Sebastiano Taccola
Oxygen and surplus-value, cell and commodity. The logic of discovery in the critique of political economy
Abstract: This paper aims to investigate the influence of the natural sciences on the logic of discovery that characterizes Marx’s critique of political economy. In the first part, the paper makes specific references to the works of Thomas Kuhn and Louis Althusser to take seriously the parallelism between Lavoisier and Marx suggested by Engels, and examines its possible epistemological implications. Following this thread, it is possible to shed a light on Marx’s interest in 19th century sciences, focusing in particular on the underlying influence played by cytology in Marx’s elaboration of the commodity-form. Finally, after highlighting the constitutive differences between the two scientific dominions, the paper analyses the epistemological reasons for these resonances between the natural sciences and the configuration of capitalist society elaborated by Marx.
Keywords: Marx; Critique of Political Economy; Epistemology; Natural Sciences; Paradigm.