Re: BHA: Another try

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Caroline, everyone

Caroline wrote:
> No mechanisms, tendencies in the hole qua hole, only
>in the hole as a gap between 'onts', right?  specifically located.  It
>has causal powers as part of the whole set-up up there, but only
>relationally, not in itself.

Off the top of my head, as I'm still on the hop without my books and
things, I think that's right up to a point. Reality is still ascribed
causally in the case of 'de-onts', but one mustn't expect them to be
'onts'!! i.e. no mechanisms in the hole qua hole, only mechanisms
sustaining it. (But this only if it truly is a void - is it?)

But 1. What _does_ have causal powers 'in itself' as distinct from
'relationally'? When something grounds a causal power, it does so, as I
understand it, in virtue of its internally related elements - in which,
as you recognize, gaps etc are indispensable: i.e. absence is an
essential aspect of causal mechanisms.

2. You seem (?) to want to give ontological priority to onts. RB as I
understand him argues the opposite. Negativity is possible without
positivity, but the latter can't exist without the former, etc.

The whole point at one level is, as doubtless you know, that a purely
positive account of reality and change is impossible and that we need to
think relationally and processually.

I find it helpful to bear in mind the distinction between causal powers
and their exercise in effects/events. Effects=change=absenting. The hole
(absence of ozone in relation to its presence elsewhere), like the ozone
layer itself (presence of ozone in relation to its absence elsewhere),
is the result surviving into the present of the mainly past exercise of
causal powers; it is a present absence which in turn [as you make it
clear you see] makes it possible for other causal powers (the properties
of rays of the sun) to have effects which they wouldn't otherwise have,
in an ongoing complex dynamic. Ontological depth, in both its negative
and positive aspects, has a temporal as well as spatial dimension...

Similar considerations apply, I think, in the case of the failed monsoon
or the absent letter, etc. In the case of the latter, its absence was
caused by the operation of a range of causal mechanisms, some overriding
others = their effect. This in turn has an effect on you, negating your
expectations and helping to cause you to do things you otherwise
wouldn't have.

Does this mean there are causal mechanisms in the absence qua absence?
No. But, to repeat, given that there is something, there can be no
absence qua absence (any more than the opposite), only absence in
relation to other realities, and vice versa.

Hope this helps,

Mervyn
--
Mervyn Hartwig
The High House
Happisburgh
Norwich, Norfolk
UK NR12 OQY
01692 650 165


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