I am putting off the discussion of Oudeyis' subtle argument for last. But
already here we find ourselves confronted with a basic dialectical
paradox. It is a tautology that we can't make any assertions about any
independently existing physical reality with which we do not interact in
some fashion. Consider even that most basic ontological-epistemological
old saw: if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a
sound? Discounting the complexities of the meaning of 'sound' for the
moment, note the other presuppositions in the question. Of course the
materialist/realist answer is 'yes', but the ability to even formulate the
question is chock-full of presuppositions. Suppose we were a species that
knew the existence of neither trees nor sound. Suppose we generalized the
statement to "if an entity creates an effect not perceived by another
entity, does it really create that effect?" Note that there is an
ineluctable circularity even in positing hypotheticals of this sort. We
are already entering into a conceptual relationship with the hypothetical
by positing it, even though its reality may be totally independent of our
existence.
Now when Marx makes the statement, the reality or non-reality of thought
independent of practice is a purely scholastic question, he rejects the
skeptical argument outright, just as he rejects the old apriori
argumentation of 'first philosophy'. Marx also argues that certain
questions themselves have to be questioned, as they are products of
abstraction. He states that it is illogical to imagine away the whole
universe but not yourself (making such conjectures) in the process.
I'm convinced there is a subtlety here that distinguishes Marx's view from
pragmatism. (It also addresses, I suspect, my unease with Popper.) Marx
is a materialist, but he's onto something different from the old
metaphysical concerns. But the next step in my argument is to engage Oudeyis.
At 12:35 AM 5/29/2005 -0700, Steve Gabosch wrote:
If I am reading Oudeyis correctly, he is saying that nature is determined
by human interaction with it; that nature is strictly a product of the
unity of human purposive activity and natural conditions; and that nature
is a function of human labour. If by "nature" we are only referring to
that portion of reality that humanity consciously observes and/or acts
upon, then Oudeyis successfully makes that point. But this conception of
reality restricts nature to human experience, which can only be a subset
of nature. Nature must also include that which is beyond the observed and
acted upon. The "unknown" - the not yet experienced - must also be taken
into account in the creation of a materialist ontology.
It is certainly true that humans only consciously experience that portion
of nature they observe and/or act on through the lens of culture and the
plethora of human activity, a key idea in Ilyenkov's concept of the
ideal. But how humanity, through its social relations, activities,
languages, etc. *subjectively* experiences nature (individually or
collectively) is a different question than the *objective* nature of
nature itself. I can see little room for doubt that all these Marxists
insisted upon making this fundamental distinction. They maintained that
nature exists prior to and independently of humankind, holding the
ontological view that nature also includes that which humankind has not
yet - and may never - experience. I am aware of no evidence to support
Oudeyis's claim that the conception of nature held by these classical
Marxists was restricted to only that which humans have interacted with
and/or laboured on.
- Steve
At 07:09 AM 5/26/2005 +0200, Oudeyis wrote:
Marx and Engels adopted Hegel's activist determination of nature as
a product of the interaction of man with
nature (human purposive intervention in nature) , but revised it to include
that human intervention as a force of nature rather than just an exercise of
intellect. For Marx, Engels, and Lenin the objective, materialist
determination of the nature of nature must be regarded as strictly a
dialectical product of the unity of human practical activity with the
natural conditions that are the subject of that activity, i.e. as a function
of human labour.
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