Determinism and Marxism

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Sat Feb 9 13:52:47 PST 2002


On Sat, 9 Feb 2002 19:14:40 -0000 P.J.Wells at open.ac.uk writes:
> Jim Farmelant wrote apropos of Soviet science:
>
> >Quantum mechanics was condemned also on the grounds of
> >it being idealist & subjectivist, and because quantum indeterminism
> >was seen as incompatible with the postulates of materialism (which
> >was seen as being committed to a fullblooded determinism).
>
> Quite so -- this delusion illustrates the continuity between
> Bernstein's
> revisionism and that of the Stalinists. It's a strange quirk of
> intellectual
> history that Bernstein is remembered for (supposedly) providing a
> critique
> of Marx and Engels' (alleged) determinism, when in point of fact it
> is
> Bernstein who is the dogmatic determinist.
>
> Both the D of N and the Anti-D contain absolutely clear, indeed
> scathing,
> attacks on "mechanical materialism" and the associated determinism.
> Moreover
> Engels specifically describes that sort of determinism as a doctrine
> especially suited to the viewpoint of the rising bourgeoisie (in
> particular
> reference to the Calvinists, as it happens).

It is a curious fact that Plekhanov in his *The Role of the Individual in History* cited the Calvinists favorably in his own defense of determinism.


>
> Nonetheless, Engels doesn't in the end do a very good job of
> articulating a
> dialectical materialist position on determinism and free will
> (though he has
> a very clear and pithy comment on how it is the exercise of every
> one's free
> will, in an atomised society, that creates the appearance of iron
> constraints).

Arguably, he was attempting to advance a kind of compatibilism, based on the Spinozan-Hegelian notion that freedom begins with the recognition of necessity, which can be interpreted as the thesis, that we are free to the extent that we are cognizant of the causal determinants of our existence, and to the extant that we possess the power to alter them, on the basis of our comprehension of them.


>
> Marx, it might be noted, makes several comments -- in connection
> with such
> issues as the formation of the general rate of profit, the relation
> between
> prices and values, etc. -- which to my mind show a clear (but purely
> intuitive) probabilistic point of view.
>
> Unfortunately, it seems that neither of them consistently followed
> 19th
> century statistical debates. In particular, there was a spirited
> controversy
> over whether the discovery of social regularities (Quetelet's "homme
> moyen")
> implied determinism.

On the question of the role of determinism in behavioral science, the journal Behavior and PhilosophY (http://www.behavior.org/) has in recent years published papers by R.A. Moxley on B.F. Skinner's notions of determinism. According to Moxley Skinner early held to a mechanical determinism which he picked up from people like John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and Bertrand Russell. But Moxley contends that as Skinner's psychology evolved from an S-R behaviorism to a selectionist behaviorism, he gradually, though not always very consistently moved to a probabilistic standpoint.


>
> Interestingly (but unsurprisingly to anyone aware of Engels' remarks
> about
> the Calvinists) the proponents of what was called "statistical
> fatalism"
> were adherents of Manchester-style liberalism. The stronghold of
> free-will
> was the Prussian statistical bureau and the German
> professor-socialists.
>


>
> Julian
>

________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list