> > This is a whitewash. Positivism is a set of anti-materialist philosophies. > It is an outright ally of capitalism in some ideological battles, a tool > of idealist, and therefore futile, critiques of capitalism in other > battles. > >
I think that a logical empiricist like Philipp Frank, who was a philosophical ally of Neurath would have taken exception to that. For Frank, the claim that positivism is simply “anti-materialist” collapses distinctions that he, very much in the spirit of Marx’s own methodological remarks, took pains to preserve. For Frank, logical empiricism rejected metaphysical materialism as science , but not materialism as a historically and practically grounded orientation. Its target was the attempt, common to both idealist philosophy and certain varieties of orthodox dialectical materialism, to substitute philosophical guarantees for empirical investigation. This stance converges with Marx’s insistence in the Theses on Feuerbach that materialism must be practical, historical, and non-speculative, and with Capital ’s refusal to deduce social laws from a priori dialectical schemas rather than from concrete analysis of capitalist relations. From this perspective, Frank’s critique of doctrines such as the “dialectics of nature” does not deny the material basis of social life, but rejects only the elevation of dialectics into a transhistorical meta-theory governing science. At the same time, Frank acknowledged, again compatibly with Marx, that metaphysical interpretations are not politically neutral. Even if dialectical materialism is lacking in scientific authority, it may still be preferable to idealist or theological metaphysics insofar as it reinforces scientific naturalism and resists teleology. Positivism thus need not function as an ideological ally of capitalism; rather, like Marx’s own method, it underdetermines political conclusions by insisting that theory remain accountable to material practice and empirical inquiry rather than philosophical fiat. And going further. Frank in some of his writings contended that logical empiricism and dialectical materialism were allied philosophies. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#39800): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/39800 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/116902646/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
