-----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: Sunday, December 30, 2001 4:42 AM Subject: Re: Marxism and "Science" (Was: Comic Book Marxism)
>Scott thanks for your reply, and yes what I am trying to say is different
from Ravi suggests.
>
>I have stressed the ontological nature of a given science, that is its
explainations (not always evenly developed) belong to single logical system
of explaination. It is not as if any explanation of the world will do - far
from it.
I think a good case could be made than in physics today, explanations aren't ontologically unified, and that ontological unification is a major motivating factor behind current work in physics. Quantum mechanics and relativity are ontologically distinct, each with a largely independant system of explanation. That's just within physics. Historically, the ontological systems of different sciences have been completely separate. It isn't until the 20th century that chemistry and physics have a single ontological framework, and not until after WWII that biology really joins up with the phyisicists world-view.
Scientists - at least orthodox science - seeks a unified ontology. It doesn't have one.
>Afterall the point must be why science gives us such a reliable
>material conception of the world (despite the bits it gets wrong
>from time to time). For the purpose of this we also have to abstract
>away the errors and shortcomings of a given science (products
>of its state of development but not in essence what it is).
I agree that the point is to understand why science works. I just can't see how an explanation can come from something other than an understanding of science as a process.
>The next key which differentiates logical ontologies is what I have
>called the definition of the subject matter, but may also be called
>the first premise of the science.
[snip]
>Science appears not very different except in its choice of its premise.
>All science shares one type of premise - the subject matter begins
>not with a object-for-us (an object which exists for some human need
>or desire - an object which exists as an extension of social life) but an
>object-in-itself (that is an object viewed as a thing-in-itself).
This strikes me as defining science - at least in part - by its philosophical assumptions. This is a part of a definition by context of justification, in Ravi's terms. You are defining science as objectivist and materialist in its philosophy, which is fine except that many important scientists have been neither materialists nor objectivists, and no proof ever exists to show that science's objects really exist as objects-in-themselves rather than socially constructed objects.
>In this sense science becomes a technique of knowing, one
>which has very special powers and one completely denuded
>of the religious idealist bent which has for so long supplied
>human needs in this area.
I'm not so sure science has genuinely escaped idealism, although it does seem to have escaped the oversight of any sort of external ontological authority nowadays. But this has not always been the case. At times, the old Soviet Union imposed ontological structure on scientists, just as church authorities did at one time. Nonetheless, real scientific progress was able to take place under those conditions. Idealism in science today stems from largely internal ideologies.
>The theory as an ontological system of rational understanding
>based on a materialist premise is science and uniquely so. Or
>as Hegel said all that is real is rational and all that is rational is
>real (fitted to such an onotological system this makes perfect
>sense for the motion of science as self-development).
This is definition by philosophical assumptions. Am I to understand that science means rational investigation with the assuption of strict materialism? This is an okay definition (not one I agree with - but that is another problem), It is certainly a definition many scientists would agree with.
>The end product (the ontological body of theories in self-development)
>is the science and within each sphere a particular fragment of theory
>only really has meaning within the ontology - take it away from this and
>it is just an opinion, one, which outside the context, can appear very
>counter-inuitive and easily disproved.
Yes, this I can agree with, and it tends to reenforce the idea that science is always socially situatued, and scientific theories are not in any sense eternal and universal truths (which is where scientists tend to start saying "Wha'chew talkin' 'bout Willis?").
>I must at this point apologise to the list as I really would like
>to further bash away on this topic until we can come full circle
>and look at Historical Materialism's place within science - but
>unfortunately for a week I have to depart.
S'alright. I'm here avoiding writing a 30 page paper on the past 15 years of connectionist research. I'll probably still be avoiding it in a couple of weeks. Since the thesis I'm contemplating putting forward (but probably won't) is that connectionist thinking is reinventing dialectical materialism under another name, I'll probably still have most of the content of this discussion in my head then.
Scott Martens