Re: [xmca] déjatel¹ nost¹

Andy,

But to pursue the cell metaphor a bit, while the cell is certainly a unit
that contains the life processes that animate the body, its functioning
depends on its place within the body, which Marx also calls "an organic
whole." I'm not suggesting that there are or should be two units - I agree
that's the wrong way to go. It seems to me more that the unit itself has to
be considered as an aspect of a larger whole, with which it has a relation
of mutual constitution. No cells, no body. No body, no cells.

It always takes me forever to read and process your excerpts from Hegel! But
I'll give it a try. :)

Martin

On 9/3/08 9:44 AM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Martin Packer wrote:
>> examine units in relation. This seems to me to suggest that although a unit
>> has the characteristics of the whole, this is the case only when the unit is
>> examined *in* the whole. We need to study a commodity *in* capitalist
>> society. ...
>>
>
> Martin, this doesn't quite figure because to do as you
> suggest, we have to begin with *two* units of analysis, the
> commodity relation and "capitalist society", which of course
> presumes what is to be proved. It's a cell; it *generates*
> the whole.
>
> Certainly, Marx has already told us that "The prerequisites
> with which we begin are ... the actual individuals, their
> activity and the material conditions of their lives," and
> this is the necessary foundation.
>
> You really can't say it better than Hegel (here describing
> how the concept of "right" acts as a "unit of analysis" for
> "objective spirit":
>
> "The science of right is a part of philosophy. Hence it must
> develop the idea, which is the reason of an object, out of
> the conception. It is the same thing to say that it must
> regard the peculiar internal development of the thing
> itself. Since it is a part [of philosophy], it has a
> definite beginning, which is the result and truth of what
> goes before, and this, that goes before, constitutes its
> so-called proof. Hence the origin of the conception of right
> falls outside of the science of right. ...
> "In philosophic knowledge the necessity of a conception is
> the main thing, and the process, by which it, as a result,
> has come into being is the proof and deduction. After the
> content is seen to be necessary independently, the second
> point is to look about for that which corresponds to it in
> existing ideas and modes of speech." (Introduction to the
> Philosophy of Right §2)
>
> So what Marx is doing in rising from the abstract to the
> concrete is unfolding out of the value relation a whole
> series of concepts which flow from it. It is a kind of
> thought experiment which is constantly checked against
> historical reality. In fact of course there never has been
> and never will be a society in which the commodity relation
> is "absolute."
>
> Andy
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
Received on Wed Sep 3 07:15 PDT 2008