From: "Howard Engelskirchen" <howarde-AT-twcny.rr.com>
Subject: Re: BHA: Structures are not things that are true or false,even if Hegelian Marxists say so
Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2003 06:59:51 -0500


Hi Mervyn,

What is the "original relation" prior to the law of value taking hold?

Howard


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh-AT-jaspere7.demon.co.uk>
To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2003 3:34 AM
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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