Existing Interpretations on Marx’s method

Based on previous work, here I briefly review existing interpretations on Marx’s method. First, although dialectical materialists and Lukács focused on mutually different sides with regard to the history of human life, they committed a common mistake. That is, in interpreting Marx’s method in terms of its relation to Hegel’s philosophy, they accepted not only the rational kernels of Hegel’s philosophy, but also its mystified shell. For this reason, dialectical materialists contended that the history evolved self-referentially (see, e.g., Adratsky

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1934; Kuusinen 1960/1961), and Lukács (1923/1971) claimed that there was a whole, the supremacy of which guided its parts, even in Marx’s theory. Second, the opposite holds for both structural Marxism and analytical Marxism. Admittedly, the two strands in a Marxist tradition focused on different sides with regard to the structure-agency issue. Yet they commonly dismissed not only the mystified shell of Hegel’s philosophy, but also its rational kernels. For this reason, Althusser and his associates overemphasized the alleged theoretical rupture between young Marx and old Marx, and on the dissimilarities between Hegel and Marx (see Althusser 1965/2005; Althusser et al. 1968/1979). For the same reason, analytical Marxists came to succumb to methodological individualism (see, for instance, Elster 1985; 1986; Przeworski 1985). Third, systemic-dialectical Marxists have accentuated a need for a re-reading of Hegel’s philosophy. Yet, along the way, they tend to privilege his Science of Logic, which is directly relevant to a logical presentation (Arthur 2004; Moseley and Smith 2014). By doing so, they tend to ignore the other side of Marx’s method—that is, a method for an inquiry that presupposes a logical presentation.

Lastly, critical realists have discussed a relation between critical realism and Marxism. In my view, it is not easy to answer to this question. For, first, the philosophical stance to which critical realism refers is somewhat unclear. For instance, even Roy Bhaskar’s work on critical realism can be divided into three different phases, each of which is respectively relevant to the basic tenet of critical realism, dialectics and meta-reality (see Gorski 2013). Second, the theoretical stance to which Marxism refers is also unclear. For instance, Marxism can be viewed in term of a family resemblance. In this case, modern world-system theory or analytical Marxism can be regarded as Marxist analysis. However, Marxism can be seen in terms of a theoretical focus on a capital relation. In this case, modern world-system theory can be regarded as Braudelian or Smithian approach—I return to these in my concluding chapter. In addition, as Lukács argued, we can understand Marxism in terms of totality. In

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this case, analytical Marxism is not Marxist approach. Also, we must recognise that, generally speaking, whilst Marxism is categorised as scientific theory of a bourgeois society, critical realism is close to meta-theory for scientific theory.

In this context, here I focused on not Marxism, but Marx himself. Furthermore, I gave the focus to, specifically, not his critique of political economy, but his method of political economy. On top of that, I went further to uncover his meta-theory on which the method is anchored. And, in the light of my previous discussion, we draw a few provisional conclusions regarding the relation between critical realism and Marx’s meta-theory. First, ontologically, Marx’s inquiry relies on depth realism, and epistemologically, it is pragmatistic. In these regards, Marx’s meta-theory resonates with the basic or original tenets of critical realist ontology and epistemology. For, Bhaskar’s transcendental realism for natural science and its naturalist, albeit qualified, application for social studies is the depth realism. It is also because a few critical realists have regarded practical adequacy as a criterion for judgemental rationality, which is distinguished from epistemological relativism (see Sayer 1984/1992). For this reason, on the one hand, I believe that Marx’s ontology and epistemology can be recast in critical realist terms.

However, the relation between the dialectical aspect in Marx’s meta-theory is critical realism is still ambiguous. I argued that Marx’s reasoning can be seen as dialectics. Yet, in my reckoning, the speculative derivation, based on the dialectics, of something relatively concrete from relatively abstract things presupposes inductively, deductively and retroductively valid inferences. Based on them, a concrete concept can be manufactured by mental labour and, by doing so, we can re-define the real-concrete in an increasingly concrete manner. Also, in my reckoning, this view depends substantially on the rational kernels of Hegel’s philosophy. That is, it seems a result that Marx sublated respectively, and then synthesised, both Hegel’s philosophy and what he referred to ‘all the hitherto materialism, including that of Feuerbach’.

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In contrast, such a speculative, synthetical derivation of a concept seems to have been less focused by critical realists. For a critical realist re-definition means a transformation from a nominal definition, which grasps ‘actualistically understood characteristics or manifest appearance’, to a real definition, which captures ‘the essential structure or ALETHIC truth of the thing’ (see Faulkner 2015, 112-113). Also, while Marx, certainly, took the rational kernels of Hegel’s philosophy, Bhaskar (1993, xiii) offered his own dialectics that has a ‘non- preservative sublation of Hegel’s dialectic’ as one of its features (for a brief overview of dialectical critical realism, see Norrie 130-8). For these reasons, Marx’s meta-theory and critical realism can be seen as having important dissimilarities as well. Let me recall, however, that Bhaskar is not the only critical realist. Nor do all critical realists endorse his later work on dialectics and meta-reality. Also, in this context, provisionally, I conclude that Marx’s meta-theory and critical realism can be mutually complementary. That is, as noted, Marx’s ontology and epistemology resonate with the earlier tenet of critical realism. They can be thus recasted in critical realist terms. Simultaneously, I believe that Marx’s meta-theory has something that can be added to critical realism for its enrichment.