File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/97-05-14.000, message 29


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
 



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