File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1999/bhaskar.9902, message 28


From: jmage-AT-panix.com
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 18:29:42 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: BHA: DPF Reading ch 2.4 Contradictions: Misunderstandings


Hi Colin,

You're writing good clear stuff.

>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.

But introducing this point RB writes "I shall be arguing to =A78 that ..." -
which I understood in part to mean that "if you don't understand
*meta-reflexively totalizing situation* etc you will by the time you get to
p.134." Isn't it OK to do this? At least if when you get to p.134 you do
understand?

a. Or in this specific case all you may need is the possibility, i.e.:

If an absent materialist sociology be possible, then the cause of the error
(inability to get at reality save by thought requires that intransitivity
be put under erasure) is explainable - even to the same but wiser person
but on a later occasion - by reference to a richer level of reality that
inextricably includes both thought and intransitive reality. Even if we
can't yet make a supporting argument that would require the absent
materialist sociology, it doesn't weaken *this* argument.

b.Or perhaps this would be the argument in support:

As long as I can know (say by reading to p.134) that some of my beliefs
will turn out to be false for materialist reasons, it doesn't matter that
the social apparatus may not even exist to tell which - If I cannot even
guess what to erase, erasure cannot be necessary, but intransitivity is.

(or is this just the same argument?)


 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.

The example I put in the margin 1st go-round on this was:

"RB writes faster than I can understand him."

Thanks for this public spirited work,
John Mage






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