BHA: Section 1 to Section 2

[LH Engelskirchen <lhengels@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

What about moving on to the second section of chapter 2 of
DIALECTIC, the section on emergence?  I think we can just start on
it, anyone can, and at the point someone, assigned to do so or not,
has a coherent overview to present, they can put it in.  But we
should keep the reading moving.  I for one would like to see John
Mingers attack the emergence section from the point of view of the
things he was saying recently on emergence and systems theory.
Anyway, by way of facilitating the move, I thought I would
summarize the points I have taken from the reading on absence, and
others could have at them or sum up their own take.

Notice that this is the only section specifically devoted to
absence, so that gives it some significance.  Certainly there are
related sections, e.g. in what we have already covered section 3,
"Negation."

1.   Absence must be given material expression as far as our access
to it goes.  That does not mean we cannot know absence or mean that
we can only know presence.  We infer absence from presence as we
infer other things that are real from their material effects.  In
other words we have access to absence, as all our understanding of
the world, through signs and signs are always materially embodied
presences.

2.   A consequence of what I just wrote is that we cannot establish
the reality of absence by perceptual criteria, except as inference
from perceptual criteria.  This can get a little pedantic in that
once we have any experience we can know its absence, ie I touch the
key, I don't.  But how can I know an absence that has never been
manifest?  We say Pierre is absent from the cafe and we know that
on perceptual criteria.  But Pierre is absent from a zillion cafes.
Why do we say "the" cafe?  What we perceive in the cafe are signs
of Pierre's absence.  Or April is absent from the cafe also.  But
I don't know April, don't know she exists, have never heard of any
person named April, think April is only the designation of a month.
How do I know that April is absent from the cafe?  April *is*
absent from the cafe, I'm not confused about that.  But I cannot
establish the reality of this absence by perceptual criteria except
insofar as I depend on inferences from material persences, e.g.
"oh, there's no one that looks like this photograph here."  I am
not trying to collapse the real to what we can know about the real.
I am asking by what criteria we establish the reality of absence.
Compare DPF 7 and 41.

3.   Absence lacks causal efficacy and thus we cannot establish the
reality of absence on causal criteria.  Absence is constituted by
lack, including most especially a lack of generative processes.
Thus absence is not causally efficacious.  Absence is instead the
negation of causal possibility.  It is causally significant insofar
as it leaves other generative processes operative.  When we absent
an absence we in fact negate the negation of causal possibility.
The presence of the pilot caused the ship to pass through the storm
safely.  Compare DPF 7 and 39.

     In this connection I'm not sure what is meant by the
distinction between real absence and actual absence, DPF 39.  From
p. 56 of The Realist Theory of Science, the real is the domain of
generative mechanisms, the actual the domain of events and the
empirical the domain of experience.  Pierre's absence from the cafe
is actual absence.  This is an event.  The hole in the ozone layer
is actual.  Also real?  Phlogiston?  But the problem with my
understanding is that if absence is the lack of generative
mechanisms and the negation of causal possibility then what sense
does it make to call absence real?

If absence is in fact causally efficacious, then we need some
example that cannot be adequately understood as the mere negation
of causal possibility.  We would want to identify some generative
mechanism.  If not, then what is it that is causally efficacious
that is at the same time not a generative mechanism?

4.   The reality of absence is not established by an argument from
reference DPF 40.  Certainly we can refer to absence, e.g. to a
bridge that is out, etc., but I don't follow how this cuts one way
or the other in regards to the ontological question.

5.   The reality of absence is not established by logical
abstraction from presence, e.g. "But there is no logical
incoherence in totally no-being. . . . if there was an originating
Absolute, nothing would be its being or form . . . " (DPF 46).

6.   To my understanding the reality of absence must rest on an
argument from change, causality and human agency as developed at
DPF 43-45:  "All causal determination, and hence change, is
transformative negation or absenting."  By acting Sophia changes
what she works on and changes herself.  It is not that absence is
causally efficacious, but that we cannot understand causal efficacy
except in terms of negation.  Nuclear disarmament means negating
the causal efficacy of a presence.  Piloting a boat means negating
the negation of causal possibility of an absence.  These negations
are themselves causally efficacious processes and not absences
which are causally efficacious.

At the limit this argument itself depends on the transcendental
argument for an open rather than a closed universe.  If we had
Laplacean determinism in a closed system, then everything could be
choreographed without gaps or absences.  But where the universe is
open and in process then these must exist.  So the argument for
absence seems to run back ultimately to the argument for an open
universe which we reviewed in RTS.  This was drawn together at
pp116 and 117 of RTS and turned also on our understanding of human
agency and ability to identify cause in open systems.

7.  We can test these propositions against examples.  Caroline's
reference to lack of child care in the workplace is an important
one.  "Capital" as a social relation offers a similar example.
Marx says that private property as capital depends on the "not
property" ("Nichteigentum") of the worker.  This is an absence.  Is
it causally efficacious?  Because the worker doesn't have property
he or she is unable to reproduce her existence and must make some
arrangement with whoever controls the means of production.  But the
absence is a negation of causal possibility: the worker without
access to the objective conditions of labor cannot produce.  Thus
the worker must negate the negation of causal possibility.  There
is no generative mechanism of absence.  Not being able to produce
food, means the worker is not able to replenish her physical body.
The effective operation of the biological mechanisms left intact
causes starvation, unless their operation can be overridden by some
other causal mechanism.

Howard

Howard Engelskirchen



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