[Critical-Realism] RTS Summary of Introduction

["Brian Dick" <briandick51@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Thanks Hans for putting the bulletin board together, it looks like it is
going to be quite a fruitful project.  In line with the work that Hans is
doing, I have been developing a new section on the wiki site dedicated to
providing notes and summaries on the major CR works.  I have given the site
a kick start by posting many of my own notes, but it would be great if
others could post their notes if they happen to have any.  Bhaskar, as we
all know, can be very difficult to read and I'm hoping that this portion of
the wiki site will help make him more accessible.

Specifically, in terms of our discussion of RTS, you may want to check out
the A Realist Theory of Science page.  Not only am I posting my notes as we
go along in the reading (notes on the introduction are given below), but I
have also posted links to every book review I could find (I'm sure that
those with institutional access to jstor would be willing forward, off list,
pdf copies of the reviews to those who do not enjoy this privilege--I
certainly will).

http://criticalrealism.wikispaces.com/A+Realist+Theory+of+Science

Mervyn, would you want to forward the text of the introduction to RTS?--(I
don't want the list to fall back into pointless bickering). Well, I'm off to
defend my prospectus.

All the best,
Brian



INTRODUCTION (12)



Bhaskar's aim is to provide a realist theory of science as an alternative to
positivism.  While Hume has fashioned our image of science, Bhaskar will
argue that a 'constant conjunction of events' is neither necessary nor
sufficient condition for a scientific law.  This will be shown "by a
transcendental argument from the nature of experimental activity."



Transcendental argument:

   - Experimental activity is only intelligible if:
      - The experimenter is a causal agent of a sequence of events
      - The experiment is not the cause agent of the causal law that
      this sequence of events allows her to identify.
   - There is an "*ontological* distinction between scientific laws and
   patterns of events."
   - Establishing a scientific law requires a theory:
      - I.e., "a conception or picture of a natural mechanism or
      structure at work."
      - Some of these postulated mechanisms may be established as
      real.
         - This is the basis of natural necessity.
      - Such mechanisms must exist independently of the events they
   generate.
      - Only way we can assume that they operate outside of
      experiment.
      - Only way to justify applying known laws to open systems (where
      constant conjunctions do not exist).
   - "This argument shows that real structures exist independently of and
   are often out of phase with the actual patterns of events" and our
   experience of them (13).
   - See table on p. 13.



Generative mechanisms (14):

   - The basis of causal laws.
   - The ways of acting of things.
   - Must be analyzed as tendencies.
      - Tendencies: powers and liabilities of a thing.
         - May be exercised without being manifested.
      - *Transfactual* statements (not counterfactual).
   - Nomic universals
      - Transfactual or normic statements.
      - Contain factual instances in the laboratory (closed system).
         - Empirical grounds of causal law.
      - Do not generally result in a recurring pattern of events.



Open vs. Closed systems.

   - Closed systems:
      - Assumed by the Humean concept of laws.
      - Constant conjunction of events occurs.
      - Assumes that closure is the universal rule
   - Open systems:
      - Generative mechanisms operate as tendencies.
      - Ontological basis for (non-anthropomorphic) concept of natural
      necessity.
      - Necessary assumption for experimental activity to be
      intelligible.



The Logic of Scientific Discovery:

   - A dialectic of science (Diagram, p. 15):
      - A regularity is identified.
         - Classical empiricist tradition
      - A plausible explanation/model for it is identified.
         - Neo-Kantian transcendental idealist tradition
      - The reality of the entities and processes are tested.
         - Transcendental realism



Transcendental realism differs from empirical realism:

   - Invariance of events: an (experimentally produced) result rather
   than a regularity.
   - Models of mechanisms: may be (and come to be known as) real, rather
   than just imaginary.
   - "Without such an interpretation it is impossible to sustain the
   rationality of scientific growth and change."



Bhaskar's conception of science:

   - A process-in-motion (16).
   - The dialectic has no foreseeable end (in principle).
   - "Thus when a new stratum or level of reality has been discovered and
   adequately described science moves immediately to the construction and
   testing of possible explanations for what happens at that level."



The *epistemic fallacy*: "statements about being can always be transposed
into statements about our knowledge of being."

   - This underpins empirical realism
   - A fallacy that secretes an implicit ontology based on experience
      - Atomistic events related by constant conjunctions.
   - Concept of "empirical" world: a category mistake.
      - Anthropomorphic.
      - Neglects when experience is significant in science.
      - Implicit sociology: epistemological individualism.
         - "men are regarded as passive recipients of given facts
         and recorders of their given conjunctions."



The two sides of 'knowledge':

   - 1.) The *transitive dimension* of science: "the object is the
   material cause or antecedently established knowledge which is used to
   generate the new knowledge" (17).
      - Knowledge is a social product.
   - 2.) The *intransitive dimension* of science: "the object is the real
   structure or mechanism that exists and acts quite independently of men and
   the conditions which allow men access to it."



Two criteria for the adequacy of an account of science:

   - 1.) It can sustain the notion that knowledge is a "produced means of
   production."
   - 2.) It can sustain the "idea of the independent existence and
   activity of the objects of scientific thought."



Overall argument of the book (primary aim & constructive contribution):

   - Knowledge: "a produced means of production."
   - Science: "an ongoing social activity in a continuing process of
   transformation."
      - Aim of science: produce knowledge of the mechanisms that
      generate the phenomena of the world (i.e., events and our
      experience of them).



Subsidiary aim (critical contribution):

   - Show that empirical realism applies only to a special case:
      - A naturally occurring closure.
      - Epistemology: individual acquisition of sense-experience
      - Ontology: atomistic and discrete events that must be
      constantly conjoined.
         - Causal connection is contingent and actual.



Summary of book (18):

   - Chapter 1: Show necessity of distinguishing causal laws from
   patterns of events.
   - Chapter 2: Show conditions required for the Humean analysis of laws.
   - Chapter 3: Give a rational account of scientific discovery.
   - Chapter 4: Summarizes main themes of books.



Tendencies:

   - Science is concerned essentially with possibilities.
      - Only concerned derivatively with actualities.
   - Statements of laws are tendency statements.
      - "Tendencies may be possessed unexercised, exercised
      unrealized, and realized unperceived (or undetected) by men;
they may also
      be transformed [sic]."



The world is *differentiated*: distinguish open and closed systems (19)

   - Differentiation implies *stratification.*
   - Necessary vs. accidental events.
      - "a sequence Ea . Eb is necessary if and only if there is a
      generative mechanism or structure which when stimulated by the event
      described by 'Ea' produces Eb."



3 levels of knowledge in the transitive process of science:

   - 1.) Humean level
      - The invariance of an experimentally produced result.
      - Construct and test possible explanations.
   - 2.) Lockean level
      - Deduce the thing's tendency.
      - Gain knowledge of natural necessity.
   - 3.) Leibnizian level
      - Attempt a real definition of a thing.
      - Inquiry continues.



Science is concerned with two types of knowledge (20):

   - 1.) Taxanomic knowledge: what kinds of things there are.
      - Expressed in real definitions of natural kinds.
   - 2.) Explanatory knowledge: how the things there are behave.
      - Expressed in statements of causal laws



Summary of book's argument:

   - "It is the argument of this book that if science is to be possible
   the world must consist of enduring and transfactually active mechanisms;
   society must consist of an ensemble of powers irreducible to but present
   only in the intentional actions of men; and men must be causal agents
   capable of acting self-consciously on the world. They do so in an endeavour
   to express to themselves in thought the diverse and deeper structures that
   account in their complex manifold determinations for all the phenomena of
   our world."
_______________________________________________
Critical-Realism mailing list
Critical-Realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/critical-realism