Re: (OPE-L) RE: logical order and historical order

[Howard Engelskirchen <howarde@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Re: (OPE-L) logical order and historical order

Hi Jerry and Andrew

 

Sorry for the delay in reply, Jerry.  For some reason I missed your response in my mail, but picked it up from the archives.

 

You say that the issue we discuss is the ordering of a reconstruction of the subject matter in thought.  My point is that the order of the ordering must follow the real character of the object, not the dictates of thought.  That point is glossed over in the simple pairing of logic and history.  For example, we abstract from the state form and present forms of production first because the determinations of the state form are less "simple."  Forms of state depend on how surplus value is pumped out.  This is not a matter of how we order things in thought, but of how the world works.  

 

In this respect Andrew, I share your attentions.  One of the most important points I took from my reading of Ilyenkov was the Hegelian point that what we make and what we do is an expresssion of how we think. (though not only how we think, since matter offers its own resistances).  But it by no means follows that there is an identity between the way we think about the subject matter, or order our thinking about it, and the way the subject matter actually is.

 

Howard

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Gerald A. Levy

To: OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:57 AM

Subject: [OPE-L] (OPE-L) RE: logical order and historical order

A short additional comment in reply to Rakesh:

 

If we consider the unfolding of the *capital-form*

(capital in production/capital in circulation/capital

in distribution) we can observe a *logical* ordering.

The ordering of the historical development of capital,

however, does not follow the same order as the

logical ordering.  Furthermore,  in the further

determination of the capital-form the ordering doesn't

necessarily correspond to the historical order: e.g. there

is a logical unfolding of  capital in distribution from the

distribution of capital within industrial capital (where

prices of production are formed) to the distribution of

capital between industrial and non-industrial capital

whereas the historical sequence was the reverse.

 

In solidarity, Jerry