Re: [Critical-Realism] deon (the real connection is praxis)

["Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tobin:

Just so we know where we stand, here?s how I would now revise the entry on
?ont/de-ont?:

1. First line: I?d indicate that ?de-? is Latin, not Greek.

2. I?d take out the last paragraph, as ?de-ont? can?t be interpreted as
calling attention to any of the meanings of ?deon?, and I now think
"de-ontology" was probably a typo.

3. I?d relocate the points about the correspondence between two of the
meanings of ?deon? and the main ethical inflections of ?absence? and about
the unification of ethics with the theory of being under the sign of absence
to another entry, probably that on ?absence? (I didn?t do the one in
?ethics?). And I?d briefly indicate why I think the correspondence is not
coincidental ? there?s a real connection via human praxis.

Why does ?absence? have these two ethical interconnected inflections in
Bhaskar? First, because analytically a ?need? (e.g. lack of food in a belly,
lack of autonomy) is also a ?constraint? on flourishing, and this is also
the case in practice ? if people lack food they will experience it as a
constraint, and this is likely to be reflected in their discoursal practice.
The English ?need?, like ?deon?,  seems to embrace both meanings among
others. There?s interesting work to be done here by discourse analysts or
whoever the relevant researchers are (if it hasn?t been done already, I
don?t know). It's hardly for me to do this work. I confined myself to "deon"
because that supplies the root for "deontology". Secondly, because a ?need?
is by definition an absence and ?constraints? may be seen as ?ills?, thence
as absences.

Why does this unify (Bhaskarian) ethics with the theory of being? Because
the concept of ?absence? provides the fundamental logical infrastructure for
both.

"If it turns out that few languages have a word that combines the two
concepts, Bhaskar's theory would not in the least be harmed."

You seem to have philosophy and real life in separate compartments.
Bhaskar's dialectic seeks to express the geo-historical process (inter alia)
in thought at a highly abstract level, i.e. it's *about* that process. If it
didn't have any purchase on it, and vice versa, what would be the point of
it? Of course, no complex and highly abstract theory is directly disproved
or confirmed by the presence or absence of words of a particular kind in
languages, but if people in different forms of life did not tend to
experience need as constraint this would indeed be a problem for the theory,
and if they did it would lend it support, and linguistic (and other forms
of) research could have a bearing here. Just as, if people were not prone to
fight for freedom and did not sometimes do so, that would be problematic for
the theory of the pulse of freedom.

Re your final point, Bhaskar's abstract models such as the TMSA and
four-planar social being, derived as they are from analysis of
praxis/intentionality as such, must have applicability across the whole of
human geo-history. Were there no continuity between forms of life this could
not be so, the models would fail as general theory, and the question would
arise as to which bits of geo-history they *are* relevant to.

Mervyn 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:critical-realism-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Tobin
Nellhaus
Sent: 11 December 2007 23:25
To: Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] deon (the real connection is praxis)

Hi, Mervyn--

> This suggests that you've completely missed the main point. I'm obviously
> not claiming that there's an etymological connection between "absence" and
> "deon".

Yes, obviously -- you were asserting an etymological connection between
"de-ontology" and "deontology."  The word "absence" never got into it.  If
you've now resiled from the etymological argument, then that's one problem
down.

>                                    if Bhaskar's got
> his ethics right you would expect to find constraint associated with need
> in
> actual geo-historical forms of life. I only keep repeating it because you
> haven't understood.

If the brunt of your argument (either originally or at least now) is that
you expect to find constraint associated with need in various languages due
to their connection in praxis, then your focus on the Greek "deon" and a
possible etymological connection to "de-ont" sent the entire discussion down
the wrong path: rather than concentrate on "deon" and wrestle with its
etymology, it would have made much more sense for you to poll the list about
whether anyone is aware of a similar semantic connection in other languages,
not just the one.  That's the proof of the pudding for the proposal you
offer above, not the side issue that you placed center stage.  As I've
argued, even the case for "deon" is a bit stretched.  Off hand I can't think
of a word in ordinary English that has this set of meanings, but maybe
someone can come up with one.  It is essential that the word be part of
everyday language and not recherché, otherwise the evidence that you would
need would be very strained.  ("Absence" obviously doesn't count, since the
compass of the term was specifically developed for RB's argument: in
ordinary language, the word doesn't have these meanings.)  Others may have
suggestions, however, whether for English or another tongue.

If it turns out that few languages have a word that combines the two
concepts, Bhaskar's theory would not in the least be harmed.  All that you'd
learn is that philosophical and scientific analyses are not necessarily
reflected in ordinary language -- which is hardly unusual.  So I don't 
believe the dire consequences that you do:

> if there's no continuity between forms of life, this intepretation would 
> be
> in big trouble (and so would the whole Bhaskarian system)

Your analysis of how CR might be reflected in ordinary language would be in 
trouble, but "the whole Bhaskarian system"?  Very unlikely.

T.

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



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