Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 23:38:52 +0000
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: DPF Reading ch 2.4 Contradictions: Misunderstandings


One question, one comment.

1) I wanna know what unasking the question is. Getting so stoned that it
goes away or what?

2) Re the writing: I think there's at least one very good image in there
('dummy agency'), and one ditto aphorism ('to discover a
contradiction... is as worthy as to resolve one...'). And I love the
army of metaphors summoned to sequester the poor old contradiction: ...
bracketing, distancing,... erasing, palimpsesting, procrastinating etc
etc. I think the comprehensiveness here is important - one gets the
feeling all sides are being looked at...

Mervyn

Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk> writes
>Next installment. 
>
>
>===============================================>
>Bhaskar now turns his attention to two other errors that occur in relation
>to our understandings of contradiction. These are (c) the underestimation
>of contradictions and (d) the mistake of sucummbing to them altogether
>(p.79). He notes that he will focus his attention on logical contradictions
>only, but that his analysis could be applied to other forms - axiological,
>performative. Next follows a strange sentence, which I invite list members
>to resolve (sic) for me, because it seems to be contradictory (ah but what
>else!) if understood in a particular way. RB argues that the result of
>logical contradictions is axiological indeterminacy - the lack of rational
>grounds for action (p.80). Now what can this mean? Does it mean that acting
>under a logical contradiction, is a purely arbitrary matter. As in, "how
>shall I resolve this", "toss a coin?", or does he mean that logical
>contradictions never arise? This sentence seems problematic to me since RB
>has consistently stated that there are always grounds for rational agency,
>but if the result of a logical contradiction is the lack of such grounds,
>how does this leave us. Or, does it mean that logical contradictions never
>occur, since rational agency is always possible?
>
>Anyway following this is a rather good section where he details the role of
>contradiction in relation to criticism. According to Bhaskar the basis of
>many forms of criticism is contradiction. However, there are other forms of
>criticism which can't be reduced to contradiction: (1) incompleteness
>(simple absence); (2) irrelevance; (3) infinite regress; (4) reductio ad
>absurdum. In terms of epistemological dialectics (for which read
>progressive import in terms of knowledge advance) he argues that the lack
>of such progress is perhaps the most general criterion (he alludes to
>Lakatos here and the notion of progressive and degenerative research
>programmes. [Anyone unsure about these just ask CW]).
>
>We then move on to what I think is a curious set of sentences, certainly in
>the light of what I said earlier about axiological indeterminancy. RB
>argues that although axiological indeterminacy  flows from logical
>contradiction and hence places the agent in a potentially dilemmatic
>situation, all agency involves a moment of indeterminate negation within a
>context of axiological undetermination. I'm not clear what is going on
>here. I certainly understand, and endorse, the following comments that
>there is nothing wrong with openness per se; that the world is not
>algorithmic; that we are situated within limits which are neither
>unconstrained nor predetermined; that episetmological openess [I prefer
>Einstein's term opportunism CW] is necessary for science. i suppose I need
>him to unpack the manner in which he is using indeterminate negation here,
>but the best he supplies us with is that there are a variety of species of
>indeterminate negation. Maybe some of the Hegelians on the list can help
>out here? How does indeterminate negation help us maintain both the
>encounter with logical contradictions (which entail axiological
>indeterminacy - the denial of rational grounds for agency) and rational
>agency? 
>
>Anyway, he next moves on to acknowledge that we need to be able to
>distinguish between good and bad dialectics. Basically he again alludes to
>Lakatos here to argue that a bad (or fruitless) dialectic is one which is
>getting nowhere whereas a good one is grounded and progressive, the
>meanings of which he claims (a promisory note?) to explicate in due course.
>He notes, however, that his aim is not to supply criteria for
>distinguishing good from bad dialectics, but to concentrate on a class of
>problematic axiological choice situations (p.81); such as instances where
>we do not know what to say or do [ex. what do you say to someone who has
>just lost a close relative? CW] particularly in geo-historical turning
>points or crises. In such situations we are, he claims, encountering
>dialectic as process. 
>
>Processes that is, involving becoming (the emergence of new forms) and
>transformative negation (the transformation of old forms) as well as
>co-presence and transition. I suppose an obvious example here from my own
>discipline might be the end of the Cold War, which obviously, extisted
>alongside Bush's New World Order (joke!). Residues of the Cold war existing
>alongside the emerging new world order; Poland's centrally administrated
>economy existing side by side with Sach's bright new US version of
>capitalism; the old existing alongside the new and constituting the
>conditions of possibility and impossibility for emgerging new forms. What,
>as Lenin put it, is to be done?
>
>This is really the question, I think, driving RB here. And he makes this
>clear, arguing that he wants to continue focussing on problematic
>axiological choice situations. It is a direct consequence of not
>illogicizing (is this a typo? does he mean logicizing?) being that makes it
>encumbent to consider what we should do in such situations? [I may have
>been flippant about the possibility of a materialist sociology, but it is
>at least nice to see RB consistently acknowledging the the manner in which
>our decisions are made in circumstance not of our own choosing. Oh wouldn't
>a voluntarist postmodern world be nice to live in? CW].
>
>Examples of problematic choice situations arise as a result of: (1)
>contradictions; (2) an encounter with transitions, boundaries and
>frontiers; (3) nodal points and limit situations generally (ex. famine);
>(4) 2E occurrunces of the problem of induction - really what he is getting
>at here is probably complex or novel emergence, as he puts it in
>paranthesis, "when there is a switch or transition in the causal powers
>consitutive of a thing; (5) the duration of some period, locale, region of
>space time [I have no idea why this alone should constitute a problematic
>axiological choice situation. Suggestions please? CW]; (6) the extent and
>degree to which the dialectical suspension of analytical reason might be
>fruitful in terms of a research programme [as I understand this, it is a
>problematic choice situation because the suspension of analytical reason
>could fly in the face of logic. I have problems with this because it is
>certainly open to exploitation, particularly, as I am regularly finding
>out, by postmoderns - "what's so important about coherence and logical
>structure to a set of arguments" is a refrain I am constantly coming
>across; (7) the extent to which the wisdom or rationality of a particular
>description, action or way of life (social system) may be optimised
>(satisfied) [again, I am not convinced that taken alone this constitutes a
>problematic choice situation. Surely, it is only a problem in a contextual
>contradiction. For example, the extent to which we might be able to
>progress towards womens emancipation is precisely a problem to some, their
>emancipation might lead to anothers subjugation. Foucault is hovering over
>this issue.CW].
>
>
>===================================================================>Anyway, RB's answers to problematic choice situations is to follow.
>
>I hope this is making some sort of sense, and I appreciate the kind
>comments. 
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>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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-- 
Mervyn Hartwig


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