honneth, language and recognition.

Marx’s economico/political anthropology gives up arbeit, or labour as the essence of humanity. I’ve argued elsewhere that this seems too narrow, and am in agreement with Honneth that a weaker formal anthropology would be more appropriate. Habermas, replaces this concept with ‘communication’ in turn, Honneth feels that ‘recognition’ is more appropriate.  I’m not sure that this is the right manoeuvre.

Honneth would argue that human beings do not become fully ’socialised’ just through language but through mutual recognition; the acknowledgement of an other’s self-worth, the generation of self-respect and so on. As an aside, the similarities to Kant’s moral philosophy are quite striking, particularly with respect to the various iterations of the categorical imperative. Moving on, Honneth argues that it is wrong to equate the the (chief) medium through which the activation of social agency occurs, with logic contained in that medium.  Now, I don’t agree with this argument. Firstly, I should point out that I also disagree with Habermas- the when the ’system’ imposes itself on the life-world, it is meant to disrupt social communication, imposing its non-linguistic edicts on social relations.  I don’t believe this to be true. Systems do have a language/communicative aspect- the stock market can interact in a symbolic/linguistic way with people, so too can governments and bureaucracies.  Reification, in the Marxist/Lukácian sense, seems to be the more fundamental problem- abstract entities being granted  human autonomy. I should also point out that I have a very broad notion of communication, drawn from both contintental semiotics and analytic philosophy of language.  Anything that can be thougt about the world can be expressed through a language of sorts, even if a thoughts  initial utterances, though symbols, speech or writing etc. are unclear- they are always open to the possibility of further refinement and clarification.  I think perhaps that I would go as far to say that reason is itself language, or at least, can only be expressed through language- in the most fundamental sense, language represents the ability to recognise relationships between persons and things, and to communicate this recognition to others thus incorporating both the core Habermasian and Honnethian ideas.

However, can language (in the above sense) be separated from recognition?  I’m pretty certain that it can’t- the way in which we interact with others must be able to be described or represented in some form for it to have any meaning and be acknowledged by others, in the same way that the ability or desire to communciate at all represents an act of recognition.  Indeed, the concept of recognition can itself, only be expressed through language, and vice versa.  Recognition and communication are fundamentally inseparable concepts, neither should be given ontological priority over the other- neither can exist without the other, and like the relationship between the individual and the society, their relationship is dialectical.

lukács and the critique of reason

 György Lukács, for those of you who aren’t familiar with him,  was one of the founders of Western Marxism. My chief interest in him is his contribution to literary and aesthetic theory: his association with Brecht, his insistence on realism when it was unfashionable , and in particular, his work The Theory of the Novel. I’d like to post something about these a little later, time permitting- perhaps comparing him with Adorno.In this post I’d like to talk about reification and rationality, as discussed by Lukács in History and Class Consciousness.  Space doesn’t really permit me to give a full account of ideas, so if you’re interested I recommend you read the chapter, ‘Reification and Consiouness of the Proletaritat’.

The first point I’d like to discuss is the ‘freshness’ of Lukács account of reification.  Marx, to the best of  my knowledge, only uses the word ‘reification’ once.  However, he does use words and phrases like objectification, personification, material inversion, and realisation, frequently.  ’Objectification’ in particular, seems to capture almost exactly the same meaning as reification, or at least reification as it applies to persons. In this sense, I don’t think Lukács’ uses of the word ‘reification’ is as radical as some commentators make out.  

This leads to the notion of alienation.  My reading of Marx’s seems to suggest that reification/objectification is the root cause of alienation. However, most of the literature I’ve read on the matter suggests  reification is a particular aspect or trope of alienation.  But is this really what Marx thought?  Virtually every type of alienation seems to be related to objectification in some way: objectification of labour relations, internal objectification, the fundamental ‘evil’ of private property, and most importantly, the relationship between people and objects.

It is at this point that Lukács steps in, to really soup up some of Marx’s ideas, notably reification as it relates to commodity fetishism.  Again, I don’t really have the space to discuss this relationship in detail, but I would like to talk about Lukács’ attack on reason.  Firstly, I’m not convinced that Lukács was any near as pessimistic about the nature of rationality as Adorno or Marcuse.  His attack seems to be directed on the kind of fragmented rationality embodied by commodity fetishism.  Granted, one does need to read between the lines to see that Lukács is not calling for the abandonment of rationality, but rather a holistic approach to its application- (there are some interesting comparisons to be made with Husserl on this point).  Indeed, I think one is almost compelled to take this view, considering that Lukács dissection of the problem of reification is itself performed through an act of reason.  

An another observation of interest is that Lukács (and Marx) form their respective arguments, and reach their respective conclusions,  as individuals.  What does this have to say about the role of society (i.e. collectivity) in resolving the problems of flawed reason and reification.  I know this seems a little ‘meta’, but I think this remains a serious problem for most Marxist thinkers (Lukás was reprimanded a number of times for comments about the power of an individual to cause change.) The individual can, and does make a difference. But does this really have to be problem at all?

Marx and The Dialectic

                     I’ll be returning to Marx frequently over the next few weeks; his influence on social and ethical philosophy is enormous- in both the analytic and continental schools.  Anyway, this is my two cents about Marx’s dialectical materialism.  Someone asked me a few weeks ago, what I thought about Marx’s use of the dialectic method.  First I should lay my cards on the table: I would consider my self a Kantian, I would also describe myself as having libertarian impulses with socialist overtones.  Now this may strike many people as ridiculous- just an attempt to fence sit, and I’d like talk about the  validity of this point of view later. As it relates to the task at hand, it simply means that I’m prepared to keep an open mind- I’m quite happy to take the bits I like and throw out the rest.  

                     Marx’s inversion of Hegel’s dialectic may be one of the areas I’d like to throw out.  Actually, the idea of  ’the dialectic’ could itself be up for review.  My first problem with stems from the dual nature of the dialectic; master/slave, proletartiat/bourgeoisie, teacher/student and so on.  I know this is probably simplifying things a bit too much, but why are there only two sides to the argument?  Why not a trilectic, or a tetralectic etc. ? This I think goes to the heart of arguments about pluralism; the us against them or me against you mentality is initself a gross simplification of both reality and metaphysics. I think, really, one finds arguments come from all sides- are pulled this and way and that way- some arguments  support one another, half agree with others, would support the remainder, if the remainder supported them and so. However, Occam may have something to say about this.

                   Nonethless, the dialectical method is something I have to work with, and I can see its utility, even if I think its a bit too reductionist.  This brings us to Marx’s inversion of Hegel’s dialectic.  I don’t really have the room or the time (and probably the understanding) to describe this in detail.  However ,I will say, that I think it doesn’t work.  I don’t think Marx is right to make labour or arbeit, the grounding for his anthropology. The whole idea of ‘essence’, smacks of idealism.  Furthermore, why this particular essence?  Given Marx’s historical analysis, one could just as easily conclude that the essence of man is alienation, or selfishness, or even laziness.  Again, I’m also compelled to ask, why just one attribute? (I am aware of the Aristotelian origin of this notion)The final difficulty, and I think this will become much clearer over the next few weeks, especially with my examinations of Lukács and Habermas, is that it doesn’t really seem possible to ground the dialectic in social relations.  This leads to my final thought- why give priority to one side or another?  Why not give equal weight to though/spirit and the physical world/social relations?

Marx and Modern Surplus Value.

It would seem that the Marx’s exposition of the  fundamental inversion, within capitalism, of the relationship between commodities and money is still as very relevent now, and,  I would argue,  has evolved in ways that would make him turn in his grave.  In Kapital, Marx ponders the mysterious ability of money to increase itself, the M-C-M’ relation. For the moment I’m going to ignore the nature of surplus value as it relates to actual labour, and concentrate on the financial side of things.  The most obvious example in an ecomomic context is that of the power of money to acrue interest- this is as pertinent now as it was then.  However, in financial terms this is a very simple instrument, for example, I place my money in the bank, the bank pays me a certain amount of interest, while lending the money to others at a higher rate of interest, and collects on the difference. But what about more complex instruments, like derivatives; futures, options and swaps.  Now, when you buy shares, you are essential buying into the capital base of a company, when you buy gold or wheat, you’re buying commodities- relatively tangible things.  However, when you buy an option for example, you’re only buying an abstraction- the right to buy something at a particular date.  the situation becomes even more complicated with credit derivatives- here you’re speculating on the underlying credit risk on a loan, or a bond or even a mortgage (although strictly speaking, this would be usually be a property derivative)- abstractions upon abstractions.  It becomes very difficult in these instances to see from where he ‘real’ value is generated. Furthermore, these kinds of instruments are often used to manage risk within a financial portfolio- acting as leverage for/against other assets.  Talk about mystification!  It wouldn’t be controversial to say that playing with ‘risk’ (and these instuments) went a good way to causing the current financial crisis.  Now risk is a part of life, even for a Marxist, but I think one could reasonably argue that it was a lack of awareness as to what the actual risks were that has caused so much grief- again the mystery of money’s abilitiy to increase itself.