File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1999/bhaskar.9902, message 39


Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 18:59:06 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: The role of the intellectual


Hi Tobin, Martti 

Tobin wrote:
>If Bhaskar wrote all of his books as obscurely as *Dialectic*, we might
>simply say he's a lousy writer.  But *A Realist Theory of Science* and even
>more so *The Possibility of Naturalism* demonstrate that he *can* write
>clearly and effectively.  So he *could* have written *Dialectic* better: but
>consciously or not, he chose not to.  
I don't think the last sentence follows. *Dialectic* is a much more
complex and difficult project.

Tobin also wrote:
"But Bhaskar evokes very few images in *Dialectic*, and it's a major
reason why the book's excessively hard to understand. "

This is an interesting point. Certainly, the book is not teaming with
images (which can however hinder as well as facilitate precision) and as
you say Bhaskar is no match for Marx in this department (wouldn't it be
nice if he could be, at our behest?) However, I don't think he's as far
behind as you imply. Here are some of my favourites from DPF: the
Eleatic face glowing in the Ionian fire; the glaceating repose [of
Hegel's final system]; Xegel; generalized master-slave type relations;
the pulse of freedom; coagulating endism; vehicular thrownness; spatio-
temporalizing structure; the unholy trinity; ex-Humed; Achilles' Heel
critique; an avalanche of recrudescent surds; and Tina formation (yes,
that too, because once you've learnt the definition it conjures up
vividly what us slaves were/are up against under Thatcher and Reagan and
their successors.)


>>My point here was that difficult or even obscure writing does not
>>preclude enormous social influence. Are you disputing this?
>
>Depends on what you mean by "social."  Somehow I don't think an influence
>upon an intellectual elite resulting in books and an influence upon an
>entire nation resulting in revolutions should be put on the same scale.
>Then again, as best as I understand it, in England the words "public" and
>"society" pertain to the wealthy leisured class (as in "public schools,"
>which we uncouth Americans would call "private schools"), so maybe your
>understanding of "enormous social influence" is on the same model.  (By the
>way, what *was* Heidegger's enormous social influence?)
Heidegger has had an important influence on, for example, the whole
anti-Enlightenment cast of postmodernism, which originated in "uncouth"
America and is hegemonic in the humanities (not philosophy), the arts
and the media nearly everywhere on the planet - for good or for ill (I
think mainly ill, but that's not the point). Incidentally, I am neither
English nor upper class, nor do I  share the outlook you refer to.

>For the life of me, Mervyn, I don't understand your contempt for the average
>PhD.  
I don't have contempt. I'm just calling a spade a spade - average PhDs
are two-a-penny nowadays. And when you (or anyone else) 'translate' DPF
or, say, the Phenomenology into language that makes it readily
accessible to the average PhD *without significant loss of meaning* I
will *gladly* accept your argument.

Tobin also wrote:
"The point I want to focus on is whether Bhaskar's concept of dialectics
requires leaving "formal and irrealist argumentation," and whether the
latter is what I want.  The exact opposite is the case (for both
claims).  I think the language of *Dialectic* is TOO formal, and
terribly irrealist."

I took Martti to be referring here to the Western philosophical
irrealist tradition, especially in its formal, analytical guise, which
Bhaskar critiques, and to be raising a question (but only a question) as
to whether you are not perhaps operating within it, in some measure,
rather than the dialectical tradition. You may like to comment.

Finally, I would be interested to know what you think of the rest of
Martti's point about politics. I don't think he was just saying that
Bhaskar wasn't aiming at a mass audience, but (simplifying) that for
Bhaskar our politics can and should flow from philosophy/social science
(in a dynamic relation), and not the other way around. So the primary
responsibility of the intellectual is to do philosophy/science. If we
all do our work well, especially social scientific explanatory critique,
this will broaden the audience, and in the right circumstances help to
promote a political/social dialectic of emancipation... (Starting to
happen, I would argue.)

Ooroo.
-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk


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