there's no such thing as positivism

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Looking through the discussion of the Frankfurt School critique of
positivism in Christopher Bryant's Positivism in Social Theory and
Research, I had the following questions.

1. religion
It may be that statements about the existence of God are not verifiable
and thus meaningless. But it seems to me the wrong strategy to prohibit
talk about the existence of God. Best to engage religious people in
dialogue so as to reveal the contradictions and absurdities entailed by
the belief in the existence of god. That is, we may need more talk about
god in order to weaken religion, not no talk as mandated by positivist
canons. 

2. universals laws as inapplicable to the historical world

I agree with Horkheimer's criticism here but as Grossmann reminded us,
Richard Jones was able to undermine the universality of Ricardian rent
theory by intenstive study of India, Persia and China. Jones knew nothing
of the Hegelian dialectic. Grossmann called attention to the detailed
discussion of Richard Jones in Theories of Surplus Value. Of course Jones'
research would have to be updated, and the whole idea of the Asiatic mode
of production, reconsidered in light of new evidence and debate among,
e.g., R S Sharma, Harbans Mukhia, Irfan Habib, Lawrence Krader, Brendan O
Leary, etc. 

3. unobservables.

I like Bryant's formulation:

" The exclusive concern with the oobservable in the positivist conception
of science has its origin in the rejection of metaphysics. The positivists
were right to have rejected the timeless ideal character of the forms and
essences which are supposed to underlie phenomena, it is argued [by the
Frankfurt School], but it does not follow that, because *these* concealed
forms are chimera, all structures and proceses which underlie observable
phenomena are chimera. Ahistoricity and concealment should not be
confused, and the validity of the positivists' objection to the first is
no guarantee of their objection to the second. On the contrary, the
critical theorists conclude, one must always remain alive to the
possibility that there are historically limited structures and processes
which generate phenomena but whose existence can only be inferred. The
extraction of surplus value in the capitalist mode of production, for
example, is analysable in these terms." p, 121

yours, rakesh