Re: [Marxism] What is wrong with positivism?

["Sayan Bhattacharyya" <ok.president+marxmail@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/3/07, Jeff Rubard <jeffrubard@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 2) In terms of Marxism, the element of positivism that is most
> threatening is its skepticism about the reality of social facts
> beyond the views, interests, and plans of the individual.
> The *Positvismusstreit* in (early) '60s German sociology,
> although it was to a certain extent only so-called (the
> "positivist" was supposed by Adorno to be Karl Popper, who
> no philosopher of science would recognize as anything but
> post-positivist) in large part hinged on the acceptability of
> entities like classes as means of sociological explanation:
> and I think we can all agree it would be a pretty poor
> Marxism that was reconstructed in line with the dictates
> of "methodological individualism", leaving out the character
> and dynamics of larger social groups.

Very interesting. So, would something like, say, game theory be
considered "positivist" (in Adorno's usage of the term, i.e. in the
"so-called" sense)?

I'm asking because while payoffs in game theory are based on
"methodological individualism", I suppose,  game theory does also
admit of conceptualizing  the behavior of groups or ensembles (which
we might think of "classes") and (emergent) relations between such
ensembles.

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism