Abstraction Part Two: Science On The cheap
This Part of Essay Three has been written and re-written more times than any other; the first half of it still contains far too many mixed metaphors and stylistic monstrosities. I am in fact experimenting with new ways of expressing ideas that have grown in philosophical soil which has been raked over countless times in the last 2400 years by traditional thinkers.
It will require many more re-writes before I am happy with it; so the reader's indulgence is needed here even more than elsewhere.
Readers will also need to make note of the fact that this Essay does not represent my final view on any of the issues raised. It is merely 'work in progress'.
If you are viewing this with Mozilla Firefox you might not be able to read all the symbols I have used.
This Essay is just under 48,000 words long; a summary of its main ideas can be found here.
Quick Links
Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections:
(1) The Traditional Approach To Abstraction
(a) Dialectical Traditionalism
(b) How Not To Solve A Problem
(c) Empiricism And The Anthropomorphic Brain
(e) How Not To Solve Insoluble Problems
(f) Intelligent Ideas Versus The Little Man In The Head
(2) More Problems For Dialecticians
(a) Induction And The Social Nature Of Knowledge
(c) Reality: Abstract, Concrete -- Or Both?
(d) Collective Error Over General Terms
(3) Abstractionism -- Bury It, Or Praise It?
(a) Public Criteria Versus Private Gain
(b) Particular Problems With Dialectical Generality
(a) Does Reality Contradict Appearances?
(i) Contradictions Supposedly Generated By Science
(ii) The 'Contradiction' Between Science And 'Commonsense'
(iii) 'Contradictory' Capitalism?
(b) Adrift In A Sea Of Appearances
(i) Are All Appearances 'False'?
(ii) Dialectics Goes Into Auto-Destruct Mode
(c) Why Science Cannot Undermine Common Sense
(i) Ordinary Language Confused With Common Sense
(ii) Why Scientists Cannot Afford To Undermine Common Sense
(a) 'Mental Strip-Tease'
(b) Do Scientists Use Abstraction?
(ii) The Young Marx And Engels
(iii) Ollman's Traditionalism
(6) Notes
(7) References
Abbreviations Used At This Site
In this Part of Essay Three, traditional answers to the 'problem' of generality and their deleterious effects on DM will be critically examined. In addition, the distinction between "appearance" and "reality", which dialecticians have also inherited from traditional thought, will also be subjected to hostile scrutiny.
[DM = Dialectical Materialism; DL = Dialectical Logic.]
The Traditional Approach -- Rationalism And Original Syntax
As Part One of this Essay showed, and as Part Two will confirm, beyond superficialities, dialecticians bought into the traditional view of abstract 'general' ideas.
Radical they are not.
In Metaphysics, reference to abstract 'general' ideas was intimately connected with the so-called 'problem' of "Universals".1
Rationalist Philosophers tended to argue that general words/concepts were either anterior to experience or were apprehended (somehow) by means of generalisations drawn (or "abstracted") from, or even applied to, an unspecified number of particulars (i.e., individual objects of a certain sort) given in experience. The concepts so derived -- or deployed -- were supposed to represent the formal or 'essential' properties of these (and all such) particulars -- qualities which the latter either instantiated, or in which they were said to "participate".
Naturally, this made material objects seem less 'real' than the abstractions that lent such objects their substantiality, or which constituted their "essence". Because of this, the general (the rational) came to dominate over the particular (the material) in all subsequent thought in the Rationalist tradition.
Hence, in view of the fact that such abstractions were ideal objects -- i.e., they were abstract particulars --, this meant that reality was essentially Ideal. The material world was thus a shadow world, not fully 'real' and governed by contingency and brute fact. The rational structure that lay 'behind' appearances was the real world, and that world was accessible to 'thought' alone. If general terms constituted the essence of material objects, then the latter were only material because of the Ideal Particulars that underpinned them. This meant that material reality was only real because it was in effect ideal, too -- an abstraction in its own right. [We will see Engels and Lenin express similar ideas (in Essay Thirteen (summary here))].
To be sure, Descartes believed there were two substances, Mind and Matter, but it soon became apparent (in the work of Spinoza, and in a different way in that of Leibniz -- and later still that of Hegel), that there was, on this view, really only one rational/real substance: Mind. All else was merely part of 'appearances', and hence 'accidental' or 'ephemeral'.
This approach, which particularises general terms, has in different guises, dominated Western thought --, and now dialectics --, for 2500 years. Its logical conclusion, in the work of Leibniz or Hegel (and their latter-day disciples) merely underlines the claims made in these Essays: that all ancient, medieval and early modern forms of traditional Philosophy are Idealist. And as we will see, this approach to generality has spread its tentacles to all subsequent traditional forms-of-thought --, so much so that it is quite clear that all areas of traditional Philosophy (Metaphysics) are thoroughly Ideal.1a
The "ruling ideas" invented by Greek thinkers thus found a new home in these novel Bourgeois surroundings, albeit with fresh content to mirror the new social and economic conditions.
Moreover, even when this 'theory' is flipped "upside-down", in DM, material reality still remains secondary, derivative, dependent and not fully real. The material world, as see by dialecticians, requires the rational principles encapsulated in DL to give it life and form.
As the Book of Genesis noted, in an Ideal world it takes the word of 'God' (or something analogous) to give life and form to matter; without it, all would be lifeless and chaotic:
"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.... And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God called the firmament Heaven.... And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so...." [Genesis Chapter One, verses 2-11.]
In like manner, the 'dialectical Logos' is required not just to add form to formless matter, but to call it into existence (from 'Nothing'), to give it life and make it move. Matter, even for DM-fans, is not sufficient to itself.
Because of this, it is not possible to find a single physical correlate in nature for the abstractions dialecticians use --, and since these form the essential nature of material beings, the essential nature of physical objects must be Ideal, too.
And that is why the dialectical "flip" is no flip.
Furthermore, and worse: over the last 150 years, dialecticians have signally failed to say what they think matter is (the very most they will say is that it is an 'abstraction'(!) -- on this see Essay Thirteen, (summary here)), which is no surprise given the above.
In that case, it is hardly surprising either to find that DM-theorists have had to denigrate ordinary material language, and thus the experience of ordinary workers (branding it as 'commonsense'/'formal/'limited' -- aping a tactic perfected by ruling-class theorists), in order both to 'justify' their adoption of ideal Hegelian concepts and to make their theory 'work', and the world hold together. This is why they defend it so vehemently, and so emotively. [These accusations will be substantiated in Essay Twelve (summary here), and in Essay Nine Part Two.]
As we will discover throughout out this site, this reliance on traditional thought has created serious problems for dialecticians; it also helps explain why they all slip into a priori dogmatics at the drop of a copula --, and why one and all fail to notice when they have done it.
Moreover, as indicated above, their 'upside-down Idealism' holds the material world to be less real than the Ideal world that lends it its substance, and which determines what DM-theorists consider "concrete".
And now we can see why: for dialecticians material objects are only "concrete" in the Ideal limit. But since that limit is forever unattainable, this means that for DM-theorists there are in effect no concrete objects or processes!
How Not To Solve A Problem: Double It
Nevertheless, as Aristotle himself pointed out (in reference to Plato's Theory of Forms, in the so-called "Third Man Argument"), it is not a good idea to try to solve one's problems by immediately doubling them.
Hence, if there is a difficulty explaining the connection between particulars given in experience, there is surely a more intractable one accounting for the alleged link between these newly constructed abstract Universals and the particulars that supposedly instantiate them. Worse still, this alleged link merely connects material particulars with a something 'we-know-not-what' (i.e., these invented 'Universals'), which resides in a mysterious world anterior to experience, and hence inaccessible to it.1b
Thus, if an abstract term is required to account for the similarities that exist between particulars, then a third term would plainly be needed to account for the similarity between that abstraction and those particulars themselves. Otherwise the connection would not be rational, just fortuitous, undermining the whole point of the exercise.
Clearly, the addition of this new term, which was aimed at accounting for the latter connection, only re-duplicates the original problem. This is because questions would naturally arise over the link between this third term and the other two items it was introduced to connect.
Abstract Universals 'exist' in an Ideal realm, and they thus have connections with particulars in this world that are of a different sort from those that material particulars enjoy among themselves. Plainly, this just leaves the abstract side of this family of 'solutions' shrouded in total mystery.
Hence, if a Universal/Concept C1, say, is required to account for the common features shared by objects A and B, then a new Concept C2, a third term, will be required to account for the connection between C1 and A, and between C1 and B, and so on. The whole thing thus threatens to inflate into an infinite regress, leaving nothing explained.
Of course, it could be argued that since C1 belongs to a different category (to either A or B), the above argument is misconceived.
Well, it would be if 'Universals' and 'Concepts' had not already been turned into abstract particulars (or the names thereof) by the syntactical dodge exposed in Part One of this Essay. But, because theorists have been engaged in doing precisely this since ancient Greek times, Aristotle's point (suitably adapted) applies to every single theory in this tradition. Because of this dodge, 'Universals' and 'Concepts', as they feature in traditional thought (and in DM), cannot be general; they are particulars of a rather peculiar sort.
Hence, the question arises: which new general term is there that now links these material particulars with those abstract particulars?
This is one of the reasons why this 'problem' had to be addressed in the way it was in Part One of this Essay, which was aimed at exposing the crass syntactical error that lay behind it -- wherein predicate expressions were transformed into the names of abstract particulars. To be sure, Aristotle himself half spotted this problem (as we have seen), but the logic he developed was not sophisticated enough to account for it, and he ended up making the same sort of mistake in his early version of the identity theory of predication.
On the other hand, if the aforementioned "third term" (i.e., C2) is superfluous, if a new general term is not needed to connect abstract with material particulars, then it is not easy to see why particulars themselves need a second term (the Universal, or C1) to relate them to one another, to begin with. This is especially so if that 'general term' cannot do the job assigned it because it was earlier transmogrified into particular itself!
But, if objects in material reality do indeed relate to one another without abstract intermediaries, or if speakers manage to do this in other ways, what need is there for such abstractions?
[As we will see, in a later Essay, ordinary human beings (workers) solved this 'problem' long ago --, or rather they totally ignored it, since it isn't a problem.]
Alternatively, if the relation between Universals and Particulars is not one of resemblance (i.e., if C1 does not resemble A or B), then the relation between each particular and its Ideal 'exemplar' is entirely mysterious. If Universals and Particulars do not resemble each other, how can they possibly be connected, or how could the one connect the other?
Indeed, it is far from easy to see what a Universal could provide a particular that the latter could not supply itself -- and that worry is not helped when it is recalled once more that in traditional thought, Universals were depicted in ways that deprived them of their generality (once more: as we saw in Part One of this Essay).
Descent Into The Metaphysical Abyss
Unfortunately, this ancient logical error has passed down the centuries to later generations of traditional theories, as this ancestral fall from linguistic grace traduced the entire population of flawed 'solutions' that have descended from it by unnatural selection --, including that found in DM, the theoretical runt of this class-compromised litter.
Empiricism And The Anthropomorphic Brain
Philosophers of a more worldly and empiricist frame of mind approached this 'problem' from a different angle; they held that general terms were 'constructions' of some sort, cobbled together by the mind. [But notice, this also implied that the 'mental' came first -- mind holding primacy over matter.]
In fact, the mind was somehow able to 'apprehend' the common elements supposedly shared by particulars given in experience (which manifested themselves internally as "ideas", "impressions" or "sense data" -- and of late, as 'qualia').
Minimal agreement aside, such theorists tended to be divided over whether universal terms were genuine features of reality or were just a by-product of an overactive mind --, indeed, whether they were empty words and thus perhaps just "useful fictions".
As things turned out, it mattered not, for on this view general words were once again demoted and transformed into 'mental particulars' (i.e., they were the names of ideas in the mind or of processes in the brain). Even though Berkeley saw the need to escape from this theoretical cul-de-sac, his 'solution' merely sank the empiricist tradition deeper into the same old idealist quick sands.
Unfortunately, there were other problems over and above those that had been bequeathed to empiricist thought as a result of the syntactical sins of their philosophical forebears: if 'general' ideas were in fact particular to each mind (and, on this view, they had to be such, for no two individuals shared the same mind), they could not be general -- even in theory! This was all the more so if the empiricist process of abstraction created yet more abstract particulars, just as earlier forms of the same bogus exercise had done in ancient and medieval thought.
In that case, the empiricist tradition was quite happy to maintain and then elaborate upon these ancient misdemeanours. In that case, this particular class of "ruling ideas" (i.e., abstractions) merely colonised another set of willing brains.
To explain: assume thinker T1 has formed the allegedly general idea G1, and thinker T2 forms the 'same' general idea G2 of supposedly the 'same' things. Now, in order to say of these 'general ideas' (G1 and G2) that they were indeed ideas of the same things (or were the same general idea), a third term will be needed to connect them (i.e., because in that case G1 and G2 would presumably both be exemplars of the same general idea, say, G), so that it could truly be said that these two were instances of the same 'concept'. But, this falls foul of Aristotle's objection, which means that every solution in the empiricist tradition suffered from the same fatal defects that blighted those dreamt up by the Rationalists.
Naturally, this not only made it impossible for all traditional thinkers to account for human communication, representation and learning, it also emptied generality of all content, undermining the whole point of the exercise. [How the latter undermined the former will be examined briefly below, but in more detail in a later Essay.]
Of course, it could be objected that such ideas had intentional generality built into them --, whereby their inventors intended they should refer to general features of reality, But, as should seem obvious, 'intentional generality' is likewise trapped in its own little solipsistic universe, since it is itself a particular.
[To see this, just replace "intentionally general idea G1" with "G1" itself, and the rest follows.]
Naturally, this is just another way of saying that intentions cannot create generality any more than wishes can make beggars ride.
Moreover, simply gluing the word "general" onto the word "concept" (as perhaps part of the above 'intention' to refer to a "general concept") would merely saddle prospective users of that word with a term born of the same defective logic, for the phrase "general concept" is yet another particular --, or, at least, it is the title thereof.
In fact, any attempt to derive generality from the atomised conceptual fragments that (on this view) must now exist in each individual mind will always hit the same material brick wall: abstraction merely creates the names of abstract particulars --, whoever it is that indulges in the black art, and whenever it is practiced.
Fortunately for materialists, the logic of predication (in ordinary language) has already fixed the result --, and there is no leave to appeal its judgement. [Again, this was established in Part One of this Essay.]
It could be argued that inter-communication is not threatened by empiricist forms of abstractionism, since communication with others is not just possible, it is actual (because, manifestly, people can and do share their ideas).
But this response itself runs aground almost immediately. This is because it reproduces Aristotle's original problem -- only now greatly magnified. It is an even worse idea to multiply one's difficulties by a factor of several billion -- right across the entire human race -- in an endeavour to account for generality by an appeal to the abstractions forged and now trapped in each socially-atomised brain.
[To see this, just replace the "G1" above with "Gn", where "n" takes on every value from 1 to 6 billion, or more.]
In that case, we would not just have the two theorists mentioned above with their two supposedly general ideas, we would have billions of minds with countless individual ideas to interconnect.
To be sure, such a strategy is futile because any explanation of how the particular ideas of general terms located in separate heads actually resembled the same general features of reality they are supposed to express/mirror, or even the same particular ideas of these alleged general terms located in any one else's head, would each require its own linking term, on the lines detailed above. Accounting for these would, of course, make squaring the circle look rather easy in comparison, since this Herculean task would simply create yet more abstract particulars, locked in the individual mind of anyone foolish enough to try.
Hence, a 'general' silk purse cannot be made out of this atomised pig's ear.
So, in struggling to get out of the metaphysical quicksand, the trapped Philosopher only sinks in deeper. Given their view, Abstract Particulars loom out of the shadows at every turn, as more and more are required to account for the last batch they conjured into existence. And since none of them is capable of evolving into a higher general form on its own, this approach to knowledge/ontology simply creates a potentially infinite series of abstract dead ends.
Just as ancient rationalist ideas can be traced back to Aristocratic notions held and propagated by ancient Philosophers (concerning the 'natural' hierarchical (or divine) order underpinning the Universe, but ideologically linked to the need to justify social stratification and inequality), the origin of more recent Atomist theories of Universals can be linked to the rise of modern Bourgeois 'democracy', with its characteristic emphasis on "possessive individualism".
If this new social order was meant to be democratic (but only "within certain limits"), and based on the fabled Bourgeois Individual, then private ownership in the means of mental production made eminent good sense.
The fragmentation introduced into society by the development of Capitalism was thus mirrored in the analogous dissolution of the Universal into its particulars, now dispersed across countless million isolated bourgeois heads.
Just as Capitalism freed workers from the land, Empiricist Philosophy freed ideas from their formerly 'oppressive'/hierarchical Platonic Forms; the old ontological pecking-order crumbled as new market conditions took hold.
However, the justification of undemocratic power, and the need to rationalise these newly emerging class relations, meant that theorists had to concoct novel ways of conceptualising reality, in order to protect property.
As we will soon see, in this respect Empiricism could not cut mustard. A fresh wave of rationalist thought was needed to provide the unification the Bourgeois Nation State required, and to account for its sovereignty. The ideas of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel were thrown into the breach, as new waves of boss-class theory emerged from this latest batch of ruling-class hacks.
Even so, just as workers still got screwed in the new market economy (only now in novel ways), general ideas were likewise shafted (but in the same old way).1c
Once more, this turn to Rationalism was to no avail; the ancient fragmentation of general ideas cannot be reversed whoever tries to do it. Indeed, as the fabled soldiers found with respect to Humpty Dumpty, once in pieces, general concepts are impossible to put back together again.2
No surprise then that despite the many pretensions to the contrary, this 'modern' clutch of theories found it equally impossible to account for the very thing they had been invented to explain: generality.
If generality is simply an aspect of the mind's operation (and not a feature of 'things-in-themselves' -- as some rationalists claimed) --, it was far from easy to see what it was about each particular idea of the general in each individual head that made it general, or even appear to be general, now that one and all had been shipped-off and incarcerated in separate bourgeois skulls.
Given this 'modern' account, there would be nothing but individual ideas loosely tied together in ways that became increasingly difficult to fathom, floating about in each socially-atomised mind. At a minimum, even a general idea like that (i.e., that which apparently concerns "every individual", and seeks to tell us what is in his or her head) was, on this theory, itself devoid of any clear sense. If Philosophers could not explain generality (because they had killed it long ago), then they had no way of accounting for its appearance, or lack of it, anywhere else --, either in the general population, or in their own attempts to theorise about it in their own heads. How exactly is it possible to speak of "every head" with anything other than empty words if generality has been done to death?2a
As already noted, each abstract idea might indeed be accompanied by an unexplained term precariously attached it -- i.e., the word "general" glued-on (as in "general idea") --, but, if all meaningful words in circulation have to be backed by genuine mental bullion (i.e., cashed-out in terms of "ideas" in the mind, as this family of theories consistently claimed), then a phrase like "the general idea of..." would still be a particular to whoever thought it, whatever incantations had been uttered over it.
[The definite article, of course, gives the game away.]
As we saw in Part One, the words Philosophers used in this context were all abstract particulars, and as such their feigned generality meant that they were little more than epistemological 'promissory notes' -- of little real value if there was nothing in the bourgeois vaults to settle these ever-mounting 'semantic debts'.
Thus it was that several more centuries of a priori, abstract 'science-on-the-cheap' followed, this time backed not even by printed currency, but by yet more empty words.
Of course, to imagine otherwise (i.e., to imagine that the particular word "general" -- or any other term for that matter --, is quite up to the task of creating generality all of itself) is tantamount to thinking that words can determine, or project, their own meanings right across semantic space (with this feat miraculously coordinated from brain to brain), as if they were autonomous agents. But unaided, as a mark on the page --, or even as an "idea" in the head --, the individual word "general" seems entirely incapable of unscrambling this very real metaphysical egg.
On the other hand, if general ideas actually do represent "things-in-themselves" (that is, if there are indeed "real universals" somewhere in existence, which 'correspond' to general words supposedly about them), it would surely prove impossible to explain either term --, as we will now see.
If each general idea/word refers to something, somewhere in reality, in Platonic heaven or Hegelian Hell, it could only do so as a name, or as name surrogate. In which case, as we saw in Part One, general ideas/words would not now be general, just particular.
Even if they were each grandiosely re-christened as a "General Name", one and all would stubbornly remain humble particulars (in this case, a particular phrase, for reasons outlined above). No matter what was done to each particular instance of the word "general", it would prove quite incapable of escaping from the atomised dungeon into which it had been cast.
Hence, if each bourgeois mind had its own individual idea of a given general name, one that was particular to each, then the universality post-Renaissance theorists sought would remain elusive forever, fragmented in the heads of all who wanted to play this futile game.
The bottom line is, of course, that if anything general is capable of being named, it cannot be general, it must be particular.
As is the case with virginity, once lost, generality cannot be restored.3
How Not To Solve Insoluble Problems
Empiricists attempted to solve this 'problem' by wisely diverting attention from it: they invented an irrelevant 'mental' capacity, an ability the 'mind' allegedly had of being able to spot "resemblances" between the ideas and impressions the senses sent its way.
But, once again, Aristotle's objection rears its annoying head: if there is a problem over the existence of such resemblances in the outside world, it is a bad idea to retreat from the real into the Ideal in an attempt to resolve it. Indeed, if this process takes place only in the 'mind', the difficulty the theory sought to resolve in external reality will now simply resurface in an occult form -- and in a completely intractable realm -- since an inner process of this sort would be beyond either objective or subjective confirmation.4
Generality thus driven inwards, is even more difficult to coax out of its individualist shell.5
Platonic Realism, Aristotelian Conceptualism and Bourgeois Empiricism (along with a host of other metaphysical doctrines) all run aground on these unyielding particularist rocks.
By way of contrast, the words we use in ordinary material language express generality (with ease) when left to social agents to breath life into them. However, they soon lose their semantic vitality when replaced by lifeless abstract singular terms, invented by work-shy 'thinkers' with more leisure time on their hands than is good for anyone.6
However, by placing all the emphasis on an individual's apprehension of generality (howsoever engineered), theorists found they could only explain it by re-employing it surreptitiously elsewhere.
This unfortunate turn-of-events arose largely because traditional Philosophers tended to conceive of this 'problem' epistemologically. The logical fall from grace that created the original difficulty for Greek thinkers (explained in detail in Part One) was simply ignored, only now it became buried under centuries of irrelevant psycho-babble. And it largely remains entombed there to this day.
As Empiricists conceived things, if experience presents the mind with particular ideas, then generality must be cobbled-together from whatever resemblances the 'mind' notices in each alleged exemplar. This made the whole 'problem' seem one of recognition, as if the fragmented contents of the mind were like the faces of long lost friends who wandered fortuitously into the same room, in strict order.
Friends one can recognise; but how could anyone recognise an idea they had never seen before?
Worse: if not one of these impromptu 'visitors' resembled the next without the use of the very general terms this 'theory' was meant to explain.
No good doing a Police photo-fit.6a
Anyway, given this family of theories, general terms had to be distilled painstakingly from a manifestly finite batch of examples, and those that serially confronted each lone abstractor/observer in random order.
But, if each lone 'mind' is to extrapolate successfully from the few particulars that fortune tossed its way, then, in order to create the relevant abstract general ideas, these each atomised fragment would have to be coaxed out of its lonely shell, and given a radical make-over.
In order to do that, the 'mind' would have to re-connect these inner atoms (these 'ideas') with others of the 'same sort', using whatever similar features it noticed in each. But, not only does this make it hard to explain how any two abstractors could ever form the same idea of anything, it makes the whole process dependent on similarity.
However, this new twist simply introduced yet another general idea through the back door, while failing to explain either the general or the particular that had just slipped out the front. If two things are similar then plainly this must be with respect to some feature they hold common, which feature (of necessity) cannot itself be another particular (or it would not be held in common).
Nevertheless, just as theologians discovered with respect to their ideas of the Trinity (in, for example, the Athanasian Creed: "Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the substance"), so empiricists found with regard to their fragmented ideas of generality: it was impossible for them not to confound the particular without dividing the Universal.6b Hence, if each individual shares exactly the same universal of resemblance (say C1, from earlier), then that term must be particular to that individual. The general, having thus been dispersed over the entire flock of trainee abstractors, cannot now fail to partake of their fragmented nature.
Conversely, if the re-distribution of generality has not been carried out in a perfectly egalitarian manner, the relevant individuals would not be collected under the same general term, shared equally between all.
On the other hand, if generality is shared equally, it would be hard to tell individuals apart.
And how might either of these be accurately ascertained across an entire population of lone abstractors? No good doing a Gallup poll.7
In that case, the choice between confounding the individuals, or dividing the substance plagued Empiricists (and Rationalists), as it had done Trinitarians -- and for the same basic reason, since all these doctrines had been sired by the same batch of ancient errors.
[All of which helps explain the continual oscillation in traditional Ontology between Monism, Dualism and Pluralism.]
Intelligent Ideas Versus The Little Man In The Head
However, if the 'ideas' of particulars are to be sorted correctly (reputedly, because they partake of the same general term/concept), a prior grasp of general words in public use is plainly required. Without this pre-requisite, inter-subjective 'objectivity' is an empty notion.
That is, of course, just another way of saying that ideas cannot be expected to sort themselves neatly into groups, since they have neither the wit nor the motivation to do so. They clearly need regimenting.
In the age-old battle between the One and the Many, the Many have always proved to be too rebellious to marshal themselves in strict order, and the One too Ideal to crack the whip.
But, if this task is achievable -- and if 'objectivity' is to be preserved --, then principles external to the said (Many) ideas must be found to lend the mind (the One) a helping hand.
Care in the community of ideas was never more needed than here. And yet, if the latter is to become more than a fragmented heap of conceptual dust (that is, if there is in this bourgeois community of ideas no such thing as "society", to paraphrase Mrs Thatcher), such care must be sought elsewhere.
However, as seems plain, the above sortal principles cannot be self-explanatory, nor can they be self-regulatory. If they were either of these, then there would seem to be no reason why particular ideas could not troop unaided in like manner into the right metaphysical categories -- certifying their own inter-subjective resemblance without an inner drill-sergeant on hand to whip them into shape.
On the other hand, if ideal principles such as these are capable of self-activation, and are entirely autonomous, why this cannot be true of the ideas they supposedly seek to corral would be no less mysterious.
Alternatively, once more, if all ideas are self-regulating, and self-disciplined, that would remove the need for a 'Mind', with its attendant goons, to do the regimenting.
Clearly, the first option would see the 'mind' as a sort of drill sergeant (thus anthropomorphising it); the second would put it out of work with a compulsory redundancy notice.
[There are echoes of both of these in Cognitive Psychology and Behaviourism, of late.]
Of course, Empiricists claimed that the 'Mind' was somehow capable of extrapolating beyond sets of particulars to general ideas. This handy 'solution' left unexplained how this "extrapolation" could be carried out without the 'Mind' already having some notion of the general to guide it.
And where on earth might that notion come from?
Nevertheless, if particulars must be corralled by the 'Mind' into the correct sortal groups, there seemed to be only two ways this could come about:
(A) The first involved an appeal to specific 'mental faculties' (these days called "modules"), which all novice abstractors supposedly possess -- mental "bodies of armed men", as it were -- to do the marshalling.
Bourgeois Ideas born free would everywhere have to be put in chains.
(B) The second appealed to the "natural properties" that ideas and/or "concepts" were suppose to have, which meant that they could regiment themselves 'voluntarily' into the right sortal categories with no outside assistance.
This was the mental equivalent, perhaps, of an Anarchist Utopia.
Taking each in turn:
(A) One version of this alternative postulated the existence of so-called "innate ideas" of resemblance 'programmed' into the mind, activated or guided either by the "laws of thought" or the "natural light of reason".
[Its modern analogue has these 'hard-wired' into the brain as a sort of "transformational grammar" or "language of thought."]
An older version of this theory saw these innate ideas capable of enabling each aspiring abstractor to classify particulars under the relevant general terms. Naturally, that seemed to place this option in the Rationalist camp, and perhaps because of this, the temptation became irresistible to push the source of these innate principles back into the mists of time -- spruced-up of late with a handful of neo-Darwinian fairy-tales.
If so, original syntax is based on Genetics, not on Genesis.8
Other versions of (A) were not even remotely Empiricist: these were to be found in the Leibnizian/Kantian/Hegelian tradition, for example.
Nevertheless, each variant shared the same fundamental premiss: abstract concepts or ideas were alive and well, and were either living in a skull near you -- or were camped out nearby in 'objective' reality, waiting to be enlisted (presumably, by merely being 'thought-about').
Even more convenient: although abstract ideas were held to be real, they also transcended actual or possible detection by any real or imagined materially-based technique -- rather like the gods of yore, once more. And, as was the case with the latter, such abstractions underpinned, or even created reality.
In fact, on this view abstract ideas were more real than material objects, which were themselves merely contingent beings hardly fit to mention in such ideal company.
But clearly, since abstractions had been named, they must exist; linguistic reification in fact made them SuperReal (since they were somehow above and beyond unreliable 'appearances'), in order to match the Superscientific truths they supposedly contained -- and this doctrine was helpfully programmed into some of our predicative sentences (but, alas, only in an Indo-European tongue).
Science-on-the-cheap like this has dominated practically all forms of abstract thought since Greek times -- it is indeed a ruling ideology.
(B) The second of the above options implied that ideas 'naturally' coalesced of their own 'free will', as it were, into their 'correct' sortal groups. But, if ideas are capable of assembling themselves into classes under their own steam, this suggested that they possessed some sort of 'natural herding instinct'. Clearly, in order for them to congregate together correctly, such ideas must either (B1) possess an intellect of their own, or (B2) obey other natural/logical laws of some sort.
As far as (B1) was concerned, ideas were presumably not only capable of 'recognising' those of like kind, they were bright enough (and political enough) to flock together with no further ado. This implied that they were able to 'detect' the resemblances they shared with others of their sort -- which surely meant once more that such naturally 'intelligent' ideas were really surrogate minds, skilled at identifying their own close 'mental relatives' correctly and unerringly.
Alternatively, spontaneously gregarious ideas like these were 'programmed' to behave as if they could act this way.
In short these two sub-options (of B1) collapsed into the belief that: (a) Minds were thus little more than incarnate ideas; or, (b) Ideas were just minds writ small.
The first of these options found secure lodging in Leibniz's own mind (whether it was his idea, or he was programmed to think it was, is unclear) -- wherein everything in reality is 'really' composed of pre-programmed, inter-reflecting 'minds' (or "Monads").
The second, in a much grander form (and no doubt out of spite), parasitized Hegel's brain; there Mind was self-developing Idea, the Supreme Controller of this Metaphysical Mystery Tour. To be sure, Hegel certainly thought he was the engineer of his own ideas, but if he was right, he was just the oily rag.
In connection with (B2) above, the idea seemed to be that natural 'laws' operating on the contents of the 'Mind' could account for their regimentation in strict battalion order. Once again, this merely reduplicated the very problem it was meant to solve, for this meant that an externalised will ran both the inner and the outer universe, as everything in this unified Mental Cosmos obeyed orders. as if one and all were law-abiding citizens.
Clearly, in order for something to be capable of obeying orders it must be intelligent (otherwise, the word "obey" must change its meaning), But, in like manner, this must apply to 'inner ideas' supposedly governed by 'the laws of thought'. They weren't simply the passive occupants of the human brain, but active citizens in this, by now, internal cosmic/cognitive state. In that case, the inner Microcosm once again mirrored the outer Macrocosm (and vice versa), as mystics continually remind us.
Small wonder then that traditional accounts of causation (and of physical law) are shot through with anthropomorphism, mysticism and animism of this sort, and can only be made to work if inappropriate modal terms (like "necessity" and "must") are press-ganged into service.8a
Naturally, this in turn suggested that 'objective laws' and the objects that 'obeyed' them were just a reification of the subjective mental capacities and dispositions of the one indulging in all this armchair reification.9
Conversely, this implied that the human mind was intelligent because the universe was -- which conclusion itself was just a reflection of the mangled Logic, used to mirror the thoughts of the superhuman alter-ego that allegedly ran the entire show, which we met in Part One.
In this scheme of things, not only was the Real Rational, and the Rational Real, there was in fact only the Rational. Either or both readily collapse into both or either Subjective or Objective Idealism -- depending on the determination and inner fortitude of the one inducing that collapse.
In short, each of these options had to anthropomorphise the brain, the outside world -- or both -- in order to work.10
Yet More Problems For Dialecticians
These attempted 'solutions' to these bogus philosophical 'problems' ("bogus" because in the West, they were based on a class-motivated misinterpretation of a tiny section of Indo-European grammar, as was pointed out in Part One, but detailed in Essay Two) created two further difficulties.11
Oddly enough, both of these re-surface in a modified form in the DM-account of abstract ideas.
Induction And The Social Nature Of Knowledge
The first of these later came to be known in traditional Philosophy as "the problem of induction", wherein the theoretical possibility is raised that future contingencies in nature might not readily fit the conceptual straight-jacket the 'mind' had prepared for it.12 If the mind is capable of experiencing only a limited range of exemplars (from which it has to cobble-together its general ideas), subsequent experience could always refuse to play ball, metaphysically rebelling, as it were.
In that case, the future might not resemble the past in any meaningful sense. Not only might the Sun not rise tomorrow, but cats could refuse to walk about on mats, and annoyingly turn into them. Worse still, fire might no longer burn books on Metaphysics, as Hume had hoped, but write them --, and Hegel might even begin to make sense.
Of course, some philosophers thought it possible to neutralise such sceptical conclusions if the mind could find a way to gain direct knowledge of 'abstract' ideas (or real universals, or general concepts, etc.), which were fully capable of regimenting the contingencies of nature, so that the future was guaranteed to resemble the past.
But, in order to control such potentially rebellious events/ideas, something a little more convincing than Locke's Social Contract, or Hume's laughably feeble habitus, was called for. Ancient Greek ideas about the ordered Cosmos, a limited Whole --, devised at a time when an Aristocratic theory like this seemed to make some sort of sense to ruling-class theorists --, did not translate well into this fragmented bourgeois world, one threatened daily by such unruly material particulars.12a
In such surroundings, not only must controlling concepts/abstractions be robust enough to run things behind the backs, as it were, of their producers (these traditional theorists), they must exist prior to, and be independent of, experience -- or suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune themselves.
Initially, for supposedly "crude materialists", at least, it wasn't easy to account for the source and effectiveness of disciplinarian concepts like these -- those that would countenance no dissent, past, present or future. The rescue for materialists (if such it may be called) arrived from an unexpected source: German Idealism. But more specifically, and even more revealingly, this 'rescue' was a just convoluted Germanic version of ancient Greek Hermeticism.
The Seventh Cavalry had thus arrived in the nick of time, but it was, alas, blowing a very indistinct note, possibly none at all. Errol Flynn replaced by Esoteric Flannel.
The supporters of Epistemologically Imperialist Utopias, wherein every infant idea is a wanted infant idea, are forced to conjure up super-concepts with enough metaphysical clout to control things with an iron hand (aka, "natural necessity", "conceptual-", or "ontological-necessity"), otherwise the semi-house-trained ideas that the senses send their way might revolt, and set up their own Anarchist Collective, where fire cools, fish sing and Dialectical Marxism is a ringing success.13
Such concepts, laws and principles would therefore have to be logical (or quasi-logical) -- or indeed 'dialectical' --, if they were to exercise sufficient control over the future to make sure that every single idea/object was assigned to the correct general term, or 'obeyed' the right law, and never stepped out of line.
As noted earlier, every free-born bourgeois idea was now clapped in chains. The 'free market' revolution in ideas was over; this rationalist takeover was a veritable Thermidor for these infant bourgeois 'ideas'.14
One question remained: How could something, even as powerful as a 'logical principle', guarantee that future contingencies will always 'obey' orders? Surely such principles are particulars themselves if they merely reside in individual minds?
Clearly, such 'logical principles' could only coral unruly ideas/particulars if they themselves controlled the future and were thus intelligent -- if, they existed in reality, and if they were those very ideas in self-development. Thus was sundered the distinction between Mind and Matter -- control of future contingencies thus became an aspect of self-control, self-discipline for these self-developing concepts, or this evolving 'Mind'.
Indeed, these concepts controlled the future because they controlled themselves, and with a glitzy new logic, a dialectical logic, to go with it -- one that was itself based on a displaced metaphor about how arguments edge toward their conclusions. This new logic laid down the law, and everything in nature had to bend the knee in its direction.
Law was thus compatible with freedom: these ideas were free because they were a law unto themselves.
Rousseau thought he could justify social control in this way, but only with this Ideal Thermidor behind him. Similarly Hegel found his own ideas controlled his own thought by projecting social being internally: so, for him, what had once been the product of the relations between human beings (argument and dialectic) now controlled thought, and thought ran the world.
On this basis, Feuerbach got things completely the wrong way round; Hegel's 'God' is the projection of humanity inwards, not outwards, as he supposed. Our ideas thus 'reflect' the world --, but only if we allow this god-soaked logic to take over the development of our thought.
However, this 'solution' merely created another problem, soon to be born. If autocratic principles of this sort are required to control unruly material reality and our ideas about it, and knowledge is still dependent on frail human cognition, then this doctrine cannot fail to undermine itself. Indeed, if order could be restored only by anthropomorphising reality and our ideas about it, then that anthropomorphisation cannot fail to self-destruct.
The Owl of Minerva, in that case, takes flight too late, for it is Xmas, and Owl is on the menu.
Hence, if external human beings cannot be relied on (i.e., if the material language they invented is untrustworthy, and their experience unreliable --, suspicions that originally prompted this 'theory'), then these 'inner human beings' (these self-developing ideas) and their shadowy internal relations (modelled on their outer cousins), must be equally, if not more, suspect.
If normal, material human beings cannot be trusted not to rebel, then what confidence can we place in these inner spectres?
This worry arises because it is a difficult enough problem to account for the social nature of knowledge in the individual case, but it becomes completely intractable when generalised to take account of the innumerable minds supposedly able to perform the same trick, and arrive at the same conclusions, from their limited experience and finite stock of ideas.
Not only is it conceivable, it is probable that every amateur abstractor, and every Hegel scholar, is playing a different dialectical tune in their socially-atomised heads, and from different song sheets, but they could all be performing this abstract musical under the direction of a totally different conductor in each case -- i.e., their own individualised and quintessentially bourgeois mind.
The problem we met earlier (connected with the fragmentation brought about by the market economy) simply re-surfaces here; the bourgeois psyche disunited will, it seems, never be re-united.
So, in the realm of ideas alone, it proves impossible to undo the earlier bourgeois revolution in epistemology. If each of us has to abstract away in our socially-atomised heads, then there can be no socialised knowledge, and no shared ideas.
This helps account for the last 200 years of failed theories of knowledge to add to the previous 2200. [Read on for the reasons...]
Nevertheless, in one way, the individual was able to strike back and dwell among us: this time disguised as a dialectical guru, for only he/she (originally in the shape of Hegel himself) was 'qualified' to interpret the necessary development of thought, and thus the course of history for the benefit of the rest of us benighted souls.14a
Nevertheless, on this view, no matter how robust the metaphysical coercion operating inside each individual brain, coordinated knowledge across a whole population would be nigh on miraculous --, unless imposed on all by the will of the Leader. For not only would each lone abstractor not have access to the ideas of any other, they would have no way of checking if they were prodding their own ideas in the same direction, and in the same way -- or even with the same instruments --, as anyone else.
In this free market in ideas, Adam Smith's invisible hand cannot leave even so much as a smudged fingerprint. On the contrary, a very visible mailed fist, belonging to the Dialectical Magus (sometimes in the shape of Gerry Healy, at others, that of Mao -- or even the Great One Himself, Stalin), is required to maintain epistemological order.
However, the fact that inter-subjective agreement actually takes place countless times everyday in ordinary life, suggests that this fanciful bourgeois picture is wildly inaccurate. Indeed, once the daily requirements imposed by the material world on all socially-active agents are factored in, this myth falls apart faster than a WMD dossier.
This is not just because it is highly unlikely that each mind will form the same general idea of the same objects and processes from its disparate but limited stocks of data -- which is problematic enough in itself in view of the fact that no two people share exactly the same experiences or draw the same conclusions from them. It is because appropriation of the word "same" reproduces the very same difficulties by involving an idea that looks suspiciously general in itself. If no two minds can check another's 'similarities', howsoever dialectically orthodox they are, then there is no way that a social process could even begin. This is because questions would naturally arise as to whether the 'same' ideas of anything (abstract, particular, concrete, general, or even dialectical) had actually taken root in separate minds -- and these worries would persist until it had been established whether or not the mind of each enquirer had the 'same' ideas about the word "same", let alone about anything else.
And how on earth might that be accomplished for goodness sake?
However, given the 'dialectical' view of identity, this problem cannot even be stated, let alone solved. The peremptory rejection of the LOI returns now to haunt DM-epistemology; by confusing a logical issue with an epistemological red-herring, the DM-quest for knowledge is trapped forever in this solipsistic dungeon.
[LOI = Law of Identity.]
This is because it has yet to be explained how any two dialectically-distracted minds could frame the same general or particular ideas about anything -- even before the dialectical bandwagon begins to roll --, or how a check could be made that either one of them had accomplished this correctly, or not. And this is not so much because none of us has access to the minds of any other novice abstractor, but because it has yet to be established what the word "correct" means, or whether one and all understand it the same way, and corectly!15
Once more: how on earth might that be accomplished?
Moreover, it is unclear how even this minimal worry (about the generality of general ideas) may be communicated without making use of the very same notions that originally required explanation: generality, and the application of the LOI as a rule of language.16
More problematic still: how might it be