On Wed, 04 Jun 2003 09:08:34 -0400 Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Mervyn Hartwig wrote: > > the capitalist state. As for 'scientistic', I think James Daly has > > > argued on this list before, persuasively in my view, that the > marxist > > tradition in the West has indeed tended to operate within the > > scientistic paradigm of the bourgeois enlightenment with its > emphasis on > > controlling and getting and having rather than seeking to move > beyond it > > to a new paradigm of being and sharing and caring. > > I'll probably get into this in more depth when I file my critique, > but > Holloway's comments on Marxist "scientism" depends heavily on the > standard misinterpretation of Engels. As most comrades are aware, > Engels > became a kind of bogeyman for Western Marxists since his claims for > Marxism as a kind of universal and unified social and physical > science > supposedly serve as an inspiration for orthodox Dialectical > Materialism > in the USSR. So you get a kind of dotted line between "The > Dialectics of > Nature" and the gulags.
Back in the 1970s the Italian philogist, Sebastiano Timpanaro wrote *On Materialism*, which among other things provided a strong defense of Engels, against the criticisms of the Western Marxists, and even upheld the value of a natural science materialism and a biological materialism for Marxism. It is also interesting in this regard to note that the American philosopher, Roy Wood Sellars took both Engels and Lenin quite seriously as philosophers, even though he was not himself a Marxist. As a critical realist, and an avowed materialist, he thought that both Engels and Lenin were essentially on the right track, and he had praise for Lenin's notion of reflection, even though he thought that Lenin had failed to completely work out an adequate theory of reflection. Also, it is interesting to note that Sellars was not unaware of the Western Marxists and of their criticisms of Engels, criticisms which he himself, seemed to think were misguided. Thus he wrote in regards to the young Sidney Hook in his essay "Reflections on Dialectical materialism": "Now I first became cognizant of the Marxist theory of praxis as Hook interpreted it along the lines of pragmatism. So taken, practice became at one and the same time an added criterion of truth of ideas and a constitutive element in the meaning of truth. As is well known, for the pragmatist, knowledge is equated with the process of the validation of ideas within experience. The context is always that of solving problems and establishing firm bases for the future. For the realist, on the other hand, propositions that are validated are to be considered cases of knowledge about things and events other than themselves." He then went on to say: "As I read more fully in Marxist literature I became convinced that Hook's pragmatic interpretation of praxis did not do justice to what Engels and Lenin had in mind. I take both of them to be realists and materialists. Praxis, accordingly, was directed against agnosticism and was used to confirm the belief we humans in general have that we do achieve knowledge about the world around us, knowledge being here taken in a realistic sense. And it is quite clearly the opinion of Lenin that this achievement is one of degrees, so that our concepts of matter become more adequate to their goal by a process of cultural approximation. . ." Sellars then went on to write: "While Lenin was acquainted only with the early forms of pragmatism, he saw that its affiliation was with experientialism. In fact, he sensed its logical connection with positivism. In *Materialism and Emirio-Criticism* , he writes: 'Pragmatism ridicules the metaphysics of idealism and materialism, extols experience, and recognizes practice as the only criterion of truth. . . The difference between Machism and pragmatism is as insignificant and subisdiary from the viewpoint of materialism as is the distinction between empirio-criticism and empirio-monism.' In another passage he pays his respects to those who believe that by means of the word experience they are able to overcome the 'obsolete' distinction between materialism and idealism." Roy Wood Sellar, also BTW edited with Marvin Farber, the 1949 anthology *Philosophy for the Future: The Quest of Modern Materialism* which brought together writings from both Marxist and non-Marxist materialists, in an attempt to elaborate materialism as a synoptic philosophy. BTW Ralp Dumain has some excepts from that book posted on his web site at http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/philfuture.html. Jim F. > > Part of Holloway's problem appears his unfamiliarity with the > broader > scope of Marxist scholarship, including the work of Richard Levins > and > Richard Lewontin that defies such stereotypes. > > Basically Holloway reduces Marxist thinking around these questions > to a > kind of Cartesian dualism involving subject and object. It also > involves > a kind of intellectualized "discovery" of the objective laws of > historical development. In reality, Marxism posits an ongoing > dialectical interaction between subject and object through > *activity*. > Some of the keenest insights come from Mariategui, the father of > Peruvian Marxism, whose efforts to emphasize the *subjective* factor > in > revolutionary politics led him to embrace a rather wide-ranging > group of > thinkers including Lenin and Trotsky in Russia to Croce and > D'Annunzio > in Italy. Mariateguism has had an enormous influence in Latin > American > politics and can even be seen as a direct influence on the Cuban and > > Nicaraguan revolution. > > > -- > > The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org > > > ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
