To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 13:32:43 GMT
Subject: Re: BHA: new dialectics anyone?


Ralph wrote:

> Thought internally related to its object?  What can this mean?  Sounds like
> idealist nonsense to me.
> 
Conversely the object is internally related to thought, so, equally 
it might be materialist nonesense!

Certainly it is this internal relation which divides new dialectics 
(as I understand it) from Anglo-American philosophy and social theory 
as well as CR (my abstract states, naivly no doubt,
 'from much Western philosophy and social theory'!)

(The discussion on Adorno is obviously relevant here)

Briefly, as Tony Smith puts it, somewhere in his 'Logic of Marx's 
Capital' it is very difficult to to defend any position that does NOT 
uphold some sort of isomorphism between thought and its object
(and so not an internal relation in this sense).
Yet RB, in tune with all critical realists (as so often), denies the 
possibility of any such isomorphism and builds up his position
accordingly. (Collier (1994) has tried to tone down RB's position by 
pointing out that it is compatible with 'correspondence' theories but 
doesn't suggest any isomorphism.) 
 
Smith does not say how isomorphism is possible. For that one has 
to go to the references he, and other new dialecticians, provide. 
The subject is difficult and I'm no expert (as must be obvious), 
which is why my paper is pitched at the level of method in social 
science (which is, after all, the terrain of many new dialecticians). 
Could it be suggested that we stick to this level, for now at least,
and agree to suspend our immediate judgements of 'nonesense' at other
levels?

Thanks,

Andy B. 


 


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