I see. Then -- without all the verbiage -- what discriminates between good and bad theories/truth or error if not practice? ("Commitment to ideas" perhaps?)
You keep accusing me of this yet I have no idea why. I suspect it's because you tend to project your curious Wittgensteinian predilections onto others and fear that, in truth, you yourself are the dogmatist. If you really thought I was spouting sacred truth why would you not simply ignore me?

Memory serves as what proof? Consistency? What, in turn, is that useful for in regards to this discussion?



You don't know that objective reality exists. That's why I said "conceivably." I would guess from my sensory perception that there is a fact which is not exclusive to me, but I cannot be sure.



No, I think it is clear. I am describing how a term is used, I am not describing any inalienable traits of reality.



No, from the start I said that my idea is based purely on my own - necessarily subjective - understanding. And it would be mystical to believe in an objective reality, but this is precisely why I am not opposed to emotive decision-making and logic.

Not at all. There is no reason to believe, even if we were to conclude that the reality I talk of is exclusive to me, that it was my mind that shaped it. That is quite a leap.

You may not know, but I actually have a pretty firm concept of it - and from my past discussions with others on subjectivism and objectivism, I think my understanding is shared by others. This, again, is why I support a more fluid, emotional theory rather than a dead, purely numerical one.

Trivas:

Several things do, but practice isn't one of them (as you would know if you actually read something that challenged your dogmatic beliefs, for a change -- such as my posts).

You are the sort of person who, in the 1860s would have said something like: "Then -- without all the verbiage -- what condems capitalism to go into continual crises if not inflation, Herr Marx?"

If you can't be bothered to read challenging material, bog off to another board --, or, of course, stay ignorant.

Now, I have demonstrated that you are the dogmatist here, by showing that you hold onto beliefs you cannot defend, or justify, with argument or evidence, which you accept just because you read them in the Dialectical Holy Books.

In what way then am I a 'dogmatist'?

1) I came to this board nearly three years ago with the express intention of making life difficult for you mystics -- as I have told you several times.

So, if you post mystical and/or dogmatic gobbledygook here, I will demolish it, every time, without fail, ruthlessly, endlessly and aggressively.

Get used to it or don't.

2) If you want to post quasi-religious dogma, then I suggest you do so here:

http://worldwidechristiansonline.co.uk/

Or in OI/Religion.

Dean:

Well, whatever else memory does, it is all you have to go on. So, how do you know that you mean the same by 'subjective' or even 'objective' from one day to the next?

But, as you will see from this thread, I have been asking comrades what this term means. So, it is not so much that I do or do not know that "objective reality" exists, as the fact I do not know what the term "objective" means. So, my challenge is far more radical than merely questioning its 'existence'.

Unless you can say what it is you are trying to 'conceive', then for all you know you might be talking about coffee grinders.

And you can't know, either, for all you have is one 'subjective' idea to compare with another 'subjective' idea.

As I noted you are trapped in a 'subjective' bubble.

But, and on the contrary, all you are describing is your subjective view of how this word is used, and even worse, as you have subjectively characterised it.

You are still trapped in that bubble.

As the above confirms.

But, you have already admitted this: that all you have to offer are subjective opinions, even about 'reality'. So, the 'reality' you conceive of is, on your own admission, the product of your mind.

Or so your subjective 'memory' tells you. But we now know that all this is a product of your own imagination.

Still in that bubble, then...

Again, please name one of those things which discriminates between good and bad theories/truth or error (if you can).
Okay. Yes (but you still don't tell me why you think I'm a mystic, what constitutes dogmatic gobbledygook, etc., so I take my own counsel re this...).

Trivas:

Internal consistency, correspondence with reality, ability to solve more problems, theoretical simplicity...

You need to read some philosophy of science.

You should in fact welcome this, for practice has refuted your mystical 'theory'. That suggests you should stop appealing to it.

Fine, say ignorant (I have actually told you, but like Gilhyle, you refuse to read stuff you do not like, and then complain that I have not told you).

Yes, these are the methods bourgeois idealists use...

Trivas:

Not so; Marxists have to use them, too, since their criterion ('tested in practice') does not work --, or if it does work, then practice has refuted Dialectical Marxism.

Marxism has its own method of acquiring knowledge. The Marxist method is to go from the concrete to the abstract and back to the concrete. This is the dialectical method used in Capital.

-- Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks, 16

Ah, yet more dogmatics! Passages from the New Testament next, I presume?

But, unfortunately, this contradicts Lenin's other dogmatic assertion that truth is always concrete:

Lenin, V. (1921), 'Once Again On The Trade Unions, The Current Situation And The Mistakes Of Comrades Trotsky And Bukharin', reprinted in Lenin (1980), pp.70-106.

--------, (1980), On The Question Of Dialectics (Progress Publishers).

Copy available here:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...921/jan/25.htm

And yet, this cannot be correct either for that statement is abstract too.

In that case, if the statement that 'truth is always concrete, never abstract' is itself true, then it is false, since it is abstract, not concrete.

Has a single dialectical mystic noticed this glaring error in Lenin's 'theory'?

Are you joking! They are too bust trying not to "think about things they do not think about", like Trivas here.

Lenin held a dialectical materialist, not a dogmatic, view of things. Truth is neither abstract nor concrete. Materialist dialectics tells us that there is a unity in the opposites of philosophical categories like the abstract and the concrete. Read Marx's Capital to see how it works.

Trivas:

And yet, just like Engels and Hegel, he kept coming out with all these dogmatic statements. Odd that...

Unfortunately, for you, Lenin said "'truth' is always concrete, never abstract."

Alas, there is no 'unity of opposites' here.

So, which is correct? Is truth 'concrete', or abstract? Lenin seemed to believe both and neither.

Don't tell me you haven't given this any thought either!

Moreover, it's no use directing me to Das Kapital since we have already established that Marx abandoned this sort of talk in that book.

Moreover, this looks pretty dogmatic, too:

And, good little dogmatist that you are, you swallowed this guff without a murmur, didn't you?

Quoting one-liners out of context in no way establishes Lenin's philosophic bona fiides. Next you're going to try to convince me that Lenin thought himself the socialist Pope

Trivas:

1) Dialecticians are always quoting this passage, and as a single liner 'out of context', too.

2) This quote appears in a published work, unlike the one you quoted (also 'out of context').

3) Lenin is quite clear in this passage (and he is in fact quoting Hegel -- but is Lenin's quote 'out of context', too?): "truth is always concrete, never abstract."

So, what did Lenin mean if his plain words do not actually mean what they say they mean?

4) Here is the context:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/leni...921/jan/25.htm

Bold added.

So, did Lenin mean what he said, or not?

Well, he, like you and Engels, seemed to like pontificating about things he knew nothing about, such as logic and philosophy.

Moreover, he promulgated enough dogmas to convince anyone he was indeed trying to do Papal impersonations.

You see papal pontification everywhere. My quote from Lenin is from here. He read Hegel, Aristotle, Feuerbach, and others especially during 1914-1916.

Lenin's method of analysis is entirely consistent with Marx's dialectical method in Capital.

Trivas:

As Marx said: the ruling ideas are always those of the ruling class.

!) How do you know it is?

2) Marx adandoned the dialectic, as Lenin understood it, as we have already established.

3) Any comment on Lenin contradicting you by telling us that truth is always concrete, never abstract -- or is this just another of those things 'you do not think about'?