I suspect there are Weberians secretly lurking on this list – in other words,
the belief that a social theory can be no more than an ideal type, which is
compared with the reality which it categorizes, but about which we can never
really say that it is fully “true”.
A metaphor is an analogy, a sort of likeness or isomorphism or model of an
otherwise unknown object, which picks out some salient features of it, without
it being very clear how good or how provable the likeness is. The
metaphor/analogy/model/isomorphism is strictly speaking a prologue to a
systematic theory. But economics lacks systematic theory and in the economist’s
imagination, theory consists largely of models only, and not of any grand
theory or systematic theory. Indeed it is fashionable to claim that such a
systematic theory is impossible.
Marx aims to overcome the arbitrariness of theory by critically sifting through
the evolution of concepts, categories and theories that were/are actually held
and used, on the assumption that this evolution has a certain intrinsic
rationality (i.e. it is non-arbitrary and reasonable), since the theory evolves
in accordance with practical needs and purposes.
J.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
