Re: [Critical-Realism] Commonalities

[<gdemetrion@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Ruth,

Thanks for all that.  I've embedded a few comments.

George
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I think that what gets expressed as "focus on ontology" in relation to RB is better parsed as a 2-part move: (1) rejection of Kant's "critical" turn, i.e., affirmation of the intelligibility of asking straight-forwardly ontological questions; and (2) a rejection of mechanism as a metaphysics [yes, yes, notwithstanding the term "causal MECHANISM" :)], in favor of dispositional realism.   

Ruth: I think you might lose the pragmatists at (1)  

George:  Perhaps, though I think one can tease out in Dewey a Kantian belief in an inherent problem solving dynamic at the critical point of need in stimulating the "itch" for resolution.  While I don't think Dewey explicitly makes a Kantian argument, it is, through a Darwinian assist presupposed not only in human beings, but also an innate biological drive exhibited throughout the living world.  On this he's more interested in analyzing the implications of such a propensity rather than verifying its innate truth in that, if I may stretch this, he is more interested in epistemology than ontology.  Still, there is a "regulative truth underlying his understanding of nature.  The influence of both Darwin and the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt provided him some contemporary support for what I a loosely referring to as an implicit Kantian assumption that a certain property of "mind" underlies Dewey's theory of human experience and biological nature writ large.  No doubt there's metaphysics at work here (where not, I suppose?), but that's another story.   


Ruth:  and Popper at (2).

George:  Yes, perhaps so at the level of a strict ontology, though at the level of epistemology in search of truth he places a great deal of emphasis on establishing the most cogent theory possible, the one that better responds both to the evidence and explanatory theories via his concept of versimilitude.

Both what Dewey and Popper may be viewed as a problem from a CR perspective, but I think that would only depend upon the viability of focusing more on ontology rather than epistemology when what is more fundamental, perhaps is their relationship in relationship to whatever may be the problem of issue under study. This is particularly so since, I don't think, Bhaskar is making the case that the real is something we can directly know, expect in the trivial sense of say the table exists and it is green.  Moreover, neither Dewey nor Popper deny the real, nor deny that it is important, though they differ on how much of the real we can know and the role of knowledge in providing illumination into the real; which, since it is presupposed rather than known (triviata excepting) remains nonetheless a presupposition, which in the very strict sense, at least it seems to me goes to the very existence of causal relations, which I would have no desire or need to deny.  In short, foundations beyond knowledge attained seems to me impossible to evade whether the topic is formal science, socio-political analysis or religion and from what I can intuit (well beyond what I know of his work) Bhaskar escapes from this hermeneutical circle f radical presuppositionailsm notwithstanding his many rigorous efforts.  Perhaps it is in the very nature of his struggling with issues that he cannot ultimately resolve make his work exceedingly fruitful for those able and desirous to grapple with it.  Perhaps rather than CR per se the more potentially fruitful theoretical construct may be as you have indicated, scientific essentialism which would certainly challenge key assumptions of Dewey and Popper if not Bhaskar.  In any event, and whether or not on the latter, perhaps you laying out a little more for us on scientific essentialism would make a nice contribution to the discourse here.

Ruth:   Truth as a regulative ideal.

Ruth:  I'd be very careful here.  You might mean "The idea of certain, permanent, true beliefs (i.e., "knowledge" as non-fallibilists define it)" as a regulative ideal.  Or you might mean that the concept "true," however each thinker defines it, in their view functions not as an attainable norm but rather than as a regulative ideal.  Or you might simply mean that they all define "true" in the same way (probably not, though, because they don't).  Or you might mean that they all think that there is such a thing as epistemic gain, as Taylor puts it, and that such gain is the purpose of inquiry.  I think that these positions line up very differently depending on what you're actually saying here, and that it's important to recognize that.   

George:  I mean something close to what you say here:  "Or you might mean that the concept "true," however each thinker defines it, in their view functions not as an attainable norm but rather than as a regulative ideal"

Yes that, but also a basic belief in causal relations, and, also that effective inquiry and knowledge building if not leading to "the truth" (which might presuppose a capital T) leads to greater approximations toward the truth in a universe that at all levels has infinite capacity in what ever boundaries exist for expansion.  In addition, as with Dewey and Popper a compulsion toward resolution on whatever problem or sets of problems perplex that can only provide satisfaction through a fulfilling of the need, a fulfillment that at times that is experienced as satisfaction however temporal and temporary such satisfaction may be.  Some things can only be experienced. Explanations because they require language can only go so far.  They can point to the reality experienced which requires an embrace of the experience "to know," however limited and fragmented such knowledge may be. Phenomenology has rightly taken a bum wrap in philosophy which any uncritical manifestation well deserves.  At bottom, though (or at least at bottom of human knowledge) even our most deliberate thinking is phenomenological to its core.  This does not vitiate, say, Marxian social analysis, or religion for that matter, but it frames its reception of it within the bedrock of human experience, which is not to deny its objective validity, whatever that may mean in any given reference--only that our perceptions of reality can only go so far in which in some fundamental sense we do not escape of our perceptual filters whatever they may be.
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