Re: [Critical-Realism] Holism and social structure

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

Doug,

Brief further remarks. I put your words in quotes.

"I certainly did not realize that for Harre, powerful particulars must
be spatially located. That explains a lot to me about where Harre has
been coming from."

I reply:
I have never contemplated the idea that powerful particulars are not spatially located for Harre. He may not make this explicit but I take it that he, like me, never contemplated otherwise. Yes, once you see this then Harre's arguments become much more coherent (and hence much more important to counter).  I hope Howard and Ruth agree. I guess I felt that no one was seeing this coherence and so people were just accusing Harre of prejudice or the like.

"I don't think Archer is opposed to speaking of social practices. She
is opposed to Giddens's denial of social relations, as am I. As it
seems you are as well."

I reply: I'm not saying she is opposed to speaking of them. I am saying she is opposed to *conflating* them with social structures. This is one key aspect of 'central conflation' surely?

"I am also unfamiliar with this term "violent abstraction" but may
have to plead guilty. I do think that relations themselves can have
causal effects quite apart from anything else."

I reply: Derek Sayer has a 1987 book entitled 'the violence of abstraction' (but I don't actually think fully Sayer understands the term). The term is from Marx. Better terms from Marx might be 'formal abstraction' and 'precipitate abstraction' - all accusations he levels at Ricardo.

"I would not say as you do that exploitation is not just a relation
but also a set of activities. I would prefer to say that exploitation
is a certain kind of relationship that can be produced or
instantiated in different ways by various practices. Of course, in
this case, I do think it is the practices rather than the abstract
relation that has the causal properties. Less so in the case of power
relations."

Sorry, I had in mind the specifc form of capitalistic exploitation when I said it is both relation and practice. It is a relation between ongoing practicses (those of wage labourers and capitalists respectively). If one speaks of 'exploitation' in the abstract (as a trans-historical abstraction) then I guess one has to think of it in the way you set out.

Many thanks,
 
Andy

________________________________

From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Douglas Porpora
Sent: Tue 6/5/2007 5:08 PM
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Holism and social structure



Thanks Andy,

I certainly did not realize that for Harre, powerful particulars must
be spatially located. That explains a lot to me about where Harre has
been coming from.

I will have to take a look at the Harre collection. I was not
familiar with it. I suppose I would have argued that relations can in
themselves be powerful particulars even if not spatially located.

I don't think Archer is opposed to speaking of social practices. She
is opposed to Giddens's denial of social relations, as am I. As it
seems you are as well.

I am also unfamiliar with this term "violent abstraction" but may
have to plead guilty. I do think that relations themselves can have
causal effects quite apart from anything else.

I would not say as you do that exploitation is not just a relation
but also a set of activities. I would prefer to say that exploitation
is a certain kind of relationship that can be produced or
instantiated in different ways by various practices. Of course, in
this case, I do think it is the practices rather than the abstract
relation that has the causal properties. Less so in the case of power
relations.

But I will have to read your paper and the Harre book.

Best,

Doug


>Hi Doug,
>
>Re. spatial location: So far it is Harre I have been dealing with in
>this regard. Harre's ontology is based on powerful particulars. As
>particulars, these are entities that must have spatial location.
>Thus spatial location is a big deal only because without it
>something cannot be a powerful particular. You are, in effect,
>taking the view that causal agents do *not* have to be powerful
>particulars (or alternatively you are positing somehow non-spatial
>powerful particulars). You are disagreeing with the bedrock of
>Harre's ontology. Fair enough, that is a reasoned response to Harre.
>I will not rehearse his likely replies to the various examples you
>give (Harre's own contribution to the 1990 collection 'Harre and his
>critics', edited by none other than RB, gives such replies). Rather,
>I'll switch to my own point of view.
>
>In short what is at stake here is *abstraction*. Should we abstract
>from all spatially determinacy, from matter, especially from
>material practices, when conceptualising social structure? Should we
>do so when conceptualising 'reasons'? When it comes to key social
>structures, I don't think so. For example, exploitation is not just
>a set of relations it is a set of ongoing activities. It is no use
>anlaytically splitting the activities of exploitation apart from the
>relations of exploitation, only to put them together again at the
>end of such analysis. That is 'violent' abstraction. Rather one has
>to theorise these key relations and activities together at the
>outset: these activities and relations are, contra Archer and RB,
>analytically *inseparable* aspects, or ways of viewing, a single
>social strutcure.
>
>Finally, on the materialist theorisation of reasons, and on a
>materialist psychology more generally, Vygotsky is the indispensable
>starting point. You will not find 'reasons' cleaved from material
>actvities in Vygotsky. Harre has in fact turned to Vygotsky but like
>many others Harre has neglected the Marxian materialism and
>dialectics that is at the core of Vygotsky's work.
>
>Many thanks,
>
>Andy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>________________________________
>
>From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of
>Douglas Porpora
>Sent: Tue 6/5/2007 1:49 PM
>To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
>Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Holism and social structure
>
>
>
>Very interesting discussion!
>
>Andy,
>
>I haven't yet read your paper and so am only responding to what you
>are saying here.
>
>It seems to me you are overly worried about spatial location. I would
>think lots of things are causally efficacious without being spatially
>located. How about reasons? Harre would actually take a
>post-Wittgensteinian line on them, denying their attribution to
>agents, but I do not think that is any longer very defensible. Thus,
>outside of a failed physicalist reductionism, reasons are causally
>efficacious wiithout spatial location. How many centimeters is your
>Marxism?
>
>There further seems (to me) nothing very mysterious about the causal
>efficacy of specifically social relations. Consider in evolution such
>concepts as symbiosis and competition. These causally powerful
>relations are not spatially located either. I don't see the need to
>speak of preying and being preyed upon as practices to render such
>relations material. And competition or symbiosis among species or
>within species may exist quite independent of whatever is going on
>inside the heads of the creatures involved. So no need to invoke
>rules here either.
>
>doug
>--
>doug porpora, head
>Department of Culture and Communication
>Drexel University
>Phila PA 19104
>(215) 895-2404
>
>porporad@xxxxxxxxxx
>_______________________________________________
>Critical-Realism mailing list
>Critical-Realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/critical-realism
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Critical-Realism mailing list
>Critical-Realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/critical-realism


--
doug porpora, head
Department of Culture and Communication
Drexel University
Phila PA 19104
(215) 895-2404

porporad@xxxxxxxxxx
_______________________________________________
Critical-Realism mailing list
Critical-Realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/critical-realism


_______________________________________________
Critical-Realism mailing list
Critical-Realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/critical-realism