Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 14:19:46 -0500 (EST)
From: V600A8E6-AT-ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
Subject: Re: Bhaskar and dialectics




On Thu, 14 Dec 1995, Svein O. G. Nyberg wrote:

> Shawgi Tell wrote:
> 
> >Bhaskar's muddled and unplain writings are unsurprisingly inaccessible.
> >
> ><snip>
> >
> >As I understand it, the only thing the bourgeoisie hate more than dialectical
> >materialism is J.V. Stalin (who has never been forgiven for organizing
> >the victory over Nazism and fascism).
> 
> Please, let us not start throwing accusations and loose assertions
> this early in the game. It's got nothing to do with whether I agree
> with you or not. It's just that I like to see substantial argument
> that I might learn something from rather than waste my time deleting
> opinionating messages.
 
Svein, the let's-not-get-inflammatory argument does not apply here.  
Bhaskar's unclarity of thought and catchword style is not a mere 
aberration.  It is reflective of bourgeois philosophical trends.  This 
means that it becomes important to decipher who is and is not committed 
to Bhaskar-specific thinking.

If you can substantiate that these are "accusations and loose assertions,"
then fine.  If not, then you are merely throwing accusations and loose 
assertions.  

As for substantive argument, the burden rests on you, not me, to show how 
what I am saying is not substantive.

Bhaskar presents himself as committed to emancipation and freedom.  Where 
does he talk about Communism?  Where does he talk about the abolition of 
classes, the source of exploitation from which he putatively would like 
to "emancipate" us from?  How does he managage to write pages on Marx, yet 
skate around these issues but consider himself extremely serious?  Just an 
aberration?  How, for example,  is his "anti-positivist naturalism" 
different from the philosophy of science of what he calls "traditional 
Marxism?"  His disdain for Engels in particular is quite plain.


Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
V600A8E6-AT-UBVMS.CC.BUFFALO.EDU

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