Jim Devine wrote: > > Marx would reject Platonic epistemology, instead seeing ideas as a function > of social practice and also the physical brain, though he doesn't talk > much about physiology. Ideas can be functions of social practice and still be just chemicals in the brain. The philosopher Wilfred Sellars defended this view (and so do I-- I have a paper on it if I can find it somewhere in the attic behind the stacks of half-read Henry James novels.) If ideas are not physical matter then they must be Platonic universals of some kind. There probably have been attempts to marry Marx and a weak Platonism but I can't think of any. The closest I can think of is the work of Scott Meickle on Aristotle and Marx though aristotle was of course Plato's opposite number (recall that famous painting by Raphael with Plato pointing to the sky meaning the answers lie in the 'forms' and Aristotle pointing to the ground meaning the answers lie in material forces.) > Just as chemistry can't be reduced to physics and biology can't be reduced > to chemistry, sociology can't be reduced to biology, chemistry, or physics. > Different "levels of aggregation" (to use econ-speak) have different "laws > of motion" based on the complex of relationships between the "atoms" so > that these laws of motion can't be reduced simply to those of the atoms > alone. Putting a bunch of carbon atoms together to make graphite produces > results that cannot be simply explained by looking at the carbon atoms as > individuals. This can be seen because one can see those atoms combined to > form a diamond, which has quite different characteristics than graphite. > The relationships among the atoms adds something to the mix that cannot be > understood simply by looking at the atoms themselves. The carbon atoms' > characteristics do put limits on the kinds of molecules and crystals that > can be formed (there are only a limited number of pure-carbon type > molecules) but this is a _limit_, not a matter of pure determinism. > I agree with this, though there are some good arguments to the contrary. Some people argue that Crick and Watson successfully reduced biology to chemistry. Non-reductionist materialists rely on somewhat wooly concepts like "supervienence" and "anomolous monism" to show how ideas and "mental" things are physical matter but can't be reduced to brain science in an explanation. Sam Pawlett
