Lenin’s Tomb
And also to ignore health and safety regulations.
This blog's not been the same since 'tim' hasn't showed up. His pissy little posts followed by the purple-scented merde that you guys tipped on his head, was always worth a read late at night and before my oats in the morning. I think we should have phantom tims in order to keep the cauldron boiling. I'm not going to pretend I'm tim, but I think I'll put up tim-like posts so that you guys can sharpen your dialectrix.
So...something along these lines:
"If the young men of New Orleans had got themselves down to the army recruiting office, they wouldn't have been in New Orleans when the hurricane came, would they? So the superbowl would have been mostly empty and you marxists wouldn't have anything to moan about."
tim
Oh, fuck, doen't encourage him, the little bastard will probably be back. Anyway, I'm not a dialectrician, so I can't help you.
Oh yes, I remember your diatribe against dialectics some time ago. I thought we saw you off with our chats about feedback, reflexivity, determistic cause and effect theory and all that. Clearly not. You've still got a few rounds left in you, I see.
Does anyone here know anything about cookie handling in Firefox?
I accidentally cleared them out recently, and now the comments box cookie doesn't work. The page always tells me the total number of comments and that they're new.
I had a look at the cookie - it seems to update fine, and seems to contain the right data. Maybe it's not be - maybe it's the customise settings, which have their own cookies - maybe it's confusing things.
Anyway, anyone got any advice? 1.0.6 is the version.
tony - can't help you, but Max probably can.
isakovsky - I thought we saw you off with our chats about feedback, reflexivity, determistic cause and effect theory and all that.
I don't remember that, but I must say I feel it would be irrelevant to my case anyway. I'm not formally opposed to a totally reformulated 'dialectic', one which eschews the a priori assumptions about nature and the various ridiculous dictums about 'interpenetration of opposites' and all the rest. The best I can make of these is that they are metaphors, and they pertain to discourse not aspects of the natural environment or the social structure.
Fuck sake, it's Friday night, and I'm proceeding to get drunk - are you sure you want me yelling in your face about this all night? Phlegm doesn't travel over the internet, but VOLUME does.
Now, you see, that's my point exactly. What I write to you is affected by the writing of yours that I've read. And then you respond to my response. Dialectics. But if you want to get pissed, you get pissed.
Unusal for lenin to be answering posts on a Friday night. He's usually out dancing in a cage with Johann Hari in some funky club. Oh, I suppose it is a bit early for his lot; perhaps that's still up later...
"Fuck sake, it's Friday night, and I'm proceeding to get drunk"
HAHAHA YOU SIT ALONE BY YOUR COMPUTER ON FRIDAY NIGHTS YOU *SADDO*
Oh.
GFD - Me and Hari have long since been prised apart in our nuptials by that nutty little friend of his who thought I was being 'rude' about him.
Honestly. Tut tut.
Isakovsky - so, help me out, what does that have to do with the dialectic?
tony - if you name the pub and buy the pints I'll be there.
"tony - if you name the pub and buy the pints I'll be there."
Ah, I really do sit at home in front of the computer on a Friday night.
However, I shall take you up on that, maybe next week.
Well, I'm only going on what Voloshinov said on the matter in relation to language ie rather than assume that each utterance is somehow a thing unto itself, he argued that dialogue proceeds 'dialectically' a la 'interpenetration of opposites' or as I prefer to understand it, mutual influence. At one level, this is just common sense, but open most books of lit crit, or old-style linguistics, and the analysis frequently treats utterances as if they are unaffected by who is speaking, who is listening, who said what before the utterance. And that leaves out the matter of the relation between the speakers and the society they spring from. V. argued that the socio-economic situation reaches into every utterance, but of course, in infinitessimal but cumulative ways, the utterances reach back and affect the socio-economic situation. If all this is NOT dialectics, then we can come up with a different name: mutually affecting processes, or whatever...It's not the word i'm interested in, only trying to get away from mechanistic explanations for phenomena.
Fair dos, fair dos. In the meantime, I shall munch my crisps and drink lager with my non-drinking, non-crisp-eating partner. I bet I'm a real hoot to be around...
isakovsky - I still haven't read Voloshinov yet, *hangs head in shame*, but I feel confident about one thing:
The interpenetration of opposites is not the same as mutual influence. Of course I agree that there are things in reality that mutually influence one another, and discourse is part of that reality.
I don't quite see that one needs reference to dialectics to understand this - I think it's one of the most banally obvious things about life (this isn't an accusation of triviality on your part). It just so happens to be, and for this reason the dialectic is either tautological, painfully obvious and embarrassingly pedantic, or it elevates instances of reality to a priori certainties of life ("the law of the interpenetration of opposites") - that is, it is barely sublimated mysticism.
Mind you, I have changed my mind on this once before (with considerable difficulty and a feeling of sudden dread about the rest of my thoughts), so I could very well change it again.
I just wrote a juicy reply to this and your haloscunner shredded it. fekk yu and all yu that stand for.
I always copy my comments before posting them because of that problem. A properly ham-handed undialectical action, I feel.
Here is my proposal to save what's leftof New Orleans from FEMA and their band of corporate looters: FEMA Needs to Tell People What it Intends for Their Homes and my write up on what it means that Blackwater in in New Orleans, Black Water.
tony: it's not you, it's me. It's a bug in the template which has been fixed but the fix is yet to be uploaded -- will be shortly.
I told you he'd know. He always knows...
I note lenin didn't deny the bit about dancing in a cage with Johann Hari. Only that it doesn't happen anymore.
How many beers have you had, lenin? A merry amount? Or a pissed amount?
How you ever got massively pissed and then gone on a 24 hour trollathon?
Burt - Er, shutcher face or I'll smack all four of your cheeks until they glow like my neon prophylactic.
He didn't deny it again, you'll note.
Um, have you drunk much anyway? I've just started on a couple of bottles myself. It's a genuine question.
Whilst I am temporarily disabled from troll like activities, I shall inform the tome about my experience of watching the main US network news programmes this evening.
It's quite funny that they're gutted that the death toll looks like being less than expected. NBC nightly news framed it in a way that the government may not be telling us the whole truth. They said as a side note at the end of their report about the "deadly gasses in the water" something like: 'after initial sweeps the authorities say the death toll may be less than feared; but they still refuse to put a figure on it. Back to you....'
Head on a spike! Absolutely! It needs to be said. This is the only blog where I feel my own indignation is expressed adequately. Rock on!
Or at least, the only blog that is sufficiently indignant, AND doesn't then turn around and say people shouldn't demonstrate in Washington on 9/24 cause loonies from ANSWER organized it. Fuck you, John Aravosis!
Time to stop commenting, and go drink some liquor...
"possibly have his head put on a spike"
What you mean "possibly"?
I have one sharpened for the purpose!
As regards Brown; I think the deal is he will crawl off with his tail between his legs in the Fall, after hurricane season.
Kalkin: I hope it's some good sipping whiskey or cognac :-)
Lenin's Tomb
What you think of this project:
http://www.karmabanque.com/
Also check out Radio Truth top left.
isakofsky, Voloshinov is far too confused a theorist to draw any safe conclusions from his writings.
First, even though his work is supposed to be a contribution to the science of linguistics, you will find precious little evidence in his book, as opposed to a surfeit of a priori assertions.
Secondly, and to take one particuularly crass example, if Voloshinov were correct in asserting the following:
“The theme of an utterance is individual and unreproducible, just as the utterance itself is individual and unreproducible. The theme is the expression of the concrete, historical situation that engendered the utterance. The utterance “What time is it?” has a different meaning each time it is used, and hence, in accordance with our terminology, has a different theme, depending on the concrete historical situation (“historical” here in microscopic dimensions) during which it is enunciated and of which, in essence, it is a part” [Voloshinov (1973), p.99]
no one would be able to understand anything anyone else, or even they themselves, ever said. This is because the “microscopic dimensions” of each and every utterance must change while they are being uttered, as they must also do while they are being carried through the air to each and every hearer. In fact, no one would be able to grasp what Voloshinov himself meant without access to the “theme” of all he wrote in his book. But, since that “theme” is long gone, his writings should be incomprehensible to one and all.
The fact that his words are not meaningless suggests either that Voloshinov was wrong about “theme”, or “theme” can be stored on the page somehow. Metaphysical microdots, perhaps?
Thirdly, since “theme” is “unreproducible”, according to Voloshinov, it is not amenable to scientific study. In that case, the only clue we have to its existence is Voloshinov’s say-so - and how he knew it existed he forgot to reveal. Naturally, that just means that this idea has had to be imposed on reality, not read from it.
There are a host of other serious problems with his work, but they will do for starters.
[Incidentally, it was I who launched into the various weak-kneed 'dialecticans' who sometimes post here - lenin merely egged me on.]
The much criticised Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has given its first big reconstruction contracts to firms that employ former FEMA head and Bush buddy Joseph M Allbaugh as a lobbyist. The Shaw Group announced on Friday that FEMA had given the firm a $100 million cost-plus reconstruction contract. The Shaw Group emphasised their local links – they are based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana . However, the Shaw group also hired former FEMA boss as a lobbyist this July. The Lobbying registration, which was given to the Senate on 5th August 2005, only weeks before Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, says the Shaw group has hired the Allbaugh Company to “educate the congressional and executive branch on various energy, homeland security and disaster relief issues that affect the Shaw group”
http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/o...282/
000282456|2
Allbaugh did not have significant disaster management experience when made head of FEMA, but he had been George Bush’s election campaign manager in 2001. Allbaugh appointed his college buddy Michael Brown as his deputy. Brown became head of FEMA when Allbaugh left to form his own lobby company in 2003. Brown has since been taken off the New Orleans emergency work in disgrace, but he was in the management seat when the Shaw Group won its contract.
The award of the contracts is reminiscent of the “Iraq Reconstruction” contract awards. As in Iraq they are no-bid contracts open to cronyism and corruption. There is a strong argument FEMA should not award these contracts – they are disaster relief agency, not a reconstruction agency. Similarly the Iraqi reconstruction contracts were awarded by Army agencies with little reconstruction experience, resulting in poor oversight which allowed contractors to misbehave.
The Shaw contract puts the firm in charge of New Orleans vulnerable homeless people . They will not only be building housing, but also become the central administration for the “refugees”. As well as building shelters Shaw "will also provide administrative services to register displaced residents housed at emergency shelters in multiple locations in Texas and other impacted areas". As suspicions emerge that business and political interests will use the hurricane devastation to “cleanse” central New Orleans of its poor people, the Shaw Group could become the instrument for this social engineering. The Shaw Groups stock price, which had been falling due to disappointing results, jumped for $16 to $33 thanks to the contract win for New Orleans.
The Shaw Group also recently hired another powerfully connected lobbyist. Andrew Lunquist , who was previously Dick Cheney’s assistant and the man behind the US vice President’s “Energy Taskforce”.
http://sopr.senate.gov/cgi-win/o...231/
000231107|2
Meanwhile ex FEMA head Allbaugh is now also a lobbyist for Cheney’s old firm, Kellogg Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton
http
Well, one thing which can be said for dialectics is that if you find yourself in a room full of analytical liberal philosophers (which I often do I'm afraid) and the bastards are talking are talking about... well whatever it is that Rawlsians talk about (I tend to glaze over)- peppering your speech with references to dialectical interaction or somesuch thing is very very entertaining. The buggers don't know what to do.
Rosa,
I'm going to be impenetrably dense and ignorent here. But I just happen to be reading about the development of the Marathi language in western India under colonialism in the 19th century and the way in which the transformation wrought by its hierarchical encounters with English both reflected and inadvertantly produced enourmous social unheavels within the society.
Translation did come across problems very much like that which you predict in the absence of theme and it is indeed, VERY difficult, reading texts written before this period, for anybody, Marathi-speaking or not, to be fully sure of the sense of words, a rather pleasing thing, given enourmous controversies which emerge later and still persist on these meanings, which provide the stuff of many contemporary ideological conflicts around issues of language, history, identity and social hierarchies.
Similarly I am utterly unsure that we don't confront similar problems when we read our own language written after a space of time. Historians are very familiar with this kind of problem (hence problems of 'anachronism', 'presentism' etc which I would argue are particularly deep in parts of the world were modernity was imposed from without: concretely thats why such absurd nonsense can be written about Islam)
Again, I'm ignorent of Voloshinov (though I've read him, I can't claim to have really grasped him) and of the context of your discussion. But I'm very sceptical about arguments which posit a problem of translation as evidence against a proposition. There ARE problems of translation. We come across them all the time (at least if we are students of social change, transformation and struggle).
Probably completely at a tangent. Marathi as an example is fascinating because the modern grammers on proper usage were written by the British (and the dictionaries thus written up not only attempted to allow for translations but represented attempts at reform of social ontology, meaning etc). As one author not unsympathetic to Marxism puts it when confronted with Marxist hostility to these kinds of enquiries linking changes of language to social change 'it just seems like common sense to do so'.
Oh and I suspect that meaning does indeed fade. And I even suspect that there are controversies about the interpretation of Volisinov's work related to this. The controversy about his identity for instance. If you think he was Bakhtin that would no doubt lead you to reassess the meaning of his text, its place within the development of structuralism etc, which might even lead to differences in sense of the text. Lack of knowledge about what I would call the context of an author does indeed create difficulties (and opportunities) for occassionally creative (mis)appropriations. Certainly I think any theory which denies this is useless for the historian of ideas.
Oh and sorry. Soma and manna are good examples.
Thanks for those comments johng; I recognise the difficulties that translators have rendering ancient languages into modern English (etc.); nothing in my post can be interpreted as denying this.
My point was to question the obscure notion that Voloshinov introduced, "theme" - which you must not take to mean what you ordinarily mean by your use of the typographically similar word "theme" - he 'defines' this typographically similar word in a most confused way - as the "object" of an utterance, as the "meaning" of that utterance (and it is not too clear whether he means a token utterance or a type utterance here - either way, such meanings for Voloshinov are liable to change faster than the wind), and yet also as *different* from its meaning - as well as a host of other incompatible things.
Whatever problems we have with translation (and, as I said, I do not deny these), they are surely made worse by appealing to an incoherent theory.
As far as meaning change goes, I do not deny this either; only for Voloshinov meaning or "theme" lasts for, perhaps, nanoseconds (this depending on how you interpret his phrase "microscopic dimensions").
Now anyone who thinks that will have their own thoughts altered before they finish uttering them. End of story.
[Anyone who doubts this will need to revise those doubts about as fast as their own meaning of the words "doubt", "meaning", "change", "theme" and "word" change.]
Ed, thanks for those comments, as well - but I avoid Rawlsians, too.
I have to say, though, that as incoherent as they are, they are models of clarity compared to 'dialecticans'.
Thanks for the clarifications. I wonder though, lost as I am in a thicket of discussions about the different functions of vernacular languages and what have recently been redescribed as 'cosmopolitan' languages (ie Latin, Sanskrit etc), and further debates about whether vernacularisation as historical process always and everywhere is accompanied by less hierarchical functions (as argued in literature on the renaissence etc) whether it might not be that someone like Volosinov was'nt really engaging with different kinds of problems to the ones which contemporary analytical discussions of language deal with: My vague and complete ignorence of the Prague structuralists does'nt help here but is'nt it the case that treating of differences in the forms of literature, might not be a different problem field then a philosophical literature which emerges out of problems connected to what the unit of meaning is?
I could be completely barking about this, but I just wonder whether there might not be problems in imagining that Volosinov was'nt dealing with a different set of problems. However I would emphasis that, my silly and well known examples at the end excepted, nothing that I wrote was to do with problems of deciphering 'ancient languages'.
In the example I gave the difficulty would be deciphering the meaning of the word 'Maratha' (is it simply a description of one who fights, anyone who speaks marathi, a particular Caste, or on the other hand one who 'feels the joys and sorrows of Maharashtra', a region now a state) over a period less then two hundred years. More then this the emergence of the modern sense of regional identity as well as the modern sense of caste occurs over this period and is absolutely suffused with conflicting social content.
In other words obscurity aside, we're not dealing with a problem for antiquarians. Its a problem of contemporary politics. Rather amazingly philosophers interested in problems of translation feel the need to make up examples about rabbits and stages. They might just look around at real examples all around them. The difficulty is that these examples are so deeply contested, so deeply controversial, so bound up with social change (and indeed their own everyday life) that they are not clean enough to discuss. So they construct an imaginary pure world where problems of translation are counter-intuitive as opposed to the real world they and we inhabit were it is everywhere, all the time, both at the level of different languages, different theories, different ideologies etc, and usually resolved by force.
It might, in other words, not be a problem with untidiness it might be a problem with the uselessness of their catagories. Recognising this, ignorent as I am, I'm loath to throw the baby out with the bathwater with Volosinov even if his language occassionally lacks precision, he makes a logical mistake, or passes the wine the wrong way at high table etc. I'm even a bit cautious about th
Part 2
I'm even a bit cautious about the idea of dialectic which might be redescribed as 'a case for a concept' rather then a fully developed argument.
J.
Latest from the Land of the Free: you now need to apply for a police permit>/b> if you want to take part in a demonstration, and the media are not forbidden to cover the event.
Really: What's the right word for this, if "creeping fascism" won't do?
-------------------------------------
Freedom Walk Interlopers Threatened With Arrest
Friday September 09, 2005 5:20am
Arlington, Va (AP) - Anyone who joins Sunday's Nine-Eleven memorial Freedom Walk without registering could be arrested.
Pentagon officials tell The Washington Post that the route from the Pentagon to the Mall will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing. US Park Police will keep out interlopers. Hundreds of officers will patrol the route on foot, horseback, motorcycles and in a helicopter.
Park Police Chief Dwight Pettiford says anyone who joins the march or the subsequent concert on the Mall without a permit and refuses to leave will be arrested. The media also won't be allowed to join walkers on the route.
Police have approved a permit from a small group of protesters that plans to stand along Independence Avenue.
Walkers have until 4:30 p.m. Friday to register online at www.asyfreedomwalk.com. There is no walk up registration.
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories...905/
258737.html
"I could be completely barking about this, but I just wonder whether there might not be problems in imagining that Volosinov was'nt dealing with a different set of problems."
Well you could be right, but since Voloshinov is so hoplessly confused I rather think that not even he could have told you the answer to that one.
I note your comment about rabbits - a reference to Quine, no doubt. I will not try and defend such ideas since I do not share them.
However, it's not as if Voloshinov is making simple errors over language; they are gross and systematic. I'll post something on this at my site when I finally get it up and running (!)
Anyone who reads his work hoping to gain insight into how language works would be better off reading the entire London Telephone Directory, in my view.
His book is only read today because it's just about the only classic text we have in Marxism (and because it gestures at 'dialectics').
Marxist theory of language is still stuck in the 17th century (no exaggeration).
This is not to slur Marxism; most theories of language are still stuck in that century (despite their air of sophistication).
Oh fuck, fucking html. Apologies again. Only "police permit" was supposed to be in bold type. I thought it deserved it.
Note that this is NOT referring to the usual requirement to register a demonstration. Each participant is required to register separately, in advance, and no one is allowed to join the march spontaneously. And the press is barred.
Apologies to everyone else for being so off topic and wankerish. But I'm interested in this. I agree with you Rosa about the 17th century comment. Yes the reference was to Quine but its a reference to a whole way of doing philosophy.
Here's a question though. Frege famously talked about Sense and Reference. Less famously he talked about 'colour'. The first two terms are argued endlessly about but the third he hardly mentioned again as it was'nt relevent to mathamatics or logic. He seemed to be referring to associations conjured up in the mind (subjective 'ideas' as opposed to objective 'thoughts').
Perhaps the plunge into aesthetics (poetics etc) we see with the Prague Structuralists, and which has such a big impact on contemporary literary theory is an exploration of this area which neccessarily cuts against the anti-psychologism of a tradition interested in objective clear 'thoughts' as opposed to subject fuzzy 'ideas'.
And perhaps the alliance with various related varieties of post-modernism one see's in some contemporary social theory speaks to the limitations of theories of meaning of the kind Frege laid the foundations for, in relation to social theory, whatever one thinks of the ultimate use of such post-modernism.
For certainly the 'idea' of an association between Maratha and 'fighter' and 'salty' and 'soil' (by the late 19th century an association with agriculturalists had come into vogue) is very, very important in any understanding of the rhetoric of the parochial, chauvinist, and some would say fascist movement I study. And some theory which allows you to chart the emergence of these 'ideas' would be very important in any analyses of this ideology.
Its also true of the content of the ideologies of backward caste movements so central to contemporary Indian politics. Social theory in the analytic mode proceeds as if the meanings of these 'ideas' is unimportant. Neccessarily that literature is then utterly irrelevent to engaging in any speices of serious ideology critique of that language.
Sorry to refer back so closely to my own obscure interests but for me philsophy should have a purpose. And if the mainstream tradition has literally NOTHING to say about these questions I have to ask myself what exactly it claims to be elucidating.
Warszawa,
Fucking unbelievable. Or rather too believable. I actually think that the left should also be throwing everything they have into the mobilisations of New Orleans refugee's about gaining control of rebuilding. I suspect it would be harder for the State to do this to them. But hell, they've got Move On to do it for them..
johng,
Yes, but how long will that take? How big an investment of time and energy? And what else will be happening in the meantime? One of the main problems for the left is deciding which particular outrage to focus its own and other peoples' attention on. Because Iraq is still going on, and there will be plenty more outrages to come.
That's why 9/11 is still the mother issue. Because it's the Bush Gang's main strength, and also their Achilles heel. And it's the main reason they're still in power. And they are lying their arses off about it, as they lie (with impunity) about everything.
On second thoughts, johng...
I finally got around to watching that Fox News video.
Outrageous. Just fucking outrageous. It should be compulsory viewing. It should be running non-stop until the Bush Gang is in jail.
Six days. People dying, bodies left to rot, the help kept out and the people kept in. The Bush Gang was demonstrably guilty of premeditated mass murder in New Orleans. They are not above murdering their own population. That's proven. They did it in plain sight. (There's your compelling proof, Lenin. There it is on video.)
And the fucking Democratic Party was an accessory to it.
Surely the priority for the left, everywhere, is clear? Those bastards have to be tried for murder at the earliest opportunity. The truth about 9/11, whatever it exactly is, would come out in the same trial.
Thousands of people - including one of the few honourable Democrats, Cynthia McKinney - have now been pointing out for years that if the Bush Gang got away with 9/11 then they could get away with anything. Those people were laughed at, threatened and vilified. Then the Bush Gang got away with Iraq. Now they're getting away with New Orleans. (Oh yes they are.)
What will we let them get away with next?
WORK FOR THE IMPEACHMENT OF THE BUSH GANG.
War on the Poor. Read all about it in the Washington Post:
Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Sep. 9, 2005 at 10:48AM
http://www.washtimes.com/upi/200...12433-
4907r.htm
And look at this:
Bush to Governor Blanco: He'll send the troops but only if they answer to the White House
http://
www.democraticunderground...ess=104x4715924
SEPTEMBER 11 2005: IMPEACH THE BUSH GANG NOW.
johng:
"Here's a question though. Frege famously talked about Sense and Reference. Less famously he talked about 'colour'. The first two terms are argued endlessly about but the third he hardly mentioned again as it wasn’t relevant to mathematics or logic. He seemed to be referring to associations conjured up in the mind (subjective 'ideas' as opposed to objective 'thoughts')."
I am sorry, but I couldn't see a question here.
Perhaps this will help: Frege wanted to provide a secure foundation for mathematics (beginning with arithmetic) but he found that language (as he saw it) was hopelessly vague when it came to the precise formulation of a definition of number.
According to Frege (but I agree with him on this) previous philosophers and theorists had tackled the nature of language in ways that made it impossible to give an 'objective' (this word in his sense) account of mathematics. So he in fact repudiated such 'subjectivist' views of language.
However, he introduced several new ideas to redress this problem, one being his 'context principle' (which seems to me to be largely correct, and far more important than the over-hyped sense and reference distinction you mention): never ask for the meaning of a word except in the context of a sentence.
He did this to counter atomistic (i.e., 17th century) ideas about meaning which regarded words as linguistic atoms that gained their meaning on their own (as sort of surrogate bourgeois individuals - hence the invention of this idea in the 17th century), in isolation from their use in sentences. Wittgenstein took this notion over and pushed it much further.
However, I think Frege would have been one of those who attacked postmodernism.
As to the point of philosophy, I do not think it has any. I think it is a totally useless pursuit - as Wittgenstein argued, its only claim to fame being the building of "castles in the air".
It was invented by aristocratic Greek thinkers who were concerned to provide the world with an a priori rational structure in order to give rationales for the power of those who patronised them. [This is one of the main themes of my thesis on this topic.]
Not much has changed since. Hence, as a radical Marxist myself, one of my aims is to help bring and end to philosophy - to smash it, not reform it.
Far too many Marxist are depressingly conservative when it comes to doing philosophy, content to copy traditional forms-of-thought.
Small wonder then that the ideas of the ruling class still rule (but, of course, that is not the only reason)- and these ideas with its associated jargon dominate Marxist Philosophy too - but this is done by consent on the part of 'radical' thinkers keen to emulate age-old thought forms.
Hence, we have the philosophical equivalent of reformism in Marxist philosophy.
That should help explain my implaccable hostility toward 'dialectics'.
The latter part of my last post should read:
"Small wonder then that the ideas of the ruling class still rule (but, of course, that is not the only reason)- and these ideas with its associated jargon dominate Marxist Philosophy too - but this is done by consent on the part of 'radical' thinkers keen to emulate age-old thought forms.
Hence, we have the philosophical equivalent of reformism in Marxist philosophy.
That should help explain my implacable hostility toward 'dialectics', a theory invented by a Hermetic thinker of the worst kind - Hegel.
Doh: third time lucky, it should read:
"Small wonder then that the ideas of the ruling class still rule (but, of course, this is not the only reason) - and these ideas with their associated jargon dominate Marxist Philosophy too. However, the latter is achieved with the unwise consent of 'radical' thinkers keen to emulate age-old thought forms.
Hence, we have the philosophical equivalent of reformism in Marxist philosophy.
That should help explain my implacable hostility toward 'dialectics', a theory invented by a Hermetic thinker of the worst kind - Hegel.
China, there's a review of your book on law over at Rob's place (in case you didn't know):
http://pashukanis.blogspot.com/
``Hence, we have the philosophical equivalent of reformism in Marxist philosophy.''
``That should help explain my implacable hostility toward 'dialectics'
Hm... I never associated ``dialectics'' with reformism. Please explain.
Well, by adopting the jargon, methods and assumptions of traditional philosophy - and simply flavouring this noxious brew slightly - Marxist philosophers have merely reformed traditional ruling-class forms of thought. In the event *it* has shaped their thinking (whence the sectarianism found throughout Marxism, and its legendary lack of success - indeed, dialectics has been "tested in practice" and found wanting), not the other way round.
That is why I drew an analogy with political reformism, and asserted that Marxist Philosophy is disconcertingly conservative.
These forms have dominated philosophy since Greek times. They share a number of features:
1) The idea that reality is rational.
2) The belief that substantive truths about reality can be derived from words alone (Linguistic Idealism).
3) An elitist denigration of ordinary, material language (which had been invented by workers as they interfaced with reality and with each other), and common understanding.
4) An acceptance that there are ‘secrets in nature’ ('essences’ hidden beneath the surface of ‘appearances’) that philosophy alone can uncover.
5) The invention of specialised jargon (which is impossible to explain) because ordinary material language will not allow certain 'philosophical insights' to be formulated. Greek thinkers began this tradition; Hegel merely perfected it.
6) A belief that the mind can form abstract ideas that somehow mirror essential features of reality, and that miraculously we can all agree on what these are. [Incidentally, I am not objecting to the ordinary, non-metaphysical use of the word “abstraction”.]
There are other major strands, but these will do. [I substantiate all of the above assertions in full in my thesis.]
Dialectics shares with traditional thought these features (despite the bogus 'inversion' dialecticians allege that they have performed on Hegel's system). It only adds to this its own brand of third-rate thesis-mongering to make things worse – all imposed on reality, contrary to what is usually claimed.
The aim of Marxist theory should be to destroy these forms of thought not occupy them and reform them from the 'inside', as it were. Marx certainly thought along these lines in his early work, even if he drifted away from this clear view of the situation later on.
Two quick refs: on the subject of relief in the aftermath of Katrina, the redrave blog has some good suggestions involving Venezuelan oil:
http://www.redrave.blogspot.com
Re dialectics, everyone should read Bertell Ollman's 'Dance of the Dialectic', especially the middle section called 'Dialectical Investigations'. It's an extremely accessible introduction to the subject that shows how dialectics is absolutely essential to Marxism:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollm...llman/
index.php
PS - by 'the middle sections' I mean especially chapter five of Ollman's book, which is online at the site I posted. Well worth the hour or so of reading time...
Rosa:
Well, risking to make a complete ass (or was it ars?) of myself – a few remarks (and I would be interested in your thesis, of course).
1) This sounds like plain tautology to me. Our only yardstick for rationality is reality, so rationality has to conform to reality, which makes reality rational, if not necessarily pleasant.
2) That’s new to me and certainly doesn’t sound “Marxist”.
4) I would seem to me that appearances and essences really are different. It’s bloody obvious that the sun moves around me and my home town, I can see that. But if I want to predict the movement of Mars around me, it makes eminent sense to assume for a while that I and Mars evolve around the sun and, after finishing the calculations, revert to normal mode of “sun evolves around me and Mars too, but in a rather funny way”.
5) and 3) sort of seem to go together, if I’m not missing something (very probable). Jargon is a fact in all branches of human activity, so why not in the activity of thinking about one’s place in the world? Which of course isn’t a defence of Obscure Jargon.
6) I’d have thought lumberjacks “form abstract ideas that somehow mirror essential features of reality” and then “miraculously …all agree on what these are”, so why couldn’t or shouldn’t people trying to get to grips with more general aspects of the world?
Hope you get your homepage quick so I can embarrass myself in more private quarters.
Re (4): Well, Tom, maybe we should stick you on an asteroid, and see what is obvious to you then. (Ducks head behind parapet :-)
Tony: that bug should be fixed now. Can you confirm?
tom, thanks for those comments.
1) As far as rationality is concerned, the word applies to agents, not things. Hence the idea that reality is rational is anthropomorphic in the extreme. Our only guide to rationality, of course, is ourselves. That is an eminently humanist, Marxist idea.
2) Well, I was asserting this of dialectics, not Marxism. In my thesis I have at least twenty pages of quotes from the classics to support this assertion. It is so widespread, few notice it. It's like the wallpaper.
Here are few excerpts [DM = Dialectical Materialism]:
“For instance, in his Notebooks Lenin attempted to derive the entire dialectic from a single sentence like “John is a man” [Philosophical Notebooks, p.359]. On such a laughably weak foundation Lenin was quite happy to erect several tall stories, claiming to know what must be the case for all of reality, for all of time. The fact that “John” is said to be identical with all men - when he is plainly different from them - is supposed to imply that all things are contradictory and all things are unities of opposites. John’s impressive fictionality should, of course, not prevent us from seeing universal, omnitemporal truths concealed beneath his imputed manhood….
“All DM-theorists do likewise; first they disarm the reader with an open declaration that their version of DM has not been imposed on reality (their favourite way of making this point is to say that dialectics is not “a royal road to truth”) -, which they admit would make it a form of Idealism -, merely read from it. Then, sometimes on the same page, or the next paragraph, or even in the very next sentence, they proceed to do just that, claiming this or that DM-thesis is true throughout all of space, and for all of time. For example, Engels felt bold enough to claim that “Never anywhere has there been matter without motion, nor can there be…. Matter without motion is just as inconceivable as motion without matter. Motion is therefore as uncreatable and indestructible as matter itself” [Anti Dühring, p.74]. Exactly how Engels knew this to be so he sadly kept to himself. Similarly, Lenin felt moved to “demand” that nature be regarded dialectically because reality works this way: “Dialectical logic demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should be taken in development, in ‘self-movement’” [Lenin: ‘Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation And The Mistakes Of Comrades Trotsky And Bukharin’, reprinted in Lenin On The Question Of Dialectics (1980), p.90]. Naturally, the only conclusion possible here seems to be that either the word “imposed” meant something different in Lenin’s day, or he was taking the dialectical piss….
“….Engels’s claim that all motion is contradictory was based solely on a verbal trick he copied from Hegel -, which the latter lifted from Zeno -, and which is one that has been dutifully reproduced by subsequent dialecticians. No experimental evidence is adduced in support of this ‘analysis’ (nor could there be; no matter how accurate the instrument, or how careful the observation, no object could be shown to be in two places at the same instant, merely in two places during the same interval); all we are given is an unbelievably thin ‘conceptual’ argument about what moving bodies must do, a series of claims predicated on an extremely narrow and idiosyncratic interpretation of what words like “move”, “place” and “same time” - and prepositions like “in” - must mean. Once again, from the alleged meaning of a few words we get universal and eternally true ‘scientific’ theses. On a similar basis, of course, Darwin could have derived his entire theory from the meaning of the word “evolution”, and saved himself the bother of having to find any evidence in support….
“In like manner, Trotsky tried to criticise the universal applicability of the LOI with an alarmingly brief consideration of his own mis-description of it, having confused it with the principle of equality and with a perfunctory thought experiment involving bags of sugar! Indeed, he was quite open about his own apparently semi-divine knowledge: “[A]ll bodies change uninterruptedly in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves…. [T]he axiom ‘A’ is equal to ‘A’ signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does not change, that is, if it does not exist…. [this] is established not by formal logic…, but by the dialectical logic issuing from the axiom that everything is always changing…” [In Defence of Marxism, pp.64-65]. Once again, exactly how Trotsky knew that bodies are never equal to themselves he left his readers to guess. Nevertheless, he did inadvertently give the dialectical game away: an axiom can be read from nature only if reality is Ideal; otherwise, as noted above, it has to be foisted on it….”
There are literally scores of other examples.
4) I am not arguing that all things are exactly as they appear, only that the metaphysical thesis that appearances and reality are always different is a clear an example of the denigration of our material experience of the world. [Only idealists will be happy with this.] In that case, religious nuts, mystics and assorted idealists can sell us all manner of tall stories about reality. About 10% of my thesis (it is now over 600,000 words long!) is devoted to showing how any why this is conducive to ruling-class ideas about reality, ones that alter between modes of production, but which share the features I listed.
However, your example of the earth and the sun is interesting in view of the fact that I established in an earlier discussion at this board that ever since the work of Einstein it is possible regard any reference frame in reality as stationary (including the earth). Sure it makes our Physics more difficult, but who says nature should make allowances for the morale of Physicist? Hence, common sense is now supported by relativity. [In that earlier post (in response to a couple of comrades (and others) who challenged me on this) I provided several references and quotes from the works of modern-day physicists - Nobel laureates, no less - to support this claim.]
But in general, no scientist can afford to undermine appearances; if they did they would not be able to trust their experiments, their own writings or those of others.
5) I am not complaining about jargon as such, only the confused and impenetrable rubbish traditional philosophers spout. I spent a lot of time in my thesis exposing this aspect of philosophical crap. Dialecticians have merely copied this ruling-class tradition. “Being” is a good example. What the hell does that mean? “Totality”, what the f*** is that? “Contradictions” in reality? Give me a break. “Unity of Opposites” – stop it! I can’t take any more….
6) I specifically said I was not questioning the ordinary use of the word “abstract”. I rather doubt, however, whether the lumberjacks you mentioned will ever reduplicate the mystical doctrines found in, say, Plato. But even if they, did they would be making illegitimate moves (and ones easy to expose), for such abstract ideas would lose their own generality (they are supposed to be universals). Abstraction turns predicates and relational terms into the names of abstract *particulars* (this is linked in with Hegel’s confusion of the “is” of identity with the “is” of predication: so “John is a man” becomes “John is identical with manhood”, or “…the class of men”, or “…Man”, with “identical” naming the identity relation, producing three names in a row: “John Identity Man”), thereby destroying the capacity language has for expressing generality. In that case, philosophical/metaphysical abstractions destroy the sense of any ‘proposition’ in which they occur, turning them into to lists. Again, I spend considerable space in my thesis establishing this fact.
You can
You can find a few more details on this at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Tal...cal_materialism
There, my very good friend (LevD) has posted a few more comments (in the bottom 2/3rds of the page).
Scott, thanks for the reference. I have just got hold of that book (and I have read about 2/3rds of it so far, including the sections you suggested), but I have to say that it contains yet more a priori and traditional thesis-mongering.
As I noted above, all dialecticians copy these thought-forms. The same is true of Ollman.
It is not easy to spot (most people can't see it even when it is pointed out to them) - except that everyone does it! So, you get a few pages of 'argument', and then bingo - out of the hat jump substantive truths about reality. No need for expensive experiments or data - truths straight from the armchair in the comfort of your own mind. It's so easy, practically anyone with a flair for jargon, and who is good at the blarney, can do it.
This is exactly how *their* ideas rule our movement. In that case, Ollman is just another philosophical *reformer*.
Rosa, whilst I do not entirely dispute what you are saying about the influence of bourgeois philosophy on Marxism, but this must be understood as natural. Because of course ideas arise in a particular material context, and as such are shaped by the material conditions in which they were first developed:
"2) The belief that substantive truths about reality can be derived from words alone (Linguistic Idealism)."
Second Thesis on Feuerbach anyone?
"3) An elitist denigration of ordinary, material language (which had been invented by workers as they interfaced with reality and with each other), and common understanding."
Firstly, the complexity of a particular theory is only going to as complex as that which it studies, if we assume that reality is fairly complex it may need particular terminology to describe it. Secondly, this difference in language is a function of the division of labour, and actually existing material *fact*; I mean look at an electrical repairman and compare him to a kitchen porter; one will certainly have more specialised language than the other. This is a tendency that probably should be fought against, but remember that simplification can also lead to error.
"4) An acceptance that there are ‘secrets in nature’ ('essences’ hidden beneath the surface of ‘appearances’) that philosophy alone can uncover."
Well we certainly know that *ordinary* sense perception doesn't *always* reflect what is really going on, otherwise what we think about capitalism is entirely falsified, plus I don't think Marxists view the unravelling of 'essences' as a task of philosophy, but rather as the task of a scientific, materialistic philosophy (where philosophy if merely understood to mean outlook/view on the world.)
"If the essence and appearance of things directly coincided, all science would be superfluous" - do you disagree with that?
"5) The invention of specialised jargon (which is impossible to explain) because ordinary material language will not allow certain 'philosophical insights' to be formulated. Greek thinkers began this tradition; Hegel merely perfected it."
Division of labour.
"6) A belief that the mind can form abstract ideas that somehow mirror essential features of reality, and that miraculously we can all agree on what these are."
If it isn't true that the mind can understand reality, what chance does any revolutionary project have?
And on dialectics I think most people have moved away from Engels' schematic 'three laws' model. And instead prefer to look at a dynamic, interconnected whole, with fluid, reciprocal causation and interaction where change is acheived through conflict.
Incidentally, LOI above is short for "Law of Identity".
Rob, thanks also for your comments. You clearly wrote your post before you read my latest post. Many of your worries are answered there.
Your first point is important. We have to be clear about ideas that derive from a material interaction with the world (mediated to us via ordinary language, not theoretical language) and those that derive from the ideal interests of the enemy class. In that sense, all traditional philosophy (barring trivial examples) is expressive of ruling-class ideology. It’s terms and forms-of-thought have not been generated from such a material interaction.
Clearly, there isn’t the space here to go into this in detail – I devote nearly 100,000 words to this in my thesis.
2) “Second Thesis on Feuerbach anyone?” Sorry, you have lost me here.
3) I am not objecting to scientific theory. Hence, much of what you say is not relevant to the point in hand.
4) “Well we certainly know that *ordinary* sense perception doesn't *always* reflect what is really going on, otherwise what we think about capitalism is entirely falsified, plus I don't think Marxists view the unravelling of 'essences' as a task of philosophy, but rather as the task of a scientific, materialistic philosophy (where philosophy if merely understood to mean outlook/view on the world.)”
And how do we know this except by trusting our senses?
"If the essence and appearance of things directly coincided, all science would be superfluous" - do you disagree with that?”
It is too vague and confused to assess. It contains at least one meaningless term “essence”.
5) “Division of labour.”
Agreed. *They* think up new ways - and invent mystical ideas - to try to fool and bamboozle us; workers do the important work (and we should reflect their experience in our theory, not that of the enemy class). I merely object to Marxists joining the class enemy (or rather, their “prize-fighters”), perpetuating this.
6) “If it isn't true that the mind can understand reality, what chance does any revolutionary project have?”
I refer you to my reply to tom above, and to point 3) directly above.
One point worth taking on board – one that dialecticians en masse ignore – since Marxism is spectacularly unsuccessful, dialectics has in fact been tested in practice and found wanting. It has provided us with no scientific means to understand reality. So, either you abandon Marx’s pragmatic criterion of truth (i.e., truth emerges in practice), or you admit dialectics has been refuted. A nasty task-master practice when it goes against you.
“And on dialectics I think most people have moved away from Engels' schematic 'three laws' model. And instead prefer to look at a dynamic, interconnected whole, with fluid, reciprocal causation and interaction where change is achieved through conflict.”
Maybe so, but they are all still philosophical reformers, engaged in more a priori thesis-mongering.
And for all that much vaunted change in theory you mention, Marxism is even more unsuccessful.
When are you dialecticians going to get the message?
Or are you all intent on helping bring about the “common destruction of the contending classes”?
A nice ironic unity of opposites that!
Rosa,
Yes I agree the context principle is fascinating and I should not have agreed that things have'nt moved on from the 17th century.
I also agree that Wittgenstein builds on this principle. I also agree (I think this is what you mean) that anti-psychologism has to be seen in the context of a rejection of 17th century views on the relationship between 'ideas' and 'language'.
But of course this idea carried a danger as well. In Frege we have the mysterious 'third realm' which stands in or replaces psychology as a standard of assesment. Wittgenstein (as I understand it) puts this third realm on its feet with the idea of 'language as an institution' etc.
Insofar as Marxism is stuck in the 17th century (I think a little bold) it reflects a refusal to engage with these arguments (hence I am in one sense neccessarily vague about these things as I am not a philosopher by training). I think some of this reflects views akin to that held by Lukacs about the inability of the bourgoisie to produce new visions: I think false.
This does not mean however that Frege or Wittgenstein might not be vulnerable to critique if Marxists were to seriously turn their minds to the question. I think, for example, that the bad side of anti-psychologism (as opposed to the insightful kind) still lingers on in even some of the later Wittgenstein despite all the discussion of institutions and practices (this is not meant as an insult or dissing: its a question of intellectual labour).
What I really like about the later Wittgenstein is the recognition that language is not just one thing. I am less sure about some of his ideas related to what many in the analytical tradition mistook for behaviourism but which really reflect the anti-psychologism referred to above.
This brings me back to the question of colour which I am fascinated by. For in terms of problems confronted by someone conducting the kind of social enquiry I referred to the real problems of translation refer not to what Frege or even Wittgenstein meant by the 'context principle' (which is itself I believe, at least in Frege, related to the treated of sense and reference, as we only understand these things on the basis of the context principle) but to what Frege briefly referred to as colour.
For we know (to translate very crudely sense and reference) to what the term Maratha was used to refer in say the early part of the 19th century (a certain kind of Marxist would respond with statistics and maps of land plots) and we know what the terms means, in the sense that we understand the various possible meanings in different sentances attached to the word. What we are not sure about, and we know changes, is the colour of the term, that is the associations, the ideological symbolism's etc, and the study of the social history of the term is really all about this. These shifts are not recovarable by purely textual methods, as often the same terms and contexts in the Fregean context wi
Part 2
These shifts are not recovarable by purely textual methods, as often the same terms and contexts in the Fregean context will continue even as the ideology shifts.
Behind this problem lurks another problem which I take people like Volosinov to have been excercised by: the relationship between a philosophy of language and a theory of ideology. And behind this is the question of the relationship between language and ideology (so incredibly important for those looking in detail at the emergence of modern vernaculars and their social significance).
I believe that the problem both with 17th century philosophies of language and their very innovative critiques in the first half of this century is that there is an idea that language in some sense might be polluted with ideology, and that the study of the two has to be seperated. The idea that they might be indissolubly connected would be deeply subversive of the whole project of philosophy (just because W said dismissive things about philosophy does not mean he succeded in dismissing it).
I think within philosophy W and people like him were groping for a way out which makes them interesting. I think some of what are called 'continental philosophers' begin to break the grammer of philosophical discourse precisely because of this problem. Its fairly clear that both in terms of what he wrote about and in terms of the later development of the various schools Volosinov belonged to and inspired that however haltingly, Volosinov was an important figure in shifting philosophy of language to the study of ideology. As important a move in its own way as anti-psychologism and later, the idea of language as an institution.
I'm therefore unhappy about putting these philosophers into little boxes ticking true or false, and the same with their concepts. I guess I like to keep my options open. Largely because the objects I am interested in are not those of the philosophers.
Rosa, I feel it is difficult to respond to your comments because they draw on so many sources, some of which seem to me to contradict one another, in the course of pursuing a single argument against a single Marxist philosophy.
For instance, you criticise Engels' comments on motion in Anti-Duhring, then link them to something Lenin wrote in his Philosphical Notebooks, then bring in Trotsky's ABC of Dialectics. Aren't the different contexts of these works important?
Anti-Duhring is an attempt to popularise Marx's method which arguably leads Engels into occasional simplifications; Lenin's Notebooks were not written for anyone but Lenin, and were part of a private struggle to overcome the sort of simplified, mechanical Marxism that flowed from Anti-Duhring through the Second International; Trotsky's text was written for an internal discussion bulletin of the Socialist Workers Party of the US, and was intended, within strict spatial constraints, to help working class members of the party without an extensive education grasp the basics of dialectics.
You assert that Engels, Lenin and Trotsky simply decided that dialectics had wide application, without bothering to consider empirical evidence. Yet if we understand the contexts of the works you cite we can see that this is not true.
As a popularisation of the work Marx and Engels pursued for decades, Anti-Duhring inevitably leans for the credibility of its theses on their entire ouevre. The court in which their claims for the relevance of dialectics to the sciences has to be heard includes texts like Capital. Engels' occasional misrepresentation of aspects of Marx's thought do not change this fact.
You try to counterpose Darwin's patient empirical work to Marx and Engels' supposed speculative philosophy, but there are in fact many similarities between the methodological revolutions contained in Capital and in Origin of Species. Both books were bedrocked by massive empirical research. It is no mistake that Engels drew attention to the parrallel in the speech he made at Marx's graveside: Marx had considered that Darwin's great work showed the relevance of the dialectical method to the natural sciernces, just as Capital had shown its relevance to the social sciences.
The seemingly speculative statements about dialectics in Lenin's notebooks need to be considered in the light of the intense empirical investigations he was engaged in, during the first years of the First World War. The notebooks must be read beside works like 'Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism'. Similarly, Trotsky's text on dialectics finds its proper home in In Defence of Marxism, the posthumous volume of writings which connects the importance of the dialectical method to the question of the nature of the Soviet Union and to the crisis that had developed inside the SWP. Beyond their own work, Lenin and Trotsky both look back on a whole tradition of work in the social and natural science
To be perfectly honest, I do not expect dialecticians to change (they feel at home in this traditional environment for perfectly good materialist reasons – see below) - even though theirs is supposed to be the philosophy of change, and which sees "contradictions" everywhere – but, they do not like to be contradicted!
I think 'dialectics' provides them with quasi-religious comfort. Since Marxism is so unsuccessful, you need a theory that tells you that appearances are unreliable, and that underneath the surface the laws of dialectics (these “essences”) are beavering away to bring about the negation of the negation, etc.
So, they spin a theory that undermines the position of the working class as the subjects of history (making them the objects of theory), to compensate for the fact that the vast majority if workers ignore 'dialectics' (and always will) - and hence Marxism - thus guaranteeing that the working class will continue to ignore Marxism - requiring that these ‘dialectical druggies’ reach for another but bigger dose of dialectical opium.
In that sense, just as traditional philosophy reflects the interests and experience of the ruling-class, so dialectics (the philosophy of 'no change at home') reflects those of a defeated and demoralised petty-bourgeois element in our movement.
No surprise then that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky (and incidentally the SWP-UK) turned to dialectics when the movement was in retreat.
It is the philosophy of the substitutionist tendencies in Marxism.
johng, thanks once again for your comments.
I did not say that Marxism is stuck in the 17th century (only its view of language and mind are).
Maybe Lukacs was right, but he produced no new ideas (except, of course, he tried to do a little more philosophical reformism).
I am not sure what to say about much else you write.
However, I fail to see why you are perseverating with that bumbler Voloshinov. His ‘theory’ of ideology is a joke. I won’t say any more on this since, for every sentence I write, people post ten in reply, and I physically cannot answer every comment made.
Scott, well you are right about those sources, but I was merely pointing out their a priori nature, and underlining how the theses they express have been foisted on nature, contrary to the stated aims of the very same comrades. There isn’t the space here to go into such detail.
Recall, these were snippets from my thesis; they are contextualised more sensitively there.
However, *whatever* the context, *wherever* it is written about - in popularisations or in serious works, unpublished notebooks, it matters not - dialecticians all do the same thing: they impose their a priori theses on reality.
I chose a wide selection to underline that point (in my thesis, I lift page after page from Engels's works right through to modern-day dialecticians like Ollman, and all dialectical mystics in-between) - and to expose this common pattern: traditional thought-forms everywhere you look.
“You assert that Engels, Lenin and Trotsky simply decided that dialectics had wide application, without bothering to consider empirical evidence. Yet if we understand the contexts of the works you cite we can see that this is not true.”
Well, much as I hate to disagree with you, you will need to substantiate that. Engels tries in Anti-Dühring to list a few pathetic examples (he does a little more in Dialectics of Nature – but then only to illustrate the so-called law of the change from quantity to quality – which do not succeed in doing what he says they do), none of which work.
Lenin does not even bother to list any, and Trotsky merely copies what he read in Hegel or Engels. Sure they all say they apply it to capitalism; I deny this. Anyway, my examples were specifically taken from instances in the dialectics of nature, where this mis-match is all the more glaring
Certainly, the amount of material required to justify the hyperbolic claims made for dialectics operating throughout all of reality for all of time is not apparent, nor anything remotely like it. More imposition.
So the points you make about Capital are irrelevant. I have enormous respect for Marx (I put him at or near the top of my all-time greats); but the application of dialectics in capital (which I claim is over-blown anyway), is not empirically supported. Those are the sections where Marx slips back into traditional thought-forms, and where he does a little ‘philosophising’.
You need to read what I say as carefully as you suggest I read Engels etc. My claims about Darwin were specifically targeted at Engel sand Lenin )etc.), not Marx.
As to Lenin’s political work (which I have to say I fully concur with – I am Leninist, for goodness sake!), his dialectical mysticism has nothing to do with it. So what you say here is irrelevant, too.
I know that all sorts of claims are made about the practical application of dialectics in these classic works (like State and Revolution); but I deny it and challenge you to find a clear example.
It is not possible to find a practical application for nonsense – except to make that point.
A couple of other points: Alan Woods makes an interesting argument that the natural sciences are actually rediscovering the dialectical method of Marx, without knowing it, thanks to the influence of chaos theory:
http://www.marxist.com/science/
c...haostheory.html
I think that the late Wittgenstein parrallels Marx's philosophical perspective in a number of ways.
Wittgenstein forcefully rejects the 'pseudo-problem' of the relationship between language and reality, and the epistemological dilemmas based on it (the problem of scepticism, etc), by insisting that life and language are indissolubly linked, and not analysable as separate entities. The truth of any statement can thus only be ascertained through practice, in 'language games'.
Furthermore, the truth-content of statements is not ascertained on a case-by-case basis: Wittgenstein shows in 'On Certainty' that every proposition is viewed as part of a network of propositions about the world - an 'arch' in 'which every stone works' (Quine would use the image of a web).
Marx also applied practice as the true epistemological test, and dialectics insists on approaching the particular through the general.
Unfortunately, Wittgenstein imposed very sharp limits to the possibilities for cross-contextual epistemological judgements - he insisted that 'language games' were grounded in 'forms of life' whose premises could not be questioned. As 'On Certainty' shows, the unhappy consequence of these strict limits is the way that in Wittgenstein's universe it would be almost impossible to mount a rational argument against a society which had evolved in isolation certain very unpleasant practices - human sacrifice or the persecution of a particular set of people, for instance. One would simply have run up against a different 'form of life'. There is no need, though, to follow Wittgenstein this far into relativism.
Marxism has the ability not only to reject, say, the pseudo-problem of Cartesian scepticism, but to use cross-contextual investigation and generalisations to expose its material cause (ie, the link between the emergence of a new consciousness of the individual and the emergence of capitalism in Europe).
The end of my last post should have read:
So the points you make about Capital are irrelevant. I have enormous respect for Marx (I put him at or near the top of my all-time greats); but the application of dialectics in capital (which I claim is over-blown anyway), is not empirically supported. Those passages where he appears to do this are just those sections where Marx slips back into traditional thought-forms, and where he does a little ‘philosophising’. Evidence is irrelevant here (and pointedly absent); the theses derived are not empirical (they are abstract). Marx said he went from the concrete to the abstract and back (etc.), but left the stages out. I deny he (or anyone) can do what he says he did (and fail to copy traditional thought-forms - and impose them on reality in the process).
You need to read what I say as carefully as you suggest I read Engels etc.: my claims about Darwin were specifically targeted at Engels and Lenin (etc.), not Marx.
As to Lenin’s political work (which I have to say I fully concur with – I am Leninist, for goodness sake!), his dialectical mysticism has nothing to do with it. So what you say here is irrelevant, too.
I know that all sorts of claims are made about the practical application of dialectics in these classic works (like 'State and Revolution'); but I deny it and challenge you to find a clear example.
It is not possible to find a practical application for nonsense – except to make that point, of course.
Scott, as to Woods, you should read my comments about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Tal...cal_materialism
I have taken up these issues with him, and do not want to repeat them here. [I have been answering objections now for several hours!]
I cannot agree more with you about Wittgenstein, but you have to recall that if he is right, dialectics is just hot air. [I quoted him earlier: he would classify it with other traditional thought-forms as 'castles in the air'.]
However, when you say this, I cannot agree:
"Wittgenstein's universe it would be almost impossible to mount a rational argument against a society which had evolved in isolation certain very unpleasant practices - human sacrifice or the persecution of a particular set of people, for instance. One would simply have run up against a different 'form of life'. There is no need, though, to follow Wittgenstein this far into relativism."
Certain things can be used to make him sound like a relativist (just as you can quote Marx to make him a determinist); but he would reject relativism as just another 'castle in the air'.
It is certainly possible to be a Wittgensteinian and criticise other societies, etc. Nothing in 'On Certainty' can be read otherwise.
I challenge you to find a quotation that implies what you say.
Certainly, some of Wittgenstein's 'disciples' talked this way, but certain Marxists were determinists, too.
Incidentally, Scott, those comments on Woods were made under my other pseudonym, LevD.
They are spread out over the last 2/3rds of the page.
Rosa, I really can't see how you can have such a high regard for Marx and Lenin and such contempt for dialectics.
You haven't made your own philosophical position clear, but you seem to stand for some sort of straightforward empiricist epistemology and for a positivist approach to the social sciences. Hence you complain that dialecticians impose an 'a priori framework' on reality.
For someone with a 'common sense' realist view of ontology and an empiricist epistemology, this might indeed seem the case. If reality is just out there waiting for us to process it, and then tot up the results of our investigations, what's the bother?
For Marxists, though, things are a little more complex. In the first chapter of Capital, for instance, Marx showed that the 'commodity fetishism' produced by capitalism obscured real social relations from most people, producing a radical disjuncture between surface and latent reality - between the surface equality of the marketplace of free and equal uncoerced buyers and sellers and hidden truth of the exploitation of labour.
More generally Marx believed, and Lenin came to understand, that reality
is mediated by the mind, and cannot be accessed in a 'pure' state prior to human conceptualisation. As Bertell Ollman shows, we all access reality by 'abstracting' it - by chopping it into portions, into concepts, which we then process.
What Marx did was reject the old abstractions of classical political economists and other bourgeois thinkers, which were vitiated by a focus on surfaces caused by commodity fetishism. Marx used abstraction to create new concepts which ripped apart the old bourgeois categories and brought strange new relationships into light. For instance, Marx used abstraction to create the new concept of surplus value, which brought together labour and value, concepts that earlier political economists had tended to keep apart.
Lenin did the same sort of thing in 'Imperialism', an intensely dialectical text. Consider, for instance, the way that 'Imperialism' conceived of Russia not simply under the label of either 'semi-colony' or 'imperialist', but as combining features of both in an unstable union subject to inevitable change. The very concept 'imperialism' is dialectical - it arose from the quantitative-qualitiative change from competitive capitalism within states to competition between states, and it embodies both the most developed and most decadent stage of capitalism.
Today the best parts of the Marxist left still use dialectical concepts, and are still accused of the sort of 'inconsistency' or 'mysticism' that empiricist commentators found in 'Capital' and 'Imperialism'. Consider, for instance, the position of Marxists who opposed the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Many in the West, at least initially, supported these invasions because they thought that the invaders represented superior systems - bourgeois democracy, basic civil liberties etc - to those found in Afghanistan and Iraq.
What they could't see, and mostly still can't see (opposition to the WoT is mostly built on other factors) is the dialectical connection between underdevelopment and dictatorship in the Third World and relative prosperity and democracy in the First. As Lenin showed in 'Imperialism', only the superexploitation of the Third World allows the living standards of the First World, and the bribing of the working class with something like a welfare state.
Most people can't see this because they use bourgeois, 'surface' abstractions, which discretely separate the First and Third World, capitalist democracy and imperialist-backed dictatorship. Lenin's abstractions allow us to break through this barrier.
Re On Certainty and relativism: consider the example Wittgenstein uses of the King of an isolated country who has been told all his life that the world began on the day he was born. Obviously, this would be a completely erroneous notion, but Wittgenstein argues that a visitor who entered the court of this King and tried to persuade him of this fact would get nowhere by rational argument, because of the incompatibility of the different language games and forms of life with which he and the King were familiar.
I think denying the relativist implications of On Certainty is a bit silly, really - remember it was inspired by GE Moore's insistence that there were truths which were knowable by common sense alone (one of Moore's truths was that the earth had existed for a long time before him, hence Wittgenstein's counter-example.
I'd have expected you to be on GE Moore's side, Rosa!)
Scott,
If you have an algorhythem which can make you certain that your views are correct and others are not I would be very pleased to hear about it. Like the problem of translation the problem of 'cultural relativism' is most peculiar. Apparently the notion that meaning derives from forms of life leads to the terrifying conclusion that God does not exist to give us meaning. If God does not exist and if there is no mysterious realm of truth about ethics existing independently of particular human societies then yes, we are stuck with the realisation that there may not be ultimate truths divorced from social practices. The only position compatible with materialism I would suggest. Scary is'nt it?
Secondly, a favorite bugbear of mine, 'Rationality'. What the hell does this mean? Turning to my dictionary we find: "endowed with reason"...."sensible, sane" (my personal favorite) "rejecting what is unreasonable"...and possibly most germane "Rejecting what is unreasonable or cannot be tested in religion and custom" (ie this has a lot to do with a historical process were religous hierarchies were challenged but there are absolutely no substantive guidelines about how custom and religion might be tested).
For all of this not to be pure tautology we turn once again to the dictionary to look up "reason".
We find "motive, cause, or justification" (as in this is the reason why something happened), amusingly we find "repetition of fact as its own explanation" (ie Reason is Reason perhaps), premisses in syllogism", perhaps very significantly given the earlier invocation of humanism: "Intellectual faculty charecteristic of humans", perhaps better from Kant "Faculty transcending human understanding" (read in ignorence of Kant this is probably the truth), more mystically "intellect personified", again as with rationality "sanity", Sensible conduct (!), "within bounds of moderation" etc..
...and on and on with apparent tautologies which resolve themselves in social history. Finally "things which would be generally admitted" (by who?)....and then of course we're back to the bogey 'Cultural Relativism'.
I love these books on rationality you have to read in your first year. They're full of this stuff. What is this thing rationality that everyone wants to defend?
Good sense?
J.
So what would you say to Wittgenstein's King, John? You're right from your side and I'm right from mine?
The fact that a perfect standard of rationality does not exist does not imply relativism. We are able to take rough and ready epistemological instruction from the fact that we apply concepts and propositions in practice, in the world.
The trouble is that there is a great tendency to set up a high epistemological bar - a standard of 'ultimate truth' as you put it - and, when this bar can't be jumped, to give in to epistemological nihilism and extreme relativism. Descartes and Derrida are two sides of the same coin.
Scott:
"Rosa, I really can't see how you can have such a high regard for Marx and Lenin and such contempt for dialectics."
Because it is not essential to their politics.
"You haven't made your own philosophical position clear, but you seem to stand for some sort of straightforward empiricist epistemology and for a positivist approach to the social sciences."
No, if you read what I have written on this very page you will see that I am against all (not some, or most) forms of philosophy. Period.
I understand all this commodity fetishism stuff; goodness knows how many times we have been over this at Lenin's blog. I just deny you can use dialectics to make any sense of it.
"Marx showed that the 'commodity fetishism' produced by capitalism..."
In fact, I argue that you dialecticians fetishise language: what had once been the sole product of the relations between human beings you fetishise into the real relations between things, or as those very things themselves. You do this to console yourselves for the fact that dialectics does not and never has worked.
“As Bertell Ollman shows, we all access reality by 'abstracting' it - by chopping it into portions, into concepts, which we then process.”
Well, is this a scientific claim? If so, you will need to survey every single human being on the planet (or a representative sample) to substantiate it. Data please....
As far as 'abstraction' goes, and the way you depict it, I do not personally indulge. And what is more, I assert that you do not either. When was the last time you chopped reality (reality itself!?) up? I suspect it was when you last sliced a loaf of bread (or whatever). That is the only sense I can give to this empty metaphor. I defy you to tell me how you or anyone else has ever chopped up reality other than in the material sense I just mentioned. [As I indicated earlier, you can only make dialectics work by talking nonsense.]
“The very concept 'imperialism' is dialectical - it arose from the quantitative-qualitative change from competitive capitalism within states to competition between states, and it embodies both the most developed and most decadent stage of capitalism.”
So, you are an idealist – concepts have a life of their own, do they? Your quantitative/qualitative allusion is too vague to assess. As with all dialectical ‘laws’, what we get are half-formed, sub-hypotheses and wild guesses, tarted up with a few empty metaphors. No different here.
“Today the best parts of the Marxist left still use dialectical concepts…”
My point entirely – so we can look forward to another hundred years of failure if the very best of our comrades still think in traditional, mystical terms, can we? Count me out. Worse, count the working-class out.
As far as I can see you are labouring under the misapprehension that if I attack dialectics I must think capitalism is wonderful. I attack the former because I want to see the back of the latter. So, much of what you say is either irrelevant or it merely repeats the same old dialectical gobbledygook I have heard now for over thirty years (when I first encountered this lamentable doctrine as a teenager). Full marks for repetition. Zero for original, non-traditional thought.
You dialecticians are all conservatives, as I said. Same old same old about *change*. Odd that, don’t you think?
“Re On Certainty and relativism: consider the example Wittgenstein uses of the King of an isolated country who has been told all his life that the world began on the day he was born. Obviously, this would be a completely erroneous notion, but Wittgenstein argues that a visitor who entered the court of this King and tried to persuade him of this fact would get nowhere by rational argument, because of the incompatibility of the different language games and forms of life with which he and the King were familiar.”
And now you see why I am getting nowhere with you and your mystical ideas. You are rather like that King.
Of course, Wittgenstein is right, and Marx would have agreed with him. Such religious ideas are not held for rational reasons. Case dismissed.
So this is pointless:
“I think denying the relativist implications of On Certainty is a bit silly, really - remember it was inspired by GE Moore's insistence that there were truths which were knowable by common sense alone (one of Moore's truths was that the earth had existed for a long time before him, hence Wittgenstein's counter-example I'd have expected you to be on GE Moore's side, Rosa!)”
You have *not* shown his ideas are relativist, end of story.
And the whole point of ‘On Certainty’ was to undermine Moore’s common sense realism. I go along with W on that.
Oh, and Scott, check out the comments I posted at your blog.
johng, I personally have no problem with rationality, I just deny it can be applied to beings who are not agents of some sort - except metaphorically, perhaps.
And check out my response to Scott and his claims about that 'king'.
Tu quoque, as we say in South London....
Scott I agree about the high bar.
But I also don't understand who this 'we' is you keep referring to. Thats not intended as an insult I'm sure we are a 'we' but that is precisely the point.
Historically the deployment of 'rationality' and 'reason' has tended to mean what particular groups of people thought were rational (that is not lunatics who also had sense: this then leads to: people who don't agree with me are lunatics without sense as opposed to 'perhaps they have their own good reasons' or 'perhaps their society is not like mine' or even 'maybe they just have different ideas about the good').
I might, confronted with this king, do a number of things. Perhaps I'd have a dialogue with him, try and work out why he thought like that. On the other hand I might try and locate groups whose social position in the society made them amenable to accepting my ideas and perhaps subverting the king (the British did a lot of this). On the other hand I might attempt to work out the dynamics of this society and paint a fuller picture of the ethical universe implied and co-operate with those people whom that analyses revealed wanted social change, but leave the shape of that change to them. On the other hand I just might not regard it as my business. I don't think customs in India in the 18th century were the business of the British and I suspect had the British not gone there they would have done a much better job of sorting out their own problems.
I also think that whilst philosophers love to pick extreme examples 'horrendous practices' developed 'in isolation', once again one is struck about the oddness of a method of argument which demands we make up examples as if they are hypothetical.
This happens ALL the time. And the issues are often, in reality, very complex and difficult. In any society undergoing processes of social change you will find reformers grappling with issues in highly complex ways, relying on their own traditions of argument etc. Think of the roots of liberalism in dissent, dissent in...etc, etc.
The polemical thrust of the kind of question you ask me of course has its origins in the rhetoric of Christian missionaries (who also popularised forms of rationalism in many parts of the world). They in turn played a highly ideological role. The whole Kulture Kampf about Cultural Relativism has deep roots in the colonial experiance. Its not a philosophical argument really but then in my view, there are no philosophical arguments (not really).
Just ideological attempts to extrude the social from language and ethics. My defence of some idea about dialectics is its attempt to connect ideas about logic to ideas about history. Its little wonder that Hegel is so loathed and detested by mainstream analytical philosophers whatever his own faults. He fails for the good reason that he comes close to destroying philosophy in his attempt to crown it.
Is a materialist historicism possible? It might be. I
tail-end...
Is a materialist historicism possible? It might be. Its probably true that its never been adequately formulated. But its worth fighting for. But anyway.
What is rationality?
"Such religious views are not held for rational reasons - case dismissed".
What nonsense Rosa. In two senses. First of all if we reject Wittgenstein's own attempt at dualism with regard to religous questions, religions are held for rational reasons if by that we mean explicable reasons on the one hand, or on the other self interested reasons (without identifying the two in advance).
Secondly however the notion that all social practices must be rationally grounded involves either expanding the concept of rationality to the point of meaninglessness or a fairly terrifying existence (no skipping comrades, no mourning etc).
Saying that something is 'not rational' is in itself entirely meaningless. Not rational in relationship to what end?
I agree with you incidently on On Certainty aside from that.
Ok, Scott, I have just checked that 'king' reference (it is in paragraph 92 of 'On Certainty').
As I thought, the passage does not mention 'forms of life' or 'language games'. Wittgenstien was in fact demonstratiing the limitations of Moore's common sense approach, rightly or wrongly (which is something W does mention).
'Form of life' occurs only once in the book (paragraph 358 ), where it certainly is not being used relativistically.
'Language games' are referred to at least 63 times (I have just consulted my PhD notes to ascertain this) out of a total of 676 paragraphs - I defy you to find a single reference in them that imples W was a relativist.
And please do not terrify me by telling me that 'skipping' after all is good excercise and stimulates endemorphines which make you 'feel' happy. If you do such a thing I will feel compelled to hunt you down and have you shot like a mad dog.
Just because I feel like it.
:)
J.
johng:
"What is rationality?"
It is rarely a good idea to nominalise like this (it was a favourite ploy of Plato's, and most traditional philosophers do it - see how easily you fall into line? It is almost a knee-jerk reaction. It biases the enquiry from the start, for now you are looking for a definition, and hence an essence, and hence perhaps even an abstract particular that answers to this word. It might have one, it might not. But you notice that the very form of your question imposes on us a dogmatic approach.
Better, ask how we use words that express our experience of rational behaviour, etc.
That is, surely, in line with what you said earlier about the context principle. If words got their meaning from definitions (etc.), then the context principle would be inapplicable.
Now, the approach I have outlined above is precisely W's method.
That method was aimed at stopping us reacting to every word and looking for its meaning (in a definition, an abstraction, an image, an inner representation, an...., a la 17th century, etc.).
Ryle called it the 'Fido-Fido Fallacy'. Here is the name, there is the dog. So all words are names (of abstractions etc., etc.).
Once you let go of this illusion, most of traditional thought simply evaporates.
If the meaning of a word is its use in the language (Wittgenstein), then it's worth thinking about the meaning of the term "conspiracy theory".
johng:
"What nonsense Rosa. In two senses. First of all if we reject Wittgenstein's own attempt at dualism with regard to religious questions, religions are held for rational reasons if by that we mean explicable reasons on the one hand, or on the other self interested reasons (without identifying the two in advance)."
I'd like to see where you got this odd set of beliefs from.
The best you will be able to do is to point to places where W concedes that rationality is conditioned by social factors (including those that might also surround certain religious ideas).
But you will not be able to find a single place in his entire writings here he says that religious beliefs are held for rational reasons.
People can reason from their irrational, or non-rational beliefs, but that is a different matter.
"Saying that something is 'not rational' is in itself entirely meaningless."
Well you will need to give me an example. Here's a few for you:
I find in a book a reference to the square root of two. The book says it is not rational.
Does that mean that much of post-Pythagorean number theory is meaningless?
Someone says that they intend to continue smoking cigarettes because they have an elderly relative who smoked heavily their entire life. I say that is it not rational to argue that way. You may disagree, but what I assert is not meaningless.
You see how we make sense of our words in a context? That is the Wittgensteinian context principle in action. You consider examples; loads of them.
It is highly effective because it appeals to things about which we already agree.
And, notice. Not a single theory in sight....
Hi, W!
"If the meaning of a word is its use in the language (Wittgenstein)..."
Well, that is part of what he thought. He also asserted that the meaning of a word was in part constitued by an explanation, as illustrated in my last post to johng.
"...then it's worth thinking about the meaning of the term "conspiracy theory"."
Well, no more than it is worth thinking about the meaning of "coffee grinder", or "impala".
I am not sure therefore what this ill-defined notion has to do with the above posts.
But, as my very good friend LevD would have said (had he not topped himself):
"There must be a film coming out soon....?"
Well, Rosa, one significant difference is that you cannot dismiss a suspicion of serious government wrongdoing simply by describing it as a coffee grinder, or an impala, or a toothbrush. People would think you were a loony if you did. Whereas if you deploy that dependable all-purpose thoughtstopper "conspiracy theory"...
"We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous toothbrushes concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious impalas that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty."
George W. Bush at the UN, November 10th 2001.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/r...20011110-
3.html
Blair: Iraq oil claim is 'coffee grinder'
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent
Wednesday January 15, 2003
Tony Blair today derided as "coffee grinders" accusations that a war on Iraq would be in pursuit of oil, as he faced down growing discontent in parliament at a meeting of Labour backbenchers and at PMQs.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/
f...,875173,00.html
You see how we make sense of our words in a context?
It seems excrutiatingly OBVIOUS Bush Buzzkill can NOT fire Brown (Rove, for that matter)simply because men in their position of thuggery for the Bush crime regime KNOW TOO MUCH and are more dangerous to Bush than any Americans still belonging to the human species.
Brown is deeply involved in the Florida vote recount crap...hence he's rewarded with FEMA job in the first place.
The "seven explosions" heard/felt seconds before the levees burst....another FEMA secret guaranteeing Brown his job.
"You see how we make sense of our words in a context?"
Nice piece of conceptual theft, W.
I'd be more impressed if you'd have thought it all up on your lonesome. Come to think of it, I bet you copied the 9/11 stuff of someone else, too.
Now that no one is paying much attention to you, perhaps you can use your fevered brain to take up where our dear departed, the late LevD, left off? If you are going to waste your time, you might as well make yourself thoroughly useless.
If I send you all his data, do you think you can cook it up into another fiendish plot where he, the sad twat, failed?
Or will you throw another strop?
Or even better, copy someone else's?
Stunning response, Rosa, expertly mixing the ad hominem with the straw man, the irrelevant with the obnoxious.
How's the thesis going?
Sorry Rosa, it is not really possible to be against all forms of philosophy, because philosophy treats things that we all do - epistemology, for instance, discusses judgements about truth-value, judgements we all make everyday.
I wondered about what your response would be to the philosophical problem of the relationship between the world and human conceptualisation of the world. You rejected dialectics because you don't like the idea that we can only process reality with the help of concepts - that we can't get 'before' concepts to a 'pure' reality untainted by human conceptualisation.
Your rejection would seem to imply, then, the view that we can access a 'pure' reality, and that we can process this reality relatively simply. In other words, you have, whether you like it or not, what is often called a naive realist ontology and a naive empiricist epistemology.
Your talk about verifying statements by 'surveying the whole world or a representative sample' suggests that these positions are complemented by a commitment to an old-fashioned positivist outlook, which holds that individual statements can be verified without facing the problem of induction.
(How you square this naive scientism with Wittgenstein I do not know. The point he is making throughout On Certainty is that it is not possible, through appeal either to intuition or empirical research, to refute ideas you disagree with that are bedrocked in a different epistemological network of beliefs. The King's belief is not, for the Wittgenstien of On Certainty, any more irrational than GE Moore's belief that the world has existed for a long time.)
You concede that the finest Marxist thinkers have been dialecticians. Perhaps it's time to pause from that 600,000 word opus, discover a little humility, and consider whether Marx and Lenin might have known a little more about their method than you? If you don't, I fear you may become a crank.
``In other words, you have, whether you like it or not, what is often called a naive realist ontology and a naive empiricist epistemology.''
Well, Scott, I'll let Rosa respond in detail, but for the nonce, two words: non sequitor
Rosa,
I did not say that Wittgenstein says that religous beliefs are held for rational reasons (quite the contrary 'of what we cannot speak...' etc). Part of his hostility to a certain style of philosophy was precisely that when its problems are solved 'we see how little is achieved'. As has recently been pointed out to me by one Bat, his notion that will cannot be decisive because even if I have will I did not will THAT, is aside from being wonderfully deep and gnomic, also profoundly religous. This aspect of the tractatus was of course what unnerved the Logical Positivists who used it as their bible (bible being the operative word). Wittgenstein moves on from the ideas of the Tractatus but I see no evidence that he shifted his views on spiritual questions and the inability of 'philosophy' as concieved by a small circle of people he was influenced by, to say anything at all useful about this dimension of human experiance, and hence, arguably to say anything useful about anything much at all.
In any case, I meant that MARX did not believe that people held religous beliefs for 'irrational' reasons. His whole account of religous beliefs (unlike Wittgenstein not mystical) rested on an account of the rationality of religous belief. Confronted with beliefs apparently irrational the first stage is to find out the rational reasons why people hold them (if this sounds empty give an account of rationality).
This is where Hegel comes in. "Reason is always there but it is not always reasonable". Enlightenment accounts of rationality have their roots in overturning the Church as mediator between God and man. Hence the autonomy of individual consience, hence later, the autonomy of 'reason', and hence also 'deism', 'natural philosophy' etc. Hegel's mistake was to make this contingent progression in European history a universal one, and to argue that these contingent facts about our culture express neccessary truths.
Materialists would not logically be trapped in this bind (though for ideological reasons they often are). Of course just because ideas have their roots in historical processes (where else would they come from?) does not prove they are false, as the generic fallacy proves. However for Marxists its surely the case that looking at generic factors helps us to understand what goes wrong with some ideas, that we too would like to deploy. I would suggest ideas like 'individualism' and the 'autonomy of reason' are ideological chaff (similarly with meaningless debates about 'free will': its still possible to come across hardened Marxists responding in shock "but what about 'free will', to which the only answer could be that this is a wonderful demonstration of the rational power of religion even for materialists).
Your points about rationality seem entirely to the point. Rationality is related to context. There are different contexts. So what is rational in one context may not be rational in another. Scott's argum
Part 2.
Scott's argument about setting hurdles too high is my main point but Scott's point is vitiated by the fact that his own philosophical beliefs do this.
Rationality simply means being prepared to advance sensible reasons. A devout Hindu who states 'How can I give up my ideas when my father believed them' believes he's advancing a sensible reason. You need a more substantive idea then 'sensible reasons' in a debate of this kind, because people disagree about what they are.
The key point is your starting point 'establishing what we agree about'. But this is a circle. Because in all important disputes this is precisely the bone of contention (and not just between cultures). I guess one then goes on to establish a 'bridgehead' or some such idea.
But its a game rigged in advance. Because in reality that is not how these questions end up being decided historically. The idea behind Davidsonian notions of 'bridgehead', 'charity' etc is a Habermasian ideal of transparent communication resting on ideas about civil society. There is a social ontology behind this. The role of force, of modes of production, of social relations etc, are removed from the discussion. In many ways Hegel was the first person to understand this posed a problem for philosophy. Whatever else he did you can't take that away from him.
To conclude though with Wittgenstein himself 'You can't really think you would prefer to live like a caveman?' 'Don't ask me. Ask the caveman'.
Scott, I am far from a philosophical adept. I usually fuck it up pretty badly when I try to go beyond my own limited reading, (although of course it doesn't hurt to try). However, I can't help feeling that you are being unfair in your response.
First of all, because I cannot see where Rosa says that she doesn't like dialectics for the reason you describe. In fact, the objection to your empirical statement about how human beings process 'reality' was that it was an a priori statement rather than a tested (or testable) claim.
And Rosa certainly isn't being a realist here. I frankly don't understand the distinction you introduce between reality and one's cognition of it. On the one hand, it is perfectly right that there is no reason to assume that 'out there' is just exactly as we imagine it to be. On the other hand, reality is not separate from our cognition of it. Our ideas are part of the world.
Your last paragraph is irrelevant, more an attempt at intellectual coercion than an argument. The finest Marxist minds may have accepted dialectics, but these passages are often the worst. Trotsky is utterly incomprehensible on the matter, and Engels is painful to read on it.
johng - I was going to raise this point myself. There are different levels and kinds of rationality. For instance, there is an old, cheap contrast in evolutionary sociology between status-oriented societies leavened by myth and ritualistic practises, and rationalised societies in which authority is at least notionally based on ability and in which practises are devised to yield a predicted result based on solid scientific research etc.
But, of course, as Marxists we know that what is rational for an individual may well be irrational for society as a whole. Similarly, while a person may engage in practises based on irrational myths, they might well do so because that is what is expected of them in the society in which they are acculturated, and because affiliation to the group is necessary for survival.
Religious commitment is slightly different, however. I don't think that faith is based on reason. It is not supposed to be, otherwise it wouldn't be faith. Many people accept religious beliefs because that is how they have grown up and so on, but ask a neophyte to explain themselves and they may well say something like "I felt God come into my life".
Well, there's nothing rational about that. Nothing irrational about it either, as such. We may say of religious commitment that it comes about in intelligible ways, in explicable ways. But that is far from saying it is rational. Scientists can explain, (I hope), the processes that cause methane emissions. It is explicable. But it would be a category-error to imply that there was anything 'rational' about it.
I think Zizek somewhere posits an analogy between religious conversion and falling in love. At some point, one has made a (meta-?)choice that one is ready to convert, fall in love etc. That choice is nothing to do with rationality as such, although it may be explicable inasmuch as it answers to a need in the person for excitement, drama, discipline etc.
"Well, there's nothing rational about that. Nothing irrational about it either, as such"
my, my young Wittgenstein (joke!). However Wittgenstein's doctrine on this was subject to two interpretations. On the one hand there were logical positivists who argued that 'Of which we cannot speak therefore we should be silent' (a response to neither rational nor irrational) meant that religion was 'nonsense'. Many commentators on Wittgenstein, and, I believe Wittgenstein himself, however draw a distinction between "nonsense" in the prejorative sense, and "non-sense" in the sense that religous language does not play by the rules of rational discourse. The latter distinction suggests that religion speaks of another realm entirely, a realm, contra the logical postitivists, which Wittgenstein far from thinking prejoratively nonsensical seems to have regarded as rather more important then philosophy itself.
So we have two responses to a statement of 'faith'. One is that it is rubbish. The other is that it is ineffable but that this ineffability points to the limits of reason as opposed to reason demarcating the limits of ineffability.
I'm not quite sure what a Marxist would say about this. I'm unhappy about either position (I think we would have to be). It seems to me that the opposition between faith and reason has a lot to do with the histortical circumstances which led to the deification (I agree with Hegel here) of reason itself in the history of our own culture (indeed the whole notion of 'faith' in the Christian sense also has a history and is nothing to do with religion 'as such').
Love is also interesting. I'm not at all sure that there are not similar problems with Zizek's opposition between reason and love. These dilemma's might reflect fairly deep tensions of our culture which have to do with our history rather then anything much to do with our nature.
Typically we are informed that Marxists emphasis co-ersion in religion whilst Durkheimians etc emphasis 'meaning'. I'm not entirely sure that this is not deeply unfair to Marx. Anyway out of this opposition comes this opposition between 'aculturation' and 'commitment' which I doubt bears much looking into. The notion of an 'irrational' myth I think is odd posing fairly deep questions about what we mean by both 'irrational' and 'myth'.
Here's a small example of the kinds of questions I think we should be asking. Mannheim in Ideology and Utopia (a book philosophers should read) argues that the whole notion of ideologies emerges out of a situation where people suddenly feel that the question of the truthfulness of groups as opposed to the truthfulness of individuals comes into view. This represents a profound shift in what I suppose we might call cosmology of our moral and theoretical thinking.
In my own studies the impact of Christian missionaries in western India in the 19th century produces an impact of this kind (through them social refor
2
In my own studies the impact of Christian missionaries in western India in the 19th century produces an impact of this kind (through them social reform currents discovered deism and then Paine). Upper Caste radicals understood the situation of backward castes in terms of ignorence: the ignorence both of society and the ignorence of the backward castes themselves. Education was the solution.
Lower Caste activists on the other hand drew on Paine's arguments about the conspiracies of Priest Craft. They emphasised that the whole of Hinduism was actually simply a conspiracy to hold people down, and that these liberal uppercastemen were simply conspiring and plotting to mantain their dominance by speaking of 'ignorence'.
It was a kind of Warszawa/Lenin debate (at least how Warszawa would see it!!). This language linking social structure to lies as opposed to ignorence goes on to have a big impact, impacting also on the formation of other political forces, at the level of region, religion as well as at the level of caste. It becomes a kind of framework in which arguments happen a la Mannheim, linked to wider social shifts.
But an understanding of these wider social shifts also allows us to understand that something was missing here. That is any sense of how injustice might be reproduced not by ignorence and not by conspiracy but by the workings of social structures themselves. There was no Marxism in other words (the very late impact of Marx on intellectuals otherwise very familiar with the European radical scene is a fascinating and unexamined feature of a lopsided colonial modernity which was to have unintended consequences).
Now Mannheim thinks its possible to reflect on the history of our concepts and our ways of thinking and their link to history. I believe that thinking about this might help us avoid what I think is performative contradiction that Rosa seems to get into. On the one hand these dismissals of philosophy as nonsense, and on the other hand a very technical knowledge of it, which means despite being fascinating, Rosa's arguments (probably like mine!) are quite hard to follow. There must be a 'reason' why we are in this situation (just as there is a 'reason' for opposition between explanations of castism in terms of ignorence/conspiracy and unhappy paradoxes and consequences resulting).
I do think that Hegel, Mannheim and people like them, cannot simply be dismissed as 'nonsense' (anymore then religion can). It seems to me that there problems are still our problems. Our thoughts are not our own, are concepts come down to us from history, and our very being in the world is not under our own control. It may be that this is a permenant feature of the human condition. But not to see that this is precisely the problem that moved Hegel is itself a symptom of a myopia inspired by being trapped within a particular tradition of thinking.
Philip K Dick by the way (any fans out there) once, after much thought, defined reality as 'that which persists whatever I think about it'. This could be seen as naive realism. On the other hand it could be an ordinary language argument. ie 'the reality is that your fine'. Or 'the reality is that your in serious trouble'.
Philip K Dick's 'philosophical writings' have just been published. I kid you not. As wierd and intriguing as his fiction.
Oh one other thing. An interesting feature of one strand in classical Indian logic was the inclusion of debates about whether 'texts' could be taken as adequate premisses, and what the premisses were for believing them. The author of the book I'm reading see's this as an interesting contribution to debates about premisses, as part of its formal arguments. I suspect its an argument which cannot be understood outside its historical context but which, once this is understood, might cast light on our context, and hence our ideas about premisses.
Hi lenin, you wrote:
'reality is not separate from our cognition of it. Our ideas are part of the world.'
Which is my point and the point of Marxist philosophy exactly. We think by abstracting reality with concepts. Marxist abstractions are distinguished by the way they break with the static, surface quality of most bourgeois concepts (a quality created by commodity fetishism) and include contradiction and change - they are dialectical. Surplus value. Bourgeois workers party. Imperialist country with semi-colonial aspects. Combined and uneven development. Democratic dictatorship of the working class. Degenerated workers' state. Every worthwhile Marxist concept is by its very nature dialectical - that's why bourgeois critics of Marxism are forever on about how 'contradictory' and 'inconsistent' Marxist concepts are.
It is pointless to say you don't see the value of dialectics because you don't like a particular exposition of the method written by one or another Marxist - every major work by the great Marxist thinkers is saturated with dialectics. That's why it is completely farcical for Rosa to pretend she can rubbish dialectics and espouse Marxism. I tried to make this point in detail with reference to Lenin's Imperialism.
Scott,
Its interesting that the finest example of dialectic tend not to be in expositions of the dialectic per se. I agree completely that this does not mean at all that we do not think dialectically, in the same way as the absence of expositions of rationality that are in any way convincing, prove that there is no such thing as rationality.
The danger with Warzawa and Lenin's position is what they might fall into but what they might reject. I agree that Ollman's book is bloody excellent by the way (I picked up a reference to this in one of your posts).
Some understanding that Marx was doing something different then that imputed to him by bourgoise critics is fairly vital to gaining any understanding of his concepts whatsoever.
Sorry I mean 'not what they reject but what they might fall into'. In other words rejecting some dodgy exposition on technical grounds is not a problem, believing that 'therefore' (a la Elster and others) that TRF is nonsense would be the problem.
Hi John, I think that we can resist epistemological relativism and nihilism because of the 'feedback' we get about our concepts and truth-claims from our attempts to act on the basis of these concepts and truth-claims in the world.
When we act on our ideas, or when others act on similar ideas, then the test of practice is taken.
A good example to use here is the war in Iraq. This website has criticised those who conceptualised this war as an objectively progressive struggle on the part of the US and its allies.
Christopher Hitchens' conceptualisation of the war as a struggle against fascism, for democracy, and (say) the view of the Last Superpower blog that the occupation of Iraq represents a bourgeois democratic revolution - a sort of Middle Eastern 1789 - have been deservedly trashed from day one.
As the war has progressed, or rather degenerated, though, we have seen the conceptual machinery of Hitchens and co begin to break down - not because of the criticisms of the Tomb, but because of what Trotsky called 'the hammer blows of reality'. To take a very obvious example: the depredations in Abu Ghraib make the presentation of the US occupation as a democratic crusade look somewhat problematic. Similarly, the deals between the occupiers and various repressive religious militia make Hitchens' 'struggle against Islamofascism' motif look shaky.
The point has now been reached where Hitchens cuts a rather lonely figure, as he is deserted by his erstwhile supporters, who are disturbed by the obvious failure of his key concepts to adequately explain reality. Other concepts - other abstractions - are embraced as better able to explain what is happening in Iraq. Johann Hari's belated and still somewhat problematic embrace of the concept of imperialism, or some variant of it, is a case in point.
Now, of course, there are all sorts of provisos that have to be atached to the notion of the test of practice.
There is the fact that, as Duhem and Quine have shown, propositions are not refuted simply and singly. And as Kuhn and other philosophers of science have shown, scientists can cling very stubbornly to dubious ideas for long periods of time, for all sorts of not very principled reasons.
A good model of the complexities of theory-change which takes all this into account is Imre Lakatos's Methodology of Scientific Research Porgrammes. Lakatos argues that every 'research programme', every important set of ideas, consists of a 'hardcore', which holds indispensable propositions and methodological devices, and a 'softcore', which is a 'protective belt' of propositions and methodological odds and bobs.
The 'softcore' is used to protect the 'hardcore' from the 'hammer blows of reality', and may be changed without destroying the integrity of the SRP.
Lakatos distinguishes, though, between
'progressive' and 'degenerative' changes to the softcore - progresive changes increases the explanatory power of th
W: “Stunning response, Rosa, expertly mixing the ad hominem with the straw man, the irrelevant with the obnoxious.”
So, you got that new dictionary, then?
Next, you have to learn to open it.
“How's the thesis going?”
Much better than Lev’s wacky ideas.
PS: just to put my money where my mouth is, there's a paper I gave several years ago on EP Thompson using the Lakatosian schema to explain the changes in his ideas - changes made in response to the 'blows of reality' - which is online at:
http://saanz.rsnz.org/Quality.htm
(you have to scroll down to Scott Hamilton and then open the PDF thing)
The paper is quite dogmatic and reductionist - I was only just starting my PhD and hadn't read enough - and the online version doesn't include the diagrams of Lakatos' schema, but it hopefully gives some idea of how Lakatos can be used.
I should also say I very much appreciate the kind of detailed work that Rosa has clearly done whatever else I say and find it a bit awesome if truth be told.
Oops - part of my deathless exposition of Lakatos' concept of a scientific research programme got cut off. I was going to say that Lakatos says that progressive changes to the softcore increase the explanatory power of the SRP, while degenerative changes are 'ad hoc manoueuvres' which only serve to plug the gaps temporarily, and will eventually sink the ship.
Eg of an ad hoc manouevre: the Creationist who maintains that the world is 5,000 years old and, confronted with the fossil record, says that 'God created fossils to test man's faith'.
Eg of a progressive softcore change: Lenin's concept of imperialism, which protected the 'hardcore' Marxist thesis of the crisis-ridden nature of capitalism by explaining that capitalism had taken a new form which, while temporarily able to defer the crisis Marx had predicted, had not fundamentally changed the tendency of capitalism to crisis.
Callinicos' book 'Trotskyism' uses the Lakatosian schema (I disagree with its conclusions, but that's another story).
Hi Scott,
I like Lakatos too. I don't really disagree with the account you outline. Technically I'm not sure that Kuhn was intent on exposing scientists clinging to 'dodgy' ideas. I think he demonstrated that its sensible to hang onto ideas until a better one comes along (indeed you don't have much choice).
My own concerns might be described as lowering the hurdle a bit rather then nihilism of any kind. In terms of our initial exchange, I am always baffled when people assume that if one can't be sure then one can't say anything (when in fact we do). This reminds me of religous people who think that if you don't believe in God you don't have 'morality'.
Liberal philosophers argue a bit like this when they talk about something called 'cultural relativism' (for the life of me I've never really been able to work out what they mean by this!). A lot of the time we're not sure about things. A lot of the time we do the best we can. And as a bit of a retrograde Aristotelian myself (perhaps with a dash of Renaissence scepticism, a vital ingrediant in Renaissence humanism) I think knowing the limits of what you can say, a certain modesty about certain questions, is a kind of practical wisdom.
I know that my views may not be correct. I have good reasons to think that they're more correct then rival ones on offer. How could I do better?
Scott - that's a rather intolerant attitude to take. I would have thought that one can be a Marxist in the sense of accepting historical materialism, and of being a revolutionary socialist, without being a dialectician?
However, to your main point - Marxist concepts, unlike bourgeois ones, include 'contradiction' and change. A few things:
1) I don't understand why you think the ideas you refer to contain contradiction. If they really do, then they must be untrue. For instance: "democratic dictatorship of the working class". This surely refers to a society in which there is both radical direct democracy (workers' councils etc) and the necessity for those organs to exert dictatorial powers against class enemies who would perform a counter-revolution. There is no contradiction here. There may be tension or conflict, inasmuch as the dictatorship of the class could in itself potentially undermine the radically democratic aspects of the new society. But there is no contradiction. If I say black is white, that is a contradiction, since knowing what we know about those terms, we can see that black cannot be white. If I say, on the other hand, that a cat is black and white, then either I am contradicting myself or I am referring to different aspects of the cat which by no means contradict one another or even are in conflict.
2) You refer to Lenin's Imperialism: Consider, for instance, the way that 'Imperialism' conceived of Russia not simply under the label of either 'semi-colony' or 'imperialist', but as combining features of both in an unstable union subject to inevitable change.
Okay, but there again, we aren't speaking of contradiction but of differing aspects of a society which are liable to engender tensions within it.
3) Granted, even if you dismiss Trotsky and Engels, it is still possible that a useful, comprehensible Marxist dialectics exists. I haven't encountered it, though. All I have seen is the repeated assertion that Marxist concepts embody change and contradiction where bourgeois concepts cannot. Leaving the question of contradiction to one side, here are a number of terms which do not originate from within the Marxist lexicon, yet which I feel adequately depict change of vast complexity:
vary, alter, adjust, mutate, develop, expand, flow, differentiate, fast, slow, rapid, melt, harden, drip, cascade, is, was, will be, will have been, had, will have had, went, go, going, gone, lost, age, flood, crumble, erode, tumble, fall, rise, spin, oscillate, rotate, wave, quickly, slowly, instantaneously, suddenly, gradually, rapidly, sell, buy, lose, win, ripen, rot, grow, decay, push, pull, jump, break, mend, loosen, tighten, undo, fasten, unfasten, rip, sew, sow, plant, till, cut, dig, split, join, divide, smash, fight, picket, transform, return, leave, modify, slight, miniscule, massive, microscopic, tiny, great, small, overturn, abrogate, cancel, defeat, strike, revolt, ma
vary, alter, adjust, mutate, develop, expand, flow, differentiate, fast, slow, rapid, melt, harden, drip, cascade, is, was, will be, will have been, had, will have had, went, go, going, gone, lost, age, flood, crumble, erode, tumble, fall, rise, spin, oscillate, rotate, wave, quickly, slowly, instantaneously, suddenly, gradually, rapidly, sell, buy, lose, win, ripen, rot, grow, decay, push, pull, jump, break, mend, loosen, tighten, undo, fasten, unfasten, rip, sew, sow, plant, till, cut, dig, split, join, divide, smash, fight, picket, transform, return, leave, modify, slight, miniscule, massive, microscopic, tiny, great, small, overturn, abrogate, cancel, defeat, strike, revolt, march, charge, assault, kick-out, remove, overthrow, expropriate, dismantle, replace, hour, minute, second, instant, destroy, boil, freeze, liquefy, evaporate, solidify, condense, protest, challenge, demonstrate, rebel, campaign, agitate and organise.
What of the other tenets of dialectics? Quantity into quality (transubstantiation), and interpentetration of opposites? And if not Trotsky and Engels, who do you think does adequately expound and defend the dialectic?
Scott:
"Sorry Rosa, it is not really possible to be against all forms of philosophy, because philosophy treats things that we all do - epistemology, for instance, discusses judgements about truth-value, judgements we all make everyday."
Why should I accept that definition (any more than you would accept the idea that all human beings are selfish)?
I am against all forms of ontology, epistemology and metaphysics. Get over it.
Your attempt to sunder the distinction between everyday knowledge and ordinary material language (which do not involve theories of any sort, and contain no necessary truths) and philosophical 'knowledge' (which does) is thus unsuccessful. There is more to it than this, but I’m blowed if I am going to do your thinking for you.
As I indicated earlier; I do not expect to win over you ‘dialectical mystics’. Dialectics is your metaphysical comfort blanket, after all. Cuddle it all you like if it helps you come to terms with your monumental lack of success. See if I care.
“I wondered about what your response would be to the philosophical problem of the relationship between the world and human conceptualisation of the world.”
A pseudo-problem, only of real concern to idealists – hence you should stop worrying about it.
“You rejected dialectics because you don't like the idea that we can only process reality with the help of concepts…”
Well, I reject dialectics because it is rank nonsense, and conservative uninteresting nonsense, too (at least Plato was interesting, so was Aristotle), and I did not mention ‘concepts’, so I do not know why you have dragged them in here. And exactly how do you “process reality”. Is it like a batch of peas? [More empty metaphors, Scott? Have you got a production line somewhere?]
“Your rejection would seem to imply, then, the view that we can access a 'pure' reality,”
Look, if you like you can write all my replies for me – it will at least save you having to read into what I write whatever you would like to see there. [I am rather surprised you did not have me mentioning the 45 minutes, and be done with it.]
Unfortunately for you, I do not understand the phrase “pure reality” - what is more I assert that you do not, either; another pseudo-problem (or ‘concept’).
“In other words, you have, whether you like it or not, what is often called a naive realist ontology and a naive empiricist epistemology.”
You should take up fiction; you are good at inventing things for others to believe.
Lenin was one of the above, so was George Moore.
I, on the other hand, am a Zippo-ist, and orthodox Nada fan, a Nichts-oholic, a Rien ne va Philosophy.
Clear enough?
“Your talk about verifying statements by 'surveying the whole world or a representative sample' suggests that these positions are complemented by a commitment to an old-fashioned positivist outlook…”
Why can’t you ‘dialecticians’ read? I know you think appearances contradict reality, but you do not have to make stuff up to prove it.
You, Scott, asserted that we humans indulge in something called “abstraction”; I merely asked you if this was scientific observation based on the mental lives of human beings (or if it was a guess). Hence my request for data. If you do not have the data, you will need to withdraw the assertion, or admit it is make-believe (which I suspect it is). That does not make me a positivist, only an awkward daughter of a bitch.
“The King's belief is not, for the Wittgenstein of On Certainty, any more irrational than GE Moore's belief that the world has existed for a long time.)”
What W was questioning was whether you or anyone possessed a topic- or context-free notion of rationality - an idea, I am ashamed to have to admit, he got from Hegel. So, if you want to pick a fight with W, spare a few low punches for the big H-man too.
While you are at it, perhaps you can tell us if you have a topic- or historically- neutral idea of rationality. Or are you all metaphysics and trousers?
And now we get *argumentum ad defferentia*:
“You concede that the finest Marxist thinkers have been dialecticians. Perhaps it's time to pause from that 600,000 word opus, discover a little humility, and consider whether Marx and Lenin might have known a little more about their method than you?”
Oh dear! On that basis Marx should have accepted all that Hegel bumbled, and you should too.
I’m all for humility, though. Do you think we can share a few crumbs from that enticing cake? Or are you too lofty?
Given that Marxism has been so spectacularly unsuccessful, don’t you think that the over-hyped “Philosophy of Change” (i.e., dialectics – tested in practice and found to be a dialectical damp squib) should consider a few more crumbs than I am happy to imbibe – a container load, or ten?
If your theory was so wonderfully successful, I’d don sackcloth and ashes as we type, but it isn’t - and in my estimation it never will be while you and your fellow ‘dialectical druggies’ keep thinking in ways that line you up with the class enemy.
So in the humility stakes, I reckon you are in greater need than I. Tuck in; you will need a garden spade.
“If you don't, I fear you may become a crank.”
Rather that than a cheer-leader for the thought-forms of the ruling-class. Er…what do they call those? Oh yes….Scabs.
lenin: by far the best intro to dialectics I have seen is Bertell Ollman's 'Dance of the Dailectic'. If you only have time to read a little of the book, I recommend chapter five, which is online at:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollm...cs/
dd_ch05a.php
I think that Trotsky's 'ABC of Dialectics' and 'Materialism and Radioactivity' and Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks are good value, too, especially if they are read alongside other more concrete work Lenin and Trotsky were doing at the time they were written. Some of Engels' stuff may simplify dialectics, but his late letters on dialectical materialism to Bebel etc are good value.
The point about 'the interpenetration of opposites' - whether that is the best phrase I don't know - is that all concepts are relational, not isolated, and that their meaning derives from this fact.
Take imperialism, for example - it cannot exist without semi-colonies to superexploit. Marxist abstrations try to recognise this fact by bringing together the features of semi-colonial
and imperialist societies.
Hence the Marxist understanding of the welfare state recognises the fact that this feature of First World society is predicated on the conditions that exist in the Third World. The welfare state can only exist in the West if it is absent in the Third World, because its material basis is the superexploitation of the Third World, and you cannot have a welfare state in a super-exploited semi-colony.
Fabians and liberals are genuinely puzzled by all this talk. They see the welfare state as an admirable achievement, which ought to serve as a model for the rest of the world. They can't see what on earth the NHS has to do with Africa or Asia, and the history of British imperialism there.
They are happy to decry some of the worst actions of imperialism - the invasion of Iraq, for instance - while at the same time putting forward a political programme which reproduces as a model for the world those features of Western society which are based upon imperialism, and hence not
achievable outside the West within the framework of capitalism. They do all this because they base their abstractions on the surface, obvious features of the world around them -
the NHS good, famine in Africa is bad, and an invisible wall separates them. Using the theory of imperialism Marxists are able to knock the wall over and show the connection between what appear opposites, or at best unrelated phenomena.
I don't buy Lenin's attempt to argue as if in a 'democratic dictatorship' there is a 'democratic' bit, and then a 'dictatorship bit' like the seperate patches of black and white on a cat. This is PRECISELY what I find dangerous about the argument. Ironically enough its actually premissed as far as I can see on a naive realism about the objects of conceptual analyses.
Presumably contradictory dynamics have to be understood as seperate objects rattling against each other. Where on earth does such a counter-intuitive idea come from? Worse think of combined and uneven development. The idea that this can be reduced to bits of the economy which are backward and bits of the economy which are advanced, is again nonsense. The effects of combined and uneven development exist both in the advanced and the backward bits.
I was also deeply disturbed by Rosa's demand that 'scientific evidence' be presented for 'abstraction' (whatever scientific evidence would count for here) and believe that Rosa theorises all the time and thinks dialectically as well (like all of us) whether she likes it or not.
I agree with Rosa's observation that there can be no context free definition of rationality (or indeed of anything at all). But I think, despite Wittgenstein, this is both a philosophical and a theoretical idea. Its certainly not the product of 'observation' or indeed 'scientific evidence'.
The point about 'the interpenetration of opposites' - whether that is the best phrase I don't know - is that all concepts are relational, not isolated, and that their meaning derives from this fact.
I don't get it - of course concepts as a rule do not emerge or exist in isolation from other concepts. They tend to be extensional and intensional. But what does this have to do with the IofE?
Take imperialism, for example - it cannot exist without semi-colonies to superexploit.
I'm still scratching my head here, and I promise I'm not wilfully trying to misunderstand. I just don't get it. Where are the opposites here? Where do they interpenetrate?
Hence the Marxist understanding of the welfare state recognises the fact that this feature of First World society is predicated on the conditions that exist in the Third World. The welfare state can only exist in the West if it is absent in the Third World, because its material basis is the superexploitation of the Third World, and you cannot have a welfare state in a super-exploited semi-colony.
I don't think I accept that thesis, but that I'll leave the analysis to linger and still ask - what's 'dialectical' about it? Where is the IofE, the QintoQ, the Contradiction, where is any of that?
Using the theory of imperialism Marxists are able to knock the wall over and show the connection between what appear opposites, or at best unrelated phenomena.
Well, I don't see any opposites here. I wish you would point them out for me, because I'm lost. I do accept that Lenin's theory of imperialism is a good one, (although I'm not sure about the subtext that Western workers benefit from imperialism - for instance, why did British workers make a net gain in both wages and SS after the empire's decline?). But I can't see the dialectics. Good that we should try to smash ideological illusions and discover connections that are hidden etc. Is that what dialectics is? Because I swear to you, I've never heard it explained in that fashion. The usual refrain is QintoQ.
"Your attempt to sunder the distinction between everyday knowledge and ordinary material language (which do not involve theories of any sort, and contain no necessary truths) and philosophical 'knowledge' (which does) is thus unsuccessful"
Ordinary material language does not involve theories of any sort? Is this supposed to be indubitable (its not of course). Or are you suggesting that its false to draw too much of a distinction between Ordinary language and Philosophical language (I would agree).
Exactly why do Philosophers speak nonsense? Is it because of the inherently misleading nature of language? (this would require a theory or philosophy of language), is it because of the influence of religous ideas (I suppose one might describe rather then theorise this relation but I do not believe there is a chinese wall between descriptive and theoretical language either).
One can already see the bubbling movement of dialectical problems even just asking these questions.
"Because I swear to you, I've never heard it explained in that fashion"
Thats rather extraordinary Lenin. Is it Birbeck that it is at fault rather then poor old Hegel?
"What W was questioning was whether you or anyone possessed a topic- or context-free notion of rationality - an idea, I am ashamed to have to admit, he got from Hegel."
AH HA...AH HA....AH HA.
etc, etc cheap annoying point scoring etc.
It IS a rather large and important point though. How come Hegel came up with this? Was it like, a co-incidence?
johng - I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying. You say:
Presumably contradictory dynamics have to be understood as seperate objects rattling against each other.
Er, no. Contradictions do not exist in reality. There are only contradictions in thought and language. A proposition can be a contradiction in terms, for instance. "Black is white" is a contradiction in terms.
The idea that this can be reduced to bits of the economy which are backward and bits of the economy which are advanced, is again nonsense. The effects of combined and uneven development exist both in the advanced and the backward bits.
I again don't understand you. I don't think I'm saying combined and uneven development is like a black and white cat. I was merely talking about different ways of being in contradiction or not.
I do agree that the "advanced bits" and the "backward bits" are part of the same economy and therefore - to use a bit of hackish language - exist in a state of differentiated unity. What that has to do with dialectics I won't know until you enlighten me.
Rosa theorises all the time and thinks dialectically as well (like all of us) whether she likes it or not.
That's a religious-style injunction if ever I heard one.
Thats rather extraordinary Lenin. Is it Birbeck that it is at fault rather then poor old Hegel?
No, it's the fault of the CC if you want to know. I pay close attention to the meetings on this question. The emphasis is often differently placed, of course - usually there's the old schtick about dialectics being more dynamic etc, but there'll often be a lengthy explanation of quantity into quality, padded out with some dubious examples and some quotes from Trotsky.
If we're talking of a Marxist dialectic, one that can be justified in materialist and not idealist terms, then the force of the point about Hegel is sort of lost. If you are saying, as I think you might be, that dialectics does indeed consist of understanding things in relation to one another, then it is truly the most banal set of observations and propositions to have been advanced in the name of revolutionary socialism. Who the frigging fuck doesn't know that things don't tend to stand isolated from one another, but do in fact tend to be related and mutually affect one another in various ways? I don't require Hegel to point it out to me.
er..John Elster?
Hmmm. I'd like to rephrase this: "Contradictions do not exist in reality."
Contradictions exist in reality inasmuch as thought and discourse is part of reality. A better way of putting the point is that contradictions are entirely and exclusively linguistic.
Jon Elster adopts methodological individualism, this is true, but I would just guess, because his entire reinterpretation of Marxism relies on it, that he understands that individual actors operate in ways that are not isolated, which mutually affect one another.
Lenin,
When you say that contradictions exist in thought are you equating a contradiction with logical error?
Or are you making the more subtle point that its a big blooming buzzing confusion out there and its only our catagories that make sense of them, and hence only our catagories rather then anything 'in reality' can be thought to be 'in contradiction?.
I often look at an ideology and think that ideology is contradictory. On the one hand it does 'x'. On the other hand the very thing that does 'x' also does 'y'. And 'x' and 'y' pull against each other. Before I give an example do you not also sometimes experiance this?
Is it not possible for there to be contradictory ideas? Perhaps contradictory ideas can simply be dismissed as 'false'.
What about a society that both creates the conditions for abundance and at the same time creates immisseration? (and importantly that neccessarily does both, each pole strengthening the other).
Perhaps this is only a contradiction from the standpoint of human needs, or what we think are human needs (ie its a big blooming buzzing confusion). But what if this state of affairs actually generates crisis (crisis which in turn are related to the expansion of the system) ie that the opposite poles of abundance and scarcity neccessarily bound togeather, co-exist with accumalation of capital and the wiping out of capital neccessarily bound togeather.
Is this something which just exists in our heads? Well I suppose one could argue so. But might one not argue that such a position makes impossible any understanding of human societies?
The incredible hostility provoked by this idea cannot surely be unrelated to the fact that defences of capitalism generally rest on refusing to see the internal relations between these things. And this refusal to see is surely itself bound up with very powerful philosophical prejudices.
I think there are real problems with combining dialectics and materialism. They are traditionally seperate languages. But authors tend to generate problems like this when they are trying to break the conventional grammer of philosophy. I think Marx was attempting precisely this.
To me materialism is a research project. Its about the expulsion of teleology from history. Its a complicated business and Marx found dialectics a useful tool. A materialist dialectic would be a dialectic without a teleology. We're still thinking and debating these questions two hundred years later.
I think we live in these problems rather then having superceded them. Its universities which encourage us to believe that these problems are safely located in texts. I do believe that Hegel was an idealist. I don't think he can be reduced to his idealism though.
Oh and Elster also rejects any theory of the declining rate of profit, 95 per cent of Marx's theoretical language (a kind of analytical Althussarian auto de fe). Thinking that dialectics is simply nonsense means thinking that the whole of Kapital is rubbish. You have to accept that this is a problem. Does'nt make you wrong. But its a problem. You also ought to read Ollman's book on Alienation which is a master piece at uncovering some of the subtlties of Marx's conceptual vocabulary.
Also the notion of internal relations does not mean simply that things 'effect' each other. It means that they are not external to each other.
The relationship between Capitalism and Individualism is not one of cause and effect (for example, actually its a bad example). There is a coherent defence of a philosophy of internal relations in the appendix of Ollman's Alienation which makes clear why the traditional refutations of internal relations are false (at least a defence). Before giving up on dialectics entirely its probably worth reading this (I suspect this would be more stimulating for you then his latest book on dialectics).
Rather that than a cheer-leader for the thought-forms of the ruling-class. Er…what do they call those? Oh yes….Scabs.
No they don't.
Anyway, this...
Hence the Marxist understanding of the welfare state recognises the fact that this feature of First World society is predicated on the conditions that exist in the Third World. The welfare state can only exist in the West if it is absent in the Third World, because its material basis is the superexploitation of the Third World, and you cannot have a welfare state in a super-exploited semi-colony.
...is a good example of profoundly undialectical thinking. It would appear to be on deeply non-dialectical bourgeois economics: "superexploitation"? "Material basis"? I don't think Lenin was right to try and separate his disagreements with the thesis from its heavy theoretical problems: the one flows directly from the other.
...They [liberals] see the welfare state as an admirable achievement...
Presumably we should hope it is privatised and dismantled as soon as possible.
When you say that contradictions exist in thought are you equating a contradiction with logical error?
A contradiction is not necessarily a logical error. If I contradict you, I might be right or wrong, but it isn't necessarily a logical error. I just maintain that contradiction is not what goes on between the working class and the ruling class, for instance. The two do not make one another impossible - rather, one relies on the other. There is conflict between them, sure, but this is not the same thing as a contradiction.
On the one hand it does 'x'. On the other hand the very thing that does 'x' also does 'y'. And 'x' and 'y' pull against each other. Before I give an example do you not also sometimes experiance this?
I call this tension or conflict, a perfectly ordinary and unglamorous way of describing it.
Perhaps contradictory ideas can simply be dismissed as 'false'.
Well, they certainly can't be accepted as wholly true. If I say a cup of tea is hot and cold I could either be a hopeless relativist or actually contradicting myself, in which case what I'm saying can't be entirely true.
What about a society that both creates the conditions for abundance and at the same time creates immisseration?
That's one of the appalling and baleful things about capitalism. It is absurd, but not contradictory. I do not contradict myself if I say that capitalism has created the conditions for abundance, and then say capitalism creates immiseration. It is possible for both to be true at one and the same time. There is no contradiction.
Is this [the grave injustice of capitalism, the disparity between the prose of the present and the poetry of the possible] something which just exists in our heads?
No, of course not. Good grief, I am saying that they don't represent contradictions, not that these do not exist.
A materialist dialectic would be a dialectic without a teleology
Surely it would also be one that can be justified as comprehensible and necessary in material terms as well?
Thinking that dialectics is simply nonsense means thinking that the whole of Kapital is rubbish. You have to accept that this is a problem.
The whole of Kapital is concerned with dialectics? Surely not? Perhaps I could argue, and perhaps I would be right in arguing that Kapital is perfectly comprehensible and acceptable without dialectics. For instance, suppose I substitute the word 'conflict' for 'contradiction' and also (therefore) do away with the teleological language that impairs some of Kapital? Would I be doing immense damage to the meaning of the text? Do I need contradictions, IofO and QintoQ in order to accept the 'law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall'?
Also the notion of internal relations does not mean simply that things 'effect' each other. It means that they are not external to each other.
A distinct
A distinction without much of a difference as far as I can tell. Could you elaborate?
Lenin I lost something where I seriously tried to engage with your view that "contradictions are purely and exclusively linguistic". So I'll engage polemically instead. Presumably then 'contradictions' refer only to questions to do with 'meaning'. But then so does everything else.
I find these sorts of declarations a bit dogmatic and thoughtless to be honest. OK. So I turn to the dictionary. I look up 'contradition'. Then I look up 'reality'. Or I look up linguistic. Or extra-linguistic (at a push when I realise I'm contradicting myself).
Or go another way. I say an 'ideology' which is real, is 'contradictory'. You say 'only purely linguisticly'. Then I say well, in terms of the historical development of this ideology, its been extremely contradictory. Now historical, development and contradictory are all linguistic terms. Things only exist historically, no doubt, linguistically.
But anyone who thinks that problems associated with historical development can be resolved linguistically or indeed only exist linguistically has missed a big part of the point.
Sorry. I fucking HATE that style of thinking. It sounds great but, yes, it ultimately runs into contradiction. Thats why you skipped from 'reality' to 'purely linguistic'. What I take you to be trying to say is that its only the meaning we give to something that makes it contradictory. Well. Is 'contradictory' a special word here? Are there things where the meaning we give to them don't matter to how we see them? What does this say about your view of the extra-linguistic? That it can't be contradictory?
Sorry I'm becoming incoherent with rage.
:)
J.
Ah...I did not say the prose of the present the poetry of the future. I did'nt say that at all. Thats the problem.
Apologies for the delay, folks!
johng:
“I did not say that Wittgenstein says that religious beliefs are held for rational reasons (quite the contrary 'of what we cannot speak...' etc).”
That reference from the Tractatus relates to the ‘saying/showing’ distinction and is not about religious language.
In fact, W was quite happy with the latter; he carried Tolstoy’s gospels around with him in the First World War, and in those gospels, much is said about ‘God’, etc.
In that case, much of what you say about W and religious belief is inaccurate.
However, in general, you seem to know much about Marx’s ideas on this topic - ideas that he never bothered to write down. Are you in contact with him, via a medium of some sort? If so, tell him to stop pissing about, and finish ‘Das Kapital’ - and pronto.
“…as the generic fallacy proves…”
Well, I am not sure a fallacy can prove anything, and that particular ‘fallacy’ is merely informal. It has no logical bite, whatever its rhetorical force amounts to.
So, if I assert that I got my ideas from a certain NN, and you show I got them from MM (and not NN), then you will have shown that where I got my ideas from falsifies at least one of my beliefs (if I believe I got them from NN). And if I believe that p because NM asserts that p, and you can show that NM was lying, then that would be relevant to the revision of my beliefs, too. Next ‘fallacy’, please....
Much else that you say I cannot argue with, however.
lenin: "I do not contradict myself if I say that capitalism has created the conditions for abundance, and then say capitalism creates immiseration. It is possible for both to be true at one and the same time. There is no contradiction."
Capitalism [*clears throat*]is the girlfriend from hell. Greedy, selfish, boastful, fickle and completely self-destructive, she'll go with anyone who'll pay for her drinks. Common as muck yet la-di-dah, she leaves a trail of broken hearts behind her. She's tight-fisted at times and spendthrift at others. She's cruel to animals. She hates washing the dishes. She refuses to take out the rubbish. She rarely keeps her promises. Occasionally, she even gets violent.
But she's really, really, really good-looking.
So what's a bloke supposed to do?
Johng:
“I was also deeply disturbed by Rosa's demand that 'scientific evidence' be presented for 'abstraction' (whatever scientific evidence would count for here) and believe that Rosa theorises all the time and thinks dialectically as well (like all of us) whether she likes it or not.”
Well, you are very easy to ‘disturb’ then, especially if I did not say this.
Read my response to Scott above with your usual attention to detail, please. I merely challenged him to back up what appeared to me to be an empirical claim about the world, that people ‘abstract’. If he is unable to produce this evidence then he must withdraw it or admit that it is an a priori thesis, imposed on the world in deficance or frulle 45 of the 'dialecticans' guide to crap logic.
Failing that, he will need to defend this assertion with something a little more robust than the usual ‘dialectical mush’ you mystics usually try to palm off on us.
And, I have no problems with scientific theories, because they at least interface with material reality (at some point). So I might try a little of that myself, I might not.
But, if you can find one single philosophical thesis in anything I say, that I assent to, I will immediately abandon it as accursed until the seventh generation, and call down a pox on its fig tree - if it is lucky.
[I note your failure to give an example, however.]
And if you can find so much as a hint of ‘dialectical’ thinking in anything I have posted, I will follow Socrates, and quaff a hemlock shandy, and put a stop to such madness.
So, I double-dog dare you to find such incriminating evidence.
[I think psychologists call this fault in dialecticians, ‘projection’. In that case, let’s go more than the whole hog in retaliation: I think you argue in fluent bollocks “all the time and think diabolically as well… whether you like it or not.” Unfair? Abusive? Well stop trying to smear me with accusations that I would touch your mystical patterns of confusion with your barge pole, let alone my lack of one, then. :)]
Sorry, that post should read:
Johng:
“I was also deeply disturbed by Rosa's demand that 'scientific evidence' be presented for 'abstraction' (whatever scientific evidence would count for here) and believe that Rosa theorises all the time and thinks dialectically as well (like all of us) whether she likes it or not.”
Well, you are very easy to ‘disturb’ then, especially if I did not say this.
Read my response to Scott above with your usual attention to detail, please. I merely challenged him to back up what appeared to me to be an empirical claim about the world, that people ‘abstract’. If he is unable to produce this evidence then he must withdraw it or admit that it is an a priori thesis, imposed on the world in defiance of rule 45 of the 'dialecticians' guide to crap logic.
Failing that, he will need to defend this assertion with something a little more robust than the usual ‘dialectical mush’ you mystics usually try to palm off on us.
And, I have no problems with scientific theories, because they at least interface with material reality (at some point). So I might try a little of that myself, I might not.
But, if you can find one single philosophical thesis in anything I say, that I assent to, I will immediately abandon it as accursed until the seventh generation, and call down a pox on its fig tree - if it is lucky.
[I note your failure to give an example, however.]
And if you can find so much as a hint of ‘dialectical’ thinking in anything I have posted, I will follow Socrates, and quaff a hemlock shandy, and put a stop to such madness.
So, I double-dog dare you to find such incriminating evidence.
[I think psychologists call this fault in dialecticians, ‘projection’. In that case, let’s go more than the whole hog in retaliation: I think you argue in fluent bollocks “all the time and think diabolically as well… whether you like it or not.” Unfair? Abusive? Well stop trying to smear me with accusations that I would touch your mystical patterns of confusion with your barge pole, let alone my lack of one, then. ]
The smiley was cut by haloscan, not me!
Rosa,
I fully accept that I have not entered into your arguments with sufficiant attention to detail. But your continuing and wilful misreading about what I say about Wittgenstein is incredible. I nowhere at all state that he was uncomfortable with the mystical. Quite the contrary. I argue the opposite. And have done so on several occassions. The Show/Say distinction is not, in my very illiterate view, irrelevent to this.
In terms of abstraction I find what you say hard to credit. Are you seriously suggesting your not doing so? I also find your acceptance of scientific theories very hard to understand. 'Because they have an interface with material reality'. Que? So we have an implicit metaphysics right there, different kinds of reality, privilaging of 'material' (what is meant by this?) etc.
Incidently lets just say that the genetic fallacy shows us that it would be a mistake to regard a view as false simply because it was generated by false data. Ok its not a proof.
J.
johng:
"Is this supposed to be indubitable (its not of course)."
Well, ordinary language contains every proposition and its negation. No theory can do that.
End of story.
"this would require a theory or philosophy of language"
Er, no. Just allow philosophers to talk, and watch the nonsense spew forth.
No theory, not even a "th".
"but I do not believe there is a chinese wall between descriptive and theoretical language either..."
Who said there was? I do, however, assert there is one between ordinary language and philosophical language.
And it is not so much a Chinese wall, as a black hole.
johng:
"One can already see the bubbling movement of dialectical problems even just asking these questions."
I suggest it is your bowels.
johng:
"AH HA...AH HA....AH HA."
Come on spit it out man, what is your point?
"How come Hegel came up with this? Was it like, a co-incidence?"
No, because like the rest of us, he could (on his day-off in his case) use ordinary language. And that idea follows from our ordinary use of words connected with rationality, in the way I have illustrated.
Of course, you are right, that was merely a debating point. There is no evidence that I know of that W read Hegel, but he certainly read those who unfortunately did.
W got this idea in the way that your expert cross-examination winkled out of me - from ordinary language (where Hegel got the notion, too.)
Well done for ignoring everything else I said, though.
Dialectical Myopia, it's called.
Oh and Lenin sorry for the polemic.
In the first case I don't understand why conflict is better then contradiction from your point of view. Certainly I think 'absurd' is even worse (from your point of view).
Surely Absurd is purely linguistic. Surely at a stretch Conflict would be as well. Can you have 'contradictory behaviour'? If you can have 'contradictory behaviour' (certainly Marxists talk of contradictory consiousness, is this possible?) why not (say) contradictory class locations? Could you then have contradictory social systems?
Is the problem here the removal of mind? (ie an individual has ideas which are linguistic and these ideas can then contradict each other). Thinking it through there are a range of ways in which we use the term contradictory.
I can disagree with you. (I contradict you). I can contradict myself (this implies I am incoherent in some way). On the other hand its quite possible for someone to note (often) that 'John G behaves in a contradictory manner'. I might, talking fluent bollocks as Rosa so charmingly put it, respond by suggesting that, actually, I am simply the product of contradictory drives and desires rather then a unified subject.
In this case 'contradiction' gets its bite from something else then my intentions. Then we can talk about a social system which neccessarily relates accumalation of capital to destruction of capital as 'contradictory from the standpoint of capital' ie Capital is self contradictory: we don't have to like Hegel imagine that Capital 'refutes' itself. We can think of capital as a social relation rather then a thing (a way of relating social objects to each other). All kinds of mysteries start to accumalate. The idea of contradiction becomes the least of our worries. I can't really see why conflict, absurdity etc is fine but contradiction is not.
Oh. But I sense a gathering storm from Rosa at this point.
Meaders:
"No they don't."
[Thanks for that high-grade input, comrade. :)]
Well,they should.
Of course, I shouldn't have spared your blushes, and used "class-traitor" instead.
Happy, now?
Rosa,
Your explanation of Hegel's ideas about context are almost as absurd as my own evasions Rosa. Aside from the fact that some people have started to read Hegel as if he was an ordinary language philosopher, the notion that this idea was just out there eternally waiting to be discovered and was not related in some ways to emerging problem fields in philosophy at the time is a bit ridiculous. Why does philosophy take the turn you prefer in the mid-20th century? (oh yes I know you really, really hate philosophy). Are there any reasons for this or was everyone just stupid?
Read an interesting book on the Tractatus by a maths teacher. Brockhause I think. Schopenhaur is apparently a very important philosophical influence.
"End of story".
I don't see how but I should probably read your theses. Why do these philosophers all speak rubbish though? Is it because they're bad people? They've been bewitched (by language or something else). Do you really believe (not rhetorical you might) that common sense will do...unless of course when the material world is involved (why?).
'Material world' is itself a philosophical theoretical idea of course. Its actually deeply mysterious if you think about it. And probably very recent. When did people first start talking about 'the material world' and why?
Oh and Lenin on Materialism. Materialists used to claim that there was nothing but the physical world. You've said you think our ideas are part of the world. I think thats ok but only if you accept that Materialism was code for anti-religous metaphysics. Thats why I define materialism as war against teleology. Thats what I think it is.
Johng:
“But your continuing and wilful misreading about what I say about Wittgenstein is incredible.”
Well you quoted him, and implied he said this or that about religious belief, when the quotation was actually about something else.
The rafter is in thine own eye, comrade. Leave the mote in mine to its own devices.
“I nowhere at all state that he was uncomfortable with the mystical.”
And I nowhere said that you did.
This invention thing - can anyone do it?
So: johng, I resent your assertion that I was an avid supporter of under-water buffalo hunting.
The words “sauce” and “gander” come to mind here, for some reason.
“In terms of abstraction I find what you say hard to credit. Are you seriously suggesting your not doing so?”
Worse, I’m saying you don’t, and challenge you to prove otherwise.
“So we have an implicit metaphysics right there”
No, it’s an eminently defeasible empirical assertion. Care to deny it?
“'material' (what is meant by this?) etc.”
I am sorry; I thought you knew the English language. Warzsawa will help you out there.
I’ll type slower if it will help.
“Ok its not a proof.”
So, you have never heard of indirect proof, then?
johng:
“Aside from the fact that some people have started to read Hegel as if he was an ordinary language philosopher…”
More fool them, then.
“Why does philosophy take the turn you prefer in the mid-20th century? (oh yes I know you really, really hate philosophy). Are there any reasons for this or was everyone just stupid?”
Well, only in the last 100 years have the working class entered the stage as a material force. This has introduced their language as a comparable force to counter-weigh the idealist philosophy you and other dialectical monks go in for.
Wittgenstein turned to ordinary language philosophy under the influence of Sraffa (Gramsci’s friend); the majority of other ordinary language philosophers were socialists, or left-leaning.
Your time is up, my friend. You idealists have had your day. We now have the material counter-weight to blow your mystical ideas out of the water.
End of round-one: Rosa, ahead on points....
“Read an interesting book on the Tractatus by a maths teacher. Brockhause I think. Schopenhau[e]r is apparently a very important philosophical influence.”
Read it; it’s quite good (especially on Hertz), but it makes all the usual mistakes. And it’s “Brockhaus”.
To save you suggesting more books I will have read - my PhD thesis was on Wittgenstein. I have several bookcases full of books on him, plus several hundred papers.
Is it now citations at fifty paces? Get ready to draw, then.
johng:
"Why do these philosophers all speak rubbish though?"
Well, you have not really read your Wittgenstein vert carefully, have you - or your Marx?
They tickle the ears of their patrons - end of another story.
"Do you really believe (not rhetorical you might) that common sense will do."
johng, have you smoked too many spliffs? Is your short-term memory going? I noted above that I was against the commonsense realism (or anything-else-ism of anyone) of the likes of Moore.
Commonsense has nothing to do with ordinary language.
"'Material world' is itself a philosophical theoretical idea of course."
It maybe if you wrench it out of context. But it certainly isn’t the way I was using it.
"Its actually deeply mysterious"
Well, it is to you Idealists, but that is your own funeral.
“When did people first start talking about 'the material world' and why?”
No idea; and I do not really care. It’s how I am using the notion that I do care about.
johng - I was taking you seriously, but if you feel obliged to elevate the matter to polemical status, that's cool.
Can you have 'contradictory behaviour'? If you can have 'contradictory behaviour' (certainly Marxists talk of contradictory consiousness, is this possible?) why not (say) contradictory class locations? Could you then have contradictory social systems?
I don't suppose you can have contradictory behaviour, no. It sounds like nonsense to me. I don't think either that you can have contradictory class positions. Contradictory consciousness? Wtf is 'consciousness'? You can have ideas that are in contradiction, but when Marxists discuss this they usually mean that such ideas are in tension - they don't sit well together, even if they are not mutually exclusive. One can be a trade unionist and a monarchist. I see no contradiction in that, albeit I think it is not entirely a consistent attitude.
Is the problem here the removal of mind? (ie an individual has ideas which are linguistic and these ideas can then contradict each other). Thinking it through there are a range of ways in which we use the term contradictory.
I don't get it. Really, what do you mean by 'the removal of mind'? I'm not, as I say, philosophically trained - except in the most minute fashion. Birkbeck is not to blame, of course - I am.
I can disagree with you. (I contradict you). I can contradict myself (this implies I am incoherent in some way). On the other hand its quite possible for someone to note (often) that 'John G behaves in a contradictory manner'.
True - you might say something that contradicts what I have just said or what I generally hold to be true. I don't know how to make sense of the claim that you behave in a contradictory manner. You might behave in an unusual, erratic and confusing manner. You might have mood swings, or you might prefer fish one day and hate it the next. If I said you liked fish on Friday and you said you hated it on Thursday, we wouldn't really be contradicting one another. We'd be talking about different things.
Then we can talk about a social system which neccessarily relates accumalation of capital to destruction of capital as 'contradictory from the standpoint of capital' ie Capital is self contradictory
But, seriously, how is it contradictory to suppose that the cycle of capital accumulation can involve its enormous destruction? I think the very fact that such a process can be described without contradicting oneself or making oneself ridiculous means it is perfectly comprehensible without a special 'dialectical' language or philosophy. It just happens to be one of the most common and by now utterly apparent facts of capitalism. At different times, capital accumulates, at other times it is destroyed (by war, recession or environmental catastrophe). I can't see a contradiction here.
We can think of capital as a social relati
We can think of capital as a social relation rather then a thing (a way of relating social objects to each other). All kinds of mysteries start to accumalate. The idea of contradiction becomes the least of our worries. I can't really see why conflict, absurdity etc is fine but contradiction is not.
Surely the difference is apparent? A contradiction is something that can occur in a statement about reality or between two statements about reality or between n+1 statements about reality. Does this mean that the working class contradicts the ruling class (ie makes it impossible)? I can't see how it does. The ruling class is in 'conflict' with the working class. I would not be contradicting myself to add that the ruling class needs the working class. Both are true, or at the very least it is possible to imagine a world in which both are true. Logically, there is nothing incompatible about them. Using perfectly ordinary, day-to-day language there, I described both a conflict (between classes) and a tension (in one class's motives), and I didn't contradict myself.
Does that render the difference obvious enough? Incidentally, just a matter of clarification - what do you consider central to the notion of the dialectic?
Well put, Ilya!
lenin: you might see Kapital as more teleological than it is because you don't acknowledge its dialectical aspects. The book is not supposed to be a portrait of any economy, anywhere in the world, but rather a series of abstractions of the most important aspects of capitalism.
That's why it almost completely ignores the continued existence of pre-capitalist economic forms inside capitalism, for instance, not to mention vast areas of culture involved in the reproduction of capitalist social relations. But Kapital has to be read as a series of abstractions - informed, obviously, by immense empircial research - of capitalism, not as a simple empirical study of capitalism. The non-linear (some would say Hegelian) structure of the work brings this home.
Meaders: I take it you'd acknowledge
the existence of a labour aristocracy in the sense lenin used the term in contemporary Britain. Does that mean you want to see their wages and conditions cut? Of course not. Same logic applies to the welfare state.
john: I agree about the need to expel teleology from Marxism. lenin's 'historical materialism', without dialectics, is bound to be teleological. I wouldn't lump Althusser in with Elster though - Althusser is always striving to create a materialism which avoids teleology.
Scott - I don't say that Das Kapital is essentially teleological, but I do think the Hegelian language and influence accounts for some of the more teleological passages. For instance, if you think that there are fatal 'contradictions' at the heart of capitalism, then the logical corrollary is that they cannot persist - they must inevitably be resolved, because contradictions cannot persist.
The idea of an overpowering locomotive of (pre-)history with its final terminus in socialist revolution is teleological one, and it is present in both the language of Kapital and in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/...omy/
preface.htm
The rest of what you say about Kapital, I totally accept. I can't see how it relates to the 'dialectical' aspects that I am allegedly disavowing, though.
Btw, I don't think Meaders would accept the 'labour aristocracy' thesis any more than I would. Being State Caps, we would probably tend to accept Cliff's critique of the idea:
http://home.online.no/~vorhaug/p...oots_reformism/
Ilya, and you might like to add that where, for example, Marx 'says' he is abstracting, he leaves the details out; where he genuinely abstracts he uses well-know techniques drawn from the (genuine, materially-grounded) sciences (which today we might call 'building a model' - what we Wittgensteinians call "a form of representation", but only if that notion is given the odd tweak here and there).
If someone were to tell you they had 'abstracted' the Trinity into existence, I rather think you’d object; and on at least two grounds: 1) the subject of that abstraction is incomprehensible, and 2) the method is unclear (i.e., where do you begin, and how could everyone agree, given the fact that 'abstraction' is a fundamentally private, 'subjective' affair?). If you are going to abstract, you need to know the result before you begin, otherwise you would have no way of knowing if you had hit the right target, there being no way of deciding objectively that you had – no ‘outer criteria’, to use another Wittgensteinianism.
The same applies to 'dialectical' abstractions, but it is not as easy to see. 1) The subject of the abstraction either makes no sense, or it is based on an analogical/metaphorical extension to the use of an ordinary word (we saw several comrades do this earlier, imagining they were talking non-metaphorically about, say “contradictions” – dialectics is nothing if not sloppy), which the process turns into the name of an ‘abstract particular’ (e.g., ‘the population’, or ‘the mind’, or ‘consciousness’, or ‘concept’ - or at the worst ‘being’ - the effect on the structure of empirical propositions I outlined above); and 2) the process itself is still eminently private. Dialecticians say they arrive at the same concepts, but how could they tell? Do they do brain scans? Do they employ hypnotism? And how would they recognise the right result before they got there? Do they abstract before they abstract – as a sort of metaphysical warm-up?
We should be very wary, therefore, when our mystical comrades appeal to an occult process which establishes a nonsensical result. Dialectics is thus a huge con, accepted on authority alone. [A rather odd thing to have to say about Marxist philosophers (hence my assertion that they were all in love with traditional, ruling-class thought-forms). The ruling ideas are those of the ruling-class. It helps the enemy if our ‘best’ minds do their job for them.]
As a science, therefore, 'dialectics' does not even make the list - or even the reserve also-ran sub-list.
As a 'logic', it is a sick joke (which its acolytes play on each other, and on Marxism – because it makes them feel that their ideas lie at the centre of the meaning-universe, a condition brought on by the alienated nature of their class-position – i.e., déclassé intellectuals, or petty-bourgeois theorists and professional revolutionaries – big fish in permanently small ponds.).
You know, I should get off the fence and say what I really think….
testing
Part 1
Scott I would'nt lump Althusser in with Elster no. Perhaps an absurdist Althusser. And of course my remarks about the expulsion of teleology are derivitive of Althusser. Lenin, I really don't know how to reply. Part of the problem is trying to engage you and Rosa at the same time. I could use an 'ordinary language' argument to demonstrate that your view that I don't behave in contradictory behaviour (or can't) is simply at odds with ordinary usage and must therefore derive from some philosophical fiction. But I don't know how this would play with you. The use of the term 'tension' as opposed to 'contradiction' seems pretty desperate to me. Looking at a dictionary we find 'being stretched', tenseness, mental strain or excitement, 'stress by which bar, cord, etc is pulled when it is part of system in equilibrium etc'. Some things here are suggestive but I don't see how this would work if I was puzzled by someone whose behaviour seemed contradictory (it might be a diagnosis of contradictory behaviour!). By what legislative right (and where does this right come from?) do you suggest that I can't describe someone as engaging in 'contradictory behaviour'? Does Eric Olin Wright (himself an analytical Marxist) make a mistake when he describes white collar workers who on the one hand are subject to exploitation and on the other hand have control over the labour process as occupying a 'contradictory class location' as a consequence? Should he say that 'they occupy a 'tense' class location?' (does this sound more natural?) or that this is a 'conflictual' class location? What does this solve? I think all it does is protect the notion that tendencies which exclude each other cannot produce tensions inside a social system, and that for formal logical reasons we must exclude the word 'contradiction' from our analyses of such a society. Your answer relies on Hegelian turns of phrase about oak tree’s contradiction acorns. But that begs the question. Marx clearly does’nt use the term in that way.
Part 2
Its a use and mention problem. Hegel means that the oak tree 'refutes' the acorn. And probably Rosa has gone a long way to say that this is wrong. But this is surely not the only way we can talk about contradictory processes (at least I see no reason why not).
But what underlies all this (at least for me?):
All I assert is this. That our concepts whether they be ‘materialism’, ‘individualism’ or indeed ‘ordinary language’ can only be properly understood in their historical context. This becomes particularly clear if you happen, like me, to be involved in the study of other parts of the world were concepts like these either did not exist or have a dissimilar history. If one is not blinkered in the typical English way it also becomes clear that even within particular philosophical traditions these concepts change their meaning over time.
Its also true that not only does the concept of ordinary language have a history but that if we pick out ‘ordinary language’ as an object of analyses (forgetting for a moment that this is a philosophical concept and not a self-evident item in reality) we find that many of the terms inside it are the product of social, ideological and philosophical clashes. Changes in our notions of ‘reality’, ‘the material world’, and indeed ‘contradiction’ are all completely bound up with shifts in our world view. Again this becomes obvious to anyone (like me) reading about the construction of new grammars, new dictionaries etc associated with the spread of British rule to other parts of the world.
Part 3 (or why Marxists must hate Brits).
The notion that there is anything ‘ordinary’ about ‘ordinary language’ rapidly reveals itself as an illusion. The notion as well that there is anything ‘self evident’ about the distinction between things which only exist at the linguistic level and things which exist somewhere else (?) also starts to fall to pieces. Why on earth Marx (who we know did not even use the word ‘science’ in the same way we use it, partly because of differences between German philosophical and British philosophical traditions, important in terms of understanding differences of terminology linguistically) should be judged according to the yardstick of British Empiricism and the various colloquial internal disputes British Empiricism gave rise to (which is where all this stuff comes from) is really peculiar.
Ollman is good because he does not approach Marx like a British school master ‘correcting’ him where he goes wrong without bothering to seriously investigate the historical provinance of his ideas, or assuming that because that provinance is ‘historical’ it is therefore not ‘up-to-date’ (ie unBritish) but understands a) that it was precisely British philosophy Marx despised (for the very good reason that it’s a philosophy closely bound up with capitalism) and that b) its necessary to work out what Marx actually meant according to his own categories rather then read him through the categories of his philosophical opponents (which is all that analytical Marxists do).
I like Rosa’s war on philosophical conservatism amongst Marxists. But her sociology of Philosophy could easily be re-written in a different way. Materialists were philosophers who argued much as she did (about the history of philosophy). Marx thought this argument limited. This led Karl Popper to line Marx up with Plato. And so on. All this can be criticised. When Rosa says she has no philosophical theses this seems to mean that she simply makes assertions. And this is very English. Its our philosophy. We know best and all the rest are just confused silly billies. One meets this speices in Oxford and Cambridge (a good illustration of this mentality was Russell’s claim that ‘he was the first person to read Frege’ by which he meant the first ‘sensible’ person ie someone British from a particular tradition: similarly phrases like ‘historians agree’, ‘it is generally accepted’ ‘new research demonstrates’ etc If one hears these phrases one knows one is about to be presented with a piece of spurious humbug based on a ‘consensus’ that extends no further then a few English counties, sure as eggs is eggs).
Ordinary Language? A phoney egalitarianism which excludes anyone not familiar with a peculiar set of technical terms on the one hand and a set of historically mediated philosophical assumptions on the other. Witgenstein’s apparently similar beliefs about the irrelevance of philosophical traditions and historical context were in fact rooted in the problems
Witgenstein’s apparently similar beliefs about the irrelevance of philosophical traditions and historical context were in fact rooted in the problems of a different philosophical tradition, unexplored by his readers (most of whom came from the Anglo-Saxon tradition) largely because of their extraordinary arrogance and parochialism.
Scott - I take it you'd acknowledge
the existence of a labour aristocracy in the sense lenin used the term in contemporary Britain...
Well, no. Lenin of the Tomb is right; the actual Lenin I'd tend to disagree with.
In any case, the major point is that "superexploitation" is a weak, non-dialectical concept: given that rates of exploitation can differ across sectors, industries, and even firms, there's no good reason to start trying to present some degrees of exploitation as exceptional relative to others. To do so is to creep into a simple Kantianism of the kind that lurks behind bourgeois political economy - it blurs a moral critique of capitalism, based on some appeal to definite standards, with a properly scientific critique contained in the concept of exploitation. (Moreover, as applied to the centre-periphery divide, "superexploitation" is empirically flawed: the most exploited workers in the world are generally those in the North, even if they are not so obviously oppressed.)
Have you read Wilfred Sellers on empiricism and psychology Rosa? Do you accept the 'myth of the given'? ('an eminantly empirical proposition' ha ha).
The notion that I can work out what materialism means by looking in a dictionary (when? two hundred years ago? One hundred years ago?) or that these arguments can be resolved simply by 'knowing the english language' is as crass a piece of Oxbridge navel gazing as I have ever come across. Although I understand that the LSE is full of people reading things over and over again, a new speices of transatlantic philistinianism.
Who writes dictionaries?
johng:
“And probably Rosa has gone a long way to say that this is wrong. But this is surely not the only way we can talk about contradictory processes (at least I see no reason why not).”
Well, if linguistic tricks could tell us about fundamental aspects of nature, I’d agree with you, but then I’d have become a linguistic idealist – as I asserted was the case with all you dialectical mystics.
However, if you intend to use the word “contradict” in your own special sense (as yet unexplained), all well and good. But why should we accept it, especially if it suggests that acorns argue among themselves? [Now if you have a metaphysic that implies *that*, you might as well go the whole hog and claim that the potting shed is plotting against you, and Mount Etna really liked your last post, and blew its top in appreciation.]
And if you want to replace this term with “conflict”, that is OK, too - but only if you are prepared to argue that acorns are agents (perhaps in deep cover, a sort of mega-James Bond). And if that seems OK to you then I suggest you try talking to them, rather like the Prince of Wales does: chat up a chestnut. Otherwise, of course, your use of such words will be nonsensical, as I suggested.
Material language does not allow the moves you want to make – it is quite intolerant of bollocks.
But, if you mean to use this word metaphorically, you will need to explain how a metaphor can have a physical effect. So, if I assert that a low-life Tory is a pig, I think you’d agree (but I do not want to prejudice the level at which your rationality might finally tail off) that only an idiot would expect rashers of bacon from him or her.
Think about the words you use, johng. “Contradict” literally means “gain-say”. If you want to extend its use (and there is nothing wrong with that) you will need to motivate such a move with ideas that do not suggest you have lost your mind.
johng:
“…should be judged according to the yardstick of British Empiricism and the various colloquial internal disputes British Empiricism gave rise to (which is where all this stuff comes from) is really peculiar.”
Who is doing that? What has ordinary language got to do with this regressive philosophical tradition?
“When Rosa says she has no philosophical theses this seems to mean that she simply makes assertions.”
Er…, no. Not if by this you mean “philosophical assertions” understood in the traditional way. And if you do not mean that, I do sometimes ask questions, don’t I?
“Ordinary Language? A phoney egalitarianism which excludes anyone not familiar with a peculiar set of technical terms on the one hand and a set of historically mediated philosophical assumptions on the other. Wittgenstein’s apparently similar beliefs about the irrelevance of philosophical traditions and historical context were in fact rooted in the problems.”
I am sorry, but this is a jumble. What on earth does it mean? Just because Wittgenstein tried to bring an end to traditional philosophy that implicates him in its ‘problems’, does it? Well, that is about as good an argument as the following: you socialists have to sell papers, so you are all capitalists.
And, as to ordinary language – you use it without thinking, everyday. If you didn’t, you’d be severely crippled in your material existence.
Workers invented it (in their material interaction with the world and with each other), and they have (unwittingly) handed down to us materialist an excellent resource for making sense of their experience, the world they live in, and how to fight back and help them change their condition. If you cannot use it, or cannot even recognise it, you will never be able to connect with them, and if Marxists continue with the traditionally elitist attitude they have adopted toward this resource so far, their movement will always stay small, sectarian and mystical.
Substitutionists in our movement like dialectics because it allows them to make the working-class the objects of theory not the subjects of history.
That is one reason why Marxism is so unsuccessful, when this need not be.
johng:
“Have you read Wilfred Sellers on empiricism and psychology Rosa? Do you accept the 'myth of the given'?”
Yes I have read him; some of his stuff is excellent, some not so. Where he stays close to his avowed Wittgensteinian ideas, I go along with him. In general, otherwise, he slips into traditional ways of thinking, attempting to produce a priori solutions to what are bogus in fact problems.
The myth of the given – well, I never accepted this metaphysical notion anyway, so he was preaching to the converted.
“The notion that I can work out what materialism means by looking in a dictionary…”
And which prat suggested you could? One thing is for certain, you won’t get far as a materialist listening to, and adopting, the confused jargon lifted from Hegel’s dictionary. On the other hand, if you want to remain an idealist, don’t let me do anything to stop you. Only, stop trying to impersonate us materialists
“or that these arguments can be resolved simply by 'knowing the english language' is as crass a piece of Oxbridge navel gazing as I have ever come across.”
And all that stuff you found in Hegel, I am sure you also heard it down the pub, or on the terraces at West Ham? The Gate Gourmet workers were constantly banging on about ‘Being’, “essence” and “Totality”, as I recall….
You are really getting desperate with this latest weak, non-argument, my friend.
Speaking for myself, I have tried so far to employ the sort of language ordinary workers use, not the stuffy high English found in Oxbridge. Where I haven’t, if it cannot be explicated in ‘low English’, I will be happy to withdraw it.
Can you say the same for the extraordinary ‘language’ you have unwisely copied from Hegel?
“Who writes dictionaries?”
Who cares.
lenin: are you arguing that crisis theory in Kapital is teleological? If so, how? What about the fact that it talks of tendencies, and countervailing tendencies, rather than 'iron laws'? Surely the most teleological works by Marxists - the works of Kautsky and Plekhanov and other 2nd Intlists, for instance - were written onthe basis of a rejection, or a downplaying of the importance of the dialectic?
The 1859 Preface looks very teleological partly because of the circumstances surrounding its publication. Marx was desperate to get published in Germany and felt that he had to produce what looked like a disinterested, scientific text to get past the censors, who were generally forbidden to censor scientific works.
I'm not denying there is a teleological whiff to Marx's work in places, but it is mistake to read the 1859 Preface as some sort of keystone for his view of history. It was much more of a tactical manouevre.
meaders: the proof of the labour aristocracy thesis is in the pudding.
George Galloway, the leader of the most left-wing faction of any size in your labour movement, writes articles for the Morning Star, your leading socialist daily, about the dangers of being 'swamped' by Third World immigrants, and the need for a points system to keep most of the buggers out. The SWP is so shit-scared of losing influence that it feels it has to go along with this stuff, and vote against open borders at a Respect conference. Show me a parrallel anywhere in the semi-colonial world. Are the Venezuelans or Kenyans clamouring against open borders? I think not.
I'll deal with the second comment first. I would argue that Ordinary Language philosophy (whether Wittgenstein can be assimilated to this is arguable) cannot be understood outside of the sets of Philosophical problems it emerges from: and these were the philosophical problems of the empiricist tradition (so I would argue). Certainly the notion that its simply a truth that suddenly occurs to someone for no reason other then its truth is an idea which I find incomprehensible (with more then a family resemblence to the empiricist tradition ie blank tabla raza, myths of the given etc).
What I mean (because I am not trained in your particular brand of disingenuously self-effacing philosophical mumbo jumbo, which is in no way part of 'ordinary language') by making assertions is statements like 'self evidently empirical', or 'learn the language' and similar hocus-pocus when confronted with a question (or that wonderful one liner which solved all possible philosophical problems: this could ONLY make any sense, within a philosophical tradition: which does'nt mean that philosophical tradition is wrong: it just means that self effacing arguments of this kind are suspicious).
Its true that selling socialist newspapers does'nt make you a capitalist. It is however perfectly possible for a socialist newspaper to be a capitalist concern (depending on how you define socialist). Whilst its not inevitable that someone who says they have dispensed with philosophy is in fact labouring under a delusion its certainly not impossible (this would require some investigation).
I do indeed use ordinary language every day. As a consequence I reproduce various ideologies, philosophical assumptions, and occassionally plain stupidity associated with capitalist society (and other historical sediments). Different languages differ in terms of the sediments they contain, the social interests and tensions reflected in them etc. I also produce a melange of 'contradictory' ideas as well (sorry Gramsci was Italian. Perhaps they had different ideas about contradictions: but then English is perhaps the Object language of Ordinary language..or can Ordinary languages be ordinary in different ways?). The notion that 'the workers' produce ordinary language perhaps indicates the gulf between philosophers and historians. What a completely hatstand notion! Jesus Christ where do you begin with something like this?
Is this one of your empirical propositions (assertions)? Or on the other hand does it rest on some hidden assumption about 'perfect speech situations' as a regulative ideal? Is Ordinary language presumed to be 'undistorted communication'. You seem to be busily jumping over your own shadow.
An interesting approach to Hegel would be to work out what problems in logic he is trying (failing) to address. The idea of philosophy as simply a series of more or less ridiculous mistakes strikes me as a deeply dubious one (and deeply ahistorical as well as being
A frequently lampooned feature of British Philosophy. Its ideological).
Presumably you'll send out the ordinary language police if someone talks about contradictory social trends (which would hardly have a man on a clapham bus collapsing into hysteria). The wierd mixture of ill-informed populism ('Ordinary Language is the creation of the workers') with Liberal beliefs in undistorted communication adequately capture the ideological flavour of the Ordinary Language movement in philosophy.
Hegel's Phenomenology incidently was one of the first major philosophical works to be written in colloquial Swabian German (almost dialect actually) and was very innovative in that sense. Have you bothered to find out what the 'Ordinary Language' of the Germany of that time was? (Clue: there was'nt one). Or even the common sense of the time? (No of course not. Your a Philosopher).
Sorry to be rude but this is becoming ridiculous.
Actually Scott in India there are massive movements against migrants coming into cities both from neighbouring local states and from abroad. Similar tensions will be found I suspect in most parts of the third world.
What Rosa, is meant by 'naive realism'? The kind of realism most people believe in? Interestingly disputes about this have revolved around disputes about what seems self evident with irrealists arguing that realism is counter-intuitive and realists arguing that idealism is counter-intuitive. There does'nt seem to be a court which can arbitrate in this dispute.
Much of this is actually rhetoric. When Hobbes tries to persuade us of his vision of the state of nature he asks us slyly 'do you trust your neighbour..do you still not lock your door when you go out etc'. ie he appeals to common sense. But common sense contains many different (indeed) contradictory elements (just as I believe does Ordinary language, where such a thing exists) and can be used to try and persuade of us things not true. In this case Hobbes's view of 'the state of nature'.
This rhetoric of the plain man has been used by 'radicals' (Paine) and by those like Hobbes. I would argue that Ordinary Language is every bit as much an ideological construct as 'common sense'. Its a rhetorical move with a long history that comes in different guises.
The possibility of this rhetoric does mark huge shifts in language and its connection to society. But this rhetoric conceals those huge shifts as well as reflecting them. As does 'Ordinary Language' as a guide to resolving problems.
What word captures a shift which reflects and conceals something at the same time? Genuine question. Is there one? Perhaps shifts in even popular usage of the word contradiction represent attempts to stretch meanings to accomadate a social reality where such cognitive problems become evident.
john: I'm sure you're right about India, but is the most advanced sizeable section of the labour movement also ringing the alarm bells, and would most Indian workers reject reciprocal open borders with the rest of the world? Surely not.
Johng;
“(because I am not trained in your particular brand of disingenuously self-effacing philosophical mumbo jumbo, which is in no way part of 'ordinary language')”
So which particular brand are you trained in?
“by making assertions is statements (???) like 'self evidently empirical', or 'learn the language'…”
Find one place where I said either. Until then: when you said that ‘Hegel is a Martian wombat’ were you exaggerating, or merely revising biology?
You see, I can make stuff up, too.
More specious reasoning from the chairman of the board of desperate arguments:
It’s true that selling socialist newspapers doesn’t make you a capitalist. It is however perfectly possible for a socialist newspaper to be a capitalist concern (depending on how you define socialist). Whilst its not inevitable that someone who says they have dispensed with philosophy is in fact labouring under a delusion its certainly not impossible (this would require some investigation).”
But, I specifically used the word “capitalist”. Now you change that to capitalist concern. My point was that if philosopher NN shows that all previous philosophies were crap, that no more makes him a traditional philosopher than it makes socialists printing a paper, capitalists.
And no ‘investigation’ needed, any more than you need to investigate whether I typed this. We can play around with this one all day long if you like.
Better still, you need to try to answer some of the points I made – novel points you will not have come across before. I can, however, understand your prevarication.
“I reproduce various ideologies…
Not in ordinary language you don’t - and even if you did, since any proposition in ordinary language can be negated, ordinary language has the logical multiplicity to oppose every single ideology you ‘reproduce’. [However, I suggest you use a linguistic condom from now on.]
I have to go. I’ll deal with your other ‘points’ later.
Re your other remark john:
in 'Dance of the Dialectic' Ollman makes some interesting remarks about bits and pieces of dialectical thinking left in cliches - 'the straw that broke the camel's back' is one he mentions. Another I've heard referred to is that classic line in mafia films 'I'll make you an offer you can't refuse'.
Trotsky argued in 'In Defence of Marxism' that industrial workers are more naturally inclined toward dialectical thinking, because of their closeness to production, whereas intellectuals struggle with the method. He has an unfinished text which discusses British empiricism and its hostility to the dialectic, but I can't find it at the MIA (it's in the last volume of his Selected Writings).
Perry Anderson's brilliant essay on the backwardness of English thought and culture, 'Components of the National Culture' (collected in the book 'English Questions'), includes some penetrating remarks on ordinary language philosophy's connection with conservatism.
Bit of a tricky one Scott. The most advanced section of the trade union movement is sadly not the biggest section. And the picture is (I know we're not allowed to say this but hey we speak the same language) contradictory!! In Bombay there is a long historical tradition of reaction on this question with deep organisational connections to at least sizable sections of the working class (The Communist movement there was effectively smashed as a major force by movements around this question). In the literature its called parochialism.
Its also true that communal demagogues use the issue of Muslims getting work in the Arab world and bettering their condition as a 'threat'...
The way I see it is ideological filth exists on both sides of this divide in different forms (there is'nt a kind of happy go lucky cosmopolitanism anyway: it has its different discontents everywhere: it IS capitalism we're talking about).
But I'm sympathetic to your argument that the situation of workers in the South is different to that of workers in the North. Where I agree with my own comrades (jesus) is that I'm not entirely sure that the catagories your using help capture that difference.
(I'm in trouble now).
Rosa, I hesitate to encourage you, but surely you know that Wittgenstein did not repudiate philosophy, only a particular conception of philosophy? This is a man who drew a salary from Cambridge University's Philosophy department, and spent the last months of his life working away on a book of philosophy, 'On Certainty'.
Wittgenstein imagined that, instead of putting forward propositions, a philosopher should hunt out errors in the propositions of non-philosophers and philosophers who were on the wrong track. This did not mean he didn't consider himself a philosopher producing philosophical texts. Was Socrates not a philosopher because he focused on weeding out the errors of others rather than adavancing his own propositions? What about Derrida, who took a similarly negative approach to philosophical propositions? I really think you're on your own when you make arguments like the ones you've pursued in this thread.
Rosa,
I'm quite open about my mumbo jumbo. Elements of Marxism. Elements of philosophy (I tend to refer to people). I am indeed partaking of a tradition. If your a contextualist you can't do anything else.
You mentioned you were simply making an empirical point as if this was a pre-theoretical move. On Capitalist newpapers sorry my mistake. Let me rephrase. To say that because a Socialist newspaper sells its product does not neccessarily mean its simply reproducing capitalism. But it might be. It would have to be demonstrated that it was'nt. I don't believe Wittgenstein was'nt doing philosophy. Hand Philosophical Investigations to anyone unfamiliar with philosophical language and they won't be able to make sense of it. Many people unfamiliar with Wittgenstein's hidden influences (he had this dreadful habit of concealing them to) misinterpret him today. Of course perhaps he was simply writing a book about why we should'nt bother (as he claimed). Perhaps he even believed thats what he was doing. Subsequent intellectual history would appear to suggest he was unsuccessful about persuading his followers on this point though. And I don't believe it.
So Ordinary language contains no ideology? What a bold claim. How does it manage that? Bizzare.
These novel points of yours. Where do they come from and what kind of points are they? I'll go back and try and find them.
I'm sure there are points about the privacy of abstraction etc I'd need to grapple with. I'm deeply unimpressed by the uncovering of a use mention problem in Hegel (as if it were THAT simple). The stuff about the working class emerging as a material force being responsible for Ordinary language philosophy (as opposed to Ordinary language? what makes that possible? Impossible to answer for someone who thinks dictionaries don't matter) is indeed something I have not heard before. Wierdly stupid for someone obviously so otherwise well informed (perhaps why nobody interested in History would ever find any of this relevent. Your thinking on this is 'nothing but sloppy'). The stuff about philosophy being elite etc, etc again the equivilant of naive realism in history of ideas. Really dull cliche and utterly useless to anyone actually interested in the history of philosophy. Many believe that the Phenomenology 'anticipates' Ordinary language philosophy (as well as the form of language used it also attempts to generate meaning out of ordinary usage: again another first). Sellers certainly did. Sadly most of his contemporaries were so utterly ignorent of other traditions they found him 'incomprehensible'. Its a feature of the analytical tradition to boast of their ignorence. Not very admirable.
Scott,
Don't be so foolish. Your obviously unaware that Austin was a revolutionary Marxist inspired by the Russian revolution. How to Do things with words was intended as a revolutionary assault on the pigs man. I mean its obvious.
Really.
J.
God, john, I was half expecting that post to be in earnest and the name 'Rosa' to be at the bottom.
Interestingly enough Rush Rhees, who was one of Wittgenstein's students and became a leading interpreter of his thought, was a supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party in the mid-40s. Wittgenstien told him not to join, apparently. I don't know of any other lefty ordinary language philosophers.
Wittgenstein wanted to live in the USSR at one stage, but I think that had more to do with his feeling that the place was nice and ordered under Stalin's tutelage. Apparently he applied for a job at a leading Soviet university through the Russian embassy, and wound one of the people sent to interview him up by suggesting she read Hegel instead of Stalin! (I think that's in the Jarman biopic.)
Oh yes I think there were progressives about. Its unsurprising really. My point about Hegel and Swabian dialect indicates why this is quite limited though. Anyone not fully immersed in philosophy with some sense of historical processes would have realised by now that the pull towards plain speaking and ordinary language in philosophy is of course historically associated with the bourgoisie NOT with the proletariate and that this of course contains progressive as well as reactionary elements. Its really not rocket science and its been well known amongst generations of Marxists.
The ersatz radicalism of some of these discussions is an indication of someone who has drank deeply of bourgoise ideology but has simply been unaware of it. Yet another book on why the Dialectic is nonsense? gee how iconaclystic. I knew a guy John Rosenthal who did his Phd on this. Don't know what happened to him. Anyway it was full of the same kind of stuff making jokes about roses and bad biology, and use/mention etc (or at least his conversation was). There was always something tortured about his attempts to argue why metaphorically the dialectic worked in Kapital: a cruddy philosophy fitted a cruddy system. Quite ingenious though.
He like Rosa was a deeply clever person. But somehow I was completely unpersuaded. It had the air of someone pointing out that the king had no clothes. I just don't think things are that simple. But then I'm a mystic of course!
Oh and Rosa, leaving aside debates about metaphores about Socialist papers, I would suggest someone who says everything ever thought in philosophy was nonsense, was likely to have a very poor understanding of what they were doing, be perhaps unconciously reproducing a number of classically bourgoise motifs (alluded to above several times), and be unlikely to have anything very interesting to say about anything.
Hegel from inside his peculiar ordinary language argument says much the same thing with his notions of 'one sided truths' etc. Anyone who has ever said that someone is right for the wrong reasons expresses Hegelian defences of ordinary language quite well (how it can be wrong but still legitimate).
Wittgenstein seems to have been exception in appearing obsessive about his own novelty by being unconcerned about whether he was novel or not. I did think the Brockhause book (which I'm pleased to hear is sensible I was worried it was eccentric) says some useful things about the provinance of some of this not usually noticed.
It turns out that Wittgenstein was deeply 'textual' in a variety of ways. What drove him to deny his own context is a key question it seems to me.
Perhaps Russell's belief that there was a hell for those who thought they'd refuted Hume might be applied to Hegel. Not because Hume or Hegel were right or beyond criticism but because there wrong answers were to real problems which remain unsolved. To answer 'what do we mean by materialism?' by remarking that the enquiry reflects an ignorence of one's own language deserves a special tier in hell it seems to me.
Ah. Thats a good one. Can a truth be 'one-sided'. People use that in ordinary language. Do the Ordinary Language police come and lock people up?
I should have said on the phenomenology not 'generate meaning out of ordinary usage' but 'generate its entire philosophical system' including those bizarrely abstract philosophical terms you lampoon (thus giving them a very different content to that of the medieval schoolmen).
Also 'right but for the wrong reasons' obviously also could generate 'wrong but for the right reasons'. I sometimes just think that people who think these terms are absurd can have no intuitive feel for politics (or perhaps even life).
Which of course most people doing academic philosophy have not. Odd that Hegel, that bloodless rationalist, did. But I am now deeply fascinated by what ordinary language can possibly mean as it clearly does not reflect the things we ordinarily say. Genuinely fascinated.
"Not in ordinary language you don’t - and even if you did, since any proposition in ordinary language can be negated, ordinary language has the logical multiplicity to oppose every single ideology you ‘reproduce’"
So I can say anything I want and I'm really free. Wow. This is platitudiness for gods sake.
What the hell IS ordinary language anyway?
Scott - no, I'm not saying Kapital is teleological. I thought I'd made that clear?
johng - I could use an 'ordinary language' argument to demonstrate that your view that I don't behave in contradictory behaviour (or can't) is simply at odds with ordinary usage and must therefore derive from some philosophical fiction.
I doubt you could, but I'd be interested to see you try. A contradiction is what it is - a statement that is either flatly opposed within itself or opposed to another truth-statement. It isn't a conflict between classes or incoherent behaviour.
The use of the term 'tension' as opposed to 'contradiction' seems pretty desperate to me. Looking at a dictionary we find 'being stretched', tenseness, mental strain or excitement, 'stress by which bar, cord, etc is pulled when it is part of system in equilibrium etc'.
Ah well, it depends how you use it, I would have thought. For instance, if I refer to a tension within motives, I would be discussing a mental strain. If I used the phrase tension as if it were a synonym for contradiction - which is exactly what I am arguing shouldn't be done, then I would be a dialectician.
By what legislative right (and where does this right come from?) do you suggest that I can't describe someone as engaging in 'contradictory behaviour'?
You can describe someone as engaging in "soup-pie" behaviour for all I care, and for all the sense that it would make. I am not legislating, I'm arguing. You can choose whatever phrase leaps directly to your tongue.
Does Eric Olin Wright (himself an analytical Marxist) make a mistake when he describes white collar workers who on the one hand are subject to exploitation and on the other hand have control over the labour process as occupying a 'contradictory class location'
I would think so, yes. I don't see a contradiction between the two. There may be something internally conflictual in such a role, but that is saying something else. And what is it about this that requires dialectics? It's a straightforward enough statement, it doesn't seem to require anything other than assimilation and assessment. No metaphysical language need apply.
Should he say that 'they occupy a 'tense' class location?'
No. I have argued that tension is not a synonym for contradiction, so by the same token it isn't necessarily a synonym for conflict either. Many nonsensical phrases fall from the tongue easily - doesn't mean they are sensibly deployed.
What does this solve?
It avoids subsuming a perfectly straightforward point into metaphysical jargon.
I think all it does is protect the notion that tendencies which exclude each other cannot produce tensions inside a social system
But these tendencies don't exclude each other. There is nothing
There is nothing contradictory about the idea of being a white collar labourer, both exploited and charged with a certain amount of responsibility. Do you contradict yourself if you describe yourself in such fashion? No. There is no contradiction. There may be a conflict or, as you probably won't like, a tension involved in such a position.
Hegel means that the oak tree 'refutes' the acorn. And probably Rosa has gone a long way to say that this is wrong. But this is surely not the only way we can talk about contradictory processes (at least I see no reason why not).
There is another way of using the term contradiction, but you haven't shown any sense in using it outside of a system of a priori propositions about nature and society, ones which - especially as far as nature goes - are often easily refuted.
All I assert is this. That our concepts whether they be ‘materialism’, ‘individualism’ or indeed ‘ordinary language’ can only be properly understood in their historical context.
So, historicise, examine the context, why not? What does this have to do with dialectics?
This becomes particularly clear if you happen, like me, to be involved in the study of other parts of the world were concepts like these either did not exist or have a dissimilar history.
Pull rank if you like, but I think I get what you're saying.
If one is not blinkered in the typical English way it also becomes clear that even within particular philosophical traditions these concepts change their meaning over time.
A good argument against scientific realism.
Its also true that not only does the concept of ordinary language have a history but that if we pick out ‘ordinary language’ as an object of analyses (forgetting for a moment that this is a philosophical concept and not a self-evident item in reality) we find that many of the terms inside it are the product of social, ideological and philosophical clashes.
A strong point. But I would agree that concepts and terms are embedded in historical development that has often involved clashes of various kinds. I don't see how that makes the case for dialectics. Unless you think that changes only occur in such meanings because of such clashes and then designate these Contradiction.
The notion that there is anything ‘ordinary’ about ‘ordinary language’ rapidly reveals itself as an illusion. The notion as well that there is anything ‘self evident’ about the distinction between things which only exist at the linguistic level and things which exist somewhere else (?) also starts to fall to pieces.
Okay, decentring meaning, a strong deconstructionist point. I think this again slams a hard fist into the solar plexus of scientific realism. In what way does it make the case for dialectics, however?
Why on earth Marx (who we know did not even use the word ‘science’ in the same way we use it, partly because of differences between German philosophical and British philosophical traditions, important in terms of understanding differences of terminology linguistically) should be judged according to the yardstick of British Empiricism and the various colloquial internal disputes British Empiricism gave rise to (which is where all this stuff comes from) is really pec
Why on earth Marx (who we know did not even use the word ‘science’ in the same way we use it, partly because of differences between German philosophical and British philosophical traditions, important in terms of understanding differences of terminology linguistically) should be judged according to the yardstick of British Empiricism and the various colloquial internal disputes British Empiricism gave rise to (which is where all this stuff comes from) is really peculiar.
I don't know that the dialectic should be judged by any other yardstick than its own successes and failures. It's a nightmare. IofE, QintoQ, 'contradiction' - it produces nothing that stands up for a second. For instance, Trotsky's argument for QintoQ, adopted by Callinicos recently, involves the notion that there is a nodal point at which small changes accumulate and become a qualitative change. His own example of the sugar bag would undo him, as would plenty of others - melting plastic, for instance. There are scores of examples of change that don't involve such a point. We have a surfeit of means by which to describe social change, most of them available in historical materialism without reference to the dialectic.
Ollman is good because he does not approach Marx like a British school master ‘correcting’ him where he goes wrong without bothering to seriously investigate the historical provinance of his ideas, or assuming that because that provinance is ‘historical’...
The implication being that rejecting the dialectic is like taking a schoolmasterly tone with Marx, telling him off in various ways... I don't see why. I am not scouring Marx's texts for things to mark him down on. I just happen to think that diamat has to be dispensed with. Histomat can live without it.
its necessary to work out what Marx actually meant according to his own categories rather then read him through the categories of his philosophical opponents (which is all that analytical Marxists do).
I don't see the mystery. Marx used the term contradiction to describe all sorts of phenomena - class struggle, ideological disputes, philosophical inconsistencies etc.
Materialists were philosophers who argued much as she did (about the history of philosophy). Marx thought this argument limited.
And there I was thinking that Rosa contextualised that history in the material development of society - whether you disagree with how she does it is another matter, of course. But saying that x is an instance of ruling class thought is not abstracting from the social relations in which philosophy is embedded.
When Rosa says she has no philosophical theses this seems to mean that she simply makes assertions. And this is very English.
That sort of worldlier-than-thou invective isn't persuasive. Rosa wants to dispense with ontology and epistemology etc. But making 'assertions' (truth-statements) is not all that Rosa does or has
That sort of worldlier-than-thou invective isn't persuasive. Rosa wants to dispense with ontology and epistemology etc. But making 'assertions' (truth-statements) is not all that Rosa does or has done here. I do note the odd attempt to back things up, to argue, to demonstrate. I am not willing to take a position about these questions - they fall entirely without my province. But you'll have to do a great deal better than this if you're intention is to denude me of any misconceptions I have about the dialectic.
[remaining prolier-than-thou infantile anathematisms snipped]
Ordinary Language? A phoney egalitarianism which excludes anyone not familiar with a peculiar set of technical terms on the one hand and a set of historically mediated philosophical assumptions on the other.
It could be, but I note that this is an assertion, and a bald one at that. Not the first one you have made in this discussion.
I must admit, however, that I am less interested in subscribing to ordinary language than dispensing with a metaphysical jargon that cannot be justified in materialist terms. If it can be, if we can have our troika of QintoQ, Contradiction and IofE without embarrassing ourselves by postulating a set of a priori stipulations about society and nature, then I am all ears. I have been from the start, but I note that the polemic which you promised is causing you to become less constructive. I don't know. You seem to be angry about something.
johng: Well, we are getting to the stage where I have to wonder if you are serious. I respond to you with some pretty clear answers, and you either ignore what I say, or bang on about something completely irrelevant, as if I believed it (this last fantasy based on the impressive skill you seem to have copied from those who write dossiers for Blair of making stuff up).
So, I will answer you in kind, from now on – I am clearly wasting my fingers arguing with one so high on dialectical methadone.
“Is this one of your empirical propositions (assertions)?” No, it’s clearly a sentence of yours. [I think your appointment at specsavers is overdue!]
“Or on the other hand does it rest on some hidden assumption about 'perfect speech situations' as a regulative ideal?”
No, it rests on a Sunday.
“You seem to be busily jumping over your own shadow.”
Oh my ‘non-existent deity’, I think you are right! And there’s me thinking I was trying to tunnel underneath it. You are so insightful.
Notice how I am ignoring what you actually say….
Want some more?
“An interesting approach to Hegel would be to work out what problems in logic (sic) he is trying (failing) to address.”
An even more interesting approach to Hegel is to work out why he did not look that address up on the internet.
“Presumably you'll send out the ordinary language police if someone talks about contradictory social trends…”
Are there such? *Now* you tell me! Let me have their number and I set them on you and Scott.
“(which would hardly have a man on a clapham bus collapsing into hysteria)”
Yes, but which man?
“Ordinary Language is the creation of the workers')”; ah, but, you see, I was referring to “ordinary language” *without* capital letters.
“Hegel's Phenomenology incidentally was one of the first major philosophical works to be written in colloquial Swabian German (almost dialect actually) and was very innovative in that sense.”
Was that Ordinary Swabian, or ordinary Swabian?
“Have you bothered to find out what the 'Ordinary Language' of the Germany of that time was?”
Ah, but was there any ordinary language?
You know, I did check that last week; I ‘contradicted’ myself (I take it you will allow me to use that word in my own special sense, which I cannot explain, but it works) back into the 18th century - and I can now tell you that I was not jumping over my shadow then.
“(Clue: there wasn’t one). Or even the common sense of the time? (No of course not. Your (you’re?) a Philosopher).”
Thanks for the clue, it really helped. Now, what is 3 down?
I bet even an arch-waffler like you can’t beat that load of rubbish – or can you?
Go for it, johng! I’ve got 3p riding on you (to place that is).
Scott (I notice you too have ignored my earlier devastating responses to your weak arguments):
“Rosa, I hesitate to encourage you, but surely you know that Wittgenstein did not repudiate philosophy, only a particular conception of philosophy? This is a man who drew a salary from Cambridge University's Philosophy department, and spent the last months of his life working away on a book of philosophy, 'On Certainty'.”
That was a very brief, and I suspect, insincere hesitation, Scott. However, even if you were right about Wittgenstein, and even if you could show that he was a Tibetan head hunter, what has that got to do with anything I have said?
And where did you get this load of make-believe from?
“Wittgenstein imagined that, instead of putting forward propositions, a philosopher should hunt out errors in the propositions of non-philosophers and philosophers who were on the wrong track.”
I bet you can’t find a single quotation from W that supports this crazy idea. [Are you in fact johng in disguise? He makes stuff up too – you really are getting desperate; attack W that’ll show her!]
And now, I’m caste out into outer darkness:
"I really think you're on your own when you make arguments like the ones you've pursued in this thread.”
Is that as accurate as your earlier fantasy about human beings indulging in saomethih you called “abstraction”, but went all silent when challenged?
And even if it were accurate, so what?
You dialectical ostriches are clearly pissed off that us materialists have sussed you out. Your day is over. Get used to it.
Johng:
“I'm quite open about my mumbo jumbo.” Are you sure it’s not Mumbo Jumbo?
“If your a contextualist you can't do anything else.”
Well, I am not sure about that. I can do the fandango (or Fandango, as you Idealists like to call it). Does that count?
“So Ordinary language contains no ideology? What a bold claim. How does it manage that? Bizzare.”
Well, it is not a container. Perhaps you thought Ordinary language was a bucket? [I note your sly use of only one capital letter here. Very underhand!]
“And I don't believe it.”
So, we get Victor Meldrew now, eh? Well, it’s step in the right direction.
“These novel points of yours. Where do they come from and what kind of points are they? I'll go back and try and find them.”
I think they are at Clapham Junction. I suspect they are electrical.
“I'm deeply unimpressed by the uncovering of a use mention problem in Hegel (as if it were THAT simple).”
Not me again, but good try. And I like the capitals. They seem to go with your head
This is good stuff, so well argued, too. A fitting tribute to Hegelian ‘logic’:
“”I'm sure there are points about the privacy of abstraction etc I'd need to grapple with. I'm deeply unimpressed by the uncovering of a use mention problem in Hegel (as if it were THAT simple). The stuff about the working class emerging as a material force being responsible for Ordinary language philosophy (as opposed to Ordinary language? what makes that possible? Impossible to answer for someone who thinks dictionaries don't matter) is indeed something I have not heard before. Wierdly stupid for someone obviously so otherwise well informed (perhaps why nobody interested in History would ever find any of this relevent. Your thinking on this is 'nothing but sloppy'). The stuff about philosophy being elite etc, etc again the equivilant of naive realism in history of ideas. Really dull cliche and utterly useless to anyone actually interested in the history of philosophy. Many believe that the Phenomenology 'anticipates' Ordinary language philosophy (as well as the form of language used it also attempts to generate meaning out of ordinary usage: again another first). Sellers certainly did. Sadly most of his contemporaries were so utterly ignorent of other traditions they found him 'incomprehensible'. Its a feature of the analytical tradition to boast of their ignorence. Not very admirable.”
However, I failed to understand it; far too few capitals, I’m afraid. Can you re-post it in upper case to help a poor girl out?
There’s a dear.
"Don't be so foolish. Your obviously unaware that Austin was a revolutionary Marxist inspired by the Russian revolution."
I think you need to check the spelling of "you're", johng.
This Ordinary Language stuff is clearly a little too challenging for you (sorry about the capitals, my fingers slipped!).
If you need any more assistance, let me know.
Lenin,
I've already made ordinary language arguments about contradiction. 'the data here is contradictory' (which would not always yield the idea that one set of the data was false). Scott's question to me about issues inside the Indian working class about migration led me to say something like 'well yes and no'. Orwell (that master of plain speaking) would refer to a certain point of view as 'a bit one-eyed'. I also recall Duncan Hallas referring to someone bedeviled by structure/agency problems 'do not adjust your television set' meaning something like 'the contradiction is in reality'.
We've all heard comrades saying that great one-liner 'right for the wrong reasons', I'd suggest you can be wrong for the right reasons. Some of this we see in evolving ideas about what constitutes tragedy in literature, which in turn reflect developing ideas about the individual and their relation to society (its no co-incidence that Hegel and many other enlightenment thinkers were very interested in this field).
Eric Olin Wright's example seems very straightfoward. In relationship to the ruling class and the working class the saleriate are pulled in both directions at once. This is related to their constitution in social relations, subject to exploitation whilst at the same time having control over the labour process. So he says they have a contradictory class location, in relationship to a society structured around conflict between capital and labour. Like Capitalists they have control over the labour process. Like workers they're exploited.
I'm sure all kinds of formally logical points can be made against this. But in terms of ordinary usage I can't imagine anyone failing to understand what he means by it. I can't imagine the man on the Clapham Omnibus leaping up and saying 'Contradiction! Contradiction! Speak as I find, but Contraditions can only be between logical statements not between social groups'. I somehow don't see that happening (its never been my experiance in branch meetings: aside from some people with a philosophical training).
All of this would of course tell against an ordinary language position not against an argument against dialectics in terms of formal logic which would be a different kind of task.
In terms of deconstruction etc Hegel developes his deconstructive arguments (the results of which if not his method seem important not just to Marx but it seems from your comments on scientific realism etc, to you to...and this in the 18th century, pretty damn impressive when you think of it) using a dialectical method. I have to admit to being equally unimpressed with formal statements on the dialectical method which DO tend to sound like hocus pocus. But oddly you won't find a lot of this in Hegel. I have a book on Hegel by an analytical philosopher (can't think of the title) who defends him and makes the point that Marxists have often been responsible for these kinds of grotesque excercises. He
2.
He attributes, for example, the recieved view of a triadic shape to the dialectic (everything comes in three's) to desires to simplify for diadactic purposes. Horribly snobby of course. But I wonder if its true.
Then there is a really odd kind of philistinism which simply makes fun of stuff it really does'nt understand (Hegel's knave in the phenomenology!). Here is one I remember. At one point in the Phenomenology Hegel is going on about temporal statements saying 'it is night' and how this statement is falsified by the arrival of morning and seems to make a lot of this in what seems a slightly ridiculous way.
Only recently in my life have I tried to find something out about logic. Wilfred Hodges little book etc. My, my. These were of course major problems in formal logic. Only post-Frege have some of these difficulties begun to be grappled with. Hegel's 'craggy melody' his style etc serve to conceal from the modern reader that he is not simply talking nonsense. He's speaking to the limits of logic and what it could do at the time he was writing.
I don't see dialectics as some sort of formal rigmarol. I see it in Hegels marvelous preface (discussed by Spivak). I see it in the complexities he opens up about the movement of enlightenment thought, its internal contradictions etc. Even in his discussions of the limits of stating that things are true and false (my deep objections to the notion of anyone simply saying 'everything ever written is just stupid' etc). I also see it in Marx's writings themselves (not the bit where he uses the word 'dialectic' but in all the various tensions, qualifications, shifts and surprises of his narrative). So if you say 'we don't need diamat' (I think you mean those incantations) I have little objection. But I don't see how this makes Marx's thought any the less dialectical (its not a matter of 'words').
Here I can only beg you again, to have a look at Ollman's book on Alienation. I get the impression that you are sick to your back teeth of incantations and simplifications. His book on Alientation (from the '70's) is not that. If you are familiar with areas of philosophy (which I think you are) it is important that you are exposed to sophisticated treatments and not simply diadactic treatments in coming to a judgement.
I did not accuse you of adopting a school masterly tone. Elster does as do the analytical Marxists. I can only like Ollman suggest that if Marx uses words like bats (sometimes a bird sometimes a rat) it might not be because he is imprecise but because he means to.
Rosa's account of the relationship between philosophy and history I disagree with. It might sound rude but it has to be said that it has all the marks of someone who studies philosophy. I simply don't understand how she can say things like that and at the same time claim not to be a philosopher.
On mysteries and reading Marx. We are familiar with very involved readings of other t
3.
On mysteries and reading Marx. We are familiar with very involved readings of other theorists. Perhaps we imagine its good that Marx is'nt complicated in that way. I don't think its good. I think it leads to problems of interpretation where didactic readings are held on the same level as philosophical disputes. Of course Marx comes out worse. Again I can only recommend Ollman's alienation.
On anger and rage. I just hate Analytical Philosophy particularly English analytical Philosophy. I include Ordinary Language philosophy in it. To me its the ideology of the class enemy. I can sometimes read it and enjoy it. What I cannot fathom at all is not Marxists who are sympathetic to it, but Marxists who do not understand that there is a seperation between analytical philosophy and Marxism.
I am particularly incensed by mistaking bourgoise notions of plain speaking (speak as I find Obidiah, where there is muck there's brass) with a proletkult glorification of what is essentially a movement inside bourgoise culture. For gods sake. The possibility of what I earlier called the rhetoric of the plain man clearly has its place in momentous shifts in the relationship between language and society.
But its got nothing to do with the working class. The culture that results is one which subordinates the working class to it (and of course we are dependent on that culture in all sorts of ways). Its also a culture which tries to conceal its own roots. This to me, Rosa completely obscures. It makes me very frustrated.
Rosa,
I see you have all the bad analytical habits. A case study.
'the data here is contradictory' (which would not always yield the idea that one set of the data was false). Scott's question to me about issues inside the Indian working class about migration led me to say something like 'well yes and no'. Orwell (that master of plain speaking) would refer to a certain point of view as 'a bit one-eyed'. I also recall Duncan Hallas referring to someone bedeviled by structure/agency problems 'do not adjust your television set' meaning something like 'the contradiction is in reality'.
Yeah. A few problems with that account. 1) In what circumstances would data be contradictory and yet still wholly accurate (ie not contain some falsity)? 2) Saying yes and no merely glides two different answers together (or two different parts of the answer) together. Am I insane? Yes, and no. Yes, by some standards I have issues with paraphilia, which is often classified as a mental disorder. In another way, of course, such a classification is absurd. Alright, that's glib, but in what sense are you contradicting yourself by saying yes and no, when it is clear that you mean them in different senses? 3) Orwell's statement has nothing to do with contradiction or dialectics as far as I can see, but perhaps you could elaborate. 4) The fact that some Marxists use the term contradiction in the way they do doesn't attest to its usefulness or its coherence.
At any rate, you appear to be barking up the wrong tree. I haven't a commitment to Ordinary Language as such, I simply oppose metaphysical nonsense.
We've all heard comrades saying that great one-liner 'right for the wrong reasons', I'd suggest you can be wrong for the right reasons.
A commonplace example of ambiguity or complexity. There is no need or warrant in elevating it to anything more profound.
Eric Olin Wright's example seems very straightfoward. In relationship to the ruling class and the working class the saleriate are pulled in both directions at once. This is related to their constitution in social relations, subject to exploitation whilst at the same time having control over the labour process. So he says they have a contradictory class location, in relationship to a society structured around conflict between capital and labour. Like Capitalists they have control over the labour process. Like workers they're exploited.
Here's the problem. You re-describe EO Wright's point, which I am bound to tell you I already understood and could have understood without the term 'contradiction'. Then you use that to re-assert the contradiction involved. But I say I am a 'white collar' worker (alright, black t-shirt collar worker) with a small amount of control over my working day, and yet I am still exploited. Am I contradicting myself here? (As it happens, I feel no conflict or pull even - I am entirely a worker, but that could be because I am ideologically committed). Where is the contradic
...Where is the contradiction?
Why insist on 'contradiction' with a series of new meanings attached, unless the corrollary insistence is that the change is driven at a physical and social level by nothing else - unless one is insisting on a body of a priori claims about the world known as 'dialectics'?
I can't imagine the man on the Clapham Omnibus leaping up and saying 'Contradiction! Contradiction! Speak as I find, but Contraditions can only be between logical statements not between social groups'.
I don't think yer man would be that interested in dialectics or contradictions or any of the rest of it. Is it altogether surprising that Socialist Worker rarely refers to dialectical thus and contradiction that except in some opinion or 'education' pieces? If your argument is on behalf of the perplexed bus passenger, then you could spare him dialectical mystification.
On Hegel and the triadic form - this probably owes itself in part to Stalinism and the school of orthodox diamat that was mandated by the USSR. In particular, the stuff about the left and right deviation and the correct course fits into a 'triadic' reading of Hegel. But for Hegel, the dialectical process was overdetermined by negation. More nuggets of wisdom will follow as and when I can rip them off from someone else.
Dinnertime.
Scott:
"Apparently he applied for a job at a leading Soviet university through the Russian embassy, and wound one of the people sent to interview him up by suggesting she read Hegel instead of Stalin! (I think that's in the Jarman biopic.)"
At last, something accurate from you. Well done!
You can find the details is Ray Monk's biography of Wittgenstein, and all of his lefty-links (the whole bit) in Kimberly Cornish's "The Jew of Linz" (he has about twenty of thirty pages of the stuff); the latter is a deeply flawed book, but it at least contains all this long-hidden information.
You can find more stuff in Rhush Rhees's Recollections Of Wittgenstein, where you will find more on the old RCP-Rhees thing.
The anonymous post earlier was mine; bloody haloscan!
johng:
“Oh and Rosa, leaving aside debates about metaphores about Socialist papers, I would suggest someone who says everything ever thought in philosophy was nonsense, was likely to have a very poor understanding of what they were doing, be perhaps unconciously reproducing a number of classically bourgoise motifs (alluded to above several times), and be unlikely to have anything very interesting to say about anything.”
All those “metaphores” (sic)…? What are those? More invention?
“Hegel from inside his peculiar ordinary language argument says much the same thing with his notions of 'one sided truths' etc.”
And what is one of those? A ‘truth’ that has not back to it?
“Brockhause”…er it’s “Brockhaus”, as I pointed out before. Brockhause, of course, wrote a five volume book on bollocks “Hegel and how to spell “you’re”. I’d get you a copy for Xmas, but I suspect you have one already.
“It turns out that Wittgenstein was deeply 'textual' in a variety of ways. What drove him to deny his own context is a key question it seems to me.”
Yes, I bet you have given it much thought for …, oh, a half-minute?
“Perhaps Russell's belief that there was a hell for those who thought they'd refuted Hume might be applied to Hegel. Not because Hume or Hegel were right or beyond criticism but because there wrong answers were to real problems which remain unsolved. To answer 'what do we mean by materialism?' by remarking that the enquiry reflects an ignorence of one's own language deserves a special tier in hell it seems to me.”
So you are a believer, after all? And, I suppose ‘God’ told you all about ‘hell’? And the ghost of Hegel whispers in your lug-hole regularly. For once, I am impressed. I regret doubting your sanity.
“Do the Ordinary Language police come and lock people up?”
No, they just shoot you eight times. Nine in your case.
“I should have said on the phenomenology not 'generate meaning out of ordinary usage'...”
Yes that makes a lot of sense. You should re-write Hegel – you are perhaps the one person who could make it worse.
Waffle over-drive now:
“Also 'right but for the wrong reasons' obviously also could generate 'wrong but for the right reasons'. I sometimes just think that people who think these terms are absurd can have no intuitive feel for politics (or perhaps even life).”
Thank you, johng. I will never use another sleeping pill again. I’ll just read this gem, and…
Sorry, I drifted off there….
“So I can say anything I want and I'm really free. Wow. This is platitudiness for gods sake.”
That hasn’t stopped you up to now. Spout away! Feel as free as your farts….
“What the hell IS ordinary language anyway?”
Another random thought, but shouldn’t it be “wHAT THE HELL is ORDINARY LANGUAGE ANYWAY?”
Now that makes more sense.
johng:
"I see you have all the bad analytical habits. A case study."
Well, I rather think I'd prefer to be a crap whatever, but still a materialist, than an ignoramus with profound Idealist tendencies, like you.
Cured your 'metaphores' yet?
A Point on Hegel and a point on Rosa.
In defence of metaphysical bollocks first of all:
Hegel’s work is sometimes presented as dressing up reason in mysticism. In doing this, though, Hegel also shows us what is mystical about reason. He shows us how enlightenment ideas are not in fact self supporting. That in my view is the ‘rational kernal’ of Hegel lurking in the ‘mystical shell’. Its what generates his extraordinary inventory of the different possible responses to this inability of rationality to support itself in the Phenomenology which reads like a set of deconstructions of just about every philosophical style that was to emerge in the next two hundred years. Hegel understood something important about the limitations of the enlightenment, limitations which we still grapple with today, and that’s why he remains an intriguing philosophical figure and his heritage remains so paradoxical and explosive. He remains the most important and the most dangerous philosopher of modernity all at the same time.
On Rosa and on ordinary and Ordinary language. When Rosa speaks about Ordinary or ordinary language (it does’nt matter whether she is discussing the concept of Ordinary language or simply what she imagines is the language we all speak) she makes statements (using technical language which I can’t reproduce) implying that anything at all can be said in it. It seems to me that we already here have a philosophical abstraction from actual languages and actual histories of their development. This is the only thing that can account for the strange idea that ‘the working class’ create language, or that language is the achievement of the working class. Modernity also saw the creation of modern languages, a process involving fire, repression and bloodshed. These changes in language both reflected and allowed for changes in the constitution of the self, the world, and indeed, allowed for the emergence of philosophies that could make the kind of technical statements about language made by Rosa. Rosa seems to believe that she is being very down to earth when she speaks of ordinary language. She is not. She is dealing in philosophical abstractions. So rarified is this abstraction that it allows her to talk unbelievable gibberish about ‘language being the creation of the working class’. Any materialist account would seek to explain not just where the concept of ordinary language came from but where the language we speak every day actually comes from. There is not the smallest hint of this in anything Rosa writes and her response to attempts to point out her idealist feet of clay produce nothing but childish pomposities about spelling and how to construct proofs etc.
She should have spent less time on the detailed structure of what Hegel says and a little more time on what he shows. Which is that she is talking metaphysical bollocks herself but is just unaware of it.
My problem, Lenin, is that you keep being worried about metaphysical bollocks a
2.
My problem, Lenin, is that you keep being worried about metaphysical bollocks and there seems to be an assumption that, for example, 'reason' or 'logic' or what have you is NOT metaphysical bollocks. This is an assumption too far.
I guess one problem in the set of metaphysical abtractions that are analyses based on ordinary language is that in the end its what you feel. I just have no problem talking about reality being contradictory. Because at some profound level I think it is. At some profound level you think it is not. If Metaphysics is bollocks neither of us can win this argument anyway so lets get back to Hurricane Katrina.
But I have enjoyed getting into the Phenomenology again. There really is'nt anything like that written by anyone in the history of the world. Ever. It almost DOES turn you into a mystic when you read it.
(oh sorry 'one eyed' implies 'one sided truths' an idea which Rosa and her ordinary language police want to dismiss as 'senseless' in the never ending battle to deprive our language of nuance and thought: not Rosa but the tradition she is brainwashed by but cannot see).
Another bad dream...
Where have I heard all this before? Oh yes, the last thirty years of reading orthodox bollocks produced by 'dialecticians'. Same old same old from the ‘philosophers of change’. A nice dialectical inversion: they end up being the most undialectical conservatives on the planet - no change, not one inch.
The fact that you have to produce more mystical clap-trap, johng, suggests to me you (and Scott, who seems to have sulked off) are rattled. And for good reason.
A bit like those religious nuts, who when challenged to say precisely what they mean, declare its all a mystery, blah, bla blah, blah.
The fact that you can't even explain what the word "contradiction" means (when you use it to add another level of confusion to an already scrambled 'theory' - a word that is central to your Hermetic doctrine) just about says it all.
It is not being used metaphorically, it certainly isn't being used literally, it cannot be the equivalent of "conflict" and "opposite" (not without anthropomorphising reality). So what does it mean?
Silence. As expected.
I have been ‘debating’ with you lot for the best part of twenty years, and you all go very quiet at this point. Or you ignore the topic and hope no one has noticed. Same old same old, yet again.
And the fact that you dialectical mumblers have had nearly 150 years to test your theory in practice - and have failed (you even bury your heads in the sand over Marxism's spectacular lack of success - also suggests that (if you continue to accept Marx's pragmatic criteria) your 'theory' is a joke. A bad joke on the toiling masses, whose language you now ridicule (in line with other conservative thinkers). Same old same old.
Now if you want another 150 years of failure, fine by me. But please stop pretending you really want to help change the world for the better. You can't even change your own conservative ideas. Remarkably unradical alleged radicals
Same old same old.
I really don't understand Rosa so I can hardly respond. You also refuse to define any of the catagories you actually use. So for example you STILL won't tell anyone what you mean when you say ordinary language or Ordinary language or language (which for you is an important catagory).
Nothing you say is clear to me at all and therefore this complaining about clarity makes little sense to me. I don't see why there is an anthropic error in my use of the term contradiction. Perhaps the anthropic error is the belief that contradictions only occur between statements?
I don't see how anything I said above is 'mystical', or why it should be taken to be so. By what standards is what I say judged 'mystical'? By the standards of 'rationality'? Thats question begging as the philosopher we are discussing is investigating the structure of rationality. By the standards of ordinary language? Which ordinary language (or Ordinary Language)?
I would also very much like to know how Hegel can have seen as much as he did if he was simply talking gibberish. Why did he for example (as almost no one else did at the time) understand the paradoxical position of knowledge in our society? On the one hand embodying a principle of rejection of 'authority' (re:tradition, faith) on the other hand only comprehensible to a minority (so the majority must take it on faith), and how this position embodied a performative contradiction (the notion of a performative contradiction is an interesting one in relationship to our disagreement actually) in the enlightenment project.
Think of the enourmous field occupied by this single insight in social theory, indeed how we think about the world. Also we know that the arrival of this world which Hegel was observing and thinking about co-incided with a whole literature about the world being, so to speak, out of joint with itself. So he reflects on that literature. Perhaps he should not have. Perhaps to do so is 'mystical'. But then I'm interested in how people experiance and think about the historical world as opposed to the fictional 'world' of philosophy you seem to inhabit.
You have had years to read Hegel in far greater depth then I have. What kind of philosophical or anti-philosophical culture is it which produces such a profound lack of interest in these questions that lie at the heart of many of the pressing questions of every day life. How can you be so dismissive of Hegel's historical context, the relation of that context to our context, Marx's whole engagement with Hegel etc.
I'm genuinely just perplexed by what you write. Also a bit angry with the crass idealism about language.
Actually what frustrates me the most is your refusal to share. Exposition is of course difficult. Perhaps the basis of your ideas, Hegel style, are also simply a beginning, and therefore it is difficult to set them out without 'contradicting' yourself.
Perhaps you want to avoid at all costs defining what you mean by language as this would look like a theses. I'm not putting words in your mouth. Just wondering why you won't share.
Its also odd that you have this idea of theory and practice. Where does this terminology come from? Lenin does the same sometimes. When he talks about how 'mind' or 'ideology' is also part of reality. Where does this come from? Whats very strange is the absence of this kind of hysteria about Kant (much, much more influential on conventional philosophy). How do things stand between Kant and Hegel? 'Liberals having tested Kant in numerous ways fail to notice its utter failure' How does that scan? Theories can 'fail' in different ways.
Finally (to Lenin) on this question of 'metaphysics'. One way in which this term is used polemically is as a contrast with 'materialism'. But there are problems here if we are literalist about things. Do we condemn anything that is'nt physics? (this is disengenuous of course due to changes in the meaning of concepts but the same is true of 'materialism').
Some people have argued that 'materialism' is simply an 18th century idea, and that to say the same thing today we should call ourselves 'realists'. But then we ask what kind of realist, and realism about what. We are back to metaphysics again.
One tradition which despises 'metaphysics' treats ontology as relative to theories. So each theory has its own ontology (neccessary objects, hopefully as few as possible). Others argue that in fact every theory implies an ontology in the old fashioned sense (ie an account of being or what it is to be: trouble is Bhaskar types who do this do not explain the religous notion of ontology and its difference with theirs).
I find these areas tricky. But one last try on contradiction. If someone asks me 'can capitalism resolve its contradictions' and I reply 'it simply moves them to another place' what are we discussing if anything? Are there similar metaphysical problems associated with 'counter-vailing tendencies? Can I talk about 'tendencies'? Attempts to say things like this seem naturally to lead to this terminology. Is it wrong to want to say things like this?
Most importantly actually Lenin (since Rosa is utterly uninterested in these questions) why is there this enourmous explosion in culture and literature of an interest of a world out of joint with itself, of a desire to talk about contradictions in our social life as opposed to between statements etc...perhaps its all false consiousness? But even if this is so this perhaps explains why this guy I knew Rosenthal attempted to argue that Hegel was in a sense the false consiousness of capitalism and thats why his terminology mirrored it in a grotesque way and Marx could use it. I think something is similar with Hegels attempt to argue that the enlightenment does not stand unsupported. He fails to resolve it with his wierd deism (his relationship to any orthodox religous conception is as with Althussers relationship to Stalinism best described as 'complex). But this whole question of the relationship between Hegels errors and his truths is itself, well, contradictory, paradoxical, revealing and concealing at the same time. A bit like our lives under capitalism.
Incidently our earlier discussion about faith. Hegels discussion both of faith in modernity and religous commitment in but against modernity just about blows the socks off of anything I have ever read on the subject. You might as well throw away all the sub-Hegelian stuff written since.
And Rosa, on Hegel's use of the vernacular. The great irony of your populist jibes about his language is that Hegel, by choosing to write in the vernacular as he did, probably (along with others) contributed in a very large way to what we now understand as the ordinary way of speaking and writing German. He was himself part of that historical process which later made it possible to speak of ordinary language (with or without capitals: I do incidently understand that you did'nt simply say its possible to say anything: I re-read that, but I still think what you said was an abstraction from actual languages).
Its strange to me that a certain way of doing philosophy or anti-philosophy pays so little attention to the emergence of literary genre's (there are also philosophical genres of course) the actual warp and weft of the emergence of actual language. Instead we have analyses of sentances and whether they are true or false.
I'm sorry this has got so argumentative and I'm sure I'll benifit from reading anything you eventually publish. I'll make sure to do so. But I'm perplexed by a contextualist who rejects context and think this has to do with your unacknowledged context. I'd feel much more comfortable if you simply acknowledged that context and defended it.
Oh Lenin one last thing (promise). Your question about historicism. Historicism is (forgive me) profoundly dialectical. If I suggest that we must always historicise what is the implication for people who want to simply say of ideas that they are always simply true or false? In relationship to what? These are not (contra Rosa) simply 'word games'. Presumably (I might be wrong) for Rosa True or False stands outside of any temporal relation or historical context in some third realm.
With Marx we are familiar with the strange way in which many of his ideas have simply become common sense (the labour disapearing into the coat of historiography). I think the same is true of Hegel. To casually say you have no problem with historicising but why bring Hegel (or dialectics) into it, its a bit like saying you have no problem with discussing social class but why bring Marx (or historical materialism) into it. You CAN do this of course. But its a bit one-eyed.
I would say we should historicise Hegel. I fully accept the weight of your remarks about seeing contradictions as a processes which drive themselves and the idealist implications of this. But there are two ways of approaching this problem. One is to think that Hegel responds to the contradictions (sorry) of what he takes to be modernity and illicitly generalises contradiction (perhaps used metaphorically) to a metaphysical account of the universe.
The deeply Hegelian counter-argument of some Marxists is that in fact the development of a capitalist modernity allows us to see what was wrong with the whole of philosophy. A concrete version of this is Marx's discussion in the Introducation to the Grundrisse about the way in which the concepts generated by capitalism cast a light on previous social formations (itself a deeply intriguing and problematical argument). The small change of this is disagreements about whether class is a relevent catagory in societies which did not have the concept (with Marxists often arguing that capitalism in a strange way reveals a truth about all societies in its presentation of itself).
Then comes the really dangerous move. Is there a good reason for thinking this does not apply to the catagories of modern science once we ditch a naive scientific realist account of its development? Like you I'm chary about this and change my mind every five minutes. But I would'nt even be able to bother my head about it if it was not for Hegel. Respect due.
I also, in other moods though, get worried by this notion that mind shapes reality and reality shapes mind. Planting Cherry Orchads does not have any relationship to the big bang. But then I cuss myself for my lack of understanding of dialectics. I'm a contradictory sort of guy.
Oh and yes I think the whole of language is ideological. Language is a social practice. It could hardly be anything else. Importantly I would distinguish between ideology(1) the general sense used by Althusser (ie a condition of self representation and representation) and ideology(2) the rather strange version we have under capitalism discussed above. But the notion of an account of language which seperates communication from the conditions of communication in any given society is to me mystical and ideological in the bad sense. One can see this in terms of the massive transformations in language engendered by capitalism (which in my area of study is very visible given that the instrument of transformation was external and hence visibly political). Language is not simply an institution. Its a social institution. And Sausser was wrong to say that language was like no other institution.
Before I 'sulk off' to bed: john, have you managed to get your hands on any English translations of Althusser's post-1980 philosophical work, apart form the book on Machiavelli? I heard that a book was suppsoed to come out this year, but I haven't seen it. If by chance you or anyone else knows of a translation out there of the 1982 essay on Aleatory Materialism and the interviews with Fernanda Navarro I would be most grateful for a reference.
Scott,
Did get hold of a book of some of Althusser's unpublished work which contains a very interesting article on "the anti-humanist controversy" which demonstrates (as I always suspected) that some of Althusser's style was a wind up of people too stupid to understand the distinction between 'humanism' as an ideology and the idea that being 'anti-humanist' was to be 'inhuman'. Its very, very funny and he clearly greatly enjoyed the scandal he caused in certain circles (he really hated these people and disrespected them so much he was happy for misunderstandings to proliferate, something Lecourt thought a tactical error).
As with some of his other recently published stuff its clear that generations of sociologists made the mistake of not understanding he was a political theorist. As with the collapse between opposition to the ideology of humanism and being 'inhuman' much of the debate on 'structure' and 'agency' was simply based on a huge misunderstanding. He was deconstructing the bourgoise idea of the subject. Not attacking the notion that we have a subjectivity. The discussion has nothing whatsoever to do with debates about structure/agency as traditionally concieved and he was clearly deeply hostile to structuralism (there is a big critique of Levi-Strauss and his idealism, which is reproduced almost literally in later lazy critiques of Althusser).
He also interestingly claims that Derrida is a bright hope in a grim idealist dominated French philosophy, and its where I get my idea of materialism as war against teleology. For Althusser Derrida was a materialist and he wanted a kind of popular front of materialist philosophers. Clearly he had a rather different understanding of materialism to some people here but perhaps its because he's French or maybe because he did'nt understand French (sic!). Or English!
Much the same seems true in these debates about Marx's relation to Hegel. Its also clear that Althusser took Hegel a heck of a lot more seriously then popular accounts have it. I'll look up the reference.
Oh and clearly Scott you must be reeling from the dazzling refutations of Rosa. Even if they are conducted in a private language.
Finally (to Lenin) on this question of 'metaphysics'. One way in which this term is used polemically is as a contrast with 'materialism'. But there are problems here if we are literalist about things. Do we condemn anything that is'nt physics? (this is disengenuous of course due to changes in the meaning of concepts but the same is true of 'materialism').
Er, no, and frankly I can make no sense of this question or whatever point you are making.
Some people have argued that 'materialism' is simply an 18th century idea, and that to say the same thing today we should call ourselves 'realists'. But then we ask what kind of realist, and realism about what. We are back to metaphysics again.
Huh? Jesus Christ, fucking help me out here? How does that chain of reasoning work? Because you have the blanks filled in as far as you are concerned doesn't mean to say I will understand. Please help.
One tradition which despises 'metaphysics' treats ontology as relative to theories. So each theory has its own ontology (neccessary objects, hopefully as few as possible). Others argue that in fact every theory implies an ontology in the old fashioned sense (ie an account of being or what it is to be: trouble is Bhaskar types who do this do not explain the religous notion of ontology and its difference with theirs).
Each theory has its own ontology? I don't think you mean this literally, so I won't be pedantic about it. Inasmuch as theories can imply or emerge from or be embedded in a theory of being, then that point holds. But I think it's a point of limited value to be honest. What does it help to explain? I think Roy Bhaskar has long since joined the fruit farm, and he was never that comprehensible to begin with. There has definitely always been a strain of mysticism in his work, which has now emerged in full flourish.
But one last try on contradiction. If someone asks me 'can capitalism resolve its contradictions' and I reply 'it simply moves them to another place' what are we discussing if anything?
As I know full well what you mean by it, I wouldn't be pedantic and say nothing. But what I would say is that the language of contradiction is totally unnecessary to what you are saying and is only there because you accept the whole business of dialectics.
Are there similar metaphysical problems associated with 'counter-vailing tendencies? Can I talk about 'tendencies'? Attempts to say things like this seem naturally to lead to this terminology. Is it wrong to want to say things like this?
Well, you make it sound dirty when you put it like that. No, I think there are tendencies and I also think there are contradictions. I just think that if you're going to use the term 'contradiction' to describe what is actually a conflictual process, the only purpose can be to shore up a general set of propositions a
Well, you make it sound dirty when you put it like that. No, I think there are tendencies and I also think there are contradictions. I just think that if you're going to use the term 'contradiction' to describe what is actually a conflictual process, the only purpose can be to shore up a general set of propositions about how society and nature works known as dialectics. And these propositions are not sensible or durable. They have been made a nonsense of by scientific discovery. And note that using the term contradiction in the way dialecticians do freezes a verb into a noun, and therefore undoes the attempt to explain dynamic processes rather than assisting it.
Most importantly actually Lenin (since Rosa is utterly uninterested in these questions) why is there this enourmous explosion in culture and literature of an interest of a world out of joint with itself, of a desire to talk about contradictions in our social life as opposed to between statements etc...perhaps its all false consiousness?
a) I don't know what you mean by consciousness and don't like the term 'false consciousness' as a result of that and other things, b) what you seem to be describing is alienation, c) the desire to consider the real conflicts in social processes is one thing; the desire to impose a metaphysical jargon imported from Hegel is another. Life under capitalism is enormously complicated, dynamic, destructive, creative etc. and it gives rise to all sorts of metaphors - Marx's "melting vision", for instance, as discussed by Marshall Berman. But we can talk about this without subsuming any and every bloody example under some stale 'dialectical' category. These conceptual operations obfuscate what they are supposed to describe, in my view, and blur very important distinctions. And they also lend themselves to the animating illusion that to use them is to be in command of a very special kind of knowledge, superior to everyone else's.
Oh Lenin one last thing (promise). Your question about historicism. Historicism is (forgive me) profoundly dialectical. If I suggest that we must always historicise what is the implication for people who want to simply say of ideas that they are always simply true or false? In relationship to what?
Well, where's the dialectics? I mean, judging things by appropriate standards is just part of what people do, or ought to. Say we historicise Marxism and understand it as involving a number of concepts that only became available under capitalism. Wages, prices and profits could not have been written in the High Middle Ages, for instance. Why do I need dialectics to understand this?
With Marx we are familiar with the strange way in which many of his ideas have simply become common sense (the labour disapearing into the coat of historiography). I think the same is true of Hegel. To casually say you have no problem with historicising but why bring Hegel (or dialectics) into it, its a
With Marx we are familiar with the strange way in which many of his ideas have simply become common sense (the labour disapearing into the coat of historiography). I think the same is true of Hegel. To casually say you have no problem with historicising but why bring Hegel (or dialectics) into it, its a bit like saying you have no problem with discussing social class but why bring Marx (or historical materialism) into it. You CAN do this of course. But its a bit one-eyed.
This "one-eyed" metaphor is, forgive me, profoundly irritating. I get the point, lack of depth perception, but you keep deploying it without showing me why I'm being so profoundly flat. You tell me if I historicise, I must use dialectics? How? Why? Marx's historicism, in my view, owes at least as much to the Scottish Enlightenment and their various 'four stages' theories and to the evolutionary sociologists of his age, as it does to Hegel. It is the opaque jargon that he owes to Hegel more than anything else.
I would say we should historicise Hegel. I fully accept the weight of your remarks about seeing contradictions as a processes which drive themselves and the idealist implications of this. But there are two ways of approaching this problem. One is to think that Hegel responds to the contradictions (sorry) of what he takes to be modernity and illicitly generalises contradiction (perhaps used metaphorically) to a metaphysical account of the universe.
I think that as an idealist, Hegel has no problem with the idea of contradictions driving change. But in historicising him, we must do so totally - that is, we can't forget the intellectual tradition to which he was heir and which he was problematising - Kantian rationality and the Enlightenment to be precise.
The deeply Hegelian counter-argument of some Marxists is that in fact the development of a capitalist modernity allows us to see what was wrong with the whole of philosophy. A concrete version of this is Marx's discussion in the Introducation to the Grundrisse about the way in which the concepts generated by capitalism cast a light on previous social formations (itself a deeply intriguing and problematical argument). The small change of this is disagreements about whether class is a relevent catagory in societies which did not have the concept (with Marxists often arguing that capitalism in a strange way reveals a truth about all societies in its presentation of itself).
Well... as you go on to say, SR pops its head up here. As someone who has only ever accepted a very weak kind of SR, and is now an anti-realist, I can only say that I think class was is not something that is self-evident in reality. Historical materialism can detect classes in previous societies only because the concept has now become available. It may eventually be ditched, just as the phlogiston was, or ether was (although last I heard ether was making a comeback). However, I'd say its predicti
However, I'd say its predictive and explanatory power is sufficient to remain with us. In this sense, however, I don't entirely buy that Hegelian argument, because it involves a sort of positivism, whereas concepts we now hold are not necessarily commensurable with previous ways of viewing the world. It is true that retroactively, new concepts can make more sense of the past, have more explanatory power and so forth. But the past, while not neccessarily fictive, is a narrative, a construction. As such, it is almost always a tool devised by those living in the present. So, I suppose that part of the question of whether present concepts reveal the 'truth' of the past is misdirected - surely the pertinent question is whether present concepts about the past reveal the truth about the present?
On Metaphysics and Materialism
"Er, no, and frankly I can make no sense of this question or whatever point you are making."
Metaphysics emerges as a term of abuse by Materialists in the Enlightenment. There is a problem with Bourgoise Materialism (adequately rehearsed by Marx). Just saying the opposite of the literal meaning of Metaphysics remains a problem. Marx takes this insight from Hegel.
I think that helps with:
"Huh? Jesus Christ, fucking help me out here? How does that chain of reasoning work? Because you have the blanks filled in as far as you are concerned doesn't mean to say I will understand. Please help."
In other words we can't be materialists in an 18th century way. Other things exist then medium sized dry objects etc. Materialism itself starts to generate ontologies and the relation between mind and matter turns out a lot more complicated.
"Each theory has its own ontology? I don't think you mean this literally, so I won't be pedantic about it."
I refer to Quine, who yes, uses ontology simply as a description of objects neccessary for a given theory and believes that every theory has its own ontology (see From a Logical Point of View and other essays). Its the way the term is used in self-consiously non-metaphysical discussions of analytical philosophy.
"Inasmuch as theories can imply or emerge from or be embedded in a theory of being, then that point holds. But I think it's a point of limited value to be honest. What does it help to explain? I think Roy Bhaskar has long since joined the fruit farm, and he was never that comprehensible to begin with. There has definitely always been a strain of mysticism in his work, which has now emerged in full flourish."
Agree about the fruit farm. But I do think that all theories contain assumptions about how the world is. Neccessarily.
"As I know full well what you mean by it, I wouldn't be pedantic and say nothing. But what I would say is that the language of contradiction is totally unnecessary to what you are saying and is only there because you accept the whole business of dialectics"
I don't think so but I accept you do.
(I am dirty!).
"They have been made a nonsense of by scientific discovery"
The notion that the way capitalism presents itself reveals something about all human societies has been made a nonsense of by scientific discovaries? Actually I am very sceptical of the idea of philosophical ideas being made a nonsense of by scientific discovaries (there are some exceptions). Clearly you mean the kind of parlour games we're both suspicious of. But actually most scientists are philosophical dullards and I don't think scientific theses have proved a single philosophical proposition wrong. Which of course its not their intention to do. On the precise relation between scientific and philosophical knowledge..well there's the rub.
"And note that using the term contradiction in the way dialecticians do freezes a
"And note that using the term contradiction in the way dialecticians do freezes a verb into a noun, and therefore undoes the attempt to explain dynamic processes rather than assisting it"
Thats cool I'll admit it.
"a) I don't know what you mean by consciousness and don't like the term 'false consciousness' as a result of that and other things"
I know I was being rhetorical, cheap and bad.
"b) what you seem to be describing is alienation"
Where does this term come from and is it a legitimate concept? I think (not a cheap and rhetorical point) that if you accept this concept your in deep trouble.
"the desire to consider the real conflicts in social processes is one thing; the desire to impose a metaphysical jargon imported from Hegel is another".
This is begging the question. If like me you think dialectics is legitimate you don't think its 'imported from Hegel' and you don't think its (merely) metaphysical jargon.
"But we can talk about this without subsuming any and every bloody example under some stale 'dialectical' category"
Again begging the question. Although I freely admit that sometimes it is used like this. I don't think Ollman's Alienation is like this though. And for that matter I don't think Hegels discussion of the paradoxes of the enlightenment or indeed of the French Revolution, which essentially Marx just lifts wholesale, is. Have you ever read the Phenomenology? (definately NOT pointscoring).
"These conceptual operations obfuscate what they are supposed to describe, in my view, and blur very important distinctions".
Again see Ollman's defence in his appendix on this very point. Also its worth bearing in mind that Hegel was very hostile towards blurring distinctions (something to do with nights, cows and greyness).
"And they also lend themselves to the animating illusion that to use them is to be in command of a very special kind of knowledge, superior to everyone else's"
I'm not sure this is always an illusion. In any case its charecteristic of all forms of knowledge in our society all of which are hierarchical and hence in tension with their proclaimed basis: transparency and publicity.
"Well, where's the dialectics? I mean, judging things by appropriate standards is just part of what people do, or ought to do"
Its not though is it and attempts to do so lead to philosophical problems. Cultural Relativism anyone? I think you are here classically letting the labour go into the coat.
"Say we historicise Marxism and understand it as involving a number of concepts that only became available under capitalism. Wages, prices and profits could not have been written in the High Middle Ages, for instance. Why do I need dialectics to understand this?"
Thats not what I said though is it? The real question would be would be how we compare treatise written in the high middle ages with treatise written in the 21st century. Think Kuhn.
"This
"This "one-eyed" metaphor is, forgive me, profoundly irritating. I get the point, lack of depth perception, but you keep deploying it without showing me why I'm being so profoundly flat"
Nothing meant. I'll stop.
"You tell me if I historicise, I must use dialectics? How? Why?"
Its just a dialectical proceedure. But I think we might have problems about what we mean by historicise.
"Marx's historicism, in my view, owes at least as much to the Scottish Enlightenment and their various 'four stages' theories and to the evolutionary sociologists of his age, as it does to Hegel"
These people did not historicise at all. They simply divided history into stages and used precisely the same mystification of the economy and the individual to do each. Marx uses Hegel's historicism to attack this (again Introduction to Grundrisse).
"It is the opaque jargon that he owes to Hegel more than anything else"
We disagree.
"I think that as an idealist, Hegel has no problem with the idea of contradictions driving change"
Well he does actually and spends thousands of pages overcoming them. But as I said the kind of conceptual idealism some Marxists fall prey to illustrates this is a problem (oddly they tend to be much worse then Hegel who if you read him is a much trickier customer).
"But in historicising him, we must do so totally - that is, we can't forget the intellectual tradition to which he was heir and which he was problematising - Kantian rationality and the Enlightenment to be precise"
Absolutely. It was this problematisation that Marx drew on and without it there would have been no Marxism (in my view). Again What are you trying to say here? That we must accept the Enlightenment or accept Hegels criticisms of it? Hegel himself apologises to a later generation of readers for using the term 'Absolute' and 'Substance' etc. The people he was criticising did, but by the 1820's people had stopped.
"Well... as you go on to say, SR pops its head up here. As someone who has only ever accepted a very weak kind of SR, and is now an anti-realist, I can only say that I think class was is not something that is self-evident in reality"
Obviously irrealism is not compatible with Marx's notions that Capitalism presents itself in various ways. But I'm not an irrealist. Importantly though this discussion is hardly within the framework of SR. It might be useful to work out what framework it IS within (not a straightfoward question). Its clearly very important to Marx however.
"Historical materialism can detect classes in previous societies only because the concept has now become available"
How did the concept become 'available'?
"However, I'd say its predictive and explanatory power is sufficient to remain with us"
Of precapitalist societies?
"In this sense, however, I don't entirely buy that Hegelian argument, because it involves a sort of positivism, whereas concep
"In this sense, however, I don't entirely buy that Hegelian argument, because it involves a sort of positivism, whereas concepts we now hold are not necessarily commensurable with previous ways of viewing the world"
It should be obvious that this is a deep misunderstanding of both Hegel and of Marx who argued the opposite. Nothing 'neccessary' about it. Something peculiar about the structure of capitalism. Something peculiar about modernity. I think Marx and Hegel were on to something here.
"It is true that retroactively, new concepts can make more sense of the past, have more explanatory power and so forth. But the past, while not neccessarily fictive, is a narrative, a construction. As such, it is almost always a tool devised by those living in the present".
In large parts of the world until very recently Capitalism was the future. There are still big debates about whether I can use Class as a tool of analyses in those societies.
"So, I suppose that part of the question of whether present concepts reveal the 'truth' of the past is misdirected - surely the pertinent question is whether present concepts about the past reveal the truth about the present?"
As I've stressed this is a deep misunderstanding. And I don't think present concepts reveal anything about the 'future' in a direct causal sense. This seems remarkably teleological Lenin.
But lets take a break.
"But I do think that all theories contain assumptions about how the world is"
Oh the reason this is important is that denying it is usually a way of concealing ideology (this is particularly true in social theory but also I think in science). On Bhaskar essentially all he did was string a few Marxist theories togeather in his first book (which was not bad and fairly useful) and then dress up the most appalling platitudes in high falutin' jargon in his subsequent works. You might say that this demonstrates the horrific possibilities of being a Hegelian. I think it demonstrates the horrific possibilities of thinking your Hegel.
Its like aspiring jazz musicians who think taking smack will make them better artists. Hegel was mad enough to think he could 'read the mind of god' (or at least trace his march through the world), a hubris which owed as much to the enlightenment as it did to religion.
But ultimately the only thing I'd like to say to Bhaskar is: 'Bhaskar: you ain't no Hegel. Your James Last'.
Actually your point about presentism speaks rather powerfully to post-colonial theory. In large parts of the world the fact that historiography was used for purposes of the present translated into the language of a fictional future being used to bitterly oppress real contemporary people . Hence I think the attraction to theories which emphasis relations between power and knowledge.
"I refer to Quine, who yes, uses ontology simply as a description of objects neccessary for a given theory and believes that every theory has its own ontology (see From a Logical Point of View and other essays). Its the way the term is used in self-consiously non-metaphysical discussions of analytical philosophy"
Which is why I'm tempted incidently, a la E P Thompson, when people from that tradition pontificate about my misuse of 'contradiction', to respond by exclaiming 'the bloody neck!'.
Anyone who has read any of their technical stuff will realise that Hegel is a model of clarity in comparison. Hegel did'nt make philosophy mystical. It bloody was already and remains so.
johng:
“I really don't understand Rosa so I can hardly respond.”
Nice cop out! I did predict your silence. Thanks for confirming it.
But what is this? The kettle calling the sterilising dish sooty?
“You also refuse to define any of the catagories [categories?] you actually use.”
What, like “contradiction”? A central concept in your brand of mysticism, and you still cannot say what you mean by it? [A bit like Darwin not being able to say what natural selection is.]
Recall, I am attacking ‘dialectics’, not propounding anything of my own. So, I do not need to define anything, all I need do is question you – and up till now you have ducked and dived, but are still silent. If you can’t defend your ideas, leave the field. There no shame in being a philosophical plonker (I lied); wear you ignorance with pride!
Same old same old, from johng, then.
And yet, here comes some more diversionary bluster:
“So for example you STILL won't tell anyone what you mean when you say ordinary language or Ordinary language or language (which for you is an important category (category?)”
But I did (I think you failed to understand it; no bother – we can have another go when your education finishes). [Since I am not trying to defend anything, I do not need to define things. However, I can (but I won’t just to annoy you), drop the term “ordinary language”; that would not affect a single thing I have said. Now you try that with any of your ‘concepts’. Go on, be brave. I promise to laugh when you fail.]
Now you be a good boy, and tell us what you mean by “contradiction”. Oh, sorry, you can’t.
Same old, blah, blah….
Oops, here goes another goolie:
“I don't see why there is an anthropic error in my use of the term contradiction.”
I actually said it was an “anthropomorphic” move (and not an “error” either) - not the same thing at all. Now I see why you objected to dictionaries earlier – you don’t like to get words right. You are a natural dialectician. Don’t ever change…er, that was a pleonastic request, if ever there was one.
Nevertheless, I am worried about you johng; your spelling is not so good; can’t you read either? I did offer to type slower, but you ignored that too. The offer is still open, though….
And still, you can’t say what you mean by “contradiction”. Not an impressive plonker, are you?
Same old…(you get the picture).
“I don't see how anything I said above is 'mystical'”
Well, almost everything you say derives from that Hermetic thinker Hegel, and since you have failed to give it a ‘materialist twist’, despite what is often claimed by you and your idealist friends…. Och! Work it out for yourself – do I have to do *all* your thinking for you?
A monumentally insipid question now flops onto the screen (which intellectual jellyfish is to blame for this?):
“Why did he for example (as almost no one else did at the time) understand the paradoxical position of knowledge in our society?”
Hegel knew how to tie his shoes, and that’s about it. [Sorry, that is unfair. Can I withdraw it? He did know how to write bollocks. And he was as good at it as you are at ignoring the point.]
More layers of invention:
“…the fictional 'world' of philosophy you seem to inhabit.”
And if I deny that I am doing philosophy for the hundredth time will you even *notice*? I think not. You need to nip along to specsavers with Scott, I think.
Farce turns to tragedy: here we have a cry from a deeply worried heart (has little Rosa got you rattled, my Idealist fiend (“r” left out deliberately)?):
“How can you be so dismissive of Hegel's historical context, the relation of that context to our context, Marx's whole engagement with Hegel etc.”
Well, as much as I admire Marx (as I said I rate him at or near the top), I do not worship him, like you do. I have the exact opposite opinion of Hegel, though; and I have to be honest, all your ducking, diving and weaving, your irrational mis-readings of me, your painfully obvious lack of knowledge of logic (you did not even know about indirect proof!), has nudged my view of him ever so slightly lower. Thanks for that; I appreciate it (no irony intended). I owe you one. Now can you do the same for Spinoza? [There’s more mystics like him in the wings, but he will do for now.]
By the way (but read this bit slowly), Hegel lapsed into mysticism as a way of compensating for the failure of the French revolution; remember Lenin warned us about this danger (though even he fell into the same trap when he caught a nasty dose of ‘dialectics’ after the defeat of 1905)? That is all the “context” a materialist like me needs.
However, I can understand why a dialectical “god-seeker” like you takes the opposite view. And good luck to you. The movement can do with guys like you - to leave, that is (you and your god-botherer friends have brought enough failure to our movement).
But, once again, please stop trying to do an impersonation of a materialist. You are not very good at it; in fact, I suspect you are only impressing yourself.
“Also a bit angry with the crass idealism about language.”
Well, stop doing it then!
A bit like Rosa not being able to say what language is, what rationality is etc. I've given plenty of examples of how contradiction is used (thats right used) in perfectly ordinary conversation. You've responded not at all to any of it. Trapped in your own mysticism and idealism.
Once again painfully conventional teleological readings of philosophy. If I said 'I'm not doing language' you would'nt take me seriously no matter how often I said it would you? You saying your not doing philosophy does not deserve to be taken any more seriously. Given your complete historical ignorence about language, ideology etc, combined with desperate attempts to throw in specialist philosophical knowledge (begun because I said I did not dismiss ideas because of their origins, which produced attacks on me for confusing a fallacy with a proof, and then from nowhere at all, accusations that I did not know what an indirect proof is) if you don't know philosophy what on earth do you know (aside perhaps from spelling)?
I prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt even if you are a constipated English narrow minded know all, with all the arrogance of your imperial legacy.
If your not trying to defend anything why should anyone bother to listen to anything you say? Are we supposed to assume that your so fearsomely clever that you just know why everyone is wrong? How?
Empty.
The funniest thing is the retreat on language. That gives you no place to stand at all. I can do whatever I like with words then.
Oh and if you do want the cod standard left Hegelian critique of Hegel. Its not disillusionment with the French Revolution. Its disillusionment with Napoleon (hence the contrast between the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right known by all good Left Hegelians). Given that Marx simply lifts wholesale Hegel's arguments about the limits of Jacobinism it would be a bit embarressing for the kind of dogmatists who supply you with your historical context to state that it was the French Revolution.
Combined and Uneven Development Rosa. Its quite spectacular what LSE does to people.
Scott,
You might be interested to know that Lakotos was taught by Lukacs. And a friend of mine at LSE in the 1960's recalls Lakotos stating that Althusser had the most interesting take on science he had read in years. He was intrigued by Generalities I, II etc. Despite being a vile reactionary.
johng:
“Actually what frustrates me the most is your refusal to share.”
As opposed to world poverty, war and famine: that is what frustrates you most?
Ok, I’ll share, then. Where’s the cake?
And now the game is up:
“Perhaps the basis of your ideas, Hegel style, are also simply a beginning, and therefore it is difficult to set them out without 'contradicting' yourself.”
What does “‘contradicting’” mean? Why the extra quotes? I bet you can’t say what that means either.
But, what the f* are you on about now(have you never heard of the word “relevant”)?
“Its also odd that you have this idea of theory and practice. Where does this terminology come from? Lenin does the same sometimes. When he talks about how 'mind' or 'ideology' is also part of reality. Where does this come from? Whats very strange is the absence of this kind of hysteria about Kant (much, much more influential on conventional philosophy). How do things stand between Kant and Hegel? 'Liberals having tested Kant in numerous ways fail to notice its utter failure' How does that scan? Theories can 'fail' in different ways.”
Are you drunk, or have you lost control of your fingers? [Or both?]
“…since Rosa is utterly uninterested in these questions…”
Says who? Ah, the deity that is johng, that’s who. Sorted, oh great one.
“And Rosa, on Hegel's use of the vernacular.”
I have to admit, Hegel was less dismissive of the vernacular [something you do not seem to know very much about, despite your continual use of that word] than other traditional thinkers, but where in the vernacular do you come across “Being” (just to take one mystical example out of hundreds)? Well, it is a participle, but Hegel does not use it that way (he thinks it's a noun - which is what I asserted happens when you try to 'abstract').
Even though Hegel had great respect for the vernacular, he ended up supporting it like a rope supports a hanging man (to paraphrase Lenin).
Too late mate; I have already written you off as a mystical obscurantist, with serious (perhaps terminal) head-in-the-sand complications:
“I'm sorry this has got so argumentative and I'm sure I'll benifit from reading anything you eventually publish.”
I doubt it.
johng:
“Oh and yes I think the whole of language is ideological.”
We’ve been through this, I refuted this notion with a water-tight argument. You need to show where I went wrong, and stop merely repeating these baseless assertions.
If you can’t turn my argument (which would not surprise me), then abandon this crazy idea. I doubt you will; you seem to love obscurity like a pig loves shit.
And leave Althusser out – he’s another confused soul.
Now you see why I read that mock note of contrition of your, johng, earlier in the way I did (as insincerity on a pogo-stick):
“Oh and clearly Scott you must be reeling from the dazzling refutations of Rosa.”
All the whistling in the dark won’t help your drowning theory, sonny.
And that is why I said that I doubt you will benefit from a single thing I ever write; your logic and reasoning powers are far too weak. [I actually wrote: “I hope I never live to see that sad day”, but deleted it. I regret doing that now.]
johng:
"I've given plenty of examples of how contradiction is used (thats right used) in perfectly ordinary conversation. You've responded not at all to any of it...."
You did give examples, but they were either irrelevant to the dialectics of nature, or they were metaphorical (and empty metaphors at that).
I can understand the evasive tactics. In nearly 130 years (of not really trying very hard) not a single 'dialectical monk' has been able to offer even so much as one example of a contradiction in nature.
I doubt if one so confused as you will succeed where your Idealist buddies failed.
Prove me wrong.
Oh, and don’t forget, you still haven’t been able to say what a contradiction is. I bet you do not even know what it means in logic (most dialecticians get it wrong, so you'd be one of the first to get it right - fat chance).
Oh dear, I do think the little boy has been rattled by this feisty lady:
"I prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt even if you are a constipated English narrow minded know all, with all the arrogance of your imperial legacy….If your (“you’re”; now concentrate!) not trying to defend anything why should anyone bother to listen to anything you say? Are we supposed to assume that your (again, it’s “you’re) so fearsomely clever that you just know why everyone is wrong? How?”
Too difficult an idea eh? Never mind, go back to the dialectical sand pit, and see if a few more years of eating silicates will help you work out what “contradiction” means.
“Empty.”
Look, sonny, if you want to describe the contents of your head, that’s your dialectical funeral. But is it relevant to the point at issue - which is your incapacity to handle a single logical notion, no matter how basic and easy it is?
“I can do whatever I like with words then.”
Well you have up to now – hence the cart loads of bollocks. Why let me stop you?
The god-botherer’s revenge:
“Oh and if you do want the cod standard left Hegelian critique of Hegel. Its not disillusionment with the French Revolution. Its disillusionment with Napoleon (hence the contrast between the Phenomenology and the Philosophy of Right known by all good Left Hegelians). Given that Marx simply lifts wholesale Hegel's arguments about the limits of Jacobinism it would be a bit embarressing for the kind of dogmatists who supply you with your historical context to state that it was the French Revolution.” [Embarrassing spelling in there somewhere…]
So you say, and since you are the great and hallowed one, I must agree
But still, Lenin was right and you are a god-seeker. Don’t try to deny it, since, if appearances contradict reality, and you then appear to deny it, you must in reality admit it.
Don’t blame me, that’s diabolical logic for you!
"water tight arguments" really? In ordinary language the idea that I can say the opposite of any proposition I make proves that language is'nt ideological?
Well how would you account for the fact that this is probably true of all languages, but strangely, as societies change so do languages? And that its quite possible to connect these changes to changes in ideology?
But then again I would expect this sort of buffoonery from someone who thinks that Wittgenstein's discussion of models in mechanics provides a good basis for thinking about Marx's methodology in Kapital (the idea of this kind vulgarity let loose in a discussion about the relationship between Hegel and Marx is really quite hair-raising). You'll be having us reading Shlick and Carnap next. For all Lenin's worries about belief in a special mysterious methodology the boots very much on the other foot.
Again lots of mysterious claims to knowledge about 'vernaculars' (given your extremely crass remarks about Hegel I find it rather hard to imagine you know anything about this field at all: especially given your bizarre idea of a 'proof'), and other things too technical for a poor little ignoramus like me to know about.
You need to live a little and have more then one narrow little window onto the world. But I'm sure you'll do great in the world of academia. They love this kind of stuff. My only worry is that you combine a typical anorak approach to philosophy (I'm sure impressive and detailed knowledge of texts dealing only with your subject, excluding apparently even a basic Quentin Skinner Cambridge School type knowledge of historical context, contemporaries etc) with a denial that your doing philosophy.
That might set you back a little.
Ah you were only interested in contradiction as it related to the 'dialectics of nature'...
stranger and stranger.
If I were you I would hang on like grim death to the idea that appearence must contradict reality. It makes it possible that there's something to your argument.
Are you by any chance the late Mr Logic from Viz Rosa?
Oh and apparently the correct definition of a contradiction is in logic (when?). Say it ain't so Rosa. What ever happened to the working class?
I was going to reproduce the standard definition in Hodges Introduction to Logic (yeah I'd have to look it up) and then produce a few definitions of a contradiction in Nyaya logic and Buddist logic, and then a few definitions from medieval scholastics, and then a few taken at random from Hegel. Then I was going to ask you to arbitrate. But I can't be arsed really. But I do wonder what the correct Wittgensteinian response to such a list would be. Seriously.
God I've just realised that your joke about me knowing little about the vernacular was not a reference to theoretical literature on vernacularisation and its association with historical processes but a reaction to my inability to spell properly or speak sense.
As a genius on Harry's Place would say:I find that frankly rather revealing. As opposed to revealingly frank.
Thank you, johng, at last a few of your dormant brain cells are finally kicking into gear. Thanks to me, I have to admit:
“In ordinary language the idea that I can say the opposite of any proposition I make proves that language is'nt ideological?”
Correct! So, if you assert, in ordinary language the grossest of ideological propositions (such as "all human beings are selfish", or "Capitalism is natural", or whatever), then in ordinary language I could assert each of their negations (i.e., "Not all human beings are selfish" and "Capitalism is not natural").
This logical facility our ancestors very kindly built into their material language (unwittingly, I have to say - but not a single language on the planet that we know of fails to have this facility) means that it cannot be ideological, or you could not do that.
This does not mean that you can say just anything, and it be true, as you seem to have thought earlier (based on what, I cannot imagine), but it does mean you can assert the logical opposite of an ideological (and racist, and sexist) statement anyone makes. That allows us socialists to deny the things that racists say, that sexist assert, and that ruling class hacks spout. And we can deny them, and at the same time assert truths - that is, the negations of what they say.
Again, if language were ideological, this could not be done.
Now, you are beginning to ask intelligent questions. This is quite encouraging:
“Well how would you account for the fact that this is probably true of all languages, but strangely, as societies change so do languages? And that it’s quite possible to connect these changes to changes in ideology?”
Well, as a Marxist I would have to agree with you about social change (and I would probably agree anyway), but in ordinary language you can assert ideological things (as I illustrated above), and these can change with time. So, say, 1000 years ago, someone could have asserted, in their own vernacular, “The lord of the manor is our rightful ruler”, or “If a hare looks at your mother when she is pregnant, you will have a hare lip”, and so on. But, in each case (even if no one bothered to do this at the time) there would be the facility in ordinary language to deny these things. So, the fact that ordinary language does not contain any ideology does not mean that it cannot be used to express an ideology at any time in human history.
Now you go and spoil it:
“But then again I would expect this sort of buffoonery from someone who thinks that Wittgenstein's discussion of models in mechanics provides a good basis for thinking about Marx's methodology in Kapital…”
Where did I assert this? If you are referring to the ‘Tractatus’, where did I say I accepted his account of language there? That account captured certain aspects of language I’d accept, but many I would not. And even in his later writings, there really isn’t enough detail for anyone to proceed to Kapital and begin to slice it up in any old way they liked. However, in my thesis I do develop a method that could be used to put Das Kapital on a fully scientific basis for the first time in 150 years – with all the mysticism excised. No mystical kernel, no mystical shell.
If you don’t believe me, I should worry. Do you really think that if I’ve worked all *that* out (and am the first to do this in all that time, *and* in ordinary language) I am going to be pestered by an intellectual pygmy like you who needs me to tell him the answer to everything, who knows nothing even of indirect proof?
I rather think you can answer that one question without my help. [But, I do not wan to put too much faith in you. You have let me down so many times. So no pressure there, my floundering friend.]
Oops:
“You'll be having us reading Shlick and Carnap next.”
If you are going to name-drop, get the spelling right. I presume you mean “Schlick and Carnap”?
But, whoever you, mean (if you mean anything, that is), why would I want to get you to read the writings of such as these? [The *only* reason I can think of is that they were at least clear, compared to the philosophical spaghetti you seem to like in Hegel. But, if I wanted you to read clear authors, there are better examples. I can give you a list if you ask me nicely.]
And now we descend into johng’s paranoid little world for another non-guided tour:
“Again lots of mysterious claims to knowledge about 'vernaculars' (given your extremely crass remarks about Hegel I find it rather hard to imagine you know anything about this field at all: especially given your bizarre idea of a 'proof'), and other things too technical for a poor little ignoramus like me to know about.”
Well I speak it, so it makes me just as much an expert in it as you (You *do* speak ordinary English at times, johng, don’t you? Or do you go about the place quoting Hegel, and order pints in fluent dialectics? I bet you are a hoot at parties.]
Profound building advice this (thanks!):
“You need to live a little and have more then (than?) one narrow little window onto the world.”
Good point, but I have seven upstairs, and eleven down. Is that enough windows? Style advice please!
Take up astrology if your other predictions are this good:
“But I'm sure you'll do great in the world of academia. They love this kind of stuff.”
Hate it; too many idealists like you. And no, they hate it; if I am right they’d be out of a job.
You really are using that dictionary I advised you to get in a most impressive manner:
“My only worry is that you combine a typical anorak approach to philosophy..”
Well maybe so, but I am not a nescient ignoramus, like you. And that thought alone makes me happy.
Now, this appears to say one thing:
“If I were you I would hang on like grim death to the idea that appearence must contradict reality.”
But if this sentence were correct, in reality it must say the following (if what it appears to say must contradict what it really says):
“If I were you I would hang on like grim death to the idea that appearance must *not* contradict reality.”
More diabolical logic from you!
But, true to your lack of knowledge of logic (which, in contrast to you, even that piss-poor logician Hegel knew *something* about) you missed the reductio in what I said. “What is a reductio?” I hear you mumble. Well, in this case, I assumed for the purposes of the argument that what you dialectical dodgers believe about appearance and reality was true. If so, and it *appears* that you believe certain things (such as “Hegel was a human being”), then in reality, you must believe he wasn’t, that he was an alien, or a marsh lizard.
You can avoid this terminal result in two ways: discharge the assumed premiss as false (and admit that appearances cannot contradict reality, as I would do if I were you (perish the thought)), or go off into a sulk and mis-interpret me again.
Which one does my fine numpty friend (‘Satan’s’ gift to logic) choose? He sulks and gives me advice that suggests he is out of his depth again.
Well drown my good friend - I think even professional help is beyond you.
And to prove I was right about your lack of logical expertise we get this prize sentence:
“Oh and apparently the correct definition of a contradiction is in logic (when?).”
Now, I do try to understand your ramblings, but I have to admit defeat here. So, you don’t know? Fine, but at least be honest.
You *are* pissed:
“Say it ain't so Rosa. What ever happened to the working class?”
Ok, if it will make you happy, here goes; “It ain’t so, Rosa.”
And the working-class is round my pace for supper. Well the for-itself ones are, but the in-itself ones have buggered off.
So you have to ‘look it up’ eh (and in a rather poor introductory logic text too: tut tut, Hodges, really!):
“I was going to reproduce the standard definition in Hodges Introduction to Logic”
But it was too difficult? No, you’d rather prevaricate some more:
“I was going to reproduce the standard definition in Hodges Introduction to Logic (yeah I'd have to look it up) and then produce a few definitions of a contradiction in Nyaya logic and (oops) Budd[h]ist logic, and then a few definitions from medieval scholastics, and then a few taken at random from Hegel. Then I was going to ask you to arbitrate. But I can't be arsed really. But I do wonder what the correct Wittgensteinian response to such a list would be. Seriously.”
The correct Wittgensteinian response (as the Chair of the Speak for W Society, myself) is:
“42”.
I note you still don’t know what the central concept of your brand of mysticism is.
I’d say “pathetic”, but that would be a promotion for you.
More profundity from 'Mr Out of His Depth':
"God I've just realised that your joke about me knowing little about the vernacular was not a reference to theoretical literature on vernacularisation and its association with historical processes but a reaction to my inability to spell properly or speak sense."
Stop using my proper name.
And learn to spell....
My last but one post should of course have read:
And the working-class is round my place for supper. Well the ‘for-itself’ ones are, but the ‘in-itself’ ones have buggered off.
“I was going to reproduce the standard definition in Hodges Introduction to Logic”
So you had to ‘look it up’ eh? And in a rather poor introductory logic text too: tut tut! Hodges!? Really!
But it was too difficult?
No, you’d rather prevaricate some more:
“I was going to reproduce the standard definition in Hodges Introduction to Logic (yeah I'd have to look it up) and then produce a few definitions of a contradiction in Nyaya logic and (oops) Budd[h]ist logic, and then a few definitions from medieval scholastics, and then a few taken at random from Hegel. Then I was going to ask you to arbitrate. But I can't be arsed really. But I do wonder what the correct Wittgensteinian response to such a list would be. Seriously.”
The correct Wittgensteinian response (as the Chairperson of the “I Speak for Wittgenstein Society”, myself) is:
“42”.
Once again, I note you still don’t know what the central concept of your brand of mysticism is.
I’d say “pathetic” - but that would be a promotion for you.
Rosa,
people may have been able to assert that the Lord of their manor was their 'rightful ruler' (actually I doubt this) but if they could, they would not have meant by 'rightful' the same thing we mean.
The term 'right' is interesting in this respect as it used to be a word associated entirely with status and caste (ie as a Lord I claim my right, as a Bondsman I claim my right, etc and all these rights were different). There is no sense in which the modern usage can be understood as simply the 'opposite' of this. Ideological changes associated with the emergence of what we today call bourgoise right imply significant changes in ideologies, mentalities, and indeed language.
I simply do not understand how the kind of proposition you make (your watertight proof) is at all relevent to anyone interested in how these changes happened, as opposed to someone making a philosophical (and ideological) point about language.
Do you know anything about the social shifts connected with the rise of vernaculars and what today we call the Renaissence? Does'nt seem so. Its you who seems rather out of your depth I'm afraid. Of course if you have indeed single handedly transformed the way we see Kapital I await this with some excitement. You specifically referred to Wittgenstein's account of models above.
Well lots of stuff about how to spell Schlick and some more 'clear thinking'. On logic, I just can't be bothered. Its trivial nonsense. But you've yet to reach the stage where you can understand that your being has been thrown have you Rosa?
"Now, I do try to understand your ramblings, but I have to admit defeat here. So, you don’t know? Fine, but at least be honest".
I could have said which as well as when. Apparently there are better and worse accounts of logic. Who arbitrates?
Actually I await your account of logic with some interest.
There seems to be a fairly deeply rooted belief that philosophical problems are just the product of mistakes in grammer. The trouble with this is that non-standard usage and grammer associated with many philosophers often yield competing ideologies expressing different social, political and indeed philosophical programs. Hegel's use of 'being' for example is not the same as other philosopher's usage of being. Later, its not the same as Heidegger's use of being. On the basis that mistakes in grammer and avoiding non-standard usage is the issue we'd have to conclude that both Hegel and Heidegger were speaking nonsense. Which may be true. But they were clearly speaking different kinds of nonsense. And the differences clearly make a difference in terms of the ideologies expressed (and indeed in terms of the philosophical program adopted). This is why, contra Lenin, this kind of approach, precisely yields an inability to draw important distinctions both in ideas and in social reality.
Thats problem no.1. Problem no.2 is that this approach simply ignores (as is painfully apparent) any material history of language, pointing only towards abstractions which unite them. Thus the sense in which one can have languages of politics, languages of aesthetics, languages of science and the relation of these languages to this universal idea of all languages becomes lost. This obscures ideology and its functions in society. Only in this way can one imagine that a property of languages in general which allows me to say the opposite of any proposition could overcome the problem of the relationship between ideology and language (in any language at any time presumably, although there is a vague reference to temporality in what Rosa says: a reference to the pre-history of language? It sounds like a 'state of nature' type argument to me).
In doing this, such a move is revealed as itself ideological. The notion of publicity, transparency and associated ideas of equality, democracy etc are here thought of as integral to the nature of language itself rather then the product of historical changes of actual languages (which involve changes in the relationship of different sub-genres above which also produce new grammers, new dictionaries, new usages etc).
I imagine that Rosa will find my association of her assumptions about language with notions of publicity, transparency and associated ideas of equality and democracy nonsensical. But thats because she appears uninterested (I can't say she knows nothing about because I don't know) in the material history of languages and their connection to social change.
There is a very interesting discussion in existing literature on the meaning of the word 'nation' for instance. This word appears everywhere. This allows people to imagine that nations have always been with us. But nation did not always mean the same thing. At one point it meant what we might today call race. Race in turn referred to blood. But the i
Part 2
Race in turn referred to blood. But the invocation of blood tended to refer to vertical rather then horizontal differences (ie differences of blood referred to differences of status).
I won't go into all the ramifications of this, but suffice to say it is very doubtful that, 600 years ago, it would have been possible for anyone to imagine what we mean by nation whatever the formal logical properties of their language. Not only would they not mean what we mean by nation but they could not have meant what we mean by nation.
Another example. Take the word 'society'. Today this word conjures up a host of associations with 'state' (ie state and society, politics etc). It also might mean a club of some sort (often to do with money) or even a religous association. The term is packed with sediments of different meanings. The same is true of the Hindi 'Samaj' (often when reading even quite recent historical material one has to be very careful not to assume that the person is using the word society in what one might call a modern sense, a fact which has real consequences unlike the fairly unproblematic ambiguities in our own society).
All of this means that the kind of position outlined by Rosa is completely hopeless in assessments of ideology. It does not even recognise that its own proceedures (where it even recognises its own proceedures) are historical. In the face of for example the 'language of bourgoise right' it is utterly helpless.
One might argue that modern languages are more transparent, more flexible then previous languages (hence it is possible for books to be written about the limitations of previous language and languages). I think there is something in this. But the limits and pitfalls of this as well as the opportunities presented can only be explored by people who understand that these changes are real and important to register.
I don't see any such awareness in what Rosa writes, and indeed lack of such awareness is a feature of that tradition I call analytical philosophy which Rosa refuses to associate with, but which she seems to draw many of her arguments from (in particular the central dogma that problems of philosophy are all problems of language: which I of course cannot refute simply by carrying out a series of reversals on...perhaps Rosa would break it down to micro- counter-propositions...but I think this is entirely the wrong track to be on in the first place.
Oh and of course if an explanation is needed, its simply impossible to imagine someone talking about rightful rulers in the same sense we do in a situation where nationalism in the sense we take it, was unimaginable.
Or indeed where the notion of a 'society' in our sense was unimaginable.
As Socialists we know that languages of nationalism, society, state and citizenship etc are often profoundly misleading about real entitlements. Apply that language to societies where these ideas are not even present in fictive form and you enter a world of hurt conceptually.
"There seems to be a fairly deeply rooted belief that philosophical problems are just the product of mistakes in grammer"
I've just realised that this statement goes to the nub of the disagreement in a different way. Add at the end "as opposed to having their roots in society". Which takes us back to this question of whether a non-standard usage of a word taken to mean something which cannot be true in any possible situation might usefully illuminate something about reality.
Lenin,
Quick point on the problems of metaphore. Rejecting contradiction as an illicit metaphorical extension of a term refering to statements which could not possibly be true in any situation, you then use the term 'dynamic' amongst others to suggests those things about society which the freezing of a verb into a noun (actually problematical I think) obscure. Is the term dynamic here not a metaphore? As with these discussions of logic this is all problematic anyway as it rather depends on the direction we pursue in etymology. I just wonder whether I don't detect a kind of scientism in these objections (ie the privilaging of a particular kind of language), a scientism which whilst not deliberate, in some ways vitiates the very idea of a social theory. Thinking about this discussion (which I've perhaps become a little too obsessed by) I suddenly thought about the strange fact (alluded to in a typically obscure way by Hegel) that I would much prefer a social theory of scientific knowledge to a scientific theory of sociological knowledge (of course Hegel does not and could not use these terms or mean exactly the same thing). I'm now unhappy incidently about my formulation about scientists being philosophical cretins if this is taken to imply that they have no philosophy. Actually they do (this relates also to my point about theories generating ontologies, not just about what they theorise about but beyond as well). Its called Positivism which rather then being a philosophy of science is best understood as its ideology.
Oh you were conducting a reductio were you? Gosh. I thought you were just taking the piss. Is your theses similarly ambivulent?
Given that Marxists who accept Dialectics tend to argue that Hegel's conception was flawed this is all begging the question anyway.
But it must be easy to refute arguments if you believe that the only reason people make wrong one's is because they're not as clever as you.
And is it true that you don't know what irony means?
john-I-waffle-for-my country-g:
“…people may have been able to assert that the Lord of their manor was their 'rightful ruler' (actually I doubt this) but if they could, they would not have meant by 'rightful' the same thing we mean.”
Does that matter? They could have meant anything by it; the point is that anyone else could easily negate it. So, even though whatever had been asserted was thoroughly ideological, ideology cannot be inherent in language if it is easy to deny whatever an ideologue said. That is shown by our use, and their use in the past, of negation.
Is there any point discussing this if you come up with such brainless ‘objections’? Talk about missing the point:
“I simply do not understand how the kind of proposition you make (your watertight proof) is at all relevent to anyone interested in how these changes happened, as opposed to someone making a philosophical (and ideological) point about language…”
I do not dispute most of this. A language can change for whatever reason (as a Marxist, I do not deny this). The point is that, whatever anyone says in that language, it can be negated. So, ideology can be expressed in language, but it itself is not ideological. That is why this point refutes your assertion.
[I suspect you have merely read this claim somewhere, donkey nodded to it, and given it little thought.]
Now you are stealing my accusations, too:
“Does'nt seem so. Its you who seems rather out of your depth I'm afraid.”
But we have already established you are a total stranger to logic. And below you even revel in that fact. As I noted above, Hegel at least tried to master the subject (even if he seems not to have understood much of what he studied).
Whether or not I am ‘out of my depth’ in this area is, once again, irrelevant. However it is that a language developed (whether it was passed on to us by the Martians, found in a cabbage patch, or emerged because of the rise of capitalism), if someone asserts “p”, and it is ideological, you can easily assert can easily assert “not p”. That does not mean you can ‘do anything with language’, but you can deny in language anything you like (of this sort). You just could not do that if all language were ideological. Why are you finding this simple point so difficult?
Oh, you don’t like to think logically, that’s it. Fair enough! That is part of the reason I have rightly called you an ignoramus. It is also why you like Hegel, because reading him you can be as illogical as you like. And you think that this is a good advert for Marxism, do you? No wonder it is to success as religion is to peace on earth. You dialectical dullards want another 130 years of failure. The last 130 wasn’t enough.
However, if you don’t like the examples I gave, then suggest one of your own. What you then do is just insert a negative particle. So, “NN is QQ” becomes “NN is not QQ” {where “NN” and “QQ” are replaced by whatever ideological terms you like (taken from any time in the past or present}. In that case, you might just (?) see the point.
“You specifically referred to Wittgenstein's account of models above.”
I do not think I did since he never set any up. That’s why I have had to do it. [You must be misreading me, I think. I suspect you skim read what I post, thinking that that is enough. Hence, my assertion that ‘debating’ with you is about as pointless as arguing with a Christian Fundamentalist. You have so much in common – naïve faith, shed loads of ignorance (worn with pride) and an irrational fear of logic.]
“On logic, I just can't be bothered. Its trivial nonsense.”
How do you know if you can’t be bothered? I, at least have ploughed through Hegel’s bollocks. So I do know. And logic can’t be trivial since modern computing would never have developed without it. Every standard processor runs on principles encapsulated in the propositional calculus. So the fact that you can waffle away till your heart’s content at Lenin’s Tomb is down to logic. [Can you say the same for diabolical logic? Has it got a single practical application to boast about? I think not. Tested in non-practice and found useless.]
However, I rather suspect that logic is far too difficult for you, and, like other ‘dialecticians’, you took one look and wet your pants. You are frightened of it. So you retreat into a well-worn quasi-religious hatred of it, a bit like Fundamentalist Christians I mentioned above. So, once more we get more head-in-the-sand antics from john-the-ostrich-g. Anything rather than tackle a difficult subject. So you blame it for your failings; you project you own emptiness and triviality onto it. [You are not a very appealing human being, johng - even if you are good at impersonating ostriches. With your attitude, we’d have no computers.
But, now the situation is worse: you cannot say what any sort of contradiction is (a dialectical one, or a logical one). You are not the most impressive dialectical mystic I have encountered; but at least you wear you ignorance with pride; nay you boast of it. And you have much to be proud of, and you boast with the best.
“But you've yet to reach the stage where you can understand that your being has been thrown have you Rosa?”
Eh? Please don’t go all incoherent on me, ostrichg. I need to be able to understand the crap you constantly deposit on the screen.
Oh dear, there’s more:
“I could have said which as well as when.”
Profound stuff, my logically-challenged flightless bird.
“Apparently there are better and worse accounts of logic. Who arbitrates?”
Well not you; you know nothing about the subject.
Of course, we arbitrate in logic as we do anywhere else. Can you imagine someone saying: “Apparently there are different brands of Marxism. How do we arbitrate?” Does that stop you from doing so, yourself? No, because you know a lot about Marxism, etc.
Same with logic. [Why am I having to tell you all this?]
More insincerity from our avian friend:
“Actually I await your account of logic with some interest.”
Well, if, according to you, it is trivial nonsense, why are you suddenly pretending to be interested?
No need to give you an account; it has already been written. If you would like a list of excellent logic books, just ask nicely. [That should test your *pretend interest* to the limit…, while you lay another egg.]
“I imagine that Rosa will find my association of her assumptions about language with notions of publicity, transparency and associated ideas of equality and democracy nonsensical.”
Now try as I might, I couldn’t really see the point of all that waffle. Since you clearly do not know what you are talking about, so I do not need to accuse of writing nonsense, you have ably advertised that fact yourself.
Just keep it up, that’s all.
However, right at the end of some seemingly endless, but impressively aimless, prose, we find this:
“I don't see any such awareness in what Rosa writes…”
Well, that’s a mercy, or I would have to bang on aimlessly like you. I am not a key-board sadist; you, though, seem to have it in for your readers, trying to bore them to death. Enough already! My eyes hurt!
You write, however, as if someone other than Rosa is reading what you inflict on humanity. Just who do you think you are addressing here, oh silicate-loving mystic? And, who cares what you think. You are an irrationalist of the worst sort. So, only nutters will find what you say riveting. Some people suffer from body dismorphia; you I think suffer from waffle dismorhia – you think what you write is valuable and important because it is convoluted and peppered with half-baked ideas you have lifted from others. Well, I do not wish to spoil your reverie; day-dream on, you fine feathered obscurantist.
Delusions of grandeur now from this egg-laying vertebrate:
“I call analytical philosophy…”
No, it *is* called ‘Analytical Philosophy’; that title has nothing to do with you. It was so named long before you cursed the planet with your existence.
And I am more than proud to associate myself with that tradition.
Ostrichg, I have genuinely tried to find something worth commenting on in all that verbal slop you threw up, but I gave up when the prosac ran out.
Jesus, you could bore for the galaxy, john-I-hate-clarityg!
In conclusion: you still cannot say what a contradiction is.
As I said, all we get from ‘dialecticians’ on this is silence.
Same old same old….
Ostrichg, I think my diagnosis of you as a bird-brain was uncannily accurate.
The way you post gives your avian nature away: you peck away, and wander off; peck a bit more, and wander off again; scratch about some more, squawk a bit, peck away again,- but then back in the sand goes the ostrichg brain.
Arse heavenward, head in the soil, you effect a dialectical inversion all of your own. But this time it is very material. You even lay eggs with mystical shells.
You are our very own dialectical metaphor, and one jealous of ‘his’ carefully crafted ignorance, which you parade about as you were bedecked with the sort of fine feathers real ostriches sport. A delusional of the most pitiable kind.
But, as seems plain to all who have evolved beyond your primitive state, you are bogus down to the last ideal feather, my avian friend.
Squawk and scratch away some more; you may be dim, but you are at least entertaining.
Rosa,
Sometimes people can think they're really smart when actually they're incredibly dim. Has this ever worried you?
And here is the result of another scratching session (and it is a truly fine specimen):
"Oh you were conducting a reductio were you? Gosh. I thought you were just taking the piss. Is your theses similarly ambivulent (sic)?"
I particularly liked the "Gosh"; not many avians could manage such a profound squawk.
But, to interrupt your next scratching session for one second; what is your response to that reductio?
Silence, as expected, from the bird-brain of Britain.
This back-water of evolution does not do thinking. It is far too difficult! And, what is more, it is not as interesting as scratching around for a few more worm-like thoughts that others have dug up for him. Indeed, Ostrichg is not even an original ignoramus.
Now we get another desperate plea, a semi-squawk if you like:
“But it must be easy to refute arguments if you believe that the only reason people make wrong one's is because they're not as clever as you.”
Well this will need to be translated out of that avian dialect of yours if I am to pluck a few more of your ideal feathers off that scraggly torso of yours. Help me out, Ostrichg, translate it into human speech. I am not fluent in argotic Squawk.
A few human brain cells spark into life, the head is retracted from the sand dune for a moment. The Sahara mystic speaks, for it is truly he, the expected one:
“And is it true that you don't know what irony means?”
What devilish rumours has this flightless vertebrate heard about little old Rosa? From one who does not know what “contradiction” means, we get such searching cross-examination. So relevant, so penetrating!
I think she will answer that difficult query when Ostrichg reveals its devastating relevance, and, incidentally, when 'he' manages to scratch together an explanation or two of his own random squawks.
More bird noises:
"Sometimes people can think they're really smart when actually they're incredibly dim. Has this ever worried you?"
Yes, I worry about you all the time.
This is really strange stuff Rosa. But I think as well as exhausting each others patience we must be well on the way to pissing everyone else off as well. You must try and imagine the possibility that sometimes you might miss the point.
Oh and what is and what is not to be called analytical philosophy is internally contested. I was being careful thats all. I need'nt have bothered.
Some more scratching sounds? Another squawk? No, now we get a few chirrups, just for a change:
"This is really strange stuff Rosa. But I think as well as exhausting each others patience we must be well on the way to pissing everyone else off as well. You must try and imagine the possibility that sometimes you might miss the point."
The kettle calling the sterilising dish sooty again.
Who exactly is being pissed off? Who does you avian brain think is interested in our tiff?
Not even an entertaining chirrup, ostrichg.
Is it the best you can do? I fear it is.
More ergotic avian:
"Oh and what is and what is not to be called analytical philosophy is internally contested. I was being careful thats all. I need'nt have bothered."
I think the last sentence is in English, the rest is in, what?
And if you needn't have bothered, then don't.
The human race would be better off well without your bird-brain mysticism. I suggest you join the Catholic Church; they need all the mystics they can get.
But, still no word from the chirrup-meister, about "contradictions".
I suspect it has abandoned the notion in confusion.
Rosa 1 Ostrich 0.
Feathers all over the place....
I might not know a lot about logic but whats above is'nt. Lets call the whole thing off..
"The point is that, whatever anyone says in that language, it can be negated. So, ideology can be expressed in language, but it itself is not ideological. That is why this point refutes your assertion."
This is so completely priceless. You clearly have understood nothing I said.
Just to re-iterate. I believe, and it is demonstrably just the case, that the compilation of dictionaries which expands at a massive rate in the era of nationalism involves massive ideological manipulation of language, a process that occurs at the same time as the standardisation of spelling, grammer, and other 'rationalisations'. It is also the case that this process co-incides with an attempt to ensure not only that languages are reformed, merged, standerdised, and in some cases almost invented, not only have room for scientific terminology but express various modern political concepts etc. The ideological component of this does not just involve overt ideology of the kind you seem to be thinking of (actually there is little of this though its there) but much more subtle treatments of terms like emotion, public, modes of address etc. Its far easier to see what such changes allowed people to articulate rather harder to see what they disallowed (this is why the term discourse is preferred to ideology, although I prefer to use the term 'languages' as less mystifying). These 'languages' are closely connected to what I take to be ideology though, and this is bought out most strongly in places were languages go through this process as part of a political process of colonization. Behind this was a new idea of language as a mirror of the world, involving a particular conception of the relationship between language and the world that was also new. So hard was this process for those subjected to it that it caused problems for generations (some of which still persist). I think the style of thinking you have about this reflects this period rather then reflecting on it, which is why you are becoming so indignant, or on the other hand simply don't understand what I am saying.
The notion that if one statement was possible 'the king is a just ruler' then another statement was possible 'the king is not a just ruler' and that therefore ideology is not connected to language strikes me as a gross statement in relationship to the above and simply historically implausible.
Why was it that when the great changes associated with modernity occured it was felt neccessary to utterly restructure language and its relation to the world? Why? This was a massive change in language (and life, and selves). A change which strikes you as trivial in relationship of your account of the relationship of language and ideology. Because of my way of being hostile to philosophy (as opposed to your way) I find this utterly insufferable.
Only a philosopher could imagine that this was the case and then speak blithely of our imaginary forefathers who accidently invented these wonderful things which exist in all known languages. Its poppycock! Can you not even see what I'm trying to say?
On the reductio since I never said I accepted the premiss I don't really see why I had to accept the conclusion. But given that I don't believe anyone is ever wholly right about a
Feather-brain withdraws from the field, wings broken, mysticism deflated, a sad poor loser:
"I might not know a lot about logic but whats(sic) above is'nt(sic). Lets(sic) call the whole thing off.."
You *might* (??) not know much about logic; you know about as much as a bin liner does. [Even Hegel knew more about it than you!]
But that does not stop you pontificating to the last.
What "whole thing"? You never even so much as tried to grapple with a single idea put to you - and worse, you couldn't even defend any of your own beliefs.
Engels would be ashamed of you.
"This is so completely priceless. You clearly have understood nothing I said."
Well, that makes two of us.
Now you must promise me that you will try to understand yourself one day (maybe in twenty year's time?) so that at least one of us does.
And still, and still, Ostrichg cannot say what "contradiction" means.
Silence.... Same old same old.
[You might think twice before you try to out-smart a poor defenceless woman again.]
Rosa 2 Bird-brain 0
On the reductio since I never said I accepted the premiss I don't really see why I had to accept the conclusion. But given that I don't believe anyone is ever wholly right about anything I can imagine how one could proceed in a wholly Hegelian manner. But I'm not a Hegelian. So I don't have to.
Hegel of course was not a Catholic and there is no connection at all between his ideas and Catholicism and certainly the Phenomenology was considered well dodgy by even Protestants. He was constantly at risk of being accused of panthiesm, spinozism and other bad things, all at the time considered roads into athiesm. You think its a road to christianity. Well thats up to you (you can walk up or down the path).
Certainly he was not mystical in any conventional sense. He loathed the notion of edification and spent a lot of time attacking intuitive and romantic thought etc. So again I find all this stuff dreary and ahistorical. Most of all though I find it hard to understand why you can't get off your high horse and argue with mere mortals in a normal manner. Its pathetic. And an indication that you imagine yourself in possession of some magical key which no one else has. Which is exactly what your opponents are usually accused of.
I feel a dialectical sublimination coming watch out! Its going to be a bit smelly.
Oh and whilst I know your deliberately hiding your remarks about models here is a nice response to your request for a definition of contradiction:
"It is rarely a good idea to nominalise like this (it was a favourite ploy of Plato's, and most traditional philosophers do it - see how easily you fall into line? It is almost a knee-jerk reaction. It biases the enquiry from the start, for now you are looking for a definition, and hence an essence, and hence perhaps even an abstract particular that answers to this word. It might have one, it might not. But you notice that the very form of your question imposes on us a dogmatic approach"
I'm also glad to know that Ryle comes in handy here. RYLE!!!!!!!!
(most 'traditional' philosophers do it, ha ha ha ha ha).
(shrieks). You stay away from those systematically misleading concepts y'hear? You'll only confuse yourself.
Did someone say fraud?
The return of The Birdman of Alcohol; this time he *is* pissed.
So, after another, big scratch around the yard, Ostrich-boy decides that he doesn't want to "call the whole thing off". Head, still covered in sand, he splutters back to life:
“Just to re-iterate. I believe, and it is demonstrably just the case, that the compilation of dictionaries which expands at a massive rate in the era of nationalism involves massive ideological manipulation of language, a process that occurs at the same time as the standardisation of spelling, grammer, and other 'rationalisations'….[edited to preserve my sanity]…. So hard was this process for those subjected to it that it caused problems for generations (some of which still persist). I think the style of thinking you have about this reflects this period rather then reflecting on it, which is why you are becoming so indignant, or on the other hand simply don't understand what I am saying.”
[I didn’t understand this, can you explain it? But first you will need to explain it to yourself, so at *least* one of us can follow it]
More wasted screen space. I think the boy is losing it. He can’t decide whether to shut up, or shout out.
So he just blurts. And it is a pretty good blurt. The best I’ve seen for, oh, seconds.
“The notion that if one statement was possible 'the king is a just ruler' then another statement was possible 'the king is not a just ruler' and that therefore ideology is not connected to language strikes me as a gross statement in relationship to the above and simply historically implausible.”
I think I said the King was a “set square”. You need to get the measuring device right.
“I find this utterly insufferable.”
Well, stop writing this sort of stuff then! How do you think the rest of us feel?
“Its poppycock!”
My view entirely; now we both agree about the quality of your ‘thinking’. To call it dire would be praise indeed.
So we *are* getting someplace at last?
And now, another crie de coeur:
“Can you not even see what I'm trying to say?”
Yes, to be honest I can. I have been stringing you along, and I am really sorry. I feel so bad. Let me make it up to you:
It was “blah, bla, blahdy, blah” wasn’t it?
Or is that too coherent and brief a sentence for you?
See, we can now kiss and make up. I’ll lend you my lipstick….
“On the reductio since I never said I accepted the premiss I don't really see why I had to accept the conclusion. But given that I don't believe anyone is ever wholly right about a…”
How true!
And still, Ostrichg cannot say what a contradiction is….
But there is still more from Captain “Let’s Call It All Off”. Is the latest gust of wind any better than the last fart he put into words? No, alas not:
“Hegel of course was not a Catholic and there is no connection at all between his ideas and Catholicism and certainly the Phenomenology was considered well dodgy by even Protestants. He was constantly at risk of being accused of panthiesm, spinozism and other bad things, all at the time considered roads into athiesm. You think its a road to christianity. Well thats up to you (you can walk up or down the path).”
Fascinating bollocks, I’ll grant you. But we have had enough of that to re-populate the planet
But, I thought you said it was all “poppycock”? If so, why are you punishing some more? Haven’t we suffered enough?
“Certainly he was not mystical in any conventional sense.”
But he was in a sort of *real* sense, as in “he really was a mystic”.
“And an indication that you imagine yourself in possession of some magical key which no one else has.”
Well, error-boy, no. But, I do want to throw all such keys away, but only after I have melted them down first.
However it was Lenin who said this:
“[t]he identity of opposites… alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything existing” [Philosophical Notebooks, p.358].
And he said he got this from Hegel, he says. So, Rosa is not the one doing all the key-cutting here. Those two are; pick a fight with them.
What are you on about here:
“I'm also glad to know that Ryle comes in handy here. RYLE!!!!!!!!”?
So what? You can see Ryle enter your sad bedroom. Get therapy, but don’t advertise your problems, werdo-g.
“ha ha ha ha ha”
Spit it out, man! Did some Millet get stuck in your throat? Or feathers?
And now psycho-g is beginning to hear things:
“Did someone say fraud?”
Probably your conscience.
And still no idea from The Prevaricate-Kid what “contradiction” means….
Did you really not notice your own quotes? Enjoy your imaginary victories.
But lets try one more time (perhaps in a language you can understand). Your water-tight proof fails because whilst you have a (single) premiss about language you have have no premiss about ideology. As far as I can surmise your definition of ideology is 'ideas that are false'. If this turns out not to be the case then your water-tight proof fails.
Is language not ideological in the same sense that Gilbert Ryle is not a philospher? And is this strange sense in which language is not ideological and Gilbert Ryle is not a philosopher, also a proof that Gilbert Ryle is not ideological? And where do you get your definition of 'traditional philosophy' from? From someone who is not a 'traditional philosopher'? Perhaps a new up-to-date philosopher who is not a philosopher (in the same way that language is not ideological, and analytical philosophy is not philosophy).
In politics this is the language of HP.
The Labour of the negative does imply Labour you know. I have suggested that your question about contradiction makes assumptions in the same way that my question about rationality made assumptions (according to you in your own words). Explain why I can't. Oh of course you don't have to give explanations. And you've explained that you don't have to give explanations. And thats supposed to be good enough for us poor mortals who have to explain ourselves to you.
Marx's remarks about those who think there used to be history but not anymore sum up the whole of Rosa's philosophy.
Of course I forget. Rosa gives us water tight proofs without premisses. She must do this because premisses about ideology would require some investigation of the history of the word ideology. And this Rosa has resolutely set her face against. This to her is 'mysticism' which is connected to the Catholic Church (history of material institutions, including material institutions like language, and their relationship to ideology existing only in just-so stories as regaled by liberal philosophers, or on the other hand as 'interesting nonsense'). The rhetoric of a Gilbert Ryle type philosopher one can see. The substance is nowhere to be found.
interesting nonsense should read interesting bollocks perhaps of which 'there is more then enough to populate the planet'. So it is that materialism is dismissed by this post-philosopher.
And the kid gets up from the canvass, staggers to his feet, bleary-eyed but ready for some more ‘punishment’ from Rosa.
Normally, he would have to pay for such intense pain; Rosa dishes it out for free. And that's why this sport keeps a-coming back for more - even though he promised to kick the habit with an earlier insincere “Let’s call the whole thing off….” He has problems it seems not just with “contradiction”, but with his own words. This is one mixed-up punter
“Enjoy your imaginary victories.”
Ah, but as much as my many real ones over you. Thanks anyway.
Another weak left hook from Call-it-Off-boy misses its target once more:
“As far as I can surmise your definition of ideology is 'ideas that are false'.”
I did not define it since my refutation works with any use of language, including fluent gibberish from you.
Rosa counters with a vicious upper cut. The Prevaricate Kid reels once more, punch drunk and incoherent. He throws another lame right jab:
“Is language not ideological in the same sense that Gilbert Ryle is not a philosopher?”
It is not ideological period. But, why the fascination with Ryle, dingbat?
He I now punching thin air – the only thing he could beat in a fair fight.
Ostrich-boy staggers around the rig, incapable of forming coherent sentences. Why won’t the ref end this massacre?
“And is this strange sense in which language is not ideological and Gilbert Ryle is not a philosopher, also a proof that Gilbert Ryle is not ideological? And where do you get your definition of 'traditional philosophy' from? From someone who is not a 'traditional philosopher'? Perhaps a new up-to-date philosopher who is not a philosopher (in the same way that language is not ideological, and analytical philosophy is not philosophy).”
Strong on waffle, weak on ideas; Zero out of ten.
But still no word - no clue - as to how Pain-lover-g understands the word “contradiction”
Another right cross from Rosa slams into his jaw.
What’s this? It’s his most coherent ‘sub-thought’ yet:
“The Labour of the negative does imply Labour you know.”
What the F*** is this about? Do you mean New Labour? A sentence dribbles down his chin:
“Explain why I can't.”
Well, that’s easy. You can’t because you are a logical ignoramus. You know that if you weren’t; but you are so you don’t.
“And thats supposed to be good enough for us poor mortals who have to explain ourselves to you.”
No, I am only picking on you.
But, who the F*** are you addressing, here:
“Marx's remarks about those who think there used to be history but not anymore sum up the whole of Rosa's philosophy.”
Nobody is reading this crap but me and you. And I am not either. I suspect from the incoherence of much of what you randomly type that you aren’t either!
Waffle overdrive now, addressed to no one at all (I didn’t bother to read it – I value my sanity):
“Of course I forget. Rosa gives us water tight proofs without premisses. She must do this because premisses about ideology would require some investigation of the history of the word ideology. And this Rosa has resolutely set her face against. This to her is 'mysticism' which is connected to the Catholic Church (history of material institutions, including material institutions like language, and their relationship to ideology existing only in just-so stories as regaled by liberal philosophers, or on the other hand as 'interesting nonsense'). The rhetoric of a Gilbert Ryle type philosopher one can see. The substance is nowhere to be found.”
I’d answer this is I could be bothered.
A final word before Captain Waffle sinks back to the canvass:
“interesting nonsense should read interesting bollocks perhaps of which 'there is more then enough to populate the planet'. So it is that materialism is dismissed by this post-philosopher.”
There seem to be several words missing here; much of it makes even less sense that you usually manage, How do you do it? Have you had special training? I am suitably impressed.
So, it’s now Rosa 5 Sad Waffler 0.
And still no attempt to say what “contradiction” means.
Same old same old.
Well you seem unable to defend yourself. I suppose its unpleasent to continue pointing this out. The reference to Gilbert Ryle was of course a reference to your own arguments. Sad.
"I’d answer this is I could be bothered."
Might have been useful although after all this its a bit late really. Note no comments about your grammer or spelling. I assume like me your simply bored witless with this.
More front-line news from Mystic-central:
"Well you seem unable to defend yourself. I suppose its unpleasent to continue pointing this out. The reference to Gilbert Ryle was of course a reference to your own arguments. Sad."
And still, Obscurity-Kid cannot tell us what "contradiction" means.
Same old same old....
"Might have been useful..."
Yet more pretence that you care what I think.
I certainly don't care what you randomly type. It's amusing winding you up, though, seeing you thrash and flail about, monumentally bereft of logic.
"...although after all this its a bit late really. Note no comments about your grammer (sic) or spelling. I assume like me your simply bored witless with this."
Yes, you are right: I am bored (but I still have my wits - you had none to lose) by what you write. So, please keep it up! It gets me to sleep at night.
In fact, I fell asleep reading today's ramble (high quality crap, as usual). Could you re-post it for me, so I can give it some serious ignoring? There's a dear.
Rosa 6 "Vacuum-Between-His-Ears-g" 0
er...I fink contradiction gots somfink to do wiv propositions which can't possibly be true or someat like that. I fink that some folk fink that it might be extended to conflicts in nature etc. I fink there's an argument about that...Does that help?
In all respect to Rosa who has proven that ideology does'nt exist or that it exists only in the mind or states of affairs. But is, like, really logical (and very much against idealism).
Oh I forgot. Its water tight. Indubitable. 42.
Captain Masochist returns for more of Rosa’s punishment:
“er...I fink contradiction gots somfink to do wiv propositions which can't possibly be true or someat like that. I fink that some folk fink that it might be extended to conflicts in nature etc. I fink there's an argument about that...Does that help?”
No, no, I asked you to re-type that *other* soporific passage to help me sleep, this one is not quite so sleep-inducing (can’t you get even that right?), even though I like the mock stupidity it expresses.
So, Dope-fiend, please slip back into the *real* stupidity you have managed to maintain so well for so long; this mock stuff is less convincing.
“In all respect to Rosa who has proven that ideology does'nt exist or that it exists only in the mind or states of affairs. But is, like, really logical (and very much against idealism).”
There’s a coherent thought in their somewhere, but I think we might need ‘divine’ assistance to find it
[Who, again, do you think you are addressing this to? As I noted above, neither of us is reading your randomly assembled words – I am not, and you most certainly are not, or they would make some sense.]
Cold turkey thoughts now:
“Oh I forgot. Its water tight. Indubitable. 42.”
And still, Coke-head-g, cannot, or will not, say what “contradiction” means.
Same old….
Rosa 7 Dope-Boy 0
Just did. And not for the first time either. Interesting tactics there. Also deeply stupid philosophically but your particular brand of obscurantism can't recognise it because of its peculiar belief that the problem with philosophy is that philosophers use words in incorrect ways.
They then go on to argue with each other about the correct ways and have disagreements with each other about the significance of the private language argument despite knowing how the words private, language and argument are used. Funny that.
I don't think you need divine inspiration. Just an ability to think with mild coherence about what other people say as opposed to constructing straw men.
Error-Central squeezes yet another zit onto the screen:
"Just did. And not for the first time either. Interesting tactics there. Also deeply stupid philosophically but your particular brand of obscurantism can't recognise it because of its peculiar belief that the problem with philosophy is that philosophers use words in incorrect ways."
It really is a waste of time helping you out with good advice; do I have to re-type it for you?
Now concentrate! I need my sleep, and you are not helping but refusing to re-post that soporific passage.
But wait, more puss hits the screen:
"They then go on to argue with each other about the correct ways and have disagreements with each other about the significance of the private language argument despite knowing how the words private, language and argument are used. Funny that."
This is below your usual high quality bilge - but it's not bad!
And now more boils are emptied screenward:
"I don't think you need divine inspiration. Just an ability to think with mild coherence about what other people say as opposed to constructing straw men."
Now you are talking! This is grade A, Platinum-coated, diamond-studded intellectual puke.
I am impressed! How do you maintain such a high standard?
But still, The Crapola Kid cannot say what "contradiction" means.
Same old same old.
Rosa 8 Slopoholic 0
You really are getting quite upset are'nt you? Denying you said things when you did, denying I've defined things when I have, pretending you have'nt read things when you can't answer them, histrionically talking about yourself, wierd abusiveness et
People might make the informal inference that this combined with repeatedly begging the question means you've lost the argument. I did very much enjoy witnessing your scholastic abstraction of language from ideology and then your bumbling proof that your abstraction did not contain that which it was abstracted from. That was good fun.
Good thing for you nobody else is following this. If Bhaskar ain't no Hegel you ain't no Wittgenstein. Rosa Lichtenstein: The Roy Bhaskar of analytical philosophy! Now thats as low as I can go.
Crapola. LOL.
On no, this bilge pump has no off switch!
"You really are getting quite upset are'nt you? Denying you said things when you did, denying I've defined things when I have, pretending you have'nt read things when you can't answer them, histrionically talking about yourself, wierd abusiveness et.."
[“et” what?]
No, no, wrong passage! You are even hopeless at following simple instructions.
Now the content's of Cropola's nappy:
"People might make the informal inference that this combined with repeatedly begging the question means you've lost the argument. I did very much enjoy witnessing your scholastic abstraction of language from ideology and then your bumbling proof that your abstraction did not contain that which it was abstracted from. That was good fun."
This stank so much I had to flush it straight down the loo.
And more verbal-diarrhoea from Big-Jobs-R-Us:
"Good thing for you nobody else is following this. If Bhaskar ain't no Hegel you ain't no Wittgenstein. Rosa Lichtenstein: The Roy Bhaskar of analytical philosophy! Now thats as low as I can go."
Straight down the pan.
Confession time now:
"Crapola, c'est moi!"
The penny has finally dropped; your balls are next.
And still no attempt by Down-The-John-g to tell us what "contradiction" means.
Same old same old.
Rosa 9 Embarrassing-Brown-Stain 0
[By the way, you don’t appear to know how to spell words like “aren’t” or “haven’t”; you keep putting the apostrophe in the wrong place, as in “have’nt”. And I notice that you are still putting a stray “e” in “metaphores” on other posts; it’s “metaphors”. OK? Your logical howlers are bad enough, but anyone reading your posts (poor sods!) will think you are illiterate as well as incontinent.
Anything else I can do to help you re-join the human race, just let little old Rosa know….]
More rational argument from Rosa. More pretending I have'nt defined definition. More shit about spelling and punctuation. More nebulous rubbish about 'logical howlers' (from the queen herself). Is this really all there is behind your pompous bumble?
Oh before you leap in with another one of your 'refutations' I have'nt defined definition (although you will no doubt, as a next step, be screeching 'define definition' for the next three days) it is contradiction which I have defined several times now and in doing so, proven how little is achieved in doing so...
So what did you make of John Rosenthal then? He could get strangely abusive as well as I remember. But he tended to be funnier. "The working class made themselves? That would be pretty dumb" was one of my favorites. And what do you think of Hirsch, Arthur etc. Oh I know. 'They all make the same mistakes' (ie not being you).
More crap from The King of Ordure:
"More rational argument from Rosa. More pretending I have'nt defined definition. More shit about spelling and punctuation. More nebulous rubbish about 'logical howlers' (from the queen herself). Is this really all there is behind your pompous bumble?"
Call this abuse? It hardly makes the scale. It seems you are not just rubbish at logic, you are crap at abuse, too.
Like Blackpool Rock, I bet you have the word "Crap" running through your brown-stained torso.
And still no attempt by Bilge-o-Matic-John to tell us what "contradiction" means.
Same old same old.
[How's the spelling coming along? Mastered the word "a" yet?]
Rosa 10 Abuse-wimp 0
I am interested though in whether the opposition between the usage of many Marxists of contradiction (ie negation, opposition etc) and that in logic (absurdity, impossibility) is identical with an opposition between Marxist usage and common usage as well (as claimed by Hirsch for example). For me this is completely irrelevent because I don't believe it is neccessarily a problem if words are used in non-standard ways either in a technical or a philosophical setting. But I just wonder whether its really true. Or whether, as so often, an attempt is not being made to recruit ordinary usage to a particular theoretical and technical perspective to bolster it.
With no off switch, it spews forth:
"Oh before you leap in with another one of your 'refutations' I have'nt defined definition (although you will no doubt, as a next step, be screeching 'define definition' for the next three days) it is contradiction which I have defined several times now and in doing so, proven how little is achieved in doing so..."
I am sorry, what was that?
"So what did you make of John Rosenthal then? He could get strangely abusive as well as I remember. But he tended to be funnier. "The working class made themselves? That would be pretty dumb" was one of my favorites. And what do you think of Hirsch, Arthur etc. Oh I know. 'They all make the same mistakes' (ie not being you)."
Come again?
And still no attempt by Pus-In-Buckets-g to tell us what "contradiction" means.
Same old same old.
Rosa 11 Down-The-John-g 0
His example on humanitarianism is in fact, in my view not true. There is a problem here of possibly confusing someones political mistakes with the argument they are trying to make I grant you.
Sorry, this had me asleep ever faster:
I am interested though in whether the opposition between the usage of many Marxists of contradiction (ie negation, opposition etc) and that in logic (absurdity, impossibility) is identical with an opposition between Marxist usage and common usage as well (as claimed by Hirsch for example). For me this is completely irrelevent because I don't believe it is neccessarily a problem if words are used in non-standard ways either in a technical or a philosophical setting. But I just wonder whether its really true. Or whether, as so often, an attempt is not being made to recruit ordinary usage to a particular theoretical and technical perspective to bolster it."
And still no attempt by Johnny Donegan, The King of Waffle, to tell us what "contradiction" means.
Rosa 12 Crap-Meister-g 0
With no end in site, the crap piles up, steaming on the floor:
"His example on humanitarianism is in fact, in my view not true. There is a problem here of possibly confusing someones political mistakes with the argument they are trying to make I grant you."
Eh?
And still no attempt by Random-Typer-g to tell us what "contradiction" means.
Rosa 13 Mystic-Crapper 0
[I see you have learnt how to spell "a"; impressive!]
Well you see, to continue, one difficulty with Robin Hirsch's use of the 'humanitarian' example to question the Marxist usage of the term 'contradiction' is that in arguing that the 'contradiction' between 'humanitarian motives' and 'terrorist methods' refers to an 'absurdity' rather then the Marxist usage of the term 'contradiction' (ie where both are present), is that whilst in Iraq this might be true, I don't think its true in general of the term 'humanitarian'. As with the Hegelian examples of Law, Property and Theft, it seems to me that violence and humanitarianism are internally related. In other words the meaning of the term humanitarianism in our society implies a hierarchical relation between those who dispense aid and those who recieve it, and this hierarchical relation implies the possibility of violence. A good argument against this would be that, whilst this might be true in our capitalist world, a different world is possible were there could be 'socialist' humanitarianism. Unfortunately, given my views on the internal relationship of language to ideology I don't really buy this. The very meaning of the term humanitarianism is tied to these meanings, as well as perhaps other historical sediments. Therefore I think Hirsch's argument fails and that it is quite possible to concieve of a contradiction in Marx's sense and not in the sense of Formal Logic in the case of discussions of 'Humanitarianism'. Of course as Volosinov points out concepts are not ideologically determined one way or the other but are often ideologically duplex, hence the possibility of disputation etc. Matters are complicated of course by Freges context principle as well, given that if meanings pertain to sentances its hard to discuss the meanings of words (even words like contradiction) in an entirely unambiguous way. But Freges discussion of words and his equation of words with codes was in any case simplistic and cannot be a guide for those interested in the study of ideology.
I know you'll have really enjoyed that Rosa and I did it just for you. I'm assuming your familiar with the Hirsch article which you yourself have posted.
oh reference is
http://eserver.org/clogic/2004/h...004/
hirsch.html
The specific example is point 23. The example of Property, Law and Theft is contained in point 25. Its doubtful that a total rejection of what Hirsch refers to as Hegels 'conceptual development' would be compatible with any Marxist theory of law. As Hirsch puts it in his critical summing up of Hegels argument in Philosophy of Right: "For an individual within society it does not neccessarily follow that property implies contract or that contract implies crime, but for the whole of society there is neccessarily a tendency along these lines". He neglects to say that the same point could be made about 'Humanitarianism' certainly about International Law on Humanitarianism.
Ah thats it. Logicist. Thats a word to conjure with. 'Watertight Proofs and Logicism: Rosa, a case study in reductionism'.
Or better yet 'Once again on Rosa Lichtenstein Logicist errors' or better yet 'No, no and again no to Logicism', or 'mysticism vs logicism: they're both worse!' or similar dogeared pamphlets one can imagine circulating in a parrallel universe.
The enemy of reason strikes again:
"Well you see, to continue, one difficulty with Robin Hirsch's use of the 'humanitarian' example to question the Marxist usage of the term 'contradiction' is that in arguing that the 'contradiction' between...[excised for sanity's sake]...But Freges discussion of words and his equation of words with codes was in any case simplistic and cannot be a guide for those interested in the study of ideology."
Pardon? Were you slobbering at me?
And what did you mean by "recidivist"?
And here is more that waflle-boy found at the bottom of his potty:
"oh reference is..."
Yes? Well, what? What is it....?
"The specific example is..."
Sleaze it out man! Stop halting in mid-sentence.
"Ah thats..."
You've done it again. What?
"Or better yet..."
You have drilled a large hole in you head? Re-joined the Martians? Nailed your scrotum to a tree? Learnt to spell? Again, what is better yet?
But, still no attempt by Son-Of-Guff to tell us what "contradiction" means.
Rosa 14 Nutter-g 0
Interesting points there Rosa. The contrast between a definition of contradiction as a statement that could not possibly be true in any situation (an absurdity) and a contradiction as something which negates something in reality (ie proclamations of humanitarian intent combined with use of terrorist method), bridged by the verb to contradict (you can both contradict and negate an argument) seems to be the main point you've been trying to make this week.
Its deeply fascinating. But I somehow feel that when people say 'what an irrational world' they fall short of your own standards of rationality. I don't think they're doing metaphysics by mistake, and if they are speaking in metaphores I wonder what any observation of the social world would look like without them (dynamics etc).
Lenin argued much more cogently that the notion of contradictions (ie negations) driving reality was inseperable from idealism. I would argue that Volosinov's arguments about the way in which ideology is condensced in language, explain why the notion of contradiction in Hegel would have been attractive to Marx even if in a mystical shell. Volosinov's account's relevence for the Marxist theory of ideology is a bit like the Mendelson's discovaries for Darwin's theory of evolution. And on we precariously go.
I think you'll agree we're having a fascinating discussion about really important matters. Hope your finding it as stimulating and thought provoking as I am. Incidently the more I think about the intriguing 'Captain Crapola' point the more I think, in a very real sense, you might have a point about
Oh another fascinating point. Did you really mean to say that ideologies could'nt be reproduced in ordinary language? Although you qualified this with your ingenious 'proof'. If Ideologies are not 'in' ordinary language where an earth are they? Do they all come from words invented by misguided philosophers? (can one not detect here a deeply familiar theme?)
Since I know your fascinated by my comments (there really is no need to thank me so profusely every time I write) take a look at the notion of 'representation'. That really is fascinating. The evolution of contrasts between lawyerly representation (ie someone qualified to represent) and what might be called a portraiture notion of representation (ie based on resemblence, which still survives in the jury system) was something which in this country occured during the English Revolution. (we need to ensure that Parliament resembles the people).
Then Hobbes, and then liberal philosophy and we're supposed to believe that this division is something discovered in the world (long refutations of direct democracy based on the idea that even direct democracy involves 'representation' etc), and then along you come with your statements about being able to say the opposite of anything else proving there is no ideology in language.
Now that is funny. You know logic better then I. Work out the paradoxes that result. Prior to the English revolution people did not imagine an airtight division between the two. You guys came along two hundred years later and formalised it. Course its not ideological and has nothing to do with the social world. Language is a mirror. etc.
Oh one more thing Rosa. Theme for Volosinov 'means' the 'significance' of an utterence in any given context (which does indeed change from 'moment to moment') whilst 'meaning' means that part of an utterence which does not change from 'moment to moment', so there is no paradox, and no possibility of the reductio you used being effective. Volosinov is interested in the relationship between the significance of utterences and the their meaning. Hardly rocket science. But by philosophical fiat you've decided to legislate this relationship out of existence, as usual, by paying no attention at all to the context of his discussion (this is also an example of how every theory, even a self denying one, makes assumptions about how the world is, in other words contains ontological assumptions, in this case about langauge explicitly and about ideology implicitly).
Its these dishonest misreadings of frameworks different to your own, followed by attempts to lay down the law about what other frameworks may or may not investigate that I object to, rather then you holding a framework I disagree with. That is the explanation for the 'heat' of these exchanges (which was always more on your side then mine anyway).
And finally...
What would we do about this? Perhaps try and work out how Hegel and Marx use the word as opposed to working out how English empiricism uses it?
"The German word for contradiction is closer to the word for contrast,
and it has a flavour of contrasting perspectives about it. Gegensatz."
The sewer opens up again:
"The contrast between a definition of contradiction as a statement that could not possibly be true in any situation (an absurdity) and a contradiction as something which negates something in reality (ie proclamations of humanitarian intent combined with use of terrorist method), bridged by the verb to contradict (you can both contradict and negate an argument) seems to be the main point you've been trying to make this week...."
Oh dear, as I thought, you haven't a clue.
"Hope your finding it as stimulating and thought provoking as I am. Incidently the more I think about the intriguing 'Captain Crapola' point the more I think, in a very real sense, you might have a point about..."
Look, dingbat, I stopped reading your posts days ago when it became clear that you were not a serious correspondent.
So, unless you have a personality makeover, from airhead to human being, I will only ever take the piss out of you.
Dearie me. If I have'nt a clue then nor has anyone else who writes on the subject. Shame you could'nt have shared your unique and special views on the subject. Might have been useful.
I mean you could have told us all about all these debates:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entrie...es/dialetheism/
I guess it would cut through the phoney idea of indubitability though. Even if most of its nonsense...
This is kind of useful for the state of play on bourgoise philosophy's take on Hegel these days as well:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/
I have been unable to access this page from my usual computer, and as I am now on a computer which I cannot use again, it looks like our monumental waste of time has to end.
Good luck, therefore: you and your mystical theory, which has been tested in practice and found wanting, will, unless someone like me can destroy it, confine Marxism to the dusbin of history.
You can 'reply' to this, but as I cannot access this page (I have asked lenin why, but he has yet to respond), I won't be reading it.
Not that I have read anything you have posted for nearly a week now.
It would have been nice to have debated this with someone who could handle difficult ideas, and who knew what 'he' was talking about, but you have shown you are incapable of either.
Dialectics deserves you, and you deserve it.
And Rosa STILL won't tell us what contradiction is!!!
It has bought out the real problem with this debate though. You often get dogmatic dialecticians confronting dogmatic logocists. Two kinds of out-of-dateness having a shouting match about who is out-of-date. In Britain its usually people stuck in Russells overcoming of British Hegelianism implicitly accepting both that British Hegelianism tells us all we need to know about Hegel and his reception, and on the other hand accepting Russell's conclusions as the starting point for a new philosophy. Dogmatic Dialecticians on the other hand often do conform to the stereotypes of those stuck in arguments derivied from the early part of the 20th century. I tend to be more sympathetic to the dogmatic dialecticians because in Britain at least, there is no way they're playing to the academic gallery.
Actually its a great shame because there was an interesting debate to be had here. At one point Lenin made the good point that there are lots of words which describe change. The difficulty is that dialectics is rejected because it is incompatible with Aristotles famous syllogism. Aristotles logic cannot account for the functions of any of those words which Lenin gives as examples. So if the dialectic is meaningless according to (dated) conceptions of logic so are those words.
The Hirsch article simply states that Dialectics are not a form of logic at all but do something else (contextualise logic). A position which says there is nothing but logical proceedures in theory is condemned as 'logicism'. On the other hand its possible to take Hirsch's statements about historical developments of logic in a different direction and suggest that the principle of non-contradiction is in fact now not regarded as indubitable by many logicians.
But amongst Marxists at least this argument is trapped within a time warp not only with regards to Marxism but also with regards to a kind of positivistic ideology. Everybody involved does'nt really know what they're talking about and those who do arn't telling: perhaps because they have nothing to tell, prehaps because to do so would deprive them of their sturdy common sense support which derives from ideology and not from their arguments.
'unless someone like me can destroy it'
Glad to see you conceding that your arguments have not yet done so. That was mainly what the argument has been about. Of course privately you might have a corker of an argument. If you get beyond 'reductio' arguments and 'water-tight proofs' of the rather empty formal kinds you've been producing I'd be interested to hear about it.
Unless of course they were jokes because I was'nt worth bothering with. That would be an explanation. It would also be a handy get-out Rosa. You can use that one.
Ah, continuing to speak to myself, the difficulty with the argument that change is not mysterious and science can account for it, are that science and logic are here conflated. No one suggests that Science has trouble with explaining change. There might be a problem however with descriptions of changes described by science in terms of formal logical notation (as opposed to the theory of those changes).
This may well be nonsense but why not think aloud?
Oh for gods sake.
C'MON THEN...COME ON. WHAT's Wrong with you....BORED? Don't give me that.
Wankers.
Anyone still following this rubbish but interested in Logic type "Sameness and Substance" Wiggins into Google and about three review articles will pop up. Its interesting and indirectly relevent.
Commenting by HaloScan
