 There is a that I mentioned is I mentioned his name to you before there was a French philosopher Unfortunately passed away a few years ago Foucault F O U C A U L T Michelle Foucault who claimed that power was used by the few to Transform their ideas about the world Into the truth into the world and then all other ideas had to conform to it So we need to keep in mind Foucault's lesson What still is and forevermore will remain merely a truth claim about the world Produced by an individual or by a community of individuals is used as a club forcing everybody else's ideas in society to conform to Those set of ideas their ruling ideas become our our ideas Not because they're true But rather because they assert that their ideas are not theirs But rather they belong to the world and the way they do that is to that rationalist empiricist trickery so what we have to do as individuals is to to Resist this kind of trickery this epistemological trickery and not allow their ideas to become Our ideas that is to control our behavior That's what Marxism is is struggling again, or let me put it more accurately. That's what Marxist epistemology is struggling against non-Marxian discourses of the day of Marx's day and today Claim that their particular theory of the world is in fact the truth There they have discovered whether it be neoclassical economic theory or Keynesian theory. They've discovered an absolute singular Truth which is no act class exploitation exists. So Marxism or Marxist epistemology Attacks that kind of epistemological claim of non-Marxian economic theory by showing that no it's not an absolute singular truth No class exploitation rather. That's a relative truth claim relative to neoclassical and economic Theory and it's merely another claim about the world and Marxism is a theory that produces a different claim And so we have a struggle in theory between these two different claims about the world neither one of them is absolutely True their truth claims and they could be interrogated and questioned rejected accepted hated and loved just like anything else in the world So from a dialectical perspective a Truth about the world whether it be within Marxism or physics or whatever else is Just another claim about the world and like all other claims it is socially Produced hence again very important. It can be questioned It can be rejected. It can be accepted. It can be loved It could be hated just like any other entity in the world and if one rejects a particular Claim about the world one is not rejecting the truth and Hence one is not a dangerous or an idiot or stupid or whatever Girl crazy rather one is rejecting an individual or groups claim about the world That's not a minor thing But that is what one is doing and one is not then transformed into a fool by rejecting someone else's claim about the world What we have to be aware of is how rationalism and empiricism Engages in this kind of illusion this epistemological illusion or trick or act of magic, which they which is again They they take their ideas about the world and somehow Transform it into a fact of the world We also need to remember one other thing in terms of rationalism and empiricism these are theories of Knowledge and one can always ask about each How do you know that your particular theory is true now? In other words you can ask the rationalist rationalist How do you know your particular rationalist epistemology epistemology, which is a theory is correct if the rationalist answers That I know that my theory is correct based upon reason Well, you can say to the rationalist that's circular reasoning. You haven't shown anything. You haven't proven a thing What you've done is invoke your theory your rationalist theory and not to prove it in other words You're saying in answer to the question that reason is a standard of truth on the base of my reason Well, you're justifying reason on on the basis of reason. You're assuming that's not proving anything That's just kind of circular reasoning same thing goes for empiricism. How do you know your empiricist? methodology or empiricist theory is correct if the empiricist Answers I know it to be correct that based upon my experience what that empiricist is doing is then is invoking the theory You're not at the prove the theory. That's as circular as is the rationalist and of course It's quite possible that an answer to this question How do you know that your particular theory is true and valid that the rationalist or the empiricist Might fall into the other theory. That's the rationalist theory might fall into empiricism the empiricist might fall into rationalism and you have an endless oscillation throughout the traditional philosophy between Rationalism falling into empiricism and empiricism falling into to rationalism and I don't know of any way out of that kind of circularity But if you do you'll become very famous in philosophy Finally an important question arises If we reject this attempt to find absolute singular truths Truths are we left with an inability to make choices at all? in other words When confronted with different truth claims about the world How do we make choices or put this differently? Do we not fall into a kind of nihilism? When we are confronted with all these all of these different truth claims, and I think the answer is no One is not and cannot be rendered passive In confronting all these different contending truth claims about the world and the reason is because We as individuals are all over determined sites and One of our active responses to that Overdetermination of us as individuals is the choices we make amongst everything in life Which includes these theories with which we are confronted We prefer some over others in part because of all the different political economic cultural and natural processes which over determine us Those different determinate determinations Yield our choices in life including our choices over these theories So we're never passive. We're always active participants in choosing one over the other What Marx wanted us to Experience and to be aware of and to think of was how his particular theory would affect our Choices in other words he wanted to confront us with his particular truth claim With the hope that It's determination its effect upon us might persuade us to incorporate His ideas into our way of thinking and And into our way of seeing the world namely to begin to think and To begin to see class exploitation in the world That concludes this presentation