Analytical Marxism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Vrousalis
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Human Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
Scientific Research Program ◽  
Protective Belt

Marxists believe that an understanding of human society presupposes an understanding of the nature of the production of its material surplus and the nature of control over that surplus. This belief forms part of the “hard core” of the Marxist scientific research program. This hard core is complemented by a set of auxiliary hypotheses and heuristics, constituting what Imre Lakatos has called a scientific research program’s “protective belt.” The protective belt is a set of hypotheses protecting a research program’s hard core. Over the past century and a half, Marxists have populated the protective belt with an economic theory, a theory of history, a theory of exploitation, and a philosophical anthropology, among other things. Analytical Marxism is located in Marxism’s protective belt. It can be seen as a painstaking exercise in intellectual housekeeping. The exercise consists in replacing the tradition’s antiquated, superfluous, or degenerate furnishings with concepts, methods, and auxiliary hypotheses from analytic philosophy and up-to-date social science. The three most influential strands in analytical Marxism are, roughly: its reconstruction of Marx’s theory of history, historical materialism; its philosophical anthropology, including the theory of freedom; and its theory of exploitation, including the theory of class.

scholarly journals How Well Does Evolution Explain Endogenous Retroviruses?—A Lakatosian Assessment

Viruses ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Ruben N. Jorritsma
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Early History ◽  
Endogenous Retroviruses ◽  
Long Terminal Repeats ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
History Of ◽  
Protective Belt

One of the most sophisticated philosophies of science is the methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP), developed by Imre Lakatos. According to MSRP, scientists are working within so-called research programmes, consisting of a hard core of fixed convictions and a flexible protective belt of auxiliary hypotheses. Anomalies are accommodated by changes to the protective belt that do not affect the hard core. Under MSRP, research programmes are appraised as ‘progressive’ if they successfully predict novel facts but are judged as ‘degenerative’ if they merely offer ad hoc solutions to anomalies. This paper applies these criteria to the evolutionary research programme as it has performed during half a century of ERV research. It describes the early history of the field and the emergence of the endogenization-amplification theory on the origins of retroviral-like sequences. It then discusses various predictions and postdictions that were generated by the programme, regarding orthologous ERVs in different species, the presence of target site duplications and the divergence of long terminal repeats, and appraises how the programme has dealt with data that did not conform to initial expectations. It is concluded that the evolutionary research programme has been progressive with regard to the issues here examined.

Determination and Consciousness in Marx

1989 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Mills
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Philosophical Writing ◽  
Scientific Status ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Liberal Political Theory

There has been a dramatic increase over the past decade in the volume of Anglo-American philosophical writing on Marxism, with the 1978 publication of G.A. Cohen’s trail-blazing Karl Marx’s Theory of History being a convenient landmark. What has come to be called ‘analytical Marxism’ is now well-established, and valuable clarificatory work has been done on such traditionally murky subjects as the theory of historical materialism, the nature of ideology, Marx’s views on ethics, the character of Marx’s epistemology, the ‘scientific’ status of Marxism, and the problematic interface between Marxism and normative liberal political theory.

Linearity and Reflexivity in the Growth of Mathematical Knowledge

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 409-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Corry
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Knowledge ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Mathematical Practice ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Exact Science ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Fields ◽  
Great Portion

The ArgumentRecent studies in the philosophy of mathematics have increasingly stressed the social and historical dimensions of mathematical practice. Although this new emphasis has fathered interesting new perspectives, it has also blurred the distinction between mathematics and other scientific fields. This distinction can be clarified by examining the special interaction of the body and images of mathematics.Mathematics has an objective, ever-expanding hard core, the growth of which is conditioned by socially and historically determined images of mathematics. Mathematics also has reflexive capacities unlike those of any other exact science. In no other exact science can the standard methodological framework used within the discipline also be used to study the nature of the discipline itself.Although it has always been present in mathematical research, reflexive thinking has become increasingly central to mathematics over the past century. Many of the images of the discipline have been dictated by the increase in reflexive thinking which has also determined a great portion of the contemporary philosophy and historiography of mathematics.

Duhem-Quine, Lakatos and Research Programmes in Economics

1986 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 175-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
B.J. Heijdra ◽  
A.D. Lowenberg
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Research ◽  
Hard Core ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Research Programmes ◽  
Correct Understanding ◽  
Protective Belt

The Lakatosian methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP) is intended to circumvent the epistemological difficulties associated with various brands of falsificationist method, of which the most important is the Duhem-Quine problem. We reject the view that Lakatos’ MSRP needs to be re-interpreted before it can be used to appraise economic theories. A correct understanding of Lakatos’ distinction between the hard core and protective belt of a research programme leads to the recognition that conflicting theories can be accommodated within the same programme. This avoids much of the confusion encountered by some economists who have attempted to develop taxonomies of economic theories within a Lakatosian framework, but have made the mistake of overpopulating the discipline of economics with a plethora of spurious research programmes. Many of the latter are more usefully treated as subdisciplinary demi-cores within an overall neoclassical programme.

A walk through the history of the Spanish thought influenced by Uexküll

Semiotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Castro
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Jose Ortega Y Gasset ◽  
The Past ◽  
Retrospective View ◽  
History Of ◽  
Giant Step ◽  
Von Uexküll ◽  
Living Being

Abstract Jakob Johannes von Uexküll’s biological thought influenced a new path to approach the view of a living being throughout of the twentieth century. At the beginning of the past century, in Spain a “new vertebrate way of thinking” was generated, as Ortega would say. And the work of Uexküll initiated an interest in the circles of thinkers of the likes of Julio Caro Baroja, José Ortega y Gasset, and Xavier Zubiri among others. My aim is describing how Uexküll plays a part in the development in the foundations of thoughts of these thinkers; in particular, Ortega and Zubiri’s thought and their interactions between the circumstantiality and formality, respectively, and Uexküll’s Umwelt. In fact, Ortega’s biological thought was the foundation of his vitalism realism and made a giant step in philosophical anthropology existentialism in his Meditations of Quixote in 1911. We will also see the anthropologist Caro Baroja’s epistemic Uexküll influences. A retrospective view of Spanish thought will be developed, where the seeds of Uexküll made fruitful the development of several authors, as well as some transitive or indirect influences; even the generation of discrepancies in others. Finally, we will describe the development, in Spanish, that had the work of Thure von Uexküll, which includes the work of his father. With Thure, the Uexküll influences in Spain concluded until the start of interest in zoosemiotics and biosemiotics.

Hegel's Political Philosophy in Italy

1983 ◽  
Vol 4 (01) ◽  
pp. 28-32
Author(s):  
Gianni Magazzeni
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past

The political philosophy of Hegel, in particular his concept of the state, acquired new impulse early in the 1930a. The crisis of the perlimentary system in Italy or rather of its liberal cultural tradition was apparently the reason for it. Yet this return to Hegel also brought about an improved ability of Italian philosophers to face the mushrooming trends of historical materialism, sociology, socialism and, of course, nationalism. They were all legacies of the very end of the past century which became realities to be deal with just afterwards. They demanded a more appropriate hermeneutic than could be provided by the spiritualism of Platonic origin or by the neo-Kantism previously dominant. Quite simply, Hegel came to be the answer of the Italian academia to a period of intense change and crisis in both political and cultural spheres. Hegel supplied a systematic rational framework within which experience could find the deeper understanding that the time seemed to require. Nonetheless his philosophy unified and internationalised the Italian cultural scene. Unification here does not imply a homogeneity of interpretation. Hegel's system had not been thoroughly mastered and so a ‘true’ understanding could not be possible. Single parts of Hegel's philosophy were not read or interpreted in keeping with the whole system, and connection, when realised, coincided more with the belief of the reader than with the intentions of the author.

Review of Karl Marx, by Allen W. Wood

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reviews Karl Marx, by Allen W. Wood. The book is divided into five parts: Alienation, Historical Materialism, Marxism and Morality, Philosophical Materialism, and The Dialectical Method. Wood begins by providing an account of the idea of self-realization: various failures to achieve self-realization generate correspondingly various alienations. He then joins those who seek to reinstate a toughly materialist reading of Marx's theory of history before addressing the relationship between two branches of Marxism, namely: its philosophical anthropology (or conception of human nature) and its theory of history. Wood also defends the thesis that Marx did not think capitalism was an unjust society.

scholarly journals ECOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT, POLLUTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN REPUBLIC OF NORTH MACEDONIA

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 795-797
Author(s):  
Vasko Lazarevski ◽  
Jasmina Dicevic
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Environment Pollution ◽  
Generative Capacity ◽  
Know How ◽  
The Past ◽  
Local Point ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Intensive Development

Ecology the science of the relations among living organisams and the environment where they live is a rather new scientific discipline that has gone through an extrodinarily intensive development in the 20th century, all the way to a multidisciplinary science whose local point also entrails human and all human's activities and the products thereof, in recent times. The aforesaid rapid devoloment of ecology owes to the identically rapid growth of human society in the past century, which brought about drastic and far reaching changes to biosphere. The task of ecology remains to be the explanation of the newly occured relationships in the environment.The interest in ecology from a scientific and expert aspect is great in our country, too. In that sense, a considerable number oд individual researchers and institutions have played an important role in the development of ecology in Macedonia.The survival of humanity depends on natural resources, so we must know how much we use them now and how much we should use them in the future.In this paper , special attention was devoted to considerations relating to one of the broadest of applied sustainability indicators ecological footprint , which indicates the relationship between human demands and generative capacity of the biosphere.

The zoonotic potential of bat-borne coronaviruses

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-381
Author(s):  
Ny Anjara Fifi Ravelomanantsoa ◽  
Sarah Guth ◽  
Angelo Andrianiaina ◽  
Santino Andry ◽  
Anecia Gentles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Material ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Sympatric Species ◽  
Animal Origin ◽  
Mammalian Host ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Novel Host ◽  
Horseshoe Bat ◽  
Human Infections

Seven zoonoses — human infections of animal origin — have emerged from the Coronaviridae family in the past century, including three viruses responsible for significant human mortality (SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2) in the past twenty years alone. These three viruses, in addition to two older CoV zoonoses (HCoV-229E and HCoV-NL63) are believed to be originally derived from wild bat reservoir species. We review the molecular biology of the bat-derived Alpha- and Betacoronavirus genera, highlighting features that contribute to their potential for cross-species emergence, including the use of well-conserved mammalian host cell machinery for cell entry and a unique capacity for adaptation to novel host environments after host switching. The adaptive capacity of coronaviruses largely results from their large genomes, which reduce the risk of deleterious mutational errors and facilitate range-expanding recombination events by offering heightened redundancy in essential genetic material. Large CoV genomes are made possible by the unique proofreading capacity encoded for their RNA-dependent polymerase. We find that bat-borne SARS-related coronaviruses in the subgenus Sarbecovirus, the source clade for SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2, present a particularly poignant pandemic threat, due to the extraordinary viral genetic diversity represented among several sympatric species of their horseshoe bat hosts. To date, Sarbecovirus surveillance has been almost entirely restricted to China. More vigorous field research efforts tracking the circulation of Sarbecoviruses specifically and Betacoronaviruses more generally is needed across a broader global range if we are to avoid future repeats of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PCSK9 inhibition for LDL lowering and beyond – implications for patients with peripheral artery disease

VASA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Gebauer ◽  
Holger Reinecke
Keyword(s):  
Cardiovascular Risk ◽  
Risk Reduction ◽  
Ldl Receptor ◽  
Density Lipoprotein ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Pcsk9 Inhibitors ◽  
Cardiovascular Risk Reduction ◽  
Simultaneous Application ◽  
The Past ◽  
Pcsk9 Inhibition

Abstract. Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) has been proven to be a causal factor of atherosclerosis and, along with other triggers like inflammation, the most frequent reason for peripheral arterial disease. Moreover, a linear correlation between LDL-C concentration and cardiovascular outcome in high-risk patients could be established during the past century. After the development of statins, numerous randomized trials have shown the superiority for LDL-C reduction and hence the decrease in cardiovascular outcomes including mortality. Over the past decades it became evident that more intense LDL-C lowering, by either the use of highly potent statin supplements or by additional cholesterol absorption inhibitor application, accounted for an even more profound cardiovascular risk reduction. Proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9), a serin protease with effect on the LDL receptor cycle leading to its degradation and therefore preventing continuing LDL-C clearance from the blood, is the target of a newly developed monoclonal antibody facilitating astounding LDL-C reduction far below to what has been set as target level by recent ESC/EAS guidelines in management of dyslipidaemias. Large randomized outcome trials including subjects with PAD so far have been able to prove significant and even more intense cardiovascular risk reduction via further LDL-C debasement on top of high-intensity statin medication. Another approach for LDL-C reduction is a silencing interfering RNA muting the translation of PCSK9 intracellularly. Moreover, PCSK9 concentrations are elevated in cells involved in plaque composition, so the potency of intracellular PCSK9 inhibition and therefore prevention or reversal of plaques may provide this mechanism of action on PCSK9 with additional beneficial effects on cells involved in plaque formation. Thus, simultaneous application of statins and PCSK9 inhibitors promise to reduce cardiovascular event burden by both LDL-C reduction and pleiotropic effects of both agents.

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