Society’s laws cannot be physical laws because social aggregates transform quantitatively into quality

Evidence

But the author of the Manual has not considered that, if every social aggregate is something more (and different) than the sum of its components, this must mean that the law or principle which explains the development of society cannot be a physical law, since in physics one does not get out of the quantitative sphere except metaphorically. However, in the philosophy of praxis quality is also connected to quantity and this connection is perhaps its most fertile contribution. Idealism, on the other hand, hypostasises this mysterious something else known as quality, it makes it into an entity of its own, “spirit”, just as religion had done with the idea of divinity. But if the notion of quality is a hypostasis in religious thought and in idealism, that is to say an arbitrary abstraction rather than a process of analytical distinction necessary for explanatory purposes, then the same is true in the case of vulgar materialism, which “divinises” a hypostasis of matter. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1656

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the quantity-quality dialectic as philosophy of praxis’s core, distinguishing it from both idealist hypostasis and mechanistic materialism.
• XREF: connects to: Society’s emergent quality cannot be explained by physical laws; Social wholes exceed their components, so social law cannot be physical law — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1656; Society’s development cannot be explained by physical laws of quantity. (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Society’s emergent quality cannot be explained by physical laws #corroborates (0.92)
• Social wholes exceed their components, so social law cannot be physical law #expands (0.90) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1656
• Society’s development cannot be explained by physical laws of quantity. #corroborates (0.88)
• The economic level cannot by itself determine other social levels #complicates (0.72)