See comments below.
What to do then? The first answer was Monism. e.g. "everything is
matter, even consciousness." Or "consciousness is a property of
matter" etc. This does not sidestep the problem but denies it. As I
repeatedly said to Martin, if everything is matter, everything you
say about matter is a motherhood statement. There is a distinction.
What Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Vygotsky, Leontyev and Peirce all did,
each in their own inimitable fashion, was to move away from the
binary to a three-part ontology. In general they have "activity" as
the mediating element. For Hegel it is "Particular." But the three
"moments" can never ever exist separately, they are always moments
of one and the same entity. So Cs is always correlated in some
way(s) with matter *in and through activity*. There is no Cs without
activity.
So our writers rarely talk about this hateful dichotomy, but that
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It cannot be abolished by a monism
which simply denies it. Mediation not Monism.
Why not both? Are they necessarily counterposed? Or aren't they both
fundamental to a [note the article] dialectical materialism?
Andy, you may not think the monist element useful; others, including
me, might find it necessary to a fundamentally materialist approach -
either way the problem with motherhood statements isn't that they're
not true but that nobody could disagree with them. In fact, in the
wider world there are plenty of people who do but that's not the
issue here.
Consciousness is not just correlated with matter through activity but
also through the particular organisation of matter that enables
consciousness to emerge. One of the reasons the question has been
posed in dichotomous terms that aren't useful is that up to now (I
nearly wrote 'until now' but we're not there yet) there has not been
an adequate scientific explanation of consciousness which has allowed
all sorts of both reductionist materialism and idealist mysticism
(not quite the word I'm after - nor am I including Andy in that) to
flourish. I started but did not finish writing a post as follows a
couple of days ago:
<<Isn't the idea of consciousness as an emergent property of matter
the key to
understanding the relationship between the two? Consciousness is then
the
result of a particular form of organisation of a particular form of
matter
(brain cells) and cannot exist without it but has properties that
mean it is
not simply reducible to a particular configuration of physical
matter.
Exactly how the 'upward causation' works is not yet known but as I
understand it this view is both compatible with both the current
state of
the science and with a non-reductionist materialist philosophy .
This is not to say that 'consciousness is given' in the sense of
being innate
rather that the matter develops both through biological processes and
in
a form affected by interaction with the environment - for humans,
specifically social.>>
The idea of emergence implies a stratified conception of both matter
and of human beings and thus is not reductionist. Rather the point is
that if we are talking about a materialist ontology one has to
provide an explanation of how higher order forms (both historically
and in terms of complexity) such as consciousness are possible at all
on the basis of lower order forms. Otherwise they are left hanging.
I don't have a problem with the idea of a 'substratum' if understood
as a level that we need to understand the properties of
consciousness rather than something separate. A multi-level ontology
(with more than the three levels Andy refers to but including them)
necessarily implies mediation but also includes the 'monist' moment.
Matter as abstraction from its forms - is, I think, necessary even if
one is asking such a 'higher order', 'social' question as the nature
of the ideal. Perhaps we can all agree that this is taken for granted
and a motherhood statement - if so, good but I think it's still
necessary to state it.
Finally a few points I intended to make earlier:
(1) I think people have been using the term material in two different
senses - one = reducible to matter; two = having a material force or
impact on the world - which maybe has confused things;
(2) To say consciousness is 'all we have' to know the workl with is
irrelevant to conceptualising the relationship between matter and
consciousness. It is an epistemological statement rather than an
ontological one. If we were to discuss whether or how a true ontology
was possible or sustainable given consciousness is 'all we have',
that would be a different discussion to which there are both
philosophical and above all practical (cf Theses on Feuerbach)
answers.
Bruce R
Does that resolve the issues?
Andy
Vera Steiner wrote:
Hi,
I always wondered why "inside" in its strictest interpretation,
that of the brain/mind that is not accessible to unmediated eye
sight should be such a pervasive metaphor. Now, the "inner" is
becoming more accessible with CAT scans, X-ray, imaging, etc,
should it still be called "inside?" Theories are not immune to
technological change, and this which is so loaded an issue, we are
stuck in an old dichotomy. Why is stone the best example for
matter? Why not blood that also changes with environmental,
physiological and pathological variables? It changes as does the
brain/mind through action, through aging, through education,
through the increasing, sophisticated understanding of meanings.
All of these changes take place with people, or by and through
their uses of signs and symbols, which are the consequences of
their prior, collective actions? Is material only that which we can
touch, but not what we create, including our minds which we create
in.interaction with others?
The categorical distinction between Cs and matter baffles me, The
discussion is still governed, I believe on both sides, by the old
difference between in here, that voice in my head, or those images,
which are no longer inaccessible, no longer "inner" in the old
sense of the word when approached with material tools and the
grass outside. But, it seems we cannot help but be snared by its
pervasive, metaphoric power..
Vera
----- Original Message ----- From: "Martin Packer" <packer@duq.edu>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2009 6:40 AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Consciousness"only a part of the material
quality of the man-sign"
Andy,
You're misrepresenting what I wrote, and why I wrote it. I am
indeed arguing that all representational systems are material.
Yet I find myself dealing constantly with colleagues who believe
that psychology must study non-material representational systems.
That to understand children's development, for example, requires
studying their 'internal,' 'mental' representations. I was citing
Donald's work as an example that does a good job of explaining
human cognitive development (historical rather than ontogenetic,
but that's not an important difference in this context) with
reference only to representational systems that are material. Plus
brain functioning, construed in non- representational ways. No
tautology here, and no problem.
Martin
On Sep 26, 2009, at 7:54 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
Martin referred to a series of "representational systems" being
all "material"; I pointed out that Martin had already said that
*everything*, even consciousness, was material so the statement
that these representational systems were material was a
"motherhood statement", i.e., a tautology.
So I responded "show me a representational system which is *not*
material" which is a problem for Martin because he says that
everything is material.
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Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/
Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov,
Ilyenkov $20 ea
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