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

[Haines Brown]

> >>> 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.

I was hoping someone would have picked up on "operational
symbol". What do you think Kolmogorov meant by the phrase?

I suspect that "operational symbol" here implies that the differential
represents an operator in that it is a function of a material process
rather than merely an abstract formalism that exists in its own right.

Haines Brown