[Critical-Realism] Fw: rts2-11

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

PS. I meant to add that (b) is explicitly arguing from "error" ("fault"), so 
it's odd you don't find it convincing.

Mervyn


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 17, 2007 6:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11


> Hi Tobin
>
> Seems to me you miss the point re (b). The main categories of TR are 
> presupposed by our daily activities when things go wrong. If you stop the 
> passage here your objection can't possibly apply -- the main categories 
> have been derived without recourse to science.
>
> But science itself is an everyday activity. Not only is it not 
> impossilble, but it exists and likewise presupposes, so the pomos who deny 
> its possibility yet regularly resort to it in their own daily activity 
> contradict in practice what they uphold in theory, and are so are guilty 
> of unseriousness.
>
> Mervyn
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus@xxxxxxxx>
> To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List" 
> <critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2007 2:21 PM
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11
>
>
>> Hi Hans--
>>
>> The alternative foundations that RB sketches in the paragraph you quote 
>> both
>> hinge on the possibility of science, the same as his original one. 
>> That's
>> explicit in his approach (a), and approach (b) simply postpones science
>> ("without *immediate* recourse to science"), re-introducing it at the end 
>> of
>> his discussion.  My point is that the presumption that science is 
>> possible
>> makes RB's argument irrelevant or even pernicious to anti-science types. 
>> So
>> there are two issues: (1) finding the appropriate transcendental 
>> arguments
>> for specific philosophical opponents; and (2) the range and nature of 
>> such
>> alternatives.  The advantage (I think) of the argument from error is that
>> doesn't assume that its philosophical opponent shares its premises about
>> knowledge.  In fact -- as Mervyn will I think appreciate -- it accepts 
>> the
>> primacy of absence, in this case the absence of knowledge.  Not merely 
>> the
>> absence of scientific knowledge, but *any* knowledge, including the sort
>> that the tiniest infant produces.  It also doesn't depend on the prior
>> existence of hidden knowledge, which is required in order to stage the
>> argument from the possibility of lies.  Likewise, your argument from the
>> possibility of production *works*, i.e. it leads to the same realist
>> conclusions as the other transcendental arguments, but it's built upon an
>> even larger set of assumptions and understandings (including the primacy 
>> of
>> production, which obviously is rejected by other economic theories).
>>
>> One way of thinking about all this is, "What's the quickest and most
>> knock-down argument for realism?"  There simply is no way anyone can deny
>> the possibility that they can make a mistake about something (in practice 
>> of
>> course we are wrong about many, many things).  They can deny that to 
>> *me*,
>> but not to themselves.  "I err, therefore things are."
>>
>> Interestingly, error not only demonstrates the existence of 
>> mind-independent
>> reality, but it also demonstrates the existence of self (a point that 
>> Peirce
>> makes).  "I err, therefore I am."  Thus with a single stroke, error
>> designates both self and not-self, TD and ID.
>>
>> Tobin
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "ehrbar" <ehrbar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> To: <critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Cc: <critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 8:31 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11
>>
>>
>>>
>>> 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
>>> -- and, at a certain limit, will -- break.) Heideggerian ontology, taken
>>> seriously, yields its own immanent critique. We can study science as
>>> everyday
>>> life, in the laboratory or in the classroom. And when we do, we find 
>>> that
>>> it
>>> presupposes a transfactually efficacious and at least non-anthropic 
>>> world
>>> of
>>> both enduring and transient things, punctuated by absence and powered by
>>> contradiction (in the broad sense of C2.10), bound into partial 
>>> totalities
>>> (in
>>> the sense of C2.7) and dependent in epistemic actuality upon the 
>>> agentive
>>> agency of human beings. Such agency presupposes a world, which has
>>> occurred
>>> and will come again to pass, without them.
>>>
>>> Hans.
>>>
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>>
>>
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