Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 15:48:10 +0200 (IST) From: amit ron <amitr-AT-post.tau.ac.il> Subject: internal relations - again I must admit I fell somewhat uneasy about the internality/externality debate. I have some questions to the participants in this debate, and I will be happy to receive your opinions. What is the purpose of attributing internality / externality to a relation. What knowledge do we earn by knowing that husband / wife is internal relation. I think part of the debate that was going on is due to different positions toward this question. I want to suggest two positions about this question. A. Attributing internality to a relation give us a description of the causal powers between the participants as long as they take part in this relatively enduring relationship. According to this position the internality / externality is a real attribution of the relationship. B. Although the relations we are talking about are real, the attribution of internality / externality is a description of our knowledge of the relationship. To describe a relation as internal is to say that for describing some phenomenon, we can not look at A only, but we must look at B also. To say that a Husband wife relation is internal is to say that for describing his actions as husband we must acknowledge that a wife exists. Every phenomenon has some connection to other phenomenon. There is know phenomenon that is completely external. The question is if for certain purpose we have to describe this phenomenon with relation for other phenomena. Bhaskar gives an example of two people who cross each other at a crossroads (or something like that, it is in PON). Now, it is possible to describe each man without relating it to the other man, and so the connection between them is external. But maybe, or even probably, deeper analysis will reveal an internal relation between them. To summarize, every two phenomena are somehow related to each other and so ontologically internal. The question is if for our a certain purpose of describing it, we need to relate it to another phenomenon, and those making them internal. I will be glad to hear comments. Amit Ron Tel Aviv University
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005