The “conversation” about Althusser and the idea of
“epistemological break” is one more indication of the
philosophical insularity of the reformist left. Jon
Beasley-Murray, for instance, regards the “epistemological
break” to be the effect of “someone's desire:
"someone” wills themselves into a new state of things
(from “ideology' to “science")!
Althusser's notion of “break”, needless to say, has
nothing to do with “someone” — that would
indeed be a “humanist” fallacy. “Epistemological
break," is a matter of systemic transformation and has nothing to
do with “someone”. Paul Zarembka, echoes this humanism
by saying that yes, we need more “break” and
“break is liberation” and then offers PERSONAL
TESTIMONY: he, we learn, has gone through a personal
“break” in thought: “I myself FEEL I went
through a break in thinking”. Which, of course,
raises the question of “experience” (I FEEL) and its
place in the “break”. Althusser, in a number of texts
has argued that “experience” is not the same as
“truth”. On the contrary , “lived
experience” is identical with “ideology” (LENIN
AND PHILOSOPHY, p. 223). The “lived” experience, to
repeat, is, according to Althusser, “not..given by a pure
'reality'" but is a construct. To say that “I FEEL”
that I have gone through a “break” then is basically
to deny the historicity of the “experience” and the
“institutional” and “discursive”
conditions that made that “experience” a
possibility. Paul Zarembka then, offers his own
“experience” as a panhistorical evidence which is
another way of saying he wants us to take it as the equivalent of
a “scientific” experiment or at least a rigorous
theoretical analysis! Levy is more cautious in his discussion of
the “break”: he steps back from embracing
unquestioningly the humanism of Zarembka but dodges the
theoretical questions. He instead provides a
“description”:
gives an annotation of Althusser's
notion of break, etc. However, no “explanation” (as
opposed to “description") of Althusser's notion of
“epistemological break” can be offered on the level of
close reading/annotation. A theoretical analysis is needed to
situate the concept of “epistemological break” in the
general theory of science and then ask questions about the
politics of the concept. Levy himself, in his thick annotations
provides the preliminary “descriptive” frame for such
a theoretical inquiry. He points out that the idea of the
“break” comes from the philosophy of science
(G. Bachelard) but, as we have already said, instead of theorizing
the question gives a “description” of it. Bachelard's
notion of “break” is part of the idealist philosophy
of science in which the materialist idea of “truth”
(based on an objective world beyond the
“interpretation” of the subject) is erased from the
scene of knowledge. In place of a “materialist”
theory, Bachelard puts forth a “conventionalist” view
of truth — a view which is now the core of ludic pomo
epistemology and is popularized as “cultural” or
“social” CONSTRUCTIONISM by, among others, Donna
Haraway (CYBORG theory of truth, etc.) and various forms of
neo-marxism (that are regularly published in RETHINKING MARXISM,
SOCIAL TEXT, NEW FORMATIONS (London) and in the more recent issues
of SOCIALIST REVIEW (since Duke University Press took it
over... ). It is, however, not only the
“conventionalist” theory of truth which is at stake
here. A set of formalist theories of science — which are (as
Levy points out) now best known through Kuhn's idea of
“paradigm” are also necessary to fully understand the
idealist nature of Althusserian notion of “epistemological
break”. For Kuhn it is not the contradictions between the
forces of production and the social relations of production that
makes the “questions” of science (in science) possible
(Marx, CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY), but the immanent laws of
scientific discovery (the culture of science) themselves. The
“normal” sciences, as the result of such internal
changes, are subject to sudden mutations (breaks)....
The notion of “epistemological break” has played a
fundamental role in contemporary theory of social change and
theory of history — through the mediation of texts by
Foucault (a student of Althusser). In Foucault the notion of
“epistemological break” works by the concept of
“episteme” and sets up two models of idealist
historiography: history-as-archeology (the role of discourse and
discursive formations) and the notion of history-as-genealogy (the
calculus of POWER).
These Foucauldean views are now the founding concepts of NEW
HISTORICISM which is deployed to marginalize Marxist theories of
history. Althusser's idea of break, in short, is part of a larger
bourgeois idealist theory of history and science. This idealist
move, denies the materialist idea of transformation through
continuity (that is social change as the logic of historical
necessity) and in its place puts the notion of change as
“aleatory”: change as an “excess” that
cannot be explained by “historical necessity”. History
as a series of aleatory changes is history — as Foucault
argues—as series of DISCONTINUITIES. A series, that is, of
“new” beginnings each with its own autonomous logic
free ("liberated” to use Paul Zarembka's word) from the
very conditions that have made it a necessity. Russell Pearson, in
an annotation of Zarembka's comments indicates that it is
specifically the series of discontinuities between
“agency” and “production” (each with its
own logic apart from the other — both working
“simultaneously” but not in any
“necessary” relationship) that drive history
forward. History as the site of the “alea”, a series
of discontinuities is an understanding that is particularly
helpful to capitalism which constantly re-invents and
re-writes its own history and in each new re-writing
“liberates” itself from its previous
contradictions... (see M. Zavarzadeh, “Post-Ality” in
TRANSFORMATION # 1: MARXISM AND POSTMODERNISM). It is by means of
history as genealogy — breaks — that, Stanley
Aronowitz and others for instance argue that we have entered a
post-al moment in history: a moment in which the present of
capitalism has nothing to do with its past. This “new”
capitalism is discontinuous with the capitalism before it (it has
undergone an epistemological break) and unlike before, it is now
free from “exploitation”. This is so because it is
“knowledge” (not labor as in previous capitalism) that
is the source of wealth. It is such a theory that also constitutes
the foundation of all end-of-work theories (e.g. J. Rifkin). This
is also the theory that “informs” most of the recent
analyses of Zaire on this list.... Althusser's theory of
“epistemological breaks” in Marx reduces the
historical complexities of Marx's work by re-inventing Marx over
and over again. The results is “several” Marxes. There
is, of course, only one Marx whose work is not so much a subject
of mutations, the alea or epistemological breaks but historical
continuity ("necessity"): the changes in Marx's work are most
effectively explained by dialectical transformations.
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