Born and raised in the US, I am now learning that there was a substantial literature developed in so called classical India about how to conduct a rational debate (see Bimal Matilal The Character of Logic in India, Jonardon Ganeri Philosophy in Classical India: The Proper Work of Reason). While the rudiments and tricks of rational debate were intensively analyzed by Buddhists, Jainis and others, the topics of debate seem to have tended towards metaphysical questions rather than those of ethics and politics as in Ancient Greece. Yet there may be some lessons from the past which may prove useful in developing a new logic and ethics for internet debate in particular. One shining example to me of ethical argumentation was Allin's discussion with me of the transformation problem a long time ago. As it was becoming clear that I had not really grasped what many thought the problem was, Allin then contrived an example so I could understand what the problem was thought to be. That is, Allin knew that in a reasonable debate, one has to give criticisms in such a way that the opponent can grasp them. Of course, after having grasped this (putative) problem of the maintainence of two equalities, I as a stubborn ass did conclude the whole problem is a pseudo problem (the inputs are not in the form of values or direct prices as Fred and Alejandro say; and even if they were, the second equality should not be postulated as an invariance condition in that bizarre kind of fixed point iteration in which the technical conditions are imagined to be fixed period after period, and the second equality does not have to be regarded as invariance condition to maintain the Marxian bedrock thesis that unpaid live labor alone creates surplus value, anyway) but my understanding was considerably raised by the way in which Allin proceeded. I imagine that Allin is a very good teacher. Another topic: I think David Y will find enough revisionism to occupy him for quite some time in Meghnad Desai's Revenge of Marx (Verso, 2002)--an exasperating (albeit massively erudite) book as Desai doubtless intended. Will someone on OPE-L play Luxemburg to Lord Desai's Bernstein? I sure hope so... Rakesh
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