Re: [xmca] ego, self, etc.

From: Andy Blunden <ablunden who-is-at mira.net>
Date: Mon Feb 04 2008 - 13:21:04 PST

At 03:45 PM 4/02/2008 -0500, you wrote:
>Andy,
>
>I agree (I think), but Bourdieu indeed makes the claim that by objectifying
>our techniques of objectification we can achieve an "absolute" viewpoint. He
>seems to be arguing that a properly relexive science can produce knowledge
>that is no longer "particular."

Sounds reasonable, Martin. I guess I don't know Bourdieu well enough to
know if that is his claim. Claims to "absolute" knowledge or viewpoint
always have to carry inverted commas don't they? the absolute is always
also relative.

>Are you suggesting that (contra Hegel) absolute knowledge is not possible?
>And if so, how do you deal with Marx's tendency to envision an end to
>history where false consciousness has been transcended?

Again, Hegel can get very flowery but I see Hegel's absolute knowledge as
entirely relative. After all, even world historic figures are not conscious
of what they do. Philosophy gives you access to something that is more than
an historical or cultural particular, but it is not absolutely absolute, as
I read Hegel.

As to Marx, as I read it, "false consciousness" is a term and a concept
dating from Lukacs, not Marx.

Andy

>Martin
>
>On 2/2/08 7:01 PM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > Martin, I think there is a difference between, on one hand, recognising
> > that science creates something objective, i.e., something which transcends
> > the habitus, or subjective point of view, of the scientists who create the
> > science, and on the other hand, claiming that any particular scientific
> > product is "absolute knowledge". Objective not= Absolute.
> > In a sense what is subjective comes into being and passes away, but that
> > which is objective does not so much pass away as get taken up and negated
> > by another, and in that sense although relative, is a part or aspect of the
> > absolute (the movement itself). This is true, I think, both historically
> > and culturally (in the words of the French diachronically and
> synchronically).
>
>
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  Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
mobile 0409 358 651

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Received on Mon Feb 4 13:23 PST 2008

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