-----Original Message----- From: ravi <gadfly at home.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Saturday, December 29, 2001 10:24 PM Subject: Re: Marxism and "Science" (Was: Comic Book Marxism)
>perhaps the original poster (greg?) is saying things similar to
>the much advertised difference between the "context of discovery"
>and the context of justification". given that it is difficult or
>impossible to demonstrate the existence of a method in scientific
>research/discovery (as shown by feyerabend, et al), a different
>way to define science is through the method of justification
>i.e., through mathematical description etc. so, you can come up
>with any claim you want (and you could make it up out of thin
>air or through some colourful philosophy) as long as, say, you
>can justify it using some accepted notions: mathematical models,
>experimental verification, conformance to accepted theories in
>science, double blind tests, whatever.
>
>there is a strong critique of this positions (a critique
>completely lost of scientists like sokal and science groupies)
>and as far as i can tell the only definition that seems to hold
>up is that science is what scientists do.
>
> --ravi
I'm inclined to agree that the only sensible definition of science is what scientists are doing when they say they're doing science. By this definition, it hard to call Marxism "scientific," but so what? Actually this is one of the things that I think dialectical materialism can help clarify. Scientific theories are not arbitrary just because the process is completely social. Knowledge of the world comes from practice, and in the end stuff either works or doesn't. Science is one kind of social practice that seems to be successful in producing theories that seem to entail successful practices. Marxism can also form a kind of productive practice, and need not have any scientific aspirations to do so. But that is beside the point.
I understand the difference between defining science by context of discovery versus by context of justification. Neither one seems to reflect what I think Greg is saying, and that's why I'm a bit confused.
Scott Martens