Fwd: M-TH: Re: The exactitude of nature & Hegel on Kant

2000-06-03 Thread Charles Brown

Elegant  (of refined taste or manner),
but inexact
James F posits human knowing
that is outside of human history.
There is nonesuch.
Every act of human knowing
is part of human history. 

Since,
James F. accepts that human history
is dialectical, all human knowing
is dialectical, including human
knowing of natural history or 
nature.

Humans only know things-in-themselves
as things-for-us. Things-for-us only
come from human practice (Second
Thesis on Feuerbach) which
is part of human history. Human
history is dialectical, thus human
practice is dialectical. All things-for-us
are dialectical. 

Jim F. commits the same error
as Russ, who posits human
interest in and knowledge of
 things with which
humans NEVER have any
interaction. But we know
nothing of that which we
have no interaction,
no practice (2nd Thesis
on F.).

Actually, Jim has it sort of
backward below. It is not
that natural history is dialectical
because human history is
emergent from natural history.
It is that all of human 
knowledge is part of human
history, and human history
is dialectical, thus human
knowledge of nature is
dialectical.

For vulgar marxism,

Charles Brown

>>> James Farmelant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 01/13 9:57 AM >>>
I think that Russ just about sums up the fallacy that underlies
the arguments of the believers in the dialectics of nature.
Hugh's arguments are substantively the same as those
of Charles or Chris though phrased a bit more elegantly.
In any case both Charles and Chris have been committing
the same type of fallacy when they argue that since history
is dialectical and since human history is emergent out
of natural history therefore natural history must be
dialectical.

Jim Farmelant

On Wed, 13 Jan 99 13:19:50 + Russ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Deary me Hugh, 
>
>What is the substance of your argument but that:
>
>Consciousness is dialectical.
>Consciousness is ultimately natural.
>Diddly-dee:
>The natural is dialectical.
>
>?
>
>Pardon me Hugh, isn't this to render the social, i.e the realm of the 
>political, meaningless?
>
>
>Russ
>
>PS what did you toast Spinoza with - it wasn't the yellow snow from 
>out 
>the back of the shaman's tent by any chance?
>
>pip hic desparandum
>
>
> --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
>



Elegant  (of refined taste or manner),
but inexact
James F posits human knowing
that is outside of human history.
There is nonesuch.
Every act of human knowing
is part of human history. 

Since,
James F. accepts that human history
is dialectical, all human knowing
is dialectical, including human
knowing of natural history or 
nature.

Humans only know things-in-themselves
as things-for-us. Things-for-us only
come from human practice (Second
Thesis on Feuerbach) which
is part of human history. Human
history is dialectical, thus human
practice is dialectical. All things-for-us
are dialectical. 

Jim F. commits the same error
as Russ, who posits human
interest in and knowledge of
 things with which
humans NEVER have any
interaction. But we know
nothing of that which we
have no interaction,
no practice (2nd Thesis
on F.).

Actually, Jim has it sort of
backward below. It is not
that natural history is dialectical
because human history is
emergent from natural history.
It is that all of human 
knowledge is part of human
history, and human history
is dialectical, thus human
knowledge of nature is
dialectical.

For vulgar marxism,

Charles Brown

>>> James Farmelant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 01/13 9:57 AM >>>
I think that Russ just about sums up the fallacy that underlies
the arguments of the believers in the dialectics of nature.
Hugh's arguments are substantively the same as those
of Charles or Chris though phrased a bit more elegantly.
In any case both Charles and Chris have been committing
the same type of fallacy when they argue that since history
is dialectical and since human history is emergent out
of natural history therefore natural history must be
dialectical.

Jim Farmelant

On Wed, 13 Jan 99 13:19:50 + Russ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Deary me Hugh, 
>
>What is the substance of your argument but that:
>
>Consciousness is dialectical.
>Consciousness is ultimately natural.
>Diddly-dee:
>The natural is dialectical.
>
>?
>
>Pardon me Hugh, isn't this to render the social, i.e the realm of the 
>political, meaningless?
>
>
>Russ
>
>PS what did you toast Spinoza with - it wasn't the yellow snow from 
>out 
>the back of the shaman's tent by any chance?
>
>pip hic desparandum
>
>
> --- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
>

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Fwd: M-TH: Re: The exactitude of nature & Hegel on Kant

2000-06-03 Thread Charles Brown

Rob, 
Here are some comments:

>>> Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 01/13 9:34 AM >>>
G'day Thaxists,

Just wondering if I got any of the following wrong.

The possibility of real historical change in the world comes with the
introduction of philosophy into it, no?  Human beings, and nothing else, can
author real historical change - change by and for humanity.  
__

Charles: I'm not sure what you mean by 
"real" history. Philosophy starts with the
Greeks 2500 years ago ( I won't do
my Afrocentered thing on how there is
a lot of philosophy in Egypt before that;
See _Stolen Legacy_ for example). There
was a lot of human history before that.

Also, there is natural history. Marx says
in the first Preface to Capital that
for him political economy is an
extension of natural history. Nature
has a history. That is a dialectical
understanding of it. Darwin supplies
a big jolt to get beyond creationism,
i.e. every species created at one time
and not having history. Kant demonstrated
that the solar system has a history.
_

Without
conscious human reproduction/transformation, there is only pre-history. 
History therefore begins only when humanity has its hands on the wheel and
knows it has it there.
__

Charles: Only humans can make
things-in-themselves into things-for-us.
__


The application of correct philosophical method to the real stuff of the
world is the prerequisite for real change.  In other words, applying the
dialectic to the material,  (the notion of thesis, antithesis and synthesis
applied to society, whose reproduction has ever been based upon internal -
and dynamically stressful, and therefore immanently changeable - allocations
of control over its economic order) is the first step into history.
___

Charles: Oh I see. You are talking about
Marx's comment that we have been in
pre-history while class struggle unconsciously
determined changes. However, in this
case it is the working class overthrowing
the bourgeoisie and ALL class society
that begins real history. Marx and Engels
seemed to phrase it that their discovery
of materialist dialectics was a reflection
of the rise of the capitalism and the
proletariat,not that their applying 
philosophy to the world makes the
change.
___

Comradely,

Charles


I may not have put it as uncontentiously well as it could be put, but it is
my suspicion my bits of clumsy paraphrasing come close to describing the
guts of the politics shared by most assembled here.

And if that's right, we gotta ask why we're getting so hot under the collar
on the relationship between the dialectic and materialism, don't we?

And if I'm wrong, I'm about to blush prettily and mebbe learn something of
significance ... for a change.

Cheers,
Rob.




Rob, 
Here are some comments:

>>> Rob Schaap <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 01/13 9:34 AM >>>
G'day Thaxists,

Just wondering if I got any of the following wrong.

The possibility of real historical change in the world comes with the
introduction of philosophy into it, no?  Human beings, and nothing else, can
author real historical change - change by and for humanity.  
__

Charles: I'm not sure what you mean by 
"real" history. Philosophy starts with the
Greeks 2500 years ago ( I won't do
my Afrocentered thing on how there is
a lot of philosophy in Egypt before that;
See _Stolen Legacy_ for example). There
was a lot of human history before that.

Also, there is natural history. Marx says
in the first Preface to Capital that
for him political economy is an
extension of natural history. Nature
has a history. That is a dialectical
understanding of it. Darwin supplies
a big jolt to get beyond creationism,
i.e. every species created at one time
and not having history. Kant demonstrated
that the solar system has a history.
_

Without
conscious human reproduction/transformation, there is only pre-history. 
History therefore begins only when humanity has its hands on the wheel and
knows it has it there.
__

Charles: Only humans can make
things-in-themselves into things-for-us.
__


The application of correct philosophical method to the real stuff of the
world is the prerequisite for real change.  In other words, applying the
dialectic to the material,  (the notion of thesis, antithesis and synthesis
applied to society, whose reproduction has ever been based upon internal -
and dynamically stressful, and therefore immanently changeable - allocations
of control over its economic order) is the first step into history.
___

Charles: Oh I see. You are talking about
Marx's comment that we have been in
pre-history while class struggle unconsciously
determined changes. However, in this
case it is the working class overthrowing
the bourgeoisie and ALL class society
that begins real history. Marx and Engels
seemed to phrase it that their discovery
of materialist dialectics was a reflection
of the rise of the capitalism and the
proletariat,not that their applying 
philosophy to the world makes the
change.
___

Comr