[lbo-talk] Althusser, NLR and the meaning of 'Stalinism'

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Tue Feb 23 09:29:58 PST 2010


You have yet to present an argument that the determination of activity by "self-conscious reason" even exists. Actually, reason doesn't determine anything, except in Hegel, where reason is everything. Reason is a tool. It is Epithumiai that determine activity.

----- Original Message ---- From: Ted Winslow <egwinslow at rogers.com>


>

The problem with Althusser's "determinism" isn't that it has no logical space for "indeterminism"; it's that it, like all forms of the "materialism" it misidentifies with "science," has no logical space for the deteminants constitutive of "human" activity.  Specifically, it has no logical space for self-determination and final causation, the final form of these, in Marx's "humanist" understanding of them and their historical development, being the determination of activity by "self-conscious reason."  This means ironically that they have no logical space for the human activity that is "science."



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