Re: [xmca] fetishism

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

On Apr 23, 2011, at 11:20 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:

> Mmm, I haven't been called an idealist for 27 years, Steve, and I'm a bit reluctant to pursue this on list. But I will risk a brief explanation.

It's not intended as an insult, Andy. It's merely a philosophical position. And it seems to me to be the position you have been defending in recent posts, as far as I can make sense of them. But frankly I am puzzled, trying to follow your argument. For example, you write:

> You can express an opinion about something, but you shouldn't confuse your opinion about objective reality with objective reality itself.

Much depends on what you mean here by "confuse," but it is hard for me to reconcile this statement with your avowed Hegelianism. It was Hegel who argued that we *can* come to have genuine knowledge of objective reality - not merely (subjective, individual) opinions. Even though *he* was an idealist!  Although you cite Marx's definition, you seem to me to be describing consciousness as something separate and distinct from, and indeed opposed to, a material reality, and also as *prior* to that reality. You seem to view knowledge as a process of 
consciousness observing this independent reality through a "window," a process in which reality can "wind up in your consciousness" as something merely subjective and individual.

You are of course entitled to your opinion. What I have been trying to say is that I don't think this is very like the view of consciousness and knowledge that Vygotsky articulated.

Martin

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