political economy. With this in mind the reader will be taken through three meta-theoretical levels of Marx' method of analysis of the struc tures of capitalism: (1) the clarification of 'critique' and method from Kant's epistemology, Hegel's phenomenology, to Marx' political economy (Chapter One); (2) the analysis of 'critique' and time, that is, the temporal dimensions of the critical method as they evolve from Hegel's Logic to Marx' Capital and the difference between the use of the future in explanatory, positivist science and 'critique' (Chapter Two); (3) and finally, 'critique' and materialism, a study of the complexity of the category of materialism, the ambivalence and ambiguity of its use in Marx' critical method, and the ontological and logical dilemmas created by the Schelling-Feuerbach turn toward materialism in their critique of Hegel (Chapter Three). The critique of political economy is, therefore, examined at the levels of methodology, temporality, and ontology. To what do the categories of political economy really refer when the positivist interpretations of Marx have been shattered and 'critique' be comes the method of choice? What kind of knowledge do we have if it is no longer "scientific" in the traditional sense of both epistemology and methodology? And what kind of applicability will it have when its format is such as not to produce predictive, technical knowledge, but practical knowledge in the Greek sense of the word (Praxis)? What be comes of the criterion of truth when epistemology itself, like science, is

This title was first published in 2001. The book aims to give a clear and accessible account of Marx’s method and an assessment of its scientific validity and relevance to contemporary social science; The key methodological themes of Marx’s work and their development are shown with particular attention paid to the elements of dialectics and materialism; Four models of science are outlined-positivism; critical rationalism; scientific conventionalism; scientific realism - and the arguments and evidence both for and against Marx’s method corresponding to any of them examined. The conclusion arrived at is that Marx’s method is a good example of social scientific practice according to the scientific realist model and that it has a positive contribution to make to social science today.realism.

A masterful survey of the history of Marxist philosophy of science Sheehan retraces the development of a Marxist philosophy of science through detailed and highly readable accounts of the debates that shaped it. Skilfully deploying a large cast of characters, Sheehan shows how Marx and Engel’s ideas on the development and structure of natural science had a crucial impact on the work of early twentieth-century natural philosophers, historians of science, and natural scientists. With a new afterword by the author.

In Marx’s Experiments and Microscopes Paolucci provides a novel framework for understanding how Marx’s dialectical roots animated his scientific practice and how this approach informs studies in political economy and the sociology of religion.

The Scientific Marx was first published in 1986. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Marx advanced Capital to the public as a scientific explanation of the capitalist economy, intending it to be evaluated by ordinary standards of scientific adequacy. Today, however, most commentators emphasize Marx's humanism or his theory of historical materialism over his scientific claims. The Scientific Marx thus represents a break with many current views of Marx's analysis of capitalism in that it takes seriously his claim that Capital is a rigorous scientific investigation of the capitalist mode of production. Daniel Little discusses the main features of Marx's account, applying the tools of contemporary philosophy of science. He analyzes Marx's views on theory and explanation in the social sciences, the logic of Marx's empirical practices, the relation between Capital and historical materialism, the centrality of micro-foundations in Marx's analysis, and the minimal role that dialectics plays in his scientific method. Throughout, Little relies on "evidence taken from Marx's actual practice as a social scientist rather than from his explicit methodological writings." The book contributes to current controversies in the literature of "analytic Marxism" joined by such authors as Jon Elster, G.A. Cohen, and John Roemer.