File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1999/bhaskar.9901, message 58


Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 09:24:50 +0000
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: DPF Reading ch 2.4 Contradictions: Misunderstandings


Just a couple of quick comments on Hans's comments.

Yes, my apologies it was a typo it should have been as Hans notes lack of
ground for rational agency. However, I think RB is probably commited to
denying (at least in most cases) that what he calls axiological
indeterminacy, ever occurs.

I'm not sure Hans wether he is "joshing" or not, but I accept the
possibility (ever since I heard how Feyerabend came to write Against Method
I've come to see philosophers a mischievous comedians).  

Anyway on the axiological indeterminacy point Hans goes on to say:

We know by a
>transcendental argument that the world must be such that
>science is possible, but this does not mean that every
>single aspect of the world must be accessible to science. 

I don't think, and I don't think Hans is suggesting otherwise, that RB has
ever suggested this. Science, I think he says somewhere in SRHE should
never be viewed as a supreme value and scientific findings must always be
placed in the social domain and argued over. 

I
>think the debate about abortion can be taken here as a rough
>example: the human fetus is a human in the process of
>becoming, i.e., it is at the same time a human and not a
>human.  This is a contradiction, which weakens the
>scientific authority with which we can make decisions about
>abortion.

I'm not sure I would go along with this. I don't think science will ever be
able to provide answers to all of our ethical deliberations, but it surely
plays a role. We have to leave open the possibility that sometime in the
future science may discover something about the foetus that tips the scales
one way or the other in this debate (and this I might add, comes from
someone who is already committed to one side of the argument on this issue,
so I am accepting the possibility of my position being proved wrong - but
then I am commited to rationally arguing for positions, so maybe I am just
an unreconstrcted modernist!).


If for example, science discovers all of a>
>Certain real phenomena are not subject to laws.  

Is this been suggested that this is a position inherent in DCR? If so, that
might explain why some CR'ers are unhappy. In CR ubiquity determinism is
crucial RTS, p. 70.

Thanks for you comments Hans. I'll give the list a day or two before
posting the rest.



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

Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales
Aberystwyth
telephone: +44 (0)1970-621769
fax      : +44 (0)1970-622709
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