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

Andy Blunden andyb@marxists.org
Wed Nov 7 18:18:23 PST 2018


See
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/pr/property.htm#PRn62

Hegel sees need (i.e., use-value) as the determinant of
need. Although later he says that a commodity cannot have
value unless it is the product of labour, he never suggests
that the /quantity /of labour needed for its production
determines value. Thus Hegel accepts the common sense view
of things, that the value of a thing is determined by how
useful it is. He did not see the contradiction in this claim.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 8/11/2018 8:55 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
> Andy, 
> I'm interested in the conversation but have very little
> time to read or dig or do anything other than quickly
> skim. I was just wondering if you could provide a little
> bit of the explanation/background for this argument (of
> yours):
> "Marx's theory of value is sharply at odds with Hegel's
> (as elaborated in the /Philosophy of Right/)"
> It sounds interesting but it also sounds different from
> what I would have thought/said about it. So I suspect that
> I have something to learn...
> If you have no time either, no worries, I'll leave it be. 
> -greg
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 7, 2018 at 5:14 AM Andy Blunden
> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>
>     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>
>>     <mailto: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
>>     <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>     <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>>     <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
>>     Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net>
>>     <mailto: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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>
>
>
> -- 
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu
> <http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu> 
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson

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