From: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 11:02:30 +0100
Subject: Fragile egos...


Well,

I've certainly missed a lot by not being able to afford to have email on my
computer at home. The S**t seems to have really hit the fan does it not? I'm
sorry if some list members have been upset. Just to put my own position so
as to avoid any confusions that may have arisen. To Doug, my apologies, if
you think I have been involved in a "dialogue of the deaf". Given that this
is exactly a phrase I use in my piece on incommensurability that you
mentioned, I hope I am not guilty of this. In fact, I will concede to Andy
that I had to think long and hard about the specific form of realism which
might be applicable to the social world. I'm happy with my answers, but the
more sophisticated ones are due to Andy pushing me to question positions I
once thought were safely in the bank. Whilst this may not constitute a
change in world view, it certainly gave me cause for concern, one I might
add, I was happy to go through.

 I do accept the charge that I may at times have been engaged in a verbal
duel but reject that this was nothing more than verbal duelling. In this
respect I think that some of the postmoderns might be right and a little
rhetoric goes a long way, tied of course to substantial points. We are after
all, aesthetic beings (among other things). I do agree with Doug, and this
seems to be the overall thrust of Michael's point, that Andy regularly wrote

> as if you (he) have elevated a localized, periodized
>consensus to absolute truth.

In effect, constantly blurring the distinction between his understanding of
certain texts and philosophical positions with those positions independent
of his constructions of them. or to put it in Bhaskar speak, confusing the
intransitive with the transitive. Although Andy, given his rejection of
these distinctions would reject this. Still even without accepting these
distinction I do think Andy considered that everyone else is mistaken and
that he alone has got it right. How uncritical and dogmatic can one get?

On the more sensitive issue of mental illness. I suppose that although
Andy's statements vis-a-vis this directly led to my intervention I was not
really debating this issue but a more broad set of issues relating to
ontology in general. Also, I'm unsure if Doug is implying that I was
suggesting that mental illness is solely due to biochemical factors in saying:

>I don't think that Andy was
>any more offensive in saying that depression is relative to culture than
>those who say it is biochemical. 

If anyone took any of my postings in this manner I apologise for any upset I
may have caused but not for the position. Why? because I never held it.  
Just in case anyone is of this mistaken opinion I will quote myself from a
early post in this debate. This was in reply to something Andy said:

>No one is saying that Western discourses of mental illness have captured
for >all time the essence of human mental illness. Not least because many of
the >causes of mental illness could well be social in origin and since we
all agree >that societies differ, then presumably the forms that mental
illness takes will >also differ. Still, where, and if, there is a
physiological/biological/genetic >cause to mental illness, then we have good
grounds for believing >(fallibilistically (sp)) that some accounts work
better than others.

Now Andy goes on to argue:

>My statements
>regarding the construction of mental illness and the ontological character
>embedded in the existential conditions of the people judging and being
>judged was attacked. Fine, I can take criticism.

Good, because as my above statement shuld make clear, it was precisely
Andy's ontological reduction of all of mental illness to its descriptions
(but not only mental illness as it transpired) that I objected to. I call
this rampant social constructivism idealism, Andy does not. But I don't
believe that Andy made a serious attempt to defend his position because all
along he actually believed, somewhat arrogantly in my opinion that:

>misrepresentations and lack of philosophical understanding over basic
>concepts combined to produce a dialogue that I found to be increasingly
>nonproductive and had the unexpected impact of upsetting people. 

So we(I) display a lack of philosophical understanding and Andy just has it
right? Again, consider the arrogance and dogmatism of the following:

> I would like to think that it was because I
>broke up some of the conceptual lock that was frozen here. 

I'm unclear as to all of the controversy surrounding Tobin's post. I mean
part of the problem is surely down to the means of communication. Also,
Andy's points about Tobin seem to me to be a particular reading of whatever
point Tobin was trying to make. 

 Tobin is wrong. It was a petty post, and
>it was designed to make Tobin look like the sensitive one and make me out
>to be a bad guy. The goal was ad hominem: to paint me as insensitive and
>therefore render my arguments invalid. 

Once again we find Andy confusing his interpretaion of the thing, in this
instance Tobin's intention in the post, and Tobin's intention. How does Andy
presume to know Tobin's intention? I can think of probably three or four
ways in which the post in question could be read. But Andy, because "he
knows", goes off the deep end. Why not reply to Tobin, question his motives
and ask him, not presume his intentions? I can guess why Andy took the
course he did and not another. But I don't know, certainly not in the same
way Andy presumes to know in relation to Tobin. 

One final note. Yes mental illness, along with many others, is a
particularly sensitive issue. But sensitive issues are worthy of, in fact
demand, debate are they not? Of course, we're going to get it wrong, upset
some people, make mistakes and wish we hadn't said particular things at
particular times. But all of this is part of being human, fallible and not
being in control of those parts of the world which are intransitive to us.
The denial of intransitivity is at the same time the denial of difference
and alterity, something the postmoderns seem to have missed. 

 And to Andy one final note. He said in his last post.


>We must, in fact, use concepts to define
>reality. This is a realist position. 

Exactly, and one just about everyone on this list would agree with. But
concepts, as Andy implies are different from the reality they describe.
Concepts are in the transitive dimension, we can only know the world through
our descriptions, but these are used, as he himself says to define (not
create) reality. Welcome to critical realism Andy.

Once again, sorry, if i have upset anyone.(By the way Doug, i took no
offence at your comments, just keen that you didn't fail to misunderstand me)

Thanks.









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"We stand at the end of the age of reason. 
 A new era of the magical explanation of the world is rising" 
 (Adolf Hitler)


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

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