> > 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?
Perhaps, you are saying that there are some modes of inquiry for which "experiments" are possible and others for which "experiments" are not possible. If that's the case, the categorization does not justify singling out Marxism, psychoanalysis, "historicism" in general, and other objects of Popper's hostility. The categorization simply demands that there be criteria different from those in natural sciences in order to determine what counts as good explanation, what counts as valid evidence, etc. in inquiries into social relations. However, you may be also arguing that all theories are equally valid (or for that matter equally invalid) in studies of social relations. That's neither here nor there.
> > >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?
You mean if there have been attempts at elaborating what may be called philosophy of science in the Marxist tradition or if there has been any Marxist work that counts as science by criteria appropriate for studies of social relations? -- Yoshie
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