Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ruth, Tobin, George

I think Ruth's epistemic point is right when you bring in the domain of the
real and real definitions -- it's far easier to get things wrong than right.
I was thinking at the level of nominal definitions, which we also need from
the point of view of survival/flourishing in the absence of real ones.

Tobin, by 'all determination is negation' Bhaskar means, I think, that all 
causation is analytically absenting (an existing state of affairs). 
Absenting is thus fundamental to the process of knowledge production (which 
has causes!) but making mistakes can hardly be seen as primary in this 
process -- after all mistakes themselves are absented by it when we make 
genuine discoveries. One of the things possibly going on here is that you're 
conflating absence qua ill from the point of view of human flourishing (it 
is a mistake to touch a flame with the naked hand) with absence as 
causation.

But this takes us a long way afield, and I agree: time to move on in RTS.

Mervyn



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ruth Groff" <RGroff1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List"
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 2:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11


Tobin, George, Mervyn, all,

I'm still pretty sure I think that outside of logic, "A" and "not-A" are not
equally weighted, epistemically.  I'm not sure if this is to say that
negation is primary -- I don't know if I think that.  But I would want to
say that the bar for soundness seems lower, somehow, for a statement like "I
don't know what it is, but it sure isn't A" than for "It's A."  I think that
it has to do with how, outside of logic, if you say something is "A" you
actually know what it is, viz., it's A.  By contrast, if you say tht all you
know is that it's not A, you've only gone a small way toward determining
what it is.  I you want we could say that, outside of logic, "A" constitutes
a real definition, while "not A" doesn't.  I mean, if you have a
well-grounded belief that something is gold, to use our favorite example,
you've know more than you do if you've got a well-grounded belief that,
whatever the hell it is, it's not gold.

I think that that is part of why, as a category, it's easier to slip it past
the radar of people who balk at knowledge, as Tobin was suggesting
originally.

Should we move on soon, in the text?

r.




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