I noticed that in the second edition of Kevin Brien's book is a reply by Brien to a critique that Chris Sciabarra wrote back in 1988. See, Chris Sciabarra, "Marx on the Precipice of Utopia," Critical Review 2, no. 4 (1988): 76-81.
There Chris is said to have presented a critique of the first edition of Kevin Brien's book, presenting an argument that Chris would later develop in greater detail in his book, *Marx, Hayek, and Utopia*. In the article, Chris criticizes Marx on the grounds that his project presupposes that the possibility of attaining a synoptic grasp of the movement of history. But this is seen by Chris as impossible in light of Hayek and Polanyi's insights that such a synoptic grasp is impossible given the the inherent limitations of man's cognitive capacities. Brien's reply is that he does not think that Marx presupposed the infallibility of human knowledge. Rather Marx in his view presupposed that human knowledge whether of nature or of society is always a conditional knowledge of the conditioned. Such knowledge is always limited. Marx is seen by Brien as attempting to understand the dynamic tendencies of the capitalist social formation. Marx is seen as having attempted to capture the broad structiral dynamics of the capitalist social formation. While aiming for a kind of holistic or synoptic understanding, it's not aiming for a "holistic" or "synoptic" understanding as conceived by Hayek. Knowledge for Marx, is according to Brien, always fallible and conditional in nature. Brien suggests that Chris' criticisms may be applicable to some of Marx's followers but not to Marx, himself. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
