(MIG Tournament) In Defense of "An Open Society and it's Enemies" Vol. 2

C1: Critique of Historicism (all subpoints) My opponent’s main argument is that empirical trends give us evidence to create analytic laws. In other words, empirics before analytics. I grant this completely, however it does not directly address the issue at hand. My argument is that Marx has empirical trends but lacks sufficient reasoning to create these trends as analytic laws. As SPinko pointed out, Marx has used trends found in society to create a law that there is an economic progression that occurs a dicto in human society. The problem with this is that these empirical trends do not surmount to enough to evidence to be able to determine if it really is an a dicto law. For example, the conservation of mass, as my opponent mentioned, has been declared a law since it has not been falsified and appears to be true in every case. Since falsifiability is key to this argument I will respond to falsifiability here and then continue on the defense of this point. SPinko argues that methodological anarchism is preferable to strict scientific standards, such as falsifiability. I neither completely agree nor disagree with my opponent’s alternative. When it comes to all standards that exist in the status quo I do not know if they are needed or are too constraining for true scientific discovery. However, I will argue that falsifiability is a necessary methodological standard in science. But before I go onto independent justifications for falsifiability I will respond to my opponent’s argument that it is possible to discover truth without the criterion of falsifiability. He argues that truth such as the cogito is proven without falsifiability. I believe there are multiple types of truth which require different type of testing so to speak. The cogito is an a priori type of truth which is true just with a simple thought experiment or an analysis of the definition or proposition. To say “I think therefore I am” does not require testing to prove its validity. The act of thinking itself entails existence so the two are necessarily compatible in and of itself. For posterior claims which require empirical testing, falsifiability is a necessary standard for evaluation. This is true because scientific claims are truth claims about the world and how the world and its constituent parts work. In order to determine if such truth claims are correct there needs to be a brightline by which we can measure its validity. Falsifiability provides us with a criterion to comparatively measure this validity. The claims by Marx however are posteriori claims (as opposed to the cogito), which require testing. Marx has made claims which dictate social behavior not behavior that has its validity inherently but rather requires empirical testing. If we make the proposition that “societies will overthrow their governments and institute a classless system” we are making a proposition about action that doesn’t justify itself. As mentioned by my opponent, Marx had to look to past events to determine if his theory has empirical justification. The problem with this is that one cannot go from the empirical studies to analytic laws because one cannot control the environment or control the variables on a macro-societal level as opposed to say a dissection of a frog. Societies are interacting in ways that cannot be evaluated by human observations and to come to an analytic law is impossible. SPinko made the response that well its general laws that can be deduced from observations. Unfortunately with this it doesn’t take into account individual and collective preferences that exist within all people or all societies. As Popper mentions in The Poverty of Historicism and An Open Society Marx was contained by only his viewpoint of capitalism which involved mass exploitation and an impotent government. However, one can easily criticize Marx’s methodology since it used limited amounts of knowledge to create a whole law. The levels of exploitation and impotent legislatures has diminished much since Marx’s time and thus the variables have changed drastically as well. [1] Thus, it fails in testability as well as falsifiability. C2:. Specific Marxist Critique My opponent makes the argument that the soundness of a theory is separate from its conditions or practical results that might occur. Before I continue it is important to note that my opponent isn’t arguing that horrific results haven’t occurred because of Marxism but rather he is contending that this isn’t a relevant criterion for determining the validity or invalidity of Marxist-historicist theory. My first argument against this is that Marx himself disagrees and believes that the pragmatic results of a scientific or philosophic must be practical. If not then it can be criticized on the basis of the results of the theory. This is why Marxism is placed within many area of the school known as pragmatism in both philosophy and science. SPinko, you’ve activated my trap card!! (laugh. It’s both a nerd and debate joke…) Popper writes, “Marx himself would have agreed with such a practical approach to the criticism of his method, for he was one of the first philosophers to develop the views which later were called ‘pragmatism’. He was led to this position… by his conviction that a scientific background was urgently needed by the practical politician, which of course meant the socialist politician. Science, he taught, should yield practical results. Always look at the ‘fruits’, the practical consequences of a theory!...A philosophy or a science that does not yield practical results merely interprets the world we live in; but it can and it should do more; it should change the world. ‘The philosophers’, wrote Marx … ‘have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point however is to change it.’ It was perhaps this pragmatic attitude that made him anticipate the important methodological doctrine of the later pragmatists that the most characteristic task of science is not to gain knowledge of past facts, but to predict the future.” [1] My second argument is that my opponent’s own reasoning links directly into the Oedipus Effect theory I outlined above. My opponent claims that excited revolutionaries acted too quickly and thus acted within a time not ripe for the socialist movement. This criticism is important because it is because of Marx’s works that created this effect on society which prematurely created socialist revolutions not during the correct era (assuming it is true). Moreover, not only did the prematurity lead to hundreds of millions of deaths of innocent people but has eroded the very superstructure Marx needed in order to be the right time for a revolution. In other words, the violent and premature revolutions have created major political and activist backlashes against Marxism and anarchist socialism preventing its future institution. Whereas the transition from feudalism to capitalism was sparked by the Industrial Revolution (a natural process of history), the right time for Marxism cannot effectively occur because of Marx bringing it about in an artificial way. My final important analysis on this point and a potentially damning point for my opponent since it is a drop is my opponent’s nonresponsiveness to the power analysis. Remember, Marx tells us that a socialist anarchist society is only possible through a transition period where there is dictatorship of the proletariat. The analysis I provide in my first round is that Marx ignores power relationships seen in all government or state structures. People that gain power do not want to lose this power. Thus, the transition period empirically and theoretically is insurmountable which prevents the institution of classlessness. Thus, it can be concluded that Popper’s critique of Marx from a practical standpoint is valid on the three levels of analysis mentioned above. [1] Popper. An Open Society and Its Enemies.