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I will reply to Rakesh tomorrow for today I run out of time, what with
hosting Ajit Sinha (on our list) in town for a lecture on value theory.
Chris,
Just a quick note. I think you are basically saying that Marx's
metholodogical approach never became settled in his mind (which would
explain the absence of a published methodological statement). But I see
don't how you conclude "For my money the key is to take seriously the
quotation Andrew gives at the top". Andrew's statement contradicts your
prior sentences (unless you think the "profound change" meant many things
including the deductive method).
Paul
***********************************************************************
Paul Zarembka, supporting RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
******************** http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
"C. J. Arthur" <cjarthur@pavilion.co.uk> said, on 04/03/00 at 11:54 PM:
>>Andrew Kliman
>[2693]
>>This is what Marx wrote about his relationship to Hegel, in a footnote
>>in _Capital_, Vol. II:
>>
>>"In a review of the first volume of _Capital_, Mr. Duehring notes that,
>>in my zealous devotion to the schema of Hegelian logic, I even discovered
>>the Hegelian forms of the syllogism in the process of circulation. My
>>relationship with Hegel is very simple. I am a disciple of Hegel, and
>>the presumptuous chattering of the epigones who think they have buried
>>this great thinker appear frankly ridiculous to me. Nevertheless, I have
>>taken the liberty of adopting towards my master a critical attitude,
>>disencumbering his dialectic of its mysticism and thus putting it through
>>a profound change, etc."
>>
>>
>>Engels left this out of the version of Vol. II he edited. It appears in
>>Rubel's French edition. I have quoted from the English translation, in
>>Raya Dunayevskaya's _Rosa Luxemburg, Women's Liberation, and Marx's
>>Philosophy of Revolution_, p. 149. I do not know the exact date this
>>passage was written, but Dunayevskaya (ibid.) notes that "Marx wrote this
>>after volume 1 had already been published."
>>
>>
>For sure before he wrote the Afterword to the Second Edition of Volume 1
>or he would be repeating himself. No doubt this was why E left it out.
>(see also marx's letter 27 June 1870 to Kugelmann - "my critical manner
>of applying the Hegelian method" - for similar stuff which is also
>repeated in the Afterword.)
>On the disucussion in this stream: Marx's achievement was absolutely
>staggering; his stuff is not a footnote to Ricardo but is clearly of a
>different theoretical and methodological order. And he had to do it all
>himself with very lttle input from anybody - even when he writes to
>Engels the replies he gets are bemused. It is hardly surprising therefore
>if it lacks clarity, not just here and there because of the huge task he
>set himself substantively but at a deep methodological level. While
>Althusserians complain about Hegelian residues, I, with equal justice,
>could complain about Ricardian residues. I do not think Marx first worked
>out his method and then applied it; he developed and redeveloped the
>method at the very same time as he wrestled with the substantive issues.
>In this sense I do not think Capital is unfinished because he only
>published Volume 1, I think the thought is itself unfinished. It is
>poised between Hegel and Ricardo but does not imo represent a coherent
>synthesis. In order to express entirely new thoughts he not surprisingly
>borrowed from these people, and sometimes it carries some of that
>baggage. (just as in early Marx 'species being' is borrowed from
>Feuerbach but represents a new thought.)
>The lesson is that the reader has to take a step back from the text and
>try to make sense of it precisely by studying it in its own intellectual
>context.
>Not for boring history of thought purposes but to have a chance of
>understanding what is going on. Having done this my conclusion is that
>exegesis is not enough and the thought itself needs developing,
>clarifying etc. This is where crunch issues ar e faced because one has to
>choose ones own context of appropriation. Positivist? neo-Kantian?
>Historicist? For my money the key is to take seriously the quotation
>Andrew gives at the top. Chris A.
>P. S. Please note that I have a new Email address,
><cjarthur@waitrose.com>
>but the old one will also run until the summer. (To be doubly sure load
>both!)
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