On Wed, 16 May 2001, you wrote: > Re Paul C's [5589]: > > > I often say that when you can measure what you > are speaking about and > express > > it in numbers, you know something about it; but > when you cannot measure > it, > > when you cannot express it in numbers, your > > knowledge is of a meagre and > > unsatisfactory kind." (Kelvin) > > This either represents ignorance on the part of > Kelvin or taking a quote by Kelvin about > scientific theories out of context by Paul. > > Is our knowledge about psychology, > anthropology, history, etc. of a meagre and > unsatisfactory kind? Clearly so. > > One should also bear in mind that the objective > > of socialists is not to analyze the world but to > > change it. > > The tasks of analyzing the world and changing it > are necessarily linked. > > btw (relating this issue to the one above): what > 'percentage' of our knowledge that comes from > an examination of revolutionary history can > be expressed through numbers? > As far as I am aware there is as yet no serious quantitative work on revolutionary history. And the current status of revolutionary theory is a joke. It is certainly knowledge of a most unsatisfactory kind. -- Paul Cockshott, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland 0141 330 3125 mobile:07946 476966 paul@cockshott.com http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/people/personal/wpc/ http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/index.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Jun 02 2001 - 00:00:07 EDT