marxist sociology

Tahir Wood twood at uwc.ac.za
Thu Feb 21 01:05:47 PST 2002


Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 14:34:22 +0000 From: "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: marxist sociology

And what does that mean, "firmly rooted in neo-Kantianism"?

Tahir: Unconsciously reproducing it.

Dollars will get you donuts that 99 of 100 Marxist social scientists could not even identify by name a single neo-Kantian (a late 19th century tendency in German and Austrian philosophy, now long since dead) and have no views at all about the transcendental ideality of space and time or the noumenal nature of freedom. Matterof fact, I bet you 99 out of 100 Marxist philosopher could do no better.

Tahir: You misunderstand the argument. It is that neo-kantianism is alive and well in everyone from Althusser to Habermas and the rest. It is not that these people say "I am an expert in neo-kantianism and hereby pledge my allegiance to it". I would check out Gillian Rose's book "Hegel Contra Sociology" to see how the paridigm of validity vs. value plays itself out in both marxist and non-marxist sociology before you respond as sarcastically again.


>and thereby destroys the revolutionary content of marxism in favour of some
>sort of 'progressive' variation of bourgeois social science.

Thereby! How magical! A counterevolutiuonary new product! Oh la! "Just mix in Kant to get rid of that nasty red stain!"

Tahir: Kind of, yeah.

It's a way of being an academic and a marxist at the same time.

Oh horror! How inauthentic! After all, a _real_ Marxist ought to put on a blue collar and organize factory workers, after all! (But I am neither a marxist nor an academic, so what would I know).

Tahir: So why the jerking knee then? Which other nerve did I touch?


>So who are the marxist sociologists

Erik Olin Wright?


>and political scientists?

Adam Przezworski? Mike Goldfield?

Just for starters . . .

jks

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