From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Wed Feb 11 2004 - 17:26:46 EST
Re: (OPE-L) logical order and historical orderHi Rakesh. I've been a bit busy lately -- writing a paper -- hence the delay in getting back to you on this. Previously I wrote: > While Marx, at various steps in _Capital_, suggests that a particular logical category or tendency is mirrored by an actual historical process, the question is whether this represents a _necessary_ step in the dialectical reconstruction in thought of the subject matter. < You replied: > do not understand why this is the question, Jerry. < Well, it might not be, Rakesh. It depends on what you are concerned about. You continued: > I don't think Marx is pointing to necessary steps but practical problems in the lower forms of value as having motivated their development. Marx's dialectic is at least partially a logic of practice, of real history. < I'm not sure if you are referring to _only_ the "movement from the accidental to the expanded to the general form of value (from your 2/6 post) _or_ whether you are making a general claim that the progression of categories follows a historical order. As i remarked previously, I think Marx at various points in _Capital_ suggests that the existence of a logical category -- like abstract labour -- or tendency is mirrored by an actual historical process. The question is to what extent this is a necessary part of his analysis vs. to what extent it represents Vorstellung. (See Tony S's _The Logic of Marx's Capital_, p. 11). I previously wrote: > You will, of course, recall what Marx wrote in the "Introduction" to the _Grundrisse_ about why one should _not_ begin with population. < and you replied: > don't quite understand relevance of this.< In the methodological comments in the "Introduction" to the _Grundrisse_, I think Marx is explaining why the "starting point" of the commodity is essential and why the ordering should be logical rather than historical. The way I understand this is that if the logical and historical unfolding of the subject matter coincide, that's OK, but it's not essential. The issue is whether in unpacking and developing the logical starting point (for Marx, the commodity) one can reconstruct in thought all of the essential aspects of the subject matter (the capitalist mode of production). If the progression was historical, then Marx might have begun with Book II on _Landed Property_ rather than Book I on _Capital_. Or, he might have begun with Book IV on _The State_ rather than the book on _Capital_. Or, he might have begun Book I with the topic of the primitive accumulation of capital rather than ending Volume I (of 3 volumes) of Book I with that subject. Or .... In solidarity, Jerry
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