From: GERALD LEVY (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Sun Nov 04 2007 - 09:30:27 EST
>In the languages of continental philosophy and science (as contrasted with >British empiricism), the expressions "laws of motion", "developmental >laws", or "lawlike regularities" are quite normal and ordinary expressions. >They need not explicitly refer to physical sciences, though sometimes they >do, also "by analogy". Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant and Hegel all used >such concepts or similar concepts to state the causally necessary >occurrence of relationships, states, processes, or events. Hi Jurriaan: If you are saying that the above-name philosphers referred to such terms only "by analogy", I think that is misleading. Hegel's understanding of nature, for instance, forms (for him) an essential component of his overall conception of Spirit (see the 3-volume _Philosophy of Nature_, the Second Part of the _Encyclopaedia_). Philosophers of the time, including those you mention above, also tended to view physical, natural and social philosophy as all inter- related and integrated. When Marx refers to "law of motion" and things like "inevitability" there is a suggestion of something more than argument and rhetoric "by analogy": I think it is best interpreted as a genuine conflict and tension in his thought. >It is true that Marx said he aimed to depict "the economic formation of >society" (meaning the expansion of social relations through trade, and the >transformation of nature - both human nature and physical nature - by >industry) as a necessary evolutionary process of "natural history", but he >is thinking more of Darwin, than of Newton, i.e. of an organic system, >rather than an inorganic one. Even if he was influenced more by Darwin, the science of evolution is a natural science, isn't it? One difference, though, is that in Darwin's thought there is a big role for contingency and accident in shaping the variation that occurs in the evolutionary process. It is a consequence of natural _history_ and not merely the consequence of law-like regularities. This conception is missing as essential components of some other natural sciences. >The application of theorems in physics and engineering to the social >economy often leads to the > depiction of the economy as a sort of "engine" >(discussed by Ronald Meek in "The rise and fall of > the concept of the >economic machine", Leicester University Press,1965). Yes, that's a big problem. I'm not sure that it's a paradigm that Marx _completely_ broke with, however. Again, note comments on "inevitability". >Marx was well aware that he could not scientifically "prove" his concept of >economic value in any absolute way. However, he argues that using his >concept of value enables a non-eclectic theory of capitalism, i.e. using >this concept you can coherently integrate the explanation of capitalism and >its history in a unitary theory - "the truth is the whole", i.e. the >coherence of the whole theory, and its correspondence to the whole of the >reality to which it refers. The influence of Hegel is quite apparant in terms of the conception of Marx's which you refer to above. However, if "the truth is the whole" where is "the whole" in Marx's writings on economics? There are obvious pieces of the whole which are missing. So long as one keeps one's focus on the real subject matter (rather than merely Marx's perspective) and thinks of the process of presentation in terms of layers of abstraction, then most of the "missing pieces" become obvious. In solidarity, Jerry
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