At 10:12 PM 11/5/96, Ajit Sinha wrote: >>>One thing it says is that people who go on about science should actually >>>know something about science. When Stanley Aronowitz says something like >>>this, he just has no idea what he's talking about: "I want to insist that >>>the convention of treating natural and human sciences according to a >>>different standard be dropped.... I want to treat the controversies within >>>each domain as aspects of the same general problematic: How are the objects >>>of knowledge constructed? What is the role of the culturally conditioend >>>'worldviews' in their selection? What is the role of socail relations in >>>determining what and how objects of knowledge are investigated? ... [T]he >>>distinctions between the natural and human sciences are not as significant >>>as their similarities" [Aronowitz, "The Politics of the Science Wars," >>>Social Text 46/47]. I guess I'm old-fashioned. While there are undeniably political and cultural influences on the natural sciences, I think they're constrained by their object of study, a real physically existing material world, in a way that the social sciences are not. Of course, that physically existing material world can only be perceived imperfectly, through categories determined in part by those social and cultural influences, but only in part. A bit after this passage, Stanley says that people (like Bhaskar) who believe in an objective material world are guilty of a Leninist-Popperian view of the world. Years ago, at a Socialist Scholars conference in NYC, Stanley concluded an incoherent talk with the call, "All power to the imagination!" He is obviously unconstrained by the material-physical world, though I do wonder about his coronary artery. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>
