Opinions on Maurice Cornforth?

[heiss93]

Does anyone have opinions on the works of Maurice Cornforth? He started off from the Analytical tradition, before becoming a Communist in the 1930s and writing an orthodox introduction to DiaMat which became the textbook of Anglo-Saxon Marxism. He later came to reject some of the more dogmatic aspects of 1930s DiaMat, and his work on the Linguistic Philsophy was an attempt to gain some of the rational elements out of Wittgenstein his former teacher. Towards the end of his life he rejected Engels and Lenin's concepts of Dialectics of Nature, and embraced a semi-Eurocommunist approach.

He also wrote a refutation of Popper's Open Society

Below is a link to a work criticizing his attack on Engels' D of Nature

http://www.sademocracy.org.uk/ProgPhilpart6.htm

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

CP hack, who in his last book (Communism and Philosophy) recanted much of his earlier life and work.

His comments on Wittgenstein were almost totally clueless. In fact, I devoted a section of my latest essay to him:


For example, Cornforth [in Cornforth (1965)] openly misrepresents Wittgenstein's work solely in order to rubbish it. This is surprising since Cornforth had once been a personal friend of Wittgenstein's.

However, as is plain to anyone who bothers to check, Cornforth has confused parts of Wittgenstein's early work with that of Russell and/or Carnap, asserting that he adopted a "verificationist" stance to "elementary propositions" in the Tractatus, for example. This interpretation muddles Russell's empiricist approach to such propositions with the anti-metaphysical aim of the Tractatus. Verificationism is, however, completely foreign to the Tractatus. The simple objects of the Tractatus are not objects of possible experience, but logical objects, as Wittgenstein himself clearly indicates. [Cf., 2.01-2.0211, 2.023, 2.024-2.031, 4.1272. (These refer to numbered sections of the Tractatus.)]

Indeed, Wittgenstein had this to say about the "objects" of the Tractatus:


"What I once called 'objects, simples', were simply what I could refer to without running the risk of their possible non-existence; i.e., that for which there is neither existence nor non-existence, and that means: what we can speak about no matter what may be the case." [Wittgenstein (1975), p.72; §36.]

Objects sense experience, whose existence can be verified (or otherwise), are thus not the sort of "objects" Wittgenstein was referring to. So, they are not "sense data", nor are they dependent upon them (or it would be possible to suppose they did not exist), and neither are they the logical atoms found in Russell's theory, which do depend on sense experience.

There are no satisfactory on-line articles on the Tractatus, but this source [the essay contains a link at this point] at least runs through some of the main interpretations of the "objects" that Wittgenstein introduced there, -- although, it has to be said, its author finally adopts an erroneous view of them as point masses, similar to those found in Hertz's work. As noted above, for Wittgenstein, it was impossible to suppose that these "objects" did not exist, but it is easy to imagine this of Hertzian point masses.

However, this article [again the essay contaisn another link at this point] runs through the many different interpretations there are of these "objects", except the author omits the one that is adopted here (that they are logical objects, as Wittgenstein indicated!).

Easily the best account of the Tractatus and its "objects" is to be found in White (2006).

Cornforth must have known this, which perhaps explains why he offered no evidence to substantiate his wild allegations. Little wonder, since there is none; neither the word "verification" nor any of its synonyms occurs in the Tractatus, and the entire idea is completely at odds with Wittgenstein's own stated aims.

[Cf., Cornforth (1965), pp.111-30. Verification as a criterion of sense was something Wittgenstein toyed with briefly in the late 1920s and early 1930s, nearly ten years after the Tractatus was published. Even then, the slant he put on verification was entirely different from that subsequently touted by members of the Vienna Circle (with whose work Cornforth largely confuses Wittgenstein's) -- who themselves also tended to conflate Wittgenstein's aims with those of Russell.]

On this, cf., Baker (1988), Hacker (1985, 1996, 2000a), Hanfling (1981), Medina (2001), and Misak (1995). See also the important qualifications in Diamond (1999).

Even so, the attitude of Communist Party member Cornforth has not always been reflected in the views of the CPSU (although that should surprise few of those who know about that party's constant theoretical manoeuvrings). For example, A Textbook of Marxist Philosophy had this to say about Wittgenstein's anti-metaphysical stance:


"The 'logical-analytic' method of Wittgenstein and his followers is by no means the only modern philosophy that approximates in certain points to the new dialectic....

"It would appear, in fact, that not only are scientific discoveries confirming the standpoint of dialectical materialism but that Western philosophers are increasingly discarding metaphysical concepts...." [Shirokov (1937).]

Now, it may be because this was written at the time of the Popular Front that the authors took a conciliatory stance toward Wittgenstein (whose work they clearly confused with that of the Vienna Circle, once more), but that just underlines how vacillating Stalinist authors were between, say, 1930 and 1956, Cornforth included. For example, compare Shirokov's comments with those of Kuusinen made some twenty-five years later:


"The basic tenets of neo-positivism were formulated by Bertrand Russell and the Austrian philosophers Wittgenstein and Schlick. Its most prominent exponents are Carnap in the United States and Ayer in Britain. It owes its origin to a desire to refurbish the subjective-idealist philosophy of Machism and adapt it to the present state of physics, mathematics and logic." [Kuusinen (1961), p.57.]

It is worth noting, once again, that Kuusinen offers no evidence at all to prove that Wittgenstein was a positivist, or even that he was keen to promote "Machism".

Cornforth's depiction of Wittgenstein's Tractatus is thus a catalogue of errors and misrepresentations from beginning to end, to such an extent that it is doubtful whether Cornforth actually read that book! Indeed, it is abundantly clear that he relied on second- or third-hand comments written by positivists (such as Moritz Schlick), among others. In fact, Cornforth only quotes the Tractatus once in his five page 'summary', and even then this reference is brief and relates only to the Preface.

Cornforth's discussion of Wittgenstein's later work is, thankfully, less unreliable. Although Cornforth manages to get a few things right, he ends up confusing the method adopted in the Philosophical Investigations with that found in Oxford 'Ordinary Language Philosophy' (henceforth, OLP), that is, with the work of Ryle, Austin, Warnock, Strawson, Urmson and Hampshire). Beyond a few superficial similarities, Wittgenstein's work bears no resemblance at all to "Oxford Philosophy". [On this, see Cavell (1971a) and Dummett (1960).]

References, links and more datails here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page_13_03.htm

[PRC-UTE]

I'm not surprised he became eurocommunist.

I read a few of his books, and they were useful as intros to the ideas, but can't stand on their own. imo, he used dialectics the same way as the SU: a legitimising ideology, not a method of analysis.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

PRC:


a legitimising ideology, not a method of analysis

1) In fact, if you read his books on dialectics, you will see Cornforth says this of non-communist dialecticians.

And they say this of communists.

This is because this 'theory' can be, and has been used to defend anything you like, and its opposite, sometimes in the same breath. And that is because it glories in contradiction.

Hence, communists have used it to defend the denial of democracy in the former USSR all the while claiming they are promoting increased democracy. They also used it to defend the idea of socialism in one country, while Trotskyists used it to attack that theory. Maoists used it to defend class compromise with the Goumindang, and the denial of democracy, just like the Stalinists. Trotskyisys used it to show that the former USSR was a degenerated workers' state, while the communsits used it to show it was a socialist state --, and Tony Cliff used it to show it was State Capitalist. And so on.

Details here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm#CaseStudies

[Anyone wanting to access this link will need to copy and paste it into their address bar, since the anonymiser RevLeft uses ignores '#' sub-links.]

2) So, it's just a 'method', not a true theory of nature and society.

[Lord Hargreaves]

His books are useful for understanding "Diamat" - I don't know of any other author who made such a systematic effort to write books on it for the masses, as it were. I have read his book refutation of Popper, which is also quite nice.

I wouldn't take his philosophy seriously though, tbh. Nobody takes DiaMat seriously anyway, since it was always a lazy corruption of Hegel

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

LH:


Nobody takes DiaMat seriously anyway, since it was always a lazy corruption of Hegel

Many comrades here do:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=62

Every Trotskyist group on the planet does (just visit their websites -- link below), as do the Maoists and many of the communist parties and unreconstructed Stalinists (ditto) -- even if many might not call it Diamat these days.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/political-organisations-t27951/index.html

I think you are out of touch with what I call 'Low Church Dialectics', which dominates the revolutionary movement worldwide:


There are in fact two main types of dialectician (which groups can, of course, overlap at the edges):

(1) Low Church Dialecticians [LCDs]: Comrades in this category cleave to the original, unvarnished truth laid down in the sacred DM-texts (written by Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, or Mao). These simple souls are highly proficient at quoting endless passages from the holy books as an answer to everything and anything, just like the faithful who bow to the East or who fill the gospel halls around the world. Their unquestioning faith is as impressive as it is un-Marxist.

They may be naive, but they are at least consistently so.

[FL = Formal Logic.]

In general, LCDs are blithely ignorant of FL. Now, on its own this is no hanging matter. However, such self-inflicted and woeful ignorance does not stop them from pontificating about FL, or from regaling us with its alleged limitations -- charges based on ideas they unwisely copied from Hegel, surely the George W Bush of Logic.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/142/321253781_ac120c0ae7.jpg

Figure One: Advanced Logic Class At Camp Hegel

LCDs are, by-and-large, active revolutionaries, committed to 'building the party'. Alas, they have in fact conspired to do the exact opposite, helping to keep parties small because of the countless splits and expulsions they engineer. This then is a rather fitting pragmatic contradiction that the dialectical deities have visited upon these the least of their slaves.

Of course, these individuals cannot see the irony in all this (even when it is pointed out to them -- I know, I have lost count of the number of times I have tried!), since they too have not taken the lens caps off.

This has meant that despite the fact that every last one of these sad individuals continually strives to "build the party", and urges others to do likewise, few revolutionary groups can boast membership roles that rise much above the risible. In fact, all we seem to have witnessed since WW2 is the creation of more and more fragmented sects -- but still no mass movement.

Has a single one of these individuals made this connection (which, for comrades who claim that everything is inter-linked, should be an easy connection to spot, one would think)?

Over and above blaming everyone and everything else for this sorry state of affairs -- are you kidding!?

The long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism and its core theory (i.e., 'Materialist Dialectics') are the only two things in the entire universe that are not interconnected, it seems.

(2) High Church Dialecticians [HCDs]: These Marxists are in general openly contemptuous of the 'sophomoric ideas' found in most of the DM-classics (even though many of them seem to have a fondness for Engels's first 'Law').

More often than not, HCDs reject the idea that the dialectic operates in nature, sometimes inconsistently using Engels's first 'Law' to justify this 'leap' (which tactic allows them to claim that human history and development are unique), just as they are equally dismissive of these simple LCD souls for their adherence to every last word in the classics.

[Anyone who knows about High Church Anglicanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Church) will know exactly of what I speak.]

HCDs are mercifully above such crudities; they prefer the mother lode -- direct from Hegel, Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks and/or the writings of assorted latter day Hermeticists like Raya Dunayevskaya, CLR James, Tony Smith, Tom Sekine, Robert Albritton, Chris Arthur, Bertell Ollman, or Slavoj Zizek --, sometimes cut with a few kilos of hardcore jargon drawn straight from that intellectual cocaine-den otherwise known as French Philosophy, or, perhaps even from that hot-bed of systematic confusion: the Frankfurt School.

Or, worse still, that haven of intellectual heroin: the work of Heidegger.

HCDs are generally, but not exclusively, academic. Tortured prose is their forte, and pointless existence is their punishment.

At least LCDs try to pretend that their ideas are relevant to the class struggle.

High Church dialectics, in contrast, is just good for the CV.

[And clearly, the latter sort of dialectics is not an "abomination" for that section of the bourgeoisie that administers Colleges and Universities.]

Both factions are, however, well-stocked with conservative-minded comrades, happy in their own small way to copy the a priori thought-forms of two-and-a-half millennia of boss-class theory, seldom pausing to give any thought to the implications of such easily won knowledge. If knowledge of the world is a priori, and based solely on armchair speculation, reality must indeed be Ideal.

More details, references and links can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

[heiss93]

Here is a summary of his work http://books.google.com/books?id=ZO1-mHHZchQC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=%22maurice+cornforth%22+analytic&source=bl&ots=YwkgEhWRBL&sig=z_hcOaYB7FCgK50UIXQ3TA844DY&hl=en&ei=B4PJSeWXJIuSMu7h_N0D&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result#PPA236,M1

[heiss93]

Rosa, in Communism and Philosophy, Cornforth's arguments against the Hegelian and Dialectical influence on Marxism, is pretty similar to your own claims, and he essentially argues for Marxist Empiricism. So your arguments are more against his CP politics, than his philosophical views, at least in his later years.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Heiss, my arguments against Hegel and DM are in no way similar to Cornforth's -- did you have something specific in mind?


So your arguments are more against his CP politics, than his philosophical views, at least in his later years.

I'm sorry, how did you work that out?

[JimFar]

I don't really see Conforth's later work as being like Rosa's. Some of his later work does bear some resemblance to the work of the Analytical Marxists. And Conforth, not entirely unlike G.A. Cohen, was a great admirer of Gilbert Ryle. I also perceive some similarities between his later work and some of the later trends in Soviet philosophy where there were attempting to use some of the techniques of analytical philosophy to defend dialectical materialist theses.

[heiss93]

In Communism & Philosophy, Cornforth attempts to expurge Marxism of its' philosophical baggage. He denies the Dialectics of nature, and writes that dialectics comes entirely from sociology. He also claims that Marxism, while using Hegelian phrases, was a lifelong opponent of Hegel, all the way from the 1830s.

For example many Marxists have attempted to use Marx's writings on Epicurus, to claim Epicurean materialism. Cornforth argues that this was based entirely on Epicurus' reputation as an atheist, and not on any value of his theories in themselves.

Cornforth fairly firmly states that Marxism should be based on sociology and HistoMat alone, and not on diamat or nature.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thanks for that Heiss, but Cornforth's actual arguments bear very little resemblance to my own.