BHA: Writer-Reader relation; Aristotelean causes

["Brian Dick" <alethic_truth@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,
	Tobin, I see your point and the context it was made in.  I guess I was
playing more of a devil's advocate role in my argument as I pretty much
agree with your point, but I am still a little shaky on it.  Now, and this
may have some relevancy for the debate on Aristotelean causes, Bhaskar
states that on the TMSA, "the ontological structure of human activity or
praxis is conceived, after Aristotle, as consisting in the transformation by
efficient (intentional) agency of pre-given material (natural and social)
causes" (RR, 92).  Thus, I see the objectification of a book as a
cultural/social form as what might be called the 'material cause' of
emancipation (or science).
	Now to relate this to the CR -> spread of idea -> emancipation schema laid
out by Marsh.  Bhaskar attacks the position of "rationalistic
intellectualism, which sees social theory as (actually or potentially)
immediately efficacious in practice" (RR, 89; I would be quoting out of
SRHE, but I haven't had time to go back through it).  Thus, social theory is
a necessary, BUT INSUFFICIENT condition of human emancipation (as I believe
Bhaskar notes in chapter 1 of RR).  Social theory must be put into practice
(the 'efficient cause of emancipation').
	Therefore, I think that the book-reader relationship may be analogous to
the base-superstructure metaphor.  As the foundation of a house does not
fully determine the exact structure of the house, but does condition the
form it may take, so the book, while not determining what the reader does,
conditions what is (cognitively, or otherwise) available to the reader
(whether the reader accepts it or not).  Am I correct in proposing this?  If
I am, then it would seem that we are beholden to the 'primacy of the writer'
(just as the economic base holds primacy (in the final analysis) over the
cultural superstructure), rather than the primacy of the reader (even though
I am intuitively sympathetic to this argument).  Of course, if I hold this
position, then I may be liable, as I pointed out earlier, to fall into the
fallacy of reification.  I guess I still remain a bit confused as to what my
position is on this matter.
	On the matter of formal and final causes, could these perhaps be aspects of
both societies and individuals, while societies alone remain the material
cause and individuals the efficient?  For example, I see directionality
(final cause; or am I not putting it in strong enough language, i.e.
teleological?) at both the level of society (history) and the individual
(biography).  (With formal cause perhaps relating to the structure of
society (mode of production?) and the habitus of the individual
respectively?)
Brian



> From: Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus@xxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: BHA: path dependence, critical realism and marxism
> Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 21:55:19 -0400
>
> Hi Brian--
>
> It's true that texts have constraining and enabling features, and so there
> are limits to what can be argued as valid interpretations of a particular
> text.  The play *Hamlet* cannot plausibly be taken as a thesis on quantum
> mechanics.  But the question remains about how we see the propagation of a
> text as a causal element in social or cultural change.  I've read the New
> Testament, for example, but it didn't lead me to believe in the divinity of
> Jesus and to take him as my personal savior.  Lots of people (like history
> students) read *Mein Kampf* but aren't turned into Nazi sympathizers.  The
> ideas spread, but to what effect?  Walter Ong's book *Orality and Literacy*
> had a profound impact on my research, but at least as much (and probably
> more) through the ways I disagreed with it than through the parts I thought
> were on the mark.  An ordinary book on astrology probably sells far more
> than anything by Bhaskar, but I'm not sure what one should say about their
> relative social impact.  In any case, once a book is "out there," the
> author's agency is (more or less) over, advertising or in-person pummelling
> notwithstanding: any social impact it may have really starts from how
> readers respond to it (if they do, and if they even read it).  My comment
> about the primacy of the reader was meant in that respect.  There is of
> course an analogy here with TMSA, or maybe more clearly with Archer's
> morphogenesis, since it emphasizes the agent's action undertaken within
> historical preconditions.  Anyway, all I'm doing is underscoring the
> difficulties facing a proposition like "CR -> spread of idea ->
> emancipation" and, as Marsh recommends, subjecting it to just a little
> research.
>
> T.
>
> ---
> Tobin Nellhaus
> nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
> "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Brian Dick
>   To: bhaskar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>   Sent: Tuesday, 07 May 2002 7:37 PM
>   Subject: Re: BHA: path dependence, critical realism and marxism
>
>
>
>   Hi Tobin
>
>   Perhaps the TMSA can help in this matter.  The TMSA gives two
> diametrically opposed positions, which it attempts to unite.  One the one
> hand, we have society determining the individual (Durkheim), while on the
> other we have the individual determining society (Weber).  Now Bhaskar
> shows that to hold one or the other of these positions alone is to commit
> the fallacies of reification and voluntarism respectively.  Rather, we have
> to see society as both constraining and enabling the individual as the
> individual (normally) reproduces and (sometimes) transforms society (with
> society and the individual mediated by a set of positioned-practices).
>
>   Now, as regards the causal efficacy of writing a book, I see that the
> same two fallacies can arise.  If we say that only the author/book has
> causal efficacy we fall into the trap of reification, while if we say that
> only the reader does we end up with a form of voluntarism.  Thus, holding
> onto the 'primacy of the reader' may lead to voluntarism.  It might be
> better said that the reader is constrained and enabled by the book (whether
> that be in cognitive or other terms), while, as you point out, it is up to
> the reader to change (or reproduce) the world.
>
>   *Note: Please take my comments with a grain of salt, as Im a bit new to
> the server, but this seems to make sense.
>
>   Best,
>
>   Brian




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