File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/bhaskar.9707, message 43


Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 09:18:02 +0100
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk (COLIN WIGHT)
Subject: Re: BHA: What must the world be like for facism?


Hi everyone,

Just a few comments. Marshall asked:

>> 
>> Having finished reading RTS over the weekend, I have the following
>> observations and questions.
>> 
>> 1. RB's key strategy is to ask, "What must the world be like for science
to be possible?"  I think a more accurate reading of his 
>argument and the book is that the question he really answers is, "What 
>must the world be like for science's practice of experimentation to be 
>intelligible?"  Any comments?

I think this is a plausible reading, but an incorrect one. It might be
better to put it as what must the world be like for experiments to be
necessary? Also Bhaskar takes science to be right in one vital respect that
Marshall's point misses, that is that the laws that it does discover are
transfactual; they endure outside of the conditions of their discovery. For
Bhaskar, then experiments are only one part of science, hence the two
questions are not one and the same. Also, I think you have to place RB's
fascination with experiments in context. He deals so much with this because;
(i) very little analysis has been done (see also Ian Hacking's book on
this); and (ii) it seems to be the cornerstone, or the Achilles Heel as RB
would later come to call it, of positivism. This relates to Ruth's point:

>  I've always thought that he blurs the distinction 
>in the end, in a way that to my mind does not adequately respond to the 
>challenge that the scientists are all mad -- or, as my advisor once put 
>it, "So the scientific community's self-understanding is the scientific 
>community's self-understanding; so what?" (or something to that effect). 

Please point out to your advisor, that the scientific community's self
understanding is not self justifactory, and I'm sure he doesn't think it is,
or at least, let's hope they are not all mad because we seem to devour their
outputs greedily (hence if they are mad then so are we and we could never
know of their madness). The self-understanding of the scientific community
very rarely extends to the kind of philosophical justification that RB
engages in. RB's claim is not that scientists know they are transcendental
realists, but that their practices are dependent on such a nocturnal
philosophy. Also, your advisor reminds me of Loius's, or is it mine,
anti-realist. Good thing for your advisor that the self-understandings of
scientists extends to the consciousness of the Jumbo jets I presume he flies
in, the car he rides in, the TV he watches, and the computers I presunme he
uses to claim that science is only sucessful because scientists are deluding
themselves (are mad), or every other mode of his being with is infused with
science, for that matter. Remember for RB there is no logical or necessary
gap between science and us. It is not a prcartice somewhere out there that
others engage in. It is part of our mode of being as we reach the century's
end (your advisor's as well). 

>I think not so much of Habermas as of the Horkheimer and Adorno of 
>*Dialectic of Enlightenment*, or of Marcuse.  This is why one needs to 
>have a fair amount to say, actually, regarding what Bhaskar in my view 
>brushes over too easily as "rationality at the level of judgement".  

I have some sympathy with this view Ruth, I myself scrutined the texts for
the equation of theory choice. Still, whatever the philosophical absence
that confronts us in our epistemological choices we seem to make judgements
fairly well most of the time. I think RB's point here is that there is no
one method of deciding between theories but many. As Einstein said, 'compare
an epistemologist to a scientist, an epistemologist looks for the one right
epistemology, a scientist, on the other hand, is an epistemological
opportunist.' Enter Feyerabend stage left......


>There needs to be a better account of why any one theory ought to be 
>preferred over another than the "it explains more facts" of *RR*.  And 
>in particular - obviously - why anyone ought to give any credence 
>whatsoever to the claims of `science' as a whole.

Maybe cos it seems to work. RB is quite explicit about this in SRHE,
basically we reach a Wittgensteinian bedrock and all we can do is to throw
in our lot, as RB puts it, with science. Unsatisfactory, Oh yes, but then
again given the choices on offer, especially when push comes to shove, I
know whose advice I generally take, not all the time mind, I weigh up
evidence and assess the choices and judge. Now how did I do that?

BTW thanks for your paper. It was really interesting, but try to get a look
at the POssibility of Naturalism, preferably the 2nd edition. As this will,
or should, allay many of your concerns about the "relative intransitivity"
of social objects. Bhaskar, also looks at Taylor's arguments from fact to
values here as well. Also have a look at Ted Benton's critique of RB on this
issue.


Thanks,




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

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

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