I’ve been going through Crit’s absolute beginner reading list and I keep putting down “Elementary principles of philosophy” and skipping ahead to the other books because I just fail to see the value in a deep dive to philosophy in order to learn about history and economy and so on. I would like to skip it completely but don’t want to miss important fundamentals.

It’s such a hard read for me because it keeps rubbing me the wrong way with stuff like

Then there are the scholars, unknowingly materialistic and inconsequential. They are materialists in the laboratory, then, when they come out of their work, they are idealists, believers, religious.

In fact, [the shameful materialists] did not know or did not want to put their ideas in order. They are in perpetual contradiction with themselves. They separate their work, necessarily materialistic, from their philosophical conceptions. They are “scientists”, and yet, if they do not expressly deny the existence of matter, they think, which is unscientific, that it is useless to know the real nature of things. They are “scientists” and yet they believe without any proof in impossible things. (See the case of Pasteur, Branly and others who were believers, whereas the scientist, if he is consistent, must abandon his religious belief).

so I cant be a christian and marxist? Even worse I’m also a mathematician, I formulate ideas and theories and proofs with absolutely zero regard for any material reality. None. I will take an infinite number of unprovable, non-material statements as true, and to top it all off, unable to show that my axiomatic set theory is at least internally consistent, just believe it to be free of contradiction. Thus if someone proves how some seemingly obvious statement leads to a contradiction in my system I will thank them for proving that the statement must be false. In fact the proof of such nonsensical statements is often the highlight of a math course (I mean this kind of shit is awesome). The poor physicists then have to deal with the fallout of our complete disregard for material reality. But they’re the scientist so what do I (speaking as an idealist mathematician) care, they’re the materialists.

As a christian I at least double check if what I believe in contradicts scientific statements and amend my belief system, not deny the scientific statement (oh the earth wasn’t created in 6 days? Guess I will have to revise what I assumed to be true). But why should the scientist care if I believe in a reality outside of the material one, they won’t be able to study it anyway.

Now if I want to understand history or economy or anything else within material reality, I obviously have to use my senses or rely on the senses of others and study the state of the matter at some point in time that would have existed even if I didn’t. Then formulate thought based on those observations. But why is it so important to literally always do that?

And what am I supposed to be getting out of this whole mess in order to better understand marxist/leninist/anarchist/whatever else theory???

  • freagle
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    9 months ago

    Materialism in this context is not new atheist materialism. Materialism is a framework of only reasoning about that which is causally linked. You’ll be more familiar with the term “immaterial” in the rhetorical sense - yes, Bob ate an extra cookie but that’s immaterial to why we are poor. Materialism only admits into analysis that which is material, that which matters. Whatever metaphysical beliefs you have about a god existing, or souls, or objective morality, or the afterlife - the beliefs are material because they were caused by your own experiences and they are the causes of your behavior. However that thing you think you are referring to when you say “god”, “soul”, “sin”, etc are immaterial because they have no causal linkages - they are not caused by anything and they do not cause anything.

    The reason understanding materialism is important for you is because if you go around arguing that we should build society with X characteristic because it is alike unto Yahweh, you will be rejected and opposed, but if you make dialectical materialist arguments for how society should be organized, no one cares that you pray for forgiveness.

    That is to say, keep your religious beliefs out of the analysis of how the universe works and you’ll be fine, but recognize that dialectical materialism sees your beliefs as caused and will reason about them in ways that make you uncomfortable.