Re: [Critical-Realism] Side on Harre

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

Howard and all,
 
Alas just time for selective response to Howard (sorry, in advance for not engaging with the Aristotle angle - I am broadly sympathetic to this).
 
(1) Value and capital. My point here is that Marx precisly does not start with laboring activity. Why? Because value is *located* in the commodity. It appears as the generator of the commodity's exchange value. So Marx sets off much like a chemist to discover the strcuture, the real essence, of the commodity by virtue of which it has the power of exchangeablity. Of course no chemist ever discovered this structure. Why? Becaues value is structure-*less*, it is constituted by *abstract* labour, labour stripped of all structure, and congealed in the commodity. No realist interpretation of value has ever really got to grips with the notion of 'abstract' labour [with the excpetion of Hans E.'s wonderful annotations of Capital available on the web]. Thus when you say that the social form of commodty producing labour is the real essence of value, I disagree. This specific social form is certainly vital because it *creates* value, but value itself has the most peculiar real essence, one that is entirely structure-less!! (Its real essence is congealed *abstract* labour!)   
 
(2) Actually your run through SRHE seems to agree with my interpretation. RB continually refers to the fact that social stuctures themselves have no spatial location. The only apparent exception is where we get to talk of 'positioned-practices'. Here, you have missed the crucial exchange I had with Mervyn and to which Dave T and E-V made important contribuitions. In short 'practice' may refer to non-actual abstract or potential type of activity, on the one hand, as the 'practice of law'. Or it may refer to actual practices [the latter is what Mervyn means by 'praxis']. Bhaskar might be read as sliding between the two notions in SRHE. On the one hand the practices that transform or reproduce structures must be actual ones. On the other hand, the practices which constitue social structure must be non-actual ones. Note: there is never any question that society as a whole includes spatially located elements, since it includes agents, but the question concerns the exact constitution of *social structures*. For what it is worth I would say that Bhasar's reference to 'postioned practices' is reference to society as a whole, *not* to the constituition of social structures. Many would disagree!
 
(3) For good or ill, Archer (e.g. 1995) and her critique of Giddens (hence Giddens himself) are so influential on the structure / agancy issue, they cannot fruitfully be ignored. Archer presents her work squarely as an interpretion and development of Bhaskar for the level of method in social science. Archer specifies just what is and what is not material (hence spatially located) about social structures. Practices are not amongst this list. The issue also comes up in Sean Creaven's debate with none other than Mervyn re. materialism, agnosticism and God.
 
Many thanks,
 
Andy
PS An aside, for the sociololgists of the internet: I am actually ill on peniccilin, but with a stack of marking to do, the perfect recipe for engaging an email list!).
 
 
 

________________________________

From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Howard Engelskirchen
Sent: Fri 6/8/2007 8:13 AM
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Side on Harre



Hi Mervyn,

I'm sorry to have missed the follow up post you sent to Andy.

I think I still don't understand, though.  The distinctions here are not
easy.

First, you say that the 'acts of people' are praxis, but then add that
praxis is "by no means the same as social practice."  That seems a
distinction that would be easily lost on folks.  Is it necessary?  What
exactly is the distinction between praxis and social practice?  Is this
distinction made in SRHE?  In the pages I offered in my last post?  Or in
some other text?

You argue for a duality and not a composite.  The composite is between form
and activity -- activity only ever occurs as enformed and form is only ever
causally potent as instantiated in activity, as enmattered.  That's the way
I understand it, and I think that's in the tradition of both Aristotle and
Marx.  It seems consistent with the idea of "positioned practices."  But you
want to separate the position from the practice (which was Andy's initial
concern), the rule from the acting according to rule so that the rule is
real and causally potent and the act that corresponds to it is an event
caused at the level of the actual.  Have I stated that correctly?  The
causally potent rule is present in its effects -- the event of acting
according to a rule.  We say that it cannot be reduced to its effects,
certainly.  Do we say also that though it is present only in its effects it
exists independent of its effects?

You add that the domain of the real is not physical, not material, but is
causal, so therefore it's not ideal.    I understood the real as the level
of causal mechanisms.  I also understood that these could be unobservable.
Human social relations are manifested in people and their relation to
nature, but you can't grab a relation.  So this can be unobservable in
principle.  Still to say that causal mechanisms are not material and are
better referred to as, say, 'virtual' means that the critical realism
developed here is something other than a materialism.  That's okay, but it's
important to be clear on it.  One of the really significant  developments in
20th century philosophy was the acceptance and even rise to dominance of
materialism.  Am I right to understand you as suggesting a more nuanced
ontology that makes space for the causally potent non-material?  Is the
material always actual?

I explained in the passage you quote at the end of your post that ideas --
the same would be true of beliefs, reasons, meanings, unenmattered rules,
grammar, etc., become causally potent to the extent that they supervene on
ordinary causal mechanisms.  The form of a social relation becomes causally
potent to the extent it is instantiated in activity.  Your worry here, I
take it, is that to hold such a view would give up the domain of the
possible, the unexercised potency of the real.

I would want to say, taking the example of the commodity, that the form of
the social relation that accounts for the product of labor as a commodity
supervenes first on the activity of labor then, as a consequence, on the
activity of exchange and, as a result of both, is reproduced.  The activity
of production is pregnant with the activity of exchange.  The social form
reproduced is materially grounded in the separation of producers who produce
goods that are not useful to them.  As I understand your argument, you want
to make the living activity of labor the effect of a particular non-material
social form.  That non-material form is causally potent and gives rise to
labor activity of a commodity producing sort.

If this is the way the world is, it seems a bit mystical.  I'd say rather
that the thing we want to start with, the ground of our analysis, is the
activity of labor itself.  This is surely Marx's starting point.   A
particular form becomes causally potent insofar as it supervenes on, is
instantiated in, living labor.  Perhaps here's the confusion:  when we say a
thing, call it T, is constituted by other things, we aren't saying the other
things are a cause and T is the effect so that the other things are present
in the effect T.  Ordinarily we'd say instead that T is constituted by other
things, say, x, y, and z.  We don't say hydrogen and oxygen cause water; we
say they constitute water.  Social form doesn't cause human activity, it
constitutes it.  The unexercised potency of the real is embedded in form
constituted activity.  The causal potency that drives commodity producers to
exchange is embedded in the form of their labor in production.  Certainly it
is important not to reduce the real to the actual.  But the real is causally
potent insofar as its generative mechanisms are embedded in human or some
other natural activity, not in some other non-material, non-active domain.

That's what makes sense to me.  In other words, if I've understood your
argument then we have a disagreement about how the world is.  But perhaps
I've misunderstood.

Thanks,

Howard



I used the idea in my last post to you that ideas -- the same would hold
true of beliefs, reasons, meanings -- become causally potent to the extent
that they supervene on ordinary causal mechanisms.  The thought here is that
there is not some way that reasons or rules affect the causal structure of
the world that is accessible only to methods of study that are
non-materialist.  Rules, reasons, grammar, become causally potent in and
through activity, not otherwise.

By arguing for a dual relationship rather than a composite oneBy calling the
relationship between real rules or meanings or reasons and the actual
mechanisms of material transformation dual and not a composite, by
separating them from activity -- which was Andy's critique from the
beginning --



Now granted
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List"
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 7:56 AM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Side on Harre


> Hi Howard
>
> You wrote:
>
> > If I understand Mervyn  correctly he denies that practices are material.
>
> No, their structural aspect is, what you call their 'form', plus of course
> insofar as they embody meaning (abstracting from its physical dimension).
I
> didn't make this clear in the quote you give. As I've said in another
post,
> I think what we have is a duality (cf the TMSA) (*not* a composite): the
> acts of people (praxis, by no means the same as a social practice) at the
> level of the actual, which of course always involve a material as well as
a
> symbolically mediated dimension) and, at the level of the real, what you
> call a 'form', an established way of doing things (which can be
> conceptualised as 'rules' plus material and non-material [cognitive)
> resources]), which more fundamentally is what it is in virtue of the
> (non-material) relations between positions within it and its
interrelations
> with other practices.
>
> > I don't get it.  Practices are materially present in the ongoing
> > expenditure
> > of energy that accompanies the exercise of causal force.  Have I
> > misunderstood something here?   It is precisely the different forms of
> > energy expenditure that account for the causal efficacies of social
> > things.
> > Ideas, the paradigm of an immaterial thing I suppose, become causally
> > potent
> > to the extent they supervene on ordinary causal mechanisms.  If, what
you
> > mean is that the material expenditure of energy is 'actual' and the
social
> > relations or forms or structures are immaterial but 'real', then I think
> > we've just lost our footing and Andy's whole critique becomes fully
> > justified.  He's used the word 'positions' to explain that argument.
But
> > it's the same argument.  If really what we're saying here is that the
real
> > depends in the last instance on a platonic notion of form, that's sort
of
> > stood what we've accomplished on its head.
>
> I haven't said that relations (structures) are ideal, just that they're
not
> as such physical, albeit causal. Call them 'virtual' perhaps. I don't
> understand your problem. That's just the way the world is. The grammatical
> structure of a language is not physical (it's materially present only in
its
> effects, i.e. otherwise materially absent) but it causally enables what we
> do every time we speak or write or think. There's more to the world than
> brute physicality. Which is why absence is such an important category to
> come onto.
>
> Mervyn
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Howard Engelskirchen" <howarde@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List"
> <critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2007 9:29 PM
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Side on Harre
>
>
> > Hi Andy and all,
> >
> > What a rich exchange this has been!
> >
> > Your many comments Andy are very strong and thanks for them.  Let me
speak
> > to three things, two of them quite briefly and one at tedious length.
On
> > shouting loudly and indignantly.  As a personal matter, I don't do
enough
> > of
> > it, so I'll note the point and let it go.  Also, Harre is not the issue
> > here.  The points about practices, particulars and spatial location as
> > means
> > to understand the constitution and behavior of social objects certainly
> > are.
> > I think the focus on Harre has been wonderful though and I hope someone
> > can
> > scan in the text Ruth has pointed us to.  But it's an understanding of
the
> > world we want to clarify.
> >
> > Second, I'm not clear on your critique of my analysis of the commodity
> > form.
> > I agree with you that it is always objectified labor that is the
substance
> > of value and that objectified labor refers to labor expended in
producing
> > a
> > product by leaving its trace in the transformation accomplished.  But I
> > can't imagine how Marx's key point is the spatial location of value.
> > Expended labor that has left it's transformative mark is value only in
> > relation to other products.  Spatial location, then has to be thought of
> > in
> > the way we think of a field of force, and at that it is not enough to
> > think
> > of spatial location of products one to the other tout court because
value
> > is
> > measured by the labor time required not to produce, but to reproduce a
> > commodity, so I suppose we have to include the spatial location of the
> > point
> > of production as well.
> >
> > Okay, so let me go to the third point, the usual case.  Here I want to
> > recover what I understand the lessons to be of the section Mervyn
pointed
> > us
> > to -- it does not seem consistent either with your position that social
> > structures are not practices nor with the idea that they don't have
> > spatial
> > location.  I thought I'd go over these pages at some length because
folks
> > have emphasized that it would be valuable to look at texts.  Well these
> > half
> > dozen pages are certainly worth looking at.  Again I don't have any
> > capacity
> > to scan, but if someone does I think it would be legitimate fair use to
> > copy
> > them for our discussion.   I'm referring to pp. 122 to 136, or even
> > starting
> > at 118.
> >
> > I should say out of the box that I am in broad agreement with this
> > analysis -- Bhaskar has made a wonderful contribution.
> >
> > BEGIN REVIEW SRHE 122 --136.
> >
> > 1.  p. 122.  Bhaskar appeals specifically to Aristotle and Marx.  This
is
> > deeply important.  Also it is important to make explicit, as I think
> > Bhaskar
> > never does do, that the appeal to Marx must be to Marx as a student of
> > Aristotle.  And this is to Marx as a student of Aristotle's methodology
of
> > explanation.  Most scholarship about Marx and Aristotle looks at
> > Aristotle's
> > works on political and social theory, draws some connections with Marx,
> > and
> > writes a concluding paragraph.  I think Marx's study of Aristotle was
even
> > more profound than that.  His approach to the methodology of social
theory
> > draws from Aristotle's study of nature and metaphysics as well.
> >
> > 2.  p. 122.  Here's an important sentence: "The criterion for
> > differentiating the *social* from the purely *natural* material causes
is
> > given by their property that, although necessarily pre-given to any
> > particular agent and a condition for every intentional act, they exist
and
> > persist only in virtue of human agency."  This seems to me correct.  But
> > notice two things.  First, it is social causes we're talking about.
They
> > are not reduced to human agency.  They exist and persist only in virtue
of
> > human agency.  Without the intentional acts of individuals there is no
> > social life.  There may be a material record of social life.  But there
is
> > no social life.  But Bhaskar has not said here that the causal
explanation
> > of social phenomena can therefore be reduced to what individuals do.
> >
> > Compare this with two other passages.  First at 135:  "As society is
only
> > manifest in (and exists only in virtue of) intentional agency, and  . .
.
> > ."
> > I'm only concerned with the first part of the sentence and the rest goes
> > to
> > a different point so I leave it out.  The first part says something
> > different than the passage at 122 and in part I think says something
> > wrong.
> > Society exists only in virtue of intentional agency -- that we can infer
> > from what we learned on 122.  But to say society is only manifest in
> > intentional agency is a slip.  Society is manifest in the conditions and
> > products of intentional agency also.   Long ago Andy pointed to an
> > Illyenkov
> > reading of Hegel that is very good on this.
> >
> > And compare also p. 131:  "social structures are materially present only
> > in
> > persons and the results of their actions."  It's important not to
misread
> > this.  Social structures are also materially present in the conditions
> > that
> > ground them.  But perhaps it's legitimate to call these 'results'
because
> > the material conditions that make a particular form of production
> > possible,
> > for example, can be called conditions of production only as a result of
> > social activity.
> >
> > 3.  p. 124.  Cutting to the chase.  At the top Bhaskar writes:  "For
while
> > society exists only in virtue of human agency, and human agency (or
being)
> > always presupposes (and expresses) some or other definite social form,
> > they
> > cannot be reduced to or reconstructed from one another."
> >
> > For Aristotle the things of the world were constituted as composites of
> > matter and form.  But Aristotelians will be quick to insist that matter
> > can't be read as inert stuff.  It can be that, dirt, bone, etc., but
> > activity itself also counts.  So we need to make explicit a very
important
> > point here -- society is a composite of human agency, activity, and a
very
> > definite social form.  And we need to be clear what those activities
are.
> > For example, we can't make sense of law at all unless we know what kind
of
> > activity it is.
> >
> > A few lines further down:  "The social sciences abstract from human
agency
> > to study the structure of reproduced outcomes, the enduring practices
and
> > their relations."  This seems to me right, and the really critical thing
> > is
> > that the social forms, that is particular structural relations, of
> > enduring
> > practices are reproduced.
> >
> > A few lines further down:  ". . . society is conceived as the system of
> > relations between positions and practices (or positioned practices)
which
> > agents reproduce or transform . . . . "
> >
> > I lean on 'positioned practices'.  I understand this concept as refering
> > to
> > hylomorphic composites of Aristotelian inspiration.  They are composites
> > of
> > activity and form.  To be a *positioned* practice means it occurs in a
> > certain form.  In an earlier post I suggested that is why we attach the
> > labels we do to positions or roles, eg. student or teacher or husband,
> > etc.
> > To be a husband is to engage in a variety of activities structured in a
> > certain way vis a vis other social practices.  To be a positioned
> > *practice*
> > is to be engaged in a certain kind of activity structured and determined
> > by
> > that social form.
> >
> > 4.    p. 123.  Bhaskar writes  "Praxis always involves a physical
> > manifestation as well as an intentional aspect and the presence (or
> > absence)
> > of others, so that it is characteristically articulated both in the
> > dimension of material (and symbolically mediated transactions)
> > transactions
> > with nature  and in the dimension of material and symbolically mediated
> > interactions with others."  He takes this from Marx.  Marx insists that
> > social relations are always a relation of the individual in activity to
> > nature and to others.  The best place to see this worked out and
> > explicitly
> > stated is "PreCapitalist Economic Formations" from Marx's Grundrisse.
> > Bhaskar goes on in the next sentence, p. 123, "Transformation is always
> > situated in and stretches across space and time."  That's the
> > transformations that are accomplished by praxis.  Pretty clearly, or so
it
> > seems to me, human practices are spatially and temporarily located on
> > bhaskar's reading.
> >
> > Look at 129:  "Human agency . . . [is] moored socially in a complex of
> > social relations and physically at determinate locations in space and
> > time."
> >
> > And at 130:  "time-space-dependence -- Social activity occurs at a place
> > and
> > takes time, the place and time of the agent; so that it is 'earthed' in
> > the
> > geodesic of the biosphere.  Reproduction of the structures necessary for
> > such activity occurs only in it and so social reproduction stretches
over
> > space and time."
> >
> > On what basis does Harre argue that Bhaskar does not locate social
> > activity
> > at a place and in time?  Or is Bhaskar here responding to Harre's
> > critique?
> >
> > END OF REVIEW SRHE pp. 122 - 136.
> >
> > So the bottom line is Andy, I don't get it.  First, I think we can
> > straightforwardly say, and I think this is what Bhaskar, though not
> > necessarily always so straightforwardly says, is that social things are
> > composites of activity and form.  That is terrifically important.  Does
> > this
> > correspond to your own argument regarding practices?  That means social
> > theory has to explain two things:  what kind of activity and what kind
of
> > form.
> >
> > Second, we can say that these are spatially and temporally located.
> > Certainly we can say so if they are causally transformative because
unless
> > we have resort to supernatural explanations, causal transformation
> > presupposes ordinary causal processes and these are always spatially and
> > temporally located.  The activities of a husband are always spatially
and
> > temporally located.  The representation of marxist ideas is spatially
and
> > temporally located.  Recall that theory becomes a transformative force
> > when
> > it is gripped by the masses.  But 'the masses' are always spatially and
> > temporally located.  They may not have grasped yesterday, but they do
> > today;
> > they may not have grasped in the North, but they do in the South.
> >
> > Third, and this goes to Daves point, we need to think of the composites
of
> > activity and form as social objects, entities, things that are in
> > themselves
> > causally potent in a way that cannot be reduced to the activities of
which
> > they are composed.  This is not unique to social life, as I've
> > suggested --
> > water is wet, atoms of hydrogen and oxygen aren't.  Anyway, I don't see
> > any
> > problem with using the word particular to speak of the way we think of
> > social things so that we can call these too 'powerful particulars'.
> > Stathis
> > Psillos has an interesting piece in the British J of the Phil of
Science,
> > 55
> > (2004) at 393, Tracking the Real through Thick and Thin, where he asks
> > whether we can know there's a table in the next room and then supposes
we
> > can go there and look.  But concluding on that basis that there is
> > involves
> > a whole lot of theoretical conclusions regarding the way a chaotic swarm
> > of
> > particles makes a table and how do we know those exist?  'Powerful
> > particulars' runs into the same sceptical difficulty.  One way to
respond
> > is
> > to ask whether we have individuated in terms of the causal potency of
the
> > thing we're calling a thing.  But in order to say that about social
things
> > we need a fuller concept of causality than the triumph of modernity
makes
> > available.   Marx's concept of 'form determination' seems plainly a
notion
> > of formal cause, and if we are concerned with the social reproduction of
> > enduring practices, then we need something very like final causes also.
> >
> > The last point goes to the materiality of practices.  If I understand
> > Mervyn
> > correctly he denies that practices are material.  I don't understand in
> > what
> > sense this is so.  I am a causal power of nature just like a ton of
other
> > things and the way I transform nature to need is by material activity.
> > Here's Mervyn's comment to Andy on 6/4
> >
> > BEGIN MH:  It seems to me a nonsense to say that Bhaskar denies that
> > social
> > structures
> > are social practices. Practices are central to his conception, and why
you
> > should think his emphasis on them 'cunning' (previous post) I don't
know.
> > What he denies is that they and the relations by which they can be
> > individuated are material or physical in the way that natural structures
> > are. This seems to me self-evident. They of course have a material
context
> > or ground or substrate, as others have emphasised, and they have
material
> > effects, but this is not the same as saying that they themselves are
> > material. The word 'material' needs underlining. They are *materially*
> > present -- they exist materially -- only in their effects. END MH
> >
> > I don't get it.  Practices are materially present in the ongoing
> > expenditure
> > of energy that accompanies the exercise of causal force.  Have I
> > misunderstood something here?   It is precisely the different forms of
> > energy expenditure that account for the causal efficacies of social
> > things.
> > Ideas, the paradigm of an immaterial thing I suppose, become causally
> > potent
> > to the extent they supervene on ordinary causal mechanisms.  If, what
you
> > mean is that the material expenditure of energy is 'actual' and the
social
> > relations or forms or structures are immaterial but 'real', then I think
> > we've just lost our footing and Andy's whole critique becomes fully
> > justified.  He's used the word 'positions' to explain that argument.
But
> > it's the same argument.  If really what we're saying here is that the
real
> > depends in the last instance on a platonic notion of form, that's sort
of
> > stood what we've accomplished on its head.
> >
> > Howard
>
>
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