Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 18:00:06 -0700 (PDT)
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU,
Subject: Re: BHA: new dialectics anyone?


Thanks for the clarification.  Some if it makes sense; other passages remain
murky to me.

I only single out the following passages for further elaboration or discussion.

At 10:54 PM 8/27/97 GMT, NURSAW wrote:
>On reflection this means that 'forms' must, paradixically, define absolute 
>fixed points for critical realism. CR cannot theorise transFORMation 
>of  underlying structures and mechanisms. It cannot do so because the 
>concepts of these structures and mechanisms are, precisely, premised 
>upon actual 'forms'.

I don't quite get this.

>What alternative does new dialectics provide then? 
>It dispenses with the view that the essence and the appearance (RB's
>actual and non-actual) are distinct ontological realms, one of 
>which is non-observable but essential. This dispenses with the need 
>for hypothesise in need of 'testing'. Two examples:

>(1) Tony Smith stresses that dialectical theory must be understood as 
>a *reconstruction* in thought of a given object realm. Whereas 
>critical realism attempts to *hypothesise* non-actual structures and 
>mechanisms, Smith simply recontructs the totality already given at 
>the very starting point. He can do this because of the new 
>dialectical claim that categories have an intinsic *ordering*. It is 
>this ordering that thought does not grasp at the starting point.


I don't understand the difference between Bhaskar's distinct ontological
realms of essence and appearance and Smith's non-distinction of same.  I
don't understand the precise difference between hypothesis-testing and
reconstructing the totality.

>(2) Patrick Murray stresses that the level of essence (the 
>counterpart of CR's structures and mechanisms) is NECESSARILY 
>non-sensuous, therefore it could never immediately exist, or be 
>perceived. In consequence the essence behoves to a 'Logic of 
>Reflection' rather than a 'Logic of Being'. Bhaskar's (and Locke's, 
>and Desacrtes') mistake is to fail to elaborate a 'Logic of 
>Reflection' where the essence must appear as something other than 
>itself. The crucial example is the relation of value and money. 
>'Value' is essence. It cannot immediately exist (the labour that 
>produces it is entirely 'abstract', utterly non-sensuous) so must 
>appear in money.

Does Bhaskar engage in a discussion of value theory anywhere?  Does Bhaskar
have a different value theory from Marx's, or Smith's or Murray's
conception?  This would be the most direct test of real differences.  Is
there something inherently different about the object of
investigation--value theory rather than say theories in physics or
chemistry--which could point to putative differences rather than an
incompatibility between Bhaskar's philosophy of science and dialectical
value theory?



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