Opinions on this statement?

[learnitarian]

You don't bridge the is-ought gap without normative assumptions so when people try to invoke the certitude of science to defend their political, social or moral perspective you know right away they are deliberately trying to confine you to a discussion in which their values, morals or preferences are not up for debate.

It sounds right to me, but it has obvious implications for Marxism, which is claimed to be a science.

If the statement is correct, then it would interpret Marxists as saying something like, "the world IS this way, but we think it OUGHT to be this other way, but we can't prove an OUGHT, so we've constructed this thing called Marxism which predicts what WILL be, and if you step outside our construct then you're outside SCIENCE, and so you're wrong."

And how fortunate that what WILL be happens to coincide with what OUGHT to be.

The statement wasn't directed at Marxism, by the way. It was just a general statement.

I agree with the OUGHTS of Marxism, and I don't necessarily disagree that it's a kind of science, but I agree that the is-ought gap limits normative statements to preferences, and they can't be elevated into anything higher.

[Dimentio]

Yes, that is a definite problem. Marxism is somewhat pythagorean, in that it often attempts to adapt the world to its model for explaining the world, rather than the other way around. One glaring example I could think of is the "false conciousness" idea.

To criticise marxism constructively shouldn't be interpreted as a mean to undermine it, but rather as a mean to help transforming the world.

[Hit The North]

At least Marxism doesn't disguise its normative assumptions but clearly locates such assumptions within the framework of its class analysis. In other words, all normative assumptions are class assumptions: no science of society is possible which stands above the class struggle.

Rather, it is bourgeois social science which hides its assumptions in a pretence to scientific objectivity.


If the statement is correct, then it would interpret Marxists as saying something like, "the would IS this way, but we think it OUGHT to be this other way, but we can't prove an OUGHT, so we've constructed this thing called Marxism which predicts what WILL be, and if you step outside our construct then you're outside SCIENCE, and so you're wrong."

But as Marxists we look to praxis, not reasoning, to establish socialism. Otherwise, transforming society would just be a matter of convincing everyone of the rightness of our aims - you know, the old 'revolution of the mind' argument beloved of 19th century utopian socialists and 20th century hippies.

Of course, the abuse of scientific credentialism, which you identify above, is always possible and is frequently invoked, but incorrectly. I don't think, as Marxists, that we believe in a social-scientific objectivity which is completely uncontaminated by the class society which produces it.

[Dimentio]

At least Marxism doesn't disguise its normative assumptions but clearly locates such assumptions within the framework of its class analysis. In other words, all normative assumptions are class assumptions: no science of society is possible which stands above the class struggle.

Rather, it is bourgeois social science which hides its assumptions in a pretence to scientific objectivity.

But as Marxists we look to praxis, not reasoning, to establish socialism. Otherwise, transforming society would just be a matter of convincing everyone of the rightness of our aims - you know, the old 'revolution of the mind' argument beloved of 19th century utopian socialists and 20th century hippies.

Of course, the abuse of scientific credentialism, which you identify above, is always possible and is frequently invoked, but incorrectly. I don't think, as Marxists, that we believe in a social-scientific objectivity which is completely uncontaminated by the class society which produces it.

That is all well, but sometimes the conclusions reached by marxist scholars about social development could obviously be criticised, not from the point of not being objective, but from the point of being faulty and simplistic. If a part of the marxist theory is flawed, and people who are calling out on it are dismissed for being revisionists, then by all criteria marxism is rather working as a doctrine than a science.

The main example here is "false conciousness". According to what criteria is "real conciousness"? Shouldn't people be motivated primarily by their economic interests and not by idealistic assumptions about the world?

Pythagoras had this idea that all bodies in the universe must move according to a perfectly circular pattern, and that the Earth was the centre of the Universe because no movement could be felt on the Earth and that the sky evidently was circulating around Earth. In some manners, marxism is following the Pythagorean-Platonian tradition.

[learnitarian]

At least Marxism doesn't disguise its normative assumptions but clearly locates such assumptions within the framework of its class analysis. In other words, all normative assumptions are class assumptions: no science of society is possible which stands above the class struggle.

Rather, it is bourgeois social science which hides its assumptions in a pretence to scientific objectivity.


If a part of the marxist theory is flawed, and people who are calling out on it are dismissed for being revisionists, then by all criteria marxism is rather working as a doctrine than a science.

The main example here is "false conciousness". According to what criteria is "real conciousness"? Shouldn't people be motivated primarily by their economic interests and not by idealistic assumptions about the world?

These are thought provoking points, thank you both.

[Vanguard1917]

Yes, that is a definite problem. Marxism is somewhat pythagorean, in that it often attempts to adapt the world to its model for explaining the world, rather than the other way around.

Such 'Marxism' has historically been widespread, but it has also been vigorously criticised and rejected by Marxists, going back as far as Marx and Engels themselves. Engels made the point that

'The materialist conception of history has a lot of [dangerous friends] nowadays, to whom it serves as an excuse for not studying history. Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French "Marxists" of the late [18]70s: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist."

...

'In general, the word "materialistic" serves many of the younger writers in Germany as a mere phrase with which anything and everything is labeled without further study, that is, they stick on this label and then consider the question disposed of. But our conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the Hegelian. All history must be studied afresh, the conditions of existence of the different formations of society must be examined individually ...'

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm

[Dimentio]

Such 'Marxism' has historically been widespread, but it has also been vigorously criticised and rejected by Marxists, going back as far as Marx and Engels themselves. Engels made the point that

'The materialist conception of history has a lot of [dangerous friends] nowadays, to whom it serves as an excuse for not studying history. Just as Marx used to say, commenting on the French "Marxists" of the late [18]70s: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist."

...

'In general, the word "materialistic" serves many of the younger writers in Germany as a mere phrase with which anything and everything is labeled without further study, that is, they stick on this label and then consider the question disposed of. But our conception of history is above all a guide to study, not a lever for construction after the manner of the Hegelian. All history must be studied afresh, the conditions of existence of the different formations of society must be examined individually ...'

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1890/letters/90_08_05.htm

I am actually agreeing with Rosa that dialectics are pre-scientific and somewhat based on a-priori conclusions. Ultimately, dialectics were based on Hegel's ideas about some form of perfect general trends hidden beneath all imperfections of the world, in short "pythagorean circles" all over again. The heavenly spheres ought to have perfect circular shapes and perfect circular orbits, since the circle was the perfect form.

Dialectics could be a method of making the trends of history simpler to understand for students, but should not be used as a mean to explain how the world is working like since that could serve to confuse people (I mean, the transition from feudalism into capitalism began as early as in the middle 14th century, and feudalism itself was constantly changing and had in fact only existed in western Europe from the seventh century and not from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and there had been feudal periods in other parts of the world as well, as in Persia 200 BC-200 AD, Japan during the Shôgun and China during the Zhou and the Han).

[ZeroNowhere]

I tend to think that Capital contains a fair bit more than normative statements, which themselves perform quite a different function to statements of preference in our language. Marx does derive communism from his analysis of capitalism, of course, but his advocacy is, as it were, on the 'ought' side; nonetheless, if it weren't, he'd probably be classed a sociopath.


Dialectics could be a method of making the trends of history simpler to understand for students, but should not be used as a mean to explain how the world is working like since that could serve to confuse people (I mean, the transition from feudalism into capitalism began as early as in the middle 14th century, and feudalism itself was constantly changing and had in fact only existed in western Europe from the seventh century and not from the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and there had been feudal periods in other parts of the world as well, as in Persia 200 BC-200 AD, Japan during the Shôgun and China during the Zhou and the Han).
Thus events strikingly analogous but taking place in different historic surroundings led to totally different results. By studying each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one can easily find the clue to this phenomenon, but one will never arrive there by the universal passport of a general historico-philosophical theory, the supreme virtue of which consists in being super-historical.-Marx, 1877.
Where speculation ends – in real life – there real, positive science begins: the representation of the practical activity, of the practical process of development of men. Empty talk about consciousness ceases, and real knowledge has to take its place. When reality is depicted, philosophy as an independent branch of knowledge loses its medium of existence. At the best its place can only be taken by a summing-up of the most general results, abstractions which arise from the observation of the historical development of men. Viewed apart from real history, these abstractions have in themselves no value whatsoever. They can only serve to facilitate the arrangement of historical material, to indicate the sequence of its separate strata. But they by no means afford a recipe or schema, as does philosophy, for neatly trimming the epochs of history. On the contrary, our difficulties begin only when we set about the observation and the arrangement – the real depiction – of our historical material, whether of a past epoch or of the present.-The German Ideology, 1845.