Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 16:50:29 -0700 (PDT) From: LH Engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.apc.org> To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Re: BHA: Re: theorya/theoryb Tobin and Hans -- On judgmental rationalism forced upon us by the need to act there is chapter and verse: PON, p. 58 -- epistemic relativism "neither entails nor . . . gives grounds for a belief in the doctrine of judgmental relativism. On the contrary, it is clear that if one is to act at all there must be grounds for preferring one belief (about some domain) to another . . . ." The point is also reflected in the chapter on Agency where at p 92 (2d ed) RB says that unless a reason could function as a cause "there would be no sense in a person evaluating (or appraising) different beliefs in order to decide how to act." Appeal to our causal interaction with the world as the test of truth is always called pragmatic and instrumentalist, but, as RB says, there is a difference between "it is true because it works" and "it works because it is true." BTW my quote from PON on the relationship between society as a real object and the objects of philosophic knowledge in the post on math's residence address appears in RECLAIMING REALITY at 85-86. Notice, that if you argue that a reason for preferring realist explanations is "because its theories concern the causal powers amd susceptibilities . . . " then you have got to be able to explain natural necessity, the subject of RTS ch 3. Notice also that this is not the reason realist explanations traditionally have been preferred. Traditionally such explanations have been preferred on empirical grounds. In my experience it generally is reconceptualizations that drive theory preference. But I don't suggest this is for reconceptualization's sake. As Bhaskar said in his plenary, inconsistencies function like a diagnostic key that tells you a science is lacking something. You go along and then you get stuck. There are absences. An anomoly persists until it reaches a crisis point. At that point you move to a deeper and more inclusive totality. That was the idea about reconceptualization. But you don't have to reach the new foundation or level or more inclusive totality all at once and comprehensively. Your breakthrough may be isolated and limited and still, because you have broken through to a deeper layer of explanation, forcing a reconceptualization, you are entitled to a confidence in your explanation that makes it rational to prefer the new theory over the old even if, for the time being, it explains less in actualist terms. I don't think I said anything about criteria, Hans, but if I were to try fashioning some, I would certainly want to put a comparison of the level of structure achieved at the top of the list. Howard Howard Engelskirchen Western State University "What is there just now you lack" Hakuin --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005