>>Objective & Subjective (object and subject):: object refers to everything outside the human mind or the subject as human. Reality, say a tree, an automobile or the sun has an objective existence outside the human mind or the life of the human mind, not requiring or owning its existence to the mind. Marxism contends that social system - capitalism, and things existing outside the mind have an objective existence and contains objective laws of operations. <<
1. So what then does the 'mind' contain? 2. What is the basis of the existence or subsistence of the mind and its contents? 3. Aren't you missing out here on the Marxist tradition's insistence on the 'relationship' between subject-object? 4. What is the basis of the existence or subsistence of such a 'relationship'? 5. What is the basis of our knowing all this to hold? Marx seems to combine a form of realism and a form of pragmatism in his rejection of idealism, but at this point in my life I'm not sure I remember a very satisfactory working out of the issues in anything Marx wrote. It seems more likely my understanding comes from Engels and from Lenin (which makes me think 'deja vu' since we seem to discuss a lot of the same philosophical issues over and over again). Final point, for now anyway, about that feeling of going around and around. Some of us go around in order to secure a better or at least re-newed understanding of source material like Marx, Engels, Lenin, etc. This leads to arguments over interpretation of their texts. This also leads into arguments and discussions about how this or that stream of Marxism was led astray and led others astray in its errancy from said source texts. On the other hand, some of us like such issues because not only do we want to show our knowledge (or lack of , or lapses in memory of) of source texts, we want to work out in some original or at least underappreciated way fresh philosophical insights about the issues. If we can't go as far backward or as far forward (depending on your perspective) as Althusser on something like 'objective vs. subjective', aren't we going to be a bit stale -- if not obtuse and ignorant? Or did the fact that Althusser suffered from depression and even psychosis and murdered his wife-- and then also said things like when he was doing his peak work he was actually just bullshitting and stealing ideas from his students--does that negate the potential of discussing his work? Or is it absurd to say that the reason we should take statements like that seriously is because we never could take anything he ever said or wrote seriously in the first place? Sometimes the sentiments and goals get all mixed together and confused. I feel a new insight about Althusser's misreading of Lenin's misreading of Marx's misreading of Hegel....coming on. CJ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
