Paul, Phil,
I read Ilyenkov, Mikhailov and Mershchakovsky (??? the blind-deaf education
stuff) years ago and then much later saw a TV docco about education of
blind-deaf people in the West. I was shocked to find how I had accepted for
gospel what the Soviet books had told me about blind/deaf education in the
West (reports were a couple of generations behind), and that in fact it was
indeed possible to resolve this problem very satisfactorily even if you
didn't have dialectical materialism in your tool-kit.
This experience was an important part my education.
I too read "The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man",
and still regard it is a great 19th work which in some ways is still ahead
of our time, and I have read some of the Soviet neuro-paleontology and the
stuff about Lucy (the Ethiopian pre-human), Raymond Dart and so on, and
fervently believed that the Marxist view of the origins of consciousness
was supported by neurological and archaeological evidence.
However, interesting as all this material is, it cannot be deemed as
"evidence". Archaeology, and psychology for that matter, can only begin
with its own conceptual tools, tested out in logical and philosophical
analysis and each discipline must stand or fall on the basis of its own
criteria.
[I particularly liked the remarks of Jean Piaget in his "Genetic
Epistemology" that philosophers would do well to pay attention to good
psychology, rather than attempting to be "beyond psychology", and in doing
so fall into "bad" (unproved, unscientific) psychology. But I also note
that every theory of the world has its own Book of Genesis, every one of
which is self-proving.]
Neurology is interesting, just as archaeology and anthropology and
neuro-paleontology are interesting. But we don't need them for this
discussion.
Andy
At 16:25 27/09/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>Phillip commented:
>
>> except, these problems were/are being dealt with in the west but he can't
>> acknowledge them.
>
>I'm not sure that is totally true would need demonstration.
>
>
>> ah, so we are using anthropological/archaeological sources - but did
>> Leontiev have access to this information? it's pretty new, isn't it?
>
>Three points: (1) this information was available already in the 1950s. (2)
>Leont'ev was aware of this (I believe he has sections in DMS on hominid
>evolution, other animal behavior) But marxists have traditionally assumed
>this position, a la Engels, The Role of the Hand, etc. I was just citing to
>evoke the depth of "millions of repetitions" that lead to transformation of
>the evolving hominid physically, adapting to an environment of its own
>creation; (3) of course we are dealing with anthropolgoical/archaeological
>sources. How else would one deal with phylogeny which is the key to the
>apparent "chicken-egg" problem of recognizing the ideal.
>conditions of existence.
>
>
>> >THE PROBLEM: how, having sensory perceptions as its only source, thought
>> >penetrates the surface of phenomena that act on our sensory organs.
>>
>> for this i refer to Edelman. and other neurologists.
>
>Leont'ev states his disagreement that pyschological laws can be reduced to
>neurological ones. Perhaps you can explain how Edelman accounts for such a
>mapping. But even supposing a complexly networked topological mapping
>between neurophysiological states/spaces/models and psychological states
>**concrete experience (e.g., the taste of green) ** a la The Matrix, even
>with this power, neurophysiology itself cannot have the knowledge that one
>has when one perceives an object, penetrating the surface phenomena. In
>fact, that knowledge is what produced the field of neurophysiology. Not
>surprisingly, the product now stands over against the producer as something
>Other.
>
>
>> >> >On [16] Leont'ev neatly addresses himself to (a) vulgar materialists,
>(b)
>> >transcendental idealists, and (c) neo-positivists: "In contrast to the
>> >views of the laws of logic (a) as if they arise from principles of the
>> >working of the mind (or (b) as if they express immanent laws of a
>thinking
>> >spirit, (c) or finally as if they are evoked by the development of the
>> >language of science itself), the marxist position is . .
>>
>> why the very specific name-calling?
>> >
>
>Phil, I wasn't calling names, I was just noting how he had identified three
>major philosophical directions (each with its corresponding psychology) as
>opposed to the marxist position. the operative word for me was "neatly"
>
>
>> it is a genre i'm bothered by - is this the local soviet genre of
>> dealing with others
>
>I'm unsure what you're referring to. As you said at the beginning:
>
>>i'm just struggling to sort the
>>Communist Soviet political dogma from the Marx. it seems like many
>>Russians were attempting to do this to, but still had to encode their work
>>with dogma.
>
>but the term "Communist Soviet political dogma" itself reflects a dogma.
>Marx certainly proposed the creation of communist society, the abolition of
>private property, smashing the bourgeoisie and their institutions
>(criticized the fatal error of the Paris Commune (not taking the Bank out of
>respect for private property)), all as a precondition for the
>transcendence of the alienation that the development of capitalism
>engendered. I tend to look at reading Leont'ev as a question of developing
>what wasn't developed (including where political ideology restrained
>development) as opposed one of weeding out. undesirable "Communist Soviet
>political dogma".
>
>Paul H. Dillon
>
>
>>
>
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