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By way of a roundabout explanation ...Natural science is based on the assumption that outside of consciousness there is a natural world, which exists independently of consciousness and prior to consciousness and changes in a lawful way according to laws which are intelligible to us, through our consciousness. I.e., matter is the substance of natural science.
But two things. (1) This works only up to a point. Quantum mechanics, Heisenberg and all that went beyond the limit, and not concsciousness but *activity* had to step in to provide a rational foundation for even natural science, and (2) in the late 19th century, and notably in the "human sciences," this also proved untenable because concepts are not names for things existing in nature, but thought forms through which we grasp nature (a la Kant).
I say this only to point to the fact that when the point of view you are espousing gets into trouble, it has to take a step back and rethink its fundamentals, temporarily abandoning its self-confidence.
Specifically, what you are doing, as I see it, is building a model of the universe in your head, and then testing its validity according to some criteria which we haven't burrowed down to yet.
So for example, you suggest that in an ontological model of the world god-the-scientist could have decided to make animate/inanimate the first distinction. Of course, a system builder can make any distinction they like the first one. But there are objective reasons why in the history of rational philosophy that in which we stand, the first such categorical distinction was the one Rene Descarte made. Why? Because we begin with thought forms and from there we speculate about where they come from, how, if and what may lie out there behind them and then maybe if we want to make animate/inanimate a fundamental distinction.
I go on with this annoying stuff about God's eye views because you are taking a kind of extra-terrestrial model-building, observer standpoint. The reality is: you open your eyes, you see things, and *then* you question whether what really exists out there (matter) corresponds to what you think exists out there (consciousness). And not only individuals, but humanity as well. Now, 300 years down the historical track and further down the logical train of reasoning, quite different questions are posed ... except that every so often your basic categories get thrown into crisis and you have to, so to speak, go back to basics, and rework Descartes' initial problem.
Being and Nothingness: Hegel raised this issue and made it the beginning of his Encyclopedia, but Being and Nothing were both throught-forms. You have to read the Phenomenology to find out where they came from: they came from the real history of thought reflecting on itself; the Logic is the truth of the Phenomenology. And the Phenomenology begins with the history of reflective thought.
The Existentialists, as I see it, take their cue from Husserl, who is only dealing with forms of subjective thought. Hegel at least was dealing with real people and real history and objective thought-forms, however frustratingly idealistically. So when Heidegger and people go at these questions, they are only dealing with thought forms.
Pity that the word "ontology" lost its meaning about 50 years ago. We seem to have forgotten about it in its original meaning.
Does that help? Andy Martin Packer wrote:
Andy,I guess I'm being dense. Why is this THE fundamental question? and not the distinction between animate and inanimate, or the existence of the soul, or the meaning of being, or the distinction between being and nothingness, or...?Martin On Sep 22, 2009, at 8:13 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:Martin, indeed the argument about what characterizes living matter, as opposed to not-living matter, has a history. In my reading, it reached a peak and resolution in the late 19th century with Helmholtz's proof of the Conservation of Energy principle, considered proved when he refuted the idea of a "life force" by physical/chemical methods.But this is a question of a different order. The thing about consciousness and matter is that it is THE fundamental question, there is NO prior question. There is not a gradual emergence or transition or a multiplicity of intermediate stages or continual interchange of material at the categorical level. There are just two categories, well, one to begin with: consciousness, and its negation.It is true that what Lenin is doing is only stating the bleeding obvious, and in fact to "get" it, you just have to be prepared to settle that what is bleeding obvious is just that and not try to complicate it.How many times do you hear on this list claims like "Consciousness is material"? Usually not in an effort to reframe basic philosophical categories, but to make some point about the material preconditions and the basis of consciousness. Also, I think, a very obvious point.Lenin was working in the wake of the discovery of the range of quantum phenomena which said that the existence (or speed or position) of a material particle was dependent on its observation. Many people, including the physicists who discovered this amazing fact, took this to mean that the speed and position of thing in the material world depended on the consciousness of them. Consciousness act as a cause in the world perhaps, that is a different point. It is the idea that "electron x is in position p at time t" is a senseless statement, and has to be reformulated "I determined the position of electron x as p at time t". It is the action not the consciousness tied up with the action which determines the electron of course. The electron is ontological independent of my thought, but the determination of it is a material action, and a cause.But we get the same kind of problem with psychology. While continuing to reject the idea of thinking developing according to laws independent of the material world (I mean WHO makes such a claim??) we also reject the identity of thought with its material substratum, e.g., the idea that for every thought or memory there is a neuron somewhere storing that atom of consciousness, and so on. But even people like Antonio Damassio still theink the homunculus (now called the subject or "control centre") will be discovered any day now. And John R Sharpe who thinks that freedom rests on teh randomness of quantum transitions.Andy Martin Packer wrote:Andy,I agree with most of what you have said; I just don't see how it follows from what Lenin wrote. In this message you write "we cannot frame a concept of matter other than derivative from consciousness." I completely agree. Earlier you wrote "matter is what exists outside and independently of consciousness." I suppose that's one concept of matter that can be framed. I just don't think that it helps us understand either matter, or consciousness. Let me try an analogy. I suppose it would be possible to draw a categorical distinction between living and non-living matter. I don't know either the history of science or the history of philosophy well enough to name examples of the top of my head, but I would be willing to bet it's been done. One might even try to define the two: "non-living matter is what exists outside and independently of the life process," because it lacks a soul, or the life-spirit, or something. But such a definition would hinder more than it would help, because we now know (from scientific investigation rather than philosophy) that living matter emerged from non-living matter. We may not yet be clear on the details of the transformation (on the surface of asteroids? in shallow pools? in deep-sea vents?) and we may have a tough time defining the transformation (is something alive when it shows growth, or response to stimuli, or metabolism, or reproduction, or all of the above?), but it's clear it occurs. It follows, then, that non-living matter, inanimate matter, has the *potential* to give rise to, to transform into, life, animate matter. You say "if everything (even Cs) is matter, then matter is nothing." Would you also say "if everything (even life) is matter, then matter is nothing"? I don't see why. Life is a particular arrangement of matter, but that doesn't make matter nothing, it makes us see matter in a new light. In the same way, to say that Cs is material is to invite us, or demand of us, that we view matter (and Cs) in a new light. LVS devoted pages and pages of Crisis to debunking the idea that Cs is ideal, something separate from matter that requires a special type of investigation, separate from science. Perhaps one day it will seem a truism to say that Cs is material, but that certainly isn't the case today. I suspect that, as usual, we are more in agreement than disagreement, and are to some extent arguing past one another. Perhaps it's our different circadian rhythms!Martin On Sep 22, 2009, at 10:08 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:The issue is not at all to draw a line between science and philosophy. I stand by my original suggestion to Mike that "consciousness" should not be tied by definition to one of its particular grades, but had to be seen as a whole process. But a process of what? What process? So in fact to do good psychology you have to be clear about what it is that you are thinking about. You can call that philosophy if you like, or just doing good science.This means recognizing that you cannot stand outside of the world and look at matter and consciousness, any more than you can study thought under a microscope. You have to proceed from what you have: a thinking body.I say that your position is taking a God's eye view, and you can call it the standpoint of many years of experience if you like, it doesn't make any difference. But the claim to *know* that matter existed prior to consciousness *in time* has nothing to do with the necessity of deriving a concept of matter from a concept of consciousness *at the categorical level*. What is given to you is consciousness. If you know something, that means that it exists in your consciousness. To know is to be conscious of. So we cannot frame a concept of matter other than derivative from consciousness.This does not prevent us from then discovering that matter existed prior to consciousness and is reflected in consciousness. And it does absolutely nothing to prevent use from discovering exactly the material foundation for consciousness, and from moving on to the category of activity.We had to have Descartes before we could have Kant, or Hegel or Marx. (BTW, "substantia" Latin for "substance" does not at all mean what it is commonly taken to mean, and Descartes' claim that thought was a substance does not at all mean that it is some kind of stuff just like matter).What do you think? Andy Martin Packer wrote:Hi Andy,I've been trying to understand Lenin better by reading Althusser's commentary (perhaps not the smartest strategy!), and like you Althusser says that Lenin was drawing a distinction between philosophical categories and scientific concepts. The concepts scientists form about matter will change - and as you said, at the time that Lenin wrote MEC that was indeed the case, I assume with the discovery of electromagnetic radiation. The philosophical categories, such as matter and Cs, will not change. So this is Lenin's position, apparently. To me it seems to draw a strange line between science and philosophy, and treat the latter as though it were timeless. This might please Hegel, who considered philosophical thinking to have reached its zenith, after which it would no longer change. It might please Kant, who considered all reason, including that of the philosopher, to be universal and timeless. It seems to me (no philosopher!) simply false. Philosophical categories can and do change, in part influenced by science. I don't think of myself as arguing from a God's eye viewpoint. I think of myself as arguing on the basis of years of research by many scientists, research which has established beyond doubt (mine, at least) a general description of the formation of stars, planets, early forms of life, and the evolution of hominids. In this evidence-based description the material world existed prior to Cs. As a solitary individual I can be sure of very little. As a participant in a scientific community I can be sure of this, at least. Of course the concept of matter has changed greatly and will continue to do so. Matter in the C19 sense *did* cease to exist in the early C20. Indeed, we *need* a concept of matter that is rich enough to allow Cs as a possible material phenomenon. My original point was simply that although Lenin's statement may have served a helpful function at the time it was made, considered performatively I don't think it is a very useful starting point today. And one plug for Foucault (just to give you a sleepless night!): he (and Bourdieu and others) have increased my recognition that embodied Cs is important, and neglected. The kind of Cs that I am depending on when I ride a bicycle is often ignored by cognitive science yet it is essential to our daily lives, and it is surely a material kind of Cs.Martin On Sep 21, 2009, at 11:33 PM, Andy Blunden wrote:Apologies for my time zone, Martin, aggravated by lots of domestics this morning. Usually those in Europe and America are blissfully unaware of the roundness of the world, so believe me, I appreciate your frustration.You know, I would never quote Engels or Lenin unless I had to. As it happens Lenin is completely right on this point, even if he did boringly spin it out to sledgehammer weight. It was not without reason that Ilyenkov devoted a whole book to defending MEC in the 1970s, and had great difficulty getting it published inside or outside of the USSR.It is most important to recognize that what Lenin is talking about is consciousness as a *philosophical category*. Note that *matter* is simultaneously defined in the same way, and whatismore matter is defined as a category *derivative* of "consciousness"! How about that for philosophical materialism! Consciousness is what we are given immediately, and the idea of "matter" is derived from that, i.e., the conviction that something else exists. So we can't turn to Hegel for an answer to this question, because for Hegel *it is all thought*! "Being," for example, the starting point of the Encyclopedia, is a category of thought. Again, Hegel derives matter as a subcategory of Spirit, but only through the Matter/Form dialectic, not the Matter/Thought dichotomy. Nonetheless, it is absolutely ruled out that you can derive a "science of matter" or a "science of consciousness" (i.e. natural science or psychology) from these philosophical categories. Hegel on the other hand, tried to derive natural science from the concept of space, and he was wrong in that. Likewise in 1908, a lot of scientists and Bolsheviks were concluding that "natural science had proved that matter does not exist," and a whole lot of other rubbish which was causing havoc inside the Bolshevik Party suffering at the time from a period or repression and reaction.If you want a deconstructionist response to the question, then ask M. Derrida or M. Foucault exactly what exists "beyond the text" ... if anything.Random points.Lenin had not read Hegel or Kant in 1908, but he had been trained by Plekhanov who had read everything. Plekhanov was his teacher in philosophy. (BTW, Plekhanov was also one of LSV's teachers in philosophy I suspect)You say that LSV's claim that "consciousness is material" contradicts the claim that matter as a philosophical category is "that which exists independently of consciousness." The only way that I can interpret your meaning here is that you insist on interpreting the conceptual claim in "substantialist" terms. If you want to insist on concepts as names for things, then obviously clarity can never be achieved here. See Davydov.If I make a distinction been marble and statue, does that really prevent me from claiming that Michelangelo's David is marble? or a million such examples. A categorical distinction does not divide the universe into two groups of stuff or things.You are now claiming that Cs is material. OK, so my thought of the dollar in my pocket has no categorical difference from the dollar that may actually be in my pocket? Consult your Kant. Lenin was perfectly aware of the symmetry between his claim and Kant's and says that the difference, however, is that the thing-in-itself is continuously passing into appearance, rather than there being an impenetrable barrier between appearance and thing-in-itself (not the categories of course, but the content). Arguing here exactly along Hegelian lines, though it is certainly possible to argue with Lenin's philosophy on this as well as other points in the book.You say: "to write that material reality is what exists independently of Cs is really misleading." (NB, not "material reality, but matter - not the same at all) And OF COURSE we add that "Cs does not exist independent of material reality." This is Lenin, the philosophical materialist remember. But you kow, you can't argue this from God's eye view, looking down on human life from the heavens. Descartes had a point: how does he (Descartes) know that the material world exists? Only by means of consciousness. Now, you can start from a truth and argue your way into falsehood, but if you start from a falsehood - that you know (??) that the material world exists even without consciousness - then you cannot argue your way to truth.Enough. It is a difficult question, and one known to often lead to acrimony!! Andy --------------------------------------------------------------------------Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, Ilyenkov $20 ea_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca--------------------------------------------------------------------------Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, Ilyenkov $20 ea_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, Ilyenkov $20 ea_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.erythrospress.com/Classics in Activity Theory: Hegel, Leontyev, Meshcheryakov, Ilyenkov $20 ea
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