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

[Rauno Huttunen <rakahu@utu.fi>]

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] käyttäjän 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
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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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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