Re: BHA: negativity wins

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Ruth,

>I still don't understand why I have to grant the positive existence of
>entities called "de-onts."  Would someone be willing (hopefully one last
>time) to explain this to me in very plain language?

One more try then.

Nobody is asking you to grant the *positive* existence of de-onts - they
are *negative* existences. Positive existences are 'onts'. You are being
asked to grant the *reality* of both, to see that being is bi- or poly-
valent, not mono-valent.

The arguments for the reality of negative existents are set out I think
pretty clearly in the section of DPF we have been discussing.

First, we can refer to them - they can be referentially detached (eg
Pierre's absence from the caf), which is the argument for ontology in
general, positive as well as negative (so if this is rejected, CR as a
whole must be - if ontology is not revindicated, CR is nothing.).
Pierre's absence cannot be rephrased in purely positive terms because
his presence somewhere else does not mean the same as his absence from
the caf, any more than your own presence in Canada means the same as
your absence from the room I'm sitting in.

Second, there could be no human agency without absence, for absence is
transcendentally necessary for human agency to occur - in acting we
absent an existing state of affairs, bringing about a state of affairs
that would not otherwise have obtained; ie we change the world. Before I
acted to write this email the screen in front of me was blank, now that
state of affairs has been absented, and it is full of visible onts and
de-onts, figures and ground.

Third, if there were no de-onts, we could not even identify onts - the
identification of positive existents depends on human agency, which
always involves absenting an existing state of affairs 'be it only a
state of existential doubt'.

Fourth, all causality and change involves absenting existing states of
affairs. In a motor car engine, e.g., raw materials have been
transformatively negated (changed) to produce a different structure with
emergent powers - and one which further must have not just onts (e.g.
pistons) but de-onts (e.g. the space within which the pistons move) to
function. (But of course a piston is not just an ont, like everything
else it is comprised of onts and deonts.)

Fifth, a purely positive world could not move, change; but the world
does change, and gaps, voids, absences are transcendentally necessary
for it to do so.

These are the arguments for the the reality of de-onts (negative
existences) and the necessity for a central category of absence or
negation. You don't 'HAVE to' accept them or anything else, but if you
want to discuss Bhaskar's position you do need to address them instead
of simply asserting that Bhaskar seems to be just redescribing, playing
with words etc.

>On p. 3, Bhaskar defines dialectical processes as ones in which change
>occurs, through opposition of some kind.  By p. 43, he asserts that the
>"essence" of such processes is the "absenting of absence."  Again this just
>seems like a re-description.

At pp41-43 Bhaskar runs through the ways in which the category of
negativity or absence is vital to dialectics. First, absenting is change
or processuality. Second, absenting absences construed as constraints is
fundamental to the dialectics of freedom. Third, dialectical arguments
depend upon absenting mistakes. Fourth, the category of absence is
critical to 1M-4D links. - Then he says what you cite, that dialectics
'just is, in its essence, the process of _absenting constraints_.' This
is fully compatible with any of the above positions and with what you
cite on p. 3: 'opposition of some kind' is precisely a constraint.

It is important to bear in mind that in order to grasp polyvalent
reality Bhaskar deploys a diffracted dialectic - 'a new, genuinely
multi-dimensional and dynamic logic' (DPF 63) heralded by Marx - and
that both at the level of dialectical argument and process in general,
nothing is fixed, everything moves. In all this, presence and absence
are dynamically interrelated to each other. A graphic if trivial
illustration: as I said, you are (physically) absent from my study.
However, the effects of your transformatively negational agency are
present in the form of your email, in whose textuality onts and de-onts
are systematically interrelated; and as a result of past e-exchanges
with you I necessarily carry around in my head a theoretical
constructuration of your personality and patterns of thought which, as a
negative presence, certainly causally influences my reponse to your
questions (I'm not saying I've got it right!)

> Even though the term "absence" gets *used* a lot from this perspective,
>it still seems to me that if everything that happens is the result of an
>absence having been absented, a prior (positive) event is always implied.
>And isn't the prior existence of an "ont," capable of effecting said
>absenting of absence, also implied?  Or can de-onts [i.e., "things,"
>fictional or non-fictional, that do not exist (see pp. 40-41 for close
>discussion of this)] also engage in the absenting of absences?

Your 'everything' statement here is not accurate. All change is
absenting, not of absences but of existing states of affairs. Absenting
absences ie constraints is specific to dialectical argument, the
dialectic of (desire to) freedom, etc, but not necessarily to all
processes as such (except to the extent that the opposing forces within
contradiction are seen as constraints on each other).

When an existing state of affairs is absented, both onts and de-onts are
involved, for (from the above arguments) being is bivalent, not
monovalent. So 'the prior existence of an ont', is of course involved -
but not just an ont: onts and de-onts exist in *relation* to each other.

If you don't accept this, please indicate one existent that would
qualify for being accepted as purely positive, a pure ont, ie which does
not contain any gaps, voids, absences etc. If you name an 'elementary
particle' it always seems to be comprised of yet others in relation, and
of course it is itself in relation to others. 'Entity relationism' is
the coinclusive concept DPF invokes; 'connectivity' is the related
watchword of others. Are the 'quantum seas of potentia' (powers or
possibility) which seem be rock bottom reality for contemporary quantum
physics (see Doug's article in the last Alethia), purely positive? In at
least one important sense they are profoundly negative, i.e. their vast
possibility has not been (anything like fully) realized.

>Bhaskar used to say that entities (by which
>I'm pretty sure he used to mean what he now calls "onts"), or powerful
>particulars, effect change through the exercise of powers that they have in
>virtue of their structure

As I have just suggested, there is no entity which is purely ontic and
not also de-ontic. This would also apply to 'powerful particulars',
whatever they are (could you please give me RTS chapter and verse on
them, as they are not registered with me as a leading CR concept and I
can't find them in the index?)

Hope this helps,

Mervyn


Ruth Groff <rgroff@xxxxxxxx> writes
>Hi all,
>
>It is finally 7 am here; I've been up since 5:30, beginning day 4 of the
>world's worst cold.  I have been waiting to feel better to try to put some
>questions about DPF ch 2 into sensible form, but so far no luck.  So forgive
>me for the fogginess of what I have to say, but I decided that waiting until
>I can compose some lucid thing is not really a viable short-term plan.
>
>So, then, in no particular order: (and forgive me too if much or any of this
>is just a less nuanced version of what Howard has said ...)
>
>1. I still don't understand why I have to grant the positive existence of
>entities called "de-onts."  Would someone be willing (hopefully one last
>time) to explain this to me in very plain language?  (To me, it still just
>seems like so much re-description and making-thing-like of "things" that are
>either states of affairs or abstractions.)
>
>2. On p. 3, Bhaskar defines dialectical processes as ones in which change
>occurs, through opposition of some kind.  By p. 43, he asserts that the
>"essence" of such processes is the "absenting of absence."  Again this just
>seems like a re-description.  I think "Well, okay, we can think of it that
>way if you like."  But I don't understand why I HAVE to think of it that way.
>
>3. On p. 44 RB says that causality (which he used to define in terms of the
>powers of entities to effect change) is similarly a matter of absenting
>absences.  ["All causal determination, and hence change, is transformative
>negation or absenting."]  So, by implication, I think, all causal
>determination is dialectical in character.  Well, okay, since "dialectical"
>now means "a process wherein an absence has been absented," and change
>itself has now been defined as "a process, consisting in the absenting of
>absence."
>
>a. But again, I don't understand why I HAVE to think of things this way.  It
>still seems like a lot of assertions and word-play.
>
>b. Also, it seems like once we have said that everything that happens (or at
>least everything that has been determinately caused) is, by definition, the
>result of a dialectical process, the concept of "dialectical process" has
>lost its specificity, and by extension much of its theoretical weight.
>
>c. Even though the term "absence" gets *used* a lot from this perspective,
>it still seems to me that if everything that happens is the result of an
>absence having been absented, a prior (positive) event is always implied.
>And isn't the prior existence of an "ont," capable of effecting said
>absenting of absence, also implied?  Or can de-onts [i.e., "things,"
>fictional or non-fictional, that do not exist (see pp. 40-41 for close
>discussion of this)] also engage in the absenting of absences?
>
>d. Finally, about causality.  Bhaskar used to say that entities (by which
>I'm pretty sure he used to mean what he now calls "onts"), or powerful
>particulars, effect change through the exercise of powers that they have in
>virtue of their structure (by which I have always assumed that he meant
>something like their essential nature -- which is why I have also always
>assumed that the real task of RTS with respect to the history of the
>philosophy of science was to revindicate *Aristotle*).  I won't assume that
>this early analysis is to be discarded.  So, if we combine it with the new
>"to cause is to absent an absence" position, we get something like "Powerful
>particulars absent absences through the exercise of powers that they have in
>virtue of their structure (i.e., essential nature)."  Okay, so far so good.
>But how does this work for "de-onts?"  With respect to the powerful
>particular "onts" of RTS, the essential nature in question was a function of
>a thing's physical composition.  In virtue of what internal characteristic,
>or feature, do "de-onts" have the power to absent absences?
>
>I might not be able to be won over to this version of negative dialectics.
>I'm sure I'm a hard sell.  (Bible-thumping dualist monovalentist
>correspondence theorist that I am!)  But at this point I don't even
>*understand* the argument(s).  Perhaps because of this I don't appreciate
>their force.  So I'm genuinely hoping that people will be willing to try to
>explain it to me.
>
>Warmly (or, cold-ly),
>Ruth
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Mervyn Hartwig
13 Spenser Road
Herne Hill
London SE24 ONS
United Kingdom
Tel: 020 7 737 2892
Email: mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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