[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Re: What is science?: Where to start doctoral students?

[Andy Blunden]

Haydi, you must agree with me that the content, the real
significance, of what people say often differs from what
they say of themselves and their protagonists. I am a
Marxist, and have been since my first reading of Marx in
1967. But you are justified in examining what I do and say,
rather than taking me at my word. Everyone knows that Marx
made the well-known criticisms of Hegel that you mention. We
also know that he praised Hegel and made criticisms of "the
materialists." But the point is to examine the content of
his action and in particular his scientific writing.

"Capital" (particularly its early sections) is modelled on
Hegel's Logic. Marx tells us this in the famous passage
(/Method of Political Economy/) where he gives the best
explanation of the Logic that I know of. As you point out,
he went on to make some crucially important criticisms of
Hegel in that same passage ("the real subject ..." etc).
Obviously Marx is not = Hegel.

There are elements of Marx's approach which he takes from
Hegel and elements which are in opposition to Hegel's
approach. I tried to make this crystal clear in my little
article
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Hegel-idealist.pdf
.

The ontology of "Capital" is sharply at odds with
materialist ontology as it would have been known in the
1860s and equally at odds with the ontology of positivism of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries which arose from the
crisis of natural science at that time which put an end to
naive realism. Marx's theory of value is sharply at odds
with Hegel's (as elaborated in the /Philosophy of Right/)
and methodologically also at odds with Hegel in that it was
not speculative but had a significant streak of empiricism
in it. (I describe this in
https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Goethe-Hegel-Marx_public.pdf
).

If you look at the MIA Library
https://www.marxists.org/archive/index.htm and run your eye
down the first 80% of so of the writers listed there. Almost
all of these writers declared themselves "Marxists" (not the
last 20% or so) and yet you will see a very wide spectrum of
views here. No-one has the last word here. My conviction
that Marxists have much to learn from Hegel was not lightly
arrived at.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 7/11/2018 10:22 PM, Haydi Zulfei wrote:
> Nice !! Not to get Marx involved in the discussion!This is
> the whole thing!
> Because if Marx is involved in his original writing and
> making the last quote easier:
>
> Concepts need Conceptioners and conceptioners are , as
> said here also , [Material] Human Beings living and Acting
> in their respective Material Surrounding out of which
> process Social Relations arise which in their turn , give
> birth to Thoughts and Ideas , concepts and categories ,
> ideas of the Idea , Logic and the Absolute , cultures (in
> Bibler's terminology) which make Real?? Cosmologies (of
> course as META-physics beyond Physical Natural Hard
> sciences as these latter sciences deal also with atoms ,
> electrons neutrons , positrons , quarks , galaxies ,
> planets , etc. in their abstract or Hegelian (concrete as
> Concept) ontological/existential?? dependencies (the World
> which is outside Mind through Lenin's quote by some
> esteemed scholars and the World/s which need a Mind to
> claim existence) which is O.K. and in full respect.)
>
> This is what Marx meant in the last word of the last quote
> by "**[[Hence, in
> the theoretical method, too, the subject, society, must
> always be kept in mind as
> the presupposition.]]**"
>
> Neither the Social Relations have independent Being nor
> the sciences which arise from them. 
>
> Every body has the right to think that "phenomena" of
> Mind/Thinking have the same Ontology as the Ontology of
> the Substantial/Material/Corporeal Universe does but
> ascribing this to Marx would be problematic. This was the
> beginning of the worry!
>
> In the same vein , no problem with "Any Category" first ,
> but no imposition on Marx the more so that one might keep
> people in waiting for just a single evidence to one's Big
> Claim :-)).
>
> Marx is quite Robust in his Materialism and towards Hegel
> in full clarity and stance with quite indubious remarks:
>
> The best of the very Marx for Hegel:
>
> FROM CAPITAL VOLUME ONE:
>
> My dialectic method is not only different from the
> Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel,
> the life process of the human brain, i.e., the process of
> thinking, which, under the name of “the
> Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is
> the demiurgos of the [[real]] world, and the
> real world is only the external, [[phenomenal form]] of
> “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the
> ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by
> the [[human mind]], and translated into
> forms of thought.
> The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I criticised
> nearly thirty years ago, at a time when it was
> still the fashion. But just as I was working at the first
> volume of “Das Kapital,” it was the good
> pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre Επιγονοι
> [Epigones – Büchner, Dühring and others]
> who now talk large in cultured Germany, to treat Hegel in
> same way as the brave Moses
> Mendelssohn in Lessing’s time treated Spinoza, i.e., as a
> “dead dog.” I [[therefore]] openly avowed
> myself the pupil of that mighty thinker, and even here and
> there, in the chapter on the theory of
> value, coquetted with the modes of expression peculiar to
> him. The mystification which dialectic
> suffers in [[Hegel’s hands]], by no means prevents him
> from being [[the first to present its general
> 15 Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873)
> form of working]] in a comprehensive and conscious manner.
> With him it is standing on its head. It
> must be turned right side up again, if you would discover
> the rational kernel within the mystical
> shell.
>
>
> FROM GRUDERISSE WHICH INCLUDES ALSO THE METHOD OF
> POLITICAL ECONOMY
>
> But do not these simpler categories also have an
> independent historical or
> natural existence pre-dating the more concrete ones? That
> depends. Hegel, for
> example, correctly begins the Philosophy of Right with
> possession, this being
> the subject’s simplest juridical relation. But there is no
> possession preceding
> the family or master-servant relations, which are far more
> concrete relations.
>
>
>
>
> It follows then naturally, too, that all the relationships
> of men can be derived from the concept of man, man as
> conceived, the essence of man, Man. This has been done by
> the speculative philosophers. Hegel himself confesses at
> the end of the Geschichtsphilosophie that he "has
> considered the progress of the concept only" and has
> represented in history the "true theodicy". (p.446.) Now
> one can go back again to the producers of the "concept",
> to the theorists, ideologists and philosophers, and one
> comes then to the conclusion that the philosophers, the
> thinkers as such, have at all times been dominant in
> history: a conclusion, as we see, already expressed by
> Hegel. The whole trick of proving the hegemony of the
> spirit in history (hierarchy Stirner calls it) is thus
> confirmed to the following three efforts.
>
> Critique: "humans create themselves out of nothing" Far
> from it being true that "out of nothing" I make myself,
> for example, a "[public] speaker", the nothing which forms
> the basis here is a very manifold something, the real
> individual, his speech organs, a definite stage of
> physical development, an existing language and dialects,
> ears capable of hearing and a human environment from which
> it is possible to hear something, etc., etc. therefore, in
> the development of a property something is created by
> something out of something, and by no means comes, as in
> Hegel's Logic , from nothing, through nothing to nothing.
> [Th. I. Abt. 2 of Hegel] p. 162
>
> Best
> Haydi
>  
>  
>
>
> On Wednesday, November 7, 2018, 5:05:58 AM GMT+3:30, Adam
> Poole (16517826) <Adam.Poole@nottingham.edu.cn> wrote:
>
>
>
> An interesting point to add to the discussion is the role
> that ontology plays as a tacit form of gatekeeping in many
> disciplines and journals (though thankfully, from my
> experience, not MCA). I have started to find this out as I
> have been publishing papers on International
> education from my doctorate (which I am going to defend in
> December). As part of this experience, I have found that:
>
>
> The journal article form does not lend itself to prolonged
> discussion of ontology due to length restrictions. So much
> of what is fundamental to research is left unsaid, but
> really needs to be said! Qualitative researchers need to
> justify themselves more substantially than quantitive
> researchers because notions of positivism
> (validity, generalizability, etc) are normalized and
> therefore do not require explication. However, your
> typically journal article does not provide enough room for
> qualitative researches to justify themselves. 
>
>
> Reviewers and journals function as gatekeepers (just like
> funding agencies) so it is sometimes necessary to conform
> to a certain 'house ontology' in order to get the work out
> there. An issue I have found is that reviewer's can impose
> their ontology onto the writer - that is, their implicit
> assumptions about reality function as a framework for
> understanding and most significantly evaluating the work
> before them. If the work does not conform to their
> framework - if there is ontological dissonance - the work
> is likely to be rejected or heavily critiqued, leading to
> substantial rewrites that change the essential nature of
> the paper. On the other side, writers also impose their
> ontology onto the reader.  
>
>
> This is all a roundabout way to say that ontology is also
> inextricably linked to power, and takes on dialogic and
> discursive dimensions. Essentially, ontology can be
> invoked by either side as a way to demonize or legitimize
> research, depending on where you stand. Ideally, it would
> be possible to transcend dualism, but practically speaking
> dualism functions as a convenient mechanism for
> gatekeeping and control. 
>
>
> So whilst I agree completely with Martin (whose book I
> started to read yesterday and really like) that it is
> imperative to develop ontologies that do not split
> researchers into partisan camps, actually making this
> happen is problematic, not least of all because the
> journal article itself (which I would argue is the
> paradigmatic academic form these days) does not lend
> itself to this endeavor. The issue is also an economic
> one: paywalls, limited space in journals, pressure to
> publish, and suddenly ontological idealism is compromised.
> I do think a new form of academic paper needs to be
> developed that can support greater reflexivity in order to
> bring out our ontological and epistemological assumptions.
> The standard 6000ish words, intro methods, findings,
> discussion, conclusion structure leaves little space for
> reflective/reflexive writing.  
>
>
> Anyway, just a doctoral student's take on ontology in
> relation to publishing.
>
>
> Adam 
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Martin
> Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
> *Sent:* 07 November 2018 04:11:34
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: Re: What is science?: Where
> to start doctoral students?
>  
> Well Huw I’ll take a shot! I’ve never thought that
> xmca-ers worry too much about overcomplicating a thread!  :)
>
> Quantitative research (and I’m talking about the way this
> is construed in the social sciences, not in physics, for
> example) is generally taught as experimental design and
> hypothesis testing, which is largely the model the logical
> positivists laid out a hundred years ago. They considered
> ontological (metaphysical) claims to be untestable, and so
> unscientific. Consequently, courses in quantitative
> research pay little or no attention to ontology. The
> result is that the researcher’s ontological assumptions
> are tacitly imposed on the phenomenon. After all,
> quantitative researchers believe (as the logical
> positivists taught them) that they can ‘operationally
> define’ their variables. That’s to say, *they* get to
> decide what is intelligence, or poverty, or a student, or
> a woman…
>
> The result is something that Alfred Schutz complained
> about: "this type of social science does not deal
> directly and immediately with the social life-world common
> to us all, but with skillfully and expediently
> chosen idealizations and formalizations of the social
> world.” The result is "a fictional nonexisting world
> constructed by the scientific observer.”
>
> Harold Garfinkel made a similar point: he rejected "the
> worldwide social science movement” with its “ubiquitous
> commitments to the policies and methods of formal analysis
> and general representational theorizing.” He saw that the
> statistical and formal models built by formal
> analysis “lose the very phenomenon that they profess.”
>
> I’ve tried to attach an article by Spencer (1982) that is,
> in my view, making essentially the same point, but the
> listserv rejects it:
>
> Spencer, M. E. (1982). The ontologies of social science.
> /Philosophy of the Social Sciences/, /12/(2), 121-141.
>
>  Typically, social scientists are completely caught up in
> the ontology of their discipline, and completely ignore
> the ontology of the phenomenon they are studying - that’s
> to say, its constitution: what its constituents are and
> how they are assembled.
>
> On the other hand, the issue of the implicit ontology of
> qualitative research is the central theme of my book. I
> argue there that by and large Qual has bought into the
> ontological dualism of mind-matter, so that researches
> assume that the natural sciences study matter
> (objectivity), and so qualitative research must study mind
> (subjectivity).
>
> The book develops an argument for escaping from this
> dualistic ontology, and actually paying attention to human
> being - a kind of research that Foucault called ‘a
> historical ontology of ourselves.’ Along the way I try to
> do justice to what has been called the ‘ontological turn’
> in anthropology, the argument that different cultures have
> distinct cosmologies, rather than distinct cosmovisions -
> that’s to say, they have different ontologies; they live
> in distinct realities; they don’t simply have different
> ways of conceptualizing a single underlying reality.
> Latour’s most recent work is making a similar argument
> about the different institutions in which all of us live -
> that each institution has its distinct mode of existence
> (its distinct way of being; its distinct ontology). 
>
> So if I had my way, or my ideal winter holiday gift, it
> would be that qualitative research provides a way for
> psychology (and perhaps the other social sciences) to move
> beyond dualism and embrace multiple ontologies.
>
> Martin
>
> /"I may say that whenever I meet Mrs. Seligman or Dr.
> Lowie or discuss matters with Radcliffe-Brown or Kroeber,
> I become at once aware that my partner does not understand
> anything in the matter, and I end usually with the feeling
> that this also applies to myself” (Malinowski, 1930)/
>
>
>
>> On Nov 6, 2018, at 11:22 AM, Huw Lloyd
>> <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com
>> <mailto:huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Best to leave that for the time being, no point
>> overcomplicating the thread.
>>
>> Huw
>>
>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2018 at 15:02, Martin Packer
>> <mpacker@cantab.net <mailto:mpacker@cantab.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     And what do you take their implicit ontology to be, Huw?
>>
>>     Martin
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>     On Nov 5, 2018, at 6:33 PM, Huw Lloyd
>>>     <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com
>>>     <mailto:huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     The problem that I was responding to before
>>>     regarding "qualitative and quantitative" labels is
>>>     that the adoption of these labels (and their
>>>     implicit ontology)...
>>
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