(OPE-L) Praxis Reports

["Gerald A. Levy" <Gerald_A_Levy@xxxxxxx>]

Speaking of Gramsci, didn't he assert that human

practice _is_ philosophy and that we engage in a

"philosophy of praxis"?

 

Does that mean that those of us who joined yesterday

with an estimated eleven million others world-wide

in anti-war protests were engaging in the construction

and reconstruction of philosophy?  Or, does the

(re)construction of philosophy require _more than_

practice?

 

There were somewhere between 60,000 and 100,000

demonstrators in New York City yesterday. The _New

York Times_ reported yesterday, I read on another list,

that _2 million_ people demonstrated against the war in

Rome -- but I am skeptical of this estimate. 

 

Did _you_  demonstrate yesterday?  If so, could you give

us a brief   "praxis report"?

 

How could the anti-war movement be analyzed from a

Gramscian perspective?   From a systematic dialectical

perspective would it be theorized as contingency? And, if

so, could it be theorized as "contingency of a moment's content",

or a "major contingent external" or as a "minor contingent

external"? (*)   How could it be analyzed from other

perspectives including that of "Open Marxism"?

 

In solidarity, Jerry

 

(*) See Geert's "On 'Becoming Necessity' in an Organic

Systematic Dialectic: The Case of Creeping Inflation" in

Albritton, R. and Simoulidis, J. (eds.) (2003) _New Dialectics

and Political Economy_, pp. 42-59.  See especially  pp.43-44.

 

PS related to Ajit's question:  there was a sizable

correspondence between Sraffa and Gramsci.  Did a

discussion of Hegel and Hegelianism occur in those

exchanges?