From: clyder@gn.apc.org
Date: Thu Feb 13 2003 - 16:02:53 EST
Quoting Howard Engelskirchen <hengels@zoom-dsl.com>: > History as science, of course, not as a collection of facts and events but > as a study of modes of production, their life processes and transitions. > > Only a single science, I take it, because knowledge is a social product and > as a social product is a product of history. This is not to say that > consciousness defines what can be known. Like labor, the production of > knowledge is a process in which both nature and humans participate, and > nature has priority. But Marx would not exempt, as Mannheim did, the > physical sciences and mathematics from the sociology of knowledge. (For > example, and I certainly do not meant the question in a simplistic or > reductionist and mechanical sense, why do rates of change become significant > enough in mathematics to be independently discovered in England and on the > Continent at just the time the production of relative surplus value begins > to emerge as a practical problem?) This seems a little speculative. A recently discovered manuscript of Archimedes indicates that he had already formulated the differential calculus, this was reported in Science within the last 3 months. I see little reason to expect a need for analysing rates of relative surplus value in classical Syracuse. On the other hand the problem arises obviously in a number of areas - analysis of balistic trajectories for example, Archimedes may have needed it for some of his mechanical inventions. Also, generally reliable scientific > methods have shown over the past two centuries a systematic tendency in > human biology and genetics to ratify existing patterns of racial and social > power and subordination. I think this is fair enough > What scientists can imagine, the conceptual > resources they deploy, can depend on, e.g. the amplitude of anti-imperialist > struggle. Capital has been a powerful stimulus to the study of nature, but > a comparable flowering of the human sciences no doubt depends still on a > future free from the deformations of oppression and exploitation. From that > perspective, once attained, Marx's point would no doubt be easier to see. > > In solidarity, > > Howard > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "gerald_a_levy" <gerald_a_levy@msn.com> > To: <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu> > Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 6:43 AM > Subject: [OPE-L:8435] Re: History > > > > Re the following from [8431]: > > > > > "We know only a single science, the science of history" (Marx, _The > > > German Ideology_, Progress Publishers, p. 28). > > > > Is history, though, the "only" science? Indeed, is it a "science" > > at all? Why or why not? > > > > Solidarity, Jerry > > > > > > > > > > > >
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