This is going to take a little time, you raised some heavy questions here.
Oudeyis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Dumain" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 17:17
Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] O, Dialectics! :Bakhurst
At 02:12 PM 6/22/2005 +0200, Victor wrote:
Hegel regards objectification as simply the alienation of spirit in the
object. The ideal itself is the alienated spirit that has become a
universal through the mediation of language. True, I've not addressed the
problem of whether Hegel regarded labour activity (transformation of the
ideal as consciousness joined with language forms by its expression in
labour activity) but if I recall correctly he does not really concern
himself with this problem. The question of the effect, if any, of labour
activity on the ideal certainly does not appear in the Logic. Marx in his
1844 Critique of Hegelian Philosophy takes Hegel to task for regarding the
nature that becomes the subject of logos as the abstracted nature of
theory rather than the material nature external to intellect. It is
however an interesting question, and I would appreciate any additional
information on this. Meanwhile I'll do some investigation on my own.
I can't help you answer my question, but it _is_ the question (Hegel's
specific view of labor activity) which you did not clearly address in your
exposition.
Hegel wrote quite a bit on labour, but it appears that most of his
commentary on the subject is in regards to its social rather than
epistemological role. The master-slave stuff from the Phenomenology and his
discourses on the Korporations and such in his Philosophy of Right. See
Ashton's interesting discussion on the subject in the MIA:
www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/txt/ashton.htm
Hegel's discussion of the relation of the ideal to life is about as close as
one can get to a Hegelian epistemology of the relation of
the ideal to the practical:
Interestingly, but expectedly, the resemblances and differences between
Hegel and Marx's concepts of the practical are exactly paralleled in those
of
their respective concepts of the ideal. Ilyenkov describes Marx as adopting
the meaning or essence of Hegel's ideal but revising Hegel's
concept of ideality:
61. In Capital Marx quite consciously uses the term "ideal" in this formal
meaning that it was given by Hegel, and not in the sense in which it was
used by the whole pre-Hegelian tradition, including Kant, although the
philosophical-theoretical interpretation of the range of phenomena which in
both cases is similarly designated "ideal" is diametrically opposed to its
Hegelian interpretation. The meaning of the term "ideal" in Marx and Hegel
is the same, but the concepts, i.e., the ways of understanding this "same"
meaning are profoundly different. After all, the word "concept" in
dialectically interpreted logic is a synonym for understanding of the
essence of the matter, the essence of phenomena which are only outlined by a
given term; it is by no means a synonym for "the meaning of the term", which
may be formally interpreted as the sum-total of "attributes" of the
phenomena to which the term is applied." Concept of the Ideal 1977)
Hegel describes the ideal as the reification of human activity, i.e. the
embodiment of activity - "pure activity", "pure form-creating activity"in
the form of a thing. Hegel's explanation of the relation of activity to its
objective form is, of course, his theory of activities as a function
conceptualised (objective) social ideas that describe and circumscribe
ethical social life. To explain how concepts become material activity Hegel
describes the production of activity as the consequences of the operations
of consciousness and will. Consciousness and will are the "transcendental"
pattern of the psyche and the will that realises the ideal form, the ideal
form being the law that guides man's consciousness and will, as the
objectively compulsory pattern of consciously willed activity.
While Marx adopts the essence of the Hegelian ideal as the embodiment or
reification of activity as social practice, he regards the ideal as a
product of activity rather than as its law and guide. Take for example the
ideal concept of Value: " Value-form is understood in Capital precisely as
the reified form (represented as, or "representing", the thing, the
relationship of things) of social human life activity. Directly it does
present itself to us as the "physically palpable" embodiment of something
"other", but this "other" cannot be some physically palpable matter... in
the sphere of economic activity this substance was, naturally, decoded as
labour, as man's physical labour transforming the physical body of nature,
while "value" became realised labour, the "embodied" act of labour.Ilyenkov
1977 Par. 95, 96).
The identical difference characterises the distinction between Hegel's
concept of practicality and that of Marx. While Marx adopts the essence of
practicality as used by Hegel, i.e. the application of the concept on world
conditions or to the state of the world, the concept of "practicality" of
Hegel is a very different beast from Marx's. For Hegel, "Life" as the arena
of practical activity is the world at its most abstract. He even
distinguishes Life in this sense from the abstract conceptions of Life he
presents in his conceptual schema of Nature. For Hegel Life in this
philosophic sense includes the totality of knowledge as absolute
universality and the incorporation of the idea into Life implies the
absolutely comprehensive representation by the idea of the presence of the
concept as a universal in the world(i.e. its universality together with
absolute concreteness of relations). Hegel's test of practicality is then
fundamentally a test of the "fittingness" of theory as a representation of
the fully concrete world state. See Hegel's Encyclopedia of Science,
Doctrine of the Notion, Section 3. Life, sect.1631-1676
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/#HL3_761, and
Lenin's comment on it in the Conspectus
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch03.htm#LCW38_197a
Marx's concept of practicality differs from Hegel's on the precisely the
same issue as with ideality. Hegel's concept of the world (in his view, the
testing ground of theory) is no less a conceptual product than the ideal
itself. It is absolutely concrete and universal but still abstract, a
function of pure cognition. [Reminds me of Feuerbach's critique of Hegel
that Hegel proposed to unite nature and mind in one theory and ended up
doing so only by treating mind and nature as concepts of thought]. The
critical distinction between Hegel and Marx's concept of practice, i.e.
theory or thought in the world, is Marx's argument that information about
the world is achieved through the prosecution of labour as revolutionary
activity. That is, the origin and testing of theory in the world is in its
essence a process of learning and testing the effectiveness of a theory or
concept in realizing goals through changing the world. The primary test of
the "fittedness" of theory is not a matter of its concreteness or even its
universality (though these are important to Marx and Lenin) but rather its
effectiveness in instructed men how to "dance" with nature and come out a
winner (to get whatever he hoped to achieved out of the dance).
In respect to the relation between reason and nature for sure (see above).
While it is true that the laws and principles that govern material
practice directed towards the realization of the objectives of labour
activity are abstract theoretical representations they or at least their
application are subject to the test of nature which is not dependent
solely on human knowledge but also involves phenomena that is entirely
indifferent to the intellectual creations of men.
How does this differ from Hegel's view? Hegel as an inheritor of idealist
tradition would not express himself this way, but presumably he has a way
of accounting for the testing of our subjective notions about nature.
In Hegel's world there is no phenomena indifferent to the intellectual
creations of man. See discussion above.
Thus theory, even natural science theory, can never precisely describe
actual labour activity if only because the natural conditions confronting
labour are in a constant state of change. Thus the natural laws or
application of natural laws incorporated into the design of any given
labour activity will never be exactly those encountered in the course of
actual labour activity.
This is what bugs me about your conception of scientific theory, which is
not about labor activity. I don't like this way of expressing things.
See what I wrote in the previous message. I'm using, as Marx, Lenin and
Ilyenkov do, the concept of science at a high level of abstraction.
This, by the way, is how Lenin regards Engels theory of freedom and
necessity in human activity.
"Secondly, Engels does not attempt to contrive "definitions" of freedom
and necessity, the kind of scholastic definition with which the
reactionary professors (like Avenarius) and their disciples (like
Bogdanov) are most concerned. Engels takes the knowledge and will of man,
on the one hand, and the necessity of nature, on the other, and instead of
giving definitions, simply says that the necessity of nature is primary,
and human will and mind secondary. The latter must necessarily and
inevitably adapt themselves to the former. Engels regards this as so
obvious that he does not waste words explaining his view. It needs the
Russian Machians to complain of Engels' general definition of materialism
(that nature is primary and mind secondary; remember Bogdanov's
"perplexity" on this point!), and at the same time to regard one of the
particular applications by Engels of this general and fundamental
definition as "wonderful" and "remarkably apt"!
Thirdly, Engels does not doubt the existence of "blind necessity." He
admits the existence of a necessity unknown to man. This is quite obvious
from the passage just quoted. But how, from the standpoint of the
Machians, can man know of the existence of what he does not know? Is it
not "mysticism," "metaphysics," the admission of "fetishes" and "idols,"
is it not the "Kantian unknowable thing-in-itself" to say that we know of
the existence of an unknown necessity? Had the Machians given the matter
any thought they could not have failed to observe the complete identity
between Engels' argument on the knowability of the objective nature of
things and on the transformation of "things-in-themselves" into
"things-for-us," on the one hand, and his argument on a blind, unknown
necessity, on the other. The development of con-sciousness in each human
individual and the development of the collective knowledge of humanity at
large presents us at every step with examples of the transformation of the
unknown "thing-in-itself" into the known "thing-for-us," of the
transformation of blind, unknown necessity, "necessity-in-itself," into
the known "necessity-for-us." Epistemologically, there is no difference
whatever between these two transformations, for the basic point of view in
both cases is the same, viz., materialistic, the recognition of the
objective reality of the external world and of the laws of external
nature, and of the fact that this world and these laws are fully knowable
to man but can never be known to him with finality. We do not know the
necessity of nature in the phenomena of the weather, and to that extent we
are inevitably slaves of the weather. But while we do not know this
necessity, we do know that it exists. Whence this knowledge? From the very
source whence comes the knowledge that things exist outside our mind and
independently of it, namely, from the development of our knowledge, which
provides millions of examples to every individual of knowledge replacing
ignorance when an object acts upon our sense-organs, and conversely of
ignorance replacing knowledge when the possibility of such action is
eliminated. (Lenin (1908) Materialism and Emperio-Criticism Chapter 6)
This is remarkably objectivistic of you, given the thrust of your
arguments to date.
Wait!! a, "but," follows this statement.
By the way I've one reservation concerning Lenin (and Engels) view
regarding the issue of natural laws. They appear to argue, correct me if
I'm wrong, that the natural law to which men must conform is that which is
universal to all nature. I would argue that we do not and cannot know the
laws universal to nature, but only the particular manifestation of natural
law as it pertains to human labour activity and that these are not
identical.
I don't like this formulation. (Reminds me of Popper in a weird way.) I
suggest that your last sentence is a non sequitur, and the phrase 'human
labour activity' is out of place. We've known since Hume that we can't
prove any of our knowledge claims definitively, and all philosophers of
science subscribe to some form of fallibilism. However, it is an
arbitrary supposition that our knowledge claims cannot pertain to
universal natural laws, which is what he most powerful scientific claims
purport to do. Furthermore, your assertion contradicts your whole
argument about Engels.
I see what you mean.
I would argue that we do not and cannot know the
laws universal to nature, but only the particular manifestation of natural
law as it pertains to human labour activity and that these are not
identical.
I agree, there's more than just a tinge of NeoKantianism here.
The error in the statement is
1. The idea that universal statements concerning nature without man can be
made at all (the error of metaphysical realism). and
2. The even sillier idea that since such statements cannot be made, any
universal statements concerning nature without man cannot be known by men.
I'll rephrase it:
All universal statements about nature are the intellectual products of
men's efforts to overcome essentially problems encountered in the course of
their mediated production and reproduction of the means for human existence
(we may have to agree to disagree about the possibility, or, better, the
social and material significance of scientific theory that produces nothing
of use). That is, universal statements about nature are the tested
conceptualisations of the laws and principles men have discovered in the
course of their efforts to realise human needs (basic and derived) through
labour. Broadly speaking these interests may be specified as the
perpetuation of the organic and inorganic body of man through the formation
of effective social and technical means of production for realizing this
fundamental purpose.
This formulation does without the folderol of extra-human universals that
cannot be known. It also renders irrelevant the last two sentences you found
so objectionable. I disagree that they are obscurantist, just poorly
reasoned and presented. Thanks for the criticism.
That is, natural laws regarding human interaction with nature are
universal only as regards the labour activity of all men in nature.
This is an obscurantist formulation of the egocentric predicament, with
that objectionable phrase 'labor activity'.
To argue otherwise departs from the essentially activist paradigm of Hegel
and Marx and describes human knowledge of nature as that of an essentially
disinterested being contemplating nature free of the restrictions of his
own properties and interests.
Non sequitur and false assumption. I don't like this at all.
Oudeyis
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