Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 13:08:02 -0600 (MDT)
From: Martha Gimenez <gimenez-AT-csf.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: Request for conceptual clarifications



I have some questions to ask but will introduce myself first.  I am a
sociologist;  my background is in Law (which I studied in Argentina),
History and Political Sciences; no philosophy - hence my difficulties in
understanding Bhaskar. I am currently teaching a theory seminar in which,
among other texts, my students will be reading Margaret Archer's Realist
Social Theory.  My knowledge of Bhaskar's work is limited to struggling
with some chapters of Reclaiming Reality, especially chapter 5, which I
found extremely useful as a critique on onesided sociological views and as
a mode of reasoning helpful to understand Marx's methodology.

Reading Archer, I run into some difficult concepts and, as they will be
even more difficult for my students, I am writing to request your help.
I would appreciate it so much if some of you could explain them to me
using social science examples.

"real powers"  -  what does this mean?  what would be the "real powers"
of a social object?  

"emergent properties"  "emergent strata"  "emergentism"  "ontology of
emergence" or "emergentist ontology"  "emergent properties of structures
and agents"   "historicity of emergence"  "emergent generative mechanisms"
"emergent powers"

"stratified nature of social reality"  Does it refer to the existence of
levels of analysis which are irreducible to one another, the main ones
being structure and agency or system and social interaction or systemic
relations and social relations?  Are those the only "strata"?

"causal criteria of existence" 

"methodological epoche" 

"different strata possess different emergent properties and causal powers"
What do "emergent properties" and "causal powers" mean and how do they
differ from each other?

Many thanks,

Martha E. Gimenez
______________________________
Department of Sociology
Campus Box 327
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, Colorado 80309
Voice:  303-492-7080
Fax:  303-492-8878
gimenez-AT-csf.colorado.edu