Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tobin

>therefore dialectically speaking they don't form
> alternatives which makes them really the same thing.  And since truth can
> only be understood in the context of lies, and lies in the context of 
> truth,
> lies are truth.  And because war can only be understood in the context of
> peace and vice versa, war is peace.  Likewise slavery is freedom ... how
> very Orwellian ....  This sort of reasoning is unlike you, Mervyn.

This is really primitive Tobin. Just because two things presuppose each 
other does not entail that they are the same thing. Suggest you bone up on 
the concept of duality, and while you're at it dialectical contradiction, 
dialectical antagonism, constellation, etc. - or for that matter structure 
and agency!

I didn't mention knowledge, only the correlative of error: non-error 
(getting things right), which is not necessarily 'knowledge' as you define 
it.

>The
> situation is parallel to the role of absence and negativity in ontology.
> Seriously, Mervyn, you of *all* people!  No joke, I'm startled.

My, you do surprise me for my part. The proof of the existence of reality is 
error, and the reality of reality's existence (ontology) comes from nothing 
(absence)? My hair is on end. This is unflinching materialism with a 
vengeance!


Mervyn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus@xxxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 1:03 AM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11


> Hi Mervyn--
>
>> But imo it isn't an alternative. The main CR transcendental argument for
>> the
>> reality of a mind-independent world is that it's a condition of
>> possibility
>> of  human intentionality (in RTS as exemplified in scientific
>> experimentation), and specifically of the capacity for 'referential
>> detachment', which clearly includes the capacity to get our acts of
>> reference wrong as well as right. Seems to me you're only saying 
>> something
>> new if you can show that the derivation can be made from the possibility
>> of
>> error alone, which seems very undialectical: I think Jan's right in
>> insisting that they're two sides of the same coin - correlatives, the one
>> presupposing the other.
>>
>> Mervyn
>>
>
>
> Okay, let me get this straight: error presupposes knowledge, and knowledge
> presupposes error, therefore dialectically speaking they don't form
> alternatives which makes them really the same thing.  And since truth can
> only be understood in the context of lies, and lies in the context of 
> truth,
> lies are truth.  And because war can only be understood in the context of
> peace and vice versa, war is peace.  Likewise slavery is freedom ... how
> very Orwellian ....  This sort of reasoning is unlike you, Mervyn.
>
> Error requires *some* sort of cognitive background (such as, yes, an
> intention to "get things right"), but subsuming all possible cognition 
> into
> "knowledge" is absurd!  You can have error without *ever* achieving
> knowledge.  Error reveals the *possibility* of knowledge, but whether it
> actually leads to knowledge is entirely contingent (and in practice,
> infrequent).  Consequently it's logically coherent to deny that we 
> actually
> have knowledge, without denying we have error.  Thus in fact it *is*
> possible to make an argument from the possibility of error alone.  The
> situation is parallel to the role of absence and negativity in ontology.
> Seriously, Mervyn, you of *all* people!  No joke, I'm startled.
>
>> To be fair to Tobin, he's not saying that error is a possible solution,
>> only
>> that the possibility of error provides an alternative argument for the
>> reality of a (relatively or absolutely) mind-independent world.
>
> Thank you for this, which is both accurate and on point.
>
> T.
>
> ---
> Tobin Nellhaus
> nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
> "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
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> Critical-Realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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