File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/bhaskar.9706, message 68


From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net>
To: <bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: BHA: Re: Understanding DCR
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:02:47 -0400


Hello D.P.--

Just a couple comments and questions; I'm sure others will also pipe in.  You
write:

> The most basic point of Bhaskar  concerns the nature of
> scientific explanations. In his view, every explanation (not only
> scientific) consists in postulating one or more *generative
> mechanisms* (deductive structures) which, if present, will produce
> the phenomena we are trying to explain. 

I'm not entirely certain what you mean by the gloss, "deductive structures,"
but it *sounds* as though you understand generative mechanisms as existing
only in the mind, as something in logic or reasoning.  I'd like to emphasize
that for Bhaskar, generative mechanisms exist *in reality*, which in most
instances means outside the mind.  So, to take the current example, a realist
theory would state that to the best of our understanding and evidence,
tectonic plates (which cause earthquakes by shifting) really exist, and are
*not* simply representations in our minds.  Of course, our evidence and
understanding may alter, and we may come to believe that some other mechanism
is in fact at work in producing earthquakes, but that mechanism would still
exist independent of our reasoning about it.  (The distinction here appears
in a number of Bhaskar's concepts, such as the "epistemic fallacy" by which
some people collapse being into knowledge of being, and the difference
between the transitive and intransitive dimensions of knowledge.)

>        He traces a lot of philosophical debate to
> come to the conclusion that most of the criteria suggested by
> ‘received philosophy’ share one great weakness: they all presuppose a
> closure, i.e.,  they all presuppose invariance of empirical
> relationships; implying, these criteria do not apply where the
> invariance cannot be guaranteed, e.g., as in *open systems*. His
> solutions (he seems to be still modifying them) consist of (i) a
> polyvalent (or, differentiated) ontology and (ii) obtaining closure
> for the system in which the events occur.

A couple of things.  I think it might be better to say that the "one great
weakness" is monovalence, that is, the unstratified concept of reality, and
that the notion of closure etc has to be introduced in order to sustain that
monovalence.  Also, just for clarification, while invariance may not obtain
in open systems, the mechanisms which operate in closed systems also operate
in open systems, even if their operation is obscured, deflected, blocked, not
elicited, etc.  But in no event does Bhaskar offer closure as a "solution." 
On the contrary, one of his points is that science is possible within open
systems--a notion that is contentious to positivists and conventionalists
alike, but which Bhaskar argues is possible in part because closure is not in
fact necessary for science at all.

Hope that's useful.  Cheers.

---
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 ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005