>>> "rc-am" <rcollins at netlink.com.au> 11/29/99 09:21PM >>>
yoshie wrote:
> Science (in the broad sense of the word, an accumulation
> of knowledge, including feminist & historical materialist knowledge) is
> necessary
huh? the assertion that science consists of "the accumulation of knowledge" would be news to most philosophers and historians of science.
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Charles: "Most" ? The accumulation of knowledge may be zig zag and not in a straightline (i.e. dialectical) but postmodern conceptions of epistemology aren't the majority yet, are they ?
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second, it's not at all clear to me what distinction (in the above formulation) there exists between 'science' and 'knowledge' that isn't at base a rhetorical one -- ie., does it have to do with methods, procedures of verification, or what? third, it actually does make more sense from an historical perspective to talk about the relationship between science and those various terms such as "modernity," "instrumental reason," "Western metaphysics," etc, than it does to pretend that science was used to denote knowledge (esp a supposedly better knowledge) across time and place.
otoh, it may well be that this is simply a case of leveraging a certain politics (feminism and historical materialism) onto the rhetorical terrain of science v ideology; but at the cost, i would say, of dropping certain rather important premises of those politics: for instance, the requirement to historicise, as above. is it really necessary that we convince ourselves (or others) that our politics is something other than conjunctural? ((((((((((((((
Charles: Isn't this just a rehearsal of the debate between Marxist theory of knowledge and postmodernist critiques of it ? For those of us who are persuaded by the Marxist theory of knowledge ( dialectical and historical materialism, dialectic of absolute and relative truth, practice as a test of truth, partisan point of view explicitly held is an objective point of view contra bourgeois conception of partisan neutrality, things-in-themselves into things-for-us, etc.) the problems and questions you raise are sufficiently answered already.
CB