Re: [Critical-Realism] How can a de-ont exist or anabsence be present?

["Nick Hostettler" <Nh8@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Howard, Louis and Mervyn, 

First off, my apologies for the inattentive responses to Howardâs post, and my thanks to Louis and to Mervyn for clarifying the central issues. Apologies too for getting carried away: the post is a long one. 

Howard asked about âthe causal efficacy of phlogiston,â emphasising that his question was not about âwhat someone thought or thinks about phlogiston, but of the de-ont?â

Mervynâs initial contribution was to lay out the point about different classes of de-onts and I hoped to develop this line of thinking with my comments on classes of possibility. From the perspective of ontological polyvalence, this kind of de-ont has no causal significance whatsoever. Howard was quite right to say that: âThe point generalizes. An absence, absence of being, means an absence of causal structure and hence of causal efficacy.â Absolutely! Phlogiston is an absolute non-entity and entirely non-causal. 

After the agreement comes the inevitable âhoweverâ. 

Howard indicates a shift in gear, or at least an ambiguity, when he says âWhat a drought causes is a result of the causal structures in place, not of absent non-structures that aren't there.â If we take âabsent non-structuresâ to mean that member of the class of impossible beings, i.e. absolute non-entities, can have no causal role in the playing out of a drought then there can be no disagreement. But this is by no means the only way this could be read. At least, we can read into it the possibility of referring to the other classes of de-onts: as yet unrealised possibilities and past presences. So, when Howard asks âHow can a de-ont exist or an absence be present?â it is worthwhile trying to give a useful response, one that disagrees with the idea that âWhen we speak of the presence of an absence, there is actually no causal structure to which we refer.â A polyvalent response to this insists on the co-presence of absences and presences and argues that the former are, or least can be, integral to any real causal powers. 

So, this is what appears to be at stake: a polyvalent account of being and then a similar account of causality. 

I donât have a good feel for the extent to which this is contentious, but the reality of absence does not seem to be too much of a problem: not only is reality irreducible to what it is possible to experience through our senses (ontological depth), it is also irreducible to what is here and now. Reality also encompasses all that has been (the past) and all that will be (the future). From the limited perspective of any here and now the past (to the extent it is no longer present) and the future (to the extent it is not already being realised) are absences. Also, another dimension of the here and the now we cannot experience is all the possibilities embedded and embodied in it. These are real, whether or not they are ever realised. 

In sum, to say that something is absent from the here and now is just to say that it is at a distance in terms of time and/or space. Absenting, on the other hand, means that that distance is changing, i.e. something is further off in time, space, or less of a possibility) or, in the case of absenting the absence, that distance is diminishing. 

So, reality is essentially polyvalent: it is always-already constituted by a given ensemble of presences and absences. What is more, that ensemble is always-already changing: polyvalent configurations are always being reconfigured. 

Royâs dialectic, though, has several aspects, with absence being only one. Before we can look at what kind of case might be made for the causal significance of the relevant classes of absence we should take some other ideas into consideration. Two such worth mentioning are the unity of space, time and causality and entity relationism. 

Space, time and causality are necessary ontological relations within and between all aspects of our universe; their unity binds being together into causal processes, tensed rhythmics. Entity relationism is closely related to this. The old philosophical problem of the boat whose parts are so completely changed over time raises a question about the identity of the boat. If none of the wood from which it was originally constructed is present any longer, then can it be said that we still have the same boat? Do we not now have a different one? Critical realism offers one kind of answer to this in terms of the persistence of the structure over time. Whatever pieces are used to repair the boat, the structure remains the same: the boat retains its capacities. Identity is shifted from the particular material out of which the boat is built to the way in which that material is organised. However, this has the unfortunate consequence of formalising identity. The dialectical critical realist response to this question is to embed the boat into the social relations which have produced and reproduced it. This shift in perspective means that the identity of the ship is now to be understood as changing over time and it has been considerably expanded to encompass its integration into its social milieu. That is, this particular boat is spatially, temporally and causally integrated into geo-history, and its real identity as a particular entity is inseparable from that history. Identity encompasses the many dimensions of absence: the past, the outside and the possibilities that might unfold in the future.  

This has important ramifications for the discussion of absence and causality: the real identity of any entity now encompasses external as well as internal relations and it encompasses past, present and future changes to both kinds of relation. It is in this context that it can make sense to speak of the polyvalence of causality, thereby including absences as co-constitutive of real change. 

So, coming back to the question about the effects of a drought: what effects does a drought have, and how? The plants that survive in a given place do so because their essential needs are being met: they get the water they need to enable them to sustain their own existence. That water, then, is integral to what those plants are, both in terms of their external relations to a water supply and their internal metabolising of the water. Water is integral to the structures and capacities the plants have, and we could not speak of those structures or mechanisms without reference to it: there is no actual structure of the plant that can be abstracted from the water. The drought means that the external relations of these plants are changed. The breaking of this relation to nourishment, the absence of water, puts them in danger of perishing. This change means the plants lose something essential to what they are. They become incomplete and failing plants, unable to function and facing the prospect of eventual death. 

These notional plants, then, must be understood as being bound into their environment such that their identities as living beings encompass their on-going relations to it. The drought changes those relations, causing external and internal absences: it generates absences which are essential components of the causal processes which bring about the death of the plants. So, Howard is right again to way that the existing causal structures of the plants are essential to what happens next, but so too is the absence of the water from them. 

In the end, though, would it be too crude to say that the drought, the absence of water, kills the plants? Would it really be a mistake to say that a relation of absence, i.e. lack in the face of need, is causally efficacious? 

Nick. 


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