Re: BHA: negativity wins

["Caroline New" <c.new@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been following this discussion with something of a sense of deja vu.
Ruth has expressed my position and my difficulties precisely.  I would just
like to add, though:
I am willing to accept this way of talking, although the importance of
talking like this is still not clear to me.  I did manage to see that it was
important to the struggle for a better society to not to think only in terms
of what actually exists, but I'm not sure that's what you mean.  However,
this way of talking is intelligible and I can do it.  But IF we embrace this
way of understanding existence and change, we surely need to recognise that
de-onts and absences are parasitic on onts and presences for their
specificity.  The causal powers of an absence depend on the causal powers of
the thing that is absent, i.e. on the nature and structure of this thing,
since an absence can't have nature and structure in its own right. So if
de-onts are real, they are real by virtue of the reality of the thing that
exists, (in whatever sense it does exist) not in the same way onts are real.
Is this right?  Caroline
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, February 25, 2001 9:00 PM
Subject: Re: BHA: negativity wins


> 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >     --- from list bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
>
> --
> Mervyn Hartwig
> 13 Spenser Road
> Herne Hill
> London SE24 ONS
> United Kingdom
> Tel: 020 7 737 2892
> Email: mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
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>



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