Marx’ Critique of Science and Positivism

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • George E. McCarthy

      Pages 1-18

3. 18th- and 19th-Century German Philosophy: Epistemology and Metaphysics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19

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   2. Science and Critique: The Evolution of the German Perspective from Kant to Marx

      • George E. McCarthy

      Pages 20-43

   3. Time and Critique: The Temporal Dimensions of the Dialectical Method

      • George E. McCarthy

      Pages 44-66

   4. Materialism and Critique: The Schelling and Feuerbach Responses to Hegel

      • George E. McCarthy

      Pages 67-96

4. Epistemology and Method in Marx’ Later Works

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97

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   2. Rethinking Method: The Reflective Reconstruction of History

      • George E. McCarthy

      Pages 98-134

   3. Against Epistemology and Foundationalism: From the Theory of Political Economy to Social Practice

      • George E. McCarthy

      Pages 135-164

5. Meta-Critique and Political Economy: Marx’ Legacy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 165-165

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   2. Epistemology and Political Economy: From Philosophy to Social Theory

      • George E. McCarthy

      Pages 166-187

6. Back Matter

   Pages 188-225

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political economy. With this in mind the reader will be taken through three meta-theoretical levels of Marx' method of analysis of the struc­ tures of capitalism: (1) the clarification of 'critique' and method from Kant's epistemology, Hegel's phenomenology, to Marx' political economy (Chapter One); (2) the analysis of 'critique' and time, that is, the temporal dimensions of the critical method as they evolve from Hegel's Logic to Marx' Capital and the difference between the use of the future in explanatory, positivist science and 'critique' (Chapter Two); (3) and finally, 'critique' and materialism, a study of the complexity of the category of materialism, the ambivalence and ambiguity of its use in Marx' critical method, and the ontological and logical dilemmas created by the Schelling-Feuerbach turn toward materialism in their critique of Hegel (Chapter Three). The critique of political economy is, therefore, examined at the levels of methodology, temporality, and ontology. To what do the categories of political economy really refer when the positivist interpretations of Marx have been shattered and 'critique' be­ comes the method of choice? What kind of knowledge do we have if it is no longer "scientific" in the traditional sense of both epistemology and methodology? And what kind of applicability will it have when its format is such as not to produce predictive, technical knowledge, but practical knowledge in the Greek sense of the word (Praxis)? What be­ comes of the criterion of truth when epistemology itself, like science, is

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• Immanuel Kant
• Jürgen Habermas
• Karl Marx
• Marx
• historical materialism
• logic
• political economy
• social theory

• Kenyon College, Gambier, USA

  George E. McCarthy

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