No Royal Road

The 2007–2008 financial crisis was the most severe crisis since the Great Depression. The crisis was global and its consequences destructive for the international working class. Neoclassical economists found themselves in an embarrassing situation. They had neither foreseen, nor even suspected, the crisis. Anwar Shaikh reports that Robert Lucas, a leading proponent of neoclassical orthodoxy, stated in 2003 “that the central problem of depression prevention has been solved.”

Against the confusion of the mainstream, a few radical economists did notice signs of things to come. Anwar Shaikh, professor at the New School, provided a classical Marxist explanationof crisis, and on that basis predicted the timing of the 2007–2008 recession, stating that it occurred “quite on schedule.” Capitalist accumulation is a turbulent process which exhibits patterns of boom and slump. But there is a long-term dynamic underlying these cycles. As Carchedi and Roberts write in their opening chapter, it is the Marxist hypothesis that “the key to understanding the sequence of booms and busts is the movement of . . . profit rates.” In fact, it is the long-term, seculartendency of the rate of profit to fall that was the most important cause of the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

In the war against labor and market competitors, capitalist firms increasingly invest more in means of production relative to labor. Automation becomes a critical weapon in the drive for profit. Increased labor productivity (roughly volume of output produced in a given amount of labor time), decreases the amount of value created per unit of output, and hence decreases profitability. The basis of capitalist accumulation is undermined, and crisis ensues. Capitalist crisis is a recurrent outcome of the constant imperative for profit. Counteracting factors can cancel the effect of rising labor productivity on profitability. Yet over the long term, given an increase in the productivity of labor, the rate of profit will fall.

World in Crisis is an ambitious series of essays, with contributions from economists around the globe, dedicated to providing empirical support for the hypothesis that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall is behind the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. The authors also intervene in the much-debated issue of “financialization” in order to articulate how this phenomenon contributed to the financial crisis.

The destruction of World War II made possible the economic expansion known as the Golden Age of capitalism. The evidence suggests that overall, on a global scale, profitability was at its highest after the war. Then from 1965 to 1982 profitability fell. In the middle of this period was a severe recession that began in 1973. From 1982 to 1997, capitalist firms and states responded to the crisis of profitability by changing the terms of production and reorienting investment towards nonproductive sectors. This ad hoc strategy and outcome was retrospectively named “neoliberalism.”

At the level of production, neoliberalism meant activating a series of countertendencies against falling profitability. Technical change and “new” methods of pumping out surplus labor, like lean production, increased the rate of exploitation and cheapened means of production. One also cannot underestimate the effect of “globalization.” Capitalist investment in the Global South and the incorporation of populations of noncapitalist laborers into the labor market allowed for a situation of “super-exploitation.”

However, given the malaise of productive capital, investment shifted to unproductive sectors (e.g. real estate, finance). In other words, “if the capitalists cannot make enough profit producing commodities, they will try making money by betting on the stock exchange or . . . buying . . . other financial instruments.” Financialization—substitution of credit for money and increased investment in fictitious as opposed to productive capital—promoted by a history of low interest rates and deregulation, is a strategy of capital to boost profits. Hence, in the past thirty-five years, “the expansion of global liquidity in all its forms (bank loans, securitized debt, and derivatives) . . . has been unprecedented.”

Credit and debt can be used as instruments to counteract decreasing profitability. That is why “before the crash of 2008 there [was] a massive buildup of private sector credit in the United States reaching over 300% of GDP.” As expected, the largest component is for productive capital. Non-financial corporate debt in 2011 for the advanced capitalist economies was at 113 percent of GDP. In the same vein, investment in fictitious capital, such as derivatives and the famous sub-prime mortgages, allowed capitalist firms to deploy speculative and hedging tools to deal with uncertainty of exchange and weak profitability.

Credit and fictitious capital can and will get out of line with capitalist production. Given declining profitability, capital tends to speculate, a fact that explains sharp increases in profitability immediately before a crash. Divergence of the nominal value of fictitious capital from the value of fundamentals leads to artificial inflation in price assets. When the weakness is exposed, there is a massive crash across asset prices. This triggers problems of payment, investment, and effective demand that result in recession.

There is agreement amongst the authors that neoliberalism was sucessful in the medium-term because it arrested the fall of profit rates. However, contingent measures, though important, lose out in the long-term. For all the nations studied, there is a fall in profitability and an inverse correlation between labor productivity and profitability. This fall suggests that the 2007–2008 financial crisis represents the end of the “success” of neoliberalism against predominating structural forces. Change in terms of production and the financialization of the macroeconomy could not cancel out the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and in fact contributed to the weak fundamentals and market uncertainty that formed the background to the financial crisis.

This collection represents a much-needed effort to determine empirical estimatesof Marxist categories and trends in order to evaluate the hypothesis. Contributions, such as those by Tony Norfield, also provide original insights into the connection of finance to the long-term trends. Another strength of the work is to provide support for the Marxist explanation against competing hypotheses. For instance, the work of José A. Tapia deploys a test called “Granger-causality” to determine if patterns in profitability precedepatterns in investment. If such is the case, this fact weakens the Keynesian hypothesis that “investment, generally, causes profit.”

The Marxist explanation is causal, but there is a daunting art to drawing causal inferences from correlation and/or prediction. The difficulty can be put in terms of the “bias-variance” trade-off. We are trying to use increasing productivity as a “predictor” of falling profitability. If bias refers to error determined by simplifying assumptions, and variance refers to error from sensitivity of the model to small fluctuations in the record, then is our predictor a “simplifier,” or “overly-sensitive” to noise and outliers? Machine learning provides a practical means to approach such problems.

We are at a critical moment for neoliberalism. The recovery has been anemic at best, and reports proliferate of an oncoming crisis. The “impersonal” problems mentioned have contributed to a wider host of evils. We live in a world of increasing inequality, militarization, and police rule, where in the not too distant future the migration and climate crises will take on genocidal proportions. But despite all its ills, capitalism will not self-destruct. There exists an opening for capital to use the most desperate means to restore its dynamism. The far right promises to intensify the neoliberal project and do away with the hard-won limits of so-called “representative democracy” and “green capitalism.”

Now, more than ever, political economy compels revolutionary action.

The Labor Theory of Value:  A Law on the Relation between Labor and Prices

In evolutionary biology, the theory of evolution by the action of natural selection is a unifying framework for the description and explanation of myriad biological phenomenon.

The epistemological and scientific foundation of classical political economy was the “labor theory of value” (LTV). Perhaps, a more fitting description is the “labor law of value”.

The LTV predicts that the prices of commodities vary proportionally with their labor-content. If a commodity contains “more labor” than another, then in all probability the first will have a higher price. The LTV makes substantial law-like claims and is not a moral proposition.

Marx did not discover the LTV. However, he did make specific contributions to the theory, including , but not limited to, the hypothesis that labor is only represented as exchange value in societies with private ownership and atomised production, the distinction between labor and labor power, and the introduction of the concept of surplus value as something functionally prior to its division between profit, interest and rent.

Attack on the Labor Theory of Value :

Since the publication of Capital, the labor theory of value has been closely associated with socialism. For this reason, it became a major project of orthodox economists to “refute the labor theory of value.  With the rise of marginalism , and the notion that prices were grounded in the subjective appraisals of individuals , orthodox economists had a political apologia and substitute theory.

The first criticisms of the labor-theory of value were logical refutations of the supposed fallacies in the transformation of labor-values to prices of production. The first version of this critique, was made by the Austrian minister of finance and economist Bohm van Bawerk. In 1895 van Bawerk became minister of finance and not coincidently he published Karl Marx and the Close of his System in 1896 to challenge the rising socialist movement.

Essentially, the argument was that since the premise implied a contradiction, that by a reductio ad absurdum the theory was logically-contradictory. More specifically, the presupposition of exchange of commodities at equal values in Capital volume I contradicts the conclusion of the formation of prices of production and a general-rate of profit laid out in Capital volume 3.

Within Marxist economics, there has been the tedious accumulation of literature attempting to show that there is no logical contradiction.  This project is closely tied up to and is almost reducible to giving various interpretations of Marxist theories. One attempts to find the logically consistent interpretation in order to come up with a testable labor theory of value. We have all sorts of competing interpretations intended to solve the transformation problem; the simultaneist versus temporal , single-system versus dual, commodity-form etc.

How do we go about challenging this claim of self-contradiction? How can we stop the endless proliferation of interpretations in order to construct a testable and well-supported theory?

Using the Philosophy of Science to Approach the Problem:

The critique of the LTV took on a deeper dimension with the philosophy of science. Pre-1968, the only living philosophy of science was logical positivism. Joan Robinson , a student of John Maynard Keynes, himself a student of the great logical positivist Bertrand Russell, was one of the first to make forcible epistemological arguments against the labor theory of value.

According to the neo-positivists, science is in the business of coming up with theories, bodies of declarative sentences organized into a deductive-system. Some of these statements are couched in theoretical , while others are couched in observational terms. Each statement is true iff and only if it is verifiable, observable. If it is not verifiable then the statement is neither true nor false, but simply meaningless. It is a piece of metaphysics that should eliminated.

As the theoretical statements are not directly observable, they must be reducible to statements about direct observations. If they are not reducible to such statements, then the theoretical statements and terms are meaningless. Robinson argued that “value” was such a term. It could not be seen on an object. It was not a visible but a “metaphysical” property. Therefore, it was a meaningless term and should be eliminated from the conceptual framework of economics.

With time the philosophical combined with the logico-mathematical in the line of work represented by Piero Sraffa and Ian Steedman. In fact, the LTV became the prime candidate to for a discarded theory in the history of economics within the academy. The only conclusion worth making is that LTV should be discarded as a piece of anti-scientific ideology, relegated to the museum of pseudo-scientific oddities alongside “phlogiston” and “ether”.

Many Marxists began accepting these “arguments” around when the socialist movement was losing confidence and power. Neo-liberalism had its effect on the economic academy and even on those persons confined to a position of internal resistance. Ian Steedman was himself a member of the British Communist party. As part and parcel of the assault of capital and defeat of labor, these Marxist intellectuals and economists were unprepared to defend the most basic proposition of Marxian political economy.

Counter-Attack and Defense of the Labor Theory of Value :

The basic point, however, is that logical argumentation is not how scientific theories are ultimately accepted or rejected. A theory is accepted or rejected only if it is tested and supported by the facts. No economist tried to reject the LTV by testing and showing that it was not supported faced with the facts. Therefore, all talk of the LTV being “disproven” is moot. All these idiots have done is shown how particular mathematical formalisms are inconsistent i.e. entail contradictions. That says nothing about the real relation between prices and labor.

In the middle of this one-sided ideological massacre, two algorithmists named Farjoun and Machover published a book called “Laws of Chaos” (LOC).

LOC is one of the most important and overlooked works of Marxism ever written. The philosophical, epistemological, and scientific implications of this book are revolutionary.

Farjoun and Machover transform the whole of the Marxist research program in political economy. The authors believe that all economics, including Marxian, flounders on a false assumption i.e. that the economy tends towards a stationary state of equilibrium. In this deterministic picture of the capitalist economy, economic categories such as price and profit gravitate around this one point of equilibrium, so e.g. there is an economy-wide rate of profit.

Farjoun and Machover begin by rejecting the deterministic picture of capitalism that is tacitly assumed in such a theory. Logic and evidence exclude the possibility of such a system. In rejecting such a picture, they adopt a more realistic understanding of capitalism, but also of scientific practice and theory.

In a brilliant instance of scientific modelling, Farjoun and Machover recognize that physics has already produced successful theories about anarchic and disorganized systems and they use such theories to analyze the capitalist economy. They argue the capitalist economy is extremely anarchic and disorganized. In a capitalist economy, millions of buyers and sellers interact such that at the macro-level it is entirely uncoordinated, just like in a container of millions of gas-particles, colliding against one another and the walls in a frenetic and unpredictable way.

Statistical mechanics is precisely the science that studies such anarchic and disorganized physical systems and it does so in irreducibly non-deterministic and probabilistic terms.

Physics says that such systems have “many degrees of freedom” and that the movement of each individual particle is “random”. We cannot predict with certainty the micro-properties of a specific molecule. However, and this is extremely important, we can make statistical statements about aggregates of molecules. In like manner, we can make statistical statements about the aggregate economy, distributions of prices and profit-rates, but not about one profit rate. There is no “economy-wide profit rate” but a dynamic distribution of profit rates in which , at the granular-level, individuals profit-rates (firms) constantly change and switch positions.

Now whatever science is, it is certainly in the business of describing and explaining causal mechanisms. In the process of understanding, prediction is used as a means of testing, keeping, or discarding a theory.

However, when we use a theory to make a prediction we should always specify before the set of all possible competitors. If the theories make the same predictions it is difficult to determine which to choose. If two competing theories make different predictions, then by observation or experiment we can eliminate one. This scientific method allows us to discard those theories that we know to be false, while keeping those theories that do best faced with the evidence.

Neo-classical economics predictions concerning prices and labor-content are falsified. Orthodox economics predicts that there will be no connection between labor-to-capital ratios and profit. Farjoun and Machover’s probalistic theory of labor-content, continuing the classical programme of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx, predicts that industries with a high labor-to-capital ratio will be more profitable than those with a lower. The prediction checks out as a statistical generalization. The statistical generalization falsifies the orthodox claim and provides support for the claim that the source of profit is surplus-value, labor i.e. the labor theory of value.

Since the publication of Farjoun and Machover’s work there has been a proliferation of literature that supports the LTV (Shaikh, Cockshott and Cottrell, Zachariah). Time and again prices of commodities varied proportionally with labor content. As with any statistical law, an individual price might not be exactly proportional with its labor-content , but in the aggregate commodity prices would cluster very tightly around labor-values. For instance, a paper by Cotrrell and Cockshott finds that labor-content is an extremely efficient (but biased) predictor.

It would seem Marxist political economy is the victor unless there is another more likely and better supported theory on price.

Probabilistic Political Economy and Its Philosophical Meaning :

Yet there is a deeper point to take out of all this, a deeper point about science and the world we live in. Quantum physics was a revolution that unsettled previous conceptions on the universe. Some of these doubts were insane. Some philosophers went to the extreme of claiming that quantum physics “eliminated matter”, made reality a function of “subjective perception”. Those who took a more cautious stance towards the quantum revolution drew better lessons.

Quantum physics weakened the Enlightenment perspective of the world as a well-oiled machine, and with it the belief of science as the production of a universal explanation that is a total prediction of every event in time.

Likewise, Farjoun and Machover build a theory that does not presuppose capitalism to be a machine. Instead, capitalism is quasi-determined (in production) and chancy (in exchange). Science is a project of understanding, describing, explaining, questioning the determined and chancy process of nature, and prediction enters in as one kind of epistemic act of many.

Take the typical critiques of Marxism as a failed scientific research programme that rested on a prediction that did not check out. There were perhaps some Marxists who had an extremely deterministic picture of history. Whether it was the productive forces or the working-class, some irreversible process in capitalism would necessarily lead to socialism. But to be a Marxist is to understand that our material , like our social world , is no machine with a central brain, it is both determined and chancy , and like anything, there is no guarantee of socialism. Marxists must always live with this chanciness, uncertainty. Awful though it is, this is the way Marx saw history, no guaranteed finalities. Just the fight.

The “Marxism and Science” Debate : 

There is a long debate about whether or not Marxism is scientific. I suppose this is not quite the same debate as whether or not Marxism is a science, or one of the “special sciences”.

I often have the feeling that the debate is a camera obscura, since the debate serves also as a surrogate for “deeper” philosophical and political issues. Am I then forced to reduce the debate to philosophy and politics? The ideological fight is broad.

The defense of the proposition that Marxism is scientific stems from a long intellectual and practical history which goes back to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin etc, who themselves took scientific methodology very seriously, and attempted to apply the proper method to their own intellectual and practical work.

Marx distinguished his own contribution and place in the socialist movement by dubbing both his evolving work, and communist commitment “scientific socialism”. He summarized his position in this name, in contrast to what he called the “utopian socialism” of Saint-Simone, Fourier, and Owen. He also criticized this strain of “utopian socialism” in the domain of political economy.

However, the Marxism and science debate  began to take on a more visible form with first, the anti-Marxist arguments of Karl Popper, and second, the humanist trend that became frequent in Western European intellectual circles and political movements in the 20th century.

Of course, everyone will remember Louis Althusser’s proud dictum that “Marxism is a science”, and that “Marx discovered a Continent, the continent of history”. In other words, mature Marxist theory is the science of history”. I will not go too much into Althusser for whom I have a profound and tortured sense of admiration.

Yet, I find that in his earliest years, the most interesting thing he said on the philosophy of science is found in a footnote in Reading Capital.  The statement is that science is a method of posing questions and giving answers. However, suffice it to say the arguments backing the target-proposition we are concerned with are found wanting.

It is often not clear what anti-Marxists are criticizing, or for that matter what Marxists are defending. It is often not clear what the scope of their argument is. Are they criticizing people? Or propositions? Do their arguments apply to people or propositions?

The entirety of Karl Popper’s anti-marxist criticism reposes on the equivocation and confusion between persons and propositions. This is ironic for Popper, since he is an objectivist in epistemology, and denies the possibility of a fruitful philosophic reduction of the epistemic conditions of theories to the psychological conditions of individuals.        ( A bit of analytic terminology: an individual making a statement expresses a proposition and that proposition, let us say in the canonical case, has truth-conditions independent of the psychological state of the individual).

Finally , and this is very important, what do these anti-marxists mean when they talk about “science” ? What do they mean by calling something “scientific”?

In short there is an utter confusion in the terms of debate.

So for Marxists:

There is a need to specify, in context, what is meant by Marxism.

Then, we need to agree , in context, on a meaning for “science” or “scientific”.

This means we need to present in some way a summary of the philosophy of science presupposed by Marxist theory from which to judge the similarities and differences between Marxism and other scientific theories.

Note1 : Marxism

Recently, I was reading a work of POS called Theory and Reality by a prominent philosopher of biology Peter Godfrey-Smith. He at least had the decency to claim that many Marxists were scientific, but that sufficient time has revealed that Marxism is false, and hence should be replaced much as previous theories have been. This is another kind of argument, one that understands that scientific theories can turn out false. I would have been more interested in his claims had he then not said that the “class-struggle” is dead and that the career of history follows Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations.

There is great difficulty in using the term “Marxism” as if it referred to one entity. This is the fallacy unum nomen unum nominatum- the fallacy of presupposing that because one term enters into many different propositional contexts that this term refers to an entity.

Take the age-old debate on universals. Plato, to vulgarize, believed that predicate-terms like “the beautiful”, when used to make a statement, referred to a single entity . Things that are  “beautiful” have their being by participating in the form of the beautiful. In short, the predicate “beautiful” is a form “the beautiful”, an unchanging essence which exists independent and constitutes the being of those things participating in the beautiful. Apparently these forms are accessible by remembrance and reason (nous).   

Today there is a similar problem that enters in analytic philosophy. In analytic philosophy, philosophers define something by giving a set of severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. Definition takes the form of a bi-conditional statement in which the set of statements constituting the definiens is equated to the set of statements constituting the  definiendum such that the definiendum is a set of severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. For example, Gettier believes that the whole of the history of philosophy on the question of the definition of knowledge is reducible to the formula that S knows P iff S has a justified true belief that P. This mode of defining, for all its analytic elegance, has the disadvantage of inclining towards a unification of the meaning of a term.

A term enters into many different contexts, it is the case in language that in different propositional contexts, the meaning of the term changes. Sometimes these changes are drastic. If we seek such a form of definition then philosophers tend to ignore the way the meaning changes relative to the propositional context. They can ignore important distinctions.

Even if we could identify the severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions constituting the use of the predicate “beautiful” we would not therefore presuppose that there is one meaning to the term “beautiful” , but understand that we are using a concept in which the criterion of membership is determined by relations of resemblance. Even then, it is difficult to think what is consonant between a beautiful horse and person….

In recent years, efforts in philosophy have undermined this approach as the only mode of definition. In fact, many philosophers prefer to treat the meaning of terms in a contextual manner, since some terms change their meaning in different contexts.

My guiding thread would be: Marxism cannot be given a definition in the form of severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. Marxism refers to many different things in different contexts. It can mean, certain persons, certain theories, a movement, specific political formations and ideologies, a culture and identity, indeed a whole intellectual and practical history. Hence, to me, unless one of these senses is specified, the debate is pure confusion.

Note 2: Philosophy of Science

It is at the level of philosophy , though not only,  that someone can respond to such a question as “what is science” in a concise and hopefully, fruitful, manner. I will not try to attempt anything as give an exhaustive definition here.

I tend to use a “dual-realist definition of science”. My strategy is both pragmatic and normative. I want to study how science is and should be. I mean by a dual-realist definition that science is the methodology that makes possible the discovery the structure and change underlying the world and which results in the production of scientific items ( hypotheses, theories, concepts, laws, models, tables, diagrams etc.). This is not an exact description of the actual process that has and constitutes scientific practice at any given moment, but it is especially important to presuppose such a description in the theory of the mechanisms of scientific change.

Above all, the production of scientific items cannot be judged by rules that guarantee utter certainty. If the philosophy of science, the description of scientific methodology is invalid then Marxism would be judged according to an unreliable standard.

John Stuart Mill use to uphold epistemic standards of scientific methodology and for scientific theories that quantum mechanics could not live up to! Is it any surprise that he considered the Darwinian theory of natural selection to be a mere hypothesis, without the sufficient inductive warrant to label it a scientific theory. John Stuart Mill considered Newtonian mechanics to be the canon of scientific method and epistemology, but it is natural selection which , so to speak, withstood the test of time. His philosophy of science put much-too high epistemic standards on scientific methodology and postulated more or less imaginary epistemic conditions for theories, even Newtonian mechanics failed the test. He forgot above all that the production of scientific theories cannot be judged by a criterion guaranteeing absolute certainty.

A scientific theory must be judged according to proper rules guaranteeing relative certainty and with reference to other alternative theories.

In a similar move, many of the critiques leveled against “classical” Marxism (theory ? people? ) presuppose a distorted and false picture of scientific practice and then proceed to judge Marxism by a yardstick inapplicable to anything that has happened in the dense and modern career that we dub “science”. The New Left made a career out of equating science with neo-positivism and then judging Marxism according to this standard.

Marxists do not have to presuppose a neo-positivist philosophy of science because the history of science does not corroborate such a philosophy. Nor does such a philosophy correspond to the rich complexity and diversity of scientific practice.

But in fact, there has been a whole line of Marxists, philosophers of science, scientists who have gone against this neo-posivist interpretation of science. If Marxists or Marxism are to be judged according to a philosophy of science (which itself is high dubious!) , then at least let it be a correct philosophy of science, one that reveals the complexity and richness of scientific practice.

Note 3: 

We already mentioned there are Marxists and there are theories of Marxism. But even this is not an exhaustive distinction. Yet it is helpful in framing the argument. I think the best mode of approaching the argument is to 1) not come up with a terrible philosophy of science 2) to understand the context-sensitive character of the terms “Marxism” and “science” and 3) to argue that there are certain marxists and certain marxist theories that have robust similarities to actual scientific practice and theory. If a Marxist is confronted with claims that historical materialism is unscientific, it would be excellent to show the way in which the most defensible version of historical materialism in fact has deep consonance with , say, evolutionary theory. Of course then the method is to show at what levels of comparison, the two agree and differ.

As a philosopher of science, a lot of my work focuses on attempting to understand kinds of scientific methodology and the history of science, in order to produce the best possible theory of history.

My work has taught me , essentially, to be ambivalent about whether Marxist theory is scientific. In some cases, it is best to use scientific methodology to study human history and social forms, and it is my belief that the best instance to use such methodology is in the theoretical and empirical study of human history and social forms. However, there are many modes of knowledge and none constitute an empire onto themselves.

A final political note: 

I said that the whole debate on Marxism and science might be a smoke-screen. It hides deeper debates on the character of Marxism. Really the proposition that “Marxism is a science” is a debate about whether Marxist theory is true and if it is constitutes a valid protocol for action. It is hard for me to deny , as a Marxist philosopher, that these debates are important.

All I can say is that the most defensible Marxist theory does what it does best. As for claims of “scientific socialism”, all they amount to is a defense of Marxist theory as the best current theory of historical change and change, and above all as the best protocol for revolutionary action.

The best current theory and protocol should be an a posteriori inference from the global history of the communist movement. The propositions of historical materialism and Marxist philosophy, however a priori intelligible they may seem,  are a posteriori. Hence they must be tested in a practical manner. In the end, we will all have to see if Marxist theory is “scientific socialism”. That will require thought, sweat, and blood.

“A voice cried, “intellect is the lever by which t move the world”, but another cried no less loudly that money was the fulcrum” Honore Balzac “Lost Illusions”

An Evolutionary Model of Ideology:

Abstract: “Ideology” can be modeled on the basis of natural selection. Such a selective formulation explains and predict the frequency, distribution and evolution of ideas. However, there are limits to the model. I explore the salient differences between ideology, Darwinian and Lamarckian mechanisms and difficulties with selective explanation in the context of ideology.

Introduction:

On Ideology : Getting Our Bearings with the Term

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling idea” which are an “ideal expression of the dominant material relationships. “( Marx,). Marxists have often claimed that ideology- as a system of ideas- has a legitimating and normalizing function. The ideas of the ruling classes are represented as the common interest in order to have the workers and masses accept the domination of the ruling-classes. Hence, these ideas owe their existence, at least in part to the fact that they serve the interest of a ruling-class.

It is more difficult when the question is whether service invalidates the idea, or indeed even how that service is performed.[1] Marxists almost always ends up using functional explanations. Despite that, there has been much skepticism about functional explanation. The point, however, would be to understand the scope and difficulties with functional explanation, and how functional explanations work in different contexts before making such judgments. I will attempt to come to a new understanding for what it means to impute a function to an idea.

In this paper I will propose a model of ideology in order to better understand ideology, and above all the way ideology works. The source of the model is the mechanism of natural selection. The target is the evolution, frequency and distribution of ideas in a given social formation. Since the paper builds off of an analogy between the way ideology and natural work, I take pains to show there are strong intuitions to consider there to be a similarity in mechanism between natural selection and ideology.

I consider analogical reasoning, and the dual-dimensional framework for material analogy. I discuss the source-system in a very simple model of natural-selection.

I argue the similarity of mechanism (the vertical relation) comes from the fact that both natural selection and ideology count as “functional-cumulative” mechanisms.

I discuss the model of ideology and note the salient differences between source and target.

There have been various attempts to generalize or extend the mechanism of natural selection beyond populations of organisms. It has been found that natural selection does not just operate on populations of animals and plants, but on polypeptides, nucleotides, eukaryotes, bacteria and viruses i.e. natural selection is a mechanism that is said to operate at different “levels of selection” – from the macro-level of ant colonies and primate groups to the micro-level of self-replicating and catalyzed polypeptides[2].

However, outside of biology the application of evolutionary thinking has been controversial issue (and for good reason). Within philosophy the most famous account is Popper’s “Evolutionary Epistemology” which reasons on the basis of the fundamental similarity of mechanism between natural-selection and the scientific mechanism of “method by trial and elimination by error”. There have been attempts to apply evolutionary thinking to “human society”, “human psychology”, and “economics” (Wilson, Pinkett). However, I want to focus on the analogy of natural selection, as well as Lamarckian mechanisms, with a population of ideas.

From the outset, I must be clear about what I mean by that slippery term “idea”. There is an ambiguity in the term “idea”. “Idea” is a token-term that refers either to the processes, or the products of thinking. I restrict my evidence to the products of thinking and will speak of the “vehicles of thinking” e.g. media like talks, writings, pictures, movies etc. as transmitters of information[3]. In order to speak of a “population of ideas” it will be necessary to go through a few steps. It is not simply a set of products, because there is a hereditary aspect as well.

This will imply two primary analytic tasks before I can come to speak more fully on how ideology works: 1) how to take an understanding of natural selection mechanisms to conceptualize the evolution, frequency, and distribution for a population of ideas 2) an account of natural selection.

Models and Material Analogies In Science: a model of ideology, and modeling ideology

What does it mean to say that I am modeling “ideology” on “natural selection”, and how is a model of ideology possible?

I distinguish the usage of a “model” from the strategy of “modeling” and I do so because I will employ both terms. Statements of the form “To model x on/ on the basis of y” are not necessarily the same as statements of the form “a model of/for x”[4] and it will be important to give an account of each in order to capture the difference for our purposes.

“A model of/for x” is thought of as a modal generalization about “x” (statements in first-order logic which include modal operators). Such a statement-form is often taken as an explanatory proxy for “laws” in biological, psychological and social research (Sober). The modal generalization can take or be translated into the “if/then” form, and only affirms that the statement is possible, not when and to what extent the antecedent is satisfied, it only says when the antecedent is satisfied the inference is warranted (whether that warrant is deductive or otherwise). The modal generalization can either be an abstraction or idealization, an omission or “amplification” of the properties and relations of a system and such categories can often help explain why the antecedent is not satisfied, or if the antecedent is true and the conclusion is false, why the inference is not warranted. In either case, whether the antecedent is satisfied or not, the model is explanatory. This is one of the benefits of a model for some phenomenon, it allows for a search in apportioning blame when a conclusion does not follow from the (satisfaction) of the antecedent

R.A. Fisher was one of the principal founders of population genetics and statistical theory. Fisher gave a model of the sex-ratio in populations of organisms to argue that given certain assumptions, the sex-ratio is populations will evolve to 1:1 and stay there. These assumptions are abstract or ideal, for instance the assumption that organisms of different sexes mate randomly, and that the population of organisms is infinite. Of course this is not the case in many populations and there is no infinite population of organisms. The modal generalization “if/then” does not necessitate that a population achieve a stable 1:1 sex-ratio. At no given moment was and will the total population of human-beings ever be an evenly split 1:1 ratio. However, the model allows us to conclude that there will be an even split and if not why there is discrepancy in a population.[5]. Harrod and Domar were both Keynesian economists. They conjointly developed the Harrod-Domar model for economic growth. They gave a model to show that given certain simplifying assumptions like the marginal product of capital is some constant =c and the change in capital stock equals investment minus depreciation of capital stock, that change in output is a function of savings multiplied by marginal product of capital (roughly profit) minus depreciation.[6] Many of these assumptions, like MPC is a constant term are simplifications in order to derive the conclusion, and neither the antedecent nor the conclusion necessarily obtain. The mass of profit continuously expands and contracts, the rate of profit fluctuates and exhibits stochastic behavior. However, the conclusion of the model is said to describe a general mechanism of growth and is explanatory in that it gives a guide to apportioning causal responsibility[7].

Modeling is a strategy in which one system is treated as a surrogate for another (Godfrey-Smith). The strategy is used when the “target” system that we are trying to investigate is little understood and there is greater familiarity with the “source” system[8]. Alternatively, the “target” system could be too difficult to study directly, so the “source” system becomes an indirect means of inquiring into how the “target” system works.

There have been two main accounts of analogical reasoning (Norton). Formal analogy has been a standard of classical logic, The inference is often given the following form in syllogistic logic:

S₁ is P

S₂ resembles S₁ in being M

n ===================

S₂ is P

Where n is degree of resemblance

The double-line is meant to signify that the inference is not a deduction and the method is frequently unreliable. It is the case that the premises can be true and the conclusion false. The epistemological question arises, if this strategy and inference is used so often, in a given case of analogical reasoning how can we know that the inference is warranted?

The formal account is immediately beset with a number of problems which link back to the question of when it is appropriate to reason from analogy. The most common problem that is often posited with the formal account revolves around the variable n. It is often stated that the more closely the two systems resemble each other, the more certain we are that the inference cashes out. But then the question depends on what is meant by resemblance and how is it quantified. One might retort that in the ideal case resemblance is sharing properties and relations i.e. there is a one-to-one mapping of properties and relations from one system to another. But then, if properties and relations can be quantified in a second-order logic, then to say that n=1 is really to say that if they are the same in properties and relations iff they fully resemble one another. Then once again the question depends on much more difficult metaphysical questions of identity, properties and relations. Of course such philosophical circles are common. But the point is that no amount of formal analysis, can adjudicate on a matter of fact about analogy.

The two-dimensional approach, developed by Hesse, Bartha, and Norton, is richer than the formal account account in which it is not only the properties and relations which are “transferred” from target to source, but the second-order properties and relations at the source are transferred to the analogous properties and relations at the source. If S₁ is P then S₁ is Q, in which P stands in some causal or explanatory relation to Q, and if S₂ carries an analogous property P* then it is “reasonable to expect” that the system carries an analogous property Q*. There are vertical-relations between the properties and relations and horizontal relations between the properties and relations of the source and the analogous properties and relations of the target, hence the “two-dimensional” account. The following chart, adopted from Bartha, depicts the “two-dimensional” relations:

Chart 1

The distinction allows for a sort of protocol. The distinction allows us to understand the similarity between systems as one of a material analogy between “how the systems work”. It allows us to better understand the warrant of the analogical inference as predicated on the transfer of causal and explanatory connections from source to system.

Hence, talk of “analogical inferences” is properly incorrect because the method of analogical reasoning is content and context-sensitive. Instead, comparisons are made on the basis of studied material analogies, a case-by-case understanding of the salient similarity and differences between how the systems work. Hence, there is no formal account.

Now, modeling can be used in different “epistemic contexts”. It can be used in the “context of discovery”, “ context of justification”, or “the mode of presentation”. Although the second might seem to interest us the most, I will make the case that the first and second are equal motivations in the model I develop.

Often modeling is a strategy used to advance our knowledge of “unknown” systems on the basis of our understanding of other systems with which we are relatively better acquainted. In the first place, a hypothetical mechanism is posited for some phenomenon that is analogous to the source system. The hypothetical mechanism does not need to lead to definitive explanatory conclusions, but such a method in the history of science does, whether accidentally or not, advance hypotheses and discoveries of new “unknown” systems. It is another matter whether such analogical reasoning does in fact lead to explanatory conclusions and definite discoveries. The justification is dependent finally on the material analogy between the workings of the source and target. A good example that shows the strategy at work in discovery and justification is the liquid-drop model of nuclear fission.[9]

Give the case of the electron wave and electron spin:

However, it is also possible to use analogical reasoning as a presentational and didactic device. Linus Pauling in his work General Chemistry gives us two very good and very different cases of analogical reasoning both of which I class as presentational.[10] In the first case Pauling models the flow of electricity (S₂ ) along a wire to the flow of water in a pipe (S₁). S₁ has a quantity P, which is measured in liters Q ; S₂ has an analoguos quantity P*, which is measured in coloumbs or stoneys Q*. Notice that the vertical relations are not explanatory, but are inferences from properties to operational measurements. It seems here that Pauling is not making a deeper claim about the material analogy between systems on the basis of similitude of mechanism, but using said analogy to illustrate how electricity works. (I translate his terms to some degree; consult the footnote for the full presentation and elaboration).[11]

Material Analogy between Natural Selection and Ideology:

I am not entirely certain we can say “ideology” is an “unknown” system as there has been a rich and variegated literature revolving and deploying the term. Such a model of ideology, built on the modeling of ideology on natural selection and Lamarckian mechanisms, is an attempt to present aspects of ideology, especially aspects of ideological transformation, in a new and didactic way. However, I think there is justification behind such analogical reasoning. There is a material analogy between the two systems. If there are vertical explanatory relations P and Q, a model of natural selection and Lamarckian mechanisms, and given analogous relations and properties P*, then an analogous vertical relation can be drawn to Q*, an analogous model of ideology.

The strategy is to present a model of the source-system to get the reader acquainted with how natural selection and Lamarckian mechanisms work, before discussing what I take to be analogous explanatory properties and relations found in Marxism. On that basis, it will be possible to present a model of the evolution, frequency, and distribution of ideas.

A Brief Discussion of A Model of Natural Selection and Lamarckian mechanisms:

For the purposes of this paper I will present a model of natural-selection that conforms to the brief characterization I gave above of a model. My discussion is indebted to Eliot Sober’s presentation of natural-selection as a “force”.

Natural-selection is said to be a force which acts on a population of organisms that results in evolution. Natural-selection is said to apply to all organisms which exhibit heritable variation in fitness (Lewotin). The model of natural-selection (MDS) is developed to demonstrate how a population of organisms will evolve if it is subject to certain conditions and can be presented in the following logical generalization:

MNS: If in a population A organisms that have at least a characteristic P are better able to survive and reproduce then organisms that are not-P, and if P and not-P are transmitted to offspring and the offspring encounter the same selection pressures, then the representation of individuals with characteristic P will increase in future generations until the trait reaches fixation.

Take a simple illustrative case. In the first generation, the population has only one trait not-P. A antibiotic treatment is administered. In the next generation, the population has one of two dichotomous traits not-P and P. Those bacteria with the trait P are antibiotic resistant and hence, better survive and reproduce. The bacteria transmit the trait to descendants and, under the continued pressure of the antibiotic, future generations more and more descendant-bacteria will the trait P until there the trait reaches fixation. If there were no variation between traits and no difference in fitness, there would be no evolution.

In short, if organisms exhibit heritable variation in fitness then there will be evolution (Lewotin). The simplicity and power of the model is incredible and, yet, appearances of simplicity are often deceiving. Many qualifications need to be made to this simple “if/then statement” model in order for us to understand the how the source-system works.

On the side of the explanans:

“Fitness” is a tricky term and we do not have the proper place to discuss this difficult and fundamental term in biology. However, understanding what sort of term fitness is will give us greater insight into the workings of the source- and ultimately the target- system.

Fitness is a relational-property that reflects the interaction between organism and environment. The concept of fitness is deployed to explain evolution and change in gene frequency. Let us look further into these statements:

An organism’s fitness is relative to its environment. A biological environment is not simply a local spatiotemporal region. The dimensionality of a biological environment includes local forces that interact with an organism – to determine fitness levels. Two spatiotemporal regions may be physically identical and yet there are many distinct, overlapping biological environments. A biological enviornment is a complex system that is determined by local causes and physical properties as well as organismic properties. Those local causes and physical properties are varied, they may be macro-level causes and properties as identified in geology, geography, and meteorology, or they may go all the way down to the micro-level causes and properties as sought after in chemistry, and physics. The organismic properties are evidently not distinguished in kind from physical properties. However, these properties are more commonly thought of at the macro-level in anatomy, physiology, and etiology all the way down to the micro-level in organic and molecular chemistry, as well as genetics. This should help clarify what is intended by such slippery terms as “local forces”, physical properties, and organismic properties.

There is no one-to-one mapping between an organism’s fitness level and a set of local forces and physical properties, and organismic properties. Take a simple case in which two bears that are highly similar are walking in a forest. A lighting bolt strikes one of the bears, killing it. Evidently, we would not decide based on this “chancy” selective force whether or not one of the bears was fitter than the other. Hence, there is a one-to-many mapping. “Fitness” is superveneient. The property of “fitness” supervenes on a set of disjunctive heterogeneous local forces, as well as physical and organismic properties.

Evidently, the complex dimensionality of biological environments , as well as the superevenience of fitness, constitutes a major difficulty in determining and measuring fitness levels, and hence in making judgments about comparative fitness within and between species, as well as trends in fitness across generations and evolution. And yet the difficulty must be confronted. Rosenberg suggests that “because of the one-to-many relation between fitness and its determinants, fitness must be measured by its effects”.

I feel it is better to anticipate the passage by stating, that its effects measure fitness and that this is perfectly normal of theoretical and probabilistic terms. If this were not the case, then fitness could not be explanatory. We will explore these claims now.

In discussion of the measurement of fitness, the measurement of fitness is often taken to be a definition. Natural selection operates on all cycles of an organisms life-time, and evolution “occurs when organisms differ in viability and fertility” (Sober). Viability and fertility can be taken here respectively as probabilities of survival and reproduction. Fertility can also be thought of as a rate of reproduction. However, the question is how to calculate this probability of viability and fertility. There is a difficulty in considering that the probability of viability and fertility to be defined by actual frequency. Let us look at this interpretation of probability in terms of actual frequency.

The actual frequency of an event in a population is how many times an event occurs in the larger population. Take a simple case. Suppose we flip a coin 200 times and that the coin is fair. Let us say that the coin lands tails 70 times. T is the proposition that the coin lands on tails for some given flip. P(T) can be taken to mean how many times the coin lands on tails within the larger population of events. Hence, the probability here is P(T)=70/200 . The actual frequency interpretation of probability is an objective interpretation. To generalize from the case consider the probability of some proposition to be the number of times some event occurs within a larger population. Probability just is actual frequency.

The problem is that there is no guarantee that actual frequency will converge with probability. In the case I have given above even though the coin is fair, the actual frequency diverges from the probability. Also, if probability is actual frequency within a population of events, then what would it mean to say that a fair coin has an actual frequency of .5 for an odd numbered population? It is often stated, that in a hypothetical long-run series and infinite population of events, actual frequencies converge with probability. Yet, if there is convergence only under such unrealistic conditions then there seems to be no case for expecting actual frequencies to reflect probability in nature. There have been attempts to deflect these problems with the actual frequency, and relative hypothetical interpretation but we cannot go into this further issue.

Actual frequency is used as evidence for estimating probability, just as an understanding that long-run series and population size are important in making judgments about whether actual frequency will reflect probability. There is no simple connection between probability and actual frequency. “Fitness” is a probabilistic term and this means that actual frequency of viability and fertility will often not reflect fitness levels. It also happens that in populations, especially of a smaller-size, that the fitter organism is eliminated by entirely less “chancy” forces such as predation or disease. There simply is always a chance that fitter organisms “leave behind” fewer descendants.

In many ways, the probabilistic character of “fitness” translates to “limits” in evolutionary theory. “Fitness” is not a “deterministic” property. Actual frequencies may deviate from such probability; the actual trajectory of evolutionary change may differ from the expected path of evolution predicted by “fitness” levels and natural-selection. This is known as “drift “ in evolutionary theory. “Drift” is often thought of as a “sample-error”. It makes sense that measuring the probability of “fitness” must inherit the same difficulties as probabilistic terms.

“Fitness” is also a theoretical term. Theoretical terms in science are often measured by their effects. It is not possible to define theoretical-terms as a function of observational-terms. Theoretical refers to (contingently) unobservable entities which are distinct from their observation and whose existence does not depend upon such an act. However, it is possible to identify and measure an unobservable entity with reference to observation. However, the effect is a measure in virtue of the fact that there is causal and explanatory connection between the unobservable entity and measure. An instrument in science relies on such a causal connection. Take the theoretical term “atmospheric pressure”. Atmospheric pressure reflects a force perpendicular to the surface of the earth; it is approximately the pressure air mass over the earth. A barometer is an instrument that measures atmospheric pressure and is often used as a predictive device for meteorological forecasts. Yet, no meteorologist would say that a barometer or barograph defines atmospheric pressure. Instead “the operation of the (barometer) is explained by citing the phenomenon it measures” (Rosenberg 156). There is a theory that explains the causes of the unobservable entity on the instrument.

Fitness is measured by such units of measurement as births, deaths, viability and fertility, but is not defined by the measurement. Instead, the term “fitness” is said to explain those facts. There may seem to be the tautology problem lurking. If fitness just is defined by those units of measurements and fitness is a relation in which some organisms survive better, reproduce more etc. , then obviously it predicts an increase in their descendants. However, it is important to note the probabilistic and “non-deterministic” character of the term “fitness”. It is precisely because these units of measurement can diverge from fitness levels, that fitness can explain trends in the units of measurement. As I mentioned before, “fitness” supervenes on local forces and physical properties, as well as organismic properties. The paradigmatic case in which we are able to understand the diverge is when we can identify a set of organismic mechanisms – and facts about selection pressures– in order to suggest why some organisms in a species are better adapted to environment. In the case with the bacteria, we can try to locate the random mutation at the level of molecular chemistry or genetics, and identify a causal mechanism that makes a difference in defense against the anti-biotic. There are identifiable mechanisms and selective pressures that account for the fitness of the bacteria, and the trajectory of evolution (Hull). The proper explanatory strength of fitness is characterized by the ability to generalize over distinctive and heterogeneous biological systems.

The model of natural selection presupposes that traits are transmitted to offspring. In other words, the model is neutral on hereditary mechanisms. Darwin himself had to take the fact of transmission more or less for granted. He also recognized the difficulty with such an empirical hypothesis, since it was obvious enough that children never resembled their parents in full. Faced with such a difficulty he proposed a notion of “gemules” –a prototype of genes- and a hereditary mechanism of “mixing”. However, this was not really any solution. The solution seemed illusive until the turn of the 20th century when the scientific community rediscovered Mendelian genetics. The hypothesis of natural selection seemed further clarified by the fundamental discovery of the DNA molecule, and the establishment of molecular biology. Recognizing this neutrality is important, because in certain instances, hereditary mechanisms can affect the course of evolution. Take the case of the jaw, it can be said that the growth of the jaw-line does not owe itself to the fact that it confers higher fitness, but as a “side-effect” of the general growth of the human head and of genetic information specifying the sturcture. This is a case of “pleiotropy” in which a genome determines multiple phenotypic effects. Considerations of such hereditary constraints, a type being pleiotropy, are important in judgments about “fitness” and hence whether a trait or mechanism (or set of traits or mechanisms) is responsible for evolution.

On the side of the explanandum:

The distinction must be made between evolution by natural-selection and change in gene frequency. Biology is interested in minute and large-scale changes in gene frequency. Yet, there can be cases of change of gene frequency (migration, mutation, recombination) which are not strictly considered “good cases” of evolution. Change in gene frequency is better thought of as a non-absolute criterion for determining occurrences of evolution. Natural-selection is not defined by change in gene frequency since “natural selection has two consequences: a change in gene-frequencies and, in addition, an increase in the quantity (fitness) optimized “ (italics included for emphasis). As we discussed earlier “fitness” explains viability and fertility in a probabilistic manner, and hence it makes sense that the concept of “fitness” cannot be identified with its measure. The concept of fitness can explain differences and changes in viability and fertility because higher (or lower) fitness does not always lead to higher (or lower) viability and/or fertility. The same argument might apply to natural selection writ large, natural selection cannot be identified with change in gene frequency because of the probabilistic character of the hypothesis. It is precisely because natural selection is not the only “cause” of change in gene-frequency that it can explain such trends.[12]

Character of and Challenges With The Model:

The model describes what will happen given certain conditions and is subject to a certeris paribus clause that would cancel out the effect of natural-selection. In this sense, model represents cases in which the system is operated upon by a single force. [13]The model does not state that or to what extent the forces act and Darwinian selection is only a kind of possible selection. Other forces, whether local, or at a population-level, can have a “biasing effect” in directing change in gene frequency. We have already looked at the probabilistic character of fitness and the concept of “drift”. [14] But even then the force at hand is non-deterministic. After all, we have seen that “fitness”, even when it can be given a material basis, is not sufficient to guarantee change in gene frequency.

The use of “force” might also strike some as odd. If “cause” is preferred then there is no dispute over the specific word indicating the concept. However, so as to not introduce confusion, it is necessary to make a crucial distinction between “selective forces” and “forces of selection”. There is the process of selection, and the product of selection. The process of selection occurs at the individual-level. An individual organism is bombarded by a multiplicity of local and short-term forces, constituted by organismic properties. These selective forces eliminate or retain, organisms, and they do not necessarily select organisms on the basis of fitness. However, the product of selection is a statistical-population outcome of individual selection processes. Natural-selection is a population-level force, in the sense that is an outcome for populations. The force acts, in the clearest case, when there are actual mechanisms- where physiological, anatomical or behavioral- responsible for viability and retention on average and a relative stability of the physical environment and individual selective pressures. And such a judgment cannot be made at the individual-level because “more chancy” selective pressures like lightning are characteristic of biological environments. Denying such a statement would then be lead us to consider the “selective force” of lighting a “force of selection”.

The model can be characterized as an abstraction from differences in local selective forces and population-level forces of selection over generations. It is an idealization in that it is assumed that there is a kind of selection pressure acting on all generations. In a way, for this model, “selective forces” are “forces of selection”.

It is also assumed that there is a trait that is retained and transmitted because it confers higher-fitness to the organism. I mean by this that it is retained and transmitted because the trait makes a causal contribution to viability and fertility. These two assumptions are obviously not the case. Organisms in the same population often confront different selective pressures because they are subjected to many different local forces, even though biologists are often concerned with populations that on average confront “similar” selective pressures over generations. Offspring never fully resemble their parents in either genotype or phenotype.

Final Note on Justifying the Model of Ideology based on Natural Selection and

It has often been noted the analogy between natural-selection and scientific knowledge. The most common account of this analogy is given by Popper in his essay “Evolutionary Episetemology . Popper’s account is based on the sort of analogical reasoning I have characterized above in that he claims there is a fundamental similarity in mechanism between natural selection and scientific progress. Popper moves between horizontal and vertical relations and seems to understand that a material analogy exists where the systems in question function in similar manners. He even goes so far as to suggest that scientific progress is an evolutionary process, which exists at a different level of selection. Of course, I am not pursuing the same analogy as Popper, but it will help to briefly discuss Popper’s paper in order to explicate the logic of the analogy.

Popper characterizes natural selection and scientific progress as cumulative and adaptive processes of “method by trial and elimination by error”.[15] The process is said to start at the level of “inherited structure” which is the accumulation of as yet unfalsified scientific theories, conjectures, discoveries, experiments etc. The inherited structure is then transmitted to future-generations and produces certain theoretical problems for the scientist. The scientist then produces a novel scientific theory or conjecture in response to the theoretical problem. The novel conjecture is then subjected to criticism and experimentation, and eliminated if false. If the conjecture is not falsified then the “mutation” is transmitted and new theoretical problems emerge in a unlimited circle.

Scientific progress is a process in which theories and conjectures become increasingly fitter-to-facts and better-adapted-to-problems i.e they come to increasingly approximate the case. In such an account, the unit of selection is “inmates of world III” and the evolution is then the cumultative addition and retention of non-falsified theories and conjectures. Popper sees scientific progress as a specific sort of evolutionary process. But it would have been more accurate for him to a say that scientific development exhibits a general mechanism at play. Scientific development is subjected to a mechanism of random variation and selective retention. In Popper’s account, the first refers the production of novel scientific theories and conjectures, and the second to elimination of false theories. Popper does not explicate the logic, but in both cases there is random variation and selective retention, and hence there is an analogy between the properties and relations of natural-selection and scientific theories. Scientific theories have analogue properties for variation V*, differential fitness F*, and heredity H*. There are also analogous hereditary structures. [16]

A mechanism of random variation and selective retention is a “substrate-neutral algorithm” and there is no a priori reason why such a mechanism could not apply to a population of ideas. The concept of a “substrate-neutral algorithm” was introduced by Daniel Dennett in speaking about what sort of thing natural selection is. An algorithm is a relatively uncontroversial and simple rule, in which certain inputs determine a unique outcome. Of course, the simplicity of the rule is not a necessary feature as I can think of the algorithm (take any value n and perform 2+3^6 x 8,00056786^3) which ostensibly no one will ever use. Addition is an algorithm in this sense, given at least two values x, y, z… there is a rule which determines a unique outcome x+y+z…. Now an algorithm can be implement by many different kinds of systems. Not every algorithm is implemented by a conscious system and there are many non-conscious systems that implement algorithms. A computer can implement an algorithm. A litter of water flows into another and the process implements the arithmetic-algorithm. When a tree grows many rings, the system implements the arithmetic-algorithm. When there is mitosis, the process of division implements the arithmetic-algorithm. In this way, because the algorithm spans or can be implemented by many heterogeneous and distinct systems, we say that the algorithm is “substrate-neutral”.

Natural-selection seems to be an intuitive candidate for such a concept. Natural-selection can be formulated as a algorithm that takes Darwinian lineages and present finesses and determines a unique (set of) probabilistic outcome(s) of the expected evolution of lineages. In the biological world natural selection seems to be “substrate-neutral” in that many different conscious and non-conscious systems implement the Darwinian algorithm and the algorithm is implemented at “multiple levels of organization”. For instance, it has been found that non-organic molecules undergo a process of variation and selection and it has been hypothesized that such a process is responsible for the formation of organic molecules, polypeptides and nucleotides. Polypeptides, nucleotides, DNA, and RNA implement the Darwinian algorithm. Eukaroytes and prokaryotes implement the Darwinian algorithm. Individual organisms and potentially groups of individuals implement the Darwinian. Hence, it seems there is a strong empirical case to make that natural-selection is a “substrate-neutral algorithm”. But I claim that mechanisms of variation and selection are in general “substrate-neutral algorithms” for the same reason that such a process can operate on vastly different physical systems.

It is important to distinguish natural selection from mechanisms of variation and selection because, to put it quite vaguely at first, there are different types of varitation-selection mechanisms and they are not exactly “substrate-neutral”. Natural selection is a type of variation-selection mechanism is specific to the biological world (and the origin of biological entities) because the mechanism presupposes the accumulation and mutation of functional traits. However, there are other types of variation-selection mechanism that do not presuppose accumulation and mutation. Three illustrative cases will allow me to make the contrast clearer between types of variation- selection mechanisms.

Earlier I spoke of an anti-biotic resistant bacteria. In this case, blind variation occurs, and the selection pressure includes the anti-biotic. Hence, it is this local pressure which selects for those bacteria with the fittest variant, the trait that allows the bacteria to best adapt, survive and reproduce. The variant trait is selected because it contributes to some causal capacity that allows the bacteria to survive the introduction of the anti-biotic regiment. Now take a technique in the world of chemistry. When a chemist wants to develop a chemical with a certain function, they resort to “chemical libraries” which contain many, many complex molecules. They then pass these molecules through a screen that selects for the function of the molecule. The final example is a common toy, it is also an excellent philosophical device.

diagram

There are two sorts of objects, squares and circles, in the container. There are multiple levels to the container with circle and no square openings. After enough shaking, the squares will remain at the top and the circles will end up at the bottom.

In each of these cases there is a variation-selection mechanism at work which presupposes local selective forces. In the first case, random variation can only be made sense of starting from the basis of the accumulation of functional traits and of mutations in the genotype (Lewens). The variation is then subjected to a local selective pressure, the introduction of the anti-biotic regimen. The environment selects the trait in virtue of

the function and causal capacity it contributes to defense against the anti-biotic.[17] In the second case, it makes no sense to speak of the accumulation of functional traits and of mutations in the lineage because there is a “designed” system that selects for functions. The mass of molecules that constitutes the library is a product of chemical synthesis and other techniques. The “library” does not exhibit “random” variation in the same sense as the first case. The variation of molecules is produced by synthesis and the agent that did so, did so because the library has many functional molecules. However, the mechanism exhibits “random” variation in the sense that the chemist has no intention and cannot control the production of a specific mass of molecules. The local pressure is the screen which is also designed to pick out certain properties, that contribute certain causal capacities, and not (a or a set of) specific chemical structures. Given the heterogeneity of the mass, there is a high likelihood that the screen will end up picking out a molecule for the relevant function. In the final case, my intuition is that the mechanism of “random” variation and selective “retention” is most limited. There is design behind the variation, just as there in the selective process. There is only variation in the brute sense of difference between properties. The design selects for circles to pass through the levels.   The local pressure is the shaking which over a period of time means the circles filter through the screen. There is no accumulation of functional traits, no random mutation to speak of. The sense in which the circles are selected is extremely weak. In the end a trait is not selected for any causal contribution but just because of the micro and macro properties of the circle-objects and organization of the physical container.

To these three cases I distinguish three types of variation-selection mechanism: “cumulative-functional”, “design-functional”, and “filtration systems”. The first is characteristic of evolutionary theory, the second of engineering and chemical sciences, and the third as specified need not be designed, but exhibits local selective pressures that “pick out” certain properties. However, I do not think design is conceptually necessary, as it is possible to imagine some physical system that operates in a similar way. I draw no absolute taxonomy, and pitch the characterization of “filtration-systems” as a more general sort of mechanism and as being primarily relevant to non-designed and non-functional systems.

The similarity of mechanism comes from the fact that ideology operates most like a “cumulative-functional” mechanism. This will require some “ pre-theoretical “ familiarity with the term ideology and the argument that such a type most robustly applies to ideology. It must be remembered; a model is not devised when a system is the object of complete ignorance, but only when it is badly understood in a theoretical manner. In many ways, modeling x on y requires some kind of pre-theoretical acquaintance with both x and y, where there is greater theoretical understanding of y.

Ideology operates most like a “cumulative-functional” mechanism because a population of ideas has a functional lineage and a novel idea is selected in virtue of the causal contribution that idea makes for certain classes and people. The mechanism is not simply “design-functional” nor is it a “filtration-system”. To state the first is to presuppose that variant ideas are consciously designed by certain people for certain interests and purposively selected by certain people because of the contribution they make to their interest. Such a claim especially breakdowns when applied to longer-scale ideological lineages. After all, every case of the evolution of a population of ideas in history cannot owe itself to some group of intellectuals consciously producing variant ideas, and some other groups of lords and patrons carefully assessing whether and how each one will help their cause and selecting the variant that seems most useful. At the same time, every case of the evolution of a population of ideas in history cannot owe itself to an arbitrary, non-functional selection. If an idea has no epistemic meaning or social significance it would simply fail to be a candidate for selection and transmission. Neither constitutes a very plausible story about ideology.

I claim that ideology may constitute a mix of all three sorts of mechanisms.

Insofar as populations of ideas exhibit an analogous property to “drift”, in certain contexts it is helpful to think of the mechanism operating on the population as a ‘”filtration system”. Insofar, as populations of ideas and the variant traits they exhibit are conscious products of human-activity, it is helpful to think of the operant mechanism as “design-functional”.

Let us summarize the logic now that we have arrived at the model of ideology: there is a material analogy between natural selection, Lamarckian mechanisms, and ideology because all are variation-selection mechanisms. Variation-selection mechanisms need not only apply to the biological world because they are “substrate-neutral algorithms”. There are also different types of variation-selection mechanisms. The material analogy is further substantiated by the fact that the mechanism of ideology operates like the mechanism natural selection, Lamarckian mechanisms i.e. they are all cumulative-functional mechanisms. So it is possible to transfer the explanatory properties and relations of the source to target. It is now time to pass to the model itself.

A Model of Ideology

The model will represent ideology as a force that acts on population of ideas and results in ideological evolution. Understanding if and to what extent this mechanism acts, and how this mechanism combines with others will be important part of the model.

Model of Ideological Selection (MIS) : If in a population A , there are ideas with at least a characteristic P that make them more useful than ideas that are not-P, and if P and not-P are transmitted to future generations, then the representation of ideas with characteristic P will increase in future generations until the trait reaches fixation.

In short, if there is hereditable difference in usefulness, there will be ideological evolution, and certain ideas will increase in frequency in a specific and relevant population of persons. The differential usefulness also means that certain populations will tend to select, produce, and reproduce certain ideas based on the higher relative usefulness of the idea for their social environment, and to distribute across populations based on relative usefulness.

A few necessary points of clarification are in order. I speak of “populations of ideas” but it is important not to reify ideas. After all, it is populations of humans that produce, select, and modify ideas. However, I have specified the distinction between process and product. I assume once the products of human-thinking are embodied in material objects, these products have autonomy in the sense that the “correctness” or “usefulness” of the information signaled by the product. The information is not a function of the beliefs of individual, but is dependent on the state of the world and society.

I will then abstract from individual human-producers, and consider only the information signaled by the products. When I say that ideas have “traits”, I mean precisely the putative information transmitted by such products. This information is transmitted to contemporaries and future generations of people, who “inherit” and interpret the idea to produce novel ideas. These novel ideas resemble their parent-ideas to some degree and reproduce heritable information.

There are three similar conditions met which lead to change in the frequency of ideas.

1. The first condition is that there is an analogue to random variation P*. In the case of ideology, “random” variation comes from the fact that information is not necessarily produced with the intention of serving the interest of certain classes and people. History is not one long conspiracy of ideologues serving rulers dominating and duping people. Instead, variant information is produced for any number of reasons. For instance, a scientist might produce a new theory because it is the best current solution to a theoretical problem, or a social theorist might produce a new theory of justice. However, variation need not consist in novelty.

“Randomness” exhibited by variant information does not mean that the information was produced for no reason, or more precisely that there is no agent-relative reason for the information. It also does not mean that any variant information is just as likely to be produced as any other variant information. “Randomness” in biology alludes to the fact that the future conference of fitness does not enter into the causes for the mutation. A mutation does not occur because it gives a higher fitness to an organism, even though we have studied many causes that do produce mutations. Instead, “randomness” alludes to the fact that in the production of variant information, the future use and reproduction of that information, especially by a different agent, does not affect the agent-relative reason for the information. “Randomness” alludes in part to the fact that information can be put to use in ways that no producer could ever envisage, and that it can be used in ways to serve ends in complete disharmony with the ends of the producer. Albert Einstein had to “recant” his involvement in the Manhattan project, and critiqued the “political purposes” which nuclear weapons served.

2. The second condition is that there is a functional analogue to “differential fitness” Y*, and I call this analogue “differential usefulness”. I consider the structure of the concept to be similar to fitness and I want to show how the “explanatory structure” of usefulness is similar to “fitness”.

“Fitness” is a quantity that explains and predicts the survival and reproduction of organisms in a population. Darwin stated there was a tendency for organisms within lineages, given a relative stability of environment and selective pressures, to become fitter. Natural selection is said to be an improver, in that it selects, on average, for the fittest variant. I am a bit more skeptical of attributing any such tendency to the overall history of ideas. However, in the case of ideology, “usefulness” explains the survival and reproduction of ideas, and why on average certain information is selected over other for the cycle of production and reproduction.

“Usefulness” is a theoretical and probabilistic term. Usefulness is a quantity measured by viability and fertility. The viability of an idea is the degree to which the information contained in the product is transmitted to others. The fertility of an idea is the degree to which the idea is modified and reproduced in variant ideas. The usefulness of an idea may not be reflected in the actual frequency of viability or reproduction. There may be entirely chancy reasons, dependent either on the social environment or the idiosyncrasies of groups and people (or both) which mean that a useful idea is neither transmitted to others nor reproduced. Insofar as ideology is not the only kind of force of selection for ideas, or there may be entirely unique and chancy selective forces, less useful ideas may increase in frequency and distribution within a lineage. Also, the two measures may contribute or counter-act one another. An idea may be transmitted to many others, and yet not be reproduced (and vice-versa). However, the idea is that the there is a tendency in capitalism on average for the quantity of usefulness to increase in a lineage, the most useful ideas to be produced, transmitted, and reproduced.

An idea is more useful–or better adapted than another idea if the idea transmits information to others that provide solutions to problems thrown up by the social environment. Usefulness is a relative property that reflects the interaction of an idea, not just with the “environment” but also with what I will broadly call the “social environment”. The social environment is determined by local forces and physical properties, as well as social properties of and social relations between people. It is composed of a world with people bearing certain relations to each other. Ideas are like tools that people use to solve problems posed by the social environment. Ideas are selected for on the basis of the causal contribution they make to the efforts of people in effecting and/or changing the social environment. People and classes select ideas, and the model charges that they do so consciously or unconsciously because those ideas and the information contained in them make a causal contribution to the efforts of people and groups. Ideas have functions, and those functions just are the causal contributions of ideas to the efforts of people and groups.

In this most basic way, people’s ideas consciously and/or unconsciously adapt to their ends. If the idea answers a problem, if it makes possible the performance of some action or the attainment of some result, then the idea is retained and transmitted. If the idea does not allow for such, then the idea is discarded, a new one produced. In this way, given that the social environment poses an indefinite number of problems, there is always room for criticism and generalization of the problem. I will discuss the selection process and different kinds of selective pressures at length further.

A final note however that touches on the point of selection: now the usefulness of an idea is not a function of its truth-value. There are many statements that are true and useless, many useful statements that are not true. Hence, there are contexts in which people and classes select an idea on the basis of a rational criterion i.e. they select an idea because it is true, or in some way because it better corresponds with reality than another. The idea may be accepted because it is, putatively, the best theory for a certain phenomenon. In turn, that could imply instrumental value. This is very much the case for science, in which research agendas , even at public institutions, are heavily and subtly influenced by the demands of production, so that ideas , hypotheses, theories etc. are selected not only for their truth-value, but their potential instrumental value.

Take a simple case, one that is very much the case today: a lab at the NIH produces a new paper on nanotechnology, and it is the only and best solution to nanotechnology. A firm employs the paper to produce a commodity that requires nanotechnology. They select the paper because it is the best theory in the lineage, the best theory up to date on nanotechnology. Ultimately, they consciously select the paper on this basis because of the relative truth of the paper and the contribution it makes in designing the commodity. The outcome is that the information contained in the scientific paper and commodity-design, will be reproduced in the area of industry if it does not lead to further investment in the production of new information related to the paper. There is selection for truth-value and instrumental value, and this is the case because there is a causal-relation between the existence of unobservable structures and entities identified and studied by scientists, and human-beings effecting those structures and entities to produce determinate effects.

3. The second condition is that there is a hereditary analogue H* for the transmission and reproduction of information. The condition is the most difficult to deal with, and I state that I do not understand in a clear and robust way the full workings of the hereditary mechanism in re information. Yet, it only need to be assumed that the information contained in the product has a multiple parent-relation, in which it resembles the parents-ideas to some degree.

In biology, the hereditary aspect is well understood. There are hereditary structures (DNA, tRNA, mRNA, cistron, structural genes, regulatory genes, nucleotides, chromosomes, enzymes etc.) and processes (protein synthesis, transcription, translation,) which replicate and transmit genetic information to offspring. These structures and processes specify a “genotype”, a sort of “plan” for protein-construction and the regulation of that process, which “build up” the “phenotype”- or “observable traits of an organism”- in interaction with a specific environment. These hereditary structures and processes are also physically distinct processes in the body, there is a germ-soma division which makes possible the replication and transmission of information. This is connected with the relative stability of genetic structures and material faced with the environment. This makes tracking species, and phylogenetic trees much easier as most times similarity of genetic information reflects species-membership. Hence, it becomes easier to say an organism is a member of a species, and that species is part of a larger biological lineage in which it is a branch of the larger tree.

When it comes to ideas there is no comparable unity of hereditary structure, and processes. There is also no one mode of transmission, and the parent-offspring relations are more complex than with genetic information.

There are no hereditary structures that maintain, replicate, and transmit genetic information to offspring. Someone might contend that language is the human structure of preserving and transmitting information. Hence, the genetic code is human language. Genetic information is primarily contained in the DNA which is a helical structure composed of triplets (codons) of four different nucleotides (adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine). Human information is primarily contained in language which is composed of complex statements (structure) reducible in components to simple statements, words and letters, morphemes and phonemes. The genotype is the totality of grammatical and logical possibilities, the rules and constituents, for the production of complex statements. The phenotype is the actual complex statements produced under a specific social environment. I suppose then that the germ/soma division is the physical localization of the informational genotype.

Information is contained in products, but these products take many different physical forms. There are utterances, books, papers, hypotheses, theories, paintings, movies, posters, advertisements, commercials etc. This means there are many different ways an idea can be transmitted to people. They can heard, read, watched etc. However, transmission does not necessarily imply selection on the part of the audience. Selection for appropriation and use, and for reproduction is another matter altogether, even if usefulness is a property which can generalize a link between continuous production and reproduction. There is only a parent-offspring relation when a producer effects an audience in such a way that the idea is used and/or reproduced. The most robust case in which one idea is the offspring of at least a parent-idea, would be one in which the idea is used by people in order to modify and reproduce the information in different products, with variant information.

The offspring of parent-ideas, the information contained in the offspring, resemble the information contained in the parent-ideas. The set of information contained in the offspring differs from the set of information contained in the parent-ideas, and may either intersect or be a subset of the set of information contained in the parent-idea. The information contained in the parent-idea may be a subset of the information contained in the offspring. Hence, membership in a species would consist in a relative similitude of information, and a lineage, a evolutionary series of species of ideas, could be tracked by similitude of information with the parent-ideas. In genotypic terms this could mean a specific totality of logical and grammatical possibilities, a specific set of rules and protocols, for the production of the phenotype, the observable product.

A final note, an ideal cycle of production and reproduction might clarify the issue at hand. The cycle is P- Pr- Tr – Md- Rp . A problem (P) is posed by the social environment. Someone or something produces (Pr ) a solution in the form of an idea Pr – which signals information. The information is signaled by some means to other people. These people consciously or unconsciously select the information on the basis of similar problems. They modify the idea and information and produce variant ideas which contain (ostensibly) differing information.

4. The model of ideology has a similar explanatory structure to the theory of natural-selection. It is a non-deterministic model and the inference from explanans to explanadum is non-deductive. The model of ideology also deploys certain theoretical terms “useful”, “hereditary transmission” and “selective mechanism” that, like theoretical terms in evolutionary theory, are both supervenient and multiply-realizable. I will focus on “usefulness” and “selective mechanism” insofar as they play a central explanatory role in the model.

The fact that an idea is “useful” means that it performs a certain function for a certain person or class. I opt for a deflationary account of function in which the function of information is simply the causal contribution that information makes to the efforts of agents and groups, individuals and classes. To say that “usefulness” is supervenient, is to state that the “usefulness” is synchronically determined by local forces and the state of the physical and social environment. After all, ideas are not spiritual entities, and mental systems are in some sense physical systems. To say that “usefulness” is multiply-realizable is to state that a causal contribution is not necessarily implemented by a single physical kind. There is a disjunction of heterogeneous social and physical properties and relations that implement the same causal contribution and there may be no one property or relation in virtue of which an idea is useful. [18]The explanatory power of such a supervenient term is that it allows us to generalize and collect over vastly different causes of ideological evolution. [19]

The central theoretical term of “usefulness” is probabilistic. The probability of usefulness is measured and supported by viability and fertility, and allows for explanation of why certain ideas survive and reproduce more than others. On the basis of the probability, a certain trajectory of evolution is expected. However, usefulness is not a deterministic quantity, and it is possible for usefulness to decrease in a lineage over time, it is also possible for less useful ideas to have higher viability and fertility. There is an analogue of drift when it comes to ideological evolution. In some cases for entirely “chancy” reasons, useful ideas die out, and less useful ideas survive, the less useful ideas reproduce and the less useful lineage wins out. As with all “cumulative-functional” mechanisms, there are two levels of “forces”: the forces of selection and selective forces, the statistical-level result of a population of ideas, and the process of local causes “bombarding” individual producers. The differential usefulness of an idea explains population-level results, and there are many different kinds of local, selective forces that can lead the trajectory of evolution to either fulfill or deviate from expectation.

I spoke of mechanisms of variation and selection, and of types of variation and selection. I categorized ideology as a “cumulative-functional” mechanism. [20]In the model of ideology, the selection of ideas occurs at each moment of the cycle of production, transmission, and reproduction. There are selectors of problems in the phase of production, selectors of information in the phase of transmission, and selectors of information and problems in the phase of reproduction. It is also possible in a particular case for the roles of selection to be combined. At each stage, there are different causes for the selection of the problem and/or information. People select problems, which are posed by the social environment and ideological lineage. They produce information that ostensibly provides a solution. People select information, actively interpret, modify, and disseminate the information. People select the information and come up with a new problem and solution. As we can see the overall process of selection occurring at each stage P- Pr- Tr –Rp, is supervenient on different causes and micro-realizations. At each stage, there are many possible micro-realizations, different social environments with different people, different methods and motives, so that the process of selection is multiply-realizable. Yet, in each case of selection, there are people who select the problem or information because the solution makes a causal contribution to achieving their ends.

Let us take a look at the case of nanotechnology, a relatively simple process of production and reproduction. Here, there are selectors of problems at the stage of production, and selectors of information and new problems at the stage of reproduction. The social environment and causes that effect selection at the two-stages differ. The laboratory in capitalist society is a hierchical institution with a division of labor. There is someone or some group charged with the selection of a problem, however there is also some other person or group charged with financing the research. There are many causes operating on the person that inform the selection of the problem and financing of the research. From the point of view of the producer, there is the “internal” hereditary influence of previous lineages and problems, but also the present “internal” influence of contemporary work and problems in shaping the selection of a problem. There is also the external influence of the social environment and the institutions devoted to finance that may even enter into the thought-process of selection. There is the issue of “progressive research programs” versus “regressive research programs”, and the fact that no scientifically-minded individual wants to participate in what seems to be a declining scientific project. Such an issue is not easily categorized as attributable to heredity or the environment, as well-financed research programs can give the appearance of progress. All of this goes into informing the motive for the selection of a problem, and the new theory is a means to answering the problem. The capitalist firm has a simple motive in the appropriation of the problem and the production of variant information on making the technology operative. There is the external influence of effective demand for technological goods, and hence the state of the social environment. There are people chaged to assess the market and potential for profitability. There are people charged in the R&D department with the selection of the information and charged with the selection of a technological problem, presupposing in some way the scientific problem and solution, and the reproduction of a technological or engineering solution. Still others must assess and select if the engineering solution is the optimal economic solution. The problem is selected because the firm is a nanotechnology firm which produces commodities and which is competing for market-share. The specific paper is selected, and the engineering problem and solution, because the firm expects to make a profit off the technological good.

We see in this simple process of production and reproduction , that the causes acting on the selectors at each stage differ, the motives differ as well, yet the product of the process is that an idea, a theory- information on nanotechnology- was selected for fertility and viability on the basis of its usefulness- because the theory is the best theory on nanotechnology and makes possible an engineering solution for the commodity-design, and that the information contained in the solution is reproduced, increasing in frequency and distributing itself across capitalist firms.

One thing I have not spoken greatly of, is the competition of ideas. I will simply say an idea competes within and outside of its (multiple) lineage(s)- that is there inter and intra species competition. I have spoken of intra-species competition. At the level of production, related problems and variants solutions compete for selection. Within a species, variant information competes for attention like it competes for limited resources, and on average, the more useful idea outcompetes others for attention and a portion of the limited resources. The problems and solutions compete for selection. As any scientist or academic knows competition does not always select the most promising or interesting problems and solutions, and too often “earthly” considerations enter into the selection. But they can also answer in the affirmative that it is generally the most promising problems or solutions for the military and/or capitalist firms that receive healthy investment.

Differences:

Up till now we have focused on clarifying the conditions of the model of ideology. We tried to show the similitude of mechanism and of explanatory structure between natural selection and ideology. Now I want to focus on some general ,of the many salient, differences between natural selection and ideology and present some brief critiques.

The general line of difference is the difference in the character of the “object explained”. Although a lineage of information is “cumulative-functional” it shows a greater degree of intentionality, than is the case with the completely meaningless chance accumulation of functional traits that is necessary to make sense of the apparent “design” produced by natural selection. Ideas after all are intentional means whereby human-beings effect their environment and themselves. They are “designed” solutions to problems posed by their social and natural environment and they are not transmitted in haphazard ways, but are consciously transmitted.[21]

The most serious difference in explanatory structure revolves around the question of heredity and information.

In biology, the hereditary aspect is well understood. Yet, with ideology there are no hereditary structures and processes that replicate and transmit genetic information to offspring. There are no structures and processes that specify a “genotype”, a sort of “plan” for information-construction and the regulation of that process, which has specific mechanism for “building up” the “phenotype” of observable products. The “genotype” of language is not the same kind of entity as the genotype of an organism. As an indication, it does not have the same kind of stability and it is effected by the social environment in ways that allow for modification and change. There does not seem to be localizable structures and processes in the body, an information-soma division which makes possible the replication and transmission of information.[22] This is connected with the relative instability of informational structures and material faced with the environment. As many biologists have remarked, the capacity for learning could be a superior strategy for survival and reproduction, if having changing information required a mutation for each change, then the costs would exceed the learning-mechanism. The capacity to change and modify ideas so that they can adjust to present, and even future problems, means that the “code”, and the proverbial genotype are constantly changing.

This makes defining species, and tracking phylogenetic trees much more difficult. In biology, similarity of genetic information often reflects species-membership, and this makes it relatively easy to identify when members are part of the same species, and to track down the ancestor-species and relations between the ancestor-species. In ideology, similar information in general does not reflect species-membership because an idea is part of many species. This generalization stems from the many-many relation between parents and offspring that generally holds when it comes to ideas. Sexual reproduction is two-one, asexaul is one-to-one relation. A producer has many influences, they are effected by information from many different sources, and they are not simply effected by different ideas, but by the social environments and requirements to a degree which is not the case with genetic information. They also influence many different people, can have many people in their audience, many students or colleagues or workers. A idea may be part of many species, and then enter into many lineages. Also, there is no empirical necessity that ideas track back to an origin. In general, there is no “tree of ideology” as we find it in evolutionary theory.

A representation of the differing trees may clarify the issue, the first ideological tree assumes common origin, the second a non-common origin. The empirical possibility is left open for both options.

Representation of trees

The difficulty in defining and tracking species-membership obviously makes it difficult to say what variant information is competing with. It would seem that there is at best “multiple-species” membership and intra and inter multiple-species membership.

The model of ideology awaits a ”genetic theory” of the sort of information that the model treats. Until then it becomes difficult at almost every level to precisely state key concepts, like lineage, ideological tree, speices, and competition.

I want to posit a brief admonition before passing on to my concluding remarks.

Adaptationism

Not sure of the empirical hypothesis

Conclusion:

I have presented a model of ideology on the basis of modeling ideology on natural selection. I stated and tried to defend the material analogy between the two mechanisms i.e. the similarity of mechanism between the two. I stated that they were both “functional-cumulative” mechanisms. I modeled natural selection as a non-deterministic “if/then” model, and demonstrated the similar explanatory structure of the analogue conditions and concepts. In short, the model predicts that if information is transmittable, then more useful information will increase in lineages, and distribute on the basis of differential usefulness for different people and classes. I stated a major difference, which I belief is the point where the model breaks down most obviously.

I have made many concessions and qualifications to the model, but there are intuitions that suggest that the antecedents indeed obtain in many cases, and that this model explains quite a lot about the state of the intellectual world today. People do not just choose ideas that are useful, but ideas that are useful relative to their social environment. Their social environment includes the social relations in which people interact. Hence, people often choose ideas that are useful to their particular position and class and even though this may be more robustly the case with “social ideas”, it is still the case with all ideas under capitalism. The distinction is only one of degree and not kind. The problems posed by the social environment are problems that revolve around struggle and conflict. The nanotechnologist is particularly well-funded by a public institution because their work has a potential for technological development. The public institution is themselves in competition for a limited pool of resources and workers. The firm is emerging in a nascent market and wants to achieve market-share. They are consecrated to making profit and beating out competitors, and to this end they deploy the idea. To be brute, they use the idea because it is profitable to do so, and in order to make a profit they must deploy good science. The usefulness of an idea for the career of a nanotechnologist is not so distant from the usefulness of an idea for the profit of the capitalist firm. A psychologist produces a work about the inevitable and empirically-confirmed progress under capitalism. A billionaire thinks the work is rather well confirmed, and that its moral evaluations stand upon solid foundations. The billionaire declares themselves the student and fan of the psychologist and sponsors all sorts of events, publications, institutions to work with and reproduce the material in all sorts of new ways. The usefulness of an idea for the career of a pyschologist is not so distant from the usefulness of an idea for the power and prestige of the billionaire. Yet, in a world where 8 people own more than 3 billion, and where the conditions behind the trends only seem to aggravate, to preach such a message of quietism quite obviously corresponds well to the experience of a billionaire, and in the end serves that billionaire well in the best of all worlds for them. [23]

There is a reason that the mechanism of ideology ends up promoting, especially in the realm of “social ideas”, the ideas most consonant with the experience and demands of the ruling-classes (the capitalists, elected politicians, bereaucrats, celebrities, officers of the military and defense establishment). The ruling class, by definition , has power, and hence power over ideas. They are producers, selectors, transmitters, and reproducers of information to an extent that the working-class is not. They own and direct the institutions consecrated to production, selection, transmission, and reproduction of information. Hence, it would make sense that ideas are selected, transmitted, reproduced on the basis of what is useful for them, and that information at large evolves based on their demands and interests. And what is useful for them is simply navigating in a world where they dominate others and must perform certain actions to adapt to the situation. As Warren Buffet once said “oh there is a class-war, and my class is winning it”.

[1] Another obvious difference is that the ideas of people in the ruling class are not homogeneous, and that the ruling class is not one thing, but that there are many ruling classes , “wielding”

[2]

[3] Information seems to be an empty term which is thrown around today as a substitute for “data”. I do not use “x is information” in the sense of being equivalent with “x is a fact”, since one can record information about e.g. Babylonian mythology without judging it according to whether or not it is factual. I ground my usage in Shannon’s mathematical model of information. This model includes three basic components: source, transmitter, signal. The source is some piece of the world that can be in multiple states. A transmitter generates a signal that is received by an audience to reduce uncertainty about the state about what is happening at the source. Hence, it is possible to see that information can fail to record the state of what is happening at the source. Successful information transmits a signal that records the state of what is happening at the source. The reality is that no “scientific information” is fully successful.

[4] Harre taxonomy

[5]

[6]

[7] If there is “growth” in say some period, then is this because the assumptions are correct and the conclusion warranted, or is it because the conclusion is correct and there other assumption plus the assumptions

[8] not to be confused with “source” in information theory.

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12] However, I take it that Darwin contributed three main historical theses, which is to say theses about a specific time and place: 1) that there is a tree of life 2) that the natural-selection is the predominant mechanism in the production of evolution- both the smaller-scale and the larger-scale events of speciation and 3) that natural-selection is the predominant mechanism for the “adaptedness” we observe of living organisms on earth. Ultimately, the fact that organisms do exhibit such a property as heritable variation in fitness and that evolution by natural-selection is the predominant mechanism in the production of evolution are historical hypotheses. It is tempting to think of Darwin’s contribution as nothing more than an evidence-laden statement of the model given above but this is not precise.

[13]

[14] It might be argued that the model is ontologically neutral as to whether there were or are organisms. In parrallel, Boyle’s law is agnostic as to whether or not there be or are gas molecules. The law only states that in an enclosed system of gas molecules, that if the volume of the gas increases (or decreases) then the pressure of the gas decreases (or increases).

[15] Elucidation of essay

[16]

[17]

[19] However, usefulness is mostly clearly understood when there is a restricted disjunction of local forces, social properties, relations and most importantly social mechanisms that specify the manner in which the information is produced, transmitted, and reproduced. For instance, to go back to the example on nanotechnology, there are institutions devoted to the production of scientific knowledge. There are past influences of the build-up of information on nanotechnology on the producers. We would look to the multiple lineages of computer-science, biotechnology, information theory, engineering for a report on the genotype. There are then the present influences of the social environment in transmitting the built-up information to the producers and in posing new problems for the producers –new problems on nanotechnology. The producers understand the alternative theories, and produce a new theory which contains variant information that differs in truth-value and

[20] how can an idea contain all the information it does? Take relativity ?

[21] degree should not be overemphasized

[22]

[23]

The demarcation between science and pseudo-science has immense significance for science and philosophy. Yet, the demarcation is not just an issue for the scientist and philosopher. In a form of society that systematically appropriates science for the purposes of production to psephology, distinguishing science from theory-contrary –to-science is a theoretical and practical matter[1].

To call a theory a pseudo-science, is to say that the theory does not conform to a criterion of science. For many years in analytic philosophy, the criterion of science was that science is theory with an empirical basis[2]. Hence, science and pseudo-science are incompatible features of a theory with respect to their empirical basis, while the history of science is progress from pseudo-science to science and the reductive and cumulative continuum of factual knowledge. Challenges mounted against the received positivist account of science have brought into question the presupposed criterion of science, and so also the demarcation. Could it be upheld that science must have a stronger empirical basis than a pseudo-science? If the demarcation is not necessarily a function of the strength of the empirical basis between theories, then on what grounds can we critique a theory as pseudo-scientific[3]? In this paper, I hope to try to formulate an answer to the demarcation-problem in analyzing the distinction between science and ideology, and then apply the result to critique a theoretical presupposition of economics as pseudo-scientific.

I argue that a theory can be both ideological and scientific. However, there exists a continuum between the terms in which the clear case of an ideological theory is whether the theory interprets a social state of affairs to be natural and universal, and a clear case of scientific theory is internally consistent, externally explanatory and can concur in producing certain effects, two inseparable aspects of the objectivity of theory. Then, a theory is called scientific if it is objective and does not interpret social affairs in a natural and universal way, and ideological if is not objective and does interpret social affairs in a natural and universal manner. Pseudo-science is a non-scientific and ideological item of knowledge. A paradigmatic case of a pseudo-scientific concept, which plays a fundamental role in neo-classical economics, is the “representative agent” in the demand theory of neo-classical economics. I contend this fundamental concept has the implication of misconstruing historical tendencies to be necessary features of human behavior, playing a role that precludes understanding the features of historical mechanisms and the manner of affecting them.

In the section I, I give an explication of ideology. In section II, I show how ideology conflicts with science, and give an account of science in order to elucidate the distinction between science and pseudo-science. In section III, I use the account to discuss historical knowledge i.e. knowledge of the inherent inconstancy of social forms. I contend that historical theory that fails to understand the historical mechanisms and tendencies at play in the course of events will not be able to intervene in procuring certain outcomes, and hence will be non-objective. In section IV, I speak of the representative agent in economic theory, and argue that on the continuum it is pseudo-scientific because it is not objective and ideological.

I

The term “ideology” was first brought into philosophical currency by Destutt De Tracy, but popularized in the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels[4]. Within their work, the term “ideology” has various, often inconsistent, meanings, but I will focus on two central meanings. I will now analyze the distinction of intensions before briefly discussing their affinities and relationships and their relation to a broader process of social legitimation[5].

The overarching theoretical function of the term “ideology” is to give a historical materialist explanation for the existence and prevalence of a system of ideas in a given social context. By “historical materialist explanation” I mean that term A explains the existence and prevalence of social item I if A can show how item I contributes to the persistent tendencies of social system S. A persistent tendency is a disposition P that obtains for the social system S such that it is relatively immune from conditions external to the system, and is a partial and essential condition for the existence of the system[6]. Hence, ideology explains the existence and prevalence of a system of ideas if the term can show how the system of ideas is an essential condition and contribution to the persistent tendencies of the system.                            In most accounts of ideology the specific way in which the system of ideas contributes to the global tendencies of a social system is to legitimate the social relations and conditions [7].

To legitimate something is to consider it to be acceptable within some relevant normative regime. In order to understand the process of legitimation inhering in ideology, it is necessary to take into account a distinction of two intensions of the term. The criterion of the first kind of ideology is those systems of ideas that owe their existence and pervasion to the fact that they directly or indirectly promote current social conditions or sanction the current social relations. Those social conditions and relations systematically advantage certain groups over others, notably those who stand to gain most by preservation of those conditions and relations. I call this “functional ideology”. The criterion of the second kind of ideology is those systems of ideas that are unaware of the current social basis, and so are often supportive of false beliefs about society. I call this “ideological illusion”. The use of illusion might be misleading. The way it is used here does not exclude that a piece of full-fledged knowledge may be “ideological illusion” if it is unaware of and also promotes ignorance about its social basis[8].

Between these terms there are certain affinities and relationships. “Functional ideology” need not be “ideological illusion” and the converse as well.      A system of ideas may be aware of its social basis and still contribute to promoting social conditions and relations, just as a system of ideas may promote ignorance of its social basis and detract from the current conditions and relations. Yet, in the process of legitimation “ideological illusion” is coupled with “functional ideology” such that the unawareness is characterized by positive beliefs that misconstrue social conditions and relations. The misrepresentation predicates its social basis and conditions to be natural and universal, and in doing serves the interest of the ruling class.

By natural and universal I mean that the system of ideas attributes necessity to social relations and conditions. Yet, the form of “necessity” attributed to the social relations and conditions is not de re modal necessity such that if x is referred to by an ideology as being P, it is necessary that x is P. Such a form of necessity would be much too strict to satisfy, as it would be simple to produce a model and counter-example for any supposed necessary social condition or relation. Take the supposed necessary social condition of “family”, then the boy of Averyon would be enough to disconfirm the statement even for a model restricted to @. Instead the necessity attributed to the social relations and conditions takes the form of a future-temporalized conditional: for all societies x, given invariant social condition or relation Q at some initial time T_{0 ,} then any society x will eventually develop condition or relation P at some later time T_x such that x> 0 , and once condition or relation P has emerged at some time T_x then it cannot change. The ideological move par excellence is to try to argue, that given the kind of world we live in, and the sorts of beings we are, the social condition or relation is immutable and applicable to all societies independent of history. For instance, an ideological idea on money could be: for any human society, given that humans guarantee their biological life by producing the things they need, money will eventually emerge in the development of society to articulate production and exchange, and so simplify production. Also, once money becomes a social condition and relation of a society, it is immutable.

Hence, the ideological form of “necessity” attributed to the social condition and relation is broadly synonymous with “inevitable for any society”. It is the purported inevitability of a social condition or relation that serves as a ground for legitimacy. For, if a social condition and relation is taken as inevitable, then to consider the emergent condition or relation as illegitimate is to make a normative judgment about something for which there seems to be no alternative. It would be analogous to considering the laws of classical mechanics and the outcome of a physical motion to be illegitimate[9]. As ideology is often imputed to a system of ideas as a critique, the ideological defense par excellence is to claim that there is “no other way” to think as society cannot be “any other way”. Such fatalistic ideas on society are powerful in convincing people of the normalcy of, or the futility in attempting to change the social order.

We can now present a criterion for ideology. For the moment I will restrict the range of ideology to theory[10]. A theory T is called ideological for group G and F if: 1) directly or indirectly sanctions the social conditions and relations and so contributes to serving the interest of group G over F 2) misinterprets social conditions and relations between G and F to be necessary in a way in which they are not and 3) on the basis of 2) considers the social conditions and relations between G and F to be legitimate, or at a minimum, acceptable.

II

The net result of ideology is to legitimate social conditions and relations by misrepresenting them as necessary fiats of nature such that they seem legitimate. The legitimation process contributes to maintaining social conditions and relations. There is a general belief in the literature on ideology that science and ideology are incompatible and mutually exclusive features of a theory[11]. Yet, though there is some sense in denying that an ideological theory can be scientific, there is nothing in the descriptions I have given of “functional ideology” and “ideological illusion” to suggest that a scientific theory cannot be ideological in one or the other senses of the term. It is possible for the science or better the interpretation of science to be ideological. Now a possible argument to deny such a claim could be: if the term ideology is used to explain the existence and persistence of a theory, and rational grounds are sufficient for a scientific explanation, then the historical materialist explanation for the existence and pervasion of a theory cannot constitute a scientific explanation, and hence a scientific theory is not ideological. The argument, however, depends on an equivocation of “explanation”, and a confusion of the conditions of existence for P with the epistemic conditions for believing that P i.e. the explanation of science versus a scientific explanation[12]. Hence, a theory may in part exist and be widespread because it sanctions the status quo, and also be objective knowledge in that the theoretician has independent, and fully rational grounds for holding it to be true. A theory may also be unaware and ignorant of the social basis, and yet still also be objective knowledge with regard to say some aspect of the natural world[13].

The denial that science cannot be ideological is related to a certain antiquated vision of the objectivity of science. If the objectivity of science is constituted by inquiry that is 1) value-free 2) not biased by theoretical and/or factual presupposition and 3) which uses intersubjective and reproducible methods that are determinate and independent of the particularities of individuals [14], then there has never been science on earth. It is such a vision that is responsible for producing an incompatibility between all scientific and ideological beliefs. Yet, there is a tension between ideology and science, between the legitimation process and the objectivity of science. After all, if a theory couples functional ideology and ideological illusion to misinterpret social conditions and relations, then there is a possibility the theory will exhibit a bias to limit or exclude beliefs that detract from the “necessity” of social conditions and relations. Hence, such a theory will not systematically ground propositions according to a criterion of objectivity. It is the fact that a theory determines propositions as a function of the legitimation process in some significant way that makes it a pseudo-science. In the following, I give a revised realist account of the objectivity of science in order to show in what ways ideology may violate the criterion, and to better define the conditions under which a theory is considered pseudo-scientific.

Natural science is a process whereby the agents of science work on antecedent knowledge to produce objective knowledge of the causal mechanisms generating phenomenon. The objectivity of such knowledge should, prima facie , be interpreted to mean that the theory corresponds to something real. The objectivity of such a theory is to be judged on a theoretical criterion of internal consistency, and external explanitoriness, with a practical criterion of the manipulation of the causal mechanism to produce expected outcomes. There exists a feedback loop between theoretical and practical knowledge in science such that given theory T asserts method M can generate effect X in virtue of the fact that M activates causal-mechanism C_1,……C_n which according to T brings about X, and the generation of expected effect X is justified by the fact that theory T is objective and corresponds to something real. For example, in the process of experimentation the biologist observes that short-term malnourishment is antecedent to a series of events in which T-cells migrate to the marrow to become more adept at dealing with pathogens, and isolates the workings of this migration-mechanism. If the biologist can use the knowledge of the migration-mechanism (minus malnourishment) to produce a therapy that has the effect of strengthening the immune-system, then the justification of such success is the objectivity of the theory of that mechanism within the immune-system. There are two aspects of this preliminary account of the objectivity of theory that I want to turn to: 1) the abductive justification for affirming the objectivity of theory and 2) the concept of a causal mechanism.

The objectivity of theory is an inference to the best explanation (IBE or abduction) of the empirical success of the corollary methods determined by a theory, since to argue that it is either no or not the best explanation of such a success is to posit that it is a (continuous) “cosmic coincidence” that the theory and method correlated with the expected outcome. Such a defense of the objectivity of theory is known as the no-miracles argument (NMA), which employs the inference-rule of the IBE to derive the conclusion that the best explanation of the empirical success and instrumental reliability of a theory is the attribute of objectivity.

There is a major objection to the NMA that such a defense of the objectivity of theory by the no-miracles argument (NMA) itself depends on the reliability of IBE, and hence is a viciously circular argument. I would like to briefly suggest a strategy to refute the charge that such a defense is viciously circular and is no explanation of the empirical success of theory, leaving the question of alternative explanations to the side.

A circular argument is one that assumes the truth of what is trying to be proved i.e. the conclusion p’ is identical to or a mere rephrasing of the premise p’.          Yet, the fact that the premise is the same as the conclusion is not a sufficient condition to attribute a kind of invalidating circularity to the argument. In order for the circular argument to be invalid it must offer reasons for accepting a conclusion, in which the reasons include accepting the sentence itself as premise i.e. it is a “premise-circular” argument that offers an argument for p’ by accepting the truth of p’, and hence has minimal probative force. However, there is another form of circularity that is not necessarily invalidating. The circular argument begins with premise p’ and then by using inference rule I, it derives the conclusion q’. However, q’ has the logical predicate that it asserts or implies the use of R is reliable i.e. it is a “rule-circular” argument in which the argument is an instance of the inference-rule confirmed by the conclusion.

The NMA asserts the empirical success of some theory and its corollary method, then using IBE it is concluded that the theory is objective. The truth of the conclusion is part of a sufficient condition for accepting the IBE as reliable, so that the argument is not “premise-circular” because its conclusion is not in the premise. Yet this seems to suggest vicious circularity since in order to use the inference rule we must first presuppose the conclusion to be true, and in order to derive the conclusion to be true we must first presuppose the reliability of the inference-rule. Yet, it is not necessarily the case that the rule must first be proven reliable before it is used e.g. it is not necessary to prove the reliability of modus-ponens before it is used and considered reliable in argument and forms of thought in science should not be limited to some contemporary logic and understanding of deductive truth-preservation. An externalist conception of proof and non-deductivist understanding of scientific inference simply requires us to accept that the rule is reliable and that it not fulfill the requirements of deductive truth-preservation. For instance, modus-ponens is used because there is no reason to doubt that it is a reliable inference-rule, and it is not possible to give a proof of the reliability of modus-ponens which itself is not in a meta-language presupposing deductive, and truth-preserving inference-rules. Hence, it is just the truth of the premise together with the conclusion of a rule-circular argument entails the reliability of the rule.

The hardest term that I fear I will not be able to deal with fully here, since it requires a full-length treatment of explanation and causation, is the concept of a causal mechanism. The value of the term lies in the way it is counterpoised to the regularity account. Unlike the regularity account, such a term points to the resolution of the aporia of causal necessity. I use regularity account in a very general sense that applies to most post-Humean accounts of causation. The hard-core of the regularity account is that the range of the causal-relation is co-extensive with “perceivable events” and is a relation of spatio-temporal contiguity and succession between perceived events in which having repeatedly perceived event of kind A followed by events of kind B, allow one to make the inductive-inference from perceiving A to perceiving B. Causal- reasoning and talk of necessity is just inductive generalization couched in deductive terms, and science consists in the inductive generalization of phenomenal regularities[15] . The various D-N, INUS, counter-factual accounts of causation have retained the hard core of Hume’s notion of causal knowledge as inductive generalization, hence presupposing that the causal relation is an empirical connection- a connection between events in which we are passive spectators. From such a presupposition, it would be valid to claim no such “causal necessity” can be experienced first-hand. Yet, without such a presupposition it is possible to better approach questions of causation, and causal necessity[16].

I have in part already presupposed my account of causal mechanism in speaking of the persistent tendencies of a system in conjunction with historical materialist explanation. A persistent tendency of a system was considered a disposition such that it is relatively immune to conditions external to the system and makes an essential contribution to the survival of the system. Yet, such a definition is restricted to what could be called “teleological systems” in which the system realizes certain tendencies not simply as a matter of fact, but as a condition of it’s existence. An organism is such a “teleological system” in which the tendency to consume is an essential condition for it’s survival. A more general account of a causal mechanism is that it is a causal–relation between tendencies or dispositional features of a system of individuals, and a causal-relation is simply an active relation between tendencies or dispositions of individuals within a system.

A tendency or disposition puts an absolute limit on the possible interactions between individuals within a system, but are not necessary properties and relations which must be instantiated in each and every case. If a tendency or dispositional property P of x entails that it is not the case that x must be P, but entails that it is the case that x must be P in potentia [17], then a causal relation R between objects x which is P and y which is Q is not an empirical relation between perceivable events in which xRy is instantiated in each case in which x is P or y is Q. Rather it is an objective relation between the tendencies or dispositional properties of individuals and presupposes that the tendency or disposition be activated by a stimulus condition in such a closed system which minimizes the effect of interfering conditions.

There are two ways to better clarify the proposition that “the tendencies or dispositional property P of x necessarily exists in potential’. The first interpretation is simply given the identity-criterion I of x, to analyze the tendency or disposition P of x as a possibility-statement i.e. if x is I, only if it is possible for x to be P. Yet, to consider a dispositional property to be a possible feature of x, is simply to take it as contingent, or as having obtained in at least one case in the domain of the actual world. There is any number of non-tendential features or non-dispositional properties fulfilling the semantic-condition and such an interpretation must take tendencies or dispositions to be continuously active. To specify the interpretation: given the identity criterion I of x, to analyze the dispositional property P of x is to state x is I only if under set of suitable conditions C, x would manifests property P and without the set of suitable conditions it would not, and that there may be either an external system and its tendencies and dispositions or an internal tendency or disposition of the same system which account for it not being activated in some causal process to produce some phenomenal regularity.

The part of the statement that includes the subjunctive conditional is key.      A suitable condition for a tendency or disposition is a stimulus condition that in part accounts for the activation of a disposition. In parallel, there are latency conditions that could cancel out the stimulus and account for the non-activation of a disposition. For instance, if walking is taken to be a disposition of John, and we know he is disposed to walk when he is feeling morose, and does not walk when he is feeling happy, then the analysis of his disposition would take the form that if he were morose he would walk, and if he were not morose, he would not walk. The stimulus-condition(s) can be confirmed empirically in an experiment whose function it is to isolate and minimizes conditions that would cancel the stimulus or exclude the exercise of the tendency or disposition. In such a controlled environment, it would be possible to confirm the material implication form of the subjunctive-conditional.

It is necessary here to take into account that a theory of a causal mechanism is a closed-system. Yet, the world which science inquires into is an open-system in which a multitude of differing kinds of mechanisms operate in conjunction to produce phenomenon. Hence, a tendency or disposition of a system may exist and yet the mechanism responsible for a phenomenal regularity may be inhibited by a counter-veiling tendency or interfering condition, so that a real mechanism may be active, active unperceived, or inactive. A thought-experiment or experiment is a means of isolating a mechanism and assuring the minimization of counter-veiling or interfering conditions. Hence, the “necessity” of the causal-relation, the fact that the theory is objective and corresponds to something that endures and is relatively stable outside the experiment, is an abductive-inference from the empirical success of experimentation in isolating a closed-system and its tendencies and dispositions.

To revaluate the scheme of science that I gave above “… process whereby the agents of science .. produce objective knowledge of causal mechanisms” simply translates to : science discovers the tendencies and dispositional properties of individuals, and attempts to understand the possible causal relations between these dispositional properties, as well as the conditions of stimulus and latency for the mechanism. A theory of a causal mechanism focuses on a closed-system and the point of experiment, or thought-experiment, is to isolate that system such as to discover its tendencies and dispositions. Such an account of science allows us to understand the dual-criterion of objectivity with a greater degree of clarity.

Now that we have a better understanding of the objectivity of theory, a criterion of objectivity that does not a priori exclude science from being ideological, let us clarify the relation between science and pseudo-science. Science is the production of knowledge about causal mechanisms such that its value is determined both by theoretical considerations, and practical considerations of realizing certain outcomes. Hence, we can better substantiate the distinction between science and pseudo-science. The paradigmatic case of science would be theory that fulfills the dual-criterion, and which does not have the effect of distorting social relations in such a way as to legitimate them. Pseudo-science is theory that does not fulfill either one of aspects of the criterion, i.e. neither comprehends causal mechanisms nor their use, and which is ideological in the sense that it distorts social relations in such a way as to legitimate them. In fact, pseudo-science is unscientific because the influence of ideology on the formation of theory.

III

The dual-criterion of objectivity applies to both natural and historical knowledge[18]. It is often thought that historical knowledge is nothing more than the description of a continuum of events, and that a historical explanation is just to explain some given event in terms of past events. Yet, the historian does not simply describe a career of events, which anyways is a basic and general form of explanation applicable to history just as much as to evolutionary biology. Instead, much like a scientist is thought to, a historian also tries to understand the relevant mechanisms at play in history, and such knowledge is used to bring about certain outcomes[19]. Yet, there are significant differences between a natural and historical mechanism. If a causal mechanism for some given system is an active relation between the dispositional properties and relations of individuals, then a historical mechanism must presuppose some relevant class of systems with its specific dispositional properties. Yet, it is not immediately evident what that set is or the kind of disposition at hand. After all it is common to assume that history is something that is not distinct from nature in the actual world, so that it would be difficult to demarcate a class of “historical” from a class of “natural” systems, and just as confused to differentiate “historical” from “natural” mechanisms. The difficulty then is a general one of differentiating “human history” from “nature”.

Often times the specificity of the historical is marked off by suggesting that historical entities are simply material entities which have observer-dependent features, and hence exist as a function of consciousness even if the matter of their existence can exceed the attitude of any given individual. Yet, such an account of a history, though it admits of the possibility that historical features are an objective state of affairs in the sense of not-depending on any given individuals ideation,         is subjectivist to the core[20]. A commodity is a physical object that exchanges for money, but such an exchange-value does not exist ex nihlio. The value requires the existence of a system of production just as much as the ideation of agents, so that the claim that the historical object, or the historical aspect of the object, exists because of consciousness cannot be taken without qualification. I fear that “exists as a function of consciousness” is not sufficient to demarcate a historical system from a natural, nor a historical from a natural mechanism. Instead, it is better to understand that a historical mechanism is socially-relative.

I suggest that when we speak of a historical system, we are speaking not so much of a continuum of events, or mind-dependent objects and features, but of the development of human society, a complex development which presupposes social just as much as natural conditions (physical, chemical, biological, geographical, economic, ideological etc.). Let us claim that the specific contribution which history makes is not simply to identify the combination and interaction of heterogeneous mechanisms accounting for an event or a course of events, but above all to account for the event or course in terms of socially-relative historical mechanisms. The temporal difference between a natural and social mechanism is that a natural mechanism exists in potential or is an active causal-relation for all societies at each and every moment in @, unless it can be assumed that at some point in the past the nomological statements of physics differed. The mechanism of a historical system is a active relation between tendencies or dispositional properties for a specific kind of society, and hence is relative to the duration of the social form. The mechanisms that obtain of a historical system at one moment may no longer apply at another moment, so that in this way historical knowledge resembles biology, which also takes as its object the development of systems, in which discontinuities in the series between kinds of being change the relevant mechanisms under study. In short, different kinds of societies presuppose different historical mechanisms, so that a historical mechanisms changes as a function of the social form. It is the transience of a historical mechanism and social form that is the differentia specifica of human history versus nature.

It is the fact of the differing social organization between social forms that imposes distinct dispositional properties and persistent tendencies to the system.            Take “feudalism” versus “capitalism”, feudalism is based on a mode of production in which the immediate producer i.e. the serf – partially owns the means of production, and the liege appropriates a part of the product of labor in the form of a tithe. As a function of such an organization of the labor-process, the system will exhibit certain distinct global tendencies and dispositions as opposed to capitalism. For instance in feudalism the immediate producer will remain a quasi-independent producer, and the social form will not exhibit technological dynamism. In capitalism, the immediate producer will become an employee and the disposition to maximize profit in the accumulation of capital will account for the technological dynamism of the social form[21]. Of course we can ask if there are transhistorical mechanisms and disposition. Yet, even though such a thing is possible, I contend it only serves an epistemic purpose of comparing social forms. If a transhistorical mechanism is identified then the only conclusion that can be made is that we have an explanation for all kinds of societies, but if the work of history is to inquire into the development of specific social forms, then such an explanation is not applicable in explaining say feudalism versus capitalism, much less the transition from feudalism to capitalism. In fact, the abuse of universal generalizations in place of historical tendencies is a central aspect of ideological history, an issue that I will speak of later in section IV[22].

Historical knowledge would then be the knowledge of the distinction and interaction between heterogeneous kinds of historical mechanisms where emphasis is put on accounting for the development of a human society by the identification and analysis of transient mechanisms unique and relative to the social form.

IV

We are now prepared to discuss the distinction between science and ideology, science and pseudo-science, as applied to concept of the “representative agent” in the theory of demand in neo-classical economics. I will assume that neo-classical economics is a historical science despite all appearances to the contrary[23].

The “representative agent” is a fundamental concept of the theory of demand that derives from the philosophical notion of human beings as rational agents.     Such a notion corresponds to a generalization made about the rationality and purposive behavior of any given human agent. The two guiding-principles characterizing the putative agent are 1) the optimization principle: such that for subject S given an income m, S will always choose the bundle of goods (x_1, x₂) at prices (P₁, P₂ ) that  maximizes utility and 2) the equilibrium principle: such that prices (P₁, P₂ ) adjust until the amount (x_1, x₂) demanded equals the amount supplied[24] . It is this first principle that is so obviously non-scientific, and I will argue is ideological illusion that acts as functional ideology i.e. serves to limit the beliefs of the theory as a function of legitimation[25].

It is not scientific because such a generalization does not identify an historical mechanism, and makes no distinction between social forms. As a matter of fact, such an ahistorical generalization attempts to confuse the transience of social forms and historical mechanisms, and is meant to imitate some kind of natural law. It is all well and great to say that given an income, which is obviously not a necessary, nor inevitable, economic category, that humans are motivated by the desire to maximize utility. But that refers to absolutely nothing specific in history, and the only way to make it relevant across history is to be able to argue that there is an ahistorical standard of “utility” (which generally means reducing human motivation to hedonism[26] [27]). The best such a principle can do is show how people always act “for the good” or “for pleasure and to minimize pain” based on differing and contradictory concepts of “utility”, unless the concept is reduced to a “felicific calculus”. For instance, in an agricultural society with a low degree of productivity, can it be said that the product of labor is “income”, and that such a society has the same conception of “utility” as our own? Hence, the concept of a representative agent does not point to a socially-relative historical disposition and cannot explain social evolution insofar as it cannot comprehend the difference and uniqueness of each social form.

Yet, it the case that such a generalization legitimates the present social conditions and relations and has strong influence in shaping and forming the theory. The generalization confounds the specific contemporary case with a necessary property of all human societies. In other words, the generalization about rationality and utility-maximization only makes sense in the current form of society, in which the owner of capital is motivated to maximize profit. Hence, the anachronistic representation of social conditions and relations can only reinforce the belief that such a social form is legitimate, since it has and always will be as such.

This characteristic dependence on ahistorical generalization, in which no genuine historical mechanism is identified, and in which the confusion of current for necessary conditions means that economic theory cannot fulfill the dual-criterion of objectivity. Hence, it will show continuous deficits in being able to intervene in the course of events to produce an expected outcome. The lack of objectivity, in conjunction with the ideological pressure exerted on the theory, account for recent events. For instance, the inability to understand the specific and persistent capitalist tendency of profit-maximization, and the consequent tendency of the rate of profit to fall in competition, has meant that economic theory is not able to theorize the general causes of capitalist crisis, and hence has been unable to counter-act the recession and it’s legacy. The misrepresentation of human rationality precludes knowledge of the socially-relative and central role of profit-maximization and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as significant reasons for such cyclical booms and crises, since according to most neo-classical economics the two principles above imply a continuous or nearly permanent equilibrium in which for the price-theory the tendency of equalization is already presupposed in what is known as “normal profit” (the opportunity cost which is the hypothetical profit to which a capitalist is entitled in a situation in which the rate of profit is presupposed equal across sectors). Hence, the theory excludes efforts consecrated to either eliminating the tendency altogether or else boosting corporate profit. For theoretical and political reasons, various economic agencies have utilized a program of quantitative easing which constitutes minimal fiscal intervention (QE). These programs have not counter-acted the weakness of the profit-rate, and the impact of QE on growth has been close to 0. Hence certain “hard” economic indicators like investment and growth have not recovered to pre-recession rates.

As the neo-classical theory of demand includes and is based on a fundamental concept which is not historically specific, and is ideological in the broad sense of misrepresenting and legitimating the social conditions and relations to be natural fiats, it is a paradigm case of pseudo-science. Hence, such a theory will abhor any competing theory which takes up the inherent inconstancy of social forms, and will tend to eliminate historical considerations altogether from the domain of its consideration. Today, there is no field whose theory, agenda and methods are as ahistorical and affected by ideology, as neo-classical economics.

Notes

[1] In society today, what is considered science gains a certain priority and the means of research. What is considered science depends very much on the state of the economy and politics. A very good case of this is shown in the work “Freud and the Bolsheviks: Psychoanalysis in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union” by Martin A. Miller. Miller shows how changes in the leadership of the Russian Communist Party and state of the USSR affect the place of psychoanalysis in Russia. In the beginning of the construction of the Soviet State, the Communist Party at large expresses ambivalent positions concerning psychoanalysis. However, some of the leadership believes it to be a scientific enterprise of great practical import. Hence, for a period in the early twenties psychoanalysis has enough support from the state to exist in the academia and make certain practical gains e.g. in 1921 a psychoanalyst by the name of Vera Schmitt opened up the Detski Dom Laboratory, a school based on the principles of psychoanalysis. Yet, by the late 1920’s the Stalinist wing of the party armed with a crude naturalist criterion of science had won out, and such adventures were soon forbidden. Psychoanalysis was subjected to a witch-hunt and expelled from academia.

[2] The notion of an empirical basis often has to do with verificationism i.e. that a statement is meaningful iff it is either analytic or synthetic. Verificationism itself depends on the presupposition that either statement can be confirmed or disconfirmed by indirect or direct observation. The first account is confirmative, the second falsificationist. Hence, an empirical basis is simply that set of observational-statements that confirm or disconfirm a theory. For an account of confirmative verificationism, the work “The Structure of Scientific Theories” has a critical introduction by Frederick Suppe, which has informed my formulation. It is the best explication of the positivist account of science and the naïve and confirmative verificationism (Suppe, 3-118). For an account of falsificationism, consult the essay “Falsification and The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes” by Emre Lakatos.

[3] I define the “stronger than” relation in the following terms: a theory T is stronger than theory Y only if the T-statements of both theories range over the same extension as the O- statements, but in which Y is a proper sub-set of T. Hence, the history of science can be represented as an ordered series of theories based on the “stronger than” relation. Such an idea might have a certain appeal. After, all it might seem implausible that science cannot be judged based on the comprehensiveness of its explanations. It would seem that empirical strength should be a necessary quality in judging one theory over another to be scientific and the history of science has exhibited the replacement of theories by more comprehensive and unified theories that gain in increasing precision of explanation and prediction. Yet, such a statement about science conflates the empirical strength of a novel and mature theory, or what Kuhn calls “normal science”. Copernicus’s theory was at first weaker with relation to the existing astronomical data than the contending Ptolemaic theory. If such a conservative-criterion of the necessity of empirical strength is universally upheld as a sort of ideal of scientific practice, then can it not be argued that in the beginning phase of the helio-centric theory it was justified for the astronomers of that era to reject the helio-centric theory as not scientific?

[4] Notably in the early work of Marx including “Critique of the Philosophy of Right”, “The German Ideology”, “The Holy Family”.

[5] In the work “Karl Marx: Arguments of the Philosophers”, Allen Wood disambiguates the term “ideology” in the work of Marx. He disambiguates three meanings, but I have adopted only two because the third “historical idealism” is not relevant for my purposes, and refers to the belief, or anything presupposing such a belief, that ideas are the cause of social phenomenon and historical change. This does not exclude that historical idealism can be related to the other two meanings and in fact Wood does an excellent job of showing how they often interact to contribute to the most basic function of ideology, which is the legitimation of social conditions and relations (Wood, 118-121).

[6] Such a treatment of historical materialist explanation is provisional. There is a debate on the kinds of explanation applied to history. There is an attempt to argue that history presupposes one or another kind of explanation i.e. either genetic or teleological. Both kinds of explanation are applied to inanimate as animate systems. A teleological explanation explains the existence of something with reference to its function (or dysfunction) within a system. Often, the system involved is thought to exhibit certain tendencies that contribute to either a condition of persistence or an equilibrium state. The necessity attributed to such explanation is grounded on the argument that such a function (or dysfunction) makes an essential contribution to the condition of persistence or equilibrium state. Genetic explanation explains the existence of a system with reference to past systems and features. The explanation seeks to set out the series of events through which a previous system is transformed into a future system. The necessity attributed to the events included will be determined by a given criterion of causal relevance to the transformation of the system. Yet, in reality historical materialism presupposes both a problem of historical structure and transformation. Hence, its explanation would not presuppose a disjunction of teleological and historical explanation. In fact, historical materialism first specifies the sort of system under consideration. The system is a social structure that exhibits certain persistent tendencies that account for its existence and transformation, not simply a continuum of historical events. Teleological explanation is then used to explain the function of something for a given social structure by the relation it shares in contributing to (or detracting from) persistent tendencies. Genetic explanation is then used to explain the transformation of one social structure with reference to the previous social structure and its persistent tendencies. It is possible for the tendency of social structure to be an essential condition of persistence at one moment, and a condition of destruction at another given the overall transformation of a social structure. For instance, the social structure of Russian capitalism and the Tsarist state in the turn of the 20^th century meant that a previously agrarian population was being slowly but surely proletarianized. The proletarianization of labor promoted the efforts of Russian industrialists, financiers, to develop Russian capitalism. Russian capitalism was always backed by the Tsarist state, with its credit-connection to French banks such as Credit Immobilier. Needless to say with the onset of World War I this same industrial work-force was the most vigorous opponent of the Tsarist state. At one moment proletarianization is a tendency that contributes to Russian capitalism and state, and at another it is a condition of destruction of the state and of capitalist power.

[7] Both Peter Railton and Allen Wood agree that the term ideology is part of a materialist explanation of ideas, in the sense that the term explains the existence and pervasion of an idea by imputing to it a “legitimating-function”. In the “German Ideology” Marx says: “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”, which are “nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships”(Marx, 64). In “Marx and the Objectivity of Science”, Railton considers that “what is meant by ideal expression is revealed when he argues the ruling ideas have a legitimating-function: a ruling class must “represent its interests as the common interest ..[give] it’s ideas the form of universality and represent them as the only rational, universally valid ones”” (Marx, 65-66) (Railton, 813). I owe both the description of materialist explanation, and the distinction between different meanings of the term “ideology” to the work “Karl Marx: Arguments of the Philosophers” by Wood.

[8] “Engels even asserts flatly that in order to be ideology, a belief or form of consciousness must be unaccompanied by any awareness of its own [social] basis… We normally apply the term “illusion” only to positive errors, not merely for gaps of ignorance, even self-ignorance… But Marx obviously thinks that this ideological self-ignorance is often supportive of many “illusions” in a more straightforward sense. As long as they are ignorant of the fact that their beliefs are socially prevalent on account of the social function that beliefs fulfill , people are likely to think that these beliefs are so widespread because they are justified. “ (Wood, 120-121).

[9] Of course it would be possible to make such a normative statement like “the law of gravity unfair”. It would be difficult to come up with grounds for a normative statement about something that cannot be changed by any kind of human action, in contexts in which such a statement would have sense, it is generally the relation of gravity to some human situation which accounts for its unfairness. At the minimum thought, it would be difficult to make a normative statement proscribing some kind of rectifying action. Hence, it would be equally moot to make a normative and proscriptive statement against a hypothetically immutable feature of society if it is impossible to change by human action.

[10] I have been speaking of “system of ideas” and “ideas” and see no problem of “substituting” theory.     I perform the substitution since my ultimate concern is to apply my analysis of ideology to theory and the items of theory e.g. concepts, propositions etc.. I suppose the major problem with such a move is a system of ideas or an idea is not the same kind of thing as a theory, for a theory is true or false independent of human consciousness , which does not necessarily seem to be the case for system of ideas or an idea.

[11] For instance in GA Cohen’s work “Karl Marx’s Theory of History” he argues that in the work of Marx “it is a defining property of ideology that it is unscientific (Cohen, 46).

[12] In the introduction to “Foundations of Arithmetic” by Gottlieb Frege, Frege argues against all pyschologism in defining the foundations of mathematics. He contends that a mathematical concept of number is not a statement about things, nor is it a statement about the human thinking process. It is neither “material nor ideal” and is objective in the sense of being mind-independent. Hence, to try to define number by means of describing it as a psychological process does nothing to ground knowledge. It is here that I read the distinction between the conditions of existence and knowledge in which a condition of existence is neither necessary nor sufficient to ground or justify knowledge, but may nonetheless explain its existence and pervasion by allusion to its social function.

[13] I can think of a case for the first possibility. There is a certain engineering technique that is discovered. Only the ruling-class however has the means of using it and implements it to build private condominiums which increases their wealth. This is not so different from the way capital uses scientific advancements today, as theoretical knowledge can only be operationalized by those with the resources (vaccines, immunological therapies etc. are extremely expensive to produce even if the majority of the knowledge needed to produce such commodities was government-sponsored). A case for the second possibility is Darwin. Exegesis of Darwin’s work reveals influences from Malthus, and the Malthussian- Hobbseian notion of a competition for survival applied to the biological process of evolution. Hence, no matter how scientific Darwinian evolutionary theory is, it is also influenced by a belief about society that promotes ignorance of the social basis and naturalizes historical conflicts. See Panekoek “Marxism and Darwinism” for a demonstration of the Malthusian influences on Darwinism : https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1912/marxism darwinism.htm

[14] Railton, 815

[15] Hume further reduces such a cognitive relation to a synthesis of perceptions of similar or dissimilar qualities by the imaginative faculty. Such a notion of causation is a function of a wider positivist ontological position which is still strong in robust ways. For instance, David Lewis accepts that reality, at least @ is a “ vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact, just one little thing and then another” (Lewis, 1986b, ix). I see only minute difference between such a statement and the Humean notion of reality, for both take sensations as fundamental to ontology.

[16] I fear my talk of mechanisms, dispositional properties, in short causation, will be the weakest aspect of the paper. I wish I could say more on the aporias which inflict a regularity account. Bhaskar “A Realist Theory of Science” and “Chakravarty “Causal Realism: Events and Processes” provides arguments against such an empirical account of causation. These two papers give different strategies for showing the aporia. With Bhaskar, the argument is fundamentally that such a notion of cause-effect which considers the range of the relation to be exhausted by sensations is fundamentally subjectivist and anthropomorphic. It also lands itself in its own traps, in a sort of intellectual conundrum of its own making. If causation is such a relation gleaned off the text of reality, then in order for it to have “necessity” and be more than a mere accidental connection, then the relation between event A and event B must always be instantiated and perceived, or instantiated and perceived relative to the probabilities ascribed to each event. If that is the case, then there has simply never been a causal-connection. The conclusion is skepticism of causal-talk as of talk of science discovering causal mechanisms. Against such an account Bhaskar counterposes an account of science, and then interprets a causal-connection to be the result of scientific practice, the discovery of a causal mechanism through experimentation, which allows for the control and production of phenomenal regularities. Necessity means nothing less than the fact that as a result of scientific practice we know a causal connection endures as a real power between things, hence as a possibility which need not be instantiated or perceived. A hypothetical mechanism need not be perceived for it to be admitted as plausible, for in the history of science mechanisms which are unperceivable one day, becomes manifest, or ostensive in effect, at a future date. A hypothetical mechanism need not be instantiated for it to be considered an enduring connection, because the mechanisms discovered by science do not operate in isolation, but can be affected by counter-acting powers and tendencies. Chakravarty takes another direction and makes an argument that the issue of such a notion of causation is that it is impossible to come up with a criterion of discreteness for events, so that in the continuum of a process G , it is impossible to demarcate for some time-duration (T_i –T_x) a discrete event A called “cause” , and for some later time-duration a discrete event B called “effect” for G. There are fundamental ambiguities in such an account that call for greater elucidation before they are presupposed without argument. Necessity here seems to be an intensional-relation between the properties of individuals.

[17] Bhaskar gives a materialist interpretation to the term “tendency” which has been useful in devising my own preliminary account of “disposition” (Bhaskar, 163-169). Essentially, the account the process of science is hypothesis and experimentation, in which the result is to explain the complex and structured phenomenon of our world in terms of different levels of powers and tendencies inhering in things. Hence, a causal connection between things is inassimilable to the empirical connection of actual phenomenal regularities. What this means is for some object x which exhibits some “fundamental” property e.g. physical, chemical, biological etc. where x can presuppose a finite list or total list of fundamental properties, x is to be explained by distinguishing and interrelating different kinds of powers attributable to x at different levels. To understand the chemical aspect of the object called 2 NaCl + Hu2 , an explanation could be to understand the process of reaction that produces these molecules. 2HCl + 2 Na → 2 NaCl + Hu2 represents a chemical process and enduring reaction-relation, a chemical process which itself presupposes physical processes. Hence an explanation would not simply explain the chemical object by the reaction-relation inhering in between the elements but also by relating and grounding such an account to the 1) a theory of atomic number and valencey 2) a theory of electrons and atomic structure and 3) some competing account of sub-atomic processes (Bhaskar, 163-169).

[18] When I use “historical” I mean all “social” knowledge, all of the knowledge specifically produced about human society including but not limited to “economics, sociology, political science, history” etc. I consider the social sciences to be historical in the sense that they are attempting to discover the interaction of different kinds of mechanisms on the course of events and of human action, and above all focuses on the contribution of a kind of social mechanism to the evolution of a society.

[19] It might not be obvious that the historian produces knowledge to affect some outcome. Yet, though the connection might not be relevant for the historian, historical knowledge is used to affect the course of social evolution. The connection in general between the theoretician’s theory and the layman’s theory is hidden by the fact that in our kind of society those theories are distinguished in the division of production, so that it is not entirely evident based on a prima facie criterion of observation that the scientist, or historian actively engage in attempting to produce expected outcomes outside of the laboratory or academic space. But sometimes it is quite evident that theory is instrumental to producing certain outcomes. Take the example an economist like Bernanke, who is a prominent historian of the great-depression, and has used his knowledge of the causes and mechanisms of recession to guide his policy on monetary policy at the FED.

[20] Given there is great ambiguity in the phrase “historical features exist as a function of consciousness”. This statement could imply that a historical feature could exist independently of the consciousness of an individual. Hence, what is meant here is something like “historical features exist as a function of social consciousness”. But then how do you describe “social “ consciousness? Is it simply the sum of the ideation of individuals? Could you conceive of eliminating the awareness of individuals and still have a social reality? If this is taken to mean that there are no human beings then to demarcate material from historical features is just to presuppose that material things only exist in a world without humans. The issue is there is a confusion of social reality, with a crude notion of social consciousness. It seems to me that people can be unaware of a social reality or feature, that nonetheless regulates their lives, and which owes its existence just as much on the relational activity between humans, as on the sum and interrelation of individual thinking-processes. This relational-activity e.g. production is in part responsible for explaining the specific world of objects humans inhabit (Searle, 1-31).

[21] Let us say that the social organization of a social form is a structure of differing levels (economic, political, ideological) that are combined and interrelated in the course of historical development.     Each level is constituted by a kind of relation inhering between people, and is a system of such relations. Such a system exhibits persistent-tendencies and makes possible – as well as limits – human action and exhibits persistent-tendencies. For instance, feudalism is an economic structure based on the relation of serf to liege. Such a system presupposes a low-development of the means of production and severely limits the possible actions of both classes and individuals. Eric Hobsbawn has shown that for the average English peasants, as with Kant, that people did not move much more than a 20 km radius from their place of birth. Such a system lacks the impetus to develop the means of production, and technological and practical possibilities. For, the relation of serf to liege is one in which the latter has dominion by force and land. Hence, there is no mechanism like capital accumulation that has the net effect of continuously and systematically revolutionizing the means of production to further competition and profit-rates.

[22] “An abstract law of population exists for plants and animals only, and in so far as man has not interfered with them”. Marx realizes the specific transience and relativity of historical mechanisms and dispositions For him, the denial by economists of such transient and relative mechanisms, the fetishism of universal laws of social behavior and historical evolution, is to engage not simply in ideological talk, but in logical fallacies altogether. For the consequence of the use of universal laws in economics is to premise e.g. that production in general must exist, the issue that they take the specific mechanisms and dispositions of the present age as the general concept, and hence go from banal statements like “there must be production” to a specific inference of the form “there must be a specific form of production. The favorite inference of neo-classical economists is to from such a general statement about e.g. property to conclude that private property must exist. This is either a banality or a logical fallacy. Either we equivocate the meaning of property in general to mean the specific form of private property, in which case we are really only making the inference from “private property must exist” to “private property must exist”. Or else, you take the meaning of property in general to exclude the specific forms of property, in which case it is an invalid inference from the general existence of property to the existence of a specific form.

[23] “The subject matter of economics is essentially a unique process in history” (Schumpeter, 12).

[24] Any mainstream introductory economics course will presuppose these fundamental principles, though the formulation may change. I have adapted the specific formulation from Varian’s “Intermediate Microeconomics” (Varian, 3-22).

[25] Varian tries to say that such a statement is “almost” a tautology. It can be argued such a generalization about human-behavior is ideological illusion. The notion of the human being as a rational agent has varied across time and space, as the character of rationality has changed based on the ends proscribed by natural and social factors. Yet, to say that rationality has always been about utility-maximization is either to state something banal, or to make a controversial move.                   The controversial move is to reduce human rationality and purposive behavior to being directed towards biological pleasure, and disinclined from biological pain. The goal is to posses an ahistorical standard of utility to which all rational agents are directed. Yet, such an abstract principle falls into terrible aporias faced with the actual content of history. It is the case that the criterion of utility differs based on the form of society, and it would be possible to generate countless examples where one societies pain is another societies pleasure. Hence, often times the neo-classical and mainstream economist is a utilitarian in ethics.

[26] I have spoken of the principle of “utility”-maximization above in connection with utilitarianism. The best example of someone trying to reduce all utility to biological sensation is Benthem.                 In fact, Benthem presents us with the most extreme reduction of utility in the “felicific calculus”.             The felicific calculus is an algorithm which given an action computes the quantity of utility or pleasure on the basis of a set of variables. The number of logical and philosophical issues such a theory of utility presents are too great to list here. But the most striking issue to me is the reduction of subjective qualities to objective quantities. Each variable e.g. “intensity” , “duration” is applied to “pleasure”, so that the utilitarian and hedonistic conception of motivation is already presupposed.

[27] Furthermore Anwar Shaik has shown that the concept of a “representative” agent -what he calls “hyper-rationality”- is actually completely superfluous for the theory. All the results of micro and macro economics can be accomplished without this unrealistic conception of human rationality and behavior. The motivation to guard and establish a theory on such an extreme concept therefore cannot owe itself to purely “technical issues” of deriving “successful” or “empirical” results.

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Ruben’s “Marx and Materialism” is a pretty good book, but the author engages in a lot of bad-faith with other authors.

For instance, he criticizes Fisk for saying something like “practice determines truth”. Seeing as Ruben is willing to make a hundred distinctions, disambiguations to save Marx’s or his own writing, why can he not do the same with Fisk?

It is pretty obvious what Fisk is getting at when he makes such a statement, and indeed it is important since Fisk really tracks what is specific to a Marxist theory of knowledge ( besides activism, social realism etc.). He is not saying that ontologically, human thought or practice determines the existence, character and relations of the object, but that epistemically it is necessary to engage in practice – not pure contemplation- in order to identify the truth of a piece of purported knowledge. Hence, no apriori language by itself can guarantee the truth of such and such a piece of knowledge, no truth about the natural or social world can be deduced from some axiomatic ,but must be contingently discovered by a posteriori methods and languages that reflect the structure of reality. Practice e.g. an experiment- is the criterion- the test- of the objectivity of theory. This is a thought old and persistent in Marxism (look at Bukharin’s introductory address in “Sciences at the Crossroads”. Ruben goes against the whole tradition of the “union of theory and practice” in which practice is a final-criterion of objectivity, truth of knowledge.)

Fisk is making a statement about truth on the side of epistemology- what allows humans to identify the truth of their knowledge- while Ruben attacks him on the side of ontology, charging him with an anti-realist ontology vis-a-vis the truth i.e. that truth radically depends on human cognition and praxis . I don’t get this lack of generosity in interpreting others.

Overall, this is an excellent book. It is a strong representative of the interactions between Marxism and analytic philosophy.

https://www.amazon.com/Marxism-Materialism-Marxist-Theory-Knowledge/dp/0855275707/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1524085048&sr=8-5&keywords=hillel+ruben

Science is not a ideal process absolutely distinguished from and unaffected by the general historical and social process.

It is a social activity occurring in space and time and subject , yet epistemically irreducible, to the class-struggle. As something conditioned by the class-struggle, science takes the form of an ideological struggle over the way the world is and how it should be. In the ideological struggle, the determinant of whether science criticizes and revises its ideological errors is not solely a function of scientific method and rationality. It is also determined by the intervention and fight to subject what seems to be , at a given historical moment of science, “a plausible” scientific fiction to social and philosophical critique in such a way as to contribute to a shift of current within the “enclosed” scientific community. Du Bois is a perfect example of someone who waged a philosophical and scientific struggle to refute pseduo-science, and most importantly pernicious ideology.

Marxists have always fought against pseudo-science which promotes certain ends and interests, whether it is “race science” or a reductionist “sex-materialism”.

Read this article. It shows how the results of science on sex and gender can best be seen as confirming general propositions of the materialist dialectic and in turn serve as a refutation of certain philosophical and ideological errors within science, but most importantly within the political conflict at large.

“The Nature feature collects research that has changed the way biologists understand sex. New technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that chromosomal sex is a process, not an assignation.

As quoted in the article, Eric Vilain, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at UCLA, explains that sex determination is a contest between two opposing networks of gene activity. Changes in the activity or amounts of molecules in the networks can sway the embryo towards or away from the sex seemingly spelled out by the chromosomes. “It has been, in a sense, a philosophical change in our way of looking at sex; that it’s a balance.”

Sex biology redefined: Genes don’t indicate binary sexes – Scope

Foucault, in an introduction to Canguillhem’s work “The Normal and the Pathological” , makes a distinction between two traditions of philosophy in France. The distinction between these traditions represent two different “responses” to the same dilemma re-inaugurated by Husserl’s “Cartesian Meditations”.

The dilemma is the character of the relation between subject and object. The first tradition is very well known and “opts” for the side of the subject. It is the tradition of the cogito, experience, and conciousness. This tradition is populated by such figures as Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. The second tradition is a neglected line of philosophy, especially in the Anglophone world. It is a tradition that focuses on science , a tradition of knowledge, rationality, and concept. It is represented by such academic philosophers and historians of science as Koyre, Bachelard, Cavailles, and Canguillhem.

I agree with Foucault that to understand Althusser and Foucualt himself requires an understanding of this second tradition. I want to try to analyze the positions and influences of this diverse group of philosophers and scientists on Althusser and Foucault. I also want to analyze the similitude and influence of this tradition on the Anglophone world. The most obvious example of such an influence is Kuhn’s debt to Alexander Koyre. Yet, even  in reading Canguillhem I noticed a similarity of thought with Kuhn’s on the precise point for which Kuhn is best remembered i.e. the development of science.

For Canguillhem, science is not a continuous and cumulative process governed by one set of logical or empirical principles. Rather it is a process of change in which a epoch is distinguished from another in virtue of a difference between “normative regimes”.        The philosopher and historian of science studies the object of science by describing and explaining the “epistemic norms” guiding an epoch.  Most especially,  the historian must attend to the transformation of epistemic norms which constitute a transition between epochs.  The philosopher and historian reconstructs the development of science not as an increase of truth, but as a series of errors and reconstitutions, a series of scientific revolutions.

For Kuhn, the philosopher and historian of science must start from the fact that there are revolutions, and that the evidence and scientific method of scientists at any age underdetermines their conclusions. As there is no deductive-relation between evidence and conclusion (theory) the question then emerges: “at a given time in science, in a phase of “normal science”, what explains the adoption of a problem, its solutions, its theory and concepts, and what explains the revolution of “normal science” ? Kuhns response is to state that the best explanation is that the scientific process is not governed solely by deductive rules, but by other other kinds of rules. The principal non-deductive scientific rule is that scientist unconsciously develop norms which guide the picking out a type of problem, with its characteristic sort of solution, and make a problem and its solution an exemplar for other problems, so that the various problems and solutions are tied and extended on the basis of “similarity”- relations to the paradigm example. The different epochs of normal science are distinguished not solely as different deductive theories, but by different “exemplar” rules governing the practice of science. When those change, revolution ensues. Hence, different epochs of science cannot be compared , and distinguished on a continuum of the “truth/false”, but are incommensurable because the theory of an age treats of different kinds of problems and solutions.