Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 15:36:40 +1000
From: Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan-AT-qut.edu.au>
Subject: Re: BHA: Thoughts in the gap between sections


At 03:47 PM 1/21/99 +0000, Howard E. wrote:

>
Howard,

It's great that you are doing your bit.  And sorry for missing the post.  I
get about 300 emails a day and sometimes I miss em.  You are not the only
one of advancing years. In fact I think I'm older than your good self.


Now I read both yours and Caroline's post with a great deal of interest.
It is my hope that as we get through DPF the differences between CR and DCR
will emerge and be resolved. To hear of a split between philosophers and
social scientists is a little alarming.  To me it is more a matter of
division of labor than fundamental differences.

Now my comments on the list are fairly well known.  I think that the Pure
CRers do exist.  I also suspect that they tend to be our American
colleagues.  The discussion around truth (which should have been moderated
BTW but we  have not created the mechanism for doing this!!!) brought that
out most clearly for me.  Alethic truth is such an essential aspect of DCR
that it was a shock for me to see Howie attack it.  Having said that the
documents are all in a folder and await the time when I can undertake a
proper response to Howie's paper.

So I think that is a pretty substantive point of difference.


Now there was also a comment a few years back from a Habermasian that DPF
was "too distracted by philosophy".  In some ways Caroline is saying
something somewhat similar in her very interesting post. Now I truly
sympathies with Caroline here.  In fact I have much less of a philosophical
background than she does.  I made the mistake of taking Psychology as a
minor. Useless behaviorist bullshit.  

But for me it is the philosophy which will set us free.  Of course it is
difficult and needs to be worked at.  But looking at the philosophers I
have crash coursed through in the last 3 years, Bhaskar's DPF is genuinely
original.  Staggeringly so actually. That's why I think it pays re-reading.  

Now Caroline and I have our differences here.  I regard her as a workerist
egalitarian and she looks upon me as an elitist. Neither characterization
is true in fact but I do not get upset about the difficulties of Bhaskar's
language any more.  I keep repeating to myself the Raymond Williams remark
that the pull towards ordinary language is also a pull towards ordinary
thought.  that generally works for me but not always.


I am about to start my fourth turn through DPF. My continued work on the
book is justified in my own eyes because it is such a political text.
Indeed I think that this is another one of the substantive differences
between CR and DCR. DPF is I think Bhaskar's most committed text.   I think
that this might be an inevitable part of the revival of the dialectic.  

I had intended to do a piece on Nietzsche's critique of the Socratic
dialectic.  And I yet might find the time to do it.  Nietzsche attacked the
dialectic because it brought about 'mob rule'. I can think of no better
reason for supporting dialectical thinking.


I have learned from personal experience that using the word dialectic in
public is enough to get one laughed at. This is I suspect the legacy of
Popper's pathological hatred of Hegel.  I often wonder if this lies behind
some negative reactions to DPF.


Having said all that I think that we are becoming more familiar with DPF.
And our collective reading of the text is helpful here.  I do sometimes
wish though that we could get onto the ethics and the politics a little
sooner.

regards

Gary 


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