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Re: [xmca] Ilyenkov on the material and spiritual



Yeah, I think I made a pretty weak argument here. At some later time we must return to the question of what is actually meant by "material" in the clearly ontological sense, and what it could mean to say that consciousness is material, but let's leave that till we have cleared up a couple of other terms.

Andy

Martin Packer wrote:
'Spiritual life' is a term from Plato, hence in quotes. Here Ilyenkov is
granting that in his doctrine of the 'Platonic' forms that have their own
objective existence, Plato recognized something true about individual
consciousness - that it depends on ideal (yet material) forms whose
existence is social, and so completely independent of the individual.
There's no suggestion here that consciousness is not itself material, if
this is what you want to imply.

Martin



On 2/23/09 3:38 AM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

If everything is material for Ilyenkov, Martin, what does he
mean by this:

"Here [in Plato], in a semi-mystical, semi-mythological form
was clearly established a perfectly real fact, the fact of
the dependence of the mental (and not only mental) activity
of the individual on the system of culture established
before him and completely independently of him, a system in
which the ³spiritual life² of every individual begins and
runs its course."

Using Google, I find that Ilyenkov often uses "spiritual" in
contrast to "material", sometimes in inverted commas but
often not all.

Andy

Martin Packer wrote:
Andy,

Once again you're pointing out what is material for Ilyenkov. I didn't
bother to emphasize what things are material, because Ilyenkov is a
materialist. Everything in his ontology is material. He is a monist!
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