Behaviorism, Pragmatism, Realism
steph...@mindspring.com
>
> In my original post on attmpts to
> integrate Marxism with radical behaviorism, I pointed out
> that Jerome Ulman had placed heavy emphasis on the Theses
> on Feuerbach while apparently skitting around the issue
> of the possible relationships between pragmatism and
> dialectical materialism.
Thanks for referring me back to that posting, which I will comment on below.
> Marx's assertion that "all
> mysteries which lead to mysticism find their rational solution in human
> practice and the comprehension of practice" is close to the spirit of
> radical behaviorism.
I cannot see how this comment can be interpreted as supporting pragmatism,
except by failing to consider what the difference between pragmatism and
materialism really consists in. Both take practice as the basis for
finding out about reality. This is little more than to deny an absolute
idealism. The comment is close to the spirit of each and every modern
experimental science.
> The gap between behaviorology
> and the science of history (historical materialism) can be bridged
> through Skinner's conception of culture: "A culture may be defined as
> the contingencies of social reinforcement maintained by a group. As
> such it evolves in its own way, as new cultural practices, however,
> they arise, contribute to the survival of the group, and are
> perpetuated because they do so." Social relations in this view are to
> be undertood in terms of the contingencies maintained by a group.
> Marx's sixth thesis on Feuerbach which states that "the human essence
> is no abstraction inherent in each individual. In reality, it is the
> ensemble of social relations . . ."is consistent with Skinner's
> conception of culture. By equating Marx's "ensemble of social
> relations" with Skinner's concept of culture, Ulman maintains that we
> may be able to integrate the materialistic view of the individual
> (behaviorology) with the materialistic view of history (historical
> materialism).
Again, I think you are too focused on the consistency between behaviorism
and Marxism, to the point of ignoring the fact that any number of
doctrines alternative to behaviorism are also consistent with viewing the
individual as an ensemble of social relations. (Some more so than
behaviorism. Behaviorism must give equal place to the inanimate
environment in forming the individual. Psychoanalysis, for example,
considers the personality an introjection of society, as represented by
other persons, especially in the famialy.) Here and on the point above, I
think you could use a small dose of the falsificationist spirit. You need
to show that other doctrines that might lay claim to the same
consistencies are actually inconsistent. No number of consistencies will
prove much of anything here.
Many doctrines emphasize the social environment's control over behavior.
Behaviorism, however, has a problem that most of them do *not* share, at
least as sharply. Behaviorism has a particularly hard time explaining
social change, and revolution in particular.
> But it is this kinship with pragmatism that makes all the difference
> IMO in assessing the soundness of Ulman's contention that Marxism can
> be synthesized with behaviorology. Ulman focuses in his discussion on
> Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, precisely the one writing by Marx, that has
> been cited by commentators from Marx Eastman and Sidney Hook, down to
> contemporary writers like Cornel West and Justin Schwartz as supporting
> a pragmatist interpretation of Marxism. Since the pragmatist nature of
> this document is so evident, it is perhaps not too surprising that such
> a staunch foe of the pragmatist interpretation of Marxism, Sebastiano
> Timpanaro, in his 'On Materialism' goes to great pains to downgrade the
> importance of that document in the corpus of writings left behind by
> Marx and Engels.
The pragmatist reading of that document is only evident if one ignores
that it is completely compatible with a materialist realism. The question
as I see it is, what is to be gained by interpreting Marx as a pragmatist?
Can the re-interpretation survive even the application of this pragmatic
criterion? Behaviorism has virtually completely given way to a mentalistic
cognitive psychology, not out of a Cartesian dualism (cognitive
psychologists are almost all neurophysiological reductionists in their
metaphysical commitments), but because behaviorism shoves under the rug
each and every important psychological issue. Pragmatism, analogously,
shoves the epistemological issues under the rug, because it cannot explain
the success of practice. Pragmatism has shown itself far more congenial to
reformism than revolution--how do you know in advance the revolution will
"work"? Lenin fought doctrines close to pragmatism, because he recognized
they lead to fideism.
What exactly do you find *wrong* with realism, such that you think the
issue needs to be revisited?
srd
PS Just to make sure my reputation as a dogmatic sectarian is secure, I
will also point out that embracing pragmatism means rejecting Trotky's
struggle against the Shachmanites as requiring a struggle against American
pragamtism--not to speak of rejecting some of George Novack's pamphlets!
I'm surprised rab hasn't commented.
steph...@mindspring.com
that my prescription of grounding Marxism may be equally unconventional.
The most hope I see for this is in the doctrine (I don't think it can yet
be called a science, not because of its hypothetical status, but because
of the thinness of its content).
I don't see Marxism reduced to memetics, at least any time soon. But it
bears on how Marxism is properly interpreted. One of the analytic
Marxists, George Cohen, (at least that's how I would classify him at the
time I am referencing) developed a functionalist reading of Marxism. Why
do the relations of production correspond to the economic base? The
functionalist Cohen wrote (as best as I can recall) that the relations of
production must serve the function of supporting the economic base,
because otherwise the economic base, on which human existence depends,
will not continue to exist. The problem I see is this: existence really
has nothing to do with it. Of course the relations of production will be
such as they can co-exist with the base; otherwise each would not be in
place. But, the reverse can as rightly be asserted: the base must be
consistent with the existing superstructure, or the superstructure could
not exist. And, it does. The functionalist explanation does not seem to
secure what is intended: the *primacy* of the base.
Memetics holds that most of what is human in human behavior derives from
the quasi-unique human capacity for imitation (thus the name). "Memes" are
the objects of imitation--whatever is imitated. A memetic interpretion of
Marxism would suggest that the relation between the base and
super-structure is not one of (ultimately tautological) functional
dependence, but one in which the nature of technology makes salient
certain features of conduct, such that they are imitated. This is, to
repeat, far from a reduction, but it helps show why the functional
dependence theory takes the wrong path.
What of the relation between radical behaviorism and memetics? Both are
selectionist. And, like just about everything, memetic phenomena can be
"explained" by behaviorism (where "explain" mean to find no
inconsistency). But, how would this explanation go? Behaviorists could say
imitation is "reinforced." But, if so, imitation is (according to
memetics) self-reinforcing. Nothing wrong with that, for the behaviorist,
but how does he explain which potential memes are imitated? Which acts of
imitation are "reinforcing"? He must find some criterion for reinforcement
other than the (circular) end result. He *hopes* to find the criterion in
some characteristic of the reinforced imitative act. What if there is no
criterion there? He is forced to abstract from the entire scenario in
which imitation occurs. Having made that abstraction, he can proclaim that
behaviorism has explained the imitative act. But note, the principle of
reinforcement has done precious little work in accomplishing the
abstraction, because all it has offered is the principle that imitation is
reinforced (a principle that includes the self-reinforcement of
imitation).
Taken as a formal theory, behaviorism, in explaining behavior heavily
dependent on cognition, is little more than tautology. It is, perhaps, a
little bit more than a tautology. For, who can realisistically ignore that
behaviorism gets whatever practical content it has from the fact that we
can immediately identify some reinforcers, without reference to theory?
Who in honesty can doubt that behaviorism is *really* just a way to
pretend to avoid mentalism, while surreptitiously incorporating it?
"Reinforcers" by a large are what the organism wants. It isn't really that
what the organism wants can be objectively restated as a principle of
reinforcement, because then the principle becomes a tautology, or close to
one. We know humans imitate because we observe the relation of their
behavior to a model, and then after the fact declare imitation is
self-reinforcing. Only where self-reinforcement corresponds to a want or
purpose do we have *independent* reason to think it exists, and only where
we have independent reason to think it exists does the principle of
reinforcement carry any of the explanatory load.
So, finding conduct that is *not* goal directed not only takes the content
out of behaviorism, but in any practical sense refutes it. If memetics is
true at its foundations, imitation is *not* essentially a goal directed
behavior. It is an automatic behavior.
One final point. Susan Blackmore in her book "The Meme Machine" points out
that there is nothing in theory precluding a society dominated by an
altruism meme, such that the person always puts the geneeral good ahead of
his personal good. This possibility, a very optimistic one for class
consciousness and even for full communism, does not issue from
behaviorism, except as being compatible with a tautological construal of
it. For behaviorism, the ultimate reinforcers are always "selfish."
srd
rabhegmarlen
>
> PS Just to make sure my reputation as a dogmatic sectarian is secure, I
> will also point out that embracing pragmatism means rejecting Trotky's
> struggle against the Shachmanites as requiring a struggle against American
> pragamtism--not to speak of rejecting some of George Novack's pamphlets!
>
> I'm surprised rab hasn't commented.
You have no reputation as a *dogmatic sectarian*, especially as you have
publicly announced on this newsgroup more than once that you are neither a
Marxist nor a Trotskyist. Needless to say you did defend Trotskyism against
the Stalinists recently.
As for pragmatism I think that it is very dangerous for the revolutionary
movement to even think of marrying pragmatism to dialectical materialism.
It is certainly at least as bad as what Bogdanov did in his day in the field
of philosophy. Lenin initially didn't want to take on Bogdanov but he felt
compelled to once Plekhanov had associated Bogdanov's writings with
Bolshevism, implying that the Bolsheviks had embraced idealism.
Trotsky considered the philosophical battle against pragmatism as the most
important philosophical task for his US followers although no-one followed
this up to the degree necessary, otherwise Jim F wouldn't even consider
repeating all this stuff about pragmatism. Hegel was an absolute idealist
and yet practice was an important criterion for his philosophical work. My
own reading of this newsgroup over the past two years or so suggests to me
that US Trotskyists have never really got to grips with the essential issues
on dialectical materialism, but instead seem to prefer 20th century
bourgeois philosophy to Marxism. The pivotal point is around dialectical
logic and although E V Ilyenkov wrote a whole book on the subject (compared
to Lenin's small notes) nevertheless Ilyenkov's book does contain flaws and
I will comment further when I have thought it through in more detail. The
critical point for me is Hegel's *Doctrine of Essence* and how he shows that
the formal logic of the Schoolmen lead into the very opposite assumptions
to the laws proposed. Healy could think dialectically but his writing (and
presumably thinking too) was often clumsy and badly expressed. We still
have yet to extract the best of Healy who surpassed Novack but was not as
polished.
As for pragmatism in politics - that has much more in common with Stalinism
than Trotskyism - the Trotskyists *dreamed* of world revolution whilst the
Stalinists got on with the job of *socialism in one country*. It can mean
the difference between principled and unprincipled politics as virtually
anything can be justified in the name of *pragmatism*.
rab
--
Roger Blackwell, Norwich, Britain
Excite Chat ID: rabhegmarlen1, ICQ 71780619
http://www.blackwell23.freeserve.co.uk
deb...@gis.net
<stephend15-03...@user-2inisjj.dialup.mindspring.com>,
>
> I don't see Marxism reduced to memetics, at least any time soon. But
> it
> bears on how Marxism is properly interpreted. One of the analytic
> Marxists, George Cohen, (at least that's how I would classify him at
> the
> time I am referencing) developed a functionalist reading of Marxism.
Regarding the Analytic Marxists and selectionist interpretations
of historical materialism. The Analytic Marxist Alan Carling
has developed an explicitly selectionist interpretation of
historical materialism which I briefly outlined in a post
on Proyect's Marxism List (http://www.marxmail.org) sometime
ago. Here it is.
Jim F.
__________________
On Tue, 26 Dec 2000 20:08:14 -0500 " George Snedeker"
<sned...@concentric.net> writes:
> Marx often used metaphors of growth and development "seeds." do
> these
> metaphors constitute a theory of social evolution? did feudalism
> evolve into
> capitalism? I don't think so. what is the principle of social
> evolution?
The British Analytical Marxist, Alan Carling, has
developed an explicitly evolutionist and selectionist
interpretation of historical materialism. (See Carling's
papers "Analytical Marxism and Historical Materialism:
The Debate on Social Evolution" in
Science & Society, 57:1 (Spring 1993), pp. 31-65. And "The
Strength of Historical Materialism: A Comment," Science &
Society, 58:1 (Spring 1994), pp. 60-72. Also, see his
book *Social Division* (London: Verso, 1992)).
For Carling, an evolutionary version of historical materialism
contains the following items:
i) Human nature is socially located and constrained
such that its occurrence
within particular relations of production will impose a
characteristic law of
development (or non-development) on each mode of
production - its "law of motion."
ii) The question of the origin of a mode of production
must be separated from the question of its subsequent
reproduction that is uts survival and/or expansion
in relation with other modes.
iii) The explanation for historical change must be selectionist.
iv) What Carling calls the Intentional Primacy Thesis which he
attributes to G.A. Cohen must be replaced by a Competitve
Primacy Thesis which asserts that the mode of production that
prevails is the one containing the most highly developed
forces of production.
v) The Competive Primacy Thesis implies that relations attached
to superior forces never or at least rarely, lose out to
relations attached to inferior forces.
> why get trapped by teleological arguments about history.
I don't think that Carling would see his selectionist version
of historical materialism as being any more teleological
than is Darwinian biology. Both recognize that historical
change occurs through a dialectic between necessity
and contingency.
>it is one
> thing to
> look back to see patterns of development which may have led up
> to
> the
> present form of society. it is quite another to see these as
> necessary.
> society is not a tree.
>
Sent via Deja.com
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deb...@gis.net
<stephend15-03...@user-2initce.dialup.mindspring.com>,
steph...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> PS Just to make sure my reputation as a dogmatic sectarian is secure,
I
> will also point out that embracing pragmatism means rejecting Trotky's
> struggle against the Shachmanites as requiring a struggle against
American
> pragamtism--not to speak of rejecting some of George Novack's
pamphlets!
I think that part of the problem with that debate as it
took place in the late 1930s was both sides seemed to assume
that pragmatism was necessarily incompatible with dialectics.
Thus Hook held that dialectics as such was to be rejected
as being inconsistent with formal logic. This philosophical
position in turn apparently made it easy to embrace Shachtman's
positions concerning bureacratic collectivism.
Trotsky & Novack, I think quite correctly held that
a dialectical understanding of the transition from
capitalism to socialism eliminated the necessity for
the positing of such entities as the bureacratic collectivism
of Shachtman & Burnham for understanding the trajectory
of the Soviet Union. They on the other hand seemed to think that
a commitment to pragmatism necessarily excluded the
acceptance of dialectics. Both Trotsky and Novack held
that dialectics consituted a logic that was contrary to
formal logic and which was superior to it. I think that
view was in error. I think that dialectics, properly
understood is quite compatible with formal logic (dialectica
contradictions are not necessarily to be equated with
contradictions in formal logic). And such a position
concerning the relations between formal logic and dialectics
can IMO be squared with a pragmatist epistemology.
Jim F.
>
> I'm surprised rab hasn't commented.
>
steph...@mindspring.com
> For Carling, an evolutionary version of historical materialism
> contains the following items:
>
> i) Human nature is socially located and constrained
> such that its occurrence
> within particular relations of production will impose a
> characteristic law of
> development (or non-development) on each mode of
> production - its "law of motion."
>
> ii) The question of the origin of a mode of production
> must be separated from the question of its subsequent
> reproduction that is uts survival and/or expansion
> in relation with other modes.
>
> iii) The explanation for historical change must be selectionist.
>
> iv) What Carling calls the Intentional Primacy Thesis which he
> attributes to G.A. Cohen must be replaced by a Competitve
> Primacy Thesis which asserts that the mode of production that
> prevails is the one containing the most highly developed
> forces of production.
>
> v) The Competive Primacy Thesis implies that relations attached
> to superior forces never or at least rarely, lose out to
> relations attached to inferior forces.
Something like a competitive primacy thesis has at least since Hayek been
a weapon of conservatives. I don't see how you can separate the origin and
reproduction of a mode of production and still get a relationship as close
as Marxism posits. There aren't nearly as many cultural experiments are
there are genes (but, at least by hypothesis, there are a great many
competing memes).
What especially seems to go wrong is the explanation of socialist
revolution. There are no socialist societies developing in the bosom of
capitalism, as Marx emphasize in distinguishing the transition from
capitalism to socialism from feudalism to capitalism.
>
>
> > why get trapped by teleological arguments about history.
ty is not a tree.
> >
I just want to note that the why question above was not mine.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
> In article
> <stephend15-03...@user-2initce.dialup.mindspring.com>,
> steph...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
> >
> > PS Just to make sure my reputation as a dogmatic sectarian is secure,
> I
> > will also point out that embracing pragmatism means rejecting Trotky's
> > struggle against the Shachmanites as requiring a struggle against
> American
> > pragamtism--not to speak of rejecting some of George Novack's
> pamphlets!
>
> I think that part of the problem with that debate as it
> took place in the late 1930s was both sides seemed to assume
> that pragmatism was necessarily incompatible with dialectics.
Let me ask you this, dialectics or no. Pragmatism has almost always been
conceived as a handmaiden of reformism. Do you really think this was a big
mistake?
OK, on to dialectics, sort of. The Shachmanites opposition to dialectics
and their pragmatism were, if I am not mistaken, tow more or less
separate issues--two reasons why they got the Soviet Union wrong. Their
anti-dialectics made them unable to distinguish where quantitative change
did and did not lead to qualitative change. It produced the error of
"formalism." Their pragmatism made them the vessels of bourgeois public
opinion, which they adapted to as censtrists do--that is with an
ultimately reformist outlook, based on equating appearing with essence.
That a relationship between formalism and pragmatism can be stated in
dialectical terms unifies the criticisms, but doesn't equate them.
Pragmatists inevitably turn out looking at things in the manner of Barry
Stoller: look at the gains produced by this or that approach (in his case,
the approach of the Soviet bureaucracy) and don't bother with theoretical
arcana, which have no practically demonstrated track record. They take
this stance even while not attacking dialectics in the manner of Burnham.
srd
deb...@gis.net
steph...@mindspring.com wrote:
>Something like a competitive primacy thesis has at least since Hayek
been
>a weapon of conservatives. I don't see how you can separate the origin
and
>reproduction of a mode of production and still get a relationship as
close
>as Marxism posits. There aren't nearly as many cultural experiments are
>there are genes (but, at least by hypothesis, there are a great many
>competing memes).
For Carling, class struggle is the generator of new "mutations"
in the social relations of production. These "mutations"
are then subsequently subjected to selection on the
basis of whether or not they prove to be more efficient
in relation to competiting regimes of production. Thus,
socialism may appear from time to time in different
places depending on the outcomes of local class struggles
(in which the proletariat is able to defeat the bourgeoisie)
but socialism will not triumph over capitalism unless
it is the case that it turns out to be a more efficient
regime of production than capitalism.
Carling in his Science & Society papers, though discussed
the transition from feudalism to capitalism much more
extensively than he did the transition from capitalism
to socialism. He argued that the Competitve Primacy
Thesis can provide a way for resolving the debate over
the transition from feudalism to capitalism that has
been ongoing ever since Maurice Dobb and Paul Sweezy
square off over it in the pages of Monthly Review back
in the 1950s. Carling contends that his slectionist
interpretation of Marxism gives us a way for synthesizing
the "Smithianism" of Sweezy (and later writers like
Wallerstein) with the "relations of production" view
associated with Dobb and Brenner.
>
>What especially seems to go wrong is the explanation of socialist
>revolution. There are no socialist societies developing in the bosom of
>capitalism, as Marx emphasize in distinguishing the transition from
>capitalism to socialism from feudalism to capitalism.
>
It seems to me that Lenin & Trotsky's notion of the
"weak kink" is quite compatible with Carling's thesis.
And if we conceive of capitalism as a global system,
then it seems that we can then view the occasional
appearance of socialism within particular countries
(i.e. USSR, China, Cuba etc.) as outbreaks of socialism
within the bosom of global capitalism, occuring on
the basis of local class struggles.
Jim F.
>srd
-------------------------------------------
rabhegmarlen
Both Trotsky and Novack held
> that dialectics consituted a logic that was contrary to
> formal logic and which was superior to it. I think that
> view was in error. I think that dialectics, properly
> understood is quite compatible with formal logic (dialectica
> contradictions are not necessarily to be equated with
> contradictions in formal logic). And such a position
> concerning the relations between formal logic and dialectics
> can IMO be squared with a pragmatist epistemology.
Imagine this analogy (and it is no more than that). Complex numbers in
mathematics are composed of real and imaginary numbers and allow mathematics
to do things that couldn't be done with real numbers alone. Dialectical
logic is composed of formal logical propositions and formally illogical
propositions and can do for human thought things that formal logic cannot
do. If I say A = A then that is formally true, a tautology but formally
true. If I say that A is not equal to A then it is formally illogical even
though, as Trotsky explained, no two A's can be exactly the same in
practice. What dialectics is doing is combining the two. Whenever Trotsky
wanted to explain dialectics he went back to formal logic and analogies to
explain his case. However, that in itself is not dialectics. I have read
many works by Soviet and US authors that reduce the explanation of
dialectics to formal logic but they never get beyond formal logic in fact
and simply emasculate dialectics. (Bertell Ollman springs to mind, but many
more Soviet authors did this.) Contradiction in formal logic and dialectics
is both the same and not the same by the very same dialectical principle
mentioned above. This cannot and will not ever be squared with pragmatism.
rab (It seems to me that mathematicians have been far bolder in breaking
their own rules than formal logicians who dare not step over the line laid
down by Aristotle).
wen...@my-deja.com
Perhaps Ilyenkov was close to behaviourism when he wrote:'It is the
world of the products of human labour in the constantly renewed act of
its reproduction that is, as Marx said, 'the perceptibly existing human
psychology': and any psychology to which this 'open book' of human
psychology remains unknown, cannot be a real science.'
I don't necessarily agree with all of Ilyenkov's formulations as it
appears to me that he is trying to *bend Marx to his own purposes*.
wensin
deb...@gis.net
deb...@gis.net wrote:
> It seems to me that Lenin & Trotsky's notion of the
> "weak kink" is quite compatible with Carling's thesis.
I meant to type "weak link."
> And if we conceive of capitalism as a global system,
> then it seems that we can then view the occasional
> appearance of socialism within particular countries
> (i.e. USSR, China, Cuba etc.) as outbreaks of socialism
> within the bosom of global capitalism, occuring on
> the basis of local class struggles.
Carling in his Science & Society articles did attribute
the fall of the USSR to its failure to develop a form
of socialism that that had greater productive efficiency
than capitalism. However, given the deformations
that the Soviet variety developed given the facts of
political and economic isolation and underdevelopment,
it does not follow that future outbreaks of socialism
are necessarily doomed to follow the Soviet trajectory.
steph...@mindspring.com
> For Carling, class struggle is the generator of new "mutations"
> in the social relations of production. These "mutations"
> are then subsequently subjected to selection on the
> basis of whether or not they prove to be more efficient
> in relation to competiting regimes of production.
Here are what I think are some of the implications:
1. A workers state is not to be in general expected to be more efficient
than a capitalist state. In fact, the opposite, since the extant form of
the capitalist state has survived natural selection, but an arbitrarily
selected workers state has not.
2. Most workers states should therefore not be defended against
capitalism, since, if they are not the right kind of mutation, the are
regressive.
3. A great many workers states will have to fail before a defensible one
comes into existence.
4. It will take a great deal of time before a defensible workers state
comes into existence.
5. Capitalism will have lapsed into barbarism before a defensible workers
state has come into existence.
True or not, these positions have little in common with Marxism and Trotskyism.
There is perhaps a way around the pessimistic implications. As capitalism
declines, it becomes less efficient, and it becomes easier for a workers
state to exceed it. Analogizing to biology, the loss of fitness of a
competitor increases the fitness of a species. But this represents at most
a glimmer of hope, since the decline is rapid, and the number of states to
be generated is immense before anything like natural selection comes into
play enough to be an explanatory principle.
Another implication: the form of workers state that does triumph need not
be, and will most probably not be, anywhere close to optimal. It requires
only a small competitive advantage over capitalism.
The odds will always be overwhelming that any mutation (as is the case
with biological mutations) will be worse than what exists, as what exists
has been the product of milennia of years of selection. The theory
provides a strong argument *against* social change, in favor of the status
quo.
It is instructive to ask why the theory provides an argument for
conservatism. The reason is that the supporters of progressive change,
from liberals to revolutionist, *require* (it seems to me) the postulate
that man can control his destiny. That is, after all, what socialism is
about. If he cannot:
1. Any change is likely to be for the worse
2. Perhaps most significantly, a *system* which tries to take conscious
control over the historical process is undesirable, because progressive
change can occur anly through selection. This point might be attacked by
arguing that a system in which directed change is possible is *itself*
selectable. I think someone like Carling would argue that. The problem is,
once it is assumed that generally mutation and natural selection is
required for progressive change, there is little reason to except change
within a socialist system itself. That would be to say the establishment
of socialism as a progressive system occurs substantially by chance, but
the guidance of such a system once in place does not--but why should that
be the case, since in each the working class is trying to exert its
conscious will.
Although I am not one to reject a theory because it has consequences I
don't like, I want to note that the effect such a theory would have on
revolutionary movements would be devastating. Dow many would be willing to
risk their lives because the struggle has a miniscule probability of
success. And that's leaving out the greater likelihood it will make
matters worse.
Finally, and probably most importantly, what reason would there be to
expect any *possible* workers state to superior to capitalism? The reason
socialism is superior to capitalism boils down to the fact that under
socialism men take rational charge of the forces of production. If
outcomes are only selectable, and not subject to rational planning, why
think the best socialism will be superior to the best capitalism.
Capitalism, after all, has built into *itself* a selectionist principle,
called capitalist competition, where enterprises that are less productive
fail, whereas socialism *depends* on rational planning.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
However, given the deformations
> that the Soviet variety developed given the facts of
> political and economic isolation and underdevelopment,
> it does not follow that future outbreaks of socialism
> are necessarily doomed to follow the Soviet trajectory.
Not necessarily; only unlikely.
If social systems are mutations, explainable on selectionist principles,
there is no learning from the past. If there is learning from the past,
what is the reason for embracing selectionism?
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
<rabheg...@uk.pocket.com> wrote:
Dialectical
> logic is composed of formal logical propositions and formally illogical
> propositions and can do for human thought things that formal logic cannot
> do. If I say A = A then that is formally true, a tautology but formally
> true. If I say that A is not equal to A then it is formally illogical even
> though, as Trotsky explained, no two A's can be exactly the same in
> practice. What dialectics is doing is combining the two.
Might it not be clearer, and strictly speaking more accurate, to say that
formal tautologies are NOT *truths* at all. The use of the term "true" for
propositions in formal logic and for items of knowledge about the world is
something of a confusion. What is truth? Truth consists of propositions
that accord with the facts; more perspicuously, that correspond to
(reflect) the world. A equals A, as a proposition in formal logic, tells
us nothing about the world. Taken as a statement about the world, it is
false. It must be strictly quarantined from substantive truth.
Substantively, A equals not-A--this expresses an implication of the fact
the world constantly changes: there are no points in time.
Unlike the difference between propositions in systems including only real
numbers and those including imaginary numbers (each system is one of
formal pseudo-truth) real truth and formal pseudo-truth are not
differences in *scope*, but differences of kind.
Dialectical reasoning must obey the rules of formal logic, on pain of
denying tautologies, and thus lapsing into error. But although formal
logic must be obeyed if truth is to be found and asserted, formal logic
does not consist in truths, in the realist sense of the term.
The fact that two very different concepts, truth and tautology, are lumped
together in ordinary usage as about "truth" testifies to the tendency to
confuse tautology with substantive truth. Dialectics is about
disambiguating the two concepts, and recognizing how the failure to
disambiguate them has led to error.
srd
PS I think it was Bertrand Russell who called Hegel the arch-muddler of
thought. I have a different candidate: Quine. He, more than any modern
philosopher I can think of, stood for confusing truth with tautology,
rejecting even the watered down distinction as one between analytic truth
and synthetic truth.
steph...@mindspring.com
<stephend15-04...@user-2initdi.dialup.mindspring.com>,
steph...@mindspring.com wrote:
The use of the term "true" for
> propositions in formal logic and for items of knowledge about the world is
> something of a confusion. What is truth? Truth consists of propositions
> that accord with the facts; more perspicuously, that correspond to
> (reflect) the world. A equals A, as a proposition in formal logic, tells
> us nothing about the world. Taken as a statement about the world, it is
> false. It must be strictly quarantined from substantive truth.
> Substantively, A equals not-A--this expresses an implication of the fact
> the world constantly changes: there are no points in time.
>
As much as I can recall, Trotsky too considered formal logic as such
false. On this question I think there might have been a difference between
Wohlforth and Healy. Healy saw dialectics as supplementing formal logic;
Wohlforth as being inconsistent with it. At a national conference one
comrade asked, "If we do not use formal logic to think with, what do we
use." Wohlforth's answer, "Dialectical logic."
We don't "think with" formal logic. To preserve truth, our thinking must
not contravene formal logic. I'm not sure Healy would agree.
Healy obscured the distinction between what formal logic and dialectical
logic *do*. This served him well, because when caught in a formal
contradiction, he could plead dialectics.
RAB is correct, in my opinion, that pragmatism is not compatible with
dialectics. This is ultimately because pragmatism applies the same
criterion to logical "truth" and actual truth. It has no basis for drawing
a distinction at all, because it cannot describe the set of propositions
than correspond to the world as uniquely true. Pragmatists are prone to
think they can escape unscathed from formal contradiction, because they
think of formal constraints as being as malleable as are concepts that
reflect the world. It is their unwillingness to take their ideas to their
formal logical conclusions that leads them to abhor "sectarian" theorizing
(most of which consists of polemics about what Marxist principles formally
imply).
Empiricists swing the other way. Formal truths are everywhere; deep
questions are solved by the meaning, empirical or otherwise, of concepts.
They differ from rationalists only in that they go for empirical meaning,
and rationalists go for the "otherwise."
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
time from science, concerns the wave-particle duality. That an entity can
be at once both is formally contradictory bothers few experimental
physicists and few philosophers of science. It is all in the mathematics,
and it works. But until you have a coherent concept of the mechanism (and
our concepts of waves and particles is mutually exclusive) we don't really
have a theory, but only a calculus. Few care about it. Experimental
physics is dominated by pragmatism.
Psychology, on the other hand, has often been empiricist--denying the
existence of unconscious mention, for example, based on the supposed
conceptual identity of mind and consciousness. This denial can proceed
along empiricist or rationalist lines.
srd
deb...@gis.net
Why would selectionism exclude learning from the past?
After all, as you well know Skinnerian learning theory
is of course, selectionist.
Jim F.
>
> srd
steph...@mindspring.com
> Why would selectionism exclude learning from the past?
> After all, as you well know Skinnerian learning theory
> is of course, selectionist.
Learning, for Skinner, is the selection of behaviors. To the extent the
behaviors are appropriate to the environment, they is learned. Learning
from the past refers to the influence of previous instances of
reinforcement on present behavior. It isn't that the organism uses the
past to anticipate the future, but that what was reinforced in the past
*remains*. Future behavior is constrained by its reinforcement history,
but *new* behavior requires the reinforcement of essentially randamly
produced behaviors. There is no learning from the past in any sense other
than the retention of past reinforced behaviors. Reinforcement and random
production remain the only basic principles; there is no learning
super-imposed.
The evolution of societies also would retain past successes (to make the
analogy, but see below). Changes from those past successes would, as with
behavior, be essentially random; consistent change, actual social
evolution, would take place where the new cultural traits are reinforced.
The society doesn't decide to try this reform or radical change because it
or anybody within it reasons that the change is a good bet.
There is in *that* sense no learning from the past. There is no guided
creation of the mutations; that would make the selectionism redundant. The
potential waste is on a far larger scale.
There is one way in which the selectionist model for societies eliminates
learning from the past, more so than the behaviorist model. Behaviors can
become better adapted because of small steps improve their adaptation; so
with the adaptation of organisms. But a social revolution stands or falls
as a whole. A defeated revolution, because it failed to develop the forces
of production, is replaced by the superior system, which exercises
hegemony. Nothing need be (or will be in general) retained of the old.
Such a defeated revolution, therefore, could NOT learn from its past. It
is back to square one in producing an adaptive mutaation. That's what I
meant that as a practical matter, the societies could not learn from the
past.
srd
rabhegmarlen
> PS I think it was Bertrand Russell who called Hegel the arch-muddler of
> thought. I have a different candidate: Quine. He, more than any modern
> philosopher I can think of, stood for confusing truth with tautology,
> rejecting even the watered down distinction as one between analytic truth
> and synthetic truth.
The fact that Bertrand Russell was unable to understand Hegel is of no
concern to me. The fact that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, did
understand Hegel is far more important. Hegel did not refer to tautologies
as being true as such but merely to those that take them to be true and
rigidly adhere to them. My expression was merely an abbreviation. Lenin
considered dialectics to be a property of human thought in general but all
Marxists were agreed that in Hegel it found its most consistent expression
albeit in an idealist manner dealing with the movement of concepts rather
than the external world. Formal logic AND dialectics can be found
everywhere anything of substance is written but to the untrained observer
dialectical contradictions just seem an absurdity.
rab
rabhegmarlen
> The use of the term "true" for
> > propositions in formal logic and for items of knowledge about the world
is
> > something of a confusion. What is truth? Truth consists of propositions
> > that accord with the facts; more perspicuously, that correspond to
> > (reflect) the world. A equals A, as a proposition in formal logic, tells
> > us nothing about the world. Taken as a statement about the world, it is
> > false. It must be strictly quarantined from substantive truth.
> > Substantively, A equals not-A--this expresses an implication of the fact
> > the world constantly changes: there are no points in time.
> >
> As much as I can recall, Trotsky too considered formal logic as such
> false. On this question I think there might have been a difference between
> Wohlforth and Healy. Healy saw dialectics as supplementing formal logic;
> Wohlforth as being inconsistent with it. At a national conference one
> comrade asked, "If we do not use formal logic to think with, what do we
> use." Wohlforth's answer, "Dialectical logic."
>
> We don't "think with" formal logic. To preserve truth, our thinking must
> not contravene formal logic. I'm not sure Healy would agree.
>
> Healy obscured the distinction between what formal logic and dialectical
> logic *do*. This served him well, because when caught in a formal
> contradiction, he could plead dialectics.
More the other way round. Healy actively looked for the contradiction
within a thing, phenomena etc., to find its *essence*. To see the opposing
sides is to find the source of movement, development etc. The statement "to
preserve truth, our thinking must not contravene formal logic" is idealist
because it puts the idea, logic, logos, etc. BEFORE objective reality
whereas for materialism the idea is developed from objective reality and
that includes our logic. Historically speaking logic did not precede the
world of matter. If you concede that then you are religious to all intents
and purposes. Logic itself only developed out of millions of years of human
practice and despite all assertions to the contrary, by die-hard logical
conservatives, it is still developing today.
rab
rabhegmarlen
news:stephend15-04...@user-2iniul1.dialup.mindspring.com...
> Another example of how pragmatism leads to a fudging on formal logic, this
> time from science, concerns the wave-particle duality. That an entity can
> be at once both is formally contradictory bothers few experimental
> physicists and few philosophers of science. It is all in the mathematics,
> and it works. But until you have a coherent concept of the mechanism (and
> our concepts of waves and particles is mutually exclusive) we don't really
> have a theory, but only a calculus. Few care about it. Experimental
> physics is dominated by pragmatism.
It is not really the *job* of experimental physicists to solve the problem
of wave-particle duality but rather the theoretical physicists and the
philosophers of science both of whom have failed to explain this phenomena
in terms of formal logic. Both wave mechanics and the science of particles
arose from the study of much larger phenomena than were confronted in the
world of atomic particles and waves. It has to remembered that particles
and waves are merely analogies for phenomena that are presently better
understood through the medium of mathematics than they are through concepts
and categories. If the theoretical physicists were to undertake a study of
dialectics then their presentation of waves and particles in terms of
concepts and categories could be greatly improved. Soviet scientists only
got so far with this difficult task but it is one that needs to be
continually worked on to achieve lasting results. Experimental physics is
currently dominated by an eclectic mixture of philosophies rather than any
*consistent* pragmatism. (If pragmatism could ever be considered as
consistent that is.)
rab
steph...@mindspring.com
<rabheg...@uk.pocket.com> wrote:
The statement "to
> preserve truth, our thinking must not contravene formal logic" is idealist
> because it puts the idea, logic, logos, etc. BEFORE objective reality
> whereas for materialism the idea is developed from objective reality and
> that includes our logic. Historically speaking logic did not precede the
> world of matter. If you concede that then you are religious to all intents
> and purposes. Logic itself only developed out of millions of years of human
> practice and despite all assertions to the contrary, by die-hard logical
> conservatives, it is still developing today.
>
Deductive logic is not an idea. It is a set of constraints. The
constraints have existed at least as long as homo sapiens. What has
developed and continues to develop in deductive logic is the formalization
of the constraints. Matter existed long before homo sapiens.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
<rabheg...@uk.pocket.com> wrote:
> <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> > PS I think it was Bertrand Russell who called Hegel the arch-muddler of
> > thought. I have a different candidate: Quine. He, more than any modern
> > philosopher I can think of, stood for confusing truth with tautology,
> > rejecting even the watered down distinction as one between analytic truth
> > and synthetic truth.
>
> The fact that Bertrand Russell was unable to understand Hegel is of no
> concern to me. The fact that Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, did
> understand Hegel is far more important. Hegel did not refer to tautologies
> as being true as such but merely to those that take them to be true and
> rigidly adhere to them.
That's what I am saying.
My expression was merely an abbreviation. Lenin
> considered dialectics to be a property of human thought in general but all
> Marxists were agreed that in Hegel it found its most consistent expression
> albeit in an idealist manner dealing with the movement of concepts rather
> than the external world. Formal logic AND dialectics can be found
> everywhere anything of substance is written but to the untrained observer
> dialectical contradictions just seem an absurdity.
>
Dialectical contradictions generally do not sound absurd, at least not
when explained in ordinary Engilsh, as contrasted with Hegelian jargon.
When you find yourself uttering apparent absurditities, there is an
excellent chance you have contravened formal logic. Please supply an
example of a dialectical truth, stated in ordinary Engilsh, that sound
absurd. Or, if you think some dialectical truths require an absurd
sounding ) Hegelian jargon (absurd sounding to those not trained in
Hegelian philosophy), please supply one of those.
My posting was about Russell only tangentially. Essentially, it was about
Quine. If you think the most influential philosopher in the second half of
the twentieth century *ought* to be ignored instead of exposed, you need
an argument.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
<rabheg...@uk.pocket.com> wrote:
It has to remembered that particles
> and waves are merely analogies for phenomena that are presently better
> understood through the medium of mathematics than they are through concepts
> and categories.
So it is said by the pragmatists dominant in experimental physics--and to
a less substantial degree in theoretical physics. Scientific theorizing
proceeds by analogy. Mathematical formulas do not by themselves produce
understanding, or even predictions (without *some* mechanism based on
analogy, to which the formulas are applied. Formulas never provide a
scientifically sufficient description of a phenomena--thus the dominant
interpretations of quantum mechanics do not provide a theory of quanta,
but only of the measurement of their behavior--and that only partially
(see PS)). The fact that quanta are not understood is widely admitted;
quantum mechanics, apart from the predictions it makes, is obscure,
without real insight, and requires the assumption (if it is taken
seriously as a *theory*) that quanta "know" in advance how they will be
measured in the future. It generates paradoxes, such as Schroedinger's
(sp?) cat, in which the cat must be in a half alive, half dead state,
until a measurement is made, where the cat's life depends on a quantum
phenomenon.
Quantum mechanics is an excellent example of a discipline in which formal
contradictions are welcomed as "dialectical" by opportunist Marxists,
ready to claim any accepted scientific discovery as telling in their
favor. One of the reasons some "dialecticians" welcome the dominant
interpretations of quantum mechanics is that these interpretations are
indeed abusrd, reinforcing the "dialecticians'" belief that they too can
utter absurdities, yet be correct in them.
No--for the cat to be neither dead nor not-dead is a formal contradiction,
and not a dialectical one. (An organism might be said to be partly dead,
such as where it is brain dead, but its heart continues to beat, but
that's a different matter--a matter that has something of a dialectical
character. It is not absurd. To the *extent* that the organism is dead, it
is not-not-dead).
srd
PS The view that mathematical formulae can alone describe phenomena, that
a science can be quantitative without a qualitative aspect, is rejected
even by most pragmatists. That is why the wave-particle duality is noted
as such in almost all scientific discussions of quantum mechanics. The
mathematics do NOT substitute for the qualitative description, and the
formal contradiction cannot be avoided, except by extreme means. The
quantum has a wave quality until it is measured; then it has a particle
quality. This is no mere shorthand for he mathematics; it requires a
qualitative understanding of what *constitutes* a measurement. What
constitutes a measurement is not described mathematically. Certain
interactions are termed "measurements" on an ad hoc basis.
steph...@mindspring.com
> It is not really the *job* of experimental physicists to solve the problem
> of wave-particle duality but rather the theoretical physicists and the
> philosophers of science both of whom have failed to explain this phenomena
> in terms of formal logic.
Experimental physicists overwhelmingly swear by the pragmatist Copenhagen
interpretation.
They can choose which theories they prefer to test.
Experimental physics is
> currently dominated by an eclectic mixture of philosophies rather than any
> *consistent* pragmatism. (If pragmatism could ever be considered as
> consistent that is.)
>
The Copenhagen interpretation is overwhelmingly dominant. It is pragmatist
to the core.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
Logic itself only developed out of millions of years of human
> practice and despite all assertions to the contrary, by die-hard logical
> conservatives, it is still developing today.
>
This point, if I interpret you correctly, might take us to the crux of the
matter. You say logic, by which you mean deductive logic as well as
dialectical logic, continues to develop today.
Looking now at deductive logic, the logic that is only formalized in what
is called formal logic, a question is what are the grounds for considering
a change in its structure a 'development'? My view is that deductive logic
itself is a biological phenomenon--the result of organic evolution. It has
no content; it evolved as a mechanism whereby the truth of beliefs could
be partly checked by their consistency with deductive norms. By placing
constraints on thought, it allows thought to be partly verified by its
accordance with the constraints. An anology: I add up a column of figures
from top to bottom. Then I add them from bottom to top. If the figures
equal, that tells me nothing substantive about the results, but if they do
NOT equal, I know I have erred. The "trick" of adding in both directions
serves the same function as deductive logic, which is a "trick" built into
the human nervous system (In the previous post, I should have written homo
sapiens sapiens; I do not presume to know how Neanderthal man thought.)
There is no development of deductive logic; there is only development in
our understanding of it, which is an understanding of the trick built into
the nervous system--an understanding which helps us make better use of the
trick.
You seem to want to say deductive logic itself develops. But what makes a
supposed change in deductive logic a development? Knowledge of the world
develops when it more accurately and completely reflects the world. I
cannot but conclude that you implicitly believe that deductive logic also
reflects the world. (Formal logic does reflect the world--that part of the
world that is the constraints on thought imposed by deductive logic.) That
is the only way I can see for deductive logic to develop. Can you supply a
different criterion for its development?
srd
rabhegmarlen
> Quantum mechanics is an excellent example of a discipline in which formal
> contradictions are welcomed as "dialectical" by opportunist Marxists,
> ready to claim any accepted scientific discovery as telling in their
> favor. One of the reasons some "dialecticians" welcome the dominant
> interpretations of quantum mechanics is that these interpretations are
> indeed abusrd, reinforcing the "dialecticians'" belief that they too can
> utter absurdities, yet be correct in them.
The fact that the objective world contains contradictions is essential for
all Marxists. The fact that science provides examples is not *opportunism*
but merely shows that natural science is moving inch by inch toward a
dialectical understanding of nature. Engels used all kinds of examples from
the natural science of his day yet you don't raise objections to that.
In any case, you cannot force natural scientific discoveries to abide by
your formal logic. It is natural science that drives forward philosophy and
not the other way round (even though philosophy can predict natural
scientific discoveries centuries later).
rab
--
rabhegmarlen
> >
> Dialectical contradictions generally do not sound absurd, at least not
> when explained in ordinary Engilsh, as contrasted with Hegelian jargon.
> When you find yourself uttering apparent absurditities, there is an
> excellent chance you have contravened formal logic. Please supply an
> example of a dialectical truth, stated in ordinary Engilsh, that sound
> absurd. Or, if you think some dialectical truths require an absurd
> sounding ) Hegelian jargon (absurd sounding to those not trained in
> Hegelian philosophy), please supply one of those.
'He who can buy bravery is brave, though he be a coward. As money is not
exchanged for any one specific quality, for any one specific thing, or for
any particular human essential power, but for the entire objective world of
man and nature, from the standpoint of its possessor it therefore serves to
exchange every quality for every other, even contradictory, quality and
object: it is the fraternisation of impossibilities. It makes
contradictions embrace.' (Marx: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
1844, Progress Publishers, 1977, page 132)
Now, a friend of mine read that piece over 20 years ago, declared it absurd
and gave up on the whole book. Needless to say he wasn't really interested
in Marxism or even reading anything to *tax* his brain.
> My posting was about Russell only tangentially. Essentially, it was about
> Quine. If you think the most influential philosopher in the second half of
> the twentieth century *ought* to be ignored instead of exposed, you need
> an argument.
Influential to whom? US universities? Certainly not to Marxists. Any 20th
century philosophy that ignores dialectics is bound to be *one-sided*. I
might just as well say anyone who ignores Heraclitus *needs an argument*.
We all pick and choose to some extent. I have ignored Quine, please tell me
what I am missing.
steph...@mindspring.com
<rabheg...@uk.pocket.com> wrote:
> <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote
> > >
> > Dialectical contradictions generally do not sound absurd, at least not
> > when explained in ordinary Engilsh, as contrasted with Hegelian jargon.
> > When you find yourself uttering apparent absurditities, there is an
> > excellent chance you have contravened formal logic. Please supply an
> > example of a dialectical truth, stated in ordinary Engilsh, that sound
> > absurd. Or, if you think some dialectical truths require an absurd
> > sounding ) Hegelian jargon (absurd sounding to those not trained in
> > Hegelian philosophy), please supply one of those.
>
> 'He who can buy bravery is brave, though he be a coward. As money is not
> exchanged for any one specific quality, for any one specific thing, or for
> any particular human essential power, but for the entire objective world of
> man and nature, from the standpoint of its possessor it therefore serves to
> exchange every quality for every other, even contradictory, quality and
> object: it is the fraternisation of impossibilities. It makes
> contradictions embrace.' (Marx: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of
> 1844, Progress Publishers, 1977, page 132)
>
> Now, a friend of mine read that piece over 20 years ago, declared it absurd
> and gave up on the whole book. Needless to say he wasn't really interested
> in Marxism or even reading anything to *tax* his brain.
>
Paraphrase in ordinary English:
Because money is a truly universal medium of exchange, money allows its
possessor to buy the semblance of any trait, even where one trait is
incompatible with others.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
This goes to the heart of our difference. You consider my view of formal
logic rationalist; I think you embrace formal contradiction, as a
pragmatist. The best of the scientists, from Einstein to Schroedinger,
reject your "contradictions," which allow any claim to stand by waving the
wand of "dialectics." They too tried to "force" science into a formally
consistent mold.
We'll see if and how you answer my question about the manner in which
logic can be said to develop. That question, more than any other, should
help clarify this difference.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
> <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> > Quantum mechanics is an excellent example of a discipline in which formal
> > contradictions are welcomed as "dialectical" by opportunist Marxists,
> > ready to claim any accepted scientific discovery as telling in their
> > favor. One of the reasons some "dialecticians" welcome the dominant
> > interpretations of quantum mechanics is that these interpretations are
> > indeed abusrd, reinforcing the "dialecticians'" belief that they too can
> > utter absurdities, yet be correct in them.
>
> The fact that the objective world contains contradictions is essential for
> all Marxists. The fact that science provides examples is not *opportunism*
> but merely shows that natural science is moving inch by inch toward a
> dialectical understanding of nature. Engels used all kinds of examples from
> the natural science of his day yet you don't raise objections to that.
What exactly recommends the term "contradiction"? What do you say formal
and dialectical contradctions have in common to warrants and make it
elucidating to use a single term for the two? Notice this is a question;
it is intend to assert no belief on the subject.
>
> In any case, you cannot force natural scientific discoveries to abide by
> your formal logic. It is natural science that drives forward philosophy and
> not the other way round (even though philosophy can predict natural
> scientific discoveries centuries later).
You asked why you should read Quine. One reason is that his view of the
relation of formal logic to reality is exactly the same as yours.
My view, if you will remember, is that science cannot possibly refuse to
abide by formal logic.
You are involved in a formal contradiction.
1. Formal logic is tautology; it is without content.
2. Science bursts the boundaries of systems of formal logic.
If formal logic is without content, it cannot conflict with science.
No doubt you will invoke dialectics to excuse, even to justify, this
contradiction. That is Healy's contribution to the mystification of
dialectics.
Quine, by the way, recognizes the problem, and sees the only way out for
him is to give up the notion that propositions have content at all. That
is pragmatism. It is you.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
Both wave mechanics and the science of particles
> arose from the study of much larger phenomena than were confronted in the
> world of atomic particles and waves. It has to remembered that particles
> and waves are merely analogies for phenomena that are presently better
> understood through the medium of mathematics than they are through concepts
> and categories.
Scientists didn't observe phenomena, calculate the numbers, and then
analogize to particles and waves. That you can think so reveals the
extrardinary expiricist warring with the pragmatist.
It was the analogy to the behavior of waves and particles that allowed the
physicists to form an hypothesis about the precise distribution of quanta,
and find they behave *exactly* like waves. Not only was step necessary to
arrive at the equations, but a substantial part of the equations'
epistemic credibility lay in the analogy.
The reasoning requires that there actually *be* waves and particles there,
with the qualities we assign to them, co-existing. Not some ad hoc
pseudo-dialectical "synthesis" of the two, but phenemona of that actual
nature.
srd
Bert Byfield
>physicists to form an hypothesis about the precise distribution of quanta,
>and find they behave *exactly* like waves. Not only was step necessary to
>arrive at the equations, but a substantial part of the equations'
>epistemic credibility lay in the analogy.
No matter how much of this sort of thing you laboriously post it does
NOT make socialism scientific. "Nice try, Charlie." But no cigar.
steph...@mindspring.com
bbyf...@caravelabooks.com wrote:
Let's put it this way: those who seek to undermine formal logic in the
name of a pseudo-dialectical mysticism are incapable of developming a
scientific socialism. This is a battle among those who see socialism as
scientific. Those who deny that, don't get to participate, if only because
of the way the issue has been intentionally framed.
srd
redflag
steph...@mindspring.com wrote:
Actually, there exists another possibility: Some of those who
do not participate, abstain from this idiotic "discussion" simply
because it is far afield of anything that would or should interest
workers.
If fact, if anything is illustrative of your disconnection with
the working class it is this sort of mental masturbation.
Workers are not interested in this sort of high-sounding,
far-removed, abstract theoretical bullshit. They're interested
in discussions that address the current issues of the day and
make sense of them from their perpective.
The mission of genuine working class revolutionaries is to
show workers why they ought to abandon all hope of saving
capitalism, why the ought to direct their enegies into building
the necessary organizations to overthrow it and how they can
establish a society wherein they themselves govern their own
lives.
Meanwhile, you pedantically blow particle and quanta bubbles
out of your bourgeois ass.
--
"Nowadays, atheism is itself *culpa levis*, as compared
with criticism of existing property relations."
Access The People on-line by visiting our web page at http://www.slp.org
Michael Gavin
>
> steph...@mindspring.com wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> Actually, there exists another possibility: Some of those who
> do not participate, abstain from this idiotic "discussion" simply
> because it is far afield of anything that would or should interest
> workers.
>
> If fact, if anything is illustrative of your disconnection with
> the working class it is this sort of mental masturbation.
>
> Workers are not interested in this sort of high-sounding,
> far-removed, abstract theoretical bullshit. They're interested
> in discussions that address the current issues of the day and
> make sense of them from their perpective.
>
> The mission of genuine working class revolutionaries is to
> show workers why they ought to abandon all hope of saving
> capitalism, why the ought to direct their enegies into building
> the necessary organizations to overthrow it and how they can
> establish a society wherein they themselves govern their own
> lives.
>
> Meanwhile, you pedantically blow particle and quanta bubbles
> out of your bourgeois ass.
>
workerist nonsense. Marxists are interested in all aspects of culture
and society, including philosophical questions, even if on the surface
they seem to have no direct relevance to to the immediate day-to-day
struggle in the workplace.
Note to Diamond: I've been ill for the last few weeks. I'll try to
answer your query about "National Bolshevism" during the next week or
so.
evab...@my-deja.com
A wry smile on my big mouth
I honestly have found this thread interesting.
Now I will sing to Trotsky la la "You stole the words right out of my
mouth"
Or should that be thoughts from my head??
eva
rabhegmarlen
> > Hegel wrote: 'This proposition in its positive expression A = A is, in
the
> > first instance, nothing more than the expression of an empty TAUTOLOGY.
It
> > has therefore been rightly remarked that this law of thought has NO
CONTENT
> > and leads no further....' (Hegel's Science of Logic, page 413,
Humanities
> > Press). Now when I first studied this I accepted it at face value and
> > proceeded from there. The second time I studied this passage, I
rebelled
> > against the Hegelian mode of exposition but accepted that what he had to
say
> > was profound and important. What is important here is without the
tautology
> > A = A, nothing is intelligible. Therefore this *empty* tautology,
devoid of
> > content, contains the roots of all logic and thought. If A were not A
and B
> > were not B then my whole sentence could be changed around to render it
> > meaningless. And this applies to all thought. Therefore this axiom may
> > well be empty but its content is profound and the basis of all formal
logic.
>
> Let me ask you this: what do you take it to *mean* to claim that statement
> is empty? I take it to mean it is without content. But on this meaning,
> your last sentence is without sense--*it* is "unintelligible."
To Hegel and dialecticians the role of nothing and negation is not simply
the same as in everyday usage. Hegel places an enormous importance on
nothing when he equates it with being. My last sentence was merely
contradictory but if you analyse it you can find it *intelligible*.
> To say that it is without content is not to say it plays no role; I do not
> deny it a role. Can only a statement with content play a role? To answer
> in the affirmative without ado would be to assume an answer to what this
> discussion is about, since my contention *is* that there are statements
> that play a role, despite their absence of content, and those statements
> are the ones comprising formal logic.
>
> > The point Hegel was making, however, is that this *tautology* leaves the
> > reader *unsatisfied* because it says nothing.
> >
> > 'If, for example, to the question "What is a plant?" the answer is given
"A
> > plant is - a plant", the truth of such a statement is at once admitted
by
> > the entire company on whom it is tested, and at the same time it is
equally
> > unanimously declared that the statement says NOTHING.' (page 415)
> > '.....what was expected was a DIFFERENT DETERMINATION.....'
> >
> > Now in his remark on this subject Hegel forgot the importance he places
upon
> > NOTHING which he dealt with in the first section 'The Doctrine of
Being'.
> > He asserts the unity of nothing and being. Therefore *empty
tautologies*
> > can assume enormous importance. Hegel asserted that the truth of
identity
> > was complete ONLY IN THE UNITY OF IDENTITY WITH DIFFERENCE.
>
> Empty tautologies assume tremendous importance. But, that is not to say
> they have *content*. Without content, what would be the grounds for
> revising them based on practice? Statement are ordinarily revised based on
> practice when their content fails to reflect reality accurately or fully.
> Being without content means nothing is asserted. Logical statements are
> statements that assert nothing. Their tremendous importance consists in
> their being a pre-requisite for intelligibility.
Well, empty tautologies do not descend from heaven. They are a product of
human thought and thinking is one of the activities of man. Even the
concept of *nothing* comes from the external world ultimately. The fact
that we have a concept for it implies it is *something*, just as the simple
concept *infinity* implies it is finite. Such are the problems with our
thinking that we require dialectics to sort them out because formal logic is
no use here. Do you not agree that the law A = A must have arisen through
practice? But instead of changing that in itself Hegel said it was empty
and must be supplemented by A is not equal to A and Trotsky gave material
examples to prove this. You cannot reduce dialectics to formal logic, that
is the conclusion I draw from this thread. However, I will agree that we do
not change our formal propositions and laws quickly or without considerable
resistance. If A = A arose through practice then it is connected to the
external world and can theoretically be changed through practice. However,
this is not necessary at present as we can supplement formal logic with
dialectical logic. In the future, this too may change.
> > While we are on the subject and no doubt some readers think that I am a
> > *victim* of Healy's *mystification of dialectics* let me point out
another
> > *dialectical truth*. The path to the *clarity of thought* is not
through
> > clearer and yet even clearer thinking but rather through the *fog* of
> > mystification. This is because at every stage of cognition the external
> > world, acting upon our sense organs, is CONTRADICTING what we already
know.
> > If it only confirmed what we knew already then we could never learn
anything
> > NEW. Contradiction is likely to cause confusion in the first instance,
and
> > even *mystification*, but in solving the contradiction we gain new
> > knowledge. Healy focussed on the contradictions involved in the process
of
> > cognition which I have only abbreviated here. He had to do so to impart
NEW
> > knowledge of cognition, but we can criticise his lack of clarity on
> > occasion.
>
> I agree on the matter of clearer and clearer thought. Contemporary
> (university-bound) analytic philosophy suffers from an over-emphasis on
> clarity at the expense of profundity. When I accuse Healy of
> mystification, I mean he is guilty of using dialectics to deny formal
> logic's applicability.
>
> > 'Social life is essentially PRACTICAL. All mysteries which mislead
theory
> > to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the
> > comprehension of this practice.' (Marx: Theses on Feuerbach viii) The
only
> > part I would rephrase is that comprehension is itself essentially a
> > practice. Now, would you call Marx a *pragmatist*?
>
> Jim F thinks so. I told him it was ambiguous when taken alone, but I think
> I was wrong. Taken alone it is pragmatist. Why? The materialist holds that
> practice allows for the ever deeper comprehension of *matter.* But, Marx
> says it is practice itself that is the ultimate object of comprehension.
> What saves it from pragmatism is this context: the mysteries of which Marx
> wrote in the Theses were mysteries of social life, and social life (unlike
> the natural world) *consists* of a set of practices. This statement is not
> the equivalent of the statement (by Marx or Engels, I don't recall which)
> to the effect 'Practice proves the material nature of the world.' It means
> rather that when *social life* is comprehended as practice, the
> mystification disappears.
I agree that parts of Marx's *Theses on Feuerbach* are often torn out of
context to prove that Marx was a pragmatist. It happened all the time in
the WRP only nobody would dare use the term *pragmatist* as they knew that
it was a bourgeois philosophy hostile to Marxism only it was THEIR
philosophy without them being aware of it. Marx's *Theses* need to be taken
all together and in context as a polemic against Feuerbach and
*contemplative materialism*. The term *revolutionising practice* has often
been taken out of context in this way without any discussion of just what
practices really are *revolutionising*. It has to be remembered that
although Marx was a revolutionary most of his time was spent in study and
writing and that his *revolutionising* practice mainly consisted of
producing books and articles as well as organising the First International.
Now opportunities for physical revolutionary practice come and go and under
the circumstances Marx made the best use of his time because he provided the
material for future generations of revolutionaries such as Lenin and
Trotsky.
steph...@mindspring.com
<rabheg...@uk.pocket.com> wrote:
You still have not said what you take it to mean to say a statement is
empty. I do *not* see what you wrote as intelligible; to claim it is
intelligible provides an example of what I call the mystification of
dialectics of which Healy was guilty.
Let me proceed more rigorously than I did before. What is meant by being
true is to reflect the world. What is meant by a proposition being false
is for it to reflect the world if the world were something other than what
it is. To have no content is to be neither: despite correct syntactic
form, to be incapable of reflecting the world. Another way of saying this
is that a statement without content places no constraints on what the
world can be like. To have content, to be either true OR false, places
constraints on what the world can be like. Statements without content
place no such constraints on what the world can be like. Formal logical
propositions are of the last type. They place no constraints on what the
world is like. Only by placing constraints on what the world can the world
disprove a statement, because disproof involves recognizing instances in
which the world is outside those constraints. The world cannot drive
deductive logic forward by the world disproving statements of deductive
logic. But, in a materialist view, only in their conflict with the world
are statements properly revised.
But neither can the world drive deductive logic forward by requiring
additions to it. Additions to a corpus of statements are required when
aspects of the world require them for the world to be more fully
reflected. Statements of deductive logic do not refer to the world, so
additions to their corpus cannot more fully reflect the world. If the
world cannot show that deductive logic needs to be revised either by
substracting or additing statements (or both), the world cannot show that
deductive logic should be revised.
Human practice shows when statements should be revised, because human
practice produces knowledge into the nature of the world. Human practice
cannot show statements need to be revised in some other manner, because
statements are only about the world, and their adequacy consists only in
their reflection of the world.
At which point do you disagree, or what step(s) do you think are wrong?
> > Empty tautologies assume tremendous importance. But, that is not to say
> > they have *content*. Without content, what would be the grounds for
> > revising them based on practice? Statement are ordinarily revised based on
> > practice when their content fails to reflect reality accurately or fully.
> > Being without content means nothing is asserted. Logical statements are
> > statements that assert nothing. Their tremendous importance consists in
> > their being a pre-requisite for intelligibility.
>
> Well, empty tautologies do not descend from heaven. They are a product of
> human thought and thinking is one of the activities of man. Even the
> concept of *nothing* comes from the external world ultimately. The fact
> that we have a concept for it implies it is *something*, just as the simple
> concept *infinity* implies it is finite. Such are the problems with our
> thinking that we require dialectics to sort them out because formal logic is
> no use here. Do you not agree that the law A = A must have arisen through
> practice? But instead of changing that in itself Hegel said it was empty
> and must be supplemented by A is not equal to A and Trotsky gave material
> examples to prove this. You cannot reduce dialectics to formal logic, that
> is the conclusion I draw from this thread. However, I will agree that we do
> not change our formal propositions and laws quickly or without considerable
> resistance. If A = A arose through practice then it is connected to the
> external world and can theoretically be changed through practice. However,
> this is not necessary at present as we can supplement formal logic with
> dialectical logic. In the future, this too may change.
I deny that A equals A is the result of human practice, because I deny it
is a *law*. Practice reveals the materiality of the world, and its
properties, which, when stated in general form, are called laws. A equals
A is not a property of the world.
I deny that "nothing" is a concept. In formalized logic it is the negation
of an existentially quantified statement. To think otherwise lands you in
formal contradictions: 'why does something exist instead of nothing? But,
if nothing exists, then something does exist, that being nothing.' If
these formal contradictions entice you rather than repel you, look at it
this way. For a materialist, concepts describe properties of the world.
'Nothing' describes no possible properties of the world.
Thought is a form of practice; it is not a self-sufficient form of
practice. But, there is no practice into which thought does not enter.
Human activity without thought is not practice, but chaotic activity or
reflex. Since A equals A is a condition for the intelligibility of
thought, and thought is required for practice, A equals A cannot be the
product of practice.
To deal with two possible rejoinders:
1. Human practice was once guided by unintelligible thought.
Unintelligible thought is itself an unintelligible concept. I'll leave
this rejoinder here for the moment, since I don't think you are likely to
take that position.
2. Prior to A equals A being a condition for the intelligibility of
thought, there was some other condition for the intelligibility of
thought. This would be to treat logic as a convention rather than an
inherent condition on human thought. But, there is no reason a convention
which consists of a statement should be compelled to change, since it
cannot come into conflict with the world, and statements are properly
revisable (as opposed to *translatable*) only based on their failure to
reflect the world. Conventions change for convenience--is the metric or
English system more convenient and so on--but not because one convention
is more epistemically adequate than another.
To avoid confusion let me emphasize a distinction I have been far from
consistent in abiding by, the distinction between deductive logic and
formalized logic (I had called it formal logic, but that invites
confusion). Mathematics, I think, is the progressive formalization of
deductive logic. Godel's proof shows that this formalization cannot be
complete. Mathematics is a form of practice, but so is the formalization
of logic in general, including the grand proclamation of A equals A. I
take this to mean that deductive logic is never competely
formalizable--which is to say the checking routines that constitute
deductive logic cannot be reduced to a finite set of statements. So,
practice does lead to developments in formalized logic, but that is
*because* formalized logic is the functional study of our checking
routines, not because those checking routines change. Those checking
routines are a precondition for practice, including the progressive
formalization of the checking routines themselves. This last paragraph
contains claims I am uncertain of; I am not sure mathematics is wholly
logic; that is, I am not sure there is not a realist component to
mathematics. But, I don't think what I say about mathematics, if wrong,
has much effect on the rest.
srd
wen...@my-deja.com
Statements of deductive logic do not refer to the world.....
So they are supernatural? Who is now the mystic?
You are a formal idealist and prejudiced to boot, I don't know why
anyone bothers to argue with you.
wensin
wen...@my-deja.com
wrote:
> Empty tautologies assume tremendous importance.
Why is that? Hegel considered them as trivial.
steph...@mindspring.com
> steph...@mindspring.com wrote:
> Statements of deductive logic do not refer to the world.....
>
> So they are supernatural?
Supernatural statements refer to the (supposed) supernatural. Formalized
logic doesn't refer at all. It is a condition on the form of thought for
it to be intelligible.
If formalized logic referred to the supernatural, it would have
content--supernatural content.
You are (typically) confused. It is one thing for a stament to refer to
the natural; it is another for a statement to arise naturally. Of course
the capacity for deductive logic, the capacity for intelligible thought,
arises naturally. It is part of our brain.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
I don't know why
> anyone bothers to argue with you.
>
Were I you, I wouldn't try.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
> "rabhegmarlen"
> wrote:
>
> > Empty tautologies assume tremendous importance.
>
> Why is that? Hegel considered them as trivial.
How can they be unimportant if they refer? Certainly such grand statements
be terribly important, were they about the world.
Here rab is correct, and you wrong. The statements of tautologies can be
of tremendous importance, because only by their conscious application can
thought be recognized as unintelligible, where it looks otherwise.
They are trivial in the sense of having no content.
When confronted with an elementary dialectical problem, you screw it up.
Triviality and importance constitute a unity of opposites, in the context
of reasoning about the world. A statement can be trivial, because it
contributes nothing of substance to the reflection of the world, but
important because it is a pre-condition for thought reflecting the world.
The trivial is only the formal opposite of the important in the context of
supplying information about the world. Mathematicians recognize the
relativity of the contrast between the trivial and the uimportant when
they call the mathematically simplest case trivial, although the simplest
case might have great import.
Similarly, the contrast between 'empty' and 'without content' exists only
within the relative of statements purporting to be about the world. That
is what Roger was getting at, but the problem is that our discussion *is*
within that context. Tautologies are not empty outside that relative; they
play a functional role in thought--that role being to supply a constraint
on intelligibility.
It should be recalled that this discussion began with Roger denying my
claim that formal logic does not consist of statements that can strictly
speaking be termed true or false, to a materialist.
srd
rabhegmarlen
> > To Hegel and dialecticians the role of nothing and negation is not
simply
> > the same as in everyday usage. Hegel places an enormous importance on
> > nothing when he equates it with being. My last sentence was merely
> > contradictory but if you analyse it you can find it *intelligible*.
>
> You still have not said what you take it to mean to say a statement is
> empty. I do *not* see what you wrote as intelligible; to claim it is
> intelligible provides an example of what I call the mystification of
> dialectics of which Healy was guilty.
I don't want to devote a lot of time to this today so let me just deal with
this objection. All our concepts including that of *nothing*, *empty* etc.
are derived from our practice in the world in which we live. If we are too
rigorous if we think our logic or mathematics as *pure* then we fall into
the trap of idealism and inflexibility of thought.
Let me give you an analogy on emptiness that has some relevance. Consider a
large city such as New York or LA where there are millions of products of
human labour that surround you at every glance. Exchange Value is defined
by Marxism as being the product of socially necessary human labour so that a
city such as your own or New York is by that definition extremely wealthy.
It is full of products of human labour.
Now consider a wilderness untouched by humans. It might be considered as
*empty*. Yet it has a value of its own that is different from our
conception of exchange value.
In the final analysis, the concept of *empty*, *a vacuum* etc. is as
difficult and contradictory as the concept of *infinity*. If this
represents a *mystification* then I am as guilty as Healy.
steph...@mindspring.com
<rabheg...@uk.pocket.com> wrote:
> <steph...@mindspring.com> wrote
>
> > > To Hegel and dialecticians the role of nothing and negation is not
> simply
> > > the same as in everyday usage. Hegel places an enormous importance on
> > > nothing when he equates it with being. My last sentence was merely
> > > contradictory but if you analyse it you can find it *intelligible*.
> >
> > You still have not said what you take it to mean to say a statement is
> > empty. I do *not* see what you wrote as intelligible; to claim it is
> > intelligible provides an example of what I call the mystification of
> > dialectics of which Healy was guilty.
>
> I don't want to devote a lot of time to this today so let me just deal with
> this objection. All our concepts including that of *nothing*, *empty* etc.
> are derived from our practice in the world in which we live. If we are too
> rigorous if we think our logic or mathematics as *pure* then we fall into
> the trap of idealism and inflexibility of thought.
>
You should wait until you have to time to devote to answer. Above you only
repeat arguments to which I have responded. If the discussion is move
forward, you have to respond to those responses, and not merely reassert
your position.
I provided an extended argument designed to help locate the precise point
at which we diverge. Are you willing to respond to it by locating that
point? Otherwise, there is no point in continuing. I started to respond to
the above, but realized that, since your comment restates the position
with which you began the discussion, and not even the arguments reached by
the discussion, on BOTH sides, there was no point in responding. Any
response would be LESS meaningful than responses I already offered to a
discussion that has moved beyond this point.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
>
> In the final analysis, the concept of *empty*, *a vacuum* etc. is as
> difficult and contradictory as the concept of *infinity*. If this
> represents a *mystification* then I am as guilty as Healy.
Nothing conceived as a material concept leads to formal logical
contradictions. What contradictions do you think 'vacuum' leads to. A
vacuum is NOT a logical operator, quantifier, or logical statement.
srd
steph...@mindspring.com
> Let me give you an analogy on emptiness that has some relevance. Consider a
> large city such as New York or LA where there are millions of products of
> human labour that surround you at every glance. Exchange Value is defined
> by Marxism as being the product of socially necessary human labour so that a
> city such as your own or New York is by that definition extremely wealthy.
> It is full of products of human labour.
>
> Now consider a wilderness untouched by humans. It might be considered as
> *empty*. Yet it has a value of its own that is different from our
> conception of exchange value.
THis doesn't bear on the function of 'empty,' but only on the relative
nature of its application. You can existentially quantify over any number
of domains.
srd
B. R. Ashley
everything that rab and srd are discussing here but I dig enough of it
to see that it is important, precisely because it pertains to how humans
percieve and affect the world. I'm sure that De Leon would have been
intensely interested, unlike his epigones.