Jim heartfield wrote:
> In message <368A4B3A.E5C79EE1 at netlink.com.au>, rc&am
> <rcollins at netlink.com.au> objects to my argument that a rejection of
> objectivity would lead one to abandon Marx's critique of capitalism.
>
> But that seems unavoidably to be the case as far as I can see. It is
> interesting that neo-classical economics has been cited as an example of
> what positivism is, as if its scientific pretensions were proof of the
> objectivistic caste of contemporary theory.
I was not citing neo-classical economics as an example of postivist science. I cited it because many neo-classical economists believe it is a science in the positivist sense. Neo-classical economics is pseudo-science in positivist terms because no neo-classical theorem can be empirically falsified. Samir Amin,amongst many others, has argued that nc theory is a tautology which would mean it is devoid of empirical content. Daniel Hausman is a philosophical defender of NC theory. I haven't read any of his books but they seem sophisticated, just in case anyone is interested in this sort of thing.
Sam Pawlett.
>
>
> But it should be said that Marx's critique of the pre-cursors of neo-
> classicism, what he called the vulgar economists, was not due to their
> excessive objectivity. To the contrary, Marx attacked them for the
> excessively subjective theory of prices. The cornerstone of Marx's
> critique of economics is the demonstration of the objective laws of
> development of capitalist society, and their self-destructive tendency.
>
> I've watched this thread since I started it, and I am still looking for
> one influential thinker who meets the caricature of positivism promoted
> by the critics. All of the logical positivists seem to have anticipated
> the argument. The social scientists are all Weberians - you would have
> to go back to the Chicago school.
>
> Istvan Meszaros recently wrote the following:
>
> 'It is by no means accidental that by far the most durable form of
> ideology in the age of globally articulated and technologically
> legitimized capitalism capital is _positivism_...'
>
> Which seems plausible enough until you read his list of examples, which
> just don't hold up at all
>
> '...from its early 19th century manifestations (Comte, Taine, neo-
> Kantianism etc.) to "sociologism," "pragmatism," "relativistic
> positivism," "instrumentalism," "juridical positivism," "logical
> positivism," "linguistic analysis," "structural functionalism,"
> "structuralism," etc., and to many fashionable neopositivistic
> "philosophies of science."
>
> What is lurking behind all of these scary quotation marks is the
> painfully obvious fact those schools of thought he mentions (insofar as
> they are schools of thought, and not just caricatures) would all
> subscribe to the critique of positivism.
>
> So where exactly are these positivists that everyone is talking about:
> Name me one self-avowed positivist of any note.
> --
> Jim heartfield