Marxism is a science

Cian O'Connor cian_oconnor at yahoo.co.uk
Mon Dec 31 12:09:32 PST 2001


--- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote: > Cian wrote:
>
> > --- Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
> >
> >Cian says:
> >>
> >> >Popper's theory doesn't claim to be scientific.
> >> Being
> >> >scientific is not a mark of legitimacy. However
> >> >unscientific theories cannot take advantage of
> the
> >> >scientific toolset of predictive induction etc.
> >>
> >> If Popper's theory isn't itself scientific, why
> >> should we care
> >> whether X is or isn't scientific according to
> his
> >> criteria? Upon
> >> what grounds do you decide Popper's theory is
> >> unscientific and yet
> >> legitimate?
> >
> >It's a categorisation; a way of dividing scientific
> >enquiry from other forms.
>
> On what grounds is the categorization that Popper
> has us accept legitimate?

On what grounds is the dewey decimal system legitimate. There are key differences between social sciences and hard sciences. The hard sciences seem to share Popper's categorisation, the soft ones don't. Why is it useful to pretend that they belong to the same category?


> >How would you test the hypothesises of Marx?
>
> How would you test any hypothesis about social
> relations? (This is a
> non-rhetorical question, unlike yours.)

Mine wasn't rhetorical.

With difficulty. However psychologists have been approaching the problem and trying to solve it. Has anyone attempted it with Marxism?

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