Re: BHA: negativity wins

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jan,

I agree entirely with the thrust of your comments.

>however in EW Bhaskar seems to return to his traditional RTS schema
>"dr  da  de" [pag.25], but now develops and elaborates on notions as
>"demi-real" and "demi-being" (which i read as demi-actual), thus in this
>case one could imagine now the following schema:
>
>dr [incl. dmr]  da [incl. dma, d+]  ds [= de & dc (incl. df)]

I think we should regard the RTS schema invoked in FEW as shorthand for
the more complexly elaborated one, and as fully compatible with it,
rather than as some kind of backsliding. Doubtless you agree.

I think your schema is accurate. Like everything else, eg Fictional
being, discussed recently, the demi-real (False being, ie the irrealist
categorial structure or the world of objective illusion) has Real and
Actual/Empirical dimensions.

I think the domains of the Real, the Actual and the Empirical/Subjective
/Conceptual map onto, but are not identical with, the zones of (1)
absolute being (2) relative (ephemeral) being, and (3) demi-real
(ephemeral) being distinguished in FEW - where (1) = spirit or pure
dispositionality; (2) = soul or the essential Self and (as its
historical and social inflection) dharma; and (3) = the empirical
self/person or other being, subject to the historical and social
determinations of karma in the case of people. As I interpret FEW, (1)
constellationally embraces and is ingredient in all things whatsoever.
(2) is (1) manifesting itself in (emergent) relative being, not just at
the level of the individual person or other being but in people-in-
society-in-nature-in-the-cosmos (all developing and expanding). This is
spirit as 'concretely singularised' (inner and outer). In regard to
humans, it is our human nature, the essence of (3) our empirical selves,
which is both transhistorical and translocal (we are one species) and
historically and locally mediated and changing, constituted in and
through our relations with other humans and beings.

This in turn maps onto, but is not identical with, the schema (FEW,
p.76) whereby the domain of the Real contains but is not exhausted by
the domain of the Astral, and the domain of the Astral ditto the domain
of the Physical [the capitals are mine] - dr > da> dp. (The footnote
explicitly relates this to the RTS schema).

This can seem very odd until one realises that the (only!) fundamental
difference between this and the earlier works is that what was once
called 'causal power', 'potentia', 'energy', or 'possibility' is now
seen (also) as 'spirit' or 'consciousness'.

Mervyn


Jan Straathof <janstr@xxxxxxx> writes
>hi Mervyn, you wrote:
>
>>However, perhaps you have not fully taken on board that these domains
>>are said to be *overlapping* (see RTS 13, 56, esp the ticks in the
>>table) ie Events and Experiences can be Mechanisms i.e. causal, and
>>Experiences are also Events).
>
>and there is a continuing expansion/unfolding of domains, and i.a. their
>subsequent possibilities of overlapping; see e.g. DPF pag.11:
>
>     "If we write dr, as a domain of the real, da as the domain of the
>     actual, d+ as the domain of the positive, ds as the domain of the
>     subjective, empiricism can thus be seen to rest on an illicit
>     generalisation of the special case dr  da  d+  ds  de where the
>     latter is identified in terms of human experience, and where human
>     sense-experience is conceived as a product or function of reified
>     facts, i.e. de = df."
>
>so we have here the working-schema: dr > da > d+ > ds > de > df
>
>then in PE on pag.204:
>     "For actualism presupposes closed systems, which are a condition,
>     normally socially produced and maintained, of the alignement of
>     the realms of the real, the actual and the subjective, whether the
>     subjective be conceptual (as in Leibniz) or empirical (as in Hume
>     and Kant)."
>
>here it is has become: dr > da > ds [= de & dc]
>
>however in EW Bhaskar seems to return to his traditional RTS schema
>"dr  da  de" [pag.25], but now develops and elaborates on notions as
>"demi-real" and "demi-being" (which i read as demi-actual), thus in this
>case one could imagine now the following schema:
>
>dr [incl. dmr]  da [incl. dma, d+]  ds [= de & dc (incl. df)]
>
>what do you think ?
>
>yours,
>Jan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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