Re: [OPE-L] [Jurriaan] Derrida's ghosts

[ajit sinha <sinha_a99@xxxxxxxxx>]

France is not burning Paul. It is amazing to see how
normal Paris is. You would not know that even a leaf
was burning just north of the city if you didn't watch
the news! ajit
--- Paul Zarembka <zarembka@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> France burns and Derrida's ghosts are discussed.
> Paul Z.
>
>
************************************************************************
> RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY,  Paul Zarembka,
> editor,  Elsevier Science
> *********************
> http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka
>
>
> On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 glevy@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > ---------------------------- Original Message
> ------------------------
> > Subject: Derrida's ghosts
> > From:    "Jurriaan Bendien"
> <adsl675281@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > Date:    Sun, November 6, 2005 7:01 am
> >
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > For what it's worth, I took an interest in
> complexity theory twenty years
> > ago, when I studied Ernest Mandel's interpretation
> of Marx's economics
> > (see Ernest Mandel, 'Partially independent
> variables and internal logic
> > in classical Marxist economic analysis', in Social
> Science Information
> > vol. 24 no. 3 (1985), pp. 487-88 reprinted in Ulf
> Himmelstrand, Interfaces
> > in Economic & Social Analysis, London 1992).
> >
> > But a lot of talk about complexity theory,
> especially in social science,
> > is I think really based on:
> >
> > -a confusion about the purpose of theory
> > -a confusion about the method of obtaining
> knowledge.
> >
> > Theory properly understood is generalisations
> about experiences which are,
> > however, not reducible to those experiences (as in
> naive empiricism of
> > the "covering law" type). A generalisation is a
> simplification of sorts.
> > The point of theory is not to "theorise
> complexity", but to identify
> > those salient aspects of a complex reality that
> can explain it or make it
> > comprehensible; the best scientific theory is the
> simplest theory with
> > the greatest explanatory power.
> >
> > Of course, obscurantists start talking
> "complexity" when they haven't
> > studied the facts, and cannot explain them; that
> is a sort of speculative
> > philosophy, propagated by people who think
> themselves very
> > "sophisticated".
> >
> > I think also that really the best way to learn to
> understand so-called
> > "complexity" is just to live your own life, and
> reflect on your own
> > experience of it. For the rest, I'm happy to leave
> the summarising of
> > complexity theories about complexity to my
> doppelganger Joshua Goldstein,
> > who sells a lot of books that way :-).
> >
> > Jurriaan
> >
> >
> >
>




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