The main sign of the stagnation[ which is in turn a sign of failure] of science is the rise of pseudo-science.
And the success of pseudo-science is not from its own merit – in fact it is entirely independent of its own merit.
so: non-p and non-non-p
but those are two types of negation.
the one abstractly logical,
the other referring to the manifestation of the first negation(, the historical reaction to it),
and thus
Are contradictions in things or between things?
Is an event nothing but the realisation of a contradiction,
its consequences developing in logical progression as a process in time?
or is every process, and thus every sum of processes or things, naturally free of any internal contradiction?
Is contradiction only to be found at the distinction and boundary between two things,
thus any and every two things, thus every individual and every part and every aspect? – Cartesian Atomism?
a key criticism of rational and categorical thinking:
The problem isn’t [just] the categories per se, it’s how we use them in rationalism! It’s categorical logic – how we deduce from categorical statements/judgements/propositions.
maybe in general the problem can be formulated like so:
Due to the fractal structure of nature, [and especially of the dialectical interface between our minds/thoughts/concepts/words and experience/nature,]
no statement of the form is ever correct! (assuming S and R refer to concepts/general names/categories from science/language, & thus are not simply trivially-artificially defined sub-sets of eachother…)
You miss the possibility that both A and B are products of a contingent property of the world, a property whose
change would produce option C.
This possibility implies that B might not
be significantly better than A – and this despite A being discarded and A and B seeming to be the complete available options.
[Standard] Rational realism says that the subjective/mental depends on the objective/material and not vice versa: the objective/material is independent of the subject/mental. This note explores the implications of a whole society/culture assuming this kind of realism.
Consider that in a hierarchically structured society/economy/state/system* one’s ability to determine/manipulate/change the objective/intersubjective/material/practical level [of reality] depends on one’s position in hierarchy – on the degree to which one has wealth/resources/influence/standing/privilege/power…
And so, for the lower levels of the hierarchical system, given that this form of realism says that they cannot improve their position by means of their own subjectivity/mental, namely that they cannot collectively imagine and re-configure reality, the ruled/lower classes/levels must believe/feel that, for them, the overall hierarchical structure/system is fixed, an unchangeable objective fact – that they are powerless to change it. …So rational realism/reality is perfectly suited to reify and support a hierarchy.
Just to re-iterate:
We have personal and communal imagination, ideals, goals. These belong to the subjective realm in the dualistic categorization of rational realism. According to this realism, the subjective realm is determined by the objective realm and not vice versa (which follows from the notion that the objective realm is independent of the subjective). Therefore, if we want to realise/materialize our imagination, we must do this indirectly through the objective realm: we must accrue resources/abilities in the objective/material realm with which we can then change things in accordance to our imagination. …And, in turn, that can only be done by functioning and attaining success in the currently institutionalised systems of material resources/abilities** – and these systems may be hierarchical. And without doing so, we cannot change institutionalized systems, as these belong to the objective realm.
It tricks us into thinking that in order to change the system we need to be granted power by the system.
this note concerns the law of non-contradiction (which is a pillar of mainstream scientific worldview or philosophy and which is implicitly or explicitly opposed by much of so-called continental philosophy, e.g. [Hegelian] dialectics)
The law of non-contradiction [in nature] pre-supposes the existence of a rational, omnipotent God, whose will is communicated faster than light and causality. *
Die Idee des ausgeschlossenen Widerspruchs (- und damit verbunden auch die Abneigung gegen widerspruch-zulassende dialektische Logiken und daraufbauende Philosophien -) – insbesondere angewendet auf Mengen von Sätzen/Propositionen, die sich auf raumzeitlich lokalisierte Tatsachen/Phänomene beziehen – beruht auf einer stillschweigenden/unbewussten Voraussetzung einer totalen Informationsstruktur derart, dass immer jede Tatsache darauf geprüft wird, ob es zu dem Zeitpunkt irgendwo eine Tatsache gibt, zu der sie im Widerspruch steht – bzw. ein solcher Widerspruch würde von diesem Informationsmechanismus oder abstrakten Gesetz verhindert werden. Die Existenz einer solchen totalen (allgegenwärtigen, allwissenden) Rationalität kommt der Existenz eines monotheistischen Gottes** gleich, dessen Wirkung/Wille/Gesetz sich schneller als Licht (also schneller als Kausalität) bewegen/ausbreiten muss um instantan überal Widersprüche zu verhindern/verbieten.***
…tatsächlich ist das Gesetz des ausgeschlossenen Widerspruchs höchstens angebracht in einem rein abstrakten, vorgestellten Gegenstand der gewissenmaßen rational geschlossen/beschränkt ist und weder Kontingenz noch Zeitlichkeit hat.
– Also, dieses Gesetz anzuwenden auf einen Bereich mit Zeit bzw. Kausalität – wo Wirkungen sich nicht instantan sondern mit Lichtgeschwindigkeit ausbreiten – ist eine Ebenenverwechslung.
* …which seems highly unlikely…
** etwa des Katholizismus oder des Xenophanes
***ein solcher Gott wird durch Spezieller Relativitätstheorie [bzw. ihrer Anwendung auf Information oder Kausalität] widerlegt – und somit auch ein solches Gesetz des ausgeschlossenen Widerspruchs
The following analysis attempts to explain a very broad trend among philosophers [and in philosophy-related discussion] of using ‘idealism’ slightly negatively – tending to identify certain naive & absurd worldviews and associate them with idealism – and tending to then, as a theoretical/rational consequence of their opposition to such worldviews, label themselves as materialists or realists:
on how, paradoxically, philosophers on both [main] sides of the question of the status of reality see the other side as idealistic
From one perspective, which could be called the perspective of a [naive-]realist,
When someone claims that one’s reality, and in particular familiar, every-day, macroscopic things/objects, is/are a product of mind/theory, then this claim seems idealist. Firstly, it amounts to the claim that reality is not independent of the subject, i.e. is subjective. Furthermore, due to the fact that to a realist, reality is necessarily co-extensional with the totality of the cosmos and nature, it seems to also amount to idealism, i.e. to the view that the whole cosmos – everything that exists or is or will be true or factual – somehow consists of ideas and is determined by consciousness/mind. (- which seems absurd)
Meanwhile, from another perspective, which could be called the perspective of a philosophical realist/dialectic realist/non-realist,
The realist’s belief that their reality is objective and ultimate – when in truth it is a structure of experiences that is/are contingent on a particular set of ideologies/theories/worldviews interacting, through the person, with nature – is naive and idealistic: It amounts to a failure to make a conceptual or ontological distinction between a) our ideas’ manifestations/consequences and b) the [as-yet-unknown] totality/fabric/structure/truth of nature/cosmos.
To a non-realist/dialectical realist, anyone’s reality is, at all levels of interpretation and observation, inextricable from that person’s ideas, theory, ideology, mind.
We don’t know that the entities we posit in our realities truly correspond to anything [in absolute reality/nature]. Much rather, we know that the entities we posit are preliminary results of an evolutionary, dialectic process of humanity’s (and in general life’s) reciprocal interaction with environment. And we don’t know whether there may be whole areas/dimensions that cannot [yet] be encompassed by our current reality’s languages, worldviews, mindsets, theories, concepts and natural interpretations/perceptions.
Furthermore, no person’s reality* can reach the numinous Ding-an-Sich (Kant), nor reach its ineffable Real (Lacan).
A realist doesn’t notice the conceptual difference between a) [the concept of] reality, or more specifically the realist’s own world (which is the world that the person sees/believes in, as mediated through abstractions that fit observation), and b) [the concept of] whatever may lie outside, behind, beyond or under what we call or think of as reality. This distinction is simply not made. Even if the difference is noticed, it is ignored due to impracticality, and [thus] doesn’t affect the realist’s worldview. Or in other words, a realist doesn’t take into account their own mind’s fallibility and incompleteness: the realist at the same time a) takes reality to be total/absolute and b) calls their own [incomplete and fallible] world ‘reality’…
*note: I am using ‘reality’ as a particular. For the reasons listed in this note, I primarily see reality as a particular, but, to be complete, and to already move towards a next step in this dialectic, I am open to there being 2 types of reality: particular and total. I.e. maybe totality is itself a reality, the extreme/limit case of reality.
Synthese von analytischen und dialektischen Methoden, in Anlehnung an Adorno’s Vorlesungen zu Dialektik als Paradebeispiel für gängige Abstraktionen der hegelschen Dialektik
A: analytisch-philosophische/rationalistische Methode: Begriffe möglichst explizieren, definieren, fixieren, strukturieren/einordnen
B: Dialektik*: Begriffe nie fixieren, sondern sich bewegen lassen
[dialektische] Synthese von A und B: Einen Begriff vorläufig definieren, und, wenn er sich [trotz bestmöglicher rationaler definition] doch [entlang [irgend]einer dimension] bewegt, dann auf einer nächst höheren bzw tieferen bzw allgemeineren Ebene einen Begriff suchen, der den ersteren und diese [Dimension der] Bewegung fassen/halten kann. …Und dann diesen Vorgang für diesen neuen Begriff wiederholen, usw – unbegrentzt in die Höhe/Tiefe. Und insgesamt ist es dann so, dass Begriffe nie permanent fixiert sind bis sie die Totalität erreichen und sich von selbst fixieren** – was sehr gut vereinbar etwa mit Adorno’s Dialektik ist.
*Ich beziehe mich hier auf gängige/häufig-lesbare Zusammenfassungen bzw. Abstraktionen der (hegelschen) Dialektik bzw. der Anwendung von Dialektik auf Philosophie und Methodik, zB wie man wiederholt lesen kann in Adorno’s 1958 Vorlesung Einführung in die Dialektik (Suhrkamp 2010) – Wobei ich nicht behaupte, dass diese Synthese Adorno’s Dialektik widerspricht. Ich schätze diese Synthese ist damit vereinbar und folgt sogar aus seinen Aussagen. Aber seine Ausführungen sind lang, komplex und in teile aufgeteilt, und er arbeitet immer wieder einen starken Kontrast heraus zu analytischen/rationalistischen standard-Vorgehensweisen – und vielleicht gerade deswegen passiert es, dass die Abstraktionen/Lektüren die er herausarbeitet [ironischerweise] teilweise selber einen gewissen nicht-dialektischen Charakter annehmen…
**Und dies ist wohl für die dialektische Praxis der Grenzfall/Extremfall wo sie letzendlich doch in ihre Negation umkippt/übergeht bzw sich damit wiedervereint…
Here I develop and explicate both my critique of marxist Dialectic Materialism and aspects of my own philosophy through interpreting & commenting on a passage by David Harvey, a respected contemporary author on the left.
Now, I agree prima-facie with the passage and find it basically fine, at least on a technical/extensional level.* But I’m going to contrast two possible interpretations of the passage that have significantly different implications – my view of the dialectic of transforming our world [from capitalism to something better], and a second interpretation that is partly different and that may reflect marxist thinking.**
I see a process consisting, basically, of complementary and synchronized halves:
Half (h1) is the stepwise building of a post-capitalist world – in our individual and collective minds and in society and economy*** – with each step requiring that both a) the previous step is in place as a basis to build on, and b) material and ideological space for the new step to be built into is free.
Half (h2) is the process that makes space available in the current world for (h1), i.e. to grow and build a post-capitalist world into: It is a commensurate stepwise/layerwise process of capitalist reality receding, synchronized with availability of a next step of (h1) to replace the part of capitalism that is removed.
The marxist version is identical except for the process half (h2) not being required to be gradual and commensurate – it may be an abrupt, violent process [and is seen as such as the default].
So, why these two variations and how do they relate to the quoted passage? This may become clearer as I elaborate the side of each half**** that concerns understanding or ideology, i.e. the mental side:
regarding (h1): Each step of this positive transformation consists of material and ideological changes that reciprocally cause and require each other, much as described in entry 11. The ideological side of this includes building an understanding of how a post-capitalist world works and of ourselves as minds/subjects within post-capitalist society – with this gradually forming an ideology that is both institutionalized in society and manifested in post-capitalist economy[ ,replacing the institutions of capitalist realism and economy]. And of course each ideological step of change requires the material and ideological changes of the previous step to be in place, i.e. it requires the previous step of transformation of the world.
regarding (h2): The process of capitalism shrinking and diminishing materially and ideologically has to be stepwise – or layerwise – and commensurate with the organic growth of post-capitalism because: Capitalist reality is an ideological and material reality structure of the same quality and requiring the same approach as any other: Its foundations/principles produce and re-produce capitalist reality, blocking alternative manifestations, as long as that institutionalized ideological structure is in place. And it remains in place – in individual and collective institutions/structures of culture and tradition – until it is made conscious, understood and can then be negated with precision – and one must build an understanding[/consciousness] of [unconscious] capitalist ideology just like building any other theory or understanding of some complex process/structure that one does not understand. This gradual building of a complete understanding of capitalist reality is a gradual disruption and erosion of capitalist ideology and reality, and it is the only way to truly free up space for an alternative reality to grow.
now to re-simplify and contrast the two interpretations and two versions of the transformation process:
Marxist version: We gradually/dialectically democratize/positively transform the world and our individual and collective minds, made possible by a non-gradual and non-dialectic, material-revolutionary disruption of material capitalist relations.
My version: two complementary and synchronized processes: We gradually/dialectically de-capitalize material and ideological systems/processes, including our own minds – whilst gradually/dialectically democratizing/socializing/positively transforming the world and our individual and collective minds.
which brings me to the core of my thesis regarding sustainable and positive global transformation:
The synchronized change of these two halves produces a moving central nexus in which the two halves reciprocally facilitate and cause each other – an active core in which we are switching capitalist relations to social relations and making visible the next layer of the remaining capitalist reality and working out what to replace it with. Any change is at the same time progress in our understanding of ourselves as parts of capitalist reality. The battleground is our own mind: change must at the same time be a change in our understanding of ourselves as parts of capitalist reality: We are all capitalists – even workers and marxists – until we have uncovered the roots of our own unconscious ideology.
Positive global transformation and revolution can only happen through our minds self-transforming, not through re-setting or inversion of power relations!
Or, more generally: To be able to deliberately change something, one must see it.
*If one analyses the passage in terms of standard extensional logic, then the passage is very simple and obviously easily compatible with a fairly standard and modest philosophy/worldview.¹ However, this may be an example for the limitations of analysis of extensional logical form, as the important questions only really appear when one departs from the question of material truth conditions and instead considers candidate concept structures or processes as models that may be co-extensional but that differ in very significant ways in their implications in the actual context of capitalism, ideology, and the project of material or ideological change.
** I do this firstly for contextual reasons – the context here being the thinking in and near marxist tradition in general, especially Dialectic Materialism, and criticism of capitalism, and of course the idea of revolution involving use of material power to abruptly dislodge or invert the power relations of capitalism – and secondly because it’s important to explore such critical interpretations and find out whether they do indeed match the [intended] meaning [within a tradition], precautionarily playing the devil’s advocate. You can of course judge for yourself whether my interpretation fits – on the one hand how it fits the passage and on the other how it fits marxism – and indeed it may turn out that my interpretations are just ideas loosely inspired by the passage and are, in a way, extreme misinterpretations.
*** ‘economy’ here in the broadest sense, i.e. not implying specific types of economy such as economies that feature money or commodities
****As you may notice, this whole thing seems to be taking the form of a self-similar structure of nested pairs.
¹ for example, the passage’s logical form may be taken as this pair of simple propositional logic phrases:
p → q ; r → (p ˄ q)
with p, q, and r being statements as follows:
p: (we transform ourselves/are transformed – we change) q: (we transform the world/the world is transformed/the world changes) r: (we understand the world in a new/better way – we reach a next step of understanding of the world)
This entry and the next address the same question in different ways, the first written around 7 weeks ago, the second written a few days ago. This first one was posing difficulties to me on re-reading it and trying to understand it, though in this transcription I’m happier with it again. The second note addresses the same topic in a different way and together they may make more sense.
[human] History is the process consisting of the reciprocal duality of material changes & ideological changes: material conditions and [largely] unconscious ideological conditions change and cause/precipitate eachother and so constitute the dialectic process that is history.
It is philosophy’s task to understand this dialectic, which means to make the unconscious ideology conscious & visible so that it can be seen and consciously processed and reacted to by society/humanity. Hegelians, e.g. Zizek, seem to understand this – however, Marxists, following Marx’ Dialectic Materialism*, actually don’t:
Marxists [at least ostensibly] want to move on to the post-capitalist phase of history, which would be the dialectic synthesis of capitalism and capitalism’s antithesis: The synthesis would be a new whole that fully produces and holds/includes the antithesis to capitalism. The antithesis is the dialectic negation of capitalism – which would negate exactly every component of capitalist ideology. To negate all components of the ideology, one requires exactly all components of the ideology – identifying the underlying generative process/concepts of capitalist ideology, aka finding the thesis of capitalism.
Now, only such an antithesis would be the true, exact negation of capitalism – and a less thorough negation is not dialectic*, it’s just a contradicting thesis. And such an antithesis or full negation would require capitalist [unconscious] ideology to be understood completely, i.e. made conscious at its deepest/root levels.
However, Marx’ approach is to go straight to changing the material conditions (marxist revolution, workers seizing power over production) in the blind hope that material change will end capitalist ideology or at least provide a way out of it, i.e. hoping that, in the changed material conditions, current/existing ideology won’t inevitably re-produce the same dialectic and the same problems and that there aren’t deeper material or ideological conditions/processes/concepts – i.e. a deeper dialectic – that also re-produce capitalism. And marxist denial of the necessity of fully working through this excavation of ideology makes it impossible to complete the step of the historical dialectic and reach the next higher level of the dialectic totality. And what Marxist endeavor instead leads to is a different, very speculative, question.
So one thing I’m proposing – which I think corresponds to Hegelian
thought – is that changing the material conditions in order to escape a certain material-ideological reality is ineffective without understanding the [logical] relations between existing ideology and proposed altered material conditions, and without ascertaining that the proposed material conditions aren’t just one of many possible manifestations of an underlying ideology and that the proposed material change really is a way out of the dialectic in question.
*Marxists do of course excavate, explore, analyse and critique capitalist ideology, to varying depths/degrees. But it seems to me that their aim in this isn’t to reach full understanding, but instead to reach sufficient understanding to be able to see and explicate enough problems of capitalism to motivate material change…
