From: Howard Engelskirchen (howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM)
Date: Thu Feb 01 2007 - 08:57:27 EST
Hi Jurriaan, Thanks very much for this. Our respective approaches are much closer than I thought from your first post. We agree certainly that Marx had a critique of bad philosophy and this included all philosophical paths divorced from practice. On the "I'm not quite sure what you mean" paragraph below: What I'm getting at is what it is we use words like 'value' or or 'gravity' or 'capital' or 'electron' to refer to. Are we just referring to intellectual concepts that make sense of what we observe in our experience? You say value is unobservable but immediately say that Marx relates this to observable quantities, price, trading ratios, etc. (by the way what in the world do I observe when I observe a "rule of law"?!). My question is whether our use of value refers to a causally potent but unobservable structure of the world or whether it is just a concept. We have a tendency, I think, to use the word 'abstraction' to refer to ideas and concepts. By contrast I think we often 'abstract' to access, by means of reference, potent but unobservable structures. In part it's a question of how to cash out your commitment to unobservables. Can we distinguish between the concept of value, which occurs in the discipline of political economy, and value as a potent but unobservable structure of the ancient and modern world? For example, do you hold to that distinction here: >You cannot directly observe "value" as such, but you > can observe human valuations (prices, labour-hours, trading ratios, > preferences, the rule of law, moral conduct etc.). But experience and logic > can show that some concepts of value are better than others, in the given > case, i.e. have more explanatory power. You say value is unobservable, but that some concepts of it are better than others in that they have greater explanatory power. Does the concept of value refer or is value just an idea we have? If it does refer, do we use one word to variously refer to a variety of different given cases, or does the word refer to common elements in a variety of cases? >Well I cannot offer any easy "demarcation criterion" between science and > philosophy, I don't think any criteria exist to demarcate science from philosophy -- that's what it means for philosophy to be continuous with science. The demarcation problem troubles the distinction we want to draw between science and religion. There are no special philosophical problems that can be solved by recourse to a special set of philosophical tools or principles. There are problems that have traditionally engaged philosophers, and practitioners of any science typically confront them when they undertake foundational critique. Marx did so powerfully. >But really I think Marx himself was not > very concerned with the question of whether there was a knowable, > mind-independent world out there. He took that more or less for granted, he > was increasingly concerned with how to obtain knowledge about it. This is > clear from the second Thesis on Feuerbach: "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 of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality > or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely > scholastic question." One place Marx did not take the distinction for granted was his text on the Method of Political Economy: "the real subject remains outside the mind and independent of it." His suggestions there draw a clear distinction between the concepts we fashion and the things of the world, natural and social, we use them to refer to. If we ignore the distinction we make a muddle of those pages. His critique of Hegel turned on drawing the distinction. By the way, your second sentence in the paragraph immediately above is a classic statement of what is called 'the epistemic fallacy' -- ignoring the way the world is in favor of what we can know about the world. In other words you suggest Marx was concerned with epistemology, but not ontology. This has been a broadly dominant tendency of pretty much all modern philosophy, but not one I think Marx shared. The problem is that the way the world is likely determines what we can know about it, but not the reverse. It is true Marx did not explain all of the assumptions he made. Here's one: he speaks of the "inner laws of capital," or the "inner connection," or "framework," etc. "Inner" with respect to what? >It is true that all people operate with some metaphysical ideas, > including scientists. But I think it is morally wrong to force you own > metaphysical theory down other people's throats, this is a totalitarian idea > that could amount to spiritual rape. People are entitled to their own > metaphysical beliefs, just as they are entitled to criticize those beliefs. Ideas of any sort don't digest well jammed. But the metaphysical assumptions we inevitably make have no special status that people are entitled to. I have no entitlement to the metaphysical assumptions that underwrite my belief in flat earth theory. 'Entitlement' is not why imposing ideas by force is bad practice. What I make of metaphysical theories about unobservables, cause, etc., is subject to critique, revision and the test of practice like any others. We need to secure individual autonomy and how anyone fashions belief is part of that. But it is not a consequence of this that we need to put the theory of evolution in inverted commas for fear of committing spiritual rape. Beyond that Marx was pretty clear (also in the MPE, for one), that there is a spiritual dimension to the human experience that is distinct from the methods of science, and I agree with you that the struggle for socialism needs a full understanding of and respect for it. Thanks again, Howard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <adsl675281@TISCALI.NL> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 1:33 PM Subject: [OPE-L] Where "dialectical materialism" really comes from > In reply to Rakesh: > > I do not know anything about Z.A. Jordan's biography, I think he was a Pole > originally interested in maths, who branched out into sociology. His book on > diamat contains a lot of useful information but I think it is not always > accurate, and of course, a little bit dated nowadays. But his book > influenced me considerably in my student years. > > In reply to Howard: > > Do the real forces impelling the things of the world, including human > behavior, include unobservable entities not in themselves capable, even in > principle, of experiential or practical verification, but verifiable only in > their effects? > > Obviously I think so. The human mind is a good example of that. In e.g. > astronomy also, entities are not infrequently postulated the existence of > which is implied by what we know, even although we don't have a way yet of > verifying that. > > If so, that is, if verifiable experiment does not offer direct sensory > access to all of the causal forces actually operating in the world or in > human life, then how is access possible at all except in function of > theories which, insofar as they are at all complicated, become loosely > systems of one sort or another, e.g. the theoretical system of quantum > mechanics? > > Well, the theoretical extrapolation is still grounded at least to some > extent in observables. Scientific statements, in contrast to metaphysical > statements, are fallible statements (they could be wrong) and it is a > requirement that at least in principle they are testable in some way with > recourse to observables, even if currently we do not know how to do that > yet. Popper had a point with his "bold hypotheses" but his falsification > theory is wrong. Scientists do not mainly want to falsify theories, but > instead generate useable knowledge, i.e. they seek mainly to confirm > theories. Scientific statements are not necessarily falsifiable statements > but rather fallible statements. There is I think nothing wrong with > theoretical systems, indeed it can be a good thing if we are very systematic > about our theories rather than slap-dash and eclectic, though there is also > room for eclecticism, if we don't yet know exactly how to theorise something > systematically. I think Marx's critique is not directed at theoretical > systems per se, but at the processes by which they are built, i.e. how > generalisations are arrived at. What he objected to was speculatively built > theoretical systems with grand pretensions to the truth, ideological > distortions, linguistic concoctions, vacuous generalisations etc. > > I'm interested in > the reference to generalizations which go beyond verifiable experience as > being 'philosophical abstractions'. Does the phrase 'philosophical > abstraction' refer to concepts about the world only, say one ideological > form or another, or can it refer to unobservable causal structures that > function as forces impelling human or other natural behavior? > > I am not quite sure what you mean there. This is a tricky area, but I think > it is really precisely an area which Marx was concerned with in his > critiques. That is, the philosophers and political economists he was > concerned with often juggled with concepts and through this claimed to > arrive at the essence of unobservable structures. Yet he himself sifted > critically through the actual concepts people had used, and related this to > observable experience. You cannot directly observe "value" as such, but you > can observe human valuations (prices, labour-hours, trading ratios, > preferences, the rule of law, moral conduct etc.). But experience and logic > can show that some concepts of value are better than others, in the given > case, i.e. have more explanatory power. > > Notice I've asked a series of what seem to be philosophical questions. Yet > there is nothing in the questions themselves or even in the answers one > might be tempted to give to them that presupposes a commitment to any > philosophical effort at all other than one fully continuous with the > inquiries and methods of science. > > Well I cannot offer any easy "demarcation criterion" between science and > philosophy, and as I said I think Marx & Engels were a bit too hasty in > their dismissal of philosophising. Philosophy can free up your thinking and > have an emancipatory effect. It can produce a useful cross-fertilisation of > different scientific theories etc. Philosophy is often a meta-theory about > something, which can be useful. > > Rather than say Marx rejected the philosophical mode of inquiry, I'd be more > inclined to say that he foreshadowed today's sophisticated scientific > realism. > > Well, that's probably fair comment. But really I think Marx himself was not > very concerned with the question of whether there was a knowable, > mind-independent world out there. He took that more or less for granted, he > was increasingly concerned with how to obtain knowledge about it. This is > clear from the second Thesis on Feuerbach: "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 of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality > or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely > scholastic question." > > Dialectical materialism offered a grand cosmology that provided a secular > alternative to religious views. But this cosmology was largely metaphysical > as well, i.e. presented in advance of scientific evidence as an infallible > theory. It is true that all people operate with some metaphysical ideas, > including scientists. But I think it is morally wrong to force you own > metaphysical theory down other people's throats, this is a totalitarian idea > that could amount to spiritual rape. People are entitled to their own > metaphysical beliefs, just as they are entitled to criticize those beliefs. > Stalin and Mao saw religion as an obstacle to modernisation, and tried to > wipe it out. But in the process Marxism-Leninism became a state religion. > And now that Marxism-Leninism is largely gone, people revert to other > religions. Which is to say that modern humanists have not yet created a > satisfactory secular interpretation of human spirituality, or maybe even > fully understood the power of religion, i.e. the propensity of people to > sway or be persuaded by, other people's metaphysical beliefs. > > Regards > > Jurriaan
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