OPE-L message, Re: (OPE-L) RE: logical order and historical order

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Hi Jerry and all,

This is all a work in progress for me, and so much is tentative or incomplete, but I think the following is not quite right or at least easily misleading:

In the methodological comments in the "Introduction" to the _Grundrisse_,

I think Marx is explaining why the "starting point" of the commodity is

essential and why the ordering should be logical rather than historical.

The way I understand this is that if the logical and historical unfolding

of the subject matter coincide, that's OK, but it's not essential. The

issue is whether in unpacking and developing the logical starting point

(for Marx, the commodity) one can reconstruct in thought all of the

essential aspects of the subject matter (the capitalist mode of

production).

"Method of Political Economy" in the Grundrisse 'Introduction' does not counterpose logic to history. The contrast is between the surface appearance of phenomena and the inner structure or connection of determination uncovered by abstraction. Certainly abstraction is a tool of thought, but what is abstracted to is not a logical starting point but something about the real object of inquiry that constitutes its most fundamental, its most decisive, determinations. I take it these determinations are real and causal and it is good if the logic corresponds, not the other way around. The commodity, for example, is a starting point because it is a real thing that offers the key to understanding the social relations of the capitalist mode of production, it is not the starting point because it is a logical anything -- that is not the way Marx operated.

Compare, say, the circulation of blood in mammals. If I want a history of how that evolves, that's one thing. If I want to know how the pump works to distribute blood throughout the body, how arteries and veins differ, etc., that's a different inquiry, but not a logical one.

So to say that "if the logical and historical unfolding of the subject matter coincide, that's ok, but it's not essential," is peculiar. I understand you have in mind here the relation of small commodity production to capitalist production, but step back from that to, more generally, the investigation of the things of the world that are a product of evolution and process. How could you say broadly that it's ok, but not essential, if the way a thing works now corresponds to the way it evolved historically? Huh?

Jarius raises the question of necessity. There is, I suppose, a relation of necessity precisely between the way a thing works now and how it evolves. Anyway, necessity is something I want to think a lot more about, but here too the counterposition of logic and history doesn't capture what is at issue. First, there can be no argument that things develop according to 'logical' necessity. Necessities of causal function, certainly, but not necessities of thought. If the notion that things develop according to logical necessities doesn't lead to idealism it leads to the infinite skepticisms of Hume to the effect that since we can't foreclose the logical possibility that bananas will grow out of Bush's nose we can't really know anything about causal connection.

On the other hand, to argue that there is some kind of historical necessity operating in things suggests history operates like a closed system and that's hardly the case. The past is closed and we can show the sorts of necessities that operated there, but not the future. Not only are there intersections of causally potent things that are coincidental, but there are phenomena which emerge. Consciousness, for example, emerges from organic compounds. So in one place the wage relation gives rise to capitalism, in another it doesn't, and history is full of threads variously taken up or broken off.

Howard

----- Original Message -----

From: gerald_a_levy

To: OPE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 5:26 PM

Subject: [OPE-L] (OPE-L) RE: logical order and historical order

Hi Rakesh. I've been a bit busy lately -- writing a paper --

hence the delay in getting back to you on this.

Previously I wrote:

> While Marx, at various steps in _Capital_, suggests that a
particular logical category or tendency is mirrored by an
actual historical process, the question is whether this
represents a _necessary_ step in the dialectical reconstruction
in thought of the subject matter. <

You replied:

> do not understand why this is the question, Jerry. <

Well, it might not be, Rakesh. It depends on what you are

concerned about.

You continued:

> I don't think Marx is pointing to necessary steps but practical problems in the lower forms of value as having motivated their development. Marx's dialectic is at least partially a logic of practice, of real history. <

I'm not sure if you are referring to _only_ the "movement from

the accidental to the expanded to the general form of value (from

your 2/6 post) _or_ whether you are making a general claim that

the progression of categories follows a historical order.

As i remarked previously, I think Marx at various points in _Capital_

suggests that the existence of a logical category -- like abstract labour --

or tendency is mirrored by an actual historical process. The question

is to what extent this is a necessary part of his analysis vs. to what extent it

represents Vorstellung. (See Tony S's _The Logic of Marx's Capital_,

p. 11).

I previously wrote:

> You will, of course, recall
what Marx wrote in the "Introduction" to the _Grundrisse_ about
why one should _not_ begin with population. <

and you replied:

> don't quite understand relevance of this.<

In the methodological comments in the "Introduction" to the _Grundrisse_,

I think Marx is explaining why the "starting point" of the commodity is

essential and why the ordering should be logical rather than historical.

The way I understand this is that if the logical and historical unfolding

of the subject matter coincide, that's OK, but it's not essential. The

issue is whether in unpacking and developing the logical starting point

(for Marx, the commodity) one can reconstruct in thought all of the

essential aspects of the subject matter (the capitalist mode of

production).

If the progression was historical, then Marx might have begun with

Book II on _Landed Property_ rather than Book I on _Capital_. Or, he

might have begun with Book IV on _The State_ rather than the book

on _Capital_. Or, he might have begun Book I with the topic of the

primitive accumulation of capital rather than ending Volume I (of 3

volumes) of Book I with that subject. Or ....

In solidarity, Jerry