this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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I have to disagree. Marxism does not seem to be rooted in either materialism or idealism, or, at least, I do not see any contradictions with either. A lot of people seem to hold this view out of gross misunderstanding of what idealism and materialism (as well as the relevant types of those, such as, for example, ontological idealism and materialism) are, and an assumption that idealism is some sort of a belief in magic.
Like, one of the schools of thought that I subscribe to is mathematical Platonism (perhaps with some modifications, as I have not seen any mention of concepts such as what I describe as 'manifestations of ideas' in sources regarding mathematical Platonism), which makes me an idealist in the ontological sense. In what ways are those views of mine incompatible with Marxism? I see no conflicts of any sort of significance whatsoever. I do not think that Marxism has any sort of dependency on ontology, or, at least, I do not see those dependencies.
If we are talking about strict materialism, then such perspectives would posit that non-material things do not exist, and I am yet to find a Marxist who holds those views.
If we are talking about non-strict materialism, where non-material things can be said to exist, then how do those perspectives differ from idealist ones in this context? I do not see any dependencies of, say, Marx talking about various forms of values of commodities on making non-strict materialist assumptions.
However, that is not in conflict with idealism, and, furthermore, when relevant things are discussed in socialist spaces, including Marxist and Marxist-adjacent ones, people almost always talk about the non-material stuff. Not to the exclusion of material things, of course, like people getting sick, or some goods or materials being moved to somewhere, etc., but people also talk about and in terms of stuff like capitalists and workers' relations to capital, land, and labour, like laws being passed, enforced, and abolished, like policies of various states and organisations, etc.
And, of course, I am yet to encounter any sort of Marxist perspective where materialist assumptions are necessary, unless I am missing something.
Marx was a young hegelian. Hegel was an idealist. Marxism was created by Marx changing Hegel's ideas. Dialectical materialism took Hegel's dialectic and changed it from idealist to materialist.
Can you, however, point to any Marxist positions that are in contradiction to idealism in general and/or, in my case specifically, to mathematical Platonism? As of right now, I see literally no conflict between Marxism and idealism.
Karl Marx - The German Ideology
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm
My understanding of this passage is that in idealist thinking, ideas shape reality but in materialist thinking, material reality shapes ideas.
I will not be able to go through the entire quote right now, so I will do so later. For now, I'd like to address the last part of your reply with my reply to another comment in this thread:
That seems to be a roughly correct assessment of what idealism is if we replace the word 'reality' with 'material part of reality' (because non-material part of reality is still a part of reality). However, I see a couple of issues with the assessment of Marxism as supposedly being a materialist and anti-idealist school of thought:
Note that the middle part of this reply is just hastily copied from elsewhere. I did not edit it in case there are some relevant positions covered in the quote.
Idealism is when you have ideas and the more you have the more idealist it is. And if you have really high level important ideas then it’s Platonism
PS it’s bad form to not read someone’s reference and proceed to “reply” with a canned response. If you don’t have the time to respond say so and use that comment as a reminder for when you do have time.
I will actually address your points when I get back from a doc appt
Edit: this looks like something I'll want to make into a separate effort post. Will tag you when it's done.
Please tag me too!
I did not have the time to consider the entirety of the reply, and I felt that there was a part that should have been clarified. Considering that I already had an answer that I could have used for that purpose at the time, and was lacking time to properly write a full response, I judged that option as appropriate.
Will be waiting for the promised post. Do consider that it might take me some time to go over it, as I will both be getting busier starting tomorrow and I am experiencing some stress discussing this, in particular because people might think as if I'm just trying to argue for arguing's sake in this case or that I am trying to be rude.
So, I finished going over the quoted part, and Marx is talking about specifically the type(s) of idealism that I do not subscribe to. He is addressing specifically the types of idealism that posit that only material stuff and mental stuff exist, and that the latter has some sort of 'primacy' over the former. My view on this sort of idealism is echoed by what you quoted, and I find that type of idealism rather silly.
The quoted part does not address the type of idealism that I subscribe to, one which posits that non-material non-mental stuff, like what mathematicians study, exists as well, and that some of it has no dependency on the other stuff, i.e. it has 'primacy' over, in particular, material stuff in this sense.
Marxism is strictly materialist. Read Materialism and Empiriocriticism or Anti-Dühring.
Does Marxism draw any conclusions from materialism that are relevant to stuff like society, economics, politics, communist praxis, epistemology or some human activity that I have failed to consider here? If not, then I do feel justified in saying that there are no relevant conflicts and calling myself a Marxist.
Alright. Albeit that will not be done overnight.
However, do understand that if by 'idealism' those works mean specifically the idealist schools of thought that only recognise material and non-material mental stuff, and not idealist schools of thought in general, then the views that I subscribe to are likely not addressed in those works.
Of course. One of the tenets of Marxism is that social being determines social consciousness, not vice versa. This is textbook materialism. Anything else simply leads to liberalism, religion, etc.
You seem confused. There are two main currents in philosophy - materialism, which posits that nature is primary to spirit, being is primary to thought, and idealism, which posits the opposite. In between the two there are agnostics, who claim this question is impossible to answer. This has nothing to do with whether a philosophy "recognizes non-material stuff".