Starting from things like representative democracy and universal suffrage, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the ending of mercantilism and feudalism. Or starting from things like a conservative will not say that the monarch has supreme power because he or she is anointed by God and because the Bible says so. — ssu

None of that had been achieved in the 19th century, as you said, but in a very limited and formal way.Cf. the strong criticism of Engels and Dostoevsky from the left and from the right. Even in the twenty-first century, these ideals cannot be said to have really triumphed. Unless you consider the standards of Putin's Russia or Erdogan's Turkey to be sufficient. Or do you consider them to be fulfilled in the United States of America?
What really happened is that the liberals - a few exceptions aside - became conservative as soon as they got a sufficient dose of market freedom. The rest was left ad calendas graecas or to the mercy of rhetoric and propaganda.

As the President (counselor) said, "It's the economy, stupid!" He would know what he was saying, wouldn't he?

You just made we want to read his last philosophical works — Gregory

Great! You'll tell us about it.

"Real" is problematic for me. Is discussing Being any less "real" than laws of logic? I also think ideas of referentiality are questionable. — Xtrix

And for me it's problematic that the concept of reality is problematic for you, especially because you don't give any reason for it. If you want to discuss it, and if you don't want to, I don't know why you say it.

If I visualize a triangle, it's not that the triangle is somewhere "outside" myself that can decay, but neither is anything in tho — Xtrix

Math is not based on what we visualize or imagine. Mathematical proofs are based on formal criteria, independent of empirical intuition. That's why there are totally counterintuitive mathematics. The same for logic.

Of course. The life of human being is subject to temporality. But he can formulate propositions that refer to non-temporal objects. I repeat, you see sense in saying: "Tomorrow at 10 p.m. A will be equal to A"? Do you see no difference between "A=A" and "The postman will ring twice"?

Summarizing: I think Parmenides was trying to do an a-temporal and counterintuitive theory of Being and Heidegger misunderstood him because he had a preconceived idea. He thought that all the metaphysical tradition was infected by the ontical. He was the only one that was able to lead humanity on the path of true ontological thinking. I think he had a high concept of himself. A philosophical vice.

What he did not perceive is that metaphysics is contaminated by the ontic because a thought detached from sensitive experience becomes empty and irrelevant to practice. Perhaps he realized this in his final stage and therefore preferred to take refuge in poetry and abjure philosophy. Because poetry has no commitment to truth and does not need to justify what it claims.

Yet once the objectives had been achieved, — ssu

What liberal objectives had been achieved?

Well Heidegger would say — Xtrix

I assume this is what you think Heidegger would think. Interpretation in second phase.
If the above explanation is true, it would be applicable to Parmenides, according you. No direct quote of Heidegger to explain the link between Parmenides and time. Only a curt assertion.

Then, about your opinion:
Let us accept that every human being live in the experience of time (temporality). This is not the same than saying that every human proposition implies time because it is based on existence of things (presence).
"A is A" is not a temporal assertion. It is assumed to refer to objects without circumstances of present, past and future. Very different to say "The corpse was on the table". This is temporal because I can ask "When?" and I understand that it is different to "The corpse is on the table" or "We will put the corpse on the table". But asking "When A is A?" has no sense. You are badly asking. The answer is: "Under any circumstance of time and space" This is to say, without any circumstance of time and space.

Another thing is that the timeless statements that human beings are capable of making contain some empirical content. "A =A", for instance, is a formal statement. It says nothing about reality, but rather about the way thought is organized. Probably "Being is One", by Parmenides, has no empirical content. It does not describe anything, so to speak. It is a formal statement used as if it were existential. That is the error of all metaphysics and Parmenides is its father.

But this is very different from saying that we cannot formulate propositions that escape the a priori conditions of temporality. We can and do so constantly. In fact, Heidegger claims that it must be done, since he accuses Parmenides of defining being in terms of temporality, in terms of the present. But what I doubt is that both Parmenides' and Heidegger's metaphysical statements are referential, that they refer to something real. They are simple escapes from reality. Very typical of myth, religion and poetry.

They seem to think strength can solve anything, and yet it is intelligence that accounts for the quality of life. — JerseyFlight

What counts is that no one spits out blood so that another can live better. (Atahualpa Yupanqui) And we will talk about the greater or lesser intelligence later.

Liberalism from the Age of Enlightenment was against absolute monarchy, divine rights of kings, hereditary privilege, state religion, the mercantilist policies, royal monopolies and other barriers to trade, and promoted representative democracy and the rule of law and free trade. — ssu

That was 18th century liberalism. Later, liberalism has become the doctrine that accepts any junk dictatorship as long as it allows capital to do business. What matters to the new (?) liberal is the market, and if that requires a police state in order to eliminate a few thousand opponents, it does not make him sick. (Pinochet, Videla, etc.)

So there is a conclusion:
There cannot be a true liberalism that does not defend the conditions of equality that make possible the real exercise of freedom. That is why some liberals (Mill) ended up convinced that there can be no liberalism without socialism. I subscribe to this opinion.

George Steiner: Heidegger, p. 153

The fatal deception of metaphysical-philosophical thought has been to consider Being as a kind of eternal "being before the eyes" (Vorhandesein). Already Saint Augustine had called attention against the obsessive concupiscentia oculorum of the philosophers, their Platonic insistence on the "vision" of the essence of things instead of living them with patience and with an existential commitment that implied the temporarily limited nature of being.

I think this brief fragment says much more than your twists and turns in the void.
Since the nature of being is temporary, the philosophers who defended the eternal character of nature were misleading their readers. They say that substances are eternal, but they are unable to give a coherent view of time and eternity.

So far I find this criticism acceptable and debatable. But Heidegger begins to run aground when he pretends that Plato's ideas or Parmenides' being are of a fictitious timelessness because they rest on a concept of "vision" that is nothing but the present turned into unlimited. It would be a false eternity.

But it is not. This is where Heidegger skates.
Parmenides' concept of being is not based on any "vision" or "presence" as he says. It is the fruit of a rational analysis -by the Goddess- of the discourse of men. This analysis does not focus on any contemplation or vision, but on a Truth of proto-logical order: it is not possible that the non-being is. Where is the vision here?
Secondly, St. Augustine and Heidegger are wrong. Platonic idealism is not only based on the illumination/vision of the world of ideas in the present. Two aspects of time are internal to its development: the past in the form of oblivion and the future in the form of reincarnation. Forms are not known because they are seen, but because they are remembered on the occasion of intellectual illumination. And life is projected to the future because it doesn't ends in worldly death, but in a continuous journey of the soul rising or falling

So, it is not true that Greek metaphysics has a concept of eternity based on the hypostasis of the present. Especially it is not true in the case of Parmenides.

I think that Marx never addressed how the post-capitalist communist society would specifically be organized and turn from the proletarian dictatorship to full communism as the dictatorship was just a transitory phase. — ssu

That is true, but Marx left little written about the form of that dictatorship of the proletariat. In the Manifesto of the Communist Party he speaks of a dictatorship concerning the means and relations of production only. In The Civil War in France Marx had praised the participatory structure of the French Commune of 1871.

It seems to follow that he was thinking of some form of workers' participation in the power of the state.

This left the door open to different interpretations within Marxism. The most immediate, that of Frederick Engels in A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891: "If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat".

You see that things are far from being settled as you think.

And the lack of democratic checks is the basic problem. Why I argue it's an inherent problem is because Marx has an agenda, communism, and an singular agent, the proletariat, which makes democracy just a tool to get to communism and to eradicate capitalism. — ssu

I do not remember if it is in The 18th of Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte or in The Class Struggles in France (I can look it up), Marx qualifies the dictatorship as the "worst possible political regime". With such an assumption it is not surprising that he tried to qualify the phase of 'dictatorship of the proletariat' as a class dictatorship against class. In the terms of the first Lenin or Trotsky, "a workers' democracy". Consequently, they launched the slogan of 'all power to the soviets', against the Duma, considered a bourgeois chamber.

Why did the slogan remain a slogan? There are a hundred theories about this. A social and political analysis is necessary.

Question:
What does Parmenides have to do with presence and time? — David Mo

Presencing is related to aletheia, to phusis -- that which is unconcealed, that which emerges and endures. The connection to "time"? Fairly obvious: "presence" is something present. The present is a dimension of time. — Xtrix

The "seeds" of the meaning of Being as "ousia" (and hence substance, nature, object, etc) were already there with Parmenides, as the beginning of the great tradition — Xtrix

1. Time is not only present. A present without past or future does not pass and therefore is the lack of time: eternal immobility.
2. Parmenides defended that Being is eternal in this sense.
3. It cannot be said, as Heidegger (you) claims, that Parmenides' concept of Being is temporal. Unless Heidegger (you) twist the word time to make it say something else and then say that others do not know what the word means. I wouldn't be surprised. It is the quintessential Heideggerian method.

---------
4. In the same sense, Parmenides represents a tradition that worries his followers, especially Plato and Aristotle who try to correct him. They cannot be expected to be mere continuators of his concept of Being. But this is another issue.

You don't seem interested in understanding this distinction. — Xtrix

I am interested in any distinction you would like to make that would shed light on the problem of Parmenides and time.

"YouTube" Heidegger? — Xtrix

Apart from the Introduction to Metaphysics and some loose lines, your recommendations are excerpts from an interview and a Dreyfuss course on Heidegger. Both on Youtube. Draw your own conclusions.

Addendum: By the way, the term substance (ousía), whose origin Heidegger attributes to Parmenides, does not even appear in his poem. Of course, according to Heidegger's peculiar etymological method one can say that the author has said it even though he has not said it and without giving any proof that he has said it.

Parmenides thought that being is timeless. He "produced" this thought "outside of time." That's what you said. And it's ridiculous. — Xtrix

What is ridiculous is that you focus on a phrase that is not well expressed to avoid the question. What I thought I said clearly and in detail in two comments:

Well, finally the clarification I asked for appears.
you (or Heidegger) confuse two things:
Analysis of the psychological or social origin of the ideas.
Internal analysis of the meaning of the ideas.

In the first case, to say that Parmenides' ideas come from the world in which he lives is probably true, but it is something that few philosophers would deny. In different ways it is admitted by empiricists, historicists, Hegelians, Marxists, phenomenologists and many others. It is a statement that is not limited to Parmenides, but to all of us who have ideas. If you or Heidegger say nothing else, your explanation is a banality.

If you pretend to say it is an idea of Parmenides, you are saying an outrage. As the articles I have quoted and many others I could quote to you show, the distinction between the world of truth and the world of appearances, between truth and doxa, is proper to Parmenides. The Goddess clearly excludes that truth comes from the world of things or from the world of appearances. The basic argument of the Goddess is an early formulation of the principle of non-contradiction. That is, logic, incipient state, but logic and rationality, not experience of anything existing. Moreover, the conclusion is that the world of things is not true.

Therefore, in the first sense we can say that Parmenides' ideas come from his world (this gives rise to a religious interpretation of his poem that a minority of phylosophers have attempted), but it is a banal statement. If we say in the second sense that Parmenides affirms that truth comes from existing things (present-at-hand) according to the category of temporality, we are saying an atrocity. To maintain this barbarity we would have to justify it with a careful analysis of the text. Something that Heidegger does not bother to do. Of course. — David Mo

You confuse two different things again:
Parmenides was a man of (his) time (or world, which is the same in common language). "He was not an angel," you said.
Parmenides thought that Being is timeless (eternal and immobile). What I said.

Please make an effort. Perhaps you will see the difference. — David Mo

So don't try to evade the question with little tricks and answer the question, please.

Do you see the difference?

Question:
What does Parmenides have to do with presence and time?
Answer:

In any case, Parmenides is still "presencing", — Xtrix

Is that what you call a response? To repeat the question?

Question:
If we are talking about Parmenides' Being, why do you talk about Aristotle instead?

Because if you don't understand it, it's no wonder you don't understand his views on Parmenides, — Xtrix

Is that what you call an answer? To boast of being very wise and look the other way?

First you have to understand what "presence" and "time" mean in Heidegger. When you can explain that to me, you'll see understand the already given answer — Xtrix

The reasons are obvious, too. Not from a lack of intelligence, but from a lack of openness to learning (from him and from me). — Xtrix

Stop strutting around. Your Youtube Heidegger doesn't interest me. If you want to discuss answer the specific questions you are asked and ask in turn. I'm not going to talk of a different thing that asked.. It's not my style.

I was talking about poverty. You of consumption.

Incidentally, I find it funny that one criticism of the USSR is that housing was expensive or that some health care had to be paid for. That's not supposed to happen in London or New York? Don't the clochards of Paris exist?

If you are trying to prove that the Communist Paradise did not exist, go to another one. I already know that. But don't sell me the Capitalist Paradise in return. I don't believe it either.

The World Bank didn't have any ability to gather statistics inside the country. And did the Soviet Union lie in it's statistics? — ssu

The World Bank has teams of researchers who analyze the data provided by the country. When they are unclear or do not correspond to parallel reports, they discard statements. This is the case with North Korea and other countries. In other cases, forgeries have been discovered. For example, I recall the case of Fujimori and the poverty rates in Peru. Or bad practices by WB officials themselves have been detected. I now remember the self-criticism for having manipulated statistics against Ms. Bachelet when she was president of Chile.

The World Bank had no interest in making things easier for communist regimes. As critics of the WB (I remember Joseph Stiglitz in particular) have pointed out, the WB is a very conservative institution, working in tune with the conservative trend in the world economy. It is very surprising that you accuse it of functioning as a front for communist regimes.

In general, within the natural reserves, the data of the WB can be considered as the most reliable or less dubious that can be contemplated. They are used by right-wing and centrist economists. And sometimes of the left. The comment on poverty in the USSR came from a conservative economics magazine.

What doesn't make sense is for you to become a radical skeptic just because the available data don't encourage your phobias. That's pure Trumpism.

Yes, Finland is a very special case. It is at the top of all social rankings. It does not seem that its recipe for success is exportable or that there has been a general spread of success in the world.

A good parallel indicator is the activity of social assistance NGOs. For example:

In a country of 5.4 million people, food banks, the Lutheran Church, the Salvation Army and other charities serve more than 22,000 people every week, a number that is growing steadily as a result of the continuing economic crisis.

"The situation has gotten much worse in the last ten years. When I started giving out free food in 2005, between 200 and 300 people came every week; today there are about 2,600,

By the way, the news refers to Finland.

The above explanation stands. — Xtrix

Yes, I did. — Xtrix

To say that Heidegger talks a lot about it and that to understand it you have to read everything Heidegger is not to explain anything.
It is not true that you have established the relationship between Parmenides, presence and time. It is true that you have tried but with a monumental confusion that I dismantled in my previous commentary. It is certain that you have not understood what I explained to you and you fall back into the same hole:

I didn't mention "the world," I mentioned time, in response to your ridiculous claim that Parmenides was "outside time." — Xtrix

You confuse two different things again:
Parmenides was a man of (his) time (or world, which is the same in common language). "He was not an angel," you said.
Parmenides thought that Being is timeless (eternal and immobile). What I said.

Please make an effort. Perhaps you will see the difference.

It doesn't involve contemplation any more than vision involves "contemplation." — Xtrix

It is normal, you can see something without contemplating it. By turning your back, I guess. You do it almost always in this thread.

You don't understand Heidegger. — Xtrix

Surely not. But neither do you. You are not able to answer a single one of my questions and objections.
And you know that the one who knows that he does not know is much wiser than the one who pretends to know without knowing.

Parmenides was "presencing," and what was disclosed to him was being. Ditto Heraclitus. Both men, as human beings, thought/wrote/interpreted being from the perspective of time -- namely, the present, that which is present before us, that which appears, that which is uncovered and unconcealed. All of the Greeks took "time" as the perspective in which they interpreted themselves and the world, without knowing it. "Time", as pointed out by Kant, is a form of our sensibility, along with space -- in Heidegger's hands it becomes something much different than this Aristotelian "time" which Kant presupposed -- it becomes temporality, which is what Being and Time is about -- namely, interpreting the human being (Dasein) in its average everydayness, which brings out the ontological structures of this entity, as care. Care (Sorge) is reinterpreted as temporality. — Xtrix

Why are you telling this? What are Kant and Aristotle doing here when we are talking about Parmenides? It has nothing to do with the objections I made to you. If you want to prove that you know how to repeat Heidegger's words, you have already done it several times. But to repeat does not mean to understand. Answer my questions and stop tracing texts that you do not understand.

(Btw, Guess you believe in all Chinese statistic too. Or North Korean?) — ssu

Do you think that the World Bank's statistics are false? Is it sold to the communists?
The World Bank does not give poverty figures for North Korea. China had a poverty rate of 7% a few years ago according WB.

The economy wasn't great. — ssu

No, it wasn't "great", whatever "great" is. I haven't been in the USSR, but I have been in Hungary and Cuba. At my host's house, a university professor, they didn't have a shower head. Not because they couldn't afford it, but because there was not in the store. But here we were talking about poverty. Not the level of consumption.

I also had the opportunity to talk with Romanian, Moldovan, and Russian friends who migrated to Western Europe after the fall of the wall. They ratify the World Bank's figures. I do not have my figures very up-to-date, but twenty years later capitalist Russia had not reached the life expectancy that existed in the USSR. And life expectancy is a very significant indicator.

I am not praising the USSR. It was contemptible in almost everything. I'm saying that you have to see things without the blinkers of propaganda. Neither that of one side, nor that of the other.

Finland? You have chosen a really exceptional country. A model not very exportable. Like Iceland.

I did; you haven't understood it. — Xtrix

To explain the relationship between three terms you must be able to link them together (Parménides, presence and time) in a sequence or proposition. You did not.
An explanation must be made in terms other than the explanandum. You did not. You simply repeated what you had to explain.

Interestingly enough, it is in this commentary that you attempt an explanation. And it is remarkably... naive? insufficient? I will explain it to you.

That which is present-at-hand is a theoretical object, something that is "extant" or, as Heidegger says, is tied up with what is traditionally meant by "existentia" (basically "substance") [p. 42/67]. Presence-at-hand is a related term, the mode (or attitude) we're in when looking at the world in such a way -- apart from being involved in it with equipment (the "ready-to-hand"). — Xtrix

On the page you mention Heidegger does not give any definition. He simply relates (tantamount) present-at-hand to the classical term existentia. He gives no further explanation and the comparison is not too clarifying, since that term was used in different ways from Aristotle to Ockham.
If you want a definition you'll have to go elsewhere.

No. Truth is "there," it opens, it is "disclosed." Aletheia is the truth. The goddess is the truth. It's not "contemplated" — Xtrix

Logical reasoning? This is your interpretation? — Xtrix

Of course, that is my interpretation of Parmenides. An interpretation in which I follow the immense majority of experts. I don't risk anything. For the separation between the world of truth and the world of opinion in Parmenides you can read

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2183487?seq=1
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/apeiron/32/3/article-p153.xml

If you do not have access to these I suggest an open article that will show you how to make a serious study of a Greek author, instead of Heidegger's inventions. The identification of the goddess of Parmenides with the goddess Truth is a typical case. Heidegger goes from linking words by their similarity until getting convinced himself of the conclusion: The first link matches the last one. It seems a typically childish game: "What does a cheesecake look like at speed?" Heidegger in its pure state.

Heidegger’s jump in this case consists of saying that the goddess speaks the truth is the same as saying that she is the Truth. If Parmenides had wanted to give her a name, he would have given it to her. He probably did not because the name of the goddess is irrelevant. It is simply a mytho-poetic image of the way of truth, of the philosopher's reason.

https://www.persee.fr/doc/reg_0035-2039_1969_num_82_389_1027

On the other hand, Heidegger may not use the term contemplation. But since he uses metaphors such as illumination or unveiling which involve contemplation, I think I am authorized to use that term. I don't think Heidegger or you have the only visa to play poetically with language. At least I have the decency to put quotation marks around it.

Almost laughable. "Outside of time," eh? So Parmenides was an angel. "No presence, no temporality" -- so no human being, either. Where exactly did this "logical reasoning" take place, then? In heaven? — Xtrix

Well, finally the clarification I asked for appears.
Totally laughable: you (or Heidegger) confuse two things:
Analysis of the psychological or social origin of the ideas.
Internal analysis of the meaning of the ideas.

In the first case, to say that Parmenides' ideas come from the world in which he lives is probably true, but it is something that few philosophers would deny. In different ways it is admitted by empiricists, historicists, Hegelians, Marxists, phenomenologists and many others. It is a statement that is not limited to Parmenides, but to all of us who have ideas. If you or Heidegger say nothing else, your explanation is a banality.

If you pretend to say it is an idea of Parmenides, you are saying an outrage. As the articles I have quoted and many others I could quote to you show, the distinction between the world of truth and the world of appearances, between truth and doxa, is proper to Parmenides. The Goddess clearly excludes that truth comes from the world of things or from the world of appearances. The basic argument of the Goddess is an early formulation of the principle of non-contradiction. That is, logic, incipient state, but logic and rationality, not experience of anything existing. Moreover, the conclusion is that the world of things is not true.

Therefore, in the first sense we can say that Parmenides' ideas come from his world (this gives rise to a religious interpretation of his poem that a minority of phylosophers have attempted), but it is a banal statement. If we say in the second sense that Parmenides affirms that truth comes from existing things (present-at-hand) according to the category of temporality, we are saying an atrocity. To maintain this barbarity we would have to justify it with a careful analysis of the text. Something that Heidegger does not bother to do. Of course.

Finally I will add an explanatory bonus for your understanding of something that is obvious:
In traditional logic there are no time variables. If a truth is logical, or rationally pure, it is supposed to be the same now as at the end of time. That is because it does not depend on experience, but on the inner connection of the terms themselves.

Now, you can explain this imbroglio between presence-at-hand, time and Parmenides — David Mo

I asked you for a clarification that you have not given. You limit yourself to talk about the valuation that Heidegger makes of the "inception" (origin) of philosophy in Greece. You mention the concept of "presencing" in Parmenides but do not explain it, much less in relation to time and his concept of Being. As for my question, you limit yourself to repeat in the same words what I asked you to explain: "the perspective that guides the opening up of Being is time". I will not ask you again to explain it because it seems to me that it will be useless. It seems that you are in another "stage" (that of the clouds). Instead, I am going to explain it in a less "nebulous" way than yours.

Prior warning: No one should look up the definition of "present-at-hand" in Heidegger. It is not given, at least in the texts I have consulted. This is very significant because the term "present-at-hand" has an important place, at least in B&T. By not giving a precise definition, any interpretation becomes possible and Heidegger reserves the right to disqualify the one he does not like. This is very typical of him.

Heidegger's arbitrary interpretation of Parmenides is based on this indetermination of language. In the paragraph we are commenting on he does so in the following terms.

1. Present-at-hand: ambiguity of meanings: a) pure theoretical "contemplation" - as opposed to "ready-to-hand" which includes the interaction of the subject (Dasein) with the world; b) the placing of the subject in front of the objects of the world (the "objective" point of view).

2. Presence: quality of being present to human understanding. Ambiguity: a) the subject is placed in front of the object of knowledge; b) the object of knowledge is placed now (present time as different from past and future).

Applied to Parmenides this is resolved in an affirmation that mixes all these different senses within the same meaning: "Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being-has the Temporal structure of a pure 'making-present' of something".

Heidegger's argument synthesized: Truth is presented to Parmenides > It is something that is presented as pure presence independent of the practical relationship that one may have > It is the truth about something (Being) > Being is now (present)> It is contemplated in the mode of Time.

Critical analysis:

Heidegger's first omission: Parmenides does not “contemplate” Being. Parmenides is taught by the Goddess. (Suppose the Goddess is a metaphor. Instead, we could suppose that Parmenides is giving a theological content to his poem and the presence of the Goddess is literal. This is not the general interpretation nor Heidegger's - I think - so I overlook it).

In the non/theological context of the poem, what the figure of the Goddess means is an illumination. Moreover, the Goddess specifies where that illumination comes from: from the way of Reason.

The Goddess does not induce Parmenides to the contemplation/presence of any object of knowledge, as Heidegger claims. The Goddess leads Parmenides to the truth not by the presence of something, but by the force of a logical reasoning: Only Being is and non-being is not (variant of the identity principle).
Therefore, Heidegger's identification of Parmenides' vision in the literal sense is out of place. There is no presence, no temporality. Parmenides’ thought is produced outside of time and the narration of the poem is a mytho-poetic artifice.

Second omission: This is riveted by the Goddess when she states that if the non-being is not there can be no change or time since it is impossible to move from something that is to what is not, or vice versa. Time is expressly refuted in Parmenides' poem. Being is one and immobile.

The (verbal) game is over.

Not in my country, basically. — ssu

What country are you speaking, please?

You may be interested to know that at the time of declaring the end of the communist system at the end of 1991, what was known in liberal countries as "poverty" (i.e. having a lifestyle that would cost about $180 a month in a developed country, or less) was not even 5% of the Soviet population, and that because it had grown in the last five years. In the best moment of the Union it was less than 2%. The "misery" (people without housing, in street situation, without basic access to food and minimum means, etc.) practically did not exist.

The problems of the USSR were of a different nature.

See also this statistic from the World Bank: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BVqXxaXIAAArOk1.jpg

Curious.

At the beginning of our discussion you tried to give me lessons because, according to you, I did not read Heidegger directly but through second-hand sources. Now you are going to Wikipedia, which is not a second-hand font. It's fourth or fifth hand. It's fun. But where have you put your principles?

Also, I'll thank you to give the name or the article when quoting an encyclopedia. It's the right way to do it and it helps to locate the exact citation. Also, this helps to find the original text.

Because, for further confusion, the Wikipedia quote does not even mention Parmenides and you do not explain anything about him on your own.

I have done the homework for you --you're welcome:

That is why Aristotle no longer ‘has any understanding’ of it [dialectics], for he has put it on a more radical footing and raised it to a new level [aufhob]. Légein itself--or rather noéin –, that simple awareness of something present-at-hand in its sheer presence-at-hand, which Parmenides had already taken to guide him in his own interpretation of Being-has the Temporal structure of a pure 'making-present' of something. Those entities which show themselves i n this and for it, and which are understood as entities in the most authentic sense, thus get interpreted with regard to the Present; that is, they are conceived as presence ( ousía ) . (B&T: 26/48)

Now, you can explain this imbroglio between presence-at-hand, time and Parmenides and I will explain you where Heidegger conceals the very thought of Parmenides. In two points, at least.

Those parameters will be crucial to the development of any theory in their field. — Isaac

Perfect. That means that each "field" or level of knowledge uses the "parameters" that are useful for its study. And history or sociology has its own, which are not those of nuclear physics or biology.
The concept of human nature may be useful - if it is - in the field of anthropology or psychology. But not in the field of history or sociology. No historian now comes to my mind who explains the fall of the Roman Empire on the basis of the immutable laws of human nature. No modern historian, of course.

He does indeed interpret being in temporal terms -- not in the common understanding of "time," but in "presencing" (as Heidegger mentions) in terms of the present-at-hand — Xtrix

Can you define what this "presence-at-hand" is and what it has to do with time and Parmenides?

Besides, capitalists shouldn’t defend communists lest they lose ther capitalism membership, right? — NOS4A2

It depends. Engels was a capitalist and defended communism.
You mean that there are no Marxists who defend capitalism as there are no pro-Stalin democrats. These are exclusive terms.

Good point! My only doubt was as to the numbers of what might now qualify as the middle class. — Janus

It is a commonplace that the middle classes have expanded and the working class has diminished, compared to the time of Marx. But this has been achieved through the expansion of the false autonomous workers and by taking the centers of production to the countries of the Third World, among other things. In any case, it seems clear that the proletariat, in the classical sense, no longer has the strength it had at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

That economic structures determine the behaviour of social groups. Economic structures themselves are passive, they merely exist, they don't themselves determine anything. It's the necessities and responses of human social groups to them which determines their behaviour. — Isaac

Of course, it is the social groups that compete according to their needs and interests. But this conflict results in something that does not exactly correspond to any particular interest. Marx believed that it was possible to discover the laws governing this "impersonal" outcome of historical conflicts. In fact, he believed that his theory was a scientific explanation of the history of human conflict. According to him, it was the "impersonal" economy that ultimately determined human destinies. I don't know what you mean by "passive", but it was clear to him that it had its own laws and that it determined human behavior at the level of societies, even individually, in part.

I think the belief that historical materialism was a science is one of the weakest in Marx's theory.

I’ll assume you are. — NOS4A2

Assume what you want. But don't attribute to me what you assume.

This is a remarkable admission and confirms my hunch that you’re here not to learn or to discuss but to propagandize and exchange fallacies with your comrades. — whollyrolling

This is no admission at all. What you are saying shows that you have not come here to discuss ideas but to attack people.

From what you have written it follows that you believe that Marxists are bad people, that the world is full of powerful communist parties and that your duty is to identify and "neutralize" them (intellectually, I suppose). This ideology has a classic name: anti-communism, and it was valid during the time of the Cold War. Today it is a scarecrow that the extreme right wields when it wants to inflame its bases. But it has little to do with the reality of really existing capitalism.

If you accept such a position you have to concede that the nature of this response is an empirical fact about humans, a fact which, if Marx were wrong about his assumptions of it, would render his theory wrong. — Isaac

Of course. Marx's theory has been falsified in several of his main predictions -with Popper's permission.

Marx needs to know how humans tend to behave to make the predictions he makes. — Isaac

This is very vague. Marx needed to know how economic structures determine the behavior of social groups. Other aspects of human behavior are indifferent to his theory because they are meaningless.

Thank you. I was just saying that in case you wanted to discuss a specific point.

If we respond to that environment in a random way then no suggestions about how to effect human well-being should even be considered, we might as well toss a coin, manipulate the environment in random ways because our response to it is random and unpredictable. — Isaac

If, on the other hand, we respond to the environment in predictable ways then we can both predict the course of history, and we can make useful suggestions for how changes to our environment will have positive/negative impacts on us. — Isaac

In this second case, however, we have acknowledged that there is such a thing as human nature — Isaac

I'm not clear about what you say in the first scenario. Anyway, Marx would point to the second assumption with the nuances I already made.

I'm not sure if he believed that there is such a thing as human nature. Engels did. But what he believed--Engels did--is that the laws of biology are not sufficient to explain human society and history. I think so too. That means that although history is made by men (hence their strength), they make it within the conditions and laws imposed by social structures. There is a famous text of the Theses on Feuerbach that says so and now I remember. There I could have reservations that some Marxists would accept and others would not. So I don't know if Marx would accept them.

Comparison: animal bodies are composed of atoms. Atoms are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, but I do not believe that the laws of evolution are those of quantum mechanics.

I hope the comparison is useful to you. But that's why appealing to human nature to justify capitalism doesn't make much sense. They are two different levels of reality.

On the combination between necessity and chance, according to Marx, I have already posted another comment recently.

I would say that it is a game between necessity and chance. — David Mo

What you say doesn't help at all. It is absolutely unspecific.

I'm curious. Help me out here guy. — Outlander

With pleasure.
Everyone, including communists, agrees that people who make great contributions to society should be rewarded. But disagreements begin when two questions are asked: Why and how?

I will summarize the problem as to why:
Should they be rewarded because society owes them morally or as an incentive for their work?

As to how:
Should they be rewarded with material goods or is fame and honor enough?
If they are material goods, to what extent? What can these people demand without producing greater damage than the benefit they have contributed?

I don't know if the questions I ask are clearifying. I think that asking the right questions helps a lot. Do mine help?

NOTE: Your criticism of socialism suggests that capitalism is a sort of meritocracy. This is an untenable thesis. So what existing political system do you think is a meritocracy?

This statement may contain gobbledegook. — Bitter Crank

Do you think? It may be my English that is very bad. Because the idea seems to me quite simple and understandable.

Aligning human nature with capitalism via immutable "competition" is to naturalize a socio-economic system that's only existed for a few centuries. I — Maw

This is the point! You have hit the mark!

That seems irrelevant, it would still be human nature. — Isaac

It is not irrelevant, because in one case one type of law will apply and in another case different laws will apply. Only if there are laws in history.

And the will and strength would come from where, if not human nature? - Space? Aliens? God? — Isaac

According to Marx there is no need to go so far. The strength of a class to break its chains (to put it like a pamphlet of the time) would come from the relations between the forces of production and the relations of production. If under these conditions there is a strong and consistent workers' party, the revolution will take place. If there is not, we will have to wait for the next juncture. I would say that it is a game between necessity and chance.

Trying to draw a circle around who is or isn’t a Marxist or communist is a fools errand. If people call themselves Marxists or communists, however, it is a good indication that they are or are at least trying to be. — NOS4A2

The thread does not refer to Marxists, but specifically to Marx.

True, the term Marxist, like almost all political terms, is quite ambiguous. But when someone claims to be a Christian, it's quite rare for him to be inspired by the Koran, isn't it? And communists who defend capitalism is a contradiction in terms. These are pretty obvious things. But conservative politicians want to put all communists in the same boat and attribute to them all the barbarities of some. This is very typical of political propaganda. This should be avoided in a serious discussion.

I was asking because I didn’t want to assume that you were. — NOS4A2

Why? I don't care if you are conservative or liberal. After all, I'm not going out for a drink with you.

I can sum up other examples.... — ChatteringMonkey

These examples show that there are behaviors that are very difficult to eradicate. They do not prove that they are part of human nature. It may be due to cultural or social reasons. For example, since you quote it: alcoholism, which Western societies have been unable to control, has practically disappeared from many Muslim societies.

So if he says "situation x will bring about situation y" he's relying on assumptions about the responses of human beings to situation x. It's their behaviour which will (or will not) bring about situation y, and so his theory's success hinges entirely on whether those assumptions are right. — Isaac

Marx's materialism is neither biological nor psychological. He thought that the laws of dialectics, which in nature were concretized in one way, in history were concretized in another. But his theory of history, as you well say, is primarily economistic, although it is dialectical and not mechanistic. That is why what men do in history is governed by the laws of history (mainly the class struggle) and not by Mandelian laws. In other words, human nature would be aggressive in one way in nature and in a different way in history, if it existed at all.

That said, politics and justice are superstructures that have much to do with the march of history. Although Marx was ultimately a determinist, the manner and rhythms with which one passes from one historical period to another depend largely on non-economic factors such as politics, culture, or law. This may not be important for the total march of history in the abstract, but for the men and women who live and suffer the particular vicissitudes of history it may be of vital importance that things happen sooner or later and in one way or another. It is our lives that count first and foremost, not the remote future of communist society that is not even visible on the horizon. That is why Marx urges the working classes to make revolution. For themselves.

All this assumes that, even if human nature exists and is violent, the impulse to exploit is like the abuse of women: it can be corrected and ultimately repressed. All that is needed is the will and the strength to do it. And that is a political and legal decision that only the working class in power can make.

It seems quite relevant. The argument against Marx is rarely "we don't want a fairer society", rather it is "such a system wouldn't/hasn't work(ed)". — Isaac

I don't understand the relationship.
If the gene for aggression exists you can't stop husbands from hitting women. Therefore, let's make gender violence be legal.
A bit strange logic, isn't it?