Jerry, thanks for Sensat's website. He wrote quite a perceptive essay on methodological individualism in Philosophy and Economics. I think Sensat's notes on Lukacs will prove helpful. Perhaps OPE-L'ers know the work of Tom Rockmore on Lukacs *Irrationalism: Lukacs and the Marxist View on Reason* (Temple, 1992); Rockmore has a new book out as well *Marx after Marxism: The Philosophy of Karl Marx*. The Lukacs books is really very good because it less an exegesis than a comprehensive criticism of Lukacs' philosophical writings. For he examines each premise in Lukacs' argument that the cognitive status of so called bourgeois thought is limited as a result of the incompatibility between the kind of rationality prevalent in modern society and epistemological holism. (1) There is a kind of thought typical of capitalism (2)capitalist thought does not penetrate beyond the appearance ot the essence of modern society (3)this inability is not contigent, but constitutive of capitalist thought (4)it follows from teh relation of thought to the organization of the means of production (5)within capitalism, rationality appears as rationalization, cocnerned only with the maximization of profits (6) when rationality takes the form of rationalizatio, it is unable to grasp the whole (7) a grasp of the whole is the condition of knowledge (8)the inability to grasp the whole maintains the status quo ante and impedes, even prevents social change. p. 94-95 Then Rockmore subjects the argument to critical scrutiny. It seems to me that the Lukacs book has been unduly ignored. All the best, Rakesh >The extensive notes for a course taught by Julius Sensat >in Fall 2000 on "Problems in Marxism" are online. The >first part of the course covered _Capital_ and the 2nd part >of the course was on 'Marxism and Philosophy' and centered >on the writings of Lukacs. See: ><http://www.uwm.edu/~sensat/438/schedule.html>http://www.uwm.edu/~sensat/438/schedule.html > >The references are sometimes rather old. This is the case >with his notes on "value accounting and price accounting": ><http://www.uwm.edu/~sensat/438/notes06.html>http://www.uwm.edu/~sensat/438/notes06.html > >Sensat, many years ago, was the co-author with Marc Linder >of _Anti-Samuelson_. He is a contributing editor to _Science >& Society_. > >In solidarity, Jerry
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