JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 128.235.Marx's epistemology is based on a type of materialism melded to the Hegelian dialectic. To avoid the use of metaphysics, which he considered unscientific, Marx asserted that reality was directly perceived by the observer without an intervening conceptual apparatus. But to interpret his data, he used the dialectic, a metaphysical system which he thought to be empirically true. The Marxist dialectic considers theory and practice to be a single entity and that what men actually do demonstrates the truth. Dewey's "logic," also influenced by Hegel, is derived from the experimental situation rather thanz from an externally validated formal system, so that theory and practice are one entity. Thus both dialectical materialism and pragmatism involve an activist criterion of truth because both fail to postulate a logical system which is independent of social action. The criterion of truth is inextricably intertwined with social power. Both dialectical materialism and pragmatism encourage a situation where the production of knowledge may be influenced by mechanisms of social control. * This paper is a revision of a paper read at the Sociology of Knowledge session chaired by Albert Cousins at the joint meeting of the Ohio Valley and Midwest Sociological Societies, May 1, 1969. The paper benefited from the criticism of Irwin Deutscher and William H. Form. If there are errors of fact and interpretation, they are our own.no conceivable political or social use, then the question of their validity would have little consequence. Increasingly, however, sociological findings are used to shape and justify particular social policies. In this situation, ignoring the question of the possible influence of social control on scientific findings seems ill-advised.Our position is that all sociological propositions implicitly assume an epistemological foundation, and that both sociological and epistemological propositions can be influenced by social power. But we shall not defend that position in this paper. Rather, we shall examine two systems of scientific validation, dialectical materialism and pragniatism, in an attempt to show that both are especially susceptible to the influence of social control. Both systems have much that is of purely intellectual interest, but we focus on these two because of their political importance. Owing to a series of historical accidents, dialectical materialism provides an official epistemological foundation for Soviet science, while pragmatism is dominant in the United States. One ought not underestimate the importance of scientific findings that can ultimately be backed by atomic power.llarxists believe that dialectical materialism const...
