From: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 11:02:34 +0100
Subject: Re: Internal and external relations


Doug thanks for your reply. I've sent this one to you personally even though
others hav eexpressed an interest. Mainly because there are other issues I
want to address not directly relevant to the internal/external issue.

It seems we are moving into a space where more points of agreement than
disagreement are emerging. My basic concern was: (i) if the
internal/necessary and external/contingent conjunctions hold; (ii) if all
internal relations are at the level of consciousness; then, (iii) all
unconscious relations, which by defintion must be external relations, must
be contingent or non-necessary. 

As you put it they must be "happenstance". Both of us reject this.

Giddens, as you rightly say is the problem in making relations epiphenomenal
abstractions which not only have do not have a real existence independent of
human consciousness, but also have no causal powers. In effect, as I read
Giddens, there are no emergent properties in the social world. 

>
>        Against Giddens, I wanted to argue that relations such as those
>between capitalists and the proletariat,international relations of
>dependency or even the falling rate of profit are objectively real,
>causally effective, and independent of consciousness.

Me too.

>
>        If I remember my article Colin refers to, I think I just cited the
>above as qualifying such relations as emergently material.  I don't think I
>said anything about internality and, as Colin argues, had felt at the time
>that even internal relations could be considered emergently material in
>this way.

Yes, this is the problem. I think my position is derived _very much_ under
your influence.

>
>        But what is the ontological status of that unintended consequence?
>All I was saying is that not all unintended consequences of constitutive
>rules are internal relations.  

I would absolutely agree, but I think you did originally argue that all
internal relations were at the level of consciousness and that all
unconsciouss relations were external. Given that I have just critiqued that
position in my thesis I was taken aback somewhat by finding you arguing the
same and was keen to think through my arguments to make sure that I hadn't
made a massive blunder. I'm still not sure, but having challenged you,
someone whose opinion I highly respect, I do feel more confident of being
able to defend my position in my viva. I don't want to say that all
unconsciouss relations are internal, but only leave open the door for the
possibility that both unconscious and conconscious relations can be both
internal or external. Whether they are internal or external is part of what
social science might be about. part of the problem might actually be my
unquestioned acceptance of the internal=necessary and external=contingent
distinction. Perhaps I need to question this?


>        Sometimes structurationists -- and, I think, Bhaskar -- say that
>internal relations are concept-dependent, which seems to imply that we
>necessarily have to be conscious of them.  Ontologically, that makes
>internal relations intersubjective rather than objective and, possibly,
>logical rather than causal.  It is that I wanted to counter.

Certainly, this is also what I wa skeen to counter. Isn't this one of the
critiques of Bhaskar's distinction between natural and social structures
that Benton raises? However, Bhaskar's point about the reasons agents have
for getting married, for example, (the level of consciousness)  but in so
doing reproducing the prevailing structures of which the agents are unaware
seems a good one. My point is that there is simply no need to specify a
priori that all such reproduced structures are comprised of external
relations. Some elements of the structure may be internally related some
externally. 


>        I had asked for examples of internal relations for which at least
>some (not all, Colin) are unconscious of. 

Sorry I misunderstood you. I think the relations of dependency (wallerstien,
Gunder-Frank etc.) that you mention is a good example of internal relations
that were unconscious to everyone. Not to us in the academy now, because of
Walerstein etc. But these relations of dependency are certainly probably not
at the level of consciousness to a coffee bean picker in Nicaragua. And I
would argue tha they existed even before we became aware of them, and
moreover that some of them are internal. 

>        First, Colin, I do think the proper relata, as you first say, are
>black and white, not offense/defense as, I think, you later suggest.  Yes,
>having the initiative internally implies another who is on the defense and
>vice versa. Epistemologically, that is constitutive of application of the
>i-d relation.

Here, Doug, I think I must disagree. The incumbents which occupy any
particular relation are not necessary for the relation. For the husband-wife
relationship it is not necessary that I occupy the position of the husband,
just as in chess it is not necessary for the i element in the i-d relation
to be occupied by white. If Black goes first black occupies the i element.
Black can go first and one can still play chess. The i-d relationship, is an
unintended internal relationship, which occurs as a direct consequence of
the constitutive rules of chess (someone must go first), and of which it is
certainly possible neither players are aware.

>
>        The subtle distinction I was making was the distinction between
>having the first move and having the initiative in an i-d relation.  We
>could define having the first move as, by definition, having the
>initiative.  But the two are not coextensive.  In many games, having the
>first move does not confer the initiative.  I understand that in samauri
>sword fights, the one to strike the first blow was actually thought to lose
>the initiative.  So the two fighters would stand poised, staring at each
>other until someone broke down in nervousness. (Probably, it would have
>been me.)

But surely, and please correct me if I am wrong, because this is important
to my thesis, In chess, due to the constitutive rule that someone _must_ go
first then a competitive advantage lies with that mover, independent of it
being white or black. Of course structures do not fully determine outcomes
and a bad first move can give this advantage away. This is agency at work
with structure. Also, in introducing the samauri example are you not
pointing to something very important? If we play a different game, perhaps
socialism rather than capitalism we might get differing sets of relations.

>
>        Even in chess, actually having the initiative in an i-d relation --
>as opposed to just having the first move -- is not constitutive of white.

But it is constitutive of who has the first move even if they fail to take
advantage of it, perhaps due to the absence of knowledge of the existence of
that advantage.

>In fact, if white's first move is rook pawn to rook four, white will
>immediately forfeit the initiative and go on the defensive -- at least if
>black knows what it is doing. White does not cease being white thereby.
>And there is no rule that white must actually have the initiative in the
>game.  It simply has the first move, which it can use to seize the
>initiative or not.

But as you originally pointed out, a good chess player conscious of the
advantage conferred on first mover, generaly "tends" to win. Nonetheless the
i-d relationship which can be occupied by either black or white exists
independently of either player knowing of it. It's just better if they do.

 The i-d relationship remains, I think, separate from the first move
>and external or contingent.

But surely, and again please correct me if you think I am wrong because this
is important to my present chapter, to say that the i-d relationship in
chess exists as an internal relationship conferred on the first mover
independently of whether or not that first mover is conscious of it. It is
certainly contingent whether the first mover takes advantage of it and here
the first movers consciousness of that advantage is crucial. But the i-d
relationship conferred on the first mover in chess is not itself dependent
on that consciousness, or is it? I don't know anymore. 

>
>       But the contingency of the i-d relation does not mean that it is an
>accident that just happens.  Let me now revert to Bhaskar speak. White's
>greater capacity to have the initiative over black in chess is an emergent
>causal -- rather than logical -- property of chess.  Similarly, the
>dependence of the proletariat on the capitalists is an emergent causal
>rather than a logical property of capitalism.

I do see what you are saying, I think. Perhaps it might be possible to say
that it exists as an objective property but only gets its causal power at
the level of consciousness.

>
>        I want to affirm with Colin and Howard that the adverse relations
>spawned by capitalism or patriarchy are, indeed, spawned by those
>structural mechanisms.  The only question that divides us is an ontological
>one:  How are those adverse relations spawned?  Logically or causally?
>Think as well of the falling rate of profit.  By speaking of emergently
>external or contingent relations, I was suggesting that they are spawned
>causally rather than logically.  But as I think about this, it is probably
>enough for me if we say that such properties are internal as long as we
>recognize that there could be internal relations that at a moment nobody
>knows about.  The math example seems to suggest the affirmative.  In that
>case, I'd be satisfied.

Now, you seem to be arguing my argument just as I'm coming round to yours.
is it just me or are these issues mind-bending. (i couldn't spell
boggerlling or what ever)
>
Anyway, enough of that for now, back to your post that I've yet to reply to.
I just want to say how much i've valued this exchange over the issue of
internal and external relations. At least now I feel I can defend my
position, even if its not the best solution.


Thanks for the elabnoration on the phenomen self and the onto self, these
make sense now. The issue i asked you about with Heikki goes right to the
heart of what we have been discussing. You say that we may both be right.
Then go on. 

>
>        First, if Heikki means that the rules of marriage do not "cause"
>husbands and wives to have the rights and obligations they have, I think he
>is right.  

I don't think that Heikki means this. I take him to measn that no causal
effects can be attributed to internal relations.

>
>        You and your wife decide to abide by the institution of marriage
>and the society around you ratifies your choice as a social fact.  The fact
>that you and your wife abide by certain rights and obligations and that
>society holds you to them is, arguably, not causal either.  It is part of
>what it means to be married.

Would it be possible here to say that certain men as husbands do certain
things "because" of what it means to be married? In this case, some of the
actions of men in society occur beacuse of the marriage relation, and isn't
this a causal statement. Also, of course, if social science discovers that
certain acts in society arise because of certain relations and society
decides that it does not want those acts to be, then this might provide
grounds for changing the relations which give rise to those acts. It's this
sense in which I want to view internal relations as causal. The relationship
between a capitalist and his/her workers, for example, can be said to be
part of the causal complex that brings about poverty and perhaps the
disempowerment of women. can we eradicate poverty under capitalism? 


>        However, for internal reasons, you and the woman who was to become
>your wife did decide to enter the marriage relation and to enter it with
>each other. Your internal reasons did cause you to do so.  Moreover, again,
>because of a variety of internal reasons, you and your wife continually
>choose -- and choose efficaciously -- to abide by what marriage means.
>Your choice to abide by the commitment marriage entails causally affects
>your behaviour. 

Equally, here, although we both agree on the idea of a self who reasons,
there is not an unlimited choice for persons. The pressure to marry although
much less than it was still exists today and in this sense might we say the
internal relations of a society cause people to do certain acts and not others?


As you say, this is all really complicated, and I'm not sure whether i
should be getting into this in my thesisl. I think I would still say that
being marries means more than just saying that one is married. To be married
is to act in a certain way and as such the constitutive rules of marrige
bring about certain modes of behaviour, as such I would still identify them
as causal.

Must go now. Many many thanks for sharing your thoughts on this with me.

I haven't time to read this through so it will be full of errors.

Thanks,



>

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Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA

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