[lbo-talk] "Theory's Empire," an anti-"Theory" anthology

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Tue May 27 13:02:30 PDT 2008


Materialism as used here _is_ a theory. It is opposed to "idealism" by Engels in defining what he calls the basic question of philosophy in _Ludwig Feuerbach_. With all due respect to auto mechanics, the vast majority do not discuss this issue _as_ auto mechanics. Some auto mechanics might have an interest in philosophy as a hobby, pretty much unrelated to their "day job", and then might discuss it , have an opinion on it. At any rate, it would be acting as an intellectual of some sort that the mechanic would discuss materialism or have an opinion on materialism, not as an "engineer-physicist-mechanic". Questions of materialism vs idealism don't arise in dealing with the problems of fixing a car.

Also, the choice of the category "auto-mechanic" in contrast with "intellectual" probably derives from a notion that "physicists-engineers-mechanics" are more likely to hold materialist and not idealist positions on the issue. But, lots of famous physicists have been philosophical idealists. Newton was a believer in God ( Belief in God is an idealist position; see Engels's discussion of this in _Socialism: Utopian or Scientific). Mach was an idealist, a neo-Kantian. Heisenberg of uncertainty principle fame was an philosophical idealist, and his uncertainty principle was put forth as an underpinning to that idealist position. Einstein seems to have been a materialist, explicitly disagreeing with Mach that atoms were just thought-structures or some such.

The original review that gave rise to this thread, seems to be from a neo-phyte rightwinger dipping into a time warp for threadbare anti-left material; and the article is pretty much a mishmash, conflating "liberal" with Marxist , and some other things. But I bet there is really very, very little Marxism taught in the US schools, so this article might stir up more interest in Marxism than is already there.

As to the anthology... might be worth critiquing.

Charles

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