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Re: [xmca] Wolves and Ilyenkov



David,

The quotes we are discussing from Ilyenkov's Introduction to Problems of Dialectical Logic are part of a set of three paragraphs. The three paragraphs in question are copied below for reference.

The most interesting and relevant paragraph, I think, is the third, where Ilyenkov speaks about the object or subject matter of his book, thinking, and succinctly summarizes some of his essential theses on thinking.


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On the first two of the three paragraphs ...

I happened to find on the internet a clearer translation of the Hegel quote that the one that appears in the Ilyenkov text. It is copied below. Seeing the whole quote seems to help grasp what Hegel was saying and what point Ilyenkov was making.

I think Ilyenkov is offering the following three-step reasoning in these first two of the three paragraphs in question. Please let me know if something does not logically match:

1. Just as Hegel pointed out ... that it is the final result of philosophizing that is salient whereas the way of carrying it out is inessential ... so too, those that view dialectics as just a method for deriving a perspective (whether this perspective had already been arrived at or not) ... are using dialectics in the manner of a sophist, and are thereby using dialectics in a way that is "empty of content," as though they are "swimming at random".

2. Real dialectics requires more than just trying to apply the dialectical method. It also requires having a clear idea of the object (the subject matter) being analyzed.

3. Ilyenkov therefore feels obliged to reveal the object (subject matter) of his book to the reader.

My take on these two paragraphs is that Ilyenkov seems to be making clever uses of Hegel and some other phrases to make his point. Perhaps he is telling an "inside joke" or two - I'm not sure. An irony that may be intended is that he refers to the well-known quote (copied below) from Hegel that argues a real philosophical work can't be summarized, but Ilyenkov then goes ahead and provides a succinct summary of the subject matter of his book anyway! But I would need help to understand more about Ilyenkov's specific references to delve any further. Perhaps others could help with these paragraphs.

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The third paragraph is much more interesting, to my mind, because this is where Ilyenkov's central theses about thinking, the central subject of his book, are succinctly summarized. This paragraph contains three sentences, which we can number (letter) a, b, c. Let's look at sentences (b) and (c) first.


* sentence (b)

EVI:
(b) "In other words Logic must show how thought develops if it is scientific, if it reflects, i.e. reproduces in concepts, an object existing outside our consciousness and will and independently of them, in other words, creates a mental reproduction of it, reconstructs its self-development, recreates it in the logic of the movement of concepts so as to recreate it later in fact (in experiment or in practice)."

This is a complex sentence. Despite this, it is actually a forthright statement of several of Ilyenkov's general theses about human thinking.

But to be as clear as possible, let's make sure we are really getting his points by break this long sentence into parts. See if my translation matches the sentence (b) logically.

1. Logic must show how thought that is scientific and reflective develops. 2. Thought that is scientific and reflective reproduces objects existing outside of and independently of human consciousness and will in concepts. 3. Such thought creates mental reproductions of such objects, reconstructs their self-development, recreates them in the movement of concepts, and recreates these objects later, in experiment or in practice.


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*  sentence (c)

As seen in (b), EVI has been talking about scientific thinking. Sentence (c) offers his conclusion about what Logic is:

EVI:
(c)  "Logic then is the theoretical representation of such thinking."

Ilyenkov is saying, as far as I can tell, that

1. Dialectical logic is the representation, in theoretical terms, of scientific thinking.

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* sentence (a)

This final sentence takes more work to figure out. This seems to be the one most troublesome to you, David.

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."

Again, let's carefully translate this long sentence into smaller parts. See if my reasoning makes sense to you.

The first part of the sentence seems easy enough and requires little rework.

See 1. below.

Part 2. is trickier. I suggest we make two small translating maneuvers to get to daylight.

Maneuver one. Lets find a substitute term for "moments." I used the term "existence" the other day. It served the purpose up to a point, but I have a better term now. In googling around the internet to try to find a useful ballpark definition of the Hegelian term "moment", I found something Lenin wrote in the margin notes in his Philosophical Notebooks.

"The word “moment” is often used by Hegel in the sense of moment of connection, moment of concatenation." See http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch02.htm

Knowing Ilyenkov's respect for Lenin's work in philosophy, he probably more or less agreed with this observation. So here is maneuver one: substitute "connections" for "moments."

Maneuver two. This one involves adding a phrase to clarify just precisely **what** is being connected. We know from the sentence that **thoughts** are one side of the answer. What is on the other side? Well, we know, from reading Ilyenkov, a consistent materialist, what he would be referring to when he speaks of "necessary connections" between thought and [ ? ] He would be referring to the necessary connections ... between thought and the **world of objects**.

See 2. below.

We can use these same ideas to translate the next part of the sentence, too, pertaining to sequences.

See 3. below.

We now come to the part of Ilyenkov's sentence that includes the phrase "not depending on our will and consciousness". What is Ilyenkov saying here?

We already know from the next sentence (b), (translated above), that Ilyenkov states quite explicitly that human thought reflects objects in the world that exist outside of and independently of human consciousness and will. Now that we have deciphered part 2. and 3. of the sentence, and made those two translating maneuvers, it all falls into place.


So here is 1., 2., 3., 4.:

1. The object or subject matter of this book is thought, thinking.

2. Dialectical logic has as its aim the development of a scientific representation of thought when thought appears in its necessary connections with the world of objects.

3. Moreover, dialectical logic aims to understand these connections between thought and the world of objects in their necessary sequences.

4. The necessary connections between thought and the world of objects, and the sequences of these connections, do not in the least depend on our consciousness and will.

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So that's my take on these three paragraphs, especially the third one.

Let's compare takes. The problem seems to lie in determining **what** it is that Ilyenkov is claiming is independent of human will and consciousness:

Your comments:
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.



What is the difference between your take and mine?

On one hand, I am pretty sure that Ilyenkov is saying that the **connections between thoughts and the world of objects** are independent of human will and consciousness. (Connections in the sense of an Hegelian 'moment', of course).

On the other hand, you seem pretty sure that Ilyenkov is saying that the **steps and stages of thinking** are independent of human will and consciousness.

If Ilyenkov were indeed saying what you seem to think, I would agree with you that he is way off base. But that is not what he is saying. Nowhere does Ilyenkov say that **thinking** and its stages are independent of human will and consciousness. This is simply a misunderstanding of Ilyenkov.

What he is saying, as I read it, is that the "moments" or, in English, the "connections" between thoughts and the world of objects are independent of will and consciousness.

This, of course, is VERY different from saying that THOUGHTS are independent of will and consciousness.

But this raises an interesting question. Does the claim that Ilyenkov does seem to be making - that the **connections** between thoughts and objects are independent of consciousness and will - hold water? I think this question is important to CHAT. Might be interesting to discuss.

Cheers,
~ Steve



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original from http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essayint.htm


from Dialectical Logic, Essays on its History and Theory

by Evald Ilyenkov, written 1974, published in English by Progress Publishers 1977

from the Introduction

In philosophy, more than in any other science, as Hegel remarked with some regret in his Phenomenology of Mind, ‘the end or final result seems ... to have absolutely expressed the complete fact itself in its very nature; contrasted with that the mere process of bringing it to light would seem, properly speaking, to have no essential significance’.

That is very aptly put. So long as dialectics (dialectical logic) is looked upon as a simple tool for proving a previously accepted thesis (irrespective of whether it was initially advanced as the rules of mediaeval disputes required, or only disclosed at the end of the argument, in order to create the illusion of not being preconceived, that is, of saying: “Look, here is what we have obtained although we did not assume it”), it will remain something of ‘no essential significance’. When dialectics is converted into a simple tool for proving a previously accepted (or given) thesis, it becomes a sophistry only outwardly resembling dialectics, but empty of content. And if it is true that real dialectical logic takes on life not in ‘naked results’, and not in the ‘tendency’ of the movement of thought, but only in the form of ‘the result along with the process of arriving at it’, then during the exposition of dialectics as Logic, we must reckon with this truth. For it is impossible to go to the other extreme, taking the view that we had allegedly not set ourselves any aim determining the means and character of our activity from the very outset in the course of our analysis of the problem, but had set out swimming at random. And we are therefore obliged, in any case, to say clearly, at the very beginning, what the ‘object’ is in which we want to discover the intrinsically necessary division into parts.

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. In other words Logic must show how thought develops if it is scientific, if it reflects, i.e. reproduces in concepts, an object existing outside our consciousness and will and independently of them, in other words, creates a mental reproduction of it, reconstructs its self- development, recreates it in the logic of the movement of concepts so as to recreate it later in fact (in experiment or in practice). Logic then is the theoretical representation of such thinking.

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The quote in the first Ilyenkov paragraph above is from the passage below in Hegel.
from: http://web.mac.com/titpaul/Site/Phenomenology_of_Spirit_page_files/Preface.pdf

http://web.mac.com/titpaul/Site/Phenomenology_of_Spirit_page.html

from Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel

Preface

1. In the preface to a philosophical work, it is customary for the author to give an explanation – namely, an explanation of his purpose in writing the book, his motivations behind it, and the relations it bears to other previous or contemporary treatments of the same topics – but for a philosophical work, this seems not only superfluous but in light of the nature of the subject matter, even inappropriate and counterproductive. For whatever it might be suitable to say about philosophy in a preface – for instance, to give some historical instruction about the biases and the standpoint of the text, or some talk about the general content and the results together with a set of scattered assertions and assurances about the truth – none of these can count as the way to present philosophical truth. – Moreover, because philosophy essentially exists in the element of universality, which encompasses the particular within itself, [the following partial sentence is quoted by Ilyenkov in his Introduction to Dialectical Logic, although translated there more awkwardly -sg]

it might seem that in philosophy, indeed even more so than in the other sciences, that what is salient about its subject matter, even its perfect essence, would be expressed in the goal of the work and in its final results, and that the way the project is in fact carried out would be what is inessential.

In contrast, if a person were to have only a general notion of, for example, anatomy, or, to put it roughly, if he were to have an acquaintance with the parts of the body taken in terms of their lifeless existence, nobody would thereby think that he has come into full possession of the salient subject matter of that science, which is to say, its content. One would think that in addition he would have to go to the trouble to pay attention to the particularities of the science. – Furthermore, that kind of an aggregation of little bits and pieces of information has no real right be called science, and a conversation about its purpose and other such generalities would be in no way distinct from the ordinary historical and uncomprehending way in which the content, that is, these nerves and muscles, and so forth, is itself discussed. In the case of philosophy, this would give rise to the following incongruity, namely, that if philosophy were indeed to make use of such a method, then it would have shown itself to be incapable of grasping the truth.

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<end>






On Sep 8, 2009, at 4:04 PM, David Kellogg wrote:

Steve:

Thanks. Yes, very useful. But I think the most useful thing about it is that your paraphrase (which I would qualify as an English-to- English TRANSLATION) differs from my reading of Ilyenkov in EXACTLY the places I have trouble. Since sg is no philosophical neophyte, ergo, dk is not losing what paltry philosophical wit he was endowed with.

Here's what I mean:

sg: Hegel made an interesting remark about philosophy. He said that, on one hand, the end results of philosophy express the complete facts themselves in their very nature, whereas, on the other hand, the mere process of bringing these facts to light has no essential significance. –sg]

evi: In philosophy, more than in any other science, as Hegel remarked with some regret in his Phenomenology of Mind, ‘the end or final result seems ... to have absolutely expressed the complete fact itself in its very nature; contrasted with that the mere process of bringing it to light would seem, properly speaking, to have no essential significance’.

dk: Hang on. That isn't how I read the Hegel at all, nor is it how I read the Ilyenkov. I read Hegel as saying that philosophy, unlike other sciences, has neither an experimental nor an empirical METHOD to offer. The end is everything and the means is nothing. This seems very true to me and it is a legacy of the fact that philosophy is still in many ways a kind of intellectual fossil, methodologically pre-scientific in the same way that religion, art or literature is. But Ilyenkov takes this true and, as he says, "very apt" observation and twists it into a comment on how dialectics should not be used to "prove" things we already know are true. This may also be true (one suspects he has certain colleagues in mind), but it's a very different statement and in some ways it means the precise opposite of what the Hegel says. Ilyenkov holds that the MEANS is everything, precisely because it leads to unexpected and surprising ENDS. This is really backed up by
his statement later on that:
 ,
sg: 9. Real dialectical logic does not take on life in the form of ‘naked results’ nor in the ‘tendency’ of the movement of thought. It takes on life only in the form of ‘the result along with the process of arriving at it.’ Therefore, we must take this into account in our investigation of dialectics.


evi: And if it is true that real dialectical logic takes on life not in ‘naked results’, and not in the ‘tendency’ of the movement of thought, but only in the form of ‘the result along with the process of arriving at it’, then during the exposition of dialectics as Logic, we must reckon with this truth.

dk: Wait a minute. If we take 'the result ALONG WITH THE PROCESS OF ARRIVING AT IT" we have very considerably more than naked results. There is a unity of ends and means here that suggests a scientific, rather than a pre-scientific, philosophy. And it also suggests that a certain amount of reverse engineering is in fact justifiable. So we have a contradiction upon a contradiction.

sg: 12. 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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