Re: BHA: SEPM

["Andrew Brown" <Andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks alot Mervyn,

That was a really helpful reply.

Your points are persuasive, though I would have to go back and
read the PON chapter again.

My reference to 'idealism in the CR sense' is simply due to me
having a rather different notion of idealism (which I take to be
Spinozist), which needn't bother us now.

Still, *if* you agree that 'ultimate entities' are unknown, and
possibly simply fields of potential, then I see no reason why there
cannot be lots of such unknown 'things' out there (including non-
spatial ones at that), which are not part of a hierarchy of
stratification - or, at least, are part of a non-material (spatial)
hierarchy. This is *compatible* with emergentism; where there is
emergence we recognise it, but CR doesn't enforce the view that
everything is part of the same hierarchy. Nor, can it do so I would
have thought - for, this would be something like the epistemic or
ontic fallacy: how the hell do we *know* non-material entities do
not exist?

Thanks again,

Andy






On 11 Jan 2001, at 21:24, Mervyn Hartwig wrote:

> Hi Andy
>
> I take it you want to 'save' a materialist interpretation of Bhaskar's
> remarks. I do think your interpretation is a bit 'charitable' because
> Bhaskar explicitly *contrasts* 'dualistic interactionism' with (a form
> of) 'materialism' ('stratified monism'). I take Bhaskar to be here
> invoking what such a contrast normally invokes within philosophy: the
> Cartesian view that there are two kinds of thing in the world - bodies
> or material things whose essence is to be extended in space; and minds
> or immaterial things whose essence is to think - as contrasted with
> monism (whether stratified or not), which asserts that there is only
> (ultimately) one kind of thing, of which everything is a part or a mode.
> I'm not sure what you mean by 'the CR sense' of the term 'idealism' -
> certainly CR acknowledges objective or ontological idealism eg Hegel,
> and subjective idealism eg discourse theory, but also I would have
> thought the ontological idealism (as well as materialism) intrinsic to
> Cartesian dualism which of course feeds into modern subjective
> idealism...
>
> >there seems nothing in CR to
> >deny the possibity that there is a new structure, or 'thing', hitherto
> >unknown, and *not* apparently emergent from known structures,
> >underlying 'thought'.A stucture which simply happens to be there.
>
> One difficulty with this is that Bhaskar's theory of mind claims to be
> an emergentist one, as is necessarily the case with any non-reductionist
> materialism which takes the theory of evolution seriously.
>
> >Isn't this *exactly* the possibilty that CR leaves open re 'ultimate
> >entities'? Indeed, isn't this how we might interpret the various forces
> >such as magnetism? (And 'force' as in 'field of potential' is indeed
> >RB's likely candidate for 'ultimate entity').
>
> Yes, at least until FEW ('pure dispositionality' in DPF.) But if reality
> is ultimately 'immaterial' it makes no sense to say that it's 'material'
> (and to call an 'immaterial substance' a 'thing' or a 'structure'
> doesn't make it 'material' either). You're right of course that this
> does not in itself issue in ontological idealism (Bhaskar's current
> position) whereby this ultimate force is spirit, which is among other
> things conscious and purposvie - for that other assumptions have to be
> made. But it doesn't close the door to it either.
>
>
> Mervyn
>
>
> Andrew Brown <Andrew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
> >Meryvn,
> >
> >I've been droning on about that little bit of PON for years now!
> >
> >However, I don't think it is that significant. As I now interpret RB, he
> >is saying that *either* there will be an entirely new set of concepts
> >filling the gap between our current neurophysiological (and other
> >such) concepts and our 'psychological' ones, so defining a new
> >stratum, from which the psychological realm is emergent. *Or* we
> >will find the the concepts we do already have are adequate to be
> >able to vertically explain the psychological realm (though we as yet
> >have little clue how they do this). The former case can be said to
> >give us a new 'substance', just as the the chemical realm gives us
> >a whole set of sui generis substances called molecules. The latter
> >case doesn't. This is a perfectly valid use of the term substance I
> >think. And, given this use, then one can argue that there might be
> >a 'substance' dualism between mind object, without being 'idealist',
> >in the CR sense of that term (or there might not).
> >
> >Still, as I write this, it does seem a perhaps overly charitable
> >interpretation, but there we are. In any case, at the end of the day
> >[I sound like a football manager] there seems nothing in CR to
> >deny the possibity that there is a new structure, or 'thing', hitherto
> >unknown, and *not* apparently emergent from known structures,
> >underlying 'thought'. A stucture which simply happens to be there.
> >Isn't this *exactly* the possibilty that CR leaves open re 'ultimate
> >entities'? Indeed, isn't this how we might interpret the various forces
> >such as magnetism? (And 'force' as in 'field of potential' is indeed
> >RB's likely candidate for 'ultimate entity').
> >
> >Having said all this, it should also be stressed that, after PON, RB
> >appears to retract his statement on dualism. Thus you will find a
> >passage in SRHE where RB seems to explicitly rule out substance
> >dualism, and asserts the embodied nature of human agency. This
> >is repeated in later books.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Andy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >On 9 Jan 2001, at 15:17, Mervyn Hartwig wrote:
> >
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I had occasion to look up Bhaskar's first elaboration of his 'synchronic
> >> emergent powers materialist' account of mind again the other day, and
> >> noticed what I had not noticed before (or if I did, forgot) that Bhaskar
> >> at that stage (1979) left the way open for idealism (The Possibility of
> >> Naturalism, 124-5).
> >>
> >> He says in PON there are two possibilities on his account:  1). that
> >> 'mind just is a complex or set of powers ... historically emergent from
> >> and present only in association with (certain complex forms of) matter.'
> >> 2). that 'there is a substance, whose nature is at present unknown,
> >> which is the bearer of those powers'. Here again there are two
> >> possibilities: 2a) that the substance is material - suggested by
> >> neurophysiological evidence;  2b) that it is immaterial - suggested by
> >> paranormal phenomena. On 2a) SEPM 'reduces to a form of materialism,
> >> which could be characterised as a stratified monism'. On 2b) it reduces
> >> 'to a species of dualistic interactionism.'
> >>
> >> The scientific data, he said in 1979, is conflicting and does not
> >> allow us to decide between these.
> >>
> >> In FEW (2000) he might seem to be committed to 2b) - as concretely
> >> singularised spirit or godstuff the 'soul' constellationaly contains the
> >> mind and enters and departs bodies (as a set of dispositions). But in
> >> that case he would be committed to 'dualistic interactionism' whereas he
> >> still speaks of 'stratified monism'. So perhaps he's still committed to
> >> 1), except that 'matter' is now at bottom 'spirit'....
> >>
> >> Mervyn
> >>
>
>
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