Date: Wed, 20 Aug 1997 15:55:35 +0100
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: BHA: Science, theology and witchcraft


I just thought I would include in full RB's reply to Adorno, since I fail to
see what the critiques of it are.

"Adorno warns, by contrast, that the whole project of reducing subject to
object or vice versa is fundamentally mistaken" (Dialectic, p. 50)

Now clearly, RB would agree with this. The reduction of either one to the
other would be instances of the epistemic or ontic fallacies. However, RB
goes on to argue:

"But it seems intuitively, scientifically and philosophicaly unsatisfying
and indeed refutable not to see subjectivity as grounded in _some sense_ (my
comment: these are in italics), or over-reached, by objectivity, if only in
a meta-reflecive totalising situation of the couple." (Dialectic, p. 50.)

I personally find nothing objectionable in this, nor do I find it displays a
cavalier disregard for Adorno's carefully worked out position. Equally, you
have see RB's comments in the light of Adorno's pessimism. Adorno, remember,
is sometimesn portrayed as a postmodernist (totally wrongly in my opinion,
but it is easy enough to see how such a reading of Adorno can be extracted).
Perhaps RB is simply pointing out that this one small revision might have
made such appropriations much more difficult? 

More fuel on the fire I suppose ;-)


Thanks

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

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

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