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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