Economic Indeterminacy: A personal encounter with the economists' peculiar nemesis by Yanis Varoufakis

Author:Yanis Varoufakis [Varoufakis, Yanis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

6.6 Praxis and the dialectic

The problems of truth-seeking and of defining liberty and rationality, have two things in common. First, they are seen as illegitimate by postmodernists, and second, they are solved simultaneously by Marx. Ironically, if postmodernity’s contribution is simply to insist that transcendental solutions are illusory, it finds unexpected support from Marx who leaves little room for confusion when writing:

The question whether human thought can arrive at objective truth is not a theoretical but a practical question. It is in praxis that man must prove the truth, that is, the reality, the exactness, the power of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking isolated from praxis is a purely scholastic question.

[Theses on Feurebach II, in Marx (1964)]

The problem of knowledge in the abstract is a false problem. Abstract logical consistency, theory divorced from social activity and practical verification, have no value whatever. The essence of man is practical, and the essence of society is praxis – acts, courses of action, interaction. Separated from praxis, theory vainly comes to grips with falsely formulated or insoluble problems, bogs down in mysticism and mystification.

[Theses on Feuerbach VIII, in Marx (1964)]

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