On Sat, 31 May 2008, Jerry Monaco wrote:
> I basically agree with Jerry Fodor and Julius Moravcsik (and from what I
> uderstand even Heidegger and strangely enough Althusser): Where there is
> human intention and human meaning there is no scientific theory.
I have no trouble with that all. I have no trouble identifying science with natural science, and accepting that under that usage, our theories of what governs social life are not scientific.
So obviously there are different kinds of theory. The natural science kind, and the other kind. Or several other kinds.
You seem to want to say the natural science kind is the only kind, and no one can legally use the word theory to describe any of the other kind. That seems unnecessary -- the modifier "scientific" makes the distinction you want to make as clearly as you could want to make it -- and humpty-dumptyist: the whole world uses the word theory differently, and you're not going to stop them.
The whole world also already accepts this distinction. There are departments of political theory all over the world, and they all consider Machiavelli a political theorist, and none of them would have any hesitation in accepting that there is a fundamental different between political theory the theories of natural science.
Now since the original query was whether there was anything useful in Mao; which transformed into the question of whether he could be considered to have made any contributions to military or political theory; this entire distinction seems irrelevant. Nobody ever asked if he made contributions to natural science.
You seem to be arguing that political theory and military theory are not natural sciences. I don't know who you're arguing with, though. This seems like breaking down an open door.
Michael