Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 06:04:39 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id: <1.5.4.16.19971022080405.2d7f4c50@pop.uvm.edu>
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To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu
From: TR Young <TR.Young@uvm.edu>
Subject: On the Use of Universals
Jonathan: Again, you push me to support a position which
was, originally, too vague and too suspect to take on faith.

Thanks.  There are two points in your critique which requires
response:

1. Assuming the very existence of a post-history reifies marxian theory to 
        the level of a universal.

        REPLY: On the surface, it looks as though I use marxist theory about
class
                relationships to make a statement about theory in general.

                However, the point Marx made about the transformations of human
                        agency and human understanding were on a different level
                        of argument from the statements he made about particular
                        levels of human agency and human understandings.

                        Indeed, as we see below, what I had been delinquent
upon was
                        not clarifying levels of argument...and thus not helping
                        human understanding about the varying validiities of
social
                        and/or marxist class theory.

2. But I think it is disingenuous to put forth an argument against universals
         when in fact you are using them. 

        REPLY:  I do regret my delinquency and do appreciate your call to
                account on it...

                It is possible to say that some statements are universally
true while
                denying the universality of other statements...and it is an
                epistemological sin to conflate between them.  

                Consider:

                All cats are black; therefore all animals are black.

                In that statement, I deliberately conflated LEVELS of analysis.

                What I could/should have said is:

                Cats are animals; all cats are black, therefore some animals are
                black.

                As you can see, the category of 'animal' is a higher category
                of analysis than is the category of 'cat'.

        In the case of Marx's statement about History...it is of a more general
        LEVEL of analysis than his statements about class.

        Hence: I cannot say:

                Class theory is not universal; therefore no theory is universal.

                Nor could I say:

                All theory is universal; therefore class theory is universal.

                But I can say as I thought I was saying:

                Some theory is universal; class theory is not one of them.

                
        Now...although I can make this last claim, that does not mean it is
in fact
                a true statement: it well could be the case that marxist
theory is
                universally true...I don't believe that to be the case but a lot
                of my colleagues are absolutely convinced of it.

                And, again, Marx could be wrong about the changing character of
                historical understanding...there are a lot of people who firmly 
                believe in the absolute truth of the Christian Bible, the Jewish
                Torah and/or the islamic Koran.  If they are right, Marx is
wrong.

                And there are a great many sociologists in my generation who are
                absolutely convinced that the mission of the knowledge
process is
                to discover tight correlations which are replicable...while
I state
                that the mission of the discovery process is identification of
                the dynamic regime at hand; discovery of bifurcation points
at which
                causality fades and fails; discovery of new relationships which
                emerge out of deep chaos.

                And, again, I could be wrong about the changing validity of
social
                theory...chaos theory may not apply to social
dynamics...that is a
                very real possibility...

                Indeed, there is very little in American Sociology, other than a
                dozen articles I and others have written, which support this
truth
                claim.

                But Patti Hamilton at Texas Woman's University has found hidden
                attractors in a data set which escaped discovery by the use of
                linear analytic techniques...

                ...And several hundred psychologists are members of Chaospsych
                and regularly report empirical confirmation of non-linear
dynamics
                in that field...as do economists, biologists, physiologists, and
                a few political scientists who are absolutely convinced that
modernist
                mission and methods of the knowledge process are appropriate
only for
                simple, i.e., 3-dimensional or simpler systems.

Alas, the knowledge process is far more complicated than is dreamt of in the
poor
philosophies of Bacon, Newton, Comte, or Parsons.

                                                                        Chee
rs, TR    

REFERENCES:  at: http://www.tryoung.com

Postmodern Theories of Crime

A Constitutive Theory of Justice: Architecture and Content

Chaos Theory and Postmodern Philosophy of Science

Symbolic Interactional Theory and Nonlinear Dynamics

Chaos Theory and the Knowledge Process

Chaos Theory and Human Agency

Chaos and Management Science

Chaos and the Drama of Social Change

Chaos and Crime

Managing Chaos

Paradigm Theory

Reinventing Socialism

Chaos and the Concept of Structure

Class Structure and Non-Linear Social Dynamics                     
TR Young
The Red Feather Institute
8085 Essex, Weidman, Mi.,
  48893--ph: [517] 644 3089
  Email: tr@tryoung.com
         TR.Young@uvm.edu