Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/19/2008 1:46 PM CeJ jannuzi -- RD: You certainly cannot understand Marx without understanding the Young Hegelian milieu. The Second International Marxists never understood it and Engels' pamphlet on Feuerbach did not provide sufficient information and perspective. Agreed, but one 'popular' view that we often are asked to inherit sees a simple line of development of nascent possibilities finding Hegel's philosophy, and then falling under the influence of Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer (the latter being Marx's mentor). Marx's doctoral thesis, although it appears sophomoric compared to most of the texts we consider as source material , displays Marx as part idealist philosopher, but grounded in concerns that seem to predict some of his future directions (e.g., an eye for details and specifics rather than generalizations) . But more importantly than that, later Marx goes 'back to Hegel', and even says he does, and many see this as the key to understanding the genesis of the creation or discovery of historical materialism and the later form of materialism, which Engels's called dialectical materialism. This comes to light in the Theses on Feuerbach, written in 1845 but published by Engels in 1888. ^^^ CB: Here's Engels on Marxism's relationship to Hegel; http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1886/ludwig-feuerbach/ch01.htm Frederick Engels Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy Part 1: Hegel The volume before us (1) carries us back to a period which, although in time no more than a generation behind us, has become as foreign to the present generation in Germany as if it were already a hundred years old. Yet it was the period of Germany’s preparation for the Revolution of 1848; and all that has happened since then in our country has been merely a continuation of 1848, merely the execution of the last will and testament of the revolution. Just as in France in the 18th century, so in Germany in the 19th, a philosophical revolution ushered in the political collapse. But how different the two looked! The French were in open combat against all official science, against the church and often also against the state; their writings were printed across the frontier, in Holland or England, while they themselves were often in jeopardy of imprisonment in the Bastille. On the other hand, the Germans were professors, state-appointed instructors of youth; their writings were recognized textbooks, and the termination system of the whole development — the Hegelian system — was even raised, as it were, to the rank of a royal Prussian philosophy of state! Was it possible that a revolution could hide behind these professors, behind their obscure, pedantic phrases, their ponderous, wearisome sentences? Were not precisely these people who were then regarded as the representatives of the revolution, the liberals, the bitterest opponents of this brain-confusing philosophy? But what neither the government nor the liberals saw was seen at least by one man as early as 1833, and this man was indeed none other than Heinrich Heine.[A] Let us take an example. No philosophical proposition has earned more gratitude from narrow-minded governments and wrath from equally narrow-minded liberals than Hegel’s famous statement: “All that is real is rational; and all that is rational is real.” That was tangibly a sanctification of things that be, a philosophical benediction bestowed upon despotism, police government, Star Chamber proceedings and censorship. That is how Frederick William III and how his subjects understood it. But according to Hegel certainly not everything that exists is also real, without further qualification. For Hegel the attribute of reality belongs only to that which at the same time is necessary: “In the course of its development reality proves to be necessity.” A particular governmental measure — Hegel himself cites the example of “a certain tax regulation” — is therefore for him by no means real without qualification. That which is necessary, however, proves itself in the last resort to be also rational; and, applied to the Prussian state of that time, the Hegelian proposition, therefore, merely means: this state is rational, corresponds to reason, insofar as it is necessary; and if it nevertheless appears to us to be evil, but still, in spite of its evil character, continues to exist, then the evil character of the government is justified and explained by the corresponding evil character of its subjects. The Prussians of that day had the government that they deserved. Now, according to Hegel, reality is, however, in no way an attribute predictable of any given state of affairs, social or political, in all circumstances and at all times. On the
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
You certainly cannot understand Marx without understanding the Young Hegelian milieu. The Second International Marxists never understood it and Engels' pamphlet on Feuerbach did not provide sufficient information and perspective. As for Lenin's MAEC, these issues have been argued endlessly. MAEC serves a limited function; it combats an overall positivist philosophy based on a misuse of the natural sciences, ubiquitous in Lenin's time, but it doesn't address more sophisticated issues about the relation of subject and object (in relation to social formations). However, that doesn't mean Lenin was wrong about his arguments for philosophical materialism in the most general sense. Natural science materialism, like natural science itself, gives us the floor of a world view, but not the ceiling. Unfortunately, Lenin, like Engels before him and Marx slightly before him, was institutionalized in a manner that created a solidified doctrine that Marx never intended, and that was open-ended even for Engels. Lenin was an innovator and opposed ossification but also contributed to it. There is nothing new in anything that has been said so far in this discussion. I find CeJ's take on this matter rather eccentric, and it's if he thinks he's revealing something that none of us encountered before. One thing that would be useful, given how much this stuff has been rehashed, would be a more complete picture of the ideas circulating towards the end of the 19th century and among whom. The rebellion against psychologism, the lineage of Frege and Husserl, the positivism and vulgar evooutionism, social physics and social darwinism, revolutions in mathematics and logic, the influence of Nietzsche, the distillation of an intellectual entity known as Marxism, the birth of modern sociology and social theory (Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, etc.), traditions passed through Dilthey, neo-Kantianism, etc. etc. There was a lot going on, but there is also a fragmentation of knowledge to consider, a fragmentation that has yet to be overcome. Even Marxism remains fragmentation; I doubt there is a single person around with an intimate familiarity with all the schools of thought that marxism has generated or fused with. Now if only I could find a copy of THE POSITIVIST DISPUTE IN GERMAN SOCIOLOGY. -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 18, 2008 8:50 AM To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel CeJ Engels and later Lenin (and Lenin had real revolutionary practices to get a grip on) end up with their materialist drawers tied into idealist knots dealing with Marx's conception of 'materialism' vis-a-vis the physical sciences. CB: If you are more specific we can argue this. It's been argued on Marxism-Thaxis before. Lukacs and Korsch address the issue without having read Lenin by the time they did their work. CB: That's a bit of a shortcoming. ^^^ Althusser, at least in the translations I have had to work with, is not a pleasant read, but he is a thorough-going thinker in a philosophical sense. Part of Marx's 'obscurity' on the issue for people who come at philosophy and social thought with a naive positivism and an almost blank-slate pragmatism is Marx's own fault and the fault of circumstances. He wasn't paid to be an academic -- a philosophical scientist in the way Hegel or Schopenhauer were. Much of the time Marx writes like a literary gentleman displaying his wide literary learning to widely learned literary gentlemen of his era. He eschewed 'philosophy' as the concern of the metaphysicians, even though his thought contains ontological and epistemological positions (for example, that 'reflection' view of mind and the material world). It would be hard to say he created a whole new approach to the social sciences and economics, UNLESS you can understand and appreciate the continental traditions (some of them not strictly philosophical, though they take 'philosophy of science' type positions on their 'science') that use him as one of their main starting points. ^^^ CB: Most people don't find it hard to say. A lot of people say he sort of invented social science. ^^^ Part of the difficulty would be his materialism is not intuitive and in a series of steps over time developed out of Hegel, the guy who had been condemned as metaphysical nonsense ( dismissed by Feuerbach, condemned by Schopenhauer). CB: Schopenhauer is not a materialist. ^ Marx's unintuitive materialism doesn't equate to someone like Hobbes (though Dilthey is an interesting point of contact, for example see Dilthey on Hegel's idealism). Nor does it anticipate or give rise to functionalism, physicalism and behaviourism (outside the Soviet Union) so much as it helps give rise to and integrates with the 'ideational' and 'textual' concerns of the continental traditions in formal, psychological and social sciences. Why do you
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
Forgive the many typos in my previous post. I forgot to mention a book that defends a version of Lenin's reflection theory: Ruben, David-Hillel. Marxism and Materialism: A Study in Marxist Theory of Knowledge, new and rev. ed. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1979. A problem with this sort of literature, and with much of philosophy, is that a lot of energy is expended to review prior material and prove one or two important points, but when it's all done, one has travelled very little distance. This is of some interest from a philosophy of science standpoint and the hassling out of old controversies about Lenin, materialism, etc. But when one is done, one has not gotten very far, and actually, very little of this has anything to do what marxism was for, which is about understanding society (as part of changing it, of course). I reviewed this book a couple of months ago, but the material is not at hand now. However, I did put a couple of interesting excerpts on my web site: David-Hillel Ruben on Materialism Praxis http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/ruben-dh-1.html I often feel embarrassed about returning to these hackneyed issues time and time again. This stuff has been left behind, but since people haven't learned . . . . One more remark about the essays from the book SCIENCE AND MORALITY (a colleague will soon scan the whole book): as much of an imposture as Soviet Marxism-Leninism was, there were people who labored under it who produced some good work, which either gets lost in the shuffle or buried completely. Some of these folks from the '60s to early '80s had something to say, even of relevance to the sexy concerns of intellectual consumers in the west. Ilyenkov, Lektorsky, and a few others were interested in incorporating subjectivity and praxis into the scientific world picture. So much obligatory garbage is contained in the Soviet literature it takes effort to extract the usable material. Most of the marxist-Leninist rhetoric was refuse; what's worse was when Soviet boot-lickers in the western bourgeois democracies (note publications of Gruner publishing co.) imitated this style of argumentation. I have spent a fair amount of time extracting the usable from the offal. -Original Message- From: Ralph Dumain [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 18, 2008 3:04 PM To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel You certainly cannot understand Marx without understanding the Young Hegelian milieu. The Second International Marxists never understood it and Engels' pamphlet on Feuerbach did not provide sufficient information and perspective. As for Lenin's MAEC, these issues have been argued endlessly. MAEC serves a limited function; it combats an overall positivist philosophy based on a misuse of the natural sciences, ubiquitous in Lenin's time, but it doesn't address more sophisticated issues about the relation of subject and object (in relation to social formations). However, that doesn't mean Lenin was wrong about his arguments for philosophical materialism in the most general sense. Natural science materialism, like natural science itself, gives us the floor of a world view, but not the ceiling. Unfortunately, Lenin, like Engels before him and Marx slightly before him, was institutionalized in a manner that created a solidified doctrine that Marx never intended, and that was open-ended even for Engels. Lenin was an innovator and opposed ossification but also contributed to it. There is nothing new in anything that has been said so far in this discussion. I find CeJ's take on this matter rather eccentric, and it's if he thinks he's revealing something that none of us encountered before. One thing that would be useful, given how much this stuff has been rehashed, would be a more complete picture of the ideas circulating towards the end of the 19th century and among whom. The rebellion against psychologism, the lineage of Frege and Husserl, the positivism and vulgar evooutionism, social physics and social darwinism, revolutions in mathematics and logic, the influence of Nietzsche, the distillation of an intellectual entity known as Marxism, the birth of modern sociology and social theory (Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, etc.), traditions passed through Dilthey, neo-Kantianism, etc. etc. There was a lot going on, but there is also a fragmentation of knowledge to consider, a fragmentation that has yet to be overcome. Even Marxism remains fragmentation; I doubt there is a single person around with an intimate familiarity with all the schools of thought that marxism has generated or fused with. Now if only I could find a copy of THE POSITIVIST DISPUTE IN GERMAN SOCIOLOGY. -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 18, 2008 8:50 AM To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel CeJ
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
Iyenkov on Hegel CeJ Engels and later Lenin (and Lenin had real revolutionary practices to get a grip on) end up with their materialist drawers tied into idealist knots dealing with Marx's conception of 'materialism' vis-a-vis the physical sciences. CB: If you are more specific we can argue this. It's been argued on Marxism-Thaxis before. I was getting around to this, by way of Althusser. Since, again, the reason we are discussing all this is it stems from a discussion on post-modernism, not a discussion on Lenin's 'materialism' or his tangles with idealism (or Engels' for that matter). One thing worth pointing out here is you could say that Lenin anticipates Lukacs and Korsch (and Althusser, etc.) in his re-engagement of Hegel in order to solidify his Marxism. Lukacs and Korsch address the issue without having read Lenin by the time they did their work. CB: That's a bit of a shortcoming. ^^^ Independent arrivals at similar positions can be a strength. Marx and Engels celebrated them. Taking a completely different example, consider the work of Peano, Frege and Peirce in quantified formal logic. These two could be called 'Hegelian' Marxists, or Marxists who stress the importance of Hegel in Marx and Marxism, not just in young Marx, but in Marx-Engels' subsequent 'return' to Hegel. I should have been more specific about what 'the issue' is, by which I meant understanding the importance of Hegel's philosophy in historical materialism and diamat. That is, L. and K. arrive at the importance of Hegel without having known how important Hegel was to Lenin's attempts to get a grips on diamat by re-engaging Capital through a better understanding of Hegel. About Engels, wasn't it long thought that his appreciations of both Feuerbach and Hegel were significantly different (if not more enthusiastic, at least less critically nuanced)than Marx? ^^^ CB: Most people don't find it hard to say. A lot of people say he [Marx] sort of invented social science. ^^^ In the US, when they teach foundations courses for fields of social science, they cite Marx as the fountainhead? Over Weber, Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, and Saussure? In political economy/economics, Marx is a footnote on labor theory of value. CB: Schopenhauer is not a materialist. ^ I didn't even mean to imply that he was. S. was the academic philosopher who resented Hegel's popularity, even after H. was dead. A few posts ago, I said S. was one of the influential figures who started the dismissive criticism of Hegel that his was a philosophy of speculative nonsense. As for this issue of 'materialism', I don't think it is an essence of being a philosopher or a critical theorist or a thinker. Rather it refers to an ontological position one might take on a number of philosophical issues. As a post-mod would say, don't pay so much attention to what someone avers they are (I'm a materialist) but rather look closely at what they say, write and do when doing philosophy or critical theory (since philosophy has become a bad word), at the explicitly intended meanings but at the implicit ones, and the ones that are left open to the reader. ^^^ CB: Cause he [Popper] was doing anti-communist/anti-Soviet hack work . ^^^ The interesting post-modern aspect of Popper for me is that he opened up 'anglo-analytic' philosophy of science to post-modernism (Kuhn, but especially Lakatos and Feyerabend). He is also the guy whom Wittgenstein allegedly threatened with a fireplace poker after one of their few discussions. Popper's work on scientific methods and induction is formidable and some of the most important after Hume, Mills and Peirce. And yet I would suspect most of his obituaries revel in the nonsense about how he helped defeat communism because he showed Marxism to be a pseudo-science (while Hayek 'proved' central planning didn't work). -- CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
Popper's work on scientific methods and induction is formidable and some of the most important after Hume, Mills and Peirce. I meant 'J.S. Mill' here, but I was reading a wikipedia article on Hayley Mills at the time. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
On Wed, 19 Mar 2008 10:08:52 +0900 CeJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: ^^^ CB: Cause he [Popper] was doing anti-communist/anti-Soviet hack work . ^^^ The interesting post-modern aspect of Popper for me is that he opened up 'anglo-analytic' philosophy of science to post-modernism (Kuhn, but especially Lakatos and Feyerabend). He is also the guy whom Wittgenstein allegedly threatened with a fireplace poker after one of their few discussions. Popper's work on scientific methods and induction is formidable and some of the most important after Hume, Mills and Peirce. And yet I would suspect most of his obituaries revel in the nonsense about how he helped defeat communism because he showed Marxism to be a pseudo-science (while Hayek 'proved' central planning didn't work). -- My comments on Popper, Hayek etc. can be found here: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2002w46/msg00026.htm http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2005w00/msg00027.htm http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/1999/1999-October/017416.html CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
Closing up a real problem with reference in my discourse: These two could be called 'Hegelian' Marxists, or Marxists who stress the importance of Hegel in Marx and Marxism, not just in young Marx, but in Marx-Engels' subsequent 'return' to Hegel. 'These two' should refer to 'Lukacs and Korsch'. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
RD: You certainly cannot understand Marx without understanding the Young Hegelian milieu. The Second International Marxists never understood it and Engels' pamphlet on Feuerbach did not provide sufficient information and perspective. Agreed, but one 'popular' view that we often are asked to inherit sees a simple line of development of nascent possibilities finding Hegel's philosophy, and then falling under the influence of Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer (the latter being Marx's mentor). Marx's doctoral thesis, although it appears sophomoric compared to most of the texts we consider as source material , displays Marx as part idealist philosopher, but grounded in concerns that seem to predict some of his future directions (e.g., an eye for details and specifics rather than generalizations) . But more importantly than that, later Marx goes 'back to Hegel', and even says he does, and many see this as the key to understanding the genesis of the creation or discovery of historical materialism and the later form of materialism, which Engels's called dialectical materialism. This comes to light in the Theses on Feuerbach, written in 1845 but published by Engels in 1888. As for Lenin's MAEC, these issues have been argued endlessly. MAEC serves a limited function; it combats an overall positivist philosophy based on a misuse of the natural sciences, ubiquitous in Lenin's time, but it doesn't address more sophisticated issues about the relation of subject and object (in relation to social formations). However, that doesn't mean Lenin was wrong about his arguments for philosophical materialism in the most general sense. Natural science materialism, like natural science itself, gives us the floor of a world view, but not the ceiling. But a post-mo would say, one can aver one is a materialist and yet when doing philosophy display something else. Anglo-analytic types jump on the very same tendencies for meaning in texts to drift beyond stated intentions. One thing that would be useful, given how much this stuff has been rehashed, would be a more complete picture of the ideas circulating towards the end of the 19th century and among whom. The rebellion against psychologism, the lineage of Frege and Husserl, the positivism and vulgar evooutionism, social physics and social darwinism, revolutions in mathematics and logic, the influence of Nietzsche, the distillation of an intellectual entity known as Marxism, the birth of modern sociology and social theory (Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, etc.), traditions passed through Dilthey, neo-Kantianism, etc. etc. There was a lot going on, but there is also a fragmentation of knowledge to consider, a fragmentation that has yet to be overcome. Even Marxism remains fragmentation; I doubt there is a single person around with an intimate familiarity with all the schools of thought that marxism has generated or fused with. What interests me is the way Marxism survives the turn to post-structuralism and the wider postmodernism, even though the results are dismaying to many Marxists. Finally, about the fragmentation of knowledge issue. The modernists pointed this out (that poetic 'heap of broken images' in Yeats). So simplistically speaking, I could say much of what made modernism a condition was the belief that through sophistication and refined methods, they could pull it all together. And in 1945, some got the realization that the post-modern already existed and the modernists hadn't succeeded. (Lyotard specifically picks out the year 1945, but he also points out that for modernism to exist, there already had to be a 'post-modern'). I pass over the issue with the thought that as knowledge has expanded and fragmented into micro-disciplines, many of which can't even communicate with closely related specialties, I also get the feeling that most of this expansion and branching of knowledge--outside of a small percentage of the happy accidents of science and technology--isn't really very useful for everyday life. In my own profession (foreign language teaching, applied linguistics), I wish to shift back to phenomenological and existential concerns because deep down I feel there is very little to be done in terms of collective action counter the capitalist-commercial, elite institutional, and scientistic domination of the field I'm forced to work in. End of confession. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
CeJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/16/2008 10:43 PM http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay7.htm The sole path to a real, critical mastering of Hegel's conception of thought lay through a revolutionary, critical attitude to the world of alienation, i.e. to the world of commodity-capitalist relations. Only along that path could the objective-idealist illusions of Hegel's conception be really explained, and not simply attacked by such biting epithets (that equally explained nothing) as 'mystical nonsense', 'theological atavism', and others of that kind. Ralph's version of biting epithets is 'metaphysical masturbation'. Beware the self-taught man. CJ ^ CB: 'Twas Marx who raised the question of who will teach the teacher. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
A multiply ironic response. I'm not so naive about continental philosophy as this asshole CeJ thinks. But just as what's peddled in the Anglo-American sphere is a selective culling of the resources actually available, and is selected specifically in the service of an irrationalism of a degenerating narcissistic liberalism (Rorty) and pseudo-leftism. I too am selective and choose to select more rewarding material. -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Mar 17, 2008 1:48 PM To: marxism-thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel CeJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/16/2008 10:43 PM http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay7.htm The sole path to a real, critical mastering of Hegel's conception of thought lay through a revolutionary, critical attitude to the world of alienation, i.e. to the world of commodity-capitalist relations. Only along that path could the objective-idealist illusions of Hegel's conception be really explained, and not simply attacked by such biting epithets (that equally explained nothing) as 'mystical nonsense', 'theological atavism', and others of that kind. Ralph's version of biting epithets is 'metaphysical masturbation'. Beware the self-taught man. CJ ^ CB: 'Twas Marx who raised the question of who will teach the teacher. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Iyenkov on Hegel
The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice. Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/17/2008 1:48 PM CeJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/16/2008 10:43 PM http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/essays/essay7.htm The sole path to a real, critical mastering of Hegel's conception of thought lay through a revolutionary, critical attitude to the world of alienation, i.e. to the world of commodity-capitalist relations. Only along that path could the objective-idealist illusions of Hegel's conception be really explained, and not simply attacked by such biting epithets (that equally explained nothing) as 'mystical nonsense', 'theological atavism', and others of that kind. Ralph's version of biting epithets is 'metaphysical masturbation'. Beware the self-taught man. CJ ^ CB: 'Twas Marx who raised the question of who will teach the teacher. The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change [Selbstveränderung] can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
