Re: BHA: FWD: Society, Santa

[Howie Chodos <howie@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

Following Michaels invitation, Ill just jump in, and comment on a few
points raised by various contributors to this stimulating discussion. Sorry
for the length of the post, but Ive been silent for so long.

First, on Colins assertion that there is a fundamental difference in the
ontological status of society and Santa. His argument, as I understand it,
is that this difference is revealed by the fact that by individually
denying belief in Santa one, as it were, makes him go away. But surely this
isnt the case. Non-belief in Santa is just as much an effect of the
Santas social existence as belief in him is. Among the possible
consequences could be social ostracism for Colins six-year old. More
generally, the sense of being different that is engendered by the barrage
of Santa propaganda at Xmas-time for those who do not participate in
gift-giving (either because they have no friends or family with whom to do
so, or because they practice other religions than Christianity) constitutes
a set of social effects that are entirely independent of belief in Santa.

One could also approach the problem by asking why Colin engages in various
Xmas related practices despite not believing in Santa? Isnt that testimony
to the reality of the social effects of Santa, independent of ones
individual beliefs? As curmudgeonly as Colin would like to make himself out
to be, he nonetheless succumbs to the pressures of this fictional Santa,
precisely because there are costs attached to not doing so.  Anything which
thus assigns costs to various courses of action is socially real, and
independent of belief in it. Of course, there is no bearded Santa living at
the North Pole making toys for children around the world. But you cant
escape the causal effects of Santa as social phenomenon simply by
renouncing belief in the man and his elves.

I think that the central question is whether one wants to say that social
forces exist. I would think that one would. RBs use of the example of a
magenetic field to show that the difference between the natural and the
social sciences turns on the impossibility of artificially inducing closure
on the experimental situation, has always seemed to me to be sound. It is
not the objects of knowledge that are different -- both natural and social
forces exist -- but rather that we cannot come to know them in the same way
(or, for parallel reasons, that we cannot manipulate them in the same way).

I think this also relates to the discussion of whether absences are real.
If that which makes things possible is considered to be real, then absences
must be so considered. We explain human evolution not only by the
presence of hominids but also by the absence of the dinosaurs. It was their
destruction (by a random event, no less, if the Alvarez asteroid theory is
correct) that opened up the space for the flourishing of mammals in
general, which was an essential condition for the eventual emergence of the
human species.

Michael has rightly insisted on the plural nature of reality, of existence,
of being. Ruth is also probably right to not see any fundamental
distinction between the referents of the terms ontological status,
existence and being. All could legitimately be seen as ways of
understanding the term is.

Yet, at the same time, I would want to argue that truth does have an
ontological dimension, but it is precisely that there can never be a single
version of the truth (that there is, consequently no way in which the world
'is'). The ontological dimension of truth is that it is always concrete,
but never singular. Something with many truths (the expression dimensions
of truth would work as well here) is just as real as something with a
putative single truth. Reality does not hinge on there being one true
story. And there are ontological grounds for thinking that there will
always be a plurality of truths.

Bhaskar has referred to J. J. Gibsons theory of affordances. I think it is
relevant here. All environments afford different things to different
physical or biological entities. Reality can never be captured by a single
language, a single vocabulary, a single theory. Even if phycisists attain
the Holy Grail of One Big Theory, I think it can be categorically affirmed
that it will not explain all of human history. We are not reducible to our
physical beings. My existence may be constrained by everything that has
transpired since the Big Bang, but what I am writing here now is not in any
way meaningfully dictated by the entire history of the Universe. It makes
writing this possible, but not inevitable. Our ability to use the concepts
ontological status, existence and being, to refer to things,
phenomena or people, does not hinge on it being possible to give to any of
them a single meaning.

Finally, the way in which Socrates is real would seem to me to have changed
since the time he lived his life. Because we have a historical and
philosophical record of the man and his ideas, Socrates continues to
influence human evolution. Because of the extent to which Socrates has
already affected human evolution, it would be safe to say that these
effects will continue to reverberate for the foreseeable future. Because
Socrates reflected profoundly on aspects of human existence that continue
to characterise our own lives, it is legitimate to hold that what he had to
say remains relevant to our own attempts to navigate our way through our
time on earth.

The exact nature of each of these kinds of reality can only be discovered
through a concrete investigation. Truth is always concrete, even if it is
also plural and therefore cannot, in principle (for both ontological and
epistemological reasons), ever be grasped as a singularity. Thus, there are
truths about Socrates just as there are about the countless millions of
people about whom we have no comparable record. They were all real in the
same sense that Socrates was when he was alive. They are not real in the
same way that Socrates still is. But there are also many fictional
characters who have real effects on human communities in largely the same
way that Socrates still does, despite never having been real in the way
that the millions of 'forgotten' actual human beings were.

Howie Chodos




     --- from list bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---