Dear Reader,
Marx addresses a special case of «aufheben»-conservation/subsumption processes in
the [unpublished] so-called “6th Chapter” of «Das Kapital»,
in the context of the self-development of the [incarnated and ‘agented’ and reproduced by humans] capitals-system --
from an early ‘ascendance phase’ of that system, characterized by the
‘“[merely] formal
subsumption
of the labor-process under capital”’, toward a zenith, and then toward a
‘descendance phase’, of that system, increasingly characterized by the ‘“real subsumption of the
labor process under capital”’.
In this blog entry, I focus on a more general
case of dialectical, categorial subsumption,
where -- and recurrently so -- a ‘‘‘formal subsumption’’’
of one or more priorly-irrupted
or priorly-evoked ontological
categor(y)(ies),
by a most-recently-irrupted or most-recently-evoked ontological category, is succeeded by a ‘‘‘real subsumption’’’ of
that/those
earlier-irrupted
or earlier-evoked ontological categories, by
that most-recently-irrupted, or most-recently-evoked -- and therefore ‘‘‘meristemal’’’/ ‘‘‘vanguard’’’ -- ontological category.
An example
of this progression
from ‘‘‘formal’’’
to ‘‘‘real’’’
subsumption, in
the context
of systematic dialectics, is that for the simplest categorial-calculus dialectical
‘meta-model’
of Marx’s «Das Kapital» --
for step 2, )-|-(2 =
() C ()2^2 = C4 = C + M + qMC + K;
for step 3, )-|-(3 =
() C ()2^3 = C8 =
C + M + qMC + K + qKC + qKM + qKMC + qKK.
-- wherein this ‘meta-model’ exhibits, in its
step 2, a ‘‘‘formal subsumption’’’ of the earlier-evoked categories of
exchange-value/social
relations of
production -- Commodities
and Monies -- by the ‘‘‘Kapitals’’’/wage-labors, exchange-value/social relation of
production category.
Formally, at step 2 of its
presentation, its
‘‘‘Kapitals’’’ category already
«aufheben»-subsumes
its Commodities, Monies, and Money-mediated
Circulations
of Commodities [qMC] categories, by its mere, “additive” [‘+’], presence in this step, because K has become the new leading category, surpassing,
hence subordinating and demoting, all previously-presented
categories, in complexity, in thought-concreteness -- in determinateness
-- and in aptness for the Domain
[‘kapitalist society’] being presented, systematically, in «Das Kapital».
And yet, thereby, it has not yet presented the forms/categories which express the incorporation and integration
of those three pre-evoked
categories in[to] a self-reproducing system of [especially industrial]
‘‘‘Kapitals’’’.
So far, in presentation step 2, K connotes mainly the still present
descendants of the early, pre-capitalism, “antediluvian species of capital” -- primarily mercantile capital
-- which are confined to the Monies/Commodities Circulations-processes of social reproduction, but
which do not
directly re-organize and dominate its ‘productions-processes’
as well.
It is in step 3 of this ‘meta-model[ed]’ presentation that the ‘‘‘real subsumption’’’,
by the ‘‘‘Kapitals’’’
category, of
all of its earlier-evoked categories,
arrives explicitly, in the form of the
superposition [‘+’] of the categories
‘‘‘Commodity-Kapitals’’’ [qKC],
‘‘‘Money-Kapitals’’’ [qKM],
and ‘‘‘Circulations
of the Total Social Capital’’’ [qKMC].
The latter category, qKMC, connotes the [partial]
take-over, subsumption,
or appropriation,
by the ‘‘‘Kapitals’’’ category, K or qK, of
the earlier-evoked category of the simple Circulations-of-Commodities-by-Monies
processes [qMC], a take-over which evokes the existing category of the realization of
surplus-value profits via the social circulations
of ‘‘‘Commodity-Kapitals’’’ [qKC]
and of ‘‘‘Money-Kapitals’’’
[qKM],
i.e., of ‘‘‘Kapitals’’’ as a whole, in their alternating,
“metamorphosizing” forms of ‘‘‘Commodity-Kapitals’’’ [qKC] and
‘‘‘Money-Kapitals’’’ [qKM],
by which Kapital
takes full command of both the circulations-processes and the productions-processes of human-societal self-reproduction.
An example
of this progression
from ‘‘‘formal’’’
to ‘‘‘real’’’
subsumption,
in the context
of [psycho]historical dialectics, is that for the hypothesis of
Dr. Denise Schmandt-Besserat, regarding the first genesis of written language,
in ancient Mesopotamia.
Early-on, per this hypothesis, temple dues contributions, as
well as debts, were recorded via fired clay token ‘micro-icons’, that
represented individual units of specific kinds of goods donated/owed, tokens which
were kept together, late in the ‘meta-evolution’ of this accounting praxis, by
depositing them into hollowed-out wet clay envelopes, envelopes that were later
fired.
Because these clay envelopes were opaque, auditing a debt,
or a tithe, required breaking open the envelope containing the record thereof,
and, thereafter, also required the labor of creating a new envelope to re-house
the tokens representing that record.
At some point, accountant-scribes began to press the hard,
fired clay tokens, that were to be put inside a clay envelope, into the wet
clay of the outer surface of that clay envelope, before depositing those clay tokens
inside that clay envelope, and firing that envelope, thus leaving “2-dimensional” impressions of the tokens inside,
on the outside of the envelope, thereby making
auditing less laborious.
Thus was born a new ‘meme of representation’ -- of 3-dimensional objects [e.g., the fired clay tokens]
by “2-dimensional” marks in clay.
For a long time, a dual, redundant representation system
persisted -- token-marks on the outside of the clay envelopes, tokens
full-blown inside those same clay envelopes.
This dual, redundant representation phase represents the ‘‘‘formal subsumption’’’ phase, of the 3-D
‘tokenology’ meme, by
the “2-D” ‘tokenography’ meme.
However, at a certain critical point, scribe-accountants
stopped hollowing out wet clay slabs, to form them into clay envelopes, and,
instead, molded those wet clay slabs into solid wet-clay tablets, upon which “2-D” marks were made by impression, and by ‘“incision”’.
This clay tablets stage instantiates the ‘‘‘real subsumption’’’ of
the 3-D ‘micro-iconic’ representation meme, by the meme
of “2-D” representation, and leads on to the full
cuneiform system of writing.
In general, in NQ dialectical-algebraic terms,
‘‘‘formal subsumption’’’
is ‘sum-subsumption’, ‘additive [‘+’] subsumption’, or
‘superpositional subsumption’, by
the content represented by the ‘‘‘meristemal’’’ category, for a given stage in, e.g., a Dyadic Seldon Function dialectical ‘meta-model’, of all of the earlier-‘extantized’ ontological-categorial content of that ‘meta-model’, via the ‘qualitative superposition’ processes signified by
the NQ versions of the “plus sign” -- non-amalgamative, momentary/stroboscopic non-interaction-operation ‘separator symbols’, that sign the momentaneous
formation of the ‘cumulum’
of ontologies
present
for that stage, just prior to the inception of the category-interactions/-multiplications
that generate the successor stage/‘cumulum’ representation.
In general, in NQ dialectical-algebraic terms,
‘‘‘real subsumption’’’
is ‘multiplicative subsumption’, or
‘product subsumption’, and ‘[allo-]hybridization subsumption’, by the content represented by the ‘‘‘meristemal’’’ category-symbol,
for a given
stage in, e.g., a Dyadic Seldon Function dialectical ‘meta-model’, when it generates
its incremental symbols for the next-stage
ontology representation,
via that ‘‘‘meristemal’’’
category-symbol
‘ontologically-multiplying’ itself against/interacting with, the category-symbols
representing all
of the content
of the earlier-‘extantized’, and still-[possibly-]extant, ontological-categorial content of that ‘meta-model’ that is represented in the given stage’s ‘cumulum’.
Regards,
Miguel
