File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1996/96-12-14.144, message 31


From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-biddeford.com>
Subject: BHA: My last message: try again
Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 18:18:41 -0500


Hi all--

I've just discovered that the e-mail program I've been trying out for the
past week doesn't save revisions properly, so my last message was missing
some stuff or phrased things in ways I wanted to change.  The corrected
message is below.  (It's disgusting: I have four e-mail programs, and
*none* of them does a good job.)  God knows how many of my recent messages
have been screwed up like this.

Never mind the bad formatting below, I'm not going to fix it.

Also, I've learned that some (but not all) messages to my new e-mail
address are bouncing.  If that happens to anyone, please write under the
old address (nellhaus-AT-biddeford.com).  In addition, a few of my messages
haven't gone out!  It's been a bad day on the e-mail for me.

*   *   *   *   *   *

Ruth, thanks for the comments, to which I can respond fairly briefly.  (But
first, thanks for the news about the Days of Action, which I hadn't heard
about--I seldom catch the news.)  In order:

1)  Your summary of the basic meanings of real, actual, and empirical look
fine to me.  We can fuss with refinements, but that's always the case.

2 & 3) The empirical as a portion of the actual: This is correct.  One of
the interesting things about Bhaskar's definition of emergence in
*Dialectic* is that the emergent level can be seen *both* as a
"superstructure" or "higher level," *and* as an "intrastructure" or
"internal region" (see p. 49).  So the point can be made of the actual in
relation to the real: what actually becomes manifest is but a portion of
the
real.  (See also Bhaskar's little table on RTS 56.)  However, this does not
preclude the possibility of a qualitative difference between the emergent
and the matrix level.  Being actually manifest is qualitatively different
>from being a potential; functioning as a sign (I maintain) is qualitatively
different from being simply manifest.  I'll return to the question under
#5.

4)  On reifying signs: actually, some signs *are* out there floating
around.
Not all kinds, but smoke is a sign of fire, and a windsock of wind
direction, whether anyone is looking at it or not.  Besides, we shouldn't
assume that just because something isn't a sign for *us*, it isn't a sign. 
The honeybee's dance may not mean a thing to me, but to another honeybee
it's a dinner date.  We humans lose a lot by thinking speech and writing
are
the "be all and end all" of meaning.  But I don't think this argument
involves reification, since semiosis is a (contingent) process or function,
or more exactly, a relationship.  At least in the definition I'm using.

5)  You're right that the emergence of semiosis from actuality, and the
emergence of consciousness from physiology, are not the same thing.  The
former is (as I've been using the terms) an ontological matter, concerning
modes and types of existence or operation; the latter is an ontic issue,
concerning actually existing entities.  Put differently, the former
involves
questions of Bhaskar's domains (real, actual, empirical, etc.); the latter,
questions of what objects compose the world (atoms, DNA strands, walruses,
modes of production, etc.).  If you like charts, think of domains as the
vertical axis, beings as the horizontal.  The two are related: only
entities
have real generative mechanisms, and can interact to produce actual events.

No generative mechanisms, no events.  And only entities can interpret
signs,
become conscious, etc.  It's contingent whether a generative mechanism
becomes manifest or actually operates, and it's contingent whether any have
experiences too.  One might say, entities are what "achieve a new level of
existence"--but we define the new levels with the concept of domains.  And
this contingency, this achievement, is emergence, which occurs both
ontically (such as DNA and life emerging from chemical interactions) and
ontologically (such as actual events emerging from powers and
susceptibilities).

6) On Voloshinov: speaking of honeybees, I'd follow this one just about
anywhere!  I especially like his anti-psychologism, dialogism, materialism,
and plain orneriness.  Not necessarily in that order.  I'm not certain
which
aspects of Voloshinov you have in mind, but on the whole I think his
theories and mine mesh pretty well.  Actually I do have one big bone of
contention with him, or rather his *vrai nom* Bakhtin: he totally dismisses
theater and drama.  Like following around a honeybee who's in ecstasy over
carnations, but hates roses.  By the way, a recent book on Bakhtin by
Michael Bernard-Donals (or something like that) comments that Bakhtin, at
least as Voloshinov, fits in with critical realism.

Hm...  Pardon me while I speculate in public, but one of my phrases above
started tickling me and raised a curious question.  I'm wondering if all
emergence occurs both, that is *simultaneously*, ontologically and
ontically.  A diagonal on the chart.  This would require that "ontic" mean
not only beings, but also states of being.  For example, in physics an
object might have a relative constant velocity (which might of course be
zero), or it might be accelerating (or deaccelerating): different states of
being.  Say you have two objects, one bigger than the other, so that the
smaller is attracted gravitationally to the larger.  When gravitational
force operates (ontological emergence), no new entity emerges, but a
particular state of being--gravitational acceleration--does (ontic
emergence, in this revised definition).  Take the bigger object away--a new
state of being: velocity without acceleration.  When someone dies, we have
a shift to a new state (dead) and a shift from experiencing to merely
actual.  I can also lose consciousness and stop experiencing while staying
alive, but in doing so I'd still change states: I get knocked out, or I go
to sleep.  (A "downward" diagonal.)  And when a new entity does emerge,
this obviously involves both dimensions.  This perspective would lend added
force to the concept of production, so central to Marx and emphasized by
Bhaskar (e.g., in PON); production as socially organized, repeated
emergence?  Hm.  Well, I'm not certain about this, but my hunch is that
this is right.

BTW: For what it's worth, I haven't really read *Plato etc" either, just
hacked through parts looking for particular issues, with the index as my
map.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-gwi.net
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce



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