The Value Doctrine of Karl Marx 9780231898089

Table of contents :
PREFACE
CONTENTS
I. MARX AND THE MYSTERY
II. MARX AND THE ANGELIC SCIENTISTS
III. THE UNIVERSE AND THE UNIVERSE OF COMMODITIES
IV. THE UNIVERSAL SCIENCE OF UTILITY
V. MIND, UTILITY, AND THE GOOD

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THE VALUE DOCTRINE OF KARL MARX

THE VALUE DOCTRINE OF KARL MARX

By ALBERT G. A. BALZ Corcoran Professor of Philosophy University of Virginia

ÇE? KING'S C R O W N

PRESS

MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS . NEW YORK

1943

COPYRIGHT 1943 BY A L B E R T G. A. B A L Z Printed in the United States of America

King's Crown Press is a division of Columbia University Press organized for the purpose of making certain scholarly material available at minimum cost. Toward that end, the publishers have adopted every reasonable economy except such as would interfere with a legible format. The work is presented substantially as submitted by the author, without the usual editorial attention of Columbia University Press.

PREFACE The reader may conclude, as he reads this essay, that its purpose is two-fold. Directly, it attempts a philosophical and critical investigation of Marx's analysis of value. Indirectly, and as it were, unintentionally, it takes advantage of the analysis in order to suggest an ontological basis for a general theory of value. Moreover, the reader may find a certain perversity in its peculiarities of expression and devices of symbolization. In all of these respects the essay reflects the situation that occasioned its composition and, once undertaken, fixed its course. An explanation of the occasion may add to intelligibility, and accordingly may be offered by way of Preface. As an incident of teaching duties, the writer was led to an examination of Das Kapital, or more accurately, of the initial value theory of that dreary and interminable work. The examination became in reality a joint enterprise conducted by Dr. Palmer Weber (then engaged in writing a dissertation on Hegel, a work prompted in part by an interest in Marx) and the writer. Dr. Weber discerned the Aristotelian manner of thinking pervading Marx's analysis of value. He called attention to the fact that Marx's language is at least reminiscent of terminology associated with the history of Aristotle's influence. There came of this an experiment, or more accurately, a game, continued over many meetings, with thrust and parry delivered with good-humored unscrupulousness. On the one hand, the game consisted in trying to effect a translation of Marx into Aristotelian terms—or rather into terms of Latin origin associated with the history of Aristotle's influence. On the other, the game involved a translation of Aristotle into Marx. We did not hesitate, from time to time, to invoke St. Thomas. The participants were aware of the fact that we were frequently using traditional Aristotelian terms, and even ideas, outside of the context of their usual employment. Since we were having fun, we cared little for this. Nevertheless, on more than one occasion, the game led to a rather serious consideration of Aristotle's ideas, and of the transformations they must undergo if they were to be directed upon subject-matter in a modern context. We became interested in the extension and applicability of the general Aristotelian point of view, even if it involved some distortion of traditional terminological usages. Moreover, we were equally

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aware that we were enlarging the Marxian analysis, passing beyond the specific interests which guided this theory of value, and were balancing a general ontologica! viewpoint against the limitations of Marxian thought in his value doctrine. In this prolonged game it was usually, but not invariably, the strategy of the writer to deliver an assault, by means of alleged Aristotelian armament, upon the Marxian value theory. It was usually, but not invariably, Dr. Weber's part to defend the Marxian analysis even if it involved a counter-attack not only upon the Stagirite but even upon St. Thomas. Circumstances forced the combatants to bring the game to an end—like most philosophical games it was broken off rather than ended. For each of us, I am sure, it would be enjoyable to resume it. The contest developed some convictions. Both became convinced, I believe, that the Marxian value analysis, not only in expression but also with respect to the implications of its ideas, involves a philosophical basis that is properly described as a metaphysical or at least an ontological point of view. W e were convinced that the analysis is guided by a position, largely unexpressed, and probably not thought out, the character of which is such that 'Aristotelian' is not a misleading description of it. In brief, there is far more philosophy in the analysis of value than cursory reading would suggest. It is my opinion—I do not know whether this opinion would be shared by Dr. Weber—that the unsatisfactory outcome of Marx's analysis is due in no small degree to his failure to perceive the philosophical basis upon which he was proceeding. Whatever the reasons for it, the systematic relations of ideas he was employing, especially in their metaphysical foundations, went largely unnoticed. In consequence, the analysis is only partially supportable, or rather collapses. In any case, it appeared worth while to attempt an explicit statement of the ontological doctrine suggested in the Marxian analysis of value, and then, by giving systematic ordering to the doctrinal elements, proceed to estimate the soundness of Marx's conclusions concerning values. During the attempt, interest shifted from Marxian doctrine in the narrower sense to interest in the problem of a metaphysical basis for value doctrine. In this way, the essay came to have a two-fold purpose. Since the problem had been disclosed, or at least indicated, chiefly by our use (and mis-use?) of Aristotelian terms, it was natural to adopt these devices in written exposition. It must be admitted that this practice has some unfortunate consequences. To the reader without training in the history of thought, the terminology may seem fantastic. To the philosophically trained, as one kindly reader said of the essay when examined in manuscript form, its adaptation of the Aristotelian tradition is something of a tour de force. A greater difficulty, however, arises from the contrast between an analysis of existence implemented

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by that tradition and a modern attack which is based upon the procedures and results of modern physical science. An elaborate dictionary would be required to effect a satisfactory translation from one language into the other. Aristotle's approach to existence, and the language in which it is customarily expressed, reflects what might be described as a common-sense, or reportorial perception of the world. In brief, the terminology is peculiarly appropriate to the analytical description of the world when viewed as a collection of 'things'. It begins with natural entities, singular things, a world in which the chief items to be noticed may be regarded as things-and-their-respective-properties. A tree, a stone, a lion are, so to speak, natural entities or beings, as a house or a table are things, natural enough in one sense, but due in part to human artifice. These 'things', however, tend to dissolve and vanish, as it were, in the account of nature supplied by modern physics and chemistry. It is notable that the Marxian analysis of value, the factual point of departure, is a thing. It is a thing-and-its-properties, whether due to nature or to man. It is a thing-having-the-status-of-being-a-commodity upon which attention must be focussed. It is clear that for Marx, the physical sciences supply their own accounts, reflecting their fundamental concepts and procedures, of these 'things'. He would admit, as must all of us, that a table, in so far as it is an object for physical science, is whatever it is in accord with the views of such science. Indeed, the 'natural scientific' account of what a loaf of bread, a cow, a typewriter, 'consists of' might be radically altered as the sciences advance without affecting the matter-of-fact and the point of view appropriate to an analysis of value. A cow or a typewriter remain commodities, presumably, whether their constitutive features are occult qualities or bundles of innumerable electrons in relations too complex for detailed description. Somehow, values seem to attach to or to be connected with things, and economic life is bound up with the ways in which these things behave. Undoubtedly there are points where value-analysis must reckon with scientific declarations concerning things. But an ontology that starts with existence taken as a collection of things, with varying properties, and related to one another in and through these properties, seems peculiarly appropriate to the analysis of a commodity - or, for that matter, to the analysis of fine art. This, then, is offered by way of apologetic, in extenuation of the adoption, adaptation, and even the mis-use of an 'Aristotelian' machinery of expression in this essay, and in explanation of its two-fold purpose. The writer can but ask for the reader's indulgence. At least a conscientious effort has been made to attain consistency in the use of the devices. The apologetic should be supported by a confession. The writer has but an undergraduate's knowledge of Economics that is to say, he has no knowledge of that science. Moreover, he has scant ac-

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quaintance of the literature associated with Marxism and with its doctrines concerning history, society, and the state. I assume that Marx believed his analysis of value to be in part at least the ground of his views concerning these matters. I assume that he believed his analysis and these socio-political doctrines to be coherent each with the other. Whether such coherence obtains, I am in no position to estimate. Presumably, if systematic relations do exist, then the errors in his value-analysis are reflected in the remainder of his teachings, and that correction of the one would entail changes in the others. For lack of competence, I must be content with indicating these possibilities. The essay is a precipitate of the game that Dr. Weber and I enjoyed. I would like to state my belief that, in so far as it contains anything illuminating, either with respect to Marx's analysis or with respect to the philosophical problem of values, the essay is really of joint authorship. I must refrain from insisting upon this, however, since Dr. Weber did not participate in its composition, and I am unable to say to what extent he would accept its argument and conclusions. It can be said, however, that without the stimulus he provided and perceptions he provoked the essay could not have been written. I take pleasure in recording my indebtedness to Mr. Edward Ballard for his help in preparing the manuscript for the press, and to Miss Lucille Thomas and Mr. Herschel Elliott for undertaking the proof-reading. To the Research Committee of the University of Virginia I am deeply obligated, for without its generous assistance the publication of this essay could not have been achieved. A. G. A. B.

CONTENTS PREFACE I . MARX AND THE MYSTERY I I . MARX AND THE ANGELIC SCIENTISTS

Ν 1 5

I I I . T H E UNIVERSE AND THE UNIVERSE OF COMMODITIES

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I V . T H E UNIVERSAL SCIENCE OF UTILITY

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V . M I N D , UTILITY, AND THE GOOD

42

I

MARX A N D THE MYSTERY Das Kapital, as perhaps every reader will acknowledge, is a composite work. In part an economic treatise, in part socio-political, in part philosophical, its spirit varies from detachment to reformist zeal. It is not easy, at this point or at that, to determine the context within which a given passage is to be understood or the spirit with which it is written. But whatever may be a reader's estimate of Marx's doctrines, he will probably grant that the analysis of value is, or is intended to be, basic with respect to the entire body of doctrines. In appearance, the analysis proceeds within the context of economic science. This is due primarily to the materials employed. The choice of materials and the economic interest may be due to social and philosophical ideas and convictions associated in Marx's mind with the problem of value. The analysis, however, is or purports to be independent of such associations. Moreover, close scrutiny of Marx's analysis of value shows that it is more comprehensive than the economic materials would suggest. It may be the case that Marx's interest in the problem was primarily economic. It may be that the problem of value, according to his view, is expressed most significantly within the context of economics. The analysis, however, the present writer contends, is essentially 'metaphysical' or 'philosophical'. The economic materials in effect serve as a mask for what is in idea, if not in intention, a philosophical doctrine applied to the materials. The analysis is explicit in its economic expression. The metaphysics or ontology of value guiding the analysis is not wholly explicit, either in idea or in statement. Exposition of the doctrine is, in consequence, all the more difficult. Whatever may be thought of the above contention, it will surely be conceded that the transition from use-value to exchange-value is crucial. If it be the case that Marx's value doctrine is not merely associated with, but vitally related to his other teachings, then this transition is a basic point of articulation. Now usevalues have to do with things, with human organisms, and with the relations between things and these organisms. The analysis of use-value of necessity involves views concerning the nature of things. It implies, whether or not ex-

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pressed, whether or not fully realized by a thinker, an ontology, a general theory concerning existence. It is proposed, accordingly, to render explicit the more or less hidden ontology of Marx's analysis, and by this route to approach use-value and the transition to exchange-value. Difficulties attend the proposal. For this reason it is prudent to offer preliminary comments. It is venturesome for any interpreter to undertake to make explicit ideas he admits to be implied rather than directly expressed. The work of Marx opens with an analysis of the nature of a commodity. It does not claim to be concerned with a general theory of value, nor does it claim to offer an ontological basis for such a theory. At every point, then, there is the danger of reading into Marx's words ideas he neither intended nor held. But this danger besets all reading and interpretation. In any event, there is no reason to believe that thinkers recognize everything genuinely involved in the ideas they contemplate and seek to express. Whether this essay finds in Marx's analysis matters that are not really implied, and fails to find others that are there, must be left for others to determine. The writer can do nothing more than insist that the hazards of the enterprise have not gone unnoticed. A second preliminary observation must be added. The analysis offered in the opening pages of Das Kapital, and the ontology involved, is essentially Aristotelian in spirit and technique. At any rate, this study is based upon this conviction. It is hoped that the course of discussion will justify it. A preliminary examination of what is involved in the assumption is required. Marx begins with, or assumes, it is contended, an Aristotelian point of view with regard to the reality of the world. He is directly concerned with the nature of a commodity. But a commodity is a thing. It is a qualitied thing among the many qualitied things which make up the contents of the world. As for Aristotle, so for Marx, each and every 'thing' is a unique singular. N o singular can possibly replace another. Things, of course, are similar. Classification of things is possible. According to Aristotle, the ontologically real entity is a substance, a 'first' substance, a singular ; analytically regarded, this singular is a unity of matter and form. Accepting this Aristotelian approach, it is not astonishing that Marx's terminology should reflect the traditional terminology of Aristotelianism. This is not to assert that Marx's terminology is wholly Aristotelian, or that, when employing such terms or their equivalents, he employs them consistently with Aristotelian meanings. In the Aristotelian tradition, 'matter' has one set of meanings ; in modern usage, other meanings. At one time or another Marx seems to employ the term first in one way and then in the other. That he uses the term at critical points in a sense that can be described only as Aristotelian is a significant justification of this essay's contentions. And similarly with other terms.

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By Marx's own acknowledgment, a commodity, which is a thing, is a quite mysterious entity. It is important to attribute great weight to Marx's acknowledgment of mystery. It is a mystery that incites Marx towards the analysis of value, and his object is to render that mystery intelligible. The mystery, however, must not be looked for in the wrong place. It does not lie in this, that a commodity is a thing, but rather in this, that a thing can be a commodity. If we regard things just as particular existents, then, if there are any mysteries about them, the task of dispelling their mysteriousness belongs to natural science. With this Marx is not concerned. The economic process, however, in which things become transformed into commodities, somehow gives rise to a new mystery. In becoming mysterious as a commodity, it is to be noted, the thing nevertheless remains a thing. The resolution of the mystery can be accomplished only if the analysis of the commodity rests upon and retains the analysis of the thing. The Aristotelian sympathies of Marx insure that the analysis of what it means to be a thing must recognize the significance of singularity. For Aristotle, each thing is a this', a unity, and is perhaps inexhaustible for knowledge. Singularity implies an ultimate incommensurability of each thing with every other. If things differ, their differences can not be elided. But Marx perceives that the economic process involves a remarkable transformation. Things, irreducibly dissimilar and relatively incomparable in their respective realities, are brought into relations where they are compared, measured, and found to be equal or unequal. Their equality or inequality receives an arithmetical representation. Thus things unequal are treated as if they were equal, radically dissimilar things as if their dissimilarities were negligible. Yet something like this seems to occur when, for example, one exchanges an overcoat for a bicycle, or when oranges and cigarettes are equated with fifteen cents. How on earth does it come about that an edible thing, let us say, can be defined as equal to an inedible thing? It does come about, despite the fact that the edible things remain edible, and the inedible, inedible. Indeed, it can come about only because these things persist in their respective uniquely qualitied natures. Here is a mystery. This mystery, perhaps, is merely a special case of the general mystery of quantitative measurement. The world of things is indefinitely variable and rich in qualitative differences essential to the very being of a multitude of singulars. But our great sciences of things are quantitative. Now values, whatever they are, are nothing if not qualitative in their innermost being. If a man have five dollars, however, he may purchase for that sum an incredible variety of things: either a ham, or a Bible, or a coat, or x, or y, or ζ How can such dissimilars get involved in a situation in which, quite mysteriously, they become defined as equal ? And become so defined only under the condition that the ham is and

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remains a ham, a Bible a Bible, and so on ? If the Aristotelian attack upon existence means anything at all, it is an attempt to give full recognition to singularity while equally recognizing the similarities of things. Marx, it is contended, considered that things cannot be less than Aristotle said they were. When they become commodities, they retain this fullness of being, new characteristics accrue to them—and nevertheless they become equated in curious quantitative ways. The Aristotelian analysis of existence states the conditions under which mind can get at the intelligibility of things. Perhaps the commodity will prove to be intelligible—and mystery dissipated—under similar conditions. This essay, at least, proposes to interpret Marx's analysis of value in accord with this point of view.

II

MARX AND T H E ANGELIC SCIENTISTS A commodity, according to Marx, is first of all a thing. It is, then, in Aristotelian terms, a first substance, a unity of matter and form. Every thing can be pointed to by the phrase, 'a this' - a bed, a ham, a Bible. A commodity is also a valued thing. It is a thing that has value, that is valued ; in some sense it is appropriate to assert that it is a value. This valued thing, however, remains 'a thing'. Granted that it achieves the status of being a valued thing, or a value, this change of status accrues without loss of its nature as a unity of matter and form. The point of departure for analysis, as fixed by Marx, is then quite factual. A chair is a thing and it is also a commodity. Somehow this unity of matter and form does possess a two-fold character. As indicated before, there is according to Marx and he is emphatic about it - a deal of mystery in this fact. The analysis of the commodity, he declares, shows that it is not a trivial thing, but rather "that it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties."1 This characterization, even in its verbal form, should be taken seriously. It is indeed a prophetic utterance. The point of departure, both factual and queer, hints of metaphysics and theology as involved in the effort to grasp the intelligibility of the commodity. Whatever metaphysics and theology may be for a Marx, (he has both, I think, without knowing it), they are generated by the fact that a commodity is a very queer thing. Now a great deal may be said about a commodity, a great deal that, Marx thinks, everyone will take for granted. Every commodity is something of a mystery. It has a 'mystical character'.2 The mystical character of a bed, a ham, a typewriter, a coat, however, is accompanied in these things by much that isn't mysterious at all. This is an incautious statement, as will appear in the end. It is to be understood as representing common sense. What about such things is obvious? Such matters as these: a commodity, say a bed, satisfies human wants; 1 Capital, trans, from the 3rd. German ed., by Moore and Aveling, London, 1920, vol. I, p. 41. Unless otherwise indicated, all references are to this translation. 2

Ibid, p. 42.

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it is made out of something, wood, let us say ; a wooden bed differs from an iron bed, but both are beds ; moreover, beds are fitted for being-slept-upon, and men being what they are, they do and must sleep, and they make beds in order to sleep upon them. Common sense also recognizes that these things have a complex history. Each thing like a bed comes into being as a result of the confluence of many causes. If one wishes to understand a thing such as a bed, a distinction must be drawn between two fields of inquiry. T h e distinction of fields is a distinction for the effective prosecution of inquiry. T h e coming-into-being of, say, the bed requires that inquiry be pushed in two directions. On the one hand, there is an illimitable cosmic sea of things, (of events-in-process, if you w i l l ) . T h e totality, if it can be called a totality, is wholly independent of the existence of man. Indeed, if natural science can be trusted, men became a part of the content of this totality at a relatively late date. Many things came into being, had whatever careers they did have, and perished before men existed. Even during that stretch of time marked by the existence of men, there are innumerable things, an infinity of waves in the tumbled sea of being, to the existence of which no man contributes anything whatever. Theologians may declare that this very sea of being would not exist at all were it not for the fact that the Creator had man in mind when bringing forth the cosmos. Certain recondite philosophies, in subtle ways, may proclaim that human responsibility for the stars is unexpectedly real. But common sense and Karl Marx would at least assert that these theological and philosophical doctrines may be reserved for later systematic construction and the matter-of-factual point of departure be conceived without reference to them. And so, let us say, men did not fashion the moon and put it in the sky, nor place minerals under the Antartic ice-cap. A vast series of inquiries, then, can be launched without bringing man into the reckoning. On the other hand, and no less notably, there are many things which are alike in this, that they would not come into being if there were no human beings. There are waves in the total sea of being - minute events, if you please, in the indefinite dimensions of that sea - which would not occur if men did not trouble its waters. To what extent, and to what extent directly and to what extent indirectly, these waves are due to men is of little moment. It is the fact that they are due in part to men that is important. Human agency consequently indicates another line of causal inquiry. Without human agency, coal would not be found in railway cars. Without human agency, a tree might grow in the forest, but the transformation of its substance into a bed would never occur. Man, whatever specific mysteries attach to his being - and they are many — is a thing amid things. It is imperative that this be understood in the most literal sense. As a thing amid things - or a set of point-events in an ocean of point-events - he is

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affected by things and affects things. The metaphysical nakedness of the matterof-fact need not be disguised in learned phrases, such as adaptation to environment. Men and human society, men and the affairs of men, together with their history and the deposits of history, are all within the context of nature or existence. Since men are what they are, a man's actions upon things - what he does to things,-express his organization as a thing,his nature,his powers and capacities in their specific character and in their limitations. Warm bodies heat cooler bodies - this will apply to man no less than to other things, and broadly speaking there is little reason to make much ado over it. Such inter-influences do not significantly express the peculiarities of man any more than the fact that iron and gold both possess weight expresses the peculiarities of iron and gold. At the same time, every thing discloses its essential characteristics by the way in which it affects environing things. There are woodchucks in the world of things, and the world shows traces of their presence. Moreover, the traces, in some of their properties and qualities, indicate the specific powers and limitations of woodchucks. For example, woodchucks dig holes in earth, but not in granite. Men, however, do excavate granite. Accordingly there is a difference between men and woodchucks, and between earth and granite. Woodchucks, it may be, do not draw the distinction between the edible and the inedible exactly where men draw that distinction. Again, then, a difference between men and woodchucks and a difference in their concern with other things. This may be taken as a painfully elaborate and unnecessary way of saying what common sense would take for granted. But Marx's analysis of values depends upon this way of looking at existence. Here is a bed. Some man or some men, exercising skill and using tools, made the bed and made it out of wood. As we shall see, the statement could be vastly amplified without going beyond the area of common sense obviousness. It could be pointed out that the wood came from a tree which grew in the forest. The forest may be in part due to human nurture. Or it may have been found by Robinson Crusoe. The character of the wood, in the simple sense in which hard wood is properly so called, and soft wood is properly so called, and in the sense in which soft wood is more easily worked than hard wood, conditioned human making operations. Obviously, such statements are but a beginning in the recapitulation of what would be granted by common sense. In all of this, and in much more besides, Marx seems to imply, there are no metaphysical subtleties or theological niceties. In this Marx is hopelessly mistaken, or else for specific purposes he disregards the metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties involved in all this matter-of-factual common sense. In other words, the focus of analysis is not the general mystery surrounding

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everything, but the specific mystery that emerges when a thing assumes the status of a commodity. The 'mystical character' that concerns us, in the present limited context, is not that which attaches to a world in process. The mystical character is attached specifically to the coming-into-being of a thing like a bed and to the fact that the bed is found equal, let us say, to a certain number of pounds of a substance originally an integral part of a steer. What is this mystical character? and is the mystical character superficial or intrinsic? Let us call the commodity a mystical object. The objective of theory concerning it, presumably, would be two-fold. On the one hand, a so-called scientific account of its nature. It must be brought within the sweep of an appropriate scientific inquiry. In a special sense, questions concerning what it is and how it came to be what it is must be answered. In actual practice, one and the same thing may be brought into the sweep of several scientific inquiries. The distinctions, however, are primarily procedural and practical. On the other hand, an explication of the mystery attaching to the mystical object is required. The explication may mean the description of the thing in a new and different fashion, and the exploration of the metaphysical grounds of the thing and its mysteriousness. In this way the metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties are revealed. The commodity is two-things-in-one, perhaps three-things-in-one. The problem is to understand it. Now, as Aristotle would say, its intelligibility lies in its 'form'. A complete knowledge of a commodity must be knowledge of its two-or-three-in-one-ness. Otherwise, the commodity remains, not a mystical but a mystifying object, and there is no dispelling of the mystery. The two-fold character of the commodity prompts two trains of analysis. Its two-in-one-ness requires the unification no less than the distinction of the trains of analysis. Let us take a bed as illustration. It must be taken in three senses. First, it is a mystical object. Secondly, it is a physical thing, and specifically a wooden thing. Finally, it is not merely a physical thing, and a wooden thing, but a bed with all that common sense would regard as obvious when this word is used of a thing. It is moreover granted that this bed is an existing thing, in the sense that an inventory of the world's contents would include it in the enumeration. Somehow, in the economic circuit, this thing ( = bed) comes into possession of its mystical dimension; or, perhaps more accurately, the economic context permits it to make manifest its endowment of mystery. This occurs, however, without prejudice to its status as a physical wooden thing and as something related to the need of sleep. In the concreteness of its existence, and because of it, the object, the thingthat-is-a-bed, must provoke from inquiring mind two trains of analysis. It is proposed to represent the analyses by a free imitation of an Aristotelian mode

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of attack. In this mode, everything turns upon a fundamental distinction, that between 'matter' and 'form'. This mystical object, the thing, the bed, is said to be a unity of matter and form: M and F. Analysis must reveal the thing in its intelligibility and so far as it is intelligible. T h e thing itself, this concrete existence, is a singular. W h e n this is noted, something absolute has been granted. Analysis is conditioned by recognition of the immitigable singularity of existence. Hegel writes amusingly of the man who refused to eat cherries because he wished to eat fruit. Existence is of such a character that he who wishes to eat fruit must eat cherries, or apples, or oranges, or something of one or another kind. But Hegel might have added that he who wishes to eat cherries must consume either this cherry or that cherry. Curiously, this is the way in which cherries occur in nature. Even assembly lines produce automobiles that can be numbered. Recognizing, then, the enigma posed by the singularity of existence, analysis can proceed, as it were, in two directions. The one is symbolized by 'form', F, the other by 'matter', M. The objective of the analysis is maximal knowledge of the thing, an exhaustion of its intelligibility in so far as it is intelligible. It is to be noted that the attainment of maximal knowledge of the thing's nature involves maximal richness of the factor symbolized by form, F, and the reduction of the other component, matter, to minimal characterization. With the attainment of the maximum and the minimum, thought must re-affirm the recognition with which it began. That is to say, it must declare that things are just what they are and existences are singular. (Metaphysics and theology may go further than this metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties, in Marx's phrases, should not be dismissed as mere sardonic humor. But, for the time being, analysis may stop at the point indicated). The mystical object, the thing-commodity, it was said, provokes two trains of analysis. The duality of analysis must not be confused with two 'scientific' accounts of a thing, if we are thinking of two sciences selected from the many sciences. In point of fact, each of the two analyses is reflected in several socalled 'sciences'. It would be less misleading to think of two groupings or alliances formed among the many specialized sciences, each group investigating the thing from its own point of view and by means of the ideas and instruments appropriate to its objective. In the existing conditions obtaining within the field of science, it is not possible to define with precision the line of distinction between one science and another. Even more is it difficult to define groupings of sciences without prompting many questions. For ordinary purposes we customarily group the many sciences in various ways: the physical sciences, the social sciences, the biological sciences, the medical sciences, and so on. None of these are satisfactory for present purposes. How shall we characterize the two pro-

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posed analyses ? How shall we group the sciences, making selections from the many, so as to define two really distinguishable points of view, two relatively independent lines of inquiry? We cannot pause for a long discussion of the philosophy of science. Let us then adopt a device, neglecting the theoretical problems involved, in order to facilitate the study of the thing-commodity. A large group of sciences, we may say, involve human beings only as incidentally a part of their subject-matter or indeed virtually exclude them. Of course, human beings have physical and chemical properties, since they are things. But human beings, these things, are mere incidentals. For biology human beings are a special kind of living thing-but so are mice, dinosaurs, hawks, and butterflies. Such sciences are not centered about man as such. The nature of man does not form an essential part of the funds of ideas constituting these several sciences. Let us then form a first grouping, including such sciences as astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, geology, comparative anatomy. And let us crudely indicate their common character, their kinship, by calling them non-anthropocentric. Now another set of sciences are marked by the fact that man, his nature and properties, his comings and goings, are central. Such sciences may not be concerned exclusively with man, but man is a fixed point of reference for everything these sciences undertake. These sciences would not exist, not in the sense that there would be no (human) scientists but in the sense that they would have no distinctive subject-matter, if human beings did not exist. A few might be listed - human biology, human anatomy and physiology, economics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, history, political science, (human) pathology, and perhaps many others. Again, let us indicate kinship, in a crude manner and neglecting many problems, by calling this group anthropocentric. Now both the non-anthropocentric and the anthropocentric sciences seek to determine what the existing thing is. They are descriptive, not evaluative, in purport. Their methods are subordinate to their specific purposes but also controlled by a methodological dis-interest in questions ordinarily described as ethical, or with questions concerning the metaphysical basis of distinctions between right and wrong, good and bad, beauty and ugliness, and the like. The two sets of sciences propose to get at the intelligibility of a thing. They propose to exhaust its intelligibility, to attain an account of the thing's nature that shall be as complete as possible. The attainment of this end may well involve trying to account for how the thing came into being, for its generation, and to understand the conditions under which the thing could come into existence. Theoretically, of course, the task of each set of sciences is indescribably large. Practically, as a matter of experience and economy, the tasks are limited in one way or another.

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Each set of sciences, be it noted, are marked no less by what each does not undertake - by what it systematically neglects - as by what it does regard as within the field of its competence. Each account is then partial, yet each is valid. Thus, as Marx quite well perceives, every thing-commodity - sugar, oranges, beds, coal-is engulfed within the subject-matter of many sciences. More simply, the non-anthropocentric and the anthropocentric sets are both pertinent to the thing-commodity. The bed, let us say, exists in time and space. It is 'made of' wood, and wood comes from trees. Physics, chemistry, botany - in a word the non-anthropocentric group of sciences claim de jure (if not de facto) the task of inquiry concerning this thing. Whatever this set of sciences discovers concerning the nature of this thing, the bed, is a revelation pertinent to its existential richness of being. The fact that these sciences may neglect the fact that the bed is in the market-place, and that men sleep on beds, means nothing more than that the revelation is partial. It must be complemented - for the thing is a bed, men do become fatigued, and men want beds to sleep upon - through a second revelation to be provided by the anthropocentric sciences. Philosophers - and social scientists - are greatly bedevilled by complications which other scientists can serenely dismiss. Men are things amid things. So are woodchucks. In the one case as in the other, consequences of the fact can be discerned. But woodchucks do not cultivate the sciences, while men do. Methodologically, as a necessary expedient, the scientist or any man who seeks to know in any measure, must proceed as if his being a man were a mere irrelevant incident. He proceeds as if he were a dis-embodied intelligence that, despite the dis-embodiment, employs many corporeal things (microscope, eyes, hands, nerve-tissue, spectacles) as instruments in the pursuit of knowledge. The situation may cause practical concern on the part, say, of a physicist. But theoretically it is none of his business. To social scientist, however, and much more aggravatingly, to metaphysician and ethicist, everything due to the fact that men are knowers and makers must in some way be included in their reckoning. Now Aristotle knew nothing about angels. But the greatest of the Aristotelians, St. Thomas, knew a lot about them. Indirectly, this knowledge probably caused St. Thomas some difficulty. Men, he insisted, are quite definitely not angels. Nevertheless, when the human intellect contemplates the essences of things something occurs that is alarmingly though faintly suggestive of angelic life. Whatever else may be said, reference to situations as if angelically perceived may have value as an expedient. Let us then escape practical difficulties, and the need of repeated phrases of qualification and stipulation, by appealing to angels even if we do violence to Thomas' account of them. We shall need, as will appear, not one but two angels, (one anthropocentric-

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ally inclined, the other not), for we shall give to one a special analytical task and a different but equally specialized analytical task to the other. Let us describe the powers and limitations of angel number one. This angel is possessed of many sciences, and yet is markedly ignorant. He could qualify for membership in many learned societies - such societies as are devoted to the pursuit of mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, astronomy, and perhaps others. Specialization in knowledge, among earthly scientists, greatly restricts eligibility for membership in societies. Sociologists, for a random example, do not usually regard competence in physics as fulfilling the conditions for eligibility in their fraternity. W e are assuming that something analogous obtains with angelic minds. Angel number one, then, is understood to be as magnificently ignorant in various far-reaching ways as he is learned in other ways. Now this angel, as the eye of his mind roves over the domain of things, perceives (that is to say, takes cognizance o f ) the thing-commodity. Earthy common sense calls it a wooden bed, but not even the words are in the vocabulary of this nonanthropocentric angel. Now The Philosopher (it must be understood that our angels are essentially Aristotelian in intellectual organization, which is indeed befitting) has declared that the singular, a 'thing', is not intelligible to the point of complete exhaustion without a residuum of un-intelligibility. For a given human knower, the thing's intelligibility for that knower is relative to that knower's combination of knowledge and ignorance. Now something similar, though on a less restricted scale, prevails with every angel. What the mental gaze of angel number one apprehends, then, is determined not alone by what he knows, (the non-anthropocentric sciences), but equally by what he does not know. Consequently, it cannot be said that this angel perceives a bed. Neither word, commodity' or bed', could have meaning for him. There is, indeed, before him a specifically shaped thing, occupying space, enduring in time, and possessed of a host of properties. Stubbornly Aristotelian—he calls Aristotle The Philosopher, and so shall we—in his view of existence, the angel declares this thing to be a unity of matter and form. The angel is possessed of many contexts of ideas—human beings call these 'sciences'. In every such context, the thing is a unity of matter and form. But matter and form have a certain relativity of significance, each with respect to the other. (Later Aristotelians indicated this by an elaborate series of distinctions, sígnate matter and so on, but it is expedient to avoid such refinements wherever possible.) Now the angel's knowledge of the thing, his knowledge in the several contexts, together with the hierarchical organization of the contexts, can be represented symbolically. (It must be remembered that for common sense there is before us a commodity-thing and it is a wooden bed.) The knowledge of the angel must be represented, and, by

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limitation of the symbol's meanings, also his ignorance. Let Τ be this thing as a thing, while M t and F , stand for its matter and form. Then, Τ equals M , & F , But M , and F , can be interpreted in various contexts or given meanings approximately as they would be understood by means of various sciences. F, be it noted, the 'form' of the thing, stands for the nature of the thing, its 'essence' as attributed to the thing. F then carries a vast freightage of meaning. This freightage, however, is apportioned among various 'knowledges'. N o w , so to speak, if we limit the load of meaning to be represented by F, w e leave the remaining load to be represented indiscriminately by M . (Such abuses of T h e Philosopher's teachings make our angel shudder, but this must be neglected). Somewhat arbitrarily, let us assume as a starting-point that F, in the above formula represents shape, size, weight, and similar factors in the nature of the thing. Alongside of this lies the raw brute materiality of the thing. Since common sense asserts that the thing is made of wood, let the factor M , represent wood. But this is a mere beginning. W o o d , as the angel knows, is vegetable stuff ; it comes f r o m trees, and is chemically complex. M t is then a terminus of analysis only with respect to a limited objective. In itself it represents the point of departure for further analysis. There ensues a whole series of further distinctions between form and matter. T h e factor, M t is itself resolvable into a distinction between form and matter. As it were, the series of distinctions gradually impoverishes the significance of M, and progressively enriches the content represented by F. The process must end somewhere. It must end in two senses. In the first sense, the termination is relative to the angel's equipment of scientific knowledges or contexts and is further relative to the net outcome of scientific investigation to date. T h e Philosopher, it may be recalled, ended the analysis with simplest bodies - earth, air, fire, water. N o w T h e Philosopher defined the pattern in a masterly way, despite his understandable naivete. Einstein and others of his guild are somewhat less obvious. They surpass T h e Philosopher (or do they?) by reference to electrons, world-lines, cells, genes, or other such momentary finalities. ( O u r angel, be it noted, keeps his science up-to-date, which Aristotle and Marx, not being angels, could not contrive). But there is a second sense in which analysis must terminate. This could be called the empirically absolute terminus - not the absolute terminus. This terminus lies beyond the context of any particular science or set of sciences, although its validity must be acknowledged by each and every science. T h e terminus, so far as scientific inquiry is concerned, is acknowledged by a gesture that indicates the dimly encircling horizon of existence. T h e Philosopher had a term for this. It is what Aristotelians call 'prime matter.'

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It is worth while to consider this term more closely, as it will be put to use in several contexts later on. The significance of the term can be indicated by saying, with The Philosopher, that prime matter is what is never 'a this'. That is to say, it is never a thing or a collection of things. Yet it is implicated in the existence of each and every thing. It is substance, but only in the restricted sense of a sub-stratum. Our angel recognizes that it cannot be identified with 'matter' in the sense in which this term receives a determinate content of meaning from this or that science. Figuratively, it may be called the raw materiality of existence as such, yet in itself it cannot be said to exist, for only things, singular things (stones, apples, tables), exist. Prime matter can be identified with the bare possibility of existence, as sheer, unspecified, unpropertied potentiality. Concerning things, it can always be asserted that each thing is 'a this' and 'a this of such and such a sort.' Such statements indicate just what can not be said of primary matter. Let us then agree that prime matter signifies the limit of analysis, the empirical absolute limit, attained when analysis, passing through the various contexts of science has screened away all the qualities and properties that mark off one 'a this' from another 'a this.' W e are now prepared to understand why our angel successively resolves the factor M into further distinctions of form and matter. W e have noted that the thing, T, he is examining has been analyzed into components, F, and M t . The latter symbol has been taken as representing what, for common sense, is the material of the thing. The angel recognizes that it is wood. But wood too is form and matter. In its materiality it has specific characters which distinguish it from iron, let us say. Thus the factor M, can be represented Ftm

M ' Xif

The thing, T, is now, so to speak, understood in a scientific context concerned with the nature of wood, vegetable tissues, cellulose and so on. (The representation may seem to be a parody on The Philosopher's technique, but our angel is trying to be both loyal to the Stagirite and also as modern as Karl Marx !) The symbol, F, m suggests that the form of the thing, F t , has not been impoverished, but on the contrary, enriched. The symbol, M,. (a> , on the contrary, signifies impoverishment, reduction in the degree of specification, relative loss of distinction. It does not stand for wood, nor wood of any sort, but for some order of stuff of which wood is but one of several instances. It indicates, so to speak, the underlying raw materiality that remains when abstraction is made from the distinctive peculiarities of wood and from those of each of the several other instances in the same order. As the angel would say, the state of affairs is in principle quite simple. Lions, tigers, and leopards are cats, while felines and canines

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and other orders of beings are animals. This is the way in which The Philosopher looked at things, and we are following the pattern. Now having arrived at F (ni and M,.,.,, we must go on, not interminably but in the direction of the empirically absolute terminus. For example, cellulose (or wood and that type of stuff) could be brought into the contextual scrutiny of chemistry, with distinctions between the organic and the inorganic, between the chemical elements, and so on until we exhaust the resources of chemistry. Thus F,„ is replaced by F„tui, and this by something indicative of the cumulative scientific knowledge of just what this thing, T, is. Mt.