John Ransom wrote:
>What does it mean to battle on behalf of truth as opposed to questioning
>the status of truth? We battle on behalf of truth when we think the truth
>will set us free. In this sense the truth is something that stands opposed
>to the world as it is, confronting it with an ought of some kind. I've
>always thought of Hegel as much more of a leftist than a rightist because
>he is willing to oppose his abstract, presently unrealized but present in
>nuce, concept of the truth of Spirit against its "actual" but in some
>sense "unreal" manifestations.
Huh? Have you ever read any neoclassical economics? Any social institution
(unions, the welfare state, regulations) that stands in the way of their
textbook model of markets must be smashed. Reality must conform to the
model! And I never thought of neoclassical econonomics as leftist in any
way.
>But Marx did not want to separate that off
>from his political views. His study of the internal mechanics of the
>capitalist system was always connected to a vision of the world as it
>should be. Every line of _Capital_ is infused with this vision.
This grossly overstates the case. Every line of Capital may be infused with
a fundamental understanding of capitalism as a system of exploitation. But
as for "the world as it should be" - on this Marx was notably silent.
Almost every line of Capital is about analyzing capitalism as it existed in
his day and how it came to be. You may not agree with the analysis, but
that's another story.
Besides, isn't your view of Foucault infused with a notion of how the world
should be? This version of Foucaultian Truth has its own normativity, no?
"We shouldn't view Truth this way, we should think of it that way." And why
should we?
Doug
>What does it mean to battle on behalf of truth as opposed to questioning
>the status of truth? We battle on behalf of truth when we think the truth
>will set us free. In this sense the truth is something that stands opposed
>to the world as it is, confronting it with an ought of some kind. I've
>always thought of Hegel as much more of a leftist than a rightist because
>he is willing to oppose his abstract, presently unrealized but present in
>nuce, concept of the truth of Spirit against its "actual" but in some
>sense "unreal" manifestations.
Huh? Have you ever read any neoclassical economics? Any social institution
(unions, the welfare state, regulations) that stands in the way of their
textbook model of markets must be smashed. Reality must conform to the
model! And I never thought of neoclassical econonomics as leftist in any
way.
>But Marx did not want to separate that off
>from his political views. His study of the internal mechanics of the
>capitalist system was always connected to a vision of the world as it
>should be. Every line of _Capital_ is infused with this vision.
This grossly overstates the case. Every line of Capital may be infused with
a fundamental understanding of capitalism as a system of exploitation. But
as for "the world as it should be" - on this Marx was notably silent.
Almost every line of Capital is about analyzing capitalism as it existed in
his day and how it came to be. You may not agree with the analysis, but
that's another story.
Besides, isn't your view of Foucault infused with a notion of how the world
should be? This version of Foucaultian Truth has its own normativity, no?
"We shouldn't view Truth this way, we should think of it that way." And why
should we?
Doug