Re: [xmca] "Rising to the concrete"

[Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>]

On 15 August 2012 05:05, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Greg,
> Lenin's rising from the empirical to the universal is actually the
> /opposite /of rising from the abstract to the concrete.


I don't agree with this, although I haven't read Lenin.  The quote seems
fairly self contained though.


> This does not mean that Lenin was wrong or anything, because you will see
> in the excerpt from the Grundrisse that I sent that Marx is pointing to a/
> 2-phase/ movement: from the concrete of immediate perception to the
> abstract universal, and then, by reconstructing the process in thought,
> rising back from the abstract universal to the real concrete. Marx explains
> this in more readable terms than you find in either Lenin's gloss of
> Hegel's Logic or in the Logic itself.
>

I think your "abstract universal" is misplaced here, it is simply abstract
which is the same thing as an empirical observation, i.e. a measurement
which is an abstraction of the thing being measured.

Huw


>
> Also, when you read that excerpt of the Grundrisse, don't stop at the
> explanation of the two processes, read to the  end of the section, because
> there is a fine rendering by Marx of his critique of Hegel there and a
> foundation for activity theory.
>
> Andy
>
>
> Greg Thompson wrote:
>
>> Still in between boxes but came across this quote from Lenin today:
>> ‘In order to understand it is necessary empirically to begin
>> understanding,
>> study, to rise, from empiricism to the universal. In order to learn to
>> swim
>> it is necessary to get into the
>> water<http://www.marxists.org/**archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-**
>> logic/ch03.htm#LCW38_205<http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch03.htm#LCW38_205>
>> >
>> ’.
>> (found at:
>> http://www.marxists.org/**archive/pilling/works/capital/**pilling3.htm<http://www.marxists.org/archive/pilling/works/capital/pilling3.htm>
>> )
>>
>> and it reminded me of one of mike's favorite statements "rising to the
>> concrete." Yet Mike's phrase appears quite different. So Mike, if you're
>> out there, does your "rising to the concrete" bear any significant
>> relation
>> to Lenin's rising to the universal? They seem like very different
>> concepts,
>> no?
>>
>> -greg
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>
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