Paul Paolucci

The ScientiŽ c Method and the Dialectical Method

Introduction
Marx realised readers were having difŽculties inter-
preting his work, relating that ‘the method employed
in Das Kapital has been little understood, [this] is
shown by the various conceptions, contradictory to
one another, that have been formed of it’.1 The extent
to which such problems continue is a testimony to
both his impressive range of tools and to his lack of
consistent speciŽcation about which ones he was
using at particular points in analysis. Resulting
impressions have been either that Marx had a wholly
unique method, or that he had none at all. Neither
of these views is correct.
An effort at establishing Marx’s views on method
must appeal to positions that do not always, at Žrst
glance, sit easily with one another. His comments on
science were not uniform: ‘In the course of a single
letter . . . we Žnd the word science being used with
reference to his own conception of science and to
erroneous, dogmatic conceptions, such as pseudo-
positivism and positivism itself’.2 Still, Marx did

1
Marx 1992c, p. 26.
2
Thomas 1976, p. 3; Thomas cites: Marx 1962, pp. 390–7 and 1965, p. 313.

Historical Materialism, volume 11:1 (75–106)

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003
Also available online – www.brill.nl
76 • Paul Paolucci

respect scholars in other Želds and kept up with trends in science and
technology, often drawing analogies between his work and mainstream
sciences, including algebra, evolution, and anatomy.3 For instance, he described
the examination of commodities in political economy as ‘of the same order
as those dealt with in microscopic anatomy’, while also viewing historical
stages in a way similar to ‘geological epochs’.4 These examples suggest that
Marx thought his methodology, in certain important ways, was within the
bounds of the accepted scientiŽc discourse of his period. And, thus, it not
entirely illegitimate for some commentators to claim that ‘Marx was
undoubtedly a positivist, although he would not have called himself by that
name, as he disliked many of the social views of Comte, the leading positivist
of the nineteenth century’.5 As a result of this ambiguity, the debates over
how Marx thought the tools of positivist science applied to the study of
human society remain unsettled. If analysts are unable to differentiate those
elements of science in general that Marx rejected from those he accepted, then
interpreters are subject to either a) rejecting the idea that Marx accepted any
positivist scientiŽc principles at all, and/or b) they must force him into
conformity with those elements of mainstream science he did not accept,
and/or c) they must argue that he held to no identiŽable scientiŽc principles
whatsoever. Each of these options fails to offer an adequate depiction of
Marx’s approach. This paper offers a refutation of such critiques by demon-
strating that Marx rejected certain aspects of positivism while accepting others.

Marx and science

Marx’s work has been seen as standing in opposition to positivism and natural
sciences, but also as being amenable to them.6 There seems to be a case for
both views. On the one hand, there is ample reason to believe that Marx
adopted an internal-relations philosophy of science, which examines principles
of change in opposition to positivist models of stability.7 On the other hand,
Marx’s work also can be seen as sharing with positivism elements of general

3
Gerratana 1973, p. 76; Ball 1979; Gerdes 1985; Marx 1992a, p. 351 and Marx 1992b,
pp. 21, and 18–19; Marx 1967b, pp. 106–7.
4
Marx 1992b, pp. 18–19; Marx 1992a, p. 351.
5
Acton 1967, p. 30.
6
Jordan 1967, p. 300; Popper 1972; Soper 1979; Russell 1984; Gerratana 1973; Engels
1934, 1962; Wetter 1958.
7
Ollman 1976, 1979, 1993; Israel 1979; Gould 1978.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 77

scientiŽc reasoning such as model building and controlled comparisons.8 I

will Žrst inquire into those aspects of positivism Marx rejected as inadequate
to the task of a social science, pinpointing four areas: the universal covering
laws of positivism, predictive-theory naturalism, a priori conceptualisation,
and methodological individualism. Second, I will outline Marx’s creative use
of speciŽc elements of positivist methodology.

Marx against positivism

The universal and covering laws of positivism

Sociology steeped in positivism operates with the assumption that human

behaviour can be primarily explained by recourse to cover-all principles.9
Placing Marx in this paradigm is to read his work as offering a static model
of ‘society’, as opposed to his actual approach of abstracting the capitalist
mode of production as a developing phenomenon existent within various,
separate but interconnected total social formations with varying institutional
conŽgurations. Forcing Marx into covering-law theories of positivism turns
his work into a litany of propositions and principles about a vaguely conceived
and undeŽned society. It is then assumed that a series of deductions or
predictions follow (such as revolution). Marx can thus be declared ‘right’ or
‘wrong’ to the extent that history has or has not matched the model.10
Marx’s method is not a general theory of ‘society’, and so not a search for
abstract, universal sociological laws. We must distinguish between abstractions
developed for the historically particular – such as the capitalist mode of
production – and the sociologically general – such as the very broad concept
of ‘society’.
Unlike the natural scientist, whose core principles of causation often do
not vary over space/time, the social scientist must be reexively cognisant
of the level of generality to which her abstractions refer. As such, Marx’s
science requires a higher degree of speciŽcation and precision than the search
for covering laws at the level of society-in-general. For instance, Marx explained

8
See Van Den Braembussche 1990; McMichael 1990; Little 1986; D. Sayer 1987;
Zimmerman 1976.
9
Comte 1974; Alexander 1982.
10
For example, see: Turner 1993.
78 • Paul Paolucci

that ‘one will never arrive [at answers to sociological questions] by using as
one’s master key a general historico-philosophical theory’.11 That is, ‘[s]ocial
structures are real determinants of what happens in social life [as] are the
intentions and purposes of concrete agents. Social structures [are, however],
only relatively enduring’. This relative endurance of social structures negates
the possibility of transhistorical sociological laws. Social structures, Isaac
continues, ‘govern action in time . . . are reproduced in the process of interaction,
and . . . are subject to historical transformation. They are, in short, historically
speciŽc’.12 Thus, precision is increased when concepts are appropriate to
their subject matter’s temporal and structural features. For Marx, that subject
matter is capitalism, its general structure, and its contemporary institutional
conŽgurations.

Predictive-theory naturalism

Physical sciences have thrived through the use of predictive-theoretical modes

of thought. This paradigm, being the most generally recognised model of
science for lay and professional persons alike, is also the lens through which
Marx’s scientiŽc work is often read. While the predictive-theory approach,
according to Little, ‘does not originate in logical positivism . . . it [nevertheless]
represents a relatively accurate view of the nature of the physical sciences
since Galileo and Newton’. In this method of science:

. . . the content of a scientiŽc theory is encapsulated in the (it is hoped small)

set of axioms or theoretical principles; these principles are then worked out
deductively in order to establish their consequences for experience . . . [T]he
central task of science is to systematize the bewildering array of empirical
phenomena under a few general laws. [In this way, p-t naturalism involves]
the use of theoretical concepts and unobservable entities. . . . P-t naturalism
postulates a general theory of conŽrmation for scientiŽc theories [which]
are to be empirically evaluated . . . in terms of the relative degree of success
of its empirical predictions.

Nevertheless, he continues, ‘this interpretation of Marx’s system is mistaken

at virtually every step’. Why is this so? Because, Little concludes, even ‘a

11
Marx 1965, in Thomas 1976.
12
Isaac 1987, p. 59.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 79

cursory survey of Capital shows that Marx’s system does not possess a uniŽed
deductive structure of this sort. . . . [In this work] there is no intention of
reducing the whole of the capitalist system to a few theoretical premises’.13
Thus, Marx’s method and predictive-theory naturalism inhabit mutually
exclusive methodological spheres.
Given the popular scientiŽc prejudice to interpret analytical work in general
under the model of predictive-theory naturalism, Marx’s work in particular
has often been forced into this framework. His approach, nonetheless, is in
disagreement with this vision of the scientiŽc method which starts with (in
Popper ’s formulation) ‘free creations of our own minds’ tested, in Isaac’s
words, ‘by the strict cannons of deductive logic’.14 Marx’s method proceeds
mostly through induction, though he warns that his form of presentation can
make his work appear to be a deductive system.15 One result, unfortunately,
is that, regardless of his repeated claims to the contrary, many interpretations
of Marx leave the impression that his use of Hegel’s dialectical logic was a
predictive theory rather than a methodo-logical foundation.

A priori conceptualisation

In positivism, predictive theorising relies on the creation of a priori concepts.

However, as Andrew Sayer explains, among philosophers of science, ‘realists
reject cookbook prescriptions of method which allow one to imagine that one
can do research by simply applying them without having a scholarly knowledge
of the object of study in question’.16 Accordingly, in Marx’s method, key
concepts should not be made up before empirical investigation, nor from
outside of historically speciŽc referents.17 That is, dialectical research does not
start from a priori constructed concepts, nor does it invent and test them as
the goal of research. Marx corrected a critic:

In the Žrst place, I do not start out from ‘concepts’, hence I do not start out
from ‘the concept of value’, and I do not have ‘to divide’ these in anyway.
What I start out from is the simplest social form in which the labour-product

13
Little 1986, pp. 14–16.
14
Isaac 1987, p. 67.
15
Marx 1992c, p. 28.
16
A. Sayer 2000, p. 19.
17
Marx and Engels 1976; Marx 1975b, p. 198; Meikle 1979; Horvath and Gibson
1984; Little 1986; D. Sayer 1987; Mepham 1979.
80 • Paul Paolucci

is presented in contemporary society, and this is the ‘commodity’. I analyse

it, and right from the beginning, in the form in which it appears.18

This relation between dialectical and positivist approaches to abstraction –

including the issues of when/what/how to abstract – was something Engels
acknowledged and even warned against: ‘It is . . . self-evident that a theory
which views modern capitalist production as a mere passing stage in the
economic history of mankind, must make use of terms different from those
habitual to writers who look upon that form of production as imperishable
and Žnal’.19 This means that operational deŽnitions and the permanence of
concepts Žnds no place in Marx’s dialectical method. Engels found himself
constantly at odds with critics who transformed Marx’s concepts into windmills
with which to do battle. He warned of one particular critique that:

. . . starts out from the mistaken assumption that Marx wishes to deŽne
where he is only analysing, or that one may look into Marx’s work at all
for Žxed and universally applicable deŽnitions. It is a matter of course that
when things and their mutual interrelations are conceived, not as Žxed, but
as changing, that their mental images, the ideas concerning them, are likewise
subject to change and transformation; that they cannot be sealed up in rigid
deŽnitions, but must be developed in the historical and logical process of
their formation.20

This issue of the temporal relationship between concept formation and data
collection is one of the great divides between dialectical and positivist
epistemologies. For example, one positivist methodologist asserts that even
though researchers ‘are not exactly clear about which dimensions of a variable
they are really interested in’, their concepts are to be operationalised before
data collection according to the ‘expected distribution of attributes among
subjects’. And, even though researchers might be unclear about the nature of
their variables, they are instructed to ‘be pragmatic’ and deŽne variables
beforehand in a way that is both ‘exhaustive’ and ‘mutually exclusive’.21 This
formulation is internally contradictory. One cannot construct ‘mutually
exclusive’ and ‘exhaustive’ categories if they ‘are not clear about which

18
Marx 1975b, p. 198; also see Mepham 1979, p. 161.
19
Engels 1992, p. 16.
20
Engels 1909, p. 24.
21
Babbie 1995, pp. 138–40; and see pp. 136–64, generally.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 81

dimensions’ of a phenomena in which they are interested. This stipulation is

further impossible under Marx’s internal-relations philosophy of science, since
both capitalism’s history and its changing dynamic mean that concepts must
be exible and change with signiŽcant changes in the object of inquiry. This
means that Marx was:

. . . not a lover of rigid formulas. He was an observer who never overlooked

the individual and the speciŽc in his search for general trends of social
development. He did not view the crystallization of classes, highly resistant
and effective social formations that they are, as a process tending towards
a standstill. He always endeavored to grasp it by taking into account the
totality of its deŽnitions. 22

Social phenomena are composed of multiple realities that are not reducible
to pat deŽnitions and/or a priori assumptions about human nature. This
suggests a fourth difference between Marxist and positivist approaches, i.e.
the rejection of individualistic reductionism.

Individualistic reductionism

Marx generally was not very interested in abstract universal human nature
and made very few statements pitched at that level. For him, human nature
was broadly structured in form, but its content was something historically
accomplished and exible, within limits.23 Marx constructed his key concepts
and explanatory variables with a similar exibility. It is with such stipulations
in mind that it is recognised here that the utilitarian-rational-choice para-
digm – combining assumptions of cost-beneŽt analysis and game theory – is
a dominant discourse in sociology.24 Broadly speaking, it operates with the
a priori assumption that human behaviour can be explained primarily by
assuming humans tend to interact to maximise their beneŽts and minimise
their losses. Game theory adds the assertion that agents engage each other
with differential amounts of information and not always accurate assumptions
about what others will do given certain circumstances. This sort of reductive,
individualistic framework used for interpretation and explanation, exempliŽed
by the work of Elster and Roemer, also has received increasing attention

22
Fischer 1996, p. 81.
23
Sayers 1998.
24
For example, see Homans 1974; Parsons 1978; Kiser and Hechter 1998.
82 • Paul Paolucci

within Marxism in the last two decades.25 Yet Marx consistently rejected
individualistic, rationalist, and utilitarian assumptions about human nature.
He complained about ‘theorists’ like Smith and Ricardo:

. . . in whose imaginations this eighteenth century individual – the product

on one side of the dissolution of the feudal forms of society, on the other
side of the new forces of production developed since the sixteenth century
– appears as an ideal, whose existence they project into the past. Not as a
historic result but as history’s point of departure. As the Natural Individual
appropriate to their notion of human nature, not arising historically,
but posited by nature. This illusion has been common to each new epoch
to this day.26

Marx was sceptical of any social science that asserted an ontology of the
individual as a foundation for structural analysis. The abstract individual is
a historical accomplishment, and therefore its speciŽc nature cannot be assumed
prior to any particular structural investigation. In Capital, Marx is not trying
to explain the behaviour of individual people, abstract individuals, or speciŽc
concrete events but the behaviour of a social structure, speciŽcally the capitalist
mode of production, its rise and its history. The behaviour of people is an
indication, a manifestation of the compelling forces of this structure. Thus,
his object of study consists of the social relations indicative of this mode. If
social relations are the unit of analysis, then an ontology of the individual is
secondary, even tertiary or irrelevant, to a structural analysis.
As such, in structural analysis, certain categories are treated by Marx as
human representations of systemic relationships. These he refers to as
‘personiŽcations’. For example, in explaining his methodology, Marx tells
us that he treats the individual ‘capitalist . . . [as] only capital personiŽed’.27
As such, structural analysis assumes that social structures predate and outlive
most individuals they contain. External, objective institutions are internalised
by individuals conditioned by socialisation.28 It follows that a rationalised
and calculative set of social relations will produce, as an average outcome, a
rationalised and calculative set of individuals. Thus, the illusion of rational-

25
Elster 1982, 1985, 1986; Roemer 1986a–b; Little 1986; D. Sayer 1987; Levine, Sober,
and Wright 1987; Wright, Levine, and Sober 1992; for critical and sceptical responses
within Marxism see: Wood 1989; Smith 1993; Roberts 1996; Sayers 1998; Paolucci 2001.
26
Marx 1973, p. 83.
27
Marx 1992a, p. 224.
28
Berger and Luckmann 1967.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 83

choice individualism is related to (what Charles Mills refers to as) naturalistic

mystiŽcation, a situation where the ‘objective constraints arising from given
class relations of production will tend to be mistakenly identiŽed as the
constraints of natural necessity’.29 Capitalism, according to this line of thought,
creates a discursive inversion in social knowledge that conates capitalist
rationality with human rationality in general. The most common forms of
behaviour in capitalism should not be interpreted as indicative of general
human characteristics in the abstract, but rather as the result of particular
social relationships. Thus, while people are in fact real, in Marx’s political
economy, speciŽc ‘individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are
personiŽcations of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-
relations and class interests’.30 Marx is interested, therefore, in the social ontology
of class relations and class interests, not the ontology of the abstract individual.

Marx for positivism

These critical evaluations of positivist principles do not exhaust Marx’s opinion
on the subject. There were, in fact, several areas of method accepted by the
scientiŽc community that Žnd expression in Marx’s work. These areas include:
the reexive force of abstraction, precise measurement tools, multivariate
analysis and the experimental model, and the use of quantitative and deductive
analysis. These categories have received little comment in the literature on
Marx’s work as a whole.

The reexive force of abstraction

Through his exposure to the sciences, Marx learned to adapt many of its tools
to the study of social relations. For example, he recognised that in his ‘analysis
of economic forms . . . neither microscopes nor chemical reagents are of use.
The force of abstraction must replace both’.31 This force of abstraction creates
the units with which thought, inquiry, and analysis will work. As Ollman
contends, in reference to Marx’s method of abstraction, ‘the results of . . .
investigations are prescribed to a large degree by the preliminary organisation
of [the] subject matter. Nothing is made up of whole cloth, but at the same

29
Mills 1985–6, pp. 477–8, 480.
30
Marx 1992b, p. 21.
31
Marx 1992b, p. 19.
84 • Paul Paolucci

time [one] only Žnds what [one’s] abstractions have placed in [the] way’.
Rather than replace facts, abstract concepts ‘give them a form, an order, and
a relative value’, they change the focus of what is investigated and what is
searched for, what one sees and what one can uncover, as well as determining
what one emphasises in presentation.32
In a similar way, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics asserts
the impossibility of simultaneously measuring both the location and the speed
of a subatomic particle with accuracy and precision. Both speed and location
are abstract terms referring to partial qualities of the total phenomena that
are particles. As such, the method of measurement of a particle’s speed
excludes the ability to pinpoint its exact location, and conversely, the method
used to uncover the location of a particle annuls the ability to track its speed,
even if only temporarily. ‘The uncertainty arises because to detect the particle,
radiation must be “bounced” off it; the process itself disrupts the particle’s
position’. Though speed and location are not antitheses of each other, abstracting
one into thought and measuring it closes off to inspection certain aspects of
the other, however momentarily. They are unobservable together at the exact
same time. ‘This phenomenon is not a consequence of experimental error but
represents a fundamental limit to objective scientiŽc observation’.33
This stipulation is analogous to the differences between a radar detector
(speed) and a photograph of an automobile (location). Information from one
provides no important details of the other. That is, the number on a radar-
gun does not provide information on an object’s location in space. To extend
the analogy, the measurement of a ship’s or plane’s movement by radar
can provide an estimate of its speed and trajectory, but once measurement
has occurred, the exact location of the object, at the time the previous
measurement is recorded, is never the same, even if it only has changed
a little. The image on a screen is no longer representative of the exact
location of the object at the exact time the image appears. There is always
some distance between the two. Thus, there is always uncertainty resulting
from the abstractions carved out and the method of measuring their empirical
representatives.
If we remember that the Žrst volume of Capital is about the mode of production
found in modernity as a totality (i.e. all that is associated with it), and not

32
Ollman 1993, p. 39; please excuse the generous paraphrase.
33
Science Desk Reference 1995, p. 258.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 85

mistake what Marx’s says there for an analysis of ‘society’ or even all things
associated with capitalism, then his acknowledgement of the problem raised
by Heisenberg is arguably demonstrated – each volume of Capital examines
only one moment of capitalism’s totality, namely the production, exchange,
and distribution of wealth. Thus, we must keep in mind what abstractions
Marx places in the way of the data as his way of observing the structure of
the whole. Marx consciously abstracts certain parts out from wholes with
speciŽc criteria in mind and shifts and changes his abstractions to Žt the
quality of data he examines, much like a scientist focusing a microscope. This
is especially the case when it comes to shifting analysis from one level of
historical generality to another. Recognition of such relationships requires
reexivity on the part of the analyst. A high degree of reexivity enables the
analyst to abstract units of analysis and so allow for the use of precise
measurement tools.

Precise measurement tools: dialectical microscopes –

the abstraction of vantage point

Marx tells us that the ability to shift analysis from one perspective to another
is our sociological equivalent to focusing a lens. This is the abstraction of
vantage point, a key to understanding the exibility required in an internal-
relations philosophy of science.34
Ollman explains that Marx frequently changes both ‘the perspective
from which he sets out and the breadth of units (together with the meaning
of their covering concepts) that come into his analysis’.35 The abstraction
of vantage point thus ‘sets up a . . . place within the relationship from
which to view, think about, piece together the other components in the
relationship. Meanwhile, the sum of their ties also becomes a vantage point
for comprehending the larger system to which it belongs, providing both a
beginning for research and analysis and a perspective in which to carry it
out’. The researcher uses the alteration of one or more of these vantage points
from which to collect and analyse data. Vantage-point abstractions assist in
clarifying the range of phenomena to which concepts and generalisations
extend while additionally being involved in building a model of the extended
inner connections between the parts. ‘With each new perspective, there are

34
Ollman 1993, pp. 67–79.
35
Ollman 1979, p. 111.
86 • Paul Paolucci

signiŽcant identities and differences in what can be perceived, a different

ordering of the parts, and a different sense of what is important’.36 This ability
to focus and refocus abstractions depending on the data at hand increases
social scientiŽc precision.
There are two broad moments of vantage-point abstraction: time and space
abstraction, and materialist and idealist abstraction. Marx often found natural
science models useful for informing sociological questions such as the relation
between history (time) and structure (space). This epistemological issue of
abstracting space and time is expressed by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle,
as discussed earlier. In the dialectical method, the exibility of vantage-point
abstractions makes wide ranges of inquiry possible, as opposed to the attempt
to Žnd an abstract, foundational ‘Archimedean point’ by which to measure
truth claims and/or proposition-statements to be accepted or rejected prior
to data collection.37 For a dialectical approach, truth claims are always relational,
not foundational.
Abstractions attempt to grasp the essential structures of a formation and
remain attentive to the length of time over which a concept constructed for
one period extends to others.38 In this way, Marx introduced his examination
of labour in the capitalist social structure, reviewing his previous discussion:
‘In considering the labour-process, we began by treating it in the abstract,
apart from its historical forms, as a process between man and Nature’.39 Not
all societies are class societies, not all class societies can be analysed in the
same terms as capitalism, and we cannot be sure how far into the future
capitalism will continue.40 Therefore, one must be ready to re-abstract and
shift vantage points as needed for particular questions and analyses. Derek
Sayer notes that ‘the empirical referents of Marx’s concepts may neither be
mutually exclusive, nor consistent across space and time. An empirical particu-
lar – a form of division of labour, for example – might Žgure as a production
relation under one description and a productive force under another’.41 This
sort of exibility is required because change and development within social

36
Ollman 1993, p. 68.
37
Bernstein, 1983, pp. 16–25, 165–9. Bernstein refers to this desire or demand in
science as ‘The Cartesian Anxiety’, or the quest for a framework outside of social
relations whereby truth claims are measured.
38
Ollman 1993, pp. 53–67; Wallerstein 1991.
39
Marx 1992a, p. 476; also see pp. 105–6.
40
Sekine 1998.
41
D. Sayer 1987, p. 22.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 87

systems are often ‘uneven’ and so the spatial location of a phenomena is as

important as its temporal moment.42 In respect of such issues, Marx attempted
to create ‘a method able to grasp the socio-historical forms of changing
categories in related but different modes of production’.43
For Marx, social science should be mobilised in order to grasp the drama
of capitalism, and materialism was the best method for examining its social
relations. Why? ‘It is because there exists, at the interior of capitalist society,
a kind of internal rupture between the social relations which obtain and the
manner in which they are experienced,’ and therefore, according to Geras,
‘the scientist is confronted with the necessity of constructing reality against
appearances’.44 Material conditions most often change and shape the quality
of discursive knowledge, rather than vice-versa. Thus, material conditions
take epistemological priority. That is, they are of primary investigative
importance. For example, changes in technology, the conŽguration of classes
in struggle, the level of material afuence or deprivation, developments in
trade policy as well as the job and wage structure, each often change prior
to cultural knowledge and have profound impacts on its content. Therefore,
such material relations and activity should take priority, most of the time, in
both research and explanation. This is not a hard and fast formula, though.
It is only a broad tendency – life in capitalism is not haphazard and unpredictable,
even if it is chaotic. Thus, according to Marx and Engels, ‘empirical observation
must in each separate instance bring out empirically, and without any
mystiŽcation and speculation, the connection of social and political structure
with production . . . The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness,
is at Žrst directly interwoven with the material activity and the material
intercourse of men – the language of real life’.45 Productive forces are ongoing,
occurring before any and all individuals. They shape subsequent social practices
both individually and structurally. Still, material conditions and conceptual
discourse are ‘interwoven’. Acknowledgement of the relations between material
conditions and discursive knowledge, therefore, must be taken into account
in conjunction with complex variables such as time and space relations.46

42
Mandel 1970.
43
Zimmerman 1976, p. 70.
44
Geras 1971, p. 71.
45
Marx and Engels 1976, p. 35.
46
Wallerstein 1991; Foucault 1980a–b.
88 • Paul Paolucci

Marx certainly never argued that the development of capitalism could be

reduced to material conditions alone. An internal-relations philosophy of
science dictates that analysts take account of the fact that discursive knowledge
can lead or cause changes in material conditions rather than simply and/
or uniformly trailing them.47 For example, there is ample evidence that the
ideology of development and growth, while clearly serviceable to capitalist
interests, was less a spontaneous outgrowth of post-war material conditions
than it was a project developed and disseminated by intellectuals at the
corporate, state, and academic levels in the West.48 This ideological discourse
– the ‘development programme’ – in turn had a profound effect on the changes
in material conditions in this same post-war period. Even with the assumption
of the primacy of material conditions, the issue of the internal relation between
material conditions and discursive knowledge and their temporal inner-
connections in real concrete events is always an empirical question. While the
historical pattern lends itself to the primacy of material relations in analysis
and explanation, systems of knowledge interact with material conditions and
at times may even play a leading role in changing them. The actual relations
in a particular case are discovered through research.

Multivariate analysis and the experimental model

In sociology, objects studied are either, in the quantitative approach, variables,

or, in the qualitative approach, individual informants. In each case, units of
analysis are treated as externally related and as already given time/space
bounded phenomena. Quantitatively, variables are precisely and operationally
deŽned, afŽxed mathematical signatures and signposts, measured at time
1 and time 2, and then inspected for improbably fortuitous statistical
relationships.49 Qualitatively, real people – not mathematical representations
of behavioural indicators – in real time/space are to speak real words and
enact real behaviour.50 Under both methods, people’s lives are inŽltrated, put
under surveillance, interrogated, recorded, categorised, and interpreted in

47
Marx anticipates Weber on Protestantism’s relationship to the rise of capitalism;
see Marx 1992a, p. 262; note #2; also see Israel 1979; Williams 1973, 1978; Foucault
1972.
48
Escobar 1995; Crush 1995; Sachs 1995.
49
For an insightful Marxist critique of quantitative methods see A. Sayer 1984, pp.
137–234; also see Little 1991. For Marx’s lone attempt at survey research, see Marx 1997.
50
Denzin and Lincoln 2000.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 89

order to extract the social facts that are supposed to explain their patterns of
behaviour.
Marx’s inquiry also begins with the setting of parameters in thought.
However, his approach was different in an important way. Almost any-
thing about which he investigated was exibly conceptualised in one of
four basic primary and secondary thinking-units: relations and processes,
and forms and contents. At various points in research, phenomena may be
re-conceptualised as one or more of these. This is so because, as Mandel
explains, several ‘key variables of the Marxist “system” are partially autono-
mous variables. Their correlations are not mechanical . . . [but rather operate]
at successively different levels of abstraction’.51 At these different levels of
abstraction, variables may possess qualitatively different properties. To discover
causal factors operative at one or more levels of generality, one compares
across similar historical cases that share a common element. If that element
is an essential part or has essential functions within each case, then a range
of phenomena which it regularly determines should be present in each instance.
This is true as a general rule (unless identiŽable overriding conditions are
present). If such conditions are observed, then a concept is constructed to
register this identity. This is the method of ‘typiŽcation’, or the creation of
categories for analysis.52 For example, money, wages, labour, circulation, and
the state (etc.) are all typiŽed by Marx in terms of relations, process, forms,
and/or contents and are abstracted and studied as such at different moments
in exposition. This can be read as the dialectical method’s conceptualisation
of multivariate analysis.
It is a scientiŽc truism that explanations often require a range of variables
greater than one. Thus, as Jessop explains, ‘to attempt to produce a theoretical
account of a speciŽc [social formation] in a given conjuncture on the basis of
a single causal principle is to engage in the most extreme form of reductionism
or essentialism’.53 Evidence suggests that Marx agreed with this stipulation.
Derek Sayer, for example, cites Engels to the effect that Marx’s work ‘offers
an image of history as the product of “innumerable cross-cutting forces, an
inŽnite series of parallelograms of forces”, the unplanned resultant of the
play of myriad individual wills and actions’.54 Such multiple forces (‘the real

51
Mandel 1980, p. 12.
52
Marx 1973, pp. 83–111.
53
Jessop 1982, p. 29.
54
D. Sayer 1987, pp. 6, 7, 161.
90 • Paul Paolucci

concrete’) range from contingent to necessary presuppositions and require

careful analysis and speciŽcation.55
Marx’s method operates with multiple variables at a single moment and
incorporates new variables into analysis when needing to extend the structural
moment of analysis or when historical developments bring new variables
into play. Analysis of multivariate factors begins with simple conceptions
Žrst, and as they are pieced together in their mutual relations, research moves
toward building abstract models (‘the thought concrete’). According to Jordan,
‘Marx clearly recognised . . . that the relationship between the scientiŽcally
determinable economic conditions and the various elements of the ideological
superstructure is not a fact to be established directly by observation. The
testing of this relationship required the introduction of additional assumptions’.56
The experimental model may be the key aspect of the scientiŽc method that
sets it off qualitatively from other modes of knowing. An experiment is a
procedure ‘in which variables are manipulated and their effects upon other
variables observed’.57 If it is true that this method is ‘probably most frequently
associated with structured science in general’, then this analytical model is
necessary for any social-scientiŽc inquiry.58 Tellingly, demonstrating adherence
to this model of analysis, Marx relates that his goal is to observe ‘phenomena
where they occur in their most typical form and most free from disturbing
inuence’. This, he asserts, will allow him to make ‘experiments under
conditions that assure the occurrence of the phenomenon in its normality’.59
Unfortunately, real experiments in real space/time are often unavailable in
social science, so we must often approximate their structure in abstractio. In
what form do we Žnd the experimental model in Marx’s work?

Controlled comparison and the manipulation of variables and constants

A central feature of the experiment is controlled comparison. This is ‘a useful

model for understanding the logic of causal social research’.60 The key
methodological procedure in controlled comparison is that ‘when estimating
the effect of Xi on Xj, control all prior and intervening variables; that is, control

55
DeMartino 1993.
56
Jordan 1967, p. 315.
57
Campbell and Stanley 1966, p. 1.
58
Babbie 1995, p. 237.
59
Marx 1992b, p. 19.
60
Babbie 1995, p. 8.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 91

all variables not consequent to Xj’. For this approach, ‘the central notion is
“control” and the central problem is when, and when not, to introduce variables
as controls. The issue is “whether”, and not “how”’.61
Experiments and controlled comparison hold a central place in Marx’s
scientiŽc investigations too, and with appropriately sophisticated stipulations.
Marx understands that concrete relations may not contain the exact same
properties and meanings across their sensuous expressions. Given this dynamic
character of social phenomena, Marx does not freeze his variables into
operational deŽnitions. Thus, the meanings of terms used to discuss them
will necessarily change. Some variables develop, mature and come into new
relations, so the ‘Žxed presuppositions themselves become uid in the further
course of development. But only by holding them fast at the beginning is
their development possible without confounding everything’.62 If it is true
that ‘the scientiŽcally accurate explanation of the given must reproduce these
levels in their correct articulation and order’, then acknowledging this uidity
is clearly consequential for method.63 At the moment of inquiry, the simplest
forms must come Žrst, and others cannot come into analysis unless they are
mature to a certain point. If introduced again later in analysis, some relations
may have changed their function.64 As a result, how to control variables is as
important as when and in what way to introduce them. Despite this difference,
both Marx and positivists express an adherence to controlled comparison of
variables and constants as a core scientiŽc method.
Often, structural parts represented in models emerge at different historical
periods or develop in different places and at different rates. Acknowledging
this fact, Marx explained that ‘events strikingly analogous but taking place
in different historical surroundings lead to totally different results. By studying
each of these forms of evolution separately and then comparing them one
can easily Žnd the clue to this phenomena’.65 He thus Žnds that the social
scientist must hold certain variables constant, allow others to vary, and compare
the results. In such an approach, ‘inquiry will conŽne itself to the confrontation
and the comparison of a fact, not with ideas, but with another fact’.66 These

61
Davis 1985, p. 37 and p. 9.
62
Marx 1973, p. 817.
63
Little 1986, p. 103.
64
A. Sayer 1984, pp. 79–136.
65
Marx 1877, in Thomas 1976.
66
Marx 1992, p. 27. These are a reviewer ’s explanations of Marx’s views, which he
92 • Paul Paolucci

facts are entered into analysis as constants and variables. For example, in the
analysis of absolute and relative surplus-value, Marx pauses to review his
own analysis:

That portion of the working-day which merely produces an equivalent for

the value paid by the capitalist for his labour-power, has, up to this point,
been treated by us as a constant magnitude, and such in fact it is, under
given conditions of production and at a given stage in the economic
development of society. Beyond this, his necessary labour-time, the labourer,
we saw, could continue to work for 2, 3, 4, 6, &c., hours. The rate of surplus-
value and the length of the working-day depended on the magnitude of
this prolongation. Though the necessary labour-time was constant, we saw,
on the other hand, that the total working day was variable.67

Afterwards, Marx holds the length of the working day constant, allows the
length of necessary labour-time to vary, and then examines the outcome for
workers, technology, the cost of living, etc. Marx is at pains to explain real
phenomena of everyday life under capitalism, that which everybody expe-
riences but has not, as he thinks, had explained to them quite in this way
before. This is because ‘the causal mechanisms governing the course of events
are real, even though not always apparent’.68 This is how science can ‘raise
the veil just enough to let us catch a glimpse of the Medusa head behind’ the
appearances that mask real social relations.69 Marx’s science attempts to reveal
that which has been as-of-yet hidden to us through the mystiŽcation inherent
in capitalist material relations.70
The manipulation of constants and variables works its way into all of Marx’s
historical and structural research, allowing him to isolate either large social
wholes or the constituent parts within them. In his approach to social analysis,
factors ‘are to be introduced in order of systemic signiŽcance, and sufŽcient
stages are to be included that the ensemble of stages jointly reconstructs the
totality – the visible structure as a whole’.71 Thus, for Marx, ‘if commodity
production, or one of its associated processes, is to be judged according to
its own economic laws, we must consider each act of exchange by itself, apart

so positively evaluated that they were included in the Afterword of the Second Edition
of Capital.
67
Marx 1992, p. 296; also see p. 585.
68
Collier 1989, p. 12.
69
Marx 1992b, p. 20.
70
Wolff 1988.
71
Little 1986, p. 110.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 93

from any connexion with the act of exchange preceding it and following it’.72
According to Van Den Braembussche, in Marx’s approach this is how ‘[i]n
the contrasting type of comparative history attention is paid not only to the
contrasts as such, but more emphatically to the uniqueness of the studied
phenomenon’.73 This recognition of the dynamic nature of historical dev-
elopment across social formations composed of multiple social structures
resulted in Marx recognising that sociological explanation calls for complex
analyses of the various determinations of social phenomena.
It is quite instructive to reread Capital with the method of controlled
comparison in mind. Many variables are held constant in different sections,
chapters, and even volumes. As such, Marx wrote: ‘If we have to analyse the
“commodity” – the simplest economic concretum – we have to withhold all
relationships which have nothing to do with the present object of analysis’.74
Thus, his examination of the commodity is presented Žrst. In the third volume
of Capital, the falling rate of proŽt is examined with a range of variables which
are held constant in the Žrst volume. We know this is as an instance of
controlled comparison, rather than a post hoc addressing of newly uncovered
issues, since the third volume was written Žrst.75
Marx’s analysis controls time and space variables and does so by altering
various vantage points from which data collection and comparative analysis
begin. In this way, his methodology is able to shift in focus if/when data is
collected at various points of historical/structural development. This is
especially important if they are qualitatively different in nature. Controlled
comparison and the manipulation of vantage point allow researchers to
periodise history and to control the generalisations made about the future of
the present in this way.76 However, generalisation is only as powerful and
informative as the degree of similarity between the object(s) studied and the
object(s) to which the generalisation is extended. This means that any such
comparison of different forms is only possible to the extent they share important
qualities. This is the issue of commensurability, to which we now turn.77

72
Marx 1992a, p. 550.
73
Van Den Braembussche 1990, p. 192; also see McMichael 1990.
74
Little 1986, p. 110; Little cites Marx 1975a, p. 199.
75
Marx 1963, p. 17; though this must be qualiŽed with the acknowledgement of
the unŽnished state of Marx’s manuscript in Volume III.
76
Weeks 1985–6; Sekine 1998.
77
See Kuhn 1970; Feyerabend 1975; Newton-Smith 1981; Bernstein 1983, pp. 50–108;
Dekema 1981; Schefer 1982, pp. 127–8; Brown 1983.
94 • Paul Paolucci

Comparison and commensurability

In order for a valid comparison, objects must be commensurable, or, in Marx’s

terms, ‘qualitatively equal’.78 Thus, ‘It is apt to be forgotten that the magnitude
of different things can be compared quantitatively, only when those magnitudes
are expressed in terms of the same unit. It is only as expressions of such a
unit that they are of the same denomination, and therefore commensurable’.79
Arguably, then, controlled comparison of qualitatively equal social structures
is one method Marx has in mind in his positive evaluation of the authority
of science conducted in conjunction with dialectical reason. This provided
for the uncovering of broad patterns of social structures, such as laws of
motion and central tendencies.

Use of quantitative and deductive analysis

What role did Marx see for quantiŽcation in social science? He wrote to
Engels, ‘In my spare time I do differential and integral calculus’.80 Was this
simply a passing hobby or a central focus in his social research? Tellingly,
Lafargue, one commentator intimately acquainted with Marx, reported that
‘[h]e held the view that a science is not really developed until it has learned
to make use of mathematics’.81 Another indicative piece of evidence on Marx’s
opinion of the appropriate role of mathematics in science is that, as Struik
relates, ‘like so many dialectical thinkers before and after him, [he] found
unending fascination in the different deŽnitions of the derivative and the
differential, as is shown by a large amount of manuscript material which was
found among his papers’. So interested was he in the niceties of mathematics
that, according to Lafargue, ‘[a]lgebra even brought him moral consolation
and he took refuge in it in the most distressing moments of his eventful life’.
This concern about mathematical knowledge was not a mere hobby but a
serious pursuit. For example, his manuscript on mathematics, written after
Jenny Marx had fallen ill, was on ‘inŽnitesimal calculus [and was], according
to the opinion of experts . . . of great scientiŽc value’.82 It appears that it

78
Marx 1992a, p. 65.
79
Marx 1992a, p. 56; also see Marx 1967a, pp. 779, 817.
80
Struik 1948, p. 181–2.
81
Lafargue 1890; in McLellan 1981, p. 70.
82
Lafargue 1890; in McLellan 1981, pp. 70–1.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 95

measured favourably against the standards of the Želd in his time.83 So it is

no contradiction that, when describing his political-economic investigations
he said, ‘I occupy myself with statistics’.84 Capital, a deeply dialectical work,
is amenable to sophisticated statistical modelling,85 and shows Marx referring
to familiar statistical categories including the following: (a) independent and
dependent variables, (b) deductive analysis, and (c) correlations.

(a) Independent and dependent variables

In any experimental model, there is the distinction between independent
and dependent variables. In the capitalist system, its existence is dependent
on the fact that capital is accumulated indeŽnitely in general, independent
of the success of any one Žrm. Thus, in his formulation of the ‘General
Law of Capitalist Accumulation’, Marx states: ‘To put it mathematically:
the rate of accumulation is the independent, not the dependent, variable;
the rate of wages, the dependent, not the independent, variable’.86 Marx’s
central formula for capital acknowledges its relationships in familiar
positivist terms in this way. It nevertheless should be kept in mind that,
unlike most positivist approaches, these variables are not carved at the
level of the individual, the individual capitalist, the individual factory,
the individual industry, nor even the individual nation-state, but at the
level of class relations as a whole where capitalist class relations obtain
concrete expression.

(b) Deductive analysis

Deduction functions in both Marx’s historical and structural examinations,
but it is used in the analysis of data and the drawing of conclusions, not
in the construction of testable, general theories. For example:

The difŽculty in forming a concept of the money-form, consists in clearly

comprehending the universal equivalent form, and as a necessary corollary,
the general form of value, form C. The latter is deducible from form B, the
expanded form of value, the essential component element of which, we
saw, is form A, 20 yards of line = 1 coat or x commodity A = y commodity
B. The simple commodity-form is therefore the germ of the money form.87

83
Gerdes 1985.
84
Marx, cited by Duff 1879; in McLellan 1981, p. 142.
85
Maarek 1979.
86
Marx 1992a, p. 581.
87
Marx 1992a, p. 75.
96 • Paul Paolucci

And, elsewhere, Marx uses the phrase ‘it follows’ to develop conclusions
from ‘the mere connection of the historical facts before us’ and then to
extend these conclusions to formulate general laws applicable to the
regular outcomes found in capitalist society as a whole.88 Deductions
follow from commensurate comparisons of social structures as evidenced
by real concrete events.

(c) Correlations
In quantitative methods, a correlation is a statistical measure of a
mathematical relationship between two variables, where a change in one
entails a change in the other. In Marx’s political economy, many things
are involved in the composition of capital, including its value and technical
compositions. ‘Between the two there is a strict correlation’, he informs
his readers.89 Elsewhere, he explains that the ‘correlation between
accumulation of capital and rate of wages is nothing else than the
correlation between the unpaid labour transformed into capital, and the
additional paid labour necessary for the setting in motion of . . . additional
capital’.90 Further examination reveals that Marx sometimes presented
correlations without using this exact terminology: he explains that changes
in the magnitude, the mass, the quantity, the size, the amount, etc. of
one variable are related to similar changes in other variables, also using
the terms laws, rates, magnitudes, quantities, time lags, proportions.91
Sometimes, relationships are expressed as ‘corresponding’ changes
(positive correlations) and ‘inverse ratios’ (negative correlations).92 The
fact that these terms are not ‘correlations’ speciŽcally does not detract
from the fact that these terms are used in the exact same way: changes
in one variable co-vary with changes in another.

Marx’s ability to synthesise qualitative and quantitative abstractions into his

core methodological procedures in this way has not always been made
apparent. Take the relationship between technological complexity and the
productivity of labour. This is ‘the most important factor’ in ‘the inuence
of the growth of capital on the lot of the labouring class’. This ‘organic
composition of capital’ is a ‘two-fold’ thing. One side is the ratio of ‘constant’

88
Marx 1992a, p. 282; also see, p. 489.
89
Marx 1992a, p. 574.
90
Marx 1992a, p. 581.
91
Marx 1992a, pp. 581–2.
92
Marx 1992a, pp. 602–3.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 97

(value of means of production) to ‘variable’ capital (the sum total of wages).

Material capital is divided into means of production and living labour-power.
‘This latter composition is determined by the relation between the mass of
the means of production employed, on the one hand, and the mass of labour
necessary for their employment on the other’. The ‘strict correlation’ between
these two has a meaning for capital and labour ‘in so far as it is determined
by its technical composition and mirrors the changes of the latter’.93 Though
referring to real life, these abstractions isolate variables and acknowledge
changes in their mass, ratios, and correlations – both in the analytical abstract
and in the real concrete. Marx does this with both quantitative phenomena –
such as wages – and qualitative social facts – such as value, means of pro-
duction, and labour-power. Unfortunately, Marx-the-quantitative-analyst is
seldom discussed in the literature taken as a whole.

Models of scientiŽ c method

Kuhn’s well-known thesis on the commensurability of different paradigms,
was not, as is often assumed, a proposition about the blanket incompatibil-
ity of general frameworks of interpretive understanding. He later clariŽed
his argument, explaining that:

‘Incommensurability’ is a term borrowed from mathematics, and it there

has no . . . implication [that theories cannot be compared]. . . . In applying
the term ‘Incommensurability’ to theories, I had intended only to insist that
there was not a common language within which [they] could be fully
expressed and which could not therefore be used in a point-by-point
comparison between them.94

The analysis presented here suggests that there are, in fact, common terms
and methods found within both positivism and Marx’s work, but no language
exists which allows a point-by-point comparison between them. I juxtapose
three models of scientiŽc inquiry below. The Žrst is a traditional model of
science found in an introductory sociology text. The second, a more
sophisticated model of scientiŽc endeavour, is drawn from a more advanced
theory text of the positivist school. The third is an attempt to present Marx’s
approach to scientiŽc method. We can see identities and differences between

93
Marx 1992a, p. 574.
94
Kuhn 1977; in Brown 1983, p. 3.
98 • Paul Paolucci

the three models. The traditional scientiŽc method accepted by conventional

sociology, by beginning with a priori conceptualisations and deductive testing
of predictive theories, is certainly at odds with Marx’s approach. And the
second model, in accepting the possibility of transcendent, ahistorical
sociological principles that approach metaphysical explanations of social life,
would also be rejected by Marx. However, all three models allow for empirical
relevance, systematic analysis, and the ongoing process of enquiry, debate,
and further enquiry. Marx’s approach provides for both the primacy of
inductive investigation as well as a directional rule for enquiry, rather than
a continuum with an arbitrary beginning point.

Model 1. (Thompson and Hickey 1999, p. 47)

1) Statement of the Problem Þ

2) Review of the Literature Þ
3) Development of Hypothesis or Statement of Research Objectives Þ
4) Choice of Research Design Þ
5) Data Collection Þ
6) Data Analysis and Interpretation Þ
7) Development of Conclusions Þ
8) Posing New Research Questions Þ
9) Start at Beginning.

Model 2. (Alexander 1982, Volume 2)

Metaphysical Empirical
Environment Environment
< * * * * * * * * * * >

Models Concepts DeŽnitions ClassiŽcations Laws Correlations Observations

General Complex
Propositions and Simple Methodological
Propositions Assumptions

Model 3. Marx’s vision of science under the dialectical method

1) Þ Observation and Inquiry (Data Collection & Induction) Þ

2) TypiŽcation and Conceptualisation Þ
3) Examination of Commensurable Cases Across History and Structure Þ
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 99

4) Controlled Comparisons and the Experimental Model Þ

Þ Variables & Constants (Quantitative/Qualitative Relations &
Processes, Forms & Contents) Þ
5) Deductive Analysis & Provisional Abstractions Þ
6) Modelling Building (with Additional Data Collection & Induction) Þ
8) Evaluation of Fit, Usefulness, and Explanatory Power Þ
9) Presentation of Findings Þ Critique; Description of Structure:
Development and Extension of Concepts;
Generalisation of Tendencies and Laws (Explanation); Backwards Study
of History Þ
10/1) Additional & Ongoing Data Collection & Induction (Continued
Observation & Inquiry Þ

Conclusion
Marx left many of his key methodological declarations divided between
unpublished essays in the Grundrisse, Introductions and Afterwords to Capital
and its various volumes, and in letters to friends and critics. So it is no wonder
that readers have found his methodology confused and/or confusing. This
confusion has often been reproduced in subsequent attempts to place Marx
on a more Žrm scientiŽc footing.95 The two issues standing in the way of
attaining clarity on Marx’s method are (i) the seemingly intractable problem
of grasping dialectical reason in conjunction with (ii) recognising and
appreciating Marx use of positivist method, terms, and procedures. Thus, the
extent to which Marx used the techniques of positivism reviewed here while
at the same time being committed to the dialectical method has been under-
appreciated.
In an attempt to avoid such problems in clarity and precision, analytical
Marxism has laudably attempted to Žnd scientiŽc principles in which
reconstruct Marx. Determined to place Marxism within methodologies accepted
by mainstream science, those such as Elster, Roemer (methodological
individualism) and Wright (analytical philosophy) have attempted to infuse

95
Bhaskar 1979, 1989,1993; While insightful on many issues, Bhaskar ’s critical
realism fails to differentiate society and capitalism and, perhaps reecting the problems
inherently associated with the methods of abstraction chosen, his eclectic and penetrating
enquiry tends so far toward abstract system-building it threatens to violate Ollman’s
warnings about constructing a private language. See: Ollman 1993, p. 27; also see
Ollman 2002.
100 • Paul Paolucci

their approach with traditional positivism. As agreeable as this might be on

certain points, this tradition sets to work on the wrong epistemological and
ontological terrains – namely that Marx found methodological individualism
problematic, rejected a priori conceptualisation, and did not found his structural
analysis on an ontology of the individual. Wright, for instance, claims ‘four
speciŽc commitments . . . characterise Analytical Marxism [as] a distinct
“school” of contemporary Marxist thought’. Three of these include the
‘commitment to conventional scientiŽc norms in the elaboration of theory
and the conduct of research’, ‘the importance of systematic conceptualization
[and] careful attention to both deŽnitions of concepts and the logical coherence
of interconnected concepts’, and the ‘concern with a relatively Žne-grained
speciŽcation of the steps in the theoretical arguments linking concepts’.
Analytical philosophy does not monopolise these concerns, which are also
accepted by internal-relations and realist philosophies of science.96 The fourth
commitment claimed by Wright – the ‘importance accorded to the intentional
action of individuals within both explanatory and normative theories’, is not
accepted by Marx.97 Marx not only never explained structures via the behaviour
of the abstract individual, but explicitly rejected this epistemology. The laws
and tendencies Marx offers for examination are constructed for class systems
in general (historical materialism) and capitalism in particular (political
economy).98 Marx eschewed the search for covering laws of positivism and
so did not assume an abstract universal actor in his basic epistemological
framework.99 In Marx’s view, capitalism causally determines the rationally
calculative actor more so than the other way around.100 Elster’s project remains
fundamentally contra Marx on this issue.

96
Ollman 1993, 2002; Gould 1978; Isaac 1987; Israel 1979; A. Sayer 1984, 2000. The
internal-relations approach is often criticised as making scientiŽc investigation
unrealisable. For this critique, if concepts can be morphed at will, then comparison
and analysis is impossible. However, from Ollman’s (and this essay’s) perspective, it
is only with this sort of built-in exibility that it is possible for a social science to be
more thoroughly rigorou s. This ‘morph-ability’ is something Marx arguably
accomplished, but it is of a sort that does not imply inŽnite possibilities or the lack
of logical criteria. While this essay cannot fully address the issue of an internal-relations
approach, one goal of this essay is to advance the proposition that, in Marx’s view,
there was ample room in our methods of abstraction to conjoin what was rational in
positivism with what was rational in dialectical reason. See Ollman 1976, Appendix
I and II for his defence of this view.
97
Wright 1989, p. 14.
98
Paolucci 2000.
99
Marx 1965, p. 313.
100
See Marx, in O’Malley 1976, p. 45.
 The ScientiŽc Method and the Dialectical Method • 101

Daniel Little’s work too has attempted to Žnd the underpinnings of ‘the
scientiŽc Marx’. On the one hand, Little advances our knowledge of how
Marx’s work should not be interpreted as a uniŽed deductive and predictive
theoretical system. However, he reaches this conclusion while sacriŽcing
Marx’s commitment to dialectical reason.101 Contrary to this view, this article
has argued that if we are to understand what Marx is trying to get us to
understand, then we must take seriously his commitment to both scientiŽc
and dialectical reason, and only then will we be in a position to evaluate the
worthiness of his core claims.
Perhaps it would be appropriate to remark briey on what is ‘dialectical’
in Marx’s method. Stated in the most succinct manner possible, Marx’s
dialectical reason accepted that the inner-connections between certain social
structures stood in relations of negativity with one another, creating situations
that tend toward a social life with inherent properties of dynamism and
change. Further, extracted from his studies of Hegel, Marx also accepted and
used a plethora of dialectical terms, such as metamorphosis, negation, quality
and quantity, wholes and parts, among many others. Finally, dialectic referred
only to methodological strategies for Marx, and was stripped of any meta-
physical connotations. In short, as the world is changing and dynamic,
capitalism especially so, in response scientiŽc method has to be dialectical.
The limitations found in other approaches that attempt to bring a science
to Marx’s method as outlined above can be avoided by using Ollman’s view
of Marx’s internal-relations philosophy of science approach. However, Ollman’s
work, so valuable in its lessons for understanding Marx’s philosophy of
science, is relatively silent on those aspects of the scientiŽc method accepted
by positivism that Marx apparently endorsed. While it is true that Marx’s
work does differ in many ways from certain sociological approaches, he did
not stray so far from standard procedure as to have invented his own private
epistemology. How are analysts to think about the relationship between
positivist and dialectical methods, given that Marx endorsed aspects of both,
is a subject in need of further study. This paper is one attempt at such a
contribution.

101
Little 1986, 1991.
102 • Paul Paolucci

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