Monday, June 30, 2008

Reading Lenin 21

READING LENIN: Materialism and Empiro-criticism [ 21 ]
Thomas Riggins

CHAPTER SIX: EMPIRIO-CRITICISM AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

The Russian Machists comprise two groups. The first is made up of conservatives and reactionaries grouped around V. Chernov (already discussed), and the other group is made up of "would be Marxists" who think they can harmonize the philosophy of Avenarius and Mach with that of Marx and Engels. Lenin, in this chapter, will show that this is a hopeless task.

SECTION ONE: THE EXCURSIONS OF THE GERMAN EMPIRIO - CRITICISTS INTO THE FIELD OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Lenin begins by discussing an 1895 article by a disciple of Avenarius named Franz Blei [1871-1942], "Metaphysics in Political Economy." Among other things the article maintains that Marxism is metaphysical because of its belief in "materialism" and "objective" truth and "that there was indeed nothing behind the Marxist teaching save the 'subjective' views of Marx."

Lenin has no doubt that the party members, remember Bogdanov was a Bolshevik leader, flirting with Machism will reject Blei's version of Marxism. But, says Lenin, "You must not blame the mirror for showing a crooked face." Blie gives a true reflection of the social views of his movement. Rejecting his views would show the "good intentions" of the Russian "Marxist" Machists, but would show even better "their absurd eclectical endeavors to combine Marx and Avenarius."

The next Machist Lenin looks at is Petzoldt, whom we have seen before. He has a philosophy of "stability" which is based on "human nature." The tendency is for humanity to attain a state of "stability." This conflict free state will come about on its own by the operations of human nature. It cannot be brought about by socialism. But "moral progress" towards this stability and equality can be seen in our [1908] time. Wages are going up for workers and profits are going down, and there is the foundation of the Salvation Army all of which is evidence for Petzoldt's views! Lenin says this is just "hackneyed rubbish" and represents not a scientific understanding of social science but the "infinite stupidity of the philistine." Now it is time to look at the Russian Machists.

SECTION TWO: HOW BOGDANOV CORRECTS AND "DEVELOPS" MARX

Bogdanov wrote an article in 1902 in which he quotes the famous passage from Marx's introduction to "Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy" about consciousness being a reflection of material reality. Bogdanov then concludes, "SOCIAL BEING AND SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS ARE, IN THE EXACT MEANING OF THESE TERMS, IDENTICAL." Lenin thinks this is nonsense.

In complex societies, and especially in capitalism, people are NOT CONSCIOUS of their social being. Thomas Frank's book "What is the Matter with Kansas" is an example of that. What Marx says is that social consciousness REFLECTS social being. But just what does this mean? Lenin says, "A reflection may be an approximately true copy of the reflected, but to speak of identity is absurd. Consciousness in general REFLECTS being-- that is a general thesis of ALL materialism."

I hate to say it, but there seems to be a problem with this formulation. Does it account for FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS? Working people voting for Republicans, or even Democrats for that matter, are not manifesting a consciousness that reflects their actual social being as cogs in the capitalist machine. What is the distorting mechanism and how does it supervene to block even an "approximately true copy of the reflected"? At any rate, Bogdanov is certainly wrong to be talking about an identity relation between reality and it reflection.

Lenin says Bogdanov's formulation is based on the IDEALISM inherent in the Machist position that outer reality is the same as the sensations we have of it: that outer reality is in fact sensation. "Sense-perception is the reality existing outside us" as Bazarov puts it.

Bogdanov wants to be a good Marxist; Lenin says Bogdanov MINUS Machism "is a Marxist," but is hampered by his idealist deviations. With regard to Machism: "If certain people reconcile it with Marxism, with Marxist behaviour, we must admit that these people are better than their theory, but we must not justify outrageous theoretical distortions of Marxism."

Social production was complex in Marx's day and is even more complex today. Actions of producers in Iowa can have effects on people in Africa. The world economy of capitalism is so vast and interconnected that no one can know all that is going on. Even "seventy Marxes," Lenin says, could not grasp it. But Marx has discovered the OBJECTIVE LAWS that govern the development of capitalism, and this is the most important thing.

Once we understand this we understand "the highest task of humanity." And what is this task? It is to understand these objective laws, Lenin says "to comprehend this objective logic of economic evolution," SO THAT we conform our social consciousness to this logic and the social consciousness "of the advanced classes of all capitalist countries." This is a task, I fear, we are woefully deficient at in the present social environment of capitalism.

Bogdanov and the Russian Marxists did not contribute to this task when they, whatever their good intentions, mixed up reactionary bourgeois idealism with Marxism. Historical materialism sees social being (here the capitalist process) as independent of human consciousness which reflects it with greater or lesser precision. The philosophy of Marx and Engels "is cast from a single piece of steel, you cannot eliminate one basic premise, one essential part, without departing from objective truth, without falling a prey to bourgeois-reactionary falsehood." Is this too strong a statement? Is Lenin too fundamentalist? Or is this correct and far too many so called Marxists, even in our own day, have fallen into a similar stance as that of Bogdanov? I don't mean being "Machist" but are they eliminating a fundamental pillar of Marxism (the dictatorship of the proletariat, the labor aristocracy, class struggle, democratic centralism, internationalism, etc.,) and expecting the house to remain standing?

Bogdanov's desire to "update" Marxism is not based on any real empirical analysis of the facts. In fact, Lenin says, he "is not engaged in a Marxist enquiry at all; all he is doing is to reclothe results already obtained by this enquiry in a biological and energeticist terminology. The whole attempt is worthless from beginning to end...."

At the close of this section Lenin makes some interesting comments about Marx and Engels that are certainly relevant today. He says that for Marx "the transfer of biological concepts IN GENERAL to the sphere of the social sciences is PHRASE-MONGERING." This is certainly true of social Darwinism, but what about modern (2008) attempts to do this? Has science advanced to where this is no longer phrase-mongering? I am thinking of sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and neuroscientific explanations being applied to the social sciences.

While Lenin has spent most of the time in MEC discussing episte-mology, he nevertheless says that as Marx and Engels transcended Feuerbach they emphasized not materialist epistemology (which they certainly believed in) but rather "the materialist conception of history." He says they put the stress "rather on DIALECTICAL materialism than on dialectical MATERIALISM and insisted on HISTORICAL materialism rather than on historical MATERIALISM."

The Russian Machists have been confused by their embracement of empirio-criticism which is more interested in spreading an idealistic form of epistemology then it is in thinking seriously about the problems of historical materialism. This leads to the falsification of Marxism by nonmaterialist doctrines and is also a "characteristic feature of modern revisionism in political economy, in questions of tactics [especially in a possible tendency to confuse tactics and strategy--tr] and in philosophy generally, equally in epistemology and in sociology."

SECTION THREE: SUVOROV'S "FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY"

This section is about an essay by S. A. Suvorov that appeared in the collection "Studies 'in' the Philosophy of Marxism" which book we have discussed before. Lenin heaps scorn on Suvorov for making up new terms for already existing aspects of historical materialism developed by Marx, and using biological examples to try and illustrate social phenomena. Sovorov would be making what today we call a "category mistake." Sovorov's essay is so out of date and behind the times we need not spend any more time on it. The book it appeared in was a collection by all of the usual Russian Machist suspects and elicited from Lenin the comment that "we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that there is an inseparable connection between reactionary epistemology and reactionary efforts in sociology."

Next week we will take up with Section 4 of this chapter.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

On the "God" Word

REINVENTING THE SACRED
Thomas Riggins

Denis Noble has a review ("For a Redefinition of God") of Stuart A. Kauffman's new book REINVENTING THE SACRED: A NEW VIEW OF SCIENCE, REASON, AND RELIGION, in the 6-20-2008 issue of SCIENCE.

Well, if God is going to get a new definition let's see what it is. Those of us who are skeptical as to God's is-ness do not want to be doubting the is-ness of what isn't the is-ness we think it is but some other is-ness that is entirely different. Maybe we can even learn about God's relation to Marxism.

Kauffman, a theoretical biologist (there is an interesting Wikepedia article about him), argues that biology cannot be reduced to physics. This is anti-reductionist and Marxists could agree that there is a QUALITATIVE leap involved in the dialectics of emergent life. In biological evolution he says "ceaseless novelty" arises and "ceaseless creativity" takes place in nature. Is this a rehash of Henri Bergson's (1859-1941) CREATIVE EVOLUTION?

Because of this ceaseless creativity Kauffman wants to recreate or reinvent the concept of the "sacred." Noble doesn't say why. This is what Kauffman says, "Seeking a new vision of the real world and our place in it has been a central aim of this book-- to find common ground between science and religion so that we might collectively reinvent the sacred."

This will be a hopeless task since the new definition of God will be rejected by Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and most other people as well. No matter, as Noble quotes him as saying "we must use the God word, for my hope is to honorably steal its aura to authorize the sacredness of the creativity in nature."

Why must we use the "God" word this way. Why can't we use the "God" word this way: "There is no God." That is using the word and without "stealing" its "aura. "For Kauffman the "creativity of nature" = "God" or as Spinoza said "Nature" = "God".

How about this? History and the development of Marxism cannot be reduced to biology. Marxists are finding out, to their sorrow, the ceaseless novelty and creativity of history and Marxism. This makes Marxism, historical materialism, sacred due to its ceaseless creativity. I want to use the word "God", maybe even I must, so the "creativity of Marxism" = "God" and I will found the First Church of Marxism.

As for Kauffman, Noble asks, "So, could his concept of God as nature's ceaseless creativity be convincing?" You can pray to it (just don't expect any answer). You can love it if you want to but it doesn't concern itself about you so don't wait up for any calls, and don't overlook that lump. "God," Noble says, "is not even given the power that the Deists recognize." And that's not much compared to what traditional religious people expect. Maybe a few Unitarians here and and there, and some Buddhists, will buy into this idea.

Noble concludes, "Bringing science and religion together globally in the way that Kauffman wishes is not going to be easy [do you think?] -- as other ecumenical movements have repeatedly found [including my First Church of Marxism]-- but it is necessary." Again with the "necessary." If something is necessary it will come about. I'm placing my money on the First Church of Marxism.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

OP ED PAGE DIVERSITY?

Thomas Riggins

The idea behind the op ed page was to promote diversity of opinion by letting the opinions of people who were not professional journalists as such have an avenue for expression. Of course we see at the New York Times, for example, paid staff who are professional journalists also writing op ed pieces.

Op ed pages also provide a palce where scholars and academics can express themselves and influence the reading public. A recent study of the op ed pages at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the The Star-Ledger (the major New Jersey paper) has revealed the op ed pieces accepted for publication from academics AGREE WITH THE EDITORIAL STANCES OF THE PAPERS ON THE ISSUES WRITTEN ABOUT 90 to 95% of the time. That is not diversity, it is propaganda.

This shows that to really get a different take on the world than that dished out by the bourgeois media you should be reading Political Affairs, The People's Weekly World and other left publications. Despite Fox News, The New York Times is NOT a left publication!

(this news is from the NYT 6/23/08 "Media Talk" in the Business Section).

Sunday, June 22, 2008

READING LENIN 20

READING LENIN: Materialism and Empiro-criticism [ 20]
Thomas Riggins

CHAPTER FIVE SECTION SEVEN: A RUSSIAN "IDEALIST PHYSICIST"

We can basically skip over this section as it adds nothing new to Lenin's argument. It is a review of an obituary of a Russian scientist, N. I. Shishkin [died 1906], by "our notorious reactionary philosopher" L. M. Lopatin [1855-1920]. Shishkin was a Machist and was praised by Lopatin, whose work "lies in the borderland between philosophy and the police department." Lenin was in exile and cut off from Russian intellectual developments when he wrote MEC and this short section was written to give the Russian audience something to chew on. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Lopatin was an idealist whose philosophy was a form of personalism influenced by Leibniz and his theory of monads.

SECTION EIGHT: THE ESSENCE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF "PHYSICAL" IDEALISM

There are two major points that Lenin wants to make at the outset of this section. "Firstly", he says, "Machism is ideologically connected with only ONE school in ONE branch of modern natural science. Secondly, and THIS IS THE MAIN POINT, what in Machism is connected with this school IS NOT WHAT DISTINGUISHES IT FROM ALL OTHER TRENDS AND SYSTEMS OF IDEALIST PHILOSOPHY, BUT WHAT IT HAS IN COMMON WITH PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM IN GENERAL." One has only to compare the French, German, English and Russian representatives of Machism, as Lenin has done, to see that this is so.

What we find is that the main idea of the Machist version of the new physics is "denial of the objective reality given us in sensation and reflected in our theories, [and] doubt as to the existence of such a reality."

Lenin thinks the popularity of this idealistic "deviation towards reactionary philosophy" is only temporary ("a transitory period of sickness") -- a growth ailment he calls it, "mainly caused by the ABRUPT BREAK-DOWN of old established concepts." We should all be able to understand this. The abrupt break-down of the USSR and eastern European socialism in our own time has led to similar reactionary consequences not only in science and philosophy but in the theory and practice of Marxism as well.

If Marxism is a science, i.e., "scientific socialism"-- then these words of Lenin about physics should also apply to it. "The materialist spirit of physics, as of all modern science, will overcome all crises, but only by the indispensable replacement of metaphysical materialism by dialectical materialism."

This raises some serious questions. Few scientists today call themselves "dialectical materialists." Can we say they are "shamefaced" dialectical materialists? Can we say they are practicing diamat more or less unconsciously?

Lenin gives a long quote from Abel Rey the gist of which is that as physics has become more and more mathematical it has begun to lose contact with real objects and to deal with mathematical abstractions. Lenin thinks this is one of the reasons for the growth of idealist tendencies in the new physics.

Another reason is the growth of RELATIVISM. This is not a reference to the theory of relativity, first proposed by Einstein in 1905, and Einstein is never mentioned in MEC. Lenin thinks that the principle of the relativity of our knowledge leads to idealistic conclusions in the brains of people ignorant of dialectics.

The fact that the old truths of physics are breaking down and being replaced has made many think that there is no objective truth-- only relative. Diamat, as expounded by Engels in "Anti-Duhring," maintains that "truth" is indeed relative and changes as we learn more about the objects of nature, but relative truths still reflect objects that exist independently of man. It is not true that "there can be no objective truth independent of mankind."

"Engels," Lenin writes, "reproached the earlier materialists for their failure to appreciate the relativity of all scientific theories, for their ignorance of dialectics and for their exaggeration of the mechanical point of view."

The last few pages of this chapter, yes we are finally finishing Chapter Five (one more to go), are devoted to a book by Duhem, "Theory of Physics." In this book Duhem writes "A law of physics, properly speaking, is neither true nor false, but approximate." That would be fine, says Lenin-- IF Duhem really understood the "but." Diamat recognizes the provisional nature of all knowledge and as science advances that our world conception will also advance (and sometimes retreat).

Duhem, the practicing physicist, also thinks this way. But, ignorant of dialectics, he has been led into Machism and sometimes thinks the reason laws are "but approximate" is because there is no actual objective reality out there, independent of mankind, in the first place. Lenin doesn't say that Duhem is in a "muddle" but he does say he is VACILLATING.

Physical idealism is the result of the failure of mechanical materialism to deal with the revolutionary new developments in physics and will vanish when science takes the step from metaphysical to dialectical materialism.

Lenin chose physics to illustrate his theories. He could have picked any number of sciences had he so wished. I should also note the conditions of 1908 are not unique. Marxism itself, as a scientific world view, is going through a similar crisis today in 2008 as was physics in 1908. Lenin's methods of analysis are as useful today as they were then.

Ever since the "Prague Spring" and the "Cultural Revolution" Marxism has been in crisis. The fall of the Soviet Union is but one consequence, not the cause. Like the 1908 crises in physics, the crisis in Marxism is one of relativism where old established ideas have been thrown aside by new historical events and no new consensus has emerged. Each national party has its own version and formerly despised views historically considered as revisionist, opportunist or products of bourgeois idealism are back on the agenda under new names and guises parading about as the latest interpretations of "scientific socialism."

To paraphrase Lenin, all the old truths of Marxism, including those which were regarded as firmly established and incontestable, prove to be relative truths, leading many to believe there can be no objective universally applicable Marxist principles and each national party is free to go its own way.

This is all the result of the breakdown of the international communist and workers movement as a result of World War II and its aftermath and the current weakness of the Marxist parties in the face of world imperialism. But there are signs of a new world historical shift to the left. Again, to paraphrase Lenin, this shift is being made and will be made by modern Marxists; but it is advancing towards the only true dialectical materialist philosophy and method of struggle by zigzags, not in a straight line, and instinctively not consciously, gropingly and unsteadily with no clear vision of the final conflict and goal, and oftentimes with its back to it.

We should keep all this mind, and especially the need for theory and ideological struggle to strengthen the progressive movement and we should especially study the history of the movement over the last two centuries so that the errors of the past will not become the failures of the future.

Keep this in the forefront as we approach the end of our course in Materialism and Empirio-criticism. We will begin next week with Chapter Six.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

US Good Intentions Over New Iraq Oil Deal Doubted

"IT'S THE OIL STUPID" SAY SKEPTICS CONCERNING NEW IRAQI OIL CONTRACTS
Thomas Riggins

Finally the New York Times is beginning to shed light on why there has been so much death and destruction in Iraq and why over 4000 American troops have died and perhaps over a million Iraqi's. It wasn't for our country, or to fight terrorism, or for freedom. Read today's NYT front page lead story-- it tells it all-- OR DOES IT?

"DEALS WITH IRAQ ARE SET TO BRING OIL GIANTS BACK"

"RARE NO-BID CONTRACTS"

"A Foothold for Western Companies Seeking Future Rewards"

Exxon-Mobile, Shell, Total and BP (the companies that made up the old Iraq Petroleum Company are back after having been kicked out 36 years ago by the Iraqi government.). The Times reports that the companies have "a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations."

The US government and the oil companies want to help the Iraqi people increase their oil production even though their good intentions are doubted by skeptics. The new oil deal will be announced around the end of the month.

The Times reports that "There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract." How disheartening that our good deeds and concern for others can be so misunderstood.

"Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war" oil company officials said "they were helping Iraq" to reconstruct their oil economy. What's wrong with that? Wanting to help people who have fallen on hard times is a noble aspiration.

Everyone will benefit when all that Iraqi oil gets into the hands of the former Iraqi Petroleum Company partners and makes its way to the world market and your neighborhood gas station. If you should ever ask what does your government do for you-- this is it.

Lee Raymond, former CEO of Exxon said, "There is an enormous amount of oil in Iraq. We were part of the consortium, the four companies that were there when Saddam Hussein threw us out, and we basically had the whole country."

Well, they basically have it back-- if they can keep it.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

READING LENIN 19

READING LENIN: Materialism and Empiro-criticism [ 19 ]
Thomas Riggins

CHAPTER FIVE SECTION FIVE: "THE TWO TRENDS IN MODERN PHYSICS, AND GERMAN IDEALISM"

German Idealism, in its neo-Kantian incarnation is using the crisis in physics to declare materialism dead. Lenin refers to the "well-known" Kantian Hermann Cohen [1842-1918] who declared in 1896, in a new introduction to the "History of Materialism"-- "the falsified history of materialism written by F. Albert Lange" [1825-1878]-- that the new physics has turned matter into "force" and "energy" thus it has brought "about the victory of idealism."

Heinrich Hertz [1857-1894] ("the famous physicist") is drafted by Cohen as an ally. Lenin says this is an example of how the idealists grasp at any vague or incomplete statement by scientists and try to use it as a support for anti-materialism. Lenin turns to Hertz's work "Mechanics" to see what he actually thinks.

"If we inquire into the real reason why physics at the present time prefers to express itself in terms of the theory of energy," Hertz says, "we may answer that it is because in this way it best avoids talking about things of which it knows very little...."

After more quotes from this text, Lenin tells us that it is not because "matter" has been abandoned by the physicists that they speak in terms of energy, etc., but because, since the disintegration of the indivisible "atom" they have not yet advanced to a more solid and concrete explanation of nature in the new physics as had been promoted in the old physics. "It is evident from this that the possibility of a non-materialist view of energy did not even occur to Hertz."

Lenin next turns to Eduard von Hartmann [1842-1906] ("far more reactionary that Cohen") and his book "Die Weltanschauung der modernen Physik, Leipzig, 1902) where he remarks, "Modern physics had grown up on a realist basis and it was only the neo-Kantian and agnostic movement of our own time that led it to re-interpret its results in an idealist spirit."

Lenin likes von Hartmann because go goes all the way! "It is highly instructive," Lenin says, "to see how this irreconcilable partisan idealist (non-partisans in philosophy are just as hopelessly thick-headed as they are in politics) explains to the physicists what it means to follow one epistemological trend or another."

The physicists, von Hartmann thinks, have begun to follow idealism as a fashion. To be serious they will have to begin to see that the external world is completely psychical in nature and to abandon all their views about realism when it comes to nature. There is no compromising mish-mash such as produced by Bogdanov, et al.

SECTION SIX: THE TWO TRENDS IN MODERN PHYSICS, AND FRENCH FIDEISM

Once materialism has been abandoned and Machism adopted it will come back to bite you. Here is what happened to Poincare. This great physicist adopted Mach's outlook with regard to physics-- that our knowledge is a symbolic representation of our sense data, only to find that the philosopher Le Roy pounced upon his ideas to justify religion. Science is just one symbolic way at looking at the world of experience, so religion is just another way. Neither has any claim to a so-called "objective reality." I'm not sure the religious folk really like this sort of defense, but Poincare was, Lenin says, "abashed" by these conclusions and sought to distance himself from Le Roy (in the "Value of Science").

What Poincare failed to see was that Le Roy's views do follow from the idealism that is the source of Mach's views. Both religion and science claim to see a world dependent on human beings and the mind. Poincare, however, still thinks that even if he agrees with Mach, that science is made up of conventional symbols, yet there is something "objective" about it. The objects of science "are real inasmuch as the sensations they invoke in us," says Poincare, "appear to us to be united by some sort of indestructible cement and not by an ephemeral accident."

Poincare may be a great scientist, Lenin remarks, but "only the Voroshilov-Yushkeviches can take him seriously as a philosopher." He flees from materialism via Machism and at the first sign of religion "TAKES REFUGE UNDER THE WING OF MATERIALISM'' and the existence of objective external objects.

The last six or seven pages of this section Lenin devotes to the philosophy of Abel Rey which he says is "imperative." Rey, unlike Ward, Cohen, Hartmann et al, seeks to prove "the illegitimacy of the idealist (and fideist) conclusions drawn from the new physics." We first met Rey back in Reading Lenin 17, now we see him in a little more depth.

Rey calls the two trends in physics "conceptualism" [this is Machism and allied idealist views] and neo-mechanism [materialism]. Rey wants to keep some form of viable Machist philosophy and at the same time deny any support to religion.

He says that Mach's meaning when he refers to "experience" has been misunderstood. Rightly understood it would be seen not to be a prop for religion. He says, "Experience is that over which our mind has no command.... Experience is the object that faces the subject." A little later he says, "Objective is that which is given from without, imposed by experience; it is that which is not of our making, but which is made independently of us and which to a certain extent makes us."

So Rey is really, Lenin says, what Engels called a "shamedfaced materialist". "The fundamental characteristic of materialism is that it STARTS FROM the objectivity of science, from the recognition of objective reality reflected by science, whereas idealism NEEDS 'detours' in order, in one way or another, to 'deduce' objectivity from mind, consciousness, the 'psychical.'"

Rey's "embellishment" of Mach tries to remove the differences between his thought and materialism. But, says Lenin, he ignores a major thesis of Mach regarding cause and effect, namely ''THAT THERE IS NO PHYSICAL NECESSITY, BUT ONLY LOGICAL NECESSITY!"

And this is Rey's problem. The reason he became "muddled" is "because he had set himself the impossible task of 'reconciling' the opposition between the materialist and the idealist schools in the new physics."

There is a very interesting note in this section. Lenin quotes the French physicist Alfred Cornu [1841-1902] who said that the more we learn about nature the more we see that Descartes [1596-1650] was right in holding "that in the physical world there is nothing save matter and motion." Cornu goes on to say that the recent new discoveries in physics are attempts to give us a more detailed knowledge of matter and motion and that "the return to Cartesian ideas is obvious." Lenin remarks that Cornu and others were/are ignorant of the fact "that the dialectical materialists Marx and Engels had freed this fundamental premise of materialism from the one -sidedness of MECHANICAL MATERIALISM."

Attempts to reconcile modern physics and idealism, such as Rey's, result from ignorance of diamat. His own epistemology is materialist for he admits that a law of nature has practical significance and in his book says this "is fundamentally the same as saying that this law of nature has objectivity." The muddle is to try and unite this view with the views of Mach & Co. All of this is further evidence of Lenin's thesis that there are ONLY two trends in modern physics, materialism and idealism, and there is no "third way."

We will take up again next week with Section 7 "A Russian 'Idealist Physicist'".

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

SOUTH KOREANS DEMONSTRATE AGAINST US BEEF IMPORTS

Thomas Riggins

"The South Korean government contends that the lifting of the ban was overdue since last September, when the World Organization for Animal Health [OIE] ruled that American beef did not pose a health risk."

This quote is from today's NYT article on the protests over the import of American beef into South Korea. What the Times did not say is that the ruling was due to a CHANGE in the definition of what was a risk. A country was at risk unless seven years have passed without a Mad Cow discovery-- dated from the time of the discovery. The last Mad Cow in the US was in March 2006, not as the Times reported 2003. By this the US would be on the risk list until 2013. The NEW RULE dates the risk from the time of the birth of the cow. By changing the rule the US is no longer a high risk country.

People fear there is MAD COW in American beef and it is unreported due to the practically non-existent inspections in the US and the ban on private inspections even of one's own cows!

The Korean government is yet to back down (it is being told what to do by the Bush administration which is threatening negative trade consequences). This is a real democratic uprising by the Korean people.

Real democratic movements are the last thing the US and its allies want to see.

Monday, June 09, 2008

No hobbits!

"No hobbits?" by Philip Goff: Comments on the TLS review of Trenton Merricks "TRUTH AND ONTOLOGY" (5-16-2008)

Thomas Riggins

This is a book about the "truthmaker principle" [TP]. The TP holds that if x is true then there must be a fact, entity, or state of affairs that makes x true. Goff defines it this way: "for any truth, there must be some existent thing in virtue of which it is true." Using the word "thing" however may be too restrictive and would lead to unnecessary problems. Goff wants to know what makes it true that there are no Hobbits? What makes it true that there were dinosaurs? I think using "state of affairs" would avoid these problems.

The view that Trenton Merricks adopts in TRUTH AND ONTOLOGY (Oxford), according to Goff, is just the commonsense view, "What makes it true that there are no hobbits? Well, its true because there are no hobbits. End of story." This does not look very convincing.

If, before the discovery of Australia, I would have said "What makes it true that there are no black swans is because there are no black swans," I would have been wrong. But if I had said "there are no black swans because the state of affairs is that we have never seen any, never read about any in the past, and unless one turns up I am standing by my assertion," that would be convincing. Presenting the complex state of affairs around the creation of the concept of hobbits should likewise count as the TP behind, "There are no hobbits."

Goff does not agree with Merricks in throwing out the TP altogether, but wants a moderate version of it. But Goff's moderate version seems to require too many metaphysical maneuvers. Just giving up the formulation of TP in terms of entities alone and using states of affairs seems to me sufficient.

What is the TP with respect to Marxism and diamat? When we say some proposition of Marxist theory is true, such as the labor theory of value, we are not maintaining that there is some "thing", some entity that is the truthmaker for the theory. Instead we give an analysis of the role of labor in the production process-- a complex state of affairs and it is both the coherence of the theory with itself and, we would claim, its correspondence with reality that makes it true.

Merricks rejection of the TP opens the door to anti-realist [the term "realism" is used instead of "materialism" in most academic discourse] positions, according to Goff, and this is a sufficient warrant to make Marxists suspicious of it.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

READING LENIN 18

READING LENIN: Materialism and Empiro-criticism [ 18 ]
Thomas Riggins

CHAPTER FIVE SECTION TWO: "MATTER HAS DISAPPEARED"

The fact that old concepts of matter no longer apply in the new physics has led many to conclude that "matter has disappeared." The Russian Machist "Marxist" Valentinov, for example, says, "The statement that the scientific explanation of the world can find a firm foundation 'ONLY in materialism' is nothing but a fiction, and what is more, an absurd fiction." Lenin says Valentinov shows a "virgin innocence" of the nature of materialism and doesn't realize our knowledge of matter is "penetrating deeper." Hmmmm.

The notion that "matter disappears" (it becomes energy, electricity, etc.) "means that," Lenin says, "the limit within which we have hitherto known matter disappears...." Marxists (materialists) are not arguing with physical scientists about how physical reality appears to us-- i.e., about new PROPERTIES of matter-- but about the SOURCE of our knowledge about it. It is an epistemological problem that divides materialists from idealists. "For," Lenin writes, "the SOLE 'property' of matter with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the property of BEING AN OBJECTIVE REALITY, or existing outside the mind."

What is "the error of Machism in general"? It does not understand the basis of materialism and does not differentiate metaphysical from dialectical materialism. Changes is our scientific understanding of the world is not a problem for diamat! Lenin, for example, uses the "ether" as an example of something existing independently of the human mind and reproaches the idealists for thinking it only a mind dependent convention. But the science of your day may not be the science of tomorrow. The "ether" turned out to be a construction of the human mind.

So Lenin was wrong, but his real claim, that "dialectical materialism insists on the approximate, relative character of every scientific theory of the structure of matter and its properties," is not wrong, and so, where it matters, Lenin was right.

The people who really got it wrong were Bogdanov (in 1899) and Valentinov and Yushkevich with "their ignorance of dialectics" and their talk about "the immutable essence of things" and "substance". If they had understood Engels they never would have discoursed on physics in that way. Any particular physical theory of reality is subject to revision. The unchanging requirement for diamat, Lenin says, is the "unconditional recognition of nature's EXISTENCE outside the mind and perception of man...." Matter has far from disappeared.

SECTION THREE: IS MOTION WITHOUT MATTER CONCEIVABLE?

To the idealists of Lenin's day there was no problem with talking about "motion" after they had eliminated "matter" from their systems. The idealists still "think" there is motion going on-- the motion of the succession of their "sensations." But, Lenin says, the "concept matter expresses nothing more than the objective reality which is given us in sensation. Therefore, to divorce motion from matter is equivalent to divorcing thought from objective reality, or to divorcing my sensations from the external world-- in a word, it is to go over to idealism."

The purpose of this argument is not to refute idealism but to show that the Russian Machist "Marxists", Bogdanov et al, are closet idealists. In order to establish this Lenin once again analyzes the philosophy of energetics as propounded by Ostwald ("Lectures on Natural Philosophy," Leipzig, 1902). But first, recall that for diamat matter and motion are inseparable-- you can't have one without the other, and that Bogdanov, before he was influenced by Mach was following Ostwald's "energetics.

One of Lenin's favorite words is "muddle", which he uses to describe many of the idealist positions he discusses in MEC. Here is why energetics is a "muddle." Ostwald writes, "That all external events may be presented as processes between energies can be most simply explained if our mental processes are themselves energetic and impose this property of theirs on all external phenomena." This is, as Lenin, points out, a form of Kantianism: external reality reflects our mind rather than vice versa.

Ostwald is trying to subsume "mind" and "matter" under energy. But this is just playing with words. "Motion" also for him is a form of energy and in his system, then, we have everything reduced to energy and thus we have motion without matter. But as a scientist, Ostwald mostly talks about MATERIAL motion not "mental processes." When Marxists criticize Ostwald it is for deviations away from material motion, for idealists the criticism is just the opposite.

Here is Bogdanov in "Empirio-monism": Ostwald, "every now and again converts 'energy' from a pure symbol of correlations between the facts of experience into the SUBSTANCE of experience, into the 'world stuff'." Bogdanov and the other Russian Machists are deeply rooted in the idealist philosophy and, whatever may be their political convictions, they are far from Marxism in their philosophical understanding of the world.

SECTION FOUR: THE TWO TRENDS IN MODERN PHYSICS AND ENGLISH SPIRITUALISM

In order to explain the two trends in physics Lenin will have one representative of each present his own case. The first will be the physicist Arthur W. Rucker [1848-1915] representing natural science, the second will be the philosopher James Ward [1843- 1925] representing epistemology.

Rucker says, "The question at issue is whether the hypotheses which are at the base of the scientific theories now most generally excepted [1901--tr] are to be regarded as accurate descriptions of the constitution of the universe around us, or merely as convenient fictions." This latter viewpoint is the position of Bogdanov, Yushkevich, and the Russian Machists.

Now, Rucker admits that this latter method is able to achieve "great scientific successes", but he does not think that "it is the last word of science in the struggle for truth." So, Rucker asks, "Can we argue back from the phenomenon displayed by matter to the constitution of matter itself ... whether we have any reason to believe that the sketch which science has already drawn is to some extent a copy, and not a mere diagram of the truth?"

After discussing atoms, the ether, and electrons Rucker prefers the copy theory. Lenin says, "The gist of his position is this: The theory of physics is a copy (becoming ever more exact) of objective reality. The world is matter in motion, our knowledge of which grows ever more profound."

This may an argument over words. How can the Ptolemaic geo-centric universe of Dante, or even the Copernican universe, which still uses epicycles, be a "copy" of the universe as it is as opposed to a symbolic representation? Physicists today (2008) don't know what the universe is really like.* Seventy four per cent of it is composed of something called "dark energy" and they have no idea what that is, so how can their descriptions be a "copy" of anything?

It should be enough, for materialism, to hold that whatever is out there has been around before there were any humans (even before there was the Earth) and so it exists in objective reality independent of the human mind (i.e., the cerebral cortex of human brains).

Now for the other school, represented by James Ward ("Naturalism and Agnosticism", 1906). Ward says both members of his school (such as Gustav Kirchhoff [1824-1887] and Poincare) and those who think like Rucker practice physics in the same way (use "the same methods of verification"). "But the one believes that it is getting nearer to the ultimate reality and leaving mere appearances behind it; the other believes that it is only substituting a generalised descriptive scheme that is intellectually manageable, for the complexity of concrete facts.... In either view the value of physics as systematic knowledge ABOUT things is unaffected; its possibilities of future extension and of practicable application are in either case the same." So why all the commotion? It is because the "speculative difference" is so great that it is important to know which is correct. Now it would seem to me that two theories with the same practical application are the same theory on a deeper level.

Be that as it may, Lenin takes Ward's words very seriously as he sees in them an opening for religion. Lenin maintains that materialism recognizes the objective reality of the entities reflected in theory and Ward doesn't "regarding theory as only a systematisation of experience...." In Ward's case he ends up deducing spiritualism from his philosophy ["the real world is an aggregate of interacting 'spirits' or monads"--Great Soviet Encyclopedia]. So Lenin has a point.

This is also a contemporary problem for people who want to reconcile science and religion. Either science is telling us something about ultimate reality (and religion is just an illusion) or it isn't. Ward thought all scientific truth was relative and "tentative" and thus, to quote Lenin, "it cannot reflect reality." Lenin says this is the price paid in capitalist countries for the "cohabitation" of theology and science. Science goes its way but leaves epistemology to the philosophers and theologians.

At least this is true for "cultured fideism", it does not apply to the yahoo fundamentalism of backwoods Protestantism which denies evolution and, like Mike Hukabee, thinks the world is 6000 years old! Lenin, on the other hand, maintains, as a fundamental principle of diamat, that the only proper epistemology for science is materialism and this rules out religious superstition all together.

Now it is time for an interesting metaphysical speculation. Ward writes that materialism is dependent upon the hard solid indestructible atom and since we now know the atom IS destructible, materialism must fall by the wayside. Lenin responds by saying, "The destructibility of the atom, its inexhaustibility, the mutability of all forms of matter and its motion, have always been the strong hold of dialectical materialism. All boundaries in nature are conditional, relative, movable, and express the gradual approximation of our mind towards knowledge of matter. But this does not in anyway prove that nature, matter itself is a symbol, a conventional sign, i.e., the product of our mind."

Granted that Lenin is correct about "matter itself"-- what about our THEORIES about the nature of matter and the universe? Are they not the product of our mind? Are they "copies" even "photographic copies" of "matter itself" or are they conventional and often far from the truth of what "matter itself" really is "in itself" versus what it is "for us" at any particular time? Does Kant still have a right to a hearing? IF the nature of really turns out to be based on string theory how can the atomic models of Lenin's day be a copy? An approximate copy is not a copy. Ponderous pondering indeed.

Next week we will begin with Section 5: "The Two Trends In Modern Physics, And German Idealism."

* Cf. The New York Times Science Section for 6-3-2008: "Dark, Perhaps Forever: The Universe Unexplained" by Dennis Overbye.

Friday, June 06, 2008

Hillary In History

Hillary is keeping some good company!

FYI:
The first woman to run for president: VICTORIA WOODHULL (1838-1927) with Frederick Douglas as VP. Equal Rights Party 1872.

The 2nd woman: BELVA LOCKWOOD (1830-1917) National Equal Rights Party 1884, 1888.

The !st woman to get on a government printed ballot (2 states) running for president: CHARLENE MITCHELL (b.1930) CPUSA 1968, Mike Zagarell for VP.

The 1st woman to get an electoral vote (1 from Virginia): TONI NATHAN (b. 1923) for Vice President, Libertarian Party 1972, John Hospers for president.

So cheer up Hillary fans, your candidate is in good company and young enough for two or three more runs! Just remind her not to
cast pro war votes.

Thomas Riggins

Thursday, June 05, 2008

QUAKE RISK IN CHINA UNHEEDED?

Thomas Riggins

The New York Times opens an article in today’s paper [Experts Warned of Quake Risk in China] by saying Chinese scientists repeatedly warned the government about the possibility of an earthquake in Wenchuan where 87,000 people were killed last month. The government did little to prepare for one and the building codes remained below those usually set for earthquake zones (lower than in Beijing, for example).

This was a great human disaster but the CPC did not cause this quake. However, the free for all economic enrichment that has been going on in China may have caused corrupt local party elements to have authorized really substandard school construction which led to the deaths of thousands of children. The central government must really investigate this and I have no doubt that it will.

The last big quake in the area was in 1933. The Longmenshan belt, a major active fault zone, runs through the area. No one can predict when a quake will occur and Chinese scientists have been arguing for better safety measures for years. Even back in the 1950s, the Soviet Union was proposing stronger measures for earthquake safety in the region.

However, the Times reports, on a list recently put out to alert authorities of the most dangerous areas to watch out for, the Longmenshan belt was not included. The Chinese Earthquake Administration scientists seemed to have not pressed the government to take timely action.

Chinese seismologists are reported to have said even had the government enforced the building code they recommended for the area the quake that actually hit would have still been so strong (it was 8 on the Richter scale) that the damage may have been the same.

However there is one distressing attitude that some Chinese earthquake scientists expressed that is discouraging. The Times reports, “Many Chinese experts invoked the high cost of building structures to withstand major earthquakes as a rationale for the failure to do so.” These “experts” should go and tell this to the parents of the children killed by the quake.

One other thing is clear. The Chinese government responded to the disaster in an exemplary fashion and did not abandon the people, as did the Bush administration after hurricane Katrina.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

SOUTH KOREANS DEMONSTRATE AGAINST US BEEF

MASS PROTEST BRINGS TEMPORARY VICTORY FOR SOUTH KOREANS

Thomas Riggins

The South Korean people won a temporary victory this week when the government backed down on plans to let American beef be imported into the country. American beef is not properly inspected due to the power of the beef lobby and the collusion of the Bush administration and corrupt members of Congress. This means anyone eating American beef is at risk for Mad Cow Disease.

Korea is one of many countries that has banned American beef. The new right wing government had planned to reimport American beef as a gesture to the Bush administration, regardless of the health threat to its own people. The people took to the streets.

After "large weekend protests", according to AP, the ruling party was forced to pressure the government to put off its plan. To ensure complete victory the people will have to keep up the pressure until the government abandons its plan to collaborate with the American beef industry entirely. The South Korean people are fighting back when their government tries to expose them to this deadly disease, let's hope the American people will wake up to this danger and follow suit.

Monday, June 02, 2008

MENCIUS AND MARXISM

Thomas Riggins

Fifth in a series on Chinese philosophy

As China continues to develop into a superpower a knowlege of its form of Marxism becomes imperative for Western progressives. The progressive movement cannot allow itself to be misdirected in an anti-Chinese direction by reactionary forces in the West. In order to understand Chinese Marxism fully it is important to be familiar with traditional Chinese philosophy, many elements of which reappear in Marxist guise in today’s China. I have therefore constructed a series of dialogues based on the actual words of the most important Chinese thinkers. Each dialogue will present the core beliefs of the philosopher discussed plus relevant Marxist commentary where warranted. Readers are welcome to add their own comments and observations.

“Well, Fred, I see you have the Chan book [Source Book In Chinese Philosophy]. Are you ready to begin our study of Mencius?”

“Yes I am Karl. But first why don’t you see what you can remember about the background to the life and times of Mencius?”

“As I recall, he lived around the same time that Plato was active in Ancient Greece. What dates does the book give for him?”

“Around 371 to 289 B.C.”

“Well Plato was around 447 to 327 B.C.”

“Mencius was contemporary with Chuang Tzu and Hsun Tzu but it is unlikely they had any personal contact.”

“I don’t know about Hsun Tzu. We will be studying him later but I think he was in the generation after Mencius. Anyway I remember that Mencius’ claim to fame was his doctrine that human nature is innately good. Also that he studied under Confucius’ grandson, or under someone who had, thus unlike Confucius he had a teacher. He is also considered the second greatest Chinese philosopher after Confucius himself. I read Fung last night [Fung Yu-Lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy] and he said Mencius was a native of Tsou in East China--modern Shantung. He also says that Mencius represents the idealist wing of Confucianism as opposed to the up coming Hsun Tzu who was a realist. Mencius is so important that his book, the Mencius as we will call it, was studied for the civil service exams which on and off throughout Chinese history almost everyone who wanted a government position had to take. The only philosophers as such who were so honored were he and Confucius. His life was also like Confucius’ in that he never got that big government job and he wandered about China just as Confucius had collecting a following of disciples. He retired and wrote his book. It became one of the Four Books, as I indicated, which everyone had to study.”

“The ‘Four Books’?”

“The ones used for the tests. The Analects, of course, the Mencius, the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean.”

“A pretty good little introduction Karl. Now lets look at his philosophy. I’m just going to use the headings from Chan who reproduces Book Six, Part I of the Mencius. He says this is the most important part of the book but he will quote other portions in a section of ‘Additions’. In this selection Mencius’ foil appears to be a philosopher called Kao Tzu who holds opposite opinions to Mencius. In 6A:2 Mencius declares ‘Man’s nature is naturally good just as water naturally flows downward.’ He doesn’t give any argument here. He is just contradicting Kao Tzu who said man’s nature can be good or bad just as water can flow east or west.”

“I think we need to get to an argument. What is next?”

“Next, Kao Tzu says that what we refer to as ‘inborn’ is the same as ‘nature.’ Mencius wants to contest everything Kao says it seems for we get the following exchange beginning with Mencius: ‘When you say that what is inborn is called nature, is that like saying that white is white?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then is the whiteness of the white feather the same as the whiteness of snow? Or again, is the whiteness of snow the same as the whiteness of white jade?’ ‘Yes.” ‘Then is the nature of a dog the same as the nature of an ox, and is the nature of an ox the same as the nature of a man?”

“That is a very bad argument. Mencius has to go take a Logic course! ‘White’ is being used as an adjective and ‘nature’ as a substantive. I feel sorry for Kao Tzu. I wonder how he would have fared if he composed a book?”

“Now in 6A4 Mencius and Kao have another exchange.”

“Lets hear it. I hope the logic is a little better!”

“ This time Kao maintains that ‘humanity’ is internal and ‘righteousness’ is external. Nature versus Nurture. He says that the pleasant feeling of love for the younger brother comes from within (humanity) but the respect for an old person is due to the person’s age (without/external). But Mencius says that we love roast beef if its our own or another's so would Kao say the love of roast beef is ‘external?’” This is supposed to take care of Kao’s position.”

“A very bad example. It might have been better if Mencius had said ‘food’ instead of roast beef since we love and need food regardless of where it comes from but ‘roast beef’ is an external culturally determined food--I doubt that Buddha would have loved it! In any event I don’t think Kao is refuted by any of these musings of Mencius.”

“Well, here is another bad argument. This time Meng Chi Tzu asks Kung-tu Tzu ‘What does it mean to say that righteousness is internal?” And he gets the reply ‘We practice reverence, and therefore it is called internal.’ Not a very helpful answer if you ask me Karl. Meng Chi Tzu now gives a lot of examples of ‘reverence’ all of which seem influenced by the context one finds oneself in so that one has to know what the external circumstances are before one can show the proper kind of ‘reverence.’ Kung-tu Tzu gets all confused and runs off to Mencius who gives him some examples which actually seem to confirm Meng Chi’s views in that they are also contextual in nature. Kung-tu gets the point, even if we don't, and goes back to Meng Chi with this crushing reply: ‘In the winter we drink things hot. In the summer we drink things cold. Does it mean that what determines eating and drinking also lies outside?’”

“ I see what you mean Fred. We would say to Kung-tu-- ‘of course it is--you just said its determined by winter or summer and that means by what is ‘outside’. The reasoning so far in this chapter is terrible. I hope it gets better or I won’t understand how Mencius got the reputation as a ‘sage’."

“6A:6 Maybe this is a little better Karl. Kung-tu Tzu is speaking to Mencius: ‘Kao Tzu said that man’s nature is neither good nor evil. Some say that man’s nature may be made good or evil, therefore when King Wen and King Wu were in power [founders of the Chou Dynasty r. 1171-1122 and 1121-1116 B.C.] the people loved virtue, and when Kings Yu and Li were in power [bad kings r. 781-771 and 878-842 B.C.] people loved violence. Some say some men’s nature is good and some men’s nature is evil. Therefore even under (sage emperor) Yao [3rd millennium B.C.] there was Hsiang [who daily plotted to kill his brother], and even with a bad father Ku-sou, there was [a most filial] Shun (Hsiang’s brother who succeeded Yao), and even with (wicked king) Chou [last Shang Dynasty ruler 1175-1112 B.C.] as uncle and ruler, there were Viscount Ch’i of Wei and Prince Pi-kan [good guys]. Now you say that human nature is good. Then are those people wrong?’”

“I hope Mencius is convincing as most people today would think Kao Tzu was on the money!”

“ Well, Mencius said ‘If you let people follow their feelings (original nature), they will be able to do good. This is what is meant by saying that human nature is good. If man does evil, it is not the fault of his natural endowment.... Humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are not drilled into us from outside. Only we do not think [to find them]! Therefore, it is said, ''Seek and you will find it, neglect and you will lose it.''' He thinks that different people develop their original natures more than others as ‘no one can develop his original endowment to the fullest extent.’ He then quotes the Book of Odes, ‘Heaven produces the teeming multitude. As there are things there are their specific principles. When the people keep their normal nature they will love excellent virtue.’ He also quotes Confucius to the same effect.’ Now before you say anything Karl, I want to also read you what Chan says about this passage. 'Mencius is the most important philosopher on the question of human nature, for he is the father of the theory of the original goodness of human nature. In spite of variations and modifications, this has remained the firm belief of the Chinese.’ And he adds that ‘evil or failure is not original but due to the underdevelopment of one's original endowment. Later Confucianists, especially Neo-Confucianists, devoted much of their deliberations to these subjects, but they have never deviated from the general direction laid down by Mencius.’”

“I’m still unimpressed Karl. Mencius is not arguing for his position he is simply declaiming his position. Look here for a moment.” Karl got up and pulled down a volume from his bookcase. “This is a classic study of Chinese thought by Herrlee G. Creel, Chinese Thought From Confucius to Mao Tse-Tung. I want to read a couple of passages on what you might call Mencius’ ‘technique’ if you don’t mind.”

“Sure Karl, go ahead all of this is interesting to me.”

“Here are a couple of quotes from pages 75 and 74: ‘The discussions of Confucius with his disciples were conducted in a relatively calm atmosphere and were devoted, at least in considerable part, to an attempt to arrive at and to examine the truth. [That is the Prime Directive again Fred!] The discussions of Mencius, on the other hand, are largely taken up with the enterprise of defending and propagating the true doctrine, which is of course another thing entirely.’ He also notes that ‘Mencius was usually more interested in winning the argument than in trying to find the truth. Not that he cared nothing for the truth but that he was convinced that he had it already, and needed only to persuade his opponent of that fact.’”

“But you say he isn’t doing anything but disclaiming not giving arguments.”

“True, but some arguments are coming up I’m sure. He just hasn’t made any yet. I think Creel’s observations will be borne out the farther we progress into the text.”

“The following may be more like an argument Karl. 6A:7--’Although there may be a difference between the different stalks of wheat, it is due to differences in the soil, as rich or poor, to the unequal nourishment obtained from the rain and the dew, and to differences in human effort. Therefore all things of the same kind are similar to one another. Why should there be any doubt about men? The sage and I are the same in kind. Therefore Lung Tzu [an ancient worthy] said, “If a man makes shoes without knowing the size of people’s feet, I know that he will at least not make them to be like baskets.” Mencius then says that the whole world [all men] agree with I-ya [ancient chef] with regard to flavor, Shih-k’uang [ancient musician] with regard to music and that Tzu-tu [ancient handsome man] was handsome. He concludes, 'Therefore I say there is a common taste for flavor in our mouths, a common sense for sound in our ears, and a common sense for beauty in our eyes. Can it be that it is in our minds alone we are not alike? What is it that we have in common in our minds? It is the sense of principles and righteousness (i-li, moral principles). The sage is the first to possess what is common in our minds. Therefore moral principles please our minds as beef and mutton and pork please our mouths.’”

“Well I can tell you right off that these are very bad examples for modern people to mull over. Nothing is more relative than taste in food, music and concepts of beauty. Mencius is just taking Chinese standards as universal. This may perhaps be forgiven for someone living well over two thousand years ago except that there were people in his age, as we shall see, who were very much more advanced in their thinking. His analogy of the stalks is a bit better but only goes to show that humans may have a common nature before environmental factors come into play. It does not give any evidence that that common nature is ‘originally good.’"

“I agree with you completely Karl, but now I’ll read you Chan’s comment on that very same passage. ‘In saying that one is of the same kind as the sage, Mencius was pronouncing two principles of utmost significance. One is that every person can be perfect, and the other is that all people are basically equal. Also, in pointing to the moral principle which is common in our minds, he is pointing to what amounts to the Natural Law. Belief in the Natural Law has been persistent in Chinese history. It is called Principle of Nature (T’ien-li) by Neo-Confucianists. It is essentially the same as Mencius’ i-li.’”

“But Mencius has not established that there is any common moral principle in our minds. He has only made a lot of assertions of his opinions but these opinions have not been grounded in anything like a philosophical demonstration. One may speak of T’ien-li as the Law of Nature with regard to the physical universe that we are a part of, and of the human mental and cognitive apparatus as a part of it as well, but this should not be confused with i-li, that is to say, with principle and righteousness. I think we will have to wait until we come to the Neo-Confucianists to see if they really do, as Chan asserts, confuse moral principles with physical principles. It may be that some do and some don’t.”

“Here is 6A:8, ‘Mencius said, “The trees of the Niu Mountain were once beautiful.... When people see that it is so bald, they think there was never any timber on the mountain. Is this the true nature of the mountain?.... People see that [a certain man] acts like an animal, and think that he never had the original endowment (for goodness). But is that his true character? Therefore with proper nourishment and care, everything grows, whereas without proper nourishment and care, everything decays.”’

“This is fine Fred. He is simply saying environmental conditions are responsible for how things appear. That an original X can end up not-X due to the environment. But it proves nothing with respect to his main thesis about humanity.”

“Well what about this in 6A:10, ‘I like life and I also like righteousness. If I cannot have both of them, I shall give up life and choose righteousness. I love life, but there is something I love more than life, and therefore I will not do anything improper to have it. I also hate death, but there is something I hate more than death, and therefore there are occasions when I will not avoid danger.... There are cases when a man does not take the course even if by taking it he can preserve his life, and he does not do anything even if by doing it he can avoid danger. Therefore there is something men love more than life and there is something men hate more than death. It is not only the worthies alone who have this moral sense. All men have it, but only the worthies have been able to preserve it.’”

“He has only established that the worthies have it. They may have gotten it by the study of philosophy. He has given no evidence that all men have it and just lost it. So far Creel is right. Mencius is just trying to convince us without any real evidence and discussion. It's as Creel said, he is convinced of his brand of truth and just keeps repeating it over and over. He is a far cry from the methods of Confucius!”

“6A:15, ‘The function of the mind is to think. If we think, we will get them (the principles of things). If we do not think, we will not get them. This is what Heaven has given to us. If we first build up the nobler part of our nature, then the inferior part cannot overcome it. It is simply this that makes a man great'.”

“Most interesting. Now he says we have 'superior' and 'inferior' parts to our nature. This is somewhat different from saying our (original) nature is 'good.' Now it appears as mixed and it is up to us to develop the right part. This is, of course, dependent on on our environmental circumstances-- for which a Confucian government is responsible. This appears to me to be more realistic that the notion that our original nature is good--for which Mencius has so far provided no evidence. Indeed this passage seems to contradict it!”

“That is because he is so unsystematic Karl. Chen says this passage has a great influence on later Neo-Confucianists. He says, ‘that the idea of building up the nobler part of our nature became an important tenet in the moral philosophy of Lu Hsiang-shan (Lu Chiu-yuan, 1139-1193), leader of the idealistic school of Neo-Confucianism.’”

“Next!”

“6A:16, ‘The ancient people cultivated the nobility of Heaven, and the nobility of man naturally came to them. People today cultivate the nobility of Heaven in order to seek for the nobility of man, and once they have obtained the nobility of man, they forsake the nobility of Heaven. Therefore their delusion is extreme. At the end they will surely lose (the nobility of man) also.’”

“Does he say what this ‘nobility’ of Heaven is?”

“Yes, he says it consists of, ‘Humanity, righteousness, loyalty, faithfulness, and the love of the good without getting tired of it....’”

“And of man?”

“ He says it's ‘to be a grand official, a great official, and a high official....’”

“Ok, I’ve found Fung’s comment on this on page 77 of his book [A Short History of Chinese Philosophy]. Shall I read it to you?”

“Go ahead.”

“’ According to Mencius and his school of Confucianism, the universe is essentially a moral universe. The moral principles of man are also metaphysical principles of the universe, and the nature of man is an exemplification of these principles. It is this moral universe that Mencius and his school mean when they speak of Heaven, and an understanding of this moral universe is what Mencius calls “knowing heaven.”’ And then Fung explains the meaning of that quote which you just gave Fred. He says it means that, ‘heavenly honors [the nobility of Heaven] are those to which a man can attain in the world of values, while human honors [the nobility of man] are purely material concepts in the human world. The citizen of Heaven...cares only for the honors of Heaven, but not those of man.’” Does that remind you of anything?”

“Plato?”

"Yes indeed.” A pulled down a copy of The Republic. “This is a quote from the end of Republic IX in Reeve’s revision of Grube published by Hackett. Plato has just finished describing the best possible state based on justice and the Good but grants that it is too ideal, perhaps, to ever be seen on earth, yet he has Socrates say there might be ‘a model of it in heaven, for anyone who wants to look at it and to make himself its citizen on the strength of what he sees. It makes no difference whether it is or ever will be somewhere, for he would take part in the practical affairs of that city and no other.’ This is also similar to Augustine’s City of God. You know, the city of man, Rome, and then Heaven to which our real loyalties must ultimately be given. In so far as Mencius’ ‘sage’ or philosopher identifies with heaven rather than with man he and Plato are in agreement.”

“But how would that work Karl? How could we live in the 21st Century US of A and live by these Confucian or Platonic principles?”

“It would work like this Fred. I’ll use Plato as an example. Suppose you accepted Socrates’ argument for equality of the sexes. Now, if you live in a country which has sexual discrimination you will support measures for equality and your reason will be--in Plato’s republic equality is advocated and since I’m going to support his philosophy I’ll make my political, social, cultural decisions down here on earth according to the laws of the ideal republic. I may never get all the laws and customs of my country to be similar to that republic but the more they become that way the more like the republic will my actual country become.”

“So we have a Confucian model like a Platonic one if we are Confucians and we live according to the model, as best we can, and only really support the actual customs and conditions of our society in so far as they conform to our model.”

“That’s right Fred. The real crux is your qualifier ‘as best we can.’ How much will we compromise to safeguard our own personal interests, how committed are we to our beliefs, how much risk will we take in coming into conflict with the status quo?The answers to these questions define the hypocrite and the sage.”

“In 6A:17 Mencius says, ‘...all men have within themselves what is really honorable. Only they do not think of it. The honor conferred by men is not true honor. Whoever is made honorable by Chao Meng [high official in Chin] can be made humble by him again. The Book of Odes says, “I am drunk with wine, and I am satiated with virtue.” It means that a man is satiated with humanity and righteousness, and therefore he does not wish for the flavor of fat meat and fine millet of men. “

“In his own way, I think Mencius is saying something like the quote from the Republic i gave. I think his words are just another way of saying what I just said before.”

“Here is 6A:19--’Mencius said, “The five kinds of grain are considered good plants, but if they are not ripe, they are worse than poor grains. So the value of humanity depends on its being brought to maturity.”’

“This little saying is, of course, dependent on his still unproved assumption that the original nature of human beings is ‘good’ so it only has to be properly ‘matured.’ His position is if you take a seed and put it in bad soil you get a bad plant but if you put it in good soil you get a good plant. In one sense the soil determines the type of plant. But the good soil only allows the original potency or nature within the seed to come forth to be a good plant i.e., just the type of plant it was meant to be by its internal nature. The bad plant has had its original nature destroyed or corrupted by the bad soil it was put in. The human beings’ internal nature and potency is the same. The right environment just brings out the true inner nature of the human. But this has to be better argued. Suppose the nature is really evil and sinful, as Christians maintain, what then? Or maybe the human being’s nature is a ‘blank slate’ so it is neither good nor bad. Mencius hasn’t adequately addressed these issues.”

“We have come to the end of the main section in Chan’s anthology. Now I am going to turn to the ‘Additional Selections’ he has chosen. Hopefully he will address the problems you have raised with respect to his position on human nature.”

“This (1B:7) is the advice Mencius gave to King Hsuan. He told him that with respect to all of his ministers and great officers telling him that such a person was worthy or unworthy or that such and such a person should be executed, that this consensus of big shots was not enough for the King to make the right decision. The King has to ask the people what they think and only if the people agree with the advice of the big shots should the King then look into the recommendations and if he follows them it can be said that the people actually are responsible for them. ‘Only in this way can a ruler become parent of the people.’ And Chan remarks, a propos, of this passage: ‘No one in the history of Chinese thought has stressed more vigorously the primary importance of the people for the state.’”

“And Mencius will provide other examples,Fred, of this proto-democratic spirit. I think this is a good example of the positive influence some Confucians had in Chinese history. It also explains why he never got a real job at any of the Chinese courts!”

“Then what about this--1B:8. ‘King Hsuan of Ch’i asked....”Is it all right for a minister to murder his king?” Mencius said, “He who injures humanity is a bandit. He who injures righteousness is a destructive person. Such a person is a mere fellow. I have heard of killing a mere fellow Chou [murdered evil king], but I have not heard of murdering [him as] the ruler.”’ And Chan adds, ‘The doctrine of revolution is here boldly advanced and simply stated. A wicked king has lost the Mandate of Heaven and it should go to someone else.’”

“The Chinese Marxists should support Mencius on this one. It shows that the king is king only so long as he rules in the interest of the people. Since most of the people were peasants in China it appears that Mencius is in some sense a representative of peasant interests. Confucians in general favored benevolent rulers, and although the peasants were often ruthlessly exploited this was not in the spirit of Confucianism anymore than the Vietnam War,say, was waged in the spirit of Christianity whatever so called Christian leaders from Billy Graham to Cardinal Spellman may have said. This is something the Chinese party should take to heart in case the economic reforms being pushed end up only benefiting a narrow portion of Chinese society.”

“Now we are coming to what looks like some ideas concerning man’s internal constitution. Mencius says (2A:2) ‘The will is the leader of the vital force, and the vital force pervades and animates the body. Therefore I say, “Hold the will firm and never do violence to the vital force.”’ Later he says ‘I am skillful in nourishing my strong, moving power’ but he has difficulty saying just what this power is although he says,’It is produced by the accumulation of righteous deeds but is not obtained by incidental acts of righteousness. When one’s conduct is not satisfactory to his own mind, then one will be devoid of nourishment. I therefore said that Kao Tzu [putting him down again!] never understood righteousness because he made it something external.’ Chan says the concept he translated as ‘strong moving power’ is hao-jan chih ch’i in Chinese.”

“I remember that term from Fung. He translated it as ‘Great Morale.’”

“That seems to be really a different concept from Chan. Read out what Fung says Karl.”

“You mean about why he calls it the ‘Great Morale.’ He says this is a special term for Mencius. Fung says the ‘Great Morale is a matter concerning man and the universe, and therefore is a super-moral value. It is the morale of the man who identifies himself with the universe, so that Mencius says of it that “it pervades all between Heaven and Earth.”' In order to develop this Great Morale, Fung says two things are needed: ‘One may be called the “understanding of Tao;” that is, of the way or principle that leads to the elevation of the mind.’ The other is what Mencius mentioned in the quote you read from Chan concerning the accumulation of ‘righteousness.’ The Tao and the righteousness together will produce the Great Morale, or as Chan calls it, ‘the strong moving power’ i.e., our moral identification with ‘Heaven’--but this cannot be forced.”

“That’s right Karl. Mencius says ‘let there be no artificial effort to help it grow.’ To underscore this he tell us not to act like the man from Sung....”

“Let me read the story. Its right here on page 79 of Fung. Mencius is speaking: ‘There was a man of Sung who was grieved that his grain did not grow fast enough. So he pulled it up. Then he returned to his home with great innocence, and said to his people: “I am tired to-day, for I have been helping the grain to grow.” His son ran out to look at it, and found all the grain withered.’ You can’t ‘help’ the Great Morale to grow by taking shortcuts. As Fung says, ‘If one constantly practices righteousness, the Great Morale will naturally emerge from the very center of one’s being.’ The point of all this is that Mencius still has superstitious notions about the nature of ‘Heaven.’ That it is in favor of certain moral rules and regulations and we should follow ‘Heaven’ by carrying them out. According to Fung ‘righteousness’ is similar to the Kantian concept of ‘duty.’ “

“Very good, Karl. Chan says more or less the same thing. Mencius is against artificial efforts. Mencius says, ‘Always be doing something [in accordance with righteousness] without expectation.’ The Great Morale will follow of its own accord. The Buddhists have similar views but they are more concerned with our mental states rather than our actions. Chan says, ‘The difference between the Buddhists and the Confucianists is that the former emphasize the state of mind while the latter emphasize activity.’”

“I think we have said enough about this Fred.”

“OK, here is some political philosophy, from 2A:3: ‘Mencius said, “A ruler who uses force to make a pretense at humanity is a despot.... When force is used to overcome people, they do not submit willingly but only because they have not sufficient strength to resist. But when virtue is used to overcome people, they are pleased in their hearts and sincerely submit, as the seventy disciples submitted to Confucius.” And he gives us a comment which encapsulates Confucian political philosophy: ‘The foundation of Confucian political philosophy is “humane government,” government of the true king, who rules through moral example. His guiding principle is righteousness, whereas that of the despot is profit. This contrast between kingliness and despotism has always remained sharp in the minds of Confucian political thinkers.’”

"That is a good summary, Fred. I think if we looked at the policies of our own government and many others which are based on the control of the world’s oil resources and hegemony over financial and other markets backed up with the use of military might we would find this contradicts Confucianism completely.”

“This next quote isn’t very philosophical but it affords us a glimpse of economic life in ancient China. We can see what type of rules and regulations were considered good and bad by what Mencius approves of. There are FIVE THINGS which the ruler must do in order to have his neighbors ‘look up to him as parent.’ So here is Mencius version of NAFTA: 1.) honor the worthy and employ the competent; 2.) in cities if he charges rent but does tax goods OR enforces the regulations but does not charge rent; 3.) at his borders--inspections but no tax; 4.) the farmers should mutually cultivate the the public field and pay no taxes: 5.) no fines for idlers or families who fail to meet the cloth quota. Mencius adds, this is all in 2A:5, ‘Ever since there has been mankind, none has succeeded in leading children to attack there parents. Thus such a ruler will have no enemy anywhere in the world, and having no enemy in the world, he will be an official appointed by Heaven.’”

“A little optimistic, I think. Such a ruler would presumably have a prosperous kingdom so Mencius should not discount the desire of greedy rival kingdoms or barbarian nations to take over his country. Having a good constitution is no guarantee that you ‘will have no enemy anywhere in the world.’”

"Now we have a VIP [Very Important Passage]! This quote (2A:6) is a major statement of Mencius’ doctrine about the ‘innate goodness’ of humankind. Mencius details what he means by THE FOUR BEGINNINGS and Chan says, ‘Practically all later Confucianists have accepted the Four Beginnings as the innate moral qualities.’”

“So lets hear the quote Fred!”

“’Mencius said, “All men have the mind which cannot bear [to see the suffering of] others. The ancient kings had this in mind and therefore they had a government that could not bear to see the suffering of the people....When I say that all men have the mind which cannot bear to see the suffering of others, my meaning may be illustrated thus: Now, when men suddenly see a child about to fall into a well, they all have a feeling of alarm and distress, not to gain friendship with the child’s parents, nor to seek the praise of their neighbors and friends, nor because they dislike the reputation [of lack of humanity if they did not rescue the child]. From such a case, we see that a man without the feeling of commiseration is not a man; a man without the feeling of shame and dislike is not a man; a man without the feeling of deference and compliance is not a man; and a man without the feeling of right and wrong is not a man. The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of humanity; the feeling of shame and dislike is the beginning of righteousness; the feeling of deference and compliance is the beginning of propriety; and the feeling of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. Men have these Four Beginnings just have they have their four limbs.”’”

“He thinks his example proves all this! Actually he has only shown that some people experience a feeling of alarm when they see a child about to fall into a well. This might be the beginning of a feeling of humanity. I think this is the only immediate feeling. The others come about as a result of reflection. Mencius’ views are of course a result of his having lived in ancient China. I doubt that today we would consider these attitudes ‘innate’, that is, genetically constituted. We will see a better account of all this when we discuss Hsun Tzu down the line. In the meantime I can only say that Mencius’ views have deleteriously effected all subsequent Chinese thought by having pushed Hsun Tzu’ s theories into the background.

“More political philosophy in 3A:3. ‘Duke Wen of T’eng asked about the proper way of government. Mencius said, “The business of the people should not be delayed.”’ He means that the government should be making sure that the people have secure living arrangements, education, etc. He has in mind a government, within the feudal context, that is ‘for the people’. The welfare state or a socialist approach as in Cuba would be a contemporary example of his basic attitude. If the government fails to provide for the people--say there is a lot of homelessness, drug addition, unemployment [to use modern examples]-- the people will not be secure in their minds. ‘And,’ Mencius goes on, ‘if they have no secure mind, there is nothing they will not do in the way of self-abandonment, moral defection, depravity, and wild license. When they fall into crime, to pursue and punish them is to entrap them. How can such a thing as entrapping the people be allowed under the rule of a man of humanity? Therefore a worthy ruler will be gravely complaisant and thrifty, showing a respectful politeness to his subordinates, and taking from the people according to regulations.’ The ruler must also: ‘Establish seminaries, academies, schools, and institutes to teach the people.’ It is the responsibility of the ruler to set a good moral example and to instruct the people. ‘If human relations are made clear and prominent above, then the common people below will have affection to one another. When a true king arises, he will surely come to take you [Duke Wen] as an example, and thus you will be the teacher of kingly rulers.' Duke Wen was impressed by all this and sent Pi Chan to consult with Mencius about the ‘well-field’ land system.’ What is that Karl?”

“it is the system of land tenure recommended by Mencius. He claims it was the system of olden times but many scholars doubt that it ever existed. The land was to be divided into nine equal sections. Eight families would cultivate their own plots and the left over plot would belong to the state and all eight families would take turns cultivating it. Since the state would own zillions of these plots it would have much wealth of produce, etc., to do all the state business and every family would enough for its needs as well. A perfect mixture of state and individual ownership [with respect to the technical developments of the time]. What a fortunate country China would have been had Mencius’ theory been put into practice!”

“Anyway, this is what Pi Chan was told by Mencius: ‘Now that your ruler is about to put in practice humane government and has chosen you for this service, you must do your best. Humane government must begin by defining the boundaries of land. If the boundaries are not defined correctly, the division of the land into squares will not be equal, and the produce available for official salaries will not be fairly distributed. Therefore oppressive rulers and corrupt officials are sure to neglect the defining of the boundaries.’”

“To better understand the wisdom of Mencius as a practical reformer, Fred, I just want to mention that most of the suffering and killing and tyrannical government behaviors of the the last century, and so far in this one too, has been the result of a failure to have fair land distribution and neglect in the ‘defining of the boundaries’. This is what is behind all the massacres and killing of people from the Palestinians, to the Mayan Indians in Guatemala, also the Indians in Mexico and throughout Brazil and the rest of South America. the Bantu and others in South Africa, the people in Zimbabwe, in India, it was behind the Russian [and French] revolutions, the Communist victories in China, Cuba, and Vietnam, it's one of the reasons behind the overthrow of the pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan, it's the reason Turkey and Iraq kill Kurds and American Indians are confined to reservations. Everywhere you look the big, powerful governments of today spend trillions of dollars just to repress and kill the poor all over the world so that they won’t have to be fair about sharing the land. Humane government is very rare indeed.”

“I agree with that Karl, and you haven’t begun to list all the examples!”

“Enough of my going on about this. What is next in Mencius?”

“Next is 3A:4 which has been criticized for being undemocratic. It also discusses what are called the ‘Five Relations.’ Here is what Mencius said: ‘If one must make the things himself before he uses them, this would make the whole empire run about on the road. Therefore it is said, “Some labor with their minds and some labor with their strength. Those who labor with their minds govern others; those who labor with their strength are governed by others.” Those who are governed by others support them; those who govern them are supported by them. This is the universal principle....’ Its a little like Plato’s Republic. Chan has the following comment ‘Mencius, generally considered the most democratic of Chinese philosophers, has been severely criticized for this undemocratic class distinction. It does not seem to be in harmony with his idea of the basic equally of the people [Chan then gives a reference,7A:4, that has nothing to do with anything]. We should not overlook, however, that the distinction is essentially one of function, not of status, as in Plato, for no one is confined to one class by birth.’ “

“I don’t think we should be calling Mencius ‘democratic.’ The concept of democracy was not in use in China at this period. It developed in Greece around this time, or a little before, with its system of city states, but China was not organized into city states and did not have democratic ideals at this time. Mencius’ philosophy grew up in a system of feuding feudal territories based on an hereditary nobility. His thrust is to try to humanize this system and minimize the suffering and degradation within it. He should not be faulted for having ‘feudal’ notions--that is, the notions more or less of his historical time. He is simply describing the actual social reality around him. It is also ingenuous of Chan to say that people are not confined to one class by birth. In reality 99.9% are.”

“I think you are correct Karl. Mencius goes on to say that the people will be like animals if they are only fed and looked after by the lords. Education is needed. He said, ‘The Sage (emperor Shun) worried about it and he appointed Hsieh to be minister of education and teach people human relations, that between father and son, there should be affection; between ruler and minister, there should be righteousness; between husband and wife, there should be attention to their separate functions; between old and young, there should be a proper order; and between friends, there should be faithfulness.’ Chan then makes the following comment about the FIVE RELATIONS. ‘It is often said that these do include the stranger and the enemy. But to Confucianists, no one is unrelated, and a stranger is therefore inconceivable. He is at least related as older and younger. As to the enemy, there should never be such a person, for all people should be friends.’ Finally a bon mot as it were from Mencius: ‘It is the nature of things to be unequal.’”

“Just a minute Fred. I remember that bon mot. It has to do with his attack on equality of prices, the economic theory of some other scholar of the day.”

“Yes, Hsü Hsing. Most of what Mencius said before in this chapter was in response to Hsü and so was the bon mot.”

“Well, I think you should go ahead and contextualize the whole thing.”

“Hsü Hsing had put forth the theory of economic equality. ‘Linen and silk of the same length should be sold at the same price. Bundles of hemp and silk of the same weight should be sold at the same price. Grains of the same quantity should be sold at the same price. And shoes of the same size would be sold at the same price.’ You can see that he knows nothing about the cost of production of different things!”

“What else does he say?”


“After he says things are unequal he says ‘If you equalize them all, you will throw the world into confusion. If large shoes and small shoes were of the same price, who would make them? If the doctrines of Master Hsü were followed, people would lead one another to practice deceit. How can these doctrines be employed to govern a state?’”

“Here again, Fred, is an example of the lack of logical training, or if not that, of not paying attention to an opponent’s argument.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hsü said ‘shoes of the same size would be sold at the same price’ and we get a criticism from Mencius referring to large shoes and small shoes for the same price. This is not really attacking Hsü on what he actually said. Mencius should have criticized his views on hemp and silk of the same weight being sold for the same price where he could have made a point, if he really understood economics, that silk costs more to produce than hemp on an equal weight basis. I mean, Mencius had a valid point to make but he used sloppy logic.”

“Regardless, Chan thinks the bon mot that came out of all this is important because it was later used by the Neo-Confucianists to argue against a metaphysical point, namely ‘that reality is not an undifferentiated continuum’.”

“That is even better. A casual comment regarding an economic theory in the context of a political discussion is used by his successors to bolster a metaphysical position! We will eventually get to the Neo-Confucianists but I hope they have better arguments for their positions that you just indicated a la Chan.”

“We will find out. Now I have a great comment of Mencius that shows his attitude towards women. An attitude I fear that was pervasive in Chinese society and is even today a big problem in China. Remember the FIVE RELATIONS? Well, here is an elaboration of that between men and women. Mencius is speaking in 3B:2, ‘At the marriage of a young woman, her mother instructs her. She accompanies the daughter to the door on her leaving and admonishes her, saying, “Go to your home. Always be respectful and careful. Never disobey your husband.” Thus, to regard obedience as the correct course of conduct is the way for women.’”

“This will have to go, of course, if Confucianism is to be updated for our new century. The idea that women are somehow inferior to men is just rampant, not only in China, but in India, in Islamic lands (the Koran even says men are ‘superior’) in the plethora of Christian sects (with maybe a few exceptions) and in most third world countries (always excepting Cuba where a real struggle is being waged by the government for sexual equality.) It is a shame that neither Confucius nor Mencius recognized the potential of women, especially since such philosophers as Pythagorus Plato and Epicurus did so and encouraged women to study philosophy. Hypatia was in fact a famous woman philosopher ( brutally murdered by Christians) in the ancient world. I can’t think of an equivalent in ancient China.”

“In 3B:9 Mencius proclaims his purpose in being a philosopher, his ‘Manifesto’ as it were.”

“Lets hear it!”

“’Do I like to argue? I cannot help it.... Sage emperors have ceased to appear. Feudal lords have become reckless and idle scholars have indulged in unreasonable opinions. The words of Yang Chu and Mo Ti [Mo Tzu] fill the world. Yang advocated egoism, which means a denial of the special relationship with the ruler. Mo advocated universal love, which means a denial of the special relationship with the father. To deny the special relationship with the father and the ruler is to become an animal.... If the principles of Yang and Mo are not stopped, and if the principles of Confucius are not brought to light, perverse doctrines will delude the people and obstruct the path of humanity and righteousness.... I am alarmed by these things, and defend the doctrines of the ancient kings and oppose Yang and Mo.’’

“Of course we must remember that ‘the doctrines of the ancient kings’ is just code for ‘the principles of Confucius.’

It seems to be de rigor for a Chinese philosopher to make appeals to mythological past policies of ancient kings.”

“And Chan makes the following comment on this passage: ‘The dispute between Mencius and the Moists involves a fundamental issue of ethics, namely, whether there should be distinction in love....Applied to ethics, this means that while love is universal, its applications to the various [human] relations are different.”

“I know that Fred. Mencius thinks we must love our own parents, kin and country men more that other people’s in the sense that we owe our first responsibilities to them and then we should love the parents, kin and country men of others, while Mo says we should make no distinctions in love. We will see the difference very clearly if we just go back and review our earlier discussion of Mo Tzu.”
“Karl, here is an interesting observation in 4A:12. ‘If one does not understand what is good, he will not be sincere with himself. Therefore sincerity is the way of Heaven, and to think how to be sincere is the way of man.’”

“Actually the way of the philosopher or sage. People ignorant of the ethical requirements of jen [ren] or humanity really don’t know the ‘good’ they will not be sincere because knowing and doing the good are not priorities for them. To be ‘sincere’ of course means to be trying to implement the Confucian ideals of humanity. Otherwise people just try to do what is good for themselves without much thought of the consequences for others or at least not for others outside their own immediate circle and sometimes not even then. Examples are everywhere. Every time a business person or corporate executive makes a decision to cut costs in order to increase profits--as in moving a factory to a cheaper labor zone, skimping on safety checks (almost the rule in business) it is obvious these people, and they dominate the world system we live under, are enemies of the Confucian ideal of the good and of humanity.”

“You are a little too radical Karl, but Mencius might just be radical too. Here is what he thinks about war for territory. I can’t help but think of the fighting in the West Bank and Gaza that is going on even as we have this discussion [Spring, 2008]. This is 4A:14--’Mencius said,”When a ruler failed to practice humane government. all those ministers who enriched him were rejected by Confucius. How much more would he have rejected those who are vehement to fight for their rulers? When they fight for territory, they slaughter so many people that the field is full of them. When they fight for a city, they slaughter so many people that the city is full of them. This is what is called leading on the land to devour human flesh. Death is not enough for such a crime. Therefore those who are skillful in fighting should suffer the heaviest punishment.”’”

“It is fairly obvious that Mencius and Mo Tzu at least agree that only a defensive war not one to take some other people’s land is acceptable. In today’s world the equivalent to land taking is resource taking. Wars to get control of other peoples resources is equally a great crime. There are very few governments of today, at least in the so-called capitalist world, that a Confucian sage could work for. In fact the so called ‘free enterprise’ system itself, since it puts profits before humanity, might be totally inconsistent with a modern day Confucianism.”

“Or maybe, like feudalism Karl, the Confucian should work in the system to try and mitigate its worst features.”

“Maybe.”

“At any rate this is 4B:11: ‘Mencius said, “ The great man does not insist that his words be necessarily truthful [at all times and under (all) circumstances] or his actions be necessarily resolute. He acts only according to righteousness.”’”

“This is really interesting for it shows that Mencius was a precursor of situation ethics.”

“What is that?”

“Look Fred, take Kant for instance. He would say you should never lie or steal in general you can never break any ethical commandments--no exceptions. But Mencius has just said you don’t have to always be truthful--it depends on righteousness. This can only mean that you can sometimes lie, etc., if righteousness is promoted. Suppose you had to lie in order to save the child from falling into the well? There are situations in which righteousness outweighs our common notions of truth telling, etc. As for ‘situation ethics,’ let me read to you from Reese’s dictionary (1980: p. 531), ‘The position of Joseph Fletcher (Situation Ethics, 1966) that any action may be good or bad depending on the situation. What is wrong in most situations may sometimes be right if the end it serves is sufficiently good.’ There is more about how this works in Christianity (it's based on agape) but it applies to Confucian ends as well i.e., jen or ren.”

“Sounds like ‘the end justifies the means’ to me and that can lead to all kinds of problems. What Hitler considers ‘sufficiently good’ may not be either agape or ren.”

“I understand the complications Fred. I just wanted to point out that Mencius is not an ‘absolutist’ except on the ren question which is, after all, the basis of Confucianism. It's their prime directive and for us, we can make it the second directive after our own prime directive we set up in the discussion we had on Confucius.”

“First the truth of reason then the good of humanity. It doesn’t sound right. Shouldn’t it be reversed or the two rules given equal status?”

“This can take all day. Since I think that we can’t begin to know what constitutes ren without recourse to the Prime Directive given before, that is why I put them in that order. But they are inextricably bonded.”

“Here is 4B26: ‘Mencius said, “All who talk about the nature of things need only [reason from] facts [and principles will be clear]. The fundamental principle [of reasoning] from facts is to follow [their natural tendencies].”’”

“This is practically our own Prime Directive!”

“This next quote (4B:30) is just to remind us of the special role of ‘family values’ in Ancient China. ‘Mencius said, “There are five things which in common practice are considered unfilial. The first is laziness in the use of one’s body without attending to the support and care of one’s parents. The second is chess-playing and fondness for wine, without attending to the support and care of one’s parents. The third is love of things and money and being exclusively attached to one’s wife and children, without attending to the support and care of one’s parents. The fourth is following the desires of one’s ears and eyes, thus bringing his parents to disgrace. And the fifth is being fond of bravery, fighting and quarreling, thus endangering one’s parents.”’”

“Well, I think these five rules could be boiled down to ‘attend to the support and care of one’s parents’--i.e., ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’”

“Sounds familiar.”

“What’s next?”

“In 5A:5 there is a discussion of just how we should understand the term ‘the will of heaven’ when we are using it politically. It is a rather long passage but the gist of it goes like this. In ancient times the good emperor Yao gave the empire not to his own son but to Shun. One of Mencius’ students, Wan Chang, asks him about this. Mencius replies that only Heaven can give the empire to someone. So how does Heaven show it’s ‘will’ so to speak. Well, Yao presented Shun to the people and, Mencius says, ‘the people accepted him. I therefore say that Heaven did nor speak, but that it simply indicated its will by his character and his conduct of affairs.’ The people were aware of the type of person Shun was and it ‘was Heaven that gave the empire to him. It was the people that gave the empire to him. Therefore I said, “ The emperor cannot give the empire to another person.”’ Now after the death of Yao, Shun withdrew from Yao’s son but the people went to him anyway. ‘The feudal lords of the empire, however, going to court, went not to the son of Yao but to Shun, litigants went not to the son of Yao but to Shun, and singers sang not to the son of Yao but to Shun. Therefore I said, “Heaven [gave the empire to him].”’”

“This is vox populi, vox dei. Mencius is saying that the will of Heaven is made known through the consciousness of the people, intimations of democracy, and that the person the people think most likely to champion their interests, peace, fair taxation, eliminating poverty, feeding the poor, preventing famines, etc., is the person they would support. This is a good Confucian notion--the ruler is last, the people first and the will of Heaven is just a symbolic way of saying the Tao of Government is the Tao of the interests of the masses of people."

“So you think, Karl, that ‘Heaven’ is just a metaphor for conditions and events that can be given more properly a naturalistic or ‘scientific’ explanation. Do you think that was all ‘Heaven’ meant to Mencius?”

“I think that was the track that he was on. The fully developed logical conclusion of his ideas would end up with what you just said. I’m not sure Mencius was fully conscious of this conclusion which first becomes explicit in the thought of Hsun Tzu which we are yet to discuss.”

“Well, Chan gives a comment on all this as a part of 7A:1 when he discusses the different notions the Chinese had of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ or ming = ‘fate’. Here is what Chan says: ‘In ancient China there were five theories about destiny or the Mandate of Heaven. The first was fatalism: the Mandate was fixed and unchangeable. The second was moral determinism: Heaven always encourages virtue and punishes evil; therefore man can determine his reward and punishment through moral deeds. The third was anti-fatalism, advocated by the Moist school. The fourth was naturalistic fatalism which means that destiny is not controlled by Heaven in the sense of an anthropomorphic God but by Nature and works automatically. Lastly, there was the Confucian theory of “waiting for destiny.” According to this doctrine, man should exert his utmost in moral endeavor and leave whatever is beyond our control to fate. It frankly admits that there are things beyond our control but that is no reason why one should relax in his moral endeavor. The tendency was definitely one of moralism and humanism. The Confucian theory represents the conviction of enlightened Chinese in general.’”

“I would say about these,Fred, that the first theory is just classical determinism--no event could have happened otherwise. The second theory is like karma but is confusing because people argue about what ‘moral deeds’ are. It also opens up the option of an anthropomorphic God. We have already discussed Mo Tzu’s view--the third one of Chan. I don’t get the forth one--it just seems to be a rehash of the first in other words. This fifth one, the Confucian, does not seem very clear. What does it mean to leave what is beyond our control to ‘fate’. It can only mean that we live in a non-deterministic universe but one which has deterministic sequences in it. We should do our best to live according to morality but when we bump into one of the deterministic sequences we just go with the flow. That doesn’t sound right at all. And what does it mean to say ‘we leave whatever is beyond our control to fate.’ What is beyond our control is going to happen whether we ‘leave it’ or not. I don’t think Chan really clears up the notion of ‘fate’ very well.

“This next quote from Mencius (7A:2) is even more confusing. ‘Everything is destiny (ming). A man should accept obediently what is correct [in one’s destiny]. Therefore, he who knows destiny does not stand beneath a precipitous wall. Death sustained in the course of carrying out the Way to the limit is correct destiny. But death under handcuffs and fetters is not due to correct destiny.’”

“So ming isn’t really ‘fate’. There seems to be a configuration of factors making up the world at any given time and one of those factors is the individual and his or her mental make up and ability to make choices based on the educational level of the person, position in society, etc. Its like Sartre’s being thrown into the world then you have to make choices. You make the best choices you can given your circumstances but since you don’t have control over all the factors you can’t really control ming. Even looked at this way Mencius’ statement still has some problems. Suppose, in correctly following the Way, you end up in fetters? E.g., suppose you oppose some unjust action of the government. Was it not ‘correct destiny’ for Martin Luther King, Jr. to end up in the Birmingham
jail?"

“Like most philosophers, from the Ancient Greeks to modern times, Mencius doesn’t think much of hoi polloi! Here is what he says in 7A:5-- ‘To act without understanding and to do so habitually without examination, following certain courses all their lives without knowing the principles behind them--this is the way of the multitude.’”

“Yes, Fred, this is the traditional view but it does not mean that the multitude should be abused or exploited by the rulers who must be guided by the Confucian principles of ren. And please note, that in the historical circumstances of the past this attitude is justified. Only now have we the ability to see to it that all humans can have the educational opportunities such that the ‘multitude’ will be able to approach the wisdom of the Sage. Remember 6A:7? In theory Mencius held that every person could be a sage [he may not have included women, so I am updating him] it was the material conditions of his time that held people back. In our time it is possible to achieve this goal or at least lay the foundations for it but for us it is the property relations not the material conditions [i.e, scaricity as a brute rather than social fact] that are holding us back. The institution of socialism would lead to the educational advance of the multitude and without a ruling class there would be no motivation to impart a false consciousness to the people.”

“Here is a good passage that really spells out the Mencian view of ‘love’. Mencius says, in 7A:45, ‘In regard to [inferior] creatures, the superior man loves them but is not humane to them (that is, showing them the feelings due human beings). In regard to people generally, he is humane to them but not affectionate. He is affectionate to his parents and humane to all people. He is humane to all people and feels love for all creatures.’”

“Nicely put. If humanity could just get to this level, as opposed to the almost impossible level of ‘love’ that Mo Tzu aspires to, it would be a great advance. This position is possible, I think, with proper education and the restructuring of society to human needs rather than the accumulation of money and wealth and profit. One thing should be noted. When Mencius says ‘love for all creatures’, I think that commits him to vegetarianism and an anti-hunting ethic, neither of which, as far as I know, the historical Mencius committed himself to.”

“OK, Karl, here is the last passage from Mencius. This is 7B:14, ‘Mencius said, “[In a state] the people are the most important; the spirits of the land and grain (guardians of territory) are the next; the ruler is of slight importance” Oops, and one more [7B:33] to just sum up--’The superior man practices principle (Natural Law) and waits for destiny (ming,
Mandate of Heaven) to take its own course.’”

“So, Fred, this has been a long discussion, but I think we have a pretty good idea of Mencius’ philosophy and its relation to both Confucius and Mo Tzu. Is it time to discuss Hsun Tzu next?”

“You complained about the lack of logic in Mencius so I want to do something on a school Chan calls ‘The Logicians’. Specifically, a philosopher called Kung-sun Lung [Gongsun Long].”

“Sounds good to me. But lets go out for some lunch and a break for a while.”

“Good idea Karl. Lets come back here around two or three. Chan’s section on the logicians isn’t very long so we won’t have to spend as much time on it as we just did on Mencius.”