[lbo-talk] Dewey on intelligence, co-operation, and class

[Tayssir John Gabbour]

On 10/18/07, ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>      Such an idea of classes is a survival of a rigid logic that
>      once prevailed in the sciences of nature, but that no longer
>      has any place there. This conversion of abstractions into
>      entities [*] smells more of a dialectic of concepts than of a
>      realistic examination of facts, even though it makes more of an
>      emotional appeal to many than do the results of the latter.

I particularly don't understand this point. Don't scientists separate
things into "classes" and taxonomies all the time? One thing's an
electron, another's a positron? Sometimes these particles interact
explosively and annihilate each other -- literally speaking.

And the "conversion of abstractions into entities" sounds like the
definition of reification to me. Certainly, any software programmer,
particularly one using object-oriented techniques, consciously makes
taxonomies and reifies abstractions all the time. These technologies
run useful parts of the world.

And regardless of what the "sciences" think, the problem is that
societies like to stratify themselves into these classes. I'm sure
class theorists would prefer this weren't the case. Or do bosses
usually go around gifting all their sweatshop subordinates egalitarian
decisionmaking power over their corporation, because rigid economic
classes are so 19th century?

Tayssir