----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Hanly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 10:13 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:22213] Re: Re: RE: Re: re: re: Historical
Materialism
I don't understand this stuff about the observational consequences
of
theories at the level of generality of the theory of value. What if
the
labor theory of value is part of the central core of Marxism ? If
that is so
then in itself it does not have any specific empirical implications
period.
Jim Devine seems to take a position of this sort in a piece on
the web:
Marx's goals for the LoV were to analyze the societal
nature and laws of motion of the capitalism; another way of
saying this is that the LoV summarizes the method of analysis
that Marx applies in Capital. The LoV is part of what Imre
Lakatos [1970] terms the "hard core" of tautologies and
simplifying assumptions that is a necessary part of any research
program.1 The quantitative aspect of value should be seen as a
true-by-definition accounting framework to be used to break
through the fetishism of commodities -- allowing the analysis of
capitalism as a social system. Prices, the accounting framework
most used by economists, both reflect existing social relations
and distort their appearance. It is necessary to have an
alternative to prices if one wants to understand what is going
on behind the level of appearances: looking at what people do
in production (i.e., labor, value) helps reveal the social
relations between them.
If this interpretation is correct then Quine-Duhem's stuff is
irrelevant not
that it makes much sense to me anyway. Seems like a neanderthal
idea to
speak of theories implying empirical consequences just like that
without
assumptions conditions etc. assumed: or of "evidence"
straightforwardly
supporting a theory. So the Quine-Duhem stuff is not relevant and
even if it
were why should it be given any particular weight? Is it any less
dubious
than the Marxian theory of value?
Cheers, Ken Hanly
====================
Ok but then what's to stop such skepticism creep? What makes any
theory non-dubious if not observational consequences? This puts of
lot of theories on the same level as theology, no?
Ian
