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PARTISAN REVIEW
being without ever attaining to being itself, and how different from
the truth of the dogmatic system which holds itself to be
in
possession
of the whole of being. What a distance between the truth which can
nowhere be set down in writing but which, according to Plato's
seventh epistle, though it can only be attained by thought,
is
kindled
in a favorable moment of communication among men of under–
standing, and the truth which
is
written, universally cogent and in–
telligible, distinct and available to all thinking creatures!
Three so different conceptions of scientific knowledge-the first
patterned on the method of modern science, the second derived from
the idea of a total philosophical system, and the third related to faith
in a truth which
is
directly apprehended by the intellect (Plato'S truth
being an example) - all contribute to the present confusion.
An
example:
Its inquiries and investigations in the economic field have made
Marxism an important force in scientific development. But this it
shares with many other trends and its scientific contribution does
not account for its influence. M.arxism also represents a philosophical
thesis regarding the dialectical course of history as a total process
which it purports to understand. Thus it constitutes a philosophical
doctrine, but one with a claim to universal scientific validity. It has
the same epistemological basis as Hegel's philosophy, whose dialectical
method remains its implement. The difference is only that for Hegel
the core of the historical process lies in what he calls the "idea,"
while for Marx it lies
in
the mode of production of man who, unlike
the animals, obtains his sustenance through systematic labor. Both
Hegel and Marx derive all phenomena from what they regard as
the core. Marx therefore rightly claims to have stood Hegel on his
head; that however is only in content, for he did not depart from
Hegel's method of constructing reality by the dialectic of the concept.
Now this identification of economic knowledge, which
is
gained
by scientific method, hence inductively, and which by its very nature
is subject to constant modifications, with the dialectical knowledge
of the total process, which passes for essentially definitive knowledge,
is the source of the fallacy committed by Hegel and in a different
form by the type of modern philosophy that began with Descartes and
was repeated by Marx. Marx's absolute, exclusive claim therefore
