[Marxism] -ismic doctrine or science? (was: Cockburn contrarianism )

[Les Schaffer]

Haines Brown wrote:
> I thought I'd consider Gerdes's book. Is it out of stock at
> Amazon. There's one review which I reproduce here, but without any
> implication I agree or disagree with it:
>   
>>> As a mathematician, I have to say that Marx succeeds only in
>>> moving the handwaving from one area to another.
>>>       

have to agree here. i looked at Marx's calculus manuscript a number of 
years ago and it struck me as a jumble. though i *was* impressed that he 
had dived so far into the subject to wrestle with one of the core 
topics, the idea of differentials and limits. but as several people have 
pointed out, these topics had been made more rigorous already by 
mathematicians.

if someone wants to *learn* a little calculus, better to go to the 
traditional books, and *then* to marx for the philosophical critiques.

> On the other hand, this from Alfred Barron (1999):
>
>   
>>> By way of conclusion the following observation from the late
>>> Soviet mathematician Andrei Kolomogorov is offered for thought:
>>> "In an especially detailed manner, Marx analyzed the question of
>>> the concept of the differential. He proposed the concept of the
>>> differential as an 'operational symbol', anticipating an idea that
>>> came forward again only in the 20th century".
>>>       

And Kolmogorov is one of the giants of 20-th century mathematics. i had 
a math prof in grad school who called the KAM Theorem 
(Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser) one of the great pieces of 20th century 
mathematics. and yet, in all the brouhaha of chaos theory in the public 
eye, KAM was given short shrift.
Les