Re: [Critical-Realism] Critiquing rather than Feeling "The way forward"

["Dave Taylor" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It seems to me just voting on what everybody "wants" is not a very critical
realist way of proceeding.  It would be more apt to first consider the
relation between "What individuals want" (or don't want) and "Why?"  In
Ruth's kindly fashion one may then be happy to go along with what seems to
be the greatest "need".

I personally, being a practical man seeking to understand and direct my
efforts in light of CR rather than to become expert enough in the detail of
its texts to able to teach them, would actually prefer to critique a
contentious non-CR book/article in a holistic CR (rather than "I don't
like") fashion, on the grounds that CR texts already do as much critiquing
as I can take.  We didn't do Sartre very well, and (perhaps because he
doesn't assert very much) we didn't really discuss "Why did he assert what
he did, and does his whole background provide a reasonable basis for that?"
That, anyway, is the sort of thing I would "like". On those lines
Chesterton's much more assertive, accessible [i.e. in print and on-line,
short and amusing rather than densely argued], social but far-reaching,
deliberately provocative and in short highly unorthodox "Orthodoxy" would
have been a better bet. 

"Why's" have come out in the enjoyable preceding discussion to the extent of
making clear that there are new participants as well as those already
comfortable with Bhaskar, and I would very happily give way to their needs.
But ... 

The choice of RTS neglects the fact that Bhaskar has moved on (and in fact
continues to).  I have highlighted George's contribution below partly
because his Christian associations reminded me of a similar problem with the
relationship between the New and Old Testaments. Only partly in jest I have
argued that Protestantism and the sort of "christian" attitudes that the
Tims of this world rightly criticise arose at least in part from printing
the Bible with the Old Testament first, and unscholarly, newly-literate
readers imbibing its problematic attitudes and inadequate answers without
getting to the Christian solution in the New Testament.  Similarly, in my
mind RTS poses the problem, and provides only a partial solution which the
inclusion of dynamics enables Bhaskar to answer more fully in DPF. 

In that it meets this concern while meeting the needs of new participants, I
think that George's suggestion below is excellent:-
  
> a single, not expensive, substantial (750 pgs) volume is available 
>which covers Bhaskar's work through the periods that folks want to 
>focus on here.  
 
Dave

-----Original Message-----
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[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
gdemetrion@xxxxxxx
Sent: 04 June 2007 01:43
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] The way forward

I would favor RTS as laying the foundation in Bhaskar's work. An online text
of the 1975 version is available.  Chapter One and a good deal of Chapter 3
are included in the anthology Critical Realism:  Essential Readings which I
was able to get at Amazon at a reasonable price.   Speaking of this text one
thought would be to work through the Bhaskar sections which include
substantial contributions from RTS and PON.  His later work up through his
emphasis on dialectics seems to be handled through articles rather than book
chapters. Such an approach could follow along Ruth's emphasis on
foundational texts but would also allow us to concentrate on some of his
later work as well.



George Demetrion
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