Re: [Critical-Realism] Side note on clear writing and Bourdieu

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>maybe the sense of "lack" or "want" is something more like "needful" than
"absence."

This overlooks that a need is analytically a lack - the absence of what is
needed.

Seems to me you're splitting hairs, since you admit that there's a
correspondence between the double meaning Bhaskar gives 'de-ont' (absence as
bind or constraint on the one hand and as lack or need on the other) and the
meanings of the old Greek root. Talk of one meaning being primary seems
arbitrary as the two are clearly related. More examples (quantitative
method) of one rather than another in a dictionary hardly establishes
primacy. But even if one is somehow 'primary', so what - the correspondence
is there, which is all I was concerned to indicate.

I used the shorter Liddell & Scott on all issues Greek.

I've just asked Roy whether he was aware of this correspondence at the time
of writing, and he says he wasn't (and of course finds it very interesting).
So I was wrong in thinking that he was calling attention to it. However, the
correspondence is still real, and I find it very interesting that the wisdom
of the original dual meaning is confirmed from scratch so to speak in modern
philosophical thought - or vice versa: the wisdom of Bhaskar's duality is
attested by the etymology.

Mervyn 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tobin
Nellhaus
Sent: 05 December 2007 04:16
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Side note on clear writing and Bourdieu

> The Greek root 'deon', on which 'deontology' is partly formed, has the
> double meaning I indicated, whether you like it or not.

I never said it didn't.  The apparent connection between "the requirements
of right living" and "lack" in the root word does not really justify
conflating a general type of absence with a particular one.  Moreover, I'd
recommend being cautious how you interpret Greek words.  As with languages
generally, there may not be a good overlap between meanings.  ("Hamartia" is
a famous example--sin, flaw or mistake?--that led to serious problems in
interpreting Aristotle.  Did you know that we should refer to Pandora's
"jug"?)  The fact that these two concepts are linked suggests that maybe the
sense of "lack" or "want" is something more like "needful" than "absence."
Liddell & Scott (the most authoritative classical Greek dictionary, also
focused on historical development) presents quotations from Thucydides and
Herodotus that support this idea, as further does the fact that the root
"dei" means "binding" or "ought," whereas the sense of "something wanting"
is derivative and secondary.  Your argument requires reversing the
historical and semantic importance of the two.  That move in itself
undermines the appeal to etymology.

And again, the burden of proof lies upon you.  Are there examples showing
that RB actually draws such a connection, e.g. by using deontology and
de-ontology more or less interchangeably?  If not, then your interpretation 
scarcely has the canonic quality you apparently want to give it.  And if so,

well, he's making the same dubious claim you are.  That's not to say it 
isn't a cute interpretation (one that RB might enjoy, why not?), suggestive 
in its way and so to that extent not objectionable, but I don't think it 
bears the weight you've put on it.

Gawd, the arguments my little side note has led to....

T.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus@xxxxxxxx
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce



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