File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1996/96-07-26.024, message 103


Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 15:19:40 -0500
From: derekh-AT-yorku.ca (Derek Hrynyshyn)
Subject: money/capital - agency - experiential significance - free will


I generally agree with Michael's reponse to Hans E. on money and capital.
The precise problem I would point to is Hans's use of terms like "instinct"
and "impulse" when used to describe the fetishism of money. These words
imply that there is something natural about this desire for quantitative
increase, as a natural product of 'money' and I think this really
represents an abstraction of 'money' from the context of capitalism. These
desires are part of the ideological functioning of the capitalist social
order and should be understood as such.
******
Ian asked:


Does anyone know Bhaskar's position on human agency? Does
he make a sharp and qualitative distinction between human
agency and other types of mechanisms?


And the answer is in Recaliming Reality, ch.6 where he expounds a
"transformational model of social action", complete with diagrams.
*********
On the Insignificant Experiences topic, I reject Doug's claim that

I think the distinction between significant and
insignificant experience is a matter of theory-relevance.  Thus, relative
to astrology, even astral signs would be significant -- to astrologers.

because I want some theory-independent criteria of significance. Some
things are important, and others not, period. Astrology is wrong precisely
because it attributes importance to an insignficant thing like astrological
sign. These signs are inconsequential - they have no consequences (except
that astrologers decide to act on them, which can be (roughly) explained
through other mechanisms, I would argue) and the inconsequential is
insignificant, no matter what kind of science or epistemology you are
using.
******
David responded onthe subject of free will and asks what a determined will
would be. I believe that the ideas of autonomous free will are so integral
to capitalist ideology that we have pretty much lost any ability to
comprehend an alternative to it. I was recently at a traditional Ukranian
Orthodox funeral service in which the minister asked for the forgiveness of
the transgressions of the deceased, both "voluntary and involuntary". This
made me think - what the heck is the point of forgiving someone for what
they did involuntary?

There must be some idea in these pre-capitalist ideological structures like
the Orthodox religion, of will as belonging to the person but not really
being free. Under such a conception, we have a will and it causes us to do
things, but it is really part of a larger divine plan that is not under our
control - but it is our will nonetheless. It sounds contradictory to us
creatures of the liberal age in which we take the freedom of the will for
granted, and it surely has something to do with the way in which the
obligations of the feudal serf was mixed with the omnipotence of God, but
it must have made sense to people back then.


Derek Hrynyshyn,           Graduate Program
Phone: 650-2276               in Political Science,
derekh-AT-yorku.ca            York University    Ross S609

Communications Officer,      CUPE local 3903
cupe3903-AT-yorku.ca * Fax: 736-5480 * Office: 736 - 5154
http://www.yorku.ca/org/cupe/cupe3903.htm




   

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