Re: [Critical-Realism] The Vanguard's Way Forward: Through Understanding Nature's Instrumentality

["Tim Murphy" <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Well as they used to say on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in...

Very interesting...
(in a strong German accent)

You forgot to tell us Fred if you are an orthodox Mormon and a spooky spy,
disrupter, list baiter and flamer and if as a Neural Engineer for the USAF
you experiment on animals or people? 

Have you got real Cyborgs in your lab? Are you a Cyborg? Is this what gives
you your clearly enhanced cognitive strengths? Do you run on ethanol?

I do hope you have not lapsed from the LDS. Just think of how many souls you
can save! If prominent Critical Realists convert to Mormonatry and rewrite
some of your rather weak apologetics, the LDS could become the most
intellectually rigorous religion in the known universe! and possibly the
multiverse as well!".

I mean do tell us.. 

How old is the earth?

Are African people descended from Cain?

What is the percentage of African American's in the Mormon church?

Was part three of the Bible discovered in a rubbish dump "over there"?

Come on Fred click here and free your mind, just one little click with the
mouse...

C'mon.. just one little click...

http://www.exmormon.org/

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
On Behalf Of Fred Zaman
Sent: 12 June 2007 04:52
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: RE: The Vanguard's Way Forward: Through Understanding Nature's
Instrumentality

 
  Before going ahead with a consideration of Engelskirchen's post
  "Side on Harre" (Wed Jun 6 14:29 2007), I would like to comment
  briefly on several criticisms that have arisen. First, the laws
  of nature referred to in my essay "A Critical-Realist Theory of
  America" clearly refer to those of the natural sciences, not any
  humanist "law of nature" regarding the human condition that
  stands independent of the sciences. The essay in it entirety,
  obviously, is about grounding our understanding of society in
  those laws which science has discovered to materially govern
  nature.
   
  A second contention, that the vanguard "as a way forward went out
  with Methuselah" completely misses the point-which is that once
  the laws of nature discovered by science are recognized as
  instruments of agent control by both individuals and society, a
  theoretical foundation can be laid for a vanguard of the future
  that can effectively guide society's development. There indeed
  will be those that resist this possibility, but it is there
  nevertheless. Orthodox Marxism was unable to do this, so that
  this project had to be abandoned, but this doesn't mean that
  it'll never be done.
   
  A third contention, that CR and Marxism are not compatible in all
  readings is certainly true but irrelevant. The essay never
  suggests that the theory is consistent with all readings, either
  of CR or Marxism (of which there are many of both). It
  nonetheless does provide a coherent unification of many of the
  basic themes of both, which unification indeed does explain, at a
  very high level of conceptualization in terms of an unconscious-
  grounded class struggle operating over the long term, the
  historical trajectory of American capitalism from colonial days
  to the present.
   
  The final contention, that I somehow got the unfounded idea that
  CR philosophy endorses the idea that nature's laws are employed
  as instruments of control, is simply false. I fully realize there
  is no such endorsement, and I never said there was. If there had
  been, I would have cited such, which I did not. What I in essence
  said is that this unstated, unacknowledged premise, precisely
  because there is no such endorsement, is implicit in CR
  philosophy's objective of laying out the "pre-conditions" that
  make science the successful enterprise it certainly has been. It
  is this precondition of science that has been, and continues to
  be, the fundamental reason for its success. Do I need to cite
  simplistic examples of this to convince? Surely not. And if CR,
  thus grounded in what clearly is a fundamental principle (pre-
  condition) of science, is unrecognizable to some; then that is
  due simply to their inability to see what CR is about
  fundamentally.
   
  -----------------------------------------
   
  Now, returning to the task at hand, Engelskirchen's reference to
  SRHE (p. 122) is principally about "The criterion for
  differentiating the social from the purely 'natural' material
  causes...", which he understands correctly as social causes that
  cannot be reduced to the intentional acts of individuals. Bhaskar
  has not, here, reduced the causal explanation of social phenomena
  to what individuals do, "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 or reconstructed from one another" (p. 124). 
  Engelskirchen thus concludes that "Society is manifest in the
  conditions and products of intentional agency also," so that
  "society is a composite of human agency, activity, and a very
  definite social form."
   
  The Critical-Realist Theory of America is precisely about what
  Bhaskar and Engelskirchen speak of. The first principle thereof
  rigidly differentiates the social from the purely natural,
  material causes. The material causes simply put are the
  constraints imposed by the laws of nature, through the material
  structures formed in accordance therewith; and the social causes
  are then the purposes to which these same laws are put
  voluntarily as instruments of human agency. Society here indeed
  is a composite of human agency, activity, and social form--all in
  accordance with CR's above, currently unstated, unacknowledged
  "first principle"--an abstract principle of nature personalized
  in the essay as Nostromo. Bhaskar's "positioned practices" in
  this account are composites of activity and form that are
  structured and determined by the laws of nature which
  structurally constrain these practices, while at the same time
  enabling them as the instruments of human agency.
   
  Human agency here is "moored socially in a complex of social
  relations and physically determinate at locations in space and
  time" (p. 130)--whose social relations in "Nostromo" are mediated
  by nature's laws voluntarily employed as instruments of control;
  and whose locations in space and time are due to the structural
  constraints imposed by the same; which complexes form "social,
  objects, entities, things that are in themselves causally potent
  in ways that cannot be reduced to the activities of which they
  are composed." The abstract personalization of nature in the
  abstract first principle of CR called Nostromo provides the
  fuller concept of causality needed to explain such social
  objects, entities and things than the triumph of modernity has
  made available. Paraphrasing Engelskirchen, Nostromo affirms
  through the laws of nature discovered by natural science the
  materiality of practices manifested in the ongoing expenditure of
  energy in the exercise of causal force by social objects,
  entities, and things. The relations by which these can all be
  individuated are in essence material or physical in much the same
  way that natural structures are, but at a much higher level of
  abstraction.
   
  In the essay "The Critical-Realist Theory of America," the
  fundamental object is the triad of unconscious-based classes that
  historically have been in a perpetual state of struggle, which
  has involved the continual expenditure of the nation's energy
  through the causal exercise of class-based forces that are
  economic, political, and cultural. The claim by uninformed,
  misguided critics that the theory of America thus formulated is
  neither critical realist nor Marxist is simply preposterous. This
  is not intended as a criticism of Engelskirchen, however, whose
  post correctly addresses fundamental issues in CR that ultimately
  must be resolved. "Nostromo," as a personalized, holistic,
  voluntaristic agency within nature that acts in accordance with
  the materialist laws of nature discovered by science, is
  certainly one approach to doing this.
   
  It now should be clear to readers of the critical-realist list
  that there is a new way to approach CR, one that gets to the
  basics regarding the pre-conditions that make science possible;
  and which--at the same time--provides a conceptual foundation for
  critical realism that is both theoretically effective and highly
  practical.
   
  fz
   


Fred Zaman <agent.redstone@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:  
George,

The essay's literary allusion to Joseph Conrad's "Nostromo" 
personalizes the essay's first principle about natural law-that 
which in its totality (whatever that turns out being) governs the 
"real world" of matter and energy. In this personalization 
nature's laws at the same time also are the instruments through 
which agents pursue their subjective projects. Our agency, 
traditionally thought to manifest embedded spirits, souls, etc., 
is in Nostromo both "immanent" (here meaning subject to the 
structural constraints imposed by natural law) and "transcendent" 
(we employ the same laws in volition as the instruments of our 
agency). Our agency thus understood, each of us is immanent in 
nature because everything we feel, think, and do is circumscribed 
by nature's laws. In Nostromo, however, the "we" thus understood 
also employ these same laws as the instruments of our agency, 
through which we voluntarily engage in life's countless 
"subjective projects." In Nostromo we as humans thus are perhaps 
defined as much--or even more--by what we as agents choose to 
accomplish through our employment of nature's laws 
instrumentally, as we are in how these laws constrain and limit 
us structurally.

The reductive materialism of the natural sciences recognizes only 
our subjective immanence (thus defined) in nature, which from 
their point of view implies our complete subjugation to nature's 
unyielding laws, with no allowance given (in theory) for being--
at least to some degree--a free agent. These sciences thus 
strictly avoid coming to terms with the possibility of an agent's 
transcendence over nature through the instrumentality of natural 
law. This remains so even though those who are professionally 
engaged in the natural sciences freely employ, in their work in 
science, nature's laws as instruments of their agency.

The science philosophy personalized as Nostromo, however, has no 
such constraints imposed on the possibility of agency: whether it 
is individual or collective, human or not. Nostromo's 
epistemology and ontology are fundamentally neither positivistic 
nor scientistic. Looked at it from a non-reductionist point of 
view, Nostromo's agency also is holistic. It circumscribes a 
whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, which naturally 
emerges through nature's agency and thereafter is maintained 
through laws of nature holistically functioning as instruments of 
control. What thus emerges, in nature holistically through laws 
operating as instruments of control at whatever level of 
organization, is an agency in and of nature here personalized in 
theory as Nostromo.

Because it is fundamentally grounded in the principle of natural 
agency, Nostromo has no build-in bias against religion, which 
itself is naturally grounded in agency as well. Nostromo clearly 
does not rule out of court the religious point of view. The 
opposite is true: religion is ruled in court absolutely. God in 
the religious view is Nostromo of the cosmos--immanent in the 
material universe while at the same time transcending the 
material universe through a cosmic agency that employs the 
instrumentality afforded by natural law. There can be, in the 
philosophy of critical realism thus formulated, no repression of 
religion thus grounded. In this formulation one is free to be 
religiously motivated, or not. One's viewpoint on religion makes 
no difference to the scientific philosophy thereof.

On this list I want to discuss Nostromo more from the perspective 
of science philosophy rather than religion, however. I prefer a 
version of critical realism that stands independent of one's 
views on religion, whether pro or con. And from this point of 
view I shall next address, in terms of nature's personalized 
agency "Nostromo," the issues of structure and agency touched on 
by Howard Engelskirchen in his excellent "Side on Harre" posted 
Wed Jun 6 14:29:43.

Fred


George demetrion wrote:
Fred,
Fred,

Thank you for that cogent summation.

Though not as familiar as you and others, isn't ontology the overriding 
concern of any CR focus that is both critical and realist rather than 
natural law per se, which, I presume, assumes a materialist basis?

I raise this as someone with religious intent, but also on the assumption 
that even in a CR universe we are still working from epistemology toward 
ontology rather than to any notion of ontology achieved. If that is the 
case, then ontological truth claims from the vantagepoint of epistemology 
are very much on the table. No doubt they have to carry their own muster 
from the basis of clear argumentation and evidence presented, but if the 
religious is ruled out of court by a built-in bias toward a naturalistic 
epistemology, then what becomes construed as the ontological is thereby 
skewed by implicit operative assumptions that, in the most unreflective 
sense, circumscribe the universe. This is not an argument for religion per 
se. It is to argue that to rule out the religious or to subsume it within a 
naturalistic paradigm is thereby to limit what is perceived as the real 
itself. This concern is part of the broader argument I've been making on 
the repression of religion within the 20th century academic universe which 
is more of a convention than a reflection of truth, however dimly our 
perceptions of what we claim truth may be.

Why not a healthy pluralism instead that keeps the focal point of ontology 
open subject to valid criteria of investigation that are not unnecessarily 
constrained by ideological bias however scientifically construed they may 
be? To put it in other terms, science, by all means yes, but scientism as a 
self-enclosed circumscribed world view, by all means no, emphatically no.


George Demetrion


From: Fred Zaman 
Reply-To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar 
List
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar 
List
Subject: The Vanguard's Way Forward: Through Understanding Nature's 
Instrumentality
Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2007 06:21:42 -0700 (PDT)


According to the recent thread "the way forward," everything on this list 
should directly relate to CR. In A Critical-Realist Theory of America, for 
example, natural law is fundamental and thus directly related to everything 
that fundamentally concerns CR--including structure, agency and their causal

interactions. The implicit "first principle" on which CR is based in this 
theory (essay Section 1) is that CR philosophy is all about subjective 
beings that objectively employ nature's laws as instruments of control; 
which then as instruments are the means through which agents initiate and 
bring to fruition (or fail in) their diverse "subjective projects." Natural 
law surely must dominate CR as a true "first principle" if it is to be a 
true "underlaborer" to social science; certainly in the structures with 
which CR is concerned, but also as well in the instruments these laws at the

same time provide to agents, which in varying degrees enable agents to 
appropriate or modify
existing structures for their own purposes. Isn't a principle that 
causally relates nature's laws to both structures and agents indeed a first 
principle of CR? And, if this is true, what then is the implication of the 
instrumentality of natural law for critical-realism generally, as an 
underlaborer that assists the social sciences in relating their domain 
philosophically to the natural sciences. In the above theory it is shown 
how, through natural law's instrumentality formulated in CR terms, the 
Marxist principle of class struggle explains at a very high level of 
conceptualization the economic, political, and social development of 
American capitalism from colonial days to the present, and predicts also--at

the same level--what may happen in America's long-term future. None of which

is possible without formulating nature's laws instrumentally in readings 
that are deeper, more abstract, and more inclusive than those presently 
available. This naturalistic approach to the
enhancement of CR's effectiveness, which is at the same time fundamentally 
non-positivist, provides a theoretical basis for change that's demonstrably 
more powerful that others thus far formulated.

Fred



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