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According to the chart, I’m a material Purist, but I’m very flexible on methodology.
Came here to say the same…
What is an interesting finding. I wonder how many people are in each camp. Maybe we can get some data by infighting in a pseudonymous forum.
Need some more people to chime in, but I think the chart is flawed.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine many people would consider Harry Potter a science, but physics is not.
Seems more like a flexibility scale. “start in the top corner and see how far you can go until you think, no, that’s not science.”
I could see literary critique being a science, and good Sci-Fi takes fictional conceps and applies science to them, so Harry Potter Sci-Fi is possible (something like HPMOR perhaps).
This types of chart are definitely a permissibility scale though, where each box is describing the most extreme position and would include all the less extreme positions to the top and left. I’m pretty sure it originated to describe positions in the sandwich debate.
Indeed. I always read these charts like the more you go right/down you include the squares in your left and up side.
No, saying that community activism is a science but physics is not is just absurd. You definitely progress until you draw the line.
Maybe we can get some data by infighting in a pseudonymous forum.
Excellent idea, lol
Same, but I can go to material neutral if I keep my methodology pure
I don’t like this chart.
“Science describes some material reality” “science describes some reality”
You put dialectical materialism in the latter category?
Also scientific testing+Marxism and bullshit idealist debates are not in any way similar in methodology
Both Marxism and Community Activism would be some form of Sociology, no? Plus activism is a movement to install some idea, while the idea would be the result of the science.
Unless the chart is saying that being more effective at activism is a science?
No, that is specifically idealist activism, not materialist activism. Also sociology is a science that follows similar methodology as “hard” sciences
But sociology describes ideas, not material properties, thus would fit in the middle column.
Anyway, my point was that neither a system of government/economy nor pushing ideas are ways of describing the world. It’s the description aspect that defines the chart here, so I don’t think actions fit.
But sociology describes ideas, not material properties
This is a fundamentally idealist way of viewing sociology, although most sociology you’re exposed to is idealist in nature.
Anyway, my point was that neither a system of government/economy nor pushing ideas are ways of describing the world.
??? What does that have to do with Marxism? I think the disconnect here is that you do not understand what Marxism is, you have only had second and third hand exposure to it.
Perhaps I don’t know what Markism is. Is it a school of thought, or a subcategory of sociology? An Ought or an Is?
Marxism and MLism as an ideology is fundamentally about studying the relationships between things through: looking at past history and current conditions, hypothesizing, and testing that hypothesis.
Interesting. It seems like Marxism isn’t a science so much as a philosophy about sciences. You’re correct that it extends far fuether than I had assumed.
I do maintain that the chart is using incorrect language in describing it’s categories though. Many of them are describing something that could be part of study or the result of study, but not a science themselves. Toy destruction isn’t a science, but the destruction of toys could be part of one.
Excuse me, are you whining about Marxism not making the first square together with physics? That would be a rather peculiar statement, but you present it as if it were self evident. Just in case you are shallowly serious I may respond that physics does not acknowledge social reality and admittedly it can hardly account for organic life. Marxism, in the common understanding is a scientific theory of social reality. The fact that it is an economic reductionist theory of social reality does not mean it is physics.
Marxism, in the common understanding is a scientific theory of social reality
You’re talking about “the common understanding” which is ironic in the context of this discussion.
The fact that it is an economic reductionist theory of social reality does not mean it is physics.
I would agree with you if I shared your shallow understanding of the subject. Have you read anything rigorous about dialectic materialism or historical materialism?
Also do you think social reality isn’t a material reality? That is a rather odd position to have?
Material in the sense of the basic physical quantities like length and charge? No. You need to add a splash of ethnography in your materialism.
basic physical quantities like length and charge
You know that those are also social abstractions of complicated phenomenon too right? Or did you not read about what a social construct was because sociology is a soft science for girls? /s
Also have you ever opened up Capital or Imperialism and looked at how many basic quantities they use when constructing their analysis?
Political infighting on pseudonymous forums isn’t a science.
It’s a art.
I don’t like that this chart makes it seem like all are valid. Science is literally defined by method. Material realism is maybe less strict, but it can’t be science if the scientific method isn’t followed.
As the author of the meme I disagree that such impression is given as to “toddlers destroying their toys” or “French surrealism” and Marxism being equivalent. May I draw your attention to these neatly distinguishable squares that break the chart up to ample separable plots? They are there to separate things rather than showing their equivalence.
These kinds of charts are usually used to compare things that, in this case, wouldn’t be science, but humourously could be considered science if given a chance
But the other guy is right-if you don’t follow the scientific method and don’t try to describe your findings in ways that attempt to better understand the universe, then that’s not science. That’s bias
