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 --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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