What about "sacred" and "profane" objects?
They can be compared, no?
Are their quantities of "sacredness" contained in one but not the other?
Or is the "sacred" object not really "sacred" (hence the need for
scare quotes)?
NB: I'm only taking slight issue with Andy's formulation of "only
quantities can be compared," but I am with Andy 100% on the importance
of thirds - there is certainly a third involved here as well. Here the
third is a social community, as Durkheim would have it; or
alternatively, the third is "God" or "the gods" (or "spirits" or
"mana"...) as the natives would have it). In the end, you get
something very similar to exchange value (and for any interested, Webb
Keane has a wonderful paper on the semiotics of material artifacts,
and Paul Kockelman has a great one too that compares Marx's exchange
value with semiotic notions of "value").
-gt
On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 3:20 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
You are correct, Steve. The example of exchange value is precise.
The point Ilyenkov is making is correct: in order to compare two
commodities, a third, money is required and is eventually produced
by the historical process. But I still feel that to go straight to
money from the problem of comparison both skips over the
historical stage of the evolution of money and om the context of
your discussion, skipped over the cognitive stage of abstracting
quantity from quality. OK?
Andy
Steve Gabosch wrote:
Hi Bruce,
I'm thinking about your comments about Novack.
Meanwhile I am pondering Andy's claim. He seems to be saying
that properties, qualities, objects, processes, or whatever is
being compared must all possess a common quantifiable aspect.
This aspect can be objective or subjective. We can both
agree that something is "very ridiculous," but in agreeing on
that we are using a common quantity-like scale.
This quantifiability criteria is clearly the case in Marx's
discussion of exchange value. He discusses the **amount** of
abstract labor in a commodity.
It is even the case in Novack's formulations about how to
objectively determine progress when he says things like "The
productivity of labor is the fundamental test for measuring
the advancement of humanity because this is the basis and
precondition for all other forms of social and cultural
advancement." The productivity of labor is a quantifiable entity.
(As a side note, this criteria Novack suggests regarding labor
productivity could be used as a way of shedding light not only
on things like differences between feudalism and capitalism,
but also things like the historical character of Stalinism in
the USSR, which did much to hold back labor productivity.)
A counter-example is not immediately occurring to me to refute
Andy's claim that only quantifiable things can be compared.
Can you think of one?
On the question of requiring a third something that I raised,
here is a discussion of that:
Ilyenkov in Dialectical Logic Ch 1, p 18 says:
"... when we wish to establish a relation of some sort between
two objects, we always compare not the ‘specific’ qualities
that make one object ‘syllable A’ and the other a ‘table’,
‘steak’, or a ‘square’, but only those properties that express
a ‘third’ something, different from their existence as the
things enumerated.
"The things compared are regarded as different modifications
of this ‘third’ property common to them all, inherent in them
as it were.
"So if there is no ‘third’ in the nature of the two things
common to them both, the very differences between them become
quite senseless."
If Ilyenkov is correct on this, and Andy is also correct, then
not only is a 'third' required, but the common thing between
the three things must be quantifiable.
Are you aware of any discussions of this question in Marxist
or Hegelian literature, Bruce? How about you, Andy?
- Steve
On Feb 27, 2012, at 7:00 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
Any two things yes, but one must abstract from the
"things" to carry out the comparison.
EG I can say that red has a higher frequency of EM
radiation than green, or I might say that in my survey
more people selected red as their favourite colour than
did green. But in what practical sense can I say that red
is more than green?
Andy
Bruce Robinson wrote:
"Only quantities can be compared." Really?? Can't one
compare any two things?
Bruce
Andy Blunden wrote:
Steve Gabosch wrote:
Hi Andy,
Let me see if I am grasping your point.
Let me begin by agreeing with what I see as
your premise. I agree that two things can
only be compared when compared to a relevant
third.
No, that is not what I am saying, Steve. Only
quantities can be compared. You can't compare, for
example, red and green, and ask which is more. So
before a quantitative comparison is to be made one
must have settle the appropriate means of
quantification and the practical means of
comparison. The resulting claim then is
meaningful: "Cats are heavier than mice."
Andy
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
Book:
http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
<http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
<http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego