Re: [Critical-Realism] mediating convergences

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi George

Many thanks for explaining this. I'm all for creative theoretical syntheses 
and/or theories held in creative tension for deploying in particular 
research agendas, and I wish you all the best in yours.

I confess I'm somewhat allergic to Popper, having satisfied myself some time 
ago that, as a Cold War warrior, he was intellectually dishonest in his 
critique of Hegel and Marx. I've rehearsed this here before so won't go over 
it again. That doesn't of course mean that there's nothing of value in his 
philosophy of science. On the contrary, he's clearly an important part of 
the intellectual context leading to the formation of CR which is indebted to 
him for feeding into its conceptualisation of the TD of science in 
particular.

Re the 'gap'. You see one, I don't. It seems to me you'll only see one if 
you assume that epistemology is somehow 'in here' and ontology 'out there', 
that epistemology is separate from ontology rather than a distinct part of 
it, that we stand over against nature rather than being (along with our 
theories and ideas) emergent parts of it engaged in a constant exchange 
between theory, observation and experimental practice. All this is 
elaborated by Bhaskar post-RTS. I'm sure he doesn't have all the answers, 
but it seems to me to offer a promising way forward. He's on record as 
saying that he drew the TD/ID distinction too sharply in RTS (note though 
that he doesn't think of it as a gap or divide), so it will be interesting 
to follow this theme up when we read the later works.

Mervyn



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <gdemetrion@xxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2007 1:30 PM
Subject: [Critical-Realism] mediating convergences


>
> Without getting into personal arguments my emphasis on the search 
> mediating convergences does not presuppose that differences are 
> unimportant; in fact, far from that.  Both differences and similarities 
> are important, including the relationship to them.  The context in which I 
> have done my work (amateurish, I hope in the better sense of the term) is 
> within the framework of research design in adult literacy education, my 
> professional field in which I have written a book, Conflicting Paradigms 
> in Adult Literacy Education, and about a dozen published articles.  In 
> this field, positivism is alive and well especially on research designs 
> stemming out of the Bush White House in their interpretation of science. I 
> deal with this topic in two chapters (9 & 10) of my book and the follow-up 
> on-line essay, Postpositvist Scientific Philosophy:  Mediating 
> Convergences, where in part, I look at certain aspects of adult literacy 
> education through the prisms of Dewey's theory of inquiry, Popper's 
> critical rationalism, and the more recent work of contemporary pragmatic 
> philosopher Nichoals Rescher.  There I did not concentrate on differences, 
> though they are noted, yet neither did I try to see anything like they are 
> all saying the same thing; the commonality being a postpositivist 
> mediation between positivism and constructivism.  Here's the link if 
> anyone is so inclined http://www.the-rathouse.com/Postpositivism.htm.
>
> It seems to me that critical realism (the little, rather than the nothing 
> I know of this) also fits within this broad postpositivist framework even 
> as in certain key ways Bhasker is making some very different claims than 
> Dewey, Popper and Rescher, particularly his emphasis on ontology, though, 
> as at least as I intuit it, from the limited basis of what I have read the 
> epistemological/ontological gap remains far from resolved.
>
> Gradually, I have two objectives; one is a greater understanding of 
> critical realism particularly in relationship to critical pragmatism and 
> critical rationalism, and an attainment of a reasonably solid 
> understanding of what a critical realist approach would add toward a 
> research design that in some way builds, strengthens, improves upon what I 
> sought to lay out in Postpositivist Scientific Philosophy.  I'm assuming a 
> great deal, though at this point I am far from the point where I could 
> substantially appropriate such knowledge in any potential revision of this 
> essay.  At this point I'm taking baby steps on the side as I am at this 
> point working on a book on contemporary theology.
>
> One can do what one can do.
>
> George Demetrion
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