VS: [xmca] On metaphysics: origin of the term

[Rauno Huttunen <rakahu@utu.fi>]

Hello,

If you refer the book Kuusinen at al. edited, so the second edition of that book is available at net as "Fundamentals of Marxism Leninism":

http://leninist.biz/en/1963/FML734/index.html

The book was kind of a Bible of Soviet Union or one part of the Bible the other part being "The History of Soviet Communist Party - Short edition".

Rauno


________________________________________
Lähettäjä: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] käyttäjän Robert Lake [boblake@georgiasouthern.edu] puolesta
Lähetetty: 25. maaliskuuta 2013 13:56
Vastaanottaja: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Aihe: Re: [xmca] On metaphysics: origin of the term

Hi Rauno,
Do you know if that book has been translated in English?
I would love to see it.
RL

On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 3:53 AM, Rauno Huttunen <rakahu@utu.fi> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> The origin of word metaphysics refers to ontology. Aristotles writings
> concerning so called prima philosophia was in library placed in the section
> named as "writing after physics". So it was just box of Aristotles nameless
> writings related to the doctrine on substance. This Aristotle's work was
> later on called as Metaphysics.
>
> At the time of Immanuel Kant metaphysics ment combination of epistemelogy
> and ontology. Branch "epistemology" was invented by NeoKantians as a
> descrition what happens in Kant's major work (Critique of Pure Reason).
>
> In 1950th Finnish communist Otto-Wille Kuusinen (born in my home town
> Jyväskylä, Finland) organized a group of scientist in Soviet Union in order
> to produce a book called Foundation of Marxism-Leninism in which the term
> metaphycis was used as opposite to dialectical thinking. That usage of the
> term is now mainly forgotten.
>
> Rauno Huttunen
> ________________________________________
> Lähettäjä: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> k&#228;ytt&#228;j&#228;n Martin Packer [packer@duq.edu] puolesta
> Lähetetty: 24. maaliskuuta 2013 16:27
> Vastaanottaja: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Aihe: Re: [xmca] On metaphysics
>
> Hi Brecht,
>
> Yes, of course you're correct, Andy is reading Hegel from a Marxist point
> of view, therefore upside down, so to speak. But Marx's materialism is
> still an ontology, still a metaphysics.
>
> Your confusion comes from the fact that there have been two uses of the
> word 'metaphysics.' One use is to label some kind of talk as having no
> basis in reality, as completely speculative and unverifiable. The logical
> positivists, for example, wanted to eliminate metaphysics in this sense
> from science - for them any notion was metaphysical if it was not
> verifiable. They realized that Newtonian physics contained unverifiable
> concepts, and they believed that Einstein's physics had eliminated
> metaphysics by defining everything in terms of operations of observation
> and measurement.
>
> We know now how narrow, unfruitful, and inconsistent the positivist view
> of science turned out to be. The second use of the word 'metaphysics' helps
> us understand why: "'metaphysics' refers to accounts of what truly exists,
> and to accounts of relationships between 'existences' (e.g. reduction
> relations, and perhaps other forms of dependence or priority)" (Kreines,
> 2006). That is, metaphysics is the brach of philosophy that deals with
> ontology (and sometimes epistemology is included), as well as the
> assumptions that any science makes about the entities that it studies.
>
> One person's ontology is another person's metaphysics. That is, when
> someone disagrees with another's ontological claims, a quick and easy
> insult is to label them "metaphysical." But the word itself simply came
> from the sequence of titles in Aristotle's texts: the text which dealt with
> what we would now call ontology and epistemology was simply next in the
> traditional list of titles after the 'Physica,' and so was called
>  'Meta-physica.'
>
> Did Marx make ontological assumptions? Certainly! For example, as you
> point out, for Marx the "essence of man" is "in reality,' "the ensemble of
> social relations." In this passage Marx states one of his core ontological
> assumptions. Much has been written about the ontological assumptions of
> Marxism (e.g. Gould, 1978). In the same passage Marx himself confuses
> things by using the term metaphysics in its first, derogatory sense.
> Unsympathetic readers of Marx's writings have also at times judged them
> merely metaphysical. Others, sympathetic readers, have also often referred
> to them as metaphysical, but in a positive sense. The negative use of the
> term is falling into disuse, with good reason. As the importance of
> ontology is now understood, it no longer makes sense to reject all talk
> about ontology as speculative and unscientific, or unphilosophical.
>
> Martin
>
> Gould, C. C. (1978). Marx's social ontology: Individuality and community
> in Marx's theory of social relations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
>
>
> Kreines, J. (2006). Hegel's metaphysics: Changing the debate. Philosophy
> Compass, 1(5), 466-480.
>
>
> On Mar 24, 2013, at 5:16 AM, Brecht De Smet <Brechttie.DeSmet@UGent.be>
> wrote:
>
> > Because I do not want to derail the current thread, I start a new one:
> >
> >> My point was that Hegel is hardly the person to turn to if one wants to
> avoid metaphysics! Individual, Universal, Particular - there's a whole
> metaphysics here.
> >
> > Well, if you look how Andy appropriates Hegel in his various writings I
> think you can hardly call what he does a form of metaphysics. On the
> contrary, he turns Hegel upside down, reading his logic in a materialist
> and non-metaphysical way.
> >
> > In this regard I think the philosophical implications of Marx's Theses
> on Feuerbach are still grossly underestimated. In a few lines he summarizes
> the deficiences of both idealism and materialism, subjectivism and
> objectivism, finishing off a few centuries of philosophical thought (of
> course the theses were but the end product of a whole project). After the
> theses Marx largely moves on from philosophical critique to developing his
> "materialist method".
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm
> >
> > Thesis 1: with regard to "ontology": Marx criticized classical
> materialism because it conceived of the actual world not as human practice
> (subjective), but as merely objective. Whereas for Hegel the world
> consisted merely of thought-objects, for Feuerbach the world was
> constituted by sensuous objects. In both perspectives human practice was
> absent, as either an objective or subjective activity. As such both were
> forms of metaphysical thinking, i.e. a form of thinking and activity that
> did not place human practice at its core. (Also see thesis 5)
> >
> > Thesis 2: with regard to "epistemology": "The question whether objective
> truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but
> is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality and
> power, the this-sidedness [Diesseitigkeit] of his thinking, in practice.
> The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated
> from practice is a purely scholastic question."
> >
> > This is almost a Copernican revolution with regard to epistemology. True
> knowledge, "truth", is not derived from either formal or dialectical logic,
> but from the encounter between human thought and human practice. The
> reality of any phenomenon outside this encounter "is a purely scholastic
> question" or an exercise in metaphysics. Cf. snare theory, dark matter,
> etc. Thesis 8 reasserts this premisse: "All social life is essentially
> practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational
> solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice." Real
> human practice or activity is the only base for gaining true knowledge
> about humanity.
> >
> > Thesis 3: with regard to "emancipation": classical (mechanical)
> materialism pointed out that humans are the product of their environments.
> Changing their environments resulted in changed humans. Of course, who
> changes their environments? Humans themselves. So transformation of
> circumstances + human activity = self-change = revolutionary practice.
> >
> > Thesis 4: with regard to the position of a critical or emancipatory
> science: It is insufficient to just deconstruct oppressive ideological
> concepts, "after completing this work, the chief thing still remains to be
> done". The reverse movement should be explained as well: how real social
> relations are the basis for these ideological forms. Of course, this means
> that the contradiction cannot be resolved in thought, but has to be
> overcome in reality, in practice. This is the core meaning of thesis 11:
> "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the
> point is to change it."
> >
> > In this sense, metaphysics was also a way of resolving real
> contradictions in the realm of thought.
> >
> > Thesis 6: with regard to the "essence" of humankind: "...the essence of
> man is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In reality, it is
> the ensemble of the social relations." Taking "the individual" as the unit
> of philosophy/social sciences is an a-historical and atomizing abstraction
> which "belongs in reality to a particular social form" (Thesis 7). A social
> science basing itself on the actions, intentions, emotions, etc. of
> discrete individuals takes a metaphysical and abstract view of humanity as
> its departure point. See also thesis 9 and 10.
> >
> > --
> > Brecht De Smet
> > Assistant Professor at the Department Conflict and Development Studies
> > Researcher at MENARG (Middle East and North Africa Research Group)
> > Department of Political and Sciences
> > Ghent University
> > www.psw.ugent.be/menarg
> > Universiteitsstraat 8 / 9000 Gent / Belgium
> >
> >
> >
> > Citeren Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>:
> >
> >> Oh! (he exclaims). My point was that Hegel is hardly the person to turn
> to if one wants to avoid metaphysics! Individual, Universal, Particular -
> there's a whole metaphysics here. Take a look at the Stanford Enc of
> Philosophy entry on Hegel (link below) for a sense of the debate over this.
> There has been an "orthodox or traditional understanding of Hegel as a
> ?metaphysical? thinker in the pre-Kantian ?dogmatic? sense. This was
> followed by a view by some that "particular works, such as the
> Phenomenology of Spirit, or particular areas of Hegel's philosophy,
> especially his ethical and political philosophy, can be understood as
> standing independently of the type of unacceptable metaphysical system
> sketched above."  (But Andy hates the Phenomenology!) And then there are
> people who are "appealing to contemporary analytic metaphysics as
> exemplifying a legitimate project of philosophical inquiry into fundamental
> ?features? or ?structures? of the world itself."
> >>
> >> Myself, I'm closest to the last of these views. I don't think we want
> to *avoid* metaphysics (ontology and epistemology) ; indeed I don't think
> that is possible. rather, we need to adopt the *right* metaphysics. We can
> debate what the criteria of that need to be. But to claim of a position, in
> philosophy or the social sciences, that there is "No metaphysics here!" is
> a tad naive.
> >>
> >> <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/>
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >> On Mar 23, 2013, at 12:36 PM, Carol Macdonald <carolmacdon@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> I thought that what he said was avoiding it: back up your exclamation
> Martin
> >>> Carol
> >>>
> >>> On 23 March 2013 16:48, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I though you wanted to *avoid* metaphysics, Andy!
> >>>>
> >>>> Martin
> >>>>
> >>>> On Mar 22, 2013, at 8:17 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Thank you Manfred for that clear explanation, and for correcting my
> >>>> typing mistake! :(
> >>>>> This might be an occasion to mention how my own development of
> Activity
> >>>> Theory differs from yours and that of ANL.
> >>>>> I do not work with duality of "the publically assigned meaning and
> the
> >>>> personally felt sense". Rather I use Hegel's approach in which the
> >>>> Individual and Universal are mediated by the Particular. This is a
> relation
> >>>> which is applicable not just to motives, but any concept. It allows
> the
> >>>> meaning of the situation to be something which is *realised*. This
> word
> >>>> "realised" is what Wiulliam James would have described as a
> >>>> "double-barrelled word" (following Charles Dickens' "double barrelled
> >>>> compliment), in that it means both "realised" in the objective sense
> of
> >>>> "made real", as in "The plan was at last realised when the judge
> delivered
> >>>> his verdict," and subjective in the sense of "woke up to", as in "I
> >>>> realised that my efforts to reconcile with my wife were doomed to
> failure."
> >>>> I believe that this resolves certain problems which arise in Actvity
> >>>> Theory, but remaining within the Activity approach as outlined in your
> >>>> excellent paper.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Andy
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Holodynski, Manfred wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Dear colleagues,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> thank you very much for all your valued comments on my article.
> There
> >>>> are a lot of aspects already discussed and I have some difficulties to
> >>>> follow all lines of argumentation. Therefore, I would like to answer
> to the
> >>>> following:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 1. Emotions as psychological function within the macrostructure of
> >>>> activity.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> As Andy claims it I get my Activity Theory from AN Leont'ev and I
> >>>> focused especially on his concept of macrostructure of activity and
> its
> >>>> levels of activity that is related to motives, actions that are
> related to
> >>>> goals and operations that are related to the conditions under which an
> >>>> action is given. And Andy gets precisely to the heart of it when he
> stated
> >>>> that my article needs to be read with attention to motivation and how
> the
> >>>> macrostructure of an activity is related to the motives and goals of
> an
> >>>> individual. One activity can be realized by different actions, and one
> >>>> action can realize different activities.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> May I quote Andy's words:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> " Because motives are not given to immediate perception; they have
> to
> >>>> be inferred/learnt. Emotional expression and experience signal the
> success,
> >>>> failure, frustration, expectation, etc. of goals and motives for both
> >>>> participant/observers and the individual subject themself, emotion is
> tied
> >>>> up with motives and goals and therefore with the structure of an
> activity.
> >>>> One and the same action could be part of different ??actions
> activities (!)
> >>>> (MH)??. It is the emotions which signal (internally and externally)
> the
> >>>> success, etc., etc., that is, in an action's furthering an activity,
> and it
> >>>> is this which makes manifest and actual that connection between
> action and
> >>>> activity, for both the observer/participant and the individual
> subject.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> So there is no metaphysics here. No hypothetical "states of mind",
> or
> >>>> intelligent infants, etc."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> a) Take the example of the opening of the window. That's the
> behavior.
> >>>> What's the goal?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> b) Imagine the person is a leader and opens the window in order to
> >>>> greet his followers and to hold a speech. That's the goal. What is the
> >>>> activity?
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> c) If one look at the circumstances one can derive that the speech
> is a
> >>>> part of a political activity in order to celebrate the election
> victory.
> >>>> So, if the leader also feels pride and enthusiasm about the victory
> there
> >>>> is coincidence between the publically assigned meaning and the
> personally
> >>>> felt sense of the situation. However, it may also be possible that he
> >>>> doesn't feel pride but a great burden and he personally feels to be
> >>>> overloaded with the duties and future expectations. Then the societal
> >>>> meaning assigned by the followers to this situation and the personal
> sense
> >>>> assigned by the leader himself are not congruent. The leader framed
> this
> >>>> situation under an achievement perspective whether he is able to
> fulfill
> >>>> the leadership.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> But, note when we talk about actions and activity, then we speak
> about
> >>>> an advanced level of activity e.g. in children or adults, but not in
> >>>> infants who start to have intentions but still not a mental image of a
> >>>> future state of affairs.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> 2. Differentiation between the basic level in infants and advanced
> >>>> level in older children:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> - A young infant has not already established a goal-driven level of
> >>>> actions. In the first weeks one can observe the acquisition of first
> >>>> operations and of first expectations what should happen. But these
> >>>> expectations are not yet represented as a mental image about the
> desired
> >>>> future states. This is the product of the acquisition of a sign system
> >>>> which enables the person to evoke and imagine a future state in the
> here
> >>>> and now and to start to strive for it. And for this starting point,
> not
> >>>> only to imagine different future states, but also to select one of
> them and
> >>>> to start to strive for it, emotional processes come into play that
> color
> >>>> one of the imagined future state e.g. in a state worth striving for
> and
> >>>> that mobilize the executive power to start striving for it.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> However, the ability to form such notions of goals and to transform
> >>>> them into actions is not something that occurs automatically. It
> emerges in
> >>>> a long-drawn ontogenetic learning process in which the attainment of
> goals
> >>>> through actions is tried, tested, and increasingly optimized. Older
> >>>> children are
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> So, for an understanding of my emotion concept the macrostructure
> of an
> >>>> activity is very decisive because I embedded emotions as a specific
> >>>> psychological function within the macrostructure of an activity.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Best
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Manfred
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Prof. Dr. Manfred Holodynski
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Institut für Psychologie in Bildung und Erziehung
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Fliednerstr. 21
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> D-48149 Münster
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> +49-(0)-251-83-34311
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> +49-(0)-251-83-34310 (Sekretariat)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> +49-(0)-251-83-34314 (Fax)
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> http://wwwpsy.uni-muenster.de/Psychologie.inst5/AEHolodynski/index.html
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> manfred.holodynski@uni-muenster.de
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> >>>>>> Von: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
> >>>>>> Gesendet: Freitag, 22. März 2013 04:13
> >>>>>> An: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>>>>> Cc: Holodynski, Manfred
> >>>>>> Betreff: Re: Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Mike, Manfred gets his Activity Theory from AN Leontyev, rather than
> >>>> Engestrom's "systems of activity."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> So actions and activities are defined by their goals and motives. So
> >>>> Manfred's article needs to be read with attention to motivation and
> how the
> >>>> structure of an activity is related to motives and goals. Because
> motives
> >>>> are not given to immediate perception; they have to be
> inferred/learnt.
> >>>> Emotional expression and experience signal the success, failure,
> >>>> frustration, expectation, etc. of goals and motives for both
> >>>> participant/observers and the individual subject themself, emotion is
> tied
> >>>> up with motives and goals and therefore with the structure of an
> activity.
> >>>> One and the same action could be part of different actions. It is the
> >>>> emotions which signal (internally and externally) the success, etc.,
> etc.,
> >>>> that is, in an action's furthering an activity, and it is this which
> makes
> >>>> manifest and actual that connection between action and activity, for
> both
> >>>> the observer/participant and the individual subject.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> So there is no metaphysics here. No hypothetical "states of mind",
> or
> >>>> intelligent infants, etc.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It's all in there.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Andy
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> mike cole wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Hi Andy - and here I was wondering why operation/action/activity
> were
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> not prominent in Manfred's article. Where does he lay out the
> views in
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> this note? Am I reading too superficially as usual? Seems important
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> for me to get clear about!
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Mike
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Thursday, March 21, 2013, Andy Blunden wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Think of your illustration,Martin, about whether, in opening the
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> window, you were acting as a technician or moral leader. I.e., the
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> meaning of the action lies in the activity of which it is a part,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> which is not immediately given. Manfred does not refer this to
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> "intention" or "belief". Manfred is quite specific that the
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> signalising and self-perception of an action in relation to an
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> activity - i.e., an action's being of this and not that activity -
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> is a function played by emotion. Concepts like internal state and
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> intention are derivative from operation/action/activity, not
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> fundamental.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Andy
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >>>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> >>>>> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
> >>>>>
> >>>>> __________________________________________
> >>>>> _____
> >>>>> xmca mailing list
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> >>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> __________________________________________
> >>>> _____
> >>>> xmca mailing list
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> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Carol A  Macdonald Ph D (Edin)
> >>> Developmental psycholinguist: EMBED
> >>> Academic, Researcher, Writer and Editor
> >>> Honorary Research Fellow: Department of Linguistics, Unisa
> >>> __________________________________________
> >>> _____
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
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*Associate Professor
Social Foundations of Education
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