File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-25.033, message 55


Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 23:42:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: The Strawman Cometh (Was, painfully, Re: M-I: Dialectics)


Siddharth Chatterjee writes,

> You are using the word "reality" and "appearance" but I think, as your
> previous posts revealed, you are completely confused between
> the two. What do you mean by *reality* since according to your view,
> this reality exists only in the domain of human thought? You seem to
> dwell in the world of pure philosophy divorced from the material world!

This characterization of my argument is exactly opposite of the argument I
have been making. I have stressed that I do not believe that reality exist
only in the domain of human thought. What I said, over and over again, is
that knowledge of reality is a social production. I therefore do precisely
contrary to what you here suppose: I tie the production of philosophy
directly to concrete historical conditions in which knowledge about
reality is produced. Either you have (1) not been carefully reading my
posts, (2) you do not understand what I am writing, or (3) you are
purposely constructing a strawman of my views. I leave it to you to decide
which one of these it "really" is. What is obvious is that you have taken
what I said and constructed the exact opposite of it. Is this a vulgar
dialectical exercise on your part? 

> *CITE* Marx's own views on dialectics not those of others! Prove that he
> believed dialectics was only applicable to the analysis of history. And
> why did he use Hegel's method in Capital, especially the first few
> chapters on the analysis of a commodity. As I have indicated before (to
> which you have not provided any refutation), Marx appeared to take
> the same approach while analyzing differential calculus. And he was
> planning to write a treatise on dialectics. Do you think this would have
> been only on historical materialism?

I provided a quote in one of previous post where Marx was angry over
Proudhon supposing Marx's method posited a dialectical process that was
external to history. Did you not read this post? The request was that I
cite other sources arguing that Marx did not advocate dialectical
materialism. My argument in this regard was that I did not need to cite
other sources, that I am using Marx's work directly, and I even provided a
long quote. And here again you produce the exact opposite of what I have
argued and what I have done. Did you miss that post, too? No, you couldn't
have, this argument is in the post to which you now respond. Where is your
integrity?

> I also think that studying modern bourgeois philosophy and epistemology is
> a big waste of time. 

You do not need to inform me or the list that you regard "modern bourgeois
philosophy and epistemology" "a big waste of time" - this is painfully
obvious to everybody here. We are very fortunate that Marx did not share
your position.

Individuals who regard studying history and thought a big waste of time
are generally big time wasters. I enter your string of recent posts into
evidence.

> Since you are new to this list, I will warn you that there are some very
> deep fish here in the M-I pond. The last thing you should do is dismiss
> them as clowns. For, as you say in the true spirit of Marxism,
> "appearance is not reality". 

Don't try to pull others on this list into your intellectual vacuum. I
have already seen too many sharp posts to believe that majority on this
list crank out crap correspondence like yours on a regular basis.

You really should regain your resolve and extricate yourself from this
debate.

Andrew




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