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CB comments on science Marx on no need for science if all were apparent
From: Charles Brown
Date: April 4, 2014 at 10:27:46 AM EDT
To: charles brown
Subject: CB comments on science Marx on no need for science if all were apparent
Rhyan Potter
12 hrs · Odessa, TX · Edited
Here's an interesting criticism.
Marx tells us that "If the essence and appearance of things directly
coincided, all science would be superfluous"
If the purpose of science is to discover the nature of reality
concealed under surface appearance. Based on this definition, Marx
makes the above assertion - if things appeared exactly as they are,
there would be no need for science to remove the veil of appearance.
Social science, therefore, is the search for the real nature of
society, underneath all of its visible, external façades. If the
reality of society is easily observable in our everyday experience,
then there is no need for scientific reflection on society, as Marx
defines science. The idea that society has an 'appearance', which is
not the same as social 'essence', forms the starting point for the
Marxist discussion of ideology. Marx clearly has the view that in a
classless society, there will be no ideology, for the reason that the
appearance will be equal to the essence of a classless society.
Marxism pulls back the cover of ideology to reveal the nature of the
'essence' society. By ruling out the economists and philosophers of
his time as 'unscientific', Marx leaves only himself and his disciples
as true 'social scientists'. It is ironic that he does so. If the
proletarian revolution occurs, then, according to his dictum, his own
branch of expertise would be 'superfluous'. This would leave only
those condemned as 'non-scientists' to take up the investigations of
social science. Idealists in branches of philosophy, particularly
moral philosophy, would find themselves in a similar boat.
According to the link Althusser also encountered this problem and
dismissed Marx's claim and asserted that Communist society would have
an ideology.
Thoughts, anyone?
more at http://academic.uprm.edu/~laviles/id219.htm
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2 people like this.
Aryadev Bhattacharya bogus!
12 hours ago · Like
Alois Blucher Socialism would have an ideology but I believe it would
be the "right one". I do not think classless society is possible, but
a good meritorious on based on the teachings of Marx, Lenin, Che and
Trotsky CAN be done and will thusly result in a good society, although
not devoid of evil (as it is human to possess some evil), evil will
not be able to really do much negative, and people's greed can be
channeled into something positive.
11 hrs · Like · 1
Matthias Wasser A technically complex society, like a technically
complex computer or climate or cow digestive system, is always going
to have a gulf between essence and appearance. Whether or not it has
an essence that people can be comfortable looking at when revealed is
another matter.
11 hrs · Like · 2
Ed Cidd Your reading on Marx's use of science and ideology is very
limited; Marx himself study other sciences and scientists...Adolfo
Sanchez Vazquez wrote ( in spanish ) against that althusserian
interpretation of ideology ( Ciencia y revolucion ); if communist
society eliminates actual division of labor, it will construct new
ways of social interaction without alienation. Ideology in Marx was
false consciousness, with historical conditions, not eternal...
10 hrs · Like · 1
Calixto Garcia Without falling into utopianism the only thing we can
analyze scientifically is the actual political needs of today to lead
forward the struggle of the proletariat towards the conquest of state
power. The Marxist method only serves us to figure out how to bring
about the new society out of the old. To go beyond and ponder on
wheter ideology or alienation will exist in communist society is
somewhat irrelevant in my opinion. As Marx said, the point is not to
interpret the world but to revolutionize it. The relevant question
today is on the period of the transition to Socialism, a period with
class struggle, ideology, alienation, etc. Without the marxist method
(dialectics and materialism plus the rest of the historical
experiences of the working class revolutions) we have very little
change of constructing communism after the transitionary period. In
theory, in a classless society, the Marxist method would indeed be
irrelevant as there would be no contradictions in real life which it
can uncover.
10 hrs · Like
Calixto Garcia Ed Cidd, Sanchez Vazquez has this other great text
called " Del Socialismo Cientifico al Socialismo Utopico" in which he
argues there is an utopian element in Marx. That element being his
statements about there not being ideology or alienation under
communist society. I think the point he is making is that Marxism, in
order to stay a revolutionary materialist science, cannot analyze
further than the actual material conditions in which we find
ourselves.
10 hrs · Like · 1
Vedran Jerbic I think that something is missing from this
conversation. And what is missing is exatcly postmarxism and its
deconstruction of categories like ''revolutionary materialist
science'' or ideology as false conciousness, or ''actual material
condition''. As...See More
6 hrs · Edited · Like
Calixto Garcia When Gramsci talked about hegemony wasn't he speaking
of the Socialist period (as a transitionary period towards communism,
i.e. a classless society in which we can't possibly assert whether
there will be ideology or not without falling into utopianis...See
More
1 hr · Like
Charles Brown If the proletarian revolution occurs, then, according to
his dictum, his own branch of expertise would be 'superfluous'.///////
this is true of Marx's critique of capitalism and class divided
society. They are superfluous with socialism as to socialist society
1 hr · Like
Justin Schwartz Marx's point is not strictly accurate. It is only true
if science is required to uncover stuff that is not as it seems. But
even if reality was as it seems, and appeared directly as such, it
might not be easy to understand. There is nothing hidden about for
example the law of gravitation. But formulating a law, and making the
appropriate calculations, required the full efforts of Isaac Newton,
the greatest genius in the history of the world. Things are quite
different for example with quantum mechanics.
Marx was thinking of the way capitalism hides its operations be for
example commodity fetishes, and thus does not appear as it actually
is. But just because things do appear as they actually are does not
necessarily render science superfluous. A small point in philosophy of
science work perception however you want to slice it.
29 mins · Unlike · 2
Ed Cidd Justin S., your idea is almost right, but why you think that
gravity is kind of obvious!!?? Of course science , thought and
philosophy were needed to proposed the relaton known as Newtons law
etc...In social sciences the social interests, the particular place in
society might give difficulties, but in natural sciences we dont study
perceptions, but more complex object~subject relations...
17 mins · Like
Ed Cidd Calixto G. , i think hegemony is used in Gramscy for all class
society where consensus of the exploted ones is present together with
coersion.
14 mins · Like
Justin Schwartz My point is that things don't have to be hidden to
require science. It's not as if the essence of gravitation doesn't
coincide with its appearance. It's appearance us manifest, not hidden
to anyone who can make the appropriate observations and calculations.
That is, however, fabulously difficult. In contrast the essence of the
market is concealed by its appearance of Freedom, Equality, consent,
and Bentham, to quote Cap. 1. Nothing hides gravitation except our own
difficulty in seeing and understanding it the cases are quite
different.
11 mins · Like · 1
Charles Brown Science is a social, not individual , process. It takes
the direct observations of many individuals and communication between
them to "observe" what is not apparent or does not "appear" to one
individual. This is another level at which Marx's statement is true of
science. The main error of positivism is that it often , unconsciously
perhaps, poses "science" as the individual observer, individual
empirical scientist, individual witness of the facts. Objective
evidence must be observed by many individuals, socially. This is a
line between Engels' philosophical idealism and materialism as well.
See Lenin's discussion of subjective idealism and materialism in
_Materialism and Empirio-Criticism_
2 mins · Edited · Like
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