whole/ of Hegel's /Logic/. Consequently, half a
    century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!
    <https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch03.htm#LCW38_180a>”
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch03.htm#LCW38_180a

and continued via Korsch and Lukacs, the early Frankfurt
School and Dunayevskaya. It was given a particular boost
with the emergence of "Marxist Humanism" (in opposition to
Althusser's structuralism and the East European Stalinist
bureaucracies) from Eastern Europe in the 1960s.

The origins of Marx's philosophical (not political) views in
Hegel is now a commonplace which only the blind do not see
(if they bother to look).

Andy

Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 4/11/2018 3:01 AM, Martin Packer wrote:
> Andy, thinking about your question I went aGooglin’ and
> discovered that Carol Gould’s book is available online:
>
> Gould, C. C. (1978). /Marx’s social ontology:
> Individuality and community in Marx’s theory of social
> relations/. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
>
> <https://philarchive.org/archive/GOUMSO-3>
>
> I hadn’t noticed when first reading this book that Gould
> credits Marx Wartofsky for his help developing the
> theoretical framework. The book defends five theses; she
> summarizes the first two as follows:
>
> My first thesis is that Marx uses Hegel's dialectical
> logic both as a method of inquiry and as a logic of
> history. That is, not only is Marx's analysis ordered in
> accordance with a Hegelian dialectic, but the actual
> dcvelopment of historical stages itself is seen to have
> such a dialectical form.!Thus, on the one hand, Marx
> derives the specific structure and development of social
> forms from the concepts of these forms, but, on the other
> hand, he sees this derivation as possible because the
> concepts are themselves abstracted from the concrete
> social developmenL,
>
> My second thesis is that in construing Hegel's logic of
> concepts also as a logic of social reality, Marx becomes
> an Aristotelian. He holds that it is real, concretely
> existing individuals who constitute this social reality by
> their activity. 
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>> On Nov 2, 2018, at 10:17 PM, Andy Blunden
>> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>>
>> I think it would be more true to say that in Marx's day
>> "Ontology" was only used in the non-countable form; the
>> countable (i.e. plural) form of "Ontology" is a product I
>> think of the second half of the 20th Century. Martin? can
>> you pinpoint it? I think that Marx agreed with Hegel's
>> reduction of Ontology to Logic, though he also had
>> differences over Hegel's formulation of it - the famous
>> "Method of Political Economy" passage which CHAT people
>> like to quote, explains it. Hegel's "Ontology" (/Die
>> Lehre vom Sein/) is usually translated into English as
>> "The Doctrine of Being." Hegel's reduction of Ontology to
>> Logic is explained in the Preface to the /Phenomenology/,
>> already mentioned, and implemented in the first book of
>> the Logic.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden
>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>> On 3/11/2018 3:28 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
>>> I sent the following message off-line to Beth. I'll send
>>> it here without the attachments just in case someone is
>>> watching... 
>>> They should be publicly accessible.
>>> (and funny that Wagner also happened across the same
>>> book that I did, behold the power of Google!).
>>>
>>> Wagner, simple story with ontology, in anthropology at
>>> least, is that it has been pluralized so that people now
>>> speak of different ontologies. Science is just one of
>>> them. In many ways this is anti-Marxist since Marx
>>> imagined just one ontology (and science was going to get
>>> to the bottom of it!), but I'd like to think that this
>>> move isn't entirely irreconcilable with all readings of
>>> Marx.
>>>
>>> -greg
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>>> From: *Greg Thompson* <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
>>> Date: Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 2:40 PM
>>> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: What is science?: Where to
>>> start doctoral students?
>>> To: Beth Ferholt <bferholt@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:bferholt@gmail.com>>
>>>
>>> Beth,
>>>
>>> This may be more than you bargained for but Latour has
>>> been doing some interesting thinking/writing on this
>>> issue, reported secondarily here:
>>> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html
>>>
>>> I have also attached his essay Why has critique run out
>>> of steam? (as well as the intro from Pandora's Hope "Do
>>> you believe in reality?") which was an early
>>> articulation of this particular (re)articulation of his
>>> position.
>>>
>>> Goodwin's Professional Vision also comes to mind (also
>>> attached).
>>>
>>> And for kicks, I just googled your question and found
>>> this book that really seems to be a very smart approach:
>>> https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s13tBAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=what+is+science%3F&ots=hG7y6xF0gy&sig=DNMs__6vnoZUvXbOelWC8DcL4ns#v=onepage&q=what%20is%20science%3F&f=false
>>>
>>> I was thinking of "rigorous storytelling" as one answer
>>> to your question. I googled and found that I've already
>>> been outdone - Susan Porter has "triple-rigorous
>>> storytelling" based on her work with food justice. Might
>>> be of interest depending on your students' projects:
>>> https://www.foodsystemsjournal.org/index.php/fsj/article/view/fd-triple
>>>
>>> Best of luck!
>>> -greg
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Nov 1, 2018 at 9:33 AM Beth Ferholt
>>> <bferholt@gmail.com <mailto:bferholt@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Great. Kuhn and Thinking and Speech are two of the
>>>     few things on my list already and I’ll start reading
>>>     the other two, sensible or no, now! Thanks so much, Beth
>>>
>>>     On Thursday, November 1, 2018, Andy Blunden
>>>     <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>         Beth, much as a part of me would like to
>>>         recommend the Preface to Hegel's Phenomenology,
>>>         being sensible I would still recommend:
>>>
>>>          1. The first chapter of Thinking and Speech
>>>             https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/words/ch01.htm
>>>          2. Marx's Method of Political Economy
>>>             https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm#loc3
>>>          3. And they should read Thomas Kuhn's Structure
>>>             of Scientific Revolutions
>>>             https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/kuhn.htm
>>>
>>>         Who knows? You might be fostering an original
>>>         thinker?
>>>         Andy
>>>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>         Andy Blunden
>>>         http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>>>         On 1/11/2018 11:43 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
>>>>         On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 10:09 AM Beth Ferholt
>>>>         <bferholt@gmail.com
>>>>         <mailto:bferholt@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>                         I'm starting to take the role
>>>>                         of advisor on doctoral
>>>>                         dissertations and wonder how
>>>>                         best to begin to discuss "what
>>>>                         is science?" with students who
>>>>                         will need to respond concisely
>>>>                         when asked about the rigor and
>>>>                         reliability of their formative
>>>>                         intervention, narrative and/or
>>>>                         autobiographical studies.
>>>>
>>>>                         I'm looking for an overview or
>>>>                         paper that does more than argue
>>>>                         the value of one approach --
>>>>                         something to start them off
>>>>                         thinking about the issues, not
>>>>                         immerse them in one perspective
>>>>                         quite yet.
>>>>
>>>>                         If not an overview then maybe a
>>>>                         paper that contextualizes
>>>>                         "rigor" and "reliability". 
>>>>
>>>>                         Obviously this is an endless
>>>>                         topic but do some people
>>>>                         reading XMCA have some favorite
>>>>                         papers that they give to their
>>>>                         advisees or use when they teach
>>>>                         a methods class?
>>>>
>>>>                         Thanks!
>>>>                         Beth
>>>>                         -- 
>>>>                         Beth Ferholt
>>>>                         Associate Professor, Department
>>>>                         of Early Childhood and Art
>>>>                         Education;
>>>>                         Affiliated Faculty, CUNY
>>>>                         Graduate Center
>>>>                         Brooklyn College, City
>>>>                         University of New York
>>>>                         2900 Bedford Avenue
>>>>                         <https://maps.google.com/?q=2900+Bedford+Avenue+Brooklyn,+NY+11210&entry=gmail&source=g>
>>>>                         Brooklyn, NY 11210
>>>>                         <https://maps.google.com/?q=2900+Bedford+Avenue+Brooklyn,+NY+11210&entry=gmail&source=g>-2889
>>>>
>>>>                         Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
>>>>                         Phone: (718) 951-5205
>>>>                         Fax: (718) 951-4816
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     -- 
>>>     Beth Ferholt
>>>     Associate Professor, Department of Early Childhood
>>>     and Art Education;
>>>     Affiliated Faculty, CUNY Graduate Center
>>>     Brooklyn College, City University of New York
>>>     2900 Bedford Avenue
>>>     Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
>>>
>>>     Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
>>>     <mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu>
>>>     Phone: (718) 951-5205
>>>     Fax: (718) 951-4816
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>>> Assistant Professor
>>> Department of Anthropology
>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>>> Brigham Young University
>>> Provo, UT 84602
>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
>>> <http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu/> 
>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>>> Assistant Professor
>>> Department of Anthropology
>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>>> Brigham Young University
>>> Provo, UT 84602
>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
>>> <http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu/> 
>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>>
>

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