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

[mike cole]

Whew
Mike

On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 6:43 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote:

> er: "determinant of value"
> ------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> On 8/11/2018 1:18 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
> 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> 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>
>> 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><Adam.Poole@nottingham.edu.cn>
>> <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 <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Martin Packer
>> <mpacker@cantab.net><mpacker@cantab.net> <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>
>> 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>
>> 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>
>> 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://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
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