Jim Devine wrote:
>
> [clip]
> However, that doesn't
> mean that we shouldn't try to synthesize the various theories in order to
> transcend the differences...
>
I'm not sure. Let's try a really crude example and explore whether it
transfers to such complexities as theory of the state.
>From various Vantage Points (Ollman's phrase) Carrol Cox
is a person with a particular name, "Carrol Cox"
is a member of a species of mammal
is a resident at 409 Phoenix, Bloomington, IL
is a belt-wearer
is a retired asst. prof. of English
is a reader of Pound
is a collection of electrons & protons etc.
and so forth.
Now we would (I think) want to argue that in principle all these (and
many other) "Carrol Coxes" could be synthsized into a unified entity --
but (a) I'm not sure they could be in practice and (b) I'm not sure that
we really need to. The "Capitalist State" is an entity at a very high
level of generality, and while we need to refer to that level for
purposes of communication (keeping the discussants in the same ball
partk as it were) I'm not sure that we need to synthesize all the other
levels of generality in any clear cut way, or to synthesize the various
vantage points in any precise way.
This is all speculative.
Carrol
