I think this depends on how you define "science." Cosmology, paleontology, and many forms of geology are all really varieties of history and all normally considered sciences. Unless one wants to say that "history" only refers to that story of the development of human beings, and that for some reason human beings, unlike everything else, cannot be described by such a science.
^^^^ CB: There are roughly two branches of science-history: Natural history
( Darwinism, cosmology) and human
history ( Marxism). Or we can say it's all natural history,with human history a branch of natural history of special
interest to we humans.
By the way, in the Soviet Union all degrees were in history for this reason,
I believe.
Does Angelus have trouble conceiving of
natural history as science ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_history
The point I think Marx and Engels make when they say " there is only one science,
the science of history" is that science
must be conceived of dialectically,
that is in terms of development, change. _Everything_ changes,
develops, has a history. Even
the physical universe ( "physics") changes.
Engels notes ( in _Anti-Duhring_) that Kant initiated a dialectical understanding of the solar system in saying that it has
a history.
--- Angelus Novus
>
> Charles, how on earth is a "science"
of history even
> possible? Please do not take
this as a rhetorical
> question. I think one can do
useful analytical,
> scholarly historical work,
but there are no "laws"
> of
> history. Using the word "science"
makes exaggerated
> claims for scholarly historical analysis.
>
CB: In a way Angelus is thinking of this
backwards. Marx and Engels are saying all "science" must be conceived of in terms
of the history of its subject matter, that is dialectically.
I'm gonna go with Marx and Engels over Angel as to whether there are scientific
laws of history. As Engels says at Marx's graveside.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/death/burial.htm
Just as Darwin discovered the law of development or organic nature,
so Marx discovered the law of development
of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing,
before it can pursue politics, science,
art, religion, etc.; that therefore the
production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or
during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal
conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have
been evolved, and in the light of which
they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.
But that is not all. Marx also discovered
the special law of motion governing the
present-day capitalist mode of production,
and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve which all
previous investigations, of both bourgeois
economists and socialist critics, had been
groping in the dark
^^^^ Angelus Novus
Carrol is absolutely 100% correct here. While it may be difficult to distinguish between Marx the scientist and Marx the revolutionary at the level of personality, I think it is entirely possible to distinguish between the scientifically meaningful parts of Marx's analysis versus historical-philosophical prophesies that are an expression of revolutionary hope.
The prospect for communist revolution has no bearing upon the validity of Marx's analysis of capitalism. Some would even argue that Marx's analysis of the fetishistic relations of bourgeois society demonstrates the impossibility of revolution. I don't share this perspective, but I do not think it is nonsense.
^^^^^ CB: This gives new meaning to "Marx was not a Maxist" . Fortunately, we have Carrol and Angel who understand Marx better than he understood himself.