Page - 56 - in Otto Bauer (1881–1938) - Thinker and Politician

56 chapter 2 respect,both theories fulfilled therequirementsofmodernscience.However, hisongoingquest foraunifiedanduniversalmeansofgainingknowledgewas anotherpositivist trait inhisreadingofMarx. AccordingtoBauer,Marxadoptedtwocoremethodologicalprinciplesfrom scientism and positivism. The first principle, phenomenalism, negates the notion thatobjectshaveahiddenessence. The second, empiricism, entails a strict refusal to recognise facts thatarenotestablishedthroughexperience; it furthermorecontainsan imperative togeneralise findings inaccordancewith the principles of logic. Bauer believed thatMarx’s method proceeded from describingsocialconditionstothenstatingtheirregularityandintersubjective verifiability, and, lastly, to formulating laws. Fromthis, Bauer concluded that Marx, followingtheexamplesetbyMills, linkedinductionwithdeduction.He particularlyemphasisedthesignificanceoftheinductivemethodforsubstanti- atingclaimsthathadthecharacteristicsofgenerallaws.However,inthisregard, hisapproachwasnotentirelyconsistent.His criticismofRenner’s attempt to replace thedeductivemethodofCapitalwithan inductiveonedemonstrated this.24As if to furtherhighlighthis inconsistency,hehimselfemployedMarx’s deductivemethod for economic analyses. Bauer failed to adequately recog- nise thedistinctiveness ofMarx’s principle of rising from the abstract to the concrete (for the sake of accuracy, it should benoted that hewrote about it himself).25 Likewise, he did not sufficiently appreciateMarx’s aspiration to investigatephenomenaaccessible toobservationbymeansof abstract theor- eticalcategories fromoutsidethesphereofempirical reality. A reading of Bauer’swritingsmight create the impression that he viewed the reality of nature and social reality as one body. The naturalist position was reflected in his belief that the evolution of humankind constituted but one stage in the evolution of nature. In his text ‘Marx and Darwin’, which was heavily informedby aDarwinianperspective, Bauer concluded that the culturaldevelopmentofhumanitywasacontinuationofevolution innature. However, this text is not a very representative source for evaluating Bauer’s position. His other works do not allow us to lump him in with the Social Darwinist current.26 Bauer did not ignore the complexities at the point of 24 SeeBauer1980s,p.260. 25 AlfredPfabiganwouldmost certainlynot agreewithmyassessment.According tohim, Bauer was the first of socialist theorists to recognise the significance of theMarxian method,‘fromtheabstracttotheconcrete’,althoughheinterpreteditinacriticalcognitive sense.SeePfabigan1977,p.43. 26 According toRichardWeikart, SocialDarwinismcanbeunderstoodasan ideology that views nature as based on competition and uses theDarwinian concept of struggle for