Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 10:26:21 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Diffraction Post one


Hi Hans, Gary,

I love study questions.

I just wanted to say that the section that I did, the next one, is about
ontological monovalence and all the illusions.  It's directly relevant to a
bunch of Hans' questions (though do keep in mind that "relevant" hardly
means brilliantly handled on my part).  If it weren't officially the next
section, I'd just post it now in response to Hans as my 2 cents.  

It seems to me like I should wait, but if now is when we're talking about
the issues maybe I shouldn't be so hung up on form.  Any advice?

R.

  



   

At 11:25 AM 7/18/99 -0600, you wrote:
>
>Thanks for your encouragement, Gary.  I myself thought too
>that my questions were pretty good.  But I am sure that
>there are some booboos in there too, and I would be
>delighted if someone went through the trouble of challenging
>and improving what I wrote.  Here is another one:
>
>
>Q6:  What does Marx's critique of Hegel have to do with the
>"unholy trinity"?
>
>A: RB tries to organize the various strands of Marx's Hegel
>critique, in a proleptic manner (p. 96, literally:
>forward-reading, i.e., using categories which Marx himself
>had not yet arrived at), around the three axes (alpha)
>epistemic fallacy, (beta) speculative illusion, and (gamma)
>ontological monovalence.  RB says this on p. 87, and I am
>skipping the details right now how which Hegel-critique can
>be fitted into which category.  I could imagine this to be a
>nice project for the class: collect all the places where
>Marx criticizes Hegel, and each student can pick one of
>these places and argue how this specific critique can, in
>DCR terms, be subsumed under either alpha or beta or gamma
>or some combination thereof.  The punch line is: alpha,
>beta, and gamma are equivalent to what RB calls the unholy
>trinity of irrealism (epistemic fallacy, ontological
>monovalence, and primal squeeze), i.e., Marx's critique of
>Hegel is not merely one of Hegel's idealism but covers all
>aspects of his irrealism.
>
>
>
>Let me say something here about my idea of an answer to
>Question 5.  Hegel is guilty of ontological monovalence
>because all his sublations are preservative.  I.e., nothing
>ever gets lost.  He does not have the concept of absence,
>i.e., he does not have a trash can into which he could stuff
>the things that disappear.  If you are not allowed to tear
>down but can only add this also makes you conservative,
>at best a reformist.
>
>
>But Marx is not immune to the mistake of ontological
>monovalence either.  Marx did not foresee correctly that the
>destruction of capitalism would create an immense void,
>which can be filled in many different ways, and that the
>question how to fill this void is an important political
>issue.  I.e., we need what RB calls William-Morris type
>positive concrete utopianism.  Marx opposed utopias.  He
>must have thought that socialism springs like a phoenix from
>the ashes of capitalism.  This is what RB calls Marx's
>"residual actualism" (p. 345), and we suffer under this
>theoretical error to this day.
>
>
>Hans E.
>
>
>
>
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