[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation



OK, as I read you, Martin, so we are on to different issues here: (1) can knowledge which is relative be nonetheless objective. And you also raise in relation to the Hegel quote: (2) the problem of the objectivity of teleology.

(1) As I read Hegel and Marx and ... knowledge is objective inasmuch as it is integral to forms of practice which are objective, i.e., practical. That knowledge is always incomplete (and in that narrow sense "subjective"), in the process of change and development, along with human practices, is also true. To make sense of this I know of no other source other than Hegel: everything is relative (i.e., just one step along a journey, within which there are also many routes) but the whole (i.e., the journey itself) is absolute. I.e., at any given moment, human knowledge is only as adequate as our practices at that time and place, but the entire journey, the whole development of all human knowledge in all its forms over all time, is absolute. So every relative knowledge partakes to a degree in the absolute. Yes?

(2) On teleology: teleology is objective and exists whether we or anyone else knows the end or not. There is a prejudice among natural scientists to claim that only mechanism is objective, and falsely claim that teleology invokes a Divine Architect. But try to explain how it comes about that cameleons can change colour according to their surroundings without invoking teleology and having recourse only to cause and effect. It can't be done. Nonetheless, we know that the category of teleology in natural selection is not absolute and produces the clumsy feathers of the peacock. But do we respond by saying that evolution is wrong? No, we just refine the definition of the teleological process. Exactly what we do when we find that a mechanism proves to be an inadequate representation. Yes?

Andy

Martin Packer wrote:
Andy,

It certainly all hinges on what Ilyenkov means by "objectively-true," for
sure. I still haven't yet got much beyond page 1, but jumping forward a bit:

"These laws [I assume he's talking about dialectical logic] are understood
as the objective laws of development of the material world, of both the
natural and socio-historical world, of objective reality in general. They
are reflected in the consciousness of mankind and verified by thousands of
years of human practice." (p. 15)

But hang on, have we humans *really* identified the "objective laws... of
the material world"? Let me juxtapose two excepts from your last message
(!):

This is the point: humans change the world, but only
according to its own nature.

In a similar way. the
passions of men satisfy themselves; they develop themselves
and their purposes in accordance with their natural
destination and produce the edifice of human society. Thus
they fortify a structure for law and order against themselves."

But Andy, it's one thing to say that we have to know a bit about the world
to get tasks accomplished in it. It's another thing entirely to say that our
tasks themselves are following some grand plan. Certainly, if there is a
"natural destination" to the universe, and humans are part of that universe,
then I suppose we are headed in that direction too. But surely you will
agree with me that we do not *know* that there is such a natural direction.
At best this is a hypothesis. It would be circular logic to say that we know
that nature follows a dialectical law, because it is part of that law that
our knowledge is objective. I'm very reluctant to say that we have already
figured out the laws of the universe, especially when it is claimed that one
of the consequences of these laws is that human cognition forms an
objectively-true reflection of them. That would be to place ourselves at the
end of history, wouldn't it? And Marx never made such a claim, to my
knowledge.
Martin

On 1/23/09 9:27 PM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

Are you counterposing "objectively-true image" with "exact
picture of the world", Martin?

Andy

Martin Packer wrote:
Andy, thanks for adding to the height of my reading pile!  :)

Until I complete the assignment (at least partly) I will merely juxtapose
here two quotations whose contrast gives me pause for thought. The first
from the first page of the book by Ilyenkov you've provided:

"And only materialist dialectics (dialectical materialism), only the organic
unity of dialectics with materialism arms the cognition of man with the
means and ability to construct an objectively-true image of the surrounding
world, the means and ability to reconstruct this world in accordance with
the objective tendencies and lawful nature of its own development."

The second from Carlos Marx himself:

"The formulation on [in? MP] thought of an exact picture of the world-system
in which we live is impossible for us, and will always remain impossible. If
at any time in the evolution of mankind such a final, conclusive system of
the interconnections within the world... were brought to completion, this
would mean that human knowledge had reached its limit, and, from the moment
when society had been brought into accord with that system, further
historical evolution would be cut short-which would be an absurd idea, pure
nonsense" (A Handbook of Marxism, 1935, p. 234)

Martin


On 1/23/09 5:56 PM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

Martin,  I have converted to PDF Ilyenkov's book defending
Lenin's "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism":

http://marx.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/positive/positivism.pdf

I think you can agree that if such a renowned Hegel
interpreter as Ilyenkov can defend "reflection" and Lenin's
book, then there has to be something in it. The above is
much shorter and easier to read than Lenin's book, BTW.

Sidney Hook is far from alone in the sentiments he
expresses. But you have to take Lenin and Engels and the
Russian CHAT people *as a whole* and this criticism (which I
sympathise with) of the notion of "reflection" as "passive"
is, as you have remarked yourself, constantly contradicted
by the "change the world" notes constantly and discordantly
accompanying every mention of "reflection."

This is the point: humans change the world, but only
according to its own nature. The aeroplane actually obeys
the laws of nature as it flies across the sky. Hegel has a
great bit on this:

"So also when someone starts building a house, his decision
to do so is freely made. But all the elements must help. And
yet the house is being built to protect man against the
elements. Hence the elements are here used against
themselves. But the general law of nature is not disturbed
thereby. The building of a house is, in the first instance,
a subjective aim and design. On the other hand we have, as
means, the several substances required for the work ­ iron,
wood, stones. The elements are used in preparing this
material: fire to melt the iron, wind to blow the fire,
water to set wheels in motion in order to cut the wood, etc.
The result is that the wind, which has helped to build the
house, is shut out by the house; so also are the violence of
rains and floods and the destructive powers of fire, so far
as the house is made fire-proof. The stones and beams obey
the law of gravity and press downwards so that the high
walls are held up. Thus the elements are made use of in
accordance with their nature and cooperate for a product by
which they become constrained. In a similar way. the
passions of men satisfy themselves; they develop themselves
and their purposes in accordance with their natural
destination and produce the edifice of human society. Thus
they fortify a structure for law and order against themselves."

http://marx.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/introduction.htm

Andy

Martin Packer wrote:
At risk of actually killing the horse I'm flogging, I want to return one
more time to the debate over 'reflection.' Mike asked me why I would be sad
to hear that Vygotsky was significantly influenced by Lenin. I've been
reading some of the work in the 1920s and 30s by Sidney Hook, on the topic
of Marx and Hegel. I'm copying below a fairly long excerpt in which Hook
takes to task both Engels and Lenin (in 'Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism,'
at least) for viewing ideas as "reflections" of reality - exactly in the
sense of mirror images or copies. That Lenin did this was the sense I have
got from reading other comments on Lenin, though I haven't read Lenin
myself.

The problem, as Hook points out, is that the reflection view treats
thinking
as a passive process, that solipsism and skepticism cannot be avoided, that
in this view knowledge cannot be creative, and consequently knowledge of
the
world cannot change the world. This, as he notes, is a long way from Marx.

Martin

The excerpt is from:
Hook, S. (1928). The Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism. II. The Journal
of Philosophy, 25(6), 141-155.
[ http://www.jstor.org/stable/2014691 ]

"He [Engels] presents the "dialectic" as the method which
corrects the limited and ossified character of classificatory thinking
and claims that it enables one to avoid the predicament of English
empiricism which is peculiarly addicted to this way of thinking.
But Engels failed to understand the real weakness of English
empiricism. Otherwise he would have realized that his uncritical
reference to ideas as reflections, pictures, or images (Abbilder,
Spiegelbilder) of things made him fall into an epistemological trap
whose mazes lead into the cul-de-sacs of solipsism and nominalism-
the very positions he was anxious to avoid. Since sensations, accord-
ing to Engels, gave immediate knowledge, the organizing activity of
thought becomes purely ancillary to classifying and relating sensa-
tions. Practice and experiment, which he later says must serve as
the criteria of truth, are introduced by a double inconsistency. For
if our sensations are copies, we can never know anything of the
originals or even know that there are any, while if sensations give
immediate knowledge there is no sense in trying to check up upon
them by experiments which only give other sensations, just as im-
mediate. The disastrous consequences of the belief in the cognitive
character of sensations comes to light in Lenin's fanatical insistence
upon accepting every word of Engels literally. According to Lenin,
sensation is "a copy, photograph, and reflection of a reality existing
independently of it." He takes Plekhanov to task for regarding
sensations as "signs" or "symbols" of what things are, instead of
adhering to the crude formula, "(sensations) are copies, photo-
graphs, images, mirror-reflections of things" (p. 195). He adds
further on, "the idea that knowledge can 'create' forms and change
the primeval chaos into order, is an idealist notion. The world is
a uniform world of matter in motion, and our cognition, being the
highest product of nature, is in a position only to reflect this law."
But if knowledge only "reflects" the laws of the world, how can it
change the world? A mirror or a lake reflects the natural scene,
but neither knows nor changes it. This is, indeed, a far cry from
the functional and experimental theory expressed in Marx's gloss
on Feurbach and strange words from one who believed that by "mass
action" and the creation of new machines and forms of distribution,
a better social system will be evolved." (p. 149-150)




_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca


_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca



_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 Skype andy.blunden
Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm

_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca