on 2/7/02 05:34 AM, Charles Brown at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Justin: A degenerating research program often doesn't have a single fatal > flaw. It > just runs out of steam, spends all of its time trying to fix up internal > problem, doesn't geberate new hypotheses and predictions and theories. I > think that is a pretty good description of what has happened in Marxian > value theory over the last century. > > ^^^^^^^^ > > CB: We don't need new hypotheses and predictions and theories until we finish > the project of overthrowing capitalism and initiating socialism. Theory for > the sake of theory, generation of theory for only the sake of theory is an > especially bad idea in the historical sciences. >
Sir Charles Brown MIYACHI TATSUO PSYCHIATRIC DEPARTMENT KOMAKI MUNICIPAL HOSPITAL KOMAKI CITY AICHI Pre. JAPAN [EMAIL PROTECTED] For young Marx, theory was considered as below. He noticed that" we shall simply show the world why it is struggling, and consciousness of this is a thing it must acquire whether it wishes or not" "Nothing prevents us, therefore, from lining our criticism with a criticism of politics, from taking sides in politics, i.e., from entering into real struggles and identifying ourselves with them. This does not mean that we shall confront the world with new doctrinaire principles and proclaim: Here is the truth, on your knees before it! It means that we shall develop for the world new principles from the existing principles of the world. We shall not say: Abandon your struggles, they are mere folly; let us provide you with true campaign-slogans. Instead, we shall simply show the world why it is struggling, and consciousness of this is a thing it must acquire whether it wishes or not. The reform of consciousness consists entirely in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in arousing it from its dream of itself, in explaining its own actions to it. Like Feuerbach's critique of religion, our whole aim can only be to translate religious and political problems into their self-conscious human form. Our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form. It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality. It will then become plain that our task is not to draw a sharp mental line between past and future, but to complete the thought of the past. Lastly, it will becomes plain that mankind will not being any new work, but will consciously bring about the completion of its old work. We are therefore in a position to sum up the credo of our journal in a single word: the self-clarification (critical philosophy) of the struggles and wishes of the age. This is a task for the world and for us. It can succeed only as the product of untied efforts. What is needed above all is a confession, and nothing more than that. To obtain forgiveness for its sins, mankind needs only to declare them for what they are."
