Ted wrote: > The "end" that is a "good life" in Marx's sense > can't be represented by such "variables". > > Such a life is creating and appropriating beauty > and truth within relations of mutual recognition. > The relations and the other "goods" whose creation > and appropriation constitutes their content > objectify universal ethical, aesthetic and > intellectual values. Their actualization in a > good life requires the fully developed > capabilities that define the universally developed > individual.
> [...] > This content cannot be represented as a "variable". > > It's an internal relation. The good life of each is > internally related to the good life of the other. The > relation constitutes the good life of each. To be > fully constitutive of a good life the objectification > of the universal by one requires the appropriation of > the objectification by the other. Both the > objectification and the appropriation require fully > developed capabilities. So the "good life" for each > can't be represented as a "variable" in the sense of > something that remains self-identical through changes > in its relations. Its essence is relational; it > requires a relation of mutual recognition for its > existence. With all due respect, Ted, this type of objection makes no sense whatever. Variable, the notion in logic that captures "change," is one of the most universal categories in modern logic. You can view it as the most elementary translation into modern logic of the category of Being (as the unity of Quality and Quantity) from classical philosophy. If we think that the "good life" (or anything else for that matter) can be defined qualitatively (which you're doing) without *necessarily* implying its quantitative aspect, then we need to go back to Hegel 1.0. Didn't Hegel warned against the "ordinary way of thinking" that assumed quality and quantity to be independent? Didn't the Man called quantity "quality sublated"? Find me a quality that doesn't entail a quantity, which is to say, find me something that doesn't change (aside from God under its various guises). Do you think Beauty and Truth are not amenable to quantification? What's the damn use for those categories then if you cannot state that Marx's theory of value is true while others are not (x=1 while y=0) or that a flower is *more* beautiful than a dead rat (x > y)? Didn't people think that the colors were irreducible qualities (in the Aristotelian sense)? Didn't science discover that the colors were just sight sensory impressions caused by electromagnetic radiations of different wave lengths? If labor can be quantified (and its quantification is implied by Marx's notion of value), then why would beauty, truth, or the good life be beyond quantification? After all, if the "good life" is not inherent to human labor, then what hope is there of constructing it? As to the "relational" nature of the "good life," tell me please what in the world is not relational. Ask a physicist (or a philosopher!), everything is relational. Everything! Space, time, mass, energy, speed, momentum, temperature, pressure, entropy, etc. are properties of phenomena revealed always in the context of their relation or interaction among things. Value is relational. Eliminate the social conditions that fragment labor into private independent chunks and then labor takes another form. Value is no more. So? Can't value be quantified? The notion that the "good life" (or anything else for that matter) doesn't "remain self-identical through changes in its relations" is also senseless. Again, didn't Hegel said that quality is "in the nature of Being, identical to Being, since when a thing loses its quality it ceases to be"? We often wonder here about the robustness of capitalism, its ability to shed skins and remain deep down the same beast. Now you are saying that the "good life" is such a fragile thing that when something changes the poor thing ceases to be what it is. But back to the origin of our discussion, if communists have no way to quantify the extent to which their actions lead them towards the "good life" (as opposed to away from it), then how in hell will they ever guide their actions? _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
