Martin Packer wrote:
I responded that this seemed dualistic. You seemed to be saying
that we have access only to Cs and not to matter; that matter is
"independent" of consciousness (and presumably vice versa); and
that two separate kinds of inquiry are needed.
*No way is consciousness independent of matter!* It is just what is
given to us immediately.
The difference in methods of enquiry is that between natural science
(which takes matter as its substance) and human science (the
humanities), which takes (or should take) activity as its substance.
Both are sciences.
-------------------------------
We can 'contrast' Cs and matter, but that isn't necessarily to draw
a categorical distinction between them.
This is the point. The difference is a categorical one. I am still
waiting for someone to give us a definition of consciousness which
includes (or excludes) all the different entities and states found
under this category, without descending into nonsense. Once you
proceed down this path you will of course have a great big fuzzy
boundary with things like the consciousness of rats and amoeba, deja
vu, dreams, premonitions, reflexes, undefinable emotions and so on.
There you will find no sharp dividing line. ... but you are still
left asking: "What is consciousness?"
-------------------------------
In the context of that debate it was important to insist that there
is a material reality that is "independent" of consciousness. But
within the context of a dialectical materialism that way of
phrasing things is misleading. Human consciousness is derived from
matter; and the material world is shaped by human activity, and so
by human consciousness. There is not "independence," in either
direction.
That human beings shape the material world does not alter the fact
that matter exists independently of consciousness.
Matter *is* what is outside of and independent of consciousness.
Surely there can't be *nothing* out there?! Some things out there
are part of my consciousness. "My consciousness is my relation to my
evironment." But not everything. No-one bothered about climate
change. It was never part of our consciousness, ... but suddenly we
are all thinking about it. Why? Because matter exists, i.e., there
*are* things we don't know about. Climate change was there all the
time! There are things which are independent of our consciousness.
(Metaphors are inherently dangerous in trying to make this
distinction BTW. I am drawing on "examples" to try to clarify, but
"illustrations" of the deepest categorical distinction necessarily
open us up to trivalising matters.)
Andy
Tony may be on the right track to remind us of form. An
Aristotelian materialism?
Martin
On Sep 25, 2009, at 11:40 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
OK. Obviously one can find plenty of true statements in Ilyenkov
as elsewhere. The point is consciousness matter and was Ilyenkov
wrong when he said:
"'Consciousness' ... 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"?
Your claim is now that the claim that consciousness is an
attribute of matter is tantamount to denying the above definition.
I find the two statements (Spinoza and Ilyenkov) quite compatible.
I grant that Spinoza's formulation was a deliberate effort to get
out of the hole that Descartes had dug by making Cs and matter the
two substances, i.e., fundamental components of reality. It
directed attention to the organization of matter rather than the
presence of a "life force" or some such thing. A great move for
the 17th century, and a better foundation for a science of
consciousness. Though as it turned out it was cultural psychology
not neuroscince which cracked the problem.
But being an attribute of something does not put it in the same
catgory. If Spinoza's formulation helps you, that's good; combine
it with the quoted sentence from Ilyenkov we have been discussing.
Andy
Martin Packer wrote:
On Sep 25, 2009, at 10:45 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
He means that if you deny the categorical difference between
your consciousness and the world outside your consciousness,
then you are an idealist. The fact that you do so by saying your
thoughts are matter rather than by saying that the sun and the
moon are thoughts, makes no difference.
Andy
Andy,
I've copied below more paragraph from Ilyenkov's text (thanks for
the link) with my gloss interposed (in the style of Steve).
You'll see that, on my reading, Ilyenkov agrees with Spinoza that
thinking is one of the attributes of substance (matter).
Martin
============
Lenin's position isn't formulated here very precisely. It doesn't
consist in the simple acknowledgment of 'the existence of an
external world and its cognoscibility in our sensations', but in
something else: for materialism, matter – the objective reality
given to us in sensation, is the basis of the theory of knowledge
(epistemology), at the same time as for idealism of any type, the
basis of epistemology is consciousness, under one or another of
its pseudonyms (be it the 'psychical', 'conscious' or
'unconscious', be it the 'system of forms of collectively-
organised experience' or 'objective spirit', the individual or
collective psyche, individual or social consciousness).
<Lenin shouldn't be interpreted as saying merely that matter
exists and we can perceive and know it. His position was that
matter is the *basis* for knowledge. For idealism, the basis of
knowledge is taken to be Cs, but this is an error>
The question about the relationship of matter to consciousness is
complicated by the fact that social consciousness ('collectively-
organised', 'harmonised' experience, cleansed of contradiction)
from the very beginning precedes individual consciousness as
something already given, and existing before, outside, and
independent of individual consciousness. just as matter does. And
even more than that. This social consciousness – of course, in
its individualised form, in the form of the consciousness of
one's closest teachers, and after that, of the entire circle of
people who appear in the field of vision of a person, forms his
consciousness to a much greater degree than the 'material world'.
<Social Cs comes before and forms individual Cs, much more than
experience of the material world does.>
But social consciousness (Bogdanov and Lunacharsky take precisely
this as the 'immediately given', as a premise not subject to
further analysis and as the foundation of their theory of
knowledge), according to Marx, is not 'primary', but secondary,
derived from social being, i.e. the system of material and
economic relations between people.
<But this social Cs is not basic; it itself is based on something
more fundamental: social *being*, the system of material and
economic relations among people.>
It is also not true that the world is cognised in our sensations.
In sensations the external world is only given to us, just as it
is given to a dog. It is cognised not in sensations, but in the
activity of thought, the science of which is after all, according
to Lenin, the theory of knowledge of contemporary materialism.
<We are *given* the world in sensation. But it is in thought that
the world is *cognised.* If we want to understand the basis for
human knowledge, we will need to consider the character of
thought.>
... Spinoza. He understands thinking to be an inherent
capability, characteristic not of all bodies, but only of
thinking material bodies. With the help of this capability, a
body can construct its activities in the spatially determined
world, in conformity with the 'form and disposition' of all other
bodies external to it, both 'thinking' and 'non-thinking'.
Spinoza therefore includes thinking among the categories of the
attributes of substance, such as extension. In this form it is,
according to Spinoza, characteristic also of animals. For him
even an animal possesses a soul, and this view distinguishes
Spinoza from Descartes, who considered that an animal is simply
an 'automaton', a very complex 'machine'.
<We agree with Spinoza, who considered thinking to be a
capability of certain kinds of material bodies. Bodies with this
capacity can adjust their activities with respect to other
material bodies. This is to say that one of the attributes of
substance (matter) is thinking.>
Thought arises within and during the process of material action
as one of its features, one of its aspects, and only later is
divided into a special activity (isolated in space and time),
finding 'sign' form only in man.
<Thought arises in material activity, even in animals. In humans
it takes a more advanced form, in which activity is adjusted to
signs.>
[...] If one proceeds from individual experience, making it the
point of departure and basis of the theory of knowledge, then
idealism is inevitable. But it is also inevitable if one relies
on 'collective experience', if the latter is interpreted as
something independent of being, as something existing
independently, as something primary.
<It is a mistake to try to understand human knowledge in terms of
individual consciousness or experience. But it is also a mistake
to try to understand knowledge in terms of *social*
consciousness. As we have said, social *being* - collective
practical activity is primary. Nonetheless, we can learn a lot
from Hegel...:>
[...]The collective psyche of mankind (spirit), which has already
been developing for thousands of years, is actually primary in
relation to every separate 'psychic molecule', to every
individual consciousness (soul). An individual soul is born and
dies (in contrast to Kant, Hegel caustically and ironically
ridiculed the idea of the immortality of the soul), but the
aggregate – 'total' – spirit of mankind lives and has been
developing for thousands of years already, giving birth to ever
newer and newer separate souls and once again swallowing them up,
thereby preserving them in the make-up of spiritual culture, in
the make-up of the spirit. In the make-up of today's living
spirit live the souls of Socrates, Newton, Mozart and Raphael –
herein lies the meaning and essence of Hegel's – dialectical –
interpretation of the immortality of the spirit, notwithstanding
the mortality of the soul. One comes into being through the
other. Through its opposite.
<Hegel recognized how an individual's Cs is based on the
collective. Individuals come and go, but humankind as a whole has
been developing for many thousands of years and in this sense is
immortal. The individual soul is mortal, but the human spirit
endures, and gives rise to one individual after another. At the
same time, it is individuals who make up the collective psyche.>
With all that, Hegel always remains inside the sphere of the
spirit, within the bounds of the relationship of the soul to the
spirit. All that lies outside this sphere and exists completely
separate from it the material world in general – interests him
just as little as it interests Mach or any other idealist. But
his idealism is much more intelligent, much broader, and for that
reason much more dialectical, than the petty, vulgar and narrow
idealism of Mach.
<But Hegel remained thoroughly idealist, and phased all this in
the idealist terminology of 'soul,' 'spirit,' etc. He tried to
explain the character and development of consciousness without
reference to the material world.>
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea
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Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea
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