Re: [Critical-Realism] Comment re: holism

["Andrew Brown" <A.Brown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ruth,
 
You ask:
 
"I think that you are right that Harre thinks that only individuals are powerful particulars, but what makes you say that he has no ontological objection to social wholes per se?  So far as I can tell, he rejects them, very explicitly, in part because, he thinks, they can't do anything."
 
My point was that he does not reject 'wholes' a priori. He surely does reject '*social* wholes' a posteriori. He does not reject 'wholes' a priori because they can be powerful particulars. For example, an atom can be thought of as both a whole (it consists of interellated protons, neutrons and electrons which in turn are relations of yet smaller things, which in turn are relations of yet smaller things and so on) and a powerful particular. In short, Harre accepts emergence. Thus when he comes to social wholes, he rejects them not through a priori rejection of wholes but through his view that only powerful particulars are causal agents - the lack of spatial location of 'social wholes' (on RB's own account) discounts them from existing in Harre's eyes.
 
Many thanks
 
Andy
 

________________________________

From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Ruth Groff
Sent: Mon 6/4/2007 4:31 PM
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Comment re: holism



Hi Andy,

You write:
I would stress that it is this very point that is at the heart of Harre and others criticism of the TMSA. They do not have an a priori prejuduce against wholes but, rather, an a priori conception of causality as implying powerful particulars, where powerful particulars are by definition spatially located. (Paul Lewis, argues, in reponse, that the TMSA we should look to a different conception of causality to that of Harre and Madden).



I know Lewis' work from a few years back.  I thought it was good.  But I think that Howard's recent stuff on conceptualizing the efficacy of relations is even better.  For what it's worth I think that what accounts for this is that Howard is making the fullest possible use of a non-Humean, scientific essentialist approach to causality as it might be applied to social phenomena.  

Warmly,
r.


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