From: louis_irwin-AT-mail.fws.gov
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 97 17:06:41 -0700
To: <bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: Re[2]: BHA: RTS 2-2 and 2-5



Good English beer would be most welcome, but no, I will not be at the 
conference.

Re 6. You say that "the transcendental refutation of regularity 
determinism, viz. the existence and necessity of experimental closure, 
provides an immnanent critique of strong actualism."  This pinpoints a 
crucial disagreement between us.  Regularity determinism is the thesis 
that the world is closed, while strong actualism is the thesis that the 
world is subject to complete atomistic state descriptions.  Originally I 
thought as you did that once regularity determinism was refuted the 
refutation of strong actualism was thereby also accomplished.  That 
interpretation, though, made the overall trajectory of RTS 2-5 puzzling to 
me.  My rereading led me to think otherwise, the point I was trying to 
make in 4.  

Having said that, I suggest our disagreement pertains to arguments for 
critical realist positions rather than what those positions are.  I agree 
with the connections you describe between regularity determinism and 
strong actualism, but I suggest RTS is making a prima facie analytical 
distinction and then showing it won't stand up.  Put another way: RTS is 
trying to get people to climb up the ladder; just because you have climbed 
up it yourself does not mean others do not need it.

I agree with you that "no transcendental argument seems 'proveable' at any 
level."  I think the appeal to practices to refute regularity determinism 
and strong actualism is more secure than an appeal to openness, especially 
since the open nature of the world is transcendentally deduced from the 
practice of scientific experiment (the significance of experiment 
presupposes the open nature of the world).

One final thought about anti-realism.  Anti-realism is a philosophical 
position that can be raised by someone who simply cannot see how realism 
can be philosophically sustained.  An anti-realist about the past, for 
example, does not have to make the silly claim that the past does not 
exist, like Russell's silly skeptic who claims the world was created as it 
now is just 5 minutes ago.  He/she may simply be claiming that there is no 
determinant basis for making true claims about many things in the past.  
Such a skeptic does not claim there is no past, or that nothing can be 
known about it, merely that there is no basis in fact to determine if some 
statments about the past are true or are false.  Unlike Russell's silly 
skeptic, a serious anti-realist might be able to avoid affirming in their 
practice the reality they deny in principle.  Or at least it deserves 
argumentation to show otherwise.  Put differently, before we can smirk at 
the anti-realist we must come to terms with Michael Dummett!

Louis Irwin


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: BHA: RTS 2-2 and 2-5
Author:  <bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU> at ~INTERNET Date:    7/9/97 
1:30 PM


Louis,

I don't have my copy of RTS in the office so anything I say will be in 
direct respeonse to your replies and my (somewhat faulty) memory of RTS.


>1. The limit conditions for a closure on p. 76 do not of themselves 
>guarantee a closure.  Rather, they are the strong actualist conditions that 
>a regularity determinist invokes when faced with apparently open systems. 

OK, on this point, as far as I can remember, RB has always argued that full 
and absolute closure is never possible. Partly, I suppose, since the 
conditions of closure may, and often are, causal powers in any, even 
manufactured, outcome.


>6.  You might object, as Colin did, that a Laplacean determinism "still 
>treats reality as a closed system" and a closure, whether in knowledge or 
>not, "simply isn't going to provide all the sources of knowledge."  The 
>problem here is that this objection tells against the strong actualist only 
>if the world is open.  If you invoke the world's open nature to refute 
>strong actualism, you are begging the question.

Sorry, but I must be totally missing the point here (not the first, nor the 
last time i suspect), But the transcendental refutation of regularity 
determinism, viz. the existence and necessity of experimental closure, 
provides an immnanent critique of strong actualism. Also, of course, so do 
stratification and emergence. For strong actualism must surely be commited 
to the denial of emergent powers that might, in some way, react back upon 
the atomistic states, or levels form which they are emergent. For to allow
the possibilty of emergent powers is to disallow the strong actualist thesis.

 RB does not invoke the
>open nature of the world to make his refutations.  To do so would be to 
>assume something he cannot prove. 

I have a problem with this insofar as no transcendental argument seems 
"proveable" at any level. These are arguments such that X and Y must be the 
case if T is to be possible. Such knowledge claims are always potentially 
revisable. If a mode of knowledge acqusition arises that supercedes science 
then we may all stop being critical realists. Bhaskar's approach to 
philosophy is grounded in certain social practices, in this case science.

Instead he makes transcendental
>refutations referring to practices that are uncontentious.  Of course, you 
>could rather have just asserted openness of the world and stopped arguing 
>with determinists. 

But surely you can refute the regularity determinist and the strong 
actualist by drawing attention to the necessity of certain practices (all 
sounds very Wittgensteinian really).

 There is no way to stop a determined determinist, but
>there a lot of others who have not thought things out and who may respond 
>to such transcendental refutations.

Oh, I absolutely agree, but then there is no way to stop a determined 
anti-realist denying the existence of a reality. But equally, there is no 
way to stop the all-knowing smirk that appears on my lips when such a 
sceptic affirms such a reality in their every practice.


Anyway, I have probably totally missed your argument. Are you going to the 
conference? We could debate this over a few beers, or whatever.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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