Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 13:47:03 +0100 (BST)
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: "A.W.Norrie" <A.W.Norrie-AT-qmw.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: But can you prove it?


Dear Michael

Thanks for your response on my comment on Gary's film.  I agree with what
you say, but there is one bit that i wanted to pick up.  It's below:


>'Dialectical criticism is thus determinate rather than blanket negation,
>immanent not external or totalised critique. The intermediate stage is the
>revelation that neither side can, by means of its own resources, make good
>its own claim (the critique here is immanent in that it is judged by its own
>yardsticks).'

I just wanted to point out that for DCR, I don't think this way of putting
it meets the variety of critiques DCR claims to proffer.  Bhaskar writes of
immanent, explanatory and emancipatory critiques, with the emphasis on the
importance of immanent critique in itself and as the basis for a route
forward via explanatory and emancipatory critiques.

In the glossary to DCR (p.396), there is mention of the significance of IC
as a way towards 'metacritiques 1 and 2' with the latter as another term for
explanatory critique.  I think this does involve going beyond the
dialectical moment per se to its location in a real, emergent, open totality
(of which it is a constitutive part).  But the moment of immanence remains
crucial.

To put this in the context of Gary's film, the point of immanent critique is
the conflict in interpretations of the reactions of indigenous people; the
point of explanatory critique is the location of the antinomial reactions in
a geo-historical time/space totality; the point of emancipatory critique
would be to identify the theoretical and practical means to move beyond the
current socio-political situation as identified via immanent and explanatory
critique.

Alan
Alan Norrie



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---