File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/bhaskar.9710, message 57


Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 14:10:25
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
From: Louis Irwin <lirwin1-AT-ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: BHA: Starting Dialectic: First Post.


Howard,

I'll give it a shot.

Traditional extensionalism can be viewed as taking a fixed set of atoms of
some sort that are part of a closed system yielding actualist generalities.
 In a logically extensional language the atoms are atomic sentences which
enter into truth-functional relations.  For example, 'p&q' is true if and
only if p is true and q is true.  Truth as a whole can be given a purely
extensional definition along these lines.  The major problem is that
language tends to be highly recalcitrant when you try to interpret it in
exclusively extensional terms.

This example is at the level of epistemology, but I think Bhaskar sees the
same sort of thing occuring at the level of ontology and hence his phrase.
The world is reduced to atomistic states, and laws are seen as valid by the
tacit assumption of closure.  In opposing such an atomistice view, RB of
course wants to view totalities as other than atoms bound together by
external relations.  I believe he views the concept of absence as essential
to this picture.

That's the best I can do at this point.  I am very interested in hearing
from others on this question.

Louis Irwin

At 10:00 PM 10/10/97 -0700, you wrote:
>On "ontological extensionalism":  this is a term from the philosophy of 
>language I take it.  I think I have a grasp of how RB is using it, but 
>I'm not at all clear how to get from whatever the original meaning of 
>extensionalism is to that meaning.  Can anyone explain the term's 
>origin at all?
>
>Howard
>
>
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