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On Althusser's Philosophy of the Encounter
Abstract
The article reviews Althusser's Philosophy of the Encounter, examining in turn the problem of the Epistemological Break and the idea of matérialisme aléatoire. It looks at Althusser's critique of the concept of commodity fetishism and suggests a possible response. It goes on to situate the matérialisme aléatoire in the context of the history of atomism with particular reference to the work of Boltzmann. It provides a possible technique of both rejecting teleology whilst retaining the arrow of time.
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Notes
The paradox about whether the class of all classes that are not members of themselves is a member of itself in Chapter X of Russell (1903).
For a clear and readable explanation of these issues you can do worse than consult Chaitin (1999).
When you grasp the contemporary skepticism towards atomism it is easier to make sense of Lenin's (1908) foray into philosophy. Lenin showed considerable foresight in coming down firmly against Mach's then fashionable views.
He means Epicurus.
The idea of entropy already existed in classical thermodynamics but the latter had no causal explanation for it.
An English translation is available as Einstein (1965).
Technically they are complex numbers which means that different states can interfere with one another.
A matrix mechanics expressed directly in probabilities could not do this.
I created the text using a Markov model of the World English Bible. The transition probabilities to print a new word are determined by states made up of the last three words printed. The probabilities are obtained from a computer generated Bible concordance using the algorithms described in Cockshott and Koliousis (2011).
I cannot resist the chance to say here that Allin Cottrell and I provide a theoretical explanation for mercantile surplus value in the chapter on foreign trade of Cockshott and Cottrell (1992).