[Marxism] Preface to the first edition of Capital

[Carrol Cox]

Jim Farmelant wrote:
> 
> 
> ---------
> G.A. Cohen as I recall discussed that issue in an appendix
> to his *Karl Marx's Theory of History* titled "Karl Marx and the
> Withering Away of Social Science."   Cohen contended that
> in Marx's view we construct sciences to understand those aspects
> of reality that are more or less opaque to us - that is to understand
> those phenomena where there is a disjunction between reality
> and appearance.  Marx gave a number of examples of this in the
> natural sciences.  Thus air appears to us to be an elementary substance
> but chemistry reveals it to be a mixture of distinct gaseous elements
> which cannot be detected by our noses.

I think that this can be carried a bit further. The abstraction that the
chemist arrives at _is_ an abstraction. No _actual_ (or empirical) cubic
foot of air conforms exactly to that abstraction but contains
innumerable "impurit9ies."

Or consider the following on language from Bakhtin:

	Unitary language constitutes the theoretical expression of the
historical processes of linguistic unification and centralization, an
expression of the centripetal forces of language. A unitary language is
not something given [_dan_] but is always in essence posited [_zadan_]--
and at everey moment of its linguistic life it is opposed to the
realities of heteroglossia. But at the same time it makes its real
presence felt as a force for overcoming this heteroglossia, imposing
scientific limits to it, guaranteeing a certain maximum of mutual
understanding and crystallizing into a real, although still relative,
unity -- the unity of the reigning conversational (everyday) and
literary language, "correct language."
-----

The _real_ language never exists in any given instance (utterance), but
movement of "actual" language can only be explained, understood through
seeing  the very real _pressure_ that real (abstract) language is always
exerting on practice. Compare this also to Marx's obsevation that the
force of gravity is recognized when the house falls down on one's head.

Substitute "capitalism" for "unitary language" in the quotation from
Bakhtin above and you are getting close to what is the 'object' of
Marx's study in _Capital_.

Carrol