Well, I think Novack offers very unhelpful advice, quite frankly. During
the latter half of the 19th century there was a struggle going on over
materialism versus idealism. To go labouring this point into the post-world
war two period is like waging the Crusades in the third millennium. Lenin
had some justification in his 1908 "Materialism and Empirio-criticism"
because of the confusion flowing over from the confusion among scientists
into the Bolshevik Party; Engels has some justification in bending the
stick so far in his popularisations, but it is not justified or useful to
keep doing that, any more than repeating what Lenin said in 1903 is useful.
"The Prophet hath 99 names, and one of them is Nature" and I should add,
"dialectical-materialism" is another.
Nature exists independently of human consciousness. But there is not a lot
else you can say about Nature other than formulations like "Nature is such
that human beings can ...". One of these things that Nature is such that,
is that the reification of thought forms turns out to be a valid practical
guide to day-to-day action. Just as commodity fetishism is also a passably
good practical guide to day-to-day economic activity. But it is not very
good epistemology.
Andy
At 10:42 AM 31/10/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>Thank you so much for your explanations of Hegel's logic, Andy. This has
>been a very useful discussion for me, and I suspect others who would like
>to learn more about the ideas of this great philosopher.
>
>Now, perhaps, with your comments below, we are shifting to another
>interesting, but not unrelated topic.
>
>Interested in pursuing this subject?
>
>The core question appears to be: Is Nature lawful?
>
>Andy said:
>>Although this idea of logic turning itself into material reality sounds
>>really crazy, it is actually no worse than the normal
>>scientific-materialist view which accepts that Nature "obeys laws" and a
>>study of its movement allows people to "discover" these laws in Nature.
>>This of course begs such questions are why Nature should choose to obey
>>laws, and who is making the laws in which particular Parliament. In
>>short, where did these laws come from? And if, in the history of science,
>>laws are replaced by other laws, how exactly do we understand the
>>objectivity of these laws. If they are part of nature exactly what are
>>they made of?
>
>
>George Novack addressed the issue of the lawfulness of nature in many of
>his writings. In Pragmatism Vs. Marxism: An Appraisal of John Dewey's
>Philosophy (1975) Novack has a sub-section entitled "Dewey's Version of
>Scientific Laws" (pages 99-102), where Novack contrasts his interpretation
>of the dialectical materialist view of the lawfulness of nature with his
>interpretation of John Dewey's pragmatist view on the question.
>
>Says Novack, p 99-100:
>"According to materialists, scientific laws formulate objective
>characteristics of events, processes, and things - their intrinsic
>features and basic properties, their connections and modes of
>development. They are based on recurrences of these aspects in nature, as
>well as in society and thought. The actual inner and essential
>relationships of nature are expressed in the laws of movement of the
>planets, laws of diffusion of gases, laws of chemical action, heredity,
>organic evolution, etc.
>
>"These objective connections of the physical world exist independently of
>human sensation and thought. The abstractive capacity of the intellect
>picks out the determinative features of phenomena - setting aside what is
>individual, accidental, and incidental - and states them in conceptual,
>verbal or mathematical forms. This conception of the content of laws as
>the essential determinative features of events conforms to the practical
>assumptions of scientists as they carry on their work of investigating
>natural processes in diverse fields.
>
>"Dewey had a different view of the laws of science. For him these laws do
>not reflect the real relations and properties of the physical world. They
>are as completely conceptual and subjective in character as the causal
>relation itself. The laws of science, he writes, "are means, through the
>media respectively of operations of reasoning (discourse) and of
>observation, for determining existential (spatial-temporal) connections of
>concrete materials in such a way that the latter constitute a coherent
>individualized situation" (Logic, pp 455-56).
>
>"His contention that scientific laws "determine existential connections of
>concrete materials" stands things on their head. On the contrary, it is
>"the existential (spatial-temporal) connections of concrete materials"
>which, if they are broad and necessary enough, determine the content of
>laws. Laws operate in the external world before their effects are
>observed and analyzed by us. They are discovered as the outcome of
>prolonged scientific investigation."
>
>Novack's reasoning proposes some answers to the questions you are raising
>about the origin, content and objectivity of scientific laws, and the
>so-called lawfulness of Nature. Dewey, of course, offered a different set
>of answers.
>
>What are your thoughts?
>
>- Steve
>
>
>
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