From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Wed Mar 17 2004 - 09:07:23 EST
Hi Chris. > I think you conflate two issues here. Dialectically deriving concepts > would certainly be sine qua non of systematic dialectic but this > derivation would be exhibited in the exposition of the system. This > has nothing necessarily to do with any method of inquiry. Personally > I would strongly distinguish and have some doubt as to whether > there is any such thing as a prescriptive method of inquiry. Murray's > survey of the issues seems judicious. I'll admit that the previous post was confusing (not, I believe, because I was conflating issues but rather because I was being cryptic and leaving out parts of a fuller argument) so I'll try again to explain the point I was trying to make. The issue that I wanted to address was: at what stage is there a identification, dialectical "derivation", and deepening of categories? While many readers seem to believe that dialectical theoreticians "derive" categories in the same order as the order of exposition, I believe this to be mistaken. This is largely because, in the process of _inquiry_ (especially the latter stages of inquiry) one has already identified concepts and their dialectical inter-relationship appropriate for comprehending the subject. Perhaps part of the confusion is that I was using "derivation" in a less formal sense of the term than you might have been thinking of. The _reason_ why this forms part of the process of inquiry is that prior to the commencement of the exposition one must _already_ grasp the essentials of the subject matter and have a comprehension of the categories associated with understanding that subject in thought. This does not mean that inquiry ends when exposition begins -- it does not since in the process of writing one (typically) deepens one's analysis as one thinks more about the subject, reads further and thereby continues the process of critique, and examines further empirical data and historical studies. In _that_ sense the process of inquiry continues until one completes the exposition (and often even afterwards: hence the writing of subsequent, revised editions). But, in the sense I was referring to, the derivation of concepts (typically) begins before the first word in the exposition has been written. It was because so much (but not all) of the "derivation" of concepts were discovered in the period before the exposition was written that allowed Marx to write _Capital_ out of sequence with the order of exposition. Clearly, for example, one has to comprehend the concepts adequate for understanding the process of capitalist circulation before one can then be able to "derive" concepts associated with the process of capitalist production as a whole. Yet, Marx wrote most of the drafts for what was eventually published as Volume III before he wrote most of the drafts for what was eventually published as Volume II (or expressing it differently, he was able to articulate in writing the concepts associated with comprehending the second half of the second 'Book' before he wrote the first half of the second 'Book' of _Capital_). This process of writing out of sequence with (what becomes) the order of presentation is _only_ possible if one has _already_ developed and dialectically derived _all_ of the essential concepts associated with grasping in thought the character and dynamics of the subject in its totality. In solidarity, Jerry
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