[Marxism] Asymptotically reaching truth

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Respuesta a:"Marxism Digest, Vol 26, Issue 7"
Enviado por:marxism-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Con fecha:3 Dec 2005, a las 7:20

> Still I think the point stands.. there is no such thing as a
> detached point of view in the sciences - either in the experimental
> sense or the interpretative sense. The best you can do is approach
> one asymptotically
> 

This is obvous abvious and, excuse me, almost a truism.  Even a good 
Christian could talk of human fallibility, etc.  

The problem remains, however, in whether the _method_ of natural and
social sciences (with the caveat that any social object of study is 
at the same time natural, and not the other way round) can be the 
same.

How can you study _yourself_ with the same method you resort to when
you study an external object?  When this question is posed in social-
historical terms, then the "yourself" becomes "ourselves", and this 
is the kernel to the problem.

In such a case, the partial identity of the subject and object of the 
inquiry makes human sciences a particular realm, not opposed to but 
certainly separate from, natural sciences.  While no biologist needs 
to know philosophy in order to develop her or his tasks at the lab, 
no serious student of the world human can do the same.

Conflating the "scientific method" based upon the strict separation 
of subject and object -valid, at least since the 15th Century, for 
the sciences of nature- with the study of history and all its 
departments is the best preferred operation of bourgeois social 
ideology, er, sorry, ahem, science.

Este correo lo ha enviado
Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[No necesariamente es su autor]
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"La patria tiene que ser la dignidad arriba y el regocijo abajo".
Aparicio Saravia
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