Parametric determinism

Parametric determinism refers to a Marxist interpretation of the course of history formulated by Ernest Mandel, and it could be viewed as one variant of Karl Marx's historical materialism or as a philosophy of history.In an article critical of the Analytical Marxism of Jon Elster, Mandel explains the idea as follows:In formal-logical determinism, human action is considered either rational, and hence logically explicable, or else arbitrary and random (in which case human actions can be comprehended at best only as patterns of statistical distributions, i.e. as degrees of variability relative to some constants). But in dialectical determinism, human action may be non-arbitrary and determinate, hence reasonable, even although it is not explicable exclusively in formal-logical terms. The action selected by people from a limited range of options may not be the most logical one, but it can be shown to be non-arbitrary and reasonable under the circumstances, if the total context is considered.What this means is that, in human situations, typically several ""logics"" are operating at the same time which together determine the outcomes of those situations:the logic of the actors themselves.the logic of the parameters constraining their behaviour.the logic of the interactive relationship between actors and their situation.If one considered only one of these aspects, one might judge people's actions ""irrational"", but if all three aspects are taken into account, what people do may appear ""very reasonable"". Dialectical theory aims to demonstrate this, by linking different ""logical levels"" together as a total picture, in a non-arbitrary way. ""Different logical levels"" means that particular determinants regarded as irrelevant at one level of analysis are excluded, but are relevant and included at another level of analysis with a somewhat different (or enlarged) set of assumptions.—depending on the kind of problem being investigated. For example, faced with a situation, the language which people use to talk about it, reveals that they can jump very quickly from one context to another related context, knowing very well that at least some of the inferences that can be drawn in the one context are not operative in the other context. That's because they know that the assumptions in one context differ to some degree from the other. Nevertheless, the two contexts can coexist, and can be contained in the same situation, which we can demonstrate by identifying the mediating links. This is difficult to formalize precisely, yet people do it all the time, and think it perfectly ""reasonable"". For another example, people will say ""you can only understand this if you are in the situation yourself"" or ""on the ground."" What they mean is that the meaning of the totality of interacting factors involved can only be understood by experiencing them. Standing outside the situation, things seem irrational, but being there, they appear very reasonable.Dialectical theory does not mean that, in analyzing the complexity of human action, inconvenient facts are simply and arbitrarily set aside. It means, rather, that those facets of the subjectmatter which are not logically required at a given stage of the analysis are set aside. Yet, and this is the point, as the analysis progresses, the previously disregarded aspects are integrated step by step into the analysis, in a consistent way. The proof of the validity of the procedure is that, at the end, the theory has made the subjectmatter fully self-explanatory, since all salient aspects have been given their appropriate place in the theory, so that all of it becomes comprehensible, without resort to shallow tautologies. This result can obviously be achieved only after the research has already been done, and the findings can be arranged in a convincing way. A synthesis cannot be achieved without a preceding analysis. So dialectical analysis is not a ""philosopher's stone"" that provides a quick short-cut to the ""fount of wisdom"", but a mode of presenting findings of the analysis after knowledge has been obtained through inquiry and research, and dialectical relationships have been verified. Because only then does it become clear where the story should begin and end, so that all facets are truly explained. According to Ernest Mandel, ""Marx's method is much richer than the procedures of ' successive concretization' or 'approximation' typical of academic science.""In mainstream social theory, the problem of ""several logics"" in human action is dealt with by game theory, a kind of modelling which specifies the choices and options which actors have within a defined setting, and what the effects are of their decisions. The main limitation of that approach is, that the model is only as good as the assumptions on which it is based, while the choice of assumptions is often eclectic or fairly arbitrary. Dialectical theory attempts to overcome this problem, by paying attention to the sources of assumptions, and by integrating the assumptions in a consistent way.