I believe the different positions cannot be mapped to one another.

But I don't think that's lost on the respondents, either.

That is one of the reasons I just decided to choose one of the three main ones on offer.

hrmm I have said that philosophy begins in religion, because I think that's where I'd first encountered ideas that I'd still describe as "philosophical", and I was a bit contrarian on those ideas (and, relative to my birth, still am)

I wouldn't call it a loss in faith, but rather being raised with certain answers as a means for grasping the world, and disagreeing with those answers probably primed my mind for the question-and-answer ambiguity that is common to philosophy. It's not like I have many more answers now than I did then -- if anything philosophy has been a psychological relief for me because it's shown me how all those beliefs just aren't all that important.

For me, the old philosophical goal of liberation, then, keeps being a psychologically rewarding reason to continue pursuing philosophy. More than religion, I've found way more personal liberation in philosophy.

But I also just enjoy complicated things, and thinking -- somehow along the way, while those were some initial psychological proddings that got me into philosophy, I got what I call "bitten by the bug": while I am still interested in my personal philosophy, of course, I really started to fall in love with it as a topic unto itself.

There's an aesthetic element to my appreciation, now. And while I started out insisting on truth, that was a Christian belief all along, and it's become less important with time. Hence, liberation.

Non-skeptical realism, here.

I answered the question from the perspective of what I believe in my heart of hearts, rather than what I argue. Where my thinking at, now, is that the real is absurd. This could be read in a skeptical, idealist, or realist sense, and I'd prefer to emphasize the realist sense: somewhere in the observation that reality is absurd, beyond meaning, yet impinges upon meaning there's a phenomenological argument I've yet to tease out for realism.

This was also a great highlight. I'm going to try and read it with the analogy: presupposition as "part of the foundation", positing as "the next bit of how it's being built". Need the first to get going, need the second to keep going. — fdrake

Right! That's a good breakdown as I understood it.

:D Great minds and such.

His little snippets after the fact have been quite useful in looking back, so I was glad he gave us one to think through rather than just the pure text as it is -- which we both agree is pretty hard, even though we're interested in it!

"Capital is not a simple relation, but a process, in whose various moments it is always capital" -- this makes me think of what you were highlighting @Number2018, under the section titled "Transition from circulation to capitalist production -- Capital objectified labour etc. -- Sum of values for production of values." on page 258.

Harvey's lecture: "When you isolate equality, freedom, and reciprocity as admirable attributes, then you are admiring bourgeois attributes" -- I like Harvey pointing out how these are bourgeois values in class, and argues that bourgeois constitutions, like the United States, already sustain those values in terms of exchange.

A good definition of capital right across the page of my last quote on 259:

"As soon as money is posited as an exchange value which not only becomes independent of circulation, but which also maintains itself through it, then it is no longer money, for this as such does not go beyond the negative aspect, but it is capital"

--- Harvey just mentioned a phrase that keeps coming up in the reading "point of departure", still trying to wrap my head around that one in a technical sense, but I'm thinking that might be a ghost chase too

Posit/presuppose from Harvey -- that was nice to hear. I'd never thought of "posit" as "you have to add something else"

This is a good picture Harvey points out between Use-value and Exchange-value, where use-value disappears, but exchange-value lives on in circulation.

Interesting highlight between simple exchange, and capital on page 272:
"Labour as mere performance of services for the satisfaction of immediate needs has nothing whatever to do with capital, since that is not capital's concern. If a capitalist hires a woodcutter to chop wood to roast his mutton over, then not only does the woodcutter relate to the capitalist, but also the capitalist to the woodcutter, in the relation of simple exchange"

Harvey highlights this from page 278:
"It must be kept in mind that the new forces of production and relations of production do not develop out of nothing, nor drop from the sky, nor from the womb of the self-positing Idea; but from within and in antithesis to the existing development of production and the inherited, traditional relations of property. While in the completed bourgeois system every economic relation presupposes every other in its bourgeois economic form, and everything posited is thus also a presupposition, this is the case with every organic system. This organic system itself, as a totality, has its presuppositions, and its development to its totality consists precisely in subordinating all elements of society to itself, or in creating out of it the organs which it still lacks. This is historically how it becomes a totality"

Interesting that Harvey believes the Grundrisse is a prelude to a new society. Whereas Capital is strictly a scientific treatise, Harvey decides to read the Grundrisse as a sort of answer to the proverbial question "OK, what now?" -- and he gives an answer which allows us to answer the question, which is interesting. As if the "what now?" is purposefully not addressed.

Hrm! Interesting Harvey's reading about totality/organism as opposed to syllogism (ala, bourgeois economics).

Made dinner listening and now I'm at the part I've yet to read in the lecture.

Again, I like how Harvey keeps connecting the text to our world.

Hrm! "Labor is the yeast" -- interesting analogy, given that yeast reproduces itself, and you're able to scoop some off at the end before it dies to keep making more product!

I'm glad to hear Harvey emphasizing "roles" too -- "worker" is a role within a process, and not a macho man pouring molten iron with his bare hands just to feed his family. "the worker" is a role as is "the capitalist"

***

And into Q&A.

"Do not come out of the Grundrisse expecting to have a coherent labor theory of value" interesting.

"you could say there are 5, or rather 4, or rather 3 classes" :D -- I'm glad Harvey's responding to the questions with honesty, in saying "I admit this part is odd, and this is why": some motivation to dig deep

On the question of bourgeois freedoms: good question. And I like how Harvey doesn't just say "Yes", but points out how these are still bourgeois values. "not so much the transformation of the ideological concepts, but the practices which will allow those ideological precepts to make sense"

"remember it's an alienated labor and an alienated capital, right throughout for next time"

Oh, these are harsh to get through, I'm not going to lie. Capital was poetry in comparison :D

Turns out cramming before class never gets old. — fdrake

:D

Page 284... just shy of the mark. Luckily, looking ahead, March 7th is Spring Break/Book Release, so there's a lull for us to catch up in just around the corner. I have captured some good highlights, but my reading was more through the dead leaves this time so I'd be less distracted. I'll type some of them up as I listen to class

Still trying to figure out my schedule. I'm catching up with reading today, like last week. I like your expositions @fdrake. They are helping me see some of the structure that I wasn't seeing, and are very lucid.

For next week, just fyi, the final reading for online is on this page on the following paragraph:

An interest of 24 on a capital of 40 is too much; but 24 = 3/5 of 40 (3 × 8 = 24); i.e. in addition to the capital, only 2/5 of the capital grew by 100%; the whole capital therefore by only 2/5, i.e. 16%. [67] The interest computation on 40 is 24% too high (by 100% on 3/5 of the capital); 24 on 24 is 100% on 3 × 8 (3/5 of 40). But on the whole amount of 140, it is 60% instead of 40; i.e. 24 too much out of 40, 24 out of 40 = 60%. Thus we figured 60% too much on a capital of 40 (60 = 3/5 of 100). But we figured 24 too high on 140 (and this is the difference between 220 and 196); this is first 1/5 of 100 then 1/12 of 100 too much; 1/5 of 100 = 20%; 1/12 of 100 = 8 4/12% or 8 1/3%; thus altogether 28 1/3% too high. Thus on the whole not 60%, as on 40, but only 28 1/3% too much; which makes a difference of 31 2/3, depending on whether we figure 24 too many on the 40 [or on] the capital of 140. Similarly in the other example.

In the first 80 which produce 120, 50 + 10 was simply replaced, but 20 reproduced itself threefold: 60 (20 reproduction, 40 surplus).

Hours of labour
If 20 posit 60, making up triple the value, then
60 180.

Rather than follow the rules cutting edge science establishes them. — Fooloso4

Isn't that the same for the artists?

I'm sitting in the peanut gallery. I take a pragmatic view. Reductionism in science has been and continues to be successful. That seems to be where most of the attention goes, but not all of it. Some scientists are more interested in larger scale views. If's not a question of one or the other but of what works. — Fooloso4

Fair.

I'm nowhere near the foundations. I just do my lab job, while thinking my little thoughts. Philosophically the one thing that grounds my wonderings is I'm actually thinking about this stuff in terms of what I ought believe. But in a speculative sense, at least. (since, as you can see, I entertain some odd beliefs)

I agree that it's a question of what works -- I think that's what I mean by multiplicity, at least in part. What works is relative to some project, as far as I can tell.

So a plumber knows what makes a pipe work. There's a reason for the pipe, there is knowledge associated with plumbing which is technical enough to require training.

Of course no one thinks plumbing is the fundament.

But in what way is science's "what works" different such that we should pay attention to it for the purposes of thinking about the fundament?

I'm not sure what you mean by a candidate for reduction. Much of biology is already reductive - genetics, DNA, genomes, biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics, But systems science is non-reductive, it is dynamic and integrative. — Fooloso4

That's interesting. I mean, I agree with the beginning part but I'm curious what you count as non-reductive science.

If you will allow a guess now that you've explained what you mean by between the poles: reduction is the downward motion towards particulars, and holism is the upward motion towards universals. Or, in terms of particular sciences, reductionism is from biological entities' functions to physical forces, and holism is from the whole (whatever that may be) in order to understand the particulars. (I think, in my mind, I think about going back and forth here between wholes and particulars to "check" the relations between ideas, so that's why I filled in as I did before).

Or am I wrong?

I did not mean a double reductionism. The opposite ends of the spectrum are not opposite ends of reductionism. Reductionism is one end and holism at the other end. — Fooloso4

Sorry. I'm filling in gaps where I ought to be asking questions.

I'll just ask an open one: what is the spectrum between reductionism and holism? Are these two methods, or what?

The discontinuities may be a matter of our lack of knowledge. — Fooloso4

I agree they may be. My feeling on what will happen is based on what seems to be -- which perhaps qualifies this as a myth too, now that I think on it.

While I can acknowledge the possibility, my report remains the same -- it's the discontinuities which make me feel doubt, at least in my rationalist story.

For a long time science became increasingly specialized, but there has more recently been an increase in multidisciplinary approaches. — Fooloso4

True. And it's super interesting stuff. I love these approaches.

I think the way my view of science would accommodate that would be similar to artistic movements through history -- there are practitioners who, after upon developing their craft, get to push the boundaries of where things have been.

Just as the artists had to follow certain rules, so do the scientists. The specifics of those rules make each craft what it is. Science as a human craft where we produce knowledge, now that we have a sufficiently rich economy.

With that picture in mind --and it is only a picture -- it's hard for me to believe in a reductionism to the whatevers of physics that we invent in the future. (and this goes back to my picture of science as a social practice which will, by being a social practice, always change rather than arrive at a final picture)

I agree. — Fooloso4

Hrm! I am surprised. How do you make sense of the multiplicity while retaining reductionism as you've laid it out so far?

I don't know what that would look like since much or the focus of physics is not on living organisms. But here is where multidisciplinary approaches come into play. — Fooloso4

I think if we begin with the notion that biology is the queen of the sciences, not in terms of logical relations between the extensions of terms, but in terms of what a science looks like when it's been perfected -- then that's how you'd begin to pick apart the physical sciences.

In a way this almost relates to the OP, because I'm making the argument from success of the sciences -- but saying biology is very successful, and so a candidate for reduction.

Yup. The media personalities were actually what made it harder to organize, IMO.

I put it in the lounge because I was wishing and pining :D -- there were legitimate concerns that people had I met, and real organizations came out of it that still operate today.

I suppose I believe that most people are philosophical in the loose sense of wondering about things, but it's easy to stop that impulse and I think that the personalities which focused people's attention mostly tried to stop that impulse, but in reverse.

And because there were no material conditions tied to it in terms of the people who were paying attention to them, it'd entirely depend on how appealing the personalities were to the general public -- which they weren't :D

Sweet. Glad someone else felt all those things, too. I was in college at that time and there were organizations putting on events that I participated in.

The one thing I remember, even though I had all these doubts, were the people who were there because they were a minority in their culture, and it was a kind of way to connect to others in that similar situation. The quieter part of the group? Basically just wanting to be treated like anyone else. And it got drowned out in the noise.

I suppose that's why I think back to it, still, even though I also dislike the usual suspects -- other than, as you mentioned, Dennett. I disagree with him on so, so many things, but he does have the distinction of having written something interesting on the problem of free will this late in the conversation. Way more than I've done! :D

The self is the overarching temporally extended narrative construct of a necessarily embodied and social consciousness which turns the animal acting in an environment into a subject. It is that through which the individual recognizes that it is one of many, i.e., an individual in a society of individuals, which are also selves. The self is that which recognizes itself as a self in a world of selves.* — Jamal

:up:
:nerd: :grin:

We know the amoeba made a decision because it's not just flowing along with the current. That's what volition is: going against wind, so to speak. Id like to do a thread on identity one day. Maybe after you're through with Marx — frank

Hell yeah, sounds good to me.

:D



So we're similarly situated, but I'm still interested in the ideas and differences, and I'm going to keep it to reductionism now.

Your notion of reductionism appeals to the whole, which I am certainly more inclined towards -- the notion that understanding the whole and its parts and their respective relationships is a very appealing form of reductionism. I think what gets me are the discontinuities, which I've been attempting to point out with my various examples of theories. But that isn't to say I'm opposed to reductionism -- I'd just say that scientific theories are frequently independent of one another developed by their own particular group of people studying that problem or companies working on a product. There's a common theoretical core, but that common theoretical core isn't conceptual, it's cultural. It's a craft whereby one figures out how to reduce observations to theories, or vice versa. So I agree with this notion of a double-reductionism, between wholes and parts.

I think I'm just very uncertain about there being only one way of putting it all: where others see unity, I see multiplicities upon multiplicities, and I see no reason to believe science will be finished.

And, a problem with beginnings, as you noted in the reference to the Arche thread: We could re-interpret physics in terms of biology, saying that biology is the queen of the sciences -- how would you respond to this proposal? Would that still be the physical reduction that you're talking about?

I think a good case can be made for biological teleology at the level of organisms. Cell differentiation allows for one kind of stuff, a totipotent cell, to become other kinds of stuff, all the other cells that make up the organism. It is purposeful in the sense that it functions toward an end, the living organism. — Fooloso4

Cool, so we're pretty close in conception it seems. Just coming at it from a different angle.

The beauty of nature is manifest in appearance. The appearance is no longer present in reduction to something else. — Fooloso4

OK, that makes sense now. Thanks!

I prefer Kuhn, too. I'd say that my approach to the question has been heavily inspired by his approach to the philosophy of science -- treating science as a social-historical entity rather than a superior methodology which can be discovered by philosophers.

In an attempt to bring this back to the thread topic, we should consider whether the beauty of nature is biologically significant. If we conclude it is, and I think we should, we have good reason to think reductionism does not tell us the whole story. — Fooloso4

I'm interested. The conflict I was attempting to bring out was roughly between mechanism and teleology, and the difficulties reduction has with this apparent conflict.

How does the conclusion that the beauty of nature is biologically significant lead to a belief in the limits of reductionism?

I don't think it's that we observe physical laws. We use physics to explain what we observe. Do we really observe acts of volition? Or is volition a theory to explain observations? In other words, is there a clash of explanations when we try to reconcile decision making with physics? I would be one who says there's no bridge between the two. — frank

"volition" is too squishy to count as a theory, I think, unless we mean folk-theory. But then I'd be hesitant to use "observations".

I think what I'd say is that we're so ignorant we don't know if there is or is not a clash. So I agree with you in believing there's not a bridge between the two.

Physics, especially when viewed as an all-encompassing body of explanations, is essentially a deterministic domain, right? — frank

I could argue the case elsewise, but I'm fine with dropping it too.

The area of decision making is about identity (who makes the ATP? who shot down the balloon?) Decision making marks off the natural from the supernatural (per the literal meaning of that word.) And ultimately, it's the engine of emotion we call morality. I suspect that reduction is never going to happen here. Any attempt to reduce is going to give way to eliminativism.

Do you agree with that?

I think identity is a rich concept. I'm not following how decision making marks off the natural from the supernatural.

I'm interested in this idea of giving way to eliminativism. Not that you're wrong. However, sometimes a defense of reducitonism, as you noted, is that it does not lead to eliminativism.

So why is it that reductionism, when it comes to -- let's just say people? -- gives way to eliminativism?

Yes. It's a bad time in history to be reductive because the foundation of physics is unfinished. We could make bridge laws to what we've got, only to find out tomorrow that it's all completely different from what we thought. — frank

I think what I'd caution against is the idea that science has foundations that can be finished. At least, some very intelligent people have claimed to have found these foundations, and they don't all agree with one another.

The lense I understand science through is as a social activity. So supposing a unity between the general theory of relativity and quantum theory is widely accepted, since that's generally thought to be the foundational science, then what's stopping some smart guy in the future from pointing out a mistake or fudge or possibility -- which, given that it's a human activity, is inevitable -- just to make their mark?

I think that there will always be scientists who desire to be the foundation, and so further foundations shall be built.

Which isn't the same as to say it's false! I'm just uncertain about foundations.

Rather than cannot know I would say we do not know. But methodologically reduction has been enormously successful. I take a pragmatic approach. We should not abandon reductionism, but we should be aware of its limits. — Fooloso4

I think with what I've said thus far I should say "we do not know", but I feel we cannot know. Just because of the sketch I already gave to say where my thinking is coming from. I know it needs work to establish the claim.

I agree that we should not abandon reductionism. I think we're on the same page in just trying to understand its limits, though perhaps disagree on our general assessment of where those limits are, or at least are expressing different sorts of notions on limits at the moment -- I'm sure we could come to understand one another.

I'm glad that I'm at least sensible to someone other than myself.

Definitely going out on a limb here, but responding to your ending about the beautiful more than anything. Perhaps off topic from reductionism, and should be splintered off, but I'll see what you think. (I'm loving the exchange btw):


I sometimes wonder about the beautiful. Especially its relationship to the just. Justice was a concern of Plato, yet I question his commitment on the basis of owning slaves. This is clearly an anachronism, yet I don't think it an ethically inappropriate one. It's just one of those things which humans do (still today, I might add) that clearly isn't ethical.

I think, at times, the beautiful can seduce us away from the just. Not that it's bad -- but we are easily led away from the pursuit of justice. (tho I still think the beautiful very important. I'm no aestheteascetic)

Not that I blame people. In its pursuit, justice is almost inhuman -- or, at least, implementations of justice are inhuman.

So I can see wisdom in the beautiful games. And perhaps the beautiful games will lead us to something serious.

But justice still calls -- in a way if I wiled my time pursing beautiful games, I'd be forgetting the people I know who suffer: We will always need bronze souled people, and they ought to be comfortable and happy and know that their children will be OK because we are living a stable life together. When we let go of myth, we see that there are no hierarchies of souls, only different tasks to be done from different positions within the social organism.

Cool, glad someone else is on the same page as me there.

Ahhh OK that helps me.

Oh I wouldn't go so far as to call it an account. This is all very rough, scratch-pad level wonderings on my part. Usually I do this in a notebook, but others were wanting to read along so I thought it might be a good way to eventually get a conversation started, or at least be able to read others thoughts and notes as they go through the text.

The format of the class means that how much you get out of it depends very much on the student (at least for those like me who aren't taking this for a grade) -- no grades and no certificate and no feedback from writing papers to see if you have misread something and all that. So this was a way of maybe, somehow, focusing myself enough to stay on target ;)

I'm not sure what Harvey will or will not cover. I myself haven't read the Grundrisse, so I couldn't even give you heads up beyond the table of contents.

But I'm not so sure about this:

It may be concluded that instead of this appearance - ‘the totality of the process appears as an objective interrelation,’- it is indeed generated by ‘the mutual influence of conscious individuals on one another and by their own collisions with one another.’ — Number2018

except perhaps in a dialectical sense where there is another moment, which is generally what I think socialism is meant to be: When what was an alien relationship becomes something which is controlled by those who live under that relationship, and so it is no longer an alienation but rather political autonomy.

Trying to address your post @Fooloso4

You would assert that

I mean that the most basic "stuff" of the world is physical — Fooloso4

As I am using the term in the sense that nothing else is posited as fundamental. All that comes to be, life, consciousness, mind, comes to be from the physical structures, forces, and interactions that underlie them. — Fooloso4

and that we need to look at the two-sidedness of reduction, needing to know both what we are reducing and what we are reducing to, and realizing that what we are reducing might be a better way to look at things even if it is reducible.

Would you say this is in conflict with my belief that we cannot know these statements? I'd say we cannot know that the most basic stuff of the world is physical, and we cannot know there is nothing else. But, simultaneously, I would say we don't need to know it either, and that knowledge of such things is beyond us.

Why?

I suppose it's because I don't know that it's the case, and I'm not sure what could even be a good reason to believe it. My argument would be from the multitude of beliefs about what reality fundamentally is: this sort of question has been answered in so many ways by intelligent people. Just look at philosophy! One reason I doubt any assertion about what reality fundamentally is is because people smarter than I have disagreed upon the subject. And they had their reasons, too. So why should I trust a belief just because I have a reason when they had their reasons, and yet we'd assert, today, that they were wrong?

One reason I can think of that I find persuasive is that there is some ethical justification for the belief. But, then, you can see why I'd assert that scientific knowledge does not lead to knowledge about the fundament. Instead, I'd say it's our activity which gets us closer to the fundament, but then as we interact with it the richness of being overflows our concepts. However, this is an encounter rather than a reason. I can't reason my way to the boundary of concepts -- I'd be staying within the concepts at that point. I have to grasp the world, and do so through my concepts, but in grasping it becomes a part of my projects, my desires, my way of manipulating the world: the elementality is brought under my categories of desire, converted into my hammer, my house, in which there is always a horizon, or, rather, an exteriority. But an exteriority is always exterior, and never brought under my grasp.

For Levinas I think it was clear that this lead to God. But I'm an atheist, and so what I see is the absurd: depending upon which project a person is pursuing, how they grasp the world, so the world appears. And if you take the time oftentimes you can sort of see where a person is coming from, yet you would never have thought the things you're thinking without the human relationship with a person who told you a new perspective.

So in the place of the absurd, I'd say there is still a face-to-face, and it is this which forms a materiality beyond our own self. It's the social which creates our ability to even speak of the physical, and so it is more fundamental, and yet due to the face-to-face, the Other's exteriority, we will also never know the totality of this materiality.

We would start with chemistry and bridge up to the biological function as a category of processes required for the endurance of the system. All chemistry has to do is explain cell respiration, digestion, metabolism, etc. We enter the bridge when we collect those explanations and serve them up as to how the organism endures? — frank

I'm wondering if @apokrisis has an opinion on this they'd be willing to share.

My intent in using the metabolism example is to say, hey, yes, we can already map the chemical pathways of these things. But that chemical map doesn't explain why the animal eats. Why does an animal make decisions at all? In what way are even single-celled organism's decisions to respond to sugar gradients predicated upon any physical law? (or is the observation that they respond to sugar gradients a physical law? are all observations observations of physical laws?)

**

One of the things I want to mention, though it could throw us too far off course so I'm separating it off -- something that threw me off of thinking reductionism could take place is the fact that we cannot analytically solve any Schrödinger equation other than the one which represents the system of one proton and one electron -- the hydrogen system.

But the physical systems which comprise life are much more complicated than that system. We don't have analytic, logical access to that at this point in time in terms of scientific knowledge. So I think this thought is also causing some of my doubts.

I tend to think of functionality as a result of happy accidents, and then natural history. And there's nothing wrong with cherrypicked examples, because this is philosophy -- we're not doing statistical analysis to determine the likely best guess! :D

Mitochondria have a number of functions, including producing ATP. — frank

Right! So this is a statement which seems to link a name and two biological concepts (Name,concept,concept: Mitochondria,functions,producing) with one chemical name (which, sure, I'll count that as a concept).

Is this now a bridge law? Is it enough to find a harmonious example between two disciplines?

It's true that once we start explaining function in this way (that it's stuff that happens accidently), the line between life and non-life fades. But I think that's the point of reduction? — frank

I'm not so sure that the distinction fades, at least not for me. But I hasten to add I don't mind it fading. And I'm not sure what the point of reduction is :D -- maybe, as @Fooloso4 mentioned, I'm getting stuck on "reduction" too much.

Perhaps the belief is just that, someday, the sciences will form a coherent whole of some kind?


What I've always felt about science is that it provides several ways of looking that enrich understanding rather than limit it. We could restate everything in terms of some physical laws, especially once we allow logical functions and fiat such that any set of sentences can count as bridge laws as long as their extensions are the same and they are true (so I imagine at least, it wasn't exactly spelled out I'm just giving an interpretation). But that restatement wouldn't be as rich as knowing both it and what it is a restatement of -- propositions which utilize the locution "function" stated by scientists writing textbooks, at least (this is a valid avenue of attack, I'd say -- textbooks are pedagogic, rather than literal. They are written to catch people up rather than state, here is the true scientific analysis).

I would say the sciences are independent of one another, and their harmony is something sought after by us because we like it. And sometimes we find it, which is nice! But that's not the same thing as to say everything will, or could be, reduced to physics. But I'm questioning "reduced" now...

I'm thinking that my mechanics example is a good one to work through, along with the mechanics to biology contrast.

So let us define a theory, first. I would say theory is understood by coming to understand particular theories, which we find in science textbooks and learn through training. By coming to learn particular theories we can get a sense of what we generally mean by "theory". It is this usage of "theory" that I intend.


Physics textbook
Biology textbook

Mostly providing the links to coordinate our conversation, not to delimit the set of possible examples. Just "here's a ballpark estimate of the sorts of theories I believe we're talking about"

It seems to me, from reading your article, that as long as the terms being used by scientists have the same extensions then they are considered reduced to one another, while also admitting in bridge principles.

Nagel’s major (and perhaps most controversial) contribution was the introduction of bridge principles. The notion of bridge principles, (also: ‘bridge laws’ and ‘coordinating definitions’) can be spelled out in several different ways. The most common way in accord with Nagel (1961: chap. 11, Sec. II.3) is to describe them syntactically as bi-conditionals linking terms in the vocabularies of the two theories. In the same context, however, Nagel describes them in terms of the ‘nature of the linkages postulated’ (Nagel 1961: 354). He distinguishes three such linkages:

The links mimicked by the bridge laws are ‘logical connections’ (1961: 354), which are understood as meaning connections.
The links postulated by bridge laws are conventions or stipulations (‘deliberate fiat’; 1961: 354).
The links postulated by bridge laws are ‘factual or material’ (1961: 354); that is, bridge laws state empirical facts (these truths are then described as empirical hypotheses).

So, one thing I'd like to note here is that insofar that we are able to introduce auxiliary propositions to a theory then, naturally, we can always save the belief that the sciences reduce to physics. If we find something inconvenient, we can use link type 2 in the above -- I'm guessing "fiat" is any consistent set of logical functions which are chosen to ensure the extensions between terms being compared are the same -- and bridge two principles together.

But then later the SEP article notes an informal distinction between arbitrary and non-arbitrary reductions.

Finally, it is worth noticing that Nagel introduces a distinction between arbitrary and non-arbitrary reductions: These criteria are “non-formal” (1961: chap. 11, Sec. III). The first criterion Nagel mentions is that the premises of a reduction—the bridge laws and the reducing theory—should be well established rather than arbitrarily chosen (1961: 358). Second, Nagel alludes to the fact that the reducing theory should be better established than the reduced one. The third criterion states that reduction is concerned with unification. The fourth criterion states that the reducing theory corrects and augments the reduced theory.

Which is good because it blocks against the argument I was thinking of making :D

So as the biology textbook highlights, chemistry could serve as a non-arbitrary set of bridge laws between biology and physics.

But then the second condition of non-arbitrary reduction "the reducing theory should be better established than the reduced one" -- that is an odd notion. But just going along with the words and seeing where it takes me: I tend to think biology is better established than chemistry! :D

But we can overlook that. The biology textbook utilizes chemical concepts to talk about how cells and life work. But what I do not see is a reduction of the functions of the cell to the physical level. The functions of the cell are still an important part of understanding the phenomena of life, even if understanding the molecular interpretation of life further elucidates and deepens our understanding of why life is behaving in accord with such and such a function.

But the way biologists use "function" -- you won't find an extension for that in the physics textbook, nor will you find anything but metaphoric talk in the chemistry textbooks about function. So on page 109 of the above pdf biology book: "Organelles are cell structures with specialized functions that will be discussed in section 4.4" -- this is my intended meaning of "function".

Now if we can ignore the intension then that would take away the argument from meaning that I'm making. Though that'd also strike out one of the kinds of links proposed as bridge laws, leaving fiat, and empirical fact. Fiat is ruled out by arbitrary/non-arbitrary distinction, but that's how I got here in the first place. Which leaves link 3, an empirical fact, and that much we can say is true of chemistry. However, it's also true that Mars is the 4 planet from the sun. Why not propose that as a bridge law, if all we need is an empirical fact? (comes back to arbitrary/non-arbitrary...)

... I'm not sure. I'm coming back to "what's the point of these bridge laws again?" It seems to me that, sure, we'll be able to come up with sentences that fill in the gaps to make up a totality, but then as science changes we'll have to continue to update that picture.

Happy to hear that Harvey thought this section was definitely one with gems buried in a lot of muck that needs historical explanation to be of interest, because that was definitely how I was feeling.

Glad to hear Harvey confirm my implementation of "use-value" in the above. :D

"electronic monies are even more superior" -- yes! I'm glad to hear Harvey say this, because one of the things I've always thought about Marx's theory of what makes a commodity a good commodity for money actually are consistent with electronic balance sheets, and makes sense of a transition from gold-based to fiat money (even though I know Marx doesn't believe in fiat money, but that gold must back paper money)

"We always have to ask the question: who is the master behind these ideas?"

"ideas are the vehicles which change the world" -- Theses on Feuerbach

Ahhh "free time is a measure of socialism" -- nice. Reminds me of the best theory of communism: "Communism is free time and nothing else"

"Capital does not like a world in which there is free time. It colonizes it. And capital does not like a world in which people have time to think. They want people to be able to act on information, not think"

"we get mixed up on money as a form of price, and money as a form of value"

"we are actually producing experiences"

****

Ooo this is interesting. The conflict between Marx's nihilism and Marx's clear and obvious moral commitments. Nice question.

"they are not thinking about morality as a political question -- as far as they are concerned, how much morality is there on wall street?" -- yup. You get this even from the manifesto.

"will you actually change capital by changing people's ideas and changing their morality? i think that the evidence of that is very very negative" -- I like that he's taking the hard line against belief as an agent of change. Not that it's unimportant! And he's emphasizing that, with Marx. But "activity" is a category distinct from belief.

***

Interesting that he took a question from the youtube chat while they were streaming. I'll keep that in mind while reading. I might come up with one.

***

I like that Harvey is pointing out the centrality of the military to our situation. And, in general, I like how Harvey is tying this old text to our current world throughout his lecture and Q&A. I agree that the military is our economic center.

***

"both merchants and industrialists are subservient in the United States to the financiers"

"one of the most important thing about money is how mobile it can be and so many of the innovations in block-chain technology are about reducing the cost of exchanges"

Interesting that he's bringing in the idea of the velocity of transaction which Marx keeps mentioning. And then qualifying why monetary policy is still not the vector of revolutionary change.

***

I'm impressed that Harvey committed to central planning. It's something I'm still "eh" on. But he puts to words some of the things I think -- like, can you say that central planning failed in the Soviet Union?

***

Why was marx convinced money would not go off the gold standard? because it seems...

ahh! this question is great. It's the exact sort of thought I was having that his theory actually supports fiat currency.

"first, I don't know. i just think at that time there was no reason for it. and as marx is a person of his time it was irrelevant"

definitely a different answer than I thought. More or less Harvey points to the passage which is a hypothetical to make a reductio of Proudhon as a good description of what we actually did; whereas what I think is that if labor-time is the basis of value then fiat currency makes sense as a development of money. Eventually, exchange-value rules. Money as measure and medium and goal becomes a concrete social which is alien to any individual (individual, worthwhile to remind ourselves, coming about as a reality only because of the economic relations which allow individual rights to property).

***

Yup, just posting my notes while listening. I'm glad to have you along @fdrake -- I hope you get to feeling better soon.

I was not, I just went back to the youtube page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkeaMEUxWrc&ab_channel=ThePeople%27sForumNYC Listening now.

I am not advising you or anyone else who might be reading this to accept this or any other likely story. It may be that what is and has been going on may turn out to not be likely at all. I am approaching these questions speculatively and dialogically, but I don't expect much will come of it. The real work is being done elsewhere.

M'kay, cool.

I guess I just have a feeling about an answer to the question, more than anything. So I was attempting to work out that answer in the thread.

So dialogic, speculative -- but not work. I don't labor under the delusion that there aren't others who are better than I at this working on these very questions :D. I just have that itch to scratch!

Although I was responding to your post I was speaking in general terms. It is common in these discussions for someone to insist that ontology or reductionism or metaphysics means this or that, and will carry in their baggage.

I may have been misled by your mention of Kant. Kant on metaphysics and ontology leads to the kind of rabbit hole you are wisely trying to avoid. — Fooloso4

Cool. That helps me in thinking through your post.

The one thing I'm importing from Kant is the denial of metaphysics as knowledge -- however, in some of my initial attempts at responding I was trying to qualify in what way and all that, and it started to spiral off :D. But I'm not as clear on it as he is, and I don't even agree with his project. It's in the background of my thinking, however. And roughly what I think I'd try to defend is the belief that scientific knowledge does not lead to knowledge about what fundamentally is the case, or the fundaments of reality. Now, maybe that's entirely off base from the notion of likely stories, or even of theory reduction. But just to say more about why I mentioned Kant.

I'm not going to lie, all this about what determines the amount of money that should be in circulation is a bit dry, but here's one of the gems Harvey talked about:

Circulation is the movement in which the general alienation appears as general appropriation and general appropriation as general alienation. As much, then, as the whole of this movement appears as a social process, and as much as the individual moments of this movement arise from the conscious will and particular purposes of individuals, so much does the totality of the process appear as an objective interrelation, which arises spontaneously from nature; arising, it is true, from the mutual influence of conscious individuals on one another, but neither located in their consciousness, nor subsumed under them as a whole. Their own collisions with one another produce an alien social power standing above them, produce their mutual interaction as a process and power independent of them. Circulation, because a totality of the social process, is also the first form in which the social relation appears as something independent of the individuals, but not only as, say, in a coin or in exchange value, but extending to the whole of the social movement itself. The social relation of individuals to one another as a power over the individuals which has become autonomous, whether conceived as a natural force, as chance or in whatever other form, is a necessary result of the fact that the point of departure is not the free social individual. Circulation as the first totality among the economic categories is well suited to bring this to light.

One of the innovations of Marx, in social theory, is exactly this -- the notion that the social is independent of individuals, and that it can be described. He's talking about " the social movement itself" and not what a bunch of people are doing together.

It's an idea that I've had a hard time getting across, sometimes, because we are so habituated to thinking ourselves as individuals, and thinking of the social as that which arises out of what a collection of individuals do.

***

Oi, these notebooks are pretty rough. :D How many times do I need an example of two different commodities being equated to one another, and the explanation that money is the commodity which mediates the use-value (or physical) differences between products, and its value is expressed in price which is related, through the process of circulation, to labor time, and therefore it acts as both a medium of exchange and a measure of value. (apparently, hundreds of pages worth)

(I feel like these notebooks are responding to some very particular criticisms that I'm probably missing, given this conversation happened some 150 years ago)

But another gem, or at least a conclusion in what appears to be some difficult to follow reasoning:

Only within circulation, then, is it such a material symbol; taken out of circulation, it again becomes a realized price; but within the process, as we have seen, the quantity, the amount of these material symbols of the monetary unit is the essential attribute. Hence, while the material substance of money, its material substratum of a given quantity of gold or silver, is irrelevant within circulation, where money appears as something existing in opposition to commodities, and where, by contrast, its amount is the essential aspect, since it is there only a symbol for a given amount of this unit; in its role as measure, however, where it was introduced only ideally, its material substratum was essential, but its quantity and even its existence as such were irrelevant. From this it follows that money as gold and silver, in so far as only its role as means of exchange and circulation is concerned, can be replaced by any other symbol which expresses a given quantity of its unit, and that in this way symbolic money can replace the real, because material money as mere medium of exchange is itself symbolic.

Ahhh, at last, any commodity can serve the function of money.

That's not the only thing he's trying to establish, but due to the historical nature of the debates I'm just admitting to struggling with some of the assertions (in trying to figure out why they are relevant).

The story I'm gathering is -- money has moments. In its first moments it behaves in accord with C-M-M-C (interesting to note that in Capital, this equation is C-M-C -- here I'm guessing he's treating the equation as a particular exchange) (measure of value between two commodities?), in its second moment it begins as money to return as money (medium of exchange and realizer of prices), and then in the third moment money becomes an end unto itself and exits the field of circulation.

In the case of money as capital, money itself is posited (1) as precondition of circulation as well as its result; (2) as having independence only in the form of a negative relation, but always a relation to circulation; (3) as itself an instrument of production, since circulation no longer appears in its primitive simplicity, as quantitative exchange, but as a process of production, as a real metabolism. And thus money is itself stamped as a particular moment of this process of production. Production is not only concerned with simple determination of prices, i.e. with translation of the exchange values of commodities into a common unit, but with the creation of exchange values, hence also with the creation of the particularity of prices. Not merely with positing the form, but also the content. Therefore, while in simple circulation, money appears generally as productive, since circulation in general is itself a moment of the system of production, nevertheless this quality still only exists for us, and is not yet posited in money. (4) As capital, money thus also appears posited as a relation to itself mediated by circulation – in the relation of interest and capital. But here we are not as yet concerned with these aspects; rather, we have to look simply at money in the third role, in the form in which it emerged as something independent from circulation, more properly, from both its earlier aspects.

Heh, didn't quite finish the assignment. I'll have to block more time this coming week. But that's where I'm at as of right before class.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a response. I've written a few and then I feel like it's entirely wrong :D I can't tell if we're in agreement here now, in that we cannot know that such a reduction could take place (so it is perhaps better to believe in a void), or if you advising me to adopt physicalism and reduction on the basis that it's the most likely story, and we cannot know more, so it's wise to accept this likely story?

And I'll try not to get stuck on terminology. I at least share your suspicion of philosophical terminology, in that while it can clarify it can also be the thing your mind is getting stuck on and it's actually confusing in some circumstances. But I'm not sure where in this conversation the terminology has led me astray. My guess is it's with the use of "ontology" and "reduction" and "metaphysics" -- but I thought we're using the terms closely enough. I understood your definitions of ontology and reduction.




OK, tomorrow, I'll read up. But the thoughts are still buzzing so that's what's shared here:


That's not how I'd put it, mostly because syntactic entities usually do not include activity. But I could go along with the notion all the same, because I believe I'm tracking what you've typed: and I'm still on the "no" side and working through the reasons why. (I have opinions, but I'm talking because I'm still not clear on them.)

"Logical consequences" seem odd to me. Do theories have logical consequences? It seems to me that theories have interpretations which can be used to do experiments to demonstrate or build upon what's been demonstrated. Theories, once called, usually are the means by which we explain individual experiments, rather than some kind of coherent uber-picture. They are very particular -- so we have the science of mechanics, and within the science of mechanics you have statics and dynamics of classically sized objects, you have thermodynamics and electrodynamics, statistical and quantum mechanics, and each of these has their own statements within their books that do not logically imply one another. They cohere, but that's not the same thing. If you're doing a thermodynamical experiment, you wouldn't use "F=ma" because that's not the sort of experiment you are doing.

However, you can crib from other sciences for your purposes (hence the kinetic theory of heat). If it works for your question, for your experiment, go ahead. And I'd say that treating the sciences as if they cohere is a very common, regulative belief that is fruitful. (But notice that's not the same thing as to say that it's a true belief).

But that's not the same as seeing theories as logical consequences of one another. And I don't think that's generally even a goal of scientists.

And if the sub-fields within mechanics don't even logically imply one another, and they are much closer in concept, I then have a reason to doubt that there will be, say, a mechanics which logically implies, say, that all living creatures are related through speciation of a common ancestor.

Hey no worries. I'm glad to do it. For the 21'st of February you'll stop at this paragraph on this page. I'll keep updating every week so you can follow along.

This is the occasion to draw attention to a moment which here, for the first time, not only arises from the standpoint of the observer, but is posited in the economic relation itself. In the first act, in the exchange between capital and labour, labour as such, existing for itself, necessarily appeared as the worker. Similarly here in the second process: capital as such is posited as a value existing for itself, as egotistic value, so to speak (something to which money could only aspire). But capital in its being-for-itself is the capitalist. Of course, socialists sometimes say, we need capital, but not the capitalist. [7] Then capital appears as a pure thing, not as a relation of production which, reflected in itself, is precisely the capitalist. I may well separate capital from a given individual capitalist, and it can be transferred to another. But, in losing capital, he loses the quality of being a capitalist. Thus capital is indeed separable from an individual capitalist, but not from the capitalist, who, as such, confronts the worker. Thus also the individual worker can cease to be the being-for-itself [Fürsichsein] of labour; he may inherit or steal money etc. But then he ceases to be a worker. As a worker he is nothing more than labour in its being-for-itself. (This to be further developed later.) [8]

The term ontology does not have an single agreed upon usage or definition . I mean that the most basic "stuff" of the world is physical. The term reductionist does not have a single agreed upon usage or definition either. As I am using the term in the sense that nothing else is posited as fundamental. All that comes to be, life, consciousness, mind, comes to be from the physical structures, forces, and interactions that underlie them. — Fooloso4

Fair points.

So the belief that "The most basic "stuff" of the world is physical" and the belief that "all that comes to be, life, consciousness, mind, comes to be from the physical structures, forces, and interactions that underlie them" -- I think both of these beliefs would qualify as "ontologically" as I was using the term.

I am uncertain to the extent it is rational to believe either of those. Which isn't the same as to say they are not true. However, if they are not rational to believe, even if they are true, they'd fall into the mythic portion of philosophy: the stories told for those who need a story.

For my money it's a good myth. But I'm uncertain to what extent I believe it, really, or to what extent one can believe anything about what is fundamental. It seems to me that any posited fundamental stuff can be justified. You just have to pick the right rules of rationality for them.

:lol:

Look, in the people's scientific resistance to the romans...

I think I'm tracking. I didn't think you were positing eliminativism.

More bringing up difficulties that come to mind. I'll admit to not reading the Nagel yet -- I gotta do Marx. I just had thoughts to get out there to share.



Cool.

I mean, it's Schrodinger, so I'm guessing it's pretty esoteric :D -- dude had beliefs about the reality of waves in opposition to the particle interpretation of quantum mechanics. (spoiler: turns out they are mathematically reducible to one another). All the quantum pioneers had very different beliefs, it seems to me. It has thus far been judged as uninteresting for scientific purposes.

But to concur with part of where you started, with respect to science really beginning in the mundane (I just hadn't thought of anything to respond to it until now): the reason quantum interpretation is judged as "pure theory" (so only pursued by the brave few who stake their career on it) is because we live within the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie!

I appreciate you even trying, because I too am stumbling.

Ontologically I'm an absurdist, or at least that's how I like to put it now. I'm obviously still thinking through things. But this is just to say where I'm at, rather than go down another rabbit hole.

In the vein of Kant's denial that metaphysics is knowledge -- I'm uncertain where I'm at ontologically. It seems as if one could posit anything, and it would be accepted more based upon where we're at, how it'd help us, and all that. But ontology is supposed to be more general than desire, usually.

So while the words of philosophers which speak ontologically make sense I'm not comfortable with committing to any ontological reductionism I've come across so far.

Epistemologically, I think, is how I'm approaching the problem, through the lens of the history of science as scientists being the ones who make science.

. We cannot understand life without beginning with things that are alive. We must work at it from both ends. The problem with reductionism is that it reduces things to something other than they are. — Fooloso4

I agree with this! And I believe that is @frank's point, too, only noting that we might be able to make a reduction after all.

I suppose, given the diversity of all the sciences, I still feel skeptical about a reduction to physics.

"Who designed the designer?" is a question, not an argument -- so I'd say it is neither valid nor invalid.

I think your argument is a strong statement of Premise 1 which is attempting to refute a counter objection, but in argument form. It looks more like a dialectic.

In response to the conclusion, I'd say it's plausible that another starting point could account for the designer other than the designer. For instance, the guy who designed airplanes is accounted for by being human and where all that came from. So why is it that the designer must be the starting point? Some designers are not starting points after all.

Yes and No. ;)

That's a great question. Are physics and biology a distinction between species which branched from one another, or are they of a distinction between kinds? (also, very true what you said of Darwin -- I wouldn't have been able to put Darwin's contribution so succinctly as you did)


I want to say they are a distinction of kinds, but I think I get there from the more general question about science as a whole, i.e. my reading of the interplay between mostly Popper and Feyerabend, plus just thinking about all the things science consists in when taken as a historical entity rather than a conceptual one.

So I want to say that biology, even with time and in an intelligence highly developed, cannot reduce to physics. However, I want to say it in this qualified sense where I just want to bring difficulties forward, rather than say, categorically, this cannot take place.

That is, I think that's my side. That's my suspicion. But, hey, I'm talking here for a reason. :D

Picking up where I left off (weekends are for rest) --


Even More on the Differences Between Time-chits and Money (and how that doesn't add up):

In this case the bank is simultaneously the general buyer and the general seller in one person. Or the opposite takes place. In this case, the bank chit is mere paper which claims to be the generally recognized symbol of exchange value, but has in fact no value. For this symbol has to have the property of not merely representing, but being, exchange value in actual exchange. In the latter case the bank chit would not be money, or it would be money only by convention between the bank and its clients, but not on the open market. It would be the same as a meal ticket good for a dozen meals which I obtain from a restaurant, or a theatre pass good for a dozen evenings, both of which represent money, but only in this particular restaurant or this particular theatre. The bank chit would have ceased to meet the qualifications of money, since it would not circulate among the general public, but only between the bank and its clients...

..The bank would thus be the general buyer and seller. Instead of notes it could also issue cheques, and instead of that it could also keep simple bank accounts. Depending on the sum of commodity values which X had deposited with the bank, X would have that sum in the form of other commodities to his credit. A second attribute of the bank would be necessary: it would need the power to establish the exchange value of all commodities, i.e. the labour time materialized in them, in an authentic manner. But its functions could not end there. It would have to determine the labour time in which commodities could be produced, with the average means of production available in a given industry, i.e. the time in which they would have to be produced. But that also would not be sufficient. It would not only have to determine the time in which a certain quantity of products had to be produced, and place the producers in conditions which made their labour equally productive (i.e. it would have to balance and to arrange the distribution of the means of labour), but it would also have to determine the amounts of labour time to be employed in the different branches of production. The latter would be necessary because, in order to realize exchange value and make the bank’s currency really convertible, social production in general would have to be stabilized and arranged so that the needs of the partners in exchange were always satisfied. Nor is this all. The biggest exchange process is not that between commodities, but that between commodities and labour. (More on this presently.) The workers would not be selling their labour to the bank, but they would receive the exchange value for the entire product of their labour, etc. Precisely seen, then, the bank would be not only the general buyer and seller, but also the general producer. In fact either it would be a despotic ruler of production and trustee of distribution, or it would indeed be nothing more than a board which keeps the books and accounts for a society producing in common. The common ownership of the means of production is presupposed, etc., etc. The Saint-Simonians made their bank into the papacy of production.

What Adam Smith, in the true eighteenth-century manner, puts in the prehistoric period, the period preceding history, is rather a product of history.

This reciprocal dependence is expressed in the constant necessity for exchange, and in exchange value as the all-sided mediation. The economists express this as follows: Each pursues his private interest and only his private interest; and thereby serves the private interests of all, the general interest, without willing or knowing it. The real point is not that each individual’s pursuit of his private interest promotes the totality of private interests, the general interest. One could just as well deduce from this abstract phrase that each individual reciprocally blocks the assertion of the others’ interests, so that, instead of a general affirmation, this war of all against all produces a general negation. The point is rather that private interest is itself already a socially determined interest, which can be achieved only within the conditions laid down by society and with the means provided by society; hence it is bound to the reproduction of these conditions and means. It is the interest of private persons; but its content, as well as the form and means of its realization, is given by social conditions independent of all.

Heh, those are right next to one another, but they are both really good sections. The first, as criticism of naive socialisms (one which mimics the same criticism I've heard levied against socialism, that the Party now is both the State and the Employer), and the second for talking about scope. "Private interest" is a social relation, which Marx here points out, while real, is the product of the time (the private interests come on the scene as soon as bourgeois politics begins to undermine feudal social relations) -- one could do worse in reading Marx in always remembering that Feudalism is the historical analogue of Capitalism: it's on a scope larger than the individual, in that case, fiefs and duchies and kingdoms and the entire mess that was medieval ownership, but it's those over time, and they are independent of any individual kingdom, duchy, fief, and so forth.

But more on our relationship, in capitalism to the social bond:

The reciprocal and all-sided dependence of individuals who are indifferent to one another forms their social connection. This social bond is expressed in exchange value, by means of which alone each individual’s own activity or his product becomes an activity and a product for him; he must produce a general product – exchange value, or, the latter isolated for itself and individualized, money. On the other side, the power which each individual exercises over the activity of others or over social wealth exists in him as the owner of exchange values, of money. The individual carries his social power, as well as his bond with society, in his pocket.

Something interesting to note here is in relation to We-Intentions. Note how money, here, is not given power due to We-Intentions, but because it is an independent, social entity with objectively determinable properties.

But, back to the badness of time-chits:

Individuals are subsumed under social production; social production exists outside them as their fate; but social production is not subsumed under individuals, manageable by them as their common wealth. There can therefore be nothing more erroneous and absurd than to postulate the control by the united individuals of their total production, on the basis of exchange value, of money, as was done above in the case of the time-chit bank.

Or, really, I'm just stressing the point about the social being both real and independent of individuals.

Something often misunderstood with Marx is how he feels about capitalism. He's actually quite fascinated with its operations. And he judges it positively:

It has been said and may be said that this is precisely the beauty and the greatness of it: this spontaneous interconnection, this material and mental metabolism which is independent of the knowing and willing of individuals, and which presupposes their reciprocal independence and indifference. And, certainly, this objective connection is preferable to the lack of any connection, or to a merely local connection resting on blood ties, or on primeval, natural or master-servant relations.

Equally certain is it that individuals cannot gain mastery over their own social interconnections before they have created them. But it is an insipid notion to conceive of this merely objective bond as a spontaneous, natural attribute inherent in individuals and inseparable from their nature (in antithesis to their conscious knowing and willing). This bond is their product. It is a historic product. It belongs to a specific phase of their development. The alien and independent character in which it presently exists vis-à-vis individuals proves only that the latter are still engaged in the creation of the conditions of their social life, and that they have not yet begun, on the basis of these conditions, to live it. It is the bond natural to individuals within specific and limited relations of production. Universally developed individuals, whose social relations, as their own communal [gemeinschaftlich] relations, are hence also subordinated to their own communal control, are no product of nature, but of history. The degree and the universality of the development of wealth where this individuality becomes possible supposes production on the basis of exchange values as a prior condition, whose universality produces not only the alienation of the individual from himself and from others, but also the universality and the comprehensiveness of his relations and capacities. In earlier stages of development the single individual seems to be developed more fully, because he has not yet worked out his relationships in their fullness, or erected them as independent social powers and relations opposite himself. It is as ridiculous to yearn for a return to that original fullness [22] as it is to believe that with this complete emptiness history has come to a standstill. The bourgeois viewpoint has never advanced beyond this antithesis between itself and this romantic viewpoint, and therefore the latter will accompany it as legitimate antithesis up to its blessed end.)

I'm sort of just quote-dumping here, but these are some great sections for clarifying misunderstandings I've come across in reading Marx : the social is independent of the individual, and alienation is a stage in seeking control over the social -- the original fullness that we might dream of cannot come back, either, because we now depend upon the world market. We were raised in an environment which taught us to become industrial citizens: if we "returned to how things were" we'd be peasants or hunter gatherers, and a great deal of the population would die off because those means of production are not able to support a population the size of what we have now.

For Marx he's always pointing out that these relationships are not natural, because they are different from how they were (feudal), and so the bourgeoisie, like every class which has ruled the world, sees itself as the end of history when it's just a moment in history.

Ye olde appearance/reality distinction -- the social appears natural because the individual has no control over the natural, but is born into a world with such and such social realtionships already at play. But in reality, the social relationship is much larger than our immediate surroundings, and our immediate surroundings, as well as ourselves as individuated people with personal bank accounts (the individual right to own property), are the product of social forces.

A particular expenditure of labour time becomes objectified in a definite particular commodity with particular properties and a particular relationship to needs; but, in the form of exchange value, labour time is required to become objectified in a commodity which expresses no more than its quota or quantity, which is indifferent to its own natural properties, and which can therefore be metamorphosed into – i.e. exchanged for – every other commodity which objectifies the same labour time. The object should have this character of generality, which contradicts its natural particularity. This contradiction can be overcome only by objectifying it: i.e. by positing the commodity in a double form, first in its natural, immediate form, then in its mediated form, as money. The latter is possible only because a particular commodity becomes, as it were, the general substance of exchange values, or because the exchange values of commodities become identified with a particular commodity different from all others. That is, because the commodity first has to be exchanged for this general commodity, this symbolic general product or general objectification of labour time, before it can function as exchange value and be exchanged for, metamorphosed into, any other commodities at will and regardless of their material properties. Money is labour time in the form of a general object, or the objectification of general labour time, labour time as a general commodity. Thus, it may seem a very simple matter that labour time should be able to serve directly as money (i.e. be able to furnish the element in which exchange values are realized as such), because it regulates exchange values and indeed is not only the inherent measure of exchange values but their substance as well (for, as exchange values, commodities have no other substance, no natural attributes). However, this appearance of simplicity is deceptive. The truth is that the exchange-value relation – of commodities as mutually equal and equivalent objectifications of labour time – comprises contradictions which find their objective expression in a money which is distinct from labour time.

This is an interesting paragraph to me because it highlights what "contradictions" means by Marx. Money is a concrete which resolves contradictions -- that's really interesting. "contradiction" is still a notion I'm suspicious of within the general wheel-house, because the rules for thinking dialectically are very far from clear to me, and are likewise easily subject to abuse because of that. Don't like a conclusion you've drawn? Just think dialectically about it, comrade! ;)

Here I'm noticing how the concrete object resolves conceptual contradictions from a time period before -- so money comes about because we have division of labor which segments the population into roles which could not survive on their own, yet they don't produce commensurable goods. If you have 2000 pairs of shoes at the end of the day, while you are one hell of a shoe crafter, you don't have the things you want. You're reliant upon all the other laborers to do their part, and exchange their goods: basically the need for money. Hence why we have all the talk about time-chits -- I take it that it was thought to be a viable replacement to capital, where Marx is clearly coming down against that, saying that capital takes us to a better place than we were, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the possibility of a new society).

***

Through all the parenthetical notes it's easy to get lost in just what Marx is talking about and why, so I'm going to post the conclusion:

This much proceeds from what has been developed so far: A particular product (commodity) (material) must become the subject of money, which exists as the attribute of every exchange value. The subject in which this symbol is represented is not a matter of indifference, since the demands placed on the representing subject are contained in the conditions – conceptual determinations, characteristic relations – of that which is to be represented. The study of the precious metals as subjects of the money relations, as incarnations of the latter, is therefore by no means a matter lying outside the realm of political economy, as Proudhon believes, any more than the physical composition of paint, and of marble, lie outside the realm of painting and sculpture. The attributes possessed by the commodity as exchange value, attributes for which its natural qualities are not adequate, express the demands made upon those commodities which ϰατ᾽ ἐξοχήν [36] are the material of money. These demands, at the level to which we have up to now confined ourselves, are most completely satisfied by the precious metals. Metals as such [enjoy] preference over other commodities as instruments of production, and among the metals the one which is first found in its physical fullness and purity – gold; then copper, then silver and iron.

So eat it, Proudhon!

I'm going to be real -- I totally skipped part a where he's going into why different metals couldn't be used as money, thereby scientifically demonstrating his conclusion. And I only skimmed part b.

d, though, has some interesting parts I'm slowing down and reading now. I like this clear statement about money:

But first let us note that what is circulated by money is exchange value, hence prices. Hence, as regards the circulation of commodities, it is not only their mass but, equally, their prices which must be considered. A large quantity of commodities at a low exchange value (price) obviously requires less money for its circulation than a smaller quantity at double the price. Thus, actually, the concept of price has to be developed before that of circulation. Circulation is the positing of prices, it is the process in which commodities are transformed into prices: their realization as prices. Money has a dual character: it is (1) measure, or element in which the commodity is realized as exchange value, and (2) means of exchange, instrument of circulation, and in each of these aspects it acts in quite opposite directions. Money only circulates commodities which have already been ideally transformed into money, not only in the head of the individual but in the conception held by society (directly, the conception held by the participants in the process of buying and selling). This ideal transformation into money is by no means determined by the same laws as the real transformation. Their interrelation is to be examined.

Also pushes against some of the We-Intentions notes I put before; maybe because here he's talking about money in its ideal character in addition to its real character?

But mostly I like Marx's clear statement on the dual character of money, that it is both the means of exchange and measure of value.

One of the things I think that was "lost" in dropping Marx is looking for a material analogue that connects economics to the sciences. If economics is a science, as Marx holds, then it must have some measurable natural quantity -- hence Marx positing labor-time as the measurable quantity which all commodities share in common. Not that the price is in these units, it's not -- but with the discussion about money from before, it should be seen that since money is itself also just another commodity, nothing is explained by saying it's a medium of exchange. Of course it is, but what Marx is trying to understand is why it is a medium of exchange -- how is it that value, objectively (scientifically) increases? And for it to increase, you'd have to first say what it is, which for Marx is labor-time (though price tracks accreted concrete labor time, too -- so price is a measure, though its value fluctuates with its market)


A quote about ideal/real:

If exchange values are ideally transformed into money by means of prices, then, in the act of exchange, in purchase and sale, they are really transformed into money, exchanged for money, in order then to be again exchanged as money for a commodity. A particular exchange value must first be exchanged for exchange value in general before it can then be in turn exchanged for particulars. The commodity is realized as an exchange value only through this mediating movement, in which money plays the part of middleman. Money thus circulates in the opposite direction from commodities. It appears as the middleman in commodity exchange, as the medium of exchange. It is the wheel of circulation, the instrument of circulation for the turnover of commodities; but, as such, it also has a circulation of its own – monetary turnover, monetary circulation. The price of the commodity is realized only when it is exchanged for real money, or in its real exchange for money.

Also, a good quote to hammer, again, how Marx's theory of capitalism depends upon an account of exchange

The circumstances which determine the mass of commodity prices to be realized, on the one hand, and the velocity of circulation of money, on the other hand, are to be examined later. This much is clear, that prices are not high or low because much or little money circulates, but that much or little money circulates because prices are high or low;

All the previous to just say how monetary policy isn't all you need to look at.


Hrm, I'm thinking I'm going to call it there today. Tomorrow, finish before the lecture. I'm probably going to restart at the beginning of part D... I can feel the reading fatigue setting in and I'm starting to speed up. :D

(Top of Page 186 in Penguin Grundrisse)