Re: [Critical-Realism] RTS.ALT: Reading society's Aristotelian apparati

["Dave Taylor" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 After a little editing, Bwanika's essay turns out to be a nice rejoinder to
Fred's possibly mischievous misinterpetation of the critical realist reading
of "nature's instrumentality".  

Can Fred's insinuation, that CR is about all agents intending to use natural
laws as instruments, be refuted along the lines suggested by Bwanika?  That
Fred is actually describing as CR the naive functionalist view which is the
problem CR for which is seeking a solution, because it neglects nature's law
of reaction whereby the grandiose functionalist projects of a few agents are
preventing human agents exercising the deliberate self-restraint needed to
accompany the instrumental use of nature's laws; that Aristotle is about
balance as well as causation.

Dave
 

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of BD_wanika
Sent: 14 June 2007 20:50
To: critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [Critical-Realism] RTS.ALT: Reading society's Aristotelian apparati


Functionalism and Instrumentalism - Talcott Parsons  

  Having failed to deter rising casualties in an ever expanding industrial
world sphere, functionalism's respectable place in sociology and other
social science fields faces its ultimate demise. Urban destitution and
decay, violence, homelessness among the elderly people dumped in backyard
streets, industrial decline and rising poverty, rising levels of
unemployment, not to mention self-destructive behaviours, had all been
assumed to be redeemable through a functionalist single statement,
functional instrumentalism.
 
  In the functionalism of which Talcott Parson was the godfather, the
positivist school of sociologist thought and other social scientists, who
fell neither into the psychosocial sociologist nor the Structurist schools
of thought, sought solace in what had been well elaborated on below.
Functionalism.

     Functionalism derives its influence from nature's instrumentality. Thus
circulation of blood through the body provides its model for recycling a
decaying society.  But actually it is a dysfunctional one; that society
exists only in its subjective projects, renders support to brute
consumerism.  What was actually behind functionalism was a soft-landing for
an ailing system, with its precarious, conspicuous consumption and the
generated chaos that accompanied it.

     The problem functionalists faced, exactly as with its equivalent, the
Aristotelian physicalism, is that human beings, are always "thinking beings"
and are not mere things.
 
     Sociology is very interesting when read carefully. Functionalist
theorising led only to a linear thought topology which was always reaching
its final destination.  In this respect, functionalism and instrumentalism
became inseparable! I do understand the controversy and  Marx's total
rejection of  God as a redeemer in humanity's affairs. 
 
      So it was that potato and computer chips became humanity's ultimate
end and final cause!
 
  Bwanika.  

-----------
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 05:13:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Fred Zaman <agent.redstone@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RTS.ALT: Reading society's Aristotelian apparati


 
   
  Brian Dick (Wed Jun 13 13:38:51 MDT 2007) notes that Bhaskar
  argues ?it is a condition of the possibility of experimental and
  applied activity that the objects of scientific enquiry (causal
  laws, generative mechanisms, structured things) not only exist
  but act independently of that activity--transfactually, in open
  and experimentally or otherwise closed systems alike.? The
  transfactuality of such objects of science, argued by Bhaskar to
  be required in order for the experimental and applied activities
  of science to proceed, is supported by the Aristotelian causes
  below; which here read through the lens of nature?s
  instrumentality determine the ?social mechanics? of agents using
  nature?s laws as the instruments of their agency, in both the
  experimental and applied activities of science:
   
  1. material cause: the structural constraints imposed on agents,
  as materially determined by the laws, principles, and rules of
  physics, chemistry, biology, society, etc.
   
  2. efficient cause: the instrumentality of nature made possible
  through the employment of nature?s laws, the employment of which
  always involves complex amalgamations of such, as instruments of
  control by agents in the accomplishment of their subjective
  projects.
   
  3. formal cause: the agents employing nature?s laws as
  instruments of control, which cause includes the guiding
  theories, principles and assumptions that make the above material
  and efficient causes comprehensible and further increase their
  usability as instruments of control.
   
  4. final cause: the final cause of a thing is its purpose as
  determined by an agent (the formal cause) in its instrumental
  employment of nature?s laws, which necessarily involves complex
  amalgamations of such,  to successfully conclude a subjective
  project.
   
  These causes, taken together, form what conveniently can be
  labeled the ?generative mechanisms? of Aristotelian apparati, the
  ?mechanics? of which, in studies of the social character of
  science called critical realism, pertains to scientific change
  and development. The effects of nature?s laws here--as critical
  realism generally understands--are tendential; because the
  conjunction of events is determined not only by the laws
  themselves, but also by just how the laws are employed, by agents
  as instruments of control in the fulfillment of their subjective
  projects. Aristotelian apparati thus conceived provide a
  philosophical account of science as a social phenomenon. Such
  apparati can serve as an underlaborer to assist scientists in
  better understanding their subjective role in the conduct of
  scientific research. The critical realism of Aristotelian
  apparati also might serve as an occasional ?mid-wife? in birthing
  a particular theory--?A Critical-Realist Theory of America? being
  one of recent note on this list. The inadequacy of positivism as
  a scientific philosophy is clearly highlighted as well.
   
  Now, how, in the terms of the agent-driven generative mechanisms
  advanced above, does experimental science advance, whether in
  physics, biology or the social sciences. One first makes
  observations--of the past, present or both--of ?structures? 
  either seen or believed to exist in nature or society; one then,
  as an independent agent, applies the laws or principles presently
  understood or believed to apply to obtain some hoped-for
  predetermined outcome; the explanation thereof is then modified
  to take into account the discrepancies noted in what actually
  occurred. The cycle is repeated again and again over long periods
  of time, always employing nature?s laws--the employment of which
  always involves complex amalgamations of such--as instruments of
  control in whatever experiments are conducted. Aristotelian
  apparati thus defined may seem at first to be ?too mechanical,? 
  but the mechanics thereof is always that of social relations.
   
  Giving one example in the realm of the social, social experiments
  inspired by orthodox Marxism have failed; so that modifications
  thereof are now in order, and have been for some time; which, in
  a fundamentally new approach based on the instrumentality of
  natural law operating at the highest possible level of
  explanation, ?A Critical-Realist Theory of America? provides. 
  Might this achievement one day be hailed as a Copernican
  revolution in social science? Which possibility suggests that the
  social sciences today may effectively still be ?medieval? in
  their world view, because they have yet to understand the scope
  of natural law in the inner workings of society.
   
  fz

       
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