Re: [xmca] Wolves and Ilyenkov

["Bruce Robinson" <bruce@brucerob.eu>]

David,

I think you are misinterpreting Ilyenkov by focusing on this one sentence 
and reading it in a particular way. What he seems to me to be saying is that 
there are certain rules and processes (i.e. a logic) that need to be 
followed to arrive at an adequate representation of the objective world and 
that this logic is not dependent on the will or consciousness of humans i.e. 
is objective not subjective.

Ilyenkov clearly differentiates himself from the idea that this logic is 
simply a product of the self-movement of abstract thought independent of 
human consciousness when, over the page, he states:

"From what we have said it will be clear that we understand thought 
(thinking) as the ideal component of the real activity of social people 
transforming both external nature and themselves by their labour.

"Dialectical logic is therefore *not only* a universal scheme of subjective 
activity creatively transforming nature, but is also at the same time a 
universal scheme of the changing of any natural or socio-historical material 
in which this activity is fulfilled and with the objective requirements of 
which it is always connected." (My emphasis)

Bruce R





Our ‘object,’ that is, our ‘subject matter’, is thought. Dialectical logic 
aims to scientifically represent thought in its necessary concrete, 
developmental, objective existences, including those aspects of these 
existences that are objectively independent of will and consciousness.

evi: Our ‘object’ or ‘subject matter’ in general, and on the whole, is 
thought, thinking; and dialectical Logic has as its aim the development of a 
scientific representation of thought in those necessary moments, and 
moreover in the necessary sequence, that do not in the least depend either 
on our will or on our consciousness.

dk: Hmmm. You, sg, say that the goal of dialectical logic is to represent 
thought as an objective fact, including its aspects that are involuntary and 
unconscious. That is excellent and good, and I think it actually includes a 
lot of what Haydi and Mike have been batting back and forth about the mental 
life of animals. The problem is that YOU, evi, don't seem to be saying that 
at all. Ilyenkov seems to be saying that our goal is the representation of 
thinking (a process, and not, as he says later, a kind of mental organ). We 
have to represent this process as an objective process. We do that by 
representing it as a set of determined, definite steps and stages, like any 
other objective process. We do that by representing it as determined, 
definite, defined steps and stages WHICH ARE INDEPENDENT OF HUMAN WILL AND 
CONSCIOUSNESS. For me, that is, dk, that is a step too far. That brings us 
right back to the entirely pre-scientific era of philosophy.
Why would dialectical logic want a representation of thinking that is 
independent of human will or human consciousness? That's the task of 
religion, of metaphysics, and of teenage vampire literature.

David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education



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