Re: [Critical-Realism] Side on Harre

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

Ruth,
 
Yes you almost get me right but I'd emphasise more powerful particulars. The fundamental point is that powers are inseparable from powerful particulars. Only powerful particulars do things. So it seems to me you need to take Harre's argument one step back from 'social structures can't do anything' to 'social structures can't do anything *because* they are not powerful particulars". This makes perfect sense form his point of view which is *based upon* the fundamental ontological category of 'powerful particular'. What then do we mean when we say 'social structure' according to Harre? We can only mean some form of taxonomy. 
 
Re. universals: I hope you mean that Harre denies that *social* structures are universals. He surely upholds *natural* univerals, kinds and so forth. 
 
Andy 
 
 
 
 
 
 

________________________________

From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Ruth Groff
Sent: Mon 6/4/2007 7:33 PM
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: [Critical-Realism] Side on Harre



Hi Andy,

So it sounds as though what you want to say is "Harre doesn't have any ontological objection to wholes so long as they are wholes that, in his view, exhibit emergent causal properties, such that they can be conceptualized as being powerful particulars."  Have I understood you?

That might be right, about Harre -- though the upshot re: social science is that he is an atomist.  What he clearly is opposed to tout court are universals -- especially, kinds.  But nominalism and atomism are not the same thing.

It's interesting, though.  In that debate that Jose Lopez and Garry Potter reprinted (AFTER POSTMODERNISM: AN INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL REALISM, Athlone, 2001), he (Harre) sort of conflates those issues, it seems to me.  That is, he objects to the existence of structures on the ground that they are akin to "taxonomic categories," which he says aren't real.  (Why?  You got it: because they can't do anything -- where "do anything" seems to be defined in terms of efficient causality.)

r.







-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Andrew Brown
Sent: Mon 04-Jun-07 11:52 AM
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Comment re: holism

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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