Date: Thu, 29 May 1997 10:48:31 +0100
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk (COLIN WIGHT)
Subject: Re: BHA: rts2-25


Erik,

 
>>                                                        
>> Laws we already know do not describe the patterns of
>> events.
>
>What do they describe?

I think what is been got at here is the idea that what the laws describe is
not their manifestation in patterns of events (the error of the Humean
account of cause), but the mechanisms which are responsible for the
patterns, but as Tobin has noted these have to be analysed as tendencies.
>
>*an incompletely described
>> world of agents*.
>
>How may we concieve of agency in a non-anthropomophic or humanist manner?

In RTS (p. 109), Bhaskar argues that 'By agent I mean simply anything which
is capable of bringing about a change in something (including itself). The
discussion we had some time ago about agents in the social world, makes this
notion problematic to the social sciences, but I think that in the natural
sciences such a notion is valid, e.g. 'the chemical agent'.

hope this helps.



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Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA

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