Re: BHA: exciting threads!

[Ruth Groff <rgroff@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mervyn,

Wasn't I the one who originally told *you* about the Jarvis book?!  [ :-) ]
I've read chapters 7 and 8 more times than I can count, but I'll look over
the art/truth section.
You wrote:
>There is IMO no way Adorno's position can be assimilated to an epistemic
>theory of truth.

I'm sure that I did not say this! (Though I am not entirely certain what I
*would* say about it.)

But to get to the heart of the matter.  You wrote:
>But when Adorno speaks of the necessary conditionality of thought this
>is surely encapsulated in Bhaskar's notions of epistemic relativism and
>corrigibility and his anti-foundationalism.

What I had said was that Adorno finds "utterly impossible" something (viz.,
valid knowledge -- thought itself, really) that does not seem to trouble
even the pre-FEW Bhaskar very much at all.  I therefore see Bhaskar and
Adorno as holding quite different views on the matter.  I asked how you (and
others) were able to get past this.
If I've understood you, it sounds as though your answer is that you don't
think that there *is* an appreciable difference in their views.  Let me know
if I've mis-read you. But if I haven't, do you basically just think, then,
that Adorno is worried over nothing?  (Since Adorno's position is
encapsulated in Bhaskar's, and Bhaskar isn't worried?)

I'm really curious about this.

Warmly,
Ruth


Even before we get to the point in Bhaskar's
>>thinking at which he introduces the notion of "alethic truths" that we can
>>know, Bhaskar seems to take for granted as possible, indeed as relatively
>>unproblematic (as Colin has argued, and I agree) that which Adorno is
>>compelled to regard as impossible.
>>
>>This is at the heart of why I have always thought of Adorno as THE thinker
>>that one has to be able to deal with, if one is to defend Bhaskar's thought
>>from serious criticism.
>>
>>But it doesn't sound as though any of those who have posted are much
>>bothered by what I see as such a profound difference between the two.  If
>>this is so, and you're not much bothered, or you don't see any big divide,
>>would any of you guys mind helping me to see why?
>>
>>Warmly,
>>Ruth
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>Mervyn Hartwig
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>Email: mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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