Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 08:59:44 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re:  BHA: Re: rts ch3 s4


Hans E, Could we post RTS chapter 3, section 4?
 
1.   The question of bare powers would be worth returning to. 
Bhaskar's brief discussion in RTS is from chapter 3, section 3 at
pp 180-181 which was posted to the list last fall, so it is
available to everyone.  Le Roy says two things are possible:  "One
is that there is a nature, susceptible in principle to a
qualitative description, as yet unknown, which is the bearer of its
causal powers.  The other is that the nature of a thing just is its
causal powers, as in the case of physical field theories.  At any
moment of time a science may have to put down its ultimate entities
just as powers to produce effects. . . . But whatever is
responsible for the world as manifest must possess causal powers
which are continually being exercised; it must be co-extensive with
space and continuous with time.  It must be structured and complex;
it cannot be atomistic or event-like.  The concept of a field of
potential seems the closest to meeting these requirements . . . "
citing Harre and Madden.  Now as I recall David Spurett is (one of)
our resident investigator(s) on critical realism and the
foundations of physics.  I'd love to hear some comment on these
ideas from anyone who was familiar with the field.  For example, RB
refers sometimes to the relational element in fundamental physics. 
What is the differernce between speaking of bare powers and of
relations being bearers of powers?  Is there anything in field
theory to justify thinking of powers as being rooted in relations?
 
In any event, there seems an interesting contradiction between RB's
assertion here in section 3 and an assertion he makes some pages
later in section 4:  "society may be regarded as an ensemble of
powers which exist, unlike other powers, only as long as they are
exercised; and are continually exercised via (i.e. in the last
instance through) the intentional action of men." (RTS196)  But he
just said at p. 180, "But whatever is responsible for the world as
manifest must possess causal powers which are continually being
exercised."  So society may not be so unlike "other powers" after
all.  Both are continually exercised (although not *all* powers of
nature or society are continually exercised).  Or have I got it
wrong?
 
2.   RB says at 193 "Puzzles or problems are the concrete working
data of the scientist," and Tobin always finds a way to smoke out
a puzzle: "the material cause," Tobin writes, "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 factor owners)."
 
Now, first, as I understand it, Michael's correction of Marshall's
presentation of efficient and final causes is correct.  Second, the
material cause is the stuff worked on and the formal cause is what
it is about the way the stuff appears that makes it distinctive --
ie it is the formal cause that differentiates a Rodin from a lump
of metal.  But what is the stuff, Tobin, of the organization of
work?  In any labor process, remember, two things are produced: 
cotton, say, and the social relations that attend the production of
cotton.  So as we watch a vehicle move down an assembly line, cars
are being produced and also social relations.  I meant to focus on
the social relations produced.  The "stuff," then, are the social
relations always present in cooperative labor of any sort.  This is
a material cause which is transformed.  The formal cause would be
the structure of the social relations which makes the assembly line
distinctive.  If we were to melt down a Rodin sculpture we would
transform the stuff and transform its form.  So when Ford installed
the assembly line, presumably the final cause was, from the point
of view of the transformation of social relations, surplus value,
the material cause was a previous form of social organization in
work, the formal cause is the new form of work organization and the
efficient cause is the labor of indidivuals.
 
The point here is not to become good Aristotelians, though God
knows I'd love to be that, but to appreciate the sculptural
metaphor for the production of knowledge and of social relations
generally:  we don't create, we reproduce or transform.  
 
Incidentally, what counts as tranforming "stuff?"  Suppose I take
a rock and set it in relation to four or five other rocks as in the
zen rock gardens in Kyoto.  This transforms the material cause
every bit as much as melting and shaping bronze, doesn't it, even
though the rocks as such are unchanged?
 
Anyway, Michael, in a tragedy why is the formal cause limited to
the plot?  Why wouldn't it extend to the formal structure of the
play in every respect?
 
Notice the clear statement of the point Colin has been insisting on
at p. 197:  "It is methodologically incorrect to search for an
efficient cause of society, though society depends necessarily upon
the efficient activity of men."  The efficient cause of the
transformation of social relations is the intentional activity of
individual agents.  But why don't we say it that way.  RB means to
say that society cannot be conceived of in any respect as an
efficient cause, not that there is no efficient cause of social
transformation, isn't that so?
 
3.   With respect to the production of scientific knowledge as
work, RB explains the Aristotelian schematization as follows: 
"Conceiving science as work readily lends itself to Aristotelian
schematization.   The material cause is antecedently established
knowledge, facts and theories; the efficient cause is the
methodological paradigm or generating theory at work in the
theoretical and experimental activity of men; the formal cause new
knowledge, facts and theories; and the final cause knowledge of the
enduring and transfactually active mechanisms of nature." (RTS194)
 
Is that it?  Material cause is fine.  The formal cause is rather
the structure and form of the new knowledge, what makes it
distinctive.  But what of the "efficient cause"?  To say that the
efficient cause is the "methodological paradigm or generating
theory at work" seems inconsistent with the proposition that "it is
methodologically incorrect to search for an efficient cause of
society."  In other words, we should also be able to say that "it
is methodologically incorrect to search for an efficient cause of
knowledge."  To say that a methodological paradigm or generating
theory is the efficient cause is to approach Bhaskar to Althusser. 
Actually this is what I understand Oscar to want to do, and so
perhaps he gives a strong reading to this passage.  I would instead
place the emphasis on the qualifying phrase "in the theoretical and
experimental activity of men."  It is theoretical and experimental
work of individuals that is the efficient cause of knowledge.  It
is their labor.  Now if we want an Aristotelian analysis of the
scientific labor of individuals, then the expenditure of energy
would be the material cause, the methodological paradigm or
generating theory the formal cause, the production of knowledge the
final cause and the exercise of will, the thing that holds activity
to purpose, the efficient cause.  What of that?
 
What this does is break the Aristotelian schematization down into
a social relations part and an agentival part.  The "metodological
paradigm or generating theory in the theoretical or experimental
activity of men" holds these two together and places the emphasis
on the "activity of men" as it should be.  But it would be wrong to
conflate the two.  The production of knowledge is a work of persons
in society.  Paradigms and theories are social products which are
not in themselves efficiently causal.  They are such only in the
activity of people.
 
What other comments does anyone have on RTS 3, sections 3 or 4? 
Marshall?
 
Howard
 
     "What is there just now you lack"  Hakuin
 
Howard Engelskirchen


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