Re: BHA: Emergence

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tobin (and Marko if you're still there)

Marko wrote:

> I have
>not put words into peoples mouth, merely attempted to take what I perceive to be
>the logic of an argument to what I believe are its conclusions.

For what it's worth, that's the way I saw it. This is the method of
*reductio*, a time-honoured method of criticism. Doubtless it was
deployed a bit wildly at times, but I didn't think there was any great
harm in that.

I have looked back at the email in which you accuse me of divisiveness
and lack of collegiality, Tobin, and I see you clearly found my use of
the phrase 'social constructionist camp' divisive. While I didn't intend
it to be so, I accept that 'camp' was an unfortunate choice of word and
am sorry I used it.

If you're still there, Marko, please note that I'm not making Tobin's
comments a resigning issue, and I wish you wouldn't either.

Peace,

Mervyn


Marko Beljac <beljac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
>Given that my personal integrity has been questioned by Tobin in what quite
>clearly passes for, in academic circles, as personal abuse let me directly
>refute the charges directed at my way. Before you, you will see a number of
>quotes that serves to disprove these pathetic charges.
>  -----
>  (Tobin1)...Here we get to
>  Marko's question about how it is that I oppose capitalism.  (To which my
>  answer is Yes.)  But the question that I think needs to be asked is how it
>  is that my efforts to think ethically led me toward marxism, whereas other
>  people engage in the same activity and conclude that capitalism is best, or
>  Catholicism, or whathaveyou.
>  (Tobin2)...All of these claims of what I said or implied are of course
>ridiculous
>  nonsense, purely of Marko's invention and quite the opposite of what I
>  actually think.
>
>
>  (Marko)> although Tobin is a Marxist
>
>  (Tobin3)... I don't recall saying that either
>
>  (Tobin4)...Apparently, Marko, you think *I* am a blank slate for whatever
>absurd claims
>  entertain you.  You say you reject the sort of social constructivism that
>  imagines we create the universe out of our heads, yet here you are, creating
>  a Tobin out of your head that has no connection to reality.  You're
>  certainly welcome on this list and you can dispute what I say as much as you
>  like, but dispute what I (and other people) actually *say*.  Cut the
>  ventroliquist act.
>
>  I thank you for extending the welcome but I dont believe it's sincere.  I have
>not put words into peoples mouth, merely attempted to take what I perceive to be
>the logic of an argument to what I believe are its conclusions. This stands in
>contrast to your dircect personal charges. Given that I am a newcomer I will
>unsubscribe from the list.
>
>  Marko.
>
>
>
>
>   Original Message -----
>  From: Tobin Nellhaus
>  To: Bhaskar list
>  Sent: Friday, March 29, 2002 4:11 PM
>  Subject: Re: BHA: Emergence
>
>
>  Hi all--
>
>  I'm having to catch up a bit....
>
>  Mervyn wrote:
>
>  > 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.
>
>  If you check the path of the discussion, you'll see that my first foray
>  included precisely the sort of distinction between pomo vs CR views of
>  social construction that you feel should have been offered.  I think I
>  presented it in a clear and unabrasive manner, without any form of attack.
>  Marko simply ignored it and proceeded as though any mention of the social
>  aspect of scientific analysis was tantamount to the pomo position.  For your
>  part, instead of discussing the distinction further, you chose not to
>  contest Marko's monolithic view and instead criticised what you rather
>  divisively called the "'social constructionist' camp."  Not a great way to
>  illuminate the differences between CR and poststructuralism, or for that
>  matter maintain collegiality.  If your goal is to retain Marko's interest in
>  CR, then focus your attention on explaining CR (and not on distorting my
>  position).  (Your most recent posts have begun to do that.)
>
>  But enough of that.  As for the "slippage" between "social production" and
>  "social construction," on my part at least I suppose it comes from years of
>  trying to drive a wedge into poststucturalists' thinking, i.e. use a term
>  that sounds familiar and try to make 'em see it requires more than they
>  thought.
>
>  >             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.
>
>  [snip]
>
>  > 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.
>
>  Yes, I agree with these paragraphs entirely, word for word.  Please read
>  that three times!  I myself don't go quite as far as Bhaskar appears to in
>  the passage I quoted.  My point was to make it clear that RB does emphasize
>  the social aspect strongly, and that it is a crucial aspect of CR's
>  analysis.  But by no means does that entail that social construction (or
>  whatever term you choose) is the whole of CR!
>
>  > 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.
>
>  Not precisely, in the sense that Newtonian mechanics was not the *sole*
>  basis on which Einstein's theory of relativity emerged.  Nor could it be,
>  since it vastly departed from Newtonian assumptions.  So ideas from outside
>  Newtonian mechanics were involved.  More generally, it is not uncommon for
>  concepts and metaphors from one field to be applied in another.  So I would
>  rather say that Einstein's theories emerged within scientific discourse as a
>  general field (or something along those lines), and that similar processes
>  happen in most other sorts of discourse.
>
>  > 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.)
>
>  As Marsh has excellently pointed out, there are different sorts of
>  emergence; and as both of us have previously stated, there are
>  "intrastructural" forms of emergence as well as "superstructural."  That
>  means that *not* all forms of emergence involve the formation of higher
>  ontological levels (though obviously some do).  In the paragraph above, you
>  seem to require that *all* of them do; I think that's mistaken.  Also, I
>  haven't exactly denied that there could be ontological levels among theories
>  or philosophies, but I'm skeptical and need to see better defense of the
>  proposition.  I don't think explanatory power achieves that.
>
>  >                    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.
>
>  Yes -- but that doesn't entail the existence of differing ontological levels
>  among theories as theories.
>
>  > >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.
>
>  Quite right, it doesn't argue against conceptual emergence.  Nor was it
>  meant to argue against conceptual emergence.  I was debating the idea of
>  ontological *levels* among theories.  As there are different sorts of
>  emergence, my argument was more specific than you make it out to be.
>
>  >                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.
>
>  I agree that there are emergent levels among species, but I'm not convinced
>  that these are *ontological* levels.  The problem may be that the term
>  "ontology" is -- in some hands anyway -- ambiguous between general ontology
>  (i.e. Bhaskar's distinction between the real, the actual, and the
>  empirical), mode of existence (such as the sui generis complex and partial
>  totality we call society; or how language exists in a manner that differs
>  from the way bricks exist), and the specific composition and structure of
>  particular entities within some general stratum such as living creatures.  I
>  tend to view the last of these as (generally speaking) intrastructually
>  emergent, and not the real subject matter of ontology, which I reserve for
>  the first two senses (though analysis of specific entities often informs
>  ontology).  (I'm not sure what the proper term is for the third sense;
>  ontics, maybe?)  Following the meaning of ontology I'm working with, there
>  is for example no major ontological difference between a theatrical
>  performance of *Hamlet* and one of *Winnie the Pooh*, since they both
>  consist of live actors performing characters and actions based on a script
>  and doing it in front of a live audience; but there's a major ontological
>  difference between watching a performance of *Hamlet* and reading the
>  script.  Likewise, while there are major differences between capitalism and
>  feudalism in their structure and dynamics, they are *ontologically* the same
>  because they both count as social structures (involving social relations,
>  productive forces, political institutions, ideologies, etc).  From this
>  perspective, capitalism and feudalism are emergent in an intrastructural
>  sense (i.e., within the genus "societies"), and do not establish new
>  ontological levels but only occupy the ontology all societies must have.
>
>  I think this is consistent with the account of stratification you offer from
>  *Explaining Society*, and I hope it explains my arguments about the
>  existence of ontological *levels* among theories.  Although come to think of
>  it, I do want to hedge on that, but in a specific manner.  The question
>  originally arose in terms of comparing specific theories -- e.g., Hegelian
>  and Kantian philosophies, as philosophies, would be at different ontological
>  levels.  I think that philosophies can discuss (refer to, etc) different
>  ontological levels, but I remain skeptical that *as philosophies* they exist
>  at different ontological levels.  But so far I've only considered the
>  question of levels among articulated and conscious thought products (or
>  processes) such as philosophies.  There are however metaphors, images,
>  unacknowledged premises and other "patterning structures" which condition
>  and enable the ways we organize our thoughts, and which may or may not be
>  conscious; arguably, these are at a "lower" (more fundamental) ontological
>  level.  Thus ideas are neither generated or combined with absolute freedom,
>  nor generated or combined in some rigid deterministic way, but rather they
>  are "motivated" in certain directions by these underlying structures.  I'm
>  not entirely certain of this argument, but I think a case can be made.
>
>  Marko wrote:
>
>  > So according to Tobin the cognitive revolution of the past 50
>  > years is a fallacy. I'd like to see the evidence for this claim. So
>  > if "knowledge" of human nature is a social construction, and we
>  > are the objects of that knowledge, it follows that there is no such
>  > thing as human nature for human nature is a social construction.
>  > Thus Tobin, upon this logic, agrees that we are a blank slate an
>  > assumption shared with positivism.
>
>  All of these claims of what I said or implied are of course ridiculous
>  nonsense, purely of Marko's invention and quite the opposite of what I
>  actually think.
>
>  > although Tobin is a Marxist
>
>  I don't recall saying that either.  I've drawn lots from Marx, no question.
>  But like Marsh, there are lots of other things in my soup as well.
>  Apparently, Marko, you think *I* am a blank slate for whatever absurd claims
>  entertain you.  You say you reject the sort of social constructivism that
>  imagines we create the universe out of our heads, yet here you are, creating
>  a Tobin out of your head that has no connection to reality.  You're
>  certainly welcome on this list and you can dispute what I say as much as you
>  like, but dispute what I (and other people) actually *say*.  Cut the
>  ventroliquist act.
>
>  T.
>
>  ---
>  Tobin Nellhaus
>  nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
>  "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
>
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--
Mervyn Hartwig
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