Marx’ Critique of Science and Positivism


Book Description

political economy. With this in mind the reader will be taken through three meta-theoretical levels of Marx' method of analysis of the struc tures of capitalism: (1) the clarification of 'critique' and method from Kant's epistemology, Hegel's phenomenology, to Marx' political economy (Chapter One); (2) the analysis of 'critique' and time, that is, the temporal dimensions of the critical method as they evolve from Hegel's Logic to Marx' Capital and the difference between the use of the future in explanatory, positivist science and 'critique' (Chapter Two); (3) and finally, 'critique' and materialism, a study of the complexity of the category of materialism, the ambivalence and ambiguity of its use in Marx' critical method, and the ontological and logical dilemmas created by the Schelling-Feuerbach turn toward materialism in their critique of Hegel (Chapter Three). The critique of political economy is, therefore, examined at the levels of methodology, temporality, and ontology. To what do the categories of political economy really refer when the positivist interpretations of Marx have been shattered and 'critique' be comes the method of choice? What kind of knowledge do we have if it is no longer "scientific" in the traditional sense of both epistemology and methodology? And what kind of applicability will it have when its format is such as not to produce predictive, technical knowledge, but practical knowledge in the Greek sense of the word (Praxis)? What be comes of the criterion of truth when epistemology itself, like science, is




Marxism and the Philosophy of Science


Book Description

A masterful survey of the history of Marxist philosophy of science Sheehan retraces the development of a Marxist philosophy of science through detailed and highly readable accounts of the debates that shaped it. Skilfully deploying a large cast of characters, Sheehan shows how Marx and Engel’s ideas on the development and structure of natural science had a crucial impact on the work of early twentieth-century natural philosophers, historians of science, and natural scientists. With a new afterword by the author.




Marx’s Experiments and Microscopes


Book Description

In Marx’s Experiments and Microscopes: Modes of Production, Religion, and the Method of Successive Abstractions, Paul B. Paolucci examines how Marx brought conventional scientific practice together with dialectical reason to produce his unique approach to sociological research. Though scholars often interpret his work through either a dialectical framework or as an aspirant scientific contender, less common are demonstrations of how Marx brought these two forms of inquiry together in ways as familiar to the conventional scientist as they are to the experienced Marxian scholar. The book elaborates on how Marx used a method successive abstractions in his study of modes of production as well as how to apply that method to studies in political economy and the sociology of religion.




Marxism and Sociology: A Selection of Writings by Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz


Book Description

Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz was an extraordinary figure on the Polish political scene at the turn of the 20th century. A Marxist and patriot, academic and politician, Kelles-Krauz was most known for his efforts to reconcile the needs of the nation with international socialism. This volume, however, offers a selection of his writings centred on the history of ideas, published for the first time in English. Kelles-Krauz’s works, while Marxist at heart, linked ideas stemming from the concepts of German idealists, French positivists, as well as contemporary sociologists who offered a bridge between research on individuals and the workings of social systems. Kelles-Krauz, however, repeatedly transcended Marxist tenets, focusing on the construction of traditions, social norms, and the social role of art. This edited volume was first published in Polish as Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz: Marksizm a socjologia. Wybór pism by Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego in 2014. This current work has been revised and translated into English.







Marxism and Social Science


Book Description

Has Marxism ceased to be part of our political present and future? Has its theory or doctrine anything to contribute to our understanding of the new millennium? In these original, commissioned essays, the contributors argue that Marxism continues as a living tradition. They show how it still engages with other theoretical positions, how it has evolved in response to both these engagements and contemporary world changes, and they assess its relevance and contribution to modern social science.







Marx, Methodology and Science


Book Description

This title was first published in 2001. The book aims to give a clear and accessible account of Marx’s method and an assessment of its scientific validity and relevance to contemporary social science; The key methodological themes of Marx’s work and their development are shown with particular attention paid to the elements of dialectics and materialism; Four models of science are outlined-positivism; critical rationalism; scientific conventionalism; scientific realism - and the arguments and evidence both for and against Marx’s method corresponding to any of them examined. The conclusion arrived at is that Marx’s method is a good example of social scientific practice according to the scientific realist model and that it has a positive contribution to make to social science today.realism.




Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature


Book Description

Reading different or controversial intentions into Marx and Engels’ works has been a common but somewhat unquestioned practice in the history of Marxist scholarship. Engels’ Dialectics of Nature, a torso for some and a great book for others, is a case in point. The entire Engels debate separates into two opposite views: Engels the contaminator of Marx’s “new materialism” vs. Engels the self-educated genius of dialectical materialism. What Engels, unlike Marx, has not enjoyed so far is a critical reading that considers the relationship between different layers of this standard text: authorial, textual, editorial, and interpretational. Informed by a historical hermeneutic, this book questions the elements that structure the debate on the Dialectics of Nature. It analyzes different political and philosophical functions attached to Engels’ text, and relocates the meaning of the term “dialectics” into a more precise context. Arguing that Engels’ dialectics is less complete than we usually think it is but that he achieved more than most scholars would like to admit, this book fully documents and critically analyzes Engels’ intentions and concerns in the Dialectics of Nature, the process of writing, and its reception and edition history in order to reconstruct the solved and unsolved philosophical problems in this unfinished work.




Red Hamlet: The Life and Ideas of Alexander Bogdanov


Book Description

In this first full-length biography of Alexander Bogdanov, James D. White traces the intellectual development of this key socialist thinker, situating his ideas in the context of the Russian revolutionary movement. He examines the part Bogdanov played in the origins of Bolshevism, his role in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and his conflict with Lenin, which lasted into Soviet times. The book examines in some detail Bogdanov’s intellectual legacy, which, though deliberately obscured and distorted by his adversaries, was considerable and is of lasting significance. Bogdanov was an original and influential interpreter of Marx. He had a mastery of many spheres of knowledge, this expertise being employed in writing his chief theoretical work Tectology, which anticipates modern systems theory. See inside the book.