-----Original Message----- From: Greg Schofield <g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Saturday, December 29, 2001 8:07 PM Subject: Re: Marxism and "Science" (Was: Comic Book Marxism)
>We certainly disagree here - science is its end product that is theory. How
that theory is produced encompasses a great variety of means even within the
single science (even within a single field within a science). What you give
is a sociological understanding of the science industry, which of course has
its place - but what is science? a mere social organisation?
>
>Science is more than a form of social production - it is a very special
product - it is the product, not the means of producing it which is the
Science, precisely the theory - the rational understanding that it produces.
Of course to produce this requires some special forms of production given
all other social conditions but of course this is absolutely meaningless
without its final product.
I suppose you can define science as an ensemble of scientific theories, but if science is "the theory - the rational understanding that it produces", how does this make science different from any other kind of knowledge that leads to a feeling of enlightenment, like philosophy or religion? Is it all science if it leads to a rational understanding, and if so, what separates rational understanding from irrational?
I don't mean to pick nits with your choice of words, but scientists in my experience tend to define science either by method or by its philosophical assumptions, if they can be bothered to define it at all. Defining science by its product seems circular to me. If I say "the world is flat", is that science? What distinguishes scientific products from everything else I could think or say?
Scott Martens