Jim Farmelant As long as you're going to continue presenting us your greatest hits from the past, how about a discussion of Maurice Cornforth's relationship with analytical philosophy. I recall reading the other day, that he had been a student of Wittgenstein. Is there any more information available about that? I know that from the 1960s on, he made some attempt to engage the then linguistic philosophy in his writings, while George Reisch in his book, *How the Cold War Transformed the Philosophy of Science* says that he had taken a somewhat sympathetic stance towards the logical positivists in the 1930s when the Communists were will to look to them as intellectual allies. And there is, of course, Cornforth's 1968 book, *The open philosophy and the open society: A reply to Dr. Karl Popper's refutations of Marxism*. Any comments about Cornforth on Popper?
^^^^^ CB: I read the book about twelve years ago. I reviewed it more recently when the subject of Popper ( and maybe Cornforth ) came up here ( and maybe on Marxmail). Cornforth is critical but , I'd say somewhat respectful of Popper. He indicates, of course, that Popper's anti-Hegelianism and anti-evolutionism/historicism is a lacking. Considering things in their motion is actually to treat them more concretely, because reality is in motion , not static. (For Popper to attack Hegel on historicism or the motion of everything is to pretty much lose the arguments right there. There is but one science, the science of history, Prof. Popper. That is the aspect of Hegelianism that is its rational kernel. Popper becomes of interest because he is so influential in a certain time period . This is me, not Cornforth that I recall, though he may say the same thing more politely.) I have to go back and see some of his direct response to Popper's claim that Marxism is not falsifiable. I sort of got more into reading the book for Cornforth's ideas than for Popper's. It was a sort of _Anti-Duhring_ type read for me, though I wouldn't say that Cornforth was as hard on Popper as Engels was on Duhring. I recall that Cornforth emphasizes Engels approach to dialectics as the interconnectedness of everything in the discussion. I actually dug up my copy for the most recent discussions here, so I'll review it. I always write notes in books I read, so I can review it based on my notes. Oh here it is. The first chapter is "The Scientific Character of Marxism" _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
