Apparently so, since he argued as follows:

Quote:

"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." [Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, p.69. Bold emphasis added. Cf., also p.279.]

This can only mean that if you can form an image of something in your mind, it must exist in reality!

So, not only are there unicorns and hob-goblins in Lenin's universe, it is graced with Big Foot and dear old Santa (and Hitler, and Mussolini, and...).

More details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page_13%2001.htm

This is a link to a long-overdue demolition of Lenin's egregious book.

It must be avoided at all costs by comrades who like to pontificate about my work without actually having read it, and by those whose sycophantic worship of Lenin turns him into an infallible god.

Quote:

It must be avoided at all costs by comrades who like to pontificate about my work without actually having read it, and by those whose sycophantic worship of Lenin turns him into an infallible god.

Right-o.

Rosa, that is pathetic.

Lenin said an image, not a thing. The image is of couse imagined. And the thing exists independently of the person who imagines it. Lenin isn't using the term imagine to describe making something up. I assume he means to create the image in your head. This it the biological process of the senses.

I think you have gone of the deep end with this one. I can see where you can distort or misread the sentance. It is a hard one, if you miss read the commas or bold the last part of the sentance.

Z:

Quote:

Right-o.

As I have said to you before, we can't have you waving goodbye to your self-imposed ignorance, can we?

Hiero, way out of his depth again:

Read what Lenin said, not what you would like him to have said:

Got that? An image cannot exist without the thing imagined and the latter exists independently of that which images it.

So, conjure up an image of Santa, and according to Lenin, he must exist.

Don't pick a fight with me over this, but with Lenin who cooked this dopey theory up.

Oh yes I have; you can see for yourself at that link (I have gone into nearly 50,000 words of depth on this, and considered every conceivable reply that could be made to each of my allegations).

But, hey, I said that if you want to jump to conclusions about my work without actually having read it, fine.

But, then you'd be making a public fool of yourself yet again.

Oddly enough, I can live with that.

TAKN as was, thanks for that -- and, as luck would have it, according to Lenin, that image of him proves he is still alive!

But, I rather suspect the other anarchists here are going to hate your guts for resurrecting him!!

When I picture Santa in my imagination, it is a reflection of a cultural construct which exists "out there" in various representations. The same when I imagine a goblin or Big Foot.

Because these things have a cultural existence in myth, fairy tale, etc. it is correct to say that they "exists independently" of my imagination.

Z:
 
Ah, more profundities from RevLeft's very own ignoramus.
 
Too bad Lenin did not have you to advise him, for he certainly believed in Santa.
 
 
Nice try, but if you read this execrable book that Lenin inflicted on Marxists, you will see that when he says "independently" he means "independently" of all thought, and castigated those who tried, like you, to water this down.
 

I knew this'd be some bullshit thread started by Rosa when I saw it in the "Last post" section.



Let's rebold:

"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." [Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, p.69. Bold emphasis added. Cf., also p.279.]

An image here is obviously an "imagination" of a real objective thing. In other words, the image can't exist without that objective thing existing and being imagined (imagined being the process of "transforming" that objective thing into an image through sensation). So no, Santa Claus doesn't exist because he is not an objective thing that can be sensed (imagined).

Sorry, Rosa. It doesn't work both ways. You're just injecting your idealism into Lenin's materialism.

And no, I will not read your essays, because they're as full of shit as this thread.

We should note here that, with the help of his intensive studies of Hegel which began in 1914, Lenin moved away from the simplistic and mechanistic materialism which we find in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (first published in 1909).

Zamparo:

But, Lenin actually struggles in this egregious book to try to show that the images he says we have actually reflect things in the world, and which are thus objective.

Now, although he continually repeats this mantra (I have counted over 60 places in MEC where he keeps saying the same thing over and over again) his only 'proof' is the passage I quoted.

So, his whole theory of 'objectivity' is based on this inference, that an image implies the existence of the object which it images.

In that case, his theory implies Santa does exist.

Now, if you begin with the objective world and try to work back from there, that would be a more reasonable position to adopt, but Lenin doesn't; he begins with images and tries to derive the objective world from them. This is his clinching 'argument', the one I originally quoted. He has no other. You may wish that he had, but it is absent from MEC. [In fact, there is no way that the world can be derived from images, so Lenin was strugggling against impossible odds here. But he got himself into this hole, so he should get little sympathy.]

So, you have got his theory the wrong way round.

Quote:

And no, I will not read your essays, because they're as full of shit as this thread.

Well it was a s*it-free zone until you came up with this nasty dose of verbal diahorrea.

And I hope you do not read my Essays; I'd hate to think my pearls had been cast before such low grade swine as you, sweetie.

VG:

Yes, and it is apparent that Lenin moved from confusion in MEC to mysticism in the Notebooks.

So, your advice is of little help.

Cheers.

Of course he did, dear. Now, have a nice cup of tea and the nurse will be in soon with your magic pills!

'K, I made that one up.

A cultural representation is independent of thought. It's not put in my head by telepathy . But just to confirm my ignoramus status further, I'll admit that I've never read the MEC. Your book review don't exactly help. And if you think I'm gonna waste hours of my life reading a book which you describe as "execrable" just so I can get talked down to on the internet by some loony-tune who honestly thinks that Lenin believed in Santa Claus, then you are also guilty of believing in the ridiculous.

So he was wrong. Some of them are inter-subjective (still existing outside of individual consciousness). It's called culture, baby

But that wouldn't solve the major problem which is that he would retain a one-way causal account of our relationship with reality which lacks any kind of praxis. Anyway, as Van1917 points out, Lenin later abandoned this mechanical formulation.

Hey, maybe you're right. Perhaps Lenin was wrong. Maybe he was a dud of a philosopher. Maybe you're a million times cleverer than he. But so what? He led the first workers revolution in history. What have you done?

Fat men with beards do exist. This is why I can imagine Santa. I could not imagine shapes and colours which do not exist.

Z:

So, you too believe in Santa, eh?

I think Lenin is right in this insance.

If I imagine Santa, it doesn't mean santa exists, but I have seen images, depictions and costumes of Santa that exist, and it is intact those that I picture in my mind.

I cannot imagine a square circle, because one does not exist, and cannot exist.

I can't imagien God, I imagine depictions of God, which do exist...

if you see what I mean.

Z:

I think Z has finally cracked.

How can a cultural representation be independent of all thought, if it takes people who think to create it?

[Try the same argument with hallucinations -- they too must exist, according to Lenin. So, if you have an image of an oasis then it must exist.]

What makes you think I want someone as benighted as you to read a single one of my Essays?

In fact I warned nescient comrades like you to stay away, and you seemed to agree.

I prefer you in your ignorant state, as a salutary warning to others.

I agree.

Ah, but inter-subjectivity cannot be generated from Lenin's premisses, since all he has to play around with are images, and that includes images of other human beings, and images of 'practice', too. At no point can he ground his images in objectivity, except by the use of the 'Santa Claus' argument, which has such unacceptable implications.

Now, we all know Lenin's position is crazy, but I did tell you it's an execrable book, sweeite.

I did not say I accepted this, just that it was more reasonable.

And VG asked us to accept the mystical deliverances Lenin culled from Hegel -- a thinker that not even you will touch with VG's barge pole. You still refuse to read his 'Logic' (one of the few sensible things you have ever done), but yet you now ask us to believe this helped Lenin!

No maybes about it, sunshine.

Shown that his philosophy was hogwash, and that he not only did not, he could not use it in the revolution.

Where?

Somewhere where your tender eyes are not allowed to venture, for fear your ignorance quotent might fall as a result.

[Oh, and by the way, Dialectical Marxism also presided over the decay and reversal of the revolution; I note you ignored that...]

Wat:

But Lenin says the exact opposite to this, so how can he be 'right'?