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

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi George, Ruth

Further to this, it *was* rude of me to interrupt your discussion in the way 
that I did, and I do apologise for that.

Mervyn


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 7:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Quick on Popper and falsification


> 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