So you're saying that the limits of our powers must constrain what we can make law and so examining those limits tells us something about those laws?(1) OK, I can see that being a useful exercise.

I agree, in that respect, the extent to which we can 'control' something is the maximum extent to which we can make a law conferring ownership. Is there any more fine-grained constraint than that? The extent to which others in our community are prepared to allow the exercise of such control perhaps?(2) Maybe that's why we no longer have slavery. — Isaac

1) I never said ‘power’ as far as I recall? I said something along the lines of being limited, having limited control in all aspects of life, yet our primary sense of control being felt strongest in our own thoughts and actions - both of which can fool us into believing our ‘control’ is greater or lesser than what it appears to be.

2) Yes, and individuals in a community act upon the their perceptions of their own reach of control and the limited effects of their thought/action. A slave owner can take your life but they cannot prevent your death - the limit of control plays into the use and effect of ownership. Ownership requires upkeep, just as we’re to blame, to some degree (depending on control), if we put on weight, drink too much or smoke.

Other items to think about is whether something can be owned yet never given away or loaned out? I cannot cut my arm off and lend it to you for a week then get it back again whilst I can lend you a hammer and have it returned without serious change - in fact it would be better for me to be your slave for a week than cut away part of my body. This ties into ownership in regards to items that a ‘whole’ rather than ‘parts’ - in terms of time and/or space.

These may seem like quite silly examples on the surface but if you consider ‘ownership’ only as a legal tern and you own a loaded gun it doesn’t matter if the law says it’s your gun when I pick it up and shoot your with it. Legal ownership is relative to where you live, or even nonexistent, but human behavior is pretty ubiquitous regardless of its various manifestations of dealing with the appropriation of material resources.

Something needs to have a use value in order for it to have an exchange value. — fdrake

Of course, because everything had ‘use value’ so why bother stating this? Unless Marx says otherwise somewhere that there is some ‘object’ that had no ‘use value’. Please show me where?

You seem to be avoiding the thrust of the issue here. WHAT is meant here:

If the thing is useless, so is the labor contained in it; the labor does not count as labor, and therefore does not create value.

What is a ‘useless’ thing? I’m simply suggesting this means ‘unused’ OR it’s a terrible way of saying ‘not value, but still use value’ meaning the ‘useless’ as ‘value’ not ‘use value’.

What comes later does concern me right now as this is within the opening section of the work. It’s needless obtuse or contrary.

That’s not what I meant. Prior to all written law there was still some concept of ‘ownership’. I’m asking about the initial circumstances for ownership and, in day-to-day speech, what it means to ‘own your thoughts/actions’. Prior to socially decreed laws people still have a sense of ‘having’ and ‘not having’.

That is why I referred to a sense of ownership being about our personal reach of control, perceived or actual, as the possible heart of the issue as put forward by the OP regarding ‘owning’ your body. If you want me to make this more concrete then think of levels of labour where I may own you, partially as decreed by a labour contract, or fully as a slave - I only ‘own’ you in such a sense as you’re willing/able to play along dependent upon your own sense of ‘control’ under the influence of some law.

I can make a law that says it is illegal for you to die whilst you’re working fir me ... meaningless law. The ‘laws’/‘rules’ merely fit around our sense of limited control, which are effectively where a sense of ownership lays in part. I’m not suggesting this is all there is to it, but it seems hard to deny it is a significant point right?

Sorry, the title got me! If it wasn’t ‘problematic’ they’d be no such thing as morality.

Seriously though, ‘morality’ to me is about me. It is a deeply personal thing that tends to become diluted when explicated in public sphere. The true heart of my ‘morals’ lies in the darkest parts of myself and keeps me wishing to ‘adhere with rules’ rather than be ‘moral’.

For me the ‘purest’ moral act comes down to committing a hideous act knowingly for what you believe to be implicitly an overarching good - and this is done knowing you’ll become ‘lesser’ and suffer as a consequence. Of course this is merely hypothetical as there is no ‘implicit good’ we can see or a ‘pure’ moral act imaginable in the sense I outline. Basically I just mean to do good whilst expecting to suffer indefinitely. When the chips are down it appears enough of us humans do step up, but I don’t assume for a second I would but I know I wouldn’t like to - who would other than those with a desire to suffer?

But what is a ‘useless’ thing? What had no ‘use value’? Nothing. So why not say ‘unused value’?

jamalrob’s take doesn’t work here because Marx has already made explicit that ‘wheat’ or ‘iron’ have ‘use value’ yet are we to assume the Earth itself as ‘making’ these items for us to use? I don’t see how that position can work given that raw materials are said to have ‘use value’. Whether or not an item is ‘produced’ for selling is irrelevant to it’s ‘use value’ - Marx states this clearly enough.

The exchange makes a ‘product’ a ‘commodity’ and then the ‘use value’ alters to ‘Value’. If I produce art with no intention of selling it and then someone steals it from me they can most certainly sell it regardless of my personal intentions.

I can only charitably assume ‘useless’ means ‘unused’. The other option is equivalent to closing my eyes and saying I’m blind. Is it at all reasonable to think that maybe, just maybe, there is a common error in translation here? It does say “nutzlos” though which is “useless” ... so I guess Oscar Wilde would be in agreement with his statement that ‘Art is useless’? What other ‘work’ or ‘product’ could be deemed absent of Value (even potential value)?

This would lead back to my initial concern. That Marx pays no attention to aesthetics, artistry, human value or social relationships in terms of ‘economics’. It seems like a deeply flawed approach to me when looking at economic structures and issues surrounding ‘value’.

Now I’ve looked further it’s partly down to a poor translation.

One that does stick out is the term ‘useless’ where I can only assume that it should read ‘unused’? If not I’d appreciate if you could explain why and provide quotes - referring to end of section one:

Finally, nothing can be a value without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labor contained in it; the labor does not count as labor, and therefore does not create value.

http://content.csbs.utah.edu/~ehrbar/cap1.pdf

Prior to the existence of written law. That is why I mentioned ‘origin of inequality’ - a long running anthropological question.

If you look at the OP the question is far more delicate than this. Do you ‘own’ your body? Is it okay for me to ‘claim’ your body? Are your actions yours? Do you, in this sense, ‘own’ your actions?

Arguing over what some given law dictates doesn’t seem to do a great deal if we’re to get to the heart of what ‘ownership’ means. The issue of ‘rights’ is another part of this problem alongside the ‘social contract’.

Anyway, I’m curious what people think about the origins of inequality in terms of ‘property’ and ‘property rights’? How did this arise? Has ‘ownership’ always been a function of social bodies (tribes, hunter gatherers, etc.,.)?

Exactly what does that mean? Single word ‘answers’ are not even slightly convincing. How do you know Maw means the same thing as you? Does ‘power’ always mean the same thing to everyone anymore than ‘ownership’ does? Why/ why not? What are the possible applications and uses of analysing these concepts?

It could perhaps be assessed according to degree of attachment you feel to an object. What would hurt you more, the loss of your car or your wife? The answer would be what is more yours. — Congau

An obvious yet an important point. The emotional weight attached to items (due to love, hate and/or habituation) plays strongly into our sense of ‘ownership’. This would still tie into my broad view as being ‘thought’, which then shows us the use of clarity of thought when understanding how far our reach extends in terms of ‘control’.

I think it is fair to say the more negative perception of ‘power’ extends from a need to feel like we have control. Attaching a sense of greater control to situations where we have little to no control will inevitably create distress - possibly culminating in delusion, aggression and hatred.

This is an idea cut from another - not sure who said it exactly but the principle is simple enough. What we have the most control over we are in possession of. In this case we have a large degree of ‘ownership’ over our bodies but in reality we’ll grow old, become ill and die. In this sense all ‘ownership’ is necessarily limited.

My thoughts and actions are the primary source of my sense of ‘complete ownership’ - these are of course embodied so my body is entwined with the limits of my actions, and as a consequence also my thoughts.

Others senses of ‘ownership’ are based on social interactions and what is and isn’t mutually beneficial. I’m not sure what the two first replies of ‘power’ mean exactly but I guess to me ‘power’ in this framework means ‘efficiency of control’. I say this because someone with more limited control is not necessarily less ‘powerful’. In the sense of it’s not about what you’ve got it’s about what you do with it.

I’m just hoping their view of ‘power’ has more depth then a reduction to merely meaning ‘oppressive force’ - if ‘power’ meant that then we’d just call it ‘oppression’ not ‘power’. I hope their thoughts were more in line with mine?

What does ‘power’ mean then?

My understanding of what Marx is calling the mysterious quality of what is produced does not come from stuff being put on a market but from producers of things being commodities in their own right. — Valentinus

I’ve been reading this more closely and comparing translations. I think this is wrong - in the opening at least - as he appears to be talking about objects of production holding ‘commodity value’ due to the labour embodied in them (obscure as in the more thorough trans. I’ve looked at ‘embodied’ isn’t used and he instead says ‘crystalised’ but we can take it to mean roughly the same (?). Seems needlessly obscure though if this is the case).

I don’t see anything that points directly to ‘producers’ as ‘commodities’. In fact he appears to be more concerned with stating that ‘stuff put on the market’ makes something a ‘commodity’ yet this is a little contrary due to other delineations he has set out previously - ‘use value’ and ‘labour value’.

I don’t really like the translation. Also, it may be worth noting that “commodity” is a poor translation imo. The German is ‘ware’ which is equivalent to Enlgish ‘ware’ (as in goods/wares). ‘Commodity’ is a French rooted perversion of the term that puts greater emphasis on ‘use’ so ironically ‘use value’ would be more fitting for ‘commodity’ and ‘ware value’ more fitting for ‘commodity value’.

It’s clear enough for me now to tread extremely cautiously as this is a text that has been purposefully/mistakenly mistranslated and sprouted several different political functions to suit the politics of the reader.

In short, it’s a bloody mess!

Also, as I read another contradiction pops up. It is hard to see these contradictions as they’re obscured by the obtuse and ill-demarcated definitions.

Something appears to be lost in translation or am I mistaken about the ‘obtuse’ nature of the various categories of ‘value’ used. The capitalisation of Value is significant I feel in regards to how German is written (capitalised words are always nouns).

I’m curious if anyone has insight regarding this detail?

Note: Just checked another translation which shows ‘Values’ to mean ‘Commodity Values’.

After reading a little more I now see how some people espousing severe leftist ideologies have cherry-picked certain sections of Marx to justify claims that an hours labour by one person deserves the same pay as another.

It’s pretty badly written from my perspective. The concept of Value used alongside value and several other subcategories of ‘value’ hack the colloquial meaning to pieces - nothing new in terms of ‘business’ jargon having enough pomposity to make the theories sound authoritative and justified.

This could’ve been written more precisely and detailed with less words. The important definitions used don’t seem to have been given proper definitions. There is also what appears to be a forced position in regards to how to approach ‘skilled labour’ by reducing the argument to a point where all labour is viewed as ‘equal’ for some of his definitions - I understand the use of this to outline certain concepts, but it seems to have been carried through into other areas that have provided the kind of people I mentioned in the first paragraph with dangerous ammunition to make rather crazy claims about ‘labour’ and ‘value’.

All that said I can now see that when I was talking about ‘aesthetics’ it falls outside the circle of ‘commodity’ by Marx’s definition. I’m a little disappointed this important human trait (aesthetic sensibility) wasn’t given more thought.

Interesting question. I’ll state the obvious so apologies if someone else has touched on this already.

Any institution that lasts has a set of rules/laws. These are necessarily held in place by conservative attitudes not by more libertarian ideas. I think you’ll find conservatism is the mainstay across religions - which ones don’t hold strong conservative values?

I guess you could argue that buddhism is more inclined toward ‘socialism’ but it would be a soft cell. Rigor and repetition are what holds religious institutions together.

What is banal to one person is insightful to another. A ‘banal’ comment I know :)

The category of ‘ethics’/‘morality’ is something very much part of ‘philosophy’. Stoicism is certainly about ‘ethics’/‘morality’. You may as well be saying ‘ethics’ isn’t philosophy or have I missed something?

If I’m wrong can you express why Stoicism isn’t related to ethics? You seem to be trying to parcel stoicism off as part of psychology rather than as part of ethics?

Note: I’m not trying to put words into your mouth just trying to understand where you place these items in relation to each other and why.

Thanks

Philosophy of Justice and Morality

The Meaning of Morality
What do prescriptive claims, that attempt to say what is moral, even mean?

Bonus question: What do aesthetic claims, about beauty and comedy and tragedy and such, mean, and how do they relate to prescriptive claims about morality?

The Objects of Morality
What are the criteria by which to judge prescriptive claims, or what makes something moral?

The Methods of Justice
How are we to apply those criteria and decide on what to intend, what prescriptive claims to agree with?

The Subjects of Morality
What is the nature of the will, inasmuch as that means the capacity for intending and making such judgements about what to intend?

The Institutes of Justice
What is the proper governmental system, or who should be making those prescriptive judgements and how should they relate to each other and others, socially speaking?

Bonus question: How do we get people to care about governance and justice and morality to begin with?

The Importance of Justice
Why does is matter what is moral or not, good or bad, in the first place?


Bonus question:
What is the meaning of life? — Pfhorrest

I can pretty much sum up my perspective on all these matters in a ‘simple’ way.

Any public, or even internal declaration is opposed to, and dependent upon social apparatus. Our worded thoughts declare an expression of communicated ideas and expressions and only partly hold a grain of ‘independence’ yet this is only possible due to the dichotic perspective we have an only talk of independence in light of interdependence.

Moralistically speaking if one wishes to hone their sense of morality they necessarily have to address themselves in different situations that cloud their moral judgement. When I speak, like I am now, I shouldn’t be fooled into thinking I’m being ‘genuine’ to the reader as each public declaration is a kind of performance fro both my sense of self and how I perceive myself to be perceived. To truly explore my ‘moral content’ I believe it best that I try to disassociate myself as much as possible from making a public declaration. This is by no means an ‘absolute’ solution as I am then left to struggle with the communicable language (my social apparatus) with necessarily holds many emotional parts.

You may think such an impossible task does no more than instill doubt and hesitation rather than honing a sense of morality and action. It depends on how far you push and what risks you’re willing to take.

From this approach I can only say that it has turned me more to thinking about my emotions and feelings toward others as being reflections of what I frame as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Meaning if I see ‘love’ I like it as it shows me I am capable of ‘love’ by recognising it. Likewise when I feel negatively about something I also know it as my possession - this is harder to stomach as it basically means when I state that such and such an act as ‘horrific’ I know it because I know I am capable of it.

What I am talking about here is something akin to ‘empathy’. The difference is the ‘feelings’ I am referring to are those we don’t wish to admit as our possessions. We don’t tend to see ourselves as the perpetrator of a murder or rape because we’re more inclined to associate the experience with the victim. The disgust we feel is ‘disgust’ because we know we are capable of being the one causing pain and hurt yet we’re never willing to take on that role in - for want of a better term - ‘mal-empathetic’ way. This is probably for the better in most circumstances because to take a long journey down that road is going to cause some damage without a serious attitude.

When we experience something beautiful it is because we see our own beauty, and when we experience something ugly it is because we see our own ugliness. We obviously lean more toward one than the other, yet to actively ignore one or the other doesn’t seem like a sensible course of action for any prolonged period of time.

The problem with this ‘declaration’ is that it is a declaration. So if everyone agreed with my point it would merely play into the ‘social apparatus’ and refute the inner sense of being. For me this is as ‘true’ as anything can be ‘true’. If I’m antagonised or frustrated by someone then it is because I know I am also antagonising and frustrating in my manner.

We necessarily operate within limits. Pushing ourselves to the point where the lines blur is where we can establish and/or destroy a better sense of selfhood. It’s dangerous and I doubt this thought should remain anywhere but on the periphery of conscious thought - and that is conveniently where it must lie as ‘worded thought’ tends to damped our sense of self by playing to certain social situations and further feeds the sense of ‘independent’ thought even though such worded language is an approximation of our experiential being.

Those that ‘disgust’ us the most represent that aspect of ourselves we least wish to explore, that part of ourselves we dread and fear within. To ‘think’ about being so ‘disgusting’ would fracture our sense of self and potentially our sense of ‘fortitude’ against becoming like that ‘disgusting’ person.

This is the ‘simple’ version. Something I have tried to highlight previously with an approach to the use of hypotheticals. The reactions given in those threads were interesting.

Interesting take. I certainly agree with Peterson’s use of ‘post-modern’ speech. Overall though I think Peterson has done more good than harm and I’m certainly bored of watching the whole conflated media heist that was (it’s done for now it seems) Peterson’s contributions to pop-social science and the social media frenzy that explodes whenever anyone is vaguely offended by someone they disagree with..

No one is completely right and no one is completely wrong.

I’m sure stoicism is a great approach for some people, but I truly believe it is naive to assume to suits all, or even most, personalities. I’m interested to learn more about the modern take on stoicism with the questions posed. I’ve only read sections of Epi., Aur. and Sen. I’m generally opposed to wholesale ‘ethical’ positions, yet I do think they are useful for communicating individual moral stances and exploring ideas about innate morality and law and order.

I’m not sure Stoicism is against grief. I think the issue is more about grieving the death of someone who is still alive. Once they are dead then grief is faced.

I get what you’re saying overall though. I just don’t think it sensible to take any perspective on life to an extreme view - this is why I remain suspicious of buddhist ideas.

I don’t think Stoicism is primarily about ignoring human emotions and being a lump ‘living in the moment’. My general take is that it’s about a rational means of keeping emotions in check, rather than bring numb, making choices based on what is possible, rather than fanciful, and understanding and accepting your own limitations. The later is something I’m not convinced about tbh as I think humanity is able to achieve so much because we believe beyond our own abilities and occasionally surpass ourselves.

Thanks.

The most appropriate section I’ve come across to back this up is the following:

Although use-values serve social needs and therefore exist within the social framework, they do not express the social relations of production. For instance, let us take as a use-value a commodity such as a diamond. We cannot tell by looking at it that the diamond is a commodity. Where it serves as an aesthetic or mechanical use-value, on the neck of a courtesan or in the hand of a glass-cutter, it is a diamond and not a commodity. To be a use-value is evidently a necessary prerequisite of the commodity, but it is immaterial to the use-value whether it is a commodity. Use-value as such, since it is independent of the determinate economic form, lies outside the sphere of investigation of political economy. It belongs in this sphere only when it is itself a determinate form. Use-value is the immediate physical entity in which a definite economic relationship—exchange-value—is expressed.

I’ve been having a search around and there isn’t much said in terms of ‘art’ as a ‘utility’, but it does seem to fall vaguely into that category.

Just curious, does Marx ever bother to mention aesthetic value or something like it in Das Kapital?

As a bonus question that is not something that anyone tends to ask anyone in interviews (surprisingly!).

The short version:

What is the most outrageous/unconventional idea/thought you’ve ever had in your field of interest?

The longer version:

What is your most whacky, speculative and/or contentious opinion/view/interest? Basically what ‘out there’ thought do you carry around that you wouldn’t necessarily put reasonable weight behind, but that nevertheless holds a place at the back of your mind?

I guess people don’t ask this one much because people generally don’t like to have themselves associated with an idea/view that is considered ridiculous by their peers.

Just want to say this is strange and strangely interesting thread. Keep it going :)

These are my two attempts. I could probably be more explicit with the first question, but fear it would turn into a mini essay with too many obscure points. I’m assuming it will make enough sense if he’s reasonably familiar with Husserl’s Crisis - if not I doubt it’ll make a whole lot of sense as I’m looking spceifically at Husserl’s view of psychology being consumed by ‘objective’ science and thus embedding its main line of engagement with ‘subjective’ being in a method based around a discipline of reducing ‘subjectivity’ - an obvious ‘bias’ (if it ca be called ‘bias’) as the heart of experimental science.

Question 1 (can refine - see above):

Regarding the limitations of science and Husserlian Phenomenology

As science is orientated around producing experimental data that actively absconds from ‘subjectivity’ what is there for scientific disciplines (such as psychology) to offer in terms of shining a light on ‘subjective’ contents?

This question is based on Husserl’s critique of modern psychology and his attempts to point toward a ‘subjective science’ as opposed to, but NOT in opposition to, the objectivity of science.

And/also, I heard an interview on Philosophy Now where the question of ‘science’ and ‘logic’ was touched on briefly. As Husserlian Phenomenology was concerned with the ‘origin’ of logic how exactly do you relate logic/mathematics to science? Is this essentially the area that defines the ‘limitations’ of what is and isn’t ‘science’?

I was also a little confused by someone stating in that interview (not yourself, yet you seemed to be in some agreement) that some ‘phenomenological’ approach was ‘illusionary’ and ‘silly’. Granted this appears to have been in reference more or less to more ‘literary’ ideas rather than Husserlian Phenomoenlogy, but clarification on this point would be nice.

Note: I view Husserl as making attempts to undercover a rational means of finding a ‘subjective’ measurement of phenomenal items that fail to fall into regular means of ‘measuring’ - meaning as an approach to delineate subjective contexts. As a brief example as a way of distinguishing Mental Movement from Physical Movement. By this I mean when I pick up a chair the environment ‘mentally moves’ around this focus of attention, where physically the ‘movement’ is the chair within the environment, or as another example looking ‘into’ a mirror being differentiated from looking ‘at’ the mirror - the point being the empirical data in both circumstances is identical yet the conscious experiences highlighted are delineated.

OR

Question 2:

Regarding the use of philosophy for science and the application of dichotomies and magnitudes

As you appear to have stated in the discussion with Dennett and Krauss, you believe the use of philosophy to be how to examine questions and sort out what questions are of use and what limits a question may or may not have. In terms of experience what has philosophy to say outside of the Husserlian Phenomenological approach and leaving aside its function as a means of putting worded questions into hierarchies of importance/use? My view here is is that philosophy is generally engaged in demarcating, and selecting, different and vague dichotomies and magnitudes - in linguistics choosing what ‘antonym’ (the ‘gradable’, ‘complimentary pair’, and/or ‘relational pair’) fits and how/if measurements can be made in an accurate/‘universal’ enough manner.

I’m not considering the ‘labour’ here. Marx makes a point to ignore this too by saying:

The different proportions in which different sorts of labour are reduced to unskilled labour as their standard, are established by a social process that goes on behind the backs of the producers, and, consequently, appear to be fixed by custom. For simplicity’s sake we shall henceforth account every kind of labour to be unskilled, simple labour; by this we do no more than save ourselves the trouble of making the reduction.

...

While, therefore, with reference to use value, the labour contained in a commodity counts only qualitatively, with reference to value it counts only quantitatively, and must first be reduced to human labour pure and simple. In the former case, it is a question of How and What, in the latter of How much? How long a time? Since the magnitude of the value of a commodity represents only the quantity of labour embodied in it, it follows that all commodities, when taken in certain proportions, must be equal in value.

I’m concerned about the ‘qualitative’ aspect of these economic interactions, and furthermore the qualitative value embedded within the commodities that cannot be given monetary value in such a way that it is a fungible item.

The clash not mentioned yet is the mass production combined with individual wants and needs (practically and as status symbols - fashions and trends), and the sense of individual identity and ‘worth’.

Note the bold above. Here we have a simplistic reduction that points out ‘labour’ as representing the ‘value’ - the time spent as the intrinsic ‘value’. The ‘proportions’ mentioned are essentially the means of a fungible function which is founded in a universal system (money). The problem, as I see it, is that the ‘worth’ associated with commodities and labour is merely brought about by measuring only what we can measure with reasonable universal agreement dictated by market demands and the distribution of resources. The ‘Commodity Fetishism’, as far as I can see, is that ALL sense of ‘value’ is put into this idea of ‘resource’ (material only) and its extraction (’simple labour’ only), with no serious regard put to finding a way of tackling the extremely difficult problem of less measurable items of human interaction, such as basic appreciation, security, artistic expression, experience (skill and talent), and human attitudes and beliefs.

The way I see it ‘money’ is certainly a useful and highly applicable means of distributing resources based on wants and needs, but it clearly isn’t a universally fungible function - I cannot literally ‘buy’ anything I wish for or need with money alone. The issue with economics, since its modern inception, is the adherence to ‘resources’ as ‘monetary’ and nothing more than that. There is no workable system of measuring human emotions that integrate with current economic systems because there is historical a system of mass production, franchising, and interest in material gain above and beyond personal development - even the educational institutions are set up in this manner; historically speaking.

My point is that for pretty much the first time inhuman history citizens of Earth can communicate over vast distances almost instantaneously and that these vast webs of human interactions are able to individualise the ‘market place’. It doesn’t take a genius to see that there are individuals around the globe that used to think they were alone and now they find themselves able to interact with hundreds or thousands of like-minded people that they never knew existed before. An example is this site and others that delve into all manner of personal interests and hobbies. The days of the internet being open only to a select few are pretty much over too.

This means that, in accord with the original post, that ‘Commodity Fetishism’ will lessen because what becomes important to people in their exchanges is the personal element. There is also a constant demand for ‘new’/‘original’/‘novel’ items, driven by a combination of aesthetic taste and ‘trends’/‘fashions’ related to “Status Fetishism“ - meaning the drive to fit in conflicting with the drive to stand apart from - which, no matter how it pans out, will drive creativity and choice destroying ‘mass production’ in favour of ‘personalised production’. Such an increase will turn people away from ‘having’/‘owning’ what someone else has and become more about personal expression overall. This is the essence of why I am saying ‘Commodity Fetishism’ will reduce and arguably already is reducing, because people are being exposed to each other and the inherent value of living among people on an economic front that is essentially encouraging intrapersonal collaboration and emotional interactions. Today it is not simply the super-rich that can affordably interact with someone to produce a custom made item.

Couple the above argument up with technological advances and we’re firmly in unknown territory even more so than what we are right now with what little we do know and can vaguely appreciate about he dynamic changes to global society.

People are not machines for labour nor or they consumers of items. The whole modern perspective on economics is so completely delusional that I’m surprised this hasn’t been mentioned more prominently before. I’m not saying it hasn’t been mentioned, but I guess the difficulty inherent is that there is no means of ‘measuring’ the important aspects of being human and that ‘Commodity Fetishism’ is an example of this disjoint where ‘value’ is only associated economically to what can be measured in a ‘monetary’ sense.

I’m not offering this as a ‘solution’. It is a critique of economics at large I guess.

Whatever there is that can create a better economic environment for every one I strongly feel that it will take the form of enhanced opportunities to experience and an educational framework within which people are actively supported and encourage to explore possible opportunities and take part in experiences outside of their usual social spaces.

I stick to the proposal that current ‘marketing’/‘advertising’ techniques are being consumed by personal online exchanges and that, with some irony, the large corporations are breaking themselves apart by funding independent ventures based on ‘personal exchanges’ rather than on scheme for ‘mass production’ and flooding the market. The internet has certainly made artists of all sorts able to make a respectable living where in the past they’d have had to give up their passions in favour of eating To having a roof over their heads.

Really this thought all stems from aesthetic appreciation and how those that wish to ‘own’ an item to present some kind of ‘status symbol’ will inevitably fall under the spell of aesthetic valuation above and beyond the initial (and perhaps subconscious) ‘status’ function of popular items. You may call this ‘branding’ but if there is no ‘brand’ we’re no longer presenting ‘brands’ only something of intrinsic aesthetic value to those who look on.

Articles such as this

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ch/Documents/consumer-business/ch-en-consumer-business-made-to-order-consumer-review.pdf

Show there has been a push in marketing to ‘entice consumers’. My belief is that this drive for personalised items will increase further and further to the point that ‘brands’/‘labels’ will become hidden and then eventually disappear. In the above article 46% said they would prefer choice within a ‘brand’, but I don’t see this holding up for long as the item made by a known person/s holds more weight of trust than one made on a production line (both in terms of quality and customisation). The only obvious point here, that I’m not avoiding, is the cost of products. This will mean that some items will remain more or less the realm of mass production to some degree as functional items are not generally ‘custom made’ for obvious reasons. I’m not suggesting that ‘mass production’ is necessarily a bad thing only that today there is an inevitable shift away from generic goods that are attached to aesthetic quality more than say a metal screw or a hammer.

How far will the aesthetic need reach into the ‘consumer world’? I don’t know. Maybe it won’t go much further than what it already has? Given a world where 3D printers for all manner of goods may as ordinary as sending an email or text I’m not really sure what the limitations of this could be.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. Please expand your thoughts further if you wish. As yoi can see from the body of text this has numerous areas and applications to a whole array of ideas and questions about global economics and resource management - I’ve only briefly managed to touch on the potential power behind an increased public interest in aesthetic quality (by way of pursuing status symbols) and what potential positive/negative repercussions this could have on society at large - locally, globally, in terms of communications, and politically in terms of laws and national rule.

Tbh I probably should have done more reading up on this subject for a few months and pondered its possible applications more thoroughly. The idea gripped me quite strongly though and had to try and express it as best I could.

Okay, I’ll try and figure out a way to word my question that is broad and specific enough in regards to the limits of science.

Thanks

When is the deadline for posing questions?

The way I understand it is that the ‘Commodity Fetishism’ is referring to the idea of holding to a set ‘objective’ value only by monetary measurement. I do see that the fungible application of money gives it a distinct sense of ‘objective’ value where in reality is acts as a kind of hierophant between humans.

I think the ‘exchange value’ is seen only in terms of ‘money’ - in terms of what is meant by ‘Commodity Fetishism’ as it creates a boundary between the ‘commodity’ (good or service) and the one producing/giving said ‘Commodity’. My position is an exploration of what happens when through a natural human inclination toward ‘novelty’ we find ourselves in a marketplace where custom products natural produce more chance of human interaction rather than supplanting this interaction with the barrier of monetary valuation - the true worth to the individuals involved becomes exposed.

Please keep in mind this is an idea I had recently. It is very much in its infancy and here I’m thrashing out as best I can. There are multiple layers of application this thought that I’ve only just started to uncover.

Note: if you read the previous section it is clear enough the section you mentioned follows from it. How can it not be referring to monetary value? What else is there that is spoken of in a market where exchanges are made? A system of barter is merely a less refined example of applying a fungible proposition.

Of course, maybe I’m misinterpreting something but you’ll have to explain further as the following extracts don’t conflict with what I’ve been saying as far as I can tell:

A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labour; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour. This is the reason why the products of labour become commodities, social things whose qualities are at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses. In the same way the light from an object is perceived by us not as the subjective excitation of our optic nerve, but as the objective form of something outside the eye itself. But, in the act of seeing, there is at all events, an actual passage of light from one thing to another, from the external object to the eye. There is a physical relation between physical things. But it is different with commodities. There, the existence of the things quâ commodities, and the value relation between the products of labour which stamps them as commodities, have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relations arising therefrom. There it is a definite social relation between men, that assumes, in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy, we must have recourse to the mist-enveloped regions of the religious world. In that world the productions of the human brain appear as independent beings endowed with life, and entering into relation both with one another and the human race. So it is in the world of commodities with the products of men’s hands. This I call the Fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour, so soon as they are produced as commodities, and which is therefore inseparable from the production of commodities.

And:

In Karl Marx's critique of political economy, commodity fetishism is the perception of the social relationships involved in production not as relationships among people, but as economic relationships among the money and commodities exchanged in market trade. As such, commodity fetishism transforms the subjective, abstract aspects of economic value into objective, real things that people believe have intrinsic value. - Wiki ‘Commodity Fetishism’

Please point out where and how you think my points don’t attend to the idea of Commodity Fetishism. Thanks

Because you have schizophrenia you’ll probably appreciate that you have difficulty focusing because you have numerous distractions affecting your ability to deal with ‘the everyday’ others do. Effectively you’re juggling several different ‘mental’ items at once while most others are only trying to handle one or two at once.

The key difference is you have a higher load to deal with than most people. The g factor is mysterious. IQ tests are only an approximate measure of g.

I’m not saying this as a ‘should’ or ‘need’ statement. I’m stating what I see as happening already through more one-to-one interactions online.

People will convince themselves through a combination of a desire for ‘self expression’, a desire to ‘stick out’, a desire to ‘be part of a group’ and by refining their aesthetic sense by being naturally involved in the growing complexity of interactions.

As an example maybe I want the respect you have and so I make the false judgement that people only respect you because of what you have, so I try and attain the possessions you have. By doing so I am exposing myself to exploring what I find ‘good’/‘bad’/‘beautiful’ etc.,. In a marketplace shifting more and more to ‘product placement’ and ‘custom items’ I would inevitably fall into collaboration with someone looking to give me what I didn’t know I wanted.

Note: I am looking at this long term and in a very broad sense. The basis is that through the pursuit of self expression and/or adherence to a group, the ‘custom products’ made to fit the individual in a person to person basis will bring personal taste into focus - on the part of me copying you to gain more respect and/or on the part of me wanting to express myself better.

Keep in mind here we’re talking about Commodity Fetishism which is about the monetary value attached to ‘material resources’ rather than the use (both practical, as in as tools, and as non-practical, as in ‘artistically creative’ - the effect of status and aesthetic valuation is the primary conflict I am trying to delve into here.

Thanks for stick with this btw. As I said, I am displaying this thought in its infancy so I’m grappling with what I mean and what I’m saying. I think I’ve been pretty consistent though. My intention is not to paint everything with one brush, but the thought is more or less looking past the ‘monetary’ valuation of items/people and into the ‘human value’ and the direction I see things slightly tipping toward given technological advances in communication over only the past couple of decades (a huge event we’re only just beginning to open our eyes to let alone beginning to understand in any constructive manner).

I necessarily must ‘doubt’ to know anything at all. What is ‘known’ is known only in the sense that I appreciate it as an evolving process that cannot be held down as ‘true’. If you think about ‘knowing’ that if you relax your body you’ll fall, yet the ‘truth’ of this means I don’t spend all my seconds thinking about falling over or gravity - in some circumstances these items are more important (self preservation being one).

The ‘question’ itself is what intrigue me more than anything/

Philosophy of Knowledge and Reality

The Meaning of Reality
What do descriptive claims, that attempt to say what is real, even mean?

Bonus question:
What do mathematical claims, about numbers and geometric shapes and such, mean, and how do they relate to descriptive claims about reality?

The Objects of Reality
What are the criteria by which to judge descriptive claims, or what is it that makes something real?

The Methods of Knowledge
How are we to apply those criteria and decide on what to believe, what descriptive claims to agree with?

The Subjects of Reality
What is the nature of the mind, inasmuch as that means the capacity for believing and making such judgements about what to believe?

The Institutes of Knowledge
What is the proper educational system, or who should be making those descriptive judgements and how should they relate to each other and others, socially speaking?

Bonus question: How do we get people to care about education and knowledge and reality to begin with?

The Importance of Knowledge
Why does is matter what is real or not, true or false, in the first place? — Pfhorrest

Meaning? I don’t understand the question. Sounds quite silly tbh.

Bonus: Mathematics? What does Mathematics mean? I can tell you roughly what it is and no more. It is a field of play from which we can create rules and problems that can be proven logically - I guess maths is ‘abstractly applied reason’, meaning numbers are real and so theories involving explicit numbers can be shown to be correct or incorrect (unlike in day to day language where the articles in play are not explicit - ‘real’ - enough to remain universal).

Note: Just trying to offer something from a question I find kind of meaningless.

Object of Reality? Okay, maybe a little easier. We simply must distinguish between items of cognition to cognitise. The set up is a false dichotomy yet a necessarily useful one by which we can establish ground for ‘difference’. Essentially the distinction between ‘real’ and ‘existent’ is usually held in terms of empirical value - how can I measure and how consistent can my measurements be?

There is too much to go into here to sum this up in several pages let alone a few paragraphs (to say some simple takes a damn long time I’ve found!)

I believe I’ve touched on both Subjects of Reality and Methods of Knowledge above.

To give some more about ‘knowledge’ my preferred line of attack is relatively simple. I view ‘knowledge’ in a negative sense - meaning I ‘know’ because there is room for questioning and explanation. Without ‘room to maneuver’ there is no ‘knowledge’ to be had about anything. Obviously I understand that people don’t usually use the term ‘knowledge’ in an absolute sense, yet I do see some people that get hoodwinked by this because they forget to examine what ‘knowledge’ means within specific areas and that it doesn’t have a universal application - although some items are more far reaching than others.

Educational Systems - something I feel strongly about. The ‘best’ way is the most impractical way. Education shouldn’t be about creating a system that has a ‘one size fits all’ mentality, nor should education encourage a ‘factory-like’ attitude - the industrial revolution has passed! Basically education works best when ‘students’ are left to explore their interests and it is down to ‘teachers’ to facilitate their exposure to different items so they have a better chance of finding something that gives them a sense of meaning.

Again, this is a very complex matter and not something I can sum up any better than that - too many ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ that spring to mind against my own words here!

Bonus: People already do. It is more about nurturing our natural curiosity. It doesn’t need much encouragement just less of an authoritarian attitude made solely for the purpose of some imaginary scheme called ‘society’.

Importance of Knowledge? For starters we can’t talk about ‘importance’ without ideas of ‘true’ or ‘false’. Another rather silly question which is interesting because it is the inaccuracy of lingual exchanges that leads to a great many problems and mistakes (some good and some bad).

Jeez, that talk between Krauss, Dennett and the above was pretty dull. At least I have a gist now - but not much of one.

Is there a paper I could read about his views on ‘the nature of science’?

This seems nothing more than running with the common phrase “you need to own your actions”. Self-help guru stuff.

It was merely an example to emphasis a point, not evidence.

Let me attempt again by noting a scenario. If I wish to buy a chair the idea of Ikea would be to side with Commodity Fetishism in the sense that it is distanced from human interaction and collaboration. If I went online and said I needed a chair - specifying my needs - then I can begin to have a personal exchange with someone passionate about chairs who is able and willing to see the ‘chair’ as more than just a ‘chair’. My personality would be of interest to them, maybe the discussion would move into unrelated areas and the ‘consumer’ would become more interested in ‘chairs’.

The point being ‘custom made’ items in this way are not entirely about the exchange of money and services. There is a human interaction in the form of collaborative investigation. Being treated like a ‘human’ rather than taking part in an activity viewed only as purchasing goods and services.