Martin Luther King Jr. & Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant

I just came across an article I originally saw when it appeared, and it mentions me:

"How Martin Luther King, Jr. Used Nietzsche, Hegel & Kant to Overturn Segregation in America" by Josh Jones, Open Culture, February 11, 2015

I have been familiar with King's remarks about Hegel for many years. I think that the author is exaggerating about Hegel;s influence, and that the author's title is an embarrassing exaggeration. I am more impressed by the influence that various philosophers and theologians had in overturning MLK's fundamentalist indoctrination. It should also be known that MLK not only rejected fundamentalism but was an advocate of the separation of church and state, something the ignorant people I interact with in the city in which I live cannot fathom.

Here there are two links to my web site:

As King scholar John Ansbro discovered, King “stated in a January 19, 1956 interview with The Montgomery Adviser that Hegel was his favorite philosopher.” Later that year, King gave an address to the First Annual Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change in which he used Hegelian terms to characterize the Civil Rights struggle: “Long ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued that justice emerges from the strife of opposites, and Hegel, in modern philosophy, preached a doctrine of growth through struggle.”

Independent scholar Ralph Dumain has further catalogued King’s many approving references to Hegel, including a paper he wrote entitled “An Exposition of the First Triad of Categories of the Hegelian Logic—Being, Non-Being, Becoming,” the “last of six essays that King wrote” for his two-semester course on the philosopher.

The author also mentions the Du Bois - Hegel connection and Susan Buck-Morss's work that argues for the influence of the Haitian Revolution on Hegel. He even mentions the little-known 1925 study The Logical Influence of Hegel on Marx by Rebecca Cooper. Among the other interesting links in this article I will mention just this one:

Martin Luther King Jr. and Continental Philosophy, Ethicist for Hire, February 7, 2015

Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology (2)

I received a handful of scattered responses via Facebook to my podcast of last Saturday, 11/17/12 Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology.

There is one fellow who has spread the news of my podcast far and wide among atheist/humanist and leftist circles. What he expects to come of this I do not know, or whether he is more optimistic than I about a perceptive reception. I expect nothing from either the atheist/etc. milieu or the left or both in combination.

So far I see a discussion thread on lbo-talk, the listserv of Left Business Observer:

Was something about Atheism & Humanism

So far the greatest appreciation was expressed for the opening quote from C.L.R. James & co., Facing Reality (1958):

C.L.R. James on Descartes & the Division of Labor

We shall see what else comes of this.

Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology

For the past couple of years I have planned to do this podcast. I didn't think I could squeeze all this into an hour, but I got it all in in 3/4 of an hour. Recorded Saturday night, 17 November 2012, here is my latest podcast, installment 7 of my Internet radio show "Studies in a Dying Culture" under the auspices of Think Twice Radio:

11/17/12 Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology 

I propose a framework in which the intellectual basis of the atheist - humanist - skeptical movement, particularly in the USA, can be seen as a progressive bourgeois ideology that, while marking an historical advance beyond pre-modern, pre-industrial, pre-technological, pre-capitalist, supernaturally based forms of unreason, addresses only one half of the cognitive sources of irrationality of the modern world, and is ill-equipped to grapple with the secular forms of unreason, which can be denoted by the term "ideology". I argue that the Anglo-American intellectual heritage of atheism has never absorbed the indispensable heritage of German philosophy and social theory from Hegel to Marx to 20th century critical theory and thus remains philosophically underdeveloped and ensconced in a naive scientism. I furthermore argue that American atheism / humanism lacks adequate historical perspective due to the historical amnesia induced by the two historical breaks of McCarthyism and Reaganism. To combat historical amnesia I highlight not only relevant intellectual history but the buried history of working class atheism. I also sketch out some relevant philosophical aspects of the history of the American humanist movement beginning with the first Humanist Manifesto of 1933. I then discuss the intellectual consequences of the political repression of the McCarthy era. From there I discuss two prominent influences of the 1960s and 1970s, atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair and humanist Paul Kurtz. I highlight Kurtz's dialogue with the Yugoslav Marxist-Humanist philosophers and his failure to learn from the encounter. Finally, I discuss the intellectual shortcomings of the so-called "new atheism" and today's celebrity atheists in the context of the depressing political perspective of our reactionary neoliberal era. I also don't spare the dissidents within the movement from my accusations of intellectual superficiality. I end on a note of bleak pessimism.

46:09 minutes 

This podcast provides a framework for thinking about the atheist/humanist/skeptics subculture in the Anglo-American sphere (and possibly beyond) which is different from anything else you are going to find on the subject.

There are some people who are going to appreciate this podcast. There are also some people who think they appreciate this podcast. There is something essential that experience has taught me about commonality: it is elusive, often illusory.

I do not expect the bulk of my readers, even those among the "progressive" liberal-left segment of the atheist/humanist/etc. community, or the hard left, to share my perspective, whether they react sympathetically or not. Note also that while I say little about the "intellectual superficiality" of the "dissidents within the movement" (i.e. the atheist/etc. movement), those familiar with the current political controversies within that milieu may have an idea of what I'm talking about, whether or not they understand where I'm coming from.  I am not optimistic.

Still, this podcast is badly needed and perhaps it will have a modest impact.

UFO (Haiku for Richard Wright)

"The Visions of Eternity, by reason of narrowed perceptions,
Are become weak Visions of Time & Space, fix'd into furrows of death;
Till deep dissimulation is the only defence an honest man has left"

  — William Blake, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion, 49.23; E198

"Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form."

  — Karl Marx, Letter to Arnold Ruge, Kreuznach, September 1843

---

      UFO
  (Haiku for Richard Wright)

    by Ralph Dumain

Whirling in the sky,
  the truth is over their heads
    in more ways than one.

  (4 August 2011)

---

Haiku for Richard Wright

by Ralph Dumain

The Outsider read               summons purple-flowered fields        contrasting the doom.

(Written 11 Feb. 1995)

---

  A Divine Image

Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror, the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress

The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.

  — William Blake, Songs of Experience

The first stanza of this poem prefaces Richard Wright's The Outsider.

Marxism & religion: 2 articles

A key challenge for socialists - Marxists and Religion - yesterday and today
by Gilbert Achcar, International Viewpoint, 15 October 2004.

I mostly agree. I agree esp. with the criticism of alliances between British Trotskyists and Islamists.

Opiate of the People? - Marxism and Religion
By Michael Löwy
International Viewpoint Online magazine, IV368, June 200.

The historical overview is interesting, but I think Löwy is shallow and wrong. I also think Ernst Bloch is wrong. Löwy's treatment of the Frankfurt School is deplorable.

Ideology of/in the Natural Sciences (1)

Steven; Rose, Hilary; eds. 1980. Ideology of/in the Natural Sciences, with an introductory essay by Ruth Hubbard. Cambridge, MA: Shenkman Publishing Co., 1980. xxix, 363 pp.

This book appeared under other imprints with different titles. I have digitized the table of contents. Note the links on this web page. Joseph Needham's oft-reprinted article can be found here:

"History and Human Values: A Chinese Perspective for World Science and Technology"

Commentary on Needham and related issues can be found elsewhere on this blog. I have more to say about Needham's philosophical blundering. My post on "The Politics of Neurobiology: Biologism in the Service of the State" by Rose & Rose reproduces the first paragraph of the article, along with my snide remarks about historical amnesia and the secular humanist / "new atheist" movement.

It seems that the radical science movement has been all but forgotten. It was a mixed bag, and I have my doubts even about its more rational elements, but this history seems to have been swept under the rug altogether with the radicalism of the 1970s. The first article fairly summarizes the views of Marx and Engels, with some pertinent criticism of Engels' dialectics of nature (p. 14). "The Incorporation of Science" is about the incorporation of science--and science studies--within the capitalist system. Andre Gorz attempts to locate scientists within the class structure. Mike Cooley, who analyzes the labor process in production, is a name familiar to me from elsewhere: I think it is a book called Worker or Bee?. These first four essays survey the general problem of science within the capitalist system.

"The Politics of Neurobiology" antedates the current rage of cognitive science, and the attempts of neurobiologists to read off politics and society from the structure of the brain, a thoroughly ideologically blind and reactionary endeavor.

Many may remember the scientific racism and IQ controversy of the 1970s. I was studying the history of scientific racism while the skeptics movement was preoccupied with astrology and spoon-bending.

Hans Magnus Enzenberger questions the ideology and politics of the then-burgeoning ecology movement (which we now call environmentalism), for example, the then-current "limits of growth" concern.

There are several articles on women's issues and women's place in the sciences.

Sam Anderson's article on "Science, Technology and Black Liberation" reflects the revolutionary ambitions and bombast of the time. Anderson chafes against the "special nigger" status he claims is imposed on black scientists, and bursts with the ideological energy of anti-imperialism and self-reliance (even quoting Kim Il Sung). Such rebellion against bourgeois professionalism was a hallmark of the time, but such impulses ultimately could go nowhere, esp. the impulse not to remain alienated from the black masses at large.

This type of politicization was characteristic of the time and reflected in several of the essays, predating our age of lowered expectations. Of course one must also comb this literature for elements of naivete. Perhaps the most grating element in general is the sympathy for Maoism. I have my reservations about scorching broad-based indictments of "reductionism", but clearly there are real problems addressed by this label.

Three articles are of particular philosophical interest.

Lewontin and Levins articulate and claim a more sophisticated analysis of the phenomenon of Lysenkoism than what is found in other literature. They see it as more than simple bureaucratic despotism, and they also reject Maoist attempts to rehabilitate Lysenkoism. I am not sufficiently acquainted with Lewontin's philosophical proclamations to know how they hold up. I am cautious in making big political and philosophical claims for what later became known as dialectical biology, but I'm sure E.O. Wilson is falsifying history:

"Science and ideology" by Edward O. Wilson, Vol. 8, Academic Questions, 06-01-1995.

I mentioned Needham's article, which I want to return to elsewhere, as the combination of historical materialist analysis and utter philosophical/ideological confusion is noteworthy.

Finally, there is "Ideology of/in Contemporary Physics" by Jean‑Marc Levy‑Leblond which is interesting in a number of respects. I will return to this later. For now I will note that the author addresses the institutionalization and division of labor within physics, and the epistemological problems within it, including education and popularization, and the chronic inadequacy of philosophy of science to adequately address what goes on within physics, most notably quantum mechanics.

Renewal of Materialism (1)

"The Renewal of Materialism": Special issue of Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal [New School for Social Research], vol. 22, no. 1, 2000.

I first wrote about this on 4 August 2004, so I will cannibalize that material and in another entry add some comments based on my recent (re-)reading of this issue.

Here we find a critical review of the philosophical positions of the French Enlightenment and related issues of that time and ours, including the philosophical reaction to the birth of modern chemistry, debates surrounding the nature of life from a materialist perspective, the mind-body problem, the germs of emergent materialism, Spinoza, La Mettrie, Diderot, and more. Here is the table of contents:

VOLUME 22, NUMBER 1. THE RENEWAL OF MATERIALISM

François Dagognet Materialism: A Philosophy of Multiple Revivals

Annie Bitbol-Hespériès Descartes, Reader of Harvey: The Discovery of the Circulation of Blood in Context

Yves Charles Zarka Being and Action in the Thought of Ralph Cudworth

Meriam Korichi Defining Spinoza's Possible Materialism

Ann Thomson La Mettrie, Machines, and the Denial of Liberty

Amor Cherni Brute Matter and Organic Matter in Buffon

Annie Ibrahim The Life Principle and the Doctrine of Living Being in Diderot

A. Suratteau-Iberraken Medical Vitalism and Philosophical Materialism in the Eighteenth-Century Debate on Monsters

Roselyne Rey Diderot and the Medicine of the Mind

Alexandre Métraux The Emergent Materialism in French Clinical Brain Research (1820-1850)

Pierre Kerszberg The Mental Chemistry of Speculative Philosophy

Didier Gil Is Consciousness a Brain Process?

Guillaume le Blanc From Matter to Materiality According to Canguilhem

Jean-Claude Bourdin The Uncertain Materialism of Louis Althusser

Antonio Negri Alma Venus. Prolegomena to the Common

Miguel Vatter Phenomenology in Kant's Idealism: Review of Pierre Kerszberg's Critique and Totality

Canguilhem, Althusser, and Negri belong to the 20th century. The latter two are still in fashion, and while I do not recommend them, you can read Negri's article on the web:

Antonio Negri, "Alma Venus. Prolegomena to the common," trans. Patricia Dailey & Constantino Costantini.

The editor's introduction to this issue cites a study showing that Marx and Engels got French materialism wrong in The Holy Family. As it happens, part of said article has been translated into English:

Marx, Renouvier and the History of Materialism

By Olivier-Rene Bloch

[Excerpts translated by Tom Weston from "Marx, Renouvier, et l'histoire du materialisme." This work originally appeared in La Pensee, numero 191, fevrier, 1977, pp. 3 - 42. It has been reprinted in Olivier Bloch, Matieres a histoires, Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 6, Place de la Sorbonne, 75005 Paris. This translation is in the public domain, October, 1997.]

Gil, Didier. "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?", Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, vol. 22, no. 1, 2000, pp. 227-253.

This is one of the finest dissections of the competing philosophies underlying artificial intelligence I've seen.

(To be continued)

Marx on religion

I've begun organizing quotations by Karl Marx on religion, accompanied by sources and web links, as well as a listing of the major English-language anthologies on the subject:

Karl Marx on Religion: Sources & Quotations

I will add to this compilation as I examine more quotes. I will probably add a listing of relevant writings by Friedrich Engels and possibly quotes as well. I will move on to organize the various quotations on this blog into pages on my web site. Also, I will begin to compile a working bibliography of important works by and about Marxists on religion and atheism.