File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-01-27.123, message 23


Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 00:24:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Andrew Wayne Austin <aaustin-AT-utkux.utcc.utk.edu>
Subject: M-I: The Marxian Dialectic Part 4 of 4


IV. Parallel Interpretation

I have changed my mind and here present an interpretation of Marx that
supports my argument. I do so here because this interpretation very
succienctly sets forth my argument. This is by Shlomo Avineri (whose text
I am sure will be, by my detractors, considered rife with reactionary
intrique). 

First, Avineri, drawing on interpretation of Lukacs in Geschichte und
Klassenbewusstsein and Kolakowski in "Karl Marx and the Classical
Definition of Truth," wrote: 

"Marx's views cannot be squared with Engels' theories as described in
*Anti-Duhring* or 'Dialectics of Nature.' Lukacs and his disciples are
perfectly right in maintaining that the dialectics of nature, in Engels'
sense of the term, has very little in common with the way Marx understood
materialism, and that the origins of Engels' view must be sought in a
vulgarized version of Darwinism and biology, with Hegelian terminology
serving only as an external, and rather shallow veneer." 

(Note: I have thought of excerpting Lukas' argument, which is surperb.
Lukacs, drawing from Marx's later work, which was all that was obtainable
in his day, arrived at a theory of alienation and reification that near
parallels arguments made by Marx in his earlier writing. When Marx's
early writings were rediscovered, it became clear that the Soviet line of
thought had so distorted Marx that many scholars could not boil out the
core of Marx's thought. These early writings confirmed Lukacs'
interpretation of Marx, and rendered absurd the future claim, made by
Althusser, that there is an epistemological break in Marx's work.) 

Avineri continues: "According to Marx, nature cannot be discussed as if it
were severed from human action, for nature as a potential object for human
cognition has already been affected by previous human action or contact.
Hence nature is never an opaque datum. The phrases 'humanized nature' and
'humanism equals naturalism' recur in Marx's writings, and 'naturalism' in
his sense is virtually the opposite of what is generally implied by this
term in traditional philosophical discussion. 

"The identification of human consciousness with the practical process of
reality as shaped by man is Marx's epistemological and historiosophical
achievement. To Marx reality is always human reality not in the sense that
man exists within nature, but in the sense that man shapes nature. This
act also shapes man and his relations to other human beings; it is total
process, implying a constant interaction between subject and object." 

Is Avineri's interpretation correct? Marx wrote in The German Ideology: 

"My relationship to my surroundings is my consciousness...For the animal,
its relation to others does not exist as a relation.  Consciousness is
therefore, from the very beginning a social product and remains so as long
as men exist at all." 

So Engels believed that consciousness was a reflection of the physical
world. This is empiricism. And Engels believed that the world was
determined by laws that stood external to human beings. This is
positivism. And Engels believed that these natural laws followed the
course of the dialectic. This is idealism. Altogether we have dialectical
materialism, which is an confused amalgamation of philosphical threads
that are incommensurable with Marx's synthesis.

What did Marx believe? That "consciousness is...from the very beginning a
social product." Marx believed that the world "is the result of the
activity of a whole succession of generations." Marx believed that the
dialectic was the relations between human subjects and objects for human
subjects. This stands in direct contrast to Engels. 

Marx: "[Feuerbach] does not see how the sensuous world around him is not a
thing given direct from all eternity, remaining ever the same, but the
product of industry and of the state of society; and that it is an
historical product, it is the result of the activity of a whole succession
of generations, each standing on the shoulders of the preceding system
according to the changed needs, Even the objects of simplest 'sensuous
certainty' are only given to him though social development, industry, and
the commercial intercourse." 

Avineri writes: "[Engels] saw in inanimate nature only opaque matter. 
Moreover, Engels says in "Dialectics of Nature" not only that matter
historically preceded spirit, but also that it is the cause and the source
of the of the evolution of consciousness. It became commonplace and
fashionable to credit Marx with such a reductionistic view which sees in
spirit a mere biological by-product of matter. 

"Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism intensified the identification
of Marxist epistemology with a highly mechanistic view of materialism.
Because Lenin viewed consciousness as a mere reflection of the objective
world, some writers still ascribe such a view to Marx himself." [Lenin
rejected this position after 1916--he went back and read Hegel.]

"Ironically, many of the views of Engels, Plekhanov, Kautsky and Lenin on
this subject are identical with the mechanistic materialism Marx
criticized in his *Theses on Feuerbach*. 

"Marx's comments on eighteenth-century French materialism in his *Theses
on Feuerbach* foreshadow his awareness of the social consequences of a
mechanistic epistemology. They place the epistemological problem in the
center of Marx's own views. Marx here takes issue with the view that
consciousness is nothing but a reflection of the material, environmental
condition of man's existence. According to him the internal contradiction
of a reflectionist theory of consciousness is very simple: both
eighteenth-century materialists and Feuerbach combine a passivist view of
human existence (man determined by objective-material conditions) with a
social optimism implying immanent and necessary progress of human history.
These views, Marx argues, are mutually incompatible and their combination
produces a social philosophy ultimately quietistic, a-political and
conservative." 

"The main shortcoming of all materialism up to now," Marx writes, "is that
the object, the reality, the sensibility, is conceived only in the form of
the *object* or of *perception*, but not as sensuous human activity,
*praxis*, not subjectively. Hence the *active* side was developed
abstractly in opposition to materialism by idealism, which naturally does
not know the real, sensuous activity as such. Feuerbach urged a real
distinction between sensuous activity and thought objects: but he does not
conceive of human activity itself as an *objective* activity." 

V. Feuerbach

In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx credits
Feuerbach with having produced the only "*serious, critical* attitude to
the Hegelian dialectic." Marx lists Feuerbach's "great achievement" as,
among other things, "the establishment of *true materialism* and of *real
science*, since Feuerbach also makes the social relationship 'of man to
man' the basic pirinciple of the theory." Here Marx stresses that
Feuerbach's great achievement was arguing that "true materialism" and
"real science" were those thought systems that took as their object social
relations. Since science is produced in social contexts by real human
beings, its production is subsumed under the study of social production
generally. Hence it is backwards to suggest that historical materialism is
an application of dialectical materialism, when in fact dialectical
materialism is an object of study to be dismantled within the method of
historical materialism. And this is precisely what I am doing in this
post: I am applying historical materialist method to deconstruct
dialectical materialism.

VI. Where Siddharth Chatterjee Stands in Relation to Marx and the Working
Class.

On Sat, 25 Jan 1997, Siddharth Chatterjee wrote:

> Viraj, 
> 
> This is getting serious. As a poet once said, this is not the time
> for writing poetry but hard prose. Andrew Austin and Ralph Dumain are
> engaged in a pernicious exercise whether consciously or unconsciously.
> They are ultimately using Marx as a intellectual weapon against the
> working people. This is evident in their highly "philosophical",
> "intellectual" and sneering attitude which can cause great confusion.

This is a ridiculous remark and an insult. Chatterjee is on the wrong side
of this debate, and his lack of understanding Marx allows him to assert
ignorance in glorious fashion. If anybody is hurting the working class
where Marx's thought is concerned, it is people like Sidd who distort
Marx's work all out of wack with pretensious appeals to liberal science. 
Such attempts to scientize Marx's writings suffers from the same
wrongheadedness as Engels. 

> This smug veneer has to be ripped off. Of course, they will immediately
> denounce this charge as being "Stalinist". A massive ignorance of both
> knowledge and practice of science is implicit in their postings.

First, I will refrain from characterizing Siddharth as a "Stalinist," 
however the dogmatic tone of much of his side of the argument has been in
the grand tradition of dia-mat. Second, the problem is that I am not a
positivist, therefore I do not share Siddharth's bourgeois assumptions
regarding science and progress. For a Marxist, Chatterjee comes out
smelling like a liberal. For Siddharth, and he presented this view in his
last post, truth is eternal, and science is on a grand teleological march
towards truth, polishing the human-smudged windows, wiping them of human
obfuscation so we can better see the ultimate reality. As a Marxist, and
an adherent to historical materialism, I regard such positivistic and
scientistic pablum as pseudoscience. That is precisely what it is. That
Chatterjee have the gall to suggest that I possess "a massive ignorance of
both knowledge and practice" when it is clear that on the central point of
this debate I have clearly demonstrated my case is rather amazing at any
point in this debate.

> Look at all the half-phrases above. So the "ontology is to be found in
> the relation between subject and objects ... not in objects or
> subjects themselves.....Relations form the inner core of social
> reality". You are a naval engineer (I presume); do you think the
> turbulence observed in seas and rivers, waves, eddies, vortices,
> swirls, etc. are to be explained as "relations" between subject and
> object? If you and Mr Austin, two independent observers, both
> simultaneously observe the same wave, does this not make this wave
> (although) socially observed, an independent entity and not a "relation
> that forms the inner core of social reality"? What about the other
> laws of nature? Are these all social constructions (since they are
> socially produced)? Mr Austin, of course, does not explain what he means
> by "social reality". We are dangerously close to church theology here
> disguised as the thought of Marx. 

The short answer is, yes, the laws of nature are social constructions, and
they are abstracted from nature through observation and practice and
through knowledge systems bestowed by social arrangements. This is why our
constructions regarding nature change when social contexts change.  I
would think that some sociology of knowledge would help out considerably.
Do I believe nature is a social construction? No. I believe that nature
exists mind-independently. I believe that nature is prior to human being.
I believe in physical reality. Are atoms social constructions? The way we
understand them they are. Does this mean that humans created them? No. It
means that our knowledge of them is socially constructed. Siddharth has
conflated ontology with epistemology and have regarded everything which
fancies him as bearing truth in itself. Does Siddharth believe concepts
exist prior to all human cognition? Is bourgeois "realism" here
surplanting Marxian realism? The abstract made concrete? Marx made a
distinction between the two (ontology/episetmology). So do I. But then by
observing Marx I am accused of using Marx against the working class! 
 
> Ralph Dumain
> > 
> >Chris did not get me 100% correct, in that objective dialectics
> >refers to more than tension or opposition.  He is correct in
> >suggesting that, if our subjective cognitive activity correctly
> >reflects an independently existing reality, its judgments must be
> >considered part of that reality.  As you will see from the rest of
> >this post, I don't object a priori to the notion of objective
> >dialectics or to a link between objective and subjective
> >dialectics.  I object only to confusion and to simplistic,
> >unreflective dogma about the mediative process between the
> >subjective and the objective.  I would have hoped that Carlile
> >understand this.

Dumain makes a fine point here. Not in asserting the possibilty that there
are objective dialectics, that is that some aspect of reality might unfold
in a dialectical manner. I would restrict this only to the social domain,
so we may disagree. But the notion of subjective dialectics, the method of
dialectical analysis, used to reveal underlying objective social
relations, is clearly viable. I have not seen the rest of this post, but
what is said here is far more consistent with Marxian thought than
anything the other side has offered. I don't know what else a logic
(outside of social forces) is if it is not subjective/intersubjective.
Does this mean that logics cannot be set in place and move objectively? 
No, it doesn't. Social reality can have an objectified logic because it is
a objectified social production. But physical reality has a logic? I
suppose that numbers define this logic? I just can't understand the idea
of logics and mathematical systems, etc. existing *a priori* human
culture. Engels again. Mysticism. Pseudorealism. Idealism through and
through. 

> In his impressionistic word play (which has not yet degenerated to the use
> of obsceneties for which he is well-known), Mr. Dumain has given birth
> to two new children which he has named "subjective" and "objective"
> dialectics - one of them presumably associated with the subject or
> observer, the other with the observed object. 

Exactly. Dumain is noting the possibility of a dialectical process that is
objective, such as the dynamic between the social relations and forces of
production. He is also attending to the method of dialectical logic, which
is, after all, what Marx wrote about. Marx regarded as purely speculative
the notion that a transhistorical dialectical logic existed independently
of humans or existed in nature. Rather, he demonstrated a dialectical
process in society. Marx method was subjective, in that it was a logic
that he employed to understand social reality. And the dialectical process
he observed in society, he regarded as an objective process. I would
suggest Siddharth lay off of Dumain if his knowledge in this area is this
vacuous.

> Mr. Dumain further sees
> (or postulates) a link between these two domains and he, so to
> speak, would like to straddle the fence between them with one feet planted
> in either realm. This would, of course, afford him with the opportunity
> of hastily disembarking on either side if the need arose in the future.
> For now, he is comfortable where he is while engaging in lofty and
> occasionally vulgar polemics ("balance" as you called it). Mr Dumain
> has forgotton a cardinal method used in scientific experimentation
> or observation of reality - repetition of experiments, often
> by different observers, so as to remove the subjective bias of individual
> observers from the observations of external world.

How does any human-made epistemology or method eliminate the subject from
the experiment? This is extremely nondialectical!! Dialectics asserts the
impact that the subject has on any phenomenon. Marx only spoke of things
*as they were known*! If you a positivist, then you believe you can create
methods that allow you to completely remove subjectivity. But if you
observe the dialectical method, you must account for yourself as a
variable in any observation of social or natural phenomenon. I am shocked
that somebody who rattles on about physics would so blatantly ignore the
Heisenberg Principle.

It is a scientific fantasy to suppose that you could observe reality
independent of your knowledge of it. How would you do this? If I must not
know it to know it more plainly then I have asserted a contradiction. No!
I must know it first, and this means that my mind will define what I see.
And since there is the intersubjective, WE see what we are supposed to
see. If you accept on blind faith the positivism that is being advocated
here, then you will never approach what Sandra Harding calls "strong
objectivity," because you will simply be unaware of your role in
determining reality. Becoming more objective first demands the recognition
that total objectivity is an impossibility.

VII. Conclusion

I really don't have much to say in way of a conclusion or a summary. I
think that what has happened here is self-evident. I solicit comments and
criticisms of this post. I may certainly have made errors in my
interpretations of Marx, despite my confidence in my correctness. There
have been posts from people who share my perspective, more or less, but my
posts have become the focus. I would like to see the debate broadened on
both sides, but still remain on point, which concerns Marx and his
relationship to dialectical materialism. I would also like to see more
demonstration of dialectical materialism in Marx; I haven't seen this
(only sailors in ships watching waves). 

I think that the anthropology of Marx makes for an interesting discussion,
as suggested by Fernando, and there are excellent works on these
interpretations of Marx's work (for example, Lefebvre). I think Lukacs and
Gramsci are very relevant here for providing a humanistic and
anthropological view of human beings contra positivistic views of Marx.
Here we can expand the discussion and stay on target. Of course, Marx's
writings on this are in his transition from Hegel to Feuerbach, and so the
text is tough slogging (speaking of the E&M).

I will refrain from posting on this thread in the near future. I believe
that I should make room for others to speak up, allow for my post to be
digested (I imagine it is quite lengthy by now), and see if this debate
has any legs left.

Please forgive misspelling and other minor errors of grammar. I have found
this post too long to spell check and myself with too little time.

Peace and Solidarity,
Andrew Austin

------End of Series--------




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