Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 02:33:59 -0700 (PDT) From: LH Engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.apc.org> Subject: BHA: logics of closure Responding to Chris a couple of weeks ago Tobin offered the hypothesis that the principles of non-contradiction (a thing can not be both A and not A) and identity (A is A) characterized all possible forms of logic. I suggested that this might characterize the analytical as distinct from the dialectical problematic because of the connection between the analytical problematic and actualism. The argument would seem to be that logics exhausted by non- contradiction and identity would presuppose closed systems and conversely that closure presupposes non-contradiction and identity. Are these assertions true? The Humean theory of the actuality of causal laws rests on the principle of empirical invariance, ie that laws depend on empirical regularities, and the principle of instance confirmation or falsification, ie that laws are confirmed or falsified by their instances. A logic faithful to these principles could not take the form of "if X, then A or not A." On the other hand, a normic statement (logic) of a causal law is completely consistent with this. In fact Bhaskar argues that tendency statements are "the logical form of all laws of nature known to science," and that "a full analysis of the logic of tendency statements" is put off till chapter 3. But it seems we are talking about logic here. Notice also that this is not a question of doing away with the logics of closure. An experimental science makes powerful use of the possibility of closure. What it doesn't do is suppose that the logics which apply to closure automatically apply to open systems. Notice also that normic statements are not equivalent to subjunctive conditionals. When we say X was operating but A did not occur, we do not mean the same thing as saying that if the system were closed A would have occurred. That may be true, but we mean more than that. We mean X was really operating and whatever happened happened because of the operation of X even if A didn't occur. Similarly we don't mean the same thing as counterfactual or probability statements: the system wasn't closed or A would have occurred; usually (to a probability of 67%) A occurs. We mean X was 100% operating, but A didn't occur. I think this stuff is very powerful. The distinction between generative structures and events seems straightforward by now, but the minute we turn to analyze social relations we forget. Later Bhaskar refers to Mandelbaum's essay on Historical Explanation and says "However he still sees explanation as depending upon a knowledge of laws (which he interprets in the Humean way) covering the component events; and given this, the complex event itself still remains deductively predictable. I have argued, by contrast, that the laws covering the components are normic and that they may involve reference to radically different kinds (so that they cannot be incorporated within a single theory). Hence the complex event, even though completely explained, may not be deducible." (RTS 137). A familiar confusion is the way in which "models" or "abstractions" get used in science. We should restrict "abstract" to its use as a verb in the spirit in which Marx spoke of using it like a chemical reagent. When we abstract we do not relinquish the reality of the concrete event to speak of ideal models. Facts also are social products so the concept of the concrete event is just as "ideal" in that sense as the concept of the generative mechanism. We abstract in order to move from one real thing, the complex event, to another, viz. the generative mechanisms which account for it. This is completely consistent with Marx's notes on Method in Political Economy. In Plato, Etc., at p 137ff, RB identifies the "categorical error" of the analytical problematic as "the epistemologization of being . . . objectified and generalized as actualism," which goes together with "the ontological contra-position (or transposition) of the logical principles of identity and non-contradiction, which we have just situated as contextually valid principles of thought (i.e. in the transitive, not the intransitive, dimension)," and then follow the "ontification of knowledge . . . 'identity thinking'. . . Tina compromise formations," etc. What is this all about? In particular, what does it mean that the logical principles of identity and non-contradiction are valid in the transitive, but not the intransitive dimension? It seems to follow from RTS Ch 2, s4, that they would be inadequate to the normic statement of causal laws. And this is the transitive dimension. Howard Howard Engelskirchen Western State University "What is there must now you lack" Hakuin --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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