Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical-Realism Digest, Vol 32, Issue 89

["Kitching, John W" <J.Kitching@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Phil

I wonder whether the description 'relatively intransitive' is helpful here.
I see intransitivity as a black-or-white issue.
Either things exist or they do not.
Intransitivity is a property of different types of objects and carries no necessary implications for longevity/duration.
To recap an earlier point, intransitive objects include mind-dependent transitive objects (such as beliefs etc).
And objects can exist for a nano-second or for millennia - whatever the period of their existence, they are intransitive for that period.

I'm interested in your remark about the I/T split being used to 'prove' the existence of the mind-independent - can you elaborate?

Regards.

john


-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of pohanlon03@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sat 6/16/2007 14:56
To: critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical-Realism Digest, Vol 32, Issue 89
 
George

I couldn't agree more with your post. Especially regarding the tendency to 
become hermetically sealed. I think you are more versed that I in some of 
the alternative schools that you mention, but I've often myself felt that 
critical realists are sometimes too attached to Bhaskar, and a degree of 
critical distance would perhaps allow a better appreciation of 
commonalities and divergences with other schools. I think people like 
Dewey, Putnam, Popper or McDowell could all be very usefully contrasted 
with critical realism. I also think the lack of engagement with these more 
"orthodox" thinkers shows in the lack of seriousness, sadly, and 
justifiably or not, with which people take CR. Personally I hope that 
changes, because I think there are unique things that CR offers. I thought 
Ruth's book Critical Realism, (Post-Positivism and the Possibility of 
Knowledge) was a step in the right direction by comparing with Putnam; but 
a lot more needs to be done IMO.

John, on the point I made about relatively intransitive, I just meant that 
Bhaskar's "intransitive" dimension might not, or ought not to be understood 
in absolute terms, but only as something *relatively* enduring against the 
more transitory, and that the relatively fixed element need not be 
mind-independent. Sometimes it seems to me as if the 
intransitive/transitive distinction is being used as a means for *proving* 
the existence of the mind-independent. E.g. Kant's proof goes something 
like: in order to perceive succession, or simply in order to perceive, 
there must be something fixed against which my changing perceptions are 
rendered intelligible. Kant was developing this argument to demonstrate, 
against Hume, the objectivity of our representations. And I think Bhaskar 
uses pretty much the same argument as Kant here, although others might want 
to correct me. I wanted to say that it does not follow from this that the 
fixed bit, i.e. Bhaskar's intransitive, is mind-independent. It might 
simply be a relatively enduring representation. And I think this does 
perhaps raise the issue of whether Bhaskar really transcends "post-modern" 
hermeneutics in the way that George suggests. But I'm probably getting 
ahead of myself here.

thanks
Phil



On Jun 16 2007, critical-realism-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

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>    1. Re: Critical-Realism Digest, Vol 32, Issue 86 (gdemetrion@xxxxxxx)
>    2. Re: rts2-11 (Tobin Nellhaus)
>    3. Re: rts2-11 (ehrbar)
>    4. Re: Summary of RTS2 Preface (Louis Irwin)
>    5. Re: rts2-11 (Ruth Groff)
>    6. Gary & John (Dave Taylor)
>    7. Re: rts2-11 (Dave Taylor)
>    8. Re: Generative mechanisms (Kitching, John W)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:57:05 -0400
> From: <gdemetrion@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Critical-Realism Digest, Vol 32, Issue
> 	86
> To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List"
> 	<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <BAY103-DAV6C5767C30CA0441E0D9BDC51E0@xxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> 
> "BUT, Kant later realised as expressed in  
> the Refutation of Idealism, that this was not sufficient to prove the  
> existence of objectivity, as the required permanent element could  
> conceivably be just another representation, albeit relatively enduring  
> against the more fleeting ones. Thus, Bhaskar only proves with this that  
> there are degrees of transitoriness to our representations, and not that  
> there is a mind-independent world."
> 
> Assuming this is accurate would it be reasonable to argue from this 
> (what might be a Bhaskarian heuristics) that strictly speaking Bhaskar 
> does not transcend a postmodern hermeneutics in a similar way, perhaps 
> even with some different nuances, of Popper's notion of science as a 
> creative fiction?
> 
> I don't deny the reality of generative mechanisms on the presupposition 
> that action is the result of causation as a faith-based statement 
> fundamental to science and more broadly-based human reasoning in any 
> meaningful sense of the term. Also in what sense do we know that things 
> are caused. My sense is that this is the Humean question which Bhaskar 
> apparently has effectively answered. Whether he has or not is another 
> matter, the question teasingly suggested by Phil. Perhaps though, in a 
> strict sense, what Bhaskar has established is a reasonably effective 
> heuristic grounded in the assumption that there is a mind-independent 
> world as something radically separate from human perception even though 
> it is only by such that one can reach any understanding of what that may 
> be. I don't really have any problem with such an assumption, which, in 
> their different ways, Popper and even Dewey would lend credence to in 
> their own "postpositivist philosophies of science which also reject both 
> positivism and constructivism in search for a more middle ground 
> epistemology, however much the dynamic between epistemology and ontology 
> is cut in all of their perspectives. Yes, there are rocks in the world 
> and they don't depend on my assumption for their existence, but if this 
> were all Bhaskar were saying, which I don't believe he is, he wouldn't be 
> saying very much.
> 
> Perhaps there is more of a need to undertake closer looks at 
> relationships between critical realism, critical pragmatism (Peirce and 
> Dewey in some different ways--Dewey being much more comprehensive), and 
> critical rationalism (Popper, perhaps others). There's much to offer on 
> that, however difficult that may be than keeping the borderlands of 
> related schools of scientific philosophy hermetically sealed from each 
> other. I exaggerate to be sure in the effort to make the broader point on 
> the value of greater focus on critical convergences even while respecting 
> differences amongst closely related schools of thought.
> 
> In short, what is it that we know? What is it that we think we know? 
> What is it upon which we have faith (the evidence of things unseen") that 
> exists r may exist?
> 
> No doubt I suffer from the disease of amateurism.
> 
> George Demetrion
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:44:56 -0400
> From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus@xxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11
> To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List"
> 	<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <F0CBB27937CD4DDB969D53D9FCD12E1D@Gargantua>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> 	reply-type=original
> 
> >             The answer to the transcendental question `what
> > must the world be like for science to be possible?'
> > deserves the name of ontology.
> 
> In RTS Bhaskar presents the transcendental argument about as the 
> launching point, if not the lynchpin, of (what has become) critical 
> realism. I've always felt that this is a great anti-positivist strategy, 
> but a weak anti-postmodernist one, for postmodernists of various (albeit 
> not all) stripes often reject notions of science, truth or knowledge as 
> little more than effects of social power.
> 
> Consequently there needs to be an alternative transcendental argument 
> for ontology that can cut through postmodernist positions. I have 
> occasionally floated one which I think is viable, but I'd appreciate some 
> direct consideration: "What must the world be like for *error* to be 
> possible?"
> 
> Whether or not one believes in knowledge, one has little choice but 
> accept error. You think you've reached the bottom step of a ladder, but 
> you miss it and fall on your butt. You think the stovetop is off and you 
> burn yourself. Etc. Any such experience forces the recognition of a 
> difference between mind and world, transitive and intransitive, and that 
> the world must at least in large part be independent of mind: realism. 
> Moreover, if error is possible, then knowledge (not-error) is possible.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> T.
> 
> ---
> Tobin Nellhaus
> nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
> "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 18:31:29 -0600
> From: ehrbar <ehrbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11
> To: critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <E1HzMCP-0000qB-KK@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> 
> Tobin,
> 
> In DPF, Bhaskar discusses alternative foundations of dialectical
> critical realism without recourse to science.  I am appending a long
> paragraph on pp. 228-230.  His story of the pathology of everyday life
> seem related to your conception of error.  I personally, since I am a
> Marxist, have been toying with the thought that the basic question
> should be: what must the world be like so that *production* is
> possible?
> 
> Here is DPF, pp. 228/229/230:
> 
> If dialecticized transcendental realism is transcendentally necessary 
> for the intelligibility of science, can we produce (a) transcendental 
> arguments for science or (b) transcendental or other valid arguments for 
> dialectical critical realism without immediate recourse to science? (a) 
> The transcendental argument for science turns on its causal efficacy, 
> which can be rationally assessed; and may -- indeed does -- vary from 
> science to science (western medicine, as Feyerabend has justifiable cause 
> to complain, has a very poor record in many fields; econometrics, as Tony 
> Lawson has amply demonstrated from a critical realist standpoint, barely 
> deserves the name of 'science') and from research programme to research 
> programme, as we all know from the work of Lakatos and Laudan. More 
> interesting are arguments of type (b). First there is an 
> Heideggerian-type argument from the pathology of everyday life. N is 
> driving a car as das Zuhande, the ready to hand, concernfully engaged in 
> being-in-the-world-with-others, mindful of the ecstases of her 
> assignment. N is in the realm of the Heideggarian ontological, as 
> distinct from the ontic realm of science. The car breaks down. N fiddles 
> around unsuccessfully and finally calls the emergency rescue service. 
> They arrive and are similarly concernfully oriented to their task. No 
> luck. N's car is driven away to the garage, thence transferred to a 
> depot. A mechanic finally isolates a design fault in the vehicle and this 
> is relayed back to the design unit of the manufacturing firm. To all 
> intents and purposes we are now in the Heideggerian ontic realm. 
> Existential intransitivity, referential detachment (and with it the 
> critique of the epistemic fallacy), structure, difference and 
> transfactual efficacy are all being presupposed. Suppose the design fault 
> raises issues of substantial scientific concern. Let us treat science 
> itself as an existential, employing categories. Experiments are carefully 
> designed and undertaken. They presuppose the transfactual efficacy and, 
> unless special conditions are stipulated, the non-anthropocentricity, of 
> the structures, mechanisms and laws which they enable us to identify. 
> That is to say, they presuppose an ontology which would apply without the 
> mediation of human being (i.e. Dasein), i.e. a non-Heideggerian ontology, 
> although, of course, we can know this, tautologically but inevitably, 
> only as human beings. To put this another way, they presuppose a 
> counterfactual. But if one is a sceptic about counterfactuals, one cannot 
> take a walk in the Black Forest, or hammer a nail in the door. (The agent 
> must know that if she hammers too hard the door might
> 

-- 
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination. - John Lennon.


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