Date: Wed, 06 Aug 1997 19:37:24
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: BHA: Non-experimental science (was "What must the ...")


Marshall,

I think we are now much closer to agreement.  Regarding your question 
whether Blalock's analysis is causal analysis or not, I say yes, it is 
causal analysis. Not good causal analysis, but causal analysis nonetheless.  
Given what else you go on to say, I do not see this as a big difference.  
You say "I want to leave the door open for some new, reasonable accounts of
causality, but I want to close the door on empiricist readings like
Blalock's." I agree. We should be able to argue that the results of CR
impose some minimal constraints on what counts as "causal explanation."
What I was objecting to was the idea that we can use CR to define the
complete meaning of "causal explanation" once and for all.  You say later
"While not declaring apriori that any causal explanation that does not
conform to the CR account is illegitimate (a position I never advocated),
we need to find some way of criticizing and ruling out empiricist accounts
like Blalock's."  I had read you as saying something to the effect "that
any causal explanation that does not conform to the CR account is
illegitimate", based on the idea of using CR to provide a definition of
"causal explanation".  The weaker notion of constraints provided by CR will
allow you to reject empiricist accounts without having to close out the
meaning of "causal explanation" in advance.

Even here, I am not entirely sure that we need to rely on such meaning
constraints.  We could just proceed to provide CR analyses in each domain
and then show them to be superior.  Do you really need to refute Blalock on
general principles, rather than supplying better accounts?  Probably a
strategy of both would be best.

Louis Irwin

------------------------------------------------------------------
At 09:07 AM 8/6/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Louis,
>This is the part of your statement I was responding to:
>
>>I felt agreement with the general drift but was uncomfortable with the
>>role meaning was being assigned: "Although Marshal, Doug and I are in
>>agreement
>>on CR not being a general, a priori theory and requiring at least support in
>>the various domains outside natural science, ... I disagree with [this] way
>>of putting it in terms of the meanings of "science", "cause" and
>>"explanation."  I don't think it is right to say that the meanings of those
>>terms are fixed by a CR analysis of natural science, especially the last
>>two.  On their understanding, having fixed those meanings we go on to ask
>>if social studies are capable of causal explanation, and if they are,
>>whether those explanations are scientific in character.  I would prefer to
>>say that first we establish what natural science is in CR terms and then
>>ask whether causal explanations in other domains conform to the same kind
>>of depth analysis.  If the answer were to turn out negative in some domain,
>>I don't know that we should declare that there are no causal explanations
>>in that domain simply because they do not conform to the CR account gleaned
>>from natural science." I thought we were in agreement over the legitimacy
>>of extending CR to other domains but disagreed over the role of meaning.
>
>I felt there's a critical ambiguity here.  In the sense that Blalock claims
>to do causal analysis, of course there's causal analysis in his social
>science. Nonetheless, it does not conform to the CR account.  So, is it
>causal analysis or not?
>
>I think it reasonable to leave the door open for causal analyses that do
>not conform to the CR account.  These would have to justify themselves on
>some grounds that are not subject to CR's critique of +ism.  I want to
>leave the door open for some new, reasonable accounts of causality, but I
>want to close the door on empiricist readings like Blalock's.  NB that his
>reading is not only different from CR; it's contradictory.  For instance,
>he requires constant conjunctions.  So my point is that we need to go
>further than simply allowing the possibility for some non-CR accounts
>outside experimental sciences.  Similarly, we must do more than just
>license CR as one (of possibly several) legitimate account(s) of causality
>in non-experimental science.  While not declaring apriori that any causal
>explanation that does not conform to the CR account is illegitimate (a
>position I never advocated), we need to find some way of criticizing and
>ruling out empiricist accounts like Blalock's.  The problem with RTS is
>that anyone bent on defending non-CR accounts in non-experimental science
>can argue that RB's ontological inferences do not necessarily apply in the
>domain with which a given non-experimental science is concerned.
>
>In short, our discussion of MEANING gave a useful argument for applying
>CR's version of causal explanation in non-experimental sciences.  It did
>not, as far as I can see, give us a strong enough argument for ruling out
>certain alternative accounts.  (Although we can always make ontological
>conjectures that parallel CR's ontological claims in experimental realms
>and, if valid, would thus rule out certain accounts of causal explanation.)
> Thus, I think your statement leaves the door a bit too open, but I don't
>see how the argument in RTS helps us shut it any further.  Of course this
>doesn't mean we can't find a latch somewhere else.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>---------
>Marshall Feldman, Associate Professor		                marsh-AT-uriacc.uri.edu
>Graduate Curriculum in Community Planning and Area Development	401/874-5953
>The University of Rhode Island					401/874-5511 (FAX)
>94 West Alumni Avenue, Suite 1; Kingston, RI 02881-0806
>
>
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