Nate,
The key to your last post seems to be the relationship between science and
power. You ask whether science contains "a truth that transends power."
Without wanting to appear evasive I must say that it depends on what you
mean by truth, transcend, and power. From previous posts I understand you
to take a Foucauldian position on power (say as outlined in The History of
Sexuality, v. 1, pp. 94 passim). But I can't make sense out of your
question from this perspective since it leads to the conclusion that power
is not external to the relationships of knowledge established
scientifically. At best I interpret this to mean that the directions
pursued and the fields studied through science are not independent of power
relations emanating throughout the other fields of social relations. As
I've said repeatedly, however, I accept that the directions of science are
determined through the totality of social relations. virtanen and Martin
have both raised the issues as to how science has been applied in widely
different cultural historical traditions. But the fact is that the
scientific activity carried out in these widely different contexts remains
understandable as scientific activity. This is similar to music which can
be conducted for a rave or the coronation of the Queen of England. The
musicians can discuss the music completely independently of the activity and
setting. The same group of musicians can play for a funeral in the morning
and a wedding in the afternoon using the same instruments, scales, chord
structures, etc., choosing those appropriate for the setting. But their
choice is constrained by the setting--"hail to the queen" is appropriate as
a joke at a rave (perhaps) but "Smells like Teen Spirit" would hardly be
appropriate at the coronation.
So if you mean that science has no knowledge that is independent of social
power I strongly disagree. The relations of necessity of which science
provides knowledge are independent of human social relations, power is not.
History shows that coalescences of power (a term by which I hope to bridge
the Foucauldian notions and hegemonic structures of class societies) for
which scientific truths are incompatible, that attempt to suppress certain
directions of scientific inquiry, eventually pass away while the scientific
truths remain. This is so because scientific knowledge concerns relations
of necessity. Power, on the other hand, expresses specific qualities
inherent in social organizations of all kinds both human and non-human.
Nevertheless one must not overlook the fact that knowledge of necessity is a
source of power itself.
I don't see how Star's study of apartheid does anything but substantiate my
point. What we see there is an example of how an economic and militarily
dominant group attempted to mix Aristotelian categories (one form of
scientific category) and prototypical categories (everyday or common sense
categories) to bulwark the coalescences of power of which it was the
beneficiary. . This arbitrary, non-scientific system of categories,
couldn't quite do this since they really didn't express any relations of
necessity. Consequently, the anomalies of the proposed classification were
in part responsible for its undoing. Here the issues mike has been
insistently raising re Jensen are very relevant since Jensen proposes to
have shown how similar schemes of racial category can account for a
necessary relationship to intelligence. Nevertheless, as long as a
substantial percentage of the de-centered power points in the Foucauldian
fields grant credibility to Jensen's concepts of racial categories and "q",
that theory will appear as representing necessary relations thereby leading
people to acquiesce in it and maintain the social power structures it
reflects. Here Ilyenkov's discussion of the relationship between Ricardo
and Marx is invaluable for understanding the relationship between phenomenal
and scientific categories.
In a funny way the relationship is also found in the "vote for who's
relevant to CHAT" page on the CHAT-SIG web site. Whereas the results
tabulated there can be seen as a valid reflection of the varied interests of
the people who are on xmca or who are members of the CHAT-SIG, it would be
totally mistaken to assume that it represents a valid representation of the
elements that are necessary to produce a scientific theory of
cultural-historical activity.
Paul H. Dillon
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