>> But you're then just using "true" to mean "work"
>
> No I'm not. I use "true" to mean "true," as understood, for less, by Tarksi.
> For each sentence "p" in a scientific theory, "P" is true if and only if p.
So how does the pragmatism enter? Does the fact that a scientific theory "works" constitute independent evidence that it's "true" in this sense? Is this pragmatism itself "true" in this sense?
I don't know enough about Tarski to know if this identification of the "truth" of a scientific theory with the truth of each member of a set of sentences makes ontological assumptions. Is it applicable to Marx's theory?
This is based on a social ontology of internal relations that allows for the existence of self-conscious individuals but makes the nature of that self-consciousness the outcome of social relations, ultimately of relations of production. "Consciousness" is "sensuous," i.e. it is "embodied." This and other aspects make it "praxis." Human consciousness is potentially a fully "rational" consciousness. To become "for itself" what it is "in itself," however, the subjects of it must develop and live within a particular kind of (internal) social relations. A fully rational self-consciousness (the self-consciousness of a "universally developed individual") is the self-consciousness of a subject able rationally to ground belief in self-consciousness, i.e. in "praxis." This rationality cannot be identified with deductive reasoning from axioms. The social ontology underpinning its meaning, for instance, means that the degree to which self-consciousness is "rational" varies with changes in the social relations within which the subjects of the self-consciousness develop and live. Consequently, the history of the development of rational self-consciousness can't be represented by reasoning that assumes that the "identity," in this sense, of individual self-consciousness remains unchanged in the face of changes in relations.
Does Tarski's critierion allow the "language" in which the claims of the theory are made to embody Marx's ontological premises?
The question at issue isn't "holism" versus "individualism." Marx's theory is individualistic in the sense that individuals are the only locus of agency and the realization of value, i.e. its inconsistent with his ontological premises to treat a "state" or a "class" as an entity existing apart from and independent of its individual members to which agency and interest can be reasonably attributed.
Its difference from the individualism of "rational choice" theory is that it doesn't treat individuals as "atoms" i.e. as entities having "essences" that are independent of their relations. In the case of rational choice theory, for instance, the identifying "essence" is "rationality" identified with a particular kind of instrumental deductive reasoning. The particular atomistic premise here is that all individuals are calculating machines of this kind, an essence which is independent of their relations. Both the atomism and the concept of rationality are inconsistent with Marx.
This means, by the way, that your belief that Hayek demonstrated that markets will be not only consistent with but necessary in "communism" is mistaken. Hayek's claims are deduced from premises about individuals that contradict Marx's. You can't demonstrate that Marx's premises are mistaken by showing that Marx's conclusions don't follow from premises Marx doesn't make.
Unlike Hayek, Marx assumes that the content of a "good" life is objective and knowable. This content is "love" understood as "mutual recognition" and "beauty". A community of individuals capable of good lives in this sense ("universally developed individuals") would not organize any aspect of their activity through markets. Markets involve relations that are inconsistent with good relations i.e. with relations of mutual recognition. Moreover, on these premises markets would be instrumentally inefficient; they would be inconsistent with minimizing the time spent in the "realm of necessity."
Ted