Historical laws are constituted regularities, not metaphysical or causal determinants

Evidence

It is from these considerations that one must start in order to establish what is meant by “regularity”, “law”, “automatism” in historical facts. It is not a question of “discovering” a metaphysical law of “determinism”, or even of establishing a “general” law of causality. It is a question of bringing out how in historical evolution relatively permanent forces are constituted which operate with a certain regularity and automatism. Even the law of large numbers, 518 although very useful as a model of comparison, cannot be assumed as the “law” of historical events. In order to establish the historical origin of the philosophy of praxis (an element which is nothing less than its particular way of conceiving “immanence”), it will be necessary to study the conception of economic laws put forward by David Ricardo. It is a matter of realising that Ricardo was important in the foundation of the philosophy of praxis not only for the concept of “value” in economics, but was also “philosophically” important and has suggested a way of thinking and intuiting history and life. The method of “supposing that …”, of the premiss that gives a certain conclusion, should it seems to me, be identified as one of the starting points (one of the intellectual stimuli) of the philosophical experience of the founders of the philosophy of praxis. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1464

It is from these considerations that one must start in order to establish what is meant by “regularity”, “law”, “automatism” in historical facts. It is not a question of “discovering” a metaphysical law of “determinism”, or even of establishing a “general” law of causality. It is a question of bringing out how in historical evolution relatively permanent forces are constituted which operate with a certain regularity and automatism. … It is a matter of realising that Ricardo was important in the foundation of the philosophy of praxis not only for the concept of “value” in economics, but was also “philosophically” important and has suggested a way of thinking and intuiting history and life. The method of “supposing that …”, of the premiss that gives a certain conclusion, should it seems to me, be identified as one of the starting points (one of the intellectual stimuli) of the philosophical experience of the founders of the philosophy of praxis. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1464

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gramsci redefines ‘law’/‘regularity’ in historical facts as constituted permanence, not metaphysical determinism — a key distinction for the toolkit.
• XREF: This redefinition of historical law as constituted regularity, not determinism, will feed directly into how Islamophobia scholarship treats ‘structure’ vs. ‘essence’ — echoes Arendt and later critical theory on contingency. — connects to: Historical materialism requires no metaphysical-materialist foundation; Historical law-statements require generalizing away from unique facts; Historical necessity is a feeling produced by dialectical understanding, not an ontological determinism. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 709 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: The claim that Ricardo’s ‘supposing that…’ method was a philosophical stimulus for Marx’s founders is a specific genealogy claim worth tracing.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1464