From: "Howard Engleskirchen,WSU/FAC" <howarde-AT-wsulaw.edu> Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 22:06:23 -0800PST Subject: BHA: repost re john ridgeway's post I don't know what's going on with this message. Sorry for the trouble. Third time's the charm. Howard John -- Some weeks ago you thoughtfully responded to my questions on C2.4 as to whether contradiction was pervasive. I have thought about your points a lot since and wish I could work out a whole systematic argument in response. For failure of that I thought the best I could do would be to let you know what my thinking was now and then perhaps we could keep the question alive as the reading progressed. Here are excerpts from your post presenting the issue: HE had written, > > The thing I=92ve been concerned with is the concept which I took > > from Mao about the pervasiveness of contradiction. There is a > > very interesting critique of the Deborin school of philosophy. Mao writes: > > =93This school does not understand that each and every difference > > already contains contradiction and that difference itself is > > contradiction.=94 This is what I=92m interested in. I take it > > Bhaskar's argument is different. You responded > As I recall, I don't have the book with me, RB argues that any > change involves internal contradiction in that for something to change it > must contain within it the liability to negation. Ch 4 section on > diffraction I think. RB is careful to make a distinction between change and > difference. But there seems to be no reason that difference > between elements at different levels of reality would be necessarily > contradictory. Am I contradicted by a star. is the sun > contradicted by the moon. HE again > > Mao > > says that the problem with the Deborin view is that if we maintain > > that contradiction does not appear at the inception of a process, but > > only when it has developed to a certain stage, then the cause of the > > development of a process before that stage would be external not > > internal and that this reverts to metaphysical [Humean] theories of > > external causality and of mechanism. JR: > I suspect that difference and change are being conflated or else > how is difference a process. If the process here is change then the there > is probably agreement. HE: > > So there is a legitimate question > > posed here. Are there connections and relations which are not > > contradictions. JR: > This I don't know, What gave me the impetus to respond was reading the American philosopher Charles Peirce. In an essay called "Some Consequences of the Four Incapacities" he argued: "All determination is negation; we can first recognize any character only by putting an object which possesses it into comparison with an object which possesses it not. A conception, therefore, which was quite universal in every respect would be unrecognizable and impossible." It is from the idea that all determination is negation that I get the notion that contradiction is pervasive. We recognize an individual thing by putting it in relation with that which it is not. This is a relation between "A" and "not A." Any individual thing is separate from other things. The thing and the other. This quality of being itself and in relation to what it is not is a contradiction and one which belongs to all things. The evolution of life depends on the contradiction between the organism and its environment. Within any individual thing what characterizes it is its structure. Structure is a construct of relations of distinct aspects. Any aspect of a structure is at once itself and in relation to other aspects of the structure which it is not. The structure is a construct of contradictions. I'm perfectly ready to acknowledge that there are different kinds of contradictions. Both you and Colin emphasized that not all contradictions are internal contradictions and I agree with you. I agree with you also that not all contradictions are antagonistic. I think there is differentiation required also between contradiction as difference and contradiction as process. I thought your point about the one being collapsed into the other was well taken. Overall we are more significantly interested in contradiction as process. But that doesn't make contradiction as simple difference disappear. That is, I can't imagine any connection between individual things which is not a contradiction. As far as I can understand, to negate is just to contradict. It's for that reason I can't conceive of non- or uncontradictory connections. All connection reflects determinations and all determination is negation. Howard --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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