Date: Sun, 24 Aug 1997 13:39:56 -0400 (EDT)
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Subject: Re: BHA: Bhaskar on Adorno 


In a message dated 24/08/97 14:48:41 GMT, Colin writes:
 
 First of all, it seems to me not so much a problem of regrets about
 mentioning RB's differences from Adorno, so much as these differences appear

 to be minor or even non-existent (on this issue). Secondly, I'm unsure why
 Michael portrays me as defending RB 'up to the hilt' as he puts it. I have
many
 areas of disagreement with RB, but this is not one of them. What I am
defending
 here is the argument not its source. I don't care whether RB or
 Derrida makes the point (which Derrida actually does), it is the argument
which
 is at issue. And what is yet to be shown is why the argument is wrong.
 
REPLY: Perhaps the source of my regrets is the debate so far involved any
point by point textual comparison in which the limits of both writers are
juxtapositioned. Only Ruth, Ralph and myself have referred to Adorno's actual
texts: surely a precondition for any sensible comparative discussion,
particular if realist values of scientific respect for the evidence etc etc
are at play.

 > 2/. Ruth's point, as I read it, is that Adorno's position tackles social
 > reality as lived experientially, or as I tried to put it "the world we
wake
 > up to every morning" - relatively to this Ruth is surely right that RB's
 > position is to date far more metaphysical and less phenomenological,
despite
 > his correct appreciation that some form of phenomenological insight
 > (preferably the more rationalistic/scientific Husserlian kind rather than
the
 > more metaphysical variety of Heidegger) is required by most varieties of
 > dialectical thought to date.
 
COLIN Well this is surely one area of very deep disagreement. As I said in my
earlier
 reply to Ruth, I think this may be a correct reading of Adorno, but gets RB 
 wrong. For one thing Rb does not neglect lived reality, but he does reject
 a phenomenological metaphysics, whether in a Heideggerian or Husserlian
mode.
 
REPLY Where precisely does RB reject Husserlian/Heideggerian "metaphysics" as
you put it? Dialectic contains many references not only to the specifically
phenomenological dimension, but also to the need for a dialectical approach
to respect its qualitative differences.
 > 
 > 3/. Anyone wishing to defend bhaskar "to the hilt" as it were, even to the
 > point of denying that his position does indeed give priority to the object
in
 > subject/object interactions (surely part of the meaning he gives to
"realism"
 > and "emergent powers materialism"?) can only do so my constructing such a
 > smoothly linear and self-consistent account of the evolution of DCR that
we
 > may as well forget the specifically dialectical aspect of it altogether
 > (including its own dialectical evolution via self-criticism as RB puts
it),
 > and confine ourselves to the earlier works (which of course would then be
 > inconsistent, discontinuous, de-totalising, ahistorical, a negation of the
 > presence of contradictions, the immanence of theory to a historicallyu
 > contradictory social reality etc etc etc. No problem with that?.
 
COLIN Not so. How are we to understand the dialectical moment of critical
realism?
 I read the dialectical enrichment of critical realism as exactly that, an 
 enrichment, not a rejection. 


In effect, I read the dialectic as making explicit
 what was implicit. 


Also, I simply fail to see (although I know many 
 do it) how you can construe RB as advocating giving primacy to the object.
 The whole point of emergent powers materialism is to allow for things to be
 rooted in a material reality, but to have emergent powers of their own. That
is
 to put a block on exactly the kind of reductionism that Michael appears to
 argue RB must be committed to. 

REPLY 

Why must it be one of the other? - perhaps this is an example of very
undialectical either/or-ism you wrongly attribute to my own postings? The
idea that DRC is not in some sense a qualtitiative shift in response to the
contradictions and limits (and not merely implicit dimensions of earlier
phases) does seem to fly in the face of the evidence, even that of RB. RB
even characterises the movement as itself dialectical i.e., a movement via
contradicitons, so what this mean? How does the mere enrichment of a position
constitute a dialectical movement at all in terms that consistent with DRC?
My earlier postings suggested not a crude reductionism on RBs part at all,
but a continuing tension between a dialectical moment that is consistently
anti-reductionism and anti-dualist, combined with a legacy of oppositions
that still do appear not to be as mediated as they might be and hence still
reflect certain either/or dichtomies (realism v irrealism, materialism vs
idealism etc etc). My suggestion is that facing up to this tension (some
elelent of which is unaovidable in any living tradition) this may form a
fruitful area of future development. 


COLIN If I read Michael correct, he is basically positing an either/or
relationship
 here. That is that there is no way we can avoid giving primacy to one or the
 other. Whatever, the merits of this position I reject it, and I am fairly 
 sure RB would as well.

REPLY .This mischaracterises my last and my earlier postings, which no where
advocated (or presupposed) either/or-ism, indeed they clearly complained of
the contradictions that this entails.

 > 
 > 4/.  The price paid for attempting to make RB's position internally
coherent
 > on every point and relatively superior to all alternative contributors to
his
 > current tradition, (he cannot mean X because that would contradict his
 > commitment to Y and this, of course, is unthinkable) is more than the
 > advantage gained. 
 
 Could you perhaps provide some examples here please. I simply can't engage
with
 this at this level?
 
REPLY: it was the bit in you last post to Ruth where you seemed to be
assuming that RB's work could only ever be consistent with himself, could
never be affected by the contradictions/absences he is so sensitive to
otherwise.

 Whilst such interpretative closure might not be the result
 > of a distinctly theological mode of interpretation, something of a "family
 > resemblance" still troubles me here with Colin's mode of "defence to the
 > hilt". The problem with putting any theorist up on a pedestral is the law
of
 > gravity, then tend to fall down upon us. 
 
COLIN I'm troubled as to the interpretative reading "into" my posts the claim
that
 I am putting RB on a pedestal. Like I say, I am much more interested in the 
 arguments than their sources. If the arguments are unsound then please
 elaborate. 
 
 As it turned out (or so both Michael and Ruth argued) RB's position is 
 identical, or similar to, that of Adorno. 

REPLY: again, I think this partly mischaracterises both what Ruth and myself
have actually been suggesting re the differences, particularly RB's
mischaracterisation of Adorno re subject/object, and the differences re how
to respond methodologically to phenomenological evidence. No-one said RB
"ignores" subjective experience, it is only whether CR could learn something
from other dialectical traditions which have engaged in a far more thorough
going relationship with (and immanent critique of) the phenomenological
tradition (esp Adorno on Husserl and Heidegger). I don't see much hope of
making too much progress on this point in the absence of close engagements
with the specific texts of both subspecies of dialectical thought. I have no
doubts that are genuinely motivated by the force of argument not source, it
was the self-validating manner in which you seemed to be defending your
reading of RB that struck me as inconsistent. Apologies, if it came over as
rude.

COLIN Given that Bhaskar's prose was, by his
 standards, very measured (have a look at the chapter in Plato etc, on
Socrates
 and so on, where he throws the whole of western philosophy into the dustbin,
 with some very cute, although totally unsubstantiated one-liners, for an 
 example of him in unmeasured full flow) I simply fail to see the point, and 
 still do. There are however, plenty of examples when RB does seem to do
 violence to major thinkers. I just don't think this was a very good example.
 
REPLY : should I be grateful if it turns out that someone who mugged me with
minor violence had previous convictions for torture and genocide, and
therefore I got off relatively lightly? Well - yes and no.
 -------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Colin Wight
 Dept of INT/Pol
 UWA.
 
 
  
 
 
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