! I completely agree with you Victor!
Andy
At 07:31 PM 4/11/2005 +0200, you wrote:
Yes, my general impression is that the foundations of CHAT are good
The social role of CHAT as an instrument for professional culture
change appears to me a more likely direction for the development of
a practical science of society than the unfortunate combination of
doctrinal discipline and often unreflective political opportunism
that marred the theoretical instrument at the hands of the militant
party system we are both familiar with. CHAT suffers somewhat from
objectivism, but it is hardly the expression of a short-term
partisan (subjective) obscurantism dressed up as objective truth.
It's more a problem of an expansion of the diversity of ideas
within the CHAT forum, an expansion that the less politically
focused CHAT can effectively absorb as compared with the
pressure-cooker conditions of formulation of party based
theoretics. After all, if Lois Holzman and Anna Stetsenko (or for
that matter Steve Gabosch and I ) can exchange ideas with minimal
rancour and we onlookers can deal with the substance of their
differences rather than with the apparent immediate political
implications relative to the interests of our own party or faction,
then I think we may actually be getting somewhere.
Victor Friedlander-Rakocz
victor@kfar-hanassi.org.il
----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Blunden"
<ablunden@mira.net>
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 10:58
Subject: Re: [xmca] Ilyenkov in A Stetsenko's articles
Thanks for that Victor.
It always seemed to me that writers in the SU were unable to
write
explicitly about exploitation, bureaucracy, privilege,
struggle,
conflict, etc., as really existing relations in their own
contemporary
society, and were therefore obliged to utilise very
"platonic"
categories like "labour," "humanity," "activity," etc., which
resulted
in a theory whose outward appearance was very objectivist,
though
nevertheless, the underlying theoretical categories were not
at all
objectivist. I have always thought that this "sanitisation"
of the
theory due to Soviet conditions made it harder for people in the
West
to fully understand it. Unfamiliarity with Marxist terminology
is of
course a further factor. There is a problem of objectivism;
but I
think it's not in the foundations; the foundations are good,
as you
appear to be saying.
Andy
Anna,
On the issue of object relatedness in CHAT:
It has been for some time now that the CHAT model has
appeared to
me to be to be so strongly objectivist in approach that it
was
difficult to impossible to utilize it for the analysis of
conflicts
inherent within all forms of social organization.
My area of interest is mostly in organizational systems in
which
conflict is not only inherent but so salient a feature of
social
interaction that is impossible to ignore subjectivity as a
active
force in the formation and development of the system,
e.g. in
economics and politics. As long-time student a sometimes
teacher,
my impression of the classroom situation and of educational
systems
in general (subjects more often discussed here in this forum
than
economic and political relations) has ever been one of conflict
and
precarious compromise where the unifying socio-cultural
system is
often more evident by its weaknesses rather than by its
strengths.
In general my impression of CHAT theories of the educational
system
have been notably lacking in the determination of the unity of
the
system as a function of the concatenation of the operation of
many
conflicting wills. I would surely welcome a CHAT that
addresses
more attention to the operation of subjectivity
and
intersubjectivity in the accounting of the outcomes of
social
interaction.
On your paper:
Most of your paper concerns the works of Leont'ev and
Vygotsky.
Leont'ev's works I've read only a few times and so I'll
have to acce=t your commentary on his works as is. I agree
with
your comments on Vygotsky with a few reservations that are
not
important to your main thesis so no discussion on his
work is
called for here. However, your description of Ilyenkov's
ideas
concerning the relation of object to subject and on
the
significance of subjectivity in the development of social
life
appear to me to be seriously in need of correction.
Ilyenkov's discussion on the relation between subject
and
object though widely distributed throughout his works, is
the
especial focus of his "The Concept of the Ideal" (1977) and of
Chapter8, "The Materialist Conception of Thought as the
Subject
Matter of Logic", of Dialectical Logic (1974). Ilyenkov
is
certainly not an easy writer to understand; his logic though
very
good is often unsystematic, he peppers his works with
unexplained
allusions to material that he does not cite, and his
treatment of
critical concepts is often diffident and even hidden.
Another
difficulty of Ilyenkov's works is that much of his writing is
in
a Marxist-Leninist mode that's special to the language
of
revolutionary communist literature, and is quite different from
the
language of academic philosophy. The result has been in my
view an
array of egregious misinterpretations of Ilyenkov's
works,
especially by Anglo-Saxon academic philosophers without
much
grounding in dialectical analysis. The idea that
Ilyenkov's
works tend towards objectivism and towards a
neutral
contemplationist concept of scientific endeavor are precisely
among
the errors disseminated by these recent
interpretations of
Ilyenkov's works.
Ilyenkov's concrete formulation of the meaning of the ideal
in
"The Concept of the Ideal" does refer repeatedly to one of the
properties of the ideal as being "significant objects".
However in this very sam= article Ilyenkov also reiterates
in a
number of passages that the comprehensive meaning of the
term,
ideal, is the necessary dialectical unity of the significant
object
and of subjectivity. The ideal object is described as only
the
embodiment of conscious, willed activity, i.e. subjectivity,
and
that subjectivity is no less an essential component of the
ideal
than the object that represents it. But this is not all.
When, in his 1977 article, Ilyenkov finally gets
around to
describing the difference between the Marxian and Hegelian
concept
of the ideal (paragraph 93, 103, and here and there in
between), he
finds it in their respective theories of the genesis of the
ideal
relative to subjectivity. His argument in brief runs as
follows:
For Hegel subjectivity, the notion, i.e. subjective cognition,
and
objectification are the prerequisite conditions for the
emergence
of the ideal, the ideal being the consequences of the
development
of categories of knowledge.
For Marx (and Ilyenkov), subjectivity, the object, and the
ideal
develop simultaneously as the outcome of the special
conditions of
human sociality; the voluntary (in the sense
here of
non-instinctive) collaboration of mostly if not entirely
socialized
individuals for the purpose of producing the means for
satisfaction
of collective and individual needs.
Ilyenkov infers from this that while for Hegel
objectification is
an embodiment of pure activity in the ideal object, Marx
regards
the embodied activity as labour or productive activity.
The
importance of this difference is not very evident in the
1977
article, but examination of Ilyenkov's interpretation of
labour
activity in paragraphs 44 to 51 (sorry I do not have a
paginated
version of the book) of chapter 8 of Dialectical Logic is
very
instructive in this regard. Here he makes the point that
labour,
i.e. the creative interaction of the agent with natural
conditions,
is never be entirely encompassed by the objectification of
the
activity (in paragraph 51). In effect Ilyenkov is saying here
that
subjectivity can never be entirely subsumed by the object
and as
such remains a significant element in the prosecution of
human
sociality whatever the concrete conditions of that sociality.
What didn't Ilyenkov write: That which he could have and
perhaps
should have written?
For Hegel the objectification of subjective activity, i.e.
the
notion, does not in itself produce the ideal. The ideal
only is
realized when the objectified notion or acquired concept,
first
negates Life, i.e. the actual extant conditions which are
the
prerequisites of the formulation of the objective concept, and
then
joins it in the realization of desirable (good) outcomes. For
Hegel
the acquired concept cannot be one with life, because
formulation
and employment of the objective concept is implicitly
informed by
the yet unsatisfied subjective goals of the agents of the
concept.
The Marxian concept of the ideal (as interpreted by Ilyenkov)
has
no real need for the counterpoising of the objective
concept to
Life, it has a much more material target, namely the
social
practices from which it emerges and of which it
is a
representation. This need not be understood to mean that
the
formulation of an ideal is necessarily a broad rejection of
current
communal practice, it can be quite a modest affair such as
the
representation of the "legitimate" rules of a game, the right
price for =a dozen eggs, and the proper way to eat peas
with a
fork. The ideal is invoked when an agent,
individual or
collective, mobilizes an objectified concept to change the
extant
practices of others to realize a social or material goal that
she
wants satisfied. The outcome of her employment of ideas
will be
dependent on complexes of material factors, of
production, of
organization and the co-existence of other invoked ideals, but
this
is a different problem altogether.
Why didn't Ilyenkov write this?
1.. The "idealist" bogeyman: The presentation of a fully
practica=l theory of the ideal must posit that the ideal is
not
only a consequent of social practice, but at more concrete
levels
of analysis must be regarded as a prerequisite of social
practice
(see chapter 2, section 3 of Dialectics of the Abstract and
the
Concrete in Marx's Capital (1960) for more details). An
explicit
presentation of the reciprocal effect of the ideal on
social
relations would have provided his intellectual and
political
opponents with powerful arguments for labeling him
as an
"idealist".
2.. Border conditions and focus of analysis: Ilyenkov was
very
fastidious of the "border conditions" of his work. Most of
hi s efforts were devoted to the elucidation of the later
works of
Marx and of Lenin's theoretical works. The focus of these
works
is nearly entirely on political economy, and on political
economy
writ large. Subjectivity finds a place in these works
either as
descriptions of the rational activity of generic members of
classes
or as descriptions of the social activity of groups. When
Ilyenkov
approaches the "borders" of the system of the relations of
production, the issue of the historical development of the
forces
of production in see chapter 2, section 3 of Dialectics of
the
Abstract and the Concrete in Marx's Capital, or the "borders"
of the abstract theory of the ideal, the relation of the
individual
to social organization in "The Concept of the Ideal" he draws
back and "hands over the subject" to others. Ilyenkov is
surely aware that borders between subjects of analysis
are
relative, in dialectical theory the relations of all concepts
are
essentially conditional and relative rather than causal
and
absolute, so his fastidiousness is unlikely to be a
matter of
research domains consecrated by professional custom. It is
more
likely that this fastidiousness reflects Ilyenkov's regard
for
theory as a function of practical goals, and that his
decision to
limit his theorizing to the social interactions of
collectivities
and to the theory of political economic states is the
outcome of
his practical research aims rather than a universal law of
theory.
3.. The political limitations on conflict theory in the
USSR:
From the point of view of all established elites, including
the
academic elite, Marxist theory has all the endearing
features of
atomic weaponry. The unity of subjectivity and
objectivity
implicit in the dialectical approach to culture and history
has
produced a theory of society that is inherently
dynamic. It
presents society as fundamentally unstable and changeable
without
respite. Stalinist theoreticians, and not only Stalinist
Marxist
theoreticians, worked very hard to modify Marxist theory
(including
effecting changes in the population of Marxist theorists) so
as to
"stop" the dialectical process with the formation of the Soviet
Social Republic. The critical implications of Ilyenkov's
theory
of the ideal (as well as his studies in dialectics in general)
for
the official ideology that social development ends with
the
establishment of the Soviet State were not lost on the
political
authorities of his day, and he hardly was permitted to go as
far as
he did.
As I see it Ilyenkov was hardly an "objectivist" theoretician.
A reading of his two major works; Dialectical Logic (1974)
and
Dialectics of the Abstract and the Concrete in Marx's
Capital
(1960) show Ilyenkov as severely critical of "contemplationist"
theory and a firm, consistent partisan of theory as a
function of
practice and of practice as the test of theory. Ilyenkov is
hardly
reticent in declaring his own objectives; paragraphs in
Chapter 8
of Dialectical Logic and his articles "Activity and Knowledge"
(1974) and "From the Marxist Point of View" (1967) clearly
indicate of what he thought the current task of theory should
be;
the critical review of the failures of the Soviet
bureaucracy in
realizing the aims of socialism and the development of
means to
correct them.
Thanks for the article,
Victor Friedlander-Rakocz
victor@kfar-hanassi.org.il
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