Haines; Unfortunately, there's a lot of complications here. The sad fact is that scientists really have no idea what causation is (or to be more accurate, there's a wide range of views that are incompatible and no one of them do people generally find acceptable).
my comment: It's not so much the "fact" that is "sad" but more the scientists who you are acquainted with since Causation and cause are concepts quite simply defined and explained and understood by society everywhere! Remember that by even your own admittance we are living in a materialist thinking world. Haines: This has led me to shift the basis of explanation from causal "necessity" to a noncausal relation of processes that enabling rather than imposing or determining. my comment: Did you make up the word "noncausal" because I couldn't find it in any dictionary, collegiate or otherwise? But I will guess that it means without cause. So, I gather that you prefer the non causal process because it enables you to explain things that would otherwise impose on you to determine its cause. And then you go on to charge the great scientist Darwin with complicity in this absurdity! Haianes: This approach is also discussed in the natural sciences, and is understood as drawing upon the Darwinian paradigm, but it is much less discussed in the social sciences. From this standpoint, "explanation" is limited to a modest role. It can explain why something is possible, why it is likely and what drives it, but not why an empirically specific outcome is necessary (again, Darwinian evolution is a good example). my comment: "an empirically specific outcome" like everything else, can be Determined [please forgive me] with time..... "for everything is knowable" and we would not be condemned to hell for eating of the tree of knowledge. Why certain outcomes in a process are necessary can be opened to all types of philosophical interpretations since everyone is entitled to an opinion, but most people, especially the proletariat, prefer order in their understanding of nature, despite the contradictions, and would not put up with aprioritic [yes, I made the word up] ramblings. Scientists understand and KNOW, [the concept has been substantiated] why phenomena in nature is necessary. Do you understand why anything is necessary? I'm confident that you'll write back and claim that you do! Haines: > "Thus Feuerbach recognises objective law in nature and objective > causality, which are reflected only with approximate fidelity by > human ideas of order, law and so forth. With Feuerbach the > recognition of objective law in nature is inseparably connected with > the recognition of the objective reality of the external world, of > objects, bodies, things, reflected by our mind. Feuerbach’s views > are consistently materialistic. All other views, or rather, any > other philosophical line on the question of causality, the denial of > objective law, causality and necessity in nature, are justly > regarded by Feuerbach as belonging to the fideist trend. " I would have skipped over this point except that it nicely brings out an issue. Feuerbach's notions are mid-19th century and are simply unacceptable in terms of current science. my comment: Do you mean the non-causual "terms of current science"? Do current scientist now believe that there is no cause for current effects because some so called philosophers can't understand the necessity in it? Haines: This statement could be true, and for the moment let us assume that it is true. So what is one to do? Stick with Feuerbach and remain out of touch with current knowledge? Abandon Feuerbach and make sure current knowledge serves working-class liberation? I have chosen the latter path. Have you chosen the former? my comment: Lenin wrote a whole book on this matter.... you must know it well.... http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/index.htm Lenin agrees with Feuerbach on this the question of causality. And I would certainly adopt the materialist approach of understanding the necessary cause and necessary effects of social phenomena in our relations with capital so that we may correctly an in accord with the objective and subjective conditions tackle the CAUSE for the emancipation of labor so that we may attain the EFFECT that we NEED. You say that you wouldn't. Haines: I did not say "instant" value, but "potential" value. Your example looses me. I hire a kid to go to the store. If the kid accepts my nickel, he is obliged to go there. This is a fair exchange (in principle, anyway, a zero-sum game), and no new value is created, but merely an exchange of comparable values. my comment: There is no new value created, it is true, to the candy bar, but the kid would have had to cross the street, wait his turn at the counter, get slapped by a bully, and 15 minutes later returned to you with the candy bar. You paid him a nickel but the boy now feels he's entitled to a dollar..... the same price as the candy bar. You call the nickel an exchange of comparable values because the boy had agree prior to it. Like minimum wage is an exchange of comparable value to you, perhaps. That the kid had calculated that a nickel for his time was a fair exchange he now realizes that he was wrong and that you manipulated him to believe that it was. Haines: No one is manipulating anyone here, but it is a contract in which both parties have disposition over something of value, the kid his time and I my nickel. What this simply describes is a sphere of exchange, not a sphere of production. my comment: No, it is not production...... but have you ever been had by someone after agreeing to an exchange deal? I chose the kid as an example because a manipulative adult can profit off him advantageously. Let say that it was me who you had asked to go to the store because you were fat and lazy and needed the candy bar badly. Now I know this and demand of you two dollars [more than the candy is worth] for the labor which you are willing to pay because there's no kid around. Now, who's manipulating who? And further more, if you were to complain too much over the charge..... I may just raise the price...... you know...... supply and demand. Haianes: generally, one is paid a fair wage in terms of the labor market. The surplus value that your labor creates and which is actualized by the market sale of the commodity you create, is constrained by the regime of private property. To get at the heart of the matter, the whole affair is quite fair in regard to you as an individual worker, but quite unfair in regard you as a social being. my comment: Well, sir, you would make a bad communist. The very opposite of your remark is why we're all fighting capitalism. Even if the capitalist were to pay us well for our subsistence, we would still be exploited. But that is not the case anymore for mostly everyone.... besides being exploited at the work place..... [that is if you subscribe to Marx theory of surplus value] we are exploited by the landlord, the consumer markets, and the speculators. Trillions of our tax money go to the speculators and now the governments are cutting away at our resources to make up for the debt. It is unfair to us as a social being as it is unfair to us as an individual worker. f580 --- On Thu, 3/4/10, Haines Brown KB1GRM ET1 <bro...@historicalmaterialism.info> wrote: From: Haines Brown KB1GRM ET1 <bro...@historicalmaterialism.info> Subject: Re: [MLL] Let us begin To: "For the reaffirmation of Marxism-Leninism" <marxist-leninist-list@lists.econ.utah.edu> Date: Thursday, March 4, 2010, 9:04 AM On Wed, Mar 03, 2010 at 01:23:36PM -0800, frankenstein580 wrote: > > Haines: > > I'd add other problems with the Enlightenment view. Among these are > the notion of hypostatized wholes or totalities rather than see > things as levels, which are constraints on more universal processes. > Another is that emergent properties are described as the effect of > interactions, but this does not really explain them. > > my comment: > > To "hypostatize" , in philosophical jargon, is to think of a > concept or abstraction as having real, objective existence. I see > no problem in hypostatizing once it is proven real in the material > world. Otherwise we'd be bumping into walls that are not really > there. I was intending to stick to the glossary and put off responding to these replies to me, but I couldn't resist in this case because I believe here you are here either right or at least I need to be more careful. You are correct. Hypostatize means to assign a separate material existence to something that does not have it. However, I was using the word to mean an entity (what has a separate material existence) defined solely in terms of observables. While my definition might in a fashion be implied by the proper definition, it is not correct. Thanks. You've got me rethinking this. The best I can do at this moment is the idea "reification of entities based on observables." While this does not contradict the proper meaning of hypostatization, it clearly distorts its intent. While "hypostatization" is a handy word, it is not a good policy to introduce it with my own private definition. But I can't think of an alternative. Anyone have suggestions? It is not easy because most folks think of "entities" as what is real by definition. > "... seeing things as levels" I see as more progressive thinking, > being that things do pass through stages..... Now, the use of the > word "properties" is misleading because the concept is abstract, > i.e. defined as an attribute or characteristic of some THING; yet, > to say that things coming into being can be described as the effect > of interactions, I would accept as closer to dialectics which of > course can not "really explain" a thing to Haines. The reason for my term "levels" was that it implies that, rather than consisting of separate entities, the world consists of constraints on something else (hence Engels' all things are in motion). The advantage of the word "levels" is that it does not imply an entirely separate existence. However, to use the word "level" to refer to historical stages raises some very hairy problems. While I have no doubt that a succession of historical stages is the mechanism of social progress, speaking of stages as levels raises philosophical problems. Past stages are past, not actual (do not exist in the present) . Only what is actual can enter a causal relation; what no longer exists cannot have a causal effect like some ghost. How can a past stage, although perhaps "real" in some sense but not actual by definition, have a causal effect on present? I want to assure you that I am not questioning the reality of progressive stages, but only suggesting that what we call a prior stage is actually a feature of the present and more specifically represented by its structure. This brings up philosophical issues that I don't believe compromise the Marxist notion of progressive stages. On the issue of properties, I'm afraid my personal understanding of the matter resulted in obscurity. I adopt what I believe is somewhat the current view in the philosophy of science, which is that while things have properties, these properties don't have actual values expect when standing in relation to something else, which is to say, are localized and have a reference frame. So "properties" in the abstract are only possibilities, but become actualized through acquiring a relation. So I agree that "property" is abstract in that it is intrinsic to things only as possibility, and becomes actual only in a relation. But this may not have been the point of your word "abstract". While this is not an unconventional view, in the social sciences it has led to enormous controversy. In particular, Althusser (Reading Capital) insists that entities are epiphenomenal effects of relations, while E. P. Thompson insisted (Poverty of Philosophy) that relations are effects of the properties of entities. This was fought out until everyone got exhausted because it seemed to get nowhere. I try to resolve this by replacing both entities and system with processes that essentially engage all levels. Now this last point you connect with dialectics, so that all things are really dialectical processes. But if you think about it, you will realize that I've changed the meaning of "dialectical". To put it simply, the conventional approach in the sciences is to see things as "emerging" from the interactions of its constituents, and this is certainly "dialectical" in your terms. Also in the natural sciences it agreed that all reality is material. A change from quantitative development to qualitative change is also conventional and is called a phase shift. I've recently encountered a discussion in biology trying to understand how and why a tadpole goes through a structural change to become a frog, and this discussion resembles Marxist discussions of the development of productive forces making an alternative social structure possible, and constraints that make them necessary. So there's an interesting partial convergence between diamat and the natural sciences in some respects. Not sure of your last point, but you seem to say that my objection to Engels' laws as merely descriptive rather than explanatory somehow dismisses or underestimates them. I do find the laws really valid and useful as description, but my problem is the way Engels handled the situation (no fault of his own), for they are not explanatory unless one reifies laws. To approach this point in a rather simplistic way, the "explanation" of things has traditionally arisen from some kind of inner necessity. That is, a cause has the power to make its effect necessary. However, a description does not bring in this mechanism of necessity because the mechanism is an unobservable, and description is only about observables. Unfortunately, there's a lot of complications here. The sad fact is that scientists really have no idea what causation is (or to be more accurate, there's a wide range of views that are incompatible and no one of them do people generally find acceptable). This has led me to shift the basis of explanation from causal "necessity" to a noncausal relation of processes that enabling rather than imposing or determining. This approach is also discussed in the natural sciences, and is understood as drawing upon the Darwinian paradigm, but it is much less discussed in the social sciences. From this standpoint, "explanation" is limited to a modest role. It can explain why something is possible, why it is likely and what drives it, but not why an empirically specific outcome is necessary (again, Darwinian evolution is a good example). I've taken a long complicated path to arrive at the implications for the dialectic. Rather than the dialectic being the emergent effect of a causal relation of self-contained "entities" (the usual view in the social sciences), it is perhaps better understood as a non-causal relation of processes in which what we call the "effect" is due to their relation and not to just a potency embedded in the cause. That is, what we call a causal relation is not that between an active and a passive entity, but between processes that are both active (all things are in motion). In short, I've by no means rejected diamat, but redefined it to make it explanatory rather than just descriptive. What is important (for me, anyway), is that, vs. Althusser, my definition of process is that it is a probability distribution in which actual structure constrains possibilities, so that empirical specificity is not lost as it is in Althusser, and the constructive role of relations is not lost as it is in E.P. Thompson. > Haines continues: > > Significantly, there is no consensus at all in the philosophy of > science over just what causality is, and I suspect this is the > reason. Also, it presumes that explanation is essentially causal > explanation, and I have a problem with that. > > my comment: > > What can I say. Here's Lenin on "causality"..... > > "Thus Feuerbach recognises objective law in nature and objective > causality, which are reflected only with approximate fidelity by > human ideas of order, law and so forth. With Feuerbach the > recognition of objective law in nature is inseparably connected with > the recognition of the objective reality of the external world, of > objects, bodies, things, reflected by our mind. Feuerbach’s views > are consistently materialistic. All other views, or rather, any > other philosophical line on the question of causality, the denial of > objective law, causality and necessity in nature, are justly > regarded by Feuerbach as belonging to the fideist trend. " I would have skipped over this point except that it nicely brings out an issue. Feuerbach's notions are mid-19th century and are simply unacceptable in terms of current science. This statement could be true, and for the moment let us assume that it is true. So what is one to do? Stick with Feuerbach and remain out of touch with current knowledge? Abandon Feuerbach and make sure current knowledge serves working-class liberation? I have chosen the latter path. Have you chosen the former? > Forgive the long quote. Needless to say, any child not school in > the philosophy of the idealist or the metaphysical , if you will, > understands that there is a cause for everything and that its effect > can bring about another cause. So, I would think, that learned > fellows would understand that phenomena even clearer. But that is exactly what I propose. Idealism is a dead horse, and metaphysics is understood today in a way that is no longer problematic. But what is taught in school has little to do with the realities of the world of science. What you are saying is that causation is intuitively obvious. Well, that is true, but in this case science often shows that what is intuitively obvious may not be actually be true, and what seems true today in science, may not be at all intuitive. > Haines: > > I suggested before that it means power over something, an ability to > control or manipulate and, as a result, to profit. A problem here > might be that it is labor that actually manipulates, and the profits > depend on legal ownership, which implies control and therefore also > implicitly a manipulation. > > my comment: > > I can only ass-u-me that Haines here means legal ownership of labor > power. Haines now makes a "distinction between the manipulation by > labor and that by the owners". Not clear about your objection. I surely did not mean legal ownership of labor power, for only the worker has that (under capitalism). Profit depends on the capitalist's owning or renting the factors that go into production, and in effect he rents (acquires control over) labor power. I believe my point was simple and not controversial: ownership is a socially sanctioned constrained disposition over something (you can't carry your side arm in Times Square), and I was merely trying to move from this particular kind of disposition, which may be narrow and Eurocentric, to disposition per se. What is important is the disposition, not how it happens to be sanctioned or constrained in a particular time and place. After all, folks think of themselves as home owners because they have disposition over their house, but really the bank who provided the mortgage has the title and therefore really owns it. Out of context, I can't recall what my point was in distinguishing the control over labor power by workers and the over means of production by capitalists. The worker "owns" his own time, but by renting it out, the capitalist acquires disposition over his time while the worker is on the job. > Haines continues: > > I would perhaps define the distinction by saying that while labor > create potential new value, it is the owner that manipulates the > situation so that it actualizes the potential (by addressing market > demand) in the form of profit. > > > my comment: > > aha! Labor creates instant value merely by Haines sending the boy > next door to the store to get him a Tootsie Roll. Whether or not > Haines pays the kid a nickel for his efforts is up to the > manipulative control of one over the other...... albeit that Haines > doesn't own the boy. I did not say "instant" value, but "potential" value. Your example looses me. I hire a kid to go to the store. If the kid accepts my nickel, he is obliged to go there. This is a fair exchange (in principle, anyway, a zero-sum game), and no new value is created, but merely an exchange of comparable values. The kid is willing to do the job because he calculates the time needed to do it is worth no more than a nickel, and I enter into the agreement with the kid because getting the candy bar is at least worth a nickel. No one is manipulating anyone here, but it is a contract in which both parties have disposition over something of value, the kid his time and I my nickel. What this simply describes is a sphere of exchange, not a sphere of production. What brings production in is your point that new value is being created, which does not apply to the sphere of exchange in itself. In production, as far as labor is concerned, the kid is still being paid a "fair" wage in terms of the market value of labor. Just like the kid getting the candy bar, assuming there is alternative employment, if you think your time worth more than a nickel, you will go work elsewhere. There are various contingencies that complicate this scenario, but generally, one is paid a fair wage in terms of the labor market. The surplus value that your labor creates and which is actualized by the market sale of the commodity you create, is constrained by the regime of private property. To get at the heart of the matter, the whole affair is quite fair in regard to you as an individual worker, but quite unfair in regard you as a social being. It is social capacities that go into production and give rise to surplus value, and so society should benefit from it. But a regime of private property diverts the surplus from society's benefiting from it to enrich the owners of capital. Sorry, I am only guessing as to your point about the Tootsie Roll. > Haines: > > In technical terms, [OH, OH] labor creates surplus value as a real > probability distribution of a commodity and owners actualize it by > placing the commodity into a set of causal relations. Both > manipulate, but the former creates new value and the latter only > actualizes it > > my comment: > > "Probability distribution" hey? That is a mathematical concept. > But let's play with it. Now, the worker creates "real" surplus > value as he works over the labor time and effort to which the > "owner" pays him for his subsistence.... that is, so that the > worker may eat and sleep and come back tomorrow and do the same > s[tuff]... that is, create more surplus labor. Yes it is a mathematical concept, but I'm also taking it to be an objective reality (permitted in terms of scientific realism). Your "playing with it" does not hit the mark because I've really not defined it, although I quite agree with your example. But this agreement does not clear up your concern, and I don't know how to address it except to put out a definition of probability distribution in materialist terms and then apply it to your point about real surplus. Yes, I'm asking for trouble ;-) This gets messy, but I don't know how to avoid it. I define a probability distribution as the unity of three modalities, which I take to be real (a position that broadly is called modal realism). These three modalities are actuality, possibility and potency. Actuality refers to the structure, which is the actualization of possibilities we call the past. Possibility refers to the possibilities of a more universal level that are accessible as constrained by structure, and we call this the future. Note that I have defined each in terms of the others. The same for potency, which is a probability gradient existing between actual structure and a more probable possible structure (borrowing from thermodynamics). I represent these to be how the mind can analyze process, although they are a unity because each is defined in terms of the others. There are some obvious possible objections. Least troublesome is that involved here are philosophical presuppositions with which not everyone would agree. These are a) scientific realism, although it, along with critical empiricism, is the consensus today, b) a modal realism (which is rapidly moving toward a consensus in the sciences, although not quite in the form it is given here (Lewis' Plurality of Worlds), and c) a kind of presentism (always in contention, but is at least a legitimate option). More serious is an objection that it is circular, creating a conceptual sandcastle out of concepts. This objection is not so telling in terms of contemporary science, which often accepts any kind of mental fabrication as long as it pays off. Is it operational? Is it heuristic? Does it result in new knowledge or research programs? While these conventional and largely epistemological criteria are OK, to me they are insufficient, and I add that it must support action, not so much effective action, but a greater capacity for effective action. So in terms of the contemporary philosophy of science, the circularity is not objectionable as long as it satisfies certain criteria of for truth and action. Finally, there might be an objection that it is all verbal gobeldy-gook and a waste of time. Here is a more serious challenge, but I try to address it. Broadly I try to argue that it results in real explanation (such as the notorious Mind-Body problem that no one seems able to resolve to everyone's satisfaction), and real explanation is a condition of effective action in the world. I believe a close reading of Marx would suggest that he would be in accord. But all the above remains a hypothesis, and as such is only tentative, ill-formed, and subject to revisionist criticism if not outright rejection. > When the capitalist sells the commodity or service, he realizes the > profit because the full value, agreed to "apriori" by capitalists in > the market, is already contained in the commodity or service. > That is, the value which labor power creates. In other words, "I > already did the job for you" the kindly worker would say, "so pay > me". Whether the owner sells the job or not, is really his problem > and not the workers. That's the "probability" of the "casual > relations" that Haines is talking about? I'm not entirely clear over your point here, but roughly it seems we are in agreement. True, when the capitalist sells the commodity in the market place he realizes (I prefer the word actualizes) a profit because the commodity already contains the surplus value created in production. This is a simple point for us, but we should know that it implies there's a real unobservable potential that is present in production but not actualized and observable until the sale. That is, it makes us both modal realists. Now as for the kindly worker demanding his pay, I am in accord with you as long as you agree that the worker is paid fairly as an individual in terms of the fair market value of his labor. It is significant that the worker is paid after his work rather than before it. > Then Haines goes on to suggest that Marx was a "modal realist". > Thank you, but acknowledging that "possibilities and necessity are > objectively real" needs no new name...... we are still Materialists > of the dialectical and historical school. I guess you are pointing out that historical materialism has always been modal realist, and of course it is obvious I fully agree. However, given that modal realism is still not the dominant view, and its most popular version is entirely alien to diamat, I find it necessary to be explicit about it, define and justify it. That is, if one suggests that possibilities are real, perhaps the majority of scientific or philosophical folks will not agree. I suspect the real question lurking here is how important is it that a diamat or histomat wins over a consensus in the philosophy of science, for these folks are for the most part bourgeois intellectuals and won't be part of the revolution. I feel it is important for two reasons. One is that if histomat wins respect among these intellectuals, it wins a basis in terms of the dominant ideology that makes it a lot easier to achieve accord among Marxists or among revolutionary parties and to recruit new members educated in terms of the dominant ideology. Second, I happen to think that revolution (in the US) will in the foreseeable future require broad popular support, and that requires a degree of victory in terms of the dominant ideology. I got distracted by your questions and challenges, which I found interesting and important, so got sidetracked from the list of glossary terms. I'll get back to them if I'm not again distracted by such challenging issues. Haines _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
