On Making Sense: Let Everyone Tell Their ‘Story’

The Dialectic at Work

In this episode, “On Making Sense: Let Everyone Tell Their Story”, the Dialectic goes to work to further explore the Marxist idea of dialectics and ‘overdetermination’. Specifically, we deal with the following question: if indeed (as Prof. Wolff has argued in the previous episode) reality is ‘overdetermined’ by a complex interaction between a host of over-determinants then how can we say anything analytical about the real world? How can we still ‘tell a story’?

We argue that the only solution to the mess is to examine the ‘conditions of existence’ that mutually shape a given object of analysis by pulling it and pushing it in multiple trajectories. There are, therefore, no guarantees in this kind of Marxism.

Different analysts will choose to examine different aspects of the social totality by focusing on some part of it. This also leads us to a criticism of mainstream Economics and its emphasis on the ‘empiricist’ mode of reasoning. As Prof Wolff demonstrates here, the field of econometrics makes irrational claims of ‘one-way’ causality that are at odds with how the real-world works. Since ‘evidence’ is always examined in the light of theories, there is no ‘neutral’ way of discerning the truth from fiction. The empiricist focuses on the ‘evidence’ but forgets that evidence is mediated within a theory; the ‘rationalist’ focuses on ‘reason’ but forgets that reason is constructed within the evidence. Marxian overdetermination does not give supremacy to either, but rather understands the dialectic at play between experience and reason, and their impact, in turn, on a host of outcomes.

About

The Dialectic at Work is a podcast hosted by Professor Shahram Azhar & Professor Richard Wolff. The show is dedicated to exploring Marxian theory. It utilizes the dialectical mode of reasoning, that is the method developed over the millennia by Plato and Aristotle, and continues to explore new dimensions of theory and praxis via a dialogue. The Marxist dialectic is a revolutionary dialectic that not only seeks to understand the world but rather to change it. In our discussions, the dialectic goes to work intending to solve the urgent life crises that we face as a global community. Follow us on social media: X: @DialecticAtWork Instagram: @DialecticAtWork Tiktok: @DialecticAtWork Website: www.DemocracyAtWork.info Patreon: www.patreon.com/democracyatwork