<br><br> <div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/24/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Angelus Novus</b> <<a href="mailto:fuerdenkommunismus@yahoo.com">fuerdenkommunismus@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</span> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">--- ravi <<a href="mailto:ravi.bulk@gmail.com">ravi.bulk@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>> It seems to me that some "theory" leftists imitate <br>> the worst of science<br>> (theoretical pretension/obfuscation) rather than the<br>> best (rationality,<br>> parsimony, etc).<br><br>The "physics envy" canard is something that has long<br>been a central tenet of the Chomsky Fangemeinde.  It's <br>usually just an excuse not to engage with certain<br>ideas, nothing more.<br><br>If Chomsky is unable to perceive what an elegant,<br>lucid, useful account of the dynamics of capitalist<br>society is contained in Marx's Capital, than that is <br>truly quite sad, a real loss.<br><br>Incidentally, the restriction of the term "theory" to<br>the natural sciences is truly an anglo-american<br>conceit.</blockquote> <div> </div> <div>Angelus,</div> <div> </div> <div>Outside of evolution show me a theory of history that is worth the name theory.  </div> <div> </div> <div>Show me any theory in the human sciences that is worth the name of theory.  </div> <div> </div> <div>You can use the word theory in any particular way you want; but very little I have seen in the humanities is testable, repeatable, or offers non-trivial explanation.  Let us put it this way, (a) there are theories that provide a little bit of certainty and interesting results over a narrow range of phenomena (evolution, physics), and theories that are merely play models, (economics), and theories that are dressed up nice and pretty to impress the University Intellegentsia and the Culture Crits that as far as I can see is just word games and often rely on obscurity.  </div> <div> </div> <div>Marx provided a nice model, and he was a great writer but why exagerate his contribution? This is an old tired argument, but if you think that there is any theoretical knowledge offered by Foucault, Derrida, or any of that crew, I am happy to leave you with your own form of superstion and mumbo-jumbo.   We intellectuals need a form of superstition and we usually find it in philosophy or anti-philosophy and for right-wingers economics.   I truly have nothing against it, unless it starts doing harm, like so many other religions. </div> <div> </div> <div>Good fun to you, </div> <div> </div> <div>Jerry</div></div>