Re: [Critical-Realism] Howard's mind/body dualism?

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Howard,

It's certainly possible I've got some other things wrong -- and at least as
possible that you've so to speak reciprocated. One's always reading list
postings in the context of a thousand other things to do and the whole
spirit of the thing is to comment on the run. Your claim that overlooking
the merest "o" in such a context is "rather extraordinary" itself seems
rather extraordinary.  In any case,  your "ordinary causal mechanisms", in
the context of other things you've beem saying, do suggest a bias towards
the brutely physical and positive ("how can a de-ont exist?"). On the former
score, what about the case where ideas influence one's thinking (one
"changes one's mind", however slightly) apparently without any mediation by
"ordinary" causal mechanisms: I am persuaded by the power of your argument,
not by your physical brain-states or by the physical mechanisms that convey
your ideas. Is that not causal? If it's not, isn't the turf split after all
-- the familiar old reasons/causes or mind/body divide, whereby some changes
in the world are caused and others are not?

There are those who deride Roy's later work for espousing direct
mind-to-mind (thought-to-thought) causation, but when you think it through
such a position is entailed by any thorough-going anti-dualism or critical
naturalism (and within that ubiquity determinism). Direct mind-to-mind
causation I understand you to be denying -- reasons only count as causes
when they engage "ordinary" causal mechanisms.

Mervyn 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard
Engelskirchen
Sent: 08 December 2007 18:00
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] Mervyn's really good question!

Hi Mervyn,

The misreading explains why you misunderstood; it doesn't explain why 
you made up a quote.

'Semio' and 'causal' do not divide up turf; they jointly cover the 
terrain.  Human action is always causal and always meaningful, and 
fully so in both cases.  I say that if meanings do not engage 
ordinary causal mechanisms they are not causal, not that reasons are 
not causal.  I agree with the view that reasons are causes; I 
disagree with the view that they are causes even when they do not, as 
you say, set matter in motion.

All the same, Mervyn, 'semi' for 'semio' is a rather extraordinary 
misreading.  We are dealing with fairly dense material.  Is it 
possible you've read other things I've written here with the same 
hurried willingness to misunderstand?

howard



At 11:06 AM 12/8/2007, you wrote:
>Hi Howard
>
>OK, I misread "semio-causal" as "semi-causal". Still, isn't the import
>similar? I think you imply in a number of places that meanings are not
>causal, only the physical/material is. On the standard CR view, reasons,
>when we act on them, are causes, ie make a material difference to the
world,
>set matter in motion; if they are not causes, then from this perspective
>your position is in effect that acting for a reason is "only partly
caused".
>
>
>If this is not so, what is the basis for distinguishing "semio" and
"causal"
>in this context?
>
>Mervyn
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Howard
>Engelskirchen
>Sent: 08 December 2007 14:47
>To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
>Subject: [Critical-Realism] Mervyn's really good question!
>
>
>Hi Mervyn,
>
>You ask a really good question here:
>
> ><And now, Howard,  you start asserting it as fact that "action is
> >only partly causal" (where did that drop from? -- the generally accepted
CR
> >position is that reasons are causes) >
>
>Yes, "where did that drop from?"
>
>The text set between quotation marks and attributed to my asserting
>exists in no emails posted by me.
>
>I have no idea what you are claiming here, and of course you will
>understand what I say in the way you understand it.  I can't do
>anything about that.  You can conclude on the basis of what I say
>that I argue for pure positivity, am an inveterate in my monovalence,
>etc.  Those are your opinions to hold and explain.
>
>But you can't put words in my mouth and then put them between scare
>quotes.  Let's keep the historical record straight.
>
>As for the substance of what you here argue I am saying, I hold no
>such view and as soon as I understand how you are inferring this
>position from what I actually have said, I'll try to explain.
>
>best,
>
>howard
>
>
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