CB: Thanks
>
> "Caudwell was an awesome Marxist philosopher."
>
> "Facts."
>
>
> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 8:03 PM, Charles Brown <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Word ( Are you familiar with that slang ? It means "what you say it
>> true", though I think it has changed, smiles)
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 6:33 PM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>> > Possibly true about Hegel.
>> >
>> > The other thing to keep in mind is that the vernacular changes extremely
>> fast. Print has slowed down the rate of change, but it's still changing
>> every day. What doesn't change as quickly is the language of the educated:
>> the hochsprache of each country. That's one reason why intellectuals might
>> notice that language gets more out of touch with reality.
>> >
>> > Dante actually argues this in De Vulgaria Eloquentia, when talking about
>> the Tower of Babel.
>> >
>> > Joanna
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 1:49 PM, JOANNA A. <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>> >> He was a smart, well educated, insightful guy. Even though he says
>> print and Plato in the same sentence, a lot of what he describes is true
>> for post-writing culture.
>> >>
>> >> Joanna
>> >
>> >
>> > ^^^^^^
>> > CB: uhhuh
>> >
>> > Another thought: Engels suggests that
>> > Hegel's founding his dialectical logic in contradiction instead of the
>> > principle of identity or non-contradiction as in formal logic is an
>> > effort to reflect in language the change or fluidity of reality that
>> > Caudwell describes here.
>> >
>> > Caudwell's formulation above is at the extreme of Heraclitus'
>> > 'No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same
>> > river and he's not the same man.' Somewhere Hegel says formal logic is
>> > necessary as well or else we would never have any fixity or certainty.
>> >
>> > Also, Caudwell says, " "Reality constitutes for us our environment.
>> > and our environment ,
>> >> which is chiefly social, ..." , Social reality is largely made up of
>> symbols in language and the semiotics of culture, tradition, customs (see
>> structural anthropology). Well , symbols are fixed, as he points out in the
>> other part of what he says. So, much of our reality _is_ fixed, and not
>> changing. My mother remains my mother, because "mother" is a symbolic
>> representation. The law against speeding remains fixed pretty much. It's
>> objective reality that changes , not social reality - the ultimate fixity
>> in social reality being things like God , the Eternal Individual Soul or
>> maybe Platonic Ideals. Social reality only changes with revolutions in the
>> mode of production a la Marx *
>> >
>> > Oh I just found this on the internet; Caudwell is an extraordinary
>> > Marxist philosopher:
>> >
>> > http://www.marxists.org/archive/caudwell/1938/studies/index.htm
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > * In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter
>> > into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely
>> > relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the
>> > development of their material forces of production. The totality of
>> > these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of
>> > society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political
>> > superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social
>> > consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the
>> > general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not
>> > the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their
>> > social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain
>> > stage of development, the material productive forces of society come
>> > into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this
>> > merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property
>> > relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto.
>> > >From forms of development of the productive forces these relations
>> > turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The
>> > changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the
>> > transformation of the whole immense superstructure. " ( the legal,
>> > political, religious, artistic or philosophic – in short, ideological
>> > forms)
>> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >>
>> >> ----- Original Message -----
>> >> "Reality constitutes for us our environment. and our environment ,
>> >> which is chiefly social, alters continuously -sometimes barely
>> >> perceptibly, sometimes at dizzy speeds. The socially accepted pictures
>> >> we make in words of reality cannot change as if they were reflections
>> >> in a mirror. An object is reflected in a mirror. An object is
>> >> reflected in a mirror. If the object moves the reflection moves. But
>> >> in language reality is symbolised in unchanging words which give a
>> >> false stability and permanence to the object they represent. Thus they
>> >> instantaneously photograph reality rather than reflect it. This frigid
>> >> character of language is regrettable but it has utilitarian purposes .
>> >> It is probably the only way in which man, with his linear
>> >> consciousness, can get a grip of fluid reality. Language, as it
>> >> develops, shows more and more of this false permanence, till we arrive
>> >> at the Platonic Ideas, Eternal and Perfect Words. Their eternity and
>> >> perfection are simply the permanence of print and paper. If you coin a
>> >> word or write a symbol to describe an entity or event, the word will
>> >> remain 'eternally' unchanged even while the entity has changed and the
>> >> event is no longer present. This permanence is part of the inescapable
>> >> nature of symbolism, which is expressed in the rules of logic. It is
>> >> one of the strange freaks of the human mind that it is supposed that
>> >> reality must obey the rules of logic, whereas the correct view is that
>> >> symbolism by its very nature has certain rules, expressed in laws of
>> >> logic,and these are nothing to do with the process of reality, but
>> >> represent the nature of the symbolic process itself." - Christopher
>> >> Caudwell from "A Study of the Bourgeois Artist" in _Studies in s
>> >> Dying Culture_
>> >> ___________________________________
>> >> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>> >>
>> >> ___________________________________
>> >> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>> >
>> > ___________________________________
>> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>> >
>> >
>> > ___________________________________
>> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk