Re: BHA: negativity wins

[Ruth Groff <rgroff@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jan, Mervyn, Tobin,

Thank you, you guys, for your responses.  I'm about to give up.  Sigh.  I'm
totally unconvinced.  And I'm so frustrated that I can hardly bear it that I
don't know how to refute a position that seems to me to be ... just... well,
silly, frankly.

Jeeze.  Am I really the only one who is not prepared to adopt an ontology of
de-onts?

O well.  Here's a few responses here and there, but, as I said, mostly I'm
just frustrated beyond belief that I don't know how to refute this.

Mervyn, you (kindly) wrote:
>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.

That's fine.  The language is difficult.  The point, as I understand it, is
that we are being asked to grant that the category of "what exists" (or
"ontology," as Bhaskar puts it on p. 47) includes all of the people, places,
things, events, processes, states of affairs, etc., that don't exist and/or
didn't take place.  In Bhaskar's words: "We thus have the theorem: ontology
> ontics > de-onts." (47)  No?


>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.

Okay, I know zilch about the philosophy of language.  The claim here is that
anything to which we can refer must, in virtue of our being able to refer to
it, exist -- or, if you prefer, "be real."  I want to know what other
philosophers of language have to say about this.

The second part - the part about the significance of the cafe personnel -
has to do with a theory of meaning, I'm sure of it, but again, I don't know
enough to comment.

>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.

But my question was "Why SHOULD we think of acting in this way -- as
"absenting" a state of affairs?"


>Fourth, all causality and change involves absenting existing states of
>affairs.

Here too, the question I asked was why we SHOULD think of it in this way.
Why not think of all causality and change as ... I don't know ... the
exercise of a power, or the bringing about of something other than that
which was there before?  Of course both of these alternatives could be
translated into "absenting an existing state of affairs."  And the "existing
state of affairs" phrase can even ITSELF be translated into "an absence" (as
in "transformative negation = the absenting of an absence).  But I just
don't see what weight this carries.

>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.

Well, I've admitted that I am frustrated with my shortcomings here.  But I
think that I *have* raised a number of important questions that haven't
actually been answered yet.  E.g., "In virtue of what internal
characteristic are de-onts causal agents?"  And "Do *all* de-onts have
causal effects, or just some of them?  What makes the difference?"   And,
"If it is the case that *everything* that does not exist, did not happen,
etc., is real - and therefore, according to Tobin, a potential causal agent,
then what, if anything, can fail to meet the causal criterion for
existence/reality?"

>... All change is absenting, not of absences but of existing states of
affairs. Absenting absences ie constraints is specific to dialectical argument.

But surely the presence of a constraint counts as a state of affairs.  So
what you're saying is that only those states of affairs that constitute a
constraint are (and ought to be) properly construed as "absences."  But this
is just nutty. I mean, patently, a constraint is not a good example of an
absence!  Again, sure, it can be re-described that way, if for some reason
you want to: my being held down by David when we leg wrestle is the absence
of my not being held down when we wrestle.  But the fact that you can
express "x" as "~(~x)" doesn't mean anything!

O well.  I have to go now.  I'm really tired.  I'm still sick and I have a
wack of exams to grade tomorrow.  I'm not actually sure about that "powerful
particular" phrase.  I confess that I began using it recently because so
many others were.  I figured that I had just not caught it.  Can someone
else give a citation for it?  In the meantime, I'll look.

Warmly,
Ruth



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