Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1996 19:51:04 +0200 (EET)
From: j laari <jlaari-AT-cc.jyu.fi>
Subject: M-TH: Re: subject, social theory 


Justin,

you wrote:

" Well, I think a theory is ana explanatiory account, and Marx offered
such an account of the historical development of class society. We may
acrp about his presentation, but taht doesn't mnean he didn't have
theories. "

Does explanatory accounts come from nowhere? Surely they're
abstractions from more concrete studies or research?


" Surely we can distinguish between a "diachronib" and "synchronic"
explanation. But Marx offers both: an acciount of the transition from
s9ome social forms to others and internal accounts of the operations
of social foermationbs, notably capitalism. "

In a matter of fact, in the times of Marx there wasn't such a stable
and obvious (well, I'm not so sure about that obviousness) distinction
in German as there is today; that between "gesellschaftlich" and
"sozial". It developed, I believe, partly because of Marx, Verein fuer
Sozialpolitik and, lastly, emerging of German sociology during the
last decade(s) of 19th century.

To put it bluntly, Marx was writing about "gesellschaftliche Sache",
so to speak. For marxist sociologists it was a problem few decades
ago, because main target of ("bourgeois") sociology were "soziale
Sache", of which Marx wasn't as interested as in the former ones. I've
seen this distinction delivered in English as "societal/social". In
this sense Marx's theories and conceptions during the project of
critique of pol. economy concern mainly "things societal": viewpoint
is on the whole society with an emphasis on economic relations and
structures. Of course he speaks of "things social", too, but it isn't
his main concern. In a sense discourse on "social" developed after
Marx.

On the other hand, for example sociologists concentrate on "social
interaction" (as if interaction isn't always social) - its forms,
structures etc - without any necessary emphasis on economic relations
and processes. In a sense, you can't have theory of society (societal)
without economy, but it's not a problem todo social theory without
references to economy. So marxists were considered as "economists"
(when referring to economy, which was interpreted as an effort to
explain object of study in terms of economy) or "unscientific" (when
not accepting basic ideology of sociology), whatever.

My point is that the concept of "social" has been defined more or less
clearly and in distinction to economic, cultural, political,
historical etc. It doesn't mean that culture, history etc. should be
ignored but that main emphasis is on (forms, structures, processes of)
social and its specifics.

Also "societal" does not exclude cultural, political and historical
dimensions of reality though it puts emphasis on economic one. So if
I'm explaining something and I write about "these societal.." then I'm
using viewpoint (not necessary reasoning) very close to Marx, for
example meaning that 'capital relations entered into some forms of
everyday life or ordinary culture.' But if I'm writing about "these
social.." then I simply might mean that object of study is being
studied in all its relations to other relevant phenomena (relevant
>from the viewpoint of study and its theoretical presuppositions).

You might say that I'm presenting again pretty cryptic views. Sorry
for that. It takes few years to 'internalize' the basics of "own
discipline" and after that, so it seems, it's hard to explain in few
words the basic concepts and their differences.

So, I wasn't aiming at "diachronic/synchronic" distinction. Point was
and is to maintain analytical conceptual differences. Therefore I
can't agree that

" Marx's tendency to present his views in historical form is related
to his concerption of social theory as primarily historical. "

What about: his historical theory was basically societal? (And not a
treatise in political history or in history of ideas.) That's what I
like to be more accurate description of his thinking. However,
historians may disagree...


"Well, maybe he thought taht in the end developing systematic views
about methodology was less important than developing systematic views
about substance. I think this is a healthy attitude. We learn more
about how to do science by exemplars to good science than by
philosophical analyses of it."

Yes. And some bad science is good for learning to see differences
between them.


> Can we say that "material" means "economic" in its broadest sense?

"I'm not sure. I think it might be something more specific."

That's why I was asking it. I'm not wholly sure what "material"
finally means for Marx. Except a shift of attention to societal
practices.


"I don't know what you mean by "abstractly." Hegel insisted on the
importance of the concrete, of defining each form of consciousness
with reference to its particular structure and objects."

I meant "abstractly" in the sense of analysing some particular
(historical) form of consciousness without attention to its social and
societal 'genesis' and 'environment'. By the way, I don't find
consciousness particularly important or interesting factor when
discussing "subject": one point with whole subject-theoretical
discussion have been to describe and map psychic functions and
processes etc. that act "behind" consciousness.


"I think that Marx thought that Hegel was right about a lot more than
a formal schema. Surely he accepted the Hegelian idea that foirms of
consciousness (for H) or social systems (for M) develop in accord
withan inner logic, and in trying to solve the problems they generate
are transformed into othey foerms or systems. But I think that M also
thought that H was right about the details of a lot of the forms and
their internal structures and contradictions. But M wasn't interested
in a number of the central problems of H's philosophy, notably, the
atyempt to explain how knowledge is possible. Good pragmatist that he
was, M took this for granted."

How knowledge is possible? And that was Hegel's project? And Marx, a
good pragmatist? I'm not convinced.


"I wouldn't know about Rose. H thought more ior less what you say
here, although he regards art as more important for more people than
you suggest."

I think Hegel thought that religion is major "formative experience" in
his society. For me it means that other forms of "f.e.'s" are of
"minor importance."


> Now, if we think of KM's view - economy & labour as constituents of
> subject(-ivity), to put it roughly - then I'm not sure whether we can
> compare these alternatives as one being upside down and other being
> OK. They elaborated different sides or dimensions of "what we are made
> of." Intellectuals have usually had intellectualist bias and therefore
> ignored more practical and fundamental dimension of being a subject.

"This is a bit cryptic."

Sorry. I try this way: Marx considered human beings in societal
relations, and thought that it's these relations where humankind gets
its historical determinations. Hegel thought that "spirit" is kind of
self-generating formation which expresses itself in world. That sounds
awful but I hope I was able to express a basic difference somehow.
Now, intellectuals.

Valentin Volosinov once wrote that language is "practical
consciousness." I'm not sure, for me it seems to be "theoretical
consciousness." Change or break in social thinking that took place in
19th century has concentrated on practical activities as major factor
in defining the "true nature" of humans. We learn to do several
things, but we don't necessary learn to describe what we do, to
discuss our practices. Thinkabout artisans and their skills, for
example. Craftmanship is learned by working under the supervising
"master." Important nuances are learned by comparing good and bad
results of work simply by touching the products: is it really flat,
smooth (whatever) "asks" a joiner by applying his fingers to object
his working on - kind of "unconsciouss" dimension when learned and
automatized as part of work process. It takes time to learn such
sensibility and whatever we are doing, we don't have to think
consciously all the time our work ("now I'm taking this knife and put
it on object and mark it by using such and such a force"). Marx was
among the first ones to draw theoretical conclusions of it. The
importance of practice both as "ontologically" and
"epistemologically".

However genius Hegel was in some respect, he truly was an
"intellectualist" on this question. Surely there is the dimension of
discourse and language ("ideality") to being a human subject, but
there's also practical dimension I tried to characterise. In part it
consists of sensuality, of us being living bodies, and of learning to
use our hands and feet. That learning happens in societal context,
under general societal conditions of which ideal factors are just a
part. In this sense I don't see Hegel and Marx as presenting necessary
contradictory views, but rather elaborating different sides or
dimensions of conditions under which development into subjecthood
happens. "intellectualist" account considers more dimension of
ideality, but that is abstraction of concrete process of sensual and
practical activities ("materiality"?). By "practice" (some) marxists
have generally understood political activity, but for Marx there was
also practice of this sensual-practical activity. It's important in
social scientific sense pertaining to "subject." And especially it's
important in relation to recent discussions on subject as "speaking
subject" (being of language) or as "subject of desire" etc... Language
isn't the whole truth however important it is social theoretically.
"Desire" as such is nearly incomprehensible, I believe, until it's
structured in life practices.


"Where did you get the idea that Marx views subjects as a unified
whole? The main point of the theory of alienation is that alienated
man and woman is not unified. Our lives are not what we do when we
work, etc."

I wrote about "marxism". Your note about alienation is good, I really
didn't thought about it at all. Subject-theoretically, I guess, that
wouldn't be counted because it doesn't put emphasis on 'internal'
dynamic and structuration of subject. However, I won't swear that. I
like dimension of alienation in relation to subject.

Funny thing is that I happen to know marxists, ex-marxists etc., who
strongly oppose every effort to "introduce" any such idea into social
theory and sociology. Why? Because they believe it means loss of
'agency': if there's no 'unified (preferably wholly self-consciouss)
subjects' then there's no real revolutionary agents, no real citizens
etc. According to them, it's nearly irrational to suppose some
"unconsciouss" psychic processes because that would take
responsibility away from subject, etc... It seems there's a vision of
Freud's supposed biologism behind these fears. I had an impression
that such trends aren't particularly rare in USA either.


"Well, which will it be? Firsdt you say Marx hasn't got a point of
view, then you say his point of view is one-sided."

I don't understand what you're referring to.


" Anyway, what's this "what's it like" question? Are we doing
phenomenology a la Husserl? Why w\ould we wantto do that? "

No, not Husserl this time. No phenomenology. Rather a question of what
kind of basic (mainly) psychic structures, functions etc. there should
be in order there to be husserlian subject (with intentional
consciousness etc.).

In other words: people are doing things, "transgressing" the borders,
inventing, creating. Question is, how we should think of human being
to be in order that all to be possible? There are biological,
historical, whatever factors making their marks on us (as several
sciences eagerly witness), and yet we aren't machines, mechanical
predetermined things. So how it is possible that we can "swallow" all
those "determinations" and yet act as if they don't exist?

That's "what's it like" question.

How we should think of "subject" so that we grant scientific evidence
>from biology to history of ideas and linguistics (their impact on us)
and still maintain a conception of "subject" as capable of doing
nearly anything (in principle)?

I'm not keen to lacanian jargon. But I've learned to appreciate
lacanians in their efforts to take such questions seriously and risk
and give more or less hypothetical answers. Cryptic, sure, but there
are quite a lot of different factors to their subject.


"If you're saying that more could be said about anything that Marx
said, sure. That's obvious. If you're saying taht there are other
valid perspectives, sure. If you're saying that Marsx only looked at
economic perspectives on anything that he considered, that's not true.
It's demonstrably false."

No I'm not saying that Marx looked at only economic perspectives.

My point has been on social theory. I hope I've explained this time
the difference between "social" and "societal". Marx had to do with
"societal", not with "social". As social theory Marx's thinking isn't
particularly good. But there's no reason to blame him for that because
modern social theory proper developed after Marx. Instead I do see a
reason to blame those contemporary marxists who are not respecting
such a basic conceptual distinction as that of "social" and
"societal". When used carefully, it clarifies arguments, reasoning.
Unfortunately it seems I haven't been very succesful in presenting
this distinction more accurately.

Jukka



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