[Marxism] Wisdom and Society [was: Challenge...]

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Lause 
Science starts with observations and data, attempts a generalized
hypothesis, then tests that hypothesis with experiments that addresses the
problem of variables or its offers mathematical or other proofs.  There is a
social and cultural context to science, but the scientific method is
supposed to--and largely does--cut across those distinctions.

^^^^^
CB: Repeatability of results, is one social requirement of the scientific
methods. An individual must be checked by others in a social test the
validity of experimental claims. 

For Marxism the scientific test of theory is practice. This implies that
that science has theory, and that it needs to be tested. Practice is
experimentation and industry. 

We have but one science. That is the science of history. This implies a
historical approach as well as an analytical approach is inherent in all
science. Thus, natural science is integrally natural history. Marx and
Engels saw Darwin's material evolutionism as their method in natural
history. 

Scientists seem to use certain legal metaphors such as "law", "evidence".
They aim to establish socalled general laws of nature. This is done on the
basis of theoretical interpretation of empirical and material evidence.
Scientists also "prove" their theories based on evidence.


^^^^^^

Nineteenth century studies of human behavior regularly aspired to
establishing them as a "science," but the "social sciences" are sciences
rather like the Democratic Party is democratic or the Republican Party
republican.  Same word, different meaning.

^^^
CB: Well, speak for yourself. I don't concede that regarding my social
science.

^^^^

But there were many claimants to this.  Over the past few weeks, I was
reading Henry Thomas Buckle, an English scholar cited by early American
socialists much more than Marx and Engels.  He interests me as someone like
August Comte, who were seeking laws of history that would be comparable to
Newton's laws of gravity or Darwin's concept of evolution....

I'm almost certain that Marx never made such a claim and I'm not really sure
whether Engels intended to do so.

^^^^^^
CB: Marx and Engels thought of Darwin as their method in natural history.
The other way around. Their method was so materialist and scientific , that
they saw Darwin as being scientific in that he was like them (!)

^^^^^^^^

  His claim that he and Marx advocated a
"scientific socialism" could have referred simply to the differences between
their rigorous data-driven secularist approach--as opposed to the often
moral and mystical imperatives that informed their predecessors. 


^^^^
CB: Agree, except with the connotation you give "simply" here.

^^^^^^

 (Engels
particularly addressed Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen in "Socialism, Utopian
and Scientific," part of his polemic against Eugene Duehring, but see also
Marx's earlier writings on "True Socialism," etc.)  They were, across the
board, debunking sweeping, groundless generalizations and trying to put
socialism on a materialist footing.  In any event, the differences can be
real enough without claiming Marxism as a distinctive "science."

^^^^^^
CB: Agree. Whatever. Point is I'm not treating Marx and Engels like holy
text. Whatever word you want to put in opposition to holy text is fine with
me. Seems to me "scientific" does the trick. I am also partial to "wisdom".
So,  scratch "science" and substitute "wisdom". 


 I read and quote Marx , Engels and Lenin's texts wisely.


&&&&&&&&&&

And--while I'm not sure on this--if Engels was writing in German, he may
have well been misunderstood.  In the end, though, it's not important.  It's
quite possible Engels was wrongly staking a claim to have established a
science.  They weren't.



What they accomplished was important enough.

I think the notion of Marxism as a science usually reflects its being
accorded that status in the Soviet Union and the former eastern bloc
nations.  Doing so discouraged disagreements from the established, official
and "scientific" position.

Solidarity!
Mark L.









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