tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post6128968302425544032..comments2024-03-23T04:01:39.348-04:00Comments on Understanding Society: The Brenner debate revisitedDan Littlehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15953897221283103880noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-54615869421289079912016-11-20T20:23:08.679-05:002016-11-20T20:23:08.679-05:00Very good summary of the Debate. Dobb's Studie...Very good summary of the Debate. Dobb's Studies in the Development of Capitalism was from 1946 though (1963 was the year it was reprinted). Spencernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-34824370677516748452013-07-15T15:05:00.032-04:002013-07-15T15:05:00.032-04:00"There is no need here to rehearse the terms ..."There is no need here to rehearse the terms and vicissitudes of what has come to be called 'the Brenner debate' about the agrarian origins of capitalism... the mere mention of its subject matter is sufficient to indicate a radical alteration of emphasis in the search for the beginnings of modernity" (The Corrupting Sea, Horden & Purcell)<br /><br />Lucky for me you found need *here* to rehearse these terms and vicissitudes. If only every term/concept returned a result like this on google first results page...<br /><br />Thanks!Jnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-67354040581926698532013-06-11T08:56:00.349-04:002013-06-11T08:56:00.349-04:00A good introduction to the historiography, thanks....A good introduction to the historiography, thanks. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-20419112632267824262011-10-02T13:59:47.695-04:002011-10-02T13:59:47.695-04:00The "foundamental cognitive bias" toward...The "foundamental cognitive bias" towards single causes is very simple to explain: by corollary of its logical definition, an event cannot be effect of two causes that are opposite. In turn, only partially opposed causes need to be decomposed to find what they have in common and eliminate the paradoxical (contradictionary) element of the explanation. Keep going this way and you will end with only one cause for one effect.<br /><br />Another way to understand that is to think that in every occasion in which the idea that the are multiple, equally plausible causal explanations for one event, is asserted, the debate almost immediately (and understandably) shifts on the issue of detecting the most important/relevant cause with respect to other causes. The language used may change, discussant speak about "relative importance" and other linguistic devices like that, but the issue of causality is exactly the same.<br /><br />Third, you can say "okay, there are equally good explanation, everyone is a good and different way to look at the event. I chose this one". Using this conventionalist approach one simply cannot justify why chosing one argument and not the others.<br /><br />Fourth, one can try to make a synthesis of all possible hyphotheses of causal explanations available, unifying them in a single explanation. But this sounds like a simple linguistic stick as far as there is not logical inside ordering of sub-arguments into the one, great argument. If this is not achieved, the synthesis is incoherent, unstable and incapable of explaining anything.<br /><br />So, looking for single causes is not at all a caprice; it is just logic. You just need to think for a second what the consequences of accepting that every single *alleged* multicausality are and you get what I'm saying. You simply cannot accept that the are multiple causes for one effect. How do you know that further research will not be able to single out a true cause, eliminating the other ones from the explanation? You cannot read into the future, so you do not have a reasonable justification to accept pluralism on causality.<br /><br />To accept multiple causes is to say "ok, on this we now stop to do research and act to discover further truths, and we start to speculate naively about interpretation comment". This is sterile for every kind of scientific knowledge, history comprised.matteonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4058766287077382431.post-53077447057283537692010-01-09T23:02:02.589-05:002010-01-09T23:02:02.589-05:00It's perhaps a fundamental cognitive bias that...It's perhaps a fundamental cognitive bias that singular events seem to cry out for single causes. In fact singular events are more likely to be the product of multiple, time-varying factors. These factors aren't likely to be very well-correlated (if they were, the event wouldn't be singular or rare.) Climate change as one factor among several interests me because it might spur innovation, or the acceptance of innovation (social, legal, technical) among *all* classes, since adverse weather (especially cold weather) and stunted crop growth affects all classes (albeit unequally) to some extent.Michael Turnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00713921931911369458noreply@blogger.com