[Xmca-l] Re: The Stuff of Words

[Andy Blunden]

Haydi, where did you get this quote: "The REIFIED ideal is 
no longer ideal"?

I couldn't find it in "The Concept of the Ideal" 
https://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/ideal/ideal.htm

I'd like to see it in context.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 

On 2/05/2017 6:29 PM, ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ wrote:
> For the first part of your remark Ilyenko gives a 
> definition which you are quite familiar with "ideal is 
> nothing more than the reflection of the material onto 
> mind". Then they are distinct but very closely related . 
> The relativity , I think , is not a matter of gradience or 
> salience as David quoted from Mike. To put water into 
> steam you need 'heat'. The heat we need to put ideal into 
> material and inversely material into ideal is the very 
> process of goal-oriented joint practical material activity.
>
> For the second part of your remark , I think you've 
> forgotten Ilyenko (otherwise you knew well) saying "The 
> REIFIED ideal is no longer ideal". Then,how can it possess 
> the properties of the ideal? Does water have retained the 
> properties of oxygen or hydrogen .That was why I said 
> hammers are 'material' NOW. Hammers are now ready for use 
> . As to the history Mike mentions , yes , it's the very 
> history of idealization of a need which , in the process 
> of material practical activity , turns into an object as 
> product retaining no trace of its once ideality. Ilyenko 
> himself says that the very knowledge/cognition of a 
> phenomenon is to be able to unmediationally trace the 
> genesis and emergence of that phenomenon. But that's for 
> the theoretician not for the worker or whoever who has to 
> use the hammer not as the embodiment of interactions , 
> practices , experiences or what you correctly rejected as 
> the carrier of ideas.
> Best
> Haydi
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> *To:* ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>; 
> "xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, 2 May 2017, 5:37:55
> *Subject:* Re: [Xmca-l] Re: The Stuff of Words
>
> So "material" and "ideal" are not opposites. Hammers still 
> have ideal properties as well as material properties.
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 
>
> On 2/05/2017 6:16 AM, ‪Haydi Zulfei‬ ‪ wrote:
>> Andy,
>> What I think has been omitted from your discussion is 
>> 'metamorphasis' or 'reification' of ideals which requires 
>> objectification and deobjectification of objects in 
>> practical processes. As you well know , Marx never 
>> reduces 'material' to 'ideal' . Ilyenko is quite in 
>> agreement with Marx concerning the problem. Their 
>> objection is over the issue of thinking that the ideal 
>> should be inside the mind. What is outside the mind is 
>> material . He , as you know , gives many examples : A 
>> church is an ideal , A diplomat is an ideal as talers are 
>> , etc. and they are outside the mind. Respectively , the 
>> worship of God has been idealized in a church , the 
>> diplomat gets out of his ordinary posture becomes a 
>> representative for the State , talers in the pocket are 
>> nothing more than ordinary metals but replacing precious 
>> golds in turn representing the labour spent on their 
>> extraction in mines. The above-mentioned items are ideal 
>> NOW; Hammers WERE ideals THEN at the start of the 
>> practical process. Now they are 'materials' reified and 
>> metamorphosed , that is through the furnace of practical 
>> activity one essence has been tempered and converted into 
>> another essence for which marxists including Ilyenko have 
>> different definitions.
>> Best
>> Haydi
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> 
>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu 
>> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> *Sent:* Monday, 1 May 2017, 11:30:04
>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: The Stuff of Words
>>
>> And tables carry with them the practice of eating "at table"
>> and meeting a the board room table etc., it not that the
>> table carries the idea of table but is the bearer of
>> practices, which have refined the size and shape of tables
>> for eating, talking, etc. LIkewise pencils are for cursive
>> writing on paper. not scratching hieroglyphics into clay.
>>
>> Great quote from Mike! There is a LOT of resistance to this
>> idea ... everywhere. It smells of Marxism.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden
>> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making 
>>
>>
>> On 1/05/2017 4:43 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
>> > Gordon Wells quotes this from an article Mike wrote in 
>> a Festschrift for
>> > George Miller. Mike is talking about artefacts:
>> >
>> > "They are ideal in that they contain in coded form the 
>> interactions of
>> > which they
>> > were previously a part and which they mediate in the 
>> present (e.g., the
>> > structure of
>> > a pencil carries within it the history of certain forms 
>> of writing). They
>> > are material
>> > in that they are embodied in material artifacts. This 
>> principle applies
>> > with equal
>> > force whether one is considering language/speech or the 
>> more usually noted
>> > forms
>> > of artifacts such as tables and knives which constitute 
>> material culture.
>> > What
>> > differentiates a word, such as “language” from, say, a 
>> table. is the
>> > relative prominence
>> > of their material and ideal aspects. No word exists 
>> apart from its material
>> > instantiation (as a configuration of sound waves, or 
>> hand movements, or as
>> > writing,
>> > or as neuronal activity), whereas every table embodies 
>> an order imposed by
>> > thinking
>> > human beings."
>> >
>> > This is the kind of thing that regularly gets me thrown 
>> out of journals by
>> > the ear. Mike says that the difference between a word 
>> and a table is the
>> > relative salience of the ideal and the material. 
>> Sure--words are full of
>> > the ideal, and tables are full of material. Right?
>> >
>> > Nope. Mike says it's the other way around. Why? Well, 
>> because a word
>> > without some word-stuff (sound or graphite) just isn't 
>> a word. In a
>> > word, meaning is solidary with material sounding: 
>> change one, and you
>> > change the other. But with a table, what you start with 
>> is the idea of the
>> > table; as soon as you've got that idea, you've got a 
>> table. You could
>> > change the material to anything and you'd still have a 
>> table.
>> >
>> > Wells doesn't throw Mike out by the ear. But he does 
>> ignore the delightful
>> > perversity in what Mike is saying, and what he gets out 
>> of the quote is
>> > just that words are really just like tools. When in 
>> fact Mike is saying
>> > just the opposite.
>> >
>> > (The part I don't get is Mike's notion that the 
>> structure of a pencil
>> > carries within it the history of certain forms of 
>> writing. Does he mean
>> > that the length of the pencil reflects how often it's 
>> been used? Or is he
>> > making a more archaeological point about graphite, 
>> wood, rubber and their
>> > relationship to a certain point in the history of 
>> writing and erasing?
>> > Actually, pencils are more like tables than like 
>> words--the idea has to
>> > come first.)
>> >
>> > David Kellogg
>> > Macquarie University
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>