Historical Materialism = Scientific? [Archive]

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Chomskyfan

23rd October 2008, 23:51

PRC-UTE

24th October 2008, 00:01

well historical materialism was more or less adopted by the bourgeoisie as well.

Post-Something

24th October 2008, 00:04

I think you're thinking of Dialectics. You should speak to Rosa or Trivas on the subject.

Yehuda Stern

24th October 2008, 00:47

There's nothing mystical about dialectical or historical materialism. It is just that many Marxist groups have used a distorted version of dialectics to justify their ridiculous or opportunist politics. Gerry Healy used very crude 'dialectics' to justify why a fascist dictatorship could arise in Britain at any moment on the one hand, and why that means that the role of Marxists is to tail the left wing of the Labour party on the other.

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th October 2008, 02:56

Despite what YS says, dialectics [DM] is no less mystical when used by comrades like him than the full blown Hegelian version is. Just like theologians in relation to the Christian Trinity, not one single fan of the dialectic can explain it -- so mysterious is it.

The opposite is the case with Historical Materialism [HM].

But, to answer your question: the 'demarcation' problem was invented by philosophers of an empiricist frame of mind, who concentrated on a rarefied view of science (modelled, as a matter of fact, on an ahistorical picture of Physics) which bore no relation to the actual practice of science.

More recent work has moved away from this a priori picture, so it is important to examine how science itself has been practiced rather than forcing it into an unreal straight-jacket. That having been done, HM is no less scientific than any other classical scientific theory (for example, Darwinian evolution).

Or, alternatively, if you can point me to literature which addresses this dilemma.

Unfortunatley, most Marxists are so caught up in their own little world that they are quite incapable of defending HM along the lines you require. So, this has not been addressed at all well by Marxists.

Maurice Cornforth tried to defend both HM and DM against Popper (and his 'demarcation criterion' -- falsification) 50 years ago, but his arguments were seriously compromised by his adherence to DM.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Cornforth

The best book I can think of that defends scientific realism from a Marxist angle is Fact and Method by Richard Miller -- a comrade who does know what he is talking about.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/2568.html

Unfortunately, this is not an easy book.

The best on-line material can be found at Guy Robinson's site:

http://www.guyrobinson.net/

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyAndMystification_MisunderstandingScience .pdf

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/PhilosophyAndDemystification_Chapter2.pdf

http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/Materialism.pdf

And in his book Demystifying Philosophy. Several of the Essays in that work are to my mind genuine classics.

The best defence of HM is to be found in Gerry Cohen's book Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (but ignore his 'technological determinism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_determinism)', and his functionalism).

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/320.html

Follow that with Alex Callinicos's Making History (but ignore his chapter on Agency).

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&id=2lHDbVlQaJMC&dq=Callinicos+Making+History&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=0iLeqb8Jm8&sig=U26GXaRxJVPIXE-slaCdwxfj-jw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th October 2008, 03:00

YS:

Gerry Healy used very crude 'dialectics' to justify why a fascist dictatorship could arise in Britain at any moment on the one hand, and why that means that the role of Marxists is to tail the left wing of the Labour party on the other.

Indeed, dialectics can be used to defend any idea you like, and its opposite....:rolleyes:

Chomskyfan

24th October 2008, 05:06

Thank you for the responses. Very informative, and glad to see how well versed some of you are on this topic. I will consult the literature you have recommended RL but perhaps one of you can help me tackle a follow up question, which is how to respond to against attacks on HM that it is an outdated paradigm or an "all or nothing" paradigm? In other words, claims depicting HM as a paradigm hostile to constantly seeking to undermine its very own foundations and this being unreasonable.

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th October 2008, 05:46

I am not sure what 'outdated' means here. Sure, like every other science, HM needs to renew and update itself, but no one supposes that Darwin's theory (which is roughly the same age as HM) is 'outdated', even though it has been supplimented by advances in Genetics, etc.

And, I rather think evolutionary theory is an 'all or nothing theory', too. The same goes for all other fundamental scientific theories -- or does someone suppose that Quantum Mechanics does not apply on Alpha Centauri?

Yehuda Stern

24th October 2008, 11:46

Rosa: Again, there are many theories that can be used to justify one idea or another, Marxism and HM included. This still does not mean that they are not valid - it means that the people using them are crooks. As for myself, I can explain and defend dialectical materialism just fine. It's easy as long as you remember that dialectical materialism isn't a crystal ball and isn't a magical recipe for taking the right positions, but is just a method of analysis, which comes as a supplement and as a way of developing Marxist theory and practice.

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th October 2008, 19:30

YS:

Rosa: Again, there are many theories that can be used to justify one idea or another, Marxism and HM included. This still does not mean that they are not valid - it means that the people using them are crooks. As for myself, I can explain and defend dialectical materialism just fine. It's easy as long as you remember that dialectical materialism isn't a crystal ball and isn't a magical recipe for taking the right positions, but is just a method of analysis, which comes as a supplement and as a way of developing Marxist theory and practice.

Not so: try to use HM (with no Hegelian concepts at all) to justify, say, the Stalinist argument that the 'withering away of the state' and its opposite (its increased centralisation and denial of democracy) are compatible:

It may be said that such a presentation of the question is "contradictory." But is there not the same "contradictoriness" in our presentation of the question of the state? We stand for the withering away of the state. At the same time we stand for the strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest and strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development of state power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering away of state power -- such is the Marxist formula. Is this "contradictory"? Yes, it is "contradictory." But this contradiction us bound up with life, and it fully reflects Marx's dialectics. [Political Report of the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), June 27,1930. Bold emphasis added.]

Or that one day a United Front with the SDP is to unite with 'social fascists', whereas 24 hours later it is the very epitome of good socialist sense. Or that on Monday it would be class treachery to form a pact with Hitler, but on Tuesday it is part of the revolutionary defence of the 'Mother Land'.

Or, that it is the very epitome of proletarian internationalism to defend Stalin's invasion of Finland...

All of these, and more, were defended by the use of the contradictiory nature of social reality, and thus on 'dialectical' grounds. Since Zen Buddhism and 'materialist dialectcs' are the only two theories (that I know of) that defend a contradictory view of reality and of thought, only they are so well-placed to defend anything you like and then its opposite the next day (or, in some cases, at the same time!).

And sure, that does not make the dialectic invalid (it is invalid because it makes not one ounce of sense), but it does explain why comrades cling onto this regressive 'theory'.

As for myself, I can explain and defend dialectical materialism just fine. It's easy as long as you remember that dialectical materialism isn't a crystal ball and isn't a magical recipe for taking the right positions, but is just a method of analysis, which comes as a supplement and as a way of developing Marxist theory and practice

1) I'd like to see you try. You have been invited to join in the debates in Philosophy, but up to now you have kept clear -- I suspect I know why.

2) On the contrary, dialectics has always been used as "a crystal ball and [as] a magical recipe for taking the right positions..."; you can find the overwhelming evidence for that here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2002.htm

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

[In the latter case, use the 'Quick Links' to go to Section Seven: 'Case Studies'. I'd post a direct link, but the anonymiser RevLeft uses ignores them.]

Yehuda Stern

24th October 2008, 21:51

Again, you're quoting real hacks here. No sincere supporter of DM would justify 'contradictions' in such a crude way. Not anyone I know of, at least.

At any rate, you should know better than me that Marxist groups have, without any use of dialectics, justified support for anything. Shachtman, who was no big dialectician, used Marxism to justify support for Bay of Pigs and for Zionism. Zionist Marxists have used Marxism to justify support for anything from the Nakba to the recent war in Lebanon. A person whose grasp of 'theory' expresses itself in his ability to distort quotes to fit what he is saying will always be able to justify anything with the help of anything. And a British Trot should really know.

I'd like to see you try. You have been invited to join in the debates in Philosophy, but up to now you have kept clear -- I suspect I know why.I don't remember being invited, though I generally find discussion of phiolosophy to be less interesting than discussions of 'purer' politics. Philosophy enthusiasts, whether the sham-DM kind or the anti-DM kind, will propably see as a heretic for just thinking that, but who really cares. And I would be more than willing to discuss philosophy with you, by PM or otherwise, but let us try to avoid the condescending tone - we have done just fine without it up to now.

On the contrary, dialectics has always been used as "a crystal ball and [as] a magical recipe for taking the right positions..."; you can find the overwhelming evidence for that here:
I've read parts of what you've linked to, but I'm not very convinced. The only theorist of relevance, to me, that you have quoted is Trotsky, and he never uses dialectics as a 'crystal ball' but as a way of analyzing reality. Trotsky was right to define the USSR as a workers' state up to 1939 exactly because there was no counterrevolution - he said that seeing the return of capitalism as possible without such a counterrevolution would be "reformism in reverse." The late 1930s brought with them the smashing of the left opposition and that meant the solution of the contradiction between the class nature of the state and the political nature of the regime, something which Trotsky did not grasp at the time.

Anyway, Trotsky always made it very clear that the state-regime contradiction could only last for a historical instance, and that at the time of his death the USSR was already at the crossroads. He offered WWII as a test, and most of the FI refused to understand the result for what it was - a confirmation of the USSR's capitalist character. Those who claimed that the contradiction could last so many decades were making a joke of both DM and Marxism in general.

Rosa Lichtenstein

24th October 2008, 22:46

YS:

Again, you're quoting real hacks here. No sincere supporter of DM would justify 'contradictions' in such a crude way. Not anyone I know of, at least.

1) Odd the way that 'hacks' are just those whose interpretations of 'the dialectic' with which you disagree. Even odder is the fact that there is in fact no way to tell a 'crude' interpretation of this eternally plastic 'theory' from a 'sophisticated' one.

2) Trotsky used it in such 'crude' ways, as did Lenin, Engels and Plekhanov (among many others).

At any rate, you should know better than me that Marxist groups have, without any use of dialectics, justified support for anything. Shachtman, who was no big dialectician, used Marxism to justify support for Bay of Pigs and for Zionism. Zionist Marxists have used Marxism to justify support for anything from the Nakba to the recent war in Lebanon. A person whose grasp of 'theory' expresses itself in his ability to distort quotes to fit what he is saying will always be able to justify anything with the help of anything. And a British Trot should really know.

I agree, and thanks for helping confirm my view that this 'theory' can be used to 'prove' anything you like, and its opposite (and in the same breath) -- the use of dialectical styles of reasoning are clear in all the cases you mention.

Note, too, that I did not claim that 'dialectics' was the only theory that could be used this way, but that it is uniquely qualified to be used this way because of its fondness for 'contradiction' (a bug you seem to have caught), and because its epigones prefer the facility it provides for obfuscation (in point of fact, because it allows them to denigrate those interpretations they do not like as 'crude', when there is in fact no way of distinguishing the crude from the non-crude, as I pointed out).

I don't remember being invited, though I generally find discussion of phiolosophy to be less interesting than discussions of 'purer' politics. Philosophy enthusiasts, whether the sham-DM kind or the anti-DM kind, will propably see as a heretic for just thinking that, but who really cares. And I would be more than willing to discuss philosophy with you, by PM or otherwise, but let us try to avoid the condescending tone - we have done just fine without it up to now.

A month or so back, you asked me to start a thread in the Philosophy section on this 'theory' and I replied that there were plenty already for you to join.

2) Were you able to defend this 'theory' I think you'd have done so by now. The Philosophy section is not difficult to find. You do not need an invite, but here is one again -- OK comrade: show me where I go wrong in any of the RevLeft 'dialectics' threads I have collated here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/RevLeft.htm

Say, this one:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nti-dialectics-made-t67725/index.html

I've read parts of what you've linked to, but I'm not very convinced. The only theorist of relevance, to me, that you have quoted is Trotsky, and he never uses dialectics as a 'crystal ball' but as a way of analyzing reality. Trotsky was right to define the USSR as a workers' state up to 1939 exactly because there was no counterrevolution - he said that seeing the return of capitalism as possible without such a counterrevolution would be "reformism in reverse." The late 1930s brought with them the smashing of the left opposition and that meant the solution of the contradiction between the class nature of the state and the political nature of the regime, something which Trotsky did not grasp at the time.

1) Of course, I refer to Trotsky's use of the 'dialectic' not as a crystal ball, but as a:

magical recipe for taking the right positions

which he most certainly does, as pointed out in 2):

2) Trotsky's only reason for defending the former USSR is a dialectical one: because the former Soviet State is 'contradictory'. And yet the Maoists and Stalinists use the same 'theory' to argue against Trotsky, while the IST use this 'theory' to argue that the 'contradictory' nature of the former USSR means it is State Capitalist, and while you use it to show that the lot of them are wrong! In short, this 'theory' is indeed a:

magical recipe for taking the right positions

3) Why is this a 'contradiction':

The late 1930s brought with them the smashing of the left opposition and that meant the solution of the contradiction between the class nature of the state and the political nature of the regime, something which Trotsky did not grasp at the time.?

You mystics use this word all the time, but do not seem to be able to justify it.

Anyway, Trotsky always made it very clear that the state-regime contradiction could only last for a historical instance, and that at the time of his death the USSR was already at the crossroads. He offered WWII as a test, and most of the FI refused to understand the result for what it was - a confirmation of the USSR's capitalist character. Those who claimed that the contradiction could last so many decades were making a joke of both DM and Marxism in general.

So, it seems that Trotsky did use 'dialectics' as a 'crystal ball', after all -- as you too seem to.

Yehuda Stern

25th October 2008, 00:01

1) Odd the way that 'hacks' are just those whose interpretations of 'the dialectic' with which you disagree. Even odder is the fact that there is in fact no way to tell a 'crude' interpretation of this eternally plastic 'theory' from a 'sophisticated' one.

So, the Stalinist 'theorists' weren't hacks in your opinion? Do you consider them to be authoritative Marxists?

I agree, and thanks for helping confirm my view that this 'theory' can be used to 'prove' anything you like, and its opposite (and in the same breath) -- the use of dialectical styles of reasoning are clear in all the cases you mention.

This is at best an ignorant assertion and at worst a lie. Both Shachtman and the Zionist Socialists have had little to do with dialectics. Shachtman always claimed dialectics to be a very minor issue. The Socialist Zionists had little to nothing to do with dialectics. You may want to have had something to do with it to confirm your theory, but that unfortunately can't be considered as evidence.

Note, too, that I did not claim that 'dialectics' was the only theory that could be used this way, but that it is uniquely qualified to be used this way because of its fondness for 'contradiction'

Again, this is just an assertion, and one that doesn't hold ground considering the views of anti-DM Marxists in Germany of Duhring's time, anti-DM Marxists in Russia, and anti-DM Marxists in and around the FI.

A month or so back, you asked me to start a thread in the Philosophy section on this 'theory' and I replied that there were plenty already for you to join.

1) I did not ask you to start a thread - I suggested that if you want to discuss DM, you should do so in another thread, seeing as doing that in the thread we were in would derail it from the original subject.

2) The thread got pretty ugly from then on, going to very disgusting personal slander, which I am sure neither of us wants to bring up. Suffice to say, it did not made me very inclined to take any offer from you.

Were you able to defend this 'theory' I think you'd have done so by now. The Philosophy section is not difficult to find. You do not need an invite, but here is one again -- OK comrade: show me where I go wrong in any of the RevLeft 'dialectics' threads I have collated here:

To paraphrase one of your philosophical forefathers, I'm pretty sick of arguing about religion. (I must say it's pretty ironic for you to slander DM as a 'religion,' especially when you refuse time and time again to address any evidence in the philosophy threads that shows that Marx used Hegelian dialectics)

Pogue

25th October 2008, 00:04

From looking at it and reading about it I've come to the conclusion its aload of useless bollocks given religious significance by cofee-shop-campus intellectual 'Marxists' who like to talk fancy bollocks. Best avoided, cos it's fucking useless.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th October 2008, 00:44

YS:

So, the Stalinist 'theorists' weren't hacks in your opinion? Do you consider them to be authoritative Marxists?

Unfortunately, when it comes to dialectics, all Marxists are hacks. And there are plenty of examples of Stalinist 'hacks' who are more sophisticated dialecticians than many of us Trotskyists are.

This is at best an ignorant assertion and at worst a lie. Both Shachtman and the Zionist Socialists have had little to do with dialectics. Shachtman always claimed dialectics to be a very minor issue. The Socialist Zionists had little to nothing to do with dialectics. You may want to have had something to do with it to confirm your theory, but that unfortunately can't be considered as evidence.

Unfortunately for you, Shachtman was a dialectician, and no less of a dialectical hack than Trotsky, or Stalin, sad to say. Can't speak of the Zionists; my earlier statement should have made that clear.

Again, this is just an assertion, and one that doesn't hold ground considering the views of anti-DM Marxists in Germany of Duhring's time, anti-DM Marxists in Russia, and anti-DM Marxists in and around the FI.

1) Indeed it is an assertion, but then so is much of what you say.

2) That is one of the reasons I set up my site: to back up these assertions with evidence.

3) I am not too sure what the anti-DM Marxists have to do with this; you did not make that assertion too clear.

1) I did not ask you to start a thread - I suggested that if you want to discuss DM, you should do so in another thread, seeing as doing that in the thread we were in would derail it from the original subject.

2) The thread got pretty ugly from then on, going to very disgusting personal slander, which I am sure neither of us wants to bring up. Suffice to say, it did not made me very inclined to take any offer from you.

1) And I offered you two ways to do this: a) by starting a new thread on dialectics, or b) by joining one of the many there already are in Philosophy. So far you have ducked both opportunities.

2) What 'slander' was that?

To paraphrase one of your philosophical forefathers, I'm pretty sick of arguing about religion. (I must say it's pretty ironic for you to slander DM as a 'religion,' especially when you refuse time and time again to address any evidence in the philosophy threads that shows that Marx used Hegelian dialectics)

Where do I 'slander' DM as a 'religion'? What I do say is that this 'theory' works like a religion in that it provides consolation to its adherents for the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism, and it convinces them that the appearance that Dialectical Marxism is an abject failure is 'contradicted' by its underlying 'essential' success (which is about to happen any day soon...).

Where do allege that Marx used Hegelian dialectics? What I do allege is that he did not use dialectics as you mystics think he did -- in that his verson (from Das Kapital onwards) uses no 'contradictions', no 'unity of opposites', no 'negation of the negation', no 'quantity passing over into quality', no 'mediated totality', no 'universal change'...

Invader Zim

25th October 2008, 01:11

This question comes down to another question, can history be a science? And the answer to the latter, and as such the former, is no.

Science is fundermentally observable, measurable and scientific knowledge is obtained through observation and experimentation. Quite obviously we can not actually observe or experiment upon the past. What we can actually observe are relics from the past, but not the past itself. As a result historians, unlike scientists, are forced to work with subject matter which is not 'objective'. Rather a historian must piece together an image of the past from the various scraps of information he or she can find. That information invariably never tells the whole story, is conflicting, and was the product of invariably partial individuals, and thus inescapably marred with the taint of the 'subjective'.

As a result historians can not even agree on the most mundane results of a piece of research, because there is no 'objective' correct answer which can be deduced from the data to hand. As such it is a complete and utter self-decieving make-believe to claim to be able to examine history from a 'scientific' stance.

Thats not to knock historical materialism, which as a methodology for examining the past, has a legacy of excellence; being the tool of some of the best and brightest historians of any age and has resulted in some of the best historical studies ever produced. As a tool for interpreting the past I am utterly convinced, but as soon as you get to the issue of historical inevitability, the warning bells start to sound.

PRC-UTE

25th October 2008, 02:17

I agree with the post above by Zim. It's not a science that makes predictions, not in the bourgeois sense.

I also agree with YS on dialectics. There's charlatans in every field, it just doesn't follow logically that all dialectics are crap. Look how Marx put it to use.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th October 2008, 03:09

PRC-UTE

25th October 2008, 05:10

Nor can any of you sustain an argument against me -- that is why you lot had to retreat into that esoteric coven of yours in the Dialectical Materialism group.

"Esoretic coven". That's just nonsense.

Erm, as a matter of fact, we haven't retreated from you, and you know it. there was just a thread I think yesterday in philosophy that several comrades who from our dialectics study group were posting in.

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th October 2008, 06:02

PRC:

"Esoretic coven". That's just nonsense

On the contrary, it is quite apt.

Erm, as a matter of fact, we haven't retreated from you, and you know it. there was just a thread I think yesterday in philosophy that several comrades who from our dialectics study group were posting in.

Only because LZ wanted to ask me question.

PRC-UTE

25th October 2008, 06:38

PRC:
On the contrary, it is quite apt.

Why? Because you say so?

Only because LZ wanted to ask me question.

That doesn't refute what I just said:

'there was just a thread I think yesterday in philosophy that several comrades who from our dialectics study group were posting in.'

If they're talking to you in a thread about dialectics outside the study group, then they're not running from you. end of.

Sprinkles

25th October 2008, 11:13

Junius

25th October 2008, 11:45

I don't know whether the only objection to the scientific nature of Marxism is just the demarcation problem mentioned in the OP.*

In my experience the main objection as to whether any part of Marxism is scientific, is the same as the objection raised against the social sciences in general. The assertion that they are not scientific since according to Karl Popper among others; they can only be considered scientific when they are falsifiable. So the question would be whether Dialectic Materialism and Historical Materialism can be considered falsifiable or not. I haven't read it but "The Open Philosophy and the Open Society: A Reply to Dr. Karl Popper's Refutations of Marxism" is about the subject.

Anyone is free to say if I'm completely wrong here, since my knowledge of the subject is limited.

* Edit: What I mentioned is part of the demarcation problem apparently, learn something new everyday. :D

To be brief, since I have a job to be exploited at that I need to get to: you are wrong. :D

Popper's idea sounds nice and neat - but falsification has some large flaws. Empirical predictions for some theories cannot be tested because the technology does not exist...does that mean such theories are not science? How does one determine whether a theory has been falisified; a test might not reach expected results, the researched may attribute that to the shortcomings in testing procedure. Further, researchers may fail to even test the implications of an established theory; assuming them to be true.

Check out Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)...

***had to run - watch this space...

Sprinkles

25th October 2008, 12:01

To be brief, since I have a job to be exploited at that I need to get to: you are wrong. :D

Note that I didn't claim that Popper was right though, just that his question of falsifiability is the main objection I've come across regarding the scientific nature of Marxism.

Popper's idea sounds nice and neat - but falsification has some large flaws. Empirical predictions for some theories cannot be tested because the technology does not exist...does that mean such theories are not science? How does one determine whether a theory has been falisified; a test might not reach expected results, the researched may attribute that to the shortcomings in testing procedure. Further, researchers may fail to even test the implications of an established theory; assuming them to be true.

Check out Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962)...

Like I said I don't know that much about it. Personally I have no real opinion on the subject and am not too bothered whether Marxism or any other social science can be considered "scientific" in either the broadest or narrowest sense. For me Marxism is the most structured and plausible framework, whether Popper thinks it's "scientific" enough isn't really important to me personally.

***had to run - watch this space...

Sure thing. :D

Rosa Lichtenstein

25th October 2008, 19:16

PRC:

Because you say so?

As if! Otherwise, I'd be allowed to join your secret cabal, and thus trash all your arguments. So, you have locked me out, and now feel quite safe to continue to hold your prayer meetings.

That doesn't refute what I just said:

'there was just a thread I think yesterday in philosophy that several comrades who from our dialectics study group were posting in.'

If they're talking to you in a thread about dialectics outside the study group, then they're not running from you. end of.

Indeed, so. There are a few brave souls left among you scaredy cats (but I think you are not one of them), but the vast majority of you and your Trappist friends only feel safe to resume the incantation of your incoherent dialectical mantras behind the high wall of your mountain retreat, and where your nemesis is not allowed to enter.

PRC-UTE

26th October 2008, 00:04

PRC:

As if! Otherwise, I'd be allowed to join your secret cabal, and thus trash all your arguments. So, you have locked me out, and now feel quite safe to continue to hold your prayer meetings.

Indeed, so. There are a few brave souls left among you scaredy cats (but I think you are not one of them), but the vast majority of you and your Trappist friends only feel safe to resume the incantation of your incoherent dialectical mantras behind the high wall of your mountain retreat, and where your nemesis is not allowed to enter.

Wow.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th October 2008, 00:16

PRC:

Wow.

Shocking revelations, I agree...

PRC-UTE

26th October 2008, 01:46

PRC:
Shocking revelations, I agree...

That was the most diplomatic response I can manage at that moment. It makes me furious when academics talk down to me in such a snide way. You let your privileges go to your head. It's pathetic because Bob the Builder, Gil and myself have all admitted that you have a point that dialectics are misused; your flaw is in running with that thesis to a degree that isn't supported by evidence- just your highly selective interpretation. It's one thing to have a very unorthodox opinion, it's another to belittle anyone who dares to not accept it on faith.

First you say the comrades in the dialectical group won't engage with you anymore. Then I present evidence that we are. Then you insult me, and call me a "scardey(sic) cat" of all things, accusing me of avoiding talking to you about dialectics in a discussion about dialectics... odd to say the least. the manner in which you respond to facts with insults displays your insecurity.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th October 2008, 04:37

PRC:

That was the most diplomatic response I can manage at that moment. It makes me furious when academics talk down to me in such a snide way. You let your privileges go to your head. It's pathetic because Bob the Builder, Gil and myself have all admitted that you have a point that dialectics are misused; your flaw is in running with that thesis to a degree that isn't supported by evidence- just your highly selective interpretation. It's one thing to have a very unorthodox opinion, it's another to belittle anyone who dares to not accept it on faith.

1) We certainly give the religious a hard time here, so I do not see why you mystics should get special treatment.

2) I have explained my manner here several times; here is just one such:

Eco:

The point is Rosa, that comrades would be more open to your criticism of dialectics if you didn't come across so patronising and arrogant. All this achieves is to make other comrades less open to your ideas.

Not so, whatever attitude I have adopted in the past, or now adopt, practically every single revolutionary and Marxist I have debated this with has been aggressive, patronising and abusive toward me in return. They have invented things to say about my ideas, mostly without having read my work. [Added: Gilhyle being an excellent example.]

Here is a recent example (and totally unprovoked, for I had been quite pleasant up to then):

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1105#comment-19901

You will soon see how aggressive UK comrades have been toward me (comrades I have never debated with before).

And here is the reply the worst of these individuals got (and far more than he bargained for)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/tom_thumb_the_dialectical_dwarf.htm

There are two notable exception to this general reception (they both post at another site), toward whom I have been a model of good behaviour as a result.

Toward anyone else, I am in general very aggressive; here is why (this is taken from the opening page of my site, and refers to another page where I have recorded the most recent attacks (mostly at RevLeft) that have been made on me):

How Not To Argue 101

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/RevLeft.htm

This page contains links to forums on the web where I have 'debated' this creed with other comrades.

For anyone interested, check out the desperate 'debating' tactics used by Dialectical Mystics in their attempt to respond to my ideas.

You will no doubt notice that the vast majority all say the same sorts of things, and most of them pepper their remarks with scatological and abusive language. They all like to make things up, too, about me and my beliefs. [BTB is an excellent example of this.]

25 years (!!) of this stuff from Dialectical Mystics has meant I now take an aggressive stance with them every time -- I soon learnt back in the 1980s that being pleasant with them (my initial tactic) did not alter their abusive tone, their propensity to fabricate, nor reduce the amount of scatological language they used.

So, these days, I generally go for the jugular from the get-go.

Apparently, they expect me to take their abuse lying down, and regularly complain about my "bullying" tactics.

So, these mystics can dish it out, but they cannot take it.

Given the damage their theory has done to Marxism, and the abuse they all dole out, they are lucky this is all I can do to them.

As I note, my original strategy was to be quite pleasant, since I naively thought that comrades would like to read a different viewpoint as to why our movement has been so spectacularly unsuccessful.

I quickly learnt that that is the last thing they want to hear, and were quite happy to slag me off, lie and invent, just to shut me up, or warn others off my work.

So, I get the blows in first these days.

When I post short articles, they moaned about their 'superficiality'; when I go into detail, they moan even more; when I research my ideas thoroughly, they accused me of 'elitism'.

Dialectical comrades in general just do not want to know; and I can explain why that is so, too. [Added: see below.]

They would prefer to continue for another hundred years along the same failed course, rather than even so much as consider whether our core theory (dialectics) has anything to do with this.

The idea that it hasn't got anything to do with it is, quite frankly, quite ludicrous.

But comrades get abusive at even the mere mention of that possibility.

When that happens it is quite clear that something else is going on; and I think I can explain that too.

Just under two years ago, a comrade contacted me and said he liked my ideas. He worried too about my internet 'persona', and even though I relayed to him the above thoughts, he still thought I was a little too aggressive, and arrogant.

But, his attitude changed very quickly when he tried to argue against this theory on discussion boards, etc. He received a mountain of abuse (even though he was far more pleasant than I have ever been, even in the early days), and after just one week of this, he e-mailed me to say that he could now see why I was the way I was.

But I have had to endure this for 25 years.

Just think about that for moment.

Comrades think that because I am a woman, I will just take this lying down.

They cannot cope with the fact that I can give back far worse than I get -- and that I know more about the topics under discussion than they do, and I have taken the trouble to learn plenty of logic, again, unlike them.

And you need to get used to the fact that I am not going away; I will continue this until one of two things happens: I kill off this theory, or I stop breathing.

Finally, I am doing this, not to win an argument, but to try to help make our movement move successful.

So you lot hold on to these ideas for irrational reasons, hence my description of you as 'mystics'.

This would not be quite so bad if a single one of you could explain this 'theory' or make it work; but as I have shown here many times, it cannot even explain change!

Moreover, if this were a successful theory, it is us genuine materialists who would be on the defensive -- the way you lot talk, you'd think dialectics was the most wonderful and successful theory since sliced Aristotle.

But, alas for you dialectical day-dreamers, the situation is the exact opposite. Indeed, one struggles to think of another major political/philosophical theory that is quite so abysmally unsuccessful.

You'd think that you DM-fans would get the message: your 'theory' has already been refuted by history, long before I or other anti-dialecticians here were ever thought of.

But, that is where this 'theory' comes into its own, for it convinces fans of the dialectic that the exact opposite is the case, since one of the core theses of dialectics is that appearances contradict underlying reality -- hence you lot never learn from history, you just re-process it so that it conforms to your ideal expectations -- thus providing you lot with badly needed consolation for the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism.

No wonder I call dialectics the opiate of petty-bourgeois elements in Marxism. No wonder you lot cling on to it like the religious cling on to their dogmas.

But, no, in a world where you lot tell us that everything is interconnected, the only two things in the entire universe that are not inter-linked are the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism and its core theory, 'materialist' dialectics.

You just couldn't make this stuff up...

3) In what way are my ideas based on "highly selective interpretation"? You do not say, and when asked your fellow mystics do not say, either.

The problem is that I know your 'theory' better than you lot do!

First you say the comrades in the dialectical group won't engage with you anymore. Then I present evidence that we are. Then you insult me, and call me a "scardey(sic) cat" of all things, accusing me of avoiding talking to you about dialectics in a discussion about dialectics... odd to say the least. the manner in which you respond to facts with insults displays your insecurity.

Well, you can console yourself with such musings if it makes you feel better, but the bottom line is that you have yet to even so much as attempt to defend your own ideas here. And we both know why -- you can't.

So you and the rest of your scaredy-cat friends have limped off to lick your wounds in your safe little haven, where you can indulge in dialectical day-dreams to your hermetic heart's content.

black magick hustla

26th October 2008, 04:44

Karl Popper's theory of falsibilty is a flawed one. A lot of physical "laws" were discovered with just thought experiments, due to the lack of technological resources to do otherwise. E=mc^2 was derived out of other fundamental equations at first. The equation was not vindicated after some time later.

JimFar

26th October 2008, 12:11

Note that I didn't claim that Popper was right though, just that his question of falsifiability is the main objection I've come across regarding the scientific nature of Marxism.

Some of the Analytical Marxists were interested in this issue.
For example, Richard Miller addressed it in his book, Analyzing Marx. Some of the other Analytical Marxists did too, like Daniel Little
in his The Scientific Marx and William Shaw in in his Marx's Theory of History. Both Little and Shaw used Lakatos to answer Popper,
while Miller drew upon Kuhn and Feyerabend.

Remember that classical Marxism always insisted that it was a science. Marx, as we might recall,
called his brand of socialism, scientific socialism. Karl Popper, among other things, attempted to
explode what he saw as the scientific pretensions of Marxism. Popper's attitude is summarized
here:
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/critical_thinking/Science_pseudo_falsifiability.html
(http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/critical_thinking/Science_pseudo_falsifiabil)
In connection with the Analytical Marxian school one book that people may wish to look at on this issue, the unjustly neglected book Analyzing Marx by Richard W. Miller. In that book he draws a distinction between the technological interpretation of historical materialism which was articulated and defended by many writers of the Second International (i.e. Kautsky, Plekhanov) and which cast into an especially rigorous form by G.A. Cohen in his Karl Marx's Theory of History, and what he calls the mode of production interpretation which abjures the technological determinism and the economic determinism of the latter.

Miller draws a link between these two different interpretations of historical materialism and different philosophies of science. The technological interpretation, Miller links to positivist philosophies of science with their covering law models of scientific explanation and their presuppostion of Humean notions concerning causality. Here, Miller does not draw a very sharp distinction between positivism and Popperism. While Popper clearly did not see himself as being a positivist, he nevertheless, still had many notions in common with them. In Miller's view Popper's hypothetico-deductivism placed him within the positivist camp. In any case, Miller contends
that the technological interpretation of historical materialism does represent the sort of theory that can be regarded as falsifiable from a strictly Popperian standpoint.

Hence, it is scientific by Popper's criteria. The only thing that is wrong with it is that history has indeed (as Popper had contended) falsified it, and the other thing that is wrong with it, is that in Miller's view it represents a distorted interpretation of how Marx undertook the study of history and political economy. The mode of production interpretation in Miller's view offers us a view that is closer to the spirit of Marx's actual methodology. But it is not falsifiable in the strict Popperian sense. One might then think that Miller would propose to throw away falsifiability as a criterion of demarcation between science and
non-science but surprisingly enough he does not. Instead, he attempts to reconstruct the notion of falsifiability (as well as that of confirmation), drawing upon the work of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. He embraces their historicist approaches to the philosophy of science and he develops reconstructed versions of the
notions of both falsifiability and confirmation. The mode of production interpretation of historical materialism while perhaps not falsifiable in Popper's sense, is nevertheless falsifaible in Miller's sense and that justifies retaining the label of science for it.

Miller also BTW contends that the postivist (and Popperian) analysis of natural science is fundamentally flawed so that while the positivists were quite correct in seeking a unified science which would assimilate the social sciences into the natural sciences , they misunderstood the nature of natural science. For Miller, the antipositivists were correct in attacking positvism for trying to force social science into a narrow mold centering around the covering law model and deductive-nomological models of explanation and Humean causality, but the same flaws also applied to their analysis of natural science. In reality such an analysis, in Miller's view is not properly applicable to either natural science or social science.

Invader Zim

26th October 2008, 13:26

It is a mistake to think that every science makes nothing but 'predictions'. What 'predictions' does evolutioanry science make, or geology? Sure, we can use parts of the latter to predict when an earthquake might occur, but the vast bulk of geology is not the least bit predictive. The same goes for cosmology.

Does anyone want to say these are not sciences?

The fact that evolutionary theory is scientifc refutes I think Zim's claim that the historical science are not in fact sciences -- on the basis of Zim's argument, for example, Darwin was not a scientist!

It is a mistake to think that every science makes nothing but 'predictions'. I never claimed they all do. But while we are on the subject of 'prediction', it is certainly true that scientists can observe natural processes and posit predictions based upon thiose processes. For example, we have the law of gravity. This allows us to predict what will occur should we drop an object in different enviroments (ie. the moon). A historian cannot make such precise predictions, indeed predictions by historians have tended to be marked by their gross inaccuracy.

What 'predictions' does evolutioanry science make,Well, I don't really want to argue with you on this point, because I don't really disagree, but the examples you raise are rather misjdged, because geologists and evolutionary scientists do make prediction. For example, predicting harmful mutations in chimpanzee DNA (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/25/AR2005092501177.html), and the evidence of geologists predictions is currently helping to communicate your thoughts to me hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.

The fact that evolutionary theory is scientifc refutes I think Zim's claim that the historical science are not in fact sciences I perosnally believe you are mistaken. Evolution is grounded upon empiricism; observation and experimentation. Sure that examination of spieces includes their origions, development and processes, but these are all based upon empirical observation of physical phenomenon. For example, if a scientist investigating the origin of a specific spieces can observe the processes which formed the species through the preserved remains which we have at our disposal. These remains objectively show whether change has, or has not, occured over millions of years. While some historians pretend to be doing something similar with various societies, they are in fact not doing anything of the sort. They are not examining physical remains which tell an objective story which they can observe and experiment upon. They are reading a series of highly conflicting accounts, which are invariably bias and never tell an objective story and forming a conclusion with no pretense at objectivity. For example, E. P Thompson's work The Making of the English Working Class is not a scientific treasis, based upon strict methodology and objective results, it is a perspective on the past and doesn't pretend to be anything other than that.

on the basis of Zim's argument, for example, Darwin was not a scientist!No. Darwin's theories were grounded upon observation, historians are not.

Rosa Lichtenstein

26th October 2008, 13:57

IZ:

I never claimed they all do.

I was in fact referring to the comments of PRC-UTE:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1269577&postcount=17

Zim:

But while we are on the subject of 'prediction', it is certainly true that scientists can observe natural processes and posit predictions based upon those processes. For example, we have the law of gravity. This allows us to predict what will occur should we drop an object in different enviroments (ie. the moon). A historian cannot make such prcesie predictions, indeed predictions by historians have tended to be marked by their gross inaccuracy.

As philosophers of science have noted: What is so special about prediction? Postdiction is just as important, and that is where History apes the sciences.

But, even so, not all sciences indulge in prediction, as I noted.

And sure, evolutionary theory makes some predictions (I acknowledged this, but pointed out that the bulk of that science is not about making predictions), but then so does historical analysis. For example, we can safely predict on the basis of the past, that any future Nazi regime will be a disaster, and we should be able to specify several of the details. After all: those who do not learn from the past are condemed to repeat it...

I think you misunderstand the nature of science. While it is true that geological studuies may not posit predictions, their findings contribute to wider knowledge of geology which may well be used in forming predictions, be it about the prediction of earthquakes, or prediction of the location of mineral resources, etc.

1) I rather think I do understand the nature of science.

2) I acknowledged that part of role the Earth Sciences is to make such predictions, but the vast bulk is aimed at understanding the past for its own sake. I think you either did not read my post, or did not do so with due care.

You think wrongly. Evolution is grounded upon empiricism; observation and experimentation. Sure that examination of spieces includes their origions and development, and processes, but these are all based upon empirical observation of physical phenomenon. For example, if a scientist investigating the evolution can observe these processes through the preserved remains which we have at our disposal. These remains objectively show whether change has, or has not, occured over millions of years.

Historically, evolution was in fact based on theory (see, for example, The Great Chain of Being, by Arthur Lovejoy), which Darwin modified as a result of his own studies and observations. No science is just based on observation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Lovejoy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chain_of_Being

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1975HisSc..13....1B&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf

But, even if you were right, all historical work is based on the same criteria. Historians, as you well know, do not just invent their narratives; they are based on the direct observation of ancient texts, artefacts and remains. And they do experiments, too, for example, when they test the description of the construction of Roman weaponry or efficacy of their tactics, or, indeed, the reason for the lethal nature of English archery at Agincourt or Crecy. [The cable TV History progammes are full of such material.]

History is thus no less 'empirical' than evolutionary theory.

Invader Zim

26th October 2008, 16:05

As philosophers of science have noted: What is so special about prediction? Postdiction is just as important, and that is where History apes the sciences.

Importance isn't really relevent; as far as I am concerned we are discussing what is possible.

For example, we can safely predict on the basis of the past, that any future Nazi regime will be a disaster, and we should be able to specify several of the details.We can't predict that at all really. Sure we know that the Nazi regime fell because 'x' factors led to the defeat of the Third Reich in the Second World War, but assuming that this future nazi regime were to win its War, would it still fail within 12 years? Who knows.

After all: those who do not learn from the past are condemed to repeat it...Which is exactly what Tony Blair and G.W. Bush were, no doubt, thinking when they condemned appeasment in 2003.

2) I acknowledged that part of role the Earth Sciences is to make such predictions, but the vast bulk is aimed at understanding the past for its own sake.You seem to have missed my point. Which is that such investigations still provide information which is useful in forming an understanding of processes, processes which can be used to predict future geological developments. Historians lack that luxury.

Historically, evolution was in fact based on theory (see, for example, The Great Chain of Being, by Arthur Lovejoy), which Darwin modified as a result of his own studies and observations.Of course it was based on theory, theories which date back as far ancient Greece, but that theory was based upon empirical observation of the material world.

No science is just based on observation.Of course it is. Sure scientists develop theories, which remain un-testable, but are used to explain thus far inexplicable phenomenon. But they are still observing that phenomenon and proposing possible answers to explain it.

Historians, as you well know, do not just invent their narratives; they are based on the direct observation of ancient texts, artefacts and remains.Actaully historians simply attempt to interpret what is in the sources they see, and construct an argument based upon those sources, This makes it far more of a literary disipline than a scienfitic disipline. And while written and oral testimony provide us with an insight into the happening in the past, it is by its very nature not a direct observation of the past. This seperates history from a science such as palaeontology, whose scientists directly observe the mineralised biological features of extinct organisms.

History is thus no less 'empirical' than evolutionary theory.Of course it is, experiments into evolutionary theory are not only plausable but common place. There has never been a historical experiment, and nor can there be because as I have said, history is fundermentally unobservable. The biological structures of mineralised organism are.

The historian Arthur Marwick, a leftwing historian (if critical of Marxism), listed the similarities and differences between history and the (natural) sciences differences. I shall paraphrase them: -

Differences:

1. There is a difference in the subject of study. Natural sciences investigate the phenomenon of the physical universe. Historians are concerned with the lives of human being and human societies in the past.

2. Historians do not conduct controlled experiments.

3. Historical study is not governed by general laws.

4. Scientific laws offer the power of prediction.

5. Science provides material pay-offs.

6. It is easier to tell if a scientist has got something 'wong, i.e. it doesn't work. In history there isn't the same "sure way of telling whether or not they have got things right."

7. Relationships and interactions of scientists, for the most part, either can or are capable of being expressed mathematically.

8. History is a literary disipline, and historians work reflects that. Scientific works are, on the other hand, usually reported in terse articles; sometimes in pages of mathematical equasions.

9. Historians are concerned with analysing human affairs in the past, which ona fundermental level requires judgement calls, and as such are incapable of producing an objective work.

Similarities:

1. Both historians and scientists strive for extension of human knowledge and understanding.

2. Both attempt to employ systematic methodology.

Arthur Marwick, The nature of History: Third Edition (London, 1989), pp. 151-152.

To my mind, it is clear that the nine points of difference far out-weight the points of similarity.

Rosa Lichtenstein

27th October 2008, 05:01

Zim:

Importance isn't really relevant; as far as I am concerned we are discussing what is possible.

In that case, it is possible to make predictions and postdictions in History (even if they, too, are not all that important there). So, History is no different from the sciences here too.

We can't predict that at all really. Sure we know that the Nazi regime fell because 'x' factors led to the defeat of the Third Reich in the Second World War, but assuming that this future nazi regime were to win its War, would it still fail within 12 years? Who knows.

Predictions in science are also couched in what are called 'ceteris paribus' clauses (i.e., 'all things being equal'). So the 'hard sciences' are no different from History in this regard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceteris_paribus

Which is that such investigations still provide information which is useful in forming an understanding of processes, processes which can be used to predict future geological developments. Historians lack that luxury.

Again, not so. It is just more complex in History.

But both History and Geology make postdictions. In the latter, geologists will test one theory (about say the Permian extinction) by examining rocks, taking samples, ascertaining temperature fluctuations, etc. By means of such observations they can either dismiss or confirm several competing explanations.

Same in History. Someone might have a theory that market relations in the middle ages had a decisive influence, say, on the development of algebra. Historians will then look for evidence that confirms or supports such a theory. Or they might have several theories about the decline of the Mycenaean civilisation, concerning which, recent archaeological evidence will be relevant. Or the causes of the Black Death, about which forensic archaeologists and anthropologists will have much to say, just as they have much to say in modern day forensic criminology -- all based on precise observations and experiments.

Since History is in general backward-looking, it is not surprising that it makes few predictions (even though it can); but in all other respects it resembles the 'hard sciences'.

Of course it is. Sure scientists develop theories, which remain un-testable, but are used to explain thus far inexplicable phenomenon. But they are still observing that phenomenon and proposing possible answers to explain it.

Not so; science is based on a combination of theory, observation and experiment (hence my use of the word 'just'). It is not possible (in science) to just observe the world bereft of any theory about it.

Pick up any introductory book on the Philosophy of Science, and you will find that one of the first myths they have to dispel is the sort of naive inductivism many appear to accept, including you, it seems.

Indeed, no scientist in history just 'observed the world'. Every single one operated with some theory or other (be it one they had been taught, or one they just accepted as a matter of course -- such as the religious theories researchers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton accepted).

Actually historians simply attempt to interpret what is in the sources they see, and construct an argument based upon those sources, This makes it far more of a literary disipline than a scientific disipline. And while written and oral testimony provide us with an insight into the happening in the past, it is by its very nature not a direct observation of the past. This separates history from a science such as palaeontology, whose scientists directly observe the mineralised biological features of extinct organisms.

Indeed, but that does not mean it's not empirical. So, as I noted, historians too have to examine physical data (concerning the age, say, of a manuscript, or the sequence of pottery shards in a dig). And they test theories just a scientists do (I gave several examples of this in my last post too).

Scientists also have to interpret literary sources: pages and pages of data spewed out by computers, for example. This data does not interpret itself. It can be, and has been, read in many competing ways. Here, for example, is what one philosopher of science had to say about this well-known phenomenon in science:

"...[I]n the historical progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary mechanical theories, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory was accepted offered equally strong support to each of the (then-unimagined) later alternatives. The same pattern would seem to obtain in the historical progression from elemental to early corpuscularian chemistry to Stahl's phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry to Daltonian atomic and contemporary physical chemistry; from various versions of preformationism to epigenetic theories of embryology; from the caloric theory of heat to later and ultimately contemporary thermodynamic theories; from effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism to theories of the electromagnetic ether and contemporary electromagnetism; from humoral imbalance to miasmatic to contagion and ultimately germ theories of disease; from 18th Century corpuscular theories of light to 19th Century wave theories to contemporary quantum mechanical conception; from Hippocrates's pangenesis to Darwin's blending theory of inheritance (and his own 'gemmule' version of pangenesis) to Wiesmann's germ-plasm theory and Mendelian and contemporary molecular genetics; from Cuvier's theory of functionally integrated and necessarily static biological species or Lamarck's autogenesis to Darwinian evolutionary theory; and so on in a seemingly endless array of theories, the evidence for which ultimately turned out to support one or more unimagined competitors just as well. Thus, the history of scientific enquiry offers a straightforward inductive rationale for thinking that there are alternatives to our best theories equally well-confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time." [Stanford (2001), p.9. See also Stanford (2000, 2003, 2006).]

Stanford, P. (2000), 'An Antirealist Explanation Of The Success Of Science', [I]Philosophy of Science 67, pp.266-84.

--------, (2001), 'Refusing The Devil's Bargain: What Kind Of Underdetermination Should We Take Seriously?', in Barrett and Alexander (2001), pp.1-12.

--------, (2003), 'No Refuge For Realism: Selective Confirmation And The History Of Science', in Mitchell (2003), pp.913-25.

--------, (2006), Exceeding Our Grasp. Science, History, And The Problem Of Unconceived Alternatives (Oxford University Press).

Barrett, J., and Alexander, J. (2001), (eds.), PSA 2000, Part 1, Supplement to Philosophy of Science 68, 3 (University of Chicago Press).

Mitchell, S. (2003) (ed.), PSA 2002, 1, Supplement to Philosophy of Science 70, 5 (University of Chicago Press).

[PSA = Philosophy of Science Association; the PSA volumes comprise papers submitted to its biennial meeting.]

This quote is from one of my Essays (you need to know that the History and Philosophy of Science is one of my specialisms), where I have posted links to Wiki articles (etc.) that explain the above theories:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20010_01.htm

So, the 'hard sciences' are, once again, more like History that you are prepared to admit. Historical sources do not interpret themselves any more than the data scientists collect do.

Of course it is, experiments into evolutionary theory are not only plausible but common place. There has never been a historical experiment, and nor can there be because as I have said, history is fundamentally unobservable. The biological structures of mineralised organism are.

Well, as I have shown, this is not so.

Evolution is in fact unobservable. Sure, we can see minor variations occurring at present, but the origin of new genera, families, orders or phyla cannot be observed. What scientist have to do instead is read the fossil evidence. In that case, evolutionary scientists are no different from Historians (such as archaeologists and forensic anthropologists),

And Historians make countless observations too, as I have shown

The historian Arthur Marwick, a leftwing historian (if critical of Marxism), listed the similarities and differences between history and the (natural) sciences differences. I shall paraphrase them: -

Differences:

1. There is a difference in the subject of study. Natural sciences investigate the phenomenon of the physical universe. Historians are concerned with the lives of human being and human societies in the past.

2. Historians do not conduct controlled experiments.

3. Historical study is not governed by general laws.

4. Scientific laws offer the power of prediction.

5. Science provides material pay-offs.

6. It is easier to tell if a scientist has got something 'wrong', i.e. it doesn't work. In history there isn't the same "sure way of telling whether or not they have got things right."

7. Relationships and interactions of scientists, for the most part, either can or are capable of being expressed mathematically.

8. History is a literary disipline, and historians work reflects that. Scientific works are, on the other hand, usually reported in terse articles; sometimes in pages of mathematical equations.

9. Historians are concerned with analysing human affairs in the past, which on a fundamental level requires judgement calls, and as such are incapable of producing an objective work.

Similarities:

1. Both historians and scientists strive for extension of human knowledge and understanding.

2. Both attempt to employ systematic methodology.

Arthur Marwick, The nature of History: Third Edition (London, 1989), pp. 151-152.

To my mind, it is clear that the nine points of difference far out-weight the points of similarity.

Well, if you'll forgive me for saying so, Marwick is talking nonsense here. For example (re his point one), human beings are part of the physical universe. So historians study something that is a part if the physical universe. Moreover, what does he imagine, say, human physiologists examine? Rocks?

Marwick may or may not be a good historian, but he seems to know little about science. The rest of the things you report him as saying are no less misleading. [If you want me to explain why, I will.]

So, I'd not look to him for advice on this score if I were you.

Drace

27th October 2008, 05:44

Darwinism is based on historical materialism.

Rosa Lichtenstein

27th October 2008, 08:43

Drace:

Darwinism is based on historical materialism.

A lot of Marxists believe this, but human development is not Darwinian, so evolution is not based on HM. Even Engels found he had to incorporate elements of Lamarckism into his version of evolution in order to try to make it apply to humanity.

If you have look at the links I posted here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1270184&postcount=10

you will see why Darwinism is useless at explaining human development. Here is the relevant link again:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=993823&postcount=7

Invader Zim

27th October 2008, 13:07

In that case, it is possible to make predictions and postdictions in History (even if they, too, are not all that important there). So, History is no different from the sciences here too.

Historians can make predictions, just as anyone can, but like everyone else they stand far more chance of being wrong. A scientist, having examined natural processes, can, in many cases, be absolutely sure that his or her prediction will be come true based on knowledge of the physical universe. For example, I challenge you to drop a stone from arms length, and my knowledge of the physical universe tells me that it will drop to the ground. Historians are utterly incapable of making any such prediction, because as Marwick said, history does not deal in laws.

Predictions in science are also couched in what are called 'ceteris paribus' clauses (i.e., 'all things being equal'). So the 'hard sciences' are no different from History in this regard.

But manifestly not in the same way. To take an example, the vast majority of historians failed to predict either than the Berlin Wall would fall, or the manner in which it did. This is because that kind of 'prediction' is impossible. The best historians can hope to offer are very vague very general predictions, i.e. that there will be another war at some point, between one nation and another. But beyond that, historians would be hard pressed to provide you with any details because historians are not futurists and rarely pretend to be.

Someone might have a theory that market relations in the middle ages had a decisive influence, say, on the development of algebra. Historians will then look for evidence that confirms or supports such a theory.

However, unlike your previous example in geology, a historians findings will neither be considered correct or incorrect. This is because a historian in not going to find purely objective sources. While our earth scientist can experiment upon rocks to precisely measure what it contains, a historian can not. As I said, a historian deals with the testimony of people of the past observing the past through their eyes, with all the prejudices and world view unique to that person. Thus a historian collects such testimonies, analyses them and them and constructs a highly personalised argument. This is of course different from our geologist, who can show beyond reasonable doubt that 'sample A' contains 'element b'.

Or they might have several theories about the decline of the Mycenaean civilisation, concerning which, recent archaeological evidence will be relevant.

Here you pick a very specialised branch of 'history' employing methodologies which the vast bulk of historians would never have call to use. Indeed, it isn't actually the academic discipline of history, which we are discussing, but archaeology. Archaeology is its own unique discipline and is separate from academic history. Academic history, for the vast bulk of historians, is the study of the past through the medium of the written word. More recently historians have branched out and begun to include images and oral testimony, but still the written word von Ranke so ardently championed still prevails.

Scientists also have to interpret literary sources: pages and pages of data spewed out by computers, for example. This data does not interpret itself.

Granted, but there is a something of a difference between reading restults, which certainly are objective, i.e. the print out contains what an instrument has detected in a sample, and reading letters penned 150 years ago. The instrument has no agenda.

Not so; science is based on a combination of theory, observation and experiment (hence my use of the word 'just'). It is not possible (in science) to just observe the world bereft of any theory about it.

That doesn't contradict my point at all. Indeed I think you have confirmed it. History lacks two of the three parts you consider to be in combination to form 'science'. As stated, history is not about direct observation and nor is it about experimentation.

Indeed, no scientist in history just 'observed the world'. Every single one operated with some theory or other (be it one they had been taught, or one they just accepted as a matter of course -- such as the religious theories researchers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton accepted).

But by the same token, no scientist has ever simply awoken one morning, constructed a theory and applied it to a phenomenon of his or her choice. Theories are explanations of a known problem. As the story goes, Newton investigated gravity after observing apples drop from trees.

This quote is from one of my Essays (you need to know that the History and Philosophy of Science is one of my specialisms),

I shall be very interested your essays, my current research project is actually in the field of the history of science.

Evolution is in fact unobservable.

Observed Instances of Speciation (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html)

And certainly on a micro-level that is untrue.

What scientist have to do instead is read the fossil evidence.

But again, the fossil record is not comparable to the historical record. The fossil record provides objective evidence of the structure of deceased organisms, the historical record (i.e. the written word) does not.

In that case, evolutionary scientists are no different from Historians (such as archaeologists and forensic anthropologists),

But these people, you label as historians, are actually involved in their own highly specialised unique academic discipline, a discipline which while studying human society in the past asks very different questions and uses very different tools to that of the typical academic historian. And if we are to apply your logic then this means that history can only be a science when it is based upon archaeological evidence; which discounts the vast majority of historical study.

For example (re his point one), human beings are part of the physical universe.

I rather think you are taking something of a petty point with him there. We all know what he means by that.

The rest of the things you report him as saying are no less misleading. [If you want me to explain why, I will.]

You can try, but I would hope you would be less pedantic than in your critique of his first point. I can also point to other historians, who most do know a great deal about the history of science, the social sciences and the arts; and after the death of Geoffrey Elton very few historians still fooled themselves into thinking that their discipline was a 'science', when it is in fact an 'art'. It is worth noting that even the Marxist historians editing the famous journal Past and Present, dropped the subtitle describing its self as being a 'scientific' journal when the debate was clearly lost.

Hit The North

27th October 2008, 13:24

Thank you for the responses. Very informative, and glad to see how well versed some of you are on this topic. I will consult the literature you have recommended RL Yes, she's provided some very good sources there. On the other hand, to claim that GH Cohen's abysmally compromised version of Historical Materialism is worth reading is misleading. In fact, if you ignore his technological determinism and his functionalism, as Rosa correctly recomends then there's very little left. Cohen has subsequently rejected Marxism.

However, it is heartening to see Rosa acclaiming the work of Guy Robinson and linking to his excellent essay on Historical Materialism (http://www.guyrobinson.net/pdf/Materialism.pdf) where he is nevertheless compelled to use a concept of dialectical connection to make his arguments work.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th October 2008, 00:57

Apologies Zim, the operation I had recently has left me with little energy. I have used up what little I have left slapping down a couple of dialectical mytsics over in Philosophy (a more urgent chore, I hope you will agree!). I got half-way through a reply to you, and had to give up.

I've saved that half, and will try again tomorrow.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th October 2008, 01:04

BTB:

On the other hand, to claim that GH Cohen's abysmally compromised version of Historical Materialism is worth reading is misleading. In fact, if you ignore his technological determinism and his functionalism, as Rosa correctly recomends then there's very little left. Cohen has subsequently rejected Marxism.

As you have had pointed out to you, Cohen's work has been lionised by Alex Callinicos, who, in fact, develops many of the latter's ideas.

The fact that Cohen gave up Marxism is irrelevant (he wimped out). On that score, you'd think Alex would give in, too. The fact that he hasn't suggests that Cohen's actions were indeed based on something other than his book.

Moreover, Hegel was not even a Marxist, and yet you are quite happy to use many of his ideas.

Trotsky's verdict on comrades like you is therefore quite apt:

"Whenever any Marxist attempted to transmute the theory of Marx into a universal master key and ignore all other spheres of learning, Vladimir Ilyich would rebuke him with the expressive phrase 'Komchvanstvo' ('communist swagger')."

Problems of Everyday Life, p.221.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th October 2008, 07:50

Zim:

Historians can make predictions, just as anyone can, but like everyone else they stand far more chance of being wrong. A scientist, having examined natural processes, can, in many cases, be absolutely sure that his or her prediction will be come true based on knowledge of the physical universe. For example, I challenge you to drop a stone from arms length, and my knowledge of the physical universe tells me that it will drop to the ground. Historians are utterly incapable of making any such prediction, because as Marwick said, history does not deal in laws.

Well, as I noted, this is simply because they are dealing with far more complex systems, but that does not alter the nature of History.

And, it is a moot point whether or not History has its own laws. Marwick, being an anti-Marxist can be expected to argue the way he does. But that does not mean we have to agree with him.

And the laws scientists deal with are controversial too: they are not the iron 'laws' of 'deterministic' physics, but at best general descriptions of how nature proceeds. In that case, general historical descriptions work in the same way.

[Marwick, and you it seems, is operating with an out-moded notion of 'law of nature'.]

On this, see this Internet Encyclopedia article, and the on-line book (by the same author) that explains this idea in more detail:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lawofnat.htm

http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/physical-law/

For example, I challenge you to drop a stone from arms length, and my knowledge of the physical universe tells me that it will drop to the ground.

1) Human beings knew this before science was thought of.

2) The so-called 'law of gravity' is merely a general description of how things have so far proceeded. There is no law in nature that stones 'understand', and thus 'obey'. We make predictions based on our knowledge of the past -- but the future is not bound by anything.

3) Even if you were right, I challenge you to go alone and down a dark an alley, confront a group of Nazi skin heads, and tell them you hate Hitler, and that you are a gay Jew. I predict you will not survive, and my knowledge is based on historical events (and theory), and the result is nearly as certain as your stone dropping thought experiment.

So, once again, history is not much different from the 'usual' sciences.

But manifestly not in the same way. To take an example, the vast majority of historians failed to predict either than the Berlin Wall would fall, or the manner in which it did. This is because that kind of 'prediction' is impossible. The best historians can hope to offer are very vague very general predictions, i.e. that there will be another war at some point, between one nation and another. But beyond that, historians would be hard pressed to provide you with any details because historians are not futurists and rarely pretend to be.

Once more, this is just a problem of complexity, it does not reflect an inherent difference between history and the 'usual' sciences. Biologists, for example, cannot predict the next major steps in evolution, but that does not stop Biology from being a science. Physicists cannot predict whether the universe will continue to expand or collapse in on itself. Does this man that physics is not a science?

And even over simple things, this is still the case, because of those ceteris paribus clauses. Hence, if a scientist predicts that a certain drug will have a certain effect, and it does not, he/she will appeal to those clauses to explain why that effect did not happen.

Indeed, you may recall the hoo-ha over the millennium bug -- we had all sorts of predictions from computer scientists that disaster would hit on January Ist 2000. Nothing happened, as things turned out. Does this mean that the word "scientist" should be denied of computer scientists?

There is in fact a small cottage industry of books detailing the many failed predictions of scientists. Here are just two, for example:

http://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Blunders-History-Scientists-Sometimes/dp/0786705949

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Discarded-Science-Ideas-That-Seemed/dp/1904332498/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225112450&sr=1-1

Indeed, the internet is full of such material:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/oct/23/research.highereducation

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/whoops.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_famously_considered_great_blunde rs

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/thematerialworld_20041111.shtml

So, historians are not the only ones befuddled by the complexities nature throws our way; scientists have been doing this for thousands of years, and show no sign of slowing down.

And, of course, some of these errors go undetected for centuries, and are often picked up by non-scientists (and there are good sociological reasons for this).

So, Marwick is wrong about that aspect of science too: the ability of scientists to spot their own errors.

You can read all about this in the following books:

Broad, W., and Wade, N. (1985), Betrayers Of The Truth. Fraud And Deceit In The Halls Of Science (Oxford University Press).

Kohn, A. (1986), False Prophets. Fraud And Error In Science And Medicine (Blackwell, 2nd ed.).

For example, Claudius Ptolemy falsified the data he used to construct his model of the solar system, which fact was not discovered for nearly 2000 years.

Newton, R. (1977), The Crimes Of Claudius Ptolemy (Johns Hopkins University Press).

Isaac Newton also cheated (and this remained undetected until recently), so did Galileo, Mendel and Millikan (among many others). Many of these errors were detected by historians of science, not scientists (in fact, in some cases. scientists covered them up). You can read the details in the above books.

So, Marwick is about as wrong as he can be.

However, unlike your previous example in geology, a historians findings will neither be considered correct or incorrect. This is because a historian in not going to find purely objective sources. While our earth scientist can experiment upon rocks to precisely measure what it contains, a historian can not. As I said, a historian deals with the testimony of people of the past observing the past through their eyes, with all the prejudices and world view unique to that person. Thus a historian collects such testimonies, analyses them and them and constructs a highly personalised argument. This is of course different from our geologist, who can show beyond reasonable doubt that 'sample A' contains 'element b'.

And as I pointed out to you, historians do not just deal with "the testimony of other people". They carry out (or rely upon) observations and experiments on such things as: soil samples, parchments, battle tactics, weapon construction, disease transmission, ship design, money flows, price fluctuations, building techniques, the composition of cements used, pottery design, the composition of alloys, production techniques, and so on.

Moreover, it's a mistake to think that 'mainstream' scientists do not deal with testimony. They have to trust the data other scientists report, and they have to trust the peer review system. We have already seen that fraud and error are endemic in science, and always have been, which means that it is not as 'objective' as you seem to think.

Sure, their primary material is in many cases 'non-human', but not in all cases. Physiologists, for example, have to examine human beings. Psychologists have to listen to people.

So, while there are differences between History and the other sciences, they are not as stark as you make out.

Here you pick a very specialised branch of 'history' employing methodologies which the vast bulk of historians would never have call to use. Indeed, it isn't actually the academic discipline of history, which we are discussing, but archaeology. Archaeology is its own unique discipline and is separate from academic history. Academic history, for the vast bulk of historians, is the study of the past through the medium of the written word. More recently historians have branched out and begun to include images and oral testimony, but still the written word von Ranke so ardently championed still prevails.

And you too have chosen particular examples from the sciences (some rather specialised ones at that). As I have shown (above, and in earlier posts), if you take more examples from History and the other sciences, the differences are much less than are the similarities.

And, of course, archaeology has it own unique structure, as you say, but historians rely on the findings of archaeologists (and anthropologists, and numismatists, and forensic biologists, and metallurgists, and...), as one would expect of any other science.

Granted, but there is a something of a difference between reading results, which certainly are objective, i.e. the print out contains what an instrument has detected in a sample, and reading letters penned 150 years ago. The instrument has no agenda.

Sure, but scientists have agendas too. Moreover, they have to interpret data; the data does not interpret itself. Furthermore, as I noted above, other scientists (linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, etc.) also have to study human beings. Are you saying that these are not sciences?

That doesn't contradict my point at all. Indeed I think you have confirmed it. History lacks two of the three parts you consider to be in combination to form 'science'. As stated, history is not about direct observation and nor is it about experimentation.

Not so; in view of the fact that you seem to believe (and actually appeared to say) that science is just about observation and experiment, what I said does contradict you -- for no science is just about these things.

But by the same token, no scientist has ever simply awoken one morning, constructed a theory and applied it to a phenomenon of his or her choice. Theories are explanations of a known problem. As the story goes, Newton investigated gravity after observing apples drop from trees.

Who suggested that scientists did do this? Certainly not me. [The story about Newton is in fact false.]

The point is, of course, as you now seem to agree, that scientists operate with theories they inherit from the past; they work with them, modify them, or reject them. This makes science more like History, as I pointed out.

I shall be very interested your essays, my current research project is actually in the field of the history of science.

I will be posting a long Essay on this sometime next year.

And certainly on a micro-level that is untrue.

I pointedly did not deny that speciation has been observed; this is what I actually said:

Evolution is in fact unobservable. Sure, we can see minor variations occurring at present, but the origin of new genera, families, orders or phyla cannot be observed. What scientist have to do instead is read the fossil evidence. In that case, evolutionary scientists are no different from Historians (such as archaeologists and forensic anthropologists).

Now you may want to argue that the observation of speciation is in fact the same as observing evolution, and I have some sympathy with that view, but evolution is not just about speciation. In order to account for the descent of life, evolution has to account for the origin of genera, families, orders, and phyla, and this is unobservable. Once more: that is why evolutionary biologists have to examine the fossil record -- just like historians have to examine artefacts, etc.

But again, the fossil record is not comparable to the historical record. The fossil record provides objective evidence of the structure of deceased organisms, the historical record (i.e. the written word) does not.

Sure there are differences, once again, but I think you exaggerate them. Fossils do not interpret themselves, and neither do the artefacts that historians examine. So, while there are differences between evolutionary theory and History, these are no bigger that the differences between evolutionary theory and, say, nuclear physics. And, I agree, there are similarities between History and the Humanities, but there are also significant differences between these two, which, I think, are sufficient to put History in the science camp.

But these people, you label as historians, are actually involved in their own highly specialised unique academic discipline, a discipline which while studying human society in the past asks very different questions and uses very different tools to that of the typical academic historian.

I do not disagree, but then you could argue the same for any of the 'usual' sciences. Moreover, all the sciences co-operate. Biologists rely on Chemists and Geologists, who in turn rely on Physicists. The same can be said for archaeologists and forensic anthropologists, and a host of other disciplines. And they do this because they are all sciences. So, when a historian relies on the findings of archaeologists and/or forensic anthropologists, we ought, I think, to be consistent and count History as a science. Certainly, there seems no good reason not to.

And if we are to apply your logic then this means that history can only be a science when it is based upon archaeological evidence; which discounts the vast majority of historical study.

Not so. I have argued that historians rely on archaeology and other disciplines (such as Chemistry, nuclear physics (for the carbon dating of artefacts), metallurgists, forensic psychologists and anthropologists, and so on).

To turn this around, your reasoning seems to be that we can only count evolution as a science when it is based on geology, or on genetics. Now, I know this is [i]not your view, but then neither is it mine.

I rather think you are taking something of a petty point with him there. We all know what he means by that.

I am sorry, but I think Marwick is so confused here, I do not think anyone knows what he means.

You can try, but I would hope you would be less pedantic than in your critique of his first point.

That was un-called for. We have been relatively civil to one another up to now. :(

I can also point to other historians, who most do know a great deal about the history of science, the social sciences and the arts; and after the death of Geoffrey Elton very few historians still fooled themselves into thinking that their discipline was a 'science', when it is in fact an 'art'. It is worth noting that even the Marxist historians editing the famous journal Past and Present, dropped the subtitle describing its self as being a 'scientific' journal when the debate was clearly lost.

I am well aware of the debate within the profession; I just do not think that many of those taking part have a secure grasp of the nature of science (or they are operating with an a priori, perhaps even a Positivist view of it), one that is at odds with the way it is actually practiced.

Here then are few more of Marwick's errors (to add to those noted above):

Historians do not conduct controlled experiments.

Depends on what he means by 'controlled experiments'. If he means simple observation, then he is wrong, as I have shown. If he means more than this, then many of the 'genuine' sciences would fail this test. For example, astronomers in many cases just observe the phenomena that the heavens send our way. They cannot control supernovae or the orbits of the planets.

Historical study is not governed by general laws.

Once more, this is controversial among us Marxists, for we claim that there are such laws. Anyway, there are plenty of sciences that do not have general 'laws', for example, psychology, anthropology, much of chemistry, and forensic archaeology. According to Marwick, these are not sciences!

Finally, as I pointed out, it is controversial among many philosophers of science that there are any 'general laws' at all.

So, Marwick is either an ignorant critic or is deliberately deceiving his readers.

Scientific laws offer the power of prediction.

As I noted earlier, not according to many philosophers of science. And such 'laws' are often wrong. I can post evidence if you want to see it.

In fact, you can find out why from this book:

Cartwright, N. (1983), How The Laws Of Physics Lie (Oxford University Press).

Science provides material pay-offs.

So do many of the 'non-sciences' -- such as architecture, urban planning, and history itself. The latter may seem controversial, but unless we knew what had succeeded/failed in the past, science would be no use at all. Moreover, we use our knowledge of the past in order to avoid repeating its mistakes. Finally, the detailed study of the past has refined technology in several ways, for example, it has helped designers and engineers build better bridges, canal systems, alloys, communication systems, and so on.

Sure, this is not as impressive a contribution as that provided by, say, chemistry or electronics, but it is no less a mistake to say that History has no material pay-offs. And without our knowledge of the past, science would fail far more often than it already does.

Hit The North

28th October 2008, 11:22

BTB:

As you have had pointed out to you, Cohen's work has been lionised by Alex Callinicos, who, in fact, develops many of the latter's ideas.

Firstly, you stretch the point that Cohen's work is lionized by Callinicos; but even if it is, so what? Am I not allowed to disagree with him as, in fact, most of my party does? Further, Alex's work, whatever its faults, does not rely on functionalism and technological determinism - although as you've pointed out, his chapter on agency is too weak to allow him to entirely escape.

The fact that Cohen gave up Marxism is irrelevant (he wimped out). On that score, you'd think Alex would give in, too. The fact that he hasn't suggests that Cohen's actions were indeed based on something other than his book. There's no comparison as Alex has been an active revolutionary within a particular tradition, whereas Cohen was a mere academic. Plus, given that Alex's work is not at all identical to Cohen's then even if 'the book' or the theory was the cause of Cohen's disaffiliation, we would not expect an identical outcome for Alex. For a logician, you're not very good at the informal kind, are you. :rolleyes:

Moreover, Hegel was not even a Marxist, and yet you are quite happy to use many of his ideas. Wow. No one's suggested that Hegel was a Marxist or that non-Marxist ideas cannot be useful. But anyway your accusation is hollow as I espouse the material dialectic of Marx. It stand in contrast to the bourgeois analytical school you are mired in. Still, as Marx points out, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class, so perhaps you can be forgiven.

Trotsky's verdict on comrades like you is therefore quite apt:Well we all know the verdict Trotsky had on anti-dialectics and opportunism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/14-burnham.htm) so it is disingenuous to claim him for your camp. You'd be better off supporting your claims with quotes from figures in your own camp - Shachtman, for instance.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th October 2008, 13:37

BTB:

Firstly, you stretch the point that Cohen's work is lionized by Callinicos; but even if it is, so what? Am I not allowed to disagree with him as, in fact, most of my party does? Further, Alex's work, whatever its faults, does not rely on functionalism and technological determinism - although as you've pointed out, his chapter on agency is too weak to allow him to entirely escape.

Sure you are allowed to disagree with Alex, but then, if you are consistent (ha!), you should be arguing that Alex will, sure as eggs are non-dialectical eggs, abandon Marxism. [But see below.]

The point is, of course, that one of the SWP's leading theorists sees nothing inherently wrong with Cohen's main theses.

And, with respect to technological determinism and functionalism, I am always careful to exclude these two (as I have done here), a fact you well-know.

There's no comparison as Alex has been an active revolutionary within a particular tradition, whereas Cohen was a mere academic. Plus, given that Alex's work is not at all identical to Cohen's then even if 'the book' or the theory was the cause of Cohen's disaffiliation, we would not expect an identical outcome for Alex. For a logician, you're not very good at the informal kind, are you.

But, why does that prevent Alex from abandoning Marxism if Cohen's ideas are as lethal as you seem to believe?

And I have already noted that Alex's work is different from Cohen's, but what has that got to do with anything? Alex relies on and develops many of Cohen's ideas, which should, if you are right, lead him straight out of Marxism.

For a logician, you're not very good at the informal kind, are you.

1) You did not even know of the existence of 'informal logic' until I told you about it a few months back. Suddenly, you are an expert!

2) It now turns out that you are the one whose logic is a little 'odd', shall we say.

Wow. No one's suggested that Hegel was a Marxist or that non-Marxist ideas cannot be useful. But anyway your accusation is hollow as I espouse the material dialectic of Marx. It stand in contrast to the bourgeois analytical school you are mired in. Still, as Marx points out, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class, so perhaps you can be forgiven.

Sure, no one has suggested this of Hegel, but the point is, if you actually learned to think for a change, that Marxists have been quite happy to appropriate his work to a greater or lesser extent ('upside down' and the 'right way up') for over 150 years.

If so, there can't be an inherent problem with the work of non-Marxists. And if that is so, there can be no inherent problem with the work of ex-Marxists, either -- especially if one of our leading theorists has appropriated it himself.

And I am not an 'analytic Marxist'. Whatever gave you that idea?

[Answer: nothing at all did; you are simply back to your old tricks of making stuff up about me.]

Still, as Marx points out, the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class, so perhaps you can be forgiven.

This is a bit rich coming from someone who accepts a 'theory' that was derived from the work of a card-carrying mystic and ruling-class hack ('upside down' or the 'right way up').

Oswy

28th October 2008, 14:02

It is a common objection I have encountered for others to raise the point that historical materialism is somehow mystical, or quasi-religious, and NOT scientific theory. This relates to what is called the demarcation problem, when there was a global dispute over what is exactly science and what isn't. ("The demarcation problem in the philosophy of science is about how and where to draw the lines around science. The boundaries are commonly drawn between science and non-science, between science and pseudoscience, and between science and religion. A form of this problem, known as the generalized problem of demarcation subsumes all three cases. The generalized problem looks for criteria for deciding which of two theories is the more scientific.")

My question is how to respond to this? Or, alternatively, if you can point me to literature which addresses this dilemma.

I think historical materialism is quite grounded and not at all mystical, if anything it might be criticised for being a little too simplistic in some ways. Anyway, part of problem in giving Marxist history (or any history for that matter) status as science is that what constitutes science is the subject of debate. We can't define things like 'pseudoscience' as such until we're clear on what makes for 'proper' science. Personally I think history can be considered a science, but only on the basis that not all activities in science come up to the methodological standards of some activities in some disciplines (such as the predictive powers in chemistry or physics for example) which are often presented, wrongly, as representative of all 'good' science.

Invader Zim

28th October 2008, 14:33

I hope you forgive my not addressing every passage of your post, I have left those I feal I have addressed earlier in the post.

Well, as I noted, this is simply because they are dealing with far more complex systems, but that does not alter the nature of History.

I disagree. I think it is a reflection, not simply based upon the complexities of human society, but because of the very sources historians analyse, which as I have pointed out are fundermentally different to that of a 'hard' scientist. The former are subjective the later is objective.

And, it is a moot point whether or not History has its own laws.

I disagree, i think it is highly relevent, as the existence of general predictable processes is one of the key differences between history and a 'hard' science. History lacks these easily determinable processes, and if they are noticed then they are usually very difficult to project into the future; or even into the past without a huge deal of debate, criticism and flat out rejection.

[Marwick, and you it seems, is operating with an out-moded notion of 'law of nature'.]

Hardly, the term 'law' is simply an easy definition of a complex idea, and more than suitable for this discussion.

1) Human beings knew this before science was thought of.

It depends on how one defines science, if it is simply examination and study of the natural world, then no it hasn't. If you refer to the dawn of the term 'natural philosophy', which has its roots in the 16th century or 'science' coined in the 19th century, then sure.

2) The so-called 'law of gravity' is merely a general description of how things have so far proceeded. There is no law in nature that stones 'understand', and thus 'obey'.

But it is of course not a matter of a stone understanding, it is simply that objects with mass attract one another. We know this, thus we can make predictions; predictions which allow flight, etc. There are no similarly exact, accurate or useful predictions possible based on historicial analysis because humanity, as a whole, has a horrible habbit of being irritatingly unpredictable.

Indeed, you may recall the hoo-ha over the millennium bug -- we had all sorts of predictions from computer scientists that disaster would hit on January Ist 2000. Nothing happened, as things turned out. Does this mean that the word "scientist" should be denied of computer scientists?

That issue was caused because early computer system operated the date in two digit format. This bug was noted early on, and priot to the year 2000 a large number of institutions world wide set about upgrading their systems. Thus it is perfectly arguable that it was the prediction of computer scientists, based on simple mathematics, that avoided possible catastrophy. Furthermore, it is not as if the bug did not cause problems to some system which were not upgraded.

Something of a bad example there Rosa.

Biologists, for example, cannot predict the next major steps in evolution, but that does not stop Biology from being a science.

In one of my previous posts i actually provided a news article where a biologists were making predictions based on knowledge of evolutionary science. Albeit, they were modest predictions, but far more detailed and fart more plausable than those predictions made by historians moonlighting as futurists.

So, historians are not the only ones befuddled by the complexities nature throws our way; scientists have been doing this for thousands of years, and show no sign of slowing down.

Sure scientists can be mistaken, but they have far more success than historians do. You can list various failures on the part of scientists when it comes to predictions, how many famous and accurate predictions do you suppose historians have made?

Richard Evans, in his famous critique of both postmodernists and those who would depict history as a science (such as Geoffrey Elton), In Defence of History first published in 1997, said: -

"Time and again, history has proved a very bad predictor of future events. This is because history never repeats itself; nothing in human society, the main concern of the hisorian, ever happens twice under the exact same conditions or in the exact same way."

Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History, (London, 2000, p. 59.

And as I pointed out to you, historians do not just deal with "the testimony of other people". They carry out (or rely upon) observations and experiments on such things as: soil samples, parchments, battle tactics, weapon construction, disease transmission, ship design, ...

But as I pointed out, such methods are not actually used by your typical academic historian or any other comparable method. Such techniques are within the juristriction of another disipline, which certainly is a science, archaeology. To call an archaeologist a 'historian', without qualifying his or her actual trade is to be misleading. And sure a historian may choose to draw from the work of archeologists, but for the vast majority of the time, they don't. It would be like calling a chemist an artist because he/she employs diagrams in their work.

The vast majority of historians do simply deal with "the testimony of other people".

Furthermore, as I noted above, other scientists (linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, etc.) also have to study human beings. [/QUOTYE]

And now you move from the hard, or physical sciences, to the social sciences. Granted history is a good deal closer to being a social-sciences; as people like E. H Carr, and Arthur Marwick for that matter, argue, but I think even then it isn't quite the same.

[QUOTE]I will be posting a long Essay on this sometime next year.

I look forward to it.

Not so. I have argued that historians rely on archaeology and other disciplines (such as Chemistry, nuclear physics (for the carbon dating of artefacts), metallurgists, forensic psychologists and anthropologists, and so on).

And i would argue, as something approaching a historian, and certainly having read far more work by historians than most people, that this is not the case. Those academic historians who employ archeology, etc, do so in very limited fields within history. Most, myself included, have little call for it.

I just do not think that many of those taking part have a secure grasp of the nature of science (or they are operating with an a priori, perhaps even a Positivist view of it),

Well if they are, as you claim scientists, it is rather damning of the disipline that most within it do not grasp what it is they endevour to achieve.

So do many of the 'non-sciences' -- such as architecture, urban planning, and history itself. The latter may seem controversial, but unless we knew what had succeeded/failed in the past, science would be no use at all. Moreover, we use our knowledge of the past in order to avoid repeating its mistakes. Finally, the detailed study of the past has refined technology in several ways, for example, it has helped designers and engineers build better bridges, canal systems, alloys, communication systems, and so on.

Firstly I don't think we really do take heed of our mistakes, after all the 'Great War to end all wars', was repeated with an even bloodier affair in less than a quarter of a decade. Genocide has been repeated, etc.

Secondly, observing what has been successful within your industry, and building upon that, is hardly a testiment to the field of academic history.

Thirdly, what has academic history actually produced? My partner, also doing post-graduate research, is investigating how lead, cadmium, etc, enter the human (biological) system. Her work contributes to a field which has the material benefit of helping to reduce poisoning. I fail to see how my research has any similar benefit. Indeed I see my work, and work like it, as being an improvement of our understanding of our society, and valuable for its own sake. But its value is inherently different in that respect, than to that of my partner, whose has a material pay-off.

That was un-called for. We have been relatively civil to one another up to now. :(

In that case you have my apologies. I didn't mean to be offensive, rather to say your criticism of Marwick's point was a quibbling one, and that most would understand his point.

PS. James Anthony Froude summed up a rather unique, if only in extent of the scale of it being an issue, problem with history rather nicely: -

"It often seems to me as if history is like a child's box of letters, with which we can spell any word we please. We have only to pick out such letters we want, arrange them as we like, and say nothing about those which do not suit our purpose."

J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (London, 1963, first published 1867), p. 21.

Oswy

28th October 2008, 14:57

PS. James Anthony Froude summed up a rather unique, if only in extent of the scale of it being an issue, problem with history rather nicely: -

"It often seems to me as if history is like a child's box of letters, with which we can spell any word we please. We have only to pick out such letters we want, arrange them as we like, and say nothing about those which do not suit our purpose."

J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects (London, 1963, first published 1867), p. 21.

I think this is a little unkind to history and maybe a little too kind to science at the same time. Within science itself we can see the picking and choosing of concepts and categories with which to explain the world and which, at least when examined historically (ironically enough), have been seen to fit social and political agendas. The most obvious example that comes to mind is the way 'scientific' concepts of biological race emerged, fitting folk (even Biblical) notions for the purposes of establishing a hierarchy to justify the likes of slavery, imperialism and so on. We can even push the argument to a more radical point in highlighting Judith Butler's critique of the biological sex binary as a socially constructed privileging of some differences over others.

I'm all for recognising the limitations of historical inquiry but you're on shaky ground if you think 'science' stands as a philosophically and methodologically unified force, or that it is based on things like complete data or demonstrably unbiased processes.

Oswy

28th October 2008, 15:02

Richard Evans, in his famous critique of both postmodernists and those who would depict history as a science (such as Geoffrey Elton), In Defence of History first published in 1997, said: -

"Time and again, history has proved a very bad predictor of future events. This is because history never repeats itself; nothing in human society, the main concern of the hisorian, ever happens twice under the exact same conditions or in the exact same way."

Richard J. Evans, In Defence of History, (London, 2000, p. 59).

And there are many 'sciences' which do not predict. Palaeontology is essentially an examination and interpretation of the past. Specialisms within astronomy, such as the observation of how galaxies have evolved, are also limited in their predictive aims - the central intent is to explain how things have happened. Elsewhere there are scientific endeavours which aim for predictivity but struggle, seismology being the obvious example. Evans makes the mistake which many do by equating 'science' with certain methodological possibilities within some sciences. By doing so he misleads about what 'science' amounts to in the round and thus distorts the limitations of history.

Hit The North

28th October 2008, 17:12

Rosa:

And, with respect to technological determinism and functionalism, I am always careful to exclude these two (as I have done here), a fact you well-know. And I am just as careful to add that once you remove the functionalism and the technological determinism, there is very little left which is distinctive in Cohen's exposition. Moreover, remove these elements and his theory collapses.

But, why does that prevent Alex from abandoning Marxism if Cohen's ideas are as lethal as you seem to believe? Have I ever claimed them to be lethal? I wouldn't accord them that much force. I simply note that every attempt to rid Marxism of the dialectic has led to Marxism being rid of those who oppose the dialectic. You actually validate that position by claiming that you will be the first not to.

Meanwhile, as I suggested in my last post, you overstate the attachment Callinicos has for Cohen's theory (you know, the theory that historical materialism can only be rescued with an injection of techno-determinism and functionalism :lol:). Further, your attempt to seek an ally in Alex's work is equally misleading. Callinicos does not reject the material dialectic (which he does an excellent job of describing in his early The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx). Neither does he have a problem utilising dialectical concepts such as contradiction, as evinced by his latest work, The Resources of Critique, where he adopts a critical realist ontology which emphasises the interdependence of, and interactions between, different levels of social reality. In truth it is more that he has a problem with the more Hegelian formulations of this, but I welcome his interrogation of these issues.

So it looks like you'll need to find allies elsewhere. May I suggest you try Duhring, Bernstein, Eastman or Shachtman?

If so, there can't be an inherent problem with the work of non-Marxists. And if that is so, there can be no inherent problem with the work of ex-Marxists, either -- especially if one of our leading theorists has appropriated it himself.
Except where the problem is if these non/ex-Marxist texts stand in conscious opposition to Marxism and the working class, where have I claimed there is an inherent problem? I'll repeat this again as you'll probably need reminding: I simply note that every attempt to rid Marxism of the dialectic has led to Marxism being rid of those who oppose the dialectic.

And I am not an 'analytic Marxist'. Whatever gave you that idea?
You do me a disservice and give yourself too much credit. I've never accused you of being any kind of Marxist. I merely observe that your approach is rooted in the analytical tradition. It appears that it is you making things up - and about yourself! :lol:

This is a bit rich coming from someone who accepts a 'theory' that was derived from the work of a card-carrying mystic and ruling-class hack ('upside down' or the 'right way up').All I can say to that, is this:

My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite... With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell. - Karl MarxI think this is what Alex is attempting to do in his own way. You should take a leaf out his book.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th October 2008, 20:06

BTB:

And I am just as careful to add that once you remove the functionalism and the technological determinism, there is very little left which is distinctive in Cohen's exposition. Moreover, remove these elements and his theory collapses.

Not so. This takes out one full chapter, and the motor of his theory. About 80% remains intact.

Have I ever claimed them to be lethal? I wouldn't accord them that much force.

You might not have used those words, but your implication was reasonably clear: it killed Cohen's Marxism.

I simply note that every attempt to rid Marxism of the dialectic has led to Marxism being rid of those who oppose the dialectic. You actually validate that position by claiming that you will be the first not to

And you have had it pointed out to you that the vast majority of attempts to retain 'the dialectic' have led to counter-revolutionary results, since the vast majority of dialecticians are or have been Stalinists and Maoists.

So, there is nothing inherently good about this Hermetic 'theory' of yours.

Indeed, and quite the opposite: it has been associated with almost total failure for the last 150 years.

So, if you also believe that truth is tested in practice, you also ought to conclude that History has refuted 'the dialectic'.

But no, you cling on to it like a drunk to a lamppost, since it provides you with much needed consolation for the fact that Dialectical Marxism is such an abject failure. And this is in view of the additional fact that it teaches that appearances are contradicted by underlying 'essences', hence you can ignore or downplay the last 150 years of almost total failure as 'success' in disguise.

Meanwhile, as I suggested in my last post, you overstate the attachment Callinicos has for Cohen's theory (you know, the theory that historical materialism can only be rescued with an injection of techno-determinism and functionalism ). Further, your attempt to seek an ally in Alex's work is equally misleading. Callinicos does not reject the material dialectic (which he does an excellent job of describing in his early The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx). Neither does he have a problem utilising dialectical concepts such as contradiction, as evinced by his latest work, The Resources of Critique, where he adopts a critical realist ontology which emphasises the interdependence of, and interactions between, different levels of social reality. In truth it is more that he has a problem with the more Hegelian formulations of this, but I welcome his interrogation of these issues.

I know that Alex has wavered on the 'dialectic' over the last 30 years, but in his latest book, as I have quoted to you before, he calls Cohen's argument "compelling" (Making History, second edition, p.xx), and Cohen has more entries in the Index than any writer other than Marx and Anthony Giddens (the latter of whose entries are all negative).

And where have I suggested that Alex rejected the 'materialist dialectic'? In fact this is what I have written in Essay Nine Part Two on this:

The UK-SWP 'Discovers' DM

The UK-SWP's 're-discovery' of DM is more recent, however. The line taken in Socialist Review in the early 1980s, for example, was that while there might be a dialectic operating in class society, there isn't one at work in nature.

As Ian Birchall put things:

"The trouble with…[the 'negation of the negation' and a 'dialectics of nature' -- RL] is that [they] oversimplif[y] and mystif[y]…. To derive the laws of dialectics from inanimate nature leads to denying the role of human agency in the historical process."

Even Chris Harman did not think DM important enough to mention in print (as far as I am aware) until the late 1980s. For instance, in his reply to an article written by Alex Callinicos [Callinicos (1983b)], Harman largely restricted his use of the term "contradiction" to the following (adding other revisionary comments to Alex's take on Althusser):

"Contradiction then becomes contradiction inside capitalist society. The transformation of quantity into quality becomes the way in which bourgeois society itself throws up new elements it cannot control. The negation of the negation becomes the creation of a class by capitalist production which is driven to react back upon that production in a revolutionary way." [Harman (1983), pp.73-74.]

Harman was strangely silent about the 'dialectic' in nature in this article, as were Alex Callinicos and the late Peter Binns in the same debate. Harman pointedly restricted dialectics to human social history (which is an indefensible fall-back option, anyway, as I hope to show in a later Essay (until then, see here)). [Cf., Callinicos (1983b) and Binns (1982).]

This is quite inexplicable if we are now supposed to accept the current line that DM is central to Marxist Philosophy. Indeed, it is even more puzzling when it is recalled that Alex Callinicos had been severely critical of several core DM-theses in the book under discussion . Comrades in the SWP-UK might not have noticed it, but WRP writers certainly picked up on this and laid into Callinicos's 'anti-Marxist heresies' with no little vehemence, as noted above. But, why didn't Peter Binns or Chris Harman spot these glaring infelicities in that work?

Furthermore, Tony Cliff's earlier work, as far as I am aware, does not mention DM, and his political biographies of Lenin and Trotsky are deafeningly silent on this issue.

In fact, as this thread confirms (specifically here), Cliff mentioned this execrable theory in print only 3 times in 60 years (and even then only in passing)!

[However, since writing the above, I have discovered a handful of references to dialectics (the 'materialist dialectics' version, applied to society, but not DM, applied to nature) in Cliff's classic book, Cliff (1988); on this see here. Even so, dialectical concepts are nowhere near as prominent in his work as they are in, say, Ted Grant's. On the latter, see below. However, I am assured by older members of the UK-SWP that Cliff used to lecture on DM in earlier decades -- but apparently he did not think it important to put these ideas into print. The point is that DM only became an overt mantra in SWP publications [I]after 1985.]

The same goes for other SWP theorists. For example, Duncan Hallas does not mention this 'theory' at all in any of his writings. All this is rather odd if DM is as 'central' to SWP thought as some now maintain. Cf., Cliff (1975-79, 1982, 1988, 1989-93, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003); Hallas (1984).

[Correction: I have come across one mention of DM in Duncan's writings --, an article, oddly enough, on sectarianism! Anyway, he is merely quoting Trotsky, and does nothing with the term himself.]

The change in line was heralded by two short articles; one was written by Chris Harman and appeared in Socialist Review in 1988 [Cf., Harman (1988)], the other was authored by John Molyneux, and appeared in Socialist Worker (see below).

Since then, several other comrades have joined the stampede back to the ancient past: John Rees [Rees (1989, 1990, 1994, 1998)], John Molyneux [Molyneux (1987); see also his blog], Paul McGarr [McGarr (1990, 1994)], and Phil Gasper [Gasper (1998)] (although, now that the US wing (the ISO) of the IST has been expelled, Phil is no longer an SWP-theorist!). Cf., also Paul Kellogg's review of a recent book on Engels, 'The Demon Marxist', and subsequent letters. See also my letter to the International Socialist Review, in response to an article by Brian Jones. [Jones (2008)]. Comrade Jones attempted to mount a weak and rather superficial defence of dialectics, to which I have replied here. [Readers need to be aware of the fact that my response was based on a typed copy of comrade Jones's response to me posted at RevLeft by another comrade who made several typing errors. A more considered version of that reply has been published at this site, here.] A similar letter sent to Socialist Review by a supporter of this site was not published. It can be read here.

Even Alex Callinicos has softened his anti-DM stance of late. [Callinicos (1998) and (2006); on the latter, see here.] Before this he had been openly critical of DM; see, for example, Callinicos (1976), pp.11-29; (1978), pp.135-84; (1982), pp.55, 112-19; (1983a), pp.54-56, 61-62; (1987), pp.52-53; (1989a), pp.2-5.

It is quite clear that the downturn in the movement since the 1970s has meant that the above comrades have felt a pressing need to enrol themselves on a sufficiently powerful Dialectical Methadone programme.

Mercifully, DM has yet to appear in Socialist Worker on a regular basis. As far as I am aware, it has only featured once in the paper in the last 20 years -- in an article written by John Molyneux (the reference for which I have unfortunately lost, although Petersen gives it as January 1984) -- subsequently reprinted in Molyneux (1987), pp.49-51. [Cf., Petersen (1994), p.158. Petersen also references a letter to Socialist Review written (by a comrade and old friend of mine), in response to Harman's article, pp.160-61.]

At one level, this is difficult to explain -- at another, the opposite is in fact the case. Given the fact that workers are 'supposed' to assent to DM readily when confronted with it, or they are said to use its concepts unwittingly all the time -- according to Trotsky --, this omission is highly puzzling, especially if DM is as central to revolutionary theory as SWP-theorists would now have us believe. Why then hasn't Socialist Worker assumed the Dialectical Mantle once worn so proudly by Newsline?

The answer to this is not difficult to work out. The editors of Socialist Worker are not idiots, unlike their counterparts at Newsline; they surely know that DM is a complete turn-off for workers. Even Socialist Review largely ignores this allegedly central tenet of Marxism -- probably for the same reason. But, if DM is to be brought to workers, how might this happen if 'their' revolutionary press totally ignores it? It is not easy to see how DM could one day "seize the masses" if Socialist Worker omits all mention of it.

International Socialism now appears to be the only SWP publication 'radical' enough to expound DM-ideas. Admittedly, few workers read this otherwise excellent journal -- and that probably explains why the editors find they can (sometimes) retail dialectical theses there.

In addition, meetings at Marxism (the annual SWP theoretical conference) regularly discuss this 'theory'. [Some of this material can be found here. A report of the discussion of dialectics at Marxism 2007 can also be found here.]

This is less easy to explain -- except perhaps that this is probably a gesture toward orthodoxy. However, to be truthful, there are relatively few such meetings, and their content relates to little of the political content of other meetings (which, given the criticisms advanced here and in Part One, this is not surprising). Nevertheless, the contrary view (i.e., anti-dialectics) is certainly not allowed adequate time to mount an effective case for the prosecution (or any at all).

Of late (i.e., circa 2003-8), even International Socialism has dropped this hot topic (except for this article written by Chris Harman in his review of a recent book by Alex Callinicos, i.e., Harman (2007a), and possibly this one, too -- i.e., Harman (2007b)).

This is probably because of the international situation brought on by a resurgence of US and UK Imperialism, and the massive anti-war response this has produced. It is hard to argue with newly radicalised youth that "Being is identical with but at the same time different from Nothing, the contradiction resolved in Becoming..." and hope to appear relevant.

And yet, one would have thought that this would have been an ideal opportunity to bring DM to the masses. In which case, it is even more difficult to explain why Socialist Worker is currently silent about DM. The masses are on the street, why isn't their paper informing them of John's universal masculinity, the friable fighting skills of Mamelukes, seeds which negate plants, and the logical tryst between 'Being' and 'Nothing' -- with 'Becoming' acting as a sort of metaphysical Cupid?

The question answers itself; DM is an irrelevance. [On that, see here.]

One should be able to predict that, as the recent wave of radicalisation declines, and as the fortunes of recently fragmented Respect, and the hastily-formed Left List, continue to fade, dialectics should rear its ugly head in SWP publications again. The above reappearance in International Socialism (and those recorded below) are conformation of this.

So, of late dialectics has indeed re-surfaced in Socialist Worker! [The details can be found here.] Once more, this is probably a result of the fact that the UK-SWP has not made a significant political break-through, despite their prominent role in the UK Anti-war movement, and because the latter is in steep decline. Another example is a recent article on Engels by Simon Basketter. [Basketter (2008). I have already sent a letter into the paper about this -- we'll see if it's published.]

Idealism, too, (evidenced by this example of the 'triumph of the will') is once more on the rise, too, it seems!

[On that, see the discussion here.]

References and links can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%2009_02.htm

Hence I am well aware of Alex's theoretical decline; this is what I have also written in Essay Ten Part One about it:

And, in a more recent work, Callinicos goes further, back-tracking on his earlier stance of opposing the idea that there is a dialectic in nature:

"It was this experience [i.e., the use of dialectics in the Lysenko affair; RL] that first motivated many Marxists to conclude that Engels was wrong, and that real contradictions are unique to the social world. This used to be my own view, but two reasons have led me to change my mind. The first is the refinement of the dialectic of nature offered by Trotsky...[in Trotsky (1986); RL]. Trotsky reduces the three 'laws of the dialectic to one: the transformation of quantity into quality...." [Callinicos (2006), p.212.]

I will be saying more about this Callinicos's book in other Essays (but see Note 16), however, we find, yet again, another (in this case, half-hearted) 'natural dialectician' offer up his own 'sanitised' version of Engels mystical 'theory' (just as theologians are constantly 'sanitising' the Bible). The unfortunate thing is that Callinicos's reasons for accepting a 'sort of dialectic in nature' have already been exposed as entirely bogus (in Essay Seven Part One). Moreover, his application of 'the dialectic' to social development (made at length in the above book) -- in, it has to be said, a almost totally unreadable chapter -- has also been shown to be based solely on a series of spurious verbal tricks and sub-logical moves carried out by Hegel in his seriously misnamed 'Logic' (here, here, here, and here).

Indeed, Callinicos's book is yet another a sad example of the deleterious effect on the minds of alert comrades of reading far too much Hegelian, and then post Heideggerian Continental Philosophy. We see once again a prominent Marxist, who can write with enviable clarity and exemplary skill on matters economic, political and historical, reduced to stringing together countless incomprehensible, jargon-festooned sentences when it comes to re-packaging ideas drawn from this Hermetic wing of philosophical confusion (and ruling-class ideology).

And in Note 16:

Moreover, as we also saw in Essay Seven Part One, Q/Q [The 'Law' of the Transformation of Quantity into Quality] cannot sustain 'emergentism' (i.e., the idea that as the level of investigation rises, the phenomena under study undergo a qualitative change, and new features of reality 'emerge' from the underlying strata) --, as, for example, Alex Callinicos seems to believe:

"The transformation of quantity into quality does by contrast seem genuinely universal in so far as it highlights two crucial features of the world -- first the phenomenon of emergence and stratification -- the existence of qualitatively different levels of physical being each governed by specific laws, including the human species, with its peculiar capacities and distinctive history, and second, qualitative transformations from one state of being to another." [Callinicos (2006), p.212.]

We have seen (in Essay Seven Part One, here and here) that even if sense could be made of "emergence", it would still not be governed by Engels's Q/Q 'law'. There seems to be no way of subsuming a difference of "levels" to any sort of "quantitative" change of the sort Engels had in mind. As he noted:

"...[T]he transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa. For our purpose, we could express this by saying that in nature, in a manner exactly fixed for each individual case, qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. [B]Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Engels (1954), p.63. Bold emphasis added.]

But, what new energy or matter has been added to the body or process concerned as we pass between these levels? The increase or decrease in magnification we might want to imagine between levels is not the sort of quantitative change (if it is one to begin with) that Engels was speaking about. He pointedly says:

"...qualitative changes can only occur by the quantitative addition or subtraction of matter or motion (so-called energy)…. Hence it is impossible to alter the quality of a body without addition or subtraction of matter or motion, i.e. without quantitative alteration of the body concerned." [Ibid. Bold emphases added.]

Magnification is something we bring to the phenomena, it is not something already there, and we do not add energy to, or subtract it from, the system under examination when we magnify things.

Of course, it could be objected that we do indeed add energy when we observe nature (be it in the form of light, or electron beams), but this is not the energy that affects the 'emergent' properties under consideration. No one imagines, it is to be hoped, that the allegedly 'emergent' properties of the 'mind', say, depend on them being viewed under a microscope. Or, that the 'emergent' properties of water (e.g., its wetness) depend on human observers.

In fact, this underlines how vague this 'law' is, for as was pointed out in Essay Seven Part One, it is not too clear what does or what does not constitute an "addition" of energy/matter to a system, or even what constitutes a "system" (on that, see here and here) in DM. This is, of course, why I have called dialectics a "Mickey Mouse Science".

So, if there are new laws (as we ascend or descend between levels of complexity and stratification in nature and society), Engels's Q/Q would have nothing to do with them -- unless that 'law' is itself altered to accommodate such phenomena. And if that happens, the link between matter/energy and change would be broken. That is quite apart from the fact that such a re-write of Engels's 'law', just to cater for these awkward facts, would introduce an element of subjectivity into what is supposed to be an 'objective' law.

Again, it could be argued that it is not a question of seeing how mental phenomena could emerge from material complexity; the fact is that they do.

But, if matter does not 'really exist' (if it is just another DM-'abstraction', as Engels and Hegel believed) -- if everything is a field of some sort (the physical nature of which is somewhat obscure) --, then neither mind nor matter could be emergent properties of anything physical. Hence, the fact that we can and do think (etc.) cannot be used to support a theory that sees mental phenomena arising out of something that dialecticians call an 'abstraction', and which many scientists now claim is a myth (i.e., matter itself) -- anymore than we can use such phenomena, in order to prove that thought is the product of a non-material mind, or the 'soul', a là Descartes (as certain philosophers/theologians have argued in the past, and which some scientists still seem to believe).

On this 'modern' view, it now seems that matter is just a misperception of 'the field'. But should this turn us all into Christians?

References and links can be found here:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/rosa.l/page%20010_01.htm

His adoption of 'Critical Realism' is no less regrettable, since that theory makes no sense at all (as I will be showing in the next Essay I publish: Thirteen Part Two).

But, quite apart from this, not even Alex has been able to explain what 'dialectical contradictions' are, or account for that fact that Marx abandoned this way of conceiving of the development of capitalism.

So it looks like you'll need to find allies elsewhere. May I suggest you try Dühring, Bernstein, Eastman or Shachtman?

Of course, Shachtman was a dialectician, and his modern day disciples (the AWL) are enthusiastic supporters of 'materialist dialectics', Zionism and US imperialism.

Perhaps they are your friends?

[Or if they are not, then the characters you mention have nothing to do with my ideas, either -- as I have pointed out to you many times before.]

Except where the problem is if these non/ex-Marxist texts stand in conscious opposition to Marxism and the working class, where have I claimed there is an inherent problem? I'll repeat this again as you'll probably need reminding: I simply note that every attempt to rid Marxism of the dialectic has led to Marxism being rid of those who oppose the dialectic.

And I'll repeat a point you have had made to you many times before: there are far more reactionary and anti-Marxists supporters of 'materialist dialectics' than there are otherwise, namely the Stalinists, Maoists, Hoxhaists and Libertarian Marxists. So, if you are looking for historical support for your adherence to this mystical theory, you might be advised to desist, for history tells us it leads far more away from Marxism than it superglues to it.

You do me a disservice and give yourself too much credit. I've never accused you of being any kind of Marxist. I merely observe that your approach is rooted in the analytical tradition. It appears that it is you making things up - and about yourself!

I am quite proud of the fact that Analytic Philosophy has given me the tools to be able to refute this 'theory' of yours. The fact that you cannot win a single argument against me suggests that your dalliance with Hermeticism has not done your brain too many favours.

All I can say to that, is this:

As you have had proven to you many times, Marx abandoned this mantra like faith of yours, for in a summary of 'his method' added to the Preface to Das Kapital, there is not one atom of Hegel to be found (upside down or the 'right way up'): no 'contradictions', no 'quantity passing over into quality', no 'negation of the negation', no 'unity of opposites', no 'mediated totality', no 'universal change'...

So, Marx cannot be recruited to your side, I am happy to say. In short, according to Marx, the 'rational kernel' of Hegel's 'theory' is in fact empty.

I think this is what Alex is attempting to do in his own way. You should take a leaf out his book.

Even better advice: you should take more than a leaf out of that anti-dialectical classic: Das Kapital.

Rosa Lichtenstein

28th October 2008, 20:07

Zim, I'll be responding to you tomorrow.

Hit The North

28th October 2008, 23:13

Rosa:
Not so. This takes out one full chapter, and the motor of his theory. About 80% remains intact.Eureka! At last! Yes, because the dialectic is the motor of historical materialism as you have had pointed out to you many times. Take it out and you are left with a static, inanimate corpse of a theory. So, I'll gladly agree that 80% of a corpse remains in Cohen's work - big deal.

So, there is nothing inherently good about this Hermetic 'theory' of yours.
Of course there isn't anything inherently good about the dialectic. it's not a moral question. Where are you getting all these strange ideas from?

I know that Alex has wavered on the 'dialectic' over the last 30 years, but in his latest book, as I have quoted to you before, he calls Cohen's argument "compelling" (Making History, second edition, p.xx), and Cohen has more entries in the Index than any writer other than Marx and Anthony Giddens (the latter of whose entries are all negative).
His latest book on theory is The Resources of Critique (2006), as you know. Making History was first published in 1987. If you're referring to the Introduction to the 2nd Edition, then, yes, Callinicos has some nice things to say about Cohen's work, although this seems only to amount to praising him for "compellingly" analysing the relations of production as "relations of effective power over persons and productive forces" as satisfying the "reduction programme" of rational-choice theory before questioning the necessity of their "reduction programme" and accusing them of a "metaphysical individualism". He actually then uses a notation to criticise Cohen for excluding the productive forces as a social structure. Hardly a ringing endorsement of Cohen's system. Meanwhile, he also borrows what he thinks is good from other writers, praising them on the way - including Giddens who is not at all dealt with in a hostile or negative manner as you suggest. In fact Callinicos goes on to point out affinities in Cohen's and Giddens' approach to the structure-agency debate. Incidentally, whether these similarities could be shown to result in the anti-Marxist positions both theorists end up occupying, I'll leave to someone else to work out.

But, quite apart from this, not even Alex has been able to explain what 'dialectical contradictions' are
No, you've not been able to understand it.

or account for that fact that Marx abandoned this way of conceiving of the development of capitalism. Because he didn't.

I am quite proud of the fact that Analytic Philosophy has given me the tools to be able to refute this 'theory' of yours. The fact that you cannot win a single argument against me suggests that your dalliance with Hermeticism has not done your brain too many favours. Just because you refuse to shut up doesn't necessarily mean you've won the argument any more than you endlessly repeating the same falsehoods makes them progressively more true. Here's an example:

So, Marx cannot be recruited to your side, I am happy to say. In short, according to Marx, the 'rational kernel' of Hegel's 'theory' is in fact empty.

Like the proverbial statistic, you've just made that up.

Rosa Lichtenstein

29th October 2008, 08:56

BTB:

Eureka! At last! Yes, because the dialectic is the motor of historical materialism as you have had pointed out to you many times. Take it out and you are left with a static, inanimate corpse of a theory. So, I'll gladly agree that 80% of a corpse remains in Cohen's work - big deal.

You need to calm down; your wishful thinking is affecting your judgement -- again. The motive force of Cohen's system is in fact his functionalism, not 'the dialectic'. Indeed, as I have shown, not only can 'the dialectic' not explain change, if it were true, then change could not happen.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1207509&postcount=360

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1207517&postcount=361

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1207518&postcount=362

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1222404&postcount=14

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1221394&postcount=464

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1221395&postcount=465

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=986357&postcount=2

Of course, if you think you are up to it, you can always try to show where I go wrong here. But, then, you'd have already done that if you were indeed up to the job.

Finally, Cohen's system, and Historical Materialism in general, does not need a mystical force (these unexplained 'dialectical contradictions') to make it work. As I have told you many times already, ordinary language contains plenty of words that account for (or can be used to account for) change, and they do this far better than the obscure jargon Engels and Co imported into Marxism from Hegelian Hermeticism.

Of course there isn't anything inherently good about the dialectic. it's not a moral question. Where are you getting all these strange ideas from?

Once more you miss the point. This was not a moral 'good', but a functional 'good'. As the examples I gave you show, there is nothing inherent in the dialectic that prevents its acolytes from becoming anti-Marxists. In that case, you cannot use the fact that those who abandon 'the dialect' become anti-Marxists as an excuse to brand anti-dialectics in the way you and others constantly do. And that is because there are far more anti-Marxists/counter-revolutionaries who accept 'the dialectic' than there are Marxists/revolutionaries who also accept it. So, if anything, 'the dialectic' causes more defections from Marxism than abandoning 'the dialectic' does -- if we now use an obverse version of your fractured logic.

His latest book on theory is The Resources of Critique (2006), as you know. Making History was first published in 1987. If you're referring to the Introduction to the 2nd Edition, then, yes, Callinicos has some nice things to say about Cohen's work, although this seems only to amount to praising him for "compellingly" analysing the relations of production as "relations of effective power over persons and productive forces" as satisfying the "reduction programme" of rational-choice theory before questioning the necessity of their "reduction programme" and accusing them of a "metaphysical individualism". He actually then uses a notation to criticise Cohen for excluding the productive forces as a social structure. Hardly a ringing endorsement of Cohen's system. Meanwhile, he also borrows what he thinks is good from other writers, praising them on the way - including Giddens who is not at all dealt with in a hostile or negative manner as you suggest. In fact Callinicos goes on to point out affinities in Cohen's and Giddens' approach to the structure-agency debate. Incidentally, whether these similarities could be shown to result in the anti-Marxist positions both theorists end up occupying, I'll leave to someone else to work out.

Indeed, and as the rest of the book shows, Alex accepts many other things Cohen says about Historical Materialism. The negative things he says are largely confined to the same sort of comments I make, i.e., about his functionalism and his technological determinism. However, there are plenty of other positive things he says about Cohen. For example, on pages xxvi-vii he acknowledges he should have paid even more attention to certain arguments of Cohen's. On pages xxii-iii he further acknowledges he should have argued more forcefully in the first edition, in agreement with Cohen, over the primacy of the productive forces. On page xxxviii he refers to the "strengths" of Cohen's account, which he thinks can be made even stronger by the addition of other factors. On pages 41-70, Alex outlines those parts of Cohen's theory he accepts, which are quite considerable, and in view of what he added in the new Preface, it is clear that he did not go far enough in appropriating these aspects of Cohen's work.

I agree with you about Giddens, but it is clear that Alex is far closer to Cohen than he is to Giddens. But you are wrong to say that Alex criticises him for his adoption of 'rational choice' theory. In fact, in the pages I have listed above, he goes out of his way to distance Cohen from the rational choice 'Marxists', like Elster. Sure, he admits that he sided with Elster in the first edition, but it is clear from what he says in the new Preface that he has moved away from the latter and closer to the former.

No, you've not been able to understand it.

Ah that old chestnut, beloved of mystics everywhere (even Christians will tell us that us atheists just do not 'understand' the gospel), used by dialecticians of every stripe to account for the fact that everyone else (including other dialecticians who take up contrary positions) does not "understand" the dialectic -- but only as they see it.

However, Alex (in Making History, and in The Resources of Critique) does not actually explain his use of 'contradiction'; he just helps himself to it (as do all other dialecticians), which he then employs it in a slightly different way -- and in the case of the latter book, he throws even more obscure jargon at it.

So, I am happy to admit that I do not 'understand' his use of this obscure word (and I am in good company too, since no one seems to 'understand' it), any more than I understand the 'Incarnation of Christ', and since Alex does not actually tell us what he means by this word (if you think differently, perhaps you can tell us where he explains it), it is clear that either he does not understand it, too, or he cannot explain it -- or both. And the same goes for all the hundreds of other books and articles I have, for my sins, had to read over the last 25 years on this drab theory: not one single dialectician can explain this phrase.

Not even you can.

Of course, if you think you can, then put us all out of our misery, and tell us, for the first time ever in over 200 years, what these obscure 'dialectical contradictions' are.

The fact that you haven't done so up to now, when you have been asked to do so several times, suggests that you too either do not 'understand' this phrase, or you can't explain it -- or both --, and it simply remains another 'dialectical mystery' to add to the dozens I have exposed at RevLeft over the last three years.

Because he didn't.

Unfortunately for you, the facts say he did. Do you want me to summarise them again for you? You seem not to be able to grasp them.

Just because you refuse to shut up doesn't necessarily mean you've won the argument any more than you endlessly repeating the same falsehoods makes them progressively more true.

Whether or not I 'refuse to shut up', the fact is that I have wiped the floor with you now for well over two years. And you have yet to show that what I say is 'false'.

Like the proverbial statistic, you've just made that up.

Then so did Marx.

Prove me wrong...

Rosa Lichtenstein

29th October 2008, 09:05

Hit The North

29th October 2008, 13:28

I am sorry Zim, but I am concentrating what little energy I have these days to slapping BTB about some more -- he seems to like public humiliation. :)

I will get back to you when he has been put back in his box.

Actually, you should concentrate your energies on developing your argument with Zim, which at least has the virtue of being educational.

Our exchange is sadly limited by your inability to understand Marxist concepts. Like two people speaking a different language we have limited means to extend our mutual understanding. This is why debates with you always end up as a competition of who can get in the "last word".

Invader Zim

29th October 2008, 13:44

Actually, you should concentrate your energies on developing your argument with Zim, which at least has the virtue of being educational.

Our exchange is sadly limited by your inability to understand Marxist concepts. Like two people speaking a different language we have limited means to extend our mutual understanding. This is why debates with you always end up as a competition of who can get in the "last word".

Well perhaps that is the problem, perhaps we should not consider these exchanges to be arguments, or even debates, but hopefully educational discussions between friends?

Hit The North

29th October 2008, 13:51

Well perhaps that is the problem, perhaps we should not consider these exchanges to be arguments, or even debates, but hopefully educational discussions between friends?

Certainly, that would be more in the spirit of the Education forum.

Rosa Lichtenstein

29th October 2008, 14:09

BTB:

Our exchange is sadly limited by your inability to understand Marxist concepts. Like two people speaking a different language we have limited means to extend our mutual understanding. This is why debates with you always end up as a competition of who can get in the "last word".

As I noted, if I fail to 'understand' these 'concepts' then I am in good company, for no one seems to 'understand' them -- or if they do, they have kept that secret to themselves -- and that includes you.

Rosa Lichtenstein

30th October 2008, 09:47

ZIM:

I disagree. I think it is a reflection, not simply based upon the complexities of human society, but because of the very sources historians analyse, which as I have pointed out are fundamentally different to that of a 'hard' scientist. The former are subjective the later is objective.

As I pointed out, this would mean that psychology and anthropology are not sciences, and it ignores the fact that much of the 'hard sciences' are just as 'subjective' as is History. I gave evidence and argument in my earlier posts on this.

I disagree, I think it is highly relevant, as the existence of general predictable processes is one of the key differences between history and a 'hard' science. History lacks these easily determinable processes, and if they are noticed then they are usually very difficult to project into the future; or even into the past without a huge deal of debate, criticism and flat out rejection.

I did not deny this is relevant, I merely said:

And, it is a moot point whether or not History has its own laws.

ZIM:

...The existence of general predictable processes is one of the key differences between history and a 'hard' science. History lacks these easily determinable processes, and if they are noticed then they are usually very difficult to project into the future; or even into the past without a huge deal of debate, criticism and flat out rejection.

Once more, this is merely a complexity issue. And it is quite independent of the fact that Marxists claim that there are indeed such features of history that allow us to delineate "determinable processes", for example, the complex and evolving relation between the forces and relations of production.

If you will forgive me for saying it, your argument resembles somewhat the 'god-of-the-gaps' argument of the Christians: if something has no natural explanation [i]yet, then it must have a supernatural one. In your case this becomes: if something has no natural explanation yet, then it cannot be part of the sciences, or it must lack 'laws'.

If we took that attitude, we would get nowhere.

Indeed, I think I have given enough detail to suggest that you are being either too hasty in your judgement here, or are being unnecessarily restrictive in what you count as observation and experiment -- which I have shown historians either engage in, or rely on.

Hardly, the term 'law' is simply an easy definition of a complex idea, and more than suitable for this discussion.

Once more you misread me, for I said this:

[Marwick, and you it seems, is operating with an out-moded notion of 'law of nature'.]

I nowhere denied this notion was not complex, or that it needs thorough discussion -- simply that what you have posted here (and have interpreted Marwick to mean) suggests that you are indeed operating with a naive and/or outdated view of such 'laws'.

Naturally, this maybe unfair to you both, but I can only speak about what I have read in your posts.

It depends on how one defines science, if it is simply examination and study of the natural world, then no it hasn't. If you refer to the dawn of the term 'natural philosophy', which has its roots in the 16th century or 'science' coined in the 19th century, then sure.

Well, if you are going to re-define the word "science" so that it now encompasses everyday knowledge that humans have been aware of for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years, then much of history will be scientific too.

My point was simply that humanity has known that unsupported objects fall to the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. Indeed, many animals act as if they know this, too.

But it is of course not a matter of a stone understanding, it is simply that objects with mass attract one another. We know this, thus we can make predictions; predictions which allow flight, etc. There are no similarly exact, accurate or useful predictions possible based on historical analysis because humanity, as a whole, has a horrible habit of being irritatingly unpredictable.

I agree, and that was the point behind my comment. The traditional view of natural laws was that they represented natural imperatives that objects had to 'obey', simply because that was 'God's' word, and it was how 'he' controlled 'his' creation. [This in fact led Leibniz, for example, to 'prove' that everything in the universe is actually a complex conglomerate of tiny minds ('Monads'), all programmed to obey such laws -- in Hegel this became just One Big Mind in 'self-development'.]

Now, if you want to abandon that view, as it seems you do in some of the things you say (but in others, what you say clearly depends on this view), then such laws merely become expressions of regularities which we use with greater or lesser probability to understand and control the world, and indeed make predictions.

However, the tendency today (especially among scientists) is still to regard these as something more, as 'iron laws' that nothing and no one can countermand -- and which objects and process have to 'obey' of necessity -- you can see this working behind the scenes in talk about 'determinism' (even in threads at RevLeft), and how objects 'obey' nature's laws. But, this is just a modern-day echo of the ancient belief I referred to above.

Now, I think you need this ancient view of laws to make your distinction between History and science proper work.

Here is why:

If it is just 'predictability' that you are interested in, as it seems in places you are, then it is simply a matter of complexity that prevents us doing the same in History. This is plainly contingent barrier.

But, you want to go further, and argue that there is nothing we can do to rectify this defect in our understanding of the past, and how to predict the future. And if you argue that, then you have to further argue that there are natural necessities in nature that do not feature in human affairs, and that is why no predictions can be made in History.

But, once you do that, you are back to the old theological view of laws I said both you and Marwick implicitly need in order to make your distinction work.

The distinction between the older, anthropomorphic view of laws and the more modern view is brought out very well in a link I posted earlier; I heartily recommend you read it:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lawofnat.htm

According to the more modern view of laws, they are just expressions of regularities. This means that it is simply a matter of complexity that prevents us understanding our own historical laws fully -- it is not one that is a fundamental feature of the fabric of reality (which it is on the old view -- and which you need).

That issue was caused because early computer system operated the date in two digit format. This bug was noted early on, and prior to the year 2000 a large number of institutions world wide set about upgrading their systems. Thus it is perfectly arguable that it was the prediction of computer scientists, based on simple mathematics, that avoided possible catastrophe. Furthermore, it is not as if the bug did not cause problems to some system which were not upgraded.

Something of a bad example there Rosa.

I am well aware of the reasons for this. The point was, of course, that scientists get predictions wrong. So the example was quite apposite.

In one of my previous posts i actually provided a news article where a biologists were making predictions based on knowledge of evolutionary science. Albeit, they were modest predictions, but far more detailed and fart more plausible than those predictions made by historians moonlighting as futurists.

Of course, biologists can make educated guesses (which have yet to be confirmed, so we do not even know if they got these 'predictions' right), but these are not the same as the predictions physicists make (for example, concerning the motion of the planets). And those 'modest' predictions you refer to are, as I indicated, not predictions of the next major steps in evolution, since biologists cannot possibly know the selection pressures that will be around in, say, 100,000 years time.

But, this puts biologists in the same boat as historians, except, in the latter case, because of the aforementioned massively increased complexity, historians cannot make many predictions at all. But, does this make History any less of a science that Biology? In fact, it just acknowledges the different orders of complexity here -- something that would afflict biologists, too, if you were to compare them just as unfairly with Physicists.

If complexity afflicts Biological 'prediction' (and unconfirmed ones at that), then, if you are consistent, you should declare that it isn't a science, since it is little better than History, and certainly far worse than Physics.

And, of course, I could make a historical 'prediction' -- I could 'predict' that there will be a war between 'Eurasia' and 'Neo-America' beginning on October 2nd 5075. Who today could confirm this? And yet, how is that different from the 'modest' predictions of the biologists, if neither has been or can be confirmed (in the here and now).

And it's no good replying that my 'prediction' is a wild guess, since a knowledgeable Historian could make an educated guess about what might happen in ten or fifty years time (in fact some do, and they sell books on that basis). The problem is that what they say is unconfirmable right now -- but that is just the situation with these 'modest' biological 'predictions'.

So, in this respect at least, History is no less of a science than is Biology.

Sure scientists can be mistaken, but they have far more success than historians do. You can list various failures on the part of scientists when it comes to predictions, how many famous and accurate predictions do you suppose historians have made?

Richard Evans, in his famous critique of both postmodernists and those who would depict history as a science (such as Geoffrey Elton), In Defence of History first published in 1997, said: -

"Time and again, history has proved a very bad predictor of future events. This is because history never repeats itself; nothing in human society, the main concern of the historian, ever happens twice under the exact same conditions or in the exact same way."

Yes I have read Evan's book, and he has a naive idea about 'objectivity' too.

And, I never denied that 'hard scientists' were more 'successful' than Historians; manifestly they are. But, both exist on the same continuum, but at extreme ends of it. History is bad at making predictions simply because of the complexity of the phenomena. But, as I have shown above, that does not mean it is not a science.

And, just because historians have been bad at predicting in the past does not mean that they will be bad at this in the future.

Or are you, a historian, making a prediction here?

But as I pointed out, such methods are not actually used by your typical academic historian or any other comparable method. Such techniques are within the jurisdiction of another disipline, which certainly is a science, archaeology. To call an archaeologist a 'historian', without qualifying his or her actual trade is to be misleading. And sure a historian may choose to draw from the work of archaeologists, but for the vast majority of the time, they don't. It would be like calling a chemist an artist because he/she employs diagrams in their work.

The vast majority of historians do simply deal with "the testimony of other people".

I went to great trouble to make several points in relation this in my last post:

1) Scientists rely on testimony, too.

2) Historians rely on data produced by other disciplines (I gave many examples).

3) Many 'genuine sciences' deal largely or exclusively with human beings (psychology, anthropology, physiology, etc.).

Hence, there is in principle no fundamental difference between History and the 'genuine sciences'.

Moreover, historians deal with the testimony they find in their sources in just as scientific a manner as do 'genuine scientists'. Historians do not just make stuff up; they analyse and question their sources. What is this if not a reflection of the scientific attitude?

Unless you believe that when they deal with human testimony, historians treat what they find in an irresponsible manner?

Sure, the primary sources historians study are 'subjective', but that does not stop them treating these sources objectively, using data from archaeology, forensic anthropology, carbon dating, etc., etc., to test and check the veracity of what they read in those sources.

This all sounds eminently scientific to me.

And now you move from the hard, or physical sciences, to the social sciences. Granted history is a good deal closer to being a social-sciences; as people like E. H Carr, and Arthur Marwick for that matter, argue, but I think even then it isn't quite the same.

Are you saying that the social sciences are not sciences?

And i would argue, as something approaching a historian, and certainly having read far more work by historians than most people, that this is not the case. Those academic historians who employ archaeology, etc, do so in very limited fields within history. Most, myself included, have little call for it.

Well, I must bow to your expertise here, but you are not denying that they can, and sometimes do, appeal to archaeology, or to forensic anthropology, or numismatics, or carbon dating, or reverse engineering, etc. etc. But, on the other hand, because the vast majority of Biologists, say, do not spend most of their time referring to chemistry, or physics, that would not prevent you from saying Biology was a science.

No less so here.

Well if they are, as you claim scientists, it is rather damning of the disipline that most within it do not grasp what it is they endeavour to achieve.

This is no slur on historians; scientists themselves have an insecure grasp on the nature of science too. As the philosopher of science, Imre Lakatos, said:

"This…bears out my pet thesis that most scientists tend to understand little more about science than fish about hydrodynamics." [Lakatos (1978), p.62, note 2. I owe this reference to Dupré (2001), p.113.]

Lakatos, I. (1978), The Methodology Of Scientific Research Programmes (Cambridge University Press).

Dupré, J. (2001), Human Nature And The Limits Of Science (Oxford University Press).

Lakatos was also a Physicist and Mathematician:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos

Firstly I don't think we really do take heed of our mistakes, after all the 'Great War to end all wars', was repeated with an even bloodier affair in less than a quarter of a decade. Genocide has been repeated, etc.

Yes I think you are right, but that can be put down largely to ideology. There is nothing inherent in History that prevents us learning from the past.

Secondly, observing what has been successful within your industry, and building upon that, is hardly a testament to the field of academic history.

No, but unless we could trust History, or if the discipline did not exist, this would not be possible.

Thirdly, what has academic history actually produced? My partner, also doing post-graduate research, is investigating how lead, cadmium, etc, enter the human (biological) system. Her work contributes to a field which has the material benefit of helping to reduce poisoning. I fail to see how my research has any similar benefit. Indeed I see my work, and work like it, as being an improvement of our understanding of our society, and valuable for its own sake. But its value is inherently different in that respect, than to that of my partner, whose has a material pay-off.

What has pure Physics or Biology ever produced? It takes applied scientists and engineers to exploit what the 'pure sciences' discover.

Does that make the 'pure sciences' non-sciences?

Now, I have given you a list of the spin-off products of History, and I could give you an even longer one of those of the 'pure sciences', but that would merely show once again that they all lie on a continuum, with the former at one end and the latter at the other.

Rosa Lichtenstein

31st October 2008, 21:57

Is that it Zim? No reply?