RE: BHA: Mainstream Philosophy of Science

["Phil Walden" <phil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tobin,

Pressed for time but there is a short response below:
>
>
> A couple of other thoughts on the way CR and similar developments in
> mainstream philosophy seem not to know much about each other.  I would
> hazard a guess that Bhaskar has been mainly interested in addressing the
> political left than mainstream philosophers.

I would not say that I know Roy Bhaskar well.  However, I do know him well
enough to know that he has spent very little time addressing the political
left.  Instead I think Roy Bhaskar has spent a lot of time in philosophical
gatherings wrestling with recalcitrant problems bequeathed us by the history
of philosophy.  I live in Oxford and I remember a few years ago going to a
small conference about "Scientific Realism and God" or some very similar
title.  To my surprise who should be there but Roy, and as ever he was
getting in with a contribution on all the debates.  In fact, as I remember
it, the Oxford-based philosophers virtually had to suppress Roy because he
had so much to say.  If I can dig up my notes from that conference I might
try to post something on the list about it.  (Not promising).

Best regards,

Phil

  (I don't know him
> personally -- those of you who do may want to speak to that.)  To
> the extent
> that he *does* engage contemporary philosophers, which isn't much in any
> case, they're mostly people like Derrida who have been championed by
> progressives.  Conversely, few mainstream philosophers are willing to have
> much truck with leftists (or maybe I should say, few *male* philosophers;
> anyway, a fair number of prominent female philosophers are
> somewhere on the
> left).
>
> But the problem occurs in other corners too.  For example, Lakoff &
> Johnson's work comes awfully close to CR in many respects.  But
> not only are
> they apparently unaware of CR, they also don't cite many of the mainstream
> philosophers toiling in these fields.  And Johnson is himself a philosophy
> prof!  Similarly, one might have expected the (left-leaning)
> contributors to
> a recent collection on identity and realism to be acquainted with CR, but
> with one partial exception, none of them are.  Etc.
>
> Mostly, everyone seems to be in their own little cul-de-sac.  One might
> describe this as specialization and an increasing division of intellectual
> labor.  But whatever it is, clearly a lot of networking needs to be done.
>
> ---
> Tobin Nellhaus
> nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
> "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
>
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>
>



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