Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 12:47:36 -0700 (PDT) From: LH Engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.apc.org> To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Dialectic I'm sorry I was not able to comment sooner on Gary's Dialectic proposal and Marshal's response. At Warwick there was a real, though informal, Saturday night meeting of the Bhaskar virtual community and we raised a couple of concerns. One was why we do not have more women participating on the list. This is a mystery to me. I don't recall much coming out of the discussion, but if there is anything any of us can do to change this, anything in the manner in which discussions on the list are conducted, I hope people will raise the issues and put them on the table. Women certainly played a very full role in all aspects of the conference, and, in particular, Margaret Archer's contribution was extraordinary. But participation on the list is unbalanced. Ruth's contributions are enormously valuable, but there are not other women's voices that participate at all regularly. Anyone have any thoughts? The other thing discussed was how we should proceed with the reading. At first the suggestion was made, agreed to by Gary, generously, and myself, that we should finish RTS quickly and then throw ourselves into Dialectic. But overall the sentiment was that we should begin immediately with Dialectic, and so for my part I will now support that decision wholeheartedly. Still, Marshall, the only barrier to proceeding with RTS at the same time was the sense that it would simply be too difficult to sustain both readings; there was no sense that there was any law against proceeding with both. Now for my part I have made the most progress in my understanding of the foundation of critical realism from the work we have done on the list on chapters 1 and 2 of RTS. I was particularly surprised how important chapter 2 was after I really got into it. Chapter 4 is very short and chapter 3 is not to be missed. So I would love to finish it. I don't think it takes any more than the two of us, frankly. The problem before was that there was really no one else who was interested in systematically proceeding with RTS so the reading never proceeded. So if you are willing, I suggest the two of us continue with the reading of RTS, starting with Chapter 3, and if others want to join in from time to time they are more than welcome. At the same time we can all proceed with the reading of DIALECTIC. But I was delighted with your insistence on finishing RTS, because I really feel the need to continue a close study group reading of that book through to the end. What do you think? I honestly don't think it takes more than the two of us, if we are committed to it, to finish the book. I'm sure Colin will have some things to say. And there will be others also. One of the things that made the conference first rate was the quality of questions rasied at the plenary sessions from the audience. Again, if you have Margaret Archer in any audience to which you deliver a presentation, get yourself prepared. But for my money the most interesting question was one asked by Tobin of Roy Bhaskar at his presentation on the Dialectical Development of Critical Realism. Bhaskar had said "All is real; non-being exists; the structures of absence are all within being; everything is, including that which is not." If anyone understood differently, please correct me, but I think that's accurate. Tobin's question was, "If you say everything is real without remainder, haven't you closed the system?" Hmmmm Howard Howard Engelskirchen Fullerton "What is there just now you lack" Hakuin --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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