LRB on AS

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Aug 8 15:33:08 PDT 1998


Brad De Long wrote:


>I remember--coming from mathematics--being unable to make head or tail of
>Louis Althusser because he used the mathematical term "overdetermination"
>in what struck me as a nonsensical, incoherent, and inconsistent way that
>had nothing to do with its *real* mathematical definition in meaning.
>
>Hence I put down _Reading Capital_ after 100 pages and never picked it or
>anything else up again (except when one of my professors assigned an
>absolutely awful book by Hindess and Hurst).
>
>Can't say today that my allergic reaction to Althusser was a mistake.
>
>A basic failure to understand the meaning of the sources from which you
>draw your metaphors and concepts *is* in all probability a sign that the
>rest of your thinking is confused and faulty as well...

Because Shakespeare seemed to believe in ghosts and witches, does that make him a bad poet? I don't quite understand why a misunderstood concept from another field invalidates the whole effort. Why is a philosopher's use of a concept any less "real" than a mathematician's, even if they don't conform with each other?

What is the mathetmatical meaning of overdetermination that Althusser abuses? Did Freud abuse it in the same way?

Doug



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