[lbo-talk] Note of thanks

Philip Pilkington pilkingtonphil at gmail.com
Thu Apr 9 12:36:58 PDT 2009



>
> Probably one needs to clarify the resemblances/differences between
> "psitivism" and "science." They are linked but do not coincide, and to
> attempt to identify social theory as a purely positivist science is, I
> suspect, disastrous. Paul Paolucci has an article in Vol. 11 of
> Historical Materialism which focuses on the extent to which Marx was
> positivist. I haven't read it yet, but it looks valuable.
>

I reckon that "science" has become something of a meaningless signifier today - if I'm excused from using a term from linguistic "science". It seems to be more so a notion that conveys authority rather than anything tangible - like "Dr.", "Professor" or whatever. Not to say that there isn't a manner in which to approach things objectively, but I'd call the "rational" rather than "scientific". Try it out:

"Professor Dawkins is scientific but irrational", "Marx is not scientific but rational", "Phrenologists and socio-geneticists are scientific but irrational" etc etc



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