Date: Tue, 12 May 1998 14:39:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: LH Engelskirchen <lhengels-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: Re:  BHA: Re: starting up DPF readings again.


 
 
 
Louis --
 
On your example of the perceptibility of one person standing next
to another, then all relations are perceptible, viz. pi, since all
must be materially embodied.  Pi also is a relation which is
materially embodied in, e.g., Pinocchio's nose.  The things in
which it is empirically embodied change; the relation doesn't
change.  If A is standing to the left of B, then I can perceive A
and I can perceive B.  I can perceive absence between them.  The
spatial relation between them can be expressed by conceiving of A
as something representing B or vice versa.  "Who is B?  Oh he's the
one to the right of A."  A becomes a way of saying something about
B.  This is because of their relation.  But while the relation is
materially embodied in A and in B, and this has consequences, the
relation itself is imperceptible.  
 
     
On the question of an empty world, I think this is not an
interesting question unless we are actually grappling with the text
and making sense of that.  So I'm ready to let my freeway
ruminations go in favor of the text.  You say:  "Let me try to put
the ball in your court.  We can think of lots of things whose
existence is contingent, and we can imagine a universe without
them.  If you think that we cannot, then you must think that some
things necessarily exist (although perhaps not necessarily specific
things, just some things).  If you think that, then you must have
a transcendental argument that there cannot be a completely null
world.  So it's up to you to state it.  If you cannot, then on what
grounds could you possibly rule out a null world."  
 
A transcendental argument is of the form, given such and such, what
must be the case for it to be possible?  Given the universe exists,
what must be the case?  e.g. starting from existence I find its
fundaments, fields of potential, necessary.  How do I start from
totally no being?  So the problem is to start from existence and
make a transcendental argument that a null world is either possible
or not possible.  I don't know how you would do either one, nor
does Bhaskar actually make such an argument.  
 
Consider this at 41:  "But patently I can refer to, as I can
perceive (or be in a position to infer), Pierre's absence . . . ." 
 
That's a very interesting string of words 
"I can perceive (or be in a position to infer)."  Why the
parenthetical?  And suppose we don't perceive but only infer; where
does that leave our ontology?  Well we do that all the time, don't
we.  That is the point of retroductive argument.  We infer one
thing from another, and it is empiricist to argue that what we
perceive is real, but not what we infer.
 
(By the way, please explain the error involved in thinking that
"perception is always grounded in sensation.")
 
But the following argument at 46 does not make the same kind of
sense to me:
 
"Non-being is a condition of possibility of being. No non-being is
a sufficient condition of impossibility of being. But there is no
logical incoherence in totally no being. ["logical" HE.] 
Dialectical arguments establish the conditions of possibility (dr')
of the conditions of impossibility (dc') of some
initially established result or posit.  Now, employing a strategy
of 'dialectical detachment' from our initial premiss -- positive
existence -- in the metacritical end-game, we can argue that not
only is a total void possible, but if there was a unique beginning
to everything it could only be from nothing by an act of radical
autogenesis.  So that if there was an originating Absolute, nothing
would be its schema or form, constituted at the moment of
initiation by the spontaneous disposition to become something other
than itself.  Similarly, if there was a unique ending to everything
it would involve a collapse to actualized nothingness, absolutely
nothing.  In sum, complete positivity is impossible, but sheer
indeterminate negativity is not,*"  with the asterisk referring to
a footnote that could use some explanation.
 
I don't know whether sheer indeterminate negativity is impossible
or not, but just saying that we don't have a transcendental
argument for its impossibility is not saying much, and in
particular is not establishing its possibility.  The argument above
is certainly not a transcendental argument for its possibility.  So
we are left with a statement without ontological purchase:  there
is no logical incoherence in totally no being.
 
Incidentally, is the phrase "the conditions of possibility (dr') OF
the conditions of impossibility (dc')" a misprint?  Should that be
'the conditions of possibility OR the conditions of impossibility'?
 
What would it mean if it is meant to be as printed?
 
I think Bhaskar's attention to absence is of enormous importance
and I have learned much from it.  Still I read for a realism
grounded in materialism and so questions of ontology, e.g. the
ontology of relations, become thorny ones.  As a consequence I
would welcome some
attention to the concrete examples posed by Bhaskar at the end of
section 1.  Welcoming negativity to our ontology situates some very
interesting possibilities, he says, and then, I take it, invites us
to welcome to our ontology the following, p48:  "the letter that
didn't arrive, the failed exam, the missed plane, the monsoon that
didn't occur, the deforestation of the Amazonian jungle, the holes
in the ozone layer, the collapse of 'actually existing socialism',
the spaces in the text, the absent authors and readers it
presupposes, both the too empty and the too full."  
 
Now we are to test the reality of things by causal criteria.  Then
what is the causal efficacy of "the monsoon that didn't arrive"? 
Or "the holes in the ozone layer."  Etc. Does it change anything to
refer to "the thunderstorm that never materialized"?  Or "the
letter that was never written"?
 
Howard
 
     "What is there just now you lack"  Hakuin
 
Howard Engelskirchen
Western State University


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