Subject: BHA: Re: topics for discussion
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 1998 12:49:14 +0000


I've also got the Lawson book and I suppose a discussion of it might be
useful. I find it very useful to suggest to students as a general
introduction to critical realism. 

Also, has anyone seen the recent Andrew Sayer piece in the latests JTSB
(Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour), where he is fairly critical of
CR's lack of engagement with normative issues?

I remember asking a question at the CR conference some years ago when RB was
talking about the notion of the person as a concrete singularity. My
question was that if the TMSA implies that what it means to "be" is in part
defined in terms of both the self and the social circumstances, what happens
when parts of the concrete singularlity begin to look as if they are doing
damage to other parts? Genital mutilation to women, for example can be
decribed as part of the cultural complex which constitutes women as such in
certain parts of the world. In order to make a moral critical commentary on
such practices do we have to priviledge parts of the concrete singularity
over other parts - that is, give priority to the species being over the
cultural circumstances of the flourishing of that species being? 

Is this what Sayer's getting at? Are there any answers to such questions?
Should I even be thinking of such questions 2 days before my PhD viva(defence)?


Thanks,




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Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Tel: (01970) 621769

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