Re: [Critical-Realism] Quick on Popper and falsification

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi George

No, no joke intended. IMO cobbling theories together is a most barren way of
proceeding, and your apparent obsession with convergence has indeed annoyed
me (identifying what approaches have in common, as well as their
differences, is another matter).

You've actually done more than defend Fred's right to post here without
untoward ad hominem attack: you've encouraged people to take his
pseudo-intellectual stuff seriously, when the most elementary prudence
indicates that it should be taken with a large grain of salt at the very
least.  It's as though you'd never heard of an intellectual hoax or the
possibility of one (to mention nothing more untoward from a CR point
of view). Once the dust has settled, I think it will be found that I've
acted rather more responsibly in the matter of Fred than you when it
comes to the real interests of CR. It's a bit early, at any rate, for you to
be getting on your moral high-horse.

I'm not a professional representative of CR. I'm a voluntary worker,
responsible to my self, the CR community and human beings at large. I don't
normally speak in my capacity as JCR general editor here, but for the record
in that capacity I represent IACR, membership of which is not restricted to
any particular profession, any more than membership of this list.

Mervyn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <gdemetrion@xxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Quick on Popper and falsification


> Dear Mervyn,
>
> I believe my discussion with Ruth is quite civil and the questions and 
> responses both of us have raised are important ones.  You, of course, have 
> the right to disagree, but I have to say that your uninviting intrusion 
> would have the tendency of ruling out and discouraging all but the most 
> initiating from participating in your narrow-minded range of what you 
> define as acceptable discourse on this list.  Truly, I did not know you 
> were the guardian of listserv orthodoxy here.
>
>
> In all seriousness what I don't get is your defensiveness along with your 
> assumptions about what my motivation may be with giving Fred the right to 
> speak here without untoward ad hominem attack.  Perhaps they are the 
> thoughts of a specialist who is so in love with his narrow understanding 
> whose "rigor" becomes contemptuous of those who seek to have discourse 
> with guild members and others and do not follow the prescribed way of 
> entering in through the dogmatic doors of disciplinary orthodoxy as 
> defined by the high priests.  Of course, I don't know since I don't really 
> know you.  It's simply a conjecture based on the evidence at hand sifted 
> through the various theories in use that influence the processing of the 
> information I do have.
>
> In a message that I'm working on in response to Fred's analysis of 
> religion perhaps the following at this point bears merit:
>
> I can't say I am able to follow all of what you are saying here, though I 
> do find it clearer and more accessible for the educated lay reader than 
> some of the recent posts on holism, etc.  I'm sure they're very cogent, 
> but my sense is that they are largely inaccessible to all but the 
> extremely well informed.  There's nothing wrong with that level of 
> discourse in itself, though some breaking it down for those of us with 
> less than highly specialized knowledge would have, and still could make a 
> nice contribution in expanding dialogue among the communities of learners 
> here.  My couple of efforts to get some of the specialists to concretize 
> their arguments to a response to my questions in terms of the significance 
> of agency in concrete historical situations and on whether the issue in 
> essence boils down to an interactive relationship between structure and 
> agency, however variable in which structure is the more durable factor, 
> which nonetheless requires appropriation and often results in 
> re-appropriation which at least partially transcends any deterministic 
> argument, has failed to have gotten a response.  My queries were focused 
> on social science rather than natural scientific application of critical 
> realism.
>
> As you know, Mervyn, I'm still waiting for some cogent and to the point 
> responses and I have not overly intruded in my process of seeking some on 
> point responses to my on point query in terms of the relationship between 
> structure and agency.
>
> For the record, I have read the entire 83 page section of A Realist Theory 
> of Science in the edited text by Archer et el, Critical Realism along with 
> some other pieces of Part 1 on Transcendental Realism and Science and not 
> without understanding, though, of course, Mervyn, I don't have anything 
> resembling your vast knowledge on CR.  Therefore, you can always draw on 
> your repository to point out areas where I or anyone else except the most 
> schooled may be showing their vast ignorance, in need, therefore, of the 
> schooling you are so gallantly willing to bestow on the less initiated.
>
> By the way, I don't take this personally because in what I take (since I'm 
> a fallibalist I qualify what I say) as the typology which perhaps shapes 
> your professional identity there are tendencies and powers operating which 
> influence your sense of agency, I would assume in conscious and 
> unconscious ways.
>
> To conclude this, what I believe is a necessary note, though not upon 
> which I prefer to spend my time, but you do need a lecture here on 
> fundamental civility--to conclude this, as a professional representative 
> of critical realism, you are doing your profession no credit here.
>
> On final point on substance on the following:
>
> "You haven't even grasped from the recent discussion here that the 
> distinction between epistemology and
> ontology is a distinction within ontology and not the 'gap' you say it is"
>
> That may be your argument and it may be Bhaskar's as well.  Unless you or 
> Bhaskar has stepped into the realm of known I can only conclude that a gap 
> between the two certainty pertains notwithstanding Bhaskar's important 
> contributions to the unending quest for human knowledge. Moreover, what 
> you describe as my "your postpositivist convergence barrow" has very much 
> to do with some of the most critical issues in the contemporary discussion 
> of scientific philosophy, of which of course, I remain highly ignorant 
> particularly when my knowledge is matched to that of the seasoned 
> specialist.
>
> I leave with a final theory; that what you wrote was simply a thought 
> experiment to see whether or not I would take it seriously that since what 
> you did write was so preposterous that he or no one else could possibly 
> take it seriously.  I don't think that was your motivation, you got me 
> there, but if so could you at least explain the joke?
>
> George Demetrion
>


_______________________________________________
Critical-Realism mailing list
Critical-Realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/critical-realism