Andy,
I am questioning whether your perspectives on consciousness are in
alignment with Lenin, Ilyenkov, etc., as you seem to be suggesting. But
first, I want to understand you as clearly as I can.
You are arguing, so far as I can tell, that humans can only know the
material properties and social realities of the world by being conscious
of them. "What is given to you is consciousness. If you know something,
that means that it exists in your consciousness. To know is to be
conscious of. So we cannot frame a concept of matter other than
derivative from consciousness."
Therefore, you conclude, the material world is "given to us" through
consciousness. "Consciousness is what we are given immediately, and the
idea of "matter" is derived from that, i.e., the conviction that
something else exists."
You explain "Consciousness is what is given to us; matter is what exists
outside and independently of consciousness."
You point out that after thousands of years of cultural experience, with
the help of natural science, Hegelian-Marxian philosophy, Vygotskyan
psychology, etc., we are discovering that matter existed prior to
consciousness and is reflected in consciousness, and we are beginning to
discover the material foundations of consciousness and the role of
activity.
Therefore, you conclude, when we discover and learn about the world, we
are **deriving** our concepts of the material and social world through
consciousness.
You explain: "What is given to you is consciousness. If you know
something, that means that it exists in your consciousness. To know is
to be conscious of. So we cannot frame a concept of matter other than
derivative from consciousness." As you put it in another post, citing
Lenin as an author who you believe agrees with this point, "matter is
defined as a category *derivative* of "consciousness"".
You summarize your perspective in everyday terms: "The reality is: you
open your eyes, you see things, and *then* you question whether what
really exists out there (matter) corresponds to what you think exists
out there (consciousness). And not only individuals, but humanity as well."
Am I capturing your viewpoint?
- Steve
On Sep 24, 2009, at 8:52 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
P. 302 of "The Ideal in Activity," by Ilyenkov:
"Here, then, is the question: take your thought, your consciousness of
the world, and the world itself, the complex and intricate world which
only appears to be simple, the world which you see around you, in
which you live, act and carry out your work - whether you write
treatises on philosophy or physics, sculpt statues out of stone, or
produce steel in a blast furnace - what is the relationship between them?
"Here there is a parting of the ways, and the difference lies in
whether you choose the right path or the left, for there is no middle
here; the middle path contains within itself the very same
divergences, only they branch out within it in ever more minute and
discrete proportions. In philosophy the 'party of the golden mean' is
the 'party of the brainless', who try to unite materialism with
idealism in an eclectic way, by means of smoothing out the basic
contradictions, and by means of muddling the most general (abstract,
'cellule') and clear concepts.
"These concepts are matter and consciousness (psyche, the ideal,
spirit, soul, will, etc. etc.). 'Consciousness' – let us take this
term as Lenin did - is the most general concept which can only be
defined by clearly contrasting it with the most general concept of
'matter', moreover as something secondary, produced and derived.
Dialectics consists in not being able to define matter as such; it can
only be defined through its opposite, and only if one of the opposites
is fixed as primary, and the other arises from it."
Andy Blunden wrote:
Oh I don't doubt that the various strands of abstract empiricism and
so on are full of non-material representational systems and
non-material all-sorts-of-things. I think you are just making a point
about your not subscribing to Platonism or some dualist philosophical
system.
But in the meaning *you* give to "material" aren't you making a
tautology by saying that representational systems found in history
are material? Or are there representational system which *you* say
are not material?
Andy
Martin Packer wrote:
Andy,
Well, the (putative) representational systems studied by cognitive
science, which are taken to be mental functions, properties of
thought, which are not doubted to have a material substrate (the
brain) but which are assumed not to be material themselves but
ideal, in Plato's rather than Ilyenkov's sense. Chomsky's
generative grammar is a good example. Piaget's theory of the mental
actions and operations going on 'inside the head' of child is another.
Martin
On Sep 24, 2009, at 9:09 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:
Martin, tell me a representational system which is *not* material.
a
Martin Packer wrote:
humans have evolved to use an ordered series of "representational
systems." The sequence is as follows: the episodic, mimetic,
mythic, and theoretic. I won't go into the details, but crucially
important, I think, is that these systems are material.
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Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, Ilyenkov
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