Re: BHA: Emergence

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tobin (and Marko, all)

Re the social construction thing: Marko is a newcomer to the list who
was attracted to Bhaskar via Chomsky's naturalism. He found what he took
to be Bhaskar's and CR's social constructionism offputting. Instead of
pointing out the important differences between pomo etc constructionism
and CR's position, the response has by and large been to assert social
construction and attack Marko's reductionism (which btw I have *not*
defended). At least, that's the way I saw it. I, frankly, am interested
in retaining Marko's interest in CR, and of course such an interest is
redundant in the case of other discussants who are veteran addicts.

>Besides, see what Bhaskar wrote: "The objects from, and by, which knowledge
>is generated are thus always themselves social products (as is the knowledge
>generated).  Thus science as a process is always entirely intrinsic to
>thought" (RTS 185).  He immediately observes that perception and experiment
>give us access to non-mental objects, such that knowledge of those objects
>is possible -- but the knowledge itself, knowledge as such, remains
>*entirely* social.

I take the scare quotes around "thought" (one of which is inadvertently
omitted) -

>Thus science as a process is always entirely intrinsic to
>thought" (RTS 185).

- to indicate that Bhaskar is in effect prepared to concede that
scientific knowledge is *not* exactly produced by means of knowledge
alone - he himself mentions 'technical tools' in the para above. I would
rather say that science is a practice (which is not reducible to thought
alone), and that Bhaskar's Althusserian heritage is a little too much to
the fore here.

Further, as you say, he does seem to want to say in this passage, not
only that scientific practices, and their means and objects in the
transitive dimension, are social products, but that the knowledge that
is generated is too. But does this mean he wants to say that such
knowledge is

>*entirely* social.

I don't think so. To say that something is a social product is not the
same as saying that it is exclusively so. A spanner is a social product,
but it is made of materials with properties that exist independently of
human praxis. Scientific knowledge is a social product in something of
the same way. Just as the nature of the iron ore and its causal
properties in the intransitive dimension constrain (and enable) the
knowledge informing the practice of fashioning spanners, so the causal
powers of their intransitive objects constrain (and enable) the
knowledge informing scientific practices. Certainly, knowledge is a
social product, achieved via the transformation in the TD of existing
knowledge (which itself is in the ID in relation to such practice), but
how this is done, in science, is constrained and shaped also by the way
the world is quite independently of our knowledge (existentially
intransitive in the social sciences, causally and existentially in the
natural).

That said, I think the later Bhaskar especially is prone to slide into
the 'by thought alone' or 'entirely social' formulation (see esp. FEW).
I think this is problematic.

My point re emergence qua social and life forms was in reponse to
Marshall, not anything you wrote Tobin.

>And yes, the social production of knowledge
>is indeed a form of "intrastructural" emergence.  But the question I was
>answering wasn't about emergence -- it was about ontological *levels* among
>ideas.  And on that point my view is that while Theory A and Theory B may
>have different degrees of explanatory power, that is a question of our
>*assessment* of their ideas in relation to their referents, not their status
>*as* ideas (which is what the notion of ontological levels among ideas
>suggests).  A wrong idea is not a different sort of entity or at a different
>ontological level than a correct idea: it has a different relationship to
>its referent (its referent may even be found not to exist, e.g. phlogiston).
>Likewise, the fact that one person has a food allergy while another doesn't
>is no reason, as far as I can see, to think the two digestive systems are at
>different ontological levels or have some other sort of ontological
>difference.  They just interact with food differently.  Come to think of it,
>I suspect the only way one could claim that degrees of explanatory power
>differentiate ontological levels among ideas is *precisely* by reducing
>ideas to their referents.  The shoe is on the other foot.

I'm not sure what the issue is here. First you concede that

>the social production of knowledge
>is indeed a form of "intrastructural" emergence.

That means, I take it, that we can say (roughly) that the Einsteinian
system of ideas in physics is (intrastructurally) emergent from the
Newtonian.

Then you say that we can't have different ontological levels among
ideas. But the above is, precisely, an example of the emergence of a
different ontological level among ideas. (You speak as if emergence and
ontological levels are two compeletely different things - fair enough
insofar as one is process and the other product, perhaps, but I don't
see your point: an ontological level is an emergent stratum.) Further,
the ideas of the new theory will have been assessed in regard to their
explanatory power, and, in science, that they have greater explanatory
power is a necessary condition for the new theory to emerge.

>A wrong idea is not a different sort of entity or at a different
>ontological level than a correct idea: it has a different relationship to
>its referent

Yes, but this doesn't at all argue against conceptual emergence as
indicated above. (As I've pointed out before, there are emergent levels
within incorrect ideas too, i.e. ideology.) I think you're confusing two
things, which I can best get at by analogy with genus and species. As an
(emergent) genus ideas are all in the same boat ontologically, just as
all primates are primates. But there may be emergent levels (species)
within the genus (chimps, homo etc), of which the above is an example.
Viren has I think made this point (essentially) too.

Either that or you're thinking about ideas atomistically, which of
course would be a nonsense because they are always part of a wider
framework of assumptions. When I speak of emergent levels among ideas I
am thinking of systems of ideas and/or theories and paradigms, not
singular ideas.

Mervyn



Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus@xxxxxxx> writes
>Mervyn--
>
>>              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...
>
>Read my post again: I made this observation myself, in the paragraph you
>skipped.  This relates to your most recent post:
>
>> Tobin says that explanatory power can't be used to indicate ontological
>> difference among ideas *because* explanations concern referents. I take
>> this to be Ruth's point about content. He seems to want to say that
>> where there are emergent levels it is in the intransitive objects of
>> ideas, not at the level of ideas themselves. My point to Tobin is that
>> this seems to reduce ideas to their referents or content (the ontic
>> fallacy, I think), and is at odds with his insistence on the social
>> production of knowledge by means of knowledge via the transformation of
>> pre-existing materials.
>
>My argument doesn't in the least reduce ideas to their referents; I can't
>see at all where you get that.  And yes, the social production of knowledge
>is indeed a form of "intrastructural" emergence.  But the question I was
>answering wasn't about emergence -- it was about ontological *levels* among
>ideas.  And on that point my view is that while Theory A and Theory B may
>have different degrees of explanatory power, that is a question of our
>*assessment* of their ideas in relation to their referents, not their status
>*as* ideas (which is what the notion of ontological levels among ideas
>suggests).  A wrong idea is not a different sort of entity or at a different
>ontological level than a correct idea: it has a different relationship to
>its referent (its referent may even be found not to exist, e.g. phlogiston).
>Likewise, the fact that one person has a food allergy while another doesn't
>is no reason, as far as I can see, to think the two digestive systems are at
>different ontological levels or have some other sort of ontological
>difference.  They just interact with food differently.  Come to think of it,
>I suspect the only way one could claim that degrees of explanatory power
>differentiate ontological levels among ideas is *precisely* by reducing
>ideas to their referents.  The shoe is on the other foot.
>
>> 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.
>
>What is this, Humpty-Dumptyism?  That's ridiculous (by which, obviously, I
>mean "perspicacious.")  It seems to me that Marko's command of English is
>excellent.  After all the discussion we've had in the past couple of weeks,
>if he gave a damn that there are differing interpretations or complex issues
>regarding the meaning of social construction, then he would say something
>like "science is not a just social construction," or "science is not a
>social construction (in the sense I've been using the phrase)."  But in fact
>he wrote "science is not a social construction."  Period.  Frankly don't
>recall him ever saying *anything* affirming any role for social activity in
>the production of knowledge.  Nor has he said "Thanks Mervyn for making my
>meaning clearer for others."  I'm not sure why you're at such pains to act
>as Marko's translator and to provide apologias for his posts, but to me he
>seems quite able to speak for himself.
>
>Besides, see what Bhaskar wrote: "The objects from, and by, which knowledge
>is generated are thus always themselves social products (as is the knowledge
>generated).  Thus science as a process is always entirely intrinsic to
>thought" (RTS 185).  He immediately observes that perception and experiment
>give us access to non-mental objects, such that knowledge of those objects
>is possible -- but the knowledge itself, knowledge as such, remains
>*entirely* social.
>
>Regarding the silly notion of the social construction of the universe, Marsh
>wrote, and you replied:
>
>> >Yeah, but I don't think anyone on this list buys into this kind of
>> >irrealism. It's a straw man.
>>
>> Well, Marko has got the impression that they do, and this is what I'm
>> trying to correct. If people keep intoning that knowledge is a social
>> production (in the transitive dimension) without pointing out that it
>> does *not* produce the objects of knowledge in the intransitive
>> dimension, of which genuine knowledge is possible, it's not going to be
>> corrected and we pretty inevitably come across as social
>> constructionists in the above sense.
>
>Again you have the shoe on the wrong foot.  No-one in this debate has ever
>implied, much less asserted, the straw man that you and Marko keep
>imagining.  So why is it vital to point out what probably everyone on this
>list already knows -- that knowledge doesn't invent its objects -- against
>someone who denies another point that nearly all of us accept, that
>knowledge is a social product?  I can't figure out why you keep defending
>Marko's declared reductive materialism (which *does* need to be corrected)
>and requiring the argument for the social production of knowledge to
>constantly justify itself.  The fact that you and Marko keep seeing a
>bogeyman doesn't mean I ought to be on the defensive against it.  I do get
>tired have having this bogeyman foisted upon me, however.  Your readings
>have been oddly biased in their excessive forgiveness of Marko and
>distortions of me.  For all your close reading of Bhaskar, it would be nice
>if you read what I actually wrote, not imputed to me things I have never
>said, and focused on the real problem, which is Marko's outright denial of
>the social production of knowledge.
>
>T.
>
>---
>Tobin Nellhaus
>nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
>"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
>
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