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16-13-01 -- Summary Of Essay Thirteen Part One: Lenin's Disappearing Definition Of Matter
These are Introductory Essays, which have been written for those who find the main Essays either too long, or too difficult. They do not pretend to be comprehensive since they are simply summaries of the core ideas presented at this site. Most of the supporting evidence and argument found in each of the main Essays has been omitted. Anyone wanting more details, or who would like to examine my arguments and evidence in full, should consult the Essay for which each is a précis. [In this case, that can be found here.]
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a) Lenin Confuses Repetition And Bluster With Proof
c) Images Fail To Make The Grade
2) Interconnection Strikes Back
c) Prevarication -- Something Dialecticians Do Particularly Well
Abbreviations Used At This Site
Lenin Confuses Repetition And Bluster With Proof
In this Essay it is argued that Lenin's philosophical ideas (in MEC, and elsewhere) only succeed in undermining materialism, they in no way support it.
One of the main problems lies with Lenin's determination to base human knowledge on "images" -- and later, even worse, on Hegel's theories. This seems about as sensible as trying to build a skyscraper at first on sand, and then on quicksand. As if to compound this error, Lenin's supported his ideas by very few (but nonetheless fatally weak) arguments, accompanied by scant evidence, topped off with a surfeit of repetitive bluster and misrepresentation. I have counted no fewer than 36 places in MEC alone where Lenin keeps on saying things like the following:
"[I]t is the sole categorical...recognition of nature's existence outside the mind...that distinguishes dialectical materialism from relativist agnosticism and idealism." [Lenin (1972), p.314]
over and over again. [Page references can be found in Essay Thirteen Part One.]
If repetition won arguments, parrots would be formidable thinkers.
[MEC = Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, i.e., Lenin (1972). DIM = Dialectical Marxism/Marxist, depending on context.]
However, in one of the few detectable arguments to be found in MEC Lenin claimed that an image implies the existence of the thing imaged:
"Our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external world, and it is obvious that an image cannot exist without the thing imagined, and that the latter exists independently of that which images it. Materialism deliberately makes the 'naïve' belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge." [Ibid., p.69. Bold emphasis added.]
Later on, Lenin was even clearer:
"The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it 'images.'" [Ibid., p.279. Bold emphasis added. In both of these, the quotation marks have been altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
There are several problems with this way of viewing things:
(A) Contrary to what Lenin imagined, images not only can, but they do exist without there being anything 'objective' corresponding to them in reality. It is easy to conjure an image of Santa Clause, for instance, but apparently only children and foolish parents believe he exists.
However, if we take Lenin at his word -- "The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it 'images'" --, this must mean that we should add Lenin to the list of those who believe in Santa!
This particular argument did not go down too well with the revolutionaries I tried it out on at RevLeft a while back. Almost to a dialectical clone, they all reacted emotively and irrationally to this argument. [For example, see here and here. Why they all tend to respond this way is explained in Essay Nine Part Two.]
Anyway, as I pointed out in those debates, the fact that Lenin did not actually believe in Santa Claus means that his claim that images imply the objective existence of whatever they are the image of is manifestly defective, leaving him in no better position than Mach or Bogdanov (characters he was criticising in MEC), since he too has to depend on faith to prove the existence of the outside world.
Nevertheless, in the above debates, one of the most common attempts to defend Lenin ran along the following lines: We have images of things like colour and shape because of our interaction with the world. So, even if we have an image of Santa Claus, that does not imply he exists or that Lenin believed he exists. This is because, for example, Lenin was merely committed to the view that the (coloured) parts we imagine belonging to Santa (etc.) have been derived from experience. Out of such parts, and as a result of various cultural influences, we construct images (on paper, in the mind, in film, etc.) of certain things, some of which do, and some of which do not exist, even though their parts manifestly do exist. In that case, Lenin is not claiming that just because we have images of, say, Big Foot or the Tooth Fairy that they exist. What Lenin is committed to is the idea that the images we have of those parts imply that those parts must exist in reality, since we could not have derived them from anywhere else.
This brave attempt to defend Lenin fails in several places. First of all Lenin argued as follows:
"Our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external world, and it is obvious that an image cannot exist without the thing imagined, and that the latter exists independently of that which images it. Materialism deliberately makes the 'naïve' belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge." [Ibid., p.69. Bold emphasis added.]
And:
"The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it 'images.'" [Ibid., p.279. Bold emphasis added. In both of these, the quotation marks have been altered to conform to the conventions adopted here.]
No mention here of "parts".
Secondly, those whom Lenin was criticising in MEC could easily have responded as follows:
"And how, comrade Lenin, do you know that the images you have (whether they are of parts or of wholes) represent objects, or even the aspects/properties/parts of objects in the real world, and are not just figments of your own imagination?"
Lenin plainly had no answer to this in MEC (and none in PN, either), and, as far as can be ascertained, no DIM who argues along these lines has produced one since (mainly because they are content merely to regurgitate thoughtlessly Lenin's defective non-arguments, or simply copy his bluster and invective). Naturally, this leaves Lenin (and his followers) in the same predicament as the subjective Idealists he criticised in MEC: that is, he had no proof that the external world exists, or that our "images" are of objects/properties in extra-mental reality. [On this, see also Essay Five, here.]
[It is important to add that this does not imply I think the external world does not exist, merely that if all we had to rely on were Lenin's rather weak arguments, materialism would surely sink without trace.]
When faced with this, DIMs tend to retreat to the fall-back position of saying that only madmen, sceptics and Idealists would even think to doubt the existence of the outside world -- relying on the reader's 'commonsense' to reject this absurd view of reality.
However, this response merely labels the problem, it does not solve it. Those whom Lenin was criticising in MEC are unlikely to have been persuaded by such a cop-out, and would no doubt have wanted to know how Lenin could possibly know/prove that his 'image' of even of what he takes ordinary folk to believe itself represents anything in reality, and was not just another figment of his over-active imagination. Or, that there is any common sense (as opposed to images of it), or, indeed, that there are any "ordinary folk" in reality (again, as opposed to images of them). It is little point trying to take on the sophisticated arguments of Phenomenalists if in the end all one can do is appeal to what one imagines madmen, sceptics and Idealists do or do not believe, when the existence of these individuals (as opposed to our images of them) has yet to be proved.
The last desperate fall-back position here would be to argue that we determine in practice that what we have images of actually exist. The problem with that response is that, if Lenin were right, all we would have here are images of practice, and it's not easy to see how such images could help anyone escape the solipsistic world Lenin has created for himself (and for anyone else who believes him).
Hence, dialecticians who, despite their denials, adopt traditional representational theories of mind/knowledge must inevitably become trapped in an enclosed, solipsistic 'world' (as we will see in more detail in Essay Thirteen Part Three). Indeed, those who appropriate the methods and concepts handed down to them from previous generations of ruling-class hacks should perhaps learn to accept this self-inflicted predicament with fortitude. They are the ones who dropped themselves into this phenomenalist hole --, and, in the vast majority of cases, they are also the ones who refuse even to consider effective ways of avoiding such pitfalls in the first place (for instance, the anti-metaphysical method adopted at this site) -- nor do they seem inclined even to consider Marx's comments on the obvious source of such 'problems':
"The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life." [Marx and Engels (1970), p.118. Bold emphasis added.]
As we saw in Essay Twelve Part One, the radical misuse of language found throughout traditional thought (and in DM), renders such theses non-sensical.
Finally, as noted in Essay Thirteen Part One, it's a bit rich of those who spare no effort telling us of the limitations of 'commonsense' to turn round now and inform us that it underpins their theory of knowledge!
Nevertheless, the following considerations show that this untoward example (concerning mythical characters like Santa Claus) is not entirely unique:
(1) It's possible to form images in the mind's eye of people who no longer exist, which fact plainly does not imply they do exist.
(2) It's also easy to induce vivid but formless coloured images 'inside' the eyeball by gently pressing one or other of them with a finger. Clearly, this does not mean that these artificial images relate to anything in the outside world.
(3) Again, by re-focussing, or by pressing one eye, it is possible to form two images of the same object (which our system of sight normally merge into one). But, no one believes that there are in fact two identical copies of the same object in reality answering to these two pre-merged images. By a similar trick, it is also possible to see a three-dimensional image in two-dimensional "magic eye" pictures. That does not mean that such an image corresponds with anything in the 'external' world.
(4) We see stars every night (or are they merely the images of stars?), many of which scientists tell us no longer exist. Does this mean that these scientists are mistaken, and those stars nonetheless do exist?
(5) A scientist photographs a bent stick in a bucket of water. Does this image of the bent stick prove that there really are bent sticks in buckets of water?
(6) Someone claims to see an image of Christ in the clouds. Should we all become Christians? [Maybe not.]
(7) Those who have lost limbs claim that they can still feel them long after they have been amputated. Does this sensation (or is it an image?) prove that the surgeon who performed the operation was incompetent? Others report sensations in false limbs. Does that show these limbs aren't artificial after all?
Examples like these can be multiplied almost indefinitely. Any book (or website) on optical illusions will provide numerous further examples.
But, if the above are so, why did Lenin claim that DM begins with the "naïve belief" of humankind when the latter includes "images" of things that only the severely disturbed actually believe picture things in 'objective' reality? Few ordinary people (not in the grip of superstition, drugs, or mental illness) would be fooled into believing that phantom limbs, mirages, and dragons actually exist -- or that sticks bend when put in water.
Lenin can't have been unaware of this. In which case, it's difficult to see why he concluded that anyone (not so afflicted) begins with "images", rather than with a distrust of them. Or, even better: why anyone should mention "images" in this connection to begin with if only the mentally ill, the terminally naïve, the superstitious or those high on LSD would even think to base their knowledge of the world on them.
Of course, the above examples merely confirm that images do not have to correspond with things in the real world, but, as we are about to see, they cannot in fact correspond with them.
(B) There are many things that exist -- to which we can easily refer -- but of which we can form no images. For example, who among us can imagine (or 'image') a light ray, a π-meson, a gene, 10100 elementary particles (or even one elementary particle) --, or the universe itself?
(C) Worst of all, images cannot correspond with the objects they supposedly depict. And this observation, if anything, is even more true of the sort of objects and processes studied in the sciences.
To be sure, Lenin did attempt to argue as follows:
"It is beyond doubt that an image cannot wholly resemble the model, but an image is one thing, a symbol, a conventional sign, another. The image inevitably and of necessity implies the objective reality of that which it 'images.'" [Lenin (1972), p.279.]
"A reflection may be an approximately true copy of the reflected, but to speak of identity is absurd. Consciousness in general reflects being -- that is a general principle of all materialism. It is impossible not to see its direct and inseparable connection with the principle of historical materialism: social consciousness reflects social being." [Ibid., p.391. Bold emphases added.]
How Lenin knew all this is somewhat unclear. Indeed, and quite the opposite, Lenin could not possibly have known that an image is an "approximate" copy of the "thing reflected", unless he had independent access to the "thing reflected" with which he could compare it.
[And we have already seen that an appeal to practice cannot bail him out here, either.]
Nevertheless, as noted above, even if Lenin were correct, no image (in Lenin's sense of that word --, i.e., a sort of 'mental' copy of objects and processes in the external world, albeit later enhanced by practice) could possibly correspond with its 'intended' object, nor anything like it. That is because images are confined to partial and perspectivally-limited 'views' of their 'intended' targets. In that case, it's not possible to form an image of the whole object viewed from every angle all at once. So, at best, even if an image could correspond with its 'intended' target, it would only match a partial view of that object from that angle and that distance, That is, it would correspond with how that object would look when seen from that angle and that location --, but it would not correspond with the object itself.
So, the images to which Lenin refers could only correspond with views of objects from some angle or other, which would make his theory a rather limited form of Phenomenalism -- since his images would correspond with perspectivally-limited (or possible) views of objects, not those objects themselves.
And even if Lenin's "image" analogy were re-jigged (so that it now applied to an all-round scientific description of an object or process), not only would the "copy" metaphor have to be abandoned, the word "objective" would have to go, too.
That is because, in an objective world there are no "views" of objects for images to correspond, or fail to correspond, with. Clearly, in such a world there are no viewers to have any views at all, no views to be had, and no specially privileged angles from which to 'view' them. The objective world, so we are told, is supposed to be that which exists independently of mind. Hence, in such a world there are no 'views' for Lenin's "images" to match.
Of course, it could be argued that the images Lenin had in mind actually correspond with how an object (or processes) would look to a viewer if he or she looked at it from that angle. No doubt this is so; but in that case, such images would once more correspond to possible views of objects (but made by whom?), not those objects themselves. And if there are only views, what becomes of these objects? Given Lenin's account, it seems that there could only be images of views of objects -- or, as seems plain, just images of images, and no objects!
Ironically, Lenin's 'theory', which was cobbled-together partly in order to counter various Idealist attempts to spirit matter away, in the end actually manages to accomplish what his theoretical enemies had all along wanted to achieve: -- that is, to make matter vanish. In Lenin's universe there are now only partial, and perspectivally-challenged images of images!
Bringing science in here would be of little help, either; every object and process in nature is -- according to physicists --, a set of scalar, vector, or tensor fields, spruced-up with a few probability density distributions, situated in at least four dimensions. No humanly-formed 'image' could correspond with that bowl of 'mathematical spaghetti'.
In such a universe, each image-former would, at best, have images of perspectivally-limited views of knotted heaps of 'mathematical pasta'. And even if such images could be formed, no human would be able to do so without first ascending into a higher dimension, and probably a considerably higher plane of consciousness (which one supposes only Gerry Healy ever to have attained). And with that the objectivity of DM would collapse, since it clearly requires the existence of an Ideal Observer, who is everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Furthermore, if DM-theorists are correct in believing that everything in nature is interconnected with everything else, then yet another idea of theirs (i.e., that matter is independent of mind (in the sense that (1) the vast bulk of matter in the universe is unaffected by our knowledge of it, and that (2) matter existed before there were any minds) will have to be abandoned. While it might be possible to base the independence of mind and matter successfully on the connectivity of all things in nature, this cannot be done on the basis of their interconnectivity. Why this is so will now be explained.
If all things are interconnected then the material processes in, say, a scientist's central nervous system from which 'emerges' the thought that the Sun is approximately 93 million miles from earth must itself be connected with the material facts that make this thought true -- or, plainly, it would not be true, but false.
So, the fact that the Sun is approximately 93 million miles from earth is connected with and causes the processes from which 'emerges' the thought that the Sun is roughly that distance from the earth (or at least the material and social processes involved cause this). So far so good.
However, if everything in nature is interconnected then the reverse must also be true: the thought that the Sun is approximately 93 million miles from earth is interconnected with and causes the material facts that make it true that the Sun is approximately 93 million miles from earth. In other words there is at least one 'mental state' that is interconnected with and thus causes a remote material state of the universe. And if there is one, there are many; indeed, there is at least one for each true thought about nature.
There seem to be only two ways to avoid this Idealist conclusion: (1) The doctrine that everything in nature is interconnected must be abandoned, or (2) The link between interconnectivity and causation must be broken.
If the first escape route is chosen, much of classical DM would collapse, but if the second option is selected, the interconnectivity of nature would have to be recast in a non-causal (perhaps a non-physical) terms. But how might that be done without the whole thing turning into full-blown Idealism, with mystical and magical 'influences' permeating nature at every turn? The conveniently opaque word "mediation", and the openly misleading phrase "internal relation" are perhaps a little too obscure to rescue this beleaguered 'theory' from oblivom -- unless, of course, one or both are interpreted as synonyms for "causation" again.
Anyway, their deployment here would confirm the suspicion that in order to cover the gaping wounds in their theory, the only sticking plasters available to DM-theorists come in the form of yet more linguistic fixes.
[That would, of course, turn at least this part of DM into a form of Ideal Conventionalism.]
The precise nature of matter is an issue that all DM-apologists duck to a greater or lesser extent. Oddly enough for avowed materialists, DM-theorists since Engels's day believe that matter is an abstraction:
"N.B. Matter as such is a pure creation of thought and an abstraction. We leave out of account the qualitative differences of things in lumping them together as corporeally existing things under the concept matter. Hence matter as such, as distinct from definite existing pieces of matter, is not anything sensuously existing." [Engels (1954), p.255. Bold emphasis added.]
This risks DM being liable to prosecution under the Metaphysical Trade Descriptions Act, for, on this view, it's not even a materialist theory!
Nevertheless, and independently of this, it's not too clear from the above what Engels imagined the process of abstraction was supposed to work on, or what it was supposed to be applied to. What is/are the common features of all material objects, which distinguish them from the non-material? Lenin seemed to think it was 'objective' existence outside the mind (but, as we have seen in Essay Thirteen Part One, this 'definition' is no use at all). In contrast, Engels appealed to motion and unspecified "common properties" to explain its nature:
"Matter is nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is abstracted and motion as such nothing but the totality of all sensuously perceptible forms of motion; words like matter and motion are nothing but abbreviations in which we comprehend many different sensuous perceptible things according to their common properties.... Subject-matter -- matter in motion.... The different forms and varieties of matter itself can likewise only be known through motion, only in this are the properties of bodies exhibited; of a body that does not move there is nothing to be said. Hence the nature of bodies in motion results from the forms of motion." [Ibid., pp.236, 248.]
However, not everything that moves is material (on that, see Essays Five and Twelve Part One) -- but even if what Engels said were correct, it really is little help being given a circular 'definition' of matter and motion:
"Matter is nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is abstracted and motion as such nothing but the totality of all sensuously perceptible forms of motion...." [Ibid.]
What we still do not understand (philosophically) are the words "matter", "material", and "motion" (however, on the latter, and Engels rather odd views about it, see Essay Five again). The appearance of these words here in their own alleged definition is about as useful as this would be:
"Schmatter is nothing but the totality of schmaterial things from which this concept is abstracted and schmotion as such nothing but the totality of all sensuously perceptible forms of schmotion...."
And there is little point appealing to the everyday words we have for material things and moving objects, for they are far too varied to be restricted in this way. [Once more, that was demonstrated in Essays Five and Twelve Part One.] The language we have for such things is indeed our best guide here, but that language is incredibly rich, and does not favour the mystical spin Engels (or Hegel, or Lenin) wished to impose upon it.
Prevarication -- Something Dialecticians Do Particularly Well
DM-theorists are in general aware of such serial prevarication (i.e., the failure to tell us what matter actually is); indeed, far from regarding it as a weakness, they view it as one of their theory's strengths. This is because it allows them to argue that DM is compatible with any future (genuine) development in the physical sciences. A fixed definition of matter, they seem to think, would compromise their desire to tail-end Physicists. Unfortunately, such a strategy is a hostage to fortune; in fact, as is reasonably clear, it has backfired on them, especially now that many Physicists have declared that matter "has vanished" -- i.e., that it is now just a "field", or it is merely a 'subjective' aspect of how 'conscious beings' experience their existence in a four-dimensional manifold, etc., etc.
DM-theorists have so far failed to address this gaping hole in their version of 'materialism'. In fact, far too many have been content to bury their vanishing heads in these disappearing sands. Others have re-defined materialism in such a loose way that makes it compatible with practically anything at all (including, for example, belief in angels, divinities and mythical beats, as we saw in Essay Thirteen Part One).
[Lenin's attempted response to this objection is neutralised in Essay Thirteen Part One, too.]
Unless a satisfactory resolution of this critical problem can be found, DM itself might just as well now stand for Disappeared Matter.
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