Re: BHA: Emergence

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tobin, Ruth, Viren, all

>Just to butt in briefly: I think what Ruth is saying -- and certainly what I
>would say -- is that ideas qua ideas are all at the *same* ontological
>level.  However, they may refer to (real or hypothetical) entities at
>different ontological levels.

Ruth may well be saying this, but if so I disagree. All societies are at
the same ontological level in that they belong to the kind, 'society';
but that doesn't preclude emergent levels and evolution within that
kind. All life-forms are of the same broad kind, but there are emergent
life-forms within that kind...

>I don't think one can use explanatory power
>as a mark of ontological difference among ideas, because the explanations
>concern referents.

But you hold that ideas are not *the same* kind of thing as their
referents; further, as Ruth said, belief systems (can) presuppose other
belief systems.

>> Of course if evolution is a mere social construction then of course
>> anything goes but thankfully science is not a social construction!
>
>Sigh.  I suppose we'll never get past this.  The objects of science may not
>be social constructions, but *knowledge* of those objects *must* be a social
>product.  To fail to distinguish between knowledge and the object of
>knowledge is the epistemic fallacy.

Now you've made me sigh. Marko *means* by social construction the view
that everything is within the paradigm, when the paradigm changes the
world changes. There is nothing outside the text. Science discovers no
truths of the world as it is independently of our theories. - CR is not
social constructionist in this sense, so why not agree to that extent?
Knowledge is not *just* a social product, because it is constrained by
the way the world is independently of our knowledge of it. We couldn't
navigate our way successfully around the world if this were not the
case, nor communicate transculturally.

Mervyn




Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus@xxxxxxx> writes
>Hi Viren--
>
>Just to butt in briefly: I think what Ruth is saying -- and certainly what I
>would say -- is that ideas qua ideas are all at the *same* ontological
>level.  However, they may refer to (real or hypothetical) entities at
>different ontological levels.  I don't think one can use explanatory power
>as a mark of ontological difference among ideas, because the explanations
>concern referents.
>
>It should be noted that the concept of emergence is not restricted to the
>formation of new entities within new, supervening powers (such as life out
>of chemical interactions), as "superstructures."  There is also the
>possibility of new entities *within* a given level (wolves, chickens and
>frogs within the realm of the biological), as "intrastructures" (see DPF
>53).
>
>Marko wrote:
>
>> Of course if evolution is a mere social construction then of course
>> anything goes but thankfully science is not a social construction!
>
>Sigh.  I suppose we'll never get past this.  The objects of science may not
>be social constructions, but *knowledge* of those objects *must* be a social
>product.  To fail to distinguish between knowledge and the object of
>knowledge is the epistemic fallacy.
>
>---
>Tobin Nellhaus
>nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
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--
Mervyn Hartwig
Editor, Journal of Critical Realism (incorporating 'Alethia')
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