To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
cc: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk
Subject: Re: BHA: Science, theology and witchcraft 
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 11:42:05 +0100


Hi Michael, (This post was compiled on a really old editor, hence apologies
aout mistakes)

Sorry you took my message the wrong way. Tim (I think) has put the case about 
the football team analogy. My point was simply that to say someone or something
is great implies no necesary commitment to it, or influence by it.


> 
> MICHAEL REPLIES
> 
> I don't think RB advocates reductionism, indeed the turn towards dialectics
> represents the opposite. Read in context, I was questioning whether some of
> the dualistic oppositions that characterise earlier non-dialectical phases of
> the CR project had been entirely overcome or consistently integrated - a
> point that despite his other objections Louis, for example, accepts as a
> valid question. Read in context, your interpretation of my own position not
> supported by the evidence.

Well, of course, we can now ask what textual evidence there might be concerning
whether or not you thought RB was being reductionist. Originally you argued:

>The textual details are: Bhaskar's "Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom"
>1993, p. 250 where RB objects - on supposedly dialectical grounds - to
>Adorno's criticism of attempts to either reduce objectivity to subjectivity
>or vice-versa. RB retorts that subjectivity must "in some sense" be seen as
>"grounded" or "overreached" by objectivity. Adorno's consistent position in
>his Negative Dialectics 1973 and "Subject/Object" and elsewhere is that
>reductionism is the main counter-tendency to dialectics, in that it
>represents an eradication of mediation who consequences are as undialectical
>as undialectical thinking can ever get. Examples of reductionism include
>vulgar materialism, exclusively theological explanations of natural events,
>positivism/empiricism and racism. For RB to object to Adorno's objection to
>reductionism - under the guide of being a better and more radical
>dialectician - is, of itself, to fall back into what amounts to a
>pre-dialectical position.

Now in the latter sentence (and indeed the overall tone of the whole para) I do
indeed read you as impling that RBs position is reductionist (what you seem 
to call a pre-dialectical position). I get to this in virtue of your claim that
Adorno suggests that reductionism is the main counter-tendency to dialectics.
More importantly, I think, your original critique of RB was that he did not
do justice to Adorno in Dialectic. You argued, I think:

>I only the only one
>on this list who has experienced the ambiguity of being more and more
>impressed with what RB says about a topic that she or he has already worked
>upon, and less and less impressed with RB's actual interpretative treatment
>of alternative theorists.

Well, of course you are not the only one. In fact prior to the existence of 
this list I and Dave Spurret had a rather lengthy disagreement on just this
issue. My position has always been that RB is dealing with the Dialectic not
with specific theorists of the dialectic and certainly it is possible to
accuse him of giving certain writers a very superficial treatment. The point is
that Dialectic is already a very lengthy work and there are practical 
constraints on what can be achieved in one work. I mean if someone wishes to
conduct a full study of the relationship between RB and Adorno then I'm all for
it, but it seems t me no critique of RB that he didn't do this; this was not
his aim.

Now on the subject of reading, what has not being mentioned is that the now
infamous Adorno rebuke on p. 250 actually ends with a rhetorical question. I
don't have my copy in the office, but I think RB says something like 'Isn't this
the case?' Moreover, he suspends further discussion and asks the reader to live
on promises until section 8 of that chapter when he goes into further detail
and even provides (surprisingly) some diagrams that make sense to me. Now my 
question is: if RB is wrong here he is wrong. And he is wrong not beacuse his
formulation does not accord with Adorno's. This relates to the issue of truth.

If the dialectic as a mode of thinking turns out to be wrong/false/untrue
then Rb is commited to discarding it. Patently, at this time, RB does not think
it is, but the possibility must remain. In effect, the relation between truth
and dialectic is one of non-identity. Truth is not identical with the
dialectic.

>. I could support by argument with further
> textual references where RB accepts the validity of certain heideggerian
> analyses such as "equipmental character" of the social world if I thought
> that there was a good chance that these might be thoughtfully responded to in
> the rational, scientific spirit of CR. 

Well i think this more than a little unfair. You obviously misunderstood
the point about saying Manchester United are a great football team (as Tim
has pointed out) and the whole thrust of my post was to tease out exactly
those points where you think RB is drawing on one tradition and not another.
However, I have to say that the simple use of a phrase drawn from one
writer in no way provides textual evidence of heavy influence. After all, I use
words such a 'problematisation' and 'discourse' but this doesn't establish 
that I am heavily influenced my postmodernism.

etrYet the relationship between
> dialectics and phenomenologies of different kinds with different political
> implications) remains a serious point in which textual evidence needs to be
> looked at really carefully before trashing responses are fired off. 

I'm sorry if you read my post as atrashing response that was not my intent.
I was simpl trying to point out that I found some of the conclusions you were
drawing were unfounded (still do actually).

It is an
> issue not only for myself but for others on this list (see Ralph's posting
> too). I doubt whether, it can be resolved by either analogies with, or
> exemplifications of, the rivalries between different groups of football
> supporters. 

Well clearly, again you have totaly misunderstood the point of the football
team analogy.

Having done a phenomenological thesis on how the lived-experience
> of football hooliganism from Millwall fans is variously interpreted, I have
> come to appreciate something about the difference in kind between theoretical
> endorsements of philosophical positions, and fthe kind of commitment involved
> in prefering one football teams (or type of curry etc) over another.

OK, I am not at all sure on what is being suggested here, but I have to say that
if you read RBs texts with the same level of understanding as you read my post
I can see how you might arrive at such conclusions as you have.

  >>
> MICHAEL REPLIES
> 
> A close reading of the postings on this topic would show that what I and
> others have sought to do is to use Adorno as a foil for RB and vice-versa
> precisely in order to differentiate, and thereby perhaps more adequately
> characterise, what is distinctive about their respective positions; and what
> we can learn about the pros and cons of both as contributors to a far larger
> and long-standing tradition in which Hegel is a relative newcomer.

And of course, I reserve the right to challenge your claims, dialectically of
course. But again, a close reading of my post vis-a-vis the football team
analogy might reveal that claims to be reading deep are not as claimed.

I mean come on, I clearly used the football analogy to point out that it was
perfectly possible to say X is great, yet not particlarly like X or be 
influenced by X. You seem to have extrapolated from this all manner of insults
from 'inactive Newcastle supporters', to the fcat that I was using this as 
some form of 'tribal allegiance', to 'dismissive sarcasm'. Now really Michael, 
I was not trying to pick a fight (I get plenty of them on the Foucault list).
 But if you are going to criticise a writer for slight reading, then it's as 
well not to engage in the same practice yourself.

Anyway we can argue this more fully at the conference where the limits of
virtual communication do not impede misunderstanding. (how's that Ruth?)


Thanks,




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