Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 22:41:11 -0700 (PDT)
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: BHA: new dialectics and CR


At 03:21 PM 8/30/97 -0400, HDespain-AT-aol.com wrote:
>i believe that Althusser was correct to emphasize the
>difference in philosophy and in method of the young Marx 
>and mature Marx.

Althusser was not my main bone of contention at all.  But just one comment:
What insight does he show at all as to the differences between young and
later Marx? He is quite correct that Marx is interested in doing "science"
and not "philosophy", that Marx was trying to get away from "philosophy",
i.e. philosophy of history, which was his entire bone of contention with
Hegelianism, but I see no prima facie case (at least not made by Althusser)
for the shift from critique of the Young Hegelians, Proudhon, etc., to
critique of political economy as being a fundamental break _in_ Marx
himself, but rather a break in the focus of his attention.  One would have
to show that the young Marx was himself imprisoned in the old metaphysical
thinking, say around the time he was associated with Bruno Bauer.  What are
you basing your claims on?  Which text of Althusser's do you support in this
regard?  READING CAPITAL?

>anyway, i am assuming it is only my reference to Althusser that threated to
>make you ill, if it also is the other authors, i am even more prepared to
>defend this position.

Oh, no, and it is none of the other authors either.  It is your claims about
Marx.  Let me repeat the sentences in question from your previous post:

>> i am very suspect of critical realists you claim
>>Marx himself is a critical realist (passively Bhaskar)....

>> However, it is
>>a different story to suggest that Marx himself developed the best method to
>>social science currently available.  For this i believe we must rather rely
>>on modern philosophy of science.  

>> But we should still be quite careful on
>>being too generous toward Marx, this is a tendency of Bhaskar (i think).

You suggest that Marx did not use the best approach to social science, that
he doesn't qualify as a critical realist, whatever that means.  Before we
take the discussion of Althusser outside, you might like to back up these
statements, as they are pertinent to the subject of this list.  

To me, these assertions remind me of what I find so suspect about
Bhaskarianism. That is, while I find Bhaskar's reaffirmation of realism
refreshing in a subjectivist intellectual climate, I'm very suspicious about
what he does and the impact he has on essentially academic people.  For
example, he uses weasel words like "naturalism" to affirm his "realism",
esp. viz. the social sciences. He uses the term "realism" which is
historically riddled with ambiguities, and then adds the prefix "critical"
to give himself an air of originality.  Then he goes out of his way to write
in a way that is totally incomprehensible, (hence his winning bad writing
awards), so as to make his potential following totally dependent on his
oracular status, spending a lifetime trying to decipher him, trying to
figure out what makes him unique, let alone an advance on all previous
philosophy.  It seems as if Bhaskar is tailor-made for the likes of homo
academicus, reminding me of analytical Marxism, though more incomprehensible
if less insipid.  

Now you are telling us that Marx was on the wrong track compared to modern
philosophy of science.  And I wonder what modern philosophy of science has
contributed, outside of Marxism itself, that has contributed one iota, to
any deep understanding of social structure or cultural phenomena.  And by
the way, Bhaskar is not the only Marxist ever involved in the philosophy of
science.  One could name several other people all over the world (e.g. his
fellows in the UK, folks in the old USSR and its satellites), and don't
forget the Poznan School in Poland.  

Given your overestimation of Althusser, and your highfalutin though
unsubstantiated claims about critical realism over Marx, is it possible that
you remain trapped within the fetish of scientism that buttresses the
pseudo-science in which you were housebroken, the famous dismal science, the
most dismal of all conceivable disciplines?



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