Marx's Methods of Theory Construction: Categories, Magnitudes, and Variations of Sizes of Magnitudes under Certain Idealizations

Abstract

The paper reconstructs the conceptual methods used in the construction of volume 1 of Capital (Marx 1976a) as well as in the manuscripts of its books 2 and 3, published in section 2 of the MEGA (Marx/Engels Gesamtausgabe 2). Drawing on them it identifies the key components of the conceptual methods Marx employed in Capital. It starts with a delineation of the methodological implications of Hegel's (2010) Science of Logic for Marx. Next it reconstructs the principal methods employed by Marx in volume 1 of Capital as well as in the manuscripts he intended for its book 2 and book 3. Finally, it presents a general characterization of these methods.

Keywords:

• Marx
• Hegel
• Nowak
• Robinson
• Capital

Acknowledgment

This paper was written with the support of the VEGA research grant, grant number 1/0221/14.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Igor Hazel is Associate Professor at the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science of Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. He is interested in the philosophy and methodology of natural and social sciences. His recent works include “The Circular Course of Our Representation: ‘Schein,’ ‘Grund’ and ‘Erscheinung’ in Marx's Economic Works” (In Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic, edited by T. Smith and F. Moseley, 2014, 214–39), “Idealizations, ceteris paribus Clauses, Idealizational Laws and All That” (In Filozofia Nauki, 2015, volume 23, issue 1, 5–26), etc. And his book, Studies in the Methodology of Science, is forthcoming.

Notes

¹For a development of these views see Watkins (1958, 1975).

²“a(p₈ x)” expresses the impact of the condition p₈ on the function l(V).

³“b(p₇ x)” expresses the impact of the condition p₇ on the function l(V).

⁴Marx (1976b, 37) labeled the creation of such projects by the German term “praktische-geistige Aneignung” of the world.

⁵For a detailed analysis of this appropriation in this framework see Hanzel (1999, 190–92).

⁶On this see Hanzel, Černík and Viceník (1994).

⁷A detailed analysis of this triple of categories is given in “Mistranslations of ‘Schein’ and ‘Erscheinung’” (Hanzel 2010) and “The Circular Course of Our Representation” (Hanzel 2014).

⁸The term “political economy” as given in this claim of Marx does not refer to political economy as a theoretical science. This is, for example, also the case in Marx's (1984, 252) article from 1853 where he speaks about “inherent organic laws of political economy now at work in every civilized town.” My differentiation between first and second order categories draws on Schutz (1954).

⁹Here I draw on Measurement (Berka 1983), where magnitudes are viewed as unifying the knowledge about qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the entity under investigation; one then speaks about the “size of a magnitude.” This terminology differs from the more common terminological differentiation between “quantity” and “magnitude,” the latter referring to the values a quantity actually acquires.

¹⁰On this see Marx (1980a, 111).

¹¹A much more complicated case of formulation of laws is given in Marx's (1987, 485–94) theoretical treatment of intertwining of the process of production of relative surplus value with that of absolute surplus value. Here he formulates general laws, whose validity he views as conditioned by the variation of three factors: the length of the day during which labor is performed (the extensive size of labor), the normal intensity of labor (its intensive size, so that a certain quantum of labor is expended in a certain time), the productivity of labor (a given quantum of labor produces a certain quantum of products). In order to state these laws he considers the following possible combinations of the action of the variation of these factors: “one of the factors constant and two variable,” that is, one idealization is given, or “two factors constant and one variable,” that is, two idealizations are given or, “finally, all three simultaneously variable” (485), that is, no idealization is given.

¹²The whole paragraph at the end of subchapter 6.3 was eliminated by Marx from the second edition of Capital (Marx 1987) and does not appear in the French translation (1989).

¹³Due to this extension, instead of “cyclical,” one could use the term “spiraling” or perhaps “helicizing.” These alternative terms were suggested to me by one of the anonymous reviewers.

¹⁴My translation of “Verhältnisse oder Beziehungen” as “relations” is based on Marx's employment of the German connective “oder” which should unify words he views as synonymous. My characterization of Marx's introduction of the term “rate of profit” by means of this chain is based on his employment of the German term “Grösse,” which has two different meanings, and in Measurement (Berka 1983) they are expressed either by the term “size” or by the term “magnitude.” This meaning ambiguity as given in German leads to the linguistic pun “die Grösse einer Grösse.” By differentiating in Measurement (Berka 1983) between these two English terms it is possible to escape it; this German phrase is then translated as “the size of a magnitude.”

¹⁵These laws are also stated by Marx (2012c, 2003a).

¹⁶On this see also Marx (1980b, 1603).