Re: [Marxism] The notion of absolute truth and marxisms - a question for the list

[Louis Kontos <lkontos@xxxxxxx>]

Haines,
Marx does not use this language. Rather, he speaks of totality, 'the
whole', the 'truth of the whole', etc., especially in his early
writings -- where Hegel's influence is still strong.
Where does Marx speak of Absolute truth? I don't think that you'll
find a single word in Marx of the kind or that supports the kind of
interpretation you offer.
Moreover, Marxism is not a scientific hypothesis (in the sense you
describe) and Marx himself never made any such claim.
Nor does he speak of one-sided realities. (Nor did he ever fault any
philosopher or political economist for being 'one-sided', though he
did fault several of them for being unable to crawl out of their
'bourgeois skin').
He does however speak of 'reality' as being 'this-sided' (in his
exact language), meaning that people see things around them, from
their own 'existential' position, through their own struggles, as
well as through the lens of whatever they believe, hope, dream, etc.
Regarding the question of ideology, or what Marxists often call false
consciousness (another phrase Marx never used), I would side with
people who see Marx's critique of bourgeois ideology as a form of
immanent critique, rather than critique from an objective position.
Louis


 social reality is always invested with passion, hopes, dreams,

Marx concept of truth in Marx (including 'absolute' truth), in Marx,
is not

On Jun 8, 2006, at 11:34 AM, Haines Brown wrote:

> > Many years ago a marxist friend declared to me one day after he'd
> > finished reading one of the volumes of Capital (I wonder which one?)
> > that he could defend the notion of absolute truth.
>
> Louise, I suspect that notion was the invention of your friend rather
> than something (s)he pulled from Marx.
>
> Derived from Lenin is the idea that our understanding becomes ever
> more proximate to truth, but never achieving absolute truth. Today, in
> scientific terms, I suppose we would say that our theories acquire
> greater "truth value", but never absolute truth. I don't recall that
> Marx spent much time with the issue you raise, but he was fond of
> pointing out that the capitalist way of seeing things was partial,
> which he described as being "one-sided".
>
> The proletariat represents a class position and so presumably has a
> view of the world that is also one-sided. It was suggested in this
> newsgroup a short while ago that once we have achieved communist
> society, there will be no classes, and so no proletariat. That
> position can be justified by saying that under communism, society owns
> the means of production, and so the previous working-class relation of
> production no longer exists. While people under communism no longer
> own the means of production as individuals, they do so as social
> beings. Presumably the relation between our individuality and our
> social existence under communism ceases being contradictory, so that
> as individuals we become uniquely specific instances of society, from
> which we differ only empirically. Nevertheless, some kind of relation
> of production still exists, and so our outlook remains to a degree
> one-sided. Having a "relation" to something implies partiality.
>
> There are many Marxists who insist that under communism the
> contradiction between man and nature will also disappear so that we
> might indeed escape being one-sided in our outlook. This might be
> associated with the Native American view that mankind can and should
> have a harmonious relation with nature, but as a philosophical (rather
> than practical) position, I don't believe this stands up. Contrary to
> most Marxists I would argue that a contradictory relation with nature
> persists under any circumstances, including communism, so that we are
> trapped in a one-sided view. This seems to me more in accord with
> natural science.
>
> In terms of natural science, it is felt that all theories and even
> empirical observations entail a subjective component. The measurement
> imposes structure on phenomena, which collapse to yield a measurement
> value. This is mostly discussed in terms of quantum mechanics, but it
> applies as well to macro phenomena if we start by assuming that all
> things are processes (as I believe we must outside the concerns of
> daily life). When we observe processes or take a measurement, the data
> no longer describes a process, but a static state at a particular
> point in time. This suggest also that even under communism our view
> remains one-sided, although I presume less so than before.
>
> If we assume that the aim is to reduce the partiality of our
> understanding of the world, then it follows that we seek to achieve
> greater truth value in our statements, rather than assume that in some
> communist future they automatically become absolutely true. Even under
> communism, I suspect we will propose various competing hypotheses
> about the world and will employ criteria by which to estimate their
> relative truth value. In scientific terms, a "theory" is a hypothesis
> for which there is a consensus of the significant community that it
> has greater truth value.
>
> Without elaborating the point, I'd argue that the truth value of
> statements is a function of their universality. Even the
> neo-positivist criterion for assessing the truth of theories on the
> basis of whether they are heuristic arguably implies this. The
> proletariat as a potentially universal class has access to greater
> truth value than the capitalist class, and even more so do people
> living under communism. But "greater truth value" is not the same as a
> claim that we have access to "absolute" truth.
>
> There are also philosophical problems associated with the notion of
> "absolute" truth that make it simply impossible to achieve. In simple
> terms, everything is part of a larger system and ultimately the
> cosmos, so that we can never encompass in thought the entirety of what
> something is. That is why the notion of the absolute is limited to the
> realm of religion, particularly an absolute divinity.
>
> I hope others in the group will offer a more cogent answer to your
> question than my hasty reflections.
>
> --
>
>        Haines Brown
>          KB1GRM
>          ET1(SS) U.S.S. Irex 482
>
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