Pannekoek’s theory of science

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

LBird wrote:

Next installment from the positivists: 'Marx's 'value' is not scientific!'

Next instalment from the relativists: Marx's 'value' is not scientific because most people in capitalist society don't think it is scientific!

Yeah! Bastard relativists! Just like the bastard positivists!Thank Marx we have a third alternative, the MCH, eh?

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

The MCH is 'science'.

I think you're taking it too far here..Explain how the materialist conception of history enables us to dig stuff out of the ground, process it and arrange it in such a way as to enable us to have this discussion in the format we are having.

Yeah, whether we should regard "uniting the 'natural' and 'social'" as 'taking it too far', is the essence of our differences, DJP.As a Communist, I think it is necessary to find a unified scientific method. I think Marx thought this, too.

[ALB]

You should have come to the talk last night on "What is History?" where the point was made that it is even more evident in history-writing than in the "natural sciences" that what is happening is that people are selecting from an array of empirically-established perceptions to construct a picture of what did happen. Of course the picture so constructed has to bear some ressemblance to the evidence.One of the passages from Marx and Engels that the speaker quoted was this from the German Ideology:

Quote:

The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.

Yes, you could be right. This method is equally applicable to the "natural sciences". Not sure that Marx said so anywhere did he, but I could be wrong.

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

You should have come to the talk last night on "What is History?" where the point was made that it is even more evident in history-writing than in the "natural sciences" that what is happening is that people are selecting from an array of empirically-established perceptions to construct a picture of what did happen. Of course the picture so constructed has to bear some ressemblance to the evidence.

Though I guess in the natural sciences the overall validity of the picture can be more easily tested. In the social sciences predictions and theories have a direct influence on future outcomes. For example, if someone predicts that a period of extreme inflation is coming people may act in such a way as though it where like a self fulfilling prophecy as it were.

ALB wrote:

One of the passages from Marx and Engels that the speaker quoted was this from the German Ideology:

Quote:

The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.

Yes, you could be right. This method is equally applicable to the "natural sciences". Not sure that Marx said so anywhere did he, but I could be wrong.

I'm not sure what I think of that quote. Would it not be "naive realism" to think that "real individuals, their activity and the material condition under which they live" can actually be a "premise"? I'm not sure that passage really makes sense.Premises and premises I don't see how you can insert real individuals into one's head without severe injury! 

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Yeah, whether we should regard "uniting the 'natural' and 'social'" as 'taking it too far', is the essence of our differences, DJP.As a Communist, I think it is necessary to find a unified scientific method. I think Marx thought this, too.

You're getting me wrong again. My question is not should but does.If I have an engineering project to complete I don't think that the methods of the MCH are going to be of particular use to me.But, on the other hand, if I want to understand how and why the project is taking the particular form it is then the MCH is the tool to use.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Yes, you could be right. This method is equally applicable to the "natural sciences". Not sure that Marx said so anywhere did he, but I could be wrong.

Here we go, comrade!

Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts wrote:

History itself is a real part of natural history – of nature developing into man. Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.

[my bold]http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts wrote:

History itself is a real part of natural history – of nature developing into man. Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.

[my bold]http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

Perhaps so, but we are still a long way off!

[ALB]

DJP wrote:

Though I guess in the natural sciences the overall validity of the picture can be more easily tested. In the social sciences predictions and theories have a direct influence on future outcomes.

In this respect, history would be nearer to the natural sciences in that past outcomes can't be changed.

DJP wrote:

Would it not be "naive realism" to think that "real individuals, their activity and the material condition under which they live" can actually be a "premise"?

I think Marx and Engels meant simply that this was the "object" of historical studies (just as the passing world of phenomena is the "object" of the natural sciences), but the passage as worded (or, rather, as translated) could be seen as a bit positivistic.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts wrote:

History itself is a real part of natural history – of nature developing into man. Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.

[my bold]http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

Perhaps so, but we are still a long way off!

Yes, I agree!But there's no harm in us trying to formulate a form of 'science' that Marx thought possible.Perhaps Marx was wrong, or he is right but my own efforts are wrong-headed, and someone else might suggest a better way of trying to realise his idea.On my part, I'm yet to hear an argument that completely undermines my efforts – and I've tried on a few sites! The fact that no-one seems to be able to point out where I'm going wrong, gives me more encouragement to carry on.That doesn't mean I am right, of course.

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

I think Marx and Engels meant simply that this was the "object" of historical studies (just as the passing world of phenomena is the "object" of the natural sciences), but the passage as worded (or, rather, as translated) could be seen as a bit positivistic.

[my bold]FWIW, I do think that Marx can be 'read' in a 'positivistic' way, but I think that goes against many other ways he phrased his ideas. Marx is a poor writer, in my opinion, and very unclear on many issues. But… he is suggestive…Again, FWIW, I think Engels erroneously latched onto this 'implicit' positivism, and under the influence of his times, moved ever closer to an 'explicit' view of science that Marx didn't hold. Who was it who said, 'social being determines social consciousness'? But this would be an entirely new thread, so I'd rather not pursue this 'Engels was a positivist' line, here now. If we sort out our 'cognition', I think then is time to query Engels.

[twc]

Classical Political Economy

LBird wrote:

Weath of Nations by Adam Smith.

Nonsense.  Marx expressed supreme intellectual respect for the giants of classical political economy — Petty, Quesnay, Smith, Ricardo — and for the scientific foundation they laid for understanding the functioning of capitalism.His Capital pays them the greatest homage a scientist can ever extend to his scientific forebears — he takes their scientific achievement absolutely seriously, to the extent of rescuing forgotten achievements from obscurity.And he honours them by critiquing their intellectual labours from a later social time, and a vantage made possible from the theory they bequeathed him

Marx in Capital, Vol 1 wrote:

By classical Political Economy, I understand that economy which, since the time of W. Petty, has investigated the real relations of production in bourgeois society in contradistinction to vulgar [political] economy, which deals with appearances only.

Note, Marx’s crucial distinction between appearance and reality.But DJP is quite correct.  Political economy is a social science not a natural science.  We all expect social science to be consciously or unconsciously inspired by class positions.  Every socialist is hourly reminded of that.But natural science is another matter.  Please give us one example from the natural sciences so that we may understand your concerns.Confusing the Natural and the SocialSchaff’s “theory of cognition” expressly starts from natural objects that exist independently of cognizing society.  Yet when you attempt to explain him, you deliberately start with a social object — the NHS — whose [disgusting] existence is entirely dependent on society.In the case of Adam Smith, you deliberately — against your mentor Schaff, who is a historian openly conscious of working outside the natural sciences — make the same identification of the natural and the social.And, as usual, in your treatment of scientists you look down on, you savagely malign them from a position of prejudice and, it seems to me, complete ignorance.[That’s just like Lakatos — if Ptolemy is pseudo science then so is Copernicus, because they adopt identical scientific methodology.  In which case, our central Sun is Lakatosian pseudo science, something the philosopher never intended to imply.]I haven’t the reference to hand — it’s possibly in Marx’s Theories of Surplus Value — where he praises Smith as the great representative of capitalism in its developing stage, as a fearless pursuer of scientific truth, and a man endowed with [and this is the highest praise] genuine scientific naivety and wonder, willing to follow the science honestly wherever it leads him.[What changed, in the interim, was the rise of the working class and its equally fearless political economy that homed in on the class vulnerability of Smith and Ricardo.]You trivialize Marx’s Capital, which he offered to the world as his critique of political economy, if you dismissively consider for the sake of your argument that classical political economy “should have been rejected”.  You unconsciously accuse Marx of wasting his time.The irony is that those — who did believe in private property in the means of production — did reject classical political economy because it failed to develop the [abstract] concept of marginal utility, which was less vulnerable to working class attack.Please make the necessay distinction — as your Schaff clearly does — between the natural and the social, and show us any natural science that has survived professional scrutiny merely because the scientist and the profession “believed in private property in the means of production”.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

I'm not sure what I think of that quote. Would it not be "naive realism" to think that "real individuals, their activity and the material condition under which they live" can actually be a "premise"? I'm not sure that passage really makes sense.

I think that your valid concerns, here, can be answered by looking to Lakatos' 'research programmes' and their 'hard cores'. That is, a 'premise' is part of an ontological 'hard core' that can't be questioned. This makes for a 'strange' account of science, for those who employ 'induction', as do naive realists, I think, and want to produce 'objective knowledge'.Theory always preceeeds observation, as Einstein pointed out!Theories don't emerge from data. Theories define their data. Selection is inescapable, from an infinite stream of sense-impressions from the object.Humans predetermine which 'sense-impressions' count.

[DJP]

LBird wrote:

Theories don't emerge from data. Theories define their data. Selection is inescapable, from an infinite stream of sense-impressions from the object.

The second and third sentences I agree with but the first is false.Many theories have emerged from data, though of course you need a prior theory to be able to take data in the first place.Remember much of science is not induction or deduction but abduction. Finding the most plausable explanation from an incomplete set of observations.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

You should have come to the talk last night on "What is History?" where the point was made that it is even more evident in history-writing than in the "natural sciences" that what is happening is that people are selecting from an array of empirically-established perceptions to construct a picture of what did happen. Of course the picture so constructed has to bear some ressemblance to the evidence.

[my bold]Yeah, I'd have liked to! Geography dictates otherwise, I'm afraid!But, I think you meant 'the object', rather than 'the evidence'.'Evidence' has been selected.I'm sure, given the title of the talk, that this quote came up:

E.H. Carr, What is History?, wrote:

The facts are really not at all like fish on the fishmonger's slab. They are like fish swimming about in a vast and sometimes inaccessible ocean; and what the historian catches will depend, partly on chance, but mainly on what part of the ocean he chooses to fish in and what tackle he chooses to use – these two factors being, of course, determined by the kind of fish he wants to catch. By and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants. History means interpretation.

These words apply to science.

[LBird]

DJP wrote:

LBird wrote:

Theories don't emerge from data. Theories define their data. Selection is inescapable, from an infinite stream of sense-impressions from the object.

The second and third sentences I agree with but the first is false.Many theories have emerged from data, though of course you need a prior theory to be able to take data in the first place.

I'm afraid this is incoherent, DJP.

[Author]

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