Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 17:15:59 +0000
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: DPF Reading ch 2.4 Contradictions: Misunderstandings


2nd part - as promised, if a little late. My apologies, I really am
struggling to find time to do justice to this.

==============================================================
RB notes that there are two more problems in relation to (a) (the attempt
to logicise being). The first concerns the fact that there is no way to get
at, or grasp a reality independent of thought, other than through thought.
This might seem to suggest that it is always, in a sense, necessary to
logicise being. RB rejects this. He argues that the fact that we can only
know reality through thought [I would be really interested here in seeing
him spell out his view on the relationship between language and thought. Is
thought dependent upon language? Is non-linguistic thought possible? Why
does he use thought here and not language? CW] need not lead to the denial
of the intransitivity of reality. 

He claims that this erasure of intransitivity is self-erasing - this is
what he calls the negative argument against the denial of intransitivity.
However, he then attempts to build a positive argument [one I don't find
very convincing - or at least, I find the argument convincing but not his
presentation of it here. CW]. He argues that if we have a stratified
concept of the self, a distanciated concept of space-time (within ontology)
and a materialist sociology [wishful thinking  CW] then it should be
possible to think about being without logicizing it (p. 79). 

As a statement of intent, this is fine, but this is one of the really
annoying things in this book. We have here an argument, but no argument in
support of the argument. This is fine for someone like me who has read his
earlier stuff and knows the arguments that he does build elsewhere on these
points. But readers coming to DCR without an understanding of CR are
certain to flounder. This also BTW seems to suggest to me that DCR and CR
are much more closely related than some might want to accept.

Anyway, that aside, he dispenses with another potential objection in much
better fashion. Here he is thinking of a potential argument which he
locates in Leibniz; that the principle of non-contradiction is a necessary
principle of coherent concepts of space and time.  Were this correct then
being would have to conform to the principle of non-contradiction (a
principle of thought not being).

Clearly, if correct, this amounts to a critique of RB's argument. RB
counters, however, that once we allow for emergent totalities and/or
divergent world lines then we must accept the possibility of differential
space times, which require for their consistent description only a minimum,
what he calls "zero level" base time. Hence reality, and not just logic can
be contradictory. Of course he is relying here on the acceptance of
transcendental realism as given, for a Kantian might reply that the
concepts of space and time _are_ categories and not real as such. RB notes
this but turns the tables and argues that the acceptance of emergent
totalities actually functions as a critique of the Kantian postulate of a
unitary time consciousness. I've noticed folks on the list eager to see
examples spelled out, so I will try and supply my own here, since RB gives
none.

It seems to me that what he might be getting at here can be understood by
the manner in which societies evolve over differing time scales. On one
level, we all exist under the same "zero-level" time. However, differing
societies can be seen to be emerging according to their own time logics,
and this leads to contradictory processes. Also, many folks getting this
message will literally be living in differing time zones. Don't know if
this is what he means but it seems to make sense to me, and of course
supports his point that contra Kant there is not one old universal time
consciousness. It also opens up space for difference and the epistemic
relativism again.


He then goes on to claim that all of these points against (a) - which in
case folks have forgotten is the attempt to make being conform to
principles of thought (what he calls the logicising of being), entail the
rejection of (b) the refusal to accept contradictions in reality, and in
particular logical contradictions in social reality. As he acerbically puts
it, "where else could they be". This is an important point to me. Since the
social world is concept-dependent (although not exhausted by this aspect)
then social reality must necessarily be contradictory at times, in fact
most of the time. One such contradiction that I think has often troubled
some on this list might be that between epistemic relativism and judgmental
rationalism. But from a DCR perspective, these two positions become totally
rational and the contradiction appears as a fruitful one not necessarily a
constraint.

Next installment Monday - promise.


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

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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