Subject: BHA: RE: Re: rts ch3 s4
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:32:19 -0500


Rom Harre' has a good discussion of Aristotle's causes on pp. 125-7 of _The
Philosophies of Science_. In brief, the theory distinguishes between form
and essence (Harre' does not use the latter term). Any thing is a particular
form of some previously formless matter. Hence explanation invokes four
causes:

	1. Material - what matter was involved?
	2. Formal - what forms were involved?
	3. Efficient - towards what end was the system moving?
	4. Final - what was responsible for there being such a thing in the first
			place?

Matter, for Aristotle, consisted of a single, universal matter
differentiated into four elements (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water). So I don't
think social organization can be considered a material cause. It might be
formal. Nor could it readily be seen as efficient cause, since it's
difficult to see work organization as an end (either as the subjective goal
of the people involved rather than as a means to another goal, or as the
final resting place of some unintentional, structural logic).

My reading of Harre' makes actors' intentions distinct from efficient
causes. People may intend to get married, but they do not intend to
reproduce the institution of marriage when they do so. Hence their
intentions might be a final cause, but not the efficient one. If the
institution of marriage itself is moving to an ultimate state of, say,
frequent, temporary monogamous relations (Bill Clinton's current woes not
withstanding :)), then this would be the efficient cause.

I take it here that "efficient" has the same root as "effect," and hence the
efficient cause is in the system's effects. Aristotle held that things
strove for or moved towards perfection, with the latter being defined as
their natural place. This movement underlies efficient causes.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------
Marshall Feldman, Associate Professor				marsh-AT-uriacc.uri.edu
Graduate Curriculum in Community Planning and Area Development	401/874-5953
The University of Rhode Island					401/874-5511 (FAX)
94 West Alumni Avenue, Suite 1; Kingston, RI 02881-0806

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> [mailto:owner-bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU]On Behalf Of Tobin
> Nellhaus
> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 1998 12:43 PM
> To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
> Subject: BHA: Re: rts ch3 s4
>
>
> Hi Howard--
>
> Nice to hear your voice again.  A couple questions/comments:
>
> >        But the form of work's
> >social organization can be conceived of as a material cause rather
> >than an efficient cause.
>
> I'm not sure I recall Aristotle's four causes quite accurately, but this
> doesn't sound right.  As I remember it, the material cause is the material
> worked upon (e.g., metal in an auto plant).  Work's social organization
> might be viewed as a combination of formal causes (since a labor process
and
> a corporate structure can be understood as "forms" of sorts) and final
> causes (purposes, both of the workers and the factory owners).  I'm not
sure
> about that "formal cause" element, but I think purposes (intentions,
> desires, functions, etc.) are necessary for a social organization, of
> whatever sort.
>
> >2.   RB writes on 186 that "The paradoxical air of talking of the
> >correction of knowledge vanishes once the demand for extra-
> >theoretical truth and intertheoretical synonymity is rejected."
> >I'm not sure I get the "extra-theoretical" and the
> >"intertheoretical synonymity," but I understand that implicit in
> >the sort of positivism we inhale with the air we breathe is the
> >notion that knowledge must be complete and uncorrectable.
>
> I think the point may be more that all truths are such by virtue of
> belonging to or arising from a theory.  This is closely connected
to--maybe
> even the same as--RB's argument that facts are socially produced.  Hence
the
> passage you quote:
>
> >"Now the identification of the conditions of (knowledge of) being
> >with the conditions of experience in empirical realism leaves
> >'theory' with a very uncertain status.  For it must be either
> >reduced to, or grounded a priori in some necessary condition of,
> >experience; so that it is either reducible or immutable.  For
> >transcendental realism theory is both irreducible and mutable."
> >(RTS 187).
>
> There's no escaping theory when we produce knowledge, but theories do
> change.
>
> ---
> Tobin Nellhaus
> nellhaus-AT-gwi.net *or* tobin.nellhaus-AT-helsinki.fi
> "Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce
>
>
>
>
>      --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



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