Re: 0903:The Tangent

Michael M. Butler (butler@comp*lib.org)
Mon, 07 Jul 1997 18:46:38 -0700


Will someone more conversant in technical French please let me know if
"la brisure" is anything other than "the discontinuity"?

>some kind. I am attempting to understand it myself. Yet, I do know that
>the break(la brisure) is absolutely essential as an axiomatic of
>capitalism,

I can't quite fathom this. I thought I understood capitalism fairly well,
but perhaps an axiom has escaped me... as the "category notion" is/was
axiomatic but unnoticed in philosophy for millennia.

> and that it operates from within dialogues such as these,
>and
>also from within larger social contexts, and is not necessarily "the
>pause that refreshes." This concept is closely akin to another: that
>surplus value cannot be determined mathematically.<Nomadthought@usa.net>

(perplexity) One can argue that *value* cannot be determined mathematically.
Many have. I don't want to accuse you of dazzlement, but I hope you
won't mind "unpacking" your speech a bit. A discontinuity takes place
across a zero (or arbitrarily small) interval; I see nothing "pause"-like
about it unless you "cheat" and swap axes. But maybe "brisure" isn't
"discontinuity". I'm also completely unfamiliar with whatever connotative
baggage "brisure" carries with it in French...

MMB

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