Re: [Critical-Realism] How can a de-ont exist or an absence bepresent?

[Howard Engelskirchen <howarde@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mervyn,

A fair reading of my posts makes clear I had already noticed also 
that "absence, like presence, is essential to what causal structure 
is."  And your parenthetical addition, that "to cause is to absent," 
of course is something I had explicitly said.

I also said that being presupposes non-being.

But how do we distinguish between them?

Here's a way:  being causes, non-being doesn't.  (That's what's 
important about holes.)

Since we seem to be labeling here, the traditional philosophical 
designation for the view that supposes meanings are causal without 
engaging ordinary causal mechanisms is idealism.

best,

howard



At 07:30 AM 12/6/2007, you wrote:
>Hi Howard
>
>This is interesting. The hole in the ground isn't there, it's in our heads,
>and so is the gap we see in the cafe. Meanings are causal, but then again
>not really causal because they engage "ordinary" (i.e. "material") causal
>mechanisms. You admit gaps to being and causal structures, so non-being is
>part of being and causal structures, yet somehow non-being has no causal
>force, only (a fortiori) purely positive being has, even though it couldn't
>move if there were no gaps and in fact nowhere exists.
>
>There's no such thing as pure absence any more than there's pure presence.
>You can't isolate one or the other out and say whether they have "causal
>structure" - as your statement that "non-being is without causal structure"
>does. Absence, like presence, is essential to what a causal structure is
>(and to cause is to absent). You're not engaging with this position at all.
>It's tacit monovalence forever.
>
>Mervyn
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard
>Engelskirchen
>Sent: 06 December 2007 01:47
>To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
>Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] How can a de-ont exist or an absence
>bepresent?
>
>Hi Mervyn,
>
>I had already noticed that the water molecule is
>composed of gaps between its constituent elements, but thanks anyway.
>
>1.      One way to talk about this, simpler,
>really, is to say that the things of the world
>are composites of matter and form.  As I
>suggested in my response to Nick, arrangements of
>matter and its gaps can vary enormously with the
>result that the same constituents can have very
>different causal effects.  The water molecule
>differently arranged causes steam or ice.
>
>2.      Non being is without causal
>structure.  Because it lacks causal structure it
>has no causal potency, force, efficacy,
>consequence or "impact";  no amount of rhetorical
>shock and awe can obscure that.
>
>3.      Ruth is absolutely right to call
>attention to the terrific utility of our ability
>to linguistically redescribe the world, including
>our ability to imagine things that aren't
>there.  Our success as a species is an important
>consequence of our ability to imagine a future
>(absent) different from the present.
>
>4.      But it is important not to confuse
>linguistic redescription with the way the world
>is.  Any actual transformation of the present
>into the future requires the efficacious
>operation of ordinary causal mechanisms.  See
>point 2.  Meanings are causal, but they are so
>only in virtue of engaging ordinary causal
>mechanisms.  My idea that it would be nice to have a breeze opens no
>windows.
>
>best,
>
>howard
>
>
>
>
>
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