From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net>
Subject: BHA: Re: Introduction to Bhaskar
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 00:02:15 -0500


Hi Gary--

> I am starting a Bhaskar reading group here at QUT.  It looks like we might
> finally have reached take off point in terms of an interest in DCR at least
> in Brisbane. 
> 
> But I am not at all sure how or where to begin.  My instincts are to start
> with the Dialectic,(Why should they be happy?)  but do you or anyone else
> have any suggestions here?

Yikes, I'd leave *Dialectic* for the third or fourth round--wait and see if
people can hold their liquor.  Several people on the list have praised
*Reclaiming Reality*, but I haven't gotten to it; I'd put my money on
*Possibility of Naturalism*, or maybe someone else entirely (e.g. Collier's
new intro, which I haven't read yet either but I have it now and it at least
looks readable; or reach back a few years for something like Keat & Urry's
*Social Theory as Science*, which provides useful comparisons with positivist
and conventionalist theories).  Why should they be happy?  Um, I dunno, maybe
knowledge should lead to emancipation and (in Bhaskar's words) a
"eudaimonistic society" (ugly phrase, nice idea)?  As far as I'm concerned
Nietzsche had it right that knowledge should make you happy.  (Or at least
make you giggle.)  Then again, given what Bhaskar has lately inflicted on us
for writing style, maybe not.

> Now as to Bourdieu and Bhaskar, for me the biggest difference is that
> Bourdieu works so clearly from a class model. Bhaskar with his concrete
> singularity has relatively little to say about class. No?

Yup.  But of course Bhaskar is trying to produce a philosophy that will hold
for all forms of knowledge production (from the physical sciences to, in
principle anyway, aesthetics) without prejudging what objects will be found
to be real, whereas Bourdieu is conducting a sociological analysis of late
capitalist society.

> Now Bhaskar for me is much stronger on the radical openness of reality and
a
> great deal closer to handling the complexities of the social.

Hm.  Interesting thought.  I agree with the first part, but I'm not sure I
agree with the second: you'll have to give me some examples.  I do tend to
get less of a feeling of structural or ontological depth from Bourdieu,
especially because of his emphasis on "the market," despite knowing that he
views the market as itself structured.

Cheers.

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


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