On Nov 10, 2007, at 11:05 AM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> It is as though someone were to suggest that quantum physicists lacked
> an appreciation of the art of adjusting oven temperature for baking
> bread. At a certain level of abstraction, certain propositions are
> true,
> PERIOD. And for someone to say that those propositions don't explain
> something at another level of abstraction is pure obscurantism. Of
> course they don't -- and that is utterly irrelevant. A study of oven
> temperatures doesn't explain General Relativity. Big Deal. General
> RElativity doesn't explain oven temperatures. Big Deal.
But a physics that couldn't explain oven temps would be worthless. You're big on these levels of abstraction, but they seem to exist in isolation from one another. An abstraction is pretty meaningless unless it connects somehow with things at a lower level of abstraction. All your systemic ideas about History can't explain why people do the things they do. Marx created an abstract theory of capitalism, but he also got down & dirty with detail in the 18th Brumaire. Where's Carrol Cox's 18th Brumaire?
Doug