From: Howard Engelskirchen (howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM)
Date: Thu Jun 17 2004 - 03:47:49 EDT
Hi Paul, ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Zarembka" <zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU> To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU> Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 5:21 PM Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Money, mind and the ontological status of value > Howard Engelskirchen <howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM> said, on 06/16/04, answering Costas: > > >... But my assumption is that exchange > >value is a form of manifestation of value only, so the argument is > > >if EV, then V > >EV exists > >Therefore V > > >which is a pretty normal form of valid argument. ... > > > Howard, > > Why is the above "valid"? You are still presuming your conclusion, in the most obvious, direct way => "EV exists, therefore V exists"; as in: EV is reality, therefore V is reality. > > I notice that you haven't answered (or did I miss them?) either the posting by myself or Fred M.'s, both on Jun. 7, concerning theory v. reality. > > I now offer "if EV, then Xenobiopsy; EV exists, therefore Xenobiopsy exists". Except for its unfamilarity, what wrong with my logic? I believe it is no more better, nor worse, than your own. That is, both are empty of content (neither V or "Xenobiopsy" add one iota to knowledge once EV is known to exist), UNLESS V or "Xenobiopsy" is independently established. Why is this point so hard to understand? > An argument is valid when the premises lead necessarily to the conclusion. You are right. Your argument is valid. There is nothing wrong with your logic. The difference between your argument and mine goes their respective theoretical and factual contexts. If the argument I offer is valid it can make a (fallible) claim to truth. Yours can't. Here's why: My argument rested on two theoretical background propositions and one factual observation. I appealed to Marxist theory for the proposition that exchange value is a form of manifestation of value. I took that as established by Marxist theory. I also took as given the statement by Marx that "as a slave a worker has exchange value." My argument is only as good as those theoretical propositions of Marx. Do you disagree with either one? I then added the factual observation that slaves existed in the ancient world. Given the premises, the fact and the fact that the form of argument is valid, I can claim that my argument is true. You can't because there is no theory you can appeal to that establishes any connection between EV and Xenobiopsy. It is of course logically possible for you to think of an infinite number of theoretical connections. But none will be persuasive because none is situated in the context of a coherent discipline or matrix of connected theoretical propositions supported by experience. Marxism, on the other hand, is a disciplinary matrix persuasive to many members of the OPEL list. In addition, as you yourself have told us, as a factual matter Xenobiopsy does not exist. Therefore, though your argument is valid, it can make no truth claim. In your post of June 7 you ask how we know that a theoretical concept refers to a real object. Of course, this depends on practice and the theoretical context used to evaluate practice. In a different way I spoke to that point in my own post from that date. Given that real objects are causally potent, Fred asked whether the same isn't true of Marx's theory. Yes, theory becomes a practical force when it is gripped by the masses. We transform the world by engaging it causally. What is less noticed is that real objects engage us the same way, as Ian pointed out in an earlier post. This reciprocal causal relationship goes some way to answering the Theses on Feuerbach question you raised. The other question I did not address from Fred's June 7 post concerned skill multipliers. Fred wrote: "my point was that the lack of an explanation of the skill and intensity multipliers does not significantly effect the explanatory power of Marx's theory (theory of surplus-value, endogenous technological change, endogenous conflicts of the working day and over the intensity of labor, etc.)" I think I don't get the significance of this question to points you have raised. I do agree with Fred's post of a few days ago that skill multipliers are not directly observable. In this respect perhaps there's a connection between two of the threads running in tandem on the list. As Fred intimated, it is a residue of positivism to suppose that science can be done without making use of unobservables. The natural sciences realized this a good long while ago and that recognition accounted for the collapse of logical positivism not long after midcentury. Life support continues in the social sciences. Suppose we say, for example, that a thing can be said to act only when it is actually acting. Value for example doesn't exist in production, but only in exchange where it is realized as such. Would we say that a person can speak french only when they are actually speaking it? We're uncomfortable with the idea that things, including social relations, have powers even when they're not exercising them because an unexercised power is not empirical or directly observable. The connection with skill multipliers is this -- the insistence that everything be empirically observable tends to send us to the realm of production where we can observe labor that is simple and, because simple, substituable, the one for the other -- you can run the machine or sweep the floor. So we feel more comfortable locating abstract labor exclusively there. Howard
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