Marx' Critique of Science and Positivism: The Methodological Foundations of Political Economy

ISBN-13: 9789027727022 / Angielski / Twarda / 1988 / 226 str.

George E. McCarthy; G. McCarthy

Opis

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

Spis treści

I: 18th- and 19th-century German Philosophy: Epistemology and Metaphysics.- One Science and Critique: The Evolution of the German Perspective from Kant to Marx.- I. Introduction.- II. Immanuel Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason.- III. Hegel and the Radicalization of the Critical Method.- IV. Marx’ Turn From Positivism to Science as Critique in Political Economy.- V. The Critical Method in German Idealism and Political Economy.- Two Time and Critique: The Temporal Dimensions of the Dialectical Method.- I. Introduction.- II. Logic, Ontology, and Time.- III. Temporality and Science in Hegel’s Logic: Dialectics and the Concept.- IV. Realization of the Concept and the Concrete Totality.- V. Temporality and History in Marx’ Later Political Economy.- Three Materialism and Critique: The Schelling and Feuerbach Responses to Hegel.- I. Introduction.- II. Schelling’s Rejection of Hegel’s Theory of Objectivity and Identity.- III. Feuerbach’s Rejection of Hegel’s Synthesis of Consciousness and Reality.- IV. The Empiricism of Schilling and Feuerbach and the Ambivalence Of Marx’ New Materialism.- V. The Philosophical Foundations of Marx’ Materialism.- II: Epistemology and Method in Marx’ Later Works.- Four Rethinking Method: Reflective Reconstruction of History.- I. Introduction.- II. Epistemological Grounding of Political Economy.- III. The Hegelian Notion of Begrijf and Political Economy: History and Logic.- IV. The Dialectic and the Logic of Capital.- V. Science, Political Economy, and Ontology.- VI. From Simple Commodity Production to Capitalist Production.- VII. Marx’ Theory of Value and Economic Crisis Theory.- Five Against Epistemology and Foundationalism: From the Theory of Political Economy to Social Practice.- I. Introduction.- II. David Hume and the Crisis of Modern Science.- III. Hegel and Marx: From the Negation of Science to the Negation of Epistemology.- IV. Marx’ Theory of Truth.- V. Marx’ Dilemma of Objective Validity and Truth as Social Praxis.- VI. Science as Social Practice and the Critique of Privileged Representations.- VII. The Duhem-Quine Thesis and the Beginnings of Scientific Conventionalism.- VIII. Social Practice and the Post-Empiricist Philosophy of Science: Rorty and Feyerabend.- III: Meta-Critique and Political Economy: Marx’ Legacy.- Six Epistemology and Political Economy: From Philosophy to Social Theory.- I. Introduction.- II. Ideology, Consciousness, and the Sociology of Knowledge.- III. Historical Materialism as Social Epistemology.- IV. Marx, Habermas, and the Reflective Reconstruction of the Species.- V. Social Ethics and the Meta-Theory of Political Economy.- Notes.