Re: [Critical-Realism] Creative Dialogue

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Dave

What is supposed to happen? I suppose the parties could continue with 
whatever work they have to do, feeling somewhat encouraged.

I don't accept your dichotomy between 'intuitive' and 'sensory' thinkers. We 
all think intuitively inter alia, and CR is oriented against such splits.

Mervyn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Taylor" <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List'" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Creative Dialogue


> Hi Mervyn
>
> Please excuse me joining in, but this has gotten to be as big an issue for
> me as it seems to be for George.  Your first comment helps me understand
> where you are coming from:-
>
>>what you [George] call 'critical convergence' I'd call 'creative 
>>dialogue'.
>
> As I see it, if dialogue is "creative" then it MAY be leading to
> convergence.  It may however lead to incomprehending but respectful
> tolerance, generate antagonism, or even lead to decisive rejection,
> depending on what it is "creating".  In other words, dialogue is not
> necessarily dialectic.  It is not necessarily the case that all parties 
> have
> part of the truth and together create the "synthesis".  What is supposed 
> to
> happen when what some parties may eventually recognise as the synthesis is
> what other parties have been arguing, in language developed within their 
> own
> "specialism", all along?
>
>>I agree with Ruth re (a) - there's not much commonality here.
>
> Having looked back at what Ruth was arguing at (a), I agree there is not
> much commonality in the SOLUTIONS offered, but I don't see that means
> George's exemplars were not AIMING for the same reality as RB: at least
> originally, though like the great Chomsky mimicking pre-quantum chemists 
> in
> that piece Tim presented to us, they may have written off the possibility 
> of
> what they were personally not yet in a position to imagine.  Peirce and
> Dewey were different types of pragmatist and a long time ago; a lot has
> happened in the field of logic since then.  Even Popper was formed before
> Shannon and Algol68.
>
> Ruth's "parsing" of RB and "losing" of these worthies was fascinating and
> worth a debate in itself. What I am getting at here comes out in her final
> comment, though.
>
>>I agree with you though [George] that it is interesting to all the time be
> comparing and contrasting thinkers; it helps in trying to figure them out 
> I
> think.
>
> Yes, but not only to figure out what they ACTUALLY said; at a deeper level
> one may be reading between the lines, figuring out what they were TRYING 
> to
> say, and learning about both that and one's own deficiencies by viewing 
> the
> problem they were addressing in light of comparison of what was understood
> by different schools then with fruitful insights [c.f. Lakatos] others 
> have
> had since.  That of course may come more easily for intuitive thinkers 
> than
> it does for sensory thinkers, whose strengths lie in dealing with the
> actual.
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mervyn
> Hartwig
> Sent: 19 June 2007 19:45
> To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Powers,processes, etc.
>
> Hi George
>
> That's fine, but what you call 'critical convergence' I'd call 'creative
> dialogue'.
>
> I agree with Ruth re (a) - there's not much commonality here.
>
> Mervyn
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George demetrion" <gdemetrion@xxxxxxx>
> To: <critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 2:34 PM
> Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Powers,processes, etc.
>
>
>>
>> Third, how can there be creative dialogue if there's convergence
>>
>>
>> Mervyn,
>>
>> Critical convergence doesn't presuppose unity though it does require an
>> identification of commonalities, which does not deny differences but
>> places
>> them within the perspective of the context of the broader issue or 
>> problem
>> under investigation.  It also doesn't deny the possibility of any given
>> theory that might prove itself superio; simply that the grounds and the
>> counterclaims need to be carefully addressed.
>>
>> Briefly, to take the three related schools that I've laid out--critical
>> pragmatism (Peirce & Dewey), critical rationalism (Popper), critical
>> realism
>>
>> Commonalities:
>>
>> a)  Post Humean metaphyics
>> b)  Sustained critique of both positivism and postmodernism (Deweyan
>> analysis is commonly drawn upon by contemporary pragmatists on this even
>> as
>> some pragmatists are working out of postmodern filters
>> c)  Truth as a regulative ideal
>> d)  very rigorous work in the area of scientific philosophy (eg. Dewey's
>> Logic:  The Theory of Inquiry)
>>
>> Differences
>>
>> a)  Dewey focuses more on inquiry; Popper focuses more on the efficacy of
>> the results of inquiry and works backwards (his World, One, Two & Three)
>> b)  Bhsakar focuses more on ontology (the validity of which neither 
>> Popper
>> nor Dewey would deny) while still accepting the ineradicable gap between
>> what we can know and what is actual.
>> c)  While that's a difference neither Dewey nor Popper deny what Bhaskar
>> refers to as generative mechanisms and causal power (if I have the latter
>> right) even as they (perhaps?) focus more on more immediate issues of
>> effective problem solving as defined by the nature of the problem itself.
>>
>> There's nothing mystical in how this may be done.  It requires (and I'm
>> not
>> presuming your opposed) to greater interrdisciplinary border crossing at 
>> a
>> fairly in-depth level which speaks to fundamental issues of breadth and
>> depth, shaped, perhaps, by the preoblem at hand.
>>
>> I'd be really interested what the work in scientific essentialism may 
>> have
>> to offer--intererested, but not at this time toi the extent of 
>> undertaking
>> the hard work of gaining a substantial level of knowledge that would
>> likely
>> be needed to better appreciate how the depth and breadth of how a
>> postpositivist theoretical and research design that accepts regulative
>> truth
>> as  an operative ideal might be further enhanced.
>>
>> George Demetrion
>>
>>
>>
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