Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after

[Chipper]

http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=18920

Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde

by Richard Owen
The Times

Karl Marx, who famously described religion as “the opium of the people”, has joined Galileo, Charles Darwin and Oscar Wilde on a growing list of historical figures to have undergone an unlikely reappraisal by the Roman Catholic Church.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said yesterday that Marx’s early critiques of capitalism had highlighted the “social alienation” felt by the “large part of humanity” that remained excluded, even now, from economic and political decision-making.

Georg Sans, a German-born professor of the history of contemporary philosophy at the pontifical Gregorian University, wrote in an article that Marx’s work remained especially relevant today as mankind was seeking “a new harmony” between its needs and the natural environment. He also said that Marx’s theories may help to explain the enduring issue of income inequality within capitalist societies.

“We have to ask ourselves, with Marx, whether the forms of alienation of which he spoke have their origin in the capitalist system,” Professor Sans wrote. “If money as such does not multiply on its own, how are we to explain the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few?”​

Mindboggling???

 

[Gene_Church]

http://pewforum.org/news/rss.php?NewsID=18920

Vatican thumbs up for Karl Marx after Galileo, Darwin and Oscar Wilde

by Richard Owen
The Times

Karl Marx, who famously described religion as “the opium of the people”, has joined Galileo, Charles Darwin and Oscar Wilde on a growing list of historical figures to have undergone an unlikely reappraisal by the Roman Catholic Church.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said yesterday that Marx’s early critiques of capitalism had highlighted the “social alienation” felt by the “large part of humanity” that remained excluded, even now, from economic and political decision-making.

Georg Sans, a German-born professor of the history of contemporary philosophy at the pontifical Gregorian University, wrote in an article that Marx’s work remained especially relevant today as mankind was seeking “a new harmony” between its needs and the natural environment. He also said that Marx’s theories may help to explain the enduring issue of income inequality within capitalist societies.

“We have to ask ourselves, with Marx, whether the forms of alienation of which he spoke have their origin in the capitalist system,” Professor Sans wrote. “If money as such does not multiply on its own, how are we to explain the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few?”​

Mindboggling???

I try to keep in mind when reading things from L’Osservatore Romano is not “the Vatican newspaper,” although it does describe itself as the “semi-official” paper. It has been a staunch supporter of the Papacy since its founding in the mid-1800s, and today reports Vatican activities.

Secular media frequently use articles that come from it to claim that they are Vatican pronouncements, when in fact, they often are not. The paper does report activities from the Vatican, but it also reports from its independent position the intrigue and personalities surrounding the Vatican.

 

[Corki]

I try to keep in mind when reading things from L’Osservatore Romano is not “the Vatican newspaper,” although it does describe itself as the “semi-official” paper. It has been a staunch supporter of the Papacy since its founding in the mid-1800s, and today reports Vatican activities.

Secular media frequently use articles that come from it to claim that they are Vatican pronouncements, when in fact, they often are not. The paper does report activities from the Vatican, but it also reports from its independent position the intrigue and personalities surrounding the Vatican.

And even L’Osservatore Romano, according to what is posted, wasn’t taking a position on Karl Marx but merely reporting the content of an article written by a philosophy professor.

The link in the OP doesn’t work so I don’t know what newspaper is being quoted here but this is very shoddy jounalism.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

I think you maybe misunderstanding what Professor Georg Sans is saying? I think he means: 120 years ago we were told capitalism oppresses most people to the benefit of a few. We largely dismissed that as communism, today we have to address whether capitalism oppresses most people to the benefit of a few and whether we were unjust to the man who taught us that.

Personally it seems to me no governing system has proven fair and changing government forms generally works best. Elections are thus the best option as that allows some degree of change. Though frankly, today I think there is a lack of difference between the parties.

repost of your link
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6884704.ece

 

[JReducation]

I think you maybe misunderstanding what Professor Georg Sans is saying? I think he means: 120 years ago we were told capitalism oppresses most people to the benefit of a few. We largely dismissed that as communism, today we have to address whether capitalism oppresses most people to the benefit of a few and whether we were unjust to the man who taught us that.

Personally it seems to me no governing system has proven fair and changing government forms generally works best. Elections are thus the best option as that allows some degree of change. Though frankly, today I think there is a lack of difference between the parties.

repost of your link
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6884704.ece

This is an interesting concept that does deserve some thought. I never looked at it that way before. I guess those of us who were born right after WW II grew up with the fear of Communism. We never separated Marx from the Commiunist system.

But now that the years have put distance between the former Communist threat and us, we can look at someone like Marx and ask, what part was he right about? Maybe we was not wrong on everything? Maybe his system was faulty, but not his thinking?

These are questions that we dared not ask ourselves from 1945 to 1990…

I’ll have to pray over this.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Sonic]

It’s funny that this article about Marx appeared. I was just reading about this very question a week ago.

Source… Catholic Encyclopedia on Philosophy: newadvent.org/cathen/12025c.htm

Is progress in philosophy indefinite, or is there a philosophia perennis?

Considering the historic succession of systems and the evolution of doctrines from the remotest ages of India down to our own times, and standing face to face with the progress achieved by contemporary scientific philosophy, must we not infer the indefinite progress of philosophic thought? Many have allowed themselves to be led away by this ideal dream. Historic Idealism (Karl Marx) regards philosophy as a product fatally engendered by pre-existing causes in our physical and social environment. Auguste Comte’s “law of the three states”, Herbert Spencer’s evolutionism, Hegel’s “indefinite becoming of the soul”, sweep philosophy along in an ascending current toward an ideal perfection, the realization of which no one can foresee. For all these thinkers, philosophy is variable and relative: therein lies their serious error. Indefinite progress, condemned by history in many fields, is untenable in the history of philosophy. Such a notion is evidently refuted by the appearance of thinkers like Aristotle and Plato three centuries before Christ, for these men, who for ages have dominated, and still dominate, human thought, would be anachronisms, since they would be inferior to the thinkers of our own time. And no one would venture to assert this. History shows, indeed, that there are adaptations of a synthesis to its environment, and that every age has its own aspirations and its special way of looking at problems and their solutions; but it also presents unmistakable evidence of incessant new beginnings, of rhythmic oscillations from one pole of thought to the other. If Kant found an original formula of Subjectivism and the reine Innerlichkeit, it would be a mistake to think that Kant had no intellectual ancestors: he had them in the earliest historic ages of philosophy: M. Deussen has found in the Vedic hymn of the Upanishads the distinction between noumenon and phenomenon, and writes, on the theory of Mâyâ, “Kants Grunddogma, so alt wie die Philosophie” (“Die Philos. des Upanishad’s”, Leipzig, 1899, p. 204).

It is false to say that all truth is relative to a given time and latitude, and that philosophy is the product of economic conditions in a ceaseless course of evolution, as historical Materialism holds. Side by side with these things, which are subject to change and belong to one particular condition of the life of mankind, there is a soul of truth circulating in every system, a mere fragment of that complete and unchangeable truth which haunts the human mind in its most disinterested investigations. Amid the oscillations of historic systems there is room for a philosophia perennis — as it were a purest atmosphere of truth, enveloping the ages, its clearness somehow felt in spite of cloud and mist.

• “The truth Pythagoras sought after, and Plato, and Aristotle, is the same that Augustine and Aquinas pursued. So far as it is developed in history, truth is the daughter of time; so far as it bears within itself a content independent of time, and therefore of history, it is the daughter of eternity” [Willmann, “Gesch. d Idealismus”, II (Brunswick, 1896), 550; cf. Commer “Die immerwahrende Philosophie” (Vienna, 1899)].*

This does not mean that essential and permanent verities do not adapt themselves to the intellectual life of each epoch. Absolute immobility in philosophy, no less than absolute relativity, is contrary to nature and to history. It leads to decadence and death. It is in this sense that we must interpret the adage: Vita in motu.

 

[KyivAndrew]

Going to Marx unnecessary. Marx believed religion the opium of the masses and that we were all moved by economic concerns - economic determinism. I have found the whole enterprise of divorcing Marx from the Communist movement to be disingenuous.

Marxist 19th Century analysis can’t explain today’s economic inequalities.

 

[JReducation]

It’s funny that this article about Marx appeared. I was just reading about this very question a week ago.

Basically the point of the article is what we learned in the seminary many years ago. Truth is both constant and dynamic. It does not change, but it manifests itself differently in different times and cultures. If one is not careful, it can be mistaken as new, because it’s wearing a different outfit.

When applied to Marx, one must ask, was he on to some truth that he confused? If so, what was that truth? What you’re doing is taking his personality out of the equation so that you can get to the truth that he was grappling with. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it is an interesting question. What was the truth that haunted him and yet eluded him?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Sonic]

Basically the point of the article is what we learned in the seminary many years ago. Truth is both constant and dynamic. It does not change, but it manifests itself differently in different times and cultures. If one is not careful, it can be mistaken as new, because it’s wearing a different outfit.

When applied to Marx, one must ask, was he on to some truth that he confused? If so, what was that truth? What you’re doing is taking his personality out of the equation so that you can get to the truth that he was grappling with. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it is an interesting question. What was the truth that haunted him and yet eluded him?

Those are very good questions and certainly reasonable to ask. It might be edifying to read Chapter 2 of After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre, which… I think… concerns this very topic. The chapter is entitled Moral Disagreement Today and the Claims of Emotivism.

MacIntyre touches on this very discussion, and provides examples (arguments) from three differing ideologies. He then discusses how arguments can become shallow once removed from their historical context. Basically, many people argue from a philosophical stand point, but often argue without an understanding of it’s historical context or without regard for the argument’s relevance in the modern era. This is also the same for their understanding of arguments, which their ideologies oppose.

As an example, MacIntyre asks the question of whether Marx’s philosophical concepts are fully relevant to the needs and politics of 21st century society. While many of Marx’s concepts (about class struggle) may have had relevance in 19th century Europe, these very concepts may not be relevant to this day and age.

 

[JReducation]

Those are very good questions and certainly reasonable to ask. It might be edifying to read Chapter 2 of After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre, which… I think… concerns this very topic. The chapter is entitled Moral Disagreement Today and the Claims of Emotivism.

MacIntyre touches on this very discussion, and provides examples (arguments) from three differing ideologies. He then discusses how arguments can become shallow once removed from their historical context. Basically, many people argue from a philosophical stand point, but often argue without an understanding of it’s historical context or without regard for the argument’s relevance in the modern era. This is also the same for their understanding of arguments, which their ideologies oppose.

As an example, MacIntyre asks the question of whether Marx’s philosophical concepts are fully relevant to the needs and politics of 21st century society. While many of Marx’s concepts (about class struggle) may have had relevance in 19th century England, these very concepts may not be relevant to the this day and age.

This is a fascinating point. I’m not a philosopher. My degree is in Mystical Theology. But I think I can approach this from that angle, if you’ll bear with me and help me out here.

Let’s assume that it’s not Marx’s concepts that have relevancy today. But those concepts were rooted in a historical experience. As you say, philosophy taken out of history, looses its muscle tone. But what if we not take it out of history? What if we ask ourselves another question?

Could Marx have been grappling with a spiritual reality?

Having an antipathy for religion, he tried grasp it through materialistic philosophy. Then, what would happen would have been the equivalent of grabbing the bull by the B**lls, instead of by the horn. When you do that, the bull kicks.

In other words, Marx’s system failed, because he took God out of the equation, not because God was absent. What he may have been grappling with could very well have been the same spiritual values that the Holy Father presented in his latest social encyclical, Truth in Charity. The difference between Marx and Ratzinger is that Ratzinger allows for God.

If we look at it from a spiritual perspective, God was speaking to the world at the time about itself (the world). But Marx could not identify the source of the voice. Thus he attributed the voice to the masses. When in fact, it was not the masses who were speaking the great truths about social justice, but God himself. The masses were to be the beneficiary, not the protagonist of a social truth. Marx makes the masses out to be the protagonist. Man becomes the maker of his own destiny, which only leads to nihilism.

What do you think?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Sonic]

What do you think?

What do I think? I think we’re on the same page here, as I have just been studying the Neo-Scholastic movement and am planning to read “Aeterni Patris” by Leo XIII (4 Aug., 1879) in hopes of adding to my thesis on Art.

The Scholastics were responsible for separating Theology from Philosophy, and this allowed Truth to be used as a guide for Philosophy and Science. When Philosophy and Theology were merged together, it often lead to attempts at reinterpreting Theology every time someone came up with a new Philosophical system. This sometimes lead or contributed to various heresies. Another good thing was that Scholastics also divided Science from Philosophy, and created a system that would allow for a constructive discussion of knowledge.

It’s interesting that MacIntyre ends up arguing for a return to an Aristotelian type of academics, which influenced the Scholastics and Neo-Scholasticism.

As you have said, Marx removed God out of the question (Theology) and removed the very compass that would have allowed him to find his answer. Marx took his observations from the masses, and interpreted them as the voice or source of that spiritual reality.

Experimental (Empiric, or Analytic) method

The method of all Empiric philosophers is to observe facts, accumulate them, and coordinate them. Pushed to its ultimate consequences, the empirical method refuses to rise beyond observed and observable fact; it abstains from investigating anything that is absolute. It is found among the Materialists, ancient and modern, and is most unreservedly applied in contemporary Positivism. Comte opposes the “positive mode of thinking”, based solely upon observation, to the theological and metaphysical modes. For Mill, Huxley, Bain, Spencer, there is not one philosophical proposition but is the product, pure and simple, of experience: what we take for a general idea is an aggregate of sensations; a judgment is the union of two sensations; a syllogism, the passage from particular to particular (Mill, “A System of Logic, Rational and Inductive”, ed. Lubbock, 1892; Bain, “Logic”, New York, 1874). Mathematical propositions, fundamental axioms such as a = a, the principle of contradiction, the principle of causality are only “generalizations from facts of experience” (Mill, op. cit., vii, #5). According to this author, what we believe to be superior to experience in the enunciation of scientific laws is derived from our subjective incapacity to conceive its contradictory; according to Spencer, this inconceivability of the negation is developed by heredity.

Applied in an exaggerated and exclusive fashion, the experimental method mutilates facts, since it is powerless to ascend to the causes and the laws which govern facts. It suppresses the character of objective necessity which is inherent in scientific judgments, and reduces them to collective formulae of facts observed in the past. It forbids our asserting, e.g., that the men who will be born after us will be subject to death, seeing that all certitude rests on experience, and that by mere observation we cannot reach the unchangeable nature of things. The empirical method, left to its own resources, checks the upward movement of the mind towards the causes or object of the phenomena which confront it.

source:newadvent.org/cathen/12025c.htm

 

[mpi]

So we are discussing a pronouncement that did not come from the Vatican, but instead was the ramblings of a leftist journalist within the some newspaper?

How about my pronouncement, which is backed up by social encyclicals over the past 100 years - Marxist theories are JUNK, and against Catholicism? No need to look for a shiny nugget is a mound of cow dung.

 

[mpi]

This is a fascinating point. I’m not a philosopher. My degree is in Mystical Theology. But I think I can approach this from that angle, if you’ll bear with me and help me out here.

Let’s assume that it’s not Marx’s concepts that have relevancy today. But those concepts were rooted in a historical experience. As you say, philosophy taken out of history, looses its muscle tone. But what if we not take it out of history? What if we ask ourselves another question?

Could Marx have been grappling with a spiritual reality?

Having an antipathy for religion, he tried grasp it through materialistic philosophy. Then, what would happen would have been the equivalent of grabbing the bull by the B**lls, instead of by the horn. When you do that, the bull kicks.

In other words, Marx’s system failed, because he took God out of the equation, not because God was absent. What he may have been grappling with could very well have been the same spiritual values that the Holy Father presented in his latest social encyclical, Truth in Charity. The difference between Marx and Ratzinger is that Ratzinger allows for God.

If we look at it from a spiritual perspective, God was speaking to the world at the time about itself (the world). But Marx could not identify the source of the voice. Thus he attributed the voice to the masses. When in fact, it was not the masses who were speaking the great truths about social justice, but God himself. The masses were to be the beneficiary, not the protagonist of a social truth. Marx makes the masses out to be the protagonist. Man becomes the maker of his own destiny, which only leads to nihilism.

What do you think?

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

By great truths of social justice I hope you mean: 1. man should be the primary beneficiary of his own labor, and 2. that the welfare state is an abomination against God.

 

[canadianguy1143]

By great truths of social justice I hope you mean: 1. man should be the primary beneficiary of his own labor, and 2. that the welfare state is an abomination against God.

Can you explain what you mean by that? Is it your belief that some collecting welfare from the State is committing an abomination against God??

 

[ibkc]

Going to Marx unnecessary. Marx believed religion the opium of the masses and that we were all moved by economic concerns - economic determinism. I have found the whole enterprise of divorcing Marx from the Communist movement to be disingenuous.

Marxist 19th Century analysis can’t explain today’s economic inequalities.

I agree. To accept Marx’s analysis as valid for us is to accept that economic conditions in the time and place in which he lived still exist. They do not, and it is arguable that they ever existed at all in the United States.

 

[mpi]

Can you explain what you mean by that? Is it your belief that some collecting welfare from the State is committing an abomination against God??

The abomination is the CREATION of a welfare state by government - please read Centessimus Annus (especially para 48). The condemnation of the welfare state continued in Caritas in Veritate as well.

 

[JReducation]

The abomination is the CREATION of a welfare state by government - please read Centessimus Annus (especially para 48). The condemnation of the welfare state continued in Caritas in Veritate as well.

No one is talking about a welfare state. The Church is talking about the obligation of the state and its citicens to protect and care for the most vulnerable and to ensure that all citizens have access to the resources available to society.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[mpi]

No one is talking about a welfare state. The Church is talking about the obligation of the state and its citicens to protect and care for the most vulnerable and to ensure that all citizens have access to the resources available to society.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Marxism IS the ultimate welfare state. If you talk about Marxism, you are talking about the welfare state - a welfare state that will ultimately fail its people. It promises something it cannot deliver in the long run. Hence, the condemnation of the welfare state condemned by the last two Popes. To paraphrase the Holy See - it makes people lazy as it deprives people of their God-given creative energy and ambition to work.

Never judge Marxism by its “good intentions”. Its results fail and Catholicism knows this.

 

[Kaninchen]

Marxism IS the ultimate welfare state. If you talk about Marxism, you are talking about the welfare state - a welfare state that will ultimately fail its people.

In Marxist analysis, the state ‘withers away’ so, ultimately, there is no ‘welfare state’ because there is no state.

 

[JReducation]

Marxism IS the ultimate welfare state. If you talk about Marxism, you are talking about the welfare state - a welfare state that will ultimately fail its people. It promises something it cannot deliver in the long run. Hence, the condemnation of the welfare state condemned by the last two Popes. To paraphrase the Holy See - it makes people lazy as it deprives people of their God-given creative energy and ambition to work.

Never judge Marxism by its “good intentions”. Its results fail and Catholicism knows this.

I understand what you’re saying. But did you read what I posted above for Sonic? I explain there the reason why Marxism fails and how there is a greater spiritual reality that Marx was being called to see, but did not.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF