File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1998/bhaskar.9805, message 19


From: Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk (Colin Wight)
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: starting up DPF readings again.
Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 18:26:54 +0100


Hi Louis,

>
>I am the last person to think everything is internally related, and I
>thought my example of spatial relations was a case of external relations
>par excellence.  I even said "Not necessarily an essential change, of course."

But a change nonetheless. Moreover, if two things are externally related why
should a change in one necessarily imply a change in the other? I also
didn't say that not everything changes (although I still think this seems to
be an a priori argument), what I said was that Bhaskar's concept of real
negation didn't imply that every presence must become an absence. Your
argument about Howard and I only works as an instance of real negation
(absence) if you are analysing absence as change. Also, if you consistently
wish to argue that:

>If SOMETHING changes, then EVERYTHING
>changes. 

Then it seems to me that you are implying that everything is internally
related, or else why should a change in one thing _necessarily_ lead to a
change in everything? In what sense would we really be happy to argue that a
change in my subjective state changes everything? Are we really happy (i'm
sure/hope you are not arguing this) that my eating an apple this morning
changed everything? Surely the idea of causality and a differentiated
ontology makes the idea that if something changes then everything changes
highly problematic. Also your claim that

  As long as we accept as a premiss that something in the world is
>always changing, then everything is always changing.

seems close to Parmenides' trumping of Heraclitus' position that Bhaskar
comes to critique (PLato, 53n.)

>

What I was getting it was that your argument seemed to be implying that a
change (in Howards position vis-a-vis me) was an instance of real negation,
that is an absenting, where I read the example you gave as more an example
of transformative negation: Which RB refers to as the 'transformation of
some thing, property or state of affairs.' 

>
>A "present that was negated in order to produce the absent" is surely a
>case of change, but you yourself just pointed out that not all absence can
>be parsed with change.  

Exactly, which is the position I am unhappy with. I think we are getting
confused here. I originally registered a little unease with Gary's
formulation of 'real negation' since he seemed to imply that every presence
must become an absent. You gave an example of Howard and I to refute my
critique of Gary which I, in turn, argued was guilty of analysing absence in
terms of change. That is, that your example didn't support Gary's point
because you simply described a change in a state of affairs as opposed to an
absenting. Hope that clears things up.

That is, neither absence nor real negation are in
>all cases reduced to change - e.g., caloric.  RB uses both "absence" and
>"real negation" to cover such cases.  Don't they constitute the "stronger
>category" already?

Well yes, I accept he wants to argue this. My point is that this may be an
instance of a Ryleian "systematically misleading expression". Why use the
term negation to denote an absence that is not the absenting of a presence?
In what sense is this form of absence a negation? If you label determinate
'non-being' as in 'a never was' a 'real negation' aren't you implying a
presence that must have existed in order to be negated? In which case do we
really have an argument for the ontological priority of absence over
presence? My argument is that it might be better to use a category 'absence'
which is not defined in terms of negation, either real or otherwise. It
would make the argument stronger.

Anyway, despite this digression we are still left with the basic problem:
Does Bhaskar's concept of 'real negation' imply that every presence will
become absent, as Gary seemed to suggest? I still fail to see why it should,
nothing in Bhaskar's formulation seems to imply this. Moreover, I think it
highly problematic (although soothing) politically. As if somehow Capitalism
were determined to be absented sometime in the future, as opposed to be
having to be absented - that is, absented by our agency.

Thanks,



------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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