Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 08:34:54 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere7.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Structures are not things that are true or false,even if  Hegelian Marxists say so


Hi Jamie, Günter

I agree this is getting somewhere. I think the point about the 
hermeneutic aspects being a necessary starting point is fundamental.

>whether aspects of (intransitive) reality can be "false" as Mervyn and 
>Phil claim.

The trouble with this formulation is that the intransitive / transitive 
dimensions (ontology/ epistemology) are not two separate spheres but 
distinctions within a unity,  dimensions which we can perspectivally 
switch in and out of. The ID (ontology) embraces in principle 
everything. Propositions are real, even irrealism's real. So if 
propositions can be false, aspects of intransitive reality can be false.

Better to ask whether a social form as distinct from a proposition can 
be false. Your other post, Günter, sent me scurrying among my packing 
cases to look again at the section in 'Results' where Marx dubs the wage 
form illusory. You're right, he's talking about labour power rather than 
labour. But here's the really crucial bit:

He says that his analysis demonstrates it to be an *illusion* (his 
emphases throughout) that 'in the market place two equally matched 
*commodity owners* are distinguishable only by the material content of 
their goods, by the specific use-value of the goods they desire to sell 
each other.' Then he adds 'the *original* relation [i.e. prior to the 
law of value taking hold] remains intact, but survives only as the 
*illusory* reflection of the *capitalist* relation underlying it.' I.e. 
the law of value has taken hold of the original relation and emptied it 
of all content, leaving only a shell which is as false as a decoy tank. 
I recommend Chris Arthur, and even Derrida, on the spectral ontology of 
value...

Mervyn


In message <18349686375.20031212213632-AT-unsw.edu.au>, Günter Minnerup 
<g.minnerup-AT-unsw.edu.au> writes
>Dear jamie,
>
>on Friday, 12 December 2003, you wrote:
>
>> I understand your point Gunter but it eldies the significance of the initial
>> interpretation for the semantics of mirage - by definition a mirage is a
>> variable interpretation or construction of human based desire or
>> intentionality out of a natural phenomenon (otherwise it is simply a more
>> passive (not totally passive) sensze data experience (like the rainbow) -
>> the role of cognition is quite different - if it were not we would not have
>> a term mirage - we would simply refer to heat a) somthing like heat hazes
>> that we view or b) something like heat exhaustion that we experience. It is
>> importantin analytical terms that we experience mirages variably in a way
>> that we donot (in quite the same way) experience rainbows (we may interpret
>> the significanc eof rainbows in different ways but two equiovelant minds are
>> producing sense data images of the same kind from that experience - they are
>> simply cutting it up in different ways. To ignore this distinction is not to
>> be realist by stating actuaklly alls we are seeing is a mirage - the natural
>> phenomenon - it is to elide the equally realist aspects of mind  taht are
>> significant both to SEPM and to taking seriously as a staring point in
>> explaining phenomena - their hermentuic aspects - effectiverly you are
>> arguing for a structuralism without one important aspect of the human that
>> we must start from before we can get tp explanatory critique and the
>> possibility of better explanation (that it is actually an illusion)
>
>I think we're getting somewhere. As a non-native speaker of English, it 
>is quite possible that I failed to do justice to the usage of the word 
>"mirage" and actually used it like your suggested alternative of "heat 
>haze". So if I understand you correctly, the word "mirage" does entail 
>the illusion of water (as in the prospect of salvation for the thirsty 
>explorer?) whereas "heat haze" would be merely descriptive. So far so 
>good? OK then, but aren't you in fact talking about the meaning of the 
>word rather than the properties of the natural phenomenon? Doesn't that 
>mean that the *word* is "false", precisely because it has those 
>resonances beyond the natural phenomenon, and that if in fact we did 
>commonly call it "heat haze" things would be different, like the 
>"rainbow" example?
>If that's what you mean I think we're in agreement, except that it 
>doesn't then bear on the original point - which I think was whether 
>aspects of (intransitive) reality can be "false" as Mervyn and Phil 
>claim.
>Does this make sense to you? I've just thought of another way of 
>putting it. Since were were originally talking about the "wage form", 
>which is a real structure which nobody other than Marxists actually 
>call that, the analogy with the mirage would be if a trade union calls 
>for a wage increase "to obtain the full fruits of our labour". That's 
>"false". But if they asked for a rise to be a "living wage" (as they 
>usually do, so much for false consciousness), that would not. Sort of 
>like the "heat haze"?
>
>Regards,
>Günter
>




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