[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Re: What is science?: Where to start doctoral students?
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Wed Nov 7 18:18:23 PST 2018
See
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/property.htm#PRn62
Hegel sees need (i.e., use-value) as the determinant of
need. Although later he says that a commodity cannot have
value unless it is the product of labour, he never suggests
that the /quantity /of labour needed for its production
determines value. Thus Hegel accepts the common sense view
of things, that the value of a thing is determined by how
useful it is. He did not see the contradiction in this claim.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 8/11/2018 8:55 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
> Andy,
> I'm interested in the conversation but have very little
> time to read or dig or do anything other than quickly
> skim. I was just wondering if you could provide a little
> bit of the explanation/background for this argument (of
> yours):
> "Marx's theory of value is sharply at odds with Hegel's
> (as elaborated in the /Philosophy of Right/)"
> It sounds interesting but it also sounds different from
> what I would have thought/said about it. So I suspect that
> I have something to learn...
> If you have no time either, no worries, I'll leave it be.
> -greg
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 5:14 AM Andy Blunden
> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
> Haydi, you must agree with me that the content, the
> real significance, of what people say often differs
> from what they say of themselves and their
> protagonists. I am a Marxist, and have been since my
> first reading of Marx in 1967. But you are justified
> in examining what I do and say, rather than taking me
> at my word. Everyone knows that Marx made the
> well-known criticisms of Hegel that you mention. We
> also know that he praised Hegel and made criticisms of
> "the materialists." But the point is to examine the
> content of his action and in particular his scientific
> writing.
>
> "Capital" (particularly its early sections) is
> modelled on Hegel's Logic. Marx tells us this in the
> famous passage (/Method of Political Economy/) where
> he gives the best explanation of the Logic that I know
> of. As you point out, he went on to make some
> crucially important criticisms of Hegel in that same
> passage ("the real subject ..." etc). Obviously Marx
> is not = Hegel.
>
> There are elements of Marx's approach which he takes
> from Hegel and elements which are in opposition to
> Hegel's approach. I tried to make this crystal clear
> in my little article
> https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Hegel-idealist.pdf
> .
>
> The ontology of "Capital" is sharply at odds with
> materialist ontology as it would have been known in
> the 1860s and equally at odds with the ontology of
> positivism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
> which arose from the crisis of natural science at that
> time which put an end to naive realism. Marx's theory
> of value is sharply at odds with Hegel's (as
> elaborated in the /Philosophy of Right/) and
> methodologically also at odds with Hegel in that it
> was not speculative but had a significant streak of
> empiricism in it. (I describe this in
> https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf
> ).
>
> If you look at the MIA Library
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/index.htm and run
> your eye down the first 80% of so of the writers
> listed there. Almost all of these writers declared
> themselves "Marxists" (not the last 20% or so) and yet
> you will see a very wide spectrum of views here.
> No-one has the last word here. My conviction that
> Marxists have much to learn from Hegel was not lightly
> arrived at.
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 7/11/2018 10:22 PM, Haydi Zulfei wrote:
>> Nice !! Not to get Marx involved in the
>> discussion!This is the whole thing!
>> Because if Marx is involved in his original writing
>> and making the last quote easier:
>>
>> Concepts need Conceptioners and conceptioners are ,
>> as said here also , [Material] Human Beings living
>> and Acting in their respective Material Surrounding
>> out of which process Social Relations arise which in
>> their turn , give birth to Thoughts and Ideas ,
>> concepts and categories , ideas of the Idea , Logic
>> and the Absolute , cultures (in Bibler's terminology)
>> which make Real?? Cosmologies (of course as
>> META-physics beyond Physical Natural Hard sciences as
>> these latter sciences deal also with atoms ,
>> electrons neutrons , positrons , quarks , galaxies ,
>> planets , etc. in their abstract or Hegelian
>> (concrete as Concept) ontological/existential??
>> dependencies (the World which is outside Mind through
>> Lenin's quote by some esteemed scholars and the
>> World/s which need a Mind to claim existence) which
>> is O.K. and in full respect.)
>>
>> This is what Marx meant in the last word of the last
>> quote by "**[[Hence, in
>> the theoretical method, too, the subject, society,
>> must always be kept in mind as
>> the presupposition.]]**"
>>
>> Neither the Social Relations have independent Being
>> nor the sciences which arise from them.
>>
>> Every body has the right to think that "phenomena" of
>> Mind/Thinking have the same Ontology as the Ontology
>> of the Substantial/Material/Corporeal Universe does
>> but ascribing this to Marx would be problematic. This
>> was the beginning of the worry!
>>
>> In the same vein , no problem with "Any Category"
>> first , but no imposition on Marx the more so that
>> one might keep people in waiting for just a single
>> evidence to one's Big Claim :-)).
>>
>> Marx is quite Robust in his Materialism and towards
>> Hegel in full clarity and stance with quite indubious
>> remarks:
>>
>> The best of the very Marx for Hegel:
>>
>> FROM CAPITAL VOLUME ONE:
>>
>> My dialectic method is not only different from the
>> Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel,
>> the life process of the human brain, i.e., the
>> process of thinking, which, under the name of “the
>> Idea,” he even transforms into an independent
>> subject, is the demiurgos of the [[real]] world, and the
>> real world is only the external, [[phenomenal form]]
>> of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the
>> ideal is nothing else than the material world
>> reflected by the [[human mind]], and translated into
>> forms of thought.
>> The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I
>> criticised nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was
>> still the fashion. But just as I was working at the
>> first volume of “Das Kapital,” it was the good
>> pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Επιγονοι
>> [Epigones – Büchner, Dühring and others]
>> who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat
>> Hegel in same way as the brave Moses
>> Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e.,
>> as a “dead dog.” I [[therefore]] openly avowed
>> myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even
>> here and there, in the chapter on the theory of
>> value, coquetted with the modes of expression
>> peculiar to him. The mystification which dialectic
>> suffers in [[Hegel’s hands]], by no means prevents
>> him from being [[the first to present its general
>> 15 Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873)
>> form of working]] in a comprehensive and conscious
>> manner. With him it is standing on its head. It
>> must be turned right side up again, if you would
>> discover the rational kernel within the mystical
>> shell.
>>
>>
>> FROM GRUDERISSE WHICH INCLUDES ALSO THE METHOD OF
>> POLITICAL ECONOMY
>>
>> But do not these simpler categories also have an
>> independent historical or
>> natural existence pre-dating the more concrete ones?
>> That depends. Hegel, for
>> example, correctly begins the Philosophy of Right
>> with possession, this being
>> the subject’s simplest juridical relation. But there
>> is no possession preceding
>> the family or master-servant relations, which are far
>> more concrete relations.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> It follows then naturally, too, that all the
>> relationships of men can be derived from the concept
>> of man, man as conceived, the essence of man, Man.
>> This has been done by the speculative philosophers.
>> Hegel himself confesses at the end of the
>> Geschichtsphilosophie that he "has considered the
>> progress of the concept only" and has represented in
>> history the "true theodicy". (p.446.) Now one can go
>> back again to the producers of the "concept", to the
>> theorists, ideologists and philosophers, and one
>> comes then to the conclusion that the philosophers,
>> the thinkers as such, have at all times been dominant
>> in history: a conclusion, as we see, already
>> expressed by Hegel. The whole trick of proving the
>> hegemony of the spirit in history (hierarchy Stirner
>> calls it) is thus confirmed to the following three
>> efforts.
>>
>> Critique: "humans create themselves out of nothing"
>> Far from it being true that "out of nothing" I make
>> myself, for example, a "[public] speaker", the
>> nothing which forms the basis here is a very manifold
>> something, the real individual, his speech organs, a
>> definite stage of physical development, an existing
>> language and dialects, ears capable of hearing and a
>> human environment from which it is possible to hear
>> something, etc., etc. therefore, in the development
>> of a property something is created by something out
>> of something, and by no means comes, as in Hegel's
>> Logic , from nothing, through nothing to nothing.
>> [Th. I. Abt. 2 of Hegel] p. 162
>>
>> Best
>> Haydi
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday, November 7, 2018, 5:05:58 AM GMT+3:30,
>> Adam Poole (16517826) <Adam.Poole@nottingham.edu.cn>
>> <mailto:Adam.Poole@nottingham.edu.cn> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> An interesting point to add to the discussion is the
>> role that ontology plays as a tacit form of
>> gatekeeping in many disciplines and journals (though
>> thankfully, from my experience, not MCA). I have
>> started to find this out as I have been publishing
>> papers on International education from my
>> doctorate (which I am going to defend in December).
>> As part of this experience, I have found that:
>>
>>
>> The journal article form does not lend itself to
>> prolonged discussion of ontology due to length
>> restrictions. So much of what is fundamental to
>> research is left unsaid, but really needs to be
>> said! Qualitative researchers need to justify
>> themselves more substantially than quantitive
>> researchers because notions of positivism
>> (validity, generalizability, etc) are normalized and
>> therefore do not require explication. However, your
>> typically journal article does not provide enough
>> room for qualitative researches to justify themselves.
>>
>>
>> Reviewers and journals function as gatekeepers (just
>> like funding agencies) so it is sometimes necessary
>> to conform to a certain 'house ontology' in order to
>> get the work out there. An issue I have found is that
>> reviewer's can impose their ontology onto the writer
>> - that is, their implicit assumptions about reality
>> function as a framework for understanding and most
>> significantly evaluating the work before them. If the
>> work does not conform to their framework - if there
>> is ontological dissonance - the work is likely to be
>> rejected or heavily critiqued, leading to
>> substantial rewrites that change the essential nature
>> of the paper. On the other side, writers also impose
>> their ontology onto the reader.
>>
>>
>> This is all a roundabout way to say that ontology is
>> also inextricably linked to power, and takes on
>> dialogic and discursive dimensions. Essentially,
>> ontology can be invoked by either side as a way to
>> demonize or legitimize research, depending on where
>> you stand. Ideally, it would be possible to transcend
>> dualism, but practically speaking dualism functions
>> as a convenient mechanism for gatekeeping and control.
>>
>>
>> So whilst I agree completely with Martin (whose book
>> I started to read yesterday and really like) that
>> it is imperative to develop ontologies that do not
>> split researchers into partisan camps, actually
>> making this happen is problematic, not least of all
>> because the journal article itself (which I would
>> argue is the paradigmatic academic form these days)
>> does not lend itself to this endeavor. The issue is
>> also an economic one: paywalls, limited space in
>> journals, pressure to publish, and suddenly
>> ontological idealism is compromised. I do think a new
>> form of academic paper needs to be developed that can
>> support greater reflexivity in order to bring out our
>> ontological and epistemological assumptions. The
>> standard 6000ish words, intro methods, findings,
>> discussion, conclusion structure leaves little space
>> for reflective/reflexive writing.
>>
>>
>> Anyway, just a doctoral student's take on ontology in
>> relation to publishing.
>>
>>
>> Adam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
>> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
>> Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
>> <mailto:mpacker@cantab.net>
>> *Sent:* 07 November 2018 04:11:34
>> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Re: What is science?:
>> Where to start doctoral students?
>>
>> Well Huw I’ll take a shot! I’ve never thought that
>> xmca-ers worry too much about overcomplicating a
>> thread! :)
>>
>> Quantitative research (and I’m talking about the way
>> this is construed in the social sciences, not in
>> physics, for example) is generally taught as
>> experimental design and hypothesis testing, which is
>> largely the model the logical positivists laid out a
>> hundred years ago. They considered ontological
>> (metaphysical) claims to be untestable, and so
>> unscientific. Consequently, courses in quantitative
>> research pay little or no attention to ontology. The
>> result is that the researcher’s ontological
>> assumptions are tacitly imposed on the phenomenon.
>> After all, quantitative researchers believe (as the
>> logical positivists taught them) that they can
>> ‘operationally define’ their variables. That’s to
>> say, *they* get to decide what is intelligence, or
>> poverty, or a student, or a woman…
>>
>> The result is something that Alfred Schutz complained
>> about: "this type of social science does not deal
>> directly and immediately with the social life-world
>> common to us all, but with skillfully and expediently
>> chosen idealizations and formalizations of the social
>> world.” The result is "a fictional nonexisting world
>> constructed by the scientific observer.”
>>
>> Harold Garfinkel made a similar point: he rejected
>> "the worldwide social science movement” with
>> its “ubiquitous commitments to the policies
>> and methods of formal analysis and general
>> representational theorizing.” He saw that the
>> statistical and formal models built by formal
>> analysis “lose the very phenomenon that they profess.”
>>
>> I’ve tried to attach an article by Spencer (1982)
>> that is, in my view, making essentially the same
>> point, but the listserv rejects it:
>>
>> Spencer, M. E. (1982). The ontologies of social
>> science. /Philosophy of the Social Sciences/,
>> /12/(2), 121-141.
>>
>> Typically, social scientists are completely caught
>> up in the ontology of their discipline, and
>> completely ignore the ontology of the phenomenon they
>> are studying - that’s to say, its constitution: what
>> its constituents are and how they are assembled.
>>
>> On the other hand, the issue of the implicit ontology
>> of qualitative research is the central theme of my
>> book. I argue there that by and large Qual has bought
>> into the ontological dualism of mind-matter, so that
>> researches assume that the natural sciences study
>> matter (objectivity), and so qualitative research
>> must study mind (subjectivity).
>>
>> The book develops an argument for escaping from this
>> dualistic ontology, and actually paying attention to
>> human being - a kind of research that Foucault called
>> ‘a historical ontology of ourselves.’ Along the way I
>> try to do justice to what has been called the
>> ‘ontological turn’ in anthropology, the argument that
>> different cultures have distinct cosmologies, rather
>> than distinct cosmovisions - that’s to say, they have
>> different ontologies; they live in distinct
>> realities; they don’t simply have different ways of
>> conceptualizing a single underlying reality. Latour’s
>> most recent work is making a similar argument about
>> the different institutions in which all of us live -
>> that each institution has its distinct mode of
>> existence (its distinct way of being; its distinct
>> ontology).
>>
>> So if I had my way, or my ideal winter holiday gift,
>> it would be that qualitative research provides a way
>> for psychology (and perhaps the other social
>> sciences) to move beyond dualism and embrace multiple
>> ontologies.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> /"I may say that whenever I meet Mrs. Seligman or Dr.
>> Lowie or discuss matters with Radcliffe-Brown or
>> Kroeber, I become at once aware that my partner does
>> not understand anything in the matter, and I end
>> usually with the feeling that this also applies to
>> myself” (Malinowski, 1930)/
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Nov 6, 2018, at 11:22 AM, Huw Lloyd
>>> <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com
>>> <mailto:huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Best to leave that for the time being, no point
>>> overcomplicating the thread.
>>>
>>> Huw
>>>
>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2018 at 15:02, Martin Packer
>>> <mpacker@cantab.net <mailto:mpacker@cantab.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>> And what do you take their implicit ontology to
>>> be, Huw?
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Nov 5, 2018, at 6:33 PM, Huw Lloyd
>>>> <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com
>>>> <mailto:huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The problem that I was responding to before
>>>> regarding "qualitative and quantitative" labels
>>>> is that the adoption of these labels (and their
>>>> implicit ontology)...
>>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> 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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