Subject: Re: BHA: Re: RTS ch3 s4 and other things
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:47:33 +0000


Hi, 

This is mainly directed to Tobin and Howards exchange viz-a-viz two things
being "produced" in the labour process. Don't we have to change the metaphor
slightly here? Isn't it rather the case that the vehicle is "produced", but
that the social relations are "reproduced" and/or "transformed". It's a kind
of nitpicky point, but an important one, since it is the prior existence of
the social relations which make possible the production line. (I see Tobin
introduces this very distinction later.)

Also on Tobin's point about social relations being reproduced
unintentionally; does this equate to the idea of following the rules
blindly? But if so what about Bourdieu's critique of this? For Bourdieu the
rule-governed paradigm is incorrect insofar as people go about their
day-to-day activities by strategizing (making up their (re)actions to
situations, not following the rules blindly). Is it possible to follow a
rule blindly?

Anyway, I had my PhD viva on Friday and all went well, but during the viva
something really came home to me about why CR encounters so much resistance
in the academy. I had two examiners, one a very sophisticated defender of
positivism (he calls it empiricism) - he accepts the weaknesses of the
Humean account of causation, but still thinks it can be applied in a weaker
form. He was also very "fuzzy" on the issue of instrumentalism vs realism in
relation to theoretical entities (by fuzzy I mean that he claimed that it
didn't matter in practice whether you took an instrumental or realistic view
of them) and so on. Basically he was a Popperian/Lakatosian. The other
examiner was a mild form of Winchian, who attacked CR from the other
direction. In the viva I could just see the way the answers I gave to one
fed the other, it was really quite amazing to watch. Everything one agreed
with the other didn't. More importantly, I didn't get one question on the
Agent-Structure Problem in IR (which was what my thesis was about), but only
questions on CR. Amazing really.

Thanks,



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

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